calling for a settlement freeze

No exception on Israeli settlement: Clinton

Mrs Clinton: 'The president wants to see a stop to settlements'

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said there must be no exceptions to President Barack Obama's demand that Israel stop its settlement activity.

Correspondents say it is the first time in years that US officials have been so vocal in calling for a settlement freeze in the Palestinian territories.

The comments come hours before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to meet Mr Obama at the White House.

Israel's PM has defied US demands, saying some settlements can expand. READ MORE

burn fat not oil? cyclists and walkers block bridge YAY

FROM PUBLIC ADDRESS

Burn fat, not oil May 25, 2009 09:08

You may have seen images on your TV last night of mild-mannered types such as myself storming the Auckland Harbour bridge and causing chaos. I blame Rod Oram. Whenever he turns up, things just go feral.

Optimist that I am, I had little expectation we'd get onto the bridge. When it happened, I had the sinking feeling that we were being set up for blow-back. Get two lanes of the bridge, and you'll merely slow it down. Get all four, and you will piss people off. If I were marooned on the motorway for an hour and a half, I'd be pissed off too.

And so it came to pass. The Herald says there were 2,000 of us; my own guess would be 5,000. Happy people. What we asked for was the chance to ride and walk across the bridge and remind everyone that there are other ways of moving Aucklanders around their city. We say our way is healthier, cheaper, and kinder to the planet. We say that it's time to do some fresh thinking. Time and time again, the only mode of transport that gets the lion's share of public funding is the almighty car. Even though it costs a fortune. And even though the oil is running out.

Cycle lanes could do us so much good, and make so much economic sense in the long run, it's remarkable, really, that we're having to argue over the soundness of them.

We fielded several very good speakers - because the affair began with a rally - and the best of them all was Christine Rose. She is on the ARC, and she is without question someone you want to vote for when Rodney Hide finally decides how you're going to do it.

What's the motto, Christine? Burn fat, not oil.

http://publicaddress.net/5909#post5909

great tips for getting followers on twitter

4 Tips on Getting Followers on Twitter

Date: 21 May 2009 Author: NewspaperGirl

Here are my 4 tips for getting followers on Twitter. Not that I always follow them, but that I’ve noted.

1. Participate in group chats. Tuesday nights are “girls night out” or #GNO. You can go to tweetchat.com and sign in with your Twitter username & password then go to the #GNO room and join in. Participate. This exposes you to new people that you otherwise wouldn’t know. I recently participated inSmallBizTrends group chat about Twitter and it was a lot of fun.
2. Use directories like Twellow or Twitterholic to find people - by keyword or location.
3. Go to search.twitter.com and put in a hash tag relating to what you do. For me it would be #onlinePR or related terms. See who is writing about it. Follow them if you find them useful.
4. Reply to people and retweet about the interesting things you learn. So as not to overwhelm people I have another tab opened in Firefox and I use TweetLater (or you can use SocialToo) to space them out a little. READ THE REST HERE = GO LOIS LANE!

the lotus and me!

Can you sit in a lotus position? Check my story in the NZ Listener.

check out this guy for some inspiration

Creative Momentum: Rodney Bell (+video)

20 May 2009

“At nineteen years of age it happened like the flick of a dime…” says Rodney Bell, who, as a result of a motorcycle accident, lost feeling and function from the “nipple-line down”. Rodney Bell is this month's Creative Momentum featured creative. He shares, with wit, humour and unguarded honesty, his diverse experience as a Maori disabled man who discovered the international world of dance.

“I used to run and play rugby and do many able-bodied things. After my disability I thought my life was over. While in rehab the focus at the spinal unit was mouth painting and blow darts. I remember thinking…. ‘well, that’s very interesting but felt deep inside there had to be something else out there’.” read more

meet my team, rugby, crusaders and the all blacks

check out my 'other' blog  re 'my team' the Crusaders.

This handsome man in Richie McCaw, captain of the Crusaders and the New Zealand 'All Blacks'

religion, atheists, bad manners and pets

From The Times

May 5, 2009

Rumours of God's return are greatly exaggerated

Religion is on the rise, religion makes you happy. It may seem bad manners for we atheists to say it, but so do pets

David Aaronovitch

On a desk in my school, long ago, some past sixth-former had written four words: “God is dead - Nietzsche”, followed by four more: “ Nietzsche is dead - God.” Even as a juvenile atheist I could see that the idea of the mad German getting his comeuppance from the unbelieved Almighty was funny.

And some readers today might similarly be enjoying the contents of a new book, God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World, written by the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, John Micklethwait, and his colleague Adrian Wooldridge. “You thought God had gone,” they seem to chant in the direction of the national grandstand where sits the secular elite, “you were wrong, you were wrong.” Read the rest of this thought provoking piece

stuck for ideas for a mothers day gift - or birthday present?

Looking for a great

mothers day gift? .

read this

Give a gift to enjoy

bees are dying around the world - can NZ stop it?

Mystery of the dying bees
Something is killing honey bees around the world. NZ has a chance to prevent it happening here; that's what Bee Week is all about. [Cosmos/Voxy]

breaking frontiers . great writing

Breaking Frontiers

by Maliha Masood

Every detail you observe, every person you meet, every fact you learn, makes it that much more difficult to generalize, to presume, to stereotype, to say anything at all. For the more you know, the more you own that knowledge and the more its contradictions confound you. So if I say that Peshawar is one of my favorite cities on the planet, I conjure its rough male-dominated bazaars with smirking blue-eyed Pathans in baggy shalwars with battered rifles slung across their shoulders. If I appreciate the rugged beauty of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier province, I think of the barren brown hills where tribal clans make their own laws and enslave their women. I follow news reports of the latest crackdowns between the Pakistani military and tribal militias in the unruly tribal beltway near the Afghan border where Osama bin Laden is allegedly hiding.

I had trespassed in terrorist country. I had flirted with danger. I was lucky to make it back in one piece. So I gather.

It’s all too easy to be discouraged when it comes to traveling alone in Pakistan as a woman. Though the country has developed an extensive network of public transport to access virtually any town on the map, it remains a system reserved primarily for men. Female travelers require a male escort for “protection” and going without an appropriate chaperone is virtually unthinkable, an open invitation to highway robbery, gang rape, and other impending disasters. The fact that I am neither a complete foreigner, nor 100% native, translated in local parlance as a pukka desi, makes matters more complicated.

india popular with travellers

Check out my earlier blog about staying in a palace in India ... in Maheshwar

India Becoming A Favorite Tourist Destination

According to the latest information released by the World Travel and Tourism Council, India's travel and tourism industry was estimated to have generated approximately $100 billion in 2008. This figure is expected to go up to almost $275.5 billion by 2018, growing at an average of 9.4 percent over the next 10 years. Moreover, according to research, travel and tourism is expected to contribute 6.1 percent to India's GDP and provide almost 40 million jobs by 2018.

As the financial capital of India, Mumbai features on every India travel itinerary. With good air along with good road and rail connectivity, the city attracts tourists from all over India and overseas.

India as a country offers exciting and diverse experiences to tourists. Each state has its own unique traditions, culture, and cuisine. Apart from this, the country has excellent beaches, backwaters, Ayurvedic health resorts, ancient monuments, world heritage sites, forts, palaces, hill stations, and wildlife.

We have all heard about the heritage palace hotels that make you feel like maharajas and maharanis, a truly luxurious living experience found only in India, and something that overseas tourists look forward to. Good hotels to suit all budgets are available all over the country. India now also offer home stays, where you stay with a family as a member of the household and enjoy their hospitality and traditional ethnic cuisine. The Indian railways now run special luxury trains, each with unique themes that cover most of the important state tourism circuits. (I found this article onBargin Travel.Com , check them out)

Monday, 04 May 2009

new zealand birds are singing for you

The bird on the right is the worlds biggest pigeon: the kereru; on the left is the pukeko - the native bird of my city Christchurch

Every morning my favourite radio station (Radio NZ National) plays the song of a different NZ bird. So, even though I live in the inner city I hear one of our birds. I love that!

Check it out. See and HEAR New Zealand birds here

free night at NZ youth hostel (yha)

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FREE NIGHT

Enjoy a night on the house at any of our YHA New Zealand Hostels when you join YHA before the end of October!

Plus reap all the everyday benefits of being a YHA member:

- Great rates at over 50 of the best hostels in the country
- Over 100 great travel and activity discounts throughout New Zealand
- Your membership is valid in 80 countries providing access to 4,200 hostels and thousands of worldwide discounts!

Visit http://www.smartmailpro.co.nz/redirect.aspx?xr99=2C24D1AA86B242328D947635112EC98F&xr66=4C7A4621559945E7AE55DC27A3F113CB for further information. Terms and conditions apply

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singapore and new zealand meet over gardens

Asia’s best landscape designer exhibited at Ellerslie, the annual international garden  festival Christchurch. New Zealand Come and check it out next year!

Multiple gold award-winning Singapore garden designer Peter Cheok recreated his Singapore Garden Festival Best of Show and Gold Award winning garden Seeking Shangri-La  a fantasy garden which was a real show stopper. It had that special wow factor - theatrical and at the same time horticulturally challenging.

Read more here