'Fraid not. It's official.

Let’s act like we’re a serious alternative government.

Let’s not.

(I’m almost tempted to e-mail the ever-so-slightly litigious Lucasfilm and ask if Labour got clearance to use that picture of Pouty Luke & Slave Leia, but that would be mean. I also believe Ridley Scott expects to be paid…

Your thoughts?

Please do share your critique of the painting, as it looked pretty good from here compared with some of the childish doodling on offer previously.

Mind you, the same was said about the infamous Children Overboard affair in Oz. Blatant lies it was,…

Me too because although that 90% may have been a poll of nine rabid Labour haters and one staunch Labour supporter. The fact is that it indicates that people will vote on an emotional level without…

No, Red, while I'll concur with Idiot Savant that it was a pretty good exercise in "high level framing", it doesn't matter how nice the frame is if the picture is rubbish.

There's still something of a credibility issue that Labour will need to resolve though. They are proposing to kick start the economy to a bigger extent than National,…

If he had questions over what Cullen was doing he should have been asking them at the time.

It…

Once again, policy is on his side. Now all it needs is a slick publicity machine.

we've been using the weekend markets for going on three years. we've very very rarely spent more than $40 for all the fruit and vege we need, and usually…

Supermarket duopoly surely has a lot to do with that. When independent retailers (Halal Butchers in Newtown, or any weekend market) are consistently cheaper than the supposed cheapest supermarket in…

The budget will be a success if it shows that National has realised it cannot go on as it has: borrowing and splurging on tax cuts for the wealthy, then asking the rest of us to pick up the bill.

...

A successful Budget…

Oh I'm aware of this, but I'm afraid it was too little, too late – hence National was able to kill it before it was implemented. LGv5 seemingly discovered the necessity of public…

it was my experience when getting back here in 2005.

it's the trouble with being a net exporter of foods i guess.

I know people who choose not to work, sickness beneficiaries who believe you shouldn’t have to “Earn” a living (this is seen as a sickness…

Why worry? The fact is that money is a bit like a car,…

As Kyle mentioned if they had to do an In…

A TV show (was it Campbell Live) tracked a family for a year and put the…

That was the whole Third Way justification, yes. Nothing to do with 'need'.

More generally, it amazes me that no one held Labour to account for leaving benefit levels largely…

Removing it probably wouldn't do…

No sorry I don't – I looked on the website but the link I already provided was the only one I could find. The wording of the question is…

Cullen did very well but he did very well in the good…

It's a constant refrain from Australian friends who've relocated to NZ. I've not looked into it in any detail to know the causes or even if the anecdata is correct. Perhaps someone else has?

Do you have a link that leads to the actual poll with the question and statement of the sample and methodology? Sorry…

No, Alex, I've criticised Cullen for many things (YMMV, whether I've been just or not in every case) but I won't damn anyone for…

I know. But I worry that it has become a kind of wage subsidy that allows real wages and salaries to stay low and/or gets eaten up by…

Duncan Garner used to crack me up on this.

For what seemed like a month in the build up to the budget he'd be badgering Cullen about "Will there be tax cuts?", and Cullen would say, clearly enough, "No, and here's…

I'm not…

Not to mention the fact that in an entirely…

But unlike the Standard, Hickey was asking some rather prickly questions about the quality of of information (and poor reporting and analysis of the dubious assumptions behind…

i'd like to dispute the characterisation of lemmings.

it's myth created by a corporate giant that lemmings actually skitter to their doom, one that served a particular purpose and propaganda on an unwitting…

me too :)

i had lunch with some forecasters from another-financial-department-that-isn't-treasury on sunday.

i told them i was glad it was them we were lunching with, because if it was…

That really is excellent (although DPF's critique of the big hole in their minimum wage modelling does hold – they've ignored the drop in the company tax take that will accompany it)

Two primary drivers of people's actions are the two most powerful emotions we feel: hope, and fear. The side of politics that gets the balance of hope and fear right wins elections.

...

But we need to keep running the big…

More like selling the engine to overseas financiers who will lease it back to us with interest. Cos it worked so well in the 80s and 90s, eh.

Severe cuts risk recession. More borrowing risks a credit downgrade. We can instead raise more revenue and, in the process, help shift the economy onto a more steady footing.

Instead of selling off the last of our best state assets to raise…

Doh. Caffeine, stat..

Could we have that link again, Sacha?

Not a big Standard fan, but that's a pretty good summation.

"Every economic forecast by the Treasury underestimated the impact of an epic…

It did sound rather familiar, yes. Yet many people will be cynically suckered into thinking its all about the earthquake unless the opposition and media pull…

Wow, read "our forecasts will be based on a significant uptick in tax revenue from higher wages and yet there'll still be a massive deficit". If those forecasts are wrong, then the 2012 Budget will be even…

(Runs away into the financial outer dark.)

For anyone with a Swiss account, that is.

.. will require them talking amongst themselves. Any sign of more respectful relationships yet?

I can forecast higher financial pain for most ANZers with more credibility than that mouthfart.

You can learn an awful lot about our species from learning about our very close relations. Go read Franz de Waal’s “Chimpanzee Politics” for a starter-

Key smiles so much because the management of the economy is a joke and he gets it – after all it isn't his money – and he is laughing at his own joke.

The latest joke is that based…

Has anyone noticed that with primate species that do use teeth display as a means of asserting dominace/submission that it's the submissive animal that displays their teeth – as an act…

Goodall and de Waal are referenced in the article quoted above.

It generally does not involve 'smiles' but does involve gestures, sounds, grooming, and postures.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that the bared-teeth, up-turned corners of the mouth facial expression…

The first article I linked to discussed that:

Among primates, the function of the bared-teeth also has different meanings depending on the species and their type of social organization. Among macaques species that have despotic social systems…

Wages are tipped to rise strongly over the next two years, Prime Minister John Key says.

Speaking this afternoon ahead of Thursday's budget Mr Key said it would forecast strong wage and employment growth.

Mr Key would not say by…

also loudly-voiced by idiots like kyle chapman.

Slowly and with control is better for weights...perhaps some "Goff of the late afternoon" for the weight session to give a nice angry base, and switch to "Bennett…

Interesting workout strategy – I might try it.

Listening to National politicians being interviewed would probably get me angry enough to be worth an extra 10kg on the bench press. Graaaahhh! Hulk...Smash!!!

His colleagues at Merrill Lynch called him that. One of them reminded me that most were the 'big swinging dick' alpha males of that industry hardly given to fear, so it's a noteworthy epithet. A related local manifestation would be the "Tranzrail eyes" incident.

As far as I can tell, the only person who ever referred to John Key as "the Smiling Assassin" was John Key himself in a magazine interview…

Of course he does – otherwise he might actually…

Paul I said "does not appear" ... the problem is twofold I think, first is Labour are not obvious about their guiding ideals in the way that the Greens are obvious. That…

True. Not exactly a laugh-a-minute book. But powerful, yes.

I don't know the answer, but I imagine that, by November, a great many people there will be have had a particularly shitty winter and will be staring to complain about things rather loudly.

Definitely – though part of wishes Harawira actually finds himself…

I havent read Kosinski's hugely powerful work for over 3 decades- "The Gardener" never did anything for me, but "The Painted Bird"?

shudders

The belief that if you can count teeth/a year of life vanishes – along with the belief that mothers lose a tooth for each child born**…

... and she never smiled. She believed that if she did so, it could give me a chance to count her teeth, and that each tooth so counted would subtract one year from her life.

Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird

FWIW there's a resurgence of Hayek's followers who ardently…

Yes, that was... kinda my point. "I use a more old-brain response to baring of teeth" is a rather less annoying statement than "you look like a creepy fakepants with all those teeth". The latter is about me; the former is about you (the general you,…

I suspect so. Oram's earlier assessment of the first Productivity…

I once had a job washing bottles in a lab that bottled and sold reference seawater – it's quite a process to avoid all contamination. (e.g. no bugs that might alter the salinity through biological…

One of the scariest things about Brash is that he hasn't changed his economic views in over 20 years. He still believes ardently in minimal regulation of the financial sector, for example, even with the evidence from the last…

As usual, you suppose wrong. So, what do you think of John Key? Better?
Better get me a bucket.

It’s not about you or anything you’re doing right or wrong.

Kathy Sierra talked about this in one of her Webstock presentations. The theory being that the old-brain response…

(TP, M&D, p. 117)

Big telescreens are probably next.

Tell us what you really think about Key Steve? I suppose it will be the Brownlee fat jokes next?

I do find that during a confrontational situation baring the teeth can have a a disarming affect, I take them out, put them on the table and people tend to back off.
:-D

Me too apparently.

Orthodontists the world over are weeping into their spit bowls.

And I tautoko Sofie- the eyes do have it – and John Key's eyes dont. For me.

Anyway, I continue very unimpressed with Mr Smile&Wave to the Suckers.

She was. She was women’s rights officer for NZUSA, the first. She is exceptional and I learned a lot from working with her. She went on to senior…

Attract men with Balls of Steel?
Could this be Labours door knocking campaign?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoxcZiWK79c

How about we let Paul Henry do that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmtklPQn-yQ&feature=related

There is a reason this man was called the "Smiling Assassin" although I see him…

+1

We have yet to see details, but from what Key said the other day the overall investment isn't changing, just the government is putting less in, and expecting employers (and…

Huh ? Or more simply, you don't support much of current green party policy ?,Or maybe you're alluding to the – woolly jumper,folky image. Think you'll find, particularly with Russell Norman…

Or to put it succinctly, Model Minoritarianism.

Wasn't there an big earthquake in there somewhere? The problem with such comparisons is that there are all sorts of effects…

Frankly, Robert, I just wanted to Hulk out and smash the…

I agree that Key probably is a pluralist, its just a shame he fronts a party with a large cohort of members who's version of pluralism excludes most Polynesians and is also directly proportional to an individual's credit rating.

So, Labour's not presenting any coherent policy because the National-lead Government might go…

Not actually true, but never mind...I guess we've all given up on the idea of treating the electorate like grown-ups who don't have ADHD. Of course, if you…

No. But ... most older drugs were tested on men and mostly white middle class middle aged men. So a number of the older dugs have a well known (now) set of side effects on women and some ethnic groups. The most…

And there must be a way to link Prostetnic Vogon Joyce to the ongoing rail problems in Wellington.

The photos of supermarket job queues are a good start. [[http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election2001/images/0,,449826,00.html|It worked for…

Interestingly, Magnesium sulfate…

I like the suggestion of catching up with a comparable economy (Denmark, I believe was mentioned) – somewhere that isn't a giant open-cast mine.

Actually it's one topic I'm confident they will raise. Just not necessarily communicated as well as you suggest.

Which is completely fair. Skepticism isn't everyone's preferred way of understanding the world – it's what I'd do to…

Impoverished, in a word. Building more roads won't help. Cutting research and education funding like this government have done for the last couple of years is just nuts, especially when other nations have invested more during the…

All it needs though is a journalist or opposition MP to raise…

Having asked my friend wiki, apparently some trials are designed to exclude women of childbearing age, and pregnancy testing of female volunteers is done; both to reduce the potential for harm to fetuses. This is probably why it's hard to get data…

Confirmation bias is quite an effect.

I know but I'm confident that's not it. Not at all interested in tinkering with what I know…

What I'd mainly like to hear is a way out of the mess. A better future. Hope.

Surely the left can join the dots between wasting money building big roads at the expense of funding public transport alternatives when petrol will never be cheaper. And spell out what sustainable transport means for our…

Are they still commonly tested only on men?

Accidentally left insoles out of shoes a few times spaced over a couple of years. In each case, noticed difference in fatigue during the day before I spotted what…

Agreed. Perhaps something more to do with energy in the body.

I know it does no good trying to convince people who think that way otherwise, but....

....I WANT TO KNOW WHY THEY…

Personally, I cant imagine a more ineffective use of a garlic clove...

That actually was bettered in my sisters' experience by both of them having – many years separated – 2 clients who assumed – goodness! whatever happened to good lessons…

Of course, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

I politely asked him if he found it beneficial and…

Ooh please do. It'll be one more excuse for me to go.

Like James, I'm a member, and I'm thinking of putting up a workshop at the next policy conference with the proposition that "evidence-based policy" becomes a fifth principle. That should generate a good discussion!

I see Tim Watkin…

When you get significant data it stops being alternative and becomes part of the establishment.…

I know someone who voted National because of that policy, in tears because she was…

I've sat in on lectures and demonstrations where a much respected and strongly research based oncologist has said that to…

She's retiring at the election.