February 2010

Richard Northey the thief who was caught red-handed stealing from an MPs office has had a brain fart and rush of shit to the brains.

Clearly he has decided to speak from personal experience about a sensitive subject he knows a lot about.

As usual Cathy Casey’s screeching rant is largely fact free as well. She blames C&R for using a caucus, she also says;

“The one thing that bothers me most is that C&R candidates have to agree not to vote against the decisions of their caucus. It has been evident over this term in office that C&R councillors block vote, following the lead of Deputy Mayor David Hay. The recent decision to evict Monte Cecilia School was a prime example of this. Whatever happened to independence of thought?! I was elected to serve the ratepayers, not any political master.”

Independence of thought eh? That’d be why she resigned her Green Party membership and membership of ShittyVision……oh wait!

Thankfully we have less than a year to put up with her.

The Rhode Island school Superintendent Frances Gallo has fired the entire staff of Central Falls Senior High School. Why? Well that makes for interesting reading considering the stance teachers are taking here over national standards.

All 74 teachers at Rhode Island’s failing Central Falls Senior High School will be fired, the school district’s Board of Trustees decided tonight.

A failing Rhode Island high school has voted to lay off all 88 of its teachers.

The vote came after weeks of debate on how school Superintendent Frances Gallo believed the school, one of the poorest performing in the state, could be improved.

Gallo announced earlier this month that she would have no choice but to propose firing all the teachers after the Central Falls Teachers Union refused to accept her improvement plan.

The plan called for longer school days and after-school tutoring by the teachers, among other things. The plan was spurred by Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist’s mandate last month that the high school, as well as six other schools in the state, revamp their institutions.

I know the numbers strangely don’t match but all is all so the numbers don’t really matter. The point is that the school was failing and the superintendent of Education wanted to make some changes to try and save the school. The teachers and their union opposed it. They opposed it because they cared more about themselves than about their students. It is nice to see that the Board of Trustees and the Education superintendent care for the children, because no union ever will.

I have just finished reading about the NZEI and their newest tactic in the war against openness and honesty with National Standards. I fail to see why the information must be kept secret. Now their campaign has taken a sinister turn with them pimping out kids to run their campaign for them.

I hadn’t yet formed my opinion on the contentious issue that is the National Standards when I saw that the NZEI bus was visiting my daughter’s school on this week. “Brilliant!” I thought, “I can find out what all the hubbub is about.” I got there 25 minutes after the bus’ advertised arrival time…and it was gone. Obviously the NZEI was prepared to spend a whole twenty minutes informing the parents of our school about their position on the National Standards.

Good. Not political, didn’t know much about it so thought he would see what the union would have to say.

So I sat around waiting for the bell to ring, searching for new applications on my i-phone. At three the five year old came running out and proudly showed me a sticker on her chest. Now this was not unusual as stickers are pretty good currency for a five year old, however this sticker was a little different.

“Trial National Standards, not our kids”

“Hmmm”, I thought, “what’s really going on?”

If it had been me there would have been much harder words and directly with the teacher of the class. It is shameful though that the NZEI is using 5 year old kids in their stupid campaign to keep information from the parents about their own children.

As we drove home I asked the usual question, “what was the best part of school today Shorty?” I was surprised to hear about the “visiting teachers” and the “photo in the senior school” which is where the NZEI bus happened to have been parked.

“Hmmm”, I thought, “what’s really going on?”

Yes what is going on? Why are 5 year old chests now political billboards?

While driving I gave the school a call. I spoke to the head of the Junior School and explained that I wasn’t making a complaint, but simply enquiring about the sticker. I told her I had no position on the National Standards as I was not informed enough. The head of the Junior School was surprised that the NZEI had interacted with the children and she knew nothing of the stickers or the photo. She promised me she’d follow it up and invited me to come in for a chat with her the next day about the National Standards. One-on-one teaching on my weakest subject, National Standards.

I accepted her offer and the next day went in to see her. Firstly she apologised for the ‘sticker and bus photo’ debacle. The photos that had been uploaded to the NZEI website had since been removed. She then proceeded to answer my question: “What’s the problem with National Standards?” In short, I was won over by the concerns she voiced.

So the NZEI has realised it has been snapped, bet they didn’t know that the person she was trying brainwash with countless lies was a blogger.

The explanation about National Standards that was given to this parent by a senior teacher was nothing short of orchestrated litany of lies.

Contrary to this parent though I WOULD want to know this information. If my child was below average I would really WANT to know. The current system allows kids to just flow through the system. If the national standards were in place then my wife and I would have known years before we had to address the issues with my son. We finally did something because he simply refused to go to school. When we went to speak to the principal we were the bad parents and he knew best. We removed our son from school immediate and found home schooling. He now is “Above Average” for his age through independent testing. He is now a year ahead of his age-group in maths when he was 2 years behind attending a NZEI staffed school.

It is pie in the sky that teachers identify students that need “remedial” help and lord help you if you child is dyslexic. The state system just cannot cope. basically if you are a dummy or super smart, or have dyslexia the school system ignores you and your child sails on through. I personally know of one 14 year old who is 7 years behind his age group, yet he was handed up through the system with not a word. Turns out he is profoundly dyslexic but the stars at NZEI staffed school did nothing. Thankfully he now has the help he needs since leaving the state system.

The fact these lies are being peddled by senior teachers is bad enough but to pimp out the kids as little mobile billboards is disgusting.

And of course never forget that it Labour that is trying to keep the information about our own children from their parents secret. Tiger Mallard even wanted to ban the publishing of school assessment information making school level assessment information more secretive than security information held by the SIS.

It is time that the media called out the NZEI and Labour on this disgraceful use of children to promote their political agenda.

The Elections website has provided information on the types of voting systems.

Summary information about different voting systems has been sourced from the Guide to the Electoral Referendum 1992 (Information prepared by the independent referendum panel for the 1992 referendum on electoral systems).

First Past the Post (FPP)

The Supplementary Member System (SM)

The Single Transferable Vote System (STV)

The Mixed Member Proportional System (MMP)

The Preferential Voting System (PV)

The guide also contained Key Ideas about the Options.

A copy of the guide is available to download.

The Turkish wanker who tossed two Israeli women out of his shop because;

…said he would not serve anyone from Israel until it stopped killing innocent babies and women in the Gaza Strip.

has gone tits up.

The Invercargill businessman who made international headlines a year ago after refusing to serve two Israeli women has closed his inner-city cafes and put them into liquidation.

Mustafa Tekinkaya told Southland-based Israeli woman Natalie Bennie and her sister Tamara Shefa to leave his Esk St cafe last February because Israelis were not welcome until Israel stopped killing innocent women and babies in the Gaza Strip. A year on from the incident, the Turkish Muslim’s two cafes are shut and neighbouring retailers said they had not been open since February 13.

According to the Companies Office, the Tekinkayas filed for liquidation last Friday and appointed liquidator Tim Ward, of BDO Spicers in Invercargill.

Serves him bloody right.

Mr Tekinkaya’s actions last year caused widespread condemnation as well as Ms Bennie laying a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

Mr Tekinkaya was subsequently forced to apologise to Ms Bennie in person after a month of negotiations, mediated by the commission.

Ms Bennie said she felt the situation as water under the bridge but was not surprised the businesses had shut. “I had heard they were suffering, to the extent that he ended up changing the name of the Esk St cafe (from Mevlana Cafe to Cafe Down Esk), which was quite noticeable,” she said. “But what goes around comes around.”

Mr Tekinkaya declined to comment yesterday.

Yes quite a different response from Natalie Bennie compared to Mr Tekinkaya’s racist out-burst and ejection of her from the cafe. She is dead right, what goes around comes around.

The Whale’s Labour spies report that Waikato carpet-bagger “Socialist Cindy” Ardern has a wonderful, engaging and hard working campaign worker.

Judith Tizard.

Looks like Nikki Kaye will romp in again. Poor old Phil “Gary” Twyford ousted by a Tizard fan. He should just quit Labour.

The best blogger on Fiji matter is Crosbie Walsh’s and today he must have had a cold cup of snarky because he delivered a smackdown to Cgris “Koru Club” Carter over his sanctimonious claptrap he delivered yesterday.

So what’s changed? What new wisdom has Labour brought to the table? Well, nothing actually. They said all this four years ago. They have merely  reacted to National’s initiative because that’s what an Opposition in a democracy is supposed to do. But they could have lost themselves quite a few few votes from former Fiji residents in doing so.  And in critical Auckland electorates at that.

My advice to Labour. Don’t re-visit past policy: nothing changes in four years. Don’t reseach issues: just apply your pre-progammed ideological position. Don’t send anyone to Fiji to see what’s going on. Oh, and don’t read this blog. Just keep repeating “Pretty Polly. Pretty Polly.”

Croz raises a good point. Probably the last Labour politician to do anything in Fiji Marion Hobbs. Labour also sent their lackey, Sir Paul Reeves, to deliver up a dogs breakfast of a constitution. A constitution that Labour insists must be retained. They ignore the endemic corruption of Qarase’s government and the blatant voter fraud at the last election. Fraud that was so obvious that even I know what the payoff was. But not blatant enough for Marion Hobbs to notice from the tranquility of her air-conditioned hotel suite.

Tiger mallard thinks he is so smrt, whoops smart. Almost daily he tries to trip up Anne “The Closer” Tolley. Yesterday she dished up a good smackdown on poor Tiger.

Just for the record Tiger, you spell Invercargill like this I n v e r c a r g i l l.

I was in parliament yesterday and stayed until about Q7.

Q1 was by Phil Goff and boy did he make an arse of it. I saw heads shaking in the Press Gallery it was that laughable.

I am back in Auckland now after my trip to Wellington, Martinborough and New Plymouth. As I was driving around the countryside i noticed something I haven’t seen before. Predominantly it was in the Wairarapa and north of Levin.

In some of the fields there was a green plant growing, no not grass, be patient, the grass fields were scorched tan by the sun but these fields were very verdant.

The plant has big shiny leaves, I couldn’t see if there was a protruding root to suggest it was a beet of some sort. But it is nagging at me.

For a start how the hell do Google search, green plant growing on field and feed to stock?

Generally I am pretty aware of what goes on down the farm, but this isn’t something I have seen before and I suspect it is some sort of drought protection feedstock. Anyway would love to know what the cattle and sheep were munching on, they seemed to be enjoying it.