Shots from Geographe Bay, SW WA. I won’t be winning an award for these, but it was kinda cool.
…
They were having fun.
….
Showing off:
….
Judging by their very long flippers, dorsal fins, and the time of year, these were humpback whales which grow to 30 – 50 tonnes, and 15-18m long (medium sized for a whale). They are heading south for the summer to feed around Antarctica. They are apparently pretty friendly and curious, popping up to check out boats and allegedly even flirting, playing around and occasionally rescuing other species of whale and dolphin.
We were on the beach, the zoom was 64mm – 155mm (yes it did not look this close). Holiday house generously supplied. (You know who you are, thank you! :- ) ).
This is now old news but various towns in Montana have had record snowfalls for October:
http://www.fox13news.com/news/blizzard-breaks-1898-record-in-montana-town
Even after a century of global warming there are still century old cold records being broken.
101
And we still have our fire going after that spurt of global warming in the middle of last week.
81
Likewise the central heating is on here in Melbourne
60
And you know that dry spell we had.. Its raining again. !
I think its called WEATHER 🙂
62
We’ve had our wood stove going the last few days, after that very brief warm spell. The wind yesterday and this morning was perishing cold. What was that about 4 seasons in a day in this part of the world? (North Central Vic). There is lots of green leafery and blossom out though and the grass and weeds are going mad with the rain and longer days 😉
That must have been lovely to see Jo. I hope you were warm enough…we hear from family around there that it’s been pretty cool, wet and windy this year!
30
two blankets on, last night..
In Newcastle in late October. !!!
62
When I was mowing yesterday I had a cotton ‘skivvy’, sweater and a warm-lined windproof jacket. Late October!!!
30
Two for us also in central west Qld for the past two nights. Delicious.
30
Global cooling has begun, but in Melbourne everyone told me (without prompting) the hackneyed saying that its ‘four seasons in one day’.
They are all in denial.
00
It’s great to see you take some time off Joanne.
100
I have this week’s data and my analysis for the Base Load series I’m doing, and that’s at the link below.
I mention just why it is that all the large coal fired plants, well, all of them now, have Units off line during this specific time, and at any one time in the last two weeks there has been between nine and twelve Units off line, taking anything up to 6000MW out of the system, and how carefully planned it all is.
We are slowly moving away from the Winter pattern for power consumption and moving towards the Summer pattern. Now, during the time of year of least power consumption, that Demand is low in the early afternoon period, and the gap between what that level of power is now, and the typical consumption in Mid Summer is anything up to 8000/9000MW, so it’s a good time to make those Units ready for when they will be required the most, and come Summer, you’ll be hard pressed to find very many of those Units off line at all, well, probably one or two at the ancient Liddell plant.
Australian Base Load Electrical Power – Week Ending 21st October 2017
Tony.
300
Thanks again Tony. find your posts valuable.
150
Agreed.
Sometimes the most seemingly “mundane” of data, is actually very useful intelligence….
80
Great post, Tony.
Isn’t it incredible that nearly all of the politicians, and every one of the ‘media’ have no f***ing idea what the term “base load” actually means.
Therefore you have the uber delusional Tanya or shadow minister Bonehead suggesting that enough seabreezes and rainbows could supply base load.
But then, the same fools can’t tell the difference between warming and cooling and think the planet has a “climate”.
130
What stumps me is that I copy down the figures for each State from the AEMO site each morning. Then I add up each State total to give me that overall total, which is almost right on 18,000MW.
And yet when some people read that, they find it ‘delusional’ that it is me who somehow ‘believes’ that we are actually consuming that much power.
I am almost certain that NO ONE actually knows this.
I wonder what’s going to happen when that little inconvenient fact becomes widespread.
The guy who called me delusional actually suggested that I go and check the AEMO site. What can you do. All I did was laugh because there, written near the top of each of those Posts is the actual link to the AEMO site.
Tony.
280
many, many thanks TonyfromOz.
how your work is not available in major MSM, I do not understand.
I believe it’s not due to ignorance, as I’m sure influential people in politics and the energy business do read your weekly reports…and yet they stay silent.
201
TonyfromOz –
not sure u would have seen this in comments on jo’s previous thread, but wanted u to note the IEA/Frankl comment, which I find extraordinary:
20 Oct: Bloomberg: Renewable Energy Threatens the World’s Biggest Science Project
“The concept of the need for baseload generation is fading away,” said Paolo Frankl, who heads the renewable power division of the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based institution advising nations on energy. “Technically, you could run a system 100 percent on renewables and even 100 percent just wind and solar.”…
“It’s a dream to feel we could go on only with solar energy,” Bernard Bigot, the French theoretical chemist who is director-general of ITER, said in an interview at the group’s site near Marseille. “You need a reliable supply of energy. If you don’t have baseload energy, renewable energy doesn’t work, unless you want go back to the time where people had to stop when there were no resources.”…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-20/renewable-energy-threatens-the-world-s-biggest-science-project?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
40
Reminds me of the old Hollywood joke.
A says to B & C “I no longer drink, smoke or cheat on my wife”.
B says “I wish I could say that”.
C tells him “Of course you can say it, A just did”
20
You’ll always cop flak because of what you do Tony , I’m sure most of us here support your input and look forward to your comments .
110
I actually look forward to reading negative comments, because it gives me insight into what I’m up against.
I don’t need to resort to ad hom or to ‘play the man’, because the facts I present speak for themselves. The fact that most people prefer not to check for themselves is not my problem.
Tony.
220
They do not DARE to go to the AEMO site and VERIFY your calculations.
(I have occasionally checked, always found them correct.. Thanks for doing it. 🙂 )
It would totally destroy their brain-washed mental stupor.
83
Tony. I don’t often check for myself. I rely on you! Thanks ever so much!
50
So, what possible explanation is there for a precise 18,000GW? Day and night. This cannot be accidental.
I could only think that some companies like smelters will take any excess and it is easier to manage a constant national target than cope with power stations playing tag? If everyone feeds off everyone else, you can get runaway oscillations but not if you are managing a constant target. It may also help to balance random wind with hydro and gas.
20
It’s not precise, just that the average is around that 18000MW, as it has been for many years now
During the last 17 weeks I have been doing this, it has varied from a low around 16500MW to a high just a tad over 19000MW. It’s been low these last four or five weeks because of that decrease in overall power consumption in these benign Months.
It is lowest on weekend mornings, as also are those two cooler Months peaks which are also lower, those Peaks at around 8AM and 6PM.
Tony.
50
South Australia is presently experiencing its minimum demand through the middle of the day. It is down to around 600MW and could be as low as 500MW on a mild sunny day.
The base load demand is gradually being eliminated in South Australia by demise of heavy manufacturing industry and the daylight generation from rooftop solar.
If all States follow their current policy toward more wind and solar the base load demand will be eliminated across the grid. Most heavy manufacturing industry in Australia is already on some form of life support.
20
I should add that the maximum demand in South Australia will be around 3300MW on a hot day when all the air-conditioning and refrigeration demand is cranking providing it can actually be supplied – will need to be windy as well. So the peak to base demand ratio on the SA network is almost 6 times.
This demand profile is already unsuited to high efficiency coal fuelled generation. The SA grid is already dead as an economic entity. Any more hardware that is attached just adds more costs that are spread over fewer consumers. The network is already being funded from general revenue rather than the income from electricity sales and LGC payment from other States.
00
Baseload may change in scale and its time profile may shift, but for it to “dissapear” that would require either a complete shutdown of industry, commerce, and everyones fridge,….or a 100% distributed power generation system (every man for himself !)
I dont see either of those happening in our lifetime.
SA is just a basket case….it is now stuck with using Gas for “base load” and sucking on the interconnectors to prop up its peaks
God forbid the other states do not see the danger of following that example
00
97% of people can’t see the trees for the forest!
20
Ancient Liddell?
When I toured Liddell under construction I was an adult! So what am I now?.
50
A valuable antique perhaps? 🙂
70
A more experienced adult.
60
Around 2005 I was using my boat to go whale watching with a friend and neighbours on Hervey Bay Queensland, Platypus Bay alongside Fraser Island north, near beautiful overnight boat camping area Wathumba Creek (you need local knowledge to enter).
We spotted a mother whale with calf swimming in closer to shore so I cut the motor and let the boat drift for a while. The whales started swimming slowly towards us and when they arrived mother went below the boat and lay on the white sand below in crystal clear water while her calf continued swimming around us and after several minutes came alongside. Mother surfaced from below the calf and lifted it out of the water so close they we could have easily reached over the side and patted it: we didn’t!
I have a video of this unusual experience taken before a spotter aircraft notified a commercial whale watching vessel which soon appeared travelling at high speed. Before it arrived the whales continued their journey south slowly. However soon there were more wales breaching in a spectacular fashion so we watched them for a while and then motored into Wathumba Creek lagoon for lunch.
100
That’s why I love going bush in our High Country, no spotter aircraft, tourist boats or buses to bother our solitude. And yesterday afternoon a King Parrot just about landed on my head (would have been a slick landing) looking for a feed. Within a few minutes, I was hand feeding the young lad and he was very happy.
100
A couple of years ago I was in the Daintree north of Cairns preparing for a short bush walk and when walking from the carpark came across a rather startled young man standing looking up into a tree, his girlfriend sitting nearby laughing. He said to us, a Kookaburra grabbed my sandwich as I was eating it, this has given me a whole new perspective on life in Australia.
60
We’ve been bush where a Kookaburra will sit in a tree and watch us, hoping for something to eat. We gave one a piece of raw lamb and it was quite funny watching it beat the crap out of the lamb before eating it (obviously a matter of habit).
This is the particular individual that came a begging. I couldn’t find a shot of it tenderising the lamb.
60
Great picture. ( Comment about politicians and laughing jackasses deleted.)
40
Thanks, but I’d never insult our wildlife by comparing any of them to our politicians. While some of our wildlife can be annoying and destructive, not one can be as annoying and as destructive as a politician.
40
I dunno, Cuckoo, Loon, Thrush and Swallow spring to mind…..
30
I have quite often accidentally near cut a kookaburra in half as they swoop down to snatch widgety grubs from logs that I’ve been cutting for firewood.
20
Where there are whales there are sharks – Great Whites. Great White sharks are responsible for 68% of all fatal shark attacks on humans in Australia according to CSIRO.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/MF/fulltext/MF10181
With the rise in Whale numbers since the 1978’s closure of Cheynes Beach Whaling Station in Albany (WA) and other earlier stations, whale numbers have exploded on the west coast of Australia.
A very rich prize awaits the person who can develop a reliable and inexpensive shark repellent technology.
60
A sceptical reading of the CSIRO’s paper will confirm the charge that CSIRO has been infiltrated by the environment lobby.
Its conclusion that the increased incidence of shark attack over the last decade is due to increased numbers of people in Australia taking part in sea based water activity compared to earlier times is, quite frankly, derisory.
101
I looked into this false claim some time ago. In WA, shark attacks have risen by 500% while the number of extra folks in the ocean has risen by less than 10% over the same period. Not exactly a correlation. It’s now quite noticeable that long-distance swimmers are not swimming as far out as they used to along Perth’s beaches.
60
It’s only a matter of time before the CSIRO concludes that the reason long distance swimmers don’t swim so far out anymore is because the ocean is just too hot out there. far too hot.
It’s got nothing to do with Great Whites and everything to do with……. you know what.
51
No, it’s the acidity. The swimmers bathers and fingernails are dissolving after a few minutes.
41
“A very rich prize awaits the person who can develop a reliable and inexpensive shark repellent technology.”
How about a boat full of game-hunters with 303’s?
The problem is, I suppose, then the ocean will get overrun with whales.
31
Hi Jo,
I’ve not seen the evidence that Great Whites kill strong healthy whales so much as feed on the sick and dead.
The more whales there are the more old, weak and crook whales there are. Hence the Great Whites increase in numbers due to the increased availability of the food supply. Or something.
The last documented consumption of a human by a whale that I’m aware of is cited in Matthew 12: 40. And, even then, he got out alive.
But Killer Whales are another thing:
https://youtu.be/GyyrK-cWLJs
00
Good Luck NZ …
Capitalism is a blatant failure.
NZ prime-minister-elect doesn’t hold back in her first TV interview, as phone call leaves Aussie journalist ‘flabbergasted’.
The Weekend Australian
70
Yes, and the rot has already set in for New Zealand with the All Blacks being flogged by the Wallabies 18 to 23 last night.
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/australia-rugby/at-last-wallabies-beat-all-blacks-2318-in-famous-win-at-suncorp-stadium-20171021-gz5m2d.html
Electricity prices will be next no doubt. Then increased union powers, higher wages and reduced living standards. Best of luck Kiwi.
40
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 22, 2017 at 5:54 pm ·”
Oh well. Off side again. 🙂
That sounds like the All Blacks being finally pinged for hands in the ruck.
20
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
October 22, 2017 at 9:34 pm
Is the Mod an NZ ref?
20
You’re not upsetting our socialist neighbors across the ditch are you Sam !
Must find that episode of Gruen where they made ads about us invading NZ .
20
Goodbye NZ, welcome Venezealand. !!
63
Yes, Venezuela is a blatant success.
30
“Capitalism is a blatant failure.”
Ok, so no supermarkets, no manufactures, no distribution agents,
no workers earning a wage, because there is no-one to pay them……
no-one to pay taxes….
No more government handouts.
We have seen how long this lasts !!
62
They were embracing the new socialist govt on the ABC , just think legalise dope free uni degree what could possibly go wrong .
70
Who pays?
Where does the money come from?
That is one of the many BIG PROBLEMS with socialism.
113
oops…. seems I’ve upset a red thumb again 🙂
I’m assuming my little red thumber is worried about its dole payment !!
Guess what, little child.
If they aren’t taking money from capitalists..
THEY CAN’T PAY YOUR DOLE !!
93
Back to the rising Power Costs in Australia.
The elephant in the room in Australia is the ongoing cost impost of the Renewable Energy Target.
Neither side of politics want to talk about or cancel it for very good reasons.
Major investors in Renewable Energy and Climate Change schemes in Australia (such as very expensive and not-utilised DeSal Plants) are:
1. The Fed Government Future Fund.
Established to cover the shortfall in reserves covering the superannuation for Fed Govt Employees.
Neither side of politics want to impact the growth of the Future Fund as they have no other way to cover this shortfall. Peter Costello is still Chairman until 2019.
1. Investment by Union Superannuation Funds in Climate Change Scams.
The Unions benefit from every direction.
a) Capital cost blow-outs due to Union workers rorting construction $$s from Labor State and Federal Governments.
b) Direct investment by Union-controlled Superannuation Funds in Wind Power Plants, Solar Power Plants, rooftop solar schemes, multi-billion Desal plants in Qld, NSW, Vic and SA which were never required (thanks to Tim Flannery’s scaremongering). Even Canadian Teacher Super funds got onto the Desal Plant Bandwagon.
c) And its not just Climate Change scams. You don’t think the Unions aren’t the ones making big $$s out of the outrageously expensive National Broadband Network construction?
You won’t hear either of these issues spoken about in the hallowed halls of Australian Federal and State governments.
171
Thanks Andrew, an important if not critical insight into why things may stay as is.
Each side, the union fund managers, and Sacks of Gold people have “benefited” and this whole sordid chain of involvement needs to be made public and kept in the eye of the public until everybody understands just WHO benefited from what and by how much.
An understanding of all that might help people understand what “climate change” is really about.
KK
91
The immediate problem is the huge losses that would incur if the RET was abolished forthwith. Particularly for super funds with activist managers.
This is surely why they think the best they can do is stop new RET contracts. But that is not likely to be enough. You might be right, it might end up cheaper to bite the bullet and buy out the contracts, or some of them, anyway.
30
Good comment in The Australian today titled “The NEG Con”, which neatly summarises the ongoing cost of RET to Australia.
In 2016, 21m 1 MWh certificates were issued, rising until 2020 to 33m certificates. These 33m certificates then remain until 2030.
If one certificate costs between $50-80, the RET will cost us 20-30 billion dollars between now and 2030. We could build quite a few HELE plants with this money.
70
these were humpback whales which grow to 30 – 50 tonnes, and 15-18m long
Maybe in the days before climate change but these days they are lucky to even reach 29 – 49 tons. They are are being ravaged by salt water and weak to strong winds and have all but lost their ability to climb trees… etc
92
Keith L:
And the seas are getting acidic which means the population is only increasing by around 7% per annum. Thank Heavens that they have thrown off the previous threat.
“Southern Right Whales are also mostly found in South Africa and Argentina (in the Valdes Peninsula). However, a small number also lives in New Zealand and Brazil. Others are found in Mozambique and Chile. A large number Southern Right Whales was killed through HAUNTING in the early 1930’s and they almost went to extinction. South Australia began protecting these animals from haunters in 1931.”
40
Haunting? That sounds like a rather ghostly experience.
40
Sighting a Pequod bearing down would’ve scared the carp out of them.
30
For bemused @ #7.1.1…..carp!
20
They don’t eat Carp!
10
“EVERY WORD FALSE: TURNBULL’S PLAN CAN’T CUT PRICES”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/every-word-false-turnbulls-plan-cant-cut-prices/news-story/424e8bc18810dc7c112cde45d41d898e
“Truthful Malcolm” in action
70
Our wonderful watery world, and damp atmosphere continues to do it’s natural thing, whilst causing consternation to those would be ‘climate scientist’.
The secret is all that water — relatively incompressible as a liquid, compressible as a gas. At 4°C water will expand if heated or cooled. At about -45°C and below water forms incompressible super slick ice.
Water is a strange liquid, it’s unlike most other liquids. Many of the properties of water are quite different from those expected from knowledge gained about other liquids. Water is just so anomalous — see http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_anomalies.html
41
Have a guess what fingernails and toenails are made of?
KK
10
Waterb and carbon. The stuff of life!
30
Water and carbon the stuff of life ,
Couldnt have a beer without them .
30
I agree tom0mason
Water is a unique substance. My chemistry master used to reflect on the properties of the “Universal Solvent” which was one of the obsessions of the Alchemists.
He decided that water was the nearest thing to the Universal Solvent. Almost everything is soluble to some degree.
Only thing is that the Climate Scientists decided not to build the properties of water into their models. Huge mistake. We are all suffering from it now.
50
What do you keep a “Universal Solvent” in?
50
Has anyone else had the frustrating experience of typing up a fairly long comment, and then near the end, maybe when editing, some keystroke suddenly deletes the whole comment.
Just happened to me, again! I have no idea what I might have done to cause it.
Right now I can’t bring myself to retype so it can wait for next weekend.
50
Yes.
50
Yes. With long comments I write I periodically select, copy and paste them elsewhere in order that I can recover to that point in the event that the unthinkable happens.
52
tried ctrl-Z ?
22
Thanks Andy,
Too late to try it now.
Believe it or not a I wrote a new comment about Geographe Bay, Nicholas Baudin, Whales and the battle of Trafalgar (you might not believe it but there was a common thread), I was just editing it for spelling mistakes when that disappeared too!
20
I was on a dodgy motel internet connection in Wollongong this morning when I lost it. The connection just disconnected.
All gone.
30
“I was on a dodgy motel “
We don’t need to know sort of personal info, KK !!!
32
Visiting relatives and definitely not a global warming weekend. Cool. Probably needed more CO2 In the air.
10
Usually it happens to me most-times I comment.
However these days if I’m concocting a long comment I’ll do the major part of it in a text notepad, then carefully copy it to the comment box, fix all the highlighted typos and spelling mistakes, then and only then, decide to do a little re-edit to clarify it, then review and decide to add in one or two other points, then re-edit it some more, then edit two or three times more to making a complete hash of what was originally intended, and finally hours later, and out of shear exasperation, press [POST COMMENT].
Apart from that it’s fairly straight forward.
One thing I have noted on the laptop — beware the hands brushing the touch-pad as you type!
40
And the iPad and the phone.
30
jo – some inspiration for your next encounter with whales. the East Coast’s mighty Migaloo:
19 Oct: NorthernStar: Samantha Poate: Spectacular photo of Migaloo beats 10,000 entries in comp
https://www.northernstar.com.au/news/white-whales-gift-to-craig-parry-just-keeps-on-giv/3241262/
enjoy your break.
30
I don’t care.. I’m going to say it.
It looks like Jo is having a whale of a time 🙂
71
The long slow death of Australia is so painful and there is very little hope of recovery. Sooner or later the Chinese might decide that we should be part of their territory, especially as we are not doing anything useful with what we have. Perhaps now would be a good time to offer a merger with a now-properly managed country, the USA in particular.
Sorry to sound so cynical but things are very, very serious.
81
Too much to hope for a merger with the states but I’m sure China would love to run the country after installing a few coal fired power plants , not sure exactly what they would do with the greenies though .
40
“not sure exactly what they would do with the greenies though”
Quite frankly…… I couldn’t give a damn !!
Internment at Woomera sounds like a good start.
51
“not sure exactly what they would do with the greenies though” – make them do useful work for a living?
30
Apart from the deliberate mass importation into a civilised country of some of the world’s most uneducated, unassimilable and violent people, who’d have thought that the artificial inflation of electricity prices and the wealth transfer from the poorer to the richer that is involved in that, was the second most effective way to destroy a country?
71
Quote from http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-270092
The Demise of Great Civilizations – Where Are We?
By Liberty1955 | Posted June 12, 2009 | Watertown, New York
I was thinking the other night about how we’ve changed as a nation since I was a kid. 40 years ago, we were talking about exploring space and landing on the moon.
What happened to cause us to stop dreaming and exploring? Then I came across this poem and it made me think.
The Demise of Great Civilizations
Consider this poem from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler -1742-1813
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.
“From bondage to spiritual faith” is commonly known as the “Tytler Cycle” or the “Fatal Sequence”.
Where are we?
61
‘from complacency to apathy’
or have we reached the penultimate step in the sequence:
‘from apathy to dependence’?
50
So there’s a dead possum on my street and I called my council’s after hours number so they could pick it up. After giving the guy all the details he says they don’t pick up dead possums on Sundays, only dogs, cats and birds…idiots!
60
Leave it a half hour then ring and tell them there is a dead dog in the street. Should work.
60
Tell them it’s playing possum
00
I’ve got a tasty recipe for possum .
10
I think there was a restaurant in Britain that featured roadkill on the menu.
20
There was a story about Central Australia and the Road Kill Grille, the proprietor had to get up before dawn to collect what the trucks left behind.
wink.
00
You could try this. Although I’m not sure it would work in Australia.
10
Anything else you’d like the Council to do for you while they’re in the area picking up your dead possums? Lawn OK, car clean, wife satisfied?
30
Run over it a few times until it is no longer recognizable, then call them back for a dead cat!
70
***Virtue-signalling!
19 Oct: Guardian: Graeme ***Virtue: Is climate change Hollywood’s new supervillain?
Eco-thriller ***Geostorm, with Gerard Butler as a weather-busting scientist, is the latest movie to battle the environment. From Blade Runner 2049 to Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, film are turning up the heat on the big screen
In 2004, when climate change was still called global warming, it was considered sensational enough to get top billing in The Day After Tomorrow, a city-smashing blockbuster by disaster master Roland Emmerich…
A shared anxiety about how we have abused our planet and how it might ultimately retaliate has seeped into recent cinema in other intriguing ways. Darren Aronofsky’s densely allegorical ***Mother! encourages any number of environmental interpretations, with Jennifer Lawrence as a barefoot earth mother whose Edenic dream home is invaded by selfish, rapacious squatters – an intensifying nightmare that leaves her traumatised but mostly bewildered. Despite its surreal, disorientating escalations, the central message is consistent: what is wrong with these people? How can they do this?…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/oct/19/climate-change-hollywood-new-supervillain-geostorm-blade-runner-2049-downsizing
veteran film critic, Red Reed:
***’Mother!’ Is the Worst Movie of the Year, Maybe Century by Rex Reed
Observer-15 Sep. 2017
The reviews, in which a group of equally pretentious critics frustratingly search for a deeper meaning, are even nuttier than the film itself. Using descriptions like “hermeneutic structure,” “phantasmagoric fantasia,” “cinematic Rorsach test” and “extended scream of existential rage,” they sure know how to leave you laughing…
One critic says it’s a satire on the chaos the dysfunctional world has been turned into by Donald Trump…
They all insist mother! is a metaphor for something, although they are not quite sure what it is…
The New York Times critic arrogantly warns in his review: “Don’t listen to anyone who natters on about how intense or disturbing it is.” Sorry, pal, but a mob that burns a screaming baby and its mother alive, then turns cannibal, eats the baby and rips its heart out to flush down the toilet while Patti Smith sings about the end of the world pretty much fits my definition of both “intense” and “disturbing.” What’s yours?…
With so much crap around to clog the drain, I hesitate to label it the “Worst movie of the year” when “Worst movie of the century” fits it even better.
http://observer.com/2017/09/darren-aronofsky-mother-worst-movie-of-the-year/
What the F? How Mother! joined the ‘bad movie’ club
In-Depth-The Guardian-18 Sep. 2017
Mother! gets rare F grade from moviegoers, according to CinemaScore
The Independent-17 Sep. 2017
It’s become one of only a dozen or so movies to be branded with the dreaded F Cinemascore grade by US moviegoers…
on DrudgeReport today: ***’GEOSTORM’ BOX OFFICE DISASTER…
21 Oct: Variety: Box Office: Tyler Perry’s ‘Boo 2!’ Set to Top Sluggish Weekend Ahead of ‘Geostorm’
By Erin Nyren
Tyler Perry’s most recent installment in the “Madea” franchise, “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween,” is likely to dominate one of the most torpid October weekends yet with $21 million at 2,388 North American locations — nearly double the next highest projected intake from “Geostorm.”…
“Geostorm,” a weather disaster drama starring Gerard Butler and directed by Dean Devlin, is heading towards a disaster of the fiscal sort for Warner Bros…
21 Oct: Breitbart: John Nolte — Box Office Catastrophe: Leftwing Propaganda Flick ‘Geostorm’ Slams Harveywood
How in the world, though, did Geostorm lose its balance and crash to the ground like Hillary Clinton on a bender?
Even though it outspent the competition three-fold, sported the “correct” politics (about how the deplorables are killing the planet), and enjoyed all kinds of free media promotion, it still lost bigly — you know, like Hillary Clinton.
Hollywood Ending: Big Studios Cutting Losses This Weekend
ShowBiz411.com-11 hours ago
They’re pulling flops from theaters earlier than usual…Their “Geostorm” is going to be a disaster this weekend…
HOLLYWOOD SHOULD GIVE UP ON THE CLI-FI.
30
It seems accepted that more CO2 in the air has caused more vegetation growth. Vegetation has a lot of water. Question: Does higher water uptake by plants have a measurable effect on sea level?
Has anyone done the maths, even roughly? Geoff
40
It’s accepted that the increase in Co2 is greening the desert but it’s having a disastrous effect in greening our politicians.
30
It really does not matter, sea level has always changed depending on the cycles of climate that we can not control.In the great scheme of things it was not long ago that you could walk down through Asia to OZ and down to Tasmania. Then the ice melted and the oceans have been rising, temperatures also have been fluctuating, if the new greenery is sucking more water no doubt it is moderating temperatures also. This wonderful world of ours tries very hard to reach a state of equilibrium out of chaos. Lucky for us or life would not exist or find it very hard.
50
Who’d have thought that a supposedly conservative government was responsible for destroying Australia, not the avowed socilaists in the form of the Marxist Labor Party who also want to destroy Australia?
91
Like others, I’ve had to change my alignments in recent times. Though never particularly “right-wing” I was a conservative who hung out most comfortably with conservatives but could get on with others. My outlook was closest to the old pommie Spectator, the only publication I really liked, and voting was simply a matter of ticking the Nationals’ boxes every few years.
Nowadays, having cut the corporate media cord, I’m listening to an alternate crowd. I don’t expect to be neatly in agreement with the politics or attitudes of this crowd but they share my overwhelming concern that Big Green and Sustainable Development are the new manifestations of the old collectivist systems we used to call communism, crony capitalism and serfdom.
If it seems odd that Marxist commissars, European aristocrats and oil barons of last century should be reappearing in fashionable modern dress but with the same old sinister goals, this guy has some explanations: https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-322-what-is-sustainable-development/
In short, the new monopolists and collectivists don’t just resemble the old: they are the same people.
I may only agree with half of what Corbett puts out, but he’s a true independent who puts in a lot more work and thought than any journo these days. As background for the above video I recommend first watching his two Big Oil videos: https://www.corbettreport.com/bigoil/
60
They were trying to escape the acidic water due to climate change!! (sarc).
21
Tesla Moves Closer to Deal to Build Cars in China
https://mobile.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/10/22/business/22reuters-tesla-c…john
00
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-factory/tesla-moves-closer-to-deal-to-build-cars-in-china-idUSKBN1CR0ME
00
Jo: hope you had a whale of time!
40
Whales are a magnificent sight and a magnificent animal.
On one trip to our favorite getaway spot at Pismo Beach we took a flight in a vintage Stearman biplane. Because of the cramped cockpit we each had our own flight so my wife didn’t get to see this. But after I was flown all over the area and we were headed back to the airport and flying out from shore about half a mile or so, the pilot spotted a whale below us. We had no intecom but I saw it too, probably a humpback or at least looking like one and it was just cruising along breaking the surface as it went and I had a front row seat so close I could see the condensation as the whale exhaled and the moisture in its breath condensed as it hit the cold air above the water. And from the air I could see it as it was submerged too. And there I was with no camera, having left it on the ground because I was more interested in the flight than the scenery.
The pilot was out to please his passenger and did about a 45 degree banked 360 turn around the whale, giving me a view I’ve never forgotten.
I’ve seen dolphins in large numbers shadowing and playing around a boat on a trip over to Catalina Island. But they don’t compare to a whale.
Have a good weekend, everyone, Jo, David and family. I’m on the wrong end of the day because the next thing west of me is the date line so by the the time I get to comment it’s already Monday in Oz but pretend I live on the other side of the date line and saw this earlier.
60
I just read an article titled “Report: Most Signatories Are ‘Ignoring’ or ‘Abandoning’ Paris Climate Commitments” ( http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/22/report-most-signatories-are-ignoring-or-abandoning-paris-climate-commitments/ ) which had many interesting facts in it. One thing in particular caught may attention that I don’t remember reading elsewhere: “Late last year, to their national embarrassment, the Germans had to be bailed out of a small energy crisis by Poland when the wind failed to blow for several days and a thick fog surrounded many parts of Germany, driving the output from renewables to just 4 percent of total demand. It was coal-fueled Poland that had to rescue Germany from its self-induced energy crisis.”. This may indicate that the German Energiewende is not going exactly as planned.
40
I think that the Poles are happy to export excess coal fired electricity but they Do Not Want energiewend unreliable and intermittent energy coming back the other way. Smart and Sensible Poles.
10
On Monday morning as electricity demand soars from the overnight base load of 18,000 MW to over 22,000 MW, we have “wonderful wind” contributing just 200 MW from its nameplate capacity of 4,400 MW. Fortunately we have hydro kicking in 2,500 MW – but beware the next drought – and it seems that Pelican Point gas in SA has become the new base load, running throughout the night at over 450 MW, While NSW fossil has increased from 5,000 to 6,500 MW, and Vic 4,000 to 4,800 MW.
40
I was re-reading parts of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and came across the following quote from the character Dr. Robert Stadler “Just as laymen leave medicine to doctors and electronics to engineers, so people who are not qualified to think should leave all thinking to the experts and have faith in the experts’ higher authority.” and it struck me as the kind of thing you might hear today from that “Distinguished Professor from Penn State” Dr. Michael (Hockey Stick) Mann.
50
““Distinguished Professor from Penn State” Dr. Michael (Hockey Stick) Mann.”
My greatest boss once asked “Will what do you think” (about this)? My error was saying “I don’t know”! His response, “I agree, I do not know either! You have useful thoughts, ‘please’ we pay for useful thoughts!”
All the best!-will-
10
Whales and dolphins are such wonderful creatures ; we learn more about them every day. Beautiful experience Jo.
Regards GeoffW
00
Yeah yeah yeah! Coal is supposedly dead, right!
While all the focus has been on Adani, GVK Hancock (yep, that’s Gina Rinehart) has been quietly building up plans for their new mega coal mine in the same Galilee Basin out past Emerald, to the west of here where I’m sitting now.
Hmm!
Coal dying, and no money in coal eh!
Yeah, right.
What’s the bet we here in Australia won’t get to use any of this coal.
Link to article
Tony.
20
Flyertalk.com
bom
google
bom
00
Grrr…bom
00
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/bbc-apologises-over-interview-climate-sceptic-lord-nigel-lawson
00
The UK gets Arctic blast in Late October, a regional cooling signal.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-340.68,59.88,1690/loc=0.537,52.524
00