Running Hot and Cold.

Now I get it. Global warming causes global cooling.
This from the Guardian:

"The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today."

Viva Italia!

At last a European country with guts when it comes to Muslims. The NRO has this account of the Italian reaction to Iran's threats of genocide against Israel. Maybe the French will join in once its indigenous Muslims have finished burning down Paris...after all, even the Nazis never did that.

Bloody Typical.

This is typical of the New Zealand approach to bad behaiviour and, indeed, to crime in general. Instead of dealing harshly to offenders, let's inconvenience everyone else. In reponse to boorish drunken louts harassing others at cricket matches, New Zealand cricket will segregate families from drunks. So, if I want to take my kids to the cricket, I can't just buy a ticket and sit where I want, if I'm worried about some lager soaked idiot yelling obscenities into my ear. And here, I thought the law required drunks to be tossed out on their ass.

Drunk driving? Instead of locking up habitual drunk drivers, confiscating their cars, and banning them from driving for life, it's of course easier to make it impossible for anyone to have a couple of pints after work and then drive home.

Street crime? Instead of announcing that civilised societies don't surrender their parks and their inner cities to thugs at sundown and then putting enough cops on the street to make it happen, let's just warn everyone to take care, and maybe stay at home as well.

Property crimes? Instead of declaring someone a habitual criminal after three (or 5, or even 10) convictions and sending them down for a long stretch, after 60 or so convictions we'll consider locking up the crims for a few months. Maybe the victims can meet with their burglar for some "restorative justice". Restorative justice is sending the bastards to the darkest hole in New Zealand for a significant and highly unpleasant experience.

The Grinning Face of Evil

Silent Running has Zombietime's pictures of the urban left's celebration of the 2000th American death in Iraq. Look at the smiles on their well made-up faces as they mug and caper and think about the post rally Chardonnay while their fellow citizens sweat and die and dream of clean water. This is disgusting. I can only wish for them to be reborn in bin Laden's world.

Dominos ain't just a pizza.

And down they go....Iraq, Lebanon, Syria....just like W. said they would. Brother Mubarak isn't looking too well these days either. Maybe we should send Saddam into exile in France, Assad and Mubarak can follow on. They could get a nice apartment in the 5th. They could play bridge every day with Baby Doc Duvalier, of course they'd all cheat.

I feel a little sorry for Boy Assad, he never wanted to inherit the family strongman business anyway.

Say Goodnight, George.

In the "Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy" category, the facts of George Galloway's secret life as one of Saddam Hussein's paid apologists have come to light. The Telegraph, among others, has the story.

Come on, you just knew it was true all along, didn't you?

Princess Pinhead

If ever there was a tradition that needed dumping on the compost heap of history, it's the whole idea of royalty. Why should these people be any more entitled to have their boneheaded opinions respected than, say, Paris Hilton or Tariana Turia, just because their ancestors managed to steal most of the real estate in some corner or another of the planet. Princess Irene (Irene?) of the Netherlands has suggested that the West should "open negotiations with al-Qaeda. Perhaps the royal moonbat would like to join Osama's harem as well.

Lest We Forget Them

Of the three great marshals of the Cold War, Margaret Thatcher is the last survivor. Ronald Reagan and John Paul II were the others. These three rallied the free peoples of the world against a ideological and physical menace no less mortal, pervasive, remorseless and relentless than was Fascism. Where are those who would rally us now against Islamism?

In the Meantime....

In the meantime, here's someone who does deserve a Nobel prize.

Nobel Peace Prize

And the Nobel Prize for anti-Americanism, lying through one's teeth, corruption, thuggery, empire building, and pedantic, irritating behaviour (oh, Peace they call it) goes to Mohammad (Call me Closeau) el-Baradei and his bureaucracy over at the IAEA. This is the guy who completely missed fully developed nuclear weapons programs in North Korea, Libya, and Iran; who allowed AQ Khan to run his Nukes-R-Us operation in Pakistan; who failed to catch Saddam's second nuclear program in the late 80's; who never lifted a finger to stop unemployed Soviet bomb designers from plying their trade anywhere they pleased.

Other notable winners include Kofi Annan and the UN, who managed it just as the true multi-billion extent of UN corruption became clear; Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger for making Indochina safe for Pol Pot; Mikhail Gorbachev for knowing when to cut his losses; Yasser Arafat, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin for general and historic thuggery, excellence in military dictatorship, and terrorism; David Trimble and John Hume for releasing convicted IRA terrorists back into society while Sinn Fein was still plotting ethnic cleansing in Ulster; Jimmy Carter for a failed presidency and being a general pain in the ass; and my personal favorite, Rigoberta Menchu Tum.

Remember her? Thought not. She won the prize for the originally titled book, "I, Rigoberta Menchu" in which she detailed atrocities inflicted on her family by Guatamalan authorities, including the death of her brother from starvation. Problem was, her brother turned up alive and well and pointed out that Rigoberta had made the whole thing up. Never mind, it could have been true.

The Literature prize has some real winners too, but that's a subject for another day.

More on Harriet Who?

Charles Krauthammer joins the dump Hattie brigade. He's spot on when he compares Harriet Miers to Nixon crony G. Harold Carswell.

What Does a Guy Have to Do To Go to Jail Around Here?

Nanny's little helpers spend a lot of time and the MSM spends a lot of ink wondering why there's so much crime, especially the burglary, dairy robbery, purse snatching, graffitti scribbling, boy racing, village idiot level crime that fills those little side bars in the papers. Here's a hint. How about the failure to lock up recidivist crims after their third, or tenth, or fiftieth, or sixty-fifth conviction?

This is ridiculous even by New Zealand standards. Young Joshua Lukic has finally been sent down at the tender age of 17 after admitting to 62 crimes between 2002 and 2004, plus eight convictions in adult court. Even making the highly dubious assumption that this is the extent of Lukic's crime wave, the public can be forgiven for wondering why this little thug was still walking the streets.

Maybe "three strikes and you're out" is a bit harsh, but how about, say, "10 strikes and you're out". In a moment of masterful understatement, the Probation Service said that it's "sceptical of Lukic's attitude to rehabilitation."

Don't Confirm Harriet Miers.

It took Osama bin Laden to save George W. Bush's presidency. There, I said it. I'm as conservative as one can be here in Godzone without being arrested for thought crimes, and I have swallowed much principle to support W because I believed (and still do) that his leadership is needed if civilization is to triumph over Islamofascism. His domestic policies however have been erratic and unprincipled to the point of stupidity. Now however he has committed an error of judgement so gross as to cost him the support of his greatest well wishers.

In nominating the unqualified and unserious Harriet (Harriet who?) Miers to the Supreme Court, he has betrayed his party, the cconservative cause, and worst of all, the Constitution. What did he do, throw a dart at a list of his cronies? George Will has the best and most stinging take on this, but the conservative blogosphere is on fire with criticism. If Harriet Who? has a single conservative bone in her body, she withdraw her name and urge the president to nominate any of tens of thousands of more qualified people.

Barbara's Global Weather Emergency

Well known geophysicist and famous person, Barbara Streisand declares a global warming emergency. I hope she's right because my I am freezing my ass off here on the mountain.Hurry up will you?

John and Yoko's Bogus Adventure

John and Yoko-The Musical. Won't this woman ever go away? Not as long as there's still a buck to be wrung from aging hippies. The real story, just waiting to be told is how two of the most banal, pretentious, and narcissistic people on the planet managed to find each other--and without the Internet. I never cared much for some mega-bucks stoner in a pink Rolls-Royce telling ME to imagine no possessions.

It's About Time.

Finally, some law enforcement agency has saidwhat what everyone knows to be true, instead of inconveniencing an entire population or blowing the heads off poor Brazilian electricians, the police are going to concentrate on searching the people who are known for a fact to be the problem. As the good Constable put it, "We aren't going to waste time searching old white ladies."

You Couldn't Make This Up.

Jane Fonda will make an anti-war tour in a bus fueled by vegetable oil. Sounds like fun, but I've got a dental appointment.

I Thought I'd Never Say This.

I admit, Helen Clark said something that made me admire her for a minute.

When Ashraf Choudury couldn't quite bring himself to say that stoning people to death is wrong, and then couldn't quite figure how to say he personally opposes it of course (at least in New Zealand) without saying the Koran is full of medievel nonsense, there was Nanny saying she didn't care whose "religious tract" it's in, stoning is barbaric.

For just one minute she dropped the PC mask and I actually liked her. I'd better have a drink.

Another Reminder

The Islamofascists have given us another reminder of why we are at war. Why do they think that murder and mayhem will work any better to break the Brits' will anymore than it did the Americans' or the Aussies? Don't they get it yet? This crap just pisses us off more.

Far from saying, "OK let's go home now.", some very angry and resolute men are cleaning their weapons, sharpening their knives and thinking real hard about payback.

The IRA has been at this for decades and gained nothing but grief and poverty for their people....just like the Islamists.

Durbin Apologises

Dick Durbin has peered into the political abyss and decided to sort of apologise to those who "may have believed" that his remarks comparing US soldiers to Nazis or the Khmer Rouge "crossed the line". American politicians can smell death better than vultures can. The mayor of Chicago caught a good whiff coming off Durbin and helped push Senator Dick over the edge. Public tears AND insulting the military, better not quit your day job, Dicko.

Sully

I went over to visit Sully today for the first time in a long while. Are there two people writing that blog? Has the boyfriend or the beagle taken over half his brain? He wants to the right thing, you can tell he does. But somehow the demon left that lives in the back of his mind keeps doing a Linda Blair on him.

We shouldn't give up on him yet. Maybe a "Save Sully" day?

Gitmo Hazing

The NRO'sRich Lowry has a good take-down on the close Gitmo crowd. As Rich puts it:
"Time this week reports on an extreme Gitmo case, that of the suspected 20th hijacker who was captured at the battle of Tora Bora. He was subjected to special interrogation methods briefly approved, then revoked, by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Among other things, he was deprived of sleep. He was forced to watch a puppet show satirizing his involvement with al Qaeda and made to stand for the national anthem. A female interrogator invaded his personal space. He was made briefly to stand naked and occasionally told to bark like a dog. This was as bad as it got at Gitmo."

I don't know about you, but my fraternity hazing was a lot worse than that.

Eurostupidity-the ticket tax.

This little scheme ccoked up by those financial geniuses in Eutopia shows that there really is no limit to Franco-German greed and stupidity. Having taxed their own economies into the dirt, they've now cooked up an idea to tax everybody and give the money to "the poor". Are they going to give up some of their farm subsidies? Mais non! It's a tax on airline tickets, just a "few pence" mind you, with the proceeds distributed by...by whom? Some new and enormous Eurocracy headed by an unemployed French bureaucrat no doubt. The UN floated this idea this back in the 80's to fund itself and was told to piss off by the United States.

I'll wager that Nanny thinks this is a great idea. You heard it here first.

The Wheels of Justice Slowly Grind

The first witnesses in the Bank of Commerce and Credit International collapse case will be heard, 10 years after the fact. Can you remember what kind of paperwork you signed at the office or anything about those interminable management meetings 10 years ago. Unless you're terminally anal, there's at least a 50/50 chance that you were taking a nap, doodling, recovering from or planning a long lunch, or making a personal phone call at any given moment on any given working day.

Now some bewigged person will ask you, "Is it true that at the meeting of the subcommittee on policy planning for derivative hedge trading held on April 9, 1995, you spoke in favor of using Rule 36(b)12 of Subsection 42(A) to use losses on the bank's zloty/rupiah cross interest rate trades to offset profits in the rubidium futures room?. Before you answer, let me remind you that of the penalties for perjury........."

ACT Does Something Right

Probably unintentionally, the ACT caucus has done something right. By not getting John Banks onto their list (probably because Banksie rightly saw ACT's ideological rigidity as a handicap), they leave the the way open for Bank' to unseat Dick "Tear Down This Wall" Hubbard.

Meanwhile the Nats are working as hard they can to throw away the budget poll bounce. Just announce some some freaking tax cuts will you? The longer you wait, the longer Nanny has to spin this away.

More From The Peanut Section

Well, we've gotten Anonymous' attention again. The infamous B.Shuai (whom you'll recall as a notorious scribbler from the blue end of the decidedly non-mainstream media organ The Non-Union News has taken us to task for, well I'm still sorting through the meandering bloviations, but it seems to have something to do with politics.

The mind behind the NUN says:

"The minds of "conservatives" are truly novel, even precious things. Addicted to an extreme regime of "reductio ad absurdam", convinced that the particular historical dispensation that prevails this year, or this decade (or even this century) is proof enough of America's trans-historical ascendency and triumph, they hold forth on all manner of topics of which they know little and understand less."

First, I didn't say anything at all about America, but about a shared heritage that, where ever it is tended, produces a greater degree of dignity, freedom and prosperity than anything else mankind has devised. Further, where ever the tenets of this heritage are ignored or abandoned, we see poverty, humilitaion and enslavement. The examples are legion and the counter examples are rarer than a Republican in San Francisco. Even the Islamofascists are able to lash out only to the extent that they adopt, hijack, exploit or pervert western technology (cell phones, airplanes, plastic explosives, credit cards) or Western society (open society, political correctness, freedom of travel, free speech). The failures of the Western societies that adopted Marxism and other structuralisms show as clearly as the space between Shuai's ears that when a state abandons democracy, the rule of law, free markets and the scientific method, then it embarks on quick downhill run to stagnation and irrelevance. The United States has no historical dispensation and is no more exception to that principle than is Burma or Egypt. I never said otherwise, nor would any true conservative.

Next, the good editor says:

"Could it be that distance makes the mind grow sharper? That no longer having to live with the consequences of the Israelification and militarization of not only American foreign policy but also American political culture and even common sense, these worthies imagine that being so distant they may urge the moral troglodytes at the helm of this tragically misdirected republic forward to auto-toxemic oblivion with their usual antipodal abandon, remaining safe from any consequence?"

I think he means it's easy for me to talk, living as I do here in Godzone. That's particularly rich coming from someone who works in academia and lives in the most left-leaning city of the most left-leaning state in the union. I'll wager a substantial bar-tab that Brother Shuai regularly goes weeks without encountering anyone who disagrees with his political views.

Finally, OK. let's assume for the sake of argument that I'm wrong. Now what, Jack?


A Reminder

Let's step back for a minute and remind ourselves just why we're here and just why a lot of hard men are standing the night watch for us in some dark and dangerous places.

1. We are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with radical Islam, which is an ideology not a religion.
2. The Islamofascist ideology seeks global domination and global theocracy. It has no other agenda than the destruction of western civilization. It cannot be negotiated with or appeased. Don't take my word for it, ask bin-Laden yourself. Islamic fundamentalism must be rooted out and destroyed.
2. Western Civilization is a uniquely valuable human development. As such it is worth fighting for. The multi-cultural propaganda not withstanding, it is Western Civilization that has been the key to such freedom, dignity,prosperity and progress as we have. Other cultures have become rich and free to the precise degree that they have adopted the key elements of Western Civilization: democracy, free markets, the rule of law and the scientific method.

Go ahead give a counter-example, I'll wait, and wait, and wait.

Aren't We Precious?

According to this story a Koran at Guantanamo was kicked, yes kicked by a soldier. Another was splashed with urine that "came through an air vent." Sounds like somebody really needed to pee. Somebody ring Amnesty International. If it's not stopped this could progress on to other Gulag type outrages. What's next? dogeared pages, creased spines, coffee cup rings, marginalia? Will the Koran be used as a paperweight? Will it be shelved out of place? Will Post-it notes be stuck to its pages and forgotten? My God, where will it end?

al-Qaeda's Child Army

This report from ABC that al-Qaeda are press-ganging children as young as 10 into service shows us two things..it's impossible to overstate the savagery and barbarism of the Islamofascist and they're running out of adults. The sooner these people are wiped from the face of the planet and their odious ideology buried with Nazism and Communism the better for all of us.

I Really Like This

Silent Running has a great slap-down of the cotton wool brigade.

Not So Deep Throat

OK, everybody not connected with the MSM is asking whether Mark Felt was a hero. I think a hero, recognising how odious Nixon was, would have resigned, gone public and taken the heat for it. Felt's actions were no different than those of every contemporary whinger who loses a policy debate and takes the fight to the media rather than risk the pension.

Blowback in Europe

Good sense prevails in the unlikeliest of places. First the French, now the Dutch. This is blowback from the EU bureaucracy's arrogance and overreach. The mainstream media keeps leading the story with the line that "Nine other countries have ratified the EU Constitution". No, nine other parliaments have ratified because their governments feared exactly this outcome if it were put to a referendum. In a classic "Emperor is naked" moment, the EU is revealed as an elite enterprise, as breathtaking in its arrogance and in its contempt for democracy as NZ Labour. Let us hope they both pay the price.

Goodbye agriculture.

Let's hope that Nanny can step back from her narrow political interests long enough to think very carefully about what she's about to give away to the Chinese. I've seen this before. The Chinese will push for a deal requiring the transfer of agricultural technology with promises of liberalization for agricultural products somewhere down the road. NZ will sell the crown jewels for an immediate, and no doubt substantial, profit. Ten years from now, we'll be buying Chinese milk powder and all our Asian markets for fresh agricutural produce will be gone as well.

You heard it here first.

10 Reasons Not to Send Your KId to the University of Oregon

Ten more reasons to believe that American academia is one sick place. Do you really want your kids to study under people who inculcate students with ideas like this? I would pay a lot to be there when some serious gentlemen from the Secret Service show up at the idiot's door.

Free Trade

I'm normally all for free trade, the freer the better. But it doesn't work if it's only one-way. The proposed deal with China is one of those that won't work barring some unlikely concessions from the Chinese. There are lot of smaller issues like tariff equalization, but the big one is China's currency. The Chinese yuan's peg to the US dollar is effectively a 50% subsidy on exports to New Zealand (among other places) and an equivalent tariff against New Zealand exports. Somebody, any enterprising journalists out there, needs to ask some hard questions over at MOFAT about when and how the decision was made was to become an economic colony of China.

A related question is, since we don't have a military anymore, what we'll do when the Chinese navy escorts a bunch of trawlers (or dredgers, or survey vessels) into NZ's economic zone and announces they'll fish (or mine iron sands, or explore for oil) anywhere they damn well please. So what would we do about it? Complain to the UN?

Schapelle Corby

I’m seriously conflicted here and I’m almost never conflicted. On the one hand, I’d bet a month’s pay she’s guilty and at the age of 27, the foolish youth defense won’t wash. I was a consul for almost 20 years looking after our fellow citizens in third world prisons, mostly they were in for drug offenses, and I have to say they were without exception guilty as sin. There were some sentences handed out that were harsh, unjust even, --one guy did seven years essentially because he was a smart-ass. There’s reasonable doubt in Corby’s case and in a western country she would have gotten off--but this is not a western country. What would I do if it were my daughter. Well I’d pay whatever bribes are required to get her the hell out of there and then I’d then I’d thrash her within an inch of her life. Finally, you have to wonder whther Corby would be such a cause if she were an aboriginal teenager, or if she were 55 and ugly.

Amnesty International's Intellectual Gulag

Amnesty International, which long ceased being any kind of serious voice for human rights has gone all breathless over Guantanamo, calling it the "Gulag of our time." As the good folks over at Blogger News Network point out there is slight difference between the two, not so you'd notice if you happen to be as historically illiterate and ignorant as AI.

BNN notes: ' "The gulag" is a reference to the vast network of almost 500 prison camps and detention centers operated by the former Soviet Union over a span of some sixty-plus years, in which tens of millions were imprisoned and millions died. There are 540 men being held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being part of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network.'

We've become used to this sort of gasping hyperbole from the left, but this is astounding in its disregard for history.

The Guardian Defects?

Is there a VRWC mole at the Guardian? This article manages to expose UK Greenpeace capo Stephen Tindale as the thug, twit, snob, hypocrite and fascist that he is. I particularly like the way he plays fast and loose with other peoples' livelihoods.

Recognise anyone, Nanny?

"...“pattern of weak Labor leadership nationally, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations”. Tim Blair has Alexander Downer's anti-left thunder. Sounds like a certain other Labour Party....except for Kyoto of course.

Newsweek and Islamofascism

Paul Marshall over at the NRO has a very pointed comment on the Newsweek matter. He's quite right in pointing that Newseek is biased and that its bias led it in this case to negligence and stupidity. He's also right in pointing out that the Koran story was only the latest excuse for rioting in all the Carpetstans. The real problems are the sick, degenerate societies produced by Islamic fundamentalism and our tolerance of same. Let's stop all the PC nonsense and say what everyone knows:

Islam gave up its protection as a religion when it became an expressly political enterprise, an ideology like Communism or National Socialism. Islam recognises no secular realm, no rendering unto Caesar. Until some Islamic Martin Luther appears, no society based on Islamic principles is going to get past the 10th Century.

The Idiots at Newsweek

Newsweek joins the major media idiot list with a fake story about US interrogators at Guantanamo desecrating the Koran. They wanted it to be true, so they were unprofessional, self indulgent, juvenile, credulous and criminally irresponsible. This is even worse than Dan Rather's descent into paranoia and dishonesty, even worse than Howell Raines' little kingdom of lies, worse than Modo's menopausal rantings. At least four people are dead, buildings burnt, and US diplomacy and Afghan democracy set back years.
What do the morons and charlatans at Newsweek have to say? "Gee, we're sorry." Assholes.

The Stupidity Defense

Well, sometimes it's true.There really are some people who are so stupid that they can't be held responsible. Lynndie England is one of these. That doesn't mean that she shouldn't be locked up for her own protection, just that she probably really is just too dumb to understand the consequences of her actions.

Root and Branch

Oh Dear. The wind blowing off Cold Mountain has upset Anonymous (whose overblown rhetoric gives him away as one B.Shuai, former editor of the Beijing based Non Union News and a dangerous, low-rent, Hunter Thmpson and savage lefty ideologue). Anon just loves the UN. Speaking of which, it was with a note of great delight that I watched Nanny Helen's love affair with the UN and all its works come to an end last week. How dare those cheeky bureaucrats-of-colour criticise Her government!? After years of slavishly bowing to the prevailing multi-lateral myths, she had to send Michael "Cannon Fodder" Cullen out to tell the UN to piss off. Great stuff.

The Arab Street Rises at Last!

The Arab street has finally gotten around to rising. They didn't care when the Taliban was sent back to hell or Saddam chased into his rathole, but when it comes to democracy they do get riled. This looks a whole lot like the days before the Berlin wall fell. So why aren't all those left o' grams flying around with "I told you so." written in big red letters. Oh, that's right, the street was supposed to rise AGAINST the west. I guess being half right is never enough.

They Just Don't Get It

This is the second best story ever showing how all the assorted tyrants, kleptogarchs, presidents for life and Grand High Poobahs that run most of the planet just don't get how western (in the sense of democracy plus free market plus rule of law equals civilisation) societies work. Bush gives Vladimir some minor aggro over lack of freedom of the press in the new Russia and Vladi, obviously carefully but incompetently briefed, starts taking up for Dan Rather.

Great stuff, but even better was the time back about 1998 when some Chinese mandarin asked a US official in all seriousness, "Who owns the Internet?" That one could be apocyphal, but I spent 5 years in China and it certainly has the ring of truth about it.

Free Arash Sigachi

Iranian blogger and freedom frighter Arash Sigachi --remember the name--has been jailed for 14 years for speaking the truth about the Mad Mullahs. Tuesday is a global action day in support of Arash. To arms.

Hunter Thompson, R.I.P

Hunter S. Thompson has left us. He may have been half mad, but he could damn sure write. He had no truck with bozo politicians, pretentious movie stars, or new age psychobabble, and for that we shall all miss him. For those my age, the quote "It was the time of Nixon, it was a time to keep your head down." summed up a decade.

I think I'll have a Jack Daniels, straight up.

Root and Branch

This story shows once again what a deeply corrupt and sleazy organisation the UN has become. Why would anyone trust these clowns with their country? It is high time that the nations which pay most of the bills to start cleaning house. The UN needs complete reformation and the place to start is the bizarre assumption that statehood alone is a sufficient qualification for having a vote. Why should anyone give a toss what Robert Mugabe thinks about anything? Why is Taiwan, with 23 million free souls, a booming economy, the most free press between Delhi and Tokyo and genuine democracy denied even observer status? The Westphalian model of states as the only legal actors in international affairs needs to be consigned to the history books as an idea past its use-by date.

Gee, Thanks Don.

What was he thinking? Maybe he wasn't thinking. Just as the Nats succeed once again in forcing Labour ever so slightly to the right, old Don goes and stuffs it up. Katherine Rich was a star in a party that could use a few. Maybe she'll join ACT. In the meantime we're almost certainly stuck with Nanny Helen for the foreseeable future.

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain

A few thoughts on the Iraqi election. If I'm not mistaken, this the first free election in any Arab country ever. And, no, don't even think about mentioning those periodic shams where 99.99% turnout and 99.99% of those endorse wholeheartedly what ever Grand Poobah for Life happens to be at the top of he body pile at the moment.

Thw left typically, blew a fuse. Ted "I Sweat Chivas" Kennedy and his sidekick, whatshisname, the other guy from Massachusetts, both stumbled all over themselves trying to disparage the courage of the 60 odd per cent of Iraqi voters who turned out. Think about that percentage..it's a hell of sight better than we ever manage here in Godzone, and we can vote from bed.

Hillary, bless her, may be a little lefty Lenin in waiting, but she is not stupid. You didn't hear Hils dissing the election. Of cousre that all adds up to a republican wet dream for 2008--Hils as candidate and Howard Dean as Demo part chief. It's as if Labour made Tandor Nanczos chairman and ran Margaret Wilson as Party Leader.