Anti-desal protestors should speak for themselves

I like the idea of a desalination plant. If Dubai can lush green golf courses I’d like to be able to grow a few square metres of lawn and not have to replace dead plants every spring, without fear of breaking the law. I also want to have 10 minute showers and enjoy the lovely sound of sprinklers on a warm summer’s night. 

And while I sympathise a little bit with the NIMBY’s in South Gippsland who don’t want the plant built in the Wonthaggi area, I take issue with the name of their protest group “Your Water, Your Say”.

OK it is my water, and I say build the fucking desal plant!

I think “Our region, our say” would be a far more appropriate name. Or, if I was being more cynical, “Our property values, our say”.

Rudd haters miss the point of the hybrid Camry deal

The fucktards are out in force criticising the deal with Toyota to assemble 10,000 hybrid Camrys at it Altona plant in Melbourne.

One of the biggest criticisms come from ignorant cock heads who are treating the $35 million the Federal Government subsidy, matched by the Victorian Government, as though it’s some sort of shonky deal with the proceeds being ripped from their own arses.

I’m amazed that’s all the Government is giving Toyota, considering the Australian automotive industry is subsidised to the tune of $600 million - without which there would be no Australian car industry.

The other stupid argument is about the effectiveness of the hybrid Camry - with people pointing out things like GM is ready to build a totally electric car, fuel injected diesel is less is more efficient and less pollutant etc, etc.

What these people don’t realise is Toyota is not only a pioneer in hybrid technology (this is a third generation hybrid car since the first Toyota Prius was released), it will also continue to be an innovator. So it’s not as though they are going to build 10,000 Camrys and fuck off.

This deal is a fraction of the cost of developing a truly Australian designed hybrid or alternative fuel car from scratch, but it still gives Australia entry to this ever growing industry and with it will come local innovation, which should go well beyond a car that saves one-third of its fuel consumption.

Once we have this technological base for hybrid and alternative fuel cars, then who knows what can be achieved.

 

We can benefit from high fuel prices

I was watching the American news services on Sky News yesterday and was surprised at the impact of rising fuel prices in America. Although Americans are still paying around $1 a litre, there has been a large shift to public transport in big cities and many people are struggling to make ends meet with a family and two large SUVs to feed.

High fuel prices could change the way Americans address their motoring needs. While the rest of the world has largely downsized their cars, the Americans refuse to give up their Yank tanks and SUVs, which, like guns, they see as some God-given right.

Of course a similar thing is happening in Australia. And while petrol prices are high, the overreaction by Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson on how tough people are finding it to fill the family car is nothing more than populist politics that will achieve nothing.

People are doing it tougher because of high petrol prices, but paying more means they are most are simply readjusting priorities, rather than going under. It’s funny how we have a financial system which seeks to reduce inflation by raising interest rates to reduce spending on consumer goods, yet everyone reckons the world is about to end just because petrol prices are having the same effect.

Of course the high price of fuel is causing consumer goods to go up in price, which is why the Government should forget about reducing the price of petrol to encourage more economically friendly driving habits, transport options and hopefully alternative fuels - it should also forget about imposing a Greenhouse tax on fuel while the price is at record highs to spare drivers serious pain. It should however reduce the excise on diesel to reduce road and rail transport costs and encourage the uptake of diesel cars, which use less fuel and are less polluting, until more suitable alternative fuels are developed.

What do you think?

Herald Sun’s nasty Eurovision spoiler (safe to view)

What were the online editors at Heraldsun.com.au thinking by splashing a headline declaring the winner of the Eurovision song contest, hours before it was to be shown on Australian television?

Pic censored by Club Wah

The Age online showed it can be reported in a way that doesn’t spoil the result for the few who take it seriously and the many who have a lot of fun with it and boo at the ridiculous voting system. The beauty of online journalism is you can hide things behind a hyperlink.

For the Herald Sun website to reveal the result in a way where you could not avoid it shows either sheer stupidity, ignorance or simple mean spiritness.

If you want to know who won, click here.

 

 

The folly of animal activism

If you ever needed proof that animal activists are attention seeking professional protesters who’s main concern is popular causes rather than the animals themselves you only need to look at their stupidity in opposing the kangaroo cull on defence land in Canberra.

These animals are in plague proportions in an enclosed area so the defence department is culling their numbers in the most humane way possible. Despite what the protestors say this is not the kangaroo’s natural environment, it’s a large, but fenced off area which has become unsustainable for the ever growing kangaroo population which is harming the environment and affecting other animal species.

Culling is an unfortunate, and last-resort measure, but it has to be done and it will not exactly harm Australia’s 30 million-plus kangaroo population as a whole.

Yesterday I heard one of the cull protestors, Neighbours cast-member Fiona Corke tell 3AW’s Neil Mitchell that the group wanted the the Department of Defence to hold off on the cull while $3 million is raised to pay for the kangaroo’s relocation.

$3 million!

That’s a lot of money, and even it could be raised why aren’t these so-called animal lovers looking at better ways that money could be spent - like research into curing the facial tumour that has seen the Tasmanian Devil put on the endangered species list. 

Either we’re fucked, or Tim Flannery has gone crazy-ape bonkers

Outspoken climate change campaigner Tim Flannery says we should pump sulphur into the atmosphere to stave off environmental collapse in the next FIVE years.

Flannery says sulphur could be inserted into the earth’s stratosphere to keep out the sun’s rays and slow global warming, a process called global dimming.

He said the process, which can be achieved by adding sulphur to jet fuel would create global dimming through contrails would even change the colour of the sky. Me thinks it would lead to acid rain too.

Aviation, which many people blame for greenhouse gas already contributes to global dimming - when all flights were banned in the US in the days after the September 11 attacks, the mean temperature around the United States shot up by a very significant one degree. 

While global dimming may be seen as the opposite of global warming  and thus a good thing, it is has it’s own negative effect on the environment in that it reduces the sun’s capacity to evaporate water by around 10 per cent, leading to less rainfall - some scientists believe it is global dimming which led to disastrous droughts in Ethiopia during the 1980s.

Flannery, admits the consequences of pumping sulphur into the atmosphere to increase global dimming are unknown - this to me sounds like a cane toad solution on a Biblical scale.

I don’t seek to denigrate Dr Flannery or be a climate change believer or sceptic - though I reckon he has certainly given some ammunition to the latter here.  However, it’s worth bearing in mind that the Earth has frozen over before, and it has been warmer than it is now - Antarctica had rain forests.

Whether or not the global warming trend is man-made or paert of a natural cycler is an argument I won’t get into here. But I do believe the planet will sort itself out and mankind has to be more flexible to nature’s evolution.

We built farms and towns to suit climatic conditions at a particular time, maybe we need to accept that this was always going to be a moveable feast,

Fuck the rich pandas

A colleague sent me an email, about the Opposition’s Budget response, which is quite funny. I have omitted the original sendee’s name deliberately.

So, you are the former finance minister of this country. The party you loathe is now in government and they release their first federal budget in 13 years. You’re midway through the following day’s news cycle and with your team of intrepid and dedicated staff you’ve pored through the bazillion pages of economic data forecasts seeking some skerrick of information that casts the new treasurer in a bad light.

 And you come up with this:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/14/2244253.htm

The Warmening - now it’s serious!

Forget polar bears, more hurricanes and the melting of the polar ice caps, according to the Herald Sun, beer will be in short supply, more expensive and may taste different as climate change affects barley production, a scientist says.

Mother of God! I’m turning my computer off now.