Posts by ChrisW

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  • Hard News: The Next Act, in reply to Russell Brown,

    We all have to reach our own accord with mortality, and if Holmes in his final days found that in the idea of God, that's his business and his right.

    That was an interesting performance, that interview, for sure. Holmes may well have found an accommodation or accord with his mortality, but I don’t think the idea of God was much involved in this, not really.

    I had the sense his invoking God was more an aspect of the performance than in full sincerity. His coin was always performance, and it seems to me he was laying it down on Pascal’s wager on a sort of trial basis, perhaps with a view to his chances for The Next Act.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Up Front: In Committee, in reply to Alison Kagen,

    This has reminded me of making submissions on the Homosexual Law Reform Bill:

    Good story – but “smiling gentle bigotry” doesn’t quite gel with my memory of the nasty snarling variety expressed by opponents of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill during its 1985-86 progress. Those Wellington memories via the media of the day corroborated by NZ History online leading its story with Invercargill MP Norm Jones’s 'Go back into the sewers where you come from' as more the norm.

    Seems more like the Civil Union Bill of 2004?

    So I checked. Lianne Dalziel did not enter Parliament until 1990, but she was indeed a member of the 2004 Justice and electoral select committee which heard submissions on the CUB. And Wikipedia tells me Graham Capill was a student rather than a church leader in 1985-86, stood down as leader of the Christian Heritage Party in 2003, and was convicted of sex crimes against children in 2005.

    So yes, 2004. It was different a generation earlier.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime,

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    Well, they could keep that up for a few minutes, and then the big one cried "enough!".

    And then the little one agreed, but ...

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime,

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    Inter-species synchronised preening on the Taruheru River this morning - pied shag, and little shag.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: The mathematics of marriage,

    Either way, I have my doubts that von Guérard's observations were authentic ...

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Islander,

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    Way to paddle a waka eh?

    It was quite popular paddling them that way 'round a hundred-odd years ago, even in Kai Tahu, judging by this detail of an oil-on-canvas observation on the upper reaches of Lake Wakatipu by Eugene von Guérard in 1877-79. ;-)

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Capture: Art On The Street,

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    Antidote - perhaps with greater claim to be art, certainly it's on the street.
    I met this couple of colourful characters outside the Gisborne Contract Bridge Club.

    Wider shot reveals the secret of their cheerfulness despite being out in the midday sun on one of the particularly warm days a week ago.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Gudrun Gisela,

    Is that a Doris Plum?

    A fortune plum ...

    Whereas this one -
    http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/capture-someone-somewhere-in-summertime/?p=279254#post279254
    is a Doris plum that met with misfortune ...

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Jos,

    Fabulous - the crack of getting-on-for-sunset indeed - enhanced by the cropping, but especially by the way the hard-edged window letting the sun's crepuscular rays down is so far back, that those rays all terminate abruptly behind that sharply defined lower ridge. Never seen it just like that myself - will be on the lookout henceforth!

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,

    Hit me with the science that says the UK met office is wrong , wrong wrong that we should expect cooling in the short term.

    OK, I will then, but just this once.
    I wouldn't call it science, but a simple observational fact - as at 24 Dec 2012 the UK Met Office is predicting an increase in mean global temperature over the next 5 years 2013-2017, not a cooling.

    Your link yesterday was to a comments thread, of extraordinary braying tone, on an Australian post that misrepresented the UK Met Office predictions as a "Skeptic win”. This is a bizarre fantasy . (Perhaps this really is on-topic here: “Fact and fantasy”)

    The actual Met Office statement and its graphical form – not the mis-read, mis-quoted and mis-represented distortions of it included or referenced in that post - was that its updated model prediction of the most likely global mean temperature for the 2013-2017 period would be 0.43 degrees above the observed mean for 1971-2000. As such, that 5-year mean would be 0.03 degrees higher than the global annual mean of the isolated warm year of 1998, and continue the trend (clearly visible through the ‘noise’) of substantially rising mean temperatures over recent decades that is apparent to anyone who can read a line-graph.

    It would indeed be foolish to read this as a win for the so-called 'skeptics'. I wouldn’t call you foolish based on what you have written on other subjects, but on this you appear to have allowed yourself to be mis-led by fools or worse, on a matter you appear to consider important, and on that last matter I agree with you.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

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