Chance would be a fine thing

We all have to die - death and taxes and the like - and I would like to think with the genetic hand I have been dealt I am but about two thirds through my allotted span. Thinking about this occupies absolutely zero of my thought time as the final curtain is a) hopefully a very long way off and b) there is bugger all I can do about it - apart from eating my greens, cutting the fat off my pork chops and only spreading butter on my soldiers when Mrs O is not looking.

A premature truncation of one's life can be accidental courtesy of a vehicular accident (or choking on an inhaled fish, or being struck by lightning or.......) and the New Zealand Police get severely exercised by this come every long weekend off occasioned by a Public Holiday. We get the mandatory interview on the Friday night with the National Road Policing Manger type chap (who at the moment is a wimmin) who stands on a bridge over the Wellington motorway wearing a Hi Viz jacket and tells us all that speed kills and that plod will be out in force on the random breath test front. Yawn. We have had a new 'measure' that will cut down the carnage on the roads for the last year or so. Tolerance for exceeding the 100kph top limit (seriously I can't get my car into 6th gear at 100kph - I've paid for a gear I'm never going to use) will be reduced from 110 to 104 just for the weekend. To ensure this draconian stance has 'impact'. They can't seriously expect anyone to believe any of this can they?

Well yes they do. The Queen's Birthday weekend just gone killed no one. Moving right past the stupid tortology of that statement we shall examine the official reaction to this entirely satisfactory state of affairs. Top Transport Police Woman Type Person takes off her Hi Viz apparel (and mercifully stops the disrobing process at that point) and gives a full view of her dental work. Gushing praise of how all the speed kills policy has at last had an effect. The New Zealand driver is at last paying attention and the message is getting through. Because of strict policing over the weekend no New Zealanders are facing the week with sadness at the loss of a loved one. And so on ad bloody nauseam. Stupid woman.

How many people do you have to have in a room so that there is a greater than 50% chance at least two of them have the same birthday? 365 days in the year remember; add in a leap year or two to make the calculations a little more interesting. Answer? 23. Surprising? Maybe, but it is true and has its roots in very simple mathematics and the really quite cute theories surrounding probabilities and chance.

There is no reason that no people were killed by the recent Queen's Birthday weekend other than chance. Oh and the fact that calendars don't kill people unless you get sconed by a jolly big box full. It was equally likely that three or six people got killed. Then what would silly woman on the over bridge say? 'We are disappointed, obviously, but it is gratifying that none of the deaths appear to be speed related'. What if the equally likely random event (and that is what zero road deaths is) of 17 people getting mangled in the BMW had happened? Press statement still wearing the Hi Viz would probably be called for. 'The message is just not getting through. For Labour weekend the discretionary speed will be reduce to 101.76 kph as New Zealanders just have to wake up to the fact that speed kills.'

I find statistics textbooks not to be ripping good yarns. I need to have even rudimentary number crunching refresher courses on a regular sort of five yearly basis to keep me on the straight and narrow. I do this because it is part of my job to be reasonably competent when confronted with great screeds of data. I would like to think that people involved in other fields, especially those spending my money, are similarly equipped. The fact that decisions are made on the back of Statistics 101 from the front page of The Herald is just not good enough.

But the great unwashed lap it up. Remember Economy Class Syndrome? Sit in row 55 on a flight taking you further than Brisbane and you will die of a pulmonary embolus as you wait for your suitcase at the luggage carousel. Fork out loadsa dosh and luxuriate in 9A and you'll be fine. THis because you are four times (from memory) more likely to get a DVT sitting in Economy than in Business. Multiply an infinitesimally small number buy an integer and what do you get? An infinitesimally small number. Getting a DVT from sitting on a plane is incredibly bloody unlikely where ever you sit.

Will all this bollocks stop anytime soon? Of course it won't. The only answer is to travel up the front of the plane because it is just better and not because it prolongs your life. And we need to build lots of nice concrete roads and make the tolerance on the 100kph limit about 150 so I can use all the gears in the Jag I paid for.

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Edison lives on

The pragmatic blokes who seem to be still doing what the said they would are at it again. The Government today announced that they will reverse the ban on incandescent light bulbs that was due to come into effect next October. This was one of the dafter of Labour's save the planet bollocks. The replacement piggy's tails jobs are just 'orrible. As I have already mentioned I had started hoarding the original tried and true Thomas Edison jobs and I suppose I could now have a garage sale of them.

As an added bonus to this welcome bit of pragmatism she in the need of Botox and tooth whitening has come out in all her hand wringing and whingeing splendour to announce that she and the Greens are unhappy with the decision. I'll tell you what, Ms Fitzsimons, no one gives a rat's arse what you think. By telling us all prior to the election that you wanted nothing to do with a National Government should one be elected you have consigned yourself to a position of total and utter irrelevance. You've made your bed now lie in it. How do you fancy a ride in my supercharged V8? A trip around my private Toshiba nuclear power plant? Sell you 40 litres of diesel, cheap like? A T-bone steak perhaps?

Stupid woman

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Oh no you don't

The world's economies are going down in a screaming heap. I laid my global financial expertise open for all to see a couple of days ago but even to my untutored eye this is bloody bad. Apparently as bloody bad as it has been since the 1930s when you were in danger of being hit by a falling stockbroker as you walked down Wall Street. So bloody bad that National's economic policy which was released yesterday had to be modified to take account of the fact that the world is a bit short of the folding varieties. I've had a look at this policy and stroked my chin in a sage sort of a way when asked my opinion about it and said it looks OK. I don't really know, but it looks, well, OK. I don't think I gain much from it but I don't care. I don't think I lose anything and that is good enough for me. In fact it is better than good enough for me because if it all comes to pass it will mean that Labour is longer at the levers of Power.

Ah yes Labour and Dear Leader. What is their policy on all this financial shenanigans? What have they in mind to steer us through a decade (a decade no less; I'll be getting close to 70) with minimal pain and maybe even chance of improving our lot and coming out of it better than most? Well nothing actually. Steady as she goes, bosun. Nine years of 'prudent fiscal stewardship' has got us into the situation where the cupboard is bare and that is what we will continue doing. We are the ones to be trusted with your dosh, just look at what we have done with it so far. Vote for us and we'll do the same again. So don't you go worrying about the world's economy going down the plug'ole: Uncle Micky will see you right.

So that's that then. World's economy going tits up and the Government have no policy announcement. Well no. They do have a policy announcement. They are getting into your shower. That's right while Rome's coffers are burning Nero is fiddling in the shower - if you get my gist. The interfering little ratbags are not content with telling us what light bulbs we can buy. Mandating what we put in our kids lunch boxes not enough. The amount of water coming out of a shower rose is now to be legislated on. And it is to be reduced to 6 litres a minute. I don't really know what that is but it doesn't sound a lot (apparently it is about a third of what makes a really good vigorous shower now) and it is 30% less than they are allowed in Queensland where there is a drought that has been going on for years. We don't have a drought. So much don't we have a drought that this stupid government is content to leave us dependent on hydro generation of electricity. Idiots. The new regulations are couched in bureaubabble and only apply to new dwellings (only town planners talk of dwellings. You don't leave the boozer and say to your mates 'See you lads, I'm off to my dwelling' do you?) and renovations over 150 sq m. You use more water if your bathroom is jolly big?

For starters this regulation is stupid. I didn't see a provision allowing for really fat people being able to apply for a permit for an extra couple of litres per minute because they take a lot of washing. I'm sure there will be a provision demanding all registered members of athletic clubs get a lower allowance as they are in training and are really good at running around to get wet. Where is the form for getting an extra litre per minute if you've just had a big day muck spreading?

Much more importantly it is a portent of what is to come if the great unwashed (pun intended) are stupid enough to vote Labour and their Green mates (and this crap stinks of Greenness) in for another three years. This is what is important to them. Bugger the pragmatic stuff when there is bit of controlling to be done. This is the evil of these toads. This is true to type. The stupid regulations come from the Department of Building and Housing. Bye the bye their staffing numbers have increased over 500% in the last nine years. If you go to their website (and I really don't advise this as it is both very boring and vomit inducing) you will see the real culprit behind this interfering bullshit.

Sustainability. The modern touchstone that allows a warped administration to do anything it likes. I have written of this evil before but we would do well to remind ourselves of the Urban Dictionary's definition of sustainafuckingbility.

Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues. The sustainability movement encompasses environmental justice and social justice, because one cannot be obtained without the other. It means living life to the fullest without compromising future generations' ability to do so. It respects the interconectedness of all life and acknowledges the responsibility that each person has to consider the effects that his actions have on other life forms, both living and to be born.

Well for starters it is nuts and doesn't mean anything; it also contains a word that doesn't exist - interconnectedness. It induces great waves of nausea in me. But the dangerous is bit is the first sentence. 'It is a lens through which to view all issues'. So you latch onto this bollocks and you apply it to everything. Absolutely everything. You get yourself a new hammer and everything is a nail. You get this crap engraved on a bone pendant and you walk through proper people's lives and beat them with it. This bloody government has bought this crap hook line and sinker. If you are stupid enough to go any government website you find this bollocks everywhere. If anyone questions any of their loathsome controlling legislation they play their sustainability card which in their warped view trumps even a royal flush. Sustainability is their garlic with which to protect themselves from the Dracula of commonsense and pragmatism. Dickheads.

There are rumours that there are plans afoot to ban patio heaters. I will go and buy six; no, bugger it, make it a dozen. What else have they in mind? A ban on cooked food to save the planet. Salad only Wednesdays? A ban on shaving to cut down the use of both hot water and steel? Should have a lot of female politicians worried. No more building consents for anything but nikau whares? V8 vehicular conveyances to be compulsorily traded in for bicycles at the gates of the State Bicycle Factory?

So in the interests of sustainability (and probably Kyoto and carbon neutrality - the Dept. of Building and Housing is 'committed to be on the road to carbon neutrality by 2012'. Barrrf ) the government is going to tell me how much water I am allowed to have coursing through my shower roses (plural; I have six showers) This water is collected off my roof from rain. This non government supplied water is pumped by electricity from a generator in my tractor shed. This generator is mine (even paid for) and is fueled by petrol which I buy. With money. My money - or what is left of it after bloody Cullen has taken most of it from me. So you are going to tell me how much of this water thus pumped I can pass though my showers? Well no you bloody well aren't. Sod off. Sod off from my shower. Sod off from my light fixtures. Sod off from my fridge. Sod off from my wallet. Just get the fuck out of my life altogether. You do not know how to run my life better than I do and I will not allow you to even try. My dislike of you and your all controlling ways knows no bounds.

I was collecting my daughter from the Airport a couple of weekends back when she was coming home from Wellington for a couple of days. As we were waiting by the carousel for her luggage Dear Leader who had travelled on the same plane walked past. I asked my daughter if she had a baseball bat in her case. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) she did not.

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This almost passed me by

I no longer get the Herald at Marmite soldier time and my reading of this waste of trees is now somewhat erratic. Didn't glance at it at all yesterday. Or so I thought when I picked up what I thought was today's edition only to find myself wading through Monday stuff. The cunning ratbags have stopped colouring the Green Pages and so I tripped unwarned over an item about an American Walking evangelist.

This has every ingredient a looney left weird beard story could hope for - you couldn't have made it up better. This nutter (a walking guru, no less) is pictured striding down Auckland's streets clad in one of those jackets that has a million external pockets telling the world you are either a wannabe fly fisher or a very keen photographer. To be fair I think he was the latter in an earlier life. He is accompanied by his wife who looks very earnest and tofu powered shod in sensible shoes. Fruitloop has been bought to NZ by Land Transport New Zealand to lead seminars and address the national Walking Conference in Auckland next week. We have a national Walking Conference? I bet that's a thrill a minute. Seminars on the relative merits of starting a stroll with the left or the right foot. Breakout session on blisters. The trade exhibition with vast selections of shoelaces. Can't wait.

I'll quote a few things this bloke has already said mainly when speaking to the Waitakere Council - what a surprise. They are in no particular order and I don't know which of them is the most stupid.

"I personally am delighted with the price of oil - I couldn't be happier." I fail to see how anyone can say that. Oil (and all forms of power come to think of it) should be free for God's sake.

"Cars made things so easy in the early days that we didn't focus on rebuilding our cities, so only now are we beginning to realise how important that focus is." Now that doesn't even make any sense from a grammatical point of view let alone being totally unfathomable. First motor car was built in about 1905 or so and I'm pretty sure man had some pretty sizable conurbations by then.

"I think we are going to have Victory gardens, and people saying: I'll start with one day a week without the car, within a month go to two days without it and then, by the third month, I'll figure out some shift in my lifestyle where the car is now the luxury - it's not the necessity."
So he's really lost it. Victory gardnes? My Dad used to tell me about these. Featured in the same stories were gas masks an Anderton Shelters. A day a week without a car? Well you can sod off, sunshine. If you think I am walking from Dairy Flat to Takapuna once a week you can think again. And regarding a 390 bhp supercharged 4 litre V8 as anything less than one of life's essentials is the sort of thinking that gets you taken away by the men in the white coats.

Anyway there is loads more of this tosh but the general thrust is that we should all give up our cars, walk everywhere, become healthier, happier and the planet will be saved as a by product. This is coming from an American for heaven's sake. Have you been to America? You could no more use a pair of stout boots as your primary mode of transport than he could have walked from Seattle to Auckland - there's the small matter of the Pacific Ocean in the way if you care to consult a map. All American shopping now happens in malls about twenty miles out of the towns and these shopping paradises are surrounded by car parks the size of a small country. In case you hadn't noticed, Mr American Fruitloop, your mob lives in their cars.

So we have to put up with being lectured by some Septic who has been flown here in a gas guzzling 747 at my expense (he's being bankrolled by tax payer money) on how we should start walking everywhere. I don't think so.

I would suggest Mr Looney Walkalot walks to Cape Reinga and just keeps going.

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Compulsion

Never get a thing done because it is a good idea or because it might be a thing people want to do when you can use compulsion. This bloody government, at the fag end of their time in power, is at it again. Their track record of passing daft, poorly worded legislation to push their warped view of life is as long as it is shameful. We are told what we can put in our kids school lunch boxes. We are compelled to wear fluoro safety jackets when we put the cat out. We are now told that we will have to buy petrol with so many percent biofuel mixed in to it because that is saving the planet. The fact that it will put the cost of gas up (and it has already got a bit more expensive recently if you hadn't noticed) is over and above the fact that it makes proper cars run like a dog. It may be alright in your bloody Prius but I'm buggered if I'm going to put it in the supercharged V8. I mean you don't see Lewis Hamilton telling the spotty youth at the bowser to 'fill 'er up with the 150 octane and top it off with a pint of cooking oil' do you?

A report is issued today detailing the first year of the antismacking bollocks. The feds have 'looked into' a large number (can't remember how many - couple of hundred, maybe) and the end result is zero prosecutions. Whilst all over the country it would appear that the must have accessory for any 21st party is a bunch of thugs with baseball bats and machetes, the boys in blue are wasting their time policing a law that is not needed for no effect. Bloody Bradford has just been interviewed on the wireless and she says this 'proves the law is working as it should'. She is absolutely bat shit mad. She will defend this looney bit of legislation to the hilt whatever happens. She could not reason her way out of a paper bag (the one that should permanently sit over her head) so why should she at this late stage realise that she is just plain wrong.

In the meantime we have our latest bit of compulsion. Squiggly wiggly light bulbs. Thomas Edison patented his version of the light bulb in 1875. It has remained pretty much unchanged since then and has served us well. Having been around for such a long time it has evolved into many forms. There are different shaped ones, dimmable ones and all sorts of variations. They are cheap as chips and when they burn out you bin them and put another one in the socket. Easy. But things move on. These piggy's tails jobbies appear to be very good. They use less power and are cheap to run. All good. Put them up against Edison's model in the shops and see what the punter thinks. Well this punter did and I bought some to replace a couple of 100w globes in the recessed lights on one of the patios. I could get away with 16w the man in the shop told me. Go and vomit in your top hat Edison, I'm onto something here. Take them home and I stood on a chair without wearing a safety harness or fluoro jacket and screwed in my new purchase. Bloody thing sticks out of the bottom of the recessed socket and ends up not being recessed at all. I wait for dusk and then turn on the new wondrous bulb. It is horrible. A hideous stark white light that would look good illuminating the tripwire at Stalag Luft IV.

These bulbs may be eco friendly and cheap to run but they look absolutely disgusting - whether they are turned on or off. So here is the rub. I don't like them and I have been out and bought a couple of old fashioned 100w bizzos that give of the warm glow I want and are invisible in the ceiling when turned off. I am prepared to waste my money on the extra power for the effect and I have the choice so to do.

As of next year I will not have this choice. The damned government is going to tell me what bloody light bulbs I can buy. I may want to put a squiggly wiggly bulb in the laundry cupboard where I can't see it much and the cost savings will be worthwhile (but at a couple of dollars pre annum I doubt it) - and then again I might not. Not a good enough level of control for this mob - you will buy the light bulbs we tell you to buy.

It is as scary as it is pathetic

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Sledgehammers, walnuts, certainty and pragmatism

Several thoughts running around what passes as a brain at the moment and I am not entirely sure I can pull them coherently together.

The concept of certainty has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was first smitten by mathematics (which was well before gamefishing) my favourite number has been zero and all the wondrous things it can do. Infinity is its natural bedfellow and is similarly intangible and intriguing. So it is with certainty. There is nothing that lives that can do anything with absolute certainty and that is just the way it should be. If we had certainty in life (I know about the death and taxes nonsense - and taxes is stretching the point in absolute terms) many of the things that make life just that, life, as opposed to an existence would disappear. Trust for instance would not be required and just think how much less rich life would be if that were removed.

No, we have to move through life accepting that the vast majority of things are not certain. Some of this we seem to be able to get our heads around quite easily. I can think of no one who buys a Lotto ticket entertaining the thought that he has certainly bought the winning ticket. But still you hand over your $13 because although you are not certain of winning it is possible that you will. The chances of winning are exceedingly low but the result of winning is very good (loads of dosh) and the result of losing is pretty inconsequential - well to most people. If you are spending $13 on Lotto as opposed to the groceries you have another sort of issue. If you buy a Lotto ticket you are not certain to win neither are you certain to lose. So if we accept that we don't have 0% chance or 100% chance of something happening we are making some progress as to how we have to go through life.

Life is not a box of chocolates, life is a repeated trip to the TAB. Every conscious decision you make is made by weighing up the odds. You try and work out what the chances are of an outcome of an action coming to pass and factor in the benefits and deficits of those outcomes and make your choice. Impossible. Well tough; you have to 'cos that's the way it is. But you do have some help. And your biggest help is the normal distribution curve. This is right up there in the theoretical stakes with the number zero. Everything that naturally happens to anything that lives from a blade of grass to me or you or the lady at number 27 occurs somewhere along this curve. I am below average height. There will be an equal number of people in a suitably large cohort who are an equal amount above average height. If I walk down the road during a thunderstorm the number of times I do it before being struck by lightning is at a point along the normal distribution curve for that activity. I find out where that point is and I take a punt and go for a stroll - or not. My choice. We live under this magical bell shaped umbrella.

What we do not live under is a square wave. You do something and this other thing will definitely and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever happen. No sir it won't - because it can't. This is where all these daft social engineering laws have their genesis of being so stupid. Sure they are embellished and massaged by a bunch of control freaks but the germ of the problem is trying to put certainty where none can exist. If you stand on a box a metre off the ground to do some work and fall off it is very unlikely that you will come to any permanent harm. But you might. Therefore everyone who stands on said box has to wear a safety harness. A sledgehammer, a walnut, a lack of understanding of the concepts we are talking about and pragmatism is down the river. If the box is on the edge of a cliff a sensible bloke would call for his safety harness because in the unlikely event of him falling off the box the consequences are now that he will end up not on a box but in one. Now that is the pragmatic solution to the problem. But to get everyone standing on boxes looking like mountaineers? I don't think so.

But that is the way modern society seems to want to go and The People's Republic is right in the van of the movement. Banning handheld cellphones whilst driving is the latest example. How many people are killed on New Zealand's roads per annum where use of a cell phone might be a contributing factor? I worded that very carefully. The media would say 'How many people are killed each year on New Zealand's roads by cellphones?' You can be killed on the road by a phone if you inhale it or are beaten to death with it but saying you died in a car crash whilst using a 'phone is the fault of the telecommunications device is several logical steps to far. So back to the question. How many? 500? 100? 50? 20? Nope, the answer is 5. How many people use phones when driving? I don't know but instances per annum is surely in the millions. So what are the chances of being killed whilst using a cellphone in a car? Without doing any maths the answer is obviously very, very low. But we are to have a law compelling us all not to do it - at all, ever. Handsfree jobbies are OK though. Good? Well no. There is absolutely no evidence (bloody inconvenient stuff is evidence, just ask Al Gore) that using a Bluetooth headset is any safer than holding the phone up to your ear. So ban those as well then. Will never happen because a) the great unwashed won't stand for it and b) it would be totally unpoliceable.

As would be banning the other distractions to driving - taking the wrapper off a pie, arguing with the kids, listening to Radio Sport, picking your nose, looking at attractive young ladies walking down the street, reading government sponsored billboards telling you that speed kills etc. etc. I think driving with one hand and holding a phone to my lughole is daft and I don't do it - much. I have a handsfree bizzo but I am under no illusion that when I am using it I am driving as well as when I am listening to Radio Sport. I can't even text when lying on a chaise longue let alone when driving a car and so I don't do that. If five people a year got to the TAB and place a fat wad of cash on using a phone whilst driving, lose and die, well tough. If they run into a school crossing well that is really, really tough but those kids probably had a greater chance of being struck by lightning.

Driving whilst using a phone is probably (but not certainly) a bad idea. But we don't need new largely unenforceable legislation to ban it. It'll make a lot of money though.

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More compulsion coming to kitchen near you

So close it will be right in your own home.

The country is going to hell on a hand cart. The economy is about to go down the gurgler. People can't afford to put petrol in the lawnmower let alone the V8. There are victims doing without food all over the show and so what does our stupid government have doing the parliamentary rounds at present? Another bit of social engineering, that's what.

And this one is a little ripper. There is a thing called The Public Health Bill skulking round the dark recesses of the Beehive at the moment doing its best to become The Public Health Act. This is a bad thing - a very bad thing indeed.

This little number would have one Government appointed bloke (or blokess if this mob run true to form) deciding what you are allowed to eat or even watch other people eat. They are even after your vicarious pleasures. The Director General of Health (and I don't even understand that bit) could decide to ban anything if he or she thought it was not 'in the Public Interest'. Chocolate eaten by the cubic metre makes you morbidly obese so I'll ban that and also the advertising for chocolate in any media you care to nominate. No discussion, no canvassing the opinion of anyone - just a stroke of the pen and its illegal. You think I'm joking?

But there is more. This Health Nazi could even force TV programs off the air if he/she thought they promoted unhealthy lifestyles. Homer Simpson is a goneburger and he'll have to take all his donuts with him. Coro Street? Gone - too much time in the Rover's Return and the chip shop. Top Gear? Not a show - all that nasty dangerous speed is exceeding unhealthy.

The Dental Nurse would surely shake her head and say I'm scaremongering. Her favourite safety net, Governmental Commonsense, will dictate that this will never happen. Bollocks it won't. I wouldn't trust this mob further than I could throw them but even if I could who in their right mind would give any Government such draconian powers to use if they so please?

The perpetual theme of we know best and you will do as you are told for you own good runs through every move this bunch of wastrels makes. If they are going to control what we eat to make us healthy (even if we want to be fat slobs) why stop with the food and advertising police? Government cameras in all our fridges with feeds to Pie HQ on the 9th floor is a logical next step. Compulsory treadmills in all homes of those with a BMI above 25. Daily usage to be monitored in the room next to Pie HQ. All treadmills to be connected to the National Grid to boost power supplies now that coal fired power stations have all been demolished. Any fatty not contributing a megawatt a year to the National grid will be shot.

Even five years ago all this would have seemed absurd. The scary thing is that now it seems almost reasonable. Wake up you dozy buggers and give this mob the flick before it is too late.

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Included in a list of things I really need is..........

....one of these



Now, don't get me wrong, I am entirely satisfied with my lot. Life is going along swimmingly. I like the rump of a job I have maneuvered myself into, I live in a house that fits the bill perfectly, there are no family dramas on the horizon and I have a circle of very agreeable friends. My major worries are around my current dearth of inner skirts for marlin lures coloured 'Dorado' and whether it will stop raining long enough tomorrow for me to get the tractor out. But, having said all that, I really do need a DB9. I love the Jag but a gunmetal grey Aston would look just perfect nestling up against the XKR in the garage.

So it was I found myself perambulating around 'TradeMe.co.nz' pretending to be looking for airbrooms, electric fence posts and drill presses. There is a 2005 object of my desire for sale in Auckland. Mileage a bit high at 26,000 and so the asking price would have to be scythed - but it is gorgeous. Cream leather as well. I was having a quiet drool when my attention is distracted by this:

This vehicle has a fuel consumption of 16.6L per 100km, an annual fuel cost of $4,300 and a fuel economy rating of 1.0 out of 6. (Source: Fuelsaver)

There is then a link to a bloody government website. There is a new regulation that demands (good old compulsion) fuel consumption is prominently displayed on any car advert. If you are physically advertising the car at the side of the road or something you are supposed to have one of those puerile eco friendly stickers like you get on a new fridge stuck on the car. It is despoiling an Aston Martin putting a rego sticker on the windscreen and it is certainly just not on putting a greeny weird beard sticker anywhere near such a fine piece of automotive engineering.

Several things. Is there no corner of my life into which this damned administration won't stick its beak? It won't even let me think about buying the car of my choice without wagging its finger at me and telling me I should be buying a 6 star car that runs on a thimble full of linseed oil a fortnight. Any car this government would have me drive I wouldn't touch with yours. If I want to buy a 6 litre V12 and spend $83 a week on petrol I bloody well will. I am delighted the Aston only gets one star. Hang on, no I'm not - I wish it got none. Also the government is a bunch of dick heads because there is no way you could get 16.6L/100km out of a 6 litre V12. I average about 15L/100km doing far too much town driving in a supercharged 4 litre V8

What pleasure is there left in the real world? The more I think of it however I am getting closer to a solution. I now live out of the city, I have some land, I can see no one once the gates shut behind me and I drive the 300m to the house. I have power, am self sufficient of water (as long as it rains now and then) and have the internet. I will buy what ever cars, power tools and boats I fancy and the rest of you can do whatever you please.

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Obese children

A bad thing and lots of them about apparently. The government knows how to sort this out of course. Our gummint knows what is best for us at every turn. Just give them all your money and they will do everything for you in a fair and equitable way.

So how are we going to get these fat kids away from their computers and out doing Push Play (and what the hell is that?). You launch a website. Brilliant. You sit kids in front of a computer to tell them to get out and be more active. This brainwave is part of a program that is a steal at $68 million - of my bloody money.

This drive to make young people thin is enthusiastically endorsed by the sylph like Minister of Youth Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta



Hmmmmm

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Pass the metoclopramide

Tim Barnett's civil union got itself more coverage in a national newspaper yesterday than most events of this nature manage in the local rag.

We will gloss over the fact that I think civil unions are a crock especially when there are perfectly good marriage certificates available. Also I have no interest in the fact the other side of this joining doesn't sit down to have a pee - none of my business.

Barnett is British. However he had his big day on a marae wearing a shirt coverd in koru motifs and with a green stone pendant round his neck. The day was attended by a 'who's who' of the Labour party.

I can think of no set of circumstances that would bring on larger waves of nausea.

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Government ads & dead rockers

Never any time when you want it. Much that merits mention this morning but the constraints of time dictate that this must be brief.

My loathing of the Headmistress reaches new and unimagined heights day by day. John Palmer has quite rightly given her a shelling for breaking a commercial confidence agreement re the Aussie Troops on Air New Zealand planes. The fact that she ignores commercial probity for the sake of scoring cheap political points is loathsome but not surprising. Why should she let the pragmatic business of making money get in the way of her ideological pursuit of continuing power? She has never done it in the past why should she start now? Worse is her instant recourse to the teflon when people start to criticise her. It was she who made the statements that prompted Downer to say that Ocker troops will never fly Air NZ again (thereby causing a great loss in revenue) but when quizzed about it she flicks the questions off by saying it is a matter between the Aussies and the Shareholding Minister (History Boy) and all queries should be fired at him. She is a truly hideous collection of amino acids.

Domestic violence. I have steered away from this but does anybody really think that pouring $14 million into an advertising campaign is going to do anything except swell the bottom line of advertising companies? I mean is there anyone who doesn't know that there is a spot of domestic violence afoot and that it is a bad thing? This less than surprising intelligence has been promulgated throughout the land courtesy of court reporters over the last few months and the flood information is likely to flow unabated for the foreseeable future thought the same means. And we don't have to pay for it. The government's response to any perceived problem is to run an advertising campaign. These are expensive but it gives the impression they are doing something. It is all mouth and trousers; it looks as if something is happening. In fact of course this money should be directed to low profile places where it will be spent on actually achieving something. But that don't garner votes do it?

This country has campaigns for everything. Drunk driving, smoking, food safety, don't go up ladders, speeding, get ready for a tsunami - the list is endless. I would like to know how much of the nation's advertising budget is spent by the government - I bet it is an awful lot more that Coca Cola, Ford and Fisher & Paykel combined. And it achieves nothing except make the government appear to be doing something about something. People still smoke, drive fast and/or drunk, eat fatty foods and will continue to do so. And next we will be getting traffic light stickers on food. Give me strength.

An article which promised much but under delivered mightily concerns rock stars who die young. Now we are talking but what a fizzer. Dreadfully incomplete list of people who spectacularly left the planet awash in recreational pharmacology and vomit. Heroes of youth who stuffed it up big time - but only just. Hendrix, Joplin and Vicious get a mention but where are Jim Morrison, Keith Moon or Bryan Jones? This should be a long and glorious list not a short and glorious one. Something that I did not know though was that Kurt Cobain played the guitar left handed. He joins Hendrix, McCartney, Iggy Pop, Paul Simon and Dick Dale to mention a few. (Dick Dale is odd amongst those that he not only plays it left handed but upside down - doesn't even bother to restring a right handed axe)

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The Minister of Health is a vet

The Minister of Health is a vet. For me that just about sums up the totally random and screwed up way this country is run. The Minister of Finance has a degree in History. The Minister of State Services, Minister of Police, Minister of Transport and Minister for Food Safety is a dental nurse, and most of the rest have done nothing useful with their lives at all before going into Parliamnet and thence Government when they become even less functionless. The headmistress, to my knowledge, has never trained for anything or done a proper job for money, ever. She's led her entire life in a sheltered and theoretical thinking world, and thinking of a particularly unpleasant nature to my mind.

I've mentioned this before but why can't we have some people with a track record of expertise in their appointed roles runnig the country? An economist in the Ministry of Finance, a senior military man in the Defence Ministry (perhaps not such a good idea on reflection), a lawyer running Justice, and architect in the Ministry of Housing etc.

This constant gripe was brought to mind with the picture of the Minister of Health (the vet) 'checking out' how the new food regulations - opps, sorry, suggestions - were panning out in schools. This when they had been in situ for about ten minutes of course. He was encouraged to see that one school, substituting water for evil fizzy drinks, had saved the pupils from 400kg (the weight of a small elephant - our Minister's vetinary experience allows him to make such profound statements) of sugar. That morning? The seat of learning was 400kg lighter by lunchtime than it was last week?

Why do we have to put up with this condescending crap? 'I will use the elephant metaphor as it makes me look all cuddly and able to relate to how the peasants think. You can't grasp big numbers like 400 or do hard units like kilograms so I will count things in the small elephant unit that you poor people use all the time in your day to day life. I know you all pop into the Mad Butcher and buy 1/400th of a small elephant of mince on a regular basis. I know you are constantly saying 'I am 1/20th of a small elephant overweight and I must renew my Les Mills subscription'. I am sure you will be so pleased that this juvenile pachyderm has been removed from the school as I know you were getting really worried about him trampling on little Johnny in the crush to avoid the Coke machine. I am confident you will feel a warm glow in your heart that I am here this morning ensuring my draconian policies are having the desired effect even though they have only been in force for half an hour. And, oh is that a television crew over there?' Bollocks.

We touched upon the similarity between Auckland Council (and I can't quite remember which of the nine it was) and a drunken sailor last week. As if more were needed we have further grist to the mill this morning. Their ability to fritter away money that is nicked off us is staggering. The estimates for the upgrade of Mount Eden have gone from $6 million to $12 million plus with a possible ceiling of $28 million. We shall leave aside the rather mind warping underlying concept of updating an extinct volcano. What do you do? Restock the molten lava vaults? Stoke up the brimstone at the expense of the fire? The amounts of money involved, even at the lower end of the scale, are mindnumbing. $6million would keep me in Aston Martins till the end of my days. I could have a brand new DB9 every year. But $28 million? 28? How can you spend that sort of dosh on one bloody hill? There are a few looney tune ideas for transporting toursits to the top. All of these seem to involve Jetsons rubber tyred monorails controlled by untested computer systems. None of these seem to involve legs and sensible shoes. There are plans to upgrade the tearooms. Well there's $15 mill down the gurgler I suppose. But there's more. Once the gold plated pavillion of Earl Grey and Lamingtons is complete there has to be a budget for it to lose several million per annum. So the people who take our rates off us waste money to build a new teashop that they expect to lose money on a biblical scale. Well, of course I'll vote for people who want to do that.

There is a move afoot to streamline the mess that is Auckland's regional governance from the, I think, nine bodies into one. How can you argue against it?

It won't happen of course because the those who will have the final vote for that particular Xmas are the turkeys.

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Lawlessness

The Herald is very hard going on a Monday morning. First we have the Green Pages crap and then their attempt at a 'Society Page' with pictures of half pissed people trying to look cool whilst sipping (read getting as much in as possible in the shortest possible time as it is free) Pink Lindauer at various 'have to be seen at' social functions around town. They shoot themselves in the foot here by taking the Instamatic to the Guns 'n' Roses concert - very classy. If I went to a G'n'R gig I'd be in the false beard and sunnies in case the Herald photographers exposed to the world that I had not popped down to the exhibition of Etruscan vases for the evening as outlined to SWMBO.

Most of the nonsense today is on page two, with its usual denizen, Rudman, providing a trivial coda later on in the rag.

There is a picture of the Headmistress and Hodgson taken at the Labour Party Love In in, I think, West Auckland somewhere. This photo really is crying out to be the subject of a caption competition. This is a website directed at a mature and discerning audience and I will, therefore, desist from throwing in my first couple of suggestions which would be better suited to an undergraduate Rag Mag. The function they were attending sounds ghastly. Loads of left leaning wallies telling each other how wonderful they are is right up there with sticking matchsticks under your fingernails as a fun way of spending a winter's Sunday arvo.

Next to this crap is a quarter page illustrating some very serious points about the antismacking nonsense in action. David Cunliffe wagged the Labour Love In so he could spend the afternoon beating his two year old in public. Remember this is how the odious haridan Bradford portrayed any physical child discipline when she was pushing for the legislaton a couple of weeks back. Cunliffe's explanation of what sounds like any standard parent/two year old interaction in a supermarket is bollocks as it has to be considering the seriousness of the situation he potentially finds himself in. 'I, after due consideration of the facts and circumstances, gently but firmly assisted my child in withdrawing his right upper extremity from an area where it might have come into contact with the face of another juvenile New Zealander. In conjunction with this action to protect both parties from potential danger I calmly explained their position to them vis a vie the Bill of Rights and their standing with respect to the United Nations Year of the Child' Or was it 'The snotty kid got the slap on the wrist he had been riding for all afternoon'? - I can't remember. Cunliffe now has to, I repeat has to, be investigated by the Police if anyone makes a formal complaint. They won't, of course and here in rides the major problem.

What this episode, and doubtless many more to come, illustrates is total disregard for the law that the current administration is promoting. If you pass a law, fail to have the infrastructure to police it, and therefore pursue said law to its proper provision only occasionaly, what do you end up with? A contempt for that law and its provisions. If you do it repeatedly with most of the daft laws you keep passing what do you end up with? Contempt for the law - the whole lot of it. Why do we have boy racers (for example) giving the fingers to the Feds? Because they know they can. I'm sure if you looked somewhere in the statute books insulting the Police is an offence. But it is never prosecuted and so people know they can get away with it. We have now got to the stage where burglary is regarded as a fact of life. Now you don't need to delve too deeply into arcane law to discover that nicking flat screen TVs from people's living rooms is against the law and I'm sure everyone knows this. The infrastructure to prosecute this is not there, the prosecution rate for this plummits and the law becomes trivialised. Smacking kids, nicking hifis, what is the next part of the law that becomes irrelevant to our society?

Passing stupid laws about things that don't matter and then not enforcing them has a much greater run off than ignorant gits like Bradford could ever imagine. And we let them run the country. Nuts.

The redevelopment ot the Tank Farm. Two things. Top idea but why the hell is it going to take twenty five years? Presumably it is slated for twenty three years of resource consent and two years construction. Second, if it is going to take so long how can they possibly give any cost projections? $344 mil now will likely be $17 squillion in 2032.

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Government nominated Pie Day

I avoided wading into the pies in the tuckshops business yesterday because I had an uneasy feeling about it. The unease was caused by the fact that in its basic tenet it has a good idea - make people healthier. What can be wrong with that? I have thought about it and the main problem soon becomes obvious. The problem is not with the pies but with the bloody compulsion and do as you are told attitude of the government - again. Then the opinion page of The Herald cements home the unease - even the logic of the measures to support the healthy ideal are wrong.

There is a piece this morning by a Food Technology Lecturer (whatever the hell that is) who does us all a great service by pointing out (rather pedantically for the slower of us) the difference between food and diet. He makes the comparison with weather and climate - and not a bad comparison either. A single pie is as fine as a pottle of chips is as fine a bottle of Coke is as fine as an organic nutburger. The problem would be if you ate just pies and chips and Coke and nothing else. Presumably you wouldn't look so flash if you just ate nutburgers either - and you'd have considerably less fun in the process. For starters you would be surrounded by the sort of people who do eat nutburgers all the time and that in itself would be cruel and unnatural punishment. So the problem is not what the Tuck Shop sells but what the kids chose to buy from it. These choices could be made healtheir if the kids' parents (or in 30% of cases parent singular) told little Johnny that a bit of moderation in all things is a good idea. A pie as part of a balanced diet is OK.

But that is not our all controlling Government's way is it? Without asking us they decree that pies are to be banned. The best we can hope for is a pie 'four times a year' on Governmnet nominated Pie Day. Paradoxically this pie ban is a good thing because it is looking like another straw on the back of the camel of the nation. The Government tells us that we cannot smack our kids, that we cannot cut down trees on our own property, have to ask them permission to make any alterations to our own houses and then have them inspected to make sure we have done them to their satisfaction (oh, and you can now pay us for the privelege) and now they tell us what our kids are allowed to buy with our money.

I sense that, at last, the great unwashed have had enough of being told what to do. And told by who? Intellectual titans? A coterie of natural successors to Bertrand Russell? No we are being told what to do by a band of failed school teachers, career political activists, sociology lecturers and Keith Locke. Except for those terminally 'lifetime Labour' wallahs who would still vote for them if sticking your head in a gas oven was actually on the Labour manifesto I feel that come next September enough of the rest of the country will have the common sense to get rid of this pack of uselss pratts. Even those long term beneficiaries (two three generation types) who wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them shouldn't be too worried. Any new administration wouldn't dare stuff up their cosy lifestyle paid for by yours and my taxes. Well they wouldn't for a week or two.

Mr Food Technology Man also does us another favour in pointing out the myth surrounding 'natural' and 'additives'. You know the drill. If you can put 'all natural ingredients' on a food ingredient list one mouthful will have you looking like a supermodel, performing like an Olympic athlete and living to 124. By contrast should you eat anything that contains 'additives' or, God forbid, GE ingredients you will be covered in boils and pustules by teatime and should give up buying boxed sets of CDs. This is of course complete bollocks. Just because a thing is natural does not mean it is good for you. Hemlock is natural but I wouldn't suggest stirring that into your smoko cuppa. Cow turds are natural - fancy some spread on your toast? China lives on MSG (and little else I sometimes think) but you don't walk into the killing fields once you go North of Hong Kong. Do you really think Unilever put preservatives in their food with genocide in mind? Do those blokes wearing white coats who walk around green houses putting bits of frog DNA in tomatoes do it so that the denizens of Foxton all grow seven fingers? Of course they don't.

Those who howl at the moon and would have us eat everything produced as it was in the fifteenth century are just plain bonkers. We can do that if we still had the population of the fifteenth century to feed and were prepared to put up with standards of living (and a life span - I would have been in my box about ten years ago) comensurate with those times. We live in the twenty first century and have to adjust our lives accordingly. Farming and horticultural practices of today are vital or the world would starve. And who would starve first? The CEOs of Mighty River Power, Fonterra and Unilever? Would they buggery. The first to turn their toes up would be the poor and the 'victims' of the world. The very people who are running around telling us that the current way of the industrialised (read pragmatic) world is evil. Funny that.

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Icebergs ahead

And what do we get after all that? We end up pretty much where we started, that’s what. The extraordinary events of yesterday down in Wellygogs with all the pollies holding hands and singing Cumbaya highlight several things.

One. Sue Bradford is totally devoid of anything resembling a brain. She has been tied in intellectual knots over the past couple of months by every one and everything that has had the misfortune to come across her. I reckon even the cleaning ladies at the Beehive have scored a few points off her. There have been so many contradictions in her stance over the whole affair that I’m not sure even she knows what she said five minutes ago let alone a couple of months back. She hasn’t got an original idea in what she tries to pass of as a head and is the most reactive person imaginable. I doubt she’d even make a very good doorstop – although the right shape she couldn’t keep still long enough.

Two. The Headmistress isn’t a bad politician. I hate every idea she has ever had but she is very good at what she does. Her playing of John Key was masterful. She has got herself out of the poo using one of his ideas and managed to a) make it seem like her own b) not demean Key and let him have a bit of kudos and c) cleared the decks for Budget time d) made sure that the smacking nonsense cannot be resurrected when it matters, next September. Even though I loathe her I have to acknowledge a master at work.

Three. John Key is not totally inept. He handled his side of the joint press conference (and how weird was that) very competently and gave a passably statesman like performance. Quite Prime Minister in waiting. No crowing, no ‘it was all my idea’. A- and shows promise.

That having been said what a total indictment of the whole political system. As I suggested above, we have ended up almost exactly where we started. The crux of the matter is that prosecution of smackers is now going to be left with police discretion and that is pretty much (bar a few legal niceties) where we are now. And how much time and money has been wasted to achieve this shining example of democracy at work? Months and squillions of dollars. East Ham. The law we are about to have is apparently much more complex than that which it replaces and all to achieve almost exactly the same thing. The full Barking.

Is this trivial nonsense what we have a Parliament for? I think not. Whilst this was going on Fisher and Paykel decided to stop making washing machines out of flax and scrimshaw and get them made in the real economic world in Thailand. They buggered off because the government has allowed a financial climate to exist that means they can’t afford to stay here. Whilst the ninth floor of the Beehive was pandering to the failed doorstop’s insanities they should really have been asking F & P what they (the government) could do to stop them axing 350 jobs and putting tom yum on the smoko menu. Oh no, not the real work of a proper government for this bunch of pratts. Farting around with social engineering is what they are about. It is totally intolerable and has to stop. We are all to blame. We should have insisted months ago that they stop rearranging the deckchairs and get the ship out of the bits of the ocean prone to ice. We are still steaming full speed ahead to the latitudes with the big numbers and I hope we don’t get to test the watertight bulkheads before we have the chance to get rid of this mob next September.

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Smacking at its worst

How simple and pleasurable was life on Mars - I mean Houhora. Even the drive back was a day agreeably spent driving, gettng the outboard serviced, eating some of Adam Scott's tinned tuna and talking nonsense with a good mate, and then more driving. I think I was at about Wellsford when I felt the first twiniges of nausea brought on by breaking news on the Larry Williams show.

The smacking bill is going to be pushed through under 'urgency' next week. This is repugnant in every way. The Bill is no longer Sue Bloody Bradford's Anti Smacking bill (she has been reduced to the trivial waste of space that is her true station in life) but is now very firmly Helen Clark's Anti Smacking Bill. She has yet again ridden roughshod over every tenet of democracy to bring into law something she (and very few others) want. She does this against the wishes of a vast majority of the electorate and against the wishes of a significant section of her own party MPs - remember a significent number for her near minority government is only one or two. She is fearful that the Labour Party waverers might be swayed by their electorate to break ranks and vote with their conscience if the seven week interval before this was due to come up were allowed to run its course. The all powerful dictator could never allowed that could she? And have you noticed that she is running all this from overseas? She is safely in the States pretending to enjoy George Dubbya's company and is leaving that useless street fighting woman Bradford to do her dirty work for her.

First this was supposed to be a conscience vote and she (and she alone) turned it into a whipped party vote. When there was the spectre of some of her cadre turning it back into a conscience matter she brings in 'urgency'. How can this possibly qualify for urgency - except to preserve her grip on the absolute power she now holds over this country. When are we going to remind, no ram down her throat, this damned woman that shes governs under mandate and not as the dictatorial head of a totalitarian marxist regime.

She only gets away with this because we let her. Forget the smacking, that is but the vehicle that is delivering yet another affront on proper democratic process. Democracy in New Zealand is currently on life support.

The next election is now just a hair under eighteen months away - please, pretty please, keep takng your memory tablets

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Councils & talkback

I'm not going near the smacking business - it is going to get worse before it gets better. We will have forgotten about it in a couple of weeks and then there will be something else. It won't be Bradford again but another of the dregs of society who knows better than the rest of . He/she will bring in another piece of legislation that seeks to right the wrongs of a small minority by making the vast majority of the country comply with something. We won't need it it, most of us won't want it but we will sit idly by and let it be passed into unpoliceable law with nary a whimper except a couple of morning's bleating on talkback radio. Talkback is hopeless, the only talk back that matters is the sort that hapens on a Saturday in primary schools once every three years. My only hope is that Phillip Field, marina consents, World Cup Stadia and, yes, anti smacking are remembered in eighteen months time.

There is a comment piece in the Herald this morning penned by an Auckland Regional Councillor. We are doomed. There is no hope for the entire Auckland region with wallies like this running the show. 1) He can't write half decent prose. There is hardly a paragraph in the piece containing more than two sentences. His writing reads like the agenda for a council meeting. 2) He can't think in anything resembling a straight line. He is writing about a second crossing of the Manukau which will probably be right next to the current Mangere Bridge which you will recall is right next to the previous Mangere Bridge. Simple, eh? Well not if you are an Auckland Regional Councillor it's not.

This bloke's contibution to the paper this morning is terrifying as it is obvious that it represents how councils work; or more correctly don't. He repeatedly gives many reasons why a problem cannot be solved and then tells you what the problem might be. Confused? I had to read most of his paragraphettes twice to have any idea what he was on about. He talks about making Onehunga a vibrant hub (every conurbation needs lots of vibrant hubs - I'm not sure what one is but you need them in abundance) but the Auckland Volcanic Cone Society have to be consulted to ensure that this would not interfere with returning the foreshore to the state it was in before the first bridge was built before building the third bridge. See, easy. But wait. You have to remember that the Resource Management hearing is not the place to sort this out as if you do agrieved parties would then have the ability to seek redress from the Environment Court if things didn't stack up their way. Have I lost you yet? This pratt then tells us that this hypothetical harbour crossing has been a 'high prioity' of the Regional Council's Transport Sub Comittee for 'years' (you can see why) but will now be elvated to the 'highest priority'. I assume that means he moves into 'obfuscation with turbos on' mode. But underpinning all this crap is the prerequisite that we get 'the bones' of the City right - I'm serious.

I think I'll spend a week in the far North as far away from this nonsense as possible.

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Sue Bradford

Nothing in the paper this morning - almost literally. However I heard that bloody Bradford woman giving a sound bite on the news as I drove to the fields. I apologise if I get the quote slightly wrong, but, on being asked how she felt now that her 'anti-smacking' bill was looking a bit shaky on the votes front she said 'The choice is very clear between giving our children the right to grow up in a violence free environment or giving parents the right to beat their children'

Why do we have to put up with this? This woman and her totally repugnant philosophy have been a carbuncle on this country's countenance since way before I arrived here. As a leader of the Union for the Unemployed she was already a walking oxymoron. Now I have to pay for her peddling her Marxist views to the great unwashed. She is the only evidence that anyone would need to know that our brand of MMP is fatally flawed. The number of people who would agree with any of her notions could probably counted on the fingers of one foot but she is on the cusp of getting one of her most revolting social engineering schemes passed into law. Even if this daft piece of legislation were sensible the vast majority of the country don't want it. That should be the end of it. I hate every idea she stands for with every fibre of my body.

I have been here for twelve years and generally am very happy with my lot in the world. The likes of Sue Bradford and Keith Locke cold be the sorts of thing that persuade me that somewhere else might be a good idea. It needn't be this way. As referred to above they are in a tiny minority. The system has been set up so that a vocal minority has inordinate sway in what goes on. This looney tunes way of running the country has to be stopped and the likes of Bradford and Locke consigned to the role of insignificant trivia, which is what they really are.

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Scary women

Control, control, control. Here we go again I was mercifully away for the latter half of last week when Marxist control freak Bradford was in full flow over her odious anti smacking Bill. I heard a bit of here interview with Leighton Smith on his weekly reprise show at 0630 yesterday morning and she is the sort of being we should be very afraid of in this country. She insists on calling all trivial corporal correction child 'beating', refuses to accept that chldren are different from adults and really thinks that her bill will make the slightest bit of difference to those who do actually beat anything - kids, spouses, partners, pets etc. Poisonous, poisonous woman but, unfortunately, only one of a pack of like minded idiots. Take keith Locke for example - please take Keith Locke. I'll have a go at the hypocrisy of the people who will control even our thinking whilst wanting to legalise dope when I have more time.

Less far to the left but equalling deficient in intellectual horse power we have Annette King. Another dental nurse. I think Jade Goody has made a better career shift than our current Transport Misinster. She will pass laws that make Auckland's buses run on time. It's unbelievable isn't it? She wraps this errant nonsense in the current Governmental falvour of the month of 'carbon neutrality/sustainability/ eco friendly world leader' bollocks. Three quotes: 'Her mission has been given added urgency by the Government's new goal of making New Zealand a world leader in energy sustainability, and the fact that only 3 per cent of people caught buses to work on Census Day last March.' And 'Ms King said boosting public transport was a major part of the push towards sustainability, and her aim was to remove disincentives for people to travel on buses and ferries.' To be capped by 'But she said the new rules would enable transport authorities to obtain commercial information from operators for network planning, and to set minimum standards over all urban services to increase passenger confidence.'

To my mind the very last bit proves she is barking. If she really believes that her passing some soppy Bill will in crease the confidence of someone at a bus stop in Blockhouse Bay then she is more mentally deranged than even I had thought. She should have stuck to passing the amalgam or looked for a place in the Big Brother house.

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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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