Posts by Craig Ranapia

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  • Speaker: Legislating in the Twilight Zone,

    I'm still hoping that shortly I'll land back in the New Zealand that has a sense of fairness and proportion, and can debate this revised bill on its merits.

    Yes, Stephen, and perhaps you might like to tone things down a bit yourself. Yes, I agree some opponents of the Bill really need to turn down the rhetorical thermostat, but that goes both ways. Is it within the realms of possibility, folks, that opponents of the EFB aren't 'hollow men' whose secret agenda is to allow filthy plutocrats to buy elections?

    And at the very least, perhaps the new Justice Minister can mount a marginally more convincing defense than Annette's Law of Common Sense, which I'm having a bugger of a time finding a copy of...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • "The Terrorism Files",

    Of course all this is paid by taxes, not run as a charity, but that doesn't really make any difference at all. It's expensive whoever picks up the tab.

    Sure, and could you point me to any emergency service - whether funded publicly, privately or some combo of the two - that's asked for budget cuts because they're really over-staffed, over-resourced and don't have much to do? :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    Oh goody, does that mean that a Political Party can break the rules, be charged, go to court, drag out the court case, get elected, found guilty, and then pass retrospective legislation to change the rules and validate their action?

    Or even better, a Political Party breaks the rules, a pretty compelling case to prosecute is handed to the Police by an electoral agency not know for partisanship or knee-jerk over-reaction, and... nothing. While I do like Annette King's Law of Common Sense in theory, I don't think it's unduly cynical to wonder if Sense of any description (common, garden or speckled) is in particularly plentiful supply around Wellywood...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    Craig did you have another pet

    Well, there was Beowulf but I'm just not Aryan enough to work that one with any conviction...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    Fortunately I think the powers that be realise there is not much chance of anyone at all following La Perigo into armed conflict...;-)

    Personally, I'd rather the more subtle satisfaction of handing Labour a thorough spanking at the ballot box. Not as melodramatic as your own private Les Miz, but I'm sure the weeping, wailing and rending of garments from the usual suspects will be sweet music all the same.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Meet the New Bob,

    Shep = My English Shepard Doggy when I was 4yrs.
    Cheyenne = The Street I grew up in.

    You're using your Pron Star Name! Tee hee... I'm tempted to do the same, but I rather doubt 'Nigger Ohiro' would last very long, simply on grounds of good taste.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    Thanks for watching the show

    Thank you Mr Keith for being one of the creators of a documentary that didn't make me dumber at the end that I was at the beginning. I know they're out there, but TVNZ and Three seem determined to pretend otherwise. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    From what I hear, the OTHER usual suspects are also fairly outraged on the grounds that it's been well sanitised and de-balled in order to not offend the perpetually offended classes.

    Well, Pullman himself seems reasonably happy - and the only way I imagine to make the Magisterium and Mrs. Coulter anything less than very, very scary indeed is not to bother making the film at all. Personally, I'm just hoping this is going to break Nicole Kidman's long streak of crappy films. Been an awfully long time since the Oscar, and I'm pretty sure she'd like getting some ink for being in a good movie rather than her dodgy taste in husbands and speculation about the viability of her reproductive organs.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    that one went over at 30,000 ft

    Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, is better known in these parts as Northern Lights, and a rather big budget film adaptation is being released just in time for Christmas. The usual suspects are rather cross, given that it's an explicitly anti-religious novel written by an atheist who makes Messers Hitchens and Dawkins seem sedated.

    Don't you think the sight of an Elder God trashing the Statue of Liberty would perk 'em up no end?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Hard News: Looking for Monsters,

    Totally loving being the sole Google result for "angry alien whale theory".

    Tush... get over yourself. :) I'm warming towards the whole 'Cthulhu Is Ready For It's Unimaginably Hideous Close-Up, Mr. DeMille' theory, not least because it should freshly angry up the folks in post-__Golden Compass__ outrage withdrawl.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

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