Ho Ho Ho

SETTING UP A GIVE-A-LITTLE PAGE FOR 'WINNIE' ... WANNA CONTRIBUTE?

Media commentators have observed that it was not a good week for 'our Winnie'.     Clearly he is frustrated by the prospective of wide spread strike action in the offing.    Hells bells man ... you got into bed with Labour; the unions are Labour's paymasters; they're  flexing their muscles and queuing up for their dividend ... couldn't you see that happening?   NZ First got their payoff from the fishing and racing industries.   Labour's masters are now extracting their own pound of flesh.   You sleep with dogs and you get fleas.  

But all that aside and one would have expected the Acting PM to be up to speed with his government's winter power subsidy for seniors.   Far from it.   He wasn't sure on much of the detail including the procedure for opting out of the payment and, when pressed about whether he would be exercising his right to do so, cried poor because of his extensive legal bills so much so that he made it a fetish to ensure every light in his places(s) was turned off when not needed so as to reduce the cost of power.    Winnie ... doing hubris and cant.

FFS ... here's a man receiving the Deputy Prime-Minister's salary of $334,734 plus an expense allowance of $16,980.    In addition and as a Minister he has a self drive vehicle garaged at his Auckland residence  plus access to a ministerial car and driver when on official duty.   In Wellington he enjoys a ministerial home with all services (including electricity) paid for by the taxpayer.   Further, he receives a parliamentary pension for his 24 years of service between 1984 and 2011 when he lost his seat.   A quick calculation suggests that pension to be in the order of $60,000+/- tax free.   Then of course there is his NZ superannuation (now at the correct rate) of $16,035.   

But Winnie is an honorable man.   We must believe his ascertain that despite an annual income of at least $427,749 he remains poor ... so, all donations gratefully received.

Perhaps if he stopped being so litigious ......

Friday's Fulminations

There is mild moderation.  Normal rules of blogger etiquette and courtesy to blog hosts will apply.with serious transgressors being thrown out.

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Regards

Adolf'

DECADENCE DELIVERED

You can take over the entire 98 rooms and suites of Sydney's Langham Hotel for 48 hours with 110 employees at your service for a cool one million (Aust) dollars.

"We have created this decadent package for guests who are seeking an unforgettable experience in the form of a luxurious private residence in Sydney" says general manager Gaylord (what else) Lamy.

All guests receive a VIP welcome and the chef designer meals of choice.   There's exclusive use of the bar with Champagne flowing freely and a jazz trio tinkling away each evening.   Five town cars are on standby to take you anywhere.   The package includes daily pampering at the spa any use of the pool and gym.

Clearly designed for those with more money than cents.   

Right now you can stay and the Langham for AUD428 per night which includes breakfast for two.
98 x 428 x 2 = $83,888.    Big diff between that and $1,000,000 even with the 'xtras'.


   

I DO LIKE BLOOD SPORTS

Fun watching the evisceration of the hapless David Parker by Amy Adams in the House yesterday over the failed attempt by him to insert a clause in the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill providing an exemption for the Te Arai property development.

You know he's in trouble when the acting Prime Minister attempts a 7th Calvary rescue mission while his inability to recall the date he received advice from the Treasury warning against such a move reinforces the view of a Minister caught pants down in crony capitalism.

Sheesh ... and he's one of  'their' supposed better Ministers.

A WARNING

The arrest of a 20 year old male at the centre of the Labour Party Summer Youth Camp sex scandal means the matter is now sub-Judice.  

The man has interim name suppression and while there is a name being bandied around the social media any attempt by a poster on this blog to circumvent the suppression order while it remains in force will lead to his/her permanent banning.   Be warned.

What we can say is that the abrupt resignation of the Labour Party General Secretary comes at no surprise.     The handling of the affair by both him and the Labour Party President and especially the attempted cover-up has been appalling.   

The release of the internal Labour Party investigation into the matter due out shortly should now be delayed until after the trial.   Were it to be released it might be seen as prejudicial to natural justice.

BONNIE- IT WASN'T ME, IT WAS DOLLY?

Velly solly Mr Praker  If "your office put it there" it was still you, you daft bugger.
If it was your office that did it and you didn't "know" you should resign for dereliction of duty.
Read up what happened to Admiral Byng he only got a bit confused then died.

The clause specifically placing the very desirable and highly valued for rating purposes, sections at Mangawhai beyond the loopy with more holes than a Swiss Cheese bit of rubbish legislation to control foreign investment in NZ real estate, is weely weely bad Mr Praker

The  clumsy effort to have a clause specifically removing the real estate for sale by people you may well convince many were only acquaintances, in  the very amateur hour legislation, might convince a few morons you are doing something about the foreign hoards who are placing first homes out of the reach of battlers, only done to benefit the iwi who had a minority interest,
 I have a selection of bridges for immediate sale.

Getting it through the select committee and back to the House with such blatant for mates only clauses, personally benefiting some well established leading lights in such moneyed projects.
All achieved  using the majority numbers of numpties who would support you in The "Finance and Expenditure select committee without thinking,  just coz someone sez so, has a wiffy odour and was disquieting.

 Parker is a minister of the crown and anyone with the briefest understanding and working knowledge of parliamentary process should understand;-
"Denial is often an admission of guilt"
"One who excuses himself is condemning himself
Blaming staff you control is not only cowardly but very bad form"
You ''are'' your office as Trueman  articulated "the buck stops here"
Rich mates no matter how close or conveniently distant one might wish to portray them might have a comunicable disease.
Perception is well known to resist treatments currently known.

The late Howard Patterson, John Darby, Ric Kayne,  vague references to the needs of cash strapped iwi, subdivision sections alleged to have rateable values of over $4 000 000, a luxury Golf Course so imminent it attracted Sir John Key to take Barry there for a round of golf, while all separately plausibly deniable, may well be what some would wish  a disinterested unquestioning electorate to view as being in the real world and treated  with ignore.
However that group along with other shadowy figures even closer to the ninth floor referred to as "Lobbyists" around the fringes plus the impressive  dosh at stake, make for more sunshine than has been evident  up  to now, to be applied. Thompson and Lewis ring any bells, nah that was  the timer alarm,  bread into the oven now please.

All this people, was supposed to be about the coalition of losers appointed by Mr 7% showing the poor people struggling to get on the bottom rung of the property ladder, they really do care. Sections with values in the millions to be exempt for rich pricks (real ones),  specifically permitted to be marketed to foreigners when the a focus could have been ACC inflated cost  for  the half of one million  dollar bits of dirt to perch a cheap house on, that other unidentified foreign hoards had priced beyond reach for struggling Joe and Josephine Worker. Another  bit of fake news used by Twyford and his fair weather friends  but when the chips were down  the true facts suggested amounted to a mere 3% of buyers across the nation, slightly higher in central City Of Sails???

It is further alleged that some media interest in these matters by now so widely questioned has been taken down and that suggests to me, here is a real focus for some sort of inquiry to be undertaken. Another  amongst the by now nearing one gross of such entities wont be noticed but properly constituted and protected from political "guidance" might well provide something worthwhile for  when Baby Neve is no longer the "News"

I note there are reports of Queenstown Lawyers being saddened the scandalous bit of legislation surprisingly sent back to SC for removal would stop in its tracks a potential boom in litigation opportunity created in other equally rewarding developments.
Another surprise,  the move to send the bill back to SC came at the behest of speaker Mallard after the Clerk of the House raised objection. Can any body refute that is but one more notable first for this group of children doing men's work.
Exclude Bonnie from that kindy rabble, he has been at the very center of  such reality since forever, Oh I nearly forgot It Was Dolly back at The office this time, stupid girl.

Ho Ho Ho

v

ONE VERY SAD DAY

On a day when we could be marking the passing of a colossus of conservative media in the land of the free,  the pathetic and inane NZ media continues with saturation news about one of twenty babies born in Auckland Hospital a day later.

Charles Krauthammer was real refugee stock, born in the US in the early 1950s to his Orthodox Jewish Parents,  Father from Ukraine and Mother from Belgium who had fled  a Europe that harboured serious anti Semitic attitudes.

Born in New York he was moved to Canada at age five and went on to McGill University graduating  with honours in political science and economics, moved on to a time at Baliol Oxford before returning to Harvard Medical school where his studies were interrupted when a diving board accident severely damaged  his  spinal cord at C6 leaving him wheelchair bound for his remaining years.
Going on to successfully complete his medical degree he ended in the specialty of Psychiatry where he made a mark with ground breaking work in Bipolar disorder diagnosis.

A long time Democrat he saw the light and moved to the center of the  spectrum. He began  a career in writing, beginning at Time Magazine when that child of  Henry Luce actually stood out as a record of history. Moi subscribed for some years after the second Kennedy killing to try and make some sense of what by then had approached an epidemic with assassinations and failed attempts included JFK, M L King, Robert K a failed hit on George Wallace among them.
Of course history records,  'Time" is now just another marker along the highway of failing  print media heading to the abyss.
I digress, many other accolades and awards followed for Charles including a Pulitzer Prize.
He created another personal marker with his labelling the Reagan stand against the failing USSR and its satellites "The Reagan Doctrine"

Recently Charles has been a fixture for reasoned comment and analysis for the number one US cable news outlet Fox News.

His passing from small intestine cancer came obscenely quick and he leaves a gaping hole in the ranks of the right of center opinion and understanding in a US MSM pool that even  with a towering intellect such as  Charles Krauthammer as an industry  standard,  refuses to see anything of the betrayal of the once lofty heights of probity and truth now abandoned in the race to the cellar, acknowledging nothing of its failing, biased, daily infotainment currently obsessed with the  Trump derangement syndrome.

RIP Charles Krauthammer 13th March 1950 -- 21st June 2018.

CONGRATULATIONS DAN BIDOIS

The official results from the Northcote by-election are in and congratulations to National's Dan Bidois on his clear victory where he polled well in excess of 50% of the total vote.

Congratulations too to the Labour candidate who lifted their vote to a respectable 44% although that was achieved, in part, by canabalising the vote of their two support parties.

The Greens ended up with just 2.9% of the vote while Winston First's Kym Koloni (who ran as an independent) created some sort of history by failing to win any of the 1,119 special votes and polling less than half of 1%.

Turnout in the by-election was just 44%.

On Oz Pols (Updated and Bumped)

While politically, NZ goes even nuttier each week, Australia looks to have some interesting times ahead.

The Prime Ditherer, Malcolm Turnbull has just lost his thirty- fourth Newspoll on the trot.  Remember, this is the dil who knifed a successful PM in the back because he lost just thirty consecutive Newspolls.   Turnbull's personal popularity has inched upward just a tad but the measure that matters, the two party preferred vote, remains disastrous.   If an election were held today and the latest poll results ensued, the Liberals would be massacred.

On the other side of the fence, Turnbull's greatest political asset, Labor leader Bill Shorten, is about as popular as Yasir Arafat ever was in Jerusalem.  The moment the polls show the two party preferred gap closing (and it will) I aspect to see Shorten dumped to be replaced as leader by Anthony Albanese,  a straight taking man's man who resonates with dinkum Aussie middle Australia.  Should I be right, Trunbull's pathetic bunch of yes men (and women - not forgetting the stick insect) will be doomed.

Just like ACT and others in NZ, the minor parties which once showed promise have faded into obscurity.  Remember names like Palmer, Hanson and Xenofon?   None of them had what it really took.  All sizzle and no sausage.  The Australian Conservative Party, led by Senator Cory Bernadi seems to have more class and gravitas than the others and I hope he does well.

So there you have it.  Australia's next prime Minister will be Anthony Albanese.




Update

Here he comes.  The by-elections are due on July the 28th. (corrected)

"Anthony Albanese has laid out his blueprint for government, calling on Labor to follow the lead of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and ­engage with big business, repudiating Bill Shorten’s anti-business crusade weeks out from the crucial Super Saturday by-elections.Delivering the Whitlam Oration last night, Mr Albanese — a long-time leadership rival of Mr Shorten — said it was critical for a future Labor government to ­engage more closely with “unions, the business sector and civil ­society”.
Contradicting his leader’s push against big business, Mr Albanese said “our job is not to sow discord, it is to bring people together in the service of the national interest”.?

CRIPES THAT WAS SCARY

A stuff alert on my ipad "baby found in car after police pursuit"

Be still my beating heart it was another "baby"

Just another dropkick parent fleeing police.

Phew!!

THEY HAVE NO IDEA.

A recent survey in the West Isle reveals that "millennials" in various degrees, favourably view socialism as a form of government, around 60% acceptance.

Sadly it also reveals almost all of those surveyed are in total ignorance of the slaughter and collateral deaths that socialism has delivered wherever it has been adopted.

It all fits with the oft quoted mantra variously attributed; If one does not believe in socialism at twenty, that person has no soul but if still a core belief at forty they have no brains.

As a third former, Utopia, with all equally  sharing the spoils created by a combined effort seemed eminently fair and reasonable. Then doubts came along that rulers and those in power seemed to enjoy a bigger slice of pie and it all gelled when in an elective subject for UE  I joined an Agriculture management class where Wally Stark included reading and study of "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. Looking back what an inspired bit of mind broadening that was.
My adoption of capitalism and rejection of socialism  became deeply embedded.

This was all before the welfare state had blossomed and born its tragic fruits. It was in an era of Widows benefits, Universal superannuation (at 70), Miners benefit for those whose health had been seriously impaired from inhaling coal dust, The family benefit (often the only money many mothers had for discretionary use) and various veterans pensions for those damaged in service of the nation in necessary welfare introduced by the first Labour Government of (St) Michael Joseph Savage beginning in 1935.
 Even in those early days astute Maori leaders including Sir Henry Ngata foresaw the destructive outcomes that would follow mass welfare, particularly for his Maori people.
A simple country boy was able to work out for himself that success followed work, savings, frugality and common sense with welfare a safety net for those with issues that prevented participation in the work force. As an alternative Life style it was never considered an option.

The most disturbing part about the revelations from the Australian research comes to me not from the unquestioning belief in  socialism but from the total dearth of knowledge that exists about the slaughter that accompanied the establishment of the USSR, the subjugation of the Warsaw pact countries, the Cuban revolution, the coming of Mao and the Chinese communists and more recently the total disaster of the Kampuchean regime of Pol Pot.
A Che Guevara tee shirt is cool but a swastika totally verboten and of course that includes a totally false construct, a concept that Her Schikelgruber was a right winger, what part of "National Socialist Workers Party must be ignored to enable that falsehood to germinate, emerge and grow.
Even the current great experiment that sees Venezuela sitting on vast oil reserves yet having its people queue for toilet paper with starvation a constant for all but the ruling elite seems to be entirely missing from the understanding of a millennial and worse still, university educated having even higher acceptance levels for socialism.

At least those involved in education must be satisfied  they have that part of human evolution working just fine for their dreams of Utopia.
Of course they are in total denial of the wisdom of Baroness Thatcher who predicted "Socialism will only last so long as access to other peoples money exists".
Also the light at the end of the tunnel for those who have successfully taken control of young minds at all levels of edu indoctrination is ignored by them, the shock and dismay when it is revealed as an oncoming train will be a sight to see but that is someway down the track. The tunnel is still under construction.

MEANWHILE WHERE PRODUCTIVE NZ LIVES--------?

Nice one Milt and to the eternal shame of a totally useless MSM you are correct, not right mind you.

David William Parker a current Minister with portfolio of responsibilities so dominant that people are reaching back beyond Stephen Joyce, Helen Clark and Bill Birch for someone with such dominance over productive NZ to when the megalomaniac Muldoon felt the need to hold Finance,  and the Office of Prime Minister in order to maintain his belief he was the only man capable.

While Muldoon was a bully and a megalomaniac he was, afaik without stain as to his probity. A sergeant in the NZ Div ironically serving under John Marshall, Rob was like Kirk before him a self made man who came from humble beginnings.
Mr Parker is also a bully, threatening a group of farmers at a public gathering questioning  a proposed water tax that they should shut up or he would double the rate.

Another serious 'coffee' stain on his CV resulted in his resigning from Cabinet after an acrimonious breakup of a business relationship with Russel Hyslop back in Dunedin where Hyslop alleged he, Parker, had filed unlawfully at the companies office. Allegations serious enough for his then boss, one H Clark to stand him down from the executive. Hyslop's allegations were eventually downgraded to "mistakes" and "errors" and Parker escaped sanction
Then this week while Milt's smokescreen clouds public scrutiny, a barely concealed further "error" became public knowledge when "Minister Parker's office" attempted to add a clause to a bill before the parliament to exempt a multi million development near Mangawhai heads involving American Billionaire Ric Kayne from having the multimillion rateable valued  sites exempted from the Bill before the House to control foreign buyers activities in the NZ real estate market.
It required an intervention from Speaker Mallard to send the bill back to select committee to have the blatant deal for mates expunged.

After years and much effort expended to smear  John Key because he could not have become comfortably wealthy by age 45 without being involved in shady dealings, and relentlessly pursuing an overweight regular user of Harewood airport for using an exit door denied to the public but used often by those familiar with shortcuts at the terminal building, the NZ voters will probably be denied any reference to "Bonnie's" latest flirtation with what most regard as very dodgy activities while Jacindamania rules.

Mundanities of everyday life

I don't really have anything to post, I just wanted to have this photo on the blog. Also: good luck getting any traction in the media for the next little while, National!

Friday's Fulminations

There is mild moderation.  Normal rules of blogger etiquette and courtesy to blog hosts will apply.with serious transgressors being thrown out.

Unfortunately our system does not allow your comments to show up in the blog post itself.  Just in the comments section.

Visitors might consider the wisdom of using moderate language.

Regards

Adolf'

WILL THEY WONDER WHY?

Newly confirmed US Sec State, Mike Pompeo has acted after a one year notice to reform or we are gone, from the totally corrupt anti Semitic and utterly biased UN Human Rights Council.

A bunch of ideologues who have managed to lambaste the one single functioning democracy in the Middle East, Israel, 78 times, more than all other states investigated when  totaled since the sinecure was established in 2004

The Charade of 47 countries that include currently such pillars of freedom and universal rights for all their citizens; Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela, Somalia, China, South Africa amidst a plethora of states who are basically nonentities or have a serious deficit in their notions around the rights for humans of any status within their jurisdiction, were given the farewell salute from  US UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

What a shame, nay eternal shame, no other nation member of the increasingly self destructing monument to inertia, has the cojones to even say about time.

There were warnings aplenty so it was not a moment of chagrin over the interference in US Domestic Immigration affairs, this was a well signalled statement that the affront to decency and fairness was ended as regards participation for The US.

I will say well past about time.
However the locusts feeding at the food stores of do goodism will not see why it occurred this way as they travel merrily on the path to ignorance paved with arrogance and smugness, fiddling while Rome burns.

THE US HAS BEEN IN A TRADE WAR ALMOST MY WHOLE LIFE.

F D Roosevelt took the US into WW2 after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and by the end of that conflict the US had the worlds leading economy by any measure.

Presiding over a world almost totally destroyed economically, The Marshall Plan named after the Chief of  Defence staff under Roosevelt who went on to become the post war US  Secretary of State,  was instituted to restore the free economies of the wartorn nations as a bulwark against communism under the leadership of Stalin the USSR dictator as the "Iron Curtain" descended.

From then on the US was every country's Benevolent Grandad funding states of all colours and ending up on the wrong side of any balance of payments.
Trump for all his faults wants that fact of history redressed, while the Chicoms and a resurgent Putin of Russia are happy to see an ever more economically vulnerable US "White Anted".
The list of nations and political groupings who seem content to watch with considerable disinterest as the economic wars continue. Canada, Europe Japan the UK, and even India need to take a deep breath as waiting for the wolf to eat others hoping to be spared until last wont work, they will still be eaten eventually.
They need to show some solidarity with what Trump is attempting before it is too late.

It is bloody scary as history records many instances of trade wars ending badly, particularly for democracies where the people fail to grasp what is really happening while totalitarian or historical monarchies with unrestrained power continue to take advantage. Yes Trump is in a high stakes game but any delaying in taking a stand is only going to get harder.
China, under its still dominant one party state system wont bat an eyelid as its people's standards of living plunge,  as it will merely be regarded as collateral damage  while the democratic foundations of the US will come under serious political pressure in just over two years time.
The North Korean state is a glaring example of what a dictatorship can inflict on its people, the jury is still out as to whether Trump convinced Kim jong-un  there is a better way if he will only see.
 If Rocket man can be convinced, the people of the north might well regard him with genuine affection for making North Korea great, without the need for a massive Military to enforce such adulation.

You see for decades I never thought I would live to see Mr Gorbachev tear down that wall.
Trump's wall is a direct opposite to Honecker's effort that was built to keep his oppressed people from escaping, Trump's is to prevent the US being overwhelmed.

Haters will hate I guess.

NOW THAT IS NEWS!

From the NZ Herald web site:

"The Labour Leader is ... in Labour".

Must mean she has resigned from the Communist Party, eh.

ON KELVIN DAVIS

If I were a generous cove I'd cut Kelvin Davis some slack on the basis that he's still finding his feet as a Minister of the Crown ... but I'm not so I won't.

Many would have it that he got appointed as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party as a sop to Maori.   One thing for certain ... he certainly didn't get it on ability because his performance in the House characterised by his inability to answer questions and a tendancy to take refuge in pigeon Maori when under pressure has been sufficient for him to be ordered into the witless protection program while his failure as Minister of Corrections to get to grips with his portfolio has become an embarrassment to his colleagues.

Judith Collins introduced double bunking in prisons and week after week Labour, led by Davis, railed against that as inhuman.   One might reasonably be forgiven for assuming that double bunking was a no no for that Party.    Then last week came the grand announcement by Davis of a rebuild for Waikeria Prison as an alternative to the proposed new 'super-max' facility favoured by National.    But hold on, under questioning Davis was forced to reveal that double bunking was a feature of the rebuild ... now, some commentators, less kind than I, have suggested a certain hypocrisy by Davis given his track record of opposition to double bunking ... but far be it for me to comment on that.

It  got worse however ... under further questioning Davis was forced to admit there existed contingency plans for prisoners to sleep on the floor in prison gymnasia should the muster fail to drop after proposed changes to the bail and sentencing laws come into effect.

Mr Davis is presiding over a clusterf**k all of his own making.    He may have been a moderately successful principal of a small intermediate school in Kaitaia but as a Minister with significant portfolio responsibilities he is clearly out of his depth.    Chances are he won't be improving with age much like a cask of cheap wine ... take the analogy further ... how long before his colleagues go sour on him? 

SWAMP DRAINING MADE EASY.

Might be what Trump needs to employ!!

Gelignite linked with cordtex digs a drain faster than any alternative I have used.

The Democrats last gasp for the Mid terms later this year comes with their ignition of border control photo ops with a compliant media faking news around  a solution that has been lawful for years and using wailing children to create anti Trump  "News".
Through the years gone before it was the same but the media ignored it

Claiming twelve thousand children are in detention after being "ripped from the arms of their loving parents at the border, is a pile of porkies.

Children of criminals are taken into care when ever parents are  arrested as they have been for centuries and with illegal immigrants using their spawn and even borrowed ones on occasions since forever in illegal entry to the US, it is still the "Law".

Many of the children being held in temporary detention until immigrant status is discovered are turning up at the border  travelling alone with no parents to be seen.

We are so lucky we have a big moat.

Meanwhile congressional committees have made progress to unravel Deep States more egregious efforts to thwart the man the luvvies love to hate.
The Dept of Justice Inspector General has released the first installment of his inquiry into the DoJ and the FBI. Horowitz testimony to congress today was as much sad as revealing
The results are astounding and somewhat disquieting. Gone are the days when the incorruptible GMen were 'as solid as'.  There is no evidence so far that field offices and their legions of Agents are corrupt, it is  HQ where under the oversight of DoJ, the top people are being discovered to have feet of Clay.
Such irregularities as falsifying FISA warrant applications to spy on US citizens were achieved on dodgy evidence, bought and paid for by  Clinton Campaign funds, allowing subsequent spying on Trump Towers.  Then an out of the  ordinary subsequent investigation by HQ as opposed to the relevant "Field Office", that investigation foundered early on when Comey McCabe and Strzok conspired to clear the very dodgy Democrat POTUS candidate  of clearly indictable offending while Sec State, weeks before she was asked to give her evidence in July to the cosy friendly HQ operatives.
Then as with most such offending, further crimes were perpetrated in a clumsy cover up that entirely depended on the success of Crooked Hillary at the polls,  for the mess of pottage to be finally buried but sadly the silly cow spent too much campaign effort in safe states like  New York, New Jersey and California (already locked in) while the wily Don went to places like Wisconsin that Clinton took for granted and Trump won.
Then the lid came off and excrement flew, slowly at first as all attempts to discover were thwarted by delay, obfuscation and at times lying, events are now accelerating and todays revelations  are shaking Washington to its foundations with several deep state operatives experiencing lower colon contractions.

Former FBI director James Comey fired by Trump is in the  deepest do does, with investigator Peter Stzrok and his lover, bureau lawyer Lisa Page not far behind. Assistant FBI Director Rozenstein and disgraced  Temporary Director Andrew McCabe,  appointed to replace fired Comey also have serious questions to answer.
Then even former National security director James Clapper and former CIA director John O Brennan, and ex FBI director now head of the witch hunt Russian Hoax, Meuller  all have an odour about them.
The unprecedented fervour of so many people who had inherited an aura of probity but have been exposed as fallible if not seriously compromised, in the conniptions that the election of the swamp drainer  engendered,  is almost beyond belief.
I am left with a feeling similar to that when first Lawyer and so far the only one, who successfully ripped me off followed in short order by a series of god like senior medical professionals who successively obstructed the discovery of a benign spinal tumour causing swmbo to progressively become paralyzed below L1 for a period of nearly two years.
Hence I trust very few.

Dear Hillary whose election was the insurance policy to provide cover and safety for  the rats nest of miscreants under the direct control of Obama holdover DoJ supremo Secretary Loretta Lynch who herself possibly first aroused suspicion of serious offending in an unannounced Tarmac meeting with Ex Potus William Jefferson Clinton at New Orleans airport at the time Benghazi, an out of office computor server, the activities of porn publisher Weiner partner of  Huma Abedin were titivating fringe media, months before the ultimate success of Trump finally lit the fuse.

The NZ news consumers relying on  Red Radio, Pravda TV and the pale failing  print media, all  sourcing their copy from CNN, CNBC, Wapo and the NY Times will never deliver any of this, so ignorance will continue. I have long lost count of questions; "where did you hear that".
Hannity, Ingle, Bier, Carlson and Co at the leading Cable news channel in the US, Fox News, have been all over this for months while almost all those I mix with socially have no idea, yet  they are really negative when Donald Trump comes up  in conversation due in large part to the constant stream of the banal from the "haters" in total denial of any contrary opinion or facts that don't fit their narrative.

US currency has "in god we trust" on it but I am now thinking of Whitlams rejoinder to Sir John Kerr after the latter gave the former a DCM,   you may well sing God save the Queen, Kerr will need more than that

The awesome place that Gmen enjoyed in the psyche of US citizens since the creation of the FBI nearly a century ago has suffered a serious blow, it is now badly tarnished. It will take an extraordinary effort by current director Christopher Wray to restore faith and trust.

DEMOCRACY CANADIAN STYLE

In a recent post I report how Justin Tredeau's Liberals had suffered a humiliating defeat in the Ontario Provincial election, losing power and reduced to a rump of just seven seats.

Actually for the Liberals the result was worse than that.   In Canada a Party that fails to win a designated number of seats in their Parliament or a Provincial Legislature is not afforded official  status.   This matters.

It means they're not resourced from the public purse nor can they ask questions of the ruling Party in 'the House'.   The latter provision seems quite strange indeed in a parliament based on the Westminster tradition.

In the Canadian Parliament the seat bar is ten seats.   In the Ontario Provincial Legislature it's eight.

 

I'M A RUFUSENIK

For my many sins I get to travel a fair bit.   Queenstown last week, Wellington tomorrow, Dunedin next week.   I get to stay in a lot of hotels ... nothing great about hotels ... more like a chore.

What I absolutely refuse to do in a hotel is to play their silly game which has it that by refusing to change towels each day and I'm helping to save the planet.    Absolute phooey ... it's 0.01% about saving the planet and 99.99% about increasing profit.

Nothing better than a nice clean fresh towel to make up for crappy hotel TV and their limited selection of channels ... and don't even get me started on room mini-bars.

Dreary !

                                           Saturday

Sunday

Today weak spasmodic sunshine Heavy cloud cover after heavy overnight drizzle

With Apologies to Sylvia Burlesque Only (corrected)

"Absolutely Un****able meets Completely Unmovable"

EQUALLY MISERABLE?

A mantra used to  give an alternative summation to the ever growing examples of the failure of Socialism refers to the oft preached notion  that equality is an aspirational goal for the success of the 'revolution', lines up as "The easiest way to achieve "Equality" is to get everyone in want", ie everyone equally miserable.

The human development has taken mankind from caves eating raw meat and shivering to keep warm to what a modern successful  state delivers to all, in various degrees largely defined by personal effort.
One of the Darwinism principles has the more successful enjoying ever greater standards of comfort and health by rewarding those who 'make a difference'.
Of course socialists apart from the leaders who it is clear, require a much more lavish lifestyle than those who one way or another put them in their exalted position. An anomaly that in the worst cases sees  gazillions pilfered from those they rule over, stashed away safely in a Swiss Bank account as an insurance against, God forbid, the plebs figuring out the injustices and revolting.
Then basic human instincts can deliver rough justice awfully swift and accurate, unless an escape is made to a safe haven.

Poor old Ceausescu and his hapless missus found themselves shivering in front of a prison wall on a Christmas day, sans Santa Claus, waiting for the guard commander to order "Fire".

The current rabble masquerading as a sovereign government in the insignificant south pacific archipelago named after a small enclave of the homeland of the first recorded European to discover what can still be the greatest little country imaginable, seem intent on perpetrating their collective notion of fairness by destroying decades of prosperity, closing the industrious parts of the whole to enable confiscated wealth to be directed to  the feckless and indolent who will consume but not create to the  increase of the wealth pie of the nation.

Whatever direction the economy heads, from here on, one certainty will endure,  a need for plentiful,  affordable, environmentally safe,  secure energy supplies.
Every imaginable alternative productive enterprise entrepreneurial driven men and women can come up with to make for a better life will need that basic economic fuel-- energy, whether it comes from  hydro, solar, wind or carbon. Alas the most "green" economic energy source - nuclear is verbotten !
That people is why the virtue signalling moronic decision to shut down  oil and gas exploration and development, taken without any advice,  discussion and an almost dearth of consultation with those directly and immediately effected was so bad and widely panned. All done apparently as a bit of window dressing enhancement on the eve of a first European charm offensive in search of acceptance from  those on the list to be visited by the newly minted home grown Princess Royal appointed by Mr seven percent (now diminishing). A destructive ploy labeled by the self styled peoples princess as her "Nuclear moment"

NZ will still need exactly  the same energy requirements just to survive unless a next step is Kampuchea style rebirth of the nation, coming unannounced, like so many of the moronic ideas being promulgated from the ninth floor with out any basis from party policy announced pre-election, merely driven by ideological considerations from the almost comical gob of one silly girl, apparently merely a marionette with a multitude of past long ago dismissed by the electorate, puppeteers manipulating the strings.

If that was the hidden agenda of those who think mixed member proportional representation is the way,  it has been a rousing success, it must be said.
Sadly though it will only last  until the supply of other peoples money holds up, that will then usher in true "Utopia" with everyone (apart from Dear leader and her coterie) equally miserable.
The equality box can then be ticked.

I THINK I WOULD HAVE LIKED THIS GUY

Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the US.    He served as Warren Harding's Vice-President and assumed the presidency in 1923 when Harding died in office.   He was elected in his own right in 1924 in a landslide victory and retired in 1928 after declining nomination for a second term which he would have surely won.

There was nothing pretentious about Coolidge.   His exhibited the traditional New England Puritan virtues of honesty, industry, thrift, taciturnity and piety and presided over a strong and burgeoning economy.   He is perhaps best remembered for his saying "The business of America is business".

But I particularly like this story ... his son, Calvin Jnr learned of his fathers ascent to power working as a field hand on a New England tobacco farm.   Honest work in the fresh air was considered a needful thing by the family, which was still very much connected to its middle-class roots. There would be no fake resume-padding jobs or summers spent lolling on sailboats or golf links.

The story goes that when young Cal opted to stay cutting tobacco, one of his co-workers was incredulous that he was staying despite his elevated status. “If my father was President, I wouldn't work in a tobacco field” the other boy said.

 Calvin responded, “If my father were your father, you would.”

ON PHIL MICKELSON

Love my golf although my game can best be described as 'glorious in its mediocrity'.    Phil (the thrill) Mickelson has long been one of my golfing icons.    His short game is amazing.

Ok, the Shinnecock Hills course was tough, brutal even, but what Mickelson did on the 13th ... putting the ball then, when it missed the hole (and moving further away by the second), chasing after it and hitting it back towards the hole while it was still moving (away) was totally reprehensible and a huge breech of golfing etiquette.

For that he incurred a two shot penalty in accordance with rule 1-2.    I stand with those commentators who have it that Mickelson should have been disqualified under Rule 33-7.   His subsequent actions confirm that ... downplaying his action and telling critics to 'toughen up' shows huge disrespect for the game.

Sorry Phil ... you lost it and I will never view you in the same light again.

Ho Ho Ho

On his way from NK to Singapore