Kiwiblog

This is very enjoyable. It’s pro-Obama, but done in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Two Jews are walking down the road when a stunningly attractive woman walks past them. They both turn their heads to look at her walking away from then and the first Jew says to the other Jew “Man, I’d love to lend her one”

Fleggaard is a retailer in Germany that sells cheap stuff to Danes. Their commercials have become legendary amongst Danes and the one above has been subbed by some the best commercial ever made!

NSFW but very amusing.

And just to be even handed, this one may appeal more to female readers.

A young guy manages to hack the teleprompter of a TV station, editing what they are saying live on air to around one million viewers. He speed the speed up at one stage and then had them announce he had won a nobel prize for engineering but was unable to pick it up as he had a date with the female presenter!

What a great prank. Someone should hire him!

UPDATE: Damn – it is fake – see comments. What a pity.

Both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are no longer available on Sky, on the NZ Comedy Central channel.

Aaaaarrrrgh.

I don’t know who made the decision, but I’d like to shoot them. Both those shows were on my daily record series.

If you want to help push for their return, you can join the Facebook Group asking for that.

And people wonder why people use bit torrent? I pay almost $100/month to Sky so I can legally view overseas content such as the Daily Show. Take away my only legal way of viewing it, and well what a great incentive you give me.

The HoS headlne:

Paul Henry talks his way into trouble

The issue is:

TVNZ is investigating four complaints after its controversial Breakfast frontman repeatedly mispronounced the name of Delhi’s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit. Newsreader Peter Williams interjected, saying her name was pronounced “Dixit”. But Henry was undeterred and continued, with rollicking laughter.

Paul Henry is being unfairly picked on here. I’d say every radio channel in New Zealand has also done the same thing – with said laughter also.

New Zealand Indian Central Association president Paul Singh Bains said it was a cheap shot. “It wasn’t in good taste, making that kind of comment,” he said. “Sometimes he makes lighthearted comments but when you do it at the expense of other nations it’s not so respectful. The media should be cautious when making cheap shots.”

Oh don’t be so precious. It certainly is a cheap shot, but not at the expense of a nation.

If a New Zealand Minister had a surname, which had s spelling that resembled a rude word in another language, we would not feel insulted as a nation. We’d probably find it hilarious also.

The Daily Telegraph reports that a London borough is warning against mother-in-law jokes as they are “offensively sexist” and ageist.

Sigh. They should watch Southpark, if they really want to see offensive humour.

and back home, the Dom Post reports:

Islamic community leaders have written to Prime Minister John Key demanding Building Minister Maurice Williamson apologise for jokes he made about Muslims.

The Federation of Islamic Associations New Zealand sent the letter more than a week ago but has yet to receive a response. At the time Mr Key played down the jokes, saying Mr Williamson was known for his humour.

President Anwar Ghani said New Zealand Muslims were “very upset” about the intolerant remarks and were happy the federation was raising it officially.

I’ve often praised the Federation, for their moderate leadership. I think they play a constructive role in NZ society.

But on this issue, I think they are being rather too precious. Let us look at the two jokes Maurice told.

The first was a weather joke about how it was sunni in the morning, and shiite in the afternoon.  Now the joke is very lame, but it certainly can’t be offensive. It is merely a play on how two well known sub-sets of Islam sound.

The second was a joke aimed at both Kiwis and Muslims, saying Kiwis get stoned and committ adultery and Muslims commit adultery and then get stoned.

Now I well accept that many Muslims may have found that joke distasteful. But why? Because, there is a degree of truth to it. In Iran, a woman is facing death by stoning for adultery – underIslamic sharia law.

What is truly offensive is that Iran is planning to do this. Not that on the other side of the world, a joke was made about it.  Should not the anger be directed at Iran for bring Islam into disrespute by such barbaric practices?

Has the NZ Federation of Islamic Associations written to the Iranian Government urging them not to stone the woman to death? Wouldn’t that be far more productive than shooting the messenger?

There is one mildly unfortunate part of the joke – it suggests Kiwis and Muslims are two seperate groups, and of course they are not. There are many proud Kiwi Muslims. But it was a joke, not a speech. Like billboards, you can’t always be precise in a limited space, and the wording is sort of necessary for the joke.Maybe it would have been better as a joke about Australians and Iranians?

But please let us not turn our MPs into drones who are too scared to have a sense of humour.

It is good to be able to laugh at yourself. Compare these two responses to cartoons.

The response to the Danish cartoons featuring Mohammod, was death threats, violent protests, burnings etc.

Th Iranian President then decided to launch a cartoon competition about the Holocaust. He hoped it would show the West is hypocritical. But he was disappointed. Rather than try to stop his cartoon competition, scores and scores of Israeli and Jewish cartoonists entered it. A brilliant response, which totally undermined what the Iranian President tried to do.

Started by the fake Paul Holmes twitter account, no less.

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23surnamegenitalia

• Frodo’s Baggins
• Alan’s bollard.
• John’s Key
• Elizabeth’s Windsor
• Phil’s goff
• Mel’s gibson
• Charlotte’s dawson
• Ann’s coulter
• Cameron’s slater
• Russell’s brand
• Vladimir’s Putin
• Simon’s power
• Halle’s berry
• Nelly’s furtado
• Farrah’s fawcett
• Nicole’s whippy
• Paul’s henry
• Pippa’s wetzell

More are coming at at the rate of several a minute. Oh I do love Twitter.

Stuff reports:

Building Minister Maurice Williamson cracked jokes about Muslims at an awards ceremony – just days before he accused Kiwis of racism over foreign ownership.

So what. First of all learn the difference between a religion and a race. Secondly cracking a joke about a race does not mean you are a racist.

I hate this desire some people seem to have, to turn MPs into bland robots that never show any personality or sense of humour.

Mr Williamson climbed on stage to present two awards and asked MC Oscar Kightley, the Samoan star of Sione’s Wedding, if his “papers were in order”.

Heh.

He went on to tell jokes making fun of Islam. One asked: “What is the difference between Muslims and Kiwis? Muslims get to commit adultery and get stoned, Kiwis get stoned and commit adultery.”

Some jokes can be hateful, or nasty. This was not one of them.

Mr Williamson also quipped about the weather being “Shi’ite in the morning and Sunni in the afternoon,” a reference to the two main denominations of the religion.

Heh. Personally I regard it as a good thing when one can tell jokes about a religion.

I once told a joke about how in heaven you get a better car, if you have never committed adultery, and the punchline was about Father McDonald rolling along on a skateboard. Does that denigate Catholics – of course not.

Kightley, a member of the comedy group Naked Samoans who write the animated series bro’Town, said he thought the remark directed at him was “a bit fresh”.

“I guess me, as an MC, was a natural target. He said it on stage. It didn’t really offend me. The last person you’d expect it from is the minister.”

Kightley said Mr Williamson’s performance seemed to go down well with the crowd. “As I recall he was very funny and the crowd liked it. I doubt he would have made those jokes in another setting.”

Of course, you choose your setting. In celebrity debates, almost anything goes. If you are an MC at function, you get to push the limit a bit. If you are the graduation speaker at a capping ceremony, then lave most of your jokes at home.

At the time, he didn’t think Mr Williamson had been drinking. “Someone told me later he’d had a few, but I didn’t think he was stumbling or slurring or anything. He was in fine fettle. But he was definitely in a nice and relaxed and jovial mood.”

I wasn’t at that event, but have been at many debates and the like with Maurice, and I can testify he does not need a drop of alcohol to let loose with a barrage of jokes.

Mr Williamson refused to comment last night. “I’m in a meeting about the Christchurch earthquake with a whole lot of people and can’t actually talk to you,” he said.

When approached later by a reporter and asked repeatedly about the remarks he walked away.

As he should. MPs should front up and answer questions on policy, on issues of substance. But why give any credibility to such a nonsense story.

Other guests said they believed Mr Williamson was drinking at the ceremony.

One said he thought the remarks were “not appropriate”.

“To be honest he was trying to be a bit of a lad.

“I couldn’t tell you he offended anyone. It was a load of builders. It was right at the end of the night and there was quite a lot of alcohol.”

So, no one actually claims they were offended. The worst quote they can find from someone is Maurice was a bit of a lad, at a conference of builders.

The problem with stories like this, is they turn MPs into dull automatons, who never say or do anything.

news.co.au reported:

What a superb photo. I love the look on the dog’s face.

Hat Tip: No Minister

Very watchable attack ad on Obama. The production quality is excellent.

For those who have not seen it.

Great humour, as usual, from The Chaser.

Did you hear that David Bain has finally got a job?

(more…)

If you thought the Electoral Finance Act was bad enough, it is even worse in Brazil:

Brazilian TV and radio broadcasters are legally forbidden from making fun of candidates ahead of the nation’s October 3 election.

With the first wave of on-air political adverts starting today, Brazil’s comedians and satirists are planning to fight for their right to ridicule with protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities next Monday.

They call the political anti-joking law – which prohibits ridiculing candidates in the three months before elections – a draconian relic of Brazil’s dictatorship era that threatens free speech and is a blight on the reputation of Latin America’s largest nation.

But believe it or not some politicians defend it:

Proponents of the restrictions say they keep candidates from being portrayed unfairly, help ensure a level playing field and encourage candour by candidates.

Which party in New Zealand would be most likely to support such a law I wonder?

The effects of such a law in New Zealand would be fascinating I suspect Jane Clifton and Claire Trevett would end up sharing a jail cell

Danyl at the Dim Post would be in solitary confinement.

Of all the topics, this poll graph would be for same sex marriage – hilarious

War is a Crime blogs a transcript of how Bush and Cheney pulled off 9/11, as alleged by the “911 truthers”:

Cheney: No, we bomb the World Trade Center and blame it on Osama bin Laden.

Feith: Oh. How?

Cheney: Easy. First, we cultivate 19 suicidal Muslim patsies from a variety of Middle Eastern countries, I’d say mostly from Saudi Arabia. We bring them to the U.S., train them at U.S. flight schools. They should be high-profile terrorist suspects who are magically given free reign by the security agencies to travel back and forth to various terrorist training camps to study passenger jet piloting. Actually that process is already underway now. Our friends in the Clinton administration are seeing to it that four groups of Arab men are being brought along by the FBI and the CIA.

Wolfowitz: How is it that the Clinton administration is already helping us with this, when we haven’t even planned this yet?

Cheney: They just are. Okay?

Wolfowitz: Okay, fine. And what do we do with these hijackers?

Cheney: We sit idly by while they plot to hijack a series of passenger jet planes and crash them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the White House.

Wolfowitz: And how do we get them to do that?

Cheney: We just do. You see, we worked with these people back in the old mujahadeen days in Afghanistan. So naturally we’re still thick as thieves with them.

Feith: Oh, of course. So we get them to fly into these buildings. And the impact from the planes will bring down the World Trade Center.

Cheney: No, Doug, dammit, you’re not following me. The impact from the planes most certainly won’t be sufficient to knock down the Towers. We know this because we’ve privately conducted studies which show that the Towers will easily be able to withstand impact by two jets loaded to the gills with jet fuel. That said, the jets will likely cause skyscraper fires hot enough to kill everyone above the point of impact; we’re going to have to assume, of course, that the exits from the higher floors to the lower floors will be mostly blocked after the collisions. So assuming we crash the planes about two-thirds of the way up each of the towers early on a business day, we’re looking at trapping and killing a good three, four, maybe even five thousand people on the upper floors.

Feith: Fantastic. I love killing people in the finance industry. It’s too bad the people on the lower floors will get to escape.

Cheney: It is too bad — especially since we’re going to blow up the rest of the building complex anyway.

Feith: We are?

Cheney: Yes. You see, the way I see it, our best course of action is to first crash planes into each the towers, trapping and killing those thousands on the upper floors of each building. After the impact, of course, the people on the lower floors will find their way out of the building and on to the street, where they will achieve relative safety — at which point we’ll finally detonate the massive network of explosive charges we’ve secretly hidden in the buildings in the weeks and months prior to the attacks.

As hilarious as these are – the sad thing is tens of thousands of people actually believe this is what happened.

Feith: So why don’t we detonate the charges earlier, so that we can kill the people on the lower floors, too?

Cheney: That’s a good question. At some point we have to sacrifice effect for believability. You see, if the planes crash into the buildings and the buildings immediately collapse, everyone will be suspicious and they’ll immediately be onto the presence of the explosives. So what we have to do is let the planes crash into the building, give the jet fuel time to start fires that will “soften” the building core, and then we detonate the charges. Afterwards, we’ll be able to argue that the fires coupled with the impact actually caused the buildings to collapse.

Feith: Why will we be able to argue that? Didn’t our studies show that impact and fire alone wouldn’t have caused the buildings to collapse?

Cheney: Those were our secret, far-more-advanced studies, done with secret, far-more-advanced military technology. The vast majority of the world’s civilian structural engineers, however, can be counted on after the incident to conclude that the buildings collapsed due to a combination of fire, impact, and the knocking off of fireproofing from the building beams.

Feith: Why can they be counted on to conclude that?

Cheney: Because that’s what our secret research shows their not-secret research will show! Jesus Christ, work with me on this, will you?

I love Cheney’s lines.

Wolfowitz: I think I get it. We crash the planes, kill everyone above the impact of the planes, let the people underneath the impact out to safety, then collapse the buildings about an hour or so later using the explosives that we pointlessly incurred months and weeks worth of career- and life-threatening risk to covertly plant in a building complex visited by hundreds of thousands of people every week.

Cheney: Exactly! The actual deaths will mostly be caused by the planes. But we’ll incur the massive additional risk simply to destroy the building, for effect, because it will look cool and scary on television.

Again, this is what some people believe.

The Southland Times reports:

Bronwyn Fox knows where she is from but has no idea where her accent originated.

The Invercargill woman believes she has foreign accent syndrome – a rare condition believed to be caused by damage to the part of the brain that controls speech.

Fewer than 100 people in the world have been officially documented as suffering from the syndrome, which leaves them speaking with an alien accent.

In the case of Mrs Fox, it is a mixture of Welsh, Scottish and North London accents.

Jim Bolger was famous for subconsciously adopting the accent of whichever foreign leader he was speaking to. Maybe this is the reason why – he had “foreign accent syndrome”

A friend e-mailed this to me. Heh.

The HoS reports:

A top TV star unleashed a racist outburst at a high-profile media event this week – claiming that “Jews were expendable”.

David Fane, one of the creators of bro’Town, told an audience including Jason Gunn, Mike Hosking, Kate Hawkesby and John Tamihere, that “Hitler had a right” and HIV sufferers deserved to be “roasted”.

Now I am quicker than most to condemn anti-semitic remarks, but I do not think in this case he was being anti-semitic. Read on:

Fane made the tirade on Wednesday night at the inaugural Radio Roast at the exclusive Northern Club in Auckland.

He said: “You are the worst motherf*****s in the world, you agency guys,” referring to advertising bosses in the audience.

He said: “I want to eat you, but I won’t because I don’t want to get HIV. Would you roast an HIV person? You’d roast them because they’re expendable. Like the Jews. Hitler had a right, you know.

“You’ve all got f****** Aids, c****!”

I’ve bolded the key point – it was a roast. If people don’t know what roasts are like watch any of the celebrity roasts on Comedy Central. They consist of comedians going out of their way to be as offensive as possible to the guests and audience. What Fane said there is mild in comparison to some of the celebrity roasts on TV.

The outburst has sparked outrage in New Zealand’s Jewish community and among Aids health advocates.

New Zealand Jewish Council president Stephen Goodman demanded that Fane and his employers apologise.

He said the speech had parallels to Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic outburst in 2006.

“It is a very anti-Semitic statement,” said Goodman. “While we wish to preserve the rights to freedom of speech he went over the line.”

Goodman said the comment was heightened by the fact Fane was a role model.

“He is entitled to hold his own opinion and if this is what he truly believes, he should just keep his mouth closed.”

No he should not apologise because (unlike Mel Gibson) he was not expressing his beliefs. What he said was not his own opinion – it was deliberately offensive humour as part of a roast.

Now people may not like roast humour – but they can choose not to go to it, or watch it. But there is a big difference between offensive humour and true anti-semitism, racism etc.

Kevin Rudd’s Downfall – The best video clips are here

Someone did this quickly. One of the better ones.

Clarke is superb.

Superb as usual:

Foreign Minister Murray McCully has been severely reprimanded by Chinese Ambassador Zhang Limin for exercising poor judgement when using his Ministerial credit card, the Chinese Embassy announced today.

Previously Prime Minister John Key has defended McCully’s $2000 laundry bill and high alcohol expenditure but the Chinese Ambassador has overruled Key’s position, calling McCully’s spending ‘unseemly and non-magnificent’, and issuing a formal reprimand of the Foreign Minister.

‘We feel the Minister’s level of decadence is inappropriate and counter-revolutionary,’ the Ambassador announced. ‘This behaviour is not acceptable from Party functionaries and will not be tolerated.’

McCully has accepted the censure and thanked the Ambassador for his criticism. ‘Only through the wisdom of his Excellency can I reform my thoughts and become a better servant,’ McCully told reporters, speaking from a pool of mud outside his home where he has kneeled prostrate since receiving the rebuke yesterday. ‘I am chastened but also joyful and eternally grateful.’ …

… ‘We thank McCully for his good and faithful assistance in enlightening Dr Norman’s speech,’ the Ambassador said in his statement. ‘With great perseverance and skillful self-discipline the Snail will once again enjoy the favor of the Dragon.’

To ensure widespread coverage of the censure Chinese Embassy officials decreed that publication of the statement was mandatory for all media outlets. The Dim-Post is joyful to be of service in this matter.

I trust all blogs will comply with the mandatory reporting.

Danyl is dangerous when bored:

Labour Party MP Pete Hodgson will be leaving Parliament to travel back in time and attack the reputation of Prime Minister John Key as a young boy, senior Labour sources announced today.

The Dunedin North MP plans to establish a new identity in the past where he can be close to the future Prime Minister – possibly as a teacher or friend of the Key family – and accumulate enough evidence to permanently damage Key’s reputation and preclude him from entering politics and becoming leader of the National Party.

‘We believe that as a ten year old child Key was involved in illegal currency speculation that badly damaged the New Zealand economy,’ Hodgson said. ‘We also have information suggesting that at about this time Key and his friend Derek shoplifted a pornographic magazine from a local dairy.’

‘I believe these crimes are related,’ Hodgson added. ‘My goal back in 1971 will be to piece together the evidence and present them to the New Zealand public. They will know that slippery John Key is not to be trusted even if the people of today will not. If I am successful the voters of 2008 will never even know Key’s name! How will you spin that Crosby/Textor?’

The Prime Minister refused to comment on Labour’s plan, saying only that he would be sad to see Mr Hodgson leave Parliament and adding that the Dunedin MP reminded him of an elderly man who lived next door to him as a child. ‘I don’t remember his name though,’ Key said.

Court records indicate a P Hidgson lived across the road from the Key family in Burnside during the early 1970s. He was later arrested in the United States attempting to blow up the headquarters of Merril Lynch in New York in 1981.

‘I often wondered what happened to that crafty old guy,’ Key chuckled. ‘He really had it in for me, always hatching some scheme to get me into trouble. When I think about it I wouldn’t be here today if I wasn’t for that sense of cunning and strategy he cultivated in me as a boy.’

I almost hurt myself from the laughter reading this one.