That fooled ya didn’t it Sonic? But then that isn’t that hard to do given your pre­ferred party of support.

I meant i’m off to Aus­tralia for 25 days doing my big drive right round the West Island.

Don’t worry, my nor­mal “won­der­fully offen­sive” com­men­tary will continue.

Oh BTW Auck­land Air­port, How about free ?, you use­less fucks. I refuse to pay $9.95 and hour for your poxy service.

And while I am rant­ing why do we have to turn up two hours before only to wait while the staff have cof­fee and a chat behind big grills? Huh? Why? Arse­holes. I am not best pleased at the best of times, at 0400 I am really, really cranky as the fuck­ing Helen Clark fan club cheer­leader taxi dri­ver found out this morn­ing, and I thought Cor­po­rate Cab dri­vers were thor­oughly vet­ted. Any way he will spend the rest of the morn­ing pon­der­ing his great suc­cess in life, that being he is a cab dri­ver no mat­ter which way you look at it.

Now, check, Lap­top, Vodem, Sat­phone, cell­phone, wal­let, credit card, cash….yep, I’m off. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

It is rumoured that Fred Thomp­son is think­ing of seek­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion for President.

Many seem to think this is a good idea.

Fred Thomp­son is a for­mer sen­a­tor as well as a well known actor, of course Republican’s fondly remem­ber their great­est pres­i­dent ever, Ronald Rea­gan , also a for­mer actor. 

Fred Thomp­son cur­rently stars in Law & Order and has played the POTUS in one movie called Last Best Chance.

It will cer­tainly be inter­est­ing to see how this pans out. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

The Gov­ern­ment is road tri­alling new cars to replace Min­is­te­r­ial Fair­lanes. Replace­ments are sup­pos­edly needed for the exist­ing fleet of gas-guzzling Ford Fair­lanes and LTDs, and two new hulk­ing but cheaper-to-run diesel-powered Chrysler 300 CRDs and a Peu­geot 607 are already on trial. They are also tri­alling Skoda Superbs, per­haps the most inap­pro­pri­ately named car in the world because superb they are not.

What an inter­est­ing selection.

One car is French, the French have never ever built a decent car, ever and never will, also two words for the gov­ern­ment, Rain­bow War­rior. I would never drive let alone buy any­thing the cheese eat­ing sur­ren­der mon­keys ever made.

A Skoda, built in Czech Repub­lic. The Czech Repub­lic could hardly be called a first world nation. The old joke about Sko­das being The Star Car of the Fifties still stands. I spoke to a car dealer mate of mine and he said if you buy a Skoda you own it for life, ie the resale on them is crap, no one wants them as sec­ond hand run­ners, not even for their mis­sus. So not a good choice there either.

That leaves the Chrysler 300CD. Now these cars do have street cool, that is if you are a drug dealer, pimp or pros­ti­tute. They are also Amer­i­can so quite why the gov­ern­ment is look­ing at those beg­gars belief. I myself wouldn’t have a prob­lem with Amer­i­can prod­ucts but the laugh would be to see Trevor Mal­lard dri­ving one of these.

Given the cur­rent gov­ern­ment pen­chant for scan­dal I think they should go with the Pimp Mobiles.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

Google is using its first world­wide Devel­oper Day on Thurs­day to launch Google Gears , an open source tech­nol­ogy for build­ing Web appli­ca­tions that can work offline.

In addi­tion the com­pany will unveil plans to work with other ven­dors to mould stan­dards that would pro­vide devel­op­ers with con­sis­tent APIs for build­ing offline func­tion­al­ity into Web-based applications.

Google Gears is an open source browser exten­sion that lets devel­op­ers cre­ate web appli­ca­tions that can run offline. Gears pro­vides three key features:

• A local server, to cache and serve appli­ca­tion resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) with­out need­ing to con­tact a server
• A data­base, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web appli­ca­tions more respon­sive by per­form­ing expen­sive oper­a­tions in the background

To high­light how the new Gears tech­nol­ogy can work, Google is mak­ing its Google Reader feed reader avail­able with offline capa­bil­i­ties that were cre­ated using the new technology.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

I was at the gym this morn­ing doing my usual 2 hour work­out and I saw a reg­u­lar wear­ing a bloody funny t-shirt. I got Buck to take this photo of us.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

MPs asked if they want to keep Parliament’s Chris­t­ian prayer – MPs are con­sid­er­ing the future of Parliament’s prayer – and a change is backed by Catholic Arch­bishop John Dew.A spokes­woman for Speaker Mar­garet Wil­son said she had sent a let­ter to all MPs ask­ing if they wanted to keep the prayer… [NZ Pol­i­tics]

Fuck­ing oath they should keep the prayer, not only that but they should actu­ally draw the atten­tion of some of the mem­bers to the actual words, mem­bers like Philip Field, Mar­garet Wil­son, Michael Cullen and Helen Clark. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Thai ex-PM barred from pol­i­tics for 5 years – BANGKOK – Exiled for­mer Thai Prime Min­is­ter Thaksin Shi­nawa­tra has been banned from pol­i­tics for five years and his party, the first to win an absolute major­ity in the country’s his­tory, disbanded.The Con­sti­tu­tional Tri­bunal,… [NZ Pol­i­tics]

If only our gov­ern­ment showed some sim­i­lar steel…..oh wait Thai­land is ruled by a mil­i­tary junta but most wouldn’t know that because the left and a few oth­ers wail on con­stantly about Fiji and for­get about Thai­land and Pakistan. 

Inci­den­tally we pur­sued and com­pleted a Free Trade Agree­ment with Thai­land AFTER the coup there…..ah the hypocrisy. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

by email (for the pen­dan­tic amongst you) 

Men Are Just Hap­pier Peo­ple– What do you expect from such sim­ple crea­tures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wed­ding plans take care of them­selves. Choco­late is just another snack. You can be Pres­i­dent. You can never be preg­nant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechan­ics tell you the truth. The world is your uri­nal. You never have to drive to another gas sta­tion restroom because this one is just too icky. You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrin­kles add char­ac­ter. Wed­ding dress $5000. Tux rental $100. Peo­ple never stare at your chest when you’re talk­ing to them. The occa­sional well-rendered belch is prac­ti­cally expected. New shoes don’t cut, blis­ter, or man­gle your feet. One mood all the time.

Phone con­ver­sa­tions are over in 30 sec­onds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vaca­tion requires only one suit­case. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slight­est act of thought­ful­ness. If some­one for­gets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

Your under­wear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap prob­lems in pub­lic. You are unable to see wrin­kles in your clothes. Every­thing on your face stays its orig­i­nal color. The same hair­style lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck.

You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usu­ally hides your big hips. One wal­let and one pair of shoes — one color for all
sea­sons. You can wear shorts no mat­ter how your legs look. You can “do” your nails with a pocket knife. You have free­dom of choice con­cern­ing grow­ing a mustache.

You can do Christ­mas shop­ping for 25 rel­a­tives on Decem­ber 24 in 25 minutes.

No won­der men are happier.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

I tell you I am heartily sick of the ongo­ing wail­ing and gnash­ing against Mer­cury Energy. Now I could be par­ti­san and blame it all on the gov­ern­ment as mer­cury is a SOE and clearly they are being overly rapa­cious in col­lect­ing their due monies, how­ever the talk back com­ment and opin­ion in the papers is such that the debate is quickly descend­ing into farce.

To blame Mer­cury Energy for the death is akin to protest­ing that Food­town, Cout­down, Wool­worths and Pakn­Save are com­plicit in  our dread­ful child poverty stats. After all they should know that kids are starv­ing and there­fore let their par­ents off pay­ing for groceries.

See how far­ci­cal the argu­ment becomes when indi­vid­ual respon­si­bil­ity for ones own life and deci­sions is some­how abro­gated to some amor­phous organ­i­sa­tion, in this instance Mer­cury Energy, but often the Government.

I still fail to see how any organ­i­sa­tion is some­how respon­si­ble for the health of some­one who doesn’t pay their bills. Clearly the fam­ily didn’t value the life of their mother enough to pay the bills so why should the com­pany out of the good­ness of its heart care more than the fam­ily members.

I know, I’ll get slammed for this think­ing, more so for writ­ing it, but it has to be said, else we descend our soci­ety to far­ci­cal depths in the pur­suit of a no fault soci­ety and a gov­ern­ment knows all and cares all and pays all society.

 Ulti­mately respon­si­bil­ity lies with the indi­vid­ual and sad though it is, it was the mother her­self that decided that songs sung by her sons would be bet­ter than dialling 111 for some assis­tance. there were so many things not done by this fam­ily and only one thing done by Mer­cury Energy I fail to see how they can be held accountable.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

There is a bitch fight going on in Auck­land amongst the left­ists. It is all over water and the ironic thing is that some includ­ing Deputy Mayor Hucker are sup­port­ing large price rises whilst the Right Coun­cil­lors are vot­ing against them.

Mike Lee the ARC Chair­man has told Hucker to back off or join the right.

heh, i just love watch­ing left­ist fight each other.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

I have spent quite a bit of time dri­ving today across Auck­land. Con­se­quently I also spent a lot of time lis­ten­ing to talk­back. The topic of the day is the woman who croaked after Mer­cury Energy turned off her power and her Oxy­gen sys­tem failed.

I heard per­son after per­son com­plain­ing about how ter­ri­ble it all was…blah..blah…blah.

At risk of sound­ing like a cal­lous bas­tard I fail to see how her hus­band could have sat by for two hours while his mis­sus was dying in front of him.

Let me tell you, if some­one came to turn off my power and the mis­sus was hooked to a life sav­ing device, they wouldn’t get near the house let alone the power meter. If that failed, I would run a lead from the neigh­bours until the sit­u­a­tion was sorted and fail­ing that i would have called a fricken ambu­lance, not sat around wait­ing for her to die.

What­ever the argu­ments for or against Mer­cury Energy cut­ting off the power what the fuck hap­pened to indi­vid­ual respon­si­bil­ity for;

• Pay­ing your bills
• Mak­ing arrange­ments if you can’t  pay your bills
• Arrang­ing alter­na­tive power supplies
• Call an ambulance

Tough as it may seem, cal­lous as it sounds, the respon­si­bilty for this poor lady’s death rests with the family. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

I got myself a new toy yes­ter­day. Admit­tedly it is is sec­ond­hand, but hey it was a bargain.

It is an Apple Mac Power­Book, all nice and shiny and sil­ver. Every­thing works fine includ­ing my Vodem and the Wire­less card.

If you want great re-conditioned lap­tops you can’t go past NZ Lap­tops.  

Just per­fect for my Aussie sojourn that starts Friday. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Alright folks, here’s the evi­dence, straight from the Auck­land CEO him­self that C&R were stick­ing up for Auck­land Ratepayers.

As men­tioned ear­lier , C&R Coun­cil­lors Arm­strong and Mil­lar did NOT vote for the Metrowa­ter price hikes. As the email below from David Rankin (Auck­land City CEO) proves, Arm­strong and Mil­lar in fact tried to force the whole issue back onto the full Auck­land City Coun­cil of 20 politi­cians to take a full vote on the mas­sive water hikes, not just those who sit on the Finance and Cor­po­rate Busi­ness Com­mit­tee. Had it been forced back onto the full coun­cil, pan­icked City Vision politi­cians may have backed down over their mas­sive spend­ing plans, and finally agree with C&R pro­pos­als to seek effi­cien­cies and reduce coun­cil spend­ing, thus not requir­ing either a rates increase or water price increase.

Let’s remem­ber folks – C&R have been push­ing for core coun­cil activ­ity from the oppo­si­tion benches for the last two years. In revenge, one of the City Vision­ers leaked false min­utes of the meet­ing to the Herald.

You heard it here first……..

David Rankin’s email fol­lows now:

______________________________________________

From: Rus­sell, Nicki On Behalf Of Rankin, David

Sent: Fri­day, 25 May 2007 16:35

To: ‘Bernard.Orsman@nzherald.co.nz’

Cc: Cr Arm­strong, Dou­glas; Cr Mil­lar, Toni

Sub­ject: COMPLAINT

Bernard

Regard­ing your spe­cific ques­tions to assist the Her­ald in deal­ing with com­plaints by Coun­cil­lors Mil­lar and Arm­strong, I note as follows:

1. If Coun­cil­lors Arm­strong, Mil­lar and Milne had voted in favour of Coun­cil­lor Fryer’s amend­ment, with the three coun­cil­lors who sup­ported it, the effect would have been to pass the motion 6–5. Metrowa­ter would not have required a price increase and depend­ing on other cost fac­tors, could have con­sid­ered reduc­ing their price. Cor­re­spond­ingly, the council’s ten-year bud­get would have had $220.8 mil­lion of rev­enue removed from it. This would have required expen­di­ture cuts of this level or a 4.7 per cent rates increase in 2008/2009 to com­pen­sate, and smaller addi­tional increases to this in future years.

2. If the com­mit­tee had not adopted the sub­stan­tive motion to approve the three-year state­ment of intent, a valid state­ment of intent would not have been approved by 30 June by the coun­cil as required to do under local gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion. This would have neces­si­tated fur­ther urgent con­sid­er­a­tion by the coun­cil of the price increase issue, to enable a state­ment of intent to be approved at a fur­ther meet­ing to be held in the near future. This was, as I under­stand it, the intent of Coun­cil­lors Mil­lar and Arm­strong. In essence, a future such meet­ing would have had to resolve to either:

a. con­firm the 9.1 per cent price increase and leave council’s ten-year expen­di­ture and pro­posed rates increase unchanged; or

b. arrive at some dif­fer­ent price increase fig­ure for Metrowa­ter requir­ing an off­set­ting bal­ance in some mix­ture of spend­ing cuts and rate increases for the year to compensate.

Regards
David Rankin

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Fresh from the news that a Japan­ese Cab­i­net Min­is­ter embroiled in dodgy deal­ings com­mit­ted sep­puku is the news that in China has sen­tenced the for­mer head of the State Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion to death for cor­rup­tion, in an unusu­ally harsh sen­tence which could be reduced on appeal.

We’ll be lucky to see the crooks from Labour ever get a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket andel jefe will prob­a­bly never see the inside of a prison cell. 

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

In Japan they have a dif­fer­ent set of val­ues when it come to Min­is­te­r­ial respon­si­bil­ity. Here the gov­ern­ment obfus­cates and sup­ports their scan­dal tainted min­is­ters, in Japan they have a more per­ma­nent solu­tion to scandal.

If this was Japan Clark-san would have very few min­is­ters left after rit­ual sep­puku for scan­dal tainted ministers.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]