Posts by Andrew E
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Locking in the Future, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It's pretty much taxing those who don't want fibre in order to subsidize it into the home
I think you need to substitute another word for 'taxing' in that sentence.
How about 'rorting', or 'ripping off', or 'funding the bonuses of senior managers and dividends to shareholders through excess profits from' ?
-
Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
It's the money that's being paid to the Goffice and the numerous other flunkies who are <i>failing abysmally to do their jobs</i>.
So why should they trot home every evening, their wallets stuffed with the taxpayers' dollars, while Labour expects Ben or anyone else to make up for their inadequacies as some sort of public service?
Conceivably - although I hasten to add that I don't know for sure either way - they might not be failing to do their jobs and might not be inadequate. Conceivably, they're doing their jobs well, and it's their bosses that are turning their work into turds?
But otherwise, I take your point; if the taxpayer is funding policy development and communications workers for a party, it can be a bit galling to be asked to provide your expertise for free.
However, if you don't work to see the outcome you want, why should you be surprised if you don't then get the outcome you want? I think parties moving to involve those outside its membership in their policy development processes are to be welcomed: it signals a recognition by some at least that we should be shifting from a model of democracy that is basically representational (give us your vote every 3 years, then naff off) to one which is more participatory.
-
Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Kracklite,
Yes, I'm furious, obviously, and have been for some time... and it's because Phil Goff has almost certainly ensured that the government after November this year will be National-led.
Ditto.
And the quite deliberate disembowelling of the public sector that will have been done by 2014 will mean that any future left-of-centre administration will be able to make little progress in turning things around, since there simply won't be the capacity left for government to do much in the short term. As people upthread have commented, it's past time for one of the 'next generation' of Labour MPs to ante-up and take a shot at it. It's not like this government haven't provided them with plenty of sitting ducks to aim at...
You'd have thought that the experience of the 90s and the effects of the more recent collapse in other countries might have cured NZ of its neo-liberal infection, but it appears not. Sigh.
-
Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to BenWilson,
Not sure what 'bittering' is, but surely the pay-off is in the form of better policy and hopefully a better government and better country to live in?
-
OnPoint: Everything has changed until 2014, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Just apropos of this, a good post by Johann Hari on why the UK (and by extension NZ) doesn’t really have a debt problem.
Whatever he's done to configure his site, the browser I'm stuck with at work (IE8 on XP) treats every page on his site as a file to download, not read in a browser.
Grrrr... *grits teeth and makes a note to read article later*
-
New Zealand seems completely unwired when put next to places like Indonesia
Yep, just had two relatives arrive from Indonesia, both of whom have no computer and solely interact with Facebook (and Yahoo Messenger) via their phones. The younger one was bereft when he found out that he couldn't get his Blackberry hooked up to instant messaging on a pre-pay account from Vodafone while he was here. Now he's tying up my Mac with his chatting...
--------------------------------
Incidentally, this is quite an interesting article on the mechanics of Egypt's disconnection from the 'net.
-
Readers might be interested in the testimony of several US commentators to the House Committee on the Judiciary last week.
The written submission [pdf] of the Director of the National Security Archive, Tom Blanton, is definitely worth a read, given the extent of his experience.
-
I'm told they also boil up quite well and can sustain an impecunious post-grad for weeks
VUW advises that the goatskin parchment they print the certificates on is guaranteed to last 500 years, so yes, nutritious.
-
But the fact that nearly half of the entire budget of the World Food Programme comes from the US is quite remarkable.
A cynic might comment that they need to continue subsidising their farmers...
In any event, from Wikipedia:
In July 2009, the World Food Programme reported that it has been forced to cut services because of insufficient funding.[49] It has received barely a quarter of the total it needs for the 09/10 financial year.
Which suggests other countries have been falling short?
In relation to the UN overall budget, the report from the Secretary General to the General Assembly on 18 October 2010 included this statement:
A related UN slide presentation gives a detailed breakdown of the funding shortfall of the UN, including this:
US element of shortfall in funding of the UN = US$691 millions. -
but I really think you might be overestimating how much control the State Department has over the day-to-day experience of people on these programmes. In my case, that would be "none whatsoever". I'm really struggling to see the "subtle influence" above and beyond having sponsored me here.
I'm not really suggesting (or overestimating) how much control the State Department has over the day-to-day experience of people on the programmes. Nor that the programmes aren't a good thing, in helping people replace stereotypes with actual experience of the reality of life in a particular country. I was (maybe ineptly) responding to the suggestion that
a venerable and very public cultural exchange programme gets reframed as spy vs spy. Because it must be a conspiracy, right?
I have no desire to reframe it as that, but neither should we believe that it doesn't offer opportunities or value to those who would like us to understand - and possibly internalise after a while - their world view.