blogging it real

Check out sportsfreak.co.nz . It's a NZ sports webiste with coverage of pretty much anything. Also has a forum going where I post as westie stylz which compared to certain other sports forums that shall remain nameless is fairly friendly/intelligent.

Right, time to wrap this baby up.

Been an OK year for the NRL. I haven't seen a hell of a lot of games as I don't have SKy and so usually resort to watching Warriors games on Prime and also the playoffs the same way combined with the odd match at my parents.

The playoffs have been disappointing as a whole with not too many quality matches. In the first weekend the Sea Eagles v Knights game was talked up as being a good one but I distcinctly recall the radio commentators saying half way through the second half that it was a shit game. It doesn't say much for the other games that weekend.

The following weekend so two complete hammerings as botht he Knights and Sea Eagles got shown up for the mediocre, over achieving teams that they are and then we could get down to the real business.

The real business of course involved those show ponies in their white boots socks and shorts once again being found out for being too soft and the Bulldogs clocking off upstairs which is the only thing holding them back from annihilating all before them. But as we see all season its the team that brings their heads as well as their legs with them that comes away with the win most weekends.

I had been picking the Storm to match up against the Bulldogs in the final with a Storm win for about a month now. I still think the Storm will win albeit against a red hot Broncos outfit. The Storm have shown time and time again this year that they are conditioned to win. You don't win 22 out of 26 games in this competition and not be fucken shit hot. Find another team with a record like that in the past two decades.

I also think the Broncos forward pack must be tiring. Five out of their starting six are aged 29 to 32. Maybe emotion and courage will get them through but if the Storm play a flat out style and frustrate the Broncos on attack then they should be able to come away with a reasonably close win. I am a bit worried by the fact that the Broncos are filled with Queensland SOO players and if ever there is a group of guys that never gives up it's them.

I'll go for a scoreline of round about 20-14 to the Storm but if the game blows open early then it could have 50+ points in it. Something which hasn't happened since 2001 when the Knights beat the Eels 30-24.

On crowds for the year. It was a fair way down on last year with 15,601 per match compared to 16,468 from 2005. Although last year was a huge record breaking season and this year is the second highest averages in the comps history. Looking at the patterns I would expect it to be down again a little next year before jumping back up there again. The Gold Coast team is 'coming back into' the competition which will mean an extra game most weekends. Probably depending on how many they attract and whether the Warriors can win most games and get their numbers up could be the deciding factors. The Warriors had the worst average in the comp despite finishing with a 12 win, 12 loss record.

Playoff crowds have been about what they always are but I hear they are going to play all the playoff matches at the higher ranked teams home ground next year so that may boost them slightly. Although several teams play in 20,000 capacity venues so that may just mean the venue it full rather than a bigger crowd.

At long last it seems that quite possibly the world's worst designed tertiary institute - in terms of pedestrian movement - Auckland University , is finally doing something about the four-lane death strip running through the heart of its campus.

Students welcome street closure
Auckland University students are relieved a dangerous road in their midst will close to all traffic except buses but also want a lower speed limit imposed along neighbouring Symonds St.

The university administration and Auckland City Council yesterday announced an agreement to work together during the development of the Symonds St sector of a $32 million central transit corridor for buses and possibly light-rail between Britomart and Newmarket.

They marked their signing of a memorandum of understanding with confirmation of a plan to close Alfred St, which runs through the main university campus between Princes St and Symonds St, to all traffic except Link and City Circuit buses from the end of this year.

That will be followed by the city council's construction of the transit corridor over about 18 months from early next year, a project which will involve closing Grafton Bridge for structural strengthening during the second half of the construction period.

Motorists will this weekend get a foretaste of making do without the bridge, when it is closed to all vehicles from Friday night to early Monday for load-testing.

They will have to use detours through Grafton Rd or Khyber Pass Rd to reach Auckland City Hospital from the central business district, although the bridge will remain open to cyclists and pedestrians.

Mayor Dick Hubbard said that would be a precursor to when the bridge was closed to general traffic from 7am to 7pm each week day once the corridor was opened as a priority route for buses in 2008.He envisages the corridor becoming "a continual bus travelator" between central Auckland and Newmarket.

Buses will eventually be running every 30 seconds in their own lanes and making savings of up to 14 minutes on peak-hour trip times.

The city council agreed to close Alfred St to general traffic after discovering from Land Transport NZ records that it was the scene of 29 road accidents in the five years to December 31.

One thing though - wouldn't you think an article titled "students welcome street closure" and with the intro "Auckland University students are relieved a dangerous road in their midst will close to all traffic" might talk to and quote, you know, an actual student?

OK, here's perhaps something to back up my conspiracy or not. Depending on your opinion on semantics.

In todays herald we have the result to a question which I assume they polled over the telephone.

The questions:
Was it OK of Helen Clark to call Don Brash's politics 'corrosive and cancerous'?
NO 73.6% YES 20.1%

Do you think Don Brash is right to call Labour 'corrupt' for using public funds to finance its election pledge card?
YES 71.8% NO 38.4%

Well the general opinion seems fairly clear but I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense from a 'scientific' point of view to word the questions in exactly the same way. I reckon those questions are designed to make people more likely to go with NO on the first one and YES on the second one.

ie.
Do you think Helen Clark is right to call Don Brash's politics 'corrosive and cancerous'?

OR

Was it OK of Don Brash to call Labour 'corrupt' for using public funds to finance its election pledge card?

I'm pretty sure these polls deliberately aim to cause controversy/boost ratings/ readership. And the best way to do that is to cause maximum damage/embarrassment to the ruling party. And I also believe that those thinking up and writing the poll questions slant their work to do just that.

And if National was in power they'd probably be doing the same.

Nice conspiracy theory OR JUST PLAIN FUCKING OBVIOUS??!! I'll be the judge.

I’m in the Amazon. In a place called las joyas de sachas. It should be a pretty town, but it is the text book definition of an ecological and human disaster. The girl here is in a "soccer pitch" and that dark horizontal line is indeed the petrol vein. This is the place that Texaco came tearing into, and pulled out as much crude oil as possible with very little given to environmental and human health. The public outcry of Texaco’s handicraft forced them to change their name to Chevron. You know, a new name means a new history, no?

Despite Texaco / Chevron rubbing the slate clean, the after effects of their work in the Amazon is still devastating, as all the new petroleum developers continue to follow a few basic rules: pay nothing to environmental sustainability, pay very little to the Ecuadorian government (only $4 - $7 of every barrel of oil pulled out of Ecuador, actually stays in Ecuador), and pay the workers next too nothing.

Oil workers in sachas get paid about $120 a month, when the work is good. If it is slow, or there is maintenance to be done on the pipeline, that number goes down…a lot. The rates of cancer, according to some local doctors, are skyrocketing! Cancer is just about ready to takeover as the number one killer in sachas. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment, to have a first world disease compete among diseases of the poor for the champion of morbidity. I can see the mayor now, broadcasting to all how 25 oil workers died from cancer, while only 14 pregnant mothers died on the road to the hospital to give birth (this is quite a common occurrence, as despite the abundance of Texas tea, locals can hardly afford anything, let alone a working vehicle with petrol in it).

So now, I’m curious. About 6,000km to the north and a little to the west is Alberta. Canada’s very own American State. In June I was passing through the town of Whitecourt, another oil town. Whitecourt is struggling, in its own way, as it can’t build enough houses or schools to accommodate the growing population that is seeking fortune on the oil fields. Car dealers can’t keep up with the demand for hummers, and the guy selling big screen TV’s is struggling to keep inventory in his store for more than a day.

At the local Boston Pizza, the young oil workers, almost all high school drop-outs who abhor any idea of higher education as salaries of $100,000 for a guy without grade 12 math is pretty hard to turn down, are doing lines of cocaine in the bathroom. They just can’t spend their money fast enough, so it goes up their nose. Without their grade 12, and the mentality of a spoiled kid in the candy store, they spend and spend.

What I can’t figure out is why my pals in Whitecourt, who don’t have enough math skills to do their own taxes, have the right to furiously spend money as if it were on fire. And in the light of the bonfire comes the chatter of how Alberta needs private healthcare, more private schools, and won’t give one cent from the oil boom to other provinces who are struggling with public debt.

Meanwhile in the broiling Amazon, oil workers only have the right to work, get paid next to nothing and die from being poisoned. Oil is oil. Be it from Alberta or Ecuador. The world market says there is no difference between oil pulled out of ground by a group of guys who get paid $100,000 a year compared to another group of guys who do the very same job, and sell the proceeds to the very same market, for about $1400 a year.

Halliburton and friends should have an annual worker exchange program! The boys from Alberta should come down to the Amazon and get cancer, and the Ecuadorians should enjoy a month in Whitecourt complete with nightly visits to Boston Pizza’s bathroom.

In many ways Alberta is the whitewash of oil. It justifies the extraction, because life is good for those who do it. But, the grim reality is that most of the world’s oil is pulled out of the ground by the desperate of the earth, who either have to suffer through bad health or brutal violence, and in the case of Iraq…both! If the entire world’s oil was pulled out of the ground with same lifestyle and mentality as it is in Alberta, we would be paying a solid $20 a gallon for fuel. No questions there.

But most of the world’s population enjoys bargain prices on oil, and complain about the imposed taxes that get thrown in there. It’s the brutality of labour conditions coupled with trade policies that ensure that next to no money remains in the communities of oil workers; money that could be put into safety equipment, transportation systems and basic social services that could do something about the monthly occurrence of a dead-would-be-mother lying in the ditch 20km from the nearest hospital. Spikes in energy prices might occur from time to time when speculators smell war, or hurricanes, but the baseline price, is based on places like sachas. Places torn open and left to rot, with absolutely no capacity to take care of those in need.

It’s the same philosophy that lies in Whitecourt, only seen through the fun-house mirror that is the global economy.

Is it just me or will the poll which comes out in a week or so's time have Labour with a very slight lead over National?

The Herald/TV ONE or whatever the fuck poll always has National with a decent sort of lead and probably has done so for about 2 bloody years. Shame they have never had power over that time despite taking a lead into the election and out of it according to the herald's polling 'source'.

I was polled a while ago by them and got the very vague impression that the person polling me was not a Labour supporter. Just the way she inhaled/suppressed laughter/reaction on a couple of my responses. I also found the questions just slightly dodgy. It was almost like a gut feeling rather than anything like: "Labour suck, do you a) agree, b) not disagree, c) support National or d) support those bloody pinko liberals.

Anyway's let's wait and see what poll B shows.

I was just reading Lan Le-Ngoc's incredibly engaging account of being a refugee, courtesy of David Haywood on PA, and after the wonderful accounts of a childhood in Saigon, a semi-accidental migration, acceptance as a refugee, education to PhD level in New Zealand, and building a family here, if ends like this:

The only trouble - and this is very hard for me to say - is that these days I'm not entirely sure if New Zealand wants me. I feel that I'm appreciated in my profession and within the science community, but on the streets I get a very different reception. People who don't know me will often treat me quite rudely. In fact, sometimes they are actually insulting.

This behaviour is a comparatively new phenomenon - just in the last five years or so. I never saw it when I was a teenager, and I certainly didn't live in a posh area or attend any sort of exclusive school. I had summer jobs picking fruit in the orchards down in Clyde, and worked with all sorts of New Zealanders; and I don't recall any incidents of racism at all. But recently it seems to be everywhere. I've had people shouting abuse at me from cars. Even children - that's the worst.

Only a few weeks ago I dropped my daughter off at school, and as I went back to my car there were some kids standing at the front gate. Just primary school children - only nine or ten years old. And one of them shouted at me: "You f**king Asian. Go home!" [...]

I suspect that part of the responsibility for such attitudes can be laid at the feet of certain politicians. The rhetoric of people like Winston Peters and Don Brash has actually promoted anti-immigrant sentiment. It was probably always there to a certain extent, but when senior politicians start spouting this sort of nonsense then it isn't merely airing the views of a racist minority - it actually starts to incite racism.

Easily-led people take such political rhetoric as legitimization of their own bigoted views. They think it gives them carte blanche to treat immigrants rudely in shops, or to shout insults from their cars. Of course, I'm not suggesting that this is the intention of Peters or Brash. They're just doing it to get votes. I'm sure that after the election they forget all about it. But they don't realize the long-term impact that it's having on people like me and my family - who can be easily identified as having ancestry from somewhere other than Europe.

The level of racism in this country is fucking disgusting. It comes from self-appointed guardians of national character (and they're not all white), and it is directed at anyone who can be assumed, for the purposes of a bigoted fuckwit, to be an immigrant: most obviously Asians, but also people who are visible by virtue of their accents, etc (except Brits, of course, or at least the white ones, who are universally loved for some reason). Paul Buchanan's recent account of reactions to his American origins are instructive:

"...I have in the past couple of years, particularly related to some public commentary I’ve made, had some nasty emails saying, ‘bloody Yank, go back home’. I’ve mentioned this to some of the very close friends I have in this country now and they’ll say, ‘Look, it’s just some nutter who had nothing better to say’, and I do believe that, but it’s only begun to manifest itself in the past couple of years. I went seven years without anyone ever saying anything other than a good-natured joke about my citizenship."

Grow up New Zealand! Treat individuals as individuals. And smack anyone who does otherwise.

Donnie Boy Brash has warmed over one of his favourite themes: "there aren't any real Maoris left anyway!" To predictable howls of outrage.

I've commented on this particular line of thought in the past:

Who is a Maori anyway?
Brash on those Maoris, II
Brash on those Maoris, III

To reiterate what I've said before: it could well be useful for all New Zealanders to start recognizing the level of hybridity in the community, and thus dilute the "iwi vs kiwi" mindset, and for individuals to recognize all aspects of their heritage, to the extent that they are known. But it's not for Brash to cast doubt on how "Maori" some individuals really are. Which he has previously done with reference to skin colour (see complaint about "pale-skinned Maori" at powhiri). Will he pick up the challenge I issued last year and produce a nice colour chart on "how to spot a real Maori" in time for the next election? I think he knows some people who'd be willing to pay for it.

From one of my favourite websites: http://moderndrunkardmagazine.com/

40 Rock Solid Reasons to Get Drunk Tonight
1. If you don't drink that booze, by God, someone else will.

2. The brewing industry alone employs 1.7 million people and that's a lot of mouths to feed.

3. Bad ass nicknames like “Chuggybear,” “The Alabama Hamma,” “Pukey McPukerson”
are not awarded to people who stay home to do laundry.

4. Your favorite bar stool needs just one more sitting to break it in.

5. This is the one and only night your soul mate will wander into the bar. Seriously.

6. Word on the street is the booze has been trash talking you all day.

7. Without your brilliant wit and charm all those poor bartenders will be so dreadfully bored.

8. Dude, after what you did last time, you gotta go back out there and explain yourself.

9. It’s far better to have a good time you won’t remember than a dull one you will.

10. Remember that English high school teacher you and your pals used to call “Mr. McTightass?” You are so starting to remind me of him.

11. You can bet something really important and worthy of celebration happened on this day at sometime or another.

12. How the hell can you walk around sober when you’re an insignificant speck in an infinite and uncaring universe?

13. Churchill and FDR got drunk, Hitler didn’t. So what are you, some kind of Nazi?

14. If you don’t you’ll wake up in the morning all bright eyed and bushy tailed, and who the hell wants to go through life acting like a goddamn squirrel?

15. Your friends can’t have a good time without you.

16. Your friends might have a good time without you.

17. The Man says you shouldn’t and you don’t want to upset the Man, eh slavebot?

18. There is a 1000 percent better chance you will land a starring role in the upcoming Paris Hilton video Vegas Orgy.

19. Your lawn is so much more comfortable when you’re loaded.

20. You’re much less likely to remember doing all that embarrassing stuff.

21. That feisty barmaid might finally, you know, pick up on what you’re laying down.

22. Listen, are we down on this goddamn rock to have a good time or watch other people have a good time on TV?

23. Your girlfriend has rented a bunch of chick flicks you can snuggle to.

24. You're under a lot of stress and if you don’t get crazy drunk you might do something crazy sober.

25. You gotta figure the odds of getting thrown in the drunk tank twice in one month are practically negligible.

26. If you don't hunt the booze, the booze will surely hunt you.

27. When you write your memoirs you won’t have to go through the hassle of making up a bunch of decadent adventures.

28. Al-Qaeda forbids drinking and since when did you start taking orders from Al-Qaeda?

29. Let’s face it: modern life is a shit storm and booze is the only umbrella without any holes in it.

30. 7-11 nachos with extra cheese substitute and chili only taste good when you can’t remember eating them.

31. You did your goddamn monkey dance for the Man and now you get your monkey treat.

32. God hates the sight of you.

33. God won't stop staring at you.

34. Your boss gets all weirded out when you get drunk during the day.

35. Three Stooges episodes you've watched a hundred times are suddenly hilarious again.

36. The day will come when you will have to single-handedly face death, and there isn't a person alive who can tell you what will happen next.

37. Hemingway shot himself after being sober for two months.

38. When your coworkers ask “What did you get up to last night?” you can smile all cool like and say “Maaaaaan, you don't wanna know,” instead of chirping “I alphabetized my DVD collection and found out I have two copies of The Truth About Cats and Dogs! Two!”

39. Remember your childhood dream of meeting a brewery heiress and jet-setting around the world on her dime? You think that's going to happen while sitting in your goddamn apartment watching Captain Picard surrender the Enterprise for the tenth straight episode?

40. It's so much easier to ring up those old flames and explain exactly where they went wrong. —Frank Kelly Rich

The link is in the post below. Polar Bob making some good comments in the forum thread as well.

Sione needs to step back. The people that post in that forum are massively supportive of the Warriors players. Sometimes to the point of making me want to puke. As long as a guy puts in on the field and behaves like an adult towards his team mates and the fans then the fans love them.

The second they start to put number one first is the second they deserve to get it where it hurts and that's what he has done. It doesn't matter if you are a team player most of the time. It has to be ALL of the time. The one and only time for being selfish is when contracts come up and you try and get the best financial deal possible. Outside that it's you who has to burn your arse off meeting those obligations.

Like I said at the end of my post, you guys ( and ladies ) can make up your minds. Since 2003 I have been looking at this site to see what the fans thought about me, people say to not take notice but I couldn't help it, especially posts that shot me down I would use to try and motivate myself to stick it to them. To say i am self centred and not team orientated....... I went to the club and asked for a pay cut to try and retain webby....I was met with a " thats nice of you" and that was that. I was the one who went out to try and make the aussies boys feel welcome by going out with them, playing poker with them and narrowing the gap between aussies and the poly boys outside of training times even though I stayed on the other side of the city to them. Some of you people have no Idea what goes on behind the scenes and are quick to judge by merely reading or making up your own stuff. I will always support my friends in the club ( notice how I didnt say former teamates) because they are truly a special bunch of guys. I thank you for those who have supported me and wish you guys all the best, as for those who still insist I am "a bad egg", what more can I say but thanks for your honest opinions. Just like that ad " KNOW ME BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME ". Last post.

Seems legit. Who knows? Posted at 9:50pm. Maybe he's had a few beers and is crying over his type writer. Thought I'd better cut and paste it incase it gets deleted by him, the club or the moderators.

http://www.nzwarriors.com/viewtopic.php?t=9729&sid=50a16f27da7a3d1205cf191bd01d9ba1

Alot has been said and written about me over the past month and I want to clear up a few things before I leave. I am sorry to anyone who I may have offended during my time at the club but there was alot going on behind the scenes that people dont know about. I wanted to leave at the end of 2005 wtih Francis, Monty, Tevita and Feka. The club was going through alot of changes, front office and coaching staff, and you can choose to accept it or move on. I wanted to move on as I felt I needed a fresh start as I started feeling I would get complacent where I was. I expressed to the club how I was feeling and was told that if I stayed I would play 6 and that they would build the club around me. This was exactly the challenge I needed and so decided to give up a test jersey in pursuit of becoming an Integral part of the club. After 2 games I found myself back at 2nd row and was really dissapointed, on top of that I was told that I wasnt worth the money I was on. I gave up a test jumper for what..... then being told that I was overpaid?. The season went on and I wasn't enjoying my footy so I went back to the club and asked for a release, they denied me and started talking me up again, by that time my mind was made up. After awens luncheon i met with officials and was told that no matter how much I played up, they were not going to release me and that everytime I did they would just keep fining me and fining me and a Large suspended fine was put in place hoping to deter me from future mishaps. Angry and frustrated I had to get out and what was to follow was somthing I regret doing but had know choice. When your unhappy, even if it's a 9 to 5 job or playing footy.....YOur unhappy. There is alot more that happend behind the scenes but wont say as it may open up a can of worms and I could get inserious trouble........What the hell. I found out the club was going to brush me next year because I had asked for a release, how they did it to Francis, BATercard. Im off to england now and looking forward to a fresh start, I had several nrl club offers but needed to get away as I would be under as much scrutiny in Oz than back here. Thats what really happend and you people can make up your minds. I feel like a weight has been lifted of my shoulders I wish my brothers and club nothing but sucess next year.

Rodney Hide is an intelligent man, although you often wouldn't know it when he's in full politicking mode. As with Peter Dunne, he is capable of nuanced argument and a pragmatic, balanced approach, on occasion. On other occasions both Dunne and Hide utter the most irredeemable shit. As do most party ideologues on a constant basis.

But, in any case, here's where I agree with him. In fact, I agree with pretty much everything he has to say.

Well, apart from the second and third sentences of this assessment, given Helen Clark's recent comments about the "cancerous" Don Brash. Man, has she got a bee in her bonnet at the moment.

Rodney Hide: It can always get worse. But it won't. Eveyone including the media will now pull back because of the public backlash.

As I suggest over at NRT, while there is little point in playing the "but you started it game" (i.e., was it Judith Collins? was it Trevor Mallard? was it Don Brash?) the most divisive political comment I can recall was from Brash during one of the election debates, where he unambiguously suggested that Helen Clark, and anyone supporting Labour, was not a "mainstream New Zealander". I've always thought he can fuck off after that comment.

Anyway, I've already spilled enough words on this nonsense. So here's some good words from Rodney:

Rodney Hide: It has nothing to do with the EBs or the AG report. It has everything to do with the tactics that National and Labour have adopted. It was a big call for National to label Helen Clark and her ministers corrupt. Not in a throwaway line but consistently. Politicians don't like being called corrupt...

Rodney Hide: The AG's report doesn't show corruption. If it did National would be corrupt too. They were found to have misspent 10k. They would be corrupt too – just not as successful! I could see it was going to get ugly once the Nats went down the tactic of consistently labeling Labour corrupt. I also saw it as diminishing Don Brash's image of being above politics and talking about the real issues that confront the nation.

Rodney Hide: I would share it equally between National and Labour. The Greens, Maori Party, ACT and United all want to debate the issues. Winston just wants to enjoy his bauble. And then these big two old parties wanting to slug it out on issues that don't matter.

Rodney Hide: ... National and Labour have made themselves appear to the casual observer to be as bad as each other.

Rodney Hide: The serious observers have their minds already made up. They know who they are voting for. They agree with National that Labour is corrupt and likewise agree with Labour that National is crooked. New Zealanders accept that half of all politicians are crooked – they just disagree about which half!

Well said, Rodney, you've earned my tax dollars this week. I don't agree with your party's policies, but I admire your ability to offer sensible comment and analysis.

North Harbour Stadium an option
New stadium being investigated
Sep 20, 2006
Rugby officials are being reminded not to forget North Harbour Stadium as an option for the 2011 World Cup.

While all the talk of a new national stadium has surrounded Eden Park and the waterfront, Albany's stadium been a glaring omission in the discussions.

Harbour Stadium CEO Brendon O'Connor says he's not saying they should necessarily play host to the final, but they should at least be assessed as an option by officials.

O'Connor says he's written to World Cup Minister Trevor Mallard and will hopefully speak to him soon to discuss a way of moving forward.

Brendon O'Connor says everything's perfectly set up at Harbour Stadium as they have significant public transport advantages and they're already largely zoned for further stadium development.

Sure it is near the northern motorway but shit, look on a map and you'll see it's hardly even in Auckland. Albany was set up as a pseudo satellite city.

Takes us about 20 minutes to get there from Massey and when the highway goes through properly we would be able to take a few minutes off that but for those to the west, south and east of central Auckland you would have a shit of a time to get there.

Not to mention the fact that it would be 10% full for most matches thereafter.

Floating Stadium please!!!

What we could then do is drive it up the Waitemata and people could hop on at the Te Atatu Peninsula, then drive it round the bend to Takapuna where a few more could get on and so forth.

It would make ejections cooler as well, because we could show them being thrown into the water and swimming for their life on the big screen at halftime.

"I’ll malinger on your block and
Give the finger to a cop and
Pick a lock before I knock and
Set you up to get on top"
-- RHCP, Get on Top

Police state #1: Giving the finger to the Police helicopter, or appearing to do so, gets you pulled out of a restaurant (and a flash one at that) for a "stern talking to" by the jackbooted representatives of the state. Fuck that. If the cops have time to do that, they obviously aren't busy enough. So go out and commit a real crime and give them something to do. Throw an axe into the nearest adulterous MP's office window, perhaps, and call on like-minded New Zealanders to do the same. Just make sure the Exclusive Brethren's private detective isn't following you at the time. For fuck's sake, is being a bit of an immature dick a crime in this country now? And won't the police's heavy-handed actions just encourage more people (like me, for example) to do the same and flip the bird to, err, the bird?

Police state #2: A licence (or "warrant of fitness", perhaps?) for parents. With tests "administered when a baby was born and repeated when the child turned 1, 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14." And of course compliance will be tied to "benefits" (I wonder if that includes working for families). So the real targets aren't George and Matilda Coddington-Smythe of Epsom now are they? Sure, we all know that there are some people who are parents who probably shouldn't be, but what the fuck is this bloated system of surveillance going to do about it? People have the right to reproduce (it's not a "privilege", like driving a car has become). And really no one apart from the most inept and hopelessly inebriated can't pull themselves together for the duration of a "test". Fuck that shit I say, as the proud father of none, I won't be complying. I ain't nobody's bitch!

Whenever you see a cop beatin a guy,
whenever a hungry new born baby cry,
whereever there's a fight against the blood and hate in the air
look in their eyes ma, you'll see me.................

What I find funny is people making out like being accused of being gay is like being called a rapist. And there's fair minded people saying it as well.

If I ever get said to be gay in the media I'm going to come out and say "well, no I've never had sexual relations with a man but if I did by christ I'd fuck the bastard up the arse until he was senseless and love him like there's no tomorrow, I'd suck his cock and play with his nipples all night baby".

Crude yes, but it seems to be what everybody is fascinated/repulsed by. And if you aren't gay but have no problem with people who are then it would be refreshing to say "well, um, no I'm not gay but all power to those who are".

... and like an R-18 movie, if you might be offended by it then block your ears, shut your eyes or better yet turn the tv off and go give it to your husband or wife the old fashioned way, with a back hand across the face and the missionary position into the sunset.


On a slightly different tack -
Imagine if somebody like Elton John came out and "angrily denied straight rumours" and said "how dare you throw these vile accusations at me that I like having sex with women"!!!!!

Well-known bloggers have this morning issued furious denials that Yamis, proud father of one, is gay.

"There may or may not be a photo of Yamis being enthusiastically embraced by a male friend at a party once upon a time," they admitted.

"But," the bloggers hastened to add, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS COUNTRY COMING TO?? THAT'S NOT FUCKING NEWS!! MEN CAN HUG EACH OTHER CAN'T THEY? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE YOU LITTLE CONNIVING FUCK!!"

At this point the bloggers trailled off into a stream of unrepeatable curses, before concluding: "yeah, what this guy said."

Meanwhile, the cheerful tories, led by one who admits once drunkenly dancing with a male colleague (although quite why this shock horror anecdote is relevant is anyone's guess), are trying to spin this to their advantage: "This attack on the PM and her husband comes from Investigate, not our MPs ... unlike when that evil bastard Trevor Mallard brought up 'affairs' and 'Dianne' in Parliament." Yes, well, those comments were ignored weren't they ... and rightly so.

I'm getting a bit annoyed of talk back callers, hosts and various others saying that Auckland has too many stadiums.

It's not one city in terms of sports. It's two to three.

We have three stadiums used for professional sport: Eden Park, North Harbour Stadium and Mt Smart.

And how many teams do we have that use these grounds over the course of a year?

The Blues (6-7 games)
Auckland NPC team (6 games)
North Harbour NPC team (6 games)
Counties Manukau NPC team (6 games)
The Warriors (12 games)
Auckland cricket (the odd one dayer and 4 day match on the main field)
New Zealand Knights (11 games plus 2 warm up matches)
Bartercard Cup teams (about 10 matches)
All Blacks (2 games)
Black Caps (2 ODIs and a 5 day test)
Kiwis (1 test a year)
Odd Auckland club rugby game (maybe 5 games)
Odd Auckland club league game (maybe 5 games)
Odd North Harbour club game (maybe 5 games)
* each club comp uses the fields for finals days and the odd other curtainrasier match

By my count that is roughly 90 or so days of sport and there is no way that you can
a) coordinate all of that in one or two venues
b) keep the playing surfaces up to scratch

You could also factor in the Big Day Out concert which takes up the whole surface at Mt Smart and the odd concert at North Harbour Stadium as well.

The football players in the A-League have been complaining about the quality of the surface at North Harbour Stadium in the first two matches there and you can see from the pictures that it is sandy and uneven.

And why?

Because it has had several Bartercard Cup league games through winter and more recently some North Harbour rugby games. It is used virtually every single weekend for an entire year.

Can you imagine if we didn't have that field and all the sides who use it had to squeeze into Mt Smart and Eden Park?

Three stadiums is ideal for Auckland at the moment and it would have to even be an outside possibility that we look at upgrading one or two more so that they get used a shade less.

Sydney would have roughly 15 stadiums which seat over 20,000 thanks to having it's 9 NRL teams (with St George having two home grounds as do the Wests Tigers, while North Sydney Oval is now disused by the NRL but still used for lower grade league and cricket). They also have the olympic stadium and telstra stadium. And they have the Sydney Cricket Ground and Concord Oval to boot.

So yeah, wasted then, just shut up about it.

I'm sure that most of the world has heard about the recent shooting in Montreal. A 25 year old man, after playing too many violent video games, living with his mother, and probably not getting laid enough, went to his college and started to shoot those around him.

Michael Moore told the world in bowling for columbine that Canada isn't big on gun killings. We're different. Guess what Mike? This is the third major incident at a Montreal University / College that has involved people parishing because some maniac decided to spray bullets! Canada is no more immune to gun violence than anywhere else. A Canadian can conjure up motivation to spray bullets just as easily as anyone else, be it from the U.S., New Zealand, Iraq or Lebanon.

When someone convinces themselves that it makes sense to spray bullets and kill themself after the slaughter, or to blow up a bus with TNT strapped to their belt, it is, in the end, a personal decision. The methodology may be a bit different, (bullets versus suicide bomb), and the mental gymnastics might vary as well (I'm a sexually frustrated social invert versus I'm a sexually frusturated social invert who expects 70 virgins to appear for my martyrdom), but it is ultimately a civilian targeting civillians.

Montreal's chief of police Chief Yvan Delorme, has assured the country that terrorism has nothing to do with this. The shooter was just crazy. George Bush would agree. The guy played violent video games, and didn't read the Koran, so he's free of terrorist charges. Had he mentioned Allah at somepoint, then it might qualify.

Hey Delorme and any right wing pundit, you've just had a major violent act that left people dead and terrorized. If this isn't terrorism what is?

Why shouldn't this warrant a full military response? Let's declare war on sexually-frusturated-video-game-playing assholes that live with their mothers! Let's round them up, and send them to a mystery base somewhere. Let's make sure that everyone who enters a college has to disrobe as if they were boarding a plane! No more liquids in lecture. Cancel science class, it's too dangerous.

If Canada doesn't respond with these actions, because law enforcement and politicians understand that it would be useless, than surely to hell, we can convince ourselves that such measures in the supposed 'real war on terror' are equally bunk, and redundant.

Could be me.

My wife has just given birth to our first child so instead of talking about league every other day I may be talking about crap filled nappies.

It's a lovely little girl. What do you reckon? Golf or tennis?

Anyway, back to the hospital. She didn't make it easy on poor mummy. I was completely shot to bits and I had the easy job.

God, so many potentially funny titles to go with. "Gone by lunchtime?" is tempting. So the wingers' spin on this is that Labour departed from all conventions by all-but-bringing-the-issue-to-public-attention through interjections in the House. That Labour stepped into the gutter - way, way down into the gutter in fact - to distract attention from the pledge card issue.

Take it with a large grain of salt.

1/ If Labour had wanted to publicize this story, it could have done so before the last election - like, when it was seriously in danger of losing. By August 05 I knew about Brash's affair, Bennyasena knew about Brash's affair, Yamis knew about Brash's affair, our respective parents knew about Brash's affair ... so it's fair to say that every Labour MP and candidate knew about it too. And yet they said nothing, even when at serious risk of losing the Treasury benches.

2/ The media didn't bite on Mallard's interjections last week. It was Brian Connell - the cat abuser from Rakaia - who brought the issue to public attention. Quite why is anyone's guess - the guy makes Phillip Field look like an asset to his party.

3/ If you don't want an affair to come to light, don't have one. Simple as that.

4/ Maybe, just maybe, after all the years (24 or so by my count!) of some right-wingers, including some National MPs, taunting Helen Clark about her marriage, and her sexuality, and after so many members of National trying to paint themselves as the saviours of marriage during the Civil Unions Bill debate, there's the issue of hypocrisy here. As there was when Bill Clinton got his blowjob after years of harping on about family values, and criticizing lone mothers. My own view is that if you're going to run on "family values" (which I don't think you should - it's 99.7% bullshit) you'd better make sure your own side is squeeky fucking clean. And of course it never is. I'd wager most people have done plenty of stupid, regrettable things in their lives, and politicians are no better or worse.

I include Clinton in point 4 above to emphasize it's not a left/right issue. Peter Dunne and Don Brash are the two New Zealand party leaders I can think of who have, from time to time, tried to make their marriages political assets, or at least politically relevant. A risky path unless you have absolutely nothing to hide, I would have thought.

Meant to say: I do think it is irrelevant who the other party in the alleged affair is. Whether she's Gladys the tealady from Te Awamutu or the CEO of a major international corporation makes no difference from my perspective (contrary to Trotter last night on TV3). It would only be publicly relevant if there was some corruption involved (e.g., if Gladys was given her job as tealady because Don had called her boss, and threatened to make his life impossible under any future National-led government if he didn't).

The sole charge Taranaki policeman charged with drink-driving after going to a fatal crash on his day off has been let off without conviction.
"You were dealing with an emergency," Judge Louis Bidois told Jonathan Erwood.
"You had to make a snap decision, effectively on the hoof."
Mr Erwood's supporters, packed into the New Plymouth District Court, burst into applause at the decision.

So it's official then, if you drink and drive you're a bloody legend.

In other news, those aloof wankers on their six-figure salaries down in Parliament have decided they are above the law.

Labour strategist Pete Hodgson says his party will not repay any taxpayer money unlawfully spent on its election pledge card.
His statement yesterday was the first time a senior member of the party has said it has no intention of paying any money back.

Once again, it's one rule for the people another for their rulers.

There was a great story in the Herald a while ago (can't link to it because of their gay user-pays charges) about a solo-mum being forced to repay money she had been overpaid by a Government department - despite being on the bones of her arse and having to support kids.

"You just have to pay it back, it was their mistake but there's just no choice, it's the Government I'm dealing with," was her basic argument.

And she's dead right.

If the police confirm they are investigating the theft of e-mails from Don's computer does this mean Labour et al are in possession of/knowingly received stolen property?

The National Party has lodged an official complaint with police over what it believes is the theft of emails from the party leader Don Brash.A National spokesperson has confirmed that party officials have spoken to police in Wellington, although he would not say when the complaint was made. There has been continued speculation around the Beehive that hundreds of emails to and from Dr Brash have found their way into the hands of a third party, and are in the process of being written up as a book.At the time of last year's election, some of Dr Brash's correspondence was made public and in recent weeks, the Labour Party has hinted that more Exclusive Brethren related emails could surface.

And did the farmer find a small boy with super human strength and a piercing gaze near this meteor?

The police say an unusual object has been found on a farm in Canterbury near where a meteor streaked through the sky yesterday.They say a farmer found the object, which measures 10 by 5 centimetres, on his farm south of Christchurch.The meteor caused a loud sonic boom when it entered the atmosphere sparking hundreds of calls to emergency services from concerned people.The police have taken the object, which the farmer described as like nothing he had ever seen before, to be analysed.Meanwhile the Carter Observatory in Wellington hopes to pinpoint today whether the meteor hit the ground.The Observatory's senior education officer, John Feild, says he will find out today whether radars owned by the Civil Aviation Authority, or Ohakea and Wigram airbases picked up the meteor.He says if the radars recorded it, they might also be able to establish which area it broke up in.But Mr Field says if the meteor did break up, the pieces could be as small as a grain of sand.

After Toddy was sentenced for conspiring to buy cocaine, he launches a media offensive based on sorrow and contriteness. As did Marc Ellis after his conviction. And of course the poor bastards have no choice if they want to work and prosper in New Zealand again. But wouldn't it be great if just for once someone stood up to the prohibitionists and their media cheerleaders and said "The only drug crime is the crime of drugs being illegal. It's my body and I'll put what I want into it. It is no business of the State to tell me otherwise, or to threaten my liberties for consuming substances I want to consume. Taxpayer dollars should not be wasted prosecuting people for inhaling, injecting or ingesting those drugs which have arbitrarily been declared illegal."

Note this is not the same as saying that anti-social, dangerous, and/or violent behaviour associated with drug use (or anything else for that matter) is not a problem, and is not properly subject to criminal sanction. But if Toddy had sat at home, snorted a few lines (and of course I know it "wasn't for his own use"), watched some TV, passed out on the couch, whatever the fuck, who cares ... none of my business.

And this is the last thing I have to say on this petty incident, although of course others will continue to mouth off. So, yeah, everyone keep looking over their shoulders, because Detective Sergeant John Sowter from the Auckland Drug Squad is watching you.

I was visiting Philadelphia a couple of weeks back. Great town. Lot’s of historic sites, lush greenery, pretzels second to none, and of course scores of Quakers. Oh those crazy religious sects and their oatmeal.

The one thing that rattled me, and this may be fitting seeing how today marks the fifth anniversary of the United States evoking realpolitik foreign policy and Orwellian domestic policy because they’re scared of their own shadow, was my visit to the Liberty Bell.

The Liberty Bell, this sad looking chime, is a sacred relic of the birth of the American nation. It really didn’t do a lot in its day, but well crafted histories incorporated this thing into the official story of America. Before 9/11 the liberty bell was merely an icon. Now, five years into this psychobabble of the war on terror, this bell is one of the top marked potential terrorist sites in the continental U.S. So they say.

Oh yes! Come visit the Liberty Bell. But before you do, be sure to empty your purses, take off your belt, empty your pockets, carry no bottled water, remove your shoes, and don’t make jokes about this process. Before you get to The Bell, you go through an ad hoc airport style security check point; and the routine of harassment begins. This is how Americans know that the government is keeping them safe, by telling them to remove their personal attire, as if it were gym time in Kindergarten.

Is it just me, or is the irony enough to choke an elephant? This Bell, symbol of revolution (despite the fact it was a wealthy white man’s revolution), spirited icon of freedom, now demands that the governing state reduce you to non-existence by forcing you to remove your clothes and accessories from your person. This Bell, emblem for the constitution, which clearly says, "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" now demands that not a single arm be brought near it, be it a Colt pistol or a bottle of Coca Cola. Sure less guns and less sugar water is probably a good thing. But it is this bell that gives every American man (sorry women, you weren’t in the program in the 1700s) a fundamental right, more fundamental than healthcare even, to bear arms and fend off harassing governors, but now this security farce castrates this bold and fearless message. How un-American.

All the hype about bombs bursting in the air, and rocket’s red glare really comes crashing down when you see the sad and scared little Liberty Bell today. It, along with all of the “glorious attributes” for which it represents, cowers behind the indefatigable defence of homeland security; safe and sound from all of the bearded bomb throwers. Even more dismal is the utter complacency of every American to visit the Bell or board a plane. No one protests or even dares to murmur a complaint. “You’re seeing America at its worst,” my friend told me. Indeed, this place born of a narrow spirit of revolution (again, mostly to secure tax benefits for the elite) may just grow completely senile from utter pacification.

Ben Franklin, while helping to draft the constitution, gazed on George Washington’s chair and saw a half sun. Franklin asked whether that sun was rising or setting, and also whether if his new country, like that sun, was in the dawn or the dusk. Ben concluded that he saw a morning. I’m wondering now, only five years into the war on terror, 20+ years into the war on drugs, and over 200 years into the war against everyone else, if that sun is finally setting. Because if this Bell, that supposedly called people to it to bear arms, now asks that people put their guns away, I think that this time the U.S. may have truly lost complete sense of itself.

Reason #12

Last night we were watching C4's "12 Reasons to Love 1992" which was pretty sweet in terms of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Chillis all being in the top 5. But then what was number one we thought, racking our brains for information some 14 years old.

Lo and behold it was G'n'R's "November Rain". Ms_Red immediately opined: "They won't show all of this, it's like, 11 minutes long!!" But then I started grooving on it, and forgot this dire prediction.

Then, during the most climactic scene, whereupon Slash walks out of the church for his patented desert power solo, starts winding it up and ......... CUT. It just stops. Halfway though the song they've been building up to for the last hour and a half. Cue some new, forgettable hip-hop song which will not make the "top 312 of 2006". Ghetto!

The number of times I have seen it spelt 'Manakau' is getting ridiculous. It is the second largest harbour in the South Hemisphere (or so I just read, with the Kaipara being the largest) and home to hundreds of thousands of people.

And low and behold on 3News tonight they have a caption reading that Barry Curtis is mayor of Manakau City Council. I have seen it wrong on television several times with the last possibly being on the news a couple of weeks ago. I expect it from letters to the editors and my high school students who often spell more words wrong than right in a single sentence. But from our TV stations?!

Give yourselves an uppercut or else get your staff on your fucking spelling bee TV shows.

With the blackbirds in the backyard in full cry by 6:05 am (and possibly earlier), and darkness still falling so soon after 6:00 pm that it's impossible to do any work around the garden, or go for an after-dinner walk, I say it's time to bring forward daylight savings. Bugger this waiting till October nonsense, how about the first weekend of September. All this light before 7:00 am is basically wasted, and the birds are really annoying me with their happy chirps.

Meanwhile, the Hon. George Hawkins can't get into a Parliamentary elevator, and Tony Blair is finally on the way out, albeit in a protracted manner. Just quit man, nobody likes you. And the best comment I have read about the proposed local government merger(s) in Auckland was in yesterday's letters to the Herald editor. It was to the effect: "By how much will my rates be reduced, and how many unnecessary local government workers will be laid off? The answers I suspect are zero and zero." Hmmm, food for thought.

So we are going to get a tropical cyclone hitting NZ last summer they say?

Tropical cyclone hit NZ? NUP!

It's going to be a warmer than usual winter they say?

Warmer than usual winter? NUP!

It's going to rain in Auckland today?

Rain in Auckland today? NUP! Not a drop. Blue skies and the sun out.

Going to be a dry spring they reckon?

Get your brollies back out people. It's going to piss down for three months.