blogging it real

So long, Dubya. You've been a complete and utter fuckwit. As NRT suggests, even if Obama "is only as bad as Clinton, he'll still be a vast improvement on the Bush Administration." Clinton was frequently a jackass - who victimized the poor in his own country, and instigated various atrocities abroad - but is made to look really bloody good by virtue of being bookended by the mediocre George H. W. Bush, and his atrocious son.

Labels: clinton, dickheads, George Bush, obama

Today, Darth is a stout defender of liberty! Unfortunately for him, the freedom he longs for is unlikely to be delivered by any likely National Government. He in fact espouses the 'nanny state / pc gone mad' rhetoric common to ACT and Libertarianz supporters (and a large proportion of the Your Views community), but not the current National Party.

After asserting strangely that no one gives a damn about the economy, tax cuts, the environment, privatization, or working for families (contrary to all that, y'know, polling stuff), Ole Smokey declares the election is actually about "the freedom of the individual to live his or her life with as little interference as possible from the state, its politicians and minions."

I didn't know that Darth was a supporter of drug liberalization, the decriminalization of prostitution, and (by a small stretch of the imagination) civil unions - in that the latter allow consenting adults to receive official recognition of their own choices about domestic partnership, rather than the choices of the state.

Of course, Darth doesn't actually care about any of these liberties: instead he claims he doesn't want the state telling families how best to spend their money (too bad government spending as a proportion of GDP is essentially the same under Labour as it was under National), how to use their property (Darth, I look forward to building a tannery next to your suburban Rotorua home), and how we run our families (apparently Darth's concern for liberty doesn't extend to the rights of children not to be assaulted by their parents).

What else does Darth want?

" to fill up our cars" - Surely Labour, the biggest road builders NZ has seen in a long time, would agree with this?

"turn on our heaters" - Labour supports warm homes. And will even help low-income families ensure that heat doesn't disappear straight through an uninsulated ceiling.

"light our homes" - I have no idea where he's going with this. I, for one, wish Darth couldn't see his keyboard sometimes, but even so, is there a political party opposed to home lighting?

"run our taps (and showers)" - building standards are not a threat to this, Darth.

"eat our food, smoke a cigarette, have a few drinks" - here's the crux of the matter, Darth doesn't like health promotion. But that isn't a Labour government initiative, Darth - you fuckwit - and is certain to continue under National. Lest that overburdened health care system you so frequently bemoan be crippled under the weight of the obese, emphysematic and chronically inebriated.

"sell land or buy or develop property" - where the fuck have you been for the last 9 years, Darth? Do you not recall a property boom of heretofore unseen proportions?

And it's all about freedom from presidential-style politics. We want - nay, need - to be rid of a dictatorial leader so that consensus politics again has a chance to flourish.

Yes, I distinctly recall the consensual style of the last National government, as they went about raping and pillaging.

Labour makes much of its Working for Families scheme, but its inventors don't seem to realise that recipients would much rather have that money in direct income tax rebates.

They don't want to have to go cap in hand to Inland Revenue, fill in interminable forms that want to know everything about them and theirs except what they had for breakfast or when they last went to the toilet.

And they don't want to be left feeling beholden to the Government for the largesse when they could have received the same amount directly in tax breaks without it costing them, as taxpayers, as much again as they receive in administration costs.

None of us who don't qualify begrudges families a financial boost, but there are better ways to do it.

I'll explain this in terms you can understand, Darth: NATIONAL HAS PROMISED NOT TO CHANGE WORKING FOR FAMILIES.

I guess the poor, unfortunate families offered tax relief under this immensely popular scheme will continue the hardship of filling out "interminable forms". Dick.

The Greens have made it clear, fortunately, that they won't have a bar of National. They will, therefore, be powerless in the new Parliament so a vote for them is essentially wasted.

So voting for a party likely to be in opposition is a wasted vote is it, Darth? You truly are a disgrace.

He ends with the height of humour, likening Helen Clark to a shrew.

I hope you choke on your Rothmans, old man.

Labels: darth george, dickheads, herald, ird, national, NZ election 2008

212/9. Repeat performance.
I think we'll win this one, but that doesn't excuse our losing 9 wickets in 50 overs! Faahaaken hell, how much can we take?

Update: woohoo.

Labels: blackcaps, bracewell sucks shit, can't bat for shit, crap, cricket, dickheads, incompetent time wasting fucks, new zealand players

Yup it's true they do they do they do. It's enough to break your fucking heart. Soundly beaten by a shit team. Bangladesh take an seven fucking wicket victory and with it ruin our hopes of an elevation, however temporary, to the number two spot on the ICC ODI rankings. How fucking humiliating. You want to be the number two team in the world boys? Little things like beating the number nine team in the world help, aye? Dumbasses.

In brighter news, oh, that's right, there is no brighter news. This makes everything completely shit.

Labels: blackcaps, bracewell sucks shit, can't bat for shit, crap, cricket, dickheads, incompetent time wasting fucks, new zealand players

That's what it will be if the truck drivers' tax rebellion produces the "paralysis" (John Campbell, 3 July 2008) the media is salivating for.

People are being told to stay home. Right, and at whose expense would this unscheduled day off be? If it's mine, the truck drivers are stealing my annual leave. If it's my work, they're stealing my employer's money - via my salary - as surely as if they embezzled it directly.

People are being told to go in to work after 11 am. Right, and if I work in a shop, who is going to serve the customers earlier in the day? Oh, that's right, said customers won't be there ... to the detriment of hard-working business owners and their employees. Again, the truck drivers might as well just reach right into the tills and steal the morning's cash taking, and siphon the eftpos sales directly into their fucking diesel accounts.

Those with early morning flights are being told to consider staying at airport hotels overnight. Right, and to which trucker should I send the invoice for said accommodation? What that's ... you expect it to come out of my post-tax salary? Get to fuck! Perhaps if I don't like paying the GST on said hotel bill, or the taxes of fuel I will use to get there, I could just park my car sideways across a couple of lanes of the airport motorway, and walk to my departure gate?

Bus passengers are going to be ejected on the city edge and told to hoof it, regardless of (dis)ability or weather. And it would be a long fucking hike from John Andrew Ford on Gt North Rd to my workplace.

And the Police seem entirely complicit in this terrorizing of the civilian population.

Where's that pepper spray when you need it, you spineless fucks? Break into the first 10 truck cabs that appear in the downtown convoy and break a few fucking heads, I say.

If it's good enough for the proletarians it's good enough for tax rebels in the petite bourgeoisie.

Labels: crime, dickheads, police, terrorism, trucks, War on Terror

#1. Shock headline: Labour condemned on liquor outlet issue

It would be just as accurate to lead with: "Mealy-mouthed opposition makes generic criticism of government." But don't expect to see that any time soon.

So how about: "National criticizes liquor outlet plan" or something vaguely neutral?

#2. Readers' views on solution to crime

It's always fun to see what the talkback mob who hang out on the Herald's Your Views section have to say (hint: it's actually conservative populism a la NZ First, not neoliberal conservativism a la National), but here the Herald has highlighted a select few for our special attention. The fifth comment down, from the self-described "Warrior Legend" of Howick:

Prison is a place of punishment. If you look at the prisons overseas, prisoners get tortured and some even beaten to death! This should be the same standard here before more innocent people get killed!

Yes, torture and indiscriminate murders in prison are clearly the answer, as always. Look what they've achieved in the "War on Terror"(tm). Depriving someone of their liberty is never enough for this blood-thirsty mob. "Crims" are not really punished until also deprived of sleep, testicles and, ultimately, lives.

Bear in mind this a comment the Herald really wants us to read.

Labels: crime, dickheads, herald, national

Last night I noticed TV3 ("live from beside Lake Tekapo ... but because it's pitch black by 6pm you can't actually see the Lake") has jumped on the blackout bandwagon, salivating at the prospect of night after night of easy stories featuring hard luck households shivering under blankets in rooms lit only by a few pitiful candles, and starting to smell as they're limited to 30 second showers every second day. Never mind that such as scenario is extremely unlikely ... bring it on, says TV3, so we can play the blame game and have some easy, yet dramatic reporting. Despite the very measured warnings from the Minister and the industry, they find a supportive voice in Ben & Jerry Brownlee, for whom (surprisingly)"It's all the gummint's fault for not doing something over the last 8 years."

Right. And how many rivers does Ben & Jerry propose to dam(n) to generate new supply? How many coal-fired plants does he want to commission? How many windfarms would he permit over the heads of whining, National-voting farmers complaining about their rights to uninterrupted views of the very eroding hillsides they denuded? How many naked raindances will be perform at 6.04pm each evening, in front of adoring cameras?

Labels: ben and jerry, dickheads, electricity

Contrary to media opinion, I'm happy to live in a country where incumbent governments aren't guaranteed to win 'elections'.

In fact, I believe there's a word for the kind of country where the return of the party in power is assured, and then regularly rake in, y'know, 99.8% of the popular vote.

Key, who apparently sees recognition of democracy as a sign of Cabinet disunity, can STFU too. Would he prefer Goff go around proclaiming "There's absolutely no way we can lose this election, because I've personally filled in all the ballots myself."

Because that's the alternative. Dickhead.

Labels: democracy, dickheads, john key, media

They make u-turns at will.










Upon completing a quick search of the BIR archive, I see we have frequently made comment on such idiocy on the part of the police. For poor driving, idiotic prosecutions, and both of the above.

Labels: dickheads, police

I've had it with the cops at the moment. Last night at rush hour on Mayoral Dr: an unmarked squad car (blue Holden Commodore) with two uniformed officers inside weaves between lanes like the village drunk, performs a u-turn for no good reason, drives at 15kph up and down the street, all the while turning lights on and off arbitrarily. Dorks.

The family of the poor bugger murdered in the dairy in Manukau must have taken a lot of comfort in this police response: essentially, "yeah, dairies get robbed all the time and we knew this would happen sooner or later."

Further south again, some guy who's had a few too many wines in Queenstown is asked to leave the bar, and gets charged and convicted for "using insulting language" ... because he said police were "all rapists anyway". Resisting arrest, sure. But insulting fucking language ... get a life. Dicks.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Townsville Police arrested and charged Jonathon Thurston for "public drunkeness" - the heinous crime of walking home a bit drunk, not being able to find his keys, and deciding to take a nap in his own fucking front yard. For fuck's sake, who hasn't been guilty of that?

Labels: dickheads, police

You know that any Op-Ed piece beginning "Mike Moore is absolutely right..." would be a dubious contribution to the Sunday News, let alone the NZ Herald. Yet two chaps by the names of Sean Palmer and Simon O'Connor managed to have their "response" to Mike Moore published in that august outlet, furthering the Herald's downward spiral into the mire of incoherence and right-wing talking points.

The former is a doctoral student at AUT, the latter has a "background in political philosophy", by which I take it he means he completed a 200-level course on that topic at some point.

All by-the-by, let's take a look at what they had to say:

Recent constitutional changes have indeed been based on political expediency, ideological agendas, and an ironic desire to do what Australia does.

Well, unlike Australia we don't have the courage to even debate a Republic in any serious or sustained way. An actual referendum would send certain circles into "sky is falling"-style fits. Sure, we ended the knight- and dame-hoods a few years after Australia did, but Canada was the real leader in the field of abolishing imperial honours ... they did it in 1919.

No one with the best interests of Aotearoa at heart could support changes based on such divisive or ill-conceived ideas.

This is a vague assertion, not an argument. What changes? Who decided them? Were they voted on by MPs? What were the arguments pro- and con-?

He proposes that to combat the erosion of our constitution, New Zealanders ought to deliberately abandon it. The baby and the bathwater are both headed for the window!

No, he doesn't. His initial rambling contribution was conservative and elitist in orientation, in that he wanted change to be carefully considered, not populist or hasty, and the direction set not by the people or their representatives, but by a handful of plutocrats.

In reality, developing a new, republican constitution will only further the very problems he raises in his article.

Nice try, but Moore didn't call for "a new, republican constitution." Here's the extent of what he had to say:

If we are to be a republic, on which model - the US, French, Irish, or German model? There is a substantial difference.

An elected president could mean the end of our parliamentary system by establishing a potentially conflicting position of great power, but perhaps a congressional system has virtues. One attraction of the present system, a Queen or Governor General, is not the power they have but the power and prestige they deny others.

This is not an argument for a republic. Monarchists get their panties in a twist all too easily. Back to our two contributors:

The supporters of a New Zealand republic in the present Government have shown us, by their actions as much as their words, what their republic would look like. They have surreptitiously and systematically dismantled key elements of our constitution to create a new structure of government which the public does not support and which will give politicians extraordinary power.

Why do monarchists refuse to admit that Parliament is supreme? Politicians have had extraordinary power for a long, long time. The lack of a written constitution reinforces that (it would, in likelihood, turn some power over to the un-elected judiciary). As Lewis Holden put it recently: "the Sovereign would have to sign his or her own death warrant if Parliament handed it to them for assent." This is not due to any recent action on the part of Helen Clark and the "surreptitious republicans" in Parliament. But as Lewis suggests, the fundamentally dishonest claim that current politicians are grabbing royal powers is useful "in an era of popular dislike of politicians and the political process in general." Anyway, Palmer and O'Connor continue:

New Zealanders should not be under any illusion. Moves to republicanism have been made with stealth.

To date we have seen the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, and the renaming of "Queens Counsels" to the meaningless title "Senior Counsel".

Oh fuck off. Senior Counsel makes perfect sense - it says "this person is an experienced and respected figure in the legal profession". "Queens Counsel" is actually less meaningful, in that those appointed QCs aren't actually personal counsels to Betty Windsor.

The General Salute of the armed forces has been taken away from the Governor-General and assumed by the Prime Minister. Even the portraits of our Head of State have been removed from our overseas embassies.

If true, these are changes in protocol, not the Constitution. Do these chumps even know what constitution means?

Each underhanded change has been justified with the absurd claim that the removal of our current constitutional monarchy will make New Zealand a more open and mature society. Such changes show a slow grab for power, and a disregard for tradition and democratic values.

I thought the republicanism was "by stealth"? That the politicians acted "surreptitously" and in an "underhanded" manner? But now, apparently, our elected MPs are openly arguing for "the removal of our current constitutional monarchy." Except, of course, they're not.

While Moore thinks a constitution and republic would solve this dismantling, it is much more likely that the new constitution would merely codify these very tendencies. In the Government's continuing grasp for power, as shown for example, in their restriction of free speech through the Electoral Finance Bill, we can see the inherent problems a republic would bring.

First, as we have seen above, Mike Moore didn't argue for a republic. He argued for an orderly debate, controlled by eminent personages. Second, I note the authors' beloved constitutional monarchy did nothing to prevent the Government "grasping" power through the Electoral Finance Act, thereby restricting "free speech" - or rather, preventing the rich from exercising their right to free speech in the shadows. Which rather suggests that, according to the authors' own logic, that constitutional reform is required. Indeed, reading on we see:

Republics do not prevent these abuses, they legitimise them. A constitution freezes the thinking and prejudices of those who wrote them.

And the prize for missing irony goes to ... those who criticize a republic for "legitimizing abuses" (i.e., legislation the right wing doesn't like), when those "abuses" were committed and legitimized under a monarchical system. Also, note there is no connection between the first and second sentences.

In the US thousands of people die because the outdated "right of the people to keep and bear arms" is in their constitution. It was included with the best of intentions, and may even have made sense two centuries ago. However, it now gives gun supporters tremendous legitimacy in that country.

Right, so because you don't like one amendment to one republican constitution, all republics are flawed. Sure. What about the clauses of our current constitution that determine who will succeed a monarch: male heirs are preferred over female ones, and the successor can't be a Catholic or married to a Catholic. Sounds like sexism and bigotry, respectively. I guess monarchies are really fucked, even if those rules were included with good intentions, and probably made sense at the time. Anyways...

The sacrosanct American Constitution is seen as largely infallible. This is an error made by many supporters of a written constitution. Written constitutions are designed to be inflexible; if they are easily amendable, they are self-defeating.

I think Americans are more likely to see the Bible than the Constitution as infallible, but that's beside the point for now. For people who are bewail any changes to current arrangements, it's a bit rich to complain that written constitutions are inflexible

All that can be said for Mssrs. Palmer and O'Connor is that they have an opinion, unlike a certain mustachioed someone who has little more than a knowledge of what happens when you highlight some text, push control-c, and then control-v.

Labels: constitution, dickheads, herald, mike moore, republic