Posts by BenWilson
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...there is no way to measure... my bad.
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Were some people seriously fooled that it was a hologram?
The way it jerked suddenly to new camera angles was a giveaway. I thought cooler than the people was the visualizations they devised.
Linger
It does tell you how relatively close parties are compared to each other, which is interesting. But how absolutely close to each other is unknown, because there is way to measure the distance between a yes and a no vote. One tiny change might be enough for them to change their no to a yes.
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To me the most interesting thing to come out of the election is the potential death of a couple of centrist parties - NZ First and United Future. If that leaves a sizeable space in the middle of the political spectrum, how will it be filled? A split from National or Labour? Surely by 2014 there will be a new party in there.
There's no space between, that's why they died. The bigger parties squeezed them out. Unless you believe in the 'Colossal divide between Labour and National' theory. I think center parties do wield great influence, but they are very hard to hang onto for that reason.
Hilary Stace
I don't follow, are you for or against mainstreaming? I'm not entirely sure that children choosing mainstreaming is a sound reason for it. Children can make bad decisions. Furthermore, the special needs child is not the only one affected, since mainstreaming highly disruptive children takes away a great deal of teacher time.
There are plenty of cases that should be mainstreamed and a lot that should not. To push for it solely on the cost being lower is a very poor way of doing it, and can compromise the overall outcomes of education for everyone.
You're disagreeing that mainstreaming is ideological? I think it's a hard proposition to nail down. Do they mean 'pushing for mainstreaming more and more all the time' is ideological, or do they mean doing it at all, ever? I'd say the first, since no one thinks all kids should be mainstreamed, even ones that bite other kids fingers off at every opportunity, or throw shit around all the time, which they've scooped out of the S-bend? Anyone who does would have to be doing it for ideological reasons because they couldn't be practical reasons.
So the question is: Has the current policy pushed for more mainstreaming when it was not appropriate? I don't know, other than to say that my Dad tells me he worked with kids like that from time to time in schools, had a go at helping the teachers control them, and if that failed, recommended they are put in a more appropriate environment. Did they slip in there or were they pushed by the system? Could it be that more appropriate environments being available would stop such slippage? Tough questions.
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I still can't get my head around the way some people voted like that.
I find it easy to understand. Betting a bit both ways is signaling you like both, or what you dislike in each is similar in magnitude.
Party faithful find it hard to understand because they fundamentally believe that the differences are huge and philosophical. People who swing either 1) don't give a crap about that, or 2) disagree with it, or 3) are themselves philosophically undecided. I put myself in the latter - I just don't buy either story wholesale.
Which is funny because it is the swing voters who decide the election result. These people who don't rate as important the huge, philosophical differences that make a Grand Coalition impossible. And yet the leaders must reach out to them or they will lose, across the mental canyon that this supposed dichotomy divides.
Are they irrational, these swing voters? I don't think so. In the 3 cases above:
1) Not giving a crap about philosophy is total pragmatism. These people vote entirely on an issue by issue basis, weighing against their gut feelings about morality and self interest. Not a bad idea.
2) Disagreeing that there is a huge divide has some arguments. Firstly, both parties have altered their views quite a lot over the years. There are some ways to enumerate issues and describe the range of views which put those parties in a tight cluster next to each other. How is that a huge divide?
3) Suspending disbelief. My own personal view. I do not hold fast to any particular truth, because I believe doing so makes it harder to actually find it. I see the likely set of 'profound differences' simply as competing theories which each have evidence for and against. My 'level of belief' doesn't really indicate that I think either is true, it's more of a 'I'm willing to try it' as an experiment. Sometimes, I can be willing to try either view. That's still a vote against any of the other ones. Voting Labour and National is voting against trying ACT or Green or whatever.I also think betting both ways is something of a signal that a Grand Coalition could be an option. Clearly quite a lot of people can see a reason for it. I certainly can, if it turns out that ACT will not allow the Nats to form a centrist government, then Nats and Labour could easily do so. Just the threat of that will keep ACT from getting too carried away. Keeping it off the table is IMHO resoundingly irrational, showing that the tribe mentality runs very deep in NZ.
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Matthew: I was mentally graphing the Party loyal responses to Key speech. The falling away of excitement was distinct as the speech went on. The glimpses of the audience was anything but animated as it went on and down. A good successful speech for winners goes up a notch, up another notch, then crescendo!!!! Like sex I guess.
Yeah, I think he ejaculated prematurely too. That part was good, I did indeed feel he and his supporters enthusing. But there was a bit of a scary patch where he seemed more enthusiastic than them, and the claps got out of synch with the peroration. The network cut to some duschbag interrupting history around then, and we flipped channels to squeeze out another 2 mins. I was quite bitter on our media last night. I mean, sure, it's not politically interesting who Key is thanking at great length, but it was his moment, and that of the people he was thanking, and well earned. Were they doing it because they thought he was choking? Not their choice to make IMHO, this guy was giving us his first address as PM-elect and they cut it off. Grrrrr.
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Ah, that feeling we all get when we disconnect from the majority. Impotent anger. But this is democracy - rather than anger at the stupidity of others about things that have not (and may not) yet happened, it's just time for the NZ Left to have a good long look at both itself and the nation.
First, the people wanted change, that is clear. Why? The answers may not make sense to us, but they made sense to a clear majority of people in NZ. That gives me a lot of pause in griping angrily.
Second, it's not the same National as it was in the past. It may seek to return there, but it's not there and it's got a way to go. They are not stupid, and they know that a summary gutting of the welfare state, or even the more recent additions to it, is not something NZers will accept. They know that. I'm expecting quite a different kind of National this time, one that gets MMP.
Third, there is urgent business for the government to attend to, to protect NZ from the worst of the recession. Now that we've all done our civic duty and ticked some boxes, the government will change. I would expect the left to at least try to help come up with some answers to what should be done. The sooner it is clear what the left's position is, the sooner it can be either followed by National or ignored, and the sooner we'll start getting some feedback on just how sensible they are at running the country. I've personally been quite alarmed at the complacency felt by many here about this crisis, as though all's well cause we've got Michael Cullen. All is not well, and we don't have Cullen any more either. What we need now is answers, ideas, real thinking cap time. Anger is useless.
Last, get some backbone. The right have sucked on 9 years. What comes around goes around and you just have to take it sometimes.
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My family have always been Labour and there is deep dislike for Goff that spans decades. They're in education, as are a huge chunk of Labourites.
But barring some colossal lies being told by National, I doubt Labour will get in next time, so perhaps they need to put in some old hack to take next election on the chin.
Clark spoke well. Key spoke well, if a little too long. But it's his night, he's allowed. I was bloody annoyed at both networks interrupting his speech with inane mid-speech analysis. Our media really can be a circus, what was with the haranguing him with questions before he even got to the podium? That's just tacky, the kind of thing Britney Spears has to endure, not the likely leader of the country. Didn't they just see how it's done with style, only a couple of days ago?
Predictions for what he's going to do right now? I think it's anyone's guess. National is totally in the driver's seat, they can and will treat this result as a mandate for their policy. If I knew what that was I could feel appropriately scared or happy, but currently it's just 'let's wait and see'. They may well be quite moderate and sensible. With a Democrat government in Washington, I'm waaay less worried than I was a week ago.
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thank you to Craig, Ben Wilson, Steve Parks, Eleanor, Che, Bob Hosking et al who were patient enough to endure me today.
Is endure the new word for ignore?
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We're only on this thread because there's a lot to talk about and Russell hasn't started a new one.
Mark injected some life in with the worlds mildest troll, and was a bit shocked that a generally jubilant chorus had found their first victim. Or faux shocked I think.
Personally I'm jubilant but that's tempered by the generally right wing company I keep. Had my first meeting today with a 'middle NZer' who desperately wants to get rid of Labour/Green. Not for any reason that wasn't totally disputable, of course, but it says a lot about the way things are going. And many of my colleagues are Utah mormons who seemed determined yesterday to ignore the news except to rag on the likely outcome.
Saturday is shaping up to be a bumout. A surreal one when I consider that about 5 years ago I was totally happy with the way NZ was going and very bitter about international prospects. It's been that way my whole life. I think NZ is 'out of phase' with the rest of the world. One of the main things this middle NZer liked was the '3 strikes and you're out' thing, but I can't help but see it's only purpose is for toadying up to Bush Administration, which will be gone around the time our own parliament comes back from holiday.
Of course Wall Street is still up shit creek, because electing Obama isn't going to lift declining profits, or bail out bad debt or any of the other crappy things that will happen over the next couple of months or more to keep depressing markets.
Still, over the long term, it's a damned good thing, and that'll keep me happy until Saturday night.
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Oh come on there's got to be some obscure futuristic flick with a black president waaaay back when.
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