Open Mike 23/09/25
Open Mike 23/09/25
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6:00 am, September 23rd, 2025 - 19 comments
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Today's Posts (updated through the day):
National announces reversal of School Building Project cuts
Kiwis are now dying in corridors & carparks
Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7 2023 has had the effect of making the two-state solution a headline story/issue in worldwide media where previously it had languished almost unreported for many years.
Not only that but countries such as Mexico, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Norway Ireland, Armenia, Slovenia, Belgium have all recognised a Palestinian state in the last 12 months.
Hamas' tactics have been a spectacular success.
But, it must be said, at a terrible human cost!
True.
There are roughly 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Hamas probably calculated that 100,000 deaths (2%) is probably worth it to further the creation of the country of Palestine. (Many injuries too of course.)
Better that than remain in Gaza as a concentration camp while the occupied West Bank is gradually absorbed into Israel.
It was October 2023 or never.
The Hamas attack of October has eradicated the idea of a two-state solution.
For all the cracks that have appeared in Israel over the military responses, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies may have been more vocal about their determination to crush Gaza.. None of the cracks protests or concerns inside Israel have fundamentally affected the condition of being Palestinian.
It has not brought Palestinians any closer to fulfilling their aspirations, and it has made the blows they received worse. Nothing novel in that.
It is now entirely plausible that Israel might go further still and forcibly transfer or ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. If the UK and US can just load illegal migrants on a plane, Israel probably can as well.
Who would take them? The answer is simple: the negotiated price per person to a willing state.
Ethnic cleansing of populations from Gaza and West Bank is not legal.
Netanyahu and Trump will not be there for ever.
Bibi has turned Israel into a pariah state.
I think the only solution is two states. I didn't think this was feasible before October 2023 but now I'm convinced it is the only solution, and western countries and the Arab countries will back this.
The alternative is continuous war.
If they get a two state resolution, do the Arab factions that wish to erase Isreal vow to live in peace?
That would be a condition of creating a Palestinian state. Presumably there would be peace keeping troops for a while.
It's not really a 'success' – because formal recognition of a Palestinian state will make no difference on the ground if Israel does not back down and the USA does not withdraw support from them. Neither of those things has happened or looks like happening. It looks more likely than ever that Gaza will be ethnically cleansed and that the West Bank will be annexed, then ethnically cleansed. No countervailing force exists to stop this now. No victorious allied army will enter Gaza, uncover what has really happened and do a proper, forensic count of the dead. There will be no accountability and no trials of the perpetrators. If Hamas had any tactics at all, they were insane tactics. Occupied or besieged peoples have a right to armed resistance. But that resistance must be directed against enemy combatants, not enemy civilians. The grotesque war crimes of Oct 7 look more like deranged, opportunistic revenge rather than tactics.
NAct – better managers of the NZ economy. Yeah Right!
If only our CoC 'government' would actually listen to good ol' Susan St John.
New pathways have been announced to make getting New Zealand residence easier for skilled migrants …
The government is making it easier to bring in tradies from offshore and also lessen the amount of time working here to residency (thus then move to Oz).
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/immigration-minister-erica-stanford-unveils-two-new-pathways-to-residency-for-skilled-migrants-including-tradies/RNSEREEXPZAANIKRQKYG7QCGME/
Good on you Winston. Train our own citizens, not gutting Polytechs and Universities.
Sounds like the government knows
1.they have lost tradies to Oz.
2.firms have laid off apprentices (out of the sector or also off to Oz to complete their training)
That there Kainga Ora block, part of a more general low investment in infrastructure, had consequences more than just a recession and decline in government revenues.
Thus if they belatedly invest in infrastructure they might need to import tradies (get on that dependency bandwagon). That might create a crisis in our own tradie supply line – both at the polytech level and local businesses willingness to train up apprentices.
Peters can see in this dependency, a decline in our national economic and collective well-being.
A mess the coalition made with poor economic policy and digging the hole deeper trying to do a patch up job.
Of course he wants to step aside from association with all of this.
People might think he chose unwisely in 2023.
Another day another brain fart idea.
Thoroughly supported by the usual suspects the Employers and Manufacturers Association.
The representative went on the radio to cheerlead for this initiative and then went on to blame the education system for not tuning out trade qualified workers.
Her empty headed, market driven ideals went unchallenged.
What are the trades they are hoping to attract?
How do they propose to stop the flight of migrants to Australia once they have their citizenship?
How is a school supposed to turn out a tradesperson who was virtually qualified?
Why isn't industry training its own?
The reportage was unbalanced in that there wasn't a spokesperson from the union movement.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019005421/govt-unveils-two-new-skilled-migrant-residency-paths
Just a big shoutout to the Helios Ltd team for achieving consent for their 639 Hectare solar farm outside of Naseby.
Big reward to your fresh investors there.
Hope Transpower facilitates you to consumers directly and fast.
+1
Over 550k panels. Roughly two thirds of the power of the Clyde dam.
My only quibble is they dropped the on-site battery storage, but they may add that later.
The study was carried out in Denmark at 56.5⁰ south.
"Our measurements show that wheat and grass-clover mixtures grow just as well between vertical solar panels as in open fields. At the same time, the panels produce electricity in a daily pattern that better matches energy demand. It's a win-win," says Marta Victoria, lead author of the study and Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Aarhus University.
[…]
At the test site in Foulum, researchers installed two types of bifacial solar panels: one traditional, south-facing tilted system, and one vertical, east-west-facing system. The vertical panels produce slightly less electricity per year—but with higher value, as generation peaks coincide with morning and late afternoon demand.
At the same time, crops growing among the vertical panels showed no decline in yield.
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-harvest-vertical-solar-panels-crops.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772427125001664?via%3Dihub
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