Now she is hitting out at the Rock for their “win a wife” competition. Personally I think its a pretty stupid competition, however I fully support their right to run it.

For those of you who don’t know what it is, its a competition to win a trip to Ukraine and the chance to meet with a bridal agency. the competition does not pay for the return flight of the wife or any fees associated with a wedding or immigration. In all reality its a chance to win a once in a life time, all expenses paid trip to the Ukraine.

She says this is the ultimate act of mysogony. She thinks NZ is going back to once were warriors days, when its accpetable for men to go out drinking and come home and beat their wives. WHAT???? How does she make that connection? Apparently the PM saying Liz Hurley is hot is wrong, Lion Red saying “drink our beer with your mates” is wrong and all of these things mean its ok to beat your wife?

How? In what way is this mysoginistic? Men being men, men saying women are hot? I mean for crying out loud! How does this woman even get in the paper? Does she think women are so defenceless that they can’t stand up for themselves? Believe me, men are going to drink beer with their mates, they are going to say women are attractive. Woman, in turn are going to say men are attractive, they are going to enjoy bottles of wine, have you ever spent time in your staffroom on a friday night? For gods sake Sue, lighten the hell up, how on earth are you suppossed to have a happy life if you are going to spend all your life whinging about how terrible men are, how awful the middle class is, how horrible private transport is.

She doesn’t want equality, she wants men to be crushed. She is a man hater, she wants a society without men. I’m sorry Sue, men also play vital roles in society, I am not one to say that men do better jobs than women at anything, well except perhaps being a father, but for crying out loud, men are allowed to have opinions on things too and shouldn’t be called sexist the moment they open their mouths about anything. Female radio hosts spend hours “objectifying” men, but the moment a man does that to a woman they are thrown onto the front page.

Everyone needs to lighten the hell up and enjoy life and stop being offended by every little thing.

Allow me to explain:

Sue Bradford runs for Parliament again (we will call her party the “We will take your money and raise your tax party” or Commie Party for short)… the socialist marxists in the Green Party will vote for her new party - lets say 2% of their core support (I’m being liberal). Then the hard lefties and the dole bludgers who vote labour will vote for the Commie party, lets say another 2% and cos I am nice I will give them the .003% that Anderton gets all  up 4.003% of the vote. And cos we know the Maori party will cave and let Hone back in they won’t have an electorate seat.

The outcome of this will mean we will have 2 less hippies in Parliament AND less Labourites or even better my second scenario says that 2% of the greens votes go to the Commie party and then 2% of Labour goes to Commies then, 5% of Greenies go to Labour (cos they are worried that Labour won’t win – they won’t) and then the Greenies are gone too!!! So all up Labour will only gain 3% off the Greens, but lose two potentail coalition partner’s cos they voted for Labour and the Commie party.

I’m not really certain about the likelihood of the second scenario, but the first definitely seems plausable if there really is a call for a proper left wing party. On the plus side, their votes are not going to come from the centre who traditionally vote National/Labour. So even if they did gain enough support/an electorate seat (they won’t) this party will be seen as an ally to Labour/Greens and as the swinging middle class, who are largely educated, will see that a “radical” left wing party will make the country worse off will vote for the incumbent rather than throw their support behind Labour. So all in all this new party is nothing to worry about, it should bolster Nationals support and assure them another term in Government. Plus having Sue Bradford back in Parliament will mean I will have my favourite ranting subject back.

I have complained consistently to anyone who will listen over the last couple of years that National has had no ideology, just a “whatever makes us popular” attitude. JK has spend all this time smiling and waving and kissing babies and has managed almost JFK style popularity. And yet they haven’t really done anything… I know thats partly to do with the fact that we went broke overnight and that Labour spent our last couple of billion on a very expensive train set. Sure they cut a few taxes here, built a new bridge there, scraped a little bit of paper off the RMA.. but we still seem to have bad roads, high taxes and no money…

Well last week we finally got some ideology back! The announcement came through “we are going to sell stuff, provided we have a mandate from the public to do so.” So all looks good, but are they going far enough? Does the Government need to hold a stake in the power companies? An Airline? And why in gods name are they not selling Kiwibank?

Labour are running around bleeting about selling off the family silverware… but in fairness its not really silverware is it? I mean the airline has only been under partial government control for 10 years and power stations? Silverware err no. Selling Government House would be like selling off the silverware, but power generators? Not really.

For many people a jump back to the right by National is just what they want to see. I have been saying for the past 8 months that I would vote ACT this year, but now maybe not, now that National have found their spine they may get my vote again.

Furthermore the icing on the cake came out this morning, National will not work with Winston, hurrah! The xenophobic, Nationalist will not make it into Parliament, his supporters on the right do not like Labour, and his supporters on the left won’t want to risk not having Labour in power and his other supporters are probably dead…

New Zealand is broke, thats the truth, there is no money out there. Right now we are poor, we have no surplus money anywhere. Law graduates are waiting tables, yuppies are heading for greener pastures overseas (I am one of them) and Labour’s answer to this is to tax the people who create employment, who create those jobs that Labour keep crying about losing.

Labour Promises to introduce a tax free threshold of $5000. Now that I like, that is good sense that is good old fahsioned right wing tax cutting. Or is it? As I said earlier we are broke, we are borrowing money at an alarming rate. We can’t afford this. Labour proposes to pay for it by hiking taxes up to 45% for those who earn over $120k. So all of a sudden this $120k becomes $66000 in take home income, whereas under the current taxation of 33% your take home income is just over $80k… so what Goff is suggesting is that these people essentially take a $15000 pay cut. You must be kidding!

Does he not know what will happen when these so called “rich pricks” realise this? Does he really think that pretty landscape and lovely people are enough to keep these people in NZ? The grass is really greener on the other side of the Tasman, thats where they will go. They will easily double their income.

When you consider that to buy a house in a big city in NZ in a reasonable suburb and I’m not talking fancy or anything, you are spending at least $500,000 for a three bedroom home for your 2.5 children, how is that sort of housing affordable for someone who just took at $15000 pay cut?

Where is the rest of the money going to come from once Goff has created his lovely little socialist paradise? Once these “rich pricks” realise that they have worked hard all their lives to get where they are (and remember that they aren’t THAT rich, they will still have mortgages, cars, childrens teeth etc to pay for) they will leave. They will not be able to sustain the lifestyle they have here. This really is the middle class we are talking about here.

When they go, so will their spending power, so will their jobs in management positions, or as small business owners, who maybe employ 15 people. So it will only take 10 of these to sell their businesses and leave and potentially 150 people are out of work. Why should people risk their livelihoods only for a bunch of out of touch Socialists to take away their money?

Socialism works on the theory that everyone doesn’t know whats best for them and its the Governments job to tell them how to think. So Labour have told us that, “rich” people should have half their incomes taken off them and given to those who expect the Government to pay for their lives. So we are going to have to borrow an extra $1.1billion to pay for this, tax the crap out of middle NZ and everyone can live in cardboard boxes together… ahhhh Socialist Paradise

In particular I am talking about the case of the 9 year old girl and her brother in West Auckland. I have stayed relatively silent on this issue, as I don’t think someone else jumping on to the internet and ranting about it is going to do anything, so I guess this isn’t so much about expressing my abject horror or anything like that… its more about the article I saw on Stuff today…

So apparently the mother is now claiming that she wrote a letter to the PM asking for help. Firstly lets just look at this on the face of it. She was asking for help??? Did it not occur to her to, you know, not beat the crap out of her child? Why would you need help? Ok so she may have problems, why did she not go to the social worker, the school, the doctor that she didn’t take her daughter to, but herslef to when she broke her hands punching her daughter?

Its all very well trying to play the blame game, why didn’t anyone do anything blah blah blah, its all someone elses fault. For gods sake stop blaming society, the government CYFs, MSD etc and wake up and realise that its the parents fault. Make them pay for it. Don’t find excuses, don’t try and make it someone elses fault. I think life imprisonment and sterilisation is a fair punishment.

The next side to this though, is we have to stop being PC about what we do with these kids. Instead of taking them away and putting them with other family members who are just as likely to abuse them, we forcibly remove them, remove the need to for consent for adoption and get them placed with families who will love and cherish them, who want children people who can’t have them. There ought to be criteria for this.

On what level is it in the best interest of the child to place it back with its abusive parents after 8 years? On what level do the “do-gooders” at MSD think that placing children with the family of crap parents, without properly checking into their backgrounds, with a mind of rehabilitating the parents is a good idea?

Who’s interests should we be protecting here? The childs or the parents? Or the “whanau” who are suppossed to care and love for the child. I normally disagree with people when they say that some people just have kids for the extra dole payment, but in cases like this, you can only think that, that can be the only reason.

The worst part about it though, is that in the cases where the kids die, the whole family come together and cry about how this girl was so loved and how she was the apple of everyones eye. Where the hell were they when the kid was being routinely beaten? Surely they would have seen the bruises? Surely they know whats going on? Except they turn a blind eye. That is absolutely disgusting. How can they accept that? Why do they not do anything about it? The truth is, the child only becomes the apple in their eyes once they are dead, or lying in a hospital bed. And what of the kids who survive these ordeals, the ones who arent dead? Is this a cycle that carries on? I mean if thats all you know in life then how much chance can you have at breaking the cycle.  Really the only answer I can see is removing these kids if their parents are unfit.

For myself and my partner having children is partly an economic decision. I certainly do not see it as the States responsibility to pay to raise them. When we have children it will be because we can afford to. And if we did happen to have an unplanned child we will make sacrafices to raise that child, not burden the taxpayer.

Unfortunately welfare and child abuse seem to go hand in hand in this country. I get that being broke is stressful, believe me, I was almost at that point a wee while ago, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to hit my partner, or put my cat in the dryer from stress. I certainly don’t know where we go from here to make sure that we stop killing children in this country, but all I know is that something needs to be done.

We need to ensure that children are safe and if that means removing them from their families permanently – there should be no second chances – then thats what should be done.

Let me leave you with one thought. If your dog abondons its puppies, doesn’t feed them leaves them alone, do you remove them? Yes you do, that dog is bad parent and you make the decision that someone else is better equiped to provide for them. Well I think thats the state we have gotten to with some parents in this country.

Kiwibank is sold as an ‘alternative’ to the ‘aussie’ banks. Lets look into this further, the selling point is that money invested in Kiwibank stays in New Zealand. So where do the profits go for the other banks and Kiwibank for that matter?

Money from the proper banks stay in New Zealand, lets face it! People are employed by the banks, who pay them… wait for it… MONEY! That is where their money goes, now then for the issue of profits. These big banks are owned by shareholders, not by the Australian Government or one Australian, or a collection of Australian companies. But individual people, anyone can be a shareholder.

So where do the profits for Kiwibank go? Who knows, back in to the Governments coffers? Certainly not to shareholders who c0uld benefit from money, hell if you wanted to do a good thing sell it to people who are with Kiwibank and let them do something with the money.

Right glad we have cleared that one up then!

Now on to Kiwirail. Yesterday in Wellington was a PRIME example of Government interference. Government owns trains, trains get turned off with no warning – sure ok, big mistake, but the worst of it was that commuters were not told about it!

SELL IT!!!!!

Oh just one more gripe RE Kiwibank… Man its annoying, firstly their ads are awful!!!!!! But secondly all it does is clutter up the post shop. I am one of those in and out of a shop as fast as possible! I hate queing, I get grumpy and agitated, its made ten times worse when I am forced to stand in a queue while Nana has a conversation with the grumpy and unhelpful lady behind the counter about the price of knitting needles or something much less interesting and all I want to do is post my mums birthday present three weeks late!

I find myself reflecting on life a lot more these days and wondering what happened. One minute I was concerned about drinking copious volumes of alcohol every night and now I’m concerned about getting enough sleep so I won’t be tired and grumpy at work tomorrow. Its odd how ones life can change so suddenly. However ones outlook on life and the way the world ought to be never changes I’m sure. Certainly people change the way in which they think but everyone seems to still have a fundamental view on how the world should be. So avid readers (I think there may be one of you still) do not fear my usual array of rants and raves will be back very soon, ranting about the automotive and political world.

Look forward to it! Or don’t but be polite and read it anyway. It makes me feel good.

The times spends a good page talking about how much better off you are in 4x4s and MPVs in a crash. Because bigger vehicles are safer. And that you are more likely to die in a small car. Now the nice PC part is at the end of the article it says that everyone would be better off crash wise if noone drove 4x4s and MPVs, if everyone drove small and medium sized cars, why? Because they weren’t sure how many deaths were caused by 4×4 and MPVs. So to be on the safe side everyone should drive unsafe cars to protect them from being hit by bigger safer cars… Isn’t that silly. They should have said that everyone should give up their little cars and buy big ones. But of course they can’t because its politically incorrect to drive 4x4s.

The safest cars in Britain for the occupants are 4x4s. It says they don’t fear so well when it comes to pedestrian and cyclist safety. My question is, what the hell are pedestrians doing on the road in the first place. If you are stupid enough to run out in front of a two tonne off roader then perhaps you shouldn’t be allowed in society in the first place. As for cyclists, unless you are under the age 15.5 buy a car and stop being so tight. Either that or use the cycle lanes, yes you know those specially reserved places for you. Not the middle of the friggin road!

I have always defended 4x4s saying they are safe and practical and that study proves my point. And if you are worried about the environment, Lexus now has a hybrid SUV. Either that or ride a horse.

However I shall have another attempt at the whole communal vehicle thing another time…

However, the car I wish to look at is the exact one I would like to buy, if I can sell mine over the holidays, so I feel that I should really have a good look at one in the flesh. To get to Lower Hutt I have two options, I can use a combination of bus and train or just a bus. So to plan my route I
decided to use the handy dandy route planner on the metlink website. First of all it is incomptent. Just like the bus service, you punch in your depart time and about five times it came back saying that “2:00″ is an incorrect time. How? I mean how the hell can 2:00 not be a time. Then I finally got a result and realised that it was set up in 24 hour time not 12. Feeling a tad embarrased I punched in 14:00. Again, this is not a valid time! Why not? After two goes this time it worked.

It gave me a nice list of where to catch the bus, which one to catch, how long it will take. But the thing that pissed me off the most was that it told me to walk! I can accept that it is unreasonable to expect to be picked up and dropped off by a bus at your exact destination. But being told to walk, by the public transport website just infuriated me. How dare it tell me what time to walk! At 1.03 walk to bus station, at 1.04 get on bus (I said I wanted to leave from the bus station). How dumb can the person who designed the website be? I mean if people are too stupid to figure out they have to get onto a bus they clearly can’t use the internet.

Once I got to Lower Hutt it told me to get off the bus and catch another one back in the direction I came from, and the bus ride only lasts one minute. Wouldn’t it be logical to get off at the stop before I change buses. In fact if its telling me to walk, why not let it tell me to walk from where I changed buses, by looking at the map it’s hardly far. This in effect proves that public transport is incompetent. I shall find out tomorrow if it is useless.

Now you may say that I am a typical National voter etc blah blah, doesn’t care about the environment etc etc. Well I shall have you know, the car that I am going to look at has a smaller engine than my Toyota, therefore is cheaper to run, the engine is newer and hopefully better maintained therefore less emissions. See I am looking at  a BMW for entirely environmental reasons. And you thought I didn’t care.