Daily review 26/01/2022

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, January 26th, 2022 - 30 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

30 comments on “Daily review 26/01/2022 ”

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  1. Dennis Frank 1
    26 January 2022 at 6:24 pm

    It's a rerun of the Wild West! Gun-totin' dudes getting high on multiculturalism…

    Over the last two years, there’s been such an influx of outlaw farmers that southern Oregon now rivals California’s notorious Emerald Triangle as a national center of illegal weed cultivation.

    Even though marijuana cultivation has been legal in Oregon since 2014, Jackson County Sheriff Nate Sickler says there could be up to 1,000 illegal operations in a region of more than 4,000 square miles. The Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, which oversees the state’s $1.2 billion legal cannabis industry, estimates the number of illicit operations is double that.

    Local law enforcement officials believe that people from every U.S. state and as many as 20 countries have purchased property in Jackson or Josephine counties. Cartels roll in and offer long-time residents as much as a million dollars in cash for their property, and hoop houses follow soon after the sale is complete. Residents have become accustomed to hearing Bulgarian, Chinese, Russian and even Hebrew spoken at the grocery store.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/14/oregon-marijuana-legalization-black-market-enforcement-527012

    “Two weeks ago, we took down a Bulgarian operation and in the same week an Argentinian operation,” said Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel, adding that they’ve also recently dealt with Chinese- and Mexican-run oufits.

    “A lot of these organizations, before the legal market came into effect, would grow in the forest lands — they’d be up in the hills,” explained Obie Strickler, a licensed cannabis grower in Josephine County. “Now they’re … right out in the open.”

    What is happening in the woods of the southern Oregon represents one of the most confounding paradoxes of the legalized marijuana movement: States with some of the largest legal markets are also dealing with rampant illegal production — and the problem is getting worse. Oklahoma, where licenses to cultivate medical marijuana are some of the easiest to get in the nation, has conducted more than five dozen raids on illicit grows since last April.

    Market forces are driving this multicultural enterprise:

    Oregon’s weed is some of the cheapest in the nation, and Oregonians predominantly purchase weed from licensed dispensaries. Economist Beau Whitney estimates that 80-85 percent of the state’s demand is met by the legal market. But most of the illicit weed grown in southern Oregon is leaving the state, heading to places where legal weed is still not available for purchase such as New York or Pennsylvania — or where the legal price is still very high, like Chicago and Los Angeles.

    The market is so hot now that environmental consequences are ramping up:

    wells have run dry and rivers have been illegally diverted.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 1.1
      26 January 2022 at 7:26 pm

      Same would have happened if NZ reeferendum had passed. The illegal weed industry would flourished alongside the legal one, indeed in many parts of the country surpassed it.

      may already be happening amoung those supplying the so called legal medicinal marijuana.

      Whos keeping count of all those 'legal plants'…nek minute… and the workforce that those areas like East Coast area . All leagal, Yeah right

  2. observer 2
    26 January 2022 at 6:34 pm

    TV1 Colmar Brunton poll out tomorrow.

    The last one was in November when Collins was still leader, and self-destructing. National were on 28 and Luxon on 4. So the jump for them will be huge (National mid-30s, Luxon up to 20).

    Much hyper-ventilating will follow, even though most of the movement will be within opposition support. National will be relieved, no doubt … until some killjoy points out Labour and the Greens still have the numbers, and National have used up their last, best card. They can't fire Judith twice.

    (revisit and mock this prediction tomorrow, I can take it wink )

    • pat 2.1
      26 January 2022 at 6:35 pm

      18 months away from an election it means little.

      • ghostwhowalksnz 2.1.1
        26 January 2022 at 7:29 pm

        Each Covid wave so far has killed off a national leader..

        Omicron may well kill off Luxon before he even gets his training wheels off.

        Bridges probably knows this already and why he strong armed himself into the finance spokesman role.

        Deja vue all over again

        • Muttonbird 2.1.1.1
          26 January 2022 at 7:32 pm

          Agree. Luxon is going to have to be a lot better that he has been. Howling about ineffectual RAT tests isn't going to do it.

          • ghostwhowalksnz 2.1.1.1.1
            26 January 2022 at 8:14 pm

            I see something that in UK they evaluated 160 different brands of RAT tests

            Only 30% were approved. And you may have to take 2 in a row if you dont test positive as its not that good at picking intial infections.

            • Muttonbird 2.1.1.1.1.1
              26 January 2022 at 8:20 pm

              I feel like the issue with them is not even the science behind the tests themselves, it's the self-administering by the general public.

              People don't do this shit right, particularly when it's uncomfortable and even more particularly when there's an incentive to produce a negative test.

            • lprent 2.1.1.1.1.2
              27 January 2022 at 7:39 am

              The generally recomended way to use them to detect an infection is serially with 2 or 3 over the same number of days. Even then they're mostly good for false negative testing.

              I wonder how they will do with the RA.2 variant of omicron?

        • pat 2.1.1.2
          26 January 2022 at 7:42 pm

          Maybe but I doubt National will want another leadership change pre election…..and who the National leader is may not be as important as thought if the economy turns south, incumbents get punished for recessions regardless of fault.

          18 months, anything could happen….and probably will.

          • ghostwhowalksnz 2.1.1.2.1
            26 January 2022 at 8:11 pm

            Bridges is the kind of guy who would push Luxon under a train if he didnt do better in polls than he did.

            Bridges has deep connections within the National party funders and they are the ones pulling the strings about unloading unpopular leaders. Luxon doesnt have that base outside the big corporates ( who dont give that much money).

    • Muttonbird 2.2
      26 January 2022 at 7:28 pm

      Answering opinion poll questions is different from the solitude of the polling booth itself. In that moment there's a pressing crystallisation of one lonely person's experiences over the three years previous.

      Repeat, 3 million times.

      As pat suggests, this poll won't mean much and I predict will grossly underestimate Labour's polling at election time 2023.

      Barring a Queensland style fall from grace regards Covid deaths, voters simply will not eject Jacinda Ardern next year.

      • Sabine 2.2.1
        26 January 2022 at 7:35 pm

        True that, its gonna be interesting how the other parties will do, after all the game is MMP and i doubt that Labour will again get a majority. They will have the Greens – irrespective of how good or how bad they will do cause G and L goes hand in hand, but will that be enough. So much time to pass, is there any popcorn left?

      • observer 2.2.2
        26 January 2022 at 7:58 pm

        No, the numbers won't mean much. But TV polls (which get 10 times the coverage of the others, the leaked party polls) are about the media narrative, not the data. Poli-geeks like us will delve into the numbers and there's all kinds of data to mine there … e.g. the Ipsos polls about which parties are preferred on various issues. Approx 0.1% of the population will care.

        Telly polls are about excited reporters standing in front of inaccurate glossy graphics and declaring "Game-changer! Soar, slump, surge!"

        This will happen tomorrow. But the polling paradox is that it's actually better for a party to rise in increments (28 – 31 -34 – 36), because if they go 28 – 40 -36 they only get one narrative boost, and then it's back to "Slump!'. Again, the numbers aren't the point. It's the framing.

        • ghostwhowalksnz 2.2.2.1
          26 January 2022 at 8:07 pm

          Right . Its no coincidence the Luxon coup happened once the main polls of the year had shut shop before December and Xmas and holidays.

        • alwyn 2.2.2.2
          26 January 2022 at 9:07 pm

          "Approx 0.1% of the population will care.".

          Let's see. If we take the population as being 5 million you are suggesting that there will be 5,000 who will actually care? I guess it is possible but that seems an awful lot to me when you consider how far away the election is.

          In the meantime this poll is meaningless. Nobody is going to give a damn until late February. The first poll that will tell us anything will be broadcast in March.

          Then Labour will really be panicking.

          By the way. That wasn't a Luxon coup. That was a kamikaze flight by Collins. I'll bet it was as much a surprise to Luxon as it was to us.

          • Drowsy M. Kram 2.2.2.2.1
            27 January 2022 at 12:58 am

            Panicking? Collins wanted 'out', like Muller before her – who could blame them?

  3. ghostwhowalksnz 3
    26 January 2022 at 8:03 pm

    This story had me intrigued

    https://www.wired.com/story/belarus-railways-ransomware-hack-cyber-partisans/

    What jumped out was the Citizen Hackers were much much more likely to be western security services/ intell agencies.

    But of course they cant flaunt their hacking expertise to western media ( probably behind many western hacks too)

    Then it all clicked. As is most likely, according real military experts, Putin isnt going to invade Ukraine ( a small chance it might happen) and Im sure western agencies have worked out already . Then why flatter Putin and make him look like Colossus. Even the people in Kiev arent really fussed, but the further away the more ramped up the hype.

    The answer is Belarus , the US and some others want to do a Ukraine and overthrow the Belarus government and wrench it into Western orbit. This is just the start

    • francesca 3.1
      27 January 2022 at 8:17 am

      That seems credible

      All this lethal "aid" pouring into Ukraine, to encourage the lunatics to wage a killing attack on the citizens of Donbas would force the Kremlin's hand (to sit back would be electoral death,)Taken up with Ukraine, Russia would be hard pressed to deal with a Maidan style coup in Belarus

      Zelenskiy needs a win ,Biden needs a win, Bojo too.Encourage the Ukrainians to kill their own people in the east(they're practised at it)overcome them with all this firepower theyve been given under the pretext of a Russian invasion, and bingo, forget about the Minsk accords.That's the message they've no doubt been given

      Of course Russia would have to move, so many have now opted to become Russian citizens, and most have strong connections with Russia.

  4. tsmithfield 4
    26 January 2022 at 8:07 pm

    I think that the government will probably still be doing OK in the poll tomorrow night.

    While people are feeling safe and living reasonably comfortably they will probably see no reason to change the government.

    But there are some dark clouds on the horizon that have been on the news recently. For instance, petrol forecasted to reach $3 per litre this year, lots of people renewing their mortgages this year with suggestions their interest bill could double, and the prospect of turmoil with Omicron and people being locked down in their homes for potentially months under some scenarios.

    When people become dissatisfied with how things are going for them, they are much more likely to start listening to what the opposition parties are saying.

    • weka 4.1
      26 January 2022 at 8:22 pm

      and people being locked down in their homes for potentially months under some scenarios.

      what scenarios are you thinking of?

      • tsmithfield 4.1.1
        27 January 2022 at 2:29 am

        On the news (TV One news last night I think) they were talking about the whole isolation process rebooting if someone is in a family where one person tests positive, then over the recovery time for that person someone else tests positive etc.

        They are talking about 24 days isolation for a contact for one family member. (14 days plus 10 to be careful).

        So if that rinses and repeats in say a large family group the said person may well not get out of isolation for months.

    • Muttonbird 4.2
      26 January 2022 at 8:28 pm

      Only if the opposition parties are saying something intelligible. There is scant evidence of that.

      Rising fuel prices, inflation, and interest rate rises are global problems. Most Kiwis get that.

      • tsmithfield 4.2.1
        27 January 2022 at 2:30 am

        But that is the problem when people start believing the government can solve all their problems. When they have problems, the government should be able to solve them.