A real live probligo!!!...

Thanks to Jim Hopkins and his book "Inventions from the Shed" I can bring a a picture of a real, live "probligo". 

This one was built mid-60's for the express purpose of travelling over very wet ground (note the mud?), and on steep hillsides to rescue sheep in distress.

The tiller instead of handlebars?

1. "We didn't have any handlebars.
2. "There was this nice piece of macrocarpa in the back of the shed and it worked."
3. "Ever tried hanging on to a sheep, not falling off and steering all at the same time?"

Any others?

Why do I do these? - Vanity, o vanity...

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||||||||| 63% Stability |||||||||||||||| 70% Orderliness |||||| 23% Altruism |||||||||||||||| 70% Interdependence |||||||||||||||||| 76% Intellectual |||||||||||||||| 70% Mystical || 10% Artistic |||||||||||| 43% Religious || 10% Hedonism |||||||||||| 43% Materialism |||||||||| 36% Narcissism |||||||||| 36% Adventurousness |||||||||| 36% Work ethic |||||||||||| 50% Self absorbed |||||| 30% Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 50% Need to dominate |||||| 30% Romantic |||||||||||| 43% Avoidant |||| 16% Anti-authority |||||||||||| 50% Wealth |||||| 30% Dependency |||||| 23% Change averse |||||| 30% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 63% Individuality |||||||||||||||| 70% Sexuality |||||||||||||| 56% Peter pan complex |||| 16% Physical security |||||||||||||||||| 76% Physical Fitness |||||| 24% Histrionic |||||| 23% Paranoia |||||| 30% Vanity || 10% Hypersensitivity |||||||||||| 43% Female cliche |||| 16%

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Hat tip to Owlish mutterings

How loud can I say "FREE ENTERPRISE!!"

Among the freebie newsmedia that comes across my vision from time to time was this little gem…

Americans, read and weep. THIS is what free economy, technical advancement and entrepreneurship is all about…

“It makes me proud to be a New Zealander, but frustrated because every dollar comes out of our pockets [compared with other countries with unlimited Government backing].

“We can’t confirm or deny sales because of who we deal with. But the books look good.

“Development costs are enormous and we are always looking for investors. I’m trying to keep the business in New Zealand because it’s good for growth and development, new skilled jobs and another industry.”

The US Government recently gave $0.5bn to a UAV developer. In comparison, the New Zealand Government recently gave its first grant to the aerospace industry when Pacific Aerospace Corporation received $480,000 from the Growth Services Fund to develop and enhance its manufacturing capability.

Economic development minister Jim Anderton says the grant is for international certification in targeted markets, expanding capacity, and developing human capital.

The Growth Services Fund is accessible only for companies identified as having clear and significant growth potential, for whom a development plan has been compiled.

Note please, that PAC is NOT the designer of this little beauty. Their grant was for the marketing of another aircraft…


For the technically minded…


Later edit...

To add another -

If you own a GPS or cell phone, there is a 65% probability that the oscillator that drives it comes from this company. Here is their home page.

Robin Cook - political visionary 1949 - 2005

In late 2002, just prior to the US unilateral declaration of war against Iraq, Robin Cook, then Foreign Minister in the Blair government, gave his boss clear warning that to move unilaterally against Saddam would be a serious mistake. It would be a mistake under several headings; international law, relations between Britain and the international community, humanitarian considerations in Iraq, and the efficacy of the war in terms of the (then) stated objectives. It was at that time, in a heated debate with some rabid American right whingers, that I described Cook as likely the most honest politician of the decade, and probably of the century.

He resigned from the Blair Cabinet, winning himself many supporters as a result. Not long after he began writing as columnist for the Independent. The Independent has set up a chronological index to Cook’s writings. As a one man history of the Iraq war and Britain’s place in it, it makes for quite chilling reading.



This one passage from March 2004 will become the popularist epitaph of the man, but there can be no more fitting tribute to his vision and foresight…

It says much about the nervousness in Government over Iraq that they have no plans to mark tomorrow's anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. This is very sensible on their part. Any retrospective examination would inevitably draw attention to questions that they find increasingly difficult to answer - such as why they ever believed Saddam was a threat since he turns out to have had no nuclear programme, no chemical or biological agents, and no delivery system with which to fire them.

A fitting way to mark the anniversary would be to drive a stake through the doctrine of pre-emptive strike and bury it where it cannot be disinterred to justify another unilateral military adventure. The new Bush doctrine claimed the right to make war on any country that could be a potential threat some years down the road. Iraq has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that intelligence cannot provide evidence reliable
enough to justify war on such a speculative basis.

…

Tony Blair is right when he insists that there can be no opt out from terrorism for any individual country. The lethal energy of al-Qa'ida makes no nice distinctions between those who opposed the invasion of Iraq and those who supported it. Given popular sentiment in Spain it is almost certain that nine out of ten of those murdered in Madrid had opposed the Iraq war. There is no certificate of immunity which can be obtained from al-Qa'ida. The rational approach is to ask whether our actions are making the world as a whole safer from their malign intentions.

The sober, depressing answer to that question must be that the invasion of Iraq has made the world more vulnerable to a heightened threat from al-Qa'ida, which is precisely what our intelligence agencies warned the Government on the eve of war. The bombs in Madrid resulted in the worst terrorist atrocity in Europe for 15 years and were the latest in a litany of murderous assaults from Turkey to Morocco.

…

Part of the problem of the present Western approach on terrorism is the insistence of our leaders in Washington and London on describing it as a war. As a metaphor the language of war may be a forceful means of expressing the priority our security forces should put into defeating terrorism. Unfortunately too many in the Bush Administration appear to have been misled by their own language into believing that terrorism can be beaten by a real war, as if we can halt the terrorist bombs by
dropping even bigger bombs of our own.

In truth we would have made more progress in rolling back support for terrorism if we had brought peace to Palestine rather than war to Iraq, but President Bush's promise that he would give priority to peace in the Middle East has become another of the commitments given before the invasion and broken in the year after it.

Not Britain alone, but the world is poorer for his passing.

The election "hots up"...

As has been mentioned in other rants on this page, NZ is heading for its General Elections. It is an exercise in our own small town equivalent of “pork barrel politics”, the level of debate reaches that of the kindergarten sandpit at times, there is much learned debate in the news media most of which is wrong or misquoted if you believe the politicians and their press officers, there are tv circuses complete with worms… and eventually it is decided who is going to get locked in the beehive.

But not all of it is serious stuff. The Spectrum doco I mentioned earlier is one of those classics that (perhaps in three years time) would bear re-broadcast.

On the route I use to and from work there is this billboard. It is one of many, but this one in particular. The connection to the elections might seem tenuous without close contact to the local political scene but it leads from a note in the bottom right corner to this.



Now as a “poll” or even a “survey” it probably holds little water. But I have to admit that it does tickle the fancy just a little. Did I enter my vote? No. I am not a great fan of chilli-laced pizza.

Oh!! The billboard? What did it have on it?

That is one of the best chuckles of the lot.

One of those very nice, smiling, well posed and composed, best photo-op head and shoulders portraits of –

GEORGE W. BUSH.

Underneath reads – “Even hell has its standards.”