Posts by Keith Ng
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I'm not sure when he picked up the style, but his way of speaking is quite like a non-religious version of MLK. Not just his references to the man and his message, but his way of speaking, and what he says.
It's a soft version of the Southern inflection at the end of sentences (e.g. MLK). I found it intriguing, too. I'm not sure if it's a product of his accent mix, or a learned style.
Interesting, though, that it's quite sporadic, and it's most pronounced when he made his (only!) reference to the US civil rights movement.
And he used a lot of repeated sentences components ("Hope is..; hope is...") which intensified with repetition. It's a MLK trademark, but it's also pretty common nowadays. Of course, MLK was a *lot* more intense, but he had the voice and the power for it.
Obama's no firebrand, but I think he strikes a good balance as being calm, intelligent and generally nice, whereas - crass as it may sound - I don't think he wants to be seen as a fire-up black man.
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Ditch your Journeyman habit and get with the big bang...
I already finished the first and only season. I did quite enjoy it, though. But I have 25gb of traffic left at my old flat, and I was wondering what to do with it...
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Journeyman was intriguing but never paid off: always with the shadowy deus-ex-ex popping up and being adorably omniscient yet never actually telling us (a) what the fuck's going on or (b) why we should care about these people. I tried hard, watched six episodes, which in retrospect turned out to be about four more than I should have.
Just like Quantum Leap! I rather enjoy shows that just flat out go: "This insanely strange premise is fact. That is all." Recent examples include Dead Like Me, where fatal destinies are delivered on Post-It notes, or Pushing Daisies, where a pie maker can resurrect the dead by touching them once, then unresurrect them by touching them again. It just is, damnit. Both created by Bryan Fuller, incidentally.
Or, on a more similar note, Early Edition, where a cat delivers a newspaper from the future. I mean, how can a cat deliver a paper, anyway? That's just crazy. And I'd hate to work at that paper. Everytime I get a good, gruelsome story, some guy from the future rescues them, and doesn't even stick around to comment. Not cool.
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... as bad as the sight of Natalie Portman naked in The Darjeeling Limited ...
Good lord, man - speak for yourself! 8-)
Perhaps I should whack Ubuntu onto my iMac too (can I install and boot it from an external drive?).
Aye. I put in on my new Eee using an SD card. (That is, installing a system onto the SD card first, then using that as an installation medium.)
One problem I had with Linux on Macs was that browser plugins were poorly supported. However, this was back in 2004, with iMacs from 2000, with PowerPC chips. So, that's probably a very outdated concern now, but others might have a better idea of how things have progressed since then.
If you're interested in battery life, and haven't already, you should check out powertop. It should be available through the ubuntu package management system.
Cheers! Aptitude-ed it right now.
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Ah, Angus, so are you saying that the regulation of third parties is okay, as long as the caps are higher?
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electioneering for what purpose? Whether Parliamentary leader's fund money can be spent on it, or whether it has to be included in the spending cap?
The leaders' fund. i.e. If an act by a third party is deemed to be electioneering, is it then also something that cannot be funded out of the leaders' fund? And vice versa.
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Good idea Keith.
Every New Zealander will have one last reminder on how to most appropriately thank Labour for their EFA come November, as we stand in line 10x as long waiting patiently to fill in a ballot with a 100 new "parties". The recounts looking at spoiled ballots, the additional "party" observers crowding the room, heck even the inevitable Green protest at the waste of paper...
So, you're saying that non-political parties should be able to voice their opinions with as much money as they want, because that's what democracy is all about, but if you put them on a ballot paper, then they're a waste of space?
I'm not sure if you mean it as a strictly logistical problem with the ballots or if you're talking about the wider problem of being swamped with parties.
If you're talking about the ballots themselves, I can't see there being a hundred, or even ten, groups that would be compelled to register because they're running an overtly political campaign and have more than $120,000 to spend.
To put it into perspective, all the political parties combined spent $7.75m in the 2007 election. To assume that there'll be another 100 parties who are there because they want to spend over $120k (let's say, conservatively, $200k) is to assume that people will spend an additional $20m on the election, i.e. that election spending will quadruple for no good reason.
So, no, I really don't think that'll happen. But another half dozen well-funded political outfits? That's perfectly plausible. And there's nothing wrong with it. This sort of thing happens in a democracy, which is what we still live in.
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Boscawen et al have to do a bit more than start a political party to access the higher limit: they also need to run candidates and/or contest the party list. Not that that's a Bad Thing at all.
Contesting the party list isn't that hard, is it? I mean, *winning* is hard, but contesting isn't.
How about we split the difference and regulate them to exactly the same extent as incumbent MPs...
Hang on - is the problem that third parties are disadvantaged compared to political parties (i.e. $120k cap), or that non-parliamentary political parties are disadvantaged compared with parliamentary political parties (i.e. Use of parliamentary funding for electoral purposes)?
Question for Graeme or I/S - are the standards for judging what constitutes electioneering the same for parliamentary material and third party material? (e.g. If both said "Working for Families is great", would it be considered electioneering by either parties?)
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Craig, I just though I'd say I'm appreciating your various efforts to render then internet sensible.
Aye, I second that. No worries, Craig.
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Actually, Craig, the thing that pisses me off the most about Hide's comments was that it was a deliberate rhetorical trick.
He never said that the abolitionist or the suffragette campaigns would have been defeated or even hampered by the EFA, so if you took his words at face value, it's virtually meaningless, because he's just saying that they'll need to register. But clearly, that's not what he means. He said it knowing that people will interpret it further, so he's insinuating what he can't say - because it ain't true.
That's some sneaky shit, and he's using the memories of the heroes of liberalism to pull it off. Hence - "grossly offensive".