Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Field Theory: Never alone with Metenolone, in reply to Russell Brown,
Otoh, the record of Chinese swimmers using performance-enhancing drugs is ghastly. Something like 40 women were banned in the 1990s.
Sure, but that means all Chinese swimmers are now to be presumed drug cheats even if there’s absolutely NO EVIDENCE to prove anything of the kind? Awesome Olympic spirit, chaps - because favourites and media darlings don't always win, and the outsider can crush the opposition without Dr. Feelgood automatically being behind it…
And here's something that gives the sour grapes an even more rancid bouquet. As Russell pointed out to me on Twitter this morning, presuming all Chinese swimmers are 'roided up because that's what those people are like is unstable moral high ground for certain nations *cough* USA! USA! *cough* to posture on. Funny how various nations spend eye-watering sums on people to micro-manage every calorie their athletes eat, every second of their training for YEARS ON END but expect us to believe reading the label on a bottle of cough syrup is an impossible task.
Finally, I must only know wonderful people because, while I have seen numerous angry rants about sexist comments directed at Ostapchuk and her appearance, I have not seen any of the comments themselves.
Hadyn: It’s plausible you have a better class of Tweep, but I certainly did get way too much “I knew she was a drug cheat – she looked like a tranny/dyke/lady-dude” b.s. in my feed today. I’m not inclined to link to it for obvious reasons (and I’ve unfollowed & blocked some perpetrators) but it was there. Promise.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review: Trusting Voters, in reply to Sacha,
but the rest of us don’t.
Sure - and any views I have on the Labour Party's constitutional reforms are unsolicited and generally ignored. I'd say it's a draw. :) And in all seriousness, do you think the United States' exhaustive (and exhausting) primary processes lead to either better quality candidates or quality decision making on the part of voters?
In the end, another thing we have in New Zealand is a secret ballot and no requirement to justify to anyone how, why or even if you voted. If you voted for New Zealand First because Winston's hair do makes you all tingly in your privates, you're a dribbling idiot (IMO) but that's YOUR call.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review: Trusting Voters, in reply to FletcherB,
He had a smirk on his face…
And so he should – it’s eminently smirk-worthy watching a a PR flack/lobbyist with a, shall we say, patchy track record of disclosing conflicts of interest when giving talking head playing the blushing virgin.
And if you want to talk about a threat to democracy, isn't it adorable how unelected and publicly unaccountable lobbyists (like Hooten and Helen Kelly) seem so intimately informed about the inner workings of the list selection process in political parties? And folks wonder why spinners get no respect...
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review: Trusting Voters, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
But I'm not sure the market needs that help. "Party Z is so secretive they won't even tell you how their list is selected, why would you vote for them?" seems a reasonable line of attack.
Quite. And here's another proposal: New Zealand First could have held US-style primaries to select and rank their list. It still would have made inflicting Andrew Williams on our legislature a spectacularly bad idea (in my not at all humble opinion), but even if the vox populi is vox humbug, we held a free, fair and credible general election. I don't have to much like the outcome, but I've got to suck it up and live with it. Because that's the difference between a parliamentary democracy and a private club where I get to blackball anyone I don't like.
And whatever you think of Peter Dunne & John Banks (little and seething contempt, respectively in my case), I'm enough of a conservative to think tinkering with the electoral system to metaphysically spite fuck two MPs I don't like is not a good thing. YMMV, of course.
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But I couldn’t join in what Sunday presented as the rich memory of Dalton beating him until he whimpered. It reminded me too much of what I’d seen on the news earlier: a couple of hundred citizens of Whanganui being led by Michael Laws – so much in his element – into public threats of vigilante violence.
Yup – and if you expressed the opinion that being beaten to a pulp or murdered by a mob was too kind a fate for the producers of Sunday and Laws, you might well be getting a 'please explain' visit from the cops (and rightly so). Because that's how functional adults in a civilized society are supposed to roll.
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
This annoys me. Parliament has time set aside for private members bills. The only thing that this bill is preventing happening is other private members bills.
Quite - I'm sure someone like Idiot/Savant or Keith Ng has crunched the data, but members' bills hardly dominate the Parliamentary agenda. Sitting time is allocated to the damn things every second Wednesday (and IIRC not even that is guaranteed), only a fraction of proposed MBs get drawn from the ballot - and few of them ever become law.
If this is the Radical Homosexual Agenda (tm) at work, it should be put up against a wall and shot for general incompetence.
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Golly, the evil commercial broadcaster is being awfully helpful and responsive. What is wrong with you people? :)
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Elsewhere, Sua William Sio (Labour - Mangere) goes concern-trolling:
Labour MP Su'a William Sio says he will be voting against the same-sex marriage bill, which he says could cost the party the next election.
The MP for Mangere said there was widespread opposition within his electorate, which has the highest population of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, making up 58.8 per cent of voters.
Some ministers in Pacific churches were preaching against the bill and against Labour.
''This issue cuts deep into fundamental beliefs,'' he told Radio New Zealand. ''It will divide the community.''
Sio said the bill was causing unnecessary harm to Labour and should be withdrawn.
''There are more weightier and more pressing issues like holding (Prime Minister) John Key to account for the weakening economy and lack of jobs.
''That's where our priority ought to be, rather than an issue that has the potential to really derail our focus on winning election 2014.''
Perhaps I'm too cynical for my own good, but it seems to me like the only distraction in here is Mr. Suo trying to mollify various special interests he pissed off earlier this year.
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Moz,
I was amused when my parents swung from “meh” to unconditional support after my sister got married. I suspect because someone wanted to attend the wedding.
I’m neither amused nor surprised. I’m not sure I should be inferring a causal relationship between the two but is it any surprise that that when you dig down into attitudes around marriage equality those who claim they don’t know any awful hoe-mow-sackuals (well, apart from the one’s cowering behind their closet doors in terror) are the strongest opponents? It’s easy to defend bigotry when it’s little more than an abstraction; when that abstraction has a face, and it’s one you genuinely care for? Shit gets real, to coin a phrase. :)
Which is why I keep saying civil F2F lobbying of the undecideds matters, and it can work.
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Up Front: The Up-Front Guides: The…, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
I don’t think there was malice/patronising meant
Oh, totally not. If I thought Steve was, then everyone around here knows I'm quite capable of reducing a harmless thread to a radioactive wasteland where only the roaches survive. :) But hell, Deborah's got a point -- one of the nice things about PAS is the awesome women (including you, Sofie) who have reminded me with some force that "lady stuff" might not mean a lot to me. Hell, it might even make be hard to hear, let alone engage with without being an entitled, male-privileged cock. But there's half the human race who'd not only beg to differ but have every right to demand a place at all the tables.
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