Its down

Down - what - the murder rate. It seems unbelievable but the murder rate is down.

New Zealand's murder rate appears to have almost halved in the past 20 years despite an overwhelming public belief that crime has got worse.

Police statistics show that for 44 years until about 1970 the murder rate fluctuated around an average of six a year for every million people.

The rate leapt to an average of 21 murders per million people annually from 1985 to 1992, but has dropped steadily ever since. Last year's rate was 12.1 murders per million people.

This trend is in line with Australia, the U.S. and Britain.

Unemployment has dropped since then in all three countries which could have some bearing. Another idea is that the definition of murder has changed over the years. Conspiracy to murder, attempting to procure a murder and accessory after the fact to murder have all been included in the offence type "murder" since 1994.

I also wonder what the manslaughter rate is as 50 -60 years ago they would have had a poor defence and now with legal aid they seem to get the very best if they have no assets (while the poor middle class still get stuck with having to not only pay for themselves, but pay for the no-hopers). So now thanks to the brilliant defence they get, those who have murdered now get found guilty of the lesser crime. However, I am certain that crime now is more brutal.

The figures

Annual murder rate (per million people)
1926-1970: 6
1985-1992: 21
1994-1998: 15
1999-2003: 14
2004-2008: 12

Supercity ?? The report on Auckland to merge all the local councils into one has been accepted by the Government. Whether or not it will save money is a moot point however. But of course the usual 'brown' herring arises. The Maori Party want 3 Maori only seats. Why; because they (Maori) don't get voted on and, it seems, because they have been here longer!!

Being here longer is a crock. Should those who are 3rd generation get more of a vote than those who have been here only one?

I think it is demeaning that they want special treatment - it says they are not as good as Pakeha and need special help. What a load of rubbish. Winston got voted in as a Maori in a very affluent seat. A few years ago Ralph Love (Maori) was the Petone Mayor and he was defeated by George Gee (Chinese). The current Mayor of Dunedin is Chinese, the previous Mayor was Indian (Suki Turner - wife of cricketer Glenn) and so on.

Soundsold - I had a look at my other blog and the down loads. Interesting that easily the biggest at seven is Charles Trenet with La Mer followed by Lonnie Lee and his Starlight Starbright with five.

Duck

From the Hutt News a picture of some people swimming with
the ducks before the big race and a picture of the winning duck.

The Petone Workingmens Club has a fund raiser for the Hospice and Swee Tan's Plastics unit. The idea is that they sell small plastic ducks at $5-00 each then put them in the Hutt River and they float down to a finishing line with the first one winning a prize worth a couple of thousand dollars. This year they sold 4000 ducks so it is a brilliant idea.

On Sunday we (Christine and me. Joe, Sarah, Kipp and Monty and Sophia) went over to the river to see them all come out of a tip-truck sitting in the middle of the river. Many got stuck on the side of the river due to the wind and the current but eventually the winner came home - Number 333. We had several entries but this wasn't our number.

All good fun and some couple of hundred people or more were there. They had various other things such as sausage sizzle, bouncing castles and a smaller castle that Kipp went into and jumped inside. And jumped inside - and jumped inside - and jumped inside etc etc. He loves jumping. A good day and good weather.

The United Nations

I wrote a bit about Helen off to the UN and the problems with that 'organisation' - I predict she will have little effect upon improving it.

From the Economist (para-phrased) -


"AT FIRST glance, the resolution on “religious defamation” adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council on March 26th, mainly at the behest of Islamic countries, reads like another piece of harmless verbiage churned out by a toothless international bureaucracy.

The resolution says “defamation of religions” is a “serious affront to human dignity” which can “restrict the freedom” of those who are defamed, and may also lead to the incitement of violence.

But there is an insidious blurring of categories here, which becomes plain when you compare this resolution with the more rigorous language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948. This asserts the right of human beings in ways that are now entrenched in the theory and (most of the time) the practice of liberal democracy. It upholds the right of people to live in freedom from persecution and arbitrary arrest; to hold any faith or none; to change religion; and to enjoy freedom of expression, which by any fair definition includes freedom to agree or disagree with the tenets of any religion.

In other words, it protects individuals—not religions, or any other set of beliefs. And this is a vital distinction. For it is not possible systematically to protect religions or their followers from offence without infringing the right of individuals.

What exactly is it the drafters of the council resolution are trying to outlaw?

To judge from what happens in the countries that lobbied for the vote—like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan—they use the word “defamation” to mean something close to the crime of blasphemy, which is in turn defined as voicing dissent from the official reading of Islam.

In many of the 56 member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has led the drive to outlaw “defamation”, both non-Muslims and Muslims who voice dissent (even in technical matters of Koranic interpretation) are often victims of just the sort of persecution the 1948 declaration sought to outlaw. That is a real human-rights problem. And in the spirit of fairness, laws against blasphemy that remain on the statute books of some Western countries should also be struck off; only real, not imaginary, incitement of violence should be outlawed.
Good manners, please; not censorship

In much of the Muslim world, the West’s reaction to the attacks of September 2001, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, has been misread as an attack on Islam itself. No state, and certainly no body that calls itself a Human Rights Council, should trample on the right to free speech enshrined in the Universal Declaration. And in the end, given that all faiths have undergone persecution at some time, few people have more to gain from the protection of free speech than sincere religious believers."

Exactly!

Monet

Saturday and updating the Blog while I watch the Tahs-Stormers game. Chiefs have just managed to win what should have been a reasonably easy win but the Lions gave them a real fright.

Monet - we went to Te Papa and saw the brilliant Monet exhibition. My type of artist - real art; and I would think he is probably my favourite artist. The colours - especially some of his blues are magnificent. 

Killing several birds with one stone we had to go to Island Bay to drop off a quilt and the sewing machine has died so we had to visit Kilbirnie for that. We got a phone call today saying it will cost $300 to fix so it looks as if we will be buying a new machine as not worth fixing at that price. While there we had lunch in Kilbirnie. It looked quite wealthy - everywhere else I see empty shops but not there. 

Helen Clark is off to the UN but the real battle is now underway as to who will replace her in my birthplace, Mt. Albert. Being an Elecorate MP, we will have an election but they have to be careful as if a List MP gets the seat it could mean, with Cullen also due to leave, that Judith Tizard could get back in on the List. She is yesterdays politician and of course the Section 92A proponent. 

As for the UN, I read that the Supernanny method of handling children is not in accordance with their ideas and also the UN have passed a resolution that objects to criticism of religion. Most mainstream Christianity can stand criticism in a free world but the Islamists are, as usual, still 300 years behind.  Maybe we need a new world body that only has Democracy's and let the rest of them go hang!

Set the rules for a democracy to be a member and if, like Fiji, the Democracy is overthrown they are kicked out. 

Play Station

It wasn't an April Fool.

A Sony Portable Play Station arrived by courier today. I suggested it go to somebody who could use it - Kipp/Monty - but the Boss thinks we should keep it. Admittedly it says for age 6 and up, but that doesn't mean a thing to me as my techno age is minus 12. The technology usually defeats me as I expect common sense. For example I find it hard to understand that start means stop!!. On one phone Christine had, Send apparently meant Receive - you pushed Send to answer it!!.

More play of the play money type. The big G20 economic conference in the UK seems to have come up with some solutions - maybe.

Gordon Brown, for all his faults, has impressed. At least the British have bought shares in the Banks etc so they could control them and not just given them money which was the American idea.The Yanks I assume thought it sounded too much like Socialism but I think they have now seen the error of their ways and have introduced the dreaded S word into their economy.

Basically I hate debt and tend to favour competition but am Keynesian enough to realise that sometimes debt is required and that unbridled capitalism is often just that - unbridled. So at times it needs to be held in check by Government regulation.

The current system that seems to have developed is; when their are profits to be made it is the capitalists who take the profits (mainly the top executives - not the shareholders). And when their are losses the taxpayer has to pay and pick up the pieces.

This is what my worry is with any privatisation of ACC. Although as a monopoly it needs competition the problem is with a possible 70-90 year business time frame, ongoing for hundreds of years into the future, private firms may not be around to honour their obligations over such a long time.

As for the Government attack on the organisation, almost every neutral commentator (including the conservative NZ Herald) says it is a political beat up. As for criticism of their investment performance - they are odd in that they make all their decisions in house and incredibly have out performed all other groups (including the NZ Super Fund) and made money (about 2%) in the past 12 months. I wish they had been managing my money.

Daylight Saving

It is this weekend and they go BACK. I now remember by Forward at the front and Back at the end.

 

Simon & Garfunkel are coming to Auckland as part of a world reunion tour. All I have to do is win some tickets. And about winning, I hope the call yesterday about the competition, in which I was phoned to be advised I had won a prize; was it an April Fools joke?.  Why bother??

We took Rhett in to get his annual shots today and he is a bit dozy. Tomorrow we are going in to Wellington to see the Monet exhibition. 

About to go to bed and on in the background is the TV1 Pasific Island programme. They are going on about housing and people living in a garage. Two adults with 8 (eight!!) kids. They never ask the hard question - why do you continue to breed with no income and housing etc.

 I read that if a prisoner is on remand they are entitled to be brought before a Judge every 7 days but of course 99% just forgo the right as it won't change the remand.  However, double murderer Graham Burton, who lost a leg in a shootout, insists on this option. Costing us thousands as he has mobility problems and is dangerous. 

April Fools Day

It is April Fools day so today we have an GIF that says Image Loading but the image never loads.
I am the original April Fool.

But there is some good news.

I got a phone call today from some marketing company. Normally I am pretty short with them but this time I carried on (maybe because it was a Kiwi accent?). They said I had won a minor prize (Yeah right) and just wanted to confirm my address. I was waiting for the sales pitch - but nothing??

It seems I have won something. But I didn't understand when she explained what it was - something about an X Box; so I don't know if it was a disc for it or the thing itself. Anyway we will see. I can't even remember entering??

Several April Fools jokes around. In the N Z Herald they report that Microsoft have taken over Apple and will replace their IPhone with a new MPhone. Twice as large, comes in two colours, but 15 different models, each more complex than the other.

Update on the long life bulb. Still here and the council were little use. Claimed all about disposal was on their Website but I couldn't see anything. Also it certainly hasn't lasted long so looking on the Net I assume the problem is that these type of bulbs are not suitable for the fully enclosed fittings that we have in our house.