Bear's Blog New Zealand (Beta)

Time for a break...

I don't think I can update this blog as regularly as before for next month. Amount of my work is bit out of control(partially my fault too as I didn't follow the time frame, spent too much time watching Olympics).

I'm not really a very sporty people but hey ... I'm in New Zealand.

Here has another good excuse that you can use for being lazy. The only downside of that excuse is, it's a seasonal thing so you cannot use that all year around.

shocked

I am absolutely shocked to see ban on sex selective fertilisation is recommened by the Bioethics Council, a ministerial advisory committee to be loosen.

Whether this happens in mother's womb, or in vitro fertilisation, the practice is highly unethical, and very wrong to allow people playing god, unless it is necessary treat a genetic disorder or disease.

What fundamentally wrong about this, is that all the reasoning for this recommendation is based on the assumption that a child is the property of his/her parents so parents have the right to choose between a boy or girl, just as the freedom of choice people exercised in clothing colours when they are shopping around.

It doesn't take a moment to realise that this is very wrong.

If every one wants to exercise the freedom of choice, then the unborn babies are also human being, they also should have the right to choose whether he/she wants to be born as the child of such parents, or choose not to be born.

But babies cannot speak. So at end of the day it's the group who cannot stand for themselves suffer.

Apart from ethical issues, this will also create gender imbalance in our population.

One of the reasoning the bioethical council used to justify this selective fertilisation is that parents who had three boys or girls should have the right to have a opposite sex baby.

I have serious question on those councillors' professionalism in this field. Yes that is the fact, but the larger fact is that if I got three boys, it is very likely that a family somewhere else in New Zealand also got three girls, thus maintaining an overall natural balance.

If every one who got three boys or girls go for sex selective fertilisation, the gender balance would not become a problem. But the problem is, not everyone will act in this selfish way.

This issue has to be consulted properly, not just a report or 700 people's opinion.  Any rush on rule changes will cost us our country's future.

Sex selective fertilisation should only be allowed if it is for the well-being of the child, not parents.

About ... the oil price

Caltex raised the petrol price at NZ $2.06 per litre for #91 in Auckland earlier today. This price is simply mad, and more people are now really feeling the pinch.

When I first settled in New Zealand, that price was around 90 cents.

I started to commute by bus around the time when the price of oil was somewhere around $1.80. The fuel cost simply does not justify the benefits of our car dependent lifestyle. I now need around $100 to fill up the tank, however, the monthly bus ticket, which costs just about the same.

If you are that sort of people who work in one place, and live in another place 50km away, I think it’s the time to change your lifestyle. Next time when you are on the move, try to move somewhere close to your workplace, or at least close to a public transport.

Yes, it is a little sacrifice of freedom of moving around, but it saves you a considerable amount of money, and our environment.

That’s also why we need to buy back the railway system, make it a not-for-profit service.

However, our daily commuting is only a small part of adverse effect resulted by this high oil price. Nearly everything in this society is sort of oil related. Food, daily commodities ... nearly everything we use was transported by oil-dependent transportation like Airplane or ships at some stage.

High oil price fuels inflation, especially on basic commodities like food.

Dr Cullen may has his point on not to cut the tax on petrol, but something has to be done to save suffering families, otherwise what’s the point to have a finance minister receives his salary from tax payer’s money, but doing nothing?

May I suggest removal of GST on basic food like milk and bread. It’s not major source of government income, yet it is important for the survival of families.

Also, taxing food is something that’s simply very wrong anyway.Right to life is one of the essential human rights in Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so why should any form of government or authority has the power to tax on my survival?

I also have serious concerns on what kind of roles oil companies have played. When the oil price increased oversea, they usually reacted by a price hike in very next day, regardless of the fact that the oil they purchased oversea need about a week or two to be transported to New Zealand.

But when the price oversea is down, those international oil companies suddenly all start to remember the fact that the oil we use here were purchased when the price was still high, so no price cut.

I read about this somewhere a long time ago, it was said that government was monitoring the profit margin of those oil companies, and the margin was quite consistent.

I have found it very hard to believe.

Anyway, we are in the middle of a crisis. My prediction is that the #91 price will peak about $3.5~4 a litre before any relief from international market.

No matter where the price will peak, it is very unlikely that the oil price can every be reduced the “good time” level, i.e. 90 cents per litre.

Unless ... one day we suddenly discovered a large reservoir of oil below Southern Alps or Auckland Islands, or genetic modifications enable us to grow a pair of wings on everyone’s back.

Unfortunately, both are very unlikely to happen in a near future.

So a total lifestyle change is the way to go.

"Least we forget"

Source: Chinese Wikipedia/User:NinjaBear | Released under cc-by 2.0

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning
We will remember them. Lest we Forget.

New Screen!

My old screen just recently died out so I dissappeared from here for quite a time.

As a student, I need a fortune to acquire a new 22" widescreen, but after few days of use, I can be sure that the money is well worth it. It has a very high cost-benefit ratio, the screen is not too large and too expensive, like the 24" ones in school, too large and you can hardly utilise all screen area at any moment. 22" is just about right to fit two word page in one screen, and you will no longer feel annoyed by the tool boxes in Photoshop.

Highly recommanded for people who usually do a lot of word and picture processing but is on a budget. You can buy a budget brand with decent quality at the cost of around NZ$ 350 -400.

It's bit hard to find a desktop background for widescreen monitors, so I made my own one. It's a resized （1680*1050） photo showing the Great Orion Nebula. Since the original photo is from NASA Hubble Telescope, it is not copyrighted - you can use it for whatever you like.

New Year...

I'm not the "party type" of person who usually go out and go crazy in holidays. I more prefer to travel around, or at least sit in front of TV and have a lazy ... and a relax new year.

What really saddens me is the programmes on New Zealand Television and radio. Vienna New Year's Concert is a must for my new year since when I was 8 or something.

I don't know how New Zealand TV looked like when I was 8, but for all the years I have been here, I haven't seen anything rather than outdated movies and usually soaps on tv during the New Year holiday.

Even the Radio New Zealand Concert won't play anything impressive for new year.

I don't want download programmes through torrent network, but I'm tired to listen to BBC radio 3 online every year for the concert, without seeing any pictures.

Aussies, even african countries can enjoy the concert live on TV. I guess this is just another reason why the grass in greener on other side of the ditch.