I think it is interesting to read,with all these arguments against changing the rules, such as the carbon tax, becuase they will make our industry uncompetitve comapered to others that the same arguments were put forward by those who wanted to stop the laws preventing slavery over 100 years ago. They argued that a nation without slaves would not be able to compete with one that did have slaves. But still they (the brits) took the gutsy step of banning slavery.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
27 March 2009
23 February 2009
law makers
It seems that the world is full of stupid law makers who should have sense to make balanced and sensible laws that target the bad people and not the good. Also police who spend their time chasing the wrong targets.
According to these recent interpretations of the law, a curious teenage girl who embarks on an "Our Bodies, Ourselves" journey of vaginal self-discovery, and simply replaces a hand mirror with a digital camera, is a kiddie pornographer. The same goes for the boy who memorializes his raging boner or the post-pubescent girl who takes test shots of herself practicing the porn star poses she has studied online. Theoretically, this is true regardless of whether they share the pictures with anyone, and if they do share them, they could be additionally charged with peddling child porn.
18 February 2009
Greed and Fear, file sharing and drugs
A little rambling philosophy about this case: Pirate Bay joy at charge change
Similarly, you can drive your car, but no one holds the car manufacturers responsible because you used the car to make a car bomb, do a kidnapping or transport some of those illegal drugs. But you are not allowed to do the same with your own personal tank. The benefit of the car is seen to outweigh the detriment. Also we probably do not have any need for tanks in day-to-day life.
So what we see here is a battle. A battle between powerful men with lots of money against those who provide a service. But is the service like a car or like a tank? I ask? I actually do not know enough about it to know the answer. But this is the question. If it is like a car, then the powerful men should be told to piss off. It is the criminals they are chasing, not the makers. If it is like a tank then you should put in place a regulation limiting the use to those with a licence.
Anyway I am impressed by the sheer gutsiness of the defendants. Bravo.
In our society we let people do things but stop others. For instance you are free to kill yourself using cigarettes but not free to do so with other inhaled drugs in a system that is stymied by powerful interested and large amounts of money, the difference between those with power and money (tobacco) and those that don't (marijuana). One thing that has always surprised me is that you are allowed to buy bongs. Perhaps they could also be used for smoking.Pirate Bay co-founder Frederik Neik said it showed prosecutors had misunderstood the technology.
The music industry played down the changes as "simplifying the charges".
Similarly, you can drive your car, but no one holds the car manufacturers responsible because you used the car to make a car bomb, do a kidnapping or transport some of those illegal drugs. But you are not allowed to do the same with your own personal tank. The benefit of the car is seen to outweigh the detriment. Also we probably do not have any need for tanks in day-to-day life.
So what we see here is a battle. A battle between powerful men with lots of money against those who provide a service. But is the service like a car or like a tank? I ask? I actually do not know enough about it to know the answer. But this is the question. If it is like a car, then the powerful men should be told to piss off. It is the criminals they are chasing, not the makers. If it is like a tank then you should put in place a regulation limiting the use to those with a licence.
Anyway I am impressed by the sheer gutsiness of the defendants. Bravo.
10 February 2009
China Development
I often speak of how impressed I am with how well the Chinese have done in their post-communist, capitalist era. However, I have discovered something disturbing about people in Sydney that is an extension of what I already knew, but I did not realise the depth of it.
These people are monopolar. They cannot think that two things are good at once. So you must be one or the other. I think it is a problem of monotheists suffer from. So if I say that I think China is good. They think that I am also saying Australia is bad. Of course this is not true. It is just a stupid assumption. Their slice of sides is totoally incorrect and tragic. But that is probably for another post.
These people are monopolar. They cannot think that two things are good at once. So you must be one or the other. I think it is a problem of monotheists suffer from. So if I say that I think China is good. They think that I am also saying Australia is bad. Of course this is not true. It is just a stupid assumption. Their slice of sides is totoally incorrect and tragic. But that is probably for another post.
05 February 2009
Terrorism
The terrorists have won a significant victory. The Americans have inflicted more damage on themselves and other than the Terrorists could ever have hoped to do.
The House overwhelmingly adopted legislation this week mandating the creation of a new kind of terrorist watchlist: a database of people who aren't terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway.
20 January 2009
a jolly good riddance to the leader of the free world
Well, I think that many of us have been very unhappy with the election of said george bush as the self appointed leader of the free world. I mean, if he was the leader of the free world and if we live in the free world, but of which there must be some question to and we live in democracies, how come we don't get to vote for our leader? Though here in Australia, where we seem to be happy with someone else leader as our head of state, why not another interloper? So we bid you good riddance george bush and say welcome to the man called barak.
09 September 2008
Unfair Elections Results
I have been watching the results of Australian elections for a while now and have noted that in a few ways they represent a gerrymander and are still coming up with mathematically unfair results. The WA elections are a case in point.
This table is not very neat. But you can see a better version here. If the system was truly representational then people would get candidates approximately in the same proportion to their vote. The table below shows that this is not the case. This is why a system such as those used in Tasmania or the ACT are far better than those used in other states.
This table is not very neat. But you can see a better version here. If the system was truly representational then people would get candidates approximately in the same proportion to their vote. The table below shows that this is not the case. This is why a system such as those used in Tasmania or the ACT are far better than those used in other states.
A simple calculation of error being difference divided by total, gives 8 over 55 or a 15% error. I wonder what sort of error would be considered fair?
% Vote Won Likely Nominal Difference
Labor 35.9 26 20 6
Liberal 38.7 22 21 1
National 4.9 4 3 1
Greens 11.5 0 6 (6)
Others 9 3 5 (2)
23 October 2007
springboks
Well I just watched a documentary on the effect of the Springbok tour of NZ in 1981 (I think) and the immense impact it had on the overall process in South Africa. But it raises many questions and points.
- The ANC was a banned organization. How many other organizations that are currently banned will go onto become the party in power in a country? Will it be the Sri Lankan ones? There seem to be so many?
- Only South Africa got it right. No one else seems to have. Zimbabwe botched it. Israel is unable to make friends with the PLO and Hammas. Why is this so?
- Why is it that governments refuse to listen to the protests of their own people? (Such as the NZ government and sports bodies in trying to stop the protests.) But then again how many of these movements ever bring about good results? Is South Africa a special case that cannot be repeated else where?
- Why is it that people in South Africa were so afraid of their own security forces and through that the NZ's were such whimps? What kind of person shoots another for protesting injustice just because they were told to do so. Are the blind? Are the malicious?
- If an aeroplane dropped flower bombs like the one in NZ, would it be shot down?
17 August 2007
fears of the internet
Today I was listening to an ABC podcast. They were talking about the phobia of pedophiles infecting the community at the moment and the extreme measures being taken to prevent them. They pointed out that the level of activity is very low and that children, as they have always been, are mostly at risk from their immediate family: fathers, brothers and uncles. It seems that there is much selective blindness is going on. It led me to have the following thoughts:
- Many parents actually know next to nothing of the internet. This allows them to easily be led down the path of fear. For instance it is much harder to make the same claims about being afraid of pedophiles driving down the local street as the parents have lived through this themselves as children. What is happening on the internet is new and people are bewildered and afraid.
- If you go around saying you are family friendly and thing that families are the best thing in the known universe it is hard to admit that they oft go wrong and sometimes are the worst placed in the universe. When I was a kid, had friends who I reckoned were safer living in the gutter or a garbage bin than at home. So lets blame the internet and ignore the most significant part of the problem. If they were serious they would attack the main problem.
09 July 2007
pol pot syndrome
Well, this is not really about Pol Pot. But a documentary on his regime caused me to have this though. So I will call it Pol Pot Syndrome.
I have been interested by the whole topic of purges and to what purpose they server. Obviously there is an overtly political one, to remove your competitors. But watching the Pol Pot story I was seeing what was presented by the media as a man who was systematically removing his supporters. So here is a simple hypothesis:
1) You have a world view of how people (or economies) should behave.
2) You implement the theories.
3) The results you expected do not occur.
4) You blame and punish those executing the plan as it could not possibly be the plan that is wrong or those who are the victims for being unworthy or not normal.
5) You repeat steps 2 to 4 over and over.
Obviously this is an extreme case, but one would hope that even the most stubborn people see the way out in the end.
I have been interested by the whole topic of purges and to what purpose they server. Obviously there is an overtly political one, to remove your competitors. But watching the Pol Pot story I was seeing what was presented by the media as a man who was systematically removing his supporters. So here is a simple hypothesis:
1) You have a world view of how people (or economies) should behave.
2) You implement the theories.
3) The results you expected do not occur.
4) You blame and punish those executing the plan as it could not possibly be the plan that is wrong or those who are the victims for being unworthy or not normal.
5) You repeat steps 2 to 4 over and over.
Obviously this is an extreme case, but one would hope that even the most stubborn people see the way out in the end.
27 April 2007
on Vladimir Putin
Previously I mentioned Boris Yeltsin and the Russian view. However, when I was in Moscow, it was Vladimir Putin who was in power. I have always found Putin creepy and scary. After all, he is a KGB man. But on listening to some speeches by John F Kennedy, I formed a different view. I think that Putin is to the Russians, what Kennedy was to the Americans. Tough they are completely different people, Russia and the USA are completely different societies. In this I mean that he is The Man of the Times.
Russia has always had a desire (I think foolishly) for strong man leaders. Also with the tumult of the fall of the Soviet Union, they are now pissed off and lost in a similar, but by no means the same, manner to what I saw in England in the late 1980's. There is a loss of empire. However, the Russian reaction is different. In this way, Putin is a return to the world they knew in the days of the Soviet Empire. They seek a return to the good times, which were not really good, but what they are seeking is a return to the things they know and hence things that they are comfortable with. In a way it is a returning to the hearth.
In a way this may be necessary for the Russians themselves, even though it represents the two steps back in the of three steps forward two steps back scheme of life. They need to reinvent themselves and the direction they were heading was probably wrong in degree and precision. The Russians need to invent a world that works with the way that they view themselves and their place in the world. I think that the creation of mega industries, while a very soviet thing to do, was a mistake. I know that when in China in the early 1990's there was discussion on how to prevent the creation of such monsters and the Chinese as a result were much more successful at avoiding this mistake. Now Putin finds himself having to destroy these monstrosities. But will it lead them out of the wilderness? This I do not know. I must admit that I was surprised by the British response and their success in digging themselves out of the mire. The have been reinventing themselves and their perception of their place in the world, which is much more in tune with the reality of the situation. Perhaps Putin will turn out to be their equivalent of Margaret Thatcher.
Russia has always had a desire (I think foolishly) for strong man leaders. Also with the tumult of the fall of the Soviet Union, they are now pissed off and lost in a similar, but by no means the same, manner to what I saw in England in the late 1980's. There is a loss of empire. However, the Russian reaction is different. In this way, Putin is a return to the world they knew in the days of the Soviet Empire. They seek a return to the good times, which were not really good, but what they are seeking is a return to the things they know and hence things that they are comfortable with. In a way it is a returning to the hearth.
In a way this may be necessary for the Russians themselves, even though it represents the two steps back in the of three steps forward two steps back scheme of life. They need to reinvent themselves and the direction they were heading was probably wrong in degree and precision. The Russians need to invent a world that works with the way that they view themselves and their place in the world. I think that the creation of mega industries, while a very soviet thing to do, was a mistake. I know that when in China in the early 1990's there was discussion on how to prevent the creation of such monsters and the Chinese as a result were much more successful at avoiding this mistake. Now Putin finds himself having to destroy these monstrosities. But will it lead them out of the wilderness? This I do not know. I must admit that I was surprised by the British response and their success in digging themselves out of the mire. The have been reinventing themselves and their perception of their place in the world, which is much more in tune with the reality of the situation. Perhaps Putin will turn out to be their equivalent of Margaret Thatcher.
25 April 2007
Boris Yeltsin
Just a short note: Boris Yeltsin died. One of the things that I found surprising when traveling in Russia is just how much the Russians love the fellow. In fact, the view of Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev in Russian and in Australia are opposites. In Russia, Gorbachev is seen as a traitor to the Russians, he is the man who oversaw the downfall of the USSR. He brought about misery, suffering and a loss of pride. Yeltsin is seen as the man who oversaw a new beginning in a land devoid of hope and pride. I often wonder how the two views of the two men can be so diametrically opposed. Also I wonder about the media outlets that manage to create such appearances. Is one view correct? I wonder. In science they say that if there are multiple, and very different theories then the multiple theories are usually all wrong. This is because a correct theory will prove itself to be reliable in the longer term and the incorrect theories will generate incorrect predictions. However, in this case, I suspect that it is simply the opposite sides of the same coin.
17 December 2006
Not a comunist state...
One of the interesting things about China is that it is not in anyway a Communist state. But the whole of the world does not seem to have noticed. It is a one party state. Maybe there is a proper word for that, but I do not know it. There are lots of misnomers out there. In the west we call ourselves a democracy. We are not we are a collection of republics. I remember reading a quote once from a founder of the USA that they chose a republican model because they did not believe that a democracy could work. However, they were wrong. They should just ask the Swiss. They have a working democracy. Though the Swiss complain that it is too much effort.
Back to China. The people of china know it is not a Communist state, so do the academics, so does the communist party. But no one seems willing to admit that it has happened. I described it to the communist party member (I think) I had lunch with this analogy. They (the Chinese) are like a bunch of penguins. No one wants to be the first to jump. I will now add the following: They saw what happened to the last lot. There are seals out there. One day they will all have to jump together.
So if China is not a Communist state, what is it? This next hypothesis is just an initial observation. In the world of China there used to be two main groups. The emperor and the mandarins. In the world of the ROC, this was replaced by a coalition of warlords and other sundry groups, such as the communists to form a democracy. When that fell apart the democratic forces (though they were still mostly warlord forces) retreated to Taiwan or joined the Communists. It was the latter that really did in the KMT. Within the communists, a new group of mandarins slowly infiltrated the organisation. Or the member mutated into mandarins, I am not sure on this one. The communists lost power with the removal of the gang of four. China is now one giant public service. I was completely reminded of an organisation here in Australia. When I first started working, I worked for Telecom Australia. This was an engineer run public service department. It had the engineering equivalents of fat cats, the Chief State Engineer. The organisation was a collection of powerful public service fiefdoms. Within each fiefdom were other fiefdom. Politics was rampant and internal politics ruled the roost.
The China of today is like this Telecom Australia of old. There is one giant party. Within the part at the top level are the central power groups. Most obviously the most powerful one is headed by the current president. Then there are the regional leaders. The one in the headlines who recently lost power was the head of Shanghai. He could not escape the fate of the head of the head of Beijing. Then there are the heads of the cities, and so on down to the local villages.
There is a constant power flux between these groups. For example, in many places the local officials may take a loose view of the one child policy. Money starts at the top, and usually does not reach the bottom in any significant way. In one place they told the the locals had made their own secondary road with their own money as they needed to be able to get their goods to market.
One thing that is difficult to tell in this is the role of the military. They are invisible to one such as me. However, they have a role. The question must be, how independent are the generals? Would they take action on their own as they would say in Thailand or Fiji? They must be complicit.
Before I head off into the final section, I will add two stories I have from my travels in China.
In 1999 I traveled from Shanghai to Xian and then Beijing. Two weeks before I arrived I saw the riots outside the American Embassy on the TV, as a result of the US air force bombing the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. Every where I went I would be asked, say 10 times a day, Are you American? to which I would reply no, I am an Australian. People would smile and life was OK. In Xian, I met an American man who was living in Taipei. When asked about being an American, he would reply, yes. There would then ensue a discussion. (His Chinese was much better than mine.) In the end ever discussion he had the others would end up accepting his point of view. I will go into this in more detail another time. But what is important here is that I learned that the ordinary people in China generally do not believe or trust their leadership.
The second story is one I heard of a movie maker and the comments that he made. This happened on my last trip to China, just finished in 2006. I have hard this sentiment else where. These are not his words, it is my paraphrasing of comments made by several people. To get ahead in China you have to be on the side of the Communist party. You will be locked out of the system if you are not. So everyone is saying this... things are getting better, generally we are better off. So we will agree to go along with the system for now. It is delivering the goods. It is far from perfect. But we do not want to descend back into civil war. We do not want to be shot. We are not really happy, we have not yet crossed that line.
So where is all of this heading, how will China advance into the future. Here are some possible scenarios:
The scenario I like is a difficult one. There is this little island called Taiwan, that contains a democratic government. One interesting thing to note is that all of the people in this argument think that that other Hakka person, San Yet Sen is a great hero and hold him in almost god like status. They all agree that the first republic, formed in 1912, was a great time and a wonderful new beginning. So they should resurrect the long lost Sun Yet Sen. There should be a reverse takeover. In the past Scotland did a friendly takeover of England with King James I of England. Taiwan should take over China. If the communists are as serious about the reintegration of Taiwan being their number one priority as they say, they will readily accept. (ha!) Elections would be held and China will become a democracy. Of course there are a million details that would need to be take into account. But it is a doable.
Another scenario is that China continues on the way that it is. The mandarins have been able to keep the empires running in China for hundreds of years. Each time the empire lasted longer. Perhaps they can keep it on an even keel. However, I think that there is a problem here. With any system like this the problem occurs when the leader are incompetent. It is really hard to remove an incompetent leader at the top of a system bent on keeping them in power. You only have to look at the last 100 years of the Qing dynasty to see how long they can hang onto power. The other problem with this type of government is that the only way out in this situation is civil war. Would the army step in, in a situation like this?
Another scenario is similar to the first. The communists gradually relinquish power and open up the system in an organised manner. There would be steps forward and backwards. I actually think that this is quite likely. It will require a new generation who are unhappy with the old system and want to change it to something better. There are many unhappy people. Generally, their is a tendency for governments to open up and become more transparent as time goes by. But it can be a slow progress. It took the English nearly a thousand years, many civil uprisings and a civil war to go from a feudal dictatorship to a republican monarchy.
Another approach, though extremely unlikely is to take over the communist party from the inside. The membership level of the communist party is very low. A simple branch stacking approach could elect members to the party intent on change. The incumbents would fight back, that is for sure, but it would be very interesting.
Back to China. The people of china know it is not a Communist state, so do the academics, so does the communist party. But no one seems willing to admit that it has happened. I described it to the communist party member (I think) I had lunch with this analogy. They (the Chinese) are like a bunch of penguins. No one wants to be the first to jump. I will now add the following: They saw what happened to the last lot. There are seals out there. One day they will all have to jump together.
So if China is not a Communist state, what is it? This next hypothesis is just an initial observation. In the world of China there used to be two main groups. The emperor and the mandarins. In the world of the ROC, this was replaced by a coalition of warlords and other sundry groups, such as the communists to form a democracy. When that fell apart the democratic forces (though they were still mostly warlord forces) retreated to Taiwan or joined the Communists. It was the latter that really did in the KMT. Within the communists, a new group of mandarins slowly infiltrated the organisation. Or the member mutated into mandarins, I am not sure on this one. The communists lost power with the removal of the gang of four. China is now one giant public service. I was completely reminded of an organisation here in Australia. When I first started working, I worked for Telecom Australia. This was an engineer run public service department. It had the engineering equivalents of fat cats, the Chief State Engineer. The organisation was a collection of powerful public service fiefdoms. Within each fiefdom were other fiefdom. Politics was rampant and internal politics ruled the roost.
The China of today is like this Telecom Australia of old. There is one giant party. Within the part at the top level are the central power groups. Most obviously the most powerful one is headed by the current president. Then there are the regional leaders. The one in the headlines who recently lost power was the head of Shanghai. He could not escape the fate of the head of the head of Beijing. Then there are the heads of the cities, and so on down to the local villages.
There is a constant power flux between these groups. For example, in many places the local officials may take a loose view of the one child policy. Money starts at the top, and usually does not reach the bottom in any significant way. In one place they told the the locals had made their own secondary road with their own money as they needed to be able to get their goods to market.
One thing that is difficult to tell in this is the role of the military. They are invisible to one such as me. However, they have a role. The question must be, how independent are the generals? Would they take action on their own as they would say in Thailand or Fiji? They must be complicit.
Before I head off into the final section, I will add two stories I have from my travels in China.
In 1999 I traveled from Shanghai to Xian and then Beijing. Two weeks before I arrived I saw the riots outside the American Embassy on the TV, as a result of the US air force bombing the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. Every where I went I would be asked, say 10 times a day, Are you American? to which I would reply no, I am an Australian. People would smile and life was OK. In Xian, I met an American man who was living in Taipei. When asked about being an American, he would reply, yes. There would then ensue a discussion. (His Chinese was much better than mine.) In the end ever discussion he had the others would end up accepting his point of view. I will go into this in more detail another time. But what is important here is that I learned that the ordinary people in China generally do not believe or trust their leadership.
The second story is one I heard of a movie maker and the comments that he made. This happened on my last trip to China, just finished in 2006. I have hard this sentiment else where. These are not his words, it is my paraphrasing of comments made by several people. To get ahead in China you have to be on the side of the Communist party. You will be locked out of the system if you are not. So everyone is saying this... things are getting better, generally we are better off. So we will agree to go along with the system for now. It is delivering the goods. It is far from perfect. But we do not want to descend back into civil war. We do not want to be shot. We are not really happy, we have not yet crossed that line.
So where is all of this heading, how will China advance into the future. Here are some possible scenarios:
The scenario I like is a difficult one. There is this little island called Taiwan, that contains a democratic government. One interesting thing to note is that all of the people in this argument think that that other Hakka person, San Yet Sen is a great hero and hold him in almost god like status. They all agree that the first republic, formed in 1912, was a great time and a wonderful new beginning. So they should resurrect the long lost Sun Yet Sen. There should be a reverse takeover. In the past Scotland did a friendly takeover of England with King James I of England. Taiwan should take over China. If the communists are as serious about the reintegration of Taiwan being their number one priority as they say, they will readily accept. (ha!) Elections would be held and China will become a democracy. Of course there are a million details that would need to be take into account. But it is a doable.
Another scenario is that China continues on the way that it is. The mandarins have been able to keep the empires running in China for hundreds of years. Each time the empire lasted longer. Perhaps they can keep it on an even keel. However, I think that there is a problem here. With any system like this the problem occurs when the leader are incompetent. It is really hard to remove an incompetent leader at the top of a system bent on keeping them in power. You only have to look at the last 100 years of the Qing dynasty to see how long they can hang onto power. The other problem with this type of government is that the only way out in this situation is civil war. Would the army step in, in a situation like this?
Another scenario is similar to the first. The communists gradually relinquish power and open up the system in an organised manner. There would be steps forward and backwards. I actually think that this is quite likely. It will require a new generation who are unhappy with the old system and want to change it to something better. There are many unhappy people. Generally, their is a tendency for governments to open up and become more transparent as time goes by. But it can be a slow progress. It took the English nearly a thousand years, many civil uprisings and a civil war to go from a feudal dictatorship to a republican monarchy.
Another approach, though extremely unlikely is to take over the communist party from the inside. The membership level of the communist party is very low. A simple branch stacking approach could elect members to the party intent on change. The incumbents would fight back, that is for sure, but it would be very interesting.
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