There are plenty of things that don’t deserve full blog posts and, if I’m lucky, sometimes I can group them all together, like now:
Worst candidate ever
The by-election in the Mt. Albert electorate is proving interesting—sort of. In the last election, former Prime Minister Helen Clark had a huge majority. It was to be expected that Labour would win the election, but if it’s possible for a candidate to run a worse campaign than the National Party's candidate, Melissa “Stumble-per-day” Lee, I’ve never seen it. She has been out of her depth, ill prepared, blind-sided by her party and just plain terrible all at once. I mean this: I’ve never seen a worse or more inept candidate than Melissa Lee, and she deserves to lose in a huge landslide, but probably won’t. Points to a far right party's candidate who declared to the media that the contest was between him and Labour, even though he knows he’s likely to come in dead last (deservedly so, I must fervently add). And barbs of the most pointed kind to the Greens for interfering in an election they cannot possibly win.
Update 14/06/09: Last night, as expected, Labour's David Shearer won handily—a majorty of 9187, down some 1400 votes from the majority won by former Prime Minister and Mt Albert MP Helen Clark last November. Shearer won some 63% of the vote, with the hapless Melissa Lee of National in Second place (17%), the Greens' Russel Norman was third (12%) and the neoconservative candidate came in fourth—dead last among the main parties contesting the electorate, with a pathetic 4%.
Auckland’s board of directors
The National-led Government today announced the all-powerful board that will oversee the transition to the New Auckland™. It’s filled with folks favoured by big business and the National-led Government. Well, no, actually it’s filled with people that the neo-conservative ACT Party likes, which is even farther to the right. Can the people and democracy still have their due? Time will tell, but ultimately this has little to do with the transition board: The fight is in Parliament over the bill to set-up the actual structure of the new city's new government.
America STILL got it wrong
The final of American Idol aired in New Zealand tonight—first the final head-to-head competition, then the results. I still think Adam should have won. However, I think that, for him, it’s better that he didn’t: MOST American idols fade to irrelevance, but the also-rans have careers. Freed from the straitjacket of Idol, Adam can be a big star. Of the two, I’m far more likely to buy an album from Adam than Kris.
Winter sux
I don’t care what hemisphere you’re in nor what month it begins, winter is always the worst season. Those of you who disagree are clearly wrong, and I’m happy to educate you on how winter oppresses us summer-centric folk, denying our legitimate cultural aspirations for summery-relevant, um, stuff. You wintry folk are obviously oppressing us with your racist, elitist power matrix. And why I should spout such bullshit will be clear in time…
6 comments:
Somebody lost his cold weather chops...
I gotta agree. Winter builds character.
Or so I keep telling myself.
Considering I saw not a moment of AI this season, I was unsurprised by Kris Allen's win. Good, safe Christian boy. Last week, when I was away and actually watched the Today show, Meredith Viera predicted Kris would win because he had "momentum". And I knew she was right and that the first "openly gay contestant" wasn't going to be winning this season.
WV: nonup - down.
I have always been consistent in hating winter—especially the Northern Illinois variety. For me, one of the benefits of moving to New Zealand was leaving all that.
As for Idol, I was pretty sure that Kris would win: Being a Christian from the South is always a good selling point with Idol's core audience. I wonder, if Adam had been openly gay—he was always coy about his sexuality—what would have happened?
But Kris' looks and kind of safe style would've appealed to the main folks who vote—young teenage girls—as well as middle-of-the-road older people. So, I think that this was more about the safe, unchallenging contender than any particular anti-gay thing. However, I think that if it had been reversed—that Kris was thought to be gay and Adam wasn't—it might have been clearer whether an anti-gay bias played a role.
I hate winter too! At least I don't have to deal with snow in Wellington, though.
"And why I should spout such bullshit will be clear in time…", could it have something to do with the copious amounts of alcohol consumed? - the husband
D: Yes, the lack of snow is a huge advantage, in my book. Still, it does rain in Auckland in winter. A lot. Oh well, at least it doesn't freeze.
The Husband: Har-dee-har-har. I am laughing. Definitely. I'm sure you'll see the smile if you look hard enough. Oh well, at least you didn't say the obvious, "And this is different, how?"
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