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Canadian DMCA Won't Include Consumer Rights
An anonymous reader writes "As protests
mount over the Canadian DMCA, law professor Michael Geist is now reporting
that the government plans to delay addressing fair use and consumer
copyright concerns such as the blank media tax for years. While the
U.S. copyright lobby gets their DMCA, consumers will get a panel to
eventually consider possible changes to the law. Many Canadians
are responding today with a mass
phone-in to Industry Minister Jim Prentice to protest the policy
plans."
...the more content that slips through your fingers.
(apologies to Lucas, et. al.)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Thats the way to deal with it: 'you don't get any rights, and if you don't like it, you can appeal, if we feel like listening to you'
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Use all means necessary to prevent this sort of behavior from becoming acceptable (i.e. "just the way things are") in Canada. Support independent recording artists and smaller labels who don't engage in draconian contract measures. Don't buy the mass-produced, pop culture oriented crap that's on sale at your local Huge Media Outlet. All you're doing is feeding the legal budget of the lobbying arms of major recording labels.
Support other creative artists who choose to license their work under Creative Commons style licenses. My personal policy for one site I manage is that all article content must be CC licensed.
Most importantly, tell people about your views. Ordinary people on the street. People you work with. Anybody, everybody. You enjoy a system of government where you're allowed to speak your mind... that's sort of a "use it or lose it" proposition in my opinion.
Does this mean you should stop contacting your elected officials. Hell, no. But take your personal, proactive action of your own instead of just waiting around for your elected leadership to make good decisions for you.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Hoser!
wha'? where am i?
I already did my part - I didn't vote for the Conservatives. They still won in my riding anyway. From what I can tell, our MP is a party-line-towing-kinda-guy - and he's rather high ranking, so if he went against the party line there might be ramifications to his career.
However, that said, if the Conservatives go ahead and find a way to push this through, there could well be ramifications to their entire party.
I keep hearing about how wonderful Canada is, compared to their neighbor to the south, and then stuff like this happens which seems to show no regard for the common citizen at all!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I thought high ranking meant he had power and others should fear him. You make it sound the other way around.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
High-ranking means he kissed a lot of ass to get there, so he'll be damned if he steps on any toes.
This isn't surprising. This is the sort of tripe that we should come to expect from those who label themselves the "Conservative" Party of Canada. As any political observer can plainly see, the current Canadian government in almost no way upholds true conservative values.
For instance, all real conservatives value the rights of the individual over rights of the corporation. Although certain judicial precedent may suggest that corporations should be afforded the same rights as individuals, that clearly is nothing but a legal perversion of reality. Yet here we have the Conservative Party of Canada taking a stance that is completely contradictory to true conservative beliefs, with them supporting non-Canadian corporate interests rather than the interests of the Canadian citizenry.
Real conservatives also firmly believe in avoiding this sort of regulation. Information is naturally meant to be distributed and communicated. And so those who hold conservative views realize this, and strive to make such communication as effective as possible. That's where true economic benefits lie, in the widespread dispersal of information.
So those Canadians who truly are conservatives, please vote for a party other than the so-called "Conservative" Party of Canada in future elections. They just aren't conservative in any way.
why they have to use the term "consumer" instead of citizen? feels like we only have rights if we buy things.
Thus he has no voice or power. I.e. useless.
Some should but there are still those with higher ranking.
Canadian DMCA Won't Include Consumer Rights
What kind of expectation of special treatment is that? If consumers want rights they can pay for them just like everybody else!
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Prepare to be tased
Maybe I'm wrong here, but isn't it quite common in Canada to deliberately create a law proposal so bad it won't pass as that is some times easier than opposing it? I.e, if politics is such that you can't officially oppose something, then you just create a stooge proposal which is doomed to fail instead. At least that's what a Canadian friend of me claimed, so I figured maybe this is a bit like that? Of course I could be wrong, I don't really know enough about Canada to be sure.
that's what, about 85% of the US DMCA?
You haven't seen the latest exchange rate. It's actually a bit more than 100% of a US DMCA.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
My life is a crotch!
All joking aside, this is absolute garbage. Trying to stop people from making money through copyright infringement, I.E. attacking actual criminals, including the organized kind is fine. Trying to make a criminal out of me and my friends because we pirate music and movies? No way. If they get this thing through, I'll vote just about anyone in who'll actually get rid of it. Even if that means putting up with the liberals for 11 years.
Cynical Idealist
In Canada there are only two kinds of elected officials: The Prime Minister and everyone else. Only one of those has any power. It's always been a problem, but it's been ten times worse with this government.
It's not Conservatives that are the problem; it's the legalized bribery. Campaign contributions, fundraiser dinners, etc. by whatever name you want to call it is: I pay to put you in office, you vote to protect and enhance my business model.
As an example, John Conyers, who I otherwise support is backing this big fat stinking turd: Congress Creates Copyright Cops. From TOFA (The Other Funny Article):
I know I'm mixing the American and Canadian metaphors here, but the underlying point is this: If the law allows our politicans any wiggle room to be corrupt, the businesses with lots of money and a desire to corrupt them will take advantage without hesitation or remorse.
Disclosure: I'm a liberal from the People's Republic of Madison, WI; the "Moscow of the West"
In Canada, we have a semi-hidden theocracy of Steven Harper (the prime minister). Anyone that does not agree with him, is his enemy. Even in his own party.
:(.
:( Where are you Reform???!
:)
When some MP from maritime wanted a better deal for his area than was being offered (and the provincial gov't there wanted it as well), Harper threw him out of the party. Then under pressure, did the exact deal that MP wanted. When asked if the MP that was thrown out would be allowed to rejoin the party, Harper essentially said that he will *never* be part of his party ever again.
Or, he was saying that gov't would be accountable to its people and all other stuff, BS as it turns out. The day after he got a *minority*, he *appointed* a *non-elected* person to Senate *AND* into his cabinet!!! No one from the Conservative party disagreed even the former Reformers - quite sad.
Or, he said that global warming is not real. Then when public sentiment changed, so did he and now he proclaims that his party will somehow fit it now and that is a serious problem. Major flip-flopping there too. No one disagreed on that magic 1984-style switch.
Or, let's help the poor by cutting GST but screwing them with income taxes. Poor older people on fixed income are probably hardest hit here. Instead of drastic cuts in GST, he should have cut income taxes, but I guess it looks better if you pay $0.02 less on cup of coffee than $100 on a paycheck. The only people that disagreed were the conservatives - none were MPs.
One can go on and on here. While Liberals where in power, he said that Canada betrayed US by not going with the 2003 invasion (something that US didn't even want anyway). Now he said he never supported that. Essentially, Harper to Canada is like Bush to US. You disagree with him, and you are the enemy. He is always right. The only thing saving his butt right now is the giant surpluses that started when Paul Martin was the finance minister (good finance minister, very bad prime minister
So essentially, high ranking or low ranking in Harper gov't means nothing. You have to follow the Harper dogma or you'll be kicked out. Any criticism is NOT tolerated.
Will this DMCA pass? Depends. Depends if it gets a vote and that depends only if Harper wants it passed. If he does, it will go to a vote no matter what the Justice minister thinks. The only ones that can stop him are the opposition parties (its minority gov't) - fortunately Liberals are aiming for an election soon so it may be more effective trying to prod their Justice critic over this (or maybe even Dion?) than the Conservatives.
I would categorize my self as a definite fiscal conservative, but Harper is definitely NOT a conservative. He's as much of a conservative as Bush is, which is kind of sad.
PS. If you are not Canadian, this post probably has some references you do not understand. That is OK
I'm going to shamelessly post after the first comment in order to get this to the top of the pile. In addition to writing letters to MPs (or emailing, which is a waste of time IMHO) this weekend there happens to be an open house at Mr Prentice's office (in Calgary) tomorrow, Saturday, December 7th from 1:00 - 3:00.
I plan on attending and srongly urge any fellow Calgarians to come to the open house.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Honourable Ministers and Member Jim Prentice, Josée Verner, and Hedy Fry:
I am writing as a resident of Vancouver and citizen of Canada.
I would like to express my strong opposition to the changes to Canadian copyright law being proposed.
Canadian laws must work for the benefit of all Canadians. Not for specific industries at the expense of everyday citizens, and especially not foreign-owned corporations.
Artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers have a right to profit from their creations. But digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the production and distribution of media, rendering obsolete the physical products around which copyrighted works have been based in the past.
The burden is on publishers and creators to innovate and find ways to profit from their works that are acceptable to consumers and consistent with a world in which sharing media is free of cost and effort. It should not be the Government of Canada's role to prop up antiquated business models or forcibly subsidize industries that are unable to adapt to 21st Century realities. Crippling technology and placing onerous and chilling restrictions on the ability of citizens to communicate does not serve the public interest.
I am concerned that this new bill to change copyright law will favour industry and lacks any meaningful input from consumer groups or experts on modern copyright law such as Dr. Michael Geist (U of O). Any bill should consider first the rights and interests of the Canadian public and consumers, before US lobby groups or international bodies.
In the words of Canadian science-fiction author and writer Cory Doctorow, "The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane."
Thank-you.
Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
This is a very, very good idea. If I were in the west I'd be there in a second.
Please Mod Parent Up
Sorry forgot the address. Also remember to bring your donation to the food bank! You don't want to look like a bastard =)
1318 Centre Street NE, Suite 105, Calgary, AB
Website here: http://jimprentice.ca/
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Creative Commons is okay, but we need one site, with one license, which allows unlimited free usage and sharing.
We geeks need to find a way to make restricted content completely irrelevant.
But that is hard to do if we haven't created the garden, yet, the garden where we know that playing is freely allowed.
I don't want to read a license. I don't want to share, but only under certain circumstances that I need to burrow through. Like all of you, I want complete freedom, combined with complete simplicity.
How can we wall these MAFIAA's off into fenced-in areas of their own making, and exclude them from our sight? That is the real challenge. We need to help the MAFIAA's watermarking along, or some sort of solution which will exclude them from Bit Torrent.
Coders, start coding.
I made a call to Mr. Prentice's Ottawa office this morning. I got a reply instantly and left a polite note stating my extreme dissatisfaction with the direction in which they were going and noting I would drop my Conservative membership if this bill is even read. I've also been mobilizing my friends and my office (one of the ladies is the wife of a senator) to kibosh this bill if it's not kosher.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
1318 Centre Street NE, Suite 105, Calgary, AB
Website here: http://jimprentice.ca/
I'll be there in spirit. The roads are way too slick for me to come down from Edmonton. But I made a call, sent a letter, and whispered stuff into the ears of the wife of a liberal senator....
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I doubt the bill, at least as it currently stands, will ever become law.
First, I would be surprised if the bill even makes it out of committee because the minority Conservatives have to beg, borrow and steal support from any and all parties for any bill to become law; they are effectively politically neutered. This has created some rather unique partnerships over the last year, with the Conservatives finding support for some bills from such ideological enemies as the left wing NDP and the separationist Bloc Quebecois. The current Parliament has been limping along like this for too long and a political showdown is coming in the form of an election. The problem is the only other party that can challenge the Conservatives, the Liberals, are laboring under an ineffective leader, an essentially non-existent platform and a divided and disorganized membership.
Second, even without the dagger of a potential election hanging over it, this legislation will almost certainly be amended, picked apart and thoroughly scrutinized by the opposition and other parties looking to embarrass the Conservatives or score political points. This is where public furor will have the most effect. If the public and affected parties can hammer home the reality of what this bill is proposing, it will leave the committee stage with amendments to the most egregious portions of the bill. Regardless, I can't think of a single piece of legislation the Conservatives have introduced since they took power that has not come back from committee without amendments. They simply do not have the votes to overturn such changes.
I am not trying to be unrealistically optimistic here, but I just don't see a need to panic -- yet. Call, write or email your MP and let them know your opinions.
Crazy Zionist byatch like Howard, Merkel, Bush and Sarkozy.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I don't think this minority government will be passing that legislation, ever.
If Harper and his cronies want to suggest supporting DMCA -sans any rights for voters - just to keep Hollywood happy is akin to a non-confidence vote, he's welcome to try that argument with voters.
I'm guessing that won't happen.
.Robert
Michael Liberal Geist
Yep, thought so. yawn.
When emailing and mailing your concerns to Jim Prentice, don't forget to cc your comments to Scott Brison - Liberal Industry Critic. It's important for the opposition parties to see the groundswell against this legislation so they can hold the Prentice's feet to the fire in the House of Commons
Here is the important page:
LEGIS info -- 39th Parliament - 2nd session (from Oct. 16 on) House of Commons Government Bills
This is where you see the bills passed for the parliament review. As of now (Dec 7), there is no mention of any intellectual property/copyright bill.
This is a page to watch!
Bah, I don't like Harper, but he is really not that bad. He stays out of my business, I stay out of his. I wish I could say that for the Liberals and the NDP.
For the record the Atlantic provinces wanted more than their share, plain and simple. Why should they get special treatment? Before you respond, I'll let you know I am not from Ontario or Quebec. My province get the shaft as well, but this is not a case thats worth bitching about.
As for cutting taxes, Harper made life a fuck of a lot easier for students. Tax free scholarships have saved the wife and I over 30k. I have heard a lot of moaning about the GST cut, I think it will help the economy and the % will add up at the end of the year for me and you.
Harper said that the Kyoto protocol is a global socialist wealth redistribution scheme, and he is correct. I repeat, I do not like this guy, but he spoke a rare truth on that one.
I am a reformer as well, but I think that we should not be bitching. Comparing Harper to Bush is plain nonsense. Afterall, with the hardcore reformer(even as the lesser evil) comes all the religious BS. Thats when we get into Bush territory.
"Kyoto protocol is a global socialist wealth redistribution scheme"
Ever hear of negative externalities? If not you might want to read up on them. This "socialist wealth redistribution scheme" is an attempt to internalize costs that used to be external.
Removing externalities is essential for the free market to function properly.
Just another crappy blog
Amen. Remember it was the Liberals who originally brought the previous aborted version of this bill up. Both parties are just as guilty.
Well said. Harper is not perfect, even to his own constituency, but I think that he has done the best job of moderating Canada's various regional agendas better than any Prime Minister in recent memory. This has led to quite a bit of whining in Liberal areas like cities here in Ontario, but there seems to be much more agreement with him outside of these areas than the Liberals or Mulroney beofre them ever were able to muster. Harper's not perfect, but reflecting the views of more Canadians is a very good thing for our political system IMHO.
The bill was listed on the Parliamentary notice paper and scheduled to be introduced on Monday, though it may end up on Tuesday:
I have taken econ 1000. If they are trying to deal with externalities, why would they give exemptions to China(are they #1 yet?) and other developing nations. This is politics, not what's good for the environment. REAL concerns such as water pollution here in Canada are going unnoticed because of this nonsense. I am not denying climate change, my wife is studying it's effects on arctic hydrology, but to think Kyoto will have a tangible effect is foolish(yes, I am pretty sure I can prove that statement). It's pure politics. I also need to add that handing off part of our sovereignty to some global organization is a bad thing. If your personal(or even regional) concerns are hardly heard on a local level, imagine a global level.
You can find a list of the main actors, plus contact information for members of Parliament and news organizations here (scroll down).
The most important person to contact is your MP. I've heard it's better to get him or her to forward your letter to the minister responsible (Jim Prentice) than it is to send it to Prentice directly. Doing both can't hurt. Paper mail and faxes are the best, though phone calls are good too. Don't forget to contact newspapers big and small. In all cases, be polite and to the point.
You can find your MP's contact information by typing in your postal code here.
If you need sample letters, check out the Facebook group's list. My non-technical explanation of why this is a terrible law is here. I'll quote it in a reply to this post.
Isn't Saturday December 8th?
Might want to check your calendars - it's Friday, December 7th.
And to think I voted for this a-hole :(
You better believe I'm going to be at Jim Prentice's office tomorrow during his holiday open house!
Run DMC eh?
Serves you right for supporting Reform.. Populist right-wingers always end up being used by neo-cons like Harper who are in the pay of big corporations and a foreign power (you know who).
What did you expect? You guys are as weird and dumb as the US "libertarians" who end up putting the freedom of capital ahead of the freedom of people.
Harper said that the Kyoto protocol is a global socialist wealth redistribution scheme, and he is correct
Well said, while I don't agree with all of policies, but who else do have ? Dion ? The fucking guy cannot even speak English. First and for most Harper is a policy maker, not a politician. He has become a better politician ( unfortunately ? ) since coming into power, but his economic policies define him.
Would we rather have Chretien ? I think not. I was sorta interested in Martin, but unfortunately he got burdened down by Chretien's bumbling policies and corruption.
Chaaa! by its very definition. Why would anybody expect anything else?
What?
... don't pirate. Don't do it. Tell anyone and everyone not to do it. While we, as a society, keep stealing the **AA's intellectual property, we will forever remain their bitch. Simply boycotting will just make the situation worse, plus it may cause (more) collateral damage to independent artists, and our culture as a whole.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
In order to stop ordinary people from violating copyright, companies have encoded content (particularly music and film) so that it requires special software to access. The software embeds rules determining what access is permitted and what access is not. Unlike copyright, which is interpreted by human beings, these rules are enforced by a machine. This law makes it illegal to circumvent the machine's determination.
But the machine is inflexible. It doesn't know whether it's ok for a student to copy a journal article, for a researcher to look for security or privacy flaws, for a Microsoft customer to play music on an iPod. So the software prevents activities which are otherwise perfectly legitimate and legal. Where copyright grants control over some uses of a work, this technology (DRM) grants control over all uses. And the U.S. version of this law, the DMCA, by banning all circumvention regardless of the purpose, makes that control inviolable.
That's the first problem.
The second problem is that to decode the content, this software must be present in every device that plays it back. It's in your cell phone. It's in your DVD player. It's in your computer. In order for the law to be effective, it forbids you to interfere with the operation of the devices you own. It becomes illegal to unlock your cell phone to use it with a different wireless provider. It becomes illegal to play DVDs on operating systems other than those made by Apple and Microsoft. The only one who can determine what your devices can and can't do is someone else. You lose control of your own property.
But that's not all.
Access must only be given to the right people (companies that make the technology - DVD players, operating systems, etc.) but not to the wrong people (you and me). Who decides? The answer must be a single company or organization. They make the rules about who can play back content - and who can encode content too. You can't publish protected music for the iPod without Apple's permission. You can't make a device to play it back without Apple's permission either. These companies and organizations have tremendous monopoly power. Control of the content requires control of the technology (and of our property), which becomes control of the market.
That control does not lie with artists, authors or musicians. In fact, because the technology is primarily American, it doesn't lie with Canadians at all. This law would place Canadian innovation and Canadian culture in a position of dependency relative to the United States.
That's only the part of the law we know about. There will be more.
Oh yes, I should mention - the copy prevention mechanisms don't work. They might stop you and me from making legitimate use of material, but they don't stop the serious pirates from profiting off someone else's work - after which ordinary folks can use those pirated copies, which, because they are digital, are perfect. This raises the question: are these technologies and laws really meant to stop piracy - are they really meant to benefit creators - or are they intended to consolidate the power of the monopoly and cartel positions of certain publishers and technology companies?
Scholarships and other income tax changes are good though Employment Credit does hit some small business people - you can't deduct it unless you incorporate your business. Sucks to have a proprietorship. While the scholarships change simplified the tax system, the employment credit complicated it. Anyway, I basically only disagree with the GST cut in Conservatives fiscal policy. The corporate tax cut was really needed. This is what will keep a lot of small/medium businesses in Canada and allow current ones to re-invest.
:( I haven't heard what Dion's great plan is either, but then Layton, while a Good Guy, is kind of out there in the left field ;)
Kyoto protocol, on the surface, does seem really screwed up. I mean, why is China off the hook? Or India? Then I realized something - this is NOT about cutting CO2 and taxing but about changing the economy from a carbon based economy to a hydrogen based economy. Oil/gas is running out as you can see that by ever increasing fuel prices. By imposing regulation of carbon emissions, Kyoto is an attempt to allow a free-market economy to develop technology and infrastructure that is sorely needed *before* hydrogen economy can function. If we run out of oil (aka. oil @ $300/barrel? $500? $1000? oil will always be there - just name the price when it is unreachable) before we have infrastructure in place for hydrogen economy, we will have a depression that we haven't seen in our lifetimes. And who will be screwed if we run out of oil but have Kyoto implemented? Well, China and other countries not prepared. Kyoto is an investment in technology that would make Canada's expertise very valuable in not so distant future. And this is not even brining in global warming (aka. climate change) which will cost Canada's economy in the long run much more than Kyoto ever would.
Of course, instead of doing this, the no-brain politicians are now putting money into more subsidies for farmers to plant food crops to make fuel for cars. That's a great idea.
Aside: Oil was $20/barrel about 5 years ago and now it is $95/barrel. Now, if you price it in CND or EUR, ignoring USD devaluation, that would still be 3 times the current price (almost 5x in USD). If this trend continues, will people afford $300/barrel oil in 2012? (aka. $3-4/L gas) $1000/barel in 2030? (aka. $13-15/L gas)
With regards to GST, I just received a brochure (from the Conservative party) that their little 1% tax cut costs $6,000,000,000 in revenue. Now, assuming that 75% of people actually spends that money and that we have 35M people in Canada, that means, the revenue that is "lost" is about $230 per taxpayer. This means that each of these people would have to spend $23,000 on non-mortgage, non-food stuffs *per year* for this tax cut to be worth it (vs. income tax cut). Or a family of 4 (2 kids that don't spend anything + 2 adults), that would mean at least $46,000 *post income tax* money spent!! That means you need to have about $75,000 pre-tax income that is *extra* and disposable - not with today's mortgages! Now, giving $230 to each taxpayer by raising the lowest income tax bracket by $1,500 to $11,000 immediately, well, would give you $230. But then if one spends $1,000,000 a year on crap, $230 is useless as that 1% tax cut just gave you a nice $10,000 bonus. On the other hand, if you only make $30,000 a year and pay $15,000 in rent and another $5,000 in food and then $5,000 in income taxes, you only have $5,000 disposable income left meaning 1% tax cut just saved you whopping $50. The latter is the reality for most Canadians.
GST is not that bad of a tax as it hits end consumers on discretionary spending only. PST tends to a A LOT worse because in many provinces, business expenses are taxable unlike with GST, meaning that it hits business bottom line as well as end-consumers. And if you hit business bottom line, you and up with less business => unemployment. PST => HST is a great move for business, yet sadly not followed by provinces like Ontario or Manitoba
What can United States citizens do anything to make this painful for them?
Seriously, everyone is in a tizzy because movies, music and more are all copyrighted, and so you can't copy them.
Just don't buy any copyrighted stuff. Period. Just don't buy it. I rarely buy music. I don't pay for shows on TV and I don't go to the movies. It's not worth the aggravation and honestly, the product isn't all that great any more anyway.
Find something else to do. There's always booze.
This is my sig.
It saddens me to say that this comes as no surprise whatsoever. Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party government is the most loathsome pack of bum-kissing Bush wannabes you're ever going to meet. The fact that they would sell out the Canadian people for their crooked corporate paymasters is entirely predictable.
The opposition parties are in disarray, and will probably fail to take any effective action in spite of the Conservative Party's minority status.
Harper has been enormously successful by forbidding most of the party to speak to the media...ever. Concentration of ownership in the Canadian news media has reached a level in Canada that would horrify most Americans (though they're getting a taste of it), and they've meekly accepted the situation. Harper has thus been able to keep quite a few ultra-far-right idiots, wild-eyed religious fundamentalists and assorted other whack jobs festering on the Conservative back benches from coming to the notice of complacent Canadians.
There are some very un-nice people calling the shots in Canada these days.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
"Kyoto will have a tangible effect is foolish"
Kyoto was never meant to have much of an effect. It as meant as a first step. Nothing more.
The reason countries like China are ere excluded from caps under Kyoto is because they still emit MUCH less than developed nation on a per-capita basis.
That being said I believe that a properly implemented carbon tax is the best way to reduce emissions. How do you think we should deal with climate change?
"REAL concerns such as water pollution here in Canada are going unnoticed because of this nonsense."
Of course there are other environmental issues other than climate change and they need to be looked at as well, but that is no reason not to deal with climate change. As a voter I demand that politicians be able to deal with more than one issue at a time.
Just another crappy blog
Below is the text of what I've sent in (via email and CC: via letter mail) to Jim Prentice. Feel free to copy/modify it to suit your needs/views.
---
Hon. Jim Prentice:
I regret that I am unable to attend your open-house session tomorrow, 08 Dec 2007, in person; however, I would like to take this opportunity to express my concern over a proposed piece of legislation regarding Canadian copyright, namely the so-called "Canadian DMCA".
I work as an IT professional, however my background is in pure Computer Science. I often spend time performing security research. A Canadian version of the US DMCA legislation greatly concerns me -- one needs to look no further than the 'US v. Elcomsoft & Sklyarov' case to see why.
References: http://w2.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov
In this instance, legitimate security research was suppressed, and the researcher arrested at the will of a large corporation. Rather than acknowledge & fix the weaknesses in their product's security, Adobe chose to use the DMCA as a sledgehammer to suppress disclosure of information they did not like.
This has obvious chilling effects -- as an analogue, if a researcher were to find a weakness in the encryption used for e.g. online banking, is it reasonable to arrest the researcher rather than fix the weakness? To my mind, it is infinitely preferable to acknowledge, fix, and continuously improve security through legitimate research. Those with criminal intent will search for these weaknesses in any event -- it is much better to discover and fix the issues in a transparent manner. As the saying goes, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
Other kinds of DMCA abuse is well-documented and widespread. A few simple Google searches (e.g. "DMCA abuse") very quickly turn up many sources of information. This legislation has been used to suppress reviews or opinions which are negative towards large companies -- technically, these should be handled as a civil lawsuit for slander or libel (if they are, in fact, untrue); however, many large corporations choose to invoke a DMCA takedown notice instead, as it forces the content hoster to take down the material immediately, rather than waiting for a judgement from a court of law. It is important to note that it is *corporations* that send these takedown notices, not the courts. Under this model, 'justice' is a distant wish.
There was some research done in 2005 by the University of South Carolina which showed that 30% of DMCA takedown notices sent by corporations were improper, and even potentially illegal (unfortunately, the document seems to have been taken offline, or moved, but the previous URL was http://lawweb.usc.edu/news/releases/2005/legalFlaws.html). This is a stunningly high figure -- laws are traditionally written to ensure that there is an onus of proof before charges are filed, and that due legal process is followed. The rules of jurisprudence are critical to ensure the equitable operation of any society, but overly broad, overly powerful laws like the US DMCA allow companies with deep legal pockets to run rampant, and allows them to run a private campaign of fear and intimidation.
I wish to point out that I am not pro-piracy, but rather am opposed to legislation (and legislators) funded or supported by corporations. This is the very antithesis of a democracy, and is the current state in the US. Canada is already dangerously close to that abyss, and I do not wish to see us fall in completely.
*Original* creators of artistic works certainly desire to be paid for their works; it is for this reason that I attend live concerts, purchase T-s
Only property-holders' rights are affected by this legislation, and if you are a property owner you are necessarily a consumer. Hence, it deals with consumers' rights, not non-consumers' rights, and not citizens' rights at large.
Now is the time guys and gals. You Torontonians who spend weeks at a time pissing on the American flag. You Calgarians who are always being accused of being Americans by Torontonians and Vancouverites. You Vancouverites who ... who ... who are too damn stoned all the time to really know what the hell is going on. You Montrealers who are so very deeply impressed with yourselves. Now is the time for you to prove that Canadians are not the cowed and apathetic gang of pot smoking socialist leeches we are portrayed as in so many recent Hollywood films. Get up off your asses and lets stop this thing right now. Liberal. Conservative. NDP. Who cares what colour your tie is, just get on the phone and get under some government skin.
We laugh at the Americans for allowing their government and their industry to become so damnably evil, and yet we aren't so far away from emulating their very poor example. Time to disturb some shit.
In B.C., our fascism is green.
If you truly want the mental disability to stop... ... don't infringe on copyrights. Don't do it. Tell anyone and everyone not to do it. While we, as a society, keep infringing on the (MAFIAA|**AA)'s copyrights (whichever is less offensive to you), we will forever be repaying our debt to them we have accumulated as a society. Simply boycotting will just make the situation worse... etc.
See, dear mod, now you can mod me something other than flamebait, because I've removed all but all offensive material from my post. Or perhaps you find the idea that someone of at least moderate intelligence disagrees with you. In which case...
I like watching TV and can't wait for the next series of American Idol. I am part of an experiment of 1,000,000 dumbasses at 1,000,000 computers trying to create a work of genius. Unfortunately, this was all I could come up with.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
When some MP from maritime wanted a better deal for his area than was being offered (and the provincial gov't there wanted it as well), Harper threw him out of the party. Then under pressure, did the exact deal that MP wanted. When asked if the MP that was thrown out would be allowed to rejoin the party, Harper essentially said that he will *never* be part of his party ever again.
You could put any prime ministers name in above and it would still be materially correct. While Canada has a senate, it populated by inactive patronage geriatrics appointed by (and buy) the Prime Minister thus is just a high priced rubber stamp.
That is, in Canada we elect term dictators. No recall either. So MPs have to vote the party line dictated by the PM or they are so screwed. Senate reform has been talked about for years, but no one in Ottawa wants this democracy in Canada, they enjoy the plutocratic nature of our government body.
Isn't there a copyright on the US DMCA that would prevent these things?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
To: Prentice.J@parl.gc.ca
My book, "Using Samba" is available free on-line, and
therefor attracts readers.
Because it's horribly bulky to print oneself, my readers
happily buy professionally printed copies from my publisher.
This caused the book to have been O'Reilly's best seller
for the quarter in which the first edition came out.
I do not wish the Government of Canada to restrict in any
way my freedom to distribute on-line copies, or to let
others, well meaning but without understanding, interfere in
my electronic distribution of the book. That blatantly
interferes with my making money from it.
Sincerely,
David Collier-Brown
davecb@spamcop.net
"Kyoto was never meant to have much of an effect. It as meant as a first step. Nothing more." Well, that is scary. The economic consequences of Kyoto have been estimated. It has the potential to be a major depressor on the GDP of participant countries. The overall drop in the standard of living could have worse effects than the externalities we are trying to avoid. This is where the major problem comes in: We still don't understand the problem of itself. "That being said I believe that a properly implemented carbon tax is the best way to reduce emissions. How do you think we should deal with climate change?" We should act when we sufficiently understand the problem. Prescribing novel cures for an ailment we don't understand is dangerous. If it is really is as simple as they say, just anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission, the solution could be as simple as iron seeding the ocean. "Of course there are other environmental issues other than climate change and they need to be looked at as well, but that is no reason not to deal with climate change. As a voter I demand that politicians be able to deal with more than one issue at a time." But they are not. The politicians have a big external demon to put all our focus on. I still contend that our attention has been shifted away from other important issues due to all the hype.
You're welcome to use it, as is anyone else.
Well, actually, it is both but more or less in stages. High ranking means he gets to help set the party line. Once it is set, he need to tow it even if he doesn't necessarily agree. Of course if it concerns something the might stop his reelection, then they could allow instances of detraction.
But if he is high ranking it means that he is in a position to be made an example of. and making examples is pretty much what scares others into behaving.
Kyoto was created in 1998 before China was the Job stealing polution machine that it is today. China was the intended effect of Kyoto which wasn't to curb Global warming. It was to redistribute wealth and prop up third world countries. Global warming was just the scare tactic to allow countries to be pressured into accepting it. Do you remember all the hostility towards America because we didn't jump on? And yet Kyoto doesn't reduce anything on it's own merits alone, out of the 135 or 237 countries, less then 40 of them have limits and of those only 35 were supposed to reduce emissions below their current limits. 2 of those countries had limits above their current emissions and could in effect sell credits for a period of time. And something else to note, no country has made a substantial reduction in emissions since the conception of Kyoto. Accounting errors have made it look like some where made but they haven't made any. Germany who seems to be the leader on paper can attribute the majority of their reductions to accounting issues just before they were rejoined with the Eastern block.
If global warming is real, And I'm saying it is or isn't, Kyoto was just using it as a means to implement an unrelated strategy of developing third world countries and redistributing the first world wealth. A carbon tax is short sighted and does much of the same while not reducing or controlling anything. It even risks the economic security of some countries which will increase the viability of war and conflicts. It (a carbon tax) is a bad idea outside anything but an imaginary playground that doesn't take ego, nationalism, and human nature into consideration. As a voter from from the south of canada, I demand that politicians take a deep look between the hype to push ulterior motives and the actual evidence with the actual situation and make policy according to real and rational thought concerning the real implications of it. If this means addressing global warming, then be it. But it needs to be done in a way that isn't sensationalized by hidden agendas and emotion to cover those agendas up.
"We still don't understand the problem of itself."
The the thousands of scientists on the IPCC seem to disagree with you.
The thousands of scientists publishing in peer-reviewed literature seem to also disagree with you.
Just another crappy blog
"If global warming is real," Thousands of scientists publishing in peer-reviewed journals have said it is real. That is good enough for me. If you think a carbon tax is isn't a good solution what do you propose to deal with the problem?
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There hasn't been time to make this an "official" move of the Calgary Unix Users Group, but a number of group members are planning to show up at Prentice's office at 2:30 PM.
My proposal is to deliver one message and have everybody just walk out without asking questions or getting into debate. We'll leave behind a printed copy with names, addresses, phone numbers on it of people who couldn't be there. It's not a "petition", its just a threat. (Why mess around.) The proposed text I posted at the CUUG mailing list is:
Mr. Prentice, my companions and I are members or friends of the Calgary Unix Users Group,
basically an organization of mostly middle-aged computer professionals that operate and
program the kind of servers that run large corporations and the Internet itself. As
members of the high-tech industry, we have been monitoring the copyright debate for
over a decade now and we are all convinced that most industry-backed copyright
legislation is bad for the industry itself.
The same kind of people opposed radio 80 years ago because it 'gave away free music' and
the VCR 25 years ago when Jack Valenti infamously described it as being to Hollywood
what the Boston Strangler was to women. Your proposed legislation could easily damage
both hi-tech and artistic content industries alike as much as the proposed laws against
VCRs and radio would have if legislators of those times had been foolish enough to
enact them.
We see it as our duty as citizens, therefore, to let you know that if anything remotely
resembling this legislation is passed by this government that we will have to cast
aside all our former political preferences in favour of ending conservative party rule.
We are not talking about changing our votes. We are talking about donating to your strongest
opponents, fund-raising for those opponents, working for those opponents. Your own seat
here in Calgary is no-doubt safe, so we as rational engineers will of course devote our
efforts to seats where the conservative party is weakest. At our age and income, we can
simply afford to travel to those ridings at election times and devote a few vacation days to the
noble cause of firing you, if you do not reconsider this ill-advised legislation.
Thank you for your attention.
I don't believe there is a problem that needs dealt with right now. I think we need to sit a sift through the hype in order to understand exactly what is going on.
As for peer reviewed journals and scientists in agreement. Last I heard it was very detrimental to your career if you disagreed with global warming in any way. We have had reports of scientists losing their jobs, having their lives threatened, different credentials being threatened to be revoked and so on. It isn't like anyone is free to object unless they are in a position to gain employment and funding outside the peer system.
And yes, I said I wasn't going to touch on whether it exists or not. I'm not making any statements of the sort. I do know there is a pretty big effort to quash any opposition and that should at minimum throw some alarm bells on. Obviously, your of the mind that you have been convinced it is a problem. So why not purpose a solution that doesn't end up in shifting the supposed problem to other countries while costing the economic well being of the current countries. Better yet, sit down and think of the full ramifications of a carbon tax system and think about how it would work in real life without having some oppressive force managing it.
But any ways, We should look at the problem and get paste the hype and examine what the real problems might be and how best to address it. Possibly creating an international project to develop cleaner processes of combustion or maybe even ways of cleaning the exhaust and offering any other country or business to implement it royalty free would be the best answer. It isn't like people want to pollute. It is that they don't want to be driven out of business or into economic hardship trying not to. With a coalition like that, we could have cheap scrubbers that could be amended to existing exhaust systems relatively cheaply and there would be options concerning what the best implementation for different processes and all could be. If there is a problem, rigging a system some one country could profit from another sovereign nation really isn't the solution.
I gotta tell ya, it does my left-leaning Canadian heart good to hear people who describe themselves as conservatives so unsatisfied with Harper. Not sure what I think of Dion, totally unimpressed with Layton, but as long as the bloc's still a factor, we'd better get used to minority governments...
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Fine, if the IPCC understand the problem so well, why don't they have a model that is right to within an order of magnitude. I think you'll find that most of the scientists do agree with me, at least the ones I have spoken to seem to think that there is much left to understand. To me this situation is akin to being trapped in a burning building. It seems that a lot of people are panicking, when they should be moving a little slower and thinking.
"Last I heard it was very detrimental to your career if you disagreed with global warming in any way."
see this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7092614.stm
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I was a member of the conservative
party when the merger was proposed.
For some unknown reason I wasn't
invited to vote on it, although
people who had just joined were.
Including people who had breached
the party constitution by simultaneously
being a member of the Reform party.
Draw you own conclusions, folks...
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
However, I'm not exactly sure I can accept the idea of that article as being proof. I mean, what would you do if the US post office decided to do a study on drug dealers and asked "everyone who is a drug dealer" to fill out a form describing their acts of dealing drugs and mail it back to them. I know we aren't talking about dealing drugs but we are talking about ruining people's lives and so on.
While I will admit that the article seems through, it does miss some publicized cases. We have had Scientists in Oregon and Wisconsin who claimed they lost their jobs because of their stand on global warming. We have had a number of detractors publicly claim to have had their life threatened, and it was covered pretty much when the weather channel girl suggested kicking people out of the meteorological society or whatever it was of a TV weather person didn't tow the line. The article touches on two of the popular critics but it doesn't mention their attempts at getting the raw data being outright rejected. Someone claiming to be John Hunter (from Australian fame) actually posted this as a response to why the data was being password protected and not available to him. You can check it out here I know what you going to say, but before you do, I have to ask, does peer reviewed actually reviewed by anyone who wouldn't disprove or hurt your work? or would peer reviewed mean reviewed by anyone, critics included? I have no way of proving the person was really someone in charge of data or not. This is the Internet after all. But that was posted around 2003 or so and I haven't heard of any rebuttals claiming it wasn't so.
Either way, there seems to be enough "pointing" to suggest that something "might" be up. Maybe some of the difficulties in getting access to some of the data means less then what it seems. Maybe all the political agendas using Global warming for other results are just opportunists and no reason to be alarmed. But I doubt any of these questions or maybes would be answered soon.
"We have had a number of detractors publicly claim to have had their life threatened"
There is no doubt that some people in this debate have acted immature. Those people should be ignored. There is no excuse for making death threats, and in such cases it may be worth while to get the police involved.
That being said having some idiots willing to go to such length to silence critics doesn't diminish the validity of the scientific debate.
"it was covered pretty much when the weather channel girl suggested kicking people out of the meteorological society or whatever it was of a TV weather person didn't tow the line"
Thats not how I interpreted that whole situation. What she said was that any member of the meteorological society that disagreed with the scientific consensus had better be supported by peer-reviewed literature. They better not be using arguments that have long been debunked by the scientific community, as many were (and still are). Remember that a weather man is not a climate scientists, and in virtually all cases they aren't qualified to challenge climate science.
It would be like a family doctor challenging the accepted consensus of how the flu is spread (without peer-reviewed data to back him up) and passing false advice on to his patients. Many would see that as a perfectly good reason to suspend his medical license, and in many ways there are some weathermen who are doing essentially the same thing.
"I have to ask, does peer reviewed actually reviewed by anyone who wouldn't disprove or hurt your work? or would peer reviewed mean reviewed by anyone, critics included?"
When your work is peer-reviewed the only evaluations of your conclusions that is made is weather it was arrived at logically. Many papers are published where the reviewers don't agree with the conclusions, but they do admit that they were arrived at logically.
This is essential for the peer-reviewed process to remain useful as the established medium for scientific debate. Scientific debate depends on being able to seriously look at new ideas even if they challenge the status quo. Journals gain recognition by publishing controversial articles (assuming that they meet the rigorous standards required to be published in the first place). This is where most of the anti-climate change 'research' falls short; it may be good enough to fool the general public but it does not hold up to scientific scrutiny, and thus is not published. The same thing goes for researchers, they gain recognition when they discover something new, not by agreeing to the status quo. A young researcher who can successfully challenge an established theory (again his arguments need to stand up to scientific scrutiny) will gain almost instant recognition, and spur many debates in the literature.
The simple fact is that if it isn't peer-reviewed then it isn't part of the scientific debate.
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Well, it wasn't what I'd imagined, some kind of forum with Prentice up front of an
/. about 11 AM), a few
audience, taking questions.
It was an Xmas party, I think mostly with his supporters.
However, it was clear many others were there to talk copyright, (some "We Demand Fair Use"
posters left out in the hall.) and people were more or
less lined up to have a few minutes talk with him, and Prentice was taking them all on
at arm's length, eyeball-to-eyeball. Everybody was polite.
So we went with that, too. Four of us showed up. We waited in the (very small) room
where people were talking to him, listened in on some young creative-content people
talking to him about the same stuff.
Then he turned to me, I introduced us, handed him the note with eight names on it, and
summarized (even further) the its-bad-for-industry-itself arguments about radio and the
VCR. He engaged with that, asked several questions, we had a real discussion. He
wasn't spouting industry talking points. And he said we (and Prof. Geist) hadn't read
the legislation yet. So I just phrased it as "there's a broad concern in the land that
there's going to be legislation that only defends the rights of copyright holders and
not the public ones". Etc.
I expressed concern that if we cripple our industry with bad legislation, people may start
making choices to buy from other countries, say maybe Bollywood will start making English movies
and with studios that don't use DRM. "Canada, the US, and Europe aren't the whole world
any more". He asked something amounting to, "why not let the market decide", and I grinned to
make it a joke (sort of), saying "we'll fight them on the beaches and in the streets, but I'd rather
fight them on the beaches now so that is isn't on the streets a decade away - head it off in
legislation before the market loses billions". Or something like that, probably even less clear.
One great bit at the end is that he asked how we distinguished between a $5 CD and $1500
CD of Photoshop. I felt like thanking him for raising the subject. I said, we don't - and it was the software
vendors with $1500 to lose that gave up on DRM twenty years ago, not worth the lost
customers.
He nodded, said "thanks", and we were done. The "threat" part was left on the paper and didn't cloud the Xmas
party...but it's in his pocket. Message delivered! Hand delivered, to the Minister
for Industry.
So, though we just had 3 hours to pull an effort together (I read this on
CUUG members did their bit for copyright reform.
lol.. Well, yes it does diminish the validity of scientific debate. How are supposed to have an honest debate when people are in fear of their lives to say anything contrary to the standard position? However true or widespread that might not be doesn't really detract from the issue that some people might not be participating one a level necessary for objectivity.
I'm not sure how you got that impression, that wasn't how it was reported. She said something like
And later hosted people on her TV show "the climate code" who advocate Nuremberg style trials with the death penalty for anyone who doesn't believe.
It was later reported that her advocacy for removal was even when a weather person said something like "this storm isn't because of global warming".
That would be all fine and dandy if the AMS was like the state medical board. But they aren't and in reality, they want to pull the credentials for simply saying you didn't get the flue from using a public toilet. If they were to say anything like This storm isn't because of global warming, it would qualify them according to her reasoning. There were quite a few concerned scientists saying the hurricanes were because of global warming, more specifically Katrina and their message was to expect more of them and more serious ones too. Of course that turned out to be the wrong prediction.
So if I presented you with a paper for review using fallacious data, it would pass as long as the method and conclusion seemed logical? I don't see how much weight peer review could give then. If this is true, I mean we could be looking at the same date providing two different conclusions and none of them being technically correct, but having both arrived at those conclusions because of a difference in emphasis on a certain part of the data. Could you explain that a little more?
That is probably true. However, are we getting all the debate? Are there people who want to keep their jobs or AMS credentials or life who have decided not to participate. Unfortunately, the scientific debate is clouded by political debate which has left the scientific portion somewhat in question. The political solutions for global warming as of yet seem to be shrouded with redistribution of wealth schemes and the entire glob
Just thought I would post my experience here: http://tylerkinch.com/12/2007/canadian-industry-minister-jim-prentice-takes-questions-provides-little-answers-on-copyright-reform/
"So if I presented you with a paper for review using fallacious data, it would pass as long as the method and conclusion seemed logical?"
That is not what I said. I was referring to the review of the conclusions of a particular report. Obviously other parts of the paper are also reviewed. If your data is fallacious, or your methods are problematic, or you don't properly state your assumptions your paper might be rejected.
I referred to the review of the conclusions because you seem to be under the impressions that if someone doesn't tow the line they wont be able to get their work published, and that simply isn't the case. If you present good research and arrive at a logical conclusion your work will be published regardless of whether you agree with the status quo or not.
For the record this is what she said:
"Meteorologists are among the few people trained in the sciences who are permitted regular access to our living rooms. And in that sense, they owe it to their audience to distinguish between solid, peer-reviewed science and junk political controversy. If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns. It's like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather. It's not a political statement...it's just an incorrect statement.
I agree with every meteorologist who says the topic of global warming has gotten too political. But that's why talking about the science is so important!"
If they are going to challenge climate change they need to speak to the fundamental science (and that means peer-review) of climate change. How is that controversial?
"However, are we getting all the debate?"
Science is very good at understanding the natural world. In fact nothing is better. While the media makes lost of absurd claims (on both sides of the argument) the peer-reviewed literature is quite clear, is not sensationalized and is the least biased source of data available. The problem is many people completely unqualified to debate the science have done just that. Lets leave the scientific debate to the scientists.
Just another crappy blog
That's nice. For w minute there I was stating to wonder.
I was only under the impression because the accusation was made. And from the looks of it, there seems to be a concerted effort to make it known that people will be punished for not towing the line. And that goes without dispute.
Hmm.. That is something else. You seem to quote the same thing I have but with a little more. But you see, there is more, like the call to prosecute deniers in Nuremberg like trials that would and up with death.. It went something like this,
Good, but I suspect the science it mared with politics
My understanding and that of many others is that they don't even need to challenge global warming. Something as simple as saying this storm or hurricane isn't the result of global warming would be enough to kick in the call for removal. I know you are going to say that's crazy but the AMS just recntly release new certifications and deemphasized their old onea plus they have modified their requirements for the old programs and the new requirements aren't exactly public.
I though I made myself clear on the peer reviewed literature. I don't trust it. You can. As a matter of fact, I have some bridges I am willing to sell. I'm not talking like I think you are crazy or gullible either. I just figure what the hell, I will end up selling them to someone.
You can believe or disbelieve global warming. I don't care. It isn'
"I though I made myself clear on the peer reviewed literature. I don't trust it."
That really is the crux of it isn't it. Who do you trust?
And what would it take you to believe that climate change is real and that we are causing it.
Just another crappy blog
The way Harper tries to force this law through is eerily similar to what happened in Finland not too long ago, both in the fact that it was industry-backed (in Finland's case, it was downright industry-written) and that politicians ignored LOUD protests from artists and consumers. In Finland, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, all youth sections of the political parties undersigned the same memo opposing the law reform, to no avail: in Soviet Finland, a bureaucrat only has to claim that EU demands a legal change to silence the crowd. Google "Lex Karpela" and see Henri Sivonen's homepage for some background info.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
I don't trust the people pushing the political agends which seems to be quite a bit of them. I don't trust the people who want to quite decent by labeling then "deniers" in comparison with Holocausts deniers or the people who want to set up death courts to have mock trials and kill non believers. I don't even trust those that associated with them, there seems to be a sort of brainwashing going on and people are getting sucked into the cult of global warming.
Now, The cult of global warming isn't everyone who believes in it. It is the extreme people who support some of the things I mentioned above. Just like there are religions and cult based around religions.
Well, that is a loaded question. I already believe global warming as a basic concept is real. I purposely was trying to avoid the question of it being real or not because the rest of this answer is going to upset people.
.9 degree increase to 1 because the GHGs amplify the other causes by a small amount, we would have politicians losing out, we would have the redistribution of wealth crowds losing out, the IPCC and the UN would have just lost face, International leaders the same, We would have businesses who are set up only to scam people with carbon offsets losing out, we would have the citizens themselves losing out because of industry that has taken a more expensive approach to something that could have been done cheaper or more efficiently and resulting in savings to the consumer.
Global warming as a concept has been hijacked by people who want to push ulterior motives and agendas. While I know that it is real, I don't know that it is a problem, I don't know that humans are the sole cause. I don't know that the human contribution is significant enough to be considered the forcing or if it is just an aggravating factor. There is new stuff coming out that suggest a simple precondition of Co2 and the industrial age effects the amount of influence the Sun has on the modeling and by stripping some of those out, solar forcing seems to have a much larger role that can show the same results as we are seeing with Co2 and GHGs. You can read more about http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf >it here.
Could it be that Human contributions to global warming has only a minor effect that the 1 degree F increase in temperature we have seen this century be attributed to something else. I mean that would be a radical view when considering all the control and agendas that depend on Humans as the sole cause. If it turns out that Humans are responsible for pushing a
So until you can take politics out of the question, I don't think I could even support the scientific consensus on the deal. The IPCC is nothing but a political machines who's sole purpose was to find global warming to be real and connections between global warming and humans. They release worst case scenario reports that if came true, we should have seen a lot of people displaced by now. We should see a lot of flooded coastlines. We should be seeing mass extinctions of animals and watching everyone starve because we couldn't cultivate crops in excess like we used to be able to.
But hey, they were also pushing the Kyoto protocol which would have ended up in a redistribution of wealth scheme and if we were lucky, result in only a minor fraction of reduction of the increased GHG emissions in the future. None of the countries who signed on to it has made a significant reduction since then. The reductions actually follow population growth more then it does any progress on cleaner fuels. I think this is something that the modelers of the Kyoto protocol knew about when setting it up. Not to mention that in it's current implementation, it favors European countries quite well when you consider the Euro
"We might hear 10 things a week about global warming, 1 might be pure science backed while the other 8 might be political motivated science or more likely opinion pushed as fact in an attempt to push a political agenda."
You seem to have a hard time sperating the scientific argument from the dumbed down and sometimes inaccurate arguments presented in the media. There is a difference.
So it comes down to why would you believe thousands of scientists, when there is a chance it is all a big conspiracy.
Again if you can't trust the experts who can you trust. Who do you trust (or more importantly who do policymakers trust) when the situation is complex and politicized.
Just another crappy blog
I know you might be able to go past that, but I don't remember how many people who have said things and presented scientific information and people don't want to address what they said because somewhere along the lines, Big Oil gave them money or they are connected to the evil republicans. It isn't as easy as looking at a paper and understanding it either. The majority of everyone will have to rely on someone else's interpretations concerning the science. I don't think trust is the issue here. Well, it is but not in the sense that I think you are going with it. You have to more or less take it in from all sides and sift through it. Of course this helps if predictions being made are actually correct and happen. But often, the predictions don't appear, some statement about something or another is made to explain the failures for the predictions and by that time it all looks like a snow job. Currently, the people who have said global warming isn't really a problem as extreme as it is being made out have a few pluses when it comes to predictions. More predictions have failed to materialize then that have.
"Would you believe the research Exxon put out on the same topic?"
If it was peer-reviewed then I would certainly expect it to be included in the scientific debate. The problem is many 'studies' funded by Exxon don't stand up to scientific scrutiny. That is why they are not published.
Science as an institution spends large amounts of time and money trying to prove itself wrong. That is what makes such a powerful method to describe the natural world.
Just another crappy blog
Now all you need to do is slap your hand print on an astronavigation exam and sign it.
This will go on forever. You sir/madam, have *preconceived* ideas that will never be moved even in face of *proof* like real warming being observed *now* or CO2 levels rising. Your ideas are no longer scientific, they are dogmatic. Showing you proof of anything would be like showing a religious zealot proof of evolution (even though Roman Catholic church has no problem with evolution - probably learned their lesson from Galileo as they finally had to apologize that Galileo views were not blasphemous. The Earth does in fact revolve around the Sun). It is just wasted bits and bytes.
Science doesn't *care* about research from "Big Oil" or Greenpeace - both are treated the same. Everyone will just try to find holes in the research just like with any other research. And if holes are found, that research or part thereof is invalid. That is how science WORKS.
So, find holes in global warming. Then write it up. Then get it published by some scientist (just contact big oil if you need PhD to review - they may want to help if you are not a wacko). Then defend it against currently accepted views and if they can't find any holes in your research, well, you just showed the world they are wrong. If you CANNOT find holes in the global warming research, well, then your ideas remain dogmatic - 100% worthless to the real world situation.
As for arguing on how to tackle global warming (climate change for the scientifically deficient crowd), then do that with your politicians. That is not a scientific process. Scientists are just there to recommend targets - politicians are there to actually do anything about it. That's how we got Kyoto - political step.
Anyway, dogmatic ideas are not scientific, no matter how much you believe in them they are not true.
And when you consider most of the review was done by the IPCC, a political organization whose purpose wasn't to actually review anything or do it's own research but to find connections to prove global warming and that humans are the cause. How do you weed through that?
But lets look at this further, Temperatures went up on a global scale of about 1 degree F or one half a degree C. The Co2 levels have gone up too. And so has that other GHG that is present in quantities more then any other green house gas, Water Vapor. So you think that it is probable that Co2 is the defining factor above all other possible reasons even though that the level of "increased temperature" is less then the corrections we do to older measurements of the temperature to bring them into line with modern equipment. I can understand you being convinced of that, after all, a very large and respected political organization who stands to benefit fro their brand of global warming has convinced you of it. The idea that Co2 is a force and not a reaction or feedback is something of the Gas and Beer analogy I made. It could be true that higher gas prices means higher delivery costs which in turn mean higher beer prices. But it was because of some other factor entirely different (government taxing).
Nice little fallacy there. But isn't one of the basic scientific principles to question everything presented to you as fact when it has some political or religious motivation behind it? Of course my arguments aren't scientific. I'm talking about something that is politically motivated not pure science. and to that fact, the zealotry of the believers more closely resemble the religious dogma then my arguments which basically boil down to "do we have all the information and is this information being interpreted correctly or it is skewed because of some external political force".
As a matter of fact, you just illustrated my point I was attempting to make. How do we know what is being presented to us is real and not influenced by character assassination, threats of taking some objectors life either directly today or by threatening their career or holding Nuremberg style trials to kill they later after the political wing gets the control they want. Here I am not a threat large enough to dispel anything other then to get people to ask questions and you had to jump into a civilized conversation between two others to attempt to assassinate my character. and here is a hint, I wasn't trying to convert the other person I was talking with, I wasn't attempting to make him question what he already wanted to believe. I was showing him the political connections that are intertwined for too deeply in this topic and that is the reasons I don't fully support it. Science to advance a cause is the same thing whether BigOil is doing it or some political or religious group. It is tainted with their ultimate agenda and this shows with the current purposed fixes. I think that is a valid statement that you have done nothing to address other then compare me to some religious organization not willing to accept the incorrect version of evolution. BTW, Don't take the incorrect version of evolutions to mean I am a creationist. There are other evolutionary paths that make much more sense then the ones currently presented.
Don't twist my words please.
:). So far the "evolution way" has been seen observed in every repeated case for how these bacteria evolved to deal with the antibiotic.
:) lol
Second, how can you be credible when you say that water vopour is a greenhouse gas in the same way as CO2? Water is always in a saturated state in the atmosphere. Yes, it is a major contributor to global warming that was *always there*. 70% of the surface is water! If CO2 was in pools like water and water was at the levels of CO2, then it would be backwards. Hope you can understand the difference between saturated, always there state and *new* additional greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane. The 2 latter ones are never saturated and hence add to the greenhouse effect of what gases we currently have in the atmosphere.
Another example would be Titan (moon of Saturn). Currently it is thought that it contains liquid methane seas, etc. Thus, on Titan methane would not be a "global warming" greenhouse gas like it is on Earth.
Regarding evolution, it is a scientific fact now. It may have been a hypothesis by Darwin (his free book here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2009), but now it is a fact that microbiologists rely on. It is even observed in nature on large organisms without our short lifespans. Of course you may chose not to read what Darwin has to say regarding his observations but continue to believe in dogma.
As for other examples, give me proof instead of idle talk. Especially about funding. And if you approach any project as "disprove of a", you'll not get funding because your method is unscientific. The idea is to observe something that then through that observation would disprove "a". This means, you cannot disprove evolution (which is a fact). Well, prove that creation happens right now. Prove to me that the bacteria that are now resistant to antibiotics were "created" in such a way that would contradict evolution (no, humans engineering them doesn't mean creation - unless you think humans are now gods?
Of course, there is Chernobyl. Or were these animals that clearly descended from the original ones did not change in response environmental pressures mysteriously created by some deity?
http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/437/4324.html
Or are you going to state that this is it a government cover up of the alien experiments?
Anyway, at least read some articles from BBC (or do you considered them biased gov't sponsored propaganda?),
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/7074601.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081026.stm
Well, first, water vapor isn't a constant in the atmosphere. It isn't always saturated. And if the models claiming Co2 is the culprit treat it as a static constant, then I suggest fixing them. It has been increasing in amount for the last few decades. The Dew points have been rising which means that there has been more water vapor. In fact, the water vapor in the atmosphere is not saturated. It remains at a level below saturation and this level has increased beyond the coefficient of relative humidity. Here is an article that explains roughly 70% of germany's increase in temperature to water vapor increases.
And notice I said look at the dew point, this number shows the amount of water vapor below saturation and to the point of saturation. Interestingly, if this is increasing, then that specifically means that both the water vapor in the atmosphere isn't in a state of saturation and that it is increasing somewhat so that when the air cools down, it becomes saturated faster because of the increased water vapor.
Wow. You really don't know what your talking about do you? Pools of it laying around doesn't determine if it is a greenhouse gas or not. The ability to absorb or reflect long wave radiation is what makes it a greenhouse gas. Maybe your think of a term called a forcing verses a feedback. and while true that a constant value always there would be a feed back process triggered by a separate forcing, it is unclear if the increased amount of the said gas should be considered a feedback or a forcing. A 2% increase of water vapor which could be attributed to factors other then Co2 increases is a significantly higher of an increase then a similar increase of 2% in Co2 levels.
Parts of evolution in itself is a scientific fact but science has gotten nowhere close to proving it. There is no empirical evidence supporting quite a bit of the theory. I don't really care to get into this argument with you. You already resorted to the "my opinion is the only one that matters, all else is dogma". Well, it isn't and you are sadly wrong/mistaken about evolution but unlike you, I don't pretend to want to push my views onto you. you can keep your misguided views. I guess we will leave that drop before I have to school you.