I could never understand why we needed 105 Lavs, we are never going to deploy a quarter of them let alone requiring 105 – well that was until an Army mate of mine told me that at least 20 are getting serviced at one time!

“F16′s? There were other choices, less expensive with greater range – better for over-ocean combat/patrols for example, a shame they weren’t given a chance.”

Whilst i agree with the gist of your statement, Ive got to add, the F16′s were not overpriced, personally I believe they were a bargain. 28 F16′s for 1Bil NZD over a ten year lease, which included spares, training, weapons, refurbishing and upgrade was in fact a bloody good deal – even though they were the A model, they were extremely low hour jets that only had been flown from the manufacturer to the storage facility, the engines weer cranked up periodically to keep them in running order. When you factor in that at the same time the C model cost 26 Mil USD/plane not including training and spares it doesnt sound too bad.

I read in the Herald on the weekend, that first impressions are important, that one’s dress and appearance are taken to illustrate one’s true feelings and attitudes.

In other words if one doesn’t care about ones appearance it gives the impression that one doesn’t really care about anything much.

God, didn’t she look terrible on the TV 1 tonight, the teeth looked more crooked than ever and the makeup was virtually non-existant, or was it just the camera angle? Not a great look for the head of a country.

Most in NZ have become immune as she has been around so long, but is she sending the wrong message to our very ………..very good friends??

Can we really expect them to take us seriously, regarding a free trade agreement, when we send over someone who doesn’t follow basic rules of business engagement .

First impressions count, we don’t expect our dearleader to look sexy but we do expect that she looks like a leader who means business.

Dear Leader allows herself to be made up for the election billboards but appears to lack the ability or is it desire to look the part everyday. One does wonder why, is it that she is too busy, doesn’t want to attract male attention, just plain lazy, too tight……….??

How much would it really cost to get those teeth sorted ??? Extreme Makeover perhaps…???.

Helen Clark said the underclass was “extrapolated from an anecdote.”

Is this a good or bad thing from government ?

His no 5 (bad) thing was;
Too little focus on the poorest New Zealanders….

And he had the nerve to post that after all the posts he did saying that Key was full of sh1t talking about the underclass. All his rhetoric about Labour doing soo much for the most needy in NZ and then he sneaks in the first part of the new Labour policy angle – stolen from National….

Waste of space.

Bad – This Government will be listed on future Internet search engines under the words utopian and corruption. George Bush laughing at lemon face supreme leader .

BAD: Not doing enough for the environment

Bad; Dear Leader returning.

I disagree, because I think that the ballooning student debt won’t be solved by this, and secondly, I think that the (ex-)students don’t pay off their loans; not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to.

I did have another thought on this: NZs woeful savings record will be further hindered by this zero interest student loan policy. Because its zero interest, it teaches people to not pay off debt; instead, they spend it on toys (which I believe is why the student debt is ballooning in the first place).

Good? Umm.. Smoke-free restaurants.

Bad: Showing what a complete crock that promise was.