The Herald has done an article on John Key on holiday, using a series of photogrphs taken at a distance by presumably a paparazzi.

Key is no longer PM. He has retired. He is a backbencher. The reason he retired was to have more time with his family and he should be able to do that without the Herald paying a photographer to take long distance photos of him and Bronagh at a swimming pool, having lunch, filling up a car with petrol etc.

The Herald may claim they did not commission the photos but were offered them, but there is no doubt they would have paid for them, and paparazzi only take photos of people when they think someone will pay for them.

Key was fair go (to a degree) when he was Prime Minister. He and Bronagh should now be left alone on his holidays. The Herald should respect his right to a private life and not run any such photos in future.

If you need a reminder of why Islamic State must be defeated, just read this story.

By Senor John Stringer formerly “coNZervative” (and perhaps again).

Really nice today. Argentina is hot but not muggy like Australia or Asia (“It’s a dry heat”) so we set forth across Buenos Aries to see as much as we could including Eva (Evita) Peron’s grave.

Below: Typical street in Buenos Aries (immediately outside our hotel). The chairs and tables disappear completely after closing and you’d never know they’d been there. I also like their pavements; we should do this in Christchurch and salvage/recycle some of the broken limestone and brick of the damaged city into our sidewalks.

Buenos Aries was founded in the 1500s; but at the turn of the nineteenth century the local aristocracy really loved Europe and after Independence in the 1860s wanted to make their capital like Paris; so they demolished many of the Spanish Colonial buildings as “part of the past” such as this historic one above on famous May Square – one of the few left standing  (which housed the Police and Army and Government) – and rebuilt European architectural buildings in French and Italian style (as seen ringing Central Park in New York) with cupolas and lots of limestone sculptural elements (very attractive).

You can view this odd fusion in the building immediately above with the Corinthian columns and Athenian Classical pediment. This is actually a Roman Catholic Basilica but looks nothing like a church – it is simply an aping of Greek architecture transferred via European neo-classicism (like the White House and American monumental architecture is neo-classical; originally the Greek temples and columns were gaudy and brightly-painted. This is ironic as the traditionally poor Argentinian indigenous architecture is also gaudy (lots of reds and yellows and pinks etc) more like the original Classical buildings of 450BC. But the paint bleached white over the eons and was mimicked by Western culture during the Renaissance and Classical Revival periods in Europe and later America as an aesthetic of respectability and power and culture including the broken arms of sculptural pieces as on the Venus De Milo.

Above: typical poor Argentinian indigenous architecture of the Porta area made of materials from the port which explains the different colours (whatever they could get hold of). The images of power are relative. This gaudiness was power in ancient Greece and Persia; the bleached white ruins and broken sculptures of that lost era became their own aesthetic and imagery of power today as seen on any bank or governmental building in the West. But it’s a myth.

Below is the famous Buenos Aries opera house one of the great opera houses of the world. It drips external ornamental sculpture in the round.

And below is the only building on the historic “9 de Julio Ave” (9th July Avenue) their Independence Day that transects Buenos Aries.  The Avenue was built like the Champs Elysees to ape Paris and this building is the only address on the Avenue because it is flanked by several streets so there are literally no buildings or addresses on this historic central boulevard itself (once touted as the widest avenue in the world). This building is our equivalent of the Ministry of Social Welfare or Winz so I note the fencing outside to perhaps prevent shootings (such as we had at the Winz office in Ashburton)? Ministerios De Salud Desarroli Social.

As you can see Spanish is easy to follow and work out when you’re wandering about.  Speaking of the White House below the Desarroli Social is the Argentinian equivalent of the White House -the office of the Argentinian President – The Pink House.  It’s named in the same way as the American President’s house – just literally. The fact it is “pink” is interesting.

When it was first built the Argentinians wanted to make it waterproof and protect it from the ravages of the BA climate.  So the stone was white-washed with a mixture of white paint, limestone and cow’s blood which is what gives it its pinkish hue (a common practice in the late nineteenth century when these buildings were made). Argentina is a huge exporter of beef so there was lots of blood about. Later the colour was retained as paint and it has remained “the Pink House” as in “the White House” in Washington DC ever since.

More of those ‘Spanish Inquistional’ bollards.

The poor of Argentina (or are they contractors?) can be seen processing rubbish like this into recyclable constituent parts. We observed these men ripping the paper from spiral binders and other office rubbish that I guess they collate and get paid for. This was something we saw in South Korea too except mainly older people did that. Our NZ system of wheelie bins and homeowners doing this suits the more egalitarian cultural myths of New Zealand (ie we would never tolerate a “class” of people doing that for us).

Tomorrow: the famous bookshop I mentioned and Buenos Aries’ top tourist destination and Eva Peron’s grave.  ~ J.

The Herald reports:

Better relations with Maori mean protests at Waitangi are no longer nationally relevant and many New Zealanders have cringed at recent events, Prime Minister Bill English says.

English today announced he would not attend Waitangi events at Te Tii Marae – saying it isn’t acceptable to him that he can attend but not speak.

Fair enough. It’s insulting to expect the head of government to attend an event but not have full speaking rights.

Little committed to attending Waitangi commemorations if elected prime minister, regardless of whether he was granted speaking rights.

Enjoy that, if you get the chance.

Ngapuhi leader Kingi Taurua also said English’s no show was disappointing, and said if the Prime Minister didn’t attend he had no right to talk about the Treaty of Waitangi.

“Whatever the Prime Minister thinks, I don’t give a damn. All I am there for is to commemorate the signatories…if Bill English has no commitment to that, then don’t talk about the Treaty of Waitangi ever again.”

You’re the plonker who demanded restrictions on speaking rights so don’t complain when you get the consequences.

English said that after the issues surrounding Key’s attendance last year, his office sought clarification from marae kaumatua that he would be welcomed, with speaking rights.

“My office was advised I could attend the powhiri but not speak – conditions which are not acceptable to me. While I thank the marae committee for their invitation I will take the opportunity to attend commemorative events to celebrate this important day elsewhere.”

English said he had accepted an invitation from the 60 iwi who comprise the Iwi Chair’s Forum to lead a delegation of ministers to Waitangi on February 3.

So he will be at Waitangi in advance of Waitangi Day, and meeting and negotiating with Iwi leaders. But not there for the shouting part.

Stuff reports:

Nearly five years ago, Irish-American billionaire Charles F “Chuck” Feeney promised that by the end of 2016, he was going to hand out the last his fortune.

It was a race: Feeney was then 81, and Atlantic Philanthropies, a collection of private foundations he had started and funded, still had about US$1.5 billion left. …

He had officially emptied his pockets, meeting his aspiration of “giving while living”. Altogether, he had contributed US$8 billion to his philanthropies, which have supported higher education, public health, human rights and scientific research.

“You’re always nervous handling so much money, but we seem to have worked it pretty well,” Feeney, now 85, said last week in a phone interview.

His remaining personal net worth is slightly more than US$2 million. That’s not quite broke, by any standard, but it is a modest amount for a man who controlled thousands of times as much wealth. He and his wife, Helga, now live in a rented apartment in San Francisco.

So he gave away 99.98% of his wealth.

Until he was 75, he travelled only in coach, and carried reading materials in a plastic bag. For many years, when in New York, he had lunch not at the city’s luxury restaurants, but in the homey confines of Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion on East 57th Street, where he ate the burgers.

Sounds a pretty down to earth guy.

Raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney served as a radio operator in the Air Force and attended Cornell University on the GI Bill. In 1960, he and a partner set up a company that sold items like brandy and cigars to travellers in duty-free shops at airports. It became a booming success. Feeney has also been a shrewd investor in technology startups.

What a great story from Air Fore radio operator to billionaire.

In 2008 Russel Norman proclaimed:

Predictions from prestigious Australian research institute CSIRO that petrol could cost up to AUS$8 – about NZ$10 – per litre within a decade means we need to rapidly change course to avoid serious economic disarray, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman says.

“Petrol at that price would make the Government’s entire motorway building project a white elephant – modern day Easter Island statues. Our new motorways would be monuments to short sightedness and profligate waste of resources.

“Governments even contemplating building motorways like the billion dollar-plus Transmission Gully project in Wellington or the $2 billion Waterview tunnel project in Auckland are seriously out of touch with reality,” Dr Norman says.

In 2008 the average price of petrol was $1.82 a litre. In 2016 they were under $2 a litre, and in fact had increased by less than inflation.

Imagine if we had listened to the Greens and canned all motorway projects.

Remember this release the next time they claim what something will be in the future.

By Senor John Stringer – formerly “coNZervative” (and perhaps again).

Hauling in to Buenos Aries from Christchurch is a long flight (11 hours and 14 hours back in the head wind so London haulage level). We fly south of Stewart Island to catch the southern Antarctic stream to push us east. On the way back we’ll fly close to Antarctica and will glimpse it (very cool – literally).

First impressions: Argentina is flat like the Canterbury Plains and huge, and hot (28 degrees). Ringed around the airport the city is grimy, depressed and poor and has obviously seen better days. It is perhaps 30 minutes in before you start to hit affluence, high-rise buildings and typical modernity.

Argy feels like New Zealand. We are about the same latitude and the trees and sky and scape are similar so it feels familiar. It’s like a jungle with a few Western flowers poking through – a few isolated English words: “McDonalds” “SubWay” in the foliage of “Reconquista, Nationale Banko, tacos, servicios banos.” An obvious place to visit is “Gracis” as there are signs about this place up everywhere.

Below: The ubiquitous photo from the hotel (word for the day: “grimy”). And the unusual street level bollards in Buenos Aries I guess to stop guys like our bus driver parking on the sidewalk? They look conspicuously Spanish Inquisitional!

The Argentinians are very casual – sort of ‘Kiwi summer beach chic’ which I like.

Our bus driver pulls up on the sidewalk and disgorges us in a narrow lane so we can scurry Alice-like down a burrow into a nice transformational Wonderland hotel. We’re at HotelMelia (which means “Grouse Hotel”) not absolute top notch but better located in downtown Buenos for outdoor cafes and restaurants etc.

We grab a street bar directly outside the hotel. It’s full of people and the sound of street-level Argentina is hundreds of people talking which fills the air, like Christchurch’s Oxford Terrace “Strip” used to sound -where The Terraces is (still) being built – before all our earthquakes. I miss that vibrancy.

It’s fun trying to order. Wifos Unos is precise and trying to explain her food preference in schoolteacher chemistry detail to the waitress who speaks no English. Being a Kiwi (and a bloke) I just go “Por far for: MEos BEERos; CHIPos” [“Chipos”?] “POTATOs! BOWLos”  [“Ah Si Si!”]  “Water for Senora” [“Wa-ter?”] “Aqua” [“Ah- Si Si!”] and we’re sorted.

It’s mildly expensive. A watery beer, small bowl of chips and a sad slab of pizza cum cheesy toast sets us back $415 pesos (NZ $37) but we’re in a tourist district outside a major hotel so perhaps that’s not so bad.  We have no idea if we should tip so pay $500 pesos ($45 NZ) and can’t work out about change across the Spanish-American-Kiwi divide so just let it go.

The beer is watery and far less rich in flavor than New Zealand beer so perhaps they water it down and go for quantity like the Greeks do with wine.

It’s balmy and nice out so we scout out a convenience store “Open 25 Hours.” But like most convenience stores near hotels its full of oreos, crisps and confectionary (confectionaries). I buy some yoghurt and am pleasantly surprised. A bag of groceries sets us back the same as our chips and beer $400 pesos  ($30 bucks). We have to read several packets to work out what’s inside “Is that cow?  Dairy?”  Pictures are great.

Lots of great street art everywhere in Buneos Aries which I want more of back in Christchurch (more of which later).

But tomorrow the sites and excitements of the city. And later perhaps the best book shop in the world.

Below: Por fa for the couplos thatos does evetythinas togetheras. Gracias Nacion Argentina.  Cheers ~ J.

Stuff reports:

The man who planned a July attack on one of Islam’s holiest sites was as a former scholarship student in New Zealand who abandoned his studies to join the Islamic State group in Syria.

Taie bin Salem bin Yaslam al-Saya’ari died alongside another extremist in a shootout on Saturday with officers in Riyadh, wearing a suicide bomb vest and clutching a machine gun, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said on Sunday (NZT).

It said he manufactured the suicide bomb used in the July 4 attack outside of the Medina mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried, an assault which killed four Saudi security force members and wounded five. …

Al-Saya’ari previously was a scholarship student in New Zealand who quit school to travel to Syria and fight in the country’s civil war, the ministry said.

It said he later travelled to Turkey, Sudan and Yemen before returning to the kingdom.

So was he radicalised before he came to NZ or did he become radicalised while studying in NZ?

Phil Gifford writes at Stuff:

I’m offended when people make, on social media, an all out assault on him as a person, some judging and even condemning a man’s whole life on the basis of one comment, which he knows was wrong, and has apologised for.

It just doesn’t seem logical that a racist person would be described by Monty Betham as being “like a father to me”, or that Peter Fatialofa’s widow, Anne, would write to me, “No way, to the moon and back, is Peter Leitch racist.”  Or that way back in his Mangere East club days in the 1970s one of the all time Kiwi greats Olsen Filipaina would give his first test jersey to Peter because, “he was like a second father to me.”

But let’s be more specific.

Did the same people who bagged Peter this week consider him a racist in 1999 when, with The Mad Butcher Suburban  Newspapers Community Trust,  enough money was raised to pay for 120 South Auckland children, the vast majority Pasifika and Maori kids, to have glue ear operations in one weekend at Middlemore hospital, wiping out a five year waiting list in two days?

Sounds like a horrible racist indeed.

Did anyone in the cash strapped Hawkes Bay Maori league sides of the 1980s think he was a racist when he supplied enough free meat to feed the team at Auckland tournaments for up to three days? Hawkes Bay official and social worker Denis O’Reilly told me in 2007: “The boys got such a buzz from meeting Peter, and from the aroha of the man. One time in Auckland we had so much kai we had to invite the wahine team over.”

One of my reasons for liking Peter is that when I first knew him he wasn’t very rich, and not that famous, but even then he was generous, and he was especially generous with his help for ordinary people.

That’s how he got involved with the Mangere East league club, an organisation that’s blue collar to the core. He was asked for sponsorship money in the late 1960s, but, short of cash, offered them meat for raffles instead.

He’d never played the game, but soon found the club members were, like himself, “working class people. Like me, the guys aren’t from silver spoon families.” That love affair with the people of league continues to this day with the Warriors.

And did all those SJWs on Twitter and Facebook consider this before they condemned him on the basis of one person’s allegations in a video.

Stuff reports:

Sir Bruce Slane’s children are mourning his death, just nine days after their mother Lady Penelope Slane also died.

Sir Bruce, who was New Zealand’s first Privacy Commissioner from 1992 to 2003, died around lunchtime on Saturday.

Lady Penelope’s funeral is on Monday, so the family will wait for at least another week before farewelling Sir Bruce.

Their son Peter said it was a tragedy to lose both parents within such a short space of time, and his father had been hit hard by his mother’s death. …

Sir Bruce was chairman of the Broadcasting Tribunal for the entirety of the organisation’s life.

In 1989 he was presented with a special award at the radio industry awards, “in recognition of an outstanding contribution to radio in New Zealand”.

He was also active in the business world, holding directorships on various company boards.

In 1985 he received a CBE, and in 2003 was appointed a distinguished companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. In 2009, he was knighted for services to personal and human rights.

Current Privacy Commissioner John Edwards remembered Sir Bruce as an upstanding legal professional with a strong sense of social justice.

“Bruce was a humanist and a great lawyer but he was modest and self-effacing,” he said.

Sir Bruce was 85 when he died. He leaves behind an excellent legacy.

Stuff reports:

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is shutting six of his 42 Jamie’s Italian restaurants in Britain amid tough trading conditions and a lower pound following Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group said Friday that five restaurants in England and one in Scotland would close in the first quarter of 2017.

Chief executive Simon Blagden said “this is a tough market and, post-Brexit, the pressures and unknowns have made it even harder”.

The company has been stung by the slide in the pound, which has increased the cost of buying ingredients from Italy.

100 Euros costed around 80 Sterling before Brexit vote and is now around 85 Sterling. So around a 6% increase in food costs.

I would be very surprised if this is the real reason for the restaurants closing. The major costs of restaurants tends to be staff and overheads – not food costs. I suspect the real reason is not enough people were eating at them.

Despite the pressure on prices triggered by the pound’s fall, Britain’s economy has outperformed many economists’ expectations since the June vote.

The Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, conceded Thursday that forecasters got it wrong when they predicted a sharp economic downturn in the event of a vote to leave.

Before the referendum, many forecasters said a vote to leave the EU could cause the pound to fall by as much as 20 percent and push the economy back into recession.

The pound did plummet, but unemployment remains low and other economic indicators such as service-sector growth remain strong.

The pound has actually increased in value since October.

AP report:

Congress certified Donald Trump’s presidential victory Friday over the objections of a handful of House Democrats, with Vice President Joe Biden pronouncing, “It is over.”

This is the final stage following the popular vote and the Electoral College voting. Now it is 100% final, and Trump will get sworn in on the 20th of January as the 45th President of the United States.

So it is all over. Have all the celebrities left yet?

House Democrats objected to the votes from at least 10 states, raising issues of voter suppression as well as American intelligence showing that Russia tried to sway the election in favor of Trump. In each case, their objections were denied because they didn’t have the support of any senators.

The House Democrats that did this are playing with fire. Objections to votes should not just be because they don’t like the winner. They risk setting a precedent that could burn them badly in the future if say a Democrat wins the Electoral College but Republicans control Congress.

It’s like the Democrats in the Senate who did away with the rules protecting the minority when it comes to confirming appointments. Now they are in the minority and have lost the ability to block nominations.

Trump finished with 304 electoral votes and Democrat Hillary Clinton got 227. There were seven protest votes for other candidates. It takes 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

There are 535 members of Congress yet 538 electoral college votes. Who knows what makes up the difference?

Stuff reports:

It was a long road to New Zealand for US Ambassador Mark Gilbert and wife Nancy. There was a two year wait for the former professional baseball player to be confirmed in the post thanks to a Senate filibuster.

But the road back to America is a quicker one. The shock US election, installing Donald Trump as President elect, ends Gilbert’s tenure here. He was a Barrack Obama appointee, a good personal friend as well as a key money man for the outgoing US President.

Gilbert flies back to the US early next year. Based on past experience, it could be a long wait for the next US Ambassador.

Had the pleasure of meeting Ambassador Gilbert several times. A charming and effective Ambassador who saw the end of the US Navy stand off during his time.

It will be interesting to see who Trump nominates to be Ambassador.

Stuff reports:

Third-term Nelson city councillor Kate Fulton is going Green.

Fulton has confirmed that she is seeking nomination as the Green Party candidate for the West Coast-Tasman electorate in this year’s general elections.

Fulton said with the Greens, she could see an opportunity to find a new voice to represent both environmental and socialist values. 

Socialist values have worked so well in Venezuela. It must be exciting to try and get to put them in place in New Zealand.

The Herald reports:

New legislation in France around set hours for responding to work emails is something New Zealand should consider, says the Council of Trade Unions.

Does the CTU also want France’s unemployment rate of 10.5%, which is partly due to their ridiculous employment laws. Or their anemic 1.0% economic growth.

On Sunday the new law came into force in France stating that companies with more than 50 employees have to negotiate and set out hours for when staff are, and are not required to check their emails or respond to work enquiries.

Incredibly stupid. Situations change. You may have quiet periods and then periods where a major project is on, and you are on the phone in the evenings.  Legislating that everything must have set hours agreed in advance for checking e-mails is pathetic.

News.com.au reports:

What terrible terrible people. May they go to prison for a very long time.

Stuff reports:

It used to sell out in minutes, but by mid-December less than 4 per cent of tickets for the Wellington Sevens have been sold.

Tickets for the two-day event, which is being played at Westpac Stadium on January 28 and 29, went on sale in September.

In its heyday, the event sold out in a matter of minutes but it is understood that by mid-December only 1300 tickets had been sold for the tournament, despite the stadium having a capacity of 34,500.

I remember those days. The queues at Post Offices, the impatiently trying to order online before the system went down. That is when it was a great fun event.

The Herald reports:

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining has been denied charitable status and the accompanying tax benefits as it’s considered an advocacy group, rather than an educational group as it argued.

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) describes itself as a community-based action group that raises awareness of mining proposals and educates the public.

A clearly correct decision. Far too many lobby groups masquerade as charities.

The Charities Registration Board, in a decision reached on December 15, said that while it accepts KASM has a charitable end of protecting the environment, the main way that it aims to achieve this is by advocating against seabed mining applications, putting a moratorium on seabed mining and promoting its views to the public.

To be a charity you actually need to go out there and help people and spend your money on helping people. Spending your money on political advocacy is not charitable.