Posts by Dismal Soyanz
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
To paraphrase Russell: didn't see that coming (not).
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I have no doubt it was done by a vote. I’m less sure that Cameron Slater saw that as a reason to accept the outcome.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to nzlemming,
One thing I would note is that Bhatnagar initiated every exchange between them. Slater is very self-focused. And, when read in conjunction with the Lusk texts, Bhatnagar was a much better friend to Slater than the other way around.
Yes, a recurring theme both before and after the book's release is how he turned on and abused his erstwhile friends.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Grant McDougall,
According to the book, Slater sees Boag as responsible for displacing his father from the National Party presidency.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Angela Hart,
+1
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But when policy (ooh say for example combating cyber bullying) is promulgated by people who engage in contrary behaviour, what confidence can you have in those policy statements?
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As I think has been pointed out before, if we allow this subversion/corrosion of politics then any debate about actual policies becomes moot.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Wasn't there some form of card sent out to voters at the last election?
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to David Hood,
Halfway through the book and just hot to the bit where Slater and Lusk were talking about iPredict wrt a contract on candidate selection.
I wouldn't have thought that type of contract would garner that much interest so yes it would be easier to manipulate (thin market). My initial impression before reading the book was that the manipulation was on the more significant contracts such as the party vote share or formation of government. In those contracts, I would have thought $200 would not go a long way. Indeed, I've been able to see some research on that Nat vote share contract for the 2011 election and the price was below the actual outcome for the vast majority of time, meaning that if anyone had been buying it up in an attempt to manipulate it, they were likely only improving its accuracy.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Roger Lacey,
Maybe. Maybe not.
Just bought the book and am up to page 42. I can see where Hager has made some guesses but at least he has labelled them as such. Even so, it is a chilling read. It also makes me angry. Angry that the institutions we trust to protect us from despotism and cronyism have been so cynically undermined from within.
I consider myself something of a swing voter but even only after getting through one third of the book I feel that, as Russell pointed out, we have to do better - and I am now actively thinking that I have to be more involved in politics.
We cannot allow our political representatives to engage in or even turn a blind eye to this behaviour. As the saying goes, in order for evil to prevail requires only that good men do nothing.