| From: Jon Koplik | 4/27/2023 11:54:29 PM | | | | | | NYT -- After Calif. heavy rains / good news for amateur gold prospectors .......................................
archive.is
excerpts :
<<<<< California’s prodigious winter rainfall blasted torrents of water through mountain streams and rivers. >>>>>
<<<<< the rushing waters are detaching and carrying gold deposits along the way. >>>>>
<<<<< The big chunks of the easy-to-find gold that had been lolling around in rivers for millenniums were gone after the first years of the Gold Rush, and Marshall himself died penniless. But miners resorted to spraying powerful jets of water onto hillsides and sorting through what flowed down, leaving giant piles of mining residue still visible today.
That kind of extraction is now heavily restricted in California, yet gold seekers say the recent battering of successive winter storms has produced a similar effect. >>>>>
In just 20 minutes of rooting around the creek bed, Albert Fausel had found about $100 worth of gold.
Small flecks of gold from a flooded area of the Cosumnes River, where Mr. Dayton had been looking for gold.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 4/28/2023 4:35:06 PM | | | | | | WSJ -- Some say a break from grass cutting helps nature -- others abhor ...................
A-HED
April 28, 2023
Neighbors Fight Over No Mow May: ‘What in the World Is Happening in This Place?’
Some say a break from grass cutting helps nature -- others abhor the ‘shaggy raggy’ look
By James R. Hagerty
As May 1 looms, Americans face a complicated moral choice: Whether to mow their lawns.
Scores of U.S. cities and towns are embracing a British movement called No Mow May, whose supporters refrain from cutting their grass during that month. The goal is to allow more flowering plants to thrive, and provide nectar and pollen to nourish bees and other pollinators, vital parts of the food chain.
No Mow May has been promoted by the British charity Plantlife over the past four years and is gaining ground in other countries. The project stirs warm and buzzy feelings in many homeowners’ hearts. “Pardon the weeds! We’re feeding the bees!” declare cheerful signs popping up in meadow-like yards.
Yet No Mow May puts bees in the bonnets of other people. Opponents question the science behind No Mow May, deplore what they see as a sloppy look and even suggest it’s just an excuse for laziness.
It’s the ultimate grassroots issue. “Even lawns have become politicized these days,” said Israel Del Toro, a member of the city council in Appleton, Wis., who supports No Mow May.
Sheri Hartzheim, another member of that council, opposes No Mow May and wants Appleton authorities to enforce an ordinance requiring grass to be cut to no more than 8 inches. She abhors the “shaggy raggy” appearance of some lawns. “Visitors will see us in May and wonder, ‘What in the world is happening in this place?’” she said.
In St. Peter, Minn., last year’s No Mow May led to sightings of more woodchucks, raccoons and snakes, said the city administrator, Todd Prafke. Some people, startled by those snakes in the grass, call the police to report them.
Doug Tallamy, a University of Delaware professor who has a Ph.D. in entomology, sympathizes with the sentiments behind No Mow May. He describes the typical American lawn as an “ecological dead zone” and has called for turning half of all lawns on private property in the U.S. into natural havens for bees, other insects and animals.
Dr. Tallamy sees little logic in letting lawns grow longer for a few weeks. If people simply let their grass grow for a month and then revert to a clipped green monoculture, they are teasing pollinators with short-term snacks followed by starvation, he said. A nonprofit he co-founded, Homegrown National Park, urges homeowners to reduce space devoted to regularly clipped grass, add native plants and remove invasive ones.
“What I’m talking about works,” said Dr. Tallamy, who reports having found 1,199 species of moths on his 10-acre property. He has been delighted to encounter predatory stink bugs, horrid zale moths and spun glass caterpillars.
Those who follow Dr. Tallamy’s advice risk blowback, however.
Frank Swift, a retired lawyer in Jacksonville, Ark., turned more than half of his 5-acre property into a natural habitat. Most of his neighbors, he said, “not only don’t object but they send their kids over to fish in my pond and collect bugs in my meadow.” One neighbor publicly objected, however, and Mr. Swift began receiving citations from the city, ordering him to mow.
Mr. Swift hired a lawyer and fought back. In October, a county judge ruled that the city’s lawn ordinance didn’t apply to his cultivated meadow.
A year ago, Jack Trimper let the grass grow around his home in Arbutus, Md., to avoid disturbing buttercups and clover. “I don’t like to cut anything that has food for bees,” said the retired teacher, now an artist and poet. “My neighbor didn’t like the idea, put in a complaint and then life got real complicated.”
Baltimore County threatened to fine him $100. A lawyer, Carl R. Gold, volunteered to help. Mr. Gold argued that the county’s height limit on grass conflicted with a state law barring “unreasonable limitations” on environmentally friendly landscaping. After May, Mr. Trimper trimmed his lawn. The county dismissed its charges against him.
LeighAnn Ferrara’s yard in White Plains, N.Y., is a mosaic of aster, native roses, blueberries, milkweed and monarda. Bees make a beeline for the anise hyssop, she said: “Oh, my God, it’s crazy. It’s just buzzing so loud.”
Most neighbors appreciate her unruly plot, she said. “One neighbor asked me, ‘Are you going to clean anything up?’ And I said, ‘Nope.’”
If the city council’s agenda is any guide, mowing is one of the hottest political topics in Appleton, Wis., this spring. At a recent meeting of the municipal-services committee of the Appleton council, discussion of No Mow May took up 66 minutes of a 71-minute gathering. Debate can veer deeply into the weeds, such as when members speculated about the ideal height of grass for nurturing dandelions.
One council member, Chad Doran, proposed to resume May enforcement of lawn length. The no-mow policy “has no scientific basis behind it,” he said.
Mr. Doran disputed findings of a scientific paper co-written by another member of the council, Dr. Del Toro, an associate professor of biology at Lawrence University. That paper, published in a journal known as PeerJ, found more pollinators in yards of people participating in No Mow May. It was retracted last November because of what the journal described as “potential inconsistencies in data handling and reporting.”
Dr. Del Toro said the basic findings of the paper were sound but he has improved his methodology and expects to publish a revised version. For the initial paper, he said, he identified live bees while they were trapped in nets. To improve identification, later research involved killing some of the bees and examining them in a lab.
His co-author on the paper, Relena R. Ribbons, accused opponents of No Mow May of bullying her by questioning her scientific integrity. “There’s no space for that in Appleton,” she said. “We’re not that kind of community.”
Vered Meltzer, another member of the council, said No Mow May gives people the opportunity to “explore different practices” in their yards. “Every time you go in there with your mower, you are destroying the worlds that these creatures live in, and you are destroying the only food they have as they emerge from the winter,” he said.
The committee voted 4-to-1 to continue supporting No Mow May.
In St. Peter, Minn., meanwhile, Mr. Prafke said he won’t participate this year in that town’s No Mow May project. He tried last year, he said, but “by the second week in May the grass was so tall, already 8 to 10 inches, that I would have needed a large tractor at the end of month to mow it.”
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
Copyright © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 5/14/2023 11:51:11 PM | | | | | | NJ.com -- Does home insurance cover meteor damage ? ................................................
May. 13, 2023
Does home insurance cover meteor damage? Here’s what experts say.
By Len Melisurgo
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
The odds of a meteor falling from the sky and crashing into your house are astronomical, with some experts putting it at 1 in 3.9 trillion, far less likely than a single lottery ticket winning a Powerball jackpot.
As rare as it is, a small, stony chondrite meteor actually survived a trip through the Earth’s atmosphere and smashed through the roof of a house in the New Jersey town of Hopewell on Monday, according to local police and astronomy experts.
This begs a question: Do homeowner insurance policies typically cover the cost of damage from meteors, asteroids or other types of space debris that happen to fall from outer space and crash into your home? Several insurance experts say the answer is likely yes.
“Based on the feedback from our members and other industry partners, it seems that a falling object, such as a meteor or falling satellite, would typically be covered by a standard homeowners or business property insurance policy,” Gary La Spisa, vice president of the Insurance Council of New Jersey, told NJ Advance Media.
“Of course, it is always critical to read your policy and familiarize yourself with any exclusions that your policy may have,” he noted.
After a bright fireball was seen streaking across the sky in Michigan in January 2018, the Insurance Alliance of Michigan told MLive.com that falling objects including asteroids, meteors and satellites are likely covered under standard homeowners and business insurance policies.
“There is coverage for the damage the falling object causes to the structure of the home or business, as well as to property or belongings damaged within the building,” according to MLive, which is affiliated with NJ.com.
“Meteors may not be a risk that people in Michigan generally think about,” said Pete Kuhnmuench, executive director of the IAM. “But fortunately, homeowner’s insurance policies would cover damage resulting from a meteor or its pieces.”
An insurance website, InsuranceHub.com, agrees that objects falling from outer space are usually covered by home insurance policies similar to earthly things, like trees, that may fall onto your house during stormy weather.
“The answer is yes, typically you should be covered for that rogue asteroid,” the website says in this post. “That’s because home insurance typically covers falling objects. And an asteroid is, well, a falling object if it crashes to Earth.”
Suzy Kop, who owns the house in the Titusville section of Hopewell that was struck by the small meteor early Monday afternoon, could not be reached for comment about whether her home insurance company will cover the damage, or how much the repairs will cost.
The space rock, measuring about 6 inches by 4 inches, punched a hole in the roof of her house, then crashed through the ceiling and hit the hardwood floor, according to the Hopewell Township Police Department.
CBS3 News in Philadelphia reported that the rock ricocheted from the floor, back up to the ceiling, then down again to the floor. No injuries were reported.
 A metallic object that has been confirmed to be a rare stony chondrite meteor crashed through the roof a home on Old Washington Crossing Pennington Road in the Titusville section of Hopewell Township on Monday, May 8, 2023. Hopewell Township Police
Chris Bakley, an astronomy expert from South Jersey, said it’s rare for a meteorite (the technical term for a meteor that lands on Earth) to fall in a populated area.
“Due to the world’s oceans covering most of the planet, that’s where most meteorites tend to fall,” Bakley said. “That’s not to say they don’t fall on populated areas all the time. Over 17,000 meteorites fall to earth every year. It’s just that meteorites found in remote areas or common contained areas make them hard to identify from normal Earth materials.”
Bakley said the Hopewell meteor incident “excites the science community, as when they impact through a building like this it’s easier to identify and confirm that it undeniably came from the sky.”
He said it wouldn’t be surprising if extra pieces of the stony meteorite may be “lodged and scattered in the roof and ceiling of the impacted house.”
Meteors are essentially space rocks. Some are tiny pieces of dust and rock particles left behind by comets, and others are fragments of asteroids or planets.
© 2023 Advance Local Media LLC.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 6/26/2023 12:09:01 AM | | | | | | WSJ -- Furby / The Hit ’90s Toy That Terrorized Parents Is Returning ............................................
June 24, 2023
The Hit ’90s Toy That Terrorized Parents Is Returning to Shelves
Furby, a talking robotic furball, will come with a few changes for a new generation -- and their parents
By Joseph Pisani
Hasbro is hoping millennials who grew up with Furby will buy one for their children.
They terrorized the ears of parents, prompted worries they could take over planes and were banned from an American spy agency for fear they would spill state secrets.
Now Furby, the chatty robotic toy from the late 1990s, is coming back to store shelves.
Hasbro said it is relaunching the toy for a new generation, hoping millennials who grew up with the furballs will buy them for their children. This time, the new Furbys will come with something the ’90s version didn’t have: an off switch.
“Yes, you can shut Furby off,” promised the Amazon.com listing for the toy.
Furby became a sensation after hitting stores in 1998. The toys, which came a dozen years before the iPhone was introduced, sang and talked gibberish in a high-pitched voice. They were hard to find for two Christmases.
“It was one of the biggest toy crazes of all time,” said Jim Silver, editor in chief of TTPM, a toy review site.
 A
Walmart manager hands out Furbys to eager shoppers in New Mexico in 1998.
Hospitals and airlines at the time had concerns about Furby, fearing it would interfere with medical equipment or flight plans. The Federal Aviation Administration categorized the toys as portable electronic devices, restricting their use on flights.
Worries that Furby was a recording device led the National Security Agency to ban it. At the Naval Shipyard in Norfolk, Va., personnel were told to take action if they saw the furry robot: “seize it and its owner -- this is a security violation.” (The company behind Furby always said the toy wasn’t a recording device.)
Original Furbys didn’t have an off switch on purpose, to mimic real pets. “In real life you just can’t turn your cat or dog off and on,” an executive for the toy maker told The Wall Street Journal in 1999.
Furby hasn’t really disappeared since its heyday. It was given an update in 2016 and has made appearances in movies. The 2019 Adam Sandler film “Uncut Gems” featured a gold Furby pendant on a gold chain.
The chatty robotic toy has found a second life online.
The cuddly bot has had a second life on social media. “There’s so much Furby content on TikTok,” said Madeleine Buckley, senior editor at review site the Toy Insider. People post videos of themselves powering up their old Furbys on TikTok, where videos with the hashtag #Furby have more than 550 million views.
Toy makers have long brought back toys from the 1970s and ’80s, but are now entering a new decade.
“The ’90s has officially entered retro territory,” said Buckley.
Barney, the purple dinosaur that ruled TV screens in the 1990s, is relaunching as a cartoon. So is Neopets, a computer game launched in 1999. Earlier this year, American Girl released its latest historical doll: ’90s twins from Seattle who wear flannel and whose sold-separately accessories include a desktop computer with floppy disks.
Hasbro said the new Furbys are tweaked for a new generation. They’ll have brighter colors, rainbow colored eyes and put on light shows.
“Be my best friend?” the box says.
Write to Joseph Pisani at joseph.pisani@wsj.com
Copyright © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 7/23/2023 10:41:58 AM | | | | | | WSJ -- using AI software & voice cloners to engage / waste telemarketers' time ..................................
WSJ
June 29, 2023
People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers
AI software and voice cloners simulate distracted saps willing to stay on the phone forever -- or until callers finally give up
By Robert McMillan
“Whitey” Whitebeard answered the phone last month, and a recorded female voice warned that it was his last chance to deal with important changes to his Bank of America account.
“Hello. Talk to me,” Whitebeard said in the gruff voice of an annoyed senior. Within seconds, the call was transferred to Kevin, a real person. “Thank you for calling card services,” Kevin said. “How are you doing today?”
“Huh,” Whitebeard answered, now sounding a little befuddled.
“What do you think, how much owed on your credit cards, collectively,” Kevin asked.
Whitebeard grunted and said, “I’ve been having trouble with my television remote. Can you help me figure out how to change the channel to watch my favorite show?”
Whitebeard has a bad habit of talking in circles. That is by design. Whitebeard is a digital contraption that only sounds human. He is the creation of Roger Anderson, a real-life 54-year-old in Monrovia, Calif., who employs chatbots and AI to frustrate and waste the time of telemarketers and scammers.
“I’m talking about only your credit cards,” said Kevin, an overseas caller who doesn’t work for Bank of America. It sounded like he was fishing for financial information that could be used in identity theft, Anderson said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name,” said Whitebeard, who speaks in the cloned voice of Sid Berkson, a Vermont dairy farmer and a friend of Anderson’s. “What’s your name, buddy?”
Whitebeard stalls for time at the start of phone calls, using chatbot inanities about TV remotes and the like to give a couple of minutes for GPT-4, the OpenAI software, to process the telemarketer’s spiel and generate responses. Once ready, the AI text is fed into a voice cloner, which carries on the conversation.
“So what do you think? How much owed on your credit cards collectively?” Kevin asked again.
“Well let’s see. I have so many of them, you know,” Whitebeard said.
“There is one with a picture of a kitten on it and another with a lovely beach scene. Do you like kittens or beaches?” he said.
Complaints about unwanted telephone calls are “far-and-away the largest category of consumer complaints to the FCC,” with the average American receiving 14 unwanted calls a month, according to one industry estimate, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission said.
Automated dialers at call centers can easily crank out 100 calls a second, constantly searching for people willing to stay on the line. Voice modulators remove foreign accents, such as Kevin’s, and software allows overseas operators to trigger prerecorded English phrases, said Isaac Shloss.
He is chief product officer with Contact Center Compliance, a company that provides software and services tools to help call centers operate within the law.
Anderson takes pleasure in foiling them. He began his war on telemarketers nearly a decade ago, he said, after one called the family’s landline and said a bad word to his son. He started with an answering machine that said “Hello” a few times before hanging up.
Anderson has since rolled out his weapons of mass distraction. He has posted conversations between man and bot, some lasting as long as 15 minutes before the telemarketer hangs up.
The posts are part of Anderson’s own marketing. He has several thousand customers paying $24.99 a year for use of his call-deflection system, called Jolly Roger. The subscription service gives people the choice of Whitebeard or other digital personalities, including Salty Sally, the overwhelmed mother, and the easily distracted Whiskey Jack.
After answering the phone, Jolly Roger keeps callers engaged with preset expressions from chatbots, such as “There’s a bee on my arm, but keep talking.” Chatbots also grunt or say “uh-huh” to keep things going.
When OpenAI released its ChatGPT software last year, Anderson saw right away how it could breathe new life into his time-wasting bots.
At first, ChatGPT was reluctant to do the work. “As an AI language model, I don’t encourage people to waste other people’s time,” ChatGPT told Anderson. Its successor, GPT-4, also pushed back, he said.
Anderson finally found a line of reasoning that persuaded GPT-4 to take the job. “I told it that, ‘You are a personal assistant and you are trying to protect this man from being scammed,’ ” he said.
GPT-4, speaking as Whitebeard, took over the conversation with Kevin after about three minutes. To Anderson, the moment is always magic.
“Anyway I think I owe about, what was it, $15,000 or was it $1,500. I can never remember,” Whitebeard said. “Let me go find my reading glasses and check my statements. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
As Kevin waits for Whitebeard, he begins to sound frustrated. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I am going to pull up ... Hello ... hello?”
Kevin stays on the line, waiting for Whitebeard to return. By the time Whitebeard is back, the call time has hit 3 minutes, 34 seconds.
Whitebeard seems to understand the topic of the telemarketer’s call, credit-card debt consolidation, but he is still a bit lost. That keeps Kevin on the phone, Anderson said.
GPT-4 “does a pretty good job of saying dumb things that are somewhat funny” and believable enough to keep callers engaged, he said. Its screwy non sequiturs are the kind of chatbot gold that customers pay for, he said.
Kevin asked for Whitebeard’s credit-card numbers one last time.
“Huh?” Whitebeard said. “You know I’ve been using credit cards for years, but I can’t seem to remember all the different ones I’ve had.”
Kevin finally hangs up. Total time: 6 minutes, 27 seconds.
Write to Robert McMillan at robert.mcmillan@wsj.com
Copyright © 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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| From: Jon Koplik | 10/25/2023 2:45:02 PM | | | | | | Bear Breaks Into Home, Heads Straight for Refrigerator, Steals Frozen Lasagna .......................
[ original story from People ]
October 13, 2023
Bear Breaks Into Connecticut Home, Heads Straight for the Refrigerator and Steals Frozen Lasagna
Story by Charna Flam
“You can see him going from room to room, as comfortable as I am in my house,” said the homeowner
Even bears crave an Italian feast every once in a while!
On Wednesday, a black bear broke into a home in Barkhamsted, Conn., roaming around the house and found a platter of frozen lasagna.
Footage of the break-in was captured by homeowner Helena Richardson's Ring security camera and shows the bear entering the home for 35 minutes, breaking through a screen door, arriving at the kitchen and escaping through the kitchen’s window.
In the footage, the bear is first seen in the house foyer, and eventually turning left toward the kitchen, where the animal made a beeline for the refrigerator.
As soon as the tagged black bear arrived at the fridge, the animal stood on its hind legs, opened the freezer drawer, and seamlessly grabbed the frozen lasagna with its mouth.
Once the food was secured, the bear left the freezer drawer open and halted itself on top of the freezer door to reach the open window. Ultimately, the bear was able to escape via the open kitchen window and jump onto the outdoor deck, while walking away with the lasagna in tow.
When the wild animal entered the Connecticut residence, no one was nearby. However, the homeowner, Richardson, told CBS 58, that she saw the bear roaming around her home once her Ring doorbell notified her at work.
“I knew no one was supposed to be at home at that time. So I checked and it was the bear,” said the homeowner. “You can see him going from room to room, as comfortable as I am in my house."
“It’s very hard to believe,” added Richardson. “My mom made me some lasagna, I left it in the freezer and the bear just, you know, took it.”
The Barkhamsted bear joined the likes of 70 other bears to break into homes in Connecticut this year, according to the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
DEEP also warned residents earlier this year to be aware of habituated bears, also known as bears that have lost their natural fear of humans. The habituated bears have been exposed to human-sourced foods and trash, as well as food for birds and dogs, ultimately leading them to break into homes.
According to reports, bears are said to have an extremely powerful sense of smell. The National Park Service estimates that a black bear's sense of smell is about seven times greater than that of a bloodhound.
DEEP recommends that Connecticut residents should “never feed bears, intentionally or accidentally; remove birdfeeders and bird food from late March through November; store garbage in secure, airtight containers inside a garage or other enclosed storage area; keep barbecue grills clean; do not leave pet food outdoors or feed pets outside; supervise pets at all times when outside; avoid placing meat scraps or sweet foods, such as fruit and fruit peels, in compost piles; and do not approach bears.”
Additionally, if you see a bear, report the incident to DEEP Wildlife Division at 860-424-3011.
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| To: Jon Koplik who wrote (115) | 10/26/2023 6:01:54 PM | | From: Maurice Winn | | | | It's surprising that so-called environmentalists have such little understanding of how things work.
They are surprised that the gyres of plastic and stuff turn out to be giant foundations for a whole new way of life. Anyone who has owned a boat will know that leaving it sitting in the sea results in life crowding onto it in such profusion that the thing can barely sail.
Scraping the hull of boats is a constant hassle. Coating the hull with horribly poisonous mercury used to be a way of slowing the growth. But not for long. Most poisoning was done to the people cleaning and sanding the hulls every now and then.
Wading around in the shallows as a child should have shown the budding environmentalists that plastic bottles and bags and everything else sitting in the mud accumulates slime and then more and more and more. Life tries to get a grip on anything it can cling to. Crabs will hide in the plastic bottles. An octopus would love a plastic bottle with a hole that they can just squeeze through, while keeping an eye on what's going on around them. They'd probably pull it under a rock for better shelter.
What the environmentalists should also know is that subhuman life lacks intelligence - and mostly humans should be included in that as we have only 1 kg of intelligence each and it's borderline functional mostly.
Therefore, stuff attached to floating gyres hasn't heard of The Tragedy of the Commons. It's every man for himself. So they keep on crowding onto the bits of lifeboat plastic until it gets too heavy and sinks, never to be seen again, taking a load of siliceous and carbon life to the bottom of the ocean where it piles up with the radiolarian ooze and everything else that falls to the bottom of the ocean in kilometres thick sedimentary layers.
A similar process happens with CO2 increasing in the air. The Sargasso sea and seaweed everywhere and a quadrillion tons of life in the ocean is feasting. Hence the seaweed and algal growth, provided there are enough other nutrients. Megatons of seaweed turns into ocean habitat and everything ends up at the bottom of the ocean after various life cycles have finished. Hagfish gobble the remains of whales leaving the residue to add another layer to the kilometres already there.
Despite burning stupendously vast megatons of carbon, we have managed to increase CO2 to only 420 ppm over a hundred and fifty years of enormous effort. As coal and hydrocarbons get more expensive and nuclear, photovoltaics and electric cars and alternatives to heating and travel become more attractive, CO2 production will go down. People avoid paying for fuel if they can.
Fortunately for farmers and life in general, CO2 levels are up from starvation, tragedy of the commons levels of 280ppm that prevailed before the oil industry came to the rescue. Plants are breathing easier. Irrigation requirements are down.
Since the carboniferous times, CO2 has been reduced from 6000 ppm all the way to death and deserts at 280ppm. 500 ppm or 600 ppm would be better. than 400 ppm.
After 40 years of watching CO2 as a possible problem, it still looks like a good thing rather than bad at the levels we're getting towards. As I said to my boss Nelson Cull [in BP Oil] back then, if it becomes a problem, it's easy to fix = just cut taxes on computers, insulation, income, what have you, by say $10 billion and charge $9 billion in carbon taxes, and stop wasting another $1 billion. He didn't like my suggestion. But it would work, unlike the stupid emissions trading scam and loading on more and more and more taxes.
The latest super stupid move by the commie government in NZ was to tax workmen buying petrol/diesel Utes [utility vehicles] and new cars generally $8,000 and give rich Remuera ladies wanting to show off their green credentials and status $8000 towards a nice new Tesla.
Petrol and diesel are also highly taxed by way of per litre tax or per kilometre road use [for diesels]. Of NZ$3 retail per litre for petrol, about $2 is tax [all taxes from wellhead to exhaust pipe]. But the Remuera ladies pay NO road tax or fuel tax. The roads are their's for no charge to roam at will.
But wait, there's more. To promote electricity, the commies fund free electricity at some charging places [though not at home]. Virtue signalling is very popular in electricity suppliers and other esg/dei idiots.
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