The Sunday News Roast

On the Sunday News Roast tonight at 7pm, Sky Digital 65, Alt Tvs News and weekend newspaper critique show that is Unfair & Unbalanced, THE SPIN STARTS HERE with the best political news team on television with your host, Bomber - head of Current Affairs at Alt Tv, Blogger Tim Selwyn - the last man to be convicted of sedition in NZ and Ben Thomas the Political Editor of the NBR.

Tim – Time line of battle between Georgia and Russia, didn’t Russia come out of this stronger now they have pulled back? Isn’t this really about keeping America out of their back yard and a series of tactical mistakes on the Wests behalf are exacerbating this – recognition of Kosovo, the missile defense system in Poland which is being pushed by corporate forces as opposed to defensive ones and the drive to have Georgia and the Ukraine join NATO are being viewed by the Kremlin as encroachment aren’t they?

Ben Thomas – Your column on the site touched on Party lists this week, National discovered other races. Following on from John Keys discovery of the Underclass, National released a diverse, well, diverse for National, Party list that included Hollow Man Steven Joyce (nice to see that warping democratic intent can still get you a high placing on the National Party list). Was it really a sign of how far National have come?
Nationals Maori MPs list ranking:
17 Georgina Te Heuheu
26 Tau Henare
36 Hekia Parata
41 Paula Bennett.

News that caught the eye this week
1: Talking of party lists, ACT has put Rodger Douglas officially at number 3, Don Brash is rumoured for mystery guest number 5 and a green convert Shaun Tan has ruffled EPMU feathers. Will Rodger Douglas start a Fish n Chip club 2008 if he gets in?

2: IOC chief Jacques Rogges denouncing Usain Bolt for running around the track after his win, but NOT denouncing China for arresting two near 80 year old Chinese women who were applying to protest in the official protest pens for being forcefully evicted from their homes and sentenced to a year in a re-education camp or the arrest and beatings of Journalists covering protests or the censorship of the internet. No, none of those things required a denouncement from Jacques Rogges, but Usain Bolt doing a victory lap did reach the high standards of a Jacques Rogges denouncement.

3: In the wake of the secret tapings of National Party cocktail parties, TV One Colmar Brunton poll found 50% of NZers don’t believe National are being honest with their policies, is this the sea change Labour have been waiting for? Even a quarter of National supporters don’t believe National are being honest about their policies, won’t this start to leech into support for the party?

4: The Greens decide to abdicate their responsibility to an email decision as to whether or not they should support the watered down Labour party Emissions Trading Scheme that lets the Agricultural sector off the hook till 2012, a year shy of when the Arctic sea is predicted to be ice free. Interesting in the same week Sue Bradford says that the smacking law should be decided by representative democracy rather than participatory democracy the Greens hand this decision over to the voters. Tactical compromise or purist ideology? News today that a massive ice crack has appeared in the northern Greenland glacier. The Greens aren’t going to get progressive policy out of Labour unless they have Labour over a barrel.

5: US out of Iraq by 2011 – will it be followed through, have the Americans really spent billions on permanent bases they don’t intend to make permanent? Will America claim this as a victory and they are leaving or has reality and an Iraqi nationalism forced America out?

In the Weekend Newspapers
STORY 1 – Smacking law: Now we'll all get a vote – weekend herald
Voters will get the chance to give their verdict on the anti-smacking law when a public referendum is held on the issue next year. Opponents of the law yesterday secured approval for the referendum that looks likely to re-open the bitter debate about whether parents should be able to use force to discipline their children.
Don’t you love the Herald title, ‘Now we’ll all get a vote’ – this law was to remove the loophole some parents had managed to use to escape prosecution for assaulting their children by claiming the assault was discipline, but for the religious lobby who treat corporal punishment as some sort of gift from god this was the atheist and godless dyke-ocracy at work thus we need a referendum. The exclusive Family First have now claimed this is an assault on democracy because it’s not being held with the election, a gameplan out of Karl Roves book (he managed to put the question of gay marriage to a referendum alongside the Bush election). Should the law be repealed?

STORY 2 – Mathew Hootons column in the SST this week – the Lady Macbeth neutron bomb.
The irony of a man who has in the past done all he can to prevent information being released under the Official Information act complaining about information not being released to him into the inquiry who leaked information to Hagar in emails he came out very badly in suggests Mat has a highly flexible moral code. The interesting thing is that he hints at a rumour of who leaked the emails as the wife of a leading National Party front bencher. Each night Don would have his email printed for him to read and the emails were supposed to be shredded, the question should be who was in charge of that position and who appointed that person, because if it is the wife of a National party front bencher who leaked information to sink Don Brash that would be a lady Macbeth neutron bomb


STORY 3 – Obama unveils running mate for election - hos
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois - Barack Obama introduced Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his Democratic running mate today before a cheering crowd of thousands, hailing him as a "leader who is ready to step in and be president."
How does Obama’s choice go down with those bitter Hillary supporters? Will it effect McCains selection of VP? Oh and wasn’t the McCain House issue funny?

STORY 4 - Groups set to put Electoral Finance Act to test – SST
LOBBY GROUP the Sensible Sentencing Trust is planning to defy the Electoral Finance Act in the lead-up to the general election. The group has decided on its course of action after receiving conflicting legal advice over whether material it intends to distribute during the election campaign contravenes the act.
For a group who demand everyone follow the law, the Exclusive Sensible Sentencing group are planning to break the Electoral Finance Act, is it because McVicar thinks prison is a 3 star hotel while vicious EFA opponent David Farrar has done all he can to use the very same legislation he has damned to stop Unions from registering as third parties – the right certainly seem to be breaching their own standards to defy the EFA. Can they make breaching it an election issue?