Kiwiblog

Words fail me, Hopefully not you, so make your comments below. As always captions should be funny, not nasty.

Some nice humour from Trans-Tasman on how party leaders would respond to the recent wintry blast:

John Key

Points out NZ experienced similar bouts of cold weather “pretty much every year, actually, under nine years of Labour. And they did NOTHING!” And then confuses winter with autumn.

David Shearer

“This hardworking bloke came up to me in a pub and told me he and his hard working family have done everything they can but they just can’t cope with these hard working winters any more hardworking.”

Russel Norman

Calls on the Reserve Bank to get one of those neat “smart, green” new 3-D printers so it can print out some more summer. 

Winston Peters

“Everyone knows where this weather came from, though few have the courage to say it. This weather comes from China.”

Peter Dunne

Issues discussion document on obscure tax rule which allows deductibility of small weather related expenses: says it is not actually Government policy yet because there might be some fishhooks IRD haven’t told him about.

John Banks

Can’t remember any weather, but says if there was any it was donated anonymously.

Tariana Turia

“Whanau Ora means we can draw on our histories as hunters, gatherers, growers to withstand the winter, and ….hmm. Can we put in a Waitangi claim for some decent thermals?”

Heh, not bad.

This video reminds me of a Xmas lunch many years ago at a cafe on Tinakori Road, and a woman was trying to parallel park her car outside the cafe. She was only marginally more successful that the woman in this video, and it probably didn’t help that she could see our group pissing ourselves with laughter.

However we were not laughing at her directly. One of the girls in teh group went outside to tell her why we were laughing. She told the joke which she had just told to us, which was “Why are women so bad at parallel parking?”. The punchline being “Because men tell them that this is six inches” while holding up two hands just a few cms apart.

As she repeated the joke to the woman, she cracked up laughing also. It still took her several more attempts to par the car though!

Kiwiblog has five double tickets to give away for Ewen Gilmour’s Midlife Circus at the San Francisco Bathhouse on the opening night of Tuesday 7 May. The show starts at 8.30 pm. the show blurb is:

Join Ewen as he regales you with tales about tattoos, motorbikes, beer, fast cars, overseas trips, beer, cholesterol, hearing aids, beer, glasses, prostate checks and beer.  Welcome to Ewen Gilmour’s Midlife Circus…

If you would like to attend, comment below and if you are one of the first five, then e-mail me your name and contact phone numbers so tickets can be reserved for you.

I’m attending the same night, and looking forward to it. A big fan of the Comedy Festival.

Hat Tip: Grumpollie

Charlie Gates at The Press reports:

A satirical website launched just two weeks ago by a Christchurch man has become an instant hit and is already being heralded as “New Zealand’s answer to The Onion”.

Former University of Canterbury student Ben Uffindell set up The Civilian as a sideline project, but its success has turned the website into his day job.

The irreverent, satirical site gets an average of 15,000 page views a day and already has more than 2000 likes on Facebook.

It’s very good. I’ve been enjoying it a lot.  Some satire is too laboured or try hard, bbut Ben has got the tone just right, in my opinion.

Definitely worth bookmarking.

A much more fun political party than the one I just blogged on below is the Canadian Rhino Party.

Operating within the tradition of political satire, the Rhinoceros Party’s basic credo, their so-called primal promise, was “a promise to keep none of our promises.”^[1] They then promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public.

And:

The party claimed to be the spiritual descendants of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhinoceros who was elected member of São Paulo‘s city council in 1958, and listed Cornelius the First, a rhinoceros from the Granby Zoo, east of Montreal, as its leader.^[4] It declared that the rhinoceros was an appropriate symbol for a political party since politicians, by nature, are “thick-skinned, slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out of the middle of their faces.”

I like their abortion policy:

A candidate named Ted “not too” Sharp ran in Flora MacDonald‘s Kingston and the Islands riding with the campaign slogan “Fauna, not flora“, promising to give fauna equal representation.^[8] He also took a stand on abortion (promising, if elected, never to have an abortion) and capital punishment: “If it was good enough for my grandfather, then it’s good enough for me.”

And defence policy:

To strengthen Canada’s military, Sharp planned to tow Antarctica north to the Arctic Circle. “Once we have Antarctica, we’ll control all of the world’s cold. If another Cold War starts, we’ll be unbeatable.”

And best of all:

Rather than awarding money as prizes in the lottery, the winners would be appointed to the Canadian Senate.

And kudos to Belgium:

Offering to call off the proposed Belgium-Canada war if Belgium delivered a case of mussels and a case of Belgian beer to Rhinoceros “Hindquarters” in Montreal (the Belgian Embassy in Ottawa did, in fact, do this)

The war was due to Tintin having shot a rhinoceros!

This is old, but I hadn’t seen it before. A very good parody of the ALAC TV ad.

Hat Tip: Sideswipe

Very good.

NZ Herald reports:

An online Christmas Cracker promotion has landed Air New Zealand in trouble, with some accusing the company of transphobia.

The controversial campaign, run through the airline’s Grabaseat website, gave people the chance to win prizes and those who failed received a consolation joke instead.

One of these jokes read: “What large heavy ball was responsible for Valerie Adams’ gold medal? The Belarusian’s left testicle.” …

“This joke is unbelievably offensive, transphobic and just plain unnecessary. Really poor form,” wrote one Twitter user.

Another said she would like to see an “immediate apology” and a donation to a Lesbian Bisexual Gay Transgender programme.

Oh, lighten up. Let’s just ban humour. And please can we not have stories that just quote “one Twitter user” and “another”. Would you run a story quoting an unnamed talkback caller?

Here’s my views on this sort of humour. If someone has a characteristic they have no control over, then it can be pretty mean to mock them for it. So you don’t mock people for their race, sex, height, weight, sexual orientation, appearance etc (unless they are mates, and it is good natured).

However you can mock people for choices they make. If someone chooses to be a Scientologist I’ll mock them for that. If someone chooses to dye their hair blue I’ll mock them for that.

Now if Ostapchuk had been born looking very masculine with high levels of testosterone  then it would be rather cruel to mock her for it. She can’t control her genes. But she CHOOSE to take the steroid metenolone, in order to beat Valerie Adams. Metenolone mimics testosterone and gives those taking it male characteristics such as more muscle, deeper voices, and hirsutism.

So I’m sorry but if you take metenolone, then you are fair game for jokes about testicles. That’s the price of trying to cheat and making a bad choice. The situation is not the same as someone who is born with masculine features but is a woman.

Again the principle is very simple – don’t mock people for what they can’t control – but if someone chooses to take steroids to cheat at sports – they are fair game.

Terry at The Conservative is upset with Harvard. Why?

First with their approval of a bondage club, and the second with a flyer sent by one of their single-sex social groups inviting people to their club which included the following statement: ’Jews need not apply.’ ‘Seriously, no f*****g Jews.’

I think a bondage club is an excellent campus club. Much more useful than a debating club where all they do is talk and argue. All the Vic DebSoc members would be far better employed to get their kink on, than spend an hour arguing for and against paid parental leave!

But what about this Jew hating club? Well here is the pamphlet for it:

Terry comments:

You will notice these liberals—when exposed to media attention—try to pass off the Jew hate as satirical.

Umm, I don’t think anyone could read the above flyer and not think it is satirical.

I’m reasonably sensitive to anti-semitism but I actually think the flyer is hilarious – it is satirising anti-semitism like Southpark does.

This is very funny.

UPDATE: As expected David Cunliffe has been sacked from the shadow cabinet, being removed from the front bench and his portfolios. David Shearer was unanimously backed in caucus and optimistically claims Labour is now totally united behind him. Never mind so many of his colleagues are keeping their position reserved for the real vote in February.

In tribute to the wonderful pre-election Cats that look like David Cunliffe page, here is the updated cat that looks like David Cunliffe following today’s caucus meeting.

We also have these photos taken just before the caucus meeting.

And the final photo was taken during the caucus meeting!

Scott Yorke blogs at Imperator Fish:

A Day In The Life Of Sherwin T. McFadden, Broadcaster And Blogger

7:29 am

Was that the door? Oh my God, they’re here! I knew that one day the fascists in their jackboots and brown shirts would smash down my door and take me away. Didn’t I warn everyone that this was where it was all going to lead? This is all the mainstream media’s fault. They wouldn’t have dared to come here if only TVNZ had given me my own show.

Why didn’t the fools listen to me? Damn you, mainstream media!

7:35 am

So it turns out that the knock on the door was a courier, here to deliver the John Pilger book I ordered online.

“Can I get your signature?” he asked me as he handed me the parcel.

I don’t often get asked for an autograph, but I’m always happy to make a fan’s day. It’s hard to believe that when I pitched my hard-hitting current affairs show to TV3 they told me I didn’t have enough of a public profile. Ha!

“Do you watch my show, or are you a follower of my blog?” I asked the courier.

“I don’t know who the f**k you are, mister,” he replied. “Just sign for the parcel, so I can get going.”

I could tell he was a Nazi the moment he pulled up in his van.

9:42 am

The ratings are due out today for my hard-hitting current affairs show, Sherwin Says. It’s on every week on Freeview channel 418, and I provide commentary on the issues of the day, asking the questions everyone in the mainstream media is afraid to ask.

Last week I eviscerated John Key’s government, labelling its members “a band of crazies sucking at the neoliberal crack pipe”. I would love to have seen the look on John Key’s face when his advisers ran to his office to report what I’d said. 

11:16 am

The TV ratings are rigged! It’s just another scam engineered by a corrupt elite to shut down dissent. As soon as anyone challenges the existing power structures they get squashed.

 There’s no way my show had only four viewers last month. They won’t stop my crusade! 

1:21 pm

I can’t believe Nate Silver is getting all the credit for predicting an Obama victory. In an exclusive piece on my blog way back in October I picked Obama to win, not that most people would know. Of course the elites in power are determined to ignore me, because they know the mayhem I would cause. One day the public will awaken from their slumbers and realise that their country has been taken from them by the rich, the powerful and the greedy. And I shall be there to help them take it back, reporting every moment of the action on my blog for posterity.

1:34 pm

Bryce Edwards has again failed to include any of my blogposts in his daily politics round-up.

His decision to ignore my powerful post John Key is evil and kills children was obviously deliberate. He’s part of the problem, not the solution, now that he works for the Herald.

4:08 pm

Spent most of the afternoon blocking people on Twitter, defriending people of Facebook, banning people from my blog, and writing a blogpost attacking various other bloggers and commentators on the left. The only thing worse than a right wing stooge is a leftie who has a different shade of opinion to mine.

I once offered to combine blog forces with The Standard, but they turned me down. Well it’s their loss. They’re just a bunch of tired Labour party hacks too scared to speak truth to power. Their politics disgust me, and I suspect them of being class enemies, one and all.

Why won’t they let me do a guest post? 

5:51 pm

That loathsome Whaleoil needs to be stopped. That obnoxious fascist clown and his National Party shill David Farrar represent everything that’s wrong with the world.

And have you seen their blog traffic? It’s so unfair!

The Manawatu Standard headline:

 Shearer worked while claiming sickness benefit

Alas about a shearer, not Shearer

Mountain Scene reports:

Prime Minister uncut in Queenstown

On Kim Dotcom: “That bloke might have Megaupload.com but I’ve got Megaballsup.com. Anyway, it’s great to be here at The Hills. Frankly, after the week I’ve had it’s great to be anywhere other than Wellington.”

Heh. The domain is available for registration.

On the Labour Party: “We’re here to do the opening of the sculpture, The Wolves are Coming. It sounds like the Labour Party.”

On Sir Michael Hill giving him a red ribbon to cut: “I didn’t give [you] a knighthood to be voting Labour, Michael.”

On Deputy Prime Minister Bill English: “He is the shareholding Minister of Air New Zealand which is the airline that failed to get me here.” [Key’s plane was diverted to Dunedin.]

That’s taking ministerial responsibility to a new level!

I bet you many others have wanted to do this. David Thorne in response to HR asking him to complete a self-evaluation form:

Yes, I looked at it. Then I flipped it over and used the blank pages to draw pictures of Simon performing oral sex on a whale. Please find attached.

There seemed little point going through the embarrassing and transparent process of writing down what an exceptional employee I am in the hope of receiving some form of monetary based pat on the head. It might be suggested that someone working in the HR department of an agency with a total of eight other employees would have a vague working knowledge of who those employees are and how exceptional, average or piss-poor they are at their job. Especially if she has sat in on every weekly production meeting for the last year and her only other role is to design forms and make people fill out forms.

 As such, accepting that you already know how dreadful I am to have around, the fact that I haven’t been fired yet must speak volumes for the quality of my work and a big raise is probably in order.

HR insisted he fill it in, and so he did to great comic effect as you’ll see at the link.

Stuff reports:

A mysterious low-pitched humming sound has been troubling some Wellington residents for the last few days and it seems no-one has any idea what it might be.

The Wellington City Council has had several calls over the past few days with the most recent being about 5am today.

Spokesman Richard MacLean said the complaints had been coming in from Mt Victoria, Newtown and Mt Cook residents. “We are interested to hear if this starts to become a constant thing. We are keeping our ear to the ground.”

It’s just feedback from the underground surveillance system, as they change frequencies to go digital!

Taken by a reader this morning. The Police are onto it!

Scott Yorke blogs the diary of a unnamed Labour Party strategist and time traveller:

3 January 49 B.C:  My latest assignment is proving to be a real delight. Rome’s a fascinating town, and I have been deeply impressed with the way the governing classes in this Roman Republic conduct themselves. The men of the Senate are vexed by Caesar’s demands, but I have assured them they have nothing to worry about. Caesar will not dare cross the Rubicon into Italy, because if he does so he will be at war with the Roman state. His men will desert him, rather than be crushed by Pompey’s armies. Caesar may be a useful general, but he has neither the courage nor the tactical nous of his opponent.

1 January 43 B.C: That Cicero fellow’s a genius. He’s not just a great orator and writer, but a perceptive and clever politician. He’s got that foolish upstart boy Octavian wrapped around his finger, and Mark Antony is running scared. I predict a long and glorious future for the Roman Republic, under the wise stewardship of Marcus Tullius Cicero. …

1 June 1876: Just appointed to the staff of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer. I have already drawn up a battle plan, and I’m confident of a swift victory. …

29 September 1938:  I told Neville just to sign the damn piece of paper. Nobody wants to go to war over a small central European country with a name nobody can spell, least of all the Germans. It will keep them quiet, and we can be assured of gloriously ruling the waves for another fifty years. Neville demurs, and worries that the Germans may simply demand more territory; but where would they go? The Polish cavalry will overrun them if they move east, and if they attack France they’ll be broken on the Maginot Line. I had to remind Neville that our staunch allies, the French, have the most powerful army in the world.

12 August 2012: Those were some times, I tell you! Now it’s time to get back to work. I’ve got some great ideas to share with David and the team.

Heh, very good.

Stuff reports:

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson says having identical homes could bring down the costs of building new houses but he told the social services select committee that New Zealanders might not be ready for such a culture change.

Labour MP Jacinda Ardern said the concept already existed in New Zealand. “It’s called Hamilton.”

Heh. Sort of true.

Meeting a couple of friends at Circa to see the Beat Girls. My mate texted me to see where I was, as I was a bit late. His exact words were “Where are you, cunt?”.

The only problem is he didn’t send it to me but by mistake to his ex-wife!

Sent in by a reader.

This is very funny. Hat Tip: Dim Post

I suspect the cops laughed also.