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Virulent outbreak of sarcasm

The always trustworthy and balanced Dim-Post made a shocking report: Blogger Implicates Clark in Toilet Paper Theft

Prime Minister Helen Clark has been accused of ‘high level involvement’ in the mysterious theft of a twelve-pack of super-absorbent toilet rolls belonging to political blogger Calvin Snail.

NZConservative responded with its own stunning revelations:  Blogger implicates Key in Power Outages

Moderate Centre-Left Wing Blogger "Dillsy" yesterday published irrefutable proof that John Key and National were directly behind the power outage across Wellington, in a deliberate ploy to embarrass the State Owned Enterprises that provide energy to the country, and by implication, Helen Clark.

Over in the States a high profile convert to the New Atheism gushes: The Loser Letters

An open letter to those spokesmen for the New Atheism who have labored mightily these last few years to sweep aside religion’s paralytic webs of superstition and prejudice, and to liberate the rest of our Species via Science and Enlightenment!
(more on this one tomorrow)

Hilarious

Quote

"Some people wonder why church leaders almost always back left wing Governments, despite the fact that conservative parties always have a much much higher proportion of true believers and church goers.

The answer tends to be that few (not all) church leaders actually literally believe in God (as taught in the Bible), and are far more concerned with social issues than religious issues.

Again this is not new, and I refer people to an excellent Yes Minister episode on this issue."

I saw that episode, its very funny.

But that is satire.

However could this  response from Poneke  be satire?

This is not at all far fetched. The gay minister of the church whose kindergarten my children attended is an atheist. His Christmas sevices for the kindy kids were a marvel to behold, containing not a mention at all of Jesus, Mary, Joseph or anyone like that, but many calls to arms against the oppressors of the poor and the downtrodden. He certainly bewildered a lot of three and four year olds, who until then believed Christmas was about Santa and presents. :-)

I'll let you be the judge of that.

A non-converging geometric series

And it came to pass that Ian Dale did have an idea to produce a new years wish list and to tag others to do the same.

1. Ian Dale did tag DPF and nine others beside.
2. DPF did tag Trevor at New Zeal and four others beside.
3. Trevor at New Zeal did tag Clint Heine and four others beside.
4. Clint heine did tag Oswald Bastable and four others beside.
5. Oswald Bastable did tag Zen Tiger and four others beside. 
6. and Zen did tag your humble narrator and four others beside including the previously tagged DPF.

 
But had Ian Dale's original 10 taggees all tagged 10 others who had done the same  and so forth this would be the 1,111,111  post in the series.

And 2008 would be ancient history by the time they all were read.

Spending New Years day cleaning toilet walls

I spent a pleasant New years eve, eating a meal with my relatives and generally socializing as most of us I am sure did.

A quick check of this blog before for lunch this morning revealed the comments from New Years eve were not of the standard we expect at TBR - in fact they were plain moronic and insulting. There were nearly one hundred of them, Nothing of value had been added to the posts, in fact one commenter lamented that on a  discussion taking place, one he had an interest in and had much to contribute  had been ruined by all of this.

I decided to clean the posts concerned up something I hate to do. I was fairly ruthless and removed all comments that in anyway seemed to be stoking the fire.  This problem has occurred on two other New Zealand blogs during  the past couple of weeks to my certain knowledge and has been a source of grief there as well.

Some New Zealand blogs have killed comments entirely to prevent this sort of thing- a tragedy, blogs thrive on comments and are generally the better for them.

TBR has a commenting policy - it can be read here.

The reason for bringing this forward in a post is that one individual posted many comments under several different names including comments posted using the names of other regular commenters.

I know who you are - I have your name and even  photograph of you. It was very tempting to post both   along with all the identities you have used in the past week or so. However I have no desire to humiliate you nor add fuel to the fire of a flame war. Nor do I wish in any way  give any appearance of taking sides in this nonsense.

Be warned - any repeat of this behavior will see you banned and any comment you post edited to replace  your text with the reason as to why.

But I really have better things to do with my time than referee flame wars.

I suggest a new years resolution for 2008 - lets try and keep debate on TBR's threads polite and respectful though robust and debate  ideas on their merits not get into endless and boring  ad hominum.

With that I wish a happy new year to all our commenters and readers.

Bad jokes and unpleasant surprises.

Lucyna has had a nasty experience today while washing her sheets.

I sympathize. It reminds me of the time my wife was ironing when her iron struck  what she thought was a missed clothes peg but on inspection it turned out to be a large weta.

This caused total mayhem, my oldest  freaked, she wouldn't today, she is studying to be a nurse and is  unfazed  over things that would make most of us  squeamish. Times change.

Little Nadia, the nature lover wanted to keep it as a pet,  an idea that came to nothing  when Nik squashed it.

Still  all that is nothing compared to the experience that Betty Lawrence of Invercargill  had when  she pulled her cracker on Christmas day. 

A bad joke maybe, but no plastic novelty or paper hat.

Talking of bad Christmas cracker jokes: What do you say when the cat swallows $2?

A reason for my absence

In case anyone is wondering why I have vanished...I'm on a very tight production deadline to complete my next book...

Apologies for lack of input...

Blog stats, August 07

Not sure if anyone has provided a forum for them this month, so for those who'd like to post theirs, add them below:

TBR
Posts: 121, Comments: 2,423

Our busiest month ever...

Blog stats have just been released over at Spanblather.

July was TBR's busiest traffic month to date, with a staggering 1,489 comments. A blog is not merely a reflection of those who post, but equally or more so those who comment. You can all take credit for what I think (and what others I bumped into at the Film Awards last night told me - you'd be amazed at how many people are checking out The Briefing Room each day!) is a compelling mix of passionate debate.

Just on those blog stats meanwhile...congrats to Kiwiblog for racking up an average 129 comments for every one of his 176 posts last month...Farrar, you're an inspiration to the rest of us :)

And then they came for you...

Here's a question for the blogosphere: should States have the right to shut down bloggers on the grounds of hate speech?

And who defines "hate speech"?

A Canadian blogsite, Free Dominion, is facing this nightmare as we speak.

Orcon purchased by Government...

This just in from an Investigate tipster

Dear Ian
It has come to my attention that the company Kordia below has interesting information the average person in the streets would not be aware of and very annoyed if they did.What they used to be and now are and now are moving into the internet market fully.Which is interesting with there recent acquisition as below moving into the controversial  internet market as Telecom is meant to be that  for  the govt purse.Why would the govt acquire a medium size internet user company how very interesting and the people have not been told this openly.They are only told that Kordia is now the orcon owner.The average person is not business savvy and therefore would not know where to go and research such information to see who is truly behind the scenes.

Kordia™ Group Limited announces that, effective 2 July 2007, it will be acquiring Orcon Internet Limited.

This acquisition reflects Kordia™’s strategy of growth—shifting from being an infrastructure owner and provider to a more solutions-orientated company—and is an exciting development for both Kordia and Orcon.

• Kordia™ teams up with Gibson Group to deliver broadband as it should be 
• Kordia launches training courses 
• Kordia™ dishes up mobile TV demo for tech gourmets 
• Kordia™ selects Alcatel-Lucent to enhance IP network 
• Kordia™ to provide unique solution for national vessel tracking system

Kordia

http://www.kordiasolutions.com

History

Kordia™ is the new face of the THL Group - the former umbrella company for BCL, AAPCS and THLA.

The Group had its origins 60 years ago in the New Zealand Broadcasting Service with the construction and operation of the radio and television network across New Zealand. More recently it was the transmission arm of Television New Zealand until being established as a State Owned Enterprise with an independent board in 2003.

In July 2005, THL Group acquired AAPCS, and rebranded to Kordia™ in November 2006.

Ownership

Kordia™ is a State Owned Enterprise (SOE), fully owned by the New Zealand government, but operating as a commercially viable entity.
_______________________________________________________________________

Company Number 1223389 View Certificate Of Incorporation Company KORDIA GROUP LIMITED EMAIL CERTIFICATE Incorporated  05-JUL-2002 View Online Extract Current Status  REGISTERED EMAIL EXTRACT Entity Type  Company Constitution Filed  Yes Annual Return Filing Month September Print This Page
Previous Names
Company Name Date Changed TRANSMISSION HOLDINGS LIMITED 17-NOV-2006
Address Details
Registered Office
Level 4, Fidelity House
81 Carlton Gore Road
Newmarket
Auckland
Address for Service
Level 4, Fidelity House
81 Carlton Gore Rd
Newmarket
Directors
Name		Date Appointed:
BRANDON, Wendy Noelle 31-DEC-2003     3/24 Elizabeth Street, Mt Victoria, WELLINGTON 6011 BROWN, Wayne Kelvin Forrest 31-DEC-2003     Old Four Square Building, Foreshore Road, Mangonui MEYER, Phillip James 01-JAN-2005     18 Palliser Road, Roseneath, Wellington NICHOLAS, Taaringaroa Albert William 31-DEC-2003     28 COLLINGWOOD STREET, JUDEA, TAURANGA OLIVER, Brian Maurice 31-DEC-2003     44 Mandeville Place, The Palms, Albany, Auckland SMITH, Janine Laurel 31-DEC-2003     19 Mount St. John Avenue, Epsom, Auckland
Share Parcels
	Total Number of shares	1,000
	Number of Shares	500
	Shareholder(s)	CULLEN, Michael John	Minister Of Finance, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
	Number of Shares	500
	Shareholder(s)	BURTON, Richard Mark	Minister For State Owned Enterprises, Parliament Buildings, Wellington
Documents Registered
Date Barcode Description File Size Available 06-JUN-2007 14:52:37 Online Particulars of Directors 17-APR-2007 13:31:50 Online Particulars of Directors 17-NOV-2006 10:45:41 Online Change of Company Name 31-OCT-2006 12:53:06 Online Annual Return 12-SEP-2005 14:40:22 Online Annual Return 20-JUN-2005 12:12:23 10048877757 Particulars of Directors 45.4 Kb 03-MAR-2005 12:50:56 10047709451 Particulars of Directors 46.8 Kb 05-JAN-2005 12:45:50 10047303355 Particulars of Directors 68.1 Kb 13-OCT-2004 14:04:11 Particulars of Shareholding 30-SEP-2004 14:50:52 Online Annual Return 27-SEP-2004 10:59:30 Online Particulars of Directors 15-MAR-2004 11:35:24 10045621564 Particulars Of Company Address 60.8 Kb 05-MAR-2004 14:29:59 10045627980 Particulars Of Company Address 31.6 Kb 24-FEB-2004 10:10:04 10045569974 Adoption/Amendment Of Constitution 534.8 Kb 06-JAN-2004 15:54:41 10045424519 Consent Form For Newly Appointed Officer 135 Kb 05-SEP-2003 10:26:20 Online Annual Return 27-AUG-2003 11:40:41 10044504077 Particulars of Directors 45.9 Kb 06-JAN-2003 11:39:39 10045655238 Particulars of Directors 335.9 Kb 24-DEC-2002 09:06:19 10043143133 Consent Form For Newly Appointed Officer 26.9 Kb 20-DEC-2002 11:18:16 10043142094 Particulars of Directors 49.9 Kb 05-JUL-2002 12:31:51 Consent Of Officer 24.1 Kb 05-JUL-2002 12:31:37 Consent Of Officer 24.4 Kb 05-JUL-2002 12:31:08 Consent Of Shareholder 25.3 Kb 04-JUL-2002 09:27:10 Online Constitution 80 Kb 04-JUL-2002 09:24:21 Application To Incorporate A Company
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