Temper, temper

Oh dear, tantrums aren’t pretty, especially if you have one while accusing someone who didn’t have one of having one.

Helen Clark tripped herself up in the heat of the moment last night. It wasn’t good but she’s made it much worse by trying to explain it away with an attack on John Key:

“The fact he didn’t burst out crying on the set probably counted for him,” she said during a Radio Live question and answer session this morning.

Later in the day she didn’t resile from her criticism telling reporters that expectations around Mr Key’s performance before the debate were low and; “the fact he didn’t collapse with a stress attack on the set probably gave him marks”.

Tears, stress attack? How scary does she think she is? Is this what happens to other people who come up against her?

TVNZ’s phone poll declared him ahead by a long way.

Miss Clark said the poll was worthless as it was self-selecting and there was a charge.

“That hasn’t been the feedback we received. You’ve got to remember to call in on an 0900 number it costs money.”

That’s a fair comment, but internet access cost too and look at this:

Who won last night’s leaders’ debate?

Helen Clark (13060 votes, 48.5%)

John Key (13268 votes, 49.3%)

It was a tie (592 votes, 2.2%)

 

Back to the tantrum:

At one point Miss Clark made a comment that Mr Key may shout at home but he wouldn’t shout her down.

Today she said she was not accusing him of yelling at his family.

“What I meant was he was having a tantrum he was completely out of control trying to shout me down…”

There’s only been one person having a tantrum over this:

Last night Miss Clark said she did not think the campaign was bitter and today said she was just offering a professional analysis of how it went.

A spokesman for Mr Key said he would leave it to the public to decide.

“New Zealanders will judge the result of the debate.”

Last night asked about his inexperience Mr Key said he just did his best.

“But I gave it my best shot and they (the public) will have a good sense of where a National government would take New Zealand.”

Keeping Stock thinks Clark is showing her true colours.

No MInister says Diddums!

Monkeywith typewriter awards her a soper.

Inquiring Mind suggests the tany could be a tipping point.

Scrubone thinks she can’t handle losing.

Let’s axe ’em all

MWT puts a compelling case  for abolishing the Electoral Commission.

There must be plenty of other unelected bodies that stand between Labour and eternal power – judiciary, police, other parties . . .

Why not just axe the lot of them?

Passing on the brillante baton

How exciting and heart warming it was to check in to Homepaddock yesterday morning and discover I’d been blessed with a Brillante Blog award.

It was bestowed by Deborah who’s In A Strange Land  where she writes intelligently and thoughtfully on feminism, motherhood, parenting, work,  politics, life . . . and occasionally posts on food with photos that cause weight gain if you look at them too long.

Once you get a Brillante you’re invited to spread the happiness by passing it on to blogs you enjoy.

The rules are simple:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominator on her/his blog.

So after a day of contemplation my nominees in alphabetical order are:

Annie Fox the nom de blog of Anna Wolf whose posts are warm, witty, passionate, frank, down to earth and full of life which is all the more remarkable because she’s writing about dying.

Phillipa Stephenson at Dig-N -Stir . There is on-going discussion about the difference between journalism and blogging. Pip does both supberbly, writing concise, well researched posts which reflect her knowldege and interest in the subject matter, her ability as a wordsmith and, where appropriate, her wit.

Dim Post for showing you can take a dig without getting dirty; and because every day is improved by humour.

Ex-expat who makes me think with posts that are educational, enlightening and/or entertaining.

Will de Cleene at goNZofreakpower whose posts aren’t frequent but point me to places I wouldn’t find by myself.

Adam Smith at Inquiring Mind  earns the award for the quotes and cartoons of the day by themselves. But there’s more: well reasoned posts on a variety of topics with special mention for not confining himself to New Zealand.

Inventory 2 at Keeping Stock for the quanity, quality, consistency and variety of his posts with extra points for his enthusiasm and sense of humour.

David Farrar at Kiwiblog because I can’t go past the godfather of the NZ blogosphere. It helps that I share many of his views, but even when I don’t, I admire his well written, researched and reasoned posts. He’s open about his bias but never bigoted.

Dave Gee at Life from Right Field because we southerners must stick together and with special mention for originality and pictures.

Macdoctor if he employs the same wit, intelligence, reason and compassion in medicine which he displays in blogging I’d be very happy to be his patient.

Monkeywithtypewriter , not just a token primate, he’s also got perception and a sense of humour.

The team at No Minister because they often amuse, sometimes shock and enable me to feel moderate. They get a special mention for visuals too.

Not PC for the art and architecture.

NZBC goes for quality rather than quantity and gets bonus points for humour and orginality.

Poneke for the quality of posts in which he uses the skills that made him an award winning journalist. Besides, you’ve got to admire a bloke who’s besotted with buses.

Busted Blonde at Roarprawn because she’s upfront, sassy, witty, in the know and shares it with style.

Bernard Hickey at Show Me The Money because he takes numbers and adds words that make sense of them.

Queen Bee at The Hive : she’s got contacts, she gets the facts and she’s the miistress of succinct posts with sting.

The team at Tumeke! for variety and originality. Tim Selwyn deserves an honourable mention by himself for doing the monthly blogosphere rankings.

Well the rules did say at least seven.

P.S. I have an aversion to chain letters or anything resembling them and I can do the maths: if seven people send something to at least seven people who send it …. it won’t be long to run out of blogs which haven’t got it. So should any of you on whom I’ve bestowed a Brillante want to change the rules or ignore them altogether, I won’t be offended, you won’t be courting calamity, your family and pets will be safe and the sky won’t fall in.

Desperate and dirty

Remember how the election’s about trust and we can’t trust Helen Clark to be principled?

It now also means we can’t trust her with numbers.

She told a Grey Power meeting that 60 New Zealanders  would have been killed in Iraq if National had won the last election.  She based that on the assumption that a National-led government would have sent combat troops and we’d have lost the same number on a pro-rata basis as the US which has lost 4,000 people.

She later admitted that 60 was a back of an envelope calculation. She conveniently didn’t mention that Australia sent combat troops, none of whom died in combat.

We’ve got 53 more days of this to go. If she’s this desperate and dirty at the start how low will she go before it finishes?

Monkeywithtypewriter and Keeping Stock also post on this.