Chumps’ tea party

Long before this election began I expressed the view that (sadly) there was probably only one way Jianqi could lose this election; and that would be if a really bad scandal erupted at a critical stage of the game.

The teapot tape might just be that, er smoking teapot. It is amazing to think a cup of cha could have such a potentially explosive charge. In fact, given the way Jianqi and Banksia have reacted I am more interested in what might have been in that teapot than what is on the tape. After all the tape is perfectly innocent, isn’t it? I mean it must be because His Right Honourable Prime Ministership said so. (Cue Tui sign)

There are many questions arising from this affair and not all of them will be answered by us hearing the tape. One that immediately springs to mind is, what is the offence Jianqi alleges has occurred here? It is clear there is nothing in the Privacy Act that could actually relate to this and in any case, that Act is administered by the Privacy Commissioner, not the Police Commissioner. So what piece of legislation is our toady little Prime Munter using for this?

My guess is the wanker is trying to drag something out from the National Disgrace’s considerable war chest of hastily passed legislation dealing with public order or National (geddit) security. Don’t forget an awful lot of flustering went on following 9/11 when ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation was shoved through at breakneck pace and further ‘amendments’ were whipped through following the Christchurch earthquake under the guise of ‘public order’ so it could be something from here.

I also thought it was interesting, nay damned troubling that police saw fit to deliver a warning to people not to publish. I don’t believe they are in a position to do this because I don’t believe there is a legal justification for it. But what troubles me more is why are they leaping to the defence of the PM and making an unnecessary and some would say, reckless and stupid statement about the legal position. Clearly little Jianqi has pulled rank and asked (read demanded) his big bully-boy mates come and support him and let everyone else know they’ll get the bash if they step out of line.   

But whatever he is trying to do, it seems an awful lot of trouble to go to for a ‘principle’. In any case I’d have thought principles and politicians did not belong on the same page never mind the same sentence. As I told Granny Herald this week, in an effort to encourage them to publish the bloody thing; why hold back on ethical grounds? That’s hardly a quality one could associate with Jianqi or Banksia – especially if, as I suspect they were running down old Duffer Dong and planning a coup de space. (That’s where one space cadet replaces another).

Clearly summat is afoot and someone is a liar. I sincerely hope we get to find out whom – BEFORE November 26!

As for the cameraman who allegedly accidentally left his recorder on, I have to say it is entirely plausible. I say this because I have done exactly the same thing on a number of occasions. What happens sometimes is you are interviewing somebody and you have to interrupt to take a picture of someone else because they are about to leave and it is very easy in the heat of the moment to leave the thing on. Several times I have been and done an interview and left and when I got back to the office found that the last 20 minutes of my tape are the sounds of me cursing at other motorists on my way home. It is much easier to do than most people would realise, especially when you are being rushed along by deadlines.

But to get back to my original point; this just might be the turning point in this election. At this late stage I would doubt it could completely sink the Nats, but it could certainly cut into their vote enough to make things really interesting. It might just expose the ACTors for the bit part players and pantomime dames they really are and sink them without a trace.

I don’t think little prissy Jianqi has a leg to stand on as far as obtaining any sort of prosecution over this, but I have urged TV3 and Granny Herald, and I urge all of you to urge them, to publish without delay, because if they don’t Banksia and Jianqi could seek injunctions to tie their hands. Then they could well face prosecution if they publish.

So carpe diem, Herald and TV3 and anyone else who knows what’s on that tape. It might be nothing, but then I might be two metres tall and the next All Black captain! We certainly can’t believe anything our incumbent Prime Munter says because he continually lies like a bloody flatfish. Oops sorry it’s not telling lies is it? We’re in a dynamic environment. Where is that dynamite when I need it?

Just lying around

Bigger lies than usual are forming the basis of this year’s election campaign. Hopefully the chorus of fabulists, confabulators, and downright liars will overhype things so much before November that they will be unmasked for all including the usually credulous to see.

We always get lies and half-truths from city councillors, members of parliament and heads of government departments, and election year is usually worse than other years, but this year is somewhat unusual in that our ultimate head of state is also involved.

Governor-General designate, Jerry Mateparae is right at the heart of a monstrous (in both senses of the word) cover-up over the behaviour of New Zealand troops in Afghanistan. The allegation has been made that our lads captured prisoners in Afghanistan and then handed them over the Afghan authorities and I think it is fair to say this is undeniable. But Jezza and his merry band are still trying to deny it and write off the consequences.

I gather one of their tactics has been to start arguing the semantics of the situation. Among the sillier suggestions that have been made is that we were involved in joint operations so (technically) it was our partners who were in charge and therefore guilty if anyone was of handing over people to be tortured. This is complete crap and the sort of argument one might expect from a ten year old who has been caught bang to rights.

Since Mateparae was in charge of our defence forces at the time, it is crucial we have an independent investigation into this before we even countenance having him take the job of Governor-General.

JiangQi has waded in to support the potential G-G by refusing an inquiry and throwing a few massive tito of his own into the mix. On this occasion I think his boyish enthusiasm has got the better of him and he might have just put his head in the noose with his allegations against Jon Stephenson, the journalist who broke this story in Metro. The Prime Minotaur made some pretty specific allegations which Stephenson has not only denied, but consulted his lawyer about. It would seem that he had a witness present when he was alleged to have called the PM and identified himself as Duncan Garner. Furthermore Stephenson claims JiangQi did not hang up on him at the time, but had a quite amicable conversation with him. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Stephenson taped that conversation. In fact I hope he did. I guess we’ll know soon.

So what are the other fantastical stories, fables, myths and bullshit that we have endured from the ruling party and their cronies so far this year?

Well their decision to change the rules around KiwiSaver is another example of their duplicity. This week they have confirmed what we have all been fearing for a couple of weeks; namely that the government will lower its contribution, thus breaking their contract with taxpayers ‘to make it more affordable’. That’s rich! Perhaps they could afford it if they returned their BMWs, demanded payment from Mediaworks, asked for the money back from AMI and stopped spending money on security for multi-nationals like Petrobras.

The following is a verbatim extract from the National Party policy on KiwiSaver – the one they campaigned upon at the last election:  National is committed to keeping the KiwiSaver scheme and making it an enduring and affordable scheme for members, employers, and taxpayers.

National is committed to maintaining New Zealand Superannuation payments at a minimum of 66% of the average after-tax wage.

National is committed to continuing the New Zealand Superannuation Fund in its current form and with the current contribution rate.

However what appears in our favour is that they are not planning to bring it into force until after the election. So if you want the government to hold up its end of this particular bargain, your only hope is to vote against the National Disgrace Party in November and hope like hell the other lot don’t try to pull the same stroke.

Among the other promises that are under threat is the plan to lead us to pay parity with Australia. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen while Bull Singlets is boasting to overseas investors what a great place NZ is to come to because ‘the wages are much lower than across the ditch’.

Of course most of us will have forgotten that GST wasn’t going up, either. Civil servants were being capped, but somehow (mysteriously) more than 2000 of them have gone.

Then of course we have to recall the vapid ramblings of that stupid cow Heck Yeah Parata when she was challenged about the decision to grant seismic drilling permits. She said they didn’t have the right to drill, but that is apparently completely wrong and the permit they were granted clearly states they are able to drill one well under the terms of that permit. Lady Gardiner should stick to pruning her roses.  

But to be fair, Heck Yeah was a latecomer to all of this and Jerry Brown-noser did all the really sneaky stuff like whipping this lot through without any consultation either with iwi or the general public.

So what lies in the future? Plenty more where that lot came from, I suspect. Semper Vigilans!

Bin there, dumped that

So Osama bin Hiding is dead.....but is he really? It’s quite amazing how convenient circumstances can be for world leaders at times.

Just as Obama, (is the next person of international interest going to be called Ollama, Okarma or Odrama?) is finding things tough in Congress and during the run-up to the next US presidential election; kaboom! up pops the bullet riddled corpse of Satan’s brother and there is dancing in the streets of Washington.

Obama sagely told the nation, “Justice has been done”.

Justice? Call me old-fashioned and I might even be a bit old, but I don’t think I’m so senile as to have missed the trial. I’ve been scratching my head all morning, but apart from a few dandruff flakes on my fingers I can’t for the life of me recall anything about an arrest, a reading of charges, a trial or a subsequent judicial sentence.

That might be justice Guantanamo Bay style, but it appears to fly in the face of the sort of justice the West is so proud to champion and even contrast favourably to that practiced by Al Qaeda.

I can’t help but be suspicious about how this operation has unfolded. It’s all too bloody convenient. The first thing that strikes me about the so-called raid is that it looks as though it was always a search and destroy raid with absolutely no intention of capturing bin Laden alive. The ‘body’ has also conveniently been dumped at sea with unseemly haste.

A picture has emerged that purports to be the body of Osama, but Reuters had a close look at it and declared it a fake Photoshop job.

So why would they want to take bin Laden out rather than in and why did they dispose of the ‘evidence’ so smartly?

You can only conclude they had stuff to hide. So what did bin Laden have on the Americans that they could not allow him to pass on to the rest of the world? He is known to have had close ties to the Bush family, so my guess is that at some point the administration has been compromised through some clandestine dealings it has had with him. Most likely there was some unholy alliance with the CIA and Al Qaeda somewhere along the line to gain some traction in one oil state or another.

So what happens now?

Well for one thing the propaganda war will hot up quite a bit. The Americans have already started with some stage-managed press releases. Some are actually quite funny, like the one that says Osama was hiding behind a woman and using her as a human shield when they burst in on him. The implication being that Osama (who wears a dress and ain’t no real man like the good ol’ boys that drink corn likker and believe in Je-sus!) was also a big sissy who cries and hides behind women’s skirts.

The level of this sort of crap is so ‘kindergarten’ that I found it astonishing that a newspaper such as The Washington Post would even run it without turning it into a cartoon.

Much has also been made of the luxury in which the Al Qaeda leader was said to be living. So? That distinguishes him from other ‘nice’ leaders in exactly what way? Do all those smiley inclusive baby kissers we call world leaders live in abject poverty, fund their own activities and give a shit about any of their constituency? (Cue Tui ad)

Nah Osama was probably a prick, which puts him in the same bag as most world leaders. He almost certainly encouraged many of his supporters to lay down their lives for his causes and to kill the unbelievers. (Still sounds like any one of a couple of dozen world leaders to me).

But there was one big difference between Osama and the others; his supporters will be seriously pissed off about what has allegedly happened and unlike their wimpier Western counterparts they are likely to take some pretty drastic actions to avenge what they see as an assassination. And from here, it certainly looks like an assassination.

But then I guess it was always going to be cheaper in monetary terms than the trial. America has a huge debt issue and times are tough!