March 2009

Lee tipped as National contender in Mt Albert – One of National’s new stars, MP Melissa Lee, could be the party’s candidate in the Mt Albert byelection, the Herald has learned. It is understood Ms Lee’s name has been raised in National Party circles as a possibility to compete… [NZ Herald Politics]

On several fronts Melissa Lee would make a fine candidate for Mt Albert. Firstly she is a hottie and makes a vast improvement on the forger who held the seat previously. Secondly she is a far better candidate that Ravi Musuku who clearly hasn’t realised that he was merely cannon-fodder in previous elections.

I hope several other high profile candidate come out of the woodwork so thre is a fine selection selection process.

As for Labour they are crapping themselves over the “Tizard Effect” and locally Glenda Fryer, another hideous visage, is tramping the streets trying to drum up support.

I wonder too, what Jordan is up to, though I suspect he is trying to weasel his way into Auckland Central for next election, though Kate Sutton might have something to say about that.

Some not so random thought on plastic bags.

Firstly, most of them are produced in China, as are plastic bags. Secondly, I wonder what the pollution rate is for the ghastly dyed colours they are produced in? Dye is a huge polluter in the industrialised world.

Thirdly, what is going to happen to these wonder bags when a handle falls off, or there is a split in the seams. My bet is they will go into the landfill (unless of course we learn to use them for deconstructed fashion or something.  Maybe they could be recycled for underwear.  (Probably too itchy)

The mundane plastic bag is recycled and recycled in households. What on earth are all the Op Shops in the country going to use for customers to put their goods in if there are no plastic bags?

How about the use of paper bags? Well research would suggest we are screwed there also;

Here are some facts and figures according to reusable bags, regarding paper bags vs plastic bags:

• In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone
• Paper bags generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags
• Paper bags use 4 times as much energy to construct compared to a plastic bag
• Paper bags use 84 times as much energy to recycle compared to a plastic bag
• Some studies have shown that paper bags generally don’t decompose any faster in landfills than plastic bags. This is apparently due to the lack of water, light and oxygen etc, in landfills.
• Paper bags use more space in landfills than plastic bags

Education is working because there are quite a number of people holding up the check out lines stuffing their purchases into their own eco bags. The stuff never fits and they have to have extra plastic bags, but I expect they’ll learn to judge it correctly and carry out the same number of ecobags as they did plastic ones.

We could go back to sack cloth bags.   The only trouble is that I believe they are made out of hemp and that’s a prohibited product.
Someone I know once tried to be a supplier for hemp plants for fibre production but it seems it is related to marijuana.  Of course, Hemp  products would not be very good for recycling either. Too scratchy. Perhaps the pot smokers could do something innovative with them.

Many years ago I remember reading an article about disposable nappies. They came out about equal with cloth nappies when you took into account the energy etc and the bleaching process of the cotton, plus the energy and washing detergent pollutants required to clean them and dry them.  So I expect the same goes for plastic bags.

Thousands of underpaid disadvantaged Chinese workers are going to be without a job. This won’t help the world recession.

The so-called eco bags will eventually take up more landfill because they are bulkier than plastic bags.

Finally has the government not realised that Nzers are sick and tired of government telling them what they can and cannot do in their daily lives.  It will be just like the light bulbs and showers issue.

Carrying the bag – The Government is investigating plans to sting shoppers with a 5-cent charge for every plastic supermarket bag. [Stuff Politics]

This nanny-state crap needs to be shoved up the proverbial. “Polluter pays” my arse. What the hell are landfills for if not to fill up.

There are plenty of holes in the ground anyway, it isn’t like they are in short supply. The logic of this farce astounds me….next thing there will be a 5c charge on everything on the basis that polluter pays.

Since when has dumping something in a landfill been pollution anyway.

John Key needs to tell Nick Smith to pull his fricken head in.

The left wing are at their most shrill when affronted on behalf of someone else. The Herald on Sunday has picked up on their puffery and quoted extensively from lefty lap-blogs about the “Moustache on a Lady“

Fortunately the hirsute owner of the ho-stache herself isn’t quite as sensitive as the panty wetters of The Standard.

“It’s trademark Paul Henry and there are bigger issues in the world to worry about – like people dying of leukaemia from French [nuclear] testing. I think he likes being controversial – that’s a polite way to put it. This is who I am and people make choices about who they are.

“I have a really wonderful family, three gorgeous kids, a loving husband, great friends, really challenging job that I do part-time around all the other things I do in my life, and I love my life.

“I’m secure with myself and I feel sorry that these people are so insecure about either their own appearance or mine. This is not about me, it’s about them.”

Well said and kudos for Mills for taking it on the hair of her chinny, chin, chin. What is hilarious is the mass outrage sparked by Neale Jones/Tane and followed up by 3 commenters at the lap-blog has encouraged only “about half a dozen complaints”.

At least Cactus Kate got quoted.

“Paul Henry should become Head of TVNZ. It was a superb moment in New Zealand television.”

Andrew Wiliams the Clown of Campbells Bay and the Mad Mayor of North Shore rounds out two weeks of appalling coverage with a slaying in the Herald on Sunday on page 14.

To show how woefully foolish the Mad Mayor is, he now says he has the necessary qualifications to run for the new Mayoralty despite just three days ago saying on National Radio he wasn’t interested and repeatedly being opposed to the Super City. I am hoping he will stand that will give me much fun for the campaign.

The man is seriously deluded if he thinks he has even a remote chance of ever getting to be mayor of Auckland Council. For a start he has blamed the media and the North Shore Times in particular for his failings and he would have to contend with a campaign from me against him.

Williams was unperturbed about the criticism, blaming it on a “faction” led by Slater, Auckland City councillor Aaron Bhatnagar and the Newmarket Business Association’s Cameron Brewer.

“They’re all over there in a super-city faction wanting to get control of greater Auckland,” he said yesterday. “They attack anyone who opposes them, and they do it in a particularly nasty and vicious manner.”

Wow! I lead a faction. Amazing….from lowly blogger to leader of a faction all set against the great Panjandrum, the mad Mayor of North Shore.

The fool should give up, because I never will. The man is an embarrassment.

Who would have thought that Andrew Williams, the Clown of Campbells Bay, the Mad Mayor of North Shore had as many as 24 people in his family.

Leaked survey reveals questions over nuclear ban – New Zealanders are being asked whether the Government should allow nuclear-powered ships back into our waters. Since the 1980s prime minister David Lange banned nuclear weapons and nuclear power, sparking a diplomatic stand-off with… [NZ Herald Politics]

Matt McCarten and his band of merry wanker from the UNITE union think nothing of breaching confidentiality agreements between employeres and employees.

They have leaked details of a survey solely for the purpose of lamely trying to link the National Party and/or ACT with the survey. It is despicable behaviour and if I was the company with those employees I would seriously look at replacing them with non-Unite members as they have proven that confidential company information is not secure wuth them.

Apart from the fact that National and Act have denied they are the customer, I seriously doubt they were anyway. National has a clear policy on this. This is nothing but spam journalism and a beat-up.

This blogger is over the felching from some quarters and the MSm in general about Helen Clark. It is time to bust some myths.

Fran O’Sullivan thinks it would be “churlish to spend too much time on the accumulation of domestic baggage which put paid to Clark’s chances at the last election”. I disagree.

Patrick Crewdson, somewhat, fawningly, writes in the DomPost the first myth of Helen Clark, “that Her new role is considered to be the most heavyweight international position ever held by a New Zealander – more significant even than Mike Moore’s time as head of the World Trade Organisation.”

I think Crewdson must be taking Clark’s or at least Darren Hughes press releases at face value. They ignore history and achievements of other fine New Zealanders.

Crewdson and other similar MSM history re-writers forget all about Sir Leslie Monroe who was President of the UN Assembly in or around 1952, and I think held other positions with the UN.   He was also ambassador to the UN, although I suppose that’s a bit different.

From Wikipedia:

Munro was a founding member of the New Zealand National Party, and held significant executive positions in the party, helping it to victory in the 1949 general election. In 1952 the new Prime Minister, Sidney Holland, appointed Munro the New Zealand ambassador to the United States, and the permanent representative of New Zealand to the United Nations. In that capacity he was president of the Trusteeship Council from 1953 to 1954 and President of the United Nations General Assembly for its twelfth session (1957 – 1958). He was also three times president of the Security Council, and was serving in that position at the outbreak of Suez Crisis in 1956. At the UN he was an outspoken critic of the Soviet response to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and was appointed the special representative for the ‘Hungarian question’.

Interestingly it was an act of retribution on behalf of the Second Labour Government that saw him removed from his position as permanent representative in 1958. He remained a special representative until 1962, and was also secretary-general of the International Commission of Jurists from 1961. To now say Clark now holds a position that is the highest any Kiwi has held before simply re-writes history and diminishes the achievments of Sir Leslie Munro.

The second held myth of Helen Clark that needs busting is her penchant to claim, along with others of her ilk that she was the first elected woman Prime Minister of New Zealand. She was not. This is a specious argument that holds no water upon close examinsation. That it is oft repeated by lazy journalists is crass and an indictment on their ablity to see through spin.

New Zealand does not vote for a Prime Minister. She was elected to the Leadership by her Party Caucus. Jenny Shipley was New Zealand’s first Woman Prime Minister, end of story.

That is the question that Ian Wishart is asking in TGIF.

He has looked at the accounts for the UNDP and seen something a little awry;

Figures obtained by TGIF also reveal sharp spikes in the levels of NZ Government donations in the periods leading up to the 2005 and 2008 elections, both of which were tight-fought political races.

According to United Nations Development Programme’s published accounts, New Zealand contributed:
US$2 million in 2000,
US$4 million in 2001,
US$3.9 million in 2002
US$5 million in 2003
US$11 million in 2004
US$16 million in 2005
US$10.8 million in 2006
US$12.5 million in 2007
US$12.5 million in 2008

It isn’t just the UNDP that sees similar spikes of our cash flowing into UN coffers, The UNFPA got about US$770k in 2001 but a whopping US$3.7 million in 2004 and then US$5.2 million in 2005, the figure drpped back to $2.7 million in 2006 and 2007.

Same goes for UNICEF. US$1.6 million in 2001 and US$5 million.

Is Helen buying insurance for herself before each election?

This is even more alarming when you look at our contribuitions beside Australia’s. Wishart says that on a pro-rata basis our contributions should be about a fifth of Australia’s, in fact in each case listed we have contributed more.

It looks on the surface that Helen Clark has used her position as Prime Minister to effectively buy herself a job and to buy it with our money. It seems that Helen Clark has an unhealthy appetite for stealing our money to buy things like elections and high paying jobs for herself.

I was phoned by Heather MCCracken from the HoS for comment about what the Clown of Campbells Bay, Mayor of North Shore, Andrew Williams had said about me in their story for tomorrow. You can read my comment tomorrow.

I then thought I would send a nice email to Andrew to thank him for all the publicity he had got for me. I thought I was polite.

From: Cam Slater
Sent: Saturday, 28 March 2009 11:02 a.m.
To: Andrew Williams <Andrew.Williams@northshorecity.govt.nz>
Subject: You

Andrew,

Firstly I want to thank you for bringing nationwide exposure and publicity to my blog, it was exactly the tonic I have been looking for since the election.

Your constant accusations of some sort of conspiracy amaze me and your comments to the Herald on Sunday that I am a tosser are especially amusing. I have been called worse things by better people.

I would have thought that with the biggest thing to happen in local body politics in Auckland for 20 years you would have bothered to turn up in person rather than running off to the South Island and issuing press releases from afar.

I have also checked with many new organisations about your decision to charge me for my LGOIMA requests that all, without fail tell me that in their long years of journalism have never, ever been charged for such requests.. The charges levied against me for my requests simply smack of retribution. It would be nice to think you were above such petty intiatives but alas no.

Anyway it just makes the story better.

There is an old adage that when you are in a hole it is best to stop digging. I think you should do that instead of always reaching for a bigger shovel.

Kind Regards

Cameron Slater
m: 021 535724
w: www.whaleoil.co.nz

My reply from the Panmandrum of North Shore, the Clown of Campbells Bay, Andrew Williams was one word;

From: Mayor Andrew Williams <mayor@northshorecity.govt.nz>
To: Cam Slater
Date: Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 11:14 AM
Subject: RE: You
mailed-by northshorecity.govt.nz

Tosser!

North Shore City Council
1 The Strand, Takapuna
Private Bag 93500, Takapuna,
North Shore City, New Zealand

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