New Zealand Conservative

Time to hoist the tankards and pour the ale. Tis Friday, and another week has been consigned to the history books. Next week, read the Labour Party News Releases to see just how we are supposed to remember it. They've already declared the Main Stream Media have turned on them. Can't be too long before a hefty donation from Owen Glenn funds the Labour Party Historical Information Bureau. Or aren't those love birds talking any more? Chris Trotter is still plugging for Helen Clark to be rolled by Goff. It's embarrassing watching the die hard old communist try to influence democratic process. Chris, you can't roll leaders of the Workers Party. You just put up their Union Fees and blockade the door to the beehive. I enjoyed his "Helen Clark has brains but no heart" theory. Ouch. With comrades like these, who needs an axe in the back of a hotel room? But his suggestion that the Labour party have to show empathy to suffering Kiwis only creates a scene li...

DPF blogs a recent conversation that included lots of wine and loud swearing in a public place. The topic of bad language? Fonts. Times Roman and others I shall not mention in polite company. Reminds me of a post I made back in July 2005 on this very topic. Strangely, it generated more comments than I was expecting. Actually, I wasn't really expecting any. It's almost comforting to know that war could break out over the continued use of this evil font. My Original Post: Is it just me, or is Times Roman (the font) ugly? Give me Tahoma, Verdana or even Trebuchet any day. At a pinch I'll take Arial, and even Courier can look good in the right circumstances. But Times Roman? I'll have my serifs with sans, thank you very much. Send their serifs to the gladiators - Roman Times are history. Related Link: Kiwiblog weighs in on the font issue Original Safety Warning: Times Roman is History

The title of this post is a little misleading actually; it's more of a book-review of sorts. I'm not a Diana conspiracist (I don't think that's an actual word?) or fan. I've pretty much always thought of the infamous Paris car-crash as an accident. Investigate magazine has an article or excerpt from a new book written by a Kiwi questioning some of the evidence. I haven't even read that. What I did pick up the other day was a book by Tom Cain called The Accident Man. It's a 'what-if' in the Robert Ludlum style based upon the death of the princess. What if it was a conspiracy? What if the Russian Mafia were behind it because their sales of land mines were dipping due to Diana making the issue a kind of cause célèbre. Those are questions the book asks. Samuel Carver is the 'accident man' of the title who 'arranges' what looks like accidents in his job of hired assassin. But has he bitten off more than he can chew on this one when he i...

Labour are blaming the media for it's problems with the NZ public. At least, that is what Shayne Jones is saying on NewsTalk ZB right now. What do they expect, the media to just ignore all of Labour's bungling and hypocrisy over the last term?

Kerre Woodham seems to be losing it on the radio tonight. And her show has only started.

Want to understand violent religious extremism and how to deal with it? Read on ... Pope Benedict provides “new public grammar” for reform of Islam, says George Weigel Boulder, CO, Feb 24, 2008 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- George Weigel, Catholic thinker and biographer of Pope John Paul II, delivered a lecture on Thursday on religion and world politics in which he argued that Pope Benedict XVI has provided a unique model for global understanding between Christianity, Western secularism and Islam . In the lecture, Weigel also called on Muslim leaders engaged in inter-religious dialogue to acknowledge and vigorously condemn the specific abuses of human rights and religious freedom found among some Muslim nations. During the lecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder, sponsored by the Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought, Weigel said that Pope Benedict XVI was uniquely suited to addressing world conflicts grounded in religious differences. Weigel believes that the Pope, especially in ...

Brothers, separated by pain and brought together by more pain. Two, maybe three facial expressions. With that many nuances, who needs dialogue? Warning: For serious Martial Arts fans only

Successful Self-Defence can get you in nearly as much trouble as being stabbed to death by a homicidal maniac. But, if you understand Leftism, there is a way out of this: Copper: Now then, what seems to be the trouble? Singh: I was getting into my car but this socially disadvantaged man asked for some non-governmental financial assistance, which I was of course prepared to do. Copper: And so you should. Then what happened? Singh: He was so excited with my generosity, he smashed my window to get at my voluntary donation. Copper: Totally understandable. Then what happened? Singh: He also forgot he had a sharp knife in his hand, and proceeded to stab me, presumably accidentally, as he tried to give me a congratulatory embrace for my obvious recognition of the discomfort my middle class, job holding privileges had held this man back from getting a fair slice at life. Copper: Obvious really. Then what happened? Singh: I cried out in pain and surprise, but immediately explained that it was ...

In just 5 hours, at 6:00pm NZT the FNFFA will officially commence. Prepare your comment in advance. Review your movie. Finish your book. Pre-purchase your alcoholic beverages and check there is gas in the BBQ. Here's my comment: Howdy folks. Out tonight, might check-in later. And that, my friends was totally unrehearsed, ad-libbed on the spot. With several hours notice, I'm sure you will all be able to attain the same quality and depth. In fact, I wont be at all surprised if this comment can be bettered. Some of you really are that good, so don't be shy.

Labour Party President Mike Williams has offered to resign from his position over his role in the ongoing Owen Glenn donor affair, but Prime Minister Helen Clark refused to accept it and told him "not to be silly". "It was an honest error." Helen Clark then offered to step down, but she then refused herself permission. It would have been a silly thing to do. Dr Cullen offered to step Mallard down, but Helen Clark again said "Don't be silly" because he'd already been demoted, and being punished once was excessive according to Labour tradition. Benson-Pope offered to refute every-thing, should the ball be in his court. Dover Samuels maintained he knew absolutely nothing, could remember nothing, and had probably done nothing. Helen Clark said "Don't be silly. You are just pissing in the wind". Margaret Wilson ruled that no more should be mentioned of this affair and that "Don't be silly" addressed the question. The lat...

Parents of miscarried foetuses are allowed to enter them with a name in the official civil registry. This makes sense. They were human (albeit in an early stage of development) and their loss was a real loss to their parents. They were Real People that never quite made it to the next step of their life cycle. The "being born" stage. The least we can do is give them a name. Some groups are complaining about this. What are they so afraid of? I find this amusing, for reasons I'll soon explain. If we declare a pre-born baby human, will society really crumble? If we declare a foetus a human, does it make us lucky enough to be born any less human? Of course not. And what's the problem with giving our human pre-borns the status of personhood? We know, all things being equal, they are going to be born. The only thing to stop this would be an un-natural intervention, a terrible accident or some bad luck. So let's do it. And just to make this post controversial...

Today's Dom Post has a picture of what looks like a couple of giant pumpkins masquerading as buildings gracing it's front page today. The pumpkins are apparently going to be the new international airport terminal buildings. Ok... So, what will be the subliminal message here? Welcome to the land of Oz? How about country bumpkins abound! And maybe during Halloween, special lights can come on giving the pumpkins a scary face. You've got to wonder really, who even thinks of these sorts of things!

I was asked recently , if I had to choose out of two candidates, who would I vote for: Clinton or Obama. I answered Obama. My reason being that he was not Clinton. But then I had to clarify that in reality I would choose neither, as Huckabee is more my style. So it is with bemusement that I read the following piece about the preacher-style of Obama and how he seems to connect with people of a more conservative bent, even though what he preaches secular humanism. Interesting. So is he more dangerous than Clinton? How is that possible? Maybe that bit of advice about "better the devil you know " is worth listening to. Pro-life activist John Jakubczyk writes about Barack Obama, "He is an attractive, articulate voice for secular liberalism." Yes, the message is secular liberalism, but the voice is that of a preacher. Senator Obama sounds more like a minister than the real minister in the race, Gov. Mike Huckabee. When you listen to the phrasing and cadence of Obama...

Related Link: Exorcisms in big demand ~ Courier Mail

Peter Cresswell has written a post discussing why it is virtuous to lie to a thief. That's what I love* about Objectivists, they turn the virtues upside-down. For instance, selfishness, according to Ayn Rand, rather than being a vice, instead becomes a virtue, something to aspire to. And here we have PC arguing that it is honourable to withhold truth from thieves, because to not do so would be to participate in evil. He then draws a parallel between lying to a Gestapo officer seeking the location of your wife and lying to the thieves who stole the medals from the war museum. Can I suggest that the examples, the context given by PC are completely different from giving a reward for the return of medals? This situation can instead be likened to a hostage situation, where you hand over money for the safe return of your wife and children, because to not do so would be to jeopardise their lives, which matter far more than just the money you would hand over. And to lie in the situa...

For the first time ever, a movie has been made about the Katyn Forest Massacre of 1940. In 1940, Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union and ally of Hilter's Germany, signed an order to kill 25,000 captured Polish Officers. The order was carried out secretly. All of the men who went to their deaths were told they were going back to their families. Instead they were transported in groups of around 250 and sent out to the forests where they were shot and buried in mass graves. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, they found the mass graves and publicised them to the world. The Soviets, at the time supposedly allies of the West and Poland, flatly denied responsibility. When challenged by Poland's exiled government, the Soviets in a huff, broke off relations with Poland. The other allies sided with the Soviets, putting Poland in a politically difficult and bad situation with the other allies (namely Britain the US). During the 50 years that the Soviet Union ruled Poland in all...

Here is my most recent reading list of books I've read over the last several months or so: Salvation is from the Jews: The role of Judaism in salvation history from Abraham to the second coming by Roy H. Schoeman I'm not sure how to summarise this book. What I found amazing, is that right in the middle of it is a section devoted to the Ideological Foundations of Nazism, which drew on material from The Poisoned Stream and the Pink Swastika, both of which can found on our books sidebar. Schoeman also explains the "economy of perdition", how it can be observed in Nazism. For, as St Paul says: "We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12) The adversary draws men into sin by appealing to their vices - pride, desire for power, lust and so forth". He draws them deeper and d...

It's all perspective, isn't it? Rudd has apologised for the Stolen Generation, and we are all wondering when he's going to send our Kiwis back. Although, from this end, we now expect Helen Clark to make an apology for "the Abandoned Generation". Feeling unloved and unwanted, New Zealand's middle class has left our shores, possibly never to return. Either Rudd's mob stole them, or Helen just gave them away. Will we ever get to the bottom of this social crime? And speaking of social crimes, raising the tagging fines is just stupid. Getting the juves to clean up their own tags using a toothbrush might work a lot better, and it would be good for the toothbrush industry. So now that spray paint is virtually contraband, expect the Gangs to be moving into wholesale hardware and redecorating. British Paints has no doubt got the edge on the tender process, having supplied that famous tagger Rolf for years. One thing you can say about Rolf, he was the maste...

In the Herald today is a story about how police are going to be stationed at the worst schools in South Auckland to keep order. I almost couldn't believe it when I read it. What occurs to me is that this has come about because we're so afraid of disciplining a child at home or at school (and have had a pushy Helen-knows-best government nose it's way into our home lives) that police are now required to keep order at school. Have things really got so bad? Things have swung way too far in the wrong direction. Perhaps caning might be a little too far to the other extreme, but surely there is a happy medium. When I was at primary school (a small country school that went from primers all the way to Form 2), we had 'the strap' with which a kid could be hit on the hand for something really serious. I can only remember one or two kids getting it and most kids were well behaved. We didn't DARE say no to a teacher or give him/her any lip yet I don't remember feeli...

Chat time!

Without Helen Clark, the Labour party will collapse. Interesting.... Related Link : Dying for Helen Augusta

I've just been reading the related link, and I have to share the following with you on the experiences of a Countess in Poland during WW2. Initially, "The Bolsheviks," as she likes to refer to them, elicited mildly amusing disdain: "Comrades might turn up at the theatre in an alluring silk nightdress, or use chamberpots for watering the flowers" (p. 4). A Soviet officer who was billeted upon her apartment washed his hair in the toilet bowl . He would flush the toilet and become enraged with the brevity of the "shower". Consequently, "waving his revolver", he accosted the serving girl of the Countess "and accused her of sabotage" (p. 11) Related Link: Countess against the Barbarians ~ The Institute of World Politics

Bob McCoskrie of Family First has written a fantastic article for today's Dominion Post, titled Spare the respect, spoil the children , featured on page B7 opposite the editorial and letters page. It has an unfortunate picture right next to it of a dad with a boy over his knee while mum and daughter look on - but that's ok - it'll get the attention of the Dom Post readers and therefore will be widely read. My favourite paragraph is this one: The huge irony is that the more the state undermines the authority of parents, the less responsibility parents will take for their children. If the Government wants parents to be responsible parents, it must first respect their authority. The words "parents", "respect" and "authority" in close proximity to one another will get a whole bunch of ideologues in Cindy Kiro's office choking on their coffees! But really, that is the crux of the matter. The more the Government works to undermine the family ...

I bought a bikini last week so that I could get into the pool with the kids, rather than just watching from the sidelines. I was motivated by the fact that we were going to an unfamiliar pool and my youngest still cannot get himself floating on top of the water and breathing at the same time. Well, the last time I bought swimware was when I was pregnant with that same child so that we could take advantage of the apartment complex's pool. There was no way I'd go out in public in a bikini at that point, but just down to the private, indoor pool, was ok. Bareable. That was when I was in my early 30's. I read somewhere that women in their 30's are the least represented on the beaches and in the pools. It's mostly the young and the old that strip off and wear swim gear. When I read that, I thought, yeah, that makes sense. Now that I've actually had to - from necessity - get into a bikini in public, it wasn't that bad. But then I'm nearly 40. I've...

We've gotten more popular ! But it's hard work. Maintaining the blogging impetus, that is. Now that school's back in, I'm finding it difficult to write posts. I have two that I'm working on and more that I'd love to write, but not enough time to think about them. Oh well, better make dinner and then off to swimming lessons for the kids!

I've been asked to ensure people understand this letter DID NOT come from Jenny Rowan, or anyone associated with Jenny Rowan. This letter DOES NOT EXIST, and the opinions expressed within would be DENIED by Jenny Rowan should she be made aware of the existence of this letter (nudge nudge wink wink, say no more). Zen Tiger Rate Payer of Kapiti Coast Dear ZenTiger PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL In the recent elections for Mayor of Kapiti Coast District Council, I've campaigned on a platform of transparency. I said on my web site "An open process of communication needs to be in place with each community about what is going on at council and how it affects them." I didn't mean it of course. People need to realise that I am committed to transparency only when it suits my purposes. So I signed a cheque for $280,000 and threw in the keys to a European Import because our Chief Executive was pushed or resigned (not telling - nyah nyah) after only 9 months on the job. Now, y...

In the US, a quarter of all registered voters are Catholic, and a great proportion of those Catholics are backing Hillary Clinton. I'm just ... horrified! It just goes to show how badly informed about their faith those American Catholics are! If they had more of a clue, they'd not be voting for a woman that supports abortion! Full-stop! Catholics [...] have backed the winner of the national popular vote for at least the last nine presidential elections, going back to 1972. Related Link: Catholic Vote Is Harbinger of Success for Clinton ~ NY Times

One of the dangers of reading about abortion, is that you find out just human beings are capable of that you would rather not know. For instance, the concept that doctors and nurses in a hospital can leave a born baby to die. Not because that baby is dying and is beyond help anyway, which really would be bad enough if that were the case. But because that baby was supposed to die in the first place. A baby that by pure chance has managed to survive the abortion process and has been born alive is left to die because that baby is not supposed to live. Now most people manage to compartmentalise abortion into something that happens internally in a woman's body that has nothing to do with them. If the baby inside the woman is not wanted, then of course the woman ought be allowed to hire someone to take it out of her. And I suppose it is considered more humane to kill the poor thing before it knows what is going on or before it's old enough to realise that it's mother didn...

...Their job, to enforce the law (Thank God it's Friday)

Leading Catholic theologian and papal ally, Fr Aidan Nichols, is calling for England to be remade as a Catholic country. Interesting. I suppose as Anglicanism implodes and becomes irrelevant, this will become more and more possible. Related Link: Fr Aidan Nichols Convert England ~ What does the prayer really say?

A couple of days ago I passed a group of women sitting at an outdoor table at a cafe, having morning tea together and chatting. They were definitely mothers, as there were a number of strollers parked around them, and babies sitting on some of their laps. As I passed by, I happened to catch the waft of the conversation - something to do with smacking, not smacking often, but needing to do so sometimes. It occurred to me last night after putting up the Cindy Kiro post , that this one issue - the anti-smacking bill - has woken up a segment of society that normally ignores politics. In all my years as a mother and talking with other mothers, I've found very few are interested in politics. However, every mother I have talked to recently knows about the anti-smacking bill, and very few of the mothers I have talked to are for it. Most are disturbed by the bill. Mothers typically do not have the time to make their opinions known to the movers and shakers, so anyone that thinks this i...

Cindy Kiro has an article in today's Dominion Post that draws a rather long bow. She asserts that violence causes violence and implies that smacking is violence, therefore smacking creates violent individuals of the type that she has talked to in prison. What I find even more disturbing than her tightly held belief that smacking is violence, is the statement that seems to come out of nowhere like a tourette's expletive - "Punching a child in the head is not discipline and it may well kill them." What the!!! Who is calling for the right to "punch a child in the head"??? Is Cindy on some kind of memory lane trip at this point where she remembers something horrible from her own childhood? By putting that statement in her article, Cindy Kiro is directly implying that all of us who believe we need to be able to physically discipline our children (should it become necessary) and not be criminalised are potentially out of control child murderers that need to be do...

The above picture was photographed at the University of Minnesota. The picture is of a six week human fetus removed from his/her mother because of an ectopic pregnancy (where the baby attaches to the fallopian tubes rather than the womb). The baby was moving until the sac was pierced by a scalpel. I got this picture from The Christian Party, Ireland . I was inspired to write this short post because of a comment made on a post on Moratorium on Abortion on A Servant's Thoughts that I couldn't get out of my head. The comment had to do with a picture of an unborn baby that the blog author had previously put up on his website. I didnt like the picture on your last abortion letter though - it presents a bias view that babies are at this stage of development when abortion happens, when most are not. ~ Jack Jack was referring to the picture on the right. I haven't been able to date the picture yet. I've found it used all over the place, but so far no luck with describin...

As some of you will know, I started homeschooling my two boys in the middle of last year after being dissatisfied with the school I had put them into after taking them out of a Steiner school. I've had a number of people ask me how I've found homeschooling, and honestly I've had to say it's hard work. My first month was very stressful, I think because I felt I had to go boom, boom, boom through the subjects I'd chosen. I'm a bit more relaxed now. I know the subjects that I can just give the kids to do and there's no pressure. Poetry memorisation we do daily and both the kids love it. My older child likes starting with handwriting practise - he reckons it wakes him up and it's easy. My younger child still resists handwriting, so I'm not pushing it. Today he did some dot-to-dot pictures, practising his number recognition and ability to hold his pencil and draw straight lines from number to number. I got stuck a bit last year on how to teach math...

We've all heard about the poor people who were burned alive in a Church very recently in Kenya. But how many people actually know what is going on there? The Midnight Sun , in a recent post quote a Muslim who says quite clearly the conflict has nothing to do with Islam, which seems to be correct as this is backed up by the article I've linked to below. The most in-depth analysis of the conflict that has broken out in Kenya appeared in "L'Osservatore Romano", written by a missionary working in the area. The real reasons for this fratricidal war among Christians. ROMA, February 1, 2008 – In Africa, the equatorial region that runs from Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean is among the most Christianized on the continent. There the expansion of Islam from the north stopped, except along the eastern coast. The Catholic Church has a significant presence there. And yet for many years, these same countries have been the setting of some of the bloodiest slaughters and war...

Gman really has a way with words. The whole post is worth reading, but here's a snippet: If I have this whole religion thing wrong, and there really is a god, and because I kept saying he is a figment of a couple of kooks imagination it turns out that I have to go to hell, then I know what hell looks like. There's no fire, no brimstone, there's no molten lava. Dante and Hieronymus Bosch have it totally wrong.In hell, you have to sit for 2 days in the summer sun with 30,000 boorish, drunken, look-at-me, attention-seeking assholes and watch a dumbed-down bastardized version of rugby. I think that the sevens is further proof that we are heading the way of Ancient Rome. The masses need to be entertained. It'll only get worse ... Related Link: Sevens Hell ~ Gman

On page 2 of Dom Post: "Kahui Lawyer hits out at Nat bail plan" (it's too tough) On page 3 of Dom Post: "Man sentenced after killing 2 year old while out on bail" That almost says it all. But another story reflects on the soft approach to crime. A man was given 50 hours community service for punching another man in the face in a public toilet. Apparently the man "glanced" in the wrong way! Well 50 hours should sort out the thug. Except that the story noted "this is added to the other 300 hours community service the man is currently serving". And recently, a 50 year old man was raped in a toilet by another man. Elsewhere, a father of three scuffles with a tagger, the tagger ends up dead. Today, a teen tells a tagger to "stop" and ends up stabbed. Citizens taking on law breakers and defending their property needs to get the support of the state. Or are we ( as Trotter suggests ) supposed to lie back and take it?

Chat time!

Did everyone get that? The murder and mayhem in NZ is normal, nothing to be worried about, or to get excited about. We can just go back to locking our doors and windows and keeping our handbags close without worrying. Why? Well, Chris Trotter says so. Here's the article. My comments follow it. Frenzy of the killer within FROM THE LEFT - CHRIS TROTTER Name me just one crime- free nation. Silly question. There's no such place. Dishonesty and violence have been humanity's constant companions for as long as Homo sapiens has been a social species – in other words, forever. Why then do we allow ourselves to be whipped into a lather by the tragic – but inevitable – instances of violent and anti- social behaviour that blight the lives of our fellow citizens every week? Has there ever been a week in which nobody was robbed, or defrauded, or beaten up, or killed? Does the historical record contain evidence of even one month in which no burglaries were reported and no dairies rob...

Stonewall, a homosexual lobby group, are behind the new UK Education Guidelines try to normalise homosexuality schools. The words "Mum" and "Dad" are out, to be replaced by "parent" or "parents". The use of the word "gay" ought to be considered as bad as a racist remark. Am I the only one who thinks that Ed Balls has an unfortunate name in relation to all of this? LONDON (LifeSiteNews) - Government guidelines for training school officials to be more sensitive to homosexuality, instruct teachers not to use the terms "mum and dad" when referring to students' parents, and to treat "even casual" use of terms like "gay" as equal to racism. The guidance was commissioned by the Labour government directly from the homosexual lobby group Stonewall. The document was launched today at a Stonewall conference by Schools Secretary Ed Balls. Ed Balls said, "Homophobic insults should be viewed as seriously as rac...