TimG

A doctor friend who is a GP says that the wages paid to hospital doctors mean it is extremely difficult to get new doctors to become GPs which contributes to the shortage. Many people don't want the hassle of running their own business when they can do the same work and get paid more in a hospital.

I had always thought Atlas Shrugged was meant to be a parody of Communism. I did not realize that people interpreted to be a philosophy in its own right until later.

Except this study does nothing to support that fiction because many black people have Anglo names and would be more likely to get an interview. More importantly, by any meaningful measure Asians have no problems succeeding in Canada and can hardly claim to be held back by discrimination. All this study shows is that perceived language abilities are a factor in resume selection. Whether it is a bad punctuation or spelling error or a name that suggests recent immigrant it all comes done to the reviewers' perception of language ability.

A spelling error *could* indicate ineffective communication skills. You can't know that unless you investigated further. Similarly a foreign name *could* indicate inadequate English skills but you can't know for sure. However, people filter resumes because they do not have the time to properly investigate every candidate so some suitable candidates will be excluded for petty reasons. This is unavoidable. It is ridiculous to get exercised because a troll mined enough data to find a headline grabbing correlation.

No different than rejecting a candidate because of spelling errors. Resume filtering is an arbitrary process and a generally horrible way to fill a position. Using computers would not reduce this arbitrariness but it would at least stop people from trolling for spurious correlations and drawing unfounded conclusions.

Driving a vehicle is a privilege - not a right. There are any number of traffic rules that one must follow that interfere with personal freedoms (it infringes on my freedom to require me to stop at a red light if I think the way is clear...). A helmet is no different.

And why can't a serious program to end drunkenness be put in place? At some point you have to respect the right of people to make their own choices even if society ends up with some of the bill. The only exception I would make is if a woman chooses to carry a child to term and she shows flagrant disregard for the health of the foetus by excessive drinking or drug use then it should be possible to lock her up until the baby is born.

Because unwanted children can be an even bigger drain on the budget than the cost of abortions. Especially if the mother is an addict and does not care about the damage done to the foetus. And even if smokes and booze are taxed the taxpayer picks up the tab for the medical consequences of excess so that is not really a comparison.

Nope. Atolls take millions of years to form. During that time the sea level has risen and fallen by many meters. Without humans those atolls would certainly rise to deal with any hypothetical rise in sea level. Also, the expected SLR in the next 100 years is less than 1 ft in the worst case scenario according to the IPCC. That is not large enough to have a statistically relevant effect on storm surges. More importantly, the even without climate change storms happen and poor countries are not equipped to deal with them. Trying to blame the problems created by too many people with poor infrastructure on climate change is dishonest. Those problems exist with or without climate change.

Pacific atolls rise with sea level. If there are problems it is because local construction choices interfered with the natural geology of the atolls. But SLR has no relationship to the 2deg fiction. It is just an arbitrary number plucked out of hat. It is not a "tipping point".

King Canute could not stop the seas from rising no matter how many taxes and fines he levied on his subjects. We can have no discussion of this topic without an honest assessment of what is economically feasible given the tech available today. Setting goals that can only be met by cheating will simply encourage cheating.

Governments have been responsible for coordinating and funding adaption for as long as there has been governments. Nothing will change. The nice thing about adaption is the decisions have to be local and are based on actual need. If a hypothetical problem does not appear there is no need pay for adaptation. It also means we don't care why a drought or a flood occurred - we just care that it did occur and civil defenses need to created.

Resume selection is an arbitrary and discriminatory way to choose applicants. People are rejected for any number of a unreasonable criteria because a large stack a resumes has to be reduced to a manageable number in a short period of time. Large companies are already moving to AIs which do the filtering which won't make the process less arbitrary but it should reduce the screams of racism. It would be interesting to see what the results were for people with Anglo first names but non-Anglo last names. I would be surprised if there was any difference because any filtering going on is likely due to the unconscious belief that non-Anglo name less likely to have adequate English skills.

Of course there is no actual scientific foundation for the 2 degC limit. It is basically a number plucked out the air to meet political objectives.

We will need to adapt but that is something we have to do even if we wasted money trying to meet fanciful CO2 reduction targets. I don't see the point of spending money to do nothing other than massage the egos of people who think being seen to "do something" is more important than actually doing anything useful.

What is better way to ensure that people live until 200? Just because a problem exists it does not automatically follow that it can be "solved" or that it should be "solved". A straight carbon tax based on reasonable SCC estimates (~30-50 USD per tonne) plus R&D might produce a resolution or it might not. Plans with fanciful targets that will never be met are a waste of resources. Get rid of the fanciful reduction targets and we can talk about a carbon tax. Not before.

So? It is still opposition to nuclear which is what I was talking about. I frankly don't care about the minor distinction between phase out and shutdown because it is the opposition, in whatever form it appears, is the problem.

I gave you a link but instead of reading the words in the policy you try to invent some fiction about a "phase out" not being an "opposition". Support for nuclear power means expansion. Building new plants. Upgrading old ones. et. al. Calling for a "phase out" is opposition. When Greens and other lefties start calling for an expansion of nuclear power I will take their claims about CO2 seriously. Until then they are just a bunch of limousine liberals that are using CO2 as means to achieve political ends that have nothing to do with GHGs.

Means nothing as long as their political proxies continue to oppose it.

Nuclear provides base load. Hydro is the only source in your list that can actually replace nuclear and there is simply not enough of it around to supply our needs. So if someone cares about CO2 they should get over their opposition to nuclear. If they insist on living in a renewable fantasy world then why should I care about CO2?

ROTFL. If CO2 is a concern there can only be an expansion of nuclear because it is the only zero-CO2 baseload source other than hydro. Any call for a "phase out" is pure hypocrisy from people who claim to care about CO2. As I said: why should I care about CO2 when the most strident activists don't care enough about it to rethink their opposition to nuclear power?

And Stephen Tindale has been ostracized by his fellow greens for his heresy. Here is what happens to people who failed to keep the faith. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pro-nuclear-green-candidate-faces-axe-1630314.html .Gawd, I can't believe how uninformed you people are. How can you NOT know that the primary opposition to nuclear has always been the left. Exceptions are few and far between and are invariably disowned by their former colleagues.

I do: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/vision-green/economy/energy Greens not only oppose nuclear they want to shutdown existing plants which will make meeting any CO2 targets even less plausible. So please explain why I should care about CO2 when the most strident activists don't think it is important enough to revisit their knee jerk hatred of nuclear?

You need to actually try listening to what people say instead of inventing BS that supports what you want to believe. The opposition to nuclear comes from one and only one source: Greens and their fellow travelers in the NDP and LIberals.

China has built entire cities that sit empty. It has been dumping steel and solar panels on the world market because of that same kind of overcapacity. It should come as no surprise that their inefficient system produced more coal plants that they needed. China is big so even a tiny percentage of renewables will add up to big numbers but you should not fool yourself: renewables are bit players in China and will continue to be so.