Getting All Democratic Up On That Mofo

So we had an election, and Labour seems to have edged into some kind of perilous lead following the preliminary results. Thank God for that. Like a few other people I was starting to get worried - it certainly felt like there might be a change in the government, but perhaps this is just because I live in a city where The Press - Latin motto "suffragium pro Don Brash" - is the major newspaper. I don't think Labour ran a terriffic campaign; overall they seemed to be out-brayed by National somewhat, which was maybe why it felt like National might win - simply because they were louder, and thus perhaps seemed to be constantly gaining support - but of course they were gaining it at the expense of NZ First, Act and United Future, not Labour. Labour did more or less enough to retain the level of its own vote, and besides, you wonder what they can actually do to sway people who have a tradition or inclination to normally vote National anyway. (Who are these people that swing between left and right like this anyway? Dirty fence-sitters.)

Anyway, at this stage it looks like Aunty Helen now has the unenviable job of cobbling together some kind of hideous hydra monster government, with 4 or 5 angry heads that snap venomously away at each other in constant fashion. Even the briefest scan of the 'bottom line' polices of United Future, NZ First, the Greens and the Maori Party reveal more than a few ever so slight discrepancies - you know, like the Greens aren't too happy that Winston thinks climate change doesn't exist, and United Future won't work with any government that doesn't force Nandor to have a haircut (although right now it looks like Nandor might be out of parliament , pending special votes. That would suck - say what you like about his policies, but the man is that true rarity, an actually interesting MP, so hopefully he sneaks in there). It might be easier, say, if all of Labour's little potential coalition partners were to coalesce into Alliance II: Even Less Chance of Working - a party that would have, what, 6 co-leaders? Hmmm, you can't really see Winston as co-anything though, so it might be a bit tricky. Perhaps Labour should simply avoid this petty infighting, think about creating a government with a massive mandate, and consider National as a possible coalition partner. I mean the media always talks about Labour as the 'Centre-Left' and National as the 'Centre-Right', so the two of them could concentrate on the 'Centre' bit and come up with a great many extremely bland centrist policies that were more or less acceptable to every one of the roughly 1 and 3/4 of a million people that have voted for the two of them (although admittedly if it were possible to create such policies, we probably wouldn't even need elections) . The resulting government could be called "Nabour" (slogan: "Feeding New Zealand's Cat When The Nation Goes on Holiday"), would be purple coloured, and worth it for the look on Winston's face alone. Don and Helen could take alternate days as Prime Minister and Michael Cullen and John Key could concentrate on reaching an amiable middle ground on the issue of just how much the country should be spending on tea and biscuits.

Failing this option though, it looks like the the next government will be created / formed / unnaturally spawned as a hideous bleeding deformity with a wet racking cough / from the Left. Huzzah. Although I'm happy, I'm sure this fact proves most distressing to the '49 concerned individuals from Kaitaia to Invercargill' who took out an ad in The Press late last week advocating a change of government, with the main reason for a change being necessary implied as being the final sale of our Skyhawks. The best sentence in the ad was one that went something like 'the pacifist attitudes of our current government will not protect us from the aspirations of growing nations like China, Russia, Iran and Japan'.

The question 'what the hell?' can of course be fired at this ad for so many reasons. Although my own grasp of the strategic policy of Iran is not intimate, I'm prepared to say I don't think we shouldn't be losing any sleep over the imminent arrival of their invasion force. Likewise, I believe the clear and present level of danger presented to our own sovereignty by the Japanese military has receded somewhat in the 63 years since 1942. Russia seems unlikely to come all that way , and besides, they dare not attack while we still have a disappearing gun on Ripapa Island , and China simply can't divert oil from its booming economy to fuel an invasion force...

But seriously, if China (???), Japan (????), Russia (?????) or Iran (??????) (more question marks are really justified all round, but it would start looking silly) did appear on the horizon, could we expect our 20 odd clapped-out Skyhawks to bring them to a shuddering halt? I mentioned the ad to Bill in our office, who as I have mentioned before was a career army guy, and head of military intelligence in New Zealand for a time - and he pointed out that A) no, of course we couldn't, and B) the Skyhawks we had here were equipped with what is essentially air-traffic control radar - passive radar, that essentially relies on an incoming plane sending out a type of active signal. Providing the incoming Russians / Chinese / Japanese / Iranis (again, what the hell?) flick the switch in their aircraft that sends out this signal from 'on' to 'off', our Skyhawks can't actually find them. In fact, their isn't a radar in this country that can find them. So our Skyhawks would, sadly, most likely be blown up on the ground before they could get around to their task of single-handedly stopping the advance of the People's Liberation Army Air Force (current estimated strength: 3,500 aircraft) - if said air force actually thought they were even worth expending the ammunition on, that is. This would prevent us putting even the defence plan Si suggested - dropping the Skyhawks onto the attackers from an Orion - into action.

I'm sure these 49 'concerned citizens' are now extremely concerned at the prospect of another 3 years of non-Skyhawk-retaining government, but they needn't be so worried, because anyone who has read Green party policy carefully will of course have taken note of Jeanette Fitzsimmon's election promise to make sure New Zealand acquires no less than 3 aircraft carrier battle groups. With the Greens now likely to be part of the next government, I'm sure this will be a key issue for them when they come to the negotiation table , and our concerned fellows can look forward to not only some defence that packs a punch, but perhaps even making a few invasions of our own. Why not strike pre-emptively at the aggressor nations of China and Japan?After all, it's only a matter of time before they do it to us, so why not throw the first punch? There are hardly even any white people living in either place as well, so no-one will mind.

Right wing blowhards: stupid gits. I can only surmise that they are so enamoured of the Skyhawks because both their own attitudes and the planes themselves are from the 1950s.

Time for bed I think. But while I'm here, something I've been meaning to point out for a while - has anyone taken a close look at the (relatively) new signage for Charcoal Chicken at Church Corner? It seems to depict, in cartoon form, a live, half-feathered (the other feathers presumably having been burned off) and very sorry-looking chicken, complete with head, feet, etc - you know, all the things chickens still have when they are alive - being tortuously roasted to death over the hot coals, while to the right, a rooster, safe from this horror itself, looks on in an extremely imperious manner. In fact, it looks like nothing so much as this rooster presiding over the medieval execution of this unfortunate chicken for, I don't know, chicken witchcraft, or something. It is weird. What exactly is the impression they are seeking to create, that they don't kill the chickens before charring them? That only the freshest chickens are used to make the food? That only chickens that have committed crimes against God and nature and have trafficked with Satan are used to make the food? That as the owners, they hate chickens and everything they stand for, and wish to kill as many of them as painfully as possible to make 1/4 chicken with wedges and gravy combos? That they are some sort of chicken sexists, and believe that female chickens should do all the, er, getting turned into food work, while the males strut around looking commanding? As a graphic warning to passing chickens that walking into that shop would be a particularly bad idea?

Weird, I tells ya. Observe and be puzzled.

And away I go.