Open mike 22/08/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 22nd, 2024 - 14 comments
Categories: open mike - Tags:


Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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

Step up to the mike …

14 comments on “Open mike 22/08/2024 ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1
    22 August 2024 at 8:05 am

    Big Tobacco political influence/pressure in NZ. What we knew already..confirmed. NZ First/ACT in up to their eyeballs.

    Leaked tobacco lobbying plan for 'political pressure' shows tobacco giant got its tax cut wish

    And the assistant drug pushers

    "Leverage on positions already advocated by the NZ Taxpayers' Union, NZ Initiative and select public health stakeholders," it says.

    RNZ has sought comment from Philip Morris for weeks, including on whether it will reduce its prices for HTPs, but it has not responded to texts, emails or phone calls.

    The two senior corporate communication positions at Philip Morris are held by people who previously held senior roles in NZ First.

    David Broome, chief of staff for NZ First between 2014 and 2017, is external relations manager at Philip Morris.

    Apirana Dawson – who was director of operations and research in the office of Winston Peters between 2013 and 2017 and led the election campaigns for the party in 2014 and 2017 – is Philip Morris director of external affairs.

    And of course..Casey tobacco Costello denies..

    Costello declined an interview with RNZ but issued a statement saying it was "unfortunate and inaccurate" to portray her as being linked to the tobacco industry.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525810/leaked-tobacco-lobbying-plan-for-political-pressure-shows-tobacco-giant-got-its-tax-cut-wish

    Cmon Casey…we know.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/in-depth-special-projects/story/2018928347/smoke-signals-the-tobacco-industry-language-that-found-its-way-into-ministerial-papers

  2. Tony Veitch 2
    22 August 2024 at 8:10 am

    ACT and NZFirst doing their level best to tarnish Ao/NZ's reputation as a low corruption country, with the Natz compliant and complicit!

    Is this what we've sunk to?

    This CoC has to go!

    • gsays 2.1
      22 August 2024 at 8:48 am

      I wonder if an appeal to Peters' pride is a tactic here.

      After a lifetime of service, a reputation for courageously taking on the big guy, all going up in smoke (intentional pun) thru having his strings pulled by big tobacco.

      Doing heaps of damage to his own people for generations.

    • bwaghorn 2.2
      22 August 2024 at 11:22 am

      No fan of bombast Jones but he's the only voice I can her ripping in to the power companies usleness, dry yrar or no its there job to keep the lights on.

  3. TeWhareWhero 3
    22 August 2024 at 9:07 am

    A few days ago I posted a comment on a contentious thread about the dangers of the reckless use of powerful endocrine disrupting drugs (GnRH agonists) in a world that is saturated in hundreds of thousands of synthetic chemicals …. the effects of which in combination on any given individual at any given stage of their development are impossible to calculate.

    In a world in which we cannot avoid exposure to a vast array of endocrine disrupting and DNA damaging chemicals and particulates, it makes sense to do everything possible to avoid adding to that burden, especially in the young.

    It was like dropping a pebble into a very deep well, probably because it was on a thread about what has become one of the most divisive and diversionary issues in modern politics; one in which too many people either huddle in their doctrinal corners and lob word grenades at each other, or gather in the neutral corners hoping it will all fizzle out.

    This Guardian article goes into detail about the growing body of evidence of the global health hazard of microplastics which are infiltrating humans organs – including the brain – and which may also convey toxic chemicals into tissue.

    They are omnipresent and there is growing evidence of the links between reproductive, developmental, and neurological disorders, and cancers, and these two, linked, forms of mass pollution which affect all life on the planet and constitute an existential threat on a par with climate change.

    "One of Neoliberal capitalism’s greatest victories was its destruction or weakening of any and all collectives that argue for a different social order, especially those which threaten its profit and its entrenched power.

    Up there with it, in terms of strategic importance, is having successfully lured a critical mass of left wingers into the intellectual and political shallows where they don’t have to learn how to survive in rough, cold seas, or be strong enough to swim against the current.

    These warm shallows provide a false sense of security, and never more so than now when a tsunami of interconnected social and ecological issues is likely to drown many of us, or dash us onto the rocks.

    From global warming and resultant climate disequilibrium, to accelerating species extinctions, and mass plastics and chemical pollution … the interacting states of global disequilibrium have the potential to tip into whole system chaos.

    The possibility of a fusion of disastrous androgenic outcomes is a terrifying reality that has to be kept well-hidden, or social disequilibrium may rapidly worsen and tip into social chaos."

    A narrow political focus and deep sectarian divides are precisely what the besuited maniacs in charge of the planet want, and the narrower the focus and the deeper those divides are, the better the suits like it.

    • Karolyn_IS 3.1
      22 August 2024 at 9:49 am

      The wide spread use of plastics is such a big topic, it's hard to know where to start. I've tried to reduce plastic use for myself, but it really needs a much bigger initiative, at a manufacture, corporate level.

      Phthalates, mentioned in your linked article are used in medical devices, and I understand there's been some effort to reduce their uses for such things.

      The amount of plastics used in products used in the home is too much for one or a small number of people to do anything about. Instead of glad wrap for food, I use beeswax, and cotton food covers, plus I make some use of parchment paper in cooking. I bought a glass bottle for drinking water.

      I take soft plastics to recycling places, but I'm not sure how well it's recycled. I'm shocked at how much of the stuff I collect. I think it should be put back on the producers to try to use alternatives, We also need to work against the capitalist ethos that aims to create and market too many products we don't really need.

      I guess we also need it to be more widely known just how contaminating the widespread use of plastics and chemical pollution is.

    • gsays 3.2
      22 August 2024 at 12:29 pm

      Great comment, TeWhareWhero, I couldn't agree more.

      One of the pleas I have made more than once us to drop the pejorative cooker when talking about someone with a dissenting opinion re Covid. Not everyone was lost down a rabbit hole, misogynistic or influenced by 'the far right'.

      Some merely had a distrust of Big Pharma or resistance to authority or cared about vulnerable workers or some other motivation/combination.

      The left seem to make othering a hobby. We've got to look past our own collection of wants, needs, hopes and opinions and seek common ground.

      I trust Martin Phillips was on to something when he wrote "Look for the good in others and they'll see the good in you".

    • adam 3.3
      22 August 2024 at 4:42 pm

      "We did not have a nuclear war, so we rolled on and on till we wreaked it for ourselves."

      Paraphrasing a line from Heavy Weather by Bruce Sterling. We worth a read by the way. As it seems we are a lock 1.5 C in for 2027.

  4. aj 4
    22 August 2024 at 9:31 am

    NZ's energy situation is likely to be very tight well into next year unless we strike a spring and summer with high rainfalls in the South Island catchments.

    The amount of water stored in the headwaters in the form of snow may well be near a record low after such a dry winter. Looks promising for good rainfalls this coming week, but relatively 'warm' rain.

    https://metvuw.com/forecast/forecast.php?type=rain&region=nzsi&noofdays=

  5. Ad 5
    22 August 2024 at 11:23 am

    When Kennedy cuts the US presidential race on Friday, which way will his 5% break towards? Is it a wash?

  6. Drowsy M. Kram 6
    22 August 2024 at 6:56 pm

    "Unfortunate and inaccurate" – nothing to ‘kay-see’ here.

    Leaked tobacco lobbying plan for 'political pressure' shows tobacco giant got its tax cut wish [22 Aug 2024]

    The Public Health Communication Centre examined the voting record for smoke free policies, in a document released in August.

    It found that Labour, the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori "voted consistently in support of progressive smokefree legislation" and that National mostly did too, supporting these measures 70 percent of the time.

    "The NZ First Party and ACT Party generally voted against smoke free policies," the report said, noting NZ First voted for "progressive legislation" only two out of seven times and ACT on only two out of nine occasions.

    Costello declined an interview with RNZ but issued a statement saying it was "unfortunate and inaccurate" to portray her as being linked to the tobacco industry.
    …
    Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Costello also asked for advice on liberalising the regulation of HTPs but officials opposed the idea.

    "There is no evidence to support their use as a quit smoking tool," health officials said. "We do not recommend liberalising the way HTPs are promoted. This would likely compound existing concerns about youth uptake and addiction to nicotine products."

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.