Bluetooth Militants

Just heard about Bluetooth Jacking. It means sending short messages via bluetooth to random people in crowded areas with bluetooth enabled phones. Normally you'd have to ask for permission but there is a loophole, of sorts, that allows you to send messages without 'pairing permission'.

It is sweeping Europe to the extent that the French 'Yes' Campaign (on the EU constitution) is encouraging supporters to 'bluejack' random people in city centres and encourage them to vote yes.

Tried bluetoothing messages from my phone to my computer today. When I send directly from my computer the file appears in my phone's mailbox much like a normal message. However, if I haven't 'paired' the two machines it does ask me whether I want to accept the message or not. However, I think if most people were confronted with this message, most people would click yes just out of pure curiosity. Quite cool, and it is easy to send sounds/pictures as well. Seems like a very effective (and cheap!) way of getting one's message out there. Marketers, you have been alerted.

Links:

French site encouraging 'Yes' supporters to become 'Bluejacking militants'
Bluejacking via PC

Knives are dangerous for your health

I kid you not, A&E doctors are seeking to ban pointed kitchen knives for reasons of crime reduction!

Basically they used their 7+ years of University education to find out that knives were a primary factor in deaths from stabbing. Therefore ban knives and you've stopped 1/2 of the stabbings happening at the moment!

Makes sense really. Sure, you might see an increase in people being hit over the heads with bricks, but that just means they won't be filling up A&E anymore. They'll be in the brain damage unit and that's somebody else's problem!

Or, maybe a fully fledged ban is too extreme. Maybe we should have advisory stickers on kitchen knives: 'warning - if you stick this in someone's head they could die'. Or, maybe we just make the knife manufacturers pay for the costs of treating stab victims by suing them for negligence. They obviously had a duty of care to warn the perpetrator and the victim that knives were dangerous.

I'm not sure what's scarier, that the British Medical Journal could publish something this retarded, or that the BBC could treat this as a serious policy proposal worthy of 3 pages of analysis!

BBC Presenter berates death of grammar

A BBC presenter is railing against the decline of grammar. Hopefully he doesn't get his way. Because if he does, I am screwed.

Good to see that those of us who are grammatically challenged are not in bad company. According to the BBC presenter, Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) graduates at the BBC are also incapable of stringing a sentence together.

Cost Cutting: VC says we need to cut back on our international reputation

Vice-Chancellor has rejected our sponsorship bid for Australs. He is not even going to partially sponsor our trip. Which basically means we won't be able to send a team to represent New Zealand. It seems bizarre that not even $100 is available for an opportunity that would enhance the University's standing internationally (especially sinch such opportunities are few and far between). Yet the uni is able to practically give away scholarships to 450 students (I mean A & B bursary? Come on..since when did anyone NOT get an A or B bursary??) but...there you go.

I'm noticing a trend. "The VC is cutting back", "everything's reverted to central control including budgeting for paperclips", and the list goes on.

Is it just me, or has his cost-cutting fetish gone too far? Just look at all the arts papers that are suddenly 'not being offered in 2005'. I'm betting that it's not because the papers are useless or unpopular. It's because someone's been snipping FASS's pursestrings.

Classes that previously had tutors and tutorials now don't have any at all. ECON317 (Economics, Law, and Policy) is a notable example. The departments were cash-strapped before he arrived. They don't need a VC to make them poorer.

A good way of getting over the fact we might not be representing NZ (until the current VC dies some kind of unnatural death) is by reading Nick Whalley's account of World Universities Debating Tournament. Nostalgia is the best form of therapy :)

Fav Quote from his piece:
"[the shocking state of our hotel] gave us a lovely appreciation of the friendly Malaysian way of life including heaps of side stalls, countless cellphone shops, enormous shiny buildings, giant cockroaches, big rats, small cats, haggling taxi drivers-"

Speaking of democracy

Whilst scanning student news headlines I came across this beauty from the last WSU election:

"The results of the election for WSU's 2005 executive released last month, show only 202 of the compulsory association's 14,500 members voted"

2%?!?! That's ridiculous! Even the US, who does everything it can to prevent people from voting, manages to do a better job than this! Wonder what measures are being taken to ensure that people actually vote this time? More to the point, I wonder if the low turnout is related to the fact that the WSU doesn't actually do anything.

Like an unwanted phoenix...

It's that time of year again.. well at least I assume it is. It's always hard to tell, but the bored former-Grind resident sitting behind the polling booth certainly looked like he wanted me to take part in a democratic process of some kind. Either that or he was desperate for a conversation.

There are more obvious reminders though. Notably the Indian guy whose name has been plastered over every chalkable surface in the University. Believe it or not, despite his saturation coverage I still don't know his name. All I know is that he's Indian, he's running for Finance Officer, and I hate him.

It's not just the WSU going through the motions though. Auckland and Vic's student populations have also been in the news. Craccum has sold the rights to its front cover to Salient Magazine (Vic Uni's mag). And we've seen yet another inconsequential student protest about student loans (I think the public gets it already, students are opposed!).

At the other end of the spectrum we've also seen the rise of the Student Right. Anna Nuzum (a former Hamiltonian now LLBer at Vic) has written a few public rants, Emily Braunstein is the new editor of Salient, and Pro-Choice vs. No Choice arguments have also popped up on the forum of Critic (Otago's publication).

So student politicians rise out of the ashes after months of us never having heard anything from them. You can be sure that they'll sink back into the ashes soon enough. Rising again when they need us lowly students, e.g. when they don't want to look bad and lonely on one of their protest marches.

Or, when they need us to help make quorum at one of their 'public' meetings (so they can take a decision to raise our WSU levies). At least in the latter situation you get a free sausage or a beer....if only real democracies were able to do that to increase voter turnout....

The only person more clueless than me at 12,14, & 16

Turned up to contracts this morning and had no idea what I was doing. Same Ol', Same Ol' you might say. And.. if you did say that then you'd probably be right. However, this time my lack of knowledge mattered. Claire, intuitively realised that half of the class didn't know how to apply the law. Mainly because law students are generally morons (except for yours truly of course :)). Having come across this realisation she announced that she would be getting us all to apply the relevant law (which I had no clue of) to an old fact situation (examined in a tutorial I hadn't attended) and that she would be examining our finished product (way to make a first impression..).

Not the end of the world, you might think. One thing was clear: bluff. Only problem was that a girl in my group STOLE my role as 'bluffer'. She instantly assumed control asking each one of us what the law was.

The bluff was obvious to professional such as myself: when you know nothing at all, assume the leadership position, ask all of the questions and provide none of the answers. Since plan A was stolen I had to resort to Plan B which involved pretending that I knew everything. Which, predictably, ended in near disaster. It wasn't a total disaster because the lecturer forgot to check my 'work'.

However, there are some people who are more clueless than I am. Britain's The Sun newspaper (noted for its undercover reporting of topless women) reports that a British Family has recently given birth to 3 children.

More's the merrier for the UK's birthrate you might say, it will slow the need to resort to channel-crossing asylum seekers. Well, even the dodgiest three-wheel taxi-driver from Calcutta might inject more useful genes into the pool than these three. The mothers are aged 16, 14 and most amazingly of all: 12!!

And again, they all come from the same family. Whilst, I think giving birth at '12' warrants some kind of a puberty medal it does make me concerned that people like this are the only ones still breeding...

No Campaign Launches

The UK 'NO to the EU constitution' campaign has launched.

Interesting the imagery and whatnot invoked on the frontpage. The first page contains an attractive 'Asian' (in England, Indians/Desis/Pakistanis/etc.. are referred to as asian) lady with a quote underneath, reading: "I’m voting no because it’s time Europe changed"

.... a good tip for National in the upcoming campaign: make it look like your supporters aren't old, white, xenophobic fascists.

Still, that's probably a bit of an exagerration. In England the NOs seem to be in the majority. But they shouldn't be. In the modern world, supra-national bodies are needed to better control the tide of globalisation. This doesn't mean that England will always get its way, but it does mean that England will now have a way of controlling globalisation, rather than having no control at all.

To illustrate my point, look how ineffective an English anti-trust ruling against Microsoft would have been in comparison to the recent EU one. Had England's courts chosen to intervene, Microsoft (as a last resort) could have pulled its operations from the country or redirected its funds to make its money inaccessible to the English court system. However, pulling and redirecting money away from Europe as a whole is a much harder task for the company. Thus, Microsoft was forced to cough up a huge portion of its revenues in a recent antitrust suit.

Sticking with England, British Parliamentarian George Galloway ripped into the US Senate as only a Scotsman could. I'm wondering how much of an impact it really had in the US though. For starters, it doesn't even seem to rate a reference on Michelle Mankin (prominent conservative commentator)'s blog.

A cynic might say that was because Galloway's claims were unrebuttable...

GTA Multiplayer: The future is volunteerism

Interesting,

Whilst people are less willing to give up their time to care for their children and help out the community, they are willing to give up years of their life to research Grand Theft Auto and program a multiplayer add-on!

Tried it out today. It's pretty fun but suffers from a lack of players and servers. There are no listed NZ servers, the closest is Australia. It didn't lag too much for me (on an Athlon XP-M +2400 Laptop over wireless network) so that was good.

Problem was, that a lot of the time I was wandering the streets aimlessly. To be honest, there's more interactivity in the AI-controlled GTA environment!

So hard not to procrastinate..

Enough said by the title really. Writing about it doesn't really make not procrastinating any easier (in fact, writing about it is probably just another method of procrastination).

The problem is that there is no external force pressuring us to start our assignments early. It's all up to us. I can state quite firmly that the last person I would trust to start an assignment early is me!

However, if you're looking for a guide on how to procrastinate I can definitely help you. A good starting point would be the news (or even reading blogs for that matter!). In fact, that's pretty much what I'm doing now!

Stop the neocon death machine

A good spoof of Left wing activists and their 'writing style' has popped up.

The scary thing is that, had I not known better I would've thought that this was the blog of an actual green party activist....

Link:

http://stoptheneocons.blogspot.com/

Highlanders must be gutted

You know how I said this was a must win for the Highlanders, and that they were favourites to win?

Well, they just lost. In style.

Chiefs got a score in the 30s and Highlanders ended up on something like 8.

Makes you feel kind of sad actually. I mean, the Chiefs still have no chance of getting into the semis so didn't really gain anything. As for the Highlanders, they've blown their chances completely. Anyway, thats enough rugby commentary for this blog....

As for the corporate box, it was much smaller than I expected it to be. Harder to find than I thought it would be too! I thought it would be marked out with a grand golden arch or something. Instead it took me about 1/2 an hour to find the place. When I got there it was populated by middle aged men and women I had never seen before! So, I had to pretend to be interested in the pictures of the Clarke brothers on the wall until Andrew Vercoe arrived.

Soon Councillors Mahood and Bos arrived too. Pippa Mahood was very nice and said hello, which was very cool. Ngawai was also fashionably late.

The highlight was undoubtedly the free booze. Strangely though, Lion Red & Steinlager were the only brands available. Yet Waikato was the major sponsor of the stadium and game. I'm not too worried though, ANY brand is an improvement on Waikato.

On the food front, I had already eaten so didn't have much appetite for the sandwiches on offer. I couldn't risk there being no food available at the box, so chose to stock up before the game!

Anyway, the stadium is definitely a new experience. Rugby can get quite tense sometimes. I didn't really have too much attachment to the game, but still found myself cheering. For anybody who knows me and my attitude to rugby.. THAT is truly amazing.

Off to the Chiefs game

I'm just getting ready to head out to the Chief's game. Hamilton City Council has been nice enough to hook Youth Council up with some corporate passes! I'm going to be watching the game from the 'Clarke Lounge' (wherever that is). It's a lounge that was set aside for the Council and council has apparently never used so is trying to overcompensate know by letting people like me in.

Anywho, since I'm going to be in friendly 'lets-talk-rugby' surroundings, thought I should brush up on my Super 12.

Apparently this game is a must win for the Highlanders. Preferrably they should also score four tries to get some bonus points. As for the Chiefs, there's no way they can progress to the semi-finals so they're just looking to go out with a bang.

Odds are on Highlanders to win.

Have also had to brush up on the rules given that I know literally NOTHING about the sport.

I'm quite proud of myself. This is the most I've ever known about Rugby.

So.. maybe not all Labour MPs are liberal weenies

Would you call a teacher who ties a student hands and jams a tennis ball in their mouth a liberal weeny?

Insane probably, but weeny certainly not.

The Day has rocked!

Youth Night Out and Beat Streets rocked!

First, Youth Night Out. Frogletter let it rip with some awesome headswinging music. Unfortunately, the nearby residents (obviously shocked that Garden Place was being used for something other than reading books..) complained to noise control... SEVEN times!

The noise control dude threatened to take away all our gear unless we shut it off and negotiated an acceptable sound level with EVERY resident of Garden Place. Is it just me or does the power granted to noise control officials sound bizarre?!?!

Garden Place is a public place. Surely the shopowners and residents should have realised that there would be noise when they bought/leased property. The shopowners (and residents) also get to reap the benefits of being in the centre of town. Is it too much to ask that they also sacrifice a few of the rights they would normally have (had they lived in a proper residential area) to facilitate a youth event ONE week of the year?!?!

Eventually it was sorted out through some Coasian bargaining solutions (i.e. quickly moving the show onto the more family-friendly Late 80s Mercedes and turning down the volume).

Turnout was pretty good as well. Managed to give some lollipops away to strangers too. Not as easy as it sounds, every time you give something away for free they think that you're trying to convert them to christianity.

Then it was onto Beat Streets at the Meteor.

Youth Council gave away sausages for free (the tiniest sausages you've ever seen in your life). The break dancers were wicked. Caught up with Alex Cameron from St. Pauls as well. He didn't like the music but loved the breakdancers.

Played Playstation in the 'Phat Van'... a pimped out ride worthy of Xzibit. It had a massive speaker system in the back as well as a 15-inch flat screen with silver PS2 controls. It looked like it was owned by some NZ hip hop musicians who performed at Beat Streets. Can't remember their name, but I remember that they were planning to release an album called "Unbreakable" very very soon.

Heard my first "P" song too. Not P-money, but P of Methamphetamine fame. Was sung by Four Corners. So, one to watchout for on the next government sponsored anti-drug ad.

Anywho, had to leave early as had work the next morning.. didn't get to see the winner, so was a bit bummed... but to be honest it might as well have been a coin toss. I have no idea how you judge a break dancing competition. I mean, think about it, why would one move get more points than the other??

All in all a wicked day, that hopefully should have appealed to everyone! Looking forward to Youth Night Out 2006 (provided we manage to overturn the Noise Control Act by then!).

Youth Night out is TODAY!!

Youth Night Out is Today!!

If you're reading this blog you're doing something wrong. You should
be preparing for YOUTH NIGHT OUT! Why waste your Friday 13th
on unlucky decisions.. you might as well be listening to Late 80s
Mercedes. They are apparently really awesome live, So come on
down and have a good time in Garden Place for once!

When: Friday 13th May (today), 3.30PM
Where: Garden Place, Hamilton

Plus, for your aural pleasure: FROGLETTER.

Clark & Nixon

Thanks to David Farrar for this comparison re: the Doone saga:

Are we really more accepting than the Aussies?

A few days ago I posted some stats with regard to refugees that showed us in a bad light compared to Australia. Basically Australia has 3 times as many refugees living on its soil (per capita) than New Zealand does.

Well, here's another disturbing comparison courtesy of The Listener.

Whilst Ahmed Zaoui has been rotting in jail for two years, his Aussie equivalent has been given security clearance to work at a nuclear power station!

Now tell me that NZ is a 'soft touch'.

News: A guide to youth language - New Zealand Ministry of Youth Development

The word 'ginga' has been officially sanctioned by the government. As part of the governments campaign to appear cool, happening, and whatnot.

Youth Week isn't all bad though, especially if you're in Hamilton. On Friday there will be a Free Concert featuring Late 80s Mercedes in Garden Place at 3PM. Should rock a lot more than the government's attempt at appearing "phat".

Top marks to NZ First

I suppose it's time I said something positive about NZ First.

The internet's been around for a long time now. As far as most political parties are concerned it might as well not even have occured. The Greens and Act embraced it long ago, but as for the rest...

Well, now we can add another unlikely party to the list: NZ First. Given the er... 'composition' of NZ First's fanbase, you might've expected them to be the last to jump onto the IT bandwagon.

Although it's something I loathe to do, I found myself wandering onto their website this morning. Their IT strategy is actually well thought out. The website is clean and fast to load. It has downloadable speeches in MP3 format. As well as that, the designers clearly have dial-up users in mind. The 'videos' are not bandwidth consuming rm files, rather they are picture files with an MP3 soundtrack, easibly viewable for all internet users.

So next time you're feeling particularly elderly, go visit NZ First's website.. it's safe and you just might be surprised...

Who exactly IS eligible for Refugee status?

Peters 'exposes' Fakhri Sabri Mohammed as a 'fake' refugee. Mr. Mohammed got into hot water with Saddam's regime for disagreeing with Saddam's treatment of the Kurds.

If Mr. Peters thinks Mr. Mohammed (who rebelled against Saddam's regime) isn't worthy of refugee status.. then that begs the question.. who IS?!?!

SIFE Presenter Results

Thanks to Jake for posting the results of the SIFE Presenter trial on his blog.

The SIFE Waikato presenters for 2005 are: Jake, Sajjad, Rachael and Amanda.

Jake (er.. what is your official title jake?), Sajjad (CEO) and Rachel (Exec Admin) are all part of the Exec team.

Amanda.. I'm still trying to figure out who she is.

Now that we're in our third year we can use regression analysis to determine correlations at SIFE presenter trials.

However, due to the fact that I've forgotten everything from second year economics, I'm going to have to rely on the bullshit equivalent.

Interesting correlations:

* For the past 2 out of 3 years the CEO has been named presenter

* For the past 3 out of 3 years the person primarily responsible for the powerpoint has been chosen as a presenter.

* For 3 out of 3 years the person in the position (or equivalent of) Exec Admin has been chosen as a presenter

* For the past 3 out of 3 years 2 males and 2 females have been chosen as presenters

* For the past 3 out of 3 years there has been a person of South Asian origin in the team

Anymore correlations? Please comment!

Hey Google can even find stuff from my childhood!

Whilst trying to test whether my blog was accessible via google I came across this:

http://www.myd.govt.nz/media/word/Childrens_Rights_Essays_V2.doc

It's an excerpt from an essay I wrote in 6th form. I still remember it actually. The winner of the essay competition got to go to the UN in New York. I didn't win, but kind of expected not to. Anyway, my disappointment dissapated completely in September (when the winner was scheduled to travel to NY).

Largely due to a small plane crash in New York that changed our world so completely....

Unfortuntately for the guy chosen they had to call off the trip.

But on the bright side, you can still read excerpts from his essay and mine!

Misinformed Refugee Rantings

My good friend Jake Crosby is a little confused on Refugees. This is to be expected. He is a typical NZer and as such totally uninformed on the issue.

The main issue he seems to have is that refugees haven't gone home yet. They should go home he says "when it's safe".

Okay... so how is that different from current refugee policy?

All the refugees he talks about: Somalis, Iranians, Iraqis.. the countries they came from aren't safe anymore, so they aren't eligible to be forcibly sent home under Jake's 'Final Solution'.

And as for refugees we took in from Eastern Bloc whose countries are safe. Well, most have gone home. Those who have stayed, are those who have lived in exile for over 20 years. As such their grandchildren have become citizens, etc.. In other words, they are more New Zealanders than Russian.

So what's the problem?

Refugees have been forced to leave their country due to persecution. They are not people who CHOOSE the West for a better life (i.e. they are not normal migrants). Most would prefer to live with their families and in their home country.

Forcing them to leave would be CREATING refugees and would be an internal contradiction. So why risk an internal contradiction when the status quo achieves pretty much the same result?

Mmmm.. Butter Chicken

Mum made Butter Chicken today and it was gooood :)

It's my Dad's birthday so we had a big dinner. It made missing out on the results of the SIFE speaker trials worthwhile.

Yes, Butter Chicken is Indian food, but for some reason my mum seems to know how to make it.. and make it well. She has conveniently kept this secret hidden from me all these years!

Well.. at least I'm ahead of the trend...

At the moment I'm teaching econ students that once the media catches up with something, it's too late to cash in on it. Well, they've finally caught up to us downloading TV show episodes.

Good to see my 'TV Watching' habits (gotta be careful what I say on the web...) are more or less in sync with the rest of the worlds. '24' tops the list, The OC is at no. 6, Smallville at no.7.

As for Battlestar Galactica, it's at no. 9 but it's already on TV so I'm kind of not bothering.

I'm not sure downloading TV shows threatens the TV industry in the same way as downloading movies or music does. I plan to watch '24' when it screens here, it's just I am the most ill-disciplined person in the world and can't wait till then!!

Plus, most people without MediaGate MG-25's are still going to be watching it on their PCs, which isn't quite the same as sitting on the couch. To download these episodes you also really need broadband. Case in point: without broadband it takes a couple of weeks to download one episode of 24. With broadband it takes about 6 hrs.

Anywho, now that the media has caught up with it, it probably means that there will be some restrictions coming... so enjoy while you can :)

Ten most-pirated TV show downloads worldwide:

1. 24
2. Stargate Atlantis
3. The Simpsons
4. Enterprise
5. Stargate SG-1
6. The OC
7. Smallville
8. Desperate Housewives
9. Battlestar Galactica
10. Lost

There are alternatives to a straight free-for-all or lawsuits. Instead of restrictions, David Farrar is suggesting a pay-per-download system with a cost of about $5/episode. This would be US$2.50, only 2.5 times what iTUNES charges for a song. I'm pretty sure producing a TV show is a hell of a lot more expensive than producing a Britney Spears song. I am not sure whether this kind of pricing would allow studios to recoup their costs at all.

If you're going to charge such a low fee, and make a loss, why not just make it free?

Sound like a recipe for disaster? Well, not exactly. Why not make episodes available in a special downloadable format through a specific media player. This player would make it impossible to fast forward advertisements. The company could then charge a higher advertising fee on the basis that people WILL watch the advertisements (and not fast forward them like they do now).


Given the choice between a free legal reliable download and a free illegal unreliable download, people would prefer to be legal. I also think they could get more out of advertising than US$2.50 per user. Especially when you consider that broadband is used by those in higher income brackets with more cash to spend.

In defence of Refugees

First, let's start off by debunking some refugee myths.

Myth: NZ has a soft touch policy on refugees, once you apply you're pretty much guaranteed to get in.

Fact: NZ only only accepts 17.6% of those who apply for refugee status. This ranks us 13th out of 18 Asylum-accepting countries ranked by the UN. A comparison to supposed 'hardliners' like the United States makes us look heartless. The US accepts 43.9% of those who apply. Our intake is also below the global weighted average of 30.35%

Myth: We're being flooded by refugees

Fact: Nothing could be further than the truth. NZ has 1.77 refugees per 1000 people. The global average is 15.14 per 1000 people, almost 15 TIMES the per capita amount of refugees in NZ.

In fact, even Fortress Australia has more refugees than us, with almost 3 times as many refugees per 1000 people!

Myth: Refugees are unproductive drains that Labour uses to flush our taxpayer money down.

Fact: Refugees are more likely to be productive citizens than citizens of their host country. Largely because the decision to move is entrepreneurial. Second, just because they are refugees doesn't mean they are poor. Asylum seekers seek asylum due to political persecution, not because of economic difficulty. That they are likely to come from poor countries does not mean they have no money.

However, undoubtedly their productivity will be hampered by language difficulties and traumatic past experiences. That's why money is needed to assist refugees (even white english speaking ones) to help them adapt to their new communities. Compare this to a normal citizen where the government would pay for their entire education rather than just part of it.

Even if you don't accept the above surely it is outweighed by the advantages we get from the refugee system.

Given the wild inaccuracies floating around, you'd think it would be relatively easy to put out Winston's fire. Well, the Greens are the only ones defending the Refugee system and they're not doing a good job. Largely because they seem to support a lot of the regimes refugees flee from.

If you don't want to destabilise these regimes then you take away a big plank of the case for refugees. Fundamentally the case is two-pronged: self-interest and humanitarian interest.

It's in our own self-interest to accept refugees. By accepting them we encourage dissent in the face of oppression. People are less willing to dissent if there is no way for them to run away from the authorities. Having a large proportion of the population running away from you (like in Sudan) is also humiliating and makes your government seem less legitimate.

Later on, when political reform takes hold you also have political figures in exile overseas ready to step in.

Second: in humanitarian terms, it surely must be a moral good for us to take in people who are being oppressed by their governments. No, we cannot take in everyone, that's why we differentiate, and only take in those who have been targetted by the oppressive regime in question.

That's not to say that there aren't problems with the refugee system. There are, Saddam loyalists should never have got through. However, these could be exceptional cases and the statistics would seem to indicate that. The high rejection rate suggests rejecting too many asylum applications rather than accepting too many.

Who's a wanker now then?

Answer: Australia and Winston Peters.

Australia is loosening its immigration policy. Grudgingly I bet. I mean it's bad enough that Australia had to abandon its white Australia immigration policy after WW2, now they have to increase their coloured quota by 20,000!

The reason? As much as it would be nice to think that Australians have become a little more tolerant.. alas that is not the answer. In reality, Australia (like us) is now facing massive skills shortages, with almost 150,000 jobs unfilled.

This is a slap in the face for Winston Peters who 'warned' us in 2002 about the danger of not having as strict an immigration policy as Australia. It's pretty clear from the Aussie experience, that if we had followed Peters line back then, we'd have even more of a skills shortage now. Oh no wait, we DID follow Mr. Peters back in 2002. Which is probably why we have one of the largest skills shortages in the western world!

Sticking with Immigration, apparently the difference between Green xenophobia and NZ First xenophobia is the following: whenever Greens propose nationalisation it's responding "to the chilling winds of globalisation", and whenever NZ First proposes exactly the same thing its "jingoistic, chauvinistic nationalism".

Apparently it's the "subliminal messaging" underneath that counts not the policy.

In the end, both policies display a distrust of foreigners. They think that NZ's richest are better suited to managing these companies than non-white people overseas who 'cannot be controlled'. That's not a difference in my book.

Laying good cake

"Layer Cake" sounds awesome. From the promos I was worried that it would be another Guy Ritchie rip-off. Both from the lack of divx sources (always a good sign of how popular a movie is!) and having heard nothing about it before. Now it transpires that its director was a producer on Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (so he can't very well rip-off himself) and Hollywood big-shots were so impressed with 'Layer Cake' that they're letting him direct the next X-Men movie!!

Another reason I have to see it: Apparently, Daniel Craig (main character in Layer Cake) is on the verge of becoming the next Bond...

All this over cats? What about the Holocaust?

Am I the only one who thinks John Tamihere shouldn't be tried before a war crimes tribunal for abandoning his cats?!?!

The guy is a prick but come on, it's not exactly a hanging offence.

It's interesting how people could excuse him for his comments about the Holocaust "I'm sick of hearing how many Jews were gassed in World War Two" as 'stress'. Yet abandoning a cat won't qualify for this excuse because it's a character issue! What could be more of a character issue than being indifferent to the holocaust?!?!

Come on guys, it's a domestic cat. They eat native birds. I'd rather that JT was fired for something substantial (e.g. the billion OTHER things he's done over the past few weeks).

Radio Star!

Hey dudes, I'm a radio star! Sure, it was only a 10min interview, but just you wait.. :)

Community Radio invited me to talk about Youth Council and some events we've got coming up. I was pretty pleased with the interview. And I hope to stay pleased by not listening to the version my parents taped! According to Michelle I cam across as cool & calm though (which I hope is a good thing!).

Hopefully I also did a good job of publicising the two awesome events Youth Council has got coming up: 'Youth Night Out' and 'Beat Street 2005'. They're both part of Youth Week.

If you're a Hamiltonian 'young-un' reading this, come along!!

Youth Night Out is going to be kicking! It's a free concert in Garden Place (when was the last thing you saw that area used for anything other than reading books?!?!) with Late 80s Mercedes as the leading act & Frogletter supporting!

It's followed by, the infamous Beat Street. The place where P-Money, Scribe, et al. made names for themselves. Hamilton's major hip hop night. This is the regional breakdancing comp, here the best breakdancers in the Waikato are selected to go onto the national champs.

It's all happening this Friday 13th May. Youth Night Out kicks off at 3.30pm, followed by Beat Street at 6pm.

England bombed in NYC

This makes no sense. There can be fewer places where it's harder to bomb a site than the United States... especially New York (where being a squeegee operator is a 'shoot-to-kill' offence!).

Why then, would you choose to strike against England by bombing the embassy in New York?! I mean it's not like there aren't enough terrorist sympathisers in London. The French Secret Service even calls London 'Londonistan'!

I guess we'll find out why England's islamic radicals weren't good enough for the job soon enough...

Israeli Spies

Another defence official is accused of leaking secrets to Israel. When I say 'another' the natural question from every NZer would be: who was the first?

That would be Jonathon Pollard. Currently serving a life sentence in a US prison. He's seen as a hero in Israel. Pollard leaked information that the US was holding back from Israel. The holding back of this information was illegal under an intelligence sharing agreement between the two countries. However, Pollard, as an analyst, was legally bound not to leak the information.

I think his plight was portrayed in the very cool French movie 'Les Patriotes'. If the producers didn't intend to portray his exact plight then they certainly must have had him in mind. The movie mainly focuses on an Israeli spy who eventually becomes the 'minder' of a Jewish NSA analyst who turns traitor/hero (depending on your perspective..). I encourage you all to rent it out. Yvan Attal makes for the coolest, level-headed spy since Sean Connery :)

Hmmm.. all this stuff certainly makes NZ's Israeli spy passport scandal seem rather tame...

Jewish MP fails to win over Muslim electorate

If your opponent lives 400 miles away, and has no connections in the area then you'd think your seat would be safe. Not only that, if your opponent was a good mate of Saddams you'd think you'd almost be home free!

Not if you were a black Jewish MP who voted in favour of the War on Iraq. Especially, in an electorate where Bangladeshi Muslims make up almost half of the population!

And such proved the case. Despite murmurings that low turn-out would maintain the status quo Oona King has been ousted from her seat at Bethnal-Green.

She's certainly not the Jewish neo-con such a profile might suggest. Oona has compared the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the Holocaust in the past amongst other stereotype-defying things. However even this wasn't enough to halt her demise. Signs that trouble was abrewing in her electorate, over her stance on the war, became apparent when she was egged by Muslim youth during a Holocaust remembrance service

It still amazes me that stuff like this can happen in London. Which, most of the time, is such a cosmopolitan place.

British Election

Didn't even realise the Brit Election was on this week!!

Anywho, looks like another four years of Tony Blair. Frankly, I'm glad. Dumping Tony Blair over Iraq would have been a stupid idea. And that was pretty much the only reason people had to vote against him.

For one: the Iraq situation has steadily improved. Second: since when was deposing of a dictator such a bad foreign policy blunder that it should result in an entirely new government?!

The one thing that has been bad has been the lying. But, I for one, would not be tempted to replace a politician because they did what 99.99% of politicians do for a living! Over the past few years people have really trusted Tony Blair. He only appears like a liar now because we hold him to far higher standards than we do the conservatives.

That's not to say that it was right for him to lie, it just doesn't seem like a hanging offence.

What about Michael Howard then?? I initially had high hopes, but they have steadily fallen. He was an amazing debater in the house (on his first day he actually had Tony Blair on the back foot) but that's it. No really consistent vision of a 3rd way that blends social democracy with fiscal conservatism. Just Michael Howard leaping onto every bandwagon in sight (testing foreigners for AIDs just one of many examples).

Goddamn.. can't believe I missed out on the Brit election... Too much MG-25 me thinks...

Photo Fever

I've been looking for an easy way to upload photos. It seems like I may have found an answer: Flickr. I haven't tried it yet, but if the Guardian says its good, then I'm happy to agree with them. I seriously doubt it can be any worse than Picasa.

Picasa is blogspot's default image uploader. God knows why. It eats up memory. It also doesn't let you write articles about your photos. On top of that it is slower than the Hamilton Bus Service.

When I was in Spain I enjoyed many a frustrating hour with Picasa. It took me like 8 hours to upload 6 pictures and "optimise" them. And this wasn't counting the time I spent cutting and pasting their URLs into one blog entry so I could write some comments about them!

As for Flickr, I'm impressed by the cool sidebar thing you can add to the right side of your blog (I stumbled onto a site using it whilst randomnly while clicking 'Next Blog>>').

Now all I need is a digital camera...

Banned in Cuba

Babalu blog has been banned in Cuba. Congratulations to Babalu for being chosen to receive such a prestigious award.

Good stuff, Fidel, you've probably just suceeded in increasing Babalu's readership by several thousand people!

Emily Braunstein Blogs...

Religious studies student Emily Braunstein is blogging. I know her from debating circles, she's part of the Victoria University Debating Society. Man it is weird seeing people you know in the news... well, as far as the NZ blogosphere classifies as news...

This isn't the first blog post I've seen about Emily. There was another one about her editing of a 'letters to the editor' page (she was/is.. I'm not quite sure: the editor of Salient) that had huge numbers of letters calling the president of the Vic Students Union a cunt.

It's got me thinking about all the contacts we make at University. The people we meet really are the future of the country. It scares me to think that one day someone I had drinks with will actually be running this country!

The blog she's writing for is apparently a very right wing blog. I have David Farrar to thank for this insight.. as well as the quote on the front page that reads "If you are offended by strong right wing views and bad language, you should probably sod off now and go hug a tree.".

So I guess that puts her alongside the umpteen other right wing/neo-con/rogernomic-wannabe debaters. I'm beginning to wonder if there's any other kind...

Still a very very nice person who is definitely way too nice to be a rogernome :)

Update:

Emily's first blog post can be accessed here.

Ali G's Harvard Commencement Speech

Yes, Harvard actually had Ali G as their graduation speaker! Can you even imagine the supposedly liberal Waikato University doing that? The Fembots would have a hissy fit at comments like:

"-it's fantastic to see dat Harvard has finally let in so many women. A lot of u iz probably feminists or as we call dem in England 'lezzas'. I agree wiv u, dat u gotta treat women wiv respec - its de least dat bitches deserve. "

"Relationships should be brought into dis -de 20th centrury - u women out dere shouldn't have to do de cookin and de cleanin when u come home from work - u should do it before u leave in de morning."

Anywho, the speech can be accessed at HBO's Ali G site.

Other Highlights:

"All you fathers out dere u iz made choices - wiv dat money u could have bought top of de range Lexus but instead u chose to invest in ya kids future. IZ U MENTAL? If u iz got other kids me hopes u don't make de same mistake again innit. Does u realise how many honeys u can get wiv a Lex. "

"U students has come from every corner of de US from de rainforests of Arizona to de deserts of Alaska. Some of you iz probably never even seen a black man before.......allo"

"Anyways I digest. It iz a well big honour to be arksed ere today. To fink dat so many great people has been educated ere like Lyndon Banes Johnson, or as he is better known - JFK, George Clinton was also ere I fink , and de one before him, and also...William Tell - is he one of your lot, probably, and dat bloke wiv de hat, but most importantly dat really fit honey from Star Wars - if u iz out dere, me'd love to - me iz stayin at de Best Western Hotel - me's got a really nice room, altho since dis morning dem has put a parental lock on de tv. "

What is Israel getting out of the Gaza pullout?

I am interested in Jewish and Israeli culture. It fascinates me that in such a short time (Israel was founded in 1947) they have acquired such a rich, vibrant and prosperous society. Of course I'm also a big fan of secular/democratic societies and Israel is famously one of the most secular societies in the Middle East.

I have been reading CosmicX's blog and I'm interested to see what he has to say . From what I can tell he's a typical Jew living in Israel. He also shares a similarity with me in that he gets very few hits on his blog :)

According to the Economist though, he's part of the minority when it comes to the Gaza pullout. He is not in favour of it and thinks that Israel is giving up its birthright for no concessions. He (or at least the sources he cites) isn't opposed to an eventual Gaza pullout, just a pullout in the midst of terrorist attacks.

It's important to remember both how risky the pullout is and how the necessity still hasn't been conveyed to many Israelis. It is risky because Sharon is banking on Abu Mazen to deliver on the terrorism front after Israel has pulled out. It's necessary because we know nothing will happen unless Israel makes a grand public concession on the settlements that is not conditional on progress in the war on terror.

I was in California in 2002 and saw the whole farce unfolding on CNN/MSNBC/and about a billion other news networks. It went like this: Palestinian suicide bombers destroy something -> Israel goes in and surrounds PLO headquarters demanding a crackdown on terror --> PLO can't crackdown because they can't leave their barracks --> Terrorists take advantage of weak PLO and bomb Israelis --> Israelis demands PLO crackdown on terror and throw some grenades at PLO headquarters for good measure --> etc.. etc..

Without something that Abu Mazen can hold up as a concession/success on the part of Palestine he will not be able to acquire enough legitimacy to crackdown on militants.

But we shouldn't forget that if Palestinians don't remember or recognise the concessions being made, then this concession would have been in vain. Most Palestinians don't recognise/realise the concessions that were offered at Camp David in 2000. I think there's also a danger that they won't realise the concessions or will forget about them after the pullout.

If terrorism does not subside considerably as a result of this pullout, it will be a long time before Israel concedes something again.

If that's so, then the Gaza pullout is a risky move, but if it succeeds it could give a new impetus to a final peaceful settlement.

Click the Red Button.. come on, I dare you!

Funniest link I've clicked in a long time!:

http://fun.drno.de/flash/BigRedButton.swf

I use the word 'clicked' for a good reason :)

Siding with the Nazis

I never thought it would come to this... but for once I'm siding with the Nazis.

I just read an article in The Times (London) about discrimination cases being brought under the Employment Equality (Religion & Belief) Regulations (2003) by the British National Party. Whilst I haven't read the case in its entirety the case as summed up by The Times disturbs me.

A British National Party doctor was turned down for a job at a local GP's office. It was undisputed that the sole reason he was turned down was because the owner of the office found out he was BNP member. The BNP then took the GP to court claiming that the employer was discriminating on the basis of belief. The tribunal found in favour of the GP.

Another case (Walker v TGWU) saw a Trade Union ejecting a member because he was a BNP member validated as legal by the court. This is even though Trade Unions are only allowed to expel members in exceptional circumstances and are not allowed to expel people because of their political beliefs.

Both these cases are clear discrimination cases. They discriminate against Nazis. And whilst this would seem like a good thing, tolerating it is not good at all.

I support the intent of such legislation. It aims to stop private parties from putting pressure on people to change their beliefs and marginalise them. However, in this case marginalisation is quite clearly happening.

Sure the BNP are White Supremacists, but they are also entitled to their opinion. The BNP isn't threatening to overthrow the state. They are a legitimate political party with some idiotic views. Finding that the beliefs of the BNP are not 'beliefs' seems bizarre and contrary to the whole purpose of the act.

Are we seriously saying that an employer should be able to fire a Muslim employee who attends a rally in support of Osama Bin Laden? Would this satisfy the act? Is the Muslim employee's right to political opposition not a 'belief'? And if employers are able to snub this employee at every turn then why isn't that considered a form of private pressure to change one's deeply held beliefs?? And if political beliefs aren't a belief, then why are religious beliefs considered a 'belief'?

Even more bizarre is the ejection of the BNP union member. These 'inclusive' 'working class' unions now don't have to represent working class white people who hate immigrants (who, let's face it are a pretty large percentage of the working class population in England).

In the case of the doctor it is slightly understandable why you might not find in the BNP's favour. A clinic is looking for a doctor who will abide by National Health Service (NHS) policy and treat patients equally. The owner of the GP's office could have had serious and reasonable doubts of a BNP members ability to fulfil such a role. However, the reason the judge gave for the decision was that political affiliations such as the doctor's weren't a 'belief' for the purposes of the act.

You might say that the act should be restricted to protecting religious beliefs. Yet the act also protects philosophical beliefs. Why? It does this because it realises the two are intertwined. If Islam really does call for a holy war against the infidels, and that is my religion, I also hold a political belief as a result of the religion. In order to protect someone from discriminating against me on the basis of my religion an employer must not able to discriminate against me under religious OR political OR philosophical grounds. Except in exceptional circumstances where the two might be incompatible (e.g. if I applied for a job as a security guard at the Israeli embassy).

Now not all persons in all situations should be protected. In some cases, discriminating on the basis of religious belief makes sense. In the case of the union, and even to some extent the GP's office, no such sense can be found. No matter how much you hate the Nazis.

My first internet order! The MG-25 MediaGate

If you're wondering why the hiatus then it's because I have been busy playing with my new toy: the Mediagate MG-25. This thing is awesome, especially for the price. It is a portable harddrive that plays diVX, MPGs, & virtually every other file format you can think of on a TV or Home Cinema. Supports Dolby Digital Surround Sound too. The hard drive for the MG-25 can be purchased separately and is a basic 2.5" laptop hard drive. In my case I bought a Hitachi 80GB hard drive and installed it with no worries despite knowing little to nothing about what goes on inside a computer (or any kind of technology for that matter!)!

Picture quality is pretty good as well but obviously relies on the quality of the movie you're playing. Some of the poor quality divx's I downloaded came out in pretty shocking quality on screen. If someone has overcompressed the sound you will definitely hear it over your home's sound system. However, a couple of 24 episodes recorded from HDTV came out in DVD quality with all the requisite sound effects!

The lack of a 'on-panel' control system for controlling functions of the hddrive is a bit annoying as well. I'm not complaining though as instead of a panel, the MG-25 has a REMOTE!! It seems to have a pretty big range too! Whilst I'd rather have a remote than a panel, having both would have been nice.

As for it's other features: MP3 facility seems to be top notch, better than my DVD/MP3 player anyway. The picture facility is a little less top notch. Whilst I don't doubt it can display pictures it has very finite limits on the pictures it can display. MediaGate effectively froze whilst trying to preview my 2MB photos. It flashed with all sorts of 'low memory' warnings when I tried to open them. Since most people with digital cameras don't really compress their images this could be a problem. Could also be a problem for those who were planning on transferring their pictures directly to MediaGate.

I also note with a sense of irony that the only video format the MG-25 doesn't support is *.wmv, Microsoft's supposedly 'universal' format! :)

This purchase was notable for one other reason: it marks my first real foray into the realm of internet shopping. I have spent money on the net only once before and that was with EasyJet. However, I don't really count that as real internet order. In the case of EasyJet I needed to get from Barcelona to London somehow. The prices were (and are still) so ridiculously cheap on Europe's budget airlines that it made almost no sense to purchase flights in Europe through traditional travel agents.

However, in this case, the MediaGate wasn't an essential item. I was definitely looking for some storage space but I didn't need one that supported divx and had a video out! So, I guess this marks my entry into the world of e-commerce. After all, you can only tell that you're an internet shopper if you feel so safe that you'll fork out $500 over it for something you really don't need!

Damn.. even Katie Holmes is taller than Tom Cruise!

You know that annoying feeling of curiosity when you catch the end of an ad that sounds interesting, but you missed the start so you have no idea what it was about or who it concerned?

Well that happened to me. I just caught the end of a Woman's Weekly ad on TV (No comments please!) that had the provocative headline: "He's 42. She's 26.". To which my instant reply was: who is he & who is she? I'm guessing these are the questions Women's Weekly wanted me to ask, but I'll be damned if I was going to be seen dead near one of them!!

What better solution to this problem than the anonymity of the internet! I didn't even need to search for my answer, it was sitting on XtraMSN's front page!

The newest 'it' couple is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. Yes...that's one really big age gap! Thing is, despite the age gap, Katie Holmes is still taller than Tom Cruise. Something is wrong about an older guy being taller than his younger mistress. The older guy is supposed to be dominating, exploitative and what-not.

Still despite the weirdness, Tom Cruise has been on a roll as far as I'm concerned. I have been liking him more and more ever since Minority Report. I was more excited by Stephen Spielberg's idea of 'pre-crime' than Cruise's performance. However, Tom obviously decided to star in the movie on the basis of the storyline and ideas it entailed so kudos to him for choosing it.

And ever since the theatrical trailer for War of the Worlds was released I've been drooling with anticipation. This latest escapade is likely to get Cruise more kudos with guys, not less. Let's face it, it's every guy's dream to still be dating hot young chicks when they turn 40!

As for Katie Holmes, she is one of those actresses you continually see on the cover of FHM and one of the few I don't hate, so she can't be that bad. To be honest she is much hotter than Tom's last girlfriend Penelope Cruz who had this weird lip thing going on. Don't get me wrong. She was hot, but Nicole Kidman hot? I don't think so! Katie Holmes on the other hand..

The Blog Scene

Reading about blogs makes me want to write a blog entry. I've been "working" for 6 hours today. I put "working" in quotation marks because to everyone but me it doesn't really seem like a real job.

Why, you ask?:

• Although I get paid most of my time is spent in front of a PC screen
  
• Although there is work to be done in front of the PC screen I am allowed to go on MSN, check emails and surf the web.
  
• Although we're supposed to drop what we're doing and dance around in a wild panic whenever a customer comes in, there is a low customer walk-in rate and so such dancing doesn't happen much.

All three factors combine to make this the perfect opportunity to surf the web and get paid for it. Such surfing inevitably means that I come across about a dozen articles on the rise and rise of blogging.

I'm the opposite of an early adopter. In 80s terms I'd be the kid with the pink suspenders. In other words, I'd be the kid who hadn't even caught onto the fact that if you're going to wear suspenders you shouldn't wear pink ones.. let alone the fact that suspenders were uncool.

I'm playing catchup with this whole bloggin' thing and have been trying to find a way in. Lucky for me David Farrar has provided it in the form of the most visited political blogs in NZ.

A pretty interesting way to waste time, I've come across some interesting links. My mum rarely talks about politics but I do remember one outburst. There I was getting ready to eat dinner and Mugabe pops onto the screen. I was about to continue chomping but all of a sudden mum blurted out "Why can't they do something about him?!". I'm not sure what she meant by THEY, but NZers certainly can do something. They can encourage the Black Caps to take the fine from the ICC and not tour Zimbabwe.

It was bound to happen sometime: some random has started a petition against the Black Caps touring Zimbabwe. If you're wondering whether sports and politics mix, wonder no more: They DO mix. Like it or not, a sports team that represents a country also drags along a fair amount of that country's politics along with it. That's why the US boycotted the Moscow Olympics during the Cold War. Politics and Sport mix even more so in Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe is the patron of cricket. It's not about whether the postponement of a tour will stop the regime, it's about whether or not we're doing everything we can to show our distaste for them.

Also came across some stories about $1m dollar state houses being rented for (predictably) low rates. Such a scheme is opposable on the ground of equity. But equally, there are larger considerations. I have to agree with government on this one, it is important that we don't have large sections of cities set aside as low-income ghetto areas. Even though this would be the more efficient solution.

Ghettoes increase the separation between the middle and lower income classes and thus leave middle & upper classes uneducated about their plight. Equally for lower income classes, there are positive psychological factors. When there are a mixture of family's in the area intuitively it is more likely that there will be positive family role models within the area.

However, in order for such houses to be justified there needs to be more than just a couple of them. It needs to be a relatively widespread phenomenom and not simply some people getting ultra-cheap housing at the expense of others. I have yet to read anything about this aspect of the scheme.

Black Dog Day

What started out as a good day has turned into a "Black Dog Day". I think Churchill's phrase captures the essence of such days perfectly. They are days when you feel down, regardless of what happens during the day. If the glass was once half full a minute ago, suddenly it looks very empty. Something in my heart tells me there must be some root cause for such wild shifts. If I find it, surely that will help me control it.

Despite my belief that there must be some root trigger for Black Dog Days I have yet to find the cause of today's one.

At Work.. how do I work again?

Back at work after the triumph that was the Recognyz '05 Youth Awards. One question: how do I work again?

I've had so much fun these holidays, and the fun has left little time for work. As a consequence I've forgotten how to work. Kathryn on the other hand has been bouncing off walls doing stuff. She's cleaning units as we speak. I wonder if she thinks that I'll spray them. Unfortunately I'm allergic to the spray & consequently can't use it... so she's in for a nasty surprise if she's cleaning under the assumption that I'll be doing the spraying!

There's a SIFE exec meeting this afternoon at Tandoor restaurant. It's a Pakistani restaurant owned by Sadia's family (Sadia is the new treasurer for SIFE Waikato). I'm curious to see how Pakistani food differs from Indian. I had dinner at Sajjad's house one time and the chicken curry had a very similar taste to Sri Lankan chicken curry.

So, whilst I would be keen to attend and try the food, I'm not sure that I can devote this evening to eating out and attending a SIFE meeting. This week looks like another one of those weeks. It is customary for lecturers to hand out 20 billion assignments on the first week back and I expect this week will be no exception. I've got Outlook reminders popping up left, right, & centre letting me know that I've only got 2 weeks till at least a dozen assessments are due AND I've also got meetings left/right and centre this week as well!

Monday is Youth Council & Kevin Pryor's Youth Advisory Board, Tuesday Theatresports is starting up (and for once it's been advertised!), Wednesday is a staff meeting at Avenue Self Storage and god knows what is in store for me Thursday night!

On the other hand.. even if I skip the SIFE meeting I'm pretty sure I won't spend the evening studying!