Worst Plane Travel Experience

All my dealings with Travel Agents this week and Cactus Kate's recent flight reminded me of my worst experience on a plane. To be fair, it wasn't the airlines fault - they acted completely correctly.

This is from back in the days of the 767 Flights from Wellington to Sydney. It was my second ever trip overseas and the first time overseas as an adult. This happened on the flight back to Wellington.

Firstly, I had requested a special meal, so I got mine long before he did. So he complained about the delay. But then, after the meal, he went to sleep.

About 15 minutes later he woke up and started telling me about his medical problems. (Bad sign here.) Then he told me that the previous year he made his first trip to Wellington since leaving 20 years before "and he couldn't believe how much it had changed". Then he went back to sleep for 15 minutes, woke up and repeated the whole story again. And, he went back to sleep for another 15 minutes, woke up and (you guessed it) told me about it again.

By this stage I was eyeing up the seats further down the plane that were completely empty. But at this point the attendant came round with the immigration and MAF papers. As I was filling my forms out, this old guy was looking for his passport. In his bag, in his pockets, on the floor. He called over the attendant and then said that Passport control in Sydney had kept his passport and he couldn't enter NZ. The attendant told him to keep looking as Passport control wouldn't do that to him. After another ten minutes of looking he finally found his Passport in a side pocket of his bag.

Then on final approach to Wellington, the attendant noticed he'd not put his seatbelt on. He refused, saying he never used them. It wasn't until the attendant said he would ban him off the airline until he put it on. He called the attendant a 'bastard'. I would have banned him, anyway - or make him pay for three seats so no-one would have to sit beside him.

Then when the plane was down and turning onto the taxiway he jumped up, grabbed his bags and headed for the front of the plane - Only to be marched back down the very back of the plane by the attendant and made to sit in the back row so he would be last person off the plane. Good job.

Census - Question 19

Yesterday, the Census collator for our area turned up and dropped off the forms. This morning, I read the questions and was horrfied at Question 19 - which asks what type of relationship I have with those that I live with, and more importantly what the sex of any partner I live with is.

Because I have a partner the question is asking what my sexual orientation is. Too which I want to reply - "NONE OF THE GOVERNMENTS BUSINESS".

I rang the Census Helpline to see if I could object to answering this question, like you can for Question 18 about Religion. The operator (who was very polite and understanding) said 'no'.

Perhaps the irony is for decades the Gay Rights movement championed the slogan "The Government has no right to know what you do in the bedroom". This reinforces to me how they were right.

Stop! Hammer Time!

Ever wondered what happened to MC Hammer? Well, now you can keep up to date with the Hammer at his blog. Now I can't get "U Can't Touch This!" out of my head.

Hard to Argue With ...

Got this at the bottom of the Maxim Institute's 'Real Issues' email:

"It is one of the greatest weaknesses of our time that we lack the patience and faith to build up voluntary organizations for purposes which we value highly, and immediately ask the government to bring about by coercion (or with means raised by coercion) anything that appears as desirable to large numbers. Yet nothing can have a more deadening effect on real participation by the citizens than if government, instead of merely providing the essential framework of spontaneous growth, becomes monolithic and takes charge of the provision for all needs, which can be provided for only by the common effort of many."
Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992)

Sometimes you can't win!

On Tuesday I commented on how a travel agent had let me down, and how I would DIY all travel in future. So today I had to book some tickets to Christchurch for next weekend. Trying to find the cheapest fares on both Air NZ and Qantas was a nightmare.

In the end I booked it all, but it took (frustrating) 2 hours of comparing fares/times/options. I know that some websites have nifty tools for getting cheap fares but I wanted to use my Air Mile Points for the flights.

In future I might just stay at home or only go to places you can drive to.

I've paid my road tax, so where's the roads?

One month before the last election, Hutt South Labour MP announced:

"Extra funding for transport means that work on the $78 million Dowse to Petone Interchange will now start this year [2005] instead of next [2006]."

No work started in September, October, November or December. Nothing in January, nothing in February. Then today, Transit New Zealand announces that work will not commence until 2008.

Trevor Mallard was so keen to announce the work on the interchange would begin in 2005 - with that sort of interest to personally announce such a commitment he would have noticed that no work has begun. Surely, a sensible MP would then start questioning Transit as to why.

So for Mallard to pretend he is not happy with today is a joke. He should have made this pronouncement three months ago when he first realised something was wrong.

Travel Agents - Bah!

Now I always thought travel agents are there to act for the client, on the clients instructions. The other day I went to a travel agent and asked for some advice for airfares to Vienna in September.

I stated:

• I did not mind which airline.


• I wanted to fly from Asia to Vienna direct.


• I didn't mind paying a little more to avoid going through London

Now the travel agent has sent me a deal for an airline that will:

• Fly me to Melbourne, then Asia, then London, then Vienna - 42 hrs start to finish. Return is the same routing.


• Total Taxes is $600.


• And she added Travel Insurance to the quote (not separate) without my asking.

A bit of research revealed that I can get another airline to fly Melbourne to Bangkok to Dubai to Vienna with 10 hours less travel, $500 less taxes and the base fare is about $200 cheaper. On the return Dubai to Melbourne is non-stop (although I have an overnight stay in Dubai.) All I have to do is arrange travel to and from Auckland as well. (You probably can guess which airline given the routing.)

So overall, I will save about $300 (allowing $200 for an overnight in Dubai and $100 each way Wellington to Auckland) and several less hours sitting in a plane if I choose this option. Plus there is no Credit Card Surcharge so I get free Travel Insurance - another $300 saving (or $100 for the Credit Card Surcharge).

In future I think I might not bother with Travel Agents.

Consumer Power

I've always thought that The Greens are barking up the wrong tree. They spend all their time denoucing and wanting to ban products and activities to change behaviour.

If they were really serious about changing the world, they would just need to convince consumers to change their buying habits. Companies are in business to make a profit. To make a profit, they have to provide products people want at the right mix of price and quality.

The Greens should follow the lead of the Catholic Church, which urged New Zealand's 400,000 plus Catholics to boycott CanWest Media outlets. (Television networks TV3 and C4, plus a number of Radio Stations including MoreFM, RadioLive, and The Breeze.) If the ratings across the whole network fall, revenue will also fall. Then CanWest Media stations will think twice about showing shows that religious groups find offensive.

In the same way, if people only buy products that have less or no harm on the environment, then companies will start providing more of them.

But the Greens seem stuck in their 1960s protest mindset - ban the bomb, ban the bleach, ban dihydrogen monoxide - At least if it's in bottles.

Not Cricket!

I'm no Cricket purist, but when both teams score exactly the same total of runs at the end of the match, it's called a 'tie'.

Bowling balls at stumps is something to do at practice, not a way to settle which team played better. Hurumph!

Today in History

Today in History:

• 374: Ninth recorded passage of Halley's Comet
  
• 1930: Nylon is invented by the Du Pont labs primarily from the research of American chemist Wallace Hume Carothers.


• 1935: Sonny Bono Born


• 1940: Graffiti on Munich Building by Student Group 'White Rose' says: "Out with Hitler! Long Live Freedom!' (The groups leaders were caught and executed a few days later.)


• 1959: John MacEnroe born, Fidel Castro claims dictatorial power of Cuba following his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista.


• 1970: Joe Frazier KOs Jimmy Ellis for undisputed heavyweight boxing crown.
  
• 1972: Power outages in Britain caused by Miners Strike.


• 1986: Soviet cruise ship 'MV Mikhail Lermontov' strikes rocks and sinks in Marlborough Sounds.


• 1986: Earthquake measuring 6.5 on Richter Scale strikes Sumatra in Indonesia, 200 killed.

Nothing else of any interest to anyone happened on this day. End of story.

Hard Time and Open Prisons

Recently there has been some debate about how to reduce the number of people in our prisons, and the number of people who reoffend and return to our prisons. There has been attention paid to the Scandinavian model of open prisons for low-grade offenders.

I say those who promote that prisons should be about rehabiliation - not punishment - are wrong. Being sent to prison is a punishment - there is a depravation of liberty and removal of rights. Rehabiliation need to come after prison.

What I believe would work is a two-tier system of punishment, then a rehabilitive stage in the open prison model. The first stage, when the sentence is passed would involve the offender going to a prison like they would now. They would serve two-thirds of the sentence and apply for parole.

The next stage would come after parole had been granted - the offender would then be moved to an open prison where they would recieve work related training or work for wages, have to pay rent for their home and be responsible for getting their own food and preparing meals - teaching life skills needed to survive 'on the outside'. They would still have restrictions on their liberty - no going out at night, no alcohol and drugs, and such-like.

It is not a soft-on-crime approach and a genuine attempt to teach the skills needed to live in the community. In the short-term, such a system would probably cost more. But over the long-term, if Scandinavian trends are correct, the number of prisoners would reduce.

Newsflash: Cheney says shooting of fellow hunter was based on "faulty intelligence".

VP Believed Shooting Victim Was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Vice President Dick Cheney revealed today that he shot a fellow hunter while on a quail hunting trip over the weekend because he believed the man was the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Cheney acknowledged that the man he sprayed with pellets on Saturday was not the Iranian leader but rather Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old millionaire lawyer from Austin, blaming the mix-up on "faulty intelligence."

"I believed I had credible intelligence that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had infiltrated my hunting party to get my ideas on the Iranian Nuclear standoff situation," Mr. Cheney told reporters. "Only after I shot Harry in the face and he shouted 'Cheney, you bastard' did I realize that this intelligence was faulty."

Later that day President Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference to announce that he was uninjured in the vice president's attack because, in his words, "I was in Iran."

An aide to the vice president said he believed that the American people would believe Mr. Cheney's version of events, but added, "If he was going to shoot anybody right now it would be Osama Bin Laden."

At the White House, President George W. Bush defended his vice president's shooting of a fellow hunter, saying that the attack sent "a strong message to terrorists everywhere."

"The message is, if Dick Cheney is willing to shoot an innocent American citizen at point-blank range, imagine what he'll do to you," President Bush said.

Hat tip: Adapted from an email I was forwarded from the New York Vintage Wines Rugby Club

Another Quote

Back in August I wrote to the local newspaper - The Hutt News - to highlight how Labour was using taxpayer funds to produce campaign material. The paper gave Trevor Mallard an oppurtunity to reply - first he compared Labour's material to that of other parties out of the election period:

"The funding used for this material is the same budget used by my opponents to advertise on billboards and in The Hutt News." (Refering to then United MP Murray Smith advertised his Lower Hutt electorate office, and the Foreshore Billboards of when Bill English was Leader of National.)

And Mallard's final statement on the matter is:

"I carefully monitor its use and have never breached the rules."

Guess Who!

Remember back in December when National owned up to over spending it's allocated media budget? Guess who:

He accused National of "clever cheating" and said there was no way it could have misinterpreted the law.

"If National had stuck to the rules there would have been very little TV and radio advertising in the last week of the campaign."

Go on, guess.

You Cheated!

I'm not surprised that Labour overspent their campaign limit - all those glossy advertisements (paid for by Parliamentary Services) looked very expensive.

What convinced me the most that they were election spending is when then Labour MP Lesley Soper told me I wouldn't get one in my letterbox because their voter database will identify me as a strong National vote and so wouldn't waste the resource. But then she was just angry at me having ridiculed her at a public meeting over how Labour was spending taxpayers money on their election campaign, and if the Government could afford glossy brochures advertising it's MPs why can't it afford tax cuts!

A Rugby Quote

In honour of the Super 14 starting on the second Friday in February:

"Rugby may have many problems, but the gravest is undoubtedly that of the persistence of summer." - Chris Laidlaw, in 1973.

Keith Locke is a Hypocrite

Keith Locke on the publishing of the 'Mohammed Cartoons':

“The basic issue is the need to show respect for all religions in New Zealand, in both word and deed.”

Keith Locke on allowing David Irving (who denies that the Nazi Holocaust of Jewish people occured) into New Zealand to express his views:

"David Irving’s holocaust denial views are repugnant to most New Zealanders but that is not sufficient reason to bar him from New Zealand. The banning of David Irving sets a bad precedent for free speech in this country."

A Hypocritical Reaction to the Danish Cartoons

While I was cynical about the reason The Press and the Dominion Post published the Danish Cartoons I am angered by the hypocritical reaction of Ministers Chris Carter and Jim Sutton.

Earlier this year, TV Channel C4 showed a cartoon series called Popetown in which the Pope and Catholic heirachy is not depicted in a flattering manner. Upcoming on the same channel is an episode of South Park titled Bloody Mary which is apparently offensive to Catholics. Neither Carter or Sutton have seen fit to comment on either programme.

Now, you might think that New Zealand trade with Islamic Countries is important, and that by condemning the depiction of the cartoons they are acting to protect those exports. But the reality is that most of the Islamic nations we trade with have much more to lose by scaling back trade than we do.

Here is a table showing our top 5 trading partners were Islam is the major religion:

Country	Exports($NZ000)	Imports($NZ000)
Malaysia	$488,165	$753,696
Indonesia	$455,207	$568,298
Saudi Arabia	$386,407	$313,073
United Arab Emirates	$157,745	$400,082
Algeria	$131,101	$7
TOTAL	$1,618,625	$2,035,156

So a boycott of New Zealand Goods and Services would put $400 million more at risk for those countries than for New Zealand.

I also mentioned Popetown above. If we were to face a boycott from Catholic consumers then our top 5 trading nations where Catholicism is the predominant religion:

Country	Exports($NZ000)	Imports($NZ000)
The Philippines	$542,698	$114,405
Italy	$437,440	$877,336
Mexico	$428,060	$120,447
Spain	$244,076	$179,412
Brazil	$80,565	$131,168
TOTAL	$1,732,839	$1,422,768

We would then be placing an equal amount of exports at risk, but with our imports from those countries being smaller, we would be the ones to lose in a mutual boycott.

So Sutton and Carter should be asking themselves - should we protect ourselves from Muslim offense, or should we be telling them that in our culture we value the peaceful expression of all views - whether they cause offense to some or not.


Data Source - Stats NZ Top 50 Bilateral Trading Partners, June 2005 (Link: http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/9CBB2DF0-CD28-42F0-BF31-BC4637077828/0/Section5.xls

Holiday Snaps - Part 7 (London)

London was the first stop on our holiday but so many Kiwis have been there that I didn't think there would be much interest. But I have found a couple of photos that I thought might be more original than the obligatory Buckingham Palace and Big Ben.


Here I am holding a GPS on the Prime Meridian - the GPS reading 0 degrees latitude.


On the way to Hampton Court Palace we had to change buses. While waiting for the next bus I leaned up against a telephone box ...


Not technically in London, but that morning we were in London collecting the rental car from a place near Heathrow. And it's a cool picture.

The DomPost and those Cartoons

Today the Dominion Post has published a series of cartoons original published in Danish Newspaper Jutland's Post. The cartoons have sparked outrage in Muslim communities worldwide.

As an aside, the outrage is being expressed in forms counter-productive to improving the western view of Islam - violent protests, storming embassies and flag burning are hardly compatable with a religion that claims to be peaceful. (Yes, I know - I've heard of the medieval crusades.)

While I respect the right of the Newspaper to publish the cartoons (and agree they have the absolute right to do so) I'm a little cynical of the papers reason for doing so. In my mind the cartoon controversy is an issue that can be explored without the cartoons publication. Descriptions of the cartoons and why they are offensive would all that be necessary. Besides, anyone wanting to view the cartoons can just use the internet and see for themselves.

While newspapers and other media often try to be highbrow about their importance in protecting and championing rights in society, I never forget the primary reason why the mass media publish - to sell advertising, magazines and newspapers.

The publication of the cartoons appears to me to be sensationial - the object to sell more copies of the newspaper.

Spot the Difference - Again!

Pete Hodgson is New Zealand's Health Minister and also responsible for Food Standards in New Zealand. So while this statement seems perfectly reasonable:

"I'm very pleased to see growing public awareness of the very real threat obesity poses for New Zealand," Pete Hodgson said. "But it's time for New Zealanders to realise that fighting obesity means a lot more than telling people to eat apples and to start jogging." - Press Release 2nd Feb 2006 from Pete Hodgson, Minister of Health (emphasis added.)

It makes no sense when you realise the same Minister is responsible for this:

"Under the draft rules, the amount of sugar will be taken into account, meaning apples, pears and most stonefruit will be disqualified from health claims because their natural sugar levels exceed 16g per serving." - Article from New Zealand Herald, 17th January 2006.

Holiday Snaps Part 6 - Rome

Rome, The Eternal City. Everywhere you go is there is a car parked - doesn't matter if it's a pedestrian crossing or a footpath.

Rome completely encompasses another country:

Here I am in St Peters Square after the Wednesday Audience.

Rome once ruled virtually all of Europe, Britain, the Middle East and North Africa. Some remnants of that time can still be seen:

David Farrer might recognise the red brick building on the right.

Here's the most famous ruin: