Episode 35 is now available, and it's free no matter where you get it from. You can listen to it or download it through the player at the bottom of the post here, or subscribe for free through iTunes here (you must have the free iTunes player installed). You can also listen to it for free through the player on my MySpace page.
I begin today by updating earlier topics. That’s at
1:58. Then at 7:47 I talk about the extended topic for today, New Zealand’s local elections. Finally, it’s comments at 15:05.
The opening track today was by a terrible new recording artist. Bridge music is the same.
On Tuesday I talked about how staff at Air New Zealand apparently edited Wikipedia to make the airline look better in an entry about the 1979 crash at Mount Erebus in Antarctica. According to the Sydney Morning Herald (via Stuff), it turns out that people in Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet made 126 changes to Wikipedia articles to remove things that were damaging to the government of current Prime Minister John Howard. But people in Australia’s Defence Department made 5,000 edits! The article says:
Other curious—though apparently non-political—edits by department employees include adding sentences on various sites, including the additions "Freemasonry is the work of Satan", "Mormonism is the work of Satan" and "Jesus is god".
Meanwhille, in Canada it’s been revealed that Parliamentary computers were used to add anti-gay comments to Wikipedia articles.
Back in episode 33, I talked about the religious right in New Zealand, and I mentioned that a secretive right wing christianist group tried to influence the 2005 NZ general election by spending over a million dollars on an advertising smear campaign against Labour and the Greens. That group is called the Exclusive Brethren, and they’re back in the news. Australian Prime Minister John Howard met with them recently, as have other members of his government. He defended doing so, calling them, basically, an “ordinary Christian” group. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has called the group and extremist cult and refused to meet them.
The extended topic for today is the start of the campaigns for local government elections.
Leave a comment or take part in the current poll. You can also send an email to me at amerinz{at)yahoo.com.
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4 comments:
Hey Arthur, I threw you a sympathy vote on your little thingiemagig. I'll revise my statement to say that Mario is my favorite Kiwi that I work with :)
Enjoyed the show today, agreed with many of the points you were making. I do want to clear up one little thing though... perhaps I don't say this enough.
I don't dislike Macs; I have used them and think they're groovy and stylish. What I dislike is the slaveish devotion to their marketing campaign that so many mac people seem to constantly display. It's sort of a low grade brain washing that I see happening and I'm trying to stop y'all from drinking the kool-aide!
LoL.... love ya, mean it!
I think you did a good job with that music. You should play with it some more. BUt don't forget to play with iMovie and create a movie for us to see.
I like that sign penalty in NZ. I wish we had that here. We do have something like that but I don't think it is always followed.
I love the idea of your national taxes pay for teacher's salaries. I wonder what the pay is like in NZ compared to US teachers.
I look forward to finding out who all those people are in the poll.
I'm going to avoid talking about the music because I'm afraid I couldn't be as solicitous as Archerr, but hey, we all have to start somewhere.
I kept thinking about people who had bumper stickers for elections. Do people not do that there?
We have the rating thing I think in SF for local elections, at least from what I can remember. Oh well. Anyway, good show, and long live Curzon so long as not in pain.
Mike: I'll take whatever votes I can get!
Actually, I do know you're not anti-Mac, but it doesn't hurt to tell people who may not know otherwise (which is why I often tell people when I'm joking, even when I think it's obvious).
Be that as it may, I actually don't much care for evangelism of any sort, including the Mac sort. I love Macs for what they do, but I'm comfortable using a PC, too (if I have to...). But I certainly won't be drinking anybody's Kool-Aide!
Archerr: You're too kind about the music (and I use that term loosely). I really wanted to be able to play with re-mixes and mash-ups, and but I needed software that could handle loops in standard formats, which Audacity can't do.
Anyway, I'll play with more interesting things--including iMovie--in the future. Blogger now supports posting videos, so videos may come sooner rather than later (and won't be part of my normal iTunes feed).
When I get around the episode on education, I'll try to remember to include a bit on salaries.
Kalvin: It's a relief somehow to know you don't solicit...
Bumper stickers are really rare here. Under the law, though, bumper stickers would have to be removed or covered for election day (or the car kept in a garage).
However, people can fly ribbons in party colours from their cars and election day workers can wear a rosette, which is a ribbon (like from a county fair) with a dot on it with the registered party logo. Scrutineers--which we called poll watchers in Illinois--are allowed to wear them IN the polling place! Party logos are printed on the ballot, too (this is all for national elections, since local elections are often without parties).
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