Computer memes, The NZ option Part II, Red Friday, "King/Queen for a day" meme

[tcpip]

Which OS are You?

Which File Extension are You?

Both are disturbingly true.

New Zealand looks even better on every passing day. As long as the maintain a commitment to a high social wage they'll have productive, intelligent and healthy workers. Such social-democratic notions has caused a few heads to turn in the New York Times. Nordic Nations Prevail in Surveys of World's Hot Economies. Also, the medium term political landscape, things look good. Having a look at their last
election suggests to me things look well. Naturally enough, I've applied for a couple of jobs at the University of Otago.

On other employment related issues, I've been taken up by a certain educational publisher as a pre-publication reviewer. My first recommendation was in the negative; I mean really, two hundred pages for a text on ITIL? Give me a break. Also, Excom are interviewing me today as a trainer (well, I know how to teach, that's for sure!).

Paula's debate with the Socialist Alliance and Greens councillor on Thursday went well, albeit the SA still thinks that Australians are concerned about international issues rather than domestic issues. Yeah, sure. Although the Greens speaker probably spoke better on the night, Paula's cautious, unsure yet very practical suggestions seemed to win the day in my mind compared to the slick presentation of the Greens and the chest-beating of SA. In either case we happily announce a political campaign blog! http://paula.alienconcept.com.au/

Meanwhile, this Thursday, orethule is hosting "Political and Philosophy over Drinks & Pizza" at the Fitzroy Star Hotel, Napier Street, Fitzoy, back room, 6:30PM till we get sick of it...

severina_242 and her partner in crime, Kerri, had their "Domos Monstrous" exhibition last Friday. An excellent event, well attended and even with some sales (congratulations)! Meawhile I've been in touch with Kritikos who have expressed interest in a paper on the idea of suburbia as neither bland nor stable, but rather dangerous.

Managed to drag myself and caseopaya out to missmalice's 21st gathering at Polly's on Saturday. Excellent to see the lass, it's been too many years - a fun time (as per the norm at Polly's) had by all.

Finally, this week I'm reworking my business website to fill in a few gaps from the first draft. The front page is becoming a "news" section and the current information there will be moved to an "about" page. I'm also starting a "Red Friday" article - basically a weekly comment about the state of play in various IT issues. The first issue is aggressively entitled "Sack Your Web Designer!". I'll set up an rss feed once I work out how as well ;-) Apart from spending significant parts of the past week finally reading up on integrating PHP and MySQL (which I should have done years ago), I've also been reading Jeffrey Zeldman's "Designing With Web Standards". Which says all the things that I've been saying for years about standards and non-standards. Nice to see that my opinions concur with perhaps the most respected web designer in the world.

Anyway.. The Political Meme: If you were King/Queen for a day what are five policies
you'd implement, with thanks to fraerie

Perhaps surprising to some...

1. Abolish all governments and armies, replacing them with a confederation of "natural republics" who organize the militia and have instituted participatory democracy and universal rights.

2. Abolish and prohibit (i.e., "inalienable rights") all laws that prohibit any self-regarding acts or other-regarding acts based on adult reasoning and informed consent.

3. Abolish all taxes and replace them with resource rents which fund an automatic social wage.

And with those three, I don't think I need a four or five.

Two brainbreakers this week! One from shorxrore

"Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon's own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty. Johnson said the Pentagon listed the bonus on his credit report as an unpaid government loan, making it impossible for him to rent an apartment or obtain credit cards."

Ah well, at least media coverage did good for him. More
here

And the other? Fear, Paranoia and Home Entertainment! Where else can you purchase all three at the same time? (thanks to Br. for this link)

Comments

Re: I was about to say

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

You're a Georgist!,

*looks slyly around* Yes I am, yes I am...

If there's one thing that capitalists and socialists alike should both agree on is the abolition of feudalism.... And it is both the position of the Marxist and Friedmanite that people deserve wages equivalent to their labour (there's a debate over the ownership of machinery, but that's another matter).

Of course, the most sensible thing among economists is that which is ignored for political purposes. You should have seen the debate that I had to go through on the ALPs economic policy committee over the issue. Oh, the political expediency!

What happened in the US over NIT?

Re: I was about to say

[erudito.livejournal.com]

I an running on memory and don't have a link (or even a reference), but they ran a couple of trials with control groups in similar cities.

(Pausing here: trialling public policy first, what a concept!).

Anyway, the burden of the analysis was that the NIT couples were less likely to stay together and NIT participants were less likely to find a job. Presumably, this fed into the earned income tax credit policy.

I sometimes wonder if David Weber, with his dolists in the Honor Harrington universe, has read the above results.

Re: I was about to say

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The problem with NIT is that it's invariably introduced as a replacement for existing social welfare programmes but alongside existing taxation programmes.

For example, in Australia we effectively have NIT in the way payments work - start earning money and your welfare payment is reduced. I recall one peroid when I was working half-time around 1997 when I worked out that with a part-time work and effective NIT unemployment benefits I was receiving less money that I would be if I was only working 1 day per week.

Making someone a "Malibu Surfer" as a rational decision is hardly sensible.

Re: I was about to say

[erudito.livejournal.com]

That the effective marginal tax rates on income support recipients in this country are ludicrous is something that you will get no argument about from me.

The full details of the US trials I am not up on.