Rimu's blog

If people are especially concerned about oppression of indigenous people or other oppressed groups then I'm really happy about them trying to do something about that. There are often very real issues of discrimination which need to be addressed.

The political terms Left and Right were coined during the French Revolution, referring to the seating arrangement in the Estates General; those who sat on the left generally supported the radical changes of the revolution, including the creation of a republic and secularisation. The left represented the values of the Enlightenment - universal human rights, rationalism, science and progress. The right were the old school - aristocratic, feudal and religious.

Peak Oil is pushing up energy and food prices all over the world. WikiLeaks is discrediting various power structures globally. Countries that have had a simmering discontent for a long time are starting to crack under the strain. This time the riots are more serious than 2008, the year of the first oil (food) price spike.

All of these news stories are very recent:

I spent some time driving over the holidays, and came up against a surprising amount of SUV's, tearing around on dirt roads towing boats, jet-skis, etc. The below rant I ran across on the intertubes sums up by feelings perfectly

I've relied on blogs as my main news source for quite a while. I only read the newspaper for entertainment, and don't have a TV. It changes you - after a while, the vacuousness of the mainstream media is not something you can return to.

Here is what I see now, when I go to a normal news web site like stuff.co.nz (click picture for larger version)

It's pretty clear to most people that kids learn the wrong stuff at school. Tonight I was pleased to come across a succint and clear description of a couple of the gaping holes:

Here's what schools don't teach kids: