}

Saturday, September 29, 2007

AmeriNZ #41 - Saturday Subjects

Episode 41 is now available, and it's free no matter where you get it from. You can listen to it or download it through the player at the bottom of the post here, or subscribe for free through iTunes here (you must have the free iTunes player installed). You can also listen to it for free through the player on my MySpace page.

Today was a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon, and I put together a short podcast to keep up with things. First up it's a brief look at Dominion Day and the evolution of New Zealand from colony to country. Bush's bonehead promise to veto S-Chip leads me into a short talk abut healthcare in New Zealand. Then it's comments and a new Frappr Mappr. Shownotes with links at my blog,

This past week New Zealand had its sort-of birthday. Dominion Day was Wednesday the 26th and marks the date 100 years agao when NZ became a dominion, not a colony. New Zealand now steers a pretty independent course.

One day, New Zealand will become a republic, as the leaders or all the main parties agree.

I added a poll here on my blog asking which, if any, of the NZ authors listed you've actually read. You don't need to have FINISHED what you were reading, just started it. If you haven't read any of them, put that.

This week I heard in the news that Bush has promised to veto the extension of the S-CHIP insurance programme. Yet another example of why that man is an idiot. One month of the spending on his Iraq war would more than fund S-CHIP.

Here in New Zealand, no one needs to go without healthcare, and no one will ever be bankrupted because they get sick or have an accident.

Also: 6 die from brain-eating amoeba in lakes


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I voted on the poll...but I haven't read anything by any of those authors. Oh well.

I heard that story about the brain eating thing...scary. I won't be swimming in any rivers, streams, ponds or lakes anytime soon.

I also agree about not compromising on issues with the right.

I loved Kalvin's comment about NZ being a third world country. hahaha

Anonymous said...

So what do you think of National's grand idea to let doctors set their own fees? We all know how well it works in the U.S. without any caps on health care costs.. mind boggling that anyone would think "market freedom" works with necessities like health care.

Rebel Yankee said...

Meh. I kind of hate being right about the right-wing. :-) Still, it's completely true, isn't it? They bleat and bleat and progressives soften up their bills only to see them vetoed by Bush, whereupon they drop their morals and values altogether just so they don't seem completely useless.
Then the right-wing wins again since their efforts are geared towards either passing their own scary moral agenda or completely obstructing anything remotely whiffing of progress beyond 1776.

Rebel Yankee said...

Oh! I forgot to say: I'm going to beat you in the rankings at PodOmatic...and then I'm going to gloat!
Ok, probably neither of those will happen, but I'll fantasize about the gloating part.

Arthur Schenck said...

Archerr: I was just curious to see how widely-read some of these authors are. I'm not taking away points for not having read them--probably.

The brain-eating amoeba is the sort of thing we'll be hearing more about, no doubt, due to climate change.

Nik: As it happens, I talked about this a little in a post about the National Party. But the gist is that I'm suspicious of their real agenda, which I believe is full privatisation of healthcare, like in America.

Eric: Obvious, probably, but I couldn't agree with you more about the right wing and compromise. As for rankings, well, it's probably inevitable that you'll beat me in the Podomatic rankings, since you've been beating me on the "Most Popular Today" ranking of personal journals. And yet I still plug your show--see what a good friend I am already, even though I don't even know you! "Magnanimity" is my middle name--or, it might be if it started with a different letter and was a name like what my parents might actually have given me.

Kalv1n said...

Of course the same day I listen to your podcast I get a horrible headache. I'm just glad I hadn't been swimming lately. Happy Sort-of Birthday New Zealand. And I'm so happy hello kitty won! She deserves it.