INTERESTING VID

HAPPY FEET

Tonight everyone is expected to be glued to TV3 for what is being billed as an old style Telethon.
Okay we get that. Here's the blurb on the charity

Your support of KidsCan is invaluable and we are looking forward to an incredible weekend on Saturday August 8th and Sunday August 9th for the Big Night In, Telethon screening on TV3. The money raised over the 23 hours of Telethon will go towards supporting the 153 schools on the waiting list for help from KidsCan Stand Tall.

The children at these schools are in urgent need of our raincoats, shoes and food programmes.

However all the bill boards we have seen have centred on giving kids shoes.

Well bugger me - we spent our entire childhood trying not to wear shoes.

So whats that about?

Anyway KidsCan seems, on the face of it to be a worthy charity that aims to look after poor kids - but burrow down into their website and you get a sense of a purpose built vehicle to give some marketing types a job - ( all the trustees are marketers) and to promote the All Blacks

Are we just a wee bit cynical perhaps?

Now if kids in the far north like their new coats that make them walking talking billboards for the All Blacks then all and good but how much do the trustees make and how much money goes to the kids compared to what it costs to run KidsCan?

GOVERNMENT WASTE

We spend a bit of time lurking in govt departments and we see so much waste , stupid jobs, stupid strategies. We know there are also people in the public service who are committed to what they are doing and really want to make the country a better place.
But its time for teh public service to take a good hard look at what it does and how it does it. It has got so bloody fat - becoming an economic jabba.

Key has said that he wants to reduce government waste - yee bloody ha , we say.

We have seen thousands and thousands of documents in store rooms and even in off site warehouses that go nowhere - publications that should never have been published - companies on " preferred supplier contracts" that have not felt the cold chill of competition for years.
Or stupid campaigns ( like the multi million dollar campaign to get us to change to better lightbulbs. )

It must change - If you have any evidence of waste - email us anonymously at bustedblonde@gmail.com. We will print all the best ones.

NATIONAL PARTY SAVES LIVES

We think this is great news - lightbulbs or womens health? Hell, its a no brainer.....

STILL LOTS OF LOLLIES BEING HANDED OUT BY LABOUR

Queen Bee at the Hive points to some suspicious spending by Labour leading up to the election - someone needs to put a counter on the spending - we reckon its got to be adding up to a tidy sum.

We want some more answers over the lightbulb scandal and we think that the pledgegate book bribe for oldies should be withdrawn.

We want to know if the public is happy for up to$10 milllion on a public lightbulb re-education programme - or if they would want the money spent on a few more courses of Herceptin.?

We think it is a no brainer - saving the lives of women or a social engineering programme to get you to change a lightbulb.

Hooton is on Tv3 Sunrise talking about Pledgegate - and arch lefty Matt McCarten agrees with Hooton -pledgegate is a disgrace. The left will note this - expect the booklet to be withdrawn by the end of today.

And Maurice comes in for some stick - goood - he needs more stick.

LABOUR GOING TO SPEND BETWEEN $8M AND $10 M TO GET YOU TO CHANGE YOUR LIGHTBULBS

We could not believe our eyes when this rolled into our in box. It is an RFP from GETS which is the Govt tender process. Big PR firms and other government suppliers subscribe to it . In fact it sat in our in box for a while. And out of curiosity we opened it - and as we say often - bugger me.

It was a 54 page tender document for some campaigns for energy efficiency being run by the Electricity Commission - some of of it will be around subsidisation for commercial energy efficiency - which we have a philosophical issue with - but the stunner was by our reckoning between $8 - $10 million over two years to get you and me to change our bloody light bulbs. Yes - $8-10m. to - change- to - energy - efficient - light - bulbs.

Basically one of those big PR campaigns loved by the Nanny State to get you to change your behaviours that is often referred to as " Social Marketing."

We think this is bloody outrageous. Actually its more than outrageous its bloody near criminal.

This money could be better used in so many ways - That would buy a lot of herceptin.


Here is the estimate that the Commission gives the tenderers for the contract in the document

For the year ending 30 June 2009, the Commission has an appropriation of $12 million for electricity efficiency initiatives in the commercial and industrial sectors and for efficient lighting programmes.

The Commission currently estimates that up to $3.5 million will be available in 2008/09 for programmes arising out of this RFP and an RFP that was recently released for Industrial Motors Programmes.

Proposals submitted in response to this RFP will be assessed in conjunction with responses to the Industrial Motors RFP and the available funding will be applied to the proposals considered to best utilise the available funds.

For programmes that are anticipate to run beyond the current financial year, the Commission’s anticipated appropriation for electricity efficiency programmes for 2009/10 is $15 million across the three areas of commercial, industrial and lighting.

We think that this tender should be withdrawn immediately. It is quite simply an insult to the nations collective intelligence and the type of frivolous government spending that lurks in so many departments that the public never gets a chance to see.