New Zealand Conservative

I see the concept of turning the lights out for an hour a year gaining momentum . Christchurch has placed dibs on being the city of darkness for New Zealand, but Wellington also promises not to use the new wind turbines at Makara for an hour in March 2009. They call this Earth Hour! Since the greens, the political left, politicians, children, and the politically correct think this such a powerful statement, I am willing to consider getting behind the idea and using it for other political statements. For example, Rocket Hour! Israel could be invited to fire rockets into the largest city of each country in the world. They would have a cap of the number of rockets fired into Israel over the year (so a mere couple of thousand). They could do this for just one hour every year. The main stream media would apparently say bugger all about it (as they do now when rockets fall into Israel), and we all accept this new form of "news in empathy". The world pretends Isra...

It seems the battle to redefine marriage never sleeps. While families raise their children, those that would reduce marriage to a temporary romantic liaison between any sex are worried that conservatives continue to defend the traditional notion that marriage can be only be formed between a man and a woman. So, here is yet another salvo in the ongoing war. Why marriage is inherently heterosexual. If the state declares same-sex unions to be equivalent to marriage, it will profoundly obscure the nature of marriage. In effect, it will send the message that marriage is centrally about the romantic attachment and sexual relationship of adults to each other rather than about a relationship which by its nature is oriented to and suited for becoming family. Doing that would almost certainly further weaken the institution of marriage. One major point that people seem to miss in the same-sex marriage debate. The weakening effect on marriage by the promotion of same-sex marriage is profo...

It's Christmas time by the beach, where every year holiday makers stream out of the cities and head to the more relaxed parts of the country. The thing is, some of them seem to think that parking on someone's front lawn for days in a row without moving the car is acceptable behaviour. And it's normally our front lawn, since we are situated behind a number of rental beach houses and right next to the driveway that accesses them. Bah humbug!

What do Californian "gay marriage" proponents and the English Muslim Public Affairs Committee have in common? Both want their opponents tracked down. However, Californian "gay marriage" proponents also want retribution against those who voted for traditional marriage. They have a list of names and they are not afraid to use it, nor shy about encouraging others to do so as well. Advocates for homosexual marriage have even set up a website, AntiGayBlacklist.com, which lists hundreds of California residents, churches and businesses that donated money to the Proposition 8 campaign, urging sympathizers not to patronize those on the list. But it hasn't stopped there. A number of persons have already been fired from their jobs for supporting traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Protests following the passage of California's Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, made news headlines, but the Pacific Justice Institute re...

I saw an article in the paper the other day about Churchgoers who felt pressured into tithing more than they could afford. Some had taken out loans to meet their tithe amount. Disgraceful and saddening. It reminds me of when I was younger and I got involved in a group that expected a 20% tithe. This was all fine and good until I got a pay rise. Then around they came demanding a 30% share of my extra income. Whilst I thought the idea of tithing was to give an amount based on how charitable I felt, obviously the new formula was deemed fairer by the administrators. Thus, it was no surprise that when I confessed to another pay rise the tithe was set at around 40%. At this point I decided that perhaps we could debate this amount. At the time I had no family and no home. But I had plans for both. How could I save if I gave my earnings away? This is where the threats came in. If I ceased my tithing, I would be in big trouble. Soul destroying stuff, and hell on earth would be my fa...

I was going to write something on the fact that the Pope is Catholic and making Catholic pronouncements on things of interest to Catholics is part of his job, but, LifeSiteNews has taken the time to write something more thoughtful. Read it and the rest of the post before you comment on this thread - ok? The Pope Had the Guts to Say We Need to Save Ourselves from Self-Destructive Sexual Lifestyles ~ LifeSiteNews VATICAN CITY, December 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In thousands of news articles and talk shows around the world today from Bulgaria to India, Pope Benedict XVI is being bashed for daring to say we should care as much for mankind as the tropical rainforests; that the harm caused by going against the Creator's plan for human sexuality is destructive and hurtful. In truth, he is being pilloried for having enough love to tell his brothers and sisters struggling with same-sex attraction, promiscuity, pornography, adultery and more, that their behavior is hurting them...

Some articles to scan if you find yourself on the internet rather than elsewhere. Like here, for example, in 1935 Bondi. The luckiest generation: pre-boomers born 1920-1940. Rather than spreading wealth between classes does welfare spread it between generations? Or another way, does the system only work if treasury-bills can attract buyers? Be very afraid but not of Santa. Vexatious litigation is funny in Boston Legal but not as a major influence on your culture. Fathers for Good. Lessons in Maniless from It's a Wonderful Life. Postmodern Conservatism in Australia. An oxymoron or confirmation of the suspicion that relativism is a subtle temptress even of John Howard and maybe John Key? How kangaroo burgers could save the planet. New Scientist Best Videos of 2008. NatGeo top ten Space photos of 2008. Another year and 74 year-old Gene Cernan is still the last man on the moon! Born in 1934 he would be another member of the putative"luckiest generation". Genetic Engineering ...

Merry Christmas to all of our readers and commenters!

The Blessed Virgin Mary and her husband, Joseph, on their way to Bethlehem to give birth to the Son of God.

From The Hand Mirror , the first part is quoting a NZ Herald article that the author takes issue with : We know that if a child lives with their two biological parents they are substantially less likely to be abused than if they live in a house where their mum has a string of successive boyfriends. Spot the mother blaming in that one! Child abuse is not the fault of violent men; it's the mother's fault. And it's certainly not the fault of men who abandon their children, leaving mothers and children to get along as best they may. No, it's all the mother's fault. When will the Maxim Institute stop blaming women for men's violence? Okaaaay. How is it that a factual statement is interpreted as blame apportionment? Yes, the blame for the violence can be attributed to the boyfriends. However allowing the violent boyfriend into the home in the first place surely is the responsibility of the woman involved. I mean, it's not like she has no say in the matter...

A new breed of powerful cannabis and ballooning costs in treating its health effects have led to calls for urgent action, including drug education for primary school children. The information, in a National Drug Intelligence Bureau report obtained by The Dominion Post under the Official Information Act, shows that cannabis, the most widely used illicit drug, creates more than $30 million a year in hospital bills. The report the first of its kind to use information from Customs, health and police officials warns that the drug is likely to become more harmful. The threat posed by high-potency "re-engineered" cannabis has been steadily increasing , it says. Hospital costs jumped 50 per cent from $19.5 million in 2004 to $31 million in 2005. Of the 2062 hospital cases in 2005, 48 admissions cost between $100,000 and $370,000 each. The report calls for further action to reduce supply and demand as communities have become "comfortable with high prevalence levels". Include...

Poor Steve Crow. He lost money on the Wellington Erotica porn show. He's not going to do another Boobs on Bikes here, either. So, either Wellingonians aren't as juvenille as Aucklanders and Palmerston Northers, or my prayers to the Blessed Virgin were answered. Related link : No sex please, we're Wellingtonians ~ Stuff

This is a test post.

It's Friday, and it's that time of the late afternoon again to kick off the chat time. It seems most of us are running out of steam as we get closer to Christmas. The wind-down is in progress, and that certainly seems to be affecting NZ's Blog World as well. Either that, or I just like to hang out on the quieter fringes. A commenter asked a couple of days ago if I was Polish. The short answer is yes, I am. The longer answer is I was born in NZ to two Polish parents, one of whom was in exile from Poland after WW2 and the other who was conceived the month Hitler invaded and was brought up in a Poland occupied by the Soviets. If you think I take a tough stance on some of the battles I fight here on NZ, I should introduce you to my relatives! (Just joking, remaining anonymous is preferred at this point). My main interest in blogging is exposing that which will bring down our civilisation (make no mistake, it IS going down) and trying to point those who are capable of seei...

A shocking, just released, new study has found that children do best if they ... gasp ... live with both their biological parents, and ... shock, horror ... regularly attend religious services!! Dr. Nicholas Zill, the founding president of Child Trends, and Dr. Philip Fletcher, a research psychologist at Westat, co-authored the new study, which analyzes data from the National Survey of Children's Health. Among their remarkable findings: children in this group are five times less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to have behavior problems at home and school, and are more likely to be cooperative and understanding of others' feelings. Parents of these children report less stress, healthier parent-child relationships, and fewer concerns about their children's achievement. These differences hold up even after controlling for family income and poverty, low parent education levels, and race and ethnicity. It makes you wonder, really, if NZ's problems with 5 year old sex o...

So about six months ago, 4 million New Zealanders spent the week falling off ladders, slipping on stairs and picking up heavy boxes the wrong way. How come no-one noticed? Surely the hospitals were overflowing that week? How does the Accident Compensation Commission manage to receive a billion dollars in claims in the space of a week and not think that New Zealand is in the grips of a Frank Spencer epidemic? If it wasn't accidents causing ACC's misfortune then perhaps it was something far more sinister - voodoo. With another billion dollar blow out mentioned after the accidental billion dollars bumbled off the bottom line, I put the blame squarely on voodoo economics. Some-where, some doped up Haitian has been sticking pins into the international banking system, and giving acupuncturists a bad name. And ACC have been funding voodoo economics longer than acupuncturists. Or did these accidents happen in a more steady and spaced out manner? Like dominoes, falling month af...

The thing with child abuse is that quite often abused children will not want to remember what happened to them and it's not until they become adults that they may decide it's worth telling someone. I've known several adults that were abused as children and all of them did not tell anyone about what happened until they grew up. And it was only after they started to have problems related to the abuse that they realised they needed to get it out. That not dealing with it was causing them real problems. Therefore, it would not surprise me that given the number of children already known to have been abused in the Peter Ellis case, that in the future there will most probably be more adults coming forward to tell their stories. For that reason, it's imperative for the pro-Peter Ellis people to get some sort of official verdict exonerating him in order to make future complainants less likely. The more obstacles to adults coming forward, the better. Related Link: Presenter L...

I was prompted to look up the details of the Peter Ellis case by a comment by DPF today that he was "aghast at how he was found guilty." My opinion on the case was formed a number of years ago when I heard two of the victims being interviewed on the radio. And now, the more I read, the more sure I am that many of the supposed problems with the case don't so much show that Peter Ellis was innocent - they instead just show problems with the case. Therefore, I think that fact that the man is still in prison is a good thing. NZ has enough problems with released paedophiles as it is. UPDATE : It seems he is out. It seemed with all the hysteria, it seened that he must have been still behind bars. Obviously being a convicted paedophile is bad for getting jobs close to children, so of course he wants to "clear his name". So, I found it really enlightening to read an opinion piece published 10 years ago by Theodore Dalrymple on NZ's increased liberality with ...

What happens when a Monarch, with veto power, refuses to sign into law a bill passed by Parliament that violates his conscience? Well, to get around the problem, parliaments generally strip the Monarch of his or her veto powers. In Luxembourg, such a situation has taken place. The Grand Duke opposed new euthanasia laws passed by Parliament and refused to sign them. So, his veto powers were taken from him and the law was passed without needing his signature. Something he seems to have agreed to and indeed suggested, as the Time Magazine article states. Duke Henri refused to sign a bill to legalize euthanasia for the terminally ill. The proposal, which would make Luxembourg one of the few countries to give terminal patients the right to die, was approved earlier this year by Parliament. But the monarch, a devout Catholic, says "reasons of conscience" prevented him from making it law. (Read about the fight to legalize euthanasia in the U.S..) The Duke's stance is a stron...

I read on Slashdot this morning that Apple is working on a "3D desktop" . Indeed Apple have made a patent application for : "A graphical user interface has a back surface disposed from viewing surface to define a depth, and one or more one or more side surfaces extend from the back surface to the viewing surface. An icon receptacle is disposed on one or more of the side surfaces, and one or more icons are disposed within the icon receptacle. The one or more icons correspond to one or more desktop items. " To me that sounds alot like a cube rendered in depth on a 2D screen. It doesn't sound like a haptic Minority Report or immersive Johnny Mnemonic style graphic user interface. So where exactly is the innovation here? Moreover, why would you pay the price of a second-hand car in three years time to have a "groovy" 3D-desktop effect which has been available for years as GNU Beryl and now Compiz-Fusion ? Let's not forget Apple...

Chat time!

Back in the 1500's, the Inquisition was in full-swing in the newly reconquered Christian Spain (after 700 years of Islamic occupation). One of it's major aims was to uncover Muslims pretending to be Catholics. If you can imagine that to be Muslim in a reconquered country was most likely a subversive act. Those persons were like sleeper agents, hoping to take back the country for Islam, therefore rooting them out was imperative for the new regime. Well it seems that Being Frank has uncovered it's own sleeper agent. A prolific commenter, masquerading a Catholic, has admitted to being Muslim. From comment #104: The incarnation is inherent in the Holy Qu’ran, but in veiled form, as in Judaism. Islam holds that Jesus will return at the end of time to judge all men. To be able to properly judge all men one would have to be … God. The Holy Qu’ran clearly describes the virgin birth of Jesus. His conception is described as an act of Allah. That makes Jesus … the son of God (whi...

Apparently NZ children are behind in maths and science at years 5 & 9 compared to the rest of the world that was in the measurement. Leaving aside maths for the moment, behind in science? Just what type of science are both those years supposed to know? Science was more an upper high school subject for me when I was young, rather than something we were taught in primary school. However, being behind in maths is more serious. [The study] says Kiwi teachers spend less time teaching maths than any other English speaking country [...] Let's just contrast that statement with the following from an article about a young woman (Rhee) reforming Washington DC's schooling system: Rhee is convinced that the answer to the U.S.'s education catastrophe is talent, in the form of outstanding teachers and principals. She wants to make Washington teachers the highest paid in the country, and in exchange she wants to get rid of the weakest teachers. Where she and the teachers' union...

The following article deserves to be read in full. I've just put up the first part, the introduction to the concept that the law ought not to be divorced from morality. Secularists assert that religion is a 'private matter', for they are radical individualists. Moreover, they assume that everyone is naturally an atheist, that they represent what is normal. This secularist illusion gets to us, particularly through the media, and we may even absorb that false assumption. But anyone who makes a stopover on a flight to Europe can enter cultures where life is communal and religion is normal. If you observe the world beyond our narrow horizons, assertive individualism and atheism find no place in the lives of most of the people who inhabit this planet. At the heart of the 16th Century, in the England of Henry VIII, two Christian lawyers rose to the highest office in the land and both of them ended up on the scaffold at the Tower — Sir Thomas More and Sir Thomas Cromwell....

In the ongoing quest to annotate the obvious and increase publication tallies, it has been confirmed that who you hang out with can affect your mindset. If your social contacts are happy then there's a good chance you too will be happy, which begs the question: why do people blog? WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Happiness is contagious, researchers reported on Thursday. The same team that demonstrated obesity and smoking spread in networks has shown that the more happy people you know, the more likely you are yourself to be happy. And getting connected to happy people improves a person's own happiness, they reported in the British Medical Journal. "If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent," Fowler said. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling, if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent," he added. A happy third-degree friend -- the friend or a friend of a f...

How annoying! Yet another study showing that women who abort their children are at far greater risk of serious mental health problems. Inconceivable. Looks like the recent NZ study is not alone. Madrid, Dec 9, 2008 / 03:52 pm (CNA).- A study by a group of experts in Spain has revealed that 80% of women who have had an abortion suffer symptoms of depression, while 40% have considered suicide. The study, carried out by psychiatrist Carmen Gomez-Lavin of the University of Navarre, also uncovered other symptoms that affect women who suffer from Post-Abortion Syndrome. These include sexual dysfunction (40%), drug abuse, especially among adolescents (30%), behavioral changes (60%) or irritability (70%). During the process and in the year that follows an abortion, the study indicates, the mortality rate of women who have undergone an abortion is between 3.5 and 6 times higher than that of women who give birth, mainly due to suicides, accidents and murders. “The suicide rate is between 6 ...

I read with amusement today that text language takes the recipient of a text message almost twice as long to read as it takes to read something in standard English. Research by an Australian psychology lecturer found that common abbreviations used in mobile phone text messages could sometimes not be understood and were often misinterpreted. Results from the 55 students tested by Nenagh Kemp of the University of Tasmania showed that text-speak saved time for the writer, but the recipient took nearly twice as long - 26 seconds - to read the message out loud. It took 14 seconds to read messages sent in conventional English. The most common abbreviations that were easily understood included 2, 4, c and u. The most difficult abbreviations included ttyl (talk to you later), bbs (be back soon), pu (pick up) and cn (seeing). I personally hate abbreviated text language and will use the predictive text on my phone as much as possible. The only abbreviations I use are very common, such as "...

This is one of those days when I wish we had our own swimming pool in the backyard.

Alan Bollard has dropped the official cash rate 1.5% today - down to 5%. All well and good, but when are the banks going to reflect this rate in their interest rates? I don't care about the fixed rates - what about the floating rates? Those floating rates are still really, really high. But when the OCR has gone up, the banks are right onto raising the floating rate immediately. I only have to go through all the letters I've got from Wizard to see just how quickly they move. All very annoying. UPDATE: Here's a link to all the current floating rates of banks in NZ . The lowest is 7.45% by KiwiBank - still really far off the official drop to 5%.

We here at NZ Conservative, do not shirk from the t-word. If a group acts like terrorists, then that is what they are. I read a couple of posts yesterday ( NoMinister, HolySmoke ) on the fact that a number of journalists are afraid of mentioning the word "terrorist" in their articles. If journalists do not mention the t-word, then the terrorists have already won part of their aim - striking fear into their enemy and therefore being able to influence their behaviour to win the ultimate war. This way of attacking the enemy was developed more than 900 years ago, and it could be as effective now as it was then. Back then, terrorists such as these Mumbai ones were instead called Assassins. From the book, What Every Catholic Wants to Know - Catholic History , paraphrased in places: The original Islamic terrorists came from a sect of Islam - Ismailism - that developed within the Shiite faction in Persia, Arabia, and North Africa. These Islamailites were said to practice Taqiyya,...

*Sigh* The problem of enforcing drug laws and the lack of general policing in NZ has started off yet another discussion on how it would be better to just legalise drugs to get around the problem. I like Ruth's comment on this: You do not legalise evil. No one has the right to destroy other's lives. There are many sites on the internet where adult children tell of the horror of being brought up by parents addicted to narcotics. Drug use is not a victimless crime. It has a ripple effect on families and communities. Libertarians tend to forget that freedom to do evil is no freedom at all. Related Links: It's enough to drive you potty ~ No Minister Supply and demand ~ Not PC

Last night my brother sent me the following piece of advice from the book: Finding God's Will for You by St Francis de Sales: “The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore, achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he forsees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many...beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished...But with Christians, it is not so much the beginning as the end that counts." It's very timely advice as I am prone to trying to take on too much. Fortunately this year every time I've tried, I've become very sick and have had to reduce back down to my core responsibilities. Looks like St Francis de Sales was a converter of Calvinists! How interesting. Then Francis h...

Today a NZ study has come out that links abortion to mental health problems for women . Abortion is turning into a controversial issue everyone wants to ignore, but just keeps coming back at the most inconvenient times. Ironic that abortions are given to prevent mental health problems, and instead they cause the very problem they are supposed to prevent. I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago when Lindsay Mitchell asked the question, "What's wrong with individuals controlling their own fertility? Isn't that what personal responsibility is all about?" By itself, that comment may not have inspired anything, but then Lindsay wrote another post on Nia Glassie, where she wondered about what has changed over the last 40 years, that families can be created whereby there is no commitment from the male to stay around and look after his woman or offspring. Not that Lindsay stated it quite so crudely as that, but you get the picture. She said: Here's the diff...