Posts by Katharine Moody
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: On joining the international…, in reply to tussock,
Maximising tolerance does actually require you be reasonably intolerant toward particularly intolerant people.
Couldn't agree more. And Mark Taslov's points are extremely well made.
Don Brash's latest from last night is this pearl of wisdom;
“Jewish culture is more advanced that other cultures”.
And the evidence?
He then listed the disproportionate number of Nobel prizes and Oscars for film directing that Jewish people had won. This, plus the high number of CEOs in top US companies and the fact that Jewish entrepreneurs had started Facebook and Google
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/08/09/186009/the-martyrdom-of-don-brash?preview=1
-
Hard News: They want to blow it all up, in reply to ,
In this instance it was the perception of a failed system, which was manufactured and propagated using computers as tools.
Not really - the system had definitely failed the vast majority of the middle classes. Elizabeth Warren spelled out that reality in real data prior to her entering politics;
The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class with Elizabeth Warren
I suspect she knew that Hillary had no real commitment to address this - and that's why she shied away from endorsing Hillary as a candidate until very late in the piece. Neither did she endorse Sanders, as she knew Hillary's machine wouldn't let him win.
Trump knows she's the real threat in 2020 - it's why he continues to poke slurs at her at each of his public rallies.
-
Sunday on TVNZ had a piece yesterday on the working poor in NZ. Carmel Sepuloni was interviewed;
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/sunday/clips/living-to-work
After that there was another piece where Julie Anne Genter was interviewed.
What struck me was how our two politicians were made up to the max for their interviews - whereas none of the working poor folks they were there to represent had any make-up on at all. Made me think.
-
Hard News: They want to blow it all up, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Time to sit up and take notice of the rise of Cenk Uygur, the TYT network and the Justice Democrats. There is hope yet for America!
Something revolutionary is sorely needed.
https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/the-115th-congress-is-among-the-oldest-in-history/175/
-
A highly recommended read;
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12052786
-
Wow - fantastic. How lucky your friend was to have you, and now how lucky scores of others in NZ are to have you telling his story and yours. Really, really, really hope these SC members get it right.
The present situation is madness. Thanks, Russell. I think you nailed it.
-
Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
There is a fascinating series on the 1970s on Prime TV at the moment.
Was that the series on the Vietnam War?
It was excellent. Plenty of TV clips of various POTUS' telling bare-faced lies straight down the camera. That office has made an occupation of how to be a lying toad.
-
Hard News: The remarkable rise of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
You mean, no actual evidence apart from women's sworn statements, the original NDA – and whatever the FBI and the US Attorney in New York have obtained from months of surveillance of Cohen and the recent seizure of all his files?
But, I keep thinking, what does all this who-slept-with-who have to do with his ability to run the country and effect much needed change?
If his ongoing presidency is based on obtaining proof as to whether he is or is not a liar and a cheat of a husband ... well, JFK comes to mind.
-
Hard News: The climate changed, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Oops, meant to link to the PCE document I quoted from;
http://www.pce.parliament.nz/media/1390/preparing-nz-for-rising-seas-web-small.pdf
p.77.
-
Hard News: The climate changed, in reply to Kumara Republic,
I participated in review of both the first and second drafts of that document – an exercise bound by a confidentiality agreement with the Ministry at the time of its preparation. Hence I can’t say anything specific about my feedback but suffice it to say that were I the government of the day, I wouldn’t have released it either (although that said, I have not read the document that has been publicly released – so am unsure what changes were made arising from the feedback given). In general, suffice it to say that the draft documents failed to provide guidance in accordance with what is prescribed by the NZCPS in terms of the assessment of hazard risk.
The NZCPS and the AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009 Risk management – Principles and guidelines (the current standard referenced by the NZCPS) both distinguish between risk assessment and risk management but it seems in many of the cases I’ve come across in NZ, this distinction is misunderstood by both the scientific community and the regulators. The two drafts I read would have hindered, as opposed to helped, this distinction.
The drafts also failed to accept/implement the most important of the PCE’s recommendations with respect to update of the guidance manual – that being:
"In revising central government direction and guidance on sea level rise, specify that ‘best estimates’ with uncertainty ranges for all parameters be used in technical assessments of coastal hazards."
And as she also pointed out:
The standard results of running a coastal hazard model should instead [i.e.,instead of what we’ve been getting to date from the scientific assessments] be probability distributions with most likely values and ranges of potential values expressed with a level of confidence.
Drafts 1 and 2 failed to provide those probability distributions. But again, it may be that in the released document they did specify these uncertainty ranges/probability distributions – I simply don’t know as I haven’t read it yet.
Point is, that without knowing those uncertainty ranges as part of the risk assessment, it becomes very difficult for regulators to appropriately manage (i.e., make the right decisions about) the most appropriate way to manage the risks.