Monday, August 18, 2008
I'd like to slap Ms. Halford.
Have a read of this drivel: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4659492a11.html
Okay, so it is unfortunate that the police officer accidentally recorded that comment.
However, The police are not supposed to give your husband a fair go Ms. Halford. That's what the judiciary are there for. The police are society's bloodhounds. We employ them to hunt the bad b@st@rds down, and bring them before the judiciary. When people are reasonably suspected of having broken the law, like your husband is, then we expect the police to be predatory, and hunt them, and catch them. They are SUPPOSED to be biased against people who have committed crimes. That's their job!
The check, the balance, is that the judiciary - THEY are the ones who are there to ensure that people who break people's backs in 4 places get a "fair go" Ms. Halford. It's not up to the police to give criminals a "fair go".
I mean, for crying out loud!... "It's almost like we've got two things to worry about: the media trial and the police." Yes! That's right Ms. Halford. You DO have to worry about the police when you assault someone and break their back in 4 places. Welcome to life married to criminal!
Interestingly, the police have charged Veitch today for offences ranging from 2002 to 2006. The broken back occurred in 2006, so it looks like perhaps when Kristen Dunne-Powell laid her complaint with police she detailed more events than just the incident that lead to the broken back... so maybe it wasn't just a case of an otherwise nice guy just snapping as has been inferred by Tony Veitch?
Friday, December 14, 2007
George W. really IS smarter than we all thought.
I admit, I was wrong.
All this time I thought George W. Bush was a monkey. But I have now come to appreciate that he, or at least his advisors, may well have been working on a grand strategic plan to bring peace in our time to the Israel/Palestine conundrum.
I think, that perhaps, they intentionally made a balls up of Iraq, waded into a horror story in Afghanistan, have been trying to engineer a disaster in Iran, and have been desperately trying to get involved in the mud slinging in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan to establish an as bad as possible track record that EVERYONE was acutely aware of...
...so that they could then threaten to intervene in Israel.
At which point, the Israelis and the Palestinians would all collectively stop dead in their tracks, sphincter's clenching at the horror of that prospect, lower their guns, and look at each other and say "Bloody hell! Neither of us want that! So let's bury our 2000 odd years of hostility and genuinely find a way to work together..."
Genius!!! The unsolvable problem of Israel/Palestine, solved... Well done George W.. What a legacy.
Monday, June 18, 2007
The NZ media embarrass me
I completely understand why Helen Clark (NZ Prime Minister), Winston Peters (NZ Foreign Minister) and the rest of the New Zealand government are trotting out the "We just can't comprehend the attitude and actions of the Interim Government of Fiji" lines... but why can't the New Zealand media ask the questions and write the editorials that deserve to be aired?
The almost universal profession of confusion and lack of comprehension of Fiji's actions in expelling New Zealand's High Commissioner and detaining and deporting a New Zealand journalist last week astounds me. I have not read or heard any reports from the New Zealand media that do anything other than echo the New Zealand government's view that it is bizarre and unwarranted.
To me the situation seems quite clear. Fiji had a coup, and understandably New Zealand (and other countries) reacted adversely to the illegal and unconstitutional usurping of power by the Fijian military. That's pretty easy to do from here in New Zealand. Fiji has a history of coups, so it's probably a little less unbelievable that a coup has occurred there than if it had happened here.
I think it's rather understandable - regardless of the legality of the coup, and regardless of New Zealand's (and other nations') lack of recognition of the interim government of Fiji's legitimacy - that the interim government of Fiji would attempt to ( a ) gain recognition and ( b ) work in some way towards a normalisation of relations with countries in the region, New Zealand included. To that end, Fiji's High Consul in Wellington has repeatedly attempted to engage the New Zealand government in discourse over various subjects, including but not restricted to, a normalisation of relations and a lifting of the visa ban and other sanctions imposed by the New Zealand government in the wake of the coup.
Also understandable is the New Zealand government's refusal to either acknowledge the legitimacy of the Fiji High Consul (given that he represents a regime New Zealand doesn't recognise) nor enter into such diplomatic discourse.
And it follows that it's hardly difficult to understand that this would frustrate the interim government of Fiji no end. And the New Zealand High Commissioner's refusal to budge on his government's position, and refusal to enter into discussions over normalisation of relations etc. is ( a ) understandable and ( b ) also clearly likely to frustrate the interim government of Fiji's leadership even more.
So the New Zealand media's bewilderment at the expulsion of Mr. Green, and total lack of reporting of the understandable (but not legally legitimate) position of the interim government of Fiji is an embarrassment if you ask me. OF COURSE they are going to attempt to engage the New Zealand government. OF COURSE the New Zealand government is going to refuse to engage. OF COURSE that is going to frustrate them... and it's hardly surprising in that situation that they have resorted to drastic action and expelled our High Commissioner. It's a desperate act, and I don't think it will help them. In diplomatic circles it is taken very seriously and will probably isolate the interim government of Fiji even further. OF COURSE the New Zealand government is going to dismiss it as ludicrous behaviour and completely unjustified and OF COURSE they are going to bang on about not having received an explanation... and OF COURSE the interim government of Fiji are not going to give one, as they are not required to under the Vienna Convention.
However the total lack of critical reporting - the lack of outlining of this very aspect of the issue is amazing to me. Why can't the New Zealand media do their job?
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Has New Zealand Gone Completely Mad?
Normally I find New Zealand a very nice place to live. It's peaceful, mostly. It's safe, mostly.
The last two days make me wonder whether or not I've fallen through a worm hole and ended up in gangland USA or something. Yesterday, on the National Program news were the following stories:
1. An under 15 rugby match in Hamilton was abandoned with 10 minutes to play, after what some spectators described as a 'bad tempered' game boiled over to the point where on player shouted "We've got knives in our bags, and we're going to kill you!". The boy concerned has been suspended from all sports activities at the school for the remainder of 2007, and another boy from the same school has been suspended from all rugby until the end of the season.
2. Two chefs resigned from an as yet unnamed Auckland restaurant on Sunday night, apparently with a view to going to work for a rival restaurant. 3 men, employees of the first restaurant, have been arrested, and police are working towards arrests of four other employees of the restaurant, after 7 people broke into the two chef's house and kidnapped them at gunpoint. One of the chefs attempted to escape by climbing over the railing of a second story balcony, fell, and broke both his ankles. The two chefs were then taken to two different addresses in separate cars, where the one without the broken ankles escaped and raised the alarm at a nearby petrol station. See the first story here and a follow up story here.
3. A soldier, whose unit has been deployed to peace-keeping duties in East Timor, is currently in jail, awaiting a psychiatric assessment report and a sentencing hearing on July 9, at which the judge has said he will receive a considerable prison term. In mid-April the soldier had completed a training exercise, after which he became involved in a domestic incident with his partner, during which he hit her. He then called the police, asking them to come and arrest him. he left the phone off the hook, still connected with the police despatcher listening, and then proceeded to threaten a pregnant neighbour with a gun, and attack a fellow soldier with a knife. The police arrived, and the man attempted to cut his own wrists with the knife, threatened the police, the pregnant neighbour and the other soldier with a gun. Two police attempted to use pepper spray to subdue him, but missed, collided with each other and pepper sprayed each other instead. A further policeman was about to shoot the man, his statement said he had begun to squeeze the trigger, when the man's partner jumped in between the policeman and the man, causing the policemen to stop shooting. The man was subsequently persuaded to point his gun away from the police and was overpowered. In an interview immediately after the incident he told police he wanted them to shoot him because he believed he didn't deserve to live, because he had hit a woman.
Then, this morning I found this story.... http://www.stuff.co.nz/4093970a10.html which starts with:
"Road rage ends in shooting at Auckland uni
An 18-year-old man is facing a possible 10 years behind bars after allegedly using a semi-automatic rifle in a road rage shooting incident in Albany."
Monday, March 26, 2007
A must read book
I've just taken delivery of, and begun reading a new book.
It is A corner of a foreign field 'The Indian History of a British Sport' by Ramachandra Guha (ISBN 0 330 49117 2) and is widely acclaimed as one of the three greatest books ever written about cricket. As such, despite the fact that I am so far only part of the way through the Preface I urge anyone with an interest in the greatest of all games to obtain a copy and read it.
Here's a quote from the Preface to whet the appetite:
"The Bombay batsman Sachin Tendulkar is perhaps the best-known Indian, as well as one of the richest. There are pamphlets and books about him in his native Marathi, and in Hindi and Tamil too. When Tendulkar is batting against the Pakistani swing-bowler Wasim Akram, the television audience exceeds the entire population of Europe."
I look forward to enjoying this book over the next few weeks, as the 2007 ICC World Cup is played out without either India or Pakistan in the last eight. Can you begin to imagine what it means to the Bangladeshi fans that their team is playing in the super 8's, and both India and Pakistan are on the plane heading home?
It's a funny old game...
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Inevitable Consequence of PC hand-holding.
The MCG tried, predictably unsuccessfully, to ban the Mexican wave at the cricket this summer. Apart from the fact that this is absolute lunacy, completely lacking in logic, as Billy Birmingham's Bill Lawry would say, I think the approach the ground authorities used to approach the perceived problem was completely wrong.
Their theory is that during Mexican waves, people throw things up in the air, and due to health and safety laws and the ensuing obligations on the ground authorities to take reasonable steps to prevent injury to patrons etc. they are obliged to stamp out the practice.
Well - when I was a kid I went to the cricket. I have wonderful memories of days in the sun on the Terraces collecting empty beer cans, and especially the tear tabs from those beer cans, and filling a couple of cans with the tear tabs to make an maraca-esque instrument to shake in time with the chant "Hadlee - cha-cha-cha".
Years later, after the advent of the Mexican wave, suddenly beer was being sold in plastic cups and/or plastic bottles. Now I think this is where the ground authorities started going wrong. In the early days of the Mexican wave, beer was still sold in cans, but no one threw beer cans in the air. For one it was a waste of beer, but also no one wanted to be hit by a beer can. Later, late in the day some fools, often the drunken ones, would throw beer cans, and as well as being singled out by the security thugs the people around them usually had a go at them too - no one wanted to be hit on the head by a full or partly full beer can. However, once the beer was sold in plastic bottles EVERYONE though "Woohoo, these empty plastic bottles are just BEGGING to be thrown in the air during a Mexican wave. It's destiny."
I was at the MCG a few years ago in the top deck of the now gone Ponsford Stand. The Mexican wave that day was a thing of beauty. It stopped play. For quite some time. It did 25 laps of the MCG without interruption. The players left the field and Shane Warne came out with a helmet on, ostensibly to try and calm the crowd down but he obviously had the opposite effect and egged them on.
The wave that day was fun. A lot of fun. It was almost as much fun as the cricket and no one near me minded in the least when the play stopped and the players left the field.
But some people threw beer, and pies, and some bottles apparently had urine in them. And some people complained about being hit by projectiles.
And the PC brigade responded by making the containers softer and with no sharp corners, and reducing the alcohol content of the beer etc.
What they SHOULD have done is started selling beer in glass bottles. If you give people at the cricket, in the sun, soft plastic bottles they WILL throw them. Because it's fun. And the more you try to stop them the more they will want to throw them. Take away the plastic bottles however, and give them glass bottles and NO ONE will stand by while some lout nearby tosses a glass bottle in the air. When someone throws a full plastic bottle, most people won't stop them because they'll be seen as a spoil sport or a busy body, but no one would hesitate to step in if they saw someone throw a glass bottle...
Now the PC brigade will say "But if you sell it in glass, people will knock them over and then you will have glass on the ground and little kiddies will cut their feet." Well, firstly, provide bins, and employ the kids you employ to sell beer and ice creams to empty the bins regularly, and people will put the glass bottles in the bins. Secondly, if glass bottle do get knocked over, the kids could use it as a damn good learning experience to be careful and watch where they were putting their feet... I managed to cope as a kid with broken glass, so why can't they?"
The solution is to force people to take responsibility for their actions NOT to try and use the soft kid gloves to make everything 100% safe for them.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Trauma of Multi-Blade Razors
Today was the day I left my trusty twin bladed Schick FX Diamond Tipped flexi-blade razor with microfins and a lubricating strip behind and extremely reluctantly stepped into the world of three bladed razors. I did not do this of my own free will. No siree Bob! I have steadfastly refused, on principle, to buy a three (or even four or five!!! bladed razor), because for years we were fed twin bladed razor adverts with animations showing the first blade picking up the whisker and lifting it, and the second blade subsequently cutting the whisker and the whisker then sinking down BELOW the level of the skin.
Then three bladed razors came out, and the animation now showed the first bladed picking up the whisker and the second blade now mysteriously NOT cutting through it, but picking it up still further, and then the third blade cutting through the whisker, which then sunk down below the level of the skin.
Now my position is either they were lying to us back when they fed us the twin bladed animation, or they were lying to us now with the three bladed animation, but either way they were lying. The second blade doesn't suddenly change it's behaviour due to the appearance of the new third blade... surely?
Unfortunately I have been FORCED into buying a three bladed razor, because everywhere has stopped stocking my trusty Schick FX diamond tipped flaxi-blades with microfins and a lubricating strip. *mutter mutter mutter*. Worse, the new ad for the Schick Quatro vibrating razor asks you if you have ever desired more stimulation whilst you shave... Stimulation? Is it just me, or do other guys sit there and think "No! I've never, ever thought I wanted more stimulation while I shave!" For me, the less moving parts the better. I am concentrating damn hard on not hacking a significant chunk out of my face when I shave. More stimulation!? You're joking!? That's the LAST thing I want.
So, I could not possibly buy a battery power vibrating razor for fear that marketing wonks at Schick would interpret the sales spike as a positive indicator that mean really do sit there wishing they had more stimulation while they shaved... good grief! Furthermore, I could not buy a Gillette razor of any kind because they like to sing "Gillette - the best a man can get!" to us. Bloody hell! If a razor is the best a man can get then things really are dire here in the 21st Century aren't they?
So I bought the Schick Xtreme 3 (R) Sub Zero (TM) Cool the Burn (TM) razor with "patented Anti-Razor Burn Technology".
Naturally when I got it home I opened it to try it out. It has a very nice soft grip, shaves very well, lubricates, cools, and it microfins to my hearts content. It's a winner!
And guess what!? It comes with a razor hanger! Now you can stick your extra stimulation up your arse I say! A razor hanger - how cool is that!? It has a little suction-cup which you stick to the mirror, and out the back of the suction cup there is a plastic arm with a hole in it that you drop the handle of the razor through and it holds the razor when not in use!!! Now why on earth don't their adverts push the razor hanger? That's the sort of gadgetry that guys want. No more having the women folk stash your razor under the sink in the cupboard. No way! My Schick Xtreme 3 (R) Sub Zero (TM) Cool the Burn (TM) razor lives right there on the bottom right hand corner of the mirror thank you very much!!!
Hehehe. How easy was that? They could have overcome my steadfast refusal to upgrade years ago if they'd pushed their razor hanger...
What ever happened to the push clean bar though!? That was a quality piece of razor technology.
Then three bladed razors came out, and the animation now showed the first bladed picking up the whisker and the second blade now mysteriously NOT cutting through it, but picking it up still further, and then the third blade cutting through the whisker, which then sunk down below the level of the skin.
Now my position is either they were lying to us back when they fed us the twin bladed animation, or they were lying to us now with the three bladed animation, but either way they were lying. The second blade doesn't suddenly change it's behaviour due to the appearance of the new third blade... surely?
Unfortunately I have been FORCED into buying a three bladed razor, because everywhere has stopped stocking my trusty Schick FX diamond tipped flaxi-blades with microfins and a lubricating strip. *mutter mutter mutter*. Worse, the new ad for the Schick Quatro vibrating razor asks you if you have ever desired more stimulation whilst you shave... Stimulation? Is it just me, or do other guys sit there and think "No! I've never, ever thought I wanted more stimulation while I shave!" For me, the less moving parts the better. I am concentrating damn hard on not hacking a significant chunk out of my face when I shave. More stimulation!? You're joking!? That's the LAST thing I want.
So, I could not possibly buy a battery power vibrating razor for fear that marketing wonks at Schick would interpret the sales spike as a positive indicator that mean really do sit there wishing they had more stimulation while they shaved... good grief! Furthermore, I could not buy a Gillette razor of any kind because they like to sing "Gillette - the best a man can get!" to us. Bloody hell! If a razor is the best a man can get then things really are dire here in the 21st Century aren't they?
So I bought the Schick Xtreme 3 (R) Sub Zero (TM) Cool the Burn (TM) razor with "patented Anti-Razor Burn Technology".
Naturally when I got it home I opened it to try it out. It has a very nice soft grip, shaves very well, lubricates, cools, and it microfins to my hearts content. It's a winner!
And guess what!? It comes with a razor hanger! Now you can stick your extra stimulation up your arse I say! A razor hanger - how cool is that!? It has a little suction-cup which you stick to the mirror, and out the back of the suction cup there is a plastic arm with a hole in it that you drop the handle of the razor through and it holds the razor when not in use!!! Now why on earth don't their adverts push the razor hanger? That's the sort of gadgetry that guys want. No more having the women folk stash your razor under the sink in the cupboard. No way! My Schick Xtreme 3 (R) Sub Zero (TM) Cool the Burn (TM) razor lives right there on the bottom right hand corner of the mirror thank you very much!!!
Hehehe. How easy was that? They could have overcome my steadfast refusal to upgrade years ago if they'd pushed their razor hanger...
What ever happened to the push clean bar though!? That was a quality piece of razor technology.
