Never really seen the need for pets, but if the cat can keep catching these pests we’ll keep her on
Luckily the girls are not home as the ‘screaming’ by the rabbit as the cat ‘choked him out’ on the kitchen floor may have disturbed them 🙂
Day: January 9, 2012
Being arrested for using racist taunts…I’m not for it.
In the UK at the moment you can be arrested for using racial insults. Now I find racism abhorrent, the idea that one person believes themselves better than anyone else because of the colour of their skin, or what culture they come from is not only loathsome but ludicrous. Often examples of such cretins who believe in racist theories are plainly at the bottom end of any kind of human ‘ranking system’, which just negates their argument even more, however the idea of being arrested for being a bigoted ignoramus doesn’t sit well with me.
Maybe it comes down to the difference between being a racist, and using a racial slur. Splitting hairs you might say…well I would challenge any person who has not, at some stage, for some reason, put themselves above a person of another race momentarily.  Maybe you’ve rolled you’re eyes when hearing a foreign language at your supermarket and thought, “You’re in NZ now, speak English!” Maybe you’ve been cut off when driving and thought, “Bloody Asian drivers!” Maybe you’ve been extra watchful of a Maori in a public place because, “All Maori are criminals!” Does that make you a racist….or someone who has had a racist thought? Is there any difference?
There are already a couple of examples in English soccer of players being charged with racism, not just by their governing body, but by the police, and the latest example has seen a 20 year old spectator arrested “on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence.“
Now I could go down the extremely weak “freedom of speech” argument, but as we all know there is not such thing as freedom of speech. My discomfort with the idea of being arrested for being a 20 year old moron, who doesn’t understand the issue at hand, is two fold.
Firstly is will not eliminate racism, to me if this is an issue that English soccer is trying to stamp out it would seem more appropriate and perhaps more effective to then ban that spectator from entering any stadiums in the future (however from what I know of the English soccer fan the stadiums may soon be pretty empty in some parts of the UK).
Secondly, and more importantly, I have a concern as to the precedence this is setting. Bigotry and discrimination comes in all forms, against all areas of life. There are 6 main areas of discrimination, none of which are seen any differently in a court of law. You cannot discriminate against race, sexual orientation, gender, age, religion and disability. Of course there are many more such as ‘height-ism’ but these 6 are the main group, and the most common you would see in a court of law. So if in a court of law, these 6 are seen as equally wrong my question is, “Where to from here?”
If this is the precedence that the UK is setting for racism, what is to follow for discrimination and bigotry against age, religion, gender, disabilities and sexual orientation. I don’t know about you but I’ve heard some pretty crass and shocking things shouted out about people in all those categories of life…do we arrest and charge anybody verbally participating in offensive language to all those individuals as well.
Now I realise this is a fairly defeatist post as I don’t have a solution, I think I am just saying that I don’t think you can ‘arrest’ the racism out of people. But then what can you do?
Thought NZ was snake free ah?
What the heck is all this about?
Somerfield resident Kris Kaan was walking with a friend along Cashmere’s Ashgrove Tce on Thursday evening when they came across the unusual find.
“Me and my mate were just walking along. We saw a lady standing on the side of the road looking down at the ground.”
Kaan’s friend saw the snake first, and he heard him ask the woman “is that real”.
“Then I looked down and just thought it was some rubber snake.
“I kept saying `is this real, is this a joke’.”
The snake was at least a metre long and was tan-brown in colour, with a yellowish belly, he said.
“My mate picked it up and I touched it. It was definitely a snake.”
They saw “small fangs” and “bits of goo” on the snake.
“It was quite fat, but the head was quite small.”
It appeared to have been run over, Kaan said.
I often wonder what actually is living in our country without our knowledge, apart from the obvious giant moa in the bush, I wonder how many poisonous creatures live here and we are blissfully unaware.
Stephen Hawking turns 70
Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking
The world’s most recognised living scientist Stephen Hawking was too ill to attend his 70th birthday celebrations overnight but was hailed by colleagues as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein.
We hope you start to feel better 🙂
The Latest on the Rena
The latest news on the Rena from Stuff.co.nz
Svitzer Salvage spokesperson Matthew Watson said the work of removing containers from the remains of the Rena had become “very, very dangerous and very difficult”.
If the rear section sunk, salvaging containers from the ship would become a far more complicated operation, he told Radio New Zealand.
The biggest concern was for the rear section of the ship which was “wriggling” around in the swell.
If the rear section did sink, or if the front section sunk as well, it was possible salvors could possibly use diving techniques and technology.
Interesting that on Day One of this tragedy the ‘experts’ said that “it was not a matter of if the Rena was going to break up, it was a matter of when.” They are technically true, but the time frame was a lot longer than first thought obviously.
People of the the BOP we are with you
