Roman Boots

This video has all you need to know about Caligae, the Roman military boot. Also contains good pronunciation of Latin. 

Steven Adams Says Goodbye to Oklahoma City

Always a class act Steven Adams:

https://www.kjrh.com/sports/steven-adams-tweets-goodbye-to-okc-thunder-after-trade-to-new-orleans

Steven Adams to the Pelicans

It is being reported that NBA big man Steven Adams has been traded from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the New Orleans Pelicans. He'll still receive his final year bonus worth about 7% of his salary, meaning he'll earn about US$29 million in 2020 (or $42 million NZ dollars). For Adams this is good move, it matches him up with NBA sensation Zion Williamson. It also moves Adams out of tractor town small market, into the main news cycle with Williamson being a monster, and that can only be good for Adams career.

NZ Election 2020: More Statistics

Here's an interesting statistic, I hope you're sitting down: 2020 party votes 

Kaikoura: 

Labour 44.3% 

National 30.1% 

Rangitikei: 

Labour 44.3% 

National 30.1% 

What are the odds? Two electorates on separate islands are almost identical, both rural and returning reelected National MP's.This looks too cute to be real, it has the appearance of machine generated results.

Entire History of Roman Britain (55 BC - 410 AD)

I thought this was a very good summary of Roman Britain, with all you need to know if you haven't got a few years to read up on the subject:

Getting Greens Below 5% Threshold

New Zealand is saddled with a political party that represents anachronistic political ideologies, a party of wreckers with their snouts in the trough. That party is The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (I'll just call them Greens). They offer nothing constructive.

How to get rid of these people? The task will not be an easy one but it is achievable. That's because as the decades have passed, voters have grown up and abandoned the Greens. These days they're perpetually below 10%, stuck close to the all-important 5% threshold which would see them exit parliament if absent an electorate. Currently, they have one electorate seat, that of Auckland Central plus nine other members of parliament off the party list.

Who or what are the Greens? They're communists re-branded; red becomes green. Politically, they like to position themselves as having a monopoly on all things environmental (they don't). In recent years they've started to misrepresent themselves to the public by saying they're in government. They're not in government and never have been. That makes them shameless liars too. 

Before I get to what can be done about the Greens, a little primer on how NZ's Mixed Member Proportional system or MMP works in effect. 

When NZ adopted its electoral system in the mid 1990's it was believed it would solve the recurring problem of minority governments. It didn't do that at all and minority governments became the norm just as they had before. But MMP turned out to be worse than its first-past-the-post predecessor. That's because any party making the 5% threshold could hold the whip hand. A party with tiny support got to dictate the direction of the country. This condition was particularly evident when in 2017, Labour and tiny NZ First formed a minority government that had a smaller proportion of the popular vote than the opposition National party. Labour and NZ First got to govern through the Greens offering their confidence and supply vote in the House of Representatives. What a shambles.

But wait, things are looking up. The Greens are now vulnerable. They're still in opposition but have an understanding with the ruling Labour government. This gives them a couple of ministerial positions outside cabinet, so long as they don't criticise. They're muzzled. Silenced but not in government. Neither Arthur nor Martha. 

The Greens won't see any benefit. Labour will claim credit for anything positive, while Greens won't be able to let rip as any opposition party is expected to do. They'll come across as neutered. Time then to take action against them.

I can imagine people thinking, that's not very nice. Well no, it isn't but that's the way MMP works. It is a negative system, learn how to use it. Yes, a negative system. I'll give you a theoretical example to illustrate.

Let's say one major party has 30% support while another much smaller party has 6% going into an election. Both are safely in parliament because they make the 5% threshold. To be the government, the much larger party must get to at least 40% and then look for a coalition partner to get itself into a winnable position. Why not 50%? That's because of wasted votes which can be as much as 10% of all votes cast (these are votes for parties which fail to make 5% or which cannot win an electorate seat). 

So that 30% party works its butt off and manages to achieve 43%. They then need the 6% party to get itself into government. That 6% party has just sat there and done nothing but it gets rewarded. That's what makes MMP a negative system.

It gets worse. What should the 30% party do knowing its efforts will be coat-tailed by the much smaller party? It is actually more effective to drive that smaller party below the 5% threshold, making votes for it wasted. Then all this large party needs to form a government is find a party with a lone seat or two, with a small voter base. This in effect is what has happened, with the Maori party and ACT both performing this role.

To remind the reader, MMP is a negative system.

How to get rid of these communists, given they offer nothing, coat-tail others efforts and are enemies of civilisation. Three broad approaches appeal:

1. Organise a band of fifth columnists and have them join the Greens to wreck the party from within. Do this by having them promote every wackadoodle and extreme viewpoint the party comes up with. Help elect extremist elements within the Greens to high position within the party, and see the party turned off by the electorate and thus become unelectable. This is quite achievable as the party harbours these extremist elements in any case. It wouldn't be hard to fan the flames.

These fifth columnist elements should operate in semi-autonomous cells and have regular virtual meetings with external controllers to keep them on track with the primary goal, and to ensure these infiltrators do not become seduced by the party they've joined.

2. Separately, establish an alternative party for young people. While the Greens desperately try to attract new first time voters, they are actually a party established by boomers that reeks of privilege. The Greens are hypocrites, selling utopia to gullible people. Of course when these voters get older and enter the workforce, they soon learn that life is not the way the Greens see it and they soon change their support to a more mainstream party. This new party established by and run by young people would cut off the oxygen supply for the Greens.

However, this approach would be expensive to set up, and young voters are unreliable. Think about this then and how to ensure they wouldn't later merge with the Greens. 

3. Harness the conservative conservationist vote. Some within Greens stay within the party even though they're not communists. That's because they do not see a viable environmental alternative. These people realise that capitalism allows for growth, that simply taxing and throttling enterprise won't work in protecting the environment. These voters want markets to work within a framework that protects, not exploits nature. They're somewhat more pragmatic and realise mining, industry and agriculture is necessary to maintain standards of living. 

This approach is workable and could be successful. It'd work better if this new party could win an electorate seat. Boomers would be its core support, along with later generations, it would be able to fund itself and stay focused on its goal of crushing the Greens and replacing them with a better brand. In time, once the Greens are out they could reverse merger and take over the whole environmental ground politically, within a market economic framework.

My approach is part destruction, part construction. Social media marketing needs to be effective, and it has to be said that environment parties have not been good in this area, including the Greens. To be successful the game has got to be played harder and smarter.

What are your ideas?

Snob's Guide to New Zealand Making Comeback

 My book on navigating around New Zealand society is undergoing a resurgence. When first released it was always top 100 on Amazon's Australian and Oceanian Politics category in both the physical and Kindle format. As a Kindle read it also rated highly within travel guides, a subject it does also address. But then it fell away, still selling but not enough to push it back into the limelight.

Recently readers have started borrowing the book from the Kindle Lending Library, which is new for me as in the past people bought the book. I know how much of the book gets read this way as I'm paid by the page through the Kindle Lending Library. My last two books get read completely when borrowed which I'm told is quite rare. Books are generally not read properly, readers skip pages, more than 20% of each book can be skipped through in fact. These readers later claim to have finished the book, when they haven't done that at all. So it's nice to know that my efforts are appreciated or at least hold the reader.

Why the comeback for Snob's Guide to New Zealand? I think the answer is twofold, people in the US are unhappy with the way things are headed there and maybe looking to escape. The other is controversy surrounding NZ's election and the possibility of electoral interference there as well. Readers are interested to know how the NZ system works, and exactly how its electoral system is flawed.

You can read my book by following this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J9XRCWK

It's an easy read, written in an accessible way, but it's not endless gush either, if you want to know exactly how NZ operates, this is your first port of call. You get the lowdown, need to know stuff.

Joe Biden 46th President

 A couple of points come to mind with the apparent election of Joe Biden as President of the US. The first is, remember 2016 and the electoral outcome in favour of Donald Trump, it was all about how Russian interference helped him get over the line. Now in 2020, the same group of people are saying election interference is simply not possible. Huh?

Then COVID-19, what's the bet with Joe Biden in office early next year, within a few weeks the US announces the pandemic is over. Daily reporting of cases will end, everything back to normal with travel worldwide starting again. Yeah, I think the chances of this happening are very good, what you think?

I predict a major war will be started by the US within 6 months of Biden being sworn in. I expect all those cheering his election will be fully behind this war and if old enough, volunteer to fight in it. That last sentence, yeah I know that won't happen, those cheering will hide in their universities and send the poor and uneducated to do the fighting. 

And what of Kamala Harris? She's a lot like NZ's Judith Collins, well educated lawyer, worked at the highest levels, a safe pair of hands and tough on crime.

Failure of the Polls

The outcome of the US Election hangs in the balance, Joe Biden has the inside track and may win, while Donald Trump still clings on and he could come through to win. However, in all of this confusion one thing does stand out and that is the failure of the American polling companies to make any prediction. The conclusion must be that the pollsters are now trying to influence outcomes rather than reflect or report which way the wind is blowing. Henceforth, we should never trust these poll results, they're clearly worthless.

UK Minister Destroys BLM

About time this was said by someone in authority. Shut down Black Lives Matter...