Grammarly: Government Edition

Need help with your political spin? Unable to properly prevaricate under pressure? Unsure how to redefine your words to help properly fudge them? Then has the trusted app Grammarly got news for you: 

“Whether you want to spin your way out of a recession, walk back your support of rioters, or simply rile up your donor base, Grammarly offers helpful suggestions to make your political messaging as murky as you need."

Think it's a joke? 

All the video's definitional changes are from real-life examples. For instance: A recession, long defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, is now something more subtle and complicated, only to be defined years after the fact by special experts. “Infrastructure,” which most people think of as roads, bridges, etc., now includes the green new deal, with tons of solar/wind subsidies. And of course views that were moderate, centrist, or even libertarian a couple of decades ago are now dangerous right-wing extremism.

An announcement about an Aotearoa Government Edition has already been announced. 

Student loans won't cost very much. Yeah, right.

When  the student loan election bribe was uncorked last election, it was predicted by everyone from bankers to political opponents to Cactus Kate that it was going to cost a lot -- up to $1billion said Westpac's Brendan O'Donovan, three times what Labour's electioneers were saying -- and "would ... cause an explosion in student debt."

No, no, no said finger-wagging Labour spin doctors and Green cheerleaders at the time, carefully keeping their their eyes on the polls, their fingers crossed and their calculations to themselves.  "Extremist and scaremongering" said a cynically vote-mongering Mallard about O'Donovan's now proven predictions.

Three years later, guess who was right?  "Research released today by TNS Conversa revealed average student debt had risen by 54 per cent since 2004" -- and let's face it, there can't be one person with a working brain who's truly surprised -- and NZUSA president Paul Falloon (who apparently wasn't awake three years ago) blames banks for "seizing the chance to entice students as customers."

Apparently Mr Falloon is in need of that working brain.  It isn't banks who are "seizing the chance" to entice students as customers -- it was the Clark Government's election bribe which sought to entice short-sighted students as voters (and don't forget that Labour-Lite now endorse the bribe).

Labour liars weren't wrong when they said their no-interest loan bribe wouldn't cause an explosion in student debt: they just didn't care two hoots that it would.  What interested them far more, and interests them still, is getting their bums back on the Treasury benches -- and short-sighted students were ideally placed to lap up their bribe and repay it later in the country's polling booths. 

The attention span of student presidents may be shorter than the average spin cycle; there's no need for anyone else's to be.

Spin is still in

Spin is already as endemic this year as it has been in year's past.  Despite campaigning for everybody else’s political affiliations and home addresses to be outed for one year in three and passing legislation under urgency to take "anonymous money" out of politics, the Labour Party has at the same time been funding, hosting and all but paying the staff's salaries for the blog that calls itself 'The Standard.'  Story here.  According to the law the pseudonymous co-bloggers themselves promoted at that blog, The Sub-Standard (as it will be known when the histories are written) should be wearing a parliamentary crest to show we've paid for it, a list of the names and home addresses of the contributors, and the following disclaimer (courtesy of the blogger known as 'Insolent Prick'):

“The Standard is proudly supported by the Labour Party, which subsidises the hosting of this blog. Some Standard authors are active Labour Party members. Some Standard authors are also paid employees of the EPMU. Some Standard authors are employed by Parliamentary Services and work in the Beehive.”

Or was the Electoral Finance Act only supposed to muzzle the Clark Government's opponents, rather than its few remaining supporters?

Liars at large

This election year, individuals have been severely restricted in the amounts they can spend opposing government policies -- meanwhile, the Clark Government has spent record amounts of your money fitting out government departments with spin doctors to trumpet its own lies.  [Story here.]While individuals are confined to spending $120,000 over the whole year in a national campaign (or just $10,000 in a local campaign), government departments now boast a whopping 448 spin doctors -- 210 more than just five years ago, and nearly ten times the number of the mid-eighties -- who cost us the sum of $47 million, not including the cost of campaigns these lying arseholes dream up. 

This is where your tax dollars go to, while the sound of protest is muzzled.

Remember last year when a huge taxpayer-funded advertising splurge trumpeted the government's  Kiwisaver, Student Loans and Welfare for Working Families election bribes? You and I paid for that.  Remember all the lies and spin fed to you by the Clark Government-- lies and spin about smacking your children, about the Electoral Finance Bill, about their pledge card ... You and I paid for all that too, and they plan for you to keep right on paying, election after election, while being muzzled in how much we can pay to protest.

The explosion of spin under the Clark regime and of the liars who are paid to do it mirrors a similar explosion in lying and spin in Tony Blair's New Labour.  The pledge card wasn't the only thing NZ Labour borrowed from UK New Labour.  They've also borrowed their mendacity.  As Peter Oborne notes in writing of the rise and rise of political lying in Britain, the reliance on spin and the volume of its is a new phenomenon in politics.

All governments have contained liars, and most politicians deceive each other as well as the public from time to time.  But in recent years [under New Labour] mendacity and deception have ceased to be abnormal and become an entrenched feature of the British [political] system.

The institutionalisation of spin is almost complete, here as it is in Britain.

Records Ruth Laugesen in yesterday's Sunday Star Times, the number of spin doctors is at a record high.  "Government agencies have hired more new communications staff in five years than all the journalists working at Television New Zealand, Radio New Zealand, the Sunday Star-Times and the Dominion Post newspapers put together."  As Gerry Brownlee points out, this leaves them ideally placed to use the machinery of government as its personal campaign for re-election.

In the last election the Clark Government thought they could use taxpayer's money intended to run the Prime Minister's office in order to run for the Prime Minister's Office.  This was what paid for their pledge card.  This election they clearly intend to use every "communications" resource  in every government department they can lay their hands on to run for re-election.  This is the reason the Madeleine Setchell/Clair Curran employment saga was so important (the only reason): it's important to the Clark Government that the have loyal "communications staff" are in place in every department.  With the numbers Laugesen quotes, it's clear that the capture of the public service is all but complete.

• "The Ministry of Social Development topped the list with 54 communications staff and contractors, making it bigger than Radio New Zealand's entire workforce of journalists."
• "The biggest spender on communication contractors and staff was the Ministry of Education, with 70% of the $6.6m it spent going on contractors."
• "There are 10 times as many government "communications staff" as there were 25 years ago, despite a smaller public service."

Not included in this number is the cost of bloggers such as the hacks at the Sub-Standard, who spin this news by arguing that it's not that there are too many spin doctors but too few journalists -- echoing a line used by Helen Clark at a journalism conference last December, and doing it on Labour's ticket.  (As Paul M. points out in the comments at Kiwiblog, the Sub-Standard is hosted on the Labour Party's server, but without the parliamentary crest that's supposed to appear on taxpayer-funded pieces of puffery such as this is, leaving a few questions for the Sub-Standard boys and girls to answer, including who exactly pays their wages, and for what purpose.)

Watch out people.  There are liars out there, and you're paying for them.

The Rise of Political Lying by Peter Oborne Read more about this book...

Eight for '08

Uncle Trev tagged me to post my eight wishes for 2008. I've confined myself to politics.

1. For the disquiet about Nanny State and the EFB that is now all but bubbling under to reach a tipping point, erupting into nationwide outrage against the onslaught of Nanny's soft fascism -- and widespread and insistent demands to beat the bitch back.
2. For New Zealand's Labour-Lite party to find a pair and come out with genuine policies promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults -- or that are even just a tiny bit more radical than those now advanced by Australia's new Labour Prime Minister.
3. For ACT (the "liberal" party) to promote policies actually based upon its founding principles; for the Maori and Green Parties to discover property rights; for Jim Neanderton, Winstone Peters and Peter Dung to be rejected by Wigram, Tauranga and Ohariu voters respectively, so that we never hear their ego-driven whining again.
4. For would-be Libz supporters to realise that it's about ideas, stupid; and for several Libz candidates to put together significant war chests for well-focussed, widely publicised constituency campaigns, by which New Zealanders discover the twin values of liberty and reason, and principled policies promoting same head to parliament.
5. For Alan Bollard to realise that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon -- and that it's his hand on the handle of the printing presses.
6. For Ron Paul supporters to realise that Gen Petraeus is winning in Iraq and that George Bush did not fly those planes into the World Trade Center; to rediscover Thomas Jefferson's policy on the Barbary Coast pirates and to take to heart the words of President Madison once the Barbary war was finally won (America's first victory over Islamic terrorists), to whit: “It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute. The United States, while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.”
7. For warmists and the pro-warmist media to finally realise that the planet stopped warming in 1998, that climate models are as accurate as crystal balls, and that Al Bore and the IPCC emperors really don't have any clothes.
8. For American Objectivists to realise that the anti-human environmentalists and death-worshipping Islamic totalitarians in our faces are a more direct and imminent danger than are the right wing religionists they insist are under the bed.

And finally, a hope almost beyond hope for the demise of lies, spin and spin doctors, and the rise and rise of open and honest straight talking instead.

. . . I'm tagging, um, Callum, Scott, Woolfie, Graham, PhilAndLuke and MikeE and to post their own hopes for 2008 -- if they aren't out there somewhere well beyond civilisation and internet coverage as they should be at this time of year.

TFR78: The Democracy Rationing edition (updated)

"Don’t Vote For Any MP, Any Party Or Any Candidate Who Supports The Electoral Finance Bill!"

Democracy is now rationed. Political speech is being muzzled. Has New Zealand really come to this? The latest Free Radical magazine hits the streets, just in time for Christmas, and just in time to dissect the greatest assault on New Zealand's democracy and free speech since .. well, for ever.

How did it come to this, that saying what's quoted above could have just become illegal? Bernard Darnton and Peter Cresswell explain why, how, and why it’s so wrong – why and how what our soldiers fought to defend is being taken away -- why thousands have taken to the streets to protest it, and where that leaves us now. And that's just the cover story of this bumper summer issue of 'The Free Radical.'

• NANNY's BIG BABIES: The Rise and Rise of an Infantilised Culture
  We now have virtually cradle to cradle nannying -- we’re never allowed out of our cribs, and there's nothing any of New Zealand's childlike, apathetic would-be whiners care to do about it. Marcus Bachler and Peter Osborne take the culture of infantilisation to task. How did we become such crybabies, they ask?
• FEEL-GOOD ENVIRONMENTALISM: Spinning the Climate
  How is it that the forces of global nonsense can fly to Bali in their thousands to force us to make any sacrifice hey consider necessary towards their goal of “saving the planet”? Talking about ways to force us to reduce carbon emissions, emitting 100,000 tonnes of the stuff themselves to fly there to talk about it – that’s how ‘seriously’ they take their own warnings. Vincent Gray, Callum McPetrie, Joel Schwartz, Steve Hayward and Ken Green explain how spinning the climate requires politics to pose as science, and emotions to replace thought.
• BANNING BZP: Prohibition Still Doesn't Work
  How is it that despite abundant evidence that prohibition doesn’t, can’t and hasn’t ever worked, the forces of darkness are doing it again: banning a peaceful party pill, and inviting the social destruction of prohibition all over again. Rodney Hide, Nandor Tanczos and Richard Goode point out the how, as Richard Goode says, the party pills ban but the 'P' into BZP.

All this plus the usual treats, including reviews, interviews, all your regular columnists, and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of your editor’s favourite TV show, all in this 78th Free Radical. 78 blows for freedom, and still going strong!

Head to the Free Radical store to subscribe or to buy your digital Free Radical. Or head to one of these top shops around the country to pick up your hard copy (they should be arriving in shops this afternoon).

Cheers,
Peter Cresswell
EDITOR, THE FREE RADICAL
**POLITICS, ECONOMICS & LIFE AS IF FREEDOM MATTERED**

NB: We're having a few teething problems getting the new digital issue for TFR78 succesfully uploaded at the Free Radical store. Keep checking back: I've been assured it will happen soon.

In the meantime, here's a link for an A3 poster of the cover you can download. Enjoy.

UPDATE: As astute readers might by now have realised, our webmaster appears to have taken an early holiday -- for which I can only offer prospective purchasers of the digital edition my profound apologies, and a recommendation that they purchase a hard copy edition from one of these top shops. And to say that volunteers for the job of Free Rad webmaster will be gratefully received in the New Year.

UPDATE 2: Mystery solved. Just heard that webmaster presently responsible for uploading digital Free Radicals was hospitalised after a car accident. News such as it is so far here. Naturally, our thoughts are with the young man as we wish him a speedy recovery ...

Controlling speech in order to keep it free

Attacks on free speech gather apace, even as the Electoral Finance Bill thunders through Parliament like a runaway train with the brakes gone -- and as the title above suggests, the attacks are taking on an increasingly Orwellian tone.

Not content with simply introducing and passing law that muzzles political opponents, there are now signs that, as David Farrar suggests, the Clark Government has plans to muzzle her opponents in the media -- that "her logical next target will be media regulation."  Keep that in mind, he says when you look at her words on Monday:

"She said there was little point complaining to the print media’s self-regulatory watchdog, the Press Council.

That just doesn’t get you anywhere."

Sounds like [says Farrar] she would like a system where her complaints will get her somewhere and she doesn’t have to just “shrug and say, ‘Well, that’s life,’ and get on with it.” Her Foreign Minister has labelled journalists as traitors and rails against the media and their owners.  If he demanded media regulation as the price of support, do you think Helen would resist?

Do you think she could resist for a moment?  Or want to resist?  As Phil says at Pacific Empire -- and he backs this up with several examples -- the disturbing truth about freedom of speech is that it’s just not that popular anymore!  Phil's critique of Jeffrey Sachs' toe-in-the-water for outright censorship also sweeps up in its net the method by which Clark and her allies have been spinning the Electoral Finance Bill, and describes their likely modus for the future:

Lame collectivism with the pervasive use of an all-encompassing “we.” A call for responsible journalism, which seems to mean nothing more than journalism Sachs agrees with, and a criticism of the unregulated Internet with its “blog sites.” But no call for outright censorship.

That should perhaps read "no call for outright censorship" YET.  When it comes, it won't come as an open attack, but as more slippery spin in which the would-censor acts to "protect" democracy, and from attacks upon it by "big money" -- enter stage left this point, Big Nanny, with her big stick. 

But wait, we've seen this strategy already, haven't we.  With the arguments for the EFB and it's "acceptable corruption," the stage is already being set to argue that in order to protect free speech, free speech itself must be muzzled.  It's not a big step from there to where we might be going, and the methodology is precisely the same.  Argued Chris Trotter for exaemple in support of the "ownership class" being muzzled by his favourite new law,

when these "owners" talk about the right to "free expression" [inverted commas his] what they're really referring to is the right to restrict ready access to effective mass- communication technologies to people like themselves.

Trotter's cloth cap hatred for those he derisively calls the "ownership class" allows him to believe that what he says is true: that it's "us" against "them"; that "they" hold the commanding heights of press power, and must be muzzled to protect "us" (with "us" being people like himself on behalf of people like the rest of us); that the only way to defend genuine free expression is to "restrict ready access to mass-communication technologies" to people like himself, and to place "limits on the rights to 'purchase' speech" in order ... "to protect our democracy from money politics" and "the machinations of an owning class." 

It's slippery spin like this and that of Sachs that is being used to justify crushing free expression, and genuine hatred of free expression like that of Winston Peters and his ilk that empowers it.  Wedge politics for speech rationing.

It's slippery spin from a song sheet prepared by the Apostle Al Bore (yes, him again)-- one from which he's already been singing for some time -- a new front he's opened in his war on western civilisation -- and in his book The Assault on Reason: A How-To Manual, he makes it even plainer than Mr Cloth Cap.  As Jason Roth summarises (in a review written for the last 'Free Radical')

It's interesting to observe the mind of a huckster -- a dimestore philosopher with the aspirations of a dictator. Gore has already been fighting a war on industrial civilization. He's now opening up a new front against free speech. As can be expected from an aspiring dictator, his war against free speech will be fought under its exact opposite premise. He wants to control speech in order to keep it free.

Taking his title from an old joke, Roth's review is entitled Al Gore Gave Us the Internet. Now He Wants to Take It Away. The first sentence is the joke.  Only true vigilance will ensure that the second sentence is too.

del.icio.us Tags: Free_Speech

"The debate is over" ensure IPCC's Bali bouncers

Debate at the IPCC's Bali High global warming talk-fest is being kept down by having dissenters kept out (a process all too familiar to observers of the Electoral Finance Bill, and of the methodology by which the IPCC's 'Summaries for Policymakers' are produced). Newspapers opposing the party line have been refused press credentials, and distinguished scientists from Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States have been barred from presenting at panel discussions, side events, and exhibits, and also denied press credentials. Story here:

The scientists, citing pivotal evidence on climate change published in peer-reviewed journals, have expressed their opposition to the UN's alarmist theory of anthropogenic global warming. As the debate on man-made global warming has been heating up, the UN has tried to freeze out the scientists and new evidence, summarily dismissing them with the claim "the science is settled."
James M. Taylor, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute explained, "It is not surprising the UN has completely rejected dissenting voices. They have been doing this for years. The censorship of scientists is necessary to promote their political agenda. After the science reversed on the alarmist crowd, they claimed 'the debate is over' to serve their wealth redistribution agenda."
Taylor continued, "For example, ICSC scientist Dr. Vincent Gray recently published Unsound Science by the IPCC, which proves the main claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are scientifically unsound. Dr. Gray is an expert reviewer for the IPCC and has submitted more than 1,800 comments on IPCC reports. He is an expert on the IPCC methodology, [on which he has] published Spinning the Climate.
"Dr. Gray is the last person the politicized UN wants speaking," Taylor noted. "He single-handedly debunks the entire alarmist theory. And there are more than 600 Dr. Grays trying to be the voice of reason and science. All are being censored."

As the Clark Government and their allies in the Green have realised here, muzzling dissenters is certainly one way to achieve "consensus". But do please remember this banning of dissent when the release of the clearly predetermined 'Bali Mandate' is releases, accompanied by backslapping, agreement, unanimity and "consensus."

UPDATE 1: The IPCC is guilty of "Dishonest political tampering with the science on global warming" says Nobel Prize co-winner Christopher Monckton.

UPDATE 2: Global warming isn't just poor science -- it's not just full of dishonest political tampering -- it's not just the case that the "anthropogenic" part of anthropogenic global warming is still unproven, and the "warming" part hasn't been true since 1998 -- that our carbon emissions being responsible for planetary collapse are still unproven -- but there's a very good reason as Roy Cordato points out at the Mises Blog that "global warming is the holy grail for socialists," and it's of the utmost importance for freedom-lovers to understand it:

It makes market failure completely ubiquitous. Everything we do emits CO2, causes global warming and is therefore evidence of market failure. Global warming raises market failure from a special case to a reason to regulate/tax every aspect of life. This is why the anti-GW movement is certainly the greatest threat to liberty in my lifetime..

UPDATE 3: Canada Free Press has several stories updating readers with ICSC happenings in Bali, and seems to be updating the page regularly. Bookmark: Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing’ At UN Conference - CANADA FREE PRESS. Here's some recent highlights:

** Christopher Monckton ... had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday. “Climate change is a non problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing,” Monckton told participants. The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money..."

** IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants. “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any affect whatsoever on the climate. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails. It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics.”

** David Evans [a mathematician who did carbon accounting for the Australian government, recently converted to a skeptical scientist about man-made global warming after reviewing the new scientific studies. (LINK) ] said, “We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don’t cause global warming. We have the missing [human] signature [in the atmosphere], we have the IPCC models being wrong and we have the lack of a temperature going up the last 5 years.” [Evans authored a November 28 2007 paper “Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming.” (LINK) ] Evans touted a new peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists appearing in the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society which found “Warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence.” (LINK) “Most of the people here have jobs that are very well paid and they depend on the idea that carbon emissions cause global warming. They are not going to be very receptive to the idea that well actually the science has gone off in a different direction.”

** New Zealander Bryan Leyland warned participants that all the UN promoted discussions of “carbon trading” should be viewed with suspicion. “We should probably ask why we have 10,000 people here [in Bali] in a futile attempt to ‘solve’ a [climate] problem that probably does not exist,” Leland added.

** Owen McShane said that a UN promoted global approach to economics would mean financial ruin for many nations. “Having the same set of rules apply to everybody will blow some economies apart totally while others will be unscathed and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ones who remain unscathed are the ones who write the rules.”

** Professor Dr. William Alexander, emeritus of the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, warned poor nations and their residents that the UN policies could mean more poverty and thus more death. “My message is specifically for the poor people of Africa. And there is nothing happening at this conference that can help them one little bit but there is the potential that they could be damaged,” Alexander said. (LINK)

del.icio.us Tags: Global Warming,Politics-NZ,Politics-World,IPCC,Bali

Related Links:

• New UN Children's Book Promotes Global Warming Fears to Kids (11-13-2006)
• Scientists Counter AP Article Promoting Computer Model Climate Fears
• New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
• Newsweek Editor Calls Mag's Global Warming 'Deniers' Article 'Highly Contrived'
• Newsweek's Climate Editorial Screed Violates Basic Standards of Journalism
• Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt
• EPA to Probe E-mail Threatening to ‘Destroy' Career of Climate Skeptic
• Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
• Senator Inhofe declares climate momentum shifting away from Gore (The Politico op ed)
• Scientific Smackdown: Skeptics Voted The Clear Winners Against Global Warming Believers in Heated NYC Debate
• Global Warming on Mars & Cosmic Ray Research Are Shattering Media Driven "Consensus'
• Global Warming: The Momentum has Shifted to Climate Skeptics
• Prominent French Scientist Reverses Belief in Global Warming - Now a Skeptic
• Top Israeli Astrophysicist Recants His Belief in Manmade Global Warming - Now Says Sun Biggest Factor in Warming
• Warming On Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, Neptune's Moon & Earth Linked to Increased Solar Activity, Scientists Say
• Panel of Broadcast Meteorologists Reject Man-Made Global Warming Fears- Claim 95% of Weathermen Skeptical
• MIT Climate Scientist Calls Fears of Global Warming 'Silly' - Equates Concerns to ‘Little Kids' Attempting to "Scare Each Other"
• Weather Channel TV Host Goes 'Political'- Stars in Global Warming Film Accusing U.S. Government of ‘Criminal Neglect'
• Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Decertifying Global Warming Skeptics
• ABC-TV Meteorologist: I Don't Know A Single Weatherman Who Believes 'Man-Made Global Warming Hype'
• The Weather Channel Climate Expert Refuses to Retract Call for Decertification for Global Warming Skeptics
• Senator Inhofe Announces Public Release Of "Skeptic's Guide To Debunking Global Warming"

Lies, damned lies and 20,000 unemployed

There are lies, damned lies, and damned Labour lies -- and these all frequently involve statistics. There are "just over" 20,000 New Zealanders unemployed, says Labour's Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson.  There are 79,000 unemployed, says the September Household Labour Force survey.

Who do you think is right?  Should we celebrate?  Or should someone investigate this further?  Fortunately, Lindsay Mitchell is on the case.

UPDATE 1: Lindsay has more today on Ruth's spin.  Spin?  That's far too polite a word for out and out lies and deception.  While only 20,000 are "officially" receiving the Unemployment Benefit, that doesn't count those receiving benefits like 'Unemployment Benefit Training' and 'Unemployment Benefit Hardship' and 'Unemployment Benefit Training Hardship' and 'Unemployment Benefit Student Hardship' (I swear, it's not me making these up)  which is a figure approximately three times the number receiving the benefit referred to by Ruth in he press release. 

As should be obvious by now, if you have to lie to support your position, that suggests you have a position that's not worth supporting.

UPDATE 2: Naturally, the paid employees of the EPMU are peddling the lie. That's what they're paid to do.

What's wrong with "big money"?

I hear all the time that "minorities" should be protected. "Minorities" need the protection of law. Minorities need to have their voices heard. This is widely considered today to be a moral principle of a very high order.

Yet as the spin around the Electoral Finance Bill demonstrates, this defence of minority "rights" is applied by this government and its allies in a most discriminatory manner: it is applied only to racial minorities.

There is one minority however who this government thinks should sit still while the law removes their voice and taxes them to hell; who should remain silent their right to speak freely is muzzled; who should keep quiet even while this government goes through their pockets to pay for views which they oppose.

The one minority whom this government has chosen not to protect but instead to do over, are people who have earned their own money. The rich. The wealthy. This "ownership class" it seems is the one minority that deserves not protection, but out and out political persecution.

Why?

Why shouldn't people be entitled to advertise their own views with their own money, just as long as all are free to do the same thing? Why should people be required to stay silent while they're forced to fund views they oppose? What's actually wrong with "big money" and those who've earned it? Why should the speech of producers be rationed, while they're forced to fund the speech of the unproductive?

There is nothing more cancerous or corrosive than to vilify the most productive members of society.

There was a time last century when those who didn't own property were excluded from voting. one could be forgiven for thinking that those fomenting the present feeding freezy would like to bring about that same situation in reverse.

Perhaps you think the word "persecution" too harsh? Consider this*:

If a small group of men were always regarded as guilty, in any clash with any other group, regardless of the issues or circumstances involved, would you call it persecution? If this group were always made to pay for the sins, errors, or failures of any other group, would you call that persecution? If this group had to live under a silent reign of terror, under special laws, from which all other people were immune, laws which the accused could not grasp or define in advance and which the accuser could interpret in any way he pleased -- would you call that persecution? If this group were penalized, not for its faults, but for its virtues, not for its incompetence, but for its ability, not for its failures, but for its achievements, and the greater the achievement, the greater the penalty -- would you call that persecution?

If your answer is ''yes'' -- then ask yourself what sort of monstrous injustice you are condoning, supporting, or perpetuating. That group is the [world's] businessmen. . . .

Any good reason they deserve to be silenced?

* * * * *
* From the introduction to Ayn Rand's 1961 article 'America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business,' reprinted in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

UPDATE: A graphic from a reader at Kiwiblog makes plain the difference between "big money" and "government money" under the Electoral Finance Bill:

Comrade Trottersky lays bare the real EFB issues

Chris Trotter, who is on the record of being all in favour of "acceptable corruption," makes his derision at "the owning class" abundantly clear in a diatribe this morning against a libertarian opponent of the Clark/Peters/Dunne/Fitzsimons Bill to Gag Free Speech & Buy Elections. You can read Comrade Trottersky's column here at Lindsay Mitchell's blog.

Stephen Franks summarises Trotter's position perfectly when he summarises Jeanette Fitzsimons speech to Wednesday's parliamentary protest: "Freedom of speech and political association and action is subordinate to the class war." Both Trotter and Fitzsimons are singing from the same songsheet -- and we all know who's writing their songs, or we should do.

Trotter and Fitzsimons understand just as clearly as Trotsky did the crucial importance of property rights. Where there is no private ownership, Trotsky recognised, individuals can be easily bent to the will of the state. The authors of the Electoral Finance Bill and the fellow travellers of Mr Trotter understand that point more clearly than "the owning class" themselves presently do -- and because they understand it more clearly, and because they despise "the owning class," they're prepared to use all the levers of state power at their command in the battle to control the "inherent power structures" at work in a society in which "the owning class" is allowed to flourish.

They're prepared to justify an "acceptable" level of corruption in our elections -- which includes putting severe restrictions on how much electioneering you can do with your own money, while putting their hand in your pocket to fund their own political campaigns. They're prepared to countenance the muzzling of your free speech while using your resources to trumpet their own. They're prepared to support retrospective legislation legalising eight-hundred thousand dollars of pledge card spending that Labour Party organisers knew at the time was illegal.

They're prepared to support and spin and lie about the real point of the Electoral Finance Bill, which is to use state power to silence as far as possible this "owning class."

Thank goodness then for the columns of old schools socialists like Trotter, whose spin being less opaque than that of his younger more postmodern successors the reader can see more clearly the real issues at stake here. In a sea of spin, his "extreme, unvarnished -- and refreshingly candid -- ideological assertions" are a welcome relief, since they can help us see the issue more clearly.

Make no mistake, it's the very idea of an "owning class" Trotter and Fitzsimons and their fellow travellers find repugnant, and in the name of the poor, the oppressed, the halt and the lame -- of speechless peoples and the "oppressed" everywhere -- they'll do whatever it takes to wipe that class out, or at least to puncture the "power structure" their post-structuralist pomowank tells them is there in society and at the service of this "class." And make no mistake, they're prepared to wrap themselves in all the state's power they need to do that.

That's not just the reason for their willingness to countenance and support this latest obscenity - it provides the explanation too for the many other outrages introduced under the Clark regime, including the nationalisation of children via the anti-smacking amendment, the welfarisation of the middle classes via Welfare for Working Families, and the innumerable other nannying assaults by which we're all kept down.

Do not make a mistake of thinking they don't mean to take your free speech away: they sure as hell do. And once your free speech is gone, all legitimate forms of protest at what they're doing will be gone too.

Honest John?

Good for Whale Oil:

To: john.key@national.org.nz
Subject: Time to stand up and be true to your word!

Dear Sir,
We believed you when you said that the first time this happened you would stand up and commit to scrapping this law. No amount of spin will get you off the hook here.

Please read this : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10477661

Now show us that it is worth staying in NZ . And show us that National has some guts.
Kind Regards, Whaleoil

I'm sure readers will have no problem composing a similar email to Sue Bradford, who said that the law would be treated by police and prosecutors with "common sense"; that it wouldn't catch good parents, only those who are killing "our" children.

Bullshit. "The law of common sense" that in various contexts Bradford, Key and Annette King have argued will protect people from inappropriate police attention should have another think about delivering laws that they argue won't be fully enforced. As I said here yesterday in respect of the Electoral Finance Bill,

A law with draconian provisions that aren't intended to be applied is bad law. A politician who introduces such a law and who argues that they won't be applied is either a fool or a liar -- and in either case they're a tyrant.

What's wrong with "private money" in public debate"

Labour says the Electoral Finance Bill will "stop people with money being able to buy votes for their party through advertising." Green Party whip Metiria Turei says the $120,000 restriction on third-party spending will "prevent those with deep wallets drowning out Kiwi groups and people with legitimate election issues." Various commentators are spinning the Labour/Green line that "there is no place in a democracy for private money in public debate..."

Why isn't there?

What's wrong with people with political opinions putting their own money where their mouth is? That's certainly infinitely preferable to the corruption that sees politicians putting their hand into your pocket to peddle their opinions, as Labour, the Greens, United Future and NZ First all insist on doing. They're putting their hand into your pocket, while restricting your own ability to do the same.

Let me say this: If "Kiwi groups" have "legitimate election issues" then let them find people with the same concerns to pay to air them. Using the power of the state to force others to pay for your opinions -- forcing people to pay who wouldn't do so voluntarily, or who may even disagree with your "issues" ... that's beyond disgusting.

Anyone who votes for this bill has no claim to be a supporter of either free speech or democracy.

What's wrong with saying "Don't vote for anyone who supports the Electoral Finance Bill?"
What's wrong with saying "Don't vote for anyone who supports the banning of BZP?"
What's wrong with saying "Don't vote for anyone who supports the criminalisation of protest."
What's wrong with saying that however much you damn well spend?

What's wrong is that offends those who wield political power, and they're going to use all the political power at their command to shut you up.

In six weeks, using your own money to express your own views is going to be illegal -- and it's going to be illegal for one third of your life.

It's supposed to be wrong to have private money in public debate. Why? Because it's supposed to be wrong to "buy" political power.

But is it? Even if it's really possible to "buy" political power, is it really wrong?

What's really wrong is giving politicians and legislators the power they have, power without limit, power to enter your bedroom and your boardroom, to tell you what you can and can't say, and how much you're allowed to spend to say it. then allowing any special interest group access to the levers of political power is inherently dangerous. But isn't that what we already have? The problem is not buying political power, it's with the power that politicians are given, and hwo much more they want to take.

As PJ O'Rourke says, giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

What's needed is not restrictions on buying political power, but on what politicians do with that power. What's needed are constitutional restrictions not on how much can be spent for a party to gain power, but on how much parties can do once they have power.

That is how you protect free speech.

Bore's baloney battered in British court

Most of you have probably already heard that a British High court found last week, to put it bluntly, that Al Gore's film is little more than political propaganda.

Responding to plaintiff Stewart Dimmock, who objected to the film's "serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush" being shown in British schools, Justice Burton agreed that Al Gore's science fiction climate porn promotes "partisan political views" -- which under British law would normally make it unlawful to show in schools -- and decided that the film may only be shown if the government's guidance notes for the film are rewritten to make clear the film "promotes partisan political views" and contains "eleven serious inaccuracies." Notes the (UK) Daily Telegraph:

The surprise move [to require guidance notes to be rewritten] was a result of concerns voiced by the judge during the hearing that Gore's critically-acclaimed work contained statements about global warming for which there was currently insufficient scientific evidence. The judge also queried whether the film might appear to promote partisan views, rather than provide information about climate change, and thus make showing it in schools - without further efforts to counterbalance it - a breach of the 1996 Education Act [which forbids the showing of partisan political propaganda in schools].

The news and the "eleven serious inaccuracies" will be no surprise to readers of this blog, but it's worth being reminded of the level of deception:

1. The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
   
2. The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
   
3. The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
   
4. The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
   
5. The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
   
6. The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
   
7. The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
   
8. The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
   
9. The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
   
10. The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
    
11. The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Notes Australian Andrew Bolt, "The new Guidance Notes, very grudgingly amended, are here. Would that even this small gesture was matched by Australian schools." And would it be mathced too by partisan Gore supporters worldwide, and by those New Zealand politicians whose "buttons" were "pushed" by Gore's seductive spin and who are now so enthusiastically selling us down the river.

CRIME: You gotta get up to get down

Crime stats are up. "Good news!" shrieks crime minister Annette King. A situation summarised in Whale Oil's headline: Violent and Family Crime going up, King encouraged in which he concludes:

How you can turn a 32% increase in violent crime since Labour came to power into a situation where you are encouraged by the figures shows she and her department have more spin than an Indian cricket team.

Lindsay Mitchell takes a more cynical view.

UPDATE: David Farrar on the spin:

The spin is that the increase in violent crimes come from more work on domestic violence. Well domestic violence tends to be minor assaults, so how did assaults increase in the last year:

• Minor assaults up 2.2%
• Serious assaults up 4.8%
• Grievous assaults up 10.0%

Speaks for itself.

Captain Umaga

Tana Umaga's book excerpt covering 'the O'Driscoll incident' and all the resulting spin and follow-up tells me that the 2005 All Blacks had a captain to be truly proud of, and the Lions didn't. As I said at the time.

If the All Blacks do lift the World Cup in a few weeks time, it will be in large part because he brought back to them the hard-arsed winning attitude that was pissed away under Taine and Mitch and Reuben.

Time for the grand coalition

Given the cross-party political love-fest over yesterday's plans to shackle industry and raise fuel and power prices in order to make political obeisances to Gaia (a cap-and-trade plan that will have absolutely no effect on climate but a big effect on the cost of doing business and of staying alive, and about which I commented yesterday) it's clear that only the thickness of a spin doctor's smile now separates Labour and Labour-Lite, and nothing now stands in the way of a grand coalition but ego.

Lance Davey hails the prospect of the imminent amalgamation of the two main parties "as a clarifying move that [is] logically inevitable."

It was a matter of recognising the obvious, really," National's John Key told journalists. "National has long accepted that the Welfare State is ingrained in the Kiwi psyche; Labour has learned that it cannot strangle the goose that lays golden eggs; we both believe in squeezing hard...

Clark said, "We're especially thrilled that the new party's name so accurately captures the essence of the old parties."

Head to Lance's press release to see the new name. It's obvious really.

Weekend Ramble, #23

Another ramble through sights and sounds and snippets that caught my eye over the week. . .

• As the Nats meet in Auckland's Langham Hotel to gird their loins for next year's election, they might give some thought to the political fortunes of UK Conservative leader David Cameron, on whom John Boy Key has adopted his all-things-to-all-men weasel-wording politics. Notes the Express this week (hardly the voice of Tory discontent), the weasel-words and bullshit are wearing thin:

  DAVID Cameron faces a summer of discontent from his own supporters, it emerged last night. Several major backers [this one for example] were said to have given the Tory leader notice that he has two months to sharpen up his act or face trouble at the party’s conference ...
  One senior Conservative said last night: “The leader’s got roughly 60 days to make us look like a party that could win an election, let alone form a Government. If he can’t do that, then hard questions will have to be asked.” New policy proposals have ... failed to capture the public’s attention, while one prominent donor has demanded that Mr Cameron do some “rethinking”. A poll yesterday put Labour on 41 per cent against 32 per cent for the Conservatives.
  
  Much more damaging for Mr Cameron, however, was the finding that just 27 per cent of voters now say they believe he is a good leader, compared to 43 per cent in February.

  Cameron's spin-without-substance act is wearing thin, just as it deserves to. Something for John Boy's boys to think about.
  
  
• Entrepreneurs are what moves the world. What are the top ten signs that you're made to be an entrepreneur? [Hat tip Stephen Hicks]
  
  
• A few books are a few of my favourite things. Books of early NZ history are high on my list of favourite books, but they're always either expensive or difficult to get hold of. Until now. I just finished reading John Logan Campbell's entertaining Poenamo, and searched on the web to check a few names and place names, and discovered not just that Poenamo itself is online, but literally dozens of early NZ classic are also online in their entirety courtesy of the Auckland University Library. What a magic resource.
  
  
• Another lesson from history from the recent Sudanese diaspora, what Stephen Browne calls the Haight-Ashbury Lesson: "Any society that renounces violence, even in self-defense, becomes a magnet for those willing to use violence to get what they want." Find out more at this post on lessons from history, including two related lessons, the John Wesley Hardin Lesson, and the Dian Fossey Lesson.
  
  
• More confessions from a former warmist. Says David Evans, "I used to work for the Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO), and I used to believe that carbon emissions probably caused global warming." Now he doesn't. Read why, and about the machinations at the AGO in this extended piece here [pdf], of which the similar piece appearing in The Free Radical was an edited version: My Life with the Australian Greenhouse Office, and Other Reflections - David Evans.
  
  
• Steve McIntyre continues to investigate the temperature record of the world's carparks, which it seems is what the surface temperature record mostly seems to be measuring. His latest investigation is a rural station, one which is considered by The Team to be a quality station because its night time footprint shows few lights, what The Team refers to as Lights=0. As McIntyre say, Lights might be zero, but air conditioners are about 22.
  
  
• Many people trying to wrap their heads around the stumblings of the Reserve Bank's Alan Bollard -- stumblings which to many of us are mired in the failure of the economic theory on which the bank is based -- find it difficult to think like an economist. ("Who would want to?," I hear someone say.) Let's face it, economic thinking is difficult, even (perhaps especially) for trained economists. Says Andrew Cassell,

  I finally understand why economics is so hard for many people to grasp.

  It's not because of complexity. The rules of supply and demand aren't inherently more difficult to fathom than those that apply to, say, politics, or cooking, or sports. [Although that all important principle of comparative advantage seems to leave many non-economists slack-jawed.]
  

  Yet while most people have no trouble wrapping their brains around these subjects - indeed, millions will be eagerly absorbing their finer points this weekend - (What are you watching: Meet the Press, celebrity chefs or college football?) - few have a similar appetite for economics.

  And now I know why, thanks to Alan Fiske ..., a professor of anthropology at UCLA.

  Stripped of jargon, Fiske points out that the concept of market pricing is both conceptually difficult and a relative late-comer in human affairs, and consequently difficult for those "a step or two [down] the evolutionary ladder" to grasp. I guess that's a point equallly applicable to the equally advanced concept of individual rights -- a concept that sadly seems to escape most people; one might even say especially economists.
  
  
• Speaking of economic concepts that are difficult to understand, "trade deficits" is another. Spend more on imports than is earned in exports, and morons will be heard mouthing nonsense about the "problems" with the trade deficit. Alex Robson at the CIS is the latest to put the morons down: Trade Deficit's Poor Image - Alex Robson. Send a copy to Winston Peters.
  
  
• Walter Williams points out another thing about free markets too easily forgotten by those so eager to disparage them: markets are simply the sum of voluntary decisions taken by free people.

  Tyrants are against the free market because it implies voluntary exchange. Tyrants do not trust that people acting voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they ought to do. Therefore, they want to replace the market with economic planning, or as [politicians] call it — industrial policy. Economic planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.

• Seguing quickly from economics to sex, David Friedman has some thoughts on mating and money. It reminds Samizdata's Jonathan of this post from Harry Hutton: How to Win with Women. Obvious advice, really.
  
  
• Speaking of women, here's mathematical proof that girls are evil. Didn't we know that all along?
  
  
• Power napping. Having a nap at work is about as popular with the boss as being caught having sex on the boardroom table (how's that for a nifty segue?). Yet as this Personnel type says:
  

  Several research studies demonstrate the benefits of napping in the middle of the day. According to Newsday, in an article discussing this topic, those who take a nap several times a week have improved cognition and response time and a 37% lower risk of death from heart disease.

  Should we perhaps review our views on sleeping at work? Or in parliament? What would Peter Dunne, for example, be like with "improved cognition"? How would we know?
  
• Women at war: When new British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith gave a speech about the dangers of terrorism, she took it as an opportunity to flash some cleavage. Some were upset at talking terrorism with one's décolletage on display, but not Marcus Bachler who cuts straight to the point with this comment: "I have to admit that flaunting one's cleavage at Muslim terrorists who would like to see all women wearing the Burqa is quite appropriate."
  
  
• Where do you find God in America? It seems to Times columnist Daniel Finkenstein that "the Bible Belt, which was traditionally seen as stretching from Texas, across states like Tennessee and Alabama, to Virginia – has been flipped up, through “tornado alley” and into Northern states like the Dakotas." See the map at left (redder is more faith-ridden; click to enlarge), and compare it to the electoral map for the Bush-Kerry election to draw some conclusions about the almighty in American politics.
  
  
• While we're doing maps and related stuff, here's a neat World Clock with all sorts of nifty information. For instance it tells me in the time it's taken to wrote this post that 204 people have been born and 148 have died, there's been 96 abortions and 24 incidences of cancer, 100,000 barrels of oil produced and 157 cars. Very cool.
  
  
• One of my favourite lecturers in intellectual history is John Ridpath. The man is erudite, assure and emotional when it matters, and the Ayn Rand Bookstore now has his audio lectures at bargain prices, up to fifty percent discounts on some titles. What a deal. Two to start with are The Greatness of the 18th Century Enlightenment, and Ideas and Revolution: Locke and America; Rousseau and France. And if you haven't already heard the debate Capitalism V Socialism: Which is the Moral System, then you're in for a treat.
  PS: IF you want to sample Ridpath first, here's three online lectures courtesy of the Ayn Rand Institute (requires free registration):
  
  • In the Dawn's Early Light: Patrick Henry—Beacon for America
  • America Under Attack!: What Would the Other George Do?
  • George Washington: Integrity and the Founding of America
    
    
• As far as contemporary intellectual history goes, we're not at the end of history yet, but buy we are in an era of post-post-modernism, says Stephen Hicks in this superb aesthetic commentary, written as an introduction to artist Michael Newberry's artistic manifesto: Post-Postmodern Art - Stephen Hicks.
  
  
• Hicks points too to this thoughtful piece From Cynicism to Postmodernism, which argues that "Contrarianism has a proud intellectual heritage, but in its postmodern flowering it merely became juvenile, complacently smashing up the entire interlocking crossword puzzle of human knowledge." The "crisis" of postmodernism is a crisis of intellectual adolescence.
  
  
• You might have seen Captain Hops' Beer Haikus that have been featuring at Real Beer Fridays. Sample: Sometimes - by Captain Hops
  
  Sometimes just a sip
  Can restore my faith in man
  and sometimes it can’t.
  
  There's another chap who does what he calls Netflix Haikus. Great idea. Sample, about the classic film noir 'Pick Up on South Street':
  
  Richard Widmark sneers.
  Thelma Ritter finks, sells ties.
  Audience nods off.
  

  Perhaps the idea is better than the execution. Maybe I'll try one myself. A political haiku. Who do you think this describes:
  

  Without a clue he leads
  From behind, in a fog made
  Opaque by appeasement.
  
  
• 'Bayesian Judo' from Eliezer Yudkowksy:

  I was once at a dinner party, trying to explain to a man what I did for a living, when he said: "I don't believe Artificial Intelligence is possible because only God can make a soul." At this point I must have been divinely inspired, because I instantly responded: "You mean if I can make an Artificial Intelligence, it proves your religion is false?" He said, "What?"

  The conversation continues here.
  
  
• The NZ visit of the vile Saddamite George Galloway seems to have gone by remarkably quietly. I must confess I wasn't entirely unhappy being away from Auckland the weekend he was here oozing filth. Any reports from anyone they'd like to share about what he got up to?
  
  
• Speaking of vile bedfellows, Trevor Loudon has begun a series explaining How Socialist Extremists Took Over the NZ Labour Party. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 here, neither of which take us up to the present mob, or even the post-Soviet era. I assume it's going to be a long series.
  
  
• I'm disappointed that Idiot/Savant, normally forthright in defence of free speech, has chosen to go all mealy mouthed over the government's proposed Electoral Finance Bill. If it doesn't violate our our pathetic and toothless Bill of Rights Act, he seems to argue, it seems to be fine with him for the government to ration dissent, and to limit democracy. Where are free speech's defenders when the chips are down?
  
  
• Speaking of politics, let me remind you that while other parties might like to pretend that 'policies' is a dirty word, Libertarianz is in the process of rolling out the transitional policies discussed at last week's Wellington conference.
  

  ** Phil Howison outlines the process whereby school and state may be painlessly and urgently separated in this speech posted at his Pacific Empire blog: Free the Schools.
  **And I attempted to outline the reasoning behind offering transitional policies in my own speech, Revolution & Environmental Judo, a 40 minute speech which you can hear by clicking the link.
  **And a few people have asked me to post all the audio from the afternoon's global warming forum, so here it is:
  

  1. Leader Bernard Darnton's contribition (3 min.) - "if socialism and central planning don't work at seventeen degrees, then why would they work at nineteen?"
  2. President Craig Milmine (4 min.)
  3. Luke Howison (4 min.)
  4. And after those pithy contributions, then there's me blathering on for 19 minutes, which includes some discussion of Libz' proposed Seven-Point Transitional Plan for Environmental Deregulation, which includes a Carbon Tax, a Fishy Story, a Plan to Make Maoris Rich, and our own Kyoto Treaty. That might encourage you to listen in. ;^)

• A reminder of the insanity of the Kyoto Treaty's aim to cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 comes with the release by David Benson-Pope's former ministry of what they say is NZ's carbon emission trends for the past two decades. I suggest you looks at the graph that comes with the report, realise that NZ industry is largely carbon-based, and contemplate the extent to which industry would need to be destroyed in order for the Treaty promise to be carried out. Sobering, no?
  
  
• Why the War on Drugs needs to end: Craig D points out the obvious, that the drug related harms we see cited so often are mostly a result of the War on Drugs itself, not of drugs themselves.
  
  
• Iraq. Everybody has an opinion, and John Lewis among others has pointed out the many lessons that WWII has for Iraq, and for the war with Islamic Totalitarianism. Tony Blankley points out another lesson from June 25, 1942, when WWII looked to be lost and Churchill looked to be on his way out . . . See The Hinge of Fate in Iraq - Tony Blankley.
  
  
• Paul Potts might still be all the rage with people who've never before realised the power of opera, even when sung as poorly as it is by Potts. For those who do want to hear opera as it should be sung, here's two legendary singers singing the legendary Wagner duet, from Tristan and Isolde -- Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior at YouTube singing the 'coitus interruptus' duet from Act II. And here's the gorgeous Anna Moffo singing 'Sempre Libera' from Verdi's La Traviata. Says Daniel, "Note how ridiculously fast she takes her trills while still perfectly landing every note, and note also how high she goes while still keeping support and emotion in her voice. That's a high E-flat she hits at the end, only two half-steps below the highest note in Der Holle Rache [from Mozart's Magic Flute]. "
  
  
• Wagner fans have been sorely mistreated over the years by what has come to be called 'Eurotrash' directors, who've used Wagner's genius only as a stage on which to pour their own misbegotten egos. But Eurotrash is everywhere, a fashionable form of vice from which few theatrical geniuses are free. Heather McDonald describes the nasty trend in The Abduction of Opera.

  Mozart’s lighthearted opera The Abduction from the Seraglio does not call for a prostitute’s nipples to be sliced off and presented to the lead soprano. Nor does it include masturbation, urination as foreplay, or forced oral sex. Europe’s new breed of opera directors, however, know better than Mozart what an opera should contain. So not only does the Abduction at Berlin’s Komische Oper feature the aforementioned activities; it also replaces Mozart’s graceful ending with a Quentin Tarantino–esque bloodbath and the promise of future perversion.

  Welcome to Regietheater (German for “director’s theater”), the style of opera direction now prevalent in Europe.

  The Onion satirises the trend: Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time and Place Shakespeare Intended.
  
  
• And finally (yes, there is an end), if you think your inbox looks cluttered, just imagine how cluttered God's must be. After all, as Tom Waits says, he's everywhere isn't he, always looking at the big picture, yet he's always there to help you out of those little jams. Have a look at this screenshot of God's Inbox. Amusing.
  

Lies, damned lies and National Party politics

After posting yesterday on John Boy's lies, spin and flip flops over the complementary medicines bill, I asked National apologists how their hero was looking now he can't even lie straight.

The responses from online apologists this morning are revealing. Faced with the choice of reading and digesting the evidence -- that is, the transcript of Key's interview with Audrey Young about which he chose to lie (and which she posted online yesterday) -- or of evading the evidence, shooting the messenger and maintaining their illusions about their hero, most either plumped for the latter (Whale Oil, No Minister), or like John Boy Armstrong and DPF they've tried to cover up the lie by calling it something less damaging -- "confusion" in DPF's case, "a muddle" in Armstrong's, which pretty much describes his own dissembling on his hero's behalf.

For once you have to agree with Helen Clark: "I think this guy [Mr Key] has got a problem with the truth: BP [David Benson-Pope] swung for less." And it's true, isn't it, as those howling loudly last week about DBP's lies are all too aware.

It's clear enough now that for Key supporters their problem with the Clark Government is not that they lie, but that they're Labour. Draw your own conclusions about the value of honesty for these supporters, and for any future Key-led Government.

(For those who haven't kept up, Audrey Young's sanitised account this morning of Key's dissembling is online here. Her "bloody angry" blog post is here.)