Hard News: Dial O for Obama
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Slightly off-topic (but related to political posturing)
When did the Public Service become the Bureaucracy?
And when did bureaucracy become a bad thing? It originated as a good thing sometime around the French Revolution (I think) when bureaucracy replaced patronage, favouritism and nepotism with a fairer system !
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the data doesn't back these claims up, it's absurd when we can't even see eye to eye on data and stats. We owe so much to the study of data, why fuck with it at election time?
Because as Craig pointed out people take what are essentially faith based positions wrt their politics. So when the demonstrable facts go against them they react like the fundies do to evolution.
I would go so far as to say that someone's reaction to solid evidence that their position is wrong is a litmus test of how faith based their position is. It is one reason you see so few scientists in politics, as a breed we care too much about 'the truth'. As a yoof I fancied a career in politics, but you wouldn't catch me joining a political party now, I'm far too pragmatic.
Besides you can always fall back on the idea that in a while the scientists will find that things are the other way around. Problem with that is it can make you paranoid...
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Jeremy: facts may tell you how to get what you want (if you're lucky and its an easy problem). They may tell you what other people want. But they won't tell you what you should want. And that means that arguments between competing ends (which are the very definition of politics) can never be settled empirically. At the end of the day, we simply have to accept that other people will want different things, and settle it by voting as a substitute for kiling each other.
This doesn't stop you from pointing out that people's international comparisons are bunk, or that their proposed policies won't achieve what they want (and are in fact counterproductive), or that policy X will have consequence Y. But if people want different things, we're just stuck with it.
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Meanwhile, you want another reason why ObamaCon? Because nobody should be surprised that a campaign that's reduced to calling their opponent a traitor who "pals around with terrorists" attracts people like this:
In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." [Emphasis added - CR]
[...] Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)
"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience [Emphasis added - CR]
Now, I've long said it is unfair to hold politicians personally responsible for their resident wing-nuts. And I still believe that, but the Sara-cuda's not looking so cute and feisty now, is she?
Meanwhile, McCain-Palin runs another outright deceptive ad about Obama's record on Afghanistan (and, just for the record, criticising government polixy does not mean you don't "support our troops"). And far from being a victim of the liberal media, the Palin bubble is now officially surreal:
CLEARWATER -- Constantly under the watchful eyes of security, the media wasn't permitted to wander around inside Coachman Park to talk to Sarah Palin supporters. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, "Can I help you?'' and turn the person around.
When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn't allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written. The campaign wanted to avoid that possibility.Racist catcalls and calls for Obama to be put to death are OK, but actual interviews? Hell, the candidate won't - why should the supporters?
And how the fuck can any conservative with an ounce of principle or self-respect vote for these clowns?
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And it goes on:
In the latest instance of inflammatory outbursts at McCain-Palin rallies, a crowd member screamed "treason!" during an event on Tuesday after Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of criticizing U.S. troops.
These people are getting quite scary.
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Yes, well, it certainly does seem if the 'maverick' driver of the 'no-talk express' seems perfectly willing to expend all his personal capital of political honour and dignity on the chance for office.
The New Yorkers editors have outlined a very strong case for why Obama is the better choice
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These people are getting quite scary.
And to give credit where credit's due, I expect to be fully underwhelmed by our campaign over the next four weeks and change. But however nasty, I'm cautiously optimistic that this is one sewer New Zealand politics isn't going to sink to.
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Racist catcalls and calls for Obama to be put to death are OK, but actual interviews?
Well ... given one of those death calls was from Biden, who wanted to do it himself...
:-)
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big billboard brother says we are extremely overtaxed, we are business unfriendly, we have out of control crime, we have unprecedented floods of migration of our best people.
To be scrupulously fair, the first three of those things are matters of opinion, since they depend on your personal assessment of what ideal levels of taxation, friendliness to business, and crime are.
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Well ... given one of those death calls was from Biden, who wanted to do it himself...
Heh... but I'd respectfully suggest that if Biden was in the habit of referring to the adult black man topping the bill as "boy" (and to be fair, I don't think most Kiwis really get what kind of buttons that pushes below the Mason-Dixon line), it might just be taken as a little more than your average "mis-speaking".
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The New Yorkers editors have outlined a very strong case for why Obama is the better choice.
That's one hell of an endorsement. Shame the kind of people Palin is stoking up at her rallies don't read the New Yorker. Or possibly, just don't read.
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And just as a side bar, John Key should be really thankful Richard Long left the building with advice like this:
National leader John Key must feel like borrowing instead a few apt phrases – like "doggone it" and "aw heck" – that Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin sprinkled through her commentary in the big American debate last week.
Mr Key could do worse than bone up on the way the much- parodied moose-hunting hockey mum handled herself.
She held her own against her hugely experienced Democrat counterpart Joe Biden.
And how is that working out for McCain-Palin, Dick? Pretty frigging shitty?
If I was advising Key, I'd suggest that Obama's performance -- calm, measured, civil unmoved by the most outrageous provocation (even when the commentariat and his own party wanted to see him go feral) -- is the one to watch. Because you don't have to be any kind of political genius to figure out that in a "presidential" campaign - and I think it's pretty obvious that's what Labour is going to run --, Key's responses to the attacks are going to be watched. And I think they will matter to a lot of swing/undecided voters who want a focus on the issues not the freakshow.
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Wonder if Sarah-cuda's newfound supporters will join her in Alaska when this shindy is over, to lay up stocks of moose jam while she revives the secession movement she was supposed to have been involved with a while back. It's hard not to be reminded of Australia at the height of the Pauline Hanson era, when someone suggested that a referendum should be held on whether Queensland should secede from Australia, provided all Australians were able to vote on the issue.
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As ever, John Rogers is the king of metaphor:
Modern American Conservatives have sunk to the intellectual and emotional level of the guy who thinks the stripper really likes him.
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As ever, John Rogers is the king of metaphor
And the comments to that piece are almost as good...
She's Bible Spice
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Josh:
It would be funny if Rich Lowry -- who is sitting in the chair once occupied by William frigging-F. Buckley -- hadn't got a woody over the "little starbursts" Sarah Palin sent through his body. **REALLY** Can I get an "ewww..." from y'all, brothers and sisters?
Meanwhile, exclusively on PAS, I've liberated test footage of Sarah Palin really making love to the camera.
Long live the new flesh!
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big billboard brother says we are extremely overtaxed, we are business unfriendly, we have out of control crime, we have unprecedented floods of migration of our best people.
To be scrupulously fair, the first three of those things are matters of opinion, since they depend on your personal assessment of what ideal levels of taxation, friendliness to business, and crime are.
But to be scrupulously honest we have been business friendly over the past nine years - it's just that business hasn't acknowledged it: http://union.org.nz/policy/ctu-economic-bulletin-no-86
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Or possibly, just don't read.
Feral and inbred like West Coasters, Russell?
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That's one hell of an endorsement. Shame the kind of people Palin is stoking up at her rallies don't read the New Yorker. Or possibly, just don't read.
More like one hellish endorsement. Getting support from this upperclass NY/SF magazine when $700,000,000,000.00 has been gifted to inept bankers in NY and SF is not a good thing. It places Obama in the same elitist flavoured realm as John Kerry at a time when the urban financial crowd look particularly vile to middle America.
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Sarah Palin takes the Voight-Kampff test
CHARLIE GIBSON: You’re in Juneau, walking along the snow, when all of a sudden you look down—
SARAH PALIN: Why?
GIBSON: Why what?
PALIN: Why am I in Juneau?
GIBSON: It doesn’t make any difference—
PALIN: But, how come I’d be there? Oh, you know, Todd’s got a snow machine race outside Wasilla tomorrow and—
GIBSON: Maybe you’re on state business. Maybe you want to do some governing. Who knows? You look down—
PALIN: Do I get a per diem for this?…
GIBSON: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the Alaskan sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping.
PALIN: You’re darn tootin’ we’re gonna help out with those turtles that are in our American tundras that are hurtin’ in this time of economic crisis in America! Also, I’d like to talk for just a minute about energy again, which……
GIBSON: Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about… your running mate.
PALIN: In what respect, Charlie? -
Angus:
Where to start? Oh, I've got an idea -- won't even bother. Do you think McCain is going to get any time soon that this feral populist shtick just isn't working?
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e.g big billboard brother says we are extremely overtaxed, we are business unfriendly, we have out of control crime, we have unprecedented floods of migration of our best people.
You are refering to the blue billboards.
If you'd please direct your attention to the red billboards you will find that New Zealand is a crime free, happy paradise with a fresh pine scent of business freindliness and no unemployment.
Or the green billboards of pretty children who obviously benefit from never being smacked play unsupervised next to deep pools of water that any second now will rise up and drown them.
Or the yellow billboards of dangerous sociopaths roaming the streets who must be locked up (Act pictures Rodney Hide with this message in a display of what some would call admirable insight).
the data doesn't back these claims up, it's absurd when we can't even see eye to eye on data and stats. We owe so much to the study of data, why fuck with it at election time?
Lies, damn lies and statistics - choose your lies and choose your stats.
The only time there has ever been an honest election campaign was with the black billboards of 2005 when a certain gentleman can be seen craning his neck to see how much money can be found in his back pocket.
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More like one hellish endorsement. Getting support from this upperclass NY/SF magazine when $700,000,000,000.00 has been gifted to inept bankers in NY and SF is not a good thing. It places Obama in the same elitist flavoured realm as John Kerry at a time when the urban financial crowd look particularly vile to middle America.
Who are these inept SF bankers? OMG - are they gay?
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Craig
Do you think McCain is going to get any time soon that this feral populist shtick just isn't working?
Nope. What else can he do? Campaigning on the basis of maintaining Republican stewardship of the economy/foriegn policy is right out. As is harping on about his long history of Congressional governance to the economy.
All he has got is framing Obama as a cad. And having the elitist New Yorker mag come out and say to its bunch of rich pricks readership that it fully supports Obama is not going to hurt. Amoung the poorer voters McCain needs to swing it'll probably help.
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Angus, if that is all McCain then the GOP is finished this time round.
His VP running mate attempts at a swift boating has sunk. Hell, his VP choice has sunk as even his own side has realised they don't want her a 72 year old's heartbeat away from the big red button.
Any attempt to character assassinate Obama has re-bounded on McCain - he has just got to much form, and ditto for any attempt to balme the Democrats for the financial crisis.
The Republicans may have sown up the "Joe six pack" (can anyone imagine a more insulting and detestable moniker for the working class?) vote when their miserable culture war was allowing them to busily divide and rule America, but when you are about to lose your house it suddenly doesn't matter as much if the other guy is black.
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