Burglars can break into your car while it's parked on the street and the police don't want to know about it.
...but...
Smack your child's behind with the palm of your hand in the privacy of your back yard and three cops show up on your doorstep.
Mt Ruapehu erupted yesterday evening. We'd been on the mountain just the day before; we left midday yesterday. Scary stuff.
Crazy mountain - just erupts without warning. Apparently it was a '2' on a scale of five; a moderate eruption.
Things are going well. I've been blogging a bit over at twoseven.co.nz.
We're off to the snow tomorrow for a couple of days; the boys should really enjoy it.
Work is going well; I'm getting into some really fun stuff.
How have you all been?
I read this article on the NZ Herald site this morning.
Okay - some words that should now have been used in this article:
- 'row'; where is the row? Where is the point of contention? Both Mr Cunliffe and Family First NZ are in agreement.
- 'accused'; I quote "McCroskie said Family First NZ believed Cunliffe acted correctly.". Does this sound like an accusation? Hardly.
This article has been deliberately written to twist the truth and to evoke a public response based on a false premise.
I challenge the NZ Herald to remove this article, or at least publish an accurate account of the facts, and I shall be contacting David Fisher to ask why he wrote the article in this fashion.
I hope Family First NZ will be posting something about this on their website soon.
Update:
For your information, here is the letter I emailed to Mr Fisher:
RE: Article 'MP in smack row' - 01/07/07
Hi David,
I'd really love to know why you used the words 'row' and 'accused' in your article 'MP in smack row'.
It is quite clear from the facts you present that there is no 'row'; Family First NZ (McCoskrie) and Mr Cunliffe do not appear to be in contention or at odds.You use the word 'accused' twice, and yet the following statement - albeit tacked on at the very end - "McCroskie said Family First NZ believed Cunliffe acted correctly" is far from an accusation, and at face value seems to be supporting his actions.
Are there some facts that you've failed to report? Or are you trying to stir up trouble? It appears to me to be the latter, but I would love to be proven wrong.
Either way, as it stands, this is a shocking piece of reporting.
I look forward to your response.
Regards,
Dan Willis.
Update 02/07/07:
Monday morning has an article on this incident by Audrey Young. A few more facts and a little less supposition.
Audrey shows a little more restraint; 'controversy' is a little less controversial than 'row', and no accusations to be seen. Nonetheless, this is a non-issue based on little more than hearsay.
Saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End last night. It was much better than I was expecting. I'd heard/read a lot of negative reviews, so my expectations were far from high.
I was pleasantly surprised. Captain Jack Sparrow just gets crazier; more ships get wrecked; more crosses are doubled and reality gets just that little bit further away. A great story, and not as plot-twisty and complicated as I had been lead to believe.
Google Analytics is a great tool. Firstly, it's free. Secondly, it is very usable. It produces lots of smooth, easy-to-understand charts and tables. It tells you everything you need to know. I'm using it to record stats for a number of sites; from sites that get 2-3 visitors a day, to one in particular that gets over 25,000 visits each day.
The Casio fx-6500g Programmable Graphing Calculator
So I was looking at the Google Analytics statistics for this site today, and noticed that I was receiving a fair amount of traffic from people searching for the Casio fx-6500g calculator. I referred to this calculator a few times back in 2003, mentioning that I could scan and render to PDF some pages of its manual if any readers so required. There are a couple of comments in this blog from people who have requested the manual, but alas they've not left their contact details.
I'm pretty sure I still have the calculator somewhere, along with its manual. I'll have to investigate the exact details, but I'm sure it would be a breach of copyright for me to scan and publish the full manual. But if anyone wants any information from the manual, we may be able to come to some sort of arrangement. In fact, since this seems to be such a popular piece of vintage electronics, I probably should find out how much it is worth; perhaps someone might like to purchase it?
Here's a bit more about the Casio fx-6500g. It was manufactured in 1986 and it does lots of cool stuff.
So, thank you Google Analytics; now perhaps I can give the people what they want.
Labels: casio fx-6500g, google, stats
So it transpires that the EB (Exclusive Brethren) have had perhaps just as much involvement with Labour as they have had with National; read David Farrar's post.
Firstly, Labour's deceitful response to this 'revelation' is simply aiding the inflating hypocrisy that they're displaying. EB meeting minutes show planned and carefully minuted meetings with Labour caucus members. And yet our Prime Minister paints them as "stalkers" who accost her in public encounters where she must extricate herself at the earliest possible convenience (I read this somewhere, but am struggling to find the source).
Secondly, it appears as if the media have missed the Labour/EB connection entirely. Where is the equivalent lambasting and lengthy speculation that we saw after "revelations" of a National/EB relationship? I don't know much about unions, and how much of an influence they have in the media industry, but I'd say that the media must find it to be in their best interests - read, 'dollars at stake' - to keep quiet on this one.
Such petty, underhanded nastiness. Someone show me some real politics.
