REAL news

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/10402278/Sea-plankton-found-outside-International-Space-Station

And yet they are kept defenseless

"A 33-year-old woman kidnapped at knifepoint in Whangarei has emerged from her ordeal shaken but unhurt.

She was parked in the Laurie Hall car park in the central city about 8.30am when a man threatened her with a knife, police said.

He forced her to drive to Mair Park, then to the ASB bank on Kensington Avenue, and the car park on Quay Street in the town basin…"

This is the later of a spate hijackings- the previous were beaten off. Yet, do the powers that be have anything to say about realistic self- defense?

Of course not.

Nice compliant sheep have no need to carry pistols, Mace or tasters. No indeed! somebody might get hurt!

I kind of thought that was the idea…

modern goddamn times

Apparently it is not polite to refer to the birth of a girl-child as a 'dud' or 'blind'. Must be an army thing.

Also, the act is not 'calving'

Celebrity deaths

Celebrity Deaths.

Did you actually know the frickin' person?

No?

So why get all frickin' emo?

Good people die every day without mention...

Why we have stereotypes

"Two friends who defaced National party hoardings stood in court together as they pleaded guilty to wilful damage charges…"

Yep, exactly what you would expect. We have stereotypes and profiles because so very often they fit.

Talk is cheap

"Labour is promising 1.7 million people - 40 per cent of the population - will be eligible for free doctors visits and prescriptions under a Labour-led government…"

It's easy to promise stuff when you know you won't have to deliver. The greens are even worse at this than liarbour. Anyone with a modicum of grey matter knows that there is either no chance of it happening or taxes go up for the few of us working.

I do a bit of it when kids ask if they can have an 80" inch TV or a playstation 4. My answer is-"yes- when I win Lotto". Difference is that I would deliver- and without robbing someone else to pay for it.

Some good stuff happens here too

"A team of researchers from Canterbury University have broken a world rocket altitude record near Tekapo in South Canterbury.

A launch team of five people watched as the rocket, nicknamed "Milly", broke the world I-class rocket altitude record on July 26.

The rocket hit speeds of over 2000 kilometres per hour and attained a recorded height of 4,889 metres, well above previous record holder John Wilke's 4324.5m…"

Drop and give me 50

"Being made to do 90 minutes of exercise during school time would put more pressure on NCEA students, says year 12 student Cameron Bishop.

"I mean it would be nice because it would be time away from study but it would be time we could be doing study to get better grades…"

You whiney little candy-arsed twinkle-toed peter-puffer!

At Army Schools, every day started with a PT session that would make you DIE!

After that, you really appreciate keeping your fat chunk on a chair for the rest of the day.

Put cement in your wheaties and harden the fuck up!

Oh- really?

"A Government working party investigating the logistics of online voting has found it could be feasible by 2016.

In a report released today, the group said online voting should not replace the postal ballot, but should work alongside existing forms of voting.

"Having considered international experiences, the local government electoral system and technological and security challenges associated with enabling voting online, we consider that online voting is feasible and desirable," the report said…"

It has been feasible for many years. Online voting is far simpler than lotto, which has been around here for 27 years and has to have a far higher level of security. Any consultant who says online voting is anything other than dead easy is a fraud and/or an idiot.

But then, they usually are...

There IS a better idea

"Reader V Francis writes in with a proposal for a record-breaking tourist attraction in Northland:

The impression I have is that the people of Whangarei would like to have something to draw tourists to Whangarei…"

Nice, but what we really need is more policing to keep the thieving bloody natives out of tourists (and locals) vehicles. The summer car park volunteers do a fantastic job- the program needs expanding and a bit more funding would go a long way. We are getting in the habit of carrying a few gold coins to give them a donation- it's well worth it to know your car will still be there and not ransacked after a trip to the beach.

Yet again

"A family pet that left little Shephard Mea fighting for his life used to roam the street terrorising neighbours and had been aggressive towards the child before yesterday's attack.

The incident happened at a Housing New Zealand property, and Housing Minister Nick Smith told the Sunday Star-Times last night officials would launch an inquiry as dogs were not routinely allowed at HNZ homes…."

Again.

If I left a loaded shotgun about the house and one of my children pulled the trigger with fatal results, I would (rightly) be headed for jail.

I see NO DIFFERENCE here.

A side issue is that poor people so often seem to afford to keep big hungry dogs...

Take OUR towns back

"...They knew they lived in a beautiful place - they only had to ask the ship-loads of tourists that invade every summer - but they also knew their town was tatty, with grim public toilets and a waterfront occupied by parked cars and asphalt. It was a long way from living up to its potential.

Then a few townsfolk hatched a plan. They surveyed, questioned and schemed until they had a pretty good idea of what their fellow Paihians wanted.

They drew up plans and made demands, but found there was little the council could or would do in belt-tightened times.

That's where the Australian, an urban design guru named David Engwicht, came in.
He showed them you don't need councils, ratepayer cash or consents.

His was a message of reclaiming public spaces, of acting first and asking permission later.

Focus Paihia was already a community trust by then; from it sprang the Paihia Phantom Placemakers. With little notice and less permission they would descend on public spaces like an army of guerilla decorators, beautifying footpaths, the Village Green and Maiki Hill.

Emboldened by success they took sledgehammers to the town's biggest embarrassment, the Marsden Rd public toilets, described by a well-travelled graffiti artist as the worst in New Zealand, and turned it into a functional work of art.

But those projects pale next to the creation of a waterfront park on what used to be an ugly parking lot…"

Of course you can do it better, cheaper and faster than a bunch of regulations obsessed pen-pushers. This is what we need to see- people taking charge of their own lives. To hell with the busybodies that have to put a damper on all things good!

Shoot the photographer

The bottom one is closer to the election poster up around here! 

What were you thinking?

another idiotic PC ninny

…who should have stuck to whacking a ball about the court and stayed out of grown-up area…

"...As politicians seek the limelight in the run-up to the general election, Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy has hit out at ACT attacks on Maori...

...She labelled comments by ACT leader Jamie Whyte that Maori enjoyed legal privilege "grotesque and inflammatory"…"

So what is the fuss about?

The ACT leader has DARED to state that one of ACT's core principles had always been that the law should be colour blind and should treat everybody equally.

Anyone who's brain has not been addled by socialist 'thinking' should see the fairness in that!.

If their brain has been turned into a rancid protein slushy, then its 'Racist and Redneck'!

While I'm on the redneck bit- the turn was used by those who perceived the lowly field hand with his sunburn neck from toiling outdoors was their social inferior. No wonder the left like to use the term. They have the same distain for the ordinary working NZ'r...

Can't find a REAL job, huh?

"Former Carterton mayor Georgina Beyer will stand for the Mana Party in Te Tai Tonga, saying she was doing so partly to atone for voting for the Foreshore and Seabed Act in 2004…"

How fitting- a worthless MP (once described by I MP I know as: 'the laziest MP in parliament'), for a worthless party.

MSM saying what needed to be said for once

Culture of Idiocy costs lives.

"Road crashes happen. There is news reporting, processing of photographs, and getting comment. And then afterwards, there's the reflection on how much mess one person can cause on our roads. I can't even begin to guess what Cheyenne Ihaka's life was about, and his family won't thank me for attempting to analyse what he amounted to, or criticising him in this editorial…"

Couldn't have said it better myself (well- I could have but it wouldn't have been printed)

'Yeah, right' #257854

"Commissioners at the Kaipara District Council are seeking legal advice to decide whether people or organisations responsible for the $80 million blowout of the Mangawhai wastewater treatment plant can be held accountable…"

Fat chance of any council being held accountable for anything less than- wait- scratch the last four words.

There is more accountability and transparency in central government than of the local satraps. Do the elected officials even declare their political alliances?- mostly not.

As in central government, the ones to really watch out for are the top echelons of unelected departmental management. But I suspect those in local government find it easier to blinker the generally much greener local body elected types.

Watch the Kaipara case and we will see how effectivly central government oversees the local tyrants...

Ho Hum

Watch the commonwealth games or total war on my current ant invasion?

It's looking real bad for the ants...

Stupid social media crazes

The latest idiocy is to have a bucket of iced water poured over you- and then challenge some other idiots to do it to themselves.

I just go to work to get freezing cold water down my neck. It's called fixing a broken pipe. Nothing to see here folks...

Yep, Northland...

"A woman waiting in a car while her husband paid for petrol at a central Whangarei service station had to fight off a man who got in the driver's seat and tried to drive away.

The attempted carjacking, at BP Wylies, on Maunu Rd, about 2pm on Monday, has left the 32-year-old shaken and questioning her positive impression of Whangarei. She also issued a warning for people to lock their cars at petrol stations even if there was someone in it - a warning echoed by police…."

Always have a screwdriver handy in your car. Nobody asks questions about a screwdriver. Unlike a bayonet.

Still, whatever the tool- they do not like it up 'em!