New Zealand Conservative

As a blogger, I maintain multiple email accounts. Some accounts I allow to "know" each other, and other accounts I like to keep separate. As a bit of a computer geek, this is just something I do automatically, so that if an account gets hijacked, the damage is limited to only those accounts in the circle of knowledge. Most software subscriptions allow you to confirm that you are the actual email owner upon initial contact. If you do not confirm, then your email account is left alone. Not so Facebook. It seems to be irrelevant to Facebook whether or not the email given really belongs to the person trying to use it. No, their "solution" to people accidentally or on purpose using other email accounts is to force their users to register all their email accounts to their Facebook account. From a data gathering point of view it certainly makes sense, except of course, if an email account is linked by someone who doesn't have access to it, then not so much. ...

Pete George pointed out the following article from stuff yesterday , over what John Key said about Colin Craig's potential legal action over what Russel Norman said about him at the Big Gay Out: Prime Minister John Key is firmly in the Green Party camp over political free speech and threatened legal action by Conservative Party leader Colin Craig. Key this morning told told Breakfast that Greens co-leader Russel Norman should not apologise for comments made about Craig at Auckland's Big Gay Out. "I don't know the ins and outs of all the comments, but essentially this is politics - it's a rough and tumble," Key said. "The last week we had Winston Peters saying apparently, I had something to do with Huka Lodge, all of which was not true, but if I spent my life trying to sue people who said things I don't like about me I'd be in the courts every single day. "It's just the nature of the business, you need to harden up a bit and ju...

In between watching your reality shows and checking out your face book page, have you noticed that the democratically elected Government of Ukraine has taken a tumble? Its one of those "spring" things, you know like the "Arab spring" when peace and harmony was going to break out all over the Arab world because, to paraphrase an immortal line from "Full Metal Jacket, " inside every raghead there is an American just trying to get out ". In any case Ukraine is bankrupt and to keep going they needed to borrow money - and the EU came up with a package with some very unpalatable IMF mandated strings attached but VVP, never one to miss a trick offered a better deal, more money and cheaper gas. Well what is a poor beleaguered President of a bankrupt Nation supposed to do? He went with VVPs deal. And a great wailing and gnashing of teeth was heard in Western Capitals. But while not happy to invest in infrastructure in Ukraine Western Governments a...

Breivik's Nazi salute that the media wrote off as a "fascist fantasy" A few weeks back, JihadWatch writer Robert Spencer wrote a post about what Anders Breivik has admitted to recently - that he isn't a counter-jihadist, that he just pretended to be one. When Breivik's manifesto become available, I and some others at the time did not believe what he said about being a Templar or even a Christian - it just didn't make sense to me. Now this story where he has admitted it was all an act has been picked up by The Daily Beast.  From Nordic Terrorist Makes Bombshell Claim — and the Media Missed It , by Benjamin Weingarten: Remember Anders Breivik, the Norwegian man who carried out terror attacks including the bombing of an Oslo government building and mass shooting at a Workers’ Youth League camp, killing 77 people and injuring 319 more in July 2011? The most recent significant press on Breivik dealt with the fact that he threatened a hunger strike...

A video message by Pope Francis, recently shown at a Pentecostal conference in the U.S, where he gives voice to his desire for unity between the Catholic and Protestant churches, asking them to pray for him, and saying he will pray for them.

Why did no one say to the Canadian tourists who died in a landslide to stay in their town until the road was safe to travel on? Why? The young couple had arrived in New Zealand two weeks before radiographer Ms Lam was due to start new job at Nelson Hospital on September 15. They decided to do some travelling before then, and had rented a white VW campervan from a Nelson rental company on September 9. The next day they enjoyed a guided walk on Fox Glacier before arriving at Haast River Top 10 Holiday Park about 4.45pm. Manager Norma Dougan told Ms Lam the camp was closed due to the bad weather, and that the next town was Wanaka - a two-hour drive. Ms Lam asked to use the camp's computer or her phone to contact work and family but Ms Dougan advised the internet connection could not be guaranteed due to the stormy weather. There was strong north-west winds and gale force wind warnings in place. They ate at the local Haast pub before leaving about 5.35pm - that was the las...

From What's wrong with Belgium , Tracey Rowland writes of the lack of authentic Catholic culture there: I first visited Belgium in 2004 to attend a theology conference in Leuven. The conference Mass was the most bizarre liturgical experience of my life. It did not take place in any of the many churches in Leuven but in the conference room itself. Part of the ritual took the form of watching a video of the September 11 attack on the twin towers while listening to mood music. One of the participants from Holland was dressed in a folk costume and looked like a member of the band The Village People. There was also a Nigerian priest who was treated like an idiot because he expressed respect for Cardinal Arinze. I took some flak for being critical of the culture of modernity and one polite person apologized to me by saying, “you see, around here people think of you as an ally of Joseph Ratzinger”! My overall impression was that Leuven was like a town that had been hit by a ne...

I see Lucia has done a post on this as well, but I had to write something after just having seen this afternoon's One News and Russell Norman's statement that, "[Colin Craig] says he's Christian, well, Jesus Christ - if he believed in anything, he believed in love, tolerance and inclusion, not the politics of hatred that Colin Craig is promoting [...] Colin Craig should apologize to all new Zealanders for his disgusting and offensive comments. Let's live in a society of tolerance and inclusion - and love. That, surely, is what the Christian message, interpreted the best way, is all about" This angered me - a lefty socialist spouting off about what he thinks Jesus believed, when the Bible - God's own word - clearly points to homosexual conduct being wrong, in both the Old and New Testaments. When Norman talks about the Christian message, "interpreted the best way", he means interpreted the progressive, liberal way - Norman's way. Libera...

Hmmmm, not sure that lawyering up everytime opponents mischaracterise you is a good idea. Conservative Party leader Colin Craig has set his lawyers on Green co-leader Russel Norman , demanding an apology and retraction of comments Dr Norman made at the Big Gay Out. Mr Craig has asked Dr Norman for a public apology, claiming the statements were defamatory. The letter from Chapman Tripp says the offending statement by Dr Norman which screened on the television news related to how Dr Norman perceived Mr Craig's views on woman and gays. Mr Craig has previously claimed women in New Zealand were promiscuous, and he opposed the gay marriage bill. [Not sure why the article stuck this in and missed out Russel Norman's actual comments ~ Lucia] Mr Craig said he had taken the step of getting his lawyers to assess the claim and seek a retraction and apology because he believed the comments were inaccurate and were widely broadcast. He said Dr Norman's comments did not refle...

Property rights should trump lava flow (a destructive effect of nature), yet a land owner has been fined for improving his property: The "damaged" lava flow (source NZ Herald) Damaging a historic lava flow has cost an Epsom homeowner more than $15,000. He was successfully prosecuted by Auckland Council after removing trees, plants and some of the historic lava flow from his property, which is part of the Almorah lava forest, an area of ecological significance protected under the Auckland District Plan. The forest is on Maungawhau, or Mt Eden, and comprises tracts of native bush. The fine followed a complaint from a member of the public, which prompted enforcement staff from Auckland council's resource consent team to visit the site near Mt Eden. This is just a sign of the growing pantheism of the environmental movement, that holds "Nature" as sacred, and disallows anything that interferes with what "Nature" does. In England, this pant...

Judge Dredd © 2000AD, 1981 Sci-Fi Special More in the NZ Herald today regarding the proposed taxing (and eventual banning) of fizzy drinks. They say that Otago and Auckland Universities have done a study, and that putting a 20% tax on fizzy drinks will "save 67 lives a year". How they know this, it is hard to tell. According to an earlier article , this particular group of scientists also want to have fizzy drinks banned by the year 2025. That reminded me of a Judge Dredd story (click image to enlarge select panels), where sugar is banned in the future (1999, as the story goes, but it was written in 1981). I wonder what they will try and ban after that? Hamburgers? Lollies? Biscuits? Or will everything be pumped full of artificial sweetener?

According to a new story from the Associated Press , Facebook has bowed to pressure from liberal 'lobby groups' and is updating their service to allow a choice of 50 different "genders" which users can choose from that best suits their sexual identity. MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) -- You don't have to be just male or female on Facebook anymore. The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them. Facebook said the changes, shared with The Associated Press before the launch on Thursday, initially cover the company's 159 million monthly users in the U.S. and are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual. As a spokesman from Focus On The Family points out, there are only two genders; the rest is wishful thinking and imaginary gender s...

I wonder what this means? Nostalgia?  Or something else? ... Communist Sickle at opening of Olympic Games in Sochi Source: Bruce Arthur - Twitter Communist Hammer at opening of Olympic Games in Sochi Source: Rachael Bachman - Twitter Related link: ‘Big salute to communism’: Hammer & sickle appear at Sochi opening ceremony [pics] ~ Twitchy

I thought about it, and the opportunity was missed at Beijing in 2008. So, Boycott the Sochi Winter Olympics? No, I think not. The Gay Lobby deserves a gold medal though for flexing it's powerful muscles and making the western world put aside its deeper concerns of serious human rights abuses around the world to focus on the right to move the age of consent from 17 to age 11 when it comes to older people talking sex and sexuality to pre-teens. It has made even the recent draconian and disturbing law changes criminalizing homosexuality in several countries fade into apparent insignificance.  One can only admire the political power they wield over the western media, world leaders, and ultimately, the locker room conversations to set the agenda so. The modern moral crusader is a very different beast to 10 years ago when we were chanting "no drugs", and 30 years ago when we were chanting "bring down the wall" and 40 years ago when we were chanting "no...

The most important thing a young progressive has learn about living life as a progressive is that if the world does not conform to the way you want it to be then you must whine about it and keep on whining until you have ground everybody down and you get what you want. And like any toddler who gets what they want by whining once given it they don't want it any more and move onto the next thing to whine about. Whining is the greatest life skill that any progressive needs. So it is heartening to see a letter from a seven year old girl whining about lego Seven year-old Charlotte Benjamin is sick to death of playing with the girl Lego. In a strongly worded letter to the company, Lego fan Benjamin set out her list of complaints. "I am 7 years old and I love legos but I don't like that there are more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls," she writes. Benjamin is also bored of having to play with pink lego and all the dull things that the girl Lego are left ...