Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Good Intentions, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Thanks Jackie, really appreciate that. While my experience of these things is highly personal, and therefore anecdotal, I know that it's often those who've had to deal with being 'different' who display a real aptitude for caring.
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Hard News: Good Intentions, in reply to Sacha,
Worth noting that for years the NZ government has been bribing state agencies to employ disabled people by fully subsidising their pay for a couple of years. We can guess how long many of the jobs lasted.
I remember a number of mostly young women losing their jobs in early childcare back in the early 90s when the requirement for some kind of formal qualification to work in that field was introduced. Prior to that their (mainly intellectual) disability benefit had been paid as an effective ongoing subsidy to their employers.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Hebe,
As for the explosion option, the three males in the house are rapt: better than a Crusaders win apparently. We'll be watching.
Hopefully enjoying from a safe distance, whatever that might be. Hope to hell they know what they're doing, because sometimes they don't.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Sacha,
Don't worry Sacha, I swear not to mention it again. And may I say how much I appreciate your courtesy.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to TracyMac,
I'm sorry, I usually find what you have to say reasonable, but are you really concern-trolling about Brownlee's weight with that remark about "risks" . . . I assume you are not his doctor . . .
"Concern-trolling"? In this context you make it sound like practicing online medicine without a license.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Idiot Savant,
I/S, apart from the obvious symtom, morbid obesity isn't about appearance. Brownlee's apparent concentrated workload would be bizarre enough without the added statistical risk factor.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to izogi,
It's probably bad form considering likely links between high workloads, stress and obesity, but if the intent is to appeal to the same crowd who were convinced to rationalise a genuine, serious hate of Helen Clark by reasoning she was ugly and female at the same time, it might catch some attention.
Izogi my point wasn't about manufacturing cheap shots based on Brownlee's appearance. It's about this Government's credibility in concentrating responsibility on someone who by any reasonable standards has to be at serious risk.
During David Lange's motor racing phase, Jim Bolger descended to sniping at the former "Billy Bunter" figure, suggesting with some justification that he was losing the plot. If Brownlee isn't copping this kind of thing I don't think it's because standards of political debate have improved.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
We constantly get politicians bitching about how they get no respect and can’t understand why the political process is so often viewed with cynical contempt.
Not from Brownlee you don't. As much as anything it's his utter lack of concern for such trivia that makes him the perfect guy to absorb the political hits.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Sacha,
One of Brownlee's anonymous online acolytes was recently defending his CERA role by claiming he works 80 hours per week. Presumably it's bad form to draw attention to the fact that he's also morbidly obese.
That a proactive political grotesque gets away with this sort of third-world nonsense is an ugly, ugly reflection of whats wrong with us.
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Hard News: It's not funny because it's…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I thought by the time Brownlee was forced to tell the lame lame jokes twice he was clearly Not Winning.
Brownlee's brand of gloating philistinism hasn't done his career any harm. This is the guy whose being "too busy" to attend his Ilam candidates meeting didn't even need to be spun as some kind of political plus - sheer electoral inertia took care of that. Any mutterings of outrage from the assembled citizenry were quelled by a poisonous glare from the diminutive forelock tugger who made the announcement.