Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: The Long, Strange Trip, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
How does a 4% lead equate to ‘no doubt’? Especially when Trump supporters might well tend not to admit it to pollsters?
Because the US system is a state by state FPP system, like the old NZ system where Labour had the majority of the vote but lost because National got more electorates. The national vote is nearly irrelevant. The polling in the key states has shown Clinton to have a massive lead.
The polls would have to be very wrong in around 15-20 states for Clinton to lose.
Polls can be wrong but in all probability Clinton has been a slam dunk for a month now.
And even if the polls are wrong it is likely that they will under-represent the votes of the poor and minorities so it's a good guess that if anything the polls under-represent Clinton's majority.
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It's a strange election. The result is in no doubt and has been in no doubt for over a month.
Even the Senate race doesn't look particularly close.
So we have this weird thing where the media try and find some way to make it seem exciting and the problem is that means Trump's racist misogynistic drivel has had way more airtime than it should have.
That to me has been the most depressing thing seeing the media here in the US and here make the divisive hate politics of Trump appear more successful than it really is.
They could have spent time talking about and analysing the actual policies of the next President Clinton. But instead they made up a fake "contest" and spent all their time talking about "the race". I guess that was always going to be easy mode journalism.
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It feels like the MPs in general and the government in particular have become so arrogant that they believe they can make no mistakes ever.
Everyone makes mistakes. But our MPs make a habit of never admitting mistakes and finding someone else to blame at all costs - generally those lies are obvious and unimportant so long as the mistake gets fixed. But this idea of passing laws without anyone getting the chance to check and find mistakes seems like they have begun to believe their own lies:
They never admit mistakes - therefore they never make mistakes so why bother with any process to identify mistakes - which would be someone else's fault anyway.
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I also had the thought that maybe "seclusion rooms" were an attempt to help kids who were struggling with a noisy stressful environment.
But there are two key questions that really weren't addressed in most of the reporting -
Intent and Consent.What was the intent, was it to calm and help the child or was it to punish? It seems in some cases the room has become a punishment device and you have to wonder if the teachers using it in that manner should be teaching.
And was (informed) consent given by the parent and importantly from the child? It doesn't seem likely in some of the cases.
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Speaker: The light train to Roskill, in reply to Russell Brown,
yet more infrastructure for the isthmus
If it ran only to Balmoral then yeah I'd agree with the criticism. But past Balmoral Roskill becomes exactly the kind of demographic that needs good public transport.
Also Dominion Rd is pretty much perfect for a light rail line, straight, mostly flat and wide enough - a really good place to start developing a light rail system.
a *very* diverse
hell yeah, culturally, economically and pretty much every -ally you could think of.
All that said the point is well made that South Auckland gets shafted every time.
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Labour colleagues in Parliament for years – don’t these people talk?
No
Which is why it's been hard to vote Labour for the past decade.
On a less pithy note
what are the best ways to get people (and freight) from here to there?
... is the key point that most folks don't get about our roads. Roads are not for cars or even for trucks, roads exist to transport people and goods.
Is light rail the best option for Dominion road? It seems like a pretty good bet and an appropriate election topic because it will need central government input.
Dr Parmar's limp response about more bus stops is a bit sad and short sighted. I'd have more respect for a comment about removing the parked lumps of plastic and aluminium that clog Dominion road at present - but even then that's a council job not a government job. Perhaps Dr Parmar should have stood for council if her thinking is still at that level.
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Thank you
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I kind of hate the dogma that Trump supporters are stupid. I really don't think they are. But I do think they have a very limited range of knowledge and experience.
One of the things we noticed when we lived in the US (2 decades ago) was that a huge number of Americans live in relatively small social communities. They get little or no contact with people outside their social circle at all. So if that social group has a meme that, for example, all crime is committed by immigrants then that gets reinforced over and over again.
It's confirmation bias ramped up to the max. They have an idea and never meet anyone who challenges that idea. Even worse than that they get exposed to outright falsehoods so often that the lies feel like truth to them.
And so when Trump comes along and repeats all those same lies it's obvious that they'll support him.
I don't think it's about hate as such, but rather a distrust of those outside their communities, which is a fairly normal human reaction.
Trump recognized the power of those groups with such strong confirmation bias and played to them. A lot of people were really surprised by just how many people have those biases but anyone who's spent time in those small communities will recognize them. Add them up and they become a really large scary voting block.
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Hard News: Excited for Auckland!, in reply to Russell Brown,
We need daily rail services between Hamilton and Auckland Central but our two do-nothing local Nat MPs have steadfastly opposed any talk of it.
Seriously? That’s daft. A more functional rail service to and from Auckland could only be good, surely?
I wonder whether the problem is that if you allow a passenger rail service from Hamilton to Auckland, with a stop in Huntly, then folks will use it ... A LOT.
That will create pressure to improve the service - make it faster, smoother, better carriages etc. And I'm not sure the actual rail infrastructure can be improved substantially without a complete overhaul which would be a huge investment in the future.
A really really good investment but as we know this government is does not care about the future beyond the next election.
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Hard News: There in half the time:…, in reply to Moz,
Being polite
No worries Moz. I do realise you can't do 38 km in an hour without going over 38 kph.
But I never said you'd be able to do it in an hour just that you'd be faster - unless you have a flat route with no low speed sections.Balanced against that is the extra weight of the bike which will lower your top speed. Either way if you need to do it in an hour you are gonna be sweaty.