Posts by Caleb D'Anvers
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I'd just like to say in Pete Hodgson's defence ...
A little piece of Pete Hodgson will always live on in my heart because of this.
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I saw Goff on Lambton Quay (outside Farmers) about an hour ago. He was sporting a splendid royal blue silk tie.
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We'll all be laughing on the other side of our faces when the Old Ones start swarming again off Barrett's Reef ...
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I really don't think Labour should assume that the MP will be toast because of this, or that voters will drift back to them any time soon. A lot of Māori are still livid about the seabed and foreshore issue, and they will have long memories. And let's not even mention the Tūhoe raids, and the role that Goff and King may or may not have played in them.
Added to that can be social and ideological changes in Māoridom itself. There are plenty of entrepreneurs who want to commercialize traditional Māori knowledge and many more who want some form of devolution. It could certainly be argued that an ACT-libertarian ideological framework could mesh with these implementations of te tino rangatiratanga. And what about Destiny Church? The advent of a socially conservative, right-leaning Māori Christianity certainly poses problems for the Labour, who've traditionally relied on the Labour-Ratana alliance.
These developments aren't happening in isolation. They stem from a feeling of neglect and stagnation, and part of that feeling reflects a sense of having been taken for granted by Labour. Labour need to come up with reasons why Māori should continue voting for them, rather than just assume the Labour-Māori affiliation is a natural state of affairs. It isn't; it's to some extent an historical accident. And Goff and King's elevation certainly won't help matters.
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Uh, yeah, it's black humour; something I dare say a lot of people are using to get through at the moment. And it does reflect some of the more brutal and anti-intellectual aspects of the OMG bureaucrats and pointy-headed smart people suck! mood National have fomented over the last year or so.
Listening to the NatRad broadcast was also interesting. So job losses can only be referred to euphemistically as 'savings' and 'prunings', huh? How reassuringly Gradgrindian. I still maintain that there's basically something wrong with someone, spiritually, who campaigns to put people out of work, and something shrivelled and sick inside those who vote them in on that basis.
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i was just glad to make it past the guards loading public servants into railcars...
An acquaintance of mine updated his Facebook status to say that he was being taken on a nice van ride with some fellow policy analysts. I am very worried.
I keep picturing the Wellington of 2009 as a kind of Lovecraftian wasteland populated only by the insane, the deformed, and the ACT staffer. The weirdly untenanted state of the Thorndon shops is a harbinger of things to come, I tell you!
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Yes! The more I think about this, the more I like it. Parnell's such a good, defendable position. Isn't it an old Ngāti Whātua pā site? There's wood in the domain for stoking fires in winter and there are plenty of churches within convenient sacking distance.
A steady labour pool might be hard to rustle up, seeing as most of us would have fled in terror, but I'm sure putting Roger in charge of DoL would solve that problem.
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Let's see, what else could National do to save money? I think we can all agree that the Beehive and Parliament Buildings are far too expensive to maintain and should be scrapped. Instead, perhaps everyone could move into Key's house in Parnell. It looks big enough, and what's more it's well secured (important in the current climate).
Knock out a few walls and put in a long table, and the Nats would be able to sort out catering as well. Key, of course, would be charged with feeding his feudal retainers, sorry, caucus colleagues, out of noblesse oblige. Every week or so, they could send out a few armed horsemen to secure food supplies from the surrounding neighbourhood. Heather Roy would be a good candidate for this; she looks nippy.
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The figure I heard on radio yesterday was a reduction from 42,000 to 36,000 under National. It said it was National policy. Which I thought I would have heard more about before the election, if it's true.
Isn't that a heartwarming story? Just in time for Christmas. I thought National had promised to cap the public service, not decimate it. (Actually, come to think of it, 1 in 7 is considerably worse than decimation.) And presumably, they'll need to employ a large gaggle of (v. cheap, natch) management consultants and efficiency experts to work out who gets 'let go'. Perhaps Key himself could lead the gang, seeing the courageous work he did in this regard for Merrill Lynch in the '90s.
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I'm sure Wishart will be more than occupied with Obama's election. Isn't there a passage in Revelation explicitly stating that the Antichrist would be born in Hawaii? OMG!
Thank you.
:)