Posts by Steve Withers
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My observation of the history of Telecom on wholesale offerings to competitors is that they delay until they have all the early-adopters signed up as well as those who understand the benefits of the new service and who are most likely to take it up right away.
Then the competition gets a look in to see if there is anyone ELSE around who might be persuaded to take up this new service...always with Telecom's own price (if you're lucky) as the floor everyone stands on. Go back to "IP Dial" 10 years ago and beyond an illustration of how this toe-dragging works. Telecom gave Xtra the very best per-minute rate possible before Xtra had gone live as an ISP or signed up a single customer. We "give them the benefit of the doubt" again and again. Swimming in shame we all should be for being fooled so many times. :-) No wonder regulation was needed....but it requires close monitoring to make it make it work for the whole industry and comms users.
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Linda - interesting. Thanks for the link. This private schools for profit thing just won't go away. Makes you wonder who EXACTLY the people are behind it as a constant goal. It can't just be an ideological tick off the list.
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I got around the food price by putting a steer in the freezer. Average price / KG is $2.64 for everything from porterhouse to sausages. But I had to buy a 700 litre freezer to hold the 300kgs of beef. Better than broke even on the first steer and saving sh*tloads on the second and after. For the rest, I buy lots of veggies. Green stuff and some roots (potatoes, onions, etc...). It's all the OTHER, packaged stuff that costs an average of $5 / item. So I buy few items. Amazing what you don't really need. As for petrol, I sold the ute and 4x4 and we now drive a 1.3L Mazda Demio (1998) that does 7 litres / 100kms. That effectively put us back to $30 / week for petrol. The rego was $183 thanks to the smaller engine. We have a Honda 1.6L too, but rarely use it. Our house is almost sold, so we should be sitting pretty with no debt shortly. Renting seems to make sense right now. The banks have had more than enough of my cash over the years. Time to get interest rates working FOR me.....not against me. When i do buy a house, it will be an old, cheap one with a small mortgage, hopefully at the absolute nadir of the present downturn...and I'll pay it off fast.
Loads of room to save money in the present downturn. I can't say how long its going to last because it took 3 years longer to arrive than i thought it would. But the combination of US wastage with the debt cliff approaching meant it was almost certain to come.
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I've been watching downloaded TV shows on a big flat PC screen for several years now, so I'm having trouble getting excited about HD from the local broadcasters. They play the US content 6 months late and the UK content can be years late...and both can be at midnight.
I watched Obama's speech after hearing Chris Trotter raving about it on NatRad on Thursday afternoon last week. At just over 37 minutes, it was a significant commitment of time to a Youtube vid. I usually bail out by 2 minutes unless it's extraordinary. Life is too short. Obama's speech IS extraordinary. M and I watched every minute of it. Compared to Clinton's formulaic and transparently manipulative media and issue management, it was a huge breath of fresh air in an American political atmosphere distinguished by stale old air generated by the same-old, same-old.
As for Wright, pointing out the role US foreign policy played in a arriving at 9/11 is simple obvious common sense. No one outside the US could have any issues with that part of his comments. Actions have consequences.
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Key is clearly struggling with the detail. Good to see it becoming obvious before the election rather than after. Voters who are paying attention will have been forewarned. Business leaders used to be being - in effect - dictators do seem to struggle when they make the cultural jump to democracy. They need to know so much more.
Maybe the same applies to the collective mind of the Chinese leadership. Used to commanding, it may be that their writ is of limited power in Tibet without the guns being in clear view. Closer to oppression than democracy they, too, are struggling with what they don't know how to do. They need to know so much more.
I don't have an encyclopaedic grasp of the history or the present with respect to Tibet. Do I wait until I have such an understanding before deciding people killing / maiming others is a bad idea? I don't think so. It's a good place to start.Tibet is another one of those situations where, from almost any angle, the history is long and sad. Urging restraint really is the only possible response in the short to medium term. China clearly regards this as an internal matter. Their ears won't be set to "Listen" if it means they hear only criticism.
If they did stand back and let the rioters blow off steam, that may well be a sign that they have learned some of what they need to know to settle people down rather than squash them down. We'll have to see whether they talk to Tibetans about any issues, or just round up the leaders and make them disappear.
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Bravo, Steve Judd for pointing out the media took the easy road whie the blogger did the homework.
Bravo Russell for blogging on this report and demonstrating the diverse range of coverage rendered and also where to find the source documents so we can see for ourselves.
Blogging at its best.
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Craig said: "And I think it's an inconvenient truth to point that successive New Zealand governments have been quite happy to engage in quick-draw 'megaphone diplomacy' when the bullhorn is pointed at nations (Zimbabwe, Fiji) that aren't too far up the trade league table (China, Iran). Hypocritical moral prostitution or the uncomfortable sight of realpolitik in action?"
I agree, Craig. While governments have shown selctive morality, Keith Locke has been consistent. If there is any criticism to be meted out, it shouldn't be directed at Locke. 'Realpolitik' is, almost by definition, a synonym for hypocrisy.
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Back during the campaign for MMP, letterboxes in Christchurch were stuffed with breathless pamphlets claiming that I was a Communist and member of the SUP. I was National Secretary of the Electoral Reform Coalition at the time. I've never been a communist at any stage and at that point the only political party I had belonged to was Bob Jone's "New Zealand Party" in 1984. The folks who say that stuff don't give a rat's arse what the truth is. Makes it hard to vote for people they, as a group, like.
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No real surprise when a rabid (as opposed to principled) ACT supporter responds to a question about their own actions with a deflecting shot at 'the left'. Follow-up discussion will be about the shot....with any luck.
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Elected health boards were abolished by Bill Birch and National, who created the CHE's that appeared to be a precursor for ultimately selling off hospitals. Otherwise they made no sense. Labour restored some measure of democracy to the renamed DHBs, but forgot to give them back any real power. If I have this wrong, I'm sure someone will "help" me out. :-)