Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Are you talking about the EFB, or the rugby coach thing?
Applicable to both, I'd say. Somehow, it is hard to feel that torn up on behalf of Robbie Deans - who, I'm sure, is going to have a long and fabulously successful career wherever he ends up. If the Abs loss ends up being the Wallabies' gain, so be it.
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And folks - you can point at Lindsay Perigo, and I can post a link to Chris Trotter's various freak outs on the subject the Sunday Star Times . I'd call it a draw myself, and what a squalid game it is.
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He just comes across as yet another man with lots of money and a raging sense of entitlement, and that gives me the creeps.
And some of the more, shall we say, excitable proponents of the Bill come across as yet more wingnuts with a raging sense of paranoia who can't get their heads around the notion that opponents aren't all whores of the Exclusive Brethren, foreign-owned corporate media and the Business Roundtable who want to "buy elections". Gives me the shits, Russell, and just hardens my view that the EFB is a very bad bill and no substitute for a serious and well-worked out package of election finance and campaign reforms.
Do you really think the Herald is to blame for that, Russell, or can we just split the difference, and agree that there's a lot of hysterical fucktards on all sides who aren't adding any value to the debate?
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why should an editor have to defend something he didn't write - and you can bet he will not just be asked why he allowed those editorials, but he would be asked about the content as well.
Um, because that's part of the job description when you get to sit behind the big desk and put 'editor in chief' on your business cards? Just saying...
Some of the hysteria coming out of Chch has been ridiculous, but lets face it, the reappointment of Henry has been pretty shabby...
Perhaps, but call me a cynic because I had my doubts that the folks who'd backed Henry to the hilt were going to turn around and say 'Well, didn't we well and truly screw the pooch by trusting him?" And if, as some pundits have claimed, the whole process was a farce because they're already decided to re-up Henry's contract? Gee, like that's never happened before...
But when you get right down to it, I don't really care - neither choice was going to be universally popular, but a coach had to be appointed. They made their pick, and just have to wear the consequences. Just don't ask me to care.
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So what are we to make of Herald editor Tim Murphy's refusal to talk to Colin Peacock of Mediawatch for the programme's report on the paper's campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill?
About as much as the Justice Minister canceling a scheduled interview with Audrey Young when the paper's campaign started? Perhaps it might have been a good thing if she'd kept mum, because Anette King's sole substantive contribution that isn't either hysterical or wrong has heen the infamoys 'King Law of Common Sense'. Hardly a jewel in the crowns of parliamentary debate or Kiwi jurisprudence.
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Testcard:
To be honest, I think Russel Norman would be better advised to hire someone who can actually write instead of screaming 'censorship' in the most fatuous and trivial way imaginable. Seriously, I couldn't imagine Rod Donald letting anything that piss poor go out over his signature to a student rag, let alone a major metropolitan daily. Then again, he was articulate, able to frame an argument that was passionate but reasoned rather than paranoid, and media-savvy. God only know what added value Norman is bringing to the Greens.
I had a letter published in the Herald last week that was cut by almost half. Pissed me off - not least because the editorial nip and tuck improved it no end. But corporate fascist censors crushing my dissent. Get real...
Speaking of which:
In fact, it seems to me that this Govt would have loved to have a Maori as Police Commissioner - the idea that "they didn't want a Maori at the top" is just absurd.
It's not just absurd, but profoundly dishonest and flat out sinister. I'd actually argue that if Rickards wasn't Maori, then he'd never have made assistant commissioner. Not with the kind of company he was keeping (and still publicly supports, BTW) and the 'allegations swirling around him' (to quote Clark's classic reason for putting Dover Samuels on the back bench). It just defies credibility that senior police management were unaware of all this when they made the appointment.
Finally, I'm pretty sure Louise Nicholas just wants to get on with her life, with her husband and child. But if she decides to sue Rickards, Jackson and Radio Waatea for defamation, I'd be quite happy to kick in a few bucks towards her costs.
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a Legal Beagle. That person was me.
The name wasn't pretentious, and I quite liked it, so I stuck with it.
Does that mean you're excitable, don't tire easily, are smart but easily distracted by nice smells, start howling if left alone for any length of time and have a tendency to go to fat? Then again, you get on with children and other dogs so long live Legal Beagle!
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Craig, you did appear to make a claim that our children are sat in cold classrooms surrounded by incompetent teachers.
Balls, Don. Sorry, I can't really be bothered being more polite but I'd love to introduce you to a few teachers who will be devastatingly blunt about their views on teacher recruitment and retention, training standards and infrastructure/resourcing issues. To get kinda back on topic, yes let's give all due credit where credit is due for improvements. But let's also keep a clear eye on where failures still exist -- they're real, complex and aren't addressed by either hysterical overstatements or jargon-clotted denial.
And I make precisely NO apologies for criticising politicians and civil servants who use language to obfuscate rather than communicate.
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Kyle, you don't get it. It is not intelligent to debate policy. That is what bureaucrats do. Politicians pick on something isolated and silly, like hip hop tours are when they're taken out of all context. That is intelligent.
I'd feel a whole lot safer if National just said they were going to leave all policy to the bureaucrats, and spend their time in government intelligently debating hip hop tours. But I have a sneaky suspicion it ain't so.
I stand corrected, Ben. Of course, its totally unreasonable to expect civil servants to communicate clearly with us stupid peasants; or provide clear and direct answers when elected members of Parliament and uppity media folks ask impertinent questions. Who do I think I am, a citizen of a parliamentary democracy?
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Oh, and there might well be a few PAS readers who know more about the sector than I do, and would have more informed and insightful ideas to put out there. I can live with that.
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