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Whedonworship

Listed below are comments made by Whedonworship between Wednesday, 10th December 2008 and Friday, 6th November 2009.

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All's fair in the climate blame game 5:06pm on 06 Nov 2009 If the US are so determined that China should agree to emissions limits before they agree to emissions limits why don't they just bring all their manufacturing back the US? This will boost their economy, and create a huge number of jobs.

OR China could say to the US "Alright, we'll agree to limits and we'll start a massive rollout of renewable energy installations, and energy efficiency projects. This will mean the cost of all our goods increases significantly, BUT as you are *so* heavily in debt to us we are locking you into legally binding trade agreements and you will *have* to purchase these products from us at the new inflated price!"

Neither of these countries should be allowed to have it their own way. China should have environmental laws in place (given that many of their rivers are so polluted that clothes washed in them actually get dirtier) to punish polluting companies - and also laws which prevent them moving their operations out of the country once these environmental laws are introduced. The US should try to understand that their "lifestyle" is not a right as they all seem to think and that the impact of them living as they want means that people are effectively murdered by their own governments in countries around the world. This is about so much more than climate change mitigation, and the focus purely on CO2 means that equally important issues are ignored.

And @ Larry Kealey - Modern farming techniques are all dependent on oil and chemicals! Oil based fertilizers, oil run tractors and harvesting machinery, chemical pesticides and herbicides. It has already been proven that water runoff from fertilisers affects rivers and waterways, suffocating all life in them (see Florida Everglades, or Norfolk Broads for eg). Intensive farming techniques also lead to topsoil loss which in the long term means less farming land overall because it takes about 20 times as long to replenish topsoil as it does to lose it. The example of canopy as opposed to intensive coffee growing is good. Biodiversity is key and 'modern' farming techniques are the enemies of biodiversity because they demand that every cm2 of land is dedicated only to the crop. Of all places, the country leading the permaculture race is Cuba.
'I've never joined Facebook because...' 12:26pm on 05 Feb 2009 The potential for data-mining is huge. All those happy-go-lucky people posting their favourite this, and most wanted that - ad companies love it! It's like loyalty cards writ large. We can market at you based on your preferences or your demographic. Yay!
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/27/business/google.php

Also, the information IS cached by Google - with all the inherent security risks that poses: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1315588,00.html

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

And yes, you can decide how much information you put up there, and it is a good way to stay in touch with people you can't, or would rather not, actually see. But most people don't know that and wouldn't think it a problem if they did. Because they don't really understand the security risks.
"We blame the parents" 11:48am on 02 Feb 2009 Being a working mother in a loving, happy, UNmarried relationship with my daughters' father, I do miss being with my children.

My partner is a stay-at-home Dad after being made redundant a few years ago and is great at it, but I still wish I could be there with them. However, one of us needs to earn some money, and it was easier for me to continue working as my job was better paid anyway.

If more men were less threatened by their wives/partners being the bread-winner or earning more than them, they could take over the homemaker role.

However, this is not the whole answer. I still do not get much quality time with my children during the week. If the only quality time I can spend with my kids is 1-2 hours in the evening, of course they are going to feel they are missing out. But at least they know that I love them. And I have to take issue with the cohabiting statistics. My kids are among the smartest in both their classes.

At the very least, we need more flexible working hours as law.

On the other hand, I do agree with djlazarus on the sterilisation thing. So many people who clearly have no idea how to raise a child are having them without a thought for the consequences. It breaks my heart to see ignored and unhappy children, or worse.

The one thing that does make me chuckle is that this report has come out not long after the government has spent a good few months demonising the unemployed and saying that EVERYONE should be in work. "There should be help to get new mothers back to work etc..." How to reconcile that?
When the going gets tough... 11:45am on 10 Dec 2008 "So in other words, the government are doing what New Labour seem to do best: making everything fantastically complicated. I predict this will have 3 outcomes:

1. The system will become much more expensive to administer

2. Those who are genuinely in need of help will find the new procedures cumbersome and be less likely to get the help they need

3. Benefit cheats will find new loopholes and manage to exploit the system better than they are doing now."

Exactly! Especially as, after a few years, they'll hand it over to a private company to administer who'll naturally want to take a profit from it - telling us that they're "much more efficient" while all the time doing what the benefits system is supposedly doing - bleeding the taxpayer dry!

Why doesn't government instead crack down on all those businesses and businessmen who don't pay their taxes and exploit the loopholes they paid to have written into the tax laws?
When the going gets tough... 11:13am on 10 Dec 2008 "It may involve training" Really? My partner who has been unemployed and at home with our children for the last 3 years has repeatedly asked his local job centre for help to get on a training course for computer networking. To be told that the only computing course the DWP is allowed to send him on is European Computer Driving License - which will just about qualify you to turn a computer on and use Microsoft Word.

He has a natural talent with computers and in fact can probably do any computing job put in front of him. However, very few companies will employ someone without a formal qualification, which we can't afford to get. How is the government going to "help him to find work"? By forcing him into a minimum wage job that means that we have to pay for childcare - which will cost pretty much what he earns in a month!

If you ask me, this is the government just trying to follow even more Friedmanite economic policies. Our government is so enamoured of the US model of government, they fail to see the societal collapse that has happened over there. Do they not realise that increased street crime and violence are a direct result of reduced access to public services? The divide between rich and poor in the US is almost as great as in any third world country. They just hide it better - by not talking about it.

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