blogging it real

Labels: mashup, top gear

6 from 8 last week. About time I had a decent one.

Dragons v Storm
Dragons by 6
The Dragons are just clinical at the moment. They pissed around against the Warriors and still dicked them. Statement game for them and it should be tight but the Storm aren't the same side on the road.

Raiders v Broncos
Raiders by 10
Both sides are playing horrible football at the moment. The Broncos can't defend to save their lives and even the awful Raiders should find a few holes out wide to run some points up.

Knights v Roosters
Knights by 16
The Roosters are absolute ratshit, losing to the Warriors and getting towelled up by the Rabbitohs says more than you need to know. It'll be chicken soup down the coal mines.

Panthers v Warriors
Panthers by 8
The Warriors are without Price which is probably not a bad thing as other forwards seem to go better when he's not there. The Panthers have playoffs to play for though so should win going away. Speaking of going away, I wish Cleary would. He's almost as bad as the AB coaches.
Sharks v Eels
Eels by 4
A resurgent Eels side who must now be an outside chance of slipping into the 8. I don't know where this form has come from, they are pulling an old sneaky one the Warriors were famous for. But this is crucial. Drop this match and they are done and dusted.

Rabbitohs v Bulldogs
Bulldogs by 2
Shucks, who would have thunk it a few weeks ago but this could actually go either way. Taylor has taken the shackles off the Rabbitohs attack and the Bulldogs have started tripping in the home straight. All the momentum is with the bunnies but the players are with the Bulldogs and they'll scrape home.

Tigers v Sea Eagles
Sea Eagles by 10
The Sea Eagles are still vulnerable but are in good form. The Tigers meanwhile have won a couple of games ina row by decent margins. However three in a row is a bridge too far for this lot.

Labels: nrl, nrl tipping, nrl tipping 09

Here at BIR HQ we've been seething as we heard from mainstream media that most people just don't understand the issue at all, which is the most bitterly disappointing element of this fucking outrage.

We cannot believe that when a Minister abuses her access to departmental information for political reasons and thereby causes a serious breach of two individuals' privacy (she'd clearly breach the Privacy Act were she covered by it) the majority response is anger over the amount the two women receive in state support. Nevermind that a proportion of it likely comes via the fathers' child support payments to the IRD.

Poor show New Zealand! It's ironic that Paula Benefit and the public overlook the fact that Benefit surely approves of the amount they receive by virtue of the office she holds. She is responsible for the actions of her department, which determines and pays the support.

We know that there are privacy guidelines for Ministers that she followed (followed in the sense that she's a clueless bitch) but her actions were unprincipled in the extreme. It would have been illegal had her Ministry done it on her behalf. She has scored political points against two beneficiaries by abusing laws and then hiding behind the protections of her office. Fucking outrageous.

Our favourite analogy (from the Herald's "Your Views", where beneficiary bashers are in the majority about 20-1):

If I decide to go down to the local IRD office with a placard and protest that I am paying too much tax, I do not expect the IRD to release my tax records to the press.

Although it should read Peter Dunne, rather than "the IRD", which would increase the impact and accuracy!

Our favourite analysis (from norightturn):

The other question is where the matter stops. What say a minister decided to release the tax return details of a complainant? Or their shonky work history? Or some criminal conviction that had been long buried? Let's face it, it's not a fair fight (Colin Espiner)

And that's the real problem here. The government collects all sorts of information about us as part of its ordinary business - information on tax, crimes or criminal complaints, health, travel, education - and we expect that the relevant departments will generally keep that information private. We do not expect it to end up in the Minister's hands to be used as political ammunition if we dare to raise our voice.

The BIR Team

Labels: ird, nasty brutish and short, national, paula bennett mp

So it turns out summer does eventually arrive at 54deg N - in fact, it's a sweltering +31. This necessitated finding a relaxing body of water in which to immerse oneself - or more accurately, one's one year old. We ascertained that an hour's drive would take us to a popular swimming lake.

Some problems were encountered. The public reserve/swimming access area at this massive lake (with many kms of shorefront) spans all of 200m. OK, so be it - we were there early enough to secure a spot under the shade provided by the sole, rather pitiful tree. There we joined some others, and were soon accompanied by more.

And never have I see a more woebetide collection of beachgoers. Ranging in size from XXL to morbidly obese, their main interests were smoking, adding another layer of sunburn on top of yesterday's, and waddling very slowly. Yes, it was fat, smoking redneck day at the beach (fat, smoking brownnecks also welcome).

The thing that bothered me was not so much that there were obviously intent on waddling to their early graves, but the bloody ubiquitous smoke. Less for myself than for L'il Red, of course. And given that were basically committed to our prime shady spot (and the remaining 190m of foreshore were quickly filling up too), there was little escape from it short of going home.

Generally I couldn't give a stuff when adults choose to smoke outside, but it's not OK when you're packed cheek-by-jowl at the beach. Time to make like Manly and introduce a smoking ban!

Labels: beaches, brownnecks, obesity, rednecks, smoking

Can't remember the week so I'll just chuck the date up there.

Sea Eagles v Knights
Sea Eagles by 10
A solid Friday Nighter here and the Eagles aren't back to their best but this is one they should take care of. Not sure what the Knights response will be to finding out their coach is buggaring off.

Titans v Broncos
Titans by 20
The Broncos are conceding 40 points every week (aside from the Warriors game for some reason) and with injuries on top of a capitulating defense the Titans will have to play like mugs to not win easily.

Bulldogs v Eels
Bulldogs by 8
The Eels were pumped up last week but expect them to just get pumped this week. A bit of a clash from the 80s and perhaps a different result with the Bulldogs having too many guns for the fish.

Cowboys v Panthers
Cowboys by 10
The Cowboys had a down week last week so must be due to have a good week this time right? Home turf, Thurston, playoff hopes teetering, they'll get there.

Storm v Sharks
Storm by 10
The Storm will have players back from injury and seem to bounce back from defeat well, though the inconsistency must be a major worry for their angry man coach. All the same they can play a nice basic game but put points on when they need to and their defence is solid each week so that's no points for the Sharks then.

Raiders v Tigers
Tigers by 2
Normally you'd pick the Raiders to win a game like this at home but the Tigers must surely string together a couple of decent games at some point the Raiders have lost ground on recent season. They are ripe to be completely tipped out of the playoff race.

Warriors v Dragons
Dragons by 12
If the weather is crap and the Warriors build on last weeks effort on attack then they are in with a sniff but the Dragons are actually playing really good fucking football that is several levels above the Warriors. Can we lower them to our standards? I think not.

Rabbitohs v Roosters
Rabbitohs by 12
The Rabbitohs are throwing points round like its christmas and the Roosters defence should ensure they get plenty more gifts this week. Or is that easter eggs?

Labels: nrl, nrl tipping, nrl tipping 09

Broncos v Rabbitohs
Broncos by 8
Might be hard for the Broncos after THAT match as half their side is in out or in doubt but I reckon this will kick off a rocking round of football with everybody pumped up and ready to belt the crap out of everybody else. Broncos to give Queenslanders something to smile about.

Bulldogs v Titans
Bulldogs by 4
This should be a cracker but the Bulldogs have too many bullets and the Titans are flattering to decieve with their possie on the ladder.

Panthers v Raiders
Panthers by 6
This is a bloody lottery. It's Jekyll vs Hyde... or is that Hyde vs Jekyll? Tune in and find out.

Sharks v Sea Eagles
Sea Eagles by 4
The Sea Eagles got well and truly touched up last week but they weren't as bad as the score suggests (unfortunately). On Sharks home turf this should be a good stoush but the birdies will fall over the line.

Roosters v Warriors
Draw
Something might galvanise the Warriors soon into playing some football. The attitude is generally there but there's no x-factor with that dud Jones in the halves but maybe seeing your captain get laid out during the week will make them do something good for once. But I'm going with form and pick a 0-0 result.

Tigers v Cowboys
Tigers by 6
Thurston will probably have an absolute stormer but the Tigers may just have sorted their shit out. Or not.

Eels v Storm
Storm by 2
Hindmarsh's 250th game won't quite be enough to get the Eels home here. The Storm will have a few battered and bruised but they will have had 5 days rest so should take care of business.

Labels: nrl, NRL 2009, nrl tipping, nrl tipping 09

Labels: k-pop, Korea

My picks for this weekend...
Rabbitohs v Panthers
Panthers by 4
The Rabbitohs might pull out the old bounce back result after getting a 50 point hiding last week but even against a mediocre Panthers team I think they'll fall just short.

Knights v Raiders
Knights by 8
Home ground advantage all the way.

Dragons v Sea Eagles
Dragons by 4
People thought last weeks game v the Bulldogs was the Sea Eagles showing the NRL that they are back. But this will be another checkup at the clinic. Win this and you can bring them back into premiership contention, lose it and the jury will remain out.

Warriors v Bulldogs
Warriors by 8
God only know what's making me do this but they threatened to breakout last week where one shit house pass cost them a 14-0 lead and what was probably the match. They play a crap style, have crap coaching, and have the worst halves in the comp but it's now or never. Warriors by 8 or Bulldogs by 36. In a moment of lunacy I pick the former.

Titans v Eels
Titans by 4
The Eels are hanging in there with 5 of their last 6 games being decided by 7 points or less and this should be more of the same. They'll miss Hayne though and that should consign them to a season ending loss.

Looking at the ladder you could loosely group teams into the following categories:

Serious Title Contenders
Dragons (26), Bulldogs (24) and Storm (23)

Pretenders (but lock them in for the playoffs)
Titans (24)
Sea Eagles (20)

Iffy Top 8 (making up the numbers if they do make it)
Cowboys (20)
Panthers (20)
Knights (20)
Broncos (20)

Wooden Spoon Battle Extraordinaire (these teams are mud)
Raiders (16)
Rabbitohs (15)
Warriors (15)
Eels (15)
Tigers (14)
Sharks (12)
Roosters (10)

Teams with red points are sides that have 2 points coming up for the bye whereas all other sides will have to earn them the hard way.

On the Warriors, after last weekends effort they now have their worst points per game stats in their 14 and a half year history and the lowest average since the Rabbitoh side of 1999.

That, ladies and gentlemen is how negative Cleary's coaching style is and how hopeless our halves are.

Labels: cleary, fucking hopeless, jones, nrl, warriors

People complaining of the cost of holding the justifiable-assault referendum should go and check their rates bill, power bill, or bank statement. Then they should shut the fuck up. They'll see that they are routinely charged for ineffectual or even insultingly poor service from most organisations that provide services to the public. The Electoral Commission is providing a very important service to the public in this referendum, it's called democracy people! Of course we may feel that it is ineffectual and the referendum question of insultingly poor quality, but for less than a monthly line maintenance charge voters can take part in the democratic process. At nine million dollars and four million people this referendum works out to roughly two buck fiddy per person. That is a bloody good price for turning on and running the electoral machine for a few months. Bloody good. That figure gives me confidence that in these recessionary times, at least democracy's maintenance folk aren't lined up in front of the razor gangs.

The referendum question is stupid. Let's move on. The referendum question has an explicit intent of conveying voter disagreement with the 2007 repeal/replacement of section 59 of the Crimes Act. The default question is then "Do you agree with the 2007 repeal/replacement of section 59 of the Crimes Act? I suggest anyone still wondering how to vote simply... read section 59 of the Crimes Act.

Labels: democracy

My response to most people who have brought up the subject of the Warriors in recent weeks/months has been varied. To some I have launched into a diatribe about how inept their coaching and management has been while to others I have responded "don't get me started". Clearly my response depends on how much time I have.

And right now I've got a few minutes.

Basically they are fucked. They are more likely to win the wooden spoon than make the eight and the writing has been on the wall for quite some time. To get the truth do not listen to the guys on radio sport, or Steve Price, or Ropati, Nikau or McIvor on the tellie. All these guys have a vested interest in talking the side up or are linked with the team even on a cordial level.

To get the truth read what I've got to say or else head on over to the forum at Warriors online.

Essentially the Warriors have fucked up in two key areas. One is recruitment and the other is in game plan/style.

They made the final 4 last year and obviously to all and sundry the thing holding them back from going further was the halves. The only problem there was that they signed a guy that was far, far fucking worse than what we had. Then instead of jettisoning him they told one of our halves (the best goal kicker in the competition) to go play rugby and have now told the other bloke to go play for the form side of the comp. But I guess at least they will use him as a hooker which is what he is. And we are left with a fullback playing standoff and a halfback who was past it 4 (FOUR!!!) years ago.

Signing Kemp was dumb because he was a goalkicker BUT we already had one that was better, and he was a try scorer, BUT he scored tries on the end of backline moves. We don't do backline moves that put wingers into space, in fact we don't do any moves that put wingers into space. We look for "tryline tries" and bomb to the corner tries. He was blamed for not scoring tries and dropped after a few weeks. Problem was that the pricks picking the side failed to notice that Ken Irvine wouldn't have scored tries with Jones and co running the backline.

Last week in the loss to the Titans Lance Hohaia spent 80 minutes playing a game of touch with himself. Against the Broncos it was much the same. Jones meanwhile played spot the shitty kick (I spotted it quite often), and spot the time when he ran when a pass was on but cos he's so old he tripped over his cane into the tackle.

This week Jones spent 80 minutes safely on the other side of the Tasman because if he'd been within arms reach I'd have throttled him to death. The commentators were going on in the first half about how good he and Hohaia were going in the halves. That's quite funny because I'm pretty sure we had ALL THE FUCKING BALL, ALL THE FUCKING FIELD POSITION and managed to score one barge over try to Price. In the second half we managed an out of the blue try to Price from a bomb where the defender should have been awarded a medal for services to science where he made himself disappear in a wide open space.

Neither try had anything to do whatsoever with any kind of organisation.

And as I've said several times in recent weeks (elsewhere) we are the worst attacking team in the comp. It's not even close.

This season these are our scores from week one until the latest disgrace...
26 (Fien in the halves), 26 (Fien in the halves), 10, 16, 22, 17, 14, 11, 12, 12, 14, 10, 13, 12 and 14.

An unbelievable ten matches where we haven't cracked 20 points. In fact in the last nine games we have't even cracked 15 points!!!!! If we were an earthquake it would be unregistered. In the Broncos game we got two miserable fucking tries against a side that has conceded 48, 44, 46 and 21 points in it's last 4 games all of which it lost. And both our tries were scored by our fucking prop!!!!!

We had two other chances to score. One Mannering butchered when he had three players to pick from to score and he fired it in front of Kemp into touch. If that pass had been on target we were up 14-0 and the game was there for the taking. The second was when Kemp (probably paranoid about the earlier shit pass) over ran Hohaia slightly who fired it hard at him (slightly behind) and he couldn't hang on and he spilled it. before anybody says "well you can't blame Jones for those cockups) let me say this. GO FUCK YOURSELF!!! Jones has created NOTHING!!!. I might be slightly inebriated when I type this but Michael Jackson would be more likely to pose a threat to an opposition defence than Jones. The moves are so telegraphed when he's got the ball they may as well run a flag up that says "go to sleep, nothing here to see".

But just so I'm not a complete negative nelly...

Locke has looked bloody good and I'm that desperate I'd almost try him at halfback for the remainder of the season. Results don't matter, we aren't going to get near the 8 but it would be good to see him with the ball in hand as much as possible. Chuck Moon in at standoff and get him to bomb the fuck out of it (he has a lead foot). Move Hohaia back to fullback and put McKinnon on the bench. It almost seems as though he has stopped caring. Where are the psychotic outbursts? Does he want to move to England to see out his career? The Warriors have a few too many players head that way for my liking. I think McKinnon still has some good football left in him but not running off these sacks of shit we have in our forward pack. Also Lewis Brown is a good tough footballer with a bit of mongrel about him. Ropati looked better on his return. Mannering had his moments but is definately a looseforward not a centre.

And on a final note... the refs are cheating c*nts. There were a couple of horseshit penalties in that game that cost points that were crowd penalties all the way. I hope in the review each week that the refs have them pointed out because it's unacceptable in this day and age.

After a shithouse week last week I'm hoping to bounce back and reassert my ascendency or some wanky thing like that.

Broncos v Warriors
Broncos by 16
Warriors to play the Broncos back into form. Cleary one step closer to early termination of contract. Can anybody quite believe they've let Fien go early when they have Hohaia (a fullback) and Jones (a has-been) in the halves?

Dragons v Roosters
Dragons by 6
The Roosters will put up a better than expected showing but may be missing a couple of dickheads from their side. The Dragons are looking better and better as the year goes on but still look like a bunch of dorks and will face plant in the semis.

Rabbitohs v Tigers
Rabbitohs by 2
Battle of two woefully out of form sides. I guess one of them can't lose but the question is who? The Rabbitohs showed a little bit of something last week and will need to build on it.

Storm v Knights
Storm by 10
The Storm had an off game (they've crept in this year) and the Knights have been in bad knick and only beat the Bunnies last week so I have to go with the home side bouncing back.

Sharks v Cowboys
Sharks by 6
Could go either way but the Sharks have turned over a new leaf ... although there was that loss to the awesome Roosters last week (eyes bulge).

Raiders v Titans
Raiders by 10
The Raiders are so unpredictable. If they turn up they can beat anybody (at home), but when they don't anybody can knock them over. Too moody for me, but what can you do? I hope they take their happy pills Friday night. And in the NRL they probably will, plus a whole lot of other ones too..... and some booze..... and then meet some ladies..... and then realise those ladies are the Titans.

Panthers v Eels
Panthers by 4
This could go either way. Two very average sides that are temperamental. The Eels are a little more plain though and maybe the Panthers will spark a bit and have some smoked eel for sunday dinner.

Sea Eagles v Bulldogs
Bulldogs by 4
A big Monday night match!! Who knew?!!! The Bulldogs are a better team and playing better footie but the Sea Eagles could definately prove that they are back and a chance to defend their title.

Labels: nrl, nrl tipping, nrl tipping 09