Reassuring: White House contains fewer than three preschoolers

John Decker: The President announced on Twitter that there's no chaos at the White House. How would you describe what has happened over the course of the past ten days?

Sanders: I have said it before, if you want to see chaos, come to my house with three preschoolers. This doesn’t hold a candle to that.

We are aware of all 'Untergang' traditions

Our sympathies lie with Emperor Commodus Caestigula

All he ever wanted was an Imperial palanquin:


All he got was a golf-cart.

Poetry corner

A one-A.M. tweet from el Jefe
Went on about bad press #covfefe.
To "What were you thinking?!"
He explained he was drinking
A blend of of cough mixture and Hefe.

Executive orders concerning trade in the Oval Office

"By the 'Quid-pro-Quo' Presidential Order of March 31, 2017, acts that were previously known as 'Bribery and corruption' shall henceforward be officially described as 'Trade'."

Bonus senility:

New Trump plagiarism scandal

Donald's latest call for Total War against the jewish- bolshevik banker-media conspiracy appears to have been cribbed verbatim from the 1943 Sportspalast speech.

For them, it's a war. And for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. Believe me. And this will be our last chance to save it on November 8th. Remember that. This election will determine whether we're a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy but are, in fact, controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system.

The establishment and their media enablers wield control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed. They will attack you. They will slander you. They will seek to destroy your career and your family. They will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie. And then, again, they will do worse than that. They will do whatever's necessary. They want to bring chaos to the Reich and Europe, using the resulting hopelessness and desperation to establish their international, Bolshevist-concealed capitalist tyranny.

I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?

Perhaps Wire can be persuaded to dedicate this track to the Trump candidacy:

New plagiarism scandal looms

Donald Trump said Wednesday he would consider recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and lifting the sanctions against the country if he’s elected president.

The settlement of the Czechoslovakian Crimean problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor Russian Premier, Herr Hitler Putin, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. 

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister an American President has returned from Germany Russia bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.

God Win

Teh Dim-Post (a New Zealand political-humour blogger) has a bleg:

I am now obsessed with and addicted to reading about the US election campaign. My favourite commentator at the moment is democratic blogger Josh Marshall – but who else is good? I’d be very interested in reading an intelligent informed right-wing perspective, if that’s even a thing in contemporary US politics.

I have referred him to the works of William L. Shirer.

Trump d'œil

Edward Gorey continues to be politically relevant.

Paul's Doric and Ionic columns were widely syndicated in early Christian-Era newspapers, but he bought and destroyed most copies after the commercial success of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, and now they are only available as bootlegs

Emperor's New Toupée

Donald Trump is open to new ideas on the staging of his acceptance of the Republican Party Presidential nomination at the coming Republican convention, like keeping party members and politicians off the stage, on account of their lingering loser-smell.

We’re going to do it a little different, if it’s O.K. I’m thinking about getting some of the great sports people who like me a lot. We may call it 'The Winners' evening.

The important thing is to avoid columns. For it was the presence of a styrofoam colonnade at the Democratic convention in 2008 that tipped off right-wing common taters to B. H. Obama's hitherto-unsuspected narcissism, hubristic imperialism, and indeed Satanism.

Those same critics are on the qui vive and would undoubtedly condemn any trace of vulgarity or pomposity or overweening ambition in the Trump nomination.

Fortunately here is Riddled to offer tasteful suggestions on DOIN IT RITE.

I myself have nothing against colonnades. What else is one to make when life gives one colons?

At last, a politics / horror cross-over movie that does not involve Donald Trump.

"Hur," thought some clever headline-writing sub, "Haiti, is just zombies, hur hur."



Still, could become a plot device in "The Dead Zone - The Sequel".

Huge sockpuppets, the classiest sockpuppets

Of course there is nothing wrong or shameful about assuming a false identity in order to praise one's sexual prowess and give excuses for one's unavailability. Nor is there any shame in denying that sock- puppetry when it comes to light.

But "John Barron"? SRSly?

Things that make one ashamed to be an alcoholic #66

Gluten-Free Vodka.

Unlike most vodkas, which are made from grain, CÎROC™ Ultra-Premium Vodka is gluten-free and distilled from fine French grapes; a process inspired by over a century of wine-making expertise and craftsmanship. It is the fine French grapes and the fifth distillation at the historic Distillerie de Chevanceaux in the South of France that give CÎROC™ Ultra-Premium Vodka a distinctive flavor with an exceptionally fresh, citrus taste.

So it is brandy that is re-distilled and filtered to remove any lingering flavours of brandy, presumably because 'vodka' is a simpler signifier of opulence and prestige to fob off on clueless moneyed numpties [or in the words of the Whackyweedia, "the brand's intended urban clientele"]. Then reflavoured as Peach or Coconut or Salted Pineapple or Green Apple to make it even classier, and sipped through a straw rolled up from a $100 bill.

It sounds classy and yooge and awesome. The main surprise is to find it in the merchandising portfolio of Diddy Puff Daddy rather than Donald Trump.

H/t Zoinks

A working-class Nero is something to be

By way of the usual Republican / TIME courtiers, we are informed that Donald Trump regards himself as a blue-collar billionaire, a self-made man.

As in all his other construction activities, he seems to have cut corners and used the cheapest, shoddiest materials available.

Thx Yastreblyansky!

With a Strange Device*

With Bottom's Syndrome reaching epidemic proportions among the New Zealand teaching profession, and head-first transformations into donkeys becoming a daily event, it was time for prompt decisive steps from Riddled Research Laboratory. Or perhaps the teachers are just dressing as donkeys, succumbing to a combination of furrydom and embarrassment at the low public esteem to which the profession has sunk. To find out which would require effort on our part.

Right: Self-portrait of the blogger about to turn
a Muybridge photo sequence into an animated GIF

Our immediate thought was to revive the educational method of "random sensory bombardment".** This was big in the 1960s and 1970s as a substitute for the Interlattice. As well as obviating the need for a teaching staff, its advantages over the old-fashioned pedagogy of 'explanation' and 'memorising' do not need to be spelled out (which is just as well because KIDS THESE DAYS can't spell for damnit).

Above is designer Ken Isaacs inside his Knowledge Box, a 1962 invention meant to educate students through "a rapid procession of thoughts and ideas projected on walls, ceilings and floor in a panoply of pictures, words and light patterns."

However, the Riddled legal mavens Trahison and Clerisy (Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths) have informed us that the original 1953 patent for accelerated random-visual-overload appears to be iron-cast, and is enforced with Merovingian ferocity by the executors of Charles Harness' literary estate.

They went on to inform us that a "maven" is the smallest member of the Corvidae, restricted to Southern Europe; or else a short stabbing spear used by the Tuaregs of Saharan Africa. I am not sure how much retainer we are paying Messrs Trahison & Clerisy but they are clearly worth every bitcoin.

A loophole does exist in Harness' patent, however, in that it only covers visual stimulation. We are free to contract to the Ministry of Education, with our expertise in accelerated learning through random tactile overload.

The new Riddled Tactile Over-Stimulation Devices are now available in the Gift-Shop as a new addition to our range of attractively-priced merchandise.

* The original title for this post was originally to have been "One great blooming, buzzing confusion", but focus groups found that it led 73% of readers to expect another of Another Kiwi's gardening reports.

** Spontaneous explosions among particularly lethargic viewers -- their nervous systems overloaded by the rapid succession of imagery -- are a very rare side-effect.

Never quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel bandwidth by the gigabaud and memory by the petabyte*

In this case, Kim Dotcom, who has turned his bad experiences with John Banks into a satirical rap song "Amnesia". It has "gone mamaviral" as the kids say... picked up in the UK by the Guardian, and Oh look, now it's in the States. The ignorance about New Zealand across much of the world is increasingly leavened by the knowledge that we have a Minister of the Crown who's an inarticulate buffoon with a memory problem about the bribes he solicited, and a Pry Minnyster who's too beholden to the guy to do anything (except make vague threats about demoting him if he ends up in prison).

Evidently the unacknowledged legislators of the world are no longer the poets, but the rap producers and internet tycoons. I have a sad.

Alternative title: An honest politician is one who stays baud.

* Here the original line is traced to an Indianapolis Congressman, c. 1964. Five Lazy Wingnut Mis-attribution points to anyone ascribing it to Mark Twain, H. L. Mencken or Benjamin Franklin. Ten points for Santayana or de Tocqueville

Also, have just corrected 'terabyte' to 'petabyte'. What are 3 orders of magnitude between friends?

The hilarity ensues itself

Previous posts all bulging at the seams with foreshadowy goodness have had occasion to mention our very own ACT party. Nominally a standard-bearer for libertarian ideals, this is now a subsidiary of the ruling National Party for purposes of general deniability, allowing the latter to present each lurch back towards the taxation policy, social welfare coverage and economic inequality of the Plantagenet period as a concession extracted from them by the wily bargaining skills of the sole ACT MP. The current incumbent of this post being one John Banks, in the time he has left over between (a) trading favours with German billionaires and (b) forgetting those dealings.

Which brings us to the 'Charter Schools' policy, or the "Tradition, or an old charter or something Schools" Policy to give it its full title. This was announced after the last election as a keystone of the coalition agreement between National and ACT, to the surprise of the blue-rinsed Epsom dowagers who voted for Banks, for it had not featured in the campaign. Nor indeed was it familiar to the ACT Policy Committee when they held their regular meeting in a Parnell bus-shelter.

No-one is quite sure where Charter Schools will fit into the current dispensation of State Schools, Private Schools catering to the scions of one or other elite group, and Special Character Schools.¹ The principal points seem to be that (1) they will be untrammelled by the inflexible straitjacket of centralised bureaucratic curricula, and (2) they will make profits for someone, and (3) they will probably be re-branded as 'Liberty Schools' as the dire outcomes of 'charter schools' in the US leak out from under the carpet.²

So a 'Charter School Working Group' has been recruited to investigate them and report back what a really good idea they are. The head of the Group being one Catherine Isaac, who lacks qualifications or experience in education... but she is a colleague of John Banks, i.e. a member of the sadly-diminished ACT party, looking for work (on account of the voters of New Zealand failing to recognise her fitness to represent them). Indeed, it appears that "Creating a well-paid niche for Catherine Isaac" is the primary purpose for the group's existence, although that name is admittedly unwieldy.³ Before anything else:

The decision has already been made to nominate Catherine Isaac as the Chair of the Group.

One might conclude that when ACT ideologues argue that the role and the staff of Gubblement should be shrunk to the absolute minimum, the one irreducible residual function that they see for it is "Employing ACT ideologues".

¹ These being private schools which lose more money than the customers are prepared to pay and thus require a subsidy from the Education Department.

² There is a fine tradition of National Gubblements waiting for this or that fine-sounding policy to be tested overseas and proven to be an abject failure before adopting it here, on account of Level Playing Field and such as.

³ The alternative title "Is there No Help for the Widow's Daughter Working Group" was also considered.

Shits leaving a sinking rap

"Kim Dotcom working on his rap album"

Mr Kim Dotcom (of the Kiel Dotcoms) has discovered that New Zealand politicians do not stay bribed. This is very disappointing and the Riddled staff are all sympathetic glumface when we think of his disillusionment. Mr Dotcom thought that he and Gubblement Minister John Banks had a solid business relationship built on trust, helicopter flights and birthday-party invitations, and $50,000 donations to mayoralty campaigns:

It has since emerged the pair met at least four times.
In April 2010, they had a two-hour meeting, after which Dotcom emailed Mr Banks stating: "Thank you for your call yesterday and your kind offer to help me become a resident."
The pair met again in June over lunch for two hours at the mansion with their wives.
It was at this meeting, Dotcom said, that the request for election campaign funding was made. He said the discussion about splitting the donation happened while their wives and his bodyguard and butler were present.
The third meeting was on New Year's Eve at Princes Wharf when Dotcom put on a $500,000 fireworks display.
Weeks later, Mr Banks was at Dotcom's birthday party, during which he proposed a toast to his host.
The two cheques that made up the $50,000 donation emerged yesterday. They were recorded in Mr Banks' electoral return among 45 other anonymous donations. Of those, five were for $25,000.

Even with a well-furnished slush-fund, Banks lost the race for Mayor of Auckland, on account of people loathing his slimy little guts [this was before he was called back into Parliament, Cincinnatus-like, to prop up the current government as figurehead for the derelict ACT party]. Then Dotcom's business activities fell foul of the US government copyright income-maximising lobby, and the NZ police received the call to arrest him on behalf of the US entertainment industry,* and he spent a month in Mt Eden gaol.

Meanwhile Banks was all "Dotcom? Never heard of the guy. Isn't he some sort of crim?" while the cock crowed three times:

But he said he had spoken to Dotcom on "other matters".
In an interview in January, Mr Banks said those other matters included advice on Dotcom's OIO application and residency.
He said the advice was "just the process", and their conversation was "in total of 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes".

Understandably peeved by this non-answering of desperate prison phone-calls by the recipient of his largesse, Dotcom went to the press with descriptions of how Banks had solicited a donation from him, and had explained how he should write two separate cheques so that each separately would remain below the threshold for remaining as "Anonymous" in the campaign records. This in return for Banks asking his old mate Maurice Williamson to rubber-stamp Dotcom's request to buy a few more mansions for his collection.**

Banks' subsequent stories have shifted,³ from an initial "I cannot recall any phone conversations with that shifty Dotcom guy" to "OK, now I remember a phone conversation that specifically wasn't thanking him for gifts received".
Williamson has shifted his story from "we have no record of that" to "OK, Banksie did call me, but just as an ordinary concerned member of the public who happens to have my private number, and I had to tell him that I couldn't possibly be influenced by his request".

Commenters at Dim-Post are uncertain whether the unfolding saga is best compared to a Coen Bros. film, or a Carl Hiasssen novel.

This is all a problem for Pry Minster John Key, who in the past has firmly expressed the idea that Ministers should be stood down immediately if there is even a hint of a suspicion of shonky dodgy slithery stuff with campaign donations. For Banks fills a crucial role in the Gubblement. Not so much for his single vote, but for the deniability he provides, which allows journalists to describe the Key government as "Centrist Right" even as they bring in one hard right-wing measure after another... invariably the right-wing policies are unpalatable measures forced upon them to ensure Banks' continued support. Occasionally Banks forgets what unpalatable concession he is supposed to demand next and Key has to remind him. But I digress.

Since this strategy of arms-length deniability has served so well, Key has also out-sourced the Tough Decision of whether Banks still enjoys his confidence and should retain his ministerial portfolio & nice office & letterhead stationary. He has assurances from Banks Banks' staff that Banks is trustworthy and has behaved in a technically-legal way, and will tell him otherwise if circumstances change, so it's not Key's responsibility.

Also:

Asked if he was happy for ministers to act unethically as long as they complied with the law, Mr Key said: “There is quite a wide definition of ethics … The test I have to apply is the law.”

[...]

“A number of legal experts have opined that he may well have complied with the law.”

Some would say that you need less opining and more vouchsafing, if "His actions might have been legal" is the most eloquent defense you can make on behalf of your subordinate. We are glued to our old steam radios with bated ears awaiting the next episode. It is like waiting for the other shoe to drop when you are living in the apartment underneath the Human Centipede.

------------------------------------------------

* In a dawn raid, with two black helicopters and a total of 76 police and armed offenders squad officers; "as well as four FBI agents who assisted with the inquiry, but not the raid itself."

** Maurice did initially approve the request, before it was vetoed by another Minister on the request of the US government.

³ See Imperator Fish.

As cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes.

New Zild is a harsh and unforgiving place. Once someone slips up and loses a contest for their leadership of, say, a political party, that is it for them, usually. Now I can hear what you're all saying: "that would be for persons of integrity and therefore would not apply to those on the right". Well, shame on you, of course you are right but would it kill you  to be wrong on purpose, for once!?!?!
Latest old hack back into the sewer is Rodney Hide, a person of interest to this blog and not an obsession. He is going to have a column in the New Zealand Herald of which this first is linked to there (them technical writing classes were worth every cent). However there are laughs a-plenty in the article.
Rodders reveals that he is an ANARCHIST!!

I have concluded we would do better with no government at all. New Zealand before 1840 had some downsides. But the downsides were small beer compared to the social and economic devastation wrought by big, bloated and out-of-control bureaucracy.

No gubblement at all, because that worked so well before 1840. When everything was exactly the same as it is now except no pesky rules and regulations and such. O Anarchist thy name is Glibertarian!
 What about this startling observation

Besides, every other writer and commentator in New Zealand is a socialist. I am not. 

Every single one folks! What a vast left-wing conspiracy it is.
But Rodders has turned his back on the misguided  small bunch of people...with... enormous power over the rest of us and is happy being a workin' man helping to renovate his house.

I loved the work. Just the sheer physicality of it. And being with guys who simply get on with the job without the talk and the preciousness of politics. I enjoyed the earthy humour. No need to be PC.

Youse can whistle at the babes as they sashay past, the sluts.
Oh it's a sorry tale and really quite depressing. However a common tater called AK does get 25 "likes" and draws a response from Rodney which boils down to "but, but, Socialinism!"
O'course in the olden days before gummenment got in the way we could go and duke it out in a manly fashion.
I think this may a rich sauce of cheap laffs.
 

 

Why must I keep telling people who ask them, that no-one cares about those questions?

It would be nice if we could report for this whole Tea Party imbroglio that John Key is following US trends. Especially now that he has taken to storming out of press conferences Palin-style when he is asked inappropriate questions after he has already demonstrated with geometrical logic that no Real New Zealander is interested in the answers.

Sadly, however, the Tea meetings are a façade that recurs every electoral cycle. To qualify as a Major Party, the Nationals need to nominate a candidate in every electorate. In the case of the Epsom electorate, this is one of those shite jobs for which the candidate is (hopefully) rewarded with a cushy job later, for he or she must campaign just hard enough to maintain National's profile but not enough to win... the party actually wants their ACT competitor to win the seat, due to recondite reasons involving the intricacies of coalition formation, the MMR voting system, the offside rule and the Explaining Voice. What would happen to a candidate who did enter Parliament by winning Epsom doesn't bear thinking about.

Anyway, the tradition has evolved that the National party leader should meet with ACT's candidate in a coffee bar for a symbolic anointment of the Chosen One, having notified journalists to all turn up and consume the cafe's entire stock of latte supplies and be stenographers for the traditional expressions of (nudge nudge wink wink) mutual respect. Then when the photo-op is over it's time to shoo them out while the adults continue their tête-à-tête. This year the ACT candidate is John Banks, whose personal philosophy of fascism rigidly authoritarian social conservatism does not sit well with ACT's ostensible philosophy of state-minding-its-own-business, but it's a charade anyway so whogivesafuck.*

Tea-thing troubles

Sadly, this year there were teething troubles: someone didn't get the memo that a public event in a public place becomes a private conversation when Keys says so, and the entire convo was recorded. Key insists that (a) he can't remember anything he said to Banks and (b) none of it was incriminating, but he has called on the police to track down and destroy all copies of the tape anyway, insisting on his right to privacy whenever he is not invoking his right to publicity. The police have search warrants for at least four media outlets, including the state-owned Radio New Zealand, despite the latter's assurances that they don't have a copy. This will occupy all that idle time weighing on the hands of the police and keep them from getting into trouble on the street.

The convo may or may not have involved Banksie's boss Don Brash, and whether he will stay as leader of ACT having stabbed so many backs to get there, or whether his commitment to New Zealand voters is such that he will troll off in search of a better job if they don't live up to his expectations by giving him enough votes to be a Big Man in parliament.

In the alternative universe where I would really prefer to live, this unfolding saga is having an effect on people deciding how to vote. In this universe, however, everyone already made up their mind months or years ago how they're going to vote, and in their minds it's as if they've already voted, so they respond to any evidence that might force them to rethink that decision by sticking their fingers in their ears and going Nyah Nyah Can't hear you.

* For added hilarity, Banksie is entering the twilight stage of his career, and his basic personality emerges as the dementia erodes his filters, i.e. stark old-school racist arsehole... hence the recent blurtings that the wrong electoral choice could result in drug-&-pornography-crazed darkies coming through our windows.