(To answer the question posed in the opening paragraph - the British electorate had a referendum on Alternative Vote a few years back and rejected it because they were uncomfortable with counting to five. Which begs the question(s) - first, have they changed their mind now 63% of MPs represent Labour, based on a feeble 33% of the vote - the most unrepresentative result in British electoral history? And second, if the answer to the preceding is "No" - can we take that as an admission they think their MPs are just lots cleverer than the British people? )
lefthandpalm
The thoughts, semi-thoughts, splenetic rantings and vague half ideas, of a leftie-lib marooned in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Wednesday 9 October 2024
Electoral Disfunction
(To answer the question posed in the opening paragraph - the British electorate had a referendum on Alternative Vote a few years back and rejected it because they were uncomfortable with counting to five. Which begs the question(s) - first, have they changed their mind now 63% of MPs represent Labour, based on a feeble 33% of the vote - the most unrepresentative result in British electoral history? And second, if the answer to the preceding is "No" - can we take that as an admission they think their MPs are just lots cleverer than the British people? )
Sunday 4 February 2024
Unsurprising
From the Guardian:
The Observer understands that as well as backing away from its £28bn a year commitment on green investment (while sticking to the overall drive to achieve clean energy by 2030), Labour will not seek to legislate on the creation of a new national care service in its first king’s speech.
Instead, it will focus on a fair pay agreement for care workers as well as issues of recruitment and retention, as part of a wider workers’ rights bill. Its plans for a complete overhaul of social care will, however, be presented as a longer-term mission taking at least 10 years and two parliaments.
In addition, despite Keir Starmer’s previous promises to abolish the Lords in a first term, it is expected to commit only to limited changes. This is likely to mean legislating only for the abolition of the remaining 91 hereditary peers.
Starmer appears to be on a mission to underwhelm and disappoint our (already very low) expectations.
Tuesday 16 January 2024
Keir Starmer's abstract thinking
The grey man of British politics ... Original picture, ITV News |
Anushka Asthana has written a generally favourable profile of Keir Starmer in the Guardian. It is lightweight stuff, pandering to the typical Guardianista, though reading between the lines one can - perhaps - detect Asthana's frustration at the weak porridge Starmer serves up.
This, in particular, stuck out:
For many, growth is a longer-term solution, so what about other more immediate choices, such as taxing people’s wealth? I turned back to Blair, reading this quote: “It’s not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money.” Did he disagree with that?
“No,” Starmer responded without hesitation about Beckham or a similarly rich footballer today. “I don’t disagree with that.”
But if you are prime minister, I went on, would you want to take more money from the super-rich (non-doms aside) and redistribute it to the poorest? Again, a “no”, without hesitation. “That isn’t how I want to grow the economy.”
Starmer argued that while, of course, Labour believes in redistribution: “I don’t think redistribution is the sort of one-word answer for millions of people across the country”.
So what is his multi-word answer for those struggling millions?
Dignity and respect.
I kid you not.
He spoke of the dignity and respect of skilled work. “So I’m afraid if it’s just redistribution, I think that fundamentally disrespects people.”
So all Starmer has to offer the working class is ... abstract nouns.
Its barely disguised Thatcherism, with 'dignity' and 'respect' of 'skilled work' hinting at their evil twins - the undignified, unrespectable spectacle of unskilled work or - Heaven forbid - unemployment. Politically, we're a cat's conscience away from the least dignified and most unrespectable part of society - Daily Mail caricatures of dole bludgers. I suspect many people struggling to make ends meet will take the 'disrespectful' benefits of redistribution, Keir.
(It is no surprise that Peter Mandelson also appears, like some grisly revenant, shaking his chains and gibbering.)
Mandelson's influence on Starmer is manifest. Asked about the Hartlepool byelection defeat Labour suffered under his leadership, he responds by invoking the 2019 General Election, rather explaining how his party lost a byelection in 2021:
“When the electorate reject you as badly as they did in 2019, you don’t look at the electorate and say: ‘What are you thinking?’ You look at yourself and change the party.”
While he makes the usual noises about the futility of opposition, he neglects the salient lesson. The 'moderate' wing of the Labour Party squandered a brilliant opportunity after the 2017 General Election. They couldn't bear the fact the membership wanted Corbyn as leader. Applying his own logic for a moment, the electorate rejected the 'moderate' candidates twice. Decisively. But the anti-Corbyn faction (the party) didn't change. They simply set out punish the membership for making the wrong choice.
Thursday 11 January 2024
Remember 1998?
You might recall 1998 was once the hottest year on record.
This is literally what it was like in 1998. I was there. Now EVERYTHING is on fire, all the time. |
It held this distinction for several years. Climate change deniers would point to it (starting in 1999) and say that, yeah, maybe there had been some warming but it had clearly stopped and now the world was cooling because, otherwise, why weren't the years after 1998 hotter?
They managed to keep this nonsense up until about 2005, which was either just marginally hotter or in a dead heat (pun intentional) with 1998. then, they started it again with 2005 as the reference point. Though the game became a bit repetitive and dull as every three or four years after than there was a new record.
Yeah, I used it in yesterday's post as well. Fucking sue me. |
With the (unsurprising) news just in that 2023 is the hottest year on record, it is worth taking a moment to reflect that every single one of the years in the Top 10 hottest years is one of the last ten years.
I imagine it has been like this for a while, but I haven't been paying too much attention. But every year from 2014 onwards is in the current Top Ten:
Ponder that for a moment. The last ten years, every last one of them, have been hotter than every other year on the instrumental record.There are sane conservatives
It's just that their political representatives are ideological fanatics, in thrall to the Fox News / News Max / Breitbart demographic, bought by big business or just willing to say and do anything to advance their careers.
They wouldn't be allowed to write it if it wasn't true. |
From the Guardian's coverage of the less-than-thrilling debate between De Santis and Haley:
A question about climate change, and what each candidate is willing to do about it, has – as expected – yielded little useful information.
DeSantis promised to tear up the “Biden’s green new deal” while Haley said she opposed “extremes” in policy and transitioned the conversation over to the topic of crime.
Last summer, during the first Republican presidential debate, a pointed question from a young activist elicited slightly more interesting results. Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis, asked candidates what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy. None of the candidates at that time raised their hands to affirm that climate change was real.
So, there you go. Even though 2023 was just declared the hottest year on the instrumental record AND all the top ten years are the last ten years, one candidate wants to nix climate action just because a Democrat did it, and the other can't actually talk about it at all. And neither is actually willing to say they think it is happening.
And the terrifying thing is they are both infinitely better options than the goon who (unless the courts save the Republican Party from its membership's atavistic urges) is back to his favourite trick of implying people he doesn't like aren't proper Americans.
Wednesday 10 January 2024
We're screwed
... The only question is, how badly.
2023 was the hottest year on record, 1.48C above the pre-Industrial Revolution average.
The planet was 1.48C hotter in 2023 compared with the period before the mass burning of fossil fuels ignited the climate crisis. The figure is very close to the 1.5C temperature target set by countries in Paris in 2015, although the global temperature would need to be consistently above 1.5C for the target to be considered broken.Scientists at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS) said it was likely the 1.5C mark will be passed for the first time in the next 12 months.
So, very roughly, 0.1C pre decade for the last 150 years.
The Guardian also reproduces this nice graph:
Obviously, those still banging the denialist drum will claim 'natural variation' - but note the period from the 80s to the 90s. Then there were several exceptional years (so many you might wonder if the term 'exceptional' is the right one). Fast forward to 2000-2010 period - every year of that decade was as hot or hotter than the 'exceptional' years of the 80s.
If the trend holds, it takes a decade for the exception to become the norm. So when the Guardian points out "the global temperature would need to be consistently above 1.5C for the target to be considered broken" that will be 'achieved' by 2034.
We've got a rapidly diminishing opportunity to limit the disaster engulfing us. But it is diminishing very, very rapidly.
Monday 8 January 2024
Cook's Beach Fire - Misrepresentation and Propaganda
Just before Christmas, 2023, a swanky bach in Cook's Beach went up in smoke. It was immediately claimed that some sort of electric vehicle was responsible, with the claim being advanced via social media and repeated in traditional media - albeit in the latter case with caveats that it was hearsay from 'neighbours' and 'eyewitnesses' and had not been established.
Soon after, the local fire service made a public announcement, stating the fire was not started by an EV / PHEV and originated elsewhere in the house, adding the vehicle was not in the garage at the time the fire started and that it was not charging.
In a sane world that might have been the end of it - an official announcement had been made. We don't live in a sane world, however, so instead it was decreed this was simply a part of the cover up, a deliberate lie put out by FENZ to advance the EV agenda.
Because, yes, there are - supposedly - shadowy organization and powers whose purpose is to make people drive electric cars for ... reasons that remain unclear.
A few days after the fire some footage surfaced, filmed by a witness. It was immediately seized upon by the anti-EV voices because it seemed on the surface to contradict the official narrative.
Here's a You Tube wannbe influencer's called Simon's take on it, titled New Zealand (Cooks Beach) Fire: Media claims "EV not to blame":
His main points are that multiple eyewitness described it as being caused by an EV. The media initially reported this but later - mysteriously - changed their story to report the EV was not to blame. FENZ said the fire started elsewhere in the house, yet the garage is ablaze and the rest of the house is intact. And(of course) there is some nefarious attempt to "pull the wool" over our eyes by someone.
(SPOILER: in this case, it is the media.)
FENZ hasn't confirmed the cause of the fire - but neighbours told Newshub the fire started while an electric car was charging in the garage.
Then he quotes 1 News' initial reporting:
A witness told 1News that the initial fire started in the garage where a hybrid car was parked.
Social media posts and a media outlet then reported a witness as saying the fire had been started by an EV (electric vehicle) in the home’s garage.
But Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) investigator Ed Hopping said that was not the case.
“The investigation is still ongoing... but I’m comfortable to put it out there in the world that the fire wasn’t a result of the battery in the car failing,” Hopping said.
He said the fire started within the home, while the car was parked outside the garage and was not plugged in for charging at the time.
“It’s just important to put out there that hybrid cars... aren’t that vulnerable to fires,” Hopping said.
“And then in this instance, the car wasn’t plugged in and wasn’t inside the garage or the structure.”
Based on Fenz experience so far, he said it isn’t common for fires to be started by electric vehicles in New Zealand.
Simon offers his take on this: "So I'm glad we're getting all the key points of 'the message' out in this article ... I emailed the Fire and Emergency New Zealand media with the following questions: multiple eyewitness reports claim that the fire started in an hybrid vehicle that was parked outside the garage ..."
Again, "multiple eye witnesses" were not mentioned. A single "witness" was referred to and how much the rest may have known or seen is unclear. He is simply wrong here. WRONG.
(AN ASIDE: whatever these people may or may not have seen, they all said the car was INSIDE the garage. "In the garage" is repeated in all the reports - even though they can't decide if it was a hybrid, an EV, or whether it was charging or just parked. Yet hear is Simon blithely proclaims it was outside, immediately nixing the credibility of those "eye witnesses" (or whatever) he is relying on. You can't have it both ways, trusting them when they say the fire was started by a charging car (though only one of them, the "local" says that) and then happily ignoring them when they say the car was in the garage.)
Now we get to the nub of Simon's complaining - that Hopping said battery failure was not involved and the fire started else where in the house. He wants to know how this could have been confirmed "so quickly" (his words).
The obvious implication being this is a BIG LIE and a COVER UP. The possibility FENZ might have spoken to the people who owned the house and car and got information from them seems to have eluded our host. Though I am willing to be all the money in the world if Hopping had said "The investigation isn't complete but it was totally caused by the EV combusting" our host would not be complaining about the speed of that conclusion being made public.
The response he received referred Simon to an article in the Waikato Times with three quotes selected (by whom is not clear):
“I can’t comment on the cause, because the investigation is not yet completed, but I can say where it did not start and that was in the garage,” Hopping said.
“The car did not have anything to do with it, and it was parked outside of the garage at the time.”
“It looks like the fire started at the rear of the property. It did not start where the car was.”
As you can see, the rear of the house is pretty clearly 'involved' as Simon likes to say. |
Electoral Disfunction
I know it may seem an odd and obvious thing to break a year's worth of radio silence over, but how come the British Conservative Party M...
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Someone cited two alleged climate experts, messrs Cliff Harris and Randy Mann in an I had argument recently. The graph below was referred ...
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Just before Christmas, 2023, a swanky bach in Cook's Beach went up in smoke. It was immediately claimed that some sort of electric vehi...
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You might recall 1998 was once the hottest year on record. This is literally what it was like in 1998. I was there. Now EVERYTHING is on...