Posts by BenWilson
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errata: Change "executive" to "legislature" in previous post.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I'll answer that to some extent anyway. Being part of the "moar referenda" crowd, as you put it, is not the same as being "referenda on everything". I think we should certainly have more referenda in cases where the government is openly doing things that are widely and strongly opposed by majorities. This, however, isn't one of those cases. So a referendum is mostly a waste of time and money. But in a different case, it may be.
Making spousal rape illegal would probably would not have been opposed by a majority either. Women, for starters, would probably have been near universally in favour.
But a majority of people here would seem to oppose the sale of our electricity resources. In this case, a referendum seems righteous to me.
Yes, this isn't a rights and freedoms issue on the face of it, but it can certainly be spun that way, that a minority of people have a right to own some stake in our power if that's what they want. It just doesn't really seem like quite such a righteous minority when it's "rich people", rather than "gay people".
I'm aware that in the case of same-sex-marriage a referendum held maybe 20 years ago, a majority would quite possibly have opposed it. But in that case, the country would not have been ready for it, and it should probably be delayed. That was how the politicians saw it too, so it wasn't on the agenda for them back then either.
To be clear, I don't think there should be a referendum on same sex marriage. It's too obviously popular anyway. But that doesn't mean I think referenda are a bad idea. I'm a signatory on the petition for the one against asset sales. I'm also pre-registered to buy Mighty River shares. No, that's not a contradictory position. I oppose the sale most strongly. But if it's getting sold, I want the option to have a piece. Key claiming that pre-registering is indicating his mandate is total rubbish. The very fact he is using his election to claim that is exactly what's wrong with:
I’m the kind of old fashioned boy who thinks we elect a legislature to… well… you know… legislate between free, fair and credible general elections.
I'm not old fashioned, and I think we need more checks and balances against the already quite extreme power of our executive, and I can hardly think of any single one more righteous than a plebiscite, in which a single question is asked and answered by a massive number of people. It delivers a very clear mandate, when the question is clear, and is thus a very important thing to have anywhere claiming to be a democracy.
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Russell Brown,
which has been a revelation
Yes, I got one late last year and haven't really taken it off the bike except as a bag to carry stuff. Damned useful. It is my cheap shopping bike now.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
I have some sympathy with this comment in that thread-stream:
But the part of this video that p*ssed me of the most is this guy’s certainty that this solution of his is our only choice. He’s just as wrong about that as he was about shooting 40,000 elephants. He made a gross ignorant mistake resulting in massive damage due to his certainty then, and he is repeating his certainty now. Not that what he is advocating will cause the kind of mess he caused the first time round, but by being so entirely certain again he is cutting off the possibility that there are other options still. He can’t think of any, so in his arrogance he makes the same mistake he made with the 40,000 elephants and decides that his ignorance dictates the answer.
Humans being capable of amazing things, I have to agree.
"environmentalists" does cover a wide range of positions though doesn't it?
Yes. I don't think it helps to see them as a hippy cliche.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
Neither of us will see that though. There is still an awful lot of coal, not to mention shale gas.
I guess we'll see. Future prediction is tricky when you're talking about complex systems (like humanity). Energy use is increasing exponentially. The endgame for any exponential exhaustion comes fast and hard. Its future will often not resemble its past.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
Don't be fooled by Oxalis ; it will come back 10-fold , especially if you disturb the ground. Repeated green manure crops of mustard will exhaust it.
Nice tip, cheers. I just checked this now, since I do have a mustard patch in this stretch of garden. The Oxalis in there is indeed about half the height that it is outside that area. Maybe I'll plant that whole stretch out with mustard.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
The comments following the presentation put it into a better perspective.
They're extremely hostile to environmentalists, despite this actually being an environmentalist idea. Presumably there's a mentality that "Greenies hate on fossil fuel at all costs, so they couldn't possibly like any other solution than reduction of those". Which might be true for some environmentalists, but definitely isn't all of them. This solution is not particularly coupled with any assault on the idea of reducing fossil fuel reliance, indeed it appears to involve no need for them at all, and is aimed at third world cattle herders.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
FB is just saying that it has been much worse in the last 35 years, particularly between 1975-1999.
I wouldn't know. This only just happened. Every day until yesterday, the bare earth could not be seen because the Oxalis were expanded, which is why I noticed this. I'm guessing they've gone into a survival mode. I'd water, but my I'm curious to actually see what happens without any interference (my garden is not vital to my survival, so this kind of experiment is fascinating to me).
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
Caution; some of the information herein may be disturbing to closed minds!
There's a lot about it that makes sense, though. Grassland has, after all, had large herds of animals grazing it for millions of years. You'd expect it to actually need that, that a removal of an influence like that would create ecological holes. The trampling of the ground. The addition of the manure. The spreading of seeds in the manure. The mulching caused by the trampling. I don't know what else, but just observing that if even those basic processes are removed from an ecology, there's a good chance it won't prosper in it's original form. Human controlled herds might be problems, but it's quite possible the problem is as much because humans don't move entirely on patterns that follow nature. Intensified agriculture is very hostile to nomadic life, we organize our ownership of land in little parcels.
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I haven't been gardening for long (only about 10 years), but this is the first time I've seen this happen. The Oxalis have feathered themselves, presumably to absorb less sunlight to avoid drying out completely. You can see how dry the ground is, which is unusual in this spot, in which mint (as depicted) usually thrives.
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