I refuse to believe this until there is medical evidence. I've always thought they were zombies escaped from the set of a George Romero movie.

Zombies are pretty silly, too.

And yes, I believe most cops on traffic duty pretty much do that full time. In fact, a great deal…

It's a question of priorities: if you also "heartily approve" of full, timely investigation of alleged burglaries and/or email thefts ... and if it's not forthcoming, then it's sensible enough to wonder what else the Police are up to.

This line grates every time I hear it. There are specialist…

Yes , and some people are well known as Vice-Chair of the Business Roundtable, ergo the Roundtable is silly, I don't think so.

It's hard to see just what any of Brash's opponents within National would get from inside her apartment that would be useful, as political ammunition that is.

It's even harder to care. Brash's monogrammed reserve bank g-string? A used dinger? Photos of his royal baldness in action? Let the poor…

indeed. my own sense of inspired self-importance has waned dramatically since september. perhaps there are those within politics yet to have the experience, realising they're falling from a height no greater than the distance of their own ego from terra firma?

but, then who am i to argue with…

We don't really know what she means by "close to home".

Indeed. It could mean family or neighbors, if you took it literally.

We don't really know what she means by "close to home".

It was the next door neigbour checking out the quality of the kitchen fitout.

ok, so I am engaging in wild flights of fantasy but its fun

It's hard to see just what any of Brash's opponents within National would get from inside…

I also note that Diane Foremans apartment was broken into the night before the election. If any political dynamite was discovered then it would have been absolutely useless to Brash's political enemies...

Well, his political enemies on the left. His political enemies on the right might rather he won the…

One still might question the kind of "saturation" coverage I saw on a couple of Northland backroads though.

You mean where you say:

and about 9 patrol cars on traffic duty (5 complete with flashing lights pulling some unfortunate bugger over)

So they're obviously finding more than a few people…

It's a question of priorities: if you also "heartily approve" of full, timely investigation of alleged burglaries and/or email thefts ... and if it's not forthcoming, then it's sensible enough to wonder what else the Police are up to.

Especially when a certain telco-related Cabinet document of *cough* extreme political…

Oh how dreadful. You poor, poor, opressed person, you. Imagine having to pay some vague attention to driving legally! Truely, we live under a regime of the most vile sort!

Hey, I didn't say I was oppressed, or that policing the roads is vile in any way. It's just that…

Pour enough alcohol down my neck and there's nothing I won't believe – but I really don't know any Mark Felt or G. Gordon Libby wannabes. Surely, even gut-punching, blood on the celing rat-bastardry has limits?

Then again, perhaps all I've proved is that I'm an insufferably naive and…

I'm having difficulty understanding when it was the PI was seen & recognised.

"party" seems to be a misnomer.

"protracted knife-fight" seems more appropriate to most parliamentary "parties".

One theory would be that whoever organised it considered it potentially useful to have certain information regarding the next Prime Minister. It…

I also note that Diane Foremans apartment was broken into the night before the election. If any political dynamite was discovered then it would have been absolutely useless to Brash's political enemies...

OK,it just hit me how absurd that statement is. You've got some hair wedged so…

The impression I formed was that the Police have "nothing better to do" on a sleepy winter Sunday.

Nothing better to do than, you know, try to reduce the likelihood some moron will kill a bunch of people. I heartily approve.

This said, I did drive somewhat slower than I…

Looks like we need a real statistician to front up here. I failed Statistics 101 in 1980...

Not really, this is a minor correction in the US surface temperature dataset which has made two years that were basically tied for warmest year on record stay basically tied for warmest year…

I must confess that I found the Freeman Dyson essay an intelligent…

Apparently, a Canadian scientist by the name of Steve McIntyre found a 'bug' in NASA's computer software. NASA adjusted their data and now the averages have cooled somewhat. The hottest year is now 1934, not 1998. So it's still a very fluid scientific debate.

That's so true. And if Russell…

But what's described in the Newsweek story is an organised campaign of denial

I read this link with interest. What is missing is the corresponding analysis of the global warmers funding and backers. Science in the States is not an altruistic operation. While many Universities have pure science as their…

Nicky Hager was adamant that there was no stealing or hacking of e-mails.

Well, he would say that wouldn't he? I don't know about anyone else, but it sure took some of the gloss off the Watergate myth when 'Deep Throat' outed himself – and turned out to be Mark…

I still hold to my original theory – that someone in the leaders office working in an administrative capacity (IT support, PA, receptionist) simply burned a bunch of .pst files onto DVD, or copied them onto a USB key.

I agree. Much more likely than any spooky hacker story.

I…

I think that's unlikely – the leaked e-mails arguably cost the National Party the election. I don't think there are any 'principled conservatives'…