goNZo Freakpower Brains Trust

Black Swans threaten Tauranga

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sat, 26 May 2012 11:02:00 +0000

It seems that Tauranga is under attack from a scourge of Black Swans:

Black swans have been the subject of regular complaints for leaving faeces on beaches and mud flats, posing aviation hazards at Tauranga Airport and threatening seagrass meadows by consumption.

How dare these birds crap outdoors. Can't they be toilet trained? And this is the first I've heard of a plague of Black Swans devouring seagrass meadows and causing birdstrike at the Tauranga aerodrome (Airport my arse).

Clearly, these harmless non-threatening birds need to be culled. Violently. After corralling them with jet skis, of course:

Jetskis and boats were used to herd swans away from public, over toward Matakana Island where the birds were then shot.

I'm no SAFE nut, but it all just sounds like a lame excuse to shoot big birds at point blank range. Can't they just shoot the jet-skiers instead?

Joyce, Interrupted

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 25 May 2012 22:25:00 +0000

Caesar Joyce tells an audience of accountants that all the fuss over the rapidly growing National Super bill is a distraction:

"I think the superannuation thing is a distraction from what we're dealing with over the next 10 years... The reality is that if our GDP grows strongly over the next 10 or 15 years there will be a lot more choices for those sorts of issues for our older generations further out."

She'll be right, sez Joyce. The reality is that NZ's GDP has not been growing strongly over the last ten or 15 years. And, with a global meltdown or two on the horizon, you'd have to drink an awful lot of spiked Jungle Juice to believe that NZ's GDP is going to grow strongly over the next decade or two.

Last year, David Chaston at interest.co.nz looked at the intergenerational wealth transfer of baby boomer retirement:

Basically, someone who finished high school with the School Certificate qualification in 1962 will be aged 65 in 2011, and eligible for NZ Super.

Statistics NZ has relevant data of earnings and taxes from 1962 and we can use that data to track the earnings in that working life - and from that data determine the taxes paid over that period.

Essentially, our statistically average person will have earned about NZ$1.4 million and paid about NZ$342,000 in tax, taking home a pay packet of a little over NZ$1 million over those 50 years.

Converting these raw earnings and taxes to 2011 dollars, they earned NZ$2.7 million, paid NZ$620,000 in taxes, and had take-home pay of a bit more than NZ$2 million.

However, for the next 20 years of retirement, they will claim in 2011 dollars NZ Super to the value of NZ$544,000 - or almost 88% of all the taxes they have ever paid.

It gets worse. Most baby boomers were single income households. It wasn't until the 1980s that two income households became the norm. Chances are that statistically average taxpayer from 1962 was married, supporting a family with that sole income. Whether they remained married or separated, the taxpayer is on the hook for two pensions today. In that scenario, baby boomers will squeeze way more out of the government in transfers than they ever paid in.

And, if that doesn't take the sparkle out Joyce's Jungle Juice, perhaps Elizabeth Warren's doom and gloom will dilute Joyce's happy babbling:

How to get ahead in publishing

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:54:00 +0000

NatRad has a fascinating interview with Peter Usborne, the guy behind Private Eye magazine and the Usborne books for kids I fell in love with thirty years ago. In my time, my favorite edition was the Spy Handbook. I made my first spy kit in a matchbox at age 12; cyphers, wax pen, Morse string, etc. I knew a dead drop from a false trail.

Alas, kids these days have less free time and space to play. Sticker books are the way ahead for publishers to print some cash, according to the guru. Unlike adult books, children's books seem recession-proof. And they can't get enough of those sticker books.

Don't mention the Super Gorilla

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:11:00 +0000

Bill English did not once refer to National Superannuation in his Budget Speech. No doubt, he's hiding this heavy expenditure under a concrete lined bushel. No wonder. Comparing the 2013 expenditure to five years ago shows how fast and how big the Super Gorilla in the room is getting.

Looking back at 2009, courtesy of Dim Post's graphic here, National Super took up the lion's share of the Welfare Budget with 7.744 billion on Super spent that year. The 2013 figure is budgeted as $10.2 billion (taken from Keith Ng's excellent interactive graphic here, once I got sick of trawling Treasury's Budget .pdfs and .xls for the figure).

In five years, Super spending has increased by a third. With the boomers retiring in droves, that figure is going to get a lot bigger a lot quicker, but Bill English is relaxed about that. Even David Farrar, who agrees that the Super equation is unsustainable, still maintains that nothing should change until at least 2025.

Any guesses how much Super will cost by then? Or who is going to pay for it? Who cares? sez Bill. John Key will be collecting his Super in Hawaii by then so it's not this government's concern.

UPDATE: Nadine Chlamers-Ross has the low-down on the scary numbers.

Raking Leaves Up Against a Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Thu, 24 May 2012 03:50:00 +0000

Wherein the blogger composes new lyrics to Foreigner's Waiting for a Girl Like You whilst performing seasonal chores.

So long, he's been working too hard, in the Deep South too long.
Sometimes he won't know what he'll say, he only knows it's a matter of mind.
When you hate someone, when you hate everyone.
It sounds so right, so strong and blue, he needs to blurt so you know too.

Maybe he's wrong, someone tell him he's a racist moron.
That brain of his he keeps in his pants, should think twice before it rants.

I've been raking up against a tree, thinking of current news.
I've been raking up against a tree, without a leaf blower.
I've been raking with time to think in peace and form some views.
Yeah, raking leaves up against a tree, thinking of current news.

That's all done, all those leaves could be put to use.
Bonfires burning effigies of Lou Crimp.
Ditch Guy Fawkes Day, the wrong season by far.
Matariki fires, yeah, burn the hate away.

Yeah, that makes more sense, less of a fire risk in this damp season.
Much more fun than getting him to listen to reason.

I've been raking up against a tree, thinking of current news.
I've been raking up against a tree, without a leaf blower.
I've been raking with time to think in peace and form some views.
Yeah, raking leaves up against a tree, thinking of current news.

Fourth Estate and Real Estate

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Inspired by the above graphic by Chris Glen, I thought I might revisit how my No Snake Oil Merchants signage is going.

After five months of operation, there have been only two instances of attempted trespass. The first occurred within a week of putting the sign up, with a godbotherer opening the gate as I leaned out of the window in my dressing gown. After being curtly reassured that no, I was sure I didn't want god in my life, they kindly buggered off.

Around a fortnight ago, a couple of young girls had a go at crossing the threshold. They might have been girl scouts, school fundraisers or Mormons. An emphatic waving of hands was enough for them to consider any sale futile.

However, I have had to amend the No Junk Mail sign, after the advertorial content of APN's competitor, Fairfax, became intolerable.

Fairfax's free local paper, the Kapiti Observer, is delivered twice weekly. The Monday edition is usually a thin 16 pages, but at least its advertorial level is somewhat balanced with the staple editorial diet of car accidents, homegrow busts, petty teen crime, sports and amateur dramatics (at the theatre and local council).

The Thursday edition is a much more offensive affront to local news. Fully half this edition is real estate alone. The car yard ads are on top of that. The Church Notices take up more space than the rest of the Classifieds combined.

This is worrisome on a number of levels. When a newspaper relies on only one or two sectors of business to pay its way, it may lose its editorial independence. Certainly its soul. This rot isn't just a worry for Fairfax and the Kapiti Observer, but also its local competition, the independently owned Kapiti News.

Reluctantly I have amended the No Junk Mail sign to exclude newspapers as well. There is nothing new to be found in them, and I'm tired of reading about NZ's reliance on property speculation for its income. My only hope now is that someone at the paper will teach the newspaper delivery guy to read:

The Fucker is nigh

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Labour's caucus continues to show all the discipline and budgetary skills of a free form jazz collective and not a government in waiting. Jane Clifton looks at Shearer's odds and offers a good suggestion:

Shearer needs someone – be it his new office manager or some other functionary – to do Heather Simpson’s old “H2” job of keeping order and administering tough love to various caucus members on the leader’s behalf... I’ll bet no one remotely scary has been to ask Cunliffe what the hell he thought he was doing making his own State of the Nation address. Suffice it to say, he’d have found parts of his anatomy detachable had he tried this under Clark.

I said much the same back here, way before Shearer took over from Goff.

And in other news, seven new episodes of The Thick of It have been written and will be broadcast later this year.

Television Man

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:26:00 +0000

A fine piece of Landmark Television appeared on public service television earlier in the week. Maori Television's Native Affairs held a special one hour show on the Tuhoe Terror Raids and subsequent trials, by media and in the courts. You can watch it here, or read some excellent reviews here, here and here.

Julian Wilcox led an informative hour. The Urewera 4 had their say. Police mouth Greg O'Connor's Angry Dick monologue warmed things up nicely and the panel's four talking heads had enough time to say their respective piece.

Unlike, for example, this from Q&A the other week:

PAUL Well, look, I can remember sitting over there on the other side of the studio having debate after debate after debate when Helen Clark was trying to get rid of the cigarette sponsorship on the racing cars, when she was trying to get the smoking out of the offices, and to a lot of people it seemed kooky, nanny state. Out of the bars nanny state.
BOB Yeah, drugs is one.
BRYCE And I'm not sure that were going down the opposite
RON And, Bob
PAUL Well, the war on
RON You're probably one who would like Don Brash, would advocate decriminalising
BOB No, I'm not Don Brash.
RON Decriminalising dope. Well, dope is
BOB Don't go there. I'm not talking about
RON No, but its the same you're talking smoking and you're talking about social well-being of our populace.
BOB Uh-huh.
RON You can't
BOB And the health of the country.

Jesus, Paul, Bob and Ron. You don't have to be stoned to be a rude bastard. That wasn't Landmark so much as Landfill TV. Will someone put that dithering Holmes out to pasture and get someone who can generate content other than Kafka?

The imminent death of TVNZ7 was marked early in the week at an Auckland meeting with a mock funeral. The coffin was a nice touch, but the dreary hymns were laying it on a bit thick. The people at TVNZ7 aren't going out with a dirge. No sirree, they're going out guns blazing. As Brit butter patsie John Lyndon once noted long ago, anger is an energy.

Blaming the wrong drug

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:09:00 +0000

It's a bit of a surprise to see Wellington coroner Ian Smith declaring Lisa McMillan's death a methamphetamine overdose:

The coroner ruled her death it was due to a brain haemorrhage as a result of methamphetamine toxicity. He did not make any recommendations following the death.

The conclusion is surprising, because the Law Commission's Controlling & Regulating Drugs Discussion Document made it clear that there had been no reported cases of meth OD in NZ:

2.51 There are no known deaths due to methamphetamine overdose in New Zealand. However, large doses can cause potentially life-threatening conditions, such as hyperthermia, renal and liver failure, cardiac arrhythmias, heart attacks, cerebrovascular haemorrhages, strokes and seizures. Toxic reactions can occur irrespective of “dose, frequency of use or route of administration, and have been reported with small amounts and on the first occasion of use”.

Cerebrovascular haemorrhages can also be caused by paracetamol, fatal overdoses of which are chronically under-reported in the media compared to illegal drugs:

You might note that meth doesn't make it onto this list either. It is not a drug known for overdoses.

The last graf in this report on Ms McMillan hints at another cause of death:

While both her partner and brother had noticed she seemed to be taking an excessive amount of Panadol in the months leading up to her death, she had no history of drug or alcohol use.

But we can't go blaming legal drugs. Not while there's an illegal scapegoat at hand.

Mexican Radio

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:58:00 +0000

Funny thing about governments; they're all keen on prohibition right up until the moment they aren't. Take, for example, the US appetite for Mexican food:

As long as Mexican food has existed in this country, government has tried to legislate it out of existence. This is partly because of stereotypes but mostly because government is government. The resulting underground Mexican food economy, meanwhile, has birthed some of the cuisine’s most innovative trends.

It's this same US racist leanings that first saw cannabis prohibition in the 1920's, seeing how the blacks and Hispanics preferred reefer madness to whiskey tremens. Ironic really, considering that you will never find the perfect taco in a franchise store. Only that Yank diet of orange gloop they call cheese, and unfeasibly large cups of lolly water.

Recipe for Zippy's Nachos El Grandes soon ( a la Che Tibby). It's mouth-wateringly good and eye-wateringly bad, but it's more work putting a RastaChef post together than you might think. The lens keeps fogging up and the lighting budget is Lilliputian. But the Slow Cooking movement is like the civil service. In the fullness of time and all.

Laughing Stock

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:36:00 +0000

It seems the diversionary flares have failed. Non-existent boat people had a shot fired over their bow by National. The shot was fired 3500 miles away from the nearest bow, but at least potential boat people in the deepest parts of Indonesia, India and Papua New Guinea now know that the NZ government won't treat them lightly if they decide to darken our shores with their foreign habits.

Sponge Nurse Paula Bennett has offered one million dollars towards WINZ case workers becoming family planning advisors, setting off feminist and liberal umbrage that will erode next election's female vote like spermicidal jelly on priest underwear. I'm all for contraception, condoms offered freely at high schools and so forth. Surely Vote Health for Community Services Card holders would have been a safer bet?

Then again, without this good policy poorly delivered, we wouldn't have Colin Craig's biblical viewpoint to mock. The Cargo Cult Christian Party is now being treated seriously by the MSM due to the lack of seriousness of Act's John Banks, another Christian with a thorn his side (more of a massive prick, really). Jane Clifton has a nice obituary for Act out at the Listener which is worth a read.

Then there's John Key keeping public morale up during his crash test dummy run to budget surplus in two years, telling school kids that if any of them wants his job they can have it. Because, frankly, he's getting a bit sick of it, actually. Surely bets are being taken somewhere on how long it'll take between Key leaving the job and disappearing off over the horizon again.

If the captain of NZ Inc is getting sea sickness and looking at the lifeboats wistfully, what hope is there for the plebs in steerage? Better off overseas, eh. Shame I'm a patriot who doesn't travel well. I'm stuck here like an extra in Bladerunner.

Super City, Mega Donations

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:15:00 +0000

The Don Brash death rattle known as John Banks staggers on, each step cracking open yet another cans of worms.

Take, for example, the helicopter sized hole in the local body election laws which National and Act failed to patch properly when the SuperCity project was rushed into reality. It was under these laws, endorsed by Nact, that Banks tried and failed to gain the mayor's job.

While the monetary thresholds were adjusted in the legislation, no tidying of local body electoral law really occurred, making the rules governing the SuperCity elections largely the same as the ones governing the election of the mayor of Masterton.

The self-inflicted loophole sprang readily to mind while listening to NatRad's Focus on Politics, which had Key saying that the John Dot Banks mess is neither his nor his government's responsibility. Oh yes it is! They wrote it off, they own it.

We Are All Made Of Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:45:00 +0000

Stuff's sub-editors get a bit CSI anthropomorphic with the blurb above. The article is dry as dust, but I can understand the attempt to sex up the story. Try getting people to switch off the reality shows and pay attention to the wonders of reality is noble, but real stars are no match for the fake ones on TV.

Few people are struck by the wonder that alchemy is possible, although turning lead into gold, like fusion, still costs more in inputs that you get in outputs. It is the same process of cosmic recycling, pushing hydrogen into ever weightier elements, that created our world. All the complex elements here could not have formed merely from our sun's vomit alone. We are all made of stars but that amazing fact won't sell the toothpaste and tampons.

Slouching towards Zardoz

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Wed, 02 May 2012 08:52:00 +0000

The 21st Century continues heading towards its bifurcation into Zardozian awfulness with the visit to New Zealand by United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. Body bombers are the threat du jour, apparently. That is, if you don't count all the nutjobs enabled by US enforcement entrapping them with offers of C4 and so forth.

There's a glimmer of hope for frequent business travellers and other Friends of America:

While warning on potential security threats, Napolitano also hinted that travel between the United States and New Zealand could be streamlined for frequent travellers. Ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister John Key, Napolitano said she would be viewing the "smart gate" system that operates between Australia and New Zealand tomorrow.

Of course, cattle class TSA screening will continue for the rest of the mob, where grandmother crotch anomalies just add to the holidaying experiences. Here's Vanity Vair with some long form journalism on how all that security blanket is a waste of money. Something to read at the airport while you're waiting for your pre-flight anal probe and mouth swab.

Broadcast

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 01:15:00 +0000

Paul Casserly has highlights of the Tim Shadbolt talkathon, where he set a new world record for the longest interview. Congrats Mayor Tim!

And no hard feelings to Paul Casserly for accidental defamation in this post (Wallace put it right). You can't hold a grudge against the guy who gave us Eating Media Lunch and Strawpeople.

Surplus 2015 or bust

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:05:00 +0000

It's not really news that one of the rock solid promises John Key intends to keep is getting into budget surplus by 2015 (like the rock solid promise not to dick with Super, and unlike the soft, squishy promises like not raising GST). Then again, Goodbye Pork Pie isn't really news either, yet here it is in a witty juxtaposition.

"We're taking this car to Invercargill!"

"We're taking this budget into surplus!"

The national vehicle might be rooted by the attempt, and we'll be left picking up the pieces for years to come, but at least John Key gets his end away.

The Great Rugby Racing Beer Swindle

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 02:24:00 +0000

Big ups to Bryce Edwards' NZ Politics Daily Digest for pointing me towards this feature story on the great rugby racing beer swindle known as pub pokies.

There is a ton of money in pokies. Wherever there is that much money at stake, corruption and special interests take a strong interest. I've known about this rort since its inception. The old man crowed how the Palmy Cozzie Club paid for its new building and refurbishment from a single year's worth of taking from their pokies. You can see his influence to this day, in the way rugby, racing and beer gets most of the pokie dividend.

I'm pretty confident that more money is poured into rugby, racing and beer every year than what the country spends on Crown Research Institutes, Apprenticeship Training and Special Needs Education combined. Something is terribly wrong with this picture. If you think throwing money into pokies is a waste of money, there must be better things to do with their proceeds than line the pockets of the fat incumbents.

Plain packaged bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:35:00 +0000

Only the Maori Party has the misguided thickery to impose a tax increase on half of its constituency. But their plan to plain package tobacco products has set a new record in flogging a dead horse.

I got fed up with the montage of government health warnings on the packaging a long time ago. Here's my tobacco wallet, complete with Maryjane the Cannabus sticker:

I know the risks of my hobby, and the last thing I need is a stomach stapled diabetic to preach to me about lifestyle choices.

I Don't Remember

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:10:00 +0000

Anyone else getting flashbacks to another one of Muldoon's groupies?

Anyone?

Yes indeedy. Reaction so far ranges from disgusted to gleeful. What's John Boscawen up to these days?

Error Correction

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:26:00 +0000

For the record, NORML is NOT lodging a complaint with the police, as reported here. The Daktory might be lodging a complaint, but no-one has consulted the NORML New Zealand Board about any such matter. The president of NORML, who happens to reside at the Daktory, might be mixing up his hat collection. See this disclaimer for clarification.

A game of chance

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 08:11:00 +0000

I know a thing or two about gambling. I was conceived to save a dying marriage, a bad gamble if ever there was one. Around the time of my birth, my father was enjoying a winning streak at the racecourse with a horse called Breathalyser. The purchase of said thoroughbred was the result of Dad's lawyer's cut as part of a spectacular payout at the law courts over a drink driving accident lawsuit (This being before ACC removed personal liability, but that's a whole other kind of recursive coincidences which won't be discussed for the moment).

Breathalyser's luck ran out with a broken leg and was buried somewhere behind Awapuni racecourse, near Mt Cleese. Her daughter, Once Eliza, never recaptured her Mum's glorious run. Many childhood weekends were spent at the races as Dad fruitlessly tried to recapture that original thrill. My brother was so well versed with the form from hanging around the Members' Stand, jockeys and trainers, if 12 year olds could place bets at the trackside tote, he'd have made a fortune.

As a teenager, I accompanied the old man to Cambridge when he was invited to open a Stud Farm. He described horse racing then as the sport that can turn paupers into kings and kings into paupers. I stood there inhaling the horse shit and expensive scents of the peacocks preening and strutting around the concourse.

Dad took me over to Oz in 1986 with his mates Len and Dawn, in what turned out to be a hellish casino road trip from Burleigh Heads to Melbourne in two weeks. We went to the Rugby Club pokie halls, Jupiters' Casino, and every type of gaming house in between. Although the age of entry was 18, and I was a young looking 16, I never was turned away from a game or pokie while I was there.

In yet another bout of staggeringly amazing coincidences, Dad was inspired to do this jaunt by a daring man called Ken Morgan, who had gained notoriety for opening a casino outside New Zealand's territorial waters on a boat called the Gulf Explorer. You'll know Ken as Dakta Green:

Ken Morgan had ruffled a lot of feathers among the public, the unions and even within the Labour party caucus. The Golden Kiwi ticket was in the process of being upgraded to Instant Kiwi, the stupidity tax of Lotto was forming, helped no end by witnessing the Keno board at Jupiter's first hand. The Casino Control Authority (now the Gambling Commission) was but a glint in Dad's eye.

By 17, I was among a handful of school mates with TAB phone accounts. Even the Head Boy of the school read the Friday Flash in the Common Room. Rugby, racing and beer ruled. I also had my meagre $400 in savings invested in shares. Miami Vice and Miami Wine Coolers also ruled, for a short time. In the end, the TAB account dissipated much more slowly and entertainingly than the shares fared. It was 1987, after all.

I met Judith Collins in the 1990's, when she was the head of the Casino Control Authority. If memory serves, Auckland's Harrah's casino was being issued with a five year license and a 150 kilometre monopoly boundary for the same period. The idea was that competition would be introduced and all Harrah's had was a head start.

Some public functions were part of the initial conditions, such as the Bus Terminal and what is now known as Sky City Theatre. But similar stipulations were made on Christchurch Casino, when it was still independently operated. The playing field was, as they say, level.

On a personal level, I had become hooked on pokies by this time. They proved far less exhausting to concentrate on than people, although they were quite high maintenance. It would take years to realise that all this cash was being thrown away all because I didn't want to go back to the flat.

I was cured of all major gambling habits in my thirties. It was a sure-fire treatment I'd recommend to gambling counsellors everywhere. I became a roulette dealer at Sky City. The job was so demoralising, stressful and repetitive, the mainly immigrant dealers worked hard to save up and leave to become taxi drivers.

By coincidence, the bread and butter punters of Sky City was also Auckland's immigrant population, possibly seeking sanctuary in the one place that will never ostracise them for their visible (and invisible) differences. While they still have a dollar in their pocket at least, unlike most of New Zealand.

There are a thousand examples I could give you. The best one is the depressing recurring memory of standing at a playerless roulette table at 3am on a Sunday morning, hands in sight of the ever-vigilant cameras above, fingers akimbo on the dirty felt cloth. Staring at the rows of expressionless faces lit up by these machines, Slot Sluts umbilically connected to their hosts, their parasites.

Of all the forms of gambling I have witnessed, none robs people quicker and more efficiently than a pokie machine. There's half an hour between races. Lotto is weekly. Even an Instant Kiwi takes half a minute to get the kick (or not). Table games at least have to employ some human capital. Most casino pokie attendants are burned out table games dealers. And you'd be surprised how little labour it takes to service a pokie machine, and how much competition there is for those relatively cushy jobs at the casino.

We all need pressure valves. Gambling, within reasonable limits, is one of these good vices. Wellington should still get a casino, as I said earlier. But they should exist in the spirit of all hospitality, and that is to redistribute money from the rich to the poor (workers) for a reasonable service.

You're asking for trouble if you mercilessly exploit the poor for inflated personal gains. Because it is the taxpayers and citizens who have to pick up the tab when it goes wrong for those who can least afford it.

To bend one of the old man's repetitive quotes, money may not buy happiness, but it does buy you a way to externalise your miseries.

First we kill all the marketing people

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:26:00 +0000

I learnt much at the Purgatory of Dilbert temping at the Telecom call centre in Lower Hutt back in the day. The most relevant one for today's purposes is the levels of contempt by the coalface call centre grunts with the rest of the company. Management might have been incompetent, human resources were inhumane, but the lowest of the low worked in marketing.

Every day, the Outlook folder (Microsoft was compulsory) would fill with the latest byzantine marketing scam to memorise and foist on the luckless callers. Commercial sensitivity was such a worry that the phone pimps wouldn't release details of the latest round of marketing by confusion until the last moment before the ads hit the public. Occasionally the public were better informed of the promos than the call centre was.

With this experience gratefully behind me (I left two years before the call centre closed. Another poor career choice for a Half Deaf down the drain), it is 2 Degrees' marketing department I hold responsible for today's calamity, and not the poor bastards in their call centre.

Earlier in the month, the 2 Degrees sales sluts announced a special on 12 GB data packs for mobile broadband. No special terms or conditions, just one third off the price until July.

Woohoo, sez I. I should have smelled trouble when it proved impossible to purchase a $99 prepay credit. Billing systems and marketing departments exist in different universes, and this should have been a sign of something about to be annihilated.

This morning, my internet died. Apparently I had used three months worth of data in three weeks. No way, Jose. There was nothing else for it. I had to ring customer support.

If you think Deaf are loud in person, wait til you get an agitated one on the phone. Kudzai was at the receiving end of my complaint, poor bastard. He explained that because I had not texted to buy 12 GB (I had auto-renew set, so I didn't bother), the national data charges had kicked in (I had blocked this on my preferences) and blew the cap. I replied that there were no special terms and conditions saying as much attached to this promotion and that the Commerce Commission might have something to say about it.

Kudzai mentioned that someone would address the problem within 12 to 24 hours, and gave me a reference number. I'd be internetless until then. That's when I asked for the shift supervisor, in a voice they might have been louder than absolutely necessary. Libby sorted it out in the end, another call centre shift supervisor cleaning up after the morons in marketing.

So well done 2 Degrees customer service. It's the putting right that counts, eh. And let's hope that something slightly unpleasant happens to the brains behind that ill-executed marketing stunt.

The ACC plot sickens

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:14:00 +0000

Last month's gloat over the ACC mess has gotten a lot more personal. ACC has written to Mum explaining that she is among the 6000 leaked claimants that Bronwyn Pullar sent to the media.

Mum is distraught that her private medical information and case notes have been looked at by Dagg knows who. The Privacy Commission has been in contact and she has lodged a formal complaint with Marie Schroff's office.

When the Law Society rang Mum, they were very interested in Mum's ACC correspondence as well. It seems Bronwyn Pullar isn't the only person to receive other people's personal medical information from ACC. They had sent Mum other claimants' personal information amongst her own as well. It seems that a) ACC has a huge systemic issue with privacy, and b) even injured police officers have difficulty getting any fair go from ACC.

This ACC thing could easily change from a clusterfuck to a full-blown shit supernova.

Barbarians in Pyjamas

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 07:49:00 +0000

Slow news day, what with Parliamentary recess and all. Luckily, the editor of Boing Boing has posted the first Tao de Blog which doesn't use an electron microscope on the writer's navel.

There's also a wealth of advice for bloggers, such as: ignore most critics, an intriguing viewpoint on comments (which backs up No Right Turn's Zero Comments policy nicely), and don't be a dick, cunt or an arsehole (Lawyer's Note: Not necessarily the words used by Rob Beschizza).

Kim Hill & Victoria Davis on Cannabis

noreply@blogger.com (Will de Cleene) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 00:16:00 +0000

Kim Hill interviewed Golden Bay resident Victoria Davis on Saturday. It follows the discharge without conviction sentence handed out to her the other week by Judge Zohrab on charges on cultivating and possession of cannabis. Of the 62 plants:

Twenty of the plants were seedlings and the other 42 plants ranged in size from 25cm to 1.2m. Eight grams of dried cannabis was found inside the house.

Congratulations to Victoria Davis and her husband for getting this expensive circus done and dusted. She had reluctantly joined a lengthening list of otherwise harmless old growers ending up in court for attempted gardening.

The South Island has had some high visibility Old Ones before the courts recently. 72 year-old Maurice Didham in Dunedin was accused of improbable amounts of future crop from a single lightbulb. Peter Davy was dobbed in by a do-gooding godbotherer for growing cannabis for his partner with MS. The North Island fares no better. I'm not naming names any more though. The Waitakere Police are already using parts of my blog as evidence against the Daktory Four.

Lazy cops looking for easy convictions have ruined policing everywhere. The War on Drugs and the War on Cannabis in particular has done about as much damage to the police's reputation as its merger with the MoT under the Nats in the 1990's. For every photo op of dope on the table, there's the usual line up of dopes behind the table too.

The Law Commission's Controlling & Regulating Drugs Report points to the futility of the police's attempt at supply control. Using BERL figures, the Law Commissions cites in the 2005/06 year, police spent $116 million enforcing cannabis prohibition (Chapter 4.26). In the same year, 333,684 police hours were wasted on cannabis. In the latest Drug Survey, cannabis remains easy or very easy to get. Whether the prohibitionists like it or not, cannabis is a mature crop in NZ.

But my particular gripe today is correcting the many errors Kim Hill raised in her talk with Victoria Davis. It is difficult to separate Kim Hill's cheerfully belligerent interviewing manner from genuine ignorance, so here goes.

At three minutes, twenty seconds, Kim Hill mentions the "fairly clear link between cannabis and schizophrenia." Which can be a bit like blaming insulin injections for diabetes. David Nutt demonstrated the fallacy of this canard some time ago. Schizophrenia incidence is dropping, while cannabis use is increasing. That's called a negative correlation, in the parlance of our times:

At 6:40, Victoria Davis mentions the economic argument, to which Kim Hill blows raspberries (figuratively). Davis cites the $39 million price tag of police prohibition. I'm not sure where that figure came from, but it is dwarfed by BERL's staggering $116 million on cannabis in 05/06. That numbers already six years old, so Dagg knows how much of this year's budget deficit is paying for this years round of yodelling drug cops.

Kim Hill whips out the "Wrong Message" dogma at 7:30. Here's the research to back up Victoria Davis' claim that US medpot states saw a decline in teen use:

Then it's the What About the Kids? argument at 8:10. Demotivated kids and all, as if prohibition is a more effective restriction than regulation. This, from a culture which weans its kids on beer (literally if not regularly)? But hey, NORML can harp on about Responsible Use all we like, but to go into the specifics of harm minimisation, that's a crime. It's abstinence or bust for these zealous prohibitionists. So the kids learn it off the streets, same as it ever was.

Victoria strikes gold at 9:30 with "People shouldn't have to go to their lawyers for their medicine." You go, girl!

The next big topic arrives at 15:54, with the talk of drug research. As a former drug research correspondent for NORML News (RIP), Kim Hill's devil's advocacy annoyed the hell out of me. Show Me the Research! she could have said. Here's something I prepared earlier. Way earlier. It's a click-fest of research. Knock yourself out.

At least some people, dry right-thinking people like Karl du Fresne and Stephen Franks, are beginning to see reason. Their stance on The Panel earlier this week (the last few minutes yakking with Ross Bell) was the most honest I've ever witnessed from either of them. There might yet be an end to this civil war insanity.