Volunteer Rescue Boats vandalised

Rescue boats of the Jacob's Well Volunteer Marine Rescue Service were cut loose and vandalised. Rescues continued while the boats were disabled.

An 18 year old has been charged with offences (announced on a news break on televison just now). Judging from the television footage of the teenager as he was driven away in a police car, he's got no respect for authority and no idea of responsibility. He was filmed in the police car poking out his tongue at the cameras.

What do you do to instil responsibility and respect in idiots like this?

Years ago I worked for Telecom. The vandalism of public telephone boxes was rampant. What I hoped for was that one day the vandals would need to use a phone to call for help and find that they'd been vandalised. Even then I think that the blame would be on the phone company for not keeping the public phones working. Some phones were regularly vandalised and unfortunately noone saw the vandals in action so noone was caught.

If you see acts of vandalism taking place report them, it's the only way these people will be stopped. These days if you confront a vandal you might find yourself assaulted.

It's the Christians...

Who was it again? At Jihad Watch.

Thanks Wand.

The Climate Change Timeline

From JoNova's, Climategate: 30 Years in the Making, a long and interesting read.

Tally-ho!

Little girl on a plane

A US Congressman was seated next to a little girl on the airplane leaving from Washington, DC, when he turned to her and said, "Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just opened her book, closed it slowly and said to the total stranger, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the congressman. "How about global warming or universal health care?", and he smiled smugly.

"OK," she said. "Those could be interesting topics. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a sheep all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a sheep excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

The legislator, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and said, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss global warming or universal health care when you don't know shit?"

Thanks to Wand.

Music from a series

Music only.


With lyrics.

You never lived to see
What you gave to me
One shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty

With a host of brave unknown soldiers
For your company, you will live forever
Here in our memory

In fields of sacrifice
Heroes paid the price
Young men who died for old men's wars
Gone to paradise

We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see we can live together
When all the world is free

I wish you'd lived to see
All you gave to me
Your shining dream of hope and love
Life and liberty

We are all one great band of brothers
And one day you'll see - we can live together
When all the world is free

I'm going to have to buy this soundtrack. (If I can find it!)

Merry Christmas!

So glad Sarah Palin has fallen on her feet with her new job and all...

I saw the adverts for 30 Rock....


*****


Yeah, I know. I'm being funny.

Big Weekend II

Thong things

Okay. I just thought of something else that Miss 10 said to make me laugh. Two something elses.

First, we were shopping in K-Mart, at the check-out. Miss 10 has just learnt to whistle. She's whistling away, a thin little pitiful (but getting stronger with practice) whistle. At the checkout I'm chatting with the clerk and Miss 10 starts to whistle again. No words, just whistling.
I said to the clerk, by way of explanation, "She's just learnt to whistle in the last week..."
The clerk said something to Miss 10, who whistled...
I said "Unfortunately, she appears to have lost the power of speech."

Second, we were in Best and Less looking for "stuff" that I need and as we were leaving Miss 10 picks up a pair of these*, shows them to me and turns them around so I can see the back, and says "Euuuuwwww!"
I laughed and agreed. The discussion then turned to spending all day trying to pull the string out from your nether regions.

*Note. A friend of mine who is a security guard told me that the best thing to wear in the heat to stop chafing from damp undies is .... yes, you guessed it. Bum-floss.

Big Weekend

Well, it was on Saturday.

I hung out with my 10 year old friend. We had a fun day.

She took me to Lone Pine... and lost me. She insists that I lost her, but I told her that, as she's a regular at Lone Pine she knows where everything is and what time everything is and so she wasn't lost, I was. She found me at the loos (toilet), she told me that she knew I'd have to go there sometime. Then we arranged that if we became separated we'd meet at the front entry.

I also asked her what she'd have done if I had gone off with a stranger! She said that was what she was supposed to be concerned about. I pointed out again to her that I was the lost one, and she was much too smart to go off with any strange man. We had a laugh about that.

Sometimes yaks can be a pain in the bum. ESL ones are worst, they don't understand the rules. There were a few very polite Americans there, young men. Some Malays, lots of Japanese tourists. There are times when you can feed the animals and there are times when you can see them being fed, and you can hold chicks and guinea pigs. Touch sheep. Watch koalas...

It's such a hard life for a koala...

After Miss 10 walked my legs off (and I didn't know it), we went to Indooroopilly shopping centre. We drove around two carparks and I said to her "We may not be going shopping today if I can't find a park." She suggested that we go this way and that way and suddenly we were out of the carpark. Then we went back in again. Down the bottom, right in the dungeon where I usually park. Under Target. Sorta. And there was someone backing out. I let them out and got their spot. Woohoo! It was crazy!

We looked at lots of stuff and Miss 10 spent all her remaining allowance for the day - she shouted me brekkie and I shouted lunch.

On the way home, late, I called in to see MDFD, I'd found mangos cheap on the side of the road, and she loves mangos, so I bought some to give to her and decided to deliver them. She was home so I suggested we have a Chinese feed at the local take away shop she's told me about. The local Chinese shops where I live have changed hands or closed down and you can't get a decent Chinese feed here these days. The food was yum. And I had it for lunch and tea the next day!

When I woke up on Sunday I had trouble walking. My calves were so sore! All that walking. My back is fine (I have a slippery disc), but I was prepared as I wore some thong things like crocs which are very soft to walk on and so absorb the shock.

Explaining to mum that my legs were killing me she said "You've been 'Colonged'!" The Colong Caves are an area where you must walk down a mountain to get there. Usually a long-weekend trip, leaving Friday night/very early Saturday morning and arriving in time to walk in and set up camp. The walk in is very, very steep. You have to aim for a tree and sort of catch it to stop you losing your footing - or you just slide down on your bum so you don't fall. Coming out is really the bad bit. Your legs feel like they're going to fall off! And the next few days are torture. The funniest thing about that trip I did there with Dad was that some of the crowd were cave diving and distributed their belt weights in amongst unsuspecting people's packs. You must carry everything in and everything, including your rubbish, out. The divers waited until people's packs were unattended and then popped their weights into the side pockets of the packs.

Oh, I just remembered the other funny thing. The trips were usually made in late autumn or early winter. It sometimes snowed in these places so it was very cold at times. Dad stopped on the way and asked what grog I'd like to take for around the campfire. He'd have Cinzano and some other poison. I had two cans of UDL (premixed), one for each night. All you could get then in UDL was Rum and Coke, and Vodka and Orange. They were shocking. But I was sixteen and very grown up! Except when, at lunchtime on Saturday I had opened my can of tuna to eat and tossed the old fashioned can opener in the pack. The blunt end with the bottle top lifter speared right into one of my UDL cans.

I'm sooooo lucky!

Glossary:
yak = tourist (old cavers' nickname, because they follow along in a line around the ridges and mountains, all in a row, just like yaks)
ESL = English second language

And this is the old bachelor...

Bugger me, the joyless, imagination-free humbuggers are everywhere!

SANTA Claus has been accused of acting in ways that could "damage millions of lives".

Love this advert

Oh noes! Not that one, this one!

How to vote

ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different.... Two Different Versions.... Two Different Morals
________________________________________

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away..

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
________________________________________


MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

Channels 7, 9 and 10,the ABC and SBS show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

Australia is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Cardinal George Pell then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Prime Minister Rudd condemns the ant and blames John Howard, Robert Menzies, Capt James Cook, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Bob Brown exclaims in an interview on Today Tonight that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, Labor in conjunction with the Greens draft the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2011.

Frikkin' hot

more later, maybe, if I survive...

Surely the AGW myth is at an end

Copenhagen Climate Challenge. An open letter to Secretary-General of United Nations.

We the undersigned, being qualified in climate-related scientific disciplines, challenge the UNFCCC and supporters of the United Nations Climate Change Conference to produce convincing OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE for their claims of dangerous human-caused global warming and other changes in climate. Projections of possible future scenarios from unproven computer models of climate are not acceptable substitutes for real world data obtained through unbiased and rigorous scientific investigation.

Specifically, we challenge supporters of the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused climate change to demonstrate that:

• Variations in global climate in the last hundred years are significantly outside the natural range experienced in previous centuries;
• Humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ (GHG) are having a dangerous impact on global climate;
• Computer-based models can meaningfully replicate the impact of all of the natural factors that may significantly influence climate;
• Sea levels are rising dangerously at a rate that has accelerated with increasing human GHG emissions, thereby threatening small islands and coastal communities;
• The incidence of malaria is increasing due to recent climate changes;
• Human society and natural ecosystems cannot adapt to foreseeable climate change as they have done in the past;
• Worldwide glacier retreat, and sea ice melting in Polar Regions , is unusual and related to increases in human GHG emissions;
• Polar bears and other Arctic and Antarctic wildlife are unable to adapt to anticipated local climate change effects, independent of the causes of those changes;
• Hurricanes, other tropical cyclones and associated extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency;
• Data recorded by ground-based stations are a reliable indicator of surface temperature trends.

Signatories include the following who are based in Australia or studied in Australia.

Colin Barton, B.Sc., PhD, Earth Science, Principal research scientist (retd), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

David Evans, PhD (EE), MSc (Stat), MSc (EE), MA (Math), BE (EE), BSc, mathematician, carbon accountant and modeler, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak', Scientific Advisory Panel member - Australian Climate Science Coalition, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

William Kininmonth MSc, MAdmin, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization’s Commission for Climatology, Kew, Victoria, Australia

John Nicol, PhD, Physics, (Retired) James Cook University, Chairman - Australian Climate Science Coalition, Brisbane, Australia

Cliff Ollier, D.Sc., Professor Emeritus (School of Earth and Environment), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, W.A., Australia

Garth W. Paltridge, BSc Hons (Qld), MSc, PhD (Melb), DSc (Qld), Emeritus Professor, Honorary Research Fellow and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Visiting Fellow, RSBS, ANU, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide; Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia

Tom Quirk, MSc (Melbourne), D Phil, MA (Oxford), SMP (Harvard), Member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Australian Climate Science Coalition, Member Board Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Robert G. Roper, PhD, DSc (University of Adelaide, South Australia), Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

Walter Starck, PhD (Biological Oceanography), marine biologist (specialization in coral reefs and fisheries), author, photographer, Townsville, Australia

Raphael Wust, PhD, Adj Sen. Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

There are 141 signatories.

Counter arguments

From American Thinker, I believe this is a speech by Representative John Linder (R-GA) who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Waxman-Markey bill, jurisdiction over the Boxer-Kerry bill should it pass in the Senate, and authority over all carbon taxes generally.

Two counterpoints:

For the last several years, when people have instructed me that human activity was causing a dangerous increase in global temperatures, my response has been, "Then tell me, what should the temperature be?" Should it be the temperatures that the planet experienced a thousand years ago, during which Greenland was settled as a farming community and during which wine grapes were grown in Scotland? Should it be the temperatures of three hundred years ago, when the Little Ice Age ended the inhabitation of Greenland and the Thames iced over? Should it be the temperatures of 829 A.D., when the Nile River froze? No response!

and

What's more, every computer model shows that greenhouse warming is associated with a "hot spot" located four to six miles above the equator. We have been monitoring that very spot for fifty years. It doesn't exist. Thus, whatever warming we see is unlikely to be due to the greenhouse effect as the models explain it.

Read it all, very handy for those arguments you may have with True Believers.

Dangerous Roads

Some program on Channel 7-Two.
Talking about the Ayr Highway, from Adelaide to Perth.
Crawling with venomous animals, the topography, etc.

The longest, flattest, straightest highway in the world.

Across the Newl-abbor Plain - LOL he can't pronounce it. It's called "null" as in nil, no, and arbour, as in French for trees.

Microsleeps kill people in this road. Road trains. Semi-trailers with three trailers.

I know all about falling asleep at the wheel, fortunately I've been very lucky when it's happened (only a few times), I knew I was tired and stopped and slept.

Oh, and the people they're talking about are travelling from Western Australia to the eastern states. Interesting. The car used in the mockup of the car rolling has a Queensland number plate. Maybe it was a rental they were bringing back east?

The Royal Flying Doctor features, an amazing service in Australia.

The other road they talk about is the Yungas road which passes through the Andes. The narrator keeps banging on about the terrible, dangerous climate. He's really talking about the weather.

Hot, again

Update:

At 3:25 it was 40.2, and the temperature in the sun in the next town was 52C.

When I left work at 4:30pm it was 40.6.

The temperature has plummeted to 39.4, it's now 5.15pm.

Okay. I'm over summer. Can we have winter again, please?

Black Armband retaliation

From Janet Albrechtsen in today's Australian:

Windschuttle undertakes the long overdue task of returning to primary source material. He destroys the central thesis of genocide with reams of cold hard facts. For example, he reveals that the “small numbers of Aboriginal child removals in the 20th century were almost all based on traditional grounds of child welfare”.

In other words, most indigenous children placed in state Aboriginal settlements were orphaned, abandoned, destitute, neglected, subjected to violence, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse or went there with their parents.

More here.

Hello Doctor III

Visited my GP on Friday.

Complained about many symptoms.

Lethargy, tiredness, even after a good night's sleep. Aches and pains in muscles and joints which seem to be there when I get up in the morning and don't go away, feeling like I've climbed a mountain, run a race, but without any exercise at all. Also breathlessness and so on without any exercise at all (just bending over to pick something up!).

He read a bit of stuff on the computer and said to me "When are you having your ablation(the link is to the type of procedure)?"

I told him "Ninth of February".

He said that from the sound of all my symptoms it's probably caused by the drug I am on to regulate my heart rate (Flecainide* & Metoprolol**). Three percent of patients taking this drug have this side effect. He said that after the 9th of February maybe I will be able to throw that drug away and I won't be tired any more. No wonder I was almost falling asleep some days in at work when I was commuting nearly three hours a day.

*GENERIC NAME: FLECAINIDE - ORAL.
SIDE EFFECTS: Constipation, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headache, skin rash, blurred vision, anxiety, depression or stomach upset may occur as your body adjusts to the medication. If these effects persist or worsen, inform your MD. Because this medication may cause lightheadedness or dizziness in some people, make sure you know how you react to this drug before driving or operating machinery. Notify your doctor if you develop: chest pain, irregular heartbeat, trembling or shaking, shortness of breath, swelling of feet or lower legs. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.

**Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets
All medicines may cause side effects, but many people have no, or minor, side effects. Check with your doctor if any of these most COMMON side effects persist or become bothersome when using Metoprolol Tartrate Tablets:

Constipation; diarrhea; dizziness; dry mouth/eyes; gas; headache; heartburn; lightheadedness; mild drowsiness; muscle aches; nausea; stomach pain; trouble sleeping; unusual tiredness or weakness; vomiting.

I really do hope the ablation sorts out the SVT.

I can't wait to get home.

I have no airconditioning. And it looks like it's going to just get hotter.

I'm very disappointed that this heatwave has come after the debunking of AGW...

I might get a paypal thingy and call it "Aircon Fund".

Update:
LOL on the way home from work I almost passed the newsagency. I remembered that the lotto tonight is $40M, so I lashed out and bought a ticket.

It's the only way I'll get airconditioning at home!

AM

Point 1.
Mark Willacy
Obviously not based in Australia.

MARK WILLACY: Imagine a world in which a visit by Kevin Rudd to a pickle factory warranted half an hour on the nightly TV news.

Unthinkable in Australia but in North Korea a story about Kim Jong-il touring a pickle plant ran for 30 mind-numbing minutes.

Der. He hasn't seen the news here lately, huh? More.

Point 2.
Camels have significant religious value? To Christians... who knew!

SARA EVERINGHAM: Lyle Kenny supports this week's cull of feral camels.

There are signs all around Docker River of the damage the camels do. Cars are parked near power poles to stop camels bringing them down. Infrastructure for water is broken so the supply is constantly contaminated.

Still, Lyle Kenny says the decision to go ahead with the cull wasn't taken lightly. Residents don't want to see animals go to waste and camels for many in Docker River have a religious significance.

LYLE KENNY: We in this community we are Christian people. The pastor has told us camel the three wise men to follow the star where Jesus was born.

More.

Pearl Harbour - 7 December 1941

I've been to Pearl Harbour.
That's how I remember.

Please visit my friend KC's blog and Remember Pearl Harbour.

Lateline tonight

Have a look at it.

It seems to be more of the crock, just touched on the Climategate scandal... whaddya know, the IPCC is going to investigate.

Should be interesting.

Hansen's now saying that the carbon cap and trade is not going to work. But he still says that we must cut down our production of CO2 into the atmosphere, we must stabilise the atmosphere.

He wants a carbon tax on petrol and oil, etc, at the source, then the money can be redistributed to the people who can't afford to pay the higher prices... I think he said something else about using this tax to support developing the other non-carbon energy sources, the carbon ones must be made more expensive.

Arrgh.
I'm going to bed. Anyone else wants to watch it they're welcome, I can't take any more of this crap.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Makes me so angry.

Tony Jones needs a biff around the melon.

Update:
Hansen lied about a lot of things. One of which was that sceptics had arrived at their sceptical position without taking any data and checking it. Funny that, considering the refusal of the holders of the temperature data to release that information and also the loss or destruction of that information at one particular organisation which was providing the "tricked up" "hide the decline" data...

Thanks to Wand, heres a WUWT post by American Thinker's Marc Sheppard dated 6/12/09.

Wedding dance, schmedding dance...

Insiders final for 2009 today

Well, I wonder what will be dished up to us today.

Climategate
Rudd et. al. incompetence
Climategate
Liberal win in the byelections held this weekend (maybe)
Climategate
Silly deniers still denying that the world is warming to hell
Climategate

Here we go...

Leadership turmoil in NSW and Canberra...

Annabel Crabbe - hey! Where's the baby bump? Can anyone see it? If she's had her baby, was it a boy or a girl? No, the bump's still there... just out of shot. I think.

Barnaby Joyce about Copenhagen and a deal, and the ETS. And the National Party and his thoughts that to do what he needs to do for Australia he needs to move to the lower house.

Barnaby speaks well and says so much!

Your shout... All of them can't believe Abbott got in! Santa wouldn't say whether Tony's on the naughty or nice list, but he did say that they do bounce around a bit, and Tony is a good boy. He he he. (Or should I say Ho, Ho, Ho!)

Rudd's gonna have a fight on with Abbott. Abbott's going to give Australians a choice with getting rid of emissions.

Brian Toohey - ETS. Says that the ETS proposed by Rudd is rubbish. Wrong, won't work, aims at the wrong people/industries, etc.

Rudd's scare tactics after Abbott said that the nuclear debate must be held, Rudd said "Well, if you're going to be fair-dinkum about it, tell us where you're going to put your reactors." Then in reply to Abbott's talking about bringing Australia into the present Rudd's reply is that they want to bring in AWAs, taking away holiday pay loadings, overtime, etc. Sheesh. It's the bloody unions who have been dealing away all these things that they fought hard for... God only knows why, perhaps so that they can tell their captive constituents that they're "doing something".

LOakes interviewed by Abbott, who had a shot at him about asking questions about religion and his religious beliefs, excellent shot, "But I don't do church doorstops".

Dennis Atkins... has he said anything much today?

Talking pictures...
Magnificent lunacy in Canberra this week.
It's all about Tony Abbott.
Knight. Too hard to find.

Bugger me, they mentioned sceptics! In the cartoon section, a cartoon by Knight, "Climate change dinosaurs".

Moir cartoon. Too hard to find.

Shame about the lack of mention of Climategate.

Programmatic specificity from Rudd, after which Malcolm described Rudd's "enigmatic incomprehensibility".

August 7 election!? tipped by Dennis Atkins.