Friday, February 24, 2006

Pay It Back Helen Like Pete is Asking Focus 2000 to Pay it Back

Great isn't it. Pete Hodgson is requiring a company to pay back $2.5Million in overcharges. Good on ya Pete - (though I smell a major scandal brewing here).

The same Pete Hodgson who masterminded Helen Clark's Pledgecard pillaging of the public coffers to the tune of $400,000 - subsequent to a direct call from the Auditor-General that the spending was not justified.

Dio the right thing Helen - Pay It Back

Labour is ducking, bobbing and weaving - they cannot hide - it was a rort of public funds. All the more so because it was a conscionable decision taken at the highest levels of the Labour Party. Hodgson as Strategist would have been front and centre on that along with Mike Williams and Helen Clark.

As we come to expect from Labour - do as I say not as I do.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Chewing Gum Stuck to Cullen's Heel

News today that Dr Cullen is thinking about dropping the chewing gum sized tax break will come as no news to most. The world's most cynical Finance Minister dropped a large hint yesterday that dropping the carbon tax meant he would need to drop the tax cut. What a load of balderdash. That man has no shame and the hide of a rhinoceros. The carbon tax was always a loser and so was his tax break. He comes across as a petulant dick.
Timely Reflection on the Douglas and Richards Reforms

Today's polemic in the NZ Herald by Doug Myers is thoughtful and timely. It makes a very good read. See here. Well worth the read.

A great line regarding the National Party, and I paraphrase, as never an active agent for reform...
...nor has it ever been especially interested in promoting freedom but rather a "soft porn" version of socialism.

Hear, hear.

There you go Rodney - that's your cue.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Government on the Run

So early in the term and already Clark's mob are in defense mode - it is not a good look.

TVNZ unravelling by the day. They have completely shafted that organisation. The best Maharey could do today was claim they had saved it from being sold off. Some rescue. Private enterprise with the right set of incentives and controls is probably best placed to deliver public broadcasting objectives. As usual with socialists they confuse ownership with service delivery. Now we have the lunatics running the asylum.

Telecom - saw the Government off two years ago - now Clark is declaring she will change the regulatory framework to enable to NZ to catch-up in broadband. Where has she been these past two years. Australia has broad band at 7 times the speed of NZ for half the cost. Who has any confidence Clark and her lapdog Cunliffe can deliver. Cunliffe who cannot even put a wetsuit on the right way round for a craven photo-op - see today's Sideswipe for a photo.

Auckland Transport
In December 2003 the Labour Government announced new governance arrangements for (re)building public transport infrastructure, facilities and services in Auckland. Governance was to be simplified by eliminating one regional body and replacing it with two - ARTA and ARH under the control of the ARC.

The results have been shambolic - now the Government proposes another additional body, Auckland Passenger Rail Reference Group (APRRG) to provide "a more formal mechanism for resolving differences" among the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, Ontrack, the government agency controlling the rail tracks, and Land Transport New Zealand, the government funding agency.

What a friggin joke. Labour don't want Auckland's roading fixed. They want the notion of progress and an electorate beholden to the Government for a few more crumbs.

Just for the record - Labour's President, Mike Williams, sits on the Boards of ARTA, and Transit NZ (whose charter states... "the Board of Transit New Zealand directs both overall policy and funding allocation).

The government is now grizzling that the panacea for Auckland, a regional petrol tax, is not generating the expected funding because high petrol prices have reduced consumption - duh! I see markets prices do work eh? No mention of the higher GST receipts I might add...

What William's has done is this - used his pivotal positions and information flows to subvert roading projects to ensure Labour's control of key urban electorates outside Auckland. Transit's long term plan nationally, had 17/20 highest priority projects in Auckland. William's intervention saw the number funded in Auckland reduced to 3. ie he leapfrogged 14 other less deserving projects. He bodgied the numbers/process to get other regions into the trough. Result - Labour elected. See here for another example of the tentacles Williams has spread.
Just Pay It Back Helen

Helen, the money you nicked from the taxpayers needs to be paid back. Now.

It was nearly half a million dollars.

Putting up a smokescreen about the the Exclusive Brethren ignores the facts - You nicked those funds from the taxpayer. Your actions were a premeditated raid on the public purse.

The Exclusive Bretheren paid for their pamphlets with their OWN money.

Any comment about lack of clarity around spending guidelines is utter tosh. You were told by the Auditor-General before the election that this type of spending could not be classed a legitimate spending. You ignored that - with your usual arrogance, conceit and imperiousness. This was a premeditated assault on public monies.

And another thing - because you also nicked similar funds in the previous two elections without sanction does not make it right. You owe that money back as well...

Pay It Back
Brash Brilliant

The reported speech of Brash in the House yesterday shows some telling hits on the Government. Best line - "Pay it Back" - Good to see the other scandals being reported as well - Corngate, Paintergate, Doonegate.

Methinks the Government have just witnessed the turning point with the Antique Media. Clark's imperiousness, and her and her Government's propensity for bold talk and no delivery has finally received a fisking by the old media. The people have had enough and the tide has turned.

Good to see Brash make a good fist of it in the House - he and his party will be the better for it.

Interesting to see Darren Fucknuckle and co left with only braying from the sidelines. He can smell the stench of a decaying government and knows how close he was to not making it this time. Next time he will be dog tucker - destined never to make Cabinet.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Images of the Prophet are Widespread - in Islam

Following the hat-tip of Gateway Pundit - I went to Freedom for Egyptians...There she has linked to an archive of pictures of the Prophet Mohammed - (printed in the middle centuries) after his visitation from the Angel Gabriel. ie the life stage the West is demonised for publishing his image.

As I have been saying the hypocrisy is breath taking.

This is part of a bigger plan - the radical islamisation of the West - another plank in the takeover. We have to hold our nerve and push back.
Story Teller Found

Great post over at Sir Humphrey's AL has the story on the cartoons - they were published in Egypt October 2005 - no reaction at all from the Muslim world. The current furore has been absolutely manipulated by radical islam to demonise the West, instill fear and put up a smokescreen to divert attention away from Iran's atomic program expansion. The program has been lapped up by the antique media and their idiot mates on the Left.

Interestingly though, even the usual suspects in the antique media are now questioning the story, its origins and the intentions. Linda Clark today seemed sceptical - many can see that the free press we talk about is the choice to choose to publish without fear or favour.

Miss Clark and her camel boy al-Carter miss the point - not publishing because of threats is the reason to publish.

Perhaps we have a turning point - the rads have overplayed their hand. Same happened in the 16th Century - they were driven out of Europe then - the West can do it again.

We should tell the Iranian embassy to JFO.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Story Teller Needed

Characterisations/Plot? so far:

  • Militant Group Hamas wins election in Palestine
  • Democracy breaks out in Iraq
  • Key protagonists in Iraq (al-Zaqawi) driven out of Iraq to Iran
  • Iran ramps up nuclear rhetoric and boots out IAEC inspectors - begins uranium enrichment
  • Islamofascists take offence to cartoons published 5 months earlier
  • Muslims take to the streets burning and pillaging as a 'reaction' to the offensive cartoons.
  • Iran continues provoking the west and particularly the US.

Is is just me or is there a linkage - reports today show Government coordination in the protests - particularly Iran and Syria

Monday, February 06, 2006

Muslim Hypocrisy Stinks

What have we come to when Ministers and Prime Ministers kowtow to extremism.

With breath taking hypocrisy Muslims, including one Javed Khan, invoke threats or the threat of threats to prevent newspapers from publishing the Mohammedan cartoons, first aired in September 2005.

The hypocrisy is this - New Zealand is a free society - freedom of expression is paramount and a foundation stone. Khan's mentioning of threats to NZ is the anti-thesis of that freedom. His and his ilk's calls for censorship are as repugnant as the cartoons themselves.

What is wrong is not that news media in NZ chose to reproduce the vulgar cartoons, but that the muslim brotherhood has ignored the absolute right of the media to make its own choice as to the appropriateness of the material it reproduces.

The Labour Government's response is not beyond reproach. It is sad, but Oh So Predictable...

They have quickly slid in behind the muslim view. What would have been more appropriate would be a call for tolerance, a reinforcement of freedom of expression in New Zealand, noting its secularity and probably most importantly commentary that the very legislation the Left are wanting to introduce throughout the Western World (ie democracies) - the 'hate crime' legislation making it a crime to utter (or think) an alternative view to or about minorities - would be (paradoxically) available against those making barbarous statements...

For example:

Last week, Muslims marched in the centre of London chanting "Freedom go to Hell!"

I paraphrase the Daily Telegraph

...Is this not an abuse of the freedom of protest and freedom of assembly that are foundation stones of British democracy. Yet, even as they exploited these hard-won liberties, they were calling for them to be abolished...

yep, I think so.

Or what about this...again from the Daily Telegraph

The protesters in London with their disgraceful slogans - "Behead those who Insult Islam", "Britain you will pay - 7/7 is on its way" - have made it all but impossible for a genuinely free debate on this issue to take place. All such debate is now being carried out in the shadow of murderous intimidation.
This has been a disgraceful week for most in Government in the West. Most have become craven apologists with little wit or leadership.