Museum Referendum Pointless

The Tauranga City Council are about to hit the local ratepayers with the bill for a $25 million dollar museum.
In an effort to be seen to be doing the democratic thing, they were going to spend $120,000 on a referendum.
Some councillors objected to this obscene waste of money so they have instead opted to spend $25,000 on phoning up 1000 local VOTERS (not even ratepayers) in a PHONE referendum!
A local RATEPAYER by the name of Ken Evans, has started an online petition, TOTALLY FREE OF CHARGE TO ANYBODY, and will pass on the results to the council.
Tauranga mayor, Stuart Crosby is quoted in the paper saying that the accuracy of his 100 VOTER referendum would be far greater than the online petition Mr Evans has set up. (to which I say BOLLOCKS!)
Here are my thoughts, in a letter to the editor on the subject.

No matter what the outcome of a referendum of any description, I will put money on the fact that the council will proceed with a ratepayer-funded museum regardless. Not all of us are as gullible or as stupid as they believe us to be! Stop wasting ratepayers money on pointless referendums and get on with the museum, as that is what you intend to do. None of you (councillors or mayor) have what it takes to come to any conclusion other than the use of force upon the helpless ratepayers, so the least you can do is stop treating us with such distain and contempt and have the courage of your misguided convictions - then at least when the elections come around again voters will have the opportunity to vote into power a DIFFERENT bunch of councillors (who will undoubtedly force upon us in the same mindless fashion a DIFFERENT wish-list.)
To make matters WORSE (if that is possible) the telephone referendum isn't even of RATEPAYERS only - it is of VOTERS! A bunch of people who do not even PAY rates will get a say in how the money stolen from the RATEPAYERS gets spent! How is THAT for a case of misguided justice - Oh well, they say the people get the government they deserve - That obviously aplies to local government as well.I'm off to the TAB to double my money so I can afford to pay the NEXT rates installment!

Graham Clark
15 poripori road
lower kaimai
543 0334

72 Blows for Freedom

My New Baby!
Yes, here it is, the latest issue of the Free Radical.

Since my last post here, this is what I have been up to. This is more or less how long it takes to put the magazine together, and then recover from being all computered-out!

Lindsay Perigo has stepped down from being the editor after 70 issues, and Peter Cresswell (NotPC) has taken the job over.

I remain the designer, and with the new editor, look forward to giving the magazine a new makeover.

The last two issues have seen a wider range of articles introduced, such as beer reviews, Architecture articles, several new regular columnists just to name a few.

Previously the magazine was only really of interest to those interested in objectivism, but now I believe ANYBODY could pick up the Free Radical and find something of interest - We have even started getting the odd request for advertising, so that is great.

The magazine still retains its Libertarian philosophy focusing on property rights, freedom of the individual, and the pursuit of excellence.

So, every 2 months there will be a week or two where my regular posts will either slow down or cease altogether as I put my time and energies into producing the BEST LIBERTARIAN MAGAZINE in the WORLD.

More on the obesity epidemic

Should the govt start doing something in schools about the obesity epidemic? YES - especially as they are the ones at the root of the problem in the first place! What they should do, and I believe it is a matter of urgency - is that they implement the following strategies immediately.

1. Abolish the die-while-you-wait government health (sic) system. Generations of New Zealanders have been led to a false sense of security that if they get sick it will fix them up! As we know it WONT (- it will just put you on a waiting list - that is if you are one of the LUCKY ones!)

2. Get the govt out of the education sector! After taking responsibility for their childrens education, and hoodwinking Generations of New Zealanders into believing they know what is best for you, we have now been taught only what govts think we should know, and the 1-size fits all mentality has now proven itself to be severally lacking. Give the responsibility for a childs health AND education back to the people it rightly belongs to - the parents, and let them chose the education they desire for their children.

Govt schools are churning out drop-outs at an alarming rate, and it's no wonder - the teachers dont have time to teach the three Rs, they're too busy checking the kids lunch-boxes - do us all a favour and just get out of the way.

Suggesting govt should do something about this epidemic is just asking for more of the medicine that caused the problem in the first instance