11 thoughts on “Weekend reflections”

  1. I have not watched the leaders debates in the UK but I’m encouraged by the news that voters may destabilize the establishment.

  4. “I’m encouraged by the news that voters may destabilize the establishment.”

    Something that can only be found encouraging from a distance.

  5. Great links, gregh. I liked Jim Cummings article. He does a wonderful job in the community noise area by detailing, instead of dismissing, locality specific and individual specific factors in complaint data. The history of money paper in a social context as well as the noise paper were welcome blasts from the past for me. Thanks.

  6. For once I’m in on the sense of a remark Terje has made. Globalisation has rendered British government operated on the basis of the the twentieth century impotent, as elsewhere. Greg h suggests it leads to possibilities as to the break up of the two-party state . And not just in Britain.
    As Freelander observes, we are indeed lucky to watch a possible protype for ourselves tested from a distance.

  7. Support Single Mothers against Poverty

    Australian single mother Helen Said demands a fair go for single mothers and their families amidst unfair laws surrounding welfare and work. Follow the link below for a full article on these issues. And please show your support if you can by attending the rally – or if that is geographically impossible – passing news of the rally to your friends and through your networks. The details for the rally are included in the article.

    see: http://www.facebook.com/l/18d33;leftfocus.blogspot.com/2010/05/poverty-forces-single-mothers-to-return.html

  8. another nice article from eurozine – magnus ryner, an obituary for the third way
    http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-04-27-ryner-en.html

    The underlying current I felt as I read this was the take over of the social democratic parties by – not to fineese the point – class traitors. How this occurred is not within the article, but perhaps some hints might be found in the new found social mobility through education post ww2. Who were the first to benefit from this? Where did they come from in terms of a fine-grained class structure such as we have in Australia, where the side of road you live on can be critical for social position.

  9. Further to my earlier comment on the Time for the B Team forum:

    Yesterday, after being kept in the dark for more than five months, it was finally confirmed to me that I had been deliberately banned from Larvatus Prodeo for all this time. Here is some of the correspondence:

    > We won’t be taking your name out of the mod filter. This is our blog and we
    > can let through or delete whatever we like. That’s not censorship, because
    > you are free to post your deleted comments elsewhere.

    So, why couldn’t you have simply told me this when I first asked you on 28 December last year?

    Why couldn’t you have told me this when I e-mailed you again on 1 January, 3 January, 3 March, 6 March, 10 April (to Mark in person) and 12 April?

    > Your name may be taken out of the mod filter eventually, but not until you
    > completely stop trying to hijack our blog with your issues. …

    Perhaps, what’s hijacking a discussion can be very much in the eye of the beholders.

    However, I suspect that others are more likely to regard this as censorship of legitimate viewpoints that threaten vested interests that you have both chosen to protect.

    > … More and more emails making this request will not, I assure you, make us more
    > likely to do it quicker.
    >
    > Is this clear enough for you? Our blog, it’s not our job to publish you.

    If you had read my e-mails you would have noticed that I already made it abundantly clear that I accepted that as owners of Larvatus Prodeo, you obviously have the ultimate right to decide what can and cannot be published on your site.

    What I find totally unacceptable is that neither of you paid me the common courtesy to inform me that my posts were being deliberately banned in the first place and then ignored repeated e-mails from me which simply asked you to tell me what had happened to my posts.

    Anyway, do as you will.

    I believe you will find that the decisions you have made will reflect poorly on you and not on me, as others learn about them.

    >Thanks
    > [Larvatus Prodeo administrator]
    < snip/>
    Yours sincerely,
    James Sinnamon

  11. Weekend reflections – the ACCC are after Kermode the taxi king. Any opinions out there. They are only after cabcharge because they think that the “financial institutions” arent getting their share of the commission market. But hey..wait a minute there is more to this story than meets the eye. The “financial kings” like Amex etc give lousy commissions – dont take any of the risks and dont give the taxi drivers (the real poor) and decent share back of the commissions. So the ACCC takes with one hand from a guy who was smart enough to make e charging in taxis easy for drivers, gives them a reasonable share back, keeps them driving cabs against all odds and wants to let “Amex” (rip off merchants) and other “financial institutions” (already very well off thankyou) in the name of “competition” get a bigger slice of cabcharge. Bloody idiots. The drivers want one download. Amex and Westoac and every other bank will make their life hell…and so they all leave every other taxi company and go to combined (same company as cabcharge).
    Net result – more competition in the pathetic commissions but it will cement Combined’s dominance of taxis and reward only combined drivers

    More competition in commissions and less competition in the market for taxis, which ordinary people use.

    Another ACCC mistake – a big one. They will get more competition for banks (as if they need it) and less for people who need real taxis on the ground.

    Dumber and dumber.

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