Hard News: Not Okay
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Ah, that page! I forgot all about it. 'Levitate Me' in the style of the Beach Boys was my favourite, as I recall.
Ew that was horrible - but not quite as bad as 'Wave of Mutilation' getting the (sob) Bee Gees treatment. Don't know about anyone else, but half the fun of The Pixies for me was watching pretty pop getting bottled - smoothing out all the arfully-constructed sharp edges is just so far beside the point it's painful.
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The really depressing thing about that Moore column is not what it says about Labour (nothing, other than a reminder of the depths to which they plunged in the 1980s), nor even what it says about Moore himself (vacuous and grammatically challenged), but rather what it says about the quality of democracy in our country.
Democracies struggle to be better than the information flows within them. Yet here we have the Herald - the country's strongest newspaper - giving columns to a man who can't write and, from the evidence at hand, can't think either.
This isn't a partisan point: were I a right-winger I would be just as frustrated. There are much better critiques of the government that could be being made.
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"The sanctimonious nature of everyone in that ALAC ad is enough to drive anyone to drink."
I don't know, the situation of that ad was someone elses wedding and Dad & his daughter were guests and it was closer to how I remebered the last time I did a back spin at a Xmas party.
4 lovely ladies "Is he with you?" My Mates "No".I like these ads a heap better than the bloody grewsome driving safety ads. A few years back I had to change channels when one of them came on. I really don't like to be brutalised by TV shock ads.
That we see Phil Giff on TV again, there are worse things.
What does Moore do these days?
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This isn't a partisan point: were I a right-winger I would be just as frustrated. There are much better critiques of the government that could be being made.
Terence, didn't you get the memo: The media are all Key's tame bitches anyway or tools of the dykeocracy or something... so what do you expect? I'm being sarcastic, but I'm dismayed by how many people you'd really expect to know better wouldn't see the joke.
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What does Moore do these days?
As far as I could tell from the Listener piece on him a while back, he basks in the sun while his surprisingly hot wife swans around in a bikini.
Mike! (to steal someone else's line) where did it all go wrong?
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Basking must pay well then, because Moore is quoted in the NZH as claiming: " It's an honour each week to pay more tax than a minister earns. I've discovered capitalism late in life."
Making head or tail of that first sentence isn't especially easy either.
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Did Audrey Young really write this? If so, does she believe it?
Moore may not have sway in the caucus any longer but he is still a popular and credible figure in New Zealand.
In terms of his popularity, my hunch would be that (at least until last week), more than 50% of New Zealanders wouldn't even remember who he was. I bet he is seldom stopped on the street by well-wishers.
As for credibility ... well, it can't be helped by illiterate rants.
A little something for apostrophe pedants - billboards throughout Waitakere City advertising well-known right wing duo:
"Its time to vote Neeson"
Not until they're literate it ain't.
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In respsone to whoever suggested Bassett is ghosting Moore - I doubt it. The style is pure Moore. I know a lot of people posting here won't like Bassett, but he can write and he can do joined up thinking.
And isn't Anderton happy? No-one's paid him this much attention since early 2002.
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DC, that is surprising about Neeson’s billboard.
He’s obviously far more in touch with his constituency than I’d imagined.
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Maybe Moore should take up blogging?
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Maybe Moore should take up blogging?
I think he should start with something less technically demanding. It appears there are blogs who'd cheerfully have him as a commenter.
Bur seriously: as I said last week, if Moore's prose reads like that after editing, what was it like when he filed it?
OTOH, there are some well-known (award-winning, even) opinion writers whose reputation is saved every damn week by their subs, so perhaps he's in good company.
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WH,
Moore's efforts have been quixotic and unfocussed in the sense that they invited the needless distraction of controversy. Given his status as an ex-Labour PM, it is strange that he chose to attack the party he still claims to support. He must have known that the reaction he would get.
Still, Moore is channelling a swing voter zeitgeist of dissatisfaction. No amount of on-message attacks are going to change that. Labour needs to find something else to talk about, because Moore is only an instantiation of the general problem the party faces.
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Bur seriously: as I said last week, if Moore's prose reads like that after editing, what was it like when he filed it?
Amen to that: Mike's always needed editing.
When I was working in the Radio NZ newsroom as a tape op back in '93 Mike Moore would regularly call up and offer to comment on the issues of the day - often in the very early morning. (my shift started at 0430)
'Hi it's Mike Moore here, do you have a tape rolling and I will give you some comment on <insert topic here>
At the time he was in opposition i think
There was a sign on the wall 'If Mike Moore calls please contact duty editor' - Subsequently his ramblings didn't get a lot of airtime on RNZ news. Didn't even get a lot of tape time...
Not sure if he had better luck over at IRN
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I think some ex-Prime Ministers should be listened to. My memory of Mike Moore is that he took over Labour about 6 weeks out from the election, kept it in freefall, and was about as unsuccessful as a PM or leader can be. I'm not even sure if he was PM long enough to warm the seat.
And he went off to the WTO, where he had to job share. Can't remember if he got the mornings or the afternoons, but whatever.
It's not exactly a stirring resume, and I can't see how it all qualifies him to comment on a third term, first-elected female, prime minister who's recognised as an international leader of some stature. Like her or loathe her, Mike Moore's about 2 foot tall in her shadow.
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And isn't Anderton happy? No-one's paid him this much attention since early 2002.
Certainly -and it must be a wee ego boost when this must have him quietly spewing into his cornflakes. If that isn't an admission that Anderton's 'jobs machine' never worked, I don't know what is.
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It's not exactly a stirring resume, and I can't see how it all qualifies him to comment on a third term, first-elected female, prime minister who's recognised as an international leader of some stature.
Kyle, I think we're well aware - and have been for many years - that Helen Margaret Clark is a woman. How that "disqualifies" Moore - or anyone else who happens to have a penis rather than a vagina - from commenting on her performance as Prime Minister, the parliamentary leader of her party or even as an MP currently escapes me.
I know the US media can still furrow their brows over the psychosexual implications of Senator Clinton's choice in pantsuit, or the Secretary of State wearing kinky boots in Germany. But hasn't the novelty value of women in political leadership roles worn off a little down here?
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The "embarrassing uncle" comment is brilliant. Moore is an odd figure, his columns never hit the mark. They are pompous and full of self importance, and in these most recent examples, bitterness. It still clearly irks him that alot of people still don't take him seriously. I remember a silly pretentious "Battle of Civilisations" type column he wrote for the Herald about Islam and the West post Sept 11. It seemed to me he was trying to ape that other grandiloquent fool Thomas Friedman.
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I don't think Kyle was making it a gender issue Craig. The only thing Kyle is guilty of is overstating Clark's stature abroad! She didn't even get a shout-out from Hillary Clinton on Letterman (which surely proves they're both Lesbians, right? a global dykeocracy is a comin'!!)
But seriously .... Clark's international stature will probably be more apparent once she leaves office. ie after the next election. I predict she'll be more successful than Moore. Much more.
Oh yes ... Shipley was elected by her caucus to roll Bolger, so she should get some props too ...?
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I don't like Clark for her personal insults to my family on the West Coast (that's of the Sth Island. The East Coast is only in the Nth Island :) & oh yeah the out lawing of basic human rights to test laws in court of a specific 'race', or as Kai Tahu are to me, my cousins.
That said Clark is strong and I believe highly respected overseas, 3 terms PM has gotta count for something.
Of the 3 women mentioned, Ghandi, Thatcher, & Merkin. Clark does fall into the cat. of "other women" (might be the only time she's termed in such a way) as Hillary called them.
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Richard Llewellyn said
Mike Moore ..... sorry, still can't get past the Lamb-burgers.
dc_red said:
Did Audrey Young really write this? If so, does she believe it?
"Moore may not have sway in the caucus any longer but he is still a popular and credible figure in New Zealand."
It has to be the lamb-burgers - what could be more synonymous with Mike? Nigras & watermelons, kiwis & lamb-burgers - despite Mike having got it totally arse-about back then re. the future of sheepmeat, like some daggy & flystruck Colonel Sanders he'll always have a place in the hearts of the lumpenproletariat.
Anyone who believes Moore to be "popular and credible" has to be terminally gullible or a snob on stilts.
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Whenever I think about Mike Moore I end up recalling a tiny snippet memory of Mcphael and Gadsby (sorry about the spelling) parodying him.
"And then you put it in the Mike-rowave"
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Craig, commenting that Clark is a woman is not utterly irrelevant. It's been historically much harder for woman to become the PM of NZ, so it makes it more of an achievement. Certainly way more of an achievement than Moore's laughable term, and I think that's what Kyle's saying.
Sure, it's an ad-hominem. What people have achieved in their life doesn't necessarily affect the quality of their opinions. And much of what Moore had to say is true. The gripes that people have with him are mostly around what a desperate backstabbing hypocritical twerp his rants make him look like. As for the content, it's not new, and is well played out on every political blog already.
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I think you are strectching a small bow over the ..-gasp... two category five hurricanes .
As this chart of the hurricane tracks shows , the Cat 5 status only lasts some few hours.
http://www.weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/2007/index.html
This can only be estimated by remote sensing, and like many stats they are revised (downwards ) later.
Two hurricanes from the famous 2005 year didint even last 24 hours
so reduces the count from 15 to 13.analysis show the numbers of hurricanes follows a stochastic process, so its highly unlikely that cheery picking statistics proves anything
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The 1780 Atlantic hurricane season was extraordinarily destructive, and was the deadliest Atlantic hurricane season in recorded history with over 25,000 deaths. Three different hurricanes, all in October, caused at least 1,000 deaths each; this event has never been repeated and only in the 1893 and 2005 seasons were there two such hurricanes. The season also held the deadliest Atlantic hurricane of all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1780_Atlantic_hurricane_season#1780_Atlantic_hurricane_seasonSo at around a return period of 100 years, you could get 3 major devasting hurricanes in one year.
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Kyle, I think we're well aware - and have been for many years - that Helen Margaret Clark is a woman. How that "disqualifies" Moore - or anyone else who happens to have a penis rather than a vagina - from commenting on her performance as Prime Minister, the parliamentary leader of her party or even as an MP currently escapes me.
It's not his penis that concerns me. If David Lange had made comments on Helen Clark, that'd be interesting. Geoffrey Palmer, as much as he was a flop leading into that election, he's a smart guy and did other good things in government, that'd be worth a look. Michael Cullen, whenever he goes, I'm sure will have interesting things to say, whether or not he says them.
Michael Moore? She rolled him for starters, so he probably doesn't like her very much. She's been very successful as leader of the labour party, he wasn't, so he's possibly just jealous. She's a significant leader in NZ history, he wasn't. Of course he's not going to be all roses about her, but that doesn't make him opening his mouth worthwhile.
Shouldn't we all be like that kid on the Simpsons and point at Moore and go "HAHA!"?
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