John Cleese upsets Palmerston North

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that John Cleese has upset some people in Palmy by calling it New Zealand’s “suicide capital”.
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He said:
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"If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick,"
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The full story is here. Of course the Mayor is upset and the local tourism office reckons he didn’t spent enough time there. Oh come on!! I’ve spent two nights in Palmy, and well, it really is just a place where people get drunk, shag and race cars down the four main streets.
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It isn’t the suicide capital of New Zealand though, I think that there are plenty more nominations for that, such as Tokoroa, Kaikohe and Levin. Of course, this is the best publicity Palmy has had in ages and according to the Manawatu Evening Standard the local Chamber of Commerce agrees and wants to exploit it!

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Shannon isn't on the list because it has Owlcatraz, which is up for sale.

Ignore the census - defend the right to NOT speak

Today is apparently census day - I know I can ignore it because I'm not in New Zealand, but I ignored the last two - didn't fill them out and nothing happened. Forms were left for me and I threw them away. A few years ago a contractor at the Ministry of Economic Development had his contract terminated because he sent a joke email around about filling out religion with "Jedi" (which was circulating at the time) - MED staff were warned about joking about such a serious activity because the Ministry so badly needed the information strong-armed out of citizens. Public servants be warned - Helen and her drones don't like you joking about the Census, consider it as destructive as a cartoon about Mohammed!

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The principle is very simple - there should not be an offence of failing to fill out a questionnaire. The state does not have a right to force you to answer questions in this case, any more than it does if you are arrested for murder.

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Statistics could ask, you could fill it in because you think it is a good thing to do. However, this is an initiation of force. The excuse given for compulsion on the census website is nonsense:

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"The reason for making the census compulsory is simple. It is the only way we can be sure that information about the total population has been obtained and we have an accurate overview of New Zealand society every five years. The census is the key source of information about the people living in our cities, towns, suburbs and rural communities. As everyone takes part, we can get a full picture of what’s really happening in our country. If the census was voluntary, we would never know whether those who filled in the census forms were truly representative of the population or not. The statistics produced would be very unreliable. "

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Well no they can't - because people object and people lie on their forms. You cannot possibly be that omniscient and by the time the data has been collected, it will have changed. You can't know whether people filling it out have filled out other people's forms. Besides, there are companies that risk millions of dollars of their OWN money investing in New Zealand gathering information they require through surveys and observation - by voluntary means, and it seems to work for them.

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The ends do NOT justify the means - it might be good for everyone if they were put on a special healthy diet for every day, but it would not justify forcing people to only eat what was approved by the state. NOT because it would be inefficient, but because it is immoral.

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So ignore it, tell Statistics you are saying no. Not PC gives you ways of doing so. If you don't want to confront them, then hide from them - don't answer the door when they come knocking, and just live your life in peace. A small point? Petty even? No - if I went to your front door and demanded you answer questions about your household and life, and would arrest you if you failed, how would you feel? Why do you think it is ok for the government to do it then?

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UPDATE: Libertarianz have organised a protest at the Wellington Sound Shell, with a fire breather to burn census forms. The press release states:

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"Libertarianz leader, Bernard Darnton, announced the event today, saying that "the census is a blatant example of Government intrusion intopeople's private lives and should not be tolerated."The fire-breather will be performing on the Sound Shell Lawn in theWellington Botanic Gardens at 8.30pm on census night and everyone who opposes the compulsory collection of personal information is welcome. Libertarianz members in other parts of the country will also be barbecuingtheir census forms.

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The press release also notes that Germany doesn't have censuses, and the sky hasn't fallen in. Maybe it learnt from its less than free recent history? Go join them in the Sound Shell tonight, at least to watch the spectacle and support another dimension of free speech - the right not to be FORCED to speak.

Minor revamp

Hi all, I've done a minor refurbishment of this place so that the sidebar works, added a number of new blogs and other links, and done some other bits and pieces. Some more changes coming soon.

Greens call for more bans

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Sue Kedgley can't help herself! Remember PC's post recently on how much the Greens want to ban things (Reading the Bans)? Well add two to the list:

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- Ads for prescription medicines; and

- Cancer linked pesticides.

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You see because only NZ and the US allow direct to consumer advertising of medications (which I actually doubt) it must be evil, we know, after all, how many people want to leave the USA and how evil and awful it is to live there. Sue doesn't like people learning about new medications, because you're too stupid to know whether it is worth asking your doctor about them, and he is too inept to say no to your demands to get prescriptions of unlimited viagra or flixotide or whatever else upsets Sue. She presents NO evidence of the freedom of advertising having ill effects, she just hates pharmaceutical companies being able to advertise their heavily regulated products (but she likes vitamins, minerals and all sorts of natural snake oil being advertised).

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"I am calling on the Government to ban this dangerous practice immediately, and to instead set up an independent medicine and health information service that is free of commercial interests"

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Well Sue, they are prescription medicines and you can't control people who get controlled drugs from abusing them, except you probably want to ban people from ingesting drugs without direct medical supervision - from a union, state approved culturally safe doctor. So we should be forced to pay for bureaucrats who will be lobbied by pharmaceutical manufacturers to make our decisions for us? Thanks Auntie Sue, don't know how I survived so long without your whip keeping me in line!

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Then, she wants some pesticides banned because they are clearly killing us all - without evidence beyond saying "Endosulfan has been banned in 20 countries because of its link with breast cancer, its persistence in the environment and because it disrupts the endocrine system." She then is anti-bureaucrat by saying "The food safety authority seems to have a well-rehearsed public relations strategy to deal with any food safety scare other than microbial contamination – namely to downplay the issue, seek to pacify consumers and deny there is any public health risk. "

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Gee well Sue, maybe there isn't one? Have you any evidence of its harm to people in New Zealand or do you remain the perennial princess of scaremongering?

Unite should fuck off - go McDonalds!

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Sue Bradford this time, and her solidarity with the Marxist Unite Union, getting upset at McDonald's employees who don't want to join the union.

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McDonald's has taken the principled and entirely laudable stand as reported by the Green's press release that “As advised at the last meeting, it is likely McDonald’s will decide not to pay the above increases to UNITE members. That is simply because franchisees and McDonald’s are concerned that UNITE’s industrial tactics have the objective and/or effect of damaging the McDonald’s brand and their business and they don’t see any merit in rewarding that behaviour with a pay increase.”

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Nor should it!! Who wants employees that belong to an organisation out to destroy your business? Franchisees own McDonalds restaurants, putting their OWN MONEY (think hard about the concept Sue) at risk, employeeing people and providing a service. Would Unite employ people who complain about how useless the union is and are anti-union?

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What is more funny is Sue's outrage saying "McDonald's is attempting to undermine union negotiations for better wages by negotiating directly with non-union staff" . I guess none of the union staff are looking for other jobs regularly are they? Besides why SHOULDN'T McDonalds negotiate directly with non-union staff - the union doesn't represent them because it is (think this one through carefully Sue) their CHOICE not to belong to a union. Choice!! Something you and your commie colleagues opposed when National TWICE introduced it, in 1983 and 1991. You hate people who negotiate directly with the employer, because you don't think those people can look after their best interests - well Unite is arrogant, militant and fortunately employees are not forced by the state to belong to it. There is nothing more democratic than the market - and the market says Unite is not wanted by many McDonald's employees.

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Sue says:

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"In the meantime, McDonalds should stop its anti-union tactics, withdraw the meagre offer it has made to non-union staff, and begin genuine negotiations with the union with a view to paying staff realistic wages,"

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I would say Unite should stop its anti-business tactics, negotiate in good faith to pay employees according to performance and work with McDonalds to improve the success of the whole business. If people working there don't like it, they can go find someone else who has risked their own money to create jobs. If Unite doesn't like it, they can fuck off and so can Sue - let employers and employees negotiate with whoever they want, and are contractually obliged to.

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Unite is a communist union, on its supersizemypay forum, it has a definition of capitalism that could have come out of North Korea, it is utter drivel. However, go to that forum and post contrary views to the commies - it's good to piss them off.

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I once worked at McDonalds, I'm not regretting having been fired from it by a lousy boss who was exploitative - nobody has to work there, and nobody has to buy their products. .

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It's called freedom!