If you're not too busy quoting other bloggers without linking to them or being unelected or something, I'd like a word.

I wouldn't normally be offended (and I certainly wouldn't be surprised) by a right-wing ideologue sneering at somebody who disagrees with him. Especially when said ideologue's name is written in such big letters at the top of their blog.

And yet...

Why are you so angry Aaron? Is Rodney Hide your momma, that you rage so when I diss him? Is that why you were googling alternate spellings of his surname?

I can't deny that I did spell His name in vain. Normally I would care. I was, for example, mortified to realise that, referring in a post to the belief that students' spelling ability is not as good as it used to be, I put the apostrophe in the wrong place.

But it's Rodney Hide and I don't care. I would have made up a spelling for his first name as well if it had occurred to me. Rodneyweiler. That would have been pretty funny.

Perhaps I just wanted to use a joke other than the one that no doubt plagued his childhood but still works admirably ("It's Rodney! Hide!","You can't run, because you're Rodney Hide!").

At any rate, somebody who managed to add no less than ten characters (a p p o i n t e d space) when quoting the personal description in my title line is in no position to cast stones.

By the way, do you actually know what the word 'dramaturg' means?

I admit that it's ACT's economic and social policies that really get on my wick - the fact that one of you occasionally says something sensible about human rights (other than property rights) is just the icing on the razor blade.

Now, by the end of that my little dialogue I was actually talking about the party generally. For instance, I'm aware that Stephen Franks may be one of the very, very few MPs who actually care about freedom of speech. Which is why his response to the flag-burning issue was so striking. And that's what I was thinking of.

I find that ACT's stated policy on cannabis reform is reasonably liberal and Mr Hide is 'strongly supportive' but their actions have yet to earn them a matching reputation. And really, for a party whose overriding principles are freedom of choice and personal responsibility, a reasonable drug policy is well, for pussies. They should be working actively to legalise them all! Let the invisible hand sort it out!

You address neither my main point (the hypocrisy of ACT's particular solution to the Awatere-Huata Question) or, I note, my unsupported general aspersion of Deborah Coddington.

And then, Aaron, you called me names. Though it is the most misunderstood of the seven words they never used to able to say on American radio, it's word that I last used in anger to characterise David Irving. Sure, I called him a cast-iron tit, but I object being placed in the same category.

Anyway, Aaron (if that's your real name), you wrote a post to sneer at me and you'll no doubt describe me as whinging now. So we're even now, right? I promise that, should we ever meet, I won't try to nationalise you. Oh, except...

It was a joke, Aaron.

You know what a joke is, right?

Right?

I don't want to go too deeply into the principles of behavioral psychology, but I had issues with the approach of the drink-drive ads. Showing terrible things happening to people who drink and drive won't work nearly as well as show people being rewarded for not drink-driving. For being a sober driver. For leaving the car. For not taking the car because you're going to be drinking. For stopping someone else driving drunk.

Since, in the real world, the reward for driving sober is not injuring yourself or others (or at least being less likely to), there's a place for the negative message by way of comparison. And I understand there has been the occasional positive ad in the drink-drive campaign. I never saw any. Mind you, I haven't had a TV in a while.

The new campaign has been announced amid much tutting about the level of and attitude towards 'binge drinking' in New Zealand. I'm not sure how many of the newsreaders and talkback hosts would be able to keep a straight face if every time they quoted the ALAC study they had to say that a 'binge' is defined as seven or more standard drinks in one session. Ah, yes. How often have we heard it: "I went on such a bender last night. I got through seven-eighths of a bottle of wine!"

Drinking at that amount in one go is no doubt bad for you. Probably worse that drinking rather more but spread over the whole week. And god knows drunk people get into enough other trouble. But there will be a lot of resistance if they expect people to limit their consumption that much.

Anyway, trying to stop people getting drunk is not so much like stopping them drink-driving as it is like stopping them smoking, This can be expected to be much harder. Not only are they both addictions but in both cases the health consequences arrive on a scale of years, quite unlike the immediate results that can be achieved by driving while intoxicated. This makes it harder to sell and, as I say, the negative approach isn't the best anyway. All it will do is make the drunks surlier.

Besides, ads about the dangers of smoking just make smokers realise it's time for a cigarette. And as a matter of fact, I'm feeling more and more like fixing myself a gin and tonic as I write this.

There are other options. Jim Anderton suggests putting the drinking age back up, and there's always more tax. Both of these would vex me intensely, but they would have a noticable effect on the levels of drinking. The Government (though it is talking about more enforcement of the current laws) is dismissing these as 'not enough' and is instead concentrating exclusively on an option which even they expect to take years before it starts working.

Which probably explains why the campaign has the support of the Beer Wine and Spirits Council.

Listening to their spokesman maintaining that it wasn't actually in their financial interest to have people drink as much as they can, I was reminded of a pamphlet I once saw (I think they put it out). It was about the benefits of moderate drinking. As I recall, beer contains some vitamins and minerals as well as many important calories. One the positive side, I don't think they resorted to calling wine fruit.

There was, however, a graph showing the point where the benefits to the heart of drinking was outweighed by the detriments to the liver. It was drawn as a line graph when it should have been a bar chart and the illness curve bottomed out at a liquor consumption that I estimated to be about twice as high as it should have been.

If these people are in favour of an ad campaign, I take it as conclusive proof that it won't damage their sales.

Besides, if the consequences are supposed to make stop people drinking, how come people put up with hangovers?

The recent discovery that Guantanamo Bay is, in fact, a little slice of America has caused important changes. Most notably, detainees have a new joke: "Land of the Free. Ha ha ha ha ha ha." Further court rulings promise to provide more hilarity in the future.

The playful abbreviation "Gitmo" appears to be a reference to "Pomo" or Postmodernism, a philosophy known for questioning traditional enlightenment values and rational thought.

Camp X-Ray So called because it transparently breaches human rights.

Detainee One being held by the authorities who has not yet been found to be a prisoner. Detainees should be kept uncharged as long as possible; it is assumed that the case against them will mature with cellaring.

A detainee has no noteworthy human rights. These are considered forfeited by said detainee’s being captured fighting in the hills of Afghanistan, or in the Tora Bora caves, or sitting in a cab in Kabul, or minding their own business in Pakistan or Africa.

Terror Suspect A form of detainee. Held, for all this lexicographer can tell, under suspicion of being scary.

Geneva Conventions A series of rules drafted with the wide-eyed idealistic intention of making life less horrible. Under the conventions a prisoner may be either a civilian charged with some particular crime or an enemy fighter held as a prisoner of war. Both are to be treated according to certain standards.

Once ratified by the government the Conventions have the force of law and as such are cited indignantly or breached flagrantly as circumstances dictate.

Prisoner of War One who was fighting for the other side and is now in your custody. Under the relevant Geneva Convention, cannot be charged with fighting against your soldiers etc. and is to be released once the war in question is over.

War in Afghanistan A war that you would have thought was over.

Enemy Combatant One who was fighting for the other side and is now in your custody. Also used of those suspected of terrorist actions or sympathies. The outmoded concept of ‘criminal justice’ is apparently not able to deal with such people, necessitating the invention of this admirable legal fiction.

War on Terror Not a proper war. The on terror should be taken as abrogative rather than descriptive. Compare counterfeit money, virtual sex, Republican moral values.

Certainly, voters who might currently swing either way will be attracted to Kerry’s pro-gay stance. And he has promised to bring Americans together in a way that Bush has not, evoking images of interracial harmony and consensual international action. But Kerry has not shown the skilful handling of the American swinger that Bill Clinton famously displayed.

He has not demonstrated that he really shares the swingers’ interests - has not got inside them, does not understand how their heads work. Still, while the Democrat’s central claim, that Kerry is ‘Better Than Bush’, seems to be inherently implausible to almost half the population of American, these swingers seem prepared to at least consider it.

Republicans responded by playing on the perception of Kerry as ‘soft’, where the President is considered ‘hard’. The campaign has been punctuated by Bush leading crowds of supporters in the merciless chant of “flip-flop!”

But what’s important to swinging states like Florida, Iowa, and Ohio is surely that intimate touch. The sense of personal connection. This modern campaign is far removed from those vanished days when you could expect a candidate knocking on your door, saying something like, “I have to confess I find your girlfriend very attractive, and my Laura thinks you’re pretty hot yourself”.

Besides, if we contrast Bush’s rhetoric with actual policy then, as usual, discrepancies emerge. His negative interpretation of Kerry’s claimed ‘multiple positions’ reinforces his fundamentalist reputation. But still more unhelpful is his avowed determination to put the “affairs” of Americans “into their own hands”.

Coverage of the race has centred on personal style. Bush has played up his unyielding firmness. Some claim that very rigidity allows him to be used as a tool, covertly manipulated to the ends of the rich and powerful. Kerry has contrasted this with his own flexibility and willingness to respond to feedback. Detractors wonder whether he has the resilience to stay up through the wild ride of a modern presidency.

Bizarrely, the Bush campaign seems pleased to stand on his record. I don’t know just what this presidency may have achieved for these swingers who are suddenly the centre of so much international fascination. But a vote for Bush is a vote for even more of the same.

If you think America’s been fucked now, imagine how much more fucked it could be after another four years.