Posts by George Darroch
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Hard News: Friday Music: In the neighbourhood,
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awkward layout and deafening rock PA.
That's something to note. A venue set up for loud guitars and sloppy drumming isn't going to do well when you want crisp notes across the spectrum and clear sound at lower volumes.
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OnPoint: Budget 2013: Bringing Down the…,
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“Fixed repayment obligations and higher repayment thresholds for overseas-based borrowers” (I think they mean lower thresholds though. I think.)
“[Extending] the child support border arrest system for the most non-compliant overseas-based borrowers”
“Ongoing information-sharing agreement between IRD and Internal Affairs to collect contact details from passport applications”If I'm reading this correctly, ugh. I've been paying back close to my obligations, as I can. Fixed repayments could easily force me choose to between country and career.
(Given that the NZ Government has chosen to neglect public health entirely, meaning ever fewer jobs for early-career professionals).
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Notes & Queries: In The Face of Global…, in reply to Jolisa,
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I wonder at the casual dehumanisation on display here. Only number 9 seems to engage with the event with any genuine humanity; the fact that the project traumatised its creator to the point where he was physically unable to work on it for a long while is pretty eloquent. And strangely reassuring.
Likewise. My referential image for this tragedy isn't the crash or the collapse, it's the image of a man falling to his death. There's room for replication, and exploration of the event. But I don't think there's a place for things which seek to create joy and humour. That requires a degree of either distancing; in the case of societies which identify themselves with the victims, or of justification; in the case of those who identify with the protagonists (of which there were many, for quite some time).
And I feel the same about wars. There's plenty of rationalisation and justification for those. But in the end, they're just objects of preventable tragedy and horror, and artworks which find entertainment or celebration in them leave me with the same hollow feeling inside. 'Do these people lack humanity?', I think.
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Hard News: SpinCity, in reply to Angus Robertson,
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Well aren’t you going to kill a lot of internet discussions with that sort of attitude.
I hope so.
ETA:
Giovanni Tiso has come up with a practical solution to this problem.
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Legal Beagle: On Consensus, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
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Hey, the Greens were opposition at the time :)
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland,
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Health services, for example: do they ‘produce’ health!? Still pretty important, and not something Mr Joyce has (yet) found a way to export…
Except, they can represent an export, in the same way that tourism does. A friend recently completed extensive gender reassignment surgery in in Thailand. Every dollar of his represented foreign income for Thailand.
We'd be hard pressed to compete on that platform. We can't offer high quality services at a low enough cost. But in theory, it's possible.
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Hard News: Friday Music: A lovely…,
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I really enjoyed the Mint Chicks cover art. Seeing the work of these former art-school punks was like candy, enticing you into the world they'd created. Octagon Octagon Octagon in particular stands out to me, coming as it did early in their career when their presence hadn't been established.
More Flying Nun, of course, as McClennan notes, but I think the encouragement of that particular canon of creation helped bring into fruition a lot of these [FN] works.
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Hard News: Competing for Auckland, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
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Wellington won’t get long haul flights even if we have a runway long enough for the Space Shuttle.
Incidentally, Auckland International was a designated emergency landing runway for the Space Shuttle while it was still operational. It's one of the longer runways in this part of the world. Unfortunately, it's not suitable for taking off from...
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Hard News: Satire's shooting star,
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Interesting commentary from Wayne Mapp. It's always good to hear honest commentary on the thoughts of a decision-maker. I think the problem isn't so much the conclusions he reaches, as the premises he is working from - a result of New Zealand lacking the capacity (and will, but will is irrelevant without the capacity) to critically interpret the intelligence he is being fed. If it is seen as straightforward, rather than the product of interests, biases, and an incomplete ability to get correct information in the fog of complex societies and war, then it is almost certain that wrong decisions will be made, often seriously wrong ones.
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Hard News: Dressing for the Road, in reply to Keir Leslie,
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If you work a job where you have to wear steel caps, or overalls, or a uniform, this kind of discussion is quite different.
My Dad rode did a daily mountain bike from Mangere to the Newmarket bridge project in his construction workwear. It's possible.
We're a bit mad in my family, but still.