The young and the gutless (nuts vs sledgehammers)

There are times when you just have to say wtf is going on in the world. It seems that some really atrocious things can occur without any sort of official reaction, while some other innocuous activities are reacted to as if someone was eating their babies.

One of the most obvious atrocities right now in my country is the case of the self-styled ‘Roastbusters’. Ha ha, very funny name little boys and hopefully some roasting of your nether parts is about to occur anytime soon.

For those not familiar with the news in New Z at the moment, these little lowlifes are a group of toxic teenagers who think it is (a) clever and (b) funny to get underage girls drunk and/or stoned and then gang-bang them. As if that wasn’t enough they like to increase the humiliation of the young and admittedly stupid/gullible girls by boasting about their exploits on Facebook.

This group have apparently been operating for a couple of years and FB would appear to condone the practice as their postings have kept appearing which begs the question about what sort of monitoring the social disease, I mean network actually does. But more of that later.......

Complaints were made to police when the media finally became aware of this group of limp dicks who must only be able to function with their mates encouraging them on. (Begs a few questions, doesn’t it?). However the response from police has been about as flaccid as I imagine these young scumbags are without their mates to encourage some kind of performance out of them, despite the fact these little needle dicks have made no effort to hide their identities. Police also reckon they have been monitoring this page for two years, but despite this they have managed to do absolutely zero about it.

Of course the lack of any meaningful police response would have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that one of these tiny slugs is the son of a police officer and another is the son of Hollywood actor Anthony Ray Parker.

Thankfully not everyone in New Zealand is brain dead and I learn this morning that one of the pieces of excrement in this group has had his employment terminated now that his employer has become aware of it and a vigilante group has begun to form with the intent of delivering the justice the police seem incapable of setting in motion. I should imagine some suitably limp-wristed tut-tuts will be eventually delivered by an overpaid and out of touch judge after a few hundred thousand dollars of the taxpayers money has been spent on bringing these rock dwellers who will no doubt be supported by legal aid to trial.

Significantly Facebunk will of course not be dragged into any of this despite the fact they have allowed this page to continue for two years without interference.

And speaking of the gutless; the Jianqi Government has just bowed ever so gently to public pressure in regards to drink driving. For the last three years Labour(ed)’s Ian Lees-Galloway has been trying to push through a private members’ bill to lower the allowable blood alcohol levels for drivers to 50mls per litre of blood.

The Nats, most of whom sport ruddy cheeks and large bulbous noses with little veins all over their faces were dead against it. Of course their opposition to the idea had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact they are strongly supported by Federated Farmers whose complexions and hooters are even worse than those of the Cabinet.

As recently as only a few weeks ago Just Is Minister Little Bo Tox was ruling any change out for the very sound (in road safety terms) reason that it would clog up the courts. Funny how idiots can say things with a straight face that merely serve to illustrate how far off-beam their thinking is. Clearly we have a problem with the numbers of munters going out and slinging back the piss and then driving, for if we did not the courts would not potentially be clogged up, now would they?

Furthermore what sort of a message is the woman with the frozen face sending when she rates the spectre of an overworked court system ahead of road deaths and injuries? Once again Government was showing they don’t actually take drunk driving seriously at all. The many millions they have spent on (largely ineffective and pointless) adverts that are supposed to deter such practices are simply a box ticking exercise.

However a very good couple of Campbell Live programmes including one where several of his staff got pie-eyed under controlled circumstances showed the world how pissed you can actually be without reaching the 80 mils currently in force. Considerable public reaction to those programmes convinced the Government that with an election less than twelve months away it might be a good idea to go along with this one.

Having said that; their innate gutlessness and lack of commitment to the real issue has arisen once more. While the change in the levels will come through now its effect has been gelded by the fact that those found with between 50mls and 80mls will only get fined and a few points on their licence.

So despite the fact that we know t6he medical definition of intoxication kicks in at 50mls we will still continue to view those between 50mls and 80mls as slightly naughty school kids who will simply have to write a few lines. “I must not get caught drinking and driving.”

So while we live in a world that allows drunks to drive with little or no consequences and male sluts to spread their STDs among underage girls with no comeback from either police or Facebunk, I would like to share a local story that tends to fly in the face of all of that.

Finally some of you who read my blogs might have noticed that you did not get a personal message from me via Facebook to announce my last blog As above so below the link for which is here: http://philossifer.hubpages.com/hub/asabove . The reason for this is that Facebonk has decided in its infinite wisdom that I am a dangerous creature who should be blocked and thus everyone that I sent one to via a Faceberk email address was bounced back to me. Clearly expressing a (I think) soundly argued opinion about local or world affairs is much worse than boasting about one’s sleazy exploits at the bottom of the sewer. 

If you were one of those to whom I used to send these epistles via a Faceblock email and you still wish to receive these (apparently) dangerous communications, please email me at ken@writerman.co.nz with a suitable non-Faceblank email address and I will add that to my now somewhat damaged mailing list. Of course Facelessbook won’t reply to any emails I have sent them asking for an explanation for this situation. I expect their next move will be to ban me from publishing a link to this on my own timeline. Come the revolution, you bastards!!

Nothing like getting one’s priorities right, eh?

Elephant’s trunk calls

It’s okay to drink and drive. It must be because I just read it in the Herald today. And not only is it alright to drink and drive; it is also okay to do both at the same time.

It’s times like these when you think you’ve either had too much to drink yourself or you have simply crossed over into a parallel universe. I don’t drink alcohol anymore, so I know it’s not that. As for the parallel universe; well I’ll let you make the call on that one. But bear with me for a moment before you leap to the conclusion that this old codger has finally and irrevocably exceeded his sell-by date.

It is apparently okay to drink and drive because when a couple in Nelson recently reported seeing a dimwit driving his car while swigging from a bottle of beer they discovered from the plods that he was not committing an offence. Yes; that’s right. Apparently the geniuses that drafted our drink driving legislation only took account of people behind the wheel being a menace if they had over a certain level of alcohol in their blood which might seem fair enough to some. It seems that as long as you haven’t hit the magic figure you are perfectly entitled to drive and swig because it is not an offence on the statute books to do so unless you are under 20 years of age when your allowable level is zero.

The cops will stop you if they see you doing this, but due to a combination of the hopeless legislation and the brain dead plods, you will not be prosecuted unless you are over the aforementioned limit. I say brain dead plods, because (a) I like saying it; (b) it is an accurate assessment of most of the boys and girls in blue (sad, but true, but more of that later) and (c) because it just goes to show how little imagination they have. Honestly I doubt that a roomful of them would have enough sparks of intelligence to burn the toast.

If I had been that copper I would have charged the prick with driving without due care and attention. You can’t tell me that he could concentrate on the road ahead and behind him and to the side of him while his melon is tipped back so he can slug down a draft of Lion Piss. In fact I would go further and suggest that if these bozos who draft our laws ever wake up enough to do something about this, they might as well make it an offence to be swigging ANYTHING while driving, whether it is beer, coffee, alka seltzer, or drain cleaner. The mere fact that you are removing your attention from the road momentarily and tipping your head back and driving with one hand means you are not in full control of your vehicle. The fact that you might get away with it nine times out of ten doesn’t mean it is safe. If you shoot somebody with a gun, on many occasions they will live to kick your arse later, but that still doesn’t make it safe.

We have already banned the use of hand-held cellphones in cars because they are a distraction. Although with the number of plonkers still using them in cars you wouldn’t think we had. So why not extend that commonsense ban to include anything that takes your hands off the wheel and your eyes off the road? Any answers? I’m buggered if I can think of any that would indicate the Government is actually serious about reducing the number of road crashes.

Of course this is another restriction upon our freedoms, but one that I think needs to be made, because most of the people on our roads are irresponsible idiots. Far too many of them are unable to safely drive their cars anyway.... or even walk and chew at the same time.

And while we are on the subject of drinking and driving I had a good laugh reading about the cousin-shagging moron from Masterton who came up with a cunning plan to avoid being done for drink driving. This seventeen year old retard had a couple of beers and then decided to drive his car. But because he realised he could get done for drink driving because the level for under 20s is zero (which already makes him smarter than the bozo at the Wairarapa Times who wrote the story and solemnly informed us it was 150mcgs), he decided that getting rid of the smell might throw the brain dead plods off the trail.

It might have worked if they had only wanted to get a whiff of his lovely fresh breath, but unfortunately our young Einstein decided the best thing to get rid of the smell would be his Lynx deodorant. After all it had kept him shagless for all of his natural life up to now so it probably should work fine in this case. Sadly for him it didn’t work, because the cops were proceeding down the road, as they do and following Police procedure when they stopped Mr Sweetbreath. As this neither involved wanting to shag him or reject his advances for that matter and instead meant breath testing him; the game was up. Furthermore as anyone with even a fraction of a brain knows, most deodorants contain alcohol, so our young Rhodes Scholar had just gulped down probably twice as much alcohol as his couple of cheap beers would ever have contained. Not that it mattered too much anyway as even the most minute reading would have meant that he was in the crap, given his age which was about the same as his IQ it would seem.

Oh, and further to the brain dead plods; some of you might have read the story in the Herald about the couple from earthquake city who had to go out and catch their own burglar because the cops were too stupid to do it for them.

They came home one day recently to discover their house had been burgled and it was apparent they had only just missed the burglars. It also appeared the burglars might be planning to return as their quad bike was sitting in the driveway. They rang the cops and told them what had happened and the fact that the crime scene was still red hot, but the plods responded by saying they wouldn’t be able to come out for 48 hours! 

So here was an extremely fresh crime scene and the strong possibility the offenders were still in the area, and yet the plods wanted the couple to carry on as normal and no doubt mess up the crime scene for two bloody days before even coming and checking it out.

Fortunately this young couple were made of sterner stuff and decided to lay in wait for the offenders to return. Sure enough, a short while later some young yob turned up and tried to get away with their quad bike. They pounced and the bloke knocked the little prick to the ground but then he got up and ran away. However the woman shot after him in her car and blocked the little shit in until her partner arrived and dropped him again. They rang the cops again and managed to hold onto him until they arrived. They have since had to do their own inquires with the offender and have basically done everything the plods should have done. Needless to say they are far from impressed. 

I suppose now they will be charged with assaulting the little twerp and driving without due care and attention, and some wimp in a wig will let the little scumbag go free.

It’s enough to drive a bloke to drink while it’s still legal to do so.

Not really any mystery here

How can people be so stupid as to vote these guys back into power? How can people not see what is really happening with their rates money? How come people don’t understand they are entitled to (an employment agreement/an opinion/good service)?

These are questions you regularly hear being asked by people who care what goes on or basically give a shit. They are fair questions and sometimes it is hard to understand why people are so gullible, but a few items I have culled from recent news articles go a long way towards answering those questions.

The first of these is a short piece from SunLive dated 4 July 2012. Apart from the last line which refers to someone not mentioned elsewhere and whose role we don’t know, this story tells us of a 33-year-old Pukehina man who burned himself as a result of pouring petrol on a fire. Ashes to ashes, dumb to dumber.

The next tale is from the Bay of Plenty Times dated 3 July 2012. It tells of the ingenious cunning one Gate Pa resident whose partner had been caught drink driving in their jointly owned car on Sunday night, 1 July. Around 1am on Monday July 2 Ms Dipshit decided to go and pick him up from his place (apparently they don’t live together). The problem was that she took along her two kids and a belly full of booze. The cops recognised the car cruising in Gate Pa and decided to pull it over in case it was Sonny Jim who they’d nicked earlier. Imagine their surprise when the driver blew more than twice the legal limit and they realised they had got two hits from the same car in one night. Teaching the kids to drive drunk – fag-end!

My third sorry saga comes from Wellington, where a lot of sorry tales are made. This one I saw in the NZ Herald of Monday 2 July. The coaches of two Under 11 rugby sides got into an argument about how the game was being refereed by one of them. As they were unable to reach a meeting of minds they decided to resort to a meeting of fists upon heads. A couple of parents jumped in to pull them apart and later a parent was also assaulted by an 11-year-old player who was no doubt simply emulating his elders. The cops were called and the two bozos that started the whole thing are being charged with assault. The Wellington Rugby Union is scratching its head trying to decide what to do, while any sane person can see exactly what to do. Stick a fork in ‘em and turn ‘em over; they’re done.

And to show there really is very little hope for our nation; here is the final tale of woe or is that whoa if that’s what you yell at an Ass to tell them to stop being what they are?  

This one I first saw in the New Zealand Herald of 3 July 2012. It involved the two Mensa hopefuls from Mosgiel who were enjoying a quiet huff of LPG on a chilly Mosgiel afternoon. For the uninitiated, huffing is the practice of inhaling a gas or similar toxic vapour. The two bright lads each had a 9kg cylinder of the stuff and they were getting stuck into these, while keeping warm in front of a nice cosy gas fire. I gather huffing is a rather imprecise process and there is no guarantee one can inhale every last drop of the gas being released. As a result there is a certain build-up of what one might call stray gas that is released into the room.

These two young twits would have been frequently turning the valves on the cylinders on and off between each huff and as they got more whacked and less co-ordinated, I would imagine they took longer t turn the valve off each time. Anyway as I am sure you all know by now they eventually had enough stray gas in the place for it to erupt into flames, setting both them and the house on fire. Fortunately (or otherwise one might argue) they got out of the house and shortly thereafter a third gas cylinder which was actually being used to power the gas fire also started getting hot around the collar and blew half the roof off the house. Reminds me of the big stupid wolf - he huffed and he puffed and he blew his house up.

Is it any wonder people vote people who don’t have their interests at heart back into power? Is it any wonder people can’t see what’s happening with their rates money? Is it any wonder people don’t understand they are entitled to (an employment agreement/an opinion/good service)?

I don’t think so.    

You’d better give the suckers an even chance

The recent riots in England have raised the question as to whether such a situation could unfold in New Zealand.

I would have to say that I seriously doubt it at present, but that is not to say it is something you could rule out entirely. As things stand right now, I feel it is unlikely as the ‘powers that be’ (of low wattage though they are) seem to have worked out just the right formula to keep the plebs from revolting. The method seems to be to offer just enough of a carrot from time to time so the rabbit still thinks he’s got a chance of actually getting the rest of it.

However if you don’t offer the subject something good, albeit in small measure from time to time, he will go feral and scratch you up big time. I don’t know how many of you are aware how much damage a feral bunny can do, but let’s just say the scratches are only the beginning. Once the infections kick in things get really messy, and it is that serious bacterial infection that caused the ‘rash’ of violent acts that England experienced.

Much as I can’t stand that upper class twit of a British Prime Minister; I can’t help but feel he hit the nail on the head when he said, “The greed and thuggery we saw during the riots did not come out of nowhere. There are deep problems in our society that have been growing for a long time: a decline in responsibility, a rise in selfishness, a growing sense that individual rights come before anything else."

Way to go Davey! And it’s not just the politicians and other civic leaders either!

But for a society to reach the sort of tipping point where it is cars they want to tip and not waiters, it only requires for most people to feel others are granted privileges they are not simply based upon their income or family standing.

Our society is already heavily weighted in favour of those in a position of economic or political power. Most of us accept that to a certain extent because it has been so deeply entrenched that nothing short of violent revolution is likely to completely eradicate it. And even then, as anyone who has seen the film of the Harold Robbins book, The Adventurers will know; that is no better solution than moving the deck chairs on the Titanic.

However I think even placid Kiwis will have their limits. Just how high their threshold actually is; who knows? I wouldn’t recommend anyone trying to find out, though.

And that is why we need to wipe out the sort of circling of the wagons and self interest protection that happened when 39-year-old Hawke’s Bay barrister Sacha Beacham was convicted for her third drink driving offence last week.

For those who haven’t seen it; Beacham was stopped by police because of complaints they received about how erratically she was driving. When she was breath tested she blew 561mcgs which is nearly 40 percent over the limit. I suppose I should be grateful inasmuch as this is lower reading than her last conviction and about the same as her first. In 2002 she gave a blood alcohol reading of 112 (40% over) and then in 2007 she blew 703mcgs (76% over).

Under the Government’s much publicised tinkering with the legislation we were all told that offenders would go to jail on their third drink driving offence. I hardly need add this has not been the case for Ms Beacham. She was merely fined $1200 with costs of less than $150 and disqualified from driving for 9 months. Big deal.

But wait, there’s more as they say in Infomercial-Land. She called the shots on where she was to be tried. She didn’t want to be tried in her home town where she would have to deal with Probation Services personnel who knew who she was (oh, the embarrassment!) So the judge kindly agreed to move the trial to Auckland for her. And then she didn’t even bother turning up because she heard a media application had been lodged to take pictures of her in court.

The judge expressed his annoyance at her not turning up to court, and they had to hold another hearing to complete the matter, but that doesn’t appear to be reflected in the sentence. Furthermore he denied the application from media to photograph the defendant in court.

An enterprising Fairfax photographer seems to have swiftly realised all bets were off OUTSIDE the court and managed to snap a pic of her anyway.

But I am not that bothered about whether her picture is in the paper or not. This issue is that she appears to have been treated differently to, say a beneficiary from Flaxmere who might find himself facing the same charge.

The Law society say they might investigate Ms Beacham’s suitability to continue holding a practicing certificate, although the statements they have made remain ‘theoretical’ and avoid any direct comment on this particular case.

I’m thinking they might be a bit embarrassed about it too, considering Beacham’s track record. She was first convicted in 2002. This apparently did not make her unsuitable at that stage because she was admitted to the bar in 2005.

Then in 2007 she racked up her second conviction but apparently was still suitable at that stage. Now she has this third conviction and it should also be mentioned the police laid a charge of disorderly behaviour in connection with this latest offence. However that was dropped because police said it ‘had been dealt with by means of a formal caution’. Now that might not have been anything as dramatic as an assault, but clearly she must have reacted in some way when stopped that gave rise to such a charge. Is the New Zealand Law Society going to think this is alright too?

For laws to work they have to be applied evenly and fairly and when they are not the number of those who feel no affinity with nor have any respect for society grows. That is the climate that creates riots like those in England. That is not to say that the rioters in England weren’t a bunch of rabble-rousing criminals; I’m sure most of them were. But the point is if you create an environment where the rule of law can break down; you give such people an opportunity. And if the omens are right, they’ll sure as hell take it.

Naughtiness goes unpunished

There are a lot of naughty people around and it is little wonder when you take account of how weak the disincentives are for naughtiness.

One of the most obvious examples to come to my attention lately has been the head boy of Hastings Boys High School. Luke Bradley was convicted in the Hastings District Court on drink driving charges last month.

Now this was not a matter where a young man had had one drink too many and was picked up at a checkpoint. Oh, no. Young Luke, for the lad is only 17 (i.e. an underage drinker as well), got caught because he lost control of his car while over the limit and rolled it into a stream.

He got the usual wet bus ticket response from the court (a 3 month licence disqualification), but the court response was positively draconian compared with how his school reacted. They decided to do nothing and allow him to remain in his position of head prefect and role model to the rest of the young boys at his school. Headmaster Rob Sturch says, "Many people won't know how out of character this is for him.....He's made 2000 right decisions and one bad one.”

So if he had brought a gun to school and taken a couple of random pot shots in the playground this would have been one bad decision amongst 2000 good ones? I believe the parallel is a fair one given cars can kill people when piloted by drunken teens.

Sturch later says his school’s attitude to drink driving hasn’t changed. Since 1956, I’m betting. What sort of message are these half-wits sending to young people? Drink driving is okay as long as you make lots of good decisions too? If I had a kid at that school I’d be pushing for Sturch’s resignation. I’d love to have seen what would have happened if some, shall we say, boy of colour from Flaxmere with a crap academic record had done the same. My guess is he would have got the old heave ho, but maybe it isn’t like that and maybe that school just thinks drink driving is socially acceptable. Either conclusion should lead to a change in management.

But it’s all about no bugger ever being required to take responsibility for their own actions. In this same week I see ‘a comedian’ has finally saved his victim the agony of a full trial and pleaded guilty to ‘unlawful sexual connection with a child under 12’ which is a bizarre sounding charge because I can’t say I have ever heard of lawful sexual connection with such a person. However the scumbag who thinks he’s funny has been granted name suppression on the grounds that identifying him would also reveal the identity of the victim. I can call this guy a scumbag without fear of reprisals because he would have to out himself to sue me.

Now I recognise the implication here is that the victim is closely related to Mr Funny Pants, but how can we assume that this lowlife is only interested in young blood relatives? What of the potential danger to other kids? It just somehow doesn’t seem right he is able to hide under his victim’s skirt (or pants).

But this sort of thing happens far too often.  Only last year a prominent local body politician and well known person in a small rural community in New Zealand gained similar protection after he had been found guilty of possessing child porn on his computer and, I believe after some unwelcome behaviours with some young whanau members. This is a person who is out and about in the community and considered to be a good man, but he got name suppression and one of the reasons was (you will gasp at this), because none of the images were of New Zealanders! It would seem if you have images of foreign kids then clearly you will not be a danger to your local community. I can see all the perves photo shopping their images now to add the relevant features that make them look like another race.

So as I conclude this week’s posting I learn that Labour MP Darren Hughes is being investigated by police for ‘a complaint made by an 18-year-old man relating to a late night incident.” It seems the young man was a youth MP last year and the incident allegedly took place at Annette King’s home where Hughes apparently lives. So what has naughty Dazza done? Probably not a lot, but given he doesn’t exactly look like the pugilistic sort I doubt it is the sort of thing Trev Mallard got into trouble for. Far be it for me to paint too graphic a picture here, but ...young boy....late night...lonely single male MP.... you do the maths. Unless there was violence or threats involved I doubt it is anyone else’s business, but really guys, why can’t our pollies keep out of trouble? The rest of us manage just fine with far less resources and advantages than them.