$ jlc (10,317)

I finally found the actual quote (from a UN conference in Bonn):
From the October 20th UN draft text (full text available at CFACT.org):

“[An International Tribunal of Climate Justice as][A] [compliance mechanism] is hereby established to address cases of non-compliance of the commitments of developed country Parties on mitigation, adaptation, [provision of] finance, technology development and transfer [and][,] capacity-building[,] and transparency of action and support, including through the development of an indicative list of consequences, taking into account the cause, type, degree and frequency of non-compliance.”
The impetus to getting this passed is that:
"Over 130 developing nations led by South Africa and instigated by China and India are insisting that they will not sign a climate agreement in Paris unless it contains massive redistribution of wealth from developed to poor nations. Now they want the power to haul the U.S. and its allies before a UN Star Chamber to enforce compliance." (cfact.org)

It apparently would take a 2/3 vote by the Senate for the US to approve this. This is apparently the second time this has been attempted, the first time being in 2011. (http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/05...)

Jan

Excellent points, Mike. The Indo-European migration stretched from China to Ireland, taking its heroic culture, secondary animal products, and wheeled vehicles with it. Insofar as extra time is concerned, modern hunter-gatherer tribes (more primitive than the PIE civilization) spend about 20 hours a week gathering food: This would leave plenty of time to make monuments.

But - Why those monuments? What do they mean? Why was it important to make them, and make them BIG?


Jim

I have no problem with this. It is as much the prerogative of the adult to stand in defense of the child as it is the strong to champion the weak.

Jan

Happily, I have no children, so I am spared the burden of the welfare of future generations. On the other hand, I am hoping for a LONG life. The requires a innovative and high-tech environment - and hopefully, one that will be psychologically comfortable for me to live in.

I suspect that, flipping coins aside, it will either be a slow process or a black swan.

Jan

I flip a coin. Even days, I hope that we can slowly change society. Odd days: I hope that things collapse soon - before our infrastructure investment is used up.

Jan

What else happens is that businesses know that if they hire a HS graduate, they are not necessarily hiring someone who is even literate. This dilutes the worth of graduating from HS. If this moves up the educational spectrum, college graduation may be considered to require literacy, of some sort.

This is not totally speculative: In China, "literacy" is the ability to read and write a couple thousand ideograms. In India, "literacy" is defined as the ability to sign your name. (Statistics on literacy ignore this difference in definition.) It is plausible that HS 'literacy' may become the ability to sign your name.

Jan

There was a thread recently on CA schools having "C" as the lowest grade - one that would be given to students who 'did nothing'. Already there is a decreased expectation that formal education means anything...

Jan

Marginalizing socialists into Academia has been a major, and ignored, problem. It means that the time required to rectify this is going to be measured in generations.

Jan

Alas, you are correct. Einstein had a degree of introspection that Gates lacks, I think - which does not keep Einstein from being fallible, just that he was more aware of his limitations.

I am an admirer of Bill Gates, but I am totally opposed to what he does in the 'second and third person parts of speech'. When he says "I am doing such-and-so." he is fine; when he says, "You need to do this." he is not.

As you observe, this is true for a large portion of humanity.

Jan

We are quite in accord! We do need to take back over the schools - they are not a 'safe place' to dump the theoretically tame socialists with which we do not want to deal.

Jan

I found the article slightly confusing because of its change in 'voice' and it's possibly deliberate misuse of the word "fair'. I agree with the obvious correctness of a school's ability to expel an unruly student; the other side of that coin, however, is that the school must be providing some service that is valuable. (If the school is not providing a valuable service - literacy or tech training - then it does not matter if you are expelled because the students who graduate will not have any advantage over you.

I do object to the mis-definition of the word "fair'. It is completely fair to expel a misbehaving student. "Fair" does not mean "without let or hindrance" it means "evenhandedly appropriate". So the PC 'voice' that talks about it being 'fair' for institutions/individuals to so such-and-so is misusing the word: It is FAIR - in both cases.

Jan, protecting the word "fair"

Unfortunately true.

Jan

I read about this yesterday on wattsupwiththat. The quote headlined on that site is -

Bill Gates: “If you’re not bringing math skills to the problem,” he said with a sort of amused asperity, “then representative democracy is a problem.”

I have no problem with MS being used quasi-universally by the gov - they need a consistent platform and MS is the only real choice. The Gates Foundation has also been almost single-handedly underwriting HIV medicine in Africa - so I think that Bill Gates thinks he means what he says (albeit not to the extent that he would live in an efficiency apartment).

He has fallen big time for the 'If you're rich, they think you really know." meme. He does not have sufficient insight to understand why he was able to succeed: He introduced a powerful tool into a virtually unregulated technological niche.

It is a literal shame to see him coming down so pointedly on the side of socialism. This is terrible, but most of the tech-geniuses think that they should make the rules because the 'stupid little people' cannot be trusted to do so.

Jan

Very interesting post j. The philosopher-king is a powerful archetype and, like The Prince, was possibly 'as good as you could hope for' in many societies in history. But we can do better than that, now and the philosopher-king is a big step backward into the illusion of a fictional heaven on Earth with a benign despot in control.

It was even more interesting when I kept reading "Pluto" for "Plato"...

Jan, needs more coffee

I agree on the institutional bias for socialism, but this sort of a fabricated Sting operation is dismaying. We are supposed_to_be ethically better than they are.


Jan

I am pretty sure that you have to get the actors to sign up for all 3 movies when you do the first one, if you want a consistent set of actors. You can also take the chance - that Agialoro did - that if you use actors who are trying to make their names in the Industry and your first film succeeds, then they will be eager to do the next two. But the Industry did a full-court-press on the actress who played Dagney and pretty much told her that if she was in another episode, she could kiss her acting career good-bye. She played the, "I didn't even know what it was about." card and promised that she was not politically tainted by the contact.

Pity. She played the part well.

Jan

I don't think they had a choice, term. If the first movie had been a rousing success, then they might have been able to get the same actors for the next episodes...but AS 1 was panned where it was not ignored.

Jan

So, Project Veritas sends a reporter to create an incident and then reports on it? The reporter pretends to be distressed at seeing the Constitution and lures some professors into 'helping her' by shredding copies of the Constitution in front of her.

And then she films them and sends the clips to the conservative group for which she works, to discredit the colleges for which the professors work.

Huh? I don't like anything about either side of this.

Jan, did I get this right?

Weird. Intelligent. Capable.

And they are still liberals.

Here's to Hope!

Jan

We now know that Mars has water too. And it has raw materials galore. The little matter of Oxygen to breathe...

Jan

Yeah, but all of my liberal friends would have laughed; they are all weird too.

I like the Holy Chao reply.

Jan

Hmmm: Ragnar! (Looks like Chris Hemsworth.)

Jan, Yo Ho Ho!

You need glosses to the side of the conversation, giving context and background!

Jan, needs them too

I had not heard that Bohr quote - Love it! The humor of scientists is often a lot funnier than other types of humor. (Have you seen The Martian?! Talk about geek humor...)

My conclusion is close to yours: The functional is the test of the theoretical. My divergence from Objectivism is that some of the descriptions of what an Objectivist world would be like do not seem to me to be workable. What ever 'real' is: It Works.

I tend to call myself an Objectivist or a Randist when talking to my liberal friends, because that is the best shorthand for their knowing where I stand. On this site, I dodge those terms because I do feel I have a good fit for the definitions that other people have for them.

Jan, a jan-kinda-randist

(I thought it was funny....)

Jan