The Washington Post reports:

A file-sharing group that considers itself a spiritual organization said Thursday that Sweden has recognized it as a religious community. According to documents provided by spiritual leader Isak Gerson, 20, his Church of Kopimism received that approval in late December. …

Gerson said in an interview that some of the church’s roughly 3,000 members meet every week to share files of music, films and other content they consider holy and regard copying as a sacrament. He said the church’s philosophy opposes copyrights in all forms and encourages piracy of all types of media, including music, movies, TV shows, and software. …

“Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step toward the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution,” he said.

This could become a very popular religion. When is the next NZ census again? 🙂

NZ Herald reports:

Destiny Church has reportedly obtained resource consent to build its own “town” in South Auckland.

Bishop Brian Tamaki told his Rotorua congregation a contract had been signed and the church will take control of a three hectare block of land on Druces Road, Wiri, in December, One News reported.

“We had to get resource consent, meaning that the council would let us build our schools, our auditorium – basically building a town,” he said. “We got it.”

In the One News footage the self-proclaimed bishop outlined his plans for the town, which will include schools, a university and a massive auditorium.

The Destiny leader is now appealing for donations from his followers to help fund the town.

“Much of your seed is going to go toward the foundations of an offering toward our promised land, and that beginning is not going to come without a fruitful start financially,” Mr Tamaki said.

Destiny have every right to buy land and build what they want on it.  Of course any activities within that area are still subject to the laws of New Zealand.

I do feel a bit sorry for the followers who will all pour money in to help the Bishop buy the land, and then probably get charged massive rents to live there.

I’ve had a fair number of people ask me about how I arranged the trip to Africa, saying they are keen to visit there also.

Normally I prefer to arrange my trips myself, and research places, activities and accommodation through sources such as Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor. I tried to do this with the Africa trip, but I found it too challenging for a first time visitor to Africa. There were three significant challenges:

1. Safety – I wanted to minimise safety risks such as travel in unsafe areas, dodgy internal airlines, being exposed to touts etc
2. Connections – it was difficult to work out by myself how one would actually get to and from certain safari camps
3. Variety – there are so many different lodges and camps to choose from, that even with Trip Advisor, deciding where to go was challenging – even deciding what countries to go to was a challenge

So in my googling I came across a package from World Journeys for The Cape, Kruger & Victoria Falls. Now these were three of the places I wanted to go to. However I was dubious, as I am not really into group tours, as you lose flexibility. However I filled in the form to see what they could do.

This put me in touch with Kirstine from World Journeys. She informed me that their packages are not all group tours, but in this case they put together individually tailored trips. So over the next few weeks I probably drove them crazy with my “Can we do Chobe also” and “How difficult would it be to also go into the Okavango Delta” and “Would a couple of days at Sun City blow the price out much” and they dealt with all my variations. They knew all about how you could fly from one camp to another via small safari planes to and from obscure air strips.

What was very useful is that Kisrtine had actually been to Africa, and stayed at all the places I was staying at. This was very reassuring when making decisions about whether to stay in a lodge or under canvass in certain areas. I’m glad she pushed me into the under canvass options.

After it was all agreed, World Journeys sent out a very helpful package of itinerary, travel advice, medical requirements, tipping guidelines, baggage guidelines (you need to travel with soft bags) etc. They were great to deal with, and I highly recommend them for this sort of trip.

But the really useful them is they were partnered with &Beyond in Africa. What this meant was from they point I arrived in Africa, &Beyond took over responsibility for my trip. They had a driver met me at Cape Town airport, who gave me vouchers for the rest of the trip. They had their own reps or other companies meet me at every destination where a transfer was needed. And when something happened such as a strike at one safari camp, they arranged me to stay at another camp at no extra cost. Knowing that no matter what happened, they would take responsibility for making sure the trip all fitted together was hugely reassuring.

&Beyond also owned several of the safari camps I stayed at. I will do a seperate detailed post on the four camps I stayed at, but suffice to say for now they were all great. In my travels I chatted to many other people staying at the various camps, and many of them were return visitors who swear by &Beyond and say they will only stay at their lodges and camps. They are at the higher end of the market, but have a mixture of price packages over their 35 lodges and camps.

So for someone who normally likes to do it all myself, I was very happy with the service I got from World Journeys and &Beyond. It was really good having both a company to deal with in NZ, and a company to deal with when actually in Africa. If you are a first time traveller especially, I would highly recommend both companies. I had nothing but good experiences with them.

Stuff reports:

Most-denied names (July 1, 2001, to June 30, 2011)

Justice – 49

Princess – 24

King – 21

Prince – 20

Royal – 12

Duke – 7

Bishop – 7

Major – 6

J – 6

Lucifer – 6

I think any parent who tries to name their new born Lucifer, should be automatically referred to CYFS.

All stats from Google Analytics for 2011 calendar year.

Main Stats

• Visits – 3,550,071 (2,993,948) – 19% annual increase
• Visitors – 746,662 (718,046)
• Pageviews – 7,082,230 (6,487,007)

Country of Visitors

1. NZ 84.3%
2. Australia 4.8%
3. US 3.0%
4. UK 2.5%
5. Canada 0.6%
6. Singapore 0.3%
7. Japan 0.3%
8. Germany 0.3%
9. India 0.2%

City of Visitors

1. Auckland 37.2%
2. Wellington 23.3%
3. Christchurch 8.5%
4. Hamilton 2.5%
5. Dunedin 2.0%
6. Sydney 1.6%
7. Palm Nth 1.6%
8. Mechanics Bay 1.5%
9. Melbourne 1.4%
10. Nelson 1.0%

Browsers

1. IE 37.0% (-8.3%)
2. Firefox 26.2% (-4.1%)
3. Safari 18.1% (+6.1%)
4. Chrome 15.1% (+4.8%)
5. Android 1.1%
6. Opera 0.9%

Operating Systems

1. Windows 73.5% (-8.2%)
2. Mac 14.0% (+1.3%)
3. iPhone 4.4% (+2.3%)
4. iPad 3.4% (++2.7%)
5. Linux 1.5% (-0.1%)

Hosts (excluding ISPs)

1. VUW 21,264
2. MOJ 15,779
3. MSD 10,865
4. Massey 9,306
5. APN 6,930
6. Air NZ 5,707
7. Fonterra 5,279
8. Treasury 4,798
9. MOE 4,755
10. NZ Post 4,500
11. Westpac 4,028
12. Ak City Council – 3,759
13. TVNZ 3,636

Access

1. 35.0% search
2. 29.3% referral
3. 35.7% direct

Search Terms (excluding Kiwiblog and my name)

1. Cactus Kate
2. Cathy Odgers
3. Malcolm Harbrow
4. Whale Oil
5. Matthew Hooton
6. Erin Leigh
7. Labour List
8. VSM bill
9. Liz Shaw
10. Mana Party
11. Kate Sutton
12. Owen Glenn
13. Whaleoil
14. Vote for Change
15. The spirit level

Referrals

1. No Minister
2. Whale Oil
3. Facebook
4. NZ Herald
5. Dim Post
6. Keeping Stock
7. Cactus Kate
8. Scoop
9. The Standard
10. NZ Conservative

Also currently Kiwiblog has had:

• 21,188 posts, of which approx 2,800 were made in 2011
• 790,704 comments, of which approx 140,000 were made in 2011
• 4,020 tags
• 7,514 registered commenters

Sarah Hallmen from Germany is doing a paper on Maori in NZ, and has to write about the topic “racism between Maori and Pakeha”, looking at whether racism is still an issue, is it in one or both directions, and what the Government does to avoid it.

She has a questionnaire which is linked here and embedded below. If you have 5 – 10 minutes to spare, it would help a student out if you can fill in the questionnaire and send it to sarahhallmen at yahoo dot de. Polemics are not needed, but honest opinions are welcome.

Questionnaire – Fragebogen.

The enbedded version is below. But use the one you can download if you are willing to complete and e-mail it.

Fragebogen

For fans of the great re-imaged series.

Trevor Mallard blogs:

A UK commission headed by a former lord chancellor has found in favour of assisted dying.

Euthanasia is a conscience vote in parliament. In Hutt South all candidates from parties that got into parliament said they would support the first reading of a bill.

My view has firmed on the issue over the last decade and unless evidence to a select committee highlighted something I am currently not aware of, or if there was a major drafting error I would support a bill through all stages.

Not that I will get a vote, but if I did I would also vote for such a bill through all stages, so long as it was drafted competently.

Also like Trevor, my views have firmed up over the last decade. Coming from a medical family I used to have serious reservations about any change that may see doctors have any role apart from prolonging life. But we already see passive euthanasia on a daily basis.

The turning point for me, was Rodney Hide’s newsletter about the death of Martin Hames. The cruelty of what Martin was forced into doing, made it clear to me that the status quo was not acceptable.

Do you remember how Air NZ changed its safety video, after a few people took offence at the gay steward lining up (unsuccessfully) for a kiss from the All Black, after the stewardess got one.

Those taking offence were a small minority, and the steward himself didn’t think it was at all offensive – in fact he wwas annoyed it got censored.

We have much the same with the Libra ad:

The drag queen star of a controversial tampon advertisement, pulled amid backlash from the transgender community, has defended the campaign and has hit out against “dragphobia”.

The Libra ad features a blonde woman and a drag queen in a bathroom seemingly competing against one another as they apply make-up and adjust their bras.

When the woman produces a tampon, the drag queen walks out defeated.

Transgender advocates slammed the ad as transphobic, by implying people could only be women if they got their periods.

No, it was just a joke.

I’m all for gay marriage, gay adoption, non-discrimination etc, but this does not mean one can’t be the butt of a joke. It’s not as if it was mean or vicious. People should concentrate on real issues of discrimination.

The Melbourne drag queen who stars in the ad, Sandee Crack, has defended his involvement in the ad.

In a blog post yesterday he said he identified as a gay man who dressed in drag as a performer, and had never considered himself transgendered.

He slammed the backlash against the ad as “dragphobia”.

“Unfortunately, a small portion of the trans community have chosen to view the ad as a personal attack on their fight to be viewed as equal women within society. This is a fight I also feel strongly about and I hope to help educate the wider community on.

“However, I feel hurt that representing myself as a drag queen on television and playing out a common place scenario in my life has lead to a clear ‘dragphobia’ among some transgendered individuals, who wish to pull the plug on something that reflects true honesty about the life of a drag queen.” …

He said he was shown the ad before its release and was “thrilled with it”.

“I believe strongly that by putting a drag queen into the mainstream media, we are one step closer to acceptance and this is something I am very proud to be part of.”

Any use of humour is almost inevitably going to offend someone.

I guess the scene in Wedding Crashers where Todd hits on Vince Vaughan’s character who is tied to his bed, should be banned because it makes gay men looks like predators. But hell Isla Fisher’s character makes women look like rapists, so that scene should be banned also. Let’s just ban anything which uses a stereotype.

Daniel Adams at Stuff reports:

A Waikato MP leading an inquiry into November’s general election says young people are turned off by politics and do not care how they are governed, or by whom.

Hamilton West MP Tim Macindoe, newly elected chairman of Parliament’s justice and electoral select committee, expects to be tasked with confronting the election’s poor voter turnout.

Final election results showed only 74 per cent of eligible voters had their say, down from 79 per cent in 2008, prompting Green Party calls to modernise the electoral process by allowing online registration and voting to attract young and Maori voters. …

He believed concerns over voter turnout would be among the terms of reference for one of its first items of business – its regular inquiry into the last general election.

“I suspect there were fewer young people engaged in the political process than ever before.

“To a large extent the biggest question is why such large numbers of young people have no interest in how they are governed, and who governs them,” he said. Online voting was almost certainly the next natural evolution of the electoral process, but there was no single answer and underpinning the issue was widespread disinterest.

Tim is right that online voting is a natural evolution, but no silver bullet will help increase turnout.

Rodney Hide as Local Govt Minister signed off on a possible trial of online voting for the 2013 local body elections, and a number of local bodies are working with Local Government Online to try and do a trial for 2013.

However I get the impression that central Government bureaucrats are less than enthused, and roadblocks are being constructed.

It would be very useful if the new Justice and Local Government Ministers made it very clear to officials they want a trial for the 2013 local body elections to occur. If we can trial online voting (as an option) in 2013, then it could be rolled out to all areas for 2016 local body elections and then extended to national elections in 2017.

Nxabega means Land of the Giraffes. This was my final full day in Africa. I went out on the morning drive but as I had undertaken 21 safari drives to date, I decided not to go out in the afternoon, and spend the day relaxing at the camp. It was one of my better decisions.

So the day consisted of an outdoor African massage, reading a biography of David Livingstone in the sun, and cooling off in the pool, plus food and drinks.

This is a view of one of the tents, merged into the surrounding area

This is the view from my balcony

The inside of the tent. Camping was never this fun when I was a kid!

A monkey making himself at home in the communal area

This is where I spent most of the day. Just fantastic. Great sun, amazing views, the sounds of Africa and no disturbances except refilling drinks.

The swimming pool.

This is the hat I wore pretty much non-stop when I was outdoors. It is a hand-me-down from my father (I think he saw it more as a temporary one off loan:-) ) and was fabulous. For it is not just any hat, but a Tilley Hat. They are well known, and quite a few people commented on it.

It handles sun and rain equally well. Highly recommended for travels in Africa.

A little tree snake. I was very grateful that I saw very few snakes and spiders during my three weeks in Africa.

After that I flew home. Four flights. A small Safari plane from Pompom air strip to Maun. A Botswana Air flight from Maun to Johannesburg. Then Qantas to Sydney and from Sydney to Wellington. Qantas had the entire Series 4 of The Big Bang theory, so that kept me busy, along with reading George RR Martin’s A Dance with Dragons on my iPad.

Another new bird, we had not seen before.

This large feathered beast is another type of Eagle. I would not want to get into a fight with one!

That afternoon we headed out back onto the delta. But rather than being in the relative safety of a motorboat, we were in traditional African canoes, called mokoro, where your method of locomotion is punting sticks.

Me pretending to be relaxed as we headed out. I wasn’t worried about any crocodiles as in theory they can’t jump up and get you unless you hang your arms over the edge, but the hippos are a major concern. Just two months ago a guide was almost killed by a hippo after it attacked them.

The trick is to not get close to them, as they can move a lot faster than you in the water. They are aggressive beasts, and are credited with killing more people than any other animal in Africa.

This frog is tiny – this is taken at close range with 12x zoom. It is smaller than a finger nail, yet can make quite a noise.

Another water lily.

This frog is slightly larger and more yellow than green. Still less than twice a finger nail in size. You find them on the reed stems.

Oh dear. They were hoping we would encounter no hippos, but this hippo was directly ahead of us, in the middle of the waterway we needed to go down. The lead boat, which was a guide only, spotted it at the same time as we did. I started to get nervous when my guide took us ahead of the lead boat to observe the hippo better. We were still a few score of metres away, but I was definitely getting bloody nervous as there was no land mass close to hand.

After around a minute the hippo submerged and we could tell from the bubbles it was heading towards us. I was much relieved when we decided to go back to the launch area and call it a day. Hippos move far faster than mokoro.

On the way back to camp we saw one of the largest beasts – a well tusked elephant.

And one of the smallest – a steenbok. This is a fully grown one. I guess lions see them as a plain hamburger, compared to say impala which is more a quarter pounder.

We tried the mokoro again the next day, and glad to say the hippo had gone, so we had a very pleasant journey

A fig tree

You can see here how it is covered with figs – and they unusually grow off the main branches.

Sent to me by e-mail. Very well done.

A very good compilation. Lots of old footage. Hat Tip: Stuff

My final destination was the Nxabega Under Canvas Camp. Also in the Okavango Delta.

The Safari Air plane. Half the pilots are kiwis, and the other half South African. They are really good at flying low, so you get magnificent views as you fly.

Shot from the plane.

A view of two elephants from above.

And a final aerial shot.

Due to flooding they have had to construct some bridges. But these are not bridges as we know them – more some poles secured together that you drive over – very slowly.

Some Tsessebe antelopes

A baby warthog

This was amazing. All this damage has been done from elephants rubbing their tusks against the tree. They have chopped away more than half the mass, and I reckon at some stage in the next few years some elephant will actually bring the tree down on them.

A great sighting as we drove in from the airport. A leopard up a tree, eating an impala it had killed.

The same leopard later that day out looking for more food. The cats have to kill regularly or they starve.

Nxabega stands for Land of the Giraffes, and there are plenty about.

We went out on an eight seater for a cruise up the delta. Saw one hippo which we avoided. The boat is not that large that it would come out best.

Close up of a water lily.

The guides showed us how to make a necklace from a water lily, by breaking the stem every couple of cm.

They told us we would have a coffee break on an island – but didn’t tell us it was about 5 square metres in size, sitting in the middle of nowhere. I asked if the island had a name, and when they said no, declared it to now be called Kiwi Island, which it now is.

The early sunset over the delta.

And the later sunset. Sigh.

The next morning we saw six hyenas.

They were tracking a leopard hoping to find its kill.

And they did.

Another type of antelope.

This little pool had over 100 birds in it – it must have been packed full of fish, so it was sort of like McDonalds for birds.

I liked the reflection in the water of this bird.

We had drinks here. Nice.

The buffalo is well hidden here. It could be fatal not to notice one, if you were on foot.

Another colourful bird.

Lots of monkeys at Nxabega – in the trees, on the paths and specifically in the tree next to my tent, which means they often jump up and down on the roof of my tent!

Ports of Auckland have confirmed today that Fonterra had decided to move its export shipments from Auckland to other ports, from the end of January because of ongoing strike action at the port by the Maritime Union.

This will see weekly trade worth around $27m go through the ports of Tauranga and Napier instead of Auckland.

Now readers will recall that the average wage for a FT wharfie in Auckland is $91,000. This is for an unskilled job where training is on the job. But what is POA offering the union?

• a 10 per cent rise on hourly rates
• performance bonuses of up to 20% on hourly rates
• retention of existing benefits and entitlements
• a new roster system that will provide increased operational flexibility while allowing workers to plan their rosters a month in advance

Those slave labour drivers. A 10% increase on hourly rates would push the average FT salary to around $100,000 a year. And 20% performance bonuses is just an evil capitalist divide and conquer strategy. If you start paying staff performance bonuses, then the good staff will end up getting paid more than the bad staff.

CNN report:

According to the second round of CNN entrance polling of caucus-goers: Paul and Romney are tied at 24% followed by Santorum at 18%, Gingrich at 13%, Perry at 11%, Bachmann at 7% and Huntsman at 1%

Huntsman is not contesting Iowa. If Ron Paul beats Romney, that is big news. Ron Paul is the latest choice of the large “Anyone but Romney” following. But this is just an entrance poll.

Not many laundry services have to warn that hyenas may raid the laundry room.

This is the open lounge area at Sandibe.

This tree overlooks our breakfast table and our cousins look down at us.

They quite make themselves at home in the lounge.

This is a giant eagle owl. The tracker did well to spot him in the tree.

I loved this tree – a sausage tree.

We ran into those five lions for the third day running – by accident the last two times. We were tracking a leopard and instead of finding the leopard, we saw the lions again, but …

Someone then looked up a tree, and saw the leopard. The lions must have turned up suddenly and the leopard did not want to risk a confrontation, so he headed up the tree. Lions will not eat leopards but they might kill them, as it reduces the competition for food. I guess deep down lions are socialists who don’t like competition 🙂

The leopard came down the tree after around 15 minutes, and sure enough one of the lions set off after it, and chased it for 600 metres or so.

Now this is a truly rare daytime sighting – a porcupine. Don’t get too close to it unless you want a face full of quills.

Some giraffes.

A crimson breasted stripe.

Didn’t note this one’s name down.

A red lechwe antelope (I think).

This is a hammerhead, for obvious reasons

Another colourful feathered friend

We heard the lion roar from around 100 metres away, otherwise would not have known it was there. At one point he stood up and stared at us which was unnerving.

But then he went back to the customary lion position

A typical landscape.

Some Marabou storks

Yay we spotted a cheetah – the last of the big cats I had to see. Not as large or strong as the others, but very fast. The collar is for some research programme.

She got joined by her son who had been unsuccessfully trying to hunt prey.

So mum consoled him with a good hug and kiss.

Also came across a group of five lions. Three of them here.

And the other two here.

It’s dark but this is another jackal

A frog we almost ran over

And a hyena out at night – their normal hunting time. Of course their idea of hunting is normally to scavenge.

I’m not normally a big bird watcher but I can’t get enough of the variety they have here

A Kudu staring out at us

A hippo moving alongside

And another up ahead

In an ideal world the camera would also be a dictaphone so I could record down the names as I get told them.

Some tsessebe, another species of antelope

This is the second day at Sandibe. We had been driving around three hours and I needed a bush toilet break. The guide said that we were only 30 minutes from where he planned to have the morning tea, so I agreed to hold off until then. However as we got to the planned spot for morning tea, we found to our surprise the five lions from yesterday were there. This was 20 kms away from where we saw them yesterday. As you can imagine I had to hold on for another 20 minutes or so, as me marking out the lions’ sleeping place could be a bad idea.

They got quite playful with each other.

Lots of licking and pawing

But their idea of a friendly nibble is not one I’d like to try

This is one of the many crossings the landcruiser makes through slightly flooded areas. This is the wake from the vehicle. Sometimes the water gets close to coming in over the sides.

Then at the end of day two, went out on a small boat in the delta

This is the boat – seats eight

Some truly beautiful sights