Jump to content

Coss

Board Sponsors
  • Posts

    17374
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    355

Posts posted by Coss

  1. <<A long time ago, on this board, in numerous posts, he accused me of involvement in the underaged, enforced and trafficked, sex industry, because of my trip reports that talked about adult P4P in Cambodia. No-one, according to him, could pay an adult woman for sex in Cambodia, without actually being up to the eyeballs in underaged, enforced and trafficked children for sex.>>

     

    Fair enough, I can see Nick saying that, your reply is reasonable :) given I know you as well as I know Nick

     

    He does have good friends on both sides of the fence the problem is the nut jobs in yellow robes who hate him.

     

    I'm sure he's lovely, and if he were talking about the Cambo sex industry in the abstract, I wouldn't have had a problem, the issue I had, was that he accused me.

    • Like 1
  2. The argument I have is not whether or not the planet is warming or cooling, getting more changeable or less.

     

    The argument I have is whether or not Al Gore, all the Politicians and Marketing Geniuses are correct in promulgating that man is solely and culpably responsible for any significant amount of warming or cooling, or more change or less.

     

    My understanding of all the arguments, pro and con, is that we're basing a lot of what is said on weather observations and other observations that only cover a small amount of time. Ergo we are measuring small swings in what may or may not be a trend.

  3. and from 2012...

     

    Don’t tell me Al Gore was exaggerating again!

     

    Source

     

    With high-altitude mountains in Himachal Pradesh experiencing up to 100 cm fresh snowfall in November month after 10 years, the abundance of snow on mountains has rejuvenated nearly one thousand glaciers and has ensured uninterrupted supply of water for drinking, irrigation and hydel projects.

     

    Even after years of research on glaciers and climate of Himalayas, scientists have failed to learn the pattern of the weather here. While scanty snowfall and rising temperature in last decade had sparked the possibilities of fast shrinking of glaciers, good spells of snowfall in last three years have changed the trend with glaciers almost growing to their original size. Some scientists say that despite heavy snowfall in winters, the extreme heat in summers is causing the melting of the glaciers with abnormal speed and others say extreme cold in winters is neutralizing the minor effect of risen temperature in summer. Overall, speed of melting of glaciers has reduced over the past few years only due to good snowfall in winter months.

     

    This improves even on the good news reported in February:

     

    The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

     

    The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

     

    The study is the first to survey all the world’s icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less than previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

     

    Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: “The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero.â€

     

    Not what Al Gore was saying three years ago, when he was warning of a billion people running out of water:

  4. Think basic thermodynamics! A higher global temp. is going to shift the balance between ice and water to less ice.

     

    And therein the crux, 'A higher global temp', is it long term, or the peak of a short term cycle? My view is that we don't know.

     

    And if we are to base all our operative capacity on what might happen, then we should have a comet destruction force, and a zombie vaccine. Vampire cages, ghost traps, tin hats, I could go on...

     

    Really we would be better served by saving the Tiger, Snow Leopard, etc and reducing human population numbers, feeding the poor, that sort of thing.

    • Like 1
  5. I'll go for that, if I can be number two. :)

     

    Consider yourself appointed, as a taste of power, a pre-accession perk if you will, you may now park in any reserved parking space, no-one will dare to question you, such is your power.

     

    I will support as long as I can be head of the "women's sexuality department"

     

    Quite right, I've been wondering what to do about that. Please ensure that all good looking women have buckets of sexuality, not so good looking women should be sent to the public service department, street cleaning, that sort of thing.

  6. This next is a again a real story, not me taking the piss, though I don't know if StickBoy is a reliable source, read on...

     

    Body Of Dead Frenchman Still Unclaimed

    Published by Stickboy

     

    The body of the Frenchman found hanged in an alleged suicide on Koh Tao earlier this week remains unclaimed by his family or relatives according to a news report on Thai PBS News.

     

    Despite being identified by police, the body of Dimitri Povse remains in a Koh Tao temple awaiting relatives in France contacting either police or the French Embassy.

     

    Police are following the theory he committed suicide over a love affair despite his hands being tied behind his back.

     

    Thai Criminologist Charnkanit Krittiya Suriyamanee has voiced his support for calls by the public that police and forensic experts look for more evidence to determine the exact cause of death.

     

    He said that the victim had been drunk to the extent that he would have been unable to control himself, and wouldn’t have been able to tie himself up so tightly that he died of suffocation.

     

    Had he hanged himself, he also pointed out that bruises should have appeared on the neck. He added that the wound on the victim’s elbow could have been inflicted by someone else.

     

    _____

     

    So despite "Relatives of a French tourist who hanged himself did not doubt the nature of his death, Surat Thani police said."

     

    the Police are waiting to speak to the relatives

     

    " the body of Dimitri Povse remains in a Koh Tao temple awaiting relatives in France contacting either police or the French Embassy."

  7. Given that a lot of the ice that is melting is ice over water, the sea doesn't rise when it melts, it's already floating you see.

     

    The sea level rise from melting ice has to come, from melting ice that's over land, like Himalayan glaciers. Al told us they'd be gone by 2015 as did Prince Charles, why are they still there?

     

    Recent thoughts are that Glaciers, come and go relatively quickly, never really disappearing and that those that do go, often are compensated for by new ones arriving or old ones re-appearing and all of this is like rainfall, quite local in effect.

     

    I've posted this before, but I'll restate. People are keen to say that if all the ice melted on Greenland, the seas would shoot up a lot 30 feet or more.

     

    Studies have indeed shown Ice cores from middle and northern Greenland that show pollen and insect fragments from about 30~40,000 years ago, showing that Greenland did have less ice coverage in the past, when the world was about 5 degrees warmer. But the key here is, they are ice cores. There was Ice for the pollen etc to fall on in middle and northern Greenland when the world was 5 degrees warmer, so even at 5 degrees warmer, Greenland still had substantial ice coverage.

     

    This of course is at odds with Al Gore's views.

     

    Not for me to say, but no one has been able to demonstrate that Greenland has been Ice free or predominately Ice free, less ice yes, but not no Ice. (good engrish that)

  8. Why? He's a friend of mine, can't see why you'd want to do that? Serious question.

     

    Firstly, I recognise and support his right to his own views and the voicing of them.

     

    But,

     

    A long time ago, on this board, in numerous posts, he accused me of involvement in the underaged, enforced and trafficked, sex industry, because of my trip reports that talked about adult P4P in Cambodia. No-one, according to him, could pay an adult woman for sex in Cambodia, without actually being up to the eyeballs in underaged, enforced and trafficked children for sex.

     

    Of course I differed, I've yet to receive any apology. I think he was asked to leave the board for this and other matters.

     

    I once likened him to someone who could get arrested, by simply walking down the road and encountering a policeman, so provocative and offensive he could be.

     

    Whilst we're on the subject of his failings, I wonder who wrote the glowing Exhibition Notice at the link. I'd like a spin doctor like that. I'll give him that he's a good photographer, but he certainly is no hero.

  9. This next is a real story, not me taking the piss, read on...

     

    Relatives of a French tourist who hanged himself did not doubt the nature of his death, Surat Thani police said.

     

    Surat Thani police commander Pol Maj Gen Apichart Boonsriroj said the police were in touch with the French embassy after a French tourist, Dmitri Pofv, was found hanged in a rented Bungalow room in Koh Tao on January 1.

     

    The embassy has said relatives did not doubt his death after they were explained of the investigation procedure of the Thai police and the autopsy result.

     

    But the police commander said the relatives have not yet said whether they would fly in to take the body back for religious service, or want the embassy to send the body back home.

     

    Source

     

    The Thai Police are obviously miffed, at others poking fun at them and have decided, to take this role more seriously and ridicule themselves more often.

     

    Note the lack of any quote or source or any attribution to any relatives.

  10. Nice tv show, and it's worth restating:

     

    All of the things that people are doing or want to do, in the combat of climate change, are great! (with the possible exception of taxes) I hate pollution and rainforest clearing and shark finning and excess use of resources. I love renewable energy, less chemicals in the food supply, peaceable debate and women who shave.

     

    But that still doesn't mean that man is responsible for, or can reverse, Global Warming, if there is any.

    • Like 1
  11. Kong, if you're still there when I'm back in The Glorious People's Republic, I'll come and visit.

     

    My experiences with a trip to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, were that, people who were involved with the Buses and Tourism and Accommodation on the travel and tours we did - absolute c*nts, I've never been so close to losing it and just decking one of the little bastards. But! The people who weren't in the aforementioned categories, the locals in local restaurants, shops and so on, the normal non-tourism people, perfectly lovely. If only I could find away of travelling in Vietnam that didn't involve the tourism industry.

     

    I am told by an Old Timer, that when Vietnam was opening up to the tourism industry, the people thought this was great, but they just took the punters money and offered little in service or value, the Viet Government then had to "Educate" the industry as a whole and it got a lot better, but now its slipping back into it's old ways, time for a little bit more "Traditional Cultural Communist Education:. :)

  12. Cant see it outside Australia, it says.

     

    You have to remember that for every beach that's washed away, every coral atoll that disappears, another beach is formed and another atoll appears.

     

    There are studies of Pacific atolls with photos showing coral atolls that have happily grown in size since the seventies and beaches do form by wave action.

     

    Indeed, my favourite fishing spot at Piha in Auckland, which is accessed by a walk around the rocks and through a hole in a headland, has become much more accessible recently. For the 25 years prior to 2011 that I've been fishing this place, access was dangerous at mid to high tide due to the beach being under the surf and the erstwhile fisherman having to rock climb around several precipitous areas. Now in 2014/15, the beach is, by my estimation at least 5 metres higher, a huge volume of sand has been deposited, making access, mostly, an easy walk except at the highest of tides.

     

    The sea is not retreating, the beach is advancing, oh no! If this trend continues NZ will be covered by sand by 2075, give me a Nobel prize please !

  13. Maybe it's the snow that's causing the rising sea levels.

     

    I remember one argument that goes - the colder it is, the less moisture the air can hold, see dry Antartica, ergo the water ends up somewhere, in the sea. Conversely, the warmer it gets, the more moisture there is in the air.

     

    Not my argument, just one from the seventies...

  14. BANGKOK — The number of foreign tourists who visited Thailand in 2014 is down 6.6 percent from the previous year, a Thai government official confirmed.

     

    "24.7 million tourists visited Thailand in the year 2014, which is a 6.6 percent decrease compared with 2013," said Kobkarn Wattanavarangkul, Minister of Tourism and Sports. "They generated 1.13 trillion baht in revenue, 5.8 percent less than [the previous year]."

     

    Kobkarn attributed the decline in tourist arrivals and revenues to the political crisis in Thailand during "the first half of 2014," in which parts of Bangkok were paralyzed by street protests that aimed to topple the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

     

    The protests, which occasionally turned violent, came to an end when the military staged a coup and declared nationwide martial law in May 2014. The military junta also imposed a 10 pm - 6 am curfew in Thailand for several weeks.

     

    Tourism experts and economists also say that martial law, which remains in place today, has dissuaded many potential foreign tourists from visiting Thailand. More recently, the dramatic fall of the Russian ruble has further damaged tourism in popular destinations for Russian tourists such as Pattaya and Phuket.

     

    Full Story

     

    Meanwhile, TAT either has its head in the sand, or is on another planet:

     

     

    TAT expects Jan 14-18 tourism event to generate 250 million baht

     

    BANGKOK, 8 January 2014 (NNT) -- The Tourism Authority of Thailand expects that 250 million baht will be spent during a five-day Bangkok event held to spur Thailand's tourism in 2015. Source

     

    and

     

     

    TAT: New Year tourist number jumps across country

     

    BANGKOK, 7 January 2015 (NNT) – The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has indicated that the tourism sector has enjoyed an arrival jump across the country during the New Year period, generating more than six billion baht in income. Source

×
×
  • Create New...