Posts by Craig Ranapia
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OK, the polling got that one right according to most sources. The Supreme Court however...
Well, since you brought that up -- you'd think the 2000 election, and Bush v. Gore, would have put paid to the notion that 'small' states don't matter. After all, if Gore had carried his home state's eleven electors (and he only lost the popular vote in Tennessee by 3.86%), then the result in Florida would have been electorally irrelevant.
Of course that would have been cancelled out if Bush had overcome Gore's 0.22% lead in Wisconsin (11 electors); and again, Florida wouldn't have mattered if Bush had also won three 'small' states where Gore's poplar vote margin was also less than one point: New Mexico (5 electors), Iowa and Oregon (7 each).
I'm also pretty sure everyone is hoping a way can be found to seat Florida and Michigan delegates at Denver that doesn't involve litigation.
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I'm not so sure that you can generalize basic poor customer service as the sole domain or norm of the public service...
Quite right, Russell C. And if I ever say something that stupid, you have permission to kick one in the head with your best pair of hob-nailed stilettos.
But here's the difference. Shit customer service in a cafe, and there's dozens of other alternatives where you can obtain a drinkable latte without wondering if the surly nitwit behind the counter has pissed in it.
Not quite such a range of choice when dealing with the Inland Revenue. Being a freelance writer, it does actually matter that I get accurate advice so I can meet my legal obligations. Nor do I particularly wish to waste time, money and energy better expended on productive labour (and the taxable income derived thereof) cleaning up the mess because some fuckwit didn't do their job in the first place.
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You can go by the Readers Digest version, I perfer some facts.
And I prefer to get my fiction from novelists not pollsters. Remember, Neil, if the polls at this point in an electoral cycle were reliable Neil Kinnock would have become Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1992, John Howard would never have been Prime Minister of anywhere and we'd be eagerly awaiting President Gore's valedictory.
And keep this in mind, dear, the fundamental flaw in any question that begins "if an election was held tomorrow" is that it fucking isn't.
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did i mention that i had to self-diagnose to get accurate information to the surgeon who was going to perform my a heart operation? (it's about four paragraphs down.)
Yup, and that's why I don't really give a shit about people who get into a fit of righteous indignation that my partner went private for his heart op. Getting records from Wellington was needlessly stressful -- and I hardly blame the surgeon for saying that he wasn't entirely comfortable frigging around with my BH's heart without some rather pertinent data.
I do get that the public health system isn't entirely staffed with gold-brickers sitting round all day, drinking coffee and plotting to make people's lives nasty, brutish and short. But there's also times you just don't want to be told that it's important to look at the big picture, and place the distress of someone you love in its proper context.
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The Readers Digest version:
Who's the big winner from all the crap flowing from the Clinton campaign.
McCain.
Now, as long as he doesn't lose his mind and select Romney as his running mate, I can live with a world in which John and Cindy are the tenants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But not if he and Clinton end up running the same old, same old game of who can throw the most shit that sticks before the clock runs out.
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I think not, Craig.
Seems to me she said [paraphrase]: If our opponents are going to run with an "experience counts" message, why would we want to stand a rookie up against them?
Perhaps, daleway, but I decided to take what she said at face value. And perhaps I'm a little naive, but I wouldn't expect a round of applause if I stood up in a National Party selection meeting and said the Labour nominee had "a lifetime of experience" as a way to dis my opponent as a lightweight. Not only dumb strategy when you're trying to appeal to a partisan audience, but what the hell does it mean? Obama is a zombie? He has no "life experience" because he's been in a coma since brith, or living in a bubble?
I've always said that the 'experience' card is a risky one for Clinton to run when -- as a simple matter of fact -- she's the least experienced, in terms of actual elected office, of the three of them. And attempts to talk up her foreign policy experience in Bosnia in 1996, um, turned to custard, so trading on her husband's record in the Oval Office isn't quite the winner it used to be either.
In the end, I really hope Hillary gets her advisors back on a very short choke chain because its embarrasing watching her campaign commit slow motion political suicide.
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Does John Key actually want to get any votes in Wellington?
Well, I know at least one nurse who would blow John Key in the middle of Civic Square if he personally lined up Wellington Hospital management and went Rambo on their arse. I don't think that place is so much dysfunctional as something out of the more frightening corners of grindhouse cinema.
I believe there are one or two people in Wellywood who are neither on the public payroll or the credits of LoTR.
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And according to Nancy Pelosi, Clinton also wrecked any chance of the "dream ticket".
Did anyone really take it seriously in the first place? Perhaps it might have worked, but not less than a week after the 'it's 3am, a phone rings in the White House' ad. For me, the real jump the shark moment was when Clinton rolled out the '“[McCain]’s never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002.”" She did realise she just said the Republican nominee would make a better President than the other Democrat in the race?
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does bureaucracy need a marketing campaign?
not just pushing paper: pushing envelopes
Hey, I miss getting three copies of my student loan statement. And more fool me for ringing them up and suggesting I only needed one. (I've got a theory that the IRD has been taken over by aliens that feed on bewilderment and simmering hostility.)
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Hey Craig you know that the ol' "National did this wrong but Labour also did something else wrong" defence, doesn't make Nationals actions right.
That's something Cullen said in Parliament one day. This is a conscious attempt to raise public odium through the use of certain words.
Daivd & Russell. I think you're both being a tad disingenuous, folks. My point -- and I think its a fair one -- that someone who has a very long history of throwing around barbed insults at his political enemies perhaps doesn't occupy the moral high ground over liberal use of the B-word. Cancerous and corrosive, anyone? Haters and wreckers? Secret agendas?
Like 'cancerous and corrosive', 'secret agenda', haters and wreckers' etc.?
I'm one of those faceless bureaucrats and frankly John's mean words made me die a little.
You'll excuse me if I wish the IRD staffer who wasted over an hour of my time this morning would die a lot. Or is it an unreasonable expectation that someone you've made an appointment to see be competent, well-trained and civil?
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