Posts by webweaver
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Y'know, I'm usually such a politics junkie, but the heads-up on those new Velvet Underground tracks has thrown everything else clean out of my head...
Awesome stuff!
So awesome in fact that after I downloaded them I wrote a busy little blog post all about my Velvets love, and then trucked on over to eBay to check and see how much those 100 green vinyl copies had actually sold for... and lo and behold there were a couple still for sale (or maybe a new batch if I'm being cynical).
So I bought one. For twelve quid, how can you say no?
w00t! Thanks Russell!
-
Interesting update on the money issue.
Following media reports of Hillary donating $5million to her campaign, the Obama website has had a mini-fundraising campaign to match it.
Since polls closed on SuperDuper Tuesday they've raised $5,542,072 (as of this second) and it's still rising.
(Note: $ graphic seems to be a bit glitchy - sometimes the numbers go down instead of up when you refresh....)
-
The interesting thing about Hillary's money worries, James, is in the numbers of donors. Hillary raised between $10 and $14 million in January, Obama between $30 and $40 million - so there's a massive difference there anyway.
But it's the numbers of donors that's even more striking. Hillary has tended to get large donations for a relatively small number of donors. Obama on the other hand is raising mostly small donations, but from thousands and thousands of donors. This has two consequences:
The first is that many of Hillary's large donors are reaching or have already reached the legal threshold in terms of how much they are allowed to donate. Obama's on the other hand, still have plenty of "allowance" left to donate, if they so choose.
It's going to be much easier for him to persuade a couple of hundred thousand people to cough up another $20 each than it is for Hillary to find a completely new bunch of big donors.
The other consequence is at the voting booths. If we assume that you have to really really inspire people in order for them to give you money, for Obama to have inspired such a large number of people to donate to his campaign - even in small amounts - indicates that he's inspiring more ordinary people than Hillary is. And a vote is a vote at the voting booth - whether you've donated $100,000 to Hillary, or $20 to Obama.
-
Neil said...
I suspect the vast majority of Dems wont be so short sighted as to change their party vote just because their candidate didn't get selected.
You're right (mostly) I think, although many Americans who self-identify as Progressives will be holding their noses and voting for Hillary if she gets the nom, because many of them do not like her at all. (Anecdotal evidence from having been a member of Daily Kos for the last 4 years).
But I wasn't really thinking of Dems - I was thinking of the very large and potentially decisive vote of those now identifying as Independents. There are more Independents now than there have been in a very long time (maybe ever). Some are disenchanted former Dems or Repubs, others have switched to Independent to try and stay under the radar when it comes to Robocalls from either party, others have always been Independent and vote on the person or a particular policy, rather than by party.
There are enough of them to swing the vote, and (anecdotally at least, and probably demonstrated by polling if I had the time to look), there's a bunch of them who really, really don't like Hillary.
If she were to become the Democratic nominee, there may be enough Independents who won't vote Dem just because it's Hillary to have quite an effect on the outcome, especially if McCain is the Repub nominee - he scores pretty well with Independents (seen as a maverick, to the left of the Right, etc).
Then there's the disaffected Repubs I mentioned earlier, who have such a long-standing hatred of Hillary that they would hold their noses and vote for the Repub candidate, but who also score quite highly for Obama, and might just be persuaded to vote for him, if he were the nominee.
Ben said...
Blaming Obama and his camp for the "Hillary is Divisive" commentary is pretty short sighted - she has been a political figure since 92 at least and has consistently gathered substantial hostile commentary since about then as well, which was revived when she started expressing interest in the NY senate position.
Absolutely! I've been an American politics junkie for years, Neil, and I'm also very interested in analysing the ebb and flow of people's opinions and behaviour. I've watched the Hillary-loathing for years and years - ever since Bill first became President - this isn't a new thing at all, and that's what makes Hillary so risky IMO - long-held views are much harder to break or change.
Neil said...
She's been around for longer than Obama so has more baggage but one can question whether what the Obama camp is saying the consquences of that are is true or not.
I don't see the "Hillary is divisive" comment coming from the Obama camp, Neil - although do correct me if I'm wrong. It's coming from political analysts, pollsters, and people who like watching the "theatre" that is American politics (such as myself) - an example being the Washington Times article linked to earlier:
The senator from Arizona [McCain] beats the senator from New York [Clinton] in 14 of 17 head-to-head polls taken since Dec. 6, but he wins just five of 17 against the senator from Illinois [Obama] over the same period.
-
Well actually there is - assuming that you accept Zogby's polling results as representative of America as a whole - Zogby Poll: Half Say They Would Never Vote for Hillary Clinton for President (October 2007)
The question was "Whom would you NEVER vote for for President of the U.S.?" - 50% said Hillary, 37% said Obama. There aren't complete details about whether voters were Republicans or Democrats, but here's what info there is:
Opposition to Clinton among Democratic and Republican women revealed mirror opposite attitudes, the Zogby Interactive survey showed. While 83% of Republican women said they would never vote for her, just 17% said they could possibly cast a ballot for her. Among Democratic women, just 17% said they would never vote for Hillary, while 83% said they could.
Democratic women appear smitten by former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois – just 11% said they could never vote for them for President.
I could give you a big list of reasons why I don't like Hillary - I didn't include them earlier because my last post was getting too long as it was - but apart from the divisiveness issue, it's pretty simple.
She's too right-wing for my tastes, and she voted for the War on Iraq - and crucially has refused to apologise for it or to admit that she might have made a mistake. That rules her out completely in my book.
And of course the Obama supporters will bring up the "Hillary is divisive" issue - I mean, the Hillary supporters are hardly likely to raise it, are they?
-
Sure you've all seen it already, but electoral compass asks your opinion on various topics and tells you which candidate is closest to your position.
Well, well well - I just tried it out and it seems I'm closer to Obama than Edwards (who was my preferred candidate until he pulled out) - Obama scores more progressive than Edwards, with Edwards being slightly more economically left - I was more extreme than either of them (naturally), but still, I'm a better fit with Obama. Who knew?
I'm hoping for an Obama win in enough states tomorrow to keep his momentum going. I'm not as rose-tinted as to think he'll make a clean sweep, but I'm definitely looking for him to keep on increasing his numbers.
My problem with Hillary is mainly that she's just too divisive - too many people on both sides absolutely loathe her. I think if she were running as the Democratic nominee there'd be plenty of Repubs who would get out and vote just to vote against her, and I think she'd lose a bunch of independents as well. And the progressives on the left would mainly be holding their noses and voting for her.
Anecdotal evidence shows that there are some Repubs towards the middle who find Obama rather appealing - particularly those who feel that the wingnuttery of the last 7+ years has destroyed "their" Republican party. While they would never in a million years vote for Hillary, they might just vote for Obama.
While I don't think that Obama can govern on hope alone, I get the feeling that America really needs an inspirational candidate after the darkness of the Bush years. I find him a charismatic speaker, he ticks the right boxes for me in terms of his stance on the Iraq war (against it right from the start), and there does seem to be some decent substance behind the speechifying.
I don't for a minute believe he will succeed in working with the opposition - I think the Repubs will do everything in their power to make that impossible - but I think he's the breath of fresh air that America needs.
If I can't have Al Gore (why didn't you run, Al? You rock!) or John Edwards, I'm happy to "vote" for Obama - and if he picked Edwards for VP, I'd be even happier...
-
Anyways, these numbers (equating to a million daily emails from 100,000 subscribers) aren't hard to handle with decent hardware and software.
How do they handle the "blowback" spam or whatever it's called? Can they?
I was inundated by about 3,000 returned emails a couple of weeks ago, after some little b*stard faked my email address in the "from" line of their massive spam mailout. As a result I got all the "message undeliverable" bounces. I couldn't block them because they were all from/to a different randomname@myemailaddress.co.nz
Yes yes I know I could choose to only accept those emails to myactualname@myemailaddress.co.nz, and block the rest, but I know that way I'd miss emails from quite a lot of legitimate "group" email lists that I receive stuff from.
ihug "fixed" it for me (eventually) by trashing my entire inbox for that day from their server - without asking me, and before I'd even had a chance to view them on my web-based browser (prior to deleting individual emails and then downloading to my 'puter.) Yeah. Great idea, ihug.
Their other most excellent suggestion was that I change my email address. You know, the one I've had for 10 years and via which everyone I know in the entire world gets hold of me. Yeah right.
-
oooh oohh and this point too:
Which brings me to: My Hobbyhorse: I would dearly love to see a modest contestable fund to which individuals could apply to have a work digitised by the archive that holds it.
Some archives are "better" than others in this regard I think. The Gathering documentary that we made a few years ago is stored as part of the Film Archives National Collection, and a couple of years ago they digitised it to screen in a music festival documentary.
Now that they've got it in digital format, I was able to buy a copy of the DVD version from them (as joint-owner of the copyright) for a mere $30, and when I asked for 2 copies instead of one, it still only cost $30. God knows how much it would have cost to get it digitised myself. A sh*tload more than $30, I'm sure.
-
Just a point about Te Ara:
Te Ara, too, is niggardly over the quality of image it will provide. What's the point? It's not as if the originals will get grubby.
Many of the images on the Te Ara website don't belong to Te Ara in the first instance - they come from a whole range of different places - from individual photographers who give express permission in writing, through museum and library collections, to New Zealand newspapers.. all of whom, I am guessing, may have different rules and regulations attached to the use of their images, which Te Ara has certainly had to negotiate permission to use. You can see the different copyrights (attributions) at the bottom of each image...
-
I do think that it's particularly concerning when members of the agency tasked with upholding the law deliberately and flagrantly break it. What's more, in a way that may actually hinder their objective of a successful prosecution. Again, I feel fine taking a more dim view of that than of an activist sharing a copy of the warrant they were served or a defence lawyer talking to a journo (and we don't know who that was, we just have to take the DomPosts's word for it).
I'm with Stephen here. I can totally understand why an activist might say something like "holy sh*t!!! This warrant says I'm under suspicion of being a terrorist!!! I think I'm going to freak out a bit and tell someone..." - whereas the thought of some copper sidling up to a journo going "psst! over 'ere matey... I've got something very interesting to show you..." somehow seems very much more dodgy...