Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Russell Brown,
Quite. It should be straightforward thinking to assess the risk and determine it is such that doing nothing would be very unwise.
And considering our economy isn't the only one fundamentally dependent on functioning sea ports -- and moving them "up the hill" isn't really an option -- perhaps none of us call really afford to stick our fingers in our ears, then try sticking our whole heads up our arses while we pray Rodney is right.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
(although to be fair, crippling our biggest industry to make an insignificant change to global warming is dubious).
And beyond the level of lobbyist hyperbole, is the dairy industry really in any danger of being knee-capped by those awful Greens? Serious question, because if anything they’ve gotten a remarkably free ride compared to a lot of industries that have had to adapt or die, and stop whinging about no longer being able to pollute at will in the process. Perhaps I’m just a free market crank, but the rural sector has a quite remarkable -- and ill-founded -- sense of entitlement to nationalize the consequences (and costs) of its activities, and privatize the profits. If nothing else, its really insulting to those who are innovative and playing the long game with science rather than politics.
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“Political leaders, including many in the United States, refuse to accept short-term costs to address long-term dangers even though the future costs of responding to disasters after they occur will be far greater,” said their report, published this month.
Or accept the costs of clear and present dangers. Everyone might be rather busy at the moment, but it would be interesting to see how budget cuts and Tea Party ideologues have affected the response to those polar vortices.
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Ah, the special musical guest. I can't look at David Letterman without a yearning, burning hatred of unfunny white dudes but sometimes...
LCD Soundsystem, 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House'. Perhaps the best cowbell solo, ever.
Lorde kinda Kate Bush-y...
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Hard News: Friday Music: Some Year, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
In a way, Lorde in 2014 will be far more interesting than Lorde in 2013.
Yup - being a one hit/album wonder is (relatively) easy, up to a point. Sustaining it is harder. And doing that without eventually turning into a self-parodying tax exile? That's damn near impossible.
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Hard News: Good work, in reply to Sacha,
Herald sub manages to take a story about Cameron Brewer admitting something might be true and crafts headline that conveniently matches said rag’s editorial line on the matter: ’Brewer denies journalist prompt’.
Where Brewer and The Herald's bad bromance is concerned, it's never a bad time to quote Mandy Rice-Davies.
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This might sound like wretched arse kissing, but The Listener’s arts/books editor Guy Somerset is going to get some ups. Had six reviews in the magazine over the last year, and every single one of them is better because Guy’s an infuriating pest who will ask nicely (but firmly) for a tweak on anything that’s… not quite there. And isn’t it funny how easily the ego gets put in the back seat when someone genuinely thinks your work is worth it?
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And as a final Christmas present, Quackers makes a strong bid for the position of Auckland’s village idiot:
Auckland councillor Dick Quax, an outspoken critic of Mayor Len Brown, has called on him to withdraw from hosting Prince William and wife Catherine early next year.
The couple and their baby George will visit New Zealand in April.
Yesterday, Quax said Brown should not be greeting the royals after his two-year extramarital affair with Bevan Chuang and a review that found he had accepted free hotel rooms and upgrades.
If extramarital affairs render someone unfit to be in the royal presence, poor George is going to spending those Balmoral family Christmases in the kennels with great-granny’s corgis and no time at all with the paternal grandfather and his second wife. Can we just declare this shark well and truly jumped, and ask our elected representatives to do some bloody work?
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Hard News: We need to talk about Len, in reply to Russell Brown,
They’ve painted themselves into a corner. All they can do now is keep saying over and over that he’s damaged goods in the hope it will become true.
Totally. And one more thing about Brewer's junket -- who paid for it? A media company, and while sledging the opposition is a time-honoured media tradition, it could escalate into a tit-for-tat round of rather awkward news stories about APN's own *cough* interactions with politicians.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Some Year, in reply to bmk,
This part really struck home to me. The first time I hear NZ music it’s usually on the radio and it’s immediately clear to me that it’s NZ music – there’s just something about the sound.
Which I really don’t hear – seriously, not trolling for a fight but just because New Zealand music is full of the “tyranny of distance” that doesn’t mean its ever existed in total isolation from the rest of the world. Don’t take my word for it, read Chris Burke’s magisterial Blue Smoke if you haven’t already. I think Lorde can simultaneously get wrapped up in both forms of cultural cringe, classic and inverted, and that’s not particularly useful.
But anyway, apologies to Lorde and Miley, but my album of the year is still Janelle Monae’s wonderful The Electric Lady. I can’t pay it much higher praise than say it’s still giving me the kind of fairground kick I used to get when Prince was dropping one amazing album after another in his 80’s prime.