...and now another party...

...and this one's even sillier than the last Extremely Silly Party. This is a party searching for a name, and it has been formed to attract all the really silly people. They are already rolling up. Hone Harawira, Nandor Tanczos (alas minus the hilarious dreadlocks) sexy Sue Bradford (that's not her on the right, that's sexy Sue Kedgley) John Wacko Minto !! Matt McCarten and one or two other hopelessly deluded lefties...The party name they are most (un)likely to choose is The Really Politically Correct Party, which is a great shame, as all their utterances will be sooooo ideologically sound. But what a wonderful election we can look forward to...a Prime Minister enjoying record popularity with a rejuvenated right wing partner versus a moribund opposition Labour Party, a dispirited Maori Party, a flaky Green Party, a lost and abandoned Winston First Party looking for a space at the trough and now with this new exceptionally untalented vote splitter party yet without a name. STOP PRESS...it's now The Mana Party...destined of course to be an uninfluential and powerless minor party after the election.

Ahh democracy is wonderful...the November election will be more fun than the Fuhrer's birthday party!

Footnote...climate change is gone. The new term is Global Climate Disruption...from The Washington Times...There is no evidence that America is facing an increased risk from tornadoes based on human activity or carbon-dioxide emissions, but what if it is? Can we accept that risk? “What if global warming *does* cause more and more powerful tornadoes in the south?” asks The Atlantic. “What then?” This type of non-argument is typical of the reasoning the alarmist camp has been forced to employ as the factual basis for their pet theory crumbles. The questions the global-warming crowd should be asking themselves are: What if everything they have so deeply believed and trusted over the years turns out to be completely wrong? What if the belief system that has given their lives meaning for decades can no longer sustain its inner contradictions? What if their god dies? What then?

The Tea Party...

...has there ever been a popular movement like it ?

Our news, filtered as it is through a liberal, left leaning news media gives us only scant detail of what these Tea Party protesters are on about. A friend sent me a newsletter from an expat Kiwi living in the USA which contained this link...

As he explains...(the link) has become enormously popular with 6 million “hits” in its first four days. Why I ask you to view it is because it encapsulates the psyche of America – the distinctiveness of the country. Within the oratory of the narrator lies the heart of what made America great – rugged individualism and freedom of expression. Notice the devotion to the military and its place in society. When America goes to war it is always about freedom; freedom to maintain the American way of life. So those who die in these wars are exalted. You will hear an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln, “that unfinished cause for which our soldiers willingly go to battle...” It is very easy for this country to engage in war, because the cause is never finished.

The Kiwi expat quoted above however, is not necessarily a cheerleader for the anti-Obama brigade. He points out inaccuracies and hyperbole. They are there for sure, but compared to the years of psychotic anti-Bush venom and hate, these anti-Obama protesters seem quite restrained. Judge it for yourself, check the link out...

A post-mortem on the greens...

...from the journal The New Republic which asks, in its lead article the question of the day ... Has the Green Movement been a Miserable Flop ?

What the hell went wrong? For months now, environmentalists have been asking themselves that question, and it’s easy to see why. After Barack Obama vaulted into the White House in 2008, it really did look like the United States was, at long last, going to do something about global warming. Scientists were united on the causes and perils of climate change. (Interjection. Loud raspberry from stage right.) Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had stoked public concern. Green groups in D.C. had rallied around a consensus solution—a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions—and had garnered support from a few major companies like BP and Duke Energy. Both Obama and his opponent, John McCain, were on board. And, so, environmental advocates prepared a frontal assault on Congress. May as well order the victory confetti, right ? Instead, the climate push was a total flop... more of this exquisite lefty hand wringing here...

...with self-hating comments to brighten your day like this ...
The failure of greens (not Greens) to accomplish anything is horribly despressing, but not at all surprising. It's a never-ending slow-motion trainwreck that demands decisive and forceful leadership from people who have shown time and again to be utterly devoid of any leaderly qualities. It's like watching the debacle over the debt, except worse, since at least everyone recognizes that a problem exists there. Particularly bad is that leadership on this issue must come from Americans, whose primary qualities are greed, individualism and anti-intellectualism. It does not inspire much hope...

For my money, the failure of the green political movement has come about because of blatant green anti-capitalism- served up with green hypocrisy, dishonesty and patronising faux-concern for the planet. (As an example see Maurice Strong's statement below this blog's masthead and follow this link.) Rather than a true environmental movement, the green political machine has been shown to simply be the present day vehicle of the political left. Since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, green tactics have been to arouse fear and guilt among the gullible. Green fear mongering and green double talk has finally been discredited and dispersed by public opinion and debate. More blood-letting of course is still to to come, probably with an imminent metamorphisis of the defeated green left into a modified political vehicle. I bet the tactics stay the same though.
Where will they go ? ...the anarcho-animal rights/anti-globalisation loonies are all that's left these days. What will the green gasbags do ?

There's no excuse...

...for child abuse... So said the 1994 bumper sticker. Since then NZ has been subject to child abuse reports that sicken, shame and horrify. The term child abuse in itself understates the horror of it all - it makes it sound like childish banter and bullying in the playground. Child torture is a much more accurate term. Michael Laws of the Sunday Star Times has dared to dwell on the subject. He alone features it regularly in his columns to the shame of other journalists. If the issue involved systematic ongoing conservation or environmental concerns many more would no doubt join in as would editors and protest groups. Similarly muted are the voices of politiciansand bureaucrats, except of course to say that more "resources" are needed to fight it, as if throwing money around will alleviate our national shame and agony. What a pathetic, cowardly lot we all are !

Chief among the cowards are our Maori MP's. They are aware that proportionally, Maori statistics outweigh all other groups - with regard to offenders and victims. Maori MP's no doubt shed silent private tears over reports of dead and battered children, but the main sentiment from them that reaches us is that historic colonial oppression is a major causative factor and that more research and more money and more Maori cultural awareness is needed from us all to solve the problem. No mention of any shame or any personal responsibility, or the fact that for decades young mothers have been encouraged with cash handouts to bear children away from the shelter of the secure family unit into the whanau, where the young child is subject to attack from the current (non blood related) boyfriend(s) and all others.

I recently heard Paula Bennett, our Minister for Social Welfare speak. She said that her department are aware of 30,000 cases a year of child abuse and brutality. Many cases of severe injury; burns and broken bones, go unreported. It is only the more sensational and horrific that make the news.

The real news then, behind this posting is simply that deliberate brutality inflicted on children is evil. The concept of sin has all but vanished from our terminology, we even use the word "wicked" as a positive adjective of endorsement. I intend to do my small bit to publicise the evil of child abuse and its circumstances here in NZ, and in particular to publicise the politicians whose ineffectual hand wringing over it effectively condones and prolongs the scandal of it all. We have a general election looming in NZ. I will be agitating to see that each political party has a policy to help reduce the numbers of abused children. I have a feeling that many voters are disgusted, dismayed and angry over the hypocrisy, inactivity and double talk that surrounds the problem. A helpful site I have stumbled on is FamilyIntegrity.org.nz. Please pay it a visit. Enough is enough...

Why oh why...

...does this ludicrous AGW farce continue ? Like a Terminator that won't die, or a Monty Pythonesque knight with severed arms and legs that won't yield, the malevolent AGW ghost won't depart. The science behind it has been shown to be dodgy, the statistics shonky, the main instigators are accused of self interest (think Al Gore) yet politicians such as our Minister for the Environment, Mr Nick Smith continue to defend it and the costs it will incur. Smith has announced an Emissions Trading Scheme that aims to halve our CO2 emissions by 2050. For once, I have to agree with the Alfred E. Neuman look alike Russell Norman of the Greens who says...the pledge to halve New Zealand's greenhouse gases emissions is "unambitious" and shows the Government is not serious about addressing climate change ..."If they were serious about a target they would set milestones that they could be held accountable for, not a target that is 13 electoral cycles away." Nobody is in the least concerned any more about so-called catastrophic climate change, nobody that is except the socialist greens, so why on earth even bother ? More here...