*

Friday, August 31, 2007

Property suddenly worth more

I bet the recent sub-prime fallout, which Mickey Canute does not believe exists and has done its dash, is causing more than a few would be investors to seriously eye the relatively stable property market. Most could be rightly suspicious of just how secure banks really are when the pressure goes on.

Once again, property may be the best long term vehicle to make a few dollars, after all I believe her indoors at the top has more than a few to keep her in contact with the great unwashed through being a landlord - maybe she knows something we are not privy to.

Would be King Canute might do well to have a talk to this colleague as she continues to spout forth as below.
She said a loss of confidence in the finance industry could spread to larger, more reputable firms

I agree with her, this saga has not finished, it is highly apparent that these firms rely on new investment flows to support their pyramid like schemes. I thought that was illegal, but if this govenment says it is OK it must be legal...

HT: WhaleOil for King Canute

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Corrupt Labour Government

Just Left has as recent blog entry defending the Helengrad Gag Bill and one of the commenters has left a very good comment in his reply as below.
If a government can knowingly and deliberately break the law and then ram through retrospective validating legislation then it can do anything.

We have a government composed of people who simply do not recognise the concept of government under law.

- Bernard Robertson, editor, New Zealand Law Journal.

Day by day this Labour government continues its death spiral.




Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Prisoners to get clean needles - WTF?

Excuse me while I clean up the coffee table this morning after spewing my coffee whilst reading this gem
Needle exchange programmes in prisons and counsellors in police cells are being touted as solutions to drug use in jail
The Drug Foundation, no doubt we pay them heaps to thieve oxygen, want to introduce a clean needle program into prisons because
The fundamental principle should be that any health service available in the community should be available in prison
The reasoning behind the taxpayer having to provide such a service is
For some reason prisoners are able to get their hands on drugs
A better reason might be that Corrections is NOT doing its job in letting drugs get into the prisons in the first place. Just like they control cellphones.

The sooner the totally useless Minister is replaced along with the deadwood at the top of Corrections, we might actually get prisoners to serve their punishment inconvenient incarceration properly.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Telcom about to get rid of dial up customers

As if the non-notified email changeover farce with the monoploy telco's ISP is not enough, Telecom now advises that the copper network will no longer be powered from the exchange end as it is now.

Parts are no longer being made for our one-off bastard phone system in NZ, they have not been for some time now. Current maintenance is non-existent, parts are being cannabalised in an attempt to keep the system running for a maximum of 5 years. As a result, the monoploy provider is moving to the 'next generation', ie digital all the way, which will require all houses connecting to their network to have a powered gateway device fitted. At your cost for the device and power!

This will have the undesirable effect of 111 calls requiring an alternative power source, ie the batteries in your cell phone, if the power is off in your house. Too bad if the reason you are calling for the 111 taxi service has also taken out your local cell tower and your cellphone now has no signal. And what of those customers out of cell coverage, without power to power up a digital gateway device in their home?

Secondly, all of those that cannot get broadband, especially rural folk like me, those analog modems in your computer will be rendered totally useless within 5 years. Block obsolescence of both your phone and your computer all due to a lack of maintenance, as long suffering rural dialup users well know.

There has to be a better way than this,
the final two fingered salute to the TSO from the incumbent monopoly.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Labour wants Hubbard as Mayor

Wannabe Auckland mayor, Dr John Hinchliffe has been getting pressured to get out of the race, TV1 reported tonight.

Without naming names, he has been getting direct messages from 'all the way to top' that his vote splitting entry against the incumbent is not wanted by Labour. They want Dick Hubbard to be the only Labour candidate up against John Banks.

Various comments as below are very telling.
I've had various meetings with people in high places in the Labour Party indicating that I shouldn't be contesting because I'd be splitting the vote and letting John Banks in rather than Dick Hubbard


It's a political power play and people have vested interests in who serves their interests


Labour's covert support of the present mayor is irking other candidates,especially as Labour Party president Mike Williams has confirmed he has had several meetings with his friend, Hubbard, and offered him advice on mayoral campaigning


There is definitely a bias in this campaign and it's coming out of Wellington and its completely inappropriate


I realise you have aspirations to become mayor but would like to suggest that this is not the time to do it," the former MP wrote, adding "it might be more pleasant for you if you discontinued with your mayoralty campaign


It will be an interesting week watching this grow legs and the corrupt mob inside the beltway trying to deny this one.

NCEA trained crowd counters?

As the Silent Voices march which took place in Auckland's Queen Street yesterday returned various crowd counts, I suspect the counters trained under NCEA.

A crowd of around 300 reported here,
a few at less than 50 here
and a day later, in the same organ, a veritable mob of 500.

Maybe the counters need further training with some 'sexed up' math?

Facelift Trailer

"It's a poll, Helen.

The trick is to go up
and stay up!

Don't lose your grip!"

HT: TV1 ad with JK and HC pole dancing in strip joint

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Congestion Tax for Wellington flawed

A group of consultants have
concluded that road pricing in the greater Wellington region would reduce congestion and be economically viable, while at the same time having minimal social and regional economic impact.

They have submitted their report to the GWRC, who advise their final decision will be coming to haunt you in about five years time.

The only reason that it is supposedly viable, have minimal social and regional cost is that the people it directly affects are the bloated public service bureaucracy that all taxpayers fund. Yes, the costs of doing business in the backside of the country will be added as a cost plus to all taxes, the locals will not have to pay for it.

Expect not long after that exercise is implemented, Jafas in the powerhouse of the business community will be paying the same tax, but will not be able to recover the increased cost!

Cindy Kiro 'a waste of space'

Definitely agree with that!

Friday, August 24, 2007

Xtra's woes self inflicted

The sorry saga of Xtra cutting over customers to this new Bubble email service has been going on for a week now, leaving users drowning in a sea of dated spam.

Some customers have not been able to access their emails during the whole period and are unable to contact the help service due to long wait times.

Xtra and its parent Telecom deserves every bit of flak it gets. It gave the first warning of the impending cutover to customers with an email, that they were never likely to receive till after the cutover, at the close of the business day immediately prior to the cutover. Some customers got no warning.

Then the cutover occurred over a weekend, those affected could not send or receive emails and if they dared to phone for help and support a long wait (days) ensued. If help and support was eventually contacted, the support from Manila was next to useless. A technical fault was found early in the week with registration onto the new service and that just made things worse. Online help via the Xtra webpage early in the week was extremely confusing, with no clear explanation in plain english of what was going on.

This week, Telecom has the cheek to say that only a minority of 800,000 customers were affected, because only a few had contacted help and support. I suspect that either the others do not know yet that their email is non-functional or alternatively they have already said to Telecom/Xtra, stuff you!

The upgrade was to offer users a homepage with email, photo and data storage, Norton AntiVirus and other security tools.

This afternoon Telecom confirmed compensation would be offered to customers who lost access to their email during the weekend.

Telecom head of consumer propositions Adrian Littlewood told NZPA what kind of compensation would be offered had not yet been established, because it was the company's first priority to get all customers up and running.

Some users have been without e-mail for six days following last weekend's upgrade to the Yahoo!Xtra Bubble service.

Mr Littlewood said the majority of customers were now able to access their e-mail normally.

The change was un-warranted, un-notified and poorly implemented. It might have been much vaunted internally, but when you do not tell customers, irreparable damage has been done.

If you are going to do any change, how about putting full details, plain enough with pictures for the non-computer literate to understand, on your help and support pages. Most might follow that and be actually able to implement the changes, without going near a phone call to the sub-continent. Also when a tech fault occurs in the change process, actually tell the world that you do indeed have an issue and provide a clear detail on the issue. We can read in this english speaking country!

I know the the users I deal with have had enough of extremely poor help and support service from call centres outside of NZ and would prefer to deal with someone that can actually talk fluent english. The same users do want full warning of any changes that may upset the connection which they pay your company dearly for, not just some sales pitch late on a Friday afternoon with a half-arsed change notice!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Hypocritical MP's

Good on some MP's, both male and female, for declaring that they had been to strip joints at some time in their lives. I think that a fair percentage have been to a strip joint, probably with their mates on stag dos or hen nights, at some time in their lives and they are probably OK for the experience. Even pubs, maybe not so much in NZ, have scantily clad staff to attract the punters.

So what? It is part of the experience of life. Get over it.

The ones that really get up my nose are the holier than thou types such as her indoors who suggests
I won't comment except to say that I don't find it appropriate 'entertainment'.

Great from the leader of a hopefully soon to extinct party who legalised homosexuality, prostitution and civil unions, breaking up the true family. One wonders how these people without having never seen these establishments, could have so passionately voted for them.

I can expect leaders of Christian Parties might have never been to such an establishment, but this one takes the cake and explains a lot...
I've had a sad and lonely life.
Now, mark my words, he will live to regret ever uttering that remark!

To Damien and all the other prudes, get over it, get out, go to a pub, strip joint, stag or hen night or whatever and experience life as most would know it.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

You are a valued customer...

After ringing the company help line, to query a lack of service, this valued customer reportedly endured 20 hours of piped music whilst awaiting a response from the newly installed 'customer management system'.

Any company I dial that does not respond with a person within 10 seconds of dialling usually gets flak when they finally answer. Mac
hines that continue with the 'valued customer', 356th in the queue spiel between piped Musac, get cutoff after one minute and recalled. If they ever do look at the dropped call stats available from their phone systems, they might take note and get some real receptionists. I quite often will, after listening to 3x machine messages, email the company CEO or higher and that usually gets direct action.

After calling AMP NZ the other day, I was totally flabbergasted that the call was answered after two rings by a real person. I praised the company rep for their prompt reply, saying it was a pleasure not to listen to a machine. Good on you, AMP, the machine did not get a chance!

Saturday, August 18, 2007

A few pests perish

My first thought after seeing this - was someone bloggers know from the area testing out his black powder? But then I read it again finding that the event was managed, but not condoned, by the authorities.

Apologies Oswald for casting aspersions on a fellow blogger...

Whinging Ocker wants to be PM

The dingo union strirrer (and that is being extremely nice!) who split the country in two, over whether power retailers and SOEs in general should act as financiers to the masses for those who do not exercise any personal responsibility and especially, do not pay their bills on time, now wants to our PM.

OK, he says is tempted to enter the fray to be an MP, looking to go up against the PM in waiting, the 'Prince of Parnell'. PM would be the ultimate goal of anyone who enters Parliament. I say, apart from a gold plated super fund, the main reason is to get his snout deeper into public trough and join the rest of the timeservers.

His opening gambit was one big cockup when he identified himself a union spokesman and he will forever be tarred with that brush. He has obviously been recently coached by the hierarchy and has now just thrown his hat in to continue his career in social engineering.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ticket Quota

A You-Tube video of a couple of Poms speeding on the Desert Road and then being pulled over has been promptly lifted from the site.

The pair were 'yelling with delight' that they cracked 161km, had the video to prove it and then they sighted a cop car coming the opposite way.

The copper pursued them and let them off with a warning.

Since posting of the video, the hierarchy see it in a different light and are now pursuing the Poms. Seems the video, although hidden from view when talking to the fuzz, has pix of the copper who should have instantly disqualified the driver for 28 days.

I daresay the copper will be extensively arguing that he already had his quota for the day and did not need more paperwork...

I cannot see what the Poms were yipping and yahooing for, I mean 161Km does not make a ton! In my younger days, well before all the cameras, the Auckland Harbour Bridge, particularly post-tollgates, doing the real ton on a motorbike was always a real blast...


Kiwisaver MkIII

Significant changes have been made for Kiwisaver MkIII, mooted yesterday as 'small changes' and being tacked onto a tax bill currently wending its tortuous path through Parliament.

Some of these changes do not appear small.

Suckers who sign on will now be able to take annuity instead of a lump sum, although the cost of delivering an annuity will be at the clients' expense in increased fees. I believe, part 2 of this step in the future, said annuity will become the compulsory vehicle for the state to deliver national superannuation, whilst getting the punter to pay for delivering same...

Another is the elimination of double dipping in Crown contributions. As most know, public servants and other minions in the growth industry called government bureaucracy have access to gold plated super schemes that the Crown also handsomely contributes to from my ever stretched tax dollar. Now, why remove the second Crown contribution to Kiwisaver? It would remove a major incentive for bureaucrats to join in the first place. A fair bet would be that all the current unionised mob would have been well advised by the PSA to get in early whilst double dipping was available, before this 'small' change cuts out new entrants.

Cleavage

An Oz men's mag is offering breast implants as the first prize to the girl "who deserves it most" in an online competition.

Predictably a few are screaming foul.

To quote
"You simply cannot treat women in this way, like objects there for men's satisfaction."

Why not? What else are they good for?

More bad news?

The author of the report into the rates enquiry is on 'leave' and subsequently the public report release is delayed, her indoors tells us.

More like the report is full of bad news for Labour, the government has a copy, is working out the spin for public consumption and the author is on a working holiday, being coached on how to deliver said spin.

It would be worth betting that Rodders does not a a copy at present and I wonder where she will be in two weeks time, whilst Mark Burton's 'independent' poodle delivers the spin. Out of the country on walkabout with another junket perchance? Too early for her long awaited face to face date with destiny and arch-nemesis, the good Commodore...

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Supporting Comrades

Regular SST contributor on the state of the union, Matt McCarten wants us to believe that your workmates getting in behind you in the event of unfair dismissal is a good thing.

Coments such as
Ultimately, the only thing that counts is when workers come together as a group to defend their workmates and protect their employment rights.
and
Fighting for justice and fairness in the workplace cannot be left to the lawyers and their ilk
show me that the lynch union mob is ready and willing as usual to stir things along to suit their own agendas, without following or waiting for due process.

The question though, however distasteful the circumstances may be, is will McCarten's mates in the Police Union or whatever it is called, equally support Assistant Commissioner Rickards, who I believe has not yet been found guilty, when he he is finally 'released' from employment?

Thursday, August 09, 2007

PM loses her way yet again

The PM is lost. Down on the farm it is well known that Labour does not favour the rural vote and does not care what happens outside the beltway, especially where the country's engine room is.

She reluctantly agreed to open the revamped school after the principal had been emailing and faxing her since April with, as expected, minimal response.

However, she to had to ask advisers where the Bainesse School is located and where the nearest airport is. Now most people might Google Wises NZ maps and search for the rural town, finding it here in seconds.

If she had paid any attention to recent history during her current term, she would have well aware of the location of the school, because of the dire straits rural Manawatu was in the February 2004 floods. But then she could be excused, flooded paddocks and flooded rural schools do not provide votes.

Nearest airport? Just the airport for the 5th largest town in the country. If she had asked her cabinet where Bainesse was, smarmy Steve should have been able to tell her. After all his new job next year will be at his alma mater, just east of this large airport/town. Bainesse? A few Km to west of this airport, not even enough distance to get up to the high speeds she is accustomed to travelling to engagements at!

Another close airport? She should know this one well. This is the one where the whole of NZ's air strike capability now resides in mothballs. Now doubt she has stopped here many a time whilst abusing her high speed taxi Air Force One and it has broken down or the Beehive airport has been fogbound.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

One Strike, You're Out

So the week has gone, little Nia is dead and still kids are daily arriving at A & E everywhere around the country with whanau-inflicted wounds. After 10 days of angst and handwringing, how further advanced are we at finding and fighting the child abusers and killers in our midst?

We are - precisely - nowhere.

Rather it is has been but more angst agony from the usual suspects, with all their words and wisdom summarised in just one sentence.

Um, maiming and killing kids is really bad.

Yeah, thanks for that. We would never have guessed. Nor did we realise - dammit - that if they'd only learned "te reo" then all the abusers might have been saved. Or that, according to the Maori Party, if their "Aunty initiative" had only been allowed by serial flagellist and Social Welfare minister Steve Maharey then the Kahui twins, Nia, Jhia, Lilybing and all those other Maori innocents would still be alive.

So, let's go back to Square One, shall we? Let's profile the average baby/toddler attacker and proceed from there. Because we now know exactly what they will look like. Their characteristics will be a combination of most, if not all, of the following;

  • They will be predominantly Maori;
  • They will be on welfare;
  • They will have no school qualifications;
  • They will be transient;
  • Mum will have shacked up with at least a couple of other guys in the past five years;
  • They will be getting regularly smashed on drink or drugs;
  • They will have a low IQ.

    Oh yes, and one other thing. They don't give a shit what any government official or law-enforcement agency thinks. They'll look after their kids their ways, f--k off.

    Literally thousands of New Zealand kids now live in the above Paradise. Soon it will be tens of thousands. They may not necessarily die at the hand of Mum's latest lover, or have the crap shaken or kicked out of them by the whanau's familial associates, but chances are that their young lives will be still be blighted. That they too will fail school and fail life, and end up perpetuating their parents' underclass upbringing.

    None of the above is brain surgery. It is a simply profile of New Zealand's shameful toxicity - this merging of welfare, waste and ethnicity. Quite why Maori are grossly over-represented in all these worst statistics, no one can really say. All we know, is that they are. And that Maoridom hasn't got a clue what to do about it. Like soccer hooliganism was the English disease, and corruption the African disease, then child abuse has become the Maori disease.

    Or rather that sub-cultures exist within those cultures that spawn and spew such vileness.

    So what do we do? Except express this impotent rage every week when Starship Hospital meets the latest victim of toddler meets terror. Although not just Starship.

    A senior journo from my local newspaper, the Wanganui Chronicle, asked me why Wanganui seemed to be so immune from the acid rot that was Rotorua's child abuse. Then his paper did some basic research, and discovered that 10 cases of serious child abuse are treated by local hospital paediatricians every month. I'll repeat that: every month.

    Wanganui then is no different than anywhere else. There wouldn't be a city or town anywhere that does not have this dark stain writ upon it. We are all in the midst of this child abuse epidemic. And the time for talk is over.

    So too is the inalienable right of people to have kids and raise them regardless. Because nothing less than direct and daily intervention will work or redeem the blasted lives of these young kids. And, yes, it will cost. Hell, it might even add a cent per dollar to your tax. But it won't cost as much as dead children cost this country's soul.

    And, it is not a difficult solution. You profile and match all the above wasters and losers and you place them on a central register. That you don't provide them any government-funded benefit - DPB or state house - unless and until they are discharging defined obligations to the State.

    Don't give second chances. One conviction and they automatically forfeit their chances to have children again. That they must prove their fitness, their sobriety, their changed attitude or every child they produce is whisked away for adoption.

    And a sidebar: a drug conviction and you similarly lose your children. Automatic.

    When you're clean, and proven clean - then we'll talk. But you must earn your way back into parenthood.

    Identify particularly all at-risk Maori whanau using all the official information that is already collected and collated - through schools, truant officers, police, social workers, hospitals and Income Support.

    Then admit the reality that there are a group of people who simply can't look after themselves, let alone any children that they might breed. The peculiarly white, middle-class concept that everyone is, really, just like us, must be the first victim in our war on child abuse.

    Professor Jim Flynn of Otago University was right a couple of months back when he said the wrong people are breeding in this country. That is how we ended up with our underclass. We cannot afford their failure to infect the next generation, or the one after that. The time for draconian action is here.

    And the solution is not rocket science.

    From now on, their assistance is delivered by neighbourhood-based one-stop shops - food and hot meals, second chance education, parenting skills, free health and dental, community-based work and skill programmes. When they graduate -clean, responsive and aspirational -then they get the right to have and care for children. Until then children have the right not to be born to them and not to be killed by them.

    Nia's death was an evil tragedy. It won't be the last. Because last night, the same trash got smashed off its face and their kids were their last consideration. This morning, those children's future dawns no different.

  • from Michael Laws in SST 5 Aug 2007

  • Saturday, August 04, 2007

    That didn't work, did it?

    Predictably the anti child abuse bill by Bradford, 'I know what's best for you parents', has not worked.

    I doubt if the lowlifes that have murdered (yes, sadly as of yesterday afternoon, it is now murder) young 3 year old Nia Glassie are even aware that such a bill exists. The frontline staff who have to pickup the pieces know full well what really goes on, yet we continue to deny any personal responsibility.

    Hone, the chief bone pointer from that separatist party, continues to blame colonialism as the root cause and want to lock all Maori MP's up in another talkfest in Wiberia or somewhere similar to knock a few heads together. Get over it, NZ was colonised by the British, lost their sovereignity and the so called treaty was nothing but a useless piece of paper to keep natives pacified. Who cares about the past? As I now know, that same piece of paper continues to keep the activist natives quiet through the Waitangi handout gravy train being well oiled from my taxes, but that's another story.

    Hone, I would suggest that middle NZ is not listening to your vociferous rants, you are written off as just another vocal stirrer looking for more handouts, like this other useless seeker of funds.
    You could do a lot better if you went directly to the Frank Streets of NZ and knocked a few heads together to put the message straight to these lowlifes that child abuse is not and will not be tolerated. If you think that native to native talk is the way to go, get down there and give the message directly. I definitely suspect that your methods of confrontational and vocal delivery would be well understood by any upcoming would be murderers.

    There are some alternatives, to endless funding that is patently not acheiving any result, such as this guy here. His course on parenting, run by SKIP makes a lot of sense and maybe should be offered as say, a WOF, to be a parent.

    I am sure with this murder we are still only seeing the tip of an iceberg that no amount of funding or state intervention will ever cure. Parents must take parenting as their prime role in life, nothing less.

    Nia, At peace forever.

    Friday, August 03, 2007

    Utterly Unbelievable

    The punches just keep coming!

    The head of the State Services Commission, supposedly politically neutral, has been long suspected of being a Labour stooge, has just admitted that he was advised of the issues surrounding Benson-Pope and the Hugh Logan well before the proverbial was flung at the fan.

    Conveniently at the time, 'I just forgot', but with DBP gone and now whilst the inquiry continues to put the heat on MfE's 2IC Hugh Logan, it is now revealed that the SSC No. 1 knew of the matter all along. Under interrogation, Logan reminded Prebble that the matter had been discussed, but not mentioned when DBP was looking at the firing squad.

    This is one sod that should resign immediately and never ever work in a political environment again. He should be charged for this ommission.

    Unfortunately this admission lets Logan off the hook and probably DBP too. Helen would be silly to attempt to re-instate DBP - the voting public have just had to much of his lying. Even when being fired, he was not free and frank with the truth, in not naming Prebble as being complicit. Logan's head should still roll for his part, he could never be trusted again.

    These are two individuals that NZ and the Public Service would be well shot of.

    Thursday, August 02, 2007

    Take my kidz away CYFS

    Once again the separatist party is making statements that their ilk have the situation under control and are dealing with the issue. Yes, we know. The talkfests, looking for ways to further screw funds out of the taxpayer trough is never ending.

    Endless statistics, reports and daily events definitely show us otherwise, the beatings of children continue unabated. Along with a work for the dole scheme, which should be enforced immediately, the following should be actioned.
    that beneficiary parents must contact welfare agencies to collect their money
    Potential loss of surce funds might engender some personal responsibility for the wellbeing of their rugrats. The current case from Rotorua is soon likely to be a murder trial, judging by recent progress of the cruelly beaten infant.

    Some would, such as Turia, bleat that many
    might be too nervous to tell health professionals about abuse
    I say, if they wish to partake of my taxes to fund their mostly self-inflicted lifestyles on welfare, the giving part comes with some basics. If they get a benefit for kids, those kids will be looked at by a health professional at say a minimum of monthly. So too, if they want the dole for being unemployed, that too comes with a proviso that real community work needs to be undertaken. Don't do the work, don't keep kids in touch with the appropriate agency - lose your access to my hard earnt taxes!

    There are some who would use the following argument, forwarded by Turia
    I know of constituents who have come to me, nervous that any approach to a government agency for help will end up with `CFYS is coming to take my kids away'
    If they feel such a comment sums the state of their parental skills, then there is something definitely amiss, warranting immediate investigation. Hiding behind such a statement only continues to aid and abet the abusers.