New Zealand Conservative

The film , set in Algeria in 1996, depicts real events , when seven French monks of Tibhirine monastery were taken hostage by Islamic fundamentalists, and later murdered  in what might have been, according to  French secret service documents, an accidental killing by the Algerian military during  a rescue attempt. However, the film does not aim at shedding light on the facts, instead it is, as described in  The Irish Times , a “thoughtful, unhurried meditation on the virtues and dangers of religious faith”, focusing on the spiritual path of these men when, facing gut-churning threats, they had to decide whether to stay or flee, and then carried on until martyrdom. ~ link Looks like it will be coming to NZ, probably played at art-house cinemas.

A recent UN report claimed a new human right to explicit sexual education for young children. The African and Caribbean blocs led the widespread hostility toward the report by registering their “strong rejection” and “strong disapproval.” The report claims a new human right to sexual education citing non-binding recommendations and other UN reports including the controversial UNESCO guidelines on sexual education and the Yogyakarta Principles. The report's author, Victor Muñoz, argues that States have an obligation to ensure this new right “from the early stages of life.” So, the author of the report wants babies sexually messed with by governments. Ignoring the ongoing heated debate at the UN over terms dealing with “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” Muñoz insists that sexual education include information on “sexual diversity.” Muñoz blasts abstinence programs, which he argues normalizes stereotypes and promotes discriminatory images because they are based on “het...

I have just finished reading the book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America, by authors Pamela Geller & Robert Spencer. It's a book I would recommend to anyone; a must-read, in fact, if you want to know the direction in which Obama is taking America. It's one of those books you wish you could just download to people's heads (like in that movie The Matrix) and they would just know without having to go through the process of reading it. Of course, a lot of people - on seeing the cover and the title - will dismiss it and lump it under the umbrella of conspiracy theory. Leftists will for sure. I think it would be hard for them to make that case though, as a great deal of the book focuses on the actions Obama has taken that are pretty much public record, including commentary from both critics and adherents of Obama, from senators to journalists. The book documents his rise; showing you what influenced him growing up, who is mentors...

A fantastic transcript of a lecture given by Peter Kreeft on Moral Relativism, where he defines it and refutes it absolutely. Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day defined a good society as one that makes it easy for you to be good. Correlatively, a free society is one that makes it easy to be free. To be free, and to live freely, is to live spiritually, because only spirit is free—matter is not. To live spiritually is to live morally. The two essential properties of spirit that distinguish it from matter are intellect and will—the capacity for knowledge and moral choice. The ideals of truth and goodness. The most radical threat to living morally today is the loss of moral principles. Moral practice has always been difficult for fallen humanity, but at least there was always the lighthouse of moral principles, no matter how stormy the sea of moral practice got. But today, with the majority of our mind-molders, in formal education, or informal education—that is, media—the light is gone. Mora...

Chat time! Got a little distracted by today's General Debate at Kiwiblog .

This will set the atheists off. VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI told scientists that their research can lead to knowledge of God by revealing the natural order of the universe. The pope made his remarks on Thursday (Oct. 28) before a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican. The evident logic governing the universe "leads us to admit the existence of an all-powerful Reason, which is other than that of man, and which sustains the world," Benedict said. "This is the meeting point between the natural sciences and religion," the pope said. "As a result, science becomes a place of dialogue, a meeting between man and nature and, potentially, even between man and his Creator." The academy is a group of 80 eminent scientists, including more than two dozen Nobel laureates, who promote research into natural science and related philosophical issues. Membership is without regard to religious affiliation. Related link: Pope s...

From the Daily Mail: Mohammed is now the most popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and Harry And from the same paper a few days ago A historic Church of England diocese where Muslim worshippers outnumber Anglican churchgoers by two to one is set to be scrapped. According to sources, the Dioceses Commission is drawing up proposals to axe the cash-strapped Diocese of Bradford in Yorkshire and merge it with neighbouring Ripon and Leeds. Hmmmm

Then go and read John Minto's diatribe on Peter Jackson.

A leading story on Stuff, sourced from the Brisbane times is headlined: Kiwi war vet in police standoff . It says Police have use a remote-controlled device to deliver what is believed to be a mobile phone to a Kiwi man holed up on a boat in a siege in Brisbane's CBD. The 54-year-old , who remains onboard, is believed to be a former soldier from New Zealand. He contacted police from the site at about 5am today. So far so good but later in the piece Jay, a fellow yachtie who claims to be the man's friend, told reporters this afternoon the man was a Vietnam War veteran . presumably used to generate the headline But ........ The last combat troops New Zealand had in Vietnam were withdrawn in December 1971 so if the gentleman in question is indeed 54 he was at most 15 years old when he served there. Color me skeptical.

Linley Boniface has written an opinion piece in today's Dominion Post that I actually agree with. It starts: A recent Dominion Post contained a feature so controversial that not a single member of the public interviewed was named. She then asks what this controversial topic could possibly be, listing a number of activities that you think would warrant such anonymity, before identifying the criminal act that most parents dare not admit to: leaving under 14 year olds at home, alone. Children who could possibly taking care of siblings and not a parent in sight. I always assumed it was an urban myth that parents were legally required to keep children under house arrest for the first 14 years of their lives. Apparently not. That's right, it's illegal in NZ to leave children who are under the age of 14 at home without an adult there to supervise them. Last week during the teacher's strike, many Year 9 children who could have been 13 years of age, were most likely left...

A woman in Michigan who placed an advertisement for a Christian roommate on her Church's notice board has been anonymously denounced to the authorities and a civil rights suit against her initiated . The ad "expresses an illegal preference for a Christian roommate, thus excluding people of other faiths,” according to the complaint filed by the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan. "It's a violation to make, print or publish a discriminatory statement," Executive Director Nancy Haynes told Fox News. "There are no exemptions to that." Haynes said the unnamed 31-year-old woman’s case was turned over to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. Depending on the outcome of the case, she said, the woman could face several hundreds of dollars in fines and “fair housing training so it doesn’t happen again.” Fair housing training? Sounds an awful lot like political re-education to me.

Churches contribute to gay suicides, most Americans believe That's the CNN headline based upon a survey from Public Religion Research Institute. They do not publish their methodology but the survey is here A quote Gay rights campaigner Dan Savage said the idea that churches send out an anti-gay message "totally jibes with my experience and that of millions of other gay and lesbian people." Really? In my experience the Church doesn't talk about homosexuality at all - it talks about sin and assumes correctly that all are sinners in one way or another. And the Church talks about overcoming sin and redemption. The Church talks about trying to live a Godly life and the struggles that that entails because it doesn't come easy. And the Church tells us to examine our own sin and not to judge others. Is it that the activists are so self centered and absorbed that they want the Church to be all about them and when it doesn't conform to their wishes and...

Are we still talking about this ? You bet. Two more radio show hosts fired for thought crimes. The first is in America - Link: Radio Host bites the dust . Look how polite the language is when you fire some-one: It thanked Williams for his many years of service as a "valuable contributor" to NPR. "We did not make this decision lightly or without regret," it added. "We regret these circumstances." What caused such soft and civilised words?

Miners carrying the statue of St Lorenzo, the Patron Saint of miners Just been reading about some of this in an editorial in the NZ Catholic newspaper and doing some googling about it on the net. Was there a spiritual aspect to the rescue of the trapped miners in Chile? It appears there were many. A statue of St Lorenzo, the patron Saint of miners, was carried to the entrance of the mine shaft, and also placed in the presidential palace by President Sebastian Pinera. The miners asked for a crucifix, statues of Mary and other saints to be sent down to them, where they created a shrine. The Pope blessed 33 pairs of Rosary beads that were sent down to the miners. In return, they sent the Pope a flag . Of course, there would have been many prayers offered by those family and friends of the trapped miners, including minor Mario Gomez, who was the last up and their foreman, who fell to his knees in a prayer of thanks as he came up. Some snippets -  The 33 miners trappe...

Chat time. For those that aren't going away on the long weekend ...

I'm really don't understand the kerfuffle around the potential death of the Maori language. At least it has been documented and thus saved from being lost forever. Anyone interested in learning Maori in the future will still have access to the stored written and audio data. If they are really worried that the audio could become unreadable and the paper be destroyed over time, then engraving the language on stone tablets would be the way to go. No language lasts forever. Trying to make people learn a language they are not interested in learning and don't think is relevant, is a sure way to kill it off faster. And if Maori is left to die, then it can be preserved as is.  Because living languages mutate over time, and I doubt the purists would be happy with that, even if we were all speaking Maori as they might want. Morte sola lingua immortalis fit* Update: Found an opinion from a Maori academic that I agree with. But David Rankin, a Maori academic and a leader of...

For the last couple of days I've been pondering the following two articles. The first is Muslim Scholar Upholds Christian Presence in Middle East . The Muslim scholar was invited to a Vatican conference on the Middle East. He said at the conference that : "The emigration of Christians is an impoverishment of the Arabic identity, of its culture and authenticity," said Sammak, who is an advisor to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He added that maintaining the Christian presence in the Middle East was a "common Islamic duty as much as a common Christian duty." How often do we hear this sort of thing? Maybe some Muslims, just like some non-Christians see the value of Christianity among them, even though they do not wish to take that step themselves. But the more interesting article was the linked one at the end of the first, introduced this way: Those who have studied the roots of the violent conflicts in the Middle East have usually found that they stem...

First he was a star, then a wife beater, and now is his chance for a new start . Paul Henry had to resign for what he said*, and Veitch resigned for what he did. Both crimes earn a life sentence in some circles. I wonder where our readers stand? Do you think Tony Veitch should be goose-stepped off the airwaves by the third Reitch** of lefty/liberal public opinion, or should he be given a chance? Has he paid his debt to society or are the penalty interest rates still applying? A timely question, given the interesting connection Lindsay made about other types of Jockeys and Trevor Mallard representative of the left. And also a general observation about liberals, conservatives and libertarians: ..One of the biggest disagreements between the political left and right is their conflicting notions of fairness. Across many surveys and experiments, we find that liberals think about fairness in terms of equality, whereas conservatives think of it in terms of karma. In our survey for Y...

Their New Zealand CEO, Alistair Davis, is an idiot - he thinks we should be paying more for petrol . He claims it will save the planet or something. What a load of bollocks. Of course his real motivation is flick off their boring silly little cars. "But there obviously is a tipping point. For example, when the price of 91 octane petrol went past $2 a litre, it kick-started a trend that saw many motorists downsizing their vehicles," he said in an interview with the Taranaki Daily News.

More outrage in Belgium as Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Léonard, is slammed for comments in a book. From the Sydney Morning Herald's report The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium sparked an uproar on Friday after the release of a new translation of a book in which he says the AIDS epidemic is a "sort of inherent justice" resulting from the "mistreatment of the profound nature of human love". Note well the use of selective quotes to report what the Archbishop actually said. the report continues Coming just weeks after a report that detailed the abuse of hundreds of children by Catholic priests over several decades in Belgium, the comments of Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard has plunged the Church into a fresh controversy. Political leaders, media, medical institutions and gay rights campaigners have all lined up to denounce his words. After a non sequitur about the abuse scandal we are lead to a paragraph introducing the Archbisho...

Where's the media outcry on this? In the 40's and 50's, an American university funded "sex-research" on more than 2,000 babies and children and there's .... nothing. 'Esther White' interview, Part 1 A victim of the 1940's Kinsey sex experiments speaks out Stunner! My father was paid to rape me Subject of 1940s 'research' goes public with horrific details of abuse by dad

Just the sort of thing I need to get me all riled up on a Sunday morning. But, I managed to save it until the evening. A visiting American expert in adolescent sexual behaviour says better sex education programmes are needed in New Zealand schools. Uh oh! Dr Douglas Kirby has spent many years studying what makes some sex education programmes more effective than others, and believes that if New Zealand wants to address its high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) it needs a more consistent and comprehensive approach towards teaching sex education in schools. Still has me worried! New Zealand has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the developed world, with about 28 teenagers out of 1000 having a child in any one year. We also have high rates of STIs, particularly chlamydia. A 2009 Public Health Surveillance Report found the national number of cases of diagnosed chlamydia rose by 25% between 2004 and 2008. About 71% of those affected were unde...

German bid at multi-cultural society has failed: Merkel . This is bound to cause a furore but you can't maintain a workable society consisting of enclaves of people speaking different languages and holding different values and who do not want to integrate. It inevitably leads to civil discord and disorder. Angela Merkel has articulated it, now what?

I love the idea of publishing where our tax payer dollars go in the form of a receipt, much like what is suggested here: Tax Payer Receipt We do get access to departmental expenditure, like your local Council's Annual Plan and Corporate Style Annual Reports, but I've never seen an "across government" view of expenditure. It's a good start. However, it doesn't go far enough. For one thing, I'd love to see a list of NGO's that are funded by tax payer dollars. I'd like to see different levels of detail, each total hyper-linking to a second level of detail, then to a third level of detail and so on. I got this link from the Dim Post . I note some good points in the comments there, like it not accurately representing other taxation sources (business taxes, levies, ACC costs etc) and that there's a couple of grand in incidentals that aren't really mentioned. I suspect some of the costs are also misstated. Like the costs for paying elec...

December 2012 could be the end of the world as we know it. No, not the Mayan calendar thing, I'm speaking of Simon Power's musing on internet regulation. Apparently, free speech interferes with democracy. Who would have thought? So the Law Commission is going to see how they can muzzle html pamphleteers. We get to send in a hand written response to this from December 2012. I'm making a note in my diary.

"Off the top of my head" is a bit of a strange expression. Rumour has it people used to be "talking through their hat" and once hats went, we then had to talk off the top of our head. Except those two phrases have distinctly different meanings, so I'm a tad suspicious. I'm also a tad suspicious of the new Wellington Mayor. Celia Wade-Brown, an out of the closet Greenie (aren't they all?) I've looked at her headline policies for Wellington, and I am in agreement with them all. (I'll have to find the bigger list and check it twice). It could end up being a matter of the means used to justify the ends, which is often where Greenies and I part company, but she even wants to cut red tape for small and medium sized businesses. She could turn out to be a very interesting Mayor, and I wish her success, where it makes Wellington successful. My week was another one of those intense weeks marked by little events that seemed to bear deep import. ...

Chat time!

Get this headline on Stuff Booze now cheaper than bottled water Yeah right! The so called public health professor, whose comfortable existence no doubt comes from tax extracted from the working population, has acheived this headline by comparing apples with oranges. To wit Public Health Associate Professor Nick Wilson and fellow researcher Fiona Gunasekara found cask wine readily for sale at 62 cents per standard drink, beer at 64c and bottled wine at 65c. That was cheaper than bottled water – at 67 cents per 250ml – and not much more than a 250ml glass of milk, at 43 cents. A "standard drink" is one which contains 10g of alcohol - there is little to no alcohol in bottled water or milk so this comparison is nonsensical. Just a way of creating shock horror headlines. This fellow who has job security and no doubt a nice salary thinks that the hoi polloi who do real work, digging in the mines or stacking the shelves at the warehouse shouldn't be allowed to ha...

[..]It is not logically contradictory to say an all-powerful and all-loving God tolerates so much evil when he could eradicate it? Why do bad things happen to good people? The question makes three questionable assumptions. First, who's to say we are good people? The question should be not “Why do bad things happen to good people?” but “Why do good things happen to bad people?” If the fairy godmother tells Cinderella that she can wear her magic gown until midnight, the question should be not “Why not after midnight?” but “Why did I get to wear it at all?” The question is not why the glass of water is half empty but why it is half full, for all goodness is gift. The best people are the ones who are most reluctant to call themselves good people. Sinners think they are saints, but saints know they are Sinners. The best man who ever lived once said, “No one is good but God alone. “ Second, who's to say suffering is all bad? Life without it would produce spoiled brats and tyrants...

Four years ago I wrote a post a post on the Neo-Pagans, which spawned the most amazing comment thread. Here it is, in the web-archive . Given that primitive religions are also making a comeback , I think it's worth reproducing that post here.

Photo of foetus smiling at 17 weeks. October is Pro Life month, so I thought I'd post about some things I'd been thinking about recently; namely, about ecology. Well first, what does ecology mean? According to the dictionary, it is - the branch of biology dealing with the relations and interactions between organisms and their environment, including other organisms. OK, so that's when I started thinking about some of these "greenies", or environmentalists. Why would many of them accept abortion? Let's imagine a scenario: What if there was a marshland that someone wanted to clear and build on, but there were some nesting ducks in the way. The ducks flew off with the noise of the approaching bulldozers, leaving their eggs behind, and the developers just wanted to bulldoze right over the nests and crush the eggs because they weren't convenient being where they were. They were in the way. Wouldn't environmentalists be jumping up and down and loudly c...

Pregnant or menstruating women are asked to not go to a special behind the scenes exihibit at Te Papa, because something "bad" could happen if they do. This is superstition, plain and simple. When Christianity declines, barbaric superstitions fill the void. But wait, there's more. Women cannot go into the garden, on to the beach or in the kitchen when they are menstruating. “It’s a very serious violation of tapu for women to do those things while menstruating. Women cannot have anything to do with the preparation of food while they are menstruating.” I’m stunned. I wonder if women who are menstruating are “sacred” (like pregnant women) and therefore the food will do something bad to them if they touch it. Likewise the garden, full of evil things like plants and rocks. So, what will happen if Maori ever manage to get hold of the beaches*. Will menstruating women be banned from them? Will there be special police around making sure that menstruating women do not...

We don't need the AGW scare mongering to understand that reducing energy consumption is a good thing, and part of sensible and sustainable living. I get annoyed with the one off yearly feel good "raise awareness" activities like switching lights off for an hour, that do little more than make school children think they are saving the planet. Here's something simple that might have a measurable impact on ones power bill, assuming that one uses an air conditioning unit in the summer rather than open the windows... paint the roof white , or even better, use roofing materials designed to reflect the sun's heat and minimise house cooling requirements. Apparently, it makes little difference to the house in the winter months. My roof is up for replacement in the next few years, and I installed a heat pump (known as an air conditioner in the summer) and this could save some big bucks off my power bill.

A link to a page full of links to good articles: Myths, Misunderstandings, and Controversies . Inspired by a comment on KiwiBlog . From one of the links: Crusade Propaganda : The crusades are quite possibly the most misunderstood event in European history. Ask a random American about them and you are likely to see a face wrinkle in disgust, or just the blank stare that is usually evoked by events older than six weeks. After all, weren’t the crusaders just a bunch of religious nuts carrying fire and sword to the land of the Prince of Peace? Weren’t they cynical imperialists seeking to carve out colonies for themselves in faraway lands with the blessings of the Catholic Church? A couch potato watching the BBC/A&E documentary onthe crusades (hosted by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame no less) would learn in roughly four hours of frivolous tsk-tsk-ing that the peaceful Muslim world actually learned to be warlike from the barbaric western crusaders. No wonder, then, that Pope John ...

[Update] you can watch the video yourself now HERE I have just seen Pam Corkery interviewed on Good Morning talking about her new brothel business; it's a service consisting of male hookers especially for women clients. I watched the whole interview pretty much shaking my head at what this distasteful woman was saying. As the video of her appearance is not up online yet, I will try to summarise in my own words until I can update. The interviewer Hadyn asked her how she had come up with the idea. Pam said that she had just gotten over her alcoholism and was driving around one day and feeling like she'd "like some" (sex), but that she just wanted the sex and then to be able to pay the man to go away after because she'd been married three times already and wasn't after anything more meaningful. By chance her friend had also just broken up and she also was feeling needy and so they decided to go into business together and start up a brothel especially for wome...

Yes, Paul Henry has resigned . So has Hal Lewis. Hal Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara has resigned from the American Physical Society, partly over his belief that the science process undertaken by the scientists involved in ClimateGate was not science at all: Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question. I want no part of it, so please accept my resigna...

Yes, this evening Paul Henry fell on his sword and resigned from TVNZ. It is no longer practical in the current environment for me to do the job I was employed to do, and have so enjoyed doing," Mr Henry said tonight. "It is also difficult for TVNZ to get on with the business of being a first class broadcaster as long as I remain." I admit that Paul could go too far sometimes, but at least he had the ability to cut through a lot of left-wing BS and could often give interview subjects a good grilling when they started spouting PC nonsense. He will be missed in that regard, while TVNZ will probably hire a forelock-tugging, "yes ma'am" broadcaster to replace him.

Wellington City Councilor Rob Goulden turned his hand to blogging to help raise his profile, and tell us a little more about himself. It worked, we now know he isn't strong on matters of ethics and morality. Apparently, he sees nothing wrong with posting comments under multiple identities praising himself, or making over-the-top accusations against himself. Well, he's wrong, and I trust I don't need to explain why. Anyway, don't take my word for it, lets look at a range of opinions I've canvassed:

If local body politics bores you, as it does me, perhaps something completely different might just the tonic. I give you a song by Tsagaan Zam singing about his mother, in Kalmykian. If you haven't heard of Kalmykia don't worry, its a small country with a population equivalent to that of Otago and which counts as being in Europe, just. It has a predominantly Mongolian population, descendants of the Golden Horde who got their country by protecting Russia's southern border against the depredations of the Turks. If you listen carefully you will hear a style of singing where two voices emerge from one throat, which is pretty amazing if you think about it. Enjoy or not as the case may be.

Time to chat!

It's his birthday today , this is what he got a couple of years ago - I wonder what he'll get this time?

Sex education to children, encouragement to use contraception, all this leads to abortion. If the pro-life movement is to gain any headway, pro-life leaders must confront the root of the attack against the culture of life – the corruption of innocence through sex education and contraception, says Mercedes Arzu Wilson, founder and president of Family of the Americas and a pioneer in the natural family planning movement. “We have been ignoring the root of the problem all these years,” says Wilson. “The diabolical forces don’t care how much we fight abortion, as long as you don’t touch the source that brings women to abort.” According to Wilson, the source is the “corruption of innocence that eventually leads to the devaluation of human life , which is manifested through abortion and other sinful deeds.” The “graphic sexuality ‘education’” taught by Planned Parenthood and its collaborators “is actually indoctrination,” she says. “We’re promoting all kinds of perversions to littl...

One contract to bind them all? The last time that was tried, things went terribly wrong. Hobbitses was hurtses. And it seems it might happen again, with the Hobbits being moved off to the land of mordor, somewhere near Hungary I think. I'm actually not sure what all the fuss is about, but I'll give it a go: An Australian union for Actors want to establish a minimum set of hiring standards and wages for NZ actors for the Hobbit production. Due to the current employment laws in NZ, apparently, this cannot be used as a binding contract, so it might be pointless. But the Union is fine with that, because it feels it necessary to establish a non-binding baseline. Except there is already some pink coloured book that does this. Nevertheless, the union just wants to have nice friendly informal talks with PJ to draw up a contract template. Until those nice friendly talks eventuate, they have encouraged the hobbits, treants, rangers and wights to go on strike. And apparently Gan...

It just strikes me as strange that the vote count can be published well before polling closes, as I've noticed happening during these elections. I'm not sure what influence that might have on the outcome, but I can see detrimental side effects. I wonder why the vote tally is not kept confidential until after the polls close?

[update] I have just been informed that it was two different people on The Hand Mirror posting about the abortion rally and the abortion of calves. It remains to be seen whether their views on these issues coincide, but I would be very surprised if they have different viewpoints on these issues. Until then, I am acknowledging that these are different blog authors. Well, I don't know what to say really. On Sunday, the blogger at feminist blog The Hand Mirror did a post encouraging her supporters to protest outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington today to stand up for their right to abortion. She is horrified that women have to jump through so many hoops in order to procure an abortion - Our current law requires women to jump through many hoops before they can get access to abortion. Join the demo to demand that the current law is repealed, rather than interpreted more conservatively. Then today, she has another post in which she is "appalled" at the practice of som...

If art has a ceiling, then it may well be the Sistine Chapel. This virtual walk through is fairly cool if you have some bandwidth to burn: Sistine Chapel

Paul Henry has played the race card. It may have been a joke, but it was just as funny as when Hone tried it. Like, not. The TVNZ Breakfast host asked John Key if Sir Anand was actually a New Zealander. He then asked the Prime Minister if someone who looked more like a New Zealander would be the next Governor General. By gosh, Henry has a point. What does a real New Zealander look like? Given that we are denied the choice of even calling ourselves "New Zealander" on the census , I suddenly wondered if we might be suffering a National Identity Crisis. Is a New Zealander some-one you cannot bring home to Hone? I canvassed a few of my neighbours, and they did seem to be mostly white. They were also mostly woolly, and to be frank, sheep-like. Like the PC crowd that will no doubt bleat about this. Naughty Paul Henry. Baaaaa. Baaaad. Baaaaad. Ooh err, I think I'll join them.

Google now provides Latin as one of it's translation options. Cool. Here's a comparison of translations provided by WDTPRS.  The last one is Fr Z.'s personal translation: LATIN: Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui abundantia pietatis tuae et merita supplicum excedis et vota, effunde super nos misericordiam tuam, ut dimittas quae conscientia metuit, et adicias quod oratio non praesumit. GOOGLE: Almighty and everlasting God, who in the abundance of Thy goodness and exceed the proper and just punishment and vows, pour it out upon us mercy, ‘so that the consciousness of forgive what they fear him and will add to what we do not dare to ask. WDTPRS SLAVISHLY LITERAL VERSION: Almighty and everlasting God, who in the abundance of Your goodness surpass both the merits and the prayerful vows of suppliants, pour forth Your mercy upon us, so that You set aside those things which our conscience fears, and apply what our prayer dares not. Related link: Google ...

There was sun today! And I'm still not used to daylight savings, though I am enjoying the extra light. One more week of school holidays left...

[Update] I see that the ad has now been pulled by the 10:10 site. At least they have had the good sense to respond to what must be a lot of complaint throughout the blogosphere. The warmists are at it again, this time with black humour. There is a new campaign called '1010 Global' which aims to lower carbon footprints by 10% starting in 2010. OK, so some people believe in human-caused global warming and some do not, but it's the way in which they have been promoting it that really makes me shake my head in wonder. Check it out , if you want to see. It's a global warminst's film fantasy - to blow up anyone who won't take part in their little campaign. The film shows various scenarios, starting with a class of children in which a teacher asks how many students will take part in the effort to reduce carbon by 10%. The two students who do not agree to take part ("no pressure" says the teacher), are blown up by the teacher - blood splattering and covering...

I've noticed that in the Editorials page of the paper version of the NZ Herald that recent letters over the last few days have been very critical of the shows playing on TV here. I have to agree; there is hardly anything worth watching anymore, and the number of crime shows seems to be increasing. There seems to be a slew of shows obsessed with violent crime such as Criminal Minds, Special Victims Unit, CSI, NCIS, City Homicide,  etc. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with a good crime show, but why so many and so violent? There's a huge jump between the shows we used to watch as kids (Magnum P.I, Remington Steele, etc) to the violence that is displayed on TV today. There's a new show on Sky tomorrow (thankfully we don't get Sky) about mobsters in the prohibition era that promises to - Be prepared for black-faced minstrels, raunchy sex scenes, corpse nudity, shoot-outs, midget boxing and chilling 'moiders' – 'Boardwalk Empire' doesn...