Adams - Daily Telegraph - 6 July
I don’t think there’s any reason for Peters to have gone on national telly unless he was seriously contemplating another tilt at Parliament in 2011.
And you know what? I hope he does. I was one of the media who bade him a not-so-fond farewell last year. He’d become a bitter and twisted person who ended up tarnishing his reputation and becoming a parody of everything he’d spent his career fighting for.
But geez Parliament’s boring without him
Colin Espiner blogging at Stuff
Guy Body - NZ Herald - 30 June
Regrettably all too true Adam suspects
An interesting article at The Economist on world food prices. In some areas such as cereals they are behaving differently from what might have been expected.
On the face of things, markets last year were adjusting exactly as economic theory predicts they should: prices rose, drawing investment into farms; supplies then rose sharply, pushing prices down. But that was not the whole story. The price fluctuations of 2007-09 suggested that uncertainty in the world of agriculture was deepening under the influence both of oil prices and capital flows. The fact that prices are still well above their 2006 average, even in a recession, suggests that the spike of 2008 did not signal a mere bubble—but rather, a genuine mismatch of supply and demand. And this year’s price increase suggests that there is a long way to go before that underlying mismatch is eventually addressed. “I don’t see that anything has fundamentally changed,” says Mr Abbassian. “That means we cannot go back to where we were in 2007.”
Part of the problem seems to be regulation – especially in many less developed countries, part protectionism, part productivity – African production per hectare is far below Europe and Asian levels for example, and part our old friend ethanol.
One other comment resonated with Adam:-
Lastly, it is possible that the widespread hunger brought about by soaring prices—the FAO says a billion people will go hungry this year—may have reached a peak and the poor may be back in the market for grain again. This may sound unlikely, as traditionally poor consumers have had little influence over world food prices, but economic growth has continued in the largest emerging markets (notably China and India) and governments in much of the developing world have been expanding aid programmes for the poor, such as conditional cash-transfer schemes. That may be boosting demand; it would explain why prices of grain, which everyone eats, have been rising this year while prices of meat—the food of the rich and aspiring middle classes—have continued to fall.
That is not good news for NZ. In addition although the article did not address dairy as such, it may explain why dairy has not recovered.
Espiner C blogs on Winston Peters and his appearance on Q & A.Espiner makes some solid points, but unlike Espiner C, Adam does not miss Peters. Duller, quiter politics is not that bad.
Adam saw Peters performance. Surprisingly Peters did not bite Espiner G’s head off and stuck to his points. Adam did enjoy one little bit when Espiner G tried to get him to talk about things other than the Foreshore & Seabed issue and Peters said it was TVNZ that had pursued him to appear and had said the questions would only be on the one issue.
Adam has to agree with Espiner C that Peters was quite cogent and measured. The problem is that Peters just does not stay that way.
Despite recent pronouncements by the Iranian Supreme Leader it would appear that the situation in Iran remains volatile.
The Times reports that a group of senior clerics in Qom the clerical centre of Iran is openly pronouncing the election invalid.
The Association of Researchers and Teachers is based in Qom, the clerical nerve centre of Iran, and includes many leading ayatollahs with impeccable revolutionary credentials and big personal followings.
The association did not support a candidate in the election, but has now lined up firmly behind Mr Mousavi. In a rebuke to the regime it declared on its website: “Candidates’ complaints and strong evidence of vote-rigging were ignored . . . Peaceful protests by Iranians were violently oppressed . . . Dozens of Iranians were killed and hundreds were illegally arrested . . . The outcome is invalid.”
It would appear that cracks in the Islamic theocracy run deep. It may not be democracy as many in the West understand it, but deep rifts appear to exist in the Iranian political and clerical establishment.
If as The Times suggests that the regime of Ali Khamenei is dependent on military not clerical support, then more unrest appears likely.
Adam confesses that he has little time for Brian Rudman and his writings. Though in his NZ Herald column today much of what Rudman said Adam could agree with to a later or lesser extent. Or he would have done, if it had not been for the article’s opening paragraph which irritated Adam to the extent that he felt compelled to regard the rest of the column adversely as well. Irrational, yes, but to Adam’s way of thinking completely understandable.
Rudman started his article with this arrogant, condescending, patronising drivel:-
Every time I hear someone advocating a referendum I cringe. Surely the $9 million anti-smacking charade is evidence enough that asking the great unwashed to say yes or no to a complex, many-faceted conundrum is a dumb way to go.
The referendum might be silly, but calling the entire population of NZ the great unwashed and thus by inference consigning them to some sort of moron status fit only to carry out the wishes of, and tasks assigned to them by the likes of Rudman and his fellow elitist cronies is in itself not only cringe making but deeply offensive.
Why on earth does the NZ Herald allow this fellow to waste dead trees with his nasty barbs and posturing burblings.
Dave Brown - Independent - 3 July
Sex is the greatest accelerant in political stories. Tossing bonking allegations into a story from Parliament is like throwing petrol on a fire: stand well clear because there is likely to be collateral damage.
Bill Ralston – Herald on Sunday
A veritable gem from this long running feature in Private Eye
Private Eye No:1234 - April 17 - April 30 2009
What absolute horse manure!
Dominic Lawson writes at The Times on the interrogation techniques used by the Iranian government’s thugs to obtain confessions from protesters. The depiction is quite upsetting.
He goes on to identify the British journalists and activists who front the Iranian Government’s UK media operation.
Amongst those espousing the Iranian line are George Galloway, surprise, surprise and Lauren Booth, half-sister of Cherie Blair. Another is one Andrew Gilligan who was involved in the Dr David Kelly affair.
Take a look at the column.
Lawson in his concluding paragraphs notes:-
I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that Gilligan and co sympathise with the Iranian president’s enthusiasm for Holocaust denial. The London “stars” of Press TV would presumably argue that they are just journalists plying their trade to the best of their ability, selling their talents to anyone who is prepared to bid for them. Indeed, several said last week that they will continue with their shows, because they were “not subject to any political interference” from the Iranian authorities.
How delightful for them; but it should also occur to Gilligan, Ridley and Booth that they are being paid to lend credibility to the propaganda arm of a regime that subjects its own journalists to the most brutal “political interference” – Bahari is one of 24 local reporters or bloggers who have recently been seized by the Iranian authorities – and which is now inciting violence against British reporters in Tehran, by declaring that they are the cause of riots and bloodshed.
Quite.
Vanity Fair has a totally unscientific poll asking readers who is the most influential woman in the GOP.
Interesting selection of names.
No prizes for guessing who is currently #1
Tracy Watkins gives us not 1, but 2 nominees for Wally of the Week in her column in Saturday’s Dominion Post, both appear to be richly deserving of the award.
Tracy Watkins - Dominion Post - 4 July
Letters to the Editor - Dominion Post - 4 July
Adams - The Telegraph - 4 July
Why the media insist on saying someone slept with someone, when what’s really meant is that they had sex, is a mystery. It’s a phrase that dates back to a prudish time when proper people couldn’t bring themselves to mention sex explicitly.
A couple of years ago I read that former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, famously the most carnally active member of that debauched rock band, claimed to have slept with 265 women in three months.
Good grief. They must have been short naps. He would have had to set the alarm clock to go off in 10 minutes so he could move on to the next one.
Karl du Fresne originally in the Dominion Post, but from his splendid blog.
NZ Herald reprints an article from The Observer which discusses London publisher George Weidenfeld’s views on the future of books.
Good to see that he believes the printed page will be with us for a while yet.
Adam is of the view that books on paper possess a special something which a Kindle for example just cannot replicate.
To Adam books are special, they are not electronic files. They are things to be treasured and passed on to others.
Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of Alaska with no substantive indication of what she plans for the future. Interetingly she still had 2 years to serve as Governor.
Fred Malek, a Republican strategist who has advised Palin over the past year, said Palin was “really unhappy with the way her life was going”.
“She felt that the pressures of the job combined with her family obligations and the demands and desires to help other Republican candidates led her to decide not to run again. Once that decision was made, she realised, why not do it now and let the lieutenant governor take over and get a head start on his election,” Malek said.
Adam suspects Palin will try for the Presidency in 2012.
From Tracy Watkins in today’s Dominion Post
Tracy Watkins - Dominion Post - July 4
Peter Brookes - The Times - 3 July
Frankly, we should all get over it – prime ministers travel. They do so for good reason. Someone has to work the international stage on the country’s behalf. There are occasions when that someone should be the prime minister.
God forbid we ever get to the stage where prime ministers feel they have to make excuses for representing the country’s interests overseas.
Tracy Watkins on the cost of ministerial travel
All this nonsense about ministerial travel costs arose in response Adam seems to recall from a question asked by new intake Labour MP Chris Hipkins.
Perhaps someone should take Hipkins aside and quietly squelch him.
Ministerial travel is a necessity. We are a small distant travel, it is critical that our politicians travel and travel frequently in many cases in order to represent us properly.
As Tracy Watkins notes:-
I’ve accompanied prime ministers on numerous overseas trips (cattle class all the way in my case, sadly). Anyone who thinks they are one long prime ministerial junket is mad.
They arrive to back-to-back meetings, long days and meetings that stretch into equally long nights. They would be lucky to scrape up enough spare time to hunt out some post cards. While there, they rub shoulders with other world leaders, most of whom have arrived on their own jets. To them, the idea that they climb back on board a commercial flight and shun first class for business class would be preposterous.
As it should be.
Personally Adam thinks that first class travel can be justified. Just what image do all those complaining think we present to the world with this silly carping, with young media hungry MPs like Hipkins aided and abetted by some sill media elements.
Adam sympathises with Tama Williams, the author of the letter reproduced below. The actions of a few tarnish the perception of the many.
Letters to the Editor - Dominion Post - 3 July
It is time the many took a stand.
