Posts by Martin Roberts
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If every bar has a glass and half of full cream milk, and the size of the bars has dropped from about 250 grams to 200 grams, does that mean there is proportionally more milk in the chocolate?
That's why they couldn't fit so much chocolate in, and had to compensate with palm oil.
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Is there any chance of getting, say, STV rather than FPP for electing the new council? I haven't heard anybody canvassing that option, which looks at first glance like a sensible response to the 'only the rich will get enough face recognitiion' argument against at-large councillors.
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The big fuss after the Royal Commission on GE is actually what first made me want to join the Green Party, even as it prevented me from voting for them. Of course I only got around to joining after the last election, so who knows how long it will be before I make it to my first members meeting.
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the (potential) use of purely military materiel on local civilians is a serious matter and deserves more scrutiny.
I would agree, but do not think that the LAV was used on civilians.
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Although I didn't bother following this story as it developed, I was pleased to see an example of the police cordoning off an area and waiting the guy out. Perhaps he was too dangerous to get near, but it contrasts well with a few recent shootings by police where I've wondered why they got so close that shooting was their sole remaining option.
(Not that they necessarily had better choices in those instances, but the reports I've seen apparently didn't consider this a question worth answering. Our friend Mr. O'Connor certainly isn't given to raising such considerations.)
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My wife and I are quite disappointed in the lack of local candidates. Lee feels like a ring-in, simply because she wasn't the grafter we've seen establishing a base in the last two elections when we all knew Clark was on her way out. Shearer feels the most legitimate to me in that respect, partly because it would have been hard for Labour to establish a new person until right now.
Hard, that is, unless Helen went onto the list. Nobody seems to think this was practical - presumably it would be seen as 'losing'? I personally reckon that you shouldn't have enough time to lead anything but the smallest party and be an electorate MP, so voted against her on principle (which didn't give me many credible options, let me tell you - apparently no aspiring candidate or party thought they could make my argument fly - perhaps too ).
My opinion here militates against Norman in the by-election, although on a marginal-adjustment-to-caucus-sizes basis I'd quite like another Green MP.
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I have always felt that "green" electricity has limited meaning until sufficient people take it up to outstrip NZ's existing low-emissions generation. I live in hope that by signing up we encourage anybody deciding what type of generation to build next. That said, our household cheerfully banked a zero in that category of our emissions audit.
As for retailers, they also compete on how well they can predict the power they will sell. The better their prediction, the less they have to buy or sell on the short-term markets and overall the less they ought to pay. Powershop appears to offer you a chance to do some of that prediction (and management) yourself, taking on time and risk commitments in return for lower prices.
(The big gains from retail competition come for larger customers, whose usage is measured more closely and can often be shaped with suitable incentives. Net result: the vast majority of people have only seen the downside.)
Thirdly, and finally, my wife reckons that the man on the Powershop ad looks like Baldrick.
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Blast! Must look at my text when previewing, not just my formatting. Apologies.
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And here's a thought: could we perhaps hear a little more from our Prime Minister about what he thinks of the global economy?
You must have been glad to see what that Key told the WSJ:
Since you Your citizens are entitled to expect you to be realistic . . . to be specific about what it is you're going to do
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Thinking about thresholds drives me to agree with Peter's comment on Graeme's previous post (about who decides which bills come before parliament):
much of the way government and the parliament are run has not adapted to MMP yet
Instead of a stark government/opposition dichotomy, could we get used to minority governments where each party gets some proportion of time/bills and coalitions must be built around each issue? Minority parties would get less chance to play at kingmaking (so we could lower the thresholds), but more chance to have a crack with their key (or most palatable?) policies. This should give us more consensus politics overall, but hopefully still allow some visionary actions as the 'opposition' got past its reflex of opposing everything.
The big practical challenge, afaik, is that being able to pass your budget and forming a government wouldn't be so closely linked. Devising a starting point formula for how much control you get for your proportion of the vote (plus a bonus to the government for the boring stuff?) shouldn't be too hard. I know little of the running of the house, however. Where would this fall apart?