Posts by izogi
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Alfie,
the majority of comments probably stem from a coordinated call to action from the low-IQ wing of the Young Nats.
From what I've seen it can go any of multiple ways, but it's not a great forum for anything resembling rational debate. The moderation system, and apparent random bias, maybe depending on the whim of whichever anonymous staff member's doing mod on the article, let through cruel and vile comments just as much as it blocks the opposite, no matter what the underlying view of the poster.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But oh, my, god, the comments!
I’d like to propose a toast to Stuff.co.nz, with it’s seemingly random and anonymous moderation staff who appear to do everything in their power to let through whichever comments are most likely to provoke more comments, and suppress those which might reduce future page loads.
Okay, not so random.
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Hard News: Change for the Better, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Heh. Stuff didn’t just close the comment thread. They also seemed to wipe out 300+ comments in doing so. Someone must have gotten really sick of moderating.
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I’m not sure exactly which thread this is most appropriate for, but The Panel today had Dr Bronwyn Hayward as the head of political science at UC (2:30 onwards), claiming the PM’s been shifting over time to a more recent behaviour that’s very polarising.
She’s commented quite strongly on how he’s using his popularity, and the long term effect on NZ’s democracy, drawing comparisons between the “kind of politics” being used (anti-argument, anti-reflection, avoiding debate) and with leaders who aren’t usually associated with democracies.
Not that it’s an especially new insight or that her opinion will affect polls. I just found it an interesting thing to hear on The Panel.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Angela Hart,
I've just listened to it.
Wow.....
I can't tell what's going through his head, but however Greg O'Conner's words are framed it seem to sound fundamentally unjustifiable.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Steve Todd,
Apparently, the argument was, that people would not want to change the flag unless they knew what flag they were changing to.
I’ve found the political exchanges over this wanting: arguing between "we should first decide if we want to change it at all" and "that’s silly unless we know what we’d be changing it to".
I appreciate concern that whatever value’s in the existing flag might be trivialised by having it considered beside so many possible alternatives. There’s plenty of marketing research around this in stuff like multi-brand strategy. But I can’t see why that should have prevented the current flag from being included in the first referendum, then just don’t bother with the second if it won.
Anyway, too late now. I find the mechanics of referendums interesting, but in typing this the fact that all this controversy is about a flag really just causes it to seem ridiculously trivial compared with other stuff parliament and media could be spending its time and resources on. But that’s politics. Goal achieved, I guess.
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Also, in yesterday’ news, Animal Control Products (1080 importer and bait manufacturer) has reportedly been cleared of involvement.
It’ll be interesting to learn about where the raw 1080 was sourced.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
That’s really interesting, the way the OIA doesn’t have an explicit clause for “information protected by another statute” and the language at s.50 ” the use or disclosure is not required or permitted”.
Also, would we want it to? I’d wonder if the principles of the OIA are so important that another Act of Parliament shouldn’t simply be able to override them with casual clauses saying “by the way don’t release any of this information”, at least without a specific consciously-made amendment to the OIA to validate what’s said in the other Act.
This is me thinking as a layperson, though. The reasons stated in the OIA are clear and arguable reasons to be considered, on merit, for withholding information. The Flag Referendum Act doesn’t state a reason. It just says “don’t do it” without explaining why. It just doesn’t feel right in some way.
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Hard News: Art with a job to do, in reply to Steve Todd,
Hi Steve. Okay, I accept that a counting system which makes it possible for later preferences to override earlier preferences would not be feasible in practice because, it'd create an incentive for people to avoid ranking anything but their first option.
I still think it's risky to make wide-ranging assertions about how voters must think when the actual data on that isn't available. (I've seen plenty of people who basically just assume that everyone thinks the same as those they know in their own little bubble.) On consideration, though, I can see that releasing that data might also mean that voters could change their preferences if they think a government may ignore the official result if later preferences suggested something else, and so perhaps that's a good reason for it to be witheld.
I'll still be interested to see how the Flag Referendum Act interacts with OIA.
Thanks for the insight.
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Envirologue: Swamp Monsters – the…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
More on Checkpoint from earlier this evening.
From the other side they seem to be arguing that he spent lots of time “not being responsive and communicative, and failing to show up to important meetings about his job” while the regional council “tried to act with sensitivity and acted as a fair and reasonable employer”.
He probably would have a response to that statement, but Checkpoint didn’t go so far as finding out and/or reporting it.