Nightriding

5 riders turned up for the ride tonight. Some wicked riding, quite a few long sets of steps to ride, and quite a few to carry the bike up. Ride leader showing some excellent drop and roll form when he failed to negotiate a corner on stairs. No damage. It's still quite wet out there but not as muddy as last week. We started at the bottom of the Brooklyn hill, made our way out to the coast loosely via the City to Sea walkway, back up Ohiro road and down Brooklyn hill to where we started.

11.52 k's, ride time 1:19:22,Avg: 11.97, Max 58.4

Winding up the Spin Dr's

DPF over on Kiwiblog has been publishing some great graphs of political polling in NZ.

I quite enjoy reading political poll results, it's interesting. What horrifies me about it though is that our political parties use this information to decide critical things like, should they tell the full story about an MP's dodgy dealings and risk an election or should they whitewash the whole thing.

However one way to shake the tree is to always answer ‘Labour’ in all political polling. If asked (in a random phone survey, or any poll) ‘if an election was held today who would you vote for?’ always say 'Labour'. They will get cocky and seek to increase their majority and they may end up shafted by their own greed.

Nightriding

Small group tonight, only 3. We powered our way around Makara Peak. Ride leader turned up on a full carbon single speed. Lightest mountain bike I have ever seen. Still it needs to be said, him having only one gear appears to be the only way I can beat him up the steep bits :-)

It's very muddy and wet up there, some of the tracks we were planning to ride were closed so a few last minute modifications to the plan were required.

The message is good

Stuff: Go out and work, ministry staff told

Go for it guys, what have you got to loose !

Health Funding

Stuff: Fewer elective operations performed - Nats

This alone is disgusting. "But Mr Hodgson said it took several months to get an accurate picture of health boards' month-by-month performance."

So Labour fund more, the output is less and they claim to have it under control when it takes months to know how many operations were done.

"He said he was particularly concerned about the interface between primary health care and hospital services. " Let me guess, GP's are getting frustrated telling their patients they might die before they get an operation, making their relationship with the Hospitals very poor.

Just admit it Labour, you have made a hash of Health !

Sounds fair to me.

From Stuff: Govt considers gay adoption legislation

It's about time if you ask me. Comming from Labour I actually give this one a 'no spin' award. I totally agree with Ms Turei.

Ms Turei has said her Adoption (Equity) Amendment Bill is a chance to fill a major hole in the law. "In some ways it's a very small legislative hole but it has big impacts for gay and lesbian couples and there's no policy reason at all why it shouldn't be filled. It's just none of the other political parties have had the gumption to do it.

How thin can you skate

From Stuff: Opposition to haka 'misinterpreted' gesture says NZRU

Really: "We need to promote understanding of haka. The concern about Kapa O Pango's final gesture makes that clear. While the haka's final movement had been described as a cut-throat gesture, its meaning within Maori culture and the tradition of haka is very different" he said.

Composer Derek Lardelli said that Kapa O Pango ends with the word "Ha" which translates as the breath of life. "The words and motions represent drawing vital energy into the heart and lungs. The right arm searches for the "Ha" on the left side of the body, Mr Lardelli said, while the head turns to the right also symbolically seeking vital energy. The right hand hauls that energy into the pou-whakaora (the heart, lungs and air passages), then the eyes and tongue signal that the energy has been harnessed before it is expelled with the final "Ha", Mr Lardelli said.

A slitting of the throat is a harnessing of energy, life as in giving not taking away, well spear tackle me !