Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Russell:
Ouch... that wasn't backhanded, it was hitting myself in the face with the racquet. (Memo to self: Be nice more often, and you'll eventually get the hang of it.)
-
Rather, I think the anti-enfranchaisers are afraid that, quite rightly, 16 and 17 year olds are going to potentially pursue very different interests to the middle-age, middle-class people who comment on blogs on weekdays,
Oooh, this is far too easy... you mean the very people who couldn't be farked voting in the last round of local body elections in droves? Anyhow, I would note that we don't have compulsory voting in this country, and I don't recall any qualified elector being prosecuted for not being on the electoral roll.
-
I'm entirely against 16 year olds having the vote. I just don't see that they are mature enough, and surely the point of being an adolescent is that your body is undergoing some pretty radical reproductive and sexual changes.
Up to a point, Jackie. But I'd also suggest menopausal women are also undergoing "pretty radical reproductive and sexual changes" - and I can think of more pleasant ways to commit suicide than suggest they aren't fit to vote. I'd also wonder whether your average 18-25 year old of either gender is exactly a fount of mature socio-political insight. :)
-
Nine months of Dunedin police having their reputation dragged through the mud by FoB (friends of Bain). All the gummint's fault, of course.
Odd that a filthy right-winger has to say this, but it seems to me we've had numerous occasions where the Police wouldn't have had their reputations "dragged through the mud' if they hadn't been dropped there in the first place. I really want to do some GBH on Greg O'Connor, Anette King et. al. every time I hear the tired old line that you're a 'cop basher' when you have the gall to suggest that the Police aren't any more flawless - or beyond scrutiny and criticism - than any other civil servant.
-
First, one for the Cultural Cringe File :) - Flight of the Conchords got nice review from Tom Shales in the WashPo.
Money quote - with kinda-spoiler excised:
The whole show is winningly offbeat, really -- especially in how it never grovels, begs or exploits unpleasant bodily functions to get laughs. [...] "Flight of the Conchords" might not have you slapping a knee in hysterics, but it may well cause contented chortling inside -- the kind of laughter that's probably good for the soul, good for the digestion and, in this case, good TV.
Kewl...
Heather wrote:
WELL, if there isn't there should be
Definitely in the amen corner on that one. :) I'm probably going to get stoned by fundamentalist Janeites for saying this, but I rather enjoyed Becoming Jane, he holds his own again in The Last King of Scotland, and State of Play gets an occasional spin through the VCR. And I rather liked Children of Dune - though there's always going to be a hell of a lot lost in translation where Frank Herbert's Dune books are concerned.
Did anyone else think Andy Serkis was brilliant as Vincent van Gogh in the Simon Schama art documtary on TV One on Sunday night, which Fiona also referenced?
Yes, but there's always a ripe odour of cheese when you have actors... well, acting. (It got annoying in his History of Britian as well.)
While I wouldn't put The Power of Art quite up there with Kenneth Clark's Civilization or The Shock of the New, Schama isn't so hard on the eye or the ear I really need a bit of half-arsed panto.
-
BTW, Don, I should apologise for not making it perfectly clear that I don't really want to see WINZ automatically prosecuting every beneficiary who receives an overpayment because of a cock-up on their part. If nothing else, its a more effective (and just) allocation of resources to be throwing the book at hardcore fraudsters, than some boob who didn't tell the department they're earning $50 a week over an abatement threshold. If you want to be hard-arsed, they're both guilty of fraud but I know who I think is a higher priority for prosecution. It would be, however, much more constructive if the former was 'settled' on the correct rate, and a repayment schedule for the arrears.
Does any of the above make me a nasty right-wing beneficiary basher?
-
Can someone who has Juha's contact details please let him know Craig appears to have gained access to his PublicAddress account?
Sorry, could you please leave me all the way out of the random crossfire? While I don't carry any water for Fay and Richwhite, could I be forgiven for not having much time for Messers Peters and Jones either?
-
But I'm hardly going to place a lot of stock in the fact that as part of the settlement they don't have to admit liability. The uncontested facts of the TranzRail story are damning enough.
Well, fair enough - just as there are (I would respectfully suggest) people who don't place much store in the probity of tens of thousands of beneficiaries who've clearly received money they're not entitled to, and WINZ has exercised their discretion and declined to prosecute for welfare fraud. Now, if some excitable MP stood up and said this was proof of widespread corruption in WINZ and political cronyism on the part of the Labour Party, I think someone would be told to calm down a little bit.
As Shane Jones put it yesterday:
"Why do so many Kiwis have doubts about our capital markets? Why does the current CEO of the sharemarket still struggle to build people's confidence? Because people have not forgotten how these two individuals gorged for their own personal growth.
"They squeaked out of the Winebox but the cork, having been pulled off this bottle, shows the sludge of their wrongdoing hasn't been forgotten by us. Not at all."
Amen.They hurt this country
Well, with all due disrespect to Mr. Jones,what has the rolling farce over his role on the board of Te Ohu Kaimoana done for the repuation of Maori in business or politics? Or dare I say it, allied suspicions among Maori that the Business Brown Table look after themselves and the flaxroots can get stuffed? Bugger all.
And before Mr. Jones gets too sanctimonious, it's also worth remembering that he had no problem with voting for legislation to retroactively legalise his own party's election over-spending, and the rorting of the public purse by all parties that I doubt many Kiwis will remember with any degree of affection.
I have no esteem for Messers Fay and Richwhite. But please spare me the shit-breathed piety from the likes of Jones and Peters.
-
Grey area at best Andrew - there's also nothing actually preventing publication until a court first reviews the issue.
Fair point, Graeme. But I think it might be equally fair comment to compare and contrast how quickly Millie Holmes hit the headlines as opposed to a certain former TV3 newsreader. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any media outlet being in any rush to 'out' Darren McDonald before his application for name suppression could be heard. (Though, back in 2003, our host did pour some. righteous scorn on the Herald when the sanctimony machine started to crank up.)
-
It's not often I wholeheartedly agree with Winston Peters...
And there you've lost me, Russell... Sorry, but if Peters wants to pontificate about the 'corruption of politics' in New Zealand, then I think we should line up the people he's slandered under parliamentary privilege, and count how many times his allegations have turned out to have (shall we say) a rather distant relationship to the truth.
BTW, Russell if you find it so objectionable that "Fay and Richwhite buying their way out of an insider trading investigation", then I assume you now support law changes that would require (say) the IRD or WINZ to automatically prosecute in all cases of alleged wrong-doing? What I don't want to see changed is the tiresome notion that even people I don't much like are entitled to the tiresome presumption of innocence thing, even if Winston Peters doesn't agree.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 … 1235 Older→ First