Posts by Scott A
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Twitter reporting a big aftershock. *Worried* Everyone ok, again?
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Sacha,
Commissar gagging to flatten heritage buildings.
The Minister, Gerry Brownlee, told a media briefing this afternoon that if he has his way, most of Christchurch's heritage buildings would be bowled tomorrow.
You know, I sympathise with our commissar. (Gags a little).
I know it's not a zero sum game but, if it comes down to it, and the call has to be made between 'heritage' and 'safe,' I know where I'm going to lend my support. And, sympathetic as I am to the value of heritage buildings, buildings of character, and the spaces and surrounds they can create, it's one of those things where the distinction between "alive" and "living" becomes meaningless when the alternative is "death."
Case in point. I work from an ugly 70s office building in Wellington's CBD, that was earthquake "proofed" about four years ago. I'm honestly glad I'm working there, no matter how ugly it is, rather than the pretty old building opposite that the WCC has listed as requiring improvement work.
Yes, I'll agree with needing a "reasonable and evidence-based" decision process about what buildings survive, both in Christchurch and elsewhere, but I think this is a good reminder that, sometimes "old" just means "old," when it comes to buildings.
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Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Kracklite,
Apologies if this has already been addressed, this threads moved a lot while I was hard at work today...
Some idiot was on Morning Report saying that we need an autocracy to get things fixed quickly.
That idiot was, of course, Joe Bennett. (New Zealand's answer to Jeremy Clarkson, but with dogs instead of cars.) Developed his anti-PC curmudgeon shtick to such an extent that I don't think even he knows what he thinks about any issue any more except he's "against it."
That ending to his interview made me so so angry. But if Bennett thinks democracy is "cumbersome," I'd still far prefer it to the autocracy he favours, made of wealthy white men like himself who 'know best, dear.'
Hey, I managed to write about Joe Bennett without swearing. Go me!
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I'm still working on the shape-changing lizard theory. Perhaps the bracelet is part of his transformation control system.
Oh. Do I score more or less points on the geek scale if I say I first thought of a particularly wonderful issue of Hellblazer rather than the V?
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Do not read the comments on Brian’s blog.
Oh dear. I haven't been back there since I managed to get the first comment on there last night. It's bad, I take it? Should I dare to venture?
...I'm gonna take a bath instead, I think.
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Thanks Keith. Ever since I started to hear stories of service station owners and supermarkets deciding to self-ration how much petrol / bread / water they sold to customers rather than price gouge I thought it was an interesting reflection on classical free-market economics. Perhaps it is the simplest and most direct example of how such theories are nice and simple, but just doesn't do anything to explain or predict how people actually behave in socio-economic communities.
And, as you explain so well, in such a potentially free-wheeling market as a city after a disaster, it was the choice of people to ratio and control the market that provided the efficient provision of needed goods.
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Up Front: Ups and Downs. And Side-to-Sides., in reply to BenWilson,
(making a meths stove is really, really simple).
Wow, that is an incredibly useful site, Ben! Thanks for linking!
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Alex Coleman,
Gary McCormick's poem just now though, was the shit.
What the drummer said to the drum
You miserable low life bastard.
We saw you on the fourth of September,
crawling into town on your spineless spine,
giving us a flick and looking us over.It was an earthquake then for the yellow pages.
Remember the torch, the bottles of water.In September you were just the piano player,
tinkling the ivories. In moustache.
Pretty out there.
Eyeing the women on the dance floor.Then my, o my, you waited!
I saw you the other day run up a blind alley,
full of hatred and dark breath.
Black clouds only pity us.You held us down on the jagged ground.
You shook the streets and the city buildings.
You tore the spire from the cathedral,
and from all those people.The tourists taking photographs,
the babies taken in pairs,
the hikers in the hills.
The ones buried beneath us still.You miserable bastard of a thing!
The time has come.
Said the drummer to the drum.
When I can make no sense of it.____
I also really liked McCormick's opening comment that it's okay to feel anger at these events, that it's okay to rage. But that it's important to aim the anger in the right direction, and not towards other people. -
Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Can anyone make head or tail of what Jim Hopkins is on about?
That shit happens, and that people are people?
I actually thought it was quite poetic and poignant, explaining that disasters have happened before and will happen again and it is by holding, hugging, loving that we survive.
But, then, I'll admit I haven't read much of his other writings. Maybe that's why I don't think he was drawing an equivalence between climate change and earthquakes.
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Hmmm, I'm seeing this facebook campaign going around to 'donate the Lotto jackpot' to the Red Cross. Hmmm. I really don't think that's a goer, for reasons ranging from the Lotteries Commission's legal restrictions, to the fact that the jackpot being given away is made up of money spent on Lotto before the disaster, by people hoping to win something back.
I all just sort of mention that in passing to remind people that if you are interested in what you may get back, then there's the donation tax credit of 33.33%. So, if you're a Lotto buyer, how about donating instead this week, and you'll get a better return than your would from Lotto a bit down the line when you make the claim.
Also may be a time to check if your employer offers payroll giving, or to ask your employer to allow it to an organisation that will be able help in Christchurch - that way you'll get the reduction in PAYE due to the donation tax credit immediately each pay day.