Posts by Craig Ranapia
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Russell Brown,
The wingnut-o-sphere proceeds to cover him in pure hate for being a human being.
Yeah, it’s been particularly revolting seeing Christie accused of opportunistically spite-fucking Romney because he was passed over for the Vice-Presidential nomination. Hey, just ignore that was doing a pretty good job as a Romney surrogate pre-Sandy, I know this might be really hard for the usual suspects to grasp, but they really need to stop driving away people like Christie (an extremely popular GOP governor in a deep-blue state with approval ratings both Obama & Romney would kill for). And you know what -- if Christie decides to run for a second-term next year, deciding to behave like a functional adult instead of a party hack hasn't done him any harm. With anyone.
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I think there are some NZ politicians observing eg Grant Roberston was there last week, and may still be there. Not sure what their role is and how close they get to the actual machines and lines of voters though.
I can't speak for Grant, but as a general principle I suspect "very far away indeed" -- just as I'm pretty sure we'd want American Congressmen keeping a seemly and appropriate distance from our polling places considering, not to put too fine a point on it, they'd have no legitimate business being there.
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Worrying reports about barriers to voting in the swing states. Long queues for voting, laws that disenfranchise Democrat voters.
Actually, Hillary, those barriers in the linked story practically disenfranchise a lot of people who probably can't afford to take a non-existent personal day off work to go stand in line for eight hours.
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Russell Brown,
Does "heavy-tailed distribution" mean "we just assume all registered Democrats, black people, the poor and GLBT atheists get smote by God on Tuesday morning"?
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Similarly, when a British or European story reaches their attention, they interview some public school piece of toryscum
Do we actually listen to the same National Radio there, Rich? Perhaps we don’t listen at the same time, but you’d call Kate Adie, Ann Leslie and long-time Guardian staffer Jon Dennis “public school toryscum” with a straight face? For reals?
If you really want to be a dick about it, I guess you could stretch a point to include former Conservative MP Matthew Parris – but he left Westminster of his volition over sixteen years ago, and has been a freelance writer for much long than he was an MP. Nor have I noticed him drawing his claws any for the incumbent Coalition.
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to David Hood,
At the moment 538 lists the popular vote projection as 50.5% vs 48.5%. If this is the final result, it is not particularly close
I take your point, David, as far as it goes but I think my fundamental one still stands. In 1960, JFK only carried the popular vote by 0.17% -- and squeaked out incredibly narrow wins -- but it's hard to credit GOP mythology that the election was "stolen" in Illinois and Texas. Kennedy ended up with a more decisive majority in the Electoral College where, like it or not, such things are decided.
-
Radio New Zealand has done its listeners a grave disservice by not even attempting to place Wenzel’s claims in context.
I think where RNZ and Fran O'Sullivan (and yes, her Romney mash-note was fucking awful) was more fundamental. Perhaps I've missed it, but has there been ANY serious analysis of what the respective candidates' foreign policies (such as they are) would mean to New Zealand in particular, or the neighborhood in general?
Granted, it's tricky when the one televised debate ostensibly about foreign policy ended up being about who'd nuke Iran with more enthusiasm then moved on to more fertile domestic ground with indecent haste. And you need to have a Spock-like talent for playing five dimension chess to figure out which Romney you should be parsing at any given moment... But O'Sullivan and RNZ aren't even trying, and this really does matter.
-
Hard News: The Watching World, in reply to Wilbur Townsend,
Also dissapointed to see Paddy Gower labelling the race a ‘tossup’. Probably the horse-race mentality behind that.
To be fair to Patrick, based on current polling (insert usual heavy duty caveats here) he’d be more right than wrong if the popular vote actually determined the outcome of American presidential elections. But it doesn’t, so there you go and here we are. It seems a little unfair to land on Gower with both feet for sharing the same Civics101 Fail as a non-trivial proportion of the locals.
ETA: I'd note that in 1984, Reagan carried 49 states (translated into 525 out of 538 Electoral College votes) but only 58.8 percent of the popular vote. Now, you can argue the Electoral College is an anachronism well past it's use-by date, anti-democratic or complete nonsense no sane person should try and grasp while sober. Many do. But until further notice, it's what the United States has to work with, so journalists - foreign and domestic -- really have to nut up and make the effort.
-
Hard News: Media3: Whistleblower Season, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Makes Jimmy Saville look positively angelic.
Yeah, Steve, because whatever you’d say about John Key and Mitt Romney they’re exactly like a sexual predator who non-metaphorically abused hundreds of women over decades while a non-trivial number of people were more interested in protecting their institutional mana than actual human beings. .
-
The strangest thing about Toy Love is how soon it was all over. They played their first gig at Zwines in January 1979 and their last at Mainstreet in September 1980.
I don't know... perhaps it's better to say what you have to say and leave the room before you kill each other (or yourself) rather than be REM, who after thirty years called it quits while finding diplomatic ways to say "the money is great, but it's just not fun anymore." Anyway, I thought that was the whole punk ethos: It's about having something to say - LOUD - not ticking off boxes on a five year plan.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 150 151 152 153 154 … 1235 Older→ First