Retrospection

When I went to school in the seventies, those who wanted to make a living using their hands were denigrated and labeled 'thickos'

There were three streams:

'Language'
'Commercial'
and
'Practical'

The practical stream was where all those now called 'special needs' were shunted and if you wanted to take classes in engineering, woodwork and suchlike YOU were treated as mildly retarded.

That was then.

Now is several order of magnitude worse.

I have noticed that nothing much has changed. Academics still push the 'clean hands approach' as the way to earn a living.

Great.

Next time you pay what you consider an outrageous bill to unblock your crapper on a sunday afternoon or restore your water/gas/electricity- take a deep breath and suck it up.

Your sparkie or plumber has to charge that to fill the tanks on his boat!

Now get back to marking next weeks assignments- you need to pay for your third-hand Toyota!

Chris Muir for a Nobel Prize!

His Day by Day cartoon makes mincemeat out of what passes for literature in them circles!

In Chris Muir's case, a picture is worth 10,000 words!

Wrong!

"Few police pursuits uncover evidence of serious crimes and the risks often outweigh the benefits, an Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report says.

Police assistant commissioner operations Viv Rickard said he had read the report and accepted its findings and recommendations..."

No, no, no, no, NO!

You STOP when directed- there are NO other options!

If you have been stopped for no proper reason- THEN you raise all hell- and the police should be accountable for a wrongful stop- and I'm not talking a mistaken identity or a similar plate here, but when a citizen going about their lawful way had been unlawfully detained.

Transmogrification

BEFORE

AFTER

Ya talk the talk- do ya walk the walk?

"My message to the gangs is clear. This Government is coming after your business and we will use every tool we have to destroy it. We will be ruthless in our pursuit of you and the evil drug you push."

So sayeth John Key.

I will believe it when I see it.

Talk is cheap- at least to you, who pays for it with our money.

I would like to believe you.


But I don't.

Day By Day does it again!

Wobble!

A wee earthquake just passed through.

And no- I haven't been drinking!

UPDATE:

3165869/G
Universal Time	October 10 2009 at 5:02
NZ Daylight Time	Saturday, October 10 2009 at 6:02 pm
Latitude, Longitude	41.17°S, 174.61°E
Focal Depth	40 km
Richter magnitude	4.8
Region	Wellington
Location	20 km north-west of Wellington

Felt throughout the Wellington region.

Feckin' NIMBY's

"...Meridian Energy wants to erect about 45 turbines it claims could power up to 40,000 homes on hill country close to Nga Waka a Kupe or Kupe's canoes, south-east of the town on the Martinborough-Pirinoa Road..."

Great- that is enough power for the whole district- Nice green energy- Hooray!

But no- The site is 'Sacred' (easly fixed by the customary payoff to appease the sky pixies) and 'it would spoil our view' Liek Makara, the site is out the back of nowhere populated by a handful of loudmouthed 'Lifestylers' who don't want their precious landscape changed!

This site is one of the best for steady winds in NZ (it always blows like a bastard up there!) It is miles from town and you wouldn't even see it from town, unlike the wirlygigs at Woodville. There is no way you would hear them.

But there is no pleasing the greenie mob, so why bother trying to appease them- just build the bloody things!

Witchsmeller Pursuivant

There can be few more contemptable than those who seek to cash in on a personal tragedy.

Like these lowlife.

I can put up with witch doctors playing silly-buggers with dumbarses who deserve to be taken for a ride, but to use a kidnapping to (IMNSHO) beat up a bit of free publicity for their trash entertainment TV show is lower than a snakes arse!

Parents with a missing child will clutch at any straws thrown their way. To give them false hope makes me want to punish the phony responsible in a tradition way.

The ducking stool is the first step for a wannabe witch.

Then we bring kindling...

Send them your snot!

Yet again the latest version of the Nanny State goes for the bottom denominator, with an effective ban on effective cold relief.

Who is really going to pay the doctors pimp money to get what should be a low cost medication available over the counter? (thats assuming you can get an appointment before your cold runs its course)

As for 'getting tough with the gangs'- pull the other one- they bring it in by the kilo. It's the wannabes that buy OTC for cooking.

If you REALLY want to get tough, apply the death penalty for supplying meth- but you don't have the scrotes for that!

My idea for a protest against this 'more labor than labor' statism- Send them your snot!

Next time you have a cold, save up your snotty tissues and send them to John Boy!

Cry me a river

"More than 180,000 people are likely to miss out on night classes next year following funding cuts, Labour says.

In May's budget, funding for adult community education was cut from $16 million to $3 million, with the Government saying it paid for hobby courses.

Since then there has been intense criticism of the cut, with opponents saying courses will be slashed..."

Ever consider running the courses and seeing if people will pay for them- you may be suprised. I have done a couple years ago and the courses were excellent- I would have happily have paid plenty more that the cost asked.

These hobby courses should never have been subsidised! If one wants to go along and learn wood-turning, speak spanish or make pottery they should be paying for it out of their own pockets.

TANSTAFFL!

Tough Penalty- Yeah, right.

"Disgraced former MP Taito Phillip Field's jail sentence shows no one is above the law, Labour and National politicians say.

Field has been jailed for six years, with the sentencing judge saying his offending threatened the foundation of democracy and justice..."

Sounds like a resonably stiff sentence on the face of it.

But what will actually happen is that after serving a very short part of it (in mimimum security), he will be out on home detention.

I would bet on it!

Pull yer pistols!

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands--my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A helf-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?--
Then you've a hunch what the music meant...hunger and might and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowded with a woman's love--
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true--
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through--
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost dies away...then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell...and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two--
The woman that kissed him and--pinched his poke--was the lady known as Lou.

After 12 gills of Navy Rum...

It's either going to be:

Dangerous Dan McGrew

Ivan Skavinshi Skavar

or Ayn Rand

Do you feel lucky- punk?

Late Sunday night after 6 navy rum & coffees

nafu: situation normal, all fucked up
janfu: joint army and navy fuckup
susfu: situation unchanged: still fucked up
fumtu: fucked up more than usual
tarfu: things are really fucked up
fubb: fucked up beyond belief
fubar: fucked up beyond all recognition
sapfu: surpassing all previous fuckups

George Washington said, “An army of asses led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by an ass.”

Yeah- plagarised (or however the fuck that is spelled) from Theo Spark- you should know where the sidebar link is by now. This blog does not encourage non-thinking types so look for it yourselves, if you have not had the good taste to add him to your bookmarks!

Quote for the day

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."- George Bernard Shaw.

Dare to be 'unreasonable'!

Bott on the Landscape

"...Leef's lawyer, Michael Bott, asked for a sentence with a strong rehabilitation element, citing Chief Justice Sian Elias' July speech, in which she called the prison system a ''monster factory'', with negative effects compounded by double bunking.

''A long period of imprisonment may ... result in a greater risk to society in the future,'' Mr Bott said.

''He is as much a victim as those he assaulted.''

But Judge Denys Barry told Leef that the only sentence that ''protects the community from this sort of pack predation is imprisonment...''

The sort of aplologist bullshit is why a great many people would like to see defense lawyers hanging from lamp-posts!

Monster factory indeed- it's monster containment. I would dearly love to see Bott double bunked with a few of the charmers from the institutions I have worked in!

Token visit

No-one seems to read blogs on Friday.

Some lucky buggers can still drink beer!

I'm off writing space opera.

BTW- you don't explode when you get thrown out of the airlock!

It's LAMPSHADE time for the marketing manager!

Charity

It's really simple- If you feels so inclined, you pull out your wallet- or you may volunteer goods or services.

It isn't charity when you stick you hand into somebody else's pocket against their will. That is theft in my book- wherever that money is going it ain't where it should be.

Let those who EARN the money decide where it goes- or stays.

It's their friggin money!

Is this such a hard bloody concept to understand?