Public Address - Island Life (Home)

Something for the kids | Jul 03, 2007 17:57

I imagine the Government would have liked to make this pre-school education deal a lot more straightforward. Given enough money, you could set up a string of centres across the country, put the staff in and let them rip. Free pre-school education for all! No negotiations with providers, no ducking and diving over the intricacies of a free-20-hours system. You wouldn't even have to spend all that dough on the direct mail campaigns. A deal like that would no doubt promote itself.

And you would surely secure the undying devotion of the under-5s.

Consider what all the land and the buildings and the staff would cost. Consider that, and then consider what we already have, and the capital value of the infrastructure that makes it possible to offer free education for everyone from five years of age all the way to their late teens ('donations' excepted).

Certain readers of this blog would argue that there are superior alternatives to consider, and they make a valid case. I just wonder how things might turn out for the kids if we were starting today from scratch.

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This just in: incumbent President worst in history of the union | Jul 03, 2007 11:22

Not even Nixon had as little regard for the rule of law as this dismal son of privilege.

Grant of Executive Clemency

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment, 2 years' supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

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A therapeutic dose | Jun 24, 2007 20:36

This morning at the gym a man collapsed and they called an ambulance. It occurred to me as I saw them go to work with the defibrillator that I hadn't seen one deployed in real life before. I have been prone alongside them, three times I've taken an ambulance ride with electrodes stuck to my chest and machine standing by, and if you watch the TV you know to get your hands out of the way when Abby says "clear". It's a wholly darker complexion of grim when some poor soul is lying on the floor, ringed by ambulance officers taking turns at CPR and administering the shock at steady intervals.

A defibrillator gives you "a therapeutic dose of electrical energy". In 1947 Claude Beck, a professor of surgery, tried it out on a patient. He had a theory that ventricular fibrillation often occurred in hearts which were "too good to die" and there had to be a way to save them. Let us all salute Professor Beck.

Let us also mention the late Kerry Packer, as reported by Wikipedia:

In Australia up until the 1990s, it was quite rare for an ambulance to carry a defibrillator. This changed in 1990 when Australian media mogul Kerry Packer had a heart attack and the ambulance that responded to the call did carry a defibrillator. After this, Kerry Packer donated a large sum to the Ambulance Service of New South Wales in order that all ambulances in New South Wales should be fitted with a personal defibrillator, leading to the Australian colloquial term for the device, Packer Whacker.

I like the colloquial style of Australians. I wouldn't give you ten bucks for a trailer-load of John Howard, cynical political football player that he is, but I like the way an unflustered Aussie can undo all the tension. Cardiac arrest? No worries. We'll get you on the Packer Whacker, mate.

Let me testify: when you're lying on your back contemplating your mortality, there's nothing so reassuring as an ambulance officer who treats the whole thing as a ten-minute taxi ride across town.

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Are you old enough? | Jun 22, 2007 09:29

The months ahead:

July. Government offers Sue Bradford the Fiji high commissioner post, hoping she will abandon her bill to lower the voting age. "This social engineering is killing us, Sue" says an email leaked to Nicky Hager.

August. Bradford accepts High Commissioner position, uses little-known MFAT loophole to send Keith Locke in her place.

September. John Key swings behind Bradford with 'the kids r lrite' campaign, promising to support the bill "as soon as 100,000 kids have texted Helen Clark with the message: jon4me".

October. Government announces extension of local loop unbundling to cellular networks. Outages of previous month "will not b repted", promises David Cunliffe. "Kids really like to use the txting. We need a network that can cope."

November. Government backs Bradford bill. Class sets of Bridled Power to be provided free to all secondary schools, democracy blogger Idiot Savant to get dedicated funding from vote:education. Stinging editorial in the DomPost asks: "Are some voters more equal than others in Helengrad?"

December. Huge turnout for Matt McCarten and John Minto's Supersize My Vote! rally in Queen Street: 3,000 high school students in Aotea Square and another 14,000 inside the CD stores and Burger King.

January. John Key delivers state of nation speech at Burnside High School pledging a vote for "every kid who aspires to have one". Delighted by rapturous reception from party faithful, but asks where the kids are.

February. Bain retrial gets underway. TV cameras follow the Dunedin One for three weeks of saturation coverage. Bill passes, but doesn't make the six o'clock news.

UPDATE: A post on the discussion thread reminded me that this, too, is apposite.

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White and bright | Jun 21, 2007 09:34

Martin Luther King is the second most admired person of the 20th century, according to a Gallup poll.

I don't know how he'd go in Townsville.

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An appetite for scandal | Jun 19, 2007 09:17

You can rail all you like at the media for putting Millie Holmes front and centre in their bulletins, but the stats don't lie. Look at the most-read stories on the Herald website this morning.

Number 1: Family devastated by Millie's drug charges: Holmes (+photos)

And at Number 3 (with a bullet?):

Holmes' daughter to contest drugs charges.

Maybe the news is being read with more sympathy than schadenfreude, but it pays to be realistic. Wherever you travel, they have an expression for this kind of thing. The Brazilians have a proverb: Pimenta nos olhos dos outros é refresco : The pepper in somebody else's eyes is refreshing. My Finnish neighbour will know more about this, but apparently his people have an expression: "schadenfreude is the purest joy, since it doesn't include a bit of envy".

Perhaps, nevertheless, people feel sympathy, as Paul Holmes hopes we do, when he reminds us that being the parent of a teenager is no easy thing. What we are seeing here is the full price of a magazine cover. If you're offered up as the virtual neighbour about whom the whole country knows every little thing - from the colour of the bib little Reuben wore for the first photo op, and all the way on up - whatever effort you might make to delineate your own celebrity from that of your family, the barrier will always be porous and, when the police come calling, completely meaningless.

The most meaning to be taken from this story comes in the words of the district court judge who reminded the media how thoroughly commonplace and unremarkable the case was. This is where Holmes' remarks - exceptional though his own daughter's circumstances may be - have some pertinence. How thrilled are you about the possiblity of your own teenager having fun with P?

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Child's play | Jun 14, 2007 09:37

I am thousands of miles from Valencia. At this remove, it's hard to know who to believe when Ernesto Bertarelli says the New Zealanders are getting boorish, oafish and mean. I can see the possibility of the thing. I have sat in Jade Stadium. I have seen the kind of behaviour that gives Christchurch sports fans their reputation for being one-eyed.

But it wasn't the whole of the stadium. Stereotypes will always trip you up, and that's kind of the point, isn't it? To be a jeering, taunting sports fan, best you diminish human beings to caricatures.

I'm a poor spectator. I will keep my eye on the play if I have money wagered, and I can be truly awed by athletic prowess, but I have never been inclined to lather up in the fervour about what "we" are winning. It's their accomplishment, not mine.

If it fills their heart with pride to wear the Silver Fern and take the flag on a victory lap, then more power to them, but the accomplishment is theirs, not the nation's. If the All Blacks win the World Cup, it reflects well on the efforts of the thousands of people, both paid and volunteer, who love the game. You might say it also reflects well on the goodwill of the fans who turned out to buy the tickets and cheer for the team. Perhaps that's enough to make you feel part of the team, but the connection's a bit tenuous for me. I'm not the one drenched in sweat.

Maybe these people who are reported to be hissing "traitor" at their compatriot sailors in Spain really do feel part of the Emirates team. Perhaps they think they're doing good crew work. But from a few thousand miles away, it really just sounds childish.

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Take that, evil scammers! | Jun 13, 2007 08:38

The world is full of cheats. They take the carparks for the disabled at the mall, they don't leave money in the honesty box, they run telemarketing businesses, and they pretend they didn't see you waiting at the bar. They just love the internet.

Yesterday morning, a Google ad caught my eye. It looked like a gimmick site. I make the odd internet gimmick site myself; I'll always stop to look. This one was plainly all sizzle and no sausage. "Welcome all," it says, "My name is Zoltar and I can grant you 1 wish and 1 wish only."

Okay, here's my wish: I wish that people wouldn't use cellphone text language in other media.

Following the instructions, I enter the wish and click the button.

Step 2. Enter your name.
Sure! "David Farrar".

Step 3. David Farrar, Please choose your sign, and I can predict your future
I make a guess. "Libra".

Step 4. David Farrar, tell me your cell phone number so that I may text message you your future.
I look up Farrar's number and punch it in. Just kidding. I enter 021 3333 3333 and get this:

David Farrar, I have text messaged you your secret wish number, you should receive it shortly. Please enter it below so I may send you your fortune.

It's all too clear now. Or at least, it's clear if you squint hard and read the fine print at the bottom of the page:

Summary terms:
By signing up for this service and by entering your personal PIN Code which will be sent to the mobile phone number supplied by you on this website, you acknowledge that you are subscribing to our service. All plans are subject to the Terms and Conditions. You may stop this subscription service at any time by sending a text message with STOP, to short code 4212. Your phone must be polyphonic compatible, be Internet-enabled and have text messaging capability. You must be the owner of this device and either be at least sixteen years old or have the permission of your parent or guardian. Vodafone and Telecom customers will receive the Destiny Horoscopes club at $5 twice per wk. Standard/other text messaging rates may apply. For Information text HELP to 4212 or call 0800440619. Please click here to see

It's another of those phone scammers that Juha wrote about a while ago. In fact, it looks as though it might be the same one.

I email a message across the street to Juha. It's there in a flash. He sees it for what it is and drops the Commerce Commission a line. Take that, evil scammers! Or not. You drop a nuclear device, ten minutes later, the cockroaches are scurrying around again. All you can really do is keep the spotlight trained on them.

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Sound as the pound | Jun 12, 2007 08:57

Public Address got on the phone yesterday and asked the disgraced World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz if he could shine some big brain power on the problem of New Zealand's high dollar. The interview began with a little rancour.

Wolfowitz. But it's 3am. Are you insane?

Public Address. Sorry about that, it's just that our Reserve Bank governor has intervened in the market, and we can't help wondering if George Soros and his friends might not be about to get mediaeval on his ass.

W. Oh, well that's different. As you may know, imbalances in the mediaeval money markets were in many ways the precursor to the problems of tyranny in the Ottoman Empire, which

PA. [Interrupting] Yes. We were wondering if the markets might just beat up Alan Bollard like they did Norman Lamont in 1992.

W. Oh yeah, that was spectacular. That guy had balls. He blew 6 billion pounds trying to beat the market. What's this guy Bollard like? Is he staunch? Is he resolute? Do you think he might need some help? I'm between contracts at the moment, you know.

PA. Don't know. To be honest, you might be a bit too much of a zealot for his blood.

W. Zealot? In what way? Who says?

PA. Well some people say that when you were getting the Iraq War on the launching pad you inflated the myth of a dangerous enemy, and that many people died because of it.

W. And your point?

PA. Well, is it possible that you can get obsessed with a theory and end up doing more harm than good?

W. I have no idea what you're talking about. Look, do you have Bollard's number?

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Deliver us from Alan | Jun 08, 2007 10:12

The question looming largest in my mind at the moment is: what will happen to Tony Soprano this Monday? I try to distract myself by considering the official cash rate, and David Haywood's bolshy mate Bollard. But that just gets me thinking about the exchange rate. 75 cents! It could go to 80, John Key says, and he's supposed to know about These Things.

My patriotic export revenue-earning business can stand an exchange rate at par; a more advantageous one is icing on the cake. But you get nostalgic for the old days. At 40 cents it was aaaaaall icing, baby.

One needs always to be thinking about the new business opportunities in these uncertain times. In the last month my inbox has been filling with messages from friends and acquaintances contemplating fresh business ventures and looking for tips.

Restructuring can be bloody: the banks, the telcos, and of course the current Nightmare on Hobson Street. I wish I could say I had a specific suggestion for each person who drops me a line, but I don't. Or rather, I don't have safe, solid ones. My line runs to the more wacky and fanciful. You shouldn't knock wacky and fanciful. Wacky and fanciful can be the seedbed for the good idea that eventually emerges.

People say: but that's so obvious, why didn't I think of that! And I think, well, maybe that's because it emerged from an idea that was so ludicrous you'd have just laughed if I'd said it out loud.

So look, here are two frankly stupid ideas I had this week. Maybe you should take a look. Perhaps you can find a pony somewhere inside the horseshit.

Inspiration Number One: KiwiSaviour
If you have a church like Bishop Brian's, you'll love this. One per cent rising to four is for pikers; make your worshippers a better offer! Say to them Give us your savings, and we'll give you back tenfold in the sweet by and by.

If they keep ponying up 10% in the collection plate, you promise them, you'll match it with a full 20% which you'll put into a special account for them to use in the afterlife.

Always Be Closing. Remind them what kind of table that will buy them when they're dining in the Lord's home!

Inspiration Number Two: The World Cup We Can Never Lose.
Bringing home the odd Americas Cup and Rugby World Cup is all very well, but how economically efficient is it for us to keep losing them again? Business needs certainty: just ask Michael Barnett or Frank O'Sullivan.

Here's the answer. Stage a combined tournament in a trio of sports that makes us utterly unassailable. Each day for, oh, about a hundred days I reckon, you put on a match in three legs, with two teams of about two dozen players. First leg, you go out and buy a spec' house somewhere in Auckland. You tart it up. Once that's done, and you've had a quick lunch, you move on to the second leg. You take your world class yacht out on to the Hauraki Gulf and do your beating to windward and your keelhauling around the mark, and the puffing of your spinnaker, and your long luffing and whatever the hell else it is they do out there all afternoon. The important thing is, as ever, that you don't break your stick and you get back over the line ahead of the other boat. With the remaining daylight hours, you get the spec house on the market and flick it off for a profit. By this stage, you're ready to head to the Eden Park Coliseum for the third and final leg under lights. This will be a three hour game of rugby (with ad breaks) played according to whatever new rules are necessary to address whatever is presently wrong with the game everywhere else in the world.

You win a point for getting home first, another point for flicking your house for more than the other team and a third point for winning the footy game. Whoever has the most points after a hundred days is the world champion. As any fule kno, no-one in the world is better than "us" at any of these events. Put all three together and we will totally cream all comers.

As for the economic ramifications, well, all three sports are prized by that most desirable of all economic market segments: the High Net Worth Individual. They will come here for the duration of the tournament and they will spend like there's no tomorrow, except of course there will be 100 of them.

And there's more! After 100 days of the cocaine and hookers and high-rolling at Sky City, they'll probably be feeling penitent. That will be the moment for the masterstroke: You introduce them to KiwiSaviour.

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My image consultant is very nervous | Jun 06, 2007 16:23

For your Friday enjoyment, here are two YouTube clips. The first one is a positive and empowering message made by an advertising agency as part of a viral campaign for a company in the beauty industry trying to stab all the other companies in the beauty industry in the back. It's crisp, slick and fascinating.

The second one is a spoof of it. It's hilarious and merciless. Make sure you watch the first one first, and that you watch this next one right to the end. It's worth it.

In other news, this is my new Motofone F3. With the batteries out. Can I get a "woooooo" over here?

I like to call it the Headless Chicken trick. The neato bit is that the display is made by E-Ink, the company that's developing e-paper technology for Philips. The bistable display (once it's in one state, it stays that way) is based on the same technology as e-paper, though it has a resolution of about 200. That's like an old-school digital watch screen, but bigger.

It only uses power when it's changing states (i.e. going from black to white), and even then, it's still a lot more energy efficient than normal LCD screens, because it doesn't actually emit light. Like paper, it relies on reflect light (though it has a tiny backlight, too.

It's the most bleeding-edge piece of technology I've ever owned, but it's the least sophisticated phone I've ever had, too. Its bleeding-edge display is functionally equal to ye digital watches of yesteryear (see photo). It displays a maximum of 12 characters at a time, can't distinguish between upper and lower case. It has no 3G, GPRS, camera, Bluetooth or IRDA, which makes sense, because it doesn't have the memory to store nor the means to display anything that it would receive.

The whole get-up is designed for poor people in developing countries - rural India in particular. Its interface (no words, just icons and voices) is made for illiterate people and its designed with price in mind. It cost me, brand new, $60. It speaks English, French and Swahili.

Usually, I'd feel dirty about talking up a cellphone so much, but in this case, the sheer brilliance of this phone is an indictment of whole damn cellphone industry.

I am no cellphone luddite. I have been using big fat PDA-phones with touchscreens and internet browsers for a few years, but I'm just taken aback at how practical, intuitive and beautiful such simplicity can be.

It's a phone. It calls people.

It's such an elegant design, it makes me want to weep. Of course, it's not for sale in the US or Canada, and I'm not sure about it's availablity anywhere else (you can get it on TradeMe, though). And for good reason. If the idea of $60 phones caught on, phone makers wouldn't last very long. The whole industry is advanced through making people take unbearably grainy photos in inappropriate situations, download annoying ringtones in ever more annoying quality, etc.. What on earth would they do if people just wanted a phone that, you know, made calls?

I'm in awe that the designers had the balls to buck a decade's worth of industry convention and go back to basics in such a spectacular way.

Excuse me. I have to go and touch my phone now.

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Snapped! | Jun 05, 2007 21:57

The camera never lies. Google Street View has been catching people unawares, sunbathing, sidling out of nudie bars, loafing on the job. But the quiet toilers who seek no glory for their selfless efforts are coming into their own as the camera snaps away. Here are some shots that have taken Google Map readers by surprise this week.

Doug Heffernan has been up early every morning for the past six days laying on free electricity for vulnerable customers. It is not easy work. Here we see him in an awkward moment as his lavalava becomes entangled in the wires.

The art director who made London's Olympic logo cannot ride his bicycle to the agency these mornings with about being mobbed by adoring fans. "More, more!" they cry, he tells us, and his hearing must be equally as singular as his design talent, because to the untrained ear, it almost sounds like "moron".

From Monday to Thursday, the creative team for the Burger King account are edgy post-modern ironists. Come Fridays, though, no matter who's putting on lunch, they slip away for a consciousness-raising session with the Mt Roskill International Sisterhood of Women.

McDonalds, the quiet reformers in the world of nutrition, are seven and a half years into a top secret programme designed to drain 91% of the fat from their quarter pounders.

Despite a hectic schedule of G8 meetings and poisonings, Vladimir Putin takes ten minutes each day to seal up another missile silo. "All I saying: give peace chance", he says. "Cold war: history. Dubyadubya2: very capable man."





No matter how grim the news from the front, George W Bush continues to guide the war effort from the back.

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