The Sunday Newspaper Brunch Club

On the Sunday Newspaper Brunch Club today at 11am, Sky Digital 65, with the best political news team on television, Bomber from Alt, Ben Thomas from the NBR and last man to be convicted of sedition in NZ, blogger Tim Selwyn.

News that caught my eye –
1: The long and painful wait till Pensylvania is driving the news media to invent issues after a deluge of elections and caucuses have held an enthralled electorate boosting ratings like never before, so the slap fest between Barack and Hillary is being magnified to blinding levels, but if you really want to see interparty knife fights – look at George W and McCain when in the final weeks the Bush camp leaked concerns that McCains torture at the hands of the Vietcong could cause flashback episodes while McCain was in the Whitehouse with his finger on the nuclear button.

2: Bush vetos bill that bans water boarding AND turned down the UN inspector on torture to visit Iraq prisons.

3: EFA ‘silent protest’, it was bloody well near invisable – 150 people, not 500 the Herald claimed

4: Prison BBQs, dog whistle politics at its best, the prison ‘explanation’ was they had to have the BBQs because the prisoners felt expectation when it wasn’t explained how the structure creates expectation.

5: Violence in Iraq – the surge slowed the butchery from the highs of 70 a day, but its only dropped to about 30 a day now – the country is still writhing in agony.

6: When so many researchers are screaming out for research dollars, $700 million to Agriculture industry rather than green energy – Farmer man wins again.

7: John Key’s claims on capping public service pork sounded hollow when he’s allowing two of his MPs off on a junket.

8: Party pill ban – oh the idiocy.

STORY 1 – Roger is running - hos
A political veteran has returned to the fray and agreed to stand again for the party he co-founded nearly 20 years ago. Sir Roger Douglas branded the current Labour government "growthbusters" at the Act Party's annual conference in Auckland yesterday before revealing plans to run for parliamentthis year. Douglas would not confirm his chosen electorate but hinted it could be a South Auckland constituency, perhaps Hunua, where he lives. He refused to comment on whether he would seek a cabinet position if he returned to parliament.

As predicted from Oliver Driver’s interview with Rodney Hide on Let’s be Frank last Tuesday – Guess whose back, back again, Roger back, tell a friend – he’s been thawed out from specially built stasis chamber which is fuelled from the tears of solo mothers, it’s the resurrection of all that is evil to Labour, one of the greats steps back into the political wrestlemania ring and what will happen next?


STORY 2 – King expects to be cleared of district health board cronyism - sst
FORMER HEALTH Minister Annette King expects she and her husband Ray Lind will be cleared of wrongdoing by a long-awaited report due tomorrow into the bitter conflict of interest row at the Hawke's Bay District Health Board. King said Lind had been told by the independent panel reporting to the director general of health that "there are no issues that they are investigating in relation to Ray". And she expected her decision as health minister to appoint Healthcare New Zealand managing director Peter Hausmann to the Hawke's Bay DHB in 2005 would not be covered by the report.

(cue open mouthed shock look now) WHAT?


STORY 3 – Lhasa protest fires kill 10 - hos
At least 10 people burned to death, China said, in riots in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, in the fiercest pro-independence protests to have rocked the region in two decades, scarring China's image months before the Olympics.

Can we seriously play sports with these people?


STORY 4 – Bush tries to boost faith in US economy - hos
President George W Bush, seeking to bolster faith in the economy amid recession fears, acknowledged yesterday the United States was going through hard times but said growth would resume over the long run because economic fundamentals were sound. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said much of the country was already in a recession.

Gold at $1000, Oil at $110 – US dollar plumbing new depths, the war has cost $3 Trillion and Bear Sterns gets stung by the mortgage clusterfuck – meltdown or just a John Adam’s hiccup.


STORY 5 - NCEA battered by secret report - sst
THE FIRST major analysis of schools' NCEA marking shows many teachers are awarding better grades than examiners do with high-profile schools among the dozens suspected of marking too high. This means students who shouldn't have passed NCEA may have. Others might have missed out on university entrance because their school marked tougher than others.
The release of the secret analysis to the Sunday Star-Times under the Official Information Act sent the Qualifications Authority into damage control last week when it was forced to warn schools about the results. Many principals say they didn't know about the study or the findings. NZQA is now scrambling to refine its figures, work out the size of the problem, and bring school marking into line.

Haven’t they sorted this out by now? You can’t have a system so open to abuse and with a vested interest in scoring highly without any external checks.

FINAL WORD – The Burger King advert featuring Osama Bin Laden