It hasn’t taken long for National to trot out the beneficiary-bashing - I really thought they’d leave it to the second term, but I suppose they’re riding high in the polls and feeling a bit cocky.

The irony is in this case that Paula Bennett, the minister for social development, is stripping away the exact kind of support that got herself off the benefit and into a career which has seen her go as far as well, being a minister in government.

But the most disturbing aspect of this current round of kicking people while they’re down, is that Bennett is basically saying if you disagree with the government, it’s okay for the government to release your personal details to the world and invite the ugly side of NZ society to publicly attack you.

These women are trying to get themselves off the benefit by going into training - and to be recieving benefits as large as they are, it’s obvious they have a number of children to look after, whose fathers aren’t in the picture. It’s hard enough bringing up kids when both parents are present, let alone doing it by yourself. And what would the privileged arsehole class suggest she do? Stay on the benefit, the one they’d strip from her if they had the chance? Kids don’t choose their parents, and it’s not the mothers you’d be punishing the most by taking it away.

When will people learn that punishing children for the choices of their parents’ only leads to more money being spent on social needs further down the track?

And when will they learn the key thing to getting people into paid employment and off govt support is education and opportunity?

No matter how much money John Key managed to siphon out of the economy as a money trader, his job will never, ever be as important as someone who brings up children alone.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I’m reading a book at the moment (Shock! Horror! But I’ll have you know I used to read like… some kind of reading… machine…), Alex James’ autobiography, Bit of a Blur. It’s entertaining, but worthless if you want any kind of insight into Blur’s songwriting and recording processes.

As a result I’ve been relistening to Blur’s catalague (I’m not so sure about my ‘listen to every song on my iTunes in order of shortest to longest’ idea anymore), and I have to say because I had such crappy stereos and headphones as a kid, I never realised what an awesome bassist Alex is.

It’s easier to read on a bus than it is walking, which is one advantage of living out here in Avondale. The other, I suppose, is that we miss the new motorway by a kilometre or two, give or take.

In other news… Parker did his first tummy-to-back roll today! Then wouldn’t stop doing them.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Bought a new guitar today - from the reviews/retail prices I’ve seen, I think I got a major bargain… $300 including the case, and it’s pretty much new, hardly been used. Apparently the mum bought it for her kid, but he didn’t take to it, preferring the Epiphone his uncle or someone got him. Ah well - my gain! 

It’s a Karina Les Paul copy, looks pretty much like the classic white Les Paul James Dean Bradfield plays.

Watching the season finale of Lost tonight… treading carefully on the interwebs till then… 

In other news… Melissa Lee continues to entertain. We’re no longer in the Mt Albert electorate, just outside of it really, but I can still confidently say she never had a chance before this week, but well and truly doesn’t now. I doubt she’ll ever be able to stand for Waitakare either, considering her support for the motorway through Mt Albert is predicated around bypassing criminals west.

Assembled my cross trainer yesterday - if only that was the hard part. Now I have to convince myself to use it. I think I’ll find a way to set the computer never to display the calories burned, as it’s a little depressing. It’s a minute of running/walking/whatever it is you call what you do on a cross trainer to hurn off a Diet Coke. That’s not encouraging!

New Manics album next week. Freakin’ excited.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

And I don’t mean making a blog entry while I’m at work, though that shouldn’t be ruled out - it’s my new blog at 3news.co.nz, so it’s literally a blog at work. It’s about… go have a read, and you’ll see. RSS/Atom feed also available.

I was planning my next entry to be all about a genius idea the local bus companies should implement immediately, that will vastly increase the number of users, but that will have to wait. ‘Cause I’m blogging at work…

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

A guy kicks his girlfriend in the back, breaking it, and gets off with community work and a fine that he’ll barely notice.

And there’s no comment from Garth McFuckface and his Idiot Sentencing Trust? Why ever not?

Could it be ’cause Tony Veitch is wealthy and white?

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I thought after setting up the Radio Over Moscow Facebook, MySpace, iLike, Bandcamp, Garageband, Twitter, Reverbnation, Bebo and LJ that I’d remembered everything.

Then I remembered shit, one of the most important - last.fm! So that’s done now too. You can check it out here. Nothing different to the others, but at least these plays will scrobble (if you have last.fm/Audioscrobbler set up on your iTunes/Winamp), and believe it or not, I get paid! Well, nothing really. I just found out for the luna spark stuff, I’d earned €0.04. Still, you know…

John Key managed to piss me off this morning, telling everyone to spend their tax cuts on charity. Err, instead of giving the rich not-needed tax cuts, then asking them nicely to give it the poor out of the kindness of their cold, black hearts, why didn’t you just legistlate tax cuts to the poor, who’ll duly spend it to survive and help the economy? Oh, that’s right. They don’t vote for you, and only ever do when you’ve duped them into it through non-issues and lies. Dick.

PS: This is the for the LJ readers who were here before this became a part of my music blog thing (hence the ‘Mirrored from…’ at the bottom of each post): the ‘band’/Trent Reznor-ish music project thing is now called Radio Over Moscow. Why? It sounds awesome. A friend misread it as that, and I realised instantly it had to be changed.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I have to get this off my chest, cause no one seems to have brought it up, not that I've read anyway. If a four-day week is forced, who's going to be forced to take the pay cut? Working people. Who can least afford a pay cut? Working people. Rich people making money off investments, etc get to stay rich and their incomes, untouched. And whose money is it that circulates around, keeping the economy going? Working people.

It's a scam, and a really bad idea.

As a part of the New Zealand Internet Blackout in protest against the ridiculous 'guilt by accusation' law about to come into force (I think it's amazing they've managed to write a law that is both draconian and absolutely toothless at the same time), the folks at Creative Freedom NZ have organised the Copywrong Song: Remix Challenge.

Basically, it's a piece of music by Disasteradio and Mike Corb of which they've uploaded the individual tracks, inviting people to remix it and upload it for others to check out. The song itself is a cheesy but sweet little number about the idiocy and wrongfulness of the law change, so this morning I had a go, and this is what I got (right-click, save as):

Copywrong (luna spark remix - loud master)

Copywrong (luna spark remix - quiet master)

Legal bit:

This song has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License, which means that it is FREE for you to download, share, copy, distribute, sell, remix, and sample provided that you:

Attribute the work to the Creative Freedom Foundation including the url http://creativefreedom.org.nz
Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work but remember that other people get to remix your work too!

EDIT: In a grand piece of irony, MySpace won't let me use a black square as the icon for the song, claiming: "There was an error: "Photos may not contain nudity, violent or offensive material, or copyrighted images. If you violate these terms your account will be deleted."

WTF?!

1. Only 5 percent of New Zealanders are employers.
2. New Zealand already has some of the laxest employment laws in the developed world.
3. We have a low-wage economy.
4. Small businesses are trying to find ways to attract new employees.
5. Bosses are not always right.

So why in hell is National proposing a 90-day fire-at-will bill? It means that within 90 days of hiring someone, a small business employer can fire them, no questions asked. Even if the firing is totally unfair, the employee will have no recourse to legal action. This law will erode job security, particularly in low-paid environments, as most small businesses are. Wages can be kept low with threats of termination - "You'll sign this contract now stripping you of any rights to pay rises, or I'll fire you before the 90 days are up." And it will increase the likelihood job seekers will try to avoid small businesses as employers, and will instead look elsewhere. And, anecdotally, I get the impression businesses are already allowed to write in a probationary period into an employment agreement, if they think it's necessary. Example: Woman gets hired by small business. Two and a half months later, woman finds out she's pregnant. Boss says, "Fuck off, I don't want any pregnant women working here." Woman says, "but.. but.. but..." Boss says, "Don't give a shit, Go on the DPB."

This is one really fucked up way to drive up productivity and wages, if that's what National really want. But coming the same day as they try to sign their tax cuts for the rich into law? Fuck you, National. That's the end of any supposed benevolent goodwill you might have had.

I just haven't been able to be bothered writing about the inevitable election result, I suppose. To be honest, it looks like National are for the meantime going to be fairly benign - predominantly because they're keeping most of Labour's policies. Not that this makes it as good as having Labour in - remember it was Labour that introduced the policies in the first place, and they wouldn't be in place if a National govt was in power, no matter how benign.

The other reason I've got a feeling this National govt might not be the disaster it rightfully should be is Key's obvious disdain for Roger Douglas. The ACT Party have come off looking like fools since his bizarre pronouncements on election night (how anyone can reconcile his claims he wants healthcare and education available to all NZers, whilst at the same time saying there's going to be a lot of pain - guess who feels the pain the most, Rog?) - Hide is like an excitable poodle humping Key's leg, despite the fact they're not going to get any of their campaign promises, at all. Hide says he'll stick to his guns, but I guarantee you, he won't do it if it means bringing down the Nats.

That said, if all goes well over the next three years and they get re-elected based on this projection, that is when they'll feel they have a mandate to do what they naturally want to do - which is what we saw in the 1990s. This alone means we shouldn't get too complacent with National's 'Labour-lite' govt over the next three years. Yeah, it might be softer than we're used to seeing from the Nats, but if that's what gets them a second term and the political capital that brings, that's what they'll do. 

So while their election win isn't a disaster right now, it still doesn't bode well for the future. Hope I'm wrong.

Spent the weekend down in the 'Tron, hung out with Rob and Jamie (from high school) in the afternoon, then spent the evening with about 70 other Greens/Labour voters and one ACT/National voter (I'll explain soon) drinking, chatting and watching the election at Roz and Geoff's place in Claudelands. Was a dress-up party, there was Pippa as Jeanette Fitzsimons, Matt Stormtroopa as David Bennett (National candidate in Hamilton), Tonamu as Brian Tamaki, Swainson as Don Brash, Geoff as Yasser Arafat (?!) and many more, including of course Roz's hilarious Sarah Palin. 

Some random guy dressed up like he'd just been out playing rugby showed up, and we had to take shifts debating politics with him as he voted ACT/National. But as most of thier supporters, he was all slogans and no knowledge, so it seemed kind of silly. I don't understand the right-wing anti-intellectual thing, apart from the fact dumb people are easier to dupe, and left-wing politics is not as simple as the right's 'strip their wealth and lock them up' platform.

Cats are being dicks.

I've been playing around on Facebook this morning, and came across the political compass thingee I filled out ages ago, except now it has a button where it shows where you and all of your friends who have also taken the test sit. I thought, ooh, this'll be interesting, but I didn't expect this:



I'm the red dot, smack bang in the middle of all my friends. Maybe this is why I don't think I know a single person who is planning on voting for National. If you need reasons not to, read the latest Hard News post. Kind of sums up it up, really.

I'm on my fourth day of being sick, but I went into work yesterday anyway to look after our internet coverage of Obama kicking John McCain's ass. Was pretty sweet, then my illness kicked in again and I spent the night coughing, which wasn't so great.

I've been surfing through YouTube watching clips of plagiarised/similar sounding song comparisons, and came across this hilarious piece: The Pachelbel Rant. It looks like it might have been around a while, but is pretty damn funny - especially once I listened to the classical piece he's singing about, and realised I've written a song or two based around that melody myself without even realising it. Freaky.

But not as freaky as seeing will.i.am becoming one with the Force on CNN. WTF?

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE LAST FORTNIGHT!

1. Ryan Adams - Cardinology
2. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
3. Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
4. Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires
5. Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
6. Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads
7. Scars on Broadway - Scars on Broadway
8. The Stills - Oceans Will Rise
9. Portishead - Third
10. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Something that's really bugging me about this election campaign is the call from the right, and in particular the NZ Herald, that if National get more votes than Labour, they should be the ones to form the Govt even if they cannot get a coalition together and Labour can. They say Labour would have no 'moral right' to govern.

This is complete bollocks, and here's why: I'm likely (though not definitely) to be voting for the Greens, but not because I want them to 'win', to be the ones in charge - hell no. I want Labour to be the major party in a ruling coalition.

But I'm probably going to vote Green knowing they will be going into a coalition with Labour, but will pull Labour in a slight leftward direction, and help them put a bit more emphasis on important matters like the environment and progressive social policies. I wouldn't want them running the country, but feel they are a force for good that should at least have influence.

This is at a loss of a vote for Labour, but should not be construed as such. So when National get more votes than Labour, but can't put together a coalition and lose the election, don't even try to say Labour have no moral right to lead; because the vast majority of people who voted for their coalition partners would prefer Labour over National, but voted for other parties fully aware they'd side with Labour in any coalition.

To say National would have a 'moral right' to rule in this scenario is outdated FPP thinking. That system in 1978 and 1981 led to National leading the country with fewer votes than Labour in a system where coalitions weren't an option.

A new study shows the vast majority of people (70%) who opposed to the "anti-smacking" law do not understand it, while a slim majority of people who support it do. The same study also shows of the 41% of parents who do smack, only 9% think it is effective - that equates to less than a measly 4% of all parents.

Of course, Larry Baldock (that guy I called a cock) thinks the survey is "crap", because parents are afraid to admit they smack their kids for fear of prosecution - which I suppose places him firmly in the aforementioned 70%.

But how do you punish a cat who's deaf? Kosh pisses me off sometimes.

If eight left-wing parties receive 10% of the vote each, and one right-wing party gets 20%, do you think NZ should have a right-wing govt? No, because 80% of people voted left - and under MMP, the majority will get their way. under FPP, the majority 80% will be overruled by the 20% that voted right. This is why MMP is far superior to FPP - you can exchange right for left, the same applies. If you cannot understand this, you shouldn't get to vote at all.

Simple enough? Can you please stop whining now?

I haven't posted much recently 'cause I've been playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, both I and II. Truly awesome games, and better storylines than the prequels in some ways.

I was really tired this morning when I woke up, so tired I felt hungover. So I went to the dairy, and holy fuck - you can get 500ml cans of V. The caffeine arms race is really getting out of hand. So is the price of Rivermill bread - I swear last time I bought some it was $1.50, today it was $3.80. I'm going to assume the wrong price stickers were in the wrong places. 

I'm going to Htown for election day/night, to celebrate/drown sorrows with some like-minded friends who don't want to see Castle Helengrad fall. And it's my sister's birthday the following day, so two birds, one stone and all that. Actually three, cause mum's apparently got loads of baby stuff for us to bring back. Have I mentioned he never, ever kicks when I put my hand on tariqa 's belly? I'm going to pretend he knows who's boss. If only I could get the cats to be so learned.

What movie should I take tariqa  to tomorrow night? Any ideas? Seen Wall-E already.


TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE LAST MONTH!

1. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
2. Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
3. Metallica - Death Magnetic
4. TV On The Radio - Dear Science (yes, I actually like this one)
5. The Stills - Oceans Will Rise
6. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
7. Scars on Broadway - Scars on Broadway
8. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
9. Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
10. Keane - Perfect Symmetry

Labour is promising universal student allowances by 2012, if elected.  It comes too late for my generation, and too late for most people studying now, but holy shiatballs. About fucking time.

A new poll shows the Labour-Greens-Progressive axis getting 60 seats.  

...have put together this simple graph that shows you how biased National's tax policy really is (hotlinked from The Standard, 'cause why not?)

Note the horrendously steep rise it takes right before it gets to National's magic $47k "average" wage they've been banging on about - as unrealistic and untrue as that is, and look how it guts the vast majority of workers - those on minimum wage get nothing, and people on a bit more get even less. Meanwhile, those on wll-above average incomes get a boost - and remember, this is only in comparison to Labour's tax cuts, which by the very nature of simple, blunt tax cuts already favour the well-off, just not as much as National's.

Diminishing marginal utility theory spells out how tax breaks for lower income earners would result in a far happier populace overall, but I suppose National don't give a fuck how people feel, it's all about 'creating wealth' - for the already wealthy.

This is my first election where it's likely my side is going to lose, and it's making me grrr. But I'm still yet to see in person a sports team I support lose... not much consolation though, is it?

Not my words, but a paraphrasing of the Herald's. You have to remember National are using a rather high threshold for what they call 'average income' (the median would have been more accurate, and their estimate of the 'average' is $14k higher than what Statistics NZ says), and that it's being compared against a tax redcution package already scheduled from Labour. Even by their own lofty standards, the 'average' worker will only get $15 more a week than they would under Labour, and that's only for childless people. The real average worker gets diddly, or loses out - at the expense of having richer folk earn a lot more. The tax plan phases in over three years, and in one of those years, for those with children, the only people to get a  tax cut are those earning over $50,000 (warning - that link's a PDF).

At first glance I thought, hey, this ain't so bad... but on closer look, what a fucking rip off. 

Also... many Nats supporters have called Working For Families 'welfare for workers', so I wonder how they'll extend the welfare label the 'Independent Earners' tax credit.

I filled out at IR3 form today, to get the IRD off my back, only to find I owe them $40.13 in unpaid tax. Damn. It seems every one of my income sources last year taxed me at the wrong rate, but even if everything is corrected, it comes to the same amount (I find this highly dubious, but doesn't change anything apparently). 

Now for the irony: I'm only filling out an IR3 because I did some casual withholding-tax-paid work earlier this year. That work was taxed at a much higher rate than what I'd pay if I was employed at an hourly rate. So, because I did some work and paid a higher a tax rate, I had to fill out an IR3 which tells me I haven't paid enough tax. If I'd been paid an hourly wage, I'd have paid far less tax and not be required to fill out this damn form. 

The IRD: "Yeah, funny that...' (or words to that effect)

Oh, and cause everything was messed up, I've also been landed with a student loan bill of almost $400, which is  just what I needed, really.

But in good news, the Working For Families scheme looks like it will save us from total financial ruin, what a brilliant piece of legislation that is. I can't believe the idiots who post on the Herald's your views section who seriously cannot see the link between poverty, lack of education and crime.

I'm listening to the songs streaming on Ryan Adams' myspace at the moment. If this is the new album, it sounds fucking awesome.

FUCK! My phone is showing the wrong time, and I'm going to be late for work. FUCK