(this has been posted by a commenter at kiwiblog…)
“…From page 487 GCHQ-The Uncensored story of Britain’s most secret Intelligence Agency – Richard J Aldrich Harper Press 2010
“..a team from GCHQ were assisting with the investigation into blackouts of the national power grid that had struck Auckland in New Zealand.
They proved to be the result of electronic attacks on the country’s electricity distribution network, launched over the internet……
..The culprits were a group of hackers called the ” Anti Christ Doom Squad…………
…Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
… picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.
By changing the temperature with in the sensitive cables they quickly put them out of action.
Remarkably the whole attack was run from a laptop in a drug cafe in the back streets of Amsterdam.”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 1 2 (-1)
dbuckley
Posted September 2, 2010 at 4:32 PM
Anyone who knows anything about how electricity transmission works knows exactly what happened in Auckland; the system was operated incompetently. The actual ratings of the various underground transmission cables was not known, so they used assumed ratings, which were substantially different to the actual cable safe ampacity.
Not a computer in sight. (or in site)
Like or Dislike: 2 0 (+2)
insider
Posted September 2, 2010 at 4:45 PM
Interestingly Patrick Strange who once headed Mercury now runs Transpower, so maybe Phil is right about the conspiracy…? Has PS been checked for unsual tattoos?
PS the Auckland failure report is somewhere on the web.
PPS I always find it interesting that the typical response to these management failures is “chuck more money at them” not “chuck different management at them”, eg a $20 Otahu shackle fails because of poor inspection routines and we get a $100m bill
Poor old Alan must be feeling a bit left out, especially given he’s now in statutory management and poor health and through the receivership he has lost his entire investment in SCF.
…What is the link between alcohol and throat cancer?
Eighty-five percent of all head and neck cancers are related to smoking … but alcohol has also been linked to throat cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society … drinkers are six times more likely to get these cancers.
Some reports have found that people who smoke and drink are as much as 100 times more likely to get mouth and throat cancer than people with neither habit.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, consuming 50 grams of alcohol a day, the equivalent of four drinks …
… doubles or triples the risk for getting mouth, voice box and throat cancer….”
(hic…!…eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 1 2 (-1)
photonz1
Posted September 2, 2010 at 8:45 PM
toad says “Poor old Alan must be feeling a bit left out”
Are you the only person in NZ not to know that Mr Hubbard is xtraordinarily modest?
Don’t let a total lack of factual knowledge about someone get in your way of criticising them.
Sounds a bit like tall poppy syndrome.
How many people would you get on a facebook support page?
are you seriously still supporting the hubbard-cult there..?…photonz..?
that folksy old guy..who just cost us $1.75 billion…?
whoar…!
and ‘modest’..?…how about hubris…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 2 3 (-1)
Drakula
Posted September 2, 2010 at 9:49 PM
THE GREAT CONSPIRICIES!!!
Phil; do you regularly visit the David Icke site? I think he was the one who started all the lizzard people (royal family) conspiricy theories.
I think it’s absolute garbage he hasn’t got one ounce of science to back his claims.
Don’t get me wrong I am not against conspiracy theories but they have to sound plausable.
Toads theory is plausable; how is it that all the crooks are getting knighthoods?
And why is it that in most of the elections around the world only two parties emerge neck to neck about 46-49%,49-46% leaving a small margin for the rest? quite consistantly!
As for the news media, well it’s obvious that that is monopolised by Packer and Murdock it’s mostly depressing, shallow and warped. In local papers you notice the emphesis is on law enforcement, the fire brigade and your local councillor giving a greasy grin as he shakes the hand of a pensioner, all goodie goodie properganda
Especially on the middle east, since 1948 our media bias has mostly been in favor of Israel especially before the advent of the internet!
By the way I am not religious and I am not anti semetic but Zionism to Jews is like Nazi’s to the German people.
“We are Gods chosen few”
“We are the master race”
“We are not amused!”
“The meek [?] will inherit the Earth”
“America is great”
“You lot are infidels who will burn in Hell!!!”
The people promoting the above slogans are mostly hatching conspiracies (plural). Such people I believe have no place in our world if we desire PEACE!!!!!
Like or Dislike: 1 2 (-1)
Trevor29
Posted September 2, 2010 at 9:51 PM
My understanding is that the Auckland CBD power failures were caused in part by overheating transmission lines in tunnels that were backfilled with the wrong material which didn’t conduct the heat away as well as required.
Trevor.
Like or Dislike: 1 0 (+1)
john-ston
Posted September 2, 2010 at 11:19 PM
As I understand it, what caused the Auckland CBD power failures was old cables that were past their use-by date. Not only that, but they had been installed in the 1950s – the electrical requirements from the 1980s onwards was a lot higher, especially considering that the fancy new buildings had air conditioning which is a massive draw on power.
Like or Dislike: 1 0 (+1)
photonz1
Posted September 2, 2010 at 11:24 PM
phil – the govt has put in 1.75 billion, and after it gets back over 1 billion in SCF assetts, it estimates it’s losses will be down to 0.6 billion.
That’s not much more than it has already taken in two years in premiums from institutions to be in the guarantee scheme (taken 0.5 billion at 0.25 billion per year as of June – by December it will have taken over 0.6 billion)
So it’s losses are not quite as bad as is made out. In fact, as an insurance scheme, even after the SCF payout, it’s quite possible the govt may still make a profit and be in the black in the very near future.
As for Hubbard, he quite uniqe. I’m trying to think of someone else in NZ who has helped so many businesses start up. Can you think of anyone?
Or someone who has paid out millions of his own money to make sure investors got their money back. Who else has done that?
He’s made some mistakes, but then again the decision to send in the SFO when there doesn’t appear to be any fraud led to millions being pulled out of South Canterbury Finance and is what tipped it over the edge.
And the other point is Hubbard hasn’t been running SCF for quite a while.
Like or Dislike: 2 2 (0)
Drakula
Posted September 2, 2010 at 11:28 PM
A DANGEROUS AND UGLY CULT!!!
Thanks Philo; I have just read “Inside thge Great Reptilian Conspiracy” and have come to this conclusion.
It is pure bullshit!!!!
It is very sad that Icke who belonged to the Green Party could have spent his admirable talent dealing with the real issues that are plaguing our plannet like GLOBAL WARMING!!!!
Now it has turned into a very ugly and dangerous cult!!!
Like or Dislike: 2 0 (+2)
Trevor29
Posted September 3, 2010 at 12:07 AM
john-ston
The cables were being operated within their ratings, but the ratings didn’t take account of the incorrect installation. The higher load would have been handled by upgrades to the system which would have ensured that the cable ratings were not exceeded.
You are probably right about the age of the cables but that wasn’t the primary problem. The failure occurred during abnormally hot weather, amplifying the lack of cooling.
photonz1, I suggest you read the open letter to Allan Hubbard that Bernard Hickey has posted on his blog. I don’t tend to agree with Hickey on much, but I think he’s spot on here:
Dear Allan Hubbard:
Please say sorry and thanks.
Please say sorry to the taxpayers of New Zealand and investors in South Canterbury Finance who now have to bear the burden of cleaning up your mess.
Please say thanks to the Finance Minister Bill English, Prime Minister John Key and the millions of taxpayers who are now having to pay for your mistakes.
Please say sorry to the South Canterbury Finance preference share holders who have lost all of the NZ$120 million they invested with you on the strength of your reputation.
Please take responsibilty for the mess created by the boom and now bust of the South Island’s largest financial institution.
Please appear in public yourself to answer questions about what happened at South Canterbury Finance.
Please don’t leave it up to your wife Jean, your PR advisors and your supporters to defend you in public. Please understand the scale of the damage done or your role in it.
Please be the humble man who does not shirk responsibility and cares deeply about your community that you are reputed to be.
Please don’t publicly attack the government, the Statutory Manager, your fellow directors and anyone else who criticises you and then refuse to answer questions in public.
Please show some humility and some concern for the wider community. Please don’t be more worried about your reputation than the impact on the business community or the public accounts of the nation.
Please say sorry for the way you built up and ran South Canterbury Finance in such a way that every New Zealand taxpayer now has had to stump up NZ$400 each or a total NZ$1.775 billion.
Please say sorry for your reckless lending decisions and for hiring the poor management that allowed the institution you built to go on a lending spree funded by government guaranteed money through late 2008 and early 2009.
Please take responsibility for the poor credit assessment and record keeping you passed on to Chief Executive Sandy Maier when he assumed control of the company in late December 2009.
Please explain why you failed to declare publicly, except in the bowels of your annual report, that your bank BNZ had summarily pulled its funding line in mid 2009.
Please explain why you used a local accounting firm Woodnorth Myers & Co as your auditor for so many years instead of bringing in an outside firm to provide some oversight.
Please explain why Ernst and Young found you had overvalued your assets by at least NZ$43.7 million in the initial accounts you prepared for 2008/09.
Please explain why you chose to repeatedly lend to related parties of other companies and interests that you either personally owned or controlled.
Please explain why you represented an equity injection in 2009 as a real injection of fresh money when it was nothing more than a merry-go-round of assets for shares.
Please explain why you refused to be interviewed or engage with the financial press in any meaningful way for years.
Please explain why you thought making interest free loans to young farmers to buy overpriced land was a prudent way to run a business.
Please explain why you chose to run so many businesses yourself without any outside scrutiny. A search of Companies Office records show you were or are a director and/or shareholder in 552 companies. The attached spreadsheet shows there are 1,690 companies registered from your offices at 39 George St, Timaru.
Please say sorry for saying repeatedly that South Canterbury Finance was a ‘heartland’ financier of rural businesses when it actually lent more than NZ$100 million to a luxury Auckland hotel redevelopment, the building of townhouses on Paritai Drive in Auckland, as well as to bars in the Viaduct. Please explain why you thought lending money to property developers in Queenstown who were unable to find funding was a good idea.
Please explain why there was so much related party lending between your companies and South Canterbury Finance and why you thought this was OK.
Please explain why you allocated NZ$13 million in shares to investors in Hubbard Management Funds that Grant Thornton has found in its second report did not exist.
Please explain why you reported to investors in Hubbard Management Funds that you had NZ$6 million in cash on hand when Grant Thornton said you actually had NZ$350,000 in cash.
Please explain why in March this year you had to mortgage your own assets to ensure you had enough cash to pay the interest on investments in Aorangi Securities. Please explain why you thought this was a legitimate thing to do and why you thought you should have been allowed to continue to do it for the entire group without outside scrutiny.
Please explain why only 17 of the 51 borrowers of money invested in Aorangi Securities are able to meet the interest payments or make sufficient profits.
Please explain why you did not set up a succession to run South Canterbury Finance after you retired.
Please explain why up to the end you were working seven days a week for most hours of the day and night, opening the mail and writing the cheques yourself, when you had employed dozens of people to do this for you. Please explain why you appeared not to trust your own people to run your own company.
Please explain why you believe you could say this in June this year and believe it: “I don’t believe in the history of New Zealand that any person has acted more honourably than myself”
Most of all Mr Hubbard. Please acknowledge the pain you have caused your investors and the taxpayers of New Zealand.
um..!..wd it be out of order to ask for a bit of transperancy around this $1.75 billion ‘soaking’ we have just taken…?
namely…did any of those who granted this mountain of money….
did any of them have any conflict of interests running here..?
as in..were any in national taking advantage of that hubbard-potion of high interest rates..
..and a gold-plated gummint-guarantee…?
i mean..why wouldn’t they..?..eh…?
in effect…i am asking if any of them lobbied for/voted for..
..a bailout for themselves..?…
..eh..?
(hidden away in ‘trusts’/w.h.y…?..)
(i’m just asking..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 1 2 (-1)
dbuckley
Posted September 3, 2010 at 9:38 AM
Phil – I’m not in a position to comment on the other allegations, but I know lots about electricity systems, so when I someone starts pouring the bull I can spot it at several paces.
That the Auckland system failed through overload is absolutely true. But, the load was within what the system was designed to carry, so it wasn’t in theory overloaded. However, due to inadequate construction, various components of the system were not able to carry there rated load. Due to inadequate maintenance and inspection, there was no knowledge that these components were not capable of carrying their rated load.
Thus the operators, in their ignorance, operated the system within what they believed was its safe limits. Unbeknownst to them, they were exceeding the system’s capabilities. Cue the cascade failure.
For some super hacker to game the system to fail, assuming that is even possible remotely, he would had to have known of these inadequacies that no-one knew about in order to exploit that vulnerability.
This is a similar root cause to the US East Coast blackout. Due to operator ignorance, the system was operated outside of its capability, and it failed.
In that case the operators were ignorant because the single most important computer system that keeps them on top of system loadings (the state estimator) was offline due to human error, and the operators didn’t know they were working with erroneous data.
The reasons vary, but most decent failures (ie cascading failures) are down to operator error, due to them not knowing something vitally important about the system capability, and thus exceeding the system’s real capability.
Like or Dislike: 1 0 (+1)
photonz1
Posted September 3, 2010 at 9:55 AM
toad – as I said, Hubbard has made mistakes but to try to make it look like he feels he’s missed out on a knighthood shows you either know nothing about him, or are deliberately trying to misrepresent him.
Some of Hickeys comments are fair – some are not.
He complains of a $1.7b payout but not a mention that the government now has over $1b in assets to sell.
He doen’t complain that the govt has collected $500 million in premiums for the scheme so far (at $250m per year) so by the time SFC issorted out they will likely be making a profit on the scheme – not a massive loss as he makes out.
No mention that the decision to put Hubbard into statuatory management (made by someone whose brother was put into recievership by SCF) and the heavy handed SFO investigation, (which appear to have found nothing serious) let to SCF haemorrhaging money back to investors which is what precipitated receivership.
And no mention of bad debts from a recesions where people have lost their jobs and have been unable to repay their mortgages to SCF.
And as for the businesses who had borrowed from SCF and went bust in the recesion, from builders, concrete companies, hotels, bars, property, vineyards, tourism and mainly farms – the PRIMARY REASON that SCF went bust – not a mention.
buckley..i am just the messanger on this…and no ‘expert’..
but nothing that you have said there rules out for me..the other scenario…
“..For some super hacker to game the system to fail, assuming that is even possible remotely,..”
um..!…maybe not now…but certainly then…i would bet the security-system on that computor system way back then was almost non-existant..
and given that hackers have broken into the pentagon..among other much more ‘secure’systems..
your breezy dismissal of this being a possibility here..(‘cos of what..?..exactly..?..)..
does nothing to aid yr attempted dismissal…
eh..?
and as i said…i am just reporting what the spook said..(in a matter of fact manner) in that book about spooks…
why is that whole scenario so implausible for you…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 1 1 (0)
dbuckley
Posted September 3, 2010 at 10:05 AM
Whats implausible is that someone knew what to do to bring down the system. The inadequacies that would have to be exploited were (at that time) unknown.
“..…Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
… picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.
By changing the temperature with in the sensitive cables they quickly put them out of action..”
mmm…??
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 0 2 (-2)
dbuckley
Posted September 3, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Exactly – before the event, no one knew the cables were “sensitive cables”, they were cables that should have been able to take the load they were put under without problem. That’s my issue. The rest is just static.
When conspiracy theories have basic factual errors you have to accept the whole thing collapses like a pack of cards.
Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
“picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.”
The failure was on four lines that fed Auckland CBD only. They came from two separate substations – Penrose and Mt Roskill.
These lines were locla distribution lines, so after the grid and a number of transformers would have been between them and the grid supply, so how would damaging temperature changes on one side of a transformer flow throught to the other without tripping it?
I doubt they shared common computer control systems.
Electricity cables are not hightly sensitive to temperature change, given they can run successfully under a range of load and weather conditions, from snow to summer heat, from zero power to overloaded. The colder it is the more you can push down them.
There’s definitely a whiff, foz, but I think it is better to get all the ducks lined up first rather than shoot from the lip Mallard-style.
Like or Dislike: 4 1 (+3)
photonz1
Posted September 3, 2010 at 3:44 PM
foz says “Not much official comment from the Greens on the SCF debacle”
Nor from Labour.
I think most realise the alternative to the deposit guarantee scheme was the domino collapse of all our finaicial institutions running right though to the big banks.
That collapse would have taken with it many of those who were loaned money, as they would be forced to pay back the receivers if they couldn’t arrange other loans.
That would take down thousands of companies, home owners etc, on top of the losses from all the investors.
As it was the dominoes were already tumbling. Many of the 61 finance companies went bust simply because investors lost confidence and pulled their money out – not because they did anything wrong.
With all the premiums the govt has received from banks and finance companies (so far) totaling nearly as much as loses, the scheme has been highly successful at stopping our economy from collapsing inwards on itself.
i am only pointing people at the spook-allegation…
(..so i am unable to argue/rate the strength/merits of yr interpretation/dismissal…)
..and/but you do kinda blow it at the end when you point to the ‘official-report’..
(um..! dosen’t the matter-of-fact way this is discussed..by the sook..
…as an incidental/background fact…
a b.t.w…if you will..
dosen’t just that give you any pause for thought…?
…and for lots of questions to pop up..?
b.t.w…the anti-benchmark of ‘official-reports’…
..would have you believe a lone killer called oswald…
..was the only one involved in the kennedy-assasination..eh..?
‘official-report’ is often a synonym for ‘cover-up’..
..eh..?
this spook-allegation..to me…is a piece of what could be an intriuging jigsaw-puzzle…
..and worthy of further investigation…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Like or Dislike: 0 2 (-2)
Drakula
Posted September 3, 2010 at 10:06 PM
Does anyone know why Neil Roberts failed to blow up the Wanganui computer centre?
Phil; I did twig at the title I just thought that I had better read the whole article before I comment. As a matter of fact I have read ‘The Truth will Set you Free’ and a few others before that.
As for someone sabotaging the Auckland power grid by lap top;——improbable, more like incompetence. Any way I am more interested in the GREAT GLOBAL CONSPIRACY real or imagined.
Like or Dislike: 0 0 (0)
Tony
Posted September 3, 2010 at 10:45 PM
The Business School at the University of Auckland ran a Peak Oil Forum today. Dr Bob Lloyd of Otago University was the main presenter, with a short panel “discussion” thereafter. David Clendon was there and it would be interesting to read his thoughts on what he heard.
One panel member, Professor Basil Sharp appeared to think that the markets would take care of the issue and that Limits to Growth (1972) was completely wrong (when it actually stood up quite well to subsequent analysis), though he did want petrol to be priced to include externalities (but I don’t think understood that $14/litre petrol would mean a very different society) and didn’t want offshore oil exploration. Another panel member, Professor Peter Malin, believed that geothermal energy (generated from a nuclear reaction in the mantle) could just about plug the peak oil gap. Dr Carol Boyle was much more realistic about our prospects and even suggested that less technology is sometimes the answer (and she is an engineer). She also pointed out (with help from someone I couldn’t see) that the often quoted UN population estimate of 9 billion by mid century is only a lower bound and not even steady at that point. In addition, the estimates assume that the so-called demographic transition relies on steady economic growth in developing nations, up to that time. Steady economic growth is simply not possible in a resource constrained world.
The main speaker rightly identified our desire for economic growth as a major problem and made a number of excellent points about resource depletion.
Unfortunately, this message is getting out in dribs and drabs – the forum wasn’t held in one of the large lecture theatres but a small case room (maybe 100 people?).
Like or Dislike: 1 1 (0)
Trevor29
Posted September 3, 2010 at 10:50 PM
Phil, there is a way to protect against the most determined overseas hacker. Simply don’t connect the computer to the outside world, and that assumes that the control room was computerised to the point where it could be controlled as you suggest. I am not at all sure that the control room for the affected area was “computerised” as suggested, let alone that it could be tampered with.
And why would anyone even try?
And how many people would have had “lap-top” computers at that time?
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Trevor.
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sprout
Posted September 4, 2010 at 1:58 PM
The wider education debate needs to refer to the writings of this respected american academic who initially supported the approach of our current government but found in practice it has serious flaws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Ravitch
marijuana is a gateway-drug..
it can help you get out the heroin/’p'/tobacco-exits…
(and while not for everyone…it should be offered as a (legal)-tool…)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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drugs are bad phil
mess with yr mind…
make you paranoid…
specially pot… makes you a tool…and getting drugged is the end.
we know this…
But why does the govt respond with evidence adverse policy?
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Ken Mehlman, the campaign manager for Bush/Cheney in 2004 and former RNC Chairman has come out of the closet. In the words of The Onion:
Classiiiic.
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Has any one heard about proposals to take away limits on lake levels for power generation?
I.E. Manapouri.
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Kerry, not yet. Do you have a link for that?
The Guardians of Manapouri still exist:
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/media-releases/2008/appointment-of-guardians-of-lakes/
so I would hope that they would be interested.
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(has anyone heard anything about this…?..)
http://whoar.co.nz/2010/did-the-anti-christ-doom-squad-cause-that-big-power-blackout-in-auckland-in-the-ninetiesremarkably-the-whole-attack-was-run-from-a-laptop-in-a-drug-cafe-in-the-back-streets-of-amsterdam%E2%80%9D/
(this has been posted by a commenter at kiwiblog…)
“…From page 487 GCHQ-The Uncensored story of Britain’s most secret Intelligence Agency – Richard J Aldrich Harper Press 2010
“..a team from GCHQ were assisting with the investigation into blackouts of the national power grid that had struck Auckland in New Zealand.
They proved to be the result of electronic attacks on the country’s electricity distribution network, launched over the internet……
..The culprits were a group of hackers called the ” Anti Christ Doom Squad…………
…Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
… picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.
By changing the temperature with in the sensitive cables they quickly put them out of action.
Remarkably the whole attack was run from a laptop in a drug cafe in the back streets of Amsterdam.”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Anyone who knows anything about how electricity transmission works knows exactly what happened in Auckland; the system was operated incompetently. The actual ratings of the various underground transmission cables was not known, so they used assumed ratings, which were substantially different to the actual cable safe ampacity.
Not a computer in sight. (or in site)
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Interestingly Patrick Strange who once headed Mercury now runs Transpower, so maybe Phil is right about the conspiracy…? Has PS been checked for unsual tattoos?
PS the Auckland failure report is somewhere on the web.
PPS I always find it interesting that the typical response to these management failures is “chuck more money at them” not “chuck different management at them”, eg a $20 Otahu shackle fails because of poor inspection routines and we get a $100m bill
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i seem to remember ‘overloading’ as being given as a cause..?..at the time..?
if so…that fits with the spooks’-scenario…eh..?
so..buckley…we have this quote…
(almost as a background-filler…at the very least as ‘matter of fact’..
..so…you are equivocating this spook-writer with the loons at ..say..kiwiblog..?
..and you much prefer the/any official-story…?
hey..!..here’s a guess…!
i’ll bet you still think the japanese attack on pearl harbour came as a total surprise to roosevelt..?..eh..?
as just one of a raft of examples….)
..this quote from a spook…on the actions of spooks…
so i guess it comes down to credibility/gravitas..?..
(then again…it could be those bloody alien-lizards again…
http://whoar.co.nz/2010/inside-the-great-reptilian-conspiracy-from-queen-elizabeth-to-barack-obama-they-live/
eh..?
pick yr scenario..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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How about a knighthood for Alan Hubbard?
FFS, Roger Douglas got one for deregulating the financial sector to allow the sort of shenanigans South Canterbury Finance got up to.
Michael Fay got one for providing the Government advice to sell the railways to him, and then asset-stripping them.
Doug Myers eventually got one for being New Zealand’s biggest drug dealer.
Poor old Alan must be feeling a bit left out, especially given he’s now in statutory management and poor health and through the receivership he has lost his entire investment in SCF.
So come on John Key, recommend Alan for a knighthood so he feels a bit more appreciated in his twilight years. He currently has 4,462 good people of South Canterbury (and a few others) backing him.
One of the good guys!
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what’s yr poison..?..eh..?..
..no..!..really..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2010/abc-news-has-done-a-powerful-piece-on-the-connections-between-alcoholand-a-raft-of-cancersmaybe-that-parliamentary-select-committee-on-alcohol-laws-should-have-a-gander-at-iteh/
…What is the link between alcohol and throat cancer?
Eighty-five percent of all head and neck cancers are related to smoking … but alcohol has also been linked to throat cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society … drinkers are six times more likely to get these cancers.
Some reports have found that people who smoke and drink are as much as 100 times more likely to get mouth and throat cancer than people with neither habit.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, consuming 50 grams of alcohol a day, the equivalent of four drinks …
… doubles or triples the risk for getting mouth, voice box and throat cancer….”
(hic…!…eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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toad says “Poor old Alan must be feeling a bit left out”
Are you the only person in NZ not to know that Mr Hubbard is xtraordinarily modest?
Don’t let a total lack of factual knowledge about someone get in your way of criticising them.
Sounds a bit like tall poppy syndrome.
How many people would you get on a facebook support page?
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are you seriously still supporting the hubbard-cult there..?…photonz..?
that folksy old guy..who just cost us $1.75 billion…?
whoar…!
and ‘modest’..?…how about hubris…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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THE GREAT CONSPIRICIES!!!
Phil; do you regularly visit the David Icke site? I think he was the one who started all the lizzard people (royal family) conspiricy theories.
I think it’s absolute garbage he hasn’t got one ounce of science to back his claims.
Don’t get me wrong I am not against conspiracy theories but they have to sound plausable.
Toads theory is plausable; how is it that all the crooks are getting knighthoods?
And why is it that in most of the elections around the world only two parties emerge neck to neck about 46-49%,49-46% leaving a small margin for the rest? quite consistantly!
As for the news media, well it’s obvious that that is monopolised by Packer and Murdock it’s mostly depressing, shallow and warped. In local papers you notice the emphesis is on law enforcement, the fire brigade and your local councillor giving a greasy grin as he shakes the hand of a pensioner, all goodie goodie properganda
Especially on the middle east, since 1948 our media bias has mostly been in favor of Israel especially before the advent of the internet!
Finally go and read The Protocols of the Wise Elders of Zion ( http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion3.htm#Protocol%20no%204 ) and alot of things seem to fit and they fit because we are letting it fit.
By the way I am not religious and I am not anti semetic but Zionism to Jews is like Nazi’s to the German people.
“We are Gods chosen few”
“We are the master race”
“We are not amused!”
“The meek [?] will inherit the Earth”
“America is great”
“You lot are infidels who will burn in Hell!!!”
The people promoting the above slogans are mostly hatching conspiracies (plural). Such people I believe have no place in our world if we desire PEACE!!!!!
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My understanding is that the Auckland CBD power failures were caused in part by overheating transmission lines in tunnels that were backfilled with the wrong material which didn’t conduct the heat away as well as required.
Trevor.
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As I understand it, what caused the Auckland CBD power failures was old cables that were past their use-by date. Not only that, but they had been installed in the 1950s – the electrical requirements from the 1980s onwards was a lot higher, especially considering that the fancy new buildings had air conditioning which is a massive draw on power.
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phil – the govt has put in 1.75 billion, and after it gets back over 1 billion in SCF assetts, it estimates it’s losses will be down to 0.6 billion.
That’s not much more than it has already taken in two years in premiums from institutions to be in the guarantee scheme (taken 0.5 billion at 0.25 billion per year as of June – by December it will have taken over 0.6 billion)
So it’s losses are not quite as bad as is made out. In fact, as an insurance scheme, even after the SCF payout, it’s quite possible the govt may still make a profit and be in the black in the very near future.
As for Hubbard, he quite uniqe. I’m trying to think of someone else in NZ who has helped so many businesses start up. Can you think of anyone?
Or someone who has paid out millions of his own money to make sure investors got their money back. Who else has done that?
He’s made some mistakes, but then again the decision to send in the SFO when there doesn’t appear to be any fraud led to millions being pulled out of South Canterbury Finance and is what tipped it over the edge.
And the other point is Hubbard hasn’t been running SCF for quite a while.
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A DANGEROUS AND UGLY CULT!!!
Thanks Philo; I have just read “Inside thge Great Reptilian Conspiracy” and have come to this conclusion.
It is pure bullshit!!!!
It is very sad that Icke who belonged to the Green Party could have spent his admirable talent dealing with the real issues that are plaguing our plannet like GLOBAL WARMING!!!!
Now it has turned into a very ugly and dangerous cult!!!
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john-ston
The cables were being operated within their ratings, but the ratings didn’t take account of the incorrect installation. The higher load would have been handled by upgrades to the system which would have ensured that the cable ratings were not exceeded.
You are probably right about the age of the cables but that wasn’t the primary problem. The failure occurred during abnormally hot weather, amplifying the lack of cooling.
Trevor.
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hey drakula..!
have you got that common rightwing deficiency…?
..the sense of humour byepass…?
(how could i have been more ‘obvious’ for you…?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“..Thanks Philo; I have just read “Inside thge Great Reptilian Conspiracy” and have come to this conclusion.
It is pure bullshit!!!!..”
um..!..shouldn’t the title have led you instantly to that very conclusion..?
(just asking..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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um..!..wd it be out of order to ask for a bit of transperancy around this $1.75 billion ‘soaking’ we have just taken…?
namely…did any of those who granted this mountain of money….
did any of them have any conflict of interests running here..?
as in..were any in national taking advantage of that hubbard-potion of high interest rates..
..and a gold-plated gummint-guarantee…?
i mean..why wouldn’t they..?..eh…?
in effect…i am asking if any of them lobbied for/voted for..
..a bailout for themselves..?…
..eh..?
(hidden away in ‘trusts’/w.h.y…?..)
(i’m just asking..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil – I’m not in a position to comment on the other allegations, but I know lots about electricity systems, so when I someone starts pouring the bull I can spot it at several paces.
That the Auckland system failed through overload is absolutely true. But, the load was within what the system was designed to carry, so it wasn’t in theory overloaded. However, due to inadequate construction, various components of the system were not able to carry there rated load. Due to inadequate maintenance and inspection, there was no knowledge that these components were not capable of carrying their rated load.
Thus the operators, in their ignorance, operated the system within what they believed was its safe limits. Unbeknownst to them, they were exceeding the system’s capabilities. Cue the cascade failure.
For some super hacker to game the system to fail, assuming that is even possible remotely, he would had to have known of these inadequacies that no-one knew about in order to exploit that vulnerability.
This is a similar root cause to the US East Coast blackout. Due to operator ignorance, the system was operated outside of its capability, and it failed.
In that case the operators were ignorant because the single most important computer system that keeps them on top of system loadings (the state estimator) was offline due to human error, and the operators didn’t know they were working with erroneous data.
The reasons vary, but most decent failures (ie cascading failures) are down to operator error, due to them not knowing something vitally important about the system capability, and thus exceeding the system’s real capability.
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toad – as I said, Hubbard has made mistakes but to try to make it look like he feels he’s missed out on a knighthood shows you either know nothing about him, or are deliberately trying to misrepresent him.
Some of Hickeys comments are fair – some are not.
He complains of a $1.7b payout but not a mention that the government now has over $1b in assets to sell.
He doen’t complain that the govt has collected $500 million in premiums for the scheme so far (at $250m per year) so by the time SFC issorted out they will likely be making a profit on the scheme – not a massive loss as he makes out.
No mention that the decision to put Hubbard into statuatory management (made by someone whose brother was put into recievership by SCF) and the heavy handed SFO investigation, (which appear to have found nothing serious) let to SCF haemorrhaging money back to investors which is what precipitated receivership.
And no mention of bad debts from a recesions where people have lost their jobs and have been unable to repay their mortgages to SCF.
And as for the businesses who had borrowed from SCF and went bust in the recesion, from builders, concrete companies, hotels, bars, property, vineyards, tourism and mainly farms – the PRIMARY REASON that SCF went bust – not a mention.
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That’s interesting, photonz1. Tell us more.
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buckley..i am just the messanger on this…and no ‘expert’..
but nothing that you have said there rules out for me..the other scenario…
“..For some super hacker to game the system to fail, assuming that is even possible remotely,..”
um..!…maybe not now…but certainly then…i would bet the security-system on that computor system way back then was almost non-existant..
and given that hackers have broken into the pentagon..among other much more ‘secure’systems..
your breezy dismissal of this being a possibility here..(‘cos of what..?..exactly..?..)..
does nothing to aid yr attempted dismissal…
eh..?
and as i said…i am just reporting what the spook said..(in a matter of fact manner) in that book about spooks…
why is that whole scenario so implausible for you…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Whats implausible is that someone knew what to do to bring down the system. The inadequacies that would have to be exploited were (at that time) unknown.
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sez who…?
and..
are you saying this is impossible..?
“..…Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
… picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.
By changing the temperature with in the sensitive cables they quickly put them out of action..”
mmm…??
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Exactly – before the event, no one knew the cables were “sensitive cables”, they were cables that should have been able to take the load they were put under without problem. That’s my issue. The rest is just static.
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“..By changing the temperature with in the sensitive cables they quickly put them out of action..”
so that…is impossible..?
so..who to believe….?
the spook who wrote the book about the spooks…?
or local ‘expert’/naysayer…buckley..?
takes yr pick…!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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…decision to put Hubbard into statuatory management (made by someone whose brother was put into recievership by SCF)…
toad says “That’s interesting, photonz1. Tell us more”
Astonishing they try to claim trere is not conflict in this.
See
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/3851886/Hubbard-case-conflict-of-interest-raised
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@phil
When conspiracy theories have basic factual errors you have to accept the whole thing collapses like a pack of cards.
Once they gained access to the computers controlling New Zealand’s power supply, they focused on the distribution systems …
“picking a point where all five main power lines converged before coming into Auckland.”
The failure was on four lines that fed Auckland CBD only. They came from two separate substations – Penrose and Mt Roskill.
These lines were locla distribution lines, so after the grid and a number of transformers would have been between them and the grid supply, so how would damaging temperature changes on one side of a transformer flow throught to the other without tripping it?
I doubt they shared common computer control systems.
Electricity cables are not hightly sensitive to temperature change, given they can run successfully under a range of load and weather conditions, from snow to summer heat, from zero power to overloaded. The colder it is the more you can push down them.
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/Page____12136.aspx for the enquiry report
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Not much official comment from the Greens on the SCF debacle
There is a whiff of corruption about it methinks
Why the silence from us?
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foz says “Not much official comment from the Greens on the SCF debacle”
Nor from Labour.
I think most realise the alternative to the deposit guarantee scheme was the domino collapse of all our finaicial institutions running right though to the big banks.
That collapse would have taken with it many of those who were loaned money, as they would be forced to pay back the receivers if they couldn’t arrange other loans.
That would take down thousands of companies, home owners etc, on top of the losses from all the investors.
As it was the dominoes were already tumbling. Many of the 61 finance companies went bust simply because investors lost confidence and pulled their money out – not because they did anything wrong.
With all the premiums the govt has received from banks and finance companies (so far) totaling nearly as much as loses, the scheme has been highly successful at stopping our economy from collapsing inwards on itself.
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Yes but people making 40% profit in 3 days!!!
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like i said insider…i am not an expert on this…
i am only pointing people at the spook-allegation…
(..so i am unable to argue/rate the strength/merits of yr interpretation/dismissal…)
..and/but you do kinda blow it at the end when you point to the ‘official-report’..
(um..! dosen’t the matter-of-fact way this is discussed..by the sook..
…as an incidental/background fact…
a b.t.w…if you will..
dosen’t just that give you any pause for thought…?
…and for lots of questions to pop up..?
b.t.w…the anti-benchmark of ‘official-reports’…
..would have you believe a lone killer called oswald…
..was the only one involved in the kennedy-assasination..eh..?
‘official-report’ is often a synonym for ‘cover-up’..
..eh..?
this spook-allegation..to me…is a piece of what could be an intriuging jigsaw-puzzle…
..and worthy of further investigation…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Does anyone know why Neil Roberts failed to blow up the Wanganui computer centre?
Phil; I did twig at the title I just thought that I had better read the whole article before I comment. As a matter of fact I have read ‘The Truth will Set you Free’ and a few others before that.
As for someone sabotaging the Auckland power grid by lap top;——improbable, more like incompetence. Any way I am more interested in the GREAT GLOBAL CONSPIRACY real or imagined.
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The Business School at the University of Auckland ran a Peak Oil Forum today. Dr Bob Lloyd of Otago University was the main presenter, with a short panel “discussion” thereafter. David Clendon was there and it would be interesting to read his thoughts on what he heard.
One panel member, Professor Basil Sharp appeared to think that the markets would take care of the issue and that Limits to Growth (1972) was completely wrong (when it actually stood up quite well to subsequent analysis), though he did want petrol to be priced to include externalities (but I don’t think understood that $14/litre petrol would mean a very different society) and didn’t want offshore oil exploration. Another panel member, Professor Peter Malin, believed that geothermal energy (generated from a nuclear reaction in the mantle) could just about plug the peak oil gap. Dr Carol Boyle was much more realistic about our prospects and even suggested that less technology is sometimes the answer (and she is an engineer). She also pointed out (with help from someone I couldn’t see) that the often quoted UN population estimate of 9 billion by mid century is only a lower bound and not even steady at that point. In addition, the estimates assume that the so-called demographic transition relies on steady economic growth in developing nations, up to that time. Steady economic growth is simply not possible in a resource constrained world.
The main speaker rightly identified our desire for economic growth as a major problem and made a number of excellent points about resource depletion.
Unfortunately, this message is getting out in dribs and drabs – the forum wasn’t held in one of the large lecture theatres but a small case room (maybe 100 people?).
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Phil, there is a way to protect against the most determined overseas hacker. Simply don’t connect the computer to the outside world, and that assumes that the control room was computerised to the point where it could be controlled as you suggest. I am not at all sure that the control room for the affected area was “computerised” as suggested, let alone that it could be tampered with.
And why would anyone even try?
And how many people would have had “lap-top” computers at that time?
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Trevor.
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The wider education debate needs to refer to the writings of this respected american academic who initially supported the approach of our current government but found in practice it has serious flaws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Ravitch
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Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis
http://robertguyton.blogspot.com/2010/09/thinking-about-peak-oil.html
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There is a summary translation of the German study on TheOilDrum and an English article about it in Der Spiegel.
The Peak Oil Forum speaker also mentioned three major reports about peak oil in the last 6 months. This makes four but John Key still buries his head in the sand.
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Dracula,
Dracula is more real than the Protocols of Zion, which is a hoax – albeit a particularly vicious hoax.
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