Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Superstar Economy, in reply to Russell Brown,
I gather several former eastern bloc countries are in open uproar at the prospect of this impeding spectacle of western moral collapse.
If the Eurovision Song Contest doesn't convince you the human race deserves to be scoured from the earth by fire and flood, then it's just not doing its job.
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I suspect that the battleground will be at a much lower level: will quelling the exchange rate mean children’s clothes cost more? (Yes, a bit, but it will really help our export sector.)
I'm going to lay a trigger warning on you Russell, for a word I know you really don't like. But I hope the politicians and media folks who are going to be dominating the discussion of this check their economic privilege, and remember there are people out there for whom it really is a big fucking deal when their kids come from school with no idea where they left that newish jacket.
Whatever the merits, it's a real level up that David Parker managed to coherently articulate a policy from Labour that merits more than a eye-roll. But it's also incumbent on everyone else to remember public policy is more than a game of poll points.
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Hard News: Illegal Highs, in reply to Russell Brown,
It certainly sounds that way. The Act provides for certified analyses, audits and site inspections. But I’m told purity testing for active ingredients has only just been implemented.
Serious question: What would it take to set up a regime for "purity testing for active ingredients." Someone who knows please correct me if I'm way off base, but I got the impression that wasn't just something you can order off Amazon, or simply port in from overseas.
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The mullet in the 80s
I would be unkind about that, but in the mid-80’s my scalp resembled the place where morbidly obese and tragic hedgehogs went to die. So, no more snarking historically unfortunate dos…
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Hard News: Illegal Highs, in reply to Russell Brown,
Use powers in existing law says Drug Foundation
The real money quote is down the line a bit…
Mr Bell said that the Government now has an obligation to support those who chose to stop using psychoactive products and to closely monitor the soon to be unapproved substances.
“Extra support needs to be made available to the people who chose to stop using psychoactive products as the ban comes into place,” Mr Bell said.
Ross is absolutely right, but I'm cynical enough to think that support is expensive, long-term and hard to get a glib soundbite out of so don't your breath waiting. Who wants to bet that in a year or so, there are going to be stories about severely under-resourced support services on the brink of collapse that won't get much play because everyone's moved on to the next moral panic.
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As far as the politics goes…
There’s no political downside for anyone in a lot of hot air – and hasty, not-terribly-well-designed legislation – to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and there’s no credible case would ever happen? I’m really not impressed by the (figurative) willy-waving going on between Dunne, Cunliffe and Key.
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Let the narcissism continue..
I can't believe I'm saying this, but your joke sensor might need it's firmware updated. And, yeah, it's not exactly an uncommon condition among politicians knocked down the greasy pole of status, or off it altogether. David Lange was self-deprecatingly hilarious about spending an awful lot of time as an ex-Prime Minister on the Opposition back benches wandering why nobody wanted to know what he thought any more.
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to Russell Brown,
I thought that was pretty bloody silly too.
Oath – and disturbingly reminiscent of those on the other side who blamed National’s historically low share of the popular vote in 2002 on that damn biased liberal media. Of course, the fucking awful campaign, impossible-to-take-seriously-while-sober policies and the endless internal ill-discipline being played out in public (*) had nothing to do with it.
(* Which was really impossible for the "liberal media" to ignore when National's caucus spent more time trying to hobble their own leadership than Helen & Co. If you obligingly providing a ten car pile up, it's a little rich to complain when people slow down to look.)
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to BenWilson,
Are you saying that Morning Report is biased against Labour because of Labour’s comms strategy?
I’ve got to say that Murray McCully is one sneaky bastard -- it's the only way sitting Labour MPs Damien O’Connor and Clayton Cosgrove became part of an anti-Labour clique on that tool of the National Party, Morning Report. (I don't know if Hekia Parata and Judith Collins would agree with that frame, but that's a whole other argument for another thread.)
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Hard News: Jones: The contender leaves, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
And neither do I . Just it was his words that I listened to not all the guesswork that has exploded.
Sure, we’re not disagreeing there. I think you’re right: Sometimes, taking what people say at face value is the right call. As I’ve said up thread, instead of trying to spin out some complex ’McCully is the anti-Christ, Labour is doooooomed” conspiracy theory the obvious answer seems the right one. It’s not as if Jones is the only MP who’s decided his heart isn’t really in Parliament any more, his odds of advancement aren’t that great whether Labour wins or not, his health may be a factor (I don’t know, and don’t want to)… So, he’s moving on.
And it’s not as if he’s also – by my count, about a third of the National caucus isn’t seeking relection, including Tony Ryall, who on paper shouldn't be going anywhere. He's a very senior minister (and Health has been politically fairly quiet and scandal-free on his watch) with one of the largest majorities in Parliament and no reason to believe he'd have been bumped down from his top tier list ranking. I don’t remember too much chatter about how his retirement was bad for National. Mostly because it isn’t. And in all honesty, I don't think Jones' resignation is as "bad for Labour" as the usual suspects would have us believe.