Just watched another session of nit-picking and hair-splitting. I bet those wankers are all members of the Labour party!
When they can't find real juicy stuff, like knicker-sniffers or arse scratchers, they start on the safety angle. Which might be good if real safety standards were being compromised.
The latest was the terrible crime of appliance servicemen not doing insulation testing after replacing a switch. The nearest analogy I can think of is requiring your car to have a new WOF after being fitted for a new tyre.
Technically they are correct- this test is required by the regulations, but in the real world is seldom done. Hell, I have serviced thousands of appliances without doing so. If I thought it needed an insulation test, I would have done so. Changing a simple part doesn't, regardless of what some arse- covering regulation might state.
What is the this self appointed watchdog achieving?
1- As often as not, two tradesmen turn up as an arse-covering excercise. (guess who pays)
2- Unnessesary work is done (guess who pays)
3- Companies operate from a holding company and simply change name and wind the old one up- It's cheaper and easier to do that that to clear your name.
Most of these people are well aware the customer wants the job done as cheap as possible. While the costs of servicing seem high, the friggin' compliance costs -all the permits, cerification, training, test equipment are huge- without getting into vehicle costs and tax issues!
I personally know of several trademen targeted. One simply ignored their demand for an explanation, the other sent a rather witty response to his investigating, but not eating from, a box of chocolates!
I wish more of these companies spyed on would tell them to fuck off!
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Back to the Moon
Some real investment into the future!
This time it's not to place a flag, but to establish a foothold. The first step in our breaking out into the galaxy.
An essential step, if we are to be around in the long haul.
Until we spread out, we are vulnerable as a species, to any stay rock that happens along. If you want to learn more about this, get the outstanding BBC DVD 'Space'
The cost of taking these next steps is less than rebuilding Iraq- and money far better spent!
The cost of not moving into space is our survival as a species.
This time it's not to place a flag, but to establish a foothold. The first step in our breaking out into the galaxy.
An essential step, if we are to be around in the long haul.
Until we spread out, we are vulnerable as a species, to any stay rock that happens along. If you want to learn more about this, get the outstanding BBC DVD 'Space'
The cost of taking these next steps is less than rebuilding Iraq- and money far better spent!
The cost of not moving into space is our survival as a species.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Thursday, September 15, 2005
I will post when I can
I'm in writing mode again, so won't be posting a lot here.
I prefer to write stuff that I CAN SELL!
"Your love gives me such a thrill- but love can't pay the bills- I WANT MONEY!- that's what I want, I WANT MONEY"
'Meddlers In Time- Book One' is available on CD for $15- only in NZ- contact me at wwfeatherston @hotmail.com
When I convince some asshole to print it, I will be the first to spread the word!
Meanwhile, I have to crack on with Book II.
BTW, I spit on govamint (taxpayer) funding- my work stands or fall on it's own merits!
I prefer to write stuff that I CAN SELL!
"Your love gives me such a thrill- but love can't pay the bills- I WANT MONEY!- that's what I want, I WANT MONEY"
'Meddlers In Time- Book One' is available on CD for $15- only in NZ- contact me at wwfeatherston @hotmail.com
When I convince some asshole to print it, I will be the first to spread the word!
Meanwhile, I have to crack on with Book II.
BTW, I spit on govamint (taxpayer) funding- my work stands or fall on it's own merits!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Part of the problem in New Orleans
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State by Robert Tracinski Sep 02, 2005
by Robert Tracinski
Robert Tracinski is the editor of TIADaily.com and The Intellectual Activist.
It took four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it also took me four long days to figure out what was going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists—myself included—did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
More:
http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026
by Robert Tracinski
Robert Tracinski is the editor of TIADaily.com and The Intellectual Activist.
It took four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it also took me four long days to figure out what was going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists—myself included—did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
More:
http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026
Monday, September 12, 2005
The gods just smiled on me.... I think.
Sitting at home with hayfever, burning eyes and a sinus headache, having spent all day trying to be civil and not slay my family.
Then the phone rings just as I'm about to eat dinner and it's a telemarketer.
That must be the human sacrifice I ordered....
Then the phone rings just as I'm about to eat dinner and it's a telemarketer.
That must be the human sacrifice I ordered....
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Feckin' hayfever!
Every year, for a couple of days, some filthy plant spreads it's vile pollen and I get sodding hayfever. Lasts for about three days, in which time I produce what feels like about 20 litres of snot.
Today is that frickin' day!
Today is that frickin' day!
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Morons I have meet- schoolteachers
It takes a strange bird to take up this job. Not so much those that teach at a primary level, but at secondary school and above, the geeks, freaks and fascists come out to play!
We had more than our share, during my school days. I don't know if they were psychologically damaged prior, or the problem was more of a situational psychosis, but some of these characters should have been in an institution- we still had them in New Zealand in those days.
Like any pack of predators, we could smell fear and baited them with no mercy! Unlike today, straight out abuse was crossing the line, so we had to be more subtle. Hiding any writing materials was always good for a wind-up, as was gluing locks and sabotaging lab equipment.
Anyone who wore socks with sandals had to be fair game, as was a person who wore their trousers up to their ribcage!
Then there was 'Bacco Bill', an ape-descended lifeform very loosely called a science teacher. Rumour had it that he was a wartime friend of the principal, thus he had a job for life. I can't recall ever learning a single thing in his classes, off the syllabus, anyway!
He was about as stable as a pissed priest sitting on a keg of gunpowder, with a lighted candle up his arse.
His class had two types of student. Those as dumb as mud and considered write-offs and a few bright enough to pass the subject, regardless, thus not making him look so bad.
The inevitable would happen, as it does in these circumstances- the bright kids make the bullets and give them to the dullards to fire. Nothing like someone being dragged off for a good thrashing to brighten up a dull period!
The highlight of the year was a lesson involving the Van De Graaff generator, an ingenious gadget that generated loads of static electricity. Normally this would be the display and lecture on a defunct machine, dragged from the storeroom and dusted of for it's annual showing. Not this year- a couple of the brighter and more devious types repaired it, so it was fire it up or lose face!
For a mental picture, just imagine Homer Simpson entangled in an electric fence of 3/4 for an hour! Every time he went near this thing-POW!
At least 4 beatings were given out for uncontrollable laughter.
It was a lesson alright. Wisdom does not always come with age!
We had more than our share, during my school days. I don't know if they were psychologically damaged prior, or the problem was more of a situational psychosis, but some of these characters should have been in an institution- we still had them in New Zealand in those days.
Like any pack of predators, we could smell fear and baited them with no mercy! Unlike today, straight out abuse was crossing the line, so we had to be more subtle. Hiding any writing materials was always good for a wind-up, as was gluing locks and sabotaging lab equipment.
Anyone who wore socks with sandals had to be fair game, as was a person who wore their trousers up to their ribcage!
Then there was 'Bacco Bill', an ape-descended lifeform very loosely called a science teacher. Rumour had it that he was a wartime friend of the principal, thus he had a job for life. I can't recall ever learning a single thing in his classes, off the syllabus, anyway!
He was about as stable as a pissed priest sitting on a keg of gunpowder, with a lighted candle up his arse.
His class had two types of student. Those as dumb as mud and considered write-offs and a few bright enough to pass the subject, regardless, thus not making him look so bad.
The inevitable would happen, as it does in these circumstances- the bright kids make the bullets and give them to the dullards to fire. Nothing like someone being dragged off for a good thrashing to brighten up a dull period!
The highlight of the year was a lesson involving the Van De Graaff generator, an ingenious gadget that generated loads of static electricity. Normally this would be the display and lecture on a defunct machine, dragged from the storeroom and dusted of for it's annual showing. Not this year- a couple of the brighter and more devious types repaired it, so it was fire it up or lose face!
For a mental picture, just imagine Homer Simpson entangled in an electric fence of 3/4 for an hour! Every time he went near this thing-POW!
At least 4 beatings were given out for uncontrollable laughter.
It was a lesson alright. Wisdom does not always come with age!
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Looters, snakes, disease and now... Lawyers
Reading some of Interdictor's blog and came across the inevitable:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/54379.html?page=2#comments
And I thought we had a culture of blame here!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/54379.html?page=2#comments
And I thought we had a culture of blame here!
Monday, September 05, 2005
Civil Defence in New Zealand
There is one lesson that we can all learn from The New Orleans disaster.
Don't rely on the government (or anyone else) to bail you out!
You MUST be responsible for yourself and your own.
I have been involved with the front lines of civil defense for many years- SAR, Red Cross, St. John's, Ambulance, Army. There are a lot of good people out there, not a lot of resources though. Certainly not enough to go around in a really catastrophic event.
While some of the floods of the last few years may have been a disaster to those involved, they were a pin-prick by comparison with a cat.4 hurricane hitting a city bigger than Auckland.
The sort of event that is more likely here is, as we know, a large (8+ Richter scale) earthquake. Imagine that hitting Wellington, then combining that with a raging southerly gale.
Some of the exercises indicate that unlike the optimistically stated 3 days that people may have to manage on their own resources, it may be more like 2-3 weeks! Certainly in cut-off smaller outlying communities.
I live in such a place. A large scale earthquake would almost certainly cut off our access links (a rail tunnel, mountain pass road access and several bridges over major rivers) We live in a small community of 2,500 people. Being rural, food won't be too much of a problem and there are good water supplies close to town. Most houses have woodfires and as we get many power cuts, a lot of us have supplies of candles, gas lanterns, even generators.
We would be a lot better off than those in the metro centres. Trouble is, a lot of our population commute to these metro areas to work. I used to keep a small pack full of basics- enough to keep me going while I walked the 80km home. I wonder how may take their preparations that far!
At home, we carry far more than the recommended supplies. Being into camping, we have the whole range of tents, cookers, ropes, water containers, lanterns, solar showers and so on. The chainsaw would probably be very useful and I have a small solar power system that can run a radio and some lighting.
The numerous firearms will keep the pot filled.
And in our possession!
Having said don't rely on others, it is very useful to team up with others you know and trust. Talk with them, plan and bounce ideas off each other. Think about how to improvise things, what you need to have stored, what skills you all have and what you might need to do to keep your family safe.
I live in a small community, with many outstanding individuals in it. It also has it's share of criminal and deadbeat lowlifes who repeatedly proven they have a total disregard for others. Let them prey on those who think they are above needing to protect themselves.
You can always shoot them later!
Don't rely on the government (or anyone else) to bail you out!
You MUST be responsible for yourself and your own.
I have been involved with the front lines of civil defense for many years- SAR, Red Cross, St. John's, Ambulance, Army. There are a lot of good people out there, not a lot of resources though. Certainly not enough to go around in a really catastrophic event.
While some of the floods of the last few years may have been a disaster to those involved, they were a pin-prick by comparison with a cat.4 hurricane hitting a city bigger than Auckland.
The sort of event that is more likely here is, as we know, a large (8+ Richter scale) earthquake. Imagine that hitting Wellington, then combining that with a raging southerly gale.
Some of the exercises indicate that unlike the optimistically stated 3 days that people may have to manage on their own resources, it may be more like 2-3 weeks! Certainly in cut-off smaller outlying communities.
I live in such a place. A large scale earthquake would almost certainly cut off our access links (a rail tunnel, mountain pass road access and several bridges over major rivers) We live in a small community of 2,500 people. Being rural, food won't be too much of a problem and there are good water supplies close to town. Most houses have woodfires and as we get many power cuts, a lot of us have supplies of candles, gas lanterns, even generators.
We would be a lot better off than those in the metro centres. Trouble is, a lot of our population commute to these metro areas to work. I used to keep a small pack full of basics- enough to keep me going while I walked the 80km home. I wonder how may take their preparations that far!
At home, we carry far more than the recommended supplies. Being into camping, we have the whole range of tents, cookers, ropes, water containers, lanterns, solar showers and so on. The chainsaw would probably be very useful and I have a small solar power system that can run a radio and some lighting.
The numerous firearms will keep the pot filled.
And in our possession!
Having said don't rely on others, it is very useful to team up with others you know and trust. Talk with them, plan and bounce ideas off each other. Think about how to improvise things, what you need to have stored, what skills you all have and what you might need to do to keep your family safe.
I live in a small community, with many outstanding individuals in it. It also has it's share of criminal and deadbeat lowlifes who repeatedly proven they have a total disregard for others. Let them prey on those who think they are above needing to protect themselves.
You can always shoot them later!
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Fathers Day
Ah- that would be the one where, instead of going out and actually enjoying myself, I get to do stuff with the family!
Fun stuff, like taking crap to the dump, cutting firewood, gardening, preparing meals, looking after kids...
Who's day was it again?
Fun stuff, like taking crap to the dump, cutting firewood, gardening, preparing meals, looking after kids...
Who's day was it again?
Saturday, September 03, 2005
New Orleans Live
Here is the story, warts and all.
Think major earthquake and city here...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
This stuff is amazing. I wish I could be there with the guys putting this blog out!
Think major earthquake and city here...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
This stuff is amazing. I wish I could be there with the guys putting this blog out!
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Electioneering shit-fights
XNC2 is alway political, but never more than just before an election (It has been in existance for two of these)
There are several factions:
The piss-takers- everyone is far game.
The vocal lefties (about 3 or 4 but fuck do they make a racket!)
The others, who tend to be more centralist
The Helen-worshipers are quite amusing in their blind adherance to the 'Red Flag'
Interestingly, at least two of them are, by their own admission well-off, one admitting to an income of 6 figure and the other hinting at that (wealthy family,etc)
They are a pair of fuckin' space cadets, one in IT and the other a fuckin' 'artist', who has produced a couple of (probably) state funded 'books', that would have the same reading audience of a catholic abortion guide!
One can take the shit and give it back, the other repeatedly threatens to run to the cops over 'libel' issues. Like they give shit!
We have about 6 Libertarianz in this group, who sound moderate by comparison!
There are several factions:
The piss-takers- everyone is far game.
The vocal lefties (about 3 or 4 but fuck do they make a racket!)
The others, who tend to be more centralist
The Helen-worshipers are quite amusing in their blind adherance to the 'Red Flag'
Interestingly, at least two of them are, by their own admission well-off, one admitting to an income of 6 figure and the other hinting at that (wealthy family,etc)
They are a pair of fuckin' space cadets, one in IT and the other a fuckin' 'artist', who has produced a couple of (probably) state funded 'books', that would have the same reading audience of a catholic abortion guide!
One can take the shit and give it back, the other repeatedly threatens to run to the cops over 'libel' issues. Like they give shit!
We have about 6 Libertarianz in this group, who sound moderate by comparison!
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