Children of Meh

Currently failing to give two rat fucks about:

Sports in general, but the Black Caps, Phoenix and Lance Armstrong in particular. I'd rather be listening to Kraftwerk. There's some overseas evidence that cable TV rip off their wider customers to cross-subsidise the sports junkies. I wouldn't be surprised if Sky TV does the same thing here; something Soho subscribers might care about more than I. The sky is my television.

Garth McVicar and his Sentencing Sensible Trust, or Garth McMullah and the Rational Sentencing Institute as they are known on this blog. How this loud boorish cow cockie gets into print, I don't know. They seem to print any old shit these days.

Speaking of old shit, Bob McCroskrie. Don't care. This McHuntly can foam and rage and try to get Go The Fuck to Sleep rated R by the Censor's Office:

The applicant, on behalf of Family First, states as part of their Notice of Submission, "We believe the publication should be age restricted under s3A of the FVPC Act as it contains highly offensive language likely to cause harm to young people and children."

Fat lot of good it'll do him and his zealots. Please fuck off.

We Are All Made Of Stars

 Stuff's sub-editors get a bit CSI anthropomorphic with the blurb above. The article is dry as dust, but I can understand the attempt to sex up the story. Try getting people to switch off the reality shows and pay attention to the wonders of reality is noble, but real stars are no match for the fake ones on TV.

Few people are struck by the wonder that alchemy is possible, although turning lead into gold, like fusion, still costs more in inputs that you get in outputs. It is the same process of cosmic recycling, pushing hydrogen into ever weightier elements, that created our world. All the complex elements here could not have formed merely from our sun's vomit alone. We are all made of stars but that amazing fact won't sell the toothpaste and tampons.

Pet Ideology Cemetary

It takes more than a dead drunk teenager on his doorstep to keep this monster under control and away from the levers of power:

Behold FrankenBanks, Bride of Zombrash!

Nicked from Lyndon Hood

Also in this year's election line-up, Phil Goff, the Invisible Man:

Now would be a great time to roll him, but no-one's got the nuts to do it. Infra-red infighting, eh.

There will be a few no-shows at the Monster Mash on election night. The old Werewolf of Courtenay Place, Winston Peters, won't be back (no matter how much the Press Gallery pine for his lunacy). Nor will Peter "The Mummy" Dunne, who will lose in Ohariu to Charles Chauvel. Katrina Shanks will probably die in a freak MYOB accident but be reanimated through the List seats.

Then there's the Mana Party or, as I call it looking at its supporters, the Organic Maori Mana Party Aotearoa (OMMPA). They might be bright and full of grassrooty goodness, but the OMMPAs will be worm fodder for their undead competitors.

The Nats will of course sell their schtick with John Von Keysing keeping the ghouls at bay. Sure, an independent foreign policy is foreign to him, and he has some strange habits such as corgi fondling and Yank supplication. He might throw cash at the rich and take funds off Women's Refuge, but boy can that guy smile and wave!

They crucified my octopus

Easter is a strange time for a secular misanthropic humanist. The MSM all but shuts down, the malls are closed leaving the suburban reptiles restless in their mortgaged cages. The middle classes are force-holidaying their families in remote wet climes from Omaha to the Coromandel, cabin fever of the upwardly mobile.

The bakers are rolling in dough with hot cross buns sales up 20 percent on last year, hardly surprising since the buns with the plus signs have been in the shops since January. Homepaddock is pondering the alignment of Earth Day and Easter, alleging the "old" religion clashing with the "new", as if Christianity was somehow original and not a bastardised ripping off of deeper, older pagan cultures.

We all have the option of ignoring Earth Day, but there's no avoiding the enforced Easter break where the country's streets look like a Lilliputian version of China's ghost cities. And don't forget, Earth Day has brought us some magic moments:



Far as I'm concerned, the human race is doomed. Neither Jesus nor Earth Day will save us from ourselves. We've done it before and we'll do it again. The tale of Easter Island taught us that much.

Here's hoping that in a few hundred thousand years when the octopii are the dominant species, they don't get any ideas from the relics of our human follies and start nailing their kind to a tree. Or inventing credit default swaps.

UPDATE: Hawkey is onto it:

Vote Tui

Vote for NZ's best bird in the annual Forest & Bird Bird of the Year poll.

The marginal utility of birthdays

No BERL economists were invited to Mr Pink's birthday party last night, and it was probably just as well. They would have been shocked at the zero-function drinking that went on, and Internal Affairs might have had something to say about the marathon poker game that it fuelled. It was the first time I've had a glass of port since Labour put that ludicrous tariff on it many years ago. Nevertheless, no-one was hospitalised, skipped work or went home and beat their wives.

Return of The Panda

When I was eight, I was playing silly buggers up in Tauranga. I tripped on my Superman cape, fell off the porch and broke my arm. The old man comes along and, once the tears have subsided a bit, asks me what I want him to do. He explains that we can do nothing. The pain will linger for a while, a big bruise will come up and eventually the arm will mend itself. It won't be exactly how it was, and many years from now it may play up again.

Or, he could take me to the hospital. People who have a lot of experience in fixing broken bones could make the pain go away. They could look inside my arm with a machine, and set the arm in plaster for a few weeks so the bone mends as best as possible. I asked Dad to take me to the hospital and I got plastered.

Mike Moore has some experience in recognising when something has snapped in the Labour administration. Fortunately, he is at a safe distance, ensconced on an Aussie campus that puts Victoria University to shame. Interested and disinterested at once, he can write his truth with impunity. Moore is always a Labour man. He cares what happens to it.

Labour could limp along to the election, sit bruised in opposition for years, and have their broken tactics flung back at them when we need their credibility the most. Listen to the professionals, guys. And never pick a fight with The Panda.

It's...

Trans-Tasman has drawn attention to a pretty pickle:

"United Future is now UnitedFuture. It’s part of a “revitalisation” process ahead of next year’s election, says leader Peter Dunne. It’s got a new logo as well, looks like a purple cup with a blob of avocado in it."

Is it a smiling cyclops? Is it a squeezed boil? No, it's the perfect logo for Peter Dunne's party. It means whatever you want it to mean.

Meantime, Colin Espiner may be the the first journalist to use the words 'sober' and 'Winston' in a nice way. See for yourself.

It's good to see Guyon Espiner bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning's Agenda. He had a good smack at John Key the other week, and this morning's go at Pita Sharples got some good work done.

Mike Moreu's cartoons have been a joy to behold. It's a big bonus have him blogging about it all too. Blessed are the cartoonists. Bromhead said on Agenda a few weeks ago that if a politician bought his cartoon, he had failed as an artist. This is not true. Below is a selection of stuff the old man bought.

Unfortunately, the one cartoon I want to prove the point is not there. It might have been a Neville Lodge, and it depicted the old man in a Gestapo uniform leading old people into a gas chamber. Maybe politicians buy the art to keep them grounded. Having a fool on the wall helps. Perhaps it turns them into narcissists. Jim Anderton's got quite the collection in his office. Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his family for his life, eh Jim.