Ho Ho Ho

Merry Xmas!

Hope everyone has a safe silly season. I hope to be back in the new year with more detailed work on a few items. Drop me a message if you have any suggestions or requests.

Why I Have No Sympathy for Taxi Drivers

First of all - the title relates to taxi drivers who complain about a lack of wages and not in relation to violence towards drivers.

Taxi drivers complain about not getting paid enough money etc. Here is a tip don;t refuse a fair that will generate $30 to $40 income in about 10 minutes rather than sitting in a queue in the city.

On Friday night I was out with a few friends in a last gasp xmas catch up. At the end of the night we all rolled out of the Northcote Social Club in search of transport to get us home. It was decided that 4 of us would catch a cab as we we're all heading in the Preston, Coburg, Reservoir general direction.

Cab Driver One "You going to the city?"
no
screeching tyres

Cab Driver Two - finger pointed towards city
my finger pointed opposite direction
driver does not stop
my middle finger pointed skywards

Cab Driver Three - locked doors, window opened a crack "You going to City?"
No Preston, etc..
"For $50 I will take you"
Looks like you are going to the City by yourself sunshine.

Cab Driver Four - same event as two, maybe he did a block and came back around?

Cab Driver Five got the cash. Nice work Abraham.

Of course i did not include the other drivers who did not even slow down.


So the driver who picked us up had a nice fare, got some income and would have been back in the city 20 minutes later than the other guys. It is illogical to me why a cab driver would want to drive around empty looking for the big fares when they can do a great deal of work running around the 'burbs. No doubt those guys who were looking for the big fare picked up someone to go to Melton only to have them do a runner on them.

Throw a Shoe at Bush

Yes I know you probably have got the link via email. But in case you haven't:

http://www.sockandawe.com/

Is one of the online viral games on how to do what a lot of the western world and what most of the arab world have wanted to do for a while now.

Some things to note:

At the time of this being published there had been over 21 MILLION shoe hits.

and the top 5 countries who had visited the site:

1. United States
2. France
3. Australia
4. United Arab Emirates
5. Saudi Arabia

WTF 6

Honestly - WTF is with the Corby family?




Not bad for a woman who went to court in a defamation case against Today Tonight to save her good name??

I think Tracey Spicer sums it up:

MEMO Mercedes Corby: put your tits away. Nobody really wants to see
them.

I can now exlusively reveal one of the shots.

WTF 5

The poor bastards. Having to listen to Britney over and over. AC/DC would be ok but c'mon!

prisoners tortured by Britney Spears, AC/DC

BRITNEY Spears and AC/DC songs are being used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, outraging human rights groups.The groups are protesting that blasting tracks such as Britney Spears's Baby One More Time, AC/DC's Hells Bells and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA into cells at high volumes for hours on end can cause the inmates long-term psychiatric problems.

Now the musicians themselves have joined the fray, furious that their songs are being used to "break" suspected terrorists, reports the Daily Mail.

Musicians including Massive Attack and Tom Morello, guitarist with US group Rage Against The Machine have joined a campaign against the practice.

According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo bragged that he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of loud music with just four hours of silence.

The practice has been used often in the "war on terror", with US forces systematically playing loud music to hundreds of its detainees.

Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the former US military chief in Iraq, said the aim was "to create fear, disorient . . . and prolong capture shock". Read more personal accounts of prisoners being tortured by pop and rock music in the Daily Mail here

Tram Route 112

It has been a little while since I have caught the 112 tram for work but the rant below still stands.


I have been living in postcode 3072 for 6 years now and have used the 112 tram to get to and from work in the CBD a fair bit. The alternative to the 112 is to walk a longer distance and hope the train turns up on the Epping Line. The 112 has had some "issues" over that time.

How many times have I sat at the eye and ear Hospital stop on Victoria Pde to watch 3 or 4 mostly empty brand new trams going to Box Hill only to see a single length old 112 come around the corner 15 minutes late. Doors open and it is like a 3rd world country inside. I am sure some people have gotten pregnant on that tram it is so crowded.

It is a popular tram line that services one of the busiest restaurant and shop strips in Melbourne along Brunswick Street. It also provides a city commute for people from Parliament Station down Collins Street.

How to make it work better:

1. Limit single length trams to be used on non-peak times. Use articulated trams at peak times. They have more doors, more seats, more standing room. They therefore have less delays as people struggle to get on or off;
2. If the tram is full and there is another tram right behind the first one, keep going until someone asks for it to stop. Most people look at the crowded conditions when the door opens and say bugger it I will catch the next one anyway;
3. Equalise the priority in peak times between the 112 and the 109 at peak and shoulder times.
4. Increase the fair way zones at key locations such as on Brunswick Street and Alexandra Pde where the tram often sits still for minutes.
5. Increase the tram priority at a number of intersections so that it is not delayed;
6. When the existing roundabout at St-Georges Rd / Merri Pde is reconfigured give the tram priority.

Any other suggestions? let me know

update:

I caught the tram again this morning. It took about 40mins to get to the city from West Preston, the time taken was roughly as follows:

10 mins Bell St to Merri Pde along St Georges Road

5 mins Merri Pde to Brunswick St Oval where the Lions used to play

15 mins Brunswick St Oval to Alexandra Pde

10 mins Briunswick St

5 mins Victoria Pde to City fringe.

So the upshot is.. The tram is very efficient in getting to the city. Compare this with the 30mins it take via train from Bell Station to Southern Cross.

The only bit that takes the time is getting across Alexandra Pde. There should be a revisit of the clear way zone north of the pde intersection if Yarra Trams aer serious about improving the times taken by trams.

WTF 2 Part 2 - The Return of the Tits

Good News everybody. You can sleep safe at night:

shipment of inflatable breasts found in Melbourne

December 10, 2008 01:45pm

MORE than 100,000 pairs of missing inflatable breasts intended for a men's
magazine promotion have turned up in Melbourne.The shipment of plastic boobs
from China had been missing for more than a week after Chinese officials lost
the paperwork and put them on the wrong boat, a Ralph magazine spokeswoman said.

They had been due to dock in Sydney last week, but have since turned up at a
Melbourne dock, where they've been sitting for a week. Workers are now
frantically working to put them in bags to go out with the December 15 issue.
Ralph editor Santi Pintado said the incident had cost the magazine $30,000.

"If we'd found them a day later, it'd have been too late to get them on the next
issue," Pintado said. "You'd think the Chinese economy was in enough trouble
without misplacing 130,000 pairs of boobs." The magazine is expected to break
the Guinness world record for the most boobs given away at one time.

WTF 4

Masturbating driver killed two in crash

December 09, 2008 09:07am

A DRUNK who killed two people in a car crash had been masturbating moments before he caused the fatal accident, a court has been told.Imran Hussain, 32, who was twice over the legal alcohol limit, was pleasuring himself and driving at speeds of up to 193km/h when he ploughed into the back of a Fiat Punto carrying a family who were heading for a trip to the United States.

The smash killed Gary Proctor, 47, and his 16-year-old son James. Manchester Crown Court in the UK heard that motorists who came to Hussain's aid afterwards saw that his penis was partially exposed, the Press Association reported. "At the least it must have been a symptom you were not giving your full attention to driving," said Judge Andrew Blake.

The court was told that Hussain had rowed with his wife hours before the crash in August, and had gone out drinking with friends as well as visiting a lap-dancing club. CCTV footage caught him staggering to the counter at a petrol station where he threatened to kill the cashier.

In the moments before the crash, other motorists reported to police their concerns after seeing his powerful 4x4 Audi Q7 car swerving across lanes of the M62 motorway. The fatal accident occurred when he veered from the outside lane of the motorway into the Proctors' car. Prosecutor Andrew Nuttall said police had examined his mobile phone and discovered that he had called an escort agency less than 30 minutes before the smash but it had been closed.

Christian Downard, one of those who had alerted police, went with two friends to Hussain's aid. He saw that Hussain's semi-erect penis was out of his trousers. "

His attempts to contact the agency and the finding of him with an erect penis out of his trousers indicates that he was sexually excited and clearly handling his penis whilst he was driving and at the time of the collision," Nuttall said. Catherine Proctor, 44, the victims' wife and mother who was in the car at the time, said the family had been heading to the airport to go on a holiday to New York and Florida.

"No words or sentence will ever describe the devastation that we feel," she said in a statement.

"No one should ever go through the nightmare I have suffered over the last four months."

Hussain, from Bradford, was jailed for eight years after admitting two counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one charge of driving with excess alcohol. He was also banned from driving for 15 years

Epping Line to South Morang Confirmed

South Morang Extension

Timeframe Construction is expected to begin in 2010
Cost More than $650 million

Project description
Melbourne’s north, including the areas around Lower Plenty and South Morang, is booming. To serve this area, the Epping line will be extended to South Morang.
Five kilometres of track will be duplicated between Keon Park and Epping, and a second platform built at Thomastown. Thomastown and Epping stations will also receive upgrades to improve accessibility.
Three and a half kilometres of new double track will be laid beyond Epping, and a new fully staffed, premium station will be built at South Morang . Services will run from South Morang every 10 minutes in the peak and every 20 minutes at off-peak times.
The new station will include 500 car parks, a safe drop off area, taxi rank, bus facilities and bike lockers.

A new bridge is now being built at Clifton Hill, to overcome a bottleneck and build in more space for trains coming down from the north, paving the way for the extension to South Morang. Preliminary design work on the Keon Park – Epping duplication and South Morang extension is well advanced.
Project benefits
Two tracks between Keon Park and Epping and an extension to South Morang to allow more trains to run and cater for future growth in the north.
A new station at South Morang serviced by up to 380 trains each week,
services from South Morang to run every 10 minutes at peak times

More info also here.

The only bit I don't get is the last sentence. Why does the statement say it will be serviced by up to 380 train per week when the existing Epping station without the proposed works is serviced by 440 trains per week. Does this mean that at least 60 trains will terminate at Epping or will 60 services be removed?

It appears short sighted to not extend all services to South Morang. Maybe it is a sequence timetable issue? who knows. I hope they get it right and also allow for future extensions to Mernda and other growth areas north of Epping.

Currently trains depart Epping every 11 to 12 minutes during the morning peak. Of course making this every 10 minutes is good as it means at least one more morning peak train. Hopefully it will also alleviate the couple of trains that have 15 min gaps either side (like the 8:26am) that get extremely over crowded most mornings.

WTF 3

Husband accidentally shoots wife during sex

A US woman is in a critical condition after her estranged husband told police he accidentally shot her while they were having sex.

Timothy Havens, 38, told police he was reaching for something on the bedside table when the pistol went off, hitting his estranged wife Carolyn in the chest, US news channel WLWT reported.

"[The gun was] right beside the bed. I picked it up and put it off to the side. We were having sex and it went off," he can be heard saying on the emergency 911 call soon after the incident.
Carolyn Havens, 42, was in a critical condition at a hospital in Dayton, Ohio.

Timothy Havens was arrested after it emerged Carolyn Havens had a civil protection order against him, the Springfield News Sun said.

He had previously spent 60 days in jail for assaulting his wife and been ordered to attend anger management classes, WLWT said.

Epping Line to South Morang

Looks like the much needed rail extension may happen sooner rather than never:

An extension of the Epping rail line to South Morang, with construction to start in the election year of 2010 and the first trains to start operating in 2013, at a cost of about $650 million.

and:

Fast-tracking the extension of the Epping line will be welcomed by public transport advocates and residents.
The Bracks government two years ago promised to begin duplicating the track from Keon Park to Epping in 2016 and to extend the double-line to South Morang from 2021.
Mr Brumby will announce that both projects will begin in 2010, to provide services for the booming Plenty Valley.
South Morang will be a "premium station", staffed from first train to last, with about 380 services a week, a 500-space car park, a taxi rank and timetables linked to local bus services. Trains will run about every 10 minutes in peak times and 20 minutes during off-peak.
As part of the project, Thomastown station will get a second platform and will be upgraded to improve access for disabled and elderly passengers — as will Epping station.
Once the second rail bridge now being built across Merri Creek at Clifton Hill and the
South Morang extension are finished, the line will have two tracks all the
way from South Morang to the City Loop.
"This time it's actually going to happen," one Labor insider said last night of the long-promised project.

My concern is th efrequency of trains on the Epping Line. The report states that trains will run every 10 minutes in peak times. They do not do that now. It will mean that if a similar frequency of serivce occurs on the Hurstbridge line (once the bridge is complete at Clifton Hill) there will be 5 min spacing for services between Clifton Hill and the City.

I also find it odd that it is being reported that the bridge over the Merri Creek at Clifton Hill is on the Epping Line when it is not.

Cazaly Results

Well the count is in:

Cazaly Ward (3 vacancies)
Elected: KATSIS, Nick (1st elected)
Elected: MORGAN, Ben (2nd elected)
Elected: FONTANA, Vince (3rd elected)
Enrolment: 33208
Formal Votes: 22852
Informal Votes: 1580 (6.47% of the total votes)
Voter Turnout: 24432 (73.57%
of the total enrolment)
Quota: 5714

Candidate First preference votes
NOVATSIS, George 1294
PETROVIC, Steven 588
MORGAN, Ben 1852
POULTON, Trevor 584
FONTANA, Vince 2812
LEVERIDGE, Liz 1471
KATSIS, Nick 2550
EL-LEISSY, Mohammed 2732
GOGAS, George 448
McCULLOCH, Deanne 1220
SEYMOUR, Terrie 666
GOVAN, Jayne 1862
KARAM, Antoine 424
CUTRI, Joe 1370
KIRIAKIDIS, Louis 895
DONOHUE, Alison 2084

Interesting to note that the Greens candidate El-Leissy was second in first preference votes (12% of formal votes) but did not quite make it. The Labor voting blocks obviously had enough preferences.

WTF 2

Watermelons: Ralph loses inflatable breasts at sea

MORE than 130,000 inflatable breasts have been lost at sea en route to Australia.
Men's magazine Ralph was planning to include the boobs as a free gift with its January issue.
The cargo is worth about $200,000, which is another blow for publisher ACP's parent company PBL, which is already in $4.3 billion of debt.
Gallery: These breasts are plastic - but they are not lost
A spokeswoman for Ralph said the container left docks in Beijing two weeks ago but turned up empty in Sydney this week.
The magazine has put out an alert to shipping authorities to see if they have the container, but if they don't turn up in the next 48 hours it will be too late for the next issue, she said.
Ralph editor Santi Pintado urged anyone who has any information to contact the magazine.
"Unless Somali pirates have stolen them its difficult to explain where they are," Pintado said.
"If anyone finds any washed up on a beach, please let us know."

The Case Against the Mitchell Dam

For a long time, in fact too long to freely admit, I have been posting on sites such as Andrew Bolt's or TBBWP regarding the naive argument for building a dam on the Mitchell River in Gippsland. I thought it was time to post a wrap of my position including some facts and figures to counter those often made up by pundits.

The Catchment

The Mitchell River catchment is quite large covering an area of 4,870 square kilometres made up of mainly woodland and forest. The main rivers in the catchment include the Dargo and Wonangatta. Over the last few years the catchment has been subject to severe bushfires and drought conditions.

Recent Flows

The Mitchell catchment has been subject to well below average flows for an extended period of time. This is the same as the majority of catchments in Victoria. The average flow out of the total Mitchell catchment is 1,355,000ML per year.

As it can be seen even with close to average rainfall the flows from the catchment have been well below average. Looking at the data more closely:

As it can be seen there has been 4 months with above average flows in the last 24, of which, only one (June 2007) was above 125% of the average monthly flow. In the same corresponding timeframe there have been 4 months with flows below 5% of the average flow and 17 months with flows below half of the average.

The June 2007 flood was the result of 3 days of intense rainfall in the catchment. If that event is not included the flows within the system look dire.

Draining Out to Sea?

One claim about the Mitchell River is that it 'just drains out to sea'. This of course is false as the Mitchell River supplies about 30% of total inflow into the Gippsland Lakes System. We have all heard and read about the devastating effects removing the Murray River inflows from Coorong estuary systems in South Australia, so to think that it just 'flows out to sea' is naive.

Last summer the Gippsland Lakes were subject to blue-green algae blooms.

The History of Dam Proposals

There has long been proposals to construct a dam on the Mitchell River in Gippsland. The reason for this construction was not to supply water to Melbourne or to reduce downstream flooding, the main reason was to supply water for a proposed irrigation district on the flats near Sale.

In fact there was a dam constructed across the river in the 1880's but it was washed away and never replaced.

The Current Proposal

Pundits have talked about constructing a dam similar in size to the Thomson Dam.

It would have a storage of around 500 GL and a dam height of around 80m. The SKM report suggests that the annual environmental flow from the dam to supply the river downstream should be around 491 GL or about 37% of the annual flow. This does not take into account any needs of the Gippsland Lakes.

Since the Mitchell catchment supplies a large prtion of flows into the Gippsland Lakes it would be anticipated that the required environmental flows would be much larger than the 37% noted in the report. This increase would reduce the yield of the dam significantly when you consider the average yearly flows in the table above.

The estimated capital cost for the proposal in 2005 dollars $1.35billion (equates to $1.5b in 2008 dollars). In this cost there is an allowance of $480M for a 119km pipeline. This estimate is very doubtful as indicated by a 'very low' confidence level in the report and based on recent costs of $750M for the 70km long North - South Pipeline which has similar diameter pipes.

Based on a similar unit rate as the North - South pipeline the pipeworks would cost in the order of $1.3 Billion. It shold be noted that the pipeworks associated with the Mitchell proposal include a tunnel section through sensitive environments which would dramatically add to the cost.

By revising the 2005 estimate to 2008 dollars and using a current unit rate for the transfer system it would be expected that the Dam would cost in the order of $2.3 Billion. This still includes contingency on the dam construction costs.

Summary

The proposal to construct a dam on the Mitchell River in Gippsland is short sighted.

The capital costs of such a scheme would be closer to many other current alternative supply proposals than what is being reported.

The reliability of the supply is not as high as some would think with only an annual yield of 86GL/year at 95% currently and once the CSIRO climate change effects are taken into account the yield could drop to 69GL/year by 2050.

The environmental damage on the downstream river and Gippsland Lakes would be immense.

Is this a hint of a leak?

From the Herald-Sun website:

Rail project fast-tracked

THE Brumby Government has fast-tracked a major northern suburbs rail project in a move designed to appease commuter angst and unclog the embattled train network.

The Clifton Hill track duplication will be finished early next year - 12 months ahead of schedule.

The Hurstbridge line has only a single track on the existing bridge over the Merri Creek between Clifton Hill and Westgarth stations.

Once finished the additional track on the Hurstbridge line will remove the bottleneck of backed-up trains that has been occurring on the single track for years.

Commuters on the line will get faster travel times in addition to the recent increase of services.

Long-suffering strap-hangers in Melbourne's booming Whittlesea growth corridor have been pushing for a rail extension from Epping to South Morang since the Bracks Labor government promised it in 1999.

It has been put off, delayed and sidelined several times.

When Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky unveiled the Clifton Hill project in February with a 2010 completion date she said it was a higher priority than the South Morang extension.

But the revelation of an early finish to the Clifton Hill project has sparked hopes the South Morang extension will be included in the Brumby Government's transport plan - expected early next month.

An experienced train driver, who wished to remain anonymous, yesterday told the Herald Sun work on the new bridge was well ahead of schedule and on track to be finished in January.

"It'll be up and running and commissioned at least 12 months ahead of what the Department of Transport says on its website," the driver said.

A senior Labor source told the Herald Sun the South Morang extension was odds-on to be included in the transport plan.

Ms Kosky's spokesman, Stephen Moynihan, said the minister was very pleased the work on the upgrade had progressed so well, but would not commit to a revised completion date.

The issue I have with the story is that the bridge duplication was meant to also free up train services on the Epping Line. Fingers crossed the mention of the South Morang extension may result in more frequent services on the entire Epping Line.

WTF

This is my kind of magic. Where does she hide it?

http://users.skynet.be/pdauwe/ursula_martinez.wmv

NSFW and is big at 16Mb download.

Bolt vs Bolt

Andy states here that global warming is not happening.

Andy states here that global warming is happening.

end post.

update

I posted this on the first linked thread:

So Andrew, Are you admitting that warming is occuring then?

and this is the reply:

Read very slowly what I’ve written many times before, so that this time, perhaps, you may at last comprehend.

The world seems to have warmed until a decade ago. It seems not clear at all that this was caused predominantly by humans, especially since the world then stopped warming. But that warming we had didn’t seem to hurt, and the evidence is that future warming may also not hurt.

Certainly, the evidence seems to be that trying to “stop” warming may hurt us
more than would simply coping with the consequences.

Other readers might now advise me whether I’m made this so clear that even Dam Buster has no excuse now for misunderstanding or misrepresenting.

Andrew you fool. Last week you attacked a local council for a spelling mistake. Yet you should have stated "I've" instead of "I'm" in your reply. But hey you are the journalist, sorry I mean the social commentator.

While I am at it the article you linked had a spelling mistake in the first sentence. Have you notified them Bolt?

Also the article itself contradicts Bolt by stating warming will continue and will result in more droughts even for Canada.

update 2

I replied to Andrew in his column asking the above questions and suprise, suprise:

Hey Andrew, /SNIP...you were banned ages ago. Go away. Bolt
Moderators.

Local Elections - Stooges

Well Derr.

The Age today has an article about the use of 'Stooges' in local elections to help drag preferences to particular candidates.

In part it states:

This might explain why the man who authorised Samantha Baseggio's election campaign material was asking yesterday: "Samantha who? I have no idea who she is."

Ms Baseggio's flyer arrived in the letterboxes of Moreland residents
this week, with those of leading Labor candidate Lambros Tapinos printed in the
same shade of blue.

On one side of the flyer, Ms Baseggio declares Moreland has been dominated by political parties for way too long and promises a fresh approach. On the other she directs her preferences to Labor, straight to Mr Tapinos. Ms Baseggio did not return calls from The Age.

I know it is a good thing to allow anyone to run for local office and this should be encouraged to allow people with concerns to get a voice. My issue is that it is too often the candidates from major parties (and in this case Labor) who use this tactic hoping that the extra few votes the stooge will generate will get them over the line. Also using Stooges who are supposedly independant is wrong. It decieves voters who are generally basing their votes on how to vote junk mail and one paragraph of information contained in the ballot paperwork.

Sad really. Especially when it is the local community who misses out on:

1. A voice to represent them and not a political party;
2. Independant Councils and Mayors whose role is to represent the community and not just look for a seat in state politics;
3. Making their vote count the way they intended it to be.

Tuesday Tales

This post has been made on reflection about what happened while I was in high school. I was prompted to write about it after watching an amazing documentary about the Jonestown mass suicide which happened 30 years ago last week. It is amazing what people do in the name of religion.


Once upon a time..

when I was in later high school (Yr 11 and 12) there was a new guy who turned up to my country high school who was a bit odd. Now odd is ok with me, some of my best friends are 'odd', but this guy was more than that. He had a very strange sense of humour and lacked a lot of interpersonal skills.

Being school everyone had a nickname. His was JC (Jesus Christ) and the reaosn he had it was due to his initials being J.C. Anyway JC turned up in Year 11 and was a fairly cluey guy, he did the same subjects as I did and went ok with them.

JC was at a disadvantage, he was coming into a small rural high school where everyone knew everyone (and we're likely related) and he was the new kid who knew no-one. His other disadvantage was that he was not good at sport. The boys in my school were sports mad, Aussie Rules Football, Basketball, Cricket, you name it. JC was bad at them.

Since I was in JC's classes all day long and as time went on the classes got smaller and smaller due to drop outs and going from Yr 11 to Yr 12 I got to know him mainly through a girl I had a massive crush on. She would talk to him, so to keep in her good books, I would talk to him as well.

As time went on I confirmed some of my comments earlier about him being odd. The reason for his oddness became apparent after finding out where he lived. You see in a location not too far from where I lived there was a community that were described by my father as "the nutters". The community was relavtively secretive and did not allow outsiders.

For a long time JC would not listen to anything that we, as outsiders, would say about his community. Of course there were rumours. Lots of rumours. Rumours that centred on the story that in the community there was a room with an 'alter'. Women from the community were taken to the alter and male elders from the community would have sex with the women as a form of renewal and also initiation for new women members, or when daughters of members came of age.

Were the rumours true? Hell I don't know but they certainly had a fair amount of truth involved.

One day JC came to school wearing sunglasses. He would not take them off in class. On closer inspection he had a black eye and bruises on his arms. JC would not say what happened other than to say he had moved out and was living by himself.

A few weeks later he admitted that after all the rumours he had heard he wanted to know for himself. He found his father, who was one of the elders, having sex with a girl who was our age (about 17 at the time). Afterwards he took a baseball bat to his father which resulted in a brawl and JC being expelled from the community.

The community was later shown in A Current Affair as a few former members made complaints about senior community men and their sexual deviancy. Court cases followed.

I now reflect on JC and how the poor guy had to listen to these rumours not believing what we said because of his up-bringing only to have his world collapse because of a lie he had been told by his father.

Post Averted or is it?

Good old Andy, Some rain is forecast and the flood warning goes out on a number of rivers in Gippsland including some that have substantial storages:

Melbourne is on water restrictions, and the Bureau of Meteorology issues a
flood alert:
Flood Watch for East Gippsland Catchments (Mitchell, Tambo, Snowy, Cann and Genoa) Flood Watch for West and South Gippsland (Latrobe, Thomson, Macalister and Avon Catchments and South Gippsland Basin)

The Mitchell? Say, isn’t the river that flooded twice last year already, sending more water down to the sea in one lot than Melbourne uses in a year?

That’s the one:

But wait a minute. Did the river flood? Not according to the BoM:

Final Flood Warning for the Mitchell RiverFinal Flood Warning for the Dargo
River Issued at 10:00 AM on Monday the 24th of November 2008 by the Bureau of
Meteorology, Victorian Regional Office
Almost no rainfall has been recorded in the Mitchell River overnight, and
nosignificant rainfall is expected today. Some stream rises have occurred in
theMitchell River catchment, but no flooding is expected.
Mitchell River upstream of Glenaladale:The Mitchell River at Waterford
peaked at 2.65 metres [minor flood level 3.5metres] early Monday morning and is
continuing to fall.
Dargo River:The Dargo River at Lower Dargo Road peaked at 2.15 metres in
the last few hours, and is expected to fall during today.
Glenaladale:The Mitchell River at Glenaladale is expected remain below the
minor flood level[3.0 metres].
Bairnsdale:The Mitchell River at Rosehill is currently peaking around 4.5
meters. No flooding is expected in the Mitchell River at Bairnsdale

Watch this space. I am working on a post relating to the Mitchell Dam and how unreliable the River actually is for the supply of water based on facts.

Bolt vs BLAIR

In the normal run of the day in conservative blog world Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt agree on just about everything.

Not today. Who are we to believe?

Andrew who stated on Friday that:

Victorians clearly want more water, or such garden-killing restrictions wouldn’t be needed. Victoria clearly has that extra water - now flowing down rivers like the Mitchell. Rather than licence the Government to decide even whether watering your azaleas is “reasonable”, why not simply demand the Government build the new dam we clearly need?

Who is in charge here? The Government or its citizens?

Tim links to the Age’s Kenneth Davidson with the quote of:

Even without rain and the 150GL at the bottom of the dams which is sludge and can’t be used, there is still enough water to get Melbourne through to June 2010 at current consumption rates. With any inflow at all, this limit extends. Even if the inflow was reduced by 30% — the worst possible climate change scenario — Melbourne wouldn’t run out of water until 2015.

There isn’t a water problem — only the perception of a water problem …

To counter the argument by Tim Flannery from 2005 that:

Melbourne’s also vulnerable to water deficits. It’s a large city, it’s in an area of quite dramatic climate change, and therefore will be vulnerable as well.

So who is correct? Andrew Bolt who states we need to build a dam as soon as possible because we are running out of water? Or Tim Blair who thinks there is enough water and that Tim Flannery is a fool because he states that Melbourne could run out of water (this is presumed because Tim doesn’t really state much at all)?Of course who can forget the dishonest cherry picking of reports to make up an attack on Tim Flannery on the issue.It just shows how far these two buffoons will go to push their ideologies and hatred of certain people.

Local Elections - Cazaly Style

Ok, I know, I know. I live in what has to be one of the safest Labor seats in State and Federal Politics. In State elections there needs to be a swing of over 25% in 2010.

So is it any suprise that 9 out of the 16 candidates up for election in the Cazaly Ward of the City of Darebin are ALP members.

What gets me annoyed is that so many of the council members do not stand up for the local community strong enough to lobby the state and federal members to get funding to the community. More often than not they are aligned so closely with the State branch they never want to rock the boat. Our most recent past mayor, Marlene Kairouz, walked straight into the seat of Kororoit as a reward, even though she did not know the issues in the seat.

Well why would the State or Federal Government (either Labor or Liberal) put funding into a seat that they know be Labor for a long time?

So what does this mean? Well the good people of Northern Melbourne miss out on funding on transport services (I will post about the joys of the 112 tram route and Epping rail line one day) and funding for other community grants.

Bolt Gets Fact

Again Andrew uses very short term data to try and counter any predictions that Tim Flannery has made relating to water, specifically rainfall. This time he uses one week’s rainfall to counter an argument relating to long term shortfalls in rainfall. Bolt’s constant use of short history (how cold is it outside?) type arguments to counter long term trends will make any of his climate change arguments look insipid.

Here is Andrew’s in depth analysis:

Let’s revisit yet another prediction of Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery:
Speaking last night at the State Government’s Sydney Futures forum, Dr Flannery warned of a city grappling with up to 60 per cent less water. As temperatures around the world warmed by 2 to 7 per cent, Sydney could glimpse its future by looking at
the devastating impact that global warming had already had on Perth… ”I think
there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis,” Dr Flannery said.

The ABC reported yesterday:

Wet November:

Record rainfall in Perth has led to the November average being
reached just six days into the month; it’s the wettest start to November since
1969.

(No link. Thanks to reader David in Perth.)

And of course it is linked by Tim Blair.

Let’s look at some facts for a change. The BoM data indicates the following:

At Perth Airport the Average Annual Rainfall is 779.3mm

Out of the last 10 years the total annual rainfall has exceeded the average twice. With the highest being 820.0mm or 5% above average. The lowest being 479.6mm in 2006 which is in line with the annual climate summary for Perth:

Annual rainfall - below average: Perth's annual rainfall for 2007 was 703.0 mm on 117 days, compared with the long-term average of 856 mm on about 111 days. In 2006, Perth recorded its driest year on record with 466.8 mm on 97 days.
Perth's wettest month in 2007 was July with 179.4 mm on 19 days, 9.4 mm above the average of 170 mm. The wettest day in 2007 was 16 April with 40.4 mm.

And how much rainfall has Perth actually had during November?

Just 29.4mm.

Not exactly drought breaking. I am sure Tim Flannery is shaking in his waders.

BOTH CAN’T BE MORE WRONG

Cross posted from The Blair/Bolt Watch Project

Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt have again shown their complete ignorance of the facts with their latest feather-fisted attack on comments made by Tim Flannery.

Blair makes the suggestion (to which Bolt dutifully links) that a recent report in The Age contradicts what Flannery stated in 2005.

Here’s what Flannery said during a Lateline interview on June 10, 2005:

MAXINE McKEW: And South Australia and Victoria — what would you say? What’s the good news, what’s the bad news?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, the good news for South Australia is that we are at the end of the Murray River catchment, and our water can taste awful at times and can be rather poor quality, but we do have a large catchment behind it for a relatively small city. So water quality is going to be a significant issue for Adelaide. There is increasing recycling, of course, here as well, which is a good thing. Melbourne’s doing very well with recycling but Melbourne’s also vulnerable to water deficits. It’s a large city, it’s in an area of quite dramatic climate change, and therefore will be vulnerable as well.

MAXINE McKEW: Let’s cover the issue of pricing of water, Tim. Who’s ahead of the
game there?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, Jeff Kennett, for all the terrible things he did, perhaps, to many of us, actually did a lot of reforms that were quite important, and water was among them. It used to be in Melbourne that water would be on a rated basis with a little bit of a cost for your extra water. That’s changed now and you pay for the water you use and there’s a stepped tariff, and that’s a great — that sends a strong signal to the user that water is a precious commodity not to be wasted, and you’ll have to pay for water, and if you use a lot of water you pay a lot more, and that’s the sort of message we really need to get through. I really can’t emphasise that enough, that, you know, in this period of uncertainty, we have to be very careful of our water resources because a lot’s at stake.

Nothing new there. Melbourne is vulnerable to climate change, as highlighted in the CSIRO Climate Change Study. Refer to page 17, which states in part that:

the impact on water supply availability, both streamflow changes due to
climate change and population growth scenarios were used. The system yield
analysis showed that the streamflow reduction for the mid-range climate
change scenario in Table 2 would result in an 8% reduction in the average
annual volume able to be supplied in 2020 rising to 20% by 2050. This data
was then used to assess the shortfall and buffer between supply and demand.

Of course, over the past 10 years the actual streamflow into Melbourne’s storages has been well below even the 8 per cent reduction:

So what does The Age report state that contradicts the above? Here’s what Blair quoted:

Melbourne will have so much water in the next few decades it will no longer make
economic sense to install rainwater tanks or greywater systems in new homes, a
State Government-commissioned report has found.

However, if he’d quoted a little more of the story, we would have seen the following:

MELBOURNE will have so much water in the next few decades it will no longer make economic sense to install rainwater tanks or greywater systems in new homes, a State Government-commissioned report has found.

The Government’s big water projects, including the controversial desalination plant and north-south pipeline, will eliminate the need for ambitious water saving targets for new homes, apartments and renovated houses, according to the report by the Institute of Sustainable Futures, based at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Despite Melbourne Water chairwoman Cheryl Batagol last week expressing concern that the Government’s water plan “may not be enough”, the report said the $4.9 billion projects will yield an extra 240 billion litres “resulting in a likely surplus … until well beyond 2050″.

Do Blair and Bolt even read the articles to which they link? Seems not, and it appears as though they’ve “beclowned” themselves for the umpteenth time.

Flannery was right: Melbourne does have a shortage of water. It will continue to have a shortage of water supply due to the combination of increased population and industry, and less reliable rainfall. The construction of the desalination plant and the North-South pipeline will alleviate the current and future water deficit.

Yet again, Blair and Bolt have demonstrated their profound dishonesty by cherry-picking quotes to create a story.

Popping the Cherry

OK. Thought it would be time that I finally got my arse into gear and made my own blog.



Why the blog name "Up Here in Cazaly"?



Well that is the name of the ward that I happily reside in within the City of Darebin. And since the letter box has been stuffed with propaganda from 432 labour (or is it labor?) potentials the name stuck.



Q: So what to expect from this site?

A: Farked if I know just yet.



Q: What will you blog about?

A: Based on what I see on other sites more than likely it will be on things that shit me! As well as other stuff no doubt.



Q: How often will you blog?

A: Not as often as I should or much more often than I should.



Anyway enough for now. On with the show.

FLAT CAT