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Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez:
The Obama and McCain campaigns jointly negotiated a detailed contract dictating the terms of all the 2008 debates. This includes who gets to participate as well as the topics raised during the debates. But the contract remains secret and the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation created by the two major parties, has refused to release the contract to the public.
Another feather in the cap of U.S. “democracy.”
Many of you will know I’m not exactly a fan of the market economy. In fact I think, one day, it may come to be known as the single worst invention humans have devised. And one area where it does the most damage is the mainstream media.
I’ve had arguments with newspaper editors and other commentators about the homogenisation of discourse in the mainstream media and invariably I’m accused of proffering conspiracy theories. While I have nothing against the proffering of conspiracy theories you don’t need a conspiracy theory to explain the filtering that takes place in the media. People get to their positions for many reasons but one reason you’ll find pervasive in the mainstream media is passive agreement of the idea that profits are largely sacrosanct. Challenge this idea in any significant way and won’t find yourself part of the mainstream media. It ends up framing our entire discourse.
Check out the latest on this from Media Lens: Intellectual Cleansing: Part 1, Keeping The Media Safe For Big Business
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber explains why he thinks the management of some of the closed aspects of Apple’s iPhone App Store are flawed.
And if that interests you, you might also be interested in this interview with Jonathan Zittrain and a review of his new book, The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It.
No Right Turn on the NZ National Party’s plans to gut the Resource Management Act, and take NZ back to the Muldoon years:
How would National change this? Firstly, they would amend the definition of “environment” to include only “natural and physical resources” — so existing rights to amenity values such as peace and quiet, clean air, clean water, or an unimpeded view would cease to exist, while local bodies could no longer seek to protect their social environment by considering e.g. the effects of traffic, or the effects of visual pollution from excessive advertising. Secondly, they would aim to prevent “vexatious and frivolous” objections by allowing the Environment Court to require security for costs before considering any appeal (so no appeals unless you are rich like them). Thirdly, they would replace the existing call in power with a more regularly used “priority consenting” regime, which would see decisions made by a government body rather than an independent board. There’s some other nastiness — removing the Ministerial veto over coastal permits (so effectively the crown won’t own the coast anymore in any practical sense), and establishing an “Environmental Protection Agency” as cover for purging MfE (who National doesn’t trust) — but the driving principle is to shut local communities out of decision making, and prevent anyone — unless they are rich, of course — from mounting any challenge. And the net result will be open slather for developers, and large projects foisted on local communities, just like they were under Muldoon.