Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe reports:

When the Cold War ended 25 years ago, the Soviet Union vanished into the ash heap of history. That left the West’s “useful idiots” — Lenin’s term for the ideologues and toadies who could always be relied on to justify or praise whatever Moscow did — in search of other socialist thugs to fawn over. Many found a new heartthrob in Hugo Chavez, the anti-Yanqui rabble-rouser who was elected president of Venezuela in 1998 and in short order had transformed the country from a successful social democracy into a grim and corrupt autocracy.

So who toasted Chavez?

In a Salon piece titled “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle,” David Sirota declared that the Venezuelan ruler, with his “full-throated advocacy of socialism,” had “racked up an economic record that . . . American president[s] could only dream of achieving.” The Guardian offered “Three cheers for Chavez.” Moviemaker Oliver Stone filmed a documentary gushing over “the positive changes that have happened economically in all of South America” because of Venezuela’s socialist government. And when Chavez died in 2013, Jimmy Carter extolled the strongman for “improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.”

And how is the miracle going?

Venezuela this Christmas is sunk in misery, as it was last Christmas, and the Christmas before that. Venezuelans, their economy wrecked by statism, face crippling shortages of everything from food and medicine to toilet paper and electricity. Violent crime is out of control. Shoppers are forced to stand in lines for hours outside drugstores and supermarkets — lines that routinely lead to empty shelves, or that break down in fistfights, muggings, and mob looting. Just last week the government deployed 3,000 troops to restore order after frantic rioters rampaged through shops and homes in the southeastern state of Bolivar.

In the beautiful country that used to boast the highest standard of living in Latin America, patients now die in hospitals for lack of basic health care staples: soap, gloves, oxygen, drugs. In some medical wards, there isn’t even water to wash the blood from operating tables.

True equality comrades.

Socialism invariably kills and impoverishes. Gushing oil revenues amid a global energy boom could temporarily disguise the corrosion caused by a government takeover of market functions. But only temporarily. The Chavez/Maduro “Bolivarian revolution” has been economic poison, just like every other Marxist “revolution” from Lenin’s Russia to Kim Il Sung’s North Korea to the Castros’ Cuba.

How often does a country have to try it and fail for people to learn it doesn’t work.

The government in Caracas, meanwhile, clings tightly to its socialist dogma, blaming the country’s woes on Colombia’s mafia or greedy businessmen. A fortnight ago, government agents raided a toy distributor, confiscating nearly 4 million toys on the grounds that the company was planning to sell them at inflated prices. The regime says it will make the toys available at below-market prices to the poor — thereby ensuring that in Venezuela next Christmas, toys won’t be available at any price. If nothing else, Venezuelan socialism has accomplished this much: It has transformed the Grinch from fiction into reality.

Sadly for the locals, the next election is a long time away.

Jeremy Clarkson writes:

OVER the past few years, my wife’s phone has been hacked.

Friends have been pursued across ploughed fields by the paparazzi.

Every girl I ever spoke to was billed in the next day’s papers as a “mystery blonde”.

And every little thing I ever did was twisted by wilfully obtuse journalists to make it look like I was Hitler.

Newspapers, and the people who produce them and write them and own them, are a constant thorn in my side, an unending headache, and I sometimes lay awake at night wondering what the editor of the Daily Mail would look like without a head.

So you’d expect me to be whooping for joy at the news that over the Christmas break, while you’re making merry with the party poppers and the crackers, various shadowy Government people are drawing up plans to bring the nation’s newspapers to heel.

But he isn’t.

But I’m not. I’m horrified to the point of panicky breathlessness. And you should be too.

If you were asked to define what is actually meant by a “free country”, you may say that it’s the freedom to worship whatever God you hold dear or the freedom to vote in an election.

But actually, the keystone of freedom is a press that is completely and utterly free from any sort of government interference.

Beware politicians who want the Government to either fund the media or control it.

If any newspaper fails to sign up to a new regulatory body — it’s called Impress and it’s funded in part by Max Mosley — then they will be hounded into bankruptcy by the most disgusting plan to emerge from Britain since the invention of the concentration camp.

It is this.

If a newspaper prints a completely true story about a government minister — or anyone else for that matter — he can sue.

And the paper will be forced to pay his legal costs.

EVEN IF HE LOSES THE CASE.

This means that newspapers will be full of nothing but the loveliness of Theresa May’s hair and how Rolf Harris has many good points.

Glad we don’t have this in NZ.

Fairfax score their 2016 predictions:

1. Phil Goff will win the Auckland mayoralty, triggering a by-election in his Mt Roskill seat. Not the hardest one to get right, but who could have known how spectacularly the Right would screw up the mayoral race, leaving Goff home and hosed. 10/10.

2. Immigration will be the big issue of 2016, in NZ and worldwide, under the twin pressures of terrorism and rising unemployment. Definitely on the right track on most counts, as the refugee wave swept over Europe, influencing the Brexit vote, and Donald Trump proposed a ban on Muslims and reached for some bricks and grouting to keep the Mexicans out. The issue sparked up at home too, with Labour dipping its toe into a pool that Winston Peters has been paddling in for years. The main economic trigger here though was housing, not unemployment, so marks off for that. 7.5/10

3. One party leader will be replaced – or signal they will go. Well, where to start with this one? Cynics might suggest we had different names on our list ahead of prime minister John Key. Others have said that if someone was so smart they knew Key was leaving they should be sacked for not writing about it sooner. All we can say is we will take the 10/10.

4. The Government’s books for 2015/16 will show a deficit when the numbers are known in October, and the 2016 Budget will include significant spending on reform in the area of Child Youth and Family. The reforms are well under way and a big chunk of money – about $200 million – was put towards helping vulnerable children out of $350m earmarked to reform the system. Yet here was no deficit for the year, but a $1.8 billion surplus. So half marks only. 5/10

5. John Key will wind back his shock-jock appearances, but only after one final dare involving dancing, underpants and a street corner. We contend we were joking about the dancing and underpants, and even he wouldn’t do that. But the PM certainly learned his lesson and sharply toned down the silliness. 10/10

6. The current flag will triumph easily, taking 60 per cent of the vote to head off the black and blue silver fern Kyle Lockwood design in the March referendum. The final result was 56.6 per cent to 43.2 per cent in favour of the existing flag. Rough enough for 9/10?

7. Significant steps will be taken towards allowing the medicinal use of cannabis. The debate has heated up further, fuelled by Helen Kelly’s advocacy before she died. There is a sense the public and political mood is swinging in favour, but no formal steps were taken. 0/10

8. A visit to New Zealand by United States President Barack Obama will be scheduled for 2016. Golf anyone? We are blaming poor wording – “in 2016” not “for 2016” would have been closer to the mark, given his widely-reported interest in coming after his presidency ends on January 20. But even then nothing has been “scheduled” so we ended up in the bunker on that one. 0/10

9. Pharmac will get more cash allowing it to fund new drugs, such as Keytruda, but the Government will stay out of decisions on specific drugs. Just like it said on the box. 10/10.

10. New Zealand will send SAS troops to Iraq, and not only as VIP protection. It’s a wise a citizen who knows where, and why, the elite forces are deployed. And there were on-the-ground reports by international media, which were denied by the Government, that they were being used in roles beyond VIP protection, In the spirit of neither confirm or deny we are claiming 5/10. 

11. The review of security services will see the GCSB and SIS get greater powers of surveillance. They did. Nothing more to see here. Nudge nudge. 10/10.

12. The freshwater issue will spark up, causing a headache for National MPs and putting their relationship with the Maori Party under stress. Not as much as expected, and the issue stayed subterranean because the Government has largely hosed it down – and postponed the big calls. There was an attempt to rark the issue up by some fringe political players. And there was trouble between National and the Maori Party over Resource Management Act reform and the Kermadecs sanctuary decision, but fresh water was not the trigger. 2/10

13. ACT leader David Seymour’s “end of life choice” bill will be drawn from the ballot (relying on chance makes this a particularly fraught prediction) and then pass its first reading. Sometimes you just have to accept that picking lottery results is – well, a lottery. 0/10. 

14. At least one MP will announce their engagement to be married. National’s Tamaki MP Simon O-Connor and Labour’s Rimutaka MP Chris Hipkins both popped the question. 10/10.

15. Labour candidate Michael Wood will be sworn in as MP for Mt Roskill – but will not be the first to win a by-election this year. Wood duly bolted in in Mt Roskill, but all those other MPs who are heading for the exit – including Maurice Williamson in Pakuranga and David Cunliffe in New Lynn – have pledged to hang around until closer to the general election to avoid a by-election in their seats. 5/10 

16. Labour leader Andrew Little will firm up his plans to run in the Rongotai seat now held by Annette King. Late in the year King fulfilled the first leg of the double by confirming she would vacate the seat to go on the list in 2017. Her hand-picked successor Paul Eagle was quick off the mark to express an interest.suggesting when Little finally firms up his intentions it will be “no” to throwing his hat in the ring.. 3/10

17. Speaker David Carter will head off to foreign diplomatic pastures, opening the way for Gerry Brownlee to inherit the wig of office. The inside gossip was that Carter was in line for the London post, but the move was scotched by NZ First leader Winston Peters. Now former governor-general Sir Jerry Mateparae has got the gig. Brownlee is so far unmoved. 0/10

18. An MP will find himself or herself giving evidence in court. Whanganui MP Chester Borrows has been charged over the use of his car during a TPP protest. 10/10

19. Pandas! Discussed yet again, but Key finally put the kibosh on the whole idea of bringing some to New Zealand. Reason enough right there to quit and make way for a new leader. We like pandas a great deal so can we have 3/10 for effort?

20. Australia’s deportation of Kiwi criminals will hit the headlines again when one of them goes off the rails on this side of the ditch, placing New Zealand politicians in the firing line. it’s fair to say the issue did keep bubbling along, with the Opposition taking shots at the Government’s handling of the diplomatic side with Australia. A deportee was involved in an alleged murder that hit the headlines and was on the agenda at a meeting between john Key and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull. But further details have not been made public. More generally it was reported 30 per cent of deportees re-offended.. 7/10

So it’s a fairly par 116.5/200. 

d

The Telegraph reports:

President Barack Obama has suggested that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party is “disintegrating” because it has lost touch with “fact and reality”.

A good analysis.

Mr Obama said that the Democrats are not at risk of “Corbynisation” and that even the party’s more left-wing figures like Bernie Sanders are more moderate than Jeremy Corbyn.

I think almost everyone in political life is more moderate than Corbyn.

In an interview with David Axelrod, who advised the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, Mr Obama was asked if he feared that the democrats could fall apart like Labour. 

He replied:  “I don’t worry about that, partly because I think the Democratic Party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality.”

Mr Axelrod asked if Mr Obama was concerned about the “Corbynisation” of the Democratic party, after Labour “disintegrated in the face of their defeat”.

Mr Obama said that even Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator who finished runner-up to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, was “pretty centrist” compared to Mr Corbyn.

I guess Chavez is more left than Corbyn, but could be close.

The Washington Post reports:

Drake has sold only about 300,000 physical CDs. But the album enjoyed 1.2 million digital album sales, 5 million digital singles sales and an astonishing 2.8 billion audio streams. Nielsen divides digital singles by 10 and audio streams by 1,500 to create new numbers that equal the revenue from a single album sale.

For over a decade the music industry fought the Internet as their business model was CDs. But now CDs make up 8% of revenue for Drake. Digital sales make up 44% and online streaming 48%.

Looking at the health of the music industry in this way — with a mishmash of financial ratios that attempts to capture how people consume music today — shows that overall music sales are up 3 percent through 50 weeks in 2016, compared with last year, Bakula said.

So, yes, traditional album sales are down 16 percent. That’s bad. (Interestingly, digital album sales fell faster than physical album sales, too.) Digital single sales are down 25 percent. That’s even worse. But revenue from on-demand digital streams exploded 77 percent over last year, reaching 234 billion streams.

This shows that the business model keeps changing – not just from physical to digital but from sales to streaming.

The 2016 data may vary slightly once the final month is averaged but it sure looks like a trend to me.

The data is from NASA Combined Land-Surface Air and Sea-Surface Water Temperature records.

GISTEMP Team, 2016: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Dataset accessed 2016-12-30 at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/.

The full list is here. Three Dames and four Knights, being:

DNZM

To be Dames Companion of the said Order:

Ms Valerie Kasanita Adams, ONZM, of Auckland. For services to athletics.

Miss Georgina Kingi, QSO, of Hastings. For services to Māori and education.

The Honourable Frances Helen Wilde, CNZM, QSO, of Wellington. For services to the State and the community.

KNZM

To be Knights Companion of the said Order:

Distinguished Professor Richard Lewis Maxwell Faull, ONZM, of Auckland. For services to medical research.

Mr Brian Joseph Roche, of Wellington. For services to the State and business.

The Honourable Toke Tufukia Talagi, of Alofi, Niue. For services to Niue.

Mr David Arthur Rhodes Williams, QC, of Auckland. For services to international law and international arbitration.

Dame Valerie will  be the most prominent one of course. Numbers awarded in each category are:

• DNZM/KNZM – 7
• CNZM – 10
• ONZM – 48
• MNZM – 63
• QSO – 6
• QSM – 59
• DSD – 1

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

It is fundamentally absurd to believe Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to declare war on New Zealand in retaliation for co-sponsoring the successful UN resolution against Israel. Netanyahu has far bigger fish to fry than New Zealand.

Fran is correct.

What is at issue now is the controversial report citing two unnamed “Western diplomats” that said Netanyahu had phoned Foreign Minister Murray McCully and asked him to neither support the resolution nor to promote it.

“If you continue to promote this resolution from our point of view it will be a declaration of war. It will rupture the relations and there will be consequences,” the Israeli prime minister is reported to have said to McCully.

Some have misread the reported comments and interpreted them in an overly literal fashion suggesting Israel has declared war on NZ.

Obviously it hasn’t and won’t.

Indeed. First of all the reported comments are that Israel would regard it as NZ declaring war on Israel, not that Israel would declare war on NZ. A vital difference. Also I understand the original story in Hebrew has been lost in translation a bit and it is more that the Israeli PM said that NZ voting for the resolution would be an aggressive act or act of aggression.

So yes a very strong response from the Israeli PM, but not declaration of war or anything close.

Readers might be interested in the full text of the Security Council resolution on Israel and settlements, as opposed to what some people claim was in it.

Personally I support Israel around 95% of the time, especially when it comes to their own security. But I’ve never been persuaded that settlements on occupied territory are a good idea, or will lead to a two state solution. A one state solution is worse for Israel as that would mean having to give citizenship to those living in those areas and Jews would become the minority in Israel.

Hamas are evil and Fatah corrupt and the Palestinian leadership bear most of the blame for there being no peace settlement. They have rejected some very good offers in the past, and I remain sceptical that their leadership are interested in a two state solution.

However two wrongs do not make a right. In my view the settlements are wrong and provocative. Israel surrenders the moral high ground when they persist with them. The settlements are not the cause of the conflict, but they aggravate it and make peace much harder.

The settlement policy is divisive even in Israel. Most acts of the Israeli state have widespread support (such as military action against Hamas) but the settlements are a policy most associated with the Likud party. They do have majority support, but also significant opposition. So opposing the settlements is not opposing the state of Israel – just the policy of the current Government.

There have been some polls inside Israel on them. They have found:

• 42% say the settlements hurts security and 27% helps security
• 41% say Israel should leave the West Bank/Judea and Samaria and 48% are against

But you can be anti-settlements (as I am) but also regard the UN resolution as somewhat unfair to Israel in that the language around the occupied territories implicitly includes some of the holiest sites in Judaism in them. This open letter from UN Watch is a good example of the criticisms against the resolution.

For those interested my views on what should happen (but never will) are:

1. There should be a two state solution
2. Palestine should be given territory equal in area to the pre-1967 borders based on the original mandate.
3. The territory for Palestine must be good enough to allow them to form a viable prosperous state, not just a series of enclaves, and be agreed between the two parties.
4. The settlements should cease as every extra settlement is less flexibility for agreeing final boundaries.
5. The Palestinian leadership of Fatah and Hamas must agree in words and actions to the right of Israel to exist and cease terrorism
6. Palestine would be a demilitarised state
7. Jerusalem is the most difficult question and is the biggest challenge (after the fact the Palestinian leadership has little interest in peace). In theory it serves as the capital to most countries, with all citizens allowed in all of the city, but different areas under different control.

A great quote from retiring economist Thomas Sowell:

In material things, there has been almost unbelievable progress. Most Americans did not have refrigerators back in 1930, when I was born. Television was little more than an experiment, and such things as air-conditioning or air travel were only for the very rich.

My own family did not have electricity or hot running water, in my early childhood, which was not unusual for blacks in the South in those days.

It is hard to convey to today’s generation the fear that the paralyzing disease of polio inspired, until vaccines put an abrupt end to its long reign of terror in the 1950s.

Most people living in officially defined poverty in the 21st century have things like cable television, microwave ovens and air-conditioning. Most Americans did not have such things, as late as the 1980s. People whom the intelligentsia continue to call the “have-nots” today have things that the “haves” did not have, just a generation ago.” 

We have much to be grateful for. That so much progress could be witnessed by ONE man is often lost on today’s pampered populace. To the nay-sayers and anti-capitalists alike, to the former Sanders supporters and socialists-lite, I say the following: You may not believe this one economist’s free market stances, you may not believe his calculations or projections, but what you cannot take away is that which he observed first hand. In ONE lifetime, he witnessed our “poor” going from huts without electricity to homes with electricity, tv, cable, internet, air conditioning, video games, microwaves, and refrigeration. Can you really feel that things – today – are as bad as you think they are, given how far we’ve come? Perhaps you feel the way you do because you lack perspective on what TRUE poverty is and how far our society has come.

Emily Roden writes about her experiences with Rex Tillerson:

The trial concluded, and it was time for the jury to deliberate. The story was heartbreaking, and the facts of the case were clear enough to make the majority of the jury convinced of the guilt of this sexual offender of a little girl. But the defense did a good enough job to create a couple of hold-outs. As our deliberations came to a close, it appeared we might have a hung jury.

That’s when Tillerson began to speak. Humbly, delicately and without an ounce of condescension toward those who disagreed, he began walking us all through the details of the case. I even recall being moved by his thorough explanation about the nature of doubt and the standards set forth by our justice system.

With great patience, this man who strikes multibillion-dollar deals with foreign heads of state brought our scrappy jury together — to bring a sexual predator to justice and to deliver justice for a scared and deeply wounded little girl.

A local nonprofit was instrumental in fostering that young girl through this process, providing her counseling and legal help. I was so struck by their mission that I toured their facility the week after the case to learn how I could donate and volunteer to their cause.

On a whim, I decided to reach out to Tillerson to encourage him to do the same. I found an email for him online and sent him a note, touting the role this agency played in our trial and urging him to consider supporting the great work they do. To my surprise, I received an email back thanking me for my note and my jury service, and ensuring me that he would contact the agency. I later received a call from the director of that nonprofit to let me know that Tillerson followed through and gave a generous donation.

I didn’t vote for Trump. This is not an endorsement of Tillerson for secretary of state. I’m sure that the coming days and weeks will be filled with speculation and political discussion over this clearly controversial pick. I certainly appreciate those concerns and the process that ensures significant scrutiny for this important position.

But during a recent news show, I heard the term “corrupt” applied to this man who I spent five days with back in 2007.

All I know is that this man who holds one of the most powerful positions in the world and clearly has the means and ability to side-step his jury responsibilities, served as a normal citizen without complaint or pretense.

I know that a scared little girl who was finally persuaded to come public with her account of abuse was inches away from a decision that would have sided with her abuser, yet this man put his negotiation skills to a noble use, and justice was served.

Rare for a multinational CEO to not skip jury service.

I know that this man and his myriad aides could have ignored an unsolicited email from a girl in her 20s suggesting that he donate to a local cause, but he took the time to respond and opened up his pocket book.

My five days with Rex Tillerson is all I know about this man and his character. And in light of the recent news, I thought this a relevant story to tell.

It does speak to character.

Lou Cannon at RCP writes:

In the six weeks since Donald Trump won the presidency, the losers have comforted themselves by blaming outside forces for their stunning defeat.

Addressing donors in Manhattan recently, Hillary Clinton said that she lost because of two “unprecedented” events: FBI Director James Comey announcing the reopening of an investigation into her use of a private email server, and the “unprecedented Russian plot to swing this election.”

 Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta, who in the immediate aftermath of the election claimed that Clinton lost because the media gave Trump a pass, has more recently complained that the hacking of his personal email and emails of the Democratic National Committee by Russians had “distorted” the election outcome.

But analysis of final results in the three Rust Belt states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that cost Clinton the election suggests a less dramatic reason for her defeat than the machinations of Russian President Vladimir Putin. She may have lost simply because she failed to show up in crucial counties where she might have made a difference.

The details:

Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes, is usually Democratic in presidential elections; it last voted Republican in 1984, when Ronald Reagan won re-election. But Wisconsin is more competitive than Arizona. Although Obama twice won it handily, Democratic nominees barely carried the Badger State in 2000 and 2004. Wisconsin was supposed to be part of the Clinton “firewall,” but it is not a state that a Democratic nominee can take for granted. And yet Clinton did not campaign there — not even once — in the entire general election. Was there ever a previous Democratic candidate for president who campaigned in Arizona and skipped Wisconsin?

They took it for granted as part of the mythical blue firewall.

Michigan, with 16 electoral votes, was supposedly an even firmer part of the Clinton firewall. Clinton campaigned there but just barely. A revealing article in Politico that reviewed the blunders of the Clinton campaign in the Wolverine State said she never went to a United Auto Workers hall. The UAW in turn has been criticized by Clinton loyalists for falling down on the get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day.

According to Politico, the Clinton campaign under the direction of Robby Mook was so confident of carrying Michigan that it turned away a bus load of Iowa campaign volunteers organized by the Service Employees International Union. The Clinton team wanted them to stay in Iowa in an effort to fool the Trump campaign into thinking that Clinton was competitive in the Hawkeye State, which she wasn’t.

That bluff worked really well didn’t it.

No wonder the campaign team are pointing fingers everywhere at why they lost. Distracts from the core problem that they campaigned in the wrong states.

Jo Black writes:

For me, working in the Beehive was a great privilege. But for MPs and ministers, the price of having their work as well as their lives under relentless scrutiny is a high one. A trivial mistake can be a headline. I was always anxious. When I look back on working for English and assisting Key’s office from to time, it is not the satisfaction of getting the share offers completed or even getting back to surplus just after I left that are memorable.

I remember such things as the winter my elder daughter had a lengthy bout of illness and the morning I was at work when Key walked in. I asked what I could do for him. “Nothing,” he said. “I’ve come to see how your daughter is ­getting on.” His neighbour’s daughter had the same ­illness. We talked for 10 minutes until, knowing his schedule was always booked within an inch of his sanity, I said, “You’d better go.” He looked at his watch. “Oh,” he said, “there are people due in my office. They won’t mind waiting,” and we talked on.

When he emerged, his office had been ringing around the Beehive, desperately seeking him. I said, “Sorry, I’ve made you late.” “Well,” he said, “some things are more important than others,” and he scooted off.

There is a reason so many staff have stayed on for so long.

Spiked writes:

It is a testament to their cushioned, detached lives that so many in the political and media classes have described 2016 as the worst year ever. They’ve moaned about 2016. Memed about it. Written books about it. ‘Dark Age’, ‘populism’, ‘fascism’, ‘END TIMES’ – the keywords of the 2016 haters.

I guess none of these people lost their homes in 2008, eh? Or their jobs in the fallout from that crash. Or their feeling of political power over the past three decades of rising technocracy and shrinking democracy. Never mind their historical illiteracy. What does 2016 have on 1347 or 1914 in terms of awfulness? Nothing, of course. If you think 2016 was an unspeakably bad year, then all that tells us is you’ve led a cloistered, lovely life, blind to the economic deprivations and sense of political exclusion experienced by others these past years. Bully for you.

A good point. 2008 saw millions lose jobs, houses and investments. 2016 merely saw some election results people didn’t like.

Sadly, these people’s narrative, their Brexit-bashing, Trump-fearing interpretation of 2016 as a most awful year, is becoming the narrative. Because they have the newspaper columns, the book contracts, the platforms. Everyone who disagrees with them is ‘post-truth’. Every vote that toppled their Third Way worldview was an act of hatred. Every revolt against the EU is racism, every criticism of Hillary misogyny, and every mention of ‘the elite’ evidence that people are beholden to a new fascism, because didn’t the Nazis also bash ‘the elites’? ‘Sixteen reasons why 2016 was the worst year ever’, their mad headlines declare.

Enough. We can’t let their tantrums, their petty fury that their political outlook has taken a pounding, come to define 2016. For this has been the most exciting political year since 1989. Here are five reasons why.

Their five reasons:

1. It’s the year we said ‘We can say that’
2. It’s the year TINA was sent packing
3. It’s the year we said solidarity is better than identity
4. It’s the year the masses returned
5. It’s the year we took a risk

Jenesa Jeram blogs:

So with the spirit of Nigella in mind, I want you to consider an important question: does New Zealand need a sugar tax to protect us from Christmas excesses?

Sugar taxes have, after all, been the flavour of the year it seems. The UK’s decision to get on board the bandwagon gave long-suffering advocates in New Zealand some renewed energy. Christmas also epitomises a range of excesses that can cruelly result in our waistlines expanding just as we reach togs season. But despite the growing chorus of voices in favour of a sugar tax, the evidence that such a tax will work is murky – and the justification for whether it is even needed is murkier.

If Nigella is Christmas personified, is Jamie Oliver the Grinch? Some of you might know celebrity chef Jamie Oliver from his show The Naked Chef (a gross exaggeration: the only skin showing skin was the roast chicken) and Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals (don’t even try, unless you have at least triple the time). Jamie Oliver was also one of the UK’s – and possibly the Western world’s – most vocal advocates in favour of a sugar tax. By the way, it is telling that soon after a sugar tax was introduced in the UK, Jamie Oliver was quick to point out that this was only the first step in a range of initiatives to reduce obesity.

Only later do they say it is only a first step. Not even a step so much as a very very very small shuffle. A sugar tax that reduced soda drink consumption by 10% would see the average NZer consume three fewer calories a day.

This is equivalent to walking an extra 45 seconds a day. Yes seconds not minutes.

Yes, sugar isn’t all that good for you. But if you look at the breakdown of calories, it is not just the sugary foods that are doing people harm. The turkey wrapped in bacon and sage butter, the crispy camembert parcels and meat stuffing have more calories than most of the dessert foods. Clocking in at 965 calories, perhaps there should be a separate toad-in-a-hole tax. For those who want to avoid the excesses of Christmas, it is not just sugar you should be dodging, but fat, salt and alcohol too.

Calories come in many forms.

The same argument applies for those concerned about children suffering dental issues because of sugar and soda consumption. While it is deplorable that children are requiring serious and completely avoidable dental procedures, will a sugar tax really help change parents’ behaviour? Will an increase in price of sugary products really be more compelling for parents than the wellbeing of their own children? If it has come down to that, there are surely more serious issues going on.

If a parent allows their kids to rot their teeth, a 10% price increase for Coke will not be the answer.

The Herald reports:

Many politicians struggle to find enough time to spend with their other halves – but David Bennett has taken long-distance love to the extreme, dating an Australian senator.

In a boost for transtasman relations, romance between the fourth-term Hamilton East MP and The Nationals Senator for Victoria, Bridget McKenzie, blossomed after the pair met at a parliamentary sports weekend.

Bennett, elevated by Prime Minister Bill English to a ministerial role outside Cabinet last week, confirmed the relationship when contacted by the New Zealand Herald today, but said both were private people who did not want publicity over the romance.

“We are trying to keep it quite private.”

However, he confirmed the pair met when a group of Australian politicians travelled to Auckland early last year for a sporting exchange.

That’s pretty cool.

The Herald reports:

The World Trade Organisation has upheld New Zealand’s challenge to barriers that have cost the beef sector up to $1 billion.

Trade Minister Todd McClay hailed the WTO decision against the Indonesian non-tariff barriers as important for New Zealand farmers and exporters, and also trade fairness.

This is the great thing about trade agreements – they have a system for arbitrating disputes. And in almost every case they have worked in NZ’s favour.

Stuff reports:

The last election didn’t go so well for the Internet Party but they could be preparing another bid for a seat in Parliament.

Controversial internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has suggested on social media that the Internet Party could be making a comeback. …

Following the election, Dotcom said his brand “poisoned” the party.

But on Wednesday afternoon, he tweeted the party could be reborn to make a run in next year’s elections.

“Independent and with bright young minds who can create a prosperous digital economy for NZ,” he posted.

It would be great if the Internet Party stands again. Can’t think of anything more likely to life the party vote for National.

Stuff reports:

Adopting an Australian blueprint to reform copyrights laws could grow the economy, and increase the chance of the next Google being founded on these shores.

The Australian Government Productivity Commission says the country should adopt the “fair use” copyright culture of the US, Israel and Singapore, all noted innovation and technology hubs.

The blueprint has a growing band of fans in New Zealand who believe it would legalise many of the roughly 80 unwitting copyright breaches Australians and New Zealanders commit every day.

These include casual breaches such as forwarding an email containing copyright material, uploading copyright material to the cloud, or watching a clip on Youtube.

But there’s something more profound at stake than legalising accepted common everyday uses, they say.

Supporters of “fair use” rules say they are the foundation of US technological innovation.

It was a common mantra among colleagues that what the New Zealand economy needed was to create the next Google, said Alex Sims from the University of Auckland’s faculty of business and economics.

“The thing is, under our laws, we can’t. Google exists because of fair use,” she says.

It’s not that a company here couldn’t do it, but innovation and investment are chilled by the fear of being sued under New Zealand’s restrictive copyright laws by a powerful company which took exception to something that would be considered fair use in the US.

The commission found that Australia’s copyright laws were frustrating efforts of online businesses seeking to provide cloud computing solutions, preventing medical and scientific researchers from taking full advantage of text and data mining, and limiting universities from offering flexible Massive Open Online Courses. 

The commission concludes that Australian copyright protection is “skewed too far in favour of copyright owners to the detriment of consumers and intermediate users.”

Ernst and Young produced a cost-benefit analysis suggesting “fair use” would produce a net economic benefit to Australia, though just how big is hard to assess.

The Australian report is excellent and it should form the template for reform of NZ copyright laws.

Sims says the practice of copying sound recording, which goes back to people making compilation tapes for personal use in the 1970s and 80s, was only legalised here with an exemption created in 2008.

The commission gives the similar Australian example of the legalisation of video recordings of TV shows for personal use in 2006, by which time “VCRs were household relics”.

Did you know even now in NZ you can only keep a recording of a TV show for as long as is practical to have viewed it.

Do you remember that awful singing of The Gambler by some Labour MPs a few years back, that was designed to attack John Key. I reckon Labour dropped 1% in the polls everytime TV showed it.

Well UK Labour are trying to match it with this:

Just terrible.

Stuff reports:

People unhappy with digital stories run by the country’s six most biggest broadcasters will soon be able to take their complaints to the New Zealand Press Council.

The broadcast members of the Online Media Standards Authority (OMSA) have signed a deal with the Press Council for complaints against their digital content to come under its jurisdiction.

The broadcasters are TVNZ, MediaWorks, Sky Network Television, Maori Television, NZME Radio and Radio New Zealand.

This is very sensible. I have long advocated a unified media (self) regulator. Was silly having separate bodies judging complaints.

There is a flow on effect to Kiwiblog. Kiwiblog has been a member of OMSA, which will cease on 31 December 2016. However we are joining the Press Council and will come under its jurisdiction from 1 January 2017. I will update links and policies in the next week or so.