Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Without knowing what was said to Richards. I believe the phrase is "love the sinner not the sin".
To give support to someone isn't to condone their action.Well, it might be a moot point because it sure looks like both Mahuta and Horomia have denied doing any such thing to the PM.
Miss Clark told journalists she had spoken to both of her ministers and they did not back Mr Rickards' claims.
"I think there has been some overstatement of the situation," Miss Clark said.
"There was a recollection of family links into the area." She did not elaborate.
Mr Horomia - a senior minister - had reported very little contact with Mr Rickards.
All three politicians refused to comment directly today.
A cynic may say that their denial was a little more, shall we say, nuanced otherwise they'd be fronting the media themselves and Clark would be a little more emphatic. But I guess we'll never know for sure; and even a dedicated Clark critic like myself would give her the edge over Rickards in the credibility stakes.
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Except the United Kingdom's experience with anonymous donations, which Craig mentioned the other day.
Mentioned in the context of respectfully suggesting Russel Norman might want to rethink issuing press releases holding up the United Kingdom as a paragon of keeping funny money out of politics and a place where "free speech is alive and well". I think British greens and social justice activists might have a very different POV from RN.
And wasn't the ineptitude of Dr. Norman about where we came in...
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I'm not sure that I have read what Trotter said in August, so I can't comment on it. However, for lack of a better case in point:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_TruthYup, really swung my vote last time out - you know, in the country where I'm actually a citizen and registered voter. But if we want to go there, do the words "fake but accurate" ring any bells?
Closer to home, if anyone wants to argue about the BSA, Advertising Standards Authority and Press Council having the powers and resources to fast-track complaints against deceptive campaign rhetoric and advertsising - and impose serious penalties when those complaints are upheld - you'll have a sympathetic (if sceptical) hearing from me.
But as far as I understand it - and am sure our resident Legal Beagle will correct me if I'm wrong - but campaign season doesn't exempt any broadcaster, political party or special interest groups from the Broadcasting Act, defamation law or any voluntary code that covers the press or advertising.
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I'm not sure that I have read what Trotter said in August, so I can't comment on it. However, for lack of a better case in point:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth</quote>Yup, really swung my vote last time out - you know, in the country where I'm actually a citizen and registered voter. But if we want to go there, do the words "fake but accurate" ring any bells?
Closer to home, if anyone wants to argue about the BSA, Advertising Standards Authority and Press Council having the powers and resources to fast-track complaints against deceptive campaign rhetoric and advertsising - and impose serious penalties when those complaints are upheld - you'll have a sympathetic (if sceptical) hearing from me.
But as far as I understand it - and am sure our resident Legal Beagle will correct me if I'm wrong - but campaign season doesn't exempt any broadcaster, political party or special interest groups from the Broadcasting Act, defamation law or any voluntary code that covers the press or advertising.
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*Exception to that rule being Ricky Herbert. That’s soccer (sometimes called football)
Ah, reminds me of a classic Private Eye cover after Glenn Hoddle got sacked following this Prince Philip-ish blurt: "I've nothing against the disabled. I've picked eleven of them to play for England."
Ouch... I don't think local politicians and alleged celebs who complain about the media would last very in England or Australia. Those bastards really know how to play low and dirty.
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It's cricket season dammit!
Being a total sports retard, who do I hate with demented passion now? I am your willing apprentice, Sporty Sith. :)
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Craig, that isn't exactly what Trotter's piece said.
WH, I think I've characterized Trotter's Sunday Star Times column of August 27 2006 perfectly accurately. I don't have a link, as it seems to have vanished behind Stuff's paid subscription firewall, but if any one can point me to the text and where I've misrepresented his view of the pedge card rort as "the most courageous and forgivable kind of corruption"... Well, I will naturally withdraw and issue a grovelling apology.
As to his most recent effort, perhaps folks "indignantly reject the idea" because it's presented with Trotter's usual rhetorical force, but equally usual tendency never to let anything get in the way of a good knee-capping or pending apocalypse. You know, like the ranty-right stuff about the left being dominated by femi-Commie dykeocrats, tree-huggers, Te Quaeda apologists and union officials?
Wouldn't have Trotter any other way, but like most skilled polemicists you've got to take it all with lots of salt. And quite frankly, I don't think his SST columns would get (or deserve) much space in any retrospective collection.
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It seemed to me the one question that might actually make him sit up and acknowledge how horrible the behaviour of him and his mates was.
Ten out of ten for optimism and seasonal good will, Russell, but I've seen little evidence that anything is ever going to shake Rickards and his enablers out of denial mode. What really creeps me out is that he's still publicly defending two convicted rapists. From the moment he showed up at his trial in full dress uniform (and received a warning that doing so while on suspension and not on official police business was in clear breech of regulations), I thought this guy had serious judgment issues. We had a lucky escape in not putting this person in the Commissioner's office.
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And the Sunday Star Times ran a Chris Trotter column arguing that any breech of electoral law on the part of the Labour Party was an acceptable means to the end of keeping the filthy Tories out of power. (Though to be fair, they also printed an equally demented column from Matthew Hooten the next week saying, in effect, some weird Parliamentary procedural near-coup d'etat was an acceptable means to the end of just fucking up the government.) Can't say either Trotter or Hooten have improved much since that bipartisan brain fart.
What about the post-Orwea front page in the same paper comparing Don Brash to Pauline Hansen while Clayton Cosgrove issued dire warnings of race war in the streets? Just a little over the top, don't you think?
Sorry, Don, but why don't the hysterics on both sides just grow up? Reading stuff you don't like in the newspapers - even when you feel it's rhetorically way OTT or flat out wrong - isn't creeping fascism. And anyone who asserts any such thing - either from the loony left or rabid right - is truly pathetic in my book.
Of course, in any debate, it's much easier to accuse your enemies of having a secret agenda or acting in bad faith. But does that really contribute anything to a civil society or a healthy body politic?
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with the herald reporting Maori leaders: Why we still back Rickards it's not hard to think that there's something just a bit wrong with many of the louder voices claiming to represent Maori.
I spent a couple of hours trying to draft a letter to The Herald expressing my irritation at a more than usually toxic example of the MSM's 'Te Borg' approach to reporting Maori, and other minorities. But you know something - the more I looked at that story, I couldn't even get angry at the sight of Maori dealing out the same old racist card, and white media folks falling for the bluff, one more time. At the risk of sounding like a total drama queen, I just can't hear Rickards' name anymore without feeling numb melancholy and more than a little dirty.
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