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Showing posts from August, 2011

Who Should Pay for the Harbour Bridge Pedestrian and Bike Crossing?

It is great that the Harbour Bridge pedestrian and cycle crossing looks like it will happen. At last! Good on you Leigh Hopper, you go guy! However, the question remains, who should pay? It seems a toll of up to $5 each way will pay for it. In tough economic times, this seems the only way and makes a certain sense. It is user pays, which is the way things should be, one can argue at least. Yet, it all seems bizarre to me. On the one hand, there is a huge movement toward ecological sustainability in our times. We are desperate to get people out of cars and other fossil fuel-using vehicles, into public transport and other means of transport like bikes and walking. Then there is the cry that we are getting fat, we are overweight or obese. We are called to get off our couches, put the chips, chocolate and remotes down, and get onto our feet and bikes and get moving. This will save millions right, as obesity is a huge cause of medical issues which clog up our hospitals. The crossing is a br

Team for World Cup

Two days out from the picking of the World Cup team it is time to commit to the team I think they will pick. I think it is pretty easy if you take 3 hookers and 3 half-backs after last night's loss to South Africa. There are a few points of interest.   The first is who will miss out in the wings. After Toeava showed he is back, I think Gear and Guilford will be the unlucky two. I think they will go for the multi-skilled/position type players over the genuine hard out wingers like Guilford and Gear, despite their talent. Kahui could miss out I suppose if Toeava is picked to cover centre and this would make room for Gear. Or even SBW could sensationally be left out with Kahui and Toeava as back up midfielders? Then there is the first five, and I have gone for Slade but there may be a surprise with Cruden after his brilliant performance for Manawatu and Slade's decidedly average game against the Boks. But that was only Manawatu against Waikato. Slade will have learnt heaps like, k

Sources for Nero and the Reliability of the Gospels

I have been doing some research on Nero looking for data that might help in the interpretation of Philippians, which I believe should be placed in Rome in the early 60's when Nero was on fire. One interesting offshoot has been comparing the sources we have for Nero with those we have for the Gospels. The three main sources we have for Nero are Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius. The first, Tacitus or Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus lived from AD 56-117. So he was born 2 years after Nero came to power and was 10 when Nero died. So he did not experience Nero first hand, although he might have seen him. He was a senator and historian, at one point Governor of Asia (AD 112/113). He was a part of the scene when Domitian was at his peak of despotic mania. He drew on earlier sources like Pliny the Elder which are lost. The work of most interest to study of Nero, Annals (Annales) , was written sometime in the period AD 110-120, likely at the latter end of the decade. This is some 50-60 ye

Abstain for the Game: Have Saachi and Saachi Found Jesus?

I thought it was far too religious an idea that people in NZ would choose to 'abstain for the game.' I thought for a minute that Saachi and Saachi and Telecom had been reading their Bibles and misread it, like Harold Camping who after doing his maths wrong and falsely predicting the end of the world in May 21, now knows the end of the world is about to happen on Oct 21. After all, abstinence is a highly biblical idea. Whereas the surrounding nations were into anything except abstinence even getting it on to please their gods, the Jews were into abstinence big time. They basically said nothing goes, except when a man and a woman get hitched. Even then, for one week a month, things were all off. In a world where the Greeks and Romans had little time for abstinence, Christians followed the Jewish way, effectively endorsing that abstinence rules, except of course in a marriage between two heterosexual married adults when it is all on. Despite speculation from people that Jesus was

The New Generation Looking For A Movement

I am intrigued by the movements we are seeing all over the world. For a number of years now we have seen the Green Movement reflected in Green political parties, concern over climate change, reactions against globalization, love of whales, and socialism. Then there is the movement of extreme Islamic terrorism which is now on the wane after its zenith in the early 2000's with 9/11, the London and Bali bombings and other terrorist attacks. There are also the clashes seen at IMF and G8 Summits with people railing against globalization. More recently we have had the Middle Eastern revolutions as people across the Middle East are rising up to overthrow dictatorships. Some have succeeded as in Egypt, but in Libya, Syria and elsewhere, they go on. Now there are the London riots, with a totally out of proportion response to the killing of Mark Duggan and London and other British cities the scene of mob-violence and destruction. Everywhere we look people are looking for a movement, what is