There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth around the Labour Govt sending both of RNZAF’s Boeing 757 transports off for maintenance and modifications in the US at the same time.”

Something like this was going to happen sooner or later, where the government had no options, or undesirable options, in a situation that required the use of the armed forces.
While the Herc can certainly do the job, the fact that it is not a desirable option is a result of the RNZAF simply having no spare capacity to deal with something unexpected, and that’s a result of nation wide strategic self delusion resulting in inadequate funding. Fact is that you cannot run decent armed forces on just one percent of GDP and be able to deal with the unexpected. And lets be honest, both major parties are to blame, albeit for different reasons.

Author will need to up the game though, if he/she is commissioned to write the High School play in his/her third form year.

jacob van hartog: yes, you are quite right. Where the hell does JK get off being successful? What a wanker!! Far better and rather more socially acceptable to be a loser with a chip on his shoulder. It goes without saying that anyone that doesn’t travel down ‘the back of the bus’ is a complete arsehole and is incapable of caring about anything other than his/her own self-interest. Lets face it, if anyone that purported to care did so, they would have given it (the jubbly) all away! After all, you clearly did. The proof of your argument lies in the fact that Hels, Culley, Cunners, Win, the Goffster and Full Moon all go out of their way to demonstrate solidarity by travelling down the back. Great to see that at least one person out there in the bogsphere has got the (whoops, I nearly said ‘key’) issues nailed down. Go you good thing! Take a bow! Gosh, where have you been for the last none years when we really needed you?

I wonder if any of these detractors have stopped to consider that the Hercules currently on its way to Thailand might actually do a better job of extracting the NZ nationals, if the situation goes properly south?
The Hercules can land in any muddy grass paddock, unlike the Boeing which is dependent on a decent airport being open. And being a slow-moving, unpressurized cargo barge, I’ll warrant the Hercules would happily keep flying with a lot more bullet holes in it than a high-performance airliner like the Boeing would…

As for our new Minister of Tourism he only knows the way to the first class lounge

[DPF: Keep up dear boy, first class was abolished years ago. But don't let that stop your bed wetting sulking over Key]

Who is this Helen of who you write?

Her in the red (apologies if someone else posted this, it turned up in a Wellingtonista comments thread).

http://maps.google.co.nz/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=-41.276946,174.771392&panoid=jrZlP-BvHo603vZjmabGBw&cbp=12,292.325544970975,,0,15.734709775692591&ll=-41.276907,174.771227&spn=0,359.99794&z=19

I know who I’d rather have looking after the job if I was one of those stranded.

..and after all, it if hadn’t been for Helen Klark’s anti-military policies, we’d probably have some decent gear to pick them up in as well.