Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Our own fake news, in reply to Rich Lock,
The desired and ongoing result is to weaken western-style democracies by gaslighting the populations on a massive scale.
Adam Curtis in 2014, on the rise of Vladislav Surkov:
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Here we go again ...
18 July 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThe Taxpayers' Union can reveal that another $2.4 million has been paid by the NZ Aid programme to the controversial 'Clinton Health Initiative', a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, which President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea Clinton sits on the board of.
The payment of $2,352,869 NZD was paid in May and revealed in a response to a Taxpayers' Union Official Information Act request to Foreign Affairs Minister Gerry Brownlee. Mr Brownlee's response has been uploaded to www.taxpayers.org.nz/2017_clinton_payment
Jordan Williams, Executive Director of the Taxpayers' Union, says "Back in January, the Australian Government cut all ties with the very fund our Government is still pumping millions of taxpayers' money into. Mr Brownlee can say all he likes about the money apparently doing work in Africa, but no one really believes that a charity run by Chelsea Clinton is the best way to deliver that."
"Of real concern is Gerry Brownlee's claim that the Clinton Health Initiative is independent and not a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation. That is simply not true. We've gone back to the Minister pointing out the Initiative's public filings showing that the Clinton Foundation has full control, including appointing the board - which includes President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton. Under international accounting standards, the power to appoint the board is determinative of that organisation being a 'subsidiary'."
"The Minister is either misleading the public in claiming the fund is not a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation, or his advisors are incompetent. If it is the latter, it seems $9.1 million of our money has been handed out on a false premise. From a taxpayer perspective, it's not clear which of those is worse."
"In addition to the constitutional objections to NZ Aid giving money to a foreign politician's foundation, if the Clinton Foundation was so effective at delivering aid outcomes, why have our Aussie neighbours pulled out?"
"If this was a charity run by President Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump, then we have no doubt we would not be funding it. So why are we funding the Clintons?"
It's not even news. It's an ongoing project and a similar amount will be paid, subject to targets being reached, next year.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Non-conforming…, in reply to Hugh Wilson,
There is a good discussion of how the Spotify royalty model works, and some added context around their push for paying customers. It’s also pointed out that commercial radio is still more prevalent than streaming services (for now) and artists receive no compensation from radio play (that goes to writers and publishers).
In the US, that's basically true. Indeed, the notable thing about Spotify's model is the way it reverses the balance from radio. Radio rights revenue is overwhelmingly in favour of the composer – and Spotify is strongly in favour of the master recording owner (usually, but not always, the record company).
In New Zealand, rights attach to the copyright in both the composition and the sound recording. Recorded Music NZ also shares some of the revenue from sound recordings with performers on the recordings, even though there's no statutory requirement to do so.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to Emma Hart,
How do they not know? How do they not already know?
Isn’t that strange?
I confess, I did take some pleasure in walking past Income Support every month to sell records at Real Groovy. I’d done a huge blag with the publicists before leaving London and the good money for all those white-label pressings and promos really helped us keep going.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Non-conforming…, in reply to TracyMac,
So, what is a decent streaming service that isn't Spotify or Apple?
I know people who swear by Tidal, which offers lossless streaming (for twice the price of the normal service).
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Hard News: Friday Music: Non-conforming…, in reply to Ken Double,
Every Direen gig I’ve ever been to starts off with me thinking “Oh God this is a shambles” and ends with me wanting to give him an OBE.
Ken, that is gold.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Non-conforming…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Hope hope hope there’s some sort of release of more Direen material from the tour.
Me too! The clip with Stephen Cogle from the Christchurch show is great and I thought the two-drummer lineup was great in Auckland.
That lineup’s playing at Golden Dawn the same week as the festival screening. Even if I didn’t love the music I think I’d go along just see how they fit two drummers on that tiny stage.
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Hard News: Our own fake news, in reply to Neil,
Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia.
Josh Marshall has been pointing this out for a while now. It might be that what does in Trump himself will be the unwanted light shed on his business finances by any investigation.
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Chris Keall of NBR has a story on Pandora's exit from the New Zealand marker which expands into a survey of the developing carnage in the streaming music business.
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Hard News: Our own fake news, in reply to Emma Hart,
Yeah, this is why I replied to an actual friend of mine on FB sharing a piece asserting that Muslim families in Canada were trying to get pork banned from schools. It was obvious bullshit, and when I googled the name of the town it was supposed to have happened in, autocomplete provided “pork school Snopes”.
I know you and I might just have god bullshit sensors, but it’s incredible how often the bullshit-debunking-autocomplete happens. A factual perspective generally doesn’t lie far from anyone’s reach, but people don’t reach.
I swear he’s not an idiot. We used to go out. But he ARGUED. People should try to fit into the cultures they choose to move to, apparently. I don’t like the world any more.
I had that last night. I was, like look, I’ve shown you the actual story, I’ve noted the role of an amoral right-wing lobby group in propagating the falsehood, why are you still arguing as if I haven’t?
I didn’t say that, of course.
The other page, the account of the Pilger-to-Hitler person, was genuinely unnerving. Last time it was someone not bothered when I pointed out they were sharing hideous neo-Nazi cartoons – this time, full Hitlter. And they were both women who seemed to consider themselves sort of greenie-lefty. Buying the Assad-Putin narrative can lead to to really bad places.
And they all namecheck fucking Pilger. That guy has a lot to answer for.