JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
First!
Nobody should be awake at this hour anyhow.
Has anyone else seen that new display technology called The Looking Glass?
Pretty amazing by the sounds of it.
30
Is this the one on Kickstarter? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lookingglass/the-looking-glass-a-holographic-display-for-3d-cre
Looks fantastic, this was rumoured to be the next big thing at tech shows a few years ago, makes sense really, how long do you think it’ll be that the Star Wars Princess Leia “help me Obi Wan Kenobi message will be replicated by geeks?
Long time no see Andrew. 🙂
41
I hadn’t heard of this, but after a bit of a look, it’s impressive, and, more to the point, useful.
I guess one of the things stopping HoloLens, Meta, and the like, from selling like hotcakes is that they rely on (still bulky) headsets, which are not comfortable to wear for a long time, and they do not work well with other people who are not similarly equipped. It seems like the Looking Glass is a good compromise.
If someone wants to spend the money from their big-oil cheque on this, then please, feel free to send one of them to me for a more thorough review!!
11
Evidence that this blog is now a parochial backwater. Not very interesting, developed or varied parochialism even.
The “Turnbull” count 40. Peter S leading the way with ~19 – c’mon Tdef you are lagging with only 7.
310
Lazy me!
Thanks for the reminder.
I’ve let a weekend go and now we’re into Monday…and I still haven’t reminded all that the vacuous plutocrat Turnbull and globalist automaton Frydenberg are still there. And Clintonista Julie? Still there!
Our whole kakistocracy (look it up) is still there.
Still wasting, still wrecking, still glad-handing the carpetbaggers, still keeping those GS or Deutsche retirement slippers toasty and ready…and still pestiferous to the electorate, thus smoothing the way for an even more cynical and deliberate bunch of wreckers and glad-handers.
Yes, I’ve once again neglected to name and shame Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop. While even the lowliest foot-sloggers for GetUp! have been willing to devote a few moments of their weekend toward the founding of their dream Dastyaria I’ve been selfishly grumbling over the miseries of St George.
Sorry ’bout that. Now…did you get those names?
Turnbull. Frydenberg, Bishop.
What do they need to do?
Go. Just go. (What part of “go” don’t the Libs get?)
80
We are not forcing you to stay here GeeAye…the choice is yours, as all the ads say.
Before I forget:
Turnbull, Bishop, Frydenberg…please just go!
80
GeeAye left out that this blog is very tolerant of pests and trolls, being the broadminded realists and (mostly) traditionalists that we are.
Gee Aye would like to let go but he is bound to Jo’s blog as a moth is to a candle. Note how he has obsessively counted all the comments that refer to Trump!
Having said that I have broken my RULE, which is ignore the Trolls! Maybe I am a bit obsessed myself by a certain troll.
82
Ooh, Peter C, you beat me to it with a red thumb!
41
“blog is now a parochial backwater”
And you are the slimy ooze at the bottom.
42
Poor gee nay..
… has a rabid case of TDS.
So sad.. roflmao !!
42
you’d remember the days when people from all over the world posted here about subjects other than overblown responses to minor Australian political matters. Now it is just 10 elderly Australians with a crush on the blogger.
14
How very rude GA, I thought you were better than that.
20
Gee Aye,
Are you implying that my now infrequent appearances at this blog are evidence it has become a parochial backwater?
Gosh, I never knew I was so important. How Jo’s blog became an Australian nucleation point for climate skepticism about 3 years before I ever heard of it is just a mystery to me, as I am supposedly so pivotal to the whole enterprise. Hah!
(Alternatively you may have just clicked the wrong Reply link.)
52
you were first and I was giving my comment prominence. As the new readers arrive and scroll down they can witness the Turnbull’s (64 now) for themselves.
Who votes that Jo change the weekend posts to “Weekend Turnbull”. (I just made it 66)
13
‘Who votes that Jo change the weekend posts to “Weekend Turnbull”. (I just made it 66)’
Excellent suggestion! But with a bit of luck the fake-tanned fop will be gone soon. He can go catch a real tan…in Panama, maybe? And maybe coal will be back in a big way.
Globalism, like its predecessor, communism, will take a lot longer to dismantle. In fact, globalism is communism which never went away.
We can’t remove the globalism, but we can remove the globalist puppets currently threatening our energy, industries and budgets. We can get rid of Turnbull, Frydenberg and Bishop. They can then become “minor political matters” to be lamented in parochial backwaters of Fairfax and the ABC. Patronisingly, of course. Or should I say matronisingly?
But baby steps! We first need to be shot of Malcolm Turnbull. Then there’s the problem of what comes after – but, as with the goannas in the chook house, you don’t discuss the reptiles yet to come while the feathers are flying.
Why all this fuss? Because a perfectly good civilisation going to waste is no minor political matter good only for discussion in parochial backwaters.
So thank you again, Gee Aye. Weekend Turnbull!
50
I got two red thumbs for that?? I really don’t understand why.
But red thumbers never explain their opinions anyhow.
Apparently even self-deprecating humour can offend other people. Professional snowflakes, the lot of `em.
30
The thumbs might have been for responding to me but were probably because they thought you were serious.
02
We all respond to you Gee Aye, from time to time.
It’s just that you never listen.
Nor do your comrades with the red thumbs.
10
A close friend sent this, with a request to broadcast as wide as possible:
“I have never heard this said as simply or as well:
Class warfare at its best.
The folks who are getting the free stuff don’t like
The folks who are paying for the free stuff, because
The folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer
Afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.
And the folks who are paying for the free stuff
Want the free stuff to stop.
And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more Free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!
Now.. The people who are forcing the people who pay
For the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING
The free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the
Free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.
So.. The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the Free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.
We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the Free stuff .
Now understand this:
All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded.
The reason?
The voters figured out they could vote themselves money
from the treasury by electing people who promised to give
them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.
The United States officially became a Republic in 1776 ,
238 years ago.
The number of people now getting free stuff
outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff.
Failure to change that spells the end of the United States
as we know it.
A Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!”
Vlad’s addition: we specifically have a declared Socialist (A. Antonio-Cortez) running for a “safe” Democrat seat in the State of New York (endorsed by Berine Sanders), who is promising “free” everything to (almost) everyone.
I would also add the summary by Alexander Tyler, is worth your while, if you’ve never seen it. It looks like he was right; the ‘class warfare’ card would seem to be working!
Regards to all,
Vlad
351
The people getting the free stuff are screwed. They get enough to see that working isn’t necessary, but not enough to make them comfortable. They are painfully aware of the difference between the free stuff they get and the stuff that actual money can buy. But to get the money, they have to give up the free stuff and be even poorer for awhile, until the job pays enough (maybe) for them to see the value of giving up the free stuff.
Instead of making it easier for people on free stuff to work and learn and eventually get off the dole, by not taking it all away but slowly reducing it as they earn more and save, we just give them more free stuff. And then we realize that hey, we can’t feed ourselves, or pay the rent, or the mortgage, and need free stuff too. But there isn’t anyone left to pay for it.
We might be a perfect socialist society soon – not by choice, but because no one has any more than anyone else, except the middle-men and government folks who parcel out the free stuff and pick up the taxes that pay for the free stuff that everyone needs because all the money has gone to taxes so we can get free stuff.
And Communism wins.
111
It’s not all that long since we didn’t have significant class distinction in Australia. For most of us class distinction was just bookworm theory imported from The Old Dart.
101
Which reminds me of the celebrations in recent times of the centenary of the battles which ended World War One. Monash attributed their success in no small part to the Australian policy of promotIng on merit, not class, and to giving well trained troops some latitude to use their own judgement.
201
Latitude.
Not any more. The SJWs and the green-left fascists are hard at work with their compliant media comrades subverting the Australian military forces and the Australia’s regard for its defence forces.
Just ask Ben Roberts Smith VC MG.
At least there’s one person in this benighted country prepared to stand up to them:
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2018/08/brendan-nelson-brilliant-on-ben-roberts-smith-vc-mg-well-done-brendan-lest-we-forget.html
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Couldn’t get the interview but the comments say it all.
30
The Deplorable Vlad the Impaler…may I call you Vladdie?
The Welfare State basically started in Germany (by Bismarck) as a way of reducing discounted amongst those who had no say in the government. Since then it has degenerated into vote buying, until the middle class are now being ‘bought off’ with subsidies to cover up their decreasing disposible income. The rich are helping themselves (or their ‘mates’ are helping them) to hundreds of millions such as Gillard’s largesse to the Clintons, Bishop’s to the UN, and Turnbull’s $442 million to his friends, and the poor are always begging.
Some financial help to those in need is obviously necessary, but should it be open ended with hordes of bureaucrats administering (supposedly) payouts? There must be a better way, and I would propose
1. a national ‘credit’ that each person has to call on, but NO MORE. Specific additions approved only for incapacity not laziness.
2. any increase on whatever grounds has to go to a vote/plebicite/referrendum.
3.When a person reaches retirement then any remaining credit goes to them as a pension/superannuation.
4. The plan to be introduced over many years and monitored and/or as necessary (again by vote/plebicite/referrendum).
50
Hi Graeme,
Call me anything you like, except “Late for dinner.”
30
I keep seeing headlines pronouncing the global warming will be worse than imagined or previously thought – like this one
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45084144 which is based on this report http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2018-08-06-planet-at-risk-of-heading-towards-hothouse-earth-state.html which is based on this paper http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115 which says, basically, that eventually (sooner than later!) the CO2 uptake will max out and temperatures and sea levels will rise and earth will doomed to a tropical misery.
Of course, if we all return to cave dwelling and eating only those things that died on their very own, naturally and peacefully, it might not happen. We would continue on to the natural and proper order of things – a stable climate (hahahah, sorry, in geological time scales, was the earth ever really stable in climate? Even before “life” arose?) or a new ice age, perhaps.
I’m betting that, do something or do nothing, we will eventually sink back into the cold of our ice age and – if lucky enough to still have a tropics, will have to crowd into the tropics to survive.
140
Mary E:
A quick look at population distributions quickly shows up the popularity of tropical and sub-tropical areas. The exceptions are those ‘western’ nations which have attained much improved life styles by the use of thermal energy (or fossil fuels as the greens jeer).
An ice age is coming; when it will happen I don’t know, I have seen predictions within 20, 65, 200,800, 2,000, 10,000 or 25,000 years.
Long before all of those predictions I expect the AGW scare to have been thoroughly discredited and only espoused by the truly looney.
50
Am wondering where the large populations of Canada, northern USA and Northern Europe will migrate to when their lands are again buried under 2-3 kms of ice. If folks are concerned about migration now, this would be nothing compared to what will happen. Also these areas wouldn’t be able to produce food so warmer areas would have to increase their food output. Won’t have to worry about population growth then.
50
“The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 238 years ago.”
Actually, the USA has a few years beyond this, because while – – –
July 4, 1776 is the anniversary of the publication of the declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1776, and is known as America’s Birthday – – –
. . . the “United States of America” did not become functional or “official” until after – – –
June 21, 1788: New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary colony to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land.
The United States Congress met for the first time on March 4, 1789.
140
This is but one of many references that give me reason to believe that the actual birth of the United States of America began with Patrick Henry’s famous speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775. Henry’s whole purpose was the spur Virginia on to raise a militia and put Virginia in a position to defend itself.
Many had put their hopes in attempts at reconciliation with the king, something that should have been obviously impossible to everyone as Henry said as he addressed the delegates.
It’s hard to figure out just how important Henry was in moving the colonies to rebellion but his was the first great push toward that goal. He foresaw that there would be no freedom from the king without fighting for it when many, much like Neville Chamberlain were looking for some accommodation — an appeasement both the colonies and the king could live with. And no matter how long the road between March 23, 1775 and March 4, 1789 when the congress met for the first time under the Constitution. There had to be a first step down that road. And I think it was Patrick Henry. As far as I know, no one before that speech had publicly advocated a war of independence, which was the whole point of his address to the House of Burgesses.
Our independence began that day. Prior acts of defiance like the Boston Tea Party had not been well coordinated nor had they a specific goal in mind, independence from the King of England.
This is about as authoritative as it can get.
70
History is sometimes complicated. Would there have been Declaration of Independence and a war for freedom from an oppressive king without Patrick Henry? I can’t say for sure one way or another and we can’t go back and try it the other way to see what would happen. But with Virginia adopting Henry’s motion there was surely more pressure than ever on the other colonies to want to be free — and to act on that desire.
I can’t escape a comparison between that moment in history over 243 years ago and now. Will we muster up the courage to be free or will we let the noose tighten some more around our precious freedoms until they are choked to death?
40
My favorite bit of history regarding the beginnings of the USA is about the King wanting all the White Pine for England.
Note the important symbol involved, namely The King’s Broad Arrow.
about ships, pines, and the king
Search “Images” with – the king’s broad arrow
Note there is a book:
40
You’re ahead of me about the natural resources. And the new world had many as we would soon discover. But it makes sense that the king would want it all. Colonizers always want something and the relationship between the king and the colonies was already going south fast. Britain had defended her colonies during the French and Indian wars and the king wanted to recoup his expenses for that by taxing the colonies he defended.
There was no dispute that the colonies in the new world were British and belonged to the king. There was a just reason for the taxation though you could dispute numerous things about it and I’ve seen some arguing that the American revolution was trumped up over the tax. I disagree. But who likes to be taxed? It was surely a formula for conflict and it deteriorated fast.
I’ve always had a lot of respect for those like Patrick Henry, who stuck his neck way out with that speech. It put a bullseye on his back and I think if he had been captured he would have been dragged back to England in chains to be executed in whatever way the king decided — not a pleasant prospect.
I’ve never had any trouble remembering the date of his address. March 23 is my birthday. Whether that date is auspicious for me or not has yet to be seen but so far, so good. 😉
60
Just a little intervention here by a sceptic. It isn’t always as it seems.
The Boston tea Party and tax on tea.
The American tea market had been captured by tea smuggled from Holland by American based businessmen who did the smuggling. The British Parliament removed its shilling-per-pound duty on tea to undercut the smugglers. The smugglers feared that the American colonists, faced with a choice between the cheaper legally imported tea and the resultant higher-priced smuggled tea, would buy the cheaper tea. The smugglers smelt their ruination.
So who were the smugglers? Who led the Boston tea party?
Follow the money.
Always. Follow the money.
60
Interesting. As I said and you just pointed out, history can be complicated sometimes.
There’s a lot that isn’t taught in American history classes.
But if indeed there was money in the Boston Tea Party that gives me some new insight on why it happened. Yes, always follow the money.
30
Good Morning, Roy,
Sam is correct: if you ever have a chance to watch American Heroes Channel (AHC), they do a lot of history, including some fairly off-beat stuff. Both the series, What History Forgot, and Patriots of the American Revolution did stories on the Boston Tea Party, and support Sam’s summary of the account. The issue was not taxation (boy, do I remember being taught that whopper!), but the fact that the smugglers were being undercut by the Crown. They “voiced” their objections to their ‘illegal’ trade having to compete with Mother England by disguising themselves and raiding the merchant fleet at anchor.
And, h/t to our brave Australia/New Zealand friends, the series on WW II, showing the incredible feats of y’all in the various theatres of the conflict was amazing! I learned more in a couple hours of TV viewing, than I did in twelve years of public schooling (back when public schooling actually taught one HOW to think, not just what to think.
My humblest respect and regards to all,
Vlad
50
Vlad,
You are way ahead of me on TV channels. I’ve never even heard of AHC nor seen it in a channel lineup.
I suppose that’s not surprising in this day when there’s a channel for everyone from A to Z. It wouldn’t surprise me to find a kitting and crocheting chanel somewhere.
This blog is educating me faster about my country than I ever thought it could. School covered up a lot of sins by simply not mentioning them and others by telling plain old lies or half truths.
AHC? Who carries it? The so-called History Channel has devolved into sensationalism to keep audience share like everyone else who started out with a lofty purpose and then discovered it was really necessary to make money or go broke. The viewing taste of many TV watchers must be a case study in dysfunctionality.
My remote has a menu button and at the top of the list of menu items is “Messages”. The messages have so far always announced the disappearance of some almost watched channel and sometimes replacement with an equally useless one. Amazing too: how fast TV, internet and phone have merged into one communication medium. And if my set top boxes lose power they won’t run when they come back up unless the Internet router is up and running so they can download software. If the wrong fuse blows the world stops turning.
40
Greetings, Roy,
I am so sorry you do not have access to AHC. Honestly, I cannot tell you what umbrella station/network it might be under. I do see some ads on it from time-to-time for some “Dicovery” channel programs, so it is possible that it is fundamentally owned by Discovery; I cannot say for certain.
I think, based on what programs/shows/series it runs, that it has a ‘conservative’ (U.S. terminology) bent. Last night, for example, I watched a two-part series on the evolution of the sub-machinegun, from the WW I German MP-18 (which I had never heard of, until that program), through the newest (2017) iteration of the Heckler & Koch M.P. (Machinen Pistole) series, the MP-7. If you saw the original “Die Hard” (Bruce Willis), the Euro-trash were using MP-5’s; for a while you could buy a civilian semi-auto version in the States, called the HK-94.
Oh, sorry — — — rabbit trail!!! Us old guys, who like to talk about beer, cigars, and guns (not necessarily in that order … ) have EARNED the right to do rabbit trails … … …
… … … … now, what was I discussing ? … … … …
Oh, yes. I think AHC would suit your tastes. I can only suggest contacting your provider (if you are cable or satellite) and see if it is part of their programming line-up. Here in DEEP RED Wyoming (70.1% for Trump in ’16), the AHC channel is in a lot of people’s favorites.
Hope that helps; I could also suggest looking for some of the programming in an on-line (subscription?) format. Seems like they’ve talked about their “app” once in a great while.
Warmest regards,
Vlad
20
I checked all of Frontier’s channel listings for California and AHC isn’t in any of the packages so that ends that unless I want to change TV providers. And it would be a game of tradeoffs, give up one thing to get another just like it was when I dumped Time Warner to go with Verizon. Then Verizon promptly sold their FIOS network in California or a large part of the state to Frontier communications. It was a lot of trouble for some people. Our favorite Chinese takeout place was without phone service for a week. It nearly bankrupted them because they depend on orders coming in by phone.
We went through it unscathed. A number of things give me reason to think Frontier is a Mickey Mouse organization though. But if Micky can sell me what I need, I’ll buy. Even Mickey Mouse needs to eat. They haven’t changed the channel lineup I’m paying for. All the channels I want are still there and not finding AHC in any package isn’t enough to drive me away.
Everything so far is still working perfectly.
20
One night years back I was roaming around the AM broadcast band when I heard someone talking about the temperature being -20° (F). I thought that had to be a long way from here so I waited around for the station break to see what I was listening to. It was a station in Casper, Wyoming. I don’t envy you those temperatures, DEEP RED or not.
Every now and then conditions are just right and a signal will go a lot farther than usual. I was hearing it as clearly as if it was a local station.
30
Hi Roy,
Sorry you are unable to get AHC. As things evolve, it may be offered some day. Keep those fingers crossed.
I strongly suspect you picked up KTWO, here in Casper. It’s a 50,000 W station, AM 1030 on your radio “dial” (OK, showing my age — I guess digital tuning has been around for a couple decades now … ). And – 20 F is a ‘heat wave’ between mid-November and mid-February. Fortunately, things like that tend to keep the riff-raff out (except that I’m still here … ), and if you’re not into outdoorsy things, you are DEFINITELY in the wrong place!!
We don’t consider it to be cold, until it is about – 30 F, with winds over 55 mph; one winter, back in the early ’80’s, I was driving east-bound on Interstate 80 (goes across southern Wyoming). I had been in Salt Lake, visiting friends over an Xmas break from work, and was on my way back to Casper. As I was driving along, I knew the wind was strong (kept blowing my vehicle into the other lane of traffic), and, this was the time when good ole Jimma had imposed the 55-mph speed limit as a national requirement to “save energy” — — oooops! Rabbit trail alert!!! Almost did some Trigonometry there (went off on a ‘tangent’ … … … ) Get it?
Anyway, I’m driving along, and I decide to roll down my window to check something: my speedometer says 55 mph, and I guessed the wind was pretty close to that, so when I stuck my hand out (no glove), there was, for all practical purposes, NO WIND (except occasional puffs from swirling eddys of wind).
Without intending to, I’ve duplicated that feat a couple of times since then.
A couple years ago, some Western states raised 4-lane speed limits to 80 mph. Wyoming, Utah, Montana (which, for a while had a ‘speed limit’ of “Reasonable and Prudent”), and I think Nevada have done so. I might think about moving, if I can drive down I-80, roll down the window, and feel no wind … … …
10
Vlad,
One time here on Jo Nova I was discussing temps down around -40 with another Wyoming reader. She hasn’t been around for some time now and since I knew she was diabetic and not young I’ve always hoped she remains OK.
My adventures with freezing weather mixed with driving began when I got out of the army in December 1964. We got started after dark because of one delay and then another so I hit the Mass Turnpike heading west determined to make as much progress as we could. In new York it began to snow and get worse to where I was staying behind a semi so I could see where I was going. At the next exit I pulled off and found a motel before the snow got too deep to handle, Albany if I remember correctly. Bad stuff even though my rear engine VW was holding traction pretty well. But next morning everything was all plowed and easy driving again.
The one that scared me badly was Amarillo Texas. We got there with no trouble in good weather even though it was a bit cold and found a motel. But the next morning there was about a quarter inch of clear ice on everything. We ate and got back on 66 west with a strong crosswind from the left. The VW handled staying on the road OK but as we got to the place where the ice ended the eastbound traffic was hitting that ice and being blown right at us. Thankfully there was a wide soft earth median between east and westbound traffic or my new beetle would have been roadkill. I kept right on going. You can’t fight a car coming at you at 70, 80, whatever they were doing heading into town. That one scared me spitless as I watched car number 2 heading right toward me.
Then there’s DC where they know it’s gonna snow but they never plow it. I was there a whole week and the snow that was there when I arrived was still there on the streets when I left again. I drove to Dulles International in an ice storm then once aboard the plane they closed the airport. They wouldn’t bring those mobil waiting rooms back out to the plane for fear of insufficient traction so there we sat for about 4 hours. Had our dinner, the movie and whatever you were drinking right on the ground. My wife was going to pick me up at LAX and before cell phones I had no way to let her know what was going on at my end. When we could finally be deiced and the wheels left the ground everyone started cheering and clapping. I think the cabin attendants were surprised. Then still the 5+ hour flight home.
It’s something you can look back on after the fact and say, “Well, I survived it so it was OK.” But I’m a dyed in the wool warm weather kid from Sunny Southern California and I’ll leave you the -20, -40, the snow and the ice storms every time. You can have your share and mine; 2 for 1, how can your beat that?
20
I’ll bet you still keep a rotary dial telephone around and could recognize a vacuum tube if you saw it — might even know how it works. You and I are really, really old geezers then. Yet we still know more about getting life lived right than these millennials do.
How could that be… …unless maybe, just maybe, experience actually counts for something.
20
Uh oh! You must have a hidden camera in my house, somewhere. It is true, I DO have a rotary phone. The grandkids look at it (yes, my wife and I are raising four), and ask ‘how do you use this?’
It’s my telegraph relay that REALLY stymies them!
20
You got me. Installation of that camera was quite a trick but I managed it. And now that you’re onto it if you can find it it’s yours. 😉
Vacuum tubes are hard to find so I won’t blame you if you don’t have one of those.
Back in about 2004 or 2005 when my employer was designing a new product the engineer proposed, as a joke of course, to put a pair of large vacuum tubes on top of the box. I promptly told him that he would also need a knife switch capable of at least 100 amps. So that’s how old I am — I still remember a knife switch and what it was used for. All that took place in writing in what passed for product specs under development and someone probably still has the original copies of those informal design memos.
Somewhere in a junk box I may still have a rotary dial phone myself. Supposedly they will still work too. The FCC mandated that or they were going to be put out of business while no doubt many people still had them installed. Sometimes a government regulator gets it right for the little guy. Give yours a try someday and see if they do still work.
10
“Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are trying to figure out how an unexpected Chinese-language message suddenly blared over the loudspeakers at a National Weather Service office in Maryland on Wednesday.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/08/10/its-probably-nothing-5/#comment-1136967
In comments
”
Grumps
August 10, 2018 at 12:22 pm
So a scammer’s autodialer hit the NOAA telephone system and everyone is confused? Direct lines to desks and the PA System has a direct dial number too. Not really technically difficult to access.
I don’t know which is more newsworthy, that there is a direct dial access or that they can’t figure out how it happened?
But then again, this is the agency bringing you all the technical data on the climate warming front. Shouldn’t be surprising that they are confused by simple technical issues.”
131
Hmm…most phone systems run over TCPIP these days…which means…..
00
High technology it may be. Low technology it ain’t.
“Watch: Man Tests Democrats’ Claims, Pulls Trigger on All-Plastic Gun (It Blows Up)”
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/10/watch-man-tests-democrats-claims-pulls-trigger-on-all-plastic-gun-it-blows-up/
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Many years ago we would put several bags of shotgun lead-shot in the trunks of cars to help with traction on snow covered roads.
A non-gun owner (and clueless) wanted to know if we were unafraid of it blowing up if we hit a bump, or some such thing. Very likely that person went on to become a Dimocrat such as those mentioned in the article you link to.
180
Should have told them it was Peppercorns and gave them some to put in their grinder for next time.
61
That’s not nice!
20
A good friend who died too young was a lawyer in the public service. Speaking in horror of one of the thankfully few massacres we have experienced in Australia,he lamented: “And he used Full Metal Jacket bullets!” (As reported in the press).
As a lad he had been an officer in the school Air Force cadets, but still didn’t know the significance of FMJ!
50
Interesting.
If questioned, I wonder how the conversation might have gone.
20
makes a good movie title but the reality is actually a bit boring
10
I remember a movie by that name. I was never tempted to spend my money on a ticket to see it but I think it must refer to a particular type or way of making bullets. But when they’re aimed at you, why does it matter? They hurt no matter their composition.
For that matter it may have been an invented term just to sell movie tickets for all I know. More practical concerns govern ammunition such as suitability for defense of your home or person. And I’ve never heard that term except as the title of a movie.
And I’m not an expert, just an interested party, so please don’t ask.
00
Once something hits you going a couple of thousand feet per second tecnicalities start not to matter too much any more. FMJs are used in target shooting, they are cheap non expanding rounds. Used by the military by international agreement (law?)to halt the use of expanding rounds (and resulting severe wounding) as used by hunters and the police and concealed carry people where legal.
As usual technology overcame peoples desire for rules. The AK style round is designed to bend and deform on impact taking devious paths after entry, the US/NATO round fragments after entry. Both comply as FMJ rounds, but deliver far more damage than the FMJ limit was intended to limit.
20
Roy said about History: History is sometimes complicated.
Same with FMJs.
Apparently the person mentioned in Ted O’Brien’s comment thought the use of FMJs was a terrible thing. One can easily argue the opposite.
10
Ted
Re FMJ’s
Check the history of the British “Dum Dum bullet”. It had an exposed lead tip and “was beyond the pale” in the eyes of international critics of the time. No mention being made of the contemporary Portugese one which had more lead exposed.
So the UK agreed to change to the fmj Mk 7 bullet. Which had no lead exposed but the core at the front was aluminium. Which caused the bullet to tumble when it hit but passed the international critics chorus who were using FMJ’s.
I’m not sure if modern ones also tumble but wouldn’t be suprised.
10
John F Hultquist @ #6.1
Ah! memories!
You brought one memory back John and, No ! it isn’t the one and only memory I can still handle. I can still handle more than one I think.
Now what was I saying?
You put bagfuls of lead shot into the “trunks” [ america speak! ] “boots” to older Australians, to keep traction in snow.
We needed weight , lots of, on the big drive wheels and tyres of our tractors to keep traction when hauling the heavy cultivating equipment.
The usual standard tractor company wheel weights were bloody expensive and didn’t come up to the weight we were looking for to get that exta attraction.
.
So I made a couple of the 300 click trips to the Big Smoke ie; Melbourne and got myself a couple of free 200 liter drums, containing a tonne or so of “Holes” to use as wheel weights.
The “holes’ part is real!
They were actually the “punchings” from making the holes that create those perforated metal and steel sheets that go to make all sorts of grading and sizing equipment and even decorative products
One 200 liter drum of those metal hole punchings in the back of the farm ute and it was a somewhat slower drive home albeit at a considerable number of centimetres lower altitude than the trip down to Melbourne.
10
Darwin Award candidate.
60
“Science By Jury”
“Monsanto’s German owners insisted Saturday that the weed killer Roundup was “safe”, rejecting a California jury’s decision to order the chemical giant to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that the product might cause cancer.
While observers predicted thousands of potential future claims against the company in the wake of Monsanto’s defeat, Bayer — which recently acquired the US giant — said the California ruling went against scientific evidence.
“On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use, Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer,” the company said in a statement.
It said other court proceedings with other juries might “arrive at different conclusions” than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit, the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2018/08/11/science-by-jury/#comments
And comments
I just realised that we are getting Cadburys “California Chocolate”
Otherwise “Fruit and Nut”
61
Roundup was first sold in 1974.
I began using it in 1977.
No gloves. No mask.
I do always wear a hat because Sun causes cancer.
Safe, so far.
151
Its an interesting field skin cancer in that can we correlate sun exposure with the increase of additives and preservatives in our modern diet effecting melatonin production that might boost immune systems or the sunscreen we use that contains oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate and octinoxate.
Then consider how much we don’t know from past skin cancer cases as in how many were undiagnosed not recorded not recognised even though people were eating pure organic foods and water, in any case medical funding is essential to find cures for this and many other common ailments people have to endure because governments use other peoples money for its own sake and not the citizens they pretend to serve.
51
Especially since benzene is a known contact carcinogen, so common sense would dictate, not to use benzene compounds in a contact product, especially if benzene is a possible metabolite.
So want do they do? They use benzene products in sunscreen. Not only that most sunscreen block uv by breaking down. The UV causes a compound to dissociate possibly releasing protons and also certainly electrons in the process, free electrons (called free radicals in medicine) can damage DNA.
No chance therefore of ever getting me to use a benzene based sunscreen since I became aware of the chemistry. Skin cancer has statistically INCREASED since sunscreens have been in wide use and vitamin d deficiency is at epidemic proportions. Sunscreen induced Vitamin d deficiency is also implicated in cancer.
If you use a sunscreen stick to the UV reflective type based on zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.
This is the same as the now proven wrongful demonization of dietary fat where it actually is carbohydrates especially sugar and wheat flour causing the obesity epidemic. Doctors are still warning people off healthy animal fats in favor of overloading on carbs. Vegans are the worst – that diet is exceedingly damaging and must never be attempted without medical supervision.
So much wrong science and they expect us to believe vaccines are universally safe. Colour me sceptical. For example Anyone that got polio vaccine in the sixties was probably exposed to a carcinogenic monkey virus that contaminated polio vaccine at that time. Useful yes, universally safe, probably not. Let’s call it a risk benefit call rather than universally “safe”. Especially , evidence suggests, No vaccine should be given before age 2. Where is the precautionary principle when you really need it.
123
Well put Bobl.
I’ve read Dr. Wakefield’s book, ‘Callous Disregard’, and am left with no doubt that we are being misinformed as to the safety of vaccines. It’s been a another eye opener to discover the degree to which his work has been, and is being, misrepresented through the main stream media.
83
Vaccination is a heavy handed social engineering tool, imho. Many people will run off squealing and return with torches and pitchforks if you even express doubt regards the official meme…..scary stuff….
01
G’Day John, like you I have been using glysophate for decades. I live on a rural property and over the years have come across quite a few agricultural chemicals.
My approach to all of these is simply “Read the instructions”. If it says poison on the label, it probably is. I also read product data and safety sheets just because I’m a pedantic old coot. So far so good. Now well into my seventies I have all the issues of being over 7 decades old, none of which I can blame on agri chemicals.
I have been amazed and amused for years about the local spraying contractors who spray all day, every day in spring, often just dressed in shorts and T – shirts and using all sorts of chemical combinations. These guys should be dropping like flies, but they aren’t.
130
Look over your shoulder.
When they start banning long standing chemicals, there is usually a more profitable newly patented substitute waiting in the wings.
Remember chlorinated hydrocarbons? Organic phosphates? 2.4.5.T? Refrigerants? What else?
92
2.4.5.T plus silvex = agent orange …..
know anyone exposed to a.o. ? I do /did…
Can show you their graves …
31
On the other hand, I love eating nuts which are now off my menu due to old age teeth and mouth problems unfortunately.
My favorites were almonds off the almond trees my mother had planted in our back yard.
For years I suffered some quite distressing headaches on a lot of mornings but could never figure out why!
The one day a bit more reading and the penny dropped on the”why” of my headaches.
Theres nothing quite like having a bit of an arsenic overload from eating lots of almonds in one sitting for one to begin to believe this pure organic thing might not be quite as innocuous as it is cracked up to be.
Plants stand still and therefore are sitting ducks for everything that moves and chews and eats and does home invasions [ eg; rust and etc fungi ] so the plants have developed an extraordinary array of chemical defenses to fight off predators of every conceivable type which they can’t run from.
Including messaging to their similar fellow species plants in the field that they are being attacked by a specific pest and to take action to minimise that pest’s effects on those plants.
It has been shown that within minutes of a plant on the edge of a field being attacked by a predator in some numbers or amounts, the plant releases some quite specific pherenomes messaging to the whole field of similar species plants to very subtly alter their chemical make up in some very subtle ways to minimise that pest’s ability to cause severe damage to the collective field of plants.
00
Before they could get me to sit on a jury deciding the safety of something I would want a rigorous definition of safety that everyone, including me, could agree on. I wonder where that definition is hiding these days. I don’t believe either side wold allow me to stay in the jury box past the point where I ask for a definition of safety.
Among other things I see lurking around, there are tort lawyers just salivating all over themselves for a case they think they could make in front of a jury that cell phones cause something harmful. But the only case to make it to the courtroom was thrown out after a showing that the brain tumor in question occurs as frequently in cell phone users and non cell phone users. Be thankful for a correct use of statistics.
The amount of space devoted to RF safety in the booklet for the last phone I bought and in about every other consumer wireless device is amazing. Then there are government publications and Edison spending time explaining how to be safe from the EM field of the wiring in my house. If you go looking for trouble it would look like your life is in terrible danger. But it all has one thing in common, they do not ever say there is any danger. And still not a single bit of empirical evidence that the level of RF involved is the slightest bit dangerous. But rest assured, they all say research is continuing apace, just in case. Sound familiar?
10
Maybe what we should Roundup is all the lawyers.
20
Cigarettes are the subject of massive settlements with the states (which took perhaps two years to bond out thirty years worth of anticipated receipts). The Asbestos trust fund is pretty well played out. Suing fast food for general ill health ran into reality, and salads. Cars have become a lot safer. So far, cell phones causing brain cancer hasn’t sold, and may not. The lawyers need a deep pocket company with a globally used hazardous product to reaffirm their wealth; it’s so hard to make a living one case at a time. A billion dollar trust fund that you can tap into for the asking is the ticket. Raping BP for the gulf oil spill while the microbes at the bottom of the gulf that eat the natural oil seepage got fat and happy and have pretty well got things back to normal worked, but was too short term….you need somthing with several generations of victims. Putting all the profits of all the Ag Chemical companies in a pool to support the trial bar is a lawyers wet dream, and they are clearly working on it. ‘San Francisco Jury’ is all you need to know. Turning a random cancer into a cause and effect damage case is no different than turning a naturally hot year into an attack on fossil fuels, and you’ll find the same folks flogging the bad science, and the same outcome, hoping big companies will be forced to pay out lots of money to these pseudo science squawkers. The “victims” are a prop, the lawyers and their allies get the money, and you and I get screwed.
71
And in the end, mostly the lawyers are the only winners. They have no skin in the original game and all they do is risk their contingency fee of about 40% plus expenses and out of every dozen cases they take on contingency, they can count on winning at least half because they have the ability to reject a juror who even looks close to knowing his fanny from a fan.
I wasn’t kidding about Roundup the lawyers.
00
Plus they can decide whether to even take the case on contingency so if it doesn’t pass their smell test they don’t risk anything and just go on to then next case. And there will be a next one because we Americans sue each other at a furious rate. Esquire indeed.
00
Propaganda choice
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/116072-this-just-in-breaking-news/
30
Yes but here it’s worse because people are not just forced to listen to propaganda pretty much half of the population actually want to and believe in it.
40
Does the ginger group have the bottle to stand up to the multinationals?
‘Australia’s largest energy producers have warned that users face volatility and higher prices unless the NEG is implemented.’ Oz
On Tuesday our troops will cross the Rubicon.
92
Turnbull is a numbers man. He will have laid traps for anyone challenging. Deals will have been done. The Black Hand will have been working the numbers and threatening and promising.
There are 75 Coalition MPs in the lower house. 30 in the senate. 105 in total and 53 is a majority in the party room.
24 ministers including Turnbull. Plus 6 in the Outer Ministry and 12 Parliamentary secretaries.
42 of whom 9 are Nationals, so 33 voters of the required 53 have a stake in keeping Malcolm in place.
The question is whether they will have their jobs at the end of next year? Most unlikely.
Are there any other rules on voting? I suppose a review of the Liberal Party rules would be in order, but since it became Turnbull’s Liberals®, they may have changed the voting rules. After all, he is the heir to Robert Menzies.
122
As I said to Tony Abbott directly, repeal the RET and Hazelwood would open tomorrow. Imagine if the LGCs and STCs were worthless, which they are anyway. They are extortion payments for nothing at all. The Mafia would love it.
It is not that you cannot make money with coal as Tony from Oz points out, but that it is much less than with wind where you not only get many times the money, you can make fortunes with emergency crisis gas. Worse, as the retailer has to buy credits, you make much more than the coal producer without actually selling any electricity. Now that’s real profit.
Would the Australian Gas and Light company think of that? Profiting from misery they created? How can you beat government licenced extortion? It is not only legal, it is compulsory.
We are being softened up in Victoria with the news we may have to pay another $300Million to keep the lights on over summer even though the businesses will close. That’s some threat. Unless you give Malcolm exactly what he wants.
204
‘….repeal the RET and Hazelwood would open tomorrow.’
Would you consider a new plant on the same site or bring the old one back into service?
‘ …. Engie’s station director for the rehabilitation project, Wayne Buckley, said there was now “zero” chance of that happening because the station was “completely inert”.
“Given the state that the power station was in when it closed and the costs associated with bringing that all back into service would be completely unviable,” he said.
ABC
32
Despite its size, it’s not a complicated thing. In time it can be upgraded to HELE but that’s an economic decision given the saving in coal is only 6%. From what we read Engie and the previous owners spent $1.6Billion on maintenance and it was running at 95% of original specification when closed last year.
If it has been made unusable, that would need explanation.
61
‘….that would need explanation.’
A prosecutor at a Royal Commission might say there appears to have been no due diligence.
And your earlier comment on the numbers, we only need 10 to cross the floor.
50
We just need one to resign!
10
TdeF:
As I understand the emissions from Hazelwood were about 1290kg per MWh. German HELE technology with lignite (brown coal) is claimed to run at 800kg per MWh, implying a big saving in coal burnt.
40
It can be a game. Victorian coal can be 66% water. It really matters if you dry it first.
German lignite is also wet coal. A factor of two in energy/kg possibly means one is counting wet coal and the other dry coal. Chemically the bonds are the same.
This is also how anti coal lobbies make out Brown coal produces twice as much CO2 per tonne as it takes twice as many tons of wet coal to produce the same power as the same weight of black coal or anthracite.
Its the same with wood. Dry wood has much more kj/kg.
In fact the power output per tonne of dry coal is quite similar.
I am still angry that the Melbourne Age ran a full page cover attacking the sale of $400 million coal to India and the Victoria Government banned the deal. A second problem is that they were going to remove the water before shipping and as the Age said, that would make it ‘blacker’.
We live in a State of unreality. Not a scientist in the place. It’s not just man made Global Warming. It’s a level of ignorance which should be illegal at the highest levels of government.
60
According to the Greens, Victoria had by far the most ‘polluting’ power generation. This was all deceit based on the 2/3 of brown coal which is water. For the same coal input, the difference between our boilers and HELE is about 6%.
60
That comment seemed believable but then ‘ABC’ appeared on the end.
For some reason I just cannot bring myself to trust anything with that tag.
On another aspect about ‘fake news’ I noticed Facebook is advertising in bus shelters about the dangers of ‘fake news’. It seems to be quite a blitz with the timing of their group think attack on Infowars.
30
Two weeks ago on 2GB Tony Abbott said its all about climate change.
“I’ve turned climate change into a bare-knuckle cost of living fight against Labor, and won an election. I can do it again. I know how to beat Labor, because I’ve got the stomach for the knock out punch.”
171
That’s good to hear that Abbot is still telling it as it is unlike the hypocrites Turnbull, Frydenberg and so many others who have infested the party. Abbott or any other new leader for that matter really has only two options to change things once and for all. The new leader removes Turnbull and dozens of others from the Liberal Party and replace them with true conservative or centre-right members to avoid the same white-anting happening again. The other option is he convinces enough of his colleagues to leave the party and join ON or ACP, and then to convince those two minor parties to become a coalition against the two major parties. It’s like a house riddled with termites, at some stage one has to bite the bullet and demolish much of the house and renovate it or destroy it completely and build a new one. That time has come with the Liberal Party.
81
We can’t automatically throw out all the ‘wets’, there are too many of them, so the new leader would need to be inclusive.
If the ‘drys’ hold sway in cabinet then obviously we can all get on with our lives, realpolitik rules.
Ignoring the ginger group on Tuesday would tempt enough heretics to cross the floor of parliament, with Abbott leading the charge muttering climate change science is crap and CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
31
Inclusive? Is that like believing in diversity as long as it’s approved by the left? That’s what Turnbull has been doing all along – being “inclusive”. He’s really good at that. A good leader on the other hand is truly inclusive only when he/she applies the basic principles of direct democracy in whatever shape or form, which we do not have, as distinct from a pretend and distorted representative democracy, which we do have. The ginger group crossing the floor would be a show of true inclusiveness, not the fake kind exhibited by our current leaders on both sides.
50
‘A good leader on the other hand is truly inclusive ….’
Cory wasn’t very inclusive and lost a seat in Victoria, it is what it is.
11
And Turnbull will lose the next election by a landslide. It is what it is. Meanwhile Joyce is being two-faced yet again according to the news today. At least Cory is honest.
20
Joyce is an agrarian socialist, with revolution on his mind, Cory doesn’t have the bottle.
‘Mr Joyce proposed the government create a divestment power option as a threat to break up the energy firms in the event that they fail to cut power prices.
“It would give us the capacity to say to the these companies: ‘Don’t put ’em up or we will break you up’,” he said.
SMH
21
Cory doesn’t have the bottle? At least he left the sinking party well before the signs became clear. He is a true conservative and a nationalist rolled into one – the closest we have to a Trump albeit not as charismatic. Too bad most Australians ignore him but then again it’s not surprising since Australians are far more left leaning than our US counterparts. People like Abbott are only recently starting to catch up with Cory’s policies on energy and immigration. If Abbott is still in the party while Turnbull is PM in the coming days/weeks he will end up being a gutless two-faced coward.
40
Yes, Cory is honest and well-meaning, but he’s not achieving the cut-through in the media. Tony Abbott, for all his rough edges, always gets through to the media.
Why the heck can’t Tony Abbott, Craig Kelly and the other conservatives amalgamate with Cory’s Aus Conservatives?
There would be a swathe of conservative voters who are at the moment afraid to leave the Libs, but if the aforementioned jumped ship, I reckon they’d sign up for the Aus Conservatives straight away.
40
Look it’s very simple. The so called ginger group has to replace Turnbull, Frydenberg and all the other anti-Australia ministers of the LNP, or if they fail to do so they resign and force the then minority government to comply with the wishes of the people to now scrap the Paris Agreement and pro-renewables anti-coal policies as well as cut our immigration significantly. If the minority government fail to comply then Abbott and the others who have resigned from the party have only one bullet left – force a new election and let the people decide which party or parties should hold government according to their respective policies on energy, immigration, etc..
40
On the issue as for Abbott and the other conservatives amalgamating with the ACP – it’s not necessary. They can resign from the party and become independents or form another party. Joining the ACP would be better in the long run provided they join forces with ON to form a new coalition. It could end up being a formidable force against the failed LNP and ALP parties. Before we get there though let’s wait and see what happens near term.
30
‘… force a new election and let the people decide …’
Big mistake, have it around its usual time, otherwise you are upsetting the voters for no reason.
The new broom would need at least six months of grace to put up tenders for Hele and bullet trains, to force the new waves of immigrants into the bush and win a resounding victory.
21
Upset the voters for no reason? They are already upset! If Turnbull doesn’t go there is really no option but to force an election before it gets much worse, which it will if Turnbull remains. Now we have another tsunami to hit the nation – if the drought crisis continues for another 6 months and Turnbull keeps pretending it’s not a national crisis we will run the risk of ending up importing our meat to keep up with demand. On pretty much every front the current LNP has to go of the leader won’t.
30
A block of Coalition dissenters tomorrow would shake the very foundations of the Liberal Party.
30
‘Malcolm Turnbull is wrong to claim the NEG has the full support of the Coalition partyroom, Tony Abbott warns.’ Oz
50
Yes he’s wrong on that and plenty of other issues. So much and so many it’s really a wonder the party still want to keep him as the leader for one more day let alone for one more month.
30
Geez, I wish he would.
80
In his early years he did a bit of boxing and won most of his fights, it would be an extraordinary comeback.
The mob hate his guts, but who cares, there is revolution in the air and Tony might just be the charismatic leader long awaited.
61
Howard failed at first but eventually ended up being one of the most popular and successful PMs ever. Abbott has the potential to repeat Howard’s experience, provided he grows a spine and is as forceful and enthusiastic as Howard was. I personally doubt he can but he at least should try. Alternatively, someone else should take the baton and run with it provided he/she too displays enough forcefulness and enthusiasm.
20
‘… provided he grows a spine …’
He knows a lot more about climate change and appears to have grown in stature.
‘Alternatively, someone else should take the baton …’
It might be too late for that, Dutton is useless, so its the old school boys Tony and Barnaby out to save the Coalition from imminent destruction.
41
Yes he has grown somewhat over the past couple or so years. However, Joyce is a joke. He is now saying he will approve the NEG provided there’s a Plan B in case power prices don’t fall. What the??!! We all know they won’t fall if we keep supporting more renewables to reduce our emissions. On which planet is Joyce? I hope Abbott doesn’t follow Joyce’s stupid thinking.
30
Plan B: If power prices don’t fall then we’ll smash up the free enterprise system.
Don’t worry, he is only teasing, of course he’ll cross the floor.
10
Teasing while his constituents in the rural districts are crying and committing suicide? Not a time to be teasing. It’s time to grow a spine and do something serious for a change.
20
Like turning his back on the NEG in the Coalition Party Room.
30
Do they have the bottle? Probably they do but the problem is their “bottle” is too small compared to that of the multinationals. Even if they do manage to get rid of Turnbull and put in place an appropriate leader do the people as a whole have the “bottle” to support that new leader? The real test of course would be at election time. In any case the future of Australia will be in Australians’ hand at the next election regardless of who the leaders are for the two major parties. If the leaders are still the same as today the voters have no option but to reject both parties if they really care about Australia’s future. If we end up with either a Turnbull majority government or a Shorten majority government then it’s one giant step towards the crash and burn scenario.
123
This is the same issue that unseated Turnbull last time, I honestly feel like I’m in a time warp. Last time it was MTs support of the Rudd loathed carbon tax this time it is Turnbull’s support of the loathed carbon tax otherwise known as the NEG. Let’s hope history repeats and Turnbull gets brought down in a steaming heap through a party room challenge by one. Followed by an Abbott government with a 17 seat majority and both houses of parliament. History!
Yes, even though I am a beneficiary of socialist largess (in the form of a 60.1c feed in tariff) I want this gone. I will be undoubtedly worse off but the country will be saved. Fair compromise in my opinion.
211
The amazing thing to observe is how Turnbull deliberately constructed the NEG to meet the approval of the ALP and Greens. The LNP is in effect a Greens party by stealth. The more people realise that fact the more likely we will stop to rot come election time. I fear it won’t happen simply because too many people are still asleep.
141
‘I fear it won’t happen …’
Fear not, the future is unknown, but I’m confident with the help of Rupert Murdoch we’ll eventually get the centre right government Australia deserves.
62
You keep saying that and I keep saying I hope you are right but Australia has been declining and Australian politics has gradually shifted to the left for the past few decades. What makes you think it will be different now and suddenly shift to centre-right? I’m afraid that’s like asking for Trump to come over and become our next PM. It ain’t going to happen. I take the view things will have to get much worse before enough people wake up, finally realise that both major parties have lost it, and allow a new centre-right party to form government, if at all.
71
We are talking about career politicians with mortgages, nobody will be changing sides.
31
Then a lot of LNP career politician better start looking for new jobs just in case.
40
Take Heart Peter.
If you check the statistics column on the right side of the page you will see that there are 25 plus readers of this blog at any time of the day. They come from UK, Canada, US, NZ, and Australia (and other parts of the world), but mostly Australia.
Anything that Jo Says gets read and probably a lot of comments. So the message is getting out.
Keep going! That is all I want to say, just keep going.
70
Enjoy the moment.
‘Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity has plunged as he prepares for a high-stakes showdown with rebel MPs over the NEG.’ OZ
51
Peter C, I get what you are saying. The people are starting to wake up albeit too slowly. At this rate if Turnbull is still the leader come next election he will single-handily destroy the party, which some say was his intention all along given his original keen interest in first joining the ALP. I don’t hold much weight on that point – I prefer to think he is just so divorced from our nation’s interest and more of a globalist given his background as an ex-partner to Goldman Sachs. Some say he hasn’t really left that evil organisation. Not sure if there is any truth in that.
el gordo, let’s hope we see some real action this week and not just more talk. I see Joyce is two-faced and will back the NEG if there is a Plan B in case the NEG doesn’t lead to lower power prices. He has to be kidding. We can’t wait any longer hoping the NEG will achieve what we all know it can’t achieve if we continue to reduce our emissions as per the Paris Agreement. Make no mistake about it, Joyce is showing his true colours and being two-faced as usual. It’s now up to Abbott to challenge Turnbull and if unsuccessful he should convince as many of his colleagues as possible to join him and resign from the party and either stand as independents or join one of the other minor parties to force the government to scrap the Paris Agreement and RET ponzi schemes. I doubt he has the courage of his convictions to do that in which case he would be yet another two-faced politician. IN that case we ought to allow Shorten to become our next PM to speed up the crash and burn scenario to get it over and done with. I rather have a quick death than a slow and painful one.
20
Hmmm ….
00
They will wake up when the power outages kick in regularly.
10
Too late by then. That’s probably well after when Shorten becomes PM if things don’t change with the LNP. We need to keep ALP out and change the current LNP to reverse the push to more renewables and instead for less renewables and more coal fired power stations to force a significant reduction of power prices, and drop our immigration intake significantly from the current record highs that’s flooding the major cities.
10
el gordo
“On Tuesday our troops will cross the Rubicon.”
Or not
30
‘Or not’
I sense this is the beginning of the fightback by the ginger group and their failure to act at this critical moment is unthinkable.
61
Yes, now is the best opportunity for a change since we now have a “perfect storm” with the NEG, record mass immigration and the desperate state of our farmers all being ignored by what now has become clear as the worst PM ever. The NEG alone should be enough to destroy the party given it has agreement with the ALP and Greens to keep reducing our emissions to meet the Paris Agreement. Time for the so called ginger group to depose Turnbull, resign from the party or turn chicken.
50
‘If people can’t afford to cook and keep warm, if you go into their kitchen and talk about the Paris agreement, you are showing no respect.’
Barnaby Joyce
The ginger group is focussed on climate and energy.
10
Worst PM ever!!!!
You apparently weren’t around when Billy McMahon and then Gough Whitlam despite his subsequent undeserved elevation to political sainthood, were Prime Ministers.
Had there been the modern day Twitterati with their anonymous foaming at the mouth, foul mouthed vacuousness in those days both McMahon and Whitlam would have got run over by a very heavy political truck which they both finished up by being done over politically in any case.
Rudd and Gillard would definitely be in the running for the worst Australian PM’s.
And these are only from my own lifetime.
Listening to the older generation on politics in my youth,” Billy Hughes” who changed parties a few times and from left to right to further right with three political parties involved at least I think, the media couldn’t handle that at all today, they would go into total and complete meltdown, then Hughes was truly on the nose as PM depending on which party he was or wasn’t a member of at the time and which period of his political life the old guys were commenting on.
We are a considerable disadvantage here in Australia when it comes to picking the worst PM we have had as a nation.
Our national political history only goes back a hundred and eighteen years to 1901 when the Federation was born so we have a quite talented pool but very limited in numbers and range of the worst PM’s to draw from to derive the one who so far has been the worst of the lot.
But credit where credit is due.
The current contenders are proving quite outstanding and no doubt will be well in the running for the Worst PM ever.
10
For Original Steve:
11/08 Cold if wind W, Snow if E, Observations, BOM, Ballarat, High 9.1c @12:00 pm Low 1.6 @11:30 pm, 4.6mm rain, Personal, very cold day 4-5C average intermittent rain, wind WSW ~20 kph.
Currently -0.4C.
93
Wow! 9.1℃ must be global warming.
Adelaide Hills at midday (roughly). Lobethal 4℃, Woodside 5℃, Balhannah 6℃.
Then it cleared up and we got 8℃ high. Wood smoke everywhere.
92
Haha, Nice to hear my home town weather. It’s a “cool” 26°C and sunny here in Bali atm, heading for a top of 29°C! Sorry Graeme. Might go for another swim in the pool. Is it too early for Bintang?
30
In SE Queensland we have had a very cold winter, we are now almost 2 months after the winter solstice and tomorrow they are forecasting 1 degree min and widespread frost. All my plantings will probably die. I will irritate at 3am and hope that’s enough to prevent too much frost damage. It’s not hotter, it’s a COLD COLD winter.
82
3am seems an odd time to irritate someone – I irritate others most of the time.
71
Irritation waits for no man!
21
Irritate the irrigation perhaps…
32
Oops the virtually unusable virtual keyboard strikes again, yes irrigate not irritate.
30
You can both irrigate, and irritate, multi-tasking at its finest.
20
snowed last night on Bathurst, Orange and Oberon. We drove past snow topped hills near Carcoar this afternoon. Think they would prefer rain.
40
Perth too Bobl.
Cold as charity.
20
And going to stay colder for while, if the water temps off Perth’s coast are a guide.
10
Turnbullites and other wonderkind: http://balance10.blogspot.com/2018/08/re-education-archipelago-is-adding.html
40
Aunty is running the story.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-11/china-holding-1-million–uighurs-in-secret-camps-un-says/10109290
Beijing is fine with minorities as long as they don’t think their deity is greater than Xi.
31
The ABC has done its duty by doing 1 report on this, but really, the people with the job title of ‘journalist’ at the ABC believe that only “white” people can be racist, or otherwise prejudiced.
This (if true), like many other cases of government/dictator sponsored and sanctioned crimes against humanity, should be causing the supposed humane, and compassionate “left” to lose sleep, but instead, lets all focus on plastic straws, “they day”, and hurt feelings….
“They Day” in Victoristan, coming to you courtesy of your tax dollars…
https://youtu.be/ADJ74s1-XW4
30
Tried to look at that James, very briefly, and couldn’t cope with it.
01
I notice no mention by the ABC of the persecution of Christians also happening at present, sorry, no link as I forgot to bookmark it. They have been wrecking home churches and destroying books.
01
Why is NSW dragging the chain on generation? We have a quiet Sunday morn with low demand but they still can’t meet their own demand and have cut coal fired generation to 5.9 GW. Thermal plants don’t like being wound back like this but they always do it. They give coal a bad name.
72
NSW currently has five of its coal fired Units off line, two at Bayswater, two at Liddell, and one at Vales Point, taking a little more than 3000MW out of the system just in that State alone, so that’s why they are delivering less power from their coal fired sector.
Incidentally, I’m in the process of moving home, so for those of you who are following my daily power generation Series, that will be missing for a while, probably 14 days. Once we have reached our new home, In Beenleigh, just South of Brisbane, and I’m back up on line, I’ll be catching up that Series, in its daily sequence. Luckily, I can chase up the data, which is all recorded at the sites I use, so I won’t miss anything.
Also of interest, have you noticed the changes at the Aneroid energy site. Really good stuff there.
Tony.
91
Oh, this is probably also due to the fact that power consumption on the weekend, and especially on the Sundays is always (considerably) lower than it is on the working week days. The rise in power consumption from Sunday to Monday is pretty huge really, around almost 3000MW average across the whole 24 hours. That 3000MW average rise (MW per hour) is around 8%, and nearly all of it is during daylight hours, from around 4AM onwards. What needs to be noticed here also, is that on the Sunday, all that daylight power consumption is in the Residential sector, so, on the Monday that is even lower, so that rise during daylight hours is even larger, and that shows just how much power is being consumed in workplaces and also in schools as well. The morning peak is an hour and a half earlier on the Mondays, (and on all week days) and can be anything up to 5000MW higher, than it is on the weekends.
Tony.
81
Tony,
How will your system handle the change in climate?
It will be about 3C cooler than Rocky and the climate “””experts””” tell us that 0.6 change per century is disastrous.
Is it the warming of the planet that is influencing you to move south?
91
He’ll have to rug up for that brisk alpine Brissy climate. Long Johns at least.
This supposedly was a real story from a Hunter Valley mine in about 2010:
A group of QLD mine workers came down to the Hunter to do a job at a mine site. On the first morning they turned up for work and promptly went on strike, demanding coats, gloves and beanies before they would commence work, because it was so cold. These they were given. The temperature at the time was 28 degrees C. They were nearly laughed off the site by the local workers.
51
If the trend continues soon there will be people who will say below 30C is too cold. Yet they still want us to spend billions to stop the world form warming even though it’s not. CONTRADICTION ALERT!
41
These are the same boys who went on strike because the turkey in the free Christmas hamper was only a No. 12. They wanted a No.14 size turkey in their FREE Christmas hamper.
41
Give them the no.14 size but leave the feathers and head on it and its insides intact.
31
What size is Turnbull?
20
Turnbull is a dead duck.
20
Yes, I dare say the cricket bats are already lined up along the verandah. Personally, I think the public have relocated them to the verandah of the local school.
For non Australians this refers to a speech by Paul Keating ex treasurer of Australia when Labor got beaten up at the polls. He famously said that the public had “cricket bats on the verandah” just waiting for election day. IE their loss was a forgone conclusion.
Polling places in Australia are usually local schools.
30
Nice new site – thanks for the heads up. It’s so amazing to see how little is generated by solar and wind on the Energy Production by Source graph. Yet we as a nation are bending over backwards to maintain the push to reduce our emissions, with the NEG being the latest. When is this RET ponzi scheme going to end?
41
Re the Aneroid Energy Site’
They are still using the misleading colour scheme on the map to visually de-emphasize all the sites that are producing nothing or very little.
For a more meaningful picture:
‘fully utilised’ should be green
‘0%’ should be red
‘not utilised’ should be black 🙂
50
Re the Aneroid site…..nice improvements , but…..
Why have they not updated their records of active generators ?
EG …they still list SAs Northern and Playford generators, together with several others to suggest SA has over. 4GW of fossil generation available ?
A totally false impression.
60
Behind a paywall, but Judith Sloane had an article in the Australian, saying there is no such thing as renewables leading to lower prices! Anywhere. In the world.https://amp-theaustralian-com-au.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/its-a-universal-truth-renewables-mean-higher-costs/news-story/c2c3d834d2127034e3c4c85452dd6384?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnews%2Finquirer%2Fits-a-universal-truth-renewables-mean-higher-costs%2Fnews-story%2Fc2c3d834d2127034e3c4c85452dd6384
150
Not a bad opening.
“Tell me anywhere in the world where a higher penetration of renewable energy has been associated with lower electricity prices.
It certainly isn’t Denmark, which went crazy about wind power and has some of the highest electricity prices in the world.
It also isn’t Germany, which fell in love with wind and solar power — yes, solar power in Germany — and has some of the highest electricity prices in the world. Did I also mention, notwithstanding the substantial taxpayer and customer subsidisation of renewable energy, Germany will fail to meet the 2020 emissions reduction target it set itself and may well fail to meet its 2030 target? Germany also has finished constructing a new brown coal-fired power station recently.”
She then adds Spain and Ontario to the list.
The problem is that “renewables” as NOW defined are cheap in Iceland.
So the question is “do you want earthquakes and volcanoes with that?”
141
Renewables are good for some, ask AGL, they have 1.6 bill reasons to smile.
122
Judith Sloan has been very good. So, too, The Oz generally. Chris Kenny has been hammering away with good stuff. Others too.
122
Include Henry Ergas in that group.
70
read Henry over at Catallaxy, he gets downright caustic at times 🙂
10
Thanks Bob,
There’s also a good article by Piers Akerman in today’s Sunday Telegraph, on page 91 in the hard copy version (NSW). Sorry, no link as it’s behind a paywall to me.
One sentence as an indicator:
” The Paris commitment condemns Australia to higher electricity prices and the NEG, as it stands, condemns Australia to less reliable power. ”
Piers is not alone with his articles in the Tele over recent months.
Cheers,
Dave B
60
It’s been on for young and old on The Oz recently, with a very strong showing by the skeptics. As usual the AGW crowd have been reduced to baseless assertions and name calling.
101
Someone better tell Barnaby Joyce this given he still thinks the NEG will reduce power prices.
20
Barnaby’s a no hoper. I wonder why Alan Jones gives him air time!
GeoffW
30
I tend to agree. He’s dare I say “inclusive”. He’s so inclusive he feels sitting on the fence is not bad enough so he has to keep hopping back and forth over the fence several times a week.
00
For christ’s sake stop spreading fake news, Barnaby is a hero of the revolution.
00
Profile, scandal, bellicose…..ratings
10
about to begin on ABC Radio National:
12 Aug: ABC: Sunday Extra: The Roundtable: Is climate change causing extreme weather events around the world?
We’re witnessing extreme weather events around the world – heatwaves, drought, wildfire and flood. Is climate change to blame?
Through ‘detection and attribution’ methods scientists are now able to calculate the extent to which climate change is a causal factor more accurately and quickly. So how sure can they be, and if climate change is determined to have doubled or tripled the likelihood of an extreme event, how useful is that information for planning, forcing policy change, or apportioning blame?
Guests:
David Karoly – Professor and Leader, Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the National Environmental Science Program at the CSIRO. Contributor to the World Weather Attribution group.
Seth Westra – A/Professor, School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Adelaide.
Martijn Wilder – Partner and head of Global Environmental Markets and Climate Change at Baker and McKenzie law firm.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/roundtable/10090036
on ABC RN about an hour ago:
12 Aug: ABC Sunday Extra (Ockhams Razor): Disasters are not natural
We often call them ‘natural disasters’ — cyclones, bushfires, floods — that often cause death and devastation
But how ‘natural’ are they? Especially when the same natural phenomenon can have a vastly different impact on disparate parts of the globe.
Dr Jason von Meding argues we should be more careful in our thinking around what a disaster actually means.
Guest
Dr Jason von Meding, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle
TRANSCRIPT:
Robyn Williams: This week, horrendous earthquakes in Indonesia. Rampaging fires in California. Scorching temperatures in Europe and crippling drought in Australia. Are these natural disasters or something more? Here’s Dr Jason von Meding, a senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle. He’s speaking at the Edwards Hotel – since ravaged by fire. Another disaster?
JASON VON MEDING: Disasters are not natural. Let me explain.
Right now I’m sure you’re thinking about tsunamis, cyclones, bushfires and earthquakes. These are hazards. And they are of course natural. But the impact of these hazards is overwhelmingly determined by the characteristics of the people that are exposed to them.
Disasters are therefore a manifestation of the structural injustice designed into modern civilisation…
The victims of disasters are usually impoverished. The victims of disasters usually live in poor countries. They are already marginalised in their societies based on class, gender, religion, ethnicity and disability…
Disasters seemed to be everywhere in 2017. In India, Nepal and Bangladesh, record flooding led to over 1000 deaths and affected 40 million people. Earthquakes in Mexico and Iran killed hundreds. Atlantic hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria were covered quite extensively in the media – the focus was mostly on the United States, but as you probably know many Caribbean islands were left devastated…
There were also hundreds of other disasters that occurred in 2017, most of which were not covered in the media…
We need to be really careful with the language that we use here. I have heard experts argue that we need to say “natural disasters” because that’s the only thing that non-technical audiences understand. Go with what is familiar, even if it is misleading…
I have a bit of a theory about what is going on here. Many experts find the discussion of structural injustice quite unappealing. They are often employed by or receive funding from the governments, organisations, corporations and foundations that uphold the status quo.
They urge us not to make it political. But disasters cannot be depoliticised…
In 2015, we saw significant global frameworks on climate change, on sustainable development and on disaster risk reduction. The Sendai Framework was agreed in March 2015 by the nations of the UN. This is a global commitment to adhere to certain principles in order to reduce disaster risk…
We are in the midst of an extinction event, climate change impacts are mounting and inequality is taking societies around the world to breaking point. Technology is not going to save us. Now is most certainly the time for radical conversations…
We need to challenge militarism, nationalism, racism and inequality. We need to re-assess the power dynamic between rich and poor countries. We need to consider who really benefits from foreign aid and trade deals. We need to question an economics built on exploitation of the weak and powerless…
But we must be willing to accept that what we thought we knew about disasters may have been wrong all along.
Disasters are not natural.
Robyn Williams: So be prepared, don’t just deny…
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/disasters-are-not-natural-jason-von-meding/9920536
The Conversation: Dr Jason von Meding is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia and leads the Disaster and Development Research Group in the School of Architecture & Built Environment. His research focuses on the social, political, economic and environmental injustice that causes people, across global societies but particularly in the developing world, to be marginalised and forced into greater risk of being impacted by disasters. Having accumulated a decade of research experience in disaster science, Jason takes a critical approach to the field and continues to argue that disasters are socially constructed rather than natural events.
2010–2013: Lecturer in Construction Management, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
60
Pat one of the best arguments I have heard for improving technology, building reliable generation enabling social advancement and resilience of the third world to disasters, but somehow the SJWs always manage to reverse the onus and insist the first world sacrifice is own resilience to somehow mysteriously benefit the rest of the world with rainbows and unicorn farts.
This is the problem with 100 metres Robyn Williams socialistic utopia, these socialists think they can have it all by making everybody poor. Equity (of destitution) well maybe, but resilience, wealth, happiness and liberty, oops I wonder where they went.
82
The ABC News website has thrown another dart this morning.
It has landed on PENGUINS.
Yep the penguins on Penguin Island are endangered because of global warming.
Where will the dart land next?
They generally throw the climate warming dart once each day.
Thank goodness Lombok Island was raised a few centimetres by the volcano/earthquake. It will now last a little bit longer before it is swamped by rising sea levels.
82
We need to compile a list of all the good reasons why a transition to electric vehicles should not be mandated by government, if the free market wants EV then so be it but do not sit back and allow the Paris Agreement followers to get away with a EVT;
https://finance.nine.com.au/2018/08/10/13/26/tesla-would-consider-australian-production
60
Raises the question: Who taught him this garbage? Who paid for it?
It may be argued that it is not natural that people lived on a plain by the ocean at Fukushima, though I would argue that it is natural. The question is do you see the human race from the inside or from the outside?
But the tsunami that washed them away was most certainly a natural disaster.
All of which discredits his whole speech.
60
for Bobl and anyone else interested:
11 Aug: Townhall: Obama Carbon Colonialism and Climate Corruption Continue
Editor’s Note: This column was co-written by Paul Driessen and David Wojick.
Part 1 of a 3-part series.
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/08/11/obama-carbon-colonialism-and-climate-corruption-continue-n2508757?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
30
Exactly what I was trying to say. If we want to “beat climate change” then we should be investing in those things that mask is resilient to climate – any climate cold or hot. Strong housing, reliable water, communication and power infrastructure, Levees, sea walls and dams. Mankind’s best defense against climate are energy tight structures, fans, heaters, air conditioning and pumps.
All of these require reliable energy, no energy means no climate defences regardless of whether it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or still.
Why was the west African Ebola outbreak so bad even though the west was practically untouched? Tropical Ebola can’t survive at low temperatures, the difference between African Ebola and western Ebola was air-conditioning.
Why is malaria so rare in the west, simple, our houses are strong and weather resistant, air-con and fans allow us to screen or keep windows closed that keep the disease carrying pests out we restrict the movement of flies, mosquitos, rats and mice, energy is what allows us to do that.
What is the political answer oh let’s make the one commodity that underpins our climate resilience so expensive people can’t use it. Grannies are dying, today, this winter because the government is being cruel to them by denying them energy. Evil, Evil.
130
Prepare for more 97% fail …
NOAA: The 2018 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to have below average activity
This year’s hurricane season doesn’t look like a repeat of 2017 …
https://www.axios.com/atlantic-hurricane-season-to-be-below-average-fa102da9-e067-4678-929c-146e10312ffe.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=1100
2017: U.N. chief hopes storms will sway climate skeptics like Trump
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday he hoped recent devastating hurricanes in the Caribbean and southern United States would convince climate change skeptics like U.S. President Donald Trump that global warming is a “major threat.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-usa-climatechange/u-n-chief-hopes-storms-will-sway-climate-skeptics-like-trump-idUSKBN1C92HO
Guess the UN are gonna need a new threat!
40
Inconvenient facts on the effects of the British heatwave on mortality rates.
From the tabloids: the summer heatwave was a “killer” with “nearly 1,000 more Brits” dying due to the weather.
From the Office of National Statistics — “fewer deaths were registered [this summer] than during the same weeks of the last two years”.
https://order-order.com/2018/08/10/media-alarmists-proved-wrong-heatwave-deaths/
91
we lived through the 2003 heatwave in Europe. There were many stories about people dying in France , especially the elderly. Much later it came out that in total 2003 was no different to any other year, just some deaths were bought forward by a few months. A bit brutal but there you go.
41
Also living and working in Europe in the early part of the 2003 summer. Very unpleasant in my apartment and office without any cooling. Was glad to leave and come home.
30
We were living in Gloucestershire that summer, having just moved back from Australia in late 2002. It was very hot and we had some Australian friends visit us in August. They were usually very unnoticing of heat in their home in Melbourne (I used to melt when we went there!) but they were exhausted when they came to us in England. They felt they should be seeing the sights but we sat them down with a nice cold G and T and told them to forget seeing any more and do nothing until they recovered!
22
I was much the same, nothing is really set up for protracted heat. I did have the luxury though of working in a very coolish data centre.
10
10 Aug: WV Metro News: FERC issues stop work order on Atlantic Coast Pipeline
The order halts construction of the $5.5 billion project, which includes 600 miles of buried pipeline from West Virginia into eastern North Carolina.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an order on Aug. 6 vacating a right-of-way permit from the National Park Service and the Incidental Take Statement issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Aaron Ruby, spokesman for Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Dominion Energy, said they are working with key agencies to resume construction as soon as possible.
“The Atlantic Coast Pipeline has been the most thoroughly reviewed infrastructure project in the history of our region. The recent action by the courts and FERC are further evidence of this unprecedented scrutiny and the high standard that is being applied to this project,” he said.
The interim right-of-way and work area stabilization plan have to be submitted within five days for review and written approval by the Turpin or a designee of the Office of Energy Projects.
FROM COMMENTS:
Will Ford: ferc NEEDS to be ABOLISHED!, I have seen it cost millions on pipelines for stupid CRAP!
Mark Jackson: Let Dominion sue the kangroo cort for lost time and productivity..That will stop this insanity.
http://wvmetronews.com/2018/08/10/ferc-issues-stop-work-order-on-atlantic-coast-pipeline/
from Virginian-Pilot: The court also vacated a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service governing impact on endangered wildlife, saying the agency failed to set proper limits for harm to five species including a type of freshwater clam and certain bats.
TWEET: 7 Aug: Michael Brune, executive director of Sierra Club: Important victory last week against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and another yesterday against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Kudos to the lawyers, organizers and thousands of citizens fighting for justice and clean energy!
20
The mainstream media now form a borderless yet centralized body with a few variations/flavours to give the illusion of choice. It’s one corral with different coloured gates. Now and again a network or Murdoch or a luvvie media outlet will give a run to a maverick/outlier to draw our enthusiam to keep us close to the corral.
But who gave you Turnbull? Who gives you war, debt and Green Blob? All of them together. How did uber-globalists Gillard and Turnbull just slide into power unelected without a whimper from the public? Remember that mood of confidence when train-commuter Malcolm took the reins from the helicopter-commuters? How do you make such silliness plausible? You do it by having media centralized and corporatized not just across a country but across the world. You do it by having internationalist governments and international corporations which branch into one another till a giant private business can be a giant government spooking agency while a government can owe everything to lobbies on the other side of the world and nothing to any punter who thinks he voted for it.
Obama took a Peace Nobel then proceeded with eight years of multiple wars. Debt-levels considered disastrous (worth a GFC, even) a mere ten years ago now look like extreme thrift. Turnbull’s white elephants should stagger by their cost, scale and futility. But the media just give faint applause with the odd grunt of caution or disapproval for realism’s sake.
It’s hard to sort out who is independent and who is an actor or gatekeeper in alternative media, and maybe one should stop trying and just look for ideas. This lady with scary hair came from the Left but also has much hard commercial experience in the matters she talks about. I have no idea of how truly independent she is. Same goes for the anarcho-libertarian guy interviewing. At times their old political biases may show. Yet these are not uninformed people spouting loose theories. What they talk about rings true, however bizarre. The interview dates from a few years back when saying “Agenda 21” meant nothing. Now it means you are a peculiar person who watches too much far-out stuff on the internet…because, hey, if Agenda 21 was a real deal you’d be reading and hearing about it all the time, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7T7ulzNG7o
It’s also worth checking out people like Brian Gerrish on the subject of the “charity” called Common Purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYLebWOZ66w
I would rather be a potty conspiracy theorist now than a tenant of globalism later.
100
That’s one insightful video into UN Agenda 21 octopus reach,
all the way down to local councils non-disclosure contractual
process and education programs promoting Agenda 21 ‘equity.’
Listen at about 30.00 re Precautionary Principle any suspicion
that individual action may possibly, despite lack of evidence,
cause damage to the environment, blocks individual activity,
pushing guilt and you’re guilty until proven innocent.
It’s worth spreading this around, (while you can.) 🙁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7T7ulzNG7o
50
Amazing. It means a natural suspicion of a conspiracy against our way of life and government is fully justified from known United Nations and European Union programs. All in a good cause. Control of the planet by the rich, oligachies and bureaucracies and the end of individual rights and property rights.
83
There it is, all spelled out.
Well, almost . . . . . hence Agenda 2030.
40
situation normal (Boston Globe was formerly owned by NYT):
10 Aug: Daily Caller: Mike Brest: Boston Globe Calls For All Media Outlets To Publish Anti-Trump Editorials Next Week
The Boston Globe has called for the coordinated publication of editorials by any and all news outlets criticizing President Trump’s rhetoric on the press, scheduled for next week.
They have asked a number news organizations to publish editorials condemning the president’s labeling of the press as “the enemy of the people.”…
Marjorie Pritchard, who oversees the Globe’s editorial page, says dozens of newspapers have agreed so far to write their own editorials, according to the Associated Press (LINK)…
The editorials are scheduled to be published next Thursday, Aug. 16.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/10/boston-globe-media-trump/
11 Aug: Newsbusters: P.J. Gladnick: Fake News: CNN’s ‘Trump Voter’ Actually an Anti-Trump Socialist
On Tuesday CNN again treated supposed Trump voters as lab rats to analyze their current attitudes towards the President. As Newsbusters’ Brad Wilmouth observed, CNN hinted that “Half of Trump Voters Regret Support for ‘Monster.'” However, since then it has been revealed that that supposed apple Trump voter calling the President a monster on the “facts first” CNN panel was actually a virulently anti-Trump socialist banana.
As Vincent James of the Red Elephants channel on YouTube revealed, those facts about the true political views of panelist Jeremy Montanez were easily available online but for CNN it seems that it’s really facts last if it comes to promoting their agenda of projecting disenchantment with President Donald Trump among his voters…READ ALL
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/pj-gladnick/2018/08/11/fake-news-cnns-trump-voter-actually-anti-trump-socialist
reminder:
18 Apr 2016: NBC: Bad News: Just 6 Percent of People Say They Trust the Media
by Associated Press
Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public’s view of other institutions. In this presidential campaign year, Democrats were more likely to trust the news media than Republicans or independents…
Faced with ever-increasing sources of information, Americans also are more likely to rely on news that is up-to-date, concise and cites expert sources or documents, according to a study by the Media Insight Project, a partnership of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute…
The poll shows that accuracy clearly is the most important component of trust…
The news media have been hit by a series of blunders on high-profile stories…
10
almost all unreported by the FakeNewsMSM:
10 Aug: Judicial Watch: Tom Fitton: Weekly Update: New Fusion GPS Collusion Lawsuit
How Were Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, and Fusion GPS Plotting?
Judicial Watch Battles in Court this Week for IRS Scandal Transparency
Dossier Author Steele Was Deemed ‘Not Suitable For Use’ as Source
Court Orders DOJ to Preserve Comey Personal Email
https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/weekly-update-new-fusion-gps-collusion-lawsuit/
a touch of sarcasm in the President’s tweets:
11 Aug: Washington Examiner: Trump questions why FBI hasn’t released McCabe text messages, warns ‘I may have to get involved’
by Diana Stancy Correll
President Trump questioned Saturday morning why the FBI had not provided conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and others with text messages of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, warning he “may have to get involved.”
“Why isn’t the FBI giving Andrew McCabe text messages to Judicial Watch or appropriate governmental authorities. FBI said they won’t give up even one (I may have to get involved, DO NOT DESTROY). What are they hiding? McCabe wife took big campaign dollars from Hillary people……,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. “…..Will the FBI ever recover it’s once stellar reputation, so badly damaged by Comey, McCabe, Peter S and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, and other top officials now dismissed or fired? So many of the great men and women of the FBI have been hurt by these clowns and losers!”…
Andrew McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, accepted thousands of dollars in donations for a Virginia state Senate election in 2015 from a political action committee headed by Terry McAuliffe, who is close to the Clinton family and chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential run…
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-questions-why-fbi-hasnt-released-mccabe-text-messages-warns-i-may-have-to-get-involved
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This chart shows a falling trend in weather related insurance claims on a GDP basis:
https://theclimatefix.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/1990-2017-disgdp2.jpg?w=656
This chart counters incorrect beliefs that weather related disasters are increasing.
All the insurance companies just list the total losses without any reference to the total insured value. The total losses is trending up as you would expect with increasing global economic growth.
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A training camp has been uncovered in New Mexico. The youngsters were being trained in how to carry out mass school shootings.
Has anyone seen any coverage of this in the mainstream media?
The camp was being run by mozzies and for mozzies.
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That’s why they need DDT.
Dauntless Donald Trump.
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This is for the record, given that it’s now the Tuesday after the “Weekend unthreaded”.
The following is an example of how the progressive judiciary in the USA is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Death will follow. The lefties will never take responsibility for their actions.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/08/13/new-mexico-jihadis-leave-jail-child-abuse/
00
I can live with the moderation.
It needs to be known.
00
Here’s the YouTube of the site:
https://youtu.be/U8g_hKGcnqE
00
9 Aug: Daily Mail: Press Association: Highland Games axed because of summer heatwave
A traditional Scottish highland games has become a victim of the summer heatwave.
Organisers of the Invercharron Highland Games have confirmed that the event has been cancelled with “severe regret” because of the “exceptionally dry weather”.
In a statement on the games website, they explained that the farmer whose field is used to host the traditional gathering has not been able to harvest his crops, which have been more slow growing as a result of the conditions…
“The farmer, whose field we use, grows his winter feed hay crop in the field and because of the exceptionally dry weather we have had, the crops are growing too slowly and as a result he will not be able to harvest before the games and the feed is urgently needed…
Dr Sam Gardner, acting director of the environmental group WWF Scotland, said: “While it’s not unusual for highland games and other outdoor events to be cancelled because of rain, it is very unusual for them to be called off due to hot weather.
“We have seen the devastating impacts of a runaway heatwave in many parts of the world this summer, and Scotland’s own very dry weather has started to bring home the reality of climate change. If we don’t get global temperature rises under control, many aspects of our lives we enjoy and look forward to will be under threat.”
2 Jul: Daily Mail: Britain’s earliest harvest for 40 YEARS: Farmer says UK heatwave has brought an almost unheard of June yield for the first time in nearly half a century
•Bisterne Estate in Ringwood, Hampshire, has begun harvesting winter barley already thanks to the heatwave
•The farm, which produces, barley, wheat and rye, began harvesting its 750 acres of arable land on June 28
•However the dry summer means the yield will be significantly reduced as the barley grain is smaller than usual
10 Aug: Eastern Daily Press: Chris Hill: Heatwave harvest creates opportunities for East Anglia’s arable farmers
The prolonged heatwave and lack of rainfall have damaged yields, but farmers have been able to take advantage of the dry conditions to make record completions of their combinable crops of wheat, barley and oilseed rape – before rain arrived towards the end of the week.
Kit Papworth, a director of the LF Papworth contracting business based at Felmingham, near North Walsham, said his 19-day combinable crops harvest, which was completed nine days earlier than his previous record last year, was “the fastest, cheapest, earliest, lowest-yielding and highest value per tonne I have ever experienced.”
As well as bringing opportunities to get onto the land early to prepare for the next crop, he said the higher prices being offered now for forward-sold 2019 crops had created a rare opportunity for growers to guarantee a profit for next season’s wheat, before it is even sown…
“The point here is that the opportunity is for the 2019 harvest. We are about to drill that crop, but we can already sell it for £175 per tonne, and we already know most of the costs, so before you even put that crop in the ground you can sell it and guarantee a margin…
Meanwhile, despite the setbacks of the season, a farmer in the Lincolnshire Wolds has netted a huge 15.38t/ha wheat yield this summer…
German winegrowers harvesting early due to heatwave
Reuters-6 Aug. 2018
Mathias Wolf, who manages a vineyard in Loerzweiler – around 40 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt – said the grape harvest was about two weeks ahead of schedule this year and Federweisser, or very young wine, would hit shops by Friday.
“Basically, we expect other wines (that need longer fermentation) to be as good (as Federweisser),” Wolf told Reuters. “They will also be harvested earlier. And we can also expect a very high quality from our other wines.”…
“Maybe next year has a very cool and wet summer. We just have to wait and see.” …
Germany launches earliest grape harvest yet amid heat wave
Washington Post-6 Aug. 2018
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I don’t wish for it to appear as `bad form’ to out-link from here, but this Essay over at Quantum Online is a powerful piece.
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hardly bad form in unthreaded 😉 I promise I will read it and be right back!
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http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2018/08/doubleplusgood-greenthink/
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It is an excellent and succinct piece as is the ianl comment beneath it acknowledging we’re the experiment.
30
a bit like the British atomic testing in the fifties
10
Worth reading and a link to a delightful song about photosynthesis.
23
an absolute classic:
11 Aug: Youtube: 9mins17secs: Opening Statement. Judge Jeanine Pirro . The Mueller investigation to end so soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV2iNa8RdLQ
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I posted here early today to highlight that censorship on YouTube was being extended to include global warming YouTube posts. Oddly, the post did not appear even though I confirmed it.
YouTube is apparently using Wikipedia as a point of reference. Circular
reasoningpropaganda prevails.See: Legal Insurrection
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There is a proliferation of border walls around the world to keep out invaders from various countries.
So how high does a wall have to be to effective, i.e. to ensure the invader cannot survive a jump from the top? NASA has actually studied this grim question in a context relevant to pilots ejecting from aircraft and someone has summarised the research as follows:
It’s not the fall that gets you, it’s the sudden stop at the end. The most detailed data on the effects of large accelerations (or equivalently, decelerations) on the human body comes from research into spaceflight and aircraft ejection systems. There is a very detailed paper from NASA here, from which figure 5 (p. 36) is most useful.
The summary is:
it depends a lot on where and which way up you land – feet-first onto a soft surface is best (pretty obvious)
For a hard surface, assuming you don’t land on your head, up to about 12m/s impact velocity, you are almost certain to survive (corresponding to a fall from a height of just over 7m). Though “survive” is likely to involve life-changing injuries at the top of this range
Between 12 and 17m/s you may or may not survive (corresponding to about 7m – 12m)
Over 17m/s you are almost certain not to survive (corresponding to over 12m)
https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/8106/how-far-would-you-need-to-fall-for-it-to-be-fatal
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As noted acceleration is also a problem. An ejection seat does not BANG you out of the aircraft, it goes bang, bang, bang or your spine would be crushed. Once separated from the wreck a lanyard attached to the cockpit floor pulls the pin on a rocket which boosts the “lucky” pilot to an altitude which allows deployment of the ‘chute, which begins while still on the way up.
Pilots died in our Avon Sabres even though the ejection was “successful”. At that time they had explosive charges in the canopy bolts but instead of separating upwards and backwards it just came back hitting the unfortunate jock in the head. The remedy was to disconnect the bolts and put a big bolt on top of the seat which shattered the canopy. Pulling the face blind was the preferred initiation method rather than the D handle between his knees. 🙂
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Once you get above about 6>7 metres per second you better know how to land. The average person with no training, landing vertically on to a hard surface is almost assured of injury even at that speed.
10
On the road this weekend , supporting the wifes 40 year high school renuin in Terrigal, NSW. Curretly enjoying the Sydney news at a unit is Cowra on the way home.
Just watched an item from Sydney that I thought was unfuknbelevabl. Please give me a reality check if you think I am being harsh.
Sydney toll road tolls. People bleating, something about tolls subsidising toll road widening (badly needed in Sydney). Channel 10 news item , some plonker from Baulkham Hills (a pretty upper middle area) talking about registration rebates. Opens with him washing his Lexus on the front lawn in Baulkham Hills. Then he is cheerily talking about the rebates he is getting while sitting on his back deck in his wicker outdoor setting. How his kids are getting Gymnastics and Tae Kwan Do vouchers (somehow). The smiling face of Premier Gladys appears beside herself that they have give over 6 million $ back and counting!
Has the world gone bloody mad???? I have never seen a bloke in less need of a subsidy. How about the schmucks that hack in from Penrith and Campbelltown every day???? I must be missing something.
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If they had school aged kids Mrs Plonker could claim subsidised child care while she goes golfing.
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Nope.
Righteous indignation.
Subsidies: sometimes a matter of need, always a matter of right; a frequent tool of political bribery. Free stuff. Rainbow world. Unsustainable.
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While I am having a rant:
Another item on education. A gushing reporter and a couple of academics gushing about a program using music to assist understanding of fractions in Year 10 students. What!? fractions? Year 10? they should be doing algebra not struggling with fractions. Yet they are so pleased with the program and not expressing any concern at all about why the hell they are there at all.
At home we dont get free to air TV (apart from ABC and SBS). Perhaps that’s best for everyone.
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These days education in a lot of places is pleased if the graduates can spout off all the talking points as to why western civilization, capitalism and profits, especially from investments, are all evil. They don’t even notice that they’re way out on a limb and sawing it off behind them as fast as they can.
Why worry about fractions? They may be fractionally wrong at the requisite 97% gone into a ditch. But they will still be dead if they saw through that limb.
Unfortunately we who pay the bills go down with them.
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It’s so handy to have that 97% statistic handed to us.
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I saw that garbage too. A real head-shaker. It was actually Year 7 (13 year olds) but that is just as bad. The fractions they were learning, I learnt as a 7 year old in infants school. At 13 I was doing quadratic equations, not learning that 1 is half of 2 by banging on a castanet.
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TonyfromOz –
hope your move goes smoothly. you are moving to a great spot in SE Qld.
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12 Aug: American Thinker: Exposed: the Deep State’s Authorship and Publication of the Dossier
By Clarice Feldman
The Internet is full of information, some of it not well researched or considered, but every now and then a star appears on the horizon. To my mind the new star is Yaacov Apelbaum, who, using his considerable technical skills, has produced a masterpiece of well-documented analysis (LINK) underscoring the nonsensical and partisan nature of the Mueller operation. He compares this effort by the anti-Trumpers to the plot line of the Dreyfus affair, where falsified evidence and suppressed evidence led to Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s conviction for treason…
Fusion appears, in fact, to have paid reporters five-digit figures in three cases. We still don’t know which publications or reporters were on the take.
Molly Hemingway’s tweet is on point:
TWEET: @MZHemingway
Some media fell hook, line and sinker for the Clinton/DNC information campaign — CNN, WP, NYT, NBC among them. They are understandably embarrassed to cover the real story. But they should. Better late than never.
12:06 PM – 11 Aug 2018
As for Nellie Ohr’s ham radio license, he reveals that it only allowed her to operate in a 10-mile radius and was obviously designed to preclude NSA from recording her contacts over the phone or internet. The range of her operations was sufficient to allow her to communicate with all the offices of the federal government located in downtown D.C. And she could extend its reach up to 20 miles if she needed to.
Once you see the vast network of Democratic operatives, officials, former officials, media, foreign intelligence operatives, and former operatives involved in this Big Lie and how they used it to spy on the opposition and tar and beset the President you can only wish that the reports that he’s about to declassify what so far has remained obscured, especially the FISA warrant applications, comes to pass sooner, rather than later…READ ON
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/the_real_dossier_story.html
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This is excellent research on the making of the Trump dossier, Pat.
Here’s the full article.
https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/the-mechanics-of-deception/
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11 Aug: Breitbart: Obama Center Breaks Pledge Not to Remove Trees in Jackson Park
by Warner Todd Huston
The Obama Presidential Center has already started destroying dozens of age-old trees in Chicago’s Jackson Park, despite a pledge not to start removing trees until all legal paths are cleared.
The City of Chicago, the park district, and the Obama Center agreed to wait until a handful of lawsuits have developed before beginning preparations for construction, but the Chicago Sun-Times reports (LINK) that the Obama Center’s promise has essentially been broken because the Chicago Park District has already begun destroying baseball diamonds and tearing out trees as part of the work associated with the Obama complex construction…
But now, the Center claims that only the 19.3 acres upon which the center will sit is included in that promise, and the trees destroyed by the Park District are not on that acreage.
The Center’s claim is technically accurate. But the paper explains that the decades-old trees are being destroyed to make room for a track field that is being displaced by the impending construction of the Obama Center. One did not need to transpire without the other, so the moving of the track field is inextricably tied to the Obama Center, critics note.
The paper also points out that the Obama Center is impacting far and away more acreage and city facilities than just the area upon which the complex will eventually sit…
Despite claims by Obama representatives, the famed Jackson Park, designed by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1893, will see major alterations even though the park was placed on the federal National Register of Historic Places in 1972. And preservationists say the Obama Center is destroying the carefully planned parklands across the city’s Lake Shore region…
Former Obama chief of staff and current embattled Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel thinks the $174 million in tax dollars to be spent on the center is “money well spent…
Oddly, the city will not even enjoy rent money from the sprawling Obama Center because another sweetheart deal the city agreed to when it entered into the pact with the Obama Foundation maintains that the Center will pay (LINK) only one dollar for the land. And that is one dollar only, in perpetuity–not per month or even per year, just one single dollar.
The one-dollar rent and the $174 million in taxpayer funds certainly do seem like great deals, indeed–but for Obama, not for the American people or the citizens of Chicago.
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/08/11/obama-center-breaks-promise-remove-trees-jackson-park/
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Hey Paat, these are the same a******es that bulldozed the runway at Meigs field in the dead of night; never mind that it was a federally funded public use airport (and an icon on the old flight simulator programs). Needed the land for “parks”, er, condos and land development kickbacks for the city pols. And you thin they care about a silly old tree?
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Delingpole Gets Excited.
Is the Real Brexit Nearly Here!
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/12/boris-vs-the-burqa-the-brexit-battle-begins/
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12 Aug: ABC: Penguin Island’s penguins in battle for survival against climate change, human threats
By Pamela Medlen
Belinda Cannell has been monitoring the penguins on the island for almost 25 years and has watched the population halve in the past decade…
In 2011, a marine heatwave caused a current of water 5 degrees Celsius warmer than average to travel down the west coast of Australia.
It culled several species of small fish that make up the little penguin’s diet…
“Since then those sea surface temperatures have been above average in most years and particularly in the winter months, so this is what we’re thinking is really impacting the penguins’ availability to get food close by and therefore to breed,” Dr Cannell said…
Dr Cannell said about 25 per cent of penguin deaths were due to boat injuries…
“We can’t do much about climate change and we can’t change the fish that are available in the sea, but what we can do is reduce any other impact we have control over — managing people on the island, trying to have nest boxes that are cooler for them,” she said…
“At the moment it’s not looking good, the viability of this population is decreasing and the population estimates have halved since I did an estimate in 2007, so that’s not a good sign,” she said…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-12/penguin-island-penguins-in-danger-from-changing-weather/10096012
2 Aug 2016: Phys.org: Penguin resilience to climate change investigated
by Pepita Smyth, Murdoch University
r Belinda Cannell, who has been part of a long term study of the birds, will spend the next three years examining their resilience to coastal waters that have remained warmer than average since late 2010…
“We have not done a full population count of the penguins since 2012 but other indicators have not been promising,” she said.
“From 2010 to 2015 far fewer penguins were recorded using nest boxes and, not surprisingly, fewer eggs were laid. We believe this was connected to water temperatures being higher than average…
Dr Cannell said water temperatures were still warmer than normal in summer this year, but have now dropped back to normal.
https://phys.org/news/2016-08-penguin-resilience-climate.html
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12 Aug: ABC: Defying the drought: Farmers who have braced for the big dry
Landline By Marty McCarthy, Aneeta Bhole
There is a drought spreading across eastern Australia and while it is severe it is not our worst. At least not yet.
There are two major droughts which are stuck in the Australian psyche.
The 1895 to 1902 Federation Drought, during which the Darling and Murray Rivers ran dry, and the Millennium Drought which ran from late 1996 to mid-2010 and severely affected most southern cropping areas.
In southern parts of Australia, droughts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have been found to be the worst in the last 400 years, and experts predict they will become more prevalent in the future.
For some farmers, the millennium drought was a turning point where they realised that if they wanted to keep farming in Australia they needed to embrace rather than battle an often unpredictable climate…READ ON
Carbon farmers capitalise on climate
There’s a new category of farming that is helping a lucky few defy the drought in a unique way.
Rather than relying on cattle and sheep for an income, Bourke farmer Michael Marshman makes money from letting trees grow. He’s a carbon farmer…
The mulga stores carbon, and the Federal Government buys that storage space off him, through the Clean Energy Regulator, in a bid to reduce Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.
“I would hate to think what sort of position we’d be in if we didn’t have the regular income stream from the carbon farming,” Mr Marshman said…
Geoff Dunstan, a grazier from Cunnamulla in Queensland who also has turned to carbon farming, agrees.
“In a drought you’re usually going backwards financially and rapidly working flat out, but at least being in the carbon trade you’ve got income coming in over that bad period,” Mr Dunstan said.
“It is hundreds of thousands of dollars we would not be making in a drought, so it’s a real positive in a drought situation.”…
Not every farmer can go into carbon farming — it only works with certain vegetation types.
Mr Marshman is re-investing the carbon farming money into other agriculture projects to help make his business more drought tolerant.
He has bought a small property north of Bourke on the Darling River where there is a reliable water supply…
He’s also bought a third property at Narromine in NSW — it’s insurance against drought, but also any potential collapse in the carbon-farming sector…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-08-12/defying-and-overcoming-the-nsw-qld-drought/10084358
12 Aug: ABC Landline: Black sesame seed crop proves drought resistant during central Queensland’s warmest summer
Landline By Rachel McGhee
The seed is grown in the driest parts of India and scientists say it is one of the most drought tolerant crops in the world.
That is why a central Queensland farmer has teamed up with university researchers, a specialised seed company, and the local council to grow the first Australian commercial crop of black sesame seed…
Crop grew in QLD’s warmest summer on record
Peter Foxwell is a dry land farmer at Alton Downs, west of Rockhampton.
He grows a range of crops without irrigation, relying just on rain.
“Black sesame was suggested as a possible alternative crop to what we do here, they thought it would suit the area, the black soil the climate and the rainfall,” Mr Foxwell said.
The trial saw 12 black sesame seed varieties planted on 16 hectares of Mr Foxwell’s property in February and it was harvested in June…
“Five days of 40 degrees plus [heat] as it was just coming out of the ground,” Mr Foxwell said.
“We had one day which was 41.1 [degrees] which is the hottest February day since 1969 I think for Rockhampton. This poor sesame was struggling through and I thought that was the end of it.”
Dr Surya Bhattarai is a university researcher involved in the trial.
He said despite very little rainfall, the crop performed extremely well.
“To our surprise and the surprise of the growers we have been able to see a very attractive crop,” he said.
“This crop has proven to be drought tolerant … this gives an opportunity to harness the option of drought tolerant crops for our region.”…
On average one hectare can produce 4.5 tonnes of seed and up to 60 per cent of its weight in oil.
Black sesame is valued at $1,600 per tonne and it is considered a high value crop…
“A tonne of seed would be able to plant about 1,000 acres of black sesame. It creates an enormous potential very quickly,” Mr Foxwell said…
“There’s a lot of excitement around the region.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-12/black-sesame-seed-crop-proves-drought-resistant-rockhampton/10004376
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10 Aug: CBS: Suspected eco-terrorist arrested in Cuba after 20 years as a fugitive
PORTLAND, Ore. — Prosecutors say a former Seattle man wanted in connection with an eco-terrorism conspiracy dating back two decades has been arrested in Cuba. Prosecutors say that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Joseph Mahmoud Dibee joined about a dozen animal rights and environmental activists in setting fires around the West.
Cuban authorities detained Dibee, now 50, before he boarded a flight for Russia. He pleaded not guilty Friday to federal arson and conspiracy charges in Portland, Oregon.
Dibee and 11 co-conspirators known as The Family are linked to more than 40 criminal acts over a six-year period beginning in 1995 that caused more than $45 million in damage, authorities told CBS Portland affiliate KOIN.
His crimes were linked to the Earth Liberation Front of the Animal Liberation Front.
The group targeted a horticulture center at the University of Washington; a federally owned wild horse corral in Susanville, California; and a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, Oregon, among other properties.
Investigators said Dibee participated in the Susanville and Redmond fires, as well as one at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility in Olympia, Washington.
Dibee fled the U.S. in December 2005, a month before he was indicted…
One defendant, Josephine Sunshine Overaker, remains at large after fleeing to Europe in 2001.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joseph-mahmoud-dibee-the-family-eco-terrorist-arrested-in-cuba/
btw, for those who don’t know, at the time of the 9/11 attack on the US –
Wikipedia: Earth Liberation Front: The ELF was classified as the top “domestic terror” threat in the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March 2001, and its members classified as eco-terrorists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front
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10 Aug: Edie.net: Sarah George: Government to consider opening Capacity Market to renewables
The UK Government will consider opening up the Capacity Market to solar and wind generation under a newly published review into the Market’s scope, objectives and the way it is regulated.
The review by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department, states that ministers will consider whether subsidy-free solar and wind power should be allowed to participate in the next Capacity Market auction, which is set to take place in the winter of 2019-2020.
Renewables have historically been denied access to the market due to concerns about the intermittent nature of the electricity they generate. Energy storage is viewed as a solution to these issues, but the technology is still in its infancy.
But the review’s call for evidence document states that there are now “good reasons to allow wind and potentially solar” to participate in the Capacity Market, and that such a move could “increase competition, auction liquidity and value for money for consumers”.
The document explains that wind and solar generation have previously been excluded from Capacity Market auctions as it was expected that the technologies would already benefit from low-carbon support schemes such as Contracts for Difference (CfD) or the Renewables Obligation (RO).
However, following a plethora of cuts to subsidies and feed-in-tariffs (FITs), combined with the closure of Renewables Obligation (RO) applications last year, the document explains that the Capacity Market’s eligibility framework may need to be amended to encompass subsidy-free renewables.
Legislative changes may also need to be made to enable hybrid technologies to access to the Capacity Market. Renewable projects combined with energy storage were noted as examples by the call for evidence.
The document additionally reveals that ministers will consider ceasing the de-rating of interconnectors – a process which measures how reliable each technology is. The consideration is being undertaken due to concerns that nations may experience correlated fluctuations in output as the energy system becomes more reliant on renewables.
The document concludes that the Capacity Market, which was introduced in 2014 to provide an insurance policy against the possibility of future blackouts over periods of heavy demand on the UK grid, is “broadly working as intended” without renewables…
https://www.edie.net/news/10/Government-to-consider-opening-UK-capacity-market-to-renewables/
8 Aug: Edie.net: David Blackman: Upgrade home electricity supply systems to unlock low-carbon technologies, says REA
The single “phase” electricity supply system, which has been the norm in UK homes since before the Second World War, should be scrapped for new homes, a report has urged.
The study, published by the Renewable Energy Association (REA), calls for all new dwellings to be fitted with a three-phase electricity supply to encourage the uptake of solar, heat pumps and electric vehicles.
The study, entitled “The feasibility, costs and benefits of three-phase power supplies in new homes”, recommends that the government introduces a requirement that all new homes should have such connections.
Network operators currently run three “phases” within the mains cables, but generally only connect each house to one, says the report, which was supported by Western Power Distribution (WPD), the distribution network operator for south-west England, South Wales, and the Midlands.
By contrast in other European countries, such as the Netherlands, all three phases connect to each house.
This allows loads from different appliances, such as washing machines and lights, to be split across the phases.
The existing system of single phase supply has worked while electricity demand has been relatively limited but will be overloaded by increased demand from electric vehicles (EVs), the report warns.
This pressure on connections will be exacerbated by the increased deployment of solar panels on homes and electric heat pumps, it adds…
However, according to the report, distribution network operators (DNOs) are compelled by regulations to install the lowest-cost solutions to the consumer, which acts as a brake on installing marginally higher cost three-phase connections…
https://www.edie.net/news/6/Upgrade-home-electricity-supply-systems-to-unlock-low-carbon-technologies–says-REA/
11 Aug: UK Times: Three more years demanded for smart meter installation
by Emily Gosden
The deadline for completing the installation of smart meters should be delayed by three years to prevent shoddy installations and rising costs, the charity that represents consumers has said…
Citizens Advice has called for that deadline to be extended to 2023, warning that the timescale for the £11 billion scheme is “unrealistic” and “risks reduced value for money for consumers”. It says that an array of problems with installations need to be fixed or else consumers will be deterred from accepting the meters…
10 Aug: UK Telegraph: Energy companies should tell customers how much profit they make on their bills, minister suggests
By Steven Swinford
Claire Perry, the energy minister, that energy companies should include more detail on their bills to help “nudge” customers into getting better details.
In an interview with The Telegraph Ms Perry called for the end of the dominance of the Big Six energy suppliers and said she ultimately wants to see as many as 20 major players in the market.
It comes after British Gas announced this week that 3.5million households on its standard variable tariff will face average price hikes of £44, the second rise in six months.
Ms Perry accused the company of attempting to maximise its profit margins ahead of the introduction of the Government’s price cap at the end of this year. The company has blamed increasing wholesale prices…
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IT’S ABOUT THE SOLUTIONS NOT THE PROBLEMS.
THESE SOLUTIONS ARE AS EVEN MORE FAKE THAN THE PROBLEMS
Most of the readers of this site will know how fake the PROBLEMS of the “Global Warming Apocalypse” are.
But most will not have heard of the fake SOLUTIONS to these problems which are being imposed all over the world.
One such solution is the “One Planet” program being implemented as:-
* “One Planet Brighton” in Brighton UK where I live
* “One Planet Wales” throughout the entire country of Wales
* “One Planet Fremantle” in Fremantle, Australia (https://www.fremantle.wa.gov.au/one-planet)
and coming soon to an area near you. Google:-
“BARWON Water’s Salt Torquay development is the first housing estate in regional Australia to be recognised as a One Planet Community.”
“The City of Greater Geelong in Victoria is the third council in Australia to be formally assessed against the ten One Planet Living Principles.”
These One Planet “solutions” are totalitarian political programs. So totalitarian that – for example – politicians get to take direct political control of HAPPINESS
(see my blog article:- “Sustainable Happiness Is No Laughing Matter”
https://tinyurl.com/SustainBrighton)
The justification for this maniacal totalitarian power grab is:- the “Global Warming Apocalypse”
Politicians are claiming that we have to give them direct political control of HAPPINESS in order to stop the climate changing.
I try to lead people to see the dishonesty of the rationale underlying this solution by asking the questions:-
“What percentage of scientists say that giving politicians direct political control over happiness will stop the climate from changing?”
(Answer – zero)
and
“What percentage of scientists say that we can stop the climate from changing?”
(Answer – zero)
The solutions are actually vastly more fake than the problems.
You won’t understand how this fakery persists until you understand how powerful the fakers are.
(see my blog article:- “No Wonder You Believe in Climate Change – Look How Powerful the People Who Wan’t You To Believe It Are“)
The Climatist claims are immune from rational discussion because they are POLITICAL lies.
Climatists don’t respond to facts and reason because they are bullies who are deliberatly lying.
Scare stories about the environment are being used to justify a totalitarian government.
The phrase “for the good of the planet” is being used as an excuse to micromanage every aspect of our lives. False fears about the environment are being used to justify an ultra-luddite de-industrialision of both the city and the farm.
It is not science – it is politics.
It is about the “solutions” NOT the “problems.”
I think that is worth mentioning that the IPCC reports are written by Politicians NOT scientists:-
http://steelydanswarandpeace.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/ipcc-reports-are-poltics-not-science.htm
You can help expose the fakery of their rationale with the “What percentage of scientists say” question.
eg – “What percentage of scientists say that wind farms will stop the climate from changing?”
“What percentage of scientists say that carbon taxes will stop the climate from changing?”
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CORRECTION To: “IT’S ABOUT THE SOLUTIONS NOT THE PROBLEMS.”
The link after
“I think that is worth mentioning that the IPCC reports are written by Politicians NOT scientists:-”
Should be:-
http://steelydanswarandpeace.blogspot.com/2010/09/ipcc-reports-are-poltics-not-science.html
50
The Parker solar probe was launched a few hours ago. It will repeatedly fly through the Suns corona, and will end up being the fastest spacecraft ever launched, though, in perspective, it will still only be travelling at +/- 0.06% the speed of light (unless I am mistaken).
I look forward to seeing some science from this over the next few years, and I hope Dr Eugene Parker hangs around long enough to see it too.
30
I hope it arrives at night so it doesn’t get too hot for it.
90
Fed-up locals are setting electric scooters on fire and burying them at sea
(See link for entire article.)
They’ve been crammed into toilets, tossed off balconies and set on fire. They’ve even been adorned with dangling bags of dog droppings.
As cities like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills struggle to control a rapid proliferation of electric pay-per-minute scooters, some residents are taking matters into their own hands and waging a guerrilla war against the devices. These vandals are destroying or desecrating the vehicles in disturbingly imaginative ways, and celebrating their illegal deeds on social media — in full view of authorities and the public.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bird-scooter-vandalism-20180809-story.html#
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I wonder if we will see a similar trend here with those less environmentally friendly plastic bags from Coles and Woolworths. I’m already seeing a few blowing in the wind on some streets. Let me guess, they might start a similar thing as the NSW “return and earn” scheme. Is this our future employment growth area once our industries have closed down due to ever increasing power prices?
52
Sorry Peter; accidental touch on red while browsing.
33
No worries.
21
Since the contract for the incredibly successful and useful ‘Velib’ system of bicycles in Paris was awarded to a multitude of companies, we’ve had the rise and fall of quite a few of them. Among them is an electric scooter (trottinette) service called “Lime”, but I can’t say I have seen a lot of people use them, although the ones which magically appear by my metro station in the morning, are not there are night, so they do go somewhere… they cost 1 euro to unlock, and 15c per minute of use, and are speed limited to 24km/h.
I use the bicycles, but overall, the previous Velib system was better quality, and cheaper than the replacements. I get the idea of bicycles without docking stations, it has some advantages, but there is, of course, never one around when you need it, whereas with docking stations being quite close to each other, it was easy to find them, and to see if there were spots to leave a bike, or to pick one up. Maybe I am just getting old…
30
“DELINGPOLE: Finally, the Brexit Phoney War Is over; Britain’s Trump-Style Revolution Has Begun”
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/12/boris-vs-the-burqa-the-brexit-battle-begins/
Check “Traditionalism v Post-Modernism.”
50
Will Boris follow through?
30
“The fight against fraud in peer review”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/08/12/the-fight-against-fraud-in-peer-review/
10
Abbott’s talk on 2GB today has exposed his strong opposition to the NEG. That’s in stark contrast with Barnaby Joyce’s position, who now has to do another back flip to avoid the so called ginger group from splitting and disintegrating. Abbott also clearly explained how the NEG will surrender our sovereignty to the Paris Agreement to force us to reduce our emissions. At the moment our RET scheme is non-binding and voluntary but the NEG will make it mandatory. Turnbull is what we feared to be – a pro-CAGW alarmist who is no different to Rudd, Shorten and the Greens on climate change policy, and always has been.
110
‘…back flip to avoid the so called ginger group from splitting and disintegrating.’
Have you a link?
00
Link for what? I heard on the news Joyce (and now some others) want a plan B in case the NEG doesn’t lead to a fall in power prices. The point is even if there is a plan B why would anyone trust it? It’s bad enough with the NEG itself – Abbott doesn’t trust it and he has stated it will lead to higher not lower power prices. So who should we trust – Abbott, Joyce or Turnbull?
30
‘Former prime minister Tony Abbott has made a last-ditch bid to derail the Coalition’s plan for a National Energy Guarantee.
‘Mr Abbott accused the Government of developing an emissions “obsession” and pushed for it to abandon the Paris agreement signed when he was in office.’
ABC
11
My very favourite Age correspondent Mr Hannam says prices are heading down NEG or no NEG, so Barnaby can rest easy , the fairy dust has been dispensed.
20
Shameful propaganda in the once authoritative National Geographic.
Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead
See where coral in the world’s largest coral reef system has been bleached to death.
Half of the Great Barrier Reef has been bleached to death since 2016. Mass coral bleaching, a global problem triggered by climate change, occurs when unnaturally hot ocean water destroys a reef’s colorful algae, leaving the coral to starve. The Great Barrier Reef illustrates how extensive the damage can be: Thirty percent of the coral perished in 2016, another 20 percent in 2017. The effect is akin to a forest after a devastating fire. Much of the marine ecosystem along the reef’s north coast has become barren and skeletal with little hope of recovery.
See link for rest of article.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/explore-atlas-great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-map-climate-change/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20180811ngm-greatbarrierreef::rid=&sf195371964=1
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Apparently there is no climate change off the WA coastline, the Coral Coast.
All focusing on GBR Qld.
Please explain?
40
From the point of view of the left it’s an “outlier”.
10
If it is closer to the coast then is that an “inlier”?
(Idea borrowed from Spike Milligan)
20
A dill is not necessarily a pickle.
“Education Minister defends power plan
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says coal would not be favoured if the government adopts an ACCC recommendation to underwrite investments in new dispatchable power generation.”
So Simon says, what alternatives are there?
That is without importing diesel or petrol and not exploring for gas and having a ban on nuclear and having no mountains and no water? More wind? I read that Canberra runs on wind. It’s not surprising.
It’s no wonder education standard are collapsing too. I suppose young Australians only need to learn skills as waiters and cleaners. Whatever the UN/EU and Agenda 21 want. When Hitler invaded Poland, he instructed that Polish children were not to be educated and not to learn to count beyond 10. The Education minister seems to have the same view. Local alternatives to coal permitted by this Government. Zero.
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To make it clear, even the assurance about coal power is loaded with conditions and continues the ban on coal
Education Minister Simon Birmingham says
1. coal would not be favoured
2. if the government adopts an ACCC recommendation to underwrite investments in new dispatchable power generation.
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Let’s cut to the chase. Turnbull and his cohorts are anti-coal and pro-renewables all the way. Their goal is to keep reducing our emissions at all costs, and that’s a fact. He is just telling fibs whenever he gives the hint he is going to back coal – and that’s all it ever is – a hint never a promise. We all know his promises are worthless so his hints are even worse than that. He has lost all credibility and anyone who even thinks of trusting his babble about coal needs their head examined to see if they have a brain.
81
Even ’emissions’ is a manufactured word, used as a Green proxy for harmless Carbon Dioxide. Unless our coal starts producing methane and sulfites. Or nitrites (nitric acid in your lungs) like the Green diesel used by South Australian and Tasmania.
83
Peter, but my point is that he is NOT hinting that he is going back to coal. He is actually saying that is off the table, even if they push for more dispatchables as recommended by the ACCC.
73
According to the news Turnbull has announced he will back new forms of power generation including coal to fast track the NEG but Abbott has responded saying Turnbull’s plan is not to be trusted as there is no assurance coal fired power stations will be ever be built. It’s all becoming like a Punch and Judy show. Abbott needs to give the sucker punch to Turnbull and end the show.
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It’s interesting when you look for a definition of dispatchable power on the internet. Most sources are about how Renewables can do it all and react instantly.
“thermal plants such as nuclear or coal are designed to run as base load power plants and may take hours or sometimes days to cycle off and then back on again.”
So what have we been enjoying for fifty years? A myth?
Renewables, recyclables, sustainable. These are all engineered words chosen by Agenda 21 to sound reassuring and ecologically sound. What we had were adequate, dependable, cheap and very long term. In total contrast what we are being given by Turnbull/Greens/Labor/EU/UN in wind and solar is inadequate, replaceable, intermittent and often utterly useless for manufacturing. Then we are not supposed to be manufacturing or farming or mining or smelting are we? Even our natural gas from the North West shelf goes to Singapore and is shipped back on a different boat, but that is to avoid paying Unions.
All approved by our government and ministers like Frydenberg and Birmingham. Our current ministry is not a meritocracy.
72
Take away our base load coal fired power stations and let’s see how quickly the nation grinds to a halt even with 100 times the amount of solar and wind farms costing trillions. 12 hours?
71
Night time. No wind. No power. This is a guaranteed scenario.
41
NASA are studying (2013) the F-1 rocket engines as used on the Saturn V “moon rocket” with a view to building them again.
Interesting factoid, peak power output of the Saturn V was 60GW, about the same as the peak electricity consumption of the UK!
https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/?amp=1
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Does that mean NASA has to purchase carbon credits or whatever for all the CO2 those rockets will generate?
50
Peter, I have always wondered. How do carbon credits reduce CO2? Abbott tried planting trees and shrubs and that was stopped. So who is planting trees and shrubs and where and with whose money? Emissions, carbon credits, sustainable, renewable. All word games as a cover for give us your cash.
43
Carbon indulgences.
43
It doesn’t directly reduce CO2. It’s really a tax on CO2 to discourage it’s generation and move to other forms of power generation. So for NASA they would need to use solar and wind turbines on the rockets and use less rocket fuel 🙂 Of course it’s all a scam, and people like Turnbull and Frydenberg are treating Australia for fools. Not for much longer I hope.
61
A tax? Then who gets the money?
31
The power company gets most of the “tax”. That’s partly how AGL made so much profit this year.
50
As you know, that’s not a tax. Only governments can tax. That’s theft.
42
That’s why I later said “tax” and not tax. You are right that only governments can tax.
20
The rockets burn hydrogen so the rocket emission is water vapour. If you go up the processing chain then there will be carbon or nuclear fuel to produce the hydrogen, usually be separation of methane as well as the energy needed to distill oxygen from air. So carbon likely to be used to produce the fuel but the rocket engine is zero carbon emission.
20
The F-1 burned liquid oxygen and kerosene.
20
Perhaps they could use CO2 instead of oxygen as the oxidiser to be more environmentally friendly 🙂
20
Yet another poll continuing Turnbull’s “perfect run”
Cromwell’s speech to Charles 1st.
” “YOU HAVE BEEN SAT TO LONG HERE FOR ANY GOOD YOU HAVE BEEN DOING. DEPART, I SAY, AND LET US HAVE DONE WITH YOU. IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO!.”
(Addressing the Rump Parliament. April 1653.
Memorials of English Affairs. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.)
Repeated by L.S Amery to Neville Chamberlain in 1940, ushering in the Churchill government.
Sounds to me like time it was repeated again in Canberra.
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reminder:
7 Jul: The Local Spain: Obama in Spain: ‘We’re seeing a global rise in nationalism’
Former US President Barack Obama warned in Madrid on Friday (July 7) of “a rise in nationalism” and the potential of new media to accelerate social divisions…
“Change is happening very quickly. People are wondering can I adapt to these changes? People are fearful,” the former president told an audience of 2,000 people at a conference in Madrid on technological innovation and the circular economy, which minimises waste…
“Today because of the internet, and because of the multiplicity of media what we see more and more is that we don’t agree on the same reality.”
***The former Democrat president highlighted in particular the US Fox News network,.
“If you watch Fox News you see a different reality than if you read the New York Times, he said. “Climate change is not happening at all” in media like Fox.
This phenomenon “has been “exploited by some forces internationally”, which “feed their biases”.
The solution, according to Obama, ***is to train young people”to think differently”.
Obama, who was to travel on to Porto in Portugal on Friday to attend a climate change conference, has criticised his successor President Donald Trump for failing to consider scientific research on the subject.
https://www.thelocal.es/20180707/obama-in-spain-were-seeing-a-global-rise-in-nationalism
12 Aug: Real Clear Politics: NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio: CNN Has No “Hourly Political Bias,” Rupert Murdoch/FOX News Dividing America By Race
By Tim Hains
Appearing on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Brian Stelter NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio says “CNN and the major networks do not harbor a daily, hourly political agenda” and Fox News and the NY Post, both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, “created a dynamic… where race was infused into the dialogue in a very negative way.”…
“There is no Donald Trump without News Corp. I firmly believe that. He never gets to the presidency, because he would never have been elevated the way he was consistently for years and years,” he also said…
“CNN on a regular basis provides both sides of the story”…
“If one agrees and look at the facts over decades, does News Corp have a clear right wing agenda? I think that one is pretty obvious.
“Do they sensationalize, racialize and divide? Yes. Does that compare to CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Washington Post’? No.”…
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/12/bill_de_blasio_cnn_does_not_have_a_political_bias_rupert_murdoch_and_fox_news_are_hurting_america.html
12 Aug: Newsbusters: New York Mayor De Blasio Fantasizes About a Better World Without Fox News
De Blasio admitted that he had “anti-News Corp feelings” and praised CNN and the rest of the liberal media by suggesting (falsely) that they didn’t have a political agenda. “I think it’s also fair to say that when you look at CNN for example, you look at the major networks, they do not harbor a daily, hourly political agenda and bias. They provide both sides. It’s part of their DNA,” he gushed…
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2018/08/12/new-york-mayor-de-blasio-fantasizes-about-better-world
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Geraldine opens with attack on Sky News, which is reprised during the segment.
on virtually every point, Geraldine, James, Andrew, Bernard all agree with each other.
AT 16min40secs:
BERNARD BLAH BLAH.
GERALDINE quotes ABC’s James Valentine.
BUTTON: following up what Bernard said, btw I agree. is the world going to keep getting hotter and hotter until it catches fire…
ANDREW: in the US you have the “Trump Bump”. there’s been a flight back to quality. the number of subscriptions to NYT, WaPo & a number of other HIGH QUALITY outlets has gone through the roof. the same thing goes for The Guardian. worldwide, 800,000 people are donating to The Guardian to keep The Guardian afloat. people want to find outlets they can trust. outlets have to demonstrate they deserve that trust.
GERALDINE: that they represent the commons.
ANDREW: yeah. (then on to how wonderful it is that Google plans to censor what they don’t like)…
AUDIO: 24mins59secs: 11 Aug: ABC Saturday Extra: Geraldine Doogue: Debating immigration
Just as we hit a new population high of 25 million people, a known racist was given a warm and welcome reception on Sky News…
So how do we as a nation carve out a sensible, constructive debate on this topic, one which is not extreme, but which canvases many of the real concerns we have?
Such as the unmanageable, even intolerable pressures currently placed on the infrastructure of our major cities.
Guests:
James Button, Journalist, Co-author, with Abul Rizvi, of an essay on immigration politics in the most recent edition of Griffith Review, ‘Who we are’
Bernard Keane, Political editor of Crikey, Author of ‘The mess we’re in’ (Allen & Unwin, July 2018)
Andrew Jaspan, Former editor in chief of The Age, co-founder of the The Conversation website and Professorial Fellow at RMIT
READ THE COMMENTS
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/debating-immigration/10106688
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not mentioned by anyone in the ABC attack on Murdoch media:
from the following:
Bob Carr: we don’t want to get to a situation where people look around and think how did his happen, we’ve lost a lot of the FLAVOUR of Australia…and I think we’ll lose a lot of OUR SELVES.
AUDIO: 15mins02secs: 7 Aug: 2GB: Michael McLaren: ‘A nationwide Ponzi scheme’: Population set to hit 25 million tonight
Considering that at our current trajectory, the population is set to tip over to 38 million by 2050, this seems a real cause for concern.
“We’re growing faster then the Australian people want,” says Bob Carr, Former NSW Premier, who famously declared that Sydney was full prior to the 2000 Olympics.
“The thing that upsets people, whether they’re British voters forced to express concern in Brexit or US voters who elected Trump, whose campaign mobilised support through the sense that immigration had gone too far too fast, is the notion that it is out of control.”…
https://www.2gb.com/a-nationwide-ponzi-scheme-population-set-to-hit-25-million-mark-tonight/
Parliament of Australia: 28 Oct 2009: Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens):
BOB BROWN: But we have to ask the logical question of Prime Minister Rudd: ‘Name the final point. What is the ultimate carrying capacity of Australia if you say that growth is dependent on population increase ad infinitum?’ The logic of that is that there is no end point, that we not only continue to cram people into this giant country with very limited carrying capacity but we continue to cram our fellow human beings, all of whom aspire to life and happiness as much as we do, onto a planet which cannot bear it…
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansards%2F2009-10-28%2F0041;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F2009-10-28%2F0000%22
14 Mar 2010: SMH: AAP: Population growth a threat: Greens
The Greens have weighed into the population debate, saying global growth is threatening Australia’s status as the lucky country…
He says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s vision of a “big Australia” with a population of 35 million by 2050 isn’t sustainable…
“I’m saying definitively we do not have the infrastructure or plans for the infrastructure to carry 35 million people by 2050.”
The Greens want an inquiry to investigate Australia’s “carrying capacity” in terms of population impacts on infrastructure, the environment, health and education. It would report back by mid-2011…
The Tasmanian senator did acknowledge, however, that calling for slower population growth would be popular.
“I’ve seen the polls, they don’t want it (35 million by 2050),” he said. “People are concerned about it. It’s a debate I get all across the country.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/population-growth-a-threat-greens-20100314-q5yr.html
Geraldine, James, Andrew & Bernard CERTAINLY DON’T REPRESENT “THE COMMONS”.
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13 Aug: CNBC: Trump’s trade war advantage: The US economy is ‘firing on all cylinders,’ says expert
•”We have to realize that perhaps China isn’t as strong as when we at first think. China is still figuring out also how to deal with this trade situation, how to ensure the stability of its domestic economy,” said Curtis Chin, an Asia fellow at the Milken Institute.
•Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Chin also “totally” disagreed with the view that U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies are backfiring.
by Weizhen Tan
“We have to realize that perhaps China isn’t as strong as when we at first think. China is still figuring out also how to deal with this trade situation, how to ensure the stability of its domestic economy,” said Curtis Chin, an Asia fellow at economic think tank the Milken Institute.
“And that works to the advantage of President Trump, and I think what’s really working to the advantage of President Trump is the state of the U.S. economy right now. Really, the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday…
Chin told CNBC he “totally” disagreed with the view that the White House’s policies are backfiring. The Milken expert, who was also U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, said Trump has made it clear he’s been elected as “president of Americans, not of the world.”
“Right now we’re seeing record employment in the U.S., not just unemployment down, but people getting back into the economy, that people think they can find a job if they start looking again. I think that’s a positive message,” he said…
“How will China’s future actions play out with regards not just military like the South China Sea, but will these trade tensions lead to China beginning to dump products, products they can no longer sell in the U.S., ***into the rest of the region,” he said. “I think that’s a significant concern for Asian companies, for Southeast Asian companies that I deal with.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/13/us-china-trade-war-us-economy-gives-trump-an-advantage-expert-says.html
***we’ll take them, no doubt.
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12 Aug: Guardian: UN human rights chief: Trump’s attacks on press ‘close to incitement of violence’
Exclusive: Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, who steps down this month, says US president’s rhetoric echoes that of the worst eras of the 20th century
by Julian Borger in New York
Donald Trump’s anti-press rhetoric is “very close to incitement to violence” that would lead to journalists censoring themselves or being attacked, the outgoing UN human rights commissioner has said.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince and diplomat, is stepping down this month as UN high commissioner for human rights after deciding not to stand for a second four-year term, in the face of a waning commitment among world powers to fighting abuses.
Zeid said the Trump administration’s lack of concern about human rights marked a distinct break with previous administrations, and that Trump’s own rhetoric aimed at minorities and at the press was redolent of two of the worst eras of the 20th century, the run-up to the two world wars.
In an interview with the Guardian, he singled out the US president’s repeated designation of the press as “the enemy of the people”.
“We began to see a campaign against the media … that could have potentially, and still can, set in motion a chain of events which could quite easily lead to harm being inflicted on journalists just going about their work and potentially some self-censorship,” Zeid said. “And in that context, it’s getting very close to incitement to violence.”
He said it would be up to a court but determine whether Trump was actually guilty of incitement depending on the circumstances, if say, a journalist was stabbed while covering a rally. He said Trump’s example was already being followed elsewhere, giving license to authoritarian leaders to crack down on the media in ways they had not previously dared to…
Zeid began his tenure as UN human rights commissioner in 2014 during the Obama administration and said his contacts with the state department dropped off significantly after Trump took office in January 2017…
The administration’s failure to appoint an ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, before withdrawing from the council altogether, he added, was “illustrative of the lack of any deep commitment to the human rights”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/13/united-nations-human-rights-nearly-impossible-to-defend-zeid-raad-al-hussein
look in the Mirror, Guardian/Borger:
Breitbart update: Rap Sheet: ***544** Acts of Media-Approved Violence and Harassment Against Trump Supporters
It is open season on Trump supporters, and the media is only fomenting, encouraging, excusing, and hoping for more… The media are now openly calling Trump supporters “Nazis” and are blaming Trump for a mass murder he had nothing to do with. This, of course, is a form of harassment because it incites and justifies mob violence…
This list will be updated as needed. Back-filling it will be an ongoing project…
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/07/05/rap-sheet-acts-of-media-approved-violence-and-harassment-against-trump-supporters/
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meanwhile, the Paris Agreement is threatening the energy FRAMEWORK of our society:
10 Aug: IG Markets: Is investment in renewable energy drying up?
If renewable energy is to properly grow then it needs a long-term FRAMEWORK it can rely on.
https://www.ig.com/au/commodities-news/is-investment-in-renewable-energy-drying-up-180809
United Nations FRAMEWORK Convention on Climate Change: What is the Paris Agreement?
To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate mobilization and provision of financial resources, a new technology FRAMEWORK and enhanced capacity-building is to be put in place…
The Agreement also provides for an enhanced transparency FRAMEWORK for action and support…
It establishes a mechanism to contribute to the mitigation of GHG emissions and support sustainable development, and defines a FRAMEWORK for non-market approaches to sustainable development…
The agreement also provides that the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), shall serve the Agreement. International cooperation on climate-safe technology development and transfer and building capacity in the developing world are also strengthened: a technology FRAMEWORK is established under the Agreement and capacity-building activities will be strengthened through, inter alia, enhanced support for capacity building actions in developing country Parties and appropriate institutional arrangements. Climate change education, training as well as public awareness, participation and access to information (Art 12) is also to be enhanced under the Agreement…
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement
8 Aug: AFR: NEG is good first step on road to cheap, reliable renewables
by Mark Hoffman
Yet it is a reasonable policy FRAMEWORK here and now and offering certainty to the energy sector, so should be supported by the states, and Federal Parliament. And, once this basic FRAMEWORK is in place, it could work even better if important improvements are made…
We know there is room for renewables in the NEG as a policy FRAMEWORK but there is an absence of comprehensive strategy to ensure renewables form the basis of achieving meaningful emissions reduction, and energy reliability and affordability…
https://www.afr.com/opinion/columnists/neg-is-good-first-step-on-road-to-cheap-reliable-renewables-20180808-h13pjl
Opinion NEG a good first step on the road to cheap, reliable renewables
UNSW Newsroom-8 Aug. 2018
Yet it is a reasonable policy FRAMEWORK…
Renewable energy support scheme opens route for Irish offshore wind
Offshore Wind Journal-25 Jul. 2018
It includes a regulatory FRAMEWORK with a binding renewable energy target for the EU for 2030 of 32%…
9 Aug: ABC: Tasmania’s ‘Battery of the Nation’ missing from Federal Government’s energy plan: academic
“The NEG is the FRAMEWORK that builds the case for further interconnection and pumped hydro, which will make us the Battery of the Nation,” (Tasmanian Energy Minister Guy Barnett) said in a statement
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behind paywall:
Paris deal spells ‘irreparable damage’: IPA report
The Australian · 18 hours ago
Sticking with the emissions reduction requirements of the Paris climate agreement will impose significant and irreparable economic damage without delivering …
APO (Analysis & Policy Observatory): Why Australia must withdraw from the Paris climate agreement
by Daniel Wild
DOWNLOAD
There are three key reasons why Australia should exit the Agreement.
•Firstly, the economic cost of Australia meeting its emissions reduction requirement under the agreement is estimated to be $52 billion in net present value terms, over the period 2018- 2030. This equates to $8,566 per family in Australia.
•Secondly, the Agreement is not operating as intended.
•Thirdly, the Agreement will make no noticeable difference to the global temperature, even if all nations meet their national emissions reduction requirements.
The government should withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and end all subsidies to weather-dependant energy generation such as wind and solar.
http://apo.org.au/node/186541
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Too little too late by IPA, and all of us posting here, if these party room clowns go ahead as planned tomorrow.
20
The ACCC gave the Coalition MPs a briefing, so that they are all up to speed.
‘Mr Buchholz praised Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg for charting a “remarkable course” on energy policy and said the likely consequence was a regime that could encourage investment to upgrade coal-fired power stations.
“What we will see in the first tranche, I dare say, by the National Energy Guarantee, is you will see existing coal-fired power stations, with this guarantee subscription, then start investing money in upgrading and taking advantage of more efficient coal-fired power as they go to do their regenerations,” Mr Buchholz told Sky News.
“I think you’ll see that first.
“The time frames for new coal-fired power station lead-in times are around five to six years and we are looking at upwards of $4 billion.”
SMH
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Trump is bolstering their existing coal and nuclear power plants. We should do the same with our coal plants and certainly not allow any more to be closed down for a very long time. It would be nice if they included in the NEG a penalty of say $10 billion if any company closes a plant within the next 25 years unless they build a replacement of equal or greater capacity.
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This scandal will not go away..
The head of the foundation which received $444 million.
“Ms Marsden said the foundation learned on April 9 it would receive the money and “afterwards we had to do an application”.”
What??
and
“Environment Department secretary Finn Pratt has written to the Auditor-General asking him to bring forward a proposed audit of the grant due to increased public and media attention.”
They join philanthropist and founding director of the Foundation, Michael
Meyer
“To have an organisation like the Barrier Reef Foundation go from let’s say $4m a year, to suddenly having $444m is unthinkable.”
Mr Myer was a financial backer and board member when the foundation was formed in 2000.
So is this all about Mrs Turnbull? Was this decided over dinner? 7 1/2 tons of gold to their business friends?
The new Medicis, except it’s not their money to give.
This is an incredible scandal, dwarfing any Captain’s pick. Filling out the forms after the decision is made.
Who came up with the figure of $444 million? Obviously not needs based. It’s nice to have friends.
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This is not helped by Fryedenberg’s insistence that there is a 100 page document controlling this money.
That’s $4.4 million dollars a page. When was this written? After April 9th?
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This could be the end of the Turnbull family in politics. It’s one thing to give money to strangers. It’s another to give half a billion to friends and then write it up afterwards as bona fide business.
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Yes it is incredible.
Turnbull must pay!
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Not unlike Obama giving away USD 500 M to personally selected ‘charities’, without Congressional approval, in the last few weeks in office. I really hope that it is Turnbull’s last few weeks in office, and that we get the money back into the state coffers.
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Obumma gave away billions to leftist NFPs. We recall the heavy fines corporations copped for legal transgressions, well that money never went to compensation for the losers nor into general revenue. It all went to leftist organisations.
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Asp,
I sincerely hope you are right about a few more weeks.
I am praying for just a few more days of the oaf.
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Given the scale of the countries, Turnbull’s gift is 50x as big as Obama’s and I expect Obama’s is traditional and relatively small. Then the single recipient is not a ‘charity’ but a not for profit private organization of six people. That’s $70Million each. You can only expect they intend handing out the cash to ‘save’ the reef, whatever that means and this money goes to individuals and organizations who are not at all needy, so no charity anywhere.
Most worrying is that the gift was decided before anyone knew or proposed what to do with the money or even that they needed it. Governments have a strict duty not to do such a thing with our money, not theirs.
Finally the business people on the committee were well known to Lucy Turnbull and while that is potentially coincidental as they move in the same circles, it is not even at arms length from the Prime Minister or his wife, something which requires the appearance of extreme caution. As for her claim is that she has not seen the other directors for a year, this was decided six months ago.
So it looks like a massive unsolicited and unexplained gift without tender of a vast amount of public money to friends far beyond anyone’s reasonable needs or request and papered over after the fact. On all counts, it stinks. The Turnbulls have gone too far. This is 40x the size of the biggest robbery in Australian history.
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Peter C
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I would seem that somebody is trying to boost and encourage Tony Abbott to have courage, look for support and make important changes.
KK
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And why not? He could be Lazarus with a triple bypass encore.
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Tony was always a conviction politician. That is why he had to be removed. It’s all about the timing.
Malcolm thinks he has Tony covered, but the collapse in personal ratings, the bad loss of five by elections, the 38 losing Newspolls in a row, the insanity of the NEG, the skyrocketing electricity prices and now the scandal of hundreds of millions to friends without tender or even written request.
That’s all enough to convince most Liberal MPs that they are going to lose their jobs. Even Barnaby may cross the floor and his vote is as important as Abbott’s and he is very still influential in the coalition. Malcolm may have finally betrayed too many people. All he needs is a public service inquiry into the extremely dodgy gift of $444million to powerful friends and without tender or even application and that inquiry has started.
The question is whether Malcolm will want his $1.75Million back, but if he did, that would be illegal. The other is the complete lack of funding for the next election, as long as the McCormack foundation could not be brought to heel by Michael Kroeger. They will have made it clear they funded Tony Abbott not Malcolm and will do so again. Bread needs to be buttered. The Liberals cannot go into an election broke and the people who like Malcolm are all on the other side of the chamber and will not pay a cent for his reelection. Malcolm’s job was to lose. He was most disappointed last time.
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Boris Johnson must apologise.
I am certain that are large number of letter boxes and bank robbers have been insulted.
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Listening on Paul Murray Live, Janine Perrett repeated the LIE that Abbott signed us up to Paris. it was Turnbull, days after Trump was elected, on a “Parexit” platform.
Why does this persist?
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also just watched a bit following the replay of the women’s tennis final in montreal and cannot believe they are talking about the most trivial Trump story of the day emanating out of the FakeNewsMSM in the US – not even worth mentioning what it is.
however, it reminds me. why can’t the few pro-Trump presenters on 2GB decide what topics to discuss with the ridiculous US correspondents they have on their shows?
why aren’t these 2GB presenters au fait with the details of the greatest political scandal in US history?
if they are following Spygate or whatever, why don’t they bring it up with the US correspondents, instead of allowing the talk to be all about some meaningless piece of trivia allegedly related to Trump?
moreover, why don’t 2GB presenters who are sceptical of CAGW have Jo on their shows on a regular basis?
or at least give a shout-out to her website?
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Here’s a scenario but nothing proven. Just imagine:
In 1998, Malcolm Turnbull as Chairman and MD and eventually a partner of Goldman Sachs Australia and NZ advised HIH to take over FAI Insurance from Larry Adler valued at $300 million. HIH losses to shareholders in the aftermath amounted to $650 million according to the 2002 Royal Commission. The litigation in the NSW Supreme Court by some of the larger shareholders was delayed until 2016 because there was no money for damages until Mr Turnbull became PM in 2015. In September 2017, the NSW Supreme Court ordered an undisclosed payout to 117 HIH shareholders, but there also was no disclosure of the origin of the payout. Eight months later, Turnbull had $444 million authorised but hidden in budget papers paid to the Barrier Reef Foundation on Budget Day 8th May 2018. Keith Tuffley was a director of the Barrier Reef Foundation until the money was paid, and then resigned the next day on 9th May and flew immediately to Switzerland. Tuffley is the former Head of Industrial Sector of Goldman Sachs. Stephen Fitzgerald is also a director of the Barrier Reef Foundation and was the Chairman of Goldman Sachs in Australia and NZ after Turnbull resigned in 2001 as head of Goldman Sachs before the HIH Royal Commission in 2002.
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this is also in Financial Times, behind paywall:
13 Aug: Business Green: UK pension funds could face legal action over climate risk, ClientEarth warns
by Michael Holder
Green lawyers write to 14 major UK pension funds setting out legal obligations and risks from failing to properly manage and disclose climate change risk
ClientEarth has written to 14 of the UK’s biggest pension funds warning they could face legal action unless they properly take account of risks to their investment portfolios posed by climate change.
On Friday the green lawyer organisation wrote to the Shell Contributory Pension Fund, as well as the staff pension schemes of Tesco, Aviva, Lloyds Bank and HBOS, highlighting its “concern that a failure to think strategically about climate change may create risk for beneficiaries”.
BP’s pension fund, British Airways Pensions, the Mineworker’s Pension Scheme and New British Steel pension scheme were also among recipients of a letter from ClientEarth last week…
The letter (LINK) sets out the legal duties of pension fund trustees with respect to material risks, the investment risk and opportunity from climate change and the low carbon transition, and the actions ClientEarth argues fund managers should be taking to properly manage and account for those risks.
It warns that pension scheme members who believe trustees of their investments are not adequately taking account of climate change and low carbon transitional risks in long term strategic planning may view this as a breach of duty and take litigation proceedings.
ClientEarth argues the evidence base for the impacts of climate change is constantly advancing, along with rapidly evolving market standards in response to climate change related risks, all of which “will be relevant to how a court would weigh your actions against your legal duties”.
“Given the rapidly evolving market response to climate risk, the possibility of a claim being made against you for taking insufficient steps on climate risk is increasing,” the letter states.
The move came in the same week as ClientEarth also wrote to the Financial Conduct Authority claiming that major insurers Admiral, Lancashire Holdings Ltd, and Phoenix Group Holdings were failing to adequately account for and disclose climate change risks in their annual report. All three have said they are reviewing ClientEarth’s complaint.
The interventions follow a report on green finance in June from the Environmental Audit Committee of MPs, which called for mandatory climate risk reporting to be required of all large companies and asset owners by 2022. The EAC also wrote to 25 pension funds asking them to provide evidence of how they were considering climate risk impacts, the majority of which have “failed to show that they understood or had properly considered climate risk”, according to ClientEarth.
In Australia, meanwhile, the Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (REST) is being taken to court by one of its pension scheme members over climate change risk disclosure in what is believed to be the first case of its kind…
The Pensions and Liftetime Savings Association was considering BusinessGreen’s request for comment at the time of going to press.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3060996/uk-pension-funds-could-face-legal-action-over-climate-risk-clientearth-warns
Wikipedia: ClientEarth: Employees of ClientEarth include Professor Ludwig Kramer and CEO James Thornton.
ClientEarth: Professor Dr Ludwig Krämer is widely regarded to be among the top experts on environmental law and policy in the EU.
Ludwig Krämer: Senior lawyer
A German judge from 1969 to 2004, he served on secondment as the European Commission’s Chief Counsel on the environment, working with the Commission for three decades. He has written more than 200 articles on EU environmental law and authored 20 books, including a classic treatise and casebook on the subject. He has lectured on the subject of environmental rights and law in more than 50 universities in Europe and North America.
Wikipedia: Krämer was in the employment of the European Commission from 1972 – 2004…
Krämer was to start his involvement in shaping environmental policies and legislation in the EC when he moved into the Directorate-General for the Environment (European Commission) (D-G Environment) in 1984. Between 1987 and 1994, Krämer was head of the Legal Unit. His next position was as head of the Waste Management Unit. Krämer was influential in directing European environmental law and policy…
Wikipedia: James Thornton (environmentalist)
He is the founding CEO of ClientEarth, a global non-profit environmental law organisation. Born in New York he is also an Irish Citizen. The New Statesman named James as one of ten people who could change the world. He was also called ‘a new kind of environmental hero’ by BBC Radio 4 and Metropolitan magazine called him ‘La force tranquille’. In 2013 The Lawyer identified him as one of the Top 100 lawyers practising in the UK. The Financial Times awarded him its Special Achievement Award at the 2016 Innovative Lawyer Awards. He is a member of the bars of New York, California, and the Supreme Court of the United States, and a Solicitor of England and Wales…
Now with offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, New York and Beijing, and operating globally, it uses advocacy, litigation and research to address the greatest challenges of our time – including biodiversity loss, climate change, and toxic chemicals. Its work is built on solid law and science. ClientEarth’s patrons are Coldplay, and Brian Eno is a trustee. In 2012 ClientEarth won Business Green’s NGO of the Year award. In 2013, it won the Law Society Gazette’s Excellence in Environmental Responsibility Award…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thornton_(environmentalist)
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11 Aug: Spectator: Tony Thomas: Green Climate Farce
Despite its hopeless record, we’re still shipping millions to the Green Climate Fund
We Aussie taxpayers have so far contributed $A185m cash to the Green Climate Fund, with another $A15m due before Christmas: total $A200m. This is as pledged by PM Tony Abbott in December 2014 (what was he thinking?)…
Our $200mn is just the tip of the iceberg – Turnbull pledged ‘at least’ $1bn in Paris fealty in 2015 ***just as Donald Trump won office, and the billion’s now more-or-less delivered…
DFAT tells me: ‘Australia, with other developed countries, is committed to playing its part in achieving the goal of mobilising US$100b a year by 2020 from a variety of sources to support developing countries’ climate action.’ Who knows what new commitments to GCF Mr Turnbull could pull out of his hat?…READ ALL
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/green-climate-farce/
***Trump, of course, wasn’t elected until Nov 2016, not 2015.
also, for the record, the $1bn was “climate” money, not just GCF, which might not be clear in Thomas’s article:
SMH Dec 2015: In a closely watched address to 150 world leaders at the UN’s climate summit overnight, Mr Turnbull said Australia would spend $1 billion over five years helping developing countries, especially those in the Pacific, to cope with climate change impacts and cut emissions…
The $1 billion includes $200 million over four years the government has already pledged for the Green Climate Fund…
00
this is behind paywall at UK Times:
13 Aug: TheWeekUK: Are energy ratings on washing machines and TVs a waste of time?
What you need to know about Energy Performance Certificates
Researchers say that products such as washing machines and televisions generally do not work “nearly as efficiently in the home as claimed on the labels”, The Times reports…
What is the problem?
Criticism of the system has grown after it emerged that “the tests used to generate the scores are designed in conjunction with manufacturers and do not necessarily reflect the way that consumers use the goods”, says The Times.
A number of studies have found that the tests have been overstating efficiency for appliances such as boilers and televisions.
“Last year the European Environmental Bureau, a network of 140 organisations, found that popular brands of TVs and fridges did not work nearly as efficiently in the home as claimed on the labels. In one case, a TV used 47% more energy in real-life conditions than during the standard EU test,” the newspaper reports.
A whistle-blower who revealed the misleading efficiency scores for the boiler industry said: “How can the current system, when applied to boilers, help consumers to compare different products when all boilers by law since April 2018 must be more that 92% efficient and therefore A rated… It makes the certificates effectively worthless.”…
There are currently no reported plans to tackle this issue.
Indeed, despite the evidence suggesting that EPCs are misleading, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has defended the system, insisting that it will stick with it after Brexit…
A spokesperson said: “This practice is consistent with EU regulations and should help ensure the industry can trade seamlessly with the EU after exit.”
http://www.theweek.co.uk/95794/are-energy-ratings-on-washing-machines-and-tvs-a-waste-of-time
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seems Shireen got too excited at the opportunity to call ***”Opposition leader” Tony Abbott an idiot!
13 Aug: news.com.au: The former Prime Minister expresses his concerns over the National Energy Guarantee and responds to being called an idiot by Malcolm Turnbull
THE former Prime Minister copped a grilling from 7.30 host Leigh Sales, also responding to being called an “idiot” by the PM.
by Shireen Khalil
When (ABC’s Leigh) Sales asked the ***Opposition Leader what was his strategy for tomorrow’s party room meeting, regarding the National Energy Guarantee, Mr Abbott made it very clear that he does not support the Prime Minister’s energy plan, labelling it as a “very poor policy because it’s about reducing emissions, not about reducing price.”…
In Question Time today, when the Prime Minister was asked about Mr Abbott’s view, that power prices will not fall under the NEG, he slammed the ***Opposition leader, calling him both an idiot and an ideologue.
“Well, idiocy is doing more of the same and expecting a different result,” Mr Abbott told Sales when she reminded him of Mr Turnbull’s comments…
When asked if he is the country’s most effective ***Opposition Leader, Mr Abbott reverted back to the energy program…
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/the-former-prime-minister-expresses-his-concerns-over-the-national-energy-guarantee-and-responds-to-being-called-an-idiot-by-malcolm-turnbull/news-story/ae27225abaf1e0de7f003764429d2097
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mind u, Shireen is no match for Tina below(it boggles the mind how some people get paid to write for the media):
10 Aug: USA Today: Donald Trump broke the presidency. It’s time to get rid of the job altogether
by Tina Dupuy
(Tina Dupuy, a former Capitol Hill staffer, has written for The Atlantic, Fast Company, The L.A. Times, Vox and Mother Jones. She’s a host at SiriusXM’s Progress channel 127)
Russia attacked our country; the target was Hillary Clinton and liberal democracy and they hit their mark. If you’re stunned that President Donald Trump is still in office because he’s so horrible and so unpopular and so obviously corrupt — you are not alone — the overwhelming majority agrees with you…
But I’m most inspired by Comedy Central’s “The President Show” starring comedian Anthony Atamanuik. With his searing Trump impersonation, Atamanuik is introduced as “the 45th and final president.”
We can make that happen! My fear isn’t Trump; it’s that the next autocrat is most likely smarter and savvier than Trump. Every partisan from every niche of American politics should be alarmed. We have a branch of government that stinks so bad it’s wafted over the entire nation and its outer territories. The entire world sees it. We’re in trouble. The presidency is broken. Our little democratic experiment is in peril…
Abolish the presidency! Power to the people!…
Because, as our forefathers believed, democracy is worth fighting for — even if you have to fight a mad king for it.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/08/10/donald-trump-russia-election-inept-monarch-abolish-presidency-column/923543002/
no surprise Tina is on board with CAGW:
2011: Jersey Journal: Tina Dupuy: Regardless of ‘belief,’ climate change is real: Dupuy
Weather is to an inch as climate is to a mile. Meaning: Climate is the big picture, and weather is what’s happening on The Weather Channel. Meaning: Winter is not evidence against the Earth’s warming.
Patterns of extreme weather are caused by climate change. And 100-year floods every decade and devastating tornadoes don’t care what you think about Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentations. Unless you own stock in an oil or coal company, still doubting the glaciers are disappearing is denying against your own interest.
The weather doesn’t care if you believe in global warming, don’t believe in global warming or do but don’t think it’s caused by human activity. Weather kills indiscriminately, regardless of opinion.
According to reports, despite any climate change deniers, FEMA is still preparing for more floods and bigger hurricanes. Which, dare I say it, is smart government planning: Listen to scientists.
Because there is no global warming “debate.”
There’s consensus among scientists (people whose job is to study the big picture of climate) – and then there are others who for whatever reason just say “nu-uh.” A debate is when two sides each have a plausible case to present…
And since the Republicans like to claim to be the adults making tough decisions for our children and grandchildren – let them prove it by being leaders on climate change legislation…
https://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index.ssf/2011/05/regardless_of_belief_climate_c.html
Wikipedia: Tina Dupuy is the former communications director for (Democrat) Congressman Alan Grayson, and has been a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist, freelance investigative journalist and comedian.
She freelances for Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Fast Company, LA Weekly, Newsday, Mother Jones, and Skeptic (publisher Michael Shermer’s The Skeptics Society)…
Dupuy has spoken openly about being born into the cult The Children of God and subsequently being raised in foster care in California…
In late 2017, Dupuy said (Democrat Senator & comedian) Al Franken put his hand on her waist during a photo shoot and groped her.
00
behind paywall:
12 Aug: WSJ: The Phony Numbers Behind California’s Solar Mandate
A state-hired consultant lowballed the costs and assumed massive subsidies in estimating benefits.
By Steven Sexton
California’s energy regulators effectively cooked the books to justify their recent command that all homes built in the Golden State after 2020 be equipped with solar panels. Far from a boon to homeowners, the costs to builders and home buyers will likely far exceed the benefits to the state.
The California Energy Commission, which approved the rule as part of new energy-efficiency regulations, didn’t conduct an objective, independent investigation of the policy’s effects. Instead it relied on economic analysis from the consultancy that proposed the policy, Energy and Environmental Economics…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-phony-numbers-behind-californias-solar-mandate-1534110302
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stpaulchuck on Tallbloke may have invented a new term. Much as overblown predictions of Arctic ice loss has resulted in the term Wadhams being used (1,000 sq. kms as in “ice shrinks to 4.7 Wadhams” or average) the new term for descibing claims about renewables, esp. capacity should be Barnums (after the showman).
It looks far better to describe a new wind farm as The Coopers Gap Wind Farm will have a capacity of 453 Barnums and will power approximately 264,000 average Australian homes some of the with enough to boil a kettle, than:.
The Coopers Gap Wind Farm will have a capacity of 453 MW and produce around 1,510,000 MWh of renewable energy – powering approximately 264,000 average Australian homes.
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SORRY some of the time…
Incidentally they are still using the old 38% Capacity Factor. If they can get that why wasn’t it the first wind farm built in Australia?
In reality only 187,000 average Australian homes would get 15.6kWh in a day on average.
10
Monsanto loses damages case with $289 mill judgement against them. It has been ruled that glyphosate caused a groundsman’s cancer.
I think this is a dangerous decision. The cause of a cancer can no more be blamed on a single product than a weather event can be blamed on global warming. The judge ruled that Monsanto KNOWINGLY sold a dangerous product. Glyphosate is sold in such large amounts because it useful, it is what makes no till farming possible. Without it farmers must plough to control weeds. And the claim that “roundup ready” crops are dangerous has never been proven and I doubt they are.
Monsanto does not deserve all the hate thrown at them.
I know many will disagree, go for it.
00
Bit like tobacco I guess. Some smoke (and drink for that matter) into old age other get lung cancer at 30. My personal view is that life is dangerous, and usually leads to death.
We were waiting for a ferry once on a very nice rooftop terrace in peak summer. Immediately below us was a bunch of old blokes having a big lunch and red wine session. They were all overweight, had their shirts undone revealing big very tanned bellies, no hats and each had a cigarette in hand. My wife commented with a smile that the health nazis back home in Oz would explode if they saw that lot.
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