Posts by Craig Ranapia
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Bart Janssen,
It does seem to me that National are a little bit caught by surprise that they will get a second term. All their budgets promised that sometime (somehow) in the next 3 years things would get better. Now they realise that they will be in power for those 3 years.
Honestly, Bart, I think everyone has been hoping that things would get better - and I guess we can argue until the sun turns red how much of that was wishful thinking and how much was outright psychotic breakage.
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I don’t feel there is much of any worth in Bernard’s list.
More worthwhile than the Vatican calling for “global oversight of the world’s finances”. Perhaps they could start by global co-operation with sex crimes investigations and stop demanding exemptions from civil laws that don’t treat LGBT people like dog shit.
The nauseatingly hypocritical money quote?
“We should not be afraid to propose new ideas, even if they might destabilize pre-existing balances of power that prevail over the weakest.”
What's Latin for chutzpah?
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I think Alex’s anger might be partially due to personal association with the RB.
You know, Hilary, it might be nice to pay Alex the courtesy of not imputing bad faith or a personal agenda to him. FFS, I’m right with people who were heinously pissed off at the sight of bank executives with one hand out for corporate welfare, signing their multi-million dollar bonus cheques with the other and kicking their employees out the door with Prada hob-nailed boots on.
But perhaps we should try learning something from history. I’m sure ideological purists would have been happy to see the BNZ collapse in the 80’s. I’m not so sure my parent’s savings going up in flames would have been a good thing.
ETA: Which is not to say, Hillary, that fiscal policy setting or the Reserve Bank Act are holy writ. But an intelligent debate around legislation from our democratically elected legislature is a more worthwhile exercise than mindless theatrics. Or the kind of toxic ignorance we're seeing from the Tea Bagged right in the United States, who - to be brutally frank - don't give a flying fuck what misery they leave in their wake as long as their ideological purity remains unsullied as they do down that uppity Marxist rag-head.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Russell Brown,
I have a terrible feeling that whoever called for that occupation copped the idea from calls for the abolition of the US Federal Reserve. Which of course have been coming from the libertarian Paul-bots who’ve got involved in the US Occupy actions.
Sorry, Russell, but that's the downside of mushy populism. The Reserve Bank is an easy target and I really don't think you can fairly put that all on evil Rand-droids.
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Field Theory: A moment of national significance, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Noticed all the National billboards had “Congratulations All Blacks” plastered across them. I can see what’s going to happen now “Labour didn’t congratulate the All Blacks” says John…
:-[Why does John Key keep referring to us as they?
Personally, I'd like someone to tell the media to stop talking in the majestic plural.
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Legal Beagle: Election Fact Check #3: It…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I wonder why we don’t have a motor-voter type system, which would be straightforward with current information systems.
Who else is seeing the potential for electoral fraud increasing exponentially? I've been at this address for eight years, and am still getting mail (including correspondence from the IRD) for the previous owner's tenants. I guess not everyone is as anal about making change of address cards part of moving house.
And as Emma alluded to, I can imagine there are a reasonable number of women who would prefer not to have their addresses automatically available to any stalker or abusive ex- who spends a few minutes at the nearest large library.
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Field Theory: A moment of national significance, in reply to Russell Brown,
By the 70 minute mark I think I’d accepted the idea that we were going to lose, that there would be some heartbreaking moment that would take it away. Even after the whistle, it took a wee bit to come right.
Nah, I’m actually pretty glad the Cocks made the ABs work for it. Yes, I’m sure it wasn’t the most elegant eighty minutes of rugby ever to grace Eden Park, but routs are boring. And it was pleasing to see the toxic smug clouds blown away by a cold blast. :)
ETA: But, yegads, there are some (and mercifully few, to be fair) sore winners out there. Yes, the ABs won by one point. Maybe they should have won by a margin of infinity billion, but they didn't. BABAGTFOIA.
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I don’t want to be overly negative, but please get stuff like this right, and please check if you’re not sure: there was a lot of good in the article, and I don’t want it undone.
No, Graeme please be extremely negative because there's no excuse for getting something so basic so badly wrong. This isn't some recondite piece of political nerd-fu, people, and even if your subs were suffering from a post-final hangover surely the Elections folks would be happy to do the fack-checking for you?
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Hard News: When the Game is Over, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Of course, Ian. It was particularly thrilling watching John Key drop his thumb as a signal for the the flesh-eating attack possums to unleash hell on the Frenchies.
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Hard News: When the Game is Over, in reply to Matthew Poole,
but it'd be nice if some foreigners who aren't transport experts passed comment on who awful the public transport experience in NZ as a whole, and Auckland (as the largest city) in particular, really is.
Well, I talked to a reasonable but totally unscientific sample of foreigners who found public transport in Auckland fairly good. And, frankly, they seemed to have about as many problems as I'd expect to have trying to make sense of the Paris Métropolitain or negotiate Shinjuku Station at rush hour.
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