Posts by Clarke
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Andrew, you were right the first time. Dubya is the best example of a pupper I've ever seen. :-)
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So, James, let's just run with some of your logic here, and simply ignore the fact that Lisa Simspon can blow holes in it.
How about we assume that the Dems gain control of the House, and that the GOP retains the Senate 49-51, and that as a result some of the more extreme programs (such as the waterboarding and the NSA surveillance) are suspended. We can but dream, right?
On that basis, you seem to be saying that America would be much less safe, and the bogeyman (oops, sorry, I meant Al Qaeda) will again attack the US mainland. So the question is, how soon would this occur?
Clearly, if the Patriot Act and the NSA programme and the Swift monitoring are the only things keeping US citizens safe - as you're suggesting - their suspension should see an instant resumption in Al Qaeda activity.
So based on the scenario above, how soon would we have to wait for another 9/11? We'll accept predictions in denominations of days, weeks, months and years (or any combination thereof), but a concrete estimate that we can point to would be welcomed.
Because if if you're unable (or unwilling) to put an actual number on the threat posed, then Lisa's summary - that you're using specious reasoning - would seem to be the case.
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So a bit late than never.
I went along to the Wellington Climate Change Festival (or at least part of it) at the Paramount, mainly to listen to what the National BlueGreen position sounded like coming from Nick Smith. Quick summary:
Marian Hobbs- Blah blah blah ... lots of nice words, trying to hype 7 years of complete Labour inaction. I'm sure the spin machine hit about 100,000 rpm trying to make very minor bits of policy sound like major steps on climate change.
Nick Smith - Surprisingly good, and received largely with tolerance and interest. Big round of applause when he said there needed to be a cross-party consensus on climate policy. The big question is how this will translate into the National agenda.
Russel Norman - Warmly received, but then he was playing to the home crowd. Made the point that supporting the Green private members bills would be a good first step for the Nats and Labour if they were serious about climate change.So sensible words all round. The big problem with the day was the utter lack of the farmers - despite much apparent effort to get someone from Federated Farmers to speak, the generators of 49.4% of NZ's GHGs were notable only by their absence.
This seems like complete stupidity to me. If the farming lobby can't front to a gathering like this - which is simply a talk-fest, after all - then they deserve a right royal shafting in legislation. It costs nothing to talk, and to try and convince a group of people that are genuinely interested in the subject that you have a plan on emissions. To simply not show up smacks of either arrogance or incompetence, or - alarmingly - both.
So we can conclude from the day that Labour has a plan but no action, National has a plan but maybe no internal consensus, the Greens have a plan and some private members bills, and the farmers are still in denial.
All in all, not a bad outcome.
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Hi Raymond
As the climate scientists point out, the weather is not the climate. Studying your local conditions is obviously important if your livelihood depends on it, but this is like saying that I study the speed of my ADSL link, and this makes me an expert in the intricacies of bandwidth utilization across the entire Internet. I'm very interested in the speed of my local link (as I am in my local weather), but that's about where my expertise ends.
Climate science is obviously about models, and the models can only express degrees of certainty rather than absolutes. It's just that the models are tending to converge to the same conclusions - that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing climate change.
To use another analogy, doctors aren't always absolutely certain that patients have cancer, because with some cancers the only certain diagnosis is at the autopsy. But that doesn't stop us treating the cancer we only suspect is there, and saving lives as a result.
We don't need to be 100% certain about climate change before we start treating the problem - but it would be prudent if we want to prevent the patient dying.
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This is seriously esoteric, but my vote for Historically Significant goes to the old Melco Online site (now http://www.bdt.co.nz).
This is the site of Mitsubishi Electric, who distribute lots of stuff to the consumer electronics and computer industries. Back in 1995/96, they put up a site that was everything the likes of Ascent would end up doing a decade later ... online shopping baskets, real-time stock levels, integration to back-end enterprise systems, online invoicing ...
The thing is, it was built on a beta version of Netscape Web Server (there wasn't a 1.0 release available at the time), spoke to an SQL Server database using hand-cut APIs, and integrated to an IBM RS/6000 system running plenty of S/36 code using yet more hand-written interfaces. And for an encore, it was connected to the Net via a 32k frame relay connection to VUW. All of this was built, maintained and upgraded on a shoestring budget by one person.
If only Melco had filed patents!
Worst site: Ferrit. Same idea, worse technology, a decade too late.