Posts by Andre Alessi
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I'm not sure where I got it from now. But it should be taken to mean 'equivalent'.
You get into the specifics of programming notation and symbolic logic with this if you try and dig too deep on this, but the "colloquial" interpretation of these symbols is as follows:
"=" indicates simple identity between two things
"==" indicates that what is true for one side of the symbol is also true for the other (the literal meaning of "equivalence".)Of course, if you've ever been subjected to a symbolic logic course you'll immediately understand that the two definitions are exactly the same, but I really don't want to be retyping my "logic of identity" essays...
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We wouldn't be having these problems if Auckland was the capital of NZ as it should be.
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And by the way, if significant savings wasn't the point of super sizing the city, what was?
/waves hands magically
Look, a pony!
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When it does start to stick we'll see him as one of the most effluent prime ministers this country has ever produced.
I'm not sure if that pun was intentional.
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Looks like I'm going to have to expand the Fantasy Island file into its own cabinet...
Nah, National just obviously hasn't mastered the "all focus groups all the time" strategy. No stupid policies ever get past a good suburban Auckland focus group...
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Andre; I know Nikki fairly well, and while in my experience you're never going to grow old waiting for her opinion on any subject but she doesn't sneak up behind anyone with a sandbag either. Nor is she prone to random fits of hysterical venting.
Perhaps that's the case, but I'm sorry, I just can't buy the "carefully planned kabuki performance" explanation without something more substantial to hang it on than "It'll swing Central Auckland a few more points to the blue." The policy as a whole is stupid, and a year from now most people aren't going to remember Kaye standing up for Great Barrier if the rest of the thing goes ahead as planned.
I also don't see the benefit in having National MPs deliberately speak out against government policy on the PM's OK. Any brownie points someone might win for being a "maverick" are immediately lost when Pappa Key gives his blessing.
Maybe I'm just a cynic, or I've worked too long in the corporate world, but I'll always favour an explanation that grants that people really don't think ten moves ahead most of the time.
The only way I could potentially find myself agreeing with the idea that Kaye's statements were a carefully crafted triangulation on behalf of National Party HQ would be if this was the first step towards abandoning the policy entirely. And that would lead to the conclusion that the strategy is still a last minute, haphazard response to a policy that's even less popular than The Powers That Be must have guessed it would be in the first place.
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Personally I'll be a lot more impressed by both of them if they do actually manage to turn this stupid, stupid initiative around, than if they fail to.
I'd rather have a government that didn't propose stupid initiatives in the first place.
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Not that I am a conspiracist, another thought to show how clever you are as the PM, could be to mention that you knew all along that one of your Mps was going to voice their opinion on behalf of her electorate,(winning the people over) and after stating that she acted alone, it puts her up for the fall guy if and when it turns to custard.
You people are far too optimistic for my tastes!
I'm pretty happy with the "arse covering" explanation: Nikki Kaye vented on an issue she cared about without checking with anyone, and Key's office decided that an a posteriori comment that he knew about it beforehand was the only way to stop him from looking weak.
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There's already a t-shirt commemorating the quote.
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More common than you might think, Andre -- and that was the whole point of a bicameral legislature separate from the executive branch. Wasn't it?
Republican obstructionism predates the Teabagger movement by quite a long while. It was happening even under GWB in 2007 and there are plenty of earlier examples too (though people cared less when the Republicans had the White House, the Senate and the House all at the same time.) Feel free to add an "Of course, Democrats did the same thing" caveat to all this.
Admittedly, the way that the actual legislative process works you might get representatives from both parties attaching their names to sponsor a given bill, and individual members voting across party lines, but genuinely "bipartisan" activity in American politics (where the leaders of the parties agree on certain issues) is frighteningly rare over the last forty years or so, unless you limit your scope to anything war-related (not including "humanitarian" stuff) or empty assertions of political displeasure at other nations. Indeed, it's been this way even when the general public strongly supports a given piece of legislation.