New Zealand Conservative

When I started school as a five year old many years ago in the 1970's, I had a really interesting a cool pencil sharpener that a boy in my class coveted. During the day, this boy tried to steal it from me a number of times, until at the end of the day he finally succeeded. I told my teacher, Sister Joan that Michael had taken my pencil sharpener, having no proof as such, since I hadn't seen him do it, but thought it must have been him given his earlier attempts on the sharpener that  I was aware of.   So, my teacher, Sister Joan proceeded to search him and his belongings until she found the stolen item, which she returned to me. As I was leaving to go home, I glanced back into the school cloakroom to see Sister Joan administering punishment to the boy by washing his mouth out with soap, thus preventing what may have been the beginning of a life of crime for a child who instead grew up to be a model citizen. On the front page of the Dominion Post yesterday, there was ...

Terry Chimes (second from Left) with Punk-rock band, The Clash The Catholic Herald has a great article about Terry Chimes, erstwhile drummer for The Clash and other bands, who describe his return to Catholicism. In his autobiography, The Strange Case of Doctor Terry and Mr Chimes, baptised Catholic Terry Chimes, who drummed on The Clash’s eponymous debut album and toured with the band in the early 1980s, writes about his journey back to the Catholic faith. Chimes describes stumbling across a copy of CS Lewis’s book Mere Christianity at a car boot sale in 1998 and reading about Lewis’s analysis of the sin of pride. Chimes said: “There was a chapter entitled The Great Sin. The great sin is pride, the tendency we all have to think we are better than someone else. I had always known that pride existed but wondered why it’s referred to as the great sin. That was until I realised the significance of pride as an obstacle to spiritual growth. “The problem with pride is that those...

A new application called Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible has been released for multiple platforms (including iPhone/iPad, Android, and Kindle), which includes an audio version of the Bible that is fully dramatized with parts by actors such as Neal McDonough, Kristen Bell, Sean Astin, Michael York, Blair Underwood, Malcolm McDowell, Stacy Keach, Brian Cox, Julia Ormond, John Rhys-Davies and many more The book of Mark is free to listen to and the other books can be purchased through the app (although I believe the whole Bible written text is free) Also available is the Ignatius study Bible with notes by Scott Hahn. Endorsed with an Imprimatur from the Vatican and includes a foreword by Pope Benedict XVI. I've had a listen and it's very good. Well worth getting I think. http://www.truthandlifeapp.com You can listen online through your desktop computer to Mark as well to get a taste of what it is like - http://www.truthandlifeapp.com/WebBibleTAL/WebPlayer.aspx ...

You will frequently hear the proponents of gay marriage compare their 'struggle' for 'equality' with that of Martin Luther King, Jr and the Civil Rights protests that took place in America in the 1960s.  I do not believe that gay marriage is a "civil right", especially for the reason of "equality". For “equality”, the two things being compared must be equal, or “the same” with regard to the unique attributes or innate characteristics that define what those things are.  Thus, marriage has always been defined as being between a man and a woman - this is not “the same” or “equal to” two women or two men. Are a male/female couple the same as a male/male couple or a female/female couple? No, they are not. There are differences. For a start, two men or two women can’t have sexual intercourse (coitus). Some might argue that this argument falls apart when we compare it to racial equality - that in the past people have argued that a black man a...

Lorde or no Lorde, I won't be watching the Grammy Awards in protest of a stunt that is happening during the programme which is designed to push the gay marriage agenda in the U.S. A group, Macklemore, had a hit last year in the charts with a song called "Same Love" which pushed for the equality of same-sex couples in gay marriage. The New York Times writes - But the producers behind the program, which is to be broadcast live by CBS at 8 p.m., are hoping that the biggest show-stopper of the night will be a much more solemn event: an on-air wedding of 34 couples — gay, straight, old, young, of many races and many colors. The ceremony will be part of the hip-hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s performance of their Grammy-nominated song “Same Love,” which became a marriage-equality anthem last year just as that issue was drawing intense national attention. Mr. Lewis, the group’s producer, said that the weddings “will be in our minds the ultimate statement of equalit...

We have two state religions operating here in New Zealand. The first is the Anglican religion, which by virtue of the Queen being our Head of State, is the State Religion of New Zealand. Not that it is really taken that much notice of. The official welcoming ceremony at the conference referred to below, was not an Anglican service presided over by an Anglican clergyman (or woman), but instead it was a Maori religious ceremony, performed under the guise of being a cultural welcoming ceremony. A senior Australian politician has brushed off her minor breach of Maori protocol at the opening of a conference at Parliament, where she was placed in a male-only section. Women do not usually sit in the paepae (front row) for Maori ceremonies. But at the opening of the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth yesterday, Australian Speaker of the House of Representatives Bronwyn Bishop was accidentally placed among the men at the front during the powhiri. The sen...

  Just listening to John Key on NewsTalkZB, and the thing that stood out was that John Key wanted to let people know that National could work with the Conservatives. The interviewer was much more interested in talking about the change to potentially being able to work with Winston Peters and New Zealand First, than anything else. Colin Craig has said that the "smacking law" would be one of the things that would influence negotiations were he and his party ever in a position where their support was necessary for a government to form. This article from Stuff calls it a bottom line, and then says the opposite when it quotes what Craig has said about it, leading me to believe that overturning the law will not end up being a condition of support, it will be just used as a means to garner votes.  Probably why John Key is indicating now he can work with the Conservatives. Craig said he was not calling it a bottom-line at this stage because the election had not yet happene...

Torch Song : Shine on me. Needs a good sound system.

This has nothing to do with jargon Chris Finlayson, MP,* is getting intense on language: "I have always preferred the understatement," Mr Finlayson admitted. "People use passionate when they mean like, or unique when they mean vaguely fashionable. "It's like what happened in Rome when classical Roman broke down into vulgar Latin. The more intensive adjective or verb was always used over the classical one. And I have this objection to that happening to the English language. It's just my little jihad." "Just my little jihad", Chris? Own goal methinks. * had to throw in a couple of pack hunting commas. Read the article to appreciate the joke.

Jinty McTavish An interesting post on the blog "Your NZ" on ethical investment . Dunedin City Councillor Jinty MacTavish does not like the idea of Dunedin City Council investing in oil companies. Working to attract unethical industry to our city (and expending ratepayers’ resource to do so) feels to me a highly dubious activity for Council to be engaged in. I would very much hope we wouldn’t do it for cigarettes or munitions – what’s the difference with oil and gas, when science tells us the fruits of that industry will also erode the livelihoods of, and cause misery for, millions of people? Presumably, when choosing NOT to invest in cigarettes or munitions, you'd also choose not to USE cigarettes or weapons, or support the use of them. So will this councilor be ceasing her use of oil and gas, and recommending the Council cease using the very substances destroying the world? Every time she fills her tank, is she not helping that unethical industry profit? I'm ...

Reading from the playbook I am writing in response to the slanderous hit-piece you published on Cory Bernardi on 10 January 2014 (False Conservatives Mask Right-Wing Misfits”. As a member of the fourth estate I accept that you can have no conception, no understanding of Conservatism. I further understand you write for Fairfax and it’s your job to shill for the ALP and Greens. Normally, I would give the diatribes written by you and your ilk the attention they deserve (so do most people, it seems, given how Fairfax’s circulation seems to be falling at a pace commensurate with its leftist bias), but in this case I feel your lies, half-truths and misrepresentations require answer. Yep, rather than report the news objectively, the newspaper is merely a vehicle for opinions.  Far too often, these are ill-informed and biased opinions. Clear encroachment on the domain of the blog. Equally, the blog is seen increasingly as a useful counter-point to some of the drivel we are feed f...

Robert Nemiroff and his graduate student Teresa Wilson of the Michigan Technological University, in Houghton, conducted a search for evidence of time travelers using the Internet. They claim it is the first approach of this nature and one of the most comprehensive experimental searches of its kind to date. They recently submitted their work to the scientific paper repository arXiv and presented a poster discussing their work Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society near Washington D.C. Using Twitter and Google Trends, the two researchers looked for any anachronistic mention or search query for Comet ISON before it was first discovered along its suicidal mission toward the Sun on September 21, 2012 and for Pope Francis before his election on March 13, 2013. They also looked for mentions of Comet ISON on Nemiroff's Astronomy Picture of the Day website. Their search for posts and queries reached as far back as January 2006. The authors argue that if detected, th...

This afternoon, St Philomena's Catholic church in New Plymouth burned down. I was particularly struck by the coincidence in names, as my neighbour was telling me earlier in the afternoon that after seeing the movie, Philomena , that is currently playing in the cinemas in New Zealand, she was left very angry at what the Catholic Church. Both of us were nowhere near New Plymouth at the time of the fire, so I'm not implying that she went and set fire to the church to vent her anger, but I am wondering if some one in New Plymouth did. I haven't seen the film, myself, but I have read that it is emotionally manipulative and very anti-Catholic movie, so much so that an atheist film reviewer, Kyle Smith, gave it a slam in the New York Post : With “Philomena,” British producer-writer-star Steve Coogan and director Stephen Frears hit double blackjack, finding a true-life tale that would enable them to simultaneously attack Catholics and Republicans . There’s no other purpose...

The Whistleblower: UN Scandal Ironically, after doing my previous post on the United Nations and their grab for power, money and more money , I came across a post on Frog Blog that talked about much the same thing. What might be important before you read this post, is some context of an earlier post of mine pointing out many of the times the UN IPCC and associated warmists have indicated the end of the world as we know it before the year 2013. Assuming you get the gist, here's an extract from the Green Party Post for you readers to ponder: A Global Climate Policy by Kennedy Graham These past five weeks, I have visited Europe studying climate policy. I attended the UN’s 19th climate conference, UNFCCC COP-19, in Warsaw. After Poland, I visited Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom and European Union (Brussels). And I retraced my UN steps to the Middle East (Jordan) and spoke with leaders there as well. There are thousands of Greenies like Kennedy Graham ...

Or alternatively, see my quote at the end of the post Here is an extract of minutes of a United Nations meeting held in 2008 on the topic of Climate Change General Assembly GA/10725 Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York Sixty-second General Assembly Informal Meeting on Climate Change and Most Vulnerable Countries (AM) Unless a “war footing” was adopted in action to battle climate change, the world would miss the Millennium Development Goals and see existing gains unravel, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today as the General Assembly held a follow-up to its February thematic debate on the subject under the theme “Climate change and the most vulnerable countries: the imperative to act”. There are existing gains, and they would unravel without action. Voicing deep worry about a potential roll-back of development gains due to climate change, she said the subject also raised questions of equity and fairness, because climate chang...

Gordon helps improve relative blog quality What an appalling interviewer is Gordon Campbell (in this case). He wears his bias on his sleeve, and makes a definite contribution to the low quality journalism that continues to ensure my opinion of the "professional" media don't consider objectivity an important attribute in journalism. I came across an interview he did with Colin Craig. Before I go into a couple of examples of his poor interviewing manner, I guess I've firstly got to declare that I currently have no connection with Craig or the Conservative Party, and haven't decided if I'm voting for them as yet. Here's a couple of comments that came out in the interview worth highlighting: Campbell: Going back to that point about the social liberalism of John Key: what was the point of principle when it became apparent to you that there had been a parting of the ways between you and him? Craig: When he refused to be guided by the referendum...

Just watched an interesting program: Derren Brown - The Experiments. The first part was interesting as he correctly predicted choices a person made. The second part was sickening. He had an audience choose good or bad situations for an unsuspecting person, progressively making them worse. It included entering his apartment and going through his personal belongings, smashing his TV and so on. The experiment was supposedly just as much about the mob decision making, as many options were having something good happen (win $10,000) or something bad (smash TV) and the audience seemed to always choose the bad option. I really hate "practical jokes" like this and found it ultimately disgusting. Although having a look around the internet, seems he makes programs of lots of similar psychological experiments. Just found another one where he hypnotised several people and suggested they throw acid into a person's face. They did. He then moves on to train him to assassinate...

Many blogs have covered the story that some scientists were caught in summer ice down in the Antarctic. They've been stuck since Christmas. Two rescue vessels (both icebreakers) have failed to reach them so now they are resorting to a helicopter lift out, happening around now. The weather is getting worse though, not better, so it would be very foolish to continue. It does seem like the reality is sinking in: The long-awaited rescue came after days of failed attempts to get the passengers off the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which got stuck on Christmas Eve. Blinding snow, strong winds, fog and thick sea ice forced rescuers to turn back time and again. The scientific team on board had been recreating Australian explorer Douglas Mawson's 1911 to 1913 voyage to Antarctica. Turney had hoped to continue the trip if an icebreaker managed to free the ship. They will be disappointed. Aside from recreating the trip, early tweets and reports had seen this as a huge ...

A new cigarette tax came into force 1 January , building on the progressive taxes already imposed. That makes cigarettes $22 a pack (per 25). Smoking is now an addiction presumably only the rich and the criminal can contemplate. Perhaps smokers are considering swapping to P or Heroin or crack cocaine. They may well be a more economical addiction, and help take the mind of the craving for smokes. Who knows? Meanwhile, flushed with the success of the smoking tax, the call for a tax on sugar is looking sweeter each day. In the 2000AD comic series, the cities of the future were regulated by Judges with the power to convict on the spot.  I remember a scene where Judge Dredd breaks into an apartment to find an elderly couple having a cup of tea. It all looked pretty normal, until Dredd tasted the contents of the sugar bowl. Was the evil white substance cocaine? Nope, sugar. But sugar was a banned substance in the future, so the couple were hauled off for a stretch in the ...

Approximately 2014 years ago, something so momentous happened that it literally split history in half. That momentous even was the birth of God as a human being, and not even alternate religious systems (Islam) or political systems (French Revolution and Communism) could erase the numbering of our years from the birth of Christ. It is A.D. 2014, which is Anno Domini 2014, which is in English, in the Year of Our Lord 2014. Even the atheistic Common Era that attempted to replace Anno Domini cannot erase the fact that we number our years based on when Jesus Christ was born. Nor can the Muslims get away from this as well, try as they might to ban New Year celebrations, as they did in Indonesia this time around . Happy New Year, everyone!

"Even as China is softening its one-child policy, one if its most renowned film directors is finding himself in trouble for violating the nation's infamous family planning law." Yes indeed. He fathered three children . This has caused outrage amongst the brainwashed population: "Zhang's breach of the policy has set off a firestorm, especially among netizens who resent how the rich and famous in China flout rules and policies. JinqiuT wrote on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblogging service: Celebrities should abide laws and rules as common people." When the government subjects its citizens to a constant diet of its own propaganda, the population eventually come to believe that justice is reached by obeying the law, not flouting it. This is why their society accepts millions of forced abortions every year. Or maybe they are not all forced. Maybe there are huge queues of women asking for their babies to be terminated? Certainly, in Ind...