New Zealand Conservative

I've just been talking about the infallibility the Church (through the Pope) to my children. It's a poorly understood concept, whereby people think that it supposed to make the Pope like God. But no, the Pope can still sin, can still make mistakes, except when teaching on faith and morals .

Enzo Boschi is president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. He is facing trial for failing to predict a 2009 earthquake that killed 308 people. Italian government officials have been investigating Dr Boschi and six other unfortunate individuals for over a year apparently and they are to stand trial on September 20 . Well somebody has to take the rap when 308 people die I suppose but this one seems just a little over the top given the unpredictable nature of earthquakes.

More leftist rewriting of history in a new report that lays the blame for the ghastly amount of abuse of Maori children at the feet of European missionaries. Prior to Europeans arriving, the report says children were considered gifts from the gods and whanau shunned child abuse. The researchers suggested abuse arose only after Maori were introduced to corporal punishment in missionary-run classrooms. Phhht . If that be so, I humbly ask, why not even higher rates amongst those of European descent with their even longer traditions, presumably, of beating children. Of course it isn't so. The savagery and barbarity of pre-European Maori culture is well attested to. And while 19 th century methods of raising children seem to us overly cruel and harsh they did not lead to the phenomena of angry boyfriends taking their frustrations out upon their girlfriend's infants of another father, the usual scenario in the most frightful of cases. Link: Research debunks Maori abuse

I posted a bit about this in a comment on Culture Vulture , but I thought it was fascinating enough to deserve a post of its own. I am sure there are people who won't even read the linked PDF, and will jump in and say that this is a lot of rubbish. To those people I can only - read it before passing comment. The first part of the argument is that porn can become an addiction; I don't think there is much disagreement there. Stars like David Duchovny (from TV's The X-Files, and Californication) have gone to rehab for porn and sex addiction. The linked article (see below) argues that porn addiction is no different in the brain than any other physical addiction, such as drugs or overeating. The second part of the argument, is that addiction can actually change and impair the brain by shrinking the frontal lobes, and that this is no different from the damage to the frontal lobes that people suffer in car accidents; and yes, there are studies to back it up.

It's a strange old world. The city authorities in Moscow don't want gay pride marches in their city because of the disorder they bring. And the citizens of Moscow overwhelmingly agree with the city fathers on this matter. So permits are refused for the parade. Which is like a red rag to a bull to activist communities across the globe. And off some of their most vocal members go to Moscow to parade anyway. To get assaulted by angry grannies, then arrested and to have a good old whine in the media . And in a few hours this same sorry saga will be playing out again. Beats me why they do it - there are plenty of cities which allow their decadent parades, why go out of your way to inflict them upon a city that doesn't want them? I'll tell you why my friends, the real reason is that the self absorbed believe that their "rights" trump other peoples rights.

Chat time.

A call has gone out for schools in New York to be teaching children how to safely dump their unwanted babies . And the depressing reality is that this initiative comes after two ghastly cases of babies being abandoned. So the answer to the question posed in the title is possibly yes.

Four years ago I wrote a post objecting to girls playing rugby , saying that back in my day, no girl would be seen dead playing such a game. Yet my old high-school had a picture of one of the pupils on page 3 of the Dominion Post diving through the air holding a rugby ball. With the story Andrei posted yesterday on the parents who won't reveal the sex of their newborn baby so that he/she can decide what he/she wants to be, I can see now that girls playing boy's games and boys playing girl's games is part of that same spectrum, where it's not considered important to teach boys to be boys and girls to be girls. Today I had to send an email to my son's physical education teacher asking why the boys in his class will be taught netball by the girls. I mentioned the increasing gender confusion in society, and the concept of tearing down internal barriers so that boys and girls are indoctrinated in such a way that the confusion is encouraged. I don't know if t...

There appears to be a push for a four year Parliamentary term. It's not from the voters, as we have soundly rejected such a ridiculous idea every time we've been asked for our opinion via referendum. So I'm guessing that the politicians will get a four year term through some other means that bypasses the electorate. Not sure how they'll do it, but it will probably be with a carrot of some supposed limit of power that will be taken away again as soon as humanly possible once the four year term is cemented in place. This opinion piece by Andy Nicholls , of Chapman Tripp shows the thinking involved.  He is apparently expressing his own views, and starts with : Despite a late and distinctly inauspicious start, the constitutional review set up last year may yet deliver New Zealand from the tyranny of the three-year electoral cycle. "The tyranny of a three-year electoral cycle", that's just a bizarre way of looking at it. Who considers it a tyranny, exce...

A bit of angst over Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral and its need for reconstruction. One Alan Goss, an ex Presbyterian Minister believes it should arise anew as a Multi Faith Space, rather than an Anglican Cathedral per se . Of course if the Anglican's have the resources and insurance cover to raise their new Cathedral to its former glory there is no issue. But when public money becomes involved, perhaps there is a case to be made for a "people's cathedral" as Mr Goss described it to be used by people of all faiths and creeds, because Anglican's today are a minority in Christchurch I shudder at the thought though - "people's cathedral" evokes the type of edifices raised in the Soviet Union to replace the Churches. One such was Stalin's "people's palace" planned to rise upon the rubble of Christ the Saviour Cathedral, demolished by the Soviets to make way for this grand monument to the new Soviet world. It never h...

Over the last decade or so, the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests has been big news. Many people believe that celibacy is the problem, or that there is something intrinsic in Catholicism that allows such a terrible crime against children to occur. However, an American report looking into the issue has uncovered the real problem - the sexual revolution - is what is more likely to have changed society's views on sex and therefore made it far more likely that children will be abused. In other words, if you think the Catholic Church has a problem, it's nothing in comparison to everyone else. As Weigel says, It would be a good thing for the entire society, however, if the defenders of the sexual revolution would take seriously the question of the relationship between their commitment to lifestyle libertinism and this plague. If the John Jay study on the “causes ands context” of clerical-sexual-abuse problems in the Catholic Church prompts a broader public reflectio...

Here's a sad story about a baby whose parents have bought into the PC myth that " gender is a social construct " so deeply that they are raising their new baby, Storm, as a genderless child. According to them Storm will decide his/her gender in the fullness of time and it is unfair, presumably, of them or us to impose a gender upon him/her. What a load of hooey - the poor little tyke is having his parents idiotic views imposed upon him/her which is bound to be far more psychologically damaging than being bought up as what he/she really is ie a boy or a girl.

as President Obama's Motorcade fails to exit the US Embassy compound in Dublin.

"The science is in," "Climate change is real. Man-made carbon pollution is making a difference to our planet and our climate." Julia Gillard More Climate Change Boilerplate from the New Zealand Herald, this time based upon a report from the Australian Federal Government's brand new Climate Change Commission. It's the usual litany of doom and gloom ever increasing natural disasters, floods, fire and famine all wrought upon our descendants as a result of our profligate ways. It's fixable though, according to the reports authors and that is to "set a price on carbon high enough to drive investment into renewable energy" That is tax the productive even more. Meanwhile in the here and now, the world didn't end last Saturday and life goes on today pretty much as it did last Tuesday. But unlike Harold Camping whose prediction for apocalypse on Saturday remained unfulfilled, these apocalyptic preachers will be safely in their graves when ...

If you leave a comment on our blog you will notice the sign on procedure has changed a little, probably for the better. And maybe this is related to the massive outage Blogger suffered last week. But then I went to Youtube, I had an account with YouTube long before it became part of Google's stable and when I went to sign in, it wouldn't let me sign in with my old username, it required from me the same sign in I use for Blogger, it had linked the accounts - which is fine I guess but it leaves me wondering what else has been linked that I don't know about. Old accounts to services I no longer use. It all feels a bit big brotherish.

Labour's latest dastardly plan is to disband the Families Commission and replace it with a Ministry for Children, because as they say, children are the most vulnerable in our community. Well, yes they are, 18000 of them are murdered every year in our public hospitals before they are even born. I don't think Annette King was talking about those children, however. The Families Commission is useless, so I won't be surprised if it gets wiped out in the future. But, I'm not sure what it's potential replace, a Ministry for Children is actually supposed to do beyond working out how to take over even more from parents. We be rest assured, however, that if Labour ever come back into power, all will be revealed in due course. Especially once such a ministry is set up. On Kiwiblog, I said that this was a further step in the nationalisation of children, and suggested if there was a real concern for children, then maybe a Ministry of Marriage would be more appropriate. ...

Goodness me, Phil Goff just keeps on providing really good reasons not to vote for Labour come November. And here he goes again: Goff plans to bring farmers back into ETS The whole ETS thing is a rort but the concept that the farts of herbivorous mammals are pollution that should be taxed is an absurdity that makes Jabberwocky seem sensible.

I was away at a retreat this weekend. It was a silent retreat where the purpose was to spend time with Our Lord, talking and listening to him and what he wants us to do next. Well, for me, I had to really understand what to do next with Confession. I've taken notes from this really cool book on frequent confession, which really goes into how to use Confession to help conquer venial sin. This was the weekend where some guy made worldwide news with his prediction that that those that deserved it would get raptured, ie taken up to heaven while everyone else on earth would be left to the mercy of destructive forces through earthquakes. I did have the passing thought that if in the unlikely event that the world did end, then I was in the right place. I was spending time with God and my Confession that I made on Saturday afternoon was a good one. If I was going to die, I was going to die in a state of grace. Which is really how each day should be lived, because we really don...

Gene Simmons (KISS) speaks a lot of sense about Obama's naivety re: pulling back Israel's borders to 1967; in fact, he says that Obama has "no f*cking idea what the world is like, because he doesn't have to live there". He also takes a shot at the U.N, who he rightly calls a "paper tiger" and 'the most pathetic body on the face of the earth" So true...

Wisdom - attend ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 24:36-44 36 Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης καὶ ὥρας οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδὲ οἱ ἄγγελοι τῶν οὐρανῶν, εἰ μὴ ὁ πατὴρ μου μόνος. 37 ὥσπερ δὲ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε, οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 38 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἦσαν ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ τρώγοντες καὶ πίνοντες, γαμοῦντες καὶ ἐκγαμίζοντες, ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας εἰσῆλθε Νῶε εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν, 39 καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμὸς καὶ ἦρεν ἅπαντας, οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 40 τότε δύο ἔσονται ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, ὁ εἷς παραλαμβάνεται καὶ ὁ εἷς ἀφίεται· 41 δύο ἀλήθουσαι ἐν τῷ μυλῶνι, μία παραλαμβάνεται καὶ μία ἀφίεται. 42 γρηγορεῖτε οὖν, ὅτι οὐκ οἴδατε ποίᾳ ὥρᾳ ὁ Κύριος ὑμῶν ἔρχεται. 43 Ἐκεῖνο δὲ γινώσκετε ὅτι εἰ ᾔδει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης ποίᾳ φυλακῇ ὁ κλέπτης ἔρχεται, ἐγρηγόρησεν ἂν καὶ οὐκ ἂν εἴασε διορυγῆναι τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ. 44 διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑμεῖς γίνεσθε ἕτοιμοι, ὅτι ᾗ ὥρᾳ οὐ δοκεῖτε ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεται. The mockers are having a field day

Many people in NZ believe that money, or how Government money is allocated, will save us. Hence the reaction to the Budget, which really shouldn't be that exciting. On a personal level, I suppose I'm also not overly excited as we don't qualify for Working For Families and we avoid KiwiSaver or any retirement scheme with extreme prejudice and my husband is not a public servant. Though, I am glad that new taxes haven't been introduced as we had a 20% drop in gross income last financial year due to the economic downturn. That really hurt and has meant that I'm still putting off orthodontic work for our 14 year old, not to mention urgent repairs to our house, so extra taxes would have not been fun. At least interest rates are pretty stable. I'm thinking I have to start growing a lot more vegetables at home, so if things do get worse then at least we'll have some sort of food supply. Oh well, time to do some maths with my 10 year old.

This fellow used to be a prison guard. He was until it was discovered that he took money to smuggle contraband into the prison where he worked for the inmates. He reckons he didn't keep the money for himself - he donated it to charity he says . How likely do you think that is? He did however plead guilty to corruption in the Taupo district court yesterday and will receive his sentence in July.

Ronald McDonald, the iconic mascot of McDonalds is under fire - from the usual suspects. They want McDonalds to "retire" Ronald McDonald as part of their campaign to stop McDonalds marketing aimed at children. This particular campaign has been put together by a group calling itself "Corporate Accountability International". There is no doubt eating too much McDonalds will make you obese but there is also no doubt that eating too much weetbix will also make you obese - and I'll bet that obese kids in this country, over whom much handwringing is done, eat far more weetbix than McDonalds because cheap as McDonalds is weetbix is even cheaper, much much cheaper in fact and is a staple food of very many of the poor. And it is generally the kids of the poor who are obese. Make no mistake about it - these campaigns against McDonalds are not really about obese kids, they are attacks on a successful business operating in a free enterprise capitalist society. And i...

What a surprise - Government quangos tasked with industry training have been receiving money for non existent students. Some of whom are dead . The number of dollars paid out runs into Millions.

Drinking and driving is not good. And the vast majority of our compatriots have got the message and don't do it. But there are a few who haven't got the message and never will. One such is Rohan Sigley Kamo who killed his mate five months ago after crashing his car into a bridge. His blood alcohol level - 166 mls per 100 millilitres of blood. Just over double the legal limit. As he stood in court yesterday, it was revealed this was not the first time Rohan Sigley Kamo has killed on our roads . Seven years ago he killed a child after crossing the center line and colliding head on with the car she was in. So do you think a lower Blood alcohol content (BAC) limit would make any difference in this case? Obviously not. And the truth be known the alcohol related crashes and offenders picked up by random screening and the like generally come from certain demographics and are very often recidivist offenders - people who never get the message and probably never will. In an at...

"it's easy if you try" Well Stephen Hawking has tried and he has succeeded . Y ou had a health scare and spent time in hospital in 2009. What, if anything, do you fear about death? I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. Imagine that!

Bain to speak at injustice conference The real injustice here is that his siblings never got to see: Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Independence Day, Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Star Wars Ep. I: The Phantom Menace, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Shrek 2, Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Spider-Man 3, The Dark Knight, Avatar, Toy Story 3 or Fast Five. In the scheme of things missing a movie, no matter how good is a trivial loss - there are a great many things of much greater importance they never lived long enough to enjoy.

I really don't really get these clowns, they're a mystery to me. On a cold Sunday they make themselves messy with oil and wade into the freezing ocean to try and convince us that drilling for oil is a bad thing . And to try convince the world we don't want it happening in our country. What these fools, and make no mistake about it they are fools, don't comprehend is that money doesn't grow on trees. And that oil is liquid gold, it literally fires our civilization, keeps it running. So if there is oil to be had off our coasts it is a jolly good thing. It will provide real and meaningful jobs for many extracting and perhaps refining it. And the extra income for the country will help keep Gender and Queer studies Professors in the style to which they have become accustomed.

One of the things most sacred to the secular left is abortion. Anything that might reduce the number of them being carried out is rigorously opposed. Things like the mandate that the woman be shown an ultrasound of her baby before making her final decision on whether to kill it or not. Anyway here's today's horror - school Councillors arranging abortions for underage children without their parents knowledge . Do you really think that government apparatchiks know what is best for our children? Or like me do you think that in most cases the parents know best? Since the under the law it is perfectly legal for a school councilor to procure an abortion for an underage girl the Government obviously thinks I'm wrong in that - and that school councilors are in a better position to make life changing decisions for our children than we are.

Miracles happen all the time, we just don't know about them, or forget about them once they are over.

A marketing moment gone awry.

Looks like we are are back after a large Blogger outage related to maintenance that had gone horribly wrong. As far as I can tell, we are missing Andrei's latest post of a couple of days ago. I presume it will reappear at some point. In the meantime, normal sporadic posting will resume soon. I'm working on something relatively involved, so not sure when I'll finish it. UPDATE: Andrei's post has reappeared.

Have you ever heard of Peter Vidmar? He was an American Olympian who won two Gold medals in Gymnastics at the 1984 games Anyway since then he has done what many successful sportsmen have done after their prime sports days are over and that is to promote sport. Last week he was named chef de mission for the 2012 U.S. Olympic team and by all accounts a worthy choice But a few days later he resigned, controversy had broken out over his selection and rather than damage the Olympic effort in unnecessary controversy he stepped down. Can you guess what his crime was that the thought police thought it necessary to scupper his Olympic role? Its not hard. He opposes Gay Marriage and campaigned against it in California This is chilling, if you involve yourself in public debate, the very life blood of democracy and take a stance that goes against Liberal Left beleifs, they will undertake to ruin your future chances in any endevour you may undertake. The same thing happene...

I thought this was cool. What was her name again? Amy Walker, I think.

An Auckland caterer asked one of his employees to cover her tattooed arm while at a function last year. She complied with the request but now has the guy in court on charges of discrimination. Apparently, since the tattoo is "culturally sensitive", she was discriminated against for being asked to cover it. The problem is, in Western society, tattoos are seen as crass. So we have cultural clash going on here. What if the tattoo had been on her butt? Would she still have been discriminated against if she'd been asked to cover it? The mind boggles. Tattoos should be covered, especially in a formal catering situation. To feel discriminated against because you are asked to cover a tattoo is being culturally insensitive to the guests of the function. Unless they themselves are heavily tattooed, and I suppose then you would get away with it. But to get that upset that you she takes her former employer to the Human Rights court and sues for emotional harm shows the ...

Another disembodied head is coming home and will be accorded due all honor and ceremony, honor and ceremony the erstwhile owner was not accorded in life. Who was he? Well maybe the boffins at Te Papa will be able to ascertain that, probably not. Was he an important man whose head was taken as a trophy by some neighboring tribe? Or was he some unfortunate slave tattooed then killed so his head could be traded for whiskey, blankets and muskets? Whatever the truth - even if discovered, the true blackness of the world that the head's owner inhabited will not be discussed nor the truth that it was Europeans for all their sins that put an end to the horrors of that were an everyday reality of that unfortunate man's existance.

Observations on the Toowoomba Tumult. Fr. Z rants. It seems that Australia is the ground zero right now for discussions about ecclesiology, that is, the make up of the Church, who the Church is, how the Church is governed, what the Church believes. The removal of Bishop Morris was a long time coming, ABC Religion and Ethics Some background on how long this removal of the bishop had been brewing ... At a meeting between the Roman Curia and some of the senior Bishops of Australia in December 1998, a document known as the Statement of Conclusions was presented. The document was aimed at all of the Bishops of Australia and their dioceses - and was quite confronting, to say the least. The (then) Cardinal Ratzinger had been influential in the preparation of the document, as were Sydney's Cardinal Edward Clancy and Brisbane's Bishop Michael Putney, both of whom were on the committee that produced the Statement. snip The bishops of Australia were mixed in their reaction to t...

Michael Voris talks about the young men he's come into contact with that see the problems in the Catholic Church, and are ready and rearing to go to try and be part of the solution.

Today's Dom Post has published on Page A22 an article titled "Evil no more than absence of empathy, says professor". It's advertised on the front page of the newspaper as well, so I presume the editors think such a potentially controversial article will help them sell papers.  I do find it interesting that a picture of the devil is in the middle of the article. Baron-Cohen, who is also director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge, has just written a book in which he calls for a kind of rebranding of evil to offer a more scientific explanation for why people kill and torture, or have such great difficulty understanding the feelings of others. His proposal is that evil be understood as a lack of empathy -- a condition he argues can be measured and monitored and is susceptible to education and treatment. Baron-Cohen defines empathy in two parts -- as the drive to identify another person's thoughts and feelings, and the drive to respond appropriately to ...

Let's get this straight. Valerie Morse who burnt a New Zealand Flag at an Anzac Day dawn service is not guilty of Disorderly Behaviour . Originally she had been found guilty of this charge, the original district court judge ruling that such actions were offensive in the context of the Anzac Dawn Parade. But the Supreme Court begs to differ. They ruled the District Court Judge had misunderstood the meaning of Offensive behaviour. The majority believing it had to be capable of "wounding feelings or arousing real anger, resentment disgust or outrage". Her actions didn't do that? You could have fooled me, but what would I know. "Because unanimously of the view that the trial in the District Court proceeded on a wrong basis in law through failure to assess impact on public order, the Supreme Court has set aside the conviction," the judges said in a written statement to the media. What does "failure to assess impact on public order" mean? Does t...

Back to busy Friday evenings once more, as swimming is on again for my oldest son. I now do dinner duty, and ever since I told the fish and chip shop that they were undercharging me a few weeks back (the girl had typed in $2.80 into the eftpos machine, not $20.80), they've been giving us extra fish. It's terakihi, so it tastes good reheated the next day, and the cat likes it as well if we're stuffed. I'm not sure how my week has gone. I've taken it easy on the younger son, leaving the new Maths curriculum until next week and giving him lots of English and Handwriting which he's beginning to enjoy! You wouldn't believe how big a breakthrough enjoying Handwriting is! My older son has to be involved in a haka. So far I haven't been able to get a translation for what they are actually saying (or singing). But the whole idea seems wrong, getting a whole lot of kids of different religious backgrounds and cultures doing a primitive Maori dance. For ...

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has told MPs that Broadcasters drive to liberalize standards is an attempt to drive up ratings by showing more raunch . No kidding, you think the makers of TV shows might lack the imagination to produce programs that will engage their audiences so they choose to titillate them instead. Figures.

In the evening following the Beatification of Blessed Pope John Paul II on Sunday, the Vatican hosted their first ever conference for bloggers. SEVEN HUNDRED and fifty registered but there was room for only 150 to attend. Obviously the Vatican organisers weren't expecting that many Catholic bloggers.  Heck, I would have gone if I known about it in advance and had the money to go.  So many stars in the Catholic blogosphere were there... Popular U.S. bloggers included Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia , Elizabeth Scalia of The Anchoress and Thomas Peters of the American Papist . Naturally, Scalia, managing editor of the Catholic portal at Patheos.com, posted her remarks on her blog . Need I say, I go to confession a lot more frequently since I have been blogging. Bless me father, for I have sinned... it's that damned editor at Commonweal, again.... And so it is a true gift, and a very wise thing for our hosts today to act on the urgings of the Holy Father in develop...

For the under twenties that is. They have reduced the alcohol tolerance for young drivers to zero for under 20s, which if you are being literal about it means they cannot legally drive because there is always some alcohol in the blood regardless of whether you drink or not. And they have raised the driving age to sixteen . In truth we read of young people being killed on a regular basis, they are more often than not well over the adult levels of blood alcohol usually unlicensed or disqualified drivers and basically anti-social people for whom laws tough or lenient matter not a whit, they break them all. My two oldest are driving in Australia these days that being a place where they have a better future after the all depredations of recent Governments, the current price of gasoline precludes my boy from driving except on rare occasions to shift a plethora of musical instruments to were they need to be Or to bring them back to where they belong (When am I getting my Bass back Ni...

Do you remember Peter Joseph Holdem? He is a habitual sex offender against small children. In 1986, just after being released from prison for abducting a 10 year old girl, he kidnapped 6 year old Louisa Damodran, murdered her and threw her tiny body into the Waimakariri River. He is currently before the parole board Holdem's lawyer - whose name was withheld by the board - said he was concerned there were no "appropriate" programmes or interventions available. His lawyer is suggesting castration may make him fit for society again. Hurrumph - gelded or no this man should never again walk the streets of New Zealand. There are crimes most terrible and his are of that class, the very worst of the worst. Let him rot in prison until he faces the final judgement. That is the only "appropriate" programme .

MP and Mana Party leader Hone Harawira has accused new ACT leader Don Brash of aiming to destroy Maori in a testy television debate. Harawira again compared Brash to Hitler, echoing comments he first made six years ago. "The politics you talk about are very much like Hitler's, Don. You target Maori very much like Hitler targetted the Jews. You are aiming to destroy us the same way that others haved done.” [...] Harawira first compared Brash in 2005 to Hitler, saying: "Hitler had plans for the Jews. Pauline Hanson had similar plans for the Aboriginal people of Australia. Don Brash wants Maori to be subsumed within the larger culture of this country and to become one people." Harawira is an idiot. Wanting Maori to become one people with the rest of New Zealand is nothing at all like what Hitler had planned for the Jews, which involved slave labour if they were lucky and/or death. That's not destruction. And this guy wants people to keep voting for him?...

Republican ardour has been reduced substantially by the marriage of Prince William to Kate Middleton, now Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge. The question on ditching the Monarchy was last asked in 2002 when 60% of respondents supported the Monarchy. A survey taken since the wedding has seen this support rise to a whopping 72% . It is my opinion that Prince Charles will not be crowned King, his marriage to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall presents an obstacle, in that she is divorced and has a living Husband. Edward VIII, Prince Charles' Great Uncle insisted upon marrying an American Divorcée after after his accession to the throne but before the Coronation. The Church of England was appalled, they did not at that time marry Divorces in Church I believe. The Government was appalled and Parliament under Stanely Balwin threatened to resign. Other Commonwealth Leaders also expressed their view that this was not an acceptable Marriage for the Monarch and the Wedding if it did tak...

Looks more real. Click here for it.

It is inevitable that conspiracy theories would spring up around the demise of the late Osama bin Laden. I actually thought he had died years ago until news of his passing hit the aether. You would think that the White House would manage the release of his passing in a straight forward manner, one that leaves little room for doubts. Instead they initially told us he had died in a fire fight, that he used his wife as a human shield, that she had died and so forth. And now they are resiling from each of these details none of which are apparently true. And each time the story changes, doubts grow - which will be grist to the mill for conspiracy theorists. Whatever the real truth about all of this is, you would think that the Leader of the Free World and his advisors would get whatever story they want to peddle to the public sorted out before going live with it. Now they are floundering over whether or not to release the post mortem pictures . And the administrations greatest...

No. As Raymond Ibrahim explains, the West is fighting a hydra. As we ponder the significance of Osama bin Laden's death, it is well to reflect that Islamists are not the cause of hostilities; they are but symptoms of a much greater cause. Individually killing them off—which is nice—is like a doctor temporarily treating a sick patient's symptoms without eliminating the cause of sickness. Ayman al-Zawahiri, now al-Qaeda's de facto leader, once summarized this phenomenon well. Asked in an interview about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied: Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden — may Allah protect them from all evil — are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non...

Looks like the time of teaching by example and gentle persuasion is over, as an Australian Catholic Bishop has been removed from his position (enforced early retirement) for teaching and supporting heresy. THE Catholic Bishop of Toowoomba, William Morris, has been effectively sacked by Pope Benedict XVI over doctrinal disobedience for his support for ordaining women priests and other liberal reform. Considering that a wide range of ideas has been tolerated to a certain extent in Catholicism over recent decades, leaving Bishops, Priests, Nuns and lay people to think that anything goes, Rome is far away. Except, Rome is not that far away as this ex-Bishop found out. This should send ripples of shock throughout New Zealand Catholicism, we who consider ourselves the furthest away from Rome ... Related links: Australian bishop removed from diocese for heterodox ideas ~ WDTPRS Ex-Bishop William Morris is Right ~ Catholic Culture You took the words right out of my mouth ~ Catho...

Hmmm The lawyer of a former national figure facing indecent assault charges has told a court the charges had ''destroyed his client''. Defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton said in his opening statement to a Nelson jury today, the sexual assault charges had come out of the blue for his client. Th defendant in this case first appeared in court in January 2010 . As the link shows he is an ex MP. He has of course name suppression as does another ex MP currently before the court for Pokie machine fraud . The name suppression thing we have done before - but my question is why has it taken over fourteen months from the former national figure's first appearance in court for the case to come to trial? It's all very murky and not really a case of "Justice being seen to be done".

It's a good thing that Osama bin Laden wont have a grave but he did get a funeral . On the Aircraft Carrier USS Carl Vinson his body was washed and prepared, wrapped in a white sheet and decorously dispatched to the depths of the ocean. And of course there is whining about this . A prominent imam in Egypt, Dr Ahmed El-Tayeb, said the US violated Islamic custom by not burying bin Laden on land, a move seen as a US attempt to prevent his resting place from becoming a shrine for extremist followers. Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayat said bin Laden should have been buried in his native Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites. To which most of us, I'm sure, say phooey!

9/11 was nearly a decade ago, Andrei. The war against Afghanistan launched in response to it was a failure - the perpetrators escaped, ie we lost. Turns out to have been incorrect. Today we are hearing that the main perpetrator has been killed and that his "body will be disposed of". That is there will be no grave, no memorial to serve as a shrine.

Yesterday, on the Feast of Divine Mercy put in place by Pope John Paul II, the man himself was beatified and put firmly on the path towards Sainthood. I remember when he was elected. I was 10 years old, and I really didn't think too much of it, even though he was Polish and was the first ever Polish pope. My teacher of the time, a nun, specifically pointed this out to me in class, trying to elicit some sort of reaction, but I think my response must have been disappointing to her. Pope John Paul II was the pope in the Church during the time I fell away. The beginning of my real return back (though it was to take a year and half longer to actually do it) was his funeral. I watched it on TV and could not even get up for a break. I was not so much mesmerised but not wanting to miss anything and needing to stay in that presence , though I could not comprehend what the presence was at the time. I believe something very real happened at that time that was connected to the grace...

Anthony Hubbard in the Sunday Star Times on the New Governor General: Afghanistan torture haunts next governor-general . You think? Afghanistan is the site of a particularly nasty war. And for better or for worse our Military are trying to bring some sort of civilization to that sad region. Of course the place was hardly the Garden of Eden before Western involvement, nor before the Soviet involvement that preceded that. And let us not forget the reason why we are there and that is Afghanistan exported its pathology, in particular it was the origin of an attack on the United States which left nearly 3000 dead in streets of New York, Washington and the fields of Pennsylvania. I'm against torture of course, and I am also against the death of infants through abuse. Just last week another baby died of head injuries in Starship hospital , This is not an event that took place in a far off war zone but in our own backyard. An event so common now that most of us barely noticed. I...