Peter Dunne does occasionally have common sense

Well, just this once.

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On Auckland airport the NZ Herald quotes him saying "the sale of the airport was a matter to be sorted out by its shareholders"

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Amazing Peter, such common sense!

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JohnKey on the other hand is pandering to a group that Winston thrives on by saying according to the NZ Herald that "in principle he would like to see the airport remain in New Zealand hands". Fine John, you put together a consortium!

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Winston meanwhile is satisfied that national security issues will be taken into account.

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Of course he is pandering to the racist, bigoted, largely monolingual constituency who drag their knuckles to vote for him, because you see Dubai... well they're foreign aint they it's Iran isn't it? They want nukes and they stop girls going to school you know. They ummm are ummm Muslims u know they have beards, they're not like us, they're probably bloody terrorists those Iraqis who want our airport, they like camel riding, well I wont use the word, but you know. They have funny ways and that weird music, you know, for belly dancing and stuff. They are not like us those Arab types, they eat funny spicy food that isnt our sorta thing not like steak and chips, real tucker. you know they'll bomb our planes those Palestinians you know, they're just going to use it to train terrorists, they'll hire their own kind, they do that.. probably bring their families over and fill up our schools and hospitals then where we'll be? We fought them in Gallipoli those Turks too.

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Hysteria, seen also in the Greens who say on their website that "Auckland International Airport is the single most important piece of monopoly transport infrastructure in the country".

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1- It's a monopoly partly because you don't want Whenuapai developed as a competitor;

2- Given it is more important that the rail and road networks, can't we sell those too now? (foaming at the mouth foreseen) (I mean give away the rail network, since it was bought for $81,000,001.

They're taking the piss... aren't they?

What things are government good at? Solving crime? Prosecuting fraud?

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No, I know - recipes!!

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That's what taxes are for, to force you to pay for the food industry to study better recipes for making chips to make them healthier.

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I kid you not. This is Nanny State par excellence.

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Who has demanded this? Consumers? Well, if they have then the food industry should pay for it themselves. Surprisingly, it seems to respond to what people want.

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"No Minister" calls the Ministry of Health food nazis. They are!!! When did anything delicious and desirable come out of the Ministry of Health? (besides the odd staff member) Will there be research into healthy chocolate cake? How about funding pies that are healthier? How about a nice cup of fuck off?

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and by the way, just to help them out. Tomato sauce is one of the best sources of antioxidants (better than fresh tomatoes), but a lot of people already appreciate this.

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A proper Minister would tell the food industry to figure out healthy chips on their own. Of course Sue Kedgley will be frothing at the mouth with excitement at the idea that the government is paying to make some food healthier - imagine a restaurant that Sue Kedgley designed recipes for, with help from the Ministry of Health. Mmmmmm NOT!

Chavez turns the screws, once more

According to the Guardian, Venezuela's soon to be dictator, Hugo Chavez has announced that any foreigners in Venezuela that "denigrate" his leadership will be deported.

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He ordered cabinet ministers to monitor statements made by visitors to Venezuela and then, without a hint of irony is quoted as having said:

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"How long are we going to allow a person - from any country in the world - to come to our own house to say there's a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?"... "No foreigner, whoever he may be, can come here and attack us. Whoever comes, we must remove him from the country. Here is your bag, sir, go."

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Like most socialists, Chavez makes the mistake of thinking that he is Venezuela, by saying "attack us" instead of "attack me". So if you say he's a tyrant and he acts like a tyrant then....

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The Guardian also notes that this follows "an acceleration of his self-described revolution by ordering the armed services to reflect socialist values and telling education officials to purge the "perversity of capitalism" from school textbooks."

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but that's ok the fawning sycophants of the self styled "liberal" western left will still say he's better than Bush.

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The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (you do have to wonder about that title) said "Venezuela is not moving towards an authoritarian regime. It's just that when he speaks Chávez doesn't have a pause button. These sort of remarks cause enormous misapprehension and misunderstanding but don't really represent his convictions."

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So i guess the nationalisation, the closing of a TV channel and the press release about deporting foreigners critical of the regime don't really represent his convictions. However as the Council on Hemispheric Affairs treats statistics Cuba sends to the UN on its healthcare system as being fact, when there is no way for Cubans (or anyone else) to verify conditions or criticise the figures with empirical analysis), it would be fair to say that it is another sycophant of Chavez.

A game

Which political party said the following? (and yes I know it is easy to search for it, but read it first and ask yourself who would probably agree with virtually all of this)

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“By achieving a relatively self-sufficient economy, it is possible to greatly cut back the amount of energy and resources that are needed to provide the goods and services that people need. By using local economies and small local factories, we largely eliminate the need for transport and heavy packaging. It also becomes much easier to recycle all waste products into fresh goods, given that manufacture takes place locally and recycled materials do not need to travel far. Local economies will also provide a much fairer distribution of wealth. Enormous factories and economic outlets have a tendency to concentrate wealth into the hands of just a few people.”
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“Ultimately it is quality of life that matters most. A truly localised economy, which blends the benefits of modern technology with the more friendly, quiet and socially integrated communities of yesteryear, could offer people the best of both worlds. The advantages that such a society would bring, in terms of quality of life, care for the elderly, greener and quieter surroundings, freedom from crime and traffic, better health, safety for our children”
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“Empirical data show that a good supply of domestic capital is still more likely to lead to investment, as capital doesn't flow perfectly across borders (nor should it).
Dependency on foreign capital means we have to run our economy like a tart on the streets of global capitalism, always primping to be attractive for other people's money, and setting everything from interest rates to worker-protection laws to please them.
This means turning ownership, and thus control, of much of our economy to foreigners. When their economic interests coincide with ours, this is tolerable, but they often won't, and on fundamentals, they never will"

Grey grizzling anti-wog brigade and the xenophobic economic infants

You know them as NZ First and the Greens. Not PC has written well on this,
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On Auckland airport, have you ever read such sheer nonsense?
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The Bigoted wog haters (when has NZ First ever been positive about immigration?) talk of it being the selling of “another New Zealand plum” to a foreign owned company. What rot. The Bigoted Wog Haters could always buy it out if they wanted. “New Zealand” doesn’t own it, so stop using deceptive language that some collective entity called New Zealand has any rights to it. Anyway, what do they think Dubai Aerospace are going to do? Put rockets on it and send it to the Middle East, or destroy it? Have another sherry or five and go watch TV1 and fall asleep. This is the economic illiteracy that nearly bankrupted NZ under Muldoon.
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The xenophobic economic infants are funnier still. Apparently there will be monopoly issues because of the change of ownership!! Air New Zealand will wonder what it has been going on about for years then, and I guess the Commerce Commission investigations had too many big words for the economic infants to read. Changing ownership makes NO difference. Such xenophobes rant and foam at the mouth saying “Coming on top of the attempt to buy up Tourism Holdings Limited, tourists to New Zealand could be landing at a foreign owned airport, travelling in foreign owned campervans, and visiting foreign owned iconic tourist sites and spending money which will simply go back to the overseas owners.” We'll all be branded with 666s and those foreigners will be so mean and cruel to us. I'm so scared of the foreigners, they eat babies and drink the blood of virgins! The foreigners will only hire their own kind after all, who wont spend a cent in New Zealand, but repatriate it all, they wont eat our food or rent our buildings or spend money in our shops - and then they'll stop us using the airport because monopolies like to stop people using their facilities, and then they'll buy our homes, our clothes, our children, then it will be hell, and the little elephants in the sky will land on our houses and eat gingerbread trees and...

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The answer to the bigoted wog haters and the xenophobic economic infants is:
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BUY THE F**KING AIRPORT YOURSELF!
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However they wont, it’s SOOO strategically important they want to stop others using their money to buy it and others to realise their investments by selling it, but like most good old socialist whingers they wont cough up a cent to risk by investment. Of course they'll blether on about "we used to own it". Oh really? Did you get dividends, vote on the directors, could you sell what you owned if you thought the management performed poorly? Of course not, you owned nothing - the state owned it and took risks with your money, and spent the dividends on what IT wanted.

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Anyway that was the past. NZ First and Green party members should put together an offer and buy the strategically important and valuable Auckland airport shares, or put up and shut up.