The New Hamburgler
that foto of sue been worked on in photopop, she so pretty, i agree whole heartedly soon as the kid ask for fat food just givem a thrashing, do you think sue would look like in a see through blouse,dude,
Sue is a thoroughly ugly woman.
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4/30/2006
The New Hamburgler
Does something about the MacDonalds Hamburgler look a bit different today? Who is that under that mask? Hang on, could that be Sue Kedgely?
You guessed it!
Stuff and Rodney both report on The Health Select Committee's deliberations next month, of which Green MP Kedgely is a part. Their particular concern will be regulating the marketing of food to children. Hamburgler Kedgley is trying to steal all the MacDonalds Happy Meals!
Kedgley and the Fat Police (ie the 'Fight the Obesity Epidemic' group) seem not to be met by any resistance. Jackie Blue of the Nats, also on the committee, says she has an open mind on regulation and banning toys. If this is so then what hope is there for stopping Kedgley?
How long is Sue's so-called obesity epidemic supposed to have been going on for? My earliest memories of going out to Kentucky Fried Chicken involve getting Buck Rodgers gear, and of Pizza Hut and getting little rubber poseable Mars aliens with stickers. There used to be great puzzles at Pizza Hut too, and nice little Pizza Hut pencils to complete them with. It's not new, so was the obesity epidemic upon us in 1982 or could we just handle "pester power" better back then?
Is "pester power new" too? Haven't advertisers long found their way to a parent's wallet via a child's wide eyes? Are parents so unable to parent these days that they need government to protect them from the pestering power of their own children?
Banning Happy Meals, and the like, represents a major governmental intervention. They hurt parents and the institution of parenting. They hurt kids. They hurt industry. They take food and health choice away from us all. But this is nothing, "Getting rid of toys is a little step in the right direction," Kedgely said.
Call me a radical extremist libertarian for worrying about this "little step" of the demise of Happy Meals. But perhaps after Kedgely's next step, and the one after that, you'll start to wake up New Zealand.
Libertarianz On Campus
Since I used one frame from this old toon I thought I may as well blog the rest.
I was in the process of creating a series of these toons for the Libertarianz On Campus, which I once to belonged to. That being the student groups at Victoria and Auckland universities of the political party Libertarianz.
I think we had a fantastic revival in 2002 and became strong at Auckland. Toward the end of the year we decided not to keep up the good work, and I eventually became fed up and turned to ACT.
I think they're still going, if on low power. There are/were some good people on the books, but going to great waste. Libertarians are wasted in Libertarianz. :(
4/29/2006
Australian OE # 04
Australian OE # 04: PostboxIt's funny the things you miss.
I miss our postboxes, nice square and sturdy things made of some kind of super cement. They have contrasting colours.
Even after only 10 months, popping back to New Zealand in 2004, seeing a Kiwi postbox made me fell all happy inside.
These red tin things are all over this country and inspire no affection in me at all.
4/27/2006
Australian OE # 03
Australian OE # 03: Burnley Tunnel
I've got a new job as of last week, back to driving trucks again. Last last Wednesday I was delivering a big load of steel out west to Sunshine late in the day. It was a very wet day in Melbourne anyway, but heading back East around 4pm is a killer. Major traffic. Sometimes stationary. Nearly as bad as Auckland!
But I got to pass through the Burnley Tunnel, which is one of the highlights of driving in Melbourne. It runs under the Yarra river, under the domain which has Government House and the botanic gardens etc. The tunnel is a toll road, it's one of the places an e-TAG will let you go.
It's about as long as the Lyttleton Tunnel in Christchurch, except it's really two tunnels (one for east, one for west) with three lanes. I always beep my horn going through the Lyttleton, it's a bright, friendly and fun place but the Burnley Tunnel is big and dark that wont echo but just swallow any beeping right up.
One cool feature the Burnley Tunnel can boast is that it has its own radio station, kinda. The first time I went though it I deduced this, and felt rather clever about it some time later when it was confirmed. Being a deep tunnel you'd expect your radio to cut out, but mine didn't. This told me that they were re-transmitting the signal within the tunnel, obviously. Knowing this, I was delighted but not surprised when the usual radio in the tunnel cut out and an announcer came on talking about roading conditions. Nobody does that in the Lyttleton.
Anyway, I'll be going in and out of this tunnel again almost daily now. But back on wet Wednesday I used my mobile phone to record this Mp3 from the radio. Turns out to be the perfect song too! In a world blogging first (surely) you get to hear what it's like inside the Burnley Tunnel in Melbourne when the usual 80kph has been reduced to 60kph.
Break out the popcorn if you've got it. :)
I've got a new job as of last week, back to driving trucks again. Last last Wednesday I was delivering a big load of steel out west to Sunshine late in the day. It was a very wet day in Melbourne anyway, but heading back East around 4pm is a killer. Major traffic. Sometimes stationary. Nearly as bad as Auckland!
But I got to pass through the Burnley Tunnel, which is one of the highlights of driving in Melbourne. It runs under the Yarra river, under the domain which has Government House and the botanic gardens etc. The tunnel is a toll road, it's one of the places an e-TAG will let you go.
It's about as long as the Lyttleton Tunnel in Christchurch, except it's really two tunnels (one for east, one for west) with three lanes. I always beep my horn going through the Lyttleton, it's a bright, friendly and fun place but the Burnley Tunnel is big and dark that wont echo but just swallow any beeping right up.
One cool feature the Burnley Tunnel can boast is that it has its own radio station, kinda. The first time I went though it I deduced this, and felt rather clever about it some time later when it was confirmed. Being a deep tunnel you'd expect your radio to cut out, but mine didn't. This told me that they were re-transmitting the signal within the tunnel, obviously. Knowing this, I was delighted but not surprised when the usual radio in the tunnel cut out and an announcer came on talking about roading conditions. Nobody does that in the Lyttleton.
Anyway, I'll be going in and out of this tunnel again almost daily now. But back on wet Wednesday I used my mobile phone to record this Mp3 from the radio. Turns out to be the perfect song too! In a world blogging first (surely) you get to hear what it's like inside the Burnley Tunnel in Melbourne when the usual 80kph has been reduced to 60kph.
Break out the popcorn if you've got it. :)
4/26/2006
Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty: ANZAC Day
Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty: ANZAC Day
Oh good grief. What's happened to the Capitalism Bad blog? Maia is one of my special turn-left-right projects but how can I go on if she's shut off commenting to all but her inner circle?
Goddamnit. My comment was...
Some of the things you say are right. But how about you save them for the other 364 days of the year? There is enough virtue and respectability in our past wartime thoughts and deeds to fill in one day in April. I thank you for thinking, I don't thank you for offending me. Your understanding is incomplete, Maia.
[Update- okay, it's not so bad. She's just repelling spam attacks]
Oh good grief. What's happened to the Capitalism Bad blog? Maia is one of my special turn-left-right projects but how can I go on if she's shut off commenting to all but her inner circle?
Goddamnit. My comment was...
Some of the things you say are right. But how about you save them for the other 364 days of the year? There is enough virtue and respectability in our past wartime thoughts and deeds to fill in one day in April. I thank you for thinking, I don't thank you for offending me. Your understanding is incomplete, Maia.
[Update- okay, it's not so bad. She's just repelling spam attacks]
Australian OE # 02
Australian OE # 02: e-TAGs
Here in Australia they've got some impressive roads. Melbourne especially. In NZ we've got highways and motorways, in Australia it's highways and freeways. Some freeway segments are tollways and require an e-TAG.
During my time here I understand the e-TAG has been made to work nation-wide, so the same little device will work wherever you travel. It's a pre-paied little ID for your motorvehicle, like a swipe card.
About the size of a '90s cell phone, the e-TAG is a Tesla Coil which beeps as you pass through a magnetic field beneath a gantry above the road. Thusly do the roading authorities know when a user has accessed the road-segment, and charge it to their account. There are cameras that read and match the vehicle's numberplate. If an unauthorised user accesses the road-segment they used to end up with a dirty fine addressed to them. However, this policy has changed so that even without an e-TAG or prior arrangments a driver can retrospectively pay a nominal useage charge by making a phone call and thus avoid a big fine.
It works just fine. All the toll roads in Melbourne use them. In Sydney and Brisbane, if you get in the correct lane, you also have the option of stopping at a booth and paying by coin. Either you throw your money into a chute or stop and actually do it at a manned toll booth.
More exciting Australian OE talk about roads, bridges and tunnels are sure to come!
Here in Australia they've got some impressive roads. Melbourne especially. In NZ we've got highways and motorways, in Australia it's highways and freeways. Some freeway segments are tollways and require an e-TAG.
During my time here I understand the e-TAG has been made to work nation-wide, so the same little device will work wherever you travel. It's a pre-paied little ID for your motorvehicle, like a swipe card.
About the size of a '90s cell phone, the e-TAG is a Tesla Coil which beeps as you pass through a magnetic field beneath a gantry above the road. Thusly do the roading authorities know when a user has accessed the road-segment, and charge it to their account. There are cameras that read and match the vehicle's numberplate. If an unauthorised user accesses the road-segment they used to end up with a dirty fine addressed to them. However, this policy has changed so that even without an e-TAG or prior arrangments a driver can retrospectively pay a nominal useage charge by making a phone call and thus avoid a big fine.
It works just fine. All the toll roads in Melbourne use them. In Sydney and Brisbane, if you get in the correct lane, you also have the option of stopping at a booth and paying by coin. Either you throw your money into a chute or stop and actually do it at a manned toll booth.
More exciting Australian OE talk about roads, bridges and tunnels are sure to come!
Meanwhile, back in Colonial New Zealand...
Getting a bit behind on my reading, so I cut and paste a whole bunch of blog reads onto my phone to read on the train.
So, on the way to Dandenong I noticed Lindsay Mitchell's words...
Emotions are running very high on TV One's Eye to Eye as Hone Harawira and Lindsay Perigo go head-to-head over banning tobacco. Hone says tobacco came with colonisation and Perigo says so did cars, refrigerators and tvs.
Ah yes, I remember that old line. Infact, it was the subject of my first attempt at a political cartoon [click image to enlarge]. I guess Hone Harawira's vision of our history looks exactly like that eh? What a nutter.
4/25/2006
Least We Forget
ANZAC Day, 2006"Albert expresses it: 'The war has ruined us for everything.' He is right. We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war."
- All Quiet On The Western Front
They disembarked in 45
And no-one spoke and no-one smiled
There were to many spaces in the line.
Gathered at the cenotaph
All agreed with the hand on heart
To sheath the sacrificial Knifes.
- Southamption Dock, Pink Floyd
Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?
- All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Remarque
I've just returned from the Dawn Service at Melbourne's Shrine of Rememberance. It was a cold 10 degrees, heavy with moisture. Still, lots of people out there but it was hard to see a thing. I wasn't especially moved this time. And every time I hear someone say 'least we forget' or 'we will remember them' I have to have a cynical smile. Of course we will, sooner or latter. We just hope it's not sooner.
I've just returned from the Dawn Service at Melbourne's Shrine of Rememberance. It was a cold 10 degrees, heavy with moisture. Still, lots of people out there but it was hard to see a thing. I wasn't especially moved this time. And every time I hear someone say 'least we forget' or 'we will remember them' I have to have a cynical smile. Of course we will, sooner or latter. We just hope it's not sooner.
I'm going back into town shortly for the parade, see if that's better.
I see The Whig and ACT On Campus have already paied their respects. I expect others are yet to come. I'm especially looking to Silent Running to make some remarks, this is something Mr Murray does best.
4/24/2006
The Dirtwater Dynasty
As promised, some more Hugo Weaving for you. Before he was in V For Vendetta, before he was in Lord of The Rings and The Matrix trilogies he was an Australian pioneeir.
Weaving played Richard Eastwick in the greatest mini-series I've ever seen, The Dirtwater Dynasty. This is the story of one man, Eastwick, from his life as a homeless urchin in England to the ancient patriarch of a vast Australian empire.
It is the first DVD disk, the first two episodes that impress me the most. Here Eastwick is the perfect Ayn Rand hero, he is the Howard Roark of The Outback. One individual, determined to stand up for himself against the forces of nature and the forces of other men.
He arrives in Australia with enough money to live for a week (which is more than I could say for myself...) and faces despair on striking out to the country to find no work, only abandoned dust and unimagined heat (been there too, done that). But Richard never gives up, he learns how to survive and his curious reasoning mind and determination allow him to gain and fight to keep advance after advance. When everyone else has given up he keeps going, proving his belief in himself well placed.
Eastwick embraces new technology, battles missionaries, droughts, family tragedy, and corrupt lawmen. This is just in the first two episodes. The remaining are about his family in changing times, the World Wars and the Great Depression. Richard the young hero seems to loose sight of his true goal in his fixation with building an empire, an Eastwick dynasty that his family can believe in as much as he. By the end of the series it seems that his origional ideal has decayed into a corruption, except that there is an unexpected final twist that saves the show.
Highly recommended.
Upham upherself!
The main street in Amberley, North Canterbury, is a big wide straight and flat affair with...I dunno, tractor dealerships and general stores either side of it. And, a big bronze statue of WW2 hero Charles Upham- which I always spare a glance on my way by.Many miles away, in Auckland, is a totally different main street. Parnell road is sometimes straight, sometimes very steep and always of regular narrow width. It's filled up with bars, restarants, and several exclusive fancy expensive shops that sell things like designer wool garments, rare books, or dresses. Of all the top Auckland bars along the leading one is George- which I also always spare a glance into on my way by.
Amanda Upham, daughter to Charles himself, comes from the former and now dwells in the latter surroundings, Stuff reported yesterday. What a contrast it is between these two places. Don't get me wrong about Parnell, which I haunted for over a year. It's a beautiful village thick with history and fun backstreets to explore and secret little short-cut allys and pathways to parks. Love it, and love the glamour too. But fine places like this also lend themselves to snobs, and that's what this aloof chain-smoking interior decorator old woman bloodywell is!
And so she might remain, and little would I care except that the fate of a national treasure is in her hands. Charles Upham is a New Zealand war hero, a unique double recipient of the Victoria Cross, an ass-kicking Cantabrian, a fighter, a real winner. Between battles he used to sneek off on his own to kill Germans, he was committed to battle like a true warrior should be. If I were on campaign I'd like to think his courage and extra projects are the sorts of things I'd get up to. Upham refused to sell his medals in his time because, to him, that transaction would represent turning in for mere money the higher value of what he and his mates suffered to achieve. But he's dead now, and the medals go to his three daughters- including the dispicable up-herself Upham.
It is grossly unfair, she says, that the Government refuses to shell out for them. She wants pay back! She says she has had to live with her Father's fame but never got paied for it!? I hate this woman. But what should happen to the medals?
Most libertarians, in answering this moral question, would answer politically. They would say "I don't care, as long as she's not hurting anybody else" and smugly retire as if that were the answer to all questions of moral judgement. Not me. The medals are private property, this business is up to the Uphams, but I'll be damned if I don't have a strong stake in this too as a greatful inheritor of their Father's handywork!
The Uphams should not sell them, it's the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is to appreciate what they represent and accept the honor of being entrusted with their keeping (with a little help from Waiouru military museum.) If these ageing harpies can't see that then they should snap out of it. Wake up! Don't care? Start to care. They should.
They wont. They don't give a toss, Dad is dead and they see dollar signs they can appreciate in exchange for something they simply cannot. So I say give it to them, whoever wants to. I'd be glad to see the treasures out of their wrinkly old crone hands. They don't deserve them.
I'd be happiest for the State to look after them, but not at taxpayer expense. I'd also be happy for the medals to be in play in the marketplace where their symbolic value to New Zealand and the World, beyond the base materials of their construction, has a real and ongoing meaning to people.
4/23/2006
WOMENSFEST SPEECH
I shall now quickly fisk Kate Sutton's Womensfest speech to The Quad at AU a few days ago.
Of course it would have been better to be there, because it was a speech and not a piece of literature. These are just speech notes released on Red Confectionery. The hook, the catch, and the swearing make more sense as a speech. However, the non-facts can be shot down here on equal terms weather they be spoken or penned. So,-
I was invited to speak because I am a successful woman. I must say that this is very flattering, as I do not yet feel successful.
You're not a successful woman. Success is reward for dealing in values but political power is a reward for penalising, for dealing in fear. You are a successful paracite, if successful at all, but not a successful woman.
When told this I started to think about what success is – Sure I do many things. I am a former president of this student union, a current University of Auckland councillor, I am the chairperson of the Tamaki community board and I am a project manager for a charitable trust in South Auckland as well as sitting on about 4/5 other boards and committees.
I rest my case.
I wanted to speak about women overseas and their plight – the feminisation of poverty and how vital it is for us to understand what is happening overseas,
Note the abstract reference to women outside New Zealand and some kind of plight. What women? Where? What's their boggle? If it's vital for us to understand why is it left to the imagination? Are you talking about Australian woman? Who? What? Where?
the HIV/AIDS epidemic which affects mainly heterosexual females and their children.
So do hickups! So does getting hair in your soup and forgetting where you put your shoes! Some vast patriarchal conspiracy, Kate? No. It's just that most members of every population are hetrosexual females and their children. Think about it, you're talking crap.
it is not an equal or fair world for women overseas in our poorer countries who are raped, mutilated, tortured and without homes – they are victims not perpetrators.
Ohhhh, they're victims not perpetrators? Thanks for the correction, as if we needed to be corrected for thinking your poor abstract mutilated mystery women you haven't identified were guilty for being homeless and tortured. Shame on us. You really got us good with that one, Kate.
ask most women if they are discriminated against and most pakeha women will say no. The problem is that the statistics tell a different story 24.2% of judges, 19.2% of newspaper editors, 17.2% of legal partnerships, 18.9% of mayors are women.
What is this fascination with making men and woman homogenous in all industries?
People find their own place in the world without some Stalin conforming every pocket of society into a microcosmic duplicate of the national statistics. If 50% of New Zealanders are woman does it really follow that 50% of magazine editors need to be men? Does the number of percentage points by which we fall short of this really measure sexist discrimination as Kate suggests?
Why is it that 17% of professors and associate professors are women? But it that over 50% of general staff are women – its because there is still a hierarchy of jobs and there is a still a system where women have choices to move ahead - the boys network still exists in this university
Sexual dimorphism exists, celebrate it Sutton! Maybe "most pakeha women" don't wish they were judges, newspaper editors, and politicians? Men and woman have different abilities and tastes that don't happen to conform to what your numerical model demands they should be.
You just want to change the world into one giant game of Sutton Says.
I am passionate about good governance and directorship and I am trying to break the mold of these statistics and bring my sisters with me, but it’s a long slow battle.
I always ask people who produce this bullshit if they would also like to apply their golden median to the crime statistics. Is it also a problem for you, Kate, that insufficient violent offenders are females? Not enough drink drivers? Not enough white collar crime comming from skirts? Should we try to equalise those statistics too for the same reason you have for equalising it in the legal workforce? A television campaign or schools programme to get more little girls to go crooked? Well why not? Or could it be that there are other considerations to the desirability of this kind of equality you have neglected to include in your stupid inferences? Hmmm.
Date rape, gang rape, sexual violence are all a norm here – it’s a joke because men make it so and they are the blokes, the boys club and they are putting us down and taking our jobs.
Well you've got us there. But for a man to get to the bins where Craccum is kept you have to sometimes push girls out of the way, and down a flight of stairs. And as for gang rape, what else is there to do while waiting in those huge queues at the cafe? It's the norm, what can I say?
But, hey. I say again- they're not *your* jobs, Stalinette.
So the stats look bad, the story is still bad - what do we do?
Cut cafe queue times and hand out Craccum magazine to those who are kept waiting. Then I wont have any excuse for all this normalised raping I've been doing all the time and you wont have to think twice before going to luch.
We must encourage a culture of diversity and this starts with accepting women as equal in our society by providing them with equitable opportunity
Well they're not equal, unless you mean politically equal but you do not. "Equitable oppertunity" means whatever you want it to mean, which is clearly that girl% is supposed to go up and boy% down so we're all nice and symmetrical like.
You all have an obligation to wake the fuck up and realise how every thing that you have now, all the rights to be free to earn money to marry when you want, to gain an education, to control your sexuality and bear children when you want – all of these rights have been fought for by women and they can be taken away
Well that's it right there, isn't it Kate? You think you're Kate Sheppard and it's the 1800s, or that you're Betty Friedan and it's the 1960s. These were times for a'changin', for pushing the system the way you're still pushing now. But guess what Kate? It worked.
You are living in the past, still pushing. You still think the right to work, to learn, to invidivual sexuality, to mating and marriage choice are in immanent danger of being snuffed out. But they are not in any such danger, because we fought and won that battle together before you and I were even born.
And why did we fight for those thing? Wasn't it so we could enjoy them? Take your place in the world, woman. Stop squarking. Nobody is trying to make you have babies and steal your jobs, okay? Relax babe. You live in New Zealand in 2006. There are people who love you and could use your help and offer you theirs and share a community with you but if you can tell such people by the shape of their gender you're a better person than I am.
4/22/2006
Kate Sutton
Maybe I shouldn't say I've met Kat Sutton, except that I thought we were in a class together at Auckland in 2002. Seems to me she ran for student office in 2003 but then backed out of the race just before the vote. Can't say for sure, it's a very peripheral memory on account of my not giving a damn.
Had I not left New Zealand in 2004 I would not have failed to notice that this Laborite feminist became Auckland University Student Association President. That would make her one of the first Presidential unhappy inheritors of the voluntary student unionism I helped campaign for. Sorry about that, love.
But not too too sorry, because I hate people like Kate Sutton. First I like to meet them in person, then commence with the full-on hate. For now I've got a kind of provisional-dislike-but-I'll-hate-you-latter attitude going, and it's because she's one of those.
Gay? No. Feminist? No. Labourite? Nope, worse. She's a carear politician. Yuck! From the age of five these specimens gestate though the government primary, secondary and tertiary education system and then come out the other end to perpetuate that system. No life experience, no private sector trials, a bureaucrat born fully clothed into the world. Community boards, charitable trusts, wank wank wank. A tweenager with an MA in political studies from Auckland University out loose in the world.
:: Shudder ::
And that's the author of this speech, blogged on Red Confectionary, which I'll kick a few matchsticks out from under when I wake up tomorrow so we can see it all fall down. For now, time to catch some Zs.
4/21/2006
ACT and Army
Rodney Hide blogs that half of the ACT parliamentary team are signing up for the Territorials. Awesome. Tomorrow, Saturday, is open day in Australia (or Victoria, at the least) for Army Reserves. I'm not doing anything tomorrow so I might pop along and see what it's about.
Earlier in the week my old local MP (Waimakariri), Ron Mark, and my present local electorate MP (Epsom), Rodney, struck out at the Army News. The Army newspaper has been running a horoscope, paying an outsider $75 a pop for it. I think it has been going for 16yrs and cost $20,000 to date.
I just take if for granted that Ron and Rodney are right, obviously. But this is controvesial so I should blog something about it. It's hard to do that because I'm very tired from
a) Working very hard
b) Being shocked by working hard after months of...well of not
c) Not getting much time to sleep
d) Being shocked by less sleep time after months of sleeping in
Brain on low power. Must struggle through...
Lets go:
Rick: The Defense budget is for defence, if you please!
Giles: But entertainment is a valuable munition in any army!
Rick: Horoscopes aren't entertainment. And they derive their false value from false pretense.
Giles: Maybe this one is different.
Rick: Well I bet I could write a great one. Inside army jokes, topical and witty references to army personnel and happenings. That would be worth it. But this is just regular Woman's Weekly bollocks. You have to give it the onus of the doubt.
Giles: Probably you're right and it does just suck. But it didn't cost much.
Rick: Cost?! Every penny needs to be accounted for, particularly as this is stolen money. Every time the government spends money on something you gotta ask yourself: Would I kill my kindly grey-haired old Mother for this?
Giles: Yes, you got me there.
Rick: Of course I do. And isn't it in the defense White Paper statement, or something, that the army is supposed to live up to the capability standard of being able to step into any civilian role? They can write their own!
Giles: So they should too!
Rick: Good thing Ron is looking out for us.
Giles: And Rodney too.
Rick: People should be thankful.
Giles: They lack your virtue.
Earlier in the week my old local MP (Waimakariri), Ron Mark, and my present local electorate MP (Epsom), Rodney, struck out at the Army News. The Army newspaper has been running a horoscope, paying an outsider $75 a pop for it. I think it has been going for 16yrs and cost $20,000 to date.
I just take if for granted that Ron and Rodney are right, obviously. But this is controvesial so I should blog something about it. It's hard to do that because I'm very tired from
a) Working very hard
b) Being shocked by working hard after months of...well of not
c) Not getting much time to sleep
d) Being shocked by less sleep time after months of sleeping in
Brain on low power. Must struggle through...
Lets go:
Rick: The Defense budget is for defence, if you please!
Giles: But entertainment is a valuable munition in any army!
Rick: Horoscopes aren't entertainment. And they derive their false value from false pretense.
Giles: Maybe this one is different.
Rick: Well I bet I could write a great one. Inside army jokes, topical and witty references to army personnel and happenings. That would be worth it. But this is just regular Woman's Weekly bollocks. You have to give it the onus of the doubt.
Giles: Probably you're right and it does just suck. But it didn't cost much.
Rick: Cost?! Every penny needs to be accounted for, particularly as this is stolen money. Every time the government spends money on something you gotta ask yourself: Would I kill my kindly grey-haired old Mother for this?
Giles: Yes, you got me there.
Rick: Of course I do. And isn't it in the defense White Paper statement, or something, that the army is supposed to live up to the capability standard of being able to step into any civilian role? They can write their own!
Giles: So they should too!
Rick: Good thing Ron is looking out for us.
Giles: And Rodney too.
Rick: People should be thankful.
Giles: They lack your virtue.
4/20/2006
Ryan the Yankee
I don't know who he is (or maybe I do but forgot), but I am most impressed by this comment left here yesterday by Ryan Gray. Thanks.
"If we want to defeat terrorist we need to “Westernize” Islam in the same way Christianity and Judaism were. The reason followers of Christianity and Judaism and not acting in the same way is that most ignore significant parts of the Bible that advocate and / or justify such violence (fine with me.) They pick the parts that are safe as bedtime stories for kids and tend to ignore what Moses did to the Midianites in the Book of Numbers. I think we need moderate Moslems (Moslems who ignore or downplay the significance of the parts of the Koran that justify violence against “Infidels.” We need them out there spreading their memes within Islamic society. Moslems thinking about killing innocents are far more likely to listen to a dose of reason from a fellow Moslem than from an Infidel. There will probably come a time when most Moslems are as casual about their religion as most Christians are about theirs. That time will not come however without people like Cat Stevens, Mohamed Ali and other moderate Moslems."
"If we want to defeat terrorist we need to “Westernize” Islam in the same way Christianity and Judaism were. The reason followers of Christianity and Judaism and not acting in the same way is that most ignore significant parts of the Bible that advocate and / or justify such violence (fine with me.) They pick the parts that are safe as bedtime stories for kids and tend to ignore what Moses did to the Midianites in the Book of Numbers. I think we need moderate Moslems (Moslems who ignore or downplay the significance of the parts of the Koran that justify violence against “Infidels.” We need them out there spreading their memes within Islamic society. Moslems thinking about killing innocents are far more likely to listen to a dose of reason from a fellow Moslem than from an Infidel. There will probably come a time when most Moslems are as casual about their religion as most Christians are about theirs. That time will not come however without people like Cat Stevens, Mohamed Ali and other moderate Moslems."
4/19/2006
Australian OE # 01
Australian OE # 01: Accent
From living in Australia I have learned that Australians think we are the ones that have an accent.
I know, I know. It's hard to believe. But I mean it.
Last year I lived in Brisbane and this is a picture [click to enlarge] of a billboard I took while I was there.
It's an add for Kiwi made Mainland cheese. Aggh.
From living in Australia I have learned that Australians think we are the ones that have an accent.
I know, I know. It's hard to believe. But I mean it.
Last year I lived in Brisbane and this is a picture [click to enlarge] of a billboard I took while I was there.
It's an add for Kiwi made Mainland cheese. Aggh.
4/18/2006
The Whig
Bugger.
Blair 'The Whig' Mulholland has defected to the National Party. Aaron Bhatnager is rubbing his hands together in glee.
Why? Why? Why has this happened?
For some time now he has been dissing the way The ACT Party does its business, particularly Rodney Hide. As a libertarian he believes the wider principled message is being drastically sidelined by the many spotfire liberties Hide seems to be focused on. Also, his new co-blogger is Robin Booth and he has been acting like an absolute prick talking down ACT with most every contribution to that blog. Never the less, my jaw dropped to learn of the switch- and for good reason.
In late 2002, early 2003 I'd about had it. My own political party, The Libertarianz, was finally starting to look like it was going nowhere. Worse, it didn't even want to go anywhere. So, I took a short stroll down to ACT HQ in Newmarket and up the stairs to see what my alternative was.
And who pops out to greet me but The Whig himself?
To start with he eyed up the radical libertarian in the offices as if I might go Jihadi at any moment. But I wasn't there to be provoked into hysterics, but to listen and ask questions and to get a feel for what made the ACT people tick. Whig made ACT attractive to me through his clarity and intelligence and ability to listen. Based on his face at the door I decided, after weighing things up, to go ACT. Libertarianz is more principled on paper but principle is hollow and insincere if not put into practical action. But that's what I saw ACT doing- acting! So I defected.
Whig gave me Roger Douglas' books to take home, Unfinished Business and a photocopied There's Got To Be A Better Way. We talked for a while and I promised to return the books when I was done with them...., a promise I'll keep one of these days too.
So, when I think ACT I think Whig. The party can't be totally buggered while someone like him supports and believes in it.
So much for that.
4/17/2006
Venn For You
They are muslims, which means they believe in and follow Islam. THey are already there with the so-called "Fundamentalist Muslims".
So Cat Stephens is your idea of a fundamentalist Muslim? How much thought have you put into this Richard?
Cat Steven is actually more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden, because he lulls people like you into a false sense of security.
Do you think he should be higher up on the Most Wanted Man list than Osama?
Why do you ask such a pointless question?
For the same reason that you don't answer it.
Redneck Twits
I've been distracted from my blogging for the last week because I've been using my time up in debate on SOLO.One mate of mine defends blanked hate-speech against all Muslims thusly..
Scorn is not meant to be a persuasive argument; it's meant to galvanize those already opposed to the object of scorn.
<-- To which I have this reply
Another chump on this matter defends The Free Radical's latest edition by saying...
The point being, that what any particular muslim thinks of Lindsay's editorial is, fucking irrelevant.
To which yours truely shot back: A just fate for ink I sincerely hope you're right about!
Why can't they just hate all Muslims, persecute all Islamists, and apply firm and sensible and reasoned persuasion to everybody else? Seems to me I can convince Joe et al to do that if I just talk slowly enough, so I'm trying.
Love and Grief
DPF bloggs on the Daily Telegraph, specifically on a quote from our Queen...
Grief is the price we pay for love
I don't agree.
Grief is the price we pay for love lost. If love lost is the same as love then all love must fail.
Statistically that might be true, but philosophically that is immoral and metaphysically unacceptable. If it is the human condition that the destiny of our highest values is unavoidable oblivion then what's the point of living? Shakespeare was absorbed with this issue, which is exactly what bought him a ticket to condemnation in the Ayn Rand lexicon.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio..
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
Since Elizabethan times our philosophy has moved beyond this dismal conception of life, even if the new Elizabeth hasn't advanced apace!
More on this subject shortly..
Dead guy on a stick
"Murdering tall poppies -- that's what Easter is about"
Not for the first Easter has Peter Cresswell's blog pulled out that full compliment of nonsense. I far prefer the characterisation offered by Tom Pain in his latest SNN podcast (which is awesome).
"I hope you all had a good Christian Easter, Jewish Passover, or secular chocolate-orientated long weekend".
But lets fixate on the Christian Easter for a moment for the sake of PC's dead guy on a stick claim.
"Just think, Christians revere Christ as their ideal..And then they killed him."
Everybody knows the Christians didn't kill him, and that any serious Christian reverance kicks in some time after Christ has gone, come back, and gone again! Just think.
"..his perfection was an affront to their own imperfection; his nobility an affront to their own ignobility...[the good] are sacrificed to the rotten, the constant to the inconstant, the talented and inspirational to the lumpen dross."
But that's not the story at all! Easter is about Jesus comming back to life, hasn't PC heard the rest of the story? Christ's perfetion, nobility, and talent could not be defeated. Jesus didn't make a sacrifice at all, he had just lived a life of teaching everyone about life after death. He lay down his life knowing he could take it up again- which he did. So, what sacrifice is being worshiped?
Yesterday I refered to The Passion (this is what Christians call the entire episode of...well the entire episode that was made into a Mel Gibson movie called The Passion actually) as a fictional film. That's all it is to me, a work of fiction.
However, it's a fictional story that Christians believe in. If you're going to hammer Christian's belief then you may as well consider their whole story, no? How would PC like it if his beloved Atlas Shrugged were attacked because Francisco d'Anconia sacrificed his life and generations of his families works? If you only know the first part of Francisco's story you'd think of him what Cresswell thinks of Jesus too!
The Passion is a good story for Christ's sake! But not if you miss the ending!
PC demonstrates that you don't have to have a chocolate-coated shell in order to be an egg.
Not for the first Easter has Peter Cresswell's blog pulled out that full compliment of nonsense. I far prefer the characterisation offered by Tom Pain in his latest SNN podcast (which is awesome).
"I hope you all had a good Christian Easter, Jewish Passover, or secular chocolate-orientated long weekend".
But lets fixate on the Christian Easter for a moment for the sake of PC's dead guy on a stick claim.
"Just think, Christians revere Christ as their ideal..And then they killed him."
Everybody knows the Christians didn't kill him, and that any serious Christian reverance kicks in some time after Christ has gone, come back, and gone again! Just think.
"..his perfection was an affront to their own imperfection; his nobility an affront to their own ignobility...[the good] are sacrificed to the rotten, the constant to the inconstant, the talented and inspirational to the lumpen dross."
But that's not the story at all! Easter is about Jesus comming back to life, hasn't PC heard the rest of the story? Christ's perfetion, nobility, and talent could not be defeated. Jesus didn't make a sacrifice at all, he had just lived a life of teaching everyone about life after death. He lay down his life knowing he could take it up again- which he did. So, what sacrifice is being worshiped?
Yesterday I refered to The Passion (this is what Christians call the entire episode of...well the entire episode that was made into a Mel Gibson movie called The Passion actually) as a fictional film. That's all it is to me, a work of fiction.
However, it's a fictional story that Christians believe in. If you're going to hammer Christian's belief then you may as well consider their whole story, no? How would PC like it if his beloved Atlas Shrugged were attacked because Francisco d'Anconia sacrificed his life and generations of his families works? If you only know the first part of Francisco's story you'd think of him what Cresswell thinks of Jesus too!
The Passion is a good story for Christ's sake! But not if you miss the ending!
PC demonstrates that you don't have to have a chocolate-coated shell in order to be an egg.
4/16/2006
Daffy Duck is Jesus
It's Easter time, and on TV tonight I'm watching what promises to be a crappy remake of The Ten Commandments.
Next up tonight is Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ, which has all the precussion of a slapstick sketch, without any of the mirth. If actor James Caviezel had only delivered the line "Oh mother!" [Ed- or is it "Oh brother" for Daffy?] with a wet lisp, he would have been a dead-ringer for Daffy Duck! The endurance for violence in the film is of Looney Tunes capacity, though with blood, without wit, and without total regenesis at every scene change.
A Christian is supposed to decide if they really want in with the bargain of this pain and carnage or to reject it for a more gentle world-view. Acceptance means toning up one's conviction/faith to match the repulsion of The Passion- a strengthening of one's Christianity.
A heathen, on the other hand, is supposed to be humbled. He is intended to submit to the ramifications of the closing scene of this fictional film.
At least, that's what I wrote in my diary in February 2004 having just seen the film here in Melbourne.
Silver Lining 2/2
T'is an ill wind that blows nobody any good! Allow me to demonstrate.
The Silver Lining # 2:
Last week the Newstalk ZB podcast featured broadcaster Larry Williams interviewing Ray Spring of the Christchurch Cat Control Campaign.
I kept a copy of the podcast, take a listen to it. Listen to how this fruit-loop fanatical and his little gang are attempting to exterminate housecats back home in Christchurch.
I understand their perspective though. Beneath the soft and fluffy exterior cats are are violent preditors. Most people look at a housecat and see a sort of living teddy bear. This mob sees the dark side, the cold-blooded calculating killer. But both of these things are in a cat's nature, and I love cats for the whole. Many owners scold their cat for hunting and try to rescue the little mouse or bird. They are confounded that their 'teddy bear' has missbehaved. Not me! When cats I've known have brought me a kill I fuss over them in genuine appreciation. I pat them and they purr at the recognition, I'm as proud of what they've done as they are themselves. What an unempathetic rebuke it would be to reject them as a bad teddy when they've really been a good cat.
Anyway, these Christchurch extremists have no taste for such terrible beauty. People like this, pushing for law change, can champion their cause and usurp the private property rights of those who would let cats be cats. Listen to the podcast. They want cats registered and chipped and killed if caught out after dark. They want ownership restricted to only one cat per home and suggest cag-proof yard fortifications to keep cats confined! But this is exactly the pattern of bossy-boot busy-body political action group work that has lead to every other unrightful government presence in our everyday lives.
Silver lining: These extremist dorks, like the PC PCs of yesterday, go so far in their cause as to do actual damage to it. Cat-ignorant idiots (many are cat owners) would go along with moderate, though no less totalitarian, regulations. There is plenty of support for the thin end of this wedge, as long as the thick end of the wedge is denied- and it's really hard to for libertarians to oppose this. However, extremist crazies make wedge politics impossible! From the first they are disclosing the full naked motivation of their ambition.
And that is the silver lining. They're so damn trigger-happy they shoot themselves in the foot. To that extent those who want the cat-crazies to die out should finance and support the lunatic fringe. The damage they strike to their own stated intent is cheap at most any price!
ps Ray Spring is an ex-pat Pom. Aren't they always?!!
The Silver Lining # 2:
Last week the Newstalk ZB podcast featured broadcaster Larry Williams interviewing Ray Spring of the Christchurch Cat Control Campaign.
I kept a copy of the podcast, take a listen to it. Listen to how this fruit-loop fanatical and his little gang are attempting to exterminate housecats back home in Christchurch.
I understand their perspective though. Beneath the soft and fluffy exterior cats are are violent preditors. Most people look at a housecat and see a sort of living teddy bear. This mob sees the dark side, the cold-blooded calculating killer. But both of these things are in a cat's nature, and I love cats for the whole. Many owners scold their cat for hunting and try to rescue the little mouse or bird. They are confounded that their 'teddy bear' has missbehaved. Not me! When cats I've known have brought me a kill I fuss over them in genuine appreciation. I pat them and they purr at the recognition, I'm as proud of what they've done as they are themselves. What an unempathetic rebuke it would be to reject them as a bad teddy when they've really been a good cat.
Anyway, these Christchurch extremists have no taste for such terrible beauty. People like this, pushing for law change, can champion their cause and usurp the private property rights of those who would let cats be cats. Listen to the podcast. They want cats registered and chipped and killed if caught out after dark. They want ownership restricted to only one cat per home and suggest cag-proof yard fortifications to keep cats confined! But this is exactly the pattern of bossy-boot busy-body political action group work that has lead to every other unrightful government presence in our everyday lives.
Silver lining: These extremist dorks, like the PC PCs of yesterday, go so far in their cause as to do actual damage to it. Cat-ignorant idiots (many are cat owners) would go along with moderate, though no less totalitarian, regulations. There is plenty of support for the thin end of this wedge, as long as the thick end of the wedge is denied- and it's really hard to for libertarians to oppose this. However, extremist crazies make wedge politics impossible! From the first they are disclosing the full naked motivation of their ambition.
And that is the silver lining. They're so damn trigger-happy they shoot themselves in the foot. To that extent those who want the cat-crazies to die out should finance and support the lunatic fringe. The damage they strike to their own stated intent is cheap at most any price!
ps Ray Spring is an ex-pat Pom. Aren't they always?!!
4/15/2006
Silver Lining 1/2
T'is an ill wind that blows nobody any good! Allow me to demonstrate.
The Silver Lining # 1:
Lindsay Mitchell blogs today of the English police emergency that had a Herefordshire shopkeeper rush to the crime scene, his shop, in a bluster. Turned out they wanted to impound three gollywog dolls in the shop window!
Silver lining: Days latter an embarassed constabulary return the toys and the politically correct police constables (PC PCs!) end up a laughing stock and actually hurt their stupid cause!
^^^ Click image to enlarge ^^^
[update- I have expanded on this on SOLO]
4/12/2006
NZB3 comes home
Ah, that's better!
The April 1st Blogger crisis has passed at last.
So far this month NZB3 has been camping out on blogspot, but now we're back home on our own server.
It's faster and just better! And the feed works again now too.
Outtakes
I'm going through and squaring away my hard drive. Run accross these old files that were going to be part of the NZB3 podcast.
Not soon after I recorded them I found out I'd been announcing Julian Pistorius' name all wrong! But I'm glad I kept these files because they're funny to listen to.
Waste not want not!
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip2.mp3
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip3.mp3
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip4.mp3
Not soon after I recorded them I found out I'd been announcing Julian Pistorius' name all wrong! But I'm glad I kept these files because they're funny to listen to.
Waste not want not!
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip2.mp3
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip3.mp3
http://nzb3.com/files/introclip4.mp3
4/11/2006
Evil and Evil-doers
I believe in evil, you should too, here's why.
All our actions are goal-directed actions. Open the window because you want some fresh air. Go to work to earn some money. But what goal does fresh air and money achieve? Is there some final goal that all the little actions and little goals are a means to? Yes there is, and that's living. Living is an end in itself for us.
Unlike all the other animals the prospect of living for humans presents a moral crisis. All the other beasties have their goals and actions set for life. Bees have to make honey, sea gulls scavenge, whales bob about slurping up plankton. We, on the other hand, have to pick our own means of living- it's voluntary for us except that you need to decide how fast because otherwise you'll die of procrastination- that bit isn't a choice. Most of the avaliable options end up killing us, that's what you call bad, and anything left after that's what you call good.
Being around these days in the Western world with our recorded 2000 years of handed-down experience at being intelligent to draw on is rather a good deal. Guys and girls before us have been sorting out this moral crisis about how to live and have eliminated lots of bad choices and recommended lots of good ones. Hat tips to Joseph Lister for antiseptics, Ben Franklin for electricity, The Beatles for the music. And a big thankyou to this year's Darwin Award recipients for showing us what not to do.
Yes, between capitalism and modern Western civilisation we've pretty much got this moral crisis each and every one of us is faced with cornered and wimpering in submission! If we keep this up our strength for living, and the corresponding joy in living, can only improve. But now I come to evil.
Using your intellect to exercise volition- that's the name of the game. So evil is what? Evil is force. Force and mind are opposites. Without our volition, without the ability to choose goal-directed action, morality comes to an end and with it your power to live. Force is the death of us, freedom is a moral imperitive. But now I come to evil-doers.
"My position was that you cannot divorce evil from its practitioners — evil is not a Platonic abstraction existing in some other dimension independently of the human beings who perpetrate it — and that it's perfectly proper to attack them personally precisely for the evil that they are perpetrating & provided one can show that they are indeed doing that, in which case the attacks are not gratuitous or ad hominem"
- Lindsay Perigo
This I fully agree with. Evil is a name for human goals and actions at their very worst misuse. The freedom we need is not freedom from the forces of reality (this is our volition's subject matter) but freedom from other people tampering with our capacity for morality. You might end up in the same deadly bind either way, perhaps holding onto a cliff by your fingertips. If your own free choices lead you there and to slip to your death then there's no evil, nobody else to blame. But if someone forced you into that same position against your volition then that is evil. Evil needs human beings to perpetrate it. There are no evil trees or evil spirits, just us.
To that extent it is perfectly proper to send these wishes to the following individual perpetrators of evil, looking them in the eye and to their faces:
"Death to Destiny Church!"
"Death to Scouting New Zealand!"
"Death to Shinto!"
"Death to The Salvation Army"
"Death to St Stephens Anglican Church!"
"Death to St Bedes Colledge!!"
"Death to Parnell Christian Woman's Knitting Circle (meets every second Sunday at Jubilee Hall, bring your own wool and scones)!! Yahh!"
"Death to Islam!"
"Death to Mothers For Environmentalism!"
That parishioner, that Scoutmaster, that Priest, that school teacher, that Muslim, that Mother: evil. Religion in all these forms is a kind of mental illness, a virulent force to attack intellect and volition. In no measure should it be tolerated. As to when, how, and if you break the news to these individuals- there are different schools of thought.
Dewy 330
It may seem logical that the best books on economics will belong to the best economics school. However, my argument is that this is not so.
One does not become a true economist by becomming steeped the capitalist doctrines. Likewise, one does not become a true philosopher by dining only on the doctrine of Ayn Rand; Nor does one become wise in farming itself by tending a single crop or stock.
In every science or cognitive discipline there is an essence that transcends the state of the art. This is the same logos or scholarship or kernel that has been like a thread running through the thoughts of all thinkers on any given subject. In economics this thread was first created by Adam Smith, but it outlasted him as it will outlast the economists of today.
The highest economist is an economic philosopher. His subject matter, like all the great economists, is not a single doctrine but this special thread that runs though them all. He thinks about the essence of economics as if it's a mountain and he has to cut his own trail to the summit. He is not content to live off the scraps of begged opinion, he considers economics first-hand in the same way that the great economists considered them. By reading the works of great economists one studies not directly their practical use but their way of thinking about the problem. Economics is a very young science with much unmapped territory. The true course of econmics inheres in making new discoveries in that uncharted territory, not in simply learning by rote the lessons of a Keynes or a Friedman.
There is a hierachy of economists. There are underlaborers- econometricians, technitians of economics. There are students, there are teachers. There are workers, perhaps at the bank or in journalism where they apply economics. Higher still are the policy-makers, advisors to political leaders. But at the top of the heap are the very best, the great economists- the intellectual pioneers. Their thinking changes the whole world. Smith, Mill, Marx, Marshall, Keynes, von Mises, Friedman, and so forth. This is the best of economics therefore the subject of their great works makes for the best of economic literature.
What you aquire from studying the greats is hard to boast about. It is seldom taught at school and the value you get cannot be measured in course credits. Parents and teachers and friends will scoff and make you feel ashamed for spending so much time 'away with the fairies' 'just thinking.' All the same, the best economics consists in examining and truely understanding at the coal-face these fundamental premises. You're in a better position to understand your chosen school as well as to defeat the competing ones. And then, if you have talant, you could become a great economist yourself!
So, the best books are the economic histories. Dewy Decimal 330.
One does not become a true economist by becomming steeped the capitalist doctrines. Likewise, one does not become a true philosopher by dining only on the doctrine of Ayn Rand; Nor does one become wise in farming itself by tending a single crop or stock.
In every science or cognitive discipline there is an essence that transcends the state of the art. This is the same logos or scholarship or kernel that has been like a thread running through the thoughts of all thinkers on any given subject. In economics this thread was first created by Adam Smith, but it outlasted him as it will outlast the economists of today.
The highest economist is an economic philosopher. His subject matter, like all the great economists, is not a single doctrine but this special thread that runs though them all. He thinks about the essence of economics as if it's a mountain and he has to cut his own trail to the summit. He is not content to live off the scraps of begged opinion, he considers economics first-hand in the same way that the great economists considered them. By reading the works of great economists one studies not directly their practical use but their way of thinking about the problem. Economics is a very young science with much unmapped territory. The true course of econmics inheres in making new discoveries in that uncharted territory, not in simply learning by rote the lessons of a Keynes or a Friedman.
There is a hierachy of economists. There are underlaborers- econometricians, technitians of economics. There are students, there are teachers. There are workers, perhaps at the bank or in journalism where they apply economics. Higher still are the policy-makers, advisors to political leaders. But at the top of the heap are the very best, the great economists- the intellectual pioneers. Their thinking changes the whole world. Smith, Mill, Marx, Marshall, Keynes, von Mises, Friedman, and so forth. This is the best of economics therefore the subject of their great works makes for the best of economic literature.
What you aquire from studying the greats is hard to boast about. It is seldom taught at school and the value you get cannot be measured in course credits. Parents and teachers and friends will scoff and make you feel ashamed for spending so much time 'away with the fairies' 'just thinking.' All the same, the best economics consists in examining and truely understanding at the coal-face these fundamental premises. You're in a better position to understand your chosen school as well as to defeat the competing ones. And then, if you have talant, you could become a great economist yourself!
So, the best books are the economic histories. Dewy Decimal 330.
Schools of Economics
I think most bloggers know there are many schools of politics. These we like to place on "the political spectrum." (recent writings on my reguard for the utility of that here)
Most everybody knows there are different schools of theology, from Buddhism to Christianity to Wicca. Many people know there are different schools of dance, different schools of psychology, of philosophy, of music, of physics. But did you know there were different schools of economics? It is so.
As a matter of interest, there are or have been different schools in most every subject. However, as a science or an art becomes better traveled the alternative schools tend to be cast asside. I don't know myself if there are different schools of mathematics anymore. But in the early days people used to get thrown overboard for suggesting the possibility of irrational numbers (this is what comes of arguing in boats).
^^^ This little tree is my understanding so far of the different schools of economics (click on image to view full size).
Economics, for me, starts with The Classicals- Adam Smith being the first of them. Marxism and Neo-Classicism for example are both schools that directly stem from the Classical school of economics, whereas Keynesianism stems from Neo-Classicism and is the scion of three more schools.
I'm quite keen on the Austrian school, but my second choice would be the Institutionalist school which takes its roots from a mix between Marxism and Veblenese economics.
What we're taught at school in New Zealand is actually drawn from every one of these schools. How else could it be, since all of these schools have great world-shaking ideas that cannot be ignored? But in the main our university lecturers tend to be dominated either by Neoclassical, Keynesian or Monetarist thought.
This table is only advanced as my own knowledge. As I understand more schools I modify the table. There is no place on my table the likes of Frederick Bastiat or the thematic school of Game Theory. The former is more of a gad-fly muse than any school, the latter is a system of logic that is compatable with nearly any school you please.
4/10/2006
Planet Rock Evolution
Every Sunday a rockumentary out of Canberra is simulcast accross Australia on the TrippleM radio network. And I listen to it, because it's very good.
Rob Duckworth has access to much music history knowledge and lots of interview tapes. Some tapes he has made himself in person with famous artists. He puts together a show where artists talk about their lives and their works, and then plays the music in that light.
This week the topic of the show is New Zealand rock!
Split-Enz, Dragon, Mi-Sex, and so on. It's good stuff, you should check it out (click on image above). But hurry up because it will only be online until Sunday afternoon when the new show updates.
ps This is a nice Libertarian way to get free music, see? Not like what Bad Dominic does.
Death To Hate Speech
Chaos Theory has raised again the issue of how best to win this war for our way of life? Which war? The one with the Muslims of course, specifically with the fundamentalists but generally with the entire culture, entire civilisation, entire religion, of Islam.
The historiography rolls something like this:
Lindsay Perigo writes this on SOLO, then publishes it in The Free Radical magazine.
Not PC blog says yay.
NZB3 says nay.
A month latter PC blog has to say "yay" again.
This incites Chaos Theory to say "nay" as per above.
Kiwi Blog gives hat tip to Chaos Theory.
This, in turn, incites PC to say "yay again" again.
I have nothing new to say, but I did draw something...
<-- Click to enlarge
The historiography rolls something like this:
Lindsay Perigo writes this on SOLO, then publishes it in The Free Radical magazine.
Not PC blog says yay.
NZB3 says nay.
A month latter PC blog has to say "yay" again.
This incites Chaos Theory to say "nay" as per above.
Kiwi Blog gives hat tip to Chaos Theory.
This, in turn, incites PC to say "yay again" again.
I have nothing new to say, but I did draw something...
<-- Click to enlarge
Shire Network News
SNN; 6:20 mins
"Reasons to hate the United Nations, number 2375:
With Iran threatening to wipe Israil off the map, Al Zakawi busy with his start-a-civil-war-through-sectarian-murder programme. A genocide going on in Darfur, Robert Mugabie turning the former bread-basket of Africa into a basket case and Fidel Castro still inexplicably alive it's good good to see the all-encompasing moral authority of the United Nations being turned to the most vital human rights issue facing mankind today. I refer of course to giving New Zealand Maori more rights!"
SNN 42 is out, Shire Network News podcast that is. I'm just listening to it now. Apart from much other wisdom Tom Paine's item, which I quote above, caps off nicely the whole Marxist Sociology Professor from Mexico episode. Of course SNN tells it best- not only because they tell it last, and stand on the shoulders of the giants who have commentated all week before them, but because there's nobody else quite so terribly clever and amusing.
Another git from the UN stopped by NZ to reveal to us some bullshit wisdom, bullshit history and bullshit advice. This time New Zealand wasn't buying! On your bike Rodolfo!
4/09/2006
The Lost Generation
John Campbell has an interesting advertisment for his show (Campbell Live) on Monday night. Basically, it involves shots of the Big Day Out, with his voice questioning if 'Generations X and Y' aren't 'The Lost Generation'.
It's a shame that John and his team are eighty years late! The Lost Generation were the people who came of age during and just after World War One. It particularly refers to the expatriates - a group of American artists and writers living in Europe at the time. People like Earnest Hemmingway, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. They weren't just 'lost' because of the war - they were anomic (my favourite term), dislocated and disillusioned.
Campbell's list of things the Nova Lost are facing pales in comparison to two world wars and a depression that made a quarter of the workforce unemployed; apparently, we’re "crippled by student loan debt and living beyond our means", We're having to give up our "dreams of owning a home". Oh noes. Big deal.
I think there's often something useful in trying to condense down the spirit of the times (or of a generation) into a simple phrase or explanation: it helps in getting a sense of the general feeling, the intangible energy in the air. It reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson's account of what's sometimes now called the consciousness revolution: "that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
That's fantastic. But the temptation, all over the place these days, is to pick up whatever short term trend you want to hype, put it into the form 'The [your term here] Generation' and make a lot of noise about it. Perhaps I'm wrong but in twenty years we're not going to be known as The Lost Generation because of mortgages and personal finance.
It's a shame that John and his team are eighty years late! The Lost Generation were the people who came of age during and just after World War One. It particularly refers to the expatriates - a group of American artists and writers living in Europe at the time. People like Earnest Hemmingway, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. They weren't just 'lost' because of the war - they were anomic (my favourite term), dislocated and disillusioned.
Campbell's list of things the Nova Lost are facing pales in comparison to two world wars and a depression that made a quarter of the workforce unemployed; apparently, we’re "crippled by student loan debt and living beyond our means", We're having to give up our "dreams of owning a home". Oh noes. Big deal.
I think there's often something useful in trying to condense down the spirit of the times (or of a generation) into a simple phrase or explanation: it helps in getting a sense of the general feeling, the intangible energy in the air. It reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson's account of what's sometimes now called the consciousness revolution: "that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
That's fantastic. But the temptation, all over the place these days, is to pick up whatever short term trend you want to hype, put it into the form 'The [your term here] Generation' and make a lot of noise about it. Perhaps I'm wrong but in twenty years we're not going to be known as The Lost Generation because of mortgages and personal finance.
4/07/2006
Da Vinci Code
Checking out showtimes, the Da Vinci Code comes out in May.
If I had a buck for every person on a train I'd seen reading this...
Remember South Park and the Bloody Mary episode?
I predict a run on dart boards with Tom Hanks' face as the bull's eye as Christians flock to persecute the poor Gump.
4/06/2006
Frontline
We don't know how lucky we are. We don't know how proficious are the circumstances, Kiwis.
I know that since I've been away Paul Homes left TVNZ, and for a while there were three post-news current affairs shows. But thankfully we in Enzed have not yet devolved to the state of presenting and consuming tabloid news shows among ourselves.
Australia does! Oh yes they do!
An example from Monday night, here on mp3.
In the '90s one of the greatest comedic television creations of all time was a 13 episode show called Frontline. Wow it was good. It totally blew the legs out from under the lie that finds its function in tabloid news TV. These Australians did a fantastic job with their show. With "A Current Affair" and "Today Tonight" in competition here in Oz for who can pull the most dirty laundry ratings every night we could use a few more Frontline episodes now!
The Holden Republic
Constitution junkie Lewis Holden has added a quick guide to our 37 Prime Money Wasters to his blog. How come Mike Moore has panda eyes? What happened to Oscar Wild Street? And what RNZAF jet was named Spud One? What Prime Minister (who built his own house in Kaiapoi, my town) do 'some people think was killed by the CIA, but they're nuts?'
In other Holden news, an anti-Holden Republic blog has started up. Bill Wilmot, however, doesn't have the wits to be serious competition. Back home I used to listen to The Wizzard of Christchurch in The Square, and he would make some Royalist sense. Alas, he has deminished and we forgoe the debate we deserve in substitute for "God appointed the Windsor family to rule over his children on earth"-Wilmot.
Ah, one other thing. A very reliable source suggests to me that Holden may soon join Mike Heine's hallowed hall of 'what it means to be on the right' guest bloggers.
In other Holden news, an anti-Holden Republic blog has started up. Bill Wilmot, however, doesn't have the wits to be serious competition. Back home I used to listen to The Wizzard of Christchurch in The Square, and he would make some Royalist sense. Alas, he has deminished and we forgoe the debate we deserve in substitute for "God appointed the Windsor family to rule over his children on earth"-Wilmot.
Ah, one other thing. A very reliable source suggests to me that Holden may soon join Mike Heine's hallowed hall of 'what it means to be on the right' guest bloggers.
4/05/2006
For the benefit of Shailynn
This is the PC that blogs the blog that reports on the prank that Rick pulled.
This is the second draw that Rick filled up with saw and took a picture of to put on the the PC that blogs the blog that reports on the prank that Rick pulled.
And this is George's snap that caught Rick in the act, taking a picture of the second draw that Rick filled up with saw and took a picture of to put on the the PC that blogs the blog that reports on the prank that Rick pulled
Remember, remember
Remember, remember, the fifth of November, The gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
V For Vendetta has been released, it's a good movie. Dominic says something he read indicated it was intended to be released on the 5th of November last year but was delayed 6 months. Shame about that, still the same thing happened to George Orwell but in his case it was 36 years between the title he wanted, '1948', and the title he got, '1984'.
We libertarians, we like the distopia genra. A world gone mad is what these stories show everyone- mad after the fashion we libertarians warn you about when the madness is knee-high to a grasshopper. So we hope you feel appropriate shock at distopic stories because in your shock is our retribution, our vindication, for all our hard work of looking out for you.
^^ Pic from my friend AnnaG
Every libertarian I know (except M) complains about this film for not being solution-based enough. It talks about society's problem, it takes it to the climax and then what? The movie, THEY complain, doesn't say what's to happen after the revolution.
I don't have a problem with that. It's not the anti-Seinfeld, it's not "the movie about everything." No, it's a film about Vee. It's tradgedy.
Here's a man who is damaged goods, they broke his wings. A failure? It's not a story about the beginning of the revolution, it's a story about the end of the tyranny. And what's so wrong with telling that story?
We're clearly told the 'frog slowly boiling' and the Orwellian language change stories. We get the propaganda, dissarming and surveillance and indoctrination of citizens. We're shown how the beautiful lives of a gay couple are cancelled out for being different. We see that there is something about life of higher value than merely being alive.
It's just not true that Vee doesn't "give a rat's arse" about his beneficiaries. Infact, he gave so much care to it that he leaves his final climax entirely to them to take or leave. The protagonist is a human scar, unfit for a land of milk and honey.
Harrison Bergeron, if you've seen it, and Atlas Shrugged, if you've read it, are exactly the same when it comes to this. Vee doesn't mean to rebuild mankind and errect new idols but to tear down the old idols- not unlike D'Anconia, Danneskjold, and Gault.
You want to know what happens next? The new regime? That, my friend, is another movie.
- More on Hugo Weaving (he played Vee) very soon
Blog Block
This blog is powered by Blogger. They've got a great package that makes blogging easy and they let we many and various bloggers use it for free. I deduce they're getting something of value for themselves out of this act of global internet benevolence.
Being that it's free it's hard to complain, so we haven't (not that 5days of being unable to blog is much of an inconvenience to co-blogger Dominic!). Since April 1st the NZB3 blog and several dozen others at least have been unable to publish. I know Blogger are messing with their equipment. A couple weeks back Blogger blogs were having trouble adding pictures. So, I thought, lets just ride it out and it'll be fixed tomorrow.
Five tomorrows latter: this philosophy has failed.
Seems that only blogs that publish to their own servers are effected. Therefore, I have moved NZB3 onto blogspot.com hosting until this crisis has ended. We're back in business, you'll barely notice the changes but for one.
The feed wont be the same. There is a blogspot hosted feed now which is working, whereas the old one will not be. But I don't want to go advertising the fact since all this is temporary and we'll be back on our own server soon (right Blogger? right?) and back to normal.
The silver lining of all this is that it shows that Silent Running Murray has been shown to read NZB3 and misses it when it is gone! He's a very important person. We must not fail him.
4/01/2006
April Fools Day
George is working thismorning. This makes him my prey.
I took over the shift from him yesterday and placed myself between him and the computer so that he would leave it to me to log him out and log myself in. This I did, but not before changing his desktop background image to a montage of many piles of sawdust.
George will be very perplexed by this in a few hours time. He will then open the right-hand desk draw to locate the calculator, pens, stapler and so forth. All he will find in that draw is a large pile of sawdust.
I was thinking of filling all the desk draws up with sawdust, but settled only in filling up the left-hand top draw too which has all the current paperwork in it. Sorry, HAD all the current paperwork. He'll have to go fish for that now of course.
It's a very liberal dose of sawdust too. I mean, the draws are full to the brim. No half measures here, it's that little extra attention to quality that makes the difference.
Significance of sawdust? None. But you work with what you've got.
Could I have done better? Yes, for I have great and mischievious powers of imagination! But you have to understand that George, my co-worker, is a boring old sod and to his fastidious ways this will constitute a semi-crisis beyond anything rubber chicken chaos might have wrought.
Good.
I took over the shift from him yesterday and placed myself between him and the computer so that he would leave it to me to log him out and log myself in. This I did, but not before changing his desktop background image to a montage of many piles of sawdust.
George will be very perplexed by this in a few hours time. He will then open the right-hand desk draw to locate the calculator, pens, stapler and so forth. All he will find in that draw is a large pile of sawdust.
I was thinking of filling all the desk draws up with sawdust, but settled only in filling up the left-hand top draw too which has all the current paperwork in it. Sorry, HAD all the current paperwork. He'll have to go fish for that now of course.
It's a very liberal dose of sawdust too. I mean, the draws are full to the brim. No half measures here, it's that little extra attention to quality that makes the difference.
Significance of sawdust? None. But you work with what you've got.
Could I have done better? Yes, for I have great and mischievious powers of imagination! But you have to understand that George, my co-worker, is a boring old sod and to his fastidious ways this will constitute a semi-crisis beyond anything rubber chicken chaos might have wrought.
Good.
