A Polish man walks into restaurant Zizzi on the Strand in London and its full of customers. He goes running into the kitchen, grabs a large knife, drops his trousers and cuts off his penis. He ends up in hospital where he is given surgery and, I'm guessing...also a meal. Apparently he was reported to be stable. Um...my knowledge of psychiatry may be a bit rusty but I don't think so.
Polish sausage anyone?
Source: Christchurch Press, 25 April, 2007. B2
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Anzac day idiots
Getting up before the birds...the overwhelming silence...the bugle...the honoring of so many who sacrificed. Anzac day is special.
But while dawn services around the country paid solemn tribute to those who fought and died, some individuals decided to abuse that hard won liberty to smash down crosses arranged around a town's cenotaph. That happened in South Taranaki.
Meanwhile demonstrators in Wellington took the opportunity to burn the New Zealand flag interrupting the service. They called themselves anti-war protestors. I suppose they didn't see irony in that fact that the only reason they had the freedom to burn the flag was precisely because of the sacrifice of those they now protest against. Bloody idiots the lot of them.
You see...unlike all the other days we have off work, Anzac goes to the core of our nationhood. Whether you are for or against any war is actually beside the point. Unlike strap-on accessories like religious tradition, or even ethnic bickering, Anzac embodies the spirit of willingness from our forefathers to go fight, defend, and die for their country's future generations. Like many who observed the day I'm grateful. The vandals from Taranaki and the idiot peaceniks from Wellington deserve to have their citizenship stripped from them.
It may be their right to freedom of expression... but it's also our right to commemorate uninterrupted by their rude, disrespectful and boorish behavior. That the haunting beauty of the 'last post' could not move them as it moved thousands around the county is terribly sad. They should be ashamed.
But while dawn services around the country paid solemn tribute to those who fought and died, some individuals decided to abuse that hard won liberty to smash down crosses arranged around a town's cenotaph. That happened in South Taranaki.
Meanwhile demonstrators in Wellington took the opportunity to burn the New Zealand flag interrupting the service. They called themselves anti-war protestors. I suppose they didn't see irony in that fact that the only reason they had the freedom to burn the flag was precisely because of the sacrifice of those they now protest against. Bloody idiots the lot of them.
You see...unlike all the other days we have off work, Anzac goes to the core of our nationhood. Whether you are for or against any war is actually beside the point. Unlike strap-on accessories like religious tradition, or even ethnic bickering, Anzac embodies the spirit of willingness from our forefathers to go fight, defend, and die for their country's future generations. Like many who observed the day I'm grateful. The vandals from Taranaki and the idiot peaceniks from Wellington deserve to have their citizenship stripped from them.
It may be their right to freedom of expression... but it's also our right to commemorate uninterrupted by their rude, disrespectful and boorish behavior. That the haunting beauty of the 'last post' could not move them as it moved thousands around the county is terribly sad. They should be ashamed.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Baby basher gets name suppression
What kind of man bashes a 17 month old baby girl? Apparently she will now have life-long injuries as aresult. At least he was remanded on bail for a pre-trial conference in the High Court on May 25. It wasn't so long ago that he probably would have been out on bail. Frankly I'm against name suppression unless there is an overwhelming necessity to protect the victim. however, until the court case proper i suppose we should give the benefit of the doubt until then.
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10435723
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10435723
Education standards? Good idea in theory!
Good to see new standards being applied to graduate teachers but frankly they should be applied to all teachers. Perhaps a warrant of fitness approach for all teachers every four years or so. Could also be the basis for salary reviews as well. At least then the best teachers would be paid more and lesser ones would be penalised. Of course it would only work properly if,
(i) The standards were robust and included not only academic understanding of teaching but the practical application as well.
(ii) Students and parents views were taken into consideration.
(iii) Rigorous assessment of student success.
(iv) Practicing teachers who were well rated reviewed the standards to ensure it was fair and not captured by academic elites.
(v) Unions and ministry officials were to butt out and start putting the needs of both students and good teachers ahead of their own little power plays.
Interesting to note the report which wanted to implement these standards so that they could prove the graduates "have appropriate knowledge for what they want to teach". You would have thought that that was a given!
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10435708
(i) The standards were robust and included not only academic understanding of teaching but the practical application as well.
(ii) Students and parents views were taken into consideration.
(iii) Rigorous assessment of student success.
(iv) Practicing teachers who were well rated reviewed the standards to ensure it was fair and not captured by academic elites.
(v) Unions and ministry officials were to butt out and start putting the needs of both students and good teachers ahead of their own little power plays.
Interesting to note the report which wanted to implement these standards so that they could prove the graduates "have appropriate knowledge for what they want to teach". You would have thought that that was a given!
Link: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10435708
Dog owner should be charged for what their dogs do.
I don't particularly like dogs. Never have. To me they often smell like a cross between wet football socks and rotting furballs. Besides, they're either urinating or humping on anything vertical or licking their genitals as if it were the last meal of their lives. My favorite animal is steak by the way.
Why people consider dogs man's best friend I do not know. I suppose its because dogs are so servile. You can make them fetch, roll over, and do a bunch of stupid tricks any self respecting animal with half a brain would ignore. What is unconscionable though, is for anyone to have dogs that pose a risk to the safety of everyone else.
Virginia Ohlson died because she was mauled. Her last words were, "The dogs got me - the dogs have bitten me." There is now a 15 year old boy who no longer has a mother.
Micro-chipping isn't the answer, these muts probably weren't even registered. What i think needs to happen is to charge the owners with manslaughter if not murder. There's not a scrap of difference between firing a shotgun, driving while drunk, or raising ferocious dogs when it comes to consequences for the community. Why should the choice of weapon make a difference?
Sure, the motive aspect is different, few drunks anticipate killing but that's beside the point. From the victim's point of view being killed is being killed. These aren't genuine accidents they're completely predictable and avoidable.
Dog owners must bear full responsibility for animals they choose to have. Some breeds should also probably be banned. Unfortunately sensible dog owners get tarred by the same brush - which is grossly unfair. But make no mistake, irresponsible dog owners should not be able to get away with their crimes by blaming their dogs, they are complicit in their crimes and should be charged accordingly.
Why people consider dogs man's best friend I do not know. I suppose its because dogs are so servile. You can make them fetch, roll over, and do a bunch of stupid tricks any self respecting animal with half a brain would ignore. What is unconscionable though, is for anyone to have dogs that pose a risk to the safety of everyone else.
Virginia Ohlson died because she was mauled. Her last words were, "The dogs got me - the dogs have bitten me." There is now a 15 year old boy who no longer has a mother.
Micro-chipping isn't the answer, these muts probably weren't even registered. What i think needs to happen is to charge the owners with manslaughter if not murder. There's not a scrap of difference between firing a shotgun, driving while drunk, or raising ferocious dogs when it comes to consequences for the community. Why should the choice of weapon make a difference?
Sure, the motive aspect is different, few drunks anticipate killing but that's beside the point. From the victim's point of view being killed is being killed. These aren't genuine accidents they're completely predictable and avoidable.
Dog owners must bear full responsibility for animals they choose to have. Some breeds should also probably be banned. Unfortunately sensible dog owners get tarred by the same brush - which is grossly unfair. But make no mistake, irresponsible dog owners should not be able to get away with their crimes by blaming their dogs, they are complicit in their crimes and should be charged accordingly.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Marc My Words… 20 April 2007
Political comment
By
Marc Alexander
('Policy change needed to end growing inequality of wealth' The Christchurch Press - 16 April, 2007)
I enjoy opinion pieces. My mornings are never complete until I feel challenged by a perceptive outlook on an issue of note. Sadly, I am often forced to read much lamentable drivel in the local rag. But occasionally I read a column of such monumental tripe that I must question the direction of human evolution. Such a column disgraced my table this week. It was entitled "Policy change needed to end growing inequality of wealth" and was scribed by the perpetually remonstrating apogee of the ideological loony left, John Minto. Is it just me, or does he need a prescription? Anyway for better or worse this is my response.
Socialism is slavery with a designer label
To some, the idea that a number of people get rich while others (usually themselves) do not seems obscene. It is often argued by people who hold such opinions that no society that prides itself on being egalitarian should ever allow a disproportionate distribution of wealth - never mind what the distribution of effort might have been to create it. The appeal to some kind of deeper humanitarian prerogative to share and share alike is always couched in the language of fairness and social justice but is nevertheless, always accompanied by the threat to remove that wealth at whatever level is deemed to be justified. It’s a perspective that is rarely challenged in the media. Partly I suspect, because to do so invites claims of greediness and a mean spiritedness to those who are alleged to have accumulated more than is deemed sufficient for a decent lifestyle.
Besides…the number of presumptions usually presented is commensurate with the level of economic jealousy. To argue, as columnist John Minto did, that "many of the wealthy don't work at all", or that if they do, it was no harder than say, a waitress (his example) simply panders to the vanities of those who feel cheated by their financial position. It shifts the burden off self appraisal and finds a culprit in a system that supposedly favors those more materially successful. The elegance of the argument is that if you succeed its only because you must have been triumphant in taking advantage of the loopholes. It therefore follows that the wealth so amassed must have been derived dishonestly and, in turn, justifies its removal and distribution to those whom it must therefore rightfully belong.
In his article Minto begins with an incitement to outrage over the 'fact' that the richest 10% of New Zealanders now own 52% of the nation's wealth. He goes on to say that "most of us feel uneasy when we read statistics like this."
Well I don't feel uneasy at all. I'm not sure what those 10% of kiwis did to accrue such wealth but I feel quite confident they didn't achieve it by spending their days watching Coronation Street re-runs, languishing around the inner city getting jacked up on party pills and spending quality time drinking their livers into the Guinness book of records.
I'm equally convinced they are the main providers of jobs - a consequence of which is that a huge number of families can now afford to put food on the table, shoes on their kid's feet, and provide a future. The group Minto identifies as having too much have also sacrificed much to get there. Long hours largely unpaid, these people have mostly worked hard to save, risk, and invest in their dreams of a better life. Many have put family life on hold as they devote their energies to get ahead. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not out to paint them as a bunch of martyrs struggling to help society. They are making a choice to shape their lives as they see fit. In fact, no differently than the vast majority of people who want a different life; one that puts the immediacy of other life goals in preference to long-term material gains. We all have choices in life, albeit some less restricted than others, but we each have the capacity to forgo today's pleasures to put aside for the possibility of a greater one in the future. What we should not do is criticize the abundance of others because they made better choices than we were able to make.
Individuals with wallet envy like Minto don't see any of this because their power derives from indulging the easy emotion of resentment by those for whom work is a necessary evil to be engaged with minimal enthusiasm. That is why he can come up with ridiculous statements such as, "no-one becomes a millionaire by their own work" rather than seeing the more obvious 'no-one becomes a millionaire without providing a product or service (or employment opportunities) that the public has not placed a sufficient value on so that they would choose to purchase it'.
Minto persists in the Marxist economic perspective that all profit must be the consequence of paying workers less than the value they create. Aha…exploitation! What he conveniently chooses not to notice is that the value of labour, like everything else, is subject to the market forces. The reason why cardiac specialists are paid what they are is because the monetary reward is in proportion to their scarcity. The education, skill and experience required to be such a medical practitioner notwithstanding, if their availability were multiplied by a hundred, their ability to attract such payments would surely diminish.
The alternative applications of work to meet the needs of society are solved by the constantly changing inter-relationships of costs, prices, and profits. A house may still have utility as a house but if no-one wants it, in a sense it has no value. Similarly we don't see too many blacksmiths these days. Their work, no doubt, would be hard, long and strenuous but since no-one is keen to engage their services, they effectively have no value - (though the more enterprising might try their hand at artworks and find a receptive paying market).
The sheer volume of Minto's assertions against the economically successful would be almost funny if it weren't so pathetic. Not once in his diatribe did he consider, (in keeping to the a medical theme), that hundreds if not thousands of kiwis are alive and well because 'evil' companies satisfied a therapeutic demand in order to accrue profits to be distributed to the shareholders. And if you similarly want to enjoy the benefits of shares, well then…nothing prevents you from purchasing them.
Instead of berating the basis of our wealth because some did better out of it than others, it would perhaps be a fair question to ask Mr. Minto what has he ever done to increase the prosperity of our country? How many jobs has he created? What products or services has he brought us that have improved anyone's life? Apart from ranting against those who do provide us with all of the above, what has he done?
And that, I'm afraid, is the point. Capitalism has outlived the short, brutal, and terrible reign of the soviet system. It has raised living standards for more people than any other alternative we know of. The fact that some will use their ingenuity, creativity, and effort to have more than most doesn't cause me any discomfort whatsoever. Because in order to achieve their success, my world is generally better. So I'll do the precise opposite of Mr. Minto. I'll thank them instead.
Political comment
By
Marc Alexander
('Policy change needed to end growing inequality of wealth' The Christchurch Press - 16 April, 2007)
I enjoy opinion pieces. My mornings are never complete until I feel challenged by a perceptive outlook on an issue of note. Sadly, I am often forced to read much lamentable drivel in the local rag. But occasionally I read a column of such monumental tripe that I must question the direction of human evolution. Such a column disgraced my table this week. It was entitled "Policy change needed to end growing inequality of wealth" and was scribed by the perpetually remonstrating apogee of the ideological loony left, John Minto. Is it just me, or does he need a prescription? Anyway for better or worse this is my response.
Socialism is slavery with a designer label
To some, the idea that a number of people get rich while others (usually themselves) do not seems obscene. It is often argued by people who hold such opinions that no society that prides itself on being egalitarian should ever allow a disproportionate distribution of wealth - never mind what the distribution of effort might have been to create it. The appeal to some kind of deeper humanitarian prerogative to share and share alike is always couched in the language of fairness and social justice but is nevertheless, always accompanied by the threat to remove that wealth at whatever level is deemed to be justified. It’s a perspective that is rarely challenged in the media. Partly I suspect, because to do so invites claims of greediness and a mean spiritedness to those who are alleged to have accumulated more than is deemed sufficient for a decent lifestyle.
Besides…the number of presumptions usually presented is commensurate with the level of economic jealousy. To argue, as columnist John Minto did, that "many of the wealthy don't work at all", or that if they do, it was no harder than say, a waitress (his example) simply panders to the vanities of those who feel cheated by their financial position. It shifts the burden off self appraisal and finds a culprit in a system that supposedly favors those more materially successful. The elegance of the argument is that if you succeed its only because you must have been triumphant in taking advantage of the loopholes. It therefore follows that the wealth so amassed must have been derived dishonestly and, in turn, justifies its removal and distribution to those whom it must therefore rightfully belong.
In his article Minto begins with an incitement to outrage over the 'fact' that the richest 10% of New Zealanders now own 52% of the nation's wealth. He goes on to say that "most of us feel uneasy when we read statistics like this."
Well I don't feel uneasy at all. I'm not sure what those 10% of kiwis did to accrue such wealth but I feel quite confident they didn't achieve it by spending their days watching Coronation Street re-runs, languishing around the inner city getting jacked up on party pills and spending quality time drinking their livers into the Guinness book of records.
I'm equally convinced they are the main providers of jobs - a consequence of which is that a huge number of families can now afford to put food on the table, shoes on their kid's feet, and provide a future. The group Minto identifies as having too much have also sacrificed much to get there. Long hours largely unpaid, these people have mostly worked hard to save, risk, and invest in their dreams of a better life. Many have put family life on hold as they devote their energies to get ahead. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not out to paint them as a bunch of martyrs struggling to help society. They are making a choice to shape their lives as they see fit. In fact, no differently than the vast majority of people who want a different life; one that puts the immediacy of other life goals in preference to long-term material gains. We all have choices in life, albeit some less restricted than others, but we each have the capacity to forgo today's pleasures to put aside for the possibility of a greater one in the future. What we should not do is criticize the abundance of others because they made better choices than we were able to make.
Individuals with wallet envy like Minto don't see any of this because their power derives from indulging the easy emotion of resentment by those for whom work is a necessary evil to be engaged with minimal enthusiasm. That is why he can come up with ridiculous statements such as, "no-one becomes a millionaire by their own work" rather than seeing the more obvious 'no-one becomes a millionaire without providing a product or service (or employment opportunities) that the public has not placed a sufficient value on so that they would choose to purchase it'.
Minto persists in the Marxist economic perspective that all profit must be the consequence of paying workers less than the value they create. Aha…exploitation! What he conveniently chooses not to notice is that the value of labour, like everything else, is subject to the market forces. The reason why cardiac specialists are paid what they are is because the monetary reward is in proportion to their scarcity. The education, skill and experience required to be such a medical practitioner notwithstanding, if their availability were multiplied by a hundred, their ability to attract such payments would surely diminish.
The alternative applications of work to meet the needs of society are solved by the constantly changing inter-relationships of costs, prices, and profits. A house may still have utility as a house but if no-one wants it, in a sense it has no value. Similarly we don't see too many blacksmiths these days. Their work, no doubt, would be hard, long and strenuous but since no-one is keen to engage their services, they effectively have no value - (though the more enterprising might try their hand at artworks and find a receptive paying market).
The sheer volume of Minto's assertions against the economically successful would be almost funny if it weren't so pathetic. Not once in his diatribe did he consider, (in keeping to the a medical theme), that hundreds if not thousands of kiwis are alive and well because 'evil' companies satisfied a therapeutic demand in order to accrue profits to be distributed to the shareholders. And if you similarly want to enjoy the benefits of shares, well then…nothing prevents you from purchasing them.
Instead of berating the basis of our wealth because some did better out of it than others, it would perhaps be a fair question to ask Mr. Minto what has he ever done to increase the prosperity of our country? How many jobs has he created? What products or services has he brought us that have improved anyone's life? Apart from ranting against those who do provide us with all of the above, what has he done?
And that, I'm afraid, is the point. Capitalism has outlived the short, brutal, and terrible reign of the soviet system. It has raised living standards for more people than any other alternative we know of. The fact that some will use their ingenuity, creativity, and effort to have more than most doesn't cause me any discomfort whatsoever. Because in order to achieve their success, my world is generally better. So I'll do the precise opposite of Mr. Minto. I'll thank them instead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
