Too Good To Miss

This little bobby dazzler from Transtasman, entitled "Play of the Week."

Smiling And Not Waving

Taking shots at Phil Goff ’s Labour Party at this point is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, so we’ll pass it by and talk about…. oh, what the hell. Pass the six-shooter.

It has been a constant lament over the past year by Labour’s spokesperson for working out ways to manipulate the media, Clare Curran, that the country’s journalists are not focusing on the real issues facing NZers. The lament can be boiled down to “just because Labour keeps doing stupid things doesn’t mean the media have to report it.”

While to some extent she has a point, this is a bit like someone embarking on a career in professional fishing objecting to the wetness of the ocean. A good rule of thumb in life is you can’t change someone else’s behaviour but you can change your own.

In this case, ensuring Labour MPs don’t do stupid things in the first place might be a more effective course of action than moaning about how the media doesn’t quite see things the same way you do. Labour did try this week, with its first post-Darren Hughes caucus meeting.

Labour’s MPs emerged from the caucus room after a few hours with the biggest collection of cheesy insincere grins you are likely to see outside a joint convention of television evangelists and used car salesmen. The smiles were there but the eyes just strobed unease. It capped off a fortnight of political misjudgements: general incompetence; disunity; and now insulting voters’ intelligence.

If the caucus is unified behind Phil Goff and genuinely thinks he did a good job the past fortnight, Uruguay will win this year’s Rugby World Cup.

Hey - television evangelists and used car salesmen!

The Cook Just Shit Herself

One of these wandered through the house. About eighteen inches long and very fat.



Now, you'd think an Aussie sheila who was brought up in the bush giving cheek to Blackfellas would know that a little bobtailed goanna is pretty much harmless.

Well! I've never seen such a performance. Screaming and shouting - you'd think the damned thing was a tiger snake.

The poor little bugger was just looking for somewhere cool so I swept him/her into a bucket with a broom and let him go in the long grass down the back.

For The Man Who Needs Everything

Idiot Savant provides the quote of the day:-

"...this just adds to his reputation as a vacillating weakling, terminally incapable of doing the right thing until he has focus-grouped it......."

The obvious gift for Phil Goff - The Vacilator.

They're Running!

Yabbies, that is. For the first time in over ten years, residents of the Murray River banks and environs are enjoying their favorite local delicacy. God knows where these little fellas have been for ten years but they are back.

Yesterday Adolf and the Cook cruised up the Sturt Highway for a bit over an hour to visit SOTC and hubby. A couple of cans passed on the banks of the swollen river and then back home with a bucket full. Yabby tail sandwich. Lightly doused in vinegar and smacked between two pieces of bread with a bit of salt and pepper. No quite haute cuisine but by hell it's hard to find better.

I must say that a Holden Vectra equipped with a 6 cylinder 3.2 litre motor is a wonderful highway machine. Huge acceleration over 100 kph.

Changing the subject, I'm amazed at the number of big fat arsed young Mums with big fat arsed kids to be seen frequenting supermarkets. The problem is not school tuck shops. It is the lack of brains between the ears of the big fat arsed Mums as they sweat and groan, dragging their unattractive bloated carcasses from car to trolley to check out.

Fun with exercise equipment.

Todays piece of kit is the swiss ball.

Who can tell me what you should use a swiss ball for?
The most imaginative answer will win a virtual chocolate fish.

Would "Just leave us the fuck alone, you busybodies" be too much to ask?

Labour deservedly cop a lot of flak for their determination that we must all be made to behave in the ways liberal hand-wringers think are appropriate, but it's often overlooked that National have the same tendencies, with the liberal handwringers swapped out for stodgy, church-going stuffed shirts.

Fine examples of both types in the SST this morning. The Labour examples are hangovers from their last time in power:

Case 1. "The menace of the humble pie." Not online, but is basically a duplicate of this article from back in February (activist journalism, much?). It's essentially a beat-up about how removing restrictions on what school tuck shops can sell means children are (gasp!) eating pies for lunch. Apparently, they should be eating sandwiches, muffins, chips, fruit and muesli bars instead - ie, carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs and carbs. For fuck's sake, at least the pie has a bit of protein in it. What we could really do with is a regulation banning food activist nutcases from inflicting their mental problems on the nation's children.

Case 2. "Jurors stand by their disputed cruelty verdict." Again not online, but again basically a duplicate of last week's misnamed Smacking acquittal outrage. In this case, a hand-wringer declares "there were no circumstances under which washing a child's mouth out with soap as a punishment was acceptable." No shit, Sherlock? It's also the case that giving other drivers the fingers when they annoy you isn't acceptable behaviour, the question is whether a particular "unacceptable behaviour" warrants you being arrested, run through the court system and given a criminal record and quite possibly a jail term, with the added bonus of an onging CYF nightmare for good measure. The jurors, as was the intention of jury trials, have displayed some good sense in this case and reached the correct decision.


Then there's National's contribution. The National Party seems to hold a lot of attraction for conservative stuffed shirts who'd like to see conservative stuffed-shirtdom enforced by law - witness most of their MPs. Said stuffed shirts have taken the opportunity to appoint like-minded individuals to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, with predictably stupid results:

Case 3: "TV fights to show sex scenes."

The Hung incident involved an episode where a woman's genital area was shown before she put her legs over a man's shoulders.

New Plymouth's Beth West complained, concluding: "I like to watch things that promote mankind's dignity rather than depravity." The authority upheld the complaint.

Where to start? For one thing, if Beth thinks oral sex constitutes "depravity" and that sex is about maintaining your dignity, one can only feel deep pity for her husband. For another, if Beth doesn't like to watch this kind of thing, maybe she shouldn't be up late at night tuning in to a programme about a male prostitute? You think? I mean, how unforeseeable is it for a conservative stuffed shirt to figure out that a programme like that is going to involve sex? National's appointees on the BSA, however, are obviously Beth's soulmates and feel that her personal assessment of what she'd like to watch must be treated as some kind of holy writ by the TV companies. Thanks, National - you're doing great.

End of an era?

I realise that I have ceased blogging but sadly I cannot resist the temptation to make one last comment on Labour's debacle week.
Darren Hughes has shown us all exactly why we would be idiots to ever again put our livelihoods in the hands of these incompetents.
His call to fame appears to be based on nothing more than being of lickable and witty character.
His own local electorate sent him packing.
He owes his lifeline to a mickey mouse Party List that his superiors appear more than happy to rort over for solely their own benefit.
And Labour expect us to put our hopes and visions for the future in hands such as these.
Or even worse, Judith Tizard's. Actually I hope she does return and helps bury the MMP rort once and for all. At $160k she could prove to be a bargain.

We need hard nosed people with real skills to guide this country. Not a pack of half arsed lifestylers being run by nyxt (New York text). They have no connection to the challenging world that we citizens are facing on a daily basis. We can't afford the luxury of tolerating and paying for these idiots.

The Labour Party should take a good hard look at themselves.
And I don't mean by standing in front of a mirror admiring their own cleverness.
There is a big gap between being clever and being smart.
Goff is living proof of that.

STRIKE 3

A few days ago I blogged that it was Strike 2 on Goff. Right now it's Strike 3 and Goff will be gone in days if not hours. Whoever coined the term 'Goffgate' had it about right. His handling of this sad saga gives new meaning to the word 'clusterfuck'.

But what is really fascinating is the report that the coup is being orchestrated by the New York branch of the Party (read Helen and Heather) through those two intellectual giants and bright stars of socialism Mesdames (or Messrs) Street and Dyson with the express purpose of installing Parker as leader. FFS, those two represent all that is wrong with the Labour Party and this must surely leave Little, Cunliffe, Cosgrove and the Jones boy wondering just what is happening beyond their control.

But the really sad thing likely to result and the legacy of Goff and Hughes is that they have opened the door to the trougher supremo, one Winston First, to return to Parliament as core Labour sez that's it and collectively holds their noses and votes for someone who rightly understands what opposition is all about.

Goff, Hughes, King ... hang your heads in shame.

An opposition would be good right about now

So, we're effectively still in recession, the incompetents running the country have no idea what to do about it, and people are jumping ship to Aus at a rate that makes you nostalgic for the 2000s. Incredibly fertile ground for the Opposition, you'd think. These ass-clowns will be a one-term govt, you'd think.

Yeah, you'd think. Instead, said ass-clowns busy running the country into the ground are looking quids-in for a second term. It shouldn't just be Darren Hughes resigning, there should be wholesale ritual suicide in the Labour ranks - if you lot can't give National a hiding when they're performing this badly, there's not much point in you continuing to draw breath, let alone a salary.

Bullshit

You don't resign if you have done nothing wrong.
Ever.

Especially when you have absolutely no prospects of ever replacing the income , lifestyle and opportunities to be around your primary prey ever again.

Is This The Final Tipping Point?

The Hughes Goff King shenanigans are extraordinary.

Adolf wonders whether they are in fact the final tipping point which might allow Labour to at last cut the ties with the disastrous politically correct Clark/Rainbow/social engineering gang who hijacked a once proud party and brought it to its knees. I suspect the events of the last week have put paid to the chances of the current regime ever regaining office. Certainly any chances in 2011 have been well and truly scuppered and 2014 now looks like a bridge too far.

If there are any true Labour people left in the organisation perhaps they should now be looking to capitalise on these events and reinvent their party into one of real people who have the ability to identify with Chris Trotter's 'Waitakere Man.' They need to ditch all those closely associated with the Clark regime and bring in people of stature and mana who are truly loyal to Labour rather than to everything seen to be good by the doyens of the Waikato University Humanities Department.

That means doing what Australian Cricket did after it suffered it's disastrous Hughes episode. How ironic is that name. After captain Kim Hughes led the national team to a series of losses and humiliation, he resigned the captaincy amidst a flood of televised tears. They brought back the doyen of Australia cricket, ex skipper and coach Bobby Simpson who threw out the whole cabal and went back to basics.

"Give me a squad of players with the right attitude and I'll give them the skills' he demanded. Two decades of world supremacy were the result.

In Labour's case, the person they need to bring back, in my opinion, is Mike Moore. Always loyal to true Labour he, above anyone else, has the personality, charm, charisma and drive to rebuild the party. He should have as a lieutenant John Tamihere, another true blue Labour man who was spat out by the amoral and immoral gang who idolised Helen Clark.

They will need to forget about 2011 and 2014 and set about bringing in good quality people with real life experience who can be groomed to win seats and party votes in 2017. Above all else they need to ensure they avoid selecting academics, union activists, homosexuals and journalists. Let's see some tradesmen, nurses, farmers, businessmen and plain ordinary workers.

The people who need to be ejected include Goff, Hughes, Cunliffe, King, Tizzard, Burton, Dyson, to mention a few.

One thing is for sure. The game is over for the Labour Party as it is today.

The question is:-

Do they have the ability to do what has to be done?

Anatomy Lessons Needed

Most Australian Greens can't tell the difference between their arses and their elbows.

Their leader, Bob Brown, can't tell the difference between the prime ministerial arse and its shoulders.

Senator Brown said he knew Ms Gillard had “broad shoulders”, but in his experience, such insults could be deeply hurtful.

The evidence?

Of Course It's All The National Party's Fault

Phil Goff just doesn't know when to keep his trap shut. Here is his latest example of Key Derangement Syndrome

LATEST: Information about the police complaint against Labour MP Darren Hughes was leaked by the Beehive, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

The Beehive didn't need to leak anything - Labour's little bum boy did it all for them. Good grief, if National had wanted to make hay with this one it would have waited until much closer to the election.

Well may Goff cross his fingers. Nothing else seems to be working.




Of all the stupid statements you might ever hear, this one takes the biscuit.

Goff said Hughes was cooperating fully with the police investigation and was confident that he had done nothing wrong.

Why does it take the biscuit?

Because the last fellow to whom this concession was applied is in jail. What's his name again? Philip Field. Here's what Goff, Clark and Co had to say about him.

“I think the only thing he is probably guilty of is trying to be helpful to someone,”

Random impertinent questions

Which members youth MP has gone running to the cops accusing a senior ex minister of trying to root him?
Which ex minister owns the house at the centre of these allegations?

Three different MP's feeling the blow torch on their necks today?

Is Judith Tizard packing her bags for Wellington today?

Who will be the new opposition chief whip?

Have you bought Judith to be back options on ipredict yet?

The Zebra Party

I started a new project today and consequently my blogging will have to take a back seat so I can concentrate.

Sorry to give my co authors such short notice but it appeared quickly and is something in which I am interested . If you can keep me listed on the side bar Milt, I may have to return if it looks like Labour are getting a sniff in this November.

In the meantime all the best to the many people who drop by, read and comment. And to the many other fine bloggers out there. The world is an interesting place and would be much smaller without you all. Keep up the good work.

I'll leave you with the Zebra Party- Left and Right combined, but mostly confusion..

So What Happened?

When Dubbya set off the invasion of Iraq in 2003 he had the support of pretty much ALL the international community, the UN and the American Congress.

The Big Eared Black Assed Jackass who today occupies the White House, from an undisclosed golf course in Latin America, authorised the invasion of a sovereign nation WITHOUT the authority of Congress and without any clear and present danger to the US.

Adolf looks forward to the spin and nuancing from the Left of this piece of poltical lunacy from their empty suited hero.

Thus far they are absent from the field.

Maybe nobody has told them what to say.

Bullying

Just watched the video of the Aussie kid dealing to a bully.
The PC brigrade can crap on all they like but this kid finally dealt to the problem in the best possible way.
The bully learns a lesson in consequences that no soft approach can ever give.
And the kid learns that standing up and believing in yourself is what life is really about.

The world is full of bullies, from mongrels like Mugabe and Gaddafi down to kids at schools.
Human nature dictates that there is only one effective solution.

Well, I think I told you so, anyway

Buggered if I can find it now, but I'm sure I wrote somewhere during the S59 clusterfuck that juries just wouldn't do what Bradford was trying to get them to do with her S59 bill. Whether I did actually write it or not, the SST reports today that at least one jury's told Bradford where to stick it.

(As a sideline to the post, note the headline: "Smacking acquittal outrage." As usual, the journo's had to work pretty damn hard for that headline, and even then it's not clear who's outraged. Bradford's been shoulder-tapped for comment, and naturally disagrees with the jury, but hardly seems to be frothing at the mouth over it. At least one juror seems outraged, ie the one who went to the SST - but that's outrage at the charges being brought in the first place, not outrage at the parents' acquittal. As usual, the journo's best efforts at whipping up a storm in a teacup seem a bit lame.)

Obviously, I'm reasonably chuffed with the decision. It refreshes my faith in human nature - ie, despite Bradford and Clark's efforts to make juries return the verdicts liberal hand-wringers would prefer to see, juries, and I'm picking especially the parents on those juries, remain resolutely opposed to slapping fellow parents with a criminal record just for attempting to impose some level of discipline on their disobedient children.

Favourite bit: Bradford's obviously learned jack shit about parenting in the interim. She says "...if a policeman did those things to an adult, you would be really angry and upset." Well, yes. Yes I would, Sue. Likewise, if a policeman ordered me to clean up my room or empty the dishwasher under threat of punishment I'd be really angry and upset. This is because the relationship between police officer and citizen is rather different to the one between parent and child - you'd think all those years of child-rearing would have brought her some realisation of this, but apparently not. My sympathies to her children.

LIBYA

It is now nine hours since the French launched air strikes against the Libyan forces besieging Benghazi and six hours since US Tomahawk missiles where targeted against the old 'Wheelus' air base on the outskirts of Tripoli. UK aircraft have also been reported in action to enforce the UN mandated 'No Fly' zone.

So where I ask are John Minto and Keith Locke. Their silence is deafening. By now I would have expected them to be crowding the airwaves with their ritualistic condemnation of this latest manifestation of Western imperialism driven by the desire of the United States to somehow appropriate Libya's oil reserves.

How long before they seek to portray Muammar Gaddafi as a man of peace; the all loving father figure who wants nothing more than to unite his country free from all outside influences (read democracy).

Just seeking to get in first with John and Keith clearly having a Sunday lie in.

WITH 'FRIENDS' LIKE .....

Deborah Coddington putting the boot in, ACT certainly doesn't need any enemies. You can read her diatribe here http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10713657

Clearly Debs and Rodney have issues but clearly also she has become to ACT what Sue Bradford was to the Greens ... an embarrassment and a wasted space.

For me, and while some of the more visceral comments directed at National by Actoids are offensive, the simple reality is that in an MMP environment National needs coalition partners ... and ACT is one of those partners. We can agree on many things. We can agree to disagree on the pace of change.

We should not get mesmerised by the stellar polling enjoyed by John Key and National right now. Times change and the political pendulum swings and if National is to win a third term we will need ACT there especially given the likelihood that United Future will disappear into the dustbin of history and that, post Phil Goff and under new leadership, there will be some sort of rapprochement between Labour and the Maori Party.

It will be a very big call for National to heed Coddington's advice and campaign hard for Epsom. It is not a decision the Board will make easily or quickly and especially not on the advice of a woman scorned.

Some Perspective

Before you sell your uranium shares it might be worth realising:-

Over the next five years some six and a half million people will be killed in road accidents and a further five million will be seriously injured or maimed for life.

Over the next five years it is possible but not certain that a few dozen people might die as a result of the Fukushima nuclear plant incident with a few hundred being seriously injured or maimed for life.

If we removed motor vehicles from the world and reverted to horse drawn traffic we could save more people than Hitler managed to burn in a similar period. Of course, they won't admit it but in fact that's what the Greens would like to see. Terribly organic, those horse drawn buggies.



Then the Greens would complain about the poor bastards who got kicked to death on the corner of Queen St and Wellesley St when a document courier's steed panicked after seeing a reflection of Winston Peters in a shop window.

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

but I'm going there. To see the TV1 reporter fleeing Tokyo (to report 'safely' from some five star hotel in HK) leaves me cold.

Certainly not in the Peter Arnet tradition who has put himself on the line in countless places throughout the world to bring the news to our doorsteps.

And certainly not in the Damian Grammaticis tradition (BBC reporter) who has stationed himself less than 100k from the Fukushima plant in order to provide ongoing coverage.

No, TV1 chooses to evacuate from Tokyo (225k from Fukushima) caught up in the
hysteria and forfeiting the right to be taken seriously.

PC rules OK in TV1 pussy's.

Rubbing Their Hands

Owners of shares in major coal mining companies will be rubbing their hands in anticipation of large profits as the nuclear power industry struggles to battle media driven hysteria in weeks, months and years to come.

The Greens who are prematurely celebrating the death of the nuclear power industry may not yet have realised events in Japan have finally sunk any hope for carbon taxes, emissions protocols and all the other junk transactions associated with the 'carbon' fraud perpetrated by Al Gore and his followers. The plain truth is that you can't lift millions of people out of poverty without cheap energy and you can't have cheap energy without releasing some life giving CO2 into the atmosphere. The Chows and the Yanks know that but NZ and Australia continue to live in fantasy land.

You see folks, the only economically viable sources of base load industrial strength electricity are coal, oil, hydro and nuclear fission.

As Japan rebuilds and China and India continue to grow, demand for oil and coal will escalate. No amount of mecanno sets on top of windy hills will cut the mustard.

And I wonder if any of the loony tune Greens have stopped to calculate the down river death toll from a an 8.8 magnitude earth quake centred just eight kilometers below the Clyde dam?

Perfected Stupidity

I was listening to Leighton Smith's talkback yesterday morning as several people attempted to argue that the recovery from the Christchurch earthquake will be a great thing economically. Like some sort of bizzare stimulus package.

What a load of bollocks.
Our economy has taken a massive hit. We will be expending a huge effort and considerable cash just to get us back to the status quo. That means missed opportunities elsewhere. Opportunities that can create new wealth.
The argument that the re insurers will be stumping up for the cost is ridiculous. They are in business for pppppprofit. If they take a hit here then they will be looking to eventually recoup their losses by raising our ppppppremiums.
The people who propose this nonsense are amongst the useful idiots of the world. Pushing a mickey mouse form of socialist economics that you can create wealth by simply recirculating money though an economy, like Len Brown's miraculous ticking over theory. In truth it is an ever diminishing circle with the idiots taking their cut each orbit.
Sometimes I wonder if the end result of Western thinking is actually perfected stupidity.

It will be very interesting to compare the recoveries both here and in Japan.
I suspect that while the Japanese will quickly rebuild and get back to creating wealth, we will still be arguing about what colour paving stone to use ......
not to forget antismacking legislation, ETS's, carbon taxes, global warming, seabed ownership, local body empire building, middleclass welfare, Ministries of blithering idiots, policy consultants.......

ZIMBABWE

I have, for a number of years, followed the developing situation in Zimbabwe closely. I have friends who grew up in that country and are now dispossessed of their birthright. The three decades since 'independence' have seen the country go from being the 'breadbasket of Africa' to an impoverished third world failed state.

Events in New Zealand and overseas have pushed the situation in Zimbabwe out of the headlines. For those who want to keep abreast of events can I recommend the website http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/ Latest reports have it that the Attorney General and Mulgabe loyalist Johannas Tomana is proposing the arrest of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for contempt of court for speaking out against the decision of the Supreme Court ruling which set aside the election of the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Lovemore Moro, an MDC supporter.

This against the backdrop of continuing Police raids on MDC offices along with the murder, beating and intimidation of MDC supporters and the refusal of South Africa, as the principal guarantor of the Government of National Unity (GNU) to force Mulgabe to adhere to the terms of that agreement.

All indications are that Mulgabe will go it alone with elections to be held later this year and use the power of the State (read the armed forces, police and the judiciary - all controlled by Mugabe loyalists) to crush any and all opposition.

Just a pity that a couple of decades ago the US decided, in a moment of righteousness, to forbid the CIA from carrying out the assassination of undesirable political leaders. Right decision in theory but wrong in practice.

PHIL - STOP EMBARRASSING YOURSELF

Two strikes in as many minutes on TV3 this morning.

Strike 1. "The Prime Minister should come clean and tell the
people of Christchurch whether the world cup games are going ahead at AMI Stadium". Errrrrrrrrrr, the Government doesn't own the Rugby World Cup. It has an interest and stake in the matter and I am sure there will be advice that they will give to the International Rugby Board but the decision on Christchurch is for the IRB to make and announce once they have considered all the advice given.

Strike 2. Ruling Hone out but not Winston. "Hone's views are repugnant to me". Fair call but then to refuse to rule Winston out saying "He kept scrupulously to the terms of the agreement he had with Labour when in Government". We live and learn. So, can we assume there was a secret protocol to that agreement that allowed Winston to sell off Consular Office in return for cash donations to his Party? Ok, so Winston welshed on his undertaking to OG but pocketed the dosh anyway... about par for the course.

Strike 3 awaits.

SOME MOTHERS DO HAVE 'EM'

I decline to accept the ACT Party is inherently racist despite the bozo delegate at their conference arguing that we should shoot the Maori much the same way as some Australian dealt with the aborigines. I understand the ACT leadership was embarrassed and annoyed that the outburst dominated the news from their Conference. Easy to see why.

But I have to say the rhetoric indulged by some in ACT over the Seabed and Foreshore legislation sets the climate for such outbursts.

An alternative view might be that if the legislation is opposed by ACT for giving too much away to Maori and by Labour and Hone H that the bar for proving customary title has been set far too high, then perhaps the legislation has it about right.

Having said all that the reality is that ACT needs to carve out points of difference from National if it is to have any semblance of a chance come November and this is one of those points of difference. Just a pity that in doing that it brings out from the woodwork a few unreconstructed rednecks who really are on a par with Hone ... going nowhere fast and adding nothing to the sum total of human endeavour.

Sad really, Hone and 'them'.

Oh, that's alright then

Crass headline for the day: NZ safe from nuclear fallout, says expert.

Leaving aside the fact that anyone old enough to be reading the news who imagines we're downwind of Japan isn't really worth keeping alive anyway, are we meant to feel reassured that it's only the people living in the region who might need to start carrying Geiger counters round with them? Maybe, just maybe, this isn't all about us?

The crass headline can't be chalked up to the expert involved, but this can: "The unfolding drama in Japan showed the dangers of nuclear power, she said." Well, yes. Yes, it does. Just like the Banqiao dam breach showed the dangers of hydro power. The generation of energy in industrial-strength quantities necessarily involves dangers - you can minimise the risks, but if you want no risk whatsoever you're going to have to do without electricity. One anticipates a shortage of volunteers in Japan or anywhere else.

Message for Lyen Brown

Auckland mayor Len Brown said the higher cost of living was hurting vulnerable communities, and those on fixed incomes. But he said it was important that people get out and support businesses, the Arts Festival and Pasifika to keep the economy ticking over.

And therein lies his problem.
Brown's aspirations are to keep things ticking over whilst apparently awaiting some miracle that will restore our economy to it's former glory. And in the mean time jack rates up 5%.

This is leadership of the absolute lowest possible calibre.

Well Len, I hate to break it to you, but your hoped for miracle is a figment of your well polished arse and pathetically small imagination. Ticking over is not an option. In this day and age of State induced inflation it is an euphemism for rapidly going backwards.

You sold yourself as a man who can.
Merely sitting on one does not constitute change.
We don't want our city ticked over, we want one that kicks butt.
Sadly you have been measured and have come up short.

Who said this?

"But the minister, who has a doctorate in geotechnical engineering, said he took a very dim view of people causing alarm with no scientific underpinning."

Startling comment from a man who would tax us til it hurts based on lies, conjecture and hysteria.

It's happening in Ireland

How long before we start reading similar articles about NZ?
The days of left and right outbidding each other with money borrowed on our behalf are rapidly drawing to a close.
Unless we seriously reinvent the way we run ourselves we are doomed to travel in ever decreasing circles of prosperity.
Our daily conversations will revolve around bailout interest rates, loss of sovereignty and why we have been so stupid.

Don't Be Surprised........

........ if the Maori Party runs a strong candidate in Te Tai Tokerau and defeats the loud mouthed tutaekuri incumbent.



Only yesterday Adolf was musing on this possibility and this morning's Herald carries the makings.

On his expulsion, Harawira cut a deal with the party whereby in return for his refraining from attacking it, the party agreed to not stand a candidate against him in 2011. Last night in parliament Harawira tore up the agreement.

Mr Harawira attacked his former party colleagues and in doing so appears to have breached a divorce agreement that they refrain from attacking each other.

He said the bill "preys on the desperation of the Maori Party to be seen to be doing something about the issue from which it was born".

He said the leadership of the party had forced him out of the party "so they can say the Maori Party unanimously supports this racist piece of legislation".

And he said their supporters would abandon them if the party "sells out their people" and votes for it.

Nothing could be better for New Zealand than the defeat and ejection from political life of Mr John Hatfield. Adolf is tempted to change his name by deed poll to McCoy and offer himself to the party for pre-selection.

November 2011 gets more interesting as each day goes by.

Media works bailout beat up.

Plenty of chatter on the left end today about media works getting a "loan" from the government to pay for their frequency licenses.
The alternative of course is a spectrum devoid of almost every station other than covers (concert)fm and radio left wing. Whilst that might make vicars, spinsters and 12 wellington lefties happy it would not please the rest of the country.
They are paying an eye watering interest rate for a fee that is based on something that has a government mandated artificial value.
The upshot of course is that the left team can continue to enjoy John Campbell, because if the radio arm of that business folds the telly arm will not be far behind it.
And then we will be left with shortland street and news shows that consist almost entirely of studio based pseudo journalists interviewing junior pseudo journos in front of random buildings all over the country.

It should be noted that the government are charging 11.2% interest on this..

A neat solution to what is a very dificult environment for media companies at the moment and especially the television arm of that company that is basically competing with a massively subsidised publically owned company.

Terrific Taylor

That's how Cricinfo described Ross Taylor's match winning innings against Pakistan.

Well done Black Caps.

As Fitzy would say 'Full credit."

Now can we have some consistency please?

A Look Into The Future

Ya gotta larrrfff, doncha?

Hone's new alliance with the rabid left got off to a brilliant start. They are made for each other.

First the fuckwit from the Greens managed to be late for registration in the Botany by-election and now the black cousin fucker missed the vote on his signature legislation.



All they need now is Alemain Kopu at number one on the list.

Go Bros!

JERRY MATEPARAE

Congratulations to Jerry Mataparae on his appointment as our next Governor General. His biography is available for all to see but some facts not generally known.

Jerry is a graduate of the Australian Officer Cadet School at Portsea (on the Mornington Peninsula). At his graduation (December 1976) he scooped the pool picking up the Staff Prize, the Field/Tactics Prize and the NZ CGS Prize much to the chagrin of his Australian classmates. He was the first Portsea graduate to make Lieutenant General in either of our two armies.

I first met him in 1978 when he joined the battalion in Singapore. He was not in my Company but even then it was clear he had a certain inner strength. Jerry is like a good wine. He has matured with age learning all the while. Jerry is softly spoken and listens well. He is very good on a one to one basis.

He has the ability to be one of our great Governor Generals.

Gillard and Sullivan

Aussie politics has a somewhat Gilbertian flavour currently.

The latest example of comic opera courtesy of Madame Flutterby is her foray into election promise breaking via Gillard's Carbon Tax. This seems to have much similarity to Jim Bolger's fatal superannuation surcharge promise which saw him unceremoniously turfed out.

During the recent election campaign Gillard repeatedly shouted from the rooftops "There will be no carbon tax," knowing failure to so shout would deliver the election to Mr Abbott and the Libs.

Now, led along by the Killer Greens (always remember Kingslake and Queensland floods) she is to introduce such a tax.

Watch how a fortnight can do the damage.



And there are even some fools in the media here trying to talk up a return to Party leadership of that execrable warmenist Malcolm Turnbull.

WEIRD

Had occasion today to drop by the supermarket to replenish the beer frig. I drink Carlsberg and they were offering 12 packs at $18.99. Stacked right beside them were 24 packs of the same brand at $58.

Asked one of the staff standing close by how this could be so. He confirmed the $58 price tag was correct. Said to him that I didn't think they would be selling too many of these. His response ... "I wouldn't want you to bet on that because you would lose".

Does anyone really question the need for national standards?

Perhaps the management isn't so dumb.

CHRISTCHURCH

I visited Christchurch about two weeks after the first earthquake. Driving into the city my taxi driver spoke of the effect the aftershocks were having on his family and that they were very close to leaving.

Last night and following the seven (I think) aftershocks that occurred between 7 and midnight a colleague e-mailed me to say that was it. They were walking away from their home and would not be returning.

Can I suggest that, in addition to a much changed skyline, Christchurch is also going to take a hit with its population ... and the double whammy will be that many of those going will be precisely the people the city can't afford to loose.

There is no real answer to that but it is something that both central and local government are going to have to get their heads around as they seek to rebuild.

Never thought I would hear this

Engineers and private sector construction managers have spoken critically of the approach adopted by Christchurch City Council, described as slow and bureaucratic. Labour MP Lianne Dalziel - whose electorate is among the hardest hit - was more blunt still. "I'm over the council. They're incompetent."

Who would have ever thought we would hear these words uttered from a Labour MP. Has she finally woken up to what us ratepayers have known for years?

The bureaucratic juggernaught of local council has kept too many overpaid people ungainfully busy for too long. If there was ever a time to slash their empires this would be it.

ON THE DANGERS OF 'CADRE' POLITICAL PARTIES

Most political parties in New Zealand are of the 'cadre' variety, bereft of membership and, where there is an electorate organisation, most likely it is controlled by a few activists who answer to themselves and not the electorate.

The National Party has always prided itself on its grassroots membership and while the halcyon days of 1975 when membership stood at a quarter of a million will never be repeated it is important that their MPs acknowledge that maintaining an effective electorate organisation brings dividends by ensuring they remain close to their grassroots support base (not to mention the 'dosh' generated by numbers).

The Veteran is fortunate to be living in an electorate where its membership is more than the countrywide membership of ACT; United Future and Winston First combined and, I suspect, comes close to Labour's nationwide membership total.

And so it is that I am concerned and disappointed that in Botany and Rodney the National Party had to appoint 'top up' delegates to allow the selection process to proceed. The Party rules specify that a minimum of 60 voting delegates are required determine their candidate based on one delegate per 15 members = 900 members. Where membership is less than 900, additional delegates are appointed from eligible party members (preferably from within the electorate).

Clearly for Pansy Wong and Lockwood Smith, ensuring they had a strong electorate organisation was not a priority for them even though they held their seats with majorities in excess of 10,000 ... and I think that is sad. Hopefully their successors will not disappoint in this regard

Just what we need, more bluster

I haven't wanted to write anything about the Christchurch quake before now, it's too depressing. I did a lot of my growing up there and it's my favourite city in the world, or at least was, because a lot of what I loved about it was the beauty of the place and the kind of seedy, seen-better-days, once-were-mansions neighbourhoods of the inner city. That's mostly gone now, and trying to bring it back doesn't seem like a good idea. It seems likely that a lot of the beautiful old buildings will have to go, and if they do have to go it would be better to rebuild in modern style than try to build fake reproductions of what was there before, or even worse, have architects "acknowledge" the historical character of the place by putting fake gables and columns on the cheap shit they build to replace it.

Having acknowledged that a lot of the old buildings are gone or going to have to go and be replaced by modern equivalents, it's nevertheless a serious worry that the local Nat cabinet ministers are blustering idiots of the "price of everything, value of nothing" type. Gerry Brownlee has never seen a national park he thought wouldn't look better as an open-cast coal mine, and David Carter always gives me the impression he thinks the nation is just a farm writ large.

As examples of why these are crap people to have in govt at a time like this, consider the following:

Brownlee: Lives before historic buildings. The Minister bends his awesome intellectual powers to the question of what approach to take to the city's heritage, and concludes:

"Quite frankly people have died in this last earthquake trying to save old buildings. We're not going to do that any more. My absolutely strong position is that the old dungas, no matter what their connection, are going under the hammer."

My immediate visceral response to this ("Die, you fat fuck") probably isn't sufficient for a blog reader to figure out what my problem with it is, so here's a longer version. Well, yes, we do want to put lives before historic buildings. However, I don't think either PGC or the CTV building would count as "historic" buildings by anyone's standards. Further, the Hotel Grand Chancellor was built to 1995 standards, ie higher standards than most buildings in the country, and people are going to have to carry out plenty of work on that building in order to demolish it. An earthquake could kill them while that's happening. Likewise, we have people working on extracting dead bodies from buildings, despite the fact another earthquake could kill those workers. Life involves risk. Unless Gerry's planning to introduce a building code that will enable buildings to survive any conceivable earthquake and to then demolish any buildings that don't meet it (which technically he could do, given that the imbeciles running the country voted him absolute power late last year), he should Shut The Fuck Up.


David Carter: Call for "aggressive" demolition in Christchurch. His take on it:

Carter said after the September 4 earthquake last year, there was a lot of resistance among Cantabrians to demolishing old and historic buildings but he did not anticipate opposition after the latest devastation.

In other words, for Carter the earthquake has proved useful in that it will have made people happy to sacrifice the buildings Brownlee calls "dungas," and replace them with ones that unsentimental characters like Carter will find more economically useful - not to mention, there'll be a shitload of money to be made out of it by people with connections like Carter's.

The consequences of these blustering, blithering idiots reaching for their revolvers when they hear the word culture arrived pretty much immediately:

Historic Christchurch church torn down without consent. I used to live in Sydenham in the late 60s, back when it was still a neighbourhood (ie, before Brougham St got turned into a traffic bypass). I'd cheerfully string the people who did this from a lamppost, and for all I care Brownlee and Carter could swing with them - maybe some lives aren't more important than historic buildings after all.

Wood Shot Out of Bounds

Congratulations Derek Cheng from the Herald.

What an excellent sense of humour.

Meanwhile, Labour candidate Michael Wood visited the Manukau Institute of Technology, where he struck a chord with many people.

Trouble was, most of them, like Mr Wood, did not live in Botany and cannot vote tomorrow.

Oh and by the way, from what I've seen of young Mr Ross I would NOT expect him to remain on the back benches for nine years.

I suspect he will become NZ's youngest ever cabinet minister.

More Tax is not a solution.

I see various left wing people are offering their traditional tax raising and spending solutions to solve the rebuilding of Christchurch.
Will it ever dawn on them, that in this day and age, they are a big part of the problem, not part of the solution?
Christchurch needs to be rebuild with the same pioneering spirit that lead to its existence in the first place. Not by some massive injection of bureaucratic nonsense.
Let Cantabrians rebuild the city they want. There are plenty of engineering and architectual solutions available.
The insurance money will go a long way.
As long as it isn't hijacked by control freaks.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT PAM

I was fascinated to hear Pam Corkery, doyen of 'progressive' intellectual thought and deed, argue this morning on TV1 that there was no need for the Government to contemplate asset sales or changes to WFF or the student loan scheme as all John Key needed to do was to go to his mates in the IMF and World Bank and all the money we might ever need would come gushing down like mana from heaven.

Is her thinking so shallow that she fails to understand or comprehend that in return for any assistance those financial institutions will demand of New Zealand a slash and burn approach to the very things that she sees as sacrosanct .

Just reflect on the conditions imposed on Greece and Ireland by those same financial institutions in return for bailing them out. Rioting on the streets of Athens and last weekend, the Irish Government turfed out of office.

I suspect, and Government is starting to signal, that some previously sacred cows are now 'on limits'. The trick is to manage that process in a responsible way.

How is it that those on the 'left' remain convinced that we can have our cake and eat it too and that some benevolent Japanese housewife will continue to pick up the tab at no cost to us at all.

God help us if these idiots ever get control of the Treasury benches again.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

Two events of national significance ......

When Willie Apiata was invested with his Victoria Cross at Government House in 2007 the control freak Labour Prime Minister declined to invite the Leader of the Opposition or any members of his shadow cabinet to witness the occasion.

In Christchurch today John Key was quite happy to have Phil Goff and members of his shadow cabinet stand beside him. For the PM standing together was preferable to using the occasion to score cheap political advantage.

I certainly know which style of leadership I prefer.

Te Moemoea o te Porangi

"The Dream of a Madman"

Matt McCarten appears to have lost his usual political astuteness due to over use of rose tinted glasses.

Here he is predicting that the eviction of Mr John trouble wherever he turns up Hatfield from the Maori Party somehow has in it the makings of a change of gummint.

Nothing could be further from reality. In fact, National will be greatly strengthened.

McCarten seems to believe every word of Harawira's propaganda, particularly his daily assertions of his rock solid hold on the seat of Te Tai Tokerau - just as the world believed Saddam Hussein's propaganda about his military strength. Adolf prefers to look at facts and disregard words.

In particular, two things strike me as instructive and revealing of Harawira's self proclaimed electoral support.

• When Harawira called for a hui at Whakapara (to which Party officials were not invited) only one hundred people turned up and most of them were family members, bused in from the rancid swamps of Awanui. For those who don't know, Whakapara is smack dab in the centre of the electorate, just a few miles north of Whangarei. Wouldn't you have thought the Great Black Hope could have got together more than just a lousy hundred followers?

• Thus far largely ignored is the fact that Harawira negotiated a free run for for himself in the 2011 election. So much for his hold on the seat. He knows damned well that a half decent Maori Party candidate would see him thrown out on his hairy brown arse.

McCarten has overlooked the fact that Harawira without the party is a political eunuch. On his own, he is just another loud mouthed Nobody from up North.

The Maori Party has handled this affair very well. It has abided by the patience and protocol demanded of it and in so doing has retained widespread respect. Not for Maoridom the quick throat cutting and slinging of the carcass out the back door used by the National Party on it's miscreants.

Further, the party has gained itself four years in which to find and groom a formidable candidate to take back the seat in 2014. It has the cash and people resources of a party. Harawira has none.

As far as the National Party is concerned, it can rejoice that one of its coalition partners has exorcised its life threatening cancer and has stabilised itself on a course which continues to attract a large and intelligent cross section of Maoridom - that which agrees with the forward thinking, practical and self help policies set out along the way by Messrs Sharples and Turia.

Not for them the bitter divisiveness, racial hatred, greed and envy of Hone Harawira and his miserable gaggle of racist black dope growers, child molesters and cousin fuckers.