DoC nightmare

Don't start me on the sway that DoC holds over this country - it is truly terrifying

Get yourself a good stiff drink, sit down and read this:

Scary Report

Then tell me in the morning if you had nightmares.

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Whangamata Marina

I am both delighted and deeply dismayed that Whangamata has got its marina. Let me say from the outset that I couldn't give a stuff whether there is a marina in the town or not. Or whether eskimos can gather pipis from the harbour or not. The marina is just a vehicle that illustrates the parlous state the governance of this country is in.

I am delighted that the judicial system has rightly triumphed over political meddling. I am dismayed that it has taken so long and in fact that the conflict arose at all that it had to be rectified. The Herald's Editorial reckons that Carter should resign on the back of this. Of course he should, but both you and I know he won't because there is no such thing as doing the honourable thing in New Zealand politics. The worthless wretch is such a pitiable member of the human race that he probably still doesn't realise that he has trangressed. All the opprobrium being rightfully heaped upon him will be like water off a protected duck's back. Like a cracked record I harp on about the folly of failing to keep the judiciary and executive separate when running a country and this whole sorry affair is a prime example of what can happen when you stuff it up.

Just to compound the errors, look at the way the back down was handled yesterday. Carter doesn't have the balls to reverse his own decision so he flicks the hospital pass to Benson Dope. The High Court ruling gave Carter no choice but to reverse his decision but he says he passed the buck because he could not make a decision without bias. Bollocks. If you have a decision made for you there is no 'deciding' to do and bias doesn't come into it. No, he couldn't bring himself to stand up straight like a man and admit he was wrong. Come on, you spineless toad, say it. 'I was wrong'. You can't, can you, because you are a politician belonging to a Party that deals in duplicitous weasel words as its only form of currency. You can't because you are devoid of any of the principles that proper people use to run their lives. You can't because you are a waste of space.

The High Court delivered its decision in September?, October? and gave the uselesss Carter two weeks to come up with the definitive ruling. But no, Spineless Boy a) ducks for cover and b) waits until a few days before Xmas before sending his 'mate' over the top in the hope that everyone will be too full of eggnog to notice. The media tried in vain to get Carter, Benson Dope or anybody from Government to comment on the climb down yesterday but no one had the gumption to front up.

The whole thing is shameful on a magnitude that defies belief. The Marina Society has apparently paid about $1 million over ten years to get this far and they will get back about 10% of this in Court awarded costs. Carter is out of pocket to the tune of $0.00 and will likely keep his job so that he can go and grandstand over protecting the great white shark from recreational fishermen - three caught over the last twenty years.

Carter is but one example of the sort of pond life that runs this country and it is very, very ugly.

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Silly season

We are coming up to the so called silly season and what is being peddled as the main story today certainly fits the bill.

This land use manipulation is so nutty that it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. The loonies who would run our lives have allowed themselves to be convinced that global warming is all man's fault and we should therefore do something about it. They then sign up to the Kyoto bollocks on my behalf. Anything they do in this regard from this start is doomed. We are now deeply involved in this carbon credits nonsense. And that is what it is, pure unadulterated crap. It is shuffling buts of paper around international desks with people clipping the ticket at every turn with no concrete return or even the prospect of a concrete return.

On the back of all this the Government yesterday announced the 'final plank' in its environment platform. This is mind numbingly stupid. The basic premise is that trees are good 'cos they eat the evil carbon dioxide (a minor 'greenhouse gas' by the way) and pastures is bad 'cos they feeds cows that burp and fart. Therefore, we need more of the former and less of the latter. First logical error right there. It's like saying bank robbers are bad and if we had no banks crime would decrease. So the 'tax or ban everything we don't like' government says if you convert forest to pasture you will be fined (and in all probability flogged). The return per acre from forestry is dropping like a stone, the return per acre from dairy is headed in the opposite direction. Landowners and farmers are businessmen and not idealogical stupid zealots. What are they going to do with their land? It is nuts. This bunch of pratts in the Beehive needs to get their ideas out of their never never land and back into the real world. A bloke in suit from Wellington arrives on a farm and tells the cocky to cease his profitable dairy farming and plant unprofitable pine trees so that he (the suit) can fufill his obligation to the stupid and useless Kyoto protocol? Yeah right. Agriculture is still the backbone of the economic activity of this place and the blokes that run it won't stand for this load of bollocks - or I sincerely hope they won't.

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Horace the talking horse

The Auckland Fruit Loop Society held its Xmas bash yesterday and decided that nothing could be more festive than a day spent at the Eden Park Upgrade RMA hearing. The opening skit was by a bloke saying the facility shouldn't be built because he would be unable dry his baby's nappies for three years because of construction dust. But this was just a curtain raiser for the main act, a guest appearance from an expert. She opined that the upgrade will be a health hazrad as the increased shadows cast by a larger stadium will result in decreased vitamin D absorption in local residents. The Society was a little disappointed that the bearded lady and Horace the talking horse could not attend.

You'll all be pleased to know that I've solved global warming. The Herald gives us the answer today. We need a nuclear war. Not a very big one (Iran vs Iraq with Iran playing at home would do nicely - it's also a suitably long way from NZ) but a nuclear conflagration is required. This will result in a 'catastrophic' period of global cooling - or so some experts would have us believe. Sounds good to me - bring it on.

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What are weapons for then?

The Editorial sees fit to wade into the Muruli business this morning. a) they are wrong and b) it is over and we move on.

Why are some sections of the Police armed sometimes? To threaten to shoot and maybe even shoot the bad people I would have thought. Apparently not. Plod is being tried for carelessly discharging his weapon whilst apprehending a bloke who was a) thought to be armed and b) probably chemically altered. The shot hit no one and the bloke was arrested. Am I missing something here? Oh, and there is another member of the constabulary being hauled before the beak for using his police dog as a weapon. Loonies and Keith Locke (wait a minute they are one and the same thing) are incharge of the asylum.

Schools. Nasty, horrible, fount of all evil fizzy soft drinks are to be removed from schools. Without going into the rights and wrongs of this (and I can't be bothered), why does this take three years to achieve? No fizzy drinks decision today, no fizzy drinks tomorrow would be the way I would do it. Three years?

There is a very worrying commentary on the new curriculum review. We mentioned this document several months back. The commentator, an educationalist from the Auckland University, is getting all bitter and twisted that this serpiginous document is not getting the attention she thinks it deserves. Reading the garbage she writes about it I can see why all sensible people would be givinig it the swerve. This woman is another of the types that are peppered through our society who use English words to speak in Martian about nebulous ideas that have no connection with the planet on which we live. Waste of space and, as usual, funded by my taxes.

There is a classic of the genre of mournful victim portrait with the Liam Ashly family in the frame. I am not for a minute getting on their cae. They have suffered a tragic loss but the photo is a ripper. The facial expressions are just what this sort of photograph demands. No time this morning to comment on the Headmistress's comments that the Minister for Corrections shouldn't resign over all this because he is 'responsible but not to blame' and he is a 'compassionate' person. It deserves more than 'same old, same old' but that is what it is. It'll keep and maybe I'll find more time in the next couple of days.

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Muruli

This Muruli thing has me puzzled. Here we have a very experienced Test cricketer (second in the all time wicket taking stakes) who you may argue has only got to that position because of the make up of the power base of the ICC and he makes the sort of error you usually see at schoolboy cricket level. He is quite legitimately given out and the country who encourages schools not to keep the score at netball start crying foul. He stuffed up because he wasn't concentrating (as we all do) in a professional sport and got done by Mr McCullum who was, at that moment, being a lot more professional. End of story. Spirit of the game - bollocks. Why should cricket be any different from any other sport. As Richard Boock points out this morning what would we all be saying this morning if McCullum had stayed his natural instincts and they had gone on to accrue another 40 runs and we had lost? Had Brendan not caught the throw in would Sangakara have turned down the overthrow to retain the strike? I don't think so. Would Gilchrist have done the same? Bloody right he would.

We hear time and time again that for NZ sport to move on we need a bit more 'mongrel' (what a dreadful expression), need to be a bit more like the Aussies who, when they have a foot on the throat, just push harder and harder. We see a great example of just that and we turn all touchy feely again. 'He was only going to congratulate his mate'. Tough. He's a big boy now and he's playing big boys games for big boys money.

I'll resist the temptation to point out that I think he is the best chucker of a cricket ball the world has ever seen. Oops, I just have.

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NCEA & tinsel

By far the best piece in the rag this morning is on the comments page and is written by the principal of Rosmini Colege in Takapuna. It is a very well balanced critique of the current secondary education sytem with particular emphasis on the examination structure. The current debate is whether NCEA is preferable to an end of course externally marked exam. He clearly points out the pros and cons of both systems (and both have both - NCEA or standards based assessment is not evil) and concludes that the answer is somwhere in the middle. How often in life is this the case? Very little, in my experience, is either wholly right or wholly wrong. We need to take the best from all sorts of different sources instead of saying 'This is the way, the only way and everything else is just plain wrong'. Rarely ssems to happen.

There is a bit about Xmas decorations in UK offices. Nuts and just more of the same silly PC and/or OSH nonsense. Children not being allowed to wear tinsel on their clothes at a Xmas 'no uniform' day as it could be used to strangle other kids, don't put decorations on your computer monitor as they are a 'significant' fire hazard etc. etc.

Same old, same old.

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Nanny state & Shane Warne

Today Garth George comes out of the closet that he has only been hiding in to the terminally stupid. He nails his right wing christian (non denominational) colours very firmly to the mast in his review of 'From Angels to Agents'. This is not so much a review but a series of abstracts from the recent book that chronicles the changing place that children have in New Zealand society. It is an exposition of the attitudes and ideas of the current regime in relation to the shift from protecting children to removing them from society as a category all together. Giving them 'rights' that are equal or, in some cases, superior to their parents, the stupidity and logically untenable ideas behind repealing of Section 59 of the Crimes Act, the quest to give children the vote, its all covered. In addition there is the inescapable idea that if parental resposnibilty is fast being neutered by state legislaton this role has to be taken over by some other institution and what better here than the state. I can find no fault in the arguments and find it very chilling. I have long thought that the current regime's most dangerous side is its tampering with the very fabric of society throwing out sytems that have worked for most people for centuries (like prudent parental disciplne within the framework of a nuclear family) in favour of untried idealogical claptrap thought up in environments divorced from the real world only years or decades ago. Just look at the background of those who run the country at present - it is not representative of the world in which a vast majority of us live. Their ideas and odious ideals come from a different and largely theoretical planet which none of us ever visit. I don't like it one little bit.

A male barrister wearing a skirt is an image guaranteed to get one's attention and it worked for me. This heads a piece about an American lawyer's worldwide legal awards. The beskirted doge is from New Zealand and wins the 'Most Bizarre Behaviour' award. There are some other real pearlers. 'Judge of the Year' went to the joker in the States who was prosecuted for using a penis pump whilst presiding in court; in retrospect he thought this might not have been a good idea. Witness of the year was a woman who described her husband as so boring that his idea of a rollicking Saturday night was looking through the dictionary for high scoring words to be used in Scrabble. Very entertaining.

Shane Warne. Rarely can the sporting world have seen such a Jekyll and Hyde. Complete plonker off the pitch and absolute genius on it. I love my sport but I love the proper contests and not the drubbings. The last Ashes series in the UK wrecked my sleep pattern for weeks as it was so addictive. The first Test in Brisbane was a one sided bore. The second Test was mildly interesting (as it gave hope that the series as a contest was being reborn) until Tuesday arvo. I then could do nothing else but watch it. And mainly I was watching Pie Boy at the absolute peak of his freakish powers. Not only is he not a bad bowler but he uses that gift to the utmost by employing it as a psychological dirty bomb. Take Pietersen's dismissal for example. In the first innings Our Kev thrust his pad outside his leg stump, bat held aloft for hours and Warnie was rendered impotent. Somehow come the second innings the portly one had persuaded Pietersen that just one little sweep would be OK. Bowled round his legs in a Gattingesque diplay - and this fifteen years after his first totally unforgettable ball. Absolute bloody genius. Get Warne the other side of the boundary rope and he is a total waste of space with a private life that wouldn't feature in my worst nightmare - imagine having to go through life like that - yukkk. What the hell is he going to do when he can't play cricket any more? I hope the spectre of George Best is not on the horizon.

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Toll roads

The poorest pieceof writing I have seen in ages besmirches the comments page today. It is almost totally unreadable but if you soldier on you find it is totally unitelligble. It is a tirade against road tolls. And that is all. It is written by a spokesman for a mob calling themselves highwayrobbery.net.nz and has a link to their website which is even worse than the Herald article. Absolute drivel. Toll roads are a good idea as are congestion charges - the two are very different, of course. Full stop. Roads are expensive to build (even the rubbish they construct in this country) and I for one don't mind paying a couple of bucks to use a nice shiny new one. $2 to avoid having to drive round Waiwera - bargain of the century. I'm a bit concerned about the amounts of money bveing bandied around for collection and admin costs, but in principal I reckon toll roads are good.

But they are not quite as good as congestion charges. These are terrific. I've lived for ages in a country that had them (Singapore) and driven a little in a city that has them (London) and they work like a Swiss watch. Go past the barrier and you pay. Dnn't pay and you get fined - serious fines that are actually collected. Central city congestion virtually disappears.

I'll admit to one slight snag in the NZ/Auckland context; there is no viable public transport network to go in the place of shedfuls of cars. Get rid of five City Councils and the ARC and replace them with one body with a benign dictator of my chosing at the helm and we could have it all sortd in no time.

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Ashes

Things a bit slow at the moment and a wander around Moenui (where I haven't been for years) has been a welcome diversion.

You don't drop Ponting on thirty five and get away with it. To whom did Steve Waugh say 'You've just dropped the Ashes'? I can't remember but I hope those words don't haunt poor Ashley Giles - I'm sure he didn't sleep well last night. I'll freely admit I thought England were going to get a pasting from go to whoa and the events at the Gabba gave me no reason to change my opinion. I am delighted that the series looks like it might have some substance after all. There is nothing worse than a sporting contest that isn't. Can't say the prospect of the Black Caps vs Sri Lanka at the end of the week is getting the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, though.

Lets hope there is something new to scribble about around the corner (there generally is) as I can raise little enthusiasm for incompetent politicians, local authorities, climate change and the rest of the usual suspects. I need an invasion from Mars or something to get the juices flowing again.

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More Green nonsense

Here we go again. Imagery making an impact on the front page for the second day running. This morning it is a woman weraing the 'victim' visage that we mentioned a few days back This one is a ripper - the photographer has got it just right, a classic of the genre. Poor woman has been bumped off a waiting list somewhere courtesy of the latest health sector strike (and there's another mob waiting in the wings when the lab techs have done their dash) 'suffering' form cancer I think; the reporter would be negligent if he couldn't find a cancer sufferer for his story. Without going in to the rights and wrongs of the claims, it just goes to reinforce what a powerful instrument a well placed image is.

It's Thursday and therefore a dose of good old fashioned values from Garth George. He, not surprisingly, spends his entire column getting quite excited about the future of National and, he hopes, the future government under a Key/English stewardship. He espouses their high regard of the value of the nuclear family, that neither has been a school teacher (oh, how true), the merit of working for just reward and that both appear to be intelligent. The latter point by implication, if not spelt out, in contrast to their protagonists of different political persuasion.

This last point is amply illustrated earlier in the paper in the reporting of Key's speech yesterday where he touched upon climate change. This is reported by the Herald as an 'about turn'. No such thing. Jeanette 'where's my Botox' Fitzsimmons hails this as the Nats realising that her stance was correct all along. Stupid woman. If she and all the rest had actually read what had been said they would have seen that it was accepted that the planet is currently warming (which it is) and 'that if this can be shown to be influenced by man's activities' we should do something about it. Only the severely unintelligent would construe that to read as 'John Key now accepts we were right all along.' These are the same intellectual titans who are encouraging us not to visit our relatives for Xmas as this is a threat to the planet on the back of all the carbon emissions produced getting to Aunty's in the Landcruiser. And you voted for these wallies?

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Poor newspapers

Newspapers or Spinpapers? The front page of the Herald would reinforce my view that our organ of information is the latter. Which side do you think Granny wants us to support in this Fiji business? There are large pictures of the two main protagonists on the front page. On the left we have Admiral/Air Commodore/Field Marshal Bananarama looking like he's just returned from snacking on babies and on the right we have the avuncular PM (whose name escapes me) looking like he's fresh from reading bedtime stories to babies. Not terribly interested in the story so I didin't read it but the visual impact was very striking. That in itself is a bit scary - conveying an idea just in two pictures. The political cartoon is a very old instrument of influencing the prole's thinking - dating back centuries.

Not much else took my fancy this morning - I must be getting old; I've only the attention span to look at the pictures. Speaking of which, an image of Eva the Bulgarian caught my eye (as it would) and I rather foolishly read the article that accompanied it. It is written about an analysis of 'new laddism' penned by a psychologist. I had thought that this sort of writing had faded out with big hair and disco. It uses as its examples of despicable attitude 'The Game of Two Halves' and 'The Sports Cafe'. Ellis (in particular), Ridge and Salizzo are put up as examples of everything sexist and unpleasant. Female dancers are referred to as 'Dancer 2' whereas male members of the band are referred to by name. Shots of Eva the Bulgarian, when she was out 'reporting', were framed to emphasise her lips, breasts or buttocks and so it goes on.

I don't watch 'Game of Two halves' because I find the playing the goat gets in the way of the sporting quiz. I used to really enjoy the BBC's 'A Question of Sport' where there was a lot of good sports questions and minimal (but not zero) distraction. I thought they got the balance right. I used to watch 'The Sport's Cafe' a bit but it really was bit repetitive and I turned it off about half way through most episodes. No balance. But that's the key - if you don't like it, for whatever reason, turn it off. Don't go and apply to someone for a research grant (which at the end of the paper trail will probably come out of my pocket) so you can write a thesis on ideas that went out with the Ark which you later turn into your fifteen minutes of fame in the national press. Pathetic.

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Stadium - gone

Stadium, schmadium. Quote the Pond Scum, just over two weeks ago: 'If Auckland can't make up its mind, you get Jade'. Well I wonder if they'll be going down to the Riccarton Mitre 10 to buy all the plastic chairs they can lay their hands on by lunchtime. It looks odds on we'll end up where we started before Mallard stuck is beak into all this with an upgrade of Eden Park. So what has been achieved by this fortnight of nonsense? Remember Philip Field and pledge cards? No? Might that not be the idea? What we have got out of it all, though, is a demonstraton of the total bureaucratic quagmire in which Auckland is stuck. The place is a basket case. Nothing of any magnitude or importance will ever get done in the City of Sails whilst the current apology of a system of governance manned by incompetent oafs is in situ. The City Council's vote on Thursday night is a glaringly obvious example of what most of us learnt in school (pre NCEA school, proper school, that is). If you don't answer the question you don't get the marks. Were the Council asked to vote on a Stadium just a tad to the left of where the proposal was? The calibre of the councillors has been shown up to be absolutely woeful.

Key and English. The 'Dream Team'? Well my dreams are generally filled with images of much more pleasant and/or salacious things than two middle aged men, thank you very much, but you get the drift. All seems to have been negotiated in a suitably seemly manner and we await to see if they can deliver a platform of policies that we might consider . Wouldn't it be good if we could place our tick based on policy rather than personality? At least we have in the new leader of the opposition someone who is not prone to histrionics, appears to be able to think in straight lines, has a track record of having done something with his life, has a reasonable haircut and doesn't dress in hemp. We shall see, but I am reasonably otpimistic.

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Make your mind up

I don't normally regard the pages of the Herald as a source of family pride but the top corner of A6 today supplies just that. The article quoted from the New Zealand Dental Journal about the impact of 'Makeover' shows on cosmetic dentistry in New Zealand was written by my daughter - although her Head of Department gets the quotes; I'll write and complain.

Obviously all else in the rag pales into insignificance but the Claytons decison by the Auckland City Council wastes plenty of trees. All very predictable and , as Moocha said 'and so it begins..........'. Maybe ' 'ere we go, 'ere we go', 'ere we go' wold be more like it. The lawer representing the five residents who failed to get their injunction yesterday (who apparently live in St Johns, nowhere near either the waterfront or Eden Park) threatens 'you ain't seen the last of us yet'. We have the ARC (why the Hell do we have to 'have' the ARC at all) having their go this morning and then all this blancmange of nondecisons get sent to another mob in Wellington where Pond Scum will tell them what to do. For probably the only time in my life I find myself agreeing in the tiniest way with Mallard's attitude. Make a decision and do it. Sod all this fairness, just do it. Do anything, right or wrong, but do something and stop talking about it. The track record of the wallies making the decisoin is spectacularly unimpressive and we know they are going to get it wrong so please get it wrong now and we can all concentrate on something more interesting and relevant to day to day life.

Isn't it ironic the very quality that was seen as Don Brash's appeal three years ago when he rolled Bill English is now seen as the reason he had to go. When he strode out of the Development Bank the fact that he was not a politician in the accepted sense was all good. Now his inability or refusal to transform himself into a devious, scheming, dishonest denizen of the back alleys of Wellington means he cannot continue. There was an interview with a hideously smug Cullen on the box last night who opined that Don was never cut out for Parliament right from the word go - the arrogant little p*ick. The view now is that Key (and he will be the new National leader, make no mistake) will suffer the same fate. If that means he will continue to espouse sensible policy, tell the truth and present himself as you would expect a leader to do then I hope he does suffer the same fate . If it means the measure of his success is how close he can ape the behaviour of the likes of Pond Scum then this country really has no hope.

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Nausea

I feel sick. Wading past the damned Stadium nonsense which is going in the predicted direction (vide supra) I soldiered on past Cancer for the Ordinary Man 101 to read Garth George as an antidote to all the crap that is surrounding us at present. Get to the comments page and there is a picture, a picture no less, of Ms Sue Bradford. I don't know what she does to the top of her head to get her hair looking quite so awful but I suspect it is the same as she does to the inside to get that looking so horrible. What a vision of abject misery. She has perfected that 'victim' look that is so popular amongst those who are interviewed by the media when they have just been bumped off the waiting list for hip replacement for the fourteenth time. This X-rated image is surrounded by an article from someone from a child protection agency of some description. She (I think it was a she) tries to surround this nonsense with some sort of evidence upon which MPs can make their decsions. Fat chance. There wouldn't be more than a handful that would understand the concepts surrounding making evidence based decisions. This is all besides the point of course as the debate shouldn't be happening at all. Those damned people who would seek to run our lives along their odious agendas should just go away. They won't, of course, so we have to get rid of them. You know the drill.

Eyes top and get onto the real purpose of going to A11. Garth is in usual, sensible, right wing, christian conservative mode. He doesn't care where the stadium is, just build it. Check. He abhors the intrusion of the state into what remains of New Zealand family life. Check. He is confused as to the rights and wrongs, as opposed to the legalities, of the Don Brash email affair. Check.

Phone tapping is illegal. Intercepting and stealing snail mail is illegal. Emails are different? Private conversations, oral or written, should be just that - private. There is a Public Information Act. Don Brash is politically naive. Hagar the Horrible is a randomly rearranged collection of amino acids that lives under a stone and should stay there. The government is hell bent on staying where it is and, therefore, keeping a lame duck opposition leader in situ is in its best interests, so why are they baying for Brash's blood?

All too hard for a simple artisan.

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More Stadium

I wasn't going to, but I can resist no longer. The waterfront stadium debacle is just that for many reasons. That it is a massive smoke screen for Thai tilers, pledge cards and the like is a gimme. That the whole thing is being done with indecent haste on the back of the first point is also glaringly obvious. You don't set about spending the fat end of a billion dollars like this. You don't ask people to spend that sort of money with no plans or no finalised budget. No plans means no plans at all. No architectural drawings, just artists' impressions full of those artist impression trees and artist impresson people strolling in the sunshine. No engineering plans on how to actually do it. No plans about where the dislocated part of the port is going to go. No planning on how to run the damned thing or how much that is going to cost. If I ran my life like that I'd be living in the city mission. The indecent haste also means that if the thing goes ahead it won't because so many legal loopholes are being left through which you could drive a fleet of Kenworths. Rudman points this out this morning in a column that is so boring it is not true. But he's right. What ever decision they come up with on Friday, because the 'proper consultation process' so loved by this country where every thing has to be so damned fair has not been followed there will be people serving writs all over the show. And then proper process will be followed and the whole thing will get bogged down in the familiar bureaucratic swamp. We can't do things 'properly' here. You can't half consult any more than you can be half pregnant. There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer. Time for the jackboots and stop pretending anything else. Just make a bloody decision - and I don't care which one -, be fair to nobody, bowl buildings, evict old ladies and I'll support it.

The Don Brash emails. I'm not sure about this and would prefer to think a little more about where the rights and wrongs of this are. I am struggling manfully to try and forget that Hagar the Horrible lives under a stone as I try and clear my thoughts.

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Utopia

I only mention the smacking nonsense because nothing much else grabbed the attention. The merits of moderate corporal punishment is way beyond my brief but that is hardly the point. It is, however, timely to point out that this is yet another totally unpoliceable piece of social engineering. How on earth do they think this law can be enforced? It is not possible. Another example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Definitley. If they think this is going to stop incidents like the Kahui twins they are as barking as the jokers who thought micro chipping dogs was going to stop the Mongrel Mob keeping pitbulls.

I don't know why the state doesn't stop messing around and look after all the country's children itself beacause that is what it wants. Teenage children can be put uon the pill by the (state) schools without their parents even having to be told. Thie kids have been given all the rights in the world (by the state) and the parents (if there are any) are effecively neutered. One in three kids in this country don't have the full set of parents by convential reckoning so the objective is reachable. Tell you what, you have a child and then put it in a State Farm. The bloody state can then feed it, educate it and he/she won't have to be bothered with the confusion of having to learn 'Mum' and Dad'. 'Dear Leader' will do for the lot. No need to get your leg over - test tubes are the go. We can then turn out Trotsky look alikes ad infinitum without letting natural selection get in the way. Utopia.

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Obfuscation on steroids

What is the ARC? There is a totally unintelligble piece this morning about the proposed (I think it was proposed in 1753) second road access to the Whangaparoa Penninsula, the one that involves a bridge across the Weiti at Stillwater. It reads a bit like Abbott and Costello's 'Who's on first'. I don't think the confusion is the reporter's fault; it must be like trying to knit fog reporting on this stuff. The Rodney Council doesn't appear to be able to get across to the ARC what place in the pecking order the road should have when the ARC sends it's shopping list to central government for bags of gold - I think. Or was it that the ARC is confused about what the Rodney Council wants to do with its applicatoin bearing in mind the weighting it has to give the proposed revival of the dormant eastern ring road once the Auckland Council has negotiaited a stay in the progress of the second Harbour crossing with Waitakere bearing in mind that Papakura wants to earmark some of that money for a new drive through tofu market? I'll try and leave any comment on the waterfront nonsense until a decision is made (and I wouldn't bet against a Friday announcement of a full and final consultation with all stakeholders to report to the Minister at some future date) but aren't we coming across to anyone who could be bothered to look this far south as a nation that couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery?

I read LIncoln Tan not because he says anythinig that shattering on a regular basis but because he is Singaporean and I find it nostalgic to read the occasional quaintly Singaporean turn of phrase that still peppers his writings. I lived in Singapore for many years and won't hear a bad word said about the place. He starts his column today reporting a truly horrific racist letter he received after having the temerity to comment on the English language after the TXT SPK nonsense of a few days back. Scary, scary stuff that one would hope could not be written in these times. He writes in the main though about colonialism and British colonialism in particular. That his father regarded the Brits as colonial masters is, perhaps, natural but that he still has some of those thoughts lurking deep below the surface of his concious mind suprised me having lived and worked in S'pore for thirteen years. He obviously doesn't hold the views of his father (and he doesn't tell us if he is still alive) but the place such views had in his formative years I find fascinating.

Save the best until last- the back page. This from Sideswipe, and I paraphrase a clipping they found in a Queensland newspaper.

'I hope the Queensland Government will suspend daylight saving this year in view of the disasterous effect the extra sunshine will have on the current drought situation'

That won't be bettered for many a day.

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New Docmeister

Down in Blenheim for the day but an hour in the pencil hasn't erased the horrors of the news from DoC that leapt out at me from the pre airport Herald.

Be afraid, be very afraid. DoC have got a new head honcho and he looks scary. His aim during his tenure is to add to the 'soft and cuddly stuff people love us for' - I'm serious, he really says that - with doing his bit to stem the tide of global warming (I paraphrased that last bit). He sees the first obstacle as convincing the people who don't think the science is robust. Well if he cares to spend an hour or so at Obald Towers I'll soon lick him into shape and sell him a lure or three.. Remeber this bloke is head of an organisation that is supposed to have no input into policy at all.

Better go - using someones elses laptop on a trade stand.

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Pot pouri

I attacked the Herald with renewed vigour this morning having only had the chance for a cursory glance yesterday. How disappointing. Same old, same old. There is only so much one can write about the global warming scam even if the Messiah was in town yesterday; hasn't he put on weight? You have either been hoodwinked by the nutters by now or you have come to your senses and can sift the wheat of truth from the chaff of scaremongering. As an example of the latter there is a syndicated report from a conference in Kenya where some clown predicts that 'up to 72% of the world's bird species will be extinct' by next week/month/year/eon unless we sell the Landcruiser and buy bicycles. Now, let's be a little realistic here. Can anyone who is not permanently chemically altered really believe such rot? 72% (not 70 or 75, nice round numbers, but 72.) Nearly three out of every four dicky birds on the planet being nailed to their perch. Where on earth (pun intended) did he get such a patently absurd figure from. Think of a number treble it, have another Jim Beam and announce it to the eager word as a scientific study.

I think final comment on the waterfront mess should really wait untill the end of next week when a decision has been made. This really is a game of 27 halves with the score changing almost by the hour. Pond Scum is not having an easy time of it and I see Trotsky Hucker is not going into poodle mode as Big Ears would like. There is a lot more to come here before the final whistle and I'm not sure if Helen (and make no mistake, it's her say that will count in this) is getting speed wobbles over whether she wants to garner the footy vote with the risk that the whole thing will go tits up in a construction sense or not. There is an opinion on the opinion page (funny that) which is very poorly written but comes to the very sound conclusion that spending all this dosh in the expectatoin that there will be a toursit windfall as pay out is not exactly based on fact from other similar events overseas. If you pay a public relations firm to write a report for you it will pretty much say whatever you want it to say.

As evidence that even this looney bin has a way to go in the global idiocy stakes was a report I heard on the Harman Kardon whilst driving to the fields. There are 198 prisoners in the UK who are going to get $8,000 each for having their human rights abused. How so? These crims are drug addicts and when banged up were not given their drugs and were forced into rehabilitation programmes without their consent. This infliction of cold turkey amounted to torture; the fact that their substances of choice are illegal drugs notwithstanding. The UK government was going to fight this but found that the legal costs (they would have to pay for the lawyers on both sides of the case as the prisoners got legal aid) were going to be prohibitive and they settled. Now come on New Zealand, raise your game. We can do that.

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A country run by idiots

A week is a long time in politics and it would appear that four days is not much shorter. The afternoon before Pond Scum had his press conference Cullen told us all that Eden Park was dead. Yesterday we are told that Eden Park plans should continue as that was the 'safest option'. This sudden turn around is brought about by the possible rise in steel and concrete prices occaioned by China's rapid industrialisation. China apparently started this last Thursday. Does he really think we are as stupid as he is? This drivel is from the bloke who is currently New Zealand's acting Prime Minister. The place is being run by idiots. He stands up there and lets all this crap dribble out of his gob with a straight face and an earnestness that I suppose he thinks will make us think we believe him. The elected (or not in a lot of cases) leaders of this country are thick, they couldn't organise a booze up in a brewery, couldn't get laid in a knocking shop, they couldn't think their way out of a paper bag. They stuff something up using our money and then walk away from the train smash as if nothing had happened and with no personal comeback. They then wander around looking for something else to roger and the cycle repeats.

My mate Chris Carter was on the TV News last night kitted out in his DoC suit releasing tuatara on what used to be called Little Barrier. Eh? It has been decided that Little Barrier should now be know (re-known?) by its Maori name which I have forgotten. He was surrounded by people crying and being generally emotionally distraught over the wonder of the place being returned to its pre nasty white man invasion state. You can only guess as to the magnitude of the waves of nausea that this sort of bollocks induces in me. If Carter is getting my money as salary for being a Minister of the Crown he should be doing something useful with his time (like locking Cullen and Pond Scum in hermetically sealed boxes) instead of this sort of touchy feely crap that has no importance at all in a country that is falling apart at the social seams. By the way, what has happened to his reversal of decision over the marina business as directed by the High Court? I thought he was given a fortnight to comply and the decision must have been handed down a couple of months back.

The more observant of you will have noticed that these scribblings are not based on this morning's Herald. I apologise. I had to leave for the fields at a very uncivilised hour this morning and had to rush the Marmite soldiers and forego my usual perusal of the newsprint. Normal service resumed tomrrow, I hope.

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Stadium stuff

As now would appear to be an excellent time to be giving anything French a right royal thrashing, I would say that the 'rogue' Auckland City councillors who are going into bat for Carlaw Park are flogging un cheval mort.

I don't really care where the Final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup is played as long is it not the Telstra Dome in Sydney. I think that the waterfront is a staggering waste of money for a stadium that will have an effective half life of a couple of months as a 60,000 seat affair. A longer useful life as a 20,000 seat effort, maybe. Even London (pop. approx 10 million) has seen fit to make the bulk of the stadium they are building for the 2012 Olympics in temporary seating. My reel beef over the whole debacle, and that is certainly what it is turning into, is the sheer bloody arrogance of this government is exhibiting - yet again- in the way it treats the great unwashed. It has decided what it wants and bugger the rest of you that is what it is going to get. RMA? Don't need it. Consultation? Yeah right. Due process? No time.

As I have opined before I think the RMA is fine in theory but a complete crock in practice. Bovver Boy also thinks that, apparently. All I can do about my opinion is whine and whinge about it in forums such as this. What does Pond Scum do? He repeals it lock, stock and barrell when it gets in the way of what he wants. This is why the protagonists of Carlaw Park have no show. The Politburo has made its mind up and that's that. They have Big Ears jumping around like an uncoordinated simian idiot doing all their publicity for them and have given 'Auckand' two weeks to do as it is told. Now what does that mean? Does 'Auckland' mean you and me, the proles? Yeah, right. It means Big Ears has a fortnight to get his bunch of performing dogs to jump through the correct hoops. If you are one of those dogs and are sitting in the middle of Carlaw park singing Cumbaya then I would earnestly suggest you get back into the real world. We are going to get a waterfont stadium whether we like it or not. The Ports of Auckland have no say, you have no say, I have no say. The Rugby Union has no say but, unless the whole thing goes completely tits up and we lose the bid, at least they are probably in a win/win situation and at very little financial cost to themselves.

Mallard as the larynx of the Kremlin, sorry Beehive, has spoken.

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Nothing much

Very little new this morning. Further discussion of the stadium nonsense would best wait until the Bovver Boy has had his say this afternoon. Having said that, whatever the nuts and bolts of his decision, the whole thing has been handled appallingly. Bloody Cullen telling us that a waterfront stadium will (my italics) be regarded as a National Stadium whereas a revamp of Eden Park will be regarded as a merely an Auckland Stadium - arrogant little plick.

There is a rebuttal of sorts of the article posted by FT yesterday. This is from a Professor in the Faculty of Eductation of Auckland University. I had better be careful here as that august body supplies me with the folding varieties to keep me in 80 Wides. Alison Jones spends an inordinate amount of newsprint in trying to tell us why Dr Rata's views should hold little weight. I'm afraid her (Jones) attitude is all to prevalent throughout the University and I have to bite huge holes in my tongue whenever I am treading the hallowed boards. Leave me on the Shore and let me plough my furrows in peace.

So slim are the pickings this morning that I am resorting to Sideswipe for material. There is a bloke in Sunderland, UK who is recovering in hospital having tried to launch a skyrocket from his backside. Hardly bears thinking about, does it? Darwin award to the North East of England.

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Nasty, nasty stuff

FT, can you imagine any of the contemptible wretches who would run our lives having the attention span to read through your clip let alone understand it and its implications?

It is most unlike me to have a second bite at the cherry on any given day but there have been a couple of events over the last twenty four hours that have me spitting tacks.

I had not realised that this texting rumour was a) true and b) was coming from the NZQA and was referrable to that dog's breakfast the NCEA. I am almost speechless. This is the ultimate dumbing down of an education sytem that is already a basket case. Texting language was devised for a specific purpose; that of fitting as much information on a small sized electronic screen as possible and this in a social interaction setting. By its very nature the words (sic) are ambiguous and therefore open to any interpretation the sender or receiver wants. That is why we have a language; so we can communicatre unambiguously with each other. It has absolutely no place whatsoever in the real world. It has no place in the world of business, commerce, international relations - anything. Except maybe arranging to meet your mates down the boozer.

Which leads nicely onto the vote last night to leave the drinking age at 18. In practical terms this affects me not at all as I am fifty five and don't drink. But it is another example, if one were needed, that the government and governance of this country is totally out of control. We have no upper house and the government can do whatever it likes. It is not shy in exercising this power, is it? The Bill was advertised as a conscience vote but Government Minister Burton coming out several hours before the vote saying that there would be a review on drinking purchases by young people if the Bill was defeated effectively made the vote meaningless and turned it into a party vote. A proper majority of the people (between 70% and 80% from memory) wanted the drinking age raised. The government, for whatever reason, did not and they got their way - again.

Put the two events (TXT SPK and grog at any age) together and you keep the population stupid and drunk - heard of that before, comrade?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This government has absolute power.

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Theodore Dalrymple sees off the Black Dog

I have never been clinically depressed but on mornings like this I can see the point of being so. Surely the weather can't remain time-warped in mid July all year? Bloody greenhouse gases - yeah right. My initial gloom on arising from my litter is compounded by, one by one, turning the pages of the Herald. Same old, same old. Where can I find the enthusiasm to pen a few words about all this - again. Delays on a decision on the stadium. Yawn. Something about the Mount Albert cycle tracks. Eye the Panadol lustfully. A whole page actually titled 'Climate Change' and containing three articles of the usual guff. I start reading this out of a sense of duty more than anything (you know what lies it is going to peddle before starting) but give up and think of running a hot bath and reaching for the Gillette. O me miserum; and I still have to repair to the fields.

Turn another page with a heavy heart to get to the Comments Page and joy of joys. The dark clouds lift in an instant upon gazing down on an article by Theodore Dalrymple. Sell the kids and buy this morning's Herald. TD is a nom de plume used by a retired english psychiatrist who writes on all sorts of moral, ethical and social issues. He writes in proper English comprising well constructed and grammatically correct sentences. HIs prose is the sort that one rarely sees these days and gives immense pleasure just in the way the words trip into the conciousness. This on a day where I read that TXT SPK is now an acceptable form of answering some exam questions somewhere in Aoteoroa; please tell me it is not true. The fact that Theodore has some enormously sensible reflections on a recent stay in NZ concerning our so called justice sytem is almost, but not quite, secondary to the impact of the way in which it is said. His conclusion that the infamous retrospective legislatoin last week is the first step on a very steep and slippery slope for our country is not a surprise. Unfortunately those at whom such thoughts would be best directed would probably not even bother to read it or would fail to understand it if they did.

What is in the paper after A10? Who cares.

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No science in the Stadium

You can pick it like a nose, can't you. Front page of the The Royal New Zealand Herald this morning and we have the long awaited and much anticipated arrival of the Treaty into the stadium debacle. Oink, oink; slops on offer down at the wharf. This thing goes from bad to worse. All this debate should have been held (if it needed to be held at all) two years ago before we tendered for the tournament and not now when the clock is ticking ever louder. It no longer has anything to do with footy and everything to do with politics and business. I agree with those who say that a waterfront stadium in Auckland would be very nice. So would my owning a 54 foot Assegai. Do we need a waterfront stadium? - no. Do I need a 54 foot Assegai? - reluctantly, I have to also say no. What the hell are we going to do with a 60,000 seat stadium after the World Cup? You can shoot a cannon through Eden Park during most Super 14 games without fear of hitting anyone as it is. Ask the people in Sydney how much use the stadium built for the 2000 Olympics now gets. This is all to do with political points scoring and blackmail. Helen wants to look good (and she must be doing it through gritted teeth knowing her affection for the fifteen man game) in the eyes of the punter and will give Auckland a waterfront stadium as opposed to her returning to type, ignoring the sporting bloke and making him pay for the upgrade to Eden Park.

Talking of Helen being a manipulative duplicitous ratbag we come onto all this newly found emphasis for saving the planet. The editorial (the bit that is not nicked from somewhere else) eloquently explains out what I have been trying to point out in a rather more cumbersome way for days. This new found direction is no accident. What it does bring to the fore, however, are some of the more subtle possible ramifications for left wing politics in this country. If Labour swipes the climate crap off the Greens what do they, the Greens, have left? Nix. Even they couldn't imagine running a country on a platform of legalising dope and not smacking kids. The Greens therefore have to start attacking their mates in an act of self preservation, hence the outburst over Ford Fairlanes.

The good thinig about all this is that nailing your colours to the climate change mast is doomed to failure in the medium to long term as it is all based on lies. Remember what your Mum told you? Tell a porky and you have to tell a bigger one to cover it up. The labyrinth of lies that is growing around 'Bugatti Veyrons are wrecking the planet' is getting murkier by the day. We have already 'forgotten' the fact that the world was hotter in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than it is now. As we have the fact that the sun is hotter than it has been for thousands of years (not a change since 1992 like most of the doomsayers pin their hope on). We ignore the fact that the world being a little warmer at the moment predates the rise in 'greenhouse' gases and not the other way round. Think about that for a minute; the 'cause and effect' plank of the earnest ones is gone right there. We sweep under the table that all these predictions of doom and gloom are made on computer modelling which to date has not predicted anything that has subsequently been born out by measurable fact. We forget that the famous (infamous) Mann Hockey stick is a lie and a deliberate one at that. We ignore the fact that the program that produced the hockey stick will spit out the same shaped graph whatever data you feed it. This climate change crap is the biggest international scam the world has seen for over a century.

OK, Helen, if you want to base your political future on that crock, bring it on.

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Green nonsense - situation normal

Time, time, time - there is never enough. I still had a couple of things I wanted to read when a I heard the tractor running and had to dash to the fields. There is a bit about North Sea cod and Brain Gould on globalisation that might be of interest but my superficial scanning between mouthfuls of Marmite confirms that eco crap is the flavour of the moment.

There is a spat going in (in, I think, Mt Albert and wouldn't that be appropriate?) about the construction of a cycle way that means the losing of a shedful of roadside carparking spots. This totally un-newsworthy rubbish takes up nearly a quarter page of newsprint (I could have been reading about North Sea cod). There is some joker from the Coalition for Cycling or the Cyclists Liberation Army or some such saying that this is 'a very important issue' (it is not) and is fulfilling 'an urgent need to link up Auckland's cycle ways' (it is not). It means that latent cyclists who are victims of the fear of using their velocipede on Auckland's gas guzzler, climate vicious car laden streets can now come out of the two wheeled closet and hold their heads up high. I made that last bit up, but I might as well not have done as that is the sort of rot that comes out of these idiots' mouths. Give them a decent V8 and tell them to shut up.

The Greens are now having a swipe at the fleet of government Ford Fairlanes. These have to go and Ministers should car pool - like that is going to happen. They have calculated that the fleet of official limos emits 200 (2,000, 20,000, 2,000,000 - who knows or cares?) tonnes of greenhouse gases (what a meaningless statement in itself) per annum and this is a situation up with which we cannot put. Apparently the Fords use 14.6 litres of fuel per 100km. I flicked on the fuel computer in my own conveyance whilst driving down Lincoln Road and 14.6 would appear to me to be very frugal. Thes are that same pratts who held a rally at the weekend marking the one year anniversary of Rod Donald's death. They held a cycle rally. You know the form - loads of cycle helmets from the seventies (we must be safe), paisly socks, cycle trailers with scrawny malnourished tofu chewing kids in tow and a lot of those beards you grew briefly when you were 17 and vowed never to go near again. Yuck, Yuck, Yuck.

Which leads us nicely to A10 where Colin James latches on to what I was saying last week; the Headmistress has latched on to all this eco babble as the talisman that will lead her to her Holy Grail - a fourth term in office God forbid. Just rember a) she stole the dosh b) Philip Field is still out there, c) she is the social engineer from hell, d) I don't like her, e) I like her ideas even less and there must be an f), g), h)...............

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Off road, rorts and fireworks

Bit late this morning; bloody work.

An off road trail type race has just been refused permission to go ahead in the Waitakere ranges for reasons of 'social displacement'. What the f***ing hell is that? Bureaucratic obfuscation in the form of uninteligible language is what that is. Those who would rule our lives regard it as the AK47 of their armamentarium - a universal get you out if trouble device that has lethal fire power both at close quarters and at long range that can be used at any time. This race is for about 450 idiots who want to run from Whatipu to Muriwai Beach through the bush (God knows why, there are perectly good tar sealed roads that can easily deliver the same result) using mainly already designated tramping tracks. The land is owned by DoC (what a surprise), and the Waitakere and Rodney Councils. You would have thought there was enough bureaucratic input there for 45km of bush track, but no. These worthies think the race is OK. But along trots the Auckland Regional Council (Parks Divison) and says there has not been enough public consultation (the trenching tool to the AK47) and the event will cause 'social displacement'. Head of the Park Nazis is none other than Sandra Coney. Just when you think you have finally managed to slip the 1080 into the meusli supplies of these pratts they get recycled; year after year after year and pop up in the most unlikely places their interfering busybody agendas to push.

While we are on councils I see the Auckland mob's business class junket around the world has reported back on the way forward for Auckland. We have got for our $85,000 fourteen pages of nonsense. Fourteen pages is about five thousand words which is considerably shorter than most of the assignments my younger daughter has to produce for first her year undergraduate papers. Presumably 'Ratepayer Rort 101' doesn't require such academic rigor. At $6,000 a page we get such gems as building a model of the CBD so the ratepayer can get a better idea of the plans for the future. There is also an idea that pedestrians should get priority over those who drive their Hummer to the theatre for tickets. Are we surprised that Bruce Trotsky Hucker feels the report is a 'valuable contribution', or some such meaningless guff, to Auckland's future. You know how to get rid of them.

Garth George has been looking inside my mind, the cheeky bugger. He also has had a gutsful of being told what to do by nanny state. He also cannot stand the global warming nonsense, but this for slightly different reasons to mine; he bases his belief that it is all a load of nonsense on a deeply held religous faith and good on him for that. He also cannot stand the idea that 'they' will decide what is on offer in vending machines and that 'we', god forbid, cannot be allowed to make our own choice of which slot into which we place the coin. He also is appaled that Telly Tubby Marion Hobbs sees fit to ban the sale of fireworks (except to approved groups with a council permit, of course) because a few scrotes tie bangers to kittens. Ban things enjoyed by the majority instead of putting the people who can't be trusted with them in the slammer - that's the way. We'll control everything you do in life - and we've got thinking on our hit list - if its the last thing we do. Get rid of them and leave me alone. Off to the Red Shed for some sparklers and it's my business what I do with them; I have a few ideas.

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Al Gore?

As observed a couple of days back, global warming has become flavour of the moment and the damned paper is full of it at the moment - it'll pass. There is an editorial which says nothing new but reiniforfes my impression that Helen's timimg in making her speech in Rotovegas to just predate the release of the Stern Report is no coincidence. The editor agress that all this as a diversionary tactic to pull your mind away from all the crap that is flying round governmental corridors at present. Also pointed out is yet another (as if it were needed) example of how all this talk is long on rhetoric and short on fact. Helen wants to make New Zealand 'carbon neutral'. Sounds terrific (maybe) but means very little and is consequently unachievable because a)what is to be achieved hasn't been defined and b) there are no details on how this mythical state might be reached. Which leads nicely into a syndicated piece from the Independent out of London. Al Gore. How wierd is this? Failed presidential candidate, dons the jodhpurs, makes a movie (and no, I haven't seen it and won't be wasting my money so to do) and morphs into the global warming Pied Piper. He is quoted in the Independent's piece as saying 'we know all we need to know to be in a position to change what is going on' or some such. Anyone who nails their colours to the mast of a plonker who can stand up in polite society and let that trickle out of his gob is barking. The one thing that is certain about all this global warming is that there is no certainty. All the projections af doom and gloom are made on notoriously unreliable mathematical modelling, the most infamous of which (the Mann Hockey Stick) has been shown to be just plain wrong, and presented maliciously to a politically motivated audience who were just dying to believe it. There are no facts now that can be projected to be 'facts' for the future - full stop. There are facts in history, like the fact that the climate has been fluctuating for eons, that there have been mini ice ages and periods of relative warmth in the past and that these last for centuries. THis is very different from the 'we are warmer than we were in 1997 and it is all the fault of the Toyota Landcruiser' bollocks. I suppose I have to accept that in the short term Helen is in the poo and will waste more of my cash to use this eco nonsense to try and claw her way out.

A sneaky little piece on the comments page about proposed (well they are not really proposed, they are going to happen) changes to the ACC. Bear in mind that htis is penned by a representative of the employers side of things but, that not withstanding, it is not a good look. You can currently claim compensation for lots of work related ilnesses. Work in a sulphuric acid manufacturing plant (if there is such a thing) and spill the product on your hand and the resulting burn is work related. Not even I, in one of my more cynical moods, would argue with that. Other illnesses and the burden of proof is on the claimant that the illness is work related. This is all going to change. A group of illnesses has been identified where cause and effect is assumed right up front. This includes things like asthma, deafness and lung, throat and paranasal sinus cancer. It is estimated that in one fell swoop the ACC burden to the employers will increase by 200%. This is crazy and based on pseudo science (vide supra) of the worst kind. Example. You work in a panel beaters shop and spend your spare time at heavy metal rock concerts. After 20 years you start to lose your hearing. Panel beating is the cause and ACC pays up. Nuts. Suppose you work in a library - same. Suppose your deafness is caused by something else and not exposure to excess noise - there is more than one cause of deafness you know. More controlling legislaton aimed to reward the bloody 'victim'. The whole tenet of the legislation is flawed - the idea of cause and effect. There are very few illnesses that are 'caused' by just one thing. The law ignores the often very complex science (and real science, not politicians pseudo science 101 version) of epidemiology completely and especially ignores the very real existence of sporadic cases of anything. Still Nanny state must be seen to be looking after its poor charges who are totally incapable of looking after themselves, musn't it?

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Chicken Licken

The Stern report (what an apt apellation) has predictable cracks appearing in it already. The 'flying a kilo of Kiwifruit to Europe generates five kilos of carbon' BS has been exposed as just that already and without any help from me. We don't fly the comestible any where, it all goes by ship. So how much more of the report is based on lies? Quite a bit I would wager. It reminds me a bit of that Monty Python sketch. 'What have the Romans given us - nothing?'. 'What about roads?'. 'Well, yes, roads - but nothing else'. 'Houses?'. 'Alright, roads and houses - but nothing else'. 'Democratic system of government?'. 'OK, roads, houses.............

'Well, Kiwifruits are shipped by sea, but the rest is true'. 'What about the Mann Hockey Stick being a crock?'. 'Alright, kiwifruit travel by sea, the sicence is shonky but the sky really is falling in - Chicken Licken told me so.'

Our mob of reprobates will buy into this hook, line and sinker beause they want to believe it. They have already indicated that this is the talisman they are looking for to drag them out of the pledgecard/Phillip Field/we got no dosh mire. As I've opined before believing all this global warming crock really suits a left wing agenda and its current upsurge in popularity has the added bonus of diversion. Don't be swayed by all the smoke and mirrors.

Selwyn Bennet will need a new job soon. The Beehive would be a good place to lok as he seems ideally suited to a job in the Chamber. He is stupid, has the hide of a rhinoceros and can tell porkies on prime time telly without missing a beat. He doesn't know the difference between his grandmother and his great grandmother and then says there is none. He has cheated the Kiwis out of their points gained against Great Britain (or should that be Britain?), as they will surely be nicked off us before the sun goes down, and he carries on Phillip Field like as if nothing has happened. The great Kiwi propensity to have pratts in charge of things seems to go beyond the country in general and has even infiltrated Rugby League.

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Back from Oz

Well I pretty much managed to keep out of the Herald for three weeks as I had hoped, and it was a pretty good time to do so. I was obviously unable to insulate myself completely from the ways of the world but I did not have to stick the matchsticks under the finger nails and read the Herald's spin on things. New Zealand is not that gwate a place at present

but I detect a growing groundswell of opinion that wants to do something about it.

Reluctantly opened the magnificent purveyor of opinion this morning and nothing has changed. Global warming appears to be flavour of the moment with a report coming out from Britain this morning that the bankrupt rulers of our lives seem bound to grasp with both hands as they have decided they are going to make 'climate change' as the new central plank of their existence. Forget the crime stats, forget the health service, forget the unsustainable drain on the economy that is the benefit system, we'll concentrate our minds (and my money) on something we can do nothing about. We are told that flying one kilo of kiwi fruit (why not bauxite or books or manure or bricks or All BLacks) to Europe generates five kilos of carbon. I am gobsmacked at the sheer inanity of such a statement. It is totally meaningles. It means absolutely nothing at all. Are we talking carbon fibre, a lump of graphite, coal, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, ethyl lcohol (quite a bit of carbon in that) or what? Just a small example of the pseudo science BS that surrounds this entire subject. The headmistress has announced that New Zealand is striving to make a real difference in this srea - give me a break. One silver lining in all this though is that if Labour is going to put so much of its effort and credibility (sic) behind such arrant nonsense they are going to come an even bigger cropper than seems likely at the moment sooner rather than later.

Are we still only on page 2? Trees in Queen street are still makinng the paper below an article of RMA twaddle. Some building owners in Queen Street stand to be fined $40,000 for painting their shopfront incorrectly. The have painted the walls without highlightinig the pointing. No, wait a minute, without highlighting the pseudopointing.We also hear that there is an opinion that they should have got resource consent before even starting the work. The RMA, although probably well intentioned when it was conceived, has grown into a behomoth of silliness that is slowly strangling progress in this country.

My first trip to the comments page for a while and I am greeted with a picture of Bill Bryson. This has the desired effect in that it seduces me into reading an article that doesn't really merit such consideration. I quite like Bill's books; a good airoplane read generally. I try and gloss over the fact that an American writing about the English language ain't quite proper. The decline of standard of English is something that annoys me. The spoken word, a minor irritation. The written word in places that should know better really gets up my nose. I accept that all languages are evolving beasts, and I'll put my hand up to slipping in the odd split infinitive here and there, but I really shake my head in dismay at the barrage of TXT SPK that I am constantly exposed to. I have recently started texting, but only since I got a phone that has a QWERTY keyboard on it so I can punctuate my missives correctly without havig to go through five keystrokes for a comma. Any way, the picture of Bill is surrounded by an article by someone who is not Bill and who tries to base his argument on not being bothered about the difference between 'disinterested' and 'uninterested' because the difference has been eroded by common usage. I'm sorry but he's going to get nowhere with me with shonky thinking like that.

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Off to Oz

My last morning on the planet before going to Aussie on business related affairs for the rest of the week to be followed by two weeks off doing nothing. During this two weeks I am going to try and read no newspaper (except maybe the Sports pages) and listen to no radio or TV - doubt I'll succeed.

Radio Aerials. The North Shore City Council have found some new trivia to waste my not inconsiderable rates money on before fixing the storm water system, cleaning up the beachs, stopping houses falling off cliffs etc. I wouold have thought that the number of ham radio enthusiasts - you know the sorts, arran sweaters, scone recipes and chess games to Uzbekistan interspersed with earnest discussions on short wave propogation in the pre-dawn ionosphere - on the Shore would not rise to the numbers approaching insignificant. But they have to be reined in as they are a threat to us all especially on the health and safety front with all those death rays spreading over Rothesay Bay. In an attempt to 'consolidate' (or something) legislation concerning the environment there is to be a restriction on the number and dimension of radio aerials and satellite dishes allowed on dwellings, private, residence for the use of. Only allowed two and they can only be 3m high and be out of sight. This is nuts. I am no radio expert although I own a VHF (and have all the licenses and paperwork before you ask), but putting a dimension restriction on an aerial if it is to be used as such without taking into consideration its location is bonkers. Same height if you live on a ridge or in a valley? Also, if you want one of these lobotomised aerials you have to apply for - wait for it - resource consent. This will all come into effect in June 2006. Oh, wait a minute that was four months ago. Why, why, why do we let them get away with this?

Not making the Herald this morning, so it doesn't strictly count, is a story that the Police Commissioner might be unduly soft on Labour. Really? I hadn't noticed. This was raised by Michelle Boag, remember her? ( her mother is a friend of my wofe's and she makes really nice scones). Ms Boag cites the Police's decision not prosecute the Labour Party over the pledge card business and contrasts this with the alacrity with which Tony Ryall was rushed in front of the beak for driving a tractor up Parliament's steps during the fart tax debacle. Add to this Benson-Dope, the headmistress's paintings and the commissioner meekly tugging his forelok and agreeing with Annette King that last week's crime statisitcs were just a reporting adjustment and I would say it is game set and match.

The wastrels in Wellington get their nose back in the trough this arvo (why can't they work in the morning like the rest of the world) and I will be glad to be out of here for a while as I think it is going to get very vomit worthy later in the week. Let's see what sort of spin the Adelaide papers put on the ways of the world.

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Apologies - yuck

Helen Clark is pathetic.

In addition to her other crimes against my sensibilities, the list of which is so long it would fill the fishing.net servers to overflowing, this apology of a public figure has the back bone of a mollusc. The front page of the Herald this morning carries her apology to all cancer sufferers for her calling Don Brash cancerous and corrosive. She doesn't want to cause offence to any suffers from uncontrolled mitosis. I assume tomorrow we will get the apology to all those whose cars have just failed their Warrant of Fitness on account of excess rust as she might have retraumatised these poor victims by making them relive the horrors of walking from the Inspection Station with the ticks in the wrong column. Pathetic. But this apologist way of doing things is typical of the way she leads her life and, through the policies she would foist upon us, wants us to lead ours. Look at all the treaty settlements. You get 4 trillion dollars, 5 squillion square miles of forest, a couple of lake beds, fishing rights to the Auckland Islands, the infra red part of the electromagnetic spectrum and.........an apology. No one must ever offend anyone. You certainly musn't do this by pointing out that they might in some way be inferior to you in any way. If you even suggest that two people are not totally equal in every way your reponse must be to go back into the room under the door and apologise. Pathetic. Listen up woman, if you think Don is a cancerous, corrosive wretch, say so and have the balls (sic) to stick to your guns. I think you are pathetic - and don't ask me what I really think, because I'll tell you and won't apologise afterwards.

Colin James writes a very interesting piece this morning which doesn't really fill its potential. It starts with the state the terrorists of the planet have got the rest of the law abiding world into. You know the sort of stuff, you can't take more than 85ml of your contact lens solution on to the plane, shoes off at the check-in desk. All this done by blowing up a few bits and pieces, but more importantly theatening to do it again. Nothing new here and the sort of mindset that terrorsits strive to achieve in their targets. The interesting part to my way of thinking is the idea that this fire is being fuelled by our obsession to be risk aversive. For example the chances of anything untoward happening on any given flight out of pretty much anywhere are low - even if you are flying from Baghdad. The chances of anything untoward happening if you are flying out of Auckland are very much lower than even this. Approching - but not reaching - zero. They can never be zero. Nothing that is not a but of machinery can be predicted to do anything in the future with a probability of 100%. But, and here is the interesting bit, we as a society are prepared to put an inversely proportional amount of effort into the infinitessimly small part of the equation. It is bonkers to my mind. You have to take a risk in everything you do. You must not be overtly stupid, but - and here comes the rub - we, in many things in life, have set the risk bar at totally the wrong level. This is where OSH has got it so wrong - rules for Africa for which compliance is demanded all the time for events that are almost certainly never going to happen.

Be safe and when in doubt, apologise. Yuck.

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Socks with sandals

Thanks RH for those public service announcements. I make a point of only reading the sports section of the SST (likewise the Saturday editon of the Herald) and so have missed Trotters's bit, but your quote suggests I could write it down now without having seing it. I've mentioned before the power of the handling (or mishandling) of information over the swathes of time. Same still pertains but it is now less controllable with the rise of(amongst other things) the internet. Look at the enormous lengths China goes to in the largely vain attempt to stop the populace gaining access to the web - and they aren't doing that to stop people getting free downloads of smilies to add to their emails. The chilling inferences surrounding the headmistresses quote on corruptoin is just that - chilling. Hooten quite rightly points out in his rider to the piece that her ideas are filtering into policy with all the proposed changes into the laws surrounding dissent. I keep harping on about history (and this from one who happily gave it up in the fourth form - misguided youth that I was) and I am not the first to warn that we ignore the lessons of history at out peril. There is very little new in the world - it has all happened before if we would only look. Stifling public dissent is a very common prodromal sign of a very serious illness some way down the track.

Orewa. the town as opposed to the speech. A few of the denizens are very worried that development might be coming their way. They don't want high rise buildings (I think 'high' here is seven stories), they don't want expansion etc. etc. It would appear that after getting a motorway to deliver unlimited traffic to their doorsteps (and the huge economic benifit this would garner for the town) they want the conurbation to remain timewarped in the sixties with the streets being populated by A35s, Ford Anglias and men wearing socks with their sandals. This refusal by some people to believe we live in a wider world brings us on nicely to a piece in the Editorial column about New Zealand's internatonal credit rating. The mob who dishes these out (they live in New York, I think) warns that NZ's insistence on having a policy dictated economy largely insulated from the realities of world economics is a very dangerous road to tread. It could lead to our downrating from A++ to something less spiffy. This in turn would lead to us 'having to' rely more on a policy led economy and so on and so on as we spiral downwards towards the Zimbabwes of the world. There are none so blind as those who will not see are there, Dr Cullen?

Don Brash puts pen to paper this morning - at least he can do writing as well as hard sums. He defends himself against those who would take him to task over his latest 'one law for all' stance and the perceived racial overtones. He shouldn't have to bother defending this as it patently obvious to all that he is right. In amongst the usual politician-speak he gives two very good examples as to where the hand wringers have got it so wrong. Maori are over represented in the lung cancer death statistics. There are those who would have you believe this is because of a government failing and in particular their failing to honour the Treaty of Waitangi. Quite what mind altering substance you would have to be on to think this is beyond me, but there you are. This is stupid. Maori are over represnted in this part of the health statistics because more of them choose to smoke. Moari are under represented in Law School (this despite positive discrimination to get more enrolled, as there is in medicine). This has nothing to do with governmental failings but everything to do with personal choice. Obviously more Maori want to spend their lives designing cathedrals as opposed to defending the stupid in court.

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An attempt to be Moari

Being as I read the Herald to keep up to speed with what people are thinking as opposed to gathering news, Fridays are relatively easy going as there are great globs that can be ignored. Silly Red Glasses is a lost cause and Rudman gets back on track by wasting his entire space on trees. There's half a page that doesn't need reading right there. Factor in the Golf Warehouse, Bunnings and Briscoes ads and there is only about a page left that is worth reading.

The Editorail is usually worth scanning, but it's bloody trees again. The bulk of the comments page (remembering that Silly Red Glasses is here and can be ignored) is taken over by an article from Pita Sharples. Ignore the fact that he shares a hairderesser with Brian Connell and I much prefer Jason Eaton's mullet. Ignore the shells around the neck - what are they all about? Ignore all that and his piece really ought to be read. This so for two reasons in my estimation. 1) he is not stupid and 2) he has a position of influence and deserves a hearing. You do not have to agree with what someone says to listen to them say it. This article is very heavy going. I'm sure there are some valid points in there somewhere but it is very hard to tease out the wheat from the chaff. He is trying to address the question of what it is to be Maori. He is obviously going to struggle to get this sorted in three half columns of newsprint. There are some valid points well made interspersed with a load of rot. The concept of whakapapa is stressed a hundred times if it is mentioned once and the overwhelming prominence that this has over blood purity seems to be the central plank of his argument. I think I'm going to have to read this again (if I can be bothered on such a nice sunny day) before I decide if it is a valuable contribution to my somewhat rudimentary understanding of all this. I suspect it is not and I will remain largely a non understander.

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New Zealand's obsession with trees

What is it with New Zealand and trees? Why have these risen to deity status in this gwate country? There is a pecking order in the regard which trees are held much like there is in the the army - officers and other ranks, or more aptly, the All Blacks - All Blacks and Great All blacks. There are exotics, and they are OK, and then there are natives. These demigods of the aborial world require you to genuflect before tham and only mention their names in a suitably deferential hushed voice. Rimu, totara, Buck Shelford and ......cabbage tree (which is not a tree at all but a lily). What a truly spectacularly unpleasant and messy object is the cabbage tree. Give me an elder or a silver birch any time. But you have to think the sun shines out of the cabbage tree's phloem because it is a bloody 'native'. If you are a tree, preferably a native, (or Colin Meads) in New Zealand you can do little wrong. If you and seventy of your mates live in Queen Street and Big Ears decides to cut you down you earn yourselves acres of newspaper space for days and even merit an Editorial today. This Editorial is a waste of trees. It harps on for a full three quarter column as to how the trees must be saved because even if they are to be replaced with 95 others we will have to be the victims of a treeless street for ten years. Good grief a whole ten years, how can we possibly survive. I'll tell you how, exceedingly easily because most of us couldn't give a stuff. How long ago did the country come to the brink of Armgeddon when they, like thieves in the night, transformed One Tree Hill into None Tree Hill? We've been through several All Black selection committees since then and they have yet to name the Pinetree's successor. The 'process' is obviously a lot more complex than finding a worthy wearer of the 13 jersey. Let's get over damned trees and concentrate on things that really matter. Waste a tree and another grows back. To be fair some take a longer time to grow than others, but them's the breaks.

Garth George is into trees and other things creationist this morning. He scribes a very pleasnat, non threatening pastoral piece about spring. All very saccharine laden and designed to put you in a good mood for the day.Very nice. But in there is bloody Nanny State again. Garth has just been fitted with hearing aids. Where is this going you may ask? He tells us that these marvels of modern technology and miniaturisation cost the GDP of a small country but then drops the bombshell. It doesn't matter because ACC paid for them. Eh? He, being awash in old fashioned values, never thought of applying for the cost but was encouraged so to do by his audiologist. How so? 'You, being a journalist must have worked surrounded by noisy printing presses in the pre desktop publishing era?' 'Well, yes' 'Please go to window five and collect your ACC cheque for a squillion dollars for the hearing aids necessitated by the auditory trauma thus suffered'. Just like that. Nuts.

Below this there is a truly nauseating piece about that stupid woman in South Auckland who paid $35,000 for a Rav4 worth about $9,000. There is a bleeding heart barrister opining that the government should protect 'victims' like this from loan sharks. How are the poor oppressed masses going to afford cars to take their offspring to the doctors etc. etc. Who in their right mind believes half of this bollocks? Hands up all those who last bought a vehicular conveyance because they wanted to take their kid to the doctor? You buy a car, let me see, to go to work, to look cool, to do donuts, to have something to wash on a Sunday morning. But to take your kid to the doctor? - give me a break. This woman is stupid for a) buying a naff car and b) signing a loan agreement that was ripping her off. If she didn't understand what she was sigining then don't sign it. The only protection required around this case is us being protected from her by stopping her procreating.

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Panem et circenses

Slim pickings this morning. I was looking for a bit about the Smoking Nazis wanting to ban smoking in cars but this wasn't mentioned in the rag and so it doesn't count. But.... Sod off. I hate smoking but if you want to smoke in your own car, go ahead and don't let anyone beat you around the whiskers with a health and safety stick.

I thought I was going to draw a complete blank as I sailed past the Queen street trees (complete with Photoshop efforts even I would be ashamed of) and an attempt to explain why the pledge card spending is wrong - is there still any dement left in the country who hasn't got their head around this yet? Boring bit about Brian Connell, a tedious piece about touching children and then we have to wait until A20 to bring a smile to the visage. After yesterday's syndicated savaging of Jeremy Clarkson the Herald has been even handed enough to publish a another syndicated piece in his defence. This perhaps, not surprisingly, comes from the Daily Telegraph - a right wing rag that has been referred to as the Daily Torygraph. The author of this piece has most eloquently put down all the ideas I have rather amateuishly referred to in my scribblings on this in the last couple of days. He blows a raspberry at the 'healthensafety' idiots and even quotes Juvenal - although 'panem et circenses' would have looked a lot more classy than 'bread and circuses'. He lauds the program as being what it is - good, peurile, totally politically incorrect fun. Hell, we so much need more of this in the increaingly safe world we are being forced to live in. Apparently there is a lobby in the UK that would have the BBC tone the program down and have reviews of the Prius and comparisons of safety triangles. For the second time this morniing - sod off.

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This is a bit of me

The Herald has come out with a nausea special this morning – packed to the gunwales with trees, eco friendly this and that, politically correct claptrap, bureaucratic nonsense and a stinging attack on Jeremy Clarkson. It’s a shocker.

We are told that the new viaduct over the river at Waiwera is a eco-triumph or some such. It’s main claim to fame is that it will protect a couple of semi flightless (how can you be ‘semi-flightless?) birds and the only regret is that it cannot be extended to traverse a couple more streams. I would assume that these streams will be four feet across and building a bridge across them will only cost ten mil or so per rivulet. What a load of bollocks. The bridge is a sodding great lump of concrete which is well overdue to take traffic away from a dreadful piece of coastal road (ask Bushie what he thinks of this stretch of State Highway One – SH1, give me a break). We have a whole section on the latest on what the are going to do to trees in Queen street. 70 trees out to be replaced over ten years with 90 odd other ones. And this is being done, shock horror, without consultation. Who gives a stuff. The teachers Union is coming up with guidelines on how teachers might touch pupils. I scanned this briefly for references to boots and backsides but was rewarded only with copious references to ‘appropriateness’ and ‘encouragement’ all couched in the flowery meaningless language of the left. We have an article about how the founder of Fruitworld has, after over two years of wrestling with the men with clipboards, been given permission to build a house on land he bought on the understanding he was going to build a house on it. We have the revelation that a committee has given a research grant to some wally (or was it wallyess) to write thesis on the History of Auckland’s sexuality and the modern orgasm (I’m serious). Now this is patently just plain stupid. What is more worrying is that this is our money and even scarier is that the same Committee has awarded six mil of similar money to themselves. People sitting on this board have been awarding research grants to each other. When such a decision is being made the intended recipient has to be out of the room - so it’s all right. Is it bollocks? Even the Headmistress opines that this is a bit on the nose. This coming from one whose ideas on how to spend public money has come under a bit of scrutiny recently.

All this just served to get me into the mood to read A14. I had some idea of what I was in for from the promo on the front page but it prepared me poorly for the tirade of effete hand wringing that greeted me. The article is syndicated from the Independent and is written by an absolute embodiment of everything I detest in an attitude to life. I’ll come clean right away. I am writing this at my secondary place of employment which I attend once a week. I have to drive half an hour to get here. I do this in a 390bhp 4 litre supercharged V8 car using on average 16 litres of high octane petrol per 100km. I own two other four litre cars, a two litre number and a 200hp 2.6 litre outboard into which I happily pour 130 litres of petrol a day during the gamefishing season. My political leanings are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. I detest fairness and love discrimination. I am sure speed cameras are revenue gathering machines and ‘man is wrecking the planet by causing global warming’ is a complete crock. I hate hand wringing lefties and ‘green’ politics. I think people should work for their money and not just put their hand out for the government to fill it. I like big civil engineering projects, military hardware (especially of the naval variety), expensive hi tech toys and blowing things up. I hate most of what OSH stands for and the 'Nanny State’ it represents. I take responsibility for what I do and I chose what I want to do in the danger department. Jeremy Clarkson is my kind of bloke with bells on. My only regret is that he is much smarter than me because he has managed to make a shed load of money out of just being himself.

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