Not a bad prediction

I wrote this on September 25.  My "checks" are in Red.

The country will be shocked when Winston abandons implicit protocol and forms a government with Labour.

He'll do that ostensibly for these reasons I think, none of which is to do with policy as Winston couldn't give a flying monkeys about policy.

1. Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson et al are *so* desperate for power they'll fold much more easily than English/Joyce et al.  Mallard will ensure it so as to become speaker.  Check.
2. Winston knows he will be able to walk all over Jacinda and Robertson and run rings around them in government - he's too crafty for them.  But this absolutely won't apply for English and his team.  Check.
3. Winston's policy platform is very left and interventionist and matches nicely with Labour's.  Check.
4. National has baggage after 9 years, even if their result on Saturday was astounding.  For example, if there is possibly stuff to come on Oravida's involvement with the damaged pipeline; and Jian Yang's problems with his "false" declarations (mind you, Raymond Huo doesn't look squeaky clean either), that will hurt the government and Winston won't want to be tainted by that.  On the other had, Labour comes with essentially "clean" hands.  Missed that one perhaps.
5. Winston and the Nats don't see eye-to-eye.  They beat him in Tauranga; they've now just beaten him in Northland; they teamed up with Rodney Hide to kick him into touch in 2008.  Labour, on the other hand, has no such issues.  Check (I think).  

Forget what you read in the papers from Shaw and others, like Shaw won't accept second best etc etc.  The Greens will be in government, and have a couple of ministers outside cabinet (so Winston doesn't need to involve them) and he'll give them some candy like healthy homes and some other mush to keep them pleased.  Double-check.

The players in this will be Mallard, Annette King and Helen Clark.  Clark knows Winston better than others and will be in Jacinda's ear daily.  Unsure, but likely a check.

National should get ready for opposition.  Check.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

In recognition of Cam Slater's year long 'poodle faking' in support of Winston First and his repeated attacks on PM English and a number of other National Party ministers should not Whale Oil be better placed in 'Blog Roll Left' alongside 'No Right Turn' and 'The Daily Blog' el al.

Just askin?

Friday's Fulminations

There is mild moderation.  Normal rules of blogger etiquette and courtesy to blog hosts will apply.with serious transgressors being thrown out.

Unfortunately our system does not allow your comments to show up in the blog post itself.  Just in the comments section.

Visitors might consider the wisdom of using moderate language.

Regards

Adolf'

THE FIRST WINSTON FIRST LIE

Taken from the NZ First website ... "Māori don’t need the Māori seats. They don’t need tokenism. That is why we commit to a referendum of all electors to retain or abolish the Māori seats".

Lie, lie lie.   When push came to the shove Winston walked away from his commitment.   It meant nothing ... except votes from those
who dared to believe.

How many ways to spell lie?

Things To Watch

Over the next six months:-

Unemployment

Mortgage rates

Exchange rates

Business investment





Six to twelve months

House prices

Net immigration

Mortgagee sales

Business closures

Beneficiary numbers

GDP growth (or non growth)


This is an excellent time to be in opposition.  Even Milt recognises a Pyrrhic victory when he sees one.

Some victories are sweeter than others...

...because there are some victories that put you in mind of Ian Gillan singing "I will drink your cup of poison."

Here's hoping this particular victory doesn't turn out to be a Pyrrhic one.  Still, for tonight at least,  fuck yes!  In your face, oligarchy of corrupt incompetents!  The next three years at least we get to do without a government of the people, by the rich, for the rich.  Chuffed.

WINSTONE (VIDKUN) PETERS ... COMRADE JACINDA'S POODLE

Let the push-back commence. 

Peters and the Greens ... would be funny if it wasn't so laughable.

Now The Sparks Will Fly

Peters has given the nod to Labour.  The incompetent led by the insufferable.

At least they an claim to have fixed housing affordability   Just watch as house prices in Auckland decline by 20%.  The dumb buggers who voted for Labour and Greens just cost them selves $100k per head.  Wait for the screams as the banks foreclose on all the inner city luvvies who find themselves in negative equity territory.

The currency already tanked well before the announcement and the rest of the economy will follow as private industry stops investing and employing.

Blenglish and everybody else will be quietly pleased as they prepare to aggressively destroy Peters and Adern from the opposition benches.

I Just Burst Out Laughing (Updated)

The headline:-

'Seriously difficult': Peters still hasn't decided who to go with'

Peters is giving NZ a preview of how dysfunctional any government in which his has a part will be.

I'm with the Vet on this one.

Blenglish should wash his hands of this fool and let Labour blunder on with him.

Update:-

Party officials, who did not want to be named on account of their not being authorised to speak, have disclosed that, miraculously, Mr Peters has two identical agreements from Labour and National.

The only problem is, National is offering unlimited supplies of Chivas Regal while Labour is offering unlimited supplies of JW Black Label

Mr Peters does not know what to do.

NEWSFLASH ... WINSTON TO FORM GOVERNMENT 'ALONE'

Impeccable sources have revealed to No Minister that this afternoon Winston First will announce he is going it alone to form a government and that he is seeking confidence and supply from both National and Labour sitting on the cross-benches.

NZF have decided the policy concessions offered by both National and Labour are to be bundled together and treated as one.   Their assessment is that this will be hugely popular in voter land and neither National or Labour (as granting those concessions) would have a moral mandate to oppose them.

A bonus for New Zealand is that there would be no outer cabinet and that the inner cabinet would be reduced to just 9.  

The Greens will become the official Opposition.   This will be their chance to show what they are capable of.

In a gesture of magnanimity and to show there are no hard feelings (and to stop him talking to himself) it is intended to nominate David Seymour as Speaker.

  

NOW THAT IS INCONVENIENT!

Certainly for Alphonse Gore perhaps.

During recent absences from interwebby connectivity with radio for info there was much ado  a few days ago about "a disaster currently unfolding for breeding pairs of Adele Penguins around Cape Bird in Antarctica possibly failing to rear any young this breeding season.

Abnormal sea ice making parents trips to gather Krill to feed their young too far and chicks dieing in their thousands from starvation.

Don,t many species of Whales have Krill as a staple so preventing killing whales for food might cause a reduction in total Krill supplies through species pressure?
Isn't sea ice supposed to be threatened so how come such a problem exists as we warm up?
Shouldn't there be a concentrated effort by Project Jonah type warriors to sort out the problem?
Perhaps the pathetic efforts to connect global warming and climate change with A.G.W. and consumption of carbon based fossil fuels  becoming kind of unravelled could be evidence of settled science being a somewhat mythical concept.

Could palm kernal supplements be a go?
What else could be used for supplementary food supplies?
Grass supplies seem extremely abundant this spring, says my lawn anyway.

That news had a  "and they all lived happy everafter" missing as regards this year's Adele Penguins harsh lifestyle.

Headline of the Week

In a piece on sexual harassment allegations against Weinstien's harve brother Bob.

"The Family That Preys Together...."

C'MON BILL, PULL THE PLUG

Fact ... being in parliament is all about being in government.   There is very little satisfaction in sitting on the opposition benches.   You might get the occasional victory when a government minister or MP stuffs up but much of your time is spent railing against decisions already made and which you can't change.

That's the conventional wisdom anyway.    Not so this time round.   Whoever Winston and his ratbag bunch of losers chose will themselves end up as losers.

So Bill, my advice to you is to pull the plug.   Let 'them' go with Labour and the Greens and watch the train-wreck develop.   Use the time to regenerate and refresh ... and yes, that probably means you will have to call 'time up' on yourself ... but you have been there and done that.   Your legacy is secure as an outstanding Minister of Finance who saw us through the GFC and the decade of deficits bequeathed to you by Labour.  

In opposition National will exercise substantial power through their shear weight of numbers in the House.   They will be the majority Party on all Select Committees.    They will have the ability to frustrate the government's legislative agenda should they choose to do so and at the same time be in a position to exploit the inherent contradictions in a coalition of where NZF and the Greens have about as much in common as Sunni and Shia Muslims do.

3 years (or shorter) pain for long term gain.   Pull the plug on the farce Bill, pull the plug.

The Farce Continues

The Herald reports 'talks continue.'

I'm sticking to my prediction that Peters will come to an arrangement with the National Party.

Peters knows that if he goes with Labour, they will tank the economy (and he doesn't know how to stop them) and a strong and aggressive opposition will pin the blame where it belongs.  On his venal shoulders.  That will see the end of Peters and the Winston First cult at the next election.  The one thing the Labour line up is good at is plotting and conniving and they'll direct all their talent into plotting against him.

He'll wind up with zero credibility and no legacy.

If he goes with National he will get his Maori seat referendum which will restore some credibility and he will have that momentous achievement as a lasting and positive legacy.

The only question remaining is, how long can he spin out his pathetic charade?

ON BOOZE

One of the papers presented at ALLAF2017 was from Cathy Clayton, project manager for the Oz National Drug Strategy Household Survey.   She managed the 2010, 2013 and 2016 surveys.   Her subject was alcohol consumption trends.     Some interesting stats.

The consumption of alcohol per capita in Oz has decreased 10% in the last decade.   The decline was particularly evident in the 18-24 year old cohort with the number in that cohort describing themselves as total abstainers rising from 12% to 18%.

But the stat that really had me interested was that the decline in the 19-24 cohort was offset to a degree by an increase in drinking in the 55-70 yo cohort.    Why would that be.   Lotsa speculation but no definite answers ... likely to be reciprocated in NZL as our drinking patterns are broadly in sync with those of our Oz cousins.

Be interested in your comment.
 

My Black Bastard is Better Than Your Black bastard.

If you ever wondered whether the most racist people on earth are blacks, go no further than this story from the glorious pages of American Black Lives Matter and university campus disruption.

It appears the young darlings of the Democrats have worked out that if you spend most of your time screaming obscenities at your President and making outrageous demands on university administrators, you might not have much time to achieve academic excellence.  However, this for them is no impediment.

Having discovered there are more black immigrants enrolled and graduating at their university than there are genuine American black bastards, they propose a ban on the enrollment of black bastards who were not born in America. 

Ya gotta larrrf doncha?  They must have been taking xeno lessons from The Honorable Mr Peters.

No wonder they are called Dumb black bastards.   And now they are running around the country demolishing statues of Stephen Foster.

All of which will ensure The President is re-elected in 2020.

ARE THE GREENS TO BE REFERRED TO THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION?

TV1 News is reporting that the Greens are set to hold a teleconference where 170 'delegates' will be asked to ratify any deal to establish a Labour/NZF/Green Party government.

Whooops ... over the last three weeks we have been told ad nauseam that the Greens constitution requires that any deal be ratified by 75% of their membership.

The Electoral Commission requires a political party to have 500 members for it to be registered.

Are the Greens saying they have only 170 members?

p..s.   At least it appears the Greens are up with the teleconference bit unlike a certain other Party

MORE MUSINGS

Back only to find that Winston's commitment to anoint either Bill or Cindy by 'Writ Day' had about as much substance as his commitment to hold a referendum on the retention of the Maori seats.   Honestly, did anyone expect anything else?

The politicians, senior public servants and others I met in Oz were almost united in their bewilderment that New Zealanders might be in for a change of government.   To say they admire the way our economy is being managed is the understatement of the year.    There were a number who do business in New Zealand.   Fascinated with their comment that doing business in New Zealand was far easier than doing it at 'home'.

The price of beer in Brisbane (at least in the entertainment precinct) is enough to drive people to drink.   Four pints of tap beer (Peroni and some other concoction I had never heard of ) and $2 change from a $50 note.    

Turnbull and Shorten seem to be disliked in about equal measure.   Abbott is becoming a bit if a joke ... much in the mold of Muldoon and the 'Sunday Club' and dreaming of a return that ain't gonna happen.   Collectively they provide the reason for the rise of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party ... much like NZ First with one important difference.   Hanson makes Peters look statesmanlike.

And so it is that we are all waiting with baited breath until Monday or Tuesday or whatever.   This crap about the NZ First Board having the final say needs to be called out for what it is ... a charade pure and simple ... perfectly summed by by Peter Brown, longtime ex Deputy Leader to Peters, when he said a few days ago that Winston recommends and the Board follows 'lemming' like.   Put it this way ... were the Board to reject Winston's recommendation (and he has to lead on this) it would be to reject Winston as leader ... and pigs fly.

One final point.   We know there is a certain suspicion of technology among the elderly but surely even NZ Firsters have heard of video conferencing ... why the need to gather face-to-face in 'Sodom' ... and a question ... whose paying?    Answer ... go figure.

Ho Ho Ho (The best is the last)

Not A Bad Week.....

...for President Trump, that is.

First, an executive order strips out most of the severe problems associated with Obamacare.

Second, an excellent speech delivers a much needed torpedo into the Mad Mullahs of Tehran.

Where in all this is the GOP and it's Congress?

Nowhere to be seen except when it comes to sabotaging the President's efforts to keep his election promises.   No wonder David Farrar muses on the possibility of the President running as an independent in 2020.

Never has there been such a transformation from hero to traitor as can be seen in the person of the disgraceful John McCain.

Friday's Fulminations

There is mild moderation.  Normal rules of blogger etiquette and courtesy to blog hosts will apply.with serious transgressors being thrown out.

Unfortunately our system does not allow your comments to show up in the blog post itself.  Just in the comments section.

Visitors might consider the wisdom of using moderate language.

Regards

Adolf'

And The Mafia Decides........

It's all too funny for words.

Peters has refused to identify the NZFirst board members who will decide with whom the party makes an accommodation.  The Herald identifies recent members:-

The Herald has confirmed members have recently included the following who had to have their names changed by deed poll, in order to become part of Winston First.

:

• Winston Peters, leader.

• Winston Mark, deputy leader.

• Winston Catchpole, president and former MP.

• Winston Martin, party secretary and mother of MP Tracey Martin.

• Winston Ellen, treasurer.

• Winston Paul, North Island vice president. Works in sales and teaches martial arts and stood in Epsom at the election.

• Winston Thorn, South Island vice-president.

• Winston Campbell-Smith, director general ex-officio.

• Winston Gardener. A former party president.

• Winston Ashley.

• Winston Greening. A Papakura-based information engineering consultant and Manurewa local board member.

• Winston Andrews.

• Winston Sara, stood in Nelson at the election.

• Winston Monds. An Aucklander and part of a growing number of young people involved in the party.

Reason Number Eleventyleven............

..........why President Trump will be re-elected in a 2020 landslide;

Here's the money quote.

In fact, the eight months following President Trump’s inauguration are the only months since February 2009 in which 60 percent or more of Americans were employed and it’s been above 60 percent for every month of the Trump presidency. In September, the percentage of Americans who were employed reached 60.4 percent. The last time it was this high was January 2009, the month President Obama took office.

Finally, the jobs are better. Since January, the number of people working full time has increased by two million while the number working part time increased by only 245,000. In September alone, the number of people working full time increased by 935,000. This helps explains why average hourly wages have grown by 2.9 percent over the past 12 months, the highest level of annual wage growth in more than eight years.

Bottom line, thanks in great part to President Trump’s deregulation efforts, businesses across the country are hiring and more Americans are working better jobs for higher pay. 

You need to read that twice for the real message to sink in.  The dates are significant.

Obama deliberately tanked the American economy.  So much for 'fundamental transformation.'

Another post election prediction

I've changed my mind.  I think Winston is going to support National.  His behaviour toward the Greens is telling.  He can tell the country that they're loopy and he can't be in government with them, or something like that.

I might change my mind back again tomorrow though.

Belligerosity

As an assortment of armchair diplomats/warriors/strategists/wise-arses pontificate on what might or might not happen in North Korea, various military and non military 'solutions' are suggested.

Well, I'm going to join the fray.   Adolf has as much military and diplomatic experience as President Trump so, I am eminently qualified to have a say.

First off, I'd have to say I'm somewhat sceptical about reports of 6,500 artillery pieces and 3,500 multiple rocket launchers allegedly embedded in the hills north of the DMZ, threatening the city of Seoul.   For some perspective, note that one of largest artillery bombardments in history took place at El Alemain in 1942, using just 822 guns, firing some 930,000 shells over five hours.   The largest ever barrage was fired against Germany by Russia in 1944, delivering over 500,000 shells in half an hour from 9,000 guns.

Secondly, as I have said elsewhere, I suggest the use of nuclear weapons by either side is unlikely.  The Yanks don't need to and Kim will have his shot out of the air.

Has anyone contemplated how many men and what resources are needed to keep 10,000 guns ready for action 24/7?   I doubt very much the figure is anywhere near 10,000 but of course, nobody really knows because Gareth Morgan didn't visit the site when he was there.

However, the threat to 22 million civilian residents of Seoul is very real, whether it be from 100, 1,000 or 10,000 guns.   A 500 shell volley of 150mm ordnance fired into a heavily populated area over ten minutes might well kill more than a few thousand people.

Accordingly, I see the perceived or real artillery threat to be one the Norker Porker's trump cards.  (Did you like that one?) 

Remove the artillery threat and much of the past bluster from NK is rendered redundant. 

I suspect such an option is high on the list for the US and South Korea.  I have seen no published acknowledgement of its existence but then again, the real deal is unlikely to be leaked to slavering journalists and commentators.

All it would take would be China's secret but explicit  agreement to a limited military strike which achieves no more and no less than the destruction of North Korea's southern artillery.     A non-nuclear aerial assault using cruise missiles, stealth bombers and B52s might see the game over within half an hour or so.

Kim Jong is substantially weakened  and the obliteration of his regime using conventional weapons becomes many times easier to achieve without civilian casualties in South Korea.  (Whether China would agree to such a second stage is moot.)

So what happens then?  I suspect South Korea would make very loud noises and China might quietly move in and take over it's new southern province.

THEN WHAT?

When all the "one trip" plastic bags have been eliminated from NZ retail, say in a decade or two, and a dead turtle is found on a beach somewhere full of plastic bags from Jakarta or some other country, what will the SJWs do then to save the planet.

Garry Hughes will still be flying from Wellywood International to Momona, taking a taxi to North Dunners, have a conversation with three students on planet saving, then a night in a hotel before flying back to Lesterland, fully updated on strategy to save a planet somewhere.
Meat vegies and other grocery will still be packed in the dreaded Plastic, bundles of The peoples daily will still be bound with plastic binding, Jandals will still be found singly on beaches and roadsides along with plastic drink bottles, milk bottles, fast food wrappers, tires, batteries and farings. Such rubbish will still litter roadsides and other dump options avoiding the landfill charges along with sofas Tvs, cheap furniture, old carpets that will add to what a population with little concern for turtles anywhere discard in an erroneous notion based on "it's only me so doesn't matter".

Illness from poorly cleaned customer supplied grocery bags will increase. Who saw last nights Seven Sharp item on using cellphones in toilets visits, and that played at mealtime, disgusting but revealing to most, methinks.

Entrepreneurs will manufacture many alternative plastic bag options to replace the ubiquitous now to be banned grocery bags for kitchen and bathroom litter bags, doggy doo bags, and the many imaginative uses that will see Countdown and Foodstuff wrongly titled 'single use' convenience containers, denied from the market.

I still delight in taking Countdown branded bags to Pak n save and New World ones to Countdown.

All shopping bags that end up at home here are tightly rolled for future use and when that supply is deemed to be a surplus they are bundled and sent to land fill more than likely in a blimmin grocery bag, LoL.

Troughers and dirty bastards will continue their destructive ways and Hippycrits will pretend to change the world by including the truly caring and responsible in their megalomaniac proclamations to achieve precisely nothing.

It all sounds so caring and responsible Big Grocery but it will solve nothing, Humans will still litter and much of that detritus will end up in the sea due to winds, natural water flows and gravity.

He Just Keeps On Winning

Every time the journalistic wankeratti go ballistic over one of President Trump's 'plain language' utterances, it turns out they were wrong and he was right.

Remember the fuss over 'Obama had me wiretapped'?     Only a matter of weeks after all the huffing and puffing, it turned out that Trump and his campaign people had been illegally spied on by the Obama administration, using an illegal abuse of process called 'unmasking.'

More recently the President rightly called on the administrators of the American NFL to 'throw out the sons of bitches' who dishonour the American flag.  Cue more media huffing and puffing.

Well guess what?  Today the president of the NFL issued an instruction to all the teams' owners that players were to remain standing during the playing of the national anthem.

It seems most Americans agreed with their President and stopped buying tickets or watching televised games.

If the Democrats keep up their good work, 2020 will see a Trump landslide.

TAKE YOUR TIME PETERS, NO RUSH.

He might get it all wrong!

Ditherer? I dont think so #1 manipulator is feathering nests and playing Simon n Cindy for suckers.

In June 2010 Belgium held elections and it was mid 2011 when ngotiations concluded and a new administration was formed.

The Dutch held an election back in March and have only just managed to form a Coalition. Of course that effort came down to concentrating on keeping Geert Wilders out of any position of influence as his anti immigration mantra was unacceptable to the majority of Euro group think

Hell we could wait two years with a caretaker government, under MMP and its stiffling of government action who would notice.
Doing nothing is quite an attractive alternative to the "Zoo feeding options currently on offer"

SO LEOPARDS HAVE SPOTS !

Do I have it correct that the political manipulator #1 who just wanted to keep them honest, claimed until Sept 23rd he would bring a referendum to the voters to decide on the question of seperate Maori Seats in the Parliament that the framers of our MMP system recommended be abolished as Proportional Representation would support such single issue groups to gain access to representation.

It was then watered down twice, firstly because the Maori Party had been trashed, then secondly the Voters to be given the option to end the apartheid seats would be limited to those on the Maori Roll.

Now it is all likely consigned to the BPF (broken promise file) in the horse trading over how much The Dwarf can extract by way of baubles.

Then in the aftermath of the official polling day, the day so special when a completely different set of rules around casting votes to those in situ for the plethora of opportunities in supermarkets etc were in play, The Pin Striped one stated he would not begin negotiations until 'The Specials' had been counted. As that day approached a DATE was declared and he would make his decision by Thursday the 12th of October.  Now it emerges that deadline was when he would decide, revelation of the decision not included,  the illustrious one might lower himself to Proclaim that within earshot of the rabble on Friday the Thirteenth.

Is that an omen or what, The Dark Destroyer whose party logo and colours include "black and white" will anoint his chosen ones on Black Friday, or not, yeah nah.

Would it be unreasonable to test his links to witch-craft by putting him in a sack and throwing him into the Waikato if he survives he is in the clutches of Lucifer and needs further trials, say a burning at the stake.

Meanwhile those popcorn investments are holding up.

MUSINGS FROM THE KORU LOUNGE

Winston Peters for Speaker.    Think on it ... Master of Parliament with all the prestige that goes with the job but still able to exercise control over his own Party (and, by extension, the government) but immune (to a degree) from the fallout from when the government you are supporting stuffs up.

The Speakers Flat in Parliament ain't exactly a hovel and he gets a Deputy Speaker and two Assistant Speakers to do the more mundane.   Has to be attractive for a guy pushing 73.   Pay is as much as a Minister inside Cabinet plus a generous expense allowance on a par with that of the Prime Minister plus a self drive car.   Lotsa nice Speaker junkets o'seas.

Speakers leave legacies enshrined in Speakers Rulings and then at the end of it all there is an automatic 'K' ... assuming Labour doesn't decide to abolish them (again).

And of course the old maxim comes into play ... you set a thief to catch one.

Now, why hasn't anyone else thought of that?