Posts by Ross Mason
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An ABC commentator remarked how he thought the 2012 election was going to be the last presidential election "between two white men".
I think the meaning was that this will probably be the last majority of white men voting election. The comment and opinion today has indicated that the population has shifted significantly. It was in this four year term that the "minorities" population exceeded the so called "American" population. It can only continue.
But but but.....the god's willed rapists maybe doing the right a favour in keeping their population increasing. Breed more white guys!!
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So...do we sing the Star Spangled Banner now?
or
Maybe the election has gone to the dogs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nEBN8wOKjMo
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I wonder whether John Key will be voting in Hawaii?
Only if Hawaii has happy and gay Fruit Bats.
They also have a voter intelligence clause. -
Larger states do not necessarily correspond to larger populations. In NZ the rural polling booths come in with results a lot faster on election night. Could be the same effect.
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You'd be better off graphing the number of winners as a percentage of entrants by each letter.
Then ranking by start gate (no horse has ever won from gate 18), jockey's mother's maiden name, country of origin, passport number...
Its a f&^king two horse race......... Today's potential winners are the letters O and R.
A buck each way.
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Queues huh? Not enough polling people or machines??? Hmmm.....Conspiracy theory rant here: Does anyone know of any "throughput rates" done between those electronic voting machines in Dem Country and those is Rep Country??
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I wonder how many BBCers Saville had by the short and curlies that meant nothing would be done about him?? Just sayin.
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Does anyone recall seeing any media that said that the pollen importing company was right next door to the first orchard that got PSA????
Hearing that comment in the Media 3 piece was the first time I had heard of it.
Looking through the report I linked to above I find this:
From paragraphs 95 to 100 are staggering. It speaks of the paper that was cited as suggesting that pollen did not carry bacteria. I note with intense interest the following:
96. MAF advises that typically such papers are only subject to internal review, but on this occasion it was also sent for peer review to a professor of plant pathology at Auckland University. Early on in the process of peer review it became clear that there might be an interest in the paper being published in an academic journal. As such the Biosecurity New Zealand header was removed from the paper and it became a ‘manuscript’ that was subsequently accepted for publication by the journal, Australasian Plant Pathology. An early draft of the paper (retaining the letterhead and not reflecting many subsequent changes) was placed on MAF’s electronic file classification system.
97. There was only one sentence in the paper that covered the risk of pollen transmission of bacteria. In an initial draft that sentence read, “[t]here are no known bacteria or mollicutes that are pollen transmitted (Nemeth, 1986b). However, by the time the fourth draft of the paper had been circulated the sentence had been amended to read “There are no pollen-transmitted bacteria.
98. In our view the authors’ position that pollen could not transmit bacteria was unnecessarily definitive in light of the available evidence. We note that the original position that there was ‘no known’ pollen-transmitted bacteria was considerably strengthened through the editing process without any new material coming to light;
the final paper omits the qualifier that the authors are only recounting the views of another author (Nemeth); and the sole reference for the authors’ views on bacteria was a scientific paper that was over 20 years old by the time their paper was
published. The published version of the paper also contained the same unqualified statement that bacteria cannot be transmitted by pollen.99. In an interview one of the authors stated that, while the paper examined a wide range of pathogens transmitted by pollen, the clear focus of the paper was on viruses and viroids. The paper was never intended to provide a comprehensive examination of the risks associated with pollen (let alone with kiwifruit pollen) but was rather a literature review intended to serve as an input into a more formal risk analysis. The sole sentence on bacteria was included for completeness and the deletion of the qualifier (“no known bacteria…”) regarding bacteria-transmission was because pollentransmission of bacteria was considered a peripheral issue to the main focus of the paper.
100. These observations about the relatively narrow scope of the scientific paper are supported by some reservations expressed at the time by the Risk Analysis Team regarding the content of the paper.
• “What about other diseases and pests?? Or is this just a review of viruses with the rest tacked on bit [sic] with little regard as the author is a virologist?”
• “This report is a summary of information rather than an analysis.”
• In response to an earlier draft that noted that there were reports of bacteria and fungi being found on pollen a Senior Advisor from the Risk Analysis Team commented, “What all this shows is that pollen can be contaminated by fungi (and bacteria) and as such pollen can act as a vector of fungi and bacteria.”
Dare I suggest that the publish or perish requisites for personal advancement took a bit of a hit here???
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PSA Independent Report is here.
Re video. I might be being blocked by something......... -
Anyone having probs with PSA video links being unavailable? Have I missed something?