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Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Monday, March 28, 2022
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Saturday, March 26, 2022
john mclaughlin how he got started...
John McLaughlin interview on how he started
...Then there was the scene at The 100 Club with Alexis Korner and John Mayall – between The Flamingo and The 100 Club there was a lot of moving around. Everybody played with Alexis, he got everybody together. He was like fusion personified. Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jack Bruce and Cyril Davies, they all either sang or played in Alexis’ band. And everyone got on well. Nobody thought about ‘do you belong in this band?’ – the whole musical scene was fantastic. Alexis loved 50s blues, but he always had jazzmen in his band. I jammed with Alexis I don’t know how many times… I’ll never forget, at that time I was playing a really great early 60s Telecaster… it was a beauty, a real beauty. Alexis was crazy about that guitar, so I sold it to him and that’s when I got my Gibson L-4.”
McLaughlin eventually left the Blue Flames to go with Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker and Graham Bond: “It was musically much more challenging with Graham. It was still very strong R&B, but if you take the R&B out of jazz, you don’t have very much jazz left, do you really? We were starving – making next to nothing. But The Graham Bond Organisation was a great little band.
Eventually, the GBO broke up, and then because I could read music, I started doing a lot of studio work alongside guys like Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Remember 1966-67 and all of those hits – Donovan, Sandie Shaw, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck – it was the first time I had some money in my pocket! You know, Jimmy and I go back a long time. I was 18 when I met him and he must have been about 15. I was living in Surrey and we happened to be neighbours. I gave him guitar lessons!”
Friday, March 25, 2022
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
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Monday, March 21, 2022
simon wilson writes...
Simon Wilson writes. This is excellent. There is so much to comment on.
I’ll just focus on two. The first is the degradation of our social infrastructure. It’s the neoliberal austerity bollocks which assumed the Lord Market will come along and fill all the gaps (and if not, obviously there’s no need). Historically and philosophically deeply ignorant.
It’s this phenomenon writ large - of short-termism and an insane economic mythology undermining the whole system. Think only in dollars today. All public spending is a drain on the private sector (Disintegrated, non-systems, non-entangled bullshit non-thinking). This story is an analogy …. An old neighbour was a city water engineer. He railed against the previous mayor who ‘kept rates low’ (zero rate rise!!) and got all the votes for three terms by not funding depreciation or needed expansion of infrastructure.
Result - after he left, the bill is huge. Social & physical infrastructure decayed. A stitch in time saves nine is a maxim because it’s true. And we’ve done that since 1984. Undermined to the point of collapse. Made fragile by fools.
And that’s particularly obvious when a few shocks come - building, groceries, petrol, greedy rent ripoffs (but it’s the *market*!) - and the marginal fall below the subsistence line. We made this fragility through neoliberal practices. The least systems thinking economic creed up there with state communism. And I’m not sure which one is worse. I’m still thinking about it. Would you rather have the neoliberal-corporate crazies, or Lenin?
The second point I’d discuss is the loss of capacity in the public sector. Particularly the loss of creativity and alternative thinking. We saw this happening from the 80s - first destroying a public service culture of open thinking types (so many public servants were authors etc who didn’t want a bar of either academic or narrow corporate life). The neoliberal framing was all. If you questioned its utter bollocks assumptions, or logical framing, or empirical evidence that contradicted its crap, or trued to include power, or the functions of the public service - like long-term strategy and incredible training that flowed through the the private sector - who *didn’t* train to any degree - they just sucked off the tit of society as they always try to do. Argue different lines - a strategy other than commodity (John Falloon at least engaged with the few of us arguing that line), the multifunctional nature of reality, questioning culture:nature dualisms, trying to bring the challenge of indigenous ontologies into the mechanical money frame …. so many - then you weren’t valued for your perspective. You were a ‘problem.’
We left in droves.
On top of that, the corporate managerialism. Job descriptions with siloed walls, the cutting of dialogue between silos, separation of the knowledge *system* that is the research-policy-operation nexus, complexity reduced to measured tasks which were treated as immutable through the year, though the issues *were* mutable, as should have been the tasks. I saw box-tickers get ahead. The least cooperative. The narrowest. The smarmiest. Demonstrate obedience and a focus on output, not wider goals. Basically favour the least ethically concerned for the big picture; the most Machiavellian and scheming for their own ends.
If you’re conceptual, some of the dullest minds who can only think in either-or categories (unable to hold two thoughts in their heads at the same time) decided that, because I was critiquing neoliberal, that meant I had to be a state communist!! Commons yes. Communalism yes. Local ownership yes. Local enterprise yes. But a pox on all centralised Industrialism.
The non-conceptual rise, and when I later dipped my career into local governments, the non-conceptual dominated the execs, and …. being unable to think in concepts and having had a career focus as contrasted with better outcome to all focus …. they saw any dialogue/concept at odds with their banal Eichmanesque train scheduling as being a threat. They saw you as ‘after their job’, because Machiavellian power-seeking was so very common as a career focus.
I now think corporate hierarchical instruct-obey linear managerialism is as empty a philosophy as neoliberalism. And they’re related.
That was the end game of the neoliberal destruction of the public *service* by transactional non-thinkers thinking everything is a trade to some selfish end. So they created that Borg Collective - and we lost the capacities we desperately need.
Until we come to where we are today - a social infrastructure bled white.
And the idiot Nats want to keep doing it of course. Because they are so very conceptually dull and selfish in their motivations.
Anyway. Simon Wilson hits nail after nail.
————————
Simon Wilson: 7 big things I'd like to see inGrant Robertson's Budget
“Forgive me, but I'm angry. And frightened, because of what we've learned about our country these last two years. I don't mean the rise of destructive American-style extremism in our politics, although that is also frightening. I mean what we now know about the effect of 30 years of underspending on core services and infrastructure.
The deep damage to health services, transport, housing, education, water, crime – and they're just the things that hog the headlines – has been laid bare. Wherever you look, the economy, our social services and their administration need structural reform, a refreshed understanding of the goals and so much more investment. And yet the task seems almost impossible. One reason for that: it's urgent.
The "best" solutions for most problems are generational, but we don't have the luxury of time. Whether it's the waiting list for social housing, educational underachievement or our still-rising carbon emissions, big fixes are needed now. But we're really bad at now, or even soon. Where are the promised new homes on the Unitec site? Why can't even the budgeted allocations for everything from mental health to victim support to cycleways get spent?
Another reason: there isn't enough money to do what needs to be done. That means we need a serious commitment to low-cost options and a ruthless focus on priorities.
Third, we have a public service that is far too often incapable of even thinking like this, let alone planning and acting accordingly. I know many talented officials, in central and local government. But their organisations and far too many of their senior staff are beset by inertia. They favour gold-plated solutions because they lack the courage to take risks. They don't think creatively and are dismissive of emerging technologies. They rely on sector interest groups for "expert" guidance, despite the obvious conflicts of interest. And the politicians are beholden to these officials. Why has no one stepped up and allowed health workers with expiring visas to stay? And there's a fourth factor: the neverending clamour from people opposed to new ideas and change. Politicians find it all too easy to confuse that with deeper public opinion.
Want an emblematic example of these problems? Look no further than the light-rail line proposed to run between downtown Auckland and Māngere. To be clear, that line would not be a bad thing to have. In fact, it would be great if we had it. But that doesn't mean we should spend at least 10 years building an 11km-long tunnel for it. And whether it costs the $15 billion announced by the Government or the $29 billion suggested by Treasury, it's far too much. Rather than treating congestion and carbon emissions as urgent problems, that project will delay our response to them. Especially as it will suck funds away from other options that could have quicker and larger impacts. Tunnelled light rail is old technology, even if it's driverless. But it's favoured because it's a really big construction project, proposed by agencies that have the ear of the transport construction sector. It won't disrupt Dominion Rd shopping, even though there are cheaper and better ways to avoid that harm. And many people still call it "a tram to the airport", thus disparaging not just this project but the whole value of better mass transit. And all of these things mean it's unlikely to happen anyway. We're wasting time and the Government is squandering public support.
This is exactly how not to progress. Right now, Finance Minister Grant Robertson is writing his 2022 Budget. It's a big one: the budget in which he defines how we emerge from this pandemic into a world of inflation, fast-growing inequity, climate change and war in Europe. Here are seven things he could include.
1. Take the GST off vegetables and fruit It's not hard, with barcode technology. It's not radical, with Australia and other countries already doing it. There are complications around the edges, but so what? That's a minor problem compared with the advantages.
2. Supersize the prefab housing sector The new Enabling Housing Supply law will lead to more houses being built. But there are still unnecessary blockages to consenting and changing land use. Kainga Ora and community housing providers require more funding to build more homes. Most of all, new technologies need to be fast-tracked and supersized. That includes prefab housing and the use of new materials in insulation and other parts of construction. The goal is cheap, fast and good. It's a lazy myth that we can't have all three.
3. Health system reform This one is already happening! Is there anyone, apart from Shane Reti, who still denies health structures are in urgent need of an overhaul?
4. Pour money into poor schools We know that two years of Covid have profoundly disrupted children's educational and social development. And we've had more news this week that literacy levels are falling. These things affect all schools but especially those serving the poor parts of town. It's time to stop pretending that the kids are okay and step-change the way these schools are funded and resourced.
5. Vastly extend the public transport subsidy It's great that fares have been cut in half for three months. But it should be made permanent (or possibly free and permanent) and backed by funding for more bus routes, more frequency and other measures. Instead of having as few large diesel buses as "necessary", why not have lots more minibuses on all the suburban and feeder routes? For public transport to work well, it also needs non-budget measures like priority bus lanes on all arterial routes and other limits on where cars can go.
6. Free e-bikes Compared to digging multi-billion dollar tunnels and buying electric buses at $650,000 a pop (yes, true), e-bikes are really cheap. They're not for everyone, but what would happen if e-bikes were free or heavily subsidised for all who want them? Stop all other spending on new urban transport infrastructure. Convert road space cheaply, with sticks and concrete dividers, to provide more bike lanes. Subsidise local manufacturing to meet demand. Include cargo e-bikes, and not just for commercial use: kids ride in them very well too. See what happens. It might be astonishing what super-expensive new things we suddenly don't need to build. Remember that people who still want or need to drive will be among the beneficiaries.
7. Tax relief where it's needed National Party leader Christopher Luxon has proposed adjusting the tax regime to counter "bracket creep".
That's fine, although not if it's done the way he suggests. He also proposes a roll-back of the tax restraints on property speculators. The net effect of Luxon's plan is to give a larger tax break (about $2 billion) to the topearning three per cent than to the bottom-earning 66 per cent. He even had the nerve to say his plan would help the "average Kiwi family": if you're earning, say, $55,000, he wants to give you a whole $800 extra. Per year.
Luxon also maintains debt is out of control and he wants a return to offshore drilling. This is laughable. National has a popular new leader and his response to the crisis we're in right now is to advocate more of the very same policies that caused it. It's like he's pretending the last 30 years didn't happen.
Like he's never even heard of public-health emergencies, or poverty, or climate change.
Here's a better plan: make the first $15,000 or $20,000 of everyone's income tax-free. Everyone benefits, especially those who need it most. What about it, Grant?”j
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Saturday, March 19, 2022
listen to the 11:25 pulling out and blowing her whistle at the level crossings....
wooooooooooooo ooooooohhh wooooo
Friday, March 18, 2022
media comlicity g otto...
How to win an election with media complicity
It's National's job to propose Labour's ideas, to lie about how the three point omicron plan did not exist, to pretend to be health experts who know best, and to know deep down with a smug smile - nobody will hold them to account for it.
Yesterday Sir John's man told the assembled press in Lower Hutt that Labour copy National's ideas - and if you look back at National's retreat in Queenstown back on 31 January 2022 - you will find Chris Bishop was proposing reducing isolation periods to 7 days - even way back then.
Nobody in the press questioned that.
Why would they?
It was not their job to hold Luxon to account, according to their seniors who had invented the revised job description in early 2018.
"Chris has done an exceptional job over the last year he's been talking about rapid antigen tests ...", said Chris Luxon about Bishop before saying the New Zealand public needed to see National proposing ideas...and how he wanted them to see that...and how National are a government in waiting now.
"Yes it's true. These plagiarists are a government in waiting" said a green wheelie bin with a blue ribbon tied around it.
Laughably, five days before Chris Bishop went to Queenstown on 31 January 2022 the Government announced its three phase omicron plan on 26 January 2022.
The press release on the Beehive website dated 26 January 2022 still shows the following bullet points :
* - Reducing isolation period for cases and close contacts at Phase Two and Three to 10 and seven days
* - Definition of close contact required to isolate changes to household or household like contacts at Phase Three
* - Increased use of rapid antigen tests with test to return policy put in place for health and critical workforce
* - Greater use of technology, including text notifications for cases and close contacts and automated contact identification
Clearly Chris Bishop was 5 days late and clearly not the "proposer" of a new ideas but more of a plagiarist of an old one.
So what gave Luxon the confidence to make untrue statements about National's "seven day isolation periods" being original or copied by Labour?
Only the certain knowledge he was amongst friends in the media.
Chris Luxon even complained that he had been calling for Labour to map out a plan - even when a plan had been mapped out.
How do media fail to point that out?
It was on record - and you could find it and verify it...along with many a heads up about the current decision making concerning contact tracing, isolation periods, the future of the traffic light system and vaccine mandates.
Would any of the journalists from 1 News, NewsHub, the NZ Herald or Stuff - point out the misleading comments made by Chris Luxon?
Not on your nelly.
He was a brand that media were nurturing together.
But why?
Only Lisa Owens got stuck in on RNZ Checkpoint and Lisa highlighted that Luxon was preaching without any scientific advice like a giant know it all who once ran an airline.
Luxon did not even listen to Dr Shame in his own party - that was something for Professor Bishflap to do.
But wait there's more.
Everybody uses google to look at what is going on in other countries - and political parties do it too.
It was big news in the UK in mid January 2022 when the UK moved to a five day isolation period.
"You mean it's not Chris Bishop's idea?" - screamed a child.
"Yes, he has no original ideas, only lies", said his mother.
“Let’s be clear, the decision by the Health Secretary to reduce the self-isolation period to 5 days is not a scientific decision, it is a political one.", said Dr Nathalie MacDermott, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer, King’s College London on 13 January 2022.
"It is important to note that perhaps a third of all positive individuals will still be infectious after 5 days.", wrote Dr Jonathan Stoye, Senior Group Leader and Head of the Retrovirus-Host Interactions Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute London, on the exact same day.
Meanwhile back home in New Zealand the Act Party licked its lips and copied down the moves made by the UK during January 2022 in the name of money, freedumb and opposition without science.
Act were busy writing a fourth policy document about why New Zealand should stop all restrictions for financial reasons - even before omicron had gotten through MIQ.
That's how far the money and politics were dominating the science at Act.
New Zealand's most wealthy and psychotic men gave millions to Act for its death cult cause in the name of greed.
Some pointed out that this right wing lack of respect for human life was characteristic of conspiracy theorists - who much like Luxon did not need nor heed scientific advice.
At the same time on 13 January 2022 , National's internationally acclaimed and much respected unscientific health expert Professor Chris Bishflap, a former tobacco salesman, told Tim Dower on Newstalk ZB that Clarke Gayford needs to know his place.
Chris Bishop's focus on Clarke Gayford's chat with a pharmacist mattered more to National than shortened isolation periods in mid January 2022.
But what about what we all saw yesterday after hearing the Government are currently working on decisions around reducing mandates, the future of contact tracing and the traffic light system?
Now the media are chasing around after Bishop and Luxon as if they are leading the way as Health and Economic Experts and portraying the government as dragging its tail.
Over the time it takes to make better informed decisions?
"Thank God Chris Luxon is here to beat some sense into Dr Bloomfield, Professor Skegg and all those other scientists about how they know nothing", said an organic punga.
"It's really Professor Bishop who we should thank for his original ideas and well earned authority", said a Flax Bush, shaking a fist at the Government.
Been-a-Dick Collins supported that view on 1 News last night.
Been-a Dick suggested the Government already knew what it was going to do next week but was making us all wait unnecessarily for cabinet to make unnecessary decisions based on unnecessary health advice - or something like that.
Labour were standing in the way of Chris Luxon and Chris Bishop who knew best on behalf of every business owner.
1 News bent over backwards to imply this.
Why are 1 News doing this?
We are all sick of it now.
Some portion of swing voters are switching to National with the help and urging of 1 News, Stuff, the NZ Herald and NewsHub who all refuse to point out Luxon's misleading spin.
Only RNZ have stood up to the nonsense.
Right now many people think National have proposed original ideas that Labour have stolen, that Labour had no plan, that it's all on the fly ...because Luxon repeats these lines and media smile and wave.
It's National's job to propose Labour's ideas, to lie about how the three point omicron plan did not exist, to pretend to be health experts who know best, and to know deep down with a smug smile - nobody will hold them to account for it.
How to win an election with media complicity
Morena
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
batteries and ev's
Batteries, they do not make electricity – they store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So, to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid.
Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, do you see?"
Einstein's formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five-thousand-pound gasoline-driven automobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.
There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.
Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium. The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.
All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flashlight or two from an old, ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery's metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.
In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle single-use ones properly.
But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive production costs.
A typical EV battery weighs one thousand pounds, about the size of a travel trunk. It contains twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside are over 6,000 individual lithium-ion cells.
It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each EV auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth's crust for just - one - battery."
Sixty-eight percent of the world's cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls, and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?"
I'd like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being 'green,' but it is not. This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.
The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.
Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades.
There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions.
"Going Green" may sound like the Utopian ideal but when you look at the hidden and embedded costs realistically with an open mind, you can see that Going Green is more destructive to the Earth's environment than meets the eye, for sure
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new zealand is the place where the baby is always chucked out with the bathwater, no one says what they mean, and whatever policy plank anyo...
