Posts by Lucy Stewart

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  • Hard News: Miracles just rate better, okay?,

    Hyperbaric oxygen chambers are pretty popular with a certain section of parents of autistic children. But not, I imagine, with the children who get shut inside them.

    I recall seeing a "segment" (read: ad) on...probably 3 News about these, touting them as basically the next big thing for whatever ails you. No actual evidence, no airtime for skeptics, just uncritical reporting of what the company that sells time in them was saying. Not that I expect any different these days, but. Sigh.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    What Tarantino very dangerously implies (something he obviously can't say openly), is that we have more in common than we think we do.

    We do. That's the terrifying bit.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The new wave,

    Even slight changes in weather and climate can rip the planet's crust apart, unleashing the furious might of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and landslides

    Well, landslides are kind of a no-brainer. They could well be onto something with the rest of it, but I'd be very interested to see comparisons ofworldwide eruption sequences during interglacial v. glacial periods; the only study they mentioned doing anything of the sort was the Iceland one. I'd still be much less worried about it than about the rest of the effects of climate change, though.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The new wave,

    I believe what Andre is getting at is the recent research which suggests that climate change and the warming of the seas and atmosphere is having an effect on the earth's tectonic plates.

    Interesting, but given the scales involved, deeply unlikely to have an appreciable impact on things like eruption rates any time in the next few million years. On a list of "climate change impacts that worry me", it'd come in somewhere around #157329043.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The new wave,

    aren't Volcanoes great generators of CO2?

    The major CO2 input to the atmosphere pre-humanity, yeah, but the sulphates and dust cancel out the warming (c.f. Pinatubo and the dip in the warming trend in the early '90s.)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    China's international broadcasting channel CCTV9 just announced Mount Everest was first climbed on 25th May 1960 by Wang Fuzhou, Qu Yinhua.

    ....I don't even.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Hard News: The new wave,

    The fact that climate change is also affecting the whole scenario makes volcanoes even more of an issue... and other than the Auckland Museum's marvellous exhibit we seem to be ignoring the elephant in the room.

    What exactly are you getting at with the climate change, out of curiosity? The main interaction of volcanoes and climate change is for volcanoes to inhibit warming.

    (And if a volcano big enough to have a noticeable impact on the rate of climate warming erupts in Auckland, I cannot begin to emphasise how fucked we are.)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    My ex boyfriend objects as well. He refused to come to games. I could see his point, but by that time I 'd sat through rain, sleet and snow supporting the team, so I have only positive emotional associations with the name "Crusaders".

    Do any decent medieval European history course and you'll be left with the association of the term with "fuckwits". It's the beginning of Western colonialism, basically.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    It is happening in the scrubland of western Sudan and hills of Burma.

    Well, not in quite the same mechanised fashion that others upthread have pinpointed as being one of the reasons the Holocaust seems especially chilling.

    But, yeah, it is, and that's part of the same thing, I think; we ignore those genocides because they're being done by, and happening to, The Other. People who are Not Like Us. Exclusively portraying Nazis as demons - often literally - lets us do the same thing. And we shouldn't.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

  • Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi,

    Too many redeeming features in some cases ...

    I don't think it hurts to remember that it wasn't vampire-zombie-demons that caused the Holocaust; it was normal human beings. A lot of them probably did have redeeming features. Whether these films are achieving the correct balance of normality vs. horror is another question, but it doesn't hurt to be nuanced. Or you forget that it could happen again.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report

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