The chocolate wars

Whittakers Vs Cadbury's: A war (on TV at least) for the chocaholics has started. Cadburys has made its blocks smaller (with a supposed equal drop in price), put them in cardboard, added more palm oil and dropped the cocoa content (to 1% above the minimum) and started making them in Tasmania. Meantime Whittakers carries on its product the same as always - a product I have always preferred.

Whittakers has started a TV campaign pointing out all the above and it will be interesting to see what effect it has on Cadbury's sales. With the short attention span of most people not much I suppose. My favourite is Coconut Rough and for a couple of years Cadburys seemed to stop making it and even now it is hard to find.

Rugby: The Tri Nations opener on Saturday and I lack confidence as usual.

Quiz: Called ourselves The Dish after the Oz film about the moon landing starring NZ's Sam Neill as Armstrong walked upon the moon 40 years ago on the 20 July. Like the Yanks we came first. A couple of the better teams were missing again but we heard later that one of them has disbanded. It seems they have had a falling out due to some internal ructions and a couple of people got upset and stormed off. Its a tough business.

Maori customary rights: A Court case is going on at the moment about the stealing of a dead body. The Maori believe their rights override the law. If they win it means anarchy rules.

Precedence: The Mayor has accepted our invitation to the SeniorNet AGM and in case the local MP's also accepted I have looked up the Order of Precedence.

The top few - Queen, Governor General, PM, Speaker I knew but was surprised how far up the list the Dean of the Diplomats comes - ahead of the Deputy PM - and I would have thought the local Mayor would come above the local MP's but on this I was wrong. However, on thinking it through I suppose MP's are above the Mayor being from the higher section of Government. Nevertheless if they do come I only intend to allow the Mayor to say something. Probably get the Guillotine.

In my letter to the MP's I thanked them for the funding help they give pointing out that as we are a 100% volunteer organisation they get more 'bangs for their buck'. The Government have cut back on the night schools, and I have some sympathy, but their Tutors are getting paid, at well above the minimum wage, while ours (SeniorNet) get nothing.

If the night classes Tutors are so passionate then why don't they work for say the minimum wage. Christine taught Macrame for a couple of years and it was a great lurk.

Still Busy

Still flatout with the end of the Rotary year, sadly another big funeral today, SeniorNet AGM due etc etc etc.

TVNZ: I was contacted to see if I could arrange a person to be interviewed for a SeniorNet publicity piece on TV1 and also arrange for them to film a class in action. As it happens we are having a morning tea for the tutors on Friday so they are going to come after that has finished. We will need to tidy up the rooms first. We are also going to have a morning tea for the other tenants but we have run out of time so will probably have to have it some time after the Term has started .

Boy Racers: More killed in Invercargill and the parents appeared on TV defending them. They claimed the dead driver never sped - although quotes of friends in the DomPost disputed this - and that he bought a high performance car because that was available. He could have bought something else - its not compulsory. I am pleased the Police spoke out and pointed out that in most cases the family and more likely the friends always place the blame elsewhere - never with the speedsters.

Dinosaurs: I had never thought of it before but on 'The Panel" on Radio NZ - broadcast about 4.15 each afternoon - one brought up a point. He wondered if some of these films of the stone age featuring dinosaurs with people may be an insidious ploy by the American Evangelicals who don't believe in evolution and claim humans and dinosaurs existed side by side.

Jet Star: I see that they avoid a $2-00 per person levy because they are registered in Australia. With a couple of million passengers a year that is some saving. They defended it by saying what they were doing was legal - but again the tough question - is it ethical - wasn't asked. It seems the Government will have to change the law.

Bad paper: Bought the usual Tuesday DomPost for the TV Guide last week. On getting it home there was no TV Guide. Sudenly reading it the news seemed old - they had sold me Monday's paper.

Birthday month

Leo the Lion: My birthday this month. I am a Leo although I don't believe or take any notice of that rubbish.

Quiz: Update on the great quizzers. Another first to the team last week although I must mention that a couple of the better teams were missing. Friends from Upper Hutt were down on Saturday night and we discussed going with them to the Tuesday Quiz at Upper Hutt.

Singing the anthem: I have probably said it before but it annoys me that people go on about the AB's not singing the anthem. They are rugby players not singers. As Anton Oliver has said the Welsh singing better than us hasn't helped them beat us since 1953 - over 60 years. They can win the singing I will take winning the match.

Majority decision: The law has now been changed to a majority of 11-1 in juries. And the next day the very first majority result was required. About time as it is crazy that one idiot can defeat the course of justice. As it happened it was 10-1 as one juror had been discharged on health grounds. From the news it seemed a starightforward case of fraud on Trade Me where he was selling stamps that differed from the promised and photographed articles. Pretty obvioius he was guilty as a lot of complaints even from Australia and evidence was produced showing what he promised and what he sold.

SeniorNet: The move went well and the larger space is great.

Whacko Jacko: Can't even watch the morning TV news as all channels are showing the Jackson funeral. This is whacko - was he that important??

Spock, a little irritated at the commotion over a death, summed it up when he said 'you humans find it harder to understand the death of one than the death of millions'."

More nuts

A gun nut : Another gun nut has had to be shot by the Police, this time in Christchurch.

But the question I always ask is where did they get the gun, after all this is not the US. It seems this guy was a member of a gun club and had a gun legally but in a Radio NZ interview a neighbour said the Police had visited him before when he was firing at people.

This was later confirmed and the Police said they are still investigating the background to this revelation. But the point I couldn't get was why Radio NZ diddn't pounce on this knowledge straight away - instead they just ignored it and ploughed on with the next (prepared??) question.

Be interesting to hear the outcome.

Rugby and a French nut : As for the French Rugby player who now admits he lied about being beaten up in Wellington. I doubted his story from the start as it seems did the Police. A 20 year old out alone late at night who doesn't speak the language???. This would be contrary to team policy and it now appears he was drunk and was punched by another player. However, it must have been a management cover up as I am sure they would have known the truth.

Keith Quinn the famous rugby commentator spoke to our Rotary Club last night. He was just incredible with a hundred stories, all told brilliantly.

I asked him about my 'bete noire' the Times rugby writer Stephen Jones. His response was that he is good writer and a good bloke but tailors his writing for his audience plus Keith thought he did admire NZ Rugby. Well - in the Lions v Springbok tests in the first Jones blamed our referee for the poor showing of the Lions scrum. If so then how come when Phil Vickery was replaced the Lions scrum was at least on par with the Boks? It was poor selection.

In the second he blamed our Assistant Ref for not standing up to the Referee to get Burger red carded. Sorry - but it is the Ref who makes the decision and at least another Jones, our Vinnie Jones did see the illegal act. But with Stephen Jones we can never win. As for Burger getting Yellow Carded and later getting an 8 week ban - so whats new for him.

Meantime in the series in South Africa - the Lions gave away the 2nd Test and will be lucky to win the 3rd. Luckily for us (maybe) is that the Springboks coach is pretty poor. Then again I don't rate Henry as I think he is over thehill although at least he has Wayne Smith and Stu Cron as the forwards coach who I think are good value.

Just a nut Michael Jackson : Dead at age 50, but a good career move. He has never impressed me - I am too old for his music I guess but I have to admit that he was a fantastic dancer. Still to me he remains Whacko-Jacko.

What a Berk and a Burke

The Referendum: The definition of Berk is a fool.

I have written previously (6 December 2008) about how I respect the views of Edmund Burke as to how Parliamentarians should act. They are elected for their judgement.

So I am generally against having referendums - our MP's are elected to make decisions as they should be in a better position to make the decisions. They should have opinions and beliefs. That's the theory anyway. Probably the only time I consider a Referendum should be held is when Constitutional matters affecting Parliament itself are being considered, such as when we changed our Electoral System.

So we are to have a Citizens Initiated Non binding Referendum at a cost of $9 million with the idiotic question of -

" Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

It seems if you believe that a child can be smacked (ie Yes) you have to vote No, and if you believe a child cannot be hit (ie No) you have to vote Yes. Both the PM and Leader of the Opposition say the question is badly worded and neither intends to vote at all.

When I first read it, and even on the 3rd or fourth reading, I was still confused. The question is a Berk!!

Anyway, my view is that I support the law. So I will be voting - yes.

Probably in a minority; but as I understand it the law is working satisfactorily and I believe, like a lot of things, Parliament has to lead public opinion and not necessarily follow public opinion. Like Burke said - excercise judgement. In the Parliament that approved the law only about 6-7 voted against.

Capital punishment is a matter that a majority of people would probably support, but it has been banished from most democracies, apart from the USA, for years. Then again, with their Electoral College system is the US a democracy?

Over the past 200 or so years I think a person (a person being a male) could hit 5 'things' without legal repercussions - your wife, your servants, your children, in the military and in the prisons. All have been gone for many years, except for children, until the recent change. I seem to remember an article saying that when the House of Commons was passing an Act to stop allowing men to hit their wives, a member of the Lords said "They'll stop me from hitting my horse next"

But it doesn't matter as Parliament is to ignore the Referendum result and the taxpayers lose $9 million.

I don't worry about being in the minority as they are often right - Capital punishment as I said, the Vietnam war; at the start most favoured, Apartheid; and I voted for a four year parliament which was well defeated. Also most Americans - but about 50/50 here from memory - supported the Iraq debacle.

Advertising: Telecom are wasting millions on new adverts. Their new system allows phones to work in Ethiopia but they don't show where they don't work such as, according to a letter writer to the Herald, parts of suburban Auckland. They (ie we the taxpayer) are running ads against driving while drunk. A waste of $$ in my view. The idiots still drink and drive.

Rugby: AB's sneaked a win but still poor. Lions lost but the Boks were much better than the result. Where is the vaunted Northern Hemispere scrummaging. Although the frogs weren't bad.

Music: Looking at my Soundsold music site the other day and I see that Lonnie Lee's Starlight Starbright is now the biggest download.

Big Update

A big update as have been flat out.

Hutt Radio: A group are starting up a Hutt Radio site. Will be interesting to see what they play and if we can hear it here, although they will only be up the road at Naenae. Will sign up as a foundation member for SeniorNet at very least to get some free adverts. Will see if Rotary are interested.

Rotary: Sadly a very dear friend and fellow Rotarian passed away last Sunday. Funeral was on Friday (had to miss Probus which was the Film Censor, which would have been interesting). Tremendous turnout for a man who achieved much in his professional and personal life - would have been near 200 people present.

Politics: Richard Worth has gone. However, as usual when people make accusations their own private life, warts and all, are also dragged into the limelight. Labour easily won my old home suburb of Mt. Albert. Unfortunately, not that it would have gone National, Melissa Lee was a disaster. Her long term political career is probably over.

Rugby: All Blacks were terrible and France well deserved wimnners and in fact should have won by more.

Kipp: Haven't had him over for a while but he stayed last night. As for Monty - he is making tremendous progress, kicking away and trying to crawl.

SeniorNet: Has been taking up a fair bit of my time lately as we have been looking for new premises. These have now been found and we now move to the planning stage for the move. Will be pleased to move as the last premises didn't work out as well as we wanted, or were promised. Hope this lot go better.

More Politics or is it common sense. It has been called the Black Swan Theory.

1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail.

2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. (Which I have said myself before). Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing.

3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.

4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are they would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”.

5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.

6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . Citizens must be protected from themselves in important matters.

7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”.

8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.

9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).

10. Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this current economic crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials;

D - Day 6th of June

D- Day

The D in D-Day stood I read for Destination Day. Maybe it should have been Destiny.

Sixty five years ago and still wars go on.

Richard Karam, David Bain and the indefatigable Joe Karam.

The trial of the Century - so far. David Bain was found Not Guilty yesterday. By chance I decided to turn on the 4.30 news on TV One where they said the jury was about to return and that they would be crossing to the Courtroom. As it happened they arrived just as the verdict was being read out and as soon as I heard they had found him Not Guilty on the first charge then of course the rest were just a formality.

Did he do it and if not was it his father. Well only David knows. I thought he did do it but what was his motive? He had no reason. If it was to hide all the family problems then he must of known that they would come out at a murder trial. So only Robin Bain had motive because of his relatioship with her father.

Anyway it is all over now at a cost of at least $4 million. One person who must be admired is Joe Karam. The man never gives in.

Joke. The British are now going to have Muslim weather. It is either going to be Sunni or Shi'ite.

20/20. Andrew Symonds. Sent home from the 20-20 - just normal transmission for him. And Netherlands beating England in the first game just shows that anything can happen on the day but more so in a hit and miss short game like this.