Light Blogging

Hi folks: I'm moving house. Blogging will certainly be light until that particular source of stress has passed, and will probably be light until there's an internet connection at the new place.

Looking At Ōhariu: [5] Vote-Splitting, Again

OK, so it occurs to me that my most recent post in this series was kinda half-assed. Here's a more comprehensive look at vote-splitting data in Ōhariu (formerly Ohariu–Belmont) for the two elections—2005 and 2008—where such data is available.

First up, here are the tables, which are reverse-constructed from here and here, respectively. Informal candidate-votes are excluded, and there is some (small) rounding error.

2005	Sapsford	Chauvel	Shanks	Dunne	Other	Total
Green	658	902	60	469	47	2136
Labour	1047	7888	169	5017	339	14460
National	111	104	6749	8403	531	15898
Other	63	246	351	2957	587	4204
Total	1879	9140	7329	16846	1504	36698

2008	Hughes	Chauvel	Shanks	Dunne	Other	Total
Green	1152	1514	173	527	83	3449
Labour	1055	8819	286	2038	316	12514
National	279	210	8740	7831	449	17509
Other	179	754	810	1906	603	4252
Total	2665	11297	10009	12302	1451	37724

Now, most people—normal people—can't just look at a table of numbers and get a feel for the data. So I've taken the liberty of preparing some charts.

The first charts look at where the major candidates got their votes from:

The next charts reverse this: for each of the party-vote, we get to see where the candidate-vote went:

And last, and really just for fun, here's a couple of charts that combine all that information together:

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This is the fifth post in a series: Looking at Ōhariu. I'll update the links below as the series expands.

Background
Dunne's Dilemma
Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?
Vote-Splitting Table
Vote-Splitting, Again

Three Links [1]

Dear type-A parent...; is Greece too big to fail?; I don't wanna be a terrorist any more.

I've decided to retire the title Assorted Links From My Internet Travels. I feel a bit silly describing three of anything as an assortment, and these posts have settled quite firmly into a routine format that consists of, well, three links. Any fewer, and I don't feel like I'm giving you your money's worth; any more, and the time spent on the compilation becomes prohibitive.

Beautiful

It's a wonderful day in Wellington today. Last month, it was always either too hot or too cold: today is just right.

I gave some thought to blogging my games from Wellington Chess Club this year: after an annihilation last night in the first game of the year, I've decided that this would just be too too embarrassing. So sorry about that. Admittedly, the dude who mashed me up has a rating of 2358, so this result was not a surprise at all. But I didn't acquit myself very well at all; failing as black to develop my queen's bishop in the Scandinavian opening. I got horribly cramped, and by move 22, crushed.

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

Faced with abstraction, the human body responds with literalism (smells like Gladwell fodder); horrifying but hypnotic nuclear-test footage; the king of cognitive shortcuts: easy = true.

Independent Foreign Policy

Kiwi politico types are fond of declaring that New Zealand has "an independent foreign policy", and taking slightly ridiculous pride out of the ill-defined phrase.

Too often, when people say it, it just means "we poke stocks in the eyes of the Americans, just because we can! Please say we're special."

The driving narrative is one of immunity to great-power pressure. In its more sober articulations, it sounds nice.

But there's a problem. It's simply not true.

There exists in our foreign policy a major inconsistency—I go further and call it an absurdity and an obscenity—that's derived from nothing but our craven compliance with the demands of a bullying great power.

The situation is this: we have a major trading partner—twelfth by export volume—that we don't even recognize as a state. We don't recognize it because we have more-powerful trading partner that has systematically bullied nations around the globe into pretending it's an illegitmate breakaway.

We don't recognize Taiwan.

Our diplomatic relations with Taiwan are conducted not by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, but by a branch of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.

The great power whose bullying prevents us from recognizing Taiwan is, of course, the People's Republic of China, which regards—utterly independent of the fact that it's Taiwan and not China that governs Taiwan and that this has been the case since before the People's Republic of China even existed—Taiwan as a component; a part of the "one China".

We comply because of, well, money. We trade lots with the PRC.

That's not a good enough reason.

The PRC is a one-party police state with a track record of violently supressing independent nations. The PRC's territorial ambitions over Taiwan are well-broadcast: it wants to turn Taiwan into another Tibet.

Taiwan is a multi-party democracy with a human rights record that has improved by leaps and bounds over the last twenty years. It is now one of the freest parts of Asia.

But because one of these countries is a great power with a UN veto and big economic leverage, we meekly accept its demands to pretend the other doesn't exist.

It's time for New Zealand stopped paying lip service the idea of an independent foreign policy, and started conducting one. It's time for New Zealand to recognize Taiwan.

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

Welcome to geopolitical Limbo, land of not-quite countries; how to use the semicolon; thinking small on nuclear power.

A Distressing Paragraph

There’s a new edition of Dante’s “Inferno” that’s recently begun appearing in bookstores. Same words. Different cover. It’s got a big picture of a muscular fellow in a spiky crown and an overline that says, “The literary classic that inspired the epic video game.”

Yes, you read that right.

It occurs to me that the makers of the game are either corrupters—corrupting the great poem—, or flatterers—flattering the poem with a slightly bizarre form of imitation—; this, in Dante's shceme, puts them in either the first or the second gulf of the eigth circle of Hell.

Bonus distressing paragraph:

“If you’re trying to make an action game, it’s thin,” Jonathan Knight, the game’s executive producer, said of the original text. “It’s Dante, who’s kind of passive, and he’s a poet and he’s philosophical. We had to take the bold step of saying, ‘How do we make this guy an action hero?’ ”

Labour: Ōhariu Ripe For The Picking

In anticipation of interesting 2011 races, Labour is fast-tracking nominations for five electorates.

Jacinda Ardern will stand in Auckland Central; Carol Beaumont in Maungakiekie; and Damien O'Connor in West Coast–Tasman. Four of people—Phil Twyford (list MP), Carmel Sepuloni (list MP), Ann Pala, and Hamish McCracken—have put their hands up for Waitakere.

Most relevant to my current blogging, Charles Chauvel will once again stand in Ōhariu.

In all five of these seats, National won the party vote in 2008.

Seat	MP	Party	Majority	National PV	Labour PV
Auckland Central	Kaye	NAT	1497	14112	12116
Maungakiekie	Lotu-Iiga	NAT	1942	14903	13873
Ōhariu	Dunne	UF	1006	17670	12728
Waitakere	Bennett	NAT	632	12952	12498
West Coast–Tasman	Auchinvole	NAT	971	15187	11532

I'll say more about some of the notions in the Stuff article when I'm done with my Ōhariu series. Suffice for now to say that it's inconceivable Katrina Shanks will step aside for Peter Dunne.

UPDATE: David Farrar comments. He also gives you some Ōhariu stats I was going to feed you later...

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

Bazkashi: awesomest of sports; solar-powered cellphones coming sometime soon; modernizing Mickey Mouse.

Looking At Ōhariu: [4] Vote-Splitting Table

This is a reference post, containing just a table that I'll be coming back to, and often.

The table is reverse-constructed from this page of electoral returns.

Note that since the Electoral Office has seen fit to give these figures as percentages rounded to 2dp, there is some unavoidable and negligible rounding error. What I'm saying is that each entry in this table, for all I know, could be out by one to three votes. I hope you don't mind.

I've excluded informal candidate votes, which is why the party-vote totals might look unfamiliar.

	Hughes	Chauvel	Shanks	Dunne	Other	Total
GRN	1152	1514	173	527	83	3449
LAB	1055	8819	286	2038	316	12514
NAT	279	210	8740	7831	449	17509
OTHER	179	754	810	1906	603	4252
Total	2665	11297	10009	12302	1451	37724

Oh, what the heck: here's a picture. Enjoy.

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This is the fourth post in a series: Looking at Ōhariu. I'll update the links below as the series expands.

Background
Dunne's Dilemma
Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?
Vote-Splitting Table
Vote-Splitting, Again

Ouch!

Well, this is the danger of running a regular political poll: you might survey a high-profile journalist who'll seize the opportunity to dish on all your questions.

So consolations therefore to David Farrar, whose company, Curia, called up Fran O'Sullivan and had a lovely chat, wherein she was asked brief questions and presumably scribbled them down. The odds of this are long: seriously long. It was just crap luck.

But for all the Lefties who want insight into Farrar's dark arts, well, now's your chance.

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

Climate hacking; Jefferson and Haiti; ten natural imposters.

Alan Bollard on Inflation-Targeting

via Bernard Hickey, a speech made today by Alan Bollard on inflation-targeting. I'm reading it now. You should, too.

Looking at Ōhariu: [3] Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?

The second thing to notice from the 2011 Ōhariu candidate vote is that Charles Chauvel and Gareth Hughes, between them, attained more votes than Peter Dunne.

Here's that pie-chart again:

(Now you see why I arranged the slices in a funny order. Also, I put black borders around the slices to separate the red and green, which clash horrifically.)

As Chauvel (LAB) and Hughes (GRN) are both in left-of-centre parties, it seems that the Left vote was split, costing Charles Chauvel the Ōhariu seat.

Was Gareth Hughes a spoiler? And will his higher profile as an MP make him an even bigger spoiler? That is, could Hughes effectively hand Ōhariu back to Peter Dunne (whose hold on the seat is shaky at best)?

Most intriguingly, could Hughes carve off so much of Chauvel's vote that Chauvel not only fails to defeat Dunne in 2011, but is overtaken by Shanks? How does the calculus change if Peter Dunne retires?

Not all is quite as it seems. I'll come back to this tomorrow, but until then, please speculate.

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This is the third post in a series: Looking at Ōhariu. I'll update the links below as the series expands.

Background
Dunne's Dilemma
Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?
Vote-Splitting Table
Vote-Splitting, Again

Looking at Ōhariu: [2] Dunne's Dilemma

The first thing to notice from the 2011 Ōhariu candidate vote is that Peter Dunne's—and, by extension, United Future's—position is much more precarious it used to be.

Here's a table and a chart showing Dunne's electorate majority and candidate vote-share in each of the five elections conducted under MMP (informal votes excluded; note before the 2008 election, the seat was called Ohariu-Belmont, and included Belmont but not Crofton Downs).

Year	Votes Cast	Dunne	Percentage	Majority
1996	32486	15915	49.0%	8516
1999	35264	20240	57.4%	12557
2002	33397	19355	58.0%	12534
2005	36693	16844	45.9%	7702
2008	37724	12303	32.6%	1006

Peter Dunne is in a bind. Until now, he has been able to engage in a party-vote campaign for his party—United Future, formerly United New Zealand—by assuring voters that, even if his party does not attain 5% of the nationwide party vote, it is still sure of representation in Parliament proportionate to its party-vote share due to Dunne's "safe" seat.

This seat is no longer safe.

United Future is presently a one-man band. The other solo show in Parliament—Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party—looks rather like it's being wound up. Will United Future follow?

The question I imagine Peter Dunne asking himself is this: why risk an ignominious defeat in 2011, when he can retire gracefully after a long and distinguished career, safe in the knowledge that he's not taking anyone else in his party down with him?

The question I want to ask you is this: how does a Peter Dunne retirement or non-retirement affect the race for Ōhariu in 2011?

I've got some ideas, but speculation is so much fun that I reckon y'all will want in on the action.

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This is the second post in a series: Looking at Ōhariu. I'll update the links below as the series expands.

Background
Dunne's Dilemma
Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?
Vote-Splitting Table
Vote-Splitting, Again

Looking at Ōhariu: [1] Background

Yesterday, Jeanette Fitzsimons announced her retirement. Under MMP, the next person on the Green Party list replaces her in Parliament: that is #11, Gareth Hughes.

Now, Hughes stood for Ōhariu last election. This makes Ōhariu in 2011 a four-MP race, and easily the most interesting electorate to watch in the next election.

After about a day of dithering, I've decided not to blog the election model/sim I've been working on fitfully for the last fifteen months: it's still very much a work in progress, and I'm not sure I just want to give it away in the first place.

That said, there's no reason I can't blog about the race without resorting to such heavy machinery. So I'll give you a few posts on the ramifications in Ōhariu of Hughes's entry into Parliament.

The Contenders

I anticipate that four MPs will contest Ōhariu in 2011: Peter Dunne (UF); Charles Chauvel (LAB); Katrina Shanks (NAT); and Gareth Hughes (GRN). These four all contested the seat in 2008.

Here's a look at how the candidate vote went down in Ōhariu in 2008 (informal votes excluded):

Candidate	Votes	Percentage
Dunne (UF)	12303	32.6%
Chauvel (LAB)	11297	29.9%
Shanks (NAT)	10009	26.5%
Hughes (GRN)	2665	7.1%
Other	1450	3.8%
TOTAL	37724	100.0%

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This is the first post in a series: Looking at Ōhariu. I'll update the links below as the series expands.

Background
Dunne's Dilemma
Gareth Hughes, Spoiler?
Vote-Splitting Table
Vote-Splitting, Again

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

What colour were the dinosaurs?; the grasping hand; the most bizarre terrorist plots.

Meet Your New MP

The thirteen years Jeanette Fitzsimons spent in Parliament were distinguished by her hard work and quiet dignity (barring only a recent and deeply unfortunate lapse into 9/11 conspiracy theorizing).

Here is my challenge to her heir: match this record. Youthful energy is all well and good. But now you have a forum in which you can lead debates of national significance without recourse to cheap publicity stunts. Please avail yourself of this opportunity, lest the dignity of the House—diminished by the resignation of Fitzsimons—be diminished further.

Is It Just Me...

...or has this blog been getting worse lately? A bit of an apology: I haven't really had my head in the game (job-hunting and flat-hunting aren't going particularly well).

I'm working up more republic stuff, but even I'm amazed at how quickly momentum's fallen away from that discussion since Prince William left our fair shores. Geometry will make a return once I have a decent number of posts up my sleeve—it's easier to write them several at a time than daily—; I'm considering a return to some prediction-market stuff (though I'm still not sure how to write on that for an audience that doesn't necessarily know a lot of probability theory).

I'm not really sure yet what this blog is going to be this year, but I think I want to step back a bit from the excessive self-indulgence of my "thinky" posts: posts that, looking back, often haven't been all that well thought-out.

But for now, is there anything y'all would like me to look at and maybe write about? My preference is for something pretty light. I've got a couple of hours to burn this afternoon.

Feedback? Advice?

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

A spy story; why big languages are simple; grieving.

Bloggy Reaction To Three-Strikes

I've not yet posted any of my own thoughts on the proposed "three-strikes" law. Such slackness has a concomitant benefit: I get to read other people's views before formulating my own. In theory, at least, that means I should have something smarter to say than I otherwise would. No promises.

First, the proposed policy.

There's a list of 36 offences that carry strikes. What these offences already have in common is that they already carry maximum sentences ranging from seven years to life, and that they're all either violence or sex offences (except in some cases, robbery, where merely the threat of violence accompanying a theft is sufficient to trigger §234 of the Crimes Act).

When convicted of a strike offence, you get told that you're on strike one; otherwise, sentencing is as normal. When convicted of a strike offence while on strike one, you're told you're on strike two; the judge sentences you as normal, except that you're not eligible for parole. Upon conviction of a strike offence while on strike two, you get the maximum sentence for your offence, with no possibility of parole (barring "manifest injustice": a very narrow test).

Reaction is mixed.

Eric Crampton is provisionally pleased. He notes that this is an improvement on the original proposal (which madated a 25-year prison term on strike three): the new proposal does a better job of preserving marginal deterrence, as the third-strike severity-shift problem (robbery and murder getting the same punishment) is attenuated.

Graeme Edgeler is less impressed. He notes that the amended regime would affect many more offenders than the original proposal. It does this, because the trigger for a strike is merely conviction of a strike-bearing offence: the previous proposal attached strikes to five-year sentences rather than convictions. He also has issues with the manslaughter problem: read his post.

Bomber Bradbury incorrectly conflates compelling an indecent act with an animal—i.e. forcing someone else to do bestiality—with bestiality; and in his post's title, incorrectly asserts that, if the conflation holds, then bestiality as strike three draws a life sentence.

Gordon Campbell objects. I'm sympathetic to the thrust of his objections: prison capacity and the cost thereof, and the fact that "tougher sentencing" doesn't necessarily address the causes of crime.

Tim Watkin has three strikes against three strikes; I'm afraid that he gets a little bit specious.

The hack about ACT, "the party that reputedly stands for individual freedom, has won the greatest extension of state power over individual liberty that I can remember" is just silly: I don't think there's anyone in ACT who doesn't think punishing criminals is an illegitmate part of the state's function. Watkin seems to be confusing the scope of state power with the strength of state power.

Watkin's written before, persuasively, that the parole part of a life sentence ought to be regarded as a part of the sentence. But I don't quite understand his objection that on strike three, the nature of the life sentence is changed (from a bunch of time in prison followed by a lifetime of restrictive parole conditions, to a lifetime in prison): isn't this, in fact, the point of the bill?

The objection regarding the dilution of judicial discretion is a strong one: in fact, it's something I've been thinking about myself. I may or may write about it later.

Watkin's last objection—that paroled offenders are less likely to reoffend than people released after serving a full prison term—just reads to me like the mother of all selection biases: surely those offenders who get rejected by parole boards get rejected because, well, the parole boards deem them likely to reoffend.

Anyway, I'll probably write my own thoughts on all this at some point. I just thought I'd share what I've been reading on the subject, along with some superficial impressions.

Demented Genius

Russ Roberts of the brilliant Café Hayek has teamed up with John Papola, a producer/director, to create what may well represent the apex of nerd-rap. It must be seen to be believed.

A tip'o'the hat to Paul Walker, who posted on this yesterday. Since then, I've kinda been obsessed with this: I truly can't get enough of it.

Assorted Links From My Internet Travels

The next industrial revolution; the accidental music lesson; Google versus Beijing.

The List Of Things I Never Ever Want To See...

...is long and daily grows. But today's addition is notable for its rapid ascent to the very top tier. I would sooner tear my eyes out than watch the John Edwards sex tape, which Gawker assures me exists.

For background on the most spectacular political implosion in, well, my living memory, check out the excerpt from Heilemann's and Halperin's Game Change.