Week in review, quiz style
1. What means the same thing as levy?
a. Butter chicken pie
b. Gormless Prime Minister
c. Elevating the big rocks going forward
d. Tax
2. What does LNG stand for?
a. Luxon’s Not Green
b. Let’s Not Generate
c. Liquified Natural Gas
d. Losing‘N’Grinning
3. What is something you can still do at Moa Point?
a. Get baked of an evening and watch the Bristol Freighters come in to land at WLG Airport
b. Swim without worrying about what you’re swimming in
c. Fish without worrying about what you might be pulling in
d. Look out over the water and think about how other people do infrastructure
4. On a scale of 1-10 how much does Winston Peters tend to exaggerate?
a. 10
b. 11
c. 69
d. A gazillion
5. What languages make music incomprehensible?
a. Spanish
b. Italian
c. Mate I can’t even understand opera in English
d. None, music is a universal language
6. Masked ICE thugs are leaving Minnesota in what?
a. Disguise
b. Disgrace
c. Enormous vehicles, still beating their thug chests
d. All of the above
7. How many years would the Tarras gold mine be digging up gold and being such a great economic boon to the nation?
a. Nine years
b. Nineteen years
c. Ninetynine years
d. Here to eternity
8. What is the most prevalent type of battery?
a. Lithium-ion
b. Nickel-cadmium
c. LNG-Moron
d. Hen
9. What is more likely to go up in flames, a Lithium-ion battery or poor old Keir Starmer?
a. The battery
b. Poor old Keir
c. Mandelson smoking in the kitchen holding a lighter with an open gas bottle
10. What was the name of the second Lone Justice album, released in 1986?
a. Shelter
b. Helter Shelter
c. Gimme Shelter
d. Dark Side of the Shelter
Answers
What means the same thing as levy?
d. Tax
To be fair, LNG project stands to yield a net reduction in power prices IF Simon Watts has his numbers right and IF the ball bounces the way they hope it will in terms of construction costs and other non-trivial things.
But as ever their capacity to explain anything has found them dismally wanting; undone by their dogged insistence on pretending that anything inconvenient is not there or does not exist.
A levy is a tax. Stop digging, you clowns.
2. What does LNG stand for?
c. Liquified Natural Gas
To continue: the much larger questions have also been left hanging: why are they so reluctant to do any properly bigger and bolder thinking about this? We could be investing in a really meaningful way in abundant renewable energy, but oh no. These are small thinkers who will eternally pander to small thinkers with a vested interest in the status quo.
And thus we meet once more the immortal National Party creed of governance: Never mind a proper plan, what’s the cheapest easiest shortcut?
3. What is something you can still do at Moa Point?
d. Look out over the water and think about how other people do infrastructure. Perhaps the mess at Moa Point will prove to be nothing more than a matter of equipment failure attributable to corner-cutting private sector ways. Perhaps, though, it may prove to be symptomatic of something more along the lines of:
Do we have a colossal bloody problem because we’ve kept ignoring our infrastructure needs in the name of keeping down rates and taxes until it blows up in our faces and all over our good clothes?
If you believe you know the answer to this question more generally, do help yourself to another 170 billion points.
4. On a scale of 1-10 how much does Winston Peters tend to exaggerate?
d. A gazillion
I am acquainted with Judge Ema Aitken. I am also acquainted with Winston Peters. I have known one of them to tend to dramatise things and raise their voice, I would be surprised to ever see it in the other. Lately, it feels to me, people who mostly like to laud the rough and tumble of politics will clutch pearls and swoon like a Victorian widow in the face of criticism. I’m not saying that’s how things played out. I’m just saying it would not surprise me to learn that there has been quite a bit of egging of the pudding here.
5. What languages make music incomprehensible?
d. None, music is a universal language. For more on the pearl clutching about Bad Bunny at the SuperBowl, do please enjoy Jon Stewart.
6. Masked ICE thugs are leaving Minnesota in what?
d. All of the above
7. How many years would the Tarras gold mine be digging up gold and being such a great economic boon to the nation?
a. Just nine years, which is not all that long to be delivering these vaunted jobs and taxes they say will make it worth the risk.
Here’s a thought: might we not be better avoiding the risk in the first place and exploring other less finite, more sustainable ventures, ideally of a green and renewable nature, to really get us Back on Track?
8. What is the most prevalent type of battery?
a. Lithium-ion
A landfill went up in flames this week, prompting Waste Management to propose we find a better system for dealing with the things. Fair enough, all in favour of doing more to get valuable minerals out of expired batteries, it is surely the way we want to be going.
But, also, tip of the hat to Professor Saeid Baroutian, Faculty of Engineering & Design, University of Auckland for this not altogether encouraging background info:
Today’s wide range of chemistries, sizes, and pack designs makes sorting and recycling far harder than people assume. Batteries are often embedded, glued, or sealed inside products, so they are easy to miss and difficult to remove safely. Different chemistries and formats can require different recycling routes, and mixed/hidden designs increase contamination and costs, while also increasing the chance that a battery gets damaged during collection and processing.
On we press.
9. What is more likely to go up in flames, a Lithium-ion battery or poor old Keir Starmer?
Too close to call, give yourself 100 points and keep behind the tape please.
10. What was the name of the second Lone Justice album, released in 1986?
a. Shelter. This is really just a pretext to say do read this very nice storytelling from Dianne Swann, which ends with the band in question.
Hope you have a very lovely weekend.
