Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Oh no people were much angrier in ’81
Yes, I remember, but I think the anger was much more specific. The anti-tour movement had a quite clear goal.
I don't think that kind of thing will be seen here again. People had quite a different sense of tolerance towards violence and fighting then. Now even a whiff of it scares the hell out of people. It has to be a cause with a really clear and present threat to elicit such a strong reaction.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Key convinced me last week that likely the best thing I can do for my country on Sat is vote for for IM, and I’ll likely vote for them or the Greens, either way that’s a vote against John and his continual eroding of my personal privacy
I have similar reasoning. Between Greens and IM I'm undecided. In my feeling that I'd rather have Cunliffe than Key, I'm not at all undecided. I don't have to vote for Cunliffe to get Cunliffe though, courtesy of MMP. I get to signal more than that. For me, Cunliffe being the leader is the clear lesser of evils, even though I will not vote Labour (well, maybe I'll vote for Sepuloni...not sure, she seems pretty secure, and the Green candidate here happens to be an old friend).
My dilemma is between choosing to go with good solid Greens or the more speculative IM. Greens are a party with a lot of policy, which could certainly work with Labour, is likely to be the third biggest party, but is also a party whose primary focus is not my own. I don't disagree with environmentalism, it's just not the most important thing to me at this time. I do agree with most of their secondary policy, that is why I voted for them in the past, but my worry is that in coalition negotiations the only lollies they'll get will be their true bottom line, the environment.
IM, on the other hand, is a party whose apparent policy focus is much more like my own opinions on what the government should do. In the person of Hone Harawira, not so much, but as greater Mana, much more so. I get what Harawira is about, and even respect it, but he is still very much focused on how things affect Maori in the north. Which is righteous, but I'm not a northern Maori. The Internet Party is so new it's hard to tell what it's about for sure, particularly considering what its name implies, and how much that contrasted with its choice of leader. But such policy as they have come up with is stuff I generally agree with. I'm not particularly concerned that they probably couldn't work with Labour directly, because they could still represent without being in government, and they will probably vote with the Government on choices that I mostly agree with.
However, I am very concerned that Harawira might not hold his seat. If he doesn't, it's likely the vote for them will be wasted. This seems like a big tactical blunder by Labour, to strongly contest him at a time when their majority is likely to be wafer thin. If they win there, they lose not only all of the IM vote, most of which will get redistributed to National, but they will also reduce the overhang too, and most of that redistribution will also go to National. This at a time when National is still suggesting that Epsom voters go for ACT and we could end up getting Whyte in on the coat-tails.
I'll be closely watching any information coming in over the next few days to choose. If Hone looks like losing Te Tai Tokerau, I'll vote Green, otherwise, IM. In doing so, I feel that I'm voting for Labour too, and in case that's not clear, I'm SAYING it RIGHT HERE. Because our ability to signal is not limited to our vote.
I support a left wing coalition, under Cunliffe, but I would like them to have a strong incentive to go through with the more "radical" elements of left wing policy that they have and so I vote to the left of them to signal this. I want my vote to stand counter to the NZ First voter who also wants a left wing coalition. I would accept working with them, but I want it clear that they're not the most important group in such a coalition.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to izogi,
Really though, this election has become hugely polarised, compared with nearly anything in living memory, and people wonder why.
It feels to me a lot like 1981. Lots of people really angry about the government, and lots of people scared of the angry people. Slightly less of them, but slightly better distributed under FPP to deliver Muldoon one last chance to fuck shit up, which he then did, royally.
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Hard News: Interview: Glenn Greenwald, in reply to Russell Brown,
John Key concedes Edward Snowden ‘may well be right’
The time honored second part of that phrase is "But I couldn't possibly comment".
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A part of me died during that performance, when most of my tweet stream spent the whole time telling KDC to shut up, stop giggling, where's-the-moment-of-truth, isn't-Assange-an-alleged-rapist, etc. I've never felt Russell's point about the Meth Election so poignantly. Basically every complaint is about something that I really don't actually give a shit about. There was some really serious discussion by some massive heavyweights about some really scary stuff that's happened in NZ, and it was brought to us by someone politically naive because, well, he's not actually a politician. Of course I expected a plug for the Internet Party, was a tiny bit surprised to get the Mega-plug, but really I kept thinking it was like a bunch of kids complaining about a dinner they just got given because they don't like veges. I've never experienced anything like that on NZ "TV" (probably because it wasn't TV, it was the Internet) before. Fucking hell, just don't eat the veges then. The main course was awesome. So now we're going to spend the next 4 days talking about the veges.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
Go to the nexus where the international cable plugs into the national network and futz with the servers and switches.
Yup, and do it at the American end where you don’t even have to lean on anyone very hard, when it comes to questions of national security. They drive past the prison every day that you could stuff them in and throw away the key.
ETA: Probably wouldn't work for the Australian end, but...which cable are we thinking was hacked? Meh...it's all speculation.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I suspect software rather than hardware.
Or both! Try firmware. It's both soft and hard.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ross Mason,
It’s fun to speculate, but really we’re talking about the NSA here. These guys could have swapped hardware from inside the firm with stuff they made themselves. They could have paid anyone at all in there to do that any money you could reasonably consider imagining someone being paid for it, and since the discovery of that would constitute a huge crime, possibly treason, they’re hardly going to tell us all. Once we’re talking about spooks of that magnitude, there’s no point to us tech minnows trying to figure out how it could be done. Their budget is huge, their scruples non-existent, and their interest in doing this high.
ETA: In other words, I don’t see much point trying to overthink the technical side of it, when really obvious low tech alternatives exists, like paying someone on the inside.
ETA2: Or blackmailing them, or any of the other nasty shit that the NSA routinely does to get stuff done.
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Hard News: 2014: The Meth Election, in reply to Rich Lock,
LOL, cause all the other people playing the game aren't going to find it really suss to hear a couple of jihadis planning to blow up a train or something?
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Hard News: 2014: The Meth Election, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Well, and there was a live camera stream of the crowd. I noticed Russell hadn’t shaved, but then that’s part of his metadata anyway.
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