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notices and features - Date published:
4:07 pm, January 5th, 2012 - 15 comments
Categories: humour, Politics -
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Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here
I don’t know about you, but I find it most inconvenient that just as I have some leisure hours to spend blogging about politics and politicians, the bastards have gone on holiday.
Maybe they will come back to work early if there’s some sort of crisis. Like a war. We haven’t had one of those for ages, well not a proper one.
But holding out for a bloody great war may be futile, because we’re just too friendly with all our neighbours, except of course the ones that can’t do us any real harm (yes, Fiji, I mean you).
The other thing likely to disappoint my hopes is the fact most wars break out after months, if not years, of tension and gradual escalation. Even if we launch a sneak attack against Australia, as I have long advocated, we will need some pretext and sense of justified grievance in order to mobilise the nation and, dammit, my holiday will be over by the time we get around to whipping the people up into a frenzy over that incident.
So war breaking out just ain’t gonna happen. My next best bet is that one of our politicians has been harbouring a dirty secret, and that the airing of it will devastate the nation and cause panic among members of the government.
So please, PLEASE, if you have some real dirt on John Key’s government, let it out. Give it to the media. Don’t be dissuaded by a sense of propriety, duty or morality, because it doesn’t matter why you haven’t spilled the beans up until now, or how many people you may hurt if you tell the world, as those people are collateral damage, regrettable but necessary sacrifices. And if your own career ends up in tatters as a result of your disclosure, the good news is that nobody will even remember who you are when they look back on the scandal that destroyed the Government, and the most you can hope for is a mention in a footnote. So don’t kid yourself that your fate is of any consequence in this matter.
Do it for me. I need some good material to keep me going. I’m in real need of help, and if this political void goes on for much longer I may even have to start communicating with people by non-electronic means. Like family members. Do they really deserve that?
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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whole gnashnil gubmint declared inane!
Perhaps you/someone/myself could do some post-election analysis, within the bounds of a sort-of reassurement rather than reassessment of readers’ political persuasion.
Like the number of electorates that more than half of the valid referenda voters who voted in section 2 for change (Bay of Plenty, Clutha-Southland, Helensville, Hunua, Kaikoura, North Shore, Rangitata, Rodney, Tamaki, Taranaki-King Country, Tukituki, Waikato, Waitaki – 13.)
Now what do these seats all have in common?
All of these seats have a party vote differential (between National and Labour) of over 1.5 times (all at least 9500) the mean party vote differential (6300) (in fact all but two are far more than that). So we can have hope in the future, for at least the majority in 57 electorates believe in real democratic values, not just trying to screw the scrum to suit their own political persuasion.
I’d really like to do an analysis on the party vote/referendum vote comparison, but I’m not sure if this type of data is actually available, looking at correlation between party vote and referendum vote .
On a similar note, I have often wondered if having Maori electorates actually favours right leaning governments rather than assisting Maori aspirations. My rationale for this is as follows;
Maori electorates cover vast areas, often overlapping with electorates which should be traditionally left leaning. An example – the Waiariki electorate takes in much of Opotiki, Whakatane, Murupara, Kawerau, Edgecumbe, Te Puke and Rotorua. Now whilst there are many farmers, landowners, etc who will traditionally be on the right, Maori, who would generally favour more collective government, are mainly on the Maori roll. This in effect removes a sizable proportion of opposition votes, meaning the likes of Tolley, McClay and Ryall have an easier chance of getting in.
More of a factor under FPP – the larger majorities/fewer seats scenario. Would sometimes backfire when local Nat MP became really unpopular or a Labour landslide.
Only now to the extent that the Maori Party in cahoots with National, i.e. how many voters voted MP candidate, Labour/Mana/Greens on party vote?
This was my attempt at a bit of DIY voting comparisons… http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/some-thoughts-on-mmp/
How ’bout this?
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/john-key-and-the-things-he-does-not-want-you-to-know-part-1-the-attack-on-the-nz-dollar-in-1987/
He sure makes one feel proud to be a Keywee, not. Where did Michelle Boag find him -under a stone?
Actually, on the Foreign Exchange Committee at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Which despite its name, is actually a privately owned bank (with statutory authority) and a key vehicle of the international bankster crowd.
We need our own wikileaks
Personally, I think even Key’s choice of holiday-destination is worthy of scrutiny… http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/john-key-minister-for-tourism-mia/
Don’t be too hard on our Minister of Tourism. He is probably handing out leaflets and extolling our beautiful hotels, beautiful scenery etc. in Hawaii and other venues that he prefers to enjoying his own country. He’s just like all jumped up moneybags or scheming power-grabbers that gain high positions in government of small countries. They all holiday away and live it up elsewhere. It’s traditional.
Damn, Prism, how could I have got it so wrong… 😉
??
He’s not holidaying away, he’s holidaying at home in Hawaii.
He’s away from home when he pops in to NZ to spend 20 minutes a week in parliament.
How many people are there in NZ who are worth $50 million? Of course he’s got to go away to Hawaii………… to be with his own. And because he can afford to. And because that’s where he is appreciated for his worth. And because he’s a true internationalist member of the 1% cartel.
Heh heh heh…
Damn, I HAVE left out the best bits in my blog piece…!! 😀