Prince William just landed

Just saw on TVONE, Prince William has just landed. He is of course coming here to watch Britain, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland get totally trounced by the All Blacks.

Unfortunately for him, I think he'd have more fun watching England playing Australia back in his own country.... (or even watching Australia play Bangladesh!).

If the MSM can't even report the news quickly what exactly is it good for?

Within a few minutes of the verduct. Reuters is still announcing that Jackson is on his way to the courthouse.

Fox on the other hand has a huge graphic on its frontpage a few seconds after the verdict:



Reuter's slogan is: 'Know, Now." Oh the irony...

Strange. Especially given that I'm sure Murdoch owns both agencies.

Jackson just walked into his SUV without giving a statement. Which is strange, given that he has been jumping on top of objects shouting about his innocence on many occasions prior to the trial.

Is this due to the recent deterioration of his health?

Jackson is innocent!!

Woohoo!! He's officially not a child molestor (again!).

Just saw the trial live on TVONE (they pirated CNN's broadcast for a few brief moments). In the words of whoever is the Fox correspondent on Prime: "the victims were, quite frankly, an unbelievable bunch".

Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Bill

First Reading votes (notables in bold). I'll comment on WHY they're noteworthy soon...

Hat tip 'No Right Turn'.

For:

Paul Adams, Jim Anderton, Shane Ardern, Larry Baldock, Rick Barker, David Benson-Pope, Georgina Beyer, Peter Brown, Gerry Brownlee, Mark Burton, Chris Carter, John Carter, Brent Catchpole, Ashraf Choudhary, Helen Clark, Judith Collins, Gordon Copeland, Clayton Cosgrove, David Cunliffe, Brian Donnelly, Harry Duynhoven, Gerry Eckhoff, Bill English, Ian Ewen-Street, Taito Phillip Field, Stephen Franks, Martin Gallagher, Phil Goff, Mark Gosche, Sandra Goudie, Bill Gudgeon, Ann Hartley, Phil Heatley, Dail Jones, John Key, Annette King, Luamanuvao Winnie Laban, Moana Mackey, Steve Maharey, Nanaia Mahuta, Wayne Mapp, Ron Mark, Murray McCully, Craig McNair, Damien O'Connor, Bernie Ogilvy, Mahara Okeroa, Pita Paraone, David Parker, Mark Peck, Edwin Perry, Winston Peters, Jim Peters, Jill Pettis, Lynne Pillay, Simon Power, Mita Ririnui, Ross Robertson, Matt Robson, Tony Ryall, Dover Samuels, Lynda Scott, Nick Smith, Murray Smith, Barbara Stewart, Paul Swain, John Tamihere, Georgina te Heu Heu, Lindsay Tisch, Tariana Turia, Judy Turner, Mike Ward, Maurice Williamson, Pansy Wong, Doug Woolerton, Richard Worth, Dianne Yates, Darren Hughes.

Against:

Marc Alexander, Tim Barnett, Sue Bradford, Don Brash, David Carter, Steve Chadwick, Deborah Coddington, Brian Connell, Michael Cullen, Lianne Dalziel, Rod Donald, Helen Duncan, Peter Dunne, Ruth Dyson, Jeanette Fitzsimons, George Hawkins, Dave Hereora, Rodney Hide, Marian Hobbs, Pete Hodgson, Parekura Horomia, Paul Hutchison, Sue Kedgley, Keith Locke, Janet Mackey, Trevor Mallard, Muriel Newman, Richard Prebble, Katherine Rich, Heather Roy, Ken Shirley, Clem Simich, Lockwood Smith, Lesley Soper, Roger Sowry, Jim Sutton, Nandor Tanczos, Judith Tizard, Metiria Turei, Kenneth Wang, Margaret Wilson.

Importance of economics in CONTEXT

Jordan Carter's latest blog entry displays the need for economics in context. He cites an OECD report rather selectively focussing on one sentence that reads: additional fiscal stimulus above that already planned..would need to be offset by higher interest rates". Then uses this magical sentence to rant against tax cut.. on top of that he is stupid enough to link to the report so all can see how wrong he is...

Other more revealing quotes from the OECD report include:

"Higher interest rates will dampen domestic demand...this will be offset by the income effects of the 'working for families' package"

(i.e. the government's pet social project is causing an increase in demand)

"Demand also continues to be boosted by a vigorous expansion in government consumption"

(Econ101: Higher government demand pushes the aggregate demand curve to the right increasing inflation.. must be offset by interest rate hikes to decrease consumer spending)

Guess it's good Jordan Carter is at least trying to use econ-lingo. Would help if he also learnt a bit of first year economics along the way..

American Army Game

In a fit of procrastination I woke up at 4AM this morning to finish off work and ended up watching BBC instead. BBC's ClickOnline (which is unusually good for a mainstream media technology program) was visiting E3 and showing off all the new games. In the back of my mind I hoped that they would show the up and coming 24 Game. Though that was basically due to the onset of 24-fever in my household as of late.

Anywho, they didn't end up showing 24 but they did have some other rather interesting features. My three videogame drools for today: Scarface, Godfather, and the US Military.

The graphics on the Scarface game look awesome and you get to relive the firefight at the end! Not only this, but Joe Montana really looks like Joe Montana (well at least on the ultra-high tech PCs they were trialing the game on..). It also looks like they've chosen the right style for these games.They have gone for a free roaming GTA-style of play for both of them. Can you imagine cruising the streets of Miami as Joe Montana?! I mean, cruising a fictional Vice City as some no-name is one thing.. but JOE FREAKING MONTANA!!

However, of the two games Godfather looks like it has the most promise. It features the original voice of Marlon Brando as well as many other actors from the movie. Not only that but the game involves having conversations with people on the street, courting influence, and choosing when or when not to apply force!

As for the military.. well, I heard about this a while ago, but watching this revived my memory and appetite for it. The US Army has created a videogame called 'America's Army' it is a FPS where you work as part of a team and carry out various operations. I'm not sure whether it's going to be the great recruiting tool its intended to be, but I can definitely guarantee some website hits for the military. I tried to download it earlier but BBC's website stupidly doesn't provide a link!! Anyway, I have found it now so feel free to join the US Virtual army here

Makes me wish I had some free time!

Gmail too good to be true?

I started up Gmail Notifier this morning and got an error message. Then surfed to gmail.com website and to my surprise there seems to have been a mass server error:

Server Error
The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.

Please try again in 30 seconds.

Of course, problems plague all free internet services. One has only to mention Waikato University's webmail service to remember the days when the service went down for days on end (and those days are still happening!). The test for google will be how long it will take them to fix it.

And even if they do take a while to fix it, we have to remember that gmail is still in beta.

In some ways, it's amazing that the service has taken this long to screw up...

Update:

Did some web surfing and it appears that this is not the first time Gmail has gone down. According to one forum post, gmail was once down for three days.

Who pissed on who?

The Pentagon has released a report detailing the results of its investigations into the treatment of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. Interesting the interpretation of the mainstream news media and bloggers. Both have focussed on different parts of the report.

It's pretty clear that Michelle Mankin is a conservative through an through. As such we know she's going to act as any good Republican web-filter would. And so she does, zooming in on allegations that the detainees committed most the misdeeds.

What's the BBC's take? Headline: US Guard kicked Koran. Which is strange because this is one of the allegations that report states could not be confirmed! It doesn't mention the unconfirmed nature of a lot of the incidents. Meanwhile, the BBC sells itself as an objective news REPORTING organisation. Apparently the fact that mainstream news organisations (MSMs) report the news, is why they'll always be around and bloggers will always need them.

How does REPORTING involve zooming in on one particular allegation and not mention the others? My point is that no one really knows what happens at Guantanamo. This Pentagon report is our only clue. Now sure, as a reporter you can express doubts about the validity of the report. However, at no point in the piece does the BBC express doubt about its validity. Thus, we have to assume that they're taking it as gospel. And if it is gospel don't they have a duty to report it in its entirety?

It's ironic that the opinions of bloggers are the only thing keeping the fourth estate in check. Pre-the internet/blogging revolution we never would have been able to read the full report.

So what does the blogging/internet revolution allow me to say? BBC makes several critical interpretation errors. Large numbers of the allegations seem to have been unproven. The most shocking incidents (such as sleeping on the Koran and tearing its pages) were committed by the detainees themselves. Where incidents were confirmed, the soldiers involved were punished.

Not as entertaining as the hysteria-ridden piece published by the BBC.. but as far as I can tell, it seems to have one important element: it's the truth.

Thank god for OUR Greens

The Green Party of Australia is jumping on the Schapelle Corby bandwagon and calling for an immediate release of Schapelle Corby.

Why does the Green Party in Australia see it as incumbent upon themselves to stand up for Schapelle? It's not like Australians aren't jumping to her defence already. Why would Schapelle need the support of the Australian Greens, with their grand political base of 2 sitting MPs! Besides, it's not like Green Party was vocal in complaining about the lack of prisoner exchange programs and the imprisonment of Aussies overseas before it became politically convenient.

Green leader Kerry Nettle was leaping about Agenda this morning trying to defend the 'position' of the Greens. And it really was a jumping act. One minute she's talking about 'the girl next door', the next she's talking about 'Marijuana Use' (equating a single joint with 4 KILOS of Marijuana!) and 'light prison sentences for terrorists'! (funny, I didn't notice Greens of any country complaining about countries being too SOFT on terror..)

I never thought I'd say this but.. Thank god for OUR Greens. Especially since they have never sunk to this level of populist political exploitation. It astonishes me that this woman is actually being honoured as a guest speaker at a Green NZ conference. One would think the Greens would at least have enough intelligence to realise that they are actually above her. Having said that, Sue Kedgley is still a member of their party so maybe they really are that stupid...

NON?!?! WTF???

When I heard that people were putting bets on the EU Constitution referendum in France, I only just managed to stop myself from rushing off to the betting station. Here was a situation where I had insider knowledge.. or so I thought. Having been to France and seen how striking was the national past-time and the dreaded 'Anglo-Saxon' the national satan.. I was so sure that the French were going to say yes.

Because it doesn't get much more non-Anglo-Saxon than this. The constitution includes a Charter of Fundamental Rights including a right to employment and 'just' working conditions. Not only that, but it dilutes the voting rights of the new EU members (largely seen to be pro-America). In fact, Tony Blair's 'yes' strategy was going to be to say that the text was just for show and none of it would come true!

Plus the French have done this before. Opinion polls showed the French public saying no all the way up to the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. However, in the end they voted yes. The French often like to stand out in bold defiance just to prove that they are capable of standing. However, in the end they come to realise that voting is for 'real' and vote in the best interests of France.

Well, that was the theory anyway..

There are several reasons (if you can call them that) for the French 'non' vote:

* The Treaty is an instrument of American imperialism even though it was written by a former President of France.

* The Treaty doesn't get rid of those pesky new EU members with radical ideas such as 'low taxes' and 'working for a living'

* This is a protest vote against Jacques Chirac. Because like all good student union protests this vote will have little to no impact on its subject.

* This is a protest vote against French economic stagnation. The French would like to make it clear that stagnation is not good.

* The French are disillusioned with the EU and want a new more social EU.. which apparently doesn't include: the right to employment, strike, just working conditions, social welfare, free healthcare, and a clean environment.

* The French think that the right to food guaranteed by the constitution means that Turkey will almost certainly have to be accepted into the EU 'through the backdoor'.