Posts by Craig Ranapia
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There is a right wing fringe saying this crap about Obama.
And at least two Clinton operatives in Iowa who were quite happy to pass it on, until they got busted. Who the hell knows how many others are out there who aren't stupid enough to put one of Chris Dodds' senior staffers on the distribution list.
I don't know if it's fair to characterize Hilary Clinton or her supporters as 'right wing fringe', but I'm not the only one who is noting a, shall we say, Rovian tinge to her campaign as the inevitable coronation meme is falling apart.
I'm all for outing and shaming anyone who plays it like that.
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I try not to go in for evil-MSM ranting, but I really have to agree with the bloggers venting about the Washington Post's awful front-page story about Barack Obama -- and about big media's own self-serving response to the subsequent furore.
Well, I'd take a slightly different POV from most: I think it is a perfectly legitimate story to report and critically analyse nasty (and untrue) faith-based smears being used as campaign tools, and that doesn't change because this story was indefensibly bad, and the NYTimes still lacks much authority on the subject of professional ethics.
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I have two different lists of 'blogs' in my bookmarks. One includes sites like this, NRT, Jane Espenson, Ms Naughty, Che... The other is personal, light, less political (but never non-political)
The funny thing is that since the toxic waste dump that was the last general election, my RSS feeds are now quite heavily skewed towards arts/lit-blogs. I don't know if its true, or another one of those gross-in-ever-sense generalizations, but it sure seems to me that there's not quite the same heavy stench of testosterone. Could mean nothing more than more of the higher profile lit-bloggers are women just because they do better work, were early adaptors for all kinds of reasons etc. (Then again, when I think about it the short-list of my favourite writers isn't exactly estrogen-deficient: Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Florence King, Muriel Spark, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Smither, P.D. James etc.)
Any thoughts?
Anyway, I really love the definition of blog by one of my favourite lit-bloggers, Maud Newton
blog (bläg) n. [short for Web log] 1. a website that accommodates easy and frequent posting on any topic; 2. an online platform for personal anecdotes, criticism and discussion, often featuring links to other websites; 3. an outlet for obsessive personalities, depressives and alcoholics.
Can't see anything much to disagree with there. :)
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And, Keith, on reflection I'd like to withdraw and apologise for my use of the s-word.
To avoid sounding like Trevor Mallard, it was not only an unwise choice of words but unfair, untrue and failed to display the basic civility of debate I expect to be shown by others. You put up an argument in good faith, and however much I disagree bitching it as 'stupid' was out of line.
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Boscawen had the same pivotal effect with me too. I was uneasy, but then I thought, if it means people like you won't be able to phone-spam with your expensive astroturf campaigns, then maybe that's a good thing ...
Russell: There are times of day when I'd like to see some serious regulation of phone spammers, full stop. I'd also like to see a little less nudge-nudge, wink-wink electioneering from incumbent MPs paid for with your taxes. Funny how the status quo where incumbent MPs can 'buy speech' with gay abandon didn't really get touched by the EFA.
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Really, this debate would have been a lot easier without the constant FUD from the right.
And I'd say this is another debate that would have been better served without the evangelical self-righteousness of large parts of the left.
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Take that, plutocrats!
Pluto isn't even a real planet, fascist! Golly, you are right - this is fun. Come on hit me again! "Tool of the military-industrial complex" is a particular turn on.
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And when they want to spend $120,000-$1m on an election, they just have to register as a political party, so that they undergo the same degree of scrutiny as all the other political parties.
How about we split the difference and regulate them to exactly the same extent as incumbent MPs. Same level of scrutiny and de facto public subsidy too - though in the spirit of fair play, every political group should get one piece of retrospective validating legislation if they cross the line.
That's not pure snark, Keith, because it sure seems to me that the EFA does precisely nothing to address the real electoral plutocracy here. And that's the way everyone in Parliament wants it, with all the strategically ambiguous rules and cynical nudge-nudge, wink-wink electioneering on the public dime untouched.
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Well, National has member who are dramatically opposed on a lot of social issues, too.
Sure, and I don't see why the hell people like DPF and I can blog our fingers into stumps in favour of (say) amending the Marriage Act to give same-sex couples full equality before the law, and encouraging people to vote for candidates who feel the same... but if went out and raised funds to run a series of full page ads in metropolitan dailies doing the same thing that's 'electioneering'? (Assuming we fall foul of Annette's Law of Common Sense' - which seems to mutate faster than the flu.)
Sorry, but I see no reason to view the EFB as serious election finance reform rather than rather dodgy legislative therapy for folks who keep seeing scarf-wearing bogeymen in every shadow.
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I've got an idea, Tom: Get in the spirit of the season and be an elf not a troll. I directly responded to something Keith wrote, and he (or anyone else who wants to put up a counter-argument) can reply or not.
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