A night in the city.

Not too shabby eh?

Supra - Jellicoe Wharf 1

Supra - Jellicoe Wharf 2

Supra - Jellicoe Wharf 3

Thanks to Ash & Russell.

You see them all the time, and you can’t help but wonder where do the birds flock by night.

If you happen to live in Wellington (NZ), Stuff.co.nz has the answer.

I find it fascinating, especially for the little sparrows.

“Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? “

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Important child education tip: don’t make your kids clean toilets. It may be illegal in New Zealand!

In the Stuff.co.nz today:

Boy made to clean toilet as punishment

A five-year-old boy was made to clean toilets by a caregiver as punishment at a Child, Youth and Family-funded after-school care programme in Rotorua.

Now his mother is seeking legal advice on the punishment – dished out after the boy supposedly hit a girl in the face with a ball.

Oriwa Pehi-Livapulu said her son Noble could have become sick after the incident at the Chipmunks Centre last week.

He was only five and did not even clean the toilet at home, she said.

“My mana has been taken away from me. Noble’s spirit has been trampled on”, she told The New Zealand Herald.

She has complained to CYF, which funded the programme.

While I won’t be going around forcing kids to clean toilet, what the mother said was quite a jewel :)

No, seriously, in my childhood days having a 2-week period of twice-a-day cleaning the school toilet was a normal punishment for bad “school crimes”. Yes we did it, we were little kids with little hands on our big toilet brushes and mops, and we grew up healthy and well-behaved. I’ve never been an interest of CYF, I’ve never been sick from cleaning toilet, and I am now working successfully, owns a house of my own, a car, and a $25k motorcycle.

On the other hand, if the toilets had not been cleaned I might have contracted swine flu long time ago and dead by now.

Added 17/06/2009:

If this Stuff article is a barometer on New Zealand parental attitude, we really have to be worried.

Colin James in the Stuff.co.nz today:

The jury has spoken. But does it speak for anywhere other than Mt Albert? And does it speak on anything but Mt Albert’s particularities?

His writeup highlights the possibility that National’s Melissa Lee dramatic loss in the Mount Albert byelection last weekend (13 June 2009) is a possibilit that the public is starting to reject National after the 2008 election win. It went on to cite the Timaru example in 1970s.

However, questions remain to be asked. The item that is missed out of the  analysis is the voter turnout rate. How many of the expected votes actually eventuate? Is there a general apathy in the region? Is Mount Albert now really a unison of, Labour vote, or could there be a large disappointment on National candidate leading to a lot of abandoned votes (which did not quite go over to Labour)? Is it really Labour, or is it simply “nothing”?

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In the Herald article today: Few use cellphones to surf the net by Simon Hendery.
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NZ Government could and should get us out of this recession.

NZ Herald article today highlighted that

Banks’ reluctance to pass official cash rate cuts on to borrowers is hitting businesses even harder than home buyers.

One key Reserve Bank measure of business borrowing costs has barely budged since the central bank began cutting less than a year ago.

The government commented

“Banks are crying they have to pay more for money they get overseas and that’s why rates have held up, but business rates have held up much higher than those for home owners and I don’t think that’s fair or right.”

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