OKC Out

The OKC Thunder have lost the playoff series against the Jazz. In the sixth game look at the Stats for the OKC starting five; Carmelo Anthony 7 points and 3 rebounds, Paul George 5 points and 3 rebounds. Are these two the worst acquisitions in the history of the NBA? If you look at my earlier posts I certainly have never rated Anthony, there's the proof, 7 measly points when it really mattered.

Diamond and Silk

Two American women who are Donald Trump supporters, say they've been censored by Facebook for expressing their views. Read about it here;

https://www.cnet.com/news/pro-trump-social-media-stars-diamond-and-silk-slam-facebook-in-congressional-hearing/

The sisters from North Carolina, who before taking interest in Trump had been Democrats, say Facebook had misclassified their page and used algorithms to suppress it on the platform. Specifically, they say Facebook had incorrectly labeled their page as "very liberal," which meant their page didn't surface on pages of their conservative fans and resulted in them not being able to attract advertising from marketers trying to reach conservatives.   

"We've also noticed how someone with a liberal point of view that spewed hate against the president can garner up to 19 million views with only 539,000 followers, yet we have 1.2 million followers and only received 13,000 views on our video," she continued.

NBA Playoffs 2018

A much tighter playoff round this year in the NBA. The Pelicans are looking good. It's also good to see the Bucks doing well against the highly placed Celtics. Of particular interest is how the Jazz are going against the Thunder. This is not so much of an upset from where I'm sitting. The Thunder's western conference 4th placing was more good luck than anything else. They could just as easily have been down the bottom or not even in the playoffs. Things are too close to call right now, but don't be surprised to see the Jazz win their series against the Thunder.

NRL: New Zealand Warriors

What has happened to the NZ Warriors? All of a sudden they're winners. It's the age of complete turnarounds. The Warriors used to be a team that played for 60 minutes, then collapsed in the last 20 minutes of every match. This was so predictable that I made good money betting against them. If they did manage to win then I'd simply double up for the next week and bet against them again.

But I wouldn't bet against them this season, now they look a completely different team. Whatever they've done at the Warriors, someone needs to bottle it. They'd make a fortune.

Duncan Garner and Maria Folau (neeTutaia)

When are New Zealand's TV3 going to jettison that fool Duncan Garner? I heard him this morning trying to draw NZ netball goal shoot, Maria Folau, into the debate concerning Israel Folau, her husband. What kind of thinking is this from Garner? What about his own racist performance when he wrote a column for a Sunday paper where he assumed all Asians in his way in a queue to buy underwear must be immigrants. Would it be OK to ask Garner's wife what she thought? Hmm?

What I can say though is it looks like Maria Folau has found a quality bloke. He's a keeper. Why? He believes in something, that's why. Her husband is not one of those jellyfish wibby wobbly full of corporate speak. So Garner, get off the grass and stop trying to inflame things, you're just being vexatious, stop it.

Israel Folau

Israel Folau. a rugby player who represents Australia, has had something to say about where he sees Gays in relation to God. It turns out he's a Christian and a devout one at that. Good for him you'd expect people to say, but it turns out that inclusiveness and diversity only extends to certain people who espouse views that are acceptable.

Folau has been pilloried and his views totally misrepresented and the worst treatment has been at the hands of the media who don't seem capable of intelligent thought. On top of that he's been called in for a talk by Rugby Australia who seem more motivated by commercial considerations than by respecting the man's religious beliefs.

Read about it here: https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-union/israel-folau-breaks-silence-says-he-would-walk-away-from-australian-rugby-criticises-raelene-castle-20180416-p4z9zh.html


A reader of the SMH story I find myself totally agreeing with so include their whole comment below. 

Now, this is a freedom of speech issue and as much as I hate to use the term, because it's become the last refuge of alt-right nut jobs, the bad side of political correctness.
Sadly, the general level of understanding of what the freedom entails is so wrong it's beyond belief. IF"s comments didn't contravene RA's inclusivity policy, this wasn't RA's fight, and it's handled the whole thing very badly. This is a very good example of trial by media of the wrong person for the wrong reason on the wrong issue of importance.
What RA needed was a philosopher, not a spin doctor. They jumped the wrong shark at the wrong time.
I don't agree with IF, or with christian literalists - they are no different to any other kind of literalist interpretation of a religious book which usually borders on, or wades fully into, fundamentalism. But then, they are also no different from atheists screaming from the sidelines about empirical proof and other straw men.
IF is entitled to speak his "truth" as the saying goes, and present a case for why, whether we agree with him or not. He's not refusing to play against gay people, he's not saying they can't play rugby, he's not telling RA to bad gay people - he's not demanding temporal discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender.
The saddest thing of all, part from the slow tearing apart of a fellow human by the ravening mob, is that "society", or more narrowly "us" in the digital echo chamber through the MSM and social media, has turned on him and "we" are learning nothing about diversity, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance - some of the things the book he defers to was actually written for to teach humans how to evolve - whether we believe in sky faeries, or kindly benign old men in white gowns living in the clouds, or aliens, or the scientific method, or miracles caused or wrought by supernatural being(s), or nothing.... ....or not.

New Zealand Bans Offshore Oil Exploration

Here we go, Labour has fallen into the clutches of the communist party of New Zealand, err, I mean the Greens.

The Gummint (note my use of Labour vernacular when talking about the government) has announced the stopping of offshore oil exploration

This is a sop to the Greens. Where were the unions in this decision, aren't Labour all about the workers? Don't they realise that the oil and gas business is a producer offering high rates of pay? Hmm? C'mon Labour don't be so quick to buckle.

But it's only offshore right? That still means inshore oil, coal to oil, etc., doesn't it? Because there's plenty of that for now, so get on with it. And does this decision save the environment? No way, what it does is worsen things; those jobs which could be in NZ are sent to low wage economies and with a worse environmental record. So the planet actually dies faster. Morons.

Be brave Labour and stand up to the Greens, they're a bunch of naysayers who never do anything, few vote for them, if they insist on having their way then go to the polls and crush them. Do a deal with NZ First, a safe seat here or there - you get the idea, and crush the communist Greens.

Azealia Banks Escapades

Azealia Banks continues to put out interesting music. Add the music to her creditable acting performance in Love Beats Rhymes.

See Escapades embedded below

Malawi Queens Win

Yay, the Malawi Netball team, the Malawi Queens, have beaten New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games 2018 (57-53). They never gave up even though it looked they were going to lose. This is Malawi's first Netball win over New Zealand.

Amazon Kindle Pricing

Just a heads up in case you contribute to Kindle from outside the US or buy from the US main site from outside the US. I've discovered their website only updates regularly in relation to pages viewable on the main site from within the US. If you change your Kindle publication pricing you may not be able to see those changes for weeks. I have only just discovered that, much to my horror. What can happen is a price displayed on the US website can remain showing the old price in the overseas location for a very long time (in the US itself the price will be correct).

I suggest being aware of this when buying on the US main site from overseas. You may find yourself looking at a dated page, and the price you're about to pay is much different. The updated price will be viewable to those in the US but not all locations worldwide at the same time.

Note I'm NOT talking about regional sites and their pricing, that's a different issue altogether, please don't confuse them. I've just spent an evening trying to educate Amazon's Indian help desk on this, they just come back to, 'we have different prices in different parts of the world.' Yes, I get that, understand, but how about updating the pages that people view from outside the US on the US main site!! On that subject they wobble their heads.

Edit to add: In the last couple of days I've noticed changes that I made have updated, a full month after the changes were made. However in the US itself those same changes were live less than 72 hours after the changes.