The ODT reports:

Being cut from the Dunedin Santa Parade has caused ”monstrous” disappointment among members of Oil Free Otago.

Spokesman Nathan Parker said the group had received verbal confirmation last month that its float of bicycles, penguins and albatross could be involved with the parade.

Earlier this week it was told the float had been cut.

Dunedin Santa Parade Trust chairman Mark Laughton said the trust had declined the application of Oil Free Otago because it wanted to keep the parade apolitical.

”It’s about Christmas messages; it’s not political,” he said.

How sad that they can’t even leave the Santa parade alone.

The Herald reports:

Education Minister Hekia Parata confirmed yesterday that 11 “communities” made up of 90 schools would kick off the $359 million programme, which paid the best teachers and principals more to lift achievement across groups of schools.

Further details would be revealed later this week but the groups of schools included the full range of deciles, primary, intermediate and secondary schools and were all over the country, including Auckland.

Each of the communities would choose one problem to focus on and a principal and several teachers from within the group would be paid more to lead this work.

Good to see 90 schools already getting involved, especially as the final details were only ratified a few weeks ago.

The Herald reports:

SIS Minister Chris Finlayson says he wants to maintain the same bipartisan approach to the comprehensive review of intelligence agencies next year as he has with Labour over law targeting terrorist foreign fighters, which is expected to pass in Parliament tonight.

“I think there is nothing more important than a bipartisan approach between the National Party and the Labour Party to these issues,” he told the Herald last night.

“So they will be consulted on the reviewers and the terms of references.”

It would not be an officials’ review, he said. It would be “more arms-length than that”.

It is good the planned review is planned to be more than an officials’ review, and the desire to consult over the reviewers and their terms of reference.

The Herald reports:

Labour’s review panel has reported its findings back about the party’s election campaign and the reasons for the low 25 per cent result, identifying problems ranging from a failure to unite behind former leader David Cunliffe to resourcing and confusion over its “Vote Positive” slogan.

The panel of four reported back to Labour’s Council at the weekend on the first part of its three-part review – a look into the election campaign.

The party will not release review findings until all three parts are completed, expected in February.

One of the review team, Bryan Gould, said the panel’s terms of reference had included the leadership of Mr Cunliffe and while there were mixed views on some issues, the main problem was a failure to unite behind the leader.

Was that a cause or a symptom?

Party leader Andrew Little said none of the findings was surprising and most issues had been voiced by himself and other leadership contenders during Labour’s recent leadership runoff.

“Things like the messaging, the ‘Vote Positive’ [slogan], issues about the resourcing of the campaign.” He said the Vote Positive slogan “didn’t mean anything to anyone”.

Vote Positive was in stark contrast to their messaging of the last three years. The only logical explanation for their slogan was they knew about Nicky Hager’s book in advance, and were hoping to capitalise on it.

Two this week, one making fun of each side of the political spectrum.

The first one questions the sanity of those in the GOP who want to shutdown the US federal government again.

© Andy Marlette, found at Real Clear Politics

The second is about the huge increase in public debt since 2008 featuring an oblivious Barack Obama.

© Gary Varvel, found at Real Clear Politics

Stuff reports:

The only two Timaru protesters to stick their heads in the sand against perceived climate change inaction missed each other and ended up protesting at different times and ends of Caroline Bay yesterday.

Green Party Aoraki branch convener Gerrie Ligtenberg and party member Kate Elsen got their wires crossed and protested alone.

Ligtenberg dug her protest hole at the skatepark end of the beach at noon, whereas Elsen had turned up earlier at the Marine Parade end.

“It was all a bit last minute,” Ligtenberg said.

Although a few beach visitors gave her some odd looks, she was not as silly as she looked, she said.

“I put a plastic bag in the hole so I didn’t get sand in my ears.”

I think the Greens should use this photo in their next campaign:

It seems to sum up the Greens’ stance on genetic engineering very nicely.

Stuff reports:

A gay man who sent an email about his new book promoting gay-friendly religion was told by a church pastor to kill himself.

Jim Marjoram said he emailed 400 Auckland churches about his book, It’s Life Jim, which details his many decades of struggling with being a gay Christian.

The e-mail he got in response said:

“We are not interested in your filthy lifestyle or book,” Robertson wrote.

“Romans 1 clearly says God has rejected homos and they are worthy of death. You cannot be saved.

“I pray that you will commit suicide, you filthy child molesting fag.”

I’m not sure who has the authority to sack a Pastor at the Westcity Bible Baptist Church, but I hope they do so. Telling a person that they should commit suicide is fundamentally incompatible with Christian values.

Even worse Robertson expands on his views, and says he thinks the Government should put gay people to death.

Robertson says the Bible says gay people should be put to death. “And if we had a righteous government, that’s what we’d be doing. Instead of letting them go out and pretend to get married when they’re not. The Bible doesn’t even say anything about these fags getting married. They should just be stoned to death instead. That’s what the Bible says. And I hope they all die.”

I think Pastor Robertson should be in the Westboro Baptist Church, not the Westcity one. It seems his church is only a few months old, so maybe this is a misguided publicity stunt. I find it hard to believe any person in NZ could actually believe what he said.

It also seems that his church meets at his home. It doesn’t sound like a legitimate church. Perhaps the Baptist Churches of NZ could do a statement saying his church is not a recognised church in their faith?

The Dom Post editorial:

Housing in New Zealand is not only scarce and expensive; for too many people, it is also downright unhealthy.

Our national housing stock is of poorer quality than most OECD countries. In particular, too many houses are damp and cold – which means they contribute to our grim rates of infectious and respiratory diseases. …

They have also long pushed for a “warrant of fitness” regime for rental properties, an idea that is now receiving new attention. That’s deserved – a version of it should be taken up by the Government with haste.

Extensive work has already been done, so there is no excuse for delay. Most recently, results from a pilot study on 144 rental homes showed 90 per cent failing the warrant.

90% of rental houses failed the warrant, yet the Dom Post wants it made compulsory. That’s a great way to make rental housing far more scarce and expensive.

A housing WOF as a voluntary initiative where landlords who want properties accredited can do so, is a good idea. But making it compulsory will reduce the housing supply, and push prices up. Remember the law of unintended consequences.

That number needs some qualification – some houses failed for such easily remedied reasons as flat batteries in smoke alarms. But other results were more deeply concerning – like the third of rental properties that lacked any form of fixed heating.

My apartment has no fixed heating. So it would be illegal to rent it out if I wanted to? What next, illegal to have a flatmate without a warrant?

If introduced, the scheme should be pared down a little. It’s not obvious, for instance, that an inspector needs to check people’s window latches, as happened in the pilot. The WoF should focus on the essentials – keeping all renters warm and dry. Landlords too often neglect this basic task, especially for low-income tenants.

The scheme, if made compulsory, will only grow year after year. Lobby groups will demand more and more things be added to it. Far better to have it as a voluntary accreditation, where if it is made too demanding, then landlords will not sign up for it.

Review: What We Do in the Shadows (2014).

~ by John Stringer.

2014’s What We Do In The Shadows written by and starring Taika Waititi (Boy) and Jemaine Clement (Fot Conchords) is a short black comedy about a group of vampires flatting together in Wellington, New Zealand.

• Viago, a dandy Victorian vamp. (Waititi);
• Vladislav, a Roumanian vamp. (Clement);
• Deacon an eastern European vamp. (Jonathan Brugh) who knits and whose excellent gypsy-cum-Indian folk dance prefaces the movie’s opening template (hilarious); and
• Petyras the 800-year-old Nosferatu vamp (Ben Fransham).

Together they rework the Flight of the Conchords wannabee-musicians-in-NY cycle but in NZ via a contemporary goth vamp romp. Also featuring is ‘Murray’ (Rhys Darby) as the alpha male pack leader of a group of counter-gang Westside Story werewolves (“not swear wolves!”).

It’s hilarious and there are some great lines in the film.  “Leave me to do my dark bidding… on TradeMe–I’m bidding on a table” and jokes about age disparities, blood, werewolves, trying to get invited in to nightclubs, the police coming by to check on fire alarms and whether they’re installed correctly, etc.

The essence of the film is that now hallmark New Zealand (Napoleon Dynamite) ordinariness juxtaposed with the ludicrousness of historic vampires adjusting to mundane life flatting in Wellington (“Stu’s in to computers and stuff”).  There are flat meetings (“Do your bloody dishes!”), chore rosters (“I dragged a body down the hall, so in a way, I swept the dust up“) and farcical attempts to attract ‘wictims’ to their flat.  I laughed a lot.

One of the downsides of being a vampire, is you cannot eat chips.  One chip, and a rookie vamp. suffers projectile blood vomiting of Peter Jackson Brain Dead proportions.  It’s also difficult on relationships to eat friends, the main one of whom is appropriately called “Stu.”  Stu helps the vampires catch up with technology; they can watch sunsets on-line, and send txt messages, and most importantly, Google virgins.

It is maladjusted immigrants and geeks adjusting to Nu Ziland but remaining true to themselves and having lifestyle issues, filmed as a reality TV documentary; The Osbornes meets Blair Witch and Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I liked the “Unholy Masquerade Ball” organised by the Karori Zombie Association, Wellington Vampire Society and Upper Hutt Werewolves Group which has a showdown when the flatmates bring Stu,  a human, to the undead ball (ie vestiges of Cinderella). There is also a great “vampire fight!” as two vamp.s flit in and out of bat and human mode.

Lots of visual puns over vampire reflections in mirrors; virgin jokes; “bisketti and spaghetti;” stakes and crucifixes; and several workings of the vampire powers of hypnotism (stronger and weaker in various vamps) “No, the electriceety bill is p-a-i-d. …No, you will not cut off the telephone, we-paaaid-the-bill!”

I got the joke after a minute (but kept laughing all the way) but this would perhaps have been better as a more compressed one hour TV programme (47 minutes with ads) rather than a full length film.  It also lacked a central narrative and would have been richer if there was a stronger story woven through, perhaps a romantic narrative or a quandary.  Otherwise it’s just an episodic extended joke.

I did like the editing cutaways to magazines and historical books early on, which cleverly conveys the historical backstory in a quick run.  The music is perfect and the actors are all great; Jonathan Brugh and Clement especially turn in talented performances.  But my favourite vamp was actually Petyr, who never speaks.

The title is clumsy, why not just Wellington Vamps or Capital Blood? Sometimes the setups for the jokes are a bit laboured. I would have also omitted the dvd Extras as they diminish the finished product.  As a more edit-compressed faster TV one hour, this would have become a cult classic.  But as a film, it’s just too stretched, but nevertheless a hilarious Saturday night TV watchwith popcorn. 6/10.

Here’s the trailer.

Duncan Garner writes:

Surely this is the most ridiculous and offensive statistic this week: The Wellington region currently has 95 councillors.

It’s simply indefensible having so many on the payroll. The wider Wellington region is over-governed and it’s getting nobody anywhere fast – there are nine mayors for just 490,000 people.

Wellington doesn’t need nine mayors, it just needs one good one with a genuine mandate to get things moving. The fragmentation also means duplication, nine CEOs – nine of everything basically.

Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett said it best this week when he stated: “This is serious. We need to pool our resources and get it together.”

The super-city plan is simple. One mayor, 21 councillors and a bunch of local boards representing each ward from Miramar to Masterton.

Everyone will get a voice.

When you hear voices on this issue, ask yourself a question – are they one of those who might lose their ratepayer funded job, if amalgamation occurs?

So, the model proposed for Wellington is essentially a tweaked version of what’s happened in Auckland. How’s it going in the City of Sails? It’s certainly had some teething problems. But Wellington can learn by going second.

It hasn’t been helped by Auckland Mayor Len Brown not being able to keep it in his pants. He’s largely lost his popularity, and with it his mandate. But his political impotence is all his fault, not the super-city model’s.

Regardless, Auckland now has an executive council which is a one-stop shop for decision-making. Government ministers know who they have to deal with when they turn up in town. Everything’s been streamlined.

On big infrastructure, consenting and building issues there is simply one point of contact.

This means the best decisions can be made without too many compromises. Yes rates are increasing more than Brown promised – but in Wellington city it’s the same, a 4.5 per cent hike when inflation sits at just 1 per cent.

4.5% is way too high a rates increase.

So super-city opponents, don’t fear change. Consider it an opportunity.

A Wellington super-city needs a super person to lead it – someone who understands business and both central and local government.

It’s not a role for Celia Wade-Brown. It’s a job for Fran Wilde.

Fran would be a very good regional leader – in fact she already is. Nick Leggett would be also.

Asset sales are a controversial and often emotional issue. That is why National has been very careful to lay out its policy in advance, and keep to it.

In 2008 National said no SOEs would be sold in the first term, and none were.

In 2011 National said up to 49% of four power SOEs and Air NZ would be sold, and they were (except Solid Energy that collapsed).

In 2014 National said no further sales of SOEs and there are none planned.

Now contrast this to Labour in Christchurch. The Press reports:

It took months of briefings, quiet lobbying, and frank meetings to bring the Left-leaning People’s Choice councillors around to the inescapable truth that some asset sales would be needed to solve the city’s financial woes.

Those meetings happened  right up until late Thursday afternoon, which suggests some councillors were still wavering.

The reason the People’s Choice councillors – Andrew Turner, Jimmy Chen, Pauline Cotter, Yani Johanson, Phil Clearwater, and Glenn Livingstone– were  reluctant to go down the path of asset sales was because they had signed a pledge before last October’s elections to support keeping all significant public assets in public ownership and control.

They didn’t want to be seen to be going back on their word.

They were confident that if they pored over the council’s budgets, cutting expenditure and deferring capital projects, they could achieve the necessary savings without asset sales. 

Alas, it was not to be and on Thursday the People’s Choice councillors reluctantly threw in the towel and acknowledged the funding gap, which has jumped from $900 million to $1.2 billion, was too large to close through savings.

“Our preferred option is not to sell assets, however, the financial position in which the council has been placed requires us to sell assets as one of the number of things we need to do to fill the funding gap,” they conceded in a statement issued through Turner, their spokesman.

This is not true. There is a choice. They have chosen to break their word. I think their policy was stupid and wrong, but they made it.

The People’s Choice is the Labour Party in Christchurch local government politics. In fact most of the PC Councillors had their affiliation on their ballot as (The People’s Choice – Labour).

So the moral of the story is that National has kept its word on asset sales, and Labour once again has not.

A very funny guide to NZ by John Clarke:

Before the British, the Maori people arrived from Hawaii in the year 1273, at about quarter past 4 in the afternoon. There were allegedly people here before that, called the Moriori, and there may have been people even before that. Harry Armitage has been a stock agent up around Raetihi for at least that long and he tells me his father had the pub at Te Karaka.

Like most of the world’s major democracies, New Zealand is run by international capital and a few local big-shots who tickle the till and produce a set of annual accounts in a full range of colours. There is a national parliament in Wellington, which looks like the hats in the Devo clip ‘Whip It’, although very little of any importance has ever occurred there. The country works a lot better during the weekends than it does during the week, there are no states and the senate voted itself out of existence after the Second World War. When the Lower House eventually follows their excellent example, constitutional experts agree the next step will be beers all round.

In 1893, women in New Zealand were the first in the world to get the vote and in more recent times women have had a run as Prime Minister, Opposition Leader, Chief Justice and Governor General. Even the Queen is a woman. The country’s most famous pop singer, best known opera star, most famous short story writer, greatest novelist and most consistent world champion athlete are all women. They’re not allowed in the All Blacks as yet, but don’t be fooled. It’s just a matter of time. New Zealand women are stroppy, imaginative and a major strength in both the Maori and Pakeha cultures. In some New Zealand families, women are practically running things.

During the 1970s, New Zealand was confronted by very serious economic and political crises, although according to police records, there’s some suspicion these were both inside jobs. During that period New Zealand rugby administrators were ex-forwards who looked like spuds in their jackets and when they announced that they were sending an All Black team on a tour to South Africa, there were suggestions it might be time to go and get some new spuds, and maybe some who’d played in the backs. At this stage Nelson Mandela had served about ten of his twenty-seven years in prison and the rest of the world took the radical left-wing position that democracy might be worth a try in the region. New Zealand Prime Minister Norman Kirk went to see the Rugby Union.
‘I’m the Prime Minister’ he explained.
‘Is that right?’ said the spuds. ‘Take a number’.
‘We’d rather you didn’t go to South Africa’ said Norman. ‘It will look like an endorsement of the white supremacist policies of the South African government, to which we are opposed’.
‘So what?’ said the spuds. (I’m summarising a bit here, obviously).
‘So it’s not going to happen’, explained Norman.
The spuds were furious. They saw this action by the government as a direct threat to the way the country was run, and after a smaller Prime Minister had been elected in 1975, the tour went ahead.

There’s more in this vein.

The Dom Post profiles Jonathan Coleman:

The new Health Minister may be confessing to a few “puffs” of cannabis in his youth, but don’t expect him to go soft on drugs.

Jonathan Coleman has moved quickly to make changes since becoming the first trained doctor in the role in more than 70 years.

He has dumped the controversial cost-cutting agency Health Benefits Ltd (HBL), which his predecessor Tony Ryall vigorously defended in the face of revolt among district health boards.

And he is also pushing a more aggressive shift of health services, and potentially funding, from hospitals and into medical centres.

But in other ways, Coleman will be toeing the political line. Anyone hoping that the former GP might take a more health-focused approach to drug use will be disappointed.

Coleman said he had smoked cannabis (although never “a whole spliff”) once or twice in his 20s.

As a GP, he had regularly treated drug addicts, including prescribing methadone, particularly while working in London.

“[But] my clinical experience has led me to the view that decriminalisation isn’t going to work and the policy settings at the moment are the right ones . . . We need less marijuana in society, not more,” he said.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the US states that have legalised. Will legalisation lead to greater use, the same, or less?

Drugs aside, Coleman so far appears to have been given a cautious thumbs-up by the medical fraternity in his first months in the job.

He has spent much of his time in a hectic nationwide tour of all 20 district health boards, speaking to doctors, nurses, patients and administrators.

It was these talks that led him to dump HBL last month and shift responsibility for finding roughly $620 million in savings in the next four years to DHBs.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Ian Powell said HBL was unpopular with doctors, who had welcomed its demise.

“So far the signs are positive. He did surprise us in a pleasing way with the decision on HBL.”

In a speech at the association’s conference last week, Coleman said DHBs should be running ideas past their senior doctors, a comment that went down well with the crowd of specialists.

But one of Coleman’s biggest aims is moving patients out of hospitals, where they are being treated by medical specialists, and into the care of GPs and nurses in the medical centres, most of which are privately owned.

He said that rising rates of chronic disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity meant it was more effective, and cheaper, to act earlier, in the community.

This would require a big shift in everything from monitoring diabetes to moving minor surgery from hospital to GPs and primary care nurses.

This is already happening in some DHBs.

“It’s not a matter of cutting stuff in the hospital, it’s a matter of moving things into the community and keeping people out of the hospital.”

A major aspect of this policy is obesity, where Coleman plans to use his other ministerial hat, sport and recreation, to encourage more people – particularly children – into physical activity.

However, he has ruled out more restrictive policies, such as the sugar tax being pushed by some public health experts as the most effective solution.

“We don’t think taxes are an answer to this. We don’t see any evidence that that works internationally.”

Good.

Introduction

I was going to post about Barack Obama and Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) but that will be next week sometime. I instead decided to get right away from US politics and post about one of my other interests, one of which is the positive uses of high technology in the modern world.

Intel Corporation has been working with Professor Stephen Hawking for nearly 20 years.  As is well known Hawking has a motor neuron (MND) related disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS). His level of paralysis is now very advanced. Intel and Professor Hawking have redeveloped the system to enable him to communicate.

The Communication System and Professor Hawking

The communications system has become outdated so Intel have been working with the Hawking to facilitate easier communication for him.

Similar to the parts of an engine interacting smoothly to run a car, the Intel-created software user interface enables existing and new technologies to efficiently work with each other. The result: Hawking’s typing speed is twice as fast, and there is a 10x improvement in common tasks, such as easier, more accurate and faster browsing, editing, managing and navigating the Web, emails and documents; opening a new document; and saving, editing and switching between tasks.

His existing cheek sensor is detected by an infrared switch mounted to his glasses and helps him select a character on the computer. Integrating software from British language technology company SwiftKey* has greatly improved the system’s ability to learn from Hawking to predict his next characters and words so he only has to type less than 20 percent of all characters.

This information is sent to his existing speech synthesizer so he can communicate to others through his Lenovo* laptop running Microsoft Windows*. For example, to conduct a Web search, Hawking previously had to take arduous routes, such as exiting from his communication window, navigating a mouse to run the browser, navigating the mouse again to the search bar, and finally typing the search text. The new system automates all of these steps for a seamless and swift process.

This video explains how Intel keeps Stephen Hawking talking.

About the software

There are over 3 million sufferers of quadriplegia and MND worldwide. Hawking and Intel hope that this new system will inspire more research  into using technology.

The new toolkit created by Intel can be customized and changed to suit different users. The Intel-created system is a modern software interface for researchers and technologists to create customized solutions enabled by touch, eye blinks, eyebrow movements or other user inputs for communication.

With the platform being accessible and free, Intel and Hawking envision that research and technology communities – such as those focused on sensing, text prediction, context awareness and user interface design – will build upon and bring new and improved solutions to market.

Intel are a well heeled organisation and it’s great see them working at the cutting edge of R and D in an important area of technology development in this manner. There are many areas such as genetic research where there is much more work to be done.

The HoS reports:

The singer behind the controversial Kill the PM song swore and joked about raping John Key’s son before walking out of a live radio interview.

Former Home Brew singer Tom Scott was yesterday on Kim Hill’s Playing Favourites segment of her Radio NZ show, where guests choose some of their favourite songs.

But things soured when Hill asked about the song Scott released with his band @peace during the election campaign, in which he sang about killing PM Key and having sex with his daughter, Stephanie.

Asked about the the lyrics, Scott said: “I mean obviously I regret what I said. I probably should have said I was going to rape his son.”

When asked if he had any regrets, he said: “I don’t regret what I said actually. Screw that.”

I’d really like it if as a taxpayer I no longer have to fund this guy – for any of his songs.

By John Stringer

The gum-chewing celebrity stand-in for President is under serious threat as, in breaking news 5/12 NZ time (Associated Press and Fox), the US Congress – the real power behind the ‘throne’ – has just voted down Obama’s Executive Order immigration initiative to vote amnesty to five million illegal immigrants. (Incidentally, Obama won his second term by about five million votes; so this might be viewed by some as a cynical Democrat ‘buy-up’ of an electoral buffer [ten million people] against the other side, a bit like the electoral implications of Sir Robert Muldoon’s universal superannuation initiative, that it could be argued significantly expanded the National party voter base).

Capitol Hill (or “The Hill”) that houses the US Senate (right) and the House of Representatives (“the House”) (left) sometimes also referred to (confusingly) as “the Congress.”

The bicameral US Congress (House of Representatives & Senate) is the real power in America, among several checks and balances.  They vote the money and a president must have their support to go to war (remember all that pressure from Churchill to Roosevelt to enter WWII, and Roosevelt needing to navigate Congressional sentiment and feeling and using them as his effective UK filibuster?).

Presidents Reagan and Bush both used Executive Orders, but to enact already passed laws; Lincoln used the rare power under emergency in time of civil war.  Obama has used it simply to circumvent the democratic process in America to get what he wants, a policy he cannot get sufficient votes for in the House. Obama has ‘made law’ on the hoof without reference to, indeed in the face of direct opposition from, the democratically elected political representatives.  He has done this by appealing to some ‘higher morality’ for the ‘righteousness’ of his party political and factional ideology, the pathological arrogance of a lot of Left political thinking. That is an anti-democratic outrage.

Back in Democracy-land (Govt of the People by the People) the elected House voted 219-197 to declare Obama’s immigration actions “null and void and without legal effect.”   Obama himself described his own potential action as “unlawful” before doing it. 22 times he said that but he’s weasel-worded a 180 degree ‘switch-a-rooney’ to now say it’s ok; brought in his lawyers. So, government by selective lawyers. At first the ‘constitutional professor’ (Obama) said it would be illegal and unconstitutional to take the action he now has, but has since ‘learned’ how wider the powers of the President actually are.  Gee, how convenient. Government by research and autocracy. No wonder he’s attracting the epithets “Emperor” and “King.”

So, this is no longer about Immigration, but the Constitution and Democracy.  Like gun laws, you don’t fight Americans on C and D.  Obama will lose and his ‘presidency’ may unravel. But it gets more serious than that, because this stand-off is potentially tied to the Budget.  The Constitutional debt ceiling (already historically lifted by Obama amidst acrimonious factional debate and stonewalling) expires on 11 Dec. 2014. Current government funding will expire. The House will be disinclined to give the President his way.  It could potentially be a bleak Christmas for government workers.

Moreover, 17 States led by Texas have voted independently to sue the President over the Constitutional legalities of what he is doing (see the States list at the bottom of this post).  That is serious disunity in the Union.  Remember, the breakup of the Union and civil war occurred previously over political policy disagreements (slavery, property rights, State autonomy vs Federal authority, transference, among other complex issues).

A severe issue is the political mismanagement of this.  Obama seems oblivious to the budgetary and political consequences of his immigration autocracy, and that implications would inevitably flow like falling dominoes for contravening the Constitution and slapping Congress in the face. Did he not understand that of course the majority Republican House would want to leverage the Budget issues against his unprecedented contempt over immigration policy?  Wakeup Mr President; do you not understand how politics works?

The 113th Senate must also pass this House “null and void” bill (and may not); the White House has already said it will veto the House bill (to block the immigration initiative).  So, this is war.

The difficulty for many Republicans, is the backwash against them if they stonewall the government flow of money, as it hits many Americans in the pocket (government workers).  So, short-term pain for long-term Constitutional and Democracy principal and politics? It’s a risk. Some Repub.s want to delay the Immigration fight until 2015 (when there will be both a Republican House and Republican Senate majority).  Makes sense.

[Note: Despite the recent 2014 mid-term elections during the 113th Congress which gave the Republicans a majority in both wings of Congress, the 114th Congress does not ‘meet’ in Washington DC until 3 January 2015. Until then, the 113th Congress continues, a bit like our Parliaments, until they are sworn in. (Recall the constitutional crisis over currency devaluation between the outgoing Muldoon administration and the incoming Lange 4th Labour government? [the 40th-41st NZ parliaments]).

My pick is the House bill will not get Senate support, but it will sound a warning to the Obama presidency that will galvanise the 17 States pursuing legal suits against him over the Constitution.  Then in early 2015, the Republicans will rally and engage their President in an almighty Constitutional scrap (Senate & House) over their system of government. It will be a challenge for the 2016 presidential runners, and surely, will play trump cards to the Republican nominees, presenting hustings themes of the highest order to American minds (Constitution, Democracy, Federal Power, Monarchy vs Presidents,  etc. You can hear the booming stump speeches already). Hillary Clinton, if selected, will be drowned out in the greater debate.

The federal lawsuit against President Obama, includes: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin. 

~ John Stringer.

The HoS reports:

Thousands of dollars have been spent building a private bathroom and dressing room hidden behind a bookcase in under-fire Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s new office. …

The bathroom cost $10,000 and the large dressing room, which includes an $800 wardrobe, an ironing board and – according to plans – a two-seater couch, is accessible by a hinged section of bookcase that swings open like a door.

I guess that is one way not to have security guards walk in on you!

Allegations published in Rolling Stone magazine that a pack rape occurred on campus have started to fall apart. This has left the magazine having to backtrack.

Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university’s failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school’s troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the way the school responds to sexual assault allegations.

Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone’s editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie’s credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie’s account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn’t confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence. 

In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.

Will Dana
Managing Editor

It is very hard not to reach the conclusion that the original story was poorly researched bearing in mind the very serious nature of the allegations. It also appears that fair and balanced reporting didn’t occur. Rolling Stone should have made an effort to cover the alleged perpetrators side of the story.

If they haven’t done so already Rolling Stone may need to lawyer up very soon.

The Herald reports:

A chimpanzee is not entitled to the rights of a human and does not have to be freed by its owner, a New York appeals court ruled.

The three-judge Appellate Division panel was unanimous in denying “legal personhood” to Tommy, who lives alone in a cage in upstate New York’s Fulton County.

A trial level court had previously denied the Nonhuman Rights Project’s effort to have Tommy released. The group’s lawyer, Steven Wise, told the appeals court in October that the chimp’s living conditions are akin to a person in unlawful solitary confinement.

Wise argued that animals with human qualities, such as chimps, deserve basic rights, including freedom from imprisonment. He has also sought the release of three other chimps in New York and said he plans similar cases in other states.

But the mid-level appeals court said there is no precedent for treating animals as persons and no legal basis.

“So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties,” the judges wrote. Needless to say, unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions.”

We may look back one day and point to this day as how Planet of the Apes started 🙂

The Herald reports:

Recaptured fugitive killer Phillip John Smith has gone on a hunger strike after having his hairpiece and other personal items taken from him.

I say don’t give in to the system. He should maintain his hunger strike until the end.