Posts by James Butler
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Hard News: One man’s Meat Puppets is…, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
Reggae.
Sorry, but I just can’t stand it.
At the risk of alienating 90% of the PAS community, ME TOO. But I think some of my antipathy comes from growing up in Wellington in the 90s.
That said, I'm rather fond of the moments in various Bad Brains albums when the barrage of shredding and screeching suddenly halts, and out of the silence comes something like this:
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With all Shearer’s talk of lambs and pies and CGT, I’m reminded of this excellent article Alex Coleman tweeted yesterday:
Consider how conservatives got a majority of Americans to be against the Obama health care plan. The president had polled the provisions, and each had strong public support: No preconditions, no caps, no loss of coverage if you get sick, ability to keep your college-age child on your policy, and so on. These are policy details, and they matter. The conservatives never argued against any of them. Instead, they re-framed; they made a moral case against “Obamacare.” Their moral principles were freedom and life, and they had language to go with them. Freedom: “government takeover.” Life: “death panels.” Republicans at all levels repeated them over and over, and convinced millions of people who were for the policy provisions of the Obama plan to be against the plan as a whole.
Shearer can mumble about how “our community must take care of the needy” all he likes, but when no-one in Labour is articulating why we must take care of the needy, the field is wide open for National to tell us why solo mums, stevedores etc. just need to suck it up cos we’re in a recession didn’t you know.
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Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Russell Brown,
As a white male who’s been writing on the internet under his own name for ever, risk in this context isn’t much of a factor for me.
The exception? Sometimes, feminist blog discussions. That’s the only time where I can be interested in the discussion, feel I have something to contribute – and not do so.
Have you ever been tempted to break out a pseudonym?
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Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Bart Janssen,
But when in her local S&M dungeon would shock 70% of the participants by saying …
"So I was at my knitting circle yesterday..."
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Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Emma Hart,
Our ability to assess risk is actually pretty bloody terrible.
Hence the need for an Internet Face-Punching Service. People's risk-assessment abilities would improve quite quickly methinks.
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Thing is that the risk assessment is two-way. People who behave badly online - your persistent propositioner, Kiwiblog trolls, geeks flaming each other over minor differences between Linux distros - feel empowered to do this because it is safe for them. The person hitting on you (hopefully) knows that he/she couldn't get away with that for long IRL, because their own social safety would be compromised.
In the end, an online community sets its boundaries by (often) implicit consensus just like a "real" community; but it certainly seems that the default in both cases, without active moderation (or in the case of real life, decades of social and political action) the default is safety for those with power to exercise their power.
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Up Front: Safety Net, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I know people who would much rather be punched in the face than have an idea exposed as incorrect.
I think this is common enough - it's probably the root cause of all armed conflict.
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It doesn’t cease to matter just because you can’t punch people in the face over the internet. (You can’t. Seriously, you can’t.)
You know what? There's a business model for the new economy right there.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Richard Stewart,
The best metal in terms of conductivity and corrosion resistance
This is true, and it's a PITA that hoarding for investment purposes makes it too expensive for switch contacts.
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Hard News: Unwarranted risk, in reply to Gareth Ward,
I think to try and understand the Nat’s reasoning for these asset sales, you have to realise that all financials being equal (interest payment reductions roughly equal to cash dividends otherwise received; realised value of debt reduction roughly equal to book value of asset…) they just don’t see the point in the state owning something (and indeed, the risks to the state balance sheet of owning make it overall unattractive). It’s horribly simplistic and misses all the more nuanced arguments against but I suspect that’s how simply they see the economics of it.
I would like to think that; but it ignores the fact that selling such a large swathe of assets, in this market, is never going to realize the best cash return. So even in pure bottom-line terms it doesn't make sense. Like so many other decisions this government makes, mere incompetence fails to explain it, making it hard not to invoke malice.