The Invisible Man

It’s been a while, but here I am again.

The budget came around yesterday and the obvious feature was the tax reform package.

What has amused me over the last few weeks is the comments directed at those that are supposedly the rich and who shouldn’t be getting any tax breaks at all.  I say this because I am supposedly one of the rich people that all the Labour lovers hate so much.

What amuses me so much is that, while I earn enough to get over the top tax threshold I would hardly describe myself as being rich.

I earn enough that we don’t get any assistance from the state – none at all.  We stopped at two kids because we couldn’t afford to have any more.  We have a good sized mortgage that we will be paying off for the next twenty years, we have various insurances, have mulitple bills to pay like everyone else.  Most weekends we stay at home and do nothing simply because we can’t normally afford to go out and anything.

Yet it is the likes of me who is getting hated on by those that say we should be looking after the less well off.  I don’t want to be overly critical, but would that include those that already get supported by the state, those that continued to have more and more children when they had no way of supporting them and those that in some instance choose not to make an effort.  Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that there are a number of people and families out there who are in dire need of help.  Absolutely they should get a helping hand.

What I think is unfair is that those who work hard and earn a little bit more should be denigrated without realising that in a lot of cases we too don’t have much.  The only difference being that we normally just have to put up with it by ourselves and get by without anyhelp.  we are after all, too rich to warrant getting any.

Just finished watching the Phoenix win against the Fury – a very good result considering the conditions.

I don’t normally watch them play simply because the football is just not up to the same standard you can see when watching the Premiership.  This is not a dig at the Phoenix – they operate in a lower level then the professional European leagues and no one would argue with that.

One thing that particularly puts me off when watching them play, and this does not apply solely to the Phoenix, is the utter contempt too many players in the league show towards officials.  Football is my game, and there has been a “Respect” campaign pushed at all levels for quite some time now.  To be honest, it is farcical as the top players consistently show no respect for any of the officials.

To be fair sometimes I shake my head at some decisions that are made, but it is all too often that blatant fouls are committed and players get up and give the ref a mouthful of abuse for dearing to pull them up on it.

It is also quite clear that the higher the level the players are at, the more the officials seem to allow them to get away with it.  It is quite clear that the penalty for showing dissent to an official is a yellow card.  You yell and scream at a ref down at the park on a saturday playing club level and it is almost certain that a card will follow – even of the red variety. However when one of the professional players turns around and blatantly abuses the ref more often that not the ref trots off and no further action is taken.  It is only when a player goes on with it that it is even considered.

The message this sends the players of course is that it is OK to abuse the ref and so it continues.  The sad thing about it is that it also provides the example for younger kids who are watching – the ref is fair game.

There is no doubt that the paying public want to see the players out on the field and it should never be about the officials being at the centre of attention, however if we want to maintain our game as the beautiful game that it so clearly is we have to get tough with the players.  A consistent message can only help to get rid of what is clearly the ugly side of the game.

One other thing that really gets to me after watching the game.  It is being played at what is upposedly one of the best stadiums in the country.  Why then are the coaches and reserves made to sit out in the open on plastic chairs?! Quite frankly it is a disgrace that athletes in a professional sport are made to sit out in the wind and rain with no protection.

Surely there could be a moveable bus shelter type set of seats that afford some protection.  It could be wheeled on and off the pitch with no damage to the surface.

Come on Westpac Stadium – everything else about your set up is first rate.  This is clearly dropping the ball and makes it look like an amateurish set up.

I have just seen one of those adds they normally put on TV around lunch time or dinner time – the ones that try and make you feel guilty about the plight of some orphan or undernourished kids from the third world. I’m sorry, but I hate these ads and will never be paying any money for their cause.

It’s not that I don’t think children around the world should be nurtured and looked after, it’s that whay are the adults in these places making babies when there is absolutely no chance that they will ever be able to provide for them.  Before you yell at me about me being anti poor, don’t bother – I’m not.  If all that was missing was the money, but the general support and welfare systems were in place to help families, go for it.  But nothing is in place for these people at all.  There is no welfare, no shelter, no medical help – nothing.  Why then would you bring a child into this earth if they are doomed to suffering.

What has entrenched my view on this subject is the fact I remember these appeals when I was a kid.  Over twenty years later and nothing has changed – except now they have slicker ads.  I guarantee that in another 20 years they will still have ads like these.

Where have all the billions of dollars raised over the years gone?  While there have been small improvements in some places, the problem is still endemic and I can’t see the point of wasting more money.

What I want to know is how much money is spent on teaching the populatioon about birth control.  How much is being spent on getting these people to hold off on having baby after baby when there is nothing to support these children.

And finally, why should I pay to support another country’s children when the leaders of that country are inavriably living in luxury.  If you can’t look after your own population don’t come bug us to do it for you.

Harsh I know.  But thats my view.

Hope everyone out there had a good Christmas and new year.

A couple of stories over the Christmas period caught my attention.  The first – the near miss for the Detroit flight where a bumbling bomber blew his chance to create misery for 250 odd people.

In this day and age we shouldn’t be so surprised about someone having a go at this sort of thing.  No doubt there are many others out there who believe it is their destiny to go out with a “bang”.  What reallyirriates me though is this guys history.

By all accounts he has come from a wealthy family and has been to fine boarding schools and lived in well to do accommodation.  Does this preclude someone from turning to fanaticism?  Absolutely not, but I believe it shows a two faced nature to these guys beliefs.

You see, I think it is clear that he had started to hate the western culture for some time.  However, he stayed ensconced within that culture for many years.  Why?  Because he didn’t want to give up the lifestyle that’s why.  If he couldn’t stand the “infidels” ways, why didn’t he just travel to the Pakistan mountains and join the struggle there.  Like many separatists, they find a way to hate the culture they live in, but not so much they want to give up on the benefits of living in that culture provides.  They get the best of both worlds.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the United Kingdom has never been a Muslim nation – ever.  That being the case why do so many young Muslim fanatics want to force their view point on the people of Britain.  It has never been their spiritual home and if they despise the modern British world why not save up and find a country that better embraces their beliefs?  Probably because they would have to give up their cosy lifestyle.

I have seen some parallels here – though not in the extremism.  We have many in this country who want Maori to have their own judicial system and who don’t believe they should have to abide by “white man” laws.  The problem I have with this is that they damn well expect all the benefits of a modern society – benefits that have largely been introduced by those same “white men”.  In other words they want the best of both worlds.  All the perks and none of the responsibilities that come with those.

You can’t have it both ways.  The problem the rest of us have is that we are too politically correct nowadays to make these people realise this.  We try and forgive them and excuse them.  All this does is empower them and create further division.

The second story that popped up was the Chinese execution of the drug smuggling Briton.

Not suprisingly there have been howls of outrage from the British about how barbaric the killing of this supposedly mentally unwell man was.

The thing is, does anyone not know that China has a harsh judicial system?  I may not totally agree with what happens in all cases, sentences handed out to political dissidents, for example, but I fully support China’s right to decide what happens to criminals – especially drug dealers.

Now I know he was meant to have been tricked into being a drug mule, but, come on, how often do we hear about Western people getting caught in these countries and coming up with the same excuse.  “It wasn’t me”.  “I didn’t pack that stuff”.  If you get caught it’s your tough luck.

The mental healthof this guy was thrown up as a defence.  Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that these was nothing in his formal medical records that proved a mental illness.  Yet we had an expert put forward who, without actually seeing the guy, could tell from his previous notes that he was mentally unwell.  Why didn’t the Chinese just let the specialist see him?  Because it wouldn’t have mattered what happened in the consultataion, that specialist would have found the guy mentally unwell.  He wouldn’t have been selected by the family to go if they weren’t already certain of this.  The Chinese would have known this, and known that by allowing the visit there would have been extra outrage at the predictable findings.  Why bother with the charade?

China, along with many other countries, has a strict criminal law system.  You don’t like it, go elsewhere and offend.

I wonder what China would think if one of their nationals was stabbed to death in New Zealand and the offender was back home a little over a year later.  There would be outrage at the injustice of it all – and why not.  You see no system is without flaw, so all you protesters out there need to get over it.

That’s me for now.  See you later.

I see that the inevitable has finally happoened and Shane Bond has retired from test cricket.

There is no doubt he has been the best strike bowler we have produced since the days of Hadlee.  The problem was that his body just could not handle the stress at bowling that fast time and time again.  As great as it was to see him roaring in against Pakistan, it was just as predictable that he would break down again.

When you look back over the last few years, you wonder why do our players fall over in such regular numbers? In Bond’s case he simply could not cope going hard out for extended spells in test cricket.  For others, i’m not so sure.  I’m no expert, but surely in this day and age there are fitness gurus, physios, doctors, etc, etc that are part of elite teams.  Why aren’t the players able to stay fit and healthy?  Why are a few of them consistently breaking down?

At the end of the day, for the top guys, this is their job.  They should be making sure their bodies are up to it.  The selectors should be making sure they only pick players who can go the distance at the top level.  Too many times we have been let down at the last minute by yet another player coming down with a muscle strain or similar.  That to me is unforgiveable at that level.

In other cricket news, I see Lou Vincent has reappeared and indicated he wants to play for NZ.  Please don’t do it.  If there is one thing that annoys the hell out of me with NZ cricket, it is them going back to the same batsmen over and over again.

The likes of Matthew Sinclair and Peter Fulton are classic examples of what I call first class bullies.  they score a ton of runs domestically, but are not up to international standards.  They get picked, fail, get dropped, get picked, fail, get dropped, get picked…. You see where I’m going with this.

Lou Vincent is another who has had his chance and never really took it.  Pick some young talent and stick with them.  They may struggle initially, but give them an extended run before looking at others.  And don’t go back to flogging old horses who have alreday proven they’re not up to it.

Just to finish off, my last blog was on why are we so violent.

Within 24 hours, it emerges three girls kidnap an 83 year old lady and drive her around town stealing money from her account after forcing her to give them her PIN number. WTF goes through someones mind that they could even begin to think that doing that to an 80 year old woman is OK?  Criminals are bad enough, but to do that to a defenseless pensioner is unforgiveable.

When they are caught not just the book needs to be thrown at them, it’s the whole bloody library that needs to be.

One thing I will say, no one who does that can have been brought up in a household that provided support and which set boundaries for their kids.  Disgraceful!

Another policeman shot.  This time lucky enough to survive and I wish him a full recovery.

This is the latest in what is becoming a more common occurrence.  Once, it was rare for the Police to be attacked physically.  Now, it happens every day.  It is so common that most of the time it doesn’t even make the news.  it is only when an officer is almost killed that people pay any attention.

Even the shootings are happening more frequently.  Why?  Why is it we have become a society that has decided to have a go when the police turn up?  Where has the respect gone?

I would imagine the respect went out the door a few years ago when consequences started disappearing.  When the rise of the politically correct started.  And when we started to try and excuse bad behaviour by blaming it on society for not m all sectors.

The police need all the help they can get in trying to deal with this wave of violence that is threatening to overwhelm them.

A stand needs to be made against those that try and constrain them.  The likes of Marie Dhyrberg and Keith Locke who come out and suggest Police will misuse the likes of the Taser are a disgrace.  One wonders how loud the squealing would be if one of their loved ones was hurt by a violent person and the police tried to resolve it in a less than forceful manner.

Why should we expect Police to stand by and just take it.  We should be supporting all attempts to make them safer.

If same idiot chooses to have a go and gets Tasered or shot, tough luck!  It shouldn’t be about whether the Police could have/should have tried other means.  It should be about what did the bad guy do.  Did he have a chance to comply with Police?  Did he then choose not to?  If that’s the case, they get whats coming to him.  We absolutely should not stand by and suggest that getting hurt is part of a policeman’s lot.

I fear that this violence will end up resulting in something that we should all fear – the routine arming of the Police.  Not because we should be scared of the Police.  I am supremely confident they would use firearms responsibly.  But more so that there could only be an escalation of violence in response.  More people would invariably be hurt and killed.

We should all examine what is happening closely and try and take steps to address the violence that is all around us.  Little steps when combined can change things over time.  For sure, that time is running out.

In my job I get to see a number of what can only be described as idiot drivers.  Sound a bit harsh – unfortunately in some cases I am being kind.

The amount of people who still think it is their right to drive as fast as they think is safe continues to amaze me.  Why obey the speed limit if it is a straight stretch of road and there are no other cars around?.  The problem with that arrogance is that when a hazard does present itself out of nowhere the speeding driver has dramatically reduced the chance of avoiding it.

Sure, there are always a number of factors at play in a crash and speed is but one of them.  Howver, the laws of physics are still the same.  The faster you are going, the longer you take to stop and the harder you are going to hit something. Slow down – you are not the best driver on the road, and even if you were what about the guy coming towards you who is about to make a mistake?  Remember Possum Bourne.  One of the best drivers in New Zealand and he died in a crash.

Drink drivers continue to defy all efforts to get the message home.  For a while it was mainly the generation that grew up doing it, have always done it, and will always do it.  What worries me now is the new generation of drink drivers.

We have been focussing on the drink driving laws for many years.  Why then are teenagers increasingly flouting the law?  Could it be a natural progression from all consequences being slowly phased out for kids these days.  I think that kids are just not scared about what would happen if the Police stopped them after they had been drinking.  they don’t fear the consequences.  So long as that is the case we will not solve this problem.

It’s a tricky one, but all parties need to address it.  If your teenager comes home and you find out they have been drinking alcohol before they drove, don’t be relieved the Police didn’t catch them, punish them!  Make them park the car up, take away their privileges, anything that shows them it is unacceptable.  You won’t be popular, but, hey, that’s what being a parent is all about.

Having just talked about young people, I also want to point out that the older generation seem to be crashing at a fairly high rate as well.  There can be many reasons but it is clear that some, and I emphasise some, carry on driving just a little too long.

Reactions slow down, decision making slows down and mistakes are made.  Sometimes there is a complete unawareness of other road users – the classic little old lady driving at 70kmh on the highway to make sure she is safe.  While 10 cars are lined up behind her.

Families need to take a vested interst in how their older members are coping and, if necessary make the hard call to take the keys and car away from them.

Finally, wear your seatbelts!!  How easy is it to do?  Why is it such a big deal for some people?  it is bloody common sense to secure yourself into a car in case you have an accident.

Yes, you won’t hurt anybody else by not wearing it.  But all you idiots who think that it doesn’t affect anybody else don’t think about what will happen after a crash.  Most likely you end up with horrific injuries that requires ongoing treatment and care – who is going to do that? Who is going to pay for it?  And if you die, what about those that are left behind?  Don’t you think they would prefer you were still around?  It is completely selfish to take that stance and some need to just get over it.

That is my whinge for the day, but it’s Christmas time and who want’s to have to deal with the aftermath of a crash at this time of the year?  Not me , that’s for sure…

I see that another person has died after trying to take off from the Police.  This time a motor cyclist thought he could get away with it and ended up killing himself.  The shame about it is that it is now the Police will be the ones getting all the scrutiny.

We need to make it very clear to all that if you decide to take off from the Police that you are responsible for the outcome – not the Police.  Unless there is exceptionally bad decisions made by the officer, all outcomes should be laid at the feet of the driver who makes the decision to take off.

The only reason we have so many pursuits in this country is because too many know that the Police have to call mit off if they drive dangerously enough and secondly that there is no real penalty even if they are caught.

There have been some recent changes in the law around this but I doubt they go far enough.  Unfortunately this is just another example that will be repeated many times to come.

I like my sports and am a big fan of Premiership football.  Liverpool is my team – have been since my grandfather bought me a Liverpool scarf when I was a kid.  Man, has it been hard this year.  After last years second place it appeared as if we might have turned the corner.

I had a few concerns after the Transfer season closed and all we had was an attacking back and a hobbled midfielder.  Where was the back up for Torres.

However, what has transpired this season has been dreadful and culminated with last nights loss to Portsmouth – yes Portsmouth!!! The bottom club in the competition.  The shame of it is that it wasn’t such a big surprise as they have been struggling even when winning games.

Surely it has got to the stage where Benetiz has to go.  Yes, it is the players out there on the pitch, but if he can’t get them up for it, then he has to go.  The club is on a downward spiral and they need to make the decision now to try and stop the rot.  Much longer and they are doomed to a mid table finish.

How about Mourinho?

Hi there world.  This is my first go at blogging.  Will anyone actually read it, or will this just be my little diary – I don’t know.  If nothing else it will be a way for me to put some thoughts down.

Why Invisble Man?  Because that is who I am.  I am one of the gray men.  One of those guys that everyone kind of likes but no one gives much thought to.  Always in the back ground.  And I guess I have created this situation as much as anyone.  I’m not the most outgoing guy and over time it shows.

Why now.  In the last two days I have been given a insight to just how invivlble I can be.  Yesterday I find out about an end of year lunch for the non profit group I’m treasurer for when I turn up for the monthly meeting and find someone going out the door.  Today, I go to an awards ceremony at work where I’m down to get one.  Despite the boss seeing me and speaking to me twice in the fifteen minutes before the ceremony, he didn’t pick up my certificate had been missed out and I had to sit there like a prat while everyone else got theres.  Did get it at the end when I pointed it out, but damage done by then.

That’s when I fully confirmed I am the invisible man.  That’s when I found out how much of an impact I make day to day with some people.

Anyway, enough of the moping.  I am going to blog from time to time on things that interest me and my take on them.  Anyone care what I think?  Don’t know, but why not?

My first thoughts, Howard Broad coming out saying non sworn staff could be better delivering traffic duties than sworn staff.  I have some first hand knowledge of this.  Can I say, Mr Broad you have totally devalued many workers out there who try and make our roads safer.  I know you came out and said it was mainly the camera van operators who meant to refer to.  problem was damage done, and an old can of worms opened up where everyone and there dog comes out and gets stuck into the Road Policing staff.  Thanks very much.  Interesting to see that the Association came out to support the suggestion – again thanks very much for your support!

The fact is the silent majority really appreciate the work the Road Poling officers do.  The noisy minority always makes the headlines.  They are also the ones who squeal the loudest when something happens to a loved one.  You can’t have it both ways.  Many lives have been saved by the hard work and extra attention given to our roads.  It isn’t going to change so get over it.

That’s enough for today.  See you next time…