Stick brainstorming up your....

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PC has a great post about how brainstorming is a waste of time. It is part of the school of office psychobabble that has brought us all plenty of mindless exercises like:

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- open plan offices (a bit like saying 40 person chauffeur driven car - it's not a frigging office!) guaranteed to at best disturb you with background noise, nose picking, eating and general lack of privacy, at worst you get idiot interrupting you blathering on about whatever they want to talk about and people flirting endlessly with the hot members of staff they like (my work only has the noise);

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- planning days - when an enormous amount of labour sits largely idle while one person is paid to talk to them, encourage them all to participate, yet less than 50% do and, at worst, play games of trust, give praise or positive criticism. Perfect for paving over the real issues;

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- meetings to share information - basically for people who can't be arsed reading and those who can't be arsed writing about it. These can be useful, in small quantities - but meetings day in day out are a big waste of time;

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- any use of democracy at work - counting heads, not what's in them. Useful for "where shall we go for annual team lunch", but not much else. Useless for asking for bright ideas, even more useless when asking if people are more likely to stay if they are paid more - well duh! If most people are happy at work, it will show by them staying - if not, the turnover rate is high. It is pretty simple. There need to be ways of dealing with dissatisfaction, which boils down to talking to managers or having someone else to talk to if the manager is the problem;

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Brainstorming has weaknesses when anyone involved fears the opinion of others, or if it isn't chaired properly and it has to be seen to be a better use of time that people working independently. You see most people have most of the same ideas most of the time in most fields. It is a bit like asking - how should we fix the health system? The ideas would be spend more, spend less, privatise, nationalise, decentralise, recentralise - and that's really it. Far better for someone to produce a paper with options and circulate it for comment, than to sit around having a ....

The full report PC's post referred to is here.

Road sanity then madness

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Stuff reports that Treasury has backed up the costings commissioned by Transit New Zealand on the comparative costs of the coastal expressway upgrade between Paremata and Mackays Crossing, compared to Transmission Gully. The real dispute is "which projects are included in each option", because Porirua City Council claims a whole series of projects don't need to proceed if Transmission Gully is built, which is wrong as Transmission Gully - untolled - will still see around 40% of current traffic remaining on the current highway. A tolled Transmission Gully would probably see around 70% of traffic on the current highway. So hopefully the debate will cease to continue to be silly.

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However, it will be - because politicians know sweet bugger all about roads - just as they wouldn't know what clothes to order for the nation or the amount of vegetable soup that people would consume. They are not professionals in producing ANYTHING, and they are not trying to convince you to pay for something out of your own choice - they are trying to convince you to elect them every three years to spend your money and tell you what to do and what not to do.

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Just to prove it, naive new National MP for Wairarapa, John Hayes wants a road tunnel under the Rimutakas. He could have gone to the Wellington public library, or asked the Transit regional office or even the Regional Council for some background, but no. A road tunnel was investigated thoroughly about 15-20 years ago, along with other options and was ruled out as ridiculously uneconomic. John Hayes has no idea about the cost, but the reported $1 billion would be conservative, as modern standards for tunnel safety would mean a wide tunnel, with shoulders, about the width of the Terrace Tunnel. Even if traffic doubled to 8000 vehicles a day, it would still be a toll of around $20 a trip to pay the capital cost and interest to fund it - and the private sector is free to have a go - but I doubt if it will, unless there is a keen interest in a property developer wanting to open up Wairarapa for commuters.

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No - Mr Hayes doesn't know much about roads - he should probably go back to his earlier work as an economist and do some thinking before he talks. If he thinks it is a good idea, find some private investors to put a proposal together - if they wont, and people aren't prepared to pay a toll for it, then give it up - don't just ask for some taxpayer pork for your electorate! Roads aren't special.

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As Mayor of Masterton Bob Francis (and former MP Wyatt Creech) know well, after the study undertaken many years ago, the focus shifted to the Kaitoke hill realignment now nearly completed, and easing some of the worst bends on the hill road, with some longer passing lanes. There is a longer term proposal to gradually upgrade the whole hill road to a 60-70km/h standard with continuous uphill passing lanes - but frankly, at easily $200 million, that would be a dog of a project too, in terms of net economics.

Today in history

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1854 The Republican Party is founded in Wisconsin – the party was founded on the principles of opposing the growth of slavery (good), strong national defense (good), but also highly regulated and protectionist business (bad). Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President.
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1972 The Shanghai Communique was issued jointly by Mao Tse Tung and Richard Nixon on the conclusion of Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to communist China. At that point, the US continued to not recognise the People’s Republic of China, but maintained diplomatic relations and military bases on the Republic of China in Taiwan.

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The key breakthrough was the following portion of the Communique
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“There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, non-aggression against other states, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. International disputes should be settled on this basis, without resorting to the use or threat of force. The United States and the People's Republic of China are prepared to apply these principles to their mutual relations. “
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..and more shocking for Chiang Kai Shek, precipitating the Republic of China (Taiwan)’s withdrawal from the United Nations, was the announcement by the US that:
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“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.”
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In short, the US announced it was abandoning its direct defence of Taiwan against Chinese attack – Chiang Kai Shek felt betrayed by the USA. Peace between the USA and the murderous tyrants that butchered and starved tens of millions of Chinese seemed like madness. However, Nixon was not concerned with anything other than isolating the Soviet Union – he knew that peace with China would help protect US interests in Asia, and see China turn its effort towards the USSR. It was realpolitik – your enemy’s enemy is your friend. After the 1972 New Zealand election, one of the first foreign policy moves of the Kirk Labour government was to recognise the People's Republic of China, which meant concurrently terminating diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
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And in 1983, the last episode of MASH was broadcast to a US audience of over 100 million viewers.

Abolish the crime of blasphemy!

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No Right Turn has drafted a bill to abolish the crime of blasphemy. I blogged a while ago about how Richard Worth MP for – not Epsom - had noted this crime remains in the Crimes Act, but hadn't shown any appetite for repealing it. It can only be prosecuted by agreement of the Attorney General, but it is still there - and no free and open society should retain it. Duncan Bayne has also supported it on his blog.
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I fully the repeal of this odious crime and I am certain Libertarianz will as well. I challenge Rodney Hide or Heather Roy to make it a private member’s bill, and help prove ACT can be a liberal party. I doubt Labour will support it, with mealy-mouthed words about protecting our trade with Islamic countries, I doubt National will either - too many Christian conservatives riled up with the South Park cartoon no doubt!
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Ghost of Goldwater, has blogged delightfully, but in a blasphemous way. Should doing this remain a crime - subject only to the Attorney General being a religious zealot?

David Benson Pope

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I have only one comment about DBP – I appeared in front of a select committee that he sat on, to present a submission on a Bill. He was rude and obnoxious, and wasn’t unafraid to express his contempt that “we” had even bothered to put in a submission. He asked questions about why a libertarian would be in an organisation, because aren’t we all individuals, he asked whether Libertarianz as a party really existed. He wouldn’t discuss the Bill concerned, wasn't interested in debating why he supported it, he just wanted to be abusive. Of course, as much as I wanted to tell him to stop being an uglier version of David McPhail’s Muldoon, I had to be polite – you don’t get allowed into select committees any other way.
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What a prick.
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I don’t really give a damn how much of a bully or pervert he was as a teacher – if there are people who are victims, then let them press charges or stand up in public to do their finger pointing. However, he is a bully, and he props up a government that used taxpayer’s money to campaign – the people of Dunedin South have a lot to answer for, and I hope the bastard’s political career is over as soon as possible.