Pythonesque Politics

I have always thought of politics as vaguely Pythonesque. Now our National Government is absurdly going that way.

First we have the Prime Minister John Key doing a very good imitation of John Cleese as Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers over his reaction to the Worth affair.

As for Dr Worth what did he think he was doing? How did he get the title Dr? Baldric is more appropriate.

Melissa Lee qualifies for the position of Minister of Silly Talk after her statements about Auckland.

We should be able to expect better, but I am sure that before long we will see more silliness as our MPs try to give the impression that they are doing something competent.

J'accuse, - Denial of Internet access Law to be retained

So our Deckchair shuffling Government has decided to keep one of the most stupid pieces of legislation from the last Government. Now what does that say about them?

In a nutshell this legislation was to protect copyright holders of downloadable material. As a holder of copyright material I applaud the intent but most certainly not the means. It is abhorrent.

In practice it means that is you are accused of illegally downloading copyright material your Internet service provider has to deny you Internet access. No proof, no discussion, no right of appeal, no Internet ever. You are switched off.

I am not going to go on about why this is an abuse of power by Government and the "Big (and I mean big) media companies" and how it deprives us of our rights, or how the ISPs are being forced to monitor your online activity (They do not want to be part of it). No, all of that and more is apparent to anyone who thinks about it for a minute and is not a captive of "Big media".

If all it takes is just an accusation, the answer to this is obvious. A very simple act on our part can make this legislation unworkable and and it will be repealed in less time than it takes a politician to cover its backside.

If  we accuse every member of Parliament, Parliament itself and every Media Company and media boss of illegal downloads. The ISPs must act on  the accusation and before long all "Big Media" and all MPs will be offline. They will have no right of appeal and the only way they will be able to get online is to repeal the legislation.

I call on all people who feel strongly about this to act. I am sure that the ISPs will co-operate and will act to the letter of the law. Let us show that we will not take this lying down. Email a copy of this to all the people who you thinks might act. We have the numbers, we have the Power.

 

National "do nothing" Government of New Zealand

So we had this election in November to change the Government right. We went from a Labour government who did lots of stuff (and we can argue if it was good bad or indifferent) to a Natio(a)nal Government who wanted to change everything because they thought everything the Labour Goverment did was wrong.

Since then what have we heard from them - Zilch, that's what. They seem like a rabbit caught in the headlights paralysed with fear. 

So they made a few changes that were no more than rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic; ensuring the third class passengers had nothing to cling to and the second class passengers paid for the first class passengers life rafts.

When we have heard from them it has been "Too little, too late and with bad grace". So much action is earning them a reputation.

Shall they go down in history as The National "do nothing" Government of New Zealand and our Prime Minister earn himself the sobriquet ,John "Deck chair monitor" Key?