Thursday, November 27, 2008

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
.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

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, November 25, 2008

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.

Monday, November 24, 2008

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.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

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.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

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.

Friday, November 14, 2008

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.