Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Getting manufacturing out of China isn’t the answer. People come from China’s provinces to work in these factories because it gives them some chance to aspire. They’re as entitled to those aspirations as much as any American worker is.
Sure, and just between us, I suspect those workers would love significantly better pay and conditions. Talking about "getting manufacturing out of China" is not only missing the point, but pointing at the wrong end of the chain. If you want cheap shit from China, end-consumers like you and me really shouldn't come over all surprised when we're reminded who's really paying for it.
It's just possible that a shirt manufactured in the EU is more expensive than one made in a sweatshop because (surprise!) an atelier in Paris or a plant in Milan can't pay its workers a few Euros a day for 14 hour shifts; meeting OSH and environmental standards isn't cheap.
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Hard News: Finally, the Teapot Tape?, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Their predictions were based on the Treasury forecasts, which Treasury emphatically stood by whenever they were questioned, and then revised less than a week after the election.
Yes, so it would have been useful to spend say 10% of the space dedicated to TeapotMania reporting on how Treasury arrives at these estimates and why they're so often *cough* reality-adjacent since they were the foundation of both major party's claims to fiscal credibility.
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Hard News: Finally, the Teapot Tape?, in reply to linger,
(5) Media and opposition alike letting themselves be distracted away from more important (if less sensationalised) topics.
And that is the only part of this I really care about. Because it kind of sorta really mattered that no half-way credible economist or policy wonk I can think of believed a word of English and Cunliffe's rosy projections of when the nation's books would return to the black.
I'm not so sure I like the word "distracted", which carries the connotation that the media went Teapot Crazy and fixated on turning Auckland Central into a cat fight through some kind of involuntary reflex. That's nonsense, but as I've said a lot it's funny how our media outlets have their editorial decisions made by magic elves when everyone else has gone home, isn't it?
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Keir Leslie,
It’s not like it wouldn’t be attractive to fly to Germany in order to avoid years in the US prison system, even if it did mean losing a lot of money.
I'd note the United States does have an extradition treaty with Germany, so am I missing something here?
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Kim Dotcom’s no angel
I think we all take that as read, Red – I’d just like to think the rule of law (including BORA) protects everyone, even the MegaDodgyDouche-nozzles. :)
The judgement on bail seems well within reason.
I’ll grant that relying on The Herald is a dangerous thing, and that’s where I have a difficulty. On the face of it, this super-secret affidavit from an unnamed Customs official seems to have stated the bleeding obvious without closing the argument that Dotcom’s flight risk is so severe even a curfew, mandatory reporting & electronic monitoring isn’t an option.
And for all I know, there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for Schmidt holding multiple passports under different names. Buggered if I know.
Perhaps I’m just a wet liberal(-ish) pussy, but I’m not entirely convinced the cone of silence here is entirely justified. And while it's not entirely relevant to the matter in hand, if Customs are genuinely of the opinion that our borders are as "porous" as Swiss cheese gone over with a shotgun, I think there's a legitimate public interest in that being in the public domain.
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OK, I’m still wading through the Dotcom bail application decision (thanks Russell for the link & NBR for posting it), but have I missed the part with actual evidence for these assertions?
Secret evidence from a customs official helped a judge decide that internet multimillionaire Kim Dotcom should stay behind bars.
In a bail decision released yesterday, Judge David McNaughton said the official showed how someone could slip abroad by obtaining false passports.
An affidavit presented in closed court warned of the “porous” nature of New Zealand’s borders if Dotcom tried to flee by boat or plane from outside the main centres.
To be a little cynical, it’s hardly a MegaSecret that 1) not very nice people use false papers for nefarious purposes and 2) Since we don’t live in North Korea or Escape from New York the state doesn’t monitor ever jetty and airfield. It hardly makes a slam dunk case that Dotcom could pull a Lord Lucan.
Wonderful argument that nobody should ever get bail for anything – after all, what’s to stop anyone from ‘going bush’ and skipping a court date? If you want to take it to the reductio ad aburdum, there's only one way to completely eliminate "flight risk" - nobody gets bail of any kind and we 'refocus' the corrections spend into 'capacity building' for remand prisoners.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Russell Brown,
Nice contributions in that thread, dude.
I'm just bemused that someone who was hired for his connections on Capitol Hill is acting like some more-than-usually unhinged GOP primary candidate. If I was Rupert Murdoch, I'd be asking if the sixth of Dodd's arse I'm paying for is making an acceptable ROI.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Oh, it is old news. More recently, Motion Picture Association of America head former Senator Chris Dodd has been pure comedy gold. This nitwit makes Alisdair Thompson look like a paragon of competence.
What do you do when your legislative agenda is turning to shit. Go on Fox News and have a very public “hey bitch, when when we buy you, you stay brought OR ELSE” temper tantrum at the White House, of course!
Then throw yourself a pity party about those horrible lying liars on the internet. As Cory Doctrow snarks on BoingBoing:
Must be terribly hard to represent the largest media empires in the world, who collectively own all the major newspapers, TV stations, radio stations, billboards, record labels and studios. How will they ever get their side of the story out?
WHAT AN ASSHOLE is a pretty apposite tag.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Bart Janssen,
So the police have evidence that a couple of safe deposit boxes in a bank contain illegal goods. They then shut down the bank and all it’s websites and branches.
The bank remains closed until the case comes to court?
Um, yes. I saw someone on line describe SOPA/PIPA as being like reacting to a cockroach in the kitchen by burning the house down with your whole family inside. Everyone’s dead, you don’t have a house anymore… and the roaches have moved next door. Score!
That really seems to be the default level of bat-shittery from “the industry” where copywrong is concerned, and it’s just not helpful.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Sacha,
The OED would suggest that they're two perfectly acceptable alternate spellings, both of which have ample precedent in English prose - though you're quite correct that the k- usage is more common in the UK. But hell, when reading Australian newspapers I still mentally insert a vowel into 'Labor' - and there's a fascinating back story there. :)
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