Posts by Don Christie
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James thanks. So exit polls would have to be considered very crockish given the high levels of early voting.
Next question, do early votes get counted *before* polls close or do we have to wait for a while before those come through?
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By the way, do exit polls include all the advance voting that has been taking place for a couple of weeks now?
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Be warned, having posted early I intend to post often.
Interrestingly, that was a take of a Chicago Democrat urging his supporters to lift the turnout figures (Daley Senior). How times have changed.
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heh, first post...
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Not so fast James. Congress is elected on a vaguely more democratic base than the Senate (where blades of grass roughly equal representation).
So, why your urban population should continue to funnel tax $$s to a few rural land owners *and* pay higher prices for their food should be a no-brainer to answer for most house democrats.
The GATT and NAFTA are long gone and those were the FT agreements that most affected working class urban Democrats.
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On the push plling issue I wonder how prevalent it was here during the last election campaign. I received a fairly bizarre call from "The Office of Ridney Hide", which presumably escaped the AGs eagle eye. but which whilst vaguely dubious (to my sensitive sole) in no way reached the depths of those that take place in the USA.
Aside from the Brethren school boys was there much of this going on? It seems a particularly nasty habit, even before the Reps started making nuisance calls on behalf of their Democrat opponents. So the question is, can we and did we keep it cleaner here in NZ?
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Che - not sure that it came across as stridently as you seem to suggest or as my short account might indicate. This was also celebration and recognistion of diversity and NZ citizenship, no doubt about it. It was fun and moving.
There has been discussion about whether to teach citizenship at school. The devil would be in the detail of what the curriculum would contain.
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Che - it has to do with respect and tolerance and it goes both ways.
I recommend hoping off to the next citizenship ceremony in your area. I went to one recently and NZ's policy came out pretty loud and clear.
I paraphrase, but it went a bit like this:
"The country and culture of origin will always be important to you. NZ respects and welcomes that. By chosing to become a citizen here you have also a been granted certain rights and responsibilities. There are some core responsibilities that you have chosen to buy into - they are, freedom, tolerance, democracy, equal rights."
I wonder whether we need a citizen "re-affirmation" ceremony to remind those of us "mainstreamers" who have never had to participate in one of these just what some of our "core values" are and also remind us that immigrants *do* swear to accept these values. A promise many of us don't get to make.
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This will not be the last of these sort of articles. Anti-muslim propaganda is the new black, fashionable and acceptable to mainstream politics.
I heard a guy on National Radio on Sunday morning being asked if "multiculturalism" was a natural state for humanity. He said "no". No qualifications, no justification just outright "no". I presume he was an intellectual of sorts as it was Chris Laidlaw doing the asking. I stopped listening (Laidlaw has the affect anyhow).
Now any historian worth their salt would point out that multiculturalism is the normal state of affairs for human civilisations. Think of the Romans, Greeks (Alexander for example), Ottoman, British and American empires. All built on huge diversity and tolerence of other cultures and beliefs. Strength, as any farmer worth their salt will tell you, comes from diversity.
Mono-culturalism is the exception, usually brought in to justify a big changeover in power. Think the Crusades, Inqusition, and various smaller attempts at "ethnic cleansing". These movements are unnatural, cause great disruption and, in the general scheme of things, are quite short lived.
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Small additions to Alistair's history section. Rod Drury not Eric Watson was the Glazier guy who rescued Pete and did a great job. We, well, Andrew McMillan, re-wrote Newsroom when Drury became a millionaire (for the first time:-)). Newsroom handles all its tech internally now, I believe. I do remember once being caught in the Scoop/Newsroom cross-fire - *that* was scary.
I see no-one mentioned Napster or CityLink. I credit Napster, alongside a 100gbit CityLink connection for reintroducing me to music and, strangely, setting me on the road to building a legit CD collection. CityLink also allowed a small company of five to grab customers from the likes of Datacom.