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Some Friday business | Dec 04, 2009 10:22

We pre-recorded the Media7 Christmas Eve special last night, with commentary from Damian Christie, John Dybvig, Hazel Phillips, Vaughn Davis, Gemma Gracewood and Glenn 'Wammo' Williams – and a special performance by James 'Lawrence Arabia' Milne, who was fabulous. We commissioned a 2009-news-themed song from James, in which a great deal of apologising is done.

James has also, of course, reassembled the Reduction Agents for tonight's Orcon Great Blend Christmas Party (yes, they'll play various Lawrence Arabia songs). If you've RSVPd for the Ignite session, that'll tart at 6.30pm, so don't be late. If you're coming after 7.30, be aware that the Reduction Agents will start about 8.45pm. Wear your dancing shoes. Seriously.

We had a little whoopsie yesterday, upon discovery that we didn't have a wine sponsor to keep down drink prices tonight – no fault of Matawhero, who are helping us plenty already, but a miscommunication that didn't become evident until the last moment.

So thanks to Jayson at The Wine Vault and Aaron at Fiasco Wines for coming to the party at short notice yesterday. You guys are total champs.

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Meanwhile, you may be interested in last night's Media7, where Lance Wiggs and Julie Star discussed Murdoch v Google; Gemma Gracewood, Paul Casserly and Troy Ferguson talked about 95bFM; and Sue Chetwin came in for a crisp interview about the role of Consumer NZ. (See if you can spot the edit point in the first panel, where I had to stop and have a coughing fit. That was weird.)

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Some of my Top Shelf Productions friends have been involved with Mike King's Nutters' Club radio show on Radio Live for some time, and have won funding for a TV version that will launch on Maori Television early next year.

They're taping the radio show itself on Sunday night, so if you want to call in and discuss mental health issues in a supportive, unpretentious environment, tune in at 8pm. (Actually, tune in at 7pm and you'll hear Public Address Radio before hand.)

You can become a fan of the Nutters' Club on Facebook too.

On a related note, my old friend Michael "Woody" Woodnorth. Who I know had been struggling with his mental health for some time, checked out this week. I was so sad to hear that. His funeral will be held today in Timaru. RIP, Woody. You had great taste.

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Also, Giovanni has informed of A Celebration of Life, a music and dance event staged by Lucy Bennett to raise finds for head and neck cancer support. Lucy, a survivor herself, is looking to purchase an artwork for the relevant cancer ward, among other things.

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And, finally before I scurry off and do various errands for this evening, this Chinese news item, re-creating Tiger Woods' unfortunate incident, is the freakiest thing I've seen all week.

And, it being Friday, the rest is over to you …

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Let's lynch the liberals! | Nov 30, 2009 11:38

I actually agree with the bulk of what Phil Goff said in last week's speech in Palmerston North. I do think the Maori Party has sold out poor urban Maori – and for that matter the rest of us – with its ETS deal. Pattrick Smellie makes that case in admirable detail on Scoop.

Even if several major iwi have a case in claiming that the ETS unfairly reduces the value of their 1990s Treaty settlements, the place to deal with that is in the courts, not by building a sweet little side-deal into such an important piece of legislation.

But, as Goff, did, focusing on race, and warning of a future where "one New Zealander is turned against another, Maori against Pakeha"? It doesn't take any imagination to hear in that an echo of Don Brash's Orewa speech, in which the former National leader railed against "those who would divide New Zealanders from one another, not unite us."

As Sacha put it in another thread here: "Goff's message would have been stronger without the distracting whistling noise."

Meanwhile, Chris Trotter's defence of the Goff speech gives me a rhetorical migraine. He states admiringly:

By driving the wedge of class analysis into the Maori Party's nationalist ideology, Goff has shrewdly exacerbated the tensions and divisions created by the ETS sell-out.

The other benefit here, says Trotter, is that it marginalises the "liberal left", a " risibly small" segment which has selfishly blocked the Labour Party's path to a proper class-based philosophy of the Left.

This is Trotter fighting, yet again, the battle between his assumed traditional Labour values and the "identity politics" (women, gays, non-whites) movement of the 1980s. It's an old and profoundly inward-looking family feud. Which makes it all the more alarming that Goff's advisor John Pagani pops up in comments to declare Trotter's post "the most astute reading of the state of left politics that I've seen recently."

Is this really where they're going? As a commenter to the Dim Post blog on Trotter says: "I proudly number myself as part of the liberal left and think if this what Labour are becoming then it wouldn't take much for them to lose my vote. If they again become the party of militant class activism I'm out."

See also useful analyses by Gordon Campbell and Tim Watkin on Pundit.

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What to think about the hacked climate change emails? (In contrast with Don Brash's correspondence, these do appear to have been taken from a server rather than merely leaked.) They certainly show some scientists behaving badly in a hostile environment. It may be, as The Guardian's George Monbiot argues, that it's a crisis that will demand a senior resignation.

I'm more inclined to go with BoingBoing's Maggie Koerth-Baker, who provides a useful summary of the controversy (and a lot of links so you can make up your own mind):

1) Evidence of vast conspiracy is sorely lacking. Ditto evidence disproving the scientific consensus on climate change. This isn't the "nail in the coffin" of anything. However, the emails do prompt some legit questions about transparency and how professional researchers respond to criticism in the age of the armchair scientist.

In fact, the whole reason the CRU seems to have been hacked is that the Unit was fighting off requests for access to the data sets it used to put together its climate models. This is one of the issues that gets discussed in the e-mails. Basically, some of the CRU researchers didn't want to release the data to people who weren't trained scientists because they were tired of spending their time fighting with bloggers and wanted to focus on research. Which is great, except for two things: First, from what I'm reading it looks like there might have been some ethical lapses in how the researchers went about blocking the release of data; Second, when you block the release of data, no matter what your real reason is, people will assume it's because you're hiding something nefarious. One of the positive outcomes of this whole hacking debacle is that it's forcing some discussion about when circling the wagons becomes protectionism, and might lead to the climate change data sets becoming more open source. Frankly, I think that's a good thing.

She's spot-on there. In New Zealand, there's a philosophical argument within NIWA, in which scientists' natural preference for openness and publication is set against the fear that zealots will take raw data they don't understand and misuse them.

What happened late last week suggests the fear isn't misplaced. Hot Topic's Gareth Renowden covers an attempt by a blogger associated with the Climate Science Coalition to claim that the New Zealand temperature record has been maliciously altered to support a pro-warming agenda.

That's an extremely serious charge. And, so far as I can tell, a baseless one. The CSC was told by NIWA two years ago why the data were corrected, and seems to have simply ignored that explanation in the hope of getting a "gotcha" story to take hold. Poneke appears to have bought the hype, with this comment in a thread in which quite a number of "sceptics" pretend to expertise they do not have.

Call me crazy, but I'm going to trust scientists with relevant expertise before I trust Ian Wishart …
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And, finally, thanks to everyone who came to the launch of David and Emma's books on Friday evening in Wellington – especially Assistant Reserve bank Governor Dr Don Abel, who I had no idea was coming to the launch at Parliament. His speech was admirable for both its brevity and its wit. He's a dude.

Mike Roseingrave's pictures of the Grand Hall launch are here.

You are, naturally, very welcome to join us for the Auckland launch, from 6pm Wednesday in the Velvet Room at Sale St bar.

And while we have a full house for the Ignite presentations at Friday's Orcon Great Blend Christmas Party, there's still plenty of room for the party part of the evening, which begins at 7.30. Just RSVP here.

And that may be my last substantial post for what is going to be a very, very busy week – we have Media 7 recordings on Wednesday and Thursday (a standard show and a pre-record of our Christmas show respectively), the book launch after the Wednesday recording, and then the big ol' party on Friday night.

If you'd like to come to either the Media7 recordings, just hit "Reply" and let me know.

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A Strange Surprise | Nov 27, 2009 10:05

I gather I'm not alone in finding the LTSA's "Surprise" TV ad on new drug-driving regulations a little puzzling. A group of young people leave a burger drive-through only to be stopped at a police checkpoint.

The driver, who seems unimpaired, passes a blood-alcohol breath test, only to be told by the officer: "However I now require you to accompany me to a police station or other such place for the purposes of a compulsory impairment test, blood test or both." Bummer.

But why? Is the LTSA actually trying to give the impression that the new law will be used by police officers in an arbitrary and capricious fashion? That officers just will enact what amounts to an arrest without the bother of arresting someone because they feel like it?

To be fair, the purpose of the campaign is to scare young men, and the fewer of them there are on the road on drugs, the better. And there may be an unsignalled left turn earlier in the ad. And they are, well, happy (which is not, so far as I am aware, against the law).

But I wonder if its target market will also take the message that the cops can do what they want, and whether that's healthy in the long term.

I've been a fan of Sticky Pictures' zesty stylish arts programme, The Gravy, and I'm pleased to see it return next on TVNZ 7, with a new format based on themed episodes.

You can actually see the first episode, Taranaki, from today on TVNZ ondemand, and I gather the producers are well keen for you to do so. Like Media7, The Gravy has derived momentum from its online audience, and your visit to view will doubtless be duly noted.

Also: last night's Media7 is up on TVNZ ondemand too. I've been struggling a bit this week with a head-cold and springtime gout (yes, I am on the medication, thanks for asking), but the assembled talent made it a pretty good show. Gary Gotlieb and Jock Anderson duel over name suppression; The Press's Gerard Campbell, David Dallas and Mr Radio Wammo discuss video gaming.

And longtime Dom Post financial commentator Terry Hall gives a moving interview about the often unseen damage done by the finance company failures. One clear point to emerge is that the litigious nature of some of the people involved in that sector has quite effectively blocked and frustrated reporting on their businesses.

Next Friday's Orcon Great Blend Christmas Party is filling up quite quickly, but there are still a few places left for the Ignite presentations from 6.30pm, and more for the party in general from 7.30pm. Get in there today if you want to see and hear the presentations. I'm well pleased that Epic Pale Ale has joined Matawhero Wines as a pourage sponsor: it won't be free, but the price will be friendly.

And with that, I'd best get my bag packed for Wellington …

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