Hard News: We also predicted the election date ...
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The Warriors, the All Blacks, and - most importantly - Hawkes Bay walloping of Counties-Manakau made for a glorious sporting weekend.
And today is just beautiful as well. Even the Tui trilling away outside my house this morning paused and gave a cheery nod in my direction as I got into my car for the morning commute.
Lovely weather.
Right results.
Teh Oz is hurting.
:)
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She's a vindictive nutjob and a liar who has relentlessly pursued personal vendettas through official office.
Indeed. And I don't know if you caught it on the other thread, but I don't think David Frum is going to be getting an invite to National Review's election night party if he keeps writing things like this:
John McCain caught Sarah Palin at the rising part of her career arc. She had been governor for not two years. She dusted away a lot of incumbents who needed to be dusted. Her original proposals for revising Alaska's severance tax look reasonable and prudent. (What emerged from the legislative process on the other hand looks dangerously confiscatory - and also exposes Alaska to greater downside risk in the event of an oil price drop.)
What comes next for her? How would she deal with adversity - and the criticism that accompanies adversity? How strong are those dark aspects of the reformer personality that the Times' article depicted?
It might have been better to wait to learn the answers to those questions before putting her at the top of a party ticket. But the decision is made - and the answers will come.
I thought John McCain was headlining this ticket, but perhaps that was just a Freudian slip. But I'm also pulling for a Republican win, just to see the folks who think they've got a Dick Cheney in Pitbull Pink lippy get a reality check on Capitol Hill. Because while I've my doubts that the Democrats are going to get fillibuster and veto proof majorities, I don't think Nancy Perlosi and Harry Reid are going to be poodles either.
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BTW, I owe Charlie Gibson an apology. I've watched most of the ABC interview on-line, and while I still wasn't overly impressed it wasn't the journalistic equivalent of Gibson giving good talking head to Palin either.
Even if I liked Palin (and I obviously don't), you could almost hear the mental cue cards being shuffled. If Joe Biden doesn't make mince-meat of her, and then close the argument that John McCain's judgement in picking such a lightweight has made him unfit to be President, he doesn't deserve to win.
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My plan for the future involves getting McCain elected, having someone say boo!, he croaks and then when no on e's looking as Palin gets sworn in we switch in Tina Fey (work thru the ad for the good stuff)
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BTW, I owe Charlie Gibson an apology. I've watched most of the ABC interview on-line, and while I still wasn't overly impressed it wasn't the journalistic equivalent of Gibson giving good talking head to Palin either.
Certainly not anymore than the Herald with John Key. Zing!
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She's a vindictive nutjob and a liar who has relentlessly pursued personal vendettas through official office.
I wonder if she or her staff have pursued the local version of chinless scarf wearers?
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Certainly not anymore than the Herald with John Key. Zing!
I have to do my own sound effects now, Giovanni? Bugger. :)
But snark aside, the Gibson thing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it could have been a whole lot better. That's all.
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But snark aside, the Gibson thing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it could have been a whole lot better. That's all.
Tu quoque, Craig?! You too a victim of the masterful handling of Sarah Palin by the McCain campaign?
They lowered expectations on her convention speech, even though oratory has always been her strong suit and she was in front of the friendliest of crowds; they shielded her from the sharp interviews, and lowered expectations on how she would perform with the blunt interviewer they ended up picking; they prepared us for said interviewer to be all ultra-soft and non-threatening, so when he actually asked a couple of half-decent questions, people would go hey, Charlie Gibson wasn't so bad after all.
Cue slow clapping a-la Brubaker.
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so when he actually asked a couple of half-decent questions, people would go hey, Charlie Gibson wasn't so bad after all.
I'm pickin' Sean Hannity for the tough questions this week..he's relentless. Thank god they opened her up to this..will really show the meat on the bones..whoops I'm being sexist now
And she got 80% rating as Governor...did you know that?
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We also predicted the election date ...
Which obviously means you must work in the Beehive, as an adjunct of the Labour party.
And meanwhile, while the media circus is focusing on trivia and chasing fantasies, actual policy goes unexamined.
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"I'm also pulling for a Republican win"
Did anyone else see McCain's 'performance' on the view? Dear god why aren't all journalists like that group of women? They at least asked some proper questions.
I believe Whoopi's "do I have to worry about slavery again?" should be the mantra of the dems
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Snap! We were in Chch this weekend too, and that David Crooks exhibition is bloody brilliant. Very psychedelic, and also hard to describe. I recommend it.
There was a duck with a dozen ducklings swimming in the pond in the Bot Gardends with the kinetic water sculpture. (I love that sculpture, especially the way the bird's mought opens and shuts). They had got in easily enough, but the ducklings couldn't get out, because the distance from the water surface to the top of the concrete pond lip was too great. Mama duck was frantic and desperate ducklings were trying but failing to climb on her back.
Egged on by our tender-hearted womenfolk, a concerned citizen and I mounted a rescue effort, and just as we had the mother duck and half the ducklings on the bank, a Person from Porlock bowled up and said "what are you doing?" and frightened them all back in again. At which point we gave up on the futile operation.
I hope it was a Bill Bailey "anthropomorphic drama" but I'm afraid Nature, and pond builders, are a bitch.
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Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
So, what they're saying is that Palin is just King Dick the Second, though with a less-intellectually absent POTUS as the figurehead. When you've got Cheney arguing that VPOTUS is some kind of forth arm of the Government, and thus outside all the ordinary checks-and-balances processes that attend the other three arms, you've got to be concerned when his potential replacement appears to be poured from almost the same mould (she does have girl bits, after all).
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frightened them all back in again
Where they are now soaking in the hoisin of your lies.
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"She's a vindictive nutjob and a liar who has relentlessly pursued personal vendettas through official office"
While shes no angel, pretty inexperienced, and has a belief system that probably doesnt well sit with most of the readers here, that seems rather strong comment based on one newspaper article. If you want to see how the media can twist even Palins remarks see http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/09/13/abc-news-edited-out-key-parts-sarah-palin-interview
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"She's a vindictive nutjob and a liar who has relentlessly pursued personal vendettas through official office"
While shes no angel, pretty inexperienced, and has a belief system that probably doesnt well sit with most of the readers here, that seems rather strong comment based on one newspaper article.
It's not one newspaper article -- albeit one based on deep archive searches and dozens of face-to-face interviews -- it's a quite well documented pattern of behaviour, from the moment she became mayor of Wasilla and foisted the creepy "loyalty tests" on half a dozen employees, right through the Jerry Springer action of "Troopergate", where she quite clearly abused the office of governor to pursue a family feud. She's a nightmare.
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I don't think David Frum is going to be getting an invite to National Review's election night party if he keeps writing things like this:
He'll do fine.
David Frum hints that it is questionable to pick someone of limited experience, chosen on the up-swing of their political career. But he says he is referring to Sarah Palin, right. I mean this couldn't be an attempt to raise questions of experience and underdone career amoung potential Obama voters prior to the election could it?
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Angus:
Love you, love your work, but you might want to Google "Occam's Razor" occasionally. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man, but you're getting convoluted to the point of absurdity.
By the way, if Karl Rove is such a fricking genius why don't the Republicans have majorities in the House and Senate any more? (And, no Angus, it isn't a cunning plot on his part.)
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The NYT has managed to find out that an American politician has - wait for it, shock/horror - brought in her own team. OMG that is like crazy...
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Love you, love your work, but you might want to Google "Occam's Razor" occasionally. I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man, but you're getting convoluted to the point of absurdity.
Can I just saythat Occam's razor is meant to apply to physical phenomena, not social ones? In social situations you'll often find that the most simple, economical explanation for a given behaviour is wrong more often than not.
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The NYT has managed to find out that an American politician has - wait for it, shock/horror - brought in her own team. OMG that is like crazy...
Angus, you're trolling aren't you? (And that's an entirely rhetorical question, because trolls never cop to what they're doing.)
You'd have to be too cynical to be for real if you really think that story was detailing the kind of behaviour that is commonplace -- let alone ethical -- in any democracy worthy of the name. Even evil Amerikkka.
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By the way, if Karl Rove is such a fricking genius why don't the Republicans have majorities in the House and Senate any more?
Because the Democrats ran a campaign based on faillings in Iraq (an actual issue) and the dislike most Americans have for the Bush administration played against the Republicans. And because its nigh impossible to mount Rovian attacks and dog-whistles against hundreds of diverse candidates.
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On a happier note, I enjoyed a crystalline day in Christchurch yesterday, strolling around the Botanical Gardens, visiting the art gallery -- I intended to just check in on 'As there is a constant flow a light', a painting that almost makes me tremble when I stand close to it, but got the wonderful bonus of Daniel Crooks' video installations, which brilliantly explore time and space -- having a beer out at Sumner and catching up with schoolfriends I haven't seen in many years. (None of them can remember John Key either.)
Yeah, it was one of the few fine weekends we've had in ChCh all year. It's been diabolically bad weather, and most of those weekends have seen me cover club rugby in conditions so bad that players had to subbed off for fear of catching hypothermia. (I kid you not!)
This week's Media 7 sounds good, as it deals with something that relates directly to me this year, did you invite any HODs from the Journalism Schools?
As for Sarah Palin, she fascinates me, for all the wrong reasons. I mean, the more you look at this choice, the more it seems that no thought was put into at all, other than as a pure "narrative" pic. Her knowledge of foreign affairs makes even Bush II look shaky- remember that infamous 2000 interview where he couldn't name any of the leaders from the major Asian countries- well, that performance was positively Churchillian next to Palin's gormless teleprompter fembot efforts with Charlie Gibson. Truly unnerving.
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Angus, you're trolling aren't you? (And that's an entirely rhetorical question, because trolls never cop to what they're doing.)
No, I can't take credit. It is a meme that has quickly taken root amoung the right-o-sphere reviews of the NYT piece. It is seen as her being willing to make changes, by y'know actually making changes.
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And meanwhile, while the media circus is focusing on trivia and chasing fantasies, actual policy goes unexamined.
Maybe they are holding fire until Labour's detailed, fully costed, and exhaustively explained policies are released. One day.
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