The pragmatic blokes who seem to be still doing what the said they would are at it again. The Government today announced that they will reverse the ban on incandescent light bulbs that was due to come into effect next October. This was one of the dafter of Labour's save the planet bollocks. The replacement piggy's tails jobs are just 'orrible. As I have already mentioned I had started hoarding the original tried and true Thomas Edison jobs and I suppose I could now have a garage sale of them.
As an added bonus to this welcome bit of pragmatism she in the need of Botox and tooth whitening has come out in all her hand wringing and whingeing splendour to announce that she and the Greens are unhappy with the decision. I'll tell you what, Ms Fitzsimons, no one gives a rat's arse what you think. By telling us all prior to the election that you wanted nothing to do with a National Government should one be elected you have consigned yourself to a position of total and utter irrelevance. You've made your bed now lie in it. How do you fancy a ride in my supercharged V8? A trip around my private Toshiba nuclear power plant? Sell you 40 litres of diesel, cheap like? A T-bone steak perhaps?
Stupid woman
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Too good to last
Back to earth with a bump - pardon the pun. A coroner somewhere has opined that he thinks it would be a good idea for tractors to be fitted with safety belts and that wearing of same should be mandatory. This after a bloke who was smoking dope rolled a tractor down a 18 degree slope (one in fiveish in old money) and ended up being crushed by the John Deere. Had he been wearing a 'safety belt' his chance of leaping from the vehicle if he had not been too stoned to think it was a good idea would have been zero. Coroner obviously not seeing the elephant in the room.
Has this coroner not heard. All this bollocks finished on November 8. We don't talk like this any more. Nanny State is no more, caput, gone bye byes. All calls for seat belts on office chairs will fall on deaf ears. Seat belts on horses? Forget it. Restraints on pogo sticks - no show. Endless rules to make our lives totally risk free is so last year.
I have a very nice 20 year old Shibaura SE4000. 42 horse power of Japanese agricultural grunt and wonderment. It drives a sodding great 3 rotor park mower off it's PTO and is used on flat ground. As it has been orchardised (lowered, small fat wheels) it has a top speed in 4/3 gear of about 15kmh. It is driven exclusively on my private property which is paid for and owned lock stock and shelter belt by me. If any numpty official comes along to tell me to wear a seat belt whilst cutting the front lawn I will mow him down - literally.
Get into 2008, Mr Coroner. The days of stupid unenforceable safety ideas like your hair brained scheme are gone.
Has this coroner not heard. All this bollocks finished on November 8. We don't talk like this any more. Nanny State is no more, caput, gone bye byes. All calls for seat belts on office chairs will fall on deaf ears. Seat belts on horses? Forget it. Restraints on pogo sticks - no show. Endless rules to make our lives totally risk free is so last year.
I have a very nice 20 year old Shibaura SE4000. 42 horse power of Japanese agricultural grunt and wonderment. It drives a sodding great 3 rotor park mower off it's PTO and is used on flat ground. As it has been orchardised (lowered, small fat wheels) it has a top speed in 4/3 gear of about 15kmh. It is driven exclusively on my private property which is paid for and owned lock stock and shelter belt by me. If any numpty official comes along to tell me to wear a seat belt whilst cutting the front lawn I will mow him down - literally.
Get into 2008, Mr Coroner. The days of stupid unenforceable safety ideas like your hair brained scheme are gone.
Now this is better already
I haven't found cause to put finger to keyboard for over a fortnight and, to be honest, there is no real reason so to do now. I thought that finding things to write about would be harder after the fall of Helengrad and I was right. In a way this is a little disappointing as it means that all I wanted to scribble about was the negatives of life and not the positives. I am probably not alone in this as a lot of people voted for the current administration not because it was John Key and his mob but because it was not Helen, History Boy and their mob.
However there is a palpable change in mood in the country over the last fortnight or so. And this despite the fact that we are at the door of a truly horrible economic short to medium term future. Indeed we have probably already crossed the threshold. It is an absolute delight not to have the mainstream media dominated by the droning and controlling utterances of the commie rainbow eco nuts who have blighted the landscape for nigh on a decade.
I prevailed on Mrs Obald to miss the first half of Shortland Street last night so I could watch Sainsbury interview Rodney Hide over the idiocy of the building codes and the RMA. Both were wearing those ghastly garish chalkstripe suits when jeans and a tee shirt would have been just fine but no matter. This will be good I thought. We will have a story about bureaucracy gone nuts and then the Minister will justify what we have just seen with loads of hand wringing and tosh about safety and stakeholders. Well we got the silly story - a couple in fact. One about a bloke who wanted to put an extension on his house with building costs coming to $7000 and compliance and permit costs coming to $2700. Then there was a bloke telling us all that an outside dunny on DoC land required eight building inspections before anyone could use the super soft toilet paper. Over to the Minister for Stuff Like This. Justification? Nope, none of that. Words to the effect 'This is nuts and I will get rid of it. It took decades to build up such a structure of bureaucratic nonsense but I will take a chainsaw to it in no time at all.' Now this is more like it.
Meanwhile our proper Prime Minister is overseas. Not holding high profile press conferences that are all photo opportunity and no substance but head down and poncho covered bum up doing things. New kid on the block at APEC and he told them to pull finger and do something about trade and not just bloody talk about it. I like the cut of his jib. I just hope he has the intestinal fortitude to carry on in this 'business' way of running the country and not be dragged kicking and screaming back into the 'political' way of doing things that were so precious to the disastrous mob he has replaced.
And speaking of them.... Well no one is. Yesterday's news is today's fish and chip paper. Who has heard anything of Dear Leader, History Boy, the Member for Cambodia and all the other wastrels who would have us believe that they were so bloody important to our even drawing breath but three short weeks ago? They have quite rightly been consigned to the garbage - not, I hasten to add, the recycling. The world has moved on thank God. Your old way of doing things is so yesterday. Piss off, the pragmatists have arrived.
However there is a palpable change in mood in the country over the last fortnight or so. And this despite the fact that we are at the door of a truly horrible economic short to medium term future. Indeed we have probably already crossed the threshold. It is an absolute delight not to have the mainstream media dominated by the droning and controlling utterances of the commie rainbow eco nuts who have blighted the landscape for nigh on a decade.
I prevailed on Mrs Obald to miss the first half of Shortland Street last night so I could watch Sainsbury interview Rodney Hide over the idiocy of the building codes and the RMA. Both were wearing those ghastly garish chalkstripe suits when jeans and a tee shirt would have been just fine but no matter. This will be good I thought. We will have a story about bureaucracy gone nuts and then the Minister will justify what we have just seen with loads of hand wringing and tosh about safety and stakeholders. Well we got the silly story - a couple in fact. One about a bloke who wanted to put an extension on his house with building costs coming to $7000 and compliance and permit costs coming to $2700. Then there was a bloke telling us all that an outside dunny on DoC land required eight building inspections before anyone could use the super soft toilet paper. Over to the Minister for Stuff Like This. Justification? Nope, none of that. Words to the effect 'This is nuts and I will get rid of it. It took decades to build up such a structure of bureaucratic nonsense but I will take a chainsaw to it in no time at all.' Now this is more like it.
Meanwhile our proper Prime Minister is overseas. Not holding high profile press conferences that are all photo opportunity and no substance but head down and poncho covered bum up doing things. New kid on the block at APEC and he told them to pull finger and do something about trade and not just bloody talk about it. I like the cut of his jib. I just hope he has the intestinal fortitude to carry on in this 'business' way of running the country and not be dragged kicking and screaming back into the 'political' way of doing things that were so precious to the disastrous mob he has replaced.
And speaking of them.... Well no one is. Yesterday's news is today's fish and chip paper. Who has heard anything of Dear Leader, History Boy, the Member for Cambodia and all the other wastrels who would have us believe that they were so bloody important to our even drawing breath but three short weeks ago? They have quite rightly been consigned to the garbage - not, I hasten to add, the recycling. The world has moved on thank God. Your old way of doing things is so yesterday. Piss off, the pragmatists have arrived.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Now what?
Three days now and there is nothing left to take the piss out of. I can't pretend to be anything but delighted with the results of Saturday's little contest. John Key as Prime Minister at the head of a National Government with more of an Act presence than I had hoped for to put lead in JK's pencil. Labour consigned to opposition for at least three years. My two least favourite people on the planet falling on their swords. Winston Peters and his useless party consigned to the rubbish tip of history. The Greens neutered by increasing their number of parliamentary seats. No, a very satisfactory outcome.
But what does the future hold for the above mentioned wastrels. I don't really care to be honest. Dear Ex Leader today took up the Foreign Ministry portfolio. Well that's going to last isn't it? It's like having the Bentley taken away and being very content to drive the Corolla for the next three years. She'll use the copious quantity of air miles that come with the job to find herself a nice cushy overseas number I'll be bound. History Boy. I care even less what happens to him. Labour have ushered in the bright new future with a leader and Deputy (The Goof and the Dental Nurse) with 51 years of parliamentary experience between them. Glad they didn't use the old guard for the New Look.
Winston Raymond Peters, who was harder to kill than Rasputin, seems to have finally have had the stake put through the heart. Three years till he can make another tilt at it by which time 80% of his supporters will have died. The only places I can see him cropping up are in IRD enquiries or Courts of Law.
The Greens. Old Botox face was waxing lyrical on Saturday night about how their position had been strengthened with more seats in the house. Bollocks. They may have more MPs but they are ersatz members who can do nothing. The Greens now have as much influence as to the course the country takes as a fart in a thunder storm. They are irrelevant and it couldn't happen to a nicer mob. They are paying the price for being watermelons. All credentials as a green party are gone. They are communists in drag more interested in social engineering than whale saving. Sue Bradford has as many 'green' credentials as the CEO of Exxon. Unless they get rid of the aforementioned harridan, The Member for Cambodia and Russell Norman they will vanish.
I must say that three days out my feelings are still those of relief that it is all over. I trust JK (hear that Helen, you evil woman?) and just am happy that the Electoral Finance Act will be repealed; there will be no food commisar, or whatever he was to be called, telling me what I can put in my fridge. The continuous procession of other similar controlling drivel we have been fed over the last nine years will now stop. A razor gang (and wouldn't Roger Douglas be the perfect head honcho for that) is about to walk through the Civil Service. I am delighted that the new PM has a wife (female and looks it) with whom he lives in the same house. They have two kids who look like normal teenagers; the daughter even has the appalling dress sense that only teenagers can have. I am looking forward to the country being run by a normal bloke - or as my wife puts it 'We now have a proper Prime Minister'.
However I am under no illusion that a lot of the evil done to the country over the last nine years will be undone as it should be. We won't get the Privy Council back. There will be no return of knighthoods. The antismacking bill will not be repealed. Prostitution will not be recriminalized. Same sex civil unions won't be given the flick. I doubt the drinking age will be raised - and so on and so forth. But at least the rot has been stopped in its tracks. I hope its not too late in places where it really matters - like education.
No, I just have to wait and see what happens now. Blogging has just become a lot harder. A faint glimmer on the horizon. Rodney has started talking about ditching the Emissions Trading Scam which is, of course, the only thing to be done with it. Mr Nice has said that there will be an ETS of some sort. A little soupcon of conflict in this new world viewed through rose coloured right of centre glasses perchance?
But what does the future hold for the above mentioned wastrels. I don't really care to be honest. Dear Ex Leader today took up the Foreign Ministry portfolio. Well that's going to last isn't it? It's like having the Bentley taken away and being very content to drive the Corolla for the next three years. She'll use the copious quantity of air miles that come with the job to find herself a nice cushy overseas number I'll be bound. History Boy. I care even less what happens to him. Labour have ushered in the bright new future with a leader and Deputy (The Goof and the Dental Nurse) with 51 years of parliamentary experience between them. Glad they didn't use the old guard for the New Look.
Winston Raymond Peters, who was harder to kill than Rasputin, seems to have finally have had the stake put through the heart. Three years till he can make another tilt at it by which time 80% of his supporters will have died. The only places I can see him cropping up are in IRD enquiries or Courts of Law.
The Greens. Old Botox face was waxing lyrical on Saturday night about how their position had been strengthened with more seats in the house. Bollocks. They may have more MPs but they are ersatz members who can do nothing. The Greens now have as much influence as to the course the country takes as a fart in a thunder storm. They are irrelevant and it couldn't happen to a nicer mob. They are paying the price for being watermelons. All credentials as a green party are gone. They are communists in drag more interested in social engineering than whale saving. Sue Bradford has as many 'green' credentials as the CEO of Exxon. Unless they get rid of the aforementioned harridan, The Member for Cambodia and Russell Norman they will vanish.
I must say that three days out my feelings are still those of relief that it is all over. I trust JK (hear that Helen, you evil woman?) and just am happy that the Electoral Finance Act will be repealed; there will be no food commisar, or whatever he was to be called, telling me what I can put in my fridge. The continuous procession of other similar controlling drivel we have been fed over the last nine years will now stop. A razor gang (and wouldn't Roger Douglas be the perfect head honcho for that) is about to walk through the Civil Service. I am delighted that the new PM has a wife (female and looks it) with whom he lives in the same house. They have two kids who look like normal teenagers; the daughter even has the appalling dress sense that only teenagers can have. I am looking forward to the country being run by a normal bloke - or as my wife puts it 'We now have a proper Prime Minister'.
However I am under no illusion that a lot of the evil done to the country over the last nine years will be undone as it should be. We won't get the Privy Council back. There will be no return of knighthoods. The antismacking bill will not be repealed. Prostitution will not be recriminalized. Same sex civil unions won't be given the flick. I doubt the drinking age will be raised - and so on and so forth. But at least the rot has been stopped in its tracks. I hope its not too late in places where it really matters - like education.
No, I just have to wait and see what happens now. Blogging has just become a lot harder. A faint glimmer on the horizon. Rodney has started talking about ditching the Emissions Trading Scam which is, of course, the only thing to be done with it. Mr Nice has said that there will be an ETS of some sort. A little soupcon of conflict in this new world viewed through rose coloured right of centre glasses perchance?
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Obama
Watched bits of Obama's victory speech to his adoring throng on the telly last night - how could you avoid it, it was everywhere. Give the man his due he is a very, very polished act in the oratory department. I haven't heard a speech giver like that for many a moon - good stuff. I'm not talking of the content here (more of this later) but the 'product' is superb. He's young (well younger than me so he's really young), handsome and generally well turned out. I like the fact he campaigns in shirt sleeves and without a tie. He has an attractive (if somewhat oddly shaped) wife and a couple of kids who don't pick their nose in public. He really looks the business. Yesterday we witnessed an extraordinary event - something that is being likened to a handful of world forming days in history.
A black man is elected President of the United States only forty years or so after the civil rights movement was at its peak. Momentous stuff indeed. I was only nine when JFK got the nod and remember it not at all but I can certainly answer the 'Where were you when you heard Kennedy had been shot' question (waiting for a bus to take me to swimming with the 22nd Wimbledon Scout Troop as you ask). What else would you put with that? Man landing on the moon? (watched it on Dad's black and white telly at home) What else? Dunno. Obama getting the votes yesterday? Time will tell.
But now what? What have the US citizens voted for. A vast majority have, I suspect, voted for all of the above - the package - and that's it. There are people of various colours who genuinely believe he was born in a manger. There is a scary video on YouTube of a young black woman who really seems to think that the government will now pay her mortgage and put gas in her car. A radio station in New York conducted interviews a few days ago asking people why they were voting for Obama. All said it was because of his policies and not because he was the sharp looking black dude. The reporter then asked which policy they particularly liked - leaving troops in Iraq, choosing Sarah Palin as running mate or any of the other McCain policies. To a one they all picked on one of the opposition's platforms as the real reason they were going to vote for the sharp .......
We shall see. The Obama machine and especially the charismatic main man has cracked himself up to be a hard act to live up to. I hope he performs. I'm not too sure I agree with all things he says he is going to perform but he's got the votes lets see what he can do. I also hope he doesn't get himself shot.
As an aside look at both the victory speech from Chicago and the loser's effort from Phoenix. All class. Compare and contrast the drivel we have to put up with in New Zealand. If and when the Wicked Witch gets the bum's rush on Saturday do we expect anything other than the spitting of bile and vitriol as she drags her sorry backside from Government House?
A black man is elected President of the United States only forty years or so after the civil rights movement was at its peak. Momentous stuff indeed. I was only nine when JFK got the nod and remember it not at all but I can certainly answer the 'Where were you when you heard Kennedy had been shot' question (waiting for a bus to take me to swimming with the 22nd Wimbledon Scout Troop as you ask). What else would you put with that? Man landing on the moon? (watched it on Dad's black and white telly at home) What else? Dunno. Obama getting the votes yesterday? Time will tell.
But now what? What have the US citizens voted for. A vast majority have, I suspect, voted for all of the above - the package - and that's it. There are people of various colours who genuinely believe he was born in a manger. There is a scary video on YouTube of a young black woman who really seems to think that the government will now pay her mortgage and put gas in her car. A radio station in New York conducted interviews a few days ago asking people why they were voting for Obama. All said it was because of his policies and not because he was the sharp looking black dude. The reporter then asked which policy they particularly liked - leaving troops in Iraq, choosing Sarah Palin as running mate or any of the other McCain policies. To a one they all picked on one of the opposition's platforms as the real reason they were going to vote for the sharp .......
We shall see. The Obama machine and especially the charismatic main man has cracked himself up to be a hard act to live up to. I hope he performs. I'm not too sure I agree with all things he says he is going to perform but he's got the votes lets see what he can do. I also hope he doesn't get himself shot.
As an aside look at both the victory speech from Chicago and the loser's effort from Phoenix. All class. Compare and contrast the drivel we have to put up with in New Zealand. If and when the Wicked Witch gets the bum's rush on Saturday do we expect anything other than the spitting of bile and vitriol as she drags her sorry backside from Government House?
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