Redbaiter finally goes pop after reading one of my posts

Who would have thought he was German?.
Fat, four eyed teenager who spends all day in his bedroom on the PC because the big kids keep picking on him at school YES. But would never have picked him as a German.

Le Oompah Loompah

Cheese eating surrender monkey, now available in snack size.

Black Chalk, White Cheese

Compare the oleaginous Herald's puff piece today on the fool Harawira with its vitriolic attacks on ACT's Rodney Hide and you will see why the Antique Media is doomed.

What a difference a few days make to an editor who thinks Hide's legitimate use of travel allowances ranks ten time worse than Harawira's vicious and racist denigration of white New Zealanders.

On Hide:-

The headline "Sorry, but can Aucklanders still trust Hide?"

What a ridiculous assertion! Hide is painted as untrustworthy.


Three days later, On Harawira:-

The headline: "Apology goes as far as conscience allows."

Harawira is painted as some kind of hero.

Gutter journalism at its worst,

Bradford on Harawira

I heard Sue Bradford on Newstalk ZB this morning extolling the virtues of Hone Harawira and how parliament needs people like him: she fully supported his views.

This is the same Sue Bradford that Brown Len wants as his deputy on the Auckland Council.

Aucklanders - you are warned.

You know it's nearly Xmas when.....

Some pointless twat starts a political attack using xmas as a blunt instrument.

Pork medallions with cider, cream and mustard sauce

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 x 150g/5½oz pork fillet, cut into 3 medallions
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp sultanas
50ml/2fl oz cider
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
75ml/3fl oz double cream
1 tsp chopped fresh chives, to serve
Method

1. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Season the pork medallions on both sides with salt and freshly ground black pepper and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until beginning to turn golden-brown.
2. Add the sultanas, cider, mustard and cream and simmer until reduced and thickened. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
3. To serve, place the pork into a serving dish and sprinkle over the chives.

Two things;

1. It is only November 10th, if you want us to rebrand you as the Tindall politician keep scaring up an early xmas.
2. It is meat. We grow it, we kill it, we eat it.

recipe "Ihimaera'd"* from the BBC

*Pinched, plagiarised, stolen, copied.

MORE ON HONE

Hone should NOT apologise for his racist e-mail. To do so would expose him as a hypocrite. Hone believes that what he wrote to Mikaere is true ... always has and always will.

I have said previously that with Hone you get what you see and you see what you get. He is someone who plays on the latent prejudices of his constituency like a banjo and offers the 'white mans curse' as the reason for any and every failure visited on Maoridom ... and does it very, very well and his constituents love him all the more.

If Hone apologises he will lying to himself and to us. I for one will never accept it as given in good faith.

Hone, stand by what you truly believe.

Accountability no favourite of the Left

If you're accountable there cannot be secrets. So what's Idiot/Savant going on about?

But I forget: National and ACT's NeoLiberal ideologues don't think they have to be honest with the public, any more than they feel a need to consult us or expose their plans to proper democratic scrutiny. Deceit and urgency is simply their preferred modus operandi, to better ram through unpopular changes beneficial to their wealthy backers. As for the rest of us, we apparently don't count.

All you have to do is read the DIA website:

The Minister of Local Government has directed the Department of Internal Affairs to post the Cabinet papers and minutes on the Government's decisions in response to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance on its website. These papers are released consistent with the Official Information Act 1982.

The latest papers are dated 14 October, 19 October and 5 November. They're a few weeks old. As I said on Red Alert today:

And how do you know of these papers/ideas Mr Twyford?

Hide is releasing these papers without request for transparency and accountability reasons. You should congratulate him for that. He could stonewall them for months if he wanted, like Labour frequently did during its last nine years.

The Left cannot win on the ideas so they lie, smear and create subterfuge around so-called "secret privitisation agendas".

To answer the question whether Hide had a "secret" privitisation agenda, all they had to do was ask him.

Of course I'm in favour of privatisation, I don't see why we should have government trying to run a business, businesses run businesses and they do a far better job at managing capital and customers and all those things, you have competition and choice, of course I favour privatisation, unfortunately the ACT Party only got sufficient votes to have five MPs and the Prime Minister said it's off the agenda, but you know I love privatisation because I think government should concentrate on being government, as soon as it starts to try and run a business it's a disaster.

Now that we've read all this, it's worth revisiting Idiot/Savant again:

But I forget: National and ACT's NeoLiberal ideologues don't think they have to be honest with the public, any more than they feel a need to consult us or expose their plans to proper democratic scrutiny. Deceit and urgency is simply their preferred modus operandi, to better ram through unpopular changes beneficial to their wealthy backers. As for the rest of us, we apparently don't count.

Amazing.

Kick Starting The Economy

NACTionalMP no longer have to worry so much about managing the country out of recession. Fonterra just gave the whole county a huge and unexpected boost with a massive increase in the forecast dairy pay out for the current season. The payout has rocketed from a dismal $4.55 to a previously unthinkable $6.05 in just three months.



Adolf has done some back of a cigarette packet calculations and he reckons the increase from $4.55 in August to $6.05 in November will add something like $1.6 billion to GDP during the December and March quarters.

This assumes that three quarters of Fonterra's actual production goes into the vat during the summer six month period. So, the figures very roughly would be $1.50 x say 1.4 billion kg x .75 ./. 2 = $787 million per quarter which is respectively 2.4% of the last available quarter's GDP, namely June 09. I forgot to say that I have a call into Treasury seeking some official comment on this matter.

Also happens to be 2.2% and 2.4% of the same quarters in 2008/09.

This should give NACTionalMP the confidence to make an earlier than planned start on some of the structural reforms needed but which were clearly signalled for deferment until after the recession had passed.

In his prayers, Adolf thanks the Lord every day that Labour and the Greens are not in power, otherwise the whole damned lot would already have been squandered on grand and wasteful schemes designed to entrench the crooks and gangsters in power.

Bad News For Hone, Worse For Labour

The sheer vision and leadership of John Key has shone through in the latest MaraeDigipol.

(Fundamentalist right wingnuts should now get out their violins.)

What more vindication could you get for his inclusion of the Maori Party and ACT in government than these results?

Support among Maori voters for MP's deal with National has moved up and now greatly exceeds support for a deal with Labour. In fact, it is a whopping 68% as ordinary Maori people realise they have gained more from one year of a loose coalition with National than they and their ancestors gained from seventy five years of being patronised by Labour.

While the Labour Party fusses around minor issues like alleged privatisation of ACC and water supply and a few useless night classes, one of their traditional power bases has moved away and it is unlikely to return. Adolf wonders how long it will be before one or two trade unions look over the fence and realise where their bread really is buttered.

Most interesting is the effect this result will have on the sewer mouthed and evil minded racist, Hone Harawira. He may well have organised the hikoi which led to the formation of the Maori Party but the party has now left him well behind. Only six percent support for the man who would leave because he doesn't like the support arrangement with National.

The sooner he goes, the better.

It is Adolf's belief that influence over the Maori Party has moved from the ratbag element epitomised by Mr Harawira to the rising commercial middle class which guides Maori Corporations and Iwi. The new Maoridom and Maori Party embodies all the traditions of the National Party and few of today's yesteryear Labour Party. It's just that Maori dress them up in tikanga and kaupapa.



The sneering Mr Hone Harawira's day is over and he knows it.

80/20

A very short post for the centre right activists in the room.

I spent a very productive couple of hours today with some members of the VRWC. We talked about the Auckland Council elections next year, including the mayoral race.

The race for the baubles of office next year is going to be a simple left/right battle. I am on the right (and correct) side. Being on this side is going to necessitate working with others on that side and we will not always agree on policy, strategy, tactics and politics in general. That's clear. But we have common ground: a desire to destroy the big spending, high taxing socialists on the Left.

So let's work together using the 80/20 principle: that we can agree 80% of the time, and for the other 20% of the time we'll agree to disagree.

If we're not united in this, then we'll get Sue Bradford as chairwoman of the Finance Committee.

If that's not enough to motivate the right, nothing will.

Out of touch with poor priorities #2

From our "Labour is out of touch and is unable to prioritise" file comes this from "Chippie" Hipkins.

Last week I spent an evening visiting Heretaunga College night classes...It was a real eye opener and upon leaving I was even more convinced that the National government’s decision to cut ACE funding is the wrong one.

The first course was an Intermediate Spreadsheets course. ..One guy I spoke to, a painter, told me that most of his customers now expect to get their quotes electronically. The old carbon copy quote book doesn’t cut it anymore, so he was doing the spreadsheet course so he could do email quotes.

The next one I visited was an Introduction to Computers course...Looking through their workbook I fail to see how anyone could argue that courses like this one don’t improve literacy and numeracy skills. They certainly aren’t hobby courses.

I visited a Day Skipper course for people who were interested in boating...

My visits to a floral arranging course, a stained glass window course and a Spanish course all reinforced the tremendous social value night classes bring to the wider community...Several mums told me how important their one evening a week out of the house is for their mental health!

The National government have got this badly wrong...

When you're in parliament, a myriad of issues are there for the taking. You can either choose to get involved in all of them and be a jack of all trades, but master of none, or you can focus on the BIG issues - the ones that are going to allow this country to earn more money so that some of these courses are *possibly* affordable going forward.

In Labour's eyes right now everything the NACT is doing is wrong.

This negativity is enough to make me to go to a night class just one evening a week for *my* mental health.

Name suppression is pointless in the internet era

Name suppression is pointless in the internet era, certainly for any kind of public figure or half-baked celebrity like the one currently in trouble.

Name suppression only works in the 21st century if you happened to be an anonymous figure to begin with - perhaps a middle manager at the local Briscoes branch or some other kind of functionary. The moment you are wealthy, successful, famous in some minor kind of way, you may as well pick up the phone and call someone like Malcolm Boyle to help dig you out of the hole you are in. Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Twitter will all spread the news of your misdeeds by anonymous cynics, so you are simply better to announce the news yourself.

"Dynamite Erection" (name changed to respect the person's identity) is already getting bombarded via social media. He would be better to do issue a genuine and honest statement apologising to the victims and to his fans and show contrition (via some kind of proper community service, but not in same half-arsed pathetic way like Mikey Havoc has found).

He has been lucky to get off without a conviction, but it would seem the Judge's decision to keep the name suppressed will, in my opinion, be the toughest penalty of all in making his crime look much worse than it actually was. Erection now looks like a cowardly rapist, instead of a drunken fool.

Mikey Havoc - a $20,000 wanker

Mikey Havoc has set a stirling example to society through his weaseling out of his responsibilities and instead, duped a judge into letting him party up on the student campus.

This is not a joke.

Havoc, according to the Herald on Sunday, ran up $20,000 in parking fines. This is not disputed.

Because he couldn't pay the fines, he then sought to get community service as a way to offset the fines owing. In my opinion, he should have got jail, or the judge should have slapped a garnishing clause on his weekly pay packet, since his debt was an actual debt to a council for not parking properly instead of some restorative action. But instead the Judge gave him community service, diddling the council out of their fines money, and putting extra pressure on ratepayers.

So what community service did Mr Havoc get?

Helping out the sick or those in rest homes?
Picking up rubbish in parks?
Maybe he would read books in libraries to children and help promote literacy in poorer parts of Auckland?

No. Mikey Havoc got to "DJ" records in the student open space area.

That's right. A Disc Jockey in nightclubs and on radio got to disc jockey in public spaces as his contribution to society in order to repay his debt.

Apart from the fact that it's a breach of community service conditions to be placed into community work by the organisation they already work for, it's simply laughable that any kind of debt to society could be paid by Havoc partying it up in front of students.

Sadly, it's likely Havoc had a hearty round of backslapping from students for his gallant and generous behaviour in donating his worthless time and worthless service for a worthless cause.

I'll leave you with one last thought.

I don't want to pay so much tax. In fact, I'd like to pay $20,000 less to the state. What form on the IRD website do I fill in so I can be a taste tester at a nice restaurant or ensure the safety of cocktails at nightclubs instead of paying my debt?

Mikey Havoc is a $20,000 wanker. He should be ashamed of himself. What kind of person runs up a $20,000 parking debt, won't pay and then has the cheek to weasel out it in a cynical way?

ON THE RACE RELATIONS COMMISSIONER

The report that the Race Relations Commissioner fobbed of the more than 20 complaints made to his office that the Harawira e-mail was deeply offensive with the comment that the prime responsibility for any action rests with the Maori Party is proof positive of the fact that under the present Commissioner that office office is hopelessly biased towards the ugly side of Maoridom.

That Joris de Brez is prepared to go in with all guns blazing against Mayor Laws and his campaign to retain Wanganui as Wanganui but for this one its 'washing of the hands time' calls into question his competence and integrity.

Yes the Maori party has a role to play ... Hone is one of theirs. But equally the Race Relations Commissioner has a responsibility to act on behalf of all New Zealanders.

Joris de Brez is a disgrace.

Little Johnny

Adolf and The Cook went along last night to hear an address by their hero John Howard. (Adolf was a branch vice president of the Liberal Party during the early seventies.)



Little Johnny was the guest speaker at the ACT Party's 15th birthday celebration.

We were not disappointed. Mr Howard spoke for twenty minutes or so, without notes. He delivered a tour de force. It ranged through:-

• a history of Australian politics in which Billy Hughes served for fifty two years during which time he waka jumped to every party except the Country Party. When asked why he never joined the CP he is reputed to have replied 'Well, you've got to draw the line somewhere.'
• the extraordinary vision and determination of Pope Paul, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their successful efforts to bring down the Soviet Union
• the fundamental importance of property rights and market forces
• the real cause of the global financial melt down - political meddling which forced banks to lend billions of dollars to people with no income, no job and no assets
• his personal rating of Bob Hawke as the best Labor PM in living memory
• the lead taken from Roger Douglas's reforms by Australia when introducing GST.
• the anointing of John Key as 'the little kiwi battler.' (Those who don't know Australian politics will not understand the significance of Australia's second longest serving PM passing on to John Key his mantle of 'the little Aussie battler.')
• the best social welfare safety net is a strong natural stable family
  

The tucker was average, the company pleasant and the Master of Ceremonies was superb - Jim Hopkins with many good humoured pot shots at all and sundry.

The Honeymoon Is Over

People should stop talking about the National Party's honeymoon. It's over. In fact, it was over some time ago. Now, like marriage, long term reality has set in and it's not pretty for Labour.

Roy Morgan demonstrates that the blushing bride is madly in love with her new husband and is looking forward to a long and satisfying life together. This is most obvious in the consumer confidence ratings which underpin the gummint's popularity.

"“Rising support for National is matched by a rising ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating — now 125.9 (up 5.9pts from September). Majorities of New Zealanders expect to be ‘better off financially this time next year’ (56%) and that New Zealand will have ‘good times economically over the next 12 months’ (53%) and also ‘good times economically over the next five years’ (a record 68%)."

Adolf wonders how long it will take for Labour to realise that its erstwhile steady girlfriend has married someone else and ain't about to consider divorce.

Not so good the news for ACT, languishing on 1.0% with a concerted media attack on Rodney Hide being led by The Herald and rebuffed by a PR machine which makes Baghdad Bob look like Karl Rove.

The ructions within the Maori Party and the near political suicide of Rodney Hide have all the makings of a one party National majority gummint after 2011. Which would be a great pity and would likely be of most help to Labour.

If John Key can help his crumbling coalition partners to both survive, thereby holding together a genuine coalition, then this will be his greatest contribution to New Zealand's prosperity and political stability. I hope he is quietly talking hard to Tariana, Pita and Rodney as we speak.

Another Promising Career Ends

Update: Looks like I'm not far off the mark. He's on his bike and likely to be pushed before he jumps.

All the goodwill built up amongst ordinary New Zealanders over five years by Tarian Turia and Pita Sharples has been destroyed by Hone Harawira in one foolish outburst.

"do you believe that white man bullsh** too do you?

"White motherf***ers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullsh**."

Adolf expects the Maori Party to take strong action. It is one thing to skive off for a couple of days on a taxpayer funded trip. He might have got away with that. It is entirely unacceptable to have in parliament ANY representative of ANY party whose mind is poisoned with such toxic and misdirected hatred.

Harawira has totally disgraced himself, his people and his party. They have no option but to kick him out and let him stand as an independent.

White mother****ers unite

If you object to being called a white motherfucker by Mr Harawira fill in this form

Rudman is Right

Brian Rudman applauds the the decision to axe the crazy plans for development of Queen's Wharf.

Adolf agrees. The World Cup has been over hyped and over egged and it's high time New Zealand's tax payers and Auckland region's rate payers were given some relief. It's time cooler heads prevailed and people began to see the risks involved in this so-called investment.

And what a marvellous picture the Herald again brings us. Note the worry wort Leftie.

Give that photographer a Carlton Draught.

NZ Institute on economic performance

The NZ Institute has released an opinion piece and accompanying powerpoint. Links below

New Zealand’s economic performance needs a step change improvement. Although economic prosperity, as measured by real GDP per capita has grown, on average, by around 2% per annum since 1990, New Zealanders earn around 20% less than the OECD average and we are not catching up.

The prosperity of advanced economies is driven strongly by innovation performance. And innovation performance depends on having an effective innovation ecosystem; the institutions and resources that produce scientific and other innovations and convert them into commercial and economic benefit.

New Zealand has done a lot to lift the performance of the innovation ecosystem but we remain disadvantaged relative to other advanced economies. The good news is that there are worthwhile opportunities to lift performance.

You will not have missed the intensification of efforts in New Zealand to find ways to lift economic performance, including the performance of the commercialisation of science. Government has established taskforces looking at research, science and technology priorities, the CRIs and Business R&D. The New Zealand Institute’s contribution is to identify opportunities to improve commercialisation outcome and the overall performance of the innovation ecosystem.

Today we have posted on our website a short opinion piece that highlights priorities for improving commercial and economic outcomes from science along with a PowerPoint presentation that takes a deeper look at the opportunities for improving the innovation ecosystem performance.

We will soon release a discussion paper that will explain in more detail why New Zealand needs an effective innovation ecosystem, how current performance falls short of what we would like and what we should do about it.

We welcome your feedback on the materials posted today. We will use that feedback to improve the content of the discussion paper and to help guide our efforts as we move from the research phase into advocating adoption of our proposed solutions.

Regards

Rick Boven

Director

When Loons Collide

What happens when the Loons from the Left find themselves having to choose which Loon has the best story?

We are about to find out as the anti GE loons crash into the AGW loons. The only surprise is that it's taken so long.

It appears there are to be trials using genetically engineered grasses for pasture which will substantially reduce the amount of methane generated in the rumens of dairy cows.

Adolf welcomes the inevitable delays caused by the Greens fidhting over which evil should prevail. This will allow us to dress the window up a little without actually wasting any money on this research. You see, by the time the results would have been in, the CO2/global warming hoax will have been truly exposed and everyone will look back in amazement at the folly of ETS, Cap & Trade and the whole AGW farce.

Meantime the dopey Europeans will continue to buy out lamb, butter and milk powder.

Transtasman Booboo

Adolf enjoys the transTasman monthly newsletter which is usually excellent and informative.

In today's issue, unfortunately they let themselves down badly with a very sloppy bit of work, misquoting Finance Minister Bill English. Trouble is, they have him saying precisely the opposite from that which he did say. Here it is.

The quote from transTasman:-

"...Although the Govt’s thoughts on changing the tax system are still being treated as a closely-guarded secret, Finance Minister Bill English gave a hint this week changes to property tax are on the agenda. English says they’ll be “seriously considered” when the tax working group which is reviewing the entire system reports policy options. He gave another assurance there won’t be a capital gains tax but says he isn’t ruling out anything else.."

No doubt about that, is there? No capital gains tax on anything. End of story?

Well no. Here's what he actually did say on TVNZ7's programme filmed and aired this week.

"...Although the Govt’s thoughts on changing the tax system are still being treated as a closely-guarded secret, Finance Minister Bill English gave a hint this week changes to property tax are on the agenda. English says they’ll be “seriously considered” when the tax working group which is reviewing the entire system reports policy options. He gave another assurance there won’t be a capital gains tax on personal residential property but says he isn’t ruling out anything else.."

Now, that's the colour of an entirely different horse, don't you think.

Adolf looks forward to an apology and correction from the good people at transTasman.

Out of touch with poor priorities

This country's long term fiscal position is deteriorating. We are sliding down the GDP PPP per capita ladder. The Health system is quickly becoming unsustainable.

But don't worry. Phil Twyford is onto it. He's campaigning to take Pigs out of crates!

So hello 2020 election.

All the other elections between now and then are now lost for Labour and its out of touch cronies.

UPDATE: Astonishingly, The Standard is calling this "New Generation Labour".

If this is the case, New Generation Labour is going to make the job of "Old Generation NACT" very, very easy.

Too Good To Miss

Caption Competition.

See what you can do with the upstanding, smiling and confident Conservative and the hand wringing head tilting worried looking Socialist.

What's Going On...?

....in New Zealand Cricket?

Update: We have refined the art of losing. New records for losing have been set. Six wickets down in less than sixty minutes. Why do we pay these people? Just imagine what we could do if we went on tour without a coach or a wicket keeper!

Adolf has concluded NZ Crcket is run by socialists. Good little Labour activists, the lot of them

Reports indicate there is a faceless and gutless clique of so called 'senior players' who called 'no confidence' in their duly appointed coach but failed to confront him personally with their 'issues' so that he could deal with them. They complained because the coach didn't have a 'cricketing brain.' That's a bit rich, coming from a bunch of dils who don't have a batting brain between them. (In case they haven't noticed, it's the captain and vice capatin who need to have cricketing brains on the day, it's the selectors who need to have strategic cricketing brains. The coach's job is to coach the players in technique and attitude.)

Then there's the spineless administration which appointed Moles but then failed to back their appointee in the face of what can only be called a cowardly attack. What a pity the 'senior players' did not spend their time examining their own attitudes to batting a decent innings instead of wasting it plotting and scheming.

Adolf would have marched the players into a meeting with all management and players present. They would all have been told to pull their bloody heads in and get on with it. The coach is the coach and you will work with him until his contract has run its course. If you don't like it, you can resign and go somewhere else. Hokitika or The Chathams, preferably.

Now we have the bizaarre spectacle of a coachless, vice captainless, brainless gang of players masquerading as a team, trundling of to certain defeat at the hands of Islamic Cricket.

Some Surprises

Adolf is a technoneanderthal who was fortunate enough to be invited for breakfast at TVNZ this morning to hear a presentation on their two newish digital channels and to be in the audience for tonight's presentation on the economy and the gummint's first year.

I was surprised to find that TVNZ 7 appears to carry the sort of content which Adolf enjoys. Quality docos and current affairs series, the like of which seems absent from the junk channels TV1, TV2 and TV3. It is likely Adolf may again start watching some TV after absenting himself for this past three or four years.

So it's big ups to TVNZ for this effort.

However, I got on the road real early, reinforced by a large glass of water and salivated my way over the harbour bridge in eager anticipation of gorgeous fried eggs with rashers of curly bacon, lashings of sauteed mushrooms and delicately cooked tomato. I arrived to enjoy a muffin with jam and good hot coffee. So, the buggers sucked me in with a promise of breakfast but made up for it with the introduction to their new toys and the opportunity to enjoy watching some of the characters of our political scene at first hand.

Bill English acquitted himself well, and gave one or two hitherto unrevealed insights into gummint thinking. Watch the show tonight for the detail. 2110 hours

There were some surprises.

Guyon Espiner. He was very impressive. There he was, rehearsing his lines like a seasoned actor, even though he had an autocue. I thought he was very even handed and dealt fairly with all participants, cutting of the windbag from Labour when he needed cutting off. He was neither hard nor easy on Bill English.

Russel Norman. The biggest surprise. He came over soooooo well. Articulate, sensible, restrained. I couldn't help thinking what a disaster Sue Bradford would have been as co-leader. Norman put his case for his policies well. The Greens need to develop this fellow's media persona.

Roger Douglas. Yesterday's man. He reminded me of the well polished antique the family brings out now and again to remind itself of familial glories from a bygone century. I'm sorry but he just does not cut it any more. It's not a matter of policy, it's a matter of energy and vigour and relevance in today's environment.

Not a surprise, the woeful performance by Labour's ego with a mouth, desperately looking for an audience, any audience, please look at me me me. To hear him talk, you would never believe that it was his party and he and his mates who got us into the shit in which we are mired.

Both Fran O'Sullivan and Charles Finney seemed to think Bill English needs to bring in an instant mini-budget. Don't they realise we have moved on from the days when mini budgets actually meant anything? We're in the rolling maul era, people. Get used to it. The deal changes from week to week and mini budgets are a waste of time, when you need hands on changes to the ship's course very five minutes.

And now a brickbat for TVNZ.

They billed this programme as National's first year.

Is TVNZ really locked into first past the post last century mentality? Do they not understand that it actually is National, ACT and the Maori Party's first year?

I hope they wake up before they tape the next show.

On balance, I give TVNZ 9/10 for this effort. It was bloody well done.

Voice calls plummet, texting skyrockets.

I have just had a chat with a mate at one of the big mobile operators. Thought I should give him a call to confirm a suspicion I have had since Sunday.
I have just stopped using my mobile in the car for voice calls. I have no hands free kit and am unlikely to get one, as I spend quite a bit of time driving I am expecting my mobile bill to drop by half.
Which got me to thinking about the revenue hit that the mobile companies will take.
He confirmed that voice calls have plummeted but texting has increased.

The texting increase did not surprise as I have witnessed at least half a dozen near misses today in kerikeri by people who seem to be driving one handed while looking at their shoes.
I predict a big smash by the end of the week which will be put down to somebody trying to stealth text.

Where the feck were the LAVs

New Zealand soldiers were ambushed by the Taliban while they were in vehicles like these. I have posted previously on my new found respect for the LAV's and this would surely be the place to use them.

New Zealand has dropped to number 50.

The first of the former Warsaw bloc Eastern European nations has overtaken New Zealand in the GDP PPP per capita stakes and Czech are not far behind. From being in the top five in the world fifty years ago we are now at number 50 according to the CIA factbook behind Slovenia which was part of Yugoslavia.

I wonder how much longer it will take for people to realise how far New Zealand has fallen behind. From the media I read there does not seem to be any sense of urgency or need to support the substantial change required to get New Zealand on a better track.

It is not the post to suggest the changes to the economy and peoples attitudes that are required. Savings, capital investment of the Cullen fund in New Zealand, availability of venture capital, funding of export development, tax restructuring to favour investment in New Zealand (100% year one depreciation anyone), additional technology infrastructure investment and education are policies the government can enact.

47

Slovenia

$ 29,600

2008 est.

48	Cyprus	$ 28,600	2008 est.

49	Israel	$ 28,300	2008 est.

50	New Zealand	$ 28,000	2008 est.

51	Korea, South	$ 27,600	2008 est.

52	Czech Republic	$ 25,900	2008 est.

Martial races, nature or nurture

Peter Hodge at The Strategist has an interesting discussion on so called martial races. He concludes there are no natural born soldier races but that society has a need for soldiers due to a period of warfare and thus nurtures soldierly virtues.

The idea that certain peoples or races are natural soldiers is widespread and longstanding. Laffin considered that "The German, every German, is a born soldier".

During two world wars, New Zealand, Australia and Canada provided the British empire with many of its elite infantry formations. These colonials, from largely agarian societies, believed that they were natural soldiers, of hardier stock than their British kin. Frontier societies, like the 18th century American colonies, prided themselves on breeding irregular bush fighters who were tougher, smarter and better shots than European troops.

I am of the nurture view. Society develops with a particular point of view. It is often said the British Army regarded Northern Ireland as a training ground. Certainly the constant threat of terrorism meant Britain maintained a more pugilist attitude than Southern European countries. All Continental in fact.

The Dutch pathetic performance in Srebrinica (stand by while thousands massacred) vs the British in Sierra Leone ( you take 8 hostages and we destroy your militia in the bush) is a valid comparison. The British public will expect and stand for a much greater degree of military involvement than is acceptable for other similar size nations.

My brother in law was a conscript in the Hungarian Army a number of years ago and I formed a very low opinion of their standard of training and outlook.

New Zealand soldiers continue to have a very good reputation overseas and I would attribute that to the rural connections and nowadays to the popularity of rugby among New Zealanders. Fijians the same. Good soldiering is about teamwork, physical robustness, aggression and adaptability. Rugby teaches that from a young age.

The molly coddling mother types who would emasculate boys by having them play soccer or non contact sports have an impact on how society will turn out. Look at the nations that are good at soccer and look at the same nations that you would prefer on the other side in a war.