I followed a link to Crusader Rabbit and found one comment which rang a bell with me. Basically it ran that Maori have all 'this' money spent on them in the way of welfare and housing etc [ in the main they are the underdogs of our society] they are being given huge sums of money as redress for their treatment by early white settlers and yet they still want more. I guess that they really are no different from poor whites.
The problem is that when you believe in looking after the less fortunate you just have to do that. Reading a breakdown of support given to one family the largest amount was to look after the children and while at first glance $1250 a week for a deneficiary family seemed 'easy' money I think it is what we just have to do to protect the younger generation until one can educate the less skilled to be more than baby farms.
In this socialised age there is absolutely no need for a couple to have a large number of children. The original concept which still applies in countries without social security is for the children to look after the parents in their old age.
A side but important point is that the world simply doesn't need all these extra mouths to feed and use up its resources required for a good standard of living that we know in 'the west'.
Another thread was by some woman critisising the Obama 'machine' in the extravagent way that it operated when Obama came to a small town ... She is right wing and blamed it on the left. But it struck me as I read that she sounded exactly like some of our left-wing nitpicking nutters on blogs like 'The Standard'.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Link for last post
The disgusting carry on one sees on some website suggests to me that a number of talented people have pretty low and crude standards. The NYT today runs a story about the woman who slagged another woman
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26dowd.html?th8emc=th
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26dowd.html?th8emc=th
The Venom of the web
Monday, August 24, 2009
Officially it is closer to 6.7%
Which is a bit larger than I originally worked out .... more fluff on the tail wagging the dog.
The desire for the Veto
When the United Nations was set up after WWII the five major powers decided that they needed to have veto powers in the Security Council so none of the upstart wog nations could over rule them when they were pushing their barrow. To my memory only once has a country missed out, when Russian Minister Gromyko was out of the country, when North Korea invaded the South and the rest of the world, unhindered by the Soviet Veto went to her aid. Though I seem to remember the Soviets as the ones who most used their power I also remember the other countries have exercised their vetos not infrequently. So my feeling is that the Veto is an undesirable tool used by the powerful to go against democratic principles to further their own ends.
Listening to Pita Sharples saying how Maori have been consulted but never getting their way suggests to me that he would like Maori to to have reserved seats in not only the future Auckland Council, but every council in the country, and likely the next stage would be for the minority Maori councillor[s] to have the power of the veto over the other councillors. It is simply not what should happen in any democratic country.
That is the problem for minorities and I'm usually amongst them with my voting, submissions to the RMA etc, but its democracy, the will of the majority. It has its faults but there is nothing better as I believe Winston Churchill said.
Instead of bleating around Maori should get themselves organised, instead of relying on the 'people of the land' argument, make good and valid points relevant to the 21st century in such a way that the majority find for them instead of whinging on about the whitey monied class running over them. I call that racism but of course that term is only applied when comments are made about coloured peoples. That may happen with a conscience vote in Parliament, if so then so be it, democracy has worked and Rodney Hide can withdraw from Ministerial office. I hope he doesn't becuase there are other situations apart from Auckland that need his attention.
Listening to Pita Sharples saying how Maori have been consulted but never getting their way suggests to me that he would like Maori to to have reserved seats in not only the future Auckland Council, but every council in the country, and likely the next stage would be for the minority Maori councillor[s] to have the power of the veto over the other councillors. It is simply not what should happen in any democratic country.
That is the problem for minorities and I'm usually amongst them with my voting, submissions to the RMA etc, but its democracy, the will of the majority. It has its faults but there is nothing better as I believe Winston Churchill said.
Instead of bleating around Maori should get themselves organised, instead of relying on the 'people of the land' argument, make good and valid points relevant to the 21st century in such a way that the majority find for them instead of whinging on about the whitey monied class running over them. I call that racism but of course that term is only applied when comments are made about coloured peoples. That may happen with a conscience vote in Parliament, if so then so be it, democracy has worked and Rodney Hide can withdraw from Ministerial office. I hope he doesn't becuase there are other situations apart from Auckland that need his attention.
The tail wagging the dog
I won't go on about the smacking business becuase I have said enough on other blogs and likely will continue to do so but here I would mention a thought which came to me after hearing the dismissive Green's spokeperson saying the ref was pointless becuase only 54% participated. Maybe a goodly number were spooked by the damm fool political leaders rubbishing it .... pity.
However if you relate the 11% of 'yes' votes to the 54% of voters you find that they comprise just under 6%. From the enthusiasm of the 'yes' camp I'm sure a greater proportion of them voted than the disinterested and 'no' camps. So it is all rather telling. Truely a vocal tail wagging the dog.
However if you relate the 11% of 'yes' votes to the 54% of voters you find that they comprise just under 6%. From the enthusiasm of the 'yes' camp I'm sure a greater proportion of them voted than the disinterested and 'no' camps. So it is all rather telling. Truely a vocal tail wagging the dog.
Visitors to this site
Thank you for bothing to let me know that you visited BLiP and Patricia. I note your baseline Patricia and one of my continuing hobbies is Model Engineering which started here in Otago with OO trains. Built an 8x4ft layout for my son and my wife said it had to be capable of being operated by him and his best freind. So I was dumped in from the start with double pole switches to assign sections to a pair of controllers and then reverse loops. But because my lawyer invited me up to his home to see his layout I got a thing about being as close to scale as possible and I found that the Darjelling Railway, 2ft gauge, has a 50ft radius curve, which is quite possible when working in OO9. So I am I guess a 'narrow gauge nut' from the '70's:-)
Otago Model Engineering of which I have been a member for thirty years plus now has three basic groups and to break the 'monotony' of one discipline members do other things so I have a workshop and owned for awhile a 5" gauge electric loco ... carefully modelled on a shunter from the East African Railways ... so far away no rivet counter could see what I had done wrong.
At the same time I am also 'into boats' with various successful and not so succesful radio controlled craft. Awhile back the Boat Group made a 'run' of 22 quarter-scale jet boats. Each participating member had a job to do 22 times. Not being very skilled I spoke up quickly and got the job of making the motor mountings, first making jigs to ensure each of the 8x22 bits were standard. Others has much more difficult jobs such as converting the air cooled weed-eater 30cc petrol motors from air to water cooled. Another job was casting in aluminium the actual jet drives. Subsequently some have added a working reversing shell like the prototypes have to reverse the boat. This drops down and sends the thrust of water forwards under the boat. The completed boat has driver and co-driver modelled and dressed appropriately
Currently I seem to be back into OO9 and N gauge. The advantage of being in a club with numerous layouts is that one doesn't have to find room to have one at home. There is a fixed OO/HO/S scale layout, The latest N layout which fits a 6x4ft trailer with it's storage frame to hold the three sections. We are having a 'Little Train Show' next weekend 29-30 August and other layouts have been modified from our OO and N portable layouts. We also have a drive yourself for the children of any age.
That N layout used to be a 26 module to international standards and toured around the country ... originally parts seen in Auckland but other times normally in Invercargil and Christchurch. Supposedly NZR in 1/120 scale [ NZ120 ] inspired by the late John Rappard but with his passing it is just an N layout.
Otago Model Engineering of which I have been a member for thirty years plus now has three basic groups and to break the 'monotony' of one discipline members do other things so I have a workshop and owned for awhile a 5" gauge electric loco ... carefully modelled on a shunter from the East African Railways ... so far away no rivet counter could see what I had done wrong.
At the same time I am also 'into boats' with various successful and not so succesful radio controlled craft. Awhile back the Boat Group made a 'run' of 22 quarter-scale jet boats. Each participating member had a job to do 22 times. Not being very skilled I spoke up quickly and got the job of making the motor mountings, first making jigs to ensure each of the 8x22 bits were standard. Others has much more difficult jobs such as converting the air cooled weed-eater 30cc petrol motors from air to water cooled. Another job was casting in aluminium the actual jet drives. Subsequently some have added a working reversing shell like the prototypes have to reverse the boat. This drops down and sends the thrust of water forwards under the boat. The completed boat has driver and co-driver modelled and dressed appropriately
Currently I seem to be back into OO9 and N gauge. The advantage of being in a club with numerous layouts is that one doesn't have to find room to have one at home. There is a fixed OO/HO/S scale layout, The latest N layout which fits a 6x4ft trailer with it's storage frame to hold the three sections. We are having a 'Little Train Show' next weekend 29-30 August and other layouts have been modified from our OO and N portable layouts. We also have a drive yourself for the children of any age.
That N layout used to be a 26 module to international standards and toured around the country ... originally parts seen in Auckland but other times normally in Invercargil and Christchurch. Supposedly NZR in 1/120 scale [ NZ120 ] inspired by the late John Rappard but with his passing it is just an N layout.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
I've been banned --- yet again
I'm not sure that I am actually been blocked from the Queen of Thorns site but in her usual manner she has told me to f... off. One of her favourite words sadly which to me in my old worldly thinking shows a certain lack writing ability and limited vocab.
So this is the fourth or fifth site that I can remember. The first was years ago when discussing one of my hobbies of the time 'G Gauge model railways' and answering a post from an Australian I said something about convict decendants. The Site owner told me not to answer back after the Aussie protested, I did in the most innocent way, pleading it was meant to be humourous, and was banned. These days I make sure to insert " :-) " hoping that will soften the reaction.
About that time my interests moved from model railways and other engineering subjects, I'm a Life Member of my local Model Engineering Society, to digital photography and I became really enthusiastic about the new medium. This got on the wick of a very successful American running a MSN site. He was a professional getting upwards of US$5000 a wedding most weekends, such is today's wedding photography, when I did it I usually just got a pound to cover my expenses in getting there and commission on sales, but that was decades ago. Anyway he got very upset that I promoted the advantages of digital over film, probably I was a bit carried away though I had too shot film for several decades professionally and for home use and welcomed the new option. So he banned me. Organising it so MSN blocked me from his site. So I invented a 'new' me and returned to the site and contributed a comment or two. But the funny thing was that inbetween banning me and my return he too had picked up on digital for his work and was waxing on about how wonderful it was ... oh well, what the hell :-)
I left the site then becuase I was sure that by expressing my views he would tumble to me becuase a leopard doesn't change his spots.
Years ago as part of my english training as a photographer the class went to see the annual exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society. This was 1952 and it showed soft fuzzy 'artistic' work which to the class's eyes was very poor trained as we had been for the commercial world of crisp results. So I had a certain 'thing' about Photographic Societies and the people who take part. I related this on a NZ photographic website and raised the wick of a rather pompos gent from Tauranga who asked why vermin such as me should be permitted to infest the site. I was a personal aquaintance of the site owner and respect his work and I resigned before he could push me.
Banning or telling somebody to f... off if you don't like their opinions is really rather childish though I could see the point of a site owner with few members concerned that others would leave becuase of one member's comments. There are so many sites, and so many individuals, that wandering off is common as muck with the internet. One Aussie site used to boast it had grown from 700 to 7000 members during my membership before a new owner started to cull the membership, becuase of the 7000 I doubt if more than a hundred participated. the other 6900 had visited once or twice, most just to look, and moved on.
So this is the fourth or fifth site that I can remember. The first was years ago when discussing one of my hobbies of the time 'G Gauge model railways' and answering a post from an Australian I said something about convict decendants. The Site owner told me not to answer back after the Aussie protested, I did in the most innocent way, pleading it was meant to be humourous, and was banned. These days I make sure to insert " :-) " hoping that will soften the reaction.
About that time my interests moved from model railways and other engineering subjects, I'm a Life Member of my local Model Engineering Society, to digital photography and I became really enthusiastic about the new medium. This got on the wick of a very successful American running a MSN site. He was a professional getting upwards of US$5000 a wedding most weekends, such is today's wedding photography, when I did it I usually just got a pound to cover my expenses in getting there and commission on sales, but that was decades ago. Anyway he got very upset that I promoted the advantages of digital over film, probably I was a bit carried away though I had too shot film for several decades professionally and for home use and welcomed the new option. So he banned me. Organising it so MSN blocked me from his site. So I invented a 'new' me and returned to the site and contributed a comment or two. But the funny thing was that inbetween banning me and my return he too had picked up on digital for his work and was waxing on about how wonderful it was ... oh well, what the hell :-)
I left the site then becuase I was sure that by expressing my views he would tumble to me becuase a leopard doesn't change his spots.
Years ago as part of my english training as a photographer the class went to see the annual exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society. This was 1952 and it showed soft fuzzy 'artistic' work which to the class's eyes was very poor trained as we had been for the commercial world of crisp results. So I had a certain 'thing' about Photographic Societies and the people who take part. I related this on a NZ photographic website and raised the wick of a rather pompos gent from Tauranga who asked why vermin such as me should be permitted to infest the site. I was a personal aquaintance of the site owner and respect his work and I resigned before he could push me.
Banning or telling somebody to f... off if you don't like their opinions is really rather childish though I could see the point of a site owner with few members concerned that others would leave becuase of one member's comments. There are so many sites, and so many individuals, that wandering off is common as muck with the internet. One Aussie site used to boast it had grown from 700 to 7000 members during my membership before a new owner started to cull the membership, becuase of the 7000 I doubt if more than a hundred participated. the other 6900 had visited once or twice, most just to look, and moved on.
Crisis in the operating room
Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times relates the position of an Indian woman at child-birth.
I don't know how to give you the link but it was pretty easy to find, if you search with my title above. It tells of how the 'old women', the woman's in-laws who control her in Indian society, stopped her going to a hospital following her waters breaking. The cost was $3.75 for a taxi fare which for a family barely alive is a considerable sum .... but hardly much for a government subsidy to provide free transport to maternity hospital. Eventually the woman is taken to a local clinic and then the $3.75 is finally paid to take her on to a maternity hospital where it is found becuase she was too small the baby couldn't get out and she was operated on, saving her life because by then the baby was dead. An interesting twist was that the baby was a boy and if the 'old women' had known this the money would have been found.
I don't know how to give you the link but it was pretty easy to find, if you search with my title above. It tells of how the 'old women', the woman's in-laws who control her in Indian society, stopped her going to a hospital following her waters breaking. The cost was $3.75 for a taxi fare which for a family barely alive is a considerable sum .... but hardly much for a government subsidy to provide free transport to maternity hospital. Eventually the woman is taken to a local clinic and then the $3.75 is finally paid to take her on to a maternity hospital where it is found becuase she was too small the baby couldn't get out and she was operated on, saving her life because by then the baby was dead. An interesting twist was that the baby was a boy and if the 'old women' had known this the money would have been found.
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