Posts by Russell Brown
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I get your point, but like Idiot/Savant I wish some commentators would get their heads around the idea that by-elections are just that. An election not a coronation, where the candidate who gets the most votes wins.
Of course, but it's evident to me that Russel Norman isn't standing to win, but to gain a national profile through participating in a high-profile by-election. Which is completely rational for him and for his party, but I don't think it's without political risk.
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@Conrad:
Actually Melissa Lee winning Mt. Albert would not see Cam Calder come back. The number of list MPs allocated to National falls since they now have an extra electorate MP.
Are you sure? I was taking DPF's word on that one:
If Lee was the candidate, and did win the seat, then her list spot would be taken up by Cam Calder, who was an MP for around two weeks after the election, before National lost a seat due to specials ...
If National wins the seat it gains one extra MP, regardless of who the winning candidate is. If the winning candidate is not already an MP, then National gains an MP. If the winning candidate is a List MP they will resign as a List MP, and get replaced automatically due to a list vacancy
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Graeme may be able to draw a valid distinction, but the way that Labour use "privatisation" reduce it to the status of an epithet, or a dog-whistle that attempts to call forth the usual class envy and tired "rick prick" meme.
That's an interesting example. Cullen uttered the phrase once in a moment he presumably regrets. All other uses have been by his political opponents and right-wing bloggers. If it's really a "meme", it's hardly one of Labour's making.
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Just because we still have an army, or just because we still have the same number of public prisons as we ever did, would not mean that there isn't privatisation.
Graeme, if I wasn't a bit busy, I'd try and come up with a more contemporary military analogy for "drawing a long bow" ...
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This seems like a pretty easy hit for Labour to knock out of the ball park ... Instead we get them crying about dirty tricks and smear campaigns. Weak.
I agree. There are any number of responses that would turn the tables on this, but they didn't do it.
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I don't think he is far right - I wish we had more MPs like him in Labour.
Oh, don't be so disingenuous. You proposed that he'd be a good catch for Act!
Of course it will be very very difficult for Labour to harp on about privatisation when one if their new MPs has advocated the use of the private sector in the most core of government functions - the military.
And David, it suits you to try and make the connection, but no one but John Key has talked about privatising our national army or anyone else's. You know quite that that's not what the articles were about.
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Just in. All 10 swine flu tests back from Australia. All positive.
Update: Darnn 3 News teasers. Three of 11 tests back, all positive, authorities therefore assume entire group is positive.
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That's why I like the to-the-road approach, because it provides the backbone, removes some large-scale-uncertainty for private investors and allows for connections to then only be made on a "who actually wants it" basis
Which kinda what you'd have if the government got it right with regulating the cabinets. Telecom Wholesale told me when the cabinets went in Pt Chev that they'd have the flexibility to deliver dedicated fibre to premises from the cabinet, if there was a customer who wanted to pay for it.
I do have sympathy with the idea of building on infrastructure that's already there, even if it's not so glamorous.
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I was just talking to Wendy Wright, the president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, about the nomination of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.) to run the Department of Health and Human Services. The group opposes the nomination, and Wright is raising some questions about the timing of the swine flu crackdown so close to tomorrow’s cloture vote.
“Some people think that declaring a state of emergency about the flu was a political thing to push the Sebelius nomination through,” said Wright. She pointed to news stories that ask whether the slow-walking of the Sebelius choice will hurt the response to the flu. “If there’s even a hint that [Department of Homeland Security] is manipulating the health situation to push a political appointee through, well, it almost defies imagination that they’d be willing to that.”
It's all a plot by the abortionists!
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