She'll be right - it's only the truth

The publically funded ACC is about to bombard us with tales of near misses at our expense in the name of keeping the grim reaper at bay in our rural communities.

ACC is using the true stories of injured farmers who want to help others learn from their mistakes

Pity Granny couldn't also use some truth in reporting the ACC advertising campaign, which I suspect in an election year might be a very necessary expense being 'good for me'.


Yes, Granny has a reasonable article about inherent dangers down on the farm, but then all storyline credibility is ditched, like the tractor in the above picture.

In the incident related to this picture, the farmer was doing everything right and was reported as uninjured after taking evasive action. I remember seeing the whole picture (in the video) and I believe the fault lay with the driver of the other vehicle.

So Granny, do not use cropped pictures that look good in online copy, but do not tell the whole truth.

Rudeness

It’s part of the breakdown in society. We stopped having respect for figures in authority – partly because those in authority didn’t command it.

Worst rudeness listed below,

• Spitting
• Swearing
• Queue jumping
• Not saying please or thank you
• Playing an MP3 in public
• Passing wind/belching in public
• Speaking loudly on a cellphone in public
• Inconsiderate driving
• Not giving up your seat for a pregnant woman
• Not holding the door for the next person
• Update from Keeping Stock: Choosing to speak in your native tongue when you're perfectly capable of speaking English and surrounded by English-speakers

Well said, "more than half of us believe bad manners are the biggest problem – and blame parents for not stamping it out".

Just how many do you indulge us with?

The Great Race

We in Denmark cannot figure out why you are even bothering to hold an election.

On one side, you have a bitch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, and a lawyer who is married to a bitch who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to a woman with a huge chest who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?"

HT Take a stand against liberals

The Ultimate Accessory

Want a real auto accessory that 'takes a licking'?


Seems those making the laws take a different view...

TALLAHASSEE, Florida - Senate lawmakers in Florida have voted to ban the fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of many trucks and cars throughout the state. Republican Sen. Cary Baker, a gun shop owner from Eustis, Florida, called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz" and resemble the south end of a bull moving north.

One comment sums up the offensive proposer who needs to get a life.

Clearly, the proposer of said law suffers from testicle envy... probably drives a Prius.

Only in USA...

HT Official Moonbat Hunter

ANZAC Day

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives,
you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

Therefore, rest in peace.

There is no difference between the Johnnies
and the Mehemets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours.

You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries,
wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosoms and are in peace.

After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well.

Mustafa Kemal

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning

We will remember them

Laurence Binyon

"Canute" Brown sticking to the job

I'm sticking to the job and I'm getting on with the job

Just like our very own her indoors, how long will he last? The tide of opposition rises with every hour.

Dear Bastard,

A well written open letter to the EPMU from No Minister expressing disgust at the new homegrown industry which will be rampant under the FTA - Job Exports.

Dear Bastard

When I joined your union, I thought you were my friend. I naively imagined you would be working in my interests but I was wrong. Your organization has turned out to be the architect of my financial ruin as you have sought to put the job security and working conditions of the Labour Party before the wellbeing of me and my fellow workers.

You have taken my union fees and instead of advocating for me you have used my money to work for a Labour Party, comprised largely of overpaid bloated upper class rich pricks, which has willfully boosted government spending on election bribes to such an extent that inflation is now out of control, driving up interest rates which, in turn, have driven up our exchange rate over this past five years to the extent that our employer has been forced to export our jobs in order to remain competitive.

What hurts me most is the realisation that their cavalier and profligate spending went on EVEN THOUGH you and they both knew at the time that your actions would cost me my job. Treasury warned you of the effect on inflation of free student loan interest and working for families. Then you and they pushed all sorts of compulsory cost increases onto my employer - things like Kiwisaver contributions, an extra week's annual leave, maternity leave and others.

Did you never once hold up your hand during one of those cosy Labour Council meetings and advocate for me? Did you not understand that all these so-called extra benefits are worthless if I don't a job? The least you could do now, is to return to me that portion of my union dues you have skimmed off for Labour.

I see your fundamental dishonesty and conflicted loyalties continue as you attempt to register my union as a 'third party' so that you can continue to encourage your friends to destroy more jobs in New Zealand.

Well Mr Little, I hope you are pleased with your work. You have taken my money and now you have taken my job but, my hell, never again will you get my vote.

Yours in disgust

New National Party Member.

All unions would do well to take note. Unions have no place in a modern workforce, aiming for productivity gains.


Well said Adolf.

300m plus to go

Should this piece of scaremongering (based on shonky GoreBull science?) ever come to pass and if the forecast sudden temperature change doesn't kill all via a mass extinction phase, I'll be right mate. At 1000' ASL, 1.5m of higher tides is nothing. Will sort out a few things like low lying cities and the politicians that infest them.

Still a few hundred metres left to high tide before the hordes will come and want to sign up a new foreshore and seabed deal at the beach of the future at my place. Yes, they will have a hard time proving continuous occupation. I suppose there will be a new 22nd Century interpretation of the gravy train to deal with re-worked full and final settlements as current ones are wiped out with each new high tide.

Payment time for self-indulgent ego-centric behaviour

A mouthful for the headline, but the culprit is doing the time. 28 days in fact.

At last a beak who is taking notice of the community hatred of taggers and their non-art.

Update from Scoop:

I think Cindy Kiro needs to re-evaluate her position on this issue because it’s highly inappropriate for the Children’s Commissioner to be at odds with New Zealand’s Justice System

Also MP Ron Mark has given the beak thanks for having a spine.

We are all hurting

My thoughts and prayers are with those grieving in this tragedy.

Liarbour does not believe in greenhouse effects

If you believe that greenhouse gases are a problem ... if you take the issue seriously ... then you should be supportive of nuclear power. New Zealand has a ban on all nuclear power...

As is well known, Liarbour is not supportive of nukes, so greenhouse effect isn't a problem and thus must be bollocks...

Well according to this anyway.

More nonsense in Local Government

Orklund Robbery Company commonly known as the ARC has put up a possible solution up for the local government shakeup. It is heading in the right direction but not far enough and unfortunately still has a Maorimander content.

Calling the new entity 'The Greater Orklund Authority', and like the Orklund City Council proposal before, they want to preserve the status quo for most currently dining at the ratepayer trough. However the ARC proposal ditches the councils, creates 21x community councils and extends their own powers as well as having 3x racially based seats included on top. Far too many - a slash and burn approach is necessary to hack into the bureaucracy. Ditch the Maorimander component, all have the same voting rights.

The only option for Orklund is ONE council, with minimal personnel, for the whole area from Kaiwaka to Bombay. As I have blogged many times before, no matter what you call your parochial territories within, there is only ONE city in JafaLand as far as the rest of NZ and the world is concerned.

Basic areas are Rural North and South, Urban North, South, East and West plus the overarching whole of region. 6x community areas altogether, finish, end of game. One elected member each, chair elected from these members and called Mayor. Local community board feeds input to elected member.

The sooner we get politics and parochialism out of local government nationwide, the better for my wallet as a ratepayer. Impartiality and freedom from central government politics needs to be a necessary component of getting onto a council.

Greg McKeown sums it up better than I can put it

Three councils would leave us with the same set of problems we have today. It would be an ugly compromise Auckland cannot afford the royal commission to make. With one council Auckland will be able to better co-ordinate its long range plans and delivery of the big ticket items, it will also be able to more productively co-ordinate its plans with central government

Have you put in your submission? Do it now!

Useless product

A small pedigree mutt was being treated for fleas, but the owner failed to read the fine print that the product was for mongrels 10Kg and up. End result, on the third dosing, the mutt departed this mortal coil due to poisoning.

At this point, the owner read the fine print and had this to say about the now proven useless product

the dog "still had bloody fleas

'Family Meltdown' has wrecked our society

Things like legalising prostitution, civil unions and homosexuality have all dramatically made their mark on our local and global societies, but none so much as the breakdown of families.

A senior judge launched an astonishing attack on the Government today over the fracturing of society.

During a conference speech the judge warned the breakdown of the family would, within 20 years, “be as marked and as destructive as global warming”.

The judge, said that in urban areas family life was “in meltdown or completely unrecognisable”.

He said children born into broken homes were increasingly turning to drink, drugs and crime, and the results were affecting the mental health of parents and children across the country.

Venting his personal views, which he maintained many in the family law profession supported, he added: “In some of the more heavily-populated urban areas of the country family life is, quite frankly, in meltdown or completely unrecognisable.”

“In some areas of the country even including the more urban parts of the sleepy area in which I operate, family life in the old sense no longer exists.

“So I suggest the general collapse of ordinary family life, because of the breakdown of families, in this country is on a scale, depth and breadth which few of us could have imagined even a decade ago.”

“What is certain is that almost all of society’s social ills can be traced directly to the collapse of the family life.”

He said he was not criticising single parents and praised some of them.

A telling note confirming what we already see from one apparently in the know.

Labour always at war with motorist

Continuing on the theme today of Harry's need for a cash income stream after November, coming soon to a place near you...

• Satellites to be used to produce daily itemised accounts for you
  
• Revealed in Labour's controversial road pricing tender docs
• Real concerns on safety of personal info gathered on millions of drivers daily
  
• Daily data sharing of this personal info between agencies for 'analysis'
  
• Charges will vary for example whether you use the car for commuting or shopping
  

As you 'sleepwalk into a surveillance state', this blatant tax grab is coming real soon.

Not quite near here in good old NZ, just around the corner, half a world away.

Be very worried, Liarbour copies all their ideas...

Drug company trying kill people again

The drug company, Parexel, that tried kill some Kiwi lab volunteers with unpredicted multiple organ failures a few years ago, has hospitalised more test subjects in a new trial reported here.

News of the new trial has angered lawyers and victims of the earlier experiment.

They say Parexel has never accepted responsibility for the disaster nor assured the public it has taken steps to prevent a similar tragedy happening again.

Martin Day, of solicitors Leigh Day who are acting for four of the victims, said: “This is widely acknowledged to be the worst drug trial disaster in living memory.

“Parexel has never apologised or accepted liability although the case against them in terms of negligence is overwhelming.

“It’s appalling that despite this the US company can come over here to use our people in this way. Until they publicise the fact they have learned lessons, serious questions hang over whether they are fit to operate.”

Victims of the Elephant Man trial are still awaiting proper compensation. The company has so far given two interim payments of £10,000...

The company has been recently cleared of wrongdoing with a whitewash report.

The cause of the reactions was most likely “an unpredicted biological action of the drug in humans”.

Amazing that people will still subject themselves to this for money. Meanwhile one of the original volunteers is still really crook.

3rd Party Tax coming soon

Imported MP Duynhoven must be getting a large pension and kickbacks from the insurance industry. He keeps trotting out his 3rd party tax will cure all driving ills every time he gets near a microphone.

There is no need for another tax on motorists. I make the decision to drive without insurance in my old dunger and drive accordingly. So what if a flash motor dings me - their problem, I will sue or write it off. If I ding them, their insurance will pay. After all that is why they pay the expensive premium, to cover a risk. If the cost is too high for insurance companies, supply and demand will raise the premiums. Their problem.

What next, compulsory insurance on my house? Compulsory public liability insurance in case the postie gets savaged by my mongrel at the letterbox?

Take your unwanted tax and stick it.

Been here before. Here also.

About time

The blue team are finally showing some gumption, taking the Electoral Commission to court to
sort out why a union that is joined at the hip to Liarbour is allowed to apply to be a third party.

The union is getting uppity (must be an election afoot) and retorts

Last night, EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said he suspected National's strategy was to tie up the union with the costs of a legal case.

He said National would also need to explain to taxpayers why it was going to tie up the Electoral Commission in expensive High Court litigation.

The EC in not having the guts to definitively stop the EFA farce, while it acts for all to see as a Liarbour patsy, deserves everything it gets.

The unions maybe need to answer a question or two.

Why does a union need to tell anybody but it's paid up membership about matters electoral or any matter at all?

Do unions only exist to be a stalking horse for Liarbour ideology?

500K songs on an MP3 player

Great stuff, but will your few yards of monopolised copper phone line handle the download traffic?

Another soft sentence

On the Mainland, yet another soft sentence is issued from the ivory towers.

All the boxes were ticked, but still no jail.

• Returned to photograph own handi-work (and got snapped)
• 'Sneaky, cowardly' crime
• Not just once
• Absurd and prolonged bout of vandalism
  
• Deliberate and intentional
• Vainity and stupidity ruled
  
• Misguided belief scribblings were art (can't help that, the good Dr K thinks the same)
  
• Did not want to attend restorative justice (Excuse me, isn't he the criminal?)
• Felt more OK doing it on public property, but included private as well
  
• Did not offer or give apology
• Night time menace
• Thought actions were justifiable
• Offender who only repented when caught
  

This menace needs to do time. I feel sure others would agree.

Real editor needed quick

Granny again at it's best...

Mr Cook said there was a healthy population of kaka on Great Barrier but they were rare on the mainland, usually only found on very large forest tracks.

Might be more appropriate if it read like so...

Mr Cook said there was a healthy population of kaka on Great Barrier but they were rare on the mainland, usually only found in very large forest tracts.

Landlord regulation imminent

With MP Maryan Street still desperate to get a failed bill through, she has been visiting 'squalid' boarding houses looking for votes. A '90-day plan' of inaction, with yet another report, has been mooted by those at the trough to garner more votes when released just prior to an election.

new push to regulate all "slum landlords"

Regulation of these privately owned premises she says, is so we can control them.

If there are slum landlords out there, we want the Residential Tenancies Act to be able to get them.

Yes, sheeple, we cannot have potential voters living like this in an election year, so tours are being conducted, with media in tow for prime time fodder. Yes, the corrupt red machine is cranking up to buy yet another election in deepest South Orklund.

Watch this space, once passed, the next 'minor' change will be any WINZ client in receipt of a benefit or the IRD redistribution tax WFF paying rent will require the private landlord to be regulated, registered and otherwise succumb to bureaucracy without any compensation for loss of property rights. No normal business tax write-offs for residential rental properties if the landlord does not comply. And maybe a whole ministry required to administer this very necessary regime.

The Nats see it slightly differently.

There is no doubt we have to come down harder on bad-news landlords, but the minister should be looking at her own backyard in Housing NZ where a lot of people live in squalor

Oh, yeah, bring on the election. 6 months to go!

Stroke of misfortune

MP Darren Hughes thinks he is going to be set up for life, sucking off the public teat for many a year to come, but is keeping his options open with KiwiSlaver.

It's a long time until I get to 65.

KiwiSaver is a portable scheme, so if by some horrible stroke of misfortune I don't spend the next 35 years in Parliament, I can still continue investing in it.

Dare I suggest a 'stroke of misfortune' may be as close as November?

Then a real job, with real productivity may be needed and the extra tax/fees of KiwiSlaver might not be so appreciated.

Why are South Australians such weirdos?

A dingo asks the hard questions we suspect apply equally to more than a few on the West Island.

Ask a South Australian about their state and they’ll brag about how they were the only ones not to get convicts and how they were the first place in the world to give women the vote.

They think they’re so good.

So how do they explain all the weirdos?

Case in point - that weird incest couple. You’ve heard the story. A father is so overjoyed to be reunited with his daughter he shacks up with her and has a kid.

That’s pretty weird.

And what about Lleyton Hewitt? This is a man who has had the tiny scrap of gravitas he might have once possessed surgically removed. A man whose antics clearly show he’s still a child.

You’ve got to admit he’s pretty weird.

And what about Bad Boy Bubby? I mean come on, if you’re looking for evidence for incestuous relationships and eccentric man-boys look no further than this film. Guess where it was made? That’s right, South Australia.

Oh and what about Snowtown? Killing people, putting them in barrels of acid inside the local bank and claiming their welfare cheques.

That’s definitely weird.

And what is it with sharks down there?

Go anywhere near the water and you’re likely to lose your arm to an inbred mass murdering white pointer.

And what about McLeods Daughters? It sucks.

And crow eating. Why would you want to?

And what about Alexander Downer? What a plummy-voiced ponce. And that failed terrorist David Hicks? Things are pretty grim when you can’t even get martyrdom right.

Jeepers. It must be something in the water...and don't they have two uranium mines there, and isn't one a dam? That's a bit suss, anyway. Clearly the only reason they never got any convicts was because no-one was mean enough to send them there. And the only reason they gave women the vote was because all the blokes were so weird.

Nice one, couldn't agree more, Tim.

Events 40 years ago

It is amazing how certain events in one's life are etched indelibly. Today, 40 years ago one such event occurred in the NZ psyche.

On this morning so long ago, the Rattler carrying my mother arrived late in Wellington around 0800. it had been by all counts an extremely rough train trip from Orklund, she was due there for the solemn business of attending to her stepfather's funeral in later days. She knew the windy city well for she was born there and had seen many a southerly ripping through Island Bay.

Unbeknown to those arriving on that so typical Wellington day, another tragedy was unfolding. As they stepped off the train, which apparently was late because of the weather, it was noticed a couple of platforms over that sombre actions were taking place. According to my mother, on that platform was a temporary morgue for those who did not make it to shore from the Wahine disaster unfolding in the harbour that very morning.

The events of the disaster I remember well, for as an almost 14 year old just beginning to take notice of events outside home life, it was big news in the ensuing weeks. I was even allowed to read the sombre articles in the NZ Herald and the Auckland Star - not a typical luxury for a young teen in those days - bad newspaper news was readily censored with scissors in our home. Things changed when I became a Herald boy.

Another memory I have from earlier that year and I still have the photos to prove it somewhere, is that I travelled both ways across the Cook Strait on a school trip to the Mainland in late January on the Wahine. At that time I thought it was a fine strong ship, until I saw those horrific pictures a little over two months later. In later working life, that single event has always enforced the respect for the sea that it commands.

Yes, there will be many today who have differing memories of that tragedy. It will never go away and while personally I did not know anyone who was on that fateful voyage, my thoughts today go to those who did lose loved ones.

You have got to be joking!

... could remain foreign minister in a National government

Do you not have any morals or has LairbourLite too sold it's soul?

NO was the required answer.

Toothless Electoral Commission

Lee C has summarised the current state of play on recent decisions by the toothless Electoral Commission and asks the question 'Why do they exist at all?'

The Electoral Commission's finding is a victory for parity of treatment for all who wish to be involved in the political process.

It judges on a Law which Labour wrote and voted for without cross-party involvement (ie National were barred from the debate).

Labour cannot even now claim that the badly written Law was perverted or corrupted by the National Party's involvement.

It now turns out it was so badly written, so little consulted, and so shallowly partisan in its execution, that it has given its political opponents the very thing it set out to erradicate: covert practices, unlimited access to money to influence elections and an open cheque-book to 'rich-pricks' to 'buy elections', while at the same time, drawing public scrutiny onto union involvement in Labour's election spending.

Should be on Oz swim team

Some nutter jumped into the shark infested Sydney sewer, swam 600m, evaded various Mr Plods and went for a dip in the GG's pool.

Even evaded a lassoo. If he's that good, without a flash cozzie, maybe he should be on the Ocker swim team Beijing bound?

NZ no longer a democracy

Ain't that the truth?

OK, we have known that for a long time, having been on the receiving end when minorities form corrupt governments after purchasing their way onto Treasury benches. Only it has been confirmed today by someone who should know, ex Liarbour PM Mike Moore.

New Zealand had "unusual" coalitions due to MMP and was no longer a parliamentary democracy

Because of such corrupt arrangements to retain the controlling cabal, mixed messages are going out to the world regarding NZ's stance over the FTA vs human rights which may in future bite us.

The various positions of the minor parties exposed the systemic problems within New Zealand's political system.

Leaders and investors I speak to overseas are rightly confused by the conflicting messages our politicians are sending

Usually forthright on such matters, the fence is firmly jammed where the light does not shine over the FTA as the main players play both sides of the fence and do not take the requisite stand on human rights. Such a stance may well backfire on future trade arrangements with other countries because those same other countries we can and do trade with are rightly strongly vocal and concerned over such matters. But, for how much longer?

Government on spin cycle

Cang'zhoigar said that the country's preferential policies had helped her family. A housing program that began in 2006 enabled her family to build a two-story, seven-bedroom house with a subsidy of 14,000 yuan (about 1,870 U.S. dollars). They also had aone-hectare farm that was tax-exempt, with a government fertilizer allowance.

Very nice, the all providing socialist state machine is to be muchly thanked for all in her life. All is sweetness and light till this headache.

Cang'zhoigar was named as a suspect in the riot that killed five people, destroyed 23 shops, burned a house and two fire engines, and smashed a police car.

"On that night, I heard people shouting loudly outside and I joined them, hurling stones at police officers and destroying shops," said Cang'zhoigar, a mother of two.

Yes, she is now a named criminal against the state for wishing to throw out the foreign Chinese overlords who infest Tibet with their version of democracy. So much repenting is going on she now says

"I didn't know what was going on but followed their suit blindly. I really regret it," she said tearfully.

Yes, the errors of her ways have been obviously pointed out so she is now the poster child for the state on spin cycle.

My guess is we will hear no more of her as her state given house and the free fertiliser subsidy for the farm is removed and her family instead receives a bill for a lead aspirin to cure her headache.

I suppose this is their version of the the 'sub-prime' mortgage scenario over there, where the state forecloses the mortgage for you when you are not a 'good' borrower.

Update:

Yet more - on high speed spin over here. I wonder what WOBH would make of the IP addresses freely given here as being from 'good' netizens?

Corrupt government hobbled by their own laws

The Electoral Commission has rightly taken a very different view to that of the government 2IC and put him in his place.

Cullen sees it like this.

The Parliamentary Service Act governs what members of Parliament can spend money on. The Electoral Commission determines what is election advertising.

Matters that are properly authorised as being for parliamentary purposes do not count as election advertising for the returns of expenses.

The EC sees it like this.

unless a booklet such as We Are Making A Difference was being handed out by a Member of Parliament in their capacity as an MP, it would count towards election expenses.

Just because something is funded by Parliamentary Services does not automatically mean that exemption applies

Quite rightly so. We have seen many examples of expenditure authorised under the guise of Parliamentary spending that are blatant pamphleteering and written for procuring of votes.

So Liarbour has cocked up, too tricky for words. It is possibly to be the first one prosecuted under its own poorly written law which was put in place specifically as a vengeful measure to hobble the Opposition.

National's comment?

The nonsense about all this is that under the old rules anything that was an election advertisement counted, full stop.

Labour has tried to write the act so that you can spend public money on things that are - as the Electoral Commissioner said today - election advertisements but don't count for expenses

I smell a decaying rat and that rat is Liarbour. The ballon has gone up, so to speak. And speaking of balloons...

Down on the farm...

Was recently helping my neighbour cow cockie, along with others, with yarding of 600 odd cattle for the vet. Good chance to get away from the computer and enjoy the outside in fine weather.

Vet (female, new import from Mother country, not used to locals?) was administering various vaccinations.

Subject of useless mongrel working dogs came up and discussions ensued...

Me - "My working dog gets very vocal when she has to run around our 10 acres herding cattle beasts."

Neighbour laughs.

Vet - "Is she a heading dog or a huntaway?"

Me - "Nah, the better half..."

Much ROTFL had by all, even from the same better half when informed later.

Queen of soaps 30 years old

That Yank soap we all loved to hate celebrated thirty years since it's first airing yesterday. Yes, it seems not so long ago we watched JR's every move as it had us on the edge of our seats. Dallas was so successful as a soap, many others still emulate the style, particularly end of season cliffhangers.

Here is a shortened summary of the top ten best, bitchiest, big-haired moments. Full summary in article.

10 The credits

What a ballsy, big, great tune. Every season to the end, the music got better, the titles longer. The song remains the ultimate theme tune.

9 JR getting shot

The ultimate soap cliffhanger: a darkened room, a list of suspects as long as a Southfork fence and a gunshot.

8 Sue Ellen drinking

Pick a moment. A true Sue Ellen signature and fun to impersonate when inebriated yourself. Make yourself cross-eyed for the full effect.

7 Sue Ellen getting carted off to the sanatorium

The ultimate Sue Ellen as victim moment.

6 The Oil Barons' Ball/Ewing barbecue

Each season of Dallas had to have one.

5 Pam slaps Katherine

Katharine Wentworth, schemer and plotter, was found out by sister Pam who gave her a well-deserved wallop.

4 The different Miss Ellie

It was so very wrong. Donna Reed joined the show, replacing Barbara Bel Geddes.

3 Bobby is killed and rises again/The Dream

After Pam slapped Katherine, Bobby was mown down by Katherine in a fit of rage. Next season Bobby is alive, Pam had dreamt the entire preceding season. Many fans gave up on the show at this point, the fools - its final years got way trashier.

2 Pam dies /comes back

This wasn't a dream. But she was reincarnated.

1 The end?

JR is shown what life would have been like without him. A shot rings out. Bobby walks in and says, "Oh my God". The question is left hanging, did JR kill himself? The ultimate cliffhanger.

Soapie drivel at its very best, it was entertaining.

Next? Hanover? Nathans?

With Lombard shares joining the league of penny dreadfuls this morning on the sharemarket, I can but wonder who is next in line? Time to buy a finance company for a paltry $12 mil?

Nathans, Hanover, F&P? All big trusted names, but to blame the game on systematic failure of an industry based on greed is questionable.

Investors are rightly spooked, especially when the US is speaking of the dreaded 'R' word. These recent events must be comforting to those who have 'invested' in KiwiSlaver of late.

Shares are almost cheap enough to waste money on a flutter.

The food is so bad that patients are starving

As nothing less is expected from local health boards, a damning submission was made to an enquiry yesterday.

• Public hospital food was so "atrocious" and menus so inflexible that half of all patients were "starving" and ended up staying twice as long as a result
• 51 per cent were malnourished - and many had not entered hospital in that state
• Had no set nutritional standards for meals
• Malnutrition is rife in our public hospitals and we need to do something about it
• We have patients starving
• Standard of food was frequently described as "atrocious" and "absolutely appalling"

Little wonder the health authority is referred to as

a dysfunctional but powerful, centralised, hierarchical autocracy with little or no external accountability

The excuse offered?

It's been divorced from clinical care and it's being seen very much as a business unit … we can lose sight of the fact that it's patients we're dealing with. It's not an airline.

Thinking where is this happening in the good old NZ health system? Could this really happen here? Had you going there for minute? Fortunately readers, it is an enquiry into the the state of hospitals here. Just do not get sick when you emigrate there.

Comment of the day

As expected, Winnie has resorted to bash the immigrant tactics to bolster his flagging polictical fortunes. No longer prime media fodder other than taking the war to those who buy ink by the truckload, he has reverted to type.

I was looking at some commentary on the topic over the last few hours and found this comment from late last night on KB. Participants had been consuming top-shelf on the taxpayer bfore this question was aired...

‘i do have one political question, winston.’

‘whassthat then?’

‘Why do people like you hate my Asian brothers and sisters?

You drink with me, but then want to send me back to China?

Why?

Is it because we’re more successful than a washed up lawyer in a taxpayer-funded suit?’

Needless to say the reaction was explosive and sums up Winnie to a T.

Mugabe 'ready to step down'

Rather than continue with a military coup or cooking the results, word is that the dictator has accepted defeat and an exit stategy is being negotiated.

The only reported resistance is from the soon to be out of a job Army chief.

Talking of coups, when will Mickey make his move?

Update: The endgame is in sight

This afternoon the ruling party pulled the plug on their own man, leaking their own projections and handing Mr Tsvangirai victory.

Saga surfacing again

Actor Michael Barrymore who was a NZ resident for a while and performed in Joseph and Chicago here may face a second inquest.

One of the Government's chief legal advisers is considering whether a second inquest should be held into the death of a man whose body was found at the home of entertainer Michael Barrymore

As they say, any publicity is good publicity for those in the acting trade but one wonders where this saga will end.

Taxi calls down per 100K

Joe Public has given up calling for taxis according to these latest stats.

However Joe is taking exception to would be artists expressing themselves on the street and on his fence. While Liarbour is known to support the arts, I think Joe Public did not envisage louts loose with spraycans.

Noticeably, there is a rise in aggressiveness, but then we expect that when the judiciary issue soft sentences, incarcerating thugs at home and releasing them on early parole.

Arguing over Jaffas

With a couple of weeks to go on submissions, those slurping at the ratepayer trough are out to preserve their patches and the status quo, arguing amongst themselves.

Get over yourselves. Orklund is from the Bombays in the south to the Brynderwyns in the North and everything from one horizon to the other. Nothing more, nothing less. Both hills are natural barriers to the region, but unfortunately not big enough.

Having sorted that, the ratepayer does not need nine councils to manage just over 1 million Jafas. One council, one mayor, one HQ, end of story. The whole exercise is unfortunately doomed to failure as the internal squabbling has broken out.

Those that are trotting out the hoary old lack of democracy or iwi representation can bugger off. You will still have one vote for local government, if you could call local government that. Any notion of creating or retaining separately elected officers or committees based on skin colour or whether or not you feel like being an iwi today is promulgating racism.

While we are it, any with political affiliations are not to be allowed to be in local government - all interests should be declared. Should central government pass laws that require local government to enact such laws, then those should be fully funded forever by central government, not ratepayers.

And, no, a 'Lord Mayor' is not the title I would like. A plain and simple 'Mayor' says it all. Also, any suggestion that the eco-dinosaur from out west is to be the first such Mayor will not get my vote for he has done enough damage to my wallet already.