The worm spits the dummy, thanks National and Labour

John Key and Helen Clark have decided not to take part in a TV3 leadership debate including the leaders of all the minor parties currently holding seats in Parliament.

TV3 have now decided to cancel the debate all together, deeming it pointless because according to their research only 20% of voters vote for anyone other than National or Labour.

I have to wonder just how much of a democracy Labour and National think New Zealand is.

Attention all minor party candidates - don't write yourselves off.

I know of a few electorate votes that won't be going the way of either National or Labour at present along with quite a few more party votes.

MMP rules OK.

Prize for the best political billboard goes to ...

act

Have a look at this and tell me if I am wrong.

Heaps better than National and Labours efforts so far.

Airbrushed reality

"One of these photos is not like the others. Three of these pics are kind of the same, but one of these images is not like the others can you tell me which before I finish this song." misquote from Sesame Street

Have you figured it out yet?

That's right, my secretary has attempted to airbrush that three year old photo of me in the top left corner. She hasn't touched the rest. Don't be too up set if you guessed it was the bottom left photo, that is the only one that I can guarantee to be completely free of any airbrushing or enhancement.

The top right photo is off a Labour Party bill board the bottom one is a slightly older but still flattering media shot ... I think.

Hard to tell really.

I have often wondered about the time machine the the National Party seems to be using to get its policies, it does seem to jump back and forth from the 80s to the 90s then back to the 70s but Labour's seems to take the cake.

They have a time machine that seems to work only on publicity photos for election campaigns.

Look at a bill board and Helen Clark seems to be even younger than she was last election.

Look at the evening news and she is older again.

Do airbrushes win more votes than promises?

That bottom left photo is me a few minutes ago. White fur is an advantage when it comes to holding ones age don't you think?

The hoardings are going up

Now that we have an election date the first hoardings are appearing.

Round here Labour has been first off the mark, hardly surprising as they were the only ones to know the election date in advance.

Still I have to wonder what the local vandals will make of the placards.

The are red (of course) with a small head shot above (tick) Labour (tick) McCracken.

How long do you think it will take for the local hooligans to add the name Phil?

Waitemata cycling

Yes, the coat hanger debate is on again.

This time it is about cycle lanes or rather, the lack of and not for the first time either. Friends have vague recollections of a mini bus service with trailer transporting cyclists across in the 70s.

The problem is that space on the Auckland Harbour bridge is, as always, at a premium. The lanes were first squeezed in the hump to make room for the movable barrier.

BTW the single hump lane in rush hours is best avoided by light vehicles in windy weather.

Now they are looking at squeezing up lanes on the nippon clippons to allow for cycling. That is the cheaper, but still not cheap, option. The other option is a suspend a cycleway come walkway beneath the vehicle deck - seriously expensive but a whole lot safer.

Decisions on this have to be made by no less than 5 separate parties!

So far :
* Auckland City: Decided in 5-3 committee vote not to support the proposal
* Auckland Region: Decided 8-4 to support it in principle, subject to an evaluation against other priorities
* North Shore City: Decided 13-0 with 2 abstentions to support in principle, subject to several conditions
* Auckland Regional Transport Authority: Yet to consider the proposal
* New Zealand Transport Agency: Yet to consider the proposal

So North Shore City supports the idea with conditions - no surprise there as that also happens to be this North Shore kitty's opinion.
Auckland City is against - the only surprise is that some voted for it.

It has long been known that Aucklanders from south of the bridge have big problems with the idea of crossing it. Seriously if you schedule a meeting anywhere on the North Shore don't expect anybody from Auckland central or South Auckland to turn up. However they are horribly offended if Shorites (North Aucklanders) fail to turn up to meetings in the city or even Manurewa.

Double standards are alive and well in land of JAFAs.

The Kingmaker lingers

Winston Peters is still hanging on.

Campbell live even had an extended program in order to cover Winston Peters' testimony to parliament's privileges committee live in the hope that something news making would fall from Peters' lips.

It didn't happen.

Peters was once a lawyer by profession after all and he has been in parliament for 30 years.

Even the BBC is now following this.

OCR ... Going Down

By a whopping half a percent. here

That is the second cut this year.

The problem is that the last rate cut of 0.25 didn't alter floating mortgage rates or creditcard rates one bit.

Will this one?

Some bunny new

Cinnamon's nose is soooooo out of joint!

Three weeks ago a friend found a lost rabbit. Since that friend knows nothing about caring for rabbits - she doesn't even have a cat - she passed this mystery bunny on to us.

No sign of Mystery's owners has been found so on the weekend (and several excapes from the indoor hutch) Cinnamon's large rabbit mansion got converted back into a pair of condos.

Mystery thinks it is great.

Cinnamon is not of the same opinion.

Cross rabbits grunt!

So if anyone has lost a brown lop eared rabbit in the Bayview/Glenfield area let me know. Otherwise it looks like she is here to stay.

What a load of smoke

So every household is going to get a one off payment to compensate for the introduction of a carbon emissions tax on electricity next year.

Probably a piffling $112 in exchange of the 10% rise to our power bills.

That won't buy much in the way of insulation or thick curtains. It won't even buy a decent clothes line let alone solar water heating or a small wind turbine.

Thanks to the Kyoto protocol we are supposed to reduce our emissions back down to 1990 levels.

That is all well and good but...... in 1990 this was a household of two, with a pair of cats, one car and a bus ticket. They had a fridge, a washing machine and a seldom used drier but no freezer, TV or computer.

These days it is a household of five with two cars, two (soon to be three) bus tickets and all of the above.

As much as she who budgets would like to cut back the energy use there are limits to what can be achieved with 2½ times more washing and showering required. The drier is still seldom used.

The real irony is this is still a household with low power usage.

If big corporates can get compensation and negotiate down the cost of their carbon taxes why can't we?

I am a lolcat!

Seriously.
I got the votes!
Pity I have to share with that Cinnamon bun.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/09/04/funny-pictures-the-fire-cat-saiz-u-wont-get-hurt-he-saiz/

Oh well. Such is life.