No policy to too much policy
After poking fun at Labour’s John Hinchcliff (who now refers to himself on his website as “Dr John”) for his lack of policy of his Auckland Mayoral website, he has now made up for that with pages and pages of policy on every issue you could think of. Yes, seriously. Wonderful gems include:
Investigate and recommend the prohibition of carbon fullerenes (buckyballs) used in some face creams and moisturisers which have been shown to be toxic to human liver cells. [Minimal staff time]
What the fuck are buckyballs and what role does the Mayor of Auckland have in deciding what should or should not be in face creams?
Examine and determine what can be done about the ethical downsides of the new technologies, e.g. nanotechnology and biotechnology on our horizon in association with international experts, concerned academics and alert practitioners. [Some staff time with volunteers]
Good God, and now the Mayor is in charge of ethical practices for nanotehcnology.
Redesign public spaces with edible plants and/or food forests and amenity landscapes.
Edible plants? Yes this is what Auckland needs. Go Dr John.
“Introduce a linguistic distinction between the “Auckland City Council” and the “Auckland City Administration”. [Lobby]“
Oh yes let us pretend the Administration is not answerable to the Council.
Modernise the mayoral symbolism or demythologise the Mayoral mystique by ending the use of the old fashioned and pretentious designation “Your Worship”. [Mindset change]
If you want to be less pretentions then don’t refer to your self as “Dr John” on the website.
Oh these elections are going to be fun.
Hat Tip: Aaron Bhatnagar
July 27th, 2007 at 6:22 am
If this is the state of the Left in Auckland, then they’re fucked. Great.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:58 am
New slogans for the Hinchcliff campaign:
“It takes balls to stand for Mayor. Buckyballs.”
“Hinchcliff – he’s got the buckyballs for the job”
or less kindly,
“Dr John, talking a load of buckyballs to you”
“Dr John – a man with a bad case of buckyballs”
July 27th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Surely he’s taking the piss, strange thing to do on his candidate site.
All you ever wanted to know about Buckyballs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerene
July 27th, 2007 at 7:08 am
Ha, your Dr John is Roger Nome aka PJ in 40 years time….
July 27th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Good lord! What next?!? As a self-proclaimed leftie, I would be embarrassed to be seen on the same stage as this man. I can answer your question about fullerenes. First part – see the wikipedia site as indicated (easier than trying to answer right now); second part – why would ANY politico be concerned about buckyballs? NO it is NOT his (or anyone else’s) problem!
Auckland is f****d if he gets elected. (Actually, Auckland is f****d regardless.)
July 27th, 2007 at 7:50 am
I only skimmed his site (my eyes went fuzzy) but how come these types are always keen to rattle on about respect for this & respect for that and want to put it in policies as if thats the most important thing. Sure repsect it not bad but no one I ever respected gave me a policy document to abide by. They actually earned it through their actions. His very action on stating how respectful we all need to be won’t get the job done. Whats he a doctor of??? crappology (sorry, thats not very respectful, maybe someone can send me a policy on that)
July 27th, 2007 at 8:16 am
We may laugh, but I bet dollars to doughnuts to little knobs of Buckyballs that he will attract his more than fair share of voters. What is frightening that even if he doesn’t get elected he will still have influence in the maze that is auckland local body politics. Ain’t democracy great!
July 27th, 2007 at 8:35 am
He published a book a few years back, if I’m not mistaken, on “Supressed Inventions” or some such thing. He’s a total nutjob. But that’s because of what the aliens did when they abducted him – they left the probe in…
July 27th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Andrew W, I’ll see your buckyballs and raise you Grey Goo…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo
July 27th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Haha! You guys are a bunch of hacks! John’s post has a rambling, sometimes random trajectory, but most of it seems to be reasonable responses to issues. Pulling out a few minor and frivolous suggestions he makes is not evidence that he is useless. I find it odd that he would include his position on the adverse effects of nanotechnology when we all know (including him, I presume) that the power to set such policy is vested in national rather than local government. However the hilarity that everyone here derives from his statements about this issue just shows scientific illiteracy: buckyballs may be a funny word but nano particle contamination is a pertinent scientific issue which must be continually examined by official regulatory bodies.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:45 am
As much as that is an extremely confused set of policies we In Wellington could probably use a few. Policies about carbon allotropes (buckyballs) will no doubt be less harmful than the wisdom and foresight of Her Worship the Property Developer Kerry Prendergast. She’ll be re-elected by apathy and by good-looks, unfortunately. Won’t any attractive Wellingtonian without a property fetish run for mayor?
July 27th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Good looks? Yeesh…
July 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
llew – you prefer Dick Hubbard?
July 27th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Edible plants? Wellington already has these. Check out the silverbeat planted in the median strip along the northern end of Lambton Quay
July 27th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Yay! Silverbeet soup tonight. Lots of it.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Typical left wing nut job seeking power for the sake of power. When the fuck are people going to wake up to these tax, regulation and power crazed leftist loons and the damage they are doing to this country?? What the fuck will it take before these clueless ranting raving fucked in the head dimbulbs are shoved back into the political obscurity they deserve? Jezuz H Christ on a bike, its incredible what frigging NZers will put up with. Is the whole country just a bunch of fucken cringing lick spittle lemmings???
July 27th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Redbaiter, he’s certainly a character but nut job on a power trip he is mostly definitely isn’t. I knew John pretty well a number of years ago. He was widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative thinkers in higher education and ran a universally well regarded tertiary institution. He’s a very bright man with a wide range of views; perhaps he’s not well suited to mayoralty though. He’s neither glib nor shallow (did someone mention Prendergast…). He’s genuine and honest – don’t agree with his politics by all means but play the ball perhaps?
July 27th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Redesign public spaces with edible plants and/or food forests and amenity landscapes.
Edible plants? Yes this is what Auckland needs. Go Dr John.
You completely missed the value of this one, Farrar and it reveals a huge hole in your world view.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am
“What the fuck will it take before these clueless ranting raving fucked in the head dimbulbs are shoved back into the political obscurity they deserve?”
Probably just need it explained in such a gracious fashion.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Haha. I wrote a uni philosophy essay once and referred to butterballs because I was relying on memory. I did a google search later and found many recipe references then realised what I had done. Fortunately the marker missed it…
July 27th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Paul W, give up on Redbaiter. He’s as interested in serious debate as a Sea Slug is interested in the works of the Bronte sisters. All those who disagree with his perspective are leftwing nutjobs. So, I wouldn’t take too much offence that he classifies your mate in this fashion because there’s pretty much 6.6 billion other people who also jostle for position on Mr Baiter’s hate list. To say he’s a narrow-minded bigot is to effectively redefine the word narrow.
July 27th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Edible plants in an urban landscape in principle isn’t a crazy idea… in many cities the local council provides an allotment where urban dwellers can have a vege patch. But I can’t see any rates-hungry council in NZ telling a developer “no thanks, we’re going to let the local beneficiaries and pensioners grow rhubarb there, so put away your chequebook”. So I’m going to assume he means planting broccoli up the median strip in Queen St and join in the general guffawing.
Or perhaps he meant *smokable* plants. That’d be more in keeping methinks…
July 27th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
“He’s a very bright man with a wide range of views; perhaps he’s not well suited to mayoralty though.”
He’s an over educated fool, an inward looking academic loon who should never be permitted to come within a light year of the Auckland mayoralty.
I’ve read his “Mayoral Commitments” and it is my frank opinion that anyone who could write such incomprehensible unfocused gibberish doesn’t need to be running Auckland, he needs psychiatric care.
…and if any Auckland voter seriously thinks this waffling idiot will bring relief from the pain of over-governance, bureaucratic bungling, prolifigate spending and unnecessary concern with left wing social issues, they’re probably in need of psychiatric care themselves.
All this spaced out politically correct pain in the arse loon will bring is more of the same.
July 28th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Do we defer to Redbaiter’s expertise in the fields of incomprehensible gibberish and psychiatric care?
Seriously, though, when the reason you’re attacking a candidate because he’s too smart and has too many ideas – you know there’s something fundamentally wrong with the democratic process.
July 28th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Too much education hey Red, you prefer them dumb enough to take you seriously I guess. Well then Banksie’s your man then; afterall he did a bang-up job last time right?
July 28th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Maybe the sad leftist mungbeans who pollute this forum with their infantile contributions (like Dead Duck and Paul Wanker) could give up with their facile self serving and utterly false interpretations of what people have said and argue on the real issues.
What immature children the left are, asking that I defend myself against things I have never said and views I have never held. They’re not only shallow unchallenging idiots, but also intellectual and moral cowards.
The issue is this- Doctor John from his tired old left wing and Stalinist language is just a PC fool, and he does not have the intellect or the political understanding to help long suffering Auckland ratepayers. It jerkoffs who think the way he does who are behind the present utterly fucked up state of affairs.
Auckland needs to step away from that kind of thinking, that kind of tired old leftist ideology and that kind of dated rhetoric, or it will remain forever mired in impractical, costly and ineffective ideas. Auckland needs real people like Bob Clarkson more than it needs empty waffling ivory tower fools like Doc John.
July 28th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Bob Clarkson?! Hilarious. I know he’s local member, Red, but geepers, Clarkson?!!
July 28th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
You have no real argument against Clarkson. Your disapproval of him is just the usual leftist envy and hate, inspired by the fact that he is a successful entrepreneur and self made man and not an ivory tower academic or a union official or some other public purse parasite.
As far as any public officials go, the following simple equation typifies leftist thinking:
Not a Marxist = Unsuitable for public office
July 28th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I’ll defer, once again, to your local knowledge, Red. I was just going on the fact that every time he opens his mouth public he tends to elicit equal portions of sniggering or red-faced cringes. But, like I said, I’ll defer to your local knowledge. The sniggering and blushing are probably confined to that mere 95% of the population – you know the navel gazing, book-learned, too-smart-for-their-own-good, liberal wishy-washy dorks with IQs over 75.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:41 am
I think Red’s an excellent advocate for Clarkson. I don’t know the man; but am happy to assume he’s as talented, articulate and sensible as his is his spruiker.