This week the Maori Party showed its true colours by continuing to allow a racist MP to work within its ranks. The government showed it's prepared to put up with the nonsense.

The Maori Party's failure to dump Hone Harawira is a clear signal that the party tacitly agrees with his radical and racist viewpoints and accepts that MPs can rip off the taxpayer, taking off on tangents while supposedly working for the country.
An insincere apology, weeks after the event, is apparently all it takes to get you off the hook.
I believe many of New Zealanders held a lot of respect for the Maori Party and its achievements.
Especially the way it started working cohesively as a partner in government – what looked like a model example of the MMP system.
That trust is fast unravelling as New Zealanders disapprove when they see MPs getting away with the garbage like the Hone utterances and escapades.
Many of my friends, Maori and otherwise, are appalled.
By association, the National government is being tarred with the same brush for accepting the bulls*** (to use Harawira's terminology) from this dubious bedfellow.
Paul Thomas wrote an excellent piece in the Herald this week, saying that the Harawira episodes make New Zealand look like a banana republic.
Here at RR, it doesn't even look that good. It's more like a kumara republic. Because rather than the fruits being out in the open, the subversion is all underground.
And being swept deeper by inaction and unashamed racism.

Happy, happy, joy, joy
In happier news, this week we had an approach from some lovely people who run a good news website called Happyzine.
It rhymes with magazine, they cheerily point out. Thanks, we would never have guessed.
We've struck up a happy little deal with them, to supply some gleeful news. But only the good news… of course in a perfect world, there would only be good news.
Unfortunately, bad news happens, no matter how much we'd like to pretend we can filter it from our lives. And in a lot of cases, it's downright dangerous and irresponsible to put on the blinkers to the bad stuff that is happening around us every day.
My first reaction on hearing about Happyzine, after suppressing a combination of cynical sniggering and slightly nauseous gagging, was to immediately launch a counter offensive (with the emphasis on 'offensive”) to redress the balance.
Why discriminate against all the bad news? It can't help it. It's not the bad news' fault.
So we decided MeanZine would be a good title as the nemesis to the sickeningly simplistic and idealistic Happyzine. But hey, what is the point? Why not just publish ALL the news, good and bad?
So the bad news is: we canned MeanZine before it was even conceived.
Good luck to Happyzine in their quest for blissful ignorance. We hope they and their readers in fairyland are truly happy, wafting in cheery thoughts and nice deeds and clear skies and sunny days … while the real world out there continues to spin, warts and all. If you need to see the world through rose-tinted glasses, Happyzine is just the place for you. Bless.
For those who want the full picture, remember that www.sunlive.co.nz is a full-blown, local daily news service. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Manifestations
Meanwhile, in other real news, a Massachusetts woman has found an image of Jesus on her iron. The residue on the bottom of the iron appears to be a man with long hair.
What puzzles me, is why is it assumed that every long haired hippie image that appears is automatically presumed to be Jesus – just because he hasn't seen a barber in a while? Since when did apparitions necessarily need to be of heavenly origin? Why couldn't it be Meatloaf or Antonio Banderas; or Murray Guy in a wig?
If the image had resembled, say, an enraged woman with a golf club, would it be assumed to be Tiger Woods' wife?

Iron clad
Ironing miracles don't happen just every day. Although the women in my household say that any day Rogers irons is a miracle. When faced with ironing, I quite often pray for some divine intervention.
Maybe it's coincidence, or maybe there are higher forces at work here. There's been a series of incidences lately, just like the 'Jesus on the Iron” story with reports from the US of other ghostly appearances.
Tiger Woods has been checking his iron for residues. So too, apparently, has his wife and she's not too happy with the residues she's been finding.
It is a sad indictment on the flaky moral fibre of today's superstar sportsmen.
There was never any suggestion of lipstick on the collar of Bob Charles' action gusset shirts from Mrs Charles, that I am aware of. But back to the Woods household; this led to another strange image: The outline of Tiger Woods' number plate embossed on a fire hydrant.
Even locally, strange apparitions have appeared. For instance, this week I found an image of a Swiss mountain on my toast. Of course it was later discovered to be the label off the Molenberg. Last week the dog threw up on the lawn and left an image resembling Hone Harawira.
Then when the rubbish truck ran over a lemon on our driveway, it resulted in an uncanny resemblance to Susan Boyle.
And speaking of Susan Boyle, Paul Henry has fired up controversy again, this time with his retarded comment.
I can't wait to hear his thoughts on the Topp Twins.