Posts by JohnAmiria
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This blog takes me back ....
... to the 70s ... as a kid ... reading me Mum's NZ Womans Weekly ... back when it was 100+ pages fat, printed in black and white on newsprint (colour cover, mind) ... 'Over The Tea Cups' I think it was called ... no twice told tales please ...
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The 12 year old's of 2020 (those babies born this year) will probably be as sophisticated as the 18 year old new voters of 1975.
The 12 year old's of 2020 (those babies born this year) will probably be as sophisticated as the 18 year old new voters of 1975.
So I guess we can look forward to a demand from 12 year old's in the 2020 election for a lowering of the Age of Consent?
"If I'm old enough to vote, why aren't I old enough to f@#k?"
Oh, is that too crude? Should I have just made an analogy to the Drinking Age? My daughter will be 19 in 2020 -- she'll probably be the oldest female in the Nightclub by then.Seriously, if you think a 12 year old has the mental capacity to vote responsibly then it follows that they also have the mental capacity to drink responsibly and make a responsible choice as to whether they have sex or not. So how can you deny them those rights?
Aha! But they only get to vote once every four years!! Good point, maybe we could give them a 'Free Pass' on Election Day, good for say 24 hours. They can vote, collect their 'Permit', go the Pub, get a drink, and then ...
I'm sure it would boost Youth Voter turnout immeasurably.
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I have long thought our voting age needs to be lowered. It was a Labour Govt that lowered the voting age to 18 over 30 years ago. Like other policies it could be brought in progressively - eg 16 years by 2010 (for local body elections) and 14 by 2015 and 12 by 2020.
**OMFG!!**
(Sorry, do I need to say more? You think 12 year old's should be allowed to vote?)
That would give schools, the media and the govt time to increase resourcing in civics type education, plain language policies and get their heads around what being accountable to young people would really mean. Would be great for building an inclusive society too.
What a scary prospect. Are you serious? You must be taking the proverbial, right? You think 12 year old's should be allowed to vote?
I'll spare us all the wise-ass responses about what type of Party Political promises we'll get from polly's pandering to teens, and merely state the obvious:
Isn't it a fact that their brains aren't fully formed at that age? Aren't they hormonally confused at that age?
My 14 year old niece just wants the latest cell-phone ... I'm not sure if she's ready to select the next government.
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to try and argue it you'd need a good lawyer and a lot of money, and it's really not worth it.
Pretty much summed it up (ie risk of losing vs reward of winning)
Short version: $6 billion deficit next year, no room for further spending, and we're in the red for the better part of a decade. Aren't you glad Dr Cullen saved for this rainy day?
__I don't see any sarcasm tags, so I'll presume you're waving the flag for Cullen...__
That's one way to view/spin it. But some might also view/spin it another way: Don't you wish you'd paid off your mortgage by now?
The Farmers staff were on TV tonight incensed that they've only been offered a 20¢ an hour raise. How is their position any different from ours (the taxpayer). Aren't we both being told "Sure, it was good for a while, but now it's bad, and the money we were stockpiling has gone, so suck it up"? Are you also going to tell the Framers staff they should just be grateful to be employed?
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Finally, TVNZ Archives will often levy what amounts to a copyright license for material in which its copyright is questionable. That's not all bad, in that cost-recovery keeps an archive going, but there's a hell of a lot of stuff kept locked up by dubious assumptions of copyright.
kinda the same but not:
you're at a public even enjoying yourself and TVNZ cover the event and 10 years later you're on a Telecom commercial laughing it up so you ring Telecom who put you on to Saatchi's who tell you they bought the 'stock images' from TVNZ so as far as they're concerned that's the end of the matter and hey it was 10 years ago and you're only seen for like 2 seconds anyway and it was filmed in a public place so .... what's your problem? -
Fact Checking The Debate
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I avoided this thread til after I watched the VOA broadcast on Stratos tonite
I just want to note that she used the phrase 'back in the day' in her closing statement.
And later she gave a 'shout out' to her brothers 3rd grade elementary class (he's the teacher, lest ye get snarky). I was surprised she didn't give a 'holler back' to her homegirl Hillary ...
Did you also catch "Say it ain't so, Joe, there ya go again!"
And she winked at the audience. Twice.
Yeah, but that stuff works, and not just with the 'base'. Wrong/sad - but true.
Radio NZ's US commentator has just been on saying she "won" in the sense that she projected folksy appeal to the base, but Biden clearly "won" on substance.
That seemed really patronising to me -- people vote for the candidate who repeatedly winks at them? -- but perhaps he was right.
I'm at odds with the everyone else it seems since I think Palin won the debate, much as I wish it was the other way round. Palin projected a smiling image of 'plain folks' no-nonsense without appearing the Alaskan Bumpkin many may have been expecting given the recent ABC and CBS interviews. On that point Palin also said (paraphrasing) "I like talking directly to you the American people, without being filtered by the Mainstream Media". Code for: don't let the liberal media lie to you about me. Ditto for the pundits.
Biden romped home in the CNN snap poll; more detail.
The pundit roundup favours Biden also.
In sum, Palin didn't fall on her face
Granted, but I'm sticking with my gut feel that middle America will have eaten Palin up (quiet, Craig!). Yes, we can all agree that Biden gave substantive answers and dealt to the issues but Palin had the charm. As much as we may bite our fists and scream as she lied or misrepresented Obama's position/voting record she was (like Goebbels) adept at insisting her ticket was the ticket that would deliver change and right all that is wrong about America. And everytime Biden tried to tie McCain to Bush she countered with the (ludicrous to us) 'why do you keep talking about the last 8 years, why are you always looking back if you claim to be the party of change?'
Biden was direct but gave long answers, Palin was equally direct with shorter answers that may not have answered the question but would have 'sounded right' to many voters. And she looked smiley and perky so maybe things aint gonna be so bad after all, alrightey?
As I've said, I get cynical around election time. Lets hope the American voters can remember the correct "Fool me once..." quote, and not the Bush massacre of same.
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d'oh -- check out my Daily Show link at the bottom of Page 9!
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thanks 3410, I'll tune in
(saw it on sky last week at mum's) -
John: What exactly is "covert" about standing for elections to school boards, running campaigns on issues, and actually bloody organising to get ballot initiatives passed? Sorry for quoting The West Wing, but in a democracy decisions get made by the people who bother to show up.
I'm referring to the strategy of getting policy in thru the back door. Everyone knows that local-body politics have very low voter turnouts, and that is why The Right has realised it's easier to take over smaller bodies and make change from there.
John Daily expressed it better last night, in his interview with Peggy Noonan:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=186766&title=peggy-noonan
As he said (paraphrasing) why can't they just say outright what they plan to do, rather than making obtuse statements that they later use post-election to claim that they never hid their agenda pre-election.