From the 'they-must-be-kidding' file - I've just been looking at some comicbook sites online, and a company has been producing a series of comicbooks starring 'Barrack the Barbarian', screeching enchantress Hillary and a very scantily clad Sarah Palin. I thought it was bad enough they elected the guy, now they're making comics about him? Unbelievable...
The stats for last month. Looks a bit like the readout from the machine that goes ping.
Page Loads : 9800 (may=10270 apr=11760)
Average per day - 327 (331, 392)
Unique Visitors : 5982 (6387, 6241)
Average per day - 199 (208, 206)
Posts : 47 (71, 90)
Comments : 429 (472, 524)
Most comments for one post: 36 (77, 47)
Technorati Authority : 35 (44, 45)
Alexa Ranking : 302376 (294661, 335135)
NZ Alexa Ranking : 593 (644, 475)
Here's my calculation for the Tumeke NZ Blogosphere Statistics based on the following formula:
+ 199 (Daily Unique visitor traffic from Statcounter for June 09)
+ 35 (Technorati Authority)
+ 11 (Posts: 47/30*7)
+ 33 (Comments: (36+35+33+28) /4)*
= 278 (306, 312)
Here's a look from 1 June 2008 through to 30 June 2009. Interestingly, not too much different in terms of total page load activity, but on average a better unique visitor count.
Whilst we wait for Scrubone's Saturday Night Humour, and following on from the hilarious music video (well, I thought so) from last week, here's an equally amusing clip titled "Evolution of Dance" although most of it seemed to highlight a few notable efforts from the 60's to 90's.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Judson Laipply:
Unrelated joke for those without broadband (sorry for rubbing it in).
A guy stands in front of the Pearly Gates. St. Peter is frantically looking through the book, but then looks up and says, “I’m sorry, but your name isn’t in here.”
The guy is naturally upset. But St. Peter says, “No one knows this, but you can get in if you’ve done something heroic. Have you ever done anything heroic?”
The guys smiles and says, “Yes! I was driving along and saw a woman stranded next to her car. A gang of thugs were getting a bit too friendly with her. You could tell they were up to no good.”
He continued, “I stopped my car, got out, and walked up to the obvious ringleader, the biggest guy in the group. I punched him hard in the face - knocking him down. I turned to the rest of them and yelled ‘Anyone wants to mess with her has to go through me.”
St. Peter was impressed. “I’m surprised that’s not in the book” he said, “When did that happen?”
The guys answered, “About 5 minutes ago.”
-------
UPDATE: Actually, I think this clip is even cooler. Totally Froid.
Every year, the government seems to have no problem applying automatic increases matching the cpi or inflation. Basically, they increase taxes. Local government charges taxes too - rates. These seem to go up by double or triple cpi. My power, phone and gas bill show higher charges. The tax on alcohol went up recently, naturally under legislation that allows an automatic annual increase.
So why do we not, at the least, have the income tax thresholds go up every year on the same basis? Another example of the government double-dipping. Bastards.
It's Friday. Another frantic day that signals the close of the Financial Year, and a bit of pressure comes off at work. School holidays from next week, so I've taken some time off to spend with the kids and wade through my rather large "non-work" to do list. I suspect that I'll need a holiday at the end of this break.
My mind is mush, so with no further ado, I give you the Friday Night Free For All. It's free, it's for all and it's here because it's Friday. If you can't make it tonight, just leave a comment after the beep.
Lindsay Mitchell has the latest (published) figures from MSD around welfare payments. It's always interesting to look at where around a third of Government expenditure goes. However, what caught my eye was this:
There was a big annual increase in invalid benefit grants (36 percent) and psychological and psychiatric conditions continue to trend up with both invalid and sickness grants. Nearly all of the growth in sickness grants was due to psychological/psychiatric disorders and substance abuse.
36% increase seems an extraordinary leap. Still, perhaps politicians were worried there would be 100% leap if the Green's medical marijuana bill made it through parliament? It was voted down citing that the bill was "too flawed". Based on some of the bills going through recently (s59, EFB, ETS for example), it probably was.
Lindsay Mitchell: MSD releases "latest" figures (to June 30 2008)
The Communist is a Socialist in a violent hurry. --G.W. Gough
Don't mistake our slow moving politicians for anything but patient communists :-)
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. --Karl Marx
Notice how, in defining all parents that might smack their child as criminals, the call goes out that children "aren't the property of parents". Don't they really mean that the state will have more control over our lives when we accept their definition of a family as a mere property transaction? Don't argue on their level.
Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. --Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (anarchist, socialist, Frenchman)
Whilst some might argue that turnabout is fair play, the result is that the strong are not just exploited, they are destroyed by the weak. Consider the glue of society - trust - is brought down by the weak minded socialist politicians who make laws that whittle away at the trust we need to provide to families.
This law treats smacking as child abuse. It treats parents who might smack as untrustworthy. The result does not save children from abuse, but it does undermine the belief in the average family.
It disproportionately penalizes the groups that make society strong and cohesive. It undermines the family because it undermines our trust in imperfect but good parents. The politicians seem strong because we have allowed them this power.
People in power need to recognise their authority comes from their willingness to serve. Look at a father or a mother, in power over their children, and most effective when in service to their children. Not as a slave to do bidding, but as guardians, protectors, teachers, carers, and mentors.
You only need to look at people in positions of power who do not have this sense of service to understand why we instinctively dislike such people. That goes for abusive parents, mad bureaucrats, meddling socialists and the obvious despots.
In New Zealand, do our politicians have this sense of service?
Look at John Key's response to the 300,000+ referendum.
Look at Helen Clark and how she shelved the referendum. Look at Barnardos and how they seek to undermine the referendum.
Look at the media and how they portray the referendum.
Communists all in their attitude. Socialists in their approach.
Send the government a message and vote NO in the August Referendum. Read the question for yourself, it isn't actually complicated.
It's a question that unfortunately needs to be asked because the laws have set parents up as technically guilty for applying ANY discipline. Laws should not be made this way.
Consider how important TRUST is in our interactions with other people. This law undermines this trust. We become suspicious of outsiders. We become suspicious of motives. We become self conscious lest any minor infringement be interpreted as a major crime. This is what the state wants. They call it "being responsible". It's not.
Don't report an upset mother who might smack a naughty child, go over and offer to help. Say "Hey, I can see you are having one of those days. I know what it's like. Can I help?"
Anyway, enough ranting. Let me finish with a comment about Proudhon, an interesting chap being an original anarchist with Marxist leanings. Other than the quote above, he has a couple of famous quotes credited to him:
In critiquing capitalism, he declared "property is theft". Pretty typical for a socialist.
But then later he goes on to say "property is freedom". I could explain this in my own words, but it's late and I still have work to do, so I'll resort to (ahem) wikipedia:
In asserting that property is freedom, he was referring not only to the product of an individual's labor, but to the peasant or artisan's home and tools of his trade and the income he received by selling his goods. For Proudhon, the only legitimate source of property is labor. What one produces is one's property and anything beyond that is not.
Such an interesting thought, I think. Such thoughts however, lead Proudhon deeper and deeper into the kind of perspective that is the basis for Libertarian Socialism. It becomes merely sophisticated anarchy. It seems a waste of an interesting concept.
So now that I've wandered completely off topic and have run out of time, I'll urge you to what John Key, budding socialist, might consider raw anarchy: Vote NO in the August referendum and at least let him contemplate the nature of power, authority and trust.
In the last week Honduras has been the centre of attention for its apparent "coup" by the courts and military for kicking out a "democratically elected leader", one Manuel Zelaya. Apparently, the military physically kicked him out. Of course, the UN, Obama and just about every other authority has condemned this- and on the face of it, it seems fair enough. But is it? For there is more to this than meets the eye.
As David Farrar at Kiwiblog notes, the physical removal of Zelaya by the military was possibly the result of constitutional anarchy prompted by Zelaya himself and they were left with no choice. If this is true, why are the UN and other nations taking such a hard stance? The nutjob Chavez aside, their condemning language is instructive. For example, Obama said this:
"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter."
No mention of Honduran democracy or constitutional law and how they need to deal with it. Obama goes straight into Honduras having to follow someone else's charter. This would not be tolerated by the USA or any other nation if the roles were reversed, so whats going on?
Well, the thing is, abortion is illegal in Honduras, and they recently voted to ban the morning after pill. And back in 2007, UN officials grilled Honduran delegates over the ban on abortion in that country and called the ban "a crime". It is not a leap to imagine these same UN officials, and the most pro-death US President ever seizing upon an opportunity to usurp legitimate Honduran constitutional authority and attempt to place Zelaya back in power with a catch- work to approve abortion.
This is exactly the kind of behaviour the rabid opponents of George Bush accused him of doing in Iraq - an immoral takeover. Funny how they are quiet now, when invisible death and money are involved. And with a pro-abortion media, the hard questions will never be asked of the UN or Obama. Sickening really - one hopes Honduras stands firm.
A federal judge rejected Bernard Madoff's plea for leniency Monday, sentencing the 71-year-old swindler to spend the rest of his life in prison for an "extraordinarily evil" fraud that took a "staggering toll" on thousands of victims.
So Madoff gets 150 years in prison with no parole (none of that concurrent sentencing nonsense we get in NZ) and his wife walks away with "only" 2.5 million, losing the 80 million she felt was rightfully hers.
And maybe there's a Swiss Bank Account, and maybe there isn't.
For all those that lost their life savings, it may be a small comfort. I wonder exactly where those billions ended up. Some people have made money out of this somewhere.
Related Link: Bernie Maddoff in 150 year fixed term deposit
Here's an amusing little clip on Obama employing his super powers.
It's really my small protest against the Democrats passing the cap and trade bill last week - something that symbolizes the left wing belief that taxes fix everything, and can even control the climate.
New Zealand is bound to follow the rest of the world on the path to a new form of global taxation. George Orwell, in 1984, suggested totalitarian control might be more palatable to the populace if they (Oceania) were engaged in a ceaseless battle against the remaining superstates - Eastasia and Eurasia. That idea is slightly problematic in today's times of rapid communication.
It's a truly brilliant move therefore to make ones enemy the climate. Even Orwell would have been astounded at this master stroke of propaganda.
It's now a race for bureaucrats (UN, EU) and multinational financial trading organisations (think Enron, Saros, and the multitude of investment firms recently bailed out by US taxpayers, keen to take another slice of our pie) everywhere to set in motion a global tax and control system justifying action to avoid world doom before we find out how unsettled the science behind the inconvenient truth really is.
We only need to rename the Ministry of Environment to the Ministry of Truth, define plant food as a pollutant and put up a 13 digit counter to show how much danger we are in.
--ZenTiger
A couple of notes about my links:
My point about the EPA defining CO2 as a pollutant is merely that it gives it a fair amount of legislative clout to enact whatever economically crippling strategy it decides. Expect to see America shoot itself in the foot. We get our chance later this year at Copenhagen.
The 13 digit counter is also a masterstroke of propaganda. These 13 digits measures around 0.35% of the atmosphere (CO2) plus some additional trace elements. They never mention this huge number represents say 0.4% of the atmosphere in total.
They also label CO2 as "a major source" of greenhouse gases, and also that "Human activity such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation is a major source of these gases." Wrong on both counts.
Water vapour is the major source of greenhouse gases, which makes up the majority of the greenhouse gases, with CO2 playing a much smaller role. Most of the figures we see AGW environmentalists quote has that nice little footnote "*excludes water vapour" to exaggerate their point. However, water vapour accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect based on heat retention characteristics. AGW supporters then harp on about CO2 "forcings" and "amplifications", all of which are theories full of holes.
And to rub it in further - man-made CO2 contributions only represent 3% of the total CO2 contribution. That's hardly "major".
Related Link: Greenhouse Gases in detail
After today's News coverage on TV with John Key saying he wouldn't change the smacking law regardless of the outcome of the referendum, I got to thinking about what he said during the election about the 'will of the electorate' with regards as to why he voted against the Prostitution Bill. The below is from the NZ Herald almost exactly a year ago [bold emphasis mine]-
But the reason he changed his mind about prostitution was because some constituents visited his Helensville electorate office and suggested that supporting the bill would send the wrong signal.
A couple of the constituents had 16-year-old daughters. As parents, they felt that whether Key liked it or not, the bill would legitimise prostitution as a credible pathway for the girls.
Key said he started to think that in the end, he was a representative of these people.
He firmly believed that if he asked his electorate what they wanted, they’d want him to vote against it. “So I did. And that’s always been the view I’ve taken.”
“The initial results from the survey show that the majority of callers (more than 55 percent) do not think parents taken to court for hitting a child should be let off if they say they were disciplining the child”, says Murray Edridge, Chief Executive of Barnardos New Zealand.
Murray Edridge, Chief Executive of Barnardos New Zealand, has called on Sheryl Savill, the instigator of the petition that gathered over 300,000 signatures to pull the referendum, and "save" the country 9 million dollars.
Over 300,000 signatures makes for a compelling reason to proceed with a referendum. Actually, it's the law. Asking Savill to can the referendum disrespects all those people that signed. They signed to force the issue. They signed to ask the question.
It might be 9 million dollars, Mr Edridge, but it's tax payer dollars - it came largely from the pockets of those signatories. Let your taxes fund those pointless alcohol advertisements. You are actually telling us to save OUR money, not yours and not the government's.
Anyway, it's not Savill's referendum. She did it for the people of NZ, well, at least over 300,000 of them. It belongs to the people.
Remember that Murray Edridge.
If democracy is not as important as money, will we see Mr Edridge suggest we cancel the next general elections?
That would save huge amounts of money - perhaps hundreds of millions!
Maybe John Key can announce in advance he's not going to pay any attention to the outcome of the elections anyway...that's what he's already decided about this referendum.
Let's tell him what we think anyway.
The question is NOT "Should smacking be discouraged?"
The question is NOT "Should child abuse be illegal?"
The question is NOT "Can a judge recognise unreasonable force if it hits him on the head?"
The question actually is not any of those things.
It comes pretty close to "Should smacking be illegal?"
If the people of New Zealand agree with the politicians, who made a change to section 59 and made ALL forms of discipline technically illegal, do we round up and jail their parents first? At the very least, the Police need to investigate each and every one of them. Starting with Sue Bradford's folks.
And let's not make this about money. You've already cheapened democracy enough with your little outburst.
Barnados wants to save some of OUR money for us
Family First offer them that chance
UPDATE: Looks like I've disagreed with Murray Edridge before - Barnardos Put Politics First
It had to happen. A poll was done to see if New Zealanders thought there was any point to the upcoming smacking referendum, and surprise, surprise 75% of us think it is a waste of money.
Congratulations media people and politicians, you have achieved your aim of ensuring that the citizens of this country continue to think of themselves as completely powerless.
An extra big congratulations to John Key, who torpedoed the whole referendum at the start by saying that whatever the result, he would ignore it anyway. Not that he could understand the question of course. And like regular little yes-men, most of the media followed suit. With a couple of notable exceptions such as Karl du Fresne and Tracy Watkins, who despite everything stacked against them still regain the ability to think for themselves.
So what's wrong with apathy anyway? Why not just vote the politicians in every three years and then let them get on with it all, because most of governing is really too complicated for the likes of us peasants.Willie Whitelaw, a genial old buffer who served as Margaret Thatcher’s deputy for many years, once accused the Labour party of going around Britain stirring up apathy. Viscount Whitelaw’s apparent paradox is, in fact, a shrewd political insight, and all the sharper for being accidental. Big government depends, in large part, on going around the country stirring up apathy — creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it’s easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them.
And today in NZ, we have a National Prime Minister doing the same. By telling New Zealanders he would ignore the results the referendum, John Key was stirring up apathy. An action far more suited to a socialist who wants to expand government than a person leading a party that apparently stands for personal freedom and responsibility. This from National's website:National stands for freedom, choice, independence and ambition. We believe in less government not more red tape. We stand for personal freedom and responsibility.
It's not what you say, it's what you do that really tells everyone what you stand for. So, is National's aim to make us more like Britain?More important, there is a cost to governmentalizing every responsibility of adulthood — and it is, in Lord Whitelaw’s phrase, the stirring up of apathy. If you wander round Liverpool or Antwerp, Hamburg or Lyons, the fatalism is palpable. In Britain, once the crucible of freedom, civic life is all but dead: In Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, some three-quarters of the economy is government spending; a malign alliance between state bureaucrats and state dependents has corroded democracy, perhaps irreparably. In England, the ground ceded to the worst sociopathic pathologies advances every day — and the latest report on “the seven evils” afflicting an ever more unlovely land blames “poverty” and “individualism,” failing to understand that if you remove the burdens of individual responsibility while loosening all restraint on individual hedonism the vaporization of the public space is all but inevitable.
Wake up, New Zealanders!
Nine million dollars is nothing compared to allowing the Government, any government, run by any party, to think they can do anything, take away any liberty or right and we will just shrug and go, it's pointless protesting they don't listen anyway. They do listen, they just don't want us to know that. Our politicians need to be afraid of us, the people, otherwise democracy is dead.
Related Links:
Poll says $8.9m smacking referendum 'a waste of money' ~ NZ Herald
Democracy would be fine if it wasn't for the voters ~ Karl du Fresne
Referendums can deliver political correction ~ Tracy Watkins, Dominion Post *
Retreat into Apathy ~ Mark Steyn, National Review Online
*[UPDATE] : A wonderful Admin person at the Dominion Post website has given me the link to Tracy Watkins' opinion piece, so I can now include it in my related links. I'll keep the original title that it was published under in the paper even though it's been retitled on the link.
Stick with me on this one. Firstly, have a listen (and WATCH) of the first video to refresh your memory. Maybe 15 seconds is enough for my purposes, but if your constitution is higher, then go maybe twenty five seconds.
Then stop the video, and once you've recovered (did I tell you to have a paper bag ready? Sorry.) watch video two. This time, you should be able to handle the whole thing. Make sure you get to at least 3:09.
Hilarious. Well, I thought so.
Step 1 - minimum 15 to 25 seconds
Step 2 - Get to 3:03. Come-on, it was good!
A joke for Saturday night:
A woman was at her hairdresser’s getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:
“Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty.. You’re crazy to go to Rome. So,how are you getting there?”
“We’re taking Continental,” was the reply. “We got a great rate!”
“Continental?” exclaimed the hairdresser. “That’s a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they’re always so late. So, where are you staying in Rome?”
“We’ll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome’s Tiber River called Teste.”
“Don’t go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it’s really a dump.”
“We’re going to go see the Vatican and maybe get to see the Pope.”
“That’s rich,” laughed the hairdresser. You and a million other people trying to see him. He’ll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of your. You’re going to need it.”
A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.
“It was wonderful,” explained the woman, “not only were we on time in one of Continental’s brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.
“And the hotel was great! They’d just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it’s a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked so they apologized and gave us their owner’s suite at no extra charge!”
“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s all well and good, but I know you didn’t get to see the Pope.”
“Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I’d be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.”
Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.”
“Oh, really! What’d he say?”
He said: “Who f****d up your hair?”
