Tag ArchivesFor the word: politics
Rant: Weasel Wording Down Under
And they wonder why we are all so cynical about politics… ![]()
Heather English is a retired school teacher now living in Invercargill. She has been an avid amateur genealogy researcher for about 35 years.
Election with Selection
Well, the general election is over.
It was pretty much like elections everywhere; largely a duel of wits between unarmed opponents. No answers, but lots of different names for the problems.
I therefore present a New Zealand political addendum to the fully encompassing “Religions of the world“
Rant:History Repeating
Last night I had a dream.
More of a nightmare really; I dreamed that I answered my front door, only to find a bloke wearing a fake tan, a blue rosette and a plastic surgery smile that wouldn’t look out of place on an American home shopping ad, standing on my front porch.
Being the suave urbane sophisticate that I am, I should have asked the canvasser if he liked sex and travel (“then f*ck off!”). But the subconscious being what it is, I was forced to endure a 10-minute national party infomercial, starring John Key, along with an assorted supporting cast of the usual players, Muppets one and all.
Last of the Liberal Lions
News today that the last of the Kennedy brothers, Teddy Kennedy has died after a long battle with a brain tumour.
Despite living in the shadows of his more famous martyred siblings John and Robert for much of his life (and with the ghost of his brother Joseph who was killed in WWII – Teddy was the only one of the four brothers to die of natural causes), Teddy Kennedy was a highly influential figure in US politics for decades.
Reciprocity on Republicans
A few days back, a particularly dim Republican God-botherer called the “Rev.” James Dobson (interestingly, an anagram of his name is:”Demon Ass Job”
) asked his so-called “Christian” parish to pray that torrential rain would disrupt Obama’s acceptance speech, at the Democratic convention in Denver.
But it seems that the Lord got a mite pissed off with that request.
Rant: Indefensible
You know it’s funny…every time I think that Sir Humprey’s snivil servants and the Whitehall worms can’t possibly screw up anything else, I read another story which illustrates even more monumental failings.
The recent reluctant admission by the Ministry of Defense, that more than 100 USB memory sticks, some containing secret information, have been lost or stolen from the Ministry of Defense since 2004, is a new low in data protection balls-ups.
Rant: An Open Letter to the British Electorate
Dear fellow voters,
I’m sure you enjoyed (as I did) watching the worms at Whitehall squirm as they got their arses roundly kicked in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election yesterday, as they also did in the recent local elections.
I’m certainly no fan of either the government or the Labour party in general, but before we start down the road of handing the next election to the Tories, let’s take a quick stroll down amnesia lane…to the last Tory-held government of 1990 to 1997…
(insert squiggly line scene fade and surreal music here)



![Weasel. Photo: Frode Inge Helland (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons Weasel](/images/Blog/weasel.jpg)
![Phil Goff (Opposition Leader - Labour). Photo: By Policy Network (Phil Goff) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons Phil Goff](/images/Blog/philgoff.jpg)
![John Key (NZ Prime Minister - National Party). Photo: By United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons John Key](/images/Blog/johnkey.jpg)



![MoD Signage. Photo: David Stowell [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons. With additions by Bandanna Club. MoD sign](/images/Blog/modsign.jpg)

