Just another friggin' day

...of working in the hot sun (yes, we get that in NZ- from time-to-time)

Four more 13-hour days, as well as being on call for the other 11 hours.

This does not make for a happy disposition, especially when the region is full of moronic holiday-makers. None of whom have the first idea of how to drive.

They don't have some of the local knowledge, either. Especially the lot that were parking along the roadside that is a thoroughfare for oversized tractors and combine harvesters. Good luck there.

If they were local, they would also know that the river they were swimming in has an E.Coli count normally seen in the more crocodile-infested parts of Africa. In the season the Wildebeest migrate. Good luck with your bowels, too.

It would be a lot simpler if the loopys just gave me their money. I could give them a dose of the salts and bang their new beemer 4wd lookalike with a sledghammer.

It might cheer me up some too...

Cry-baby of the week

"A Taupo truck driver hurt in a crash involving three cars and his truck in Hawke's Bay is laying an official complaint with St John Ambulance, saying no ambulance staff approached him after the crash and he could have been "lying in a ditch" unnoticed.

Les Bennett, 28, said he was dazed and limping after the crash that left 12 people in hospital, but was not asked if he needed help..."

Girl!

You were up and moving about- they were dealing with TWELVE people who needed to be admitted to hospital- quite a few of them seriously injured.

"...Three people remained in a serious condition in Hawke's Bay Hospital yesterday and four were listed as stable..."

All you had to do was ask to be checked out. Did you expect your own personal physician?

Or are you ACC-seeking...

On Poverty

I followed a link in the comments at Lindsay Mitchell's blog and found this outstanding piece on the condition we call 'Poverty':

What is Poverty?
Theodore Dalrymple

What do we mean by poverty? Not what Dickens or Blake or Mayhew meant. Today, no one seriously expects to go hungry in England or to live without running water or medical care or even TV. Poverty has been redefined in industrial countries, so that anyone at the lower end of the income distribution is poor ex officio, as it were—poor by virtue of having less than the rich. And of course by this logic, the only way of eliminating poverty is by an egalitarian redistribution of wealth—even if the society as a whole were to become poorer as a result.

Such redistribution was the goal of the welfare state. But it has not eliminated poverty, despite the vast sums expended, and despite the fact that the poor are now substantially richer—indeed are not, by traditional standards, poor at all. As long as the rich exist, so must the poor, as we now define them.

Certainly they are in squalor—a far more accurate description of their condition than poverty—despite a threefold increase in per-capita income, including that of the poor, since the end of the last war. Why they should be in this condition requires an explanation—and to call that condition poverty, using a word more appropriate to Mayhew's London than to today's reality, prevents us from grasping how fundamentally the lot of "the poor" has changed since then. The poor we shall always have with us, no doubt: but today they are not poor in the traditional way...

Whole article here

The digital bottle opener

No, there really is such a thing!

I saw one today.

I refuse to own one, on the grounds that it could be used as evidence against me...

The unpleasant truth

...is spelled out clearly and concisely by Lindsay Mitchell.

That should have the hand-wringers and the grievance/victim industry frothing at the mouth!

Dealing with Christmas season zombies

Interesting

IN past years, hits have dropped at this time of year. You would expect that to happen as people get busy stockpiling cheap wine and crap from the warehouse.

THIS year, my site hits have more than doubled the usual rate.

Probably means something- like papers are now almost three bucks.

The non-stress Christmas/Saturnalia pig-out

1- All stuff that food eats is prepared the night before (that's salads to you womenfolk!)

2- All food that food eats that needs cooking must be able to be cooked by boiling (That would be spuds)

3- All food shall be cooked in or on the barbecue. This is MAN'S domain. If the owner of the barbecue is renowned for burning the food, the men shall select an accomplished barbecue master to take charge.

4- The barbecue-master shall be supplied with sufficient beer or red wine that he has no need to leave his post- apart from calls of nature where he may briefly retire behind the garage/lemon tree.

5- The meal will be done, when it is done. Early or late afternoon/evening should be enough information.

6- Chips, nuts and pickles are adequate entrees.

7- Go back in history and bread sufficed as a plate. The only utensils were knives. I see no reason to change what worked.

8- Let the kids eat exactly what they want for this one day of the year. They will probably survive it.

9- Any person mentioning diets to be flung into the pool/hosed.

10- Thank the cooks, even if the food was shit. You can show them up next year.

Public safety warning- Don't fall Down

Not everywhere was a shit-fight

A hot sunny day, beer on tap, a sheep on the barbecue and a pool.

THAT is the way to do the Christmas thing!

Let the Shit-Fight commence

Christmas eve at Pak & Save

Rumor control

"...that there has also been a lot of talk in the NZ Army about adopting 7.62mm rifles. The troops who have been deployed in Afghanistan are not happy with the 5.56mm performance. They, unlike the US and recently the British, they do not have a 7.62x51mm chambered semi-automatic in a designated marksmen role..."

5.56 is for shooting at the bad guys.

7.62 is for SHOOTING the fuckers!

Here endth the lesson...

I hate this time of year

An arse needs kicking

"The military get paid too much and get allowances that should have been abolished two years ago, according to a report prepared for the Government's Defence White Paper.

Military personnel get an average of $23,000 or 30 per cent more than other public servants generally and this is not justified, says the value-for-money review by former Telecom boss Rod Deane..."

Ever put you well-paid neck on the chopping block, you soft-cocked little weenie?

I saw a review like this done on Corrections some years ago. They we horrified that all these blokes that HAD NO TERTIARY QUALIFICATIONS earned more than the chicken-shit average wage.

I would bet money most of these consultant types would piss in their label pants if they ever set foot in a prison wing. Or Afghanistan with a bit of lead flying.

I wonder if Rod Fucking Deane was one of those prat who was beaten up, had his beer stolen and his girlfriend given the fucking she had always wanted by some serviceman?

I hope it was me!

Don't make excuses for it

"Masterton's worst illegal dumper will dodge a potential $5000 fine after ditching a trailer-load of beer bottles, nappies, and other "unhygenic items" at Henley Lake...

...Grant Howard, co-ordinator of Wairarapa Free Budget Advisory Service, said that while he detested illegal dumping, he had sympathy for those struggling to pay the dump charges.

"It's far too high - $42 for a trailer load? It's expensive and I think education and recycling should be pushed.

"In lawyer fees it's probably $2000 to $3000 for the council to prosecute someone when they could run two or three week-long courses to recycle properly."

Since the rise in GST in October, Mr Howard said he was seeing more low-income people who could not cover basic living costs..."

If they have so many beer bottles they can't dispose of them through the kerbside recycling, I would suggest they don't have a poverty problem at all!

And as for dumping them in the friggin' park- even most of the local low-class trash manage to dump their crap outside the transfer station gate!

The Masterton gene pool needs more chlorine in the shallow end!

This should be the default setting

"Wellington rates could rise by 8 per cent unless the city council slashes services and increases user fees across all departments in what it labels "austerity proposals"..."

"Austerity" is what I call 'Not wasting our friggin' money'

In other words, cut everything not essential - these are invariably contracted out in any case, so it should be a small step to privatize water, sewer, waste and so on.

Let volunteers groups look after the parks, sports clubs maintain sports facilities and have trusts/ not for profits run facilities such as pool, libraries and museums- assuming people will set up for the facilities they profess to need. Otherwise, leave it to private business or do without.

Any wonder when dealing with zealots?

"A senior nurse at Starship hospital's child protection unit told a conference of medical professionals that "all parents are liars until proved otherwise", doctors who attended say.

The revelation comes after a Sunday Star-Times investigation into practices at the unit, Te Puaruruhau, revealed concern it is being run like a police station, with staff treating parents as guilty until proven innocent over unexplained injuries.

Families have complained that the unit's doctors rushed to judgements, refused to budge from their initial assessments, and failed to apologise when injuries were shown to be accidental.

There has also been judicial criticism, with a judge saying doctors in one case seemed to have closed minds and had not considered alternative explanations..."

Yet I bet these PC ninnies would be morally outraged at the suggestion that they do a bit of profiling! ESPECIALLY if (if- yeah, right...) that profiling involved skin colour.

So lets just treat EVERYONE like they are shit parents...

Truth hurts

"A former Social Development Ministry employee landed in hot water after posting a Facebook description of herself as a "very expensive paperweight", "highly competent in the art of time wastage, blame-shifting and stationary [sic] theft"..."

Certainly couldn't be accused of lying!

Something I'm NOT allowed for Christmas

Bugger!

Stress and tension

Tonight was the kiddie disco.

I had to go.

It has been a week of this sort of thing..

Buying an Ebook reader for Christmas?

...or one of the many devices that can be also used to read ebooks- iPads, iPod touch or the various clones- even a computer.

If you are treating yourself or buying as a gift- how about a bit of added value?

Download a selection of TOTALLY FREE ebooks, to fill a tiny corner of one of the gigabytes!

As well as the many freeware classics available, why not take a punt on a new independent author?

There is no better place to look than SMASHWORDS.

Of course this is a shameless plug for my 'Meddlers in Time' Series, currently available for FREE!

Meddlers in Time

Meddlers in Time- Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Meddlers in Time- The Cockatoo River incident

Not enough time

This time of year, I feel a bit like Roy in the above clip...

Life and it's mysteries

Why is it that on the hottest 'G&T days- I'm always bloody working?

Explaining WIFI

It's easier than crawling under the house, in a 40cm high space, were most of the world's supply of cobwebs have been stored for the best part of fifty years.

Or it was until some bastard started tapping into my network and stealing bandwith.

At that point it became easier to spend an hour crawling through Shelob's Lair than to decipher the Chinglish instructions that came with the DICK Smith router, to put the encryption on. I would have forgotten the passwords next time I had to install a new device.

And the kids missed hearing a whole lot of new words, being on the other side of the floor.

I DID learn that a wireless modem will work within a few meters- about 5-6m- if you unscrew the antennae.

Yes, I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, either.

But the cable connection IS faster!

This is one Chinese product I won't buy

Poppies.

I brought these as much to support the disabled NZ workers who made them.

Passing for 'News'

'Magic' hangover cures revealed

...The web bursts with tips and tricks to speed up the recovery from the more "self-induced morning sickness", but a Perth nurse (who wishes to remain anonymous) revealed some of the medical guild's most coveted secrets.

"When some doctors or nurses have a bad hangover, they sometimes self-administer intravenous fluids or put on an oxygen mask for a while," she said..."

Secrets. Yeah, right.

I used the O2 trick over thirty years ago. Not having medical O2, the gas welding set worked just fine.

Nobody ever figured out why we used far more oxygen than acetylene...

Constitutional Chicanery

So the powers-that-be want to do a constitutional review.

Why would I be far from enthusiastic? Well, they tend to lie a lot, for a start.

I wouldn't trust the current rabble as far as I could comfortably spit a large rat.

When our political overlords see fit to ignore referendums with huge support- about 90% (and how often do 90% of people agree on ANYTHING?)- how can we trust them to do our bidding?

We can't.

Could we expect any debate, much less action on the most fundamental human right- the right to defend ones very life, and that of their own- without being persecuted by the apparatus of the crown prosecutions office?

No.

Can we expect special privilege and endless funding at the public's expense for the Maori elite to be further strengthened by legislation?

You bet!

Can we expect the troughers to use a constitution to feather their own nests in any way possible?

Would anyone expect otherwise!

Can we expect debate on minimizing government?

[Insert Tui ad here]

Nothing to see here

Wasn't a seal or a cat or dog, so no real biggie.

No need to outraged...

Missed it

"A teenage girl shot in the face, who was told to "get off the couch" and go back to work by ACC, has had her compensation and counselling reinstated..."

Of course she can't go back to work- the bullet is still in her face- I can see it!- just under the nose on the right!

Get a pair of tweezers and get her sorted and back to work.

Up yours

"The Government is being urged to offer Prince William and Kate Middleton an all-expenses paid honeymoon to New Zealand to create a "fairytale" tourism driver.

Diana Moore, who operates the $10,000-a-night Lake Okareka Lodge near Rotorua, has suggested the government provide a honeymoon as its official wedding present "instead of giving a wedding gift such as a piece of furniture".

"The potential value in exposure to New Zealand from being part of this real-life royal fairytale is beyond imagination – certainly right up there with worldwide exposure from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit."

Although she'd "love to host William and Kate" after their April wedding next year, there would be no freebies, said Moore..."

(bold mine)

So it's fine for a whole lot of folks on meager wages to subsidize the top end of the NZ accommodation market through their grossly excessive taxes.

But NOT for a high end of the market company to do the same.

The very worst type of bludger!

Thought so

"...Britain's grit reserve half the size it should be

Britain's reserve of grit is less than half the size it should be, the Government admitted yesterday..."

We noticed...

Pet Shop Boys

Robbery fail

It's life Jim, but not as we know it

"A strange, salty lake in California has yielded an equally strange bacterium that thrives on arsenic and redefines life as we know it, researchers say.

The bacteria do not merely eat arsenic - they incorporate the toxic element directly into their DNA, the researchers said today.

The finding shows just how little scientists know about the variety of life forms on Earth, and may greatly expand where they should be looking for life on other planets and moons, the NASA-funded team said..."

I see some pretty damn weird variants in what passes for intelligent life around here...

Sorry for your troubles, but...

...people die at work every day. Physical work is inherently risky. Even commuting to your desk job carries an element of risk.

Yes, a mining disaster is a great tragedy for the families and small communities.

Not for the nation. These people were making a living, not fighting a war for us.

It seems that it's OK when they are killed off piecemeal- on the construction site, in the forests, on the roads or farms- where they die one by one on a weekly basis.

Get a grip people...

As the holiday season approaches

Who needs noise control?