Opening the door

This AFSCME commercial pretty well sums up the choice in the upcoming US midterm elections, at least when it comes to economic policy. In the current Congress, Republicans have consistently voted against and blocked anything that helps American workers as part of their “Party of No” strategy (opposing absolutely everything that President Obama and the Democrats propose).

Republicans have steadfastly refused to say what they’d do if they take control of Congress, apart from cutting the taxes of the rich and super-rich. However, we know that they adamantly opposed any and all regulation of the pirates and gamblers on Wall Street, so we know they’ll continue to help and promote the interests of the same people who caused the global financial crisis.

The Republicans’ behaviour demonstrates that they favour the corporate elites over ordinary Americans. The question is, are American voters on the side of Republicans and the corporate elites, or are they on the side of the American people?

Tip o' the Hat to Joe.My.God.

The Katrina Effect

One good thing that came from the Bush/Cheney regime’s failure after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans is that other countries have learned how not to respond to disaster. But it also makes some newsmedia hypercritical.

A few hours after the earthquake hit Christchurch, Prime Minister John Key was in the city, seeing the damage first-hand. His role is, of course, largely symbolic, pledging government help and showing solidarity with the victims. It was a good start.

The county’s biggest paper, New Zealand Herald, didn’t see things that way, of course. In a typically curmudgeonly editorial, the Herald said Government ministers’ initial response “could have been an episode of Dad's Army,” and declared, “Yesterday, the authorities didn't lead—they followed.”

The Herald, which always has a massive chip on its shoulder, it seems (though not usually about anything National does), was being stunningly unfair. It’s easy for them to sit in their offices in Albert Street in Auckland and pontificate that things weren’t done well enough, but things never go well enough in a big natural disaster, especially one that strikes late at night/early morning. The government response was moving within hours, not days as with Katrina, and that response grew over time as the scale of the disaster became clearer.

Mind you, the Herald has issues, maybe overcompensating for its pronounced Auckland bias. The Sunday Herald was headlined “DOOMSDAY”, despite no loss of life or more than a couple injured people. What would their headline be if there had been wide scale death and injury? A story began, "Kiwis are coming to terms with the devastation of one of their proudest cities," leading commentator Russell Brown to ask on Twitter, “Seriously, who wrote this stuff?”

Christchurch is hurting. According to the Council’s own website, as of 6AM this morning, they determined that “More than 500 buildings in the city are damaged—more than 90 of those in the central city area,” though some of that would be relatively minor. “Water supply has resumed for all but 15-20% of the city,” the Council reported. All things considered, that’s pretty remarkable progress—on top of the truly amazing fact that there don’t appear to have been any deaths from the earthquake or more numerous injuries. Still, the threat isn’t over: The city has endured some 30 aftershocks and a severe storm is heading toward them.

The situation is bad enough, without the Herald resorting to overwrought, emotive prose or being quick to pass judgement for what they—world experts in disaster response—see as failures in government. Rather than faux solidarity with Christchurch or rash criticism, the Herald should stick to reporting the facts as well as reminding people in other parts of the country what they need to be prepared for.

As bad as this earthquake was, everyone agrees it could have been much worse—if it had occurred in the daytime, when the city was filled with people, for example. It should serve as a warning to others. Still, I bet the officials in Canterbury will provide an example of how to respond to a major natural disaster, no thanks to the New Zealand Herald.

Update 06 September 2010: Today on Twitter Russell Brown asked the Herald's Jonathan Milne, "Aren't you even a little bit embarrassed about that DOOMSDAY front page?" He replied, "No, Russell, I'm massively proud of our team's job, especially given many had their own homes and families to worry about." Later, after Brown persisted and singled out not just what he called (rightly) the "inappropriate" cover, but also that the first word in their story was "Looting", Milne echoed the swipe at other media in the paper's editorial: "Our key role is to accurately report what's happening on the ground, incl extensive and previously largely unreported looting… Not to adopt a 'tone' to make a couple of Auckland bloggers feel warm and fuzzy and at one with the world."

The problem is still that cover and the emphasis on "looting." As Brown pointed out in a Tweet, the Herald story referred to "several" incidents, which is hardly "extensive". Brown linked to a Scoop story reporting that “Christchurch police [said] that there was one incidence of looting ,” and ended: "According to Police, the two men were caught in the act and arrested and that since then there have been no other incidences of looting."

So, the Herald was tabloidising the news with its screaming front page AND failing to "accurately report" what was happening by focusing first on looting, which was not, in fact, "extensive" at all.

To see the Twitter exchanges yourself, you can look at Russell Brown's Twitter Feed or Jonathan Milne's Twitter Feed. The photo of the front page in question can be found here (via Spatula Forum).

Neither stirred nor shaken

First things first: We’re all fine, but it seems this may not have been the best Saturday morning to sleep-in.

At 4:35am this morning, a 7.1 earthquake hit about 30kms west of Christchurch at a depth of about 10km. My “e-friends” heard about the earthquake and were worried about us, particularly since I was unusually late entering the e-world today.

We never felt a thing because we were asleep when the earthquake hit, and it struck a very long way away from us. So, we were completely unaware anything had happened.

We got up late and after breakfast and a few other things I needed to do I finally turned on the computer, around 11am. I checked my email and saw one from the US Consulate with the subject: “FW: Earthquake in Christchurch, Saturday Morning, 4 September 2010: Public Announcement from U.S. Consulate”. Ironically, it was the first I heard about it.

Then I noticed I had some direct messages on Twitter asking if we were okay. I looked at the widget I put at the lower right part of my blog that displays NZ earthquakes and it was showing, it turned out, an aftershock of 4.2. I thought “no big deal, really.” Then, I checked out the NZ Herald website and found the whole thing was covered with earthquake stories (screenshot above). Turns out, it was a very big deal.

So I logged onto Twitter, replied to the direct messages, then posted a general message: “Morning everyone—just turned on the computer. The earthquake was over 760 km (470 US miles) from us, so we're fine. Never knew it happened.” A bit basic, but it got the point across (in 140 characters). I posted to Buzz and updated my status on Facebook and replied to emails. Later, my sister rang. So, I had pretty much all the electronic forms of communication covered there—and now, a blog post, too.

It’s times like these when social media are strongest, because it’s probably the best way not only to share information, but also, as in this case, to let a large number of people know all at once that one is safe. That’s a good thing.

This isn’t the first time e-friends have contacted me about earthquakes in New Zealand or the South Pacific, but this is the biggest so far. About a year ago I posted about an earthquake in Fiordland, because folks overseas had contacted me. In December 2007, I similarly posted about another earthquake because I knew that friends and family in America would probably hear about it. And in February 2007, I posted about a quake we did feel in Auckland.

There’s nothing unusual about earthquakes in New Zealand. There are between 10,000 and 15,000 quakes every year in New Zealand, but only 100-150 are strong enough to be felt. Little wonder this country is sometimes called “The Shaky Isles”.

Sooner or later, there will be a big earthquake that we do feel, possibly in or near Auckland. But at least thanks to social media, I have ways of letting people know as quickly as possible that we’re okay.

Takedown of NOM's Lies About Prop 8

A few days ago, I posted the video of Sean Chapin responding to the lying liars of the National Organization for Man-Lady Only Marriage (or whatever). He was responding as a native San Franciscan.

Here’s a video from Stop8.org that calls out the specific lies of NOM, an organisation that has never, as far as I can tell, ever told a single complete truth. It’s one thing to argue with opponents who operate in the reality-based world, and another thing entirely to deal with hate groups who traffic only in lies to further their extremist right wing agenda. This video helps to explode NOM’s lies and distortions. We need more truth-tellers in this world.

Tip o' the Hat to Joe.My.God.

Auckland carmageddon?

This weekend, Auckland is due for the worst traffic chaos ever and, as Mike Hosking said on TVNZ’s “Close Up” this evening, that’s saying something. Worst of all, it was planned.

There’s one main north/south route through Auckland, and that passes over Newmarket using the Newmarket Viaduct. When I say “’over”, I’m not kidding: It’s waaaaaaay up in the air—up to 20 metres (nearly 67 US feet) in places. Built in 1966, the viaduct is now at the end of its usable life (plus, it's not earthquake-ready…).

So for months work has been under way to build new southbound lanes, and that work is complete. Now, they need to move the cranes to the old southbound lanes so they can demolish them in order to build new northbound lanes.

Simple, right? Well, it apparently takes 36 hours to move the cranes. So, they’re closing the southbound lanes from 5pm tomorrow, Saturday, until 5am Monday. Aucklanders are being urged to stay home.

Even so, there’s horseracing on at the track nearest the viaduct. There’s a rugby match on. And, it’s Father’s Day weekend in New Zealand. And yet the main southbound link through Auckland will be closed. Chaos is predicted. Fortunately we have no plans that will require us to deal with that.

I have no idea who created the image above: It was re-Tweeted dozens of times (but I’ll certainly give credit if I ever find out). In a few short hours, we’ll see how prescient that map is.

Update 06 September 2010: "Aucklanders applauded for avoiding motorway", leading credence to the theory that all the scary words and dire predictions were intended to frighten Aucklanders off the roads. If so, it worked.

The Apostrophe Song

This video is right up my alley: At various jobs, I used to refer to myself as the “head of the apostrophe posse” because I hated the misuse of the little smudges of type. To be honest, I have no idea why.

However, in the years since, I’ve been cheered to find a lot of other people who share my apostrophe fanaticism. It's largely a secret war, and we have a few guerilla tactics we can use. For example, I’ve been known to erase errant apostrophes on chalkboards outside cafés or fruit and vege shops.

Mostly, though, I think that standing up for the poor apostrophe is a losing battle: I fully expect that one day it will be perfectly acceptable to use an apostrophe to make a word plural, and “it’s” may not necessarily mean “it is”.

And when that happens, and my bones are laid to rest, my epitaph with probably read: “He fought for the apostrophe’s”.

Tip o’ the Hat to Stephen Fry who Tweeted the link.

Sunny Spring start

Anyone who knows me also knows how much I loathe winter. Mostly, I hate being cold—and I really hate being really cold.

So today always cheers me because September 1 is regarded the first day of Spring—and, before anyone corrects me, I’m well aware that the Spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere is at 3:09pm on Thursday, September 23 New Zealand time (3:09am September 23 UTC).

There have been signs of spring for a couple weeks or so: Trees are blossoming, the daytime temperature is rising and Bella is dropping some fur. But it’s also still been wintry-rainy and cold at night.

Today was a glorious sunny day, cold at first, but by the afternoon it was warm enough that I opened up the house to air it out, the first time in weeks (well, months) it’s been warm enough to do that.

So, it was a good start to Spring.

These people could win

The video above, from New Left Media, is a series of interviews with attendees at Glenn Beck’s event this past weekend. I’ve posted two of NLM’s previous videos at similar events: A “Tax Day” protest earlier this year and also a Sarah Palin book signing in November last year. How he manages to refrain from throttling them, I just don’t know, but I realise that just letting them talk is damage enough.

The problem with these people—apart from their gross ignorance and their inability to say anything that’s not a Fox Noise/Beck talking point—is that they vote. Congressional midterm elections historically have a low voter turnout: While some 80% of Americans may be registered to vote, this year, fewer than half of that—if we’re lucky—will actually vote. That means that whoever is elected (from whichever party) in these elections will have the support of 20% of the people, give or take.

This is a particular worry for Democrats. While they have more registered voters than Republicans, Republicans are twice as likely to call themselves “very” enthusiastic about voting (75% vs. 25%), according to a recent Gallup Poll. In a tight race with a low turnout, that would be enough to easily overcome their lower registration and swing the election to Republicans and Teapublicans. As if to underscore that, the same Gallup Poll found that the split between “generic Republicans” and “generic Democrats” is now an unprecedented 10 points (51% back the Republicans, 41% the Democrats); that’s the biggest gap since Gallup began this polling in 1942.

The consequences of this would be catastrophic. Republicans are already promising that if they re-take one or both houses of Congress, they’ll “do nothing” for two years—nothing apart from harassing President Obama by, among other things, “investigating” what have been proven to be phony “scandals”. This is the same party, remember, that wasted millions of dollars and took 140 HOURS of testimony on President Clinton’s supposed (and imaginary) misuse of the White House Christmas Card list.

But fiddling while the American economy burns isn’t the only thing the party would do: They have some seriously radical tea party rightwing candidates running on their ticket. The video below from the Democratic Party shows just a few of the right wing nutjobs and extremists the party now proudly promotes. These radicals, together with other Republican politicians who may not be as radical but who see political opportunity in co-opting radical “movements” like the teabaggers can do some real and terrible damage to the country.

Consider this a warning for my fellow Democrats—and all rational American voters, for that matter. We musn’t allow the extremists to take over America because if they win, we all lose.

News from bird brains

I frequently refer to Sky News Australia as “News for Parrots” because the focus of every story is Australia—no matter how tenuous, irrelevant or superficial the connection. For example, yesterday their reports that I saw on their channel about the Emmy Awards were only about how Australians did.

The truly annoying thing Sky News Australia does is that they frequently pre-empt world news—or even real news of their own—for fluff. Today was the worst example yet: They interrupted the nightly ABC News (US) for “Breaking News”. They didn’t wait for a commercial break, but instead interrupted right in the middle of an ABC News report.

And what was the earth-shattering, shocking news that required such an abrupt interruption? It’s been ten years since the opening of the Sydney Olympics. Seriously! Some guy talking about how it’s been ten years and reciting a list of commemorative events was so very much more important than ABC News’ reports on how Iraq will fare when they’re fully in charge of security in their country. I swear the folks making their editorial decisions have penguin-sized brains in real life.

Sky News Australia is a pretty amateur news channel, but it’s our only 24-hour local choice (we also have the Fox Propaganda Channel, bland, shallow CNN or BBC World, which while excellent is usually not a straightforward news broadcast). I watch Sky News Australia mostly to see the nightly newscasts from ABC News (US) and/or CBS News.

The reason that I always refer to it as Sky News Australia, even though our screens read “Sky News New Zealand”, is that there’s nothing New Zealand about it, apart from the rare news report and Question Time from Parliament three days a week most weeks. They used to have a weekly “New Zealand News Week” segment, but I don’t know if they do that anymore.

It’s probably just as well. Sky News Australia is focused so thoroughly on superficial fluff from Australia that it’s best we’re not associated with it; we wouldn’t want folks to think that we’re as shallow as they are.

Kiwi common sense

The New Zealand branch of a notorious American ultra-fundamentalist anti-gay group has been refused registration as a charity in New Zealand. It’s another example of common sense Kiwi values in action.

Exodus Ministries New Zealand., which runs an “ex gay” “therapy”, applied for registration as a charity. Claiming that it was carrying out charitable work as defined by law. The Charities Commission disagreed because the group’s clear mission is anti-gay (the PDF of the decision is available online).

As part of its determination, the Commission listed relevant credible scientific studies that call into question the validity of “reparative therapy” (as the “ex-gay” scam is also known), as well as pointing out the harm it does. A group cannot claim to be a charity if its work causes public harm, as “reparative therapy” does.

Moreover, the Commission noted:

“In New Zealand, the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 decriminalised sexual relations between men aged 16 and over and the Human Rights Act 1993 makes sexual orientation a prohibited ground of discrimination. Moreover, New Zealand now recognises civil unions between members of the same sex.”

The dubious claims about benefits of “reparative therapy” and the equality of gay New Zealanders matters because a group cannot claim to be conducting charitable activities for the benefit of New Zealand when that work could cause harm to a segment of society. Which is why the Commission declared:

"In light of the above, the Commission considers that it is not able to determine whether the Applicant will, or will not, provide a benefit to the public that will outweigh any harm caused by the Applicant's purposes. Accordingly, the Commission is unable to determine whether the Applicant's purposes will provide a public benefit."

In New Zealand, religion gets no automatic special rights just because it’s a religion. Instead, the same rules apply to religious-based groups as for any other group seeking to operate as a charity. This is how it should be in the US, too, but isn’t.

Even though they’re not a charity, Exodus can still conduct their “ministry”; although other laws could, in theory, prevent them from conducting activities that harm people, I suspect that as long as it remained exclusively within the context of a church, they would probably get away with it. What they will miss out on is that contributions to them aren’t tax-deductible and not being a registered charity could make it hard for them to get grants (assuming they’d even be eligible for any).

This seems like a fairly common sense approach: Their freedom of speech and religious belief is protected, so they’re free to peddle their nonsense, but without the sanction of the state. While I’d prefer to see them banned from New Zealand altogether for peddling quack “cures” of homosexuality, I’m at least glad that they can’t masquerade as a real charity.