Posts by Sacha
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Radio NZ interviewed specialist author Adrian Johns today about the history of copyright (streaming 30 mins).
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I thought of you when I first read that one
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Education standards give a taste of what can happen when decisions affect many people directly. More and more families will be dealing with the fallout of government policy like deliberate moves to cut support services for vulnerable older people.
I hope their anger is directed at the Minister of Health whose key performance measures for DHBs do not relate at all to their considerable role in aged care. It's no accident that such services are the first to be cut.
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But they were "consulted" - just like Sideshow Bob was.
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The good folk of Christchurch might finally be waking up to their shafting. Hope they're smart enough to encircle the Beehive rather than the ECan building.
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My point is that the frequency of this kind of obfuscation over back-room dealing is becoming the norm, just like urgency.
What the fuck happened to Democracy?.
Those who support it are doing a poor job of explaining what it means, whereas those who benefit from its absence are doing a sterling job of destroying it.
Seems to be alarmingly widespread public acceptance that ends justify means, so process is not worth paying attention to. Unless it's vacuous celeb-level personality stuff like this today about dear leader's overseas jaunt or this twaddle about Boag's friendly machinations.
A notable local example as you say is this government's consistent and blatant use of parliamentary urgency and late provision of Bills under consideration to restrict scrutiny and accountability to electors, including eliminating members' days. Where's the protest?
Anti-democratic supercity arrangements, exactly the same. Replacing an elected local body (Canturbury's regional council, ECan) without due process for the first time in our history, same.
Need way better organised opposition that we have seen from the tired warriors of the trad left. Watching how much more successful these local copyright-related campaigns have been reassures me that all hope is not lost just yet.
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Great news. Unlike the pessimistic commenters on that Ars post, I am glad that public action is producing some backdowns. I know that does not mean the content of the agreement will necessarily change. Publication nonetheless makes it easier to pile more pressure on our governments to behave like they report to us, not to Hollywood and big pharma.
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I struggle to see anything in this thread that's unreasonable, Michael's hurt feelings notwithstanding.
The ego-strokes that performing temperaments seek out tend to come bundled with increased public scrutiny. Part of the deal. No one's forcing anyone to live out their life in front of a microphone or a tv camera.
Mind you, I can't imagine this kind of attention over commercial radio jocks shuffling their slots.
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Haircut 100 are pushing it
Heh. I believe the operative segue was "enjoying themselves"
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David Robie summarises in today's Herald.
While international responses have focused on the serious impact for the Fiji Times group, the terms of the decree will also hit the country's two other dailies - the struggling Fiji Daily Post, which has 51 per cent Australian ownership and is also a critic of the regime, and the Fiji Sun, which has taken a distinctly "pro-Fiji" (i.e. the regime) stance but also has some expatriate directors.
The draft decree follows a year of "sulu censors" keeping tabs on newsrooms after the 1997 Constitution was abrogated by the regime at Easter in 2009, the judiciary sacked and emergency regulations imposed.