Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
And, meanwhile, I thought I'd leave the story about Bill English's son's Bebo page, with its apparent homophobic and racist invective, to GayNZ, but it appears I was the only one. There are two ways of looking at this. One is obvious: this is a 14 year-old kid, FFS (although before it went private, his profile had him as 18 years old). The other is that if a politician's teenage son had been caught in various other forms of anti-social behaviour that might embarrass his father, it would be news. (Indeed, it seems lately, if it's on Bebo, it leads.)
Another way to look at it is this: If you didn't do or say anything when you were 14 that now makes you want to jump in a time machine and bitch-slap yourself, you're either a saint or a liar. And I don't know about you, Russell, but I'm no saint - just old enough that my teenaged arse-hattery isn't sitting in an on-line cache until the day I die.
I also found Jay's "we're doing it for the kids" line a wee bit disingenuous as well. Not making any presumptions about the sexuality of Rory English (and not having seen the page in question), I find it rather interesting that some of the most "homophobic" kids I knew back in the day have just grown up and are now some of the best-adjusted gay men and lesbians I know.
Now, I wonder if Jay wants to be held to the same standard when it comes to some of the content of GayNz's message boards?
-
Don't forget to keep taking the pills Craig.
Heh... I've been keeping up my meds and sobriety just fine, thanks for asking. Just as an FYI. I'm not redbaiter and know from experience that paranoia is a pretty horrible mental ditch to get stuck in, not a particularly good mode for reasoned public policy discourse. So excuse me if I treat mutterings about 'secret agendas' (whether from the loony left or the rabid right) with considerable, if sometimes intemperate, disdain.
Anyway, if Bill English is prosecuting anything of the kind, he really really sucks at it. Lordy, the 2008 general election can't come soon enough.
-
Paul Rowe wrote:
It's not difficult to see a hidden agenda if you are on the left (guilty m'lud) if you look hard enough.
Oh, do I really have to take the cheap shot? Looking around the blogisphere - foreign and domestic - there's plenty of people (not all on the left either) for whom a cigar is never a cigar. I don't know about anyone else, but I've wasted far too much time and energy getting into futile pissing matches with people who've turned politics into some secular religion - with the full apparatus of unquestionable dogma, the elect and a full pantheon of devils, infidels and heretical backsliders who must be smote with great force.
Fuck it.
-
Haven't we heard a bit lately about political mouthing-off with regard to Air New Zealand (not an SOE, but Labour will want to save English's statement yesterday that "Air New Zealand is a good example of this mixed ownership")?
Well, Russell, I thought the whole problem with Air New Zealand was that various politicians don't have a clue that it isn't an SOE.
And what to make of this rather odd "intervention" by Helen Clark into the Parliamentary Rugby Team farce:
Helen Clark said Air New Zealand's sponsorship effectively amounted to a public subsidy of the team.
Well, I guess that's accurate if you say the same thing about Parliamentary travel - and I understand that Parliamentary/Ministerial services quite legitimately negotiate substantial discounts because they spend a lot of money moving MPs and Parliamentary staffers around.
Anyway, if Labour wants to go to the electorate with an intention to buy out the private shareholders of Air New Zealand - and an upfront declaration of how it's going to be paid for - that's fine. But I'd really like Clark and Cosgrove to stop coming up with 'secret agendas' on the part of National, and come up with some policies of their own.
-
It made a mockery of the consultation laws, and reveals the consultation to be a huge waste of time and money, and little more than a PR exercise.
Some of us have been saying that for years... but I don't see why you're so shocked. When I was living in Wellington - younger and less jaded - I'd drop iinto Select Committee hearings reasonably frequently. Hear some remarkably thoughtful and well-considered submissions... and wonder why anyone bothered. Perhaps it's human nature, but the best way to be heard is to tell someone what they want to hear.
-
He also pointed out that the world's most successful sitcoms - Seinfeld, The Office, Little Britain - put established stand-ups on screen.
That's true up to a point, but I'd also note for every Seinfeld and Gervais there's some fraking awful sit-coms based around stand-ups who haven't got their heads around that stand-up and a scripted sit-com aren't identical.
I recently read the autobiography of David Nobbs - and like most good comedy writers, he's candid to a fault that on the way to The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin there was a lot of hackwork, stuff he's proud of that never found an audience for various reasons, and flat out crap that was about as amusing as a battery acid douche. The US and Uk occasionally throw up a gem, I'd suggest, only because there's a lot of people who've learned their craft on shows that (deservedly, for the most part) are gathering dust.
-
The point I was trying to make overall is that Auckland haven't got much of a choice, personality-wise, between the two leading candidates, have they?
Preaching to the amen corner there, Grant. :) All I want is sheer competence, perhaps even some familiarity with reality and principles that come out the same way twice - and by that criteria neither Banks nor Hubbard are even approximately in the vicinity of a credible choice.
And I don't think being a 'conservative' or a 'Christian' (even of the more, shall we say, evangelical variety that gives me the shits) is the real problem. I just don't believe a word either man says, and I think there's ample evidence they lack judgment, solid knowledge of local government or even an ability to play nice with other children.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm beginning to suspect the only reality check is if turnout keeps falling until even the dimmest bulbs realize that low quality candidates and poor decision-making is going to be rewarded with an essentially meaningless mandate.
-
Thank god we here in Dunedin don't have to worry about a Christain conservative or a nutbar Christian conservative being mayor (I'll let you decide who is who...).
Would you be more satisfied with a nutbar atheist liberal? I'm more worried about the diverse sack of lightly toasted cashews that make this decision:
Auckland City Council has agreed to pay $30 million toward the $190 million needed to upgrade Eden Park for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
One day, someone is going to come up with a landmark work of political psychology explaining why mentioning the word 'rugby' to a Kiwi politician causes severe brain damage.
-
I wouldn't trust him feeding my cat, let alone looking after my wallet at the beach.
And I wouldn't trust someone who - to quote Churchill's typically waspish assessment of Stanley Baldwin - resembled a pillow, in that he firmly bore the imprint of the last person who sat on him. By that criteria, the pornographer should win in a landslide.
And with all due disrespect to Mr. Rudman, IO, I rather hope that enlightened perspective will be reflected in the (depressingly and predictably) cretinous election coverage from the Herald. Seems like they've decided the rest of their circulation area doesn't exist (or at least the results are a foregone conclusion), and the Hubbard-Banks freak show is the only game that matters.
Oh well, guess the next round of Herald lay-offs and budget cuts have started to bite.
-
I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience, but I've also been a little disturbed at how many Aucklanders who've said to me they're supporting both Banks and Hubbard throw in the qualifier:" I know they're terrible, but the other bastard is even worse."
That can't be particularly healthy, no matter who eventually wins.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 … 1235 Older→ First