Oral sex speculation

What do you do when you want to make up a story - find a paper at a Sexual Health Congress (obvious joke for the more well read in that phrase) about oral sex.

However, it has never been "the exclusive domain of sex workers".

Most survey results are rather what people are willing to say rather than what happens, and moreso who knows what happened in the past?

It has never been illegal in New Zealand between women and between women and men. It is naturally a matter of personal choice and taste, very intimate, with one less obvious danger for women.

Thankfully politics can stay well out of it, but it is remarkable how it has become de riguer culturally. I can only hope that it is indulged in out of desire and passion rather than a sense of "I'm expected to do this".

Cullen plays hypocrite

Now I'm not warm towards John Key politically, but he is a smart guy, and he has had a real job. One thing that can't be said of him is that he is a failure - he doesn't need to be in politics, which naturally makes one wonder why he is, but that is besides the point.

According to the NZ Herald, Dr Cullen has claimed that Key is a "gambling currency trader" and that's the last sort of person that New Zealanders should want running the economy. Hilarious really, when Dr Cullen gambled taxpayers' money (money they didn't choose for him to gamble with) in many ways, such as:
- Buying the Auckland rail network for $81 million when Treasury valued it at $20 million tops, and before the whole network was bought back for $1;
- Buying the whole rail network for $1 after promising an Australian owned company monopoly rights to run across it, and to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade it, and then not enforcing the price it agreed with the company for it to pay to use the network;
- Buying Toll Rail well above the price that any commercial operator would have paid to buy it;
- Buying Air NZ after letting it nearly go into liquidation, instead of allowing Singapore Airlines to provide a 25% capital injection.

John Key in his previous career made business decisions for people who chose him to make judgements about their money. I'd trust John Key on macro-economic decisions anyday beyond the history lecturer, who has NEVER been trusted to manage the money of thousands of people before, and certainly never been accountable for failing to do so wisely.

Who would you rather have as your banker? John Key or Michael Cullen? To conclude, if currency trading is seen as "gambling" (which is an exercise that by and large is about taking a chance on blind odds in most cases), then what is using money taken from other people to buy businesses and assets at many times the price they were valued add commercially?

Cullen struggles to justify rail purchase

Dr Cullen, according to a government press release (not election campaigning of course!), says that the purchase of Toll Rail was essential because "With rising fuel prices and growing awareness of the threat of climate change, the restoration of New Zealand’s rail system is now an economic necessity".

Yet rail customers weren't willing to buy it, which makes it rather a curious claim. Economic necessity? Hardly.

Furthermore, he bizarrely thinks that because Toll said the railway business was worth a lot of money, it must have been!:

“Toll believed, however, it was worth over $1 billion. As the government had to take national interest factors into account and as the existing owners of the track itself, we were always going to have to pay more than commercial rail operators who did not have an interest in keeping services open. In the end roughly half of the price the Crown paid was to buy Toll out of its long term monopoly right."

Well I can say my car is worth $100,000, but it doesn't mean it is - it means if you believe it, I'm ripping you off. If Toll believed that, why didn't it sell Toll Rail to someone who would pay it? Why sell to the government? It was a bluff, a standard commercial negotiating technique, which Dr Cullen is either too stupid to see, or was being willfully blind because he wanted to buy it, at any price (and could threaten to force a sale).

He admits he was willing to pay more than a commercial operator because he wants to keep services open that effectively can only be kept open at a loss.

The waffle ends with:

"Having KiwiRail in Kiwi hands will allow us to protect rail services for provincial economies, move more freight off roads and onto tracks, and help make our economy a truly sustainable one"

Protect them? So provincial economics need rail to move logs, milk, coal and containers, at a loss? So the loss of revenue from less road user charges will be saved in maintenance costs? Was the economy truly sustainable when it was illegal to ship freight more than 150km by road?

KiwiRail is going to be a huge success for our economy. Really? So after paying over a billion dollars to buy it back and upgrade the lines and trains, will it return dividends that will pay that back and some? No, of course not. It's smoke and mirrors, it is faith not facts, it is worshipping the same altar of religion of rail that the Greens bow down at.

It's bad economics and complete nonsense. Toll took Dr Cullen, the Labour/NZ First/United Future/Jim Anderton government to the cleaners, and flogged off an unprofitable business for a fortune. Now Dr Cullen is spouting out rubbish about the gains this "investment" will bring.

My challenge is simple to the government- produce an independent economic appraisal of the net economic return from the renationalisation of Toll Rail. I dare you.

Malaysia on the brink of a quiet revolution

Malaysia has been dominated by one party for all of its years since independence. UMNO has led a coalition of Malays, Chinese and Indians to govern Malaysia somewhat autocratically since 1958. Now, Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, formerly Deputy Prime Minister, who had been convicted on trumped up charges of sodomy 10 years ago (and facing new charges), believes he has the numbers in parliament to bring down the government according to the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Anwar claims 30 government MPs are ready to cross the floor, but fears that the government will crack down on opposition. It already sent 50 MPs on a trip to Taiwan to reduce the risk of MPs defecting!

If it happens, it will challenge the explicitly racist nature of the Malay led government. Malays have long dominated the government, instituting quotas for jobs and higher education to try to advance their position economically, compared to the far more successful Chinese. Malaysia's ethnic tensions may re-emerge, but what is most important is to have a peaceful handover of power in Malaysia from UNMO. Malaysia needs this to be a modern liberal democracy and so the state can be accountable, and be purged of corruption. It has had many years of successful economic growth, and I wish Malaysia well (having visited twice). Its people will be best served if they are to be free.

Clintonistas not flocking to join Obamaniacs

According to the Daily Telegraph, Hilary Clinton's pleadings for her supporters to back Obama isn't getting the reaction that was hoped for. Given the bitter campaign between the two Democrat candidates, distrust is high towards Obam. 28% of Clinton supporters in Ohio have said they will vote for McCain. Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Clinton did particularly well, could well go to McCain as a result.

I can't but help think that Clinton wouldn't mind Obama losing - as she could quietly say "told you so" and have a shot in 2012.

The latest poll of polls on CNN puts both Obama and McCain on 45% - it is a brave person who would call this election by any means.