Friday, March 30, 2012

White Females Can Blackmail


It is difficult to contain my glee at the ongoing ACC clusterfuck engulfing the National government. It is verily a Schadenfreude smorgasbord, a conservative shit glacier slowly crushing everything beneath it.

This is the reason why politics is an infinitely preferable bloodsport compared to rugby. For one thing, the tactics are infinitely more audacious than anything you'll see performed on a grass paddock. Witness two heavyweights slug it out to the death with all sorts of arcane tools at their disposal. The prize? Leadership of the National party.

National's lacklustre result in last year's election sealed John Key's fate. He has past his best before date and, in the absence of Simon Power, Stephen Joyce and Judith Collins are slugging it out to the (political) death to be the next top dog. Nick Smith and even Michelle "Bury Me in a Y-shaped Coffin" Boag are merely collateral damage.

It's a plague on all their houses as far as I'm concerned. Boag has been sucking on the public tit one way or another since she was a mere press and research officer for the Muldoon government. I'm pretty sure that Judith Collins was behind the ramping up of the War on Drugs and Effective Cold and Flu Remedies under Key, so bugger her. And I'm pretty sure that Stephen Joyce cares more for invoices than people, so bugger him too.

Then there's Mum. She's been battling ACC for over ten years over a botched operation that left her with spinal column injuries. She's fought ACC by herself through the High Court, the Health & Disability Commissioner, some of the doctor associations and Dagg knows who else. Long story short, she's been given the runaround as bureaucracies dodging accountability are wont to do. I really should do something about putting her in contact with my old Law lecturer and ACC-busting champion John Miller.

Here's hoping everyone gets their just desserts.

Little Vigilantes

Undeterred by the recent homicide of hoodie-wearing Trayvon Martin by an idiot with a gun and a badge, NZ Police have set up their first Junior Nark Squad:
"Children are being trained to be the eyes and ears of their Porirua neighbourhoods and encouraged to "nark'' on any suspicious behaviour. The city's first Junior Neighbourhood Support programme has seen the senior syndicate at Holy Family School in Cannons Creek taught how to make their streets safer."
 Because, as all of us know, children cannot ever be wrong or lie. Better safe than sorry, eh. And kids never get bullied for telling on people. The police are really running their budget cuts on someone else's neck with youth rates for volunteer grassing.

Speaking of the vulnerabilities of pride, what do the NZ Police and the Fonz from Happy Days have in common?

Double entry

Should journalists moonlight as prostitutes? ponders this TVNZ story. At least one TVNZ worker says yes.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Tall Sativa Syndrome

Audrey Young ain't got no love for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. Her story covering last election's bang for buck ratio of political parties gave Conservative robot millionaire Colin Craig print space. No mention was made of the most effective spenders, possibly because it was the ALCP. David Farrar is more objective.

Space Dog

When cocaine is finally legalised again, the side effects label should include the high possibility of it turning you into an arsehole. For every Hunter S. Thompson, there's a hundred thousand trains wrecks like William Murdoch. Here's a man who should have stuck to coca leaves.

Tori Amos chaser:

Monday, March 26, 2012

Live Anger Management Display

It's not often a cannabis law reformer gets to gloat, so hats off to Skinny and Serenity for making my Monday with this Live Anger Management Display at a Drug Rehab / Mobile Phone Co Sponsored Skate Event:


Today At Vic Park from NZskate.com on Vimeo.

Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Corporate sponsorship of "community events" and sleb born again messiahs becoming pariahs in an instant. Sweet.

The Brown Shirted bloke hanging out the clothesline above is artist and skater judge Craig Platt, who has since apologised for being a dick. Accusations over the handing out of spray cans and incitement to spray their logos about has been denied, although the evidence is pretty compelling:

The Real Steve Gray has also helpfully included the promo poster for the event:

Skinny is Telecom's latest cunning disguise into the youth market for cellphones. Phone pushers if you will.

Serenity Drug, Alcohol & Addiction Rehab is run by former drug lover William Murdoch. The verbiage on the Serenity site reads much like another self-proclaimed neon messiah selling salvation I know, my brother. My advice is to give neither of them your money or your time.

More creepy though is this little gem on Facebook:


That's right, win rehab at an under 16s youth event! First it was state funded Scientology drug education, now it's Mr Angry selling rehab at a kid's park. And they call drug users self-destructive. Ha!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Family Tree

I was saddened last night to hear that The Daktory was raided by the police. But if you embarrass the powers that be with civil disobedience, this is a risk you take. I know all four of the arrestees, just as I know the ensuing "justice" will cost a stupid unnecessary fortune.

In completely unrelated news, not only is Tuatara Brewery celebrating moving into their bigger, better brewhouse in Pram, they have just finished picking the hops:

Hop cones are the female flowers of Humulus Lupulus, a relative of cannabis in the Cannabaceae family. The Constable Cone snobbery continues...

There's no video of Fly My Pretties' Family Tree or Smoke Me, so Let's Roll instead:

Dirty Deals

John Drinnan has more news of property confiscations by John Key's dirty dealing. The sell-offs of the radio spectrum currently used by Free to Air channels will not be fed back into public broadcasting at all. Then there's the fait accompli sell-off of TVNZ's Death Star to Sky City:
One of the interesting aspects of the Government negotiations with SkyCity and the inclusion of TVNZ land in proposals for a new convention centre has been the fact that the Government and Ministry of Economic Development has not consulted with the broadcaster about the cost of any land deal and the loss of its creative hub.

The Government says TVNZ is free to negotiate, but practically speaking TVNZ will have no choice but to sell if the Sky proposal is agreed, and is on the back foot in negotiating.

It seems, ahem, unconventional.

Porterhouse Blue

A while ago over at Dim Post, I described the Porterhouse Blue vibe I was getting. But for the life of me, I was wondering who the hell was playing Lionel Zipser, the self-destructing graduate. It all becomes clear now, even though there's a lot more dust left to settle on a lot of terminally damaged major characters.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Texas and the Rick Perry Rape Stick

Why is Kirsten Schaal so pissed off?


The NZ Herald looks at the new Texas law that requires women wanting an abortion to be raped by an ultrasound device. But the accompanying picture doesn't quite do the injustice justice. Here's a closer look at the Rick Perry Rape Stick, compared to the usual ultrascanner:

That's at least twenty centimetres of Republican plastic up a women's vagina. I can't wait for the Pat Robertson Pap Smear. That'll probably feature some rusty flanges and a gin trap.

The most vocal criticism over the Texan Fatwa hasn't been over the new law, but over a Doonesbury cartoon on the subject. Newspapers across the US continent refused to run the strip. Here's what the fuss was about, courtesy of the LA Times (click images to embiggerate):







The chances of me ever wanting to visit the USA has never been that great. But you'd sooner see Dick Cheney sucking Kim Jong Un's tiny penis on YouTube before I'll step foot in that mad land of cunty Jesus Freaks in Texas.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Key announces another super ministry; sez more to come

John Key today announced a merger of the Health, Education and Welfare Ministries will occur later this year. The new Ministry of Brighter Futures will save costs with shared back end functions, although the Chief Executive's salary for the new super ministry is expected to be near $10 million a year.

The prime minister foreshadowed an announcement to be made next week, which is rumoured to announce the merger of Justice, Courts, Corrections and Police into the Ministry of Truth and Justice. The super-ministry will also regulate all forms of media, said an anonymous source from the prime minister's press unit.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Green Flash

A few years ago, the Pope of Dope and I jumped in the NORMLmobile to assist a supporter who was getting hassled by the cops in Albert Park. On the way there, an idea popped out that what we really needed to cut through the Auckland gridlock was a flashing green light and a siren that went DOOOO-BEEEEE.

Thank Dagg we never did it:
However, regulations already exist for the use of green flashing lights - according to the Road Code, doctors, nurses and midwives can use a roof-mounted green flashing light and drivers must pull over to let the vehicle pass.

We might be rendering aid, but we aren't that professional.

Leftfield Ambitions

The heavens have been good to us in the last week. Auroras in Wellington during a full moon, for example. More full moon fruit dropped today with another Werewolf unleashed.

Gordon Campbell has a thorough interview with David Shearer. Expectations on Labour's medium term growth are suitably lowered. The Post-Helen hangover shows no sign of lifting. No wonder Met Turei reckons the Greens have space and time on their side to become equal partners with Labour in terms of the party vote.

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Lip Service

Someone on the recently appointed Parliamentary Service Commission is being a twat. My suspicions rest on Michael Woodhouse and Te Ururoa Flavell. But seeing as there's six on the committee and they can't reach a majority, maybe some other Norms are complicit in deciding the fate of Deaf MP Mojo Mathers and her right as an MP to participate in the House.

The Greens have released the Chapman Trippy legal advice that got up DPF's nose. The wiggy advice says pretty much what I was banging on about the other day, albeit with more coherence, legal jargon and footnotes.

It concludes that Closed Captioning is not just a matter of Mojo's participation in Parliamentary proceedings, but everyone from the tens of  thousands of NZers with variable hearing to the tired and emotional politicians who require easy access to an immediate transcript in order to double take what was just said.

It wasn't so long ago that the Speaker's Office was commemorating 70 years of public good radio broadcasts of the House. It's coming up to the 76th anniversary of this fundamental right, yet here we are with slack MPs dragging their feet on an obvious communications failure for one of their own.

If the Parliamentary Service Commission doesn't come to its senses soon, their names will end up in the pot with all the past, present and future Mormons I'm planning to mass baptise into Satanism (It's a surprisingly straight-forward incantation involving rubber chickens, wingnuts, a Smith Bible, maple syrup and a weekend in Palmy).

Thursday, March 01, 2012

John Key, Scientology Enabler

John Key's faith-based approach to public policy has had another kick in the nuts. It's not just the Jesus Freaks getting public funding to spread their propaganda. Scientology is at the public tit too, saving the world from drugs and shrinks one dollar at a time.

Kathryn Ryan has an entertaining and revealing talk with NZ Drug Foundation's Ross Bell and former Scientology zealot Paul David Schofield. Topics include the use of state funds for Scientology drug propaganda, the infamous Disaster Zone Earthquake Massages, and the drug intolerant front of Narconon. Scientology New Zealand's Mike Ferris provides a laugh out loud rebuttal.

This is the problem when pollies ignore obvious truths and stick with their destructive War on Drugs doctrine. You end up with your trench fellows being a bunch of fanatical nutjobs with their own agenda. John Key got it right once, when the Religious Right threatened to smother him during the Bradford Smacking Bill. Shame he's falling for the same gibberish idiocy on other fronts.