Posts by Ben McNicoll
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Hard News: Review: Lana Del Rey, 'Born…, in reply to Russell Brown,
While it is a better performance, I may have to concede that she just doesn't do it for me.
But this is the norm, rather than the exception, for me with pop acts, so I'm happy to own it without too much judgement attached.
What comes to mind is that she's all the bad bits that combine make Leonard Cohen so good, or something.
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My only experience of Lana Del Ray so far was being directed to her fairly average performances on SNL:
Bad night?
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Hard News: #BDOMemories, in reply to Russell Brown,
Six60 are -- for some reason that utterly eludes me -- the biggest band in the country right now.
I just hope they don't forget their roots. Or their family, for that matter.
...
I'll get my coat.
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Russell, could you list the nominees in the post?
It would make it easier to consider before voting.
Unless I've missed the official nominee announcement somewhere?
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Actually, ...
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Sacha,
which Key duly refused
For now. Before the "actually, this is the only way to do what we need to do, so this why you should vote out MMP" talking point.
It works both ways for him.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Sacha,
Where do people see the Maori Party standing on that now, as the other potential minority partner?
It’s my belief that Maori Party would vote for asset sales if there were some preferential treatment for Iwi investors. I think they would sell that as a win for their constituency.
And I’m pretty sure I recall Pita Sharples saying something similar, or at least hedging his bets in that direction, recently.
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Can I interject at this point (probably not for the first time) and say how much I’d like to see an MMP option with Preferential Voting for electorates. Those two systems are not mutually exclusive.
It would probably make tactical voting easier/more predictable, so would probably need the 5% threshold removed or lowered to compensate.
But on the plus side, more of the community would be happy with their choice of electorate MP which must be good for engagement and local representation. And it might mean smaller party candidates actually get a shot at some electorate seats.
Or would it lead to larger parties being guaranteed the electorate seats? Are there some downsides I’m missing?
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Sacha,
or even just convince people to vote
Well, getting out a voter is one point, but every mind you change is a vote less for the other side, plus a vote for your <edit rel='let's not reinforce entrenched gender pronouns'>candidate/party/political leaning</edit>, so counts twice in a way.
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Samuel Scott,
... it’s the arrogance of that man that really freaks me out. He used to perform as the nice guy to distract the centrists from what English was up too. He’s lost his composure over the teapot tapes and just seems to be generally a bit pissy and sick of campaigning. He is polling so high he just sort of doesn’t want to lose as opposed to trying to win. He is the ABs at half time in twickenham 99…but Labour aren’t France me thinks.
Labour could be France, but the game started at 50-28, and the ref looked the other way for the first half. And has been trying to apply penalties equally, so as not to appear biased.