Posts by webweaver
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Yes - the Republican guy on Media3 was short on facts and a bit long on truthiness for my tastes.
For example, he repeated that old Republican lie about how Obama never made a single vote as a a Senator because he was far too busy preparing to run for President. Completely untrue. You can see more about Obama's voting record in the Senate here (thanks Wikipedia) - especially in the Legislation and Voting Record section.
I don't believe that someone who clearly takes such an interest in US politics and Obama in particular would make a mistake about something as fundamental as a person's voting record, therefore the only conclusion I can come to is that he was deliberately telling an untruth, with the assumption that he wouldn't be called out on it during the interview. When a person with a particular viewpoint is interviewed and flat-out lies in order to strengthen his/her position, I find it hard to take anything else they say very seriously.
I was thinking how great it would be if interviewers could press "pause" during an interview whenever someone makes a statement of "fact" which might not actually be very factual. Pressing "pause" would freeze time while you whizzed off and checked The Google to see if they were telling the truth or not. Now that would be cool.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Sam F,
Thread would not be complete without this properly hatstand effort from a name familiar to some…
Wow. Just. Wow.
She's taking the piss, right? Satire, yeah? Please tell me she's doing a kind of Colbert Report type of thing...
...isn't she?
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Sacha,
Gosh - I think I have a girlcrush on Ms Genter - that general debate speech is really spot-on.
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Gosh what a wonderful piece of writing. I love [6] - it's the start of a novel!
How lovely to know we have people like Judge Adams overseeing stuff like this that really matters - cos you can tell they really do give a damn.
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Hard News: The Next Labour Leader, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’d keep stolen in quotes there. I guess if you’re a “minor” party, you’re fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t and fucked no matter what you do.
Looking slightly above the electoral horse-trading, I think the Greens could say shifting the centre of political gravity – slowly, painfully and unevenly – is also what green politics is about.
I clearly recall reading a quote from the Greens a few years ago (maybe it was on their website, but I can’t find it any more) that basically said their ultimate aim was to put themselves all out of a job – by having their policies eventually picked up and adopted by the larger ‘mainstream’ parties.
Which seems to me to be the ultimate in political altruism really. I think it’s pretty cool – shows me that they care more about having their policies implemented than they do about gaining power for themselves.
You can see another example of that thinking within the Canadian Green party. From Wikipedia:
The ecumenical approach (expressing affinities with all Canadian political tendencies and making cases to voters on all parts of the left-right spectrum) has been advocated by those who believe their success can also be measured by the degree to which other parties adopt Green Party policies.
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Up Front: What if We Held an Election…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Hell, just being a scrutineer – with incredibly strict rules about how you conduct yourself in a polling place – was *cough* character forming. :)
I find the “you may not speak with the voters” one particularly fun in terms of its consequences. There’s always gonna be at least one friend or acquaintance coming in to vote if you scrutineer near where you live – in my case it was three or four people during the course of the day.
The first thing that happens is that you catch their eye – because that’s what you’re trying to do with everyone anyway, and you know this person so it would be rude not to…
And they recognise you and go “Hi webweaver! How are you? Go the Greens!” and you smile broadly and say “I’m terribly sorry I’m not allowed to talk to you…” and they go “Wuh? Oh!!” (sudden realisation dawns)… embarrassed grin as they do the ‘zipped mouth’ sign and apologise with an “Oh yes! I won’t say another word! Oops!” and other general awkward shufflings ensue.
After they’ve voted they catch your eye again, give you a big grin and a thumbs-up and off they go.
The first time it happened in our polling station was very soon after we opened and a friend of one of the Labour scrutineers came in. All smiles and “hello how are you?” – expecting a response in return.
The poor scrutineer lady (because I guess hers was the first of the day and we hadn’t quite established our non-response response protocols by that point) looked completely horrified, clamped her mouth shut, looked around wildly for assistance and/or support and finally managed to squeak out “I can’t talk to you!!!!” to her friend – who then did the whole “wuh? oh!” zipped mouth rigmarole thingymajig. Brilliant.
*sigh* I do love people-watching. It’s fascinating.
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Me: …and when you’re done, the papers go…
Voter: *walks away*
Me: IN THE PORT HILLS… fuck.
Voter: *comes out of the booth, walks past the Port Hills boxes, shoves votes in the Chch East boxes*
Me: *head thunks dully into cardboard table*
The exact same thing happened in the polling station where I was scrutineering. It was fascinating to watch. Of the four polling officials only one seemed to have figured out how to prevent this from happening...
Her technique was multi-stepped and went something like this:
1) Very confident voice, made eye contact with voter, had the whole spiel down pat right from the get-go.
2) Carried on doing the talk while she was writing the number on the voting paper, handing this to the voter first while folding the referendum paper (so they could see something else was coming and they should wait for it), meaning that timing-wise she was still holding onto the referendum paper by the time she got to the bit about going behind the screens.
3) Voter stays put and looks obediently towards the screens as she points them out like an air hostess pointing out the emergency exit.
4) Still holding onto the referendum paper but now proffering it to the voter, she finishes her spiel with the bit about the voting boxes at the same time as finally letting go of the paper, does another air-hostess point towards the boxes while they are paying attention to grabbing hold of the referendum - which means that again they look obediently towards where she's pointing before finally shuffling off to vote with an "oh right - thanks..."
Brilliant. Worked every time. I bet she practiced in the front of the mirror for days beforehand :)
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I've spent a very cool day scrutineering on behalf of the Greens at Northland School in Wellington. Smiled at every voter whose eye I could catch in an organic, environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable manner :)
Realised I was one of a very select group in the country allowed (required by law actually) to wear my party colours on my sleeve today.
Had great chats with the National Party scrutineer sitting next to me (crazy I know!) who turned out to have tons of lefty mates, rides a bike to work, recycles everything and doesn't really agree with asset sales. I reckon he's a closeted lefty who hasn't quite admitted it to himself yet.
Didn't mind that out of the three party scrutineers at our polling station (Greens, Labour and National) I was the only one not to get deliveries of food from party central throughout the day. Decided I'd much rather the Greens spent their funds on electioneering rather than feeding us. National guy shared his food with me instead. Heh.
Decided to stay to watch the count once the doors closed at 7pm. Fascinating process - neat counting method actually - and felt very happy to have played my part in our democratic process on behalf of a party of which I'm very proud to be a member.
Now watching TV One and surfing the net and trying not to think about Banks and Dunne both getting back in. Not to mention Winston First. Sigh.
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Here’s what I wrote in my Facebook status the other day:
In Saturday’s election I’ll be voting Green for my party vote because they focus on taking care of our environment and all our people in a sustainable, socially responsible, community-based way. In short, they care about the things I care about.
I’m voting for Grant Robertson because I think he’s done a great job for Wellington Central over the past 3 years.
I’ll be voting to keep MMP because I believe that our representatives in Parliament should reflect the diversity of the people of New Zealand – and that the fairest and most effective way of governing is by consensus.
Rich said:
I would have voted Green, if they removed all the equivocation from this page and just said that they will not support National on confidence and supply during the next parliament and will consider any legislation against their policy and principles.
This is how I see it. There is a possibility that National might not get enough seats to govern alone (please God make it so!).
If Banks loses in Epsom (a strong possibility, looking at the gap between him and Goldsmith in the polls) then ACT is toast. If Charles Chauvel can roll Dunne in Oariu (running neck & neck in the polls) then UF is toast too. That leaves the Maori Party as National’s only buddy in Parliament.
As Winston has already said he won’t work with either side (and assuming he can resist the baubles of office if they do get over the 5%), I can see some scenarios where National might actually need the Greens to at least abstain on C&F in order to get things passed.
Initially that completely freaked me out – the thought that the Greens might actually help National. OMG. However, I now see it in a much more pragmatic light. My biggest concern (of many) about National is that they will try to get asset sales pushed through Parliament. The Greens have said that “no asset sales” is an absolutely bottom-line issue for them – one that they won’t budge on.
This means that a strong Green vote, with as many Green MPs as possible, may be a powerful foot in the door that prevents National from having the numbers to get asset sales approved. Labour won’t be able to do anything to prevent it happening directly, because they’re the opposition – but a strong Green Party in a position where National have to bargain something away in order to get something else from them – just might.
I trust the Greens not to bargain away any of the big things that really matter to me – opposing asset sales and opposing deep sea oil drilling for example – and they have already shown that they can work with National on things like home insulation without selling their collective soul to the devil, as it were.
Although ideologically I guess my preference would be for the Greens to stick to making agreements with other left-wing parties, if it’s a question of agreeing not to disagree with some policies that you may not like much but which you can live with – in exchange for getting the really really really bad policy (asset sales) off the agenda, I think I can live with that.
ETA: Of course in an ideal world I'd like to be looking forward to a left-leaning coalition winning the day tomorrow, but that ain't gonna happen, so having a strong Green party in place to mitigate a really really bad result (for me) is the best outcome I can hope for
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Hard News: Last Words, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
The Greens got my party vote
Craig, you have no idea how inordinately happy I felt when I read this. You rock!