Yawn.. another business confidence survey…
Does anybody else out there wonder why drooping business confidence matters? Okay, business is important but it represents just one part of the economy.
Category archive: Politics
Miscellany – September
Spotted: Not the sort of thing you’d expect in a suburban Street. Certainly not in a nobby Epsom avenue. But things change. After another day’s downpour in this waterlogged Spring, a Gypsy woman emerged from one of the street’s impeccable gardens.
The good news about President Trump…
In the world of politics it cannot be denied, he is a breath of fresh air. What he says in public may be nonsense, but I wish some of our politicians would say what they really think occasionally, instead of being afraid of the media response.
Fresh ideas versus same old, same old…
Oscar Wilde once observed that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. So let’s talk about it, that unprecedented threat to our health and well-being – public service television.
Never mind that we’ve never had it, the mere mention of it makes some in the commentariat fume. Take Mike Hoskings. Nice bloke. Shame about the rash he’s developed over this issue, though he’s not alone. Here’s a take from his comments:
Yey! It’s official – we’re a happy lot!!
Good news for Enzed: we came eighth in World Happiness, one ahead of Australia and Sweden, according to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the UN.
Happiest country of all was Norway, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland in a tightly packed bunch. All of the top four countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. Norway has insulated itself from the boom and bust cycle of many other resource-rich economies.
Fair Go…
The Coalition was just five months old when commentators began their refrain: Stop whingeing about the defects of the last Government they said, as if these were minor failings. They most certainly are not and the licence given by them to Sir John Key to lambast Labour was very liberal – he was still at it in his third term as prime minister.
Slip sliding away?
Democracy is under assault and in retreat around the globe, a crisis that has intensified as America’s democratic standards erode at an accelerating pace, according to Freedom in the World 2018, the latest edition of the annual report on political rights and civil liberties, released today by Freedom House.
Miscellany April
First an editorial confession. We’ve been in Oz, but no, there’s no ball tampering copy here, just this:
Condom machine graffiti: ‘ For refund, insert baby here’.
Aussies are not so much a weird as a witty mob at times. Where some residents with dogs might put up a sign saying ‘Beware of dog’, others choose to let passers-by know with much more precision. Take this for example: ‘My dog can make it to the fence in 2.8 seconds. Can you?’
Transgender troubles
Laurel Hubbard, the transgender weightlifter who will represent New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games, appears to be determined to compete yet thoughtful about the concerns expressed by her detractors. She asks them to ‘look at the bigger picture,’ yet seems unsure if the current laws on transgender participation will remain or evolve, perhaps more in line with the perceptions of athletes who look upon her participation as cheating.