Australia

[Flying Binghi]

via Michaelangelica

Yes that is good news for the economy.
I note the NSW government has wapped a new tax on it - and the line-up of coal ships is still over 50 miles long from Newcastle Port. Some infrastructure spending would not go astray.

Yes to that. Instead we get the 10 billion dollar handout - good/bad, I dunno...one thing for sure, a lot of that hand out money has come from coal taxs ...I wonder how many AGW'ers will refuse the handout because it comes from CO2

The so called "Brisbane Line"

My limited understanding was the BNE line was one of several plans - I would have thought it be prudent military stratagy to have several pre thought through options. Fortuitously we had the Choco(-late) soldiers in Papua new guinea to save the day.

[Michaelangelica]

Would this be agood invention for Oz?

More than a billion people lack access to electricity and refrigeration, which means they also lack access to important vaccines that need to be kept cool. Nonprofits are pouring millions into developing vaccines that don't need refrigeration, but tech venture capitalist Adam Grosser has a different idea: change the fridge.

Working with a thermodynamics team at Stanford, Grosser built a thermos-sized device that contains a refrigerant that's triggered when the device is heated and left to cool. It then acts like a powerful cold pack, turning anything from a jug to a hole in the ground into a twenty-four-hour minifridge. At roughly fifty dollars apiece, Grosser's device could potentially bring people in the developing world high-maintenance medicines -- and the simple pleasure of a cold drink on a hot day.

RELATED STORIES:

* BEST + BRIGHTEST 2008: 27 More New Geniuses Whose Ideas Will Change the World!

Zero Electricity Fridge - Vaccine Refridgeration with No-Electricity Fridges - Esquire

[Michaelangelica]

I have had a few PM messages asking me some odd questions about Australian Aboriginal people

Yep the situations is not good

But I thought Ii would post an aboriginal point of view here
Australian Aboriginal Genocide Continues Despite Historic Apology By Dr Gideon Polya

[Michaelangelica]

Australia's' Darwin Year' Celebrations - 2009

listen now | download audio

2009 marks 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species. Philip Batterham describes the significance of Darwin's work, and why so much effort is being put into celebrating Darwin's life and achievements.

Major events in Australia celebrating Darwin:

National Museum of Australia December 2008 - March 2009

The Melbourne Museum - birthday party for Darwin 12th February 2009

Sydney - National Maritime Museum exhibition

Melbourne - Conference focusing on Darwin's Australian connection
Events in the Darwin year actually begin in December with a exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. The exhibition has been brought in from the American Museum of Natural History and it's about 800 square metres of fabulous exhibit on Darwin's life and work.

Darwin year - 2009 - Science Show - 29 November 2008

[Flying Binghi]

Carbon scheme will affect farming viability

...the scheme could add $30 billion a year in export costs and reduce global competitiveness.

Carbon scheme will affect farming viability: NFF - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


In the end the poor pay for all this nonsence

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Flying Binghi

Carbon scheme will affect farming viability

...the scheme could add $30 billion a year in export costs and reduce global competitiveness.

Carbon scheme will affect farming viability: NFF - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


In the end the poor pay for all this nonsence

What total, annoying, frustrating CRAP.

If the various farming bodies, the National Party and even the blinkered, poorly advised, Labor party looked at the cutting edge sequestration strategies they would see that farmers have to be at the forefront.
.
The Labor Party could annihilate the National Party overnight if they realised what power farms have- and the huge amount of Carbon Credits Farmers could have. It would make them the richest people in Australia. Just like the 'good old days' of the wool or minerals boom.

I just despair at the BOG -ignorance of everyone involved.
All I want is 30 minutes with the relevant ministers and Rudd to point out what amazing political and economic opportunities they are missing.

[Flying Binghi]

If the various farming bodies, the National Party and even the blinkered, poorly advised, Labor party looked at the cutting edge sequestration strategies they would see that farmers have to be at the forefront.
.
The Labor Party could annihilate the National Party overnight if they realised what power farms have- and the huge amount of Carbon Credits Farmers could have. It would make them the richest people in Australia. Just like the 'good old days' of the wool or minerals boom.

I just despair at the BOG -ignorance of everyone involved.
All I want is 30 minutes with the relevant ministers and Rudd to point out what amazing political and economic opportunities they are missing.

Michaelangelica, why not put your "30 minutes" here......

[Flying Binghi]

Mr Bolt is at it again

The 10 worst warming predictions

GLOBAL warming preachers have had a shocking 2008. So many of their predictions this year went splat.

Here’s their problem: they’ve been scaring us for so long that it’s now possible to check if things are turning out as hot as they warned.

And good news! I bring you Christmas cheer - the top 10 warming predictions to hit the wall this year.

Read, so you can end 2008 with optimism, knowing this Christmas won’t be the last for you, the planet or even the polar bears.

I love this one, just how like Al Gore can you get -

5. GIANT HAILSTONES WILL SMASH THROUGH YOUR ROOF

ROSS Garnaut, a professor of economics, is the guru behind the Rudd Government’s global warming policies.

He this year defended the ugly curved steel roof he’d planned at the rear of his city property, telling angry locals he was protecting himself from climate change: “Severe and more frequent hailstones will be a feature of this change,” he said.

In fact, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits “decreases in hail frequency are simulated for Melbourne. . .”

Lesson: Beware also of government advisers on that warming wagon.



Column - The 10 worst warming predictions | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting article.
But it might be worthwhile going though it and checking the facts and his special spin on them.
EG three 'facts' I looked at
This time of year is the time Adelaide always has most water in its reservoirs. they plan for this. The Murray/D has all but stopped flowing to the sea.Hardly anything to rejoice about.
They are also planning a de-sal plant.

2005 was the hottest year on record

2005 hottest year on record. 04/01/2006. ABC News Online
4 Jan 2006 ... 2005 hottest year on record

Perth has 42% water. Yes but that includes what is coming from their new de-sal plants hardly a fair comparison/criticism.

I couldn't be bothered checking the rest of the "facts"

Anyone who predicts weather is likely to "come a cropper". But the general trend is for a drying climate. In my area dam levels are 20%

PS
Professor Gumnut seemed to ignore Bio-char completely (?)- I have not waded though his report.
Probably the most promising, cheapest, industry and farm-friendly sequestration strategy about.

BEST Pyrolysis – Renewable Energy and Agrichar
Garnaut Climate Change Review Submission
Land use - Agriculture and Forestry

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/D0820706ResponsetoIssuePaper1-BESTEnergies/$File/D08%2020706%20%20Response%20to%20Issue%20Paper%201 %20-%20BEST%20Energies.pdf

[Michaelangelica]

Aussie repays loan ... 39 years later

December 20, 2008 - 9:07AM
Advertisement

Briton who lent £5 ($11) to a cash-strapped Australian while travelling through Europe has had his loan repaid - nearly 40 years later, a report said on Friday.

Jim Webb, 72, was in the Belgian coastal town of Ostend in April 1969 with a friend when he met Gary Fenton who asked for a loan to pay for a ferry journey back to Britain.

Fenton promised to repay Webb and noted down his address when the trio landed in England.

Last Sunday Webb returned to his home in Sheffield to find a hand-delivered package with £200 ($439) - five pounds for each year the loan had not been paid - and a note that read: "To Jim Webb, a good man. From Gary Fenton, a tardy payer of debts."

"I was quite emotional when I read it," Webb told the BBC.

"In this day and age promises are made and promises are broken and you lose your faith in human nature.

"This was a lovely gesture. Forty years is a long time -- it must have been preying on his mind that he hadn't repaid his debt."

Webb said that Fenton, who now lives in Sydney, had explained in his note that he had come across the Briton's address while looking through old papers, and decided to repay the debt while on a visit to London.

Fenton left only an email address and Webb said that though he had tried to contact the Aussie he had not yet heard back.

AFP

Aussie repays loan ... 39 years later - Unusual Tales - Specials - smh.com.au

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age are the closest Ozzies come to Times and Washington Post
If you want to know what is happening here look at them first
smh.com.au
(They need all the help they can get)
O yes, there is also The Fox owned, a titch right-wing, turgid and boring "Australian"

Things have to be bad in Oz when this happens

Banks have big exposure to ailing pubs
Vanda Carson and Jano Gibson
December 20, 2008

THE nation's banks risk losing more than $2 billion from their $7 billion exposure to the ailing NSW pubs sector, which is struggling to repay its loans amid one of the worst downturns in decades.

It is understood their massive exposure has not yet been included in the banks' disclosures of bad debts to the market.

The National Australia Bank is set to be the worst hit of the big four, with a $600 million potential exposure to falling values, followed by ANZ ($525 million), Westpac-St George ($420 million) and Commonwealth Bank-BankWest ($420 million).

None of the banks were willing to reveal their exposures.

Overall, the banks have loaned the NSW pubs industry about $7 billion, in an aggressive push into investing in the hotel industry over the past five years

http://business.smh.com.au/business/...1219-72b0.html
Woolworths will probably buy them up. They are already the biggest owner of poker machines (?) (+most of their top ten selling products are cigarettes. I wonder if they have a "Mission Statement")