The ultimate Christmas gift?

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Straws in the winds of our time: a Detroit church service dedicated to prayers - for the auto industry; Barack Obama's suggestions for environmentally friendly light  bulbs (and not a whisper to be heard about a Nanny state). 

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Seen dining alone, but holding his head up in Wellington's Koru Club, New Zealand First Leader  Winston Peters.

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Why hasn't Al-Quaeda attacked Auckland? Because it has no public transport system, goes the post 9/11 joke. All of which became very clear last week when Mitre 10 in Onehunga exploded into flames and thick smoke. SH20, that so called expressway  from the central suburbs to the airport had to be closed. But forget about the fire - any peak time Aucklanders travel this relatively new route, it's routinely jammed.   And forget about Al-Quaeda too. We badly need a public transport system which connects the city to the airport. Without it we're a joke anyway.

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New word for those who might wander off muttering into oblivion: linguicide, the death of a language.

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 Survey after survey has found that women are better drivers than men and yet the myth of the woman driver is as strongly entrenched.

So... instead of this…