Written By:
notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, August 18th, 2021 - 84 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.
Meanwhile. There are farmers who do "get it"
Calm The Farm – Posts | Facebook
Big silence from those who wanted the "bubble" with Australia, or other countries, opened.
None of them volunteering to pay the wages, rents or business costs of people losing out from the latest outbreak. Surprise!
People dont tend to behave well when under pressure
The bubble with Australia was opened and operated as intended. As soon as COVID got back into the community in Australia the bubble closed, as planned – weeks ago.
I think the trans Tasman bubble was 1 – 2 weeks late in closing. Blaming is not going to help either.
Finding the index case will give the source. The Delta strain was always a "not if but when" it was detected in the community.
Dealing with the Delta strain is now a reality and people will probably experience some form of loss. Griping about financial loss is not going to change the situation.
I would not want to be the PM, the finance minister or the Covid minister.
I would not want to be a Plan B advocate. I'd be worrying about the probing questions the press were going to spring on me.
Whose guess is going to be backed?
Hopefully we're going on a bit more than guesswork, so, nobody's, nor nobody's plan b reckins.
The bubble with Australia is fine and should be again once we are all vaccinated.
Are you being serious?
Of course. We cant all hide under a rock and remain closed to the world forever. Once everyone that wants to be vaccinated is vaccinated, why should we remain closed. Yes people will still catch Covid but with the vaccination the symptoms are far less serious.
The health system needs to be able to meet the demand for Covid related hospital admissions.
Still early days for what the Pfizer vaccine can do and what the maximum vaccination rate will be.
Surely if the unvaccinated don't trust mainstream medicine enough to get vaccinated, they won't trust mainstream medicine to cure them when they get sick?
So they'll just stay at home with their Joe Mercola Miracle Cures, vitamin D, ivermectin, and whatever else they see getting spruiked by some random on youtube, right?
In response to your question Andre @ 2.4.1.1.1.1
I think most people gasping for breath will seek medical attention. When it comes to minor Covid symptoms the unvaccinated will not require a hospital bed so not an issue.
I would like to think those who will not vaccinate will do the right thing and comply with safety measures.
Once we are all vaccinated, there should be far fewer hospitalisations as the symptoms are far less.
why not?
We could, in theory.
It's just very unlikely to be politically palatable to a large vaccinated majority. Me included.
You can if you want, and live a long boring life. But I want live life, as far as I know, you only get one turn.
I also love my family.
You can go travel the world all you want. But we ended 2020 as one of the few places on the planet with a lower than expected number of deaths based on previous years.
So the question becomes "with our millions of tourists, the cruise ships, the backpackers, the working holidays, and so on: was the hidden cost of all that the lives of some of our loved ones?"
Maybe a couple of weeks in quarantine should be the new normal.
Then you will be pleased to know Covid seems to have a very low mortality rate (at the moment).
Lets hope Ebola never gets here.
ISTR ebola had like a 3 day incubation. Much easier to control relative to something three or four times longer.
But the point is that we have an opportunity to think about how we can do better than before, rather than just blindly grasping for the old days of high-volume short-term immigration.
Not happening. It's incredibly ironic this happened five days after the govt announced it was going to be opening nz up to international travel more in 2022. This is a sign. Delta can transmit from room to another is open for half a second, international travel is dead for the time being.
People's jobs and lives aren't worth yuppies thinking they are entitled to an international vacation. Sorry if people think nz is a backwater and they hate being stuck here but tough.
If the virus keeps evolving it's pure insanity to think we can go back to international travel .
We do need a find away to get needed workers in but that's added pressure let alone people wanting to go on a holiday here or overseas.
Unfortunately yes this means some industries aren't going to survive… But if we have to risk constant lockdowns and people's lives and jobs and our health system to keep industries afloat then it's probably for the best… Not just for health but for the environment…
I thought the original New Zealand promoter of the trans-Tasman bubble was our PM.
"A travel bubble with Australia can be expected in the first quarter of 2021 "pending confirmation from the Australian Cabinet and no significant change in the circumstances in either country", she says."
She very sensibly qualified it at the time of course.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/432807/australia-travel-bubble-for-early-2021-agreed-in-principle-by-cabinet-ardern
Was there someone else, from New Zealand, before her who had been talking about a bubble?
alwyn, your link is to a RNZ report on the 14 Dec 2020 post-cabinet press briefing.
Fairly certain that the PM and other politicians (NAct MPs? Winston?) had been discussing trans-Tasman travel as a matter of urgency earlier in 2020 – couldn't say who was first.
Too pedestrian, eh? Nothing pedestrian about Maga Muller's brief turn as 'leader'.
https://thestandard.org.nz/most-leaders-of-the-opposition-are-unemployed-they-just-dont-know-it-yet/
https://thestandard.org.nz/responsible-politics-verses-gotcha-politics/
Have you been in a bubble all the last year?
Missed all the screams of "open the borders" from Queenstown, the National party, David Seymour, fruit growers, farmers, Uncle Tom Cobbly, and all?
A must read for anyone interested in the stories about the environment of elite athletes.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pawns-in-adult-power-games?utm_source=Friends+of+the+Newsroom&utm_campaign=87d4d99d79-Daily+Briefing+18.08.2021&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-87d4d99d79-47886425
Sounds a lot like a workplace I know – especially the marginalisation, the exertion of power of a long period of time and the treatment of others who are related to you who work there also.
One day I'll write about it.
Yes Stephen. I was just about to link to that because Jane writes a compelling account of the reality of competitive swimming and the lengths that some officious officials go to gain power over kids.
Saw a kid knocked out on the field playing rugby on Sunday. All the adults just chatted away to each other like nothing had happened. Not a single one went – fuck that – and removed their child from the game.
why?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126107338/covid19-aucklanders-heading-on-holiday-ahead-of-lockdown-angers-concerned-leaders
Boozeshops did well too yesterday. Delta has arrived, Party on Dude.
Fine every last one of them $50 k or throw them in jail. Check the speed cameras, cctv , number plates and addresses.
Bloody hell. Absolute wankers. This happens every time throw a couple in prison.
Regarding the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Some time ago I read an interview with an Afghani villager. Too long ago so no link.
He was asked about where his loyalty lay, country or elsewhere. His reply was along the lines of “I have been an Afghani for 70 years, I have been a Muslim for 700 years, I have been a Pashtun for 7000 years. Where do you think my loyalty lies.”
Outside of the cities, life will eventually return to normal. The Pashtun clans have weathered greater storms than the Taliban.
The Afghani villager is a wise man.
He's bloody old isn't he.
"I would sit in staff meetings where we would talk about, OK, this month we sent 14 armored Humvees down to Helmand Province for the Border Patrol. And 12 of those 14 Humvees along the way went missing — or, quote unquote, broke down — and were disabled. And that was a regular thing."
"I had a Marine Corps major that was part of the Command section that would come in and he’d say, “Hey, we were supposed to cycle through 300 police recruits this month. This says only 150 got through. It’s supposed to be 300.” I’m like, OK, well, it wasn’t 300, it was 150. “Well, can you massage this report so that it says 300?” Basically, can you lie on this report so that it says 300. So just the whole flow of information was not in any way remotely transparent, and it was set up so that really the only people that knew anything for certain were the contractors — the Command staff couldn’t leverage from them accurate information."
"As far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big money funneling operation."
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/a-big-money-funneling-operation-afghanistan
Eisenhower said it first:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
This guy knows how to do it!
https://mymodernmet.com/ememem-street-mosaics-flacking/
Bloody Aussies. Our outbreak came from them according to genome! It's like the underarm all over again.
Ffs waste water testing has started – should this not be on going so as to have some advanced warning.
Why after 18 months do we react and not be proactive and have measures in place ??
have we been asleep given the number of lucky escapes to date.
"Wastewater is currently [since before July at least, likely for a long time] being sampled at least once a week from many sites around the country, including Wellington, Hamilton, Christchurch, Rotorua, Queenstown and several sites in Auckland. In July, sites in Whangarei, Dunedin, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Nelson, Taupo, Gisborne, Napier and Invercargill will be added."
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/covid-19-wastewater-testing
WTF are you talking about. You think NZ has not been proactive? You ask if we have been asleep.
Someone's been asleep. Talking shit in the current situation, what a dick.
"Wastewater is currently being sampled at least once a week from many sites around the country, including Wellington, Hamilton, Christchurch, Rotorua, Queenstown and several sites in Auckland. In July, sites in Whangarei, Dunedin, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Nelson, Taupo, Gisborne, Napier and Invercargill will be added. The Institute of Environmental Research and Science (ESR) tests these samples at their Wellington lab to determine if they can detect SARS-CoV-2."
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/covid-19-wastewater-testing
Seems two of us were able to find that simply by using google. You should try it before you post nonsense.
There are 18 waste water plants within Auckland not all of them were having covid 19 tests. Funny how test results can be obtained the following day, but it takes 6 days in the current case reported regarding Auckland. "A follow-up sample, taken yesterday, returned a second positive result this evening." And I will add that only 40% police out of a force of 13,000 jabbed. So yes we have been caught asleep. Perhaps this may open your mind that not everything you hold to be true is the case. Time to open your eyes.🙈🙉🙊. Hopefully the support for my comments is enough for you ?
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/kerre-mcivor-mornings/audio/chris-cahill-police-association-president-on-low-officer-vaccination-numbers/
https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/covid-19-detected-new-plymouth-wastewater
https://www.watercare.co.nz/Water-and-wastewater/Wastewater-collection-and-treatment
One of us has been asleep, it seems…
Test results have come back from the 11th and show no signs from today’s 1:00 announcement north shore sewer has not been tested but what is the west which picks up the jet park. Waiting 6 days to see if there are any undetected signs that COVID is present is not being proactive.
and to db brown I did see and read that link yesterday, and if you read the link not all Auckland waste water is picked up. Auckland has multi waste water sites and reading “several sites” indicates that it is not ALL of them, and I gather the north shore is not one of them. I inferred that the attention was to Manukau waste water sites. So perhaps chill out and not become so aggressive 🤭
Good advice and perhaps you could take your own medicine cf. @ 8?
You tried imply nothing being done, then backtracked when you were wrong. Then brought in other links to show you have backup?
Then, you're upset cos you got called on it.
Victim and a liar.
Dude's a fuckwit.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1427679508954497028
Greenwald, too.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1427680517613395971
Indeed, two high-IQ fuckwits. FFS, do they suffer from brain-freeze or brain-melt? If they get such simple stuff so horribly wrong the mind boggles when it comes to really complex stuff …
Russia did it!
Or was it the DNC?
Aaaarrrggghhhhh
Jacinda is our President now? Clever lady, sneaking that through with nobody noticing.
They were all too busy fighting over a moving portrait of a long-dead foreign PM.
Never waste a good crisis.
I think I’d call it a better variation of the old dead cat bounce on the table routine, as that one has been done to …
Anyway, the ABs don’t always win the RWC, the AC is gone, and Lisa C is not beaming her smile on our screens, for now. A wandering portrait will do (the trick), it seems.
Glen Greenwald on twitter too.
On this one occasion he and Greenwald are certainly out of line.
In a past life, I worked in a petrol pump factory.
There was a real concern over static electricity. It can damage the electronic boards inside the pumps and obviously be a concern on forecourts with fuel vapour.
Recently I have noticed the Covid QR sheets appearing on fuel pumps on forecourts.
What gives? Fuel companies turning a blind eye to public safety, while trying to be compliant when the customer pays at the pump?
The CCTV footage of forecourt fires is mighty impressive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T6VKxmUPb3g
It is the return to the inside of the car that 'charges' the driver and touching the pump handle earths her and allows the spark to occur.
You mind explaining how a QR code on a pump could possibly be a contributing factor to something like this happening?
Ideally, the explanation would include considering the voltages and likelihood of sparking from a phone, compared to the voltages and likelihood of sparking built up on cars just driving around in very low humidity, and even the voltages and likelihood of sparking just with friction on clothing and materials in low humidity.
Not using a cell phone on a forecourt has been a thing for a long time.
To do with the possibility of a spark I assume.
My comment wasn't to poo-poo QR, I am fairly highly compliant in that respect.
The observation that now that pay at the pump is a thing, the 'rules' can be bent. The vapour cloud from pumping petrol is surprising, although the Vapour Recovery pumps are becoming more common place.
It's been a longstanding pure urban myth that cellphones could cause an explosion at a petrol station. Cellphones just don't cause sparks, and even if they did, they don't get used in close proximity to anywhere that vapour concentrations are high enough to be ignitable. Which is really just very close around the filler.
The only thing dangerous about a cellphone at a petrol station is if you're paying attention to the phone instead of pulling the filler nozzle out when you're done, or walking in front of other moving vehicles on the forecourt.
https://z.co.nz/about-z/what-matters/safety-and-wellbeing/safety-first/mobile-phone-use-faqs/
Static electricity on the other hand actually is responsible for a few petrol station fires, in very low humidity environments. Much lower humidity than I've ever experienced in NZ (maybe central Otago at its coldest might get there). But that very small risk is easily eliminated, by being sure to touch a metal part of the car well away from the filler immediately before touching the filler.
https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas/consumer-information/consumer-resources/staying-safe-pump
A couple of times a year my brother flies to this Dassault service facility.
Reckons the whole place revolves around the threat posed by static discharge during the low humidity winters.
Impressive that she stopped to pull the pump handle out and then tried to put it out. Not Sure if I would have done that or not.
Why does touching the handle earth her given the hose is rubber not metal? Why does earthing cause a spark?
She could have charged herself and the car in opposite senses by sliding across the seat as she got out. Then reaching for the metal handle earthed to the car allows the spark to jump to equalise again.
My first winter in a cold part of the US I spent a lot of time testing metal things for electric faults before I realised it was just static building up. It really takes very little movement for a significant jolt to build up.
As for static starting fires at pumps (and not phones):
https://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-hazardous-conditions/using-cell-phone-at-gas-pump-make-it-explode.htm
You are right about her courage. I shudder to think what I would do. Amateur pyros don't like unplanned combustion.
When I first learnt about this, at the safety part of the indoctrination (there is a better word), I recall that it happened to women more often than men. Something about being more likely to go back into the vehicle.
And what Andre said about the spark.
BTW, the recommended way to deal with it is to just click the handle to stop the automatic pumping, then back off leaving the filler nozzle in the car.
If you pull it out, then there will be spillage from the pump nozzle that will spray burning fuel around, and there will be some burning fuel-air mixture going down into the car filler pipe into the space vacated by the filler nozzle getting pulled out.
But if you just stop the pumping and leave everything else undisturbed, the burning fuel-air right at the nozzle will quickly burn out. Because it's not getting replenished by fuel vapours getting pushed out of the tank, because there's no more fuel going in.
that all makes sense. I wonder if I'd remember to do that in the heat of the moment.
heh
https://twitter.com/davidfarrier/status/1427800019046834177
edit:
https://twitter.com/StrayDogNZ/status/1427799978185945091
Hope they get locked up for at least the duration of the lockdown. Public nuisance and a threat to public safety.
I am sure Mr TK is grateful to you for promulgating this.
Yeah, dog forgive we should have a wee giggle at the idiot's expense. FFS/
Goodness.
You don't appear to have been chuckling.
It ain't binary. You can snigger and he can be grateful for the rebroadcasting on another platform.
Because my rebroadcasting on another platform will convince TS readers to sympathise with him and his fuckwittery.
The women involved in these crackpot conspiracy theory outfits have such hard faces and horrible voices. Some might call them screaming tarts but I would never do that. 😉
This bloke takes deranged, screaming skull biscuit.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1427785554805075971
Meanwhile
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ® has tested positive for COVID-19, but negative for a conscience, soul, or brain.
TheHill – 17 Aug 21
Abbott tests positive for COVID-19 breakthrough infection
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, his office announced.
Of course he's sharing the love.
https://twitter.com/AbbottCampaign/status/1427422628248227841
Now that's gotta be a supreme Darwin Award
Quite the meathead.
Either the donkeys are running the shop…or the homeless dude in MIQ.
Hospital staff waiting in line to be tested for Covid-19 have reportedly been told by Auckland District Health Board management to return to work.
A contact of a nurse who tested positive for the highly contagious virus says her hospital
colleagues- who have been waiting hours in line to get tested – were being told to return to work.
Messages sent among hospital staff, seen by the Herald, show management has requested some staff to return to work.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-outbreak-hospital-staff-waiting-for-test-told-to-return-to-work/7CLHPNC3WIXIG73UUD7WP2BODQ/?
The testing appears to have problems for the staff, it is not like the hospital can be shut down like a school.
ADHB appear to have some gaps in their staff management Covid plan.