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6:00 am, March 26th, 2026 - 19 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
A very depressing read for a wet thursday morning, the western world really doesn't care about Africa. First time I had seen anything about the most recent massacre in Sudan.
The UK and USA very much complicit in allowing it to happen by burying intelligence reports. The UAE have got grubby hands as well
"Over two days in October 2025, up to 10,000 people are believed to have been massacred; a further 40,000 civilians from the Sudanese city are still unaccounted for."
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/mar/25/heroism-horror-and-the-pits-of-hell-inside-the-last-days-of-el-fasher
How The Guardian sees it:
New Zealand PM’s ratings dip as fragile economy fails to impress before November election, poll shows
"National leader Christopher Luxon drops in preferred PM stakes with rise in people saying country heading in wrong direction"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/new-zealand-pm-luxon-ratings-dip-fragile-economy-november-election-poll?
Did JD Vance think he would actually be helping Orban by visiting Hungary days before their election?
Vance due to visit Hungary on April 7-8 ahead of key election, say sources | Reuters
The US Presidency is a global laughing stock, and there's a high risk he will be simply booed out of town.
It is critical for the Ukraine and the EU that Orban is ousted this time.
Nonsensical “organ sacks” exist…'Murica elected one….
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As the Trump administration phases out the use of animal experimentation across the federal government, a biotech startup has a bold idea for an alternative to animal testing: nonsentient “organ sacks.”
Bay Area-based R3 Bio has been quietly pitching the idea to investors and in industry publications as a way to replace lab animals without the ethical issues that come with living organisms. That’s because these structures would contain all of the typical organs—except a brain, rendering them unable to think or feel pain. The company’s long-term goal, cofounder Alice Gilman says, is to make human versions that could be used as a source of tissues and organs for people who need them.
https://www.wired.com/story/a-billionaire-backed-startup-wants-to-grow-organ-sacks-to-replace-animal-testing/ ( https://archive.li/hVPeI )
https://theconversation.com/driving-in-the-wrong-direction-why-nzs-oil-consumption-is-at-a-5-year-high-278524
More roads is driving [us] the wrong way and into a cul-de-sac.
I would have liked to have seen more discussion of oil consumption on road transport of personal/private vs commercial use, i.e., trucks. These two paragraphs all sound eminently sensible and familiar but they don’t mention the elephant in the room:
I keep seeing road transport industry people pointing out that this oil shock is a big problem because all freight in NZ is moved by diesel. Oh, so just like the 1973 oil shock then, except that back then they had an excuse for it being a shock because it hadn't happened before, whereas this time it has happened before and successive governments have supposedly spent the last 30 years reducing the nation's dependency on fossil fuels.
So, it turns out that what the nation has to show for those successive governments' efforts is "All freight in NZ is moved by diesel." Tits on a bull, the lot of them.
Freight isn’t even moved efficiently by diesel. They have also managed to degrade the rail system that does move freight far more efficiently over long distances.
And don’t you mean 50 years? The two oil crisis supply points were 1973 and 1978?
I wrote 30 years because I was thinking of the Kyoto agreement in 1997, but now you mention it yes Think Big was also about protection against oil shocks, so 50 years is more like it.
So, in other words, the trucking industry has been walking all over successive NZ governments for over 5 decades?
There are a couple of reasons with this piqued my interest: like anybody else, I shop at supermarkets, and as a commenter and Moderator of this site, I look out for this behaviour in discussion threads. You may wonder what grocery shopping at a supermarket and robust debate on The Standard have in common – who are the buyers-consumers and who are sellers-producers?
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/03/26/how-supermarkets-use-frame-game-to-deflect-attention-on-profits/
It helps if we regard every 'frame' as a 'claim'. In essence, it's a claim about the meaning of certain facts and it will always omit other facts. It's harder than that though, because there are way too many facts in the world and we can't say much* without some sort of framing.
*we can make simple descriptive statements like "the wheelbarrow id red" but to say that "so much depends upon" that wheelbarrow is a claim, and a frame.
I guess this is National's idea, now. Wankers.
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Minister fast-tracks NZ’s biggest hydro project Lake Onslow
High-powered private consortium welcomes referral: ‘In the context of energy security, the sooner this project gets built the better’
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/03/25/minister-fast-tracks-nzs-biggest-ever-hydro-project-lake-onslow/
It is going to now cost so much that the project is not particularly likely.
However they are backed by a formidable set of names with a bipartisan approach.
This would be one of the few fast track projects that both National and Labour could actually get behind.
A lot of money invested in the GCC will be looking elsewhere…
Here is an interesting article, it's contents are what it says on the tin.
https://blanphear.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-reckoning-of-roundup
Take aways include: "many risks arise not from personal choices but from the environments societies collectively create."
Bayer, who took over Monsanto, are arguing the in the Supreme Court, that because Glyphosate got federal approval from the FDA, then folk can't sue them because of harm. (Even if that approval was given due to industry interference with studies).
No prizes for guessing which side everyone's least favourite president is on.
@ Incognito @ 6
Framing was one of the things I was getting at in our last exchange.
On Marsden Point, Stuff claims
"But the long and short of it is: it struggled to compete with bigger refineries in Asia which had economies of scale and access to cheaper electricity, Covid-19 hit hard, and the future demand for fuel wasn’t looking strong."
This is reinforced by "Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday, the closure was a “private business decision”.
No mention that Ampol insisted that the refinery be closed as a condition of them buying the Z chain.
In Australia at the refinery Ampol own:
“The Lytton refinery was kept open with the backstop of a Aust$2.3 billion (NZ$2.4b) federal government subsidy to guarantee Australia’s fuel security, and it has now returned to profitability in the September quarter.
But New Zealand Cabinet minutes show the Government here has refused to intervene to stop the closure of refining operations at Marsden Point, despite the promise of increased refining margins in coming years, and a proposal to convert much of the valuable plant to biofuel production, using Northland’s forestry waste.”
https://newsroom.co.nz/2021/11/14/warning-of-higher-pump-prices-as-marsden-point-oil-refinery-closes/
I hope there’s enough diesel up North to run the diesel generators when power is down due to the bad weather.
You’d think that the Coalition would celebrate if growth exceeds forecasts, wouldn’t you? Not so.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/590636/tertiary-education-commission-warns-of-government-funding-shortfall-for-domestic-enrolments
Of course, post-Covid and during high unemployment, people flock to tertiary education and the Coalition is constantly putting the [fiscal] brakes on – those brake pads must have worn out by now, you’d think. Once they have their degrees, graduates flock to Australia.
Bette Midler's remake of Woody Guthrie’s All You Fascists Bound to Lose.