It’s really just one retired physicist, but i bet he’s a lesbian-marxist.

It’s a pity the sheeple aren’t.

MPs’ perks are about to come under fresh scrutiny as a high-powered review quietly gets under way.

The review is taking place as MPs are embroiled in controversy over the use of taxpayer money for perks, including travel by themselves and their spouses. It is required by law after every election, meaning MPs had no control over its timing.

But it was officially confirmed in a statement by Speaker Lockwood Smith only yesterday, after the review committee had already met for the first time and despite it being widely known that former speaker Sir Doug Kidd had been appointed to lead it.

The appointment of Sir Doug, an MP of 24 years standing, is controversial – the last review was headed by an outsider, businessman John Goulter.

Mr Goulter’s 2007 report angered MPs when it recommended an overhaul of the perks system and questioned spouses getting free travel on the taxpayer. Many of his recommendations were ignored.

Sir Doug said yesterday he was not going to discuss the review and one of the first decisions the committee had made was not to talk to the media.

He also declined to comment on whether it was appropriate for a former MP to head the review. “I’m not going to enter into discussion on that … You will have to judge things by the result.” He is being assisted by economist Philip Barry.

The review comes as MPs are under more scrutiny than ever before since a series of scandals over perks, including their accommodation allowances and travel subsidies for overseas trips.

ACT leader and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has paid back more than $20,000 used when he took his girlfriend, Louise Crome, on trips to Hawaii and Europe.

Finance Minister Bill English has also repaid money claimed in ministerial accommodation allowances on his family home.

At the weekend, Prime Minister John Key did not rule out asking Dr Smith to look at revamping MPs’ perks, saying there was “merit” in the idea. But a spokesman for Mr Key said yesterday that it was not the prime minster’s intention to do so at the moment.

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei, who has called for an independent review of MPs’ allowances and perks, said she was comfortable with a former Speaker and MP heading the review.

It was useful to have someone in charge who understood the system and how Parliamentary Service operated.

It had been seven years since Sir Doug had been in Parliament so she did not believe he would be too close to the process.

“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

read fully the link I posted above.

But what’s your angle with this? Don’t want to change…pay…don’t care about the future generations…

They are a very, very young species and as such, unproven by nature. I don’t think they have even been around through a complete ice age/interglacial cycle. There is every chance that they might not make it even if man did not exist. They actually evolved in Europe, not the arctic, and have retreated there with the ice.

Are polar bear populations increasing, or are they dying out? The short answer is: no and not yet.

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2161

an extract: Over the past two decades, studies in western and southern Hudson Bay show that polar bears are growing thinner, that undernourished females are having smaller litters, and that females are giving birth to lighter cubs that do not survive as well.

If that were an answer to the question of are polar bear populations decreasing? It would not be a good one for global warming.

Polar Bear populations should increase with global warming as their food sources flourish. It’s actually a pain in the ass for animal life when it is freezing cold

And in fact this interpreation matches the temperature record, Polar Bear population in the 70’s ~5,000, today ~25,000. Global temperature has risen 0.6 deg C over this time.

can they?

The great prophet Algore (All credits be to him)™ is a member, along with 99 other notables including Maurice Strong – former Head of the UN Environment Programme, Mikhail Gorbachevm, Anne Ehrlich – Population Biologist, Sir Crispin Tickell – Chairman of the ‘Gaia Society’, The Dalai Lama, Stephen Schneider – Stanford Professor of Biology and Global Change. Professor Schneider was among the earliest and most vocal proponents of man-made global warming and a lead author of many IPCC reports, Bill Gate, Bill Clinton and others.

Look at this from their 1972 book entitled Limits to Growth:

This is the way we are setting the scene for mankind’s encounter with the planet. The opposition between the two ideologies that have dominated the 20th century has collapsed, forming their own vacuum and leaving nothing but crass materialism.

It is a law of Nature that any vacuum will be filled and therefore eliminated unless this is physically prevented. “Nature,” as the saying goes, “abhors a vacuum.” And people, as children of Nature, can only feel uncomfortable, even though they may not recognize that they are living in a vacuum. How then is the vacuum to be eliminated?

It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose.

New enemies therefore have to be identified.
New strategies imagined, new weapons devised.

The common enemy of humanity is man.

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.

The old democracies have functioned reasonably well over the last 200 years, but they appear now to be in a phase of complacent stagnation with little evidence of real leadership and innovation

Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.

So the Club Of Rome folks are not flakes. They are heavy hitters, and way back in 1972 they were openly promoting the idea that conjuring up threats and fears would help them bring about change to our global governance.

Concerned? Yes, I think we should be.

To hear from someone much more learned than me on what the future will bring, go here

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday An interview with Dmitry Orlov

That was the stupidest pile of turd I have heard in a long time. Sell National Radio immediately.

But my general feeling is it will all be too little and too late to avoid major, and for some catastrophic, change. As far as predictions go, it’s a bit like the eternal war dictum: the battle plan is the first casualty of war.

Awesome Luc, you’ve convinced me, where do I sign up?

Repton,

How about quantifying this statement:

computer climate models do a reasonable job of predicting the present

What is the temperature variation over the last 50 years or so and what is the margin of error in the predictions?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any nicely potted statistics to give you. The book I’ve got shows a picture from the IPCC showing that models that include anthropogenic forcings match observations much better than models that do not

The graph on page 600 looks by eye to have errors of 0.6 deg C for a rise of 0.7 deg C over 100 years. Awesome, nice to see those models ‘improving’.

But my general feeling is it will all be too little and too late to avoid major, and for some catastrophic, change. As far as predictions go, it’s a bit like the eternal war dictum: the battle plan is the first casualty of war.

And the second casualty is so often encapsulated by the dictum: STFU.

I would say same to you but I am much too courteous for that – besides, I’ve already used it on Hurfy