Posts by Craig Ranapia
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<blockquote>Wake me up when Puerto Rico, Guam, Panama, Saipan, & Samoa have a primary.</blockquote>
I find it rather interesting that the Democrats effectively have a 51st state: Democrats Abroad who have held a global primary:
The only option for Democrats until recently was for Americans living abroad to mail absentee ballot request forms to their last U.S. county of residence, then wait in hopes that shaky mail systems would deliver the ballots in time to vote.
Now the expatriate Democrats will be treated like a 51st state, giving them a greater voice. The Democratic National Convention in August will include 22 delegates from overseas. Under party rules, delegates get half a vote each at the convention for a total of 11. That's more than U.S. territories get, but fewer than the least populous states, Wyoming and Alaska, which get 18 delegate votes each.
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And while I'd rather get blown by a shark than vote for Huckabee, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the crapulous folks who take Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh seriously is sweet, sweet music.
Let's hope McCain announces The Huckster as his running mate on July 4, so America can celebrate to the sound of Ann-droids and Dittoheads imploding from sea to shining sea. :) I'd sure love to see McCain call Coulter and Limbaugh's bluff, and walk them down to the nearest Clinton campaign office to volunteer their services.
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So it turns out Russell's correct about Iti, but missed the bit where TVNZ is underwriting his photo op with Key.
Um, and I'm sure Clark was very pleased with the heavy rotation Three gave her oh so carefully contrived outrage. (Because we all know TV3 would never, ever do any such thing.)
Personally, I'm a little more outraged about a million dollars of public money being spent on shit like Sensing Murder -- and public money intended to facilitate "the production of programmes which would not be made in a wholly commercial environment". If that sack of shit isn't 'commercial', then I'm a heterosexual Communist atheist with an unusually sweet disposition.
Now, I don't like the practice at all -- whether its indulged in my public or private broadcasters -- and think that's where Russell is coming from. Perhaps we're a bit old school and don't like using the phrase 'chequebook journalism' in polite company.
But can I be excused for being a wee bit cynical and suggesting that some of the exquisite outrage out there is less about the practice than the beneficiaries. Or sledging the competition when their position on the moral high ground is less than secure. Or, in Clark's case, finding that opining on operational and editorial matters in a public broadcaster isn't so bad when it makes a useful political weapon of mass distraction.
Meanwhile, pretty freaking neat that thousands were at Waitangi today, and precisely NONE of them left in a paddy wagon.
What happens if we're promised a riot, and nobody plays along?
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It will be interesting to see how they both adapt their campaign messages. With Clinton winning the most populous and most cosmopolitan states it might be a bit hard for him to continue the Hillary the great divider line.
Well, I suspect we're going to see a lot of post-Super Tuesday analysis that's going to make it awfully hard to sustain the meme that Obama can't hail a cab without the 'bros over hos" black vote either. (Though that was crap from the very beginning -- as I believe Iowa's black population is about as scarce as a pork pie on a kosher deli platter.)
Very interesting exit poll data coming out of California that upsets a lot of pundit CW about both Clinton and Obama, which isn't a bad thing in my view.
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OK, this is weird. I've checked in at CNN, and they've called Califormia for Clinton and McCain with less than a third of precincts reporting but huge leads (16 and 17 points respectively). Isn't that a little previous, or is there some nuance I'm missing (like their website isn't being updated)?
I just find it hard to believe CNN would risk getting something like this wrong after the 2000 Florida call debacle.
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Wow. The breadth of insult in that statement just takes my breath away.
To Margaret Thatcher, certainly. Before anyone has a stroke, I'd recommend finding John Campbell's excellent (and even-handed) biography, and learn what its facing real institutional sexism in politics every step of the bloody way. Hillary Clinton doesn't have a clue.
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Though, give me the orange felt pens of Aotearoa any day!
Didn't you get the memo, Robyn, we're all too thick to get 'one cross in column A (which indicates the local candidate you prefer) and/or one cross in column B' (which indicates the party you prefer). You don't have to mark both.' :)
Hell, I wasn't a supporter of MMP, but the triennial howlings from the usual suspects about how it's too complicated for the peasants to grasp gets on my tits.
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And of course the Obama supporters will bring up the "Hillary is divisive" issue - I mean, the Hillary supporters are hardly likely to raise it, are they?
Nope, but I still find it weird that anyone isn't asking the obvious follow-ups every time she raises the 'experience' meme. I also lost it earlier on a politics discussion list when an American asked, "Why do you have such a big problem with Clinton, when she's just like Margaret Thatcher". Oy... girlfriend, thou shalt not take Lady T's name is vain. :(
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Bush is reponsible for quite a lot of the bad feeling but that plays out against a backdrop of a bit of bad faith within the international commnuity over the US role in world affairs that predates Bush.
Indeed - this isn't about not fronting up with a $5 Telethon pledge. (Showing my age there...) These were not pledges made to the Chimpy McBushitler Presidential Library Foundation, but the people of Iraq. Or should just come clean and admit they're fundamentally irrelevant?
Anyway, to cheer things up (or not depending on your POV) the first Three/TNS poll of the year is Super Sucky Tuesday for Clark and Labour. In her position, I'd prefer having the whole Harawira clan up in my grill...
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If the US paid reparations (ho ho), it might even begin to recover.
Perhaps if everyone started turning those aid pledges into actual money... but I guess that would involve less smug moral superiority and a little action.
<blockquote> Nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, allied countries have paid 16% of what they pledged to help rebuild the war-torn country, according to a report scheduled for release today.
Foreign countries have spent about $2.5 billion of the more than $15.8 billion they pledged during and after an October 2003 conference in Madrid, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
The biggest shortfalls in pledges by 41 donor countries are from Iraq's oil-rich neighbors and U.S. allies: Saudi Arabia spent $17.4% and Kuwait 27% of the $500 million each had pledged more than four years ago, according to a separate report released last month by Congress' Government Accountability Office.</blockquote>
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