Posts by SteveH
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
Talking of short-term trends -
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/has-the-world-started-cooling-hints-from-4-of-5-global-temperature-sets-say-it-might-have/#more-27430It looked like the fit of the linear trends in those graphs wasn't particularly good so I duplicated the HadCRUT4 graph to check. The r-squared is 0.0458. I.e. the linear trendline is basically meaningless. Really looking for trends in unadjusted temperature data over that sort of time frame is simply foolish.
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Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Matthew Poole,
However, the law is an ass. It requires cyclists to ride as far left as possible, then declares them lawbreakers if they pass on the left.
I just want to note that it's not illegal to pass stationary vehicles on the left. It's also not illegal to pass (on the left) a vehicle that is turning right or signalling to turn right.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to tussock,
3: It’s not the guns. Statistically, the gun deaths are exactly what you’d expect given the number of homicides and suicides, and the number of houses which have guns. They just have a lot of homicides.
No, it is the guns. The US homicide rate for non-firearm methods is similar to comparable countries (e.g. Canada, UK, Australia, us) at around 0.5-1.5 per 100,000 people per year. But 67% of US homicides are committed using firearms. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that the homicide rate would be so high without the prevalence of firearms. And other countries have seen drops in homicide rates when gun control was tightened.
Firearms are an "easy" method of suicide so it is possible that some people would not kill themselves if they didn't have access to a gun, but I think the number would be low. The US suicide rate is similar to comparable countries so it's reasonable to conclude that gun ownership levels are not having a major impact on US suicide rates.
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Hard News: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
What a marathon interview that must have been, as Russell ingested lunch, dinner and breakfast over the (multiple) course of it...
Brainfade on behalf of the reporter, I assume.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to James Bremner,
You only need a handful of people to have a concealed weapons license and be carrying a weapon, a few percent of the population, so there would be a decent chance that one of those people would be in a mall or other populated place and be able to intervene if a shooter turned up.
The problem with your argument is that the US already has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. Most states already allow concealed weapons. What you are proposing is already in practice, yet it is clearly not eliminating these incidents. Rather than continuing to promote increasing levels of gun ownership, perhaps instead it is time to try the tactics that have been proven to work in countries such as Israel and Japan?
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to George Darroch,
A friend on Facebook made the point that the US has 9 gun related deaths per 100,000 population, while there 13 suicides per 100,000 in NZ a year.
The US suicide rate is about 12 per 100,000. A friend of mine pointed out that about 90 people die per day in the US on the roads (which is also about 12 per 100,000). But these numbers are not much different to comparable countries, while
their gun-related fatality rate is a outlier: it's 4 times higher than ours and 9 times higher than Australia's. There is clearly something unusual causing that statistic.They’re not the same statistic. Neither do they have the same solutions, though they affect proportionately similar populations. But it does indicate the magnitude of suffering faced here. Before we start to feel like other countries are warped and bizarre, and we’ve got our shit sorted…
Well the US has almost the same suicide rate and a much higher gun-related fatality rate (note there is considerable overlap between those statistics). So they are still pretty warped and bizarre. Our overall suicide rate is not unusual; it's actually lower than countries like France, Sweden, Finland, and Japan. What is alarming is how high our youth suicide rate is, and the fact that it is increasing.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Ana Simkiss,
If you are suggesting that any legislature in the USA can simply define certain types of weapons out of the constitutional protection of the second amendment, then I agree with Graeme. That is plain wrong.
Why "plain wrong"? Are you arguing that the second amendment means people have a constitutionally protected right on own cruise missiles? There is nothing in there which states that the government must allow the people to keep and bear arms of all types. There is also nothing in there about how many weapons an individual has a right to own.
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Hard News: Cultures and violence, in reply to Tom Semmens,
The only way a gun ban of any sort could be imposed by the US Federal government is by amending the constitution by repealing the second amendment, probably by getting three-fourths of the state legislatures approval.
I can’t see how that is true given that the federal government did ban assault weapons between 1994 and 2004. I guess you can argue that the ban wasn’t particular successful, but it was enacted without an amendment to the constitution.
ETA: I see your point that it wasn't tested by SCOTUS. I think it's interesting that it was in place for 10 years without such a challenge.
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Hard News: The Public Address 2012 Word…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Google seems to have been around since the late 90s- but did it become a verb before 2002?
Definitely. People were using it that way when I was living in Sydney and I came back in 2001.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Farmer Green,
When in Rome eh? :-) It was hardly Farmer Green’s style was it? It’s not easy when 89% of the population is urbanised; the highest % of any country in the world. (Jacqueline Rowarth in Rural News Dec 4 2012)
Speaking of Rome, that "highest %" claim can't possibly be correct. The urbanised population of Vatican City is 100%. Other city-states like Singapore and Monaco also have 100%. Countries like Belgium and Israel and a lot higher than us too. Even Australia is higher than us.
(source: CIA World Factbook).