Howdy!
Right now we are in Singapore airport, waiting for the next leg of our journey to Zurich.
Toby was a little over-tired for the first few hours of the flight, and was rather noisy and grizzly. Thankfully he slept for the rest of the leg, and we could relax - 'we' being Michelle and I, and the dozen or so passengers in our immediate vicinity!
Well, Hope you're all having a great sleep (those of you in New Zealand, anyway!
Talk to you again from Zurich!
TradeMe are now offering the listing of property sales/auctions online.
It costs $49.95 to list a property - very nice to use.
Michael Jackon has been cleared of all charges against him.
I was watching the Sky News live coverage - man, some Americans are crazy! There was a woman outside the court releasing a dove for each of the ten 'not guilty' verdicts.
Veteran blogger Jason Kottke has just recently tweaked the design of his blog. Small changes - still clean and minimal. No official word yet, nor any indication of whether this is the full extent of his rework.
I thought of a cool thing when I woke at 1am this morning to go to the bathroom. And I have subsequently implemented 'the cool thing'. Read on...
You will see below that there are a couple of simple links. Some people refer to these as 'remaindered links'. You see, I've tooled around with the CSS so that if I write a post with the subject title 'link' then the title, date/time/poster details, and 'Comment' link are hidden. It means that I can simply post a link without all the unnecessary details taking up extra space on the page!
Update: I put the comments back for the links.
Ah well.
This post is written primarily to displace the preceeding post from its top spot. Crazy Nigerian spam. Crazy me for publishing my blog-posting email address - an address which I have subsequently disabled.
In work-related news, our new website backend is going live late tonight/early tomorrow morning. It is the culmination of 10 months work, and all things going to plan, no-one should notice a difference, which is a shame really. It will be transitioning from spidered flat HTML to a dynamic pages-built-as-you-view-it site. There is some added functionality and enhancement, but on-the-whole, tomorrow's site will be no different to today's.
Well - better get back into it. Take care and I'll try and talk to you all again soon.
I hope this letter finds you well. While this email will definitely be coming to you as a surprise, please take a moment of your time to read this. It is very important. I am MR.KELLY WEEKS, working in a finance company in the Netherlands. However I got your address through the International web directory online. During our recent reconciliation and auditing of our bank accounts, my department discovered an over dormant account with a huge amount of money valued at Euro 4,600,000.00 (FOUR million, six hundred thousand, Euro Only) that belongs to one of our late customers; a Mr. Schmitt, from GERMANY. He has passed away (dead) leaving no beneficiary to the account. So the funds have been dormant in his account with this bank without any claim or activity on it for quite some time. Due to our bank regulations, It is only a foreigner that can stand as a next of kin and it is upon this discovery that I decided to contact you to collaborate with you to reactivate these dormant funds. So to avert any negative development and chance losing these funds forever. On behalf of my bank colleagues we now seek your permission to have you stand in as next of kin to our late customer so that the fund will be released and paid into your account. You would become the beneficiary's next of kin to release these funds into your charge. I could have done this deal alone but because of my position in this country as civil servants, we are not allowed to operate a foreign account and that would eventual raise an eyebrow during the time of transfer. I still work in this bank, this is the actual reason why I required a second party or fellow who will work with me forward claims as the next of kin (you) and also provide either an existing bank account or to set up a new bank account immediately to receive these inactive funds. However, on conclusion of this transaction, you will be entitled to 40% of the total fund, while 10% will be set aside to take care of expenses on both sides that may arise during the time of transfer and also for telephone bills, and the remaining 50% will be for our bank as a finders fee and processing fee. What I want from you is for you to act as the deceased next of kin. I have in my possession, all the necessary Documents to successfully accomplish the operation.Further information will be given to you as soon as I receive your positive response. I suggest you get back to me as soon as possible stating your wish. We don't have alot of time to correct this unfortunate situation and I am afraid that without your help it will all be lost forever. For confidentiality please contact me on my personal email address; wekskelly@netscape.net I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards, MR.KELLY WEEKS wekskelly@netscape.net
A tvnz.co.nz article and a nzherald.co.nz article are bemoaning the fact that teenagers just aren't getting the 'safe sex' message. Statistics show that of the teenagers surveyed, half of them are having sex, but only 44% of those having sex are using a condom. Teenagers find the 'safe-sex' message boring and are ignoring it.
Some are pointing the finger at schools, saying their sex education is inadequate, particularly in boys' schools. But really, who is to blame?
You simply cannot blame sex education in schools, nor can you blame the excruciatingly lame television campaigns run by the Ministry of Health.
The most important factor in the issue of sex education is ignored, or worse, deliberately played down. Sex education largely removes the physical act of sexual intercourse from the context of an emotional interpersonal relationship. This is why I believe that children/teenagers are ignoring the message of school- and television-based sex education; it makes them uncomfortable, uneasy, and/or 'grosses them out'. The physical act cannot be divorced from the emotional act, and children/teenagers understand that what they are being taught doesn't make sense, and is of such an intensely personal nature that they shut it out.
So why do they have sex? Surely, given my argument above, you would expect that children/teenagers would shy away from sex. But this is not the case. It is the very same emotional factors that mean children/teenagers do have sex.
Girls are desperate for the love of a man, and errantly see sex as a way of acquiring such love.
A boy desires respect - from particularly from his peers, but also from a girl/girls.
These two emotional needs are natural, and are God given. But the amount of pressure and freedom given by the media and society in general these desires are stirred up and encouraged to be used outside of the context for which they were intended - an exclusive heterosexual marriage.
So how do we effectively educate our children about sex? Parents, as Scotty has said, are responsible for the education of their children. Parents should have cultivated a strong, trusting relationship with their children, and hence are in the best position to discuss with them such an emotionally sensitive issue. Parents are also best able to demonstrate the loving marriage context in which a sexual relationship is intended.
I lay the responsibility for this nation's teenage sex problems squarely at the feet of parents.
Admittedly, today's environment is not parent-friendly. The government is seeking to move responsibility for children from parents to the state.
This is why teenage sex problems in New Zealand are increasing in parallel with the break down of the nuclear family unit.
The best thing we can do to ensure our children receive adequate and appropriate sex education is to build healthy, strong family units - showing love, respect and honour to our spouses. That places us in the best position to educate our children on the issues of sex when we feel they are ready to hear it. We cannot rely on, or even allow, our precious children to be miseducated by a state that is so far removed from reality as to be dangerous.
