Telsa unplugged

It is no secret that I have a fairly low opinion of alternative motoring efforts and Jeremy Clarkson’s thoughts on the all electric Tesla Roadster certainly should give those starry eyed Greens a pause for thought.
The fact that driven hard this car could only manage 55 miles range shows just how impracticable this technology is and the 16 hour recharge time is utterly ludicrous.

The problem is, though, that really and honestly, the US-made Tesla works only at dinner parties. Tell someone you have one and in minutes you will be having sex. But as a device for moving you and your things around, it is about as much use as a bag of muddy spinach.

Yes, it is extremely fast. It’s all out of ideas at 125mph, but the speed it gets there is quite literally electrifying. For instance, 0 to 60 takes 3.9sec. This is because a characteristic of the electric motor, apart from the fact it’s the size of a grapefruit and has only one moving part, is massive torque.

And quietness. At speed, there’s a deal of tyre roar and plenty of wind noise from the ill-fitting soft top, but at a town-centre crawl it’s silent. Eerily so. Especially as you are behind a rev counter showing numbers that have no right to be there — 15,000, for example.

Through the corners things are less rosy. To minimise rolling resistance and therefore increase range, the wheels have no toe-in or camber. This affects the handling. So too does the sheer weight of the 6,831 laptop batteries, all of which have to be constantly cooled.

But slightly wonky handling is nothing compared with this car’s big problems. First of all, it costs £90,000. This means it is three times more than the Lotus Elise, on which it is loosely based, and 90,000 times more than it is actually worth.

Yes, that cost will come down when the Hollywood elite have all bought one and the factory can get into its stride. But paying £90,000 for such a thing now indicates that you believe in goblins and fairy stories about the end of the world.

Of course, it will not be expensive to run. Filling a normal Elise with petrol costs £40. Filling a Tesla with cheap-rate electricity costs just £3.50. And that’s enough to take you — let’s be fair — somewhere between 55 and 200 miles, depending on how you drive.

But if it’s running costs you are worried about, consider this. The £60,000 or so you save by buying an Elise would buy 15,000 gallons of fuel. Enough to take you round the world 20 times.

And there’s more. Filling an Elise takes two minutes. Filling a Tesla from a normal 13-amp plug takes about 16 hours. Fit a beefier three-phase supply to your house and you could complete the process in four (Tesla now says 3½). But do not, whatever you do, imagine that you could charge your car from a domestic wind turbine. That would take about 25 days.

Jeremy Clarkson

Now that petrol has dropped below 90 cents* per litre here I don’t intend to retire the Falcon any time soon
Cheers Comrades

* with my loyalty card discount of 4c a litre

Gambling with stolen money

Imagine if you will that you have just bought a second hand car and it is sitting in your driveway looking nice and shiny. A police car pulls up and the constable comes to your door to tell you that the car that bought in good faith, and even did all of the appropriate checks on, is in fact stolen and it has had it’s identity altered. Before you know it that car will be taken away and returned to it’s rightful owner and you will be very much out of pocket, studying the bus timetable, and basically you have to wear the loss chalking it up to experience. Quite reasonably you are not entitled to keep stolen goods even if you had no idea that they were dodgy.
However for some strange reason the law has never been prone to seek to recover monies stolen and dissipated at gambling venues around the world.

Why can't stolen money be recovered when it has been gambled away at casinos or bookies?

CROWN Casino has paid out millions to clients of a disgraced accountant who gambled away their savings in a seven-year binge.

Writs lodged in the Supreme Court allege Crown cashed cheques worth millions of dollars for former Geelong mayor Frank De Stefano, knowing the funds were stolen from his clients’ trust accounts.

De Stefano was jailed for 10 years in 2003 for stealing $8.6 million from 12 of his accounting firm’s clients. He spent the funds on a gambling spree, largely at Crown’s exclusive Mahogany Room.

Call me naive if you like but it has always struck me as ludicrous that stolen or embezzled money pumped into the gambling dens of the country should be immune from recovery by the law. Perhaps if they were then said establishments would have to be just a bit more discerning about where the money is coming from when they open their door to every crook and swindler out there.
Just a thought Comrades

Now they want to teach “buggery101″ to Victorian 10 year olds

You just have to admire their tenacity, Those would be social engineers from the left, they are so intent upon imposing their values upon the greater community that they are constantly seeking new ways of usurping the roles of parents.

Of course the interesting thing about this graphic is that we are given just the raw numbers here and everyone knows that for things like infection rates the numbers have to be linked to the population size to have any meaning at all.

The Australian Medical Association’s state budget submission, obtained by The Sunday Age, urges that mandatory, comprehensive sex education be introduced into all state schools. Topics such as anal sex, mutual masturbation and date rape would be part of the curriculum, and terminology such as “f–k” and “blow job” would be used in classes. The AMA also wants graphic pictures of infections, such as herpes and genital warts, to be shown to warn pupils of the dangers of unprotected sex.

[...]
Victorian AMA vice-president Zoe Wainer said it was too late to begin sex education after children were sexually active, arguing it must be taught before puberty.

“We need to stop pussyfooting around with language,” Dr Wainer said. “We need to make it really clear what we’re talking about. If we’re discussing the risk of sexually transmitted infections through fellatio, we need to make sure that these young people understand we’re talking about blow jobs.

“We need to talk about what chlamydia is, how herpes is contracted, the risk factors for anal sex, vaginal sex, oral sex. We need to teach young people that some people can carry STIs without exhibiting symptoms.

“In some circumstances the use of educational images will be appropriate, for example to show older teenagers the effects of sexually transmitted infections.”

These medical minions of the left work on the assumption that parents are “unqualified” to tell their children what they need to know about sex and sexuality. Which is utter bunkum. A far bigger problem than the mechanics of coitus is the sort of crap that is taught about how to conduct non sexual relationships through the medium of popular culture. This is the sort of “summer bay” syndrome that I have sadly so often seen exhibited in young people. So often they seek to have the same level of drama in their lives as they perceive to be happening in their favourite programs never realising that the level of conflict and the constant power plays are actually heightened for dramatic purposes. Perhaps lessons about how art should imitate life rather than life imitating art would be more efficacious than explaining what a blow job is.

Getting back to sex education, the inescapable fact is that each child is ready to learn different things at different times and you can’t just administer the information as if it is some type of medical treatment. As noble as it is to try to help young people avoid STDs or unwanted pregnancy if they are not ready to know this stuff then the effort will be wasted.

Unsurprisingly I think that sex education is a job for parents who are best placed to know if and how to answer these important questions when their children ask them.

Cheers Comrades

PS any readers who have come here thanks to the link provided at New Matilda may just enjoy reading this post as well.

A “curates egg” of a day

Like most fathers I love my son and I love doing things with him that will make for a memorable experience. With that in mind we planned a day out to visit the Queensland Railway Museum which is in Ipswich and as this was to be a “railway experience” I decided to take up the option of travelling there by rail as well.

My little mate was so excited about our day out and after breakfast we dressed and got the essentials together and we were out of the door by 9.30. A forty minute car drive later we were in the station car park. at the ticket window I discovered that we would be able to catch a train straight through to Ipswich (I had expected to have to change trains at Brisbane Central) and our tickets for the museum, which we could buy right there at our point of departure included our return train journey and the short bus trip from the station to the Museum. We took a seat on the platform and waited for our train.
“Will our train be pulled by a steamie or a diesel daddy?” my little mate asked me.
“No mate, the train will be electric” I said
“Oh” came his rather disappointed reply
“But we will see Thomas and the Fat controller when we get there” said I.
Each year over the summer holidays Queensland Rail turns their museum into a branch office for the Sodor Railway and this does a great job of tapping into the “Thomas” phenomenon that every little boy seems to be delighted by. To my mate and legions of other children an engine just has to have a face, a name and of course be really useful.

Douglas and a friend

Having spent about twenty minutes waiting the train eventually arrived and we got in the last carriage. The journey from Strathpine to Ipswich took an hour and a half and I enjoyed seeing a view of parts of Brisbane and Queensland that I had not seen for many years. My mate was endlessly amused by the recorded message that said “doors closing please stand clear” that marked our departure from each station.I could not help noticing just about every other traveller tried to maintain an absolute indifference to their fellows. A necessary defence against the close proximity to strangers I suppose. Anyway after an hour and a half the train arrived and the next task was to catch a bus to the museum. The bored looking QR chap manning the exit from the station told me that all I had to do was cross Bell street and wait for the 504 bus. Fine I thought.

The sign told me that I had the right place so I sat on the seat and waited for the bus. We waited for ages and while we waited I had a chance to consider the group of people who was sharing the bus stop with us. They were mostly young, and the thing that I noticed first was their footwear most were wearing thongs, some those stupid oversized long shorts and that crime against good sense, the reversed baseball cap, despite there being some small children among them they were sprouting profanities and doing rather sad invocations of “gangsta” slang. Combine that with the litter and general air of decay and dissolution that is the city of Ipswich and I was beginning to think that I had made a big mistake taking the public transport option.

“I’m thirsty daddy”  my mate told me looking at my watch I figured that I had just enough time to go into the adjacent MacDonalds for a lemonade and a quick visit to the loo. We returned to the bus stop only to see our bus leaving. When I checked the timetable on the bus stop sign I realised that I had been looking at the Saturday timetable which, for a reasons known only to Translink,  has all services running about five minutes later than they do on week days. The next bus was not due for an hour.  As it was lunch time I thought that we could have some lunch while we waited for the next bus.

Now my regular readers will know that I get up the noses of my latte sipping friends by defending the” fine Scottish” restaurants and overall I have had very few negative experiences of the places, that is until yesterday. For a start the service was very disinterested and slovenly the staff were utterly indifferent to doing a good job. When we finally got our food delivered in a brown paper bag even though we were dining in, I was  disgusted to find that the fries were rather short on the correct measure for a “medium” meal and when I opened the Mcfeast box I found a burger that had been just thrown together, none of the ingredients were bad or inedible but the presentation was just awful. Then I  looked around the place and I noticed that there were unclean tables and litter on the floor. (my complaint has been sent to head office BTW) Feeling rather despondent as I went back to the bus stop and eventually a bus with the right number on it arrived.

Trevor the traction engine

After being shaken and jolted in the bus for about ten minutes  we got to the gate  and my little mate was delighted to see and touch the engines,  to play with the train sets that they had available in the “play pit” and to see the Fat Controller in person. My mate  had a lovely time and he wore his old dad out dragging me to see it all. I fully recommend the display and think that the way that QR use the Thomas stories as a jumping off point to explore the history of railways for small children, and their parents is great.
After asking when the next bus was and being told that it would be at a quarter past four we made our way to the bus stop with time to spare. when the bus did finally arrive at four thirty I was just thinking that is typical of the day and wishing that I had gone in my car.
We got back to Strathpine station at half past six and I had decided that under only the most dire circumstances would I EVER use public transport again.
My mate and I spent about two and a half hours at the Museum and the time there was lovely and for that joy we had to endure more than five hours of travelling, or waiting to travel, and visiting one of the most down at heal and depressing cities in Queensland. At least if we had gone in the sports car I would have enjoyed the drive.
Until next time Comrades

Open mind sees climate clearly

I had this article sent to me by Brent Chapman and I liked it enough to post it here.

Dr Reid Bryson

Lawrence Solomon,  Financial Post Published: Friday, June 29, 2007

He’s the world’s most cited climatologist, according to an analysis in the journal of the British Institute of Geographers. He’s also the fifth-most-cited physical geographer in the world, and the 11th most cited among all geographers.

He has written some 230 articles and five books, including in such fields as geology, limnology, meteorology and archaeology.

He has twice seen his papers in Environmental Conservation awarded prizes for being “best paper of the year,” and he’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honour, created to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.”

He’s Dr. Reid Bryson, considered by many the “father of scientific climatology,” and he’s also pronounced on the most consequential climate issue of the day — man-made global warming. His verdict: “That is a theory for which there is no credible proof.”

Dr. Bryson, aged 87 and still professionally active, has become anathema to many environmentalists for his views on global warming. But those with long histories will remember him as an inspirational figure in the 1970s who challenged the wasteful ways of our consumer society, and warned of a dire need for lifestyle changes. Mother Earth News, a bible of the environmental movement, in the preamble to an extensive 1976 interview, described him as “an environmentalist in the broadest sense and his thoughts on the planet, its human population, and that population’s activities range as widely and carry all the force of such acknowledged environmental spokesmen as Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich, and Dave Brower.”

Dr. Bryson believed then, as he believes now, that humans affect the climate, in ways that both warm and cool the atmosphere. “Dozens of scientific papers, in fact, have been published about industry’s consumption of fossil fuels, its creation of carbon dioxide, and how the resultant “greenhouse effect” will cause a rise in the temperature of the atmosphere,” he told Mother Earth News.

“I find it interesting, however, that the same people who write those papers generally seem to overlook the even greater amounts of particulate matter which those same factories and foundries pump into the air, [cooling the atmosphere]. Not to mention the tremendous quantities of particulates now kicked into the atmosphere by poor farmers in primitive agricultural and marginal semi-arid regions all over the world.”

Humans change the climate in other ways, too, chiefly because “the Industrial Revolution, by making the modern megalopolis possible, has certainly concentrated the release of heat into the atmosphere.? Take New York City, for example. The heat produced by human activity in New York during the winter is greater than the amount of heat the city receives from the sun.”

Wanker behind the wheel 2

It is very clear that this chap is a total idiot and a wanker in so many ways But i have to wonder just how he could have driven the car, smoked the bong, operated the video camera and practised onanism at the same time.

CAUGHT IN THE ACT: Brenton Alan Erhardt, jailed in the Northern Territory after he filmed himself masturbating while driving at 150km/h.

The court heard Erhardt had been travelling south along the Stuart Highway, had been smoking cannabis while driving and was filming himself masturbating with a video camera in July last year.
Police measured his speed at 137 km/h, but the court heard he had been driving at up to 150km/h.
He had two pipes for smoking cannabis in the car, as well as an unlicensed two-calibre rifle.

Ms Oliver said the offence did not reflect Erhardt’s age.

“You’re not a particularly young man,” she said. “This is the sort of conduct you might expect of a much younger, immature person to engage in.

“The offences really just speak of a person who doesn’t have much regard for rules and regulations overall.”

She sentenced him to 28 days’ prison for the driving dangerously charge, which she said was serious.

“It’s right up there at the upper end of dangerous driving,” she said. “It causes you some embarrasment to have this aired in a public forum.

“Perhaps there’s something to be learned from that.”

Erhardt was also sentenced to another 28-day prison term for driving while disqualified, to be served cumulatively to the dangerous driving sentence.

Both sentences were to be served concurrently with another prison sentence he is serving.

He was fined a total of $2160 for the drugs and firearms offences.

Hmm and that Tee shirt!

That is almost a crime against humanity on it’s own
I had a glimmer of hope when I noticed that the two (excessively brief) prison sentences he had received relating to these offences were to be served cumulatively only to have my hope  dashed with the revelation that both sentences were to be made concurrent with the sentence he is already serving for other offences.

Heaven in a hand basket how dumb is the magistrate? What is the point of making the sentences for these two offences cumulative with each other if they are not to be cumulative with the sentence he is already serving? The stupid scrote effectively not spend even one more day behind bars.
There is no justice in this decision at all.

Cheers Comrades

” Hamas terror: every Jewish child now a target”

I just have to ask the question: what person with any morality can support an organisation that now claims that children are legitimate targets in a time of war?

HAMAS leader Mahmoud Zahar has warned that Jewish children are now legitimate targets, in a bloodcurdling precursor to tanks rolling into the Islamic militant stronghold of Khan Younis yesterday.

Zahar’s threat of retaliation, in his first comments since the Israeli campaign began 11 days ago, came before tanks, firing cannons and machineguns and supported by helicopter gunships, moved into the city in the southern Gaza Strip.

It is a terrible and regrettable thing that any children should be killed in a war but to deliberately set out to do just that is a war crime and anyone supporting Hamas is just as guilty as they are.I look forward to the left finding excuses for this utterly despicable move from Hamas, I’m sure I won’t have to wait for very long.

Sigh
Disgusted Comrades

Polictically correct parking, brought to you by the Ministry of Silly Walks

If the Pythons were trying to crack the satire game right now they would be in big trouble, not because they might offend but because the sort of scenarios that they so skilfully used in their sketches are now altogether too common. Instead of evoking laughter and mirth their sketches about officious stupidity would be hard pressed to evoke more than a resigned rolling of the eyes from audience members. Quite simply the disease of political correctness has infected modern life so much that it just is not funny any more.

The Mayor of Tewkesbury put forward a proposal to waive parking fees in the town on Sunday morning to encourage people to attend church services.

But a council working group has rejected the scheme because it is not ‘totally inclusive’ and could offend followers of other faiths.a

Tewkesbury Mayor Brian Calway said the decision was ‘nonsense’ as the town does not have any mosques or synagogues.

Plans to introduce free parking for worshippers in Tewkesbury on Sundays, including around the famous Abbey, have been scrapped for fear of offending other religions

He said: ‘We are a Christian country. I fail to see anything discriminatory about providing facilities for practitioners of the basic religion of this country. I find it to be an unreasonable attitude.

‘It is nonsense to worry about that in a Christian town – we haven’t got any mosques or synagogues.’

Churchgoers are currently entitled to free parking on Sunday morning at the council-run car park at Oldbury Road for worshippers who attend Holy Trinity Church.

This of course what you get when you have the well intentioned, but perennially fearful of causing offence, latte sippers in any kind of positions of power, they seek to placate their favoured minorities before they are even offended. It is as if giving up your testicles is actually a requirement for power if you are an aspirant to any kind of political office under the banner of leftism.
Looking forward to seeing the outcome of this one.
Cheers comrades

Come back Prometheus, all is forgiven

On thing that I have often accused the Warminsistas of is hubris, in particular their belief that we human beings are capable of controlling the weather and climate of our planet. I contend that such attempts are entirely futile and bound to fail. However like all of those of a religious persuasion the Warminisistas are not easily dissuaded from the central tenets of their faith, namely that if we as a species are contrite enough(in the form of an adequate anti carbon penitence) then humanity can be saved.The piece that I quote below(please click on the picture to see the mechanism of the discovery explained simply) suggests that the planet is far more self regulating than the high priests of the green faith have previously claimed and that even it their claims about the significance of the increase in global Co2 are correct that a mechanism to compensate (without our arrogant intervention) already exists on our wonderful planet.

click to enlarge

As a result of the findings, a ground-breaking experiment will be held this month off the British island of South Georgia, 800 miles south east of the Falklands. It will see if the phenomenon could be harnessed to contain rising
carbon emissions.

Researchers will use several tons of iron sulphate to create an artificial bloom of algae. The patch will be so large it
will be visible from space.

Scientists already knew that releasing iron into the sea stimulates the growth of algae. But environmentalists had warned that to do so artificially might damage the planet’s fragile ecosystem.

Last year, the UN banned iron fertilisation in the Great Southern Ocean.

However, the new findings show the mechanism has actually been operating naturally for millions of years within the isolated southern waters. And it has led to the researchers being granted permission by the UN to move ahead with the experiment.

The scientist who will lead the next stage of the study, Professor Victor Smetacek, said: ‘The gas is sure to
be out of the Earth’s atmosphere for several hundred years.’

The aim is to discover whether artificially fertilising the area will create more algae in the Great Southern Ocean. That ocean is an untapped resource for soaking up CO2 because it doesn’t have much iron, unlike other seas.

It covers 20million square miles, and scientists say that if this could all be treated with iron, the resulting algae would remove three-and-a-half gigatons of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to one eighth of all emissions annually created by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

It would also be equal to removing all carbon dioxide emitted from every power plant, chimney and car exhaust in the rapidly expanding industries of India and Japan.

As readers may surmise from the title of this piece I think that such experiments may not be as benign as their advocates suggest. when you play with nature on the sort of scale that is suggested here there could be all kinds of consequences, many of which could be disastrous. Ah but when has that ever stopped those people that are driven by the sort of religious fervour to save humanity from itself?
What is clear from this article is that our understanding of the very complex mechanisms that regulate the temperature of the planet are certainly not well enough known or understood for it to be at all wise to begin meddling with them at this point in time.
One thing that I am beginning to understand is just why the Gods were so keen to see Prometheus chained to that rock. Hmm maybe we should try that on some Warminisistas instead, Al Gore’s liver would make a tasty (and large) meal for a ravaging bird, not so sure that it would grow back though, but maybe it is time that the fat man took one for the team anyway…
Cheers Comrades

I’ve have seen “Australia” now, sigh

two planks of wood

A few weeks ago, as regular readers may recall, I panned  Baz Lurhman’s latest film “Australia” basing my opinion upon second hand sources, a couple of my friends from the left made the not unreasonable observation that I should have seen the film before I compared it unfavourably with the contents of the toilet bowl. It was actually worse than I thought it would be.
Before we get to the film let me explain just how I happened to find myself in a darkened cinema watching a movie that i just knew that I would hate.
My lovely wife and I were out on one of those rare occasions without the children, as my mother in law was looking after the kids, and we had planned to see “The mysterious case of Benjamin Button” But by the time we got to the cinema about ten minutes before the film was due to start the line was out the door and we knew that our chances of getting to our seats before the film had started was less than zero. What followed this revelation was some rather terse and derisive “I told you so” scolding from my wife  which is not a good way to begin a visit to the movies while I shuffled my way , ever so slowly towards the counter she considered the alternatives. “The day the earth stood still” seemed OK to me and we would make that with a little luck . I put the case for this choice but then she came back with “The only other film I want to see is “Australia”. Like every other bloke on the planet who values his domestic peace I just knew it was time for me to take one for the team ” This is your treat my dear and I will see any film that you choose”  said I.

Now for some strange reason I could not get the phrase “the condemned man ate a hearty meal” out of my thoughts as I finally got my turn at the counter to buy the tickets “Two for Australia please” I asked the girl behind the counter feeling rather like a man asked to pay for the rope that will be used to hang him.
With resignation I waited in the foyer for the session to begin finally we got into the cinema and selected seats and we made ourselves comfortable. The shorts began and I hoped to see something in that darkened place that would brighten my mood, alas it was not to be, the plug for an upcoming feature was uninspiring,  maybe I can have a little nap I thought, then this group of patrons were standing in next to my seat trying to find the seat numbers on their  tickets. This allocated seating thing is a rather recent innovation at our local multiplex and frankly i think that it is a load of bollocks , besides which in a darkened cinema I just can’t see the bloody numbers on the ticket stubs so I’ll be buggered if  will sit in a particular seat just because that is what the ticket says. “you are sitting in our seats” this silly woman tried to insist to me

“there are plenty of other seats, choose anyone you please” I retorted

She repeated herself but I was determined to stand  (err sit) my ground.

“Sit somewhere else” I told her again as my wife squirmed in the seat beside me, “there are plenty of other  seats” said I . Well after some hesitation she and her party settled into the entirely empty row in front us mattering curses and suggesting that I was “not nice”.

Well enough of my setting the scene lets get on to the movie.

I had been banned  from making derisory comments about Nicole Kidman during the course of the movie on the grounds that I would spoil it for my wife,  but here I have no such restraint. I have seen ancient floorboards that were more convincing in their evocation of character and Kidman’s accent and delivery were like something straight out of a very bad school play.  Having endured this film I know why reviewers have described her expression as “botoxed” no matter what the situation the only part of her face that seems capable of  much movement is her mouth and that was far too focused on mangling an upper class accent

Hugh Jackman certainly evoked some  approving noises from the female members of the audience when he took off his shirt off in that first camping in the outback scene but I could not help noticing  his  anachronistic toothbrush that has been pointed out by others.  But it was his acting that commits a worse sin against the viewers it is almost as bad as Kidman’s and while he does a fine line in macho horse riding But i can’t shake the notion that this whole film is an exercise in perpetuating a certain “Gay” sensibility  as well as murdering any concept that a period film should try to be consistent with the historical reality  it seeks to evoke.

Speaking of the reality of the imaginary I could not fail to notice just how crappy and unconvincing so much of the CGI used in this production was,  when you consider just how much money was spent on making this epic you would have thought that they could have made more of an effort.  For instance the stampede sequence was most unconvincing with quite substantial differences in the image quality of the CGI elements and the natural  landscape. The thing is as a fan of science fiction I have seen a great deal of CGI and I know that it can  and  so often is done better  by productions with only a fraction of Baz Luhrmann’s budget. a good comparison is the way that “Stargate Continuum” created a ship of the same period to those created in “Australia”. Baz Luhrmann serves us up with a very second rate result that looks like something done with crappy crayons and he spent $150 million bucks to do it.

Ok comrades do you get that I hated the film? That should be pretty obvious by now. All that I can say is that if you can avoid seeing it, please do so  because you will never get back the time you waste watching it,  nor will you get back the time it takes to try to blot its awfulness from your memory.

Cheers Comrades

The cost of doing business

As the person in my household who does the shopping it is I who chooses which brand of toilet paper graces the roll holders at Chez Hall and my decision is not generally decided upon price considerations. I don’t choose the most expensive brand, nor do I choose the cheapest. In fact my choice is the sort of thing that would make any Greenie grin. I choose toilet paper that is made from recycled paper and that is unbleached.

Illustration: Cathy Wilcox

One of life’s humble staples, toilet paper, is likely to cost more and, oddly enough, it’s because of an anti-dumping investigation.

The price of toilet paper is not generally top of mind, so most consumers would not have realised that cheap imports from China and India – most of them parcelled up into the Select brand for the Woolworths and Safeway supermarket chains – have been keeping their ablutionary costs down.

The Home Affairs Minister, Bob Debus, has now accepted the results of a year-long Australian Customs Service investigation, which found that imported toilet papers are coming in at prices almost 40 per cent below “normal” and hurting local manufacturers.

Another factor in my buying decision is just where the stuff is made and I am pleased to have the choice of two brands that meet my criteria that are made here.
Now If only I could get other family members not to use a metre and a half of the stuff at every visit we could all be happy, but strangely the amount of toilet paper that most people use far exceeds what is actually necessary to do the job…
Overall perhaps an increase in the price of dunny rolls will improve the way that we all see a commodity that most people don’t think about; either its source, its use or its destination.
Cheers Comrades

Now that is Amazing….

Superblast from the past: The 1937 Bugatti - one of only 17 made in the world - stunned Dr Carr's family when they opened his garage

Classic car: The Bugatti Type 57S Atalante

I love stories of long lost treasures found is dusty barns and this one is a beauty.

Cheers Comrades

Fireworks that matter

In the propaganda war using You Tube  is a very clever tactic.

Cheers Comrades

8)

Results for 2008 give us a reason to be optimistic for 2009

OK  Comrades lets start 2009 with a note of optimism:

In Australia this year, on the most recent figures, the average temperature was 22.18C.

Last year it was 22.48C. In 2006 it was 22.28C, and in 2005 22.99C.

Senior meteorologist with the National Meteorological Centre Rod Dickson said that based on data from January to November, 2008 might be the coolest this century but it was still Australia’s 15th warmest year in the past 100 years.

“Since 1990, the Australian annual mean temperature has been warmer than the 1961-1990 average for all but two years, 2008 being one of those years,” he said.

In Australia overall, 2008 on the most recent date, was 0.37C higher than for the 30-year average to 1990 of 21.81C.

Worldwide, 2008 was expected to be about 0.31C higher than the 30-year average to 1990, of 14C.

One of Australia’s best-known sceptics of man-made global warming, former head of the National Climate Centre William Kininmonth, said the cool year did not fit in with the greenhouse gas theory that suggests the globe should be continuing to warm.

“All the reports from the northern hemisphere of record snows and freezing temperatures would suggest that 2008 will follow the predictions and officially be declared the coolest of the century,” he said. “But the only thing we can really deduce is that the warming trend from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s appears to have halted.“

The Warministas must have been drowning their sorrows last night with the realisation that the year just past was much cooler than their theory claimed that it should have been. Despite the last couple of days being unpleasantly hot I know that we have had both a cooler winter and a rather mild summer here in my little part of the sunshine state…

Anyway here is hoping that the trend continues because I just love seeing religious zealots squirming as their dire predictions fail to materialise . But when you think that that what they are predicting is the unstoppable end to humanity you would think that they would be happy to be wrong on this one wouldn’t you?
Strangely they all seem to be doing an even more desperate “chicken with its head cut off” impersonations as the climate refuses to play to their script and more people are noticing that the  emperor has no clothes.

Who would have thunk it?

Cheers Comrades
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