Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Que? | Jul 22, 2005 11:24

When I heard it was coming yesterday, my impression was that Trevor Mallard had some documentary evidence to back up his claims that Don Brash and the National Party were in the pocket of American interests; and were, in fact, tailoring policy in return for donations. Well, you'd hope that Mallard has at least an embarrassing email or two in hand, because otherwise yesterday's stunt looks weirdly counterproductive.

It has been a week in which Brash has quite effectively damaged himself with his remarkably evasive behaviour over the question of whether he would have sent New Zealanders into combat in Iraq without a UN mandate. Why hand back the initiative by under-delivering on such a serious claim? Perhaps Mallard is following the time-honoured practice of drawing the denial then releasing the evidence. If not .. well, duh.

Meanwhile, Che has some interesting thoughts on this issue, and on the alleged American sugar-daddy, Julian Robertson.

The celebrity drug bust story rolls on, with news that a few more famous names may yet turn up in dispatches, and celebrity manager Andy Haden passing on official denials of involvement from two of those being widely whispered about, Lana Coc-kroft and Charlotte Dawson. Another celebrity went on 3 News last night to deny his involvement - but, bizarrely, did so with both his face and his voice disguised, which would rather seem to defeat the point of issuing a public denial. Well, wouldn't it?

Dave Crampton at Big News has links and updates relating to the London bombings overnight, which were non-lethal but apparently designed to literally terrorise.

Meanwhile, news of a weapon apparently (and I'm not making this up) earmarked for crowd control in Iraq. The Active Denial System fires a microwave beam at rioters to cause heating and intolerable pain in less than five seconds, at which point the subject gets out of the way. Remarkably, US authorities can't venture on what would happen to some who couldn't get out of the way. New Scientist has more.

Did a religious terrorist get to cop a plea because the police feared that a jury of his peers would fail to convict because they believed the victims deserved what they got? That's the remarkable implication of claims in a new book about American serial bomber Eric Rudolph, whose beliefs led him to attack a gay nightclub, two abortion clinics and a concert during the Atlanta Olympics.

Video podcasting! Sorta. Blinkx video goes out with an RSS service for its news clips.

My Wire interview with David Herkt, director of the TV3 documentary High Times: The New Zealand Drug Experience is online as a 20-minute, 17.7MB MP3 file. A good chat.

Someone has digitised and republished the 1979 edition of How It Works: The Computer. Fascinating.

To anyone made nauseous by the Orange Election Man this week, I'll pass on the feedback to those concerned. But, speaking practically, the money's very handy. Especially given that it's my birthday tomorrow ...

PS: I trust Molesworth & Featherson won't mind me quoting from the lead item in its new Weekend Update. Two quotes:

"The huge wave of industrial action we've seen this year is exactly what National warned would happen as a result of Labour's employment legislation."
– Wayne Mapp, National Party industrial relations spokesman,
in a release today on the Air New Zealand cabin crew strike.

"Lowest average person-days lost per employee for a March quarter since the quarterly series began in March 1986."
– Brian Pink, Government statistician.

Ahem.

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King of the Zeitgeist | Jul 21, 2005 11:22

To the unknown graphic artist: congratulations. You are the King of the Zeitgeist. Your clever visual play on the identity of one of those supposedly implicated in the celebrity drug bust coursed through media organisations, private companies and public agencies yesterday. I got six copies yesterday afternoon, from as far afield as Nelson.

As I figured it would, gossip simply exploded yesterday. People compared lists of likely suspects, who appeared to outnumber those said in news reports to actually have been implicated in the case. So, logically, people who actually are not involved have been scooped up in the scuttlebutt. The interim suppression order was fair to those involved (and more especially those named in documents but not certain to be charged); arguably less so to those who aren't.

Meanwhile, PA reader Gordon Paynter queried the initial police comment: "Announcing the arrests, police said the case was one showing that stimulant drugs were widely available and used by educated professionals on good incomes, not just by criminals."

"So if you're a white-collar drug user, you're not actually a criminal?" says Gordon. He's right, of course; assuming they're convicted of a criminal offence, those involved are, by definition, criminals.

But people tend not to think of it that way, because, given that one of those implicated appears to have done no more than obtain cannabis, if they did there would be an awful lot of criminals in New Zealand. More than half the adult population, in fact. So there but for the grace of God go an awful lot of us. The slightly shocking truth is that recreational drug users can actually lead effective and successful lives. Unless, of course, they are actually caught.

There's a Herald story, which notes that Aaron Bhatnagar had to shut down comments on his blog after people kept posting the alleged names.

Nice to see that Don Brash finally has an answer to the question of whether he would have sent New Zealand troops in combat in Iraq without a United Nations mandate. Which is, um, probably. Frankly, I think he's got away quite lightly on this issue, which has seen him look shambolically evasive.

Dog Biting Men in overdrive! Neil Falloon makes a good point about the surprisingly generous media coverage afforded to the wife of one of the men convicted in the historical rape case.

Amusing video of Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff batting back Sean Hannitty's Republican talking points on the Rove issue. Meanwhile, two administration officials say, with remarkable frankness, that the appointment of John Roberts to the Supreme Court was brought forward to distract attention from Rove's public difficulties.

The telecommunications commissioner's promise yesterday of a "big move" on broadband isn't really news - it has been clear enough since the draft determination on the application brought by TelstraClear that TelstraClear, Ihug and others will be able to offer more and better deals on reselling Telecom DSL broadband services when the determination becomes official. But it's nice to hear Douglas Webb say it anyway. Meanwhile, Computerworld has a swag of reader complaints about the rotten deals Telecom is offering on business DSL.

And big ups to the Greens Frogblog for spotting a new PowerPoint presentation on United Future's website, singing the praises of UF leader Peter Dunne. It would be offensive if it weren't so, well, stupid.

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White collared | Jul 20, 2005 09:54

And so the bush telegraph sprang into action. Yesterday's white collar drug bust was a matter - quite fairly at this point - for name suppression all round. But if the gossip is correct, this case is going to sorely test the efficacy of name suppression in the Internet era.

I'm not sure that we ever used to make such sport of sharing around the unfortunate news of others. Not before our communications technology became so potent. But as you read this, the suppressed names will be being passed on in emails or mobile phone calls. Someone will probably post the names to an inadequately-monitored discussion forum (bloggers - watch your comments sections) and perhaps some foreign media organisation, to which the suppression order does not apply, will run a brief. Meanwhile, the news media have revealed enough to get everyone else talking - and, probably, for suspicion to fall on people who have nothing to do with the matter at all.

It's not the suppression is any more common than it used to be; indeed, in the 1970s, serious consideration was given to introducing blanket suppression for all defendants until conviction. But we expect to know a lot more these days; and there is an undeniable cachet in knowing.

If you didn't know that the "prominent New Zealander" charged with sexually abusing a child in Christchurch was Graham Capill, well, you weren't really connected. And if you knew and didn't tell your hairdresser, what kind of crazy person were you? And yet name suppression fills a purpose. A lawyer told me why he thought the names of two of those convicted in the recent historical rape case had been suppressed. It turned out to be a very good reason.

Anyway, it's oddly appropriate that this bust arrives in the same week as David Herkt's High Times: The New Zealand Drug Experience debuts on TV3 (tomorrow night). I've seen the first two episodes and I really cannot fault it. It's a fascinating and overdue social history that never succumbs to hysteria and, at times, serves as a reminder that nothing is really new. I'm interviewing David on 95bFM today at 1pm.

Brash hits back at Labour's black-ops attack ads, which rather confirms the view that they're much more effective than those baby billboards. (And frankly, having gone out with the "Iwi/Kiwi" billboards, National doesn't have a whole lot of high moral ground to complain from.) Scoop has a backgrounder.

What say Dog Biting Men made a post and nobody came? I've just noticed a forlorn conversation between Ben and Olivia, posted all of a week ago. They sit at the table, staring glumly into their glasses of irony and dream of blog fame. Go on, make some young people happy. Give the gift of your time and visit them.

Crikey has a fascinating article - apropos of very little at all - about Finns (the people of Finland, that is, rather than our famous singing and songwriting brothers) and drinking. It goes a long way towards explaining why every Finn I have ever met has appeared to be a mad alcoholic. Funny thing is that they actually consume less alcohol per capita than, for example, the French and Italians. It's just that when they have a drink, they go really hard. There may be some lessons about state regulation of alcohol sales here …

Not much good at sport? Iffy about guns? Ever considered that you might be gay? Salon's Mark Benjamin invented a closet back-story and submitted himself for gay "reparative therapy" just to see what would happen. Hilarious.

I don't really know where to start on media on the Karl Rove scandal - there's so damn much of it. But the basis is this: White House axeman Karl Rove and Cheney offsider Scooter Libby both told Time reporter Matthew Cooper (and, let's be realistic, probably a few others) that Valerie Plame, the wife of distinguished former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA agent, blowing not only her cover, but that of the front company she worked for, thus potentially compromising CIA agents and activities all over the world. Wilson had blown the whistle on claims that Iraq had "recently" sought to obtain uranium from "Africa" (ie: Niger). The claims subsequently proved to be largely based on forged documents obtained by the Italian secret service. Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate the claims in 2002, and reported back that they appeared to be untrue - and, given the structure of the uranium industry there, couldn't have been true. Two other reports found the same thing, and the final report of the Iraq Survey Group found that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons programme, had no way of refining uranium and had not sought to obtain uranium after 1991.

But Wilson suffered the usual fate of whistleblowers under the current US administration: character assassination; extending, remarkably, to the blowing of his wife's agency cover. Plame's outing was described by CIA chief George Tenet as "a disaster for our agency" and provoked a criminal investigation. George Bush promised that anyone found to have been involved with the leaking of Plame's name would be fired. The White House explicitly denied that Rove was involved. Rove denied explicitly that he had leaked Plame's name. But when Time magazine folded, and hand over its records to the investigation, it emerged that both Rove and Libby talked about Plame to Time reporter Matthew Cooper. They lied about it for two years.

The volley of Republican talking points in response has been quite remarkable: Wilson was a liar; Plame wasn't really undercover (in which case, why a two-year investigation?); Rove hadn't really leaked Plame's identity because he didn't say her actual name (oh, for God's sake …). But it appears that, for once, the American people aren't buying it.

So anyway … there's a 10MB clip from the Daily Show. Josh Marshall on the claims by Christopher Hitchens and others that Iraq really did attempt to obtain uranium. Former CIA agent Jack Rice on the ramifications of the outing. (Includes the infamous and unfortunate statement by Republican Party chair Ed Gillespie that the outing of Plame was "worse than Watergate".) Billmon on the Republican pushback this week. The Democrats' Fire Karl Rove video.

And … back to Jon Stewart:

It seems to me that whether or not this is a crime is a moot point. It seems to me that whether or not what Karl Rove was doing is a moot point. What seems like the real issue to this is simple: when it first came out that her name was released and people started wondering, 'was that a leak of a CIA operative?' the White House pretended they didn't know anything about it. And Karl Rove pretended he didn't know anything about it. To me that is so far, the only issue.

Could get messy …

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Sound and light | Jul 19, 2005 11:01

There are worse ways to spend your Saturday night than standing on a deck in Birkenhead watching lightning fork down to the Sky Tower. How kind it was of nature to put on a sound and light show for people who never quite made it out to the pub. More of that, please.

And back in the non-celestial world, the Listener has Gordon Campbell's Helen Clark interview online, and it's quite interesting. Jordan Carter declares himself modestly encouraged by Sunday night's Colmar Brunton poll. Even though it has National still leading by three points, the Greens have bumped up the combined Labour-Green vote to 45%. Which still leaves Peters with the balance (and I don't seriously expect Peters to pay any attention to the finding, again, that his voters want a Labour coalition), and the prospective Maori Party overhang as problematic as ever. Still, it is better news for Labour than the really rather ugly Fairfax poll on Saturday. Jordan has also posted a series of unofficial attack ads which are all more effective than the official Labour advertising campaign.

No Right Turn goes to town on the National fiscal strategy indicated in today's Herald story. It's interesting that these days it's the left that preaches fiscal conservatism.

Colin James suggests that, given the indicators, this is an election National might want to lose anyway.

My look at the media angle on the London bombings is also online.

The Black Caps won't be deterred from touring Zimbabwe, but are considering ways of protesting the regime. I quite liked Steven Price's of running up some new shirts bearing the legend "Mugabe is a Murderer". You'd think that'd get the tour cancelled … but as No Right Turn points out, this might also cost the players their careers.

The government announces a considerable shortening of the leash on low-quality tertiary courses. A little late, perhaps.

Has the rollback started? SciAm's John Rennie has been following developments around an op-ed piece by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, and trying to tell whether it represents a significant shift in the Vatican's perspective on science, especially as regards evolutionary biology. He expanded on the issue:

If Cardinal Schönborn and Pope Benedict are looking to pick a fight with science on this issue, it's because they are insisting on an interventionist God who created mankind by flagrantly violating the course of natural law.
The stakes here are much larger than the argument over evolution. The cardinal implicitly argues that God has his divine finger on every atom and the Church ultimately reserves the right to say when He is pushing them around. That's a view deeply disruptive of attempts to explain the universe in pretty much every area of scientific endeavour. Cosmology, after all, seeks to explain how the universe arose solely through the operation of physics. The entire problem goes away if science is supposed to assume that God intervened every time a cosmological mystery presents itself. Chemistry is still trying to understand how mesoscopic properties of matter emerge from the interactions of individual atoms, but God could explain that too.

In his latest post on the topic, Rennie notes a "please explain" letter sent to the Vatican by three scientists (two of them Roman Catholic biologists).

And in a post headed The Purge Imminent? , Andrew Sullivan noted reports of a forthcoming Vatican document which would unequivocally ban gay men from seminaries and the priesthood, regardless of whether they were celibate or not:

The proposed policy would instead focus on a human being's very core - and exclude him or her as a result. That kind of discrimination is the definition of bigotry. This is the Church? This is God's voice for human dignity and equality in the world? This is an institution that says all are welcome at the Lord's table? I can only hope and pray that pope Benedict doesn't go there. And if he does, I hope that heterosexual Catholics will rise up and defend their gay priests and friends and family members against this unconscionable attack.

Sullivan also published a good email from a reader on the topic.

As malign unreason goes, this does not of course come anywhere near the shredding of innocents in the same of some god, but it is hardly encouraging. Benedict's papacy seems to be headed firmly back in time.

And then of course there's the Campus Crusade for Christ Military Ministry. Woah.

And a US Congressman musing in a radio interview about bombing Mecca. Yeah, that'll work.

Two new studies, one by the Saudi government and one by an Israeli think tank, have found that most foreign fighters in Iraq were not terrorists before the Iraq war, but were "radicalised by the war itself." The CSM also covers the new Chatham House report that offers the humiliating description of Britain as a "pillion passenger" of America.

And, like you always knew it was, the video iPod is coming.

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