Posts by James W
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The "nek minnit" thing is older than that. My partner was using it about 6 years ago, and when I asked him where it came from, he said his ex used to say it all the time. So it's at least 10 years old. (When I started hearing people saying it during this recent spate, I was kinda freaked out, because I'd always thought it was a in-joke. It was like someone had been eavesdropping on our conversations.) Would love to know where it originally came from.
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Hard News: About Occupy Wall Street, in reply to 3410,
Russell, "notorious douchebag PJ O'Rourke" gets his ass handed to him on this very issue on the latest Real Time with Bill Maher (episode #227). If you can't find it anywhere, the audio podcast is available for download in NZ.
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Balls – Clark was pretty damn good at being “unavailable for comment” when there was no possible advantage for her getting pummeled for five minutes on Morning Report. That’s what you have a Cabinet and a small army of spin things for. Really, please say that it’s appalling and there’s better than even odds I’d agree with you. But don’t shit on a cracker and expect me to swallow the nonsense that it never happened before November 8 2008.
Craig, you’re so hard to have a conversation with because you argue against things people never said. When I agreed with Russell that this government is refusing to front on serious issues, it does not automatically follow that I think any previous government was an open book. I’m not talking about parties, I’m talking about the current situation which is the media not doing their job (or being able to do their job through lack of access) and a general decline in democratic involvement. This could very well be just as bad under a new Labour government, I don’t know.
"They won last election with a policy of no policy;"
And that’s crap too – you’re entitled to your opinion that National’s platform was awful in all kinds of ways, but it’s just twanky twaddle to say they had “no policy”. (Though I guess on the bullshit buffet, it’s a fine whine that matches well with the not-at-all secret “secret agenda
I’m not sure what this “secret agenda” thing is, but I do believe that National, which is full of the same MPs that lost to Labour three times in a row, consciously avoided airing their usual policies in order to appear more centrist and win over swing voters who remembered how awful people like McCully, Brownlee, Smith, English, etc were the first time around. And I think as their term in office has progressed, more and more of their old right-wing policies have come out, like state asset sales, like private partnerships, like having a go at dismantling ACC. And I think next term we’ll see a lot more of them, now that they’re “safe”.
So I don’t think National’s platform pre-election was awful, because I think they kept a lot of it to themselves, and didn’t really have a platform. I thought they had a “secret agenda” in the same way I thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war (i.e. it was bloody obvious what was going on).
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to Russell Brown,
And that really is the issue. The Prime Ministers and other senior ministers will not front for serious questioning about what they're doing.
Normally, the reason politicians would go on a show where they're going to be asked hard questions (apart from serving the electorate, lol) is because they know if they don't, the same media will rake them over the coals. However, the media's still so in love with the Key government that National have no fear of reprisals. They won last election with a policy of no policy; I reckon they can get away with another one.
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I think people tend to overhype Key's popularity. It's less "this is the kind of man Kiwis want to lead them at this time" than "he's not Helen Clark or Phil Goff." Labour were at the end of three terms, voters were desperate to be rid of them, and John Key was a cipher, someone so unoffensive and bland they could vote for without feeling dirty for voting for the old '90s National crew. English and Brash couldn't bring those swing voters over, they had too much baggage.
Now, people just don't pay enough attention to politics to see Key act like a goofball in Parliament or come out with some stupid off-the-cuff remark in interviews. They see him for thirty seconds at a time on the news, sounding authoritive on some pre-briefed topic, and that's all they need to influence them when the pollsters call. Plus, he's not Phil Fucking Goff.
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I'm not a fan of Bomber's delivery, but obviously this whole thing reeks of dodgy selective censorship.
I've more of a problem with Jim Mora, trying so hard to appear neutral he tends to trivialise every topic so as to barely hide his own right-leaning convictions.
The Panel's good when Finlay McDonald or David Slack are on.
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Hoardings have gone up in my area (Otahuhu, Mt Wellington). I note the National candidate is sharing his billboard with John Key. It really is a party of one.
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Yeah, Tim Murphy ignores Mediawatch's constant requests to explain the Herald's actions, but makes sure he defends the misuse of "enormity" here. Priorities?
Perhaps it's because the subs have no control over the headlines, from what I hear, and Mr. Murphy just wanted to defend their honour.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to nzlemming,
Time to plug The Corporation again.
I own it. It's chilling.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
I don’t think he got fired for being racist because I don’t think he was actually being racist when he made his offensive comments about Sheila Dikshit’s name. He was applying a non-intended cultural context to her name, and found it amusing to (and wildly beyond) the point of offence.
That wasn't the comment that got him fired. I think it had more to do with this:
"Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?"
The Dikshit thing was a week before the Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand comment.
BTW, I'm more concerned about his no doubt forthcoming primetime current affairs TV show, not his radio show.