0 World Cup Final Tweets of the Day - 14 July 2014

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is over. Germany are the victors, to the relief of millions of Brazilians. And Argentina claims another unwanted runner-up position.

Twitter traffic was high during and after this morning's match. Here's just a small selection of reaction:

The Germans can claim the title of World Champions until the 2018 tournament in Russia. The Russian organisers will have a hard job emulating Brazil, but then who would want Brazil's World Cup debt right now?

0 Of David and the GIMPs

We spotted this on Twitter last night:

The reality, beyond the humour of the acronym GIMP, is that's what New Zealand will have should be some chance Labour be able to form a coalition government after the General Election. With the IM component picking the pocket of the G component, and quite possibly cutting the Green numbers in Parliament, there will be tensions aplenty, not to mention the tensions that already exist between the G and the P.

Can you imagine it? A coalition of David and the GIMP doesn't even bear thinking about. We think this is an acronym that will stick.

0 UPDATED: Where is the outrage?

UPDATE: We have already received some responses from MP's including a response from one MP's whose condemnation was not sought! It's interesting too that this post and our tweets about it have attracted the attention of staff in Mr Peters' office.

Here they are, in chronological order, with the most recent at the top:

Kudos to Metiria Turei:

Nanaia Mahuta has come to the party; good on her:

We didn't seek Clare Curran's opinion, but she must have felt compelled to comment. Her "look over there" attitude, and her defence of Kim Dotcom yesterday make one wonder if Paddy Gower was right:

Louise Upston notes that it was National (via Anne Tolley) who forced Peters to apologise:

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We blogged yesterday about Winston Peters' disgraceful behaviour in Parliament yesterday. These stories in the Herald and on Stuff also touch on Peters' scurrilous behaviour.

Unsubstantiated smears and conspiracy theories are Peters' stock in trade, as are his constant threats to reveal more. Judith Collins was supposed to be gone last week, then again by Monday, but she was back in Parliament yesterday, and we could have sworn we listened to her answer a question in her capacity as a Minister.

But yesterday's attack on Brendan Horan was calculated and deliberate, especially when Peters made the "Jimmy Savile" reference a second time. He was required to withdraw and apologise, which he did reluctantly.

But once again Winston Peters seems to be getting a free pass simply, we suspect, because he's Winston Peters. That excuses nothing. Peters' smear against Horan deserves widespread condemnation.

So we've done something about it. We have sent tweets to a number of female MP's from across the House; National, Labour and the Greens. By and large, these are MP's who have been vocal about sexual violence towards women.

There's no point in sending messages to NZ First's female MP's, because whatever they may think privately, they will stick to Peters like mud sticks to carpet. Over the course of the day, we will blog replies.

Winston Peters has a long history of bullying, unsubstantiated allegations and threats. It's time that Parliament, the media and the public called him out on it.

0 Tweet of the Day - 21 May 2014

We were surprised to get this tweet this morning:

It's not that often that we are guilty of starting a trend. In fact critics would say that we are followers, rather than leaders! But for once, we were at the head of the pack.

There was genuine interest in the identity of Player X however. We posted Who is Player X? at 3.10pm on Monday. Around 5pm, we noticed a surge in visitor numbers, so we checked the referral source on Sitemeter. Most of the hits were coming via Google. We entered "who is player x?" on Google, and our post was at the top of the results list.

For the hours that followed, visitors poured in at a very steady rate. The numbers began to slow a little after the Herald named Chris Cairns as Player X, but Monday and Tuesday were probably our busiest days ever, as you will see from the graph below.

We're grateful for the spike in traffic, but we'd far rather it was at something other than cricket's expense!