2010? The left strike back!?

I reckon Business NZ are bang on the money, NZ may very well be looking at a little bit of trouble, courtesy of our union comrades in the not too distant future. With Phil Goff looking down the barrel of being toppled by the hard left factions led by Andrew Little and the EPMU/Labour President and the increasing stirrings from the union movement with there hands out - we are due for some major troubles.

National and John Key will finally be tested on their resolve and whether or not they are able to live up to their centre right credentials that we have been promised for so long now. And don't believe anything about an ACT crisis, this time can be ACTs for the taking if National fail. We have some pretty talented MPs who have more than a couple ideas on how to tackle this threat head on.

However what this impending threat means is that NZ will be at a crossroads and the public will be tested on whether they support unrealistic demands and selfishness from the left or sustainability and restraint from the right. ACT and National want New Zealand to succeed and to not fall into the hands of those who think its a Governments job to redistribute wealth. The Unions don't care...how many union bosses ever take pay cuts or talk about fiscal responsibility?

What do you think? Will the unions hold NZ to ransom? Will the public be fooled by the scaremongering from the left? Who will be Labours new leader?

Bring it on I say.

A Christmas eve miracle

I am stuffed if I know how he did it, the Vet is just as confused but my mate steadfastly refuses to give in.

To my total surprise he is back home with us, he has a massive number of drugs to take and is confined to a cage for most of the day (so as to restrict his movement).

He is to be let out only to go to the toilet, despite this, he is over the moon to be back with us and back with the other canine members of our family.

I know that his recovery may take some considerable time, and I know that he can relapse at any stage but that does not matter to me right now, he is back home with us for Christmas and that is where he belongs.

On that note, have a great Christmas everybody, I know that when I am finally finished for the day I will sit down with a couple of cold ones and offer thanks to all of you who sent me (and him) your best wishes.

The Thinking Mans Guitar Hero

I ventured into the provinces to see the classic Fleetwood Mac line up minus Christine Mc Vie last weekend.

Pissed down with rain. Despite the $250 seats, I was stuck with 50 year old pissed farmers yelling for Eagles songs and the line for booze was so long, for the first time in living memory all my neurons were focused on the music.

Well I like "the Mac". Not cool but in 1987, when I was 14 I heard Lindsey Buckingham on Tango in the Night play "Big Love". I credit this and "With or Without You" as turning a naive 14 year old away from 80's pap and onto other , darker more satisfying music. Say what you like about Rumours, but the songs and the background of emotional breakups and dependency crises produce a standout seventies masterpiece.

Anyway, the concert was more than I expected. Sound awesome, crisp, clear and the flawless rhythm section of Mc Vie and Fleetwood justifies name the band bears.

Stevie. Not a big fan. Reminds of too many girls that wanted to be her. Her singing is not what it used to be, mainly because of the whistling noise that emanates from her nose due to the large septal hole as a result of years of blow.

Buckingham is awesome. Classical technique, powerful delivery and clearly the driving force behind their classics.

Virtuoso performance below. He played this in New Plymouth. People were speechless.

Best mate update

He battles on!

I woke this morning to what I thought was about to be the worst day of my life, I readied myself for the call from the vets to tell me it "was time".

To my surprise when they did call they said he had had a much better night and while there was still an element of lameness in his right front leg he was not in as much pain.

They were quick to say that this does not mean he is out of the woods as he has been confined to a cage not much bigger than him for the best part of the last day, he has only been let out to go to the toilet.

The upshot of all this is that the vet has said he can see no reason at the moment to put him down, however if he suffers another relapse and goes back into obvious agony then they think it would be more humane to put him out of his misery.

Can I also take this opportunity to thank all those who have sent their best wishes on here and via email, even to the religious people who have said they will pray for him, while I am in no way religious I will take any help I can get at the moment.

A heartbreaking choice.

My best mate is in pain, excruciating pain that makes him scream every time he moves.

It came on suddenly, last Thursday morning I woke at the normal time and we headed out for our walk, I opened the back of the car and he jumped in as he has always done for the past seven years.

As soon as he landed, he started to scream, carefully I lifted him out and took him back into the house, this is no easy task given he weighs 45 kilo’s and was in obvious pain.

As soon at the vet’s opened I took him down, they were/are baffled, various tests have not shown any obvious problem, however he remains unable to move his neck without letting out the most horrible scream.

I picked him up from the vets on Saturday, they gave me some extremely strong pain killers and told me to keep him confined over the weekend, yesterday he began to show some signs of improvement, while he whimpered every so often the blood curdling screams had died down, I went to bed hopeful that things were on the improve.

Sadly, that is not the case, this morning he is worse than ever, the vets came up first thing this morning and they took him away on a stretcher, we discussed various options but the outlook does not look good, the vets parting comment was “you may have to ready yourself for a hard decision”.

They are dosing him up with even stronger painkillers and are going to run still more tests.

They suspect that he has damaged his spine and this is causing the pain, short of major surgery (which has a very small chance of fixing the problem), there is not much more they can do for him.

I always thought I would be able to deal with this, I always thought that once his time was up I would find it a horrible choice but one that I could make with relative ease, how wrong I was..

I know what I should do, I know what has to happen, and in the next 24 hours, I am going to have to make that choice, but man, it is heartbreaking choice to have to make.

The ACT "Coup"

With a mixture morbid fascination and incredulous dismay I have followed the so called Coup attempt within ACT and its blogosphere reaction.

Firstly, before we all disappear with the Alliance, Future NZ, The Social Democrats and least but not last..NZ fucking First, into that cosy political oblivion where everyone can congratulate themselves for sticking oh so strongly to their beliefs,whilst taking a bath at the polls, a little perspective.

Do we know what really happened? Sure there were some movements against the leader (more of that later), but ultimately there wasn't a coup. Personally I doubt the veracity of the "SuperKey saves the day" scenario. Sounds more like a journo trying to give a story more heat in a slow politics week. Sure there has been no denials from the instigators, but that is the most appropriate course. Don't give this pig oxygen.

Hide has not had a good year. That's politics. It all comes down to that trip. Personally, I am livid that he did it. He took the focus of what ACT was working so hard to achieve and returned to "Circus Hide". However he apologised with a sincerity and openness I have not seen in a politician. Ask yourself this....Do you really think Rodney Hide is in politics for the perks? 1996 to 2005 on a crap salary with little benefits just so that when the unlikely event occurs of him becoming a minister he gets a discount for his girlfriend on an international flight?

There have undoubtedly been movements against Hide. In many ways this is understandable. ACT still polls consistently below 2%. But Cactus and Whaleoil are right. This is political suicide. Firstly the debacle of a small coalition partner fighting in public. Secondly the problem that Rodney holding Epsom poses and thirdly, and I hate to say it but Sir Roger is a political liability. Also none of the other MP's have the gravitas to be leader.......yet.

Where I disagree with Cactus and Whaleoil is what the consequences for the "plotters" should be. I believe a bloodletting would do more harm than good. The constitutional farce, the debate over who should be next, the inevitable splitting into farcical factions will place ACT firmly in the Alliance circa Alamein Kopu era copybook of political practice.

My advice (if anyone wants it)

Ignore this. No more oxygen. It is two years to the next election, there is plenty to be acheived. This news will be rotting in a landfill come 2011

The 5 MP's work their arses off.

Rodney gets the message.

The board seriously start thinking about the list for next years election with a view to the future.


I was going to write a post on the vacuum that exists in Centre Right politics in New Zealand today and how ACT with clever politicking and some changes to policy could call it it's own.

Sir Roger in a leadership role cannot achieve that and neither can a public disembowelling of the caucus.

Merry Xmas

Holidays!

I am leaving snowy London for the quite extraordinarily cold minus 20 degrees of East Czech Republic in a few hours. As many readers know, the Czech Rep is like my second home - and not just because of their excellent President or their low flat taxes and not just about the beer!

I hope all my readers have a great Christmas holiday, eat drink and be merry and all that and I will be back in a few days fired up for more of the same in 2010.

Cheers

Clint

Funny....but not really.

A few of the blogs have talked about the girl flashing cars in Invercargill and almost getting herself killed. On the outside of it, it's quite a funny story. Silly girl gets out her tits and causes mayhem. If an attractive girl pulled her tits out on me I'd be distracted - in fact I see more than my fair share of them and they always manage to put a smile on my face. (this girl isn't attractive) Some things I'll never grow out of!

However - this incident isn't nearly as funny as the first impression.
Cherelle May Dudfield is 18 and a mother of a young boy. This isn't her first visit to the Invercargill court either. She was sentenced to 65 hours' community work and disqualified for driving for six months for being caught with a 623mcg alcohol limit in October as well.(last line). I struggle to see what sort of good example she is being for her child.
Her Bebo profile is also an interesting read if you want to get into the head of somebody like this... I hope she grows up!

I exaggerated THIS much

Is there no limits to Al Gores bullshit?

Speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, Mr Gore said new computer modelling suggests there is a 75 per cent chance of the entire polar ice cap melting during the summertime by 2014.

However, he faced embarrassment last night after Dr Wieslav Maslowski, the climatologist whose work the prediction was based on, refuted his claims.

Dr Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, told The Times: “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at.

“I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

And yet Al has managed to use exaggerations like this to make himself a lot of money.

Full story here

You got to be kidding!?!

Challenged to explain the decision to award Mr Obama the most distinguished Nobel prize, even though the deadline for nominations fell 11 days after he took office, Thorbjørn Jagland, the committee chairman, said in October: “Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year. Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?” From the Times

Say what? Are you saying that Obama the Presidential candidate contributed the most to world peace or that in the 11 days since taking up office, he did more to solve world peace than others? The Nobel committee has proven itself to be a fraud and committed only to sheer shortsighted populism. Perhaps this award has had its day?

How nice of Obama to then prove the Nobel committee wrong by authorising more troops to go into the war zone. Something Obama himself opposed and then backtracked on during the campaign. Tell me again how his campaign did such wonderous things?

Kiwiblogs annual Easter trading rant.

The usual suspects are out and about claiming their undying support for the 'oppressed' retail workers who will once again be 'denied' the chance to work on Easter Sunday and Good Friday.

Some want the law changed because they think it is wrong to ‘deny’ workers the chance to earn extra money, others say it will decimate our tourist industry, and yet others see it as some great socialist conspiracy, still others tell us to ‘trust John”, well, we have seen how trust worthy the PM is and as far as I am concerned he is nothing but a first class bullshitter and the last person I would trust.

I suspect the ones making the most vocal arguments to have 365 day shopping are the very people who will NEVER have to work those days, to them this is an ideological issue, they argue their point with passion and they argue their point with no regard to the ordinary worker who will have NO SAY in the matter.

We Kiwis are full of good ideas, full of seemingly logical suggestions to the government about what to do with other sectors of society and how to fix their problem, however, all the pain and change should be suffered by those groups thank you very much, under no circumstances would they want to be forced to work Easter Sunday or Good Friday, as with other issues, the change is for other people to make.

So here is a challenge to all of those who just cannot go without their retail fix on Easter Sunday, if they want a law change then lets make it one that is right across the board, if they so desperately want to see Easter trading then lets have EVERYTHING OPEN.

Yes, that is right, all office workers, all Parliamentary staff and all MP’s, all teachers, all clerical workers, all government staff, every plumber, builder, mechanic, librarian, council worker, lawyer, doctor and dentist, every single job and every single trade.

If it is good enough for them to express their undying support for those poor bastards who will be ‘denied the chance to work in the retail trade then the very least they can do is be forced to work themselves.

It will be fun to read the excuses they come up with why they and they alone should be excused from working Easter Sunday and Good Friday.

A piece of shit

This ladies and gentleman, is the face of a low life piece of shit, this is the face of William Campbell, 25 years of age and a resident of Porirua.

Today Campbell admitted seven charges of dog fighting and failing to seek treatment for the injured dogs. He will be sentenced later this afternoon.

On Easter Monday, Campbell took Lincoln, a ridgeback-cross, from Titahi Bay.

He locked the dog in his car boot and drove to Shelly Bay in Wellington, where he pitted Lincoln against Dukes.

"When I started the dogfight I knew there was no competition. That dog was old, mine was young," Campbell told The Dominion Post.

He said another friend filmed the dogfight with the intention of putting the video on YouTube.

Lincoln suffered deep bite wounds in the attack and was deserted by Campbell. He was found later, injured, bleeding, and hiding in a toilet block.

While this low life c**t deserves nothing short of a custodial sentence I suspect the judge will decide that a small fine (which this piece of shit will not pay) is sufficient.

Well Judge, forget the fine, give me ten minutes alone with this piece of shit, in ten minutes I will exact enough revenge for society and ensure this scum bag is not able to repeat this shocking type of animal abuse, and like Campbell, I will post it on you tube as a warning to all the others who think that abusing animals is 'fun' or 'cool'.

UPDATE....

Well done to the Judge, Campbell has been sentenced to ten months in prison and is banned from ever owning an animal again.
The only area of dissapointment is the fine the Judge imposed, "Campbell was ordered to pay reparations of $4362.47 at a rate of $10 per week starting from one month after his release"

It is a pity that the reparations will only be paid at $10 per week.

Lets just hope that when this prick drops the soap in the shower that the other cons decide to administer a little bit of jail house justice.

Climate change humour

Hat Tip M&M and Not PC

The tax momentum....

Gareth Morgan is talking tax overhaul. Sir Roger (on Facebook) likes it. I like it. The audience liked it...

Labour won't like it. Labours entire philosophy is that our money is theirs and they should have the control of it.

New Zealand needs tax reform or we'll always be at the whims of politicians who want to buy votes or waste money on schemes that will further keep us in dependency.
Little wonder why Labour increases benefits and creates entirely new ones like Working For Families - it keeps people NEEDING Government. How can anybody win an election by telling people they won't get more "free" money? John Key didn't even try to.

What we need to do while we have Labour away from the reins is to get some momentum going and continue the debate that ACT started.

See: Gareth Morgans full report