Stadius Maximus
Politics, posted: 16-Nov-2006 21:37
The CBD is not the attraction it used to be. Traffic and parking are a hassle. I'd work nearer where I live, if I could find a comparable job. And with the development in the suburbs (eg Albany basin), I'm sure that will happen eventually.
Britomart can handle only 10,000 people per hour. In theory -- I have seen other figures that put the real world throughput at 1600 per hour. It is definitely not like Grand Central Station. (For comparison, the northern busway is designed to carry 11,000 passengers per hour.) So it should not be expected to quickly carry half the patrons to a large event moments before it commences.
The waterfront stadium must not proceed. It will only be a large, and very hungry, white elephant.
As a hat-tip to those who suggest Labour is trying to distract the mob by building a circus, I propose that the waterfront stadium, be called "Stadius Maximus".
Britomart can handle only 10,000 people per hour. In theory -- I have seen other figures that put the real world throughput at 1600 per hour. It is definitely not like Grand Central Station. (For comparison, the northern busway is designed to carry 11,000 passengers per hour.) So it should not be expected to quickly carry half the patrons to a large event moments before it commences.
The waterfront stadium must not proceed. It will only be a large, and very hungry, white elephant.
As a hat-tip to those who suggest Labour is trying to distract the mob by building a circus, I propose that the waterfront stadium, be called "Stadius Maximus".
Piqued "Peak Oil" scaremongers
Politics, posted: 16-Nov-2006 12:42
The Peak Oil theory, pushed heavily here by the Greens in particular, was debunked today in a report Why the Peak Oil Theory Falls Down: Myths, Legends, and the Future of Oil Resources produced by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). They are paticularly concerned about the distortion of public policy that peak oil theory brings.
source: Slashdot
source: Slashdot
Other Reasons Not To Spend $1billion+ on a Waterfront Stadium
Politics, posted: 16-Nov-2006 10:42
Bob Clarkson (MP for Tauranga) estimates $1,800,000,000 for a 60,000 seat stadium on the waterfront. He should have a better idea than most, having built a stadium before!
There is a continual battle between residents who move into an area, that already has a long-established noisy activity (such as speedway, industry, cafes, airport, motorway, etc), and proceeding to complain vociferously about the noise or lights. Despite being the newcomers. Turning down the Eden Park upgrade will only encourage such people further, and jeopardise similar ventures (not named, to avoid giving people ideas).
Having spent all that money on a "national" stadium, the govt and the rest of the country will be even more begrudging about any further large projects in Auckland requiring taxpayer funding. Such as urgent roading networks, or electricity generation and transmission.
(Incidentally, no local Maori should have any prior claims on the land being considered for a waterfront stadium, for one simple reason -- that land was not reclaimed until long after 1840.)
There have been no figures presented demonstrating the on-going need for a 60,000 seat stadium. How many times in the last 10 years has Eden Park been full to capacity?
No details are forth-coming of who is paying the bill. Those are our taxes that Labour is perched on, and it is not an attractive proposition to see potential tax cuts being squandered on a monument to St Helen or Trev (Mallard) that the majority of Aucklanders do not want.
What I would like to see is a poll along these lines. Which of these options would you prefer:
- a national stadium on the Auckland waterfront,
- an upgraded Eden Park, and a toll-free western ring motorway, or
- a second grandstand at Albany, and a cut in business and personal taxes across all of NZ?
There is a continual battle between residents who move into an area, that already has a long-established noisy activity (such as speedway, industry, cafes, airport, motorway, etc), and proceeding to complain vociferously about the noise or lights. Despite being the newcomers. Turning down the Eden Park upgrade will only encourage such people further, and jeopardise similar ventures (not named, to avoid giving people ideas).
Having spent all that money on a "national" stadium, the govt and the rest of the country will be even more begrudging about any further large projects in Auckland requiring taxpayer funding. Such as urgent roading networks, or electricity generation and transmission.
(Incidentally, no local Maori should have any prior claims on the land being considered for a waterfront stadium, for one simple reason -- that land was not reclaimed until long after 1840.)
There have been no figures presented demonstrating the on-going need for a 60,000 seat stadium. How many times in the last 10 years has Eden Park been full to capacity?
No details are forth-coming of who is paying the bill. Those are our taxes that Labour is perched on, and it is not an attractive proposition to see potential tax cuts being squandered on a monument to St Helen or Trev (Mallard) that the majority of Aucklanders do not want.
What I would like to see is a poll along these lines. Which of these options would you prefer:
- a national stadium on the Auckland waterfront,
- an upgraded Eden Park, and a toll-free western ring motorway, or
- a second grandstand at Albany, and a cut in business and personal taxes across all of NZ?
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More on Claytons Climate Change
Politics, posted: 13-Nov-2006 12:38
Some interesting quotes:
...in 1997, the World Wide Fund for Nature announced that two-thirds of the world’s forests had been lost for ever. When questioned, it admitted that the report on which this was based had never existed. In fact, the truth is that there are many more forests in the world now than there were in 1950.
And another...
There are many scientists, really properly good ones with really properly good qualifications, who maintain that man’s impact on the environment is minimal. There are even more who say we just don’t know.
Then you have Danish egghead Bjorn Lomborg, who studied a vast range of eco reports before presenting his findings in a book called the Skeptical Environmentalist.
Let us take the Exxon Valdez tanker crash as an example. After it happened men with sandals came on the television to call the accident an environmental catastrophe. We saw shots of sticky guillemots in their death throes, and, of course, we knew it was all our fault for driving 4x4s and turning up the central heating whenever it gets a bit chilly.
But Lomborg presents an interesting fact that wasn’t covered by the news reports. Yes, 250,000 birds were killed by the spillage, but this is also the number killed each day in America from collisions with plate glass. In Britain alone 250,000 birds are killed every two days by domestic cats.
The source? One Jeremy Clarkson (knowm best for Top Gear).
...in 1997, the World Wide Fund for Nature announced that two-thirds of the world’s forests had been lost for ever. When questioned, it admitted that the report on which this was based had never existed. In fact, the truth is that there are many more forests in the world now than there were in 1950.
And another...
There are many scientists, really properly good ones with really properly good qualifications, who maintain that man’s impact on the environment is minimal. There are even more who say we just don’t know.
Then you have Danish egghead Bjorn Lomborg, who studied a vast range of eco reports before presenting his findings in a book called the Skeptical Environmentalist.
Let us take the Exxon Valdez tanker crash as an example. After it happened men with sandals came on the television to call the accident an environmental catastrophe. We saw shots of sticky guillemots in their death throes, and, of course, we knew it was all our fault for driving 4x4s and turning up the central heating whenever it gets a bit chilly.
But Lomborg presents an interesting fact that wasn’t covered by the news reports. Yes, 250,000 birds were killed by the spillage, but this is also the number killed each day in America from collisions with plate glass. In Britain alone 250,000 birds are killed every two days by domestic cats.
The source? One Jeremy Clarkson (knowm best for Top Gear).
Dishonest Science and Climate Change
Politics, posted: 7-Nov-2006 12:06
Like most others involved in the debate on climate change, IANACS (I Am Not A Climate Scientist). I do have a PhD (in engineering) and worked for >15 years for DSIR and Industrial Research Ltd. Which makes me a trained sceptic, and vehement critic of "bad science".
I am saddened and appalled by the United Nations, and those in the scientific community who are lowering the standards of scientific methodology in order to manufacture findings that support the UN agenda.
Read this Sunday Telegraph article for the low-down on how the facts have been "doctored" to frighten the world. Recommended.
There is a lively debate on this issue on David Farrar's blog.
