I remember when much the same concerns were raised about Chinese networking equipment. (If memory serves, being supplied into a large project in Australia). This was before the Snowden revelations.
So, we now know that really what they were doing was preserving the supply of US networking equipment that could be pwned.
Thus, one wonders if the same thing is happening here?
and still can't do nearly as well in terms of development and wealth? That would tend to make one even more dismissive of cultures on those larger landmasses that cannot pull it together.
Because the current state of Africa and South America has a *lot* to do with their colonisation by European countries. Murdering their people, passing on diseases, taking resources, abducting people as slaves.
So, tell me, who can't get it together in terms of morality?
Firstly, I'm sorry for your illness and your daughter's impending loss. It must be rough.
Whatever you do, I would ensure that your daughter's mother (or significant person) has the ability and the right to view what you've recorded or written and decide whether to show it to your daughter at a particular time.
The issue is that you can't make the judgement in the present as to what effect your words will have on your daughter in the future - and that effect may be unintentionally negative.
There was a This American Life episode where a parent did this: recorded messages for every birthday and significant event. The rule was that they were just for the child and weren't pre-viewed by anybody else. Over the years, the messages started to be viewed with a bit of dread. They talked about the parent's expectations for a particular future direct - which were not met by the child who, unsurprisingly, was finding their own path in life.
There's a lot of interesting and useful advice in this thread. Frankly, if it were me (may it never be me!) I would probably try and give her as good an experience *right now* as I could. Build those memories and leave lots of photos, videos, writing, etc.
Hell, that's probably good advice even when you're not dieing.
Er... as a New Zealander living in Canada I would suggest that New Zealand is *more* capitalist than the US. The US is quite a highly regulated economy - this is most visible in the way farmers can get subsidies. There are minimum prices, tariffs, all kinds of things.
New Zealand farmers do not get subsidies.
Not at all, nada, zilch. Maybe some help when there's a drought or a flood.
Farming is also NZ's biggest export so it matters quite a lot.
Yes, there is a solid safety net - if that's what you mean by socialist.
You certainly can have a contract on the ticket - esp. if you get it from a human. You could read the ticket, protest the contract and hand it straight back. See the obiter dicta in Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_v_Shoe_Lane_Parking_Ltd).
The normal route for a work permit or immigration in Canada is to get a job offer and then follow the process to show that no Canadian could be found to do the job. There's nothing in there about age.
Many countries around the world have a Working Holiday program. It recognises that young people generally have fewer responsibilities and more desire to travel. It gives them a chance to try out a country or a continent and see if they can make a go of it. Typically, Kiwis and Aussies go to the UK, get a job, travel Europe and then come back after the visa expies after two years. It's so common that it's called the big OE (Overseas Experience).
Quite a lot of them do transition onto a normal migration route and stay. They are normally reciprocal arrangements and the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and France all have them. The US refuses to make such arrangements so that route is closed to US citizens.
The Working Holiday was convenient for me because, instead of applying from NZ and trying to convince an employer to take me seriously, I could show up in Canada, ready to go and apply there.
I would note, that age often turns up as one of the criteria in an immigration scheme. Older migrants do generally have a harder time of it. It's more difficult to make the adjustments to make a go in a new culture.
In fairness, I blame the US on this one. The IRS is rather unusual in the world in demanding that US ex-pats report income to the US - even when they've lived overseas for years.
If you're resident in a country and enjoying its benefits then I think you should pay tax there. In fact, that's how it works for me. I pay tax in Canada at the normal rate for a Canadian. I have to declare NZ income to the NZ tax authorities (i.e. I used to own a house in NZ and had to declare that) but I would only be taxed on income generated in NZ.
I'm a New Zealand-born software developer working in just one of those highly paid jobs in Vancouver BC. I refused to move to the US partly because I think the H1-B system has great potential for abuse.
As a country, you want the highly skilled migrants because they can work where they like and they bring great value. *Every* country in the world is competing to get them; except the US. US based developers have to compete against developers everywhere else anyway; preventing immigration doesn't help any. Even a low-skilled immigrant doesn't really steal a job. In many cases, the money they make is roughly matched by the money they spend that keeps the local economy moving. This is the experience in Alabama where they are actively trying to force immigrants out. Preventing immigration is also racist. As a country, you are claiming that those who are born in your country have a greater right to a job than somebody born anywhere else. Is there a fundamental difference between an American and an African other than their place of birth?
The Canadian system has a few ways in but they can be summarised as: 1. Find an employer who wants you enough to fill out some forms for you. 2. Show that you are young and smart 3. Wait for the paperwork. That gets you Permanent Resident status. 4. Wait 3 years actually in Canada 5. Apply for Citizenship.
In my case, I came to Canada on a Working Holiday Work Permit. This allowed me to work for anyone for 1 year and is only available to under-36 year olds. Then I found a job and explained what I needed them to do. I used a scheme where my province nominates me for immigration. My employer wrote a letter to the province, filled in some forms, added a copy of their incorporation certificate, I paid the money and off it went.
Google and Facebook are in one big battle - and it's going to get worse.
They're both ad platforms and Facebook is competing very, very well with Google. Google's continued failure to get social networking going is an enormous strategic problem.
So, yes, tieing everybody's bonuses to this is appropriate.
Here is what you agree to by sending him email (not that you would know it at the time):
IANAL but I studied 1 contract law paper at University.
You can't agree to something without having seen it first. The contract above would only hold for the second and subsequent emails you send him.
Contract law requires that there be an offer from one party which is accepted by the other party. The terms above would be the offer but the other party has to see the offer before they can accept it. Otherwise there can be no meeting of minds.
To me the UN moniker on something is a guarantee that I will ignore it. Any body that can put Syria in the chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission is fundamentally flawed. As is their climate effort.
So who would you listen to? What would it take?
Oh, by the way -- why are the global warming people rebranding themselves as "climate change"? Is it, perhaps, because the globe isn't warming?
I couldn't find a simple answer for that but I'll give you my guess. The idea of warming is too simple. It sounds like every spot equally is going to get warmer by a few degrees. That's not the prediction.
Instead, some places will get drier (and get droughts) while other places will get wetter (and get floods). Some storms will probably become more violent (because storms are fueled by heat) and some of these storms may actually bring a lot of rain or snow making people feel colder. Lastly, there are some thoughts that climate change will switch off some important ocean currents which bring warm water to the likes of Britain and Northern Europe - which would make them a lot colder.
The term climate change is a nice catch-all to describe how the climate will change - and not simply become warmer.
(On a slightly more personal note, I'd suggest that your question indicates that you are not all that familiar with the predictions of climate change - which makes me think that you haven't researched the subject sufficiently to be able to rebut it well. This does not speak well for your position.)
Climate change looks to be an unmitigated disaster that is going to cause a very large amount of pain and suffering. This disaster will have been caused completely by us and we will have to put the work in to both deal with its effects and fix the damage in someway.
That some people, including some very powerful people (such as George W. Bush), do not accept there is a problem makes it extremely difficult to get started at dealing with it.
The scale of the problem is such that having people deny it seems criminally irresponsible and neglectful to the utmost degree.
Let me explain the scale of the disaster. There are already places in the Pacific that are starting to be inundated with salt water. The people of Carterets Island (near Papua New Guinea) are moving to Bougainville. The island nation of Tuvalu has sea water coming up through the middle of the island and ruining crops. Now one might argue that it is the land sinking and not sea level rising - this doesn't help the people who are removed from their homes and their country.
Bangladesh, with its 150 million people living on what is basically one very large river delta, is likely to be the country with the biggest problem. The country already has floods seemingly every other year during typhoon season. It would not take a lot of sea level rise before Bangladesh is uninhabitable. So where do those 150 million people go?
There's India to the west. Overcrowded and the (mostly Hindu) Indians aren't going to be exactly charitable to the (mostly Muslim) Bangladeshis. They haven't been in the past - that's why Bangladesh exists. Do they go north to Tibet? China would be distinctly unhappy about that. How about east - Myanmar/Burma. The backwards military junta there will not help.
Can you imagine the chaos if even 10% of the 150 million have to move somewhere?
The next problem is what it will do to the plants and animals on this world. The plants and animals we utterly rely on to live but never seem to acknowledge. A species lives in a certain place because it's found a niche there. It has a temperature it likes, food it likes and a place to live. As the temperature changes these species are going to have to move or they will die. Yet many of them probably can't move quickly enough to match the temperature change. It takes quite a long time for plants to reproduce and grow and many animals will require certain plants to be there. Secondly, as species move up mountain ranges to find cool enough temperatures, the species at the top will simply be pushed off - and become extinct.
Why do we care? Do you like breathing? Do you pay anything to create the oxygen to breathe? The biology of this planet is kind enough to do this for you. The planet is an incredibly detailed web. We do not know how it all fits together. We haven't even named and described all of the species. So how can we go changing the way the world lives if we have no way of predicting the outcome?
So, in the light of this massive problem, why shouldn't the world express exasperation at people who would rather ignore it?
You miss my point. The IPCC is not about the UN - it is about the number of scientists who signed up to agree with the findings of the report.
(Yes, the UN has its problems but most quasi-governmental organisations do. I will point out that your particular comment relates to events 40 years ago.)
Climate scientists are not in complete agreement. It is always possible to find a few scientists that disagree with consensus opinion. Sometimes these mavericks are even right. See and the continental drift hypothesis.
However, many of the commenters above appear to be using some disagreement to deny climate change (forgive me if I'm reading too much into the comments. Attacking the consensus is a common tactic of deniers).
I would suggest that people look at the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a United Nations effort with a very large number of scientists involved. So many, from so many different countries, that I would suggest that the information represents consensus opinion and should be listened to very carefully.
Let me quote their latest major report from 2007 (taken from Wikipedia).
" * Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
* Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.
* Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18).[34]
* The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.
* World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 ÂC (2.0 and 11.5 ÂF) during the 21st century (table 3) and that:
o Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) [table 3].
o There is a confidence level >90% that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall.
o There is a confidence level >66% that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides.
* Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium.
* Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years "
The princess probably wants to spend $50,000 on one day so she can have her dream wedding.
Seriously, society's expectations of what should happen with a wedding are seriously out of whack - especially now that the couple are expected to pay for it all. The young couple, at the start of their life, are expected to pay for a very expensive party for their friends and their parents' friends with the better part of a deposit for a house while they continue to pay off student loans.
Whatever happened to just jumping over a chair?
(I'm not actually trying to troll. I hope the OP is very happy in his marriage.)
If you are happy in your current job then stay. If you are unhappy then make arrangements to leave - taking due regard and precautions in the current economic environment.
The shares are a red herring and I would remove them from your decision making.
Let me make my case.
There is a fairly new school of psychology, called positive psychology, looking at what actually makes people happy - which is different to what people *think* will make them happy. The leader in this is Dr Martin Seligman who wrote a very approachable book called Authentic Happiness.
The most surprising result from positive psychology is that more money will *not* make you happy. If you have enough money to put a roof over your head and food on the table then you have sufficient. The evidence for this is to study people on different incomes and see if there is any difference in their happiness - there isn't. Even winning the lottery won't make you happy. Studies of lotter winners show that a year after the win they are no happier than they were before.
The extra money you might get from the shares might make you happy if you can use them to do something that will make you happy. I suggest you work out what that is and make arrangements to do it - shares or no shares.
How to be truly happy? Use your signature skills, those things that you can do really well that others mostly can't, to make the world a better place.
If you get up in the morning excited about doing the work then good - go at it. Shares will make that all the better. But if you're not interested, and you seem not to be, then you will end up rather unhappy.
The shares are a difficult thing. There is a high risk they will end up being worthless and a firm and long commitment required from you. From what I hear from your question I wouldn't take them.
If I were you then I would make a clear eyed assessment of your options and move from there. If you think your consulting business will work in the current climate then go for it. Otherwise, it might pay to hang around for a while until the economy is ready for you.
This may be economically efficient but has the disadvantage that you don't get the happiness buzz from helping people.
There's some interesting science that shows that volunteers get a very measurable increase in happiness just from helping other people. Frankly, it's the dirty little secret of volunteering.
As a Kiwi I'm very embarrased by this legislation. I did write a submission against the more egregious bits but was ignored. If it helps any, the guilt by accusation bit was added at the last minute before the final vote and some NZ Internet people have pointed out the problems to Judith Tizard, the then minister responsible and she was rather chastened.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Enforcement of those sections of the bill has been delayed while the ISPs try and sort out a code of practice with the government. As has been pointed out this now becomes a nuclear option. I would suggest that anybody who gets hit with this will just get their friends to send out disconnection notices to everybody they don't like.
Therefore, I do expect the ISPs to exercise some discretion. However, if anybody is happy to fund a court case then the ISPs can be forced to enforce the disconnection notices.
I really don't think this law will last long as written.
There is, clearly, a role for civil disobedience. In fact, there's good evidence that a Maori leader invented it in the 18th century (look up Parihaka. Gandhi's grandson claims that Gandhi used that as motivation).
However, this isn't civil disobedience. Laws against defamation are well accepted as a good thing to have by most people and the defendant is just being an arse.
Now, if the law were clearly immoral and other avenues to have it changed had been exhausted then peaceful civil disobedience might be justified. Neither of those two conditions apply in this case.
Secondly, the defandants actions clearly hurt other people - namely the plaintiff. This isn't hurting other people incidentally for the greater good - the whole point of the defendant's speech is to hurt the plaintiff.
I remember somewhere reading a case where a judge worked out some criteria for civil disobedience before deciding it didn't apply to the case he was deciding. I can't remember the criteria but they were similar to the above.
This may sound like an odd answer but I think it's because we're a relatively fair-minded people who would resolve an issue politically. We also have a parliament where the parties are proportionally represented so there is a greater diversity of opinion and power instead of the two party rule you get in the US and the UK (and Australia for that matter).
A useful anecdotal example: During the fuss over the Danish newspaper publishing insulting images of the prophet a year or two back many countries had fairly violent reactions or took legal action. In New Zealand, there was a great deal of talk while people learnt to understand how the Muslims felt. Later that week there was a march in most main centres. That was it.
I'm trying to think of an example where individual rights have been damaged by the majority rule. Except for one *large* exception I can't think of one that wasn't sorted out eventually.
The exception I refer to is our rather sorry treatment of the Maori people (the indigenous race). I don't want to cover it all here. Briefly, the British signed a treaty with them in 1840 and then proceeded to treat them like colonisers do everywhere - including a war. They were marginalised all the way through to roughly the '60s. Fortunately, since then, we've been sorting the problem out. This has been done through protest action and lots of talking and arguing but its a process that seems to be working.
Some modern examples. There was one guy who had his house illegally burgled by the SIS (==CIA with internal responsibilities as well). It got to court and they lost and had to pay. (This was a 1990's case.)
Earlier this year there were some raids made under the terrorism legislation. The raids were rather scary for those involved and there were a number of public complaints. Within about a week the media had established that while there were a few things to worry about it wasn't really worth full scale raids in multiple parts of the country and terrorising a largely Maori settlement. (By something to worry about I mean there were some Maori people running around the bush training with guns and talking smack about taking down the government. It seemed pretty certain they didn't have the capability or intention to be hugely serious.)
There were some intercepts taken which the Government attempted to prevent the publication of (under sub-judice rules - another good reason not to have unfettered free speech). At least one paper, including the main daily in the capital, published the juicy excerpts anyway and got away with it.
Those are all individual examples. The do the right thing comment in my original comment was more about governmental issues. If there were a constitutional crisis, because there is no formal written process for what the Governor-General must do the G-G has the freedom to work out the right thing to do. It's about the only time they get to actually do anything except be a figurehead. There are lots of expectations and writings about what they should do but they can work it out.
In my opinion, the very uncertainty and the threat of adverse public opinion combines to provide a better result. G-Gs are appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (which means that the Government appoints them). However, they are always eminent New Zealanders for reasons that have nothing to do with being a G-G. Because they'll have an eye on their reputation they have an in-built reason to do the right thing.
Fortunately, there hasn't been a case where they've had to.
About the only thing they need to do is wait for the election result and then ask the party with the most votes to attempt to get enough to form a government. That's worked so far. In the case where the party with the most votes can't form a government then things might get interesting.
I'm doing this from memory from Stage I Commercial Law about 10 years ago and I'm not a lawyer. However, the NZ law on defamation is:
Defamation is when somebody makes statements about somebody else which would damage their reputation and are published. (The concept of both slander and libel are simply called defamation. It doesn't matter if you say it or print it). The truth is a complete defence. Honest opinion based on the truth is a defence. A politician in Parliament has absolute privilege to say what they like.
It's intersting that most posters have not picked up on som e of the more interesting issues here. This court order is based only an an injunction (as far as I can tell). i.e. the plaintiff has not gone to court to establish that there actually was defamation but merely convinced a judge that there was an obvious case and the best way to prevent further harm was to temporarily take the site down. This is what the defendant is not doing.
The defendant is complaining because he hasn't had the chance to explain in court why he thinks its the truth (or honest opinion based on the truth). In many ways the injunction was all that the plaintiff wanted.
Lastly, could somebody please explain, in reasoned language, why most of the posters believe that believe that free speech should be unfettered. Do you really think that a well-respected news anchor should headline the 6 o'lock news that you were a rapist, murder and a terrorist. Do you really believe that this caould be done with no responsibility all under a claim to unfettered free speech?
Lastly, do you really believe that a court should be ignored because you don't like the ruling? what's the point of having a court then? The side who lost would simply not care because they could ignore it.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember when much the same concerns were raised about Chinese networking equipment. (If memory serves, being supplied into a large project in Australia).
This was before the Snowden revelations.
So, we now know that really what they were doing was preserving the supply of US networking equipment that could be pwned.
Thus, one wonders if the same thing is happening here?
and still can't do nearly as well in terms of development and wealth? That would tend to make one even more dismissive of cultures on those larger landmasses that cannot pull it together.
Because the current state of Africa and South America has a *lot* to do with their colonisation by European countries. Murdering their people, passing on diseases, taking resources, abducting people as slaves.
So, tell me, who can't get it together in terms of morality?
Firstly, I'm sorry for your illness and your daughter's impending loss. It must be rough.
Whatever you do, I would ensure that your daughter's mother (or significant person) has the ability and the right to view what you've recorded or written and decide whether to show it to your daughter at a particular time.
The issue is that you can't make the judgement in the present as to what effect your words will have on your daughter in the future - and that effect may be unintentionally negative.
There was a This American Life episode where a parent did this: recorded messages for every birthday and significant event. The rule was that they were just for the child and weren't pre-viewed by anybody else. Over the years, the messages started to be viewed with a bit of dread. They talked about the parent's expectations for a particular future direct - which were not met by the child who, unsurprisingly, was finding their own path in life.
There's a lot of interesting and useful advice in this thread. Frankly, if it were me (may it never be me!) I would probably try and give her as good an experience *right now* as I could. Build those memories and leave lots of photos, videos, writing, etc.
Hell, that's probably good advice even when you're not dieing.
Er... as a New Zealander living in Canada I would suggest that New Zealand is *more* capitalist than the US. The US is quite a highly regulated economy - this is most visible in the way farmers can get subsidies. There are minimum prices, tariffs, all kinds of things.
New Zealand farmers do not get subsidies.
Not at all, nada, zilch.
Maybe some help when there's a drought or a flood.
Farming is also NZ's biggest export so it matters quite a lot.
Yes, there is a solid safety net - if that's what you mean by socialist.
You certainly can have a contract on the ticket - esp. if you get it from a human. You could read the ticket, protest the contract and hand it straight back.
See the obiter dicta in Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_v_Shoe_Lane_Parking_Ltd).
No ageism isn't okay with me.
The normal route for a work permit or immigration in Canada is to get a job offer and then follow the process to show that no Canadian could be found to do the job. There's nothing in there about age.
Many countries around the world have a Working Holiday program. It recognises that young people generally have fewer responsibilities and more desire to travel. It gives them a chance to try out a country or a continent and see if they can make a go of it. Typically, Kiwis and Aussies go to the UK, get a job, travel Europe and then come back after the visa expies after two years. It's so common that it's called the big OE (Overseas Experience).
Quite a lot of them do transition onto a normal migration route and stay. They are normally reciprocal arrangements and the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and France all have them. The US refuses to make such arrangements so that route is closed to US citizens.
The Working Holiday was convenient for me because, instead of applying from NZ and trying to convince an employer to take me seriously, I could show up in Canada, ready to go and apply there.
I would note, that age often turns up as one of the criteria in an immigration scheme. Older migrants do generally have a harder time of it. It's more difficult to make the adjustments to make a go in a new culture.
In fairness, I blame the US on this one. The IRS is rather unusual in the world in demanding that US ex-pats report income to the US - even when they've lived overseas for years.
If you're resident in a country and enjoying its benefits then I think you should pay tax there. In fact, that's how it works for me. I pay tax in Canada at the normal rate for a Canadian. I have to declare NZ income to the NZ tax authorities (i.e. I used to own a house in NZ and had to declare that) but I would only be taxed on income generated in NZ.
If you have skills look up BC PNP.
Just copy Canada.
I'm a New Zealand-born software developer working in just one of those highly paid jobs in Vancouver BC. I refused to move to the US partly because I think the H1-B system has great potential for abuse.
As a country, you want the highly skilled migrants because they can work where they like and they bring great value. *Every* country in the world is competing to get them; except the US. US based developers have to compete against developers everywhere else anyway; preventing immigration doesn't help any. Even a low-skilled immigrant doesn't really steal a job. In many cases, the money they make is roughly matched by the money they spend that keeps the local economy moving. This is the experience in Alabama where they are actively trying to force immigrants out. Preventing immigration is also racist. As a country, you are claiming that those who are born in your country have a greater right to a job than somebody born anywhere else. Is there a fundamental difference between an American and an African other than their place of birth?
The Canadian system has a few ways in but they can be summarised as:
1. Find an employer who wants you enough to fill out some forms for you.
2. Show that you are young and smart
3. Wait for the paperwork. That gets you Permanent Resident status.
4. Wait 3 years actually in Canada
5. Apply for Citizenship.
In my case, I came to Canada on a Working Holiday Work Permit. This allowed me to work for anyone for 1 year and is only available to under-36 year olds. Then I found a job and explained what I needed them to do. I used a scheme where my province nominates me for immigration. My employer wrote a letter to the province, filled in some forms, added a copy of their incorporation certificate, I paid the money and off it went.
Google and Facebook are in one big battle - and it's going to get worse.
They're both ad platforms and Facebook is competing very, very well with Google. Google's continued failure to get social networking going is an enormous strategic problem.
So, yes, tieing everybody's bonuses to this is appropriate.
They gave him a knighthood, his studio USD50 million odd of tax breaks and subsidies and changed employment law so everybody who works on films is a contractor.
Exactly how much friendlier did you want the government to be?
Here is what you agree to by sending him email (not that you would know it at the time):
IANAL but I studied 1 contract law paper at University.
You can't agree to something without having seen it first. The contract above would only hold for the second and subsequent emails you send him.
Contract law requires that there be an offer from one party which is accepted by the other party. The terms above would be the offer but the other party has to see the offer before they can accept it. Otherwise there can be no meeting of minds.
To me the UN moniker on something is a guarantee that I will ignore it. Any body that can put Syria in the chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission is fundamentally flawed. As is their climate effort.
So who would you listen to? What would it take?
Oh, by the way -- why are the global warming people rebranding themselves as "climate change"? Is it, perhaps, because the globe isn't warming?
I couldn't find a simple answer for that but I'll give you my guess. The idea of warming is too simple. It sounds like every spot equally is going to get warmer by a few degrees. That's not the prediction.
Instead, some places will get drier (and get droughts) while other places will get wetter (and get floods). Some storms will probably become more violent (because storms are fueled by heat) and some of these storms may actually bring a lot of rain or snow making people feel colder. Lastly, there are some thoughts that climate change will switch off some important ocean currents which bring warm water to the likes of Britain and Northern Europe - which would make them a lot colder.
The term climate change is a nice catch-all to describe how the climate will change - and not simply become warmer.
(On a slightly more personal note, I'd suggest that your question indicates that you are not all that familiar with the predictions of climate change - which makes me think that you haven't researched the subject sufficiently to be able to rebut it well. This does not speak well for your position.)
Climate change looks to be an unmitigated disaster that is going to cause a very large amount of pain and suffering. This disaster will have been caused completely by us and we will have to put the work in to both deal with its effects and fix the damage in someway.
That some people, including some very powerful people (such as George W. Bush), do not accept there is a problem makes it extremely difficult to get started at dealing with it.
The scale of the problem is such that having people deny it seems criminally irresponsible and neglectful to the utmost degree.
Let me explain the scale of the disaster. There are already places in the Pacific that are starting to be inundated with salt water. The people of Carterets Island (near Papua New Guinea) are moving to Bougainville. The island nation of Tuvalu has sea water coming up through the middle of the island and ruining crops. Now one might argue that it is the land sinking and not sea level rising - this doesn't help the people who are removed from their homes and their country.
Bangladesh, with its 150 million people living on what is basically one very large river delta, is likely to be the country with the biggest problem. The country already has floods seemingly every other year during typhoon season. It would not take a lot of sea level rise before Bangladesh is uninhabitable. So where do those 150 million people go?
There's India to the west. Overcrowded and the (mostly Hindu) Indians aren't going to be exactly charitable to the (mostly Muslim) Bangladeshis. They haven't been in the past - that's why Bangladesh exists. Do they go north to Tibet? China would be distinctly unhappy about that. How about east - Myanmar/Burma. The backwards military junta there will not help.
Can you imagine the chaos if even 10% of the 150 million have to move somewhere?
The next problem is what it will do to the plants and animals on this world. The plants and animals we utterly rely on to live but never seem to acknowledge. A species lives in a certain place because it's found a niche there. It has a temperature it likes, food it likes and a place to live. As the temperature changes these species are going to have to move or they will die. Yet many of them probably can't move quickly enough to match the temperature change. It takes quite a long time for plants to reproduce and grow and many animals will require certain plants to be there. Secondly, as species move up mountain ranges to find cool enough temperatures, the species at the top will simply be pushed off - and become extinct.
Why do we care? Do you like breathing? Do you pay anything to create the oxygen to breathe? The biology of this planet is kind enough to do this for you. The planet is an incredibly detailed web. We do not know how it all fits together. We haven't even named and described all of the species. So how can we go changing the way the world lives if we have no way of predicting the outcome?
So, in the light of this massive problem, why shouldn't the world express exasperation at people who would rather ignore it?
You miss my point. The IPCC is not about the UN - it is about the number of scientists who signed up to agree with the findings of the report.
(Yes, the UN has its problems but most quasi-governmental organisations do. I will point out that your particular comment relates to events 40 years ago.)
Climate scientists are not in complete agreement. It is always possible to find a few scientists that disagree with consensus opinion. Sometimes these mavericks are even right. See and the continental drift hypothesis.
However, many of the commenters above appear to be using some disagreement to deny climate change (forgive me if I'm reading too much into the comments. Attacking the consensus is a common tactic of deniers).
I would suggest that people look at the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a United Nations effort with a very large number of scientists involved. So many, from so many different countries, that I would suggest that the information represents consensus opinion and should be listened to very carefully.
Let me quote their latest major report from 2007 (taken from Wikipedia).
" * Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
* Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations.
* Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized, although the likely amount of temperature and sea level rise varies greatly depending on the fossil intensity of human activity during the next century (pages 13 and 18).[34]
* The probability that this is caused by natural climatic processes alone is less than 5%.
* World temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 ÂC (2.0 and 11.5 ÂF) during the 21st century (table 3) and that:
o Sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm (7.08 to 23.22 in) [table 3].
o There is a confidence level >90% that there will be more frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall.
o There is a confidence level >66% that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides.
* Both past and future anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will continue to contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium.
* Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values over the past 650,000 years
"
The princess probably wants to spend $50,000 on one day so she can have her dream wedding.
Seriously, society's expectations of what should happen with a wedding are seriously out of whack - especially now that the couple are expected to pay for it all. The young couple, at the start of their life, are expected to pay for a very expensive party for their friends and their parents' friends with the better part of a deposit for a house while they continue to pay off student loans.
Whatever happened to just jumping over a chair?
(I'm not actually trying to troll. I hope the OP is very happy in his marriage.)
If you are happy in your current job then stay. If you are unhappy then make arrangements to leave - taking due regard and precautions in the current economic environment.
The shares are a red herring and I would remove them from your decision making.
Let me make my case.
There is a fairly new school of psychology, called positive psychology, looking at what actually makes people happy - which is different to what people *think* will make them happy. The leader in this is Dr Martin Seligman who wrote a very approachable book called Authentic Happiness.
The most surprising result from positive psychology is that more money will *not* make you happy. If you have enough money to put a roof over your head and food on the table then you have sufficient. The evidence for this is to study people on different incomes and see if there is any difference in their happiness - there isn't. Even winning the lottery won't make you happy. Studies of lotter winners show that a year after the win they are no happier than they were before.
The extra money you might get from the shares might make you happy if you can use them to do something that will make you happy. I suggest you work out what that is and make arrangements to do it - shares or no shares.
How to be truly happy? Use your signature skills, those things that you can do really well that others mostly can't, to make the world a better place.
If you get up in the morning excited about doing the work then good - go at it. Shares will make that all the better. But if you're not interested, and you seem not to be, then you will end up rather unhappy.
The shares are a difficult thing. There is a high risk they will end up being worthless and a firm and long commitment required from you. From what I hear from your question I wouldn't take them.
If I were you then I would make a clear eyed assessment of your options and move from there. If you think your consulting business will work in the current climate then go for it. Otherwise, it might pay to hang around for a while until the economy is ready for you.
All the best!
How about storing it on your own machine in a strongly encrypted file? e.g. PasswordSafe.
Bruce Schneier wrote the original at CounterPane.
This may be economically efficient but has the disadvantage that you don't get the happiness buzz from helping people.
There's some interesting science that shows that volunteers get a very measurable increase in happiness just from helping other people. Frankly, it's the dirty little secret of volunteering.
As a Kiwi I'm very embarrased by this legislation. I did write a submission against the more egregious bits but was ignored. If it helps any, the guilt by accusation bit was added at the last minute before the final vote and some NZ Internet people have pointed out the problems to Judith Tizard, the then minister responsible and she was rather chastened.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Enforcement of those sections of the bill has been delayed while the ISPs try and sort out a code of practice with the government. As has been pointed out this now becomes a nuclear option. I would suggest that anybody who gets hit with this will just get their friends to send out disconnection notices to everybody they don't like.
Therefore, I do expect the ISPs to exercise some discretion. However, if anybody is happy to fund a court case then the ISPs can be forced to enforce the disconnection notices.
I really don't think this law will last long as written.
I'm very glad to have emigrated away though.
What sarcastic b*stard decided that 'The Sound of Silence' should be a pager tune?
There is, clearly, a role for civil disobedience. In fact, there's good evidence that a Maori leader invented it in the 18th century (look up Parihaka. Gandhi's grandson claims that Gandhi used that as motivation).
However, this isn't civil disobedience. Laws against defamation are well accepted as a good thing to have by most people and the defendant is just being an arse.
Now, if the law were clearly immoral and other avenues to have it changed had been exhausted then peaceful civil disobedience might be justified. Neither of those two conditions apply in this case.
Secondly, the defandants actions clearly hurt other people - namely the plaintiff. This isn't hurting other people incidentally for the greater good - the whole point of the defendant's speech is to hurt the plaintiff.
I remember somewhere reading a case where a judge worked out some criteria for civil disobedience before deciding it didn't apply to the case he was deciding. I can't remember the criteria but they were similar to the above.
This may sound like an odd answer but I think it's because we're a relatively fair-minded people who would resolve an issue politically. We also have a parliament where the parties are proportionally represented so there is a greater diversity of opinion and power instead of the two party rule you get in the US and the UK (and Australia for that matter).
A useful anecdotal example: During the fuss over the Danish newspaper publishing insulting images of the prophet a year or two back many countries had fairly violent reactions or took legal action.
In New Zealand, there was a great deal of talk while people learnt to understand how the Muslims felt. Later that week there was a march in most main centres. That was it.
I'm trying to think of an example where individual rights have been damaged by the majority rule. Except for one *large* exception I can't think of one that wasn't sorted out eventually.
The exception I refer to is our rather sorry treatment of the Maori people (the indigenous race). I don't want to cover it all here. Briefly, the British signed a treaty with them in 1840 and then proceeded to treat them like colonisers do everywhere - including a war. They were marginalised all the way through to roughly the '60s. Fortunately, since then, we've been sorting the problem out. This has been done through protest action and lots of talking and arguing but its a process that seems to be working.
Some modern examples. There was one guy who had his house illegally burgled by the SIS (==CIA with internal responsibilities as well). It got to court and they lost and had to pay. (This was a 1990's case.)
Earlier this year there were some raids made under the terrorism legislation. The raids were rather scary for those involved and there were a number of public complaints. Within about a week the media had established that while there were a few things to worry about it wasn't really worth full scale raids in multiple parts of the country and terrorising a largely Maori settlement. (By something to worry about I mean there were some Maori people running around the bush training with guns and talking smack about taking down the government. It seemed pretty certain they didn't have the capability or intention to be hugely serious.)
There were some intercepts taken which the Government attempted to prevent the publication of (under sub-judice rules - another good reason not to have unfettered free speech). At least one paper, including the main daily in the capital, published the juicy excerpts anyway and got away with it.
Those are all individual examples. The do the right thing comment in my original comment was more about governmental issues. If there were a constitutional crisis, because there is no formal written process for what the Governor-General must do the G-G has the freedom to work out the right thing to do. It's about the only time they get to actually do anything except be a figurehead. There are lots of expectations and writings about what they should do but they can work it out.
In my opinion, the very uncertainty and the threat of adverse public opinion combines to provide a better result. G-Gs are appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (which means that the Government appoints them). However, they are always eminent New Zealanders for reasons that have nothing to do with being a G-G. Because they'll have an eye on their reputation they have an in-built reason to do the right thing.
Fortunately, there hasn't been a case where they've had to.
About the only thing they need to do is wait for the election result and then ask the party with the most votes to attempt to get enough to form a government. That's worked so far. In the case where the party with the most votes can't form a government then things might get interesting.
I'm doing this from memory from Stage I Commercial Law about 10 years ago and I'm not a lawyer. However, the NZ law on defamation is:
Defamation is when somebody makes statements about somebody else which would damage their reputation and are published. (The concept of both slander and libel are simply called defamation. It doesn't matter if you say it or print it).
The truth is a complete defence.
Honest opinion based on the truth is a defence.
A politician in Parliament has absolute privilege to say what they like.
It's intersting that most posters have not picked up on som e of the more interesting issues here. This court order is based only an an injunction (as far as I can tell). i.e. the plaintiff has not gone to court to establish that there actually was defamation but merely convinced a judge that there was an obvious case and the best way to prevent further harm was to temporarily take the site down. This is what the defendant is not doing.
The defendant is complaining because he hasn't had the chance to explain in court why he thinks its the truth (or honest opinion based on the truth). In many ways the injunction was all that the plaintiff wanted.
Lastly, could somebody please explain, in reasoned language, why most of the posters believe that believe that free speech should be unfettered. Do you really think that a well-respected news anchor should headline the 6 o'lock news that you were a rapist, murder and a terrorist. Do you really believe that this caould be done with no responsibility all under a claim to unfettered free speech?
Lastly, do you really believe that a court should be ignored because you don't like the ruling? what's the point of having a court then? The side who lost would simply not care because they could ignore it.