Open mike 06/12/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 6th, 2024 - 26 comments
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26 comments on “Open mike 06/12/2024 ”

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  1. Adrian 1
    6 December 2024 at 6:41 am

    This Boot Camp thing is turning out well eh. 10 participants, one traffic death and two absconders already according to the morning papers.

  2. gsays 2
    6 December 2024 at 9:14 am

    I wonder what the Labour Party and supporters think of the partnering with Black Rock.

    Especially in the light of the way Black Rock has pulled the pin on Solar Zero.

    This cowardly act, has left hone owners vulnerable, workers, contractors and suppliers in the lurch heading into Christmas.

    Fucken neo liberalism writ large.
    Something about supping and spoon length comes to mind.

  3. thinker 3
    6 December 2024 at 10:59 am

    Second young person flees from boot camp trial https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/535850/second-young-person-flees-from-boot-camp-trial

    And yet I can't help thinking Luxon's still going to declare the trial a success…

    • AB 3.1
      6 December 2024 at 1:33 pm

      Isn't it great that that Luxon is so 'passionate' about 'outcomes' though? Surely that's the thing to 'celebrate' here? Maybe they are fleeing to attend those extra maths lesson being arranged by the (also extraordinarily 'passionate') Minister Erica Stanford? Get mastery of fractions and percentages and these rangatahi will walk into the great, well-paying jobs our wonderful 'passionate' Kiwi business people will be offering. So much hope and so much 'passion' – it makes one feel (frankly) 'passionate'.

  4. Descendant Of Smith 4
    6 December 2024 at 11:03 am

    This will be interesting. The next emerging issue, although already present, will be the management of wilding pines coming from all those planted pine plantations purely for carbon credits – with little intention to harvest as you will have to pay credits back for chopping them down. We let Japan dump their used cars here and now we are letting overseas companies dump pine trees.

    Gisborne District Council, in a bid to prevent further damage to the region’s landscape and swathes of woody debris covering its coastline, is seeking an enforcement order requiring a large forestry company to cease discharging forestry debris and sediment and to deal with about 16,000 cubic metres of woody debris from a forest block in the Waimata valley.

    The council is seeking the order against China Forestry Group New Zealand Company Ltd. (CFGNZC) , which owns 24 forests across New Zealand, and is a subsidiary of China Forestry Group, the biggest forestry company in China.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350333618/watershed-moment-gisbornes-legal-fight-against-forestry-companies?

    • Barfly 4.1
      6 December 2024 at 1:46 pm

      The spread of wilding pines in the environment and the …

      "Gisborne District Council, in a bid to prevent further damage to the region’s landscape and swathes of woody debris covering its coastline, is seeking an enforcement order requiring a large forestry company to cease discharging forestry debris and sediment and to deal with about 16,000 cubic metres of woody debris from a forest block in the Waimata valley."

      …problem the GDC has are two sepearate issues IMO the debris is primarily uncleared slash from forestry harvesting.

  5. Dennis Frank 5
    6 December 2024 at 11:39 am

    Reinventing ANZAC:

    New Zealand and Australia have struck a new agreement to further integrate defence forces across military procurement, planning, and operations. “In 2024, this is building Anzac, quite literally,” said Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles. The agreement was signed between Marles and Defence Minister Judith Collins on Friday morning at the second “ANZMIN” meeting between the two ministers, and Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360511120/winston-peters-judith-collins-speak-australian-ministers

    Such consolidation does make sense, but our current govt will be challenged to invest substance into it. A pea-shooter brigade won't cut the mustard…

  6. Dennis Frank 6
    6 December 2024 at 3:18 pm

    Bolger met Bush Snr (1991), discussed overturning the nuke ban:

    the pair were both drinking whiskies in a side room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, with national security adviser Brent Scrowcroft also in attendance. A transcript of the full conversation has been declassified and makes for some incredible reading.

    First Bolger reminds Bush that National had “inherited” this policy, and then discusses National’s woeful polling at the time (TVNZ/Heylen had National at 22%, 20 points behind Labour), saying the party was too far out on a limb to reverse the ban right now. https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-12-2024/labours-long-win-on-defence-policy

    Bush replied "Don't believe that crap. The polls can change in an instant."

    In 2004 Labour foreign affairs minister Phil Goff released briefing notes his ministry had taken at a meeting then National leader Don Brash had held with the US ambassador, where Brash had reportedly said the nuclear-free policy would be “gone by lunchtime”. This bit of political ratfuckery undoubtedly played a part in Brash failing to win the election, and kept Brash’s successor John Key from ever touching the issue.

    Almost 40 years since Lange's govt empowered the dissident boomer groundswell, and time has thoroughly normalised kiwi anti-nuke exceptionalism. Yet a week ago I commented here on Fusion 2.0 happening in Wellington & Alwyn asked about the relevance of the law & got no response. Maybe folks assumed nuke tech is cool when a private company does it. Maybe the fine print of the law doesn't cover that. Yet it does make me wonder if anti-nuke sentiment has abated somewhat…

    • lprent 6.2
      6 December 2024 at 7:34 pm

      From memory the anti-nuke law doesn’t cover that. It was largely against nuclear powered vessels, nuclear explosive devices, biological weapons, and a bit about dumping radioactive materials in the sea. Nothing much to stop nuclear power, fission or fusion.

      Wikipedia says in the summary of the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987

      The Act established the legal framework for New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy. The Act sets out the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone consisting of all New Zealand territory (including ocean territory and airspace) and bans nuclear powered ships from entering into New Zealand waters. It also prohibits the acquisition, stationing and testing of nuclear explosive devices. Immunity from the law was granted to ships and aircraft exercising the right of innocent passage and/or the right of transit passage, as well as ships and aircraft in distress.

      In addition to legislating for a national nuclear-free zone, the Act implemented four international treaties. These included the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Treaty of Rarotonga.

      It also has as schedule 1, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFT) of 6 August 1985. That has some restrictions (Article 4) about non-proliferation of fissionable material unless it is subject to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but otherwise doesn’t restrict peaceful use of nuclear technology. Article 7 prohibits dumping of radioactive matter or wastes in SPNFT territorial sea or waters.

      You can read the Act, it is a pretty simple and clear bit of legislation.

      There was a bill in 2000, that failed to pass the house. That had limits of transport of nuclear waste which would caused issues for a local nuclear industry.

      We also have some civilian low-grade nuclear industry in NZ – mostly related to medical.

      As someone with a BSc in earth science, I wouldn’t be comfortable with quantities of nuclear material anywhere in NZ. It is too geologically unstable. Suffice it to say that I live in city with more than 50 reasonably recent volcanoes and calderas, and a backing range of older vulcanism from the Miocene – and I think that is one of the safest places geologically in NZ. Even here I live away from the volcanic fields and 85m above sealevel.

      Auckland Volcanic field

      It isn’t that I am paranoid about geological risk. It is just that I know enough about the risks to be extremely cautious.

      • Dennis Frank 6.2.1
        6 December 2024 at 8:00 pm

        Ok, it makes sense that the govt lawyers would have been specific like that, thanks for clarifying. Having been part of the antinuke movement, I was always aware that many others were opposed to nuclear anything. As a physics grad, I was unusual in grasping the science context. When I saw that movie about a meltdown going all the way thro the planet to reach China on the other side I realised popular thinking will inevitably defeat science though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome

        I did Geology I in 1970 because I needed an extra unit to graduate & it turned out to be more interesting than physics. The version of that map of the Ak volcanic centers we got shown had a count of more than 60, I recall, so perhaps some have since been down-graded or something. Also we were told that Symonds St was on a tuff cone like Albert Park: your map has them separate but I've walked down from one to the other a zillion times and there's no dip between them. Possibly got infilled early in the 20th century – or maybe the map-maker was not an Aucklander.

        • Dennis Frank 6.2.1.1
          6 December 2024 at 8:17 pm

          I just remembered there is a dip where the motorway goes thro. Duh! blush

        • lprent 6.2.1.2
          9 December 2024 at 1:42 pm

          Yeah, drafting of legislation is usually an art of precision. Quite unlike irrelevant travesties like Act's treaty definition 'bill' which lacks any kind of precision and looks like it was drafted by dimwits trying to look smart.

          //—

          The anti-nuke movement is rife with false information. The China syndrome being an extreme example. What do people think that they are living on? The core of the Earth is an immense nuclear reactor powered mostly by the fission reaction of the slow decay of unstable isotopes into (ultimately) more stable elements. Mostly uranium 235 and 238 to lead. Adding a teeny dollop of extra uranium to a thermal nuclear reaction like that does absolutely nothing. Not to mention the energy required to boost away from the core gravitational centre.

          I don't have any problem with nuclear energy engineering. Just a problem about geological stability for sites and waste. The sites are usually around water for cooling and steam generation. Which is always a danger, especially for local populations and those 'downstream'. As soon as water is involved, then 'downstream' over decades or centuries is a very large area.

          Tsunamis. floods, earthquakes, drought, and even terrorist attacks aren't that much of a long-term environmental issue for roads, bridges, and buildings. However radioactive waste and debris from storage or generating sites is. Even 'short-term' radioactive waste can be a problem, one whose extent and effect we don't know long-term. Which is why disposing of all radioactive waste has been an issue. Look at Japan with tsunamis, the old USSR radioactive fallouts like Kyshtym (makes Chernobyl look minor), or even close to beach storage in California.

          Once you start factoring in the full costs of safe radioactive waste disposal, then virtually all nuclear energy starts looking extremely expensive. The Finns are probably starting the first small steps to figuring out those costs in the first permanent storage experiment in the 70+ years history of the nuclear energy industry.

          Basically I don't believe any vague hand-waving and theories from engineers and industrialists. I much prefer actual data from actual testing before possibly causing a long-term problem. Data which is curiously absent from the nuclear industry. Hard enough to even get data from the temporary storage, or storages of short-term waste.

          //—

          The number of 50 volcanoes in Auckland is rough (as is 60 or more). It mostly depends if you look at events, vents, or magma pools.

          For instance Auckland's most recent – Rangitoto has had at least one eruption, possibly in two close events, or possibly has had a volcanic history that is 6000yo. Just about every cone, caldera, and even lava field has similar ambiguities. Basaltic volcanic events are noted by their ability to mask earlier events. They have none of the relative simplicity of rhylotic events that distribute their gifts widely.

          Never seen any volcanic tuffs in building sites on the Symonds street ridge. But it was mostly built over by the uni before I reached adolescence. From what I remember, it looked like the usual semi-metamorphic sediments on deep building sites like the new business school.

          It is well within the volcanic bomb radius from volcanic areas like the Albert Park tuff ring, and on the other side of Grafton gully, including Mt Eden. I can see a reference to a possible tuff cone in Symonds Street in this 1962 paper pp 197-198. But it reads like speculation based on surface rocks. I don't know of any deep building sites on the ridge before the mid-1960s. The uni has the only really large buildings up there and tat only started those large buildings after they left the Uni of NZ in 1962. So I'm guessing this paper was formed just from shallow excavations.

  7. Joe90 7
    6 December 2024 at 5:08 pm

    No doubt Tehran doesn't quite cut it for Asma and the fam so they're probably tucked up in Moscow.

    /

    The Backstory Behind the Fall of Aleppo

    Aleppo was never meant to fall.

    A stunning offensive waged by two Turkish-backed forces over the space of the last five days has resulted in the conquering of Syria’s second-largest city and industrial hub, doing in under a week what more numerous and well-resourced anti-Assad rebels never managed. Yet Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Syrian National Army (SNA) found themselves the beneficiaries of neighboring conflicts, an opportunistic patron in Ankara, the recent election in the United States and a dynastic dictatorship in Damascus weakened by civil war, sanctions and corruption.

    https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-backstory-behind-the-fall-of-aleppo/