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Meanwhile, government works at lowering the barriers to entry for immigrants so that we can top-up the declining numbers of skilled people that this graduate brain drain appears to be causing.

That one in five of our youngest and brightest are fleeing the country probably can't be denied -- but the real question must be: is this really a bad thing?

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At first glance, it would appear that having these people disappear is a real cost to the country. Taxpayers have invested many tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in providing their education and suddenly some other country scores the benefits of that investment.

But could it be that many of these people will return home after a few years, no longer naive graduates but as *experienced* and skilled workers with not just a thorough understanding of their chosen discipline but also a very useful understanding of how to apply that knowledge to New Zealand's advantage?

New Zealand operates in a very competitive global market and without a good understanding of how those competitors think and operate, we are at a disadvantage.

If our "brain drain" workers return, armed with this valuable information it greatly strengthens our own ability to produce world-class products and market them.

Or I could be completely wrong and simply playing devil's advocate.

What do you think? Is the brain drain actually a long-term brain gain?

We're not pirates
According to this story, New Zealand ranks second only to the USA in terms of low piracy rates. Our cousins across the Tasman rank a surprising 10th.

I certainly hope that the local recording industry is aware of this and that they'll stop treating their customers like criminals and realise that some of the proposed changes to copyright law (such as allowing format-shifting) are not going to see their little empire crumble to dust.

One thing's for sure, it seems that Australia is not only following George W into the "war against terror" but now also into the "war against piracy".

A regular topic of discussion is whether New Zealand ought to become just another state of Australia -- well let me suggest that perhaps it's now far more likely that Australia will become another state of the USA.

Pictures of the unexplained
Here's something I spied over at Slashdot. This picture is very interesting and so far a raft of possible explanations have been suggested in the resulting discussion. Don't forget to click on the image to see the much larger hi-res version and take a good look around the exploding street-lamp.

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