Blog Bits
Stephen Franks blogs about a heretical article which suggests a low voter turnout is not a problem. The article cites as reasons that people are too dumb:
In polls taken since 1945, a majority of Americans have been unable to name a single branch of government, define the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” and explain what the Bill of Rights is. More than two-thirds have reported that they do not know the substance of Roe v. Wade and what the Food and Drug Administration does. Nearly half do not know that states have two senators and three-quarters do not know the length of a Senate term. More than fifty per cent of Americans cannot name their congressman; forty per cent cannot name either of their senators. Voters’ notions of government spending are wildly distorted: the public believes that foreign aid consumes twenty-four per cent of the federal budget, for example, though it actually consumes about one per cent.
Aaron Bhatnagar reviews Mayoral candidate John Hinchcliff’s website:
Total number of words dedicated to Dr John Hinchcliff describing his curriculum vitae, listing his life achievements, and his list of many, many, many writings: 5205
Total words dedicated to what he will do to improve Auckland: 31
Aaron also helpfully fisks a Dick Hubbard letter.
The visible hand in economics links to a marginal revolution post on a flaw in OECD broadband stats. Sadly correcting the flaw means we fall from 21st to 23rd place while Australia goes from 16th to 13th.
Mike Earley has problems with getting freeview.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Of course Stephen franks sees low voter turn-out as a good thing – the last thing corporates and their market liberal apologists want is a healthy democracy that demands high standards of corporate governance.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:35 am
I share MikeEs disappointment with “Freeview.”
I live just north of Auckland, at Waiwera, and can only receive TV1 and TV2.
I thought it would be a situation like the UK where I would pay $80-100 for the little silver box, put it on the telly, connect it up and away you go and I would get the 7 or so channels you get in Central Auckland.
But no, here you need a satellite dish, which the lovely people at Dick Smith said would be $400 and the boxes themselves would be a further $300, meaning $700 overall. So I don’t think I’ll bother.
No wonder Freeview has been a much bigger success in the UK, where even my parents, who are not the most technically-minded, can enjoy over 30 channels at no extra cost. Many tv sets in Britain are now sold with the digital receivers built in.
http://www.freeview.co.uk/home
July 26th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
UK and NZ have different terrain Darren.
If we were to do it the English way, imagine the amount of antennae required to get into every nook and cranny of our fair isle! 0_o
Terrestrial is definitely the cheaper and better way (infrastructurally) to do things in NZ’s case. The only ass-munch is, is that the consumer has to (in some, not all cases) fork out a packet to get decent reception.
The advice out there, is to wait until the second generation of NZ set-top boxes arrives to get into it.
Have to feel for those who bought them when they first came out though. As they say, theres a
suckaearly-adapter born every minute.July 26th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Have swapped for a hills set top box.. and now I can’t recieve ANY channels.
This is a bloody joke!
July 26th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
No wonder the founding fathers ensured not everyone could vote. Universal suffrage has only created a dumbed down voter and, thus, massive government.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Actually American official development assistance is less than a quarter of a percent for the pedants among you.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
And now its working, using a non “compliant” set top box.
And I’ve got it running in windows MCE
July 26th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
United States voter turnout is dismally low:
http://www.idea.int/vt/survey/voter_turnout_pop2.cfm
Find the US at number 139 with 48% of voter population casting their vote. This covers 26 presidential elections since 1945. NZ is number 8 at 86%. Even Indonesia, over 6 elections is at number 6 with 88%.
The USA a democracy? Yeah right. The usual explanation for their dismal turnout is that they have a lack of choice (Republican and Democrat, which are both similar), the amount of money required to field candidates, the extent of corporate influence etc.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:01 am
I suppose the voter is also confused about things such as economic growth: “we have to grow the economy” and “New Zealand has to make its way in the world” (when we have a good climate and fertile soils and oceans containing fish all around)…… When the economy grows, it has to keep growing (ad infinitum)…
It’s a sort of “but if God made me, who made God? sort of issue”.
jh