by frog
Now that we’ve had it for a while, should we keep the indented replies or not? Has it grown on you or is it just something you put up with? Please vote in the second and final poll to help determine whether it stays or goes!
My tadpoles and I aren’t as keen on it as we were at first, frankly.
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
On another note, a lot of contributors seem to have died off gradually. Debate has been significantly more boring. One can only hope that these new contributors come into their abilities soon.
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Shit, 6 whole votes…
Sapient, I’ll keep trying, but gotta pay the mortgage too…
I could rant about that, but I’ll wait for an appropriate post
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I like the the indented comments, frog. They help keep the thread better structured.
But on a more substantive, rather than blog process, issue – given this is General Debate – I’d like people to look at his post here on The Standard. And my response on g.blog.
It is all about political “purity”. I always thought the Greens were about tolerance, as well as sustainability.
Sure, a vegan lifestyle is more sustainable. But should we try to enforce it on others?
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yeah..can it..!
any coherence/rythmn to the thread..is shattered…
(site looks good tho’..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I’ve voted for the old style. The new style has some advantages, but I am finding it very difficult to see whether older threads have had any further replies, since those replies could be anywhere.
Would it be possible to use the new system by default but have an option button to display the thread using the old format?
Trevor.
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I was never a fan and have come to dislike it even more than when it started. For any posts that have heaps of comments, which is often the case, individual threads easily go over the magic number 10, meaning that another round of nesting has to start at the bottom, breaking what flow there was. And there is the complaint others have made that one can’t just check the bottom of the page to see what new contributions have been made, but must scroll through the whole list instead.
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Cheers
Village Idiot
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i’m glad yr back there fly..
it’s good to share the load…
(fending off the morons..)
and yes..it is a rich vein of humour to mine…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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and just to continue that sailing metaphor..
the greens aren’t becalmed..are they..?
and..’reefs ahead..!’
and..’has your captain fallen overboard..?’
and..’why do you appear to be rudderless..?’
eh..?
(and..can i vote again against the ‘new’ thread system…?
please..!)
phil(whoar.co.nz
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also good to keep the blowtorch on double-dip-dipton..over there..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Greenfly,
9:03 PM 01/10/09.
Yup yup, my posting dropped off significantly after the changes, just couldint be bothered with the new threading, unlike you though I dont have the internal frustration nulifying tendancies you must surely have to endure kiwiblog so.
If I was a paranoid skitzophrenic one would think the blog changes were brought around just to stop my commentatng.
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Which now leaves me ambiguous about my preference.
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Phil argues for coherence
comedy gold!
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… gee, thanks …
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It was only the logical thing to say …
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Put me down as an agnostic on the commenting style.
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lol.
Five for new, seven for old.
Perhaps I should of held in that comment until after the voting.
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Frog – I went for the old style.
In many other places there is a choice about how a thread is displayed.
People reply to posts or to your original article now. That’s good I think… but the SW should be able to sort the replies and present them in threaded order, or not, instead of simply displaying them all one way. I use unthreaded displays most often… but once in a while I just want to see a whole thread and nothing else.
That’s useful too.
I noticed that if I reply to myself rather than to someone else I can usually keep the comment nesting sane.
However I have to watch it carefully to do it.
BJ
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While I have voted to return to the old format, the indented format is good as well IF other changes were made to the blog to help that process.
For example the recent comments do not have a reference to the blog posting they are commenting on.
Maybe it requires a tree like navigation format like they do on forum formatted blogs.
Navigation to and from the comments thread seems to be the problem.
Sort that out and the indented comments would be a winner.
Why does this blog waste so much space on each side on even my modest screen size setting.
If the blog was formatted to landscape layout and utilised the empty screen parts, it may read easier across the page rather then down as present.
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I see Chris Trotter is giving us a hard time in the Dom Post… but he may be doing us a favor with the title of his piece. Hard to say that he realizes that the majority here are not party members and that the nastiness was coming in from the outside. Hard to say that what he actually knows, which appears to be damned little, about what goes on IN the party. He mentions Frogblog by name.
It looks like a good opening, as they almost have to accept a Green-Party response for publication, and we can drive an environmentally friendly truck through the opening he has given us.
BJ
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the different moral universes inhabited by conservatives and progressives are codified:..
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/liberals-aren%e2%80%99t-un-american-conservatives-aren%e2%80%99t-ignorant/
“..Jonathan Haidt is hardly a road-rage kind of guy, but he does get irritated by self-righteous bumper stickers.
The soft-spoken psychologist is acutely annoyed by certain smug slogans that adorn the cars of fellow liberals: ..
.. “Support our troops—bring them home” and “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
“No conservative reads those bumper stickers and thinks, ‘Hmm . . . so liberals are patriotic!’” he says, in a sarcastic tone of voice that jarringly contrasts with his usual subdued sincerity.
“We liberals are universalists and humanists; .. it’s not part of our morality to highly value nations.
So to claim dissent is patriotic—or that we’re supporting the troops, when in fact we’re opposing the war—is disingenuous.
“It just pisses people off.”
The University of Virginia scholar views such slogans as clumsy attempts to insist we all share the same values.
In his view, these catch phrases are not only insincere, they’re also fundamentally wrong.
Liberals and conservatives, he insists, inhabit different moral universes.
There is some overlap in belief systems .. but huge differences in emphasis.
In a creative attempt to move beyond red-state/blue-state clichés, Haidt has developed a framework that codifies humankind’s multiplicity of moralities.
This model, which endeavors to explain behavior based on five basic moral impulses ..
.. is simultaneously startling in its stark depiction of our differences ..
.. and reassuring in that it brings welcome clarity to an arena where murkiness of motivation ..
.. often breeds contention..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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you have my vote
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“I see Chris Trotter is giving us a hard time in the Dom Post… ”
This is just another round of Chris saying “How dare the Green party/anybody not be like me?”. The facts of the matter have nothing to do with it.
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For those who haven’t seen it, it is here. A few responses over there might be a good idea.
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i went and read the trotter piece..
and i have been critical of trotter in the past..
..but i can’t see how he is that ‘wrong’ this time..
could those slagging his piece be more specific about which aspects of it they disagree with..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Hi Chris trotter – if you’re reading this… thanks for your good work in helping dissociate the Greens from your looney left!
You’re bonkers mate!
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Trotter’s piece does make a few good points , but has his usual faults: sniping at consensus decision-making, which he doesn’t realy understand, and the opinions stated as fact (such as claiming Metiria was elected as the party liked the idea that the planet can be saved from the top down – it may be true that many Green Party members share this illusion, but I see no evidence that this lead to choosuing Metiria over Sue).
I’m amused by Trotter’s comment about Sue’s championing of “social groups conspicuously absent from the Green Party muster: the poor, the brown and the white working class”, given the party chose a Maori from a working class background as co-leader (over a Pakeha from an academic family).
Trotter’s role is essentially to sneer at every left group for either being (a) not left enough or (b) too far to the left or (c) too green or (d) not something else enough- hence he’s well in favour with the capitalist media.
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Sam wrote: “(such as claiming Metiria was elected as the party liked the idea that the planet can be saved from the top down – it may be true that many Green Party members share this illusion, but I see no evidence that this lead to choosuing Metiria over Sue).”
And he said that the Green Party chose an MP with an anarchist background because they believed that ‘the planet could be saved from the top down’. I can’t follow that reasoning.
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I like the old commenting way and i would ask that the title of the post being commented on is displayed with the comments in the recent comments area (already asked for that one and to be included on your blogroll) but – ah well – good luck
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The title of the post being comment on being displayed in the recent comments area has its potential downside though. And it is actually displayed if you move your cursor over the comment.
Either, the recent comments are would scroll much further down the page, or to retain it at the same length less recent comments would be displayed, or the first few words of the recent comments would not be displayed.
I like the few words being displayed – it often gives an idea as to whether the comment is worth reading. At the Standard, for example, readers get no idea of the nature of the comments from the recent comments sidebar.
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thanks toad – i’ll try the cursor. i suppose displaying the title of the post shows where the heat, via comments, in the debate is. Good when there are multiple posts over many days on wide and varied subjects IMO
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There’s an interesting take from a Green member on the ETS over at g.blog. Definitely worth a read.
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Threading / indenting has been turned off.
Thanks for hanging in there, folks
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rimu – the experiment was a good one. I’d hate for Frogblog to become a doldrums and trying new ideas is the stimulus we all need to keep our edge. If it was you that put in the mahi for the new look Frogblog, thanks very much. We are a step ahead of where we were before.
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btw – I agree with Toad’s comment about the value of seeing the first few words of each comment – it’s a brilliant feature and puts Frogblog ahead of most other blogs.
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Just noticed that the process appears to have toasted the links to comments prior to the switch.
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Old system please.
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Yay, back to the old format.
I agree that being able to switch between the formats would be useful, perhaps under account settings, especially if people are able to hit a reply button under a comment and have the reply box come up as it was in the threaded system.
Re: The first part of replies in the side bar. This is probally my favorate part of the blog; it lets me see if the comment is worth reading and if I have read it previously. The cursor-over option has always worked for me, though admittedly to save time I often just look at the bottom bar on firefox or other browsers I have configured as such.
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this is what toad says about me in other forums..
“..For the record, he is not a Green Party member, and has not been one for several years. Alienated and disaffected, methinks. On his own vegan train, with no loco to haul it..”
he/she really is a piece of carnivorous slime..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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The recession is over!!!
How depressing.
http://tinyurl.com/yc2e5r3
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Here’s a tip for Federated Farmers.
Give your cows NAMES –
No really!!!
http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2009
REFERENCE: “Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production,” Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69. DOI: 10.2752/175303708X390473.
BJ
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Great article re recession, bjchip. Vast in scope and yet detailed enough to actually mean something in the real world
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bjchip@ 11:56 AM
So now Paula Bennett will reinstate the Training Incentive Allowance for tertiary courses!
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Phil,
And exactly what about that statement is incorrect? It is both descriptive and accurate.
If s/he really wanted to discredit you or get nasty; well, you have provided much s/he could have used to do so VERY effectively. Though in all truth you do it yourself, so he hardly needs to.
As to the “I’m telling on you” approach you have been taking; not effective and it just looks pathetic. The ‘holier-than-thou’ approach is just as bad if not worse.
If s/he is even remotely ‘carnivourous’ ‘slime’ you are very strongly ‘ideotic, naive, bludging, neuron dead (read: MJ shriveled), blog-with-no-comments hosting’ ‘slime’
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further on slime-toad..
his/her reaction was him/her complaining that i had been described as a ‘green vegan’..
now..let’s just look at his/her complaint..shall we..
question 1)..when did the green party get copyright/ownership over the term ‘green’..?
question two..anyone else see the irony here of a flesh/fat-eater..
with a massive environmental footprint..
.. declaiming a vegan as not being ‘green’..?
if we are both green..
i am a deep/dark green..
whereas the shade of toad-the-pretender..
given his/her penchant for killing/eating animals..
and thru this..his/her daily environmental-footprint/effects on the planet/those animals..
could at best..be described as a ‘bilious green’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil, take your nastiness and vitriol somewhere else.
You know full well that I was pointing out that you are not a Green Party member, not making any comment on whether you are “green”.
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“..nastiness and vitriol..”..eh..?
how about..?
“Alienated and disaffected, methinks. On his own vegan train, with no loco to haul it..”
let’s break that down..shall we..?
‘alienated’..um..!..from who/what..?
maybe you don’t understand .. toad..
that what people who i have absolutely no respect for..(colour yrself that)..
what they think of me..i do not give a flying f*ck..
..are you clear on that..?
you..to me..in how you are part of the problem..whilst pretending the opposite..
..you set benchmarks in hypocrisy/double-standards/toxic-denial..
“..disaffected..”..?
hell yes..would you like the list..?
(you are number 153..)
“..On his own vegan train, with no loco to haul it..”
and apart from making absolutely no sense..
what are you attempting to do/be there..?
if not flashing your ‘nastiness and vitriol’ side..
eh..?
bah..!..humbug..!
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil.
We greens are not innumerable in number. We need all of our crew, if not singing the same song, at least open at the same page. Infighting will be our downfall. Self inflicted wounds are the least forgivable. Praise your team mates abilities, model the changes you’d like to see. Kia tau kia ngawari kia hiwa ra kia hiwa ra kia hiwa ra
KOTAHITANGA
Just saying.
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fly..
as you know i do battle on kiwiblog..
toad has a long history there..of sucking up to the righties..
and joining in their general slagging-defences/attacks..on me
and..that he/she also has this long history of sneering at vegan-ideas..
..and celebrating killing/eating sentient beings..
means that i am not ‘open at the same page’..
and have no desire to be..
there is a blazing row going on at the moment in america..
between the humane-society/spca ‘enablers/endorsers’ of animal exploitation/cruelties..
(cf..in america..some burger chains endorsed..for using ‘some’ ‘free-range’ eggs…f.f.s..!
and here of course..we have the spca sitting on the board/govt body that approves all the vivisection-barbarities in this country..
plus..the spca used to sell animals to the vivisectionists..
..i don’t know if they still do..)
and the ‘abolitionists’..
who in my mind..are correct in their arguments..
argue that the likes of the humane society/spca/the green-toads of the world..
are a huge part of the problem..
and that their enabling/approvals of this ongoing institutional cruelties..
is a major impediment to any real progress/change..
..and in fact..are making the situation worse..
by their ‘normalising’/approving of such barbarities..
so no..
i am over here..
on the abolitionist page..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Must be time for a new general debate, this one’s gone to the… toadphils
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Some toads have glands behind their necks that spurt toxin when they are bitten. There is brief pleasure to be had as your teeth sink into the bufonoid body, but as the cardioactive agents kick in, the realization that the fun, and your life, might be over, gives you pause for reflection. ‘Avoid biting toads’ is one of the maxims I live by.
Starrs, Johnboys et al are a different story altogether.
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fly..virtually every encounter i have had with toad..
has been me reacting to toads’ initiation..
this one is no different..
phil(whoar.nz)
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Love your inner Toad. Be first to lay down the olive branch Phil. We’re all watching. You’ll get the kudos for calling off the dogs first. Declare ‘Toadona non grata’ if you must and get on with the biz of strengthening our green arm. We want your tautoko. Turn your deaf ear to the croakin’.
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@philu 5:07 PM:
Phil, it has not been at my intitiation. It has been because you say something fundamentalist and alienating to many green very often when you comment.
You come across to me as being to Gaia what the Taliban is to Islam. The Greens have more to them than the ecological sustainability principle, and your language on blogs Phil often is exttremely agressive and reeks of violence and authoritarianism.
That is not compatible with the Green principles of non-violence and appropriate decision-making. In the Greens we make decisions by consensus. You cannot accept that, so call me “slime” because I disagree with you.
I disagree with you only on your authoritarian perspective that “everyone who eats meat is a traitor to the Green cause”. We in the Greens all do our bit to green the planet. I have dome mine by selling mine and driving a rented car only twice in the last 6 years.
We need to bring more people to green politics. I think your apprach just alienates people who are sympathetic to Green politics.
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Oops, sorry about the typos above. Dinner was ready, so hit “submit” and rushed off to eat it without checking. Anyway, intent is clear.
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i have been asked to ignore you..
consider yourself ignored..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil demonstrates well the irrational retainment of self image despite all rational evidence countering his view. Simultaniously intriguing and frustrating.
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gee..!..that’s ‘deep’..!’
but i reckon i ‘demonstrate well the rational retainment of self-image..despite all the irrational evidence attempting a countering of my view..
i guess it’s all a matter of perspective..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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All the world “needs” is a Pope infallible on matters of logic and argument to declare what is valid or invalid reasoning in a debate.
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LMFAO.
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Metiria’s on Q&A now – the Future of the Greens.
Let’s see, shall we…
… attractive… confident..not awed by Espiner..,talking economics..saving families money..deal with climate change and the recession at the same time…Free Trade… Fairtrade protect NewZealand’s economic sovereignty.. mining…we’re going to fight it all the way and so is the New Zealand public!!! (Go Girl!)… Green Futures SuperFund…(SuperTrust) … we made a mistake and have refunded it…Espiner, that’s a rip-off isn’t it? Metiria – We released those expenses before anyother party did. We made a mistake, we acknowledge and we refunded it and we’re telling the country about it today.
Pressure interview. Bill English’s smoke screen in full blast!
Well done Metiria.
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valiant try..!
(from over in this corner..it looked like a trainwreck..)
and steel yourselves for a slew of ‘green troughing’ headlines/stories..eh..?
i’m afraid ‘we paid it back!’..as a defence..
will not make this go away..
the show is also worth watching for the cogent analysis ..from the former labour party president..
..of why/how the greens blew it .. by not electing sue bradford..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Well, I just caught the “panel” portion of that. What DRIVEL.
Well yes, Russel isn’t Rod Donald. He isn’t as colorful and he doesn’t wear braces.
What a moron the fat guy next to Holmes was… and who is he?
Surely someone with a clue could have been obtained.
BJ
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“..What a moron the fat guy next to Holmes was… and who is he?..”
he is mike williams..the recent president of the labour party..
and what part of..
vis a vis his citing the/any support base for a bradford-led green party..
..noting that 13% of referndum respondants..supported bradford..
and that bradford is the only mp in parliament speaking up for the poor/disposessed/unemployed..
which he noted is a large number of people..(and growing daily..)
what exactly did you find ‘moronic’ about that analysis..
from ‘the fat guy’..?
bj..
and you do seem to be ignoring the troughing elephant in the room..
the gobsmacking fact that jeanette fitzsimons..and catherine delahunty..
were troughing/rorting..(words..if applicable to english..must also fit here..eh..?..)
they were charging parliamentary services twice the market rent for their wellington accomodation…(!)
i mean..
w.t.f..!
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Would someone care to explain to us ‘regular supporters’ what’s been going down?
(It’ll be very useful to be able to answer questions intelligently).
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OK I was working late on friday night and listened/watched all of Sofistek’s http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
Very sobering. Worth watching (the first few are a little light-weight)
What is discussed in the last chapter is prioritising ones action/reaction plan to the impending multi-headed crisis.
That, in a nutshell, is my problem with the current Green party. Prioritising.
Harping on about unemployed workers rights etc, is re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic.
You need to pare your message back to very simple concepts that even I can understand.
1: The Environment (the public are at least aware of this)
2: The impossibility of the Fractal Reserve/Growth model (Big education challenge here)
3: Population, the impossibility of that too.
The inter-relationship of the above three.
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i wouldn’t hold yr breath for that..eh fly..?
i’m just gonna take the hounds for a walk..
(they are ganging up on/bullying me..)
and if..when i get back ..they haven’t answered you yet..
i’ll have a crack at what’s going down..
and the possible implications/outcomes..
but for now..
let’s just say it’s a sea-change-moment…
(and there was me thinking the greens had been so silent on the english troughing/rorting ‘cos of some craven backroom deal/quid pro quo they had done..
..with national..
but no..!..
it’s ‘cos jeanette..and catherine..
have been heads down in that trough with english..
what did i know..?..eh..?
the truth often is stranger than fiction..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil
I didn’t see the show ( So no idea about the money issue you bring up OR how Meyt did handling the questions ), I only got to see his comment. Which included the words “outside of Labour” btw, and which completely ignored the existence of Catherine (or every other Green MP for that matter), and the fact a substantial minority of GREENS also disapproved of S59. Many for reasons similar to my own. It would be fascinating to know how many of us actually voted “No”.
Moronic. All Green MPs comment on social justice issues. It is part of the party principles and it is given plenty of emphasis in our policies and statements. Sue led the charge often, but she did not work in a vacuum. The man led off with a comment about how “colorful” Russel Norman is comparing unfavorably with Rod. Which may be true, but what EXACTLY does it have to do with leading a serious political party? This isn’t Winston First or Peter over Dunne or Rodney acts up. The comment marginalizes us, perhaps unintentionally, but I am not so sure (so maybe not a moron, it may suit his agenda to marginalize us).
Equating that vote with Green support is not realistic. We didn’t get 13% of the vote in the election either. Equating it with support of Sue Bradford might be… but that’s a different colored horse, and doesn’t explain why we didn’t poll higher in the last election with her there and before the leadership question arose.
Marginalizing the party in support of the social agenda is a strategy that marginalizes the environment. We who regard the environment as CRITICAL have seen that result Phil. We’re tired of that result. We’re tired of being protesters manning the barricades for Keith and Sue, and I am tired of having to explain this to you.
Sue has too much baggage right now and I and the party clearly disagree with you about her ability to shed it if she were sitting where Meyt sits. Had she been there, the questions would have inevitably run back to S59, because that’s how media operates. Might have distracted them from the money thing but it would NOT have been a good look if we ever want numbers in double digits.
We can’t afford the 87% of the public being reminded constantly, and I don’t think that a single poll that was taken before Sue leaving parliament (NOT the party) could even have been disseminated as news, reflects anything. I’d want polls a week before and at least two weeks after, if I were going to infer anything about those results.
respectfully
BJ
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Truth and Fiction Phil! I’m waiting for the expose, with information and facts. If our leaders mucked up, we’ll front up. If not, we’ll defend the trench (there’ll no doubt be a trench).
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fly..
the troughing thing is quite simple..
fitzsimons and delahunty share a house in wellington..
they were claiming double the market rent..from parliamentary services..
six grand has been paid back..
really..it is different from english only in finite detail..
..and length of ‘over-claiming’period..
(what when describing english we say/call ‘rorting-period’..
what possible excuse can they have..?
that will just make this go away..?
and b.j..
i have no intention of re-litigating how your fervid efforts to drag the party to the right..are so so wrong..onso may levels..
..(and not just ideological ones..)
save to say you have swallowed the ‘we must be all things to all people’ meme..
..eh..?
“..I only got to see his comment. Which included the words “outside of Labour”
he was talking about how the natural place for the greens is to the left of labour..
and i ave to say..what the f. is incorrect about that..?
if we accept the political science definitions of there really being s.f.a.difference between our two ‘old parties’..
our political duopoly..
“..The man led off with a comment about how “colorful” Russel Norman is comparing unfavorably with Rod..”
y’knoww bj..
i actually think that one is more that there are more than a few people out here who feel the party membership has been manipulated/’played’..
in both those co-leadership races..
and that really..if they think about it..
they would rather nandor and sue were the ones now leading the party..
“..it may suit his agenda to marginalize us)..”
i don’t think so..eh..?
he was just providing an informed comment/analysis..
“..and doesn’t explain why we didn’t poll higher in the last election with her there..”
um..!..a long bow there..eh tiger..?
negating any possible support for sue as leader..
‘cos of last election result..?..(whoar..!..eh..?..)
“..We’re tired of that result..”
and who exaactly is ‘we’..?
and when exactly did you take control of the direction of the green party..?
“..We’re tired of being protesters manning the barricades for Keith and Sue, and I am tired of having to explain this to you..”
oh..!..hadn’t seen you there..eh bj..?..on those ‘barricades’..
i’d figured you were more a keyboard warrior..
and that anyway..your heart wouldn’t be in it..?
“..Sue has too much baggage right now and I and the party clearly disagree with you about her ability to shed it if she were sitting where Meyt sits..”
who are you trying to f*cken fool with that bullshit..?
have you failed to notice the outporings of respect for sue..since she stood down..?
from all sides of the house/political spectrum..?
and how even those opposed to her ideologically pay deepest respect to her as both a human being with major mana..
and a politician with a proven record..of success in working with all parties..
ahe had baggage..bj..when she entered parliament..’cos of her protesting-ways..
her time in parliament proved her mettle/worth..
and i know that is the meme you used to defeat her..b.j..
and f*cken ‘shame on you’..for that..eh..?
but it is absolute bullsh*t..
sue would have expanded the base/voter-appeal of the party..
by/thru her cred with those pissed off at labour..
only a fool could not see that..
and that is what that..as you call him..’fat moron’..
was pointing outto you..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
and yeah b’j..
you watch your polls..eh..?
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had you thought of joining the national party ..?..bj..?
wouldn’t the ‘blue-greens’ be more your bag..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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A blue-green government sounds as good as a red-green one.
Far better than a blue government and green opposition.
I’ll vote BJ as a Green any day.
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My my Phil – you ARE a fncking idiot today, aren’t you. You don’t know what the internal forum looks like… where I’m defending sticking to the left of center… while you deliver this incredible load of cr@p to me here.
“We” is people who regard the prospective death of our environment as more important than social injustice that has been going on since the beginning of human civilization. It turned out there were more than a few simply lurking. Not feeling particularly welcome I guess.
You wouldn’t see me in Auckland Phil. I have turned up for some events in Wellington.
I used to defeat her? My my… I have no such power. I write here. I write in the forums. I don’t have the sort of power you seem to think I have, might wish I did sometimes, but mostly I don’t care for it. You’re hallucinating if you think that was MY doing.
“he was talking about how the natural place for the greens is to the left of labour..” – which is HIS opinion and yours, and which marginalizes the party quite nicely for him. We don’t take any votes off him. We don’t gain power in the electorate at large. It isn’t MY opinion of the natural place for Greens. Left of center, to be sure, but left of Labour? Only to the extent that they become lapdogs for National…. we don’t belong to the left-left. You may like us there, but that is NOT where we belong.
“sue would have expanded the base/voter-appeal of the party..” To who Phil? To the 87% of the public she almost terminally p!ssed off?
You aren’t much of an analyst, and neither is Mr-once-was-president-of-the-labour-party. You don’t like the idea that maybe Green means something different than a professional protest movement. Tough noogies.
I have other things I have to do from now through Thursday. Maybe Wednesday.
Thanks for being a contrary indicator.
BJ
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Right. Anyone not as far left as Phil should be in the National party… that’s one of the very GOOD reasons I am the person I am Phil. Because I am NOT going to have my opinion dictated to me by the likes of you.
BJ
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“..My my Phil – you ARE a fncking idiot today, aren’t you…”
my my..aren’t you the one for the ad hominems this day..eh..?
‘fat moron’ etc..falling from yr lips like a heavy dose of danndruff..
cor..!
“..You don’t know what the internal forum looks like…”
my understanding is..usually like a ghost town..?
“..I used to defeat her? My my… I have no such power..”
how disengenuous of you….the ‘you’..was for your ‘anti-bradford camp’..
and you know full well that was one of the main anti-bradford campaigning themes/riffs..
“..and which marginalizes the party quite nicely for him. We don’t take any votes off him.,” .”
um..!..a party to the left of a centreist labour..would/must take votes from labour..
how could it not..?
your whole claim there is total rubbish..
“..We don’t gain power in the electorate at large..”
remebber..we have a centreist labour party..and a centreist national party..
neither of which is arguing for those most effected by the economic meltdown..
this is a huge constituency..
and brings us to the nub of the problem with you..and your ilk..of which the green party has far too many…
and that is your lack of vision/ambition..
10% of the vote is about as far as your aspirational vision stretches..
are you telling me..that as you well know..the economy/social conditions are going to get far worse..relatively soon..
and are you telling me a party to the left of a centreist labour party..
..that argued for/represented that ever-growing pool of dipossessed..
led by a person who could not have more credibility in fighting/working for just those people..
who would worry the govt ;like a dog with a bone..on their behalf..
could/would not soak up a large vote..from that power/representation-vaccuum..?
somehow..i think your analytical skills..on this..have taken a walk..
and you represent the problem with many scientists/engineers..
a lack of imagination/vision..
and an inability to see the forest..for the trees..
“..To who Phil? To the 87% of the public she almost terminally p!ssed off?..”
now..you can’t tell me you don’t know that is a big fat lie..
‘cos i have already corrected you on it..
(repeat after me..!..’a referendum is not a poll’..)
and that you cannot from an 87% response to a referendum vote..by 53% of the population..
into your mantra that 87% of new zealanders hate sue bradford..
how the f*ck could it..?
so how about you just shelve that little piece of disingenuous bullshit/spin..
eh..?
and..cutting and running..eh.?
till later in the week..?
sensible move really..eh..?
seeing as you are shown to be naked..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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samiam, how well do you think your 3 points would go down with the public, given the confusion over how an ETS works, how MMP works, whether we should have better lightbulbs, better shower-heads, etc etc
When even incremental changes are near-on impossible to achieve, what makes you think revolutionary ones will be more politically feasible?
Seriously now?
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Phil,
It would be far better for the disaffected to have a party that doesint say everything they want the party to say but has policies that would actually help them rather than a party that caters to their every demand but ultimately just hurts them further. What you are proposing is the latter.
If we add in the resultant number of seats and the detriment to the environment then the disaffected are hurt even more. Why do you hate them so much?
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@ phil u 12:49 PM:
Phil – you know, or should know, it is hugely different.
First, as Metiria said on Q+A, a mistake was made. The mistake, presumably, was that when Catherine moved into the property Jeanette has rented for some years, whoever administers the Green Super Fund simply looked at what Parliamentary Service were paying for Jeanette’s rent and set Catherine’s rent at the same level without them or Jeanette or Catherine realising that this put the total rent Parliamentary Service were paying over the market rent for the property and therefore over the amount that could be legitimately claimed from Parliamentary Service.
This is a far cry from what Bill English did, which was to actively arrange his personal affairs and those of his Family Trust in a manner that allowed him to claim almost double the amount he had been previously receiving (aside from the issue of whether English actually is an out of Wellington MP, and therefore entitled to claim anything at all in the first place).
Second, Metiria admitted that there was a mistake made. Bill English still maintains that there was no mistake, and that he was entitled to receive what he did. He admits only to it not being “a good look”.
Third, Metiria stated that the mistake was discovered re the rent on Jeanette’s and Catherine’s accommodation earlier this year before the Register of MPs expenses was made public. It was then rectified and the amount overpaid has subsequently been repaid. By contrast, Bill English had to be dragged kicking and screaming to repay anything, and only agreed to make repayments in response to mounting public outrage over his arrangements weeks after the publication of the Expenses Register revealed them.
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toad there’s a thread over on kiwiblog that needs you to say the above in it!
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So basically Phil, you are claiming that there is a huge untapped reservoir of actual voters to the LEFT of Labour.
Yeah – Right.
10% is all YOUR strategies would ever get us. Because that’s the size of the left-left margin.
I call ‘em as I see ‘em. Always have. The analysis on the program was absurd and your defense of it was aggressively so. Still is.
As for “correcting me” I would accept that you argued the point. I think you failed however, to actually achieve a “correction”, possibly owing to the fact that I’m right.
Your rants don’t impress anyone Phil. The truth is that the party can’t grow by heading off to the left. Anybody with the slightest understanding of this country knows that picking up the votes of the ALCP and the Communist party at the expense of the people who WOULD leave and who would simply stop voting for us as a result of such a shift, would not get you double digits.
MOST of us are smarter than that.
BJ
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are you going to repeat that 87% lie again.?
and..i gave you the courtesy of answering all your attempted points..
you return with no answers .. just ad hominems..
and crap like ‘i call em as i see em’.
real all hat..no cattle..that one..eh..?
and no..i am saying that labour is such a rightwing version of that model..
(and not just me..any international ideological spectrum has labour and national spilling into each other..
over on the centre-right..)
that the inclusion of social justice as a component of any ‘green’ solutions..(as it must/should be..)
has the potential for the party tp snare the centre-left vote..
i am not talking about alcp..and the marxist fringe parties..
i am talking about a potentially large chunk of the electorate..
whereas you advise thegreens shedding those social justice policies..
and going over into that over-crowded centre-right segment..
to squabble with labour and national over that vote..?..
and that you didn’t reply/respond to the points/counters i presented you is telling….
it just signals that you have no answers..
just ad hominems..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Oh, I am so glad that I am not Phil. So very glad.
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so am i..so am i..
there just wouldn’t be enough room..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Gosh Phil
I’m sorry. … but I did answer your points.
You just don’t appear to have troubled yourself be anything but furious with me for disagreeing with your assessments.
Ah… I did miss one. The forum activity has picked up quite a bit.
Mostly though, I think you misread the word “center” in center-left.
I’m not going to explain about the difference between a poll in which the sample is 50% of the population and one that is 0.5%. To disregard a vote like that is to lie to yourself comprehensively. You don’t habitually do that Phil, but you are doing it now.
“whereas you advise thegreens shedding those social justice policies.”
… again you are making sh!t up Phil. I don’t advise against “social justice”.
The Greens need to be Center-Left and abandoning “social-justice” is foolish in that position… nor have I ever advocated that, and it is quite possible that given Labour’s apparent effort to become National, we’ll still be to the left of them… BUT that is not required of a Green party!!! … and the word “Center” is not spelled e.x.t.r.e.m.e
Which is where we’ve been stuck for quite some time.
The truth is that if one required Labour or the Greens to shift to the left to accommodate the poor underrepresented masses you are describing, it should be Labour that shifts, not the Greens.
Left of center is a natural position for us. Left of labour however, is not a required position at all. One is relative to the political center, the other is relative to a party of no certain policies or prospects.
Now I don’t know what you think it means to be center-left, but there are clear problems with getting those votes by putting our least environmental, most left-leaning people, up to front for the party. People who have not, in my recollection, said a single word about the environment in years.
“Not their portfolio”… I’m sorry, that doesn’t cut it.
Social policies aren’t MY portfolio (as if I were elected), but I take my swipes at health-care and housing and finance and schools… and medical marijuana (remember?) – as well as coming down extremely hard on environment issues.
Phil… you aren’t doing the Greens any good at all right now. We have chosen a course you disagree with, and with typical arrogance, you have gone into attack mode. I have work to do.
… no Sapient… I am not going to tear up my long history with Phil over this. I am angry with him, but not hostile to his principles, just the idea that they belong first in the queue.
His attitude could use adjustment.
BJ
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[Frog: I'm letting this pass only because this thread has generally got a bit personal. phil's in-your-face-style may encourage this, but I do ask everyone to take a breath and make sure you play the ball and not the person. phil, this applies to you as much as anyone. d4j, given that you almost NEVER take part in the substance of any debate, but seem only to visit here to play the man, don't be surprised if your comments are the first to disappear.]
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BJ,
Ah, I am not hostile to his principles; only his approach. His naive approach and his persistent refusal to accept that said approach may be flawed frustrates me for whilst we share many of the same goals his pursuit of those goals acts only to hamper their accomplishment. Even where our goals differ his approach frustrates me simply because such naivety penetrates society and is, behind greed, probally one of the greatest factors to social detriment.
I have not, and would not, suggest that you tear up your history with phil; though, because relations between phil and myself being defined mainly by such conflict, I suffer no such aversive motive.
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But how many Fill-ewe’s are there, in the party elite, steering the green ship hard to port all the time? We need to stabilise this ship with a more balanced tack. Is there any red port left? I hope not much more!
Fill-ewe, I must congratulate ewe on your double spaced typing style. I find it so hard to read that I…don’t.
Those that I struggle through remind me not to make the effort too often.
Your posts are the easiest to spot….and avoid.
Keep up the bad work!
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“..his pursuit of those goals acts only to hamper their accomplishment..”
care to point out one ‘goal’..whose ‘accomplishment’..i have ‘hampered’..?
and i’m the ‘naieve’ one..?..eh..?
not those greens walking around preaching conservation..
while picking bits of animal flesh out of their teeth..
and eyeing up animals..
with a view to eat them..?
(now..color me ‘dumb’..but cd you please explain in plain english..
just what you mean by this/what this means..)
“..such naivety penetrates society and is, behind greed, probally one of the greatest factors to social detriment..”
‘cos i’m f*cked if i can work out what you are banging on about..
and “..we share many of the same goals.”
really..?
are you a vegan/animal-rights/legalise pot/smash the chains of poverty kinda person are you..?
um..!..how about detailing for us your ‘plan’ for action/change..
a ‘plan’ absent of ‘naievete’..?
and guaranteed ‘not to offend’..?
come..!
educate me..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Rimu:
As I bracketed in my post, the environment is already well and truly on the public awareness radar, the Greenz work is half done there.
The Fractal Reserve banking system etc is something most folk have never heard of. Voters need, and deserve, proper information upon which to base their vote. I have never seen this issue discussed anywhere but on this Blog. It’s fundamentally vital to our future. I believe the Greenz have a huge opportunity to raise awareness of this. Don’t preach, just inform, and then get the other parties to engage in debate as to their take on it. (their take would be FASCINATING). Mot of the Greenz social ravings are addressing the symptoms, this issue is the cause.
Population… well everyone loves talking about sex don’t they?
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The social credit party sought to address the fractional reserve banking thing, and back in the early 80′s they managed to get 20% of the vote after banging that drum for 30 years. I don’t know if that is a good sign or not…
Do you remember the reaction to the Green’s population policy last election? ‘Crucifixion’ is the word that comes to mind.
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Samiam
They don’t visit the forums. I haven’t met any. Phil isn’t a Green.
The following is my opinion, not scientific.
Where we appear to be:
[-Green------*------------]Where we are:
[----Green---*------------]Where we should be:
[----Greeenn-*------------]Where Labour appears to be:
[---------Lab*bour--------]Where National appears to be:
[------------*National----]Where the voters are ?:
[---112244678*876442211---][--1246787644*4467876421--]Where National and Labour ought to be or actually are, are their internal business, not knowable. The argument can be made that the actual voting population is a bipolar distribution… though that is speculation on my part in this country. It is a real issue in the USA. The center there has been largely emptied by the vituperative and vindictive political-religious warfare.
Shifting the PERCEPTION of where we are will take a fairly strenuous effort. The media bave an interest in extremes to sell newspapers, and extremes attract media attention vastly out of proportion to their actual impact on the party.
respectfully
BJ
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Rimu
Do you happen to recall what their SOLUTION to the “Fractional Reserve” problem was? The thing is that if you don’t have an answer acceptable to the majority, you aren’t going to get enough traction to be noticed… OTOH, 20% is a double-digit popularity, which is twice our current polling in elections and 4 times where we currently sit. So it may be a useful issue to take up, particularly emphasizing the tie-in to the requirement for constant growth.
respectfully
BJ
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20% ain’t bad, rimu. Add the environmental/sustainability vote (which wasn’t around in those days) who knows what might happen!
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The comment ratings do stuff when certain thresholds are reached, they’re not just for show.
At a score of +3 the comment gets a strong border around it, and at -30 the comment goes slightly transparent and the viewer needs to click a link to see it. The demotion threshold will be adjusted once we see what sort of things get what sort of scores.
The system displays how many positive and how many negative votes have been cast. The score used for the above logic is the combination of the two types of votes. e.g. +2 likes and -1 hates gives a score of 1.
Anyone can vote, you don’t need to have an account or be logged in. One vote per comment per IP address.
As with the indenting, this is just an experiment to see what happens.
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No idea. Might be similar to the modern version of the party’s policies though.
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BJ is there a solution?
Maybe I have to give Sue Bradford her due here, her S59 thing did, at the very least raise awareness and promote discussion on smacking.
I’d like to see discussion on the fractal/growth model to move into people’s sphere of awareness.
I don’t want the Greens rushing in TELLING people what to do, just asking questions, questions and more questions.
Hey I always ask customers in my shop what they do for a living. A bloke, yesterday, says… I’m an economist( for Buisness New Zealand, I think). “Cool” I said, “what can you tell me about the Fractal Reserve banking system?”
His reply… “what’s that?”
I’m worried
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this almost tips over into a comedy-routine..
esp. the final line..
“..Phil,
It would be far better for the disaffected to have a party that doesint say everything they want the party to say but has policies that would actually help them rather than a party that caters to their every demand but ultimately just hurts them further. What you are proposing is the latter.
If we add in the resultant number of seats and the detriment to the environment then the disaffected are hurt even more. Why do you hate them so much?..”
(heh..!..)
‘phil ure..hater of the disaffected’..
(who knew..?..)
sapient..eh..?
the master/mistress of that segment of the comedy genre known as..
‘involuntary humour’..
(bless him/her..eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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BJ says:
My my Phil – you ARE a fncking idiot today, aren’t you. You don’t know what the internal forum looks like… where I’m defending sticking to the left of center… while you deliver this incredible load of cr@p to me here.
……..
I did the political compass test and I was just left of center (and sensible) .
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With Fractional-Reserve, there’s no particular need to be careful about it. The banks are currently in bad-odour with the public and an easy target… but if you beat up on it you HAVE to have an answer, and the answer that is supplied by the Austrian school (the only other group really critical of it) isn’t a good one.
Economists are often a-priori theoreticians. Experiments, Facts, Reality and the motivations and abilities of actual people seem to elude them.
Asking questions is good, but of whom? This is an area where we pin the interviewers/reporters to the question and they will come back with their own… “I’m not sure, how do YOU answer it?” which is a perfectly valid comeback for a reporter. They aren’t supposed to have the answers. We are. Getting them to ASK is important though.
We have to make this point. I think it is, overall, a winner for us. Certainly enough people suspicious of financial groups overall for us to get traction with it.
The thing is that with EVERY policy and principle, there is the question of what’s the political cost. Is there a way to do it without paying too heavily, or even gaining political credit for doing something the way the public thinks it should be done. S59 as-was-done avoided earning credit where it could have… incurred a massive cost… and yet from the viewpoint of what was attempted and accomplished worked well enough to be called a success. Such victories are often called pyrrhic.
Banking and currency reform carries far less in the way of a political charge. It isn’t personal in the same way as raising your kid is personal. More important.. much bigger issue… but media will go to sleep. Radical is that it means doing something differently from EVERY OTHER NATION ON EARTH… which might get their attention… but its still banking (yawn).
respectfully
BJ
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You mean Fractional, not Fractal, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking
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There is no need for money to be issued by private banks, at interest. It can be issued by the government with no interest. The doco ‘money as debt’ throws out a few possible alternatives.
The dilution of the purchasing power of the nation’s money as a result of that government issuance is a form of taxation, so there would be no need for income tax.
It’s all a bit weird and I haven’t the economics knowledge to be certain it’s a good idea!
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Yes… that would be similar… not bad on several fronts. The Reserve-Bank stops being a privately run affair in my estimation, it is a government body and not subject to certain kinds of BIS interference. Not sure what they mean by some things, but they’ve got several of the essentials. I’ll have to read further into their approach… we might want to work out how to integrate it with our own.
respectfully
BJ
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There were banks and bankers and there was money out there, before there was “fractional reserve”. We know it CAN work. The issues are basic. We’re used to growth and we have population increases to cope with, and those also impose a “growth” requirement on us.
Everything is connected.
BJ
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…and this little tidbit should have been obvious in hindsight….
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/04
This “other” problem with CO2 has the potential to bite us on the backside very VERY hard.
ciao
BJ
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The ratings system certainly has potential. Will there be a page where we can view the total and mean ratings of each poster? Perhaps a style applied to posters with greater approval and a shade applied to those with lower?
I feel i must point out a big flaw of the present arrangement. The use of IP address allows people to vote using different computers whist those using the same are made unable. It may not be that big of a problem but it means that someone competent with proxies, or using foxyproxy, could easily vote down a post by thirty points or so. I know my laptop has at least that many loaded on and ready to go at the click of a button. I would propose it would be better to require people to be logged on and limit it to one per post per account on posts not your own. If that is possible.
Phil,
My reply is a bit late but some of us have stuff to do during the day. Some of us even seek to improve ourselves and our ability to provide for our offspring through pursuing education. Some of us provide for our children from our own pocket or, better yet, use contraception. .
Legalise pot; yes.
Smash the chains of poverty; yes.
Animal rights; animal welfare.
Vegan; I will eat whats put in-front of me but don’t really like the taste of meat other than ‘meats’ such as pastrami, salami, and shaved ham. My cooking is almost entirely vegan nowadays, though out of personal taste rather than any moral concerns.
Pick any one of the above.
We have discussed this multiple times and you have drawn comment from all over the blog on this matter.
A larger population of humans could certainly be supported on this planet if meat eating practices were given up; it does not, however, follow that eating meat is nessacarily any more unsustainable than not eating meat unless you assume a constant population and dietry intake. With the same conservation value meat may be consumed with a smaller population of humans. Thus eating meat, and supporting the practice, only means one is not green if one defines green as supporting all measures that can maximize the human population.
A blind adherance to the idea that ones self is correct and that those whom hold differing opinions are wrong. This ideological characteristic is the source of much conflict and many wars. It is a major cause of political division, and probally one of the biggest factors in interpersonal conflict within any given society.
Um? you really don’t read my posts do you? Since I joined this forum I have done all I can to try and promote approaches that would actually work to accheive the desired ends. If you want to know about them then look through the archives. Or better yet, read BJ’s posts; they tend to have far more effort and detail than my own. Not as provocative as I often try to make mine but his are as or more effective than my own.
Yes, a name which does not suit yourself in the slightest.
If through your action or inaction you create an outcome less desirable for the goal than an outcome that could otherwise be obtained you create a net loss for the pursuit of that goal. Think of it this way: one step foward, two steps back (summarises your approach well).
In your pursuit of benefiting the disaffected you are rather active, at least on this blog, but in that pursuit you actually create a worse outcome for that goal than if you were exerting no effort at all. Thus you are effectively actively acting to detriment your goal. You are actively acting to detriment the disaffected. You are hurting them. Why would you do that?
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There’s an interesting article in the Press about how Ecan under Dr Bryan Jenkins is gaining a concensus on Canterbury’s water. The texts he uses are Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Systems of Humans and Nature, and Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.. Apparently the RMA does have some disadvantages and what the article seems to be saying is; you get those involved in a room for meetings, shut the lawyers out and people really do want to find a solution. They seem to be tracking in a positive direction although there is a danger that players will get nervous about what they have given away. This article suggests to me that academia is making progress at finding ways of reaching a concensus and that the activist way is divisive (although sometimes justified as when greenppeace stopped the Palm oil ship).
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Sapient: Anyone who wants to go to the effort of using many proxies to subvert the system could almost as easily create 30 logins and do the same. Or 3000 logins, with a script of some kind.
If spoofing becomes a problem, we’ll deal with it then.
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Following on from the above example (where Ecan get all the interested parties in the room and lock the lawyers out), I think, by way of comparison, the green Party are an unrepresentative group claiming ownership of the environmental issue and are trying to sell an unacceptable policy mix to the wider population.
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Rimu,
Did you disable voting for ones own posts? I note I do not have that option; if you have then I commend you.
As to the proxies; it takes me all of a couple of seconds to configure my PC to use a new proxy and then simply one click after that to switch to and from my others. To create an account you need the generate a name and and email and authenticate, etc. It takes a lot more time. That said, I get your point. It is best to see how it turns out, one would have to be dedicated to really bother with such manipulation.
As a side note:
(1) Does anyone know if there are Black Soldier Flies in NZ?
(2) I note that the release of tilapia is banned for obvious reasons and probally their sale and breeding. Does anyone know if there is a omnivorous fish in NZ which is similar to tilapia (other than cod. is non-ordimental cod aquirable in NZ?) or if it is possible to aquire tilapia?
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Like or dislike? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Please, Noooooooooo!!
(If you must , please remove the ‘like’, ‘dislike’ tags.
It’s …. not that I dislike it, I just don’t like it (at all!).
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Greenfly – I think this is a useful tool. It helps gauge the post value to the blog and helps us gauge our effectiveness at communicating. I am not sure I would let random visitors vote, but I can see the reasons for wanting that as well. Why do you not like? ?? If the tags were removed, how could anyone vote? I am puzzled.
respectfully
BJ
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Frog
How about putting a “Like-Dislike” field on the original post? That would give some information as well. ???
respectfully
BJ
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BJ – I came in to this cold and perhaps have missed the point. Is this the same ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ that Kiwiblog uses – all or any commenters vote on each others comment? It sucks, imho. Firstly, the words ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ are girly and we’re not girls. I personally loathe assessment, peer, self or otherwise and would baulk at seeing it on everyones comment, as they do on ‘other’ blogs. It provokes tribalism and allows for anonymous ‘nastiness’. Personally, I feel as bad about an ‘up-thumb’ as I do a ‘down’ (call it ‘Hopoate Syndrome’) Also, a big load of down-thumbs provokes trolling. When I get a good collection over on Kblog, I rev it up and I’m truely irritating to them. We don’t want that do we?
(If I’ve misunderstood, you have my apologies for not being up to speed. I’ve been ‘engaging in debate’ elsewhere, where the Green’s accomodation situation is being discussed at length and Key’s Speeding behaviour lampooned.Good clean fun.)
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Found rimu’s explanation. Great technology, cool results. I vote ‘no’.
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heh..!..
my post/link on ..
“..the different moral universes inhabited by conservatives and progressives are codified:..”
has received two thumbs down..
(i wonder what they disagreed with in that treatise..?..)
good to see it’s as rational here as kiwiblog..
(maybe rimu thinks enough ‘dislike’s on me..
..will shut me up..?
meh..!)
btw..rimu..i know it is your baby..
but how many anti-threading votes do/will you need to can it..?
you aren’t holding out for 100%/’consensus’..?..are you..?
haven’t ‘the people already spoken’..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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greenfly, I also vote “no” on the thumbs up/thumbs down thing. For all the reasons you cite. I think this is a wanky kiwiblog thing, and does not help to encourage the standard of debate.
I also vote “no” on Dipton International airport, which Bill English and the NZ Herald seem to think is a good idea.
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I think it is good to know how much coverage one is getting and how ones arguements do, or do not,resonate with other readers.
The thumbs up and thumbs down thing may not be ideal but it would be useful. It may help with long debates where no consensus is obtained.
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BJ
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Toad! I give you a big ‘thumbs-up’ for your ‘Dipton International Airport’ – that’s f-ing funny. I can’t believe they tried that! Southlanders are well tuned to that kind of double-talk. Bill and his team are raddled (not a spelling mistake!). Go hard Toad! (Apologies for the image in the reader’s mind’s-eye!).
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Phil – I’m going to give you a ‘thumb’s-up’ , even when you are being a dick!
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heh..!
i only ever use them at kiwiblog if a rightie gets all hurt and petulant over being thumbed-down..
i will then rush to add to their misery..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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i prefer the term..’being a richard’..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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@greenfly 7:52 PM
Well, if it is good enough for Steven Joyce to have a brand spanking new $2.3 billion motorway running through his electorate to secure him becoming the electorate MP for Rodney, then surely it is good enough for Bill English to have an airport at similar cost in Dipton to secure his political future in Clutha-Southland.
Especially given that it is looking a bit dodgy, given the accommodation expenses for, um, actually living in Wellington.
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