The New Zealand labour movement used to have its own newspaper. A group of us thought that now might be a good time for it to be digitally reborn: The Standard v2.0.
Watch this clip from yesterday’s Republican YouTube debate and spare a thought for our progressive mates in the USA.
I like the idea of users submitting their own questions but I’m troubled by the fact that CNN gets to choose the ones that air.
The debate tended to be light on issues like healthcare, education and the Iraq war, focusing instead on moral issues like gun control, abortion and homosexuality.
This looks interesting. Fox Attacks: Iran is a new short film from Robert Greenwald, director of the excellent Outfoxed. The film focuses on the parallels between Fox’s drumbeat for war with Iraq and what’s being said now about Iran. It’s also a plea to other networks not to fall in behind Fox like they did last time.
Here’s what Greenwald has to say:
I remember very clearly the daily fearmongering led by FOX as they cheered for war with Iraq. The 24/7 images, sound effects, yelling and threatening were an ever-present drumbeat for war. We had to invade, and we had to invade now.. anyone who didn’t see that was a traitor. They viciously attacked those of us who worked to get out the truth.
You’d think that with the complete failure in Iraq, those days would be behind us. Sadly, you’d be wrong. FOX wants war with Iran…
This time is different though. We’re prepared, and we have the means to alert people to what FOX is doing. Everyone has seen the terrible tragedy and the awful price paid by so many Iraqis and Americans. We know this is coming, and we can stop it.
It was about this time in the lead-up to the Iraq war when the other TV networks started following FOX’s lead. As CNN’s Christiane Amanpour says in the video, they were intimidated by FOX into cheerleading for the Iraq war.
WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN.
This is a critical moment, and we must send a message to the major television networks urging them to ask tough questions, be skeptical, and tell us what is really happening. They must not follow FOX down the road to another war.
You can sign the open letter over here.
John Key’s new DVD doesn’t tell us much about what National would do in Government, but as we’ve noted before, his choice of Coldplay’s “Clocks” as the theme tune is more revealing than he may have intended.
Here are some of the lyrics:
Lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and pleadCome out of things unsaid
Shoot an apple off my headConfusion that never stops
The closing walls and the ticking clocksAm I part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease
A couple of interesting questions are also raised:
Are National paying Coldplay their royalties for use of their property? They are legally required to do so, as APRA, the body responsible for collecting artists’ royalties, explains.
And, if National are paying out royalties to one of the world’s biggest bands on top of the $50,000 plus in other expenses, how much have National’s secret backers paid out for this 13 minute homage to John Key’s ego?
Should be on around 2pm our time. Time has a good background piece.
The YouTube debate site has currently received around 5000 user-submitted video questions for the Republican candidates. The “winning” questions will be chosen shortly.
Here’s one of the latest to Rudy Giuliani:
From the NYT:
Google, the Internet company with a seemingly limitless source of revenue, plans to get into the business of finding limitless sources of energy…
Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energies like solar, geothermal and wind power. The effort is aimed at reducing Google’s own mounting energy costs to run its vast data centers, while also fighting climate change and helping to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Read the full article.
The Herald reports that:
National has hit its highest rating - 51.3 per cent - in a Herald-DigiPoll survey.
Translated to votes, that would mean the party could govern alone.
Labour has slipped to 13.2 points behind National, increasing last month’s 12.4-point gap…
Helen Clark is still well ahead of Mr Key as preferred prime minister, favoured by 48.7 per cent (down 2.1) to Mr Key’s 36.7 per cent (down 0.6).
Translated to seats, and assuming party leaders with seats retain them, the poll results would give National 65 seats in a 121-seat Parliament, Labour 49, the Maori Party 4 and Jim Anderton’s Progressives, Rodney Hide’s Act and Peter Dunne’s United Future would have one each.
Linda Clark: “This is a gimmick, that’s all it is. if people don’t know John Key, well he needs to come to Parliament more, he needs to be more upfront on some of the policies, he needs to take on Helen Clark a bit more, then we’ll all know the real John Key”.
Just received this from a “concerned reader”:
Just wanted to know whether or not you have also been blocked by NZNats? This morning they have deleted all comments with a hint of an opposing view, with the exception of the ‘TaneStandard’ comment. It offends me that the National Party would post a video which endeavours to let the public know their leader, while censoring the public input about him.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
UPDATE: Looks like it’s true. National is selectively deleting comments and blocking YouTube users with contradictory views. Poor form.
Hold the popcorn. Citizen Kane this isn’t. It’s Citizen Key in a 13-minute epic saturated with more artificial sweetener than The Sound of Music and ET combined and which manages to make National’s leader look about as deep as one of The Stepford Wives.
Read the full article.
Never one to let the facts get in the way of a little party propaganda Farrar really has become the partyline-parrot.
It’s a shame he just couldn’t resist the opportunity to dogwhistle his party’s line on public servants with his meaningless and distortive post on relative growth between (in his words) “teachers and nurses” versus “bureaucrats”.
The core public service has expanded recently, and for good reason:
So Farrar’s “bureaucrats” are prison officers, probation officers, and the admin staff essential for the operation of NZ’s popular Kiwisaver scheme.
Are these the jobs we’d lose under National’s slash and burn approach to the public service?
Just in case you don’t know, today is John Key’s first anniversary as National Party leader and his backers have given him the gift that keeps on giving & well over $50,000 worth of boring propaganda. Others including our good mates at blogblog have done the analysis of the spin behind this one so I thought we’d employ the oldest of journo tricks and follow the money. That’s why I had a talk to a few of my mates in the film industry and guess what? Film ain’t cheap. I’ve had a bit to do at the amateur end of the scale but today I’ve had a crash course in just how rich you have to be to make this sort of thing.
We sat down and identified this as at least two weeks of shooting across at least four locations: Christchurch, Wellington, Porirua and Auckland. We’ve all seen Key’s crew in the Porirua market video. It’s at least a seven person crew. That’s an assistant, two cameras, a soundperson, a director and a couple of stills photographers. For each of these factor in $2000 a week plus expenses (maybe $500 for the assistant) and remember we’re talking expensive expenses & each of these people is being flown around the country being fed and put up in hotels.
Then there’s the cost of gear. The first camera (there are some shoots with three) is probably a digibeta & that’s at least $500 a day and by the time you factor in all the other gear we’re looking at $1000-$2000 a day in gear. And remember there’s probably up to ten days of shoot here. That’s up to $40k on gear and staff alone.
Then there’s the cost of editing. A suite with an editor will run to hundreds of dollars an hour and there’s a good three day edit here. Add to that the cost of a sound mix at $3000(ish) and authoring it to DVD (at least another $2000) and the numbers are starting to add up. And that’s not counting the scripting cost & though I get the feeling our taxes paid that one because I’m sure Key will have a publicly funded communications adviser who can script a shoot.
What really blew my mates away though is the use of Coldplay & the truth is none of us knew what that would cost because it’s just out of the league of anyone we know. But here’s a little story. I went to dinner with a record label owner the other night & nothing special, just a struggling indy label with a few good acts. But here’s the kicker & he’d been approached by an ad company wanting to use one of his songs for an ad campaign in the UK. Their offer for the UK rights for a year? Forty thousand pounds. And that’s for an unknown band. Now, when you use a band’s music on the Internet you need the world rights and when that band’s Coldplay? Man, I can’t even guess what that would cost.
So this is the deal & at least $50,000 just to get the thing made and then who knows how much for the right to play “Clocks”. By the looks of it they’ve shelled out for a MediaOne video advertising campaign on the Herald to promote it too.
Now that’s a lot of money by anyone’s standards and given the fact that it’s a tedious bloody thing (and even the most sycophantic Tory adviser could see that) the question is why? No, scratch that, actually the real question is “Why???” Well I’ve kicked this around and all I can figure is that it’s the old story of them trying to get their spend in early. After all that’s a big chunk of cash they’re spending this year so they have a resource for next year that will be outside of any EFB campaign period.
Amazing, all that cash just so he can sell himself as an ordinary bloke. Happy Anniversary John.
UPDATE: For those arguing our figures are inflated because Key may have relied on volunteers, think again. Looks like he’s engaged the services of Production Shed TV, an outfit that boasts “over 40 years of combined industry experience, along with solid connections to many major industry players.”
John Key’s just admitted the election campaign has already begun, adding further weight to the argument that electoral law needs updating to reflect the increased length of modern campaigns.
Here he is on Newstalk ZB today talking about his ‘heartland tour’ around New Zealand, where he’ll be dishing out thousands of flashy DVDs promoting himself and the National Party.
Mr Key says it is a sign election campaigning is already beginning, despite the election still being a year away. He says National is hitting the ground running for what will be a long campaign.
So tell me again, what’s so unreasonable about counting election spending from January 1 on election year given National’s campaign is already well underway in November?
Wow, so that’s John Key’s announcement: he’s ambitious.
I know I said he’d be short on substance, but maybe that was giving him too much credit.
I also couldn’t help noticing Key’s production crew used some footage from his ill-fated expedition to the Porirua Markets. For those who don’t think they can stomach the stage-managed version, here’s what really happened:
John Key has now been leader of the National Party for a year. But while his salesman’s smile and general novelty factor have pulled him through to date, talk around the gallery is that he’s gone off the boil a bit lately. His profile has dropped, his sensible nice guy image has taken a hit and the agenda has started to turn Labour’s way.
This isn’t good news for a man suffering the scrutiny of his first anniversary and about to head into an election year. Which might explain why the National Party website is advertising a ’special announcement’ this morning at 10.30.
If John Key’s advisers have any sense they’ll try to use this announcement to propel Key back into the spotlight and put a dent in Labour’s poll resurgance. So what kind of announcement will it be? The need for popularity rules out any of Key’s more hard-right policies like privatisation or industrial relations - they’ll want to keep the latter especially quiet after seeing what happened to John Howard on Saturday. It’s too soon to move on tax cuts, law and order’s just been done, and all that can be said has been said on the Electoral Finance Bill (which his deputy is handling anyway).
What’s far more likely, if Key’s strategy with the ‘underclass’ speech is anything to go by, is he’ll attempt to outflank Labour in its own core constituency with a warm fuzzy message that’s short on detail but big on aspiration. This gives the advantage of softening the edges of Key’s hard right agenda while requiring no concrete action. It’ll also paint Labour as having failed the poor, undermining its key strength as the party of social justice and tying into the spin that the government is old and tired and out of ideas.
Key’s mentor David Cameron is a master of this strategy. He’s followed a similar script in the UK and it’s one that Key hasn’t been afraid to borrow from over the last year. Looking at what Cameron’s done recently, two possible themes for Key’s announcement are housing affordability for low-income families or a promise to eliminate child poverty through tax credits and welfare reform.
The housing affordability theme is something that Key mentioned in his conference speech but has gone quiet on since, and it’ll give National a chance to get the jump on Labour on what could turn out to be a major election issue. Meanwhile, the child poverty theme will dovetail nicely into his ‘underclass’ speech and give him a chance to use some more of that aspirational Cameron-style rhetoric that the media are so fond of.
Then again, I could be entirely wrong. What do you think?
Just came across this video on YouTube from last week’s rally in Wellington against the Electoral Finance Bill. This clip has one of the counter-protesters giving an impressive off-the-cuff speech on why the Bill is needed.
Given the anti-EFB crowd’s only line of attack was “you’re from Young Labour” and “reveal your identity” they were kind of on the back foot from the first sentence. The squirming Tory MPs in the background are also good for a laugh. Anyone else thinking ‘ramshackle PR fiasco‘?
Links to other speeches from the rally are available over here.
After 11 years of conservative rule, it looks like Kevin Rudd has led the Australian Labour Party to victory in Australia’s elections. All the networks have called it for Rudd and Labor.
Howard has just conceded (watch the video). Howard may well lose his own seat of Bennelong - he’s trailing with over 75 per cent of the vote counted.
Labor sweeps to victory promising to tackle climate change, restore workers’ bargaining power and withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, all in stark contrast to Howard’s Liberals.
Rudd has said his first priorities will be to sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and withdraw Australian troops.
Though they may win as many as 80 seats of the 150 house seats, according to the ABC Labor may not hold a straight majority of seats in the Senate - the balance being held by smaller parties.
UPDATE: Rudd’s victory speech - video
It’s a bit late, but a reader who was at yesterday’s anti-EFB march has mailed us through some pics from the rally. As David Farrar has noted, the protest march was joined by a small group of activists in John Key and Mr Burns masks chanting things like “What is it that we support? John Key’s election rort!”, “Elections, money, power, cash - Bring back Don Brash!” and my favourite, “2, 4, 6, 11 - We support the Exclusive Brethren!”. Their goal was to expose the real motivations of the bill’s opponents - that is, safeguarding the National Party’s dirty money - and to do so with humour. Judging by the media coverage they pulled it off.
As expected, ten counterprotesters in the midst of a hundred or so angry Tories were always going to be abused and attacked. Here’s one anti-EFB protester who didn’t seem to have much of an appetite for free speech:
And it might just be me, but doesn’t this look like a lot less than 200 people?
The husband of retiring Liberal MP Jackie Kelly and a state Liberal official have been caught distributing fake pamphlets in Western Sydney. The bogus pamphlets purport to come from a militant Islamic group - praising the ALP’s supposed support for the Bali bombers.
The pamphlets have been referred to the Australian Electoral Commission by the ALP. The Liberals’ State Director denied Liberal Party “knowledge or authorisation” of the pamphlets.
These are almost exactly the same words used by National Party General Manager Steven Joyce to deny National Party involvement in the Exclusive Brethren pamphlets distributed in the closing stages of the 2005 election in New Zealand.
We at The Standard would like to wish our US counterparts a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Of course we’d hate to think that just because it’s not a traditional holiday here in NZ we should be in any way deterred from eating till we can’t move as is the tradition in the US - gluttony in the interests of international solidarity.
Ordinary old turkey not your thing? Pictured above is a turducken (Link to NYT) - a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken.
The Wikipedia numbers suggest that a single serving (1/12) will provide nearly the entirety of your daily energy requirements - the vast percentage, as you might expect, from fat. You might want to go for a brisk walk afterwards. I’d suggest 150Km.
Three birds not enough for you? Again from Wikipedia, apparently “The largest recorded nested bird roast is 17 birds, attributed to a royal feast in France in the 19th century - a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting and a Garden Warbler. The final bird is small enough that it can be stuffed with a single olive”…
Though they’re quick to point out that “This dish probably could not be recreated in the modern era as many of the listed birds are now protected species.”
Quelle dommage!
The Dom reports that “A father who spanked his eight-year-old son… for misbehaving… is one of the first to be convicted of assault under the law against smacking”.
As expected, all the usual suspects are up in arms, including Family First national director Bob McCroskrie, who thinks it’s ok to hit kids and doesn’t seem to have given up on his outrageous campaign.
We don’t know much in the way of details but the Dom reports from the courtcase that “Becoming frustrated [my emphasis], the father grabbed his son’s clothes at the shoulder and pulled him on to the bed. The father then flipped the boy over his knee and smacked him three times on the bottom with an open palm, before roughly sitting him back up.”
The boy’s mother [again, my emphasis] pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, is understood to have taken a photograph of the bruise and shown it to a relative, who told police several days later.
Bob McCroskrie points to this case as one of “the law targeting parents”. Seems more to me like a case of parents targeting abuse.
Shame on you Family Fist.
If you’re as sick of hearing this crap as I am from Bob McCroskrie please give him a call on 09 261 2426 or fax him on 09 261 2520 - tell him it’s time to start sticking up for kids rather than the grownups who assault them.
Alternatively, take 30 seconds and email him from this form.
