Every product (and packaging) needs a list of ingredients just like food. It's insane that tea bags, pizza boxes and popcorn bags are coated in this toxic PFAS!
I hate the National party as much as you and those are valid criticisms but you should take an honest look at what really happened here; The previous government lost rather than the new one winning. https://pastebin.com/91S1BQ2B
Labour failed on the things they campaigned on like house prices and child poverty. The covid hero mask can only last so long. People have had enough of the woke policy, money wasted on endless consultants and race based shake downs, sky high cost of living, broken healthcare and so on. Anyway the thread is about PFAS so this is all quite tangential!
It's ironic that almost everything in your long list of Labour's financial sins is equalled in $ by National's one single move of new tax-breaks for landlords. It puts into clear context the way that appearances trumped objectivity, when it came to the country's electoral fickleness. It's also ironic that what you're here lauding - the PFAS story - is an initiative which occurred under Ardern's government. It's not the kind of thing you'll be seeing in the results of the new one.
So yes, the thread is about PFAS, but its secondary framing is that of lauding New Zealand for an environmental positive. And, in that same light, its quite relevant to mention in the same breath that New Zealand is also taking several, arguably much larger, steps backwards environmentally - pulling back the country's environmental focus, in favour of business and commercial interests, due to having elected a right-wing government which stands in stark contrast to the "kind, positive" aspirational style that the world remembers from Ardern.
'New Zealand leads the way environmentally' is a style of story the world will be seeing less of, the more terms this new government has.
I never said I was a National fan but I'm just providing you a perspective on why the country didn't like them because you seem very partisan. That list is how the swing voters see Labour. Labour had a majority and should have done a bunch of anti-landlord things while they could like capital gains tax or land tax. They have absolutely failed on housing and now it's sad to see a party of rent seekers in power.
"New Zealand leads the way environmentally" - has been bullshit ever since Helen wanted sell dairy to China. Ardern's government were promoting tourism and excluding it from our carbon footprint. I did enjoy the tank drivers bitching about the ute tax as they call it.
There was no workable housing solution, under the circumstances. That's something the populace probably cannot accept. Disparate governments the world over face the same - for example, Australia just voted out their version of National, in favour of their version of Labour, based upon all the same resentments! a political mirror image, proving beyond doubt the fallacy of NZ's partisan blame - and they are finding they cannot policy-it-away. So yes, I am annoyed that we resentfully voted to make it actively worse. If that makes me partisan, then so-be-it. But I acknowledge that I am somewhat preaching to the choir with you, Sir Anders.
As you described, "anti-woke" (among other things) won the day, and unfortunately, regressive large-scale environmental policy is one result of that, because the whole green movement is cast as an aspect of wokeness. There is no "shift to anti-wokeness" that doesn't also involve a net loss for the environment. And that is far more pertinent than PFAS in makeup, where New Zealand's environmental work is concerned. But I accept that I am unpopular for believing and speaking so.
> because the whole green movement is cast as an aspect of wokeness
The "Green movement" is the quintessential example of what people consider wokeness because the "Green movement" is arguably the single handed worst thing to happen to the environment. Rejection of nuclear energy in favor of gas and goal (i.e the only other alternatives until a decade ago, and still the only other alternative until we develop better battery tech) is bananas, but that's somehow considered environmental in the eyes of the "Green movement." Moving to plastics to "save the trees" was an extension of that nonsense.
> There is no "shift to anti-wokeness" that doesn't also involve a net loss for the environment
You'll find that the most anti-woke people are the only pro-nuclear voices in Australasia.
Oh, when I said 'green movement', I simply meant it as a synonym for environmentalism in general.
While I sympathise with your support for nuclear power generation, two points:
1) You say : gas and goal (i.e the only other alternatives until a decade ago, and still the only other alternative until we develop better battery tech)
Your claim that gas and coal are New Zealand's only non-nuclear alternative for power generation does not seem supported by the documented state of New Zealand's current power generation.
"Approximately 44% of primary energy (Heat and power) is from renewable energy sources in New Zealand. Approximately 87% of electricity comes from renewable energy, primarily hydropower and geothermal power."
2) I acknowledge the documented technical and environmental benefits of nuclear power generation, and suspect that plenty of pro-nuclear scientists would not consider themselves "anti-woke" at all. However, and especially in the wake of 2011's Fukushima incident, the fact that New Zealand has an approximate 75% chance of a widespread M8+ Alpine Fault earthquake in the next 50 years, to be of a scale greater than any which has occurred since European settlement of NZ, will certainly be a considerable environmental factor.
1. I appreciate that nuclear might not be the best option for New Zealand, but the New Zealand Greens are members of the Global Greens whose political position[0] is that no country should utilize nuclear energy nor should there be large scale dams for hydroelectric use. Although New Zealand might have the opportunity for small-scale hydro, they actively push for other countries without these options not to use nuclear energy or large-scale hydroelectric.
2. I understand that plenty of "woke" people might feel the same way, but it's really only groups like the libertarians[1], White Nationalist parties[2] and similar ilk who are pro-nuclear in Australasia. This is what I was alluding to. Groups like the Australian Greens party also protested against hydroelectric[3] because although it's renewable, it's not green, due to the impacts that dams have on the environment.
With the above, we see that the Green parties operate in almost lockstep formation and have for decades lobbied for what is ultimately the continued use of gas and coal in place of energy sources that have less of an impact on the climate.
Unfortunately politics comes in sausage format only and each sausage contains something nasty. I'd like to have strong environmental policy while also not having wokeness shoved down my throat and my kids' throats. I'd like to support neither redneck ute drivers nor woke 'progressives'.
As someone who dislikes the sausage format the right-wing user-pays argument is appealing to me. It takes all the spicy bits out of the sausage and let's people add their own sauces as they see fit. That all works great until you find out that right-wing's daddy owns a bunch of sauce companies that spill sauce everywhere. You're stuck with the same few awful sausages because the supermarket won't sell any new sausages unless they get 5% market share. Good chat.
What a silly statement. Adding a single oxygen atom to CO makes it far less toxic. Even among the class of chemicals we call PFAS, there are profound differences measured by the difference of only a few atoms.
Most of the regulatory agencies in the US exist to serve as anticompetitive moats around the largest industrial companies in the US. You see it in the FDA, the FAA, the EPA, SEC/FINRA, etc. Once you get big enough, it seems that the federal government places you under the umbrella of "national security" and decides to make sure you get to continue to exist (so long as you cooperate and play ball). Being part of the large supply chains for the military always helps, too.
Once you see it, you can't unsee it. The US is incredibly corrupt.
The food pyramid is what made me see it. The USDA decided to just fuck up the diet of the western world because the US happens to be great a growing corn.
Doesn’t the DEA deal with the same thing with THC analogs? I could be wrong but I thought they got pretty quick about banning them. I want to look into this now…
Disallow any new chemicals that have not been tested. You shouldn't be able to just create some new chemical and use the public as guinea pigs. And none of this nonsense about stifling technological development. If there is life saving or otherwise groundbreaking use of some new chemical, they can work to get an exception or accelerate the approval process.
If the population who do _not_ actually have serious cancer is orders of magnitudes larger than those who do then there will be far more people in the false positive group than the true positive group and thus the vast majority of operations will be unnecessary.
The key here is how we manage the positive ones. And this is where the current system fails. We have yet to find a good way to manage them without doing unnecessary treatments causing more harm than good.
But instead of fixing this problem, we opted to stop screening. Which, for me, sounds stupid. But it sure is easier to do.
With all due respect to 3Blue1Brown, there are limits to wjat you can explain with statistics. Medicine applied on the individual pevel is one of those cases, because its purpose is to optimize the outcome for the individual.
A pandemic is different, there the goal is to optimize the outcome for the population.
Applying the latter to the former is at the very least cynical. The opposite is what got us anti-mask and anti-vaxxers.
Also, especially with cancer, people tend to be so affraid of the diagnosis, they look for excuses to not be examined. As if cancer onpy pops up when it is found or something. Which is stupid, if ypu have cancer you want to know as early as possible.
> Applying the latter to the former is at the very least cynical. The opposite is what got us anti-mask and anti-vaxxers.
I have no idea where you're going here. Wearing masks and getting vaccinated benefit both the individual and the population. (That actually contributed to it being politicized -- your choices affect my chances of getting a nasty disease).
At the individual level, you wear a mask when appropriate and get vaccinated, then you're less likely to get the disease and it's likely to be less severe if you do. Likewise, the population benefits from less disease spread, and less strain on the healthcare system as many of these cases become outpatient "take some Paxlovid" type deals.
Where is there any sort of basis for anti-mask and anti-vax theology here?
The exact same process right up to the last step. I don't leave it for 30 seconds I dump the coffee straight into a mug. I believe the bitter tastes come through at the first bubble.
Based on your technique of pouring straight into the cup, I wonder if that's the reasoning behind the "coffee fountain" kind of moka pots [1] (apart from convenience).
This instagram account has a nice collection of different ones [2].
I brew on a Bialetti Venus every day with induction. I think you are doing it wrong. I find that the awful bitter tastes come late into the process accompanied by yellow colors and bubbles/splutters. Avoid at all cost.
My method:
1) Fill the basket level. You may tap/shake any clumps to get it level but do not tamp.
2) Heat it on 1000 watts until the first drop of coffee comes out the pipe and then reduce power 400w.
3) When you notice any hint of yellow, or any bubbles/spluttering or you have enough coffee then immediately dump it into a pre-warmed mug of milk. Ideally you want to stop the process before any bitterness arrives.
Yes, this is exactly why many baristas will choose a darker or more full-bodied coffee for an espresso type drink vs a lighter roast for something like a pour over.
Darker roast coffees are also much more forgiving in general, since they already have some bitter taste to them in the first place.
It's still a better end product to brew the coffee or espresso well in the first place vs try to mask faults (bitterness, sourness, etc) after the fact.
Most countries governments are crap at software yet still manage to put together a free to use tax portal with automatic filing for all but the most complex cases.
