Posts by Craig Ranapia
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I’ll also talk to Tim Pankhurst, the secretary of the Commonwealth Press Union’s Media Freedom Committee, who expressed concern at the National Party’s attack on the papers that – it’s worth remembering this – didn’t actually publish the contents of the so-called Teapot Tapes.
Papers which, on many other fronts, richly deserve damn-near every comparison to Britain’s scum tabloids that come their way. Sorry, needs to be said.
Which effectively makes it a gagging order or a media blackout.
Not even close, Red. Stephen Joyce saying mean (and ridiculously hyperbolic) things about the Herald on Sunday is abso-fucking-loutely NOTHING like a gagging order or media blackout. You might want to ask Barbara Dreaver and David Robie -- who've both spoken eloquently on Media7 about the reality of reporting in the face of government harassment and intimidation in the Pacific. Comparing the HoS to the Screws of the World was offensively hyperbolic, but let's not balance it up by equally stupidly comparing the Herald stable to journalists who are facing genuine, and incredibly serious intimidation in places like Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Rich Lock,
there is something about the way that bloody gardening woman was parachuted into my electorate that really gets under my skin.
And if it’s really that big an issue for people vote for someone else. I could be bitchy and note that the electors of what are now Rongotai and Hutt South had no qualms when their current MPs were “parachuted” in after the electors of Horowhenua and Hamilton West (!) showed them the door in 1990, but there you go. And here we are. I guess they think Ms. King and Mr. Mallard haven't totally sucked over the last eighteen years.
(And I could get really bitchy and point out that the current presumptive front-runner for the Labour leadership doesn’t even live in his electorate.)
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Elsewhere, the search begins for Labour's Next Top Leader
You is my wife now?
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Kracklite,
Definitely though, I do appreciate that the “let’s agree to disagree” is often a passive-aggressive version of “let’s not discuss it so that the established norm can continue by default.”
And often it’s a way of saying “I don’t have the time or the energy to waste on a pointless argument that’s going to go round and round in ever decreasing circles before disappearing up its own arse.” Perhaps I’m going soft as I slide into middle age, but I’m losing my appetite for argument for the sake of hearing my own voice.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I not too unhappy with how its looks for the next week-and-a-half, myself.
That would be where a caretaker government follows well-established constitutional norms (no declaring war on Australia, Johnny!) while the specials are counted and the final results declared? Yup, works for me too - but not for three years. :)
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to BenWilson,
The concern trolling I’m seeing most often at the moment is coming from National, telling Labour how it ought to reform. I don’t have any advice for National myself, other than fuck off.
Just between us, Ben, apart from some mild mischief from the Prime Minister (in response to a question and entirely aware, I think, he’s not got a lot of pull in the Labour caucus) nobody in National cares right now.
Now, if that spit ball was directed at me I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. As a citizen, not a partisan, I actually need a competent non-bugfuck opposition every bit as much as a competent non-bugfuck government. It’s the optimal setting for a House of Representatives/
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
According to Wikipaedia a concern troll is:
… a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold. The concern troll posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group’s actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed “concerns”.
So, yeah, pardon me if I find Winston’s pontificating at the Maori Party (who, unlike NZ First, actually have an electoral mandate from Maori voters) rather troll-ish, when he’s doing his dog-whistle “road to separatism” shtick to lily white Grey Power meetings out of the other side of his mouth.
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Legal Beagle: Election '11: the special votes, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
This kinda smacks to me of deriving from the bogus idea that list MPs are a lesser class of representative, because their supporters are NZ wide rather than concentrated in one place.
Quite - and in a crazy idea, how about leaving voters to decide? If a party duly selects an incumbent list MP to contest a by-election they can punish any perceived "double dipping" douche-baggery by electing some other bastard (or bitch). But I just think distorting the proportionality of Parliament, however slightly, is using a nuke to kill a bag of ghost chips.
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Hard News: Democracy Night, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
And because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, while Winston is concern-trolling Maori (and the Maori Party) out of one face he’s shrieking “dirty Maaari separatists" with the other.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, I guess.
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Hard News: When A City Falls, in reply to Felix M,
Snaps! :)
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