It just seems a bit rich.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't hosting the Olympic games. It might not bad to have China see European leaders come under pressure over this.

It still seems rich to me to be calling for a boycott of one ceremony while you're holding another one in…

It just seems a bit rich.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't hosting the Olympic games. It might not bad to have China see European leaders come under pressure over this. I expect Bush to go to Beijing but pressure on him not to go by the three possible next presidents won't…

It's all part of the Strategy for a New Partnership with Central Asia, which takes in Uzbekistan, where forced child labour seems to be both…

Incidentally, I've come to an understanding of why there are always lots of Chinese kids willing to demonstrate in favour of their government........That's broadly how China works.

Having spent the best part of a week here in Guangdong province, Rich, it's certainly not the place I've seen.

The economic miracle…

It's better if the ruling minority is the same race/colour as the oppressed majority, then?

I think many people in the West considered the Apartheid regime to be a product of Western colonialism which gave that issue a particular resonance. There was a greater responsibilty felt for the white regime.…

South Africa was constituted on a fundamentally evil basis, in service of a ruling racial minority. It was globally recognised as such. I don't think the same can be said of modern China

It's better if the ruling minority is the same race/colour as the oppressed majority, then?

Incidentally, I've…

why is being able to vote touted as such a godsend?

To paraphrase Winston (no, the other one): Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

Until recently a son was the preferred child.

Has this finally changed?
If so, why do you think it…

extorting money as a familial obligation

I recall last century a PI friend of mine had to sell his cherished Jeep so his father could send the most money back to the Island to pay for the Matai's funeral ...

My friend was gutted, but had no choice. You can imagine…

The single greatest 'human rights' issue in China is that of family obligation, filial responsibility and lack of personal autonomy, not so much within the state, but within the…

But one constituted on an irrevocably evil basis, which is how the whole world eventually came to see it.

Yes, the problem with SA under Apartheid was they were so open about their racism. Everywhere else gets away with it by being a lot cleverer. You don't make a color…

Just squint past the small technicality that the non-white majority were totally disenfranchised, and you had a prosperous and functional democracy.

But one constituted on an irrevocably evil basis, which is how the whole world eventually came to see it.

Green voters are voting against the middle-of-the-road crap, and those that are OK with it already have Helen, John, Peter, and Winston to tag onto.

I'm not sure that's quite right, either. I've picked up a fascinating schizo cleavage in Green supporter — there's hardcore true believer 'dark' Green (hat-tip…

The Green vote is largely from people who don't vote…

So yeah, I do have hope for China, which is probably the main reason I don't buy the comparison with apartheid South Africa, which was fundamentally and irrevocably evil.

But wait a mo', Russell, as I once heard Helen Suzman point out (and I think it's fair to say her…

Which is why the parties with "principles" remain small. They can afford principles , some of which are considered extreme,

Actually I think the reverse is true. Green isn't exactly a scary brand these days, if the Green party was willing to adopt a few less principles, they'd be pushing…

NZ did have the backing of other Pacific forum nations. I suspect that was encouragement for sanctions .

Fiji was also suspended from the Commonwealth. But we do still trade with them, largely, I suspect, because a trade ban would hurt the wrong people.

Lets hope(thats all there ever is)…

Bernard Hickey says that's 2018 ...

Oh well f#ck that then, I'm cashing out now...

Heh heh – I'm reminded of the popular wisdom from financial pundits re the sharemarket. Yes, they say, __we may be in negative territory now but investors should hold on for the long term. History shows…

Which is a third option: "if it has no practical impact upon them, what's the point of having principles?" Surely…

Who needs casino's when you've got the property market? I'm holding a dud hand myself but I still refuse to fold. Even tho' my mortgage jumps from $4700 to $7200 next month! If I can just hold on til the next property upswing I can make it all back...

Bernard…

a) Womens' (Womyns') Sufferage = Isle of Man 1820

Pff, women in New Jersey had the right to vote explicitly removed in 1807.

I agree there's some moral ambiguity involved but I wouldn't go so far as to claim this is sending a message to the rest of the world that NZ is not concerned with human rights issues or that the FTA should mean other countries should turn a blind eye.

Oh…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bannister

Entire streets of people's holiday homes being offloaded. And yet, they're still ridiculously over-priced.

that always happens at the beginning of a downturn in property prices. look at the REINZ figures for Feb or the Barefoots figures for last month. Prices are standing still, but the volume of sales is…

Actually, they had plenty to trade. They were the world's largest producer of gold, diamonds and a slew of valuable minerals for a long time.

Yup, and that was exactly why it held on as long as it did. But that's nothing compared to what China has.

What they have…

Why do the world's media adopt one independence struggle, but often cynically ignore another independence struggle? What makes the blood of one Tibetan redder than the blood of a thousand Africans in East Congo?

Again and again I try…

a) Womens' (Womyns') Sufferage = Isle of Man 1820
And Truth be told it wasn't Kate Sheppard who was the hero of the day in NZ (she took a year to get on board with the idae of…

I just wish the government would front up and admit it.

I agree there's some moral ambiguity involved but I wouldn't go so far as to claim this is sending a message to the rest of the world that NZ is not concerned with human rights issues or that the…

And the people who bought negatively geared investment properties will have to find a way to hang on or give up and sell for what they can get.

We just spent the weekend in Hanmer. It's for sale. Entire streets of people's holiday homes being offloaded. And yet, they're still…

But seriously,…

China isn't quite the same.

Nothing is ever quite the same, a point I conceded when I made the post.

But pointing to the UN isn't exactly a strong argument. Sanctions in the UN go through the UN Security Council, of which China is a permanent member, with a veto.…

Indeed it is. What is depressing is the amount of wastage of water this is leading to. Driving around in January I observed that most irrigation schemes were pumping out water during the hottest, windiest times of day.…

I do think that if SA had more to trade, Apartheid would have lasted longer, though.

Actually, they had plenty to trade. They were the world's largest producer of gold, diamonds and a slew of valuable minerals for a long time.

We have to accept that the FTA is practical…

You've got a blog, you nong. Millions of people get their thoughts from you. People's teenage daughters think you're quite cool.

Oh, so now the teenage girls think I'm cool. Where the hell were they 20 years ago when I would have appreciated it?

True fact: whenever…

I keep coming back to (and the comparison isn't exact, but similar in principle at least), how would it have looked (and felt) if we'd signed a free trade deal with South Africa 30 years ago.

The explicitly racist South African regime was globally regarded as illegitimate from at least…

Are we doing that though?

Labour has been critical of China on human rights issues.

I think so. Actions speak louder than words. The message is that despite our limited criticisms, China's brutality isn't really that bad and we can do an FTA with them.

Labour has been critical of China on human rights issues. I think that anyone who thinks that the FTA is somehow giving "redibilty to brutal states" just wants to believe that no matter what.

I keep coming back to (and the comparison isn't exact, but similar in principle at least),…

...we should not give international credibility to brutal states that have poor human rights records,

Are we doing that though?

Labour has been critical of China on human rights issues. I think that anyone who thinks that the FTA is somehow giving "redibilty to brutal states" just wants to believe…

I don't have time right now to go back through the audio, but I did listen to Russel on Checkpoint yesterday and he seemed unwilling to acknowledge that Chinese manufactured goods could be legitimately produced. I think he used the phrase "slave labour".

I listened to the podcast a couple…

Ben if we burn even a fraction of the known coal reserves we are going to hell in a handcart unless you fancy the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet that is.

I fancy that a lot more than having no power.

Then there is the shortage of…

Feel free to invite me back, I could never keep a beat so make a great random appluse maker.. :)

All of this stuff is blindingly obvious to energy engineers, but no one ever listens to us...

You've got a blog, you nong. Millions of people get their thoughts from you. People's teenage daughters think you're quite cool. Go for it!

Then there is the shortage of uranium, the quality ore that is making nuclear even dodgier.

There…

Russell Brown wrote:

In part, the crop switch to biofuels is…

New Zealand is well positioned to cope with these changes, if we make the right choices. Other countries could face real problems.

Does this mean house prices in NZ are undervalued?

Communist Russia managed to switch over without full blown revolution.

Well: there were peaceful but forceful revolts throughout Eastern Europe – only in Romania was there significant violence. Then there was the attempted coup in '91 against Gorbachev, which was defeated by popular force.

Plus, of course, there was Yugoslavia,…

I suspect there will have to be some sort of revolution before the Chinese get any sort of freedom.

Let's hope not. They cost a hell of a lot of lives. Communist Russia managed to switch over without full blown revolution.

India regards it as a major problem too:

However, the paper you quote doesn't advocate internal migration control, preferring amongst other things a mixture of improvements in both cities and rural areas. I suspect that's partly because an Indian politician wouldn't get the vote of a Gujerati by telling them…

In NZ, we have potential for tallow and waste to supply the…

hundreds of millions of people seeking better lives and jobs in the cities. It's a simply incredible problem, and not trying to control migration flows wouldn't work out well

India has never needed to do this, with almost as large a population.

And yet with massively better starting conditions and…

the benefit of biofuels is that (if produced by sustainable methods – i.e. not in the US) they're carbon neutral.

the trouble is, there are very few large-scale examples of biofuels being produced sustainably. Even ethanol from sugar cane (Brazil) is causing more destruction of rain forest, which…

hundreds of millions of people seeking better lives and jobs in the cities. It's a simply incredible problem, and not trying to control migration flows wouldn't work out well

India has never needed to do this, with almost as large a population.

Plus they let everyone vote in regular and…

(And farmers all over the country curse me)

It's worse than that Kyle. As we speak they're grabbing their pitchforks, climbing aboard their tractors, and they're coming for you Kyle.

Dunedin is a small place, they know where you live ...

No, I'm quite well aware of the regime's less appealing features. But we're trading with them already, we're not going to stop, and doing so as part of a rules-based system seems the right thing to do.

You made a similar point to me earlier, and I forgot to say…

There has been huge internal migration since then, but you're talking about hundreds of millions of people seeking better lives and jobs in the cities. It's a simply incredible problem, and not trying to control migration flows wouldn't work out well.

Agreed, and Indonesia has the same problem..if they were…

the process of making the ethanol is not carbon neutral either, in terms of energy usage.

as mr. haywood has probably…

One went shopping with my mother-in-law and noted that butter and cheese prices for the same New Zealand branded products were substantially higher here than in Singapore.

Not in my experience and I'm in Singapore every few months. Dairy products are rather pricey throughout Asia, apart from that horrible a…

The bedroom where your kid sleeps?

Gotta house the workers.

The lounge where you watch your TV?

Meeting room?

Your on-the-road-only sedan car?

Gotta make trips to town for work sometimes...

None of it sounds much different to my expense claims. Well, the kids bedroom, but I have to say…

]]> Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:51:09 +1200 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-piled-in-bins-like-summer-fruit/?p=47115#post47115 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-piled-in-bins-like-summer-fruit/?p=47115#post47115

Would it be "politics" if one of the javelin throwers was a psychopath who'd impaled a rival sportsman when last released from jail to compete?

Please insert bad Mark Todd joke here — what a difference eight years makes. :(

]]> Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:51:01 +1200 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-piled-in-bins-like-summer-fruit/?p=47114#post47114 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-piled-in-bins-like-summer-fruit/?p=47114#post47114

Sounds great. Pity people in rural China live in a totalitarian state where the ability to move from rural areas to urban areas in search of new opporunities is subject to central government planning controls on internal migration.

There's a reason for that. Until the economic reforms of the 1970s,…

giant cheese toastie

oh, dude. too soon

Farmers pay their taxes too

Dammit they don't! The tax rort (and it's not just farmers, they're just the obvious ones) where cars and their house are written off as an expense grates against me enormously. The barn is a farming expense, the milking shed is a farming expense, the…

Working collectively is a very poorly defined concept.

Working is a very poorly defined concept.

people in rural China live in a totalitarian state where the ability to move from rural areas to urban areas in search of new opporunities is subject to central government planning controls on internal migration.

Hmmm,…

I thought the whole debate about being able to separate sport and politics was done and dusted. Apparently not.

I just find it interesting how state murder and torture becomes "politics" when it conflicts with people's desire to play games.

Would it be "politics" if one of the javelin throwers…

the irrigation work that has gone on there in the last 5 years, let alone the last 30 is quite impressive.

Indeed it is. What is depressing is the amount of wastage of water this is leading to. Driving around in January I observed that most irrigation schemes were pumping…

So, let us not generalise too much about farmers not organising to match possible climate variations with long term investment. Where it counts, they have.

Yes, farmer bashing is just as easy here as non-farmer bashing is on Kiwiblog, but that doesn't make either of them right. Farmers pay their…

If so, then I'd wish you would stop speaking as if the Greens are scaremongering on the FTA. What's wrong with advocating for fair trade, and being realistic about the more undesirable drivers of China's competitive advantage ?

I don't have time right now to go back through the audio,…

Speaking of biofuels, anyone know how the trials of the algae grown on seweraged derived biofuels went? that was all over a while back but nothing since.

They did a show on National Radio – I think it was in the changing world show, 3, maybe 4 weeks ago. It…

The BBC reported last month that in a good year, Australia's wheat yield is around 25 million tonnes. But they've been hit by drought, and the 2006 yield, for the world's second largest exporter of wheat, was just 9.8 million tonnes.

And this drought has been…

(Not to mention that I dispute the premise that a drug problem makes you an unfit parent per se).

agree.....living with a dealer though?.....and P is particularly more destructive than others too.

How's that different from being an actor and playing a despicable character – some do little else?

Every…

Working collectively is a very poorly defined concept.

and often romanticised.

I[t] might be the most...

you keep on spoiling my jokes.

would any of you model for an advert showing you to be a closet P user?

How's that different from being an actor and playing a despicable character – some do little else?

(Not to mention that I dispute the premise that a drug problem makes you an unfit parent…

People in China have a right to better themselves, to escape rural poverty and to earn themselves more choices

On a slightly related issue, I think the motivations behind the recent London and Paris protests around the Olympic torch relay deserve a deeper analysis. The comments I'm hearing in news…

But I really wish that Russel Norman of the Greens would stop speaking as if every Chinese factory is staffed by 12 year-old slaves.

Russell, can you back this up with a quote from a press release ?

Is it this one from Russel Norman's press release yesterday ?

This…

on a total tangent, i like the TVNZ banner ads. Jenny's got a P habit!

they are pretty cool, i have seen a couple of different permutations of the advert in various media and find myself actually watching to find out what the twist is. and its relevant to the…

I'd like to see some numbers of the sort of how much of the transport needs of a city of say 100,000 people…

Exactly. 12-year olds are intractable and break things. 13 or 14 year old's are much better workers.

Now you're just being silly. They can't fit up the chimneys after about 8, so just send them out to beg for themselves.

I never could see how burning carbon-based bio-fuels could claim to be much better than burning carbon-based fossil fuels. Yes, you have an added degree of energy independence, but nothing to do with climate change in any significant way.

Biofuels are a carbon sink while they grow, they convert the…

People in China have a right to better themselves, to escape rural poverty and to earn themselves more choices

Sounds great. Pity people in rural China live in a totalitarian state where the ability to move from rural areas to urban areas in search of new opporunities is subject to…

Exactly. 12-year olds are intractable and break things. 13 or 14 year old's are much better workers.

LOL! No teenagers in your house then?

Opposing opinions can be found in some number amongst screeching Kiwiblog commenters.

The screeching ones, yes. But I wouldn't say the bulk of them are opposed.

How large an outrage would be required to make us draw back? A thousand dead? A hundred thousand? A million?

Good question. Would Iraq…

Food prices are now a major sleeper issue.

James Lovelock had a highly alarming and entertaining interview in Rolling Stone last year and he highlighted food shortages as being a critical problem in the very near future as land becomes unusable and populations shift.

He thinks we're already screwed, the…

But I really wish that Russel Norman of the Greens would stop speaking as if every Chinese factory is staffed by 12 year-old slaves

Exactly. 12-year olds are intractable and break things. 13 or 14 year old's are much better workers.

Funny thing is, working collectively used to be a hallmark of how things were done in New Zealand. Combined with bountiful markets it did ultimately tend to produce a stultifying absence of risk, but it certainly wasn't all bad.

I don't know if either our memory of the past or…

You are the human Dictionary of Quotations ...

English teachers who were big on making impressionable minds memorise stuff — and if anything is going to get your irony detector working, it's a Marist priest dropping 'Dover Beach' and 'God's Funeral' (!) on a thoroughly bewildered class of teenage boys.…

Why didn't the farmers work together to provide the dams, reservoirs, canals, dikes and so forth

Project aqua anyone?

on a total tangent, i like the TVNZ banner ads. Jenny's got a P habit!

It might be the most under-reported economic story in the country at the moment.

that's true.

Funny thing is, working collectively used to be a hallmark of how things were done in New Zealand.

has there been any shift in how much of our behaviour is collective and how much…

Now you're just being naughty, Mr Brown — not for the first time, I wonder what Matthew Arnold would have made of the blogisphere. Sure don't think he would find cause to revise the last stanza of Dover Beach:

You are the human Dictionary of Quotations ...

Still, I do…

When I saw the farmlands swinging from floods to drought in the same season, my first thought was that this wasn't a climate problem, it was a problem with water infrastructure.

Damn right. It might be the most under-reported economic story in the country at the moment.

Why didn't the…

Opposing opinions can be found in some number amongst screeching Kiwiblog commenters.

Now you're just being naughty, Mr Brown — not for the first time, I wonder what Matthew Arnold would have made of the blogisphere. Sure don't think he would find cause to revise the last stanza of __Dover…

Sure, Russell. But perhaps those of us who are a little sceptical about the hype — especially when nobody had actually seem the fracking text — don't give a shit about starving peasants.

Eh?

So far, I'll give MFAT and the Government 10/10 for the kind of media management that…