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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Samoan Tsunami - latest

Some early reports from Samoa:
RNZ latest:The death toll is rising steadily as the extent of the destruction becomes apparent. The state of the shipping fleet must be of some concern too.

RNZ: has just reported many people are feared washed out to sea. Pago Pago has been hit very hard according to the local director of Homeland Security in American Samoa. Bodies are being found in the debris. As nightfall nears the searching continues. The Red Cross is active and the US and NZ have dispatched airplanes. Apia police HQ have issued further tsunami warnings - 5:24PM - police sirens and sounds of panic in the background of the live report.

Civil Defence warnings for NZ have been cancelled.

Tsunami Second Wave:

Further tsunami expected for New Zealand

LATEST: The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management says a further wave of up to one metre could hit coastal areas of the country in the next hour, in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake and tsunami that hit Samoa. Villages in Samoa were flattened by a tsunami following the quake, which measured 8.3 on the Richter scale and lasted at least a minute, according to reports.

Tsunami - zero time: Auckland [pictures]

The Waitemata - from transit cameras at 10:52AM (although the time counters on the website seem to be slow by about six or seven minutes). The official time the tsunami is expected to hit Auckland has been given as 11:12 NZDT.
There does seem to be a difference: at 11:11 and 11:12 the tide seems to be out and at 11:10 and 11:13 and 11:14 the tide appears to be in; but I am reluctant to conclude it is definite because of the low quality images and the typical Auckland weather means the light is changing every 30 seconds and it may give a distorted impression.
This is all happening at low tide, so there seems no chance of serious damage. If it was happening at high tide they would have had to evacuate the motorways. As you can see from the pictures they are barely above sea level (The Northern motorway is vulnerable on the northern approach to the harbour bridge, the Southern motorway is vulnerable at points on the causeway across the Tamaki river, and at a King tide the water laps the outer white line of the bus lane on the North-Western.)

I can see the inner harbour where I am and did not notice anything odd (even using the binoculars).

TSUNAMI UPDATE: BREAKING NEWS

UPDATE: 11.05AM Doesn't look like any major impact above 40cm so far from news reports



UPDATE: 10.09AM Civil Defense are expecting some type of Tsunami to hit between now and midday, but only plans for local evacuations if required and directed by local authorities.




1 Metre Tsunami predicted to hit NZ within hour - listen to radio for details

SIR - STEP AWAY FROM THE SEA

East Cape at 9.44am

Gisborne 10am

North Cape 10.12 am

Napier 10.40 am

Wellington 10.50 am

Auckland (east coast) 11.12 am

Auckland (west) 11.39 am

Lyttelton 11.55am

New Plymouth 12.17pm

Nelson 12.23 pm

Dunedin 12.31 pm

Education Minister off her Tolley – 770 teachers planned to be sacked!!!


Bid to shed 770 teachers axed
The Government planned to lay off the equivalent of 772 fulltime teachers, but backed down days before the 1106 affected schools were to be told. Teachers are still threatening a national revolt over the aborted plan because the Government remains committed to savings of $50 million a year set aside for the cuts. Education Minister Anne Tolley said last night that she backed out of the plan days before the May 28 Budget announcement when she realised how many jobs would be lost. "I don't think that I thought they were actual staff. I didn't realise that they were actually all in place," she said. "I still thought that we were talking about it as being in the future." The Press has obtained documents under the Official Information Act that show the plan was so far advanced that a communication proposal was agreed on. The proposal mapped out ways to "help minimise concerns" and stop schools from sabotaging the new national standards in protest. "This reduction is likely to be perceived by the sector and parents as conflicting with the Government's literacy and numeracy objectives," Ministry of Education advice to Tolley said. "In addition to potentially sending a negative message to the sector, reducing staffing may make the sector less willing to implement Government priorities, in particular the national standards."

Is she drunk? My God, 770 jobs were planned to be slashed by the Government and look at the bullshit communications plan they had planned, "This reduction is likely to be perceived by the sector and parents as conflicting with the Government's literacy and numeracy objectives," - oh you don’t say Anne, yes I think most NZers would be questioning National’s so called commitment to literacy and numeracy standards by slashing 770 teachers.

Tolley must be thanking her lucky stars that the Tsunami warning has replaced her plans to sack 770 teachers as the headline story for the day.

This right wing public service knee capping has been looming since National and ACT formed a majority and it’s only by threatening massive public backlashes that will stop the forces within this Government from implementing far reaching public service slash and burn adventures.

Planning to axe 770 teachers ends the charade that National/ACT are as moderate as they have pretended.

Drug testing the kids


Drug-test kit for use on kids draws flak
A $225 one-use kit requires parents to cut between 90 and 120 strands of hair – about the thickness of a pencil – at scalp level from their children. The sample must be between 4 centimetres and 4.5cm long so there is enough to determine the frequency of drug use in the past 90 days. It is packaged at home by parents and sent to a lab, where it is tested for seven illegal drugs: marijuana, cocaine, opiates such as codeine and morphine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and PCP (Phencyclidine). A drug history report of the child is available to parents via a secure website within two days of the lab receiving the sample. Health Ministry statistics from 2007 show that one in five 13 to 17-year-olds had used cannabis in the previous 12 months. Children's Commissioner John Angus said it was right that parents were concerned about possible drug use by their children. "However, if they are going to help them with drug issues, then they need to do that in the context of having an honest relationship with them. I don't think this would be helped by surreptitiously doing a drug test."

I just don’t think that drug testing your kid is the best way to keep your kid off drugs. If your relationship with your teenager has broken down so badly to the point of random drug testing in the house, I’m not sure what ‘solution’ this $225 test kit is supposed to provide. I mean, okay, Johnnies smoking weed and he’s lied to you about it, what are you going to do, throw him out onto the street, is that really what you want to do?

I suspect these testing kits are sold to frightened parents who see a solution in it that doesn’t actually exist.

Excuses to privatize


Local government debt forecast to double
Local government debt is likely to double to $11 billion during the next seven years as councils borrow to pay for core services. By June 2019, total debt is forecast to be at $10.765 billion, a rise of 99 per cent over June this year. Local Government NZ president Lawrence Yule said the introduction of compulsory asset management plans had forced many councils to deal with long-neglected infrastructure such as roads, water and sewerage systems, and they had no option but to borrow for the work.

This debt that has built up from long awaited infrastructure upgrades will be the main excuse Hide will use to privatize local government services as the glorious solution to the ever increasing rates tsunami. Rates going up while home owners face slumping house prices and W recessions breeds the exact type of conditions that generate quick fire asset sales.

Do not take your eyes off Hide, ever. He’s working on TABOR and the changes he is planning for local government will be the privatization blueprint for the country post 2011.

Tsunami Warning

UPDATE: 8.14AM - Quake now registered at 8.3

Large earthquake strikes near Samoa
Fiji unfairly blocked from UN role: Bainimarama EU extends Fiji sanctions Earthquake rocks Bali Virgin Mary spotted in Samoa Tonga ferry replacement bids Gitmo prisoners head for Pacific island Samoa passes left-switch driving test Fiji human rights abuses worsen Cacophony as Samoa switches Left switch 'not right' for Samoa
BREAKING NEWS: A magnitude 7.9 earthquake has just struck near Samoa and has triggered a region-wide tsunami warning.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii has warned a tsunami watch is in effect.

They said that if there is a tsunami it will reach New Zealand by 9.44am.

Da Gangs, Da Gangs


Housing NZ wins fight to evict gang families
Housing New Zealand's ability to get rid of troublesome tenants quickly has been strengthened after it won a second court battle to evict families with gang links. But the group of women who live in Farmer Cres in Pomare, the Hutt Valley, are still refusing to budge. In March, five women who have partners in the Mongrel Mob were the first in the country to be issued 90-day eviction notices after a woman moved out of her state house, saying she had been terrorised by gang members. Armed police later raided houses in the street, arresting more than 10 people. Three of the women in Farmer Cres had since lost their battle in the Tenancy Tribunal and yesterday they had a legal aid-funded appeal against eviction thrown out in Lower Hutt District Court. Two of the original group of five women have left the street. Chief executive Lesley McTurk said Housing NZ was taking a tougher stance on "severe antisocial behaviour" in order to protect the community. The eviction notices sidestepped the tribunal, where cases often failed because witnesses were too intimidated to testify. More than 28 eviction notices had been issued since March, many for antisocial behaviour.

How to deal with gang member tenants? No one likes ’em, bloody gypsies, they steal and rob chickens from the neighborhood and intimidate people so let’s move them into shipping containers. Now while many may agree with that statement, is this really the best solution? Where do they go? Where do they move if they can’t get a rental from Housing NZ? What’s the point of initializing a policy to throw all gang members out of Housing NZ properties, doesn’t that just alienate these people even further and the hell hole they are all forced to cram into sounds like the perfect conditions for a new social tumor.

Punishing the women and children for having gang member partners just seems so needlessly puritanical and the strategy behind it, to punish, looks like it will only make the situation for those families even more dangerous.

No one should live with intimidation, but no one should live with persecution either.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

BREAKING NEWS: Queen's Wharf design winners

Slapping an embargo on something that they've postponed inexplicably for three days without any warning. Talk about a dodgy process - 5 AM means it's been jacked up for the Herald too. That's pretty cheeky.

I am not at all surprised - in the slightest degree whatsoever - to see Auckland's architectural nemesis (mentioned in earlier posts on this subject) wriggle into one of the three consortia vying to win the big contract. It's all so inevitable.As I said earlier:
And:

The 5 designs to go forward are all very simple, very basic, very minimal and have a lot of very straight lines. All quite unremarkable and even more safe than I thought possible. It'll be functional - and they don't expect much more out of it than that. That's what they are asking - and that's what will be delivered - a barn for the rugga.

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On English

Muzzerino with his brutal dissection and translation of the NZ accent. Just one of the gems found in the depths of the nz blogosphere.

In the dog house

Where the important, Prime Ministerial, matters of state are announced:
Sounds like a telling off. A public telling off and a penalty. The PM is exerting some control here to bring his deputy into line and save him from himself.
Bill explains his politically untenable position, thus:
He's gone off and got a (certainly restrospective) QC's opinion that it's all OK. It means as much as a junky parent signing a note for their child saying they are allowed to sell P at school of course, but it's just one of many arse-covering manuoevres he has to undergo to make the double dip make legal sense now the Auditor-General is involved.

He has not received any housing allowance since July 28, when he paid back the difference between his previous ministerial allowance and the allowance for ordinary MPs.

In addition, he has today reimbursed Ministerial Services for all of the outstanding housing allowance he received since the election last November.


By revealing he hasn't been taking anything after July 28 we might conclude that he was waiting for the worst. The other thing that may have dawned is that to resume it meant receiving a lump sum and that would have also proved "distracting" - to use his word. Paying everything since the election back is deemed enough to draw a line under it in their book.

And he's not saying he's wrong! He's saying - effectively - the public are wrong for questioning him on it:

“At all times my decisions have been driven by my desire to keep my family together and provide them with as much stability as possible. It’s now clear that the system has struggled to deal with my circumstances."

Bill isn't wrong - we are - for not caring enough about his struggling family, trying to survive in the big smoke on a mere doctor's wages and a Deputy Prime Minister's salary. Bill didn't rort anything - the system screwed up.

"The system." The bloody system again, eh. Next he'll be telling us "The Man" has got it in for him.

Labour will keep sucking away at this as long as there's still any marrow left in that bone:The main damage has likely already been done - when English forced the PM's hand.

Bomber's Blog - The War On News - on tonight, 9.30pm, Sky 89



Bomber's Blog - the war on news is on tonight, 9.30pm simulcast on Sky 89 and Freeview 21. It's replayed on Triangle 9.45pm Wednesday. It will be posted on Tumeke, Youtube and Scoop later this week

Damage to English is done



English's refund not enough: Labour
Labour says the $32,000 Deputy Prime Minister Bill English has paid back to the Government is not enough, and it will continue to attack him over the taxpayer-funded accommodation allowance he has claimed. In a bid to end the ongoing controversy, Mr English yesterday gave up the allowance and paid back the money received since he became a minister again in November. But senior Labour MP Pete Hodgson said there were still an issue over the $24,000 a year Mr English had claimed while an Opposition MP. Mr English's declaration that Dipton in Southland was his "primary residence" let him get the out-of-town allowance even though he was living in a home in the Wellington suburb of Karori owned by a family trust. "There's still a question about where his primary residence is when he's been living in Wellington all these years," Mr Hodgson said. He said Labour would also continue to question Mr English about changes made to the deed of the trust when he was switching to the larger ministerial allowance, and Prime Minister John Key's involvement as minister responsible for Ministerial Services.

The Key Clique don’t like the old socially conservative guard that English represents and won’t have any problems seeing Bill bleed over this. Seeing as Steven ‘Hollow Brain’ Joyce is being jockeyed into being the next Finance Minister this embarrassing episode in allowance mismanagement by English is enough to have damaged any credibility he has whenever he asks the rest of the country to cut back because of the W in recession.

It’s good that Bill has finally done the right thing but it took months of attacks to do that, and there is the question of the remaining $24 000. Again, no one has a beef with MPs getting an allowance to live in Wellington, we get that, but signing your Wellington house over to your wife so that house can be rented from her is just a rort and it's obvious to us all. In the boom times these sorts of scams wouldn’t go noticed, but when Bill is lecturing the rest of the country on cutbacks while taking $500 a week to rent his own home, it all looks like a farce.

Add that drop in credibility with the fact the Key clique want grumpy Bill out and Svengali ‘Hollow Brain’ Joyce in and English’s bitterness at getting toppled by Brash for the leadership will be cemented forever.

Monday, September 28, 2009

The nuclear cloak of invisibility

Iranians, are bad, m'kay... they want nukes, m'kay, and that's destablising, m'kay to the Middle East m'kay... m'kay, so that makes them bad, m'kay... the Iran regime is bad, m'kay... Armeddinnerjacket is a bad man, m'kay...

Can't see our very good pals the Americans so much as even mentioning all the evidence in the 51st state. Watch —


See no Dimona, hear no Dimona, speak no Dimona

Nothing to see here, Sheriff. Just some holiday snaps of a fertilizer factory or something. Nothing to see here...
- that's a pétanque ball.
- it's still a pétanque ball, but don't touch it.
- and that's just a smoke detector, that's what that radioactive symbol is, it's a smoke detector, because when you run a bread facto.. a fertilizer plant, you have to have safety measures, like smoke detectors, you'll probably see a lot of them around.
- Lithium 6 production, ah, good for healthy bones and... trace element for goats, and... stuff...
- they didn't want to get the pétanque balls wet... because they rust, so they put them in here and they have to have these gloves to handle them... because the... manager... is a clean freak - yes, and he gets very particular about things and anyway he's gone and left it in there... and that explains that.
OK, yes it did say on the door "Plutonium Separation Plant Control Room", but that's Gary! That's Gary's joke. It's Gary having fun again. He is a card. He really is a card, and, no - no that's ah, that's fertilizer stuff in there, lots of trace elements and stuff - not worth looking at really. Yawn! Talk about yawn. Bor-ing! So boring. Let's go back outside now, eh... nothing to see here.

One for the pro-smackers in the house


Why kids who get spanked have lower IQs

The debate over spanking goes back many years, but the essential question often evades discussion: does spanking actually work? In the short term, yes. You can correct immediate misbehavior with a slap or two on the rear-end or hand. But what about the long-term impact? Can spanking lead to permanent, hidden scars on children years later?

On Friday, a sociologist from the University of New Hampshire, Murray Straus, presented a paper at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, suggesting that corporal punishment does leave a long-lasting mark — in the form of lower IQ. Straus, who is 83 and has been studying corporal punishment since 1969, found that kids who were physically punished had up to a five-point lower IQ score than kids who weren't — the more children were spanked, the lower their IQ — and that the effect could be seen not only in individual children, but across entire nations. Among 32 countries Straus studied, in those where spanking was accepted, the average IQ of the survey population was lower than in nations where spanking was rare, the researcher says.


This week's Time examines the debate around corporal punishment, arguing that smacking your children may stunt their cognitive development. While Straus' study cannot under any circumstances be seen as conclusive due to the number of variable factors in the broader environment of the children it examines, it does support other studies which signal that smacking can impact on a child's ability to learn.

Such findings are not surprising: we know from adults that the impact of violence can lead to stunted emotional growth and conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. It is hardly extrapolating to imagine that children, while unable to articulate their emotions/pain to the same level as adults, might suffer a similar impact from this violence. Straus' study reveals the social acceptability and frequency of such violence: roughly three-quarters had been disciplined through corporal punishment in the last two weeks. Perhaps someone should show these statistics to the US religious conservative group Focus on Family group who funded the "vote no" smacking referendum campaign in NZ to the tune of $1 million.

The arguments that the pro-smacking lobby provide in New Zealand for harming our children simply do not stack up. You can't smack another adult just because you are frustrated, so why should you need to smack your children? There are better ways to discipline children that teaching them that violence is the resolution to problems. Thankfully, despite his posturing to the conservatives, section 59 looks set to stay as it is under a Key Government. Let's hope Act's John Boscawen doesn't get too much leverage in his campaign to build on parent's fears to make smacking the status quo again.

Latest excuse to attack Iran


Iran tests two short-range missiles: reports
Iran test-fired short-range missiles as its elite Revolutionary Guards began war games on Sunday aimed at boosting the Islamic Republic's deterrent capabilities, official media reported. The missile manoeuvres coincide with increased tension in Iran's nuclear dispute with the West, after last week's disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant.

Coming out and claiming Iran has a secret weapons programme is almost like that secret weapons programme we invaded Saddam Hussien for, remember the weapons of mass destruction that never existed? When it comes to military intelligence and weapons of mass destruction, do we actually believe America anymore? I’m sorry, but I have to see Ahmadinejad personally out the front of this secret military compound doing a live as seen on TV infomercial selling weapon grade uranium to terrorist organizations and rogue nations before I agree to another war on a Middle Eastern country for weapons of mass destruction. Hope and Change is one thing, total memory blackout of the last 8 years is another.

John Key at the UN, it wasn’t Lange at Oxford was it?


Brothers and sisters, I have to ask you a question, it’s an important question and it’s a question we don’t often ask ourselves, but do we still have an independent foreign policy in this country? After Optimist Prime’s Letterman ‘We loves America’ suck up, sending the SAS back to Afghanistan and our staged walkout with the US-Israel block over Iran, does NZ have an opinion any longer or do we just do what America tells us now?

What’s the point of NZ getting a seat on the security Council if we are going to be yet another American puppet with no independent voice? Is the height of John Key’s optimism to be told what to say by our bigger mates? Is that the flat line of John Key’s vision? Yes Mr President, what’s my foreign policy today Sir?

Last week an independent UN fact-finding mission into the recent Gaza conflict published its findings. This major report outlines powerful evidence of war crimes and other violations of international law on both sides, the vote to adopt it’s recommendations is Tuesday at the UN.

The signs are that the report will be vetoed by our allies to save Israel any further investigation into war crimes. Are we to assume that NZ will fall into line with our allies or will we urge support for the UN report because if we do what our Allies tell us then we’ll be sending the signal that some UN reports should be followed if they are against Iran, but other UN reports should be ignored if they are against Israel.

That looks like a double standard, a bit like how our Optimist-in-Chief was telling the UN how serious climate change is, yet has cobbled together with the Maori party an Emission Trading Scheme that is pathetic and serves only to subsidize big industry polluters rather than fight global warming. If NZ, a relatively rich country won’t bother leading the new generation of low carbon thinking, why the hell should India, China or Brazil bother changing?

When John Key wasn’t marketing the loosest slot machines in the Pacific Rim on Letterman.

(more on Pamela Anderson at Fashion week later)

He was quietly signing a deal with the corrupt election tampering Afghanistan government to protect our SAS from legal implications of complicity in torture. Why weren’t our mainstream media asking questions about this Government signing secret immunity deals with corrupt regimes to let our troops off the hook if they are complicit in torture?

Because the loosest slot machine in the Pacific Rim was visiting for Fashion week.

That’s right NZ, instead of asking questions about torture
immunity deals with regimes that torture, amateur porn star and fashion guru? Pamela Anderson was the main news story this week, if I were Israel, on the day they start bombing Iran I’d have Pamela Anderson visit the wailing wall to block out news pictures of Tehran burning.

Isn’t this Government signing torture immunity deals with Afghanistan kinda more important than an amateur porn star at fashion week? I mean why are we signing torture immunity deals, do we intend to torture anyone? How does torture immunity deals help build freedom and democracy, isn’t torture immunity deals the exact opposite of democracy and freedom?

Rather than answer those questions, let’s just look at the loosest slot machine in the pacific rim again

nz blogosphere rankings : August 2009 release

NZ blogosphere August 2009 survey has been released. 219 blogs in all are monitored. 'You'll never need maths once you leave school...' - Yeah, right.

MPs blogging in some capacity:

#5 Red Alert: Labour MPs - group blog: Mallard, Curran et al.
#10 Frogblog: Green MPs - group blog.
#50 Blogs | Act NZ: - group blog: Roy, Douglas et al.
#62 John Key (Nat)
#110 Bill English (Nat)
#119 Grant Robertson (Lab)
#121 Maori Party - group blog
#140 United Future | blog - Dunne & Party Pres.
#149 Backing the Bay [Craig Foss & Chris Tremain] (Nat)
#154 Hipkins Online (Lab)
#180 Brendon Burns (Lab)
#202 Over the Fence [David Carter] (Nat)
#219 Ken Graham (Grn)

Most of the blogs are promotional rather than interactive (although they all allow comments).

If you know of any more MPs with blogs please let us know in the comments section.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A salute to Sue


A salute to departing Green Party MP, Sue Bradford. A true kiwi hero who has fought tirelessly for those less fortunate and who has achieved more as a backbencher than any other backbencher in NZ political history and all the while having to deal with an ugly talkhate radio redneck NZ who sneered at her working class accent and judged her on the most petty of standards.

As the woman brave enough to stand up for the rights of children from getting assaulted by parents, she has had to deal with death threats against her and her family. Her standing down leaves the Greens bleached mainstream, more a weak lime than a militant green.

A great Rimu tree has fallen in the forest. Her loss for the left will be deeply felt.

Kia Kaha Sue!

...if possible, or - you know - whatever...

Q+A transcript from this morning with the Transport Minister, Steven Joyce:And it might not be possible. "If possible" means it may not be possible too. It's all promises involving confidence and possibility. It sounds (how would the PM put this?) aspirational.

The history of electrification of the Auckland rail system is there isn't any. It's never happened. It's never been started. Each government says it is 3 to 5 years away - and it remains 3-5 years away when that government leaves office and a new one comes in with promises of it being 3-5 years away... And it's been like that since the war. So when Joyce says it's 4 years away I just don't believe it.

The convoluted divisions of responsibilities amongst the players - the lack of any unitary authority for Auckland rail - means they cannot get their act together and it won't happen.

How can a project so important as electrification go ahead when they don't even have any clocks at the stations? Their priorities are as muddled as their projections. The only clocks I've ever seen at an Auckland station are at Britomart itself - and I saw the main ones over the big boards recently and they were about 2 or so hours off. I didn't have a camera with me or I would have taken a picture. I began looking at the train times underneath and then I realised - if the main clocks are so far out then why on Earth would the actual schedule be any more accurate? I walked out and caught a bus instead.

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Saturday, September 26, 2009

John & Bill off-message

[UPDATE--9:45PM It's all better now. Their propaganda is back online - or at least receivable here. I can't wait to hear how he justifies going to New York to appear as a side act human gimmick on the Letterman cavalcade. Someone with a personality would have warranted an actual interview wouldn't they. And why he's bidding for a seat at the UN Security Council for NZ after declaring our undying love for the US-Israel bloc the other day at the General Assembly - where we followed instructions and walked out on Iran. Last time we were on the Security Council we let Rwanda happen. What glory awaits us next time 'round? --]

Go to national.org.nz. OK - don't; but here's what I found, or rather, didn't find: I tried clicking through (on the top left) to johnkey.co.nz and billenglish.co.nz yesterday and got a disconnected signal. Nothing. Tried again today.Nothing.Nothing.

Is something up? It's a bad look for the main site to be linking to the leadership websites when they are offline. People begin asking themselves why. They are not being redirected and I doubt that all the horny housewives of middle America googling that spunky John Key who was on the Late Show (if you believe the comments from the audience made to NZ TV outside the taping) is enough to account for a traffic-related collapse of the server. Could be nothing... could be everything.

His Facebook is functioning. With 15,297 supporters someone might notice if that went down. He's had posted up his meeting with Obama and his sideshow appearance on Letterman. Both Americans are asking themselves the same thing: "Why is he out here?" I note the chair of the Republican movement is registered as being a supporter (bottom left). Of both.Not that it really means anything, in the few minutes after capturing that image I see the fearless Leftist, Tane (the other one, not the Standard one), has joined the support group too.