Posts by Matthew Poole
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Speaker: The Strange Tax on Your Internet, in reply to George Darroch,
Let’s not make this about a person
You mean not do what Slater did and turn the entire piece into attacks on Hooten (for whom I have little time, but that's by the by), and then on Jordan Carter's integrity? Yeah, nah.
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Speaker: The Strange Tax on Your Internet, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
the involvement of Farrar makes me suspect.
Surely cancelled out by the involvement of Jordan Carter, no? I mean, a former* Labour candidate is at least equal to a mere political pollster.
As for the rest, when prices have been regulated lower in other aspects of our telecommunications market the consumer has benefited. I’m not sure how you get from that historical fact to this somehow being of benefit only to the telcos.
* Really, really former, given that he’s given up political involvement now that he’s CEO of Internet NZ.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Do we have laws and practices in NZ about separation of church and state?
No, but we do have the Human Rights Act 1993, which lists amongst the prohibited grounds for discrimination: ethical belief, which means the lack of a religious belief, whether in respect of a particular religion or religions or all religions.
So it's actually outright illegal to refuse to hire someone because they're an atheist, as well as because they aren't. -
Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Ross Mason,
Funded by you the taxpayer.
No, they're not. Read that article carefully.
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One commentator, I can't remember who, suggested that Adams' decision could be a breach of GATT rules about independent regulation. If accurate, it could make for an interesting legal challenge to the WTO.
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Speaker: The Strange Tax on Your Internet, in reply to Cam Slater,
If you actually showed some solid principles, Cam, instead of fawning over the National Party's every utterance, it might be easier to believe that you are your own man. As a supposed civil libertarian you ought to have been flaying Key et al alive over the GCSB legislation. Did you? Did you hell!
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Other than the clowns who flogged Telecom off in the first place, it's hard to think of a politician who did more damage to NZ's telco-backed economy than Williamson. Four years for Telecom and Clear to get interconnection agreed; and $50m in wasted resources is a big number now, never mind in the mid-90s. Number portability didn't get sorted until the third term of the last government, despite being first mentioned by Williamson in 1992 - 15 years, for those keeping track! The gouging on price got worse after that article was published, too, with 1999's 0867 debacle.
The neololberals have a lot to answer for.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
These days, I would regard reliance on testing as a red flag about a workplace and a sign of somewhere I don’t want to be.
It's becoming less and less common for any but the smallest of workplaces not to have psychometric testing as part of their recruitment battery. Ruling out a workplace on the basis of having psychometric testing could prove to be exceptionally limiting.
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I got knocked back on an application for a job for which I was eminently qualified, and had got on splendidly with the manager during interview, on the basis that my psychometric testing suggested I wouldn't fit well with his management style. I loathe psychometric testing as a consequence. If I could refuse to participate in such voodoo without being unemployable, I would. Thankfully I'm employed at present (recruitment process for which included a lengthy psychometric test) so it will be a while before I need to engage with the nonsense again, but the dubious decisions made with its support are, well, dubious.
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Today’s latest news: The NSA can pwn your smart-phone (yes, even your Crackberry).