Craig M. Ranapia

YMMV, but I think we should put House Republicans on mute until they start showing up to do the job they're still being paid for.

"In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"

Exactly! I'm sure someone is going to roll their eyes and go all "OK, Grandpa" but when it comes to museums and galleries I'd rather take a pass on "interactivity" and have space, physical and mental, to pause, look and think.

THIS. Also, if Stephen Franks wants to keep raving about "deluded children" he should shut down his law practice and get cracking on doing the work to become a qualified and licensed practitioner of paediatric medicine. Though based on current form, he might have difficulty passing the ethics tests

Cover of 'Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard' by C.M. Kushins. The image is a full length photo of Leonard - a late middle-aged white man in a trench coat, flat coat and tie. He has a nearly trimmed short beard and moustache and is wearing glasses. He is standing behind a pair of half open French doors.

Because libraries are magic (and a little bit spooky), guess what I'm #CurrentlyReading on Elmore Leonard's centennial? Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard (C. M. Kushins)

It really did just end up top of the library book pile this morning!

#BookSky #pukapuka

Head and shoulder photography of Elmore Leonard, a middle-aged white man with a short salt-and-pepper beard and moustache, and round glasses. His hairline is receeding and long at the sides.

"What do you tell a man with two black eyes? Nothing, he's already been told twice."

Happy 100th birthday to ELMORE LEONARD, born on this day (October 11) in 1925. #BOTD #BookSky

Human Rights Watch Doesn’t Want Any Riyadh Comedy Festival Money Taking money from those who took money from Saudi Arabia would impact perception of the org’s independence.

LMAOOOOO

A bunch of comedians tried to make up for their participation in the Riyadh comedy festival by donating their pay to Human Rights Watch and Human rights Watch was like “nah bitch we don’t want your dirty blood money” 😂😂 I’m dying

I know the United States of Amnesia has the sponge-like memory of a weed-pickled acid casualty, but since when has unpaid soldiers with access to weapons of war been a tale with a happy ending?

Indeed. Perhaps I'm being somewhat naive, but I've long been convinced that if you try to do a justice system (however deeply flawed it is) on the cheap and nasty in any respect, cheap and nasty outcomes are what you get even when the people involved are doing their best.

Say her name five times while looking into a mirror and report back what happens. Or don't. Probably don't.

... on the docket, and because it was the District Court there's no chance of landing on some gnarly murder or complex fraud cause running for MONTHS as opposed to a week and half. But you do take it seriously when what you decide any which way has real and lasting consequences.

Yeah, since I'm off the hook for a while to come it won't sound self-interested but I think jury service should be more generously compensated. It was a fascinating experience - and it was really endearing how seriously everyone took it. Thankfully, we didn't catch any of the sex crime cases...

I've barely gotten used to the majesty that is the Portland Frog and now there's CHICKEN? Its like Beatrix Potter on 'shrooms.

IKR? Its not like Westminster or Capitol Hill where you have surreal horror stories of legally dead members being Weekend with Bernie-d into the lobby to cast a vote they've got no awareness of. If you can't corner an arsehole with a proxy form, what is the point of you?

All the Parliamentary Whips are listed here.

www3.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-e...

Hell, since Parliament changed the rules to allow proxy votes its not as if Whips are required any longer to scour the bars, brothels and hospitals of the Wellington region for more or less warm bodies to make up the numbers on particularly close and contentious votes. #nzpol

What I want to know is what sanctions this Government is going to impose on the parliamentary whips who are taking public money (an extra $19-61K) but not doing their jobs. Smells an awful lot like lazy backroom bureaucracy to me... #nzpol

Parliamentary Whips (whose one job is making sure this kind of screw up never happens) are paid an extra $25-$61K above an MPs base salary.

So much for fiscal discipline and value for taxpayer dollars, I guess... #nzpol

It is truly disquieting that "sovereign nation wastes time doing contingency planning for the antics of a cognitively woozy man-child if he doesn't win a literal participation medal" is probably not the most offensively stupid thing any of us will see today.

Anyone else beginning to suspect Lindsey Halligan has an insatiable appetite for public humiliation, because I don't think Letitia James' bullshit tolerance is any higher than James Comey's.

Damn. That is exactly the cool, measured low tone of voice my late grandmother used on me and my cousins to put us on notice that we'd crossed a line and the consequences would be... disagreeable.

Full marks. No notes.

In this weird and wicked world, there are worse ways to make a living. I got on a jury a few months back, and of course it would be completely inappropriate to discuss in any detail, but I was pleasantly surprised how very dull it was. Television lied to me again!

All that said, it does rather tickle my fancy to picture Alain Resnais, L'Année dernière à Scarborough. (Or was it Harrogate? Perhaps Cheltenham?)

And for all his virtues (IMO), and I hope this makes sense, Ayckbourn doesn't a Streetcar Named Desire, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or The Crucible. The flashy, endlessly revivable calling card of a play that immediately comes to mind at the mention of your name. Another luxury problem to have.

... debut in July 1959 - its hard for anyone to get their heads around.

Oh, you can't have a good argument if it's not possible to make a contrary case! :) It's a bit of a luxury problem to have, but one thing that depresses Alan Ayckbourn's reputation is that he's done so much over such a long time - 91 full-length plays since the premiere of his now-suppressed...

YES! Way too many people should start living by the rule "what gets over-shared in therapy, stays in the therapist's office."

I know it's never going to happen, but I wish Pope Leo would call the bluff of so-called "trad" Catholics, and revive the tradition where running your mouth off at the Pope got your tongue and other extremities removed with red-hot pincers before the heresy trial and public execution.

Another day, another round of the political pundit class failing to get their hive mind around the objective fact that the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church doesn't give a single flying fuck how they feel about Catholic doctrine and canon law.

Fact check that against LGBTQ+ people who've spent their lives being projected into the lurid (and enormously profitable) paedophilic fever swamp dreams of obsessive bigots.