Monday, March 26, 2012

Brownlee: Bringing the World Together Over Hating Us

Who votes that Gerry Brownlee gets given the portfolio for Foreign Affairs? Think of the excitement that it would bring to the country, opening your morning paper on your computer screen, scanning the headlines to see just who he's managed to piss of this week. Sure, we can start with Finland. Besides their cutting wit they're probably unlikely to circumnavigate the globe just so that we can lob our defence sheep at them. But Iran, China? Now we're talking. Come on Brownlee, lets really shake things up and give our media the excuse to put on their pensive voices of doom as they read off the monitors."This is New Zealand's darkest day!" Key can bark out from the white sandy beaches of Hawaii, surrounded by twenty armed guards while discreetly tucking his daiquiri behind his back.

Key has already issued a 'regret' statement, saying the he regrets any and all future actions from his ministers but that he's comfortable with doing nothing until opinion polls tell him otherwise. ‘Baskets of Regret’ aka ‘Please Don’t Invade Us’ will also be sent out so that insulted countries can sample all that NZ has to offer, including both lamb chops and lamb shanks, plus copies of Lord of the Rings that may or may not have been stolen from Video Ezy.

Brownlee however believes that it's been blown out of proportion and that by calling another country a bunch of unemployed, starving, murderous, uneducated misogynists, he meant it in a loving and satirical way. Brownlee also pointed out that he often spends his weekends punching toddlers and then yelling "just kidding" therefore mitigating his actions.

What Brownlee should have done, and what he was obviously trying to do, was instead of dragging Finland into it just go straight for Shearer himself. "You're stupid and everyone thinks you're stupid!" could work, or possibly the classic "If you love Finland so much why don't you marry it". Or now that the Labour leader has shaved his hair off for charity there must be a good "Look everyone, Shearer got shown!" statement in there somewhere, while English high-fives him and Smith runs down from the back of the house only to get there too late.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Nick Smith’s Speech to Parliament

"Mr Speaker, this afternoon I have tendered my resignation in all of my portfolios to the prime minister.

The prime minister has quite properly accepted my resignation. To my portfolios that is, not to my position as an MP. I trust however that if I use the word resignation enough people won’t catch on that I will still remain in parliament cashing in a $140,000 salary.

Mr Speaker I do so because I got caught. Only once, but I suspect now that the media is sniffing around they’ll find out about the other letter floating about so I might as well come clean about that now as well.  It was an error of judgment brought about by a temptress who lured me to the dark side with her constant nagging for me to help her. What a bitch.  

The first error I made was in July last year, when she said to me that there were concerns to her status prior to the accident and I believed her, the simple soul that I am.

I sent the letter in the role of being her friend even though I stated in the letter that obviously I wasn’t because it would be inappropriate. Am I contradicting myself? Only because of the constant lady nagging that occurred.

It was an error of judgment, firstly in doing the letter, but more so in being on ministerial letterhead but it was so pretty and I had run out of my own personal supply. I’ve been stealing office supplies for years, this too I admit.

Yesterday, I asked ACC to cover my ass and check all the correspondence that I had over my three years as Minister, and there was quite a lot, with this particular person. Mostly love letters, though I’m unsure why ACC had that particular bundle.

Out of that large amount of correspondence I have two examples here where I stated the conflict of interest. So there. But now let me outline the second reason why I must stand down from Cabinet even though they should cancel each other out.

The second instance that brings me to the point that it is the proper thing for me to do and to resign is that there was a letter in March in 2010, where a member of parliament was advocating for this person to the associate minister of ACC, who was then Pansy Wong.

Pansy Wong quite properly said this was a friend of hers too, she was on the campaign committee and a conflict of interest and referred that letter back to myself.

ACC (not I!) prepared a formal response to that letter, I signed out that error back to that constituent, without acknowledging that I too had a conflict of interest.

It was that second letter in which not having erred once, but erred twice has brought about my resignation this morning.

Mr Speaker, I do want to put on the public record that I did not in my view interfere in anyway in the judgment calls that ACC made about that particular person's claim because nobody at ACC likes me or listens to me ever. But I do accept that the signing of those two letters is not up to the standard this parliament can rightly expect of its ministers which is pretty low.

I firstly want to again apologise to the prime minister, to my caucus colleagues, to my family and staff and to the Pope. It is my intention to serve out this term's parliament because Key only makes public servants redundant, not his mates.

I love the money and the perks, I'm disappointed I'm not going to be able to continue my work in some of those areas I have a passion such as making underground deals, but I apologise to all my fellow representatives for getting caught.

Mr Speaker, I seek the leave of the house to table the four letters, all be it, one letter does have some personal information and I assure the house the only information that has been removed is personal information that is not proper before the house, so that it is quite clear to the events that have occurred. It’s pretty damn raunchy, that’s all I’m saying.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Dear ACC...

Official Ministerial Letterhead of Nick Smith, Minister for ACC

Dear Plebs at ACC

Look, see, Bronwyn Pullar's a mate of mine that I've known for decades from the National Party. You could say that she's a Friend of Ours. You've seen The Sopranos, right? Great show.

Obviously it would be inappropriate to comment on my friend's claim with the ACC given that I'm the Minister for ACC and essentially your boss. I mentioned that she'd been my friend, along with her family, for decades, right? Commenting as Nick Smith, Minister for the ACC, on ministerial letterhead, is completely appropriate however and that she's my friend is by-the-way, that I just thought I should mention. Did I also mention that I'm friends with her family? I just wanted to make sure of that. Nice people the Pullers. Ties to the National Party.

I'm no doctor, and I don't know anything about her case, but she's dynamic and capable. Surely that's got to count for something. To the best of my knowledge, taking into account that I haven't assessed her, or again know anything about the case, she seemed in good health when she worked for me as a family friend. I certainly can't recall her sneezing.

If you ever require me as Minister of ACC to assist you in your decision making of cases that involve my friends, please do not hesitate to contact me in future. Or I'll contact you, whatever.

Yours sincerely,
Bronwyn Puller's Family Friend, Nick Smith
Minister for ACC and Your Boss

ps. The actual letter that manages to be worse than the parody: http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/nicksmith.pdf

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Marmite: A National Catastrophe

As we all will have heard by now, the civil defence sirens still ringing in our ears, the nation is facing it's darkest days. Due to some event that occurred in Christchurch some time back (??), the only factory that makes marmite has ceased production while they move facilities to a safer place.

The official word has been for citizens not to 'freak out' which is obviously code that we should begin freaking out immediately, with hoarding, looting and mild rioting in the worst affected zones. Forget property and gold, marmite has become the new backup investment and currency of choice.

Talk is already spreading of people using bovril and vegemite as a substitute, but they are obviously traitors, not only to the cause but to the country-at-large, and should be executed as soon as possible in order to stem this tide of heresy. Remember to turn in your neighbour if they look even slightly furtive when carrying in their shopping bags.

The person that needs to front up to cameras though is none other than Gerry Brownlee. He was meant to be the leader that led us from disaster, who foresaw future troubles and protected us from them. Now where has he left us? Weeping quietly over our empty jars of our beloved breakfast spread, gazing out into a future that may be brighter, but only because our beloved black spread has gone. Where are you now Brownlee, and why do you smell of yeast?

Wait, did anyone check to make sure that it hasn't moved to Australia?

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Super Ministry and Away!

Our Dear Leader announced yesterday that we'll be waving goodbye to the ministries of Economic Development and Science and Innovation, the Labour Department, and the Building and Housing Department into one colossal Super Ministry, which is like a super city but with less Rodney Hyde and a lot less people once all the job cuts have happened.

The changes to stationary and signage will bankrupt the country alone.

Those ragged few that are left once the state executions redundancies have occurred will be gifted with capes and a fake identity as part of being in the new League of Super Ministries. They'll be stationed in a spare cupboard in the Awesome Colossal Ministry (combination of Work and Income, Health, and Justice) where they'll spend their days helping the citizens of New Zealand by answering phones and, well, answering phones. They'd answer emails but the computers will be taken away and sold to pay for Murray McCully's next 3 day $25, 000 jaunt overseas.

With regards to the changes Key said: "Some people will feel threatened by that (those people who are getting fired) and others won't (those people in the top jobs that I'm friends with). But ... I don't think we should stop doing things because they're challenging, and that's always been my approach to both firing people and my sex life."

Rumours that the Ministers holding the seperate portfolios would be genetically modified into a single Super Minister blob was quickly quashed as Key explained that he looked after his own, and by that he meant those who earned as much as Ministers did. "Sure, it would make more sense that if we think one Ministry can undertake all the work that one Minister could do the same thing, but I can't take away their portfolios from them when they've grown so close to the perks and the prestige that they bring. I'm not a monster."

As a side note I think we're all shocked that a man who was known in the private sector as "the smiling assassin" for the cheery way he axed hundred of jobs, would have one of his lasting legacies as Prime Minister be that he cheerfully axed thousands of jobs. Where the hell did that come from?!

When John Key said that National would give us a brighter future he meant that it was the light that we'd all see shining brightly as the lifeblood of NZ was drained away. On the plus side Michael Joseph Savage and Norman Kirk will be there to meet us all, smiling and waving, ready for Key to turn up so they can kick him in the balls.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Uncle Shearer Speaks to Old Zealand


Kids, gather around and let Uncle Shearer tell you a story.

A circus used to have an exhibit which had a cage containing a lion, a tiger, a panther, and a baby lamb. That baby lamb would get eaten, and not in the good way. This is what we’re doing in New Zealand; eating lambs like our forefathers ate lambs, and our forefather before that. Eventually we’re going to run out of lambs and mint sauce. This is not the future that I want for our children, where the only options for Sunday roasts are chicken or beef.

National believes that you can’t handle the truth, but us, well, let me tell you here and now that we’re one step away from maxing out our credit cards and we’ve only got a couple of eggs to sell. We’re fucked, and like the lamb, not in the good way.

I’m going to now trot out a cliché, a cliché called ‘Vision’ but because I’m indicating that I know that you know that it’s a cliché, it makes it new and exciting – you could almost call it New new, but let’s not yet, because I’m going to be using that term a lot later on.

Visions are like Excalibur because you need to know what to stab with them, like lambs. My vision sword is straightforward:

New Zealand shouldn’t suck like it’s currently sucking. Finland used to suck, now it doesn’t, and their leader made bold decisions that stopped the sucking of Finland (but not in a bad way) but caused him to lose his job, and if I’m doing things right I too won’t get re-elected, you bunch of visionless ungrateful bastards.

We have to bite the bullet and slash about with Excalibur making radical changes. And from the bullet ridden, sword slashed ruins a New New Zealand, or Noonoo Zealand as it phonetically sounds, will arise.

I don’t believe in magic bullet, only magic swords. But we’re going to plan and then have the guts to fulfil that plan of making this country suck just that little bit less. Did you forget for a moment that we suck? Let me remind you of it some more: we’re not green and clean, we export sweet f all, all our investments are in the property market.

What’s as important as lambs, bullets and swords? Physical Education. Some kids are marathon runners, but some of those fat kids, well, they’ve been eating too much lamb and are trailing behind. We have to fix it by getting better teachers who will teach these kids to go easy on their portion sizes so that they can run faster. Sure, the kids are shoeless and they have a leg missing from health issues, but having a quality teacher who can yell at them to hop across that finish line will make all the difference.

Noonoo Zealand will be a place where everyone gets a share of the lamb pie but at the same time you need to have baking skills which will be taught alongside our stringent running programme.

Noonoo Zealand is going to be a great place for lambs and the people who eat them. Unless lambs is an allegory for our children which in that case for gods sake stop pouring mint sauce on your kid.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Breaking Dawn? More Like Breaking Wind, Amiright!?

My kidnappers made me watch Breaking Dawn, part of the Twilight series, last night. Let me spoil you so you don't have to watch it.

Event: A Wedding.
Drama!: The bride has a nightmare...something bad may happen!
What Actually Happens: Nothing.

Event: Wedding Reception.
Drama!: The third part of the love triangle shows up!
What Happens: He declares that the bride is at imminent risk of being rooted to death by the groom. I kid you not.

Event: The Honeymoon.
Drama!: Danger of EXPLOSION by grooms willy. Also danger of EXPLOSION by sexual frustration.
What Happens: The bed EXPLODES in a frenzy of missionary position, barely moving, vanilla sex.

Event: The Aftermath of Honeymoon Sex.
Drama!: The bride is in danger of EXPLODING from her vampire/human hybrid magic baby!
What Happens: She becomes a size zero model and books jobs at New York Fashion Week. Something about werewolves wanting to kill the baby due to the imminent danger it presents of gurgling and pooping itself.

Event: The Birth
Drama!: She could EXPLODE at any moment, Captain!
What Happens: The groom comes to the rescue by chewing the baby out of her stomach. Again, I kid you not.

Event: Twue Luv!
Drama!: Werewolf love triangle boy doesn't have a soul mate!
What Happens: He "imprints" on the baby. No, seriously. There's a montage of her as a teenager looking beguiling at the camera as he sets the countdown clock until she turns legal - which is romantic you guys, and like, totally not completely creepy as hell.

Event: Bride of Vampire Becomes a Vampire Bride
Drama!: She could DIE! Oh, wait...
What Happens: She dies by way of stolen cgi effects from CSI and her eyes snap open to the most terrifying moment in the movie: the knowledge that there will be a sequel.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Lady Writers: The Glitter Kitten Chronicles

Jane Espenson, who has had a long writing careers spanning a number of popular television programmes, has written an article entitled On Sex and Writing (Not That Kind of Sex) which discusses gender politics within an industry that is dominated by male writers.

It's an interesting article with some interesting viewpoints, but I do have to disagree with it on a few points.

First of all when Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Moore (Battlestar Galatica) are referenced it does kind of emphasise that they worked in niche television and were loudly and strongly lauded for going against the grain (and to be fair, there has also been criticism). Using them as examples only reinforces what the industry as a whole doesn't do well, not what it does as a general rule of thumb.

She states that 'good writers can write across the gender lines' but that begs the question then why are our television screens are filled with the type of female character where her primary purpose is to be decorative, an object of romance, or to be something to be rescued - in other words she is there to support the storyline of the male character. Or why there is a disproportionate lack of women on screen - 51% of the lead characters on primetime are certainly not women.

It is arguably important that we have diversification around the writing table, even if it is fictional works that are being created. Considering the amount of leisure time that people have, and the amount of time used consuming media, it's important that we don't just have a monolithic viewpoint that's there to prop up stereotypes that we all unthinkingly carry around. If a good writer though can write from any viewpoint then I guess it doesn't matter that only 10% of writers in Hollywood are minorities or that 75% are male, but there's been enough journal articles churned out on the subject that suggests that it does matter.

Jane's answer to these statistics is for more women to submit work. That's absolutely true, you can't hire more women if there's nobody submitting an application, but she also fails to mention the majority of the decision makers as to who gets hired and what gets made are, wait for it, white men.

If Jane is really suggesting that a good writer can write across gender lines then given the state of Hollywood it must be brimming with inadequate ones.

/ I'm not slating all television, it raised me after all. It could just do better.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Cameron and Morgan (4 Eva!)

Let's face it - Kirk Cameron, for all his recent bigoted remarks about gay people, should be an object of pity. If history has taught us anything, and by history I mean random members of the Republican party, Cameron's future is probably going to feature being busted in the mens toilets with a gaggle of male prostitutes or caught rustling about in the bushes of some seedy park.

I'm not saying that he's a closet case, I'm just merely implying that he's possibly wardrobe luggage.

On the bright side, at least it's not just gays he's got it out for:

'Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was defined in the garden between Adam and Eve.'

Did you hear that non-Christians? Marriage was defined between Adam and Eve ("Not Steve!" yells Kirk helpfully), so your marriage is a sham. You probably should sit down with the kids and either part ways due to your unholy joining, or prepare to walk in the path of Adam and Eve, which I believe involves a generous dose of incest and fratricide.

What got me was Piers Morgan's defense of Cameron saying that he was 'brave'. Yes, it's always brave to call a group of people 'unnatural' and 'destructive to the foundations of civilization', when that group is not only a minority, but doesn't even share the same protection or access to the law in most parts of the world. A group that has a higher than average suicide rate because of the intolerance that they face. Yes, when I think of the word brave I don't think of someone risking their life for another, or standing up to injustice, I think of someone mouthing off hate speech because sadly, they know they can get away with it because they're protected by enough people that hold those same intolerant views.

Next Week: Piers Morgan interviews the Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, pins a medal on him for bravery and throws a parade ("But not a gay one!" pleads Kirk).