Dear Leader has finally lost her marbles. I have always thought of her as the evil genius of New Zealand politics. Now the genius has gone and she is just plain evil
She has in the last two days made a couple of very telling comments. All pretence that she is still on the planet were lost yesterday when she denied what every public opinion poll has been telling her and everyone else for moths - Labour are down the tubes big time. Three polls have come out in the last few days giving the Nats about a twenty point lead and she stands there Canute like and tells anyone who will listen (and there are fewer and fewer of those by the day) that the figures are wrong. Barking.
If that's the lost it bit, the dangerous bit is her preposterous assertion this morning that there is 'no time' to organise a referendum on the Smacking Nonsense to be held at the same time as the General Election. She is now so deluded that no porkie is too far. Who could possibly believe that crap? The general election is five months away. The Electoral Commission can't have printed the ballot papers yet as they don't know who the candidates are. Putting an extra section on a yet unprinted ballot paper would be easy peasy - after all that is just about the only thing an Electoral Commission does. No, the damned woman can't afford to have this matter hanging around like a bad smell whilst she hopelessly pursues a fourth term in power. If the petition gets the numbers (which by all reports it is going to do) she has to have a vote. But she is allowed to postpone it for a year (God knows why) and she will exercise that power for her own political purpose and nothing more. And the cost of this little indulgence to you and me? $10 million - the cost of organising a stand alone referendum. What she wants is for the smacking nonsense to go away until after the election as she remembers the mauling the issue gave Labour a year ago. This must not be allowed to happen. Her trampling on the will of the people must be kept in the forefront of everyone's minds until she is gone.
It would appear that her only motivation in life now is clinging onto power. This is to be pursued at any cost. All but the blind could see that she stopped listening to the people she is supposed to represent (what a joke - the only thing she represents is herself) ages ago but she has stopped even making a show of trying to do the right thing. The heartening thing is that people seem to be waking up to her.
Her behaviour is beginning to look scarily like that bloke in Africa. What his name? Mu something.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Compulsion
Never get a thing done because it is a good idea or because it might be a thing people want to do when you can use compulsion. This bloody government, at the fag end of their time in power, is at it again. Their track record of passing daft, poorly worded legislation to push their warped view of life is as long as it is shameful. We are told what we can put in our kids school lunch boxes. We are compelled to wear fluoro safety jackets when we put the cat out. We are now told that we will have to buy petrol with so many percent biofuel mixed in to it because that is saving the planet. The fact that it will put the cost of gas up (and it has already got a bit more expensive recently if you hadn't noticed) is over and above the fact that it makes proper cars run like a dog. It may be alright in your bloody Prius but I'm buggered if I'm going to put it in the supercharged V8. I mean you don't see Lewis Hamilton telling the spotty youth at the bowser to 'fill 'er up with the 150 octane and top it off with a pint of cooking oil' do you?
A report is issued today detailing the first year of the antismacking bollocks. The feds have 'looked into' a large number (can't remember how many - couple of hundred, maybe) and the end result is zero prosecutions. Whilst all over the country it would appear that the must have accessory for any 21st party is a bunch of thugs with baseball bats and machetes, the boys in blue are wasting their time policing a law that is not needed for no effect. Bloody Bradford has just been interviewed on the wireless and she says this 'proves the law is working as it should'. She is absolutely bat shit mad. She will defend this looney bit of legislation to the hilt whatever happens. She could not reason her way out of a paper bag (the one that should permanently sit over her head) so why should she at this late stage realise that she is just plain wrong.
In the meantime we have our latest bit of compulsion. Squiggly wiggly light bulbs. Thomas Edison patented his version of the light bulb in 1875. It has remained pretty much unchanged since then and has served us well. Having been around for such a long time it has evolved into many forms. There are different shaped ones, dimmable ones and all sorts of variations. They are cheap as chips and when they burn out you bin them and put another one in the socket. Easy. But things move on. These piggy's tails jobbies appear to be very good. They use less power and are cheap to run. All good. Put them up against Edison's model in the shops and see what the punter thinks. Well this punter did and I bought some to replace a couple of 100w globes in the recessed lights on one of the patios. I could get away with 16w the man in the shop told me. Go and vomit in your top hat Edison, I'm onto something here. Take them home and I stood on a chair without wearing a safety harness or fluoro jacket and screwed in my new purchase. Bloody thing sticks out of the bottom of the recessed socket and ends up not being recessed at all. I wait for dusk and then turn on the new wondrous bulb. It is horrible. A hideous stark white light that would look good illuminating the tripwire at Stalag Luft IV.
These bulbs may be eco friendly and cheap to run but they look absolutely disgusting - whether they are turned on or off. So here is the rub. I don't like them and I have been out and bought a couple of old fashioned 100w bizzos that give of the warm glow I want and are invisible in the ceiling when turned off. I am prepared to waste my money on the extra power for the effect and I have the choice so to do.
As of next year I will not have this choice. The damned government is going to tell me what bloody light bulbs I can buy. I may want to put a squiggly wiggly bulb in the laundry cupboard where I can't see it much and the cost savings will be worthwhile (but at a couple of dollars pre annum I doubt it) - and then again I might not. Not a good enough level of control for this mob - you will buy the light bulbs we tell you to buy.
It is as scary as it is pathetic
A report is issued today detailing the first year of the antismacking bollocks. The feds have 'looked into' a large number (can't remember how many - couple of hundred, maybe) and the end result is zero prosecutions. Whilst all over the country it would appear that the must have accessory for any 21st party is a bunch of thugs with baseball bats and machetes, the boys in blue are wasting their time policing a law that is not needed for no effect. Bloody Bradford has just been interviewed on the wireless and she says this 'proves the law is working as it should'. She is absolutely bat shit mad. She will defend this looney bit of legislation to the hilt whatever happens. She could not reason her way out of a paper bag (the one that should permanently sit over her head) so why should she at this late stage realise that she is just plain wrong.
In the meantime we have our latest bit of compulsion. Squiggly wiggly light bulbs. Thomas Edison patented his version of the light bulb in 1875. It has remained pretty much unchanged since then and has served us well. Having been around for such a long time it has evolved into many forms. There are different shaped ones, dimmable ones and all sorts of variations. They are cheap as chips and when they burn out you bin them and put another one in the socket. Easy. But things move on. These piggy's tails jobbies appear to be very good. They use less power and are cheap to run. All good. Put them up against Edison's model in the shops and see what the punter thinks. Well this punter did and I bought some to replace a couple of 100w globes in the recessed lights on one of the patios. I could get away with 16w the man in the shop told me. Go and vomit in your top hat Edison, I'm onto something here. Take them home and I stood on a chair without wearing a safety harness or fluoro jacket and screwed in my new purchase. Bloody thing sticks out of the bottom of the recessed socket and ends up not being recessed at all. I wait for dusk and then turn on the new wondrous bulb. It is horrible. A hideous stark white light that would look good illuminating the tripwire at Stalag Luft IV.
These bulbs may be eco friendly and cheap to run but they look absolutely disgusting - whether they are turned on or off. So here is the rub. I don't like them and I have been out and bought a couple of old fashioned 100w bizzos that give of the warm glow I want and are invisible in the ceiling when turned off. I am prepared to waste my money on the extra power for the effect and I have the choice so to do.
As of next year I will not have this choice. The damned government is going to tell me what bloody light bulbs I can buy. I may want to put a squiggly wiggly bulb in the laundry cupboard where I can't see it much and the cost savings will be worthwhile (but at a couple of dollars pre annum I doubt it) - and then again I might not. Not a good enough level of control for this mob - you will buy the light bulbs we tell you to buy.
It is as scary as it is pathetic
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wrong - again
If we have nothing to do of an evening most of us would not pick a bracing stroll though Manurewa as a way of passing the time. People getting shot, mugged and run over wholesale in the past few days. These ghastly events have been somewhat overshadowed in one instance by one of the three horsemen of the stupid (policy, process and procedure) where our society mandates that forms are filled out in triplicate to ensure the bad men with the shooters have left while a bloke bleeds to death. No matter, Our Fearless Leader has the answer to all our ills.
We will look into how many liquor outlets there are in South Auckland as it is all their fault. The Liquor Licensing Laws haven't been updated since 1989. Crikey, how long ago is that? New Zealand still held the Rugby World Cup so it was a very long time ago. However just because a statute hasn't been modified for a while doesn't mean it needs changing just for the sake of it. Murder, rape, burglary and the like were all frowned upon a very long time ago but we don't hear calls for a 'National murder whoever you fancy free of fear of prosecution 'cos that's the modern way day' once a month, do we? Labour have been in power for nine years, there is an election this year, we must be seen to do something and so we will look into how grog shops get their licenses. This is because research (undefined) 'shows' that violent crime is related to the density of off licenses. I would like to see the evidence (if it exists - which I strongly doubt) and would bet you a bottle of Captain Morgan that research shows no such thing. Lots of Super Cheap Liquor shops in an area of high crime is cause and effect? Maybe the shop owners naturally gravitate to low socio-economic areas where regular and heavy alcohol consumption and crime is part and parcel of the local way of life. Because that is where they are likely to make more sales and turn a better profit. It is very easy to confuse association with cause and effect. Apparently there are more grog shops per head of population in Howick and Clevedon than Manurewa so if you use Helen's stupid socialist way of thinking the streets of those suburbs should be rivers of blood. But they aren't.
How about the high rate of crime in the suburbs currently copping the flak being due to generations of welfare dependency, loss of family values, negligible education standards, understaffed police force held in no respect by residents, a weak judiciary, limp wristed feminist left wing ratbags running the country, no public floggings and leaving contraceptives out of the drinking water as a real cause?
The damned woman is as wrong today as she has been for all her misdirected life. Her ideas on life as a member of the public are hideous. As Prime Minister they are directly responsible for the underclass that has flourished under her stewardship of the country. The clock is ticking and her tenure is surely nearly at an end. I hope it is not too late for us all to claw our way back from the brink. I was deeply distressed to see that John Key has exhibited that he might not be made of stern enough stuff - he today said that National was going to support Hawkins' stupid and ineffective grog Shop Licensing Amendment Bill. I had hoped he would be better than that - but at least he is not Bloody Helen.
We will look into how many liquor outlets there are in South Auckland as it is all their fault. The Liquor Licensing Laws haven't been updated since 1989. Crikey, how long ago is that? New Zealand still held the Rugby World Cup so it was a very long time ago. However just because a statute hasn't been modified for a while doesn't mean it needs changing just for the sake of it. Murder, rape, burglary and the like were all frowned upon a very long time ago but we don't hear calls for a 'National murder whoever you fancy free of fear of prosecution 'cos that's the modern way day' once a month, do we? Labour have been in power for nine years, there is an election this year, we must be seen to do something and so we will look into how grog shops get their licenses. This is because research (undefined) 'shows' that violent crime is related to the density of off licenses. I would like to see the evidence (if it exists - which I strongly doubt) and would bet you a bottle of Captain Morgan that research shows no such thing. Lots of Super Cheap Liquor shops in an area of high crime is cause and effect? Maybe the shop owners naturally gravitate to low socio-economic areas where regular and heavy alcohol consumption and crime is part and parcel of the local way of life. Because that is where they are likely to make more sales and turn a better profit. It is very easy to confuse association with cause and effect. Apparently there are more grog shops per head of population in Howick and Clevedon than Manurewa so if you use Helen's stupid socialist way of thinking the streets of those suburbs should be rivers of blood. But they aren't.
How about the high rate of crime in the suburbs currently copping the flak being due to generations of welfare dependency, loss of family values, negligible education standards, understaffed police force held in no respect by residents, a weak judiciary, limp wristed feminist left wing ratbags running the country, no public floggings and leaving contraceptives out of the drinking water as a real cause?
The damned woman is as wrong today as she has been for all her misdirected life. Her ideas on life as a member of the public are hideous. As Prime Minister they are directly responsible for the underclass that has flourished under her stewardship of the country. The clock is ticking and her tenure is surely nearly at an end. I hope it is not too late for us all to claw our way back from the brink. I was deeply distressed to see that John Key has exhibited that he might not be made of stern enough stuff - he today said that National was going to support Hawkins' stupid and ineffective grog Shop Licensing Amendment Bill. I had hoped he would be better than that - but at least he is not Bloody Helen.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sledgehammers, walnuts, certainty and pragmatism
Several thoughts running around what passes as a brain at the moment and I am not entirely sure I can pull them coherently together.
The concept of certainty has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was first smitten by mathematics (which was well before gamefishing) my favourite number has been zero and all the wondrous things it can do. Infinity is its natural bedfellow and is similarly intangible and intriguing. So it is with certainty. There is nothing that lives that can do anything with absolute certainty and that is just the way it should be. If we had certainty in life (I know about the death and taxes nonsense - and taxes is stretching the point in absolute terms) many of the things that make life just that, life, as opposed to an existence would disappear. Trust for instance would not be required and just think how much less rich life would be if that were removed.
No, we have to move through life accepting that the vast majority of things are not certain. Some of this we seem to be able to get our heads around quite easily. I can think of no one who buys a Lotto ticket entertaining the thought that he has certainly bought the winning ticket. But still you hand over your $13 because although you are not certain of winning it is possible that you will. The chances of winning are exceedingly low but the result of winning is very good (loads of dosh) and the result of losing is pretty inconsequential - well to most people. If you are spending $13 on Lotto as opposed to the groceries you have another sort of issue. If you buy a Lotto ticket you are not certain to win neither are you certain to lose. So if we accept that we don't have 0% chance or 100% chance of something happening we are making some progress as to how we have to go through life.
Life is not a box of chocolates, life is a repeated trip to the TAB. Every conscious decision you make is made by weighing up the odds. You try and work out what the chances are of an outcome of an action coming to pass and factor in the benefits and deficits of those outcomes and make your choice. Impossible. Well tough; you have to 'cos that's the way it is. But you do have some help. And your biggest help is the normal distribution curve. This is right up there in the theoretical stakes with the number zero. Everything that naturally happens to anything that lives from a blade of grass to me or you or the lady at number 27 occurs somewhere along this curve. I am below average height. There will be an equal number of people in a suitably large cohort who are an equal amount above average height. If I walk down the road during a thunderstorm the number of times I do it before being struck by lightning is at a point along the normal distribution curve for that activity. I find out where that point is and I take a punt and go for a stroll - or not. My choice. We live under this magical bell shaped umbrella.
What we do not live under is a square wave. You do something and this other thing will definitely and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever happen. No sir it won't - because it can't. This is where all these daft social engineering laws have their genesis of being so stupid. Sure they are embellished and massaged by a bunch of control freaks but the germ of the problem is trying to put certainty where none can exist. If you stand on a box a metre off the ground to do some work and fall off it is very unlikely that you will come to any permanent harm. But you might. Therefore everyone who stands on said box has to wear a safety harness. A sledgehammer, a walnut, a lack of understanding of the concepts we are talking about and pragmatism is down the river. If the box is on the edge of a cliff a sensible bloke would call for his safety harness because in the unlikely event of him falling off the box the consequences are now that he will end up not on a box but in one. Now that is the pragmatic solution to the problem. But to get everyone standing on boxes looking like mountaineers? I don't think so.
But that is the way modern society seems to want to go and The People's Republic is right in the van of the movement. Banning handheld cellphones whilst driving is the latest example. How many people are killed on New Zealand's roads per annum where use of a cell phone might be a contributing factor? I worded that very carefully. The media would say 'How many people are killed each year on New Zealand's roads by cellphones?' You can be killed on the road by a phone if you inhale it or are beaten to death with it but saying you died in a car crash whilst using a 'phone is the fault of the telecommunications device is several logical steps to far. So back to the question. How many? 500? 100? 50? 20? Nope, the answer is 5. How many people use phones when driving? I don't know but instances per annum is surely in the millions. So what are the chances of being killed whilst using a cellphone in a car? Without doing any maths the answer is obviously very, very low. But we are to have a law compelling us all not to do it - at all, ever. Handsfree jobbies are OK though. Good? Well no. There is absolutely no evidence (bloody inconvenient stuff is evidence, just ask Al Gore) that using a Bluetooth headset is any safer than holding the phone up to your ear. So ban those as well then. Will never happen because a) the great unwashed won't stand for it and b) it would be totally unpoliceable.
As would be banning the other distractions to driving - taking the wrapper off a pie, arguing with the kids, listening to Radio Sport, picking your nose, looking at attractive young ladies walking down the street, reading government sponsored billboards telling you that speed kills etc. etc. I think driving with one hand and holding a phone to my lughole is daft and I don't do it - much. I have a handsfree bizzo but I am under no illusion that when I am using it I am driving as well as when I am listening to Radio Sport. I can't even text when lying on a chaise longue let alone when driving a car and so I don't do that. If five people a year got to the TAB and place a fat wad of cash on using a phone whilst driving, lose and die, well tough. If they run into a school crossing well that is really, really tough but those kids probably had a greater chance of being struck by lightning.
Driving whilst using a phone is probably (but not certainly) a bad idea. But we don't need new largely unenforceable legislation to ban it. It'll make a lot of money though.
The concept of certainty has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was first smitten by mathematics (which was well before gamefishing) my favourite number has been zero and all the wondrous things it can do. Infinity is its natural bedfellow and is similarly intangible and intriguing. So it is with certainty. There is nothing that lives that can do anything with absolute certainty and that is just the way it should be. If we had certainty in life (I know about the death and taxes nonsense - and taxes is stretching the point in absolute terms) many of the things that make life just that, life, as opposed to an existence would disappear. Trust for instance would not be required and just think how much less rich life would be if that were removed.
No, we have to move through life accepting that the vast majority of things are not certain. Some of this we seem to be able to get our heads around quite easily. I can think of no one who buys a Lotto ticket entertaining the thought that he has certainly bought the winning ticket. But still you hand over your $13 because although you are not certain of winning it is possible that you will. The chances of winning are exceedingly low but the result of winning is very good (loads of dosh) and the result of losing is pretty inconsequential - well to most people. If you are spending $13 on Lotto as opposed to the groceries you have another sort of issue. If you buy a Lotto ticket you are not certain to win neither are you certain to lose. So if we accept that we don't have 0% chance or 100% chance of something happening we are making some progress as to how we have to go through life.
Life is not a box of chocolates, life is a repeated trip to the TAB. Every conscious decision you make is made by weighing up the odds. You try and work out what the chances are of an outcome of an action coming to pass and factor in the benefits and deficits of those outcomes and make your choice. Impossible. Well tough; you have to 'cos that's the way it is. But you do have some help. And your biggest help is the normal distribution curve. This is right up there in the theoretical stakes with the number zero. Everything that naturally happens to anything that lives from a blade of grass to me or you or the lady at number 27 occurs somewhere along this curve. I am below average height. There will be an equal number of people in a suitably large cohort who are an equal amount above average height. If I walk down the road during a thunderstorm the number of times I do it before being struck by lightning is at a point along the normal distribution curve for that activity. I find out where that point is and I take a punt and go for a stroll - or not. My choice. We live under this magical bell shaped umbrella.
What we do not live under is a square wave. You do something and this other thing will definitely and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever happen. No sir it won't - because it can't. This is where all these daft social engineering laws have their genesis of being so stupid. Sure they are embellished and massaged by a bunch of control freaks but the germ of the problem is trying to put certainty where none can exist. If you stand on a box a metre off the ground to do some work and fall off it is very unlikely that you will come to any permanent harm. But you might. Therefore everyone who stands on said box has to wear a safety harness. A sledgehammer, a walnut, a lack of understanding of the concepts we are talking about and pragmatism is down the river. If the box is on the edge of a cliff a sensible bloke would call for his safety harness because in the unlikely event of him falling off the box the consequences are now that he will end up not on a box but in one. Now that is the pragmatic solution to the problem. But to get everyone standing on boxes looking like mountaineers? I don't think so.
But that is the way modern society seems to want to go and The People's Republic is right in the van of the movement. Banning handheld cellphones whilst driving is the latest example. How many people are killed on New Zealand's roads per annum where use of a cell phone might be a contributing factor? I worded that very carefully. The media would say 'How many people are killed each year on New Zealand's roads by cellphones?' You can be killed on the road by a phone if you inhale it or are beaten to death with it but saying you died in a car crash whilst using a 'phone is the fault of the telecommunications device is several logical steps to far. So back to the question. How many? 500? 100? 50? 20? Nope, the answer is 5. How many people use phones when driving? I don't know but instances per annum is surely in the millions. So what are the chances of being killed whilst using a cellphone in a car? Without doing any maths the answer is obviously very, very low. But we are to have a law compelling us all not to do it - at all, ever. Handsfree jobbies are OK though. Good? Well no. There is absolutely no evidence (bloody inconvenient stuff is evidence, just ask Al Gore) that using a Bluetooth headset is any safer than holding the phone up to your ear. So ban those as well then. Will never happen because a) the great unwashed won't stand for it and b) it would be totally unpoliceable.
As would be banning the other distractions to driving - taking the wrapper off a pie, arguing with the kids, listening to Radio Sport, picking your nose, looking at attractive young ladies walking down the street, reading government sponsored billboards telling you that speed kills etc. etc. I think driving with one hand and holding a phone to my lughole is daft and I don't do it - much. I have a handsfree bizzo but I am under no illusion that when I am using it I am driving as well as when I am listening to Radio Sport. I can't even text when lying on a chaise longue let alone when driving a car and so I don't do that. If five people a year got to the TAB and place a fat wad of cash on using a phone whilst driving, lose and die, well tough. If they run into a school crossing well that is really, really tough but those kids probably had a greater chance of being struck by lightning.
Driving whilst using a phone is probably (but not certainly) a bad idea. But we don't need new largely unenforceable legislation to ban it. It'll make a lot of money though.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Another must have item
In response to my little tale of power woes at the weekend my good friend The Dead Ant added a link to the real solution to my problems.
I need one of these.
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
I need one of these.
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
I'm off to found how much they cost - New Zealand would be just the place to pioneer bijoux home nuclear power don't you think?
Monday, June 9, 2008
A glimpse of the future - and it ain't pretty
We are not talking 2050 and Jetsons stuff here but the next couple of months in the Peoples Luddite Republic. By complete coincidence, in the early hours of yesterday morning, I was rudely made aware of issues to which I referred last week.
Power. To be more specific electrical power. At some time between 0200 and 0500 yesterday I was thrust into a world without any. I awoke from my slumbers preparing for a round of golf after a refreshing cup of tea to find that our property had no power. None, not an electron was moving anywhere. Check the circuit breakers in the house (two sets) - no problem. Mumbling and grumbling I set off up the drive carrying a candle lit lantern (I am not joking - I felt like a bloke out of Pickwick Papers) to check the main breakers up by the gate in the tractor shed. These also looked tickety boo. No choice but to get on the blower to Genesis. Now when I moved whare a few months back one of the bonus attractions of the new location was the lack of cell phone reception. At 0530 on a Sunday morning with no power in the house this advantage seems to evaporate. Anyway we get through after standing in the cell phone reception 'special place' (all hunched up right in the far corner of the master bedroom). Is the rest of the road all lit up? One of the advantages of this road is that you cannot see the rest of the road. We agree to skip this bit. Have you checked the circuit breakers? Yes. Have you paid your bills? Rude sod. OK, the Genesis man will be round in '4-6' hours. Great.
Time to assess what I can actually do on my property when I have no electrical power. Answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. I can't get water out of a tap, I can't use the phone, the freezers and fridges start warming up, there is no light (obviously) and no gas as there is a safety cut off on the gas hob that cuts in when the electric cuts out. The garage doors have to be lifted up by hand and to get off the property the electric gates have to be disconnected from the rams. I can't even use the laptops to get on the net as the modem and wireless router have no power. What to do while awaiting the Genesis men? Go and play golf.
Return four hours later and find to my surprise that all is sorted - on a Sunday morning don't forget. It turns out that this little episode is not David Parker's fault. What an enormous disappointment. It would appear that the main switch from the road transformer to the meter had burnt out. And I mean seriously burnt out - like destroyed. Moisture is the best bet. Quite how I don't really understand as the switch box is meant to be in the box where it is and looks to be perfectly sound. No matter, by the time I returned from a blistering two over handicap round, our electrician had replaced offending switch and the Genesis man was up the power pole kitted out in all his OSH mandated kit (you would have thought he was off to the North Face of the Eiger) replacing the 'main fuses'. Have you seen these babies - about the size of Coke cans and rated at a squillion amps - all for me. Flick the switch and we are all hunky dory again.
So six hours after finding the fault it is all sorted (including getting some replacement parts) on a Sunday morning. Genesis were excellent and our electrician better (but I knew that anyway - that's why we use him).
Now the weirdy green beards would say this little tale is evidence of all that is wrong with how I live my life. It shows what can happen when I position myself to be so dependent on twenty first century technology. It shows how much better off I would be living in a cave and cooking my bison over an open fire. Well all I can say to them is bollocks.
I live in the twenty first century and not the eighteenth. The whole point of man's evolution is so I can live a techno life and marvel at aircraft carriers. I see that the Government is today launching the 'Save Power' campaign to cover up for their lack of planning in under supplying the country with electricity generating capacity. I am not going to save one skerrick of electricity - I will use as much as I want (which will exceed the 'as much as I need' figure) and then pay for it.
There has not been an increase in electricity generating capacity in this country since 1990. That is bloody scandalous. I am realistic enough to realise I am not going to get a nuclear power station installed in Albany by the end of the week. However there will be an emergency generator in my tractor shed in the same time frame. The only question I need to address is whether to go with petrol or diesel.
Power. To be more specific electrical power. At some time between 0200 and 0500 yesterday I was thrust into a world without any. I awoke from my slumbers preparing for a round of golf after a refreshing cup of tea to find that our property had no power. None, not an electron was moving anywhere. Check the circuit breakers in the house (two sets) - no problem. Mumbling and grumbling I set off up the drive carrying a candle lit lantern (I am not joking - I felt like a bloke out of Pickwick Papers) to check the main breakers up by the gate in the tractor shed. These also looked tickety boo. No choice but to get on the blower to Genesis. Now when I moved whare a few months back one of the bonus attractions of the new location was the lack of cell phone reception. At 0530 on a Sunday morning with no power in the house this advantage seems to evaporate. Anyway we get through after standing in the cell phone reception 'special place' (all hunched up right in the far corner of the master bedroom). Is the rest of the road all lit up? One of the advantages of this road is that you cannot see the rest of the road. We agree to skip this bit. Have you checked the circuit breakers? Yes. Have you paid your bills? Rude sod. OK, the Genesis man will be round in '4-6' hours. Great.
Time to assess what I can actually do on my property when I have no electrical power. Answer? Nothing. Nothing at all. I can't get water out of a tap, I can't use the phone, the freezers and fridges start warming up, there is no light (obviously) and no gas as there is a safety cut off on the gas hob that cuts in when the electric cuts out. The garage doors have to be lifted up by hand and to get off the property the electric gates have to be disconnected from the rams. I can't even use the laptops to get on the net as the modem and wireless router have no power. What to do while awaiting the Genesis men? Go and play golf.
Return four hours later and find to my surprise that all is sorted - on a Sunday morning don't forget. It turns out that this little episode is not David Parker's fault. What an enormous disappointment. It would appear that the main switch from the road transformer to the meter had burnt out. And I mean seriously burnt out - like destroyed. Moisture is the best bet. Quite how I don't really understand as the switch box is meant to be in the box where it is and looks to be perfectly sound. No matter, by the time I returned from a blistering two over handicap round, our electrician had replaced offending switch and the Genesis man was up the power pole kitted out in all his OSH mandated kit (you would have thought he was off to the North Face of the Eiger) replacing the 'main fuses'. Have you seen these babies - about the size of Coke cans and rated at a squillion amps - all for me. Flick the switch and we are all hunky dory again.
So six hours after finding the fault it is all sorted (including getting some replacement parts) on a Sunday morning. Genesis were excellent and our electrician better (but I knew that anyway - that's why we use him).
Now the weirdy green beards would say this little tale is evidence of all that is wrong with how I live my life. It shows what can happen when I position myself to be so dependent on twenty first century technology. It shows how much better off I would be living in a cave and cooking my bison over an open fire. Well all I can say to them is bollocks.
I live in the twenty first century and not the eighteenth. The whole point of man's evolution is so I can live a techno life and marvel at aircraft carriers. I see that the Government is today launching the 'Save Power' campaign to cover up for their lack of planning in under supplying the country with electricity generating capacity. I am not going to save one skerrick of electricity - I will use as much as I want (which will exceed the 'as much as I need' figure) and then pay for it.
There has not been an increase in electricity generating capacity in this country since 1990. That is bloody scandalous. I am realistic enough to realise I am not going to get a nuclear power station installed in Albany by the end of the week. However there will be an emergency generator in my tractor shed in the same time frame. The only question I need to address is whether to go with petrol or diesel.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
This is how you do it
If you thought our mob in Wellington were good at the political spin game then you ain't seen nothing yet.
Thanks to Mr Whaleoil of www.whaleoil.co.nz for the clip. I make no pretence that I have done anything other than copy this little gem directly from the marine mammal's site. And it was emailed to him so I have no idea as to its veracity - who cares, its a little ripper even if it isn't true.
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogical researcher, discovered that Hillary Clinton’s great-great uncle, Remus Rodham, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.
Thanks to Mr Whaleoil of www.whaleoil.co.nz for the clip. I make no pretence that I have done anything other than copy this little gem directly from the marine mammal's site. And it was emailed to him so I have no idea as to its veracity - who cares, its a little ripper even if it isn't true.
Judy Wallman, a professional genealogical researcher, discovered that Hillary Clinton’s great-great uncle, Remus Rodham, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows. On the back of the picture is this inscription: ‘Remus Rodham; horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1883, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted! , and hanged in 1889.’
Judy e-mailed Hillary Clinton for comments. Hillary’s staff sent back the following biographical sketch:
’Remus Rodham was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility, finally taking leave in 1887 to resume his dealings with the railroad. Subsequently, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor, when the platform on which he was standing collapsed.’
Fabulous. I wish I had such an inventive brain with the English language.
Fabulous. I wish I had such an inventive brain with the English language.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
This isn't right
I was not in the People's Republic when it was decided to do away with the First Past the Post electoral system. I was not privy to the discussions that resulted in the form of MMP that we now have. Whatever was proposed that eventually got the nod surely was not what we have ended up with. No one in their right mind could have consciously and with malice aforethought wanted MMP New Zealand style circa 2008 - surely. Or maybe the malice bit belies that.
The Greens are, surprise surprise, at the bottom of the latest total travesty. They are party made up entirely of list MPs - a concept that has me shaking my head in disbelief for starters. They have never had a properly elected MP (and are never likely to) and if they fail to reach the magic and aribitrary 5% threshold in a couple of months time they will be completely wiped out as a parliamentary party - couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blokes. All that notwithstanding we have had to put up with them for the past years being the tail that has wagged the dog of a country. How far do you think the anti smacking nonsense would have got without MMP?
This bunch of unelected toads was right on Helen's hip in getting the draconian Electoral Finance Act passed. They stood there on the moral high ground of their own imaginations and told us how any electoral process must be fair and transparent and how a vital plank of democracy must not be besmirched by big secret money being paid to 'other parties'. Read National for that as all the cranks who support the Commies wouldn't have two farthings to rub together.
So it is these paragons of virtue who are blatantly fiddling around with the list so that the Ginga Leader can get into Parliament for a couple of months. For what? So he can have a higher profile and I would assume rort some election expenses off me as he is now an MP and the EFA has a subsection c paragraph ii which says he can. Nandor Ropehead wants to stand down (lie down in a chemically altered state more like) and his place has to be taken by the next on the list. We are already stretching the boundaries of the phrase 'has to' here. Mr Next on the List is not Ginga and says he wants to go to Bellamys and Ginga can sod off. What to do? The Green heavies are sent round to Mr Next on the List's whare with the socks full of lentils and wind farm powered bright lights, Mr NotL changes his mind and suddenly it is alright for Ginga to go to Wellington. Well no it's not. If all the above was not bad enough the damned man wasn't even on the list that the stupid people who wasted their vote on the Greens voted for in 2005. All the Greens are doing is putting their own interests in front of any other consideration - including the pretence of a democracy that we have in The People's Republic.
This is a travesty of governance and should be seen as such and no more.
The Greens are, surprise surprise, at the bottom of the latest total travesty. They are party made up entirely of list MPs - a concept that has me shaking my head in disbelief for starters. They have never had a properly elected MP (and are never likely to) and if they fail to reach the magic and aribitrary 5% threshold in a couple of months time they will be completely wiped out as a parliamentary party - couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blokes. All that notwithstanding we have had to put up with them for the past years being the tail that has wagged the dog of a country. How far do you think the anti smacking nonsense would have got without MMP?
This bunch of unelected toads was right on Helen's hip in getting the draconian Electoral Finance Act passed. They stood there on the moral high ground of their own imaginations and told us how any electoral process must be fair and transparent and how a vital plank of democracy must not be besmirched by big secret money being paid to 'other parties'. Read National for that as all the cranks who support the Commies wouldn't have two farthings to rub together.
So it is these paragons of virtue who are blatantly fiddling around with the list so that the Ginga Leader can get into Parliament for a couple of months. For what? So he can have a higher profile and I would assume rort some election expenses off me as he is now an MP and the EFA has a subsection c paragraph ii which says he can. Nandor Ropehead wants to stand down (lie down in a chemically altered state more like) and his place has to be taken by the next on the list. We are already stretching the boundaries of the phrase 'has to' here. Mr Next on the List is not Ginga and says he wants to go to Bellamys and Ginga can sod off. What to do? The Green heavies are sent round to Mr Next on the List's whare with the socks full of lentils and wind farm powered bright lights, Mr NotL changes his mind and suddenly it is alright for Ginga to go to Wellington. Well no it's not. If all the above was not bad enough the damned man wasn't even on the list that the stupid people who wasted their vote on the Greens voted for in 2005. All the Greens are doing is putting their own interests in front of any other consideration - including the pretence of a democracy that we have in The People's Republic.
This is a travesty of governance and should be seen as such and no more.
Friday, May 30, 2008
End of May - must be power cut time
I love electricity. I cannot imagine life without it it and I want it in bulk quantities. Things have progressed a bit since Mr. Volta was making frogs legs twitch with piles of metal disks and felt immersed in lemon juice. In those days there were not that many people on the planet and horse power was measured by counting the tails. People didn't need electricity or even know they wanted it. Cooking was done over open fires. Home heating was accomplished in much the same way - or you just put on another woolly. There wasn't any aluminium so you didn't need smelters to make it.
No, we have moved on. The population is increasing and we all need electricity and lots of it. Except apparently in New Zealand. I think the wallies in Wellington realise that the population is increasing, I mean they even run a census that periodically tells them that there are more people living here. But what they are unable to accept is that this increasing number of people want to live in the twenty first century and not be time warped in the past. We now need sodding great fridges in our houses because putting a bit of wet muslin over the meatsafe just doesn't cut it anymore. Heat pumps are here to stay and putting another log on the fire in winter and opening the window in summer doesn't make it in a lot of people's books. But the idiots won't even get their head around that as they won't let you put another log on the fire because it is wrecking the planet. And I'm not going down that well trodden track again except to say 'Bollocks'. There isn't a law against opening windows but lets not give them ideas.
This country needs to produce more electricity and lots of it. But what do we get? Winter is just around the corner, the hydro lakes are low (as if we weren't aware of that months ago) so we must all start saving electricity. Don't leave the TVs on standby, walk upstairs and don't use the lift, take bulbs out of their sockets so you can't turn them on. Same old crap we had last year and the year before and the one before that and before that......... Sod off. I want to use as much bloody electricity as I can afford to pay for and I want truckloads of it. I will work harder so I have more money and I will then buy more and it will be there when I want it. That is what I want, nay expect, from living in a so called developed country in the twenty first century. Electricity prices have gone through the roof and I don't care about that so much as I care about being told that I can't buy as much as I want at a price I chose to pay.
Why are we in this parlous state? Because central government can't or won't plan for infrastructure to keep up with an increasing population that needs to live in a technology dependent world. We are not allowed nuclear power stations, they won't build any more carbon fueled power stations (banned them, they have) and we can't have any more hydro dams because the snails and godwits won't stand for it. People don't like stupid windmills because they cause visual pollution (give me strength) and are noisy. Been to a Formula One motor race? Now that's noisy. And try telling Rio Tinto that they are going to have to run Tiwai on wind power - they'll be off to China before you can say carbon credit.
All the sensible and proven ways of making the electrons go round in bulk numbers have been rejected by the dements that run this country and instead what are they seriously considering? A tidal power station submerged in the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour. Like there are tons of those powering major cities around the world. Technology with a long and proven track record for reliability and efficiency - not. DoC are even filing protests against the Kaipara fairy story to ensure the RMA hearing goes on for longer than the usual twenty seven years.
By which time we'll be back to cooking on open fires and the only radios around will be those clockwork bizzos they send to Africa.
Unless someone has the cahunas to stand up and unilaterally declare (not have committees involving all interested stakeholders and native trees) that we are going to build how ever many power stations we now need plus fifty percent powered by whatever is proven to be the most efficient means currently available (be that coal, oil, nuclear fission or fusion, Browns Gas, goats foreskins - I really don't care) we are doomed to slip further and further back into the preceding centuries at an exponentially increasing speed.
I don't think even Macs can run on fresh air.
No, we have moved on. The population is increasing and we all need electricity and lots of it. Except apparently in New Zealand. I think the wallies in Wellington realise that the population is increasing, I mean they even run a census that periodically tells them that there are more people living here. But what they are unable to accept is that this increasing number of people want to live in the twenty first century and not be time warped in the past. We now need sodding great fridges in our houses because putting a bit of wet muslin over the meatsafe just doesn't cut it anymore. Heat pumps are here to stay and putting another log on the fire in winter and opening the window in summer doesn't make it in a lot of people's books. But the idiots won't even get their head around that as they won't let you put another log on the fire because it is wrecking the planet. And I'm not going down that well trodden track again except to say 'Bollocks'. There isn't a law against opening windows but lets not give them ideas.
This country needs to produce more electricity and lots of it. But what do we get? Winter is just around the corner, the hydro lakes are low (as if we weren't aware of that months ago) so we must all start saving electricity. Don't leave the TVs on standby, walk upstairs and don't use the lift, take bulbs out of their sockets so you can't turn them on. Same old crap we had last year and the year before and the one before that and before that......... Sod off. I want to use as much bloody electricity as I can afford to pay for and I want truckloads of it. I will work harder so I have more money and I will then buy more and it will be there when I want it. That is what I want, nay expect, from living in a so called developed country in the twenty first century. Electricity prices have gone through the roof and I don't care about that so much as I care about being told that I can't buy as much as I want at a price I chose to pay.
Why are we in this parlous state? Because central government can't or won't plan for infrastructure to keep up with an increasing population that needs to live in a technology dependent world. We are not allowed nuclear power stations, they won't build any more carbon fueled power stations (banned them, they have) and we can't have any more hydro dams because the snails and godwits won't stand for it. People don't like stupid windmills because they cause visual pollution (give me strength) and are noisy. Been to a Formula One motor race? Now that's noisy. And try telling Rio Tinto that they are going to have to run Tiwai on wind power - they'll be off to China before you can say carbon credit.
All the sensible and proven ways of making the electrons go round in bulk numbers have been rejected by the dements that run this country and instead what are they seriously considering? A tidal power station submerged in the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour. Like there are tons of those powering major cities around the world. Technology with a long and proven track record for reliability and efficiency - not. DoC are even filing protests against the Kaipara fairy story to ensure the RMA hearing goes on for longer than the usual twenty seven years.
By which time we'll be back to cooking on open fires and the only radios around will be those clockwork bizzos they send to Africa.
Unless someone has the cahunas to stand up and unilaterally declare (not have committees involving all interested stakeholders and native trees) that we are going to build how ever many power stations we now need plus fifty percent powered by whatever is proven to be the most efficient means currently available (be that coal, oil, nuclear fission or fusion, Browns Gas, goats foreskins - I really don't care) we are doomed to slip further and further back into the preceding centuries at an exponentially increasing speed.
I don't think even Macs can run on fresh air.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Midway
Hopelessly behind time. All good intentions of keeping a daily log of the recent trip long ago went out the window - I've been back four days and haven't said a thing.
The reason for the trip as per the front cover was the annual conference I've been attanding for nearly twenty years now - generally make about two years out of three. The incentive this year was the USS Midway. When I heard the conference was to be held in San Diego the pull of an aircraft carrier was felt right across the Pacific. The Hotel was chosen for its proximity to the ship as opposed to the conference centre.
So wag the cerebral pursuit last Monday afternoon to stroll along to the Midway.
As we walked towards it I was initially a bit disappointed - it didn't look big enough. Wrong. As you get closer the awful truth dawns upon you - it is absolutely massive, huge, humungous. An afternoon strolling all over this peak of man's engineering expertise sets you back $17 and is the best value tourist dollar I've ever spent. This behemoth is extreme in every way. All the numbers are off the dial. 296m long, a beam of 34m rising to 72m in the middle of the flight deck. Displacement 74,000 tons, crew of 4,100 and so it goes on. 200,000 shaft horse power delivered through four shafts. And all this was built in eighteen months - astonishing. Maximum shaft rpm was 205 which propelled the 74,000 tons at thirty three knots. How do you do that? Having prop blades the size of a tennis courts is probably up there somewhere. At decommissioning the flight deck had an area of 4.2 acres - which means I couldn't fit three on my property. I could have two though.
This shot is taken up by the catapults - just look how far away the island is. The planes on the ship now are a selection of what has been on the carrier over the years and are not representative of any moment in time. Fancy seeing this coming straight at you - a F14 Tomcat
All the grunt is below decks, engine rooms, engineering departments, armaments etc. All the missiles and bombs were actually assembled on board and this happened on the mess deck. SO you could be tucking into your brekker with a bloke next to you fitting the fins on a missile - bizarre. But the thinking goes on in the island.
The flight control is aft (the windows that look like, well a flight control centre) and the bridge is out of sight in this shot.
Helming from the flybridge of a Carolina Classic 28 is going to seem a bit wimpy after I've had this helm view. Just check out how small the people on the flight deck look and how far away the bow is - and we are only half way down the ship here. The Midway was decommissioned in the late nineties and the US Navy has since got rid of paper charts but this ship is exhibited as it was used operationally. The navigation seems positively primitive. A chart with a course plotted into Yokosuka (the ship's home base for the latter part of its life) was laid out on one of the chart tables. It had cocked hats on it that were about a half mile across and this about four miles off shore. I'm not sure I'd like to drive something this big with that degree of inaccuracy
I had long thought that man was put on this planet to build aircraft carriers as evidence that he had reached the absolute pinnacle of his technological mastery of his world. I now know this to be true. They have everything. Self contained (the last piece of this particular puzzle is, of course, nuclear power), big, aggressive and carrying enough firepower to take your head off in all sorts of inventive ways at any point on the planet.
I love them and I want one.
The reason for the trip as per the front cover was the annual conference I've been attanding for nearly twenty years now - generally make about two years out of three. The incentive this year was the USS Midway. When I heard the conference was to be held in San Diego the pull of an aircraft carrier was felt right across the Pacific. The Hotel was chosen for its proximity to the ship as opposed to the conference centre.
So wag the cerebral pursuit last Monday afternoon to stroll along to the Midway.
As we walked towards it I was initially a bit disappointed - it didn't look big enough. Wrong. As you get closer the awful truth dawns upon you - it is absolutely massive, huge, humungous. An afternoon strolling all over this peak of man's engineering expertise sets you back $17 and is the best value tourist dollar I've ever spent. This behemoth is extreme in every way. All the numbers are off the dial. 296m long, a beam of 34m rising to 72m in the middle of the flight deck. Displacement 74,000 tons, crew of 4,100 and so it goes on. 200,000 shaft horse power delivered through four shafts. And all this was built in eighteen months - astonishing. Maximum shaft rpm was 205 which propelled the 74,000 tons at thirty three knots. How do you do that? Having prop blades the size of a tennis courts is probably up there somewhere. At decommissioning the flight deck had an area of 4.2 acres - which means I couldn't fit three on my property. I could have two though.
This shot is taken up by the catapults - just look how far away the island is. The planes on the ship now are a selection of what has been on the carrier over the years and are not representative of any moment in time. Fancy seeing this coming straight at you - a F14 Tomcat
All the grunt is below decks, engine rooms, engineering departments, armaments etc. All the missiles and bombs were actually assembled on board and this happened on the mess deck. SO you could be tucking into your brekker with a bloke next to you fitting the fins on a missile - bizarre. But the thinking goes on in the island.
The flight control is aft (the windows that look like, well a flight control centre) and the bridge is out of sight in this shot.
Helming from the flybridge of a Carolina Classic 28 is going to seem a bit wimpy after I've had this helm view. Just check out how small the people on the flight deck look and how far away the bow is - and we are only half way down the ship here. The Midway was decommissioned in the late nineties and the US Navy has since got rid of paper charts but this ship is exhibited as it was used operationally. The navigation seems positively primitive. A chart with a course plotted into Yokosuka (the ship's home base for the latter part of its life) was laid out on one of the chart tables. It had cocked hats on it that were about a half mile across and this about four miles off shore. I'm not sure I'd like to drive something this big with that degree of inaccuracy
I had long thought that man was put on this planet to build aircraft carriers as evidence that he had reached the absolute pinnacle of his technological mastery of his world. I now know this to be true. They have everything. Self contained (the last piece of this particular puzzle is, of course, nuclear power), big, aggressive and carrying enough firepower to take your head off in all sorts of inventive ways at any point on the planet.
I love them and I want one.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Pull up the sumo wrestler
In the final 36hours of the trip now and am quite looking forward to getting back to the real world i.e. the looney bin that is The People’s Republic. Despite the fact we have a Navy made up of a RORO and a couple of popgun carrying frigates that aren’t allowed to fired anything but a blanket at a refugee I would not live in the States if you paid me. A bit of catching up to do on this year’s impressions of the land of the free.
Advertising. I finished my first trip book (I have a back up for the return journey) a few minutes into the SFA-SAN leg of the trip. If you want a good, if somewhat harrowing, read I can highly recommend the Eric Clapton autobiography. He was born and grew up only a few miles from the locale of my youth which makes that part of the story all the more real. I also used to go to Bentalls in Kingston for my records, I too went to Eel Pie Island of a Saturday night. Our paths mercifully diverted from there and I wouldn’t have had his life from the Yardbirds onwards for all the tea in China. He would appear to have come out of the other side in the end but, hellfire, what a ride. Anyway I digress. With Eric finished what was I to amuse myself with for the short flight over southern California. SkyMall Magazine was the only option. This is so good I took up their very generous offer and took it off the plane with me so I could wonder at the many splendorous loads of crap that could be mine for just three easy payments of $19.95. I have dipped into this treasure trove of rubbish on several occasions over the last couple of days my perusals only being interrupted to glance up at the hotel TV’s exhortations to send $9.99 for a video on ‘Crunchless Abs’.
The publishers of Skymall and the makers of the TV ads are doing this to make money are presumably succeeding. TV ads and giveaway magazines are not cheap so how do you make coin peddling the following selection?
The Personal Between the Sheets Bed Fan. This bit of kit creates a ‘cool personalised microclimate between the sheets’ allowing you to ’regulate your temperature as you sleep without disturbing your partner’ This heap of junk turns your side of the bed into a hovercraft by blowing air between the sheets and you are only asked to part with $79.95 for the chance to ruin a good night’s sleep.
On the same page is the Pet Staircase. ‘Sturdy lightweight pet stairs to help pets climb to furniture otherwise difficult for them to reach. Designed for pets up to 100lbs, especially older animals or those suffering from joint problems, our stairs have removable shearling covers (what the hell is a shearling – a shearwater I know) that are soft on paws and made of 100% machine washable polyester (a severe disadvantage in my book). This garbage comes in four sizes ranging from the three step at $79.95 to the six step at $159.95 if you want to aid Rover kicking the bucket by jumping off a tall building.
Not interested? How about ‘Basho the Sumo Wrestler Glass topped table’ This is a sculpture of a sumo wrestler bending over with a sheet of glass attached to his back that is to be used as an occasional table. A snip at $225. Who in the name of Hades would actually want one of these? They are hideous, impractical and expensive – a sure fire recipe for commercial disaster.
And so it goes on – perhaps more examples in days to come. I really cannot believe that America became a global financial titan by flogging coffee tables that resemble a sumo wrestler.
Advertising. I finished my first trip book (I have a back up for the return journey) a few minutes into the SFA-SAN leg of the trip. If you want a good, if somewhat harrowing, read I can highly recommend the Eric Clapton autobiography. He was born and grew up only a few miles from the locale of my youth which makes that part of the story all the more real. I also used to go to Bentalls in Kingston for my records, I too went to Eel Pie Island of a Saturday night. Our paths mercifully diverted from there and I wouldn’t have had his life from the Yardbirds onwards for all the tea in China. He would appear to have come out of the other side in the end but, hellfire, what a ride. Anyway I digress. With Eric finished what was I to amuse myself with for the short flight over southern California. SkyMall Magazine was the only option. This is so good I took up their very generous offer and took it off the plane with me so I could wonder at the many splendorous loads of crap that could be mine for just three easy payments of $19.95. I have dipped into this treasure trove of rubbish on several occasions over the last couple of days my perusals only being interrupted to glance up at the hotel TV’s exhortations to send $9.99 for a video on ‘Crunchless Abs’.
The publishers of Skymall and the makers of the TV ads are doing this to make money are presumably succeeding. TV ads and giveaway magazines are not cheap so how do you make coin peddling the following selection?
The Personal Between the Sheets Bed Fan. This bit of kit creates a ‘cool personalised microclimate between the sheets’ allowing you to ’regulate your temperature as you sleep without disturbing your partner’ This heap of junk turns your side of the bed into a hovercraft by blowing air between the sheets and you are only asked to part with $79.95 for the chance to ruin a good night’s sleep.
On the same page is the Pet Staircase. ‘Sturdy lightweight pet stairs to help pets climb to furniture otherwise difficult for them to reach. Designed for pets up to 100lbs, especially older animals or those suffering from joint problems, our stairs have removable shearling covers (what the hell is a shearling – a shearwater I know) that are soft on paws and made of 100% machine washable polyester (a severe disadvantage in my book). This garbage comes in four sizes ranging from the three step at $79.95 to the six step at $159.95 if you want to aid Rover kicking the bucket by jumping off a tall building.
Not interested? How about ‘Basho the Sumo Wrestler Glass topped table’ This is a sculpture of a sumo wrestler bending over with a sheet of glass attached to his back that is to be used as an occasional table. A snip at $225. Who in the name of Hades would actually want one of these? They are hideous, impractical and expensive – a sure fire recipe for commercial disaster.
And so it goes on – perhaps more examples in days to come. I really cannot believe that America became a global financial titan by flogging coffee tables that resemble a sumo wrestler.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Caution - Idle blogger afoot
Third day in San Diego and this is the first fleeting opportunity I have had to put finger to keyboard. Conference is better than I had hoped and so am spending more time actually attending than I had envisaged. However I have found time to watch the St Louis Cardinals give the San Diego Padres a good bum shellacking. Baseball is an exceedingly dull game which they have packaged very well - so well that it makes for an entertaining way of spending three hours. Don't think I'll be going again.
And then there was the Midway. This deserves more time than I have available between conference sessions and I will try and give it the time it deserves with pictures later. Suffice it to say that I was not disappointed and now I really, really want an aircraft carrier. I think I will still go for the nuclear option as all that re-bunkering at sea looks really tedious. You still have to take on loads of jet fuel I suppose.
And then there was the Midway. This deserves more time than I have available between conference sessions and I will try and give it the time it deserves with pictures later. Suffice it to say that I was not disappointed and now I really, really want an aircraft carrier. I think I will still go for the nuclear option as all that re-bunkering at sea looks really tedious. You still have to take on loads of jet fuel I suppose.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go
This is the third Saturday in May, I am sitting in the Air New Zealand lounge and so I must be off to America. This is what I do in the third week of May. San Diego this year. Never been there before but it is a standout must go to destination as it has the USS Midway set up as tourist attraction. Forget the zoo (which I hear is very good) and all the other attractions, I want to see the aircraft carrier. I chose my hotel not for its convenieice for the conference centre but its proximity to the Midway. Its not nuclear powered but you can'y have everything.
Standard sort of a day really. Play golf in the morning fly to the other side of the world in the afternoon. I trust the flight is more enjoyable than the golf. What is the bleeding point in plying golf when the visibility is down to fifty metres. Even a powder puff hitter like me can (and did) lose balls off the tee in fog like that. So we have a Sean Fitzpatrick round - a game of two halves and the course was the winner. Second nine accomplished in about a shot a hole less than the front nine. What did I expect losing a ball on every other hole for and hour and a half?
No we are now in the lounge and a while to wait before the tin budgie whisks me into yesterday. Odd places airport lounges. A mixture of people as I glance around. There is a group of very loud women who are talking very ostentatiously about how much money they have spent. They are drunk and are getting drunker by the minute. The more they get through the more money they save I suppose. Being a Saturday the busy business executive is absent. These always amuse me. Beavering away on their laptops and /or Blackberries buying and selling and making all sorts of terribly important fiscal decisions that will alter the course of world history. I once saw a bloke in Chicago who looked terribly important shouting at his business contacts down his cellphone and buying everything in bulk quantities. I was certain he was dealing weapons grade plutonium or diamonds or something and was much let down to discover he was dealing in hairspray. So no business types. There is another group of loud people who are talking about shaving eyebrows and whether Aaron would look good in budgie smugglers. He wouldn't but if the whole group get up to the alcohol ingestion rate of the loud ladies (and they are trying) they will all reckon Aaron would look amaaaaazing. Already lots of other things are looking amaaaaazing to this rather sad group.
Travelling bag full of all the essentials for a long flight. Laptop, iPod, a couple of books and fourteen power cords. The delights of travelling with gels, aerosols or liquids have been removed so no having a rollicking good time with the gels over the Pacific for me.
Last year I found it very therapeutic to summarize where I sat in the world in general and the People's Republic of Aoteoroa in particular and I may find the urge to do so again - and then I may not. The news that the bloody Labour Government is now nearly thirty points behind in the latest opinion poll at least ensures that I leave the country for a short time with a spring in my step.
Standard sort of a day really. Play golf in the morning fly to the other side of the world in the afternoon. I trust the flight is more enjoyable than the golf. What is the bleeding point in plying golf when the visibility is down to fifty metres. Even a powder puff hitter like me can (and did) lose balls off the tee in fog like that. So we have a Sean Fitzpatrick round - a game of two halves and the course was the winner. Second nine accomplished in about a shot a hole less than the front nine. What did I expect losing a ball on every other hole for and hour and a half?
No we are now in the lounge and a while to wait before the tin budgie whisks me into yesterday. Odd places airport lounges. A mixture of people as I glance around. There is a group of very loud women who are talking very ostentatiously about how much money they have spent. They are drunk and are getting drunker by the minute. The more they get through the more money they save I suppose. Being a Saturday the busy business executive is absent. These always amuse me. Beavering away on their laptops and /or Blackberries buying and selling and making all sorts of terribly important fiscal decisions that will alter the course of world history. I once saw a bloke in Chicago who looked terribly important shouting at his business contacts down his cellphone and buying everything in bulk quantities. I was certain he was dealing weapons grade plutonium or diamonds or something and was much let down to discover he was dealing in hairspray. So no business types. There is another group of loud people who are talking about shaving eyebrows and whether Aaron would look good in budgie smugglers. He wouldn't but if the whole group get up to the alcohol ingestion rate of the loud ladies (and they are trying) they will all reckon Aaron would look amaaaaazing. Already lots of other things are looking amaaaaazing to this rather sad group.
Travelling bag full of all the essentials for a long flight. Laptop, iPod, a couple of books and fourteen power cords. The delights of travelling with gels, aerosols or liquids have been removed so no having a rollicking good time with the gels over the Pacific for me.
Last year I found it very therapeutic to summarize where I sat in the world in general and the People's Republic of Aoteoroa in particular and I may find the urge to do so again - and then I may not. The news that the bloody Labour Government is now nearly thirty points behind in the latest opinion poll at least ensures that I leave the country for a short time with a spring in my step.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
ETS: this is getting beyond a joke
We have already established that the Emissions Trading Scheme is a crock. Fatuous solution for a problem that doesn't exist and would be insoluble even if it did - usual stuff. The submissions to the Parliamentary Committee looking into this before it is passed regardless (this is New Zealand after all) are giving it a right panning and the condemnations are getting more strident by the day.
Yesterday the jokers who run the aluminium smelter at Tiwai said that if the ETS comes into force they will be off like a bride's nightie. 3000 jobs and billions of dollars gone. Southland would not survive - you aren't going to get by replacing an aluminium smelter with a swede exporting business, are you? And for what? For a lunatic idealistic folly of a bunch of bigots who have no connection with the real world.
When Rio Tinto close down the plant because they have been taxed out of the country (and make no mistake this ETS bullshit is turning out to be no more than a tax and a tax on a biblical scale) are they going to see the light and stop making aluminium? Are they buggery. They have already said that they will take the operation to China. What a surprise. They will go to a country of pragmatists who have had the commonsense to tell Kyoto to get some sexual gratification as they leave the building. And by so doing the New Zealand gummint will have in fact increased the amount of carbon emitted (as if it matters) as any plant built in China would be nowhere near as 'clean' as the one in Southland. So in one fell swoop we wreck an entire section of the country and increase global pollution. Brilliant.
This ETS nonsense has to be stopped before it totally ruins this country - and I'm not joking.
Yesterday the jokers who run the aluminium smelter at Tiwai said that if the ETS comes into force they will be off like a bride's nightie. 3000 jobs and billions of dollars gone. Southland would not survive - you aren't going to get by replacing an aluminium smelter with a swede exporting business, are you? And for what? For a lunatic idealistic folly of a bunch of bigots who have no connection with the real world.
When Rio Tinto close down the plant because they have been taxed out of the country (and make no mistake this ETS bullshit is turning out to be no more than a tax and a tax on a biblical scale) are they going to see the light and stop making aluminium? Are they buggery. They have already said that they will take the operation to China. What a surprise. They will go to a country of pragmatists who have had the commonsense to tell Kyoto to get some sexual gratification as they leave the building. And by so doing the New Zealand gummint will have in fact increased the amount of carbon emitted (as if it matters) as any plant built in China would be nowhere near as 'clean' as the one in Southland. So in one fell swoop we wreck an entire section of the country and increase global pollution. Brilliant.
This ETS nonsense has to be stopped before it totally ruins this country - and I'm not joking.
What line of business are these clowns in?
'We are constantly looking at new ways in which we can increase our service to our customers as well as improve our business performance and efficiency'
Well what do you think? A company that manufactures life saving equipment? An outfit that splits the atom for public consumption? A meals on wheels service for old ladies perchance? No this is Auckland Council trying to justify giving those stupid Segways to bloody parking wardens. Here's a bit more of their bureaspeak nonsense; they rate themselves as 'innovators and leaders in the field of parking services'. What a load of bollocks. Parking wardens are a revenue gathering arm of the council; no more and no less. And why on earth can't they speak English. Putting a ticket on your windscreen is a fine and is not 'a parking service'
This is a Segway:
They are apparently very easy to operate. So easy in fact that the only person ever known to fail to get one moving (in fact he managed to fall off as I recall) was George W Bush. So they really are a no brainer. Everyone who has ever got onto one of these daft bits of kit is a plonker. It is a prerequisite of getting one that you are a complete wally. If you are a sensible and/or reasonable bloke they won't sell you one. There was a bloke up the beach who owned one and his other vehicles were a hovercraft and a Sealegs. He falls into the category of Plonker with Too Much Money.
So Auckland's ratepayers are supposed to pay for damned Parking Wardens to get around on these. Why? I'll give you a builder's pencil so you can write all the reasons on the back of a postage stamp. What the hell is wrong with a pair of stout boots and legs. Battery charging requirement for a pair of boots was zero last time I looked. If you are into saving money and saving the planet (and we all want to save the planet, don't we children?) just get rid of Parking Wardens altogether and let me park my V8 where ever I fancy.
The really galling bit about this sort of nonsense is that it goes on when the real infrastructure of the city is just falling apart at the seams. The sewers can't cope with rainfall at a rate greater than one millimetre a week, the transport sucks and they spend up large on Segways. I can see Nero calling for his fiddle.
Friday, May 9, 2008
What a bloody mess
And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of ratbags. This mob signed up to the Kyoto nonsense and then Dear Leader says we will be world leaders in carbon neutrality. God, it makes you cringe just to think of the stupidity of such a concept. It is like saying we are going to be world pioneers in angel dust or chocolate teapots. Meaningless crap. Anyway as part of all this nonsense we are to have the Emissions Trading Scheme. Peddling moonbeams. Wish I'd thought of it. Buying and selling abstract concepts that are then actually weighed. What sort of recreational pharmacology are these guys on. If the price of carbon is $x a tonne we will be charged this and if it is $y a tonne we can sell at that and there is someone clipping the ticket at every turn. And who is that some one? History Boy is right at the front of the queue.
Dear Leader stands up earlier in the week and announces that the petrol bit of the ETS won't come into play until it is well past the election as even the bunch of sheep that masquerade as the New Zealand Electorate won't stand for it. Even she admits that the extra money on gas will be be seen as an extra tax - for the simple reason that is what it is. So the petrol is gone (for a while), the farmers get time off for good behaviour and now the select committee is hearing how real pragmatic businessmen see this stupid idea dreamed up by left wing morons who have never had to work a day in their lives.
A chap who is CEO of Genesis, I think, was giving his two bob's worth to the committee yesterday. He represents evil big business and so anything he says must be bollocks. Well I don't think so. He laid out in black and white what you end up with if you let people who don't know what they are doing play around with legislation. Idiots headed by a failed history teacher have been allowed to dabble in economic policy and the result is an absolute abortion. It shows the foresight and planning you would expect from a five year old. And, as this is the People's Republic, the consequences of their incompetence will be stuff all. If the poorly conceived and even worse fleshed out ETS were to go ahead in its current form the government could garner up to an extra $80 billion in tax. That is not $80 or $80,000 but eighty billion. Not thought of. Happens because the staffers who drafted this crap couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent. Cullen is sneaking another tax on the unwary - what a bloody surprise. The reason for this obscene unforeseen windfall? Damned Kyoto only charges you for carbon in excess of your 1990 levels. History Boy intends charging you for the lot. And the chances of this extra tax being refunded are precisely zero.
The ETS is a crock and it is based on an even bigger crock i.e. that there is such a thing as anthropogenic global warming. It looks that at last the emperor is being seen to be wearing what he is really wearing. Absolutely nuffink.
Dear Leader stands up earlier in the week and announces that the petrol bit of the ETS won't come into play until it is well past the election as even the bunch of sheep that masquerade as the New Zealand Electorate won't stand for it. Even she admits that the extra money on gas will be be seen as an extra tax - for the simple reason that is what it is. So the petrol is gone (for a while), the farmers get time off for good behaviour and now the select committee is hearing how real pragmatic businessmen see this stupid idea dreamed up by left wing morons who have never had to work a day in their lives.
A chap who is CEO of Genesis, I think, was giving his two bob's worth to the committee yesterday. He represents evil big business and so anything he says must be bollocks. Well I don't think so. He laid out in black and white what you end up with if you let people who don't know what they are doing play around with legislation. Idiots headed by a failed history teacher have been allowed to dabble in economic policy and the result is an absolute abortion. It shows the foresight and planning you would expect from a five year old. And, as this is the People's Republic, the consequences of their incompetence will be stuff all. If the poorly conceived and even worse fleshed out ETS were to go ahead in its current form the government could garner up to an extra $80 billion in tax. That is not $80 or $80,000 but eighty billion. Not thought of. Happens because the staffers who drafted this crap couldn't organise a nun shoot in a convent. Cullen is sneaking another tax on the unwary - what a bloody surprise. The reason for this obscene unforeseen windfall? Damned Kyoto only charges you for carbon in excess of your 1990 levels. History Boy intends charging you for the lot. And the chances of this extra tax being refunded are precisely zero.
The ETS is a crock and it is based on an even bigger crock i.e. that there is such a thing as anthropogenic global warming. It looks that at last the emperor is being seen to be wearing what he is really wearing. Absolutely nuffink.
Monday, May 5, 2008
It's my money and I want it back
Well History Boy has had a big day in the toy shop hasn't he.
First we hear that for the first time we owe the Kyoto nonsense the wrong side of a billion smackers. Bloody staggering isn't it, all that dosh down the toilet. Well never mind it's not his to spend so he won't miss it. Kyoto is really a good idea (in some people's books) and makes the gummint look all eco friendly and world leaderly. We'll gloss over the fact that it is all futile bollocks and will be looked upon by proper historians as the biggest (and most expensive) con job in history.
Then just to prove that spending money that isn't yours is as easy as he forks out $665 million for a train set that is valued at $430 million. What is all this about? Toll was eager to sell and there was only one buyer. We should have got it for $200 million less than it is valued and not 200 mill more. That is a basic principal of haggling over price surely. The truth, of course is that we shouldn't have got it at all. What the hell is bloody Cullen doing buying nineteenth century cutting edge technology? Kyoto won't let us use it - unless we put nuclear powered trains on the lines and that's going to happen in the eco looney People's Republic - not. OK, so now we own this bargain basement heap of junk we have to spend loads more dosh making it into something that works. More of my money gone.
And the point of all this? We will have a nice spiffy rail service that the great unwashed will flock to in their droves leaving their nasty cars in the garage and we save the planet. And I really think Cullen and the rest of them believe this. No one else does, but they do.
Why the hell do we waste food on these demented morons?
First we hear that for the first time we owe the Kyoto nonsense the wrong side of a billion smackers. Bloody staggering isn't it, all that dosh down the toilet. Well never mind it's not his to spend so he won't miss it. Kyoto is really a good idea (in some people's books) and makes the gummint look all eco friendly and world leaderly. We'll gloss over the fact that it is all futile bollocks and will be looked upon by proper historians as the biggest (and most expensive) con job in history.
Then just to prove that spending money that isn't yours is as easy as he forks out $665 million for a train set that is valued at $430 million. What is all this about? Toll was eager to sell and there was only one buyer. We should have got it for $200 million less than it is valued and not 200 mill more. That is a basic principal of haggling over price surely. The truth, of course is that we shouldn't have got it at all. What the hell is bloody Cullen doing buying nineteenth century cutting edge technology? Kyoto won't let us use it - unless we put nuclear powered trains on the lines and that's going to happen in the eco looney People's Republic - not. OK, so now we own this bargain basement heap of junk we have to spend loads more dosh making it into something that works. More of my money gone.
And the point of all this? We will have a nice spiffy rail service that the great unwashed will flock to in their droves leaving their nasty cars in the garage and we save the planet. And I really think Cullen and the rest of them believe this. No one else does, but they do.
Why the hell do we waste food on these demented morons?
Thursday, May 1, 2008
More compulsion coming to kitchen near you
So close it will be right in your own home.
The country is going to hell on a hand cart. The economy is about to go down the gurgler. People can't afford to put petrol in the lawnmower let alone the V8. There are victims doing without food all over the show and so what does our stupid government have doing the parliamentary rounds at present? Another bit of social engineering, that's what.
And this one is a little ripper. There is a thing called The Public Health Bill skulking round the dark recesses of the Beehive at the moment doing its best to become The Public Health Act. This is a bad thing - a very bad thing indeed.
This little number would have one Government appointed bloke (or blokess if this mob run true to form) deciding what you are allowed to eat or even watch other people eat. They are even after your vicarious pleasures. The Director General of Health (and I don't even understand that bit) could decide to ban anything if he or she thought it was not 'in the Public Interest'. Chocolate eaten by the cubic metre makes you morbidly obese so I'll ban that and also the advertising for chocolate in any media you care to nominate. No discussion, no canvassing the opinion of anyone - just a stroke of the pen and its illegal. You think I'm joking?
But there is more. This Health Nazi could even force TV programs off the air if he/she thought they promoted unhealthy lifestyles. Homer Simpson is a goneburger and he'll have to take all his donuts with him. Coro Street? Gone - too much time in the Rover's Return and the chip shop. Top Gear? Not a show - all that nasty dangerous speed is exceeding unhealthy.
The Dental Nurse would surely shake her head and say I'm scaremongering. Her favourite safety net, Governmental Commonsense, will dictate that this will never happen. Bollocks it won't. I wouldn't trust this mob further than I could throw them but even if I could who in their right mind would give any Government such draconian powers to use if they so please?
The perpetual theme of we know best and you will do as you are told for you own good runs through every move this bunch of wastrels makes. If they are going to control what we eat to make us healthy (even if we want to be fat slobs) why stop with the food and advertising police? Government cameras in all our fridges with feeds to Pie HQ on the 9th floor is a logical next step. Compulsory treadmills in all homes of those with a BMI above 25. Daily usage to be monitored in the room next to Pie HQ. All treadmills to be connected to the National Grid to boost power supplies now that coal fired power stations have all been demolished. Any fatty not contributing a megawatt a year to the National grid will be shot.
Even five years ago all this would have seemed absurd. The scary thing is that now it seems almost reasonable. Wake up you dozy buggers and give this mob the flick before it is too late.
The country is going to hell on a hand cart. The economy is about to go down the gurgler. People can't afford to put petrol in the lawnmower let alone the V8. There are victims doing without food all over the show and so what does our stupid government have doing the parliamentary rounds at present? Another bit of social engineering, that's what.
And this one is a little ripper. There is a thing called The Public Health Bill skulking round the dark recesses of the Beehive at the moment doing its best to become The Public Health Act. This is a bad thing - a very bad thing indeed.
This little number would have one Government appointed bloke (or blokess if this mob run true to form) deciding what you are allowed to eat or even watch other people eat. They are even after your vicarious pleasures. The Director General of Health (and I don't even understand that bit) could decide to ban anything if he or she thought it was not 'in the Public Interest'. Chocolate eaten by the cubic metre makes you morbidly obese so I'll ban that and also the advertising for chocolate in any media you care to nominate. No discussion, no canvassing the opinion of anyone - just a stroke of the pen and its illegal. You think I'm joking?
But there is more. This Health Nazi could even force TV programs off the air if he/she thought they promoted unhealthy lifestyles. Homer Simpson is a goneburger and he'll have to take all his donuts with him. Coro Street? Gone - too much time in the Rover's Return and the chip shop. Top Gear? Not a show - all that nasty dangerous speed is exceeding unhealthy.
The Dental Nurse would surely shake her head and say I'm scaremongering. Her favourite safety net, Governmental Commonsense, will dictate that this will never happen. Bollocks it won't. I wouldn't trust this mob further than I could throw them but even if I could who in their right mind would give any Government such draconian powers to use if they so please?
The perpetual theme of we know best and you will do as you are told for you own good runs through every move this bunch of wastrels makes. If they are going to control what we eat to make us healthy (even if we want to be fat slobs) why stop with the food and advertising police? Government cameras in all our fridges with feeds to Pie HQ on the 9th floor is a logical next step. Compulsory treadmills in all homes of those with a BMI above 25. Daily usage to be monitored in the room next to Pie HQ. All treadmills to be connected to the National Grid to boost power supplies now that coal fired power stations have all been demolished. Any fatty not contributing a megawatt a year to the National grid will be shot.
Even five years ago all this would have seemed absurd. The scary thing is that now it seems almost reasonable. Wake up you dozy buggers and give this mob the flick before it is too late.
The beginning of the end?
Have a look at this lot. The ETS is the Emissions Trading Scheme.
- The ETS will reduce GDP by $900 million by 2012
- The average household will have $600 less spending
- A reduction in employment equivalent to 22,000 jobs
- By 2025, GDP will be $5.9 billion less than without an ETS
- The average household will have $3,000 less by 2025
- Hourly wages will be $2.30 an hour less by 2025 than they would be without an ETS
- The ETS will reduce emissions by 5% less than merely funding emissions reductions directly
- The ETS may be bad for the climate as some NZ production will become uncompetitive and shift to countries where their increase in emissions will be greater than if they stayed in New - Zealand. This is known as “leakage”
- The ETS will see by 2025 a 12.9% reduction in dairy farming, a 41% drop in diary land prices and a 6.6% reduction in sheep and beef farming.
- As the decline in pastoral production in NZ will lead to greater pastoral production elsewhere, the increase in carbon emissions will be 3 million tonnes - around 25% of the reductions from the total ETS.
- Southland and Northland would be most affected by the ETS with a 3% drop in GDP, with Auckland and Wellington less affected.
- Paying for emissions reduction out of general taxation would be cheaper and more effective.
The ETS was to be the great cash cow that this stupid government said would be a spin off from our being a world leader in carbon neutrality. We would make squillions as we stood proudly in the vanguard of nations saving the planet. We would not only feel good about leaving a negligible carbon footprint for future generations we would also reap economic benefits as we traded carbon credits from our clean green land. I have to stop now as typing this is making me feel physically sick.
So for the terminally stupid I will join up the dots. All the above economic ruin is being embarked upon on our behalf by a government that is so stupid they think anyone can do anything about the climate. It is estimated that the part of the ETS relating to fuel prices would put an extra 6-8 cents on a litre of gas and they already want another ten cents for a regional tax. This morning there are murmurings that bits of the ETS might have to be postponed (it is election year after all) but David Parker (Climate Change Minister for God's sake) denies this.
Base a stupid policy on a tissue of lies and this is what you end up with - an untenable mess. They made their bed, let them bloody well lie in it.
- The ETS will reduce GDP by $900 million by 2012
- The average household will have $600 less spending
- A reduction in employment equivalent to 22,000 jobs
- By 2025, GDP will be $5.9 billion less than without an ETS
- The average household will have $3,000 less by 2025
- Hourly wages will be $2.30 an hour less by 2025 than they would be without an ETS
- The ETS will reduce emissions by 5% less than merely funding emissions reductions directly
- The ETS may be bad for the climate as some NZ production will become uncompetitive and shift to countries where their increase in emissions will be greater than if they stayed in New - Zealand. This is known as “leakage”
- The ETS will see by 2025 a 12.9% reduction in dairy farming, a 41% drop in diary land prices and a 6.6% reduction in sheep and beef farming.
- As the decline in pastoral production in NZ will lead to greater pastoral production elsewhere, the increase in carbon emissions will be 3 million tonnes - around 25% of the reductions from the total ETS.
- Southland and Northland would be most affected by the ETS with a 3% drop in GDP, with Auckland and Wellington less affected.
- Paying for emissions reduction out of general taxation would be cheaper and more effective.
The ETS was to be the great cash cow that this stupid government said would be a spin off from our being a world leader in carbon neutrality. We would make squillions as we stood proudly in the vanguard of nations saving the planet. We would not only feel good about leaving a negligible carbon footprint for future generations we would also reap economic benefits as we traded carbon credits from our clean green land. I have to stop now as typing this is making me feel physically sick.
So for the terminally stupid I will join up the dots. All the above economic ruin is being embarked upon on our behalf by a government that is so stupid they think anyone can do anything about the climate. It is estimated that the part of the ETS relating to fuel prices would put an extra 6-8 cents on a litre of gas and they already want another ten cents for a regional tax. This morning there are murmurings that bits of the ETS might have to be postponed (it is election year after all) but David Parker (Climate Change Minister for God's sake) denies this.
Base a stupid policy on a tissue of lies and this is what you end up with - an untenable mess. They made their bed, let them bloody well lie in it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
More double standards
Lee Ka Sheng is worth a bob or two. About US$25 billion at the last count. Quite why he wants to buy a few power poles in the infrastructure basket case of the Southern Hemisphere, Wellington, is beyond me but it's his dosh and he can do what he likes with it. Or not as the case may be. Here in Clarkistan you have to have approval from History Boy to spend the folding varieties - just ask the Canadian Pension Fund.
The smarmy, arrogant, big eared git decided for pure political expediency to block the sale of Auckland Airport last month by putting the goalposts on the back of a truck and driving said truck into his own back garden. Auckland Airport was a 'strategic asset'. So the entire power infrastructure of the nation's capital isn't? You can't dismantle either piece of kit (an airport or a power grid) and take it away and why the hell would you buy something and then run said asset down - it makes no commercial sense. But that wouldn't matter to a bunch of socialists time warped in the economic ideas of the 1950's as nothing they do has any relevance in the pragmatic world of the 2000's. A shameless act of economic vandalism in the name of political gain is nothing to these ratbags. Shareholders sit and watch in horror as Cullen scythes dollars off their investments just so he can score political points. We are supposed to applaud from the touchline as the useless wretch ruins international confidence in New Zealand as a place to invest just so his bunch can march onwards to the socialist utopia at the end of the rainbow.
So it is alright for a mega rich chinaman to buy Wellington's power system but it is not OK for those well known international terrorists the Canadian Pension Fund to buy Auckland's airport. There has been a deafening silence from the Beehive over the sale of the electrons. I presume SWMBO is putting the final touches on that condescending smile she gives us proles when explaining something we cannot be expected to understand in mots du weasel of one syllable. If I see that bloody smile again (and I surely will) I'll kick the cat. Or perhaps History Boy is fine tuning 'Arrogant Bastard Look #3' before telling us, the great unwashed who fill his personal piggy back, to STFU and don't argue with him. Poisonous little toad. I saw him at the airport (how apt) a couple of weeks back and I felt all sorts of uncharacteristic and unhealthy personal violence thoughts wafting over me. I had a sudden insight into the concept of the Red Mist.
The country is going down the tubes under the stewardship of this incompetent bunch of left wing ideological bigots and they spend their entire time social engineering. Fuel prices going through the roof - lets pass the antismacking bollocks. People can't afford a block of cheese - we need the Electoral Finance Act so we can try and cling on to power. Violent crime out of control - we really need to legislate against packets of chips in school tuck shops. Health system falling to bits - we'll get the Health Minister to say it's nothing to do with me and ban Grand Theft Auto (or whatever it's called). And I see in the online version of the Herald a suggestion that the answer to all this economic doom and gloom is increasing benefits and more government spending. Duh.
The Singapore President is in town at the moment. I know this because part of the entourage is a friend of mine. He has more than a passing influence on how a proper company, I mean country, is run. He was sitting on my balcony a few years back reading the Herald. 'Can you explain what this DPB is all about?' 'Well not really but I can tell you what it is'. I then proceeded to outline the bare bones and added as a codicil that one in three New Zealanders receive a hand out from the Government in one form or other. 'You mean 60% of the country is supporting the other 40%? Not sustainable.'
He moved on to see how Manchester United were doing.
The smarmy, arrogant, big eared git decided for pure political expediency to block the sale of Auckland Airport last month by putting the goalposts on the back of a truck and driving said truck into his own back garden. Auckland Airport was a 'strategic asset'. So the entire power infrastructure of the nation's capital isn't? You can't dismantle either piece of kit (an airport or a power grid) and take it away and why the hell would you buy something and then run said asset down - it makes no commercial sense. But that wouldn't matter to a bunch of socialists time warped in the economic ideas of the 1950's as nothing they do has any relevance in the pragmatic world of the 2000's. A shameless act of economic vandalism in the name of political gain is nothing to these ratbags. Shareholders sit and watch in horror as Cullen scythes dollars off their investments just so he can score political points. We are supposed to applaud from the touchline as the useless wretch ruins international confidence in New Zealand as a place to invest just so his bunch can march onwards to the socialist utopia at the end of the rainbow.
So it is alright for a mega rich chinaman to buy Wellington's power system but it is not OK for those well known international terrorists the Canadian Pension Fund to buy Auckland's airport. There has been a deafening silence from the Beehive over the sale of the electrons. I presume SWMBO is putting the final touches on that condescending smile she gives us proles when explaining something we cannot be expected to understand in mots du weasel of one syllable. If I see that bloody smile again (and I surely will) I'll kick the cat. Or perhaps History Boy is fine tuning 'Arrogant Bastard Look #3' before telling us, the great unwashed who fill his personal piggy back, to STFU and don't argue with him. Poisonous little toad. I saw him at the airport (how apt) a couple of weeks back and I felt all sorts of uncharacteristic and unhealthy personal violence thoughts wafting over me. I had a sudden insight into the concept of the Red Mist.
The country is going down the tubes under the stewardship of this incompetent bunch of left wing ideological bigots and they spend their entire time social engineering. Fuel prices going through the roof - lets pass the antismacking bollocks. People can't afford a block of cheese - we need the Electoral Finance Act so we can try and cling on to power. Violent crime out of control - we really need to legislate against packets of chips in school tuck shops. Health system falling to bits - we'll get the Health Minister to say it's nothing to do with me and ban Grand Theft Auto (or whatever it's called). And I see in the online version of the Herald a suggestion that the answer to all this economic doom and gloom is increasing benefits and more government spending. Duh.
The Singapore President is in town at the moment. I know this because part of the entourage is a friend of mine. He has more than a passing influence on how a proper company, I mean country, is run. He was sitting on my balcony a few years back reading the Herald. 'Can you explain what this DPB is all about?' 'Well not really but I can tell you what it is'. I then proceeded to outline the bare bones and added as a codicil that one in three New Zealanders receive a hand out from the Government in one form or other. 'You mean 60% of the country is supporting the other 40%? Not sustainable.'
He moved on to see how Manchester United were doing.
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