Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Looking for Monsters | Nov 20, 2007 11:07

I'm sure Annette King was speaking in good faith when she said that the Electoral Finance Bill would be amended to remove what amounts to a new ban on advocating through a megaphone. I don't think the select committee majority really meant to do this -- as Graeme Edgeler pointed out in comments here yesterday, it would rule out meet-the-candidates meetings, and Metiria Turei says it was actually intended to cover those irritating car-mounted loudhailers. But it's an example of what a shambolic path this legislation continues to take.

I'm not so sure there's a problem with anonymous blog comments: as I see it, like letters to the editor in a newspaper, they'd be considered part of the publication which, as either a blog or an internet news media publication, is specifically protected in the bill. (One of the reasons APN Online is so antsy about full-fledged discussion forums is precisely that potentially defamatory comments by members of the public are considered part of its publication.)

But others take a different view. Graeme thinks these things can be fixed "with the deletion or addition of only a few words," and I've invited him to write a post suggesting what those words might be.

It's true that most of these things will be honoured in the breach anyway -- as Graeme's COG colleague Steven Price noted this morning, no one's actually going to be prosecuted for not having their name and address on a placard -- but that's hardly the point. And the legislators have created this problem for themselves with their approach.

That said, unlike many of its critics, I support the objectives of the bill, and regard it as important that it's in place for next year's election. It has to be fairly comprehensive -- big money is good at finding loopholes, as the extensive use of anonymous trusts to obscure the source of millions of dollars in contributions in recent elections testifies.

As Brent Edwards pointed out on Checkpoint last night, an amendment already signalled by King will actually give third-party lobby groups considerable leeway. It will shorten the deadline for third-party registration to three weeks, meaning that such groups will be able to bang away on issues for most of the year, then register and switch to a more partisan campaign message for the three months till polling day. I'm sure most of them will.

[That last part wasn't correct. See the comments.]

I also had a look at the British system, which is in many respects similar to the EFB. The sky hasn't fallen in on free speech there, but the British electoral commission is able to oversee a remarkable degree of transparency in campaigning, and that's a good thing.

But we shouldn't be depending on the whole-of-house committee to fix new and remaining problems over a few days in Parliament.

On another topic entirely, viewing Hamish Keith's The Big Picture has filed me with joy. It's intelligent, surprising and informative -- and a refreshing contrast to the we're-here-to-help history by committee of Frontier of Dreams.

If you missed the first episode on Sunday night, and you happen to have Freeview, you can see it on Thursday on TVNZ 6. Unfortunately, it won't turn up on TVNZ ondemand: TVNZ has been unable to clear all the rights in the programme for online use. Which I guess leaves only piracy as an option.

Thanks to the vagaries of NCEA assessment, I now have two boys at home. Rather than let them stay inside on a lovely afternoon yesterday, I took them off for a round of mini-golf and a swim at Parnell Baths (for them, not me -- I'm still getting over the flu). There was a man in the pool in a suit and tie, which I thought was quite odd.

And this morning, we all bonded over the new Cloverfield trailer. I downloaded the 1080p HD version (I love my new iMac so much) and we played it and then freeze-framed our way though to try and spot whatever it is that's laying waste to New York.

Conclusions? Those silhouettes you see around 1.11 aren't "mini monsters" like Ain't It Cool News reckons: they're guys in bio-suits, alright? But that thing at 1.29? That's a monster. A big one. I'm keen on the angry alien whale theory.

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Meet the New Bob | Nov 19, 2007 09:23

I wonder if the Electoral Finance Bill is the political right's GE issue: a rallying point for protest and an issue in which that dogged protest has had a valuable impact on legislation, but whose proponents have a tendency to absolutism -- and don't half go on a bit.

We'll finally actually see what we're arguing about today, when the revised bill is tabled. The response of the New Zealand Herald -- whose editorial voice began the week in manic tone and finished in a depressive slough -- will be interesting.

But we got a little taste yesterday of the sort of third-party campaigning one of the stars of Saturday's protest march wants to be able to undertake next year.

Family First placed a full-page ad in the Sunday Star Times. It showed a swinging smacking hand behind the legend Reality hits parents and listed "just a few examples of parents who have been reported as a result of the anti-smacking law". Five, to be precise. Not charged, let alone convicted, mind you: simply spoken to.

"Will you be next?" it demands over the Family first logo and its motto: "Defending the role of parents and the well-being of our children".

Ironically, another Sunday paper, the Herald on Sunday, carried a child-welfare story from a Famiy First cause celebre that has now been carefully put aside.

The "Timaru lady" is alleged to have assaulted another one of her children -- that's three, by my count, and two since she was acquitted under the old Section 59 of assaulting her disturbed son with a riding crop. This time she is said to have punched her 13 year old daughter (the one she told the nation was "my perfect little angel") in the face.

Bob's been pretty quiet about the Timaru lady lately. Which is odd, given that last year he flew her to Auckland to appear on his radio show, where she was presented as a good mother suffering under the state jackboot. Things change, right?

But Bob has plans. He is the centrepiece of Vote for Family, an organisation that will "expose the voting records of all 121 sitting MPs on key moral issues such as the prostitution legalisation bill, the civil union bill and the anti-smacking bill."

Well, fair enough. But given that this is effectively a remix of the conservative Christian lobby that played a significant behind-the-scenes role in the last election campaign, I suspect I'm not alone in desiring a little more transparency. Who are these people? How much money do they have? Where's it from? And what discussions have they had with established political parties?

Still, at least there's someone there to save us from the trauma of hearing the word "wanker" on The Simpsons. Because we don't want the government wading into our lives, do we?

---

Anyway, I hope and trust that there will be moral lapses up the wazoo at the great Wellingtonista-Public Address Christmas Party at Welington's Mighty Mighty on Thursday, December 6.

Doors open on the party of the year at 6pm, and about an hour later, I will kick off It Doesn't Give My Opponents Much Time Either, which will pit two teams of ageing celebrities against each other in a quiz themed on when Muldoon was Prime Minister.

Moving on, Jo Hubris will present the 2nd Annual Wellingtonista Awards, honouring the capital's coolest things.

And then … Blam Blam Blam will play their first Wellington show in years.

I'm deeply grateful to Freeview for sponsoring the event and helping us secure the Blams. And that's not all. Two lucky party punters will win Freeview satellite decoders (with installs if required) on the night.

Places are strictly limited, but you can reserve yours by emailing: the.wellingtonista@gmail.com . Once you're reserved, you pay a mere $15 at the door on arrival. Be aware that the reserves will be held only until 7.30pm. After that, we'll let in paying punters until the room is full. Be quick!

(If you can't join us, don't fret. With the assistance of The Down Low Concept, creators of Off the Wire and Pop Goes the Weasel, we'll be recording the event for a Public Address Radio special to air next month on Radio Live.)

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Fake Fiona Rae | Nov 16, 2007 12:35

What with the Fake Steve Jobs having a book out and disinfo Bomber reminding everyone how creepy and vindictive a peace-loving activist can get when he's crossed, I thought I'd have a crack at the fake thing myself. I thought that, seeing as Fiona's indisposed, and people do love her posts so much, I could be Fake Fiona Rae.

So … television, eh? It's great isn't it? I've been particularly enjoying the BBC series The Genius of Photography, and an excellent five-part educational series called TV Is Dead?, which is the best primer for the future of television that I've actually seen on TV. But, actually, that's not TV, that's just stealing things off the internet, isn't it? But if you do happen to find Friends in Britain able to provide you with series of those names, say yes.

Did I watch anything that wasn't time-shifted this week? And why do we time-shift Outrageous Fortune more than any other programme? Is there a special Outrageous Fortune moment that must happen before we can watch?

Oh god, who am I fooling? Not only am I not the real Fiona Rae, I'm not even the fake Fiona Rae. I couldn't even be bothered watching Californication so I could wonder what all the fuss was about. But for the record: could we please dispense with the idea that Family First means anything? Bob MCroskie is a tireless rent-a-quote whose apparent influence is solely an indulgence of the news media. In the interview he did on 95bFM's The Wire last week, Jose Barbosa calmly stripped back the layers of silliness.

But hey, that's choice about Robyn Malcolm. And if you want to talk about TV, you can totally do it here.

Anyway, you have to love the Business Roundtable's approach to important science issues. Don't love the climate change science? No problemo: just fly in a retired British politician with no scientific background and he'll tell you what you want to hear. Meanwhile, the BBC lists the Top 10 sceptic talking points and their scientific rebuttals.

Intercepted memo to all members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: we have received disturbing news that the Human Rights Commission has written to the select committee considering the Electoral Finance Bill welcoming the extent to which the committee has moved to address its concerns about the bill. It seems prudent to assume that the HRC has returned to its former status as a dangerously PC tool of Helengrad. Do not, repeat, do not trust the HRC until further notice. And that march we organised is a bit of a worry.

Blendie: the voice-interacting blender from MIT. Watch the movie.

And, of course, John Cale played last night …

He started off with the freaked-out version of 'Heartbreak Hotel' he's playing with the current band; his voice run through some sort of effect, backed up with a kind of fetid electro-funk. That was awesome. But some of that what followed was … was … oh, alright, it was boring. There's such a thing as too much funky punk rock.

It didn't help that we (and a lot of other people keen enough to buy reserved tickets online) were stuck in the Bruce Mason Centre's distant upper circle, where the sound, ropey in any part of the room, was simply abysmal.

There had been no indication that there were seats downstairs on the Ticketmaster website and, I gather, there was some confusing thing with swapping around tickets when people with general admission tickets entered downstairs. When we bailed from the circle, we discovered there were plenty of seats downstairs with an excellent view and much better sound.

The other thing the Bruce Mason Centre needs to sort out if it's going to hire itself out as a rock venue is the friggin' bar. The queue beforehand was silly, and then the bar closed so that halfway through the show you couldn't even get a glass of water. That's just rude.

But I digress. As well as having boring bits, John Cale and his band had great, splendid bits. 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' was fluid and lovely, 'Guts' was punchy and 'Pablo Picasso' rocked.

I was relieved to discover afterwards it hadn't just been me who didn't love all of it.

"I booed," confided Graeme Hill. "I was standing up the front and I said 'boo', because all these people were yelling and cheering and the music was crap."

And then, we agreed, the music was brilliant. We were up on the deal well before the end. But frankly, the sooner the St James is back online, the better.

PS: I've done an interesting interview with Bomber Bradbury about his act of political apostasy, the angry reaction and what he actually thinks about the anti-terror story. It'll air at 5pm on radio Live tomorrow, and I'll upload it to the podcast soon thereafter.

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Spammer until proven innocent | Nov 15, 2007 08:53

My column in the current Listener is about how badly the outsourcing of such key services as email by Xtra has backfired not only on Telecom but on its customers. Yesterday, I was contacted by John Kershaw, who runs Webstream, a small ISP and hosting company. His story emphasises just what a shambles it has become.

It's messed up both ways. Take the example of one of John's customers, a financial services company for whom Webstream handles site hosting and a mail server. I'll let John explain:

Their mail server is in our Auckland data centre, has a proper A and MX record and only handles their mail. They use us for site hosting and mail management and TelstraClear for connectivity.

These guys are not bulk mailers, but they do send out regular opt-in newsletters and financial updates. ALL their mail to Xtra customers (Yahoo Aus servers) now ends up in the end-user's spam box automatically. Many non-technical users are not even aware their mail is being blocked. They call the customer and say 'Your email has not arrived'. If we presume Xtra servers do a reverse DNS lookup, the headers will match the DNS entry. Mail is delivered OK to customers on ClearNet, Orcon etc.

The issue here is that perfectly legitimate mail is being trapped by over-zealous Xtra spam filters and the customer has to go cap-in-hand to Xtra, fill in a very intrusive, arrogant and lengthy 'request' form to seek permission to have their mail delivered. This is the instance that really got me upset.

John also forwarded me a copy of the request form, which goes not to Xtra, but to Yahoo, in Australia, where Xtra's email is now handled. It's a long, demanding document that might be summarised as "tell us a whole lot of things about your business and we'll decide if you're a filthy spammer or not". There is no hint of an apology for what is clearly a serious interruption of business.

The irony here is manifest. Telecom spent years bitching about its IP addresses unfairly ending up on the ORBS spam blacklists, and complaining about how difficult it was to get off the lists. And now it's doing it to other companies, via its offshore corporate partner.

The obvious action for a major New Zealand ISP made aware that it is unreasonably blocking emails from a New Zealand business would be to have someone get on the phone and discuss it. But Xtra can't do that any more. And John's customer is basically on the same footing as some Estonian spamhaus.

But wait! There's more!

We've had several people (not our customers) call our support desk to say that they are Xtra customers and they are having trouble with bounced mail to the email addresses of one of our customers, a legal association. In this case, the association uses us for site hosting and mail management with Xtra for connectivity. The Association's MX record resides with us.

Our mail servers receive all their domain mail and forwards it to two Xtra mail box accounts as per our customer's instructions. All this used to work perfectly, but now, mail from Xtra users to the Association appears to bounce in many cases, even though both the sender and recipient are on the Xtra network.

Now I'm not saying spam and reverse DNS are a bad thing – we use them ourselves, but since the swap to Yahoo, we've had a 200% increase in the number of support calls from customers and outsiders due to missing or returned mail, especially where mail forwarding is in place via a third party server. It also appears that Xtra support staff are giving conflicting advice, ranging from the attachment you saw yesterday, to 'not us' etc.

At the same time, of course, I'm getting email from Xtra customers complaining that they're being flooded with porn spam the Yahoo filters aren't catching.

Meanwhile, some new Vodafone at Home kit turned up at the door while I was tidying the kitchen and preparing dinner on Tuesday. Leo, typically, started to tear open the boxes, and I told him he could so long as he read the instructions and put it all together. Which he did -- and it worked!

The service is quite attractive on the face of it. The cost is $39.95 monthly, with free local calls and free national calling to landline. Calls to Vodafone mobiles at 39 cents a minute and other mobiles at 55 cents a minute. (So where's the calls-to-mobile bundle?)

Would I use this as my principal line? I'm not sure. The call quality seems a bit squawky, and certainly isn't a patch on my bangin' Ihug digital phone, which runs over the Wired Country connection.

Meanwhile, the Beijng Olympics just got even more important for TVNZ, which has secured interactive rights: meaning the Games will not only be the hook for next year's HDTV service on Freeview, but also the focus of what will presumably be TVNZ's most substantial online news project yet. It also means that TVNZ will be covering the full screen range -- from mobile to widescreen HD -- which may provide some interesting challenges.

And, finally, Marc Ellis' new internet venture, Mintshot, seems to be targeted at people able to place a very low value on their time. Users register, watch TV ads, answer trivial questions on those ads and win "mintshot dollars" which they may then use to bid in auctions for various items; a handful of which are of high value. But mintshot dollar balances are zeroed every month, and the auction periods for the high-value items run across those refreshes. It all looks rather wearying. Someone will win the big prizes, but it won't be you, it'll be some munter prepared to watch a million ads and play innumerable games of tic-tac-toe. (And Marc and his "good bugger" mates reserve the right to cancel your balance and kick you off "without cause or reason".) It's all good fun for compers, but I'm not really sure that people who can't afford to buy stuff in the first place are a premium advertising audience.

PS: Remember the news story about the exemption for government departments from the Electoral Finance Act on which the Herald based its "Democracy Under Attack" promotion on Monday? Er, not so much, as it turns out. And the editorial tone is turning quite pissy about it.

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"The Terrorism Files" | Nov 14, 2007 07:12

Well, the Dominion Post has done it: published some, but by no means all, of the police evidence presented in support of Terrorism Suppression Act charges, drawn from the 156-page affadavit presented to court. And it's fairly shocking.

There's the intercept and surveillance evidence, a timeline to the charges, a description of the police operation, Phil Kitchin's summary and the paper's editorial justifying its decision to publish.

So what do we all think? Discuss here.

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