This is news?

Fancy wanting to be a cutting-edge print-media journalist only to find yourself fossicking about in classroom rubbish bins for "shock-horror" stories.

And why is it always female researchers who bring us this absolute drivel?

I don't need "forcing" into seeing what my kids don't eat. They bring it home and it goes in MY bin. Perhaps I could sell the story of my rubbish bin to the Herald. No,no. What am I thinking. I'll go and tip it out myself, take a photo and blog it. My sitemeter will go through the roof!!

(I've got to go to cricket first though)

Running the show

My computer has developed a case of Cunliffitis - it's decided it's running the show.

Ever since it arrived at my house it's been churning away. Never shuts up. I don't know what it does all day but the drive is constantly chattering. To the point where it gets on my goat. There it goes again. Then this morning I'm in the middle of a post (OK it wasn't of earth shattering importance) and this thing tells me it's logging off. Hang on. I decide when I'm logging off. No you don't.

It wants to configure updates. But I'm busy right now. No your not. Configuring my updates is far more important.

Configuring. So I sit and stare at the screen as the hands move around the clock. Take your time. Don't mind me. I've got all the time in the world. You f-----. No you don't. Now it's shutting down. Hang on. Gone.

Then it whirs back into life. 'Welcome' it says. I'll f------ give you welcome. Where've you been? It wasn't me who left.

"Your last session crashed" it says. 'My session' didn't crash. How could it have been 'my session' when it's you who's running the show?

The cookie crumbles

Yesterday I heard some spokes-thingy on the radio saying the Griffin's factory closure in Lower Hutt, after 70 years manufacturing, was partly due to the obesity epidemic and warnings not to eat too much sugar.

Personally I'm not buying this - or Griffins products much. Griffins blame the closure on international competition. I'm not convinced about that either.

One thing I am sure of. It isn't because more people are home-baking!

When I buy biscuits I buy the ones that look home-made. Some come all the way from a bakery in Invercargill. I like plain wrapping so I can see what's inside. Trouble with Griffin's products is I know what's inside.

Lots of supermarkets have their own bakeries these days and turn out products that are more appetising than a vanilla wine biscuit.

Markets change. Griffins haven't kept up. It's that simple.

Garth George on the "gagging bill"

Garth George has written a great column today. Here are some excerpts...actually, no,I can't pick out the best bits so here is the whole thing;

If ever there were a reason to turf this Government out, it is the arrogance and hypocrisy of the Dear Leader in refusing point blank to scrap the despicable Electoral Finance Bill.

Here is a woman who has been blathering on about human rights ever since she became a public face, who rails against the military takeover in Fiji and demands a return to democracy there, and who gallivants round the world attending wartime anniversaries.

The irony seems to escape her that this bill, which has been written for no other reason than to give Labour an advantage during next year's election campaign, is the most serious attack on human rights in this country that has ever been mounted.

It is an assault on democracy every bit as dangerous as the antics of Frank Bainimarama, for it is the sort of legislation that prospective dictators force through to shut down public dissent.

And it is an insult to the thousands of New Zealanders who died in two world wars to turn back those who would have enslaved us and preserve our democracy and our human rights.

Helen Clark's visit to Gallipoli for the 90th anniversary of that campaign in 2005, and to the Somme for the similar commemoration of Passchendaele, look rather contemptible now, since the human right that those thousands died for is freedom of speech.

I have contempt, too, for the Labour running dogs who have indicated they will support this Government bill - the MPs of United Future, NZ First and the Greens.

I suppose it is expected of that master of self-interested compromise, Winston Peters, who is about to visit North Korea as our non-Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs.

If Kim Jong-il hears about the Electoral Finance Bill, he'll probably invite Winston to dinner.

Peter Dunne has never been anything but Labour lite and can be trusted only to lick the Government's boots.

But I must say I'm a bit surprised at the Greens. I would have thought blokes like Keith Locke and Nandor Tanczos, those champions of the underdog, would have cavilled at this piece of legislation. But no. Politics overrides principle yet again.

It is ironic, isn't it, that the excuse being used to put this bill forward is the activities of the leaders of an obscure religious cult during the last election campaign who wanted rid of Labour and the Greens and were prepared to put their money where their mouths were to the tune of $1.2 million.

Setting aside the fact that they were perfectly entitled to carry out this democratic activity, the irony is that it backfired on National and probably cost it that election.

The other thing, of course, that is pricking Clark and Co to go through with this bill - in spite of the opposition, some of it from Labour-friendly sources such as the Law and Human Rights Commissions - is simmering resentment over having to pay back $1.2 million for illegal taxpayer-funded election advertising last time.

So the Dear Leader and her minions are determined that next time advertising condemning or criticising the Government will be heavily restricted, while the Government will be able to spend what it likes promoting its own policies at no cost to the party.

If ever there was a misuse of political power, this is it. As this newspaper said in only its second front-page editorial in five years, "democracy is not a device to keep Labour in power".

But it is typically socialist and the longer this Government remains, the more its members see themselves as there to rule rather than simply to govern, persuaded that only they know what is best for the country.

But it is in reality only what is best for the rulers that matters; the exercise of power, through legislation and a powerful bureaucracy, becomes an addiction, and the thought of having to go without it becomes intolerable.

And, as with all addictions, the longer it is practised the worse it gets. Thus, the dumping of Labour a year from now would really be a humane act. Its members need saving from themselves.

I am intrigued that one of the Dear Leader's arguments in favour of the bill is that "the National Party benefits enormously from big money in New Zealand politics".

If that is true, how come National was almost wiped out in 2002 and failed to win Government in 2005?

Labour strategists seem to think that anger over this bill, if it becomes law in the next few weeks, will be forgotten come next year.

Not so. I, for one, certainly won't forget. But who knows?

Perhaps by then this column will be banned by law, too.

IMPORTANT public notice

Stop the Labour/NZ First/Greens Electoral Finance "Gagging Bill"
What you can do:

Protest March: Auckland this Saturday 17 November from the Auckland Town Hall at 10.30am (assemble from 10am) Protest: Wellington next Wednesday, 21 November, for a march on Parliament.

This is to invite you to stand up and be counted.

ACT member John Boscawen is organising marches in Auckland and Wellington to protest the Labour led Government's attack on democracy.

The Electoral Finance Bill is designed to curb political activity.

Labour and NZ First with help from the Greens and United Future are about to ram through a law to gag free speech.

This despite vociferous objection from the Human Rights Commission, the Law Society, Grey Power and concerned citizens from every sector of New Zealand society.

The plan is to give Labour freedom to say what it likes in election year and gag everyone else.

Once the Gagging Bill goes through - possibly as soon as next week - it will be against the law for me to send an email such as this.

That's why the Human Rights Commission talks about a "chilling" impact on democracy.

That's why this is a Gagging Bill by any other name and must be stopped. Join the marches

If you want to help contact John@boscawen.co.nz John@boscawen.co.nz

'Where in the world are NZ's Dole Bludgers?'

The title is supplied by a commenter who can't distinguish between serious conjecture and 'musing' even after I spelled it out for his benefit.

In 2004 there were 12,838 Kiwis on an unemployment benefit in Australia, 52 percent were classed as long-term 'customers'.

Also in 2004 there were 14,853 Kiwis on a Parenting Payment for single parents.

In 2005 there were 11,068 Kiwis on a Disability Support Pension.

By the time you throw in those scattered across other benefits the total would probably reach 40,000. What does that look like? The population of Wanganui.

I wonder how many Aussies are customers of Work and Income. What's a bet it isn't anywhere near 40,000. There's only 60,000 living here!

Update; Coming ahead of the Kiwis on the benefit numbers on each count were the Poms. Now I see that NZ has overtaken the UK as Australia's main source of permanent migrants for the first time.

Aussie unemployment

NZ had 23,158 people on the unemployment benefit at September 2007. The official unemployment rate is 3.5 percent.

Australia's unemployment rate is 4.3 percent. In August they had 505,927 people on the unemployment benefit.

Australia's population is 5 times NZ's yet it has nearly 22 x the number of people on the dole.

The difference cannot be accounted for in incapacity benefits as NZ's rate of reliance is similar (if a little less) than the Aussies.

In Australia, from July 2006 new welfare-applicant single parents whose youngest child was 8 or more were directed to the unemployment benefit. This may be part of the anomaly, but certainly not all.

I wonder how many Kiwis are over there on the dole? (Those who were there before the 2000/01 rule change or have been there the two years required since the rule change?)

Back then the Aussie government said it was paying over a billion dollars to Kiwis on welfare benefits. By my reckoning that would be anywhere from 50-75,000 people.

If they were on the dole in NZ that would make the ratio about right.

Just musing.

Tell us something we don't know

Confirmation of what we all knew.

...one in ten Pacific Island children and one in twenty Maori children aged 5 to 14 [is] likely to be extremely obese. But only one in 100 European or other ethnicity child is likely to fall into that category.

Which begs the question, why all the indiscriminate public health spending?

Do you know why the state operates this way? Why it doesn't properly name problems? Because it doesn't want to 'stigmatise' any one group.

It would rather spend bucket-loads of your money putting push-play balloons in suburban letterboxes where no Pacific Island people live than risk offence or bureaucratic job cuts. That's the financial cost of political correctness. And that's why the state should keep out of health. It is too tied up in its own human rights prescription to be effective or fair.

Meantime the bulk of people, who have eyes and brains, get more and more frustrated that they are hectored and hen-pecked at every turn about hyped-up problems which have nothing to do with their lives but everything to do with the rampant wastage of their money.

'Bah, humbug. There's no inclination to help the poor'

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald was reprinted in yesterday's SST. The headline is supplied by the SST.

My response;

Dear Editor

An article appeared in the SST November 11 headed, 'Bah, humbug. There's no inclination to help the poor.' It described decreasing support among Australian people for government redistribution of income from the better-off to the less well-off, which has fallen below 40 percent for the first time.

It does not follow that because people do not support welfare they do not want to help the poor. The decreasing support may very well demonstrate a growing understanding that welfare benefits do not necessarily help people. Often they demotivate and trap people.

At least 40 percent of those currently on the domestic purposes benefit started there as a teenager. Before they are old enough to finish their education or gain work skills young people are lured into what looks like an easy number. It isn't. Lives spent on the DPB are characterised by hardship and transience.

It may now be that there is more compassion inherent in opposing government income redistribution which can hardly be termed a raging success as a cure for 'poverty'.

Weird

Can anyone get their head around this experiment conducted by a Canterbury University student?

The conclusion is dogs can read people's minds. But I cannot follow the methodology at all. Surely a smart dog would show a preference for the choice of the person they saw hiding something. How does it follow that the dog can read someone's mind? I am totally bamboozled.

Silliness over pronunciation

It would have to be Waikato University putting up such a display of preciousness. They want 'Waikato' pronounced properly. Not Why Cat O. It has to be Why Car Tore or Why Cut Or.

What stupidity. People can and will pronounce words how they want to. We all know what we are talking about. The fact that Maori words have to be turned into recognisable English words so we can pronounce them 'properly' makes the exercise even sillier.

These demands for correctness just make people self-conscious about using Maori words and they are more likely to avoid them. More populous countries have dialects, England being a prime example. There is no pressure for a Yorkshireman to speak his vowels like a Cornishman. The difference is important and interesting.

Anyway, I thought we embraced 'multiculturalism' in this country. Doesn't that include accepting various pronunciations? It's OK for different tribes to have different pronunciations but not Pakeha. What bull.

Who is advising Ruth Dyson?

From question time today;

Judith Collins: Why is it that in the period of so-called record low unemployment, almost 130,000 people—5 percent of the *working-age population—are too sick to work, which is a 50 percent increase since 1999 and is yet another record high?

Hon RUTH DYSON: It would pay the member to be a little more robust with the accuracy of her figures. In fact, the number of people of working age on a *sickness benefit is 1.5 percent of the total population, and the number of people of working age on an *invalids benefit—

Madam SPEAKER: It is difficult to hear.

Hon RUTH DYSON: —is 2.5 percent, which is a total of only 3.9 percent.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. We could not hear any part of that answer whatsoever.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the member. I will ask the Minister to repeat her answer.

Hon RUTH DYSON: My answer advised the member who asked the supplementary question to be a little more robust in the accuracy of the information she provides in those questions. The number of people of working age on a sickness benefit is 1.5 percent of the total working-age population, and on an invalids benefit it is 2.4 percent.

The September benefit factsheets clearly show that 3% of working age people are on an Invalid Benefit and (almost) 1.9% are on a Sickness Benefit. That adds up to 4.9%

If you think I am quibbling 1% of the working age population, using MSD definition of 18-64 years of age, is around 25,000 people.

Good start Ruth.

Rick is back

Rick Giles - Silent Running - is home.

From the Christchurch Star;

Canterbury man gets out of Detroit jail

07.11.2007
By JOELLE DALLY
After just over five weeks in a United States prison for having an expired tourist visa, Canterbury man Rick Giles has been deported home.

The 28-year-old arrived back on Sunday relieved to be free, but disappointed his overseas travel ended with him being put behind bars.

"I,ve been saving up for my OE for a long time. I was really enjoying myself and it has come to a premature end," he said.

Last Wednesday, The Star revealed Mr Giles had been detained near Detroit under strict US immigration laws after officials found his tourist visa had expired by six days.

He was returning to Canada when he was nabbed.


He said he had mistakenly believed his visa was still valid.
Speaking to The Star from his parents' home in Clarkville near Kaiapoi yesterday, he said conditions at the William Dickerson Detention Facility were not too oppressive. He was held from September 27 to November 4.

However, he said the prison officers were "really mean people."

"They would yell at you as a means to keep you in control," he said.

"There was a serious absence of privacy. There were about 60 guys in a great big room. Shaving and cutting your nails didn't happen.

"If you asked for nail clippers you didn't know what they (the guards) were going to do," he said.

Mr Giles said he had a social insurance card, a bank account and some job prospects waiting for him in Canada, and never imagined he would be imprisoned in the US for that length of time.

"I started out in disbelief and amused to end up in a US jail. But after a week that went away," he said.

"I felt angry and closed in & that lasted the rest of my time there."

"I tried to get in touch with the (New Zealand) embassy, they couldn't do anything.

"It was very frustrating," he said.

He said he had been lucky not to have received a criminal record, as he had heard of others in similar situations that had.

"Canada was a stones throw away, about 400m. But instead, they shipped me around the world," he said.

He said it was nice to be back in his own clothes and be able to tie his shoes.

Hide vs Hobbs

Rodney Hide debates banning fireworks with Marion Hobbs.


Now why couldn't John Key bring himself to say this?

Of course Hide is right. This issue is about individual freedom and personal responsibility. That a few fools out there are misusing fireworks is no reason to prohibit everyone's access to them. As he says, on that basis why not ban matches, barbecues and camp fires?


Where is this compulsion to remove risk going to end?

(And speaking of fools, Hobbs is a fine example. Have a listen to her characterisation of the ACT party and their taxation policy. Completely misses the point.)

Get thee to thy GP now!

The nannying SST is running a 'men's survey'. Through it they have discovered that men are putting off health checks. Good Lord. Are they?? When you consider the list it's surprising that only a quarter said they hadn't had the checks recommended for their age. I don't believe the sample is very representative;

Recommended tests include:

* Obesity: Waist circumference and Body Mass Index (BMI) every two years.

* Blood pressure: two-yearly between 18 and 50, and every year for age 50 and over.

* Cholesterol: five-yearly from age 45.

* Fasting sugar for diabetes (blood glucose): every three years from age 55.

* Urine test for protein: to test for kidney failure, every 12 months from age 50.

* Skin checks for skin cancer: for high-risk skin every year.

* Bowel screen for bowel cancer (faecal test for blood): every two years over 50 years.

* Men should discuss prostate checks with their GP from age 50.

* Osteoporosis risk assessment and bone densitometry for men at risk.

PPL will boost IQ

Oh really. The push to extend Paid Parental Leave just got sillier. UnitedFuture say that as research shows breastfeeding increases IQ, mothers should be paid to stay home and do just that. I wonder if they are going to demand that breastfeeding become a requirement for receiving existing PPL? Or that receiving the DPB makes breastfeeding mandatory? And for how long?

Well, as you brought it up UF, what about the heretical idea that those most able (financially and emotionally) to raise children might be the ones with higher IQs and a mother's IQ is an important factor in determining the child's? It's not an implausible idea. Of course nobody dare say so. Except that mad professor who thought we should put contraceptives in the water supply so people who wanted to become parents would need to take a positive action instead of just drifting into it with no thought as to who would pick up the tab, resulting in a bias towards the uneducated.

The best family policies should be the same as the best policies for individuals - low flat tax, choice in education and tax rebates for health insurance.

John Key - "It's inevitable"

I have only caught snippets of the firework debate on talkback radio, but the strong impression I get is fireworks are polarising people. The PM's edict that they would be banned from sale to the public if people didn't behave (and her accompanying remarks about Khandahar) have got right up people's noses. You can't overstate the effect seemingly small matters can sometimes have. Banning fireworks is one of those camel's back issues which stirs up disproportionate resentment because it is just one more instance of being dictated to.

On Breafast Telly this morning Paul Henry asked National leader, John Key, whether fireworks would be banned. Key's response went some thing like,

Fireworks have given many families a lot of fun over many years. There are lots of good memories tied up with them. There's the odd rogue causing trouble but it seems in this country we are hell bent on banning everything that's fun when there is risk involved in lots of things....

(This is sounding promising I think)

"....but I'm afraid it's inevitable."

WHAT??? You want to be the Prime Minister of this country John. You tell us what you really think, tell us that banning fun has gone too far and that we are all punished for the sake of few bad eggs and then, that you are going to continue to let it happen.

Why not say it won't happen under any government I am leading? What's wrong with you?
Sitting on the frigging fence all the time.

Deaths etc

Have you noticed that the Death Notices section of the newspaper has decreasingly become a place to notify a death to the public and increasingly a place to send messages to the dead? A feature of the secular world no doubt. Similarly funerals seem to be an opportunity to make lavish displays of caring after the fact with names emblazoned on garments and probably newly on the skin under them. Whatever.

None of which has much to do with what I wanted to comment on.

A Lower Hutt man died on Saturday morning. There was a small piece in the DomPost and numerous death notices. According to the link he was assaulted by a woman with a blunt instrument.

Now one can only assume she was his partner. That being the case, where is the outcry about violence towards men? Why haven't the media dug up the statistics about how many women assault men each year? Where are the many stopping violence networks now?

Personally I am pleased that the case has remained low key. It's a tragedy for his family and should be left at that. But I can't help reflecting on the resounding absence of the anti-violence advocates when the boot is on the other foot.

Melbourne Cup picks

Last year I was certain Poprock would win and barely looked at the rest of the field. In any event it came second. This year I am less certain but going for Master O'Reilly. I backed him in the Cauldfield when he won so will stick with him.

But as my track record is coming second I will throw in a few more. In a half boxed trifecta I'll include Princess Coup (go Noel Harris at 52 years-old), Tungsten Strike who has been running well over distance at Goodwood carrying much higher weights and finally a NZ roughie, Dolphin Jo, with good dead track form, has placed over the two miles and is ridden by one of only 2 female jockeys, Clare Lindop.

Good luck if you are having a bet.

The Phelps family and the right to free speech

CLS has a very thought-provoking post about the odious Phelps family who are thanking god for dead soldiers at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq because it is god's punishment for the US not stoning homosexuals to death. The post is a discussion of the weakness of libertarian principals in allowing free speech carte blanche. One soldier's family sued this sick group and a jury have found for the family under the offence of causing emotional distress.

CLS says;

I don’t want emotional distress to be used easily to stifle the free speech of others. It is too easily abused. Anyone can claim distress and this would hold rights ransom to the emotionally weakest member of a community.

There is no hard and fast definition of what constitutes 'emotional distress'. But left to a jury, if you believe the jury system is the best justice process we have (like democracy as a governance process - not perfect but the best we have), then you may be grudgingly happy for the right to free speech to be tempered with the possibility of a group of your peers subsequently finding the content caused 'emotional distress' and fining the offenders.

The offenders ability to speak is not taken away but they risk paying a price. This may curtail the likes of this very ugly group.

Certainly this is not a risk-free answer (to either the individual or society) but again it may be the best available. We live in a dynamic and evolving world and what works today may not work tomorrow. That's life. And I don't mean that flippantly.