Open mike 22/08/2019

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 22nd, 2019 - 64 comments
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64 comments on “Open mike 22/08/2019 ”

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  1. phillip ure 1
    22 August 2019 at 7:19 am

    this is kinda cool..and has its' moments of involuntary humour..

    (news report on woodstock..)

    https://boingboing.net/2019/08/20/watch-walter-cronkite-and-cbs.html

    police: 'so many young people were smoking marijuana..'

    • cleangreen 1.1
      22 August 2019 at 12:45 pm

      This was my first journey into the early'woke days' — as a young kiwi in USA.

      Firstly arived in San Francisco to Scott MacKenzie singing "when you go to San francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair"

      While in New York I heard "all long the watchtower" by Jimmy Hendricks as he at at a protest march he was sung to the 'vietnam protectors' – I was feeling free inside someone elses country.A magic time indeed as I was 23 yrs old on my own half way around the globe from home.

      • phillip ure 1.1.1
        22 August 2019 at 1:21 pm

        cool..!..that was an interesting time to be there…

        (i can recommend the recent book 'chaos' – on the manson murders – for the portrait of the times it provides..)

      • mary_a 1.1.2
        22 August 2019 at 4:32 pm

        Wow Cleangreen (1.1) that must have been an amazing experience of a lifetime to have been right there where it was all happening. Lucky you 🙂

        Loved the music and culture of that time … the event of Woodstock, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Scott McKenzie, Bobbie Gentry, Jimi Hendrix, Hair, Good Morning Star shine, Let The Sunshine In et al. Too many more to mention.

        Although the bloody and totally horrific Vietnam war was raging, the period was revolutionary, one of the best music eras ever IMO. A time of renaissance and change, when women became aware they were able to control their lives, in particular fertility, as they wanted it to be.

        Even though I didn't experience it first hand as you did Cleangreen, I was nevertheless very much part of that time, influenced by the magic of the music, the harsh reality of the existing politics, as well as the cultural change which emerged. An enlightening time to be alive.

  2. marty mars 2
    22 August 2019 at 7:34 am

    This is not a consequence I had thought about really much – must widen that I think.

    According to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the supercell thunderstorm "killed and maimed more than 11,000 waterfowl and wetland birds at the Big Lake Wildlife Management Area west of Molt". Molt is about 20 miles (32km) west-northwest of Billings, Montana's largest city.

    According to the release, biologist Justin Paugh estimates that roughly a quarter of the birds at the lake were injured or killed. About 5 per cent of surviving ducks and a third of living pelicans/cormorants "show some sign of injury or impaired movement".

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/115189400/us-hailstorm-slaughters-11000-birds-in-montana-park

    • Robert Guyton 2.1
      22 August 2019 at 10:54 am

      "Another feature of the storm was that the hail was spiked and jagged. Correlation coefficient radar shows an area of reduced returns where more irregular shapes are detected within the storm."

      This bit sends a shiver down my spine. I suppose, for the moment anyway, humans in the West are protected from unannounced, "spiked and jagged" hail, by the roof of their cars, in which we are so often sat. Not so crops though. Nor birds, it transpires. Sudden events such as that hailstorm are game-changers. I reckon we'll experience such cataclysms. Not very cheerful this morning, am I sad

  3. marty mars 3
    22 August 2019 at 8:09 am

    awesome – looks good whānau – kia kaha!

    "Hīkoi to Prime Minister’s office, calling for her to visit Ihumātao is underway."

    fbook

  4. marty mars 4
    22 August 2019 at 9:59 am

    no billionaires pledging money to save the amazon – not a church for them I suppose

    Smoke from forest fires in the Amazon and its surrounding regions plunged Brazil's largest city into complete darkness.

    On Monday (Tuesday NZT), São Paulo was blanketed by a thick layer of smoke from a fire over 2700 kilometres away.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/115191065/this-is-apocalyptic-amazon-wildfire-smoke-plunges-brazilian-city-into-complete-darkness

    • marty mars 4.1
      22 August 2019 at 10:44 am

      Might pay to start planting as much as we can as soon as we can methinks

      Major wildfires are burning all over the world right now.

      https://www.vox.com/world/2019/8/20/20813786/wildfire-amazon-rainforest-brazil-siberia

      • Robert Guyton 4.1.1
        22 August 2019 at 10:49 am

        Those fires are chilling.

        Really though, the Amazon, on fire!

        We're in deep trouble, as you know.

        • WeTheBleeple 4.1.1.1
          22 August 2019 at 10:57 am

          A conspiracy theorist might consider the right wing have never left their eugenics/poor culling fantasies alone, and climate change is a convenience to their nefarious masturbation fantasies. I find no other understandable explanation for this insanity.

          • Robert Guyton 4.1.1.1.1
            22 August 2019 at 11:06 am

            Terrence McKenna and his wife have a project running to collect and propagate as many medicinal (etc.) plants from the Amazon Basin as they possible can/could (he's passed). Their "nursery" is in Hawaii, I understand. He believed the future of mankind resides in the use of those plants for expanding consciousness to the point where we can see what we are doing and how to undo that.

            I hope they got all they wanted before this latest conflagration. I wonder if the two ideas are connected? Would those you cite be alert enough to action the extinction of the mechanism for seeing the truth? How's that for a conspiracy theory, WTB?

        • marty mars 4.1.1.2
          22 August 2019 at 1:55 pm

          I'd be pissed off if this stuff was true

          The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up

          https://www.bibleref.com/Revelation/8/Revelation-chapter-8.html

      • joe90 4.1.2
        22 August 2019 at 12:58 pm

        If fires don't jigger the Taiga, illegal logging will.

        https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1161020178966163457

        Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia – A Greenpeace Russia team is documenting wildfires in the Taiga forest, in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia. Despite statements by Russian authorities, the intensity of forest fires in Siberia is not decreasing. The 4.3 million hectare fire — an area larger than Denmark — is contributing significantly to climate change. Since the beginning of the year a total of 13.1 million hectares has burned.

        Fires in the Taiga have been raging every year, but this summer’s blazes have reached unprecedented size and strength. The Siberian fires are emitting more than 166 Mt CO2 — nearly as much as 36 million cars emit a year. Fires in Siberian forests are especially dangerous for the climate as they are the source of black carbon that settles on the Arctic ice and accelerates its melting.

        “These fires should have been put out at the very beginning, but were ignored due to weak policies. Now it has grown into a climate catastrophe that can not be stopped by human means,” said Greenpeace Russia wildland fire expert and volunteer firefighter Anton Beneslavskiy. “Russia should increase efforts in forest protection and provide sufficient funding for firefighting and fire prevention. The problem of wildfires should be addressed at the international level in the global climate agreements to keep global warming below 1.5°C.”

        https://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/23660/massive-forest-fires-in-siberia-is-a-climate-emergency/

    • McFlock 4.2
      22 August 2019 at 1:22 pm

      lol the pledged money hasn't shown up, anyway

    • Brigid 4.3
      22 August 2019 at 2:25 pm

      According to the indigenous people, the fires are not spontaneous forest fires, but fires lit by the Bolsonaro regime.

      https://twitter.com/Gerrrty/status/1163566587808559104?s=20

      "Conservationists have blamed Bolsonaro, saying he has encouraged loggers and farmers to clear the land for cattle ranching"

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    22 August 2019 at 10:27 am

    "It's going to be a brutal day weather-wise for most of the North Island on Thursday, with heavy rain and thunderstorms expected. "

    Sunny-as down Southsmiley

    Warm too, for a change and still. I'm gardening while the going's good.

    • bwaghorn 5.1
      22 August 2019 at 10:35 am

      Thankfully it's not to cold so the lambs should survive it.

      • Robert Guyton 5.1.1
        22 August 2019 at 10:37 am

        Did sheep originate in a land such as Afghanistan, I wonder and were lambs originally born into warm or cold weather? Perhaps they've always been snowed-upon at birth.

        • WeTheBleeple 5.1.1.1
          22 August 2019 at 11:01 am

          "The results support an Asiatic origin of the genus Ovis, followed by a migration to North America through North-Eastern Asia and the Bering Strait and a diversification of the genus in Eurasia less than 3 million years ago. Our results show that the evolution of the genus Ovis is a striking example of successive speciation events occurring along the migration routes propagating from the ancestral area."

          https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38074290_Evolution_and_taxonomy_of_the_wild_species_of_the_genus_Ovis_Mammalia_Artiodactyla_Bovidae

          When you consider historical land bridges it makes better sense…

          • Robert Guyton 5.1.1.1.1
            22 August 2019 at 11:07 am

            They won't have walked to New Zealand. Nor Saudi Arabia. Poor creatures.

            • McFlock 5.1.1.1.1.1
              22 August 2019 at 1:26 pm

              They do pretty well here, though.

              Chap I knew from the Falkland Islands reckoned that the FI livestock was largely wild – the high peat content meant no footrot, and the sheep and cows just roamed wherever with very few fences or walls. Herd the sheep for shearing every so often, help out a cow if it's in difficulty, that was mostly it. No need for most drenches and what have you.

              • Robert Guyton …
                22 August 2019 at 2:23 pm

                Survival of the fittest. How many stock units per acre, do ya reckon?

                I'm guessing, few.

                I wonder too, how the native herbs fared, browsed as they would be, by browsers.

                • McFlock …
                  22 August 2019 at 2:37 pm

                  yeah defnitely less stock density than a feed lot, but then they are subantarctic. The bulk of it was simly that with so few parasites etc, almost zero maintenance was required.

                  • Robert Guyton …
                    22 August 2019 at 2:38 pm

                    Sounds similar to Shetland and Orkney, my turangawaewae.

                    • Grant …
                      22 August 2019 at 5:32 pm

                      Gude helt an lang may yee lum reek!

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      22 August 2019 at 7:20 pm

                      ‘Weel buy, whit’s deuan the day?’

                      (Best I could do and I needed Google at that! My Nana could've rattled off a string of greetings and anything else she wanted to say, but that was long ago…)

        • weka 5.1.1.2
          22 August 2019 at 11:18 am

          Sheep won't have lambs at this time of year if they're left to breed on their own timeframe. Isn't early spring lambing something to do with having lamb for Christmas dinner?

          • Robert Guyton 5.1.1.2.1
            22 August 2019 at 11:25 am

            Ah! Something for the wee things to look forward to!

          • Pingau 5.1.1.2.2
            22 August 2019 at 11:31 am

            It's so they can maximise the weight over the grass growing season before being sent to the works.

            • weka 5.1.1.2.2.1
              22 August 2019 at 11:34 am

              how does that balance out with the lamb losses due to weather?

              • alwyn …
                22 August 2019 at 12:00 pm

                There aren't really that many lamb deaths from bad weather. I would think that the average each year in NZ would be less than 0.5%, or perhaps 1 in every 200.

                I don't know where to find any accurate figures though. Newspaper reports are just guesses.

                • Robert Guyton …
                  22 August 2019 at 12:06 pm

                  "North Island farmers lose 100,000 lambs after spring storm"

                  ​"AgriHQ analyst Mel Croad described the North Island losses as a devastating blow for farmer morale."

                  Guesses?

                  I guess you could claim that Mel Croad is just "guessing", despite her qualification as an agricultural analyst.

                  https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/107152693/north-island-farmers-lose-100000-lambs-after-spring-storm

                  • weka …
                    22 August 2019 at 12:26 pm

                    yikes.

                    Another climate adaptation to think through. Are wool farmers lambing in early spring?

                  • alwyn …
                    22 August 2019 at 1:04 pm

                    You really should read that story more carefully Robert.

                    The figure of 100,000 is not a quote from Ms Croad. What she says is "Croad said her losses had been small, but she had heard of other farmers who lost about 20 per cent of their lamb crop.". That really isn't a highly accurate figure is it? And other farmers are quoted as saying. like Mr Falloon, "Wairarapa hill country farmer Jamie Falloon said he had not done a tally of his losses yet, but was expecting a significant number because there had been seven days of cold rain right in the middle of lambing."

                    As he then says you don't disturb the sheep because you can cause a lot of mis-mothering. No Robert, that 100,000 is really just a guess.

                    However there are about 23-24 million lambs that are docked each year in New Zealand. Docking is the first time lambs are actually counted and it doesn't happen until 3 or 4 weeks after lambing so there would have been more born than were finally docked.Even if the 100,000 is correct it represents about 1 in every 240. And it was a bad enough storm to get in the paper as being "disastrous".

                    So no, Robert, I think my original comment stands.

                    • Poission …
                      22 August 2019 at 1:12 pm

                      Docking is a good model,count total tails and divide by 1

                    • alwyn …
                      22 August 2019 at 2:25 pm

                      That is very much easier than the way you have to do it otherwise.

                      You have to stand by the fence and count the number of lamb's legs you see. It isn't easy as you have to make sure you don't count the ewes' legs and that you don't count a lamb twice. Bloody hard work actually. They hop around all over the place.

                      When, in my youth, I used to spend the school holidays docking counting the tails was the way we did it and the only way you had any idea of how good the lambing season was going to be. You had to make sure that the shepherds' dogs didn't get any of them before you had done it of course. Bloody greedy things they were.

                      Oh for the smell of Docko in the morning. I wonder if it still exists? It was an antiseptic and coagulant we used on the lambs after the tail was cut off.

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      22 August 2019 at 2:27 pm

                      Most of it does, Alwyn. However, to my horror and that of other sensitive souls, most likely, you quoted:

                      "23-24 million lambs that are docked each year in New Zealand."

                      It just gets worse!

                      Tails, cut or starved of blood till they drop off, from lambs?

                      Barbaric, isn't it!

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      22 August 2019 at 2:30 pm

                      Cut off with a butcher's knife or seared off with a gas-torch?

                      Ah, how you yearn for those good old days, Alwyn. The smell, the wonderful, evocative smell!

                    • alwyn …
                      22 August 2019 at 2:52 pm

                      Actually Robert, I thought you might have picked up the reference to the most famous line from the movie Apocylapse Now. Don't you remember it? "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".

                      I didn't do the cutting off of the tail. I held the lamb while it was done. The actual operation was done by the farm manager who had been properly trained in the procedure.

                      What was amazing was that the lamb would jump as it was done and then immediately settle down. As soon as they got back to the ewe they would be feeding instantly. They really didn't seem to notice after a few seconds.

                      Do I miss it? Of course not. It was about 60 years ago and I wouldn't mind being young again of course. Am I unhappy I did it? Not at all.

                      By the way. You have obviously read my comment about your remarks about the item in the paper being a guess. Do you still think that it was an accurate number?

                    • Robert Guyton …
                      22 August 2019 at 3:56 pm

                      "Do you still think that it was an accurate number?"

                      I guess so.

                      When I was younger I too, tailed lambs only I did wield the knife, quite untrained. My impression wasn't the same as yours; those lambs felt the pain deeply. I can't imagine how it could be otherwise. My impression was that running for a feed was a shock-reaction. I'm not at all nostalgic for that time.

                • weka …
                  22 August 2019 at 12:24 pm

                  Slinkskins still seems to be a thing (made from lambs that don't survive).

                  https://www.slinkskins.co.nz/animal-welfare

            • Robert Guyton 5.1.1.2.2.2
              22 August 2019 at 11:35 am

              Mmmmm..weight!*

              *voice of Homer Simpson

          • bwaghorn 5.1.1.2.3
            22 August 2019 at 3:08 pm

            Sheep will start lambing in July if the boys snack out to play . The modern sheep is very different to the old breeds .

            lambing dates are more set for trying to match feed growth to demand . And making sure they are grown or gone before the winter slow down or summer dry periods .

            Lambing in the north island will go from July till November depending on were you farm .

    • phillip ure 5.2
      22 August 2019 at 11:21 am

      west coast – near raglan – warm/sunny..

  6. Robert Guyton 6
    22 August 2019 at 10:47 am

    This guy's inspired by Greta:

    "How about this: Animal products cover only 17 per cent of human calorie requirements, but use 77 per cent of global arable land.

    Here's another one: No beef for a year can save 2.2 tonnes of CO2 equivalents. That's roughly the same as filling 16.5 bathtubs with petrol and setting them all on fire. "

    "Fonterra meantime is bombarding us with quality infomercials about how good their farmers are at what they do. Nobody in the world does it with less impact on climate.

    Translated that means our dairy industry is the least bad of a bad lot. What a sorry state we find ourselves in."

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/115167617/my-new-hero-is-greta-thunberg

    • weka 6.1
      22 August 2019 at 11:20 am

      Man can't live by calories alone. Women really can't.

    • phillip ure 6.2
      22 August 2019 at 11:32 am

      @ robert:

      'Translated that means our dairy industry is the least bad of a bad lot.'

      as it happens – that is just another pile of bullshit/spin the dairy industry has repeated enough – that people believe it..

      from memory (sorry – don't have link to hand) the science says the exact opposite is true..

      that compared to the american/european etc models – we are actually the worst…

      a long long way from 1st place…

    • McFlock 6.3
      22 August 2019 at 1:38 pm

      ok, ok, I'll stop setting tubs of petrol on fire.

      • Robert Guyton 6.3.1
        22 August 2019 at 2:28 pm

        'Bout time! Stick to burning it through your car's engine; hardly anyone notices.

  7. Robert Guyton 7
    22 August 2019 at 11:24 am

    Here's a controversial claim and the article it came from is one well worth exploring.

    "For most wild creatures, nuclear holocaust is, on balance, less harmful than having humans as your neighbours."

    I'd like to feature it on How to get there this coming Sunday.

    https://dark-mountain.net/restoration-a-submissions-call-for-dark-mountain-issue-17/

    • weka 7.1
      22 August 2019 at 11:31 am

      Do you want to write it up as a stand alone post? I can put it up for you.

    • Sabine 7.2
      22 August 2019 at 3:01 pm

      well considering what is happening currently in Brasil that controversial claim might not be so outlandish.

      in saying that….surely when the fires in the Amazon are all burned out of fuel, there will be a nice flat area of land where one can grow Palm something, Soy something, stuff something to create all that 'plantmeat' that is gonna save us from ourself. Right?

      • Robert Guyton 7.2.1
        22 August 2019 at 3:49 pm

        Yeah, opportunities abound and who needs those biologically-super-rich rainforests anyway? What of value could be found in a jungle?

      • phillip ure 7.2.2
        22 August 2019 at 5:05 pm

        @sabine..

        'can grow Palm something, Soy something'..

        can i point out that most soy on the planet is grown to feed to animals…

        and do soy-haters know that i used to be only able to buy one or two types of bread – 'cos most bread had milk powder on it….

        now i can eat most..

        soy..you know your spreading yr peanut butter on it..?..eh..?