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Grrrr ... | Jun 17, 2005 12:23
And so out come the climate change deniers, with the news that the official numbers on our Kyoto Protocol obligations have been revised and, rather than possibly being due a credit of $500 million when things are settled up in 2012, we are more likely to owe $500 million in carbon credits that we would be obliged to purchase from another nation.
The earlier calculations were wrong in two respects - on the way forest coverage was calculated, and on the additional pollution generated by a rapidly growing economy. But the response since the news has been somewhat hysterical. Nick Smith is high up in the Herald story declaring that the New Zealand economy will take a "hammering" on the costs for the period between 2008 and 2012.
Bollocks it will. Core government spending (excluding SOEs) between now and now and 2012 will be something like $430,000,000,000 between now and 2012. Likely Kyoto exposure is $500,000,000. Work it out for yourself. Or, if you prefer, think of it as half the increase in health spending in this budget year.
The Dom Post is even madder today, headlining its story Labour admits $1bn Kyoto botch-up, giving the impression that somehow the Labour Party is confessing to some evil deed (I bet it's that bloody Mike Williams again …). I'm not even sure it's accurate to call it a botch-up: better economic modelling led to a revision of original estimates. Shit happens. DPF has gone right off the edge, implying that Labour has actually done something (apart from, along with most of the developed world, ratifying the protocol) to cost the taxpayer $500 million. It's bullshit, and I'm sure he knows it is.
What Labour did do was dig its own grave by spending the last two or three years touting the best-case scenario of a $500 million refund and declaring that National would be tearing up a great big cheque if it de-ratified Kyoto. I hope that teaches them a lesson. Sell the programme on its merits, not on its best possible outcome.
Meanwhile, the self-styled experts are piling into DPF's forums to declare that they know much better than the science academies from all the G8 countries plus China, India and Brazil.
This reminds me a lot of the mad end of the anti-GE lobby, which is to this day quoting factoids long debunked. There was the alleged outrage of Science and Nature refusing to publish a study that claimed a majority of leading climate scientists doubted the evidence on anthropogenic global warming. Actually, it wasn't published because it was rubbish.
Another favourite is something along these lines: "Aha! But if climate change is happening, why are most of the world's glaciers advancing rather than retreating!? It's a lefty plot! Etc, etc ..." Actually, the evidence is unequivocal: most of the world's glaciers are retreating.
George Monbiot (with whom I disagree on a number of things, but not this) conducted an amusing fisking on loopy naturalist David Bellamy, who had claimed in a letter to New Scientist that 555 of the world's 625 glaciers had been advancing since 1980. This non-fact spread quickly amongst deniers and I've had it quoted to me in emails. Monbiot took the fairly simple step of sending Bellamy's letter to the World Glacier Monitoring Service. Their reply? "This is complete bullshit."
Anyone interested in an expert commentary on Bellamy's similarly bogus campaign against wind energy can listen to a radio interview I did on Wednesday with IRL energy engineer David Haywood.
Kyoto is imperfect. Getting our carbon emissions down to comply with it will carry a stiff economic cost. There are reasonable arguments that it is not the best way of handling the looming crisis. But you'd better have a pretty good Plan B, because the scientific consensus is emphatically that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that it is a critical problem.
Now, National is dangling the idea that in government it would consider defaulting on New Zealand's Kyoto obligations, breaking an international contract. No sign of a Plan B there; just the most craven short-term political advantage. If I sound pissed off about this, it's because I fucking well am pissed off. Grrr …
Anyway, thanks to Anthony Trenwith for news that the soon-to-be-Bishop Tamaki has a website and - by the look of pages removed overnight and replaced with a placeholder - plans a glorious national tour. I can hardly wait. Contact me for the dates if you're interested.
The US right-wing attack machine is in overdrive at the moment in the wake of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin saying this on the Senate floor this week:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
"On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor."
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
People are outraged. No, not because torture is being practiced at Guantanamo. But because Durbin said, hey, this is the kind of thing that pitiless despotic regimes do …
One Good Move has the Fox News Hannitty outrage clip. Note how they edited out the icky bits from the paragraph above, in case anyone were to get the idea that anything untoward is going on at Gitmo. In a similar vein, Al Franken catches Fox's Bill O'Reilly editing Sen. Joe Biden to twist the story his way. This really is quite astonishing, even for Fox.
But if you want really astonishing, check out the Republican walkout from House committee hearings on the Patriot Act, after tricky questions from people on the floor, including James Zogby. The Democrat representatives had their microphones turned off. I was actually quite gobsmacked by this: it's banana republic stuff. The video is on the multimedia page at TruthOut.org, along with quite a bit of other stuff.
And the Daily Show on political fencing over Gitmo …
Clever. Not. | Jun 15, 2005 09:40
Well, the government needed Graham Kelly like it needed a hole in the head. The comments by the former left-wing Labour MP for Mana as High Commissioner to Canada have left it yet again on the defensive, and with no really good options either way.
The transcript of evidence to Canada's Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is online here. In context, the remarks look a little less offensive (some of what Kelly has to say about reform of the fishing industry is quite interesting) - but no less foolish, ill-advised or embarrassing. Kelly - never the sharpest knife in the caucus drawer, which is why he's in Canada rather than Cabinet - clearly thought he was being clever. Not.
He could have said that the government has worked with the leaders of migrant communities to emphasise the importance to New Zealand of conservation practices, which would have been true. He could have noted that some people try and cheat the system, which would have been true. He could have phrased his anecdote about the Pacific Island church congregation "strip-mining" a beach in such a way as to make it clear that not all PIs do this. In short, he could have taken Craig Ranapia's advice in a post over at Kiwiblog:
Perhaps the next time Mr. Kelly wants to wax lyrical on history and ethnography, he should 1) know what the fuck he's talking about, and. 2) learn the difference between the Canadian legislature and open mike night at a second rate comedy club (or a NZFirst rally which is much the same thing).
Ironically, the story actually emerged in the newsletter of Murray McCully, who has not been renowned for his sensitivity to Maori interests. From there, it was a ballistic press release from Tariana Turia, a rare foray from Act's generally invisible Kenneth Wang and a stern statement from National's Pansy Wong.
Overnight, Kelly "unreservedly apologised to all New Zealanders", which naturally wasn't enough for Wong and the Greens' Metiria Turei on Morning Report today. Turei wanted him to return to New Zealand to personally apologise to all the communities he had offended (I kept picturing a sort of repentance roadshow) and Wong declined to acknowledge that he had in fact apologised. You could hear Phil Goff's pounding headache loud and clear on 101.4 FM.
Final irony: Kelly got a largely sympathetic hearing from the Nat-Act voters posting to DPF's blog. We live in confused times …
Especially so where Michael Jackson is concerned. The bizarre Flash animation posted at one of his official sites, mjjsource.com (remember his "innocence" day alongside the birth of Martin Luther King, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the freeing of Nelson Mandela …) says pretty much everything you need to know about the delusional nature of the Jackson organisation. The site itself is currently swamped, but there's a story about it here. Jackson was once astonishingly great. Now he's just astonishingly, sadly weird.
But hardly innocent either ... | Jun 14, 2005 11:27
Michael Jackson has been found not guilty of a set of child molestation charges, and perhaps that was inevitable, given the huge doubt exposed in his trial as to the character of the accuser's mother in particular. But it would take an appalling effort of denial to still believe, as many will, that he is the innocent, the eternal child.
Jackson's private quarters - the supposed haven for children - was groaning with pornography when police raided in November 2003.
In his bedroom - where, according to evidence, he shared a bed with the same child every night for a year - the only videos were four Barely Legal DVDs and a Hustler documentary. Copies of Barely Legal and other magazines were found in the same nightstand as a picture of and emails from his accuser, and also at the foot of Jackson's bed and in a briefcase in the room.
There was (along with booze) porn in the bathroom too: including an "art" book called The Boy: A Photographic Essay (I Googled the book title and it does indeed appear to be considered a classic amongst fanciers of child erotica - and, no, I am not linking to those sites.). There was porn in his den and in another closet.
None of the material was illegal, but that's hardly the point. What kind of person takes other people's children into such an environment? And would you let Michael Jackson sleep with your son? As one of the jury said in an intriguing press conference after the verdict: "What mother in her right mind would allow that to happen?"
When the jurors were asked which of the 140-odd witnesses they found credible, several named Jesus Salas, Jackson's former house manager, and Kiki Fournier, the housekeeper. This was fascinating: Salas' evidence was of seeing Jackson emerge from his wine cellar with three children who appeared to be drunk, and that Jackson drank heavily and frequently in the presence of various children. Fournier undermined the accusers' claims at several points, but also said she had seen other children in Jackson's care apparently drunk "three or four times".
One thing was clear: most of the jurors clearly did not like the accuser's mother, Janet Arvizo; her stint on the witness stand appears to have hugely damaged the prosecution. But they emphasised that they paid close heed to hard evidence and the stipulation of "reasonable doubt". On the evidence, they may well have been correct to find Michael Jackson not guilty. But on the same evidence, it would be difficult for anyone to really think him "innocent".
Don't describe, characterise | Jun 13, 2005 11:41
I was driving on Saturday to buy Tze Ming lunch, by way of reward for that great post, listening to Winston Peters being interviewed at length on National Radio. I realised that what he almost always does is to characterise, rather than describe, his party's policies.
Hence, NZ First's immigration policy is simply in line with those of all successful, sensible nations; its economic policy is simply a reflection of mainstream international wisdom, which is set against the free-market madness of the two major parties. Indeed, when it's not pure waffle ("implement a programme of thoroughly researching prospective markets, of facilitating ease of entry into these markets, and of ensuring that we have the best possible match between what we are producing and the demands of these markets") the party's economic policy is a flashback to the fortress economics of socialists like Wolfgang Rosenberg (or, if you prefer, Tories like Rob Muldoon). Like the immigration policy, it regards the world outside as a threat rather than an opportunity.
Brian Easton has written in defence of Rosenberg, but I find myself agreeing more with Chris Trotter ("Has socialism really degenerated to a demand that working people pay more for the shirts on their backs so that the jobs of a handful of their number can be protected forever?"). NB: I originally mistakenly attributed the speech to Daniel Silva, on whose site it appears. I am an occasional dunderhead.
At any rate, I'm no expert, but on the face of it, this policy is markedly to the left of Labour, and it's hard to see that, if he actually takes it seriously, Peters would find much common ground with National.
I meant to go home after lunch, but got waylaid looking for a Morrocan rub at Millie's of Ponsonby. Millie's had a sale, but I didn't buy anything. I never do there. And then I wandered next door into Moa-Hunter Books and eventually emerged with, among other things, a copy of Gordon Dryden's 1978 book, Out of the Red. (Following, I should note, a recent instruction from Dryden himself to go to a second-hand bookshop and do just that.)) It's a book absolutely screaming with ideas, some more sound than others. But I really think his ideas about the media, crystallised in Muldoon's New Zealand, were ahead of their time. He could see that the great promise of electronic media technology was to actively involve the mass of people. He thought it would be television; it turned out to be the Internet.
Anyway, the Weekend Herald had an intriguing story about a study of parents of young children, many of whom, it seems would like a free and frank discussion with Helen Clark about "over the top PC" and "social engineering". But the only example of such given in the story is oddly revealing: "they hear things like they are not allowed to have an egg and spoon race in schools anymore."
They hear, of course, completely wrong. As Dog Biting Men pointed out in a great post in February, the decisions on food practices in a couple of schools and playcentres are nothing to do with government coercion, but the opposite. They have been made by groups of parents given the autonomy to gather and make such decisions themselves. The government's only role has been to extend to them that autonomy. God knows how you get that across though …
Professor John Burrows has a timely word of warning for bloggers about what they say - or what other people say on their sites - about the Graham Capill trial. In a way, this is really notice that blogs have arrived enough to matter. But the Herald has aborted at least one trial in recent years through thoughtless cover - it would be nice to think bloggers could avoid that.
Cringely is creating quite a stir with his theory that Apple Computer's sensational switch to Intel processors foreshadows a merger between Apple and Intel, with Steve heading off to run a Pixar-Disney-Sony entertainment colossus. Interesting: but Cringely has been wrong before. And according to ZDNet's George Ou, he's wrong in some key respects this time.
The new progressive multimedia site Common Bits has the torrent for a video of BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen speaking at Stanford University in March. Cohen swivels around in his chair constantly, and has an annoying giggle, but what he has to say about what he's trying to achieve with the BT architecture is quite interesting.
There's also a torrent for Triumph the insult comedy dog's encounter with the mad Michael Jackson fans. It's cruel but funny. For non-BT users, Norm at One Good Move has a QuickTime 7 version.
The Times, which broke the "Downing Street memo" story, has an even more damning follow-up. A leaked cabinet briefing paper indicates what you probably already knew - the Americans had decided before April 2002 to invade Iraq, the British would be expected to provide bases, and everyone needed a pretext. The idea was not to get Saddam to agree to demands, but to construct demands that he might refuse. You may notice something of a disconnect with the official version here …
Funny thing is, I know exactly where I was while Blair's Cabinet was looking for a fix at the July 23, 2002 meeting: still celebrating the long and excellent day that had been my 40th birthday; about as happy as I've been. It's a funny old world order …
What are they smoking? | Jun 10, 2005 10:59
For sure, yesterday's poverty data were rushed out from the Social Report not due to land until next month. Along with the leaflet that arrived in our letterbox this week ("The 2005 Budget: securing your future … You're better off with Labour") they probably represent a hurried Plan B. But Labour must still be thinking they deserved more generous coverage than they got.
The real significance of the numbers is that they hark back to the promises Labour made when it took office in 1999 - to turn back the development of a permanent underclass and help the most vulnerable to regain a role in society -and which have rather disappeared from the debate since.
The "poverty line" is an odd measure, in that it's a moving target calibrated against median incomes, but the fact that a long trend has been turned back in the last three years is really remarkable. The marked improvement in outcomes for sole-parent and Maori families more so. (And anyway, those who believe income equality is a suffocating economic influence can still comfort themselves with the fact that the rich continue to get richer …)
There has been no political response so far from National, but there is this message from a strange woman claiming to be a New Zealand First MP. It claims, bizarrely, that "the statistics also fail to account for the increase in strikes from disgruntled workers seeking better wages and working conditions." Eh?
I didn't really understand Muriel Newman's 'Smarmy Maharey' press release either. And I was roughly as dumbfounded by Global Peace and Justice Auckland's Parasites on Poverty Campaign - 10 Most Guilty, which declared a string of MPs "guilty" of representing poor electorates - or, um, rich electorates …
But GPJA is, at least targeting loan sharks and pokie operators; both of them a blight on the poor. Unless you're in the United Future Party, of course: in which case, pokies are harmless fun that brightens up our lives. You may foolishly believe you'd rather be in a pub alongside a bunch of potheads, as opposed to a crowd of dead-eyed pokie junkies, but clearly, you are not a United Future MP.
I mean, their drug policy … what are they smoking?
But by means of introduction, let's start with UF's "role of government" policy, which leads their 2005 policy page.
United Future would undertake an immediate review of all legislation and regulations that impose coercive powers and administrative burdens on businesses to ensure the impact on business is minimised, consistent with the overall public interest.
So: sort of harm minimisation for business. But if you're just a private citizen, you can confidently expect to be coerced and burdened every whichway.
Most notably, anyone on a first-time drug offence would be "required to undergo treatment whether they receive a custodial sentence or not." Exactly what would "treatment" of a 20-year-old caught with a joint comprise? And by what public health reasoning would you justify "treatment" for as many as 10,000 people a year who overwhelmingly are not actually sick?
The obsession with poking, pricking and re-educating doesn't stop there. What do you make of "encourage comprehensive employee assistance programmes in return for reduced ACC levies, to ensure there are no barriers to implementing testing"? Does that mean financial incentives for employers to drug-test their staff? It would appear so.
Peter Dunne completely lost the plot on Checkpoint, telling Mary Wilson that teenagers caught with a joint could expect a prison sentence (as noted, the actual policy only mandates the dreaded compulsory re-education) if United Future got its way. It would, he maintained, teach people that drugs are bad. It is more likely to teach them that the law is an ass.
Here's the relevant part of the most recent Drug Use In New Zealand survey conducted by the Alcohol & Public Health Research Unit at Auckland University. It demonstrates, as previous surveys have, that a little over half of New Zealanders will try marijuana, and that most of them will stop using it. By far the most common reason for people stopping is that they actually don't like it any more. By comparison, the law barely figures.
Other gems from the UF policy:
Regularly review the classification of drugs to ensure that they accurately reflect their health, behavioural and social effects, and only allow them to move upwards into more serious classes of drugs.
So, gather evidence, but only accept that which fits our pre-existing view. Not yer scientific types, then …
Alcohol does make the occasional appearance in the policy:
Institute a zero blood alcohol level for all drivers under the age of 25.
So the majority of New Zealand's rugby players won't be allowed to have a single beer after the game - even a light beer - and legally drive home. Gee, that'll go down well …
The total effect of UF's proposed policies is to establish them as the most interfering, censurious, morally prescriptive party ever to have a place in the New Zealand Parliament. And quite mad too: their hilarious proposal to fund tax cuts by "selling down" 40% of key SOEs completely ignores everything we have learned about privatisation. Propose selling an SOE altogether if you wish, but please, don't pretend that an attempt at a 40% privatisation would be anything other than a bloody debacle.
Nandor has a press release about the UF drug policy.
Staying with moral prescription, The Fundy Post has a substantial update on the Watchdog controversy - which concerns exactly who is governing what Internet content can be viewed in New Zealand schools, what they're blocking and, frankly, where the hell these people get off. File under "actually quite important".
With the entry of Sue Kedgley to the MeNZB debate we appear to have reached the red herring stage. Going ahead without Phase 3 trials - which demand either a very large sample or years of data collection - is the consequence of a fairly straightforward ethical decision.
There are no efficacy data on the MeNZB vaccine because the vaccine targets the New Zealand epidemic strain of meningococcal disease and thus has not been used anywhere else. But once you've decided to embark on an immunisation campaign, and you have data from your own clinical trials (which demonstrate an antibody response in about 75% of recipients) and evidence of the efficacy of similar vaccines in large campaigns overseas, do you actually wait another five years to roll it out - and accept that a number of people will die or be disfigured in the interim?
I think the efficacy information given on the MeNZB parental consent form is accurate and adequate. I don't buy the conflict-of-interest claims regarding the approval process made by some anti-vaccine campaigners, and the attempt - absent evidence - to link deaths to the vaccine is scurrilous.
But I also feel comfortable with the criticisms I have previously offered here of the vaccination campaign (and which have played some part in the present news cycle). The MoH's consumer advice has been bland and vague and has not prepared parents for the impact or frequency of adverse reactions. And if the campaign had to roll through the flu season, parents should have been better prepared for consequent issues.
Our 14 year-old - for whom a second MeNZB shot and a flu infection coincided, or nearly so - is nearing the end of his third week away from school and I don't have much confidence that he'll be back on Monday. The only other time I can recall him being so sick for so long is when he was about three and got food poisoning. His GP, who has seen quite a number of adverse reactions, recommended that he not have his third shot until he was back to full health.
Two more Daily show clips: on the Supreme Court's medical marijuana decision, and the Blair-Bush get-together.
And finally, I know it's just a big ol' Burger King promotion, but The Sith Sense is a pretty cool way to waste some Friday afternoon time. You play 20 questions with Darth Vader, and the results are really quite spooky …
PS: Shame I didn't know earlier, but CNN (via Sky NZ anyway) is screening 'Blogging: The Fifth Estate' tomorrow night, Saturday the 11th, at 10pm (repeating on Sunday at 4pm and 10pm). It features a panel discussion with the leading lights of AmericaBlog and Power Line, among others, and looks quite good.
Po-faced outrage | Jun 09, 2005 09:42
A sitting MP gives an explanation to the House which is at perpendicular variance with accounts of his potentially improper conduct provided to journalists by three members of the public. He seems destined to appear before the privileges committee which will decide whether he has misled Parliament - but the Speaker decides that what appear to be irreconcilable versions of the facts are merely differences of opinion. Is the MP David Benson Pope? No! Owen Jennings of the Act Party in 1998, actually.
I actually do think Margaret Wilson's finding that there was "no issue of privilege" in respect of a complaint about Benson Pope's statements in the House is unusual, in that it isn't usually the place of the Speaker to be determining evidence.
But DPF and the other right-bloggers who have been screaming blue murder for the last two days about it should really look a bit closer to home for their examples. Especially G-Man, who in the course of a lengthy post headed Speaker Wilson Creating a "Kangaroo Parliament" and Must Go has convinced himself that this is unprecedented in the history of Parliamentary democracy; and, of course, Rodney Hide.
You might even say that the Jennings case was considerably worse. It concerned very recent matters, and matters which had a much closer bearing on his conduct as a Member of Parliament - in that they allegedly involved his taxpayer-funded office and staff. Further, the Speaker (National's Doug Kidd) refused to allow the inspection of tape recordings and security videos that would quite probably have settled the issue.
The major difference between then and now would seem to be there there's a lot more po-faced outrage around these days.
Frankly, I think Benson Pope got himself in a hole that day in Parliament. But equally frankly, for so long as we're paying Benson Pope's salary, I'd rather have him competently running the portfolios on which the current investigation into 25 year-old allegations of classroom bullying can have no possible bearing. It suits the Opposition parties to have him nobbled as far as possible - there is no corresponding benefit for the taxpayer in it.
Meanwhile, at the same time that the national academies of science for all the G8 countries, along with those of Brazil, India and China, issue an unprecedented joint statement urging governments to take urgent action on climate change - with a particular focus on the Bush White House - it is being reported that a former oil industry lobbyist in the White House has been repeatedly altering or removing information about climate change from official reports. A senior Environmental Protection Agency scientist told the New York Times these actions have produced "somewhat of a chilling effect." The Times has obtained copies of the documents bearing the actual alterations.
Staying with science - the reality-based kind - Salon has an excellent backgrounder: Everything you always wanted to know about the stem cell debate.
Bad opinion poll numbers for Bush on, well … most things. On his strongest issue - the handling of the terrorist threat - he has a 50-49 positive rating. And a majority now say the war in Iraq has not contributed to American security and nearly six in 10 say it was not worth fighting.
If you want a good, sobering read about Iraq, get the new Metro with Jon Stephenson's story, based on his sixth visit to the country, which was timed for the second anniversary of the invasion. It's a fine piece of writing, albeit not one to inspire hope. Departing Newsweek bureau chief Ron Nordland is only slightly less gloomy in his sign-off piece, Good Intentions Gone Bad. On the other hand, it's two months since right-blogger hero Chrenkoff cobbled together another batch of official press releases for a Good News From Iraq bulletin …
And, in conclusion, the MeNZB controversy finally made Morning Report today. Not an especially productive development ...
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