Earth Hour 2008

Links:
Press Release: Christchurch Earth Hour a Set-up.
TV3's coverage of Earth Hour, including short interview with myself.

A group of Act on Campus members attended the Earth Hour event in Cathedral Square tonight. We handed out over 1,000 leaflets and graphs to the people gathered in front of the lit up screen. It must have been one darn powerful, power-hungry projector, displaying the movie The Eleventh Hour on the inflatable screen. As Leonardo DiCaprio read out his lines on pollution and disease and global warming and all kinds of things, we experimented with our two powerful spotlights.

One highlight of the evening was a chat with Christchurch Mayor, Bob Parker. He stood on the steps by the Cathedral, wearing his Earth Hour tee-shirt, and took the graph (below) that I offered him.

I pointed out the several peaks on the graph, that have occured throughout recent history, and mentioned that we are currently coming out of a little ice age. "They're overdoing it" Bob said. "It comes down to commonsense, really". He explained his pragmatic reasoning for getting behind the event "It's great publicity for Christchurch, we couldn't refuse it". He didn't say anything along those lines when he got up on the stage to thank everyone for coming out. But heck, you can't blame him, he's a politician.

A TV camera arrived, and they caught Josh a bit un-prepared. He did well off the cuff, and for the first question, when asked him why he opposed Earth Hour, quite simply and to the point, said "it's crap". I did a bit of thinking and then gave the media guys a bit more to think about.

One young lady who took a leaflet from me was holding a candle. I pointed to the candle, "it'll create carbon" I said. She looked at me, eyes wide open, and in the same instant put the candle in her pocket. "Read the leaflet" I said as she walked away. Ahh, Josh and I had a good laugh.

"We're anti-turn-the-lights-off" Josh said to a young guy as he walked past.

Meanwhile, a group of young guys walked down towards the cathedral reading their leaflets. Something must have clicked, because one of the guys turned on his heel and ran flat out towards me, covering the 30 odd metres in record time. He hi-fived me, exitedly saying "keep it up" a few times. I handed him a few more of the leaflets as he ran back to his mate.

We rounded the night off with a feed at Burger King, where we discussed further action and made good use of the free drink refills.

Earth Hour: Spot the Difference

before and after pictures of the Earth Hour event in Cathedral Square, Christchurch.
A bit of an anti-climax if you ask me.

Monster Sale

The computer shop I work for is running a monster of a sale til 12 April. I conceptualized and created the advert, and I'm surprised in a way, that my boss was cool with it. I thought she might be worried that it would put some people off. But no, I reckon - make them curious, make them intrigued, stand out.

UK: Abortion set to lower to 20 week limit

This just in from The Telegraph 29 March 2008

"Hundreds of MPs are to vote to lower the abortion limit to 20 weeks in a move which could lead to the first change in the law on terminations for nearly two decades.

At least 200 members from all parties are poised to back a reduction, many motivated by medical advances that have resulted in many more premature babies surviving.

Department of Health data shows 909 children were born between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy in 2005 and 250 survived for at least a year.

The pro-life MPs are confident that a "substantial" number of colleagues will choose to abstain rather than vote against lowering the limit from 24 weeks, which could lead to the measure being passed into law..."

Click here to read the rest of the article

Fantastic. Let's see this happen in all Western Countries, let's stop this tradition of culturally acceptable child-genocide.

Poetry from Italy

When I was in Italy, looks like 1 May 2005, I sat down with my Toshiba Satellite 2450 (sigh... what a beauty of a laptop) and wrote some poetry. I just can't get enough of looking back over some of my old writing, hope you don't mind my reminisce.

How do you know we had to go?
Huh, every chance you get - you blow.
Tell me why, I'd love to know.
Just please don't let us miss the show.

Most of them say go with the flow
Ask the guys who earn their dough
They don't hang their jeans down low
All wear their fluro glasses though.

Come on kid, lets do this bro,
We'll get the job done even so.
Lets on ahead, defeat the foe.
You'll never shine if you don't glow

Run ahead and stub your toe.
Gotta know just when to say no...
I'll wait behind and watch you grow.
Get the bunch of keys, kid, go

Don't go fast, you gotta go slow.
Take it nice and easy bro.
That's what Italians do, you know.
Oh boy enough of all this Oh.

And this next thing is a bit random, but heck, why should I act all normal? Nobody's normal.

...But, hey, a 1, 2, 3! I'm no good at making beds.
I prefer drinking wine insteads...
Or chopping off bad people's heads.
Sometimes I feel I've got no legs,
But then I'm told that rum comes in kegs.
Hang the Washing out with pegs,
Mum pleads with me; she asks, she begs.
Why do you always use the hose?
People make you pay through the nose.
And don't break the thorny bits off the rose.
Why are kids so stupid? Who knows?
Lets now stop this weirdo prose.

Cathedral Square Webcam

From a webcam on the BNZ building in Cathedral Square, thanks www.yobbo.co.nz, updates every 10 seconds.

Be watching from 8pm tonight.

Fitna the Movie

Update:So LiveLeak has pulled the movie due to threats made to their staff. (see below). Google Video is currently hosting several copies of the highly controversial movie, so I will include this below. Hat-tip: whaleoil

Did you know... there are 54,000,000 Muslims in Europe. Watch this 15 minute documentary "Fitna the Movie", produced by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders and released yesterday (27 March). This highly anticipated and controversial film which looks at the Quran and the implications of Islam in the West has already had 1.6 million views. Warning: some graphic images

Live Leak explains their reasons for taking Fitna off their servers

Stallone goes Rambo

"Rambo reeks of depraved violence" says Australian Newspaper The Age. Rambo [lashes] out at society rather than handling difficult situations in a "civilized" manner. - Wikipedia. “Rambo” is, for most of its fairly brief running time, a blood bath punctuated by occasional bouts of clumsy dialogue. There are beheadings, mutilations, disembowelings — enough gore to rival Apocalypto - reports the NY Times.

I watched Rambo down at Hoyts Riccarton tonight. I had been looking forward to it, and in preperation, had watched the first three films a couple of weeks beforehand. Nothing in those films could have prepared me for the fourth installment of the cult series. Unfortunately, many people will go to this film purely to get the adrenaline rush from seeing so much carnage. However, if you can deal with the fact that what is portrayed in the movie is pretty darn accurate, then perhaps you can take this movie out of the "depraved violence" category. Unlike movies such as Kill Bill, where the violence is "cinematically beautiful" and stylized, Rambo features many variations of bloody violence without slipping into the category of unbelievable and imaginary.

Without a doubt, Stallone (who directed the movie) has gone overboard with the violence in his latest movie. While everything you see in the movie could have and has happened in real life, it is not necessary to show so much of it, or in so much detail.

Some observers say Rambo is one of the most violent movies ever. To that, Stallone has but one response: "Not one of the most. The most. I worked very hard for this." ..."This [movie] has to walk the thin line," Stallone said. "It really does. It was almost an experiment on how far you can push entertainment, but also stay true to the bloodshed that's going down as we speak." - Plugged in Online Movie Reviews

John Rambo's attitude towards the fighting is that he would prefer just to be left alone. But if there is injustice, then he will make the perpetrators wish they had never been born.

The score is really nice, especially at the beginning of the film, where for the first ten minutes or so, the scene is peaceful and serene.

I haven't often witnessed the whole theatre erupting in applause at the end of a film, or the core of young guys dressed up as Rambo, yelling and clapping at various points throughout it.

Conclusion: I wouldn't recomend this film to anyone, though neither would I disuade any mature person from seeing it. The R18 rating is there for a reason. Foul language and unveiled violence are two definite downsides to the film.

You ask too many questions!

Justice for Dads

Heather Roy writes on Fairness in the Family Court in her latest email newsletter.  Hat tip Dad4Justice.

...On the whole, New Zealand is a 'can do' nation with 'can do' people: we can, and do, fulfil our responsibilities; we can, and do, pay our own way; we can, and do, stand up for fairness over discrimination. With such a pervading and upstanding social view, New Zealanders on the whole have no time for 'deadbeat dads'.

So why, then, do we allow the odds to be stacked against fathers who are at the opposite end of the scale - who want nothing more than to play an equal or larger part in the lives of their children?

In 2006 the Care of Children Act came into effect, designed in part to shake up the Family Court and to dispel the 'myth' that the Court was biased against men and preferred sole maternal custody as the outcome of its hearings. Under the Act, 'Custody and Access' were replaced by 'Shared Parenting' - meaning that, ideally, both parents share equally the responsibility and joy of their child's day-to-day care; neither parent has full control and neither parent can be left out of their child's life. On paper, it seems wonderfully fair.

Changing legal terms, however, is a far cry from changing attitudes and it is the same judges making the final decision - often with the same gender bias they used before. An example of this lingering attitude can be seen in the case of one father who, having been left with sole care of his child for several months following the breakdown of his relationship with the mother, filed proceedings in the Family Court for an Interim Parenting Order.

Now, one might say that - as it were he who initiated proceedings - the father cannot complain about the treatment he received from the Family Court. However, this man went to the Court after indications that his former partner was about to take the child to live with her in an unstable environment. There were also indications that his former partner would not be keeping to the equal care arrangement they had previously agreed on as she required Majority Care of the child in order to qualify for the DPB. His fears were:

• That his child's living arrangements while with her mother were far from settled - ie the child's mother had no fixed abode and was relying on the generosity of friends to provide a roof over her head on a day-to-day basis.
• The mother would not make the effort to keep the child in Early Childhood Education
• With an informal agreement, the mother would use the child as a weapon or leverage whenever she wanted/needed something (as had happened on at least one occasion)
  

He also suspected that, once in receipt of the DPB for having Majority Care of their child, it would be HE who had the child for the bulk of the time - while having to pay Child Support to the mother.
Having remained in the family home, and having kept to the stable routine his child was used to, this father felt it best for his child's wellbeing that the child remained with him in the interim until such time as his former partner was in a more suitable situation. He also assumed that the Family Court would feel the same way.

He was wrong. Within minutes of the preliminary hearing, this father realised he was quite possibly on a hiding to nothing. His former partner accused him of keeping their child from her for months, labelled him controlling and domineering, accused him of prolonged domestic abuse and insinuated that he put his career ahead of all else - all without a single shred of evidence....

Click here to read the full article.

ACT gets the thumbs up from Dad4Justice!!!

Traffic Jam

Time for a bit of history.  A short entry from an irregularly kept journal, from my 6 month overseas trip back in 2005.

Britain.  Halfway from Cornwall to Bristol.

1355 hours, 30/06/2005.

Hi.  

I thought this was a good time to write another of my regular weekly updates...  We're in the middle of a huge traffic jam; makes driving in Auckland on a wet Friday afternoon seem a joke.  Apparently there's 15 cars involved in a pile-up.  From the comfort of our borrowed black Ford Galaxy, (a seven seater with one seat removed to make space for luggage), All I can see infront and behind is cars vans and trucks.  Mums just chatting to a police officer who is bravely backing along the shoulder of the road, apparently, from the crash site, (up ahead), to the previous exit.  We saw a helicopter a while ago.  Must have done a short documentary on the jam.  Fair enough.  Looks like we're going to be here at least another couple of hours.  Torrential rain is at the moment un-decided, having been on and off all day, sometimes drizzling miserably, and at times so thick and foggy that Dad could hardly see to drive.  There's been that many coppers (as the Limeys so properly put it), ambulances and fire engines, rushing first down the right hand lane (traffic coming towards us), and then screaming up the shoulder of the road, on our side, up to the accident scene.

I'm not sure if you needed to hear about this, let alone want to hear about it.  But I thought it was interesting enough and relevant enough at the time to write about.

Well, following, an update on what we've been to since just before crossing the ditch.  The little creek they call the English Channel.

California: "child abuse has no definition"

Stephen Baskerville at World Net Daily.com writes on the criminalisation of parents in the US.

The California appeals court decision criminalizing parents who homeschool their children is only the tip of an iceberg. Nationwide, parents are already being criminalized in huge numbers, and it is not limited to homeschoolers.

During the Clinton years, the trend toward turning children into tools for expanding government power increased rapidly. Otherwise indefensible programs and regulations are now rationalized as "for the children."

As a result, government now has so many ways to incarcerate parents that hardly a family in America has not been touched. The criminalization of parents is highly bureaucratic, effected through a bureaucratic judiciary and supported by a vast "social services" machinery that few understand until it strikes them. They then find themselves against a faceless government behemoth from which they are powerless to protect their children or defend themselves.

Homeschoolers are usually accused of "educational neglect," a form of child abuse. Like other child abuse accusations, it does not usually involve a formal charge, uniformed police, or a jury trial. Instead the accusations are leveled by social workers, whose subjective judgment is minimally restrained by due-process protections...

Click here for the full article

Apparently the Governor of California has come out saying that he does not want to see home-education banned.  Sound familiar anyone?

Home-education, by principle must be an option for parents.  Soon in New Zealand we will be hearing from the Children's Commissioner and the Green Party, Barnadoes and Body Shop that home-education is damaging to society, children, and serves as a cover-up for brain-washing and child-abuse in the home.

Acting up in Auckland

Andy, Rodney, Simeon

The 2008 ACT Conference was excellent, heard from some great and knowledgeable speakers who have been in the political game for a very long time. Had a good sit down and a chat with Rodney Hide just before we all headed back home at the end of the conference. Caught up with John Boscawen and Muriel Newman for a few minutes which was a treat.

Met some intelligent young people at the conference - and some not so intelligent young people who for the present will remain nameless. Fish and Chips and a discussion on who was in what electorate sorted out Friday night - we left the big shots to their Chinese meal, and then for Saturday lunch it was Red Rooster "it's gotta be red", which wasn't worth writing home about, just a KFC rip-off.

For an overview of the conference, check out Rick's blog. And for a more in depth look at the speeches, check out the No Minister blog, where Fairfacts Media has liveblogged on the conference. Stayed the first couple of nights at Fairfact's place in Orewa on the outskirts of Auckland. He distinguishes himself by not having any milk for the weet-bix, but "a couple of bottles of wine chilling in the fridge" as he put it. Great guy, and good of him to put Rick and I up.

The Soldier

from www.whaleoil.co.nz

This was taken from The Contact the magazine of Vietnam VeteransIt was written by Father Dennis O'Brian.

The Soldier

It is the soldier, not the reporter,who gives us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who gives us the freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organiser, who gives us thefreedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flagand whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.

-----------------------------

But what is it we are always hearing in the news? US Soldiers accused of torturing hostages, they rave on and on and on about how terrible they are, blissfully ignoring their right to say so which has for the large part come about by the bloodshed of soldiers long before their time. - Andy

A couple of mates

Rick, Rodney and myself. Thanks to Emmy for the pic.