Nah, give the bloody grinch a break

The Dom-Post must think its readers are stupid. Its editors might be, but Alf – for one – knows better than to believe that…

The grinch – in the guise of the recession – has stolen the capital’s free Christmas Day bus services.

Free bus travel stolen by a grinch? Bollocks.

Worse, stolen by a grinch disguised as a recession?

That bullshit is the Dom-Post’s pathetic substitute for hard facts.

So what’s to be done to judge in bias case?

There’s the whiff of something distinctly rotten wafting from our justice system.

Justice Minister Simon Power has hastened to attend to the source of some of the pong. But not all of it.

He is to ask Cabinet to agree to sweeping changes to our legal aid service

after revelations hundreds of crooked lawyers are ripping off taxpayers.

Don’t knock the bop in all cases

Yeah, Alf knows how a good Nat was supposed to vote on the legislation to repeal the use of provocation as a partial defence for murder. But he has more than a sneaking regard for the concerns being expressed in the legal community.

Moreover, he salutes ACT, which was the only party to oppose the repeal bill which passed last night by 116 votes to five.

The legal objections are reported by Stuff.

But not all sows will be locked up for Christmas

It’s always a pleasure to see greenie grouch Sue Kedgley get her come-uppance in the House. Hence Alf enjoyed yesterday’s Question Time, before we got into the tedium of the ETS legislation.

Sue was banging on about pig farming, codes of welfare, and what-have-you.

She asked Alf’s mate David Carter, our worthy Minister of Agriculture, if he stood by his statement of 20 May 2009 “I would like to be able to issue a new code of welfare for pigs by the end of this year”. She also asked if he was confident this would be achieved.

Puccini, pot and potty plant-growing practices

Alf had been somewhat sceptical about claims that smoking the demon weed could lead to promiscuity, harder drugs and – sometimes – madness.

He is a sceptic no longer, after reading about the New Plymouth woman

who played classical music to her cannabis plants to encourage them to grow was yesterday sentenced to community work.

Solo mother-of-three Zarah Murphy cultivated 20 cannabis plants in a room with photos of healthy plants as role models on the walls and played them “nice classical music”, her lawyer Pamela Jensen told New Plymouth District Court yesterday.

The booming business of labia lopping

It’s not only a matter of women being from Venus and men being from Mars (or is it the other way around?). It’s also a matter of blokes wanting bigger ones and women wanting smaller ones.

Bigger dicks and smaller labia.

Alf knew all about the boom in products that purport to give a bloke a bigger todger. His e-mail contains plenty of bargain offers (which, he hastens to add, he has no need to pursue).

He did not know much about the booming business in surgery on women’s genitalia, but it’s happening right here in Newzild.

Christchurch plastic surgeon Howard Klein said he had seen a dramatic increase in women wanting labiaplasty – an operation to make the labia smaller – over the past two years.

Yeah right – and the Pope will become a protestant

Is Hone Harawira ready to become a team player? Alf reckons it’s as likely as prospects of the Pope becoming a Presbyterian.

But according to the SST today, the stroppy MP is “hurting” over his treatment by Maori Party leaders (violins, here, please)

…and is preparing to give an undertaking that he can “work within party rules”.

Learning the hard way

It looks like the message about tobacco isn’t getting through to our young people. Smoking can be bad for your health.

Moreover, Alf wonders what kids are being taught – either at home or at school – about chemicals and the explosive properties of things like petrol.

He is wondering about these things after reading about a lad becoming enveloped in a ball of flame after an explosion in Hamilton yesterday.

Could Rokx be rolled by a fluency fuss?

There’s some bemusing stuff about a bit of workplace how’s-your-father at the Maori Language Commission in the The Dom-Post today.

A dispute between the chief executive of the Maori Language Commission and her staff has prompted the board to order an investigation.

The independent inquiry, conducted by Sir Wira Gardiner, was begun after some staff wrote to the board expressing concerns about Huhana Rokx’s management style.

Management style? Alf would be much more concerned about hiring someone with the curious name Rokx for a job in an agency charged with promoting the Maori language.

But what does he know about these things, eh?

Well, he can tell you (based on his reading of the Dom-Post) that –

Commission chairman Erima Henare has been acting chief executive since November 10, when the board appointed Sir Wira.

Both Mr Henare, who earned $58,150 from the board for the year ended June 2008, and Ms Rokx declined to comment personally about the dispute yesterday.

What’s more, Henare has hired Wellington public relations consultant Chris Wikaira to do any talking on the issue and management and staff have been told not to speak to the media. All media inquiries should be made through Wikaira.

But papers obtained by The Dominion Post claim staff members fluent in the Maori language use this ability to “show superiority” over their colleagues.

There have been at least two meetings between management and staff this year aimed at resolving the in-house problems.

One employee noted that, after one of these meetings, staff did not feel trusted and found their work environment suffocating.

Is that it?

Is it all about a pecking order where your position is influenced by your fluency in the language the commission is promoting?

Why should this be a matter of concern?

If you don’t speak Maori, or speak it poorly, you wouldn’t want to work there anyway, surely.

Alf would like to think the buggers who know a cow has four tits on its udder, and that you don’t milk bulls, and that wool comes from sheep could feel superior to those who don’t in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Likewise, knowledge of economics should push you higher up the perch at The Treasury.

Blokes are unlikely to prosper at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

And so on.

Mind you, we run into problems with this line of thinking when we get to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

Or do we?

Putting the outfit in the hands of a bunch of kids is unlikely to do much mischief because Alf doesn’t see it serving any useful purpose anyway.

On the way to the bank is the best time to cry

Alf isn’t a great one for movies, but not just because there is a dearth of cinemas in Eketahuna. Rather, it’s because there are better things to do and the best place to do these better things is down at the club.

Because he’s only an occasional movie-goer, he may be accused of being ill-fitted to comment on the fuss over The Vintner’s Luck. But bugger it. He will comment anyway.

On the strength of his newspaper reading, fair to say, he won’t bother going to the movie, even though it’s directed by Niki Caro and people tell him she made Whale Rider which everybody except him went to see.