Kiwiblog

The Australian reports:

THE codename chosen for a secret policing operation to protect US President Barack Obama during his visit to Australia sounds innocuous enough.

But calling it Operation Blue Gum, after Australia’s iconic native trees, almost caused an international embarrassment.

US consular officials were aghast when briefed by their counterparts in the NSW Police Force about the title, Blue Gum. In America, a “bluegum” is offensive slang for a lazy African-American who refuses to work. …

Australian officials have been at pains to stress that most NSW Police Force operation names are generated by a computer.

Now that would have been really embarrassing if no one had noticed in time.

Sideswipe discovers that John Key also starred in Galaxy Quest!

A Paulus Telfer has applied to the Electoral Commission, to register the logo below as the official logo for a 51st state party:

Yes that is 51 stars on there. Six rows, with half having nine stars and half having eight stars. The current US flag has nine rows, with five rows of six, and four rows of five.

Mr Telfer incidentally stood for Mayor of Christchurch and got 289 votes. Bob Parker won with 46,104.

Anyway I thought I would see if I could come up with ten reasons why we should become the 51st state of the United States.

1. We would now get to bully Australia
2. No more royal tours
3. Cheaper gas
4. The SAS would get the much cooler name of Delta Force
5. We would now be the possessors of the Olympic Gold Medal for Rugby Union
6. We instantly have an effective free trade agreement with the US
7. The ANZUS Treaty would then become the A’n'US treaty.
8. Just as one has African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans, we would be Kiwi-Americans
9. No longer would need to fund MFAT
10. Someone earning NZ$100,000 (US$70,000) would pay 19.5% federal income tax instead of the average 29.5% currently imposed.

Someone has done a Downfall parody showing displeasure at the Wellywood sign.

Mt favourite parts were Hitler saying “How about Weta make a statue of Elijah Wood sticking his little hobbit dick in the bucket fountain” and that “a giant statue of blanket man would be better”

Hat Tip: Dim-Post

Taken from Sideswipe. Rodeny is The Hood!

Taken from Geekologie. People may also like this similar link, on trying to use an e-book.

Sarah Silverman on why Santa should give Jew girls toys

Silverman is one of my favourite comedians. Her video with Matt Damon remains a classic.

Hat Tip: Uncensored

Someone has listed this phone on Trade Me as a Telecom XT mobile phone

As always, the Q+A are quite hilarious.

Steven Price blogs:

Brady Errol Chadwick has suffered a setback in his defamation claim against the Dominion Post. He has been ordered to pay $10,000 security for costs, which means that it’s unlikely his case will progress.

This will be a relief to Fairfax since it’s not at all clear the media organisation would have been able to afford the relief Mr Chadwick is seeking:

collateral/commodities to the value of three billion New Zealand dollars payable as uranium for use in Atomic Power Stations.

Now it seems Mr Chadwick has been before the courts before, as a plaintiff. He sued the Attorney-General last year, as reported in this decision. Some extracts:

Mr Chadwick, in five proceedings against the Attorney-General
alleges he has been repeatedly poisoned with the sap of the euphobia plant and estrogen.

I thought the sap of the euphorbia plant was a wound healer, and that would certainly be preferable to poisoning with estrogen.

He also complains chemicals have been supplied to him in the hope that he will blow himself up and the Police have attempted to run him over with a Police car.

Now this has a double meaning. Does he mean that the chemicals will cause him to explode, or that taking the chemicals will cause him to get some explosives and blow himself up.

The claim the Police have tried to run him over, would be stronger without the other claims!

Arising broadly from these events Mr Chadwick has filed civil proceedings against the Attorney-General for what he describes as attempted murder, criminal harassment, defamation, corrupt use of official information, false statements, fabricating evidence, conspiring to bring false accusations, conspiring to defeat the course of justice, blackmail, demanding with intent to steal, torture, common assault and theft.

Goodness, Chris Finlayson has been a busy boy. And Chris would never do common assault – he would be far more sophisticated with his assault.

The remedies sought are mostly, either or both a claim for three or four billion dollars worth of “uranium” for use in power stations, or economic sanctions against New Zealand for a number of years. The economic sanctions prayer appears to seek orders that this Court prohibit New Zealand selling goods overseas and importing goods other than essentials.

He seems to have an unhealthy fixation with uranium. Maybe the PM should sell him his shares

This Court could not make such orders even if liability could be established.

Good to see such self-restraint from the court. Hopefully it won’t be appealed to the Supreme Court, just in case Dame Sian decides they could make such orders

In CIV 2008-485-2705 the plaintiff alleges he has been tortured by the New Zealand Government. The allegations of torture seem to arise from complaints by Mr Chadwick that a number of people around the streets have tried to trip him up as he has walked

Shit, I didn’t know that counts as torture. I think that would make me a torturer.

I note portions of the statements of claim are incoherent and thus impossible to follow. Some of the claims involve incredible allegations, for example, that the Government is able to manipulate time and the integrity of the physical world.

Now that is an incredible allegation, but can you rule it out? It might explain how the Government stays so popular!

Sideswipe reports:

How does Air New Zealand communicate what is, and more importantly what is not, appropriate behaviour on its new Skycouch, aka Cuddle Class? Well, the national carrier is suggesting this ad might do the trick … Get it?

Heh that is very funny.

“Through the guidance of family and friends he connected with the values of community and altruism at a young age. His commitment to school and sports teams over the years instilled in him an unrelenting hope for unity, observing that so much more can be accomplished when we work together…. speaking on the night of his election he declared that “This time must be different, this time we must take our conversation to more youth than ever before, knowing that we can be shapers of history not just in a few decades, but right now.”

Is this autobiographical quote from:

1. Winston Churchill
2. Keith Holyoake
3. Barack Obama
4. the 18 year old Auckland Chair of the Young Nationals

Charlie Brooker on how to make a news clip. It is spot on.

There are 10 types of people in the world, those that know binary and those that don’t.

Nat Torkington was wearing this t-shirt at Kiwi Foo Camp and I loved it. So close to reality!

You can order them from Despair.

Just watch it – first played during the Super Bowl.

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on the right. Photo from Sydney Daily Telegraph.

Captions below please.

A friend e-mailed this to me. I have excised the name of the poor seller!

Very funny. Hat Tip: Stuff

The Dom Post reports:

Momentum is building for more public funding for stomach-stapling operations, with at least four MPs showing the benefits of the procedure.

It is understood three National MPs have had the operation, which shrinks the stomach, dulls the appetite and usually leads to weight loss.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia led calls yesterday to boost public funding of the procedure after revealing she had already dropped 13 kilograms and shaken off her diabetes just nine weeks after having the $28,000 operation.

So many MPs have had stomch staples, I’ve quipped to a number of friends that I have found the solution to the MPs travel perks issues.

Instead of MP gaining greater and greater subsidies for international travel as they serve more terms, they should gain greater subsidies for stomach staple operations!

So after one term, an MP gets 25% off a stomach staple, 50% off after two terms, 75% off after three terms and after four terms (by which time the unhealthy lifestyle of an MP will have probably made such operation necessary) they get the operation for free!

And the public would be far happier seeing their MPs get stomach staple operations, than getting subsidised international travel.

I call it a win-win.

Tom Scott hits the mark!

From Predictably Irrational:

The order reflects the number of hits in Google!

Yes, David has posted about this but I just can’t walk away from it.

I’ve re-read the letters that Ms Mackie wrote to the Listener on the bare feet issue.  Her second letter certainly appears to be an apology of sorts, where she says:

“I realise that my initial address of this issue sounded rather and not-quite-ironically schoolmarmish and missionary-ish, and perhaps this tone, half tongue-in-cheek, contributed to the comprehensive misunderstanding of what I said there.”

The rest of her follow-up letter has quite a different tone to her first.  It is absurd to think that her public admonishment of a kiwi custom is enough to have her lose out on a promotion.  Methinks there was a little more going on.  It is good to see that Ms Mackie has a sense of humour about the whole situation.

Sadly, it’s not just visitors to New Zealand that look down their noses at practices that seem to me (and my fairly wide circle of friends) pretty damn ok.

I was recently told off by another parent for a ghastly act that I had never even considered could be detrimental to my child’s well-being.

My three year old and I were on our near daily ride to the shops.  We were wearing helmets.  We were even wearing shoes.  We were riding past the supermarket car park when a woman (with her two children snugly strapped into a trolley) stopped us by walking right in front of us.  She then told me off for… endangering my child’s health by riding in the rain.

For the record, it was a particularly warm day with a few sun showers.  Oh, and children freaking love playing in the rain.

Despite my extreme panic at being caught out for this terrible  act I did have enough in me to respond.

“Try having fun with your kids… it might give you some perspective”

And, we then rode on through the rain and had a lovely Mum-daughter moment.

The thing I like about a lot of Kiwis (of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, etc etc) is that we can just get on with things.  I get intolerant of the intolerant. That doesn’t make me politically correct.  May be Ms Mackie was seen to be overly intolerant of others and it wasn’t just a politically correct move to choose not to promote her. Or, may be she wasn’t the best candidate for the role and there were people who were more appropriately qualified.  Ahhh, the joys of making the news with limited information.  I suspect Ms Mackie’s case is a little like the pillow case (under the so-called anti-smacking legislation)… there appears to be a little more to this story than is presented.

Northern Districts had a new look for the season’s Twenty20 opening game.  Pink.  Very pink.  The new ND website , titled How Cricket changed my life, is also a totally new look for cricket in New Zealand.

Yes, I know you all know that the cricketers donned pink to raise awareness for breast cancer.  The marketers promoters organisers of the breast cancer awareness campaign have ensured that many products have turned pink.  And, I suppose Northern Districts sporting the pink goes with the Breast Cancer Foundation’s latest marketing lines that it isn’t just the woman who is affected, but her loved ones too.  After all, a lot of breast lumps are first found by boyfriends, husbands and the like.  However, wouldn’t it be lovely for Prostate Cancer to have a similar profile using sport as a medium?

The problem is that men wearing any other colour than pink just wouldn’t be enough to excite the media and masses to take notice.  Nor would our White Ferns donning another colour like blue or green be enough to to raise awareness of Prostate cancer.

The Pink/Breast Cancer brand is a strong one.  Perhaps the Prostate Cancer Foundation could learn a few things from the Breast Cancer Foundation… or may be they could hijack the pink branding.

Many charities deserve profile.  I applaud the Breast Cancer Foundation for always keeping abreast of things and busting through.  Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.

Northern Districts cricket continue to do great things in the community and selecting a charity to support just proves there is a caring side to sport (and they had a secret yearning to wear pink).