The Daily Blog Open Mic – Wednesday – 8th June 2016

1. Corporate fascism?

   ‘Google involved with Clinton campaign, controls information flow – Assange’

   https://www.rt.com/usa/345749-assange-us-google-clinton/

   …”Assange is far from the only one to notice the link between Google and the Clinton campaign. Behavioral Psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein has pioneered research on how search engines affect elections and much more. He told Lee Camp, host of RT America’s ‘Redacted Tonight’, that “when one candidate is higher in search rankings ‒ that is, looks better than another candidate in search rankings ‒ that shifts a lot of votes to that candidate. And it’s not a tiny number. It’s a very, very big number of votes…

   …Assange believes that unlike Donald Trump, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is predictable and will constitute a problem for freedom of speech in the US if elected…

   …Another shocking claim from Assange is that 80 percent of the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) budget has been privatized as part of the merger between power and big business.

   “There is a merger between the corporate organizations and state… 80 percent of the National Security Agency budget is privatized,” Assange said, stressing that the NSA “is the core of the US deep state… There has been a smoothing out between the government and the corporations,” the whistleblower said.

2. Yes it is happening here to chooky, as RNZ reported all this today bad stuff about NatZ and guess what? no cover on any other MSM so something is extremely fishy here in good old corrupted NZ.

   Now it is time for all Opposition Parties to seize the RNZ/NZTV half that they are entitled to as our 50% voting blo0ck without as voice as national has throttled our use of RNZ/NZTV.

   RNZ News.

   8th June 2016.

   No analysis has been done on impact of major roads

   8:03 am today

   The Government has done no analysis on the impact its multi-billion dollar roading projects will have on the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

   http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201803653

   No thought given to pollution in new road plans – Greens

   8:32 am today

   Kate Gudsell, Environment Reporter – kate.gudsell@radionz.co.nz

   Neither the Ministry of Transport or the Transport Agency have investigated the overall impact their multi-billion dollar roading projects will have on the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to official information.

   Transport emissions make up nearly a fifth of the country’s emissions profile, and is among the fastest growing sectors.

   In official information given to the Green Party, the Ministry of Transport and the Transport Agency were asked for any analysis of the impact that the government’s investment in the land transport system would have on greenhouse gas emissions from transport.

   The Ministry and Agency replied that no analysis or other documents were found, although the organisations said climate change across its investments was being considered.

   The Green’s transport spokesperson, Julie Anne Genter, said it was shockingly irresponsible that the government was planning a $30 billion spend over the next ten years on transport infrastructure, and no thought had been given to climate pollution.

   Earlier this year, New Zealand signed the historic Paris agreement and committed to reduce GHG emissions to 11 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030, through a number of measures, including reducing domestic emissions.

   Ms Genter said after the Paris agreement, the government knew that fossil fuels needed to be phased out in the next few decades.

   Julie Ann Genter says it’s irresponsible that no thought has been given to climate pollution. Photo: GREEN PARTY

   “That essentially means that every bit of infrastructure we build from now needs to be taking us in that direction of zero carbon, but National isn’t even planning for that ten years out into the future – they have no idea what the impact of their spend is going to be.”

   Play http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201803653

   “We need to be phasing out fossil fuels” – Julie Anne Genter on Morning Report

   3 min 38 sec

   The Green Party also put in a series of written parliamentary questions to the Transport Minister Simon Bridges – who is also the associate Climate Change Minister – on the advice he had received on what emissions would do as a result of three major roading projects in Waikato and Auckland.

   He had not received any, but said he hadn’t asked for any either.

   “In relation to all of these roads of national significance I haven’t requested advice.

   “I’m broadly aware though that, as I say, in relation to the roads of national significance, such as the Waikato Expressway, and I think will hold true across the roads of national significance, the effect of safer journeys, more efficient journeys and reduced congestion in fact reduces emissions.”

   When asked why he hadn’t asked for advice on emissions, Mr Bridges said he had, in the sense that he’d had many discussions with transport officials and people on the operational end.

   Simon Bridges says he has not received any advice on the impact emissions would have as a result of major roading projects in Waikato and Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson

   The Transport Agency has done some modelling on emissions as a result of the Waikato Expressway and predicts by 2061, carbon dioxide emissions will fall by 35,000 tonnes a year, to 1.8 million tonnes.

   But Ralph Chapman, from Victoria University’s School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, said he was highly sceptical of the reduction figures, as a result of building faster and bigger roads.

   He said they did not take traffic generation into account.

   “So sure, individual cars or trucks might move a little faster and run a little more efficiently… against that you have a growth in the amount of traffic on those roads, and in fact that’s what the government seeks to achieve because it’s trying to grow the economy.”

   Professor Chapman said it was unfortunate that emissions was a secondary thought in the government’s transport plans and its policies did not marry with the commitment made in Paris.

   RNZ News.

   Get old drivers off the road – campaigner

   http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/305879/get-old-drivers-off-the-road-campaigner

   The government should cut truck numbers and let fewer older drivers have licences in order to prevent road deaths, a road safety campaigner says.

   Eleven people died in eight crashes over Queen’s Birthday weekend, the highest figure for the holiday period since 1989.

   The editor of the Dog and Lemon Guide, Clive Matthew-Wilson, told Morning Report that one-quarter of the road toll involves trucks and one-third involves older drivers.

   Play http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201803664

   “Keep large vehicles away from cars” – Clive Matthew-Wilson on Morning Report

   4 min 50 sec

   He said freight should be moved onto trains, but age was also a factor.

   “Nearly a third of the road toll is older drivers but yet the government never says that.”

   Mr Matthew-Wilson said that was because older people are voters and paranoid that the government will take their cars.

   “But actually by the time you’re in your 80s, you’re the same risk you were when you were 15.”

   Matthew-Wilson said people should think about how they are going to get around without a car as they grow older.

   New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) figures from 2014 showed 22.7 percent of road deaths involved trucks. The statistics also found 25 percent of fatal crashes involved car drivers over 65 years old.

   But the president of the the Grey Power Federation, Tom O’Connor, said Mr Matthew-Wilson’s comments were “an unfortunate generalisation” and he had never seen any science to show older drivers were a problem.

   “It’s easy to pick on the obvious, but the obvious is not always accurate.”

   “From my understanding of the situaiton and listening to official reports, the major causes of the road toll are inattention, alcohol and speed and I haven’t heard anybody yet put it into age categories.”

   Play http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201803664

   “From my experience… older drivers are generally more cautious.” – Tom O’Connor on Morning Report

   4 min 50 sec

   • +100 CLEANGREEN

3. You had your chance America – and you blew it!

   • Word is out that the pre election polls over there and here in NZ are all rigged by Corporates, see this.

     http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/10/former-labour-ministers-call-for-ban-on-pre-election-polls-to-be-considered

     Banning political opinion polls in the run-up to elections or referendums should be given serious consideration, according to former ministers.

     Calls to radically rethink how both the media and politicians rely on polls came as YouGov’s president admitted all the major pollsters had passed over signs of a looming Tory victory, and continued to indicate that the parties were neck-and-neck in the run-up to election day.

     Lord Foulkes, a former Labour Scotland minister, has published a bill, which he will put to the new ballot system in the House of Lords, calling for the establishment of an Ofcom-style independent regulator of the polling industry, which would then rule on whether to ban or restrict political polling in the run-up to elections.

     Foulkes said the body should replace the British Polling Council, which has launched an inquiry into the accuracy of general election polling, and include politicians and the media.

     He blamed the demand for “snap opinions” from “media moguls” with vested interested in the results for new polling methods which he said were less than rigorous.

     “The people who volunteer to be polled online or on the phone are part of a panel who inevitably become institutionalised,” he said. “It is no longer a random sample of the population.”

     France, India, Italy and Spain all have restrictions on the publication of opinion polls for short periods in the run-up to a general election.

     Foulkes said he favoured a ban but said an independent body should decide on the parameters. The polling industry bosses need to take a “good, hard look at themselves,” he said, stopping short of calling for resignations.

     But he said that polling inaccuracy had the potential to seriously affect lawmaking. “We had one rogue poll before the Scottish referendum [suggesting the yes vote would win] and all of a sudden there were three party leaders in the Herald making ‘the vow’ of more powers to Scotland, and the Smith commission [on further devolution] was set up and now we are stuck with it,” he said. “All because of that poll.”

     The Labour MP and former minister Diane Abbott said she also believed serious consideration should be given to barring publishing opinion polls in the final weeks.

     She told Sky News’ Murnaghan programme: “We need to look at whether we should ban polls for the duration of the short campaign – they distorted people’s thinking and planning.

     “People do not change their mind in the closing 10 minutes of the campaign. The polls just got it wrong.”

     Nick Sparrow, former boss of the polling company ICM, said he had expected further calls for polls to be banned. “It will be said that polls might influence the choices people make, and frame political debate, and if they are plain wrong, their publication – especially at election time – cannot be justified,” he wrote on politicalbetting.com.

     Writing in the Sunday Times, Peter Kellner admitted his industry “got the election wrong” but said the method was not the issue, pointing out that online and telephone polling were “equally wide of the mark”.

     Kellner said there were obvious flaws in the “shy Tories” theory as a reason for an underestimation for Conservative support, first suggested after John Major’s victory in 1992. “One of the virtues of online research is, or should be, that it allows respondents to submit their views with complete anonymity. And how was it that the exit poll … came so much closer to the result?”

     More likely, he said, was that these were “reluctant” Tory voters that the polls had missed until the last hour and the “weak image” of the Tories that meant those polled may have “like[d] to support someone else but, faced with a ballot paper in the privacy of the polling booth, simply can’t”.

4. Winz is a psychopathic organisation, reflective of the politicians that have shaped it.
   This week they scalped $45 off my already meagre benefit for an overpayment that they’d made despite my getting in touch with them every week as my circumstances changed, leaving $40 for all expenses after paying rent.
   For all the scoffers out there, who surely read TDB for the chuckles, just think about it for 40 seconds.
   I was then placed on a compulsory course, which is good and I’m not complaining about that, but which costs $32 a week in transport costs, out of a possible $90 left after rent, power and, yes, INTERNET, which is where all the jobs are advertised, but which WINZ doesn’t accept as a valid expense. $58 a week for food, Visa payments, and any emergencies that crop up. Bwahahahaha, is how the saying goes, I think.
   I mean, really, $58. No wonder people have become impoverished after quite short periods of this, and, as to “long term” unemployment, ie, the 4% that are sacrificed for the sake of inflation and employer rights, WTF.
   Since the economy follows an orthodoxy that states that we have to have somewhere around this level of unemployment, people who are chucked on the scrag heap of “unemployability” should be given a decent wage by the vile state that mandates their uselessness. F-star-star-etc, disgusting.

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