Mrs MacDoctor and I have just had a relaxing week in Vanuatu, celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. Internet access was painfully slow, so there has been no blogging for more than a week and not much news about New Zealand. I see that I have not missed much, just another unexciting budget from Bill English. [...]
The word charity was derived from the Latin word caritas (precious, costly), an attempt to translate the Greek word agape in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 13:13), a word that is hard to translate, but the phrase “extravagant selfless love” gets the flavour of it. It is a far cry from the simple alms-giving that [...]
Preserving Aaron Gilmore’s finest moments for posterity Gilmore [gil-mawr] verb. 1. To bluster or bully someone from an imaginary power-base: When he was caught lying, Aaron tried to gilmore his way out, but nobody was intimidated. 2. To deposit bowel motions in an inappropriate place: The dog gilmored on the doorstep. Add a Comment
Ahhh, politics! You are just getting some control of the political debate with the opposition making spoilsport Karl Marx mouthings that are playing your way, when, BANG, some complete drunken ass commits an utterly pointless and stupid mess right on your front doorstep. No wonder John Key always looks tired and harassed when on camera [...]
I view the proposal to feed children in decile one and two schools with a great deal of trepidation. While I am certainly not opposed to feed starving children, I suspect the proposed bill is more likely to be just another form of creeping welfare. Just providing blanket feeding for all these children produces one [...]
No, not gay marriage (though that might). What will end in tears is Labour/the Greens NZ Power policy. I have already blogged how the policy itself is economic incompetence. And, despite Brian Rudman and Bryce Edwards waxing lyrical about the policy being similar to the Pharmac model, I have demonstrated that this is also a [...]
Labour and the Green’s odd electricity price control policy has clearly been designed with only one real purpose in mind – to disrupt the sale of Mighty River Power and reduce the amount realised on the sale, to the detriment of National. This type of “scorched earth” thinking from the left is hardly unusual; Cullen’s [...]
If ever there was a dangerously inappropriate political football, it is the potential sale of Crafar farms to the Chinese company, Shanghai Pengxin and the hysterical xenophobia it has induced. While the furor has managed successfully to paint National into a very uncomfortable corner, it has also made all future overseas purchases significantly more difficult. Like [...]
The media feeding frenzy that is whirling around regarding Mojo Mathers and her request for an electronic note-taker has to be the most meaningless of this weeks media beat ups. Here is the reality: Ms. Mathers will need the note-taker in order to function in parliament. It is the cheapest option I (the taxpayer) will [...]
Public submissions for changes to the MMP system are now open until the 31st May but the MacDoctor will not be bothering to make one. Besides my general laziness, there are two other reasons for this. The first is that the two most worthwhile changes – altering the number of seats in parliament and the [...]
