The board of Twitter has agreed to a US$44 billion takeover offer… Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of US$273.6b mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla which he runs. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," he said in a statement announcing the deal.
"I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.
"Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."
The bit about "authenticating all humans" seems too aspirational, perhaps? How to measure the authenticity of even one human seems problematic. I hope he starts with Donald Trump – the verdict would be good for a twitterstorm.
Focus would shift onto the parts of the Don deemed to be lacking in authenticity, and the methods of remediating those defects. It would then become a model of reform to inspire all the other humans. Well, that's looking on the bright side. He could wheel in Google's quantum computer to finesse the process design…
Sorry to disappoint you but, Musk has a habbit of marketing existing technologies as both new and revolutionary. Authenticating all humans already comes in Microsoft and Google flavours, so apparently Twitter wants in on that. I don't think its going to provide any guarantees about the behaviour of those humans however.
This is how it works. First off Musk will talk about envision authenticating your Dna through a finger swipe or something, fictional advanced technology is after all basically indistinguishable from magic. Eventually you end up logging into Twitter with a password, and other sites can check if you are logged into Twitter.
Well if I had to put my trust in Elon or the board that banned a sitting President of the USA, the Babylon Bee, Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk and Libsoftiktok while allowing groups claiming to be Isis to continue posting I'll go with the lesser of two evils on this one
If I can't have a quiet word in the ear of Twitter's designated censors in order to permanently silence anyone who disagrees with me … then we're heading towards something approaching full-on Fascism at a fair old rate of knots.
Scientist shifts from tech to nature. From his website:
I was named as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London by the Evening Standard in 2007, and one of the 100 Most Influential People in Europe by WIRED Magazine in 2015. I hold a Master's Degree in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from University College, London, and wrote my dissertation on creative applications of Artificial Intelligence. http://jamesbridle.com/about
I’ve been working with researchers in northern Greece who are farming metal. In a remote, beautiful field, high in the Pindus mountains in Epirus, they are experimenting with a trio of shrubs known to scientists as “hyperaccumulators”: plants which have evolved the capacity to thrive in naturally metal-rich soils that are toxic to most other kinds of life.
They do this by drawing the metal out of the ground and storing it in their leaves and stems, where it can be harvested like any other crop. As well as providing a source for rare metals – in this case nickel, although hyperaccumulators have been found for zinc, aluminium, cadmium and many other metals, including gold – these plants actively benefit the earth by remediating the soil, making it suitable for growing other crops, and by sequestering carbon in their roots. One day, they might supplant more destructive and polluting forms of mining.
The three plants being tested in Greece – part of a network of research plots across Europe – are endemic to the region. Alyssum murale, which grows in low bushes topped by bunches of yellow flowers, is native to Albania and northern Greece; Leptoplax emarginata – taller and spindlier, with clusters of green leaves and white petals – is found only in Greece; and Bornmuellera tymphaea, the most efficient of the three, which straggles across the ground in a dense layer of white blossom, is found only on the slopes of the Pindus
The science points to a resilient future via agriculture but the economic dimension remains to be explored yet. Here's the relevant knowledge base though:
This is old news in a field I've had not inconsiderable effort in. However, any publicity for better ways is good publicity, and there are many accumulators people may harness for their own purposes. As outlined below.
Here I qualify an urban myth (Dynamic accumulators), outlining plant physiological mechanisms and biological symbiosis to explain phenomena in this context, and introduce the hyper-accumulators as extremes of dynamic accumulating.
And here is the USDA database of plants, using my methods above, that may now inform farmers, nutritionists, food producers, compost manufacturers, gardeners, DIY soil detoxers, etc. This database is also dynamic, and is constantly being added to.
There's 300K polluted sites in Europe alone. They charged 1M per acre clean up over ten years ago. And cleanup is not even clean up it is: removal, concrete cap, or chemical drench.
NZ has a very serious cadmium problem.
This tech is vital, it is also another slowly drawn out crock by most companies and researchers involved. Gravy on all their chins and they all act like they got the secret sauce. Read above, I give you the keys to their kingdom.
I'll check to see if our local riparian community project has the links.
"NZ has a very serious cadmium problem."
Our local Landcare tests water in our region which is a food growing one, and high cadmium levels are almost guaranteed.
Residential development of established horticultural fields was delayed by the required removal of extra metres of cadmium contaminated topsoil. (Which according to locals, was trucked off to various farmers as 'infill'.)
A"Cadmium Group" has been established to kill off any questions or media interest in the scandal that is the broad scale application of cadmium to farmland in New Zealand.
DC Brown is an ecologist, microbiologist and keen student of permaculture and traditional agriculture. Residing in Auckland, New Zealand, Dean is currently researching and writing a book: Heavy Metal Detox: The Holistic Treatment of Undesirable Elements.
I've only scanned that first linked article so far- always doing plenty of other stuff like home improvements & maintenance in between commenting so will get around to the others eventually. Thing is about specialists, though, they do need generalists to perform the medial connecting link to society.
Well, that's the functional view, as produced by the archetype (3). Three relates stuff to other stuff – interprets & translates (Mercury/Hermes). Mediation for Dummies would therefore explain such gibberish as the process by which the expertise of specialists gets filtered down into comprehensible usable chunks (which then circulate value in the community) by generalists doing that filtering.
Value of apparently esoteric knowledge therefore is derived from currency achieved as a result of generalising. The trick is to ensure that dumbing down doesn't lose the essence of the gnosis! So the economic benefits of cultivating heavy-metal extractor plants must be the lure that pulls the gnosis into the community. When applied as techne, gnosis achieves cultural transformation…
Was hoping the above mentioned book (Heavy Metal Detox) would be the medial link. For the subject matter it's relatively light, funny, and armed with facts. Unfortunately the UoA wants hundreds of dollars per year of my money (after already taking ~ 40K in fees) to allow me access to databases of the science all our taxes already paid for. The movement of corporations into institutions now exacerbates the situation lending them the argument that corporates now have proprietary rights to the stuff.
Or short version, can't finish the book without access to the science for references, and awesome useable charts! It needs to be done right.
I've used my artistic side alongside my education to try and make it all accessible. The articles read more science-like than the book, but I'm only just past half way… really wanted it done by now but a (more recent) lit review is called for. Could bite the bullet and shell out money, but it's 'spare money' I don't have. I want an e-bike and ditch the car forever type dream. Replace a few tools that got pinched from the garden – all that big ticket stuff.
Anyway, an excerpt/example of my attempt to 'speak prole'. HA!
—————————————————————————————-
1. Introduction
Step 1.We admitted we were powerless – that our soils had become unmanageable.
We’ve all got, or had, some type of self destructive behavior. Admitting there is a problem is the first step in fixing it. Heavy metal is a problem. Whether it’s immunity to color and hair flaying air guitar, or widespread and progressive environmental destruction – it’s not that cool, man.
While Led Zeppelin were dominating the music scene, lead paints and fuels were dominating the landscape. Heavy metal sources include pesticides, fertilisers, effluents, oil, mining, smelting, roading, construction, industry and military. A 1980’s assessment of global air, water and soil contamination showed we have corrupted the cycling of trace elements; heavy metals are increasing in concentrations in our water bodies, soils and food chains. Recent changes in legislation regarding some compounds have reduced a portion of sources of contamination, while little has been done for existing problems. The majority of sites remain problematic, while in many cases, the pollutants continue to gather. Most toxic compounds can be broken down, but metals cannot. Metals settle in soils and may remain there for thousands of years.
Sites contaminated by military, mining, construction and industry are a small part of the picture. Many agricultural landscapes are contaminated or approaching contamination with heavy metals. New Zealand’s fertiliser use by the dairy industry now threatens their major export earner – the dairy industry. Vast tracts of land could be taken out of production from phosphate fertiliser increasing cadmium in soils. These fertilisers are widely used throughout the globe, and their use is increasing.
Cities may be no better off: With higher building and vehicle densities combined with a history of lead products; higher usage of pesticides and fertilisers per area compared to farmers (a budget thing); proximity to industrial zoning; and more. One urban study points to poor children’s exposure to metals in New York’s inner city playgrounds and parks; another finds metal toxicity on Long Island golf courses.
Plough men, poor or strolling out in your plus-fours – are there undesirable elements in your neighborhood? A Google Scholar search for ‘domestic heavy metal contamination’ yielded close to 100 000 academic articles and references to the subject; it seems we have established there is a problem; but what of solutions?
Industries response for dealing with heavy metal contamination includes the following:
1. Remove and dump the dirt as landfill, and bring new topsoil to the site.
2. Use chemicals to immobilise the metals in the soil, and further chemicals to make the soil surface impermeable.
3. Remove soil, use proprietary acid solutions to desorb and leach metals out, and put the soil back.
My concern with these methods is as follows:
1. Moving the problem is not fixing the problem. Besides, if we dumped all the polluted soils on the planet, the pile might upset the axial tilt.
2. Water impermeable land is not a solution to fixing land.
3. ‘Proprietary acid solutions run through the soil to desorb and leach the metals’… amuses my poetic side, but instils no confidence in the scientific or eco-centric sides at all.
Shift the problem, cap the problem, or make more problems. The price for the methods to ‘clean-up’ contaminated sites in the US alone was estimated around $300 Billion – or $1M per acre.
If you are waiting for government and industry to solve things, be patient. Chemicals used to clean up the Gulf oil spill were more toxic than the oil itself. Months after the Chernobyl disaster, cesium in Swedish and German field mushrooms was such that toxicity could occur from a single meal. People were poisoned months later, more than 1000 km’s from the disaster. Yet nuclear power plants continue to be built, and catastrophes continue to occur. This wilful ignorance that somehow an even thicker wall and protocol manual makes us immune to weather events, seismic activity, and space rocks… it is insanity.
“Is it the end, my friend?” – Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath.
No problem with style or clarity in your writing. Pivot from problem to solution is crucial & earlier the better (even if you only outline it in principle in the intro), but best to have expert input from the marketing side. And I'd suggest that even if money weren't a priority. Sooner you achieve liaison with a publisher the better.
Presuming you are addressing a global readership (not writing just for kiwis) probably a good idea to solicit advice from a bunch of science publishers. Normally writers must sell the concept first, then the design of the book, which (unless you're into product control like me) ought to be open to tweaking because publishers bring market savvy to bear on proposals. Essential to approach them as prospective partners then!
You get an editor to work with (I did mine myself due to professional expertise). So, for instance, Industries response for dealing with heavy metal contamination will become Industry's response for dealing with heavy metal contamination if you intended a collective noun. If you wanted to specify how industries respond (instead) you'd need a rewrite to describe how they collectively respond as an industrial ecosystem.
Nifty triad here (I googled science publishers nz):
So that provides a significant clue for how to frame your pitch, eh? Remember too that publishers are medial. The triad is author/publisher/buyer. That's the triad driving their business model. In respect of culture shift, the triad expert/ publisher/user conveys knowledge helping to upskill.
Re money to complete the project, successful publishers can & do provide advances to authors. Whether they still do in a tight economy is moot. No harm asking, I guess, so best to work out what you need beforehand. Funding from a suitable quasi-govt org could even be possible so if you found one you could negotiate a partnership…
I was kind of down on myself for not 'finding' the time and the funds, but it's not such an easy task I'd set myself, with life and all that stuff going on as well. I feel 'seen'.
I'm also wrapped my work in the area led to that database.
You've given me good food for thought. Appreciated.
I'd hoped to make it so the book is practically free or at least digital versions free to countries with no disposable incomes. Publishers struggle with my ideas like that haha.
On the book – It goes to solutions quickly. It (roughly) follows 12 step programs – a parody of sorts.
Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Assuming you haven’t just purchased a beachfront property in Fukushima, it is possible to remediate mild to moderately contaminated sites. It is even possible to have land in production during the decontamination process. While scores of scientists worked to point out the problem exists, many more turned to seeking solutions.
On serpentine soils, mine tailings and highly radioactive sites some plants survive and even thrive. These are the metallophytes. Some metallophytes are excluders – they exclude certain substances from being taken up, and grow despite high metals in the soil. Other plants are accumulators, they accumulate things from the soil. Hyperaccumulating plants accumulate high concentrations of substances from soils. Metal hyperaccumulating plants (MHP’s) extract high concentrations of metals. In some cases MHP extraction is > 1% metal per dried weight of plant material.
MHP’s use photosynthetic power to mine metals for us. Theoretically, we decontaminate soil if we can grow then remove sufficient plant mass. The drawback was that the MHP’s initially observed were not really suited to the task; they were small, or slow growing, or both. Widespread screening for better plants began in earnest.
Initially, over 400 MHP’s were identified. Further criteria narrowed the pool considerably, including: grow in damaged environments; grow large enough to extract significant metal, and grow fast enough to produce growth in a timely manner. Discoveries are continually being made. A list of some MHP’s and metals they extract is included (Table 1).
MHP’s accumulate appreciable amounts of metal regardless of soil concentrations, but as toxins increase growth of many MHP’s can be inhibited. Further efforts to enhance the capabilities of MHP’s have included: propagation techniques, genetic engineering, and the use of free-living or symbiotic bacteria and fungi.
The observation of polluted sites led to the discovery of MHP’s; the observation of MHP’s has led to the discovery of bacteria and fungi involved in decontamination processes. These in conjunction with MHP’s can enhance plant growth and/or metal uptake. Many genes targeted for genetically engineered MHP’s are found in such; beneficial organisms with desirable functions. It is not necessary to insert such genes in plants to gain the use of these functions; rather, to gain understanding of the organisms ecology, and how one might insert them functionally into a decontamination process.
“Then what’s to stop us, pretty baby. But what is and what should never be” – Led Zeppelin, What Is and What Should Never Be.
I've scanned those other links – too much pure science, will scare off most punters. In the above, you shift into applied science & intelligent readers will get the gist. For a site like this one, heading further in that direction would work better. Science is okay in the book (if your purpose is to share with other scientists) but beware too much of it.
Me for instance, as physics grad & permaculture designer (not teacher), utility of applied science to empower permaculture as praxis hinges on case studies. If you show how general principles get used in particular localities & ecosystems people kinda grok the steering skill at the interface between nature & humanity. Stewardship as ethos then emerges as folk realise hey I can do this too!
Education gets flawed due to academic antiquated mind-sets. Students get alienated by bad teaching. I was, big time. Pure science is good for sussing out what happens & why but useless for survival, so we need to build a bridge across that divide…
Good feedback again. The charts will condense (and hide) a shit-ton of the science, where each field will link back to studies, but a layperson can just take the information to use and needn't get bogged down. Similar to the database, a huge volume of work behind it, a simple application in front.
Those articles had to get technical they were basically a methods section made slightly more palatable for permaculture practitioners.
There's also a fine line between being too technical, and being patronising, I reckon most people can follow most things, it's the technical language that throws them. Introduce key concepts early, bring them up often, and leave all the superflous language for the arts department.
In that way I've done my job 'properly'. The scientists can drill down to their hearts content, the layperson can read the steps 1, 2, 3 and get on with the job at hand.
A lot of boxes to tick, but as it is a labor of love, they will get ticked. If it were a means to an end (look at my stuff, buy my stuff) I'd have finished it in a half assed manner years ago.
The price for the methods to ‘clean-up’ contaminated sites in the US alone was estimated around $300 Billion – or $1M per acre.
Now if if only someone could convince Elon Musk that rather than spending $44billion on a vanity project buy out of Twitter, that he invest his $44 billion in making a start on this clean up. Maybe he could persuade some of his multi-billionaire mates to chip in a bit too.
No just fuck it. Let's just tax the bastards instead.
Alwyn, if it was all in one pile it literally would upset the balance as there is sooo much of it. (As I understand it) I don't think DB finds that funny…rather a threatening situation which he has expressed in lay terms to portray the enormity of the problem.
I really don't think that the amount of material he is talking about can possibly compare with the amount in any of the continental plates that are moving around. Sure, they don't move very fast (up to about 4 inches/year) and they will be tending to move into a spot where another one may be moving out but when you look at the size and thickness of one nothing we can do could possibly compare.
The USA is finally coming out in public and saying what has been obvious to most serious observers of the Ukrainian/Russian war from the beginning…ie; that the US want the war in the Ukraine to continue until Russia is crippled beyond repair, regardless of the cost of Ukrainian lives and infrastructure.
Many have suggested this has been the goal of the US interventions in Ukrainian politics since 2014…it is now looking more and more like that analysis is now being proved correct.
As I have said many times on this forum, the only sane way out of this conflict is negotiated peace, and had been perplexed at the lack of movement in this direction….we now are starting to see why.
It should be made very clear, anyone who supports a protracted war with Russia in the Ukraine cannot then say that they seriously care about Ukrainian lives or the fate of the country as both are going to be utterly and totally devastated by this war…..and we all know that the US has a long and violent recent history of destroying countries for it’s own ends…and looks like it is now going to sacrifice the Ukraine and it’s people for it’s Geo-Political goals….
Just listen to this totally insane cold war warrior to get a feel for the complete madness of US foreign policy….Insane Cold war Warrior alert!!!….Former commanding general of US Army Europe Ben Hodges https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018839442/biden-administration-pledges-700m-in-aid-to-ukraine
…like I said the other day these cold war warriors where a extreme danger to the human race during the Cold War…and now like some sort of demented half dead Zombies they seem to have risen, more bloodthirsty than ever..more craven, more insane, more intense…and more dangerous to the human race than we could have ever dreamed in our worse nightmares….…… I think I might have had a few close calls with one or two of those Zombies wandering aimlessly around, craving blood on this site….
Russia is on track to gain total control of the Donbas region and retain full coastal control from Russia through Crimea.
That's the primary objective locked in.
I think it reasonably likely that Ukraine will settle for a cessation of hostilities at the end of this year by losing the whole of Donbass, so long as Ukraine keeps Odessa as its sea port.
I agree. The outcome is likely to be consistent with it's stated goals. Little more, little less. Some of the other military events are being portrayed as losses but I suspect were distractions or fit in with the 'de-militarisation' goals.
Is it really going to see a 'cessation' of hostilities? I doubt it. Officially, yes. But outbreaks of violence and attacks are likely to continue. This is going to be a running sore for decades.
Russia will still have to deal with a hard core of nazi ideology, which despite it's attempts to eradicate, is not going to go away, ever. This thread is an interesting take on Lvov.
Let's talk about Lvov, possibly the Nдzi capital of the world. I'm not going to include the city's immense history, you can look that up on your own, let's start around WWII ….
…I'm not going to engage or argue with you on this thread. The links are there with citations. You are free to make your own thread to refute it but I'll warn you it's a lot of work. A hit dog will holler.
I very much doubt Russia will settle for less than violently wresting the northern Black sea coast of Ukraine from Ukrainian control.
And will not stop there.
After seizing Odessa Russia will go on to take Moldova.
As well as continuing the war against the government in Kiev on the pretext of fighting fascism.
Unending expansion is the iron rule of all growth economies forcing them into war and/or global environmental collapse.
Via Southern Ukraine, Russia Eyes “Another Route” to Moldova’s Transnistria
Madalin Necsutu – Balkan Insight
April 22, 2022 12:54
“Control over southern Ukraine is another route to Transnistria, where there is also evidence that the Russian-speaking population is being oppressed,” Russian news agency TASS quoted Major General Rustam Minnekayev as saying….
One of the benefits of democracy, is that if things aren't working out, democracies can change direction.
Autocracies don't have that luxury. Autocracies are usually pretty inflexible.
Failure for Autocratic leaders is not an option.
Nothing is off the table for Russian imperialism. Full nationwide mobilisation and transition to a war economy is on the cards for Putin's Russia. Whatever it takes.
Even if Russia achieves its immediate war aims, this war will not end soon.
Good comment Ad, the only problem with your analysis is that it looks a lot like the US is at the very least, having a large say in the negotiations, which, if true, doesn't bode well in there being any peace in the Ukraine anytime soon….I really really hope I am proved wrong.
Like squeezing blood out of a stone, eh? Anyway, I put the question to Google & got this:
Putin has dropped plans for a peace deal and appears set on capturing more Ukrainian territory after failing to secure a quick victory in the first phase of the war, the Financial Times reported Sunday, citing three sources briefed on conversations with him.
"There was hope for a deal. Putin was going back and forth," one of the people said.
But talks stalled after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin of war crimes in Bucha and Mariupol. The reportedly infuriated Putin signaled peace efforts were at a "dead end" after the sinking of the Moskva missile cruiser.
Top Ukrainian officials on Sunday expressed disapproval of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ planned meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week… Igor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that Guterres is “not really” authorized to speak on behalf of the Ukrainian government in efforts to negotiate a peace deal amid Russia’s invasion.
You may not have noticed it Adrian, but World War III for the redivision of the world has begun.
The underdog "have not" imperialist Russia, is the upcoming challenger and aggressor, and will not stop its expansionism until it is stopped either by its rivals or by internal revolt.
Can Putin Be Ousted From Within Russia? Pussy Riot Musician And Dissident Speaks Out On War
What kind of peace negotiations do you have in mind? For example, who initiates it and why (e.g. what might trigger it and when), who brokers or mediates it, what would be some of the key terms, et cetera?
Sorry Incognito I missed that question on the 24th.
Negotiations have already been under way, and have been on and off during the entire conflict, however I have found it difficult to find any substantial or unbiased information on the upcoming negotiations or any of the previous negotiations.
I do know that the Russians have been accusing the Ukrainian negotiators of stalling..whether this is true or not I don't know..but if you believe the War mongering rhetoric coming out of the highest places in the US, then things are not looking good for the Ukraine or the Ukrainian people IMO….I can’t see how anyone could still seriously maintain that the US is not running this war.
"the US and its allies have begun to convey a new, longer-term goal for the war: to defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that it will be deterred from launching such an attack ever again."
Hmmm, you may have missed more than just the comment I linked to, but that won’t be my problem if or when shit hits the fan here on TS.
I was clearly asking about your personal view, not about info that you or anybody else can find on the internet and link to.
Paraphrasing you (mostly a direct quote), in a nutshell:
… whether this is true or not I don't know … but if you believe … then things are not looking good … I can’t see how anyone would not agree with me.
You start off with hypotheticals (aka speculative assumptions) and end with a preconceived conclusion, which is not consistent with your alleged neutral position and not picking a side. You may still deny it, but it is obvious to anybody else that you do have picked a side. Hiding behind hypotheticals is simply disingenuous.
…and I will add yet agian…I advocate and support a negotiated peace that first and foremost of course recognizes Ukraine's sovereignty, while also recognizing Russia's security…which as far as I know, is generally seen as a neutral Ukraine….I fail to see how you and others perceive that position to be favouring one side above the other….but then you have stated that I have "picked a side"….and I am sure you would know….so which one I wonder?
Lots of words that convey nothing of substance and hardly answer anything, but let’s go with the very little that you do provide. So, Ukraine was not neutral before and therefore got invaded, because it presented a threat to Russia, e.g. it was going to invade Russia? And peace requires and depends on Ukraine becoming neutral and stop threatening Russia with invasion, whatever that means? I suppose you mean that Russia must retreat in full and leave Ukraine forthwith in recognition of its sovereignty, is that correct?
Explain yourself instead of spouting vacuous comments with vague reckons and hypotheticals based on stuff that you don’t know (about), by your own admission.
The anti-imperialist side, obviously, which in your case comprises just about every Western nation with a colonial history and/or a military-industrial complex. In addition, you lean so much against the US and the UK, for example, that for all intents and purposes you have picked a side.
I am not even going to bother answering the whole first part of your comment as it doesn’t warrant me spending any time on it.
“I suppose you mean that Russia must retreat in full and leave Ukraine forthwith in recognition of its sovereignty, is that correct?“…what else could Ukrainian sovereignty mean you think?
“In addition, you lean so much against the US and the UK, for example, that for all intents and purposes you have picked a side”
You have just said that in this Ukraine/Russia war, because I oppose contemporary Western Imperialism and intervention, then I have by extension “picked a side”….now how about you explain me exactly how that works…I ask again..what side do assume I have picked?
I am not really sure what drives this extremely negative obsession with ‘picking sides’ with you people…but it is a very unpleasant trait.
For what I am sure won’t be the last time.. I am a supporter of a neutral Ukraine…natural from Russian influence and US/NATO influence…I would be interested to know what part of that don’t you get?
The USA is finally coming out in public and saying what has been obvious to most serious observers of the Ukrainian/Russian war from the beginning….…
You really consider yourself to be a serious observer?
When the best you can do, to make your argument for supporting the Russian invasion and genocidal attacks on apartment buildings, shopping malls, theatres and hospitals, is a schlock horror movie?
A movie which depicts the protagonists as evil sub-humans?
Is this what you really think?
Is this truely the thinking behind your 'serious observation'. ?
FYI, Adrian, 1940s Nazi war propagandists, also depicted their protagonists in Eastern Europe as sub-humans, (untermenschen), as justification for invasion and war.
Untermenschen
German word meaning subhumans (plural – note singular is untermensch).. Often used to describe Jews and slavs during the Nazi period…
God you really are an idiot of the first order….talk about a useful idiot…it's like that term was especially created just for you…and I must say, you really do wear it well.
"Adrian, 1940s Nazi war propagandists, also depicted their protagonists in Eastern Europe as sub-humans, (untermenschen), as justification for invasion and war"
But at least you got one thing right for change…one would assume that, extrapolating just one or two steps further from your statement above, that is probably exactly why Russia had and have deep seated and legitimate boarder paranoia issues…it's hard to see why, taking into account the history that you touched on there, why Ukraine just didn't take the option of neutrality that it's own citizens voted for, the Russians supported and all the main European NATO countries supported?….one is only left to speculate on why that sane and reasonable opportunity for peace was so roundly rejected.
God you really are an idiot of the first order….talk about a useful idiot…it's like that term was especially created just for you…and I must say, you really do wear it well…..
…….one is only left to speculate on why that sane and reasonable opportunity for peace was so roundly rejected.
Rejected by Russia.
Russia attended the peace talks only for appearances sake, continued shelling civilian infrastructure throughout, refused every offer of a ceasefire. Kept making stupid demands for "Deanazification" (ie Russia's code word for regime change) and demanding Ukraine's surrender.
On the other side of the negotiating table Ukraine offered Russia, that Ukraine would remain neutral in exchange for Russian a withdrawl, to Russia's pre-February, military lines held by Russian backed separatists..With an agreement on further negotiations on the future of the disputed territories in the Donbass. This peace offer Russian negotiators also flatly rejected.
President Zylenksy then went over the heads of the Putin government and phoney peace negotiators, to appeal to the Russian people directly to put before the Russian people the same peace terms.
The Russian government made sharing or broadcasting this video a crime.
Doesn't this tell you something Adrian? Because it certainly tells everyone else
There is a saying: 'If the truth needs to be silenced because it might destroy something. Then that something needs to be destroyed by the truth.'
The Russian Federation is a revanchist wanna'be imperial power. Its leaders don't want peace, just conquest.
Putin doesn't want peace he wants empire and war.
Adrian in this war, you have chosen sides, you and those like you are trying to get others to join you there but you are on the wrong side of history, and you, and your other pro-war propagandists', efforts will prove to be futile, possibly even within Russia.
Because Adrian, you can make all the lame excuses for Russia's imperialist invasion, you like, the slaughtering of civilians, the censoring of Russia's brutality and own losses from the Russian people, the jailing of Russian peace activists and the rejection of Ukraine's peace offers, you only further disgrace yourself as a partisan supporter of imperialist wars.
You may think it is clever Adrian to cheer on Russia's of choice, but this war can end in only one of two ways for your side. Total destruction of the Russian Federation on the battlefield at the hands of Russia's stronger imperial rivals, either that, or the Russian Federation will be overthrown by the Russian people themselves.
I'm hoping for the latter.
1234 We Don't Want Your Bloody War. 2468 Stop The War It's Not Too Late
'Missing On The High Seas?!': Father Expresses Outrage As Russia Keeps Quiet About Fate Of Sailors
Dmitry Shkrebets knows the true fate of his 20-year-old son, even if Russia won’t yet tell him….
….Russia has officially stated that fewer than 2,000 soldiers have died, despite mounting evidence that the number is much greater.
The United States and Western allies earlier this month put the number of Russian soldiers killed at 10,000.
….The younger Shkrebets, a resident of Yalta in Crimea, was conscripted in July.
"I think the people that allowed this to happen should be punished," Dmitry Shkrebets told RFL/RL. "And how they cynically lie on the [TV] channels that all are alive. How can they lie so cynically?"
….Tarasov was conscripted in December and that same month posted a photo of himself in his sailor's uniform on his Instagram account, according to the the Agenstvo news agency.
“See you in a year,” he wrote.
Written by Todd Prince based on reporting by Current Time, Crimea.Realities, and RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
If the U.S dollar was not the default currency for international trade ,America could not afford these wars and be able to sustain 700 plus bases around the world.
You may have noticed Saudi Arabia and Israel are very quiet regarding support for U.S interference these days.
They have good reason.On their doorstep is Syria, which with Russian help ,defied the U.S.
The world will never be the…same…and as for inflation!!
Saudi Arabia and Israel and most of the Gulf States are at peace and doing good business with each other. Everything is flowing as it should and prices are excellent.
The government is going to destroy agriculture in the next few weeks,and try BAU in a high inflation/ interest regime,The NZ dollar has lost 6 % this month,whilst good for exporters,lousy for those trying to redesign an economy.
Our sovereign wealth funds are losing around 800m$ a month.
You’re a stupid lazy troll when you copy & paste your RW ‘jokes’ from KB and dump them here on TS. You don’t even try being original, which makes you a try-hard.
Willie smoothes the ruffled feathers of Nat/Lab dinosaur voters addicted to neocolonialism. He
told Q+A with Jack Tame that his Government’s push to have co-governance and co-management arrangements beyond those already introduced through Treaty settlements, were a response to the need to meet Māori ambitions, and address Māori inequality. “The nature of democracy has changed. This is a democracy now where you take into account the needs of people, the diverse needs, the minority needs. Its not the tyranny of the majority anymore, that’s what co-management and co-governance is about. It’s nothing to fear," Jackson said.
Baffled Nat/Lab voters go into collective funk, eyes glazed over. "But I thought MMP was just rearranging the deck-chairs." Whimper, sniffle. "Sounds like Labour actually intend to do something real. Jacinda is betraying Helen! When Labour refused to accept UNDRIP under Helen everyone realised Labour was rightist, not leftist. Younger generation thinks it knows better. This won't end well." Groan, sniffle.
'There is no better snapshot of the Fed’s failure as a banking supervisor than this one fact that is called out every quarter in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Report on Bank Trading and Derivative Activities. Table 14 of this report (see page 19) shows that the 25 largest bank holding companies in the U.S. are sitting on $234 trillion notional (face amount) in derivatives but just five bank holding companies are responsible for $200.18 trillion of that exposure or 86 percent of the total. Those mega bank holding companies are: JPMorgan Chase (ticker JPM), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Bank of America (BAC).
“More than two thirds of all financial assets are held by the top 5%”
Heartening to hear a cabinet Minister actually saying this. Many thingscould be done to stem the concentration of wealth – here's hoping.
The Sad Slide of a Once Equal Nation [4 July 2017]
New Zealand, by most yardsticks, used to rival equal nations like Denmark. But New Zealand’s incomes have become much more unequal – and its problems much more pressing. Steeply progressive taxes could reverse that dynamic.
I heard about people claiming to be "common law sheriff" (a conspiracy people) intruding on an Anzac Day ceremony in Paraparaumu on Monday.
A twitter video shows someone taking an oath on signing up with the group: "I take this affirmation being of sound mind …" It doesn't sound the stuff of sound minds to me.
So, after interfering with the police, and then interfering with immigration decisions, Stuart Nash has finally been sacked: Stuart Nash has been sacked as a minister, after Stuff revealed he had emailed business figures, including donors, detailing private Cabinet discussions. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed the people Nash emailed ...
Nearly 25% of mortgages in Auckland are deemed at risk in a 1-in-100 year flood event. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Once a year, every year, from now on, in our not-so-slow-cooking climate crisis, there will be a moment when the most important number in Aotearoa’s own personal, national ...
Item One: About a confected crisis Please bear with me for a moment, readers outside Auckland, I wish to sound the klaxon. Auckland, we have until 11pm today to have our say. About what? About this, as copied and pasted from Pippa Coom’s Facebook page:The "austerity" budget is built on ...
Buzz from the Beehive Yet again, the statement we were looking for could not be found on the Beehive website. Nor was it on the Scoop or Green Party websites. But – come to think of it – we are probably wasting our time by searching. Our quest is for the ...
The following is from a speech given by Arundhati Roy at the Swedish Academy on March 22, 2023, at a conference called Thought and Truth Under Pressure and reprinted from Literary Hub. I thank the Swedish Academy for inviting me to speak at this conference and for affording me the privilege ...
After almost two decades of racism, Australia is finally getting off its "stop the boats" bullshit. But don't worry, racists - Michael Wood has your back!The Government wants to increase the time it can detain without a warrant people seeking asylum en masse from four days to 28 ...
Last year, the Education and Workforce Committee recommended that the government legislate for pay transparency to prevent employers from secretly discriminating. This ought to be a bread and butter issue for Labour - discrimination sees women (and particularly Māori and Pasifika women) paid significantly less than men. But since then ...
Thomas Cranmer writes – ———— An unruly mob in Albert Park has catapulted New Zealand into the global headlines with ugly images that may become iconic in the debate about the dangers of transgenderism. ———— Bravo Kellie-Jay Keen. She did the job that needed to be done. For all the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global warming is melting the Arctic ice cap, and that’s having unforeseen effects on the world’s weather — even thousands of miles away from the North Pole. Some climate scientists have begun to link increasingly common heat waves in Europe to what is ...
Hot on the heels of the demotion of former police Minister Stuart Nash for breaching the Cabinet Manual, Radio New Zealand has revealed the close links between lobbyists and politicians- an area of New Zealand politics that is completely unregulated. The evidence in Guyon Espiner’s series Mate, Comrade, Brother, the ...
At the Auckland Transport board meeting today a series of papers really highlight the cost of sprawl. For the last few years, the Supporting Growth work has been looking at designing the strategic transport networks for future greenfield areas in the South, Northwest, North (around Dairy flat) and in Warkworth. ...
Hi,Today’s newsletter is something I’ve wanted to report for ages, but I have been waiting on a New Zealand judge to make a ruling. That ruling has been made — so here we go.Enjoy.A scene from Mister Organ.Two Police Officers Knock on My DoorOn November 4 last year, I was ...
Only three days after Nanaia Mahuta had dinner with China’s Foreign Minister, New Zealand’s intelligence chiefs were talking about state actors interfering in New Zealand politics and using ethnic communities here for espionage purposes. Neither GSCB Director (and new SIS director) Andrew Hampton nor acting SIS CEO Phil McKee ...
In what has been one of her most important diplomatic mission, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has opened the door for a visit to Beijing by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins later this year. Such a mission is regarded as vital with a new Prime Minister Li Qiang settling into office. ...
Saturday morning, we went to Albert Park.We were there to show support, to challenge words of demonisation.To repeat those words from Michèle A’Court:Making them sound “other” is a technique used by racists and homophobes to dehumanise whole groups of people who “aren’t like them”. If you dehumanise people, it is ...
Too Strong For The Law’s Web: But, if the USA is too big to punish, why isn’t the Russian Federation? Russia’s economy may be roughly the size of Italy’s, but it’s nuclear arsenal is more than capable of laying human civilisation to waste. Threatening to arrest Vladimir Putin - especially when ...
Nobody likes a fascist, except other fascist’s of course. Thankfully they were completely outnumbered in Auckland last Saturday when a supposed advocate for women’s rights, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aka Posie Parker, tried to give a public speech about how transgender people are worthy of persecution.You can understand why Parker and her ...
On Friday I sent out a newsletter called Posie Parker vs Transgender Rights to provide information about the visit to our shores of Ms Parker. I attempted to show there were multiple points of view but on balance my sympathies were strongly with the counter protest group standing up for ...
Brian Easton writes – Evaluating the recent crashes of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and Credit Suisse in Switzerland plus two other banks (perhaps more by the time you read this) needs to begin with a review of the inevitable instability in the financial sector. The financial sector ...
Oh, the irony. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has made a career out of inciting public hostility against the trans community, only to find herself on the receiving end of public hostility at her Auckland rally. In a further case of karmic justice, the people who brought her into the country ended up ...
In 1972, British soldiers tortured a false confession out of Liam Holden, resulting in him being given Britain's last death sentence. While it was commuted to life imprisonment, Holden was wrongly imprisoned for 17 years. Now, the courts have finally recognised that it was torture: In 1973 Liam Holden ...
Taxpayers are not only subsidising already-very-profitable private banks via the cheap ‘Funding For Lending’ loans that helped pumped up house prices in 2021, but are also paying the banks upwards of $2 billion a year in interest for cash kept with the Reserve Bank. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: ...
This weekend saw a showdown between two tribes of contemporary gender politics: those in favour of progressing transgender rights versus women wishing to defend their spaces. It’s a debate with huge passion, outrage and consequences. The figure at the centre of the clash was the British “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” Posie ...
Tomorrow the Auckland Transport board meet again. Here are some of the highlights from their board papers. The open session starts at 9am and can be watched on this Teams link. Closed Session The closed session is typically where the most interesting items are discussed. Items for Approval ...
Mutual Support: Democracy in New Zealand will not be saved by pitting Pakeha against Māori, but by joining together with every other citizen who still understands the meaning of working together to build something good that will last. Call that co-governance if you like, or call it something else – ...
Imagine being a great big business success enjoying your lavish Waiheke island property with infinity pool and ballroom and riparian rights and heli-pad. Sweeeet. But imagine, also, having to take orders from some little bureaucratic oik about how often you can land a chopper on it.I can’t, really, but it ...
Hi,New Zealand’s Life megachurch has confirmed to Webworm it was paid $10,000 by Hillsong for investigating Brian Houston’s sexual misconduct allegations.Following Webworm publishing this piece about the $10,000 payment, Life’s Corporate Communications Manager Phil Irons has confirmed what it was for:Paul [de Jong] was engaged by Hillsong to assist in ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Mar 19, 2023 thru Sat, Mar 25, 2023. Story of the Week Q&A: IPCC wraps up its most in-depth assessment of climate change The final part of the world’s most comprehensive assessment of ...
by Daphna Whitmore I thought the #LetWomenSpeak meeting would be a good time to talk about free speech and why it is important for the left. Then the mob stampeded the open-air gathering and no one got to speak. Here’s what I was had prepared. Today I want to talk ...
By Don Franks Today my friend Ani O’Briien went to a meeting in Auckland and wrote: “No sooner had Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull arrived at the Rotunda, a protestor (who had managed to get past the barrier) ran at her and threw a red substance all over her and a security ...
Jonathan Milne, managing editor for Newsroom Pro, has expressed his indignation about the outcome of a court decision yesterday in an article headed Posie Parker wins the beautiful freedom to make an ugly argument.Newsroom Pro laments: High Court Justice David Gendall has regretfully allowed an outspoken anti-trans activist to enter New ...
imagine my surprise this week when the National Party, in their infinite wisdom, decided to release an education policy. As you can imagine, this got us so riled up here in the office that we dusted off our Windows XP laptop, waiting 17 hours for all the updates to be ...
Come on Jess thought Mr Evans come on. He watched the large clock on the wall tick closer to 8:40am. Come on girl.In two minutes he had to submit the class attendance report and with Jess having already been late once that term it’d mean an automatic visit from the ...
This week’s UN IPCC report warned climate emissions will need to be cut by almost half by 2030, if warming is to be limited to 1.5°C. Bronwyn Hayward points out in The Hoon podcast how far behind NZ’s government and councils are now on climate action compared to the rest ...
Chris Hipkins, after he became prime minister, committed to defeating the cost-of- living crisis. He proceeded to make a bonfire of policies that were at the heart of Jacinda Ardern’s administration. But, as Richard Prebble pointed out this week, “the government has not just U-turned, it has repudiated the ...
There are some wellness, crystal-gazing, holistic spiritual guidance types in my disaster-hit coastal community who insist that the power of positive thinking will overcome the physical and material damages incurred by the community. They object to restrictions on road travel … Continue reading → ...
Evaluating the recent crashes of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and Credit Suisse in Switzerland plus two other banks (perhaps more by the time you read this) needs to begin with a review of the inevitable instability in the financial sector. The financial sector is inherently unstable, like military ...
1. We see here new police minister Ginny Andersen. Which larger than life NZ political figure was her great-uncle?a. Rob Muldoonb. Bill Andersenc. Richard John Seddond. Norman Kirk2. We see here archival footage of Ginny Andersen coming out of her electorate office to ask ex-tobacco lobbyist Chris Bishop if he ...
Buzz from the Beehive Stuart Nash, speaking as Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, one of his remaining portfolios after he was dropped down the Hipkins Government batting order, has drawn attention to the blue economy and its potential. Nash says the government is investing in the blue economy, or – ...
Photo by Josh Mills on UnsplashIt’s that time of the week for an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session for paying subscribers about the week that was for the next hour, including:The runs on Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank on the west coast of the United States that forced the ...
Roundup is back! We skipped last week’s Friday post due to a shortage of person-power – did you notice? Lots going on out there… Our header image this week shows a green street that just happens to be Queen St, by @chamfy from Twitter. This week (and last) in ...
After threatening Prime Minister Chris Hipkins of consequences if he dared to bar her entry, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has been given her visa, regardless. This will enable her to hold rallies in Auckland and Wellington this weekend, and spread her messages of hostility against an already marginalised trans community. Neo-Nazis may, ...
* Bryce Edwards writes – The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as ...
Boomers voted him in, but Brown’s Trumpish moments might spook Aucklanders worried about what a change to National nationally might mean. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTL;DR:Auckland MayorWayne Brown has become our version of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, except without any of the insatiable appetite for media appearances. He ...
The New Zealand Government has been silent about Australia’s decision to commit up to $400bn acquiring nuclear submarines, even though this is a significant threat to peace and stability in the Asia Pacific. The deal was struck by the Albanese Labor Government as part of its Aukus pact with the ...
Recently you might have heard of a person called Posie Parker and her visit to Aotearoa. Perhaps you’re not quite sure what it’s all about. So let’s start with who this person is, why their visit is controversial, and what on earth a TERF is.Posie Parker is the super villain ...
The chair of Parliament’s Select Committee looking at the Government’s resource management legislation wants the bills sent back for more public consultation. The proposal would effectively kill any chance of the bills making it into law before the election. Green MP, Eugenie Sage, stressing that she was speaking as ...
Open access notables The United States experienced some historical low temperature records during the just-concluded winter. It's a reminder that climate and weather are quite noisy; with regard to our warming climate,, as with a road ascending a mountain range we may steadily change our conditions but with lots of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Nanny State has scored some wins (or claimed them) in the past day or two but it faltered when it came to protecting Kiwi citizens from being savaged by one woman armed with a sharp tongue. The wins are recorded by triumphant ministers on the ...
Sometimes you see your friends making the case so well on social media you think: just copy and share.On acceptance and decency, from Michèle A’CourtA notable thing about anti-trans people is they way they talk about transgender women and men as though they are strangers “over there” when in fact ...
Not that long ago, things were looking pretty good for climate change policy in Aotearoa. We finally had an ETS, and while it was full of pork and subsidies, it was delivering high and ever-rising carbon prices, sending a clear message to polluters to clean up or shut down. And ...
Comparing (and switching) electricity providers has become easier, but bundling power up with broadband and/or gas makes it more challenging. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā TL;DR: The new Consumer Advocacy Council set up as a result of the Labour Government’s Electricity Price Review in 2019 has called on either ...
Hokitika-based Westland Milk Products has put the heat on dairy giant Fonterra with a $120m profit turnaround in 2022, driven by record sales. Westland paid its suppliers a 10c premium above the forecast Fonterra price per kilo, contributing $535m to the West Coast and Canterbury economies. The dairy ...
* Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public ...
New Zealanders are uncomfortable with the high level of influence corporate lobbyists have in New Zealand politics, and demands are growing for greater regulation. A recent poll shows 62 per cent of the public support having a two-year cooling off period between ministers leaving public office and becoming lobbyists and ...
This is a guest post by accessibility and sustainable transport advocate Tim Adriaansen It originally appeared here. A friend calls you and asks for your help. They tell you that while out and about nearby, they slipped over and landed arms-first. Now their wrist is swollen, hurting like ...
Floating offshore wind turbines offer incredible opportunities to capture powerful winds far out at sea. By unlocking this wind energy potential, they could be a key weapon in our arsenal in the fight against climate change. But how developed are these climate fighting clean energy giants? And why do I ...
Over the past two or three weeks, a procession of Maori iwi and hapu in a series of little-noticed appearances before two Select Committees have been asking for more say for Maori over resource management decisions along the co-governance lines of Three Waters. Their submissions and appearances run counter ...
The decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue war crimes arrest warrants for the Russian President and the Russia Children Ombudsman may have been welcomed by the ideologically committed but otherwise seems to have been greeted with widespread cynicism (see Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants ...
Let’s say you’re clasping your drink at a wedding, or a 40th, or a King’s Birthday Weekend family reunion and Drunk Uncle Kevin has just got going.He’s in an expansive frame of mind because we’re finally rid of that silly girl. But he wants to ask an honest question about ...
National Party leader Christopher Luxon may be feeling glum about his poll ratings, but he could be tapping into a rich political vein in describing the current state of education as “alarming”. Luxon said educational achievement has been declining, with a recent NCEA pilot exposing just how far it has ...
Way Beyond Reform: Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have no more interest in remaining permanent members of “New Zealand’s” House of Representatives than did Lenin and Trotsky in remaining permanent members of Tsar Nicolas II’s “democratically-elected” Duma. Like the Bolsheviks, Te Pāti Māori is a party of revolutionaries – not reformists.THE CROWN ...
Buzz from the Beehive Auckland was wiped off the map, when Education Minister Jan Tinetti delivered her speech of welcome as host of the inaugural Conference of Pacific Education Ministers “here in Tāmaki Makaurau”. But – fair to say – a reference was made later in the speech to a ...
Morning mate, how you going?Well, I was watching the news last night and they announced this scientific report on Climate Change. But before they got to it they had a story about the new All Blacks coach.Sounds like important news. It’s a bit of a worry really.Yeah, they were talking ...
Always a bailout: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Government would fully guarantee all savers in all smaller US banks if needed. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: No wonder an entire generation of investors are used to ‘buying the dip’ and ‘holding on for dear life’. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ...
Wealthy vested interests have an oversized influence on political decisions in New Zealand. Partly that’s due to their use of corporate lobbyists. Fortunately, the influence lobbyists can have on decisions made by politicians is currently under scrutiny in Guyon Espiner’s in-depth series published by RNZ. Two of Espiner’s research exposés ...
Yesterday afternoon it rained and traffic around the region ground to a halt, once again highlighting why it is so important that our city gets on with improving the alternatives to driving. For additional irony, this happened on the same day the IPCC synthesis report landed, putting the focus on ...
The Beginning: Anti-Co-Governance agitator, Julian Batchelor, addresses the Dargaville stop of his travelling roadshow across New Zealand . Fascism almost always starts small. Sadly, it doesn’t always stay that way. Especially when the Left helps it to grow.THERE IS A DREADFUL LOGIC to the growth of fascism. To begin with, it ...
Hi,From an incredibly rainy day in Los Angeles, I just wanted to check in. I guess this is the day Trump may or may not end up in cuffs? I’m attempting a somewhat slower, less frenzied week. I’ve had Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s new record on non-stop, and it’s been a ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
The Government’s decision to introduce ‘mass arrivals’ legislation goes against the values we all share of Aotearoa as a place where all people are treated fairly, the Green Party says. ...
MINISTER DAVIDSON MUST RESIGN AFTER 'VIOLENCE' COMMENTS Marama Davidson should stand down as ‘Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence’ for the clear and outrageous statement she made at the Posie Parker protest that ‘white straight men’ are the cause of violence. Her offensive, racist, and sexist remarks ...
In response to Newshub and Amelia Wade’s obvious and ham-fisted attempt at a typical and predicted political hit job. As any politically aware reporter would know, any Cabinet subcommittee has a duty and obligation as a part of any government to respond to any UN declaration, in this case ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today and in your busy lives turning up to this meeting. Forty five years ago, in Howick, often described as racist, and where few Maori lived because it had been a ‘Fencible’ settlement at the time of the Anglo-Maori ...
The Green Party has marked the National Party’s new education policy and given it a fail, especially for its failure to address the underlying drivers of school performance. ...
You will never truly understand, from the pictures you’ve seen in the newspapers or on the six o-clock news, the sheer scale of the devastation wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised in their State of the Planet speech today. ...
Political parties that want to negotiate with the Green Party after the election must come to the table with much faster, bolder climate action, co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson emphasised today. ...
We’re boosting incomes and helping ease cost of living pressures on Kiwis through a range of bread and butter support measures that will see pensioners, students, families, and those on main benefits better off from the start of next month. ...
The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government. ...
“Cabinet needs to do better - and today has shown exactly why we need Green Ministers in cabinet, so we can prioritise action to cut climate pollution and support people to make ends meet,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson. ...
Biggest increase in food prices for over three decades shows the need for an excess profit tax on corporations to help people put food on the table. ...
New legislation passed by the Government today will make it harder for gangs and their leaders to benefit financially from crime that causes considerable harm in our communities, Minister of Justice Kiri Allan says. Since the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 came into effect police have been highly successful in ...
This evening I have advised the Governor-General to dismiss Stuart Nash from all his ministerial portfolios. Late this afternoon I was made aware by a news outlet of an email Stuart Nash sent in March 2020 to two contacts regarding a commercial rent relief package that Cabinet had considered. In ...
Legislation to enable more build-to-rent developments has passed its third reading in Parliament, so this type of rental will be able to claim interest deductibility in perpetuity where it meets the requirements. Housing Minister Dr Megan Woods, says the changes will help unlock the potential of the build-to-rent sector and ...
A law passed by Parliament today exempts employers from paying fringe benefit tax on certain low emission commuting options they provide or subsidise for their staff. “Many employers already subsidise the commuting costs of their staff, for instance by providing car parks,” Environment Minister David Parker said. “This move supports ...
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Closer Economic Relations (CER), our gold standard free trade agreement between New Zealand and Australia. “CER was a world-leading agreement in 1983, is still world-renowned today and is emblematic of both our countries’ commitment to free trade. The WTO has called it the world’s ...
The Government is making procedural changes to the Immigration Act to ensure that 2013 amendments operate as Parliament intended. The Government is also introducing a new community management approach for asylum seekers. “While it’s unlikely we’ll experience a mass arrival due to our remote positioning, there is no doubt New ...
The Government welcomes progress on public sector pay adjustment (PSPA) agreements, and the release of the updated public service pay guidance by the Public Service Commission today, Minister for the Public Service Andrew Little says. “More than a dozen collective agreements are now settled in the public service, Crown Agents, ...
The Government has introduced the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill to further support the recovery and rebuild from the recent severe weather events in the North Island. “We know from our experiences following the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes that it will take some time before we completely understand the ...
Further assistance is now available to businesses impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle, with Customs able to offer payment plans and to remit late-payments, Customs Minister Meka Whaitiri has announced. “This is part of the Government’s ongoing commitment to assist economic recovery in the regions,” Meka Whaitiri said. “Cabinet has approved the ...
More than 41,000 sole parent families will be better off with a median gain of $20 a week Law change estimated to help lift up to 14,000 children out of poverty Child support payments will be passed on directly to people receiving a sole parent rate of main benefit, making ...
A major investment by Government-owned New Zealand Green Investment Finance towards electrifying the public bus fleet is being welcomed by Climate Change Minister James Shaw. “Today’s announcement that NZGIF has signed a $50 million financing deal with Kinetic, the biggest bus operator in Australasia, to further decarbonise public transport is ...
A world-leading payments system is expected to provide a significant cash flow boost for Kiwi innovators, Minister of Research, Science, and Innovation Ayesha Verrall says. Announcing that applications for ‘in-year’ payments of the Research and Development Tax Incentive (RDTI) were open, Ayesha Verrall said it represented a win for businesses ...
Minister of Transport Michael Wood joined crowds of keen cyclists and walkers this morning to celebrate the completion of the Te Awa shared path in Hamilton. “The Government is upgrading New Zealand’s transport system to make it safer, greener, and more efficient for now and future generations to come,” Michael ...
Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little has delivered the Crown apology to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua for its historic breaches of Te Tiriti of Waitangi today. The ceremony was held at Queen Elizabeth Park in Masterton, hosted by Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa Tāmaki nui-a-Rua, with several hundred ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta has concluded her visit to China, the first by a New Zealand Foreign Minister since 2018. The Minister met her counterpart, newly appointed State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Qin Gang, who also hosted a working dinner. This was the first engagement between the two ...
World-class satellite positioning services that will support much safer search and rescue, boost precision farming, and help safety on construction sites through greater accuracy are a significant step closer today, says Land Information Minister Damien O’Connor. Damien O’Connor marked the start of construction on New Zealand’s first uplink centre for ...
Attorney-General David Parker has announced the appointment of Christopher John Dellabarca of Wellington, Dr Katie Jane Elkin of Wellington, Caroline Mary Hickman of Napier, Ngaroma Tahana of Rotorua, Tania Rose Williams Blyth of Hamilton and Nicola Jan Wills of Wellington as District Court Judges. Chris Dellabarca Mr Dellabarca commenced his ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Can I begin by thanking Gary Taylor, Raewyn Peart and others in the EDS team for their herculean work in support of the environment. I’d also like to acknowledge Hon Simon Upton, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, my parliamentary colleagues, and the many activists here who strive ...
A new Government-backed project will help ocean-related businesses in the Nelson Tasman region to accelerate their growth and boost jobs. “The Nelson Tasman region is home to more than 400 blue economy businesses, accounting for more than 30 percent of New Zealand’s economic activity in fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing,” ...
After three years of COVID-19 disruptions schools are finally settling down and National want to throw that all in the air with major disruption to learning and underinvestment. “National’s education policy lacks the very thing teachers, parents and students need after a tough couple of years, certainty and stability,” Education ...
People aged over 50 with innovative business ideas will now be able to receive support to advance their ideas to the next stage of development, Minister for Seniors Ginny Andersen said today. “Seniors have some great entrepreneurial ideas, and this programme will give them the support to take that next ...
A cross government target for relevant government procurement contracts for goods and services to be awarded to Māori businesses annually will increase to 8%, after the initial 5% target was exceeded. The progressive procurement policy was introduced in 2020 to increase supplier diversity, starting with Māori businesses, for the estimated ...
77,000 fewer children living in low income households on the after-housing-costs primary measure since Labour took office Eight of the nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant reduction since 2018. All nine have reduced 28,700 fewer children experiencing material hardship since 2018 Measures taken by the Government during ...
Deputy Prime Minister Kamikamica; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Tēnā koutou katoa, ni sa bula vinaka saka, namaste. Deputy Prime Minister, a very warm welcome to Aotearoa. I trust you have been enjoying your time here and thank you for joining us here today. To all delegates who have travelled to be ...
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[CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā tangata katoa, o moana-nui-a-kiwa, E ngā mate, haere, haere, haere atū ra, manuia lau Malaga. Thank you for the kind introduction and opportunity to join you this morning. It is always good to be here in Aukilani, where I ...
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Elon Musk while rummaging around down the back of his couch finds $44 billion.
On a whim decides to spend it on buying Twitter.
Tax the rich.
The bit about "authenticating all humans" seems too aspirational, perhaps? How to measure the authenticity of even one human seems problematic. I hope he starts with Donald Trump – the verdict would be good for a twitterstorm.
Focus would shift onto the parts of the Don deemed to be lacking in authenticity, and the methods of remediating those defects. It would then become a model of reform to inspire all the other humans. Well, that's looking on the bright side. He could wheel in Google's quantum computer to finesse the process design…
Sorry to disappoint you but, Musk has a habbit of marketing existing technologies as both new and revolutionary. Authenticating all humans already comes in Microsoft and Google flavours, so apparently Twitter wants in on that. I don't think its going to provide any guarantees about the behaviour of those humans however.
That is something that is troubling for me, anonymity is a good thing on the internet so for me it depends on how far the authenticating goes
One of those click here to prove you're not a robot is fine, adding in personal details not so much
This is how it works. First off Musk will
talk aboutenvision authenticating your Dna through a finger swipe or something,fictionaladvanced technology is after all basically indistinguishable from magic. Eventually you end up logging into Twitter with a password, and other sites can check if you are logged into Twitter.Well if I had to put my trust in Elon or the board that banned a sitting President of the USA, the Babylon Bee, Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk and Libsoftiktok while allowing groups claiming to be Isis to continue posting I'll go with the lesser of two evils on this one
.
DF 1.1
This is deeply troubling.
If I can't have a quiet word in the ear of Twitter's designated censors in order to permanently silence anyone who disagrees with me … then we're heading towards something approaching full-on Fascism at a fair old rate of knots.
Do you have a problem with other billionaires owning social media and other tech companiess or just Elon Musk?
You too can have unlimited freedom of speech if you can pony up $44 billion
Scientist shifts from tech to nature. From his website:
The science points to a resilient future via agriculture but the economic dimension remains to be explored yet. Here's the relevant knowledge base though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hyperaccumulators
This is old news in a field I've had not inconsiderable effort in. However, any publicity for better ways is good publicity, and there are many accumulators people may harness for their own purposes. As outlined below.
Here I qualify an urban myth (Dynamic accumulators), outlining plant physiological mechanisms and biological symbiosis to explain phenomena in this context, and introduce the hyper-accumulators as extremes of dynamic accumulating.
https://www.permaculturenews.org/2015/05/12/qualifying-dynamic-accumulators-a-sub-group-of-the-hyperaccumulators/
Here I begin the work of quantification:
https://www.permaculturenews.org/2020/05/18/dynamic-accumulators-part-two/
And here is the USDA database of plants, using my methods above, that may now inform farmers, nutritionists, food producers, compost manufacturers, gardeners, DIY soil detoxers, etc. This database is also dynamic, and is constantly being added to.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19S3wsjXU6VPzmbklZLVxKt6DCyZIPjCYw6zRrVg7M4Y/edit#gid=662104531
There's 300K polluted sites in Europe alone. They charged 1M per acre clean up over ten years ago. And cleanup is not even clean up it is: removal, concrete cap, or chemical drench.
NZ has a very serious cadmium problem.
This tech is vital, it is also another slowly drawn out crock by most companies and researchers involved. Gravy on all their chins and they all act like they got the secret sauce. Read above, I give you the keys to their kingdom.
Those are great resources thanks.
I'll check to see if our local riparian community project has the links.
"NZ has a very serious cadmium problem."
Our local Landcare tests water in our region which is a food growing one, and high cadmium levels are almost guaranteed.
Residential development of established horticultural fields was delayed by the required removal of extra metres of cadmium contaminated topsoil. (Which according to locals, was trucked off to various farmers as 'infill'.)
A"Cadmium Group" has been established to kill off any questions or media interest in the scandal that is the broad scale application of cadmium to farmland in New Zealand.
Organised by who – do you know, Robert?
Excellent, thanks. Allow me to be your publicist:
I've only scanned that first linked article so far- always doing plenty of other stuff like home improvements & maintenance in between commenting so will get around to the others eventually. Thing is about specialists, though, they do need generalists to perform the medial connecting link to society.
Well, that's the functional view, as produced by the archetype (3). Three relates stuff to other stuff – interprets & translates (Mercury/Hermes). Mediation for Dummies would therefore explain such gibberish as the process by which the expertise of specialists gets filtered down into comprehensible usable chunks (which then circulate value in the community) by generalists doing that filtering.
Value of apparently esoteric knowledge therefore is derived from currency achieved as a result of generalising. The trick is to ensure that dumbing down doesn't lose the essence of the gnosis! So the economic benefits of cultivating heavy-metal extractor plants must be the lure that pulls the gnosis into the community. When applied as techne, gnosis achieves cultural transformation…
Was hoping the above mentioned book (Heavy Metal Detox) would be the medial link. For the subject matter it's relatively light, funny, and armed with facts. Unfortunately the UoA wants hundreds of dollars per year of my money (after already taking ~ 40K in fees) to allow me access to databases of the science all our taxes already paid for. The movement of corporations into institutions now exacerbates the situation lending them the argument that corporates now have proprietary rights to the stuff.
Or short version, can't finish the book without access to the science for references, and awesome useable charts! It needs to be done right.
I've used my artistic side alongside my education to try and make it all accessible. The articles read more science-like than the book, but I'm only just past half way… really wanted it done by now but a (more recent) lit review is called for. Could bite the bullet and shell out money, but it's 'spare money' I don't have. I want an e-bike and ditch the car forever type dream. Replace a few tools that got pinched from the garden – all that big ticket stuff.
Anyway, an excerpt/example of my attempt to 'speak prole'. HA!
—————————————————————————————-
1. Introduction
Step 1. We admitted we were powerless – that our soils had become unmanageable.
We’ve all got, or had, some type of self destructive behavior. Admitting there is a problem is the first step in fixing it. Heavy metal is a problem. Whether it’s immunity to color and hair flaying air guitar, or widespread and progressive environmental destruction – it’s not that cool, man.
While Led Zeppelin were dominating the music scene, lead paints and fuels were dominating the landscape. Heavy metal sources include pesticides, fertilisers, effluents, oil, mining, smelting, roading, construction, industry and military. A 1980’s assessment of global air, water and soil contamination showed we have corrupted the cycling of trace elements; heavy metals are increasing in concentrations in our water bodies, soils and food chains. Recent changes in legislation regarding some compounds have reduced a portion of sources of contamination, while little has been done for existing problems. The majority of sites remain problematic, while in many cases, the pollutants continue to gather. Most toxic compounds can be broken down, but metals cannot. Metals settle in soils and may remain there for thousands of years.
Sites contaminated by military, mining, construction and industry are a small part of the picture. Many agricultural landscapes are contaminated or approaching contamination with heavy metals. New Zealand’s fertiliser use by the dairy industry now threatens their major export earner – the dairy industry. Vast tracts of land could be taken out of production from phosphate fertiliser increasing cadmium in soils. These fertilisers are widely used throughout the globe, and their use is increasing.
Cities may be no better off: With higher building and vehicle densities combined with a history of lead products; higher usage of pesticides and fertilisers per area compared to farmers (a budget thing); proximity to industrial zoning; and more. One urban study points to poor children’s exposure to metals in New York’s inner city playgrounds and parks; another finds metal toxicity on Long Island golf courses.
Plough men, poor or strolling out in your plus-fours – are there undesirable elements in your neighborhood? A Google Scholar search for ‘domestic heavy metal contamination’ yielded close to 100 000 academic articles and references to the subject; it seems we have established there is a problem; but what of solutions?
Industries response for dealing with heavy metal contamination includes the following:
1. Remove and dump the dirt as landfill, and bring new topsoil to the site.
2. Use chemicals to immobilise the metals in the soil, and further chemicals to make the soil surface impermeable.
3. Remove soil, use proprietary acid solutions to desorb and leach metals out, and put the soil back.
My concern with these methods is as follows:
1. Moving the problem is not fixing the problem. Besides, if we dumped all the polluted soils on the planet, the pile might upset the axial tilt.
2. Water impermeable land is not a solution to fixing land.
3. ‘Proprietary acid solutions run through the soil to desorb and leach the metals’… amuses my poetic side, but instils no confidence in the scientific or eco-centric sides at all.
Shift the problem, cap the problem, or make more problems. The price for the methods to ‘clean-up’ contaminated sites in the US alone was estimated around $300 Billion – or $1M per acre.
If you are waiting for government and industry to solve things, be patient. Chemicals used to clean up the Gulf oil spill were more toxic than the oil itself. Months after the Chernobyl disaster, cesium in Swedish and German field mushrooms was such that toxicity could occur from a single meal. People were poisoned months later, more than 1000 km’s from the disaster. Yet nuclear power plants continue to be built, and catastrophes continue to occur. This wilful ignorance that somehow an even thicker wall and protocol manual makes us immune to weather events, seismic activity, and space rocks… it is insanity.
“Is it the end, my friend?” – Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath.
No problem with style or clarity in your writing. Pivot from problem to solution is crucial & earlier the better (even if you only outline it in principle in the intro), but best to have expert input from the marketing side. And I'd suggest that even if money weren't a priority. Sooner you achieve liaison with a publisher the better.
Presuming you are addressing a global readership (not writing just for kiwis) probably a good idea to solicit advice from a bunch of science publishers. Normally writers must sell the concept first, then the design of the book, which (unless you're into product control like me) ought to be open to tweaking because publishers bring market savvy to bear on proposals. Essential to approach them as prospective partners then!
You get an editor to work with (I did mine myself due to professional expertise). So, for instance, Industries response for dealing with heavy metal contamination will become Industry's response for dealing with heavy metal contamination if you intended a collective noun. If you wanted to specify how industries respond (instead) you'd need a rewrite to describe how they collectively respond as an industrial ecosystem.
Nifty triad here (I googled science publishers nz):
So that provides a significant clue for how to frame your pitch, eh? Remember too that publishers are medial. The triad is author/publisher/buyer. That's the triad driving their business model. In respect of culture shift, the triad expert/ publisher/user conveys knowledge helping to upskill.
Re money to complete the project, successful publishers can & do provide advances to authors. Whether they still do in a tight economy is moot. No harm asking, I guess, so best to work out what you need beforehand. Funding from a suitable quasi-govt org could even be possible so if you found one you could negotiate a partnership…
That's good feedback.
I was kind of down on myself for not 'finding' the time and the funds, but it's not such an easy task I'd set myself, with life and all that stuff going on as well. I feel 'seen'.
I'm also wrapped my work in the area led to that database.
You've given me good food for thought. Appreciated.
I'd hoped to make it so the book is practically free or at least digital versions free to countries with no disposable incomes. Publishers struggle with my ideas like that haha.
On the book – It goes to solutions quickly. It (roughly) follows 12 step programs – a parody of sorts.
Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Assuming you haven’t just purchased a beachfront property in Fukushima, it is possible to remediate mild to moderately contaminated sites. It is even possible to have land in production during the decontamination process. While scores of scientists worked to point out the problem exists, many more turned to seeking solutions.
On serpentine soils, mine tailings and highly radioactive sites some plants survive and even thrive. These are the metallophytes. Some metallophytes are excluders – they exclude certain substances from being taken up, and grow despite high metals in the soil. Other plants are accumulators, they accumulate things from the soil. Hyperaccumulating plants accumulate high concentrations of substances from soils. Metal hyperaccumulating plants (MHP’s) extract high concentrations of metals. In some cases MHP extraction is > 1% metal per dried weight of plant material.
MHP’s use photosynthetic power to mine metals for us. Theoretically, we decontaminate soil if we can grow then remove sufficient plant mass. The drawback was that the MHP’s initially observed were not really suited to the task; they were small, or slow growing, or both. Widespread screening for better plants began in earnest.
Initially, over 400 MHP’s were identified. Further criteria narrowed the pool considerably, including: grow in damaged environments; grow large enough to extract significant metal, and grow fast enough to produce growth in a timely manner. Discoveries are continually being made. A list of some MHP’s and metals they extract is included (Table 1).
MHP’s accumulate appreciable amounts of metal regardless of soil concentrations, but as toxins increase growth of many MHP’s can be inhibited. Further efforts to enhance the capabilities of MHP’s have included: propagation techniques, genetic engineering, and the use of free-living or symbiotic bacteria and fungi.
The observation of polluted sites led to the discovery of MHP’s; the observation of MHP’s has led to the discovery of bacteria and fungi involved in decontamination processes. These in conjunction with MHP’s can enhance plant growth and/or metal uptake. Many genes targeted for genetically engineered MHP’s are found in such; beneficial organisms with desirable functions. It is not necessary to insert such genes in plants to gain the use of these functions; rather, to gain understanding of the organisms ecology, and how one might insert them functionally into a decontamination process.
“Then what’s to stop us, pretty baby. But what is and what should never be” – Led Zeppelin, What Is and What Should Never Be.
Sorry bout the format, ran out of time…
I've scanned those other links – too much pure science, will scare off most punters. In the above, you shift into applied science & intelligent readers will get the gist. For a site like this one, heading further in that direction would work better. Science is okay in the book (if your purpose is to share with other scientists) but beware too much of it.
Me for instance, as physics grad & permaculture designer (not teacher), utility of applied science to empower permaculture as praxis hinges on case studies. If you show how general principles get used in particular localities & ecosystems people kinda grok the steering skill at the interface between nature & humanity. Stewardship as ethos then emerges as folk realise hey I can do this too!
Education gets flawed due to academic antiquated mind-sets. Students get alienated by bad teaching. I was, big time. Pure science is good for sussing out what happens & why but useless for survival, so we need to build a bridge across that divide…
Good feedback again. The charts will condense (and hide) a shit-ton of the science, where each field will link back to studies, but a layperson can just take the information to use and needn't get bogged down. Similar to the database, a huge volume of work behind it, a simple application in front.
Those articles had to get technical they were basically a methods section made slightly more palatable for permaculture practitioners.
There's also a fine line between being too technical, and being patronising, I reckon most people can follow most things, it's the technical language that throws them. Introduce key concepts early, bring them up often, and leave all the superflous language for the arts department.
In that way I've done my job 'properly'. The scientists can drill down to their hearts content, the layperson can read the steps 1, 2, 3 and get on with the job at hand.
A lot of boxes to tick, but as it is a labor of love, they will get ticked. If it were a means to an end (look at my stuff, buy my stuff) I'd have finished it in a half assed manner years ago.
Now if if only someone could convince Elon Musk that rather than spending $44billion on a vanity project buy out of Twitter, that he invest his $44 billion in making a start on this clean up. Maybe he could persuade some of his multi-billionaire mates to chip in a bit too.
No just fuck it. Let's just tax the bastards instead.
" if we dumped all the polluted soils on the planet, the pile might upset the axial tilt.".
Please tell me you were joking when you wrote that?
Alwyn, if it was all in one pile it literally would upset the balance as there is sooo much of it. (As I understand it) I don't think DB finds that funny…rather a threatening situation which he has expressed in lay terms to portray the enormity of the problem.
I really don't think that the amount of material he is talking about can possibly compare with the amount in any of the continental plates that are moving around. Sure, they don't move very fast (up to about 4 inches/year) and they will be tending to move into a spot where another one may be moving out but when you look at the size and thickness of one nothing we can do could possibly compare.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/300572998/elon-musk-reaches-deal-to-acquire-twitter-for-around-66-billion
Aww yeah!
Hilariously funny Dave Armstrong column in today's Dominion Post. Total send up of Luxon and his "crew".
link?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/128449031/captain-luxon-encounters-unexpected-turbulence
Londongrad.
Former mayor and now P.M, Boris Johnson gave a saloon passage into London for Russian oligarchs and any other dirty money looking for a safe haven.
This worship of obscenely wealthy crooks, has recently turned to opprobrium and a rediscovery of meagre moral virtue.
It took a war to get any action.
Yes I think no-one on the left will be unhappy to see a lot more sunlight down that particular sewer.
The USA is finally coming out in public and saying what has been obvious to most serious observers of the Ukrainian/Russian war from the beginning…ie; that the US want the war in the Ukraine to continue until Russia is crippled beyond repair, regardless of the cost of Ukrainian lives and infrastructure.
Many have suggested this has been the goal of the US interventions in Ukrainian politics since 2014…it is now looking more and more like that analysis is now being proved correct.
US Makes It Clear Its Aim Is to ‘Weaken’ Russia
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/25/us-makes-it-clear-its-aim-is-to-weaken-russia/
As I have said many times on this forum, the only sane way out of this conflict is negotiated peace, and had been perplexed at the lack of movement in this direction….we now are starting to see why.
It should be made very clear, anyone who supports a protracted war with Russia in the Ukraine cannot then say that they seriously care about Ukrainian lives or the fate of the country as both are going to be utterly and totally devastated by this war…..and we all know that the US has a long and violent recent history of destroying countries for it’s own ends…and looks like it is now going to sacrifice the Ukraine and it’s people for it’s Geo-Political goals….
Just listen to this totally insane cold war warrior to get a feel for the complete madness of US foreign policy….Insane Cold war Warrior alert!!!….Former commanding general of US Army Europe Ben Hodges
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018839442/biden-administration-pledges-700m-in-aid-to-ukraine
…like I said the other day these cold war warriors where a extreme danger to the human race during the Cold War…and now like some sort of demented half dead Zombies they seem to have risen, more bloodthirsty than ever..more craven, more insane, more intense…and more dangerous to the human race than we could have ever dreamed in our worse nightmares….…… I think I might have had a few close calls with one or two of those Zombies wandering aimlessly around, craving blood on this site….
Russia is on track to gain total control of the Donbas region and retain full coastal control from Russia through Crimea.
That's the primary objective locked in.
I think it reasonably likely that Ukraine will settle for a cessation of hostilities at the end of this year by losing the whole of Donbass, so long as Ukraine keeps Odessa as its sea port.
That's a deal Putin could live with.
Then it's Guns Down who's paying the bill not me.
I agree. The outcome is likely to be consistent with it's stated goals. Little more, little less. Some of the other military events are being portrayed as losses but I suspect were distractions or fit in with the 'de-militarisation' goals.
Is it really going to see a 'cessation' of hostilities? I doubt it. Officially, yes. But outbreaks of violence and attacks are likely to continue. This is going to be a running sore for decades.
Russia will still have to deal with a hard core of nazi ideology, which despite it's attempts to eradicate, is not going to go away, ever. This thread is an interesting take on Lvov.
ttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515547698434297860.html
I very much doubt Russia will settle for less than violently wresting the northern Black sea coast of Ukraine from Ukrainian control.
And will not stop there.
After seizing Odessa Russia will go on to take Moldova.
As well as continuing the war against the government in Kiev on the pretext of fighting fascism.
Unending expansion is the iron rule of all growth economies forcing them into war and/or global environmental collapse.
Russia doesn't have the capacity to do more than it is.
Its military only have logistical capacity to get what's next door and no more. They couldn't even take Kiev.
Russia's broader security networks are getting rapidly degraded by sanctions that will bite ever-deeper.
No need to over-egg the pudding.
One of the benefits of democracy, is that if things aren't working out, democracies can change direction.
Autocracies don't have that luxury. Autocracies are usually pretty inflexible.
Failure for Autocratic leaders is not an option.
Nothing is off the table for Russian imperialism. Full nationwide mobilisation and transition to a war economy is on the cards for Putin's Russia. Whatever it takes.
Even if Russia achieves its immediate war aims, this war will not end soon.
Russian imagination may be boundless but their realities are not.
The Finnish and Swedish NATO membership requests are already on their way.
Putin is now well boxed in on the west.
Good comment Ad, the only problem with your analysis is that it looks a lot like the US is at the very least, having a large say in the negotiations, which, if true, doesn't bode well in there being any peace in the Ukraine anytime soon….I really really hope I am proved wrong.
What negotiations??
Like squeezing blood out of a stone, eh? Anyway, I put the question to Google & got this:
And this:
So your scepticism seems justified…
Zelensky calls for more talks
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220420-ukraine-calls-for-talks-in-teetering-mariupol-as-moscow-holds
You may not have noticed it Adrian, but World War III for the redivision of the world has begun.
The underdog "have not" imperialist Russia, is the upcoming challenger and aggressor, and will not stop its expansionism until it is stopped either by its rivals or by internal revolt.
Since you’re repeating your same line, I repeat my questions to you (https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-24-04-2022/#comment-1884556):
What kind of peace negotiations do you have in mind? For example, who initiates it and why (e.g. what might trigger it and when), who brokers or mediates it, what would be some of the key terms, et cetera?
Sorry Incognito I missed that question on the 24th.
Negotiations have already been under way, and have been on and off during the entire conflict, however I have found it difficult to find any substantial or unbiased information on the upcoming negotiations or any of the previous negotiations.
I do know that the Russians have been accusing the Ukrainian negotiators of stalling..whether this is true or not I don't know..but if you believe the War mongering rhetoric coming out of the highest places in the US, then things are not looking good for the Ukraine or the Ukrainian people IMO….I can’t see how anyone could still seriously maintain that the US is not running this war.
Austin's assertion that US wants to 'weaken' Russia underlines Biden strategy shift
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/biden-administration-russia-strategy/index.html
"the US and its allies have begun to convey a new, longer-term goal for the war: to defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that it will be deterred from launching such an attack ever again."
Kremlin accuses Ukraine of changing tune during peace talks, slowing process
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/kremlin-accuses-ukraine-of-changing-tune-during-peace-talks-slowing-process
I think this article which I just found by Jeffrey Sachs (someone whose opinion I take seriously) explains my own position on negotiated peace in the Ukraine far better than I could….
A negotiated peace is the only way to end Russia's war on Ukraine
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/20/opinions/sachs-ukraine-negotiation-op-ed/index.html
Hmmm, you may have missed more than just the comment I linked to, but that won’t be my problem if or when shit hits the fan here on TS.
I was clearly asking about your personal view, not about info that you or anybody else can find on the internet and link to.
Paraphrasing you (mostly a direct quote), in a nutshell:
… whether this is true or not I don't know … but if you believe … then things are not looking good … I can’t see how anyone would not agree with me.
You start off with hypotheticals (aka speculative assumptions) and end with a preconceived conclusion, which is not consistent with your alleged neutral position and not picking a side. You may still deny it, but it is obvious to anybody else that you do have picked a side. Hiding behind hypotheticals is simply disingenuous.
How about you inform me as to exactly what side I have picked?…seeming as you obviously know more about what I believe than I do myself….
…and I will add yet agian…I advocate and support a negotiated peace that first and foremost of course recognizes Ukraine's sovereignty, while also recognizing Russia's security…which as far as I know, is generally seen as a neutral Ukraine….I fail to see how you and others perceive that position to be favouring one side above the other….but then you have stated that I have "picked a side"….and I am sure you would know….so which one I wonder?
Lots of words that convey nothing of substance and hardly answer anything, but let’s go with the very little that you do provide. So, Ukraine was not neutral before and therefore got invaded, because it presented a threat to Russia, e.g. it was going to invade Russia? And peace requires and depends on Ukraine becoming neutral and stop threatening Russia with invasion, whatever that means? I suppose you mean that Russia must retreat in full and leave Ukraine forthwith in recognition of its sovereignty, is that correct?
Explain yourself instead of spouting vacuous comments with vague reckons and hypotheticals based on stuff that you don’t know (about), by your own admission.
The anti-imperialist side, obviously, which in your case comprises just about every Western nation with a colonial history and/or a military-industrial complex. In addition, you lean so much against the US and the UK, for example, that for all intents and purposes you have picked a side.
Prove me wrong and be honest.
I am not even going to bother answering the whole first part of your comment as it doesn’t warrant me spending any time on it.
“I suppose you mean that Russia must retreat in full and leave Ukraine forthwith in recognition of its sovereignty, is that correct?“…what else could Ukrainian sovereignty mean you think?
“In addition, you lean so much against the US and the UK, for example, that for all intents and purposes you have picked a side”
You have just said that in this Ukraine/Russia war, because I oppose contemporary Western Imperialism and intervention, then I have by extension “picked a side”….now how about you explain me exactly how that works…I ask again..what side do assume I have picked?
I am not really sure what drives this extremely negative obsession with ‘picking sides’ with you people…but it is a very unpleasant trait.
For what I am sure won’t be the last time.. I am a supporter of a neutral Ukraine…natural from Russian influence and US/NATO influence…I would be interested to know what part of that don’t you get?
Night of the Zombies (alternate title: Battalion of the Living Dead) is a 1981 American zombie horror war film….
A top-secret nerve gas is discovered that has kept a battalion of flesh-eating World War II soldiers alive for decades.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Zombies
You really consider yourself to be a serious observer?
When the best you can do, to make your argument for supporting the Russian invasion and genocidal attacks on apartment buildings, shopping malls, theatres and hospitals, is a schlock horror movie?
A movie which depicts the protagonists as evil sub-humans?
Is this what you really think?
Is this truely the thinking behind your 'serious observation'. ?
FYI, Adrian, 1940s Nazi war propagandists, also depicted their protagonists in Eastern Europe as sub-humans, (untermenschen), as justification for invasion and war.
I suppose we shouldn’t expect any better from you, Adrian, considering your long history of genocide denial and support for Assad fascism in Syria.
God you really are an idiot of the first order….talk about a useful idiot…it's like that term was especially created just for you…and I must say, you really do wear it well.
"Adrian, 1940s Nazi war propagandists, also depicted their protagonists in Eastern Europe as sub-humans, (untermenschen), as justification for invasion and war"
But at least you got one thing right for change…one would assume that, extrapolating just one or two steps further from your statement above, that is probably exactly why Russia had and have deep seated and legitimate boarder paranoia issues…it's hard to see why, taking into account the history that you touched on there, why Ukraine just didn't take the option of neutrality that it's own citizens voted for, the Russians supported and all the main European NATO countries supported?….one is only left to speculate on why that sane and reasonable opportunity for peace was so roundly rejected.
Rejected by Russia.
Russia attended the peace talks only for appearances sake, continued shelling civilian infrastructure throughout, refused every offer of a ceasefire. Kept making stupid demands for "Deanazification" (ie Russia's code word for regime change) and demanding Ukraine's surrender.
On the other side of the negotiating table Ukraine offered Russia, that Ukraine would remain neutral in exchange for Russian a withdrawl, to Russia's pre-February, military lines held by Russian backed separatists..With an agreement on further negotiations on the future of the disputed territories in the Donbass. This peace offer Russian negotiators also flatly rejected.
President Zylenksy then went over the heads of the Putin government and phoney peace negotiators, to appeal to the Russian people directly to put before the Russian people the same peace terms.
The Russian government made sharing or broadcasting this video a crime.
Doesn't this tell you something Adrian? Because it certainly tells everyone else
There is a saying: 'If the truth needs to be silenced because it might destroy something. Then that something needs to be destroyed by the truth.'
The Russian Federation is a revanchist wanna'be imperial power. Its leaders don't want peace, just conquest.
Putin doesn't want peace he wants empire and war.
Adrian in this war, you have chosen sides, you and those like you are trying to get others to join you there but you are on the wrong side of history, and you, and your other pro-war propagandists', efforts will prove to be futile, possibly even within Russia.
Because Adrian, you can make all the lame excuses for Russia's imperialist invasion, you like, the slaughtering of civilians, the censoring of Russia's brutality and own losses from the Russian people, the jailing of Russian peace activists and the rejection of Ukraine's peace offers, you only further disgrace yourself as a partisan supporter of imperialist wars.
You may think it is clever Adrian to cheer on Russia's of choice, but this war can end in only one of two ways for your side. Total destruction of the Russian Federation on the battlefield at the hands of Russia's stronger imperial rivals, either that, or the Russian Federation will be overthrown by the Russian people themselves.
I'm hoping for the latter.
1234 We Don't Want Your Bloody War. 2468 Stop The War It's Not Too Late
If the U.S dollar was not the default currency for international trade ,America could not afford these wars and be able to sustain 700 plus bases around the world.
You may have noticed Saudi Arabia and Israel are very quiet regarding support for U.S interference these days.
They have good reason.On their doorstep is Syria, which with Russian help ,defied the U.S.
The world will never be the…same…and as for inflation!!
Saudi Arabia and Israel and most of the Gulf States are at peace and doing good business with each other. Everything is flowing as it should and prices are excellent.
Saudi Arabia GDP is up 29% ytd on higher energy prices.
Norway's GDP and budget surplus is becoming astronomical on energy pricing.
https://www.economy.com/norway/government-budget-balance (prior to the war premium)
The downside is the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is losing value in over priced markets (74B 2022 ytd)
Imagine if we had a second sovereign wealth fund based solely on taxing milk exports.
The government is going to destroy agriculture in the next few weeks,and try BAU in a high inflation/ interest regime,The NZ dollar has lost 6 % this month,whilst good for exporters,lousy for those trying to redesign an economy.
Our sovereign wealth funds are losing around 800m$ a month.
Spot the Muppets.
I will give you a clue – they are in the middle.
or maybe here are the yellow, green and red kiwi’s
Pataua4life, what’s your problem?
John Key's day in the Bay, no pony-tail pulling involved [BoP Times]
You’re a stupid lazy troll when you copy & paste your RW ‘jokes’ from KB and dump them here on TS. You don’t even try being original, which makes you a try-hard.
Willie smoothes the ruffled feathers of Nat/Lab dinosaur voters addicted to neocolonialism. He
Baffled Nat/Lab voters go into collective funk, eyes glazed over. "But I thought MMP was just rearranging the deck-chairs." Whimper, sniffle. "Sounds like Labour actually intend to do something real. Jacinda is betraying Helen! When Labour refused to accept UNDRIP under Helen everyone realised Labour was rightist, not leftist. Younger generation thinks it knows better. This won't end well." Groan, sniffle.
[link required]
oops, sorry.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/04/24/willie-jackson-co-governance-a-chance-at-equity-for-maori/
$234 TRILLION of derivatives!(face val)
All done in the best…possible ..taste.
'There is no better snapshot of the Fed’s failure as a banking supervisor than this one fact that is called out every quarter in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Report on Bank Trading and Derivative Activities. Table 14 of this report (see page 19) shows that the 25 largest bank holding companies in the U.S. are sitting on $234 trillion notional (face amount) in derivatives but just five bank holding companies are responsible for $200.18 trillion of that exposure or 86 percent of the total. Those mega bank holding companies are: JPMorgan Chase (ticker JPM), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Bank of America (BAC).
David Parker is my hero!
"Revenue Minister David Parker will introduce a bill which would set out principles of fairness in the tax system.
Speaking at the Victoria University in Wellington, Parker said authorities had “virtually no idea what rate of tax is paid by the very wealthy”.
“We do know the rate paid by wage and salary earners and by small business owners.”
He said New Zealand was a country with inequality. “More than two thirds of all financial assets are held by the top 5%,” he said."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/128452925/revenue-minister-david-parker-lashes-very-wealthy-for-being-undertaxed-calls-for-new-tax-principles
Heartening to hear a cabinet Minister actually saying this. Many things could be done to stem the concentration of wealth – here's hoping.
https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-4/
https://inequality.org/
Think of the scale and size of the accompanying tax credits on the losses
I heard about people claiming to be "common law sheriff" (a conspiracy people) intruding on an Anzac Day ceremony in Paraparaumu on Monday.
A twitter video shows someone taking an oath on signing up with the group: "I take this affirmation being of sound mind …" It doesn't sound the stuff of sound minds to me.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/04/video-emerges-of-self-proclaimed-common-law-sheriff-being-told-to-stop-talking-at-paraparaumu-anzac-service.html
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/wellington/128448267/anzac-service-hijacking-by-selfproclaimed-sheriffs-prompts-walkout
‘
2022 The year of the conspiracy theorists.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/04/man-handcuffed-dragged-away-by-police-after-yelling-earth-is-flat-during-governor-general-s-anzac-speech.html