booze

His compelling form for getting drunk and making a c*nt of himself means he was on the New Zealand Cricket radar. Instead he appears to have turned down a cricket contract in favour of paying rugby again.

Zac Guildford has been cleared to play for his Hawke’s Bay rugby club Napier Tech this weekend but a decision is yet to be made on his Crusaders future.

Guildford agreed to withdraw from the Crusaders indefinitely in January after a recent alcohol-related incident in which he allegedly assaulted a party-goer in Christchurch. It was the latest in a series of misdemeanours involving alcohol and he underwent an intensive treatment programme and an NZRU statement said he has now committed to a continuing care plan.  Read more »

The Herald:

Looks like a trend is beginning to appear: South Island, alcohol and dickheads.

 ”A drunk driver who crashed his car while eating a plate of pork chops has been sentenced to community service.

While police argued that Westport man Robert Pomare, 37, was eating ribs when he crashed on November 7, Pomare told Westport District Court it was actually a plate of chops.

Police prosecutor Steven Greer said Pomare had been drinking at the Black and White Hotel before driving to a local restaurant and picking up a plate of pork ribs. As he was eating his ribs, he failed to give way to a vehicle driven by a pregnant woman and hit it.”

But here comes the winning line from his lawyer:

“Defence lawyer Mark Dollimore said Pomare had accepted the description of events but said he’d been eating pork chops rather than ribs.

He stayed put after the accident, apologised, checked to see if everybody was all right and waited for police.

He had already been fined $150 for failing to give way.

Judge Rob Murfitt noted Pomare had three previous convictions for drink-driving.

He sentenced him to 200 hours’ community work, nine month’s supervision and suspended his licence for a year and a day.”

Pork ribs, pork chops, whatever. At least he wasn’t eating sausage behind the wheel.

There’s been no shortage of numb skulls lately, and the following tool from the deep south is no exception.

“A 52-year-old man lay in the middle of Bluff Highway while highly intoxicated early this morning, telling police he had fallen into a creek and sat on the road because it was warm.

Steven Douglas Thomson appeared before Judge Phil Moran this morning in Invercargill District Court for committing a criminal nuisance by doing an unlawful act, namely lying on State Highway 1, knowing such an act would endanger the lives of the public. He was convicted and discharged.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Rob Mills said a member of the public called police after she drove off a side street on to Bluff Highway at 2.15am and narrowly missed crashing into Thomson, who was sitting in the middle of the road.

The woman then watched him lie down on the road and begin rolling in the middle of the south-bound lane, Mr Mills said.”

A warm road….in Southland….at 2am. How he cheated the process of natural selection is anyone’s guess.

Farrar found a good story but in the interests of maintaining his cordial relationship with the Labour party pulled his punches.

Andrew Little’s amendment had apparently time-travelled all the way from the 1920s and proposed off-licences shut at 8pm rather than the proposed 10pm.

The explanation for this early “lights out” was such a masterpiece of delicious, pious absurdity that it requires repeating: it was because people buying alcohol any later than 8pm were likely to be already a bit tipsy “and may not have the judgment and self-control necessary to make cogent decisions”.

Holy crap… Little is often touted as a potential leader for the Labour Party.  Bottleshops closing at 8pm.  Waitakere Man will love it.  Again, Labour should campaign hard on this policy.

Really, I hope they do.

Farrar and I both blogged yesterday on Labour’s policy to impose minimum prices on alcohol.

Overnight they started frantically backtracking from this policy claiming no decisions had been made about what level to set the price at.

But Lianne Dalziel (Labour’s alcohol spokesperson) has said on numerous occasions that the minimum price should be set at $2 a standard drink.

She said it here,  here, and here among other examples.

“And that’s why we must address price – there must be a minimum price – something like $2 per  standard drink.”

Now Labour is saying that’s not their policy… I wonder why?

Could it be because, for example, a stubby, or can, of a beer like Tui contains one standard drink

That’s a minimum of $24 a dozen under Labour’s policy, when it was going for $19 at the supermarket this morning.

Telling hardworking Kiwis that their beer and wine is going up was a disaster for Labour when Nordmeyer tried it, but what’s worse with Labour’s current policy, is that the Government doesn’t get the money – the alcohol industry keeps it.

Given the backsliding going on this morning, perhaps the geniuses in Labour have finally worked out that this policy will piss off a whole pile of blue collar Kiwis that they can’t afford to lose.

Epic policy fail.

Phil Goff told us that Labour and their MPs would focus on the things that matter to Kwi voters…like 5 hours benders int he pub and troughing it up in hotels on the taxpayer.

So why is it when I decide to stay at pub for 5 hours I get a massive upgrade.

November 10, 2011 10:32 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

After 5 hours on the piss at the pub drowning his sorrows over the lates poll, Trevor Mallard scored himself a suite upgrade, then felt the need to tweet about it just to rub it in that he lives a life high on the hogs back.

@InfluenceJamie all I want is a bed to sleep in and I get a suite as big as some homes. Not like I get to enjoy cos early plane.

November 10, 2011 10:40 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@TrevorMallard

Trevor Mallard

What I want to know is where is the tweet complaining that because of Shane Jones he can’t book hookers or porn to the taxpayer credit card in order to ease the burden of his loneliness.

I came home yesterday to a parcel on the porch. Nice, it was my birthday, who could this be from.

Turns out it was from marketing company Sputnik, on behalf of ZUMWOHL. Apparently according to the letter included ZUMWOHL is a a German style schnapps produced in NZ.

They have sent out a bottle of Feijoa schnapps as part of an Election Survival Kit.

Included in the kit was the following:

Awesome! Free booze. Always greatly appreciated.

Since they sent me a bottle of liquor  the least I can do is what they wanted and promote their booze. According to the attached letter, if you tweet your take on all things electoral and include the hashtag #zumwhol then the nest tweets each day will be awarded ZUMWHOL merchandise. Hopefully that includes booze.

Pedobear Power appeared on Q+A with P Holmes today and showed just how powerful the liquor lobby are. I mean after all they retain Chen/Palmer….and didn’t Geoffrey Palmer via the Law Commission make some of these suggestions.

Assisting commercial clients who will be or have been affected by current law reform issues in the area of waste minimisation, the sale of liquor, financial services, energy and telecommunications regulation, climate change, and local government reform

Hmmmmm…..is that a conflict of interest….even though Geoffrey has left the firm I can’t think of why he would leave his name on the firm for free.

Anyway so Pedobear Power turns up for an interview on Q+A, to save you the boredom of listening the the best leader National has never had this can be summarised from TVNZs press release.

• Government signals major overhaul of liquor laws tomorrow (So time to reform liquor laws, but no time to protect children from pedophiles through our own Megan’s law. The law Commission made their recommendations in April and Pedobear has acted now, the same Law Commission made recommendations regarding name suppression last year and still no action.)
  
• Exclusive: Councils will be able to create “Local Alcohol Plans” to make liquor licences harder to get (Why? Harder to get than what? Harder than a licence for brothel? What about a kindy, since Pedobear is pedo-friendly?)
  
• Local communities will have new powers to reject liquor licences based on how many are in their neighbourhood, where they are and what hours they’re open (Based on what evidence that the number of outlets affects the local populace?)
  
• Dry areas or 24/7 licences won’t be possible, however, as they won’t pass a new “reasonableness” test (Set by whom?)
  
• New: Government will set “default” national guidelines, including “maximum trading hours” (Six o’clock closing anyone?)
  
• Power says “no good will come” of queuing up to enter a bar at 5am, and promises action on that tomorrow (Wow, action from Pedobear. I feel sorry sorry for the bar workers who just finished their shift at 5am and want a drink and now Pedobear is going to deny that)
  
• Power again rules out excise tax, also rules out sales tax; refuses to rule out minimum price (Minimum price….drooool….This is exactly what the retailers and liquor want, no more cheap piss, bro, super-profits anyone?)
  
• Supermarkets and other outlets will need to “persuade [government] that things are as pure as are being said” (Uhhhmmmm, no, how about government proves it isn’t? Freedom of trade, will Pedobear set loose hordes of outlet inspectors?)
  
• Focus of law change will be to reduce the harm caused by alcohol, especially on youth (and when it doesn’t, does Pedobear resign?)
  
• Justice Minister won’t say he wants the price of alcohol to go up, although confirms “the government has a view” on that to be revealed tomorrow (I just bet he does, and I bet it is Bill English’s view. Higher price more GST, more tax money to spend)
  
• Power doubts Steven Joyce would drive after he’d drunk three-quarters of a bottle of wine, even though he would still be under the drink-driving limit (Of course he doubts it, ever heard of VIP Transport, what Minister would ever drink and drive with those sorts of transport arrangement?)

Pedobear Power on Q+A

Rabid socialist and Labour Party sing-a-long hack Chris Trotter has a blog. I don’t expect he’ll have anything useful to say except John Key eats newborns etc.

Takeover papers withheld – Finance Minister Michael Cullen is blocking the release of documents and advice relating to the Cabinet’s shock decision to change the rules around a Canadian bid to buy a stake in Auckland Airport.

A decision on whether the controversial… [NZ Politics]

What is Mr Cullen trying desperately to hide?

We don’t know and aren’t likely to because he is refusing to release briefing papers that were given to cabinet prior to them changing the foreign investment rules.

The government is desperately trying to spin their way out of this debacle.