The Harvard system of citation is a stop-gap, half-arsed, imprecise and ugly answer to a question nobody was asking. It’s useless dealing with large numbers of citations from archives or newspapers, and just clutters up perfectly good text with names and numbers.
Footnotes are not bad but not perfect. Endnotes are an embarrassing cousin to the footnote. Hyperlinks kick arse but you can’t hyperlink to a book.
The Vancouver system must have been designed by psychiatrists self-administering LSD. It’s wierd, man, you’ve never seen anything like it, man! Far out.
I wish someone would come up with a decent universal system that can cope with books and the internet—together. The main thing is, though, that Harvard is rotten and should be abolished in all civilised places. I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks everyone.
Liam, I’m not sure what system I was brought up on, but it was very precise, with op cits and loc cits. It drove me mad and I love the imprecision of the Harvard system.
The one thing that bugs me is authors who can’t resist giving interesting additional information in references tucked away at the back of the book. Commentary there should be limited to matters relating to the edition, text etc. If the want to rabbit on they should do it in a footnote right there on the page of the text that it refers to. That’s my bitch.
Liam - as a mid 80s Undergrad, I was born and raised on Oxford. Footnotes. Lov em. I agree, Harvard is that fuzzy bit on your old telly. The stain on you shirt that catches the eye. The thumb you only notice when its injured (existential quote spot= 10 points).
But im suckered now. Harvard is easier. Easy cheesy.
We’re all convenience whores now Liamista. Get wit da program(me).
“Op cit” footnotes are an abomination. Translated it means “I referenced this work sometime in the previous 500 pages - go find it if you can be bothered”. And these days, they are usually endnotes, which are even worse.
The worst aspect of footnotes is internet sources, but may I be 100% biassed and recommend Oz guide to legal citation, Melbourne Uni Law Review p70:
Author, doc title in italics, year in brackets, website name, at date.
The social sciences footnoting of internet sources may have as many variants as there are Arts academics. Whatever system, three and four line internet bibliographies are an absolute farce, with the current MSM’s regime of ‘’so_said_ the_leader_of _the_United_States_of_America_today_blah_blah…”
Right on Liam. Harvard is an intrusive abomination, signalling the surrender of all aspirations to readability. A system designed by boffins for boffins, and best safely confined to rebarbative social science screeds, where nothing could make them worse anyway.
Democrat Senators Natasha Stott-Despoja and Lyn Allison have taken the lead in promoting pro-choice positions on abortion and women’s reproductive rights in recent Senate debates. Crikey carries a report on their initiatives.
They have been supported by their male colleagues and the Greens, and opposed overtly by conservative Coalition Senators, until the debates have been shut down by Government Senators with Labor collusion.
The significance of this is that since the 2004 Federal election, social conservatives in the Coalition have strained at the leash to pursue an anti-feminist, anti-choice legislative agenda. Yet all the available indicators are that public opinion is running strongly in the opposite direction, including amongst Coalition voters. I have recently commented on this at On Line Opinion. Katherine Betts’ research on this issue also supports this contention.
Therefore, if the wishes of NSW Young Liberal President Alex Hawke to bring on the abortion debate “bigger and better than ever” are fulfilled, the Coalition will be vulnerable to wedging of its support base. Labor will probably be unable to take advantage of this because of its own internal divisions and indecisiveness over women’s reproductive rights. The Greens will gain from their unequivocal pro-choice stance. However, the biggest winners in this scenario could be the Democrats, who could come back from the dead electorally by attracting moderate voters with liberal views on issues of gender, family and sexuality.
This calculation may well have been behind Senator Stott-Despoja’s challenge to anti-abortion Senators to ‘bring it on, boys!” during the Senate debate referred to by Crikey, although I hasten to add that I have no doubt that the Democrats are also taking this stance because they honestly (and correctly) believe it to be the right thing to do, and are (justifiably) concerned about the lack of pro-choice action from other quarters.
With Iraq falling further into chaos, ever wonder why the Australian media is so afraid to make the Iranian connection? Iran is the one of the main benefeciaries of the Iraq war. It’s something Tariq Ali has been saying for years and yet much of the Western media ignores him. Maybe this will change:
And another thing…
Western governments are spending obscene amounts on war and “anti-terror” measures, and yet the environment is dying around us. Many journalists and editors aren’t yet joining the dots:
Paul Norton is not entriely accurate.
women have already made theor choice before becoming pregnant.
Thatn choice was to have sex.
women now who choose to have an abortion do so for reasons that have nothing to do with their health but with their ‘future’ as the last survey in the medical journal reported.
Essentially abortion is coming down to I will have sex no matter what and hang the consequences.
Essentially abortion is coming down to I will have sex no matter what and hang the consequences.
Homer, your tremendous ability to read the minds of women considering termination is just astonishing - particularly given the present range of methods of birth control that are both 100% protective and without side effects. I rate this the greatest human achievement since we put an end to all sexual violence.
On the other hand, it could just be that you really are the ignorant bigmouth you appear to be.
Speaking of loonies — Sir John Lawton is a biologist who earned his doctorate studying insects.
Therefore, he has just as many qualifications to comment on global climate change as Drew Fraser has to comment on genetic variations in human behaviour — none whatseover.
Thanks EP, but in fact it was zoology, and he spent the last 10 years investigating the impact of climate change on the natural environment; work for which he was awarded a Knighthood earlier this year.
I don’t care how many years he spent reading his kook publications; the fact is that Sir Loony-Pants Lawton is not professionally qualified as a climatologist.
If Johnny-boy wants to talk about lizards or slime-molds that’s fine — but he has no more authority to make pronouncements on climatology than Kate Moss does.
However, it’s possible that the Deakin Law Review might print his unqualified personal theories if he asks nicely. I hear they’re big on that sort of stuff.
Based on my interpretation of your comment Homer, I have a rather lengthy response as I do not believe you are entirely accurate:
How can you say that a woman has made the choice to have sex and therefore has chosen pregnancy (and consequently should dare not ask for an abortion?) From your statement it was impossible not to conclude that you are placing 100% of the blame of pregnancy on women! Honey, it takes two to tango. When thinking about sex, (between a man and a woman), it would not spring into many peoples minds that there are many women and girls (and remember girls are hitting puberty much younger now and therefore can fall pregnant as young as who do not choose to have sex, yet ‘perform‚Äô the act anyway. This is the problem; it may be hard if not possible for a man to have sex with a woman if he does not want to. As much as a woman might not want sex at a particular moment (for many reasons including the risk of pregnancy) there may be many reasons why she cannot chose. And it is not just rape I am talking about; whereby all a man has to do is pry her legs apart, and manipulate or tear her apart. Unfortunately the feminist movement did not cure all women‚Äôs ills, as most of us would know all too well, men and women alike. Far too many men and women still believe that the husband or boyfriend has carnal rights to their partner. This is despite the laws of sexual assault only recently acknowledging the fact a husband can rape his wife. This issue is however obviously not all about sexual assault; a crime that is all too prevalent in the lives of women and girls today. There are contradictory expectations of women across the spectrum held by both men and women. There are many other reasons why a woman has not necessarily chosen to have sex or why she chooses to have an abortion. Granted, sadly many careless men and women do exist and have sex, abortions and bring babies into the world ‘hang the consequences‚Äô. This does not mean that sex for women must only be confined to that of reproduction.
Generally, women may agree and naturally want sex as an assumed essential part of a relationship. Women have needs too. Needs. There are endless issues but I shall only cover those that immediately spring to my mind. Particularly in today‚Äôs competitive world, a woman may fear (real or imagined) that if she denies her man sex, he may leave her or cheat; be tempted and devoured by one of the many seductresses that cross his path. This may be for reasons of love alone, and or combined with the need to remain emotionally, socially and financially stable or keep a family together. Many women who seek abortions have already had many children and she may conclude that she financially, mentally or physically could not cope with another child. Despite the low pregnancy associated death in modern life and ‘health reasons‚Äô not being a major factor, many women face great health risks. The rise of mental health problems and suicide is a concern and mental illnesses aren‚Äôt easily recognized in addition to the growing physical illnesses (both of which they may pass onto a baby). Women‚Äôs maternal instincts should be respected. Many happy successful women are riding on tight-rope-type success for their very well being and sustenance. Some women may even not wish to pass on her genes, or a particular combination of genes, for various reasons. Some women may not be able to provide for a child in one or all of the many needs of which a child has. Some women are still searching for a meaning of life beyond reproduction, beyond; ‘Go forth and multiply,‚Äô something they should have the right to do. To believe that pregnant women and mothers are adequately looked after by the state is having a faith in the system that many people do not share.
To be honest, essentially I don‚Äôt think anti-abortionists or those who pass blame to women give this topic much thought. Think about all the factors. ‘Future‚Äô is not only a factor in the woman‚Äôs choice over sex and abortion but equally, if not more so, the man‚Äôs. To assess the choice and the abortion issue I think you might want to consider the ideological foundations of today‚Äôs society and the human manifestations. And if anyone would think that money/financial hardship should not be a factor in determining whether a woman should have an abortion or not, society has made it so. In our neo-liberal capitalist society, we are driven to be competitive and individualist. All some people have is money, or the hope to acquire it. If you want to change that, then you might want to reconsider who you vote for next time. Sadly, sharing of everything from responsibility to blame is rare today. Sharing is at the bottom of the list when it comes to neo-liberal democratic values. People from all walks of life are only one step away from poverty, for there is always someone going to take their place. If the costs of having a baby would do that to someone, then I would understand why they would want to chose to have an abortion. Understanding is also something we seem to lack in today‚Äôs society. In fact, freedom and justice seem to be disappearing rapidly from our democracy, if ever they were really there.
On a personal note, as a woman, I do not think I could ever have an abortion. Not for any reason other than the love I have for my partner and that I do want a family with him and in fact we intend to have a family together in the future. At this stage we can‚Äôt afford to by each other birthday gifts. If I was to fall pregnant now, I think we would survive because we have the determination and enough people to support us, though it would be very very hard. I do not have any savings, assets or an income. I am an undergraduate student in my early twenties with three years to go and an aspiration to help save the world by working for the UN one day. I believe that is my calling. My partner works six to seven days per week and 20 hours of which he spends commuting. And his income does not go to us or towards our future. He cannot even pursue his own goals yet because his parents and siblings need his help. As do mine and they are heavily relying on me being able to help them out one day. We do not just have our futures to consider. And we are not alone and we are probably one of the lucky ones. However, how do I know whether or not my family, or my partner‚Äôs family, would pressure us to choose an abortion? If I were threatened with the loss of my family and/or my partner and the chance at fulfilling our future aspirations (we feel we can make a great contribution to the world) I fear I would lose myself as a person. I think most women have to choose between either losing the potential baby and the both of them. Women should not be thought of as baby-making machines and selfish, success-obsessed hussies unless men are deemed to be the same. So just be careful before generalising that women whimsically decide to have sex ‘hang the consequences‚Äô. By now you should understand that. Women should have the choice to have sex and an abortion if they require, but their ability to chose is not as simple as you would imagine.
Hannah I couldn’t agree with you more, I thought such comments were best ignored, but well done! There will ever be a consensus on abortion - when is a foetus a “person”? To be blunt, it’s my body and I deserve the choice of whether I carry a pregnancy to term. No equivalent in men so difficult argument to put across (blokes can opt to get the snip of course).
If I have an abortion after carefully considering the implications for all involved, then that’s probably best for the bub too. If it’s for the “wrong” reasons, eg. bub will forfeit my next holiday to the Bahamas, then you probably don’t want me bringing another child into the world.
Here in Brissie we are about to enter into level 3 water restrictions when only a few years ago we were told that we’d never run out of water. A lot of reasonbably rich people won’t be watering their gardens because they can’t get anyone to stand there with a hose before 7am. A climatologist said recently that we have had below average rainfall in our main water catchment area since 1976, just two years after the 1974 flood.
James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies said some years ago that people will start to wake up about climate change when its effects impinge on their everyday experience. For many in the world that’s been the case for the last few years now, from about 2002, I reckon. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t think climate change is upon us, and if you think about what it could mean in practical terms we should all worry.
Tim Flannery has been recently writing up a storm in the New York Review of Books about climate change. He reckons the environment movement over there is pretty much knackered. Many people believe that God has given the earth to humankind to exploit so why don’t we just get on with it. Some believe the Second Coming is at hand, so why worry, short term is all that there is.
Flannery wants his kids and their kids to enjoy the world we have enjoyed, so he has devoted all his spare energy to doing something about it. More power to him.
Flannery travels around the world advocating the preservation of his and his children’s lifestyle.
On a jet.
You mean the end of the world really is nigh, Tim? Get the man a sandwich board and a bullhorn! Environmentalists now in the same camp as Rev. Pat Robertson, who also believes the endtimes are here.
Just out of curiosity, Tim: you haven’t got anything against Hugo Chavez by any chance?
If insect man Sir John had said the planet was in imminent danger from giant killer ants, I for one would have welcomed our new environmentalist overlord.
If Peter Doherty says he’s got a family stock of Relenza in his fridge, what does that tell the rest of us. That he’s a Nobel winning worry-wart or that we are ignorantly blase?
Whenever I see the climate loonies denying facts (like 20% retreat in Arctic ice shelf since 1979) I always get this image of Neville Chamberlain by the plane after his return from Germany saying ” I have the paper….” etc.
Emission appeasers.
Fortunately, you guys are becoming fringe whackos…. flat - earthers. Its a promising development.
With respect to the topic at hand, I don’t hate science. You’d be surprised at how environmentally conscious I am. Some examples: I’ve never been able to stand seeing water wasted. Or food. Or to see people wilfully littering or companies wilfully polluting the atmosphere. I’ve written more than once that farmers and graziers can’t go around chopping trees down at will anymore and I’m glad satellites now make prosecutions for that crime eminently possible.
Good stewardship of the earth’s resources is now mainstream as a theological notion too and I gladly give my assent to that trend, though my interest in sensible frugality in living did not derive from Christian environmentalism. It derived from having parents who didn’t allow waste; and from my own natural love of nature, the ocean, exercise etc.
What irks me is that a worthwhile message is at risk of being destroyed by green media tarts who cry wolf so often that a great many people - and, consequently, governments also - don’t listen to them anymore. Every year there are hurricanes. Some years are worse than others. Katrina made the news not so much because of its size but because of its cruel vector. Could happen again next year. Might not happen again for 200 years.
Scientists shouldn’t be using a naturally occurring phenomenon to make exaggerated claims about doom in order to promote their ideas of public policy. This is intellectually despicable. Paul Ehrlich made that mistake with his “population bomb” and, resultantly, he was regarded as an alarmist idiot in due time. That’s not to say poverty and starvation weren’t (aren’t) problems. It is to say that an attention-seeking millenarian did nothing for the amelioration of those crises through ultra-hyped and wrong predictions.
I believe Tim Blair has a post up at the moment on DDT - it looks like certain scientists were wrong about that too. Why? Probably because they pushed the envelope on a good idea - namely, cleaning up nature - and twisted it into an ideology of fanatical puritanism.
I don’t hate science, but a lot of scientists seem to.
Oh please. You’re getting your science news from Tim Blair? And what do you think the scientists got wrong about DDT? You sure don’t seem to be paying attention to what the scientists are saying. Why do you think global temperatures are increasing?
And the DDT story isn’t from Tim Blair - as you know. It’s from this BBC report.
South Africa had stopped using DDT in 1996. Until then the total number of malaria cases was below 10,000 and there were seldom more than 30 deaths per year.
But in 2000, the country saw malaria cases skyrocket to 65,000 and 458 people were killed…
Last year only 89 deaths were recorded.
No doubt, you’ll spin your version of ’science’ to say it isn’t so. By doing so, you’ll prove my point. It’s not about science but ideology.
“What irks me is that a worthwhile message is at risk of being destroyed by green media tarts who cry wolf so often that a great many people - and, consequently, governments also - don‚Äôt listen to them anymore”
You make some sensible points above CL. And that’s interesting about Sth Africa; I wasnt aware of that. But this quote ive selected above is utter pants, my friend.
‘Crying wolf’? Wakey wakey.
‘Green media tarts’? Do you mean the ones lampooned in the Herald-Sun?
‘Governments dont listen’ . Is that, perchance, because the coal industry writes our greenhouse policy?
You fringe denialists really are falling behind the debate.
You’re laying it on a bit thick LE. This further illustrates my point: you’re interested in politics more than the environment. Flannery’s article puts him in the same camp as the American evangelical right. I know the knighted insect man’s comments are giving you a real hubristic thrill but when a scientist makes the same apocalyptic claims as Jimmy Swaggart, it’s pretty clear who the loonies are.
I’ve stated what I believe and why I believe it. You and Tim don’t appear capable of doing so; the main reason for that incapacity is that environmentalism for both of you is less about good stewardship than it is about differentiating yourselves from the political right. This crankish pathology has infected Kyoto as well, whose idiocy as policy has now been exposed by the embarrassing New Zealnd fiasco.
Not everythings about you or the Right, CL. Some of are interested in a sustainable existence beyond the next two generations.
And put your hands up if you *haven’t* engaged in some ‘apocalyptic’ rhetoric here at LP lately (…. not so fast CL).
Its just that some of us in *actual* threats like global warming; others in the imaginary decline of Western civilisation at the hands at several hundred hijab-wearing female refugees.
Does good stewardship go far enough though? I get public transport every day only to watch a zillion commuters driving to work. We need to cut oil and coal emissions significantly to reduce the our CO2 production. Unless you refute the possibility of global warming altogether?
Is it overstating the science of climate change, or re-emphasising an issue that everyone knows about but for which change is very slow? No, Katrina cannot be directly linked to global warming, but its impact was obvious. We can treat it as a one-off and wait around to see if it was just a one in a hundred year event, or we can try harder to change our ways now. Surely hindsight from a cushy armchair is preferable to some of the worst case scenarios if the predictions are wrong. Crying wolf is a case of no-one listening until it’s too late.
I haven’t written about the politics so CL concludes that the reason is because I’m just interested in the politics. Is this the biggest case of projection you have ever seen or what?
CL, I ask you again: what do you think the scientists got wrong about DDT?
Men are still far behind women in terms of reproductive rights.
Oh yes, men have to get fucking written permission off their wives to get the snip?
No, they don’t but there are many doctors who won’t tie the tubes unless they get the written authorisation and approval from a woman’s husband - the ol’ “a wife is a possession of their husband” mentality.
I won’t even begin to discredit your “poor little blokes” routine because it is laughable.
Hi Tim, since it seems to be question time, I’ve got one for you. (Just in case readers aren’t aware, I’ve asked the question repeatedly at TL’s blog but he refuses to answer.)
What eactly did I write that was so offensive you found it necessary to remove the entire comment — a response to Ian Gould - from your blog?
1. CL:
You won’t get an honest anwser out Tim Lambert (Kevin Donahue, Robert Johnson) bcause he is too afraid to say. Lambert is one of those dipstick lefties too afraid to stand up and say yes I do hug trees everyday. And yes I hate America and everything thing it stands for. He does it in a sneaky way. Throwing pebbles over the fence and then running away in case he gets caught.
Show some balls, Tim, announce to the world you are a campus lefty. I promise no one would give a sh….
Even Quiggin, whose politics I despise has the gumption of not pretending who he is.But pretending is easy, right, Tim. That way you can stand on a podium and pretend you are a man of science. When in fact you are a man of computer science- not thermodymanics and climate science.
As a matter of interest, Tim, in my book respecting someone for their accomplishements in the academic means little things like acknowledged research in a particular field. What have you done in your academic life could even come close to an accomplsihment? The UNSW school logo? Drawing a circle with a computer. At least, people like Quiggin seems to live and breathe the subject they teach even if it is messed up! How many posts have you made in the four years running a blog that even comes close to the subject you lecture. Oh, yes let‚Äôs not forget, there was the post advising, friends to use Firefox instead of Windows. As many others would agree computer science is an unbelievably interesting subject over the last 10 years or so. Yet you have nothing to say. Go take a look at Mark Cuban’s blog.
As for standing for what you believe in Tim, You even fail your own posting policy while thrashing everyone else, me included for posting under a different name. Before Lambert comes back, let me say for him that I did post under assumed names. (Tim, saved you the trouble).
However, Tim, while you gave the guy frm Climate Science a thrashing for posting under an assumed name, you did the same thing as was witnessed in the last couple of days..
Do the names Kevin Donahue and Robert Johnson mean anything to you? Sure, you are allowed to post anything you like on your site. But please spare us the pious talk that you support the truth. When you go around hitting others across the head for using alaises and then get found out doing that yourself- you come out looking like a cheap creep. Does courage seem like a thing you want to possess or is pretense more improtant?
Tim let me ask you a question. If you are posting things on your own site under assumed names to support your own drivel, how can anyone, even your Dean at UNSW have any confidence in your honesty or integrity? Get out of our sight you disgrace to teaching, he would say, right?
Using the unversity‚Äôs server, equipment, email address and “company time” makes you a pilferer. For some reason you feel free or you are allowed to glom taxpayer money to run a blog on our cash. Go ask any of the right wing bloggers who you despise if they are doing it on someone else’s dime
Giving people a hard time for using alaises, and then doing that yourself makes you a hypocritical lying bigot.
Before you come back with something nasty to say. You need to answer the following questions.
1. Have you been posting under assumed names, on you blog, to support you case?
2. Did you level accusations against Lott and Mcintyre that they posted under asumed names and took them to taks for doing so?
3. If this is the case, what are to we think about you?
4. If you are in support of science and scientfic reason why then as a computer science lecturer do you feel the right to “lecture” everyone else on climate science and thermodymanics when these are such specialized fields that require years of study? In other words aren’t you so up your own backside that you disrespect hard scientists reasearch and work? Over to you Tim.
oh, and one last thing, Tim. It says on the public record yopu tralveled to Hawaii for a computer science conference. Does you travel mean that it is ok for you to create more Global Warming and not for the rest of the plebs.
Yes I know, Tim you never mentioned anythin about plane travel. Cl never mentioned anything about hating sciece and yet, yet useless lying little shit, suggested he did.
Scientists are the ones who gave us DDT in the first place, of course.
But I’ll take that as a yes, you do believe the end is nigh. Cool.
Now, Professor Bunyip has challenged you to repudiate the pro-DDT stance of those interviewed in the BBC report he cites:
Off you go, Tim, get cracking. Several thousand words, if you please, about how your sort of statistics never lie and why, in the great left-eyed scheme of things, hundreds of little black and brown lives preserved don’t make a rational objection to a favoured theory.
Head over to Blair’s “Skeeters Gassed” thread or to your own blog and answer the good Prof. Personally, I don’t care if you bail on the challenge - this is something between you and the Bunyip obviously.
Tim,
Oh how do I know you posted on those threads under an assumed name?
Just like you made the assumpttion when I posted a comment about you on Blair’s thread. It was the use of language and the way you structure sentences. Assumption….just like you made about me.
I owned up and fessed up it it because I simply don’t giuve a turd. But it seems you do think it is important and therefore it makes you worse. Especially because you went after Lott and Mcintyre for doing the same thing.
Gee, Joe the Cambria certainly takes Tim L very seriously even if he thinks no one else does. Tracking his movements and all. Someone’s been giving him a good poke with the angry stick.
Nabakov:
Just google the wretches name, go to UNSW website. Look him up. Click on his name and the rest is just reading. It’s all on the public record.
I don’t take him seriously. I find his ehtics a disgrace and he deserves the exposure. More like he did to Lott, and the decent guy who runs climate audit.
The salon’s gotten pretty heated, Nabs, it’s true, and I for one don’t think it’s a bad thing. I want to see joe cambria and Tim go stoush for stoush over how the rules of stoushing. Who gives a mosquito’s toot about DDT anyway? Let’s go left, right, pseudonym, antonym, seraphim, cherubim. If the Saturday Salon has any purpose it’s to have a fight about how to have a fight about how to have a fight.
Let’s get meta, people.
Dude. Lay off your cat, what did it do to you?
If you keep poking your pets with corkscrews, so the good Buddhists of Larvatus Bay say, you may wind up reincarnated as a cork.
I called by a bookshop today and bought Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers. His research looks pretty thorough to me. Anyway Jared Diamond says “At last, here is a clear and readable account of the most important but controversial issue facing everyone in the world today.” And reckons it’s his best book yet.
710 million years ago and again about 600 million years ago the earth froze over pretty much to the equator and the development of life almost ceased. About 250 million years ago life on the planet was more prolific than it is now. Then we had the Permian-Triassic extinction event and most life died. In recent times, the last few million years, there has been a sheet of ice over a kilometre thick over New York for a fair bit of the time.
If you’ve seen a smoothed graph of the temperature for the last 10,000 years there is a worrying kick up at the end. In Australia that has meant 1 degree celsius, which is a fifth of the space between where we were before it happened and the last ice age, but in the opposite direction. If all the ice in Greenland and Antactica melts the sea level goes up by 55 meters.
So the extremities in practical terms are glaciers at the equator at sea-leavel or the sea 55 meters higher than it is now.
The scary thing is that homo sapiens is now the biggest influence on what happens next. We are airborne with the joy-stick in our hands, but have not yet learned to fly. Not acting is not an option. Yet we are going to have to act in a consensual way involving the whole of humanity. That’s what’s scaring me.
And we are going to have to do it before we have all the scientific i’s dotted and t’s crossed. We can sit there and say we need more data and less histrionics if we want to, but if we do the risks are far greater than taking anticipatory actions on the best information available.
On DDT the BBC report did not say that DDT was harmless. It’s not my area of expertise, but I suspect the short term benefits will still come at the expense of long term grief. And it didn’t go into the alternatives available. Could there be some dastardly multinational selling stuff in Africa that they wouldn’t, couldn’t use in their own back yard? I understand the Canadians are still selling asbestos to the third world.
Gee Joe, for someone who doesn’t take me seriously you sure spend a lot of time following me around and posting comments on various blogs and sending me long rants via email and making wild accusations about me posting under assumed names.
No, I haven’t been posting under assumed names. That’s your scam, not mine.
CL, I believe the end is nigh? Huh? Are you confusing me with Tim LaHaye now? I know it can be hard keeping all the folks named Tim straight, but you could try a little harder.
Now you claimed that scientists got it wrong about DDT. What did they get wrong?
Prove it wan’t you who posted under those assumed names- Robert Johnson and Kevin Donahue. I think you are a liar.
Integrity shows up in people. The way you screwed around with Blair’s site is a great example of the worth you place on othe people’s property. You were giggling aabout that on a later post. Weren’t you!
You were the stalker who looked me up on Blair’s site and then posted about it. That’s stalking. The fact is I can’t very well get into your site and prove beyond reasonable doubt that you posted under assumed names. But It was you, as language does act like a siganature. You areafter stalked oout comments on Blairs site when I posted under “poster 1″
1.You seem to demand answers to questions as you did with CL. What is it that you have against brown and Black poeple that you would rather see them dead than use DDT?
2. Why do you feel free to take a plane trip to Hawaii, using up all that jet fuel and then rant about the rest of us plebs using burning too carbon? Of course, this question has the same relevance to the “why do you hate scientists” you asked of CL. A little of topic, but seeing you want answers to off topic questions maybe integrity requires you ought to answer this as well.
While on the topic of scams Tim, Why do you feel the right to use UNSW equipment, time and email address that you kindly post on you site when its taxpayer dollars you are using up?
Ah, Mr Cambria returns to the blogosphere with his typical pithy and cogent attempts to wrestle with the secrets of the universe much to the edification of we ignoramuses …
“At least, people like Quiggin seems to live and breathe the subject they teach even if it is messed up!”
Remind me not to get you to deliver my eulogy, Joe.
Not so quick there. He asked you a few questions. Now it’s my turn- before Tim puts his DDT hat on and proves through vectors, co-signs probability theory that if you don’t live in a nice place, and have a swamp surrounding you, your life is worth shit.
Tim:
When you post comments to the Bunyip thread, use Robert Johnson as he sounds like a really nice guy. Kev. is, well a little too much like you, if you know what I mean.
Cl
This is what he did to you. You post qa decent comment critical of greenies. A prefectly decent post and ought to expect a perfect decent reply agreeing or dis agreeinng, right?
Mr.Johnson-Donahue-Lambert come at you with a dagger to your back. Real courageous like, asking, do you hate scientists?
If you take a look at his blog, Mr. Johnson-Donahue-Lambert recently ran a blog throwing a bucket of shit over Hitchens as a result of his debate that he won against Gorgeous George Gallaway ( the British oxygen thief).
So to be fair, if Mr. Johnson-Donahue- Lambert asks you “why you hate scientists, then you question to him ought to be “why do you love Gorgrous George Gallawy, a noted anti- Semite, Saddam and Bashir lover?
C’mon. We can all do better than that. Let’s have some mentions of:
a) the Lancet study
b) Mark Latham’s man-boobs
c) Joe Stalin
d) Dhimmificationism
e) intelligent design
f) inheritable social traits
g) Wets, and
f) the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, Mandrake.
On that note, I think it’s time for another beer. Nabakov, would you please uncork the cat? I don’t have a bottle opener and it looks uncomfortable.
Tim, for the third time: what eactly did I write that was so offensive you found it necessary to remove the entire comment from your blog?
To jog your memory, it was a one-sentence, four-letter “personal attack”. C’mon, tell everyone about the my nastiness and your total lack of a sense of humour. Be brave!
Tim:
I’m missing something here. You posted:
Tim Lambert says:
September 25th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
I haven’t written about the politics so CL concludes that the reason is because I’m just interested in the politics. Is this the biggest case of projection you have ever seen or what?
But didn’t you write this:
Sat 9 Oct 2004
Election
Posted by Tim Lambert under politics
[7] Comments
For reasons similar to those given by Tim Dunlop, Jason Soon and John Quiggin, I’ll be voting Labor in the election today. Not that it makes a difference, since I live in Kingsford Smith, a safe Labor seat.
I hope that I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Labor will manage to win the election. I expect that there will be a small swing against the government, but that their vote will hold up in the marginal seats where the government has been raining money down, and they will hold onto to enough seats to stay in power.
Update: Howard has been returned, as I expected. There was even a small swing to the government, which I didn’t expect. This is bad news for Australian gun owners.
Am I missing something here, or have you written about politics. In fact… you voted for man- boobs Latham (whatever that means). So Tim, if you are dishonest here, can you repeat again that your real name isn’t Donahue-johnson-Lambert. Or is this also a case of projection.
jesus, Tim, you have some goddamned persistent trolls, camping outside the bar you frequented once on a Sunday night awaiting your arrival, scrounging through your rubbish bins after midnight early Monday morning.
Lambert:
“You sure spend a lot of time following me around and posting comments on various blogs and sending me long rants via email and making wild accusations about me posting under assumed names”.
You started this pattern, you lying little maggot. Go take a look at Slatts site. Go take a look at Quiggin’s site. You know the time. When you insinsuated yourself to a bet I was trying to challenge Quiggin to and you decided to glom your way in. I gave you every opportunity to take on a one sided bet for $5,000 that I would lose as long as the money went to charity. But a big hearted dipshit like you didn’t think the Motor Neuron Disease society was good enough. You skulked out of it, recall? Even though I suggested we escrow with a lawyer.
And how about the time I comment on Blair’s thread and you decided to post about me.
So, who is stalking who, you, lying little maggot. As you say stop projecting.
By he way, I did as I said, start making my contribution to the Motor Neuron Society. It will be $5,000 by June 30 2006.
You know what gets to me. It’s the fact that our kids are being taught by a lowlife maggot, who can’t stand up like a man and tell things the wat they are. When deceit and distortion are possible, lying always gets the upperhand, right Tim?
The Harvard system of citation is a stop-gap, half-arsed, imprecise and ugly answer to a question nobody was asking. It’s useless dealing with large numbers of citations from archives or newspapers, and just clutters up perfectly good text with names and numbers.
Footnotes are not bad but not perfect. Endnotes are an embarrassing cousin to the footnote. Hyperlinks kick arse but you can’t hyperlink to a book.
The Vancouver system must have been designed by psychiatrists self-administering LSD. It’s wierd, man, you’ve never seen anything like it, man! Far out.
I wish someone would come up with a decent universal system that can cope with books and the internet—together. The main thing is, though, that Harvard is rotten and should be abolished in all civilised places. I just had to get that off my chest. Thanks everyone.
Liam, I’m not sure what system I was brought up on, but it was very precise, with op cits and loc cits. It drove me mad and I love the imprecision of the Harvard system.
The one thing that bugs me is authors who can’t resist giving interesting additional information in references tucked away at the back of the book. Commentary there should be limited to matters relating to the edition, text etc. If the want to rabbit on they should do it in a footnote right there on the page of the text that it refers to. That’s my bitch.
Liam - as a mid 80s Undergrad, I was born and raised on Oxford. Footnotes. Lov em. I agree, Harvard is that fuzzy bit on your old telly. The stain on you shirt that catches the eye. The thumb you only notice when its injured (existential quote spot= 10 points).
But im suckered now. Harvard is easier. Easy cheesy.
We’re all convenience whores now Liamista. Get wit da program(me).
No, Lefty. Harvard is inconvenient. Footnotes are the way to go.
“Op cit” footnotes are an abomination. Translated it means “I referenced this work sometime in the previous 500 pages - go find it if you can be bothered”. And these days, they are usually endnotes, which are even worse.
The worst aspect of footnotes is internet sources, but may I be 100% biassed and recommend Oz guide to legal citation, Melbourne Uni Law Review p70:
Author, doc title in italics, year in brackets, website name, at date.
The social sciences footnoting of internet sources may have as many variants as there are Arts academics. Whatever system, three and four line internet bibliographies are an absolute farce, with the current MSM’s regime of ‘’so_said_ the_leader_of _the_United_States_of_America_today_blah_blah…”
Right on Liam. Harvard is an intrusive abomination, signalling the surrender of all aspirations to readability. A system designed by boffins for boffins, and best safely confined to rebarbative social science screeds, where nothing could make them worse anyway.
Democrat Senators Natasha Stott-Despoja and Lyn Allison have taken the lead in promoting pro-choice positions on abortion and women’s reproductive rights in recent Senate debates. Crikey carries a report on their initiatives.
They have been supported by their male colleagues and the Greens, and opposed overtly by conservative Coalition Senators, until the debates have been shut down by Government Senators with Labor collusion.
The significance of this is that since the 2004 Federal election, social conservatives in the Coalition have strained at the leash to pursue an anti-feminist, anti-choice legislative agenda. Yet all the available indicators are that public opinion is running strongly in the opposite direction, including amongst Coalition voters. I have recently commented on this at On Line Opinion. Katherine Betts’ research on this issue also supports this contention.
Therefore, if the wishes of NSW Young Liberal President Alex Hawke to bring on the abortion debate “bigger and better than ever” are fulfilled, the Coalition will be vulnerable to wedging of its support base. Labor will probably be unable to take advantage of this because of its own internal divisions and indecisiveness over women’s reproductive rights. The Greens will gain from their unequivocal pro-choice stance. However, the biggest winners in this scenario could be the Democrats, who could come back from the dead electorally by attracting moderate voters with liberal views on issues of gender, family and sexuality.
This calculation may well have been behind Senator Stott-Despoja’s challenge to anti-abortion Senators to ‘bring it on, boys!” during the Senate debate referred to by Crikey, although I hasten to add that I have no doubt that the Democrats are also taking this stance because they honestly (and correctly) believe it to be the right thing to do, and are (justifiably) concerned about the lack of pro-choice action from other quarters.
With Iraq falling further into chaos, ever wonder why the Australian media is so afraid to make the Iranian connection? Iran is the one of the main benefeciaries of the Iraq war. It’s something Tariq Ali has been saying for years and yet much of the Western media ignores him. Maybe this will change:
http://antonyloewenstein.blogspot.com/2005/09/colonial-mentality.html
And another thing…
Western governments are spending obscene amounts on war and “anti-terror” measures, and yet the environment is dying around us. Many journalists and editors aren’t yet joining the dots:
http://antonyloewenstein.blogspot.com/2005/09/enough-is-enough.html
About time this discourse shifted in a sensible direction.
Attention global warming skeptics and denialists: YOU are now the “climate loonies”.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/british-scientist-criticises-us-climate-loonies/2005/09/23/1126982231810.html
Examples of looniness:
Environmentalist links hurricanes to George Bush and SUV “death engines.”
Like a day-after Galveston bible-basher in another age, Tim Flannery says hurricanes the beginning of the end of the world.
Lots of loonies in the Fairfax press this weekend.
Paul Norton is not entriely accurate.
women have already made theor choice before becoming pregnant.
Thatn choice was to have sex.
women now who choose to have an abortion do so for reasons that have nothing to do with their health but with their ‘future’ as the last survey in the medical journal reported.
Essentially abortion is coming down to I will have sex no matter what and hang the consequences.
Hey! How’s the view from there, you climate loonies? Bit sandy around the head region?
The end is nigh!!
Wake me up when it’s over. Or before you go-go. Whatever.
Essentially abortion is coming down to I will have sex no matter what and hang the consequences.
Homer, your tremendous ability to read the minds of women considering termination is just astonishing - particularly given the present range of methods of birth control that are both 100% protective and without side effects. I rate this the greatest human achievement since we put an end to all sexual violence.
On the other hand, it could just be that you really are the ignorant bigmouth you appear to be.
Zoe, only total abstinence is 100% effective and has no side effects. Well, there is extreme horniness to consider.
Speaking of loonies — Sir John Lawton is a biologist who earned his doctorate studying insects.
Therefore, he has just as many qualifications to comment on global climate change as Drew Fraser has to comment on genetic variations in human behaviour — none whatseover.
Thanks EP, but in fact it was zoology, and he spent the last 10 years investigating the impact of climate change on the natural environment; work for which he was awarded a Knighthood earlier this year.
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/latestpressrelease/2005-03honours.asp
Seriously, you waccy-baccy, smog-hugging, elitist climate-deniers sure are getting waaaay OT.
Me, I prefer sensible, mainstream, anti-greenhouse gas emission positions.
I don’t care how many years he spent reading his kook publications; the fact is that Sir Loony-Pants Lawton is not professionally qualified as a climatologist.
If Johnny-boy wants to talk about lizards or slime-molds that’s fine — but he has no more authority to make pronouncements on climatology than Kate Moss does.
However, it’s possible that the Deakin Law Review might print his unqualified personal theories if he asks nicely. I hear they’re big on that sort of stuff.
Based on my interpretation of your comment Homer, I have a rather lengthy response as I do not believe you are entirely accurate:
How can you say that a woman has made the choice to have sex and therefore has chosen pregnancy (and consequently should dare not ask for an abortion?) From your statement it was impossible not to conclude that you are placing 100% of the blame of pregnancy on women! Honey, it takes two to tango. When thinking about sex, (between a man and a woman), it would not spring into many peoples minds that there are many women and girls (and remember girls are hitting puberty much younger now and therefore can fall pregnant as young as
who do not choose to have sex, yet ‘perform‚Äô the act anyway. This is the problem; it may be hard if not possible for a man to have sex with a woman if he does not want to. As much as a woman might not want sex at a particular moment (for many reasons including the risk of pregnancy) there may be many reasons why she cannot chose. And it is not just rape I am talking about; whereby all a man has to do is pry her legs apart, and manipulate or tear her apart. Unfortunately the feminist movement did not cure all women‚Äôs ills, as most of us would know all too well, men and women alike. Far too many men and women still believe that the husband or boyfriend has carnal rights to their partner. This is despite the laws of sexual assault only recently acknowledging the fact a husband can rape his wife. This issue is however obviously not all about sexual assault; a crime that is all too prevalent in the lives of women and girls today. There are contradictory expectations of women across the spectrum held by both men and women. There are many other reasons why a woman has not necessarily chosen to have sex or why she chooses to have an abortion. Granted, sadly many careless men and women do exist and have sex, abortions and bring babies into the world ‘hang the consequences‚Äô. This does not mean that sex for women must only be confined to that of reproduction.
Generally, women may agree and naturally want sex as an assumed essential part of a relationship. Women have needs too. Needs. There are endless issues but I shall only cover those that immediately spring to my mind. Particularly in today‚Äôs competitive world, a woman may fear (real or imagined) that if she denies her man sex, he may leave her or cheat; be tempted and devoured by one of the many seductresses that cross his path. This may be for reasons of love alone, and or combined with the need to remain emotionally, socially and financially stable or keep a family together. Many women who seek abortions have already had many children and she may conclude that she financially, mentally or physically could not cope with another child. Despite the low pregnancy associated death in modern life and ‘health reasons‚Äô not being a major factor, many women face great health risks. The rise of mental health problems and suicide is a concern and mental illnesses aren‚Äôt easily recognized in addition to the growing physical illnesses (both of which they may pass onto a baby). Women‚Äôs maternal instincts should be respected. Many happy successful women are riding on tight-rope-type success for their very well being and sustenance. Some women may even not wish to pass on her genes, or a particular combination of genes, for various reasons. Some women may not be able to provide for a child in one or all of the many needs of which a child has. Some women are still searching for a meaning of life beyond reproduction, beyond; ‘Go forth and multiply,‚Äô something they should have the right to do. To believe that pregnant women and mothers are adequately looked after by the state is having a faith in the system that many people do not share.
To be honest, essentially I don‚Äôt think anti-abortionists or those who pass blame to women give this topic much thought. Think about all the factors. ‘Future‚Äô is not only a factor in the woman‚Äôs choice over sex and abortion but equally, if not more so, the man‚Äôs. To assess the choice and the abortion issue I think you might want to consider the ideological foundations of today‚Äôs society and the human manifestations. And if anyone would think that money/financial hardship should not be a factor in determining whether a woman should have an abortion or not, society has made it so. In our neo-liberal capitalist society, we are driven to be competitive and individualist. All some people have is money, or the hope to acquire it. If you want to change that, then you might want to reconsider who you vote for next time. Sadly, sharing of everything from responsibility to blame is rare today. Sharing is at the bottom of the list when it comes to neo-liberal democratic values. People from all walks of life are only one step away from poverty, for there is always someone going to take their place. If the costs of having a baby would do that to someone, then I would understand why they would want to chose to have an abortion. Understanding is also something we seem to lack in today‚Äôs society. In fact, freedom and justice seem to be disappearing rapidly from our democracy, if ever they were really there.
On a personal note, as a woman, I do not think I could ever have an abortion. Not for any reason other than the love I have for my partner and that I do want a family with him and in fact we intend to have a family together in the future. At this stage we can‚Äôt afford to by each other birthday gifts. If I was to fall pregnant now, I think we would survive because we have the determination and enough people to support us, though it would be very very hard. I do not have any savings, assets or an income. I am an undergraduate student in my early twenties with three years to go and an aspiration to help save the world by working for the UN one day. I believe that is my calling. My partner works six to seven days per week and 20 hours of which he spends commuting. And his income does not go to us or towards our future. He cannot even pursue his own goals yet because his parents and siblings need his help. As do mine and they are heavily relying on me being able to help them out one day. We do not just have our futures to consider. And we are not alone and we are probably one of the lucky ones. However, how do I know whether or not my family, or my partner‚Äôs family, would pressure us to choose an abortion? If I were threatened with the loss of my family and/or my partner and the chance at fulfilling our future aspirations (we feel we can make a great contribution to the world) I fear I would lose myself as a person. I think most women have to choose between either losing the potential baby and the both of them. Women should not be thought of as baby-making machines and selfish, success-obsessed hussies unless men are deemed to be the same. So just be careful before generalising that women whimsically decide to have sex ‘hang the consequences‚Äô. By now you should understand that. Women should have the choice to have sex and an abortion if they require, but their ability to chose is not as simple as you would imagine.
Go the Tigers !!!
My doctoral thesis footnotes ran to 22,500 words. Beautiful - I love the artistry of footnotes. Quit your whining all y’all.
Grand Final: Wests Tigers vs who?
Parramatta is my guess. Or so it should be for a decent grand final. That said Cowboys would guarantee the Tigers a victory!!
Vee vs Immanual Rant
Wests Tigers are going all the way, baby!! Its been way too long!!
Hannah I couldn’t agree with you more, I thought such comments were best ignored, but well done! There will ever be a consensus on abortion - when is a foetus a “person”? To be blunt, it’s my body and I deserve the choice of whether I carry a pregnancy to term. No equivalent in men so difficult argument to put across (blokes can opt to get the snip of course).
If I have an abortion after carefully considering the implications for all involved, then that’s probably best for the bub too. If it’s for the “wrong” reasons, eg. bub will forfeit my next holiday to the Bahamas, then you probably don’t want me bringing another child into the world.
There is an equivalent to the right to abort in men.
It’s the right to renounce support for an unwanted child. This has as much impact on men as unwanted pregnancy has on women.
However, this right is not recognised as widely as the right to abortion. Men are still far behind women in terms of reproductive rights.
CL I heard Tim Flannery recently in an extended interview with Phillip Adams. I think you right him off as a nutter at your peril.
Here in Brissie we are about to enter into level 3 water restrictions when only a few years ago we were told that we’d never run out of water. A lot of reasonbably rich people won’t be watering their gardens because they can’t get anyone to stand there with a hose before 7am. A climatologist said recently that we have had below average rainfall in our main water catchment area since 1976, just two years after the 1974 flood.
James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies said some years ago that people will start to wake up about climate change when its effects impinge on their everyday experience. For many in the world that’s been the case for the last few years now, from about 2002, I reckon. It’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t think climate change is upon us, and if you think about what it could mean in practical terms we should all worry.
Tim Flannery has been recently writing up a storm in the New York Review of Books about climate change. He reckons the environment movement over there is pretty much knackered. Many people believe that God has given the earth to humankind to exploit so why don’t we just get on with it. Some believe the Second Coming is at hand, so why worry, short term is all that there is.
Flannery wants his kids and their kids to enjoy the world we have enjoyed, so he has devoted all his spare energy to doing something about it. More power to him.
So, CL, are all scientists loonies or just the ones who tell you things you don’t want to hear?
Flannery travels around the world advocating the preservation of his and his children’s lifestyle.
On a jet.
You mean the end of the world really is nigh, Tim? Get the man a sandwich board and a bullhorn! Environmentalists now in the same camp as Rev. Pat Robertson, who also believes the endtimes are here.
Just out of curiosity, Tim: you haven’t got anything against Hugo Chavez by any chance?
Hannah: I don’t agree with you but thanks for writing something that thoughtful and passionate.
Tim L, as usual you have it backwards. It’s Sir John Lawton who thinks that scientists who tell him things he doesn’t want to hear are loonies.
If insect man Sir John had said the planet was in imminent danger from giant killer ants, I for one would have welcomed our new environmentalist overlord.
So it’s just scientists that travel in jets who are loonies, CL?
EP, the people Lawton is referring to aren’t scientists.
If Peter Doherty says he’s got a family stock of Relenza in his fridge, what does that tell the rest of us. That he’s a Nobel winning worry-wart or that we are ignorantly blase?
Let the record show that Pat Robertson and Tim Lambert both believe the end of the world is imminent.
Whenever I see the climate loonies denying facts (like 20% retreat in Arctic ice shelf since 1979) I always get this image of Neville Chamberlain by the plane after his return from Germany saying ” I have the paper….” etc.
Emission appeasers.
Fortunately, you guys are becoming fringe whackos…. flat - earthers. Its a promising development.
Something weird was noticed by scientists in the rings of Saturn recently, too - also a change that occurred in just 25 years they said.
Could be Saturnalian industrialists.
So LE, you also believe in the Flan-Lamberto-Robertsonian theory of apocalypse?
CL, why do you hate science?
With respect to the topic at hand, I don’t hate science. You’d be surprised at how environmentally conscious I am. Some examples: I’ve never been able to stand seeing water wasted. Or food. Or to see people wilfully littering or companies wilfully polluting the atmosphere. I’ve written more than once that farmers and graziers can’t go around chopping trees down at will anymore and I’m glad satellites now make prosecutions for that crime eminently possible.
Good stewardship of the earth’s resources is now mainstream as a theological notion too and I gladly give my assent to that trend, though my interest in sensible frugality in living did not derive from Christian environmentalism. It derived from having parents who didn’t allow waste; and from my own natural love of nature, the ocean, exercise etc.
What irks me is that a worthwhile message is at risk of being destroyed by green media tarts who cry wolf so often that a great many people - and, consequently, governments also - don’t listen to them anymore. Every year there are hurricanes. Some years are worse than others. Katrina made the news not so much because of its size but because of its cruel vector. Could happen again next year. Might not happen again for 200 years.
Scientists shouldn’t be using a naturally occurring phenomenon to make exaggerated claims about doom in order to promote their ideas of public policy. This is intellectually despicable. Paul Ehrlich made that mistake with his “population bomb” and, resultantly, he was regarded as an alarmist idiot in due time. That’s not to say poverty and starvation weren’t (aren’t) problems. It is to say that an attention-seeking millenarian did nothing for the amelioration of those crises through ultra-hyped and wrong predictions.
I believe Tim Blair has a post up at the moment on DDT - it looks like certain scientists were wrong about that too. Why? Probably because they pushed the envelope on a good idea - namely, cleaning up nature - and twisted it into an ideology of fanatical puritanism.
I don’t hate science, but a lot of scientists seem to.
Oh please. You’re getting your science news from Tim Blair? And what do you think the scientists got wrong about DDT? You sure don’t seem to be paying attention to what the scientists are saying. Why do you think global temperatures are increasing?
Thoughtful response, Tim.
And the DDT story isn’t from Tim Blair - as you know. It’s from this BBC report.
No doubt, you’ll spin your version of ’science’ to say it isn’t so. By doing so, you’ll prove my point. It’s not about science but ideology.
“What irks me is that a worthwhile message is at risk of being destroyed by green media tarts who cry wolf so often that a great many people - and, consequently, governments also - don‚Äôt listen to them anymore”
You make some sensible points above CL. And that’s interesting about Sth Africa; I wasnt aware of that. But this quote ive selected above is utter pants, my friend.
‘Crying wolf’? Wakey wakey.
‘Green media tarts’? Do you mean the ones lampooned in the Herald-Sun?
‘Governments dont listen’ . Is that, perchance, because the coal industry writes our greenhouse policy?
You fringe denialists really are falling behind the debate.
You’re laying it on a bit thick LE. This further illustrates my point: you’re interested in politics more than the environment. Flannery’s article puts him in the same camp as the American evangelical right. I know the knighted insect man’s comments are giving you a real hubristic thrill but when a scientist makes the same apocalyptic claims as Jimmy Swaggart, it’s pretty clear who the loonies are.
I’ve stated what I believe and why I believe it. You and Tim don’t appear capable of doing so; the main reason for that incapacity is that environmentalism for both of you is less about good stewardship than it is about differentiating yourselves from the political right. This crankish pathology has infected Kyoto as well, whose idiocy as policy has now been exposed by the embarrassing New Zealnd fiasco.
Not everythings about you or the Right, CL. Some of are interested in a sustainable existence beyond the next two generations.
And put your hands up if you *haven’t* engaged in some ‘apocalyptic’ rhetoric here at LP lately (…. not so fast CL).
Its just that some of us in *actual* threats like global warming; others in the imaginary decline of Western civilisation at the hands at several hundred hijab-wearing female refugees.
Does good stewardship go far enough though? I get public transport every day only to watch a zillion commuters driving to work. We need to cut oil and coal emissions significantly to reduce the our CO2 production. Unless you refute the possibility of global warming altogether?
Is it overstating the science of climate change, or re-emphasising an issue that everyone knows about but for which change is very slow? No, Katrina cannot be directly linked to global warming, but its impact was obvious. We can treat it as a one-off and wait around to see if it was just a one in a hundred year event, or we can try harder to change our ways now. Surely hindsight from a cushy armchair is preferable to some of the worst case scenarios if the predictions are wrong. Crying wolf is a case of no-one listening until it’s too late.
I haven’t written about the politics so CL concludes that the reason is because I’m just interested in the politics. Is this the biggest case of projection you have ever seen or what?
CL, I ask you again: what do you think the scientists got wrong about DDT?
Men are still far behind women in terms of reproductive rights.
Oh yes, men have to get fucking written permission off their wives to get the snip?
No, they don’t but there are many doctors who won’t tie the tubes unless they get the written authorisation and approval from a woman’s husband - the ol’ “a wife is a possession of their husband” mentality.
I won’t even begin to discredit your “poor little blokes” routine because it is laughable.
Lovely comments Hannah
Tim, do you or do you not agree with Flannery’s Pat Robertson end-of-the-world thesis?
CL, for the third time: what do you think the scientists got wrong about DDT?
Tim Flannery is not proposing any Pat Robertson end-of-the-world thesis. Perhaps you have confused him with Tim LaHaye?
Hi Tim, since it seems to be question time, I’ve got one for you. (Just in case readers aren’t aware, I’ve asked the question repeatedly at TL’s blog but he refuses to answer.)
What eactly did I write that was so offensive you found it necessary to remove the entire comment — a response to Ian Gould - from your blog?
1. CL:
You won’t get an honest anwser out Tim Lambert (Kevin Donahue, Robert Johnson) bcause he is too afraid to say. Lambert is one of those dipstick lefties too afraid to stand up and say yes I do hug trees everyday. And yes I hate America and everything thing it stands for. He does it in a sneaky way. Throwing pebbles over the fence and then running away in case he gets caught.
Show some balls, Tim, announce to the world you are a campus lefty. I promise no one would give a sh….
Even Quiggin, whose politics I despise has the gumption of not pretending who he is.But pretending is easy, right, Tim. That way you can stand on a podium and pretend you are a man of science. When in fact you are a man of computer science- not thermodymanics and climate science.
As a matter of interest, Tim, in my book respecting someone for their accomplishements in the academic means little things like acknowledged research in a particular field. What have you done in your academic life could even come close to an accomplsihment? The UNSW school logo? Drawing a circle with a computer. At least, people like Quiggin seems to live and breathe the subject they teach even if it is messed up! How many posts have you made in the four years running a blog that even comes close to the subject you lecture. Oh, yes let‚Äôs not forget, there was the post advising, friends to use Firefox instead of Windows. As many others would agree computer science is an unbelievably interesting subject over the last 10 years or so. Yet you have nothing to say. Go take a look at Mark Cuban’s blog.
As for standing for what you believe in Tim, You even fail your own posting policy while thrashing everyone else, me included for posting under a different name. Before Lambert comes back, let me say for him that I did post under assumed names. (Tim, saved you the trouble).
However, Tim, while you gave the guy frm Climate Science a thrashing for posting under an assumed name, you did the same thing as was witnessed in the last couple of days..
Do the names Kevin Donahue and Robert Johnson mean anything to you? Sure, you are allowed to post anything you like on your site. But please spare us the pious talk that you support the truth. When you go around hitting others across the head for using alaises and then get found out doing that yourself- you come out looking like a cheap creep. Does courage seem like a thing you want to possess or is pretense more improtant?
Tim let me ask you a question. If you are posting things on your own site under assumed names to support your own drivel, how can anyone, even your Dean at UNSW have any confidence in your honesty or integrity? Get out of our sight you disgrace to teaching, he would say, right?
Using the unversity‚Äôs server, equipment, email address and “company time” makes you a pilferer. For some reason you feel free or you are allowed to glom taxpayer money to run a blog on our cash. Go ask any of the right wing bloggers who you despise if they are doing it on someone else’s dime
Giving people a hard time for using alaises, and then doing that yourself makes you a hypocritical lying bigot.
Before you come back with something nasty to say. You need to answer the following questions.
1. Have you been posting under assumed names, on you blog, to support you case?
2. Did you level accusations against Lott and Mcintyre that they posted under asumed names and took them to taks for doing so?
3. If this is the case, what are to we think about you?
4. If you are in support of science and scientfic reason why then as a computer science lecturer do you feel the right to “lecture” everyone else on climate science and thermodymanics when these are such specialized fields that require years of study? In other words aren’t you so up your own backside that you disrespect hard scientists reasearch and work? Over to you Tim.
oh, and one last thing, Tim. It says on the public record yopu tralveled to Hawaii for a computer science conference. Does you travel mean that it is ok for you to create more Global Warming and not for the rest of the plebs.
Yes I know, Tim you never mentioned anythin about plane travel. Cl never mentioned anything about hating sciece and yet, yet useless lying little shit, suggested he did.
Thanks in advance.
Scientists are the ones who gave us DDT in the first place, of course.
But I’ll take that as a yes, you do believe the end is nigh. Cool.
Now, Professor Bunyip has challenged you to repudiate the pro-DDT stance of those interviewed in the BBC report he cites:
Head over to Blair’s “Skeeters Gassed” thread or to your own blog and answer the good Prof. Personally, I don’t care if you bail on the challenge - this is something between you and the Bunyip obviously.
Tim,
Oh how do I know you posted on those threads under an assumed name?
Just like you made the assumpttion when I posted a comment about you on Blair’s thread. It was the use of language and the way you structure sentences. Assumption….just like you made about me.
I owned up and fessed up it it because I simply don’t giuve a turd. But it seems you do think it is important and therefore it makes you worse. Especially because you went after Lott and Mcintyre for doing the same thing.
Gee, Joe the Cambria certainly takes Tim L very seriously even if he thinks no one else does. Tracking his movements and all. Someone’s been giving him a good poke with the angry stick.
Nabakov:
Just google the wretches name, go to UNSW website. Look him up. Click on his name and the rest is just reading. It’s all on the public record.
I don’t take him seriously. I find his ehtics a disgrace and he deserves the exposure. More like he did to Lott, and the decent guy who runs climate audit.
The salon’s gotten pretty heated, Nabs, it’s true, and I for one don’t think it’s a bad thing. I want to see joe cambria and Tim go stoush for stoush over how the rules of stoushing. Who gives a mosquito’s toot about DDT anyway? Let’s go left, right, pseudonym, antonym, seraphim, cherubim. If the Saturday Salon has any purpose it’s to have a fight about how to have a fight about how to have a fight.
Let’s get meta, people.
Yeah Liam! You go make the popcorn and I’ll find the corkscrew and chase the cat off the couch.
Dude. Lay off your cat, what did it do to you?
If you keep poking your pets with corkscrews, so the good Buddhists of Larvatus Bay say, you may wind up reincarnated as a cork.
Cripes, this thread really took off during my 10-hour Peyote layoff.
WOAH!
I called by a bookshop today and bought Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers. His research looks pretty thorough to me. Anyway Jared Diamond says “At last, here is a clear and readable account of the most important but controversial issue facing everyone in the world today.” And reckons it’s his best book yet.
710 million years ago and again about 600 million years ago the earth froze over pretty much to the equator and the development of life almost ceased. About 250 million years ago life on the planet was more prolific than it is now. Then we had the Permian-Triassic extinction event and most life died. In recent times, the last few million years, there has been a sheet of ice over a kilometre thick over New York for a fair bit of the time.
If you’ve seen a smoothed graph of the temperature for the last 10,000 years there is a worrying kick up at the end. In Australia that has meant 1 degree celsius, which is a fifth of the space between where we were before it happened and the last ice age, but in the opposite direction. If all the ice in Greenland and Antactica melts the sea level goes up by 55 meters.
So the extremities in practical terms are glaciers at the equator at sea-leavel or the sea 55 meters higher than it is now.
The scary thing is that homo sapiens is now the biggest influence on what happens next. We are airborne with the joy-stick in our hands, but have not yet learned to fly. Not acting is not an option. Yet we are going to have to act in a consensual way involving the whole of humanity. That’s what’s scaring me.
And we are going to have to do it before we have all the scientific i’s dotted and t’s crossed. We can sit there and say we need more data and less histrionics if we want to, but if we do the risks are far greater than taking anticipatory actions on the best information available.
On DDT the BBC report did not say that DDT was harmless. It’s not my area of expertise, but I suspect the short term benefits will still come at the expense of long term grief. And it didn’t go into the alternatives available. Could there be some dastardly multinational selling stuff in Africa that they wouldn’t, couldn’t use in their own back yard? I understand the Canadians are still selling asbestos to the third world.
Gee Joe, for someone who doesn’t take me seriously you sure spend a lot of time following me around and posting comments on various blogs and sending me long rants via email and making wild accusations about me posting under assumed names.
No, I haven’t been posting under assumed names. That’s your scam, not mine.
CL, I believe the end is nigh? Huh? Are you confusing me with Tim LaHaye now? I know it can be hard keeping all the folks named Tim straight, but you could try a little harder.
Now you claimed that scientists got it wrong about DDT. What did they get wrong?
Prove it wan’t you who posted under those assumed names- Robert Johnson and Kevin Donahue. I think you are a liar.
Integrity shows up in people. The way you screwed around with Blair’s site is a great example of the worth you place on othe people’s property. You were giggling aabout that on a later post. Weren’t you!
You were the stalker who looked me up on Blair’s site and then posted about it. That’s stalking. The fact is I can’t very well get into your site and prove beyond reasonable doubt that you posted under assumed names. But It was you, as language does act like a siganature. You areafter stalked oout comments on Blairs site when I posted under “poster 1″
1.You seem to demand answers to questions as you did with CL. What is it that you have against brown and Black poeple that you would rather see them dead than use DDT?
2. Why do you feel free to take a plane trip to Hawaii, using up all that jet fuel and then rant about the rest of us plebs using burning too carbon? Of course, this question has the same relevance to the “why do you hate scientists” you asked of CL. A little of topic, but seeing you want answers to off topic questions maybe integrity requires you ought to answer this as well.
While on the topic of scams Tim, Why do you feel the right to use UNSW equipment, time and email address that you kindly post on you site when its taxpayer dollars you are using up?
Ah, Mr Cambria returns to the blogosphere with his typical pithy and cogent attempts to wrestle with the secrets of the universe much to the edification of we ignoramuses …
“At least, people like Quiggin seems to live and breathe the subject they teach even if it is messed up!”
Remind me not to get you to deliver my eulogy, Joe.
Tim
take your time, I know there quite a few questions to chew on. hey, but who said there was a limit, hey?
Nice dodge, Tim. Sorry, Rev. Tim. Now off you toddle to answer Professor Bunyip. Why are you avoiding his challenge, by the way?
Tim, for the second time: what eactly did I write that was so offensive you found it necessary to remove the entire comment from your blog?
CL.
Not so quick there. He asked you a few questions. Now it’s my turn- before Tim puts his DDT hat on and proves through vectors, co-signs probability theory that if you don’t live in a nice place, and have a swamp surrounding you, your life is worth shit.
Tim:
When you post comments to the Bunyip thread, use Robert Johnson as he sounds like a really nice guy. Kev. is, well a little too much like you, if you know what I mean.
Cl
This is what he did to you. You post qa decent comment critical of greenies. A prefectly decent post and ought to expect a perfect decent reply agreeing or dis agreeinng, right?
Mr.Johnson-Donahue-Lambert come at you with a dagger to your back. Real courageous like, asking, do you hate scientists?
If you take a look at his blog, Mr. Johnson-Donahue-Lambert recently ran a blog throwing a bucket of shit over Hitchens as a result of his debate that he won against Gorgeous George Gallaway ( the British oxygen thief).
So to be fair, if Mr. Johnson-Donahue- Lambert asks you “why you hate scientists, then you question to him ought to be “why do you love Gorgrous George Gallawy, a noted anti- Semite, Saddam and Bashir lover?
C’mon. We can all do better than that. Let’s have some mentions of:
a) the Lancet study
b) Mark Latham’s man-boobs
c) Joe Stalin
d) Dhimmificationism
e) intelligent design
f) inheritable social traits
g) Wets, and
f) the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids, Mandrake.
On that note, I think it’s time for another beer. Nabakov, would you please uncork the cat? I don’t have a bottle opener and it looks uncomfortable.
Liam:
I don’t get the one about Latham’s boobs. What’s that about?
Tim, for the third time: what eactly did I write that was so offensive you found it necessary to remove the entire comment from your blog?
To jog your memory, it was a one-sentence, four-letter “personal attack”. C’mon, tell everyone about the my nastiness and your total lack of a sense of humour. Be brave!
Tim:
I’m missing something here. You posted:
Tim Lambert says:
September 25th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
I haven’t written about the politics so CL concludes that the reason is because I’m just interested in the politics. Is this the biggest case of projection you have ever seen or what?
But didn’t you write this:
Sat 9 Oct 2004
Election
Posted by Tim Lambert under politics
[7] Comments
For reasons similar to those given by Tim Dunlop, Jason Soon and John Quiggin, I’ll be voting Labor in the election today. Not that it makes a difference, since I live in Kingsford Smith, a safe Labor seat.
I hope that I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Labor will manage to win the election. I expect that there will be a small swing against the government, but that their vote will hold up in the marginal seats where the government has been raining money down, and they will hold onto to enough seats to stay in power.
Update: Howard has been returned, as I expected. There was even a small swing to the government, which I didn’t expect. This is bad news for Australian gun owners.
Am I missing something here, or have you written about politics. In fact… you voted for man- boobs Latham (whatever that means). So Tim, if you are dishonest here, can you repeat again that your real name isn’t Donahue-johnson-Lambert. Or is this also a case of projection.
jesus, Tim, you have some goddamned persistent trolls, camping outside the bar you frequented once on a Sunday night awaiting your arrival, scrounging through your rubbish bins after midnight early Monday morning.
Sounds like the Labor Party.
Lambert:
“You sure spend a lot of time following me around and posting comments on various blogs and sending me long rants via email and making wild accusations about me posting under assumed names”.
You started this pattern, you lying little maggot. Go take a look at Slatts site. Go take a look at Quiggin’s site. You know the time. When you insinsuated yourself to a bet I was trying to challenge Quiggin to and you decided to glom your way in. I gave you every opportunity to take on a one sided bet for $5,000 that I would lose as long as the money went to charity. But a big hearted dipshit like you didn’t think the Motor Neuron Disease society was good enough. You skulked out of it, recall? Even though I suggested we escrow with a lawyer.
And how about the time I comment on Blair’s thread and you decided to post about me.
So, who is stalking who, you, lying little maggot. As you say stop projecting.
By he way, I did as I said, start making my contribution to the Motor Neuron Society. It will be $5,000 by June 30 2006.
You know what gets to me. It’s the fact that our kids are being taught by a lowlife maggot, who can’t stand up like a man and tell things the wat they are. When deceit and distortion are possible, lying always gets the upperhand, right Tim?
Jaysus, that’s a fine pair of fer