online poll

As you may recall, two days ago I directed your attention to a poll running on the Save our Schools web site.  They wanted to know if you thought Charter Schools a good idea.

At the time I drew your attention to the poll, the results were like this

Clearly, the 123 voters thought, with about a half majority, that Charter Schools would not improve educational outcomes.

But that’s probably because the Save our Schools web site is particularly aimed at people who feel the education sector needs “saving”, so the result isn’t particularly enlightening.

Currently, the site displays this notice:

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Editorial: Give retirees chance to pay their own way – Some savings in public expenditure are easier than others. Staff cuts the Government has announced for the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry for the Environment are in the easy political category. The commission was a… [NZ Herald Politics]

The Herald editorial looks at where some costs may need to be pared back and they focus on the greedy retirees.

I say greedy retirees becasue the largesse that is visited upon and has been visited upon the baby boomers and older has been huge, it has been extravagent and it is unaffordable.

For a couple of generations now we have showered old people with gifts being paid for by the ever generous taxpayer. Winston Peters was theb and his mentor Robrt Muldoon were the best at it and now we have to pay for it. The so called free bus ride really get my goat. The ads on the radio exhorting old people to have a free bus ride or ferry ride. FFS it isn’t free!!!! I am paying for it and now the buses and trains and ferries are full of wrinkled old people sucking off the taxpayers tit like they have pretty much for a lifetime.

Their whole fricken life has been “free”. “Free” Education, “Free” Health, “Free” fricken everything…..except none of it was free. Their lifestyle was mortgaged against our future and now we are paying for it. Muldoons “Free” Superannuation for all was a landmine of massive proportions left by that wrecker of the economy to go off in about 10 years.

It is time that this nonsense of “free” came to an end.

After reading the story about Paula Bennett’s “gang connections” I read this crap in the increasingly hopeless Herald on Sunday.

Has this paper become the dumping ground for the inept and the indolent of APN?

What a sad and miserable person Nicola Shepheard must be.

Every weekend there are queues at this junction, and on holiday weekends it is not unknown for them to be almost back at the BP service centre in the south.

This is what the fantastic new toll road has been built to fix. It has also been built to avoid sending heavey transport vehicles through quiet and somnolent Orewa. It is a great achievement, built by a very competant and capable construction team and the locals at Orewa will have peace at alst, except from cheapskates who want to save $2.00 but will spend that and more in fuel trying it on.

The misearable Herald reporter reports on the long and frequent queues as if it was something new (which it probably was to her), and caused solely by the Opening Ceremony. Us regular travellers have had to endure it for years and years.

Why does her report need to be so negative? Does she think that eating a few sandwiches, and thanking the builders, residents, 3rd parties and politicians is a bad thing.

(No mention of caviar……I have it on good authority that the food consisted of sandwiches and cold water, while the buses were provided by the local bus company as part of their appreciation)

For gods sake the thing was finished well ahead of schedule and ahead of budget. Bloody Good Job, Well Done!!!!!! Pats on backs all round are well deserved (unless you are a Herald reporter, and envious of success and competence)

Surely that can be celebrated, without some negative journalist using a poison pen. Why not emphasise the positive, and tell what a well run project it was?

One can only hope that the Herald realise the importance of these projects, and support them instead of printing negative crap.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of times I read my own words in the media some days after I have posted something. Most times I just grin. Today however I am not. In fact today is my time to get pissed off.

You see the gallery twats get paid to write their drivel, some have been there forever. I do not get paid. When ever we in the blogosphere use their words we provide a link or a hat tip. They almost never do what is polite and acknowledge where they got their details from.

Inquiring Mind has a snip from The Herald written by John Armstrong or was it?

You see that was printed on Saturday 17 January. What did I post on Thursday 15 January? Exactly the same thing but with far more detail than John Armstrong, the ardent leftist twat he is, managed to copy from my post.

I won’t hold my breathe waiting for the cheque.

The Herald has been running an opinion piece seeking reader views on who is our greatest living New Zealander. Predictably the lickspittles and felchers have been out in force nominating Helen Clark.

Don Brash has got mad and posted his own nomination. Go and nominate Sir Roger Douglas as well.

Auckland is set for a supercity, or so says the NZ Herald according to its investigations this morning.

Bring it on, it’s high time we amalgamated the seven councils and one regional council into one voice for Auckland.

Even better – we would be getting an executive Mayor, one that would have ultimate authority to get things done.

Of interest to me was the likely lineup of Mayoral contenders.

Andrew Williams, the Cock from Campbell’s Bay was described as “odd and abusive” by the Herald. I’d go further and say is mental, a cock and a fool. Oh dear, how sad, too bad. That Goose is well and truly roasted.

Bob Harvey is an old Labour man, and I’m unsure whether to emphasise the old or the Labour party more. He’s probably due for retirement anyway.

Len Brown of Manukau City is a great guy. He’s a hard worker, in touch with the community, and an all round nice guy. But if he had a massive heart attack only months into the role of Manukau City Mayor, he wouldn’t be a starter for the Auckland Regional Mayor. Len would only be one heartbeat away from a by-election, and Auckland deserves an executive Mayor who is stronger than that. Outside of Manukau, he wouldn’t be that well known either.

Mike Lee – competent and hardworking, but let’s face it – he was from the Alliance. Mike Lee in charge of a greater Auckland with executive power would be too much of a risk, and would be an RMA leftie lawyer’s wet dream.

So that leaves John Banks. Executive experience, strongly connected to the National Government, the most senior politician in Auckland, and having a fantastic second Mayoral term, John Banks would have to be in the drivers seat as the best choice for Auckland. He’s also the only centre-right politician in the line-up, so meets the ideological test as well.

Experienced ED Doctor and blogger Macdoctor has spotted another Pallywood special. Yet again it is in the Herald. When will they learn that the stringers employed by the news agencies love to fake photos.

The Herald editorial comes out strongly against the Catholic Priest tagger;

The actions of an extremist Catholic priest in desecrating the Wellington memorial to Nobel Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin undo any good that a thousand others protesting against Israel might have hoped
to achieve.

Father Gerard Burns daubed a drop of his own blood mixed with red paint across the Rabin memorial, inspired perhaps by an equally misguided Auckland cleric who poured his own blood on the carpet of the US consulate at the beginning of the Iraq war. At least in that repulsive act the first priest was, in the twisted logic of his protest, at the right place.

For Father Burns to desecrate the Rabin memorial is not only in breach of any civilised standard of protest but utterly wrongheaded in terms of his target. Rabin, a former Israeli general-turned-two-time-Prime-Minister, was perhaps the greatest hope for peace between Jews and Palestinians in a generation. He was assassinated by an ultra-conservative Jew because he was too accommodating to the Palestinians in seeking a lasting peace. He died after a rally for peace, with the words of Shir LaShalom, or Song for Peace, found bloodied in his pocket. He had been honoured, with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, by the Nobel judges. The memorial in central Wellington marks that commitment to peace.

Further they agree with Friends of Israel;

The Friends of Israel group rightly calls for the Catholic Church to discipline the priest and apologise to Jews in New Zealand, for whom desecration of their monument causes deep offence. The vandalism has received worldwide attention, the kind of attention that shames Catholics of goodwill and undermines their own public stands for justice and peace. The organisers of the Wellington march opposing Israel’s heavy-handed military action in the Gaza strip should also demand an apology from Father Burns. They must know that their message against the killings of civilians, including children, is diverted and made hollow by a calculated insult to Jews everywhere.

Father Burns should be de-frocked and booted from the Church for desecration of the Rabin memorial. One wonders what the Catholic Bishop of Wellington and the Bishop of New Zealand have to say on this matter.

The Herald has taken to reporting what the blogs have to say about things. The VRWC seems to be dominating at the moment.

I have already blogged about Deborah Hill-Cone writing about the changes in Facebook status of VRWC members.

Then in the “Blogwatch” column, for want of a better name, the VRWC strikes again, this time talking about Paula Bennett and the cabinet announcement.

Yours Truly gets another mention.

Gap closes, but National stays on top – With two weeks to go, Labour has improved its polling a little, but not enough to dent National’s commanding election race lead, the latest Herald -DigiPoll survey shows. If the poll results were translated into votes, National… [NZ Herald Politics]

Today another rogue poll, I think that is aout 57 now, that shows National still over 50%. The Herald Digipoll shows;

National on 50.4% down 1%
Labour on 37% up 1.8%
Greens on 5.4% up 0.5%
Winston First down 0.7% to 2.1%
Maori party up 0.5% to 2.4%
ACT up slightly to 1.2%

The Herald editorial suggests that the gap is a gap too far;

Perhaps most sobering for Labour is the fact that this is the 13th consecutive month the DigiPoll survey has recorded National as holding a double-digit advantage. That suggests many people are intent on signing off Helen Clark after three terms of Labour-led administrations. Such is their mindset that they have not been, and are tending not to be, swayed by the minutiae of what happens on the campaign trail, whether it be television advertisements or National blunders.

Labour’s shameless personal attacks and mudslinging simply is not working.