30 July 2010

Get Carter

Chris Carter M.P. Is the man mad. Some seem to think so.

On 29 July he was suspended from the Labour caucus for sending an anonymous letter around the Press Gallery both denigrating Phil Gough and claiming there was a leadership challenge against him. When confronted by Gough he first denied it before admitting it was his letter. It was an idiot thing as they recognised his handwriting.

Is he thick - yes.


Now we find out he got a free trip to China (the Chinese Government paid) and went without getting permission. When interviewed on TV about it, he said as it was free and wasn't costing the taxppayer anything so he thought he could just take off.

Imagine if I was working for a firm and got the offer of a free trip and just didn't turn up at work for a few days. It just doesn't penetrate their brain that they are being paid to work for us.

Why again does an interviewer let somebody get away with a statement like that.

29 July 2010

Graffiti

Graffiti: We had some small graffiti on our fence. Not really the tagging type , just some obnoxious words - probably teenagers.

We tried to remove it but failed so the boss rang the council. They weren't keen but after some discussion they did come out and remove it - and they did a good job.

Ammunition: Driving along the other day, and changing radio stations, as I do, I heard a guy phone in to suggest to ensure people have a gun licence every time ammunition is bought the person has to provide their licence. Pretty simple idea I would have thought. The host, who I think was Michael Laws, didn't think much of the idea and brought up the usual; licences can be forged, people could buy it for other people etc. At least it is an idea we should try.

Another Maori baby bashed to death:
It never stops.

Baby Cezar Taylor has died in hospital after suffering severe injuries in an alleged assault.

The six-month-old died in Auckland's Starship Hospital.

His mother's boyfriend, James Allan Hemana, 30, appeared in Te Awamutu District Court yesterday afternoon charged with assaulting Cezar.

He was found at a house in Te Awamutu, Hemana, also faced two charges of failing to appear in Whangarei District Court on an unrelated matter.

Cezar was admitted to hospital with severe head injuries on Friday morning after an alleged incident at his home in Mangere East.

Detective Senior Sergeant Richard Wilkie said three women at the house where Hemana was found were being spoken to by police and could face charges.

I would like to know what the mother of the child knew about this guy she shacked up with. The baby is 6 months old and she has already moved on to another useless twit. Also what about the people hiding him - it seems they just don't care.

What can we do - I don't know.

All the usual excuses will come out. It is not a Maori problem - it is the effect of Colonialism and war (the 19th century wars!!) it is due to the low income Maori - but don't mention the fact that Samoans are below Maori in income but don't kill their kids.

But don't worry about the guy being charged - he will be out and about in under 30 years.




27 July 2010

Dumb Dawg!

Crash: Today Rhett suddenly charged the back door and crashed straight into the glass bashing the top of his head.

He had seen a bird outside and wanted to scare it away. He has done this in the past but has stopped short of the glass and just scratched at it. It must have hurt but I wonder if he learnt anything or will he do it again.

25 July 2010

Justice

But first the Boks: Oz 30 SA 13 And although 2 tries each it was really all Australia. The Boks seem bereft of ideas except one try from a line-out was well done. Now on to Melbourne next week.

Justice: a good article in the Sunday Star Times re the Sophie Elliot murder. Her father poses some questions which are just common sense. When it comes to victims, the lawyers and politicians are pathetic.

He asks -
How can the defence select the lawyers of their choice, at our expense, but the victims can't

The right of silence - it should be done away with (it is not the 18th century)

Why do we have a Depositions hearing in the case of an obvious case to answer (lawyers make more money, the criminals string it out)

How come only the defence can have an Appeal - not the victims (the time to be served should not start until the Appeal is over and 10% should always be added to a sentence if the Appeal is lost)

State aid - basically nothing for the victims - just the criminals

Why should victim impact statements be censored (one Judge said it would upset the criminal!!)

It is time for our adversarial system to go (yes)

Why is so much either not asked or not brought to light or suppressed by the Judge. (From my personal point of view when I have been on a Jury what is not asked is the question Why isn't all the relevant evidence presented?)

It seems in this trial he was not in the Dock. I thought they always were, but in this trial he wasn't and was able (allowed) to pass notes to his Defence - an option not allowed to the victims

But as we all know nothing will happen and the mumbo jumbo lawyers, do-gooders, criminals and politicians will all be bleating about the 'poor misguided criminal'.

24 July 2010

Still

Under the weather that is: Still. The cough is the problem - the constantly runny nose is a curse but being unable to stop coughing is a real nuisance. Probably been a month now but slowly getting better.

The Government have come up with another 'bright' idea. If a person is away ill, even one day, they propose that the employer can get a sickness certificate from a doctor. Proves how out of touch they are.

As I was sick and not getting better I decided I would cave in and go to the doctor. Phoned about 10 AM on a Wednesday. Two questions - life and death - Phone 111. If really really urgent we can see you, otherwise sorry but Thursday next week. I cancelled.

They are just so overworked it is not funny.

Birthday: Yes today 24 July. Approaching the big 70 now. Going out for a meal with the team tonight then will return to watch the Wallabies Boks game. Had an early morning phone call from Kipp singing Happy Birthday. He is quite confident about singing into the phone now.

Graffiti: A little bit on our fence. Oh well as Turiana Turia says it is only an expression of art. I
f I had my way I would give them an impression of art - with a baseball bat. They are just pricks and even when caught nothing happens.

Story Time: Easily the best put down I have ever witnessed.

Back in the 1976 when the Africans were protesting about the All Blacks going to South Africa
Abraham Ordia, President of the Supreme Council on Sport in Africa visited N.Z. to put their case.

The PM (Muldoon) did not help the situation, in fact he made it worse by his treatment of Ordia. But he was pissed off in that a guy from a dictatorship was telling us about democracy and freedom.

However, in a (then NZBC)interview on TV Ordia, who was a very highly educated Nigerian, was interviewed by Ian Fraser (later Head of TVNZ). Ordia was married to a Swiss and spoke perfect German.

During the interview Ordia made some remark along the lines of ' Well we all know what the great German Philosopher XX said about that' and then went on for 30/40 seconds in German believing Fraser would have to ask for a translation, intending I think, to show us up as a backwoods country.

However, Fraser also spoke German and responded in such for about a minute.
You could see the look of astonishment on Ordias face.
A guy from a hovel at the bottom of the planet spoke German.

He burst out without thinking 'You speak German'

"Doesn't everyone" responded Fraser.

Brilliant!!!

16 July 2010

Under the weather

Weather: A subject anyone can talk about. After about two fine days we are almost back to rain but even I have to admit it is cold. But I probably notice it as I now have the 'lurgy' - the same as what Christine had. Coughing, runny nose, sore throat - no headache thank heaven .

Just have to wait it out I guess.

A guy from Transpower spoke at Rotary this week and we can really see that we need the damn rain.

The question he asked was, how long would we last before running out of electricty if it stopped raining today. Six weeks!!


Lucky it keeps raining in Enzed. He had some faith in wind power (I don't) and surprisingly it seems we get a 40% reliability while in Europe they get 30% so we are pretty good. As for solar power he thought it is 30-40 years minimum away to get a satisfactory system. The problem seems to be the toxicity of the sheets plus only a 10 year or so life span (and a 1000 years to get rid of them).

Damn again.


Sport: The Tour de France. Another bunch of lunatics running a sport. Our guy gets head butted by an Ozzie who is then disqualified. But the headbutt enabled the head butters team mate to go on to win the stage. He wasn't disqualified. Nuts. As bad as Soccer.

The Boks will be a different kettle of fish on Saturday.

I suppose it is almost a sport but we came 4th for the second week in a row in the Quiz. And missed the bonus by being 1 year out in our guess - but as usual it was a 3 part question!!
As for the music - I have never heard any of the songs he played in my life and of the artists only two of them.

14 July 2010

Music and money


Record Industry Accounting:

Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales


Source: TheRoot.com


It's actually even more ridiculous than this - they are lucky if they can get $23.40.

Courtney Love ( read it here - http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html) explained how the label can make $11 million... and the actual artists make absolutely nothing. It starts off with a band getting a massive $1 million advance, and then you follow the money:


What happens to that million dollars?

They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.

That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.

That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.

The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. S
o, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.

The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.

The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations are getting paid to play their records.

All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.

Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.

If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.

Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!

How much does the record company make?

They grossed $11 million.

It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.

The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.

They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.

Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.

So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a supermarket.


And that explains why stars like Lyle Lovett have pointed out that he sold nearly 5 million records and got nothing.


Tim Quirk of the band Too Much Joy explained the neat accounting trick about his own royalty statement:


A word here about that unrecouped balance, for those uninitiated in the complex mechanics of major label accounting. While our royalty statement shows Too Much Joy in the red with Warner Bros. (now by only $395,214.71 after that $62.47 digital windfall), this doesn't mean Warner "lost" nearly $400,000 on the band. That's how much they spent on us, and we don't see any royalty checks until it's paid back, but it doesn't get paid back out of the full price of every album sold. It gets paid back out of the band's share of every album sold, which is roughly 10% of the retail price. So, using round numbers to make the math as easy as possible to understand, let's say Warner Bros. spent something like $450,000 total on TMJ. If Warner sold 15,000 copies of each of the three TMJ records they released at a wholesale price of $10 each, they would have earned back the $450,000. But if those records were retailing for $15, TMJ would have only paid back $67,500, and our statement would show an unrecouped balance of $382,500.

I'm simply explaining why I'm not embarrassed that I "owe" Warner Bros. almost $400,000. They didn't make a lot of money off of Too Much Joy. But they didn't lose any, either. So whenever you hear some label flak claiming 98% of the bands they sign lose money for the company, substitute the phrase "just don't earn enough" for the word "lose."


So, back to our original example of the average musician only earning $23.40 for every $1,000 sold. That money has to go back towards "recouping" the advance, even though the label is still straight up cashing 63% of every sale, which does not go towards making up the advance.


In a traditional loan, you invest the money and pay back out of your proceeds. But a record label deal is nothing like that at all. They make you a "loan" and then take the first 63% of any dollar you make and then tries to get the loan repaid out of what meager pittance they've left for you.

Oh, and after all of that, the record label still owns the copyrights. That's one of the most lopsided business deals ever.

Bastille Day 14 July


Bastille Day: With the boys both going to be French speakers it will probably be an important day in the future.

AGM: All over in probably the fastest time ever at about 25 minutes.

Birthday: Coming up soon - 69 - wow! Sarah asked what I wanted but the problem is at my age I have everything I need unless it is something monstrous such as a new car. Some how I don't think that idea will float.

Story: Another one I have thought of.

When Labour and National swapped sides (National having moved to the left under Muldoon and Labour to the right under the influence of Roger Douglas) one of the things Labour did was to close dozens (100's ??) of useless Post Offices.

In a meeting protesting about one of the small local Post Offices being closed down on the West Coast, the National MP said write to the Minister to complain. He then said it wouldn't cost anything as it is free to write to Government Ministers. Kerry Burke, who was the local MP, said "No it is not free - you just don't have to put a stamp om the envelope"

He knew that usually in life (the Internet may be an exception) nothing is free and in this case the taxpayer had to pay.

We need a new word in English to equal Taxpayer Funded as people continue (usually now on the Left) to say something such as hospital care is free when it isn't.

Bill: I see a South African tourist got ill and died but as she had no insurance we are going to have to pick up the over quarter of a million dollar tab. Maybe those who come from a country we don't have a reciprocal arrangement with should have compulsory insurance. But, as Angela points out the Tourist lobby would go berserk and would the cost outweigh the advantages.

13 July 2010

GP's and technology

It is 2010: I suppose it is one of the slight drawbacks of a 'socialised' system (easily outweighed by the other benefits) that our medical profession is often a bit slow in customer service. Although it is not so much that as the profit motive is quite low compared to the US (thank heaven).

Your garage will always send a reminder that your Warrant of Fitness is due but doctors cannot send a reminder each year that you should book in for a check up. Opticians and Dentists can do it as well. But of course for the garage and for others their is money to be made. The problem is that GP's are so overworked and the dollars are small in real terms.


Sarah tried to book the boys into the GP but couldn't do it that day but had to phone back the next morning between 8 and 9 and of course it was overloaded with others. Eventually she got through and got and appointment etc.

But as she said, why don't they just have an online booking system. Seems simple enough but.......

I see that the highest paid CEO in the US last year was in the Health Insurance industry $101 million!!! Makes you sick!!!

AGM: SeniorNet AGM today. Can almost do it off by heart now. Pity I can't find somebody to do the Chairman's job.

11 July 2010

AB's all the way including a bonus

Coming out onto Eden Park where the a last time the Boks beat us there was 1937
(when they destroyed us).


My man of the Match - Mils charging through to set up the opening try.

All Blacks: What a game. What a surprise result - AB's 32 - Boks 12 and 4 tries which got them the bonus point. The result certainly surprised me - I could see us winning - just but expected a close defeat. But the way they did it was the real surprise - they just got hammered - although I can see the Boks coming back next week at the Stadium in Wellington. They probably won't play that bad again and were missing Fourie du Preez at halfback.

Plus everything we touched turned to gold. A couple of times we grubber kicked and it bounced back into our arms.

I had concerns about paying Mils but he was terrific. I also thought Kevin M had a great game at hooker but Joe Rocketman would still not be in my team, not that he did anything wrong, but I think there are better options (Gear).


Boys:
We had the boys from Friday night until the game. Unfortunately both of them haven't been 100% having a dose of the vomits.However they seem to be slowly recovering.

Thought for the day: Old Native American saying - Vegeterian means piss-poor hunter.

08 July 2010

A couple of pics and more


A couple of the boys


PM Key: Acccording to the Economist he is the 6th highest paid leader against GDP. Means he is overpaid but it doesn't take into account any perks which would put the US President much higher as his costs are basically nil. Also with a Federal/Provincial system in theory the workload is less. But with the problems they have with the States for example in Oz then it is probably harder!!.

Ringo was 70 yesterday. We called out Quiz team Ringo - Seven Oh. He had 3 question answers wrong last night (amongst other gaffes he thought the Guilder was still the currency of Holland) and another was only partly correct. We came 4th!!

Sport: Soccer down to the last two - Spain- Holland. Probably Spain but I support the Dutch. We aren't Zealand for nothing.

Boks AB's on Saturday night and it will be a struggle. Not confident. Ranfurly Shield starts Friday night Southland - North Otago.

07 July 2010

Sucess - I hope

Internet Connection: We have had problems from day one with connecting our Laptop wirelessly to the Desktop. At the start it was intermittent but then it didn't work at all. Joe looked at it, Telecom looked at it, we got our Guru out, we downloaded new drivers, etc etc. In the end our Guru thought it could be the modem so we got Telecom to send a new one. After setting up the new modem, naturally it still didn't work.

I phoned Telecom again and spoke to Philip - he spoke good English (which was a great help) and he seemed to know what the problem was after about 15 minutes of testing. There was it seems a very rare security compatibility problem with some Thomson modems and after another 15 - 20 or so minutes he got us up and going. Well so far anyway.

We have re-booted the Laptop and it worked so we shall see how it pans out over the next couple of weeks.


Telecom wanted the old Modem back but I won't send it for a week or so to see if it works OK.
Also I will try to get them to pay our Gurus bill !!
We shall see.

05 July 2010

World Cup

Stupidity rules again: Ghana played Uruguay and lost 4-2 on penalties. But Ghana put a ball into the net - well they would have except a player in, maybe an instinctive reaction, hit it out with his hand. He gets a red card and a penalty awarded but Ghana couldn't convert it into points. In Rugby it would have been a penalty try. Crazy rules.

Abortion: Raising its head again for the first time in about 30 years. Steve Chadwick - a woman MP - wants the law to be changed, basically making it to be on demand. A view I support; believing it has nothing to do with others - let the woman decide. If it goes any further all hell will break loose as the so called Pro- Life (really anti choice) people will threaten to bring the wrath of their God down upon us again.

Talking about their God - interesting article in the Sunday Times where a woman is to marry a Muslim. She has to change from her religion to his (why doesn't he change) and has to stop drinking alcohol, eating bacon, must cover her head etc.

I would like to re-visit her in 10 years and see how things have panned out. I give it little hope.

Boks: They have arrived and it is all on for Saturday night.

01 July 2010

Almost twittering

Twittering?? As I understand it (and I understand very little) almost instant posting is what they do with a Twitter account. Journalists were near the bottom of the recent trust list.
I wonder why?


They rarely ask the hard questions, let people get away with incorrect outrageous statements, English and grammar is poor, etc. What has got my goat tonight is the idiots at TV3 news who said that the Police Commissioner is to resign. They said it about 5 times - resign.

No he isn't. His contract ends soon and he said he is not asking for it to be renewed - it may be that the Government told him privately that they will not re-new it, but that is another matter - he is to retire from the position.

I am sure that if they use a dictionary (most probably haven't heard of one) they would see that Resign and Retire have different meanings.

Olil and stupidity - again

Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Some look to the possibility of looming catastrophe and know how to head it off.
Others are unprepared for risk.
And when risk turns to reality, they are unable to get their priorities right.


The Dutch fall into the first group.
The US appear to be in the second group - again. (I hope NZ is in the first but I doubt it)

Three days after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico the Netherlands offered the U.S. government ships equipped to handle a spill much larger than the BP spill that then appeared to be underway.


The Dutch system can handle 400 cubic metres per hour; more capacity than all the ships that the U.S. had deployed.

The Dutch also offered to protect Louisiana's marshlands with sand barriers (berms).

In the event of an oil spill, The Netherlands government, which owns its own ships and high-tech skimmers, gives an oil company 12 hours to demonstrate it has the spill in hand. If it can't then the government dispatches its own ships at the oil company's expense.

What was the US reaction to the Dutch offer of help.

"Thanks but no thanks," despite BP's wanting to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the Dutch government offer was at no charge. The U.S. has also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments with superior expertise and equipment. Unlike the U.S., Europe has fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.


Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe?

Because the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules.

The Dutch vessels suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free (I understand .0015% could be left behind - infinitesimal in the size of the ocean) isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of at least 99.9985% pure.
It seems they would rather have it polluted !!!


So the US have been removing water from the Gulf, taking it to land and storing it. Causing them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities - an approach deemed by most as "crazy."

The Americans, overwhelmed by the catastrophic consequences of the BP spill, finally relented and took the Dutch up on their offer -- but only partly. Because the U.S. didn't want Dutch ships working the Gulf, the U.S. airlifted the Dutch equipment to the Gulf and then retrofitted it to U.S. vessels.

And rather than have experienced Dutch crews immediately operate the oil-skimming equipment, to appease labour unions, the U.S. postponed the clean-up operation to allow U.S. crews to be trained.


As for the sand banks - the U.S. asked the Dutch to train American workers to build the sand barriers (berms). Dutch dredging ships could complete the berms in Louisiana twice as fast as the U.S. companies awarded the work - but!!

Then again, perhaps we should not be all that perplexed at the US turning an accident into a catastrophe. When the Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident occurred off the coast of Alaska in 1989, a Dutch team with clean-up equipment flew in to offer their help. To their amazement, they were rebuffed and told to go home with their equipment.

The same applied with Katrina, many governments offered help but it seems they would rather have people die than accept help.

They are real capitalists except when it comes to themselves. When we were in Washington D. C. we had to have two guides as the trip guide couldn't work in another State. Protectionism at its worst but they couldn't see it.


Quiz : First again but the bonus went to two other teams and now the larger bonus has gone it is a return to the status quo with about 30-40 people less. We called ourselves 'Pluto is not a planet' as he always asks questions as if it is.