Gman’s Wish-list for 2010.

It’s fash­ion­able to give away gay lit­tle awards and make pre­dic­tions at this time of year, so here’s my take. Here’s my wish-list for the year, along with their rel­a­tive probabilities.

Wish 1: National and ACT to finally sound off like they’ve got a pair.

Nine years in pur­ga­tory! Nine long long, lonely years, and what do you have to show from your first year back in power (where you belong)? Ummm can­celled tax cuts and com­pul­sory head­lights for motorcyclists.

Come on, you soft pricks!

You can’t pla­cate the bureau­crats, sup­pli­cate the Maoris, appease the rad­i­cals, lenify the spe­cial inter­ests and try to be everyone’s fuck­ing friend for­ever. Get you hands off the young nat muffins and sound off like you’ve got a pair.

Key seems to have the strat­egy that if only he doesn’t rock the boat on any­thing what­so­ever, don’t do any­thing that may just put anyone’s nose out of joint, even a little-biddy bit then he’ll get re-elected.

The result has been that Helen Clark gets a fourth term. Meet the new boss—same as the old boss.

Most grat­ing to me this last year was not so much the can­cel­la­tion of the tax cuts; it was the way it was done. After years of preach­ing to us from the oppo­si­tion benches that tax cuts were the best way to rev-up the econ­omy, and how Labour was bloat­ing the econ­omy with inef­fi­cient spend­ing, what’s the first thing they do when the econ­omy hits an air-pocket? They run away like lit­tle girls, can­cel the tax cuts and spend-up on a cycle path the length of the country.

Even more grat­ing still was the flimsy excuse: ignore all those huge sur­pluses, and pre­dict mas­sive spend­ing blow-outs, which was curi­ously enough based on the con­tin­u­a­tion of the spend­ing num­bers put for­ward by Labour. I mean, any­one would sus­pect that they didn’t actu­ally believe their own rhetoric about cut­ting taxes, wouldn’t they?

As for ACT: for the “party of prin­ci­ple” they sure were easy to buy off huh? Did you ever think you would see ACT stand­ing up in Par­lia­ment and clap a bud­get that cut tax cuts and promised to try to spend our way out of a reces­sion? Did you?

Prob­a­bil­ity of National and ACT grow­ing a pair: 20%. Per­haps the Nats are just wait­ing until the reces­sion is over. Per­haps ACT will col­lec­tively come back from a busi­ness class trip over­seas. Per­haps they are just get­ting ready to do what they said they were going to do. Per­haps. Per­haps. Per­haps. No chance.

Wish 2:
“envi­ron­men­tal­ism” and the Greens to finally run out of get-out-of-jail-free cards.

This is a peren­nial wish of mine. I just hope for an end to this fawn­ing that the Greens get from the Press Gallery, and for their MPs and poli­cies to finally get the scrutiny that oth­ers expect from the fourth estate. Most notably, I’d love a seri­ous objec­tive cost-benefit analy­sis of their ban-it, tax-it, regulate-it pol­icy plat­form. Instead we should look for­ward to another year of soft-balling treat­ment for the Greens.

Case in point: peak oil. When oil was over $150 a bar­rel, the Greens would rejoice and issue a press release every time it moved up, glee­fully herald­ing the end of cap­i­tal­ism. Funny how no-one’s ask­ing them why they’ve gone curi­ously quiet now that it’s at about $50.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 10% Those adorable, hugable, smelly Greens will still keep get­ting the kid-gloves.

World-wide I’m a bit more optimistic—at last some­thing approach­ing a rea­soned argu­ment about global warm­ing. The ques­tions that should have been asked years ago are finally being asked: It is real? Do humans cause it? Can we stop it? Is it good or bad? How much will it cost? Is it worth it?

Prob­a­bil­ity: 50%

Wish 3: For Simon Cow­ell to be kid­napped, tor­tured and raped and then slowly choked to death, the same way he has done so to music and television.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 25%. Even though he is the most hated, despised per­son in Britain, never under­es­ti­mate the herd­ing instinct in humans.

Wish 4: for FIFA to actu­ally get tough on div­ing, play-acting, the­atrics, intim­i­da­tion of ref­er­ees, and defend­ers stick­ing up their arms appeal­ing for off-side every time the other team scores a goal, before the World Cup becomes an unwatch­able farce in which Span­ish and Por­tuguese speak­ing poofs spend the whole month of the tour­na­ment rolling around on the ground in agony.

I’m more con­cerned about this than my mum’s safety in South Africa dur­ing the tournament.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 0.0002%. Sepp “where’s the hook­ers?” Blat­ter actu­ally doing some­thing that every­one wants? No chance.

(BTW: My mum gets to sup­port 3 teams this time! New Zealand for the first 2 weeks (until they get knocked out), Eng­land for the next 3 days (until they get knocked out) and then Italy until the final.)

Wish 4: Labour in Britain to get the boot.

Do you really want me to list the rea­sons?
Prob­a­bil­ity: 94%

Wish 5: Obama to finally get found out for the snake oil sales­man he is.

Even though he has the MSM in the tank, even though you are clearly a racist if you crit­i­cise him, he is now into his sec­ond year of power and can no longer really auto­mat­i­cally blame Bush when­ever any­thing bad hap­pens and take the credit when­ever any­thing good happens.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 45%. I seri­ously believe that this guy has a lim­ited shelf life and is 25% of his way through his time as president.

Wish 6: For the econ­omy to make comeback

When the econ­omy tanks, peo­ple suf­fer. They lose their jobs and the qual­ity of life goes back­wards. A strong, dynamic, grow­ing econ­omy is the best social wel­fare pol­icy. Plus I get to buy all sorts of cool elec­tronic shit.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 65%. I don’t think that “it’s inevitable” that the econ­omy will rebound, it doesn’t have to by right, and fuel prices could be on the way up. But on bal­ance the world econ­omy should be in a bet­ter place by this time next year.

Wish 7: for the Bea­t­les to finally remove “Back in the USSR” from the White Album.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 0%. With only Ringo to say no, Paul McCart­ney (who is actu­ally a crab-person) may even INCREASE the num­ber of syrupy, crappy pop-songs on the albums.

Wish 8: For the Apple iSlate not to suck.

Prob­a­bil­ity: 5%. Sooner or later, one of their prod­ucts must suck, they can’t all be supe­rior, well designed, ergonomic, depend­able mas­ter­pieces can they?

Wish 9: for the fol­low­ing peo­ple to harden the fuck up:
The All Blacks
Shane Bond
The Black Caps bat­ting order
The Eng­land foot­ball team
David Far­rar
The Phoenix
The Labour Party
The Press Gallery
Aimee
The Gman
The Welsh
Anti-biotics
NASA

Tagged as: Gman wish-list misc

Tagged as: Gman wish-list misc