I always knew that the New Zealanders were different to everyone else. These are sensible people, they are throwing their politicians to the dogs [^]. Unfortunately not quite literally!
The New Zealand petfood company, Mastepet has create dog toys modelled on the two leading Kiwi political leaders – the incumbent Helen Clark and challenger John Key. The sales of the toys will be used to unofficially track voter sentiment in the lead-up to the 8th November election. The toy that gets thrown to the dogs the most wins.
The website has also issued some guidelines for the use of the toy:
- Remember your purchase is part of a political poll – your vote counts
- Wear suitable ear protection when supervising your dog’s playtime with the toy. As with real politicians, the squealing can become quite deafening.
- Keep dog on a leash if around real politicians. Masterpet does not accept any liability for dog toy mistaken identity.
- When choosing a toy, take your dog along with you. Man’s best friend doesn’t like political ideologies thrust upon him/her more than the next person.
- If your dog destroys the politician in the first five minutes don’t hold this against your dog – the media do it every week! (Source:kiwiblog.co.nz [^])
Many comenters on the site have complained that the “Hulun” Clark toy has been made to look less unattractive than the real-life version. Is this so that the dogs don’t get scared-off?
Clark & Keys Politician Masterpet Dog Toys
The "Real" Helen Clark - 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand
Eating Your Own Words
It is a well known fact that journalists and bloggers can be an opinionated bunch of people. There has been a couple of stories recently about two of them being forced to eat humble pie.
Journalist – Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchen recently had an opinion piece in Slate Magazine where he touched on the alleged American practice of waterboarding [^] terror suspects. Mr Hitchen’s contention was that the practice was “extreme interrogation” rather than “outright torture”, since the USA would never resort to torture. An interesting line of reasoning!
As part of a story for Vanity Fair, Mr Hitchen was asked if he would volunteer to become a subject of waterboarding; he accepted. Vanity Fair made a video of the session [^] and posted it online.
Mr Hitchens wrote-up his experience in an accompanying story in Vanity Fair in which he said:
In the piece Mr Hitchens explores both side of the “extreme interrogation” versus “outright torture” debate. The journalist goes on to say “if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.” And it must be remembered that Mr Hitchens experience was in a controlled environment, with a very clear means of ending the experience.
It seems that the journalist in this piece has now adopted a more reasoned position, rather than blind faith in the American way. This was reinforced once it is made clear to him that information received from such techniques is of only limited reliability.
Blogger – Colin Espiner
In a much lighter vein; blogger Colin Espiner, on stuff.co.nz, ended-up literally eating his own words.
In the run-up to the recent NZ elections, Mr Espiner blogged that the Maori Party would not form a coalition with the Nationals. Mr Espiner went on to promise that if he was proven wrong he would print the blog post and eat it online on a web-cam.
The Maori Party have now entered into a confidence and supply agreement, but not a coalition. Rather then argue the point, like a politician, Mr Espiner has made good on his promise and ate the post. The blogger printed the post added yoghurt, milk and banana and blended up a “Coalition Smoothie” [^]. “It actually didn’t taste too bad except you could definitely taste the printer ink.”
Coalition Smoothie on Webcam [^]