Rigsby from Rising Damp gets job as New Zealand PM
This is so obscure that no-one else on the whole Interweb seems to noticed it.
But John Key, New Zealand's new Prime Minister, looks exactly like Rigsby from Rising Damp.
Leonard Rossiter (the bloke who played Rigsby) was also in 2001: A Space Odyssey as the Russian scientist. He apparently died in the eighties.
Now we just need Busy to turn up, the only other person on the forum who'll have a clue of what I'm talking about. Am also expecting the forums to be flooded with literally tens of NZ'ers thinking the same thing as me. 
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decibel.places posted this at 05:08 — 11th November 2008.
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Who is who?
Abhishek Reddy posted this at 10:54 — 11th November 2008.
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I resisted posting political in the US election thread, so you're trying to lure me with this now?
JeevesBond posted this at 14:52 — 11th November 2008.
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This isn't just political. It's the daftest, silliest conspiracy theory of the 21st century!
Think about it: have you ever seen Leonard Rossiter and John Key together? Wake up sheeple!
Of course!
I wouldn't believe you're a National man though. Probably more likely to vote Green, their party Web site is built with Drupal, which hopefully means they understand Free software.
That's a pretty rough guess though.
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 07:14 — 12th November 2008.
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That's a pretty rough guess though.
Damn good guess! Software is one small part of the big picture, of course. There are many other Green policies I agree with (balancing a few crazy ones I don't – but all parties have them).
Our multi-party system is pretty good.
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 03:00 — 14th November 2008.
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I'm pretty agnostic to proportional representation (in its many guises) personally. The problem being that coalition governments dilute accountability.
That's a pretty big economic swing to the right NZ just took though. You guys just elected a government in favour of privatising the central bank, at a time when even Neo-Liberal governments like Britain are nationalising banks just to keep them afloat.
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 04:04 — 14th November 2008.
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I'm pretty agnostic to proportional representation (in its many guises) personally. The problem being that coalition governments dilute accountability.
Accountability and oversight are two peculiarly British political values. It seems anything goes if there is sufficient accountability and oversight.
I don't buy lordnorton's accountability argument anyhow – for at least two reasons.
Firstly:-
It is quite possible to punish all parties in a coalition by voting for none of them. A coalition free-rider doesn't escape, if its partners are also concerned about losing your vote on its account.
Alternately, an informed voter may well discern an appropriate delegation of responsibility between coalition partners and avoid voting for whoever is guilty. If enough voters did this, then it is possible that the unwanted coalition partner will be unable or unnecessary to form a government. Indeed, I'd expect this is even more significant in a system using something like range voting or preference voting.
Finally, 'dilution of accountability' corresponds to a dilution of power among a wider range of represented interests. As it could be harder to punish a party in a election cycle, so it is harder for a party to conduct unrepresentative policy in the first place.
Secondly:-
A three- or four-year cycle of wholesale review is a poor way of holding a government accountable. Surely it is much better to critique it in a fine-grained way, throughout its term, and from many angles, in addition to national elections. This is precisely what a proportionally representative parliament gives us – through a diverse opposition, and also a potentially self-critiquing coalition (due to conflicting interests between partners).
Yes, it's not ideal, and the proportions vary based on implementation. But MMP is pretty good, at least for NZ's style of political discourse, and demographics.
That's a pretty big economic swing to the right NZ just took though. You guys just elected a government in favour of privatising the central bank, at a time when even Neo-Liberal governments like Britain are nationalising banks just to keep them afloat. :)
It's not the central bank on the chopping block; that will remain nationalised. It is a state-owned retail bank that may be at risk. Still a regrettable swing to the right, but not by a huge margin. I don't think anybody expects major state assets to be privatised in the first term.
abhishek.geek.nz
JeevesBond posted this at 16:13 — 14th November 2008.
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My biggest problem with proportional representation, compared to first past the post, is that all the implementations of proportional representation are relatively complex. They all feel like a kludge too. I also agree with Lord Norton's arguments, although they do seem rather over-stated. However, you're correct in saying that an election should not be the only way of holding a government accountable.
Hmmm, if Democracy were Lisp, then first past the post would be PHP: easy to understand, but essentially pants. Proportional representation would be Java: baroque, difficult to understand, but good -- if you like that sort of thing.
On a side-note, Stalinism would be old school Visual Basic: every operation has to be passed to the government (VB runtimes).
But a government is reviewed throughout its term, an election is just the final result of that review. New Zealand's system of MMP is a good check-and-balance though, perhaps that makes up for the lack of an upper chamber. This is essentially what the House of Lords gives us (which might be why Lord Norton dislikes proportional representation so much).
As you said though: it works well in New Zealand.
Ooops, my mistake.
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Abhishek Reddy posted this at 17:43 — 14th November 2008.
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Yes, there are kludgy bits to cover edge cases. For example, NZ's MMP has an arbitrary minimum threshold of 5% of the national party vote, or at least 1 electorate seat, in order to win proportional rewards. Why not 4%, or 2 seats?
Either of those conditions would have significantly changed the outcome of this last election. Act, a National party ally, won an electorate seat (by candidate vote) where the National party held a majority (by party vote). This gave the coalition 5 seats, whereas, had the National candidate won, they would have had but 1 seat. Another party, NZ First, won more of the party vote nationally than Act did, but was just short of 5% and didn't carry any electorate seats, thereby getting no seats in parliament. So there is strategic voting even in MMP – but of a limited kind.
Probably the conceptually simplest PR implementation is range voting, in my opinion. But that may need some kind of limit to prevent rare overwhelming majorities (like 60-90%).
Hmmm, if Democracy were Lisp, then first past the post would be PHP: easy to understand, but essentially pants. Proportional representation would be Java: baroque, difficult to understand, but good -- if you like that sort of thing.
On a side-note, Stalinism would be old school Visual Basic: every operation has to be passed to the government (VB runtimes).
Tempting or amusing as it is, I prefer not to draw comparisons between software and politics. There's too much room for fallacy.
The difference is that a diverse opposition is more likely to initiate challenges, while a uniform opposition is not (e.g. as in the US). So whether an upper house necessarily has the same effect is debatable.
The popular review is still important. However, another approach might be to decompose elections into frequent referenda, or vote for specific offices rather than whole parties and governments.
abhishek.geek.nz
Busy posted this at 21:03 — 11th November 2008.
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I'm just going to put it down to something in your water
decibel.places posted this at 21:05 — 11th November 2008.
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or possibly ergot of rye...
Busy posted this at 21:10 — 11th November 2008.
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We had a TV ad (labours) with John Key's two faces, tried looking for it on web but no luck, did find this thou:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/blogs/tommy/2007/12/04/john-key-and-mozz...
also found this
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrunnel/photos/cemetery/lakeview/key-...
<?bhb if(broken){ echo("It wasn't me
"); } ?>
Learn HTML the ez way - EzHTML.net
Some people are like slinkies, they dont really serve any purpose but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs ...
JeevesBond posted this at 22:46 — 11th November 2008.
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Wow, he does look like the Penguin! Someone should buy him a cigarette holder and a big purple top hat.
Found that ad you were talking about Busy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR1MB4TW_3Y
John, and John!
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