“So we may find we’re ending up putting a tourniquet around our neck to prevent a nose bleed.”

At night I go to sleep with the Radio on and this morning I awoke to the sound of “The Science Show” playing an interview with Matt Ridley and I was sort of dozing until I heard this little exchange between him and host Robin Williams:

Robyn Williams: Indeed, you’re talking there about 21st-century technology and the ways in which you can increase the yield, really sophisticated science, but what about energy? You just mooted ways in which coal, oil could be made available through fossils…that’s 19th-century technology, we just burn the bloody stuff. Are you suggesting really we need to rely even further on that sort of enterprise?

Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley: Well, I certainly think we’ve got to be realistic about the degree to which we depend on these fossil fuels now. There is no way that any of the renewables can make even a dent in our dependence on fossil fuels today in the short term. Wind has been tried on a massive scale in Denmark and it hasn’t reduced their fossil fuel consumption one iota because it is so unreliable, it needs backup power et cetera, it is so sparse as a source of fuel. So solar may one day get there where it is cheap enough and effective enough that it can actually make a big difference on a large scale. And it can make a wonderful difference on a small local scale. I’m all for having a wind pump in your back garden or a solar powered refrigerator in the Third World, but we do need these fossil fuel jewels otherwise living standards would crash.

The question is can we get better at burning them? Yes, we can. We are now up to 40% to 60% efficiency in turning coal into electricity, whereas when we started we were down in 1% or 2% or 3%. You know, the Newcomen engine installed in coal mines near where I’m sitting, by one of my ancestors interestingly in the early 18th century, had 1% efficiency. So we are getting better and better at getting more bangs for each buck in that sense. And we are shifting from wood to coal to oil to gas.

If you look at the average mix of the world fuel, that is the way it has gone; it was dominated by wood, then it was dominated by coal, then it was dominated by oil, and it’s increasingly dominated by gas. That is the shift from high carbon to low carbon for fossil fuels. Gas is CH4, four hydrogens for every carbon. Coal is about two carbons for every hydrogen, oil is about one to one, so you see what I mean. If we’re going to have a huge gas dash, which I think we are because of shale gas which has transformed the picture in the United States, Eastern Europe and it looks like China too, then we’re going to have a much lower carbon economy just out of that. It’s still going to be producing some carbon but if we gradually build up nuclear, by mid century, extrapolate the line, we’ll be burning very little carbon by 2060.

Robyn Williams: So that brings us quite naturally to the question of climate. I won’t invite you to spend the next hour swapping arguments about whether climate is or is not changing and what the evidence might be. We’re both science journalists and we both get briefed by academies, by groups of leading scientists who have looked at the vast area, and I don’t mean just the IPCC, I mean much bigger than that, and so you get a feeling that there is a kind of 60% to 70% concern. Nothing is absolute, nothing is zero, nothing is 100% in science, as we know. So looking at that kind of caveat, how do you see us developing, optimistically if you like, during this century and still avoiding really stuffing up the planet in a way that both of us would assume is a terrible prospect?

Matt Ridley: The first thing I should say is that I’ve lost some of my respect for those kind of consensus arguments since covering the acid rain story in particular, since covering a lot of the environmental scares, swine flu, everything. Acid rain in particular turned out to be, in terms of its effect on forests in Europe and North America…lakes and things are a different point to some extent…but forests; hugely, hugely exaggerated. And I should have taken that kind of story with a much bigger pinch of salt than I did when I was covering it in the 1980s as a science journalist. So I come to the climate debate now just a little chastened by that and saying well, okay, you say this is scary, show me the evidence. And I keep getting shown evidence that does not scare me. I keep getting shown evidence that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, yes, that we are increasing it, yes, that there will therefore be net warming, yes, but that the positive feedbacks on top of that that are being assumed, there is no evidence for them. So I think we are looking at, certainly for the next few decades, just what we’ve had in the last few decades, which is a mild and gradual warming that will not do catastrophic harm either to human beings or to biodiversity, in fact probably the reverse.

Let me give you one small example. It may seem plucked out of the air but it’s an example of the kind of thing that I am reading and seeing, which is a paper in Science this year about the Greenland ice cap based on a wonderful new pair of satellites called the GRACE satellites which fly over Greenland I don’t know how many times a day or an hour or a year or something, and they weigh Greenland every time they go over it because of the gravitational attraction of it. It’s a really brilliant design. So they’ve got an estimate over the last six years of how much Greenland weighs and how much that weight is changing. That enables them to calculate how much ice it’s losing.

Science published this paper saying that over the last six years it looks like Greenland has been losing 200 cubic miles of ice per year, and they say in the paper this is a worrying number and it’s worse than we thought. And I thought wow, that is a big number. And then I went on some blogs and I found out how much ice there is in Greenland and the answer is between two and five million (nobody is quite sure) cubic miles of ice. The point is that Greenland is therefore losing one half of 1% of its ice per century under these calculations. How can that possibly be described as either a worrying trend or worse than we thought? And it’s based only on six years. If I told you that the temperature in Sydney had gone up in summer by 0.05 degrees per century, you would say come on, that’s nothing to worry about. So the fact was right, I’m sure Greenland is losing 200 cubic kilometres of ice a year, but put it in context, and that paper didn’t do that, and it should have done and I think that’s pretty disgraceful.

Robyn Williams: Is just so happens that two or three weeks ago the Australian Academy of Science, after an enormous amount of time, summarised the arguments and the questions and gave a prognosis, and here yet again was a verdict that seemed to be generally worrying, where you wouldn’t necessarily say okay, we’re going to be fine, let’s hope. In other words, it’s the kind of thing where if you’re given a prognosis by a doctor who says, ‘Take care’, you sensibly would, you wouldn’t simply say, ‘Oh I think I’ll get away with it.’

Matt Ridley: If you look at what the IPCC is saying, on the whole it’s saying here are some small probabilities of big dangers, and I’m saying look at the world and look at those probabilities and say that means there’s quite a large probability of things being quite benign. It doesn’t mean that we should ignore the probabilities of a bigger risk but we need to weigh that against the other bad things that could go wrong, an asteroid hitting the Earth et cetera, how bad is this thing? And I am sorry, but all the evidence coming out of climate science suggests to me that we are dealing with a very small probability of a big disaster, and a very large probability of on the whole a pretty benign outcome.

So I’m not saying you do nothing, I actually think that we need to be watching the climate carefully, we need to be studying it, we need to be preparing for adaptation and mitigation, but actually by far the best way to be prepared to cope with it is to make the world richer. And meanwhile we mustn’t do harm. You mentioned a doctor, well, the Hippocratic oath says do no harm, and the first thing we did in the name of climate change was rush around and encourage biofuels, and that led to starvation, food riots and crises across the world, it led to the destruction of Southeast Asian rainforest where orang-utans live to provide biodiesel to the European market et cetera. So we may find we’re ending up putting a tourniquet around our neck to prevent a nose bleed.

Source

download audio

What I loved about the interview is that for once Williams was not in his usual full on panic mode about climate and that Ridley is giving us all reasons to ignore the more outlandish predictions about our future . Please listen to the Audio and then lets discuss reasons to be optimistic about the future of humanity.

Cheers Comrades

Blowing in the Warminista Wind

Today I hope to change the pace here at the Sandpit so I invite you all to consider the issue of alternate sources of energy. Our friends who follow the Green religion are very keen to suggest that anything is better than coal but I think that the reality is that wind certainly isn’t a better way to make electricity for the times when we actually need it.

Even as parts of the British Government continue to blow hard for wind, other countries seem to be cooling on the idea Photo: PA

“People are fed up with having their property devalued and sleep ruined by noise from large wind turbines,” says the association’s president, Boye Jensen Odsherred. “We receive constant calls from civic groups that want to join.”

In one typical battle, in the central city of Svendborg, the local council set height and number limits on turbines under heavy pressure from locals. “The violent protests and the uncertainty about low-frequency noise means that right now we will not expose our citizens to large windmills,” said the deputy mayor, Lars Erik Hornemann.

There has also been growing scrutiny of the wind industry’s macro claims. Though wind may indeed generate an amount of electricity equal to about a fifth of Danes’ needs, most of that electricity cannot actually be used in Denmark.

Except with hydropower, electricity cannot be stored in large quantities. The power companies have to generate it at the moment you need to use it. But wind’s key disadvantage – in Denmark, as elsewhere – is its unpredictability and uncontrollability. Most of the time, the wind does not blow at the right speeds to generate electricity. And even when it does, that is often at times when little electricity is needed – in the middle of the night, for instance.

So most of the wind electricity Denmark generates has to be exported, through interconnection cables – to Germany, to balance the fluctuations in that country’s own wind carpet, or to Sweden and Norway, whose entire power system is hydroelectric, and where it can be stored. (The Swedes and Norwegians use it themselves – or sell it back, at a profit, to the Danes. If they use it themselves, there is, of course, no saving whatever of C02 – because all Norway and Sweden’s domestically-generated hydropower is carbon-neutral anyway.)

“I would interpret the [export] data as showing that the Danes rely on their fossil-fuel plants for their everyday needs,” says John Constable, research director for the London-based Renewable Energy Foundation, which has commissioned detailed research on the Danish experience. “They don’t get 20 per cent of their electricity from wind. The truth is that a much larger unit, consisting of Denmark and Germany, has managed to get about 7 per cent – and that only because of a fortuitous link with Norwegian and Swedish hydropower.”

But worse till is the fact that the large subsidies that have been paid to build these turbines have resulted in much higher energy prices for the average Dane

Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe’s highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark’s ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

Take note of this Comrades because under the influence of the Green Faith we will see a lot more of these three-legged white elephants built in this country under the pretence that they are “good for the environment” or that they will help to “reduce our Carbon footprint” when in fact they are neither. Here in Australia we lack both the precipitation or the geography to store the energy by pumping water for Hydro-power    we have no neighbours who can do that for us and as the Danish experience shows subsidising alternative energy by increasing the cost of electricity just distorts the market for no overall gain in energy security. There is a lesson here too for those who advocate a carbon tax. The rational for a “carbon price” is that making the cost of energy form fossil fuel  more expensive the relatively more expensive (and less reliable) alternate sources of energy become more competitive. This strikes me as being a completely arse about line of thinking. The efforts should obviously be addressed at the short comings of the alternatives rather than adding a burden on the systems that work to make things like wind and solar appear viable.

The other thing that I think will happen is that once we reach a fairly low saturation point with domestic Photovoltaic installations that are connected to the grid we are going to see the enthusiasm of utilities to buy the energy thus collected rapidly decline, quite simply because it will be produced at a time when it is least needed and once there are enough people claiming a credit off their energy bills for what is essentially unusable energy the utilities will have to raise the general cost  of electricity per KWH to compensate for the added expense that they are incurring.

Ah the distorting effect of ideologically  induced subsidies!

Ain’t it grand?

Well I suppose we had better get used to it because this is just the sort of nonsense that the Warminisitas have in mind for the country as they flex their tail muscles in preperation for wagging the Labor Dog.

Cheers Comrades

Don’t reward fraudulent claims for resettlement with residency

If ever there is an example of why so many people have at best ambivelent feelings about claims for asylum it is this one. This country does well to accept people under its humanitarian resettlement program. It is a program that I am happy to endorse however I am less than happy that an individual has gained entry to this country under false pretences and even more concerning is the fact that the government are unwilling to revoke this person’s visa and insist that they be returned to their country of origin.

Mr Goombe claimed he sent money to his wife for care of his two other children in an African refugee camp and applied for humanitarian visas for them.

In 2008 Mr Goombe was told his wife and children had arrived in Australia, but said he was shocked to meet Ms Freye instead of his wife.

He told police that she had fraudulently posed as his wife, but they took no action, the court heard.

Ms Freye claimed she was welcomed into Mr Goombe’s home, but after he made untoward advances she left, although she returned each day while he was at work to look after the children.

In his decision over who would have custody of the children, Justice Bell expressed concern about the circumstances surrounding Ms Freye’s entry.

”May I say that the thing that concerns me is, notwithstanding that Ms Freye came into Australia by way of masquerade, she was HIV positive at the time of the application for a visa,” Justice Bell said.

”It was indicated to the Immigration Department that in fact this woman would, in all probability, cost the taxpayers of Australia some $250,000 because of the necessity of treatments.

”To me this is quite staggering . . . that the Immigration Department allowed this woman to proceed.

”I have been informed that there is little likelihood of her visa being withdrawn, notwithstanding the fact the Immigration Department is now aware that she was not the person she was purported to be and was aware that in fact she was suffering from AIDS.”

What I want to know is why is this woman’s visa unlikely to be revoked? because not only has she got into this country by way of a fraud but she has also displaced the woman who should have come here in the first place.

No wonder the public are suffering compassion fatigue when it comes to people seeking our largess. For the sake of the honest and genuine claimants this woman should be deported .

Cheers Comrades

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Who said we would have a stable government?????

Forgive me Comrades but I could not help but laugh out loud in the morning quiet of this house when I read this piece from today’s OZ..The parliament has not even been convened and we already have a member of the “Rainbow coalition” trying it on with Labor and surprise surprise its a far left zealot who wants to tax mining  out of existence!

Mr Wilkie, the first independent to pledge his support to Labor in the hung parliament, said the proposed mining tax was “unsatisfactory”, must be redesigned from scratch and should be included in next year’s proposed tax summit along with the rate of GST.

His position sets up a showdown with Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan, who wants the mining tax excluded from the summit and has refused to canvass changes to the GST.

Mr Wilkie told The Weekend Australian that unless the mineral resources rent tax was changed he would oppose its legislation if it were introduced into the House of Representatives.

“I think we need to go back to the drawing board because the MRRT as it is currently designed is unsatisfactory,” he said.

Although he would not specify his preferred changes to the MRRT, saying experts should be consulted, Mr Wilkie suggested the tax could be applied to a wider number of mining companies.

When Kevin Rudd’s original resource super-profits tax was renegotiated with mining giants BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata in June, the rate of the tax was slashed from 40 per cent to an effective 22.5 per cent and the number of companies exposed to the levy cut from about 2500 to just 320 under the MRRT.

“It is my opinion that it has been applied too narrowly,” Mr Wilkie said. “If we’re going to have a super-profits tax, it should be on super profits and not necessarily a small number of small companies.”

When critics of the far left have suggested that fools like the greens want to bugger the country they were wrong. Not only do far left nutters like Wilkie want to forcible rape the economy but they also want to geld it! Heaven in a hand basket how does this sort of Bolshevism make for stable government???

The Gillard government may last for less time than a blamange in the hot sunshine with  nutters like Wilkie and Brandt feeling their oats!

Hang on tight  the first drop on the roller coaster is about to come into play!

Wahoo Comrades!

Division required! Ring the bells !!!

I must say that I am loving this suggestion,the opposition will make every day that the house sits a very hard ride for Labor  and its quartet of supporters.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will not move a motion of no-confidence in the Gillard minority government – the biggest test of Labor’s support – in those three days because it would be seen as frivolous but he is expected to ensure most decisions, including procedural motions, are fought until the Speaker has to call a division, a vote in which all MPs have their names listed for one side or the other.

The Government will have to ensure the four cross-bench members who have indicated support attend the divisions, or it will risk losing them.

Ministers could be refused a pair, so they can leave the House to do other work, even if it is the Treasurer wanting to put the Budget together.

“That won’t happen any more. No more pairing so they can go to ERC [the expenditure review committee which sets out Budget priorities] or Cabinet sub-committees,” said one senior Liberal.

Malcolm Farr

Gillard and co will come to dread the speaker saying “Division required, Ring the bells !!!”

This will certainly keep them on their toes and it may mean that they lose a few votes as well.

Oh this is going to be an interesting ride after all!

Cheers Comrades

A local member who cares about the local people??? Hmm I don’t think so!!

The suggestion that Oakshott is a fearless fighter for the well being of the constituents in his electorate is rather undermined by this story about a project built under the BER scheme in his electorate.

Huntingdon Public School P&C secretary Helen Atkins in front of the school's tiny new hall. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

So when the school community learned in June last year that they were to receive $250,000 funding for a new “multi-purpose” school hall under the federal government’s $16 billion schools stimulus package, there was “much excitement”, according to Ms Atkins.

But the collective joy quickly subsided when the P&C was shown plans for their BER building a few weeks after the funding announcement was made. It was obvious that the 10m by 7.5m facility on offer did not go close to meeting the school’s needs.

It was much the same size as a standard demountable classroom, and was certainly not large enough to hold the school’s 39 students, let alone an audience.

In 2007, the school paid just $10,000 for the construction of a 10m by 5m COLA – highlighting the huge price inflation under the BER program.

In 2008, before the BER program, the school decided to start raising money to build a proper hall. The size and cost was to be based on a 20m by 9.5m hall that had just been built at Dundurrabin Public School, near Coffs Harbour, for $100,000.

But once the BER program was rolled out, the NSW Education Department informed the school that to build a hall similar to the one at Dundurrabin would now cost $420,000, and could therefore not be accommodated within Huntingdon’s BER budget allocation of $250,000.

Instead, the managing contractor, The Reed Group, proposed to add a 5m by 5m extension to the school’s exisiting 10m by 5m covered outdoor learning area at a cost of $250,000.

Further requested alterations, including the removal of a roller door, were knocked back by the education department because by that stage, the project’s cost had blown out to $338,380, which was $88,380 over budget.

Ms Atkins said one of the teachers was “close to tears” when the extent of the financial waste became apparent. “A lot of people were upset. And the local farmers around here were bemused. They all have sheds, obviously, and they were saying that you don’t see many sheds that cost close to $350,000.”

In a newsletter circulated to the Huntingdon P&C on June 4 this year, it was claimed the school’s principal Gunnar Fuhrmann had been told that “time was running out”, so the school “had to adopt the extended COLA plan or we were in danger of not receiving anything”.

Under the BER, private schools manage their own projects while the department of education employs managing contractors such as The Reed Group to run the projects at public schools.

In the June 4 newsletter, Mr Fuhrmann told the school community: “We will not be receiving any furniture, curtains, plants, a covered walkway or security lighting. What has our school gained?

“Not a hall but a 21st century 5m by 5m extension to our existing COLA on one end and an enclosed 5m by 5m extension on the other. The cost of our BER-Multi Purpose Space so far is a staggering amount of $338,380 with additional expenses still to be added.”

Add to that the story appearing in today’s OZ about the way that the local member apparently sought a position in the state Labor government and a very different picture of the man emerges. Instead of the man of lofty principles we have someone who is personally very ambitious to get his time in the sun and then some. You would have to think that a good local member would move heaven and earth to get value for his constituents when it comes to government largess  or that he would at least consider the  waste and incompetence  when deciding who to back in a hung parliament …
Maybe its all about getting that ministerial salary after all what with the young family to support a simple MP’s pay is never going to be enough now is it? ….
Cheers Comrades

Oakeshott’s new portfolio

Minister for Immigration

“I do NOT support off-shore processing of boat people.”

The first piece of evidence

OK Comrades I have come to terms with my disappointment about the result of the election and today I announce that I will take great delight in pointing out the faults and foibles of the marriage of convenience that is the  Gillard “rainbow coalition” government.

Exhibit 1

THE first cracks have appeared in the Gillard government’s alliance with the crossbench MPs, with the Greens signalling they may side with the Coalition on some issues, and a country independent clashing with Treasurer Wayne Swan over the mining tax.

Less than 24 hours after Julia Gillard secured the last pledges of support needed to form government, Bob Brown raised the potentially destabilising prospect of the Greens working with the Coalition on legislation to boost mental health spending and to alter Labor’s paid parental leave plan.

Senator Brown, whose party will have the balance of power in the Senate from July, also put the politically emotive issue of death duties on the agenda, suggesting next year’s tax summit should consider the issue.

The spectre of a more assertive and powerful Greens came as the Prime Minister waited on Rob Oakeshott, one of two country independents propping up her government, to decide whether he will join her cabinet as a minister for regional Australia. He is seeking advice on whether the convention of cabinet solidarity can be changed so he could vote against a government bill outside his area.

As the difficulties became apparent, the opposition went on the attack. Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said: ”If a newly married couple are arguing on day one, it doesn’t augur too well for the rest of the marriage.”

Of course Joe Hockey is spot on here. This marriage of convenience is most unlikely to last or be in any way a a happy and convivial relationship . We have already had both of the err “independents” discovering that Labor has said one thing to them and now seem intent upon something different now that the promise of support has been extracted. Oakshott and Windsor were so pleased with themselves at that overly long  and trite press conference as they did a very good impersonation of the cats that got the cream but now that they have lifted the veil of their bride they have discovered that she is not such a catch after all but mindful of their public profile they are still hiding their true feelings.

What I am waiting for is the day when the issue of unauthorised boat arrivals comes back into the spotlight because then I think we are going to see some real tensions between the Loopy Greens and Labor, Unless of course Gillard just rolls over and says to Bob Brown “sure Bob you can do me any way that you please” because I can not see how either Labor or the Greens can reconcile their difference on asylum seeker policy with out one of them ending up with a very sore arse. The Greens policy is just totally open borders where compassion for mendicants is paramount and contempt for the opinions of Australian citizens is palpable. Where as the Labor party are trying to do just enough to placate worried citizens without alienating their left leaning voters. If you think that Rudd was woeful during the “Oceanic Viking” stand off just wait until Gillard faces the next confrontation with Bolshie asylum seekers. It will be a display of weakness and prevarication  the like of which we have never before seen.

Cheers Comrades

I am Stigtacus Comrades!!!

I have been and remain a big fan of Top Gear, but of late my watching of the show has declined in the first instance its move to Channel nine has made watching the show rather painful as it now has so many ads that I just can’t stand it, the fact that they endlessly repeat the same old episodes does not help either. However all of the palaver about the Stig being revealed to be Ben Collins and the report that he has been sacked from the show while not unexpected but the reactions by  Clarkson and May has lowered them in my estimation.

Jeremy Clarkson has said the Stig is 'history' to the Top Gear team. Photograph: Owen Fisher Ltd/Rex Features

Clarkson said he felt “a bit hurt really”. “It was such a shock. It was horrible actually because I liked him and he came round to my house and had drinks and all that time he was writing a book,” he added, in a video interview published online today by Oxfordshire-based community news service WitneyTV.

“He’s just decided he’d rather be … put it this way he’s history as far as we are concerned. He’s sacked,” said Clarkson, who was interviewed at a charity auction at Chipping Norton Lido.

“I’ve spent the last three weeks doing nothing but trying work out what out what an earth to do instead. You may remember a film called Wall Street in which Gordon Gekko said greed was good and greed works. It doesn’t, if you’re watching this children, greed is bad,” he added.

The show has worked because the presenters Clarkson, May and Hammond have developed a ladish Everyman persona that makes each of the petrol head fans who love cars think that they too could be behind the wheel of the cars that are tested on the show. But there is no doubt that the Stig was the one with real cred when it came to driving fast cars with skill and precision but that fact was clearly not recognised properly as the show began to make Mega bucks for the BBC, especially in the marketing as I noticed in the number of “Stig” themed gifts in the shops for fathers day. It must have been eternally galling for Collins to see so much exploitation of the Stig character rise exponentially but not see a commensurate rise in payment form the BBC.

Ben Collins AKA the Stig

But what has disappointed me most is the rancour from Clarkson and May they are behaving as if the Stig is just some uppity serf who is trying to rise above his station by demanding what amounts to due and fair recognition that he is more than just a white suit and with a dark visored helmet. This is just the most petty sort of snobbery as far as I am concerned and after seven years I think that the mature thing to do would have been to admit that the conceit that the the Stig is other an other worldly superman is now an old joke an openly welcome Colllins to the team as himself and the show would be better and stronger for it.

However from the way that I expect things to go is that they will probably try to reincarnate the “Stig” with some other “tame racing driver” in the suit this time I don’t think that the public will allow the conceit to last seven years. This time I think that there are enough people like me who think that the person behind the visor deserves full and adequate recognition that the secret will not be kept for very long at all.
And then there is the fact that Ben Collins may well be offered a spot on a rival program like Fifth Gear or even his own show I know that Collins was the holder of the real Gravitas of the Top Gear concept and without him its just three middle aged hooligans being paid to show off in the cars that we all dream of driving giving a bit of flash chat doing regular stand up routines about cars.
We Love it but we also love seeing driving done very well indeed by some one who really knows how to take a car around a track on the perfect line. When the petrol fumes have melted away every petrol head  dreams of being the Stig (just a little) so If the BBC does decide to hang Collins out to dry for daring to formally out himself then we should be inspired by the slaves who  refused to give up Spartacus to the Romans and declare that we are with the Stig  by proclaiming that we are all Stigtacus and demanding that The BBC accept that the man behind the mask should not be crucified for his defiance.

You know that it is the right thing to do!

I am Stigtacus  Comrades!!!

Tick-tock, tick-tock, bring on two three o’clock

The nation waits for Rob, Bob & Tone - aka The 3 Amigos - to hand down their decision.

According to The Age  the 3 independents are about to put us out of our misery by giving either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott the keys to The Lodge. 

Or will they?:

The trio has scheduled a press conference for 2pm, but this morning two of them said they still hadn’t made up their minds. And when they do, Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott may not be told in advance.

This is like waiting for the results of your blood tests knowing full well that they’ll confirm one of two things:

1. You’ve got Aids, or
2. You’ve got prostate cancer

Or both.

Get it over with and f*ck off back to your hick towns guys.

Catch the disease, or not, the choice is there

You have to hand it to the NSW Labor party, when it comes to spinning a line they don’t go for bending the truth just a little they go for it big time.

The four-page Building the Education Revolution “scorecard” does not mention any of the findings of the $14 million Orgill taskforce into the scheme, and claims to have achieved “the best price the market will offer”.

The self-serving report card delivers a score of 100/100 for the “national school pride” component of the BER, based on the fact all projects were finished.

Using the same criteria, the NSW government awards itself 97/100 for the delivery of science and language centres to secondary schools.

For the primary school building component of the program, by far the largest and most controversial part of the BER, the report card shifts its benchmark and scores the government 95/100, because 95 per cent of school buildings have been started.

According to the document, out of 2249 projects started in this category, 602 had been completed by the end of June, amounting to a score on the criteria used in the other two categories of 27/100. The report card apparently fudges the rate of complaints, categorising 467 “issues” raised by schools as “inquiries”, and listing just seven “formal complaints”.

The independent Orgill inquiry found NSW government schools account for 56 per cent of all BER complaints nationwide, after it received 142 complaints from schools in the state.

The NSW Education Department did not respond to written questions asking what constituted a “formal complaint” and why none of the Orgill inquiry’s findings had been included.

Then again what do we expect?
This is the mob who Gave Julia the knife that she used on Kevin and the mob that led her to the present sorry situation that the country finds itself in. No matter how much you may lean to the left there is no excuse for this sort of bullshit reporting on what a bad government has done with the taxpayer’s dollar. I can only hope that of the three amigos the two from the premier state will realise that the canker that is Labor politics in NSW is one that Julia Gillard carries as well and if they don’t want to catch her disease then they had better not even think about getting into bed with Labor….

Cheers Comrades

The Bright side of life

I’m sure that most of us have seen the reports about flooding in regional Victoria, so I took the liberty of asking Ray Dixon by email just how wet things are in his part of Victoria:

Bright Victoria 2010 flooding (© Ray Dixon)

Bright Victoria 2010 flooding (©Ray Dixon)

Bright Victoria 2010 flooding (©Ray Dixon)

We’re not flooded ourselves, but we’ve been a bit distracted by the events. It’s just as well that I carried on like a whinging prick a few months ago and got the council to clear the blocked culverts outside our property otherwise the little creek that runs beside us would have flooded our whole property.

Fortunately though, the Ovens river is in a pretty deep gorge for most of its passage through Bright so only a few parts have been flooded (about 10 houses I think).

But the worst part is that all 3 exit roads have been cut so there is no way in or out.

The supermarkets are running low on food with all the people who got stuck here over the weekend on their way to the ski resorts (which are all closed).

And our water, which we draw directly from the river is dirty and/or contaminated.

Ray Dixon

The more general news reports show that this deluge may be just what Victoria needs in terms of replenishing soils that have been devastated by drought but we should not forget that there is a cost for this much needed re-hydration, fortunately there has been no loss of life and some useful and appropriate preparations to cope with this long expected downpour.

Cheers Comrades

8)

Fathers day breakfasts

Its an overcast morning here and as usual I’m the first up which sort of undermines the usual expectation that a father should be getting breakfast in bed on Fathers day. Not that I mind because as sweet as such efforts are I know that my children appreciate their dad  which is the point of celebrating a special day for fathers.

Anyway I need another coffee and a touch of breakfast so today’s post is just a hat tip to all the other dads out there who do their very best to make their lives of their children as good as they can possibly be.

Cheers Comrades

Do thirteen year old boys dream of silicone tits?

My tolerance for any kid of child abuse or kiddie fiddlers is extremely low, in fact you could very say that I have been very tough on those who act in appropriately towards children. That said I don’t know if I should laugh or be outraged by this story.

NO DECORUM: Katie Price, who launched her latest novel Paradise in a bikini, wrote "Wet Dreams" to a boy, 13, at book signing session. Source: Getty Images

After Devon teenager Jack McBirney waited two hours for Price to autograph his copy of her novel Paradise, the model wrote: “To Jack and wet dreams. Jordan.”

According to The Sun, Price also caused McBirney to go “completely red” when she asked the teenager whether he was looking at her chest.

“I waited for ages to see her and when I walked up she asked if I was looking at her chest. I wasn’t at all,” Jack said.

“She asked me what I wanted her to write. I said I didn’t mind and she put the thing about wet dreams. I was very surprised.”

There are very few boys at age thirteen who don’t dream about beautiful women and there is no point in pretending that those dreams are all about having cups of tea and cakes.

I find it unbelievable that a thirteen year old boy (or his parents) should should be offended or surprised after a slightly racy inscription was made at a book signing by a woman who has made her living with her tits for more years than she would like to acknowledge. It is also unbelievable that they would want to suggest that a thirteen year old boy would spend two hours waiting to get the book signed by Katie Price because of the quality of the , err literature.

So what do you think?
Was the inscription a big deal or was the reaction just an example of hypocrisy?

Cheers Comrades

Close one

As it gets towards the pointy end of the quest for the big accolade of the year It is the closely finished matches that will excite fans:

The Saints, dominant in the first half before staggering over the line, now stand only a preliminary final win away from a shot at grand final redemption.

It is the smallest things that can win or lose matches, as Geelong fans will attest given the cruel umpiring decision. Or Ling’s previous shot from outside the boundary line that clipped the post when it would have reduced the margin to three points.

[...]

If the first term was about St Kilda’s talls, the second, for the most part, was about one short man. Rarely have St Kilda played in matches more important then last night and Stephen Milne delivered. After moving into the middle late in the first term to gain some touches, he set the Saints alight with three successive goals as they extended their lead to the main break.

Personally it does nowt for me, But to those who love this game and/or the winning team it must have been a goodnight.

Cheers Comrades