Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Neil:
To be quite blunt, I'd take anything anyone in the US has to say about Iraq with a grain of salt - and a whole case of tequila.
And Russell wrote:
Sigh ... but Rakon isn't 80% owned by the New Zealand government, is it? Even if you take the view that the charter flight is of no account, it's a bit silly to pretend it's exactly the same thing.
No - but there's also some interesting wrinkles in talking about 'social responsibility' when it comes to investing the Cullen Fund as well. As I said at the time, there are folks out there who would consider it 'socially irresponsible' to invest in companies - like Air New Zealand - that offer spousal benefits to the same-sex partners of employees, market their goods and services to gays and lesbians etc. And my Muslim neightbours would be horrified if I invested their retirement savings in a pig farm or a vineyard - investments, I suspect, that would not be problematic to most PA readers as long as they were well-run and profitable.
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Home theatre with all the bells and whistles, and screw what it's doing to the balance of trade! Just get off your arses and participate, that's all I'm saying - because by international standards, it's absurdly easy to do so in New Zealand.
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are we friends with war zones now?
Well, since you asked the question, nz native, I'd say Timor-Leste has quite a way to go before it could be classed as a "real functioning country" - and the political instability and violence over the last sixteen months or so didn't help matters any.
I sure hope they can continue to rely on the moral and practical 'friendship' of New Zealand - God knows they need it.
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I'm very curious to know what Key's been so quick to tell his tale? I doubt he feels there's an advantage to it, rather I suspect he's had prior warning of some anonymous tip-off to the press.
Perhaps, but come one... he's a filthy rich yuppie scumbag and we all know that they're perverts. :) (Conversely, the thought of Sue Kedgley taking the girls out after a hard day at the UN to drunkenly ckeck out the talent in a Manhattan boy bar is just too hideous for words.)
More seriously, if Key's media advisors are halfway competent they should be anticipating stories like this and shutting them down. And, in a weird way, I think it is an advantage for Key; just as it was very smart from Tim Grosser to say in the face of certain recent allegations "yes, I have smoked pot - not proud of it, but it happened - just not when I was a senior diplomat."
I think we can be quite forgiving of deeply flawed (even quite sleazy) politicians. What people don't like is the sense that they're being played for fools - after all, wasn't the great lesson of Watergate that it's not the crime that ultimately brings you down, but the cover up?
God knows in the rich history of rat-bastardry that is Australian politics, Rudd is as close to squeaky clean as anyone's likely to get. :) -
After all, every state in America suffers internationally because Florida couldn't count chads. Them's the breaks.
Yes, Kyle, just as my blood pressure suffers when people who can't be bothered voting in local body elections (which hardly requires standing in line for hours on end on a winter weekday) spend the next three years bitching and whinging about the results. And IMNSHO, the turnout three years ago - and the issues around counting the votes in some parts of the country - doesn't give New Zealanders a great purchase on the moral high ground to patronise the Yanks.
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All too typical, unfortunately, especially on any story that involves a modicum of technical understanding. It's still shitty. I'm sure The Press would be unhappy if I took one of its stories and presented it as my own.
And just to get really weird, back when I was blogging for NZPundit I got a spectacularly toxic e-mail from a (former) Herald columnist who was more offended that I didn't give up the linky-love, than the fact the post ripped her as a barely-literate imbecile whose grasp of reality was rather tenuous. Ain't the human ego grand? :)
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Clark's bite-back is political, but I can understand why she wouldn't want to be patronised by Downer.
Then again, Russell, I will be more than understanding if Downer just happens to release notes of the meeting where he briefed Clark about the invite to speak at the National Party conference two months before the event, and which raised no concerns on her part -- you know, the briefing she now denies ever took place. I don't like being patronised either; but I like being called a liar even less.
To be honest, I guess you've got a point - and I've expended more meat RAM on this than it really deserves. But I just have to wonder if Clark's misread the domestic mileage to be gained from pouring petrol on a political bushfire that was dying down nicely over the weekend. Watching Clark and Downer try to out-butch each other is moving from tragi-comedy to the plain tragic.
And while John Key and Kevin Rudd are at it, I have to confess I went to a bar in Patpong Road once, but thankfully I can't remember anything about it.
I think I can top that, Richard - was at a stag party last year, where there was a stripper. Ended up getting in touch with my inner prude on the deck, where I shared a cig with her (extremely butch) minder and we marvelled at the mysterious creature that is the straight man. Just don't get the appeal of watching a complete stranger polish a pole with their arse cheeks.
Anyway, I guess we should be thankful that Hone went walkabout in the Outback rather than doing fieldwork on minority representation in the *cough* adult entertainment industry.
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Jeremy, thank you for the best laugh I've had in ages...
One of Britain's leading conservative newspapers has sprung to Mr Rudd's defence.
The Daily Telegraph says the MP's excursion to the Scores club in 2003 is nothing to be ashamed of.
It said striptease was invented in New York and as such is a major cultural attraction that should not be missed.
Golly... someone should tell the folks at The Torygraph that the Ba-da-Bing is in Jersey, and its been a few years since you you could find a coochie dancer or porno theatre within coo-ee of Times Square. Popular culture lies again. Damn that prude Giuliani - I guess I'll have to settle for a Broadway show instead!
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He's a social-justice Christian, rather than a moral-right Christian.
Should I give him a cookie? I'm a get-the-ballot-box-the-hell-out-of-my-church Christian who wishes Arnold Vinnick wasn't a fictional character. Watching Tony Abbot and Rudd trying to prove who's the "better" Christian was a sight only fit of bullemics - because it sure made me want to vomit. We talk a lot about the separation of Church and State; it might be time to have the kind of conversation some evangelicals are in the US about separating the soapbox and the pulpit.
A very wise priest once said to be that Jesus didn't have a party rosette pinned to his chest, and politicians (who are prey to the same moral failings as everyone else, regardless of party) could do with being reminded of that.
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On whether it matters: well, it clearly matters to frequent flyers like Paul Campbell. A lot.
Well, Russell, I don't particularly like the record of the Chinese Government on human rights,the treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, labour and environmental standards, copyright and intellectual property standards, that it executes more of its citizens every year than the evil Americans have managed in the last three decades, or their shabby harassment and intimidation of journalists and politicians in this country, That matters to me a lot, too - whether that's an argument for Air New Zealand to stop carrying Chinese citizens or cargo is quite another.
Sorry, but I stand by my comment that if anyone sucked the Australian Government into our domestic politics it wasn't him. And Downer is perfectly entitled to respond in the manner he did - because I don't think Clark would be very impressed by having (say) our presence in Afghanistan dragged into political debate in Australia.
Look Russell, I'll put it quite cynically - perhaps there's a long game being played here, and Clark thinks a combo of 'Iraq' and evil scum Aussies is going to be much-needed poll boost at home, and Downer is (politically) irrelevant. Maybe she's right - but, really, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that this is another massive over-reaction that came out of a typically over-amped Investigate beat-up.
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