sagenz

Wheredo these tvnz cretins get their researchers

He is Winstons mate. Members of Waikato's Tainui iwi have re-elected former National MP Tukuroirangi Morgan .  Where the hell do these cretins get their researchers.  Underpants Tuku was a Winston First MP

After six years in office it is still hard to tell the Clark Government's purpose.

The NZ Herald editorial

After six years in office it is still hard to tell the Clark Government's purpose.  

The Prime Minister's statement to the House on Tuesday revived familiar aims, to improve the economy with investments in higher-value products and better productivity and enhance certain health, education and welfare benefits to selected sections of society.

But those are no more or less than would be expected of any Government at any time.

Even the Herald recognises that this government just does not have a clue. The ranks of left bloggers are clearly recognising it is impossible to defend the indefensible and are leaving the field.

We can look forward only to a couple more years of bumbling, stumbling incompetence before the rest of New Zealand realise what they saddled themselves with.

Most howlybag

David Slack has a meme asking for the most howlybag types. check out his post for a definition.

- Most howlybag blogger.
Wussell - without a doubt.  His posts can sometimes be OK but his comments are so insufferably pompous and unable to comprehend a different view he wins.

- Most howlybag celebrity.
Sean Penn - get over yourself

- Most howlybag media personality.
Paul Holmes.  Cock!

- Most howlybag politician.
Steve Maharey - there is just no question that anybody who witters on nonsensically with the most inane pedantic PC interpretations could be anything other than the worlds biggest howlybag.  can't you just imagine him as a kid getting smacked in the face for being a howlybag and running back to his mother to tell tales?

- Most howlybag person you've ever met.
Reinsford S&*(()) - For telling my parents that he my brother & I had been playing with matches under the house.  Boy did we get thrashed with a bamboo stick

The wild ride is over

Gerald Baker in The Times has a new perspective on changes in US foriegn policy that is worth a read.  The wild ride is over. The days of an aggressive US foreign policy are gone.

Iran offers the most powerful evidence of this sea change. This week’s news that the Administration is to channel funds to the Iranian opposition represents not the escalation of tension that some have reported, but a backing away away from confrontation. Well-sourced rumours from the White House in the past week have been absolutely clear. This President has no intention of firmly confronting Iran.

As the fierce stars of Mr Bush’s first term wane, others of a softer sparkle are in the ascendant. Condoleezza Rice is the brightest. Dr Rice is smart and affable. Above all, she has the President’s ear.

I posted previously on the way Iran would be treated.  Iran will get nuclear weapons and they will be "encouraged" not to use them. The political consequences of action against Iran are now too high.

My conclusion is that the US government will offer something similar to what Maggie told the iraqis. Diplomatic means will be used to slow their progress towards Nuclear Weapons, but the consequences of Iran ever pre-emptively striking Iraq or israel would be very high.

The impact on the next US election of a quieter foriegn policy is interesting.  There will apparently be less to choose from between the 2 sides. Rationally the best thing that could be done for the advance in democracy in the next few years is to allow things to stabilise.  Iran will get nuclear weapons.  Once you have formed that conclusion the strategy to follow is to ensure that the least damage is done in getting there. 

The Hamas victory in Palestine really has changed things.  If they behave themselves we can expect relative peace & a two state solution to entrench itself.  There is much more danger for Hamas in attacking Israel now.  It is the state.

It has been interesting to observe how the US and Britain have both backed away from the whole cartoon controversy.  Now is the time for continental Europe to confront realities of their policies.  What is also curious is how many people have completely miscontrued the original point of the cartoons.  That point was to challenge Muslim tolerance.  Self censorship had been continuously practiced to the point where nobody had been willing to make any comment. 

We have seen the results.

Wired News: Here Comes a Google for Coders

Awesome: Wired News: Here Comes a Google for Coders.

For most people, open source is a synonym for free software. But for programmers, open source is about sharing code, building on the work of others and not having to reinvent the wheel -- at least, that's the ideal. In practice, code reuse remains very low, because it's often too hard for programmers to find relevant bits of code for their applications..

A new search engine for programmers promises to alleviate that problem by making it easier to find and share code. That in turn could increase programmers' productivity and give a fresh boost to the open-source movement.

This is awesome!  How many times have you wanted something custom and wasted all sorts of time figuring the object out for yourself.  I will  forgive Google for their Chinese limpness on this alone.

Good advice for Dr Brash

David Slack has a very good piece on direction for the National Party.  It should be required reading.  I respect David slack as a writer but he has provided some of the best strategic advice Dr Brash could possibly receive.

That great big hairy brute of an alpha male, Donald T Brash has found his chest.  It would be premature to say that it's getting a Kong-like pounding, but there has clearly been some kind of transformation. The signs are there if you know where to look.

Let's open the Herald. It's not a promising start. The headline reads: Brash takes blame for leadership speculation. But look! Right there at the end!

I had swallowed the Government line that we had been doing relatively well relative to Australia, but that of course is crap.

This is what the Rt Hon Paul Keating or if you prefer, Mark Latham, would tell you is showing the voter a bidda mongrel. Little acorns, mighty oaks, etc etc. This time last year, the strongest word he could bring himself to use in front of an audience was "baloney."

Now, just one week later, he sails into the house and all but rips the Labour Party a new ringpiece. "Pay the money back," he declares. Dr Brash's speech was barely audible in the chamber, the Herald tells us, because of the din of Government members, but he adopted a crash-through style. But in this context, the more noise they make, the more you know you're landing the blows. Don, you could be a contendah!

National & labour had agreed to have some decorum for the first speeches, but as per usual Labour said one thing and did another. Labour's reaction to welshing on the deal was interesting.

Chief Labour whip Tim Barnett said Margaret Wilson had set the rules of the debate - by asking for no barracking - "and clearly as chair it is up to her to enforce it".

NOT our problem says Labour.  Expect to see parliament become even more raucous as National  follow up with the success of showing some mongrel. 

Whinging in New Zealand: "the taste that Kiwi's know and love"

Link: Whinging in New Zealand: "the taste that Kiwi's know and love".

I was walking down the condiment aisle in pac-n-save yesterday when I discovered that the spot where they normally kept the Ketchup was now occupied exclusively by that most horrid of condiments - Watties Tomato Sauce

hattip Not PC: Questions about NZ's culinary disgrace.

I have hated Watties since I was a small thing.  tis just shit.  now PC has got me started.  I have tried ketchup all over the world and am convinced watties is the most revolting.  The only point of ketchup is for fish and chips.  mum does not make her plum sauce much nowadays.  but that was the busines!!.

So lets have a poll.  who thinks Watties is just red dog wee & sugar and who thinks it is edible.  Now that I think about it I dont think I have ever owned a bottle of watties and have probably not willingly had it in the last 25 years.

Sports News - Soccer - Brum promise internal Butt probe

I guess he should have stayed for the game!!! Brum promise internal Butt probe.

Bureaucrat speak

from Not PC. One of my all time favourite pieces of bureaucrat speak.  and he actually said it!!

"I guess I should warn you," uber-bureaucrat Alan Greenspan once told a Senate Committee, "if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said."

Clive Davis in The Times on blogging

Clive Davis, a blogger and columnist in the Times has some interesting points.

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE BLOGGERS

Technorati, the main search engine in the so-called "blogosphere", now tracks some 27 million sites worldwide

only last week the respected BBC foreign correspondent Paul Reynolds told how he had learnt to treat blogs as a source of information on the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the furore over cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper. As he observed: "The mainstream media (MSM in the jargon) has to sit up and take notice and develop some policies to meet this challenge."

The right-wing blogosphere may not seem quite so vulnerable, but it too faces dangers. There is a lot to be said for the forensic work it has performed in the past couple of years. Faced with a complacent liberal media, it has prompted an overdue rethink among editors and reporters who once assumed that their worldview was the only one that mattered.

Ultimately, however, I remain optimistic. For one thing, conservative bloggers still tend to be more tolerant of dissent than their left-wing counterparts, many of whom are about as much fun as superannuated members of the Militant Tendency