Comments on: Open mike 16/12/2009

By: gitmo

gitmo — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:35:45 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmy3CGl6GvA&feature=player_embedded#

He he

By: the pinkpostman

the pinkpostman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:04:10 +0000

continuation from above.Lockouts ,strikes and PM who has no control over his members and here we are discussing flags .No wonder we have so many Tory Governments ,
Im begining to realise that we have the government we deserve.
This flag episode will only distract the real issues from discusion and will end up as a racist divisive beat up.
key and his mates must be laughing their head off.

By: the pinkpostman

the pinkpostman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:54:02 +0000

Icant believe all this concern and ballyhoo about a bloody flag .
Personally I could not care if they flew the skull and crossbone from the Harbour Bridge , The world is in danger of coming to an end through global warming and the clowns we have sent to Copenhagen
are completely incompetent , unemployment is out of control,

By: Quoth the Raven

Quoth the Raven — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:53:45 +0000

I'm surprised no one here has got onto this news: Racist insults end Napier test cricket party

A corporate box hired by a brother of National MP Chris Tremain was refused alcohol at Napier's McLean Park after racial abuse was hurled at Pakistani cricketers.

By: grumpy

grumpy — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:25:31 +0000

How about this?

Absolutely disgusting sentence. Enough to make think of changing sides.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10615792

By: prism

prism — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:56:19 +0000

This morning RadioNZ lawyer Robert Lithgow gives good analysis of Dame Margaret Bazley’s report on legal aid. Finds few facts but is intrigued by up to 80% of South Auckland legal aid lawyers could be rorting the system. Find the holes in that! Its a trick. You can’t – the whole statement is holey and the task is to find the substance.

Just looking up Dame Margaret’s background – started off as a nurse and was in that sector to 1984. Then after that magic year, got into forming SOEs, Transport (merged into police), Social Welfare from 1990s and retired in 2001. Then looked into science, police conduct, etc. Handy person for looking into things and tidying them up apparently. Probably starts with the idea that everyone is inefficient and need a good shake-up.

By: Bored

Bored — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:53:31 +0000

Just quickly, Malthus was right….
Oil will be gone
people eat oil (thats why there are so many of us
No oil less people
History littered with examples of failure to adapt

By: rainman

rainman — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:52:41 +0000

Actually I thought you were saying we’d find a ready substitute for cheap oil as we’ve been clever enough to do so before.

Anyway, despite you having side-stepped my question, I’ll chuck in another:
Is “more will be needed” the problem, or the solution?

I can see a case for both population scenarios, but would tend towards #2 in the short term, given inertia. Doesn’t mean they’ll all be driving SUV’s, y’know. Where are the rates of population growth the highest, and what sort of roads and cars do they typically have there?

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:47:03 +0000

Point taken about ‘highways’ and ‘by- ways’ except…..that currently paths and roads are comprised of an oil industry by product ( bitumen) that craps out quite quickly….that things grow through quite easily…that kind of ‘flows away’ quite readily….so, why bother?

Plus, why will we need to regularly move ourselves en mass? We move en mass because of job requirements. But in a future that will presumably be much more decentralised than at present, massive flows to and from industrial zones or to and from cities will be historical curiosities.

By: vto

vto — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:33:12 +0000

I would suggest Bored that the science pointing to population increases is more accepted and reliable than the science pointing to AGW. You rely on the AGW science …

And I am not relying the on ‘technology will save us’ argument. There may well be a a period of heavy adjustment in between. But I do have faith in humanity. It has been successful throughout the mast majority of history. But feel free to deny history and claim the end is nigh – you are quite entitled to.

By: vto

vto — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:26:00 +0000

Hang on hang on. I was talking about trails and tracks not emissions etc. Trails and tracks have always been needed and, if population growth continues, more will be needed in the future. Hence transmission gully. Which is a different issue than carbon burning and emissions. That was my point.

But following your logic, please choose the more correct of these two statements;

1. Population will not increase.
2. Population will increase.

By: rainman

rainman — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:08:43 +0000

Logic test: Please choose the more correct of these two statements:

1. It’s happened before, therefore it will happen again
2. It’s happened before, therefore it might happen again

Then, considering the stakes with which we are playing, feel free to use your decision to justify a policy of laissez-faire inaction.

I’ll go fetch the popcorn.

By: Tigger

Tigger — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:08:20 +0000

We still need ways to move people en masse or else no matter what we do we will have conjestion (ever tried to cycle in a big group of people? it’s damn frustrating and dangerous). Light rail best – give that it’s own route and you can be sure it would get used.

By: Bored

Bored — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:01:48 +0000

Silly sausage perhaps, I will let history judge. A few points to make:
* you are right, those of us around will need roads and byways (we always have) but they may not be as you see them today, primarily set up for auto transport.
* anybody who has faith in the replacement of oil based fuel by sufficient “alternative” energy needs to understand that we are currently (and probably never will) unable to break the laws of thermodynamics. In short the planet does not have enough energy available to carry on doing what we are doing. The technology will save us argument is a crock of ****
* This population increase you speak of….goes along with that silly sausage assumption that populations and economies can grow infinitely. In a finite world how do we manage that?

By: prism

prism — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:00:31 +0000

“wise” anti spam
vto That point about us wanting to get around, travel for all sorts of reasons, never gets mentioned in discussions. Even if we get on bicycles, we will need roads, routes, not just holey tracks. I can’t see us getting like Nigerian athletes, running huge distances as a matter of course. We haven’t got the long legs for it anyway.