I feel almost obligated to make some sort of a comment on the shameful business playing out in the cesspit that is the Wellington political scene. But really why should I? It is all so tawdry and unnecessary. It is politics for politics sake and has nothing to do with the real world.
Whilst all this disgraceful stuff is playing out the country is struggling. I heard on the electric wireless at cup of tea time this morning (0515) a chap bemoaning that he is facing laying off his whole gang of eight gibstoppers tomorrow as there is no work for them. At a different end of the employment spectrum my dentist daughter tells me that people are not coming in to have their teeth fixed in droves. Intra-oral 'business' is a fraction of what it was only a couple of months ago. And all the while we (and I include myself in this) are fixated by people telling porkies wholesale.
Yesterday (and the day before if you recall Margaret Wilson's partisan display) in Parliament was just appalling. Dear Leader is patently just doing anything to remain in power. She is being lauded by some dements for her loyalty to Winston. Bollocks her loyalties should not be to Peters or any other of her political cronies. Her loyalty should be primarily to the country and that country is being spectacularly ill served by its politicians at the moment. Even the mechanics of getting through the afternoon in Parliament yesterday was a joke. Everyone turns up for the main show, that of seeing Winston Raymond Peter's head being bought in on a stick. And what do we get? The gummint suddenly decides that things have to be delayed because the dental nurse has to tell everyone that the Police have almost decided they want Tazers. More filibustering with Dail Jones opining that this is a most important matter and needs to be debated at length. Bollocks. Do they think we are fools? Well obviously they do.
Dear Leader has decided that Peters is OK until the Parliamentary Privileges Committee has decided whether her Foreign Minister or her biggest financial benefactor (and it can't be both) is telling the truth. This again is nonsense as there is no way the Committee can discern this. Glenn has already said he won't appear and will not be cross examined.
It is not hard to see that the PPC has been told that Winston will not be found guilty of anything significant and Dear Leader can then go into the next round of name calling and supercilious arrogance. She has already started this accusing Key of prejudging things by giving Peters the flick. And then Winston will start suing people and then...............who cares?
I used to (only about six months ago) enjoy politic watching and thought it was something I should be more involved in. After all the alternative to democracy is too ghastly to contemplate. I have now morphed into someone who watches the goings on with a morbid sort of disgust. The worrying thing is that the more tawdry it becomes the less inclined I am to look the other way.
I must harden up and not look at all.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Ban everything
Whilst I'm in the mood for a little Green bashing - come to think of it I'm always in that sort of a mood; the only thing better than a little Green bashing is a big Green bashing - I am grateful to the Not PC blog for supplying this list of things the stupid all controlling Greens have either banned or wanted banned.
......grape imports, alcohol ads, political speech for one year in three, ferrets, TV ads for kids, ads on TVNZ, growth hormones, native wood chip exports, native logging, pig swill, xenotransplantion trials, smacking, GE, field trials for GE, chemical trespass, property rights from the Bill of Rights, quick-fire logging, logging, fishing for toothfish, commercial fishing over much of New Zealand, whaling, 'toxic timber,' set-netting, bottom trawling, feeding animal remains to farm animals, battery cages, CCA-treated timber in playgrounds, direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs, crisps and meat pies from tuck shops, "the screening of programmes which sensationalise violence or use violence," "the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy animals," GE maize, commercial releases of genetically engineered crops, "nuclear shipments from New Zealand's exclusive economic zone," sow crates, the dry sow stall, "weapons of mass destruction," the tooth fairy, nuclear powered vessels in our waters, beef imports from Britain to other European countries, "Japanese fishing boats from New Zealand waters," "the importation of all timber and timber products not certified as sustainable," "unsustainable" biofuels, open-cast mining, driven-shaft, gold mining, coal mining, mining, human cloning, sheep cloning, food irradiation, spray drift, all ships carrying nuclear weapons, wastes and fuel from the European Economic Zone, "backyard burning of rubbish such as plastics and treated timber," fireworks, "smoking in all workplaces including bars, restaurants and offices," "new uses of coal for energy," existing uses of coal of energy, new thermal power stations, "factory farming," dairy farming around Lake Taupo, dairy farming around Rotorua lakes, dairy farming in the Waikato river basin, "project-based approvals for the development of GE organisms," "all further building of prisons," free trade with China, junk food advertising to children, "the sale and long-term lease of New Zealand property to foreign investors," "the sale of toy tobacco products to under 18s," GM wheat, "environmentally destructive fishing methods," "uranium shipments," "the use of the antibiotic avoparcin in animal feed," "imports of cars older than 7 years," amalgam use in dentistry, the incineration of unsorted waste, unsorted waste, waste, "risky anti-depressants," "import of tissue for sheep cloning," 'trade in hazardous wastes," "'super baby' selection," plastic shopping bags, shopping bags, shopping, live sheep exports, and dihydrogen monoxide.
Not bad.
Why would anyone ever vote for a party that is so in your face, in your wallet and in your life in general. Governments should provide an acceptable level of national security (and most of that was already in situ long before governments were even thought of courtesy of the sea), lay on a bit of infrastructure, lock the bad buggers up in deep dark holes, make sure we can trade with the rest of the real world with as little encumbrance as possible and that is about it.
They should certainly not be telling me what light bulbs I can buy. Speaking of which, I am already stockpiling Edison's designs; every trip to New World a couple more loverly incandescents get added to the vault for the day when I can no longer buy them. That is what this looney tunes government has reduced me, a sane (I think) rational bloke to - I am hoarding, squirrel like, bloody light bulbs. Give me strength.
......grape imports, alcohol ads, political speech for one year in three, ferrets, TV ads for kids, ads on TVNZ, growth hormones, native wood chip exports, native logging, pig swill, xenotransplantion trials, smacking, GE, field trials for GE, chemical trespass, property rights from the Bill of Rights, quick-fire logging, logging, fishing for toothfish, commercial fishing over much of New Zealand, whaling, 'toxic timber,' set-netting, bottom trawling, feeding animal remains to farm animals, battery cages, CCA-treated timber in playgrounds, direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs, crisps and meat pies from tuck shops, "the screening of programmes which sensationalise violence or use violence," "the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy animals," GE maize, commercial releases of genetically engineered crops, "nuclear shipments from New Zealand's exclusive economic zone," sow crates, the dry sow stall, "weapons of mass destruction," the tooth fairy, nuclear powered vessels in our waters, beef imports from Britain to other European countries, "Japanese fishing boats from New Zealand waters," "the importation of all timber and timber products not certified as sustainable," "unsustainable" biofuels, open-cast mining, driven-shaft, gold mining, coal mining, mining, human cloning, sheep cloning, food irradiation, spray drift, all ships carrying nuclear weapons, wastes and fuel from the European Economic Zone, "backyard burning of rubbish such as plastics and treated timber," fireworks, "smoking in all workplaces including bars, restaurants and offices," "new uses of coal for energy," existing uses of coal of energy, new thermal power stations, "factory farming," dairy farming around Lake Taupo, dairy farming around Rotorua lakes, dairy farming in the Waikato river basin, "project-based approvals for the development of GE organisms," "all further building of prisons," free trade with China, junk food advertising to children, "the sale and long-term lease of New Zealand property to foreign investors," "the sale of toy tobacco products to under 18s," GM wheat, "environmentally destructive fishing methods," "uranium shipments," "the use of the antibiotic avoparcin in animal feed," "imports of cars older than 7 years," amalgam use in dentistry, the incineration of unsorted waste, unsorted waste, waste, "risky anti-depressants," "import of tissue for sheep cloning," 'trade in hazardous wastes," "'super baby' selection," plastic shopping bags, shopping bags, shopping, live sheep exports, and dihydrogen monoxide.
Not bad.
Why would anyone ever vote for a party that is so in your face, in your wallet and in your life in general. Governments should provide an acceptable level of national security (and most of that was already in situ long before governments were even thought of courtesy of the sea), lay on a bit of infrastructure, lock the bad buggers up in deep dark holes, make sure we can trade with the rest of the real world with as little encumbrance as possible and that is about it.
They should certainly not be telling me what light bulbs I can buy. Speaking of which, I am already stockpiling Edison's designs; every trip to New World a couple more loverly incandescents get added to the vault for the day when I can no longer buy them. That is what this looney tunes government has reduced me, a sane (I think) rational bloke to - I am hoarding, squirrel like, bloody light bulbs. Give me strength.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Greens and the ETS
I don't want to sound like a cracked record on this Emissions Trading Scam but it would appear that the time when yet more of my money is gong to be poured down the dunny is getting very close. Dear Leader has a crucial vote on Tuesday to pass this latest bollocks but she needs the support of circus clown Winston and the damned Greens. Forget Winston - please. Jeanette 'Where's my Botox' Fitzsimons gave some sort of press conference yesterday telling all who could be bothered to listen that she was yet to make up her mind as to which way to vote and she would wait for the court of public opinion to give her a lead.
Well common decency prevents me from giving my opinion in polite company but she is only hanging out for the provisions to be even more draconian and even more financially ruinous then what is currently suggested. Nothing short of bicycles in every nook and cranny of the heavy haulage business and rich pricks taxed on everything at 93% will do for this fruitloop. She does let slip this very scary quote to give some idea of the workings of her so called mind. "What really mattered about this scheme was that is was fair to New Zealanders and effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Throughout the negotiation process we have kept this at the forefront of our minds. If we don't get these things right, the huge wealth transfers that the ETS creates will be both unfair and ineffectual," says Fitzsimons.
Bloody fairness mentioned twice. Get over it lady - life isn't fair. You are a useless waste of space and you, therefore, deserve to get less in all departments than people who are better than you. 'Effective reduction of greenhouse gases' - a futile attempt to achieve the impossible for no purpose - vide supra. And finally 'the huge wealth transfer the ETS creates'. You've finally got something right. Huge transfer of hard earned monies from where it might be usefully employed into a black hole run by people who have repeatedly proven that they couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent.
One statement summing up all the Greens stand for - stupidity.
Well common decency prevents me from giving my opinion in polite company but she is only hanging out for the provisions to be even more draconian and even more financially ruinous then what is currently suggested. Nothing short of bicycles in every nook and cranny of the heavy haulage business and rich pricks taxed on everything at 93% will do for this fruitloop. She does let slip this very scary quote to give some idea of the workings of her so called mind. "What really mattered about this scheme was that is was fair to New Zealanders and effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Throughout the negotiation process we have kept this at the forefront of our minds. If we don't get these things right, the huge wealth transfers that the ETS creates will be both unfair and ineffectual," says Fitzsimons.
Bloody fairness mentioned twice. Get over it lady - life isn't fair. You are a useless waste of space and you, therefore, deserve to get less in all departments than people who are better than you. 'Effective reduction of greenhouse gases' - a futile attempt to achieve the impossible for no purpose - vide supra. And finally 'the huge wealth transfer the ETS creates'. You've finally got something right. Huge transfer of hard earned monies from where it might be usefully employed into a black hole run by people who have repeatedly proven that they couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent.
One statement summing up all the Greens stand for - stupidity.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Told you so
Now don't say you weren't warned. All this 'man is frying the planet with what comes out of the back of supercharged V8s' crap is based on computer models none of which has ever been born out by observed fact. I told you that years ago.
On the day that the Turoa ski field reports its deepest snow base ever (and that is ever, ever not just since we started wrecking the planet) I give you this little ripper of a graph
A little explanation for the dullards and left wing/green politicians perchance?
Orange, purple and red lines are projected temperature rises at various levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere according to the IPCCs precious bloody computer models.
Yellow are projected rises at levels of carbon dioxide emissions agreed to by the lemmings who have signed up to Kyoto. This is also courtesy of the best computer modeling the United Nations can buy.
The blue and green lines are what has actually happened. These are temperatures measured both on the ground and by satellite based infra red sensors.
You will recall that since 2000, the rates at which CO2 emissions and concentrations are increasing have accelerated. Even David Parker could spot from the above very simple graphs that despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there's been no net warming in the 21st century.
And there is more. The polar ice caps aren't melting. Some of the islands in the Canadian Archipelago are surrounded by more ice than they were during the summer of 1980. There will not be a sudden global glut of polar bear hearth rugs.
Rising sea levels? Bangladesh is slated to get smaller as it floods on the back of this creating millions of 'environmental refugees'. Sorry, satellite pics over the years show the land mass increasing and world wide sea levels have decreased over the last two years. I realise that's a bloody nuisance for all those who want to feel good by welcoming a couple of hundred Bangladeshis into their front gardens but them's the breaks.
Meanwhile today we see Dear Leader cuddling up to Kevin Rudderless working out ways of keeping me poor as well as cold by trying to coordinate Australia's and New Zealand's Emission Trading Scams.
Maybe the tide is turning - pun intended. Wake up you dozy buggers. There is no such thing as man made global warming. Never has been and never will be. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has ever been and the planet is currently cooling. It will warm up again sometime - next week, next year, next century - who cares? Nothing you or I can do about it.
I have a message for Helen Clark and The Rudder. Give me my money back; I need it to buy fuel for a 6 litre V12 motor car.
On the day that the Turoa ski field reports its deepest snow base ever (and that is ever, ever not just since we started wrecking the planet) I give you this little ripper of a graph
A little explanation for the dullards and left wing/green politicians perchance?
Orange, purple and red lines are projected temperature rises at various levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere according to the IPCCs precious bloody computer models.
Yellow are projected rises at levels of carbon dioxide emissions agreed to by the lemmings who have signed up to Kyoto. This is also courtesy of the best computer modeling the United Nations can buy.
The blue and green lines are what has actually happened. These are temperatures measured both on the ground and by satellite based infra red sensors.
You will recall that since 2000, the rates at which CO2 emissions and concentrations are increasing have accelerated. Even David Parker could spot from the above very simple graphs that despite accelerating emission rates and concentrations, there's been no net warming in the 21st century.
And there is more. The polar ice caps aren't melting. Some of the islands in the Canadian Archipelago are surrounded by more ice than they were during the summer of 1980. There will not be a sudden global glut of polar bear hearth rugs.
Rising sea levels? Bangladesh is slated to get smaller as it floods on the back of this creating millions of 'environmental refugees'. Sorry, satellite pics over the years show the land mass increasing and world wide sea levels have decreased over the last two years. I realise that's a bloody nuisance for all those who want to feel good by welcoming a couple of hundred Bangladeshis into their front gardens but them's the breaks.
Meanwhile today we see Dear Leader cuddling up to Kevin Rudderless working out ways of keeping me poor as well as cold by trying to coordinate Australia's and New Zealand's Emission Trading Scams.
Maybe the tide is turning - pun intended. Wake up you dozy buggers. There is no such thing as man made global warming. Never has been and never will be. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than there has ever been and the planet is currently cooling. It will warm up again sometime - next week, next year, next century - who cares? Nothing you or I can do about it.
I have a message for Helen Clark and The Rudder. Give me my money back; I need it to buy fuel for a 6 litre V12 motor car.
Monday, August 18, 2008
The key point is...........
........that I have had a gutsful of Peter Montgomery.
I am not immune to events unfolding in Beijing. I have watched a bit. Mrs obald has been much nasally dislocated that Coro has been replaced by the 12m air pistol but even she settled down on the couch on Saturday evening for the much hyped 'Super Saturday'. New Zealand was going to blow away that well known country Michael Phelps on the medals table. Who gives a stuff about a medals table anyway except perhaps China who regard it with the same importance as Germany did in 1936 or The Soviet Union in 1980. The spearhead of this thrust into a cornucopia of medals was to be the rowing. Five finals containing New Zealanders which means we had to put up with five seven minute dollops of the most over rated sports commentator on the planet.
I just cannot see it. PJ Montgomery is held in high regard by his peers. I have a passing acquaintance with one of them who will not hear a bad word uttered against him. Each to his own I suppose but I would prefer to listen to half an hour of someone dragging their finger nails down a blackboard than suffer thirty minutes of the liquid Himalayas man. The key points of my irritation are? Well for starters, the key point. Bloody everything is the key point. But the key point can only be found in the midst of the four hundred word question that requires a two syllable answer. PJ is the past master of the over long question in any interview. 'What is the key point you are looking at as you enter Super Fourteen edition number seven and face the might of the Bulls who, having lost to the Sharks in both 2004 and 2006, are now entering a run of three successive defeats at the hands of either New Zealand or Australian teams this being the case as French and German sides are excluded from the tournament after the ruling by the International Court of Human Rights in the Hague?' 'They are a strong team'.
Get our Pete out of his normal environment (water) and he pines for the sea and all things nautical. He gets togged up in his Drizabone and is sent to perambulate the touchlines at Eden Park. He tends to be very grumpy unless it is raining cats and dogs and then he really perks up. The only thing he can ever talk about during a rugby match is the wind and he likes nothing better than if the ball is being blown off the starboard layline, I mean left upright, by a howling sou'wester. Clown.
And then we have the pre rehearsed spontaneous comment. On Saturday night he was determined that his 'The America's Cup is now New Zealand's Cup' moment was going to be 'Black to Gold'. Drysdale stuffed this up royally for him by coming third. 'And it's 'Black to Bronze'. Terrific, Pete. Well he is nothing if not thick skinned and so he was going to use it somewhere in the evening. Enter the twins. Here we have another key Montgomery trait. A total lack of accuracy. In the closing stages of a thrilling race he had the Evers-Swindells in the lead when they weren't. When the finish eventually came he totally stuffed it up by reading the lane numbers out as the result 'Great Britain first, Germany second and New Zealand third'. What a plonker. Then his mate who had not been allowed to get a word in edge ways all evening said. 'I don't think so, Pete - they are going to a photo'. Photo result comes after a mercifully short interval (Rugby could learn a bit here) and PJ cannot resist the screamed 'And its Black to Gold'. The timing of this was now just dreadful and made the comment look even more lame than it was when he first though of it; which was probably about three years ago.
No, if PJ Montgomery is on the case I'm off to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Any sport that has a bit of water in it I will watch with the sound off.
And a couple of passing Olympic notes. How cool is Mr Bolt? And oh how I hope Michael Phelps is real. Look how long it took them to nail Marion Jones and Carl Lewis.
I am not immune to events unfolding in Beijing. I have watched a bit. Mrs obald has been much nasally dislocated that Coro has been replaced by the 12m air pistol but even she settled down on the couch on Saturday evening for the much hyped 'Super Saturday'. New Zealand was going to blow away that well known country Michael Phelps on the medals table. Who gives a stuff about a medals table anyway except perhaps China who regard it with the same importance as Germany did in 1936 or The Soviet Union in 1980. The spearhead of this thrust into a cornucopia of medals was to be the rowing. Five finals containing New Zealanders which means we had to put up with five seven minute dollops of the most over rated sports commentator on the planet.
I just cannot see it. PJ Montgomery is held in high regard by his peers. I have a passing acquaintance with one of them who will not hear a bad word uttered against him. Each to his own I suppose but I would prefer to listen to half an hour of someone dragging their finger nails down a blackboard than suffer thirty minutes of the liquid Himalayas man. The key points of my irritation are? Well for starters, the key point. Bloody everything is the key point. But the key point can only be found in the midst of the four hundred word question that requires a two syllable answer. PJ is the past master of the over long question in any interview. 'What is the key point you are looking at as you enter Super Fourteen edition number seven and face the might of the Bulls who, having lost to the Sharks in both 2004 and 2006, are now entering a run of three successive defeats at the hands of either New Zealand or Australian teams this being the case as French and German sides are excluded from the tournament after the ruling by the International Court of Human Rights in the Hague?' 'They are a strong team'.
Get our Pete out of his normal environment (water) and he pines for the sea and all things nautical. He gets togged up in his Drizabone and is sent to perambulate the touchlines at Eden Park. He tends to be very grumpy unless it is raining cats and dogs and then he really perks up. The only thing he can ever talk about during a rugby match is the wind and he likes nothing better than if the ball is being blown off the starboard layline, I mean left upright, by a howling sou'wester. Clown.
And then we have the pre rehearsed spontaneous comment. On Saturday night he was determined that his 'The America's Cup is now New Zealand's Cup' moment was going to be 'Black to Gold'. Drysdale stuffed this up royally for him by coming third. 'And it's 'Black to Bronze'. Terrific, Pete. Well he is nothing if not thick skinned and so he was going to use it somewhere in the evening. Enter the twins. Here we have another key Montgomery trait. A total lack of accuracy. In the closing stages of a thrilling race he had the Evers-Swindells in the lead when they weren't. When the finish eventually came he totally stuffed it up by reading the lane numbers out as the result 'Great Britain first, Germany second and New Zealand third'. What a plonker. Then his mate who had not been allowed to get a word in edge ways all evening said. 'I don't think so, Pete - they are going to a photo'. Photo result comes after a mercifully short interval (Rugby could learn a bit here) and PJ cannot resist the screamed 'And its Black to Gold'. The timing of this was now just dreadful and made the comment look even more lame than it was when he first though of it; which was probably about three years ago.
No, if PJ Montgomery is on the case I'm off to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Any sport that has a bit of water in it I will watch with the sound off.
And a couple of passing Olympic notes. How cool is Mr Bolt? And oh how I hope Michael Phelps is real. Look how long it took them to nail Marion Jones and Carl Lewis.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The new Godless religion
I haven't felt the urge to put finger to keyboard this last week. The wretches in Wellington are boring the pants off me. It is patently obvious to anyone who cares to look that the only reason the occupants of Parliament are there is to ensure that they continue in place. The country is being run by a pack of negligibly trained academics trying to do a job that is patently way beyond their collective abilities. We have to have an election within the next three months and any pretense of trying to stuff up the country in the guise of governing it now take back seat to retaining power. A pox on the lot of them.
I was wandering around the web this evening looking for something that might stimulate the mind for a minute or two. Looking on 'TradeMe' for tractor counter weights might be essential work for when the Shibaura can eventually peek out of its shed but it is hardly mental calisthenics is it? But then I stumbled (quite literally - I'm really not sure how I got there) upon a piece that has made the evening worthwhile
I have long realised the global warming crap is just that; crap. That any of the so called arguments are devoid of any vestige of scientific method and rigour is as plain as the nose on your face. I thought the whole thing had morphed into a political movement. I was right but that is only the partial truth. It is a religion.
I encourage you to read the essay to be found by following this link.
Global Warming as Religion not Science
It is written by a bloke I have never heard of called John Brignell who would appear to be a Pom. Be warned it is not short (it will take you about twenty minutes to read properly - I slowed down from my usual skim reading and not many pieces get that sort of attention) but it is well worth the effort. I won't steal any of Mr Brignell's thunder by quoting extracts; just read it.
Very good - I can retire to my litter feeling mentally better for having done a few one armed cerebral press ups.
But I still haven't found any tractor weights.
I was wandering around the web this evening looking for something that might stimulate the mind for a minute or two. Looking on 'TradeMe' for tractor counter weights might be essential work for when the Shibaura can eventually peek out of its shed but it is hardly mental calisthenics is it? But then I stumbled (quite literally - I'm really not sure how I got there) upon a piece that has made the evening worthwhile
I have long realised the global warming crap is just that; crap. That any of the so called arguments are devoid of any vestige of scientific method and rigour is as plain as the nose on your face. I thought the whole thing had morphed into a political movement. I was right but that is only the partial truth. It is a religion.
I encourage you to read the essay to be found by following this link.
Global Warming as Religion not Science
It is written by a bloke I have never heard of called John Brignell who would appear to be a Pom. Be warned it is not short (it will take you about twenty minutes to read properly - I slowed down from my usual skim reading and not many pieces get that sort of attention) but it is well worth the effort. I won't steal any of Mr Brignell's thunder by quoting extracts; just read it.
Very good - I can retire to my litter feeling mentally better for having done a few one armed cerebral press ups.
But I still haven't found any tractor weights.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
This almost passed me by
I no longer get the Herald at Marmite soldier time and my reading of this waste of trees is now somewhat erratic. Didn't glance at it at all yesterday. Or so I thought when I picked up what I thought was today's edition only to find myself wading through Monday stuff. The cunning ratbags have stopped colouring the Green Pages and so I tripped unwarned over an item about an American Walking evangelist.
This has every ingredient a looney left weird beard story could hope for - you couldn't have made it up better. This nutter (a walking guru, no less) is pictured striding down Auckland's streets clad in one of those jackets that has a million external pockets telling the world you are either a wannabe fly fisher or a very keen photographer. To be fair I think he was the latter in an earlier life. He is accompanied by his wife who looks very earnest and tofu powered shod in sensible shoes. Fruitloop has been bought to NZ by Land Transport New Zealand to lead seminars and address the national Walking Conference in Auckland next week. We have a national Walking Conference? I bet that's a thrill a minute. Seminars on the relative merits of starting a stroll with the left or the right foot. Breakout session on blisters. The trade exhibition with vast selections of shoelaces. Can't wait.
I'll quote a few things this bloke has already said mainly when speaking to the Waitakere Council - what a surprise. They are in no particular order and I don't know which of them is the most stupid.
"I personally am delighted with the price of oil - I couldn't be happier." I fail to see how anyone can say that. Oil (and all forms of power come to think of it) should be free for God's sake.
"Cars made things so easy in the early days that we didn't focus on rebuilding our cities, so only now are we beginning to realise how important that focus is." Now that doesn't even make any sense from a grammatical point of view let alone being totally unfathomable. First motor car was built in about 1905 or so and I'm pretty sure man had some pretty sizable conurbations by then.
"I think we are going to have Victory gardens, and people saying: I'll start with one day a week without the car, within a month go to two days without it and then, by the third month, I'll figure out some shift in my lifestyle where the car is now the luxury - it's not the necessity."
So he's really lost it. Victory gardnes? My Dad used to tell me about these. Featured in the same stories were gas masks an Anderton Shelters. A day a week without a car? Well you can sod off, sunshine. If you think I am walking from Dairy Flat to Takapuna once a week you can think again. And regarding a 390 bhp supercharged 4 litre V8 as anything less than one of life's essentials is the sort of thinking that gets you taken away by the men in the white coats.
Anyway there is loads more of this tosh but the general thrust is that we should all give up our cars, walk everywhere, become healthier, happier and the planet will be saved as a by product. This is coming from an American for heaven's sake. Have you been to America? You could no more use a pair of stout boots as your primary mode of transport than he could have walked from Seattle to Auckland - there's the small matter of the Pacific Ocean in the way if you care to consult a map. All American shopping now happens in malls about twenty miles out of the towns and these shopping paradises are surrounded by car parks the size of a small country. In case you hadn't noticed, Mr American Fruitloop, your mob lives in their cars.
So we have to put up with being lectured by some Septic who has been flown here in a gas guzzling 747 at my expense (he's being bankrolled by tax payer money) on how we should start walking everywhere. I don't think so.
I would suggest Mr Looney Walkalot walks to Cape Reinga and just keeps going.
This has every ingredient a looney left weird beard story could hope for - you couldn't have made it up better. This nutter (a walking guru, no less) is pictured striding down Auckland's streets clad in one of those jackets that has a million external pockets telling the world you are either a wannabe fly fisher or a very keen photographer. To be fair I think he was the latter in an earlier life. He is accompanied by his wife who looks very earnest and tofu powered shod in sensible shoes. Fruitloop has been bought to NZ by Land Transport New Zealand to lead seminars and address the national Walking Conference in Auckland next week. We have a national Walking Conference? I bet that's a thrill a minute. Seminars on the relative merits of starting a stroll with the left or the right foot. Breakout session on blisters. The trade exhibition with vast selections of shoelaces. Can't wait.
I'll quote a few things this bloke has already said mainly when speaking to the Waitakere Council - what a surprise. They are in no particular order and I don't know which of them is the most stupid.
"I personally am delighted with the price of oil - I couldn't be happier." I fail to see how anyone can say that. Oil (and all forms of power come to think of it) should be free for God's sake.
"Cars made things so easy in the early days that we didn't focus on rebuilding our cities, so only now are we beginning to realise how important that focus is." Now that doesn't even make any sense from a grammatical point of view let alone being totally unfathomable. First motor car was built in about 1905 or so and I'm pretty sure man had some pretty sizable conurbations by then.
"I think we are going to have Victory gardens, and people saying: I'll start with one day a week without the car, within a month go to two days without it and then, by the third month, I'll figure out some shift in my lifestyle where the car is now the luxury - it's not the necessity."
So he's really lost it. Victory gardnes? My Dad used to tell me about these. Featured in the same stories were gas masks an Anderton Shelters. A day a week without a car? Well you can sod off, sunshine. If you think I am walking from Dairy Flat to Takapuna once a week you can think again. And regarding a 390 bhp supercharged 4 litre V8 as anything less than one of life's essentials is the sort of thinking that gets you taken away by the men in the white coats.
Anyway there is loads more of this tosh but the general thrust is that we should all give up our cars, walk everywhere, become healthier, happier and the planet will be saved as a by product. This is coming from an American for heaven's sake. Have you been to America? You could no more use a pair of stout boots as your primary mode of transport than he could have walked from Seattle to Auckland - there's the small matter of the Pacific Ocean in the way if you care to consult a map. All American shopping now happens in malls about twenty miles out of the towns and these shopping paradises are surrounded by car parks the size of a small country. In case you hadn't noticed, Mr American Fruitloop, your mob lives in their cars.
So we have to put up with being lectured by some Septic who has been flown here in a gas guzzling 747 at my expense (he's being bankrolled by tax payer money) on how we should start walking everywhere. I don't think so.
I would suggest Mr Looney Walkalot walks to Cape Reinga and just keeps going.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The ETS - an Aussie view
John Clarke is a very funny man. He has done a whole swag of 'interviews' with Bryan Dawe taking the piss out of many things and top of his hit list is Australian politics. There are many when he was interviewed as John Howard. This, of course, no longer cuts it and he now has to be Kevin Rudd.
This is Kevin explaining the Emissions Trading Scheme. Not a bad effort for a subject that struggles to attain the heights of being a crock.
Clarke and Dawe talk about the carbon scheme
This is Kevin explaining the Emissions Trading Scheme. Not a bad effort for a subject that struggles to attain the heights of being a crock.
Clarke and Dawe talk about the carbon scheme
Saturday, July 26, 2008
As long as three rainy days
Blogs are repositories of opinion and one (read me) has to be careful not to regard them as surrogate newspapers. However on such a dire morning as today has offered up I have found myself persuing indoor pursuits instead of my normal habit at this time of the week, that of ruining a good walk by taking along a set of golf clubs.
Spent a couple of hours finishing off a couple of DVDs a good mate lent me for the weekend. These, I will admit, are an acquired taste being video transcripts of the 25th European Therapeutic Endoscopy Symposium held in Brussels last year. All the megastars were performing making the very difficult look absurdly easy although I was a little disappointed that Horst Neuhaus didn't make the editor's cut. I reckon he is the Renaldo of the endoscopy world at the moment. It is interesting how the megastars whose mastery of skills one aspired to get even close to are no longer invited to these meetings. You become yesterday's man in this field as in any other. John Snow supplants F S Truman, Richie McCAw moves into Michael Jones place and Sergio Garcia replaces Greg Norman. So Paul Fockens gets the invite in front of Nib Soehendra, and a bloke you've never met from Milan sits up the front the plane instead of Jerry Waye. However that is the way of life and even if you are yesterday's man form is temporary and class is permanent. Greg Norman came perilously close to winning the British Open last week and I would still be more than happy having Soehendra fiddling around in my common bile duct.
Having had enough of mainlining therapeutic endoscopy I wasted a wee while in the Blogosphere. I am a regular visitor to Kiwiblog for an acceptable right wing view of the world (David Farrar used to be a Bolger staffer after all) and there is a reasonable synopsis of opinion regarding the farce that is the Peters scandal (and it is no less than that) from newspapaers up and down the land. I think it is just a matter of waiting now as there cannot be much life left in the corpse of Peters' political career surely. He is acting true to form with bluster, aggressive name calling and ridicule but I can't see it washing this time. Picking a fight with Bob Jones was not a good move. Sir Robert has this morning accused Winston of blatant lying. Hard to come back from that and I can't see Peters using the courts to sue him as a tactic this time.
OK the next place to go for a bit of right wing bile and vitriol is Whaleoil's place. Cultured and civilsed this blog is not. Slater will punch your lights out and then ask questions of the remains. Good enjoyable stuff and I go back on a regular basis because his dislike of the left borders on rabid hatred even more than mine does - just. Mr W is very good with the little pisstake videos and has been known to turn his hand to using one of Adobe's products. I am grateful to the large marine mammal for the following picture. Not his best Photoshop effort from a technical point of view but it is brilliant.
If you don't understand it you are far too young.
Spent a couple of hours finishing off a couple of DVDs a good mate lent me for the weekend. These, I will admit, are an acquired taste being video transcripts of the 25th European Therapeutic Endoscopy Symposium held in Brussels last year. All the megastars were performing making the very difficult look absurdly easy although I was a little disappointed that Horst Neuhaus didn't make the editor's cut. I reckon he is the Renaldo of the endoscopy world at the moment. It is interesting how the megastars whose mastery of skills one aspired to get even close to are no longer invited to these meetings. You become yesterday's man in this field as in any other. John Snow supplants F S Truman, Richie McCAw moves into Michael Jones place and Sergio Garcia replaces Greg Norman. So Paul Fockens gets the invite in front of Nib Soehendra, and a bloke you've never met from Milan sits up the front the plane instead of Jerry Waye. However that is the way of life and even if you are yesterday's man form is temporary and class is permanent. Greg Norman came perilously close to winning the British Open last week and I would still be more than happy having Soehendra fiddling around in my common bile duct.
Having had enough of mainlining therapeutic endoscopy I wasted a wee while in the Blogosphere. I am a regular visitor to Kiwiblog for an acceptable right wing view of the world (David Farrar used to be a Bolger staffer after all) and there is a reasonable synopsis of opinion regarding the farce that is the Peters scandal (and it is no less than that) from newspapaers up and down the land. I think it is just a matter of waiting now as there cannot be much life left in the corpse of Peters' political career surely. He is acting true to form with bluster, aggressive name calling and ridicule but I can't see it washing this time. Picking a fight with Bob Jones was not a good move. Sir Robert has this morning accused Winston of blatant lying. Hard to come back from that and I can't see Peters using the courts to sue him as a tactic this time.
OK the next place to go for a bit of right wing bile and vitriol is Whaleoil's place. Cultured and civilsed this blog is not. Slater will punch your lights out and then ask questions of the remains. Good enjoyable stuff and I go back on a regular basis because his dislike of the left borders on rabid hatred even more than mine does - just. Mr W is very good with the little pisstake videos and has been known to turn his hand to using one of Adobe's products. I am grateful to the large marine mammal for the following picture. Not his best Photoshop effort from a technical point of view but it is brilliant.
If you don't understand it you are far too young.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
This is starting to annoy me
This damned Peters stuff.
He is defiant in the face of all the evidence. He is still calling for Audrey Young and the Editor of the Herald to resign. He is still saying that he will hold the balance of power after the next election. He is still standing up in front of the sycophantic faithful at his party conference celebrating fifteen glorious years of his joke political party.
Why is he still around? Why are there no calls for his resignation so bloody loud that they will penetrate even his thick hide. The man has no conscience at all. It is totally untenable that he is still doing what he is doing. As for holding the balance of power in the government of a sovereign country - well you have to be joking.
New Zealand must be the only country in the world that would tolerate this sort of joker. He must go. We as the great unwashed cannot allow him to remain in office or allow him to remain in a position where he may get some more of the same. I am not sure how we are to go about this. The main stream media could grow a backbone for starters and really put the heat on him. Sod this 'Mum has just died' crap. He chose to bring this into the forefront right now, he chose to attend his party conference. He has made his bed let him lie in it and it is our duty to make sure he falls out of it toute de suite. The whole thing is rotten to the bloody core.
Grrrrrrr.
He is defiant in the face of all the evidence. He is still calling for Audrey Young and the Editor of the Herald to resign. He is still saying that he will hold the balance of power after the next election. He is still standing up in front of the sycophantic faithful at his party conference celebrating fifteen glorious years of his joke political party.
Why is he still around? Why are there no calls for his resignation so bloody loud that they will penetrate even his thick hide. The man has no conscience at all. It is totally untenable that he is still doing what he is doing. As for holding the balance of power in the government of a sovereign country - well you have to be joking.
New Zealand must be the only country in the world that would tolerate this sort of joker. He must go. We as the great unwashed cannot allow him to remain in office or allow him to remain in a position where he may get some more of the same. I am not sure how we are to go about this. The main stream media could grow a backbone for starters and really put the heat on him. Sod this 'Mum has just died' crap. He chose to bring this into the forefront right now, he chose to attend his party conference. He has made his bed let him lie in it and it is our duty to make sure he falls out of it toute de suite. The whole thing is rotten to the bloody core.
Grrrrrrr.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Beyond belief
Winston Peters is standing up at the trotting track and telling the world that he has not told any untruths, he has not misled anyone and he only knew about the small sum of $100,000 falling into an account a little bit connected to him yesterday evening an hour or so after his Mum died.
I don't think you will ever be able to prove that he is telling anything but the truth but I don't believe him. I think he is lying at such a rate of knots that you wouldn't be able to keep up with him in a DB9.
To believe him you would have to believe not one but all of the statements so eloquently laid out by David Farrar in Kiwiblog this afternoon. I can do no better than him and reproduce the sixteen statements he set out in their entirety:
If that wasn't bad enough the stance Dear Leader is taking over it is, if anything, worse. She of transparency in government, she who forced the Electoral Finance Act upon us to keep secret money out of politics, she who demoted another of her Ministers (Pond Scum) for biffing Tau, she who told yet another Minister (Ruth Dyson) to stand on the naughty mat when she was caught DIC, she who dealt to Benson Dope for lying like a flat fish is saying this Winston stuff has nothing to do with her. Her be-baubled Foreign Minister, for God's sake, is caught behaving in the most deplorable way imaginable and it is nothing to do with her?
The whole affair is so sordid it is quite beyond belief that it is happening. There should be a swag of resignations and a general election smartish.
There will be neither of course.
I don't think you will ever be able to prove that he is telling anything but the truth but I don't believe him. I think he is lying at such a rate of knots that you wouldn't be able to keep up with him in a DB9.
To believe him you would have to believe not one but all of the statements so eloquently laid out by David Farrar in Kiwiblog this afternoon. I can do no better than him and reproduce the sixteen statements he set out in their entirety:
- Owen Glenn found out about the “Legal Expenses Fund” from someone other than Winston Peters.
- Glenn found this out despite almost no one who actually lives in New Zealand knowing about it.
- Glenn chose on his own whim to donate to the Legal Expenses Fund rather than NZ First.
- Glenn never ever mentioned to Winston Peters he had donated or intended to donate to his legal expenses fund. Glenn is of course known as the soul of discretion.
- Glenn managed to get contact details for Brian Henry from someone who is not Winston Peters.
- The fund which has been running since 1991 has raised a total of $200,000 of which the $100,000 donation constitutes half in one swoop, and he never asked nor suspected who the donor was.
- When the media reported Owen Glenn in February 2008 as having donated to another party, Brian Henry never clicked that he was referring to the $100,000 Glenn gave Henry for Peters’ legal fees.
- Winston Peters never thought to check if the large $100,000 donation his lawyer had received could be the donation being referred to by Owen Glenn in February.
- Brian Henry let Winston go into a press conference and deny that NZ First had received any money at all from Owen Glenn - not even a dollar, and did not feel he had an ethical, moral or professional duty to tell him of the personal donation to Peters’ legal expenses
- That Brian Henry was aware the Winston Peters was considering appointing Owen Glenn as Consul to Monaco, and did not think the fact Glenn had donated $100,000 to Peters’ legal expenses was something that should be disclosed.
- After the NZ Herald on 12 July printed the e-mail from Owen Glenn, Brian Henry still said nothing to Peters despite it being glaringly obvious what he was referring to.
- There was some legitimate reason Winston Peters did not do the obvious when the e-mail was printed and contact Owen Glenn to ask him if the e-mail was real, and what the hell he was on about?
- That Winston Peters never wondered why Steve Fisher was so desperate to make sure Owen Glenn did not contradict what Peters said?
- Even after Brian Henry saw Winston denying everything, claiming the e-mail is fabricated and calling Audrey Young a liar, he still didn’t think he needed to urgently inform Winston that the e-mail was correct (from Glenn’s perspective)
- That during all this time, Winston Peters never wondered if the mystery $100,000 donation for his legal fees could be from Owen Glenn, and that it all came as a total surprise.
- It took Brian Henry seven days to manage to talk to his close personal friend and long standing client, to let him know that he had information which verified the e-mail in the Herald.
If that wasn't bad enough the stance Dear Leader is taking over it is, if anything, worse. She of transparency in government, she who forced the Electoral Finance Act upon us to keep secret money out of politics, she who demoted another of her Ministers (Pond Scum) for biffing Tau, she who told yet another Minister (Ruth Dyson) to stand on the naughty mat when she was caught DIC, she who dealt to Benson Dope for lying like a flat fish is saying this Winston stuff has nothing to do with her. Her be-baubled Foreign Minister, for God's sake, is caught behaving in the most deplorable way imaginable and it is nothing to do with her?
The whole affair is so sordid it is quite beyond belief that it is happening. There should be a swag of resignations and a general election smartish.
There will be neither of course.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Columbine Aoteoroa
I am not making this up.
I was listening to the electric wireless this evening and Plod was being interviewed about his advising schools as to how they should be drawing up risk management plans for, wait for it, attacks from people with automatic weapons. I checked the date. April 1st was months ago. This idiot appeared to be serious. There were two parts to this lunacy. The risk management bit and the planning for the grief counseling that had to attend the aftermath of this fictional armageddon.
This is absolutely typical of the route this increasingly daft country seems bent on taking. Think of any scenario, the more unlikely but catastrophic the better, and then construct a 543 page Policy Manual that details how to deal with it. Compliance with this bureaucratic tome is then mandatory and all minions have to go to annual workshops to ensure they are familiar with correct procedure. The workshops will be run by earnest types wearing bone pendants who will be drawing a salary out of my taxes.
Ask yourself; what are the chances of someone running amuck with an AK47 in New Zealand? Well, they are not zero but they are as close as makes no difference. We no more need contingency plans for this than we do for an attack by Martians, mass fatalities from inhaling small fish or schools being overrun by plagues of locusts.
By complete coincidence (and this is true, I promise you) Random Selection on iTunes is playing Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds' as I type.
Maybe I am wrong.
I was listening to the electric wireless this evening and Plod was being interviewed about his advising schools as to how they should be drawing up risk management plans for, wait for it, attacks from people with automatic weapons. I checked the date. April 1st was months ago. This idiot appeared to be serious. There were two parts to this lunacy. The risk management bit and the planning for the grief counseling that had to attend the aftermath of this fictional armageddon.
This is absolutely typical of the route this increasingly daft country seems bent on taking. Think of any scenario, the more unlikely but catastrophic the better, and then construct a 543 page Policy Manual that details how to deal with it. Compliance with this bureaucratic tome is then mandatory and all minions have to go to annual workshops to ensure they are familiar with correct procedure. The workshops will be run by earnest types wearing bone pendants who will be drawing a salary out of my taxes.
Ask yourself; what are the chances of someone running amuck with an AK47 in New Zealand? Well, they are not zero but they are as close as makes no difference. We no more need contingency plans for this than we do for an attack by Martians, mass fatalities from inhaling small fish or schools being overrun by plagues of locusts.
By complete coincidence (and this is true, I promise you) Random Selection on iTunes is playing Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds' as I type.
Maybe I am wrong.
Dead animals
Lion Nathan has been forced to pull a beer advert because it showed a real live dead deer (if you get my drift) being barbecued. Apparently they went to a deer farm (smart these advertising johnnies) and got a time expired deer that was destined for the works anyway and hijacked it. They then shoved a metal pole up its jacksie (as is required) and cooked it on camera. The ad was destined for Orstralia to promote Tooheys New whose logo is a stag. All good. Some blokes standing round a barbie supping a few coldies, talking BS and ensuring bambi is cooked to perfection prior to eating it. That's what you do. If you want to sell beer to men who might like a gobful of venison hot off the grill now and then I would think the above plot for an advert would have sales going through the roof. Spice it up with half a dozen scantily clad maidens handing out the knives and forks, get a few power tools lying around on the ground, a couple of fishing rods leaning up against the shed, a red V8 in the drive, the footy on a big screen telly and Robert is your aunty's husband.
Not so fast. Some interfering dick head got hold of this and complained. What did Lion Nathan do? Tell the complainant to leave the building and help himself to some sexual gratification on the way out? No, the lilly livered wet blankets instigated an 'internal investigation' which found that its production company had 'failed to source the deer correctly'. How the hell else do you correctly source a piece of meat for a barbie other than go to a deer farm and buy an old stag which has 'Go to the knackers yard, do not pass go, do not collect $200' stamped on it? Perhaps they would have preferred they hired an Apache attack helicopter and shot it it with automatic cannon fire? Perhaps torpedo it as it forded a river? Nuke it with an ICBM? No I'm sure they would have preferred the advertisers went to Woolworth's and bought some barbecue fare there. And all the meat in the supermarket wasn't once alive I suppose.
What they would really like, of course, would be for the blokes around the barbie to look up from their crochet to see if their nut cutlets were done el dente. Pillocks.
Lion Nathan then complete their totally spineless display by issuing a statement saying their actions were 'insensitive and inconsistent with company guidelines on the treatment of animals'. What a load of bollocks. Who believes a brewing company has a set of 'company guidelines on the treatment of animals' in the first place? Does Telecom have company guidelines on the treatment of amphibians? Does Ford expect its employees to follow company guidelines on the treatment of yellow eyed penguins? Does Cunard have regular disciplinary hearings for matelots who disregard the company rules covering the treatment of foie gras?
If I drank beer I would instantly boycott all Lion Nathan products because they are a bunch of molluscs who have caved in to a bunch of stupid weird beards. Men drink beer and eat dead animals - what the hell is the problem with that?
Not so fast. Some interfering dick head got hold of this and complained. What did Lion Nathan do? Tell the complainant to leave the building and help himself to some sexual gratification on the way out? No, the lilly livered wet blankets instigated an 'internal investigation' which found that its production company had 'failed to source the deer correctly'. How the hell else do you correctly source a piece of meat for a barbie other than go to a deer farm and buy an old stag which has 'Go to the knackers yard, do not pass go, do not collect $200' stamped on it? Perhaps they would have preferred they hired an Apache attack helicopter and shot it it with automatic cannon fire? Perhaps torpedo it as it forded a river? Nuke it with an ICBM? No I'm sure they would have preferred the advertisers went to Woolworth's and bought some barbecue fare there. And all the meat in the supermarket wasn't once alive I suppose.
What they would really like, of course, would be for the blokes around the barbie to look up from their crochet to see if their nut cutlets were done el dente. Pillocks.
Lion Nathan then complete their totally spineless display by issuing a statement saying their actions were 'insensitive and inconsistent with company guidelines on the treatment of animals'. What a load of bollocks. Who believes a brewing company has a set of 'company guidelines on the treatment of animals' in the first place? Does Telecom have company guidelines on the treatment of amphibians? Does Ford expect its employees to follow company guidelines on the treatment of yellow eyed penguins? Does Cunard have regular disciplinary hearings for matelots who disregard the company rules covering the treatment of foie gras?
If I drank beer I would instantly boycott all Lion Nathan products because they are a bunch of molluscs who have caved in to a bunch of stupid weird beards. Men drink beer and eat dead animals - what the hell is the problem with that?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The Jacket
It is almost beyond belief that Rodney's jacket is getting the press it is and Rodney must be loving every minute of it. I think the vestment looks pretty sharp especially now that Mr Hide is sporting his new athletic persona. He would have looked totally absurd in it had he been in 2005 mode.
There are two attacks on the the jacket. One from the head of the Newmarket Traders or something who says it is hideous and is wrecking Newmarket's reputation as fashion capital of New Zealand. This is absurd on two fronts. New Zealand doesn't have a fashion capital although Te Awamutu could put in a claim as it probably has the largest concentration of Swanndris in the land. And who the hell is a Fashion Nazi in Newmarket to tell the rest of us what is hideous and what is not. And if something looks hideous just ignore it - don't ban it. If Rodney wants to walk around looking like a banana, who cares?
Even more absurd than some bloke in Newmarket getting nasally dislocated on fashion grounds is the idea that the jacket breaches the Electoral Finance Act. All this because he has an ACT logo on the breast pocket. All good in some ways I suppose as it demonstrates to even the terminally slow that the EFA is just the most absurd law ever foisted upon this country. The paranoid denizens of the ninth floor have cobbled together a vindictive, vicious, nasty bill to protect their own sorry backsides and it is being shown to be the absurdity it really is by the day. I'm sure even they never intended the mendacious legislation to cover sports coats but this is what you get when you get incompetent legislation drafters to do their work with unbecoming haste.
And the beneficiary of all this unexpected publicity is of course Rodney - who is laudably one of the Act's most vocal detractors.
There are two attacks on the the jacket. One from the head of the Newmarket Traders or something who says it is hideous and is wrecking Newmarket's reputation as fashion capital of New Zealand. This is absurd on two fronts. New Zealand doesn't have a fashion capital although Te Awamutu could put in a claim as it probably has the largest concentration of Swanndris in the land. And who the hell is a Fashion Nazi in Newmarket to tell the rest of us what is hideous and what is not. And if something looks hideous just ignore it - don't ban it. If Rodney wants to walk around looking like a banana, who cares?
Even more absurd than some bloke in Newmarket getting nasally dislocated on fashion grounds is the idea that the jacket breaches the Electoral Finance Act. All this because he has an ACT logo on the breast pocket. All good in some ways I suppose as it demonstrates to even the terminally slow that the EFA is just the most absurd law ever foisted upon this country. The paranoid denizens of the ninth floor have cobbled together a vindictive, vicious, nasty bill to protect their own sorry backsides and it is being shown to be the absurdity it really is by the day. I'm sure even they never intended the mendacious legislation to cover sports coats but this is what you get when you get incompetent legislation drafters to do their work with unbecoming haste.
And the beneficiary of all this unexpected publicity is of course Rodney - who is laudably one of the Act's most vocal detractors.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Pathetic
If it wasn't so pathetic you could regard it as amusing. Dear Leader summonsed all the lickspittles to an all day caucus meeting yesterday to discuss where they might go from here. Waste of time really as the only place they are going is down the dunnie and good riddance to the lot of them. The last one they had of these the media made great play of their all arriving in the new flash 7 series BMWs that you and I bought them. SWMBO deemed this not a good look and they were all told to walk to the meeting yesterday.
So we are treated to a charade as they troop into the meeting. One by one when they were asked why they were walking (or in Mallard's case cycling) to work they lied like flat fish. 'It's such a nice day (in Wellington?) that I thought I might go for a stroll'. 'It's time to get a bit more exercise'. 'I always walk short distances up hill whenever I get the opportunity' and other such tosh. Not one was up front and honest and admitted through gritted teeth on the brink of left ventricular failure 'I'm bloody walking up a sodding hill in a Wellington southerly in full view of the nation's press because that damned woman told me if I dared set foot in the beemer she would break my legs.'
So we are treated to a charade as they troop into the meeting. One by one when they were asked why they were walking (or in Mallard's case cycling) to work they lied like flat fish. 'It's such a nice day (in Wellington?) that I thought I might go for a stroll'. 'It's time to get a bit more exercise'. 'I always walk short distances up hill whenever I get the opportunity' and other such tosh. Not one was up front and honest and admitted through gritted teeth on the brink of left ventricular failure 'I'm bloody walking up a sodding hill in a Wellington southerly in full view of the nation's press because that damned woman told me if I dared set foot in the beemer she would break my legs.'
Thursday, July 3, 2008
They just don't get it, do they?
Or maybe they do. Maybe they have had enough of being the Government and want out as they certainly seem to be behaving as the Government with a death wish.
The Dental Nurse showed us all yesterday her 'Graduation with Honours' certificate from the Michael Cullen Arrogant Ratbag Academy. Her behaviour is beyond belief until you realise from what base this comes. She is a person who has no relevant training at all for the jobs she does and is in position only because of her slavish adherence to a flawed ideology. Anyone with an ounce of commonsense (and don't forget she is the patron saint of this commodity so lacking in her own behaviour) could have worked out that now was not such a flash time to increase the cost of running a truck. So we are off to a good start. Now how can we make this less palatable? I know we'll announce it is coming into force in eight hours time - that'll really piss people off. So far so good. She has the truckies in Gallic mood with plans to park the semi trailers all over the major conurbations tomorrow. If I had a big rig I would be right there with them.
Then this morning we see how she managed to get the oak leaf clusters on her Arrogance Medal. She is 'outraged' that the truckies would have the temerity to even contemplate such action. How dare they argue with her? She is a Government Minister. She can do what she likes, when she likes and with accountability to no one. She had the fact that she is supposed to be an elected representative beaten out of her with the Clark stick long ago. According to training she starts of with typical politician's weasel words. She did not promise to give the industry a month's warning of any future increase she only said she would introduce (not pass) legislation that would allow her to give a month's notice. Unfortunately (Tui ad) this increase came along before she had the opportunity so to do. Had the trucking firms had such notice they would have all gone out and bought their mileage at the cheaper rate - and that would never do would it?
She amplifies and explains her 'outrage' with these words "If trucking companies disrupt the travel plans of motorists and other commuters on Friday morning, as they threaten, the only people who suffer will be all those New Zealanders who pay their fair share of roading costs through petrol excise duty." If there is any truck driver who drives his vehicle tax free would he please make him self known to the class. She also glosses over the small matter of the massive increases in GST the gummint has garnered in recently due to the price of fuel going through the roof. If she needs more dosh she can have that.
As an aside have you noted how the phrase 'New Zealander' is used by the wastrels in Wellington. It is slipped into a statement when the user wants to identify with the man in the street in a sympathetic way. 'Ordinary New Zealanders' is a slightly more refined and more meritorious sub species. The Mongrel Mob are never referred to as a group of New Zealanders (which they are) are they? Nor yet boy racers, serial rapists or fraudsters.
Hell, Amalgam Girl is hideous - but I suppose no more so than the rest of her colleagues who are currently wrecking this country.
The Dental Nurse showed us all yesterday her 'Graduation with Honours' certificate from the Michael Cullen Arrogant Ratbag Academy. Her behaviour is beyond belief until you realise from what base this comes. She is a person who has no relevant training at all for the jobs she does and is in position only because of her slavish adherence to a flawed ideology. Anyone with an ounce of commonsense (and don't forget she is the patron saint of this commodity so lacking in her own behaviour) could have worked out that now was not such a flash time to increase the cost of running a truck. So we are off to a good start. Now how can we make this less palatable? I know we'll announce it is coming into force in eight hours time - that'll really piss people off. So far so good. She has the truckies in Gallic mood with plans to park the semi trailers all over the major conurbations tomorrow. If I had a big rig I would be right there with them.
Then this morning we see how she managed to get the oak leaf clusters on her Arrogance Medal. She is 'outraged' that the truckies would have the temerity to even contemplate such action. How dare they argue with her? She is a Government Minister. She can do what she likes, when she likes and with accountability to no one. She had the fact that she is supposed to be an elected representative beaten out of her with the Clark stick long ago. According to training she starts of with typical politician's weasel words. She did not promise to give the industry a month's warning of any future increase she only said she would introduce (not pass) legislation that would allow her to give a month's notice. Unfortunately (Tui ad) this increase came along before she had the opportunity so to do. Had the trucking firms had such notice they would have all gone out and bought their mileage at the cheaper rate - and that would never do would it?
She amplifies and explains her 'outrage' with these words "If trucking companies disrupt the travel plans of motorists and other commuters on Friday morning, as they threaten, the only people who suffer will be all those New Zealanders who pay their fair share of roading costs through petrol excise duty." If there is any truck driver who drives his vehicle tax free would he please make him self known to the class. She also glosses over the small matter of the massive increases in GST the gummint has garnered in recently due to the price of fuel going through the roof. If she needs more dosh she can have that.
As an aside have you noted how the phrase 'New Zealander' is used by the wastrels in Wellington. It is slipped into a statement when the user wants to identify with the man in the street in a sympathetic way. 'Ordinary New Zealanders' is a slightly more refined and more meritorious sub species. The Mongrel Mob are never referred to as a group of New Zealanders (which they are) are they? Nor yet boy racers, serial rapists or fraudsters.
Hell, Amalgam Girl is hideous - but I suppose no more so than the rest of her colleagues who are currently wrecking this country.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Lunatics in charge of the asylum
Now I know that we are but a piece of spindrift caught up in the maelstrom of global financial woes (just heard a very, and I mean very, scary report on matters money from the US on the radio driving in just now) but we must make an effort surely. There is ample new evidence, if it were needed, that this country is being run by people who shouldn't be in charge of a corner dairy.
Where shall we start. Sue Kedgely is as bad a place as any. The food Nazis have told school tuck shops that they must stock tofuburgers, nut cutlets and carrots because they are healthy and the gummint can only allow kids to eat healthy food. The students at a school in Wellington have not surprisingly voted with their feet and are buying their pies and coke at a local dairy. Economic reality check for the communist ratbags coming up so pay attention. Tuck shop closes and local dairy owner orders an expensive German motor car. Kedgley gets the hand wringing into overdrive and says this is all wrong and isn't it terrible that tuck shops are being driven by profit and not the good of the nation. Well, get over it lady that is how the world goes round. The real world that is, not the looney tunes planet you inhabit.
Jim Bolger. How the hell does he pretend that he was once a National Prime Minister? Maybe the bloke who ran the ninth floor ten years ago was his as yet unmasked identical twin. Maybe the bloke who sold the railways isn't the same bloke who was watching Dear Leader cut the ribbon yesterday prior to announcing that Jim was to be new Chairman of KiwiRail. This after he accepted chairmanship of KiwiBank some years back. Presumably he will further feather his unprincipled nest in the future by becoming chairman of KiwiRoad, KiwiMilk and KiwiSheep in quick succession. OK, so the chap is a Richard Cranium and it is timely that we are reminded of the dog of a bargain History Boy has given him to run. The railways were worth about $400 mil and we paid $600 mil for them remember. To add to this folly we are now told that Jim will be overseeing the spending of near double this to make sure the purchase is viable. Meanwhile Dear Leader slips in the little gem that the Government 'had to' buy the railways back because they could not have survived without government money input. Economic reality check number two coming up. If a financial undertaking is shunned by real people spending real money that they actually have responsibility for does that not tell you something about the wisdom of getting involved in it? In other words, you stupid woman, you don't touch it. You especially don't touch it with my money. I don't want a railway system. I will never use it for my own personal transport and I have no desire to watch a senile old duffer waste my money so that other people don't use it either.
Amalgam Girl. On the back of all this '19th century railway technology is marvellous' crap the Dental Nurse was standing up and announcing that more money was to be spent on roads. These would also enhance 'opportunities for cycling and walking'. Opportunities are great things to provide as if nothing actually happens it is not the providers fault. 'You were given (note the impression of a free gift here) the opportunity and it is your fault (ungrateful toad) that you didn't take it and walk from Dairy Flat to Takapuna to go to work'. It is therefore your fault that the world is a hotter place and there is not a godwit to be seen. This cornucopia of opportunity is made possible by a) taking more money off us in previously unannounced road user charges increases (the road hauliers are over the moon about this) and b) ensuring that this dosh is ring fenced for 'transport' projects. Superficial reading of this would read 'more roads' but the devil is in the detail so look out for it all being diverted to cycle ways. Reality check number three coming up. Don't treat the great unwashed like complete idiots and expect to be able to still be doing so in six months' time.
This country is being run by idiots. They make uncoordinated decisions seemingly on the hoof and couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent. Thank god they are not long for this planet
Where shall we start. Sue Kedgely is as bad a place as any. The food Nazis have told school tuck shops that they must stock tofuburgers, nut cutlets and carrots because they are healthy and the gummint can only allow kids to eat healthy food. The students at a school in Wellington have not surprisingly voted with their feet and are buying their pies and coke at a local dairy. Economic reality check for the communist ratbags coming up so pay attention. Tuck shop closes and local dairy owner orders an expensive German motor car. Kedgley gets the hand wringing into overdrive and says this is all wrong and isn't it terrible that tuck shops are being driven by profit and not the good of the nation. Well, get over it lady that is how the world goes round. The real world that is, not the looney tunes planet you inhabit.
Jim Bolger. How the hell does he pretend that he was once a National Prime Minister? Maybe the bloke who ran the ninth floor ten years ago was his as yet unmasked identical twin. Maybe the bloke who sold the railways isn't the same bloke who was watching Dear Leader cut the ribbon yesterday prior to announcing that Jim was to be new Chairman of KiwiRail. This after he accepted chairmanship of KiwiBank some years back. Presumably he will further feather his unprincipled nest in the future by becoming chairman of KiwiRoad, KiwiMilk and KiwiSheep in quick succession. OK, so the chap is a Richard Cranium and it is timely that we are reminded of the dog of a bargain History Boy has given him to run. The railways were worth about $400 mil and we paid $600 mil for them remember. To add to this folly we are now told that Jim will be overseeing the spending of near double this to make sure the purchase is viable. Meanwhile Dear Leader slips in the little gem that the Government 'had to' buy the railways back because they could not have survived without government money input. Economic reality check number two coming up. If a financial undertaking is shunned by real people spending real money that they actually have responsibility for does that not tell you something about the wisdom of getting involved in it? In other words, you stupid woman, you don't touch it. You especially don't touch it with my money. I don't want a railway system. I will never use it for my own personal transport and I have no desire to watch a senile old duffer waste my money so that other people don't use it either.
Amalgam Girl. On the back of all this '19th century railway technology is marvellous' crap the Dental Nurse was standing up and announcing that more money was to be spent on roads. These would also enhance 'opportunities for cycling and walking'. Opportunities are great things to provide as if nothing actually happens it is not the providers fault. 'You were given (note the impression of a free gift here) the opportunity and it is your fault (ungrateful toad) that you didn't take it and walk from Dairy Flat to Takapuna to go to work'. It is therefore your fault that the world is a hotter place and there is not a godwit to be seen. This cornucopia of opportunity is made possible by a) taking more money off us in previously unannounced road user charges increases (the road hauliers are over the moon about this) and b) ensuring that this dosh is ring fenced for 'transport' projects. Superficial reading of this would read 'more roads' but the devil is in the detail so look out for it all being diverted to cycle ways. Reality check number three coming up. Don't treat the great unwashed like complete idiots and expect to be able to still be doing so in six months' time.
This country is being run by idiots. They make uncoordinated decisions seemingly on the hoof and couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent. Thank god they are not long for this planet
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Lost it - and seriously dangerous
Dear Leader has finally lost her marbles. I have always thought of her as the evil genius of New Zealand politics. Now the genius has gone and she is just plain evil
She has in the last two days made a couple of very telling comments. All pretence that she is still on the planet were lost yesterday when she denied what every public opinion poll has been telling her and everyone else for moths - Labour are down the tubes big time. Three polls have come out in the last few days giving the Nats about a twenty point lead and she stands there Canute like and tells anyone who will listen (and there are fewer and fewer of those by the day) that the figures are wrong. Barking.
If that's the lost it bit, the dangerous bit is her preposterous assertion this morning that there is 'no time' to organise a referendum on the Smacking Nonsense to be held at the same time as the General Election. She is now so deluded that no porkie is too far. Who could possibly believe that crap? The general election is five months away. The Electoral Commission can't have printed the ballot papers yet as they don't know who the candidates are. Putting an extra section on a yet unprinted ballot paper would be easy peasy - after all that is just about the only thing an Electoral Commission does. No, the damned woman can't afford to have this matter hanging around like a bad smell whilst she hopelessly pursues a fourth term in power. If the petition gets the numbers (which by all reports it is going to do) she has to have a vote. But she is allowed to postpone it for a year (God knows why) and she will exercise that power for her own political purpose and nothing more. And the cost of this little indulgence to you and me? $10 million - the cost of organising a stand alone referendum. What she wants is for the smacking nonsense to go away until after the election as she remembers the mauling the issue gave Labour a year ago. This must not be allowed to happen. Her trampling on the will of the people must be kept in the forefront of everyone's minds until she is gone.
It would appear that her only motivation in life now is clinging onto power. This is to be pursued at any cost. All but the blind could see that she stopped listening to the people she is supposed to represent (what a joke - the only thing she represents is herself) ages ago but she has stopped even making a show of trying to do the right thing. The heartening thing is that people seem to be waking up to her.
Her behaviour is beginning to look scarily like that bloke in Africa. What his name? Mu something.
She has in the last two days made a couple of very telling comments. All pretence that she is still on the planet were lost yesterday when she denied what every public opinion poll has been telling her and everyone else for moths - Labour are down the tubes big time. Three polls have come out in the last few days giving the Nats about a twenty point lead and she stands there Canute like and tells anyone who will listen (and there are fewer and fewer of those by the day) that the figures are wrong. Barking.
If that's the lost it bit, the dangerous bit is her preposterous assertion this morning that there is 'no time' to organise a referendum on the Smacking Nonsense to be held at the same time as the General Election. She is now so deluded that no porkie is too far. Who could possibly believe that crap? The general election is five months away. The Electoral Commission can't have printed the ballot papers yet as they don't know who the candidates are. Putting an extra section on a yet unprinted ballot paper would be easy peasy - after all that is just about the only thing an Electoral Commission does. No, the damned woman can't afford to have this matter hanging around like a bad smell whilst she hopelessly pursues a fourth term in power. If the petition gets the numbers (which by all reports it is going to do) she has to have a vote. But she is allowed to postpone it for a year (God knows why) and she will exercise that power for her own political purpose and nothing more. And the cost of this little indulgence to you and me? $10 million - the cost of organising a stand alone referendum. What she wants is for the smacking nonsense to go away until after the election as she remembers the mauling the issue gave Labour a year ago. This must not be allowed to happen. Her trampling on the will of the people must be kept in the forefront of everyone's minds until she is gone.
It would appear that her only motivation in life now is clinging onto power. This is to be pursued at any cost. All but the blind could see that she stopped listening to the people she is supposed to represent (what a joke - the only thing she represents is herself) ages ago but she has stopped even making a show of trying to do the right thing. The heartening thing is that people seem to be waking up to her.
Her behaviour is beginning to look scarily like that bloke in Africa. What his name? Mu something.
Compulsion
Never get a thing done because it is a good idea or because it might be a thing people want to do when you can use compulsion. This bloody government, at the fag end of their time in power, is at it again. Their track record of passing daft, poorly worded legislation to push their warped view of life is as long as it is shameful. We are told what we can put in our kids school lunch boxes. We are compelled to wear fluoro safety jackets when we put the cat out. We are now told that we will have to buy petrol with so many percent biofuel mixed in to it because that is saving the planet. The fact that it will put the cost of gas up (and it has already got a bit more expensive recently if you hadn't noticed) is over and above the fact that it makes proper cars run like a dog. It may be alright in your bloody Prius but I'm buggered if I'm going to put it in the supercharged V8. I mean you don't see Lewis Hamilton telling the spotty youth at the bowser to 'fill 'er up with the 150 octane and top it off with a pint of cooking oil' do you?
A report is issued today detailing the first year of the antismacking bollocks. The feds have 'looked into' a large number (can't remember how many - couple of hundred, maybe) and the end result is zero prosecutions. Whilst all over the country it would appear that the must have accessory for any 21st party is a bunch of thugs with baseball bats and machetes, the boys in blue are wasting their time policing a law that is not needed for no effect. Bloody Bradford has just been interviewed on the wireless and she says this 'proves the law is working as it should'. She is absolutely bat shit mad. She will defend this looney bit of legislation to the hilt whatever happens. She could not reason her way out of a paper bag (the one that should permanently sit over her head) so why should she at this late stage realise that she is just plain wrong.
In the meantime we have our latest bit of compulsion. Squiggly wiggly light bulbs. Thomas Edison patented his version of the light bulb in 1875. It has remained pretty much unchanged since then and has served us well. Having been around for such a long time it has evolved into many forms. There are different shaped ones, dimmable ones and all sorts of variations. They are cheap as chips and when they burn out you bin them and put another one in the socket. Easy. But things move on. These piggy's tails jobbies appear to be very good. They use less power and are cheap to run. All good. Put them up against Edison's model in the shops and see what the punter thinks. Well this punter did and I bought some to replace a couple of 100w globes in the recessed lights on one of the patios. I could get away with 16w the man in the shop told me. Go and vomit in your top hat Edison, I'm onto something here. Take them home and I stood on a chair without wearing a safety harness or fluoro jacket and screwed in my new purchase. Bloody thing sticks out of the bottom of the recessed socket and ends up not being recessed at all. I wait for dusk and then turn on the new wondrous bulb. It is horrible. A hideous stark white light that would look good illuminating the tripwire at Stalag Luft IV.
These bulbs may be eco friendly and cheap to run but they look absolutely disgusting - whether they are turned on or off. So here is the rub. I don't like them and I have been out and bought a couple of old fashioned 100w bizzos that give of the warm glow I want and are invisible in the ceiling when turned off. I am prepared to waste my money on the extra power for the effect and I have the choice so to do.
As of next year I will not have this choice. The damned government is going to tell me what bloody light bulbs I can buy. I may want to put a squiggly wiggly bulb in the laundry cupboard where I can't see it much and the cost savings will be worthwhile (but at a couple of dollars pre annum I doubt it) - and then again I might not. Not a good enough level of control for this mob - you will buy the light bulbs we tell you to buy.
It is as scary as it is pathetic
A report is issued today detailing the first year of the antismacking bollocks. The feds have 'looked into' a large number (can't remember how many - couple of hundred, maybe) and the end result is zero prosecutions. Whilst all over the country it would appear that the must have accessory for any 21st party is a bunch of thugs with baseball bats and machetes, the boys in blue are wasting their time policing a law that is not needed for no effect. Bloody Bradford has just been interviewed on the wireless and she says this 'proves the law is working as it should'. She is absolutely bat shit mad. She will defend this looney bit of legislation to the hilt whatever happens. She could not reason her way out of a paper bag (the one that should permanently sit over her head) so why should she at this late stage realise that she is just plain wrong.
In the meantime we have our latest bit of compulsion. Squiggly wiggly light bulbs. Thomas Edison patented his version of the light bulb in 1875. It has remained pretty much unchanged since then and has served us well. Having been around for such a long time it has evolved into many forms. There are different shaped ones, dimmable ones and all sorts of variations. They are cheap as chips and when they burn out you bin them and put another one in the socket. Easy. But things move on. These piggy's tails jobbies appear to be very good. They use less power and are cheap to run. All good. Put them up against Edison's model in the shops and see what the punter thinks. Well this punter did and I bought some to replace a couple of 100w globes in the recessed lights on one of the patios. I could get away with 16w the man in the shop told me. Go and vomit in your top hat Edison, I'm onto something here. Take them home and I stood on a chair without wearing a safety harness or fluoro jacket and screwed in my new purchase. Bloody thing sticks out of the bottom of the recessed socket and ends up not being recessed at all. I wait for dusk and then turn on the new wondrous bulb. It is horrible. A hideous stark white light that would look good illuminating the tripwire at Stalag Luft IV.
These bulbs may be eco friendly and cheap to run but they look absolutely disgusting - whether they are turned on or off. So here is the rub. I don't like them and I have been out and bought a couple of old fashioned 100w bizzos that give of the warm glow I want and are invisible in the ceiling when turned off. I am prepared to waste my money on the extra power for the effect and I have the choice so to do.
As of next year I will not have this choice. The damned government is going to tell me what bloody light bulbs I can buy. I may want to put a squiggly wiggly bulb in the laundry cupboard where I can't see it much and the cost savings will be worthwhile (but at a couple of dollars pre annum I doubt it) - and then again I might not. Not a good enough level of control for this mob - you will buy the light bulbs we tell you to buy.
It is as scary as it is pathetic
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wrong - again
If we have nothing to do of an evening most of us would not pick a bracing stroll though Manurewa as a way of passing the time. People getting shot, mugged and run over wholesale in the past few days. These ghastly events have been somewhat overshadowed in one instance by one of the three horsemen of the stupid (policy, process and procedure) where our society mandates that forms are filled out in triplicate to ensure the bad men with the shooters have left while a bloke bleeds to death. No matter, Our Fearless Leader has the answer to all our ills.
We will look into how many liquor outlets there are in South Auckland as it is all their fault. The Liquor Licensing Laws haven't been updated since 1989. Crikey, how long ago is that? New Zealand still held the Rugby World Cup so it was a very long time ago. However just because a statute hasn't been modified for a while doesn't mean it needs changing just for the sake of it. Murder, rape, burglary and the like were all frowned upon a very long time ago but we don't hear calls for a 'National murder whoever you fancy free of fear of prosecution 'cos that's the modern way day' once a month, do we? Labour have been in power for nine years, there is an election this year, we must be seen to do something and so we will look into how grog shops get their licenses. This is because research (undefined) 'shows' that violent crime is related to the density of off licenses. I would like to see the evidence (if it exists - which I strongly doubt) and would bet you a bottle of Captain Morgan that research shows no such thing. Lots of Super Cheap Liquor shops in an area of high crime is cause and effect? Maybe the shop owners naturally gravitate to low socio-economic areas where regular and heavy alcohol consumption and crime is part and parcel of the local way of life. Because that is where they are likely to make more sales and turn a better profit. It is very easy to confuse association with cause and effect. Apparently there are more grog shops per head of population in Howick and Clevedon than Manurewa so if you use Helen's stupid socialist way of thinking the streets of those suburbs should be rivers of blood. But they aren't.
How about the high rate of crime in the suburbs currently copping the flak being due to generations of welfare dependency, loss of family values, negligible education standards, understaffed police force held in no respect by residents, a weak judiciary, limp wristed feminist left wing ratbags running the country, no public floggings and leaving contraceptives out of the drinking water as a real cause?
The damned woman is as wrong today as she has been for all her misdirected life. Her ideas on life as a member of the public are hideous. As Prime Minister they are directly responsible for the underclass that has flourished under her stewardship of the country. The clock is ticking and her tenure is surely nearly at an end. I hope it is not too late for us all to claw our way back from the brink. I was deeply distressed to see that John Key has exhibited that he might not be made of stern enough stuff - he today said that National was going to support Hawkins' stupid and ineffective grog Shop Licensing Amendment Bill. I had hoped he would be better than that - but at least he is not Bloody Helen.
We will look into how many liquor outlets there are in South Auckland as it is all their fault. The Liquor Licensing Laws haven't been updated since 1989. Crikey, how long ago is that? New Zealand still held the Rugby World Cup so it was a very long time ago. However just because a statute hasn't been modified for a while doesn't mean it needs changing just for the sake of it. Murder, rape, burglary and the like were all frowned upon a very long time ago but we don't hear calls for a 'National murder whoever you fancy free of fear of prosecution 'cos that's the modern way day' once a month, do we? Labour have been in power for nine years, there is an election this year, we must be seen to do something and so we will look into how grog shops get their licenses. This is because research (undefined) 'shows' that violent crime is related to the density of off licenses. I would like to see the evidence (if it exists - which I strongly doubt) and would bet you a bottle of Captain Morgan that research shows no such thing. Lots of Super Cheap Liquor shops in an area of high crime is cause and effect? Maybe the shop owners naturally gravitate to low socio-economic areas where regular and heavy alcohol consumption and crime is part and parcel of the local way of life. Because that is where they are likely to make more sales and turn a better profit. It is very easy to confuse association with cause and effect. Apparently there are more grog shops per head of population in Howick and Clevedon than Manurewa so if you use Helen's stupid socialist way of thinking the streets of those suburbs should be rivers of blood. But they aren't.
How about the high rate of crime in the suburbs currently copping the flak being due to generations of welfare dependency, loss of family values, negligible education standards, understaffed police force held in no respect by residents, a weak judiciary, limp wristed feminist left wing ratbags running the country, no public floggings and leaving contraceptives out of the drinking water as a real cause?
The damned woman is as wrong today as she has been for all her misdirected life. Her ideas on life as a member of the public are hideous. As Prime Minister they are directly responsible for the underclass that has flourished under her stewardship of the country. The clock is ticking and her tenure is surely nearly at an end. I hope it is not too late for us all to claw our way back from the brink. I was deeply distressed to see that John Key has exhibited that he might not be made of stern enough stuff - he today said that National was going to support Hawkins' stupid and ineffective grog Shop Licensing Amendment Bill. I had hoped he would be better than that - but at least he is not Bloody Helen.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sledgehammers, walnuts, certainty and pragmatism
Several thoughts running around what passes as a brain at the moment and I am not entirely sure I can pull them coherently together.
The concept of certainty has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was first smitten by mathematics (which was well before gamefishing) my favourite number has been zero and all the wondrous things it can do. Infinity is its natural bedfellow and is similarly intangible and intriguing. So it is with certainty. There is nothing that lives that can do anything with absolute certainty and that is just the way it should be. If we had certainty in life (I know about the death and taxes nonsense - and taxes is stretching the point in absolute terms) many of the things that make life just that, life, as opposed to an existence would disappear. Trust for instance would not be required and just think how much less rich life would be if that were removed.
No, we have to move through life accepting that the vast majority of things are not certain. Some of this we seem to be able to get our heads around quite easily. I can think of no one who buys a Lotto ticket entertaining the thought that he has certainly bought the winning ticket. But still you hand over your $13 because although you are not certain of winning it is possible that you will. The chances of winning are exceedingly low but the result of winning is very good (loads of dosh) and the result of losing is pretty inconsequential - well to most people. If you are spending $13 on Lotto as opposed to the groceries you have another sort of issue. If you buy a Lotto ticket you are not certain to win neither are you certain to lose. So if we accept that we don't have 0% chance or 100% chance of something happening we are making some progress as to how we have to go through life.
Life is not a box of chocolates, life is a repeated trip to the TAB. Every conscious decision you make is made by weighing up the odds. You try and work out what the chances are of an outcome of an action coming to pass and factor in the benefits and deficits of those outcomes and make your choice. Impossible. Well tough; you have to 'cos that's the way it is. But you do have some help. And your biggest help is the normal distribution curve. This is right up there in the theoretical stakes with the number zero. Everything that naturally happens to anything that lives from a blade of grass to me or you or the lady at number 27 occurs somewhere along this curve. I am below average height. There will be an equal number of people in a suitably large cohort who are an equal amount above average height. If I walk down the road during a thunderstorm the number of times I do it before being struck by lightning is at a point along the normal distribution curve for that activity. I find out where that point is and I take a punt and go for a stroll - or not. My choice. We live under this magical bell shaped umbrella.
What we do not live under is a square wave. You do something and this other thing will definitely and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever happen. No sir it won't - because it can't. This is where all these daft social engineering laws have their genesis of being so stupid. Sure they are embellished and massaged by a bunch of control freaks but the germ of the problem is trying to put certainty where none can exist. If you stand on a box a metre off the ground to do some work and fall off it is very unlikely that you will come to any permanent harm. But you might. Therefore everyone who stands on said box has to wear a safety harness. A sledgehammer, a walnut, a lack of understanding of the concepts we are talking about and pragmatism is down the river. If the box is on the edge of a cliff a sensible bloke would call for his safety harness because in the unlikely event of him falling off the box the consequences are now that he will end up not on a box but in one. Now that is the pragmatic solution to the problem. But to get everyone standing on boxes looking like mountaineers? I don't think so.
But that is the way modern society seems to want to go and The People's Republic is right in the van of the movement. Banning handheld cellphones whilst driving is the latest example. How many people are killed on New Zealand's roads per annum where use of a cell phone might be a contributing factor? I worded that very carefully. The media would say 'How many people are killed each year on New Zealand's roads by cellphones?' You can be killed on the road by a phone if you inhale it or are beaten to death with it but saying you died in a car crash whilst using a 'phone is the fault of the telecommunications device is several logical steps to far. So back to the question. How many? 500? 100? 50? 20? Nope, the answer is 5. How many people use phones when driving? I don't know but instances per annum is surely in the millions. So what are the chances of being killed whilst using a cellphone in a car? Without doing any maths the answer is obviously very, very low. But we are to have a law compelling us all not to do it - at all, ever. Handsfree jobbies are OK though. Good? Well no. There is absolutely no evidence (bloody inconvenient stuff is evidence, just ask Al Gore) that using a Bluetooth headset is any safer than holding the phone up to your ear. So ban those as well then. Will never happen because a) the great unwashed won't stand for it and b) it would be totally unpoliceable.
As would be banning the other distractions to driving - taking the wrapper off a pie, arguing with the kids, listening to Radio Sport, picking your nose, looking at attractive young ladies walking down the street, reading government sponsored billboards telling you that speed kills etc. etc. I think driving with one hand and holding a phone to my lughole is daft and I don't do it - much. I have a handsfree bizzo but I am under no illusion that when I am using it I am driving as well as when I am listening to Radio Sport. I can't even text when lying on a chaise longue let alone when driving a car and so I don't do that. If five people a year got to the TAB and place a fat wad of cash on using a phone whilst driving, lose and die, well tough. If they run into a school crossing well that is really, really tough but those kids probably had a greater chance of being struck by lightning.
Driving whilst using a phone is probably (but not certainly) a bad idea. But we don't need new largely unenforceable legislation to ban it. It'll make a lot of money though.
The concept of certainty has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was first smitten by mathematics (which was well before gamefishing) my favourite number has been zero and all the wondrous things it can do. Infinity is its natural bedfellow and is similarly intangible and intriguing. So it is with certainty. There is nothing that lives that can do anything with absolute certainty and that is just the way it should be. If we had certainty in life (I know about the death and taxes nonsense - and taxes is stretching the point in absolute terms) many of the things that make life just that, life, as opposed to an existence would disappear. Trust for instance would not be required and just think how much less rich life would be if that were removed.
No, we have to move through life accepting that the vast majority of things are not certain. Some of this we seem to be able to get our heads around quite easily. I can think of no one who buys a Lotto ticket entertaining the thought that he has certainly bought the winning ticket. But still you hand over your $13 because although you are not certain of winning it is possible that you will. The chances of winning are exceedingly low but the result of winning is very good (loads of dosh) and the result of losing is pretty inconsequential - well to most people. If you are spending $13 on Lotto as opposed to the groceries you have another sort of issue. If you buy a Lotto ticket you are not certain to win neither are you certain to lose. So if we accept that we don't have 0% chance or 100% chance of something happening we are making some progress as to how we have to go through life.
Life is not a box of chocolates, life is a repeated trip to the TAB. Every conscious decision you make is made by weighing up the odds. You try and work out what the chances are of an outcome of an action coming to pass and factor in the benefits and deficits of those outcomes and make your choice. Impossible. Well tough; you have to 'cos that's the way it is. But you do have some help. And your biggest help is the normal distribution curve. This is right up there in the theoretical stakes with the number zero. Everything that naturally happens to anything that lives from a blade of grass to me or you or the lady at number 27 occurs somewhere along this curve. I am below average height. There will be an equal number of people in a suitably large cohort who are an equal amount above average height. If I walk down the road during a thunderstorm the number of times I do it before being struck by lightning is at a point along the normal distribution curve for that activity. I find out where that point is and I take a punt and go for a stroll - or not. My choice. We live under this magical bell shaped umbrella.
What we do not live under is a square wave. You do something and this other thing will definitely and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever happen. No sir it won't - because it can't. This is where all these daft social engineering laws have their genesis of being so stupid. Sure they are embellished and massaged by a bunch of control freaks but the germ of the problem is trying to put certainty where none can exist. If you stand on a box a metre off the ground to do some work and fall off it is very unlikely that you will come to any permanent harm. But you might. Therefore everyone who stands on said box has to wear a safety harness. A sledgehammer, a walnut, a lack of understanding of the concepts we are talking about and pragmatism is down the river. If the box is on the edge of a cliff a sensible bloke would call for his safety harness because in the unlikely event of him falling off the box the consequences are now that he will end up not on a box but in one. Now that is the pragmatic solution to the problem. But to get everyone standing on boxes looking like mountaineers? I don't think so.
But that is the way modern society seems to want to go and The People's Republic is right in the van of the movement. Banning handheld cellphones whilst driving is the latest example. How many people are killed on New Zealand's roads per annum where use of a cell phone might be a contributing factor? I worded that very carefully. The media would say 'How many people are killed each year on New Zealand's roads by cellphones?' You can be killed on the road by a phone if you inhale it or are beaten to death with it but saying you died in a car crash whilst using a 'phone is the fault of the telecommunications device is several logical steps to far. So back to the question. How many? 500? 100? 50? 20? Nope, the answer is 5. How many people use phones when driving? I don't know but instances per annum is surely in the millions. So what are the chances of being killed whilst using a cellphone in a car? Without doing any maths the answer is obviously very, very low. But we are to have a law compelling us all not to do it - at all, ever. Handsfree jobbies are OK though. Good? Well no. There is absolutely no evidence (bloody inconvenient stuff is evidence, just ask Al Gore) that using a Bluetooth headset is any safer than holding the phone up to your ear. So ban those as well then. Will never happen because a) the great unwashed won't stand for it and b) it would be totally unpoliceable.
As would be banning the other distractions to driving - taking the wrapper off a pie, arguing with the kids, listening to Radio Sport, picking your nose, looking at attractive young ladies walking down the street, reading government sponsored billboards telling you that speed kills etc. etc. I think driving with one hand and holding a phone to my lughole is daft and I don't do it - much. I have a handsfree bizzo but I am under no illusion that when I am using it I am driving as well as when I am listening to Radio Sport. I can't even text when lying on a chaise longue let alone when driving a car and so I don't do that. If five people a year got to the TAB and place a fat wad of cash on using a phone whilst driving, lose and die, well tough. If they run into a school crossing well that is really, really tough but those kids probably had a greater chance of being struck by lightning.
Driving whilst using a phone is probably (but not certainly) a bad idea. But we don't need new largely unenforceable legislation to ban it. It'll make a lot of money though.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Another must have item
In response to my little tale of power woes at the weekend my good friend The Dead Ant added a link to the real solution to my problems.
I need one of these.
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
I need one of these.
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
I'm off to found how much they cost - New Zealand would be just the place to pioneer bijoux home nuclear power don't you think?
Monday, June 9, 2008
A glimpse of the future - and it ain't pretty
We are not talking 2050 and Jetsons stuff here but the next couple of months in the Peoples Luddite Republic. By complete coincidence, in the early hours of yesterday morning, I was rudely made aware of issues to which I referred last week.
Power. To be more specific electrical power. At some time between 0200 and 0500 yesterday I was thrust into a world without any. I awoke from my slumbers preparing for a round of golf after a refreshing cup of tea to find that our property had no power. None, not an electron was moving anywhere. Check the circuit breakers in the house (two sets) - no problem. Mumbling and grumbling I set off up the drive carrying a candle lit lantern (I am not joking - I felt like a bloke out of Pickwick Papers) to check the main breakers up by the gate in the tractor shed. These also looked tickety boo. No choice but to get on the blower to Genesis. Now when I moved whare a few months back one of the bonus attractions of the new location was the lack of cell phone reception. At 0530 on a Sunday morning with no power in the house this advantage seems to evaporate. Anyway we get through after standing in the cell phone reception 'special place' (all hunched up right in the far corner of the master bedroom). Is the rest of the road all lit up? One of the advantages of this road is that you cannot see the rest of the road. We agree to skip this bit. Have you checked the circuit breakers? Yes. Have you paid your bills? Rude sod. OK, the Genesis man will be round in '4-6' hours. Great.
Time to assess what I can actually do on my property when I have no electrical power. Answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. I can't get water out of a tap, I can't use the phone, the freezers and fridges start warming up, there is no light (obviously) and no gas as there is a safety cut off on the gas hob that cuts in when the electric cuts out. The garage doors have to be lifted up by hand and to get off the property the electric gates have to be disconnected from the rams. I can't even use the laptops to get on the net as the modem and wireless router have no power. What to do while awaiting the Genesis men? Go and play golf.
Return four hours later and find to my surprise that all is sorted - on a Sunday morning don't forget. It turns out that this little episode is not David Parker's fault. What an enormous disappointment. It would appear that the main switch from the road transformer to the meter had burnt out. And I mean seriously burnt out - like destroyed. Moisture is the best bet. Quite how I don't really understand as the switch box is meant to be in the box where it is and looks to be perfectly sound. No matter, by the time I returned from a blistering two over handicap round, our electrician had replaced offending switch and the Genesis man was up the power pole kitted out in all his OSH mandated kit (you would have thought he was off to the North Face of the Eiger) replacing the 'main fuses'. Have you seen these babies - about the size of Coke cans and rated at a squillion amps - all for me. Flick the switch and we are all hunky dory again.
So six hours after finding the fault it is all sorted (including getting some replacement parts) on a Sunday morning. Genesis were excellent and our electrician better (but I knew that anyway - that's why we use him).
Now the weirdy green beards would say this little tale is evidence of all that is wrong with how I live my life. It shows what can happen when I position myself to be so dependent on twenty first century technology. It shows how much better off I would be living in a cave and cooking my bison over an open fire. Well all I can say to them is bollocks.
I live in the twenty first century and not the eighteenth. The whole point of man's evolution is so I can live a techno life and marvel at aircraft carriers. I see that the Government is today launching the 'Save Power' campaign to cover up for their lack of planning in under supplying the country with electricity generating capacity. I am not going to save one skerrick of electricity - I will use as much as I want (which will exceed the 'as much as I need' figure) and then pay for it.
There has not been an increase in electricity generating capacity in this country since 1990. That is bloody scandalous. I am realistic enough to realise I am not going to get a nuclear power station installed in Albany by the end of the week. However there will be an emergency generator in my tractor shed in the same time frame. The only question I need to address is whether to go with petrol or diesel.
Power. To be more specific electrical power. At some time between 0200 and 0500 yesterday I was thrust into a world without any. I awoke from my slumbers preparing for a round of golf after a refreshing cup of tea to find that our property had no power. None, not an electron was moving anywhere. Check the circuit breakers in the house (two sets) - no problem. Mumbling and grumbling I set off up the drive carrying a candle lit lantern (I am not joking - I felt like a bloke out of Pickwick Papers) to check the main breakers up by the gate in the tractor shed. These also looked tickety boo. No choice but to get on the blower to Genesis. Now when I moved whare a few months back one of the bonus attractions of the new location was the lack of cell phone reception. At 0530 on a Sunday morning with no power in the house this advantage seems to evaporate. Anyway we get through after standing in the cell phone reception 'special place' (all hunched up right in the far corner of the master bedroom). Is the rest of the road all lit up? One of the advantages of this road is that you cannot see the rest of the road. We agree to skip this bit. Have you checked the circuit breakers? Yes. Have you paid your bills? Rude sod. OK, the Genesis man will be round in '4-6' hours. Great.
Time to assess what I can actually do on my property when I have no electrical power. Answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. I can't get water out of a tap, I can't use the phone, the freezers and fridges start warming up, there is no light (obviously) and no gas as there is a safety cut off on the gas hob that cuts in when the electric cuts out. The garage doors have to be lifted up by hand and to get off the property the electric gates have to be disconnected from the rams. I can't even use the laptops to get on the net as the modem and wireless router have no power. What to do while awaiting the Genesis men? Go and play golf.
Return four hours later and find to my surprise that all is sorted - on a Sunday morning don't forget. It turns out that this little episode is not David Parker's fault. What an enormous disappointment. It would appear that the main switch from the road transformer to the meter had burnt out. And I mean seriously burnt out - like destroyed. Moisture is the best bet. Quite how I don't really understand as the switch box is meant to be in the box where it is and looks to be perfectly sound. No matter, by the time I returned from a blistering two over handicap round, our electrician had replaced offending switch and the Genesis man was up the power pole kitted out in all his OSH mandated kit (you would have thought he was off to the North Face of the Eiger) replacing the 'main fuses'. Have you seen these babies - about the size of Coke cans and rated at a squillion amps - all for me. Flick the switch and we are all hunky dory again.
So six hours after finding the fault it is all sorted (including getting some replacement parts) on a Sunday morning. Genesis were excellent and our electrician better (but I knew that anyway - that's why we use him).
Now the weirdy green beards would say this little tale is evidence of all that is wrong with how I live my life. It shows what can happen when I position myself to be so dependent on twenty first century technology. It shows how much better off I would be living in a cave and cooking my bison over an open fire. Well all I can say to them is bollocks.
I live in the twenty first century and not the eighteenth. The whole point of man's evolution is so I can live a techno life and marvel at aircraft carriers. I see that the Government is today launching the 'Save Power' campaign to cover up for their lack of planning in under supplying the country with electricity generating capacity. I am not going to save one skerrick of electricity - I will use as much as I want (which will exceed the 'as much as I need' figure) and then pay for it.
There has not been an increase in electricity generating capacity in this country since 1990. That is bloody scandalous. I am realistic enough to realise I am not going to get a nuclear power station installed in Albany by the end of the week. However there will be an emergency generator in my tractor shed in the same time frame. The only question I need to address is whether to go with petrol or diesel.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
This is how you do it
If you thought our mob in Wellington were good at the political spin game then you ain't seen nothing yet.
Thanks to Mr Whaleoil of www.whaleoil.co.nz for the clip. I make no pretence that I have done anything other than copy this little gem directly from the marine mammal's site. And it was emailed to him so I have no idea as to its veracity - who cares, its a little ripper even if it isn't true.
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogical researcher, discovered that Hillary Clinton’s great-great uncle, Remus Rodham, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.
Thanks to Mr Whaleoil of www.whaleoil.co.nz for the clip. I make no pretence that I have done anything other than copy this little gem directly from the marine mammal's site. And it was emailed to him so I have no idea as to its veracity - who cares, its a little ripper even if it isn't true.
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogical researcher, discovered that Hillary Clinton’s great-great uncle, Remus Rodham, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture is this inscription: ‘Remus Rodham; horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1883, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted! , and hanged in 1889.’
Judy e-mailed Hillary Clinton for comments. Hillary’s staff sent back the following biographical sketch:
’Remus Rodham was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave in 1887 to resume his dealings with the railroad. Subsequently, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor, when the platform on which he was standing collapsed.’
Fabulous. I wish I had such an inventive brain with the English language.
Fabulous. I wish I had such an inventive brain with the English language.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
This isn't right
I was not in the People's Republic when it was decided to do away with the First Past the Post electoral system. I was not privy to the discussions that resulted in the form of MMP that we now have. Whatever was proposed that eventually got the nod surely was not what we have ended up with. No one in their right mind could have consciously and with malice aforethought wanted MMP New Zealand style circa 2008 - surely. Or maybe the malice bit belies that.
The Greens are, surprise surprise, at the bottom of the latest total travesty. They are party made up entirely of list MPs - a concept that has me shaking my head in disbelief for starters. They have never had a properly elected MP (and are never likely to) and if they fail to reach the magic and aribitrary 5% threshold in a couple of months time they will be completely wiped out as a parliamentary party - couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blokes. All that notwithstanding we have had to put up with them for the past years being the tail that has wagged the dog of a country. How far do you think the anti smacking nonsense would have got without MMP?
This bunch of unelected toads was right on Helen's hip in getting the draconian Electoral Finance Act passed. They stood there on the moral high ground of their own imaginations and told us how any electoral process must be fair and transparent and how a vital plank of democracy must not be besmirched by big secret money being paid to 'other parties'. Read National for that as all the cranks who support the Commies wouldn't have two farthings to rub together.
So it is these paragons of virtue who are blatantly fiddling around with the list so that the Ginga Leader can get into Parliament for a couple of months. For what? So he can have a higher profile and I would assume rort some election expenses off me as he is now an MP and the EFA has a subsection c paragraph ii which says he can. Nandor Ropehead wants to stand down (lie down in a chemically altered state more like) and his place has to be taken by the next on the list. We are already stretching the boundaries of the phrase 'has to' here. Mr Next on the List is not Ginga and says he wants to go to Bellamys and Ginga can sod off. What to do? The Green heavies are sent round to Mr Next on the List's whare with the socks full of lentils and wind farm powered bright lights, Mr NotL changes his mind and suddenly it is alright for Ginga to go to Wellington. Well no it's not. If all the above was not bad enough the damned man wasn't even on the list that the stupid people who wasted their vote on the Greens voted for in 2005. All the Greens are doing is putting their own interests in front of any other consideration - including the pretence of a democracy that we have in The People's Republic.
This is a travesty of governance and should be seen as such and no more.
The Greens are, surprise surprise, at the bottom of the latest total travesty. They are party made up entirely of list MPs - a concept that has me shaking my head in disbelief for starters. They have never had a properly elected MP (and are never likely to) and if they fail to reach the magic and aribitrary 5% threshold in a couple of months time they will be completely wiped out as a parliamentary party - couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blokes. All that notwithstanding we have had to put up with them for the past years being the tail that has wagged the dog of a country. How far do you think the anti smacking nonsense would have got without MMP?
This bunch of unelected toads was right on Helen's hip in getting the draconian Electoral Finance Act passed. They stood there on the moral high ground of their own imaginations and told us how any electoral process must be fair and transparent and how a vital plank of democracy must not be besmirched by big secret money being paid to 'other parties'. Read National for that as all the cranks who support the Commies wouldn't have two farthings to rub together.
So it is these paragons of virtue who are blatantly fiddling around with the list so that the Ginga Leader can get into Parliament for a couple of months. For what? So he can have a higher profile and I would assume rort some election expenses off me as he is now an MP and the EFA has a subsection c paragraph ii which says he can. Nandor Ropehead wants to stand down (lie down in a chemically altered state more like) and his place has to be taken by the next on the list. We are already stretching the boundaries of the phrase 'has to' here. Mr Next on the List is not Ginga and says he wants to go to Bellamys and Ginga can sod off. What to do? The Green heavies are sent round to Mr Next on the List's whare with the socks full of lentils and wind farm powered bright lights, Mr NotL changes his mind and suddenly it is alright for Ginga to go to Wellington. Well no it's not. If all the above was not bad enough the damned man wasn't even on the list that the stupid people who wasted their vote on the Greens voted for in 2005. All the Greens are doing is putting their own interests in front of any other consideration - including the pretence of a democracy that we have in The People's Republic.
This is a travesty of governance and should be seen as such and no more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)