Posts by Craig Ranapia
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very colourful Craig, yet completely vacuous and evasive. a little bit like a Key pronouncement, only more frothy.
Gee, snowy, I'll see your 'vacuous' raise you one 'fatuous' and ask you for a cappuccino with plenty of froth.
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They may also be victim to our insatiable appetite for all things new. Could voters be so conditioned by the marketing machine to want the new model that they apply it to politics as well?
Well, being a little less condescending to the great unwashed, could it be within the realms of possibility that Labour is The Little Party That Cried Wolf once too often? I know this is going to drive the usual suspects nuts, but John Key is not Ruth Richardson in man-drag and believe it or not, National sure isn't ideologically purist enough for my taste. I can't weap too many crocodile tears if Labour has wasted enormous amounts of time and energy selling a line nobody is buying.
Shit, ay. Oddly enough, it seems to me that Key is doing what Helen Clark quite consciously did a decade ago: Made it rather implausible for a beleaguered Government to claim that electing a Labour-lead government would see a radical swing to the left.
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Really? I'd have thought the fact that he drew applause from both Matthew Hooton and Laila Harre on the radio this morning would suggest otherwise.
Um, I don't think that would mean much if Cunliffe ends up getting shredded in the middle of a typically bloody health sector pay round. There is actually a good reason why successive Health Ministers have kept their extremities out of that particular bear trap. (And with all due respect to Hooten and Harre, considering how truly bizarre they can get, their bouquets needs to be checked for loud ticking noises and a scent of cordite.)
Anyone else like to venture some of his probable policies? Craig?
Sorry, I'm not playing. If you really believe the party I support is going to rape your granny, burn your house down, sell us all to Haliburton, bring in slavery, disenfranchise Maori and women, and sacrifice every virgin and cute kitten as a welcome to our new Satanic Overlord, Darth Rove...
Well, whatever gets you through the night. I find it rather hard to believe that either Clark or Key are Satan Incarnate.
So yes, he did promise between two hundred and three hundred a month in tax cuts to "lots of" ordinary income earners. That's a lot of money. Perhaps a reporter could ask him about it ...
Well, spank my arse and call me Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, RB, but I think both National and Labour are going to have a hell of a time *cough* managing expectations around tax cuts for slightly different reasons. Time will tell, I guess.
But the freakishly soft press Key gets does trouble me. Okay, let's give him the benefit of the doubt on "I'd love to see wages drop", but surely that tax promise gets headlines. I can't help but feel that the only reason it didn't was because Michael Cullen put out a press release about it.
Well, I'm equally disturbed by the way Clark seems to keep getting away with avoiding questions too (on the rare occasions they're asked). Let's not forget, a few weeks ago the new big picture was raising the school leaving age. Folks may differ, but I thought Clark was allowed to get away with clinging to her talking points like grim death.
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Mr. Clive:
Here's a cranky idea: You're the ostensibly rational adult in this scenario. Behave accordingly.
Anyway, a bit of Larkin to put things in perspective. :)
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself. -
And Fallowell's right -- his book has been "absurdly distorted". That's a polite way of putting it. I think that everyone who got worked up about it and attacked him now owes it to him, and themselves, to actually read the book and assess it. There was a weird, defensive, ugly nationalism playing out there.
Meh... I kind of agree with you, Philip, and said as much in my PA Radio piece. I ended up buying the bloody thing, and couldn't finish it not because my sense of national pride was outraged beyond endurance but because I can't stand his kind of piss-elegant prose for more than ten minutes at a stretch. There's something badly wrong when you're reaching for Proust on a long train-trip just to get some relief.
Still, I'm glad that Duncan found the trade up to snuff. I guess it doesn't matter how badly dressed pretty boys are, if you're angling to get 'em to take it all off as soon as possible.
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But by the same token, Key's press in particular continues to be staggeringly soft. He's routinely hailed for being basically average.
Um, 'hailed'? Well, I guess leading a National Party where half the front bench isn't spending more time in the Press Gallery urinating on the rest of the front bench than doing their bloody jobs is quite an achievement. It's a bit like the ALP: I don't quite understand why most of the Aussie media apparently want to have Kevin Rudd's babies -- and he hardly ran on the most substantive platform in Australian political history. But you've got to admire the guy for imposing some discipline on a party that usually makes a pack of starving dingos look domesticated, and not being a barking loon (yes, Mark Latham - I'm looking at you).
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I have no problem with Glenn donating/loaning money to the Labour party, but Mallard's actions just seemed ... unseemly.
Meh... That's what a 'handbag' is for, but I have to agree its usually much better handled. I remember a damn cringe-inducing photo at some Fashion Week even were Clark and Don Brash were ostentatiously trying to ignore each other, and it was plain bloody embarrasing to all concerned. I heard there were a couple of minders whose chances of becoming employee of the month became very long indeed.
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Heh... We dropped in at Mount Bruce on our way home, and I swear the Kiwi in the dark house there is on P. Even better -- whacking great eels attack duck trying to horn in on feeding time. A pack of children almost wet themselves with glee. Life is good.
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I'm hoping all this will blow up in Nationals collective face and I'm sure it will, (People who live in glass houses etc.)
Um... and how about the old saw about Caesar's wife having to be beyond reproach, Steve? I can't really get the outrage gland pumping over this -- too much rich food and good company while Wellywood was beyond fabulous -- but I must admit that I've loved watching Labour have its own "rich prick" donors and senior moments put under the spotlight.
Perhaps that makes me a terrible person, but I really can't give the proverbial two-penny toss.
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I think it's one of the reasons I don't like a federation not having more control. Being gay/non-white/an immigrant/female can be a completely different experience from one state to the other
Hum... there might be one or two gay couples legally married in the Commonwealth of Mass. who are pleased a certain consitutional ammendment (which was even opposed by principled conservatives like Bob Barr, no friend of teh gayz) died a death.
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