Deciding how much lolly taxpayers should toss at billionaires like Larry comes down to balance

Uh, oh. A very tart email has been despatched by Steven Joyce, Lord High Most Things in your splendid National-led Government.

Steven is far from pleased at the previous post on Alf’s blog.

That post was critical of the boat building industry for pleading for more swill from the corporate welfare trough after things went sour for us in San Francisco.

The Marine Industry Association was aiming to double the sector’s exports to more than $1.3 billion in the next seven years, but this target was largely based on the America’s Cup being hosted in New Zealand.

So they had backed the wrong boat.

That was much too harsh, Steven has told your hard-working member for Eketahuna North.

When you bet your future on the loser it takes gall to expect Govt help to get you back on an even keel

Let’s see if we’ve heard this right.

The Marine Industry Association is calling on the Government for support in the wake of Team New Zealand’s failure to win the America’s Cup.

Presumably they are banging on about financial support.

They want taxpayers to help them make more money.

Radio NZ told us of this brazen bid to dip into the corporate welfare trough earlier today.

The item also tells us the association took a punt – and lost.

Let’s hear it for the PPTA – whether we privatise a school or nationalise one, they are opposed

The PPTA is opposed to charter schools – one of its discussion papers claims – because they pave the way for privatising the state school system.

The very same PPTA also opposes the application by a private school to join the state system.

Go figure.

If these tossers added 2+2 the answer would be …

Anything but four and probably something that needs taken to eight decimal points.

Margaret Mutu might eschew a Google search, but there are oral means of learning what’s what

Professor Margaret Mutu, who can be found doing her thing academically in the Department of Māori Studies at Auckland University, has a BSc, DipTchg, MPhil and a PhD.

What she could do with is a computer.

Maybe she eschews these things, because her work on Maori rights

…draws on the oral traditions of her ancestors of Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Whātua passed on to her by her elders and drawn on extensively for the successful claims against the Crown.

These oral traditions perhaps rule out working with computers.

Moreover the computer is not the product of indigenous technology.

This would explain why Maggie Mutu does not know as much about the Maori Council as Alf quickly found out simply by using Google and reading what was on the pages he found.

Let’s not do things by halves to lose a bit of weight – let’s go the whole hog and lose lots

Alf is delighted to report good news for couch potatoes: exercising for half an hour helps you lose 25% MORE weight than going for a full hour.

This good news is brought to us by the UK’s Daily Mail, which says overweight people who exercise for short periods of time are happier and more motivated to pursue a healthy lifestyle.

Tests have shown that cutting an exercise regime in half holds great benefits for people who are overweight, increasing their chances of shedding the pounds.

The shorter exercise sessions left slimmers happier, with more energy and motivation for pursuing a healthy lifestyle, while those who spent twice as long in the gym were more likely to feel burned out, researchers at the University of Copenhagen found.

Indian lawyer gets heated about pre-marital sex – but his daughter would get hotter if she strayed

Alf – like most fathers – kept a close eye on his daughter through her teenage years, and maybe for several years after that.

In those days dads were fussy about who was squiring their daughters, where they went and when it was they went there.

Modern dads – mums, too – seem dismayingly indifferent to their daughters’ whereabouts and behaviour.

Thus we have the spectacle of these drunken creatures teetering, spewing and collapsing around areas like Wellington’s Courtenay Place.

Maybe we should pack them off to India, although Alf must confess he finds attitudes there even more conservative than his own.

When Kiwis say they like greens, they obviously aren’t referring to our muesli-munching MPs

Alf had a nasty turn this morning. But don’t fret, constituents. He quickly bounced back.

His nasty turn was triggered by a headline on the NZ Herald website.

Kiwis have soft spot for greens – survey

Good grief. At first blush, this was much more upsetting than news that Oracle had won another America’s Cup race in San Francisco.

It was more upsetting, too, than the hysterical blathering from the America’s Cup commentator who kept crying “go you good thing” during the second race this morning. At one point he screamed about how we desperately needed this point.

If Maori are to be treated properly, they should be allowed a healthy dose of racial discrimination

If Maori are to be treated properly, they should be allowed a healthy dose of racial discrimination

When Alf is poorly and needs medical treatment, he goes for it.

He does not inquire about the ethnicity of the medics who will treat him. He has been treated by doctors, dentists, physiotherapists and so on of all persuasions.

Accordingly he considers it neither here nor there that no statistics are being kept to tell us how the country’s medical work force stacks up on an ethnicity measure.

In a country that professes to be intolerant of racial discrimination, this is well and good.

Except that…

You don’t have to look hard for evidence against the Assad regime when you sold them the chemicals

Your Brits can be a right cynical bunch of tossers.

Their PM has been babbling in recent days about finding fresh evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Damascus.

Yep. David Cameron told the BBC the UK would lead calls for more action on aid for refugees and push for fresh peace talks.

He said:

“Britain will be one of the leaders in bringing forward plans for a peace process for Syria. Britain will be leading the argument across the globe for continuing to respond strongly on chemical weapons.”

Snow news would be good news, but only if Alf was back home and trapped at his favourite club

Dunno why it couldn’t have happened to Alf (but please, Lord, not not today).

He is commenting, of course, on news that poor visibility and wind has trapped hundreds of college students on Mt Hutt.

A group of about 240 students on the annual Mount Hutt College ski trip will probably be spending the night on the mountain, with the access road closed since late this morning.

After waiting on buses for about an hour, the group is now hunkering down in the cafe on the mountain waiting to see if the storm blows over.

Mt Hutt has also reported a small number of other skiers stuck on the mountain.