Crims and Driving at the Wheel

I see in the paper the other day a 16 year old guy got 3 months in a youth detention centre for stealing a car crashing it and killing two innocent people. This guy had 60 prior convictions!!

So I'm sure a 3 month holiday in a youth detention centre is really going to help. Yeah right!!

I don't care how bad his up bringing was or how sociaty has failed him. That's just bullshit!!
By the time anyone is 16 they know right from wrong. So they should get the book thrown at them when they break the law.

Things will probably catch up with this guy eventually and he will end up spending time in jail. But how many other innocent people will he screw with until that happens?

Then there was the 62 year old doctor caught reading while driving. Her excuse was the book was just too good to put down.

I'm a bit lost for words here. This women should have known better. The PC people go on about guns and people miss using them. But a car is a 1 tonne projectile that will do a hell of a lot more damage than a gun.

She only got a $400 fine. This is just as bad or worse than driving drunk. If I had my way she would be allowed on the road agin.

Government Energy Strategy

Tonights news had an article about the government's startegy's with regards to energy resources, sustainable energy, and emmision levels. There was quite a bit about how they may look at putting a cap on how many gas guzzling cars are imported and encouraging fuel efficient/hybrid cars etc.

I didn't hear one thing about motorcycles and their possible promotion as more efficient means of transport. As this is something pretty close to my heart I intend to send an email to the minister for energy David Parker and maybe you can if you want to comment. His email address is

david.parker@parliament.govt.nz

This gist of my email will probably go along the lines of the post I put on by bike blog a while ago which you can see here:

http://banditrider.blogspot.com/2006/11/save-planet-ride-bike.html

More info at the below links on the governments dreaming:

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3896467a10,00.html

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3896342a11,00.html

Speak up if you've got any thoughts on this!

Defending our Patch Part 2

On the news tonight - the guy charged with possessing a firearm without lawful, proper or sufficient purposes after shooting a maniac with a machete has had his first day in court. He has decided to face trial by jury with both himself and his father saying that they are going to fight the charges all the way. Good for him - let's hope he gets some justice...

His father has been pretty outspoken about the case and has made some good points, particularly:

The court case is ruining their lives (very stressfuly for the family etc) and that they are having to fund the defense themselves while the scumbag with the machete got legal aid.

It is good to see that they are receiving a lot of support and some donations etc from members of the public and in particular the Sensible Sentencing Trust. The SST has also got a pettition going around - hope I get the chance to sign it.

After seeing part of a 60 minutes doco on this (where the cop making the charges was made to look like a bit of an idiot) it seems that the reason that the charges were made was because of the way that the gun had been stored. The cops seem to be more worried about a gun around people who know how to handle them (gun retailers) than the high likelyhood that the nutter with the machete could have killed someone. I'd say they're already regretting pressing the charges - talk about bad PR...

I'm not really sure what to do if some scumbag breaks in to my house tonight and wants to kill me - do you fight back or just lay down and die so as you don't make any trouble? If I had a gun, there's no question I'd use it - first shot in the cretin, the next into the roof for a warning shot, whoops did I get that around the right way?

See more here: http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3890625a11,00.html

What jail should be like

Got this in my email tonight - think I saw the sheriff on 60 minutes, all power to him!

IF ONLY NEW ZEALAND WAS LIKE THIS!!!

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPACOUNTY SHERIFF( ARIZONA ) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

These are some of the reasons why:

• Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the "tent city jail" to save Arizona from spending tens of million of dollars on another expensive prison complex.


• He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for the meal.


• He banned smoking and porno magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but "G" movies. He says: "they're in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave.


• He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayer's money. Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.


• He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again but only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel. When asked why the weather channel he replied: "so these morons will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.


• He cut off coffee because it has zero nutritional value and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money. When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back.


• He also bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on US history that he pipes into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series that actually tells the truth for a change would be welcome and that it might even explain why 95% of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record for June 2nd), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed- wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees.

"This is hell. It feels like we live in a furnace," said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go. "It's inhumane." Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. "Criminals should be punished for their crimes -not live in luxury until it's time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

"Wednesday he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: "It's between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!

"Way to go, Sheriff! If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison spaces.

Sheriff Joe was just re-elected Sheriff in Maricopa County , Arizona.

Dutch Tourists Part 2

As predicted the police have pretty quickly nabbed the two low-lifes accused of the kidnapping/assault on the Dutch tourists in Northland. Really disappointing that they didn't put up a scrap and then have to be put down.

So far they haven't been named or filmed - gotta protect the scuzballs identities, after all they may simply be nice young chaps momentarily out of control due to the huge quantities of 'P' they've been doing (or some other genuine excuse like that).

Gonna be intersting to see what sort of slapping they'll get - if they get a quick trial, maybe they'll be out by Xmas time!

Read more here:

http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3874874a11,00.html

Defending our Patch

A guy walks into a shop, demands money, threatens to kill the manager with a machete.

The manager then defends himself and shoots the guy with the machete.

The guy with the machete gets the necessary medical treatment. (free of charge)

The shop manager gets charged and hauled through the courts.

What's wrong here?
Of course I'm talking about the guy who held up an Auckland shop a couple of months back and was shot by one of the guys working in the shop.
Shouldn't we have the right to defend our own property from unwelcome visitors. Especially ones that are waving a machete around.
It doesn't matter that the manager of the shop had a loaded pistol in his desk. The point is he was defending himself against an intruder who was threatening to harm him. If he had wacked the intruder with a base ball bat, would he be in the same situation?

Yet again this is a case of our society looking after the wrong types of people. The real victim here is the guy from the shop. He was the one minding his own business when some shithead tries to have his head off.
What would you do?
Stand there and let it happen?
No, you would fight back. This guy happened to use a gun.

Good on him, we wish him the best of luck with his case.

Dutch Tourists

I'm going to try to write this calmly to moderate my language but it may be hard.

The big news of the weekend is the story of the lowlife scum who kidnapped a honeymooning Dutch couple in the Bay of Islands at gunpoint, robbed them and raped the woman in front of her husband.

It's hard to even describe how wild this makes you feel. That we have these sorts of animals running around on the loose and that this could happen to anyone. What sort of a future have we to look forward to: no camping sleeping in tents or campers, kids not able to play on the streets etc.

In the coming weeks the cops will get these rejects and we'll find out more about them. They'll have a long string of offences, starting off small with petty thefts & vandalism, moving into burglaries, drugs and assaults. They will have been before the courts before, given a gentle telling off and let loose again. When are we ever going to actually realise that if there's no consequences for any small transgressions (starting with basic behavior problems as kids) then things only get more serious.

These toe-rags and others like them have proven that they don't belong in society by committing offences that the rest of the general public find abhorrent and would never even consider. So the simple solution is to remove them from society forever - none of this letting them out after a life sentence of 8 years or something pathetic - screw their rights, the general public need to be protected from the slightest risk that they might reoffend.

The civil libertarians and the like (labour party members, greenies etc) are all against the death penalty and say that it is not a deterrent. Who cares if it's not a detterent - it cuts down the reoffending pretty damn well. They also go on about what if the mongrel was innocent and it wasn't found out until afer the sentence was carried out - well, when was the last time the cops made a mistake like that, with modern forensics etc, the cops always get their man.

Where do I start

Bit of a rant, Jesus, where do I start!!

How about this?

In the paper the other day I see the coppers have been nabbing people for crossing the double yellow line in the Manawatu Gorge. This in general I don't have a problem with, it is a double yellow and the law is that it shouldn't be crossed, fair enough. The gorge is a bit dodgy for passing and a bit accident prone.

What gets me is that the police where hiding in the bush above one of the corners and photographing offenders. To me this is underhanded. I understood they were not allowed to deliberately hide in order to catch motorists out.

Then some senior officer states in the paper that it is not revenue gethering. Bullshit it's not, sure people are breaking the law. But we all break one law or another on the road everyday and this is just a quick easy way to raise funds. They do it in one form or another everyday.

How about going out and dealing to some of the real shit heads in our world.

Don't get me started on them.

That's all for now.

PS. I was not one of the offenders.

A Squirrel's Tale

I received the following the following email the other day which takes a simple story and then translates it to what might happen if the media and government got a hold of it. Not too far from the truth...


THE WORLD VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END.


THE New Zealand VERSION

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

TVNZ shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. The press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of NZ demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. TVNZ , interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".

Michael Cullen rants in an interview with Paul Holmes that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London. In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case, the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.

The Local Authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to New Zealand as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they have tried to blow up the airport because of New Zeland's apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempt bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A 60 Minutes special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though Spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers drug 'illness'. The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in NZ . The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost $ 10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up.

Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching New Zealand 's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison.

They call for the resignation of a minister. The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the New Zelaand . The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END.