AB's all the way including a bonus

Coming out onto Eden Park where the a last time the Boks beat us there was 1937
(when they destroyed us).

My man of the Match - Mils charging through to set up the opening try.

All Blacks: What a game. What a surprise result - AB's 32 - Boks 12 and 4 tries which got them the bonus point. The result certainly surprised me - I could see us winning - just but expected a close defeat. But the way they did it was the real surprise - they just got hammered - although I can see the Boks coming back next week at the Stadium in Wellington. They probably won't play that bad again and were missing Fourie du Preez at halfback.

Plus everything we touched turned to gold. A couple of times we grubber kicked and it bounced back into our arms.

I had concerns about paying Mils but he was terrific. I also thought Kevin M had a great game at hooker but Joe Rocketman would still not be in my team, not that he did anything wrong, but I think there are better options (Gear).

Boys: We had the boys from Friday night until the game. Unfortunately both of them haven't been 100% having a dose of the vomits.However they seem to be slowly recovering.

Thought for the day: Old Native American saying - Vegeterian means piss-poor hunter.

A couple of pics and more

A couple of the boys

PM Key: Acccording to the Economist he is the 6th highest paid leader against GDP. Means he is overpaid but it doesn't take into account any perks which would put the US President much higher as his costs are basically nil. Also with a Federal/Provincial system in theory the workload is less. But with the problems they have with the States for example in Oz then it is probably harder!!.

Ringo was 70 yesterday. We called out Quiz team Ringo - Seven Oh. He had 3 question answers wrong last night (amongst other gaffes he thought the Guilder was still the currency of Holland) and another was only partly correct. We came 4th!!

Sport: Soccer down to the last two - Spain- Holland. Probably Spain but I support the Dutch. We aren't Zealand for nothing.

Boks AB's on Saturday night and it will be a struggle. Not confident. Ranfurly Shield starts Friday night Southland - North Otago.

Sucess - I hope

Internet Connection: We have had problems from day one with connecting our Laptop wirelessly to the Desktop. At the start it was intermittent but then it didn't work at all. Joe looked at it, Telecom looked at it, we got our Guru out, we downloaded new drivers, etc etc. In the end our Guru thought it could be the modem so we got Telecom to send a new one. After setting up the new modem, naturally it still didn't work.

I phoned Telecom again and spoke to Philip - he spoke good English (which was a great help) and he seemed to know what the problem was after about 15 minutes of testing. There was it seems a very rare security compatibility problem with some Thomson modems and after another 15 - 20 or so minutes he got us up and going. Well so far anyway.

We have re-booted the Laptop and it worked so we shall see how it pans out over the next couple of weeks.

Telecom wanted the old Modem back but I won't send it for a week or so to see if it works OK.
Also I will try to get them to pay our Gurus bill !!
We shall see.

World Cup

Stupidity rules again: Ghana played Uruguay and lost 4-2 on penalties. But Ghana put a ball into the net - well they would have except a player in, maybe an instinctive reaction, hit it out with his hand. He gets a red card and a penalty awarded but Ghana couldn't convert it into points. In Rugby it would have been a penalty try. Crazy rules.

Abortion: Raising its head again for the first time in about 30 years. Steve Chadwick - a woman MP - wants the law to be changed, basically making it to be on demand. A view I support; believing it has nothing to do with others - let the woman decide. If it goes any further all hell will break loose as the so called Pro- Life (really anti choice) people will threaten to bring the wrath of their God down upon us again.

Talking about their God - interesting article in the Sunday Times where a woman is to marry a Muslim. She has to change from her religion to his (why doesn't he change) and has to stop drinking alcohol, eating bacon, must cover her head etc.

I would like to re-visit her in 10 years and see how things have panned out. I give it little hope.

Boks: They have arrived and it is all on for Saturday night.

Almost twittering

Twittering?? As I understand it (and I understand very little) almost instant posting is what they do with a Twitter account. Journalists were near the bottom of the recent trust list.
I wonder why?

They rarely ask the hard questions, let people get away with incorrect outrageous statements, English and grammar is poor, etc. What has got my goat tonight is the idiots at TV3 news who said that the Police Commissioner is to resign. They said it about 5 times - resign.

No he isn't. His contract ends soon and he said he is not asking for it to be renewed - it may be that the Government told him privately that they will not re-new it, but that is another matter - he is to retire from the position.

I am sure that if they use a dictionary (most probably haven't heard of one) they would see that Resign and Retire have different meanings.

Olil and stupidity - again

Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Some look to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off.
Others are unprepared for risk.
And when risk turns to reality, they are unable to get their priorities right.

The Dutch fall into the first group.
The US appear to be in the second group - again. (I hope NZ is in the first but I doubt it)

Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a spill much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway.

The Dutch system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour; more capacity than all the ships that the U.S. had deployed.

The Dutch also offered to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers (berms).

In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If it can't then the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company's expense.

What was the US reaction to the Dutch offer of help.

"Thanks but no thanks," despite BP's wanting to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the Dutch government offer was at no charge. The U.S. has also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments with superior expertise and equipment. Unlike the U.S., Europe has fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe?

Because the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules.

The Dutch vessels suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free (I understand .0015% could be left behind - infinitesimal in the size of the ocean) isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of at least 99.9985% pure.
It seems they would rather have it polluted !!!

So the US have been removing water from the Gulf, taking it to land and storing it. Causing them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities - an approach deemed by most as "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels.

And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions, the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.

As for the sand banks - the U.S. asked the Dutch to train American workers to build the sand barriers (berms). Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work - but!!

Then again, perhaps we should not be all that perplexed at the US turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment.

The same applied with Katrina, many governments offered help but it seems they would rather have people die than accept help.

They are real capitalists except when it comes to themselves. When we were in Washington D. C. we had to have two guides as the trip guide couldn't work in another State. Protectionism at its worst but they couldn't see it.

Quiz : First again but the bonus went to two other teams and now the larger bonus has gone it is a return to the status quo with about 30-40 people less. We called ourselves 'Pluto is not a planet' as he always asks questions as if it is.

Trust

Westpac Trust: Although they have now dropped the word Trust from their name - probably a couple of years ago. It was a carry over from when the took over Trust Bank. Anyway just had another argument with them They have taken away the paper/plastic forms to enable direct credits so I have to wait in a queue !! Crazy!!

They did it a few months ago but returned to putting the paper forms out but have now reverted again. The woman said I could use Internet Banking - I agreed; but of course (because of two signatures and a NPO account) they won't do it. They are pathetic. You wonder what idiots make these decisions?






General Trust: The 2010 ratings have come out and Cadbury, top for the past several years, has fallen to 36th equal with Watties taking top spot. In the chocolate makers Whittakers (which we now buy as Cadburys taste has deteriorated so much) has moved up to 5th.

As for people - (look at how many sportspeople are present)

1. Victoria Cross Recipient, Corporal Willie Apiata
2. Fair Go Presenter Kevin Milne
3. Former Olympian and Scientist Sir Peter Snell
4. Author Margaret Mahy
5. Former All Black and Mental Illness Spokesperson John Kirwan
6. = Former All Black Sir Colin Meads
6. = Film Director Sir Peter Jackson
8. Celebrity Chef and Author Alison Holst
9. Silver Fern Irene van Dyk
10. Olympic Shotputter Valerie Vili

Those we don't rate highly are as usual politicians -

Winston Peters (80), Tariana Turia (81), John Banks (82), Rodney Hide (83), Sir Roger Douglas (84) and Hone Harawira (85).

PM John Key went down 17 places to 70 and Phil Goff came 76th.

On TV, John Campbell (33) and Mark Sainsbury (34th equal) upping their places on last year (40th and 44th respectively) with TV3 news presenter Mike McRoberts was a new entry at number 14.

Occupations were about the same as usual -

Firefighters
Ambulace Officers
Pilots
Nurses
Doctors
Pharmacists
Vets
Army
Police
Teachers

and the usual suspects at the bottom were Real Estate Agents, Politicians and Telemarketers.