Posts by Angus Robertson
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The candidate must lie naked all night in a coffin-like box, only his nostrils protruding above the icy water with which it is filled, and with heavy stones laid on his chest. In this position he must compose a poem of considerable length in the most difficult of the many difficult bardic meters, on a subject which is given him as he is placed in the box. On his emergence next morning he must be able to chant this poem to a melody which he had been simultaneously composing, and accompany himself on the harp.
What happened if a druid, confused by the cold, plays someone elses melody?
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Matthew,
They take it in through their food and release it subsequently. They're not dredging up deeply-sequestered carbon deposits from millions of years ago, they eat grass, that's probably only a few months old. At worst they should be carbon-neutral, and if that article is correct they actually sequester carbon back into the ground.
Cows have a heavy AGW impact because methane is 20x as effective a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and cows eating grass convert carbon dioxide to methane. The grass sequesters carbon dioxide from the air and then the cow eats the grass emitting some carbon dioxide and some methane.
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I realise that the Māori Party considers itself among the "MMP Parties", but it really shouldn't. Its lifeblood is the Māori electorate system. It relies in absolutely no way on the party vote. Whatever Atareta Poananga's hopes, it may never earn a list seat.
And it would thrive under a return to first past the post.
No they wouldn't, agree with Rachel & anjun's reasoning.
Also with FPP Labour would be forced to compete much more strongly for the seats. Under MMP Labour can let the electorate vote go and focus on the more important party vote with no damage to its election chances, but under FPP Labour conceding 7 potentially winnable seats will severely damage their chances.
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Why would you do that? Why now, at a crucial point when climate change is going mainstream? Why over food prices, which is a media beat-up from start to finish? Why?
Because they are undertaking a cynical exercise in political repositioning to take advantage of Labours "tax-cuts, get-your-tax-cuts" swing to the right of centre. They sense a considerable portion of the electorate want an alternative left of the Clark led and Key led parties of the centre. They are probably correct.
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The only place where leadership on climate change can come from is the Greens.
We are f*@#'d, if that is true. But with it going mainstream it can be taken out of hands of fringe politicians - there is still hope.
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Helen Clark and her caucus could learn a lot. National is exhibiting a kind of in-time responsiveness to public whimsey that is sadly lacking in the Labour Party's responses to public whimsey.
More than a day it took for Labour polling to determine that spin of an effective, informative, conference held for the benefit of the harworking staff of a well run department needed reframing into a wasteful, brouhaha fest at a luxury resort contrived by inept managers.
How can we be expected to vote for politicians whose spin and self-promotion is so slow? If they can't handle their own self-aggrandising, whichever-the-wind-blows PR (which is after all their primary skill set) surely they are not capable of running the country.
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Tax Cuts are pork?
No. Pork is public money spent on projects that appeal to some politicians support base [as defined in a nicely informative Island Life article last week]. Private income is not public money.
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Is it just me or is the Indy Car thing so completely facile? Go straight, turn left, go go go, turn left, go go go...
surely that's how you decide who's very good at ... turning left?
First I heard of Idiot-Savant's blog was about this time of year. I thought cool a kiwi blogging about indy/nascar. Very disappointing.
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For the political market is it based on percentage seats or percentage of party vote?
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Steve,
I kinda liked the EPMU having its own voice.