Submarines and Tiger Woods

A new departure for the Herald this morning - pornography. There on page A11, in all its resplendant bow wave, is a quarter page colour picture of a nuclear powered submarine. I'm all a tizz. Nearly spilt my tea down my shirtfront such was the quiver of anticipation as I savoured every word of the accompanying article. Sherrif Bush wants a trifling sum of money (US$700mil or something) to modify all these beautiful beasts in the weapons department. Take out a couple of nuclear ICBMs and replace them with stuff that throws non nuclear hardware around. Like a metal slug that can demolish a multi-story building. Some mollusc that - and certainly more useful than the silly creatures DoC have baled up in ice cream containers in a fridge. Or a missile that sprays tungsten rods through your cozy corporate meeting - if your corporation happens to be Al Qaeda, that is. The missiles that deliver these inventive bits of kit are the standard things that get up to 6 km/sec in a couple of seconds and have a range of 11,000 somethings - Kms ? Miles? Can't remember but certanly far enough to piss off your mates in Invercargill if they get up your nose. Something else to go on the Xmas list.

All that is worth reading this morning is confined to A10 and A11 which is handy as it saves you the effort of having to keep turning over the pages. Silly Red Glasses is gone. Unreadable. If he has got some good ideas in there somewhere I'm not going to know as I've given up on him.

Editorial tries to put some perspective on Don's current little woes. I think I agree with most of what they say. Having a mistress (sorry, allegedly having a mistress) is no cardinal sin in most people's eyes and, in itself, should not be enough to end his political carrer. They also quote the example of Bill Cllnton. Unfortunately Don just does not have enough of the native cunning to survive in his late in life chosen environment. This does not mean that the events of the past 48 hours have halted the opposition's march completely. As suggested yesterday, the groundswell of opinion is that Labour is coming out of all this at least as badly, if not worse, than the Nats courtesy of the Bovver Boy's demeanour. Don will probably not lead them into the next election but he does not have to be gone by lunchtime. I see John Key has been on the blower to his personal trainer and will be fronting up for the Captain's Run today - giving a speech somewhere. Meanwhile Don will be out and about in Dressmart this morning hoovering up a few seconds that he hopes no one will be able to spot. But Don wouldn't do that, would he? He's an honest bloke, remember.

Just below the totally gorgeous picture of a serious bit of naval muscle is a very grubby picture of an SUV. This accompanies the worst piece of journalism this week. Well it's not really journalism but more a party political broadcast by Nanny State. This is awful. It is written by someone who at least has the courage to admit he works for the Ministry of Transport in, I think, the environment division. It's all about car exhausts and asthma. What I really hate about this article is his use of pseudo science to push his politically motivated point. He quotes 'studies'. These plonkers think the proles go all glassy eyed when confronted with 'studies' from boffins. Anything that comes from a bloke wearing a white coat and sporting a clipboard and a concerned expression has the same status as the stuff that bloke with the long white beard bought down from the mountain chiselled on lumps of stone. You say that what you are going to say has been shown by 'studies' ('clinical studies' are better - sound much more authoritive) and you can then quote little bits of said studies totally out of context and they are gospel. The MoT man has dozens of these this morning. The silliest is that a 'study' shows that most children who have asthma come from areas where there are more roads. Well of course they do. Most roads are found in big conurbations which is where a larger number of people live. This study, however is reported by Nanny State's bloke as 'proving' that cars cause asthma. But fear not, dear citizen, we are bringing in more regulations (what a surprise) that will protect you from the evil automobile by checking for emissions of QZ43, arsenic and marmalade from every vehicle put onto New Zealands so called roads - and you can pick up your state subsidised bicycle from the distribution Depot next to the rope sandal shop.

Tiger Woods. This bloke fascinates me - not least because he is one of the few people on the planet who could afford to buy a seriously armed warship. The thing I like about Tiger is his brain. I particularly like the way that he got it to where it is now - starting from holding good old fashion family values in the highest regard. The place his parents have in his psyche is one of the rare examples of where sportsmen can be role models for kids. His regard of his late father is well documented but I suspect his mother has an as important, if less publicised, role in the way he ticks. He carries this on into his own family life. The chance of Mrs Woods appearing on the cover of NW are approaching zero. Like wise all the little Woods as and when they arrive. He lost last night in the World Match Play Chamionship at Wentworth, Surrey. I suspect that he won't go that well in the Ryder Cup next week - he hasn't in the past. His focus is on him - end of story. He competes in stroke play tournaments now for things that I can't get my head around at all - he's hardly on the bones of his bum. He was at Wentworth to get a bit of matchplay practice for the Cup next week. He doesn't give rat's about next week (he can't and won't admit this of course) and by extension he doesn't give a rat's about Wentworth. A few years ago he was the best player in the Universe by the length of the straight. Not good enough. Take the swing to bits to become better. I rarely use this espression but - awesome.

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