Since National has shown a lack of imagination, (which Not PC has ably exposed for the vacuousness that it is)
The Greens are scaremongering about gas, and constantly talking about "we" lose control and "our" energy, as if they somehow own what others produce, sell and buy.
So what should be done about energy? Well here are my thoughts:
1. Remove the legal restriction that prevents local lines companies from investing in generation.
2. Replace the RMA with a comprehensive legal framework for land use based on private property rights, including rights to air, adjacent waterways and sight lines based on long standing past planning approvals.
3. Remove sector specific legal barriers to building any kinds of power plants. Whether any are built should be based upon commercial assessment by the private sector.
4. Sell 49% interests in all three government generating/retail companies to separate buyers partially as injections of new capital. Issue remaining shares to all New Zealand citizens. Adopt a similar approach to Transpower. Investment in new generation and transmission is unlikely when the government controls 70% of the market.
5. Cease funding EECA and subsidies for energy efficiency.
6. Abolish the Electricity Commission.
7. Require local authorities to privatise their ownership of local electricity lines companies, so that underinvestment in those companies can be addressed by a combination of new capital and private entrepreneurship.
8. Give no subsidies, assistance or preferences to "alternative energy" including biofuels. New fuels should survive on their merits.
9. Abolish the proposed regional fuel taxes, existing local authority petroleum tax and inflation indexing of fuel tax. New funding for roads should come directly from charging road users by road owners.
Because, after all, why do you think politicians know any more about what energy supplies New Zealanders should and will use today than Rob Muldoon and Bill Birch thought they did in the late 1970s and early 80s?
15 August 2008
Hating the rich because it meets your needs
Giles Coren is a brilliant writer, and in the Times he has systematically demolished the banal, finger pointing superiority seeking envy driven nonsense of infamous leftwing writer Polly Toynbee:
He starts:
"Leafing through The Guardian this week, I have been gripped by extracts from a new book by Polly Toynbee and David Walker, Unjust Rewards, in which the two Guardian stalwarts interview loads of rich people and discover that... they're not very nice.
He starts:
"Leafing through The Guardian this week, I have been gripped by extracts from a new book by Polly Toynbee and David Walker, Unjust Rewards, in which the two Guardian stalwarts interview loads of rich people and discover that... they're not very nice.
Who would have thought? It's lucky we have The Guardian to get to the nub of things for us with its unique blend of snobbery, bitterness, jealousy and thwarted ambition, cobbled together with the tawdry and risible clichés its readers have thrilled to for years."
Well honestly Giles, if you WILL read the Guardian - the newspaper for the leftwing intelligentsia, that fawns over Castro, remains uncomfortably aligned with new Labour (where else can they go? Lib Dems? pfft The Independent already is up their arse) and scrapes out an existence from its onanistic sarcastic snivelling socialists.
Go on, think of it as an well aimed kick at the heart of the pinups of the left - Idiot Savant likes Polly Toynbee - and you do wonder what she does everyday to help the poor, besides helping sustain a newspaper that they wrap their fish and chips in.
Go on, think of it as an well aimed kick at the heart of the pinups of the left - Idiot Savant likes Polly Toynbee - and you do wonder what she does everyday to help the poor, besides helping sustain a newspaper that they wrap their fish and chips in.
14 August 2008
Sorry Rodney?
Blair Mulholland reports that Rodney Hide at a recent ACT regional conference stated that "he supported making it illegal to insult cops"
Blair understandably is outraged - the Police SHOULD be accountable when people are upset due to negligence, recklessness or being bloody minded bullies.
So is this true Rodney? Does the liberal party want to make it a crime to tell a cop he's being useless? Can other ACTivists enlighten, enquire, confirm or deny? Just when I was starting to give ACT the benefit of the doubt.
Blair understandably is outraged - the Police SHOULD be accountable when people are upset due to negligence, recklessness or being bloody minded bullies.
So is this true Rodney? Does the liberal party want to make it a crime to tell a cop he's being useless? Can other ACTivists enlighten, enquire, confirm or deny? Just when I was starting to give ACT the benefit of the doubt.
Kedgley's latest hysterical scaremongering
Yes, it's that old bogey the cellphone tower. Why does she hate them so, even though she uses cellphones? Well it's simple:
1. It's new technology. Yes, new, not old, traditional, nostalgic like trains, it's new, so we should be wary, cautious, don't move too fast. Remember talking in person was always good until letters were proven safe, then after that twisted wire copper phone lines. However cellphones? No. The towers haven't been proved safe have they? (neither have many foods, but nevermind - evade).
2. It's technology used a lot by businesspeople. Yes those selfish child eating, worker crushing lowlife who would sell all the poor people into Chinese sweat shops and steal crusts from begging children, boot pensioners out of their homes so they could build parties to drink expensive French champagne and drive their big SUVs to pollute the world. Cellphones aren't used much by... oops that argument doesn't wash anymore does it?
3. Private enterprise builds cellphone towers. PRIVATE! Not like the loving caring community centred Kiwirail building railways in Auckland. Private companies make profits!! Yes they spend money to make MORE money. How evil is that? Yes and when you make a profit you don't care how you do it, even if it involves taking blood from poor people, and making the elderly run on treadmills to generate power. You can't trust private enterprise!!
4. Cellphone towers involve electromagnetic radiation. What? Radiation? Ohhh like Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Mururoa. We know that kills you. Non Ionising? Oh stop with your Western non-feminist scientific rational mumbo-jumbo, PROVE it's safe? Yeah go on - it's radiation! It MUST be bad.
Kedgley's deranged attack on cellphone towers can be outed for the sheer stupidity that it is by pointing out a few little facts about electro-magnetic radiation:
1. The average person gets far more exposure from a computer screen/ TV screen (CRT or not) that they would if they lived adjacent to a cellphone tower. People with home WIFI networks also are exposing themselves to a greater level of exposure.
2. People have been living in close proximity to major radio transmitters for up to three generations with no reported ill effects. For example, Wellingtonians in Khandallah, Johnsonville and Ngaio live under the bathing radiation of the Kaukau transmitter site which transmits 10 TV channels and more FM radio stations at levels many times that of a cellphone tower. Those in Titahi Bay live adjacent to AM transmitters that target a range as distant as Hawera to the north and Blenheim to the south. A friend working in this field in Australia pointed out to some people in a community concerned about cellphone towers that they faced much greater exposure from TV transmitters 24 hours a day - to which the community responded "don't take away TV"!
3. Far more important is personal use of cellphones and laptops with WIFI. There is some anecdotal evidence indicating that sustained close exposure to these devices causes some localised heating which may pose some sort of risk. It is far from proven, but worth taking care about. Kedgley surprisingly hasn't ordered laws protecting people from talking too long on cellphones.
1. It's new technology. Yes, new, not old, traditional, nostalgic like trains, it's new, so we should be wary, cautious, don't move too fast. Remember talking in person was always good until letters were proven safe, then after that twisted wire copper phone lines. However cellphones? No. The towers haven't been proved safe have they? (neither have many foods, but nevermind - evade).
2. It's technology used a lot by businesspeople. Yes those selfish child eating, worker crushing lowlife who would sell all the poor people into Chinese sweat shops and steal crusts from begging children, boot pensioners out of their homes so they could build parties to drink expensive French champagne and drive their big SUVs to pollute the world. Cellphones aren't used much by... oops that argument doesn't wash anymore does it?
3. Private enterprise builds cellphone towers. PRIVATE! Not like the loving caring community centred Kiwirail building railways in Auckland. Private companies make profits!! Yes they spend money to make MORE money. How evil is that? Yes and when you make a profit you don't care how you do it, even if it involves taking blood from poor people, and making the elderly run on treadmills to generate power. You can't trust private enterprise!!
4. Cellphone towers involve electromagnetic radiation. What? Radiation? Ohhh like Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Mururoa. We know that kills you. Non Ionising? Oh stop with your Western non-feminist scientific rational mumbo-jumbo, PROVE it's safe? Yeah go on - it's radiation! It MUST be bad.
Kedgley's deranged attack on cellphone towers can be outed for the sheer stupidity that it is by pointing out a few little facts about electro-magnetic radiation:
1. The average person gets far more exposure from a computer screen/ TV screen (CRT or not) that they would if they lived adjacent to a cellphone tower. People with home WIFI networks also are exposing themselves to a greater level of exposure.
2. People have been living in close proximity to major radio transmitters for up to three generations with no reported ill effects. For example, Wellingtonians in Khandallah, Johnsonville and Ngaio live under the bathing radiation of the Kaukau transmitter site which transmits 10 TV channels and more FM radio stations at levels many times that of a cellphone tower. Those in Titahi Bay live adjacent to AM transmitters that target a range as distant as Hawera to the north and Blenheim to the south. A friend working in this field in Australia pointed out to some people in a community concerned about cellphone towers that they faced much greater exposure from TV transmitters 24 hours a day - to which the community responded "don't take away TV"!
3. Far more important is personal use of cellphones and laptops with WIFI. There is some anecdotal evidence indicating that sustained close exposure to these devices causes some localised heating which may pose some sort of risk. It is far from proven, but worth taking care about. Kedgley surprisingly hasn't ordered laws protecting people from talking too long on cellphones.
She funnily enough says "It is bizarre that while people need a resource consent to alter their homes, even in a minor way, telecommunications companies can erect 12 to 22 metre cell towers around New Zealand without needing any resource consent, or even to consult with the local community."
It is bizarre Sue - bizarre that people should ever need a resource consent to alter THEIR homes. THEIR P.R.O.P.E.R.T.Y. I know you don't understand the concept. However well done evading the point that if a new cellsite is created it DOES need a resource consent - the lack of consent is only needed for existing sites that are able to be used for this purpose.
Oh and Sue, there are cellphone transmitters on buildings all over cities, you can't even tell they are there, keep an eye open next time you drive through town.
Is Russia really that strong?
Richard Beeston in The Times thinks not:
It doesn't mean Russia shouldn't be deterred, but it is not an equal to the USA, or even China. What it can do is so limited by generations of crushing conformity, authoritarianism and the suppression of innovation, variety, diversity and entrepreneurship. It is not a reason to be complacent, but also not a reason to really fear Russia - it hasn't got anything else to scare the world besides its aging nukes.
Flush with billions from the sale of oil and gas, the Kremlin may calculate that it does not need allies in the West and would rather be respected and feared than befriended.
That too would be a serious mistake. For all its big-power bluster, Russia is weak and vulnerable. Russian tanks and aircraft may have smashed the fledgeling Georgian Army with ease, but most of the weaponry was Cold War-era and many of the troops conscripts. Anyone who has seen the Russian Army operating in the Caucasus knows that the military will need a generation to modernise. Meanwhile America, and its main Nato allies, are decades ahead in military technology and combat experience.
Russia is also facing a severe demographic crisis. Its population is shrinking by 700,000 people a year. The UN estimates the population will fall below 100 million by 2050, down from around 146 million today.
Indeed, Russia's economy is only booming because of oil and gas. It has nothing else. Now Saudi Arabia, Brunei and other countries have thrived just on energy, but that's it. Not technology, not manufacturing beyond arms, not services.It doesn't mean Russia shouldn't be deterred, but it is not an equal to the USA, or even China. What it can do is so limited by generations of crushing conformity, authoritarianism and the suppression of innovation, variety, diversity and entrepreneurship. It is not a reason to be complacent, but also not a reason to really fear Russia - it hasn't got anything else to scare the world besides its aging nukes.
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