In a well-thought-out and clearly justified action aimed at destabilizing the rebel Canadian government, Donald J Trump Wednesday renamed one of the five Great Lakes as Lake America. Over the next few days he will also sign off on the remaining ones, as Lakes America 2 thru 5. He also plans to rename the world’s oceans – Seas East and West for the bodies of water on either side of the contiguous states, Top Cold Sea and Bottom Cold Sea for the polar oceans and Sea America for everything else. Ocean as a title has been banned, with the President posting on social media “They’re seas right, everybody calls them seas, who knows what an ocean is anyway. Even the fish don’t care.”

Air New Zealand has posted a loss for the latest financial year, blaming the fuel crisis and someone’s decision to buy a large number of planes with dodgy engine parts. The loss is huge for the airline but will have less impact on New Zealanders than one a few years ago, when the airline lost its CEO to the National Party.

Speaking of the Nats, Minister for Not As Much as Goldsmith and PeeWee Herman’s stunt double Simeon Brown is emerging as this election’s master strategist, with this bitingly original, not to mention scathing and apposite, take-down of the Labour leader:

Polls showed Labour’s support plummeting 30 points immediately afterwards, although that might had more to do with Brown’s other killer post “Labour wants to bring in 47 new taxes, including a bed tax! Ooops, nothing wrong with a bed tax. Wait, yes there is. Seeya!” Either way, there is a great mind at work. Somewhere.

NZFirst continues with its public testing of potential candidates, announcing them amidst great fanfare and morning tea before finding out some of the coding is a bit flawed. More in-house testing could be required to restore the public’s faith in the system.

Labour has announced its three free GP visits a year for everyone policy, delivered through its proposed Medicard, will be funded by its capital-gains tax. House calls will not be funded, as the CGT will mean nobody will want to own a house.

MSD benefit payments are in the news again, as a second group of recipients were turned into non-users, due to well um er something. The PM was confident no one would lose out although if they did he was very sorry. But it wasn’t the government’s fault – MSD had made mistakes in their haste to get things done “We just created the need for them to rush around and try to deliver the goods in a very short space of time.” The Minister in Charge, Louise Upston, was unavailable for comment, having been forced to spend several hours hanging upside down caught on a drainpipe outside her office window before being taken to a secure location “as a precaution”.

And finally, ACT’s Paul Henry continues to amaze. Himself.