Gagging on China

While the pollies are swallowing dead rats, there's a rather large china plate stuck in the gullet of the NZ public. The plate features elaborate writing by the IOC, and they want all NZ's Olympic competitors to sign it. Basically, the NZ athletes are to behave like dogs at Crufts.

Unlike John Key, I remember where I was during the 1981 Springbok Tour. Age 11 in Palmy, sitting at the long dining table in Chaytor Street in the middle of a blazing row with the whanau over the Tour. Well, sez Dad, what would you do? I say that Muldoon should have refused the Springboks their visas.

Raybon Kan is right. Everything is political. Generation Y may not quite grasp this, as they have no memory of a time when trade was embargoed. They do not remember that until Apartheid fell in the '90s, you could not buy South African goods in NZ. No oranges, no Amarula, no Chenin Blanc. But the Xers and the older ones remember just fine.

Wasn't Helen Clark a Springbok protester? How far she's come. Have the ethics been completely burned off being so long in the game?

Falun Gong Watch

I was walking past the Chinese Embassy this morning, when four or five goons came out of the Embassy and hassled the Falun Gong silent protest across the road. Being a chivalrous bastard, I stopped and gave the team the evils a bit. Any more reports of stunts like that, post them in comments.