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.
13 July 2010
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
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