Sydney Green Ring

Too Big To Flail

2012-01-19T07:16:00.000+11:00

...The only trouble was, history carried on going, first throwing the world into convulsion on 9/11 and then, with the financial meltdown of 2008-09, pulling the ideological rug from under all those triumphant liberal democracies. We were used to a ''natural'' cycle of boom and bust and some even welcomed its ''creative destruction'', because it meant the weak companies went under while the strong survived, but this bust was something different and more profound. It seemed to be a bust of capitalism itself.

After all, when taxpayers have to bail out banks because they are ''too big to fail'', that surely is a contradiction of capitalism - the survival-of-the-fittest part, anyway. Bailouts amount to nationalisation, the opposite not only of privatisation but also the laissez-faire economics that we were supposed to believe in. This seemed to have more in common with socialism, or even the planned economies of communism. Perhaps it was not the end of history, then, but the end of capitalism - at least capitalism as we know it...

I ask George Magnus, the senior economic adviser to UBS, what he makes of this. ''It chimes with ideas that have been around for a while,'' he says. ''Such as the need for a happiness index, or an economic and social wellbeing index, instead of vanilla GDP...

But if capitalism's supposed nemesis failed, were there any worthwhile ideas that could be rescued from its ashes? Well, one post-communist movement is called participatory economics. Parecon, as it is known, has four elements: solidarity, self-management, diversity and equity. Solidarity means encouraging people to work for the benefit of others as well as themselves. Self-management means that everyone has a say in decisions that affect them. Diversity means giving people more options for how they work and what they consume. And equity is about fairness and equality - nobody should have substantially more wealth or power than anyone else.

See what they did there? It all sounded reasonable, right up until equity, which is back-to-basics communism...

Ormerod again: ''It's not a matter of pulling levers but more of values needing to change. It's like these directors of companies awarding themselves raises when their companies haven't been performing well. Their behaviour is damaging to capitalism.''

Ormerod believes this is not an economic problem so much as a cultural one. ''How do you alter culture? You have to send cultural signals. So governments shouldn't give knighthoods and invitations to Buckingham Palace garden parties to bankers who have ruined the economy through their greed.''...

Capitalism, like the poor, will always be with us, because trade is how society operates. Trade is the human condition. As philosopher Michel Onfray has said: ''Is this the end of capitalism? Absolutely not. Capitalism has been through antiquity, feudalism, the industrial era. It has worn the guise of fascism and now it's wedding itself to the ecology cause. After this latest event, it will take on a new form. It is indestructible and works like the Hydra of Lerne, cut off one head and another grows in its place.''

How might it adapt? Well, Bill Gates has spoken of ''creative capitalism'', an idea to change capitalism to work more in favour of ''the people''. But actually it's the very lack of overall direction that is capitalism's genius. Who could have predicted that we might look to the BMW factories of Germany for a new model of capitalism?

There they are attempting to reuse all the materials that go to make up a car. And what are we to make of the success of employee-owned companies such as British retailer John Lewis? Isn't that a rather fresh capitalist take on the old communist idea that workers should employ capital rather than the other way around?...

Snapshot taken 7:08 am Thursday 19 January 2012

A New Scientist article, 16 October 2008, confirming previous reports about How our economy is killing the earth.

"...It is a vision John Stuart Mill, one of the founders of classical economics, would have approved of. In his Principles of Political Economy, published in 1848, he predicted that once the work of economic growth was done, a "stationary" economy would emerge in which we could focus on human improvement: "There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress... for improving the art of living and much more likelihood of it being improved, when minds cease to be engrossed by the art of getting on."

Today's economists dismiss such ideas as naive and utopian, but with financial markets crashing, food prices spiralling, the world warming and peak oil approaching (or passed), they are becoming harder than ever to ignore..."

http://sydneygreenring.blogspot.com/2008/10/sculpture-by-sea.html

MORE than 10 per cent of Australian farmland is owned or part-owned by foreign firms, according to a government report that cites buy-ups by mining companies as a key reason for foreign ownership.

The report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, says foreign interests also own about 9 per cent of water entitlements and just over 1 per cent of agricultural businesses.

Back from the future as energy experiment ends

AFTER an 18-month experiment in a futuristic house packed with high-tech gadgets and its own powerplant, a Sydney family is looking forward to moving into a century-old weatherboard cottage in the Blue Mountains.

Clare Joyce, Michael Adams and their daughter Ava lived in the Newington home, with the support of utility company Ausgrid and the state government's climate change fund, to test out dozens of energy-saving devices...

The house also functions as a miniature power station, pumping out an average of 32 kilowatt hours a day - much more than the family could use, even though they often worked from home.

A gas fuel cell generated most of the electricity, with a solar-powered pergola in the garden chipping in a few extra kilowatts.

The family also had the use of a plug-in electric car from Mitsubishi - before it was commercially available in Australia. The vehicle recharged in the garage from the home's energy supply and could travel about 100 kilometres before needing more power.

''It's incredibly silent, you just feel like you're rolling along,'' Ms Joyce said. ''We've actually had a few close calls in car parks, where people were relying on their sense of hearing to know we were there … Now when I get back into a normal car, the smell of petrol drives me up the wall.''...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/back-from-the-future-as-energy-experiment-ends-20120118-1q6oj.html

Me? No, I don't work here.

Solar options

2012-01-17T11:03:00.001+11:00

Creating electricity at home: the cleanest and most sensible option under the sun

It may appear counter-intuitive, but getting millions of solar panels onto rooftops saves more money than it costs. Feed-in tariffs enacted by state governments have enabled ordinary Australians using their savings to build a solar power station at home benefiting the community.

When those solar households who had saved to get their panels installed under the solar feed-in tariff programs export their solar production to the grid, which occurs mostly during higher demand daytime periods, they are given a slightly higher than average retail rate for the electricity they are selling. The prices they have been paid are relatively meagre when compared with the ridiculously high rates paid to big coal or gas power plants.

At the same time that little solar households who have invested their money in a rooftop power station are being paid between 44¢ and 60¢ per kilowatt hour, the old power companies with their dirty belching coal and gas plants are receiving as much as $12.50.

In other words, the coal and gas guys are being paid as much as $11.90 more than a home solar generator for just one unit of electricity...

Green fuel fails to meet emissions standards

THE NSW government's plan to ban regular unleaded fuel has been thrown into doubt by the revelation that the state's only ethanol producer, Manildra, has failed the government's clean fuel test, with its ethanol producing more greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought.

New modelling by the Productivity Commission has shown the ethanol produced by the Manildra Group is only 42 per cent more efficient than unleaded petrol, falling short of the target set by the government regulator, Office of Biofuels, which says ethanol should have 50 per cent lower greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels.

Manildra maintains its ethanol is produced from waste products and therefore virtually emissions-free, a line supported by the previous NSW Labor government which originally legislated to replace unleaded fuel with ethanol blended fuel.

But evidence has emerged to suggest Manildra's production of ethanol has increasingly relied on the use of food products grown by the company, which the Productivity Commission says accounts for the growth in emissions...

The Office of Biofuels said Manildra told it 80 per cent of its ethanol was made from waste last year but admitted that Manildra's ethanol has never been independently audited.

The new figures from the Productivity Commission contradict Manildra's estimates, which were largely relied on in the former government's decision-making process to phase out regular unleaded petrol.

From July, NSW petrol stations will no longer be permitted to sell regular unleaded petrol because the government wants to promote renewable biofuels. The decision has divided experts over its benefits...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/green-fuel-fails-to-meet-emissions-standards-20120116-1q39q.html

Cheaper for power company to shut down its generators

...Macquarie Generation is traditionally the most profitable of the NSW government-owned corporations and generates a high level of dividends, but it expects to pay no dividends to the government from June 2014 as profits collapse.
The carbon tax is only one factor in the foreshadowed reversal of fortunes, as steady rises in power prices have reduced electricity demand, while the strong Australian dollar has forced cuts to industrial output, which is also hitting demand...

Resurgent Kia serves it up to local car makers

...Unlike Ford and GM, and not forgetting Toyota, Kia imports its cars and is therefore not a beneficiary of the automotive industry dole that has been handed out by successive governments. The rationales for the payouts to car makers have always ranged from the prosaic: any self-respecting, large economy needs vehicle making in its portfolio of skills, to the cynical: many a seat in Parliament might swing on thousands of direct, and indirect, job losses if the car plants ceased output.

Government assistance and rescuing of large-scale vehicle makers is a tried and true exercise, although history suggests that in most cases it has merely delayed the inevitable for ultimately uneconomic businesses...

A simple source

A new website will connect consumers with their food, writes Paul Mitchell.

Wherever you live, food co-ops, swap meets, community gardens, farmers' markets, free-range producers, box systems and organic retailers are likely to be mushrooming around you. But keeping abreast and plugging into such networks can be daunting.

Enter Nick Ray, who has created a free online resource called Local Harvest. Launching next month, it will be a hub for consumers concerned about where their food comes from and how it's produced. By keying in your postcode, the contact details and other information about sustainably produced food in your neighbourhood will appear...

Speed breeds mean deeds

2012-01-13T08:10:00.000+11:00

Training, not cameras, will reduce the toll

''Speed'' cameras, whether fixed, mobile or point-to-point, will not reduce our road toll (''Road safety expert calls for point-to-point crackdown on all vehicles'', January 12). All motor vehicle crashes are caused by human error, with ''speeding'' being only one issue. Therefore, it is the organic component of the vehicle we need to focus on. Our training of drivers is pathetic, licence testing even more so. We are light years behind Germany, France and Britain in road safety, infrastructure and driver education.

Answer? Compulsory professional training to a high standard, including those who presently hold a licence (they are the people having the crashes); retesting of knowledge, but more particularly ability, every five years - every two for people over 70; licence endorsement tests for different vehicle types, such as high-powered cars, four-wheel-drives and vans, done at the motorist's expense.

But this won't happen; it would be political suicide. Get used to another 1700 lives lost this year and 5000 permanently injured.

I am a paramedic who learnt to drive in Britain. I have seen 33 years' worth of dead and dying people. The organic component can be improved. Lives can be saved.

Stuart Greenshields Wentworth Falls

Look at cars' price tag, not their origin

I don't care if Australia has a car industry (''Coalition moves into reverse over plan to cut car subsidies'', January 12). What I care about is the astronomical price of Australian cars. Luxury cars cost more than double, and sometimes three times as much here as they do in the US, Europe, Japan and Britain.

A Porsche 911 costs about $225,000 here, compared with about $80,000 in the US. Even a rebadged Commodore SS costs a third less in the US.

Our history of protectionism has conditioned us to accept this state of affairs. Why don't we try to change this instead of subsidising multinational car companies to make their cars here? We could further lower taxes for cars with greater fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions. We could make it easier for individuals to import cars.

I don't know if these options are viable. But Australian car prices are ridiculously high, and unjustifiably so. Even the higher dollar hasn't made a big difference.

We don't have a mobile phone industry; why do we need a car industry? Instead of focusing on car manufacturing in Australia, we should look at the cosy conditions for selling cars here.

Andrew Dowling Willoughby

The only abiding principle for the hundreds of millions of dollars given to Australia's basket case motor industry is to preserve the career prospects of a handful of Detroit-oriented auto executives.

Ian Nicolson Banora Point

Trams still giving capital service

People who believe trams are so last century clearly haven't travelled much (Letters, January 11 and 12). Many forward-looking city administrations, such as Tours, Edinburgh and Marseille, have recently installed or commissioned trams. They continue to run in Prague, Vienna, Zagreb, San Francisco, Melbourne, Madrid, Strasbourg, Nantes and Grenoble, to name just a few.

It is the height of conceit that we in Sydney seem to know better and that trams are outdated. The trams in Bordeaux, for example, are the last word in modern technology. Far from having the life squeezed out of it, Bordeaux is alive and kicking.

By contrast, that there is no mass transit option to Moore Park shows how backward Sydney is. People walk from Central because it's quicker than taking a bus. The last time I took a bus from Circular Quay to World Square in the evening - less than two kilometres - it took more than an hour.

Despite Sydney's balmy climate there are no outdoor dining areas in the CBD, as all the space is taken up by buses and cars. Traffic-free shopping is limited to one small part of Pitt Street. So much for liveability.

Kim Fitzwater Clovelly

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/higher-speed-limit-might-cut-tension-accidents-20120112-1pxd3.html

The Path of Least Resistance

2012-01-12T10:08:00.001+11:00

Can Long Beach Prove that Bikes Are Good for Business?

Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, who says he tries to bike 100 miles a week, actually laughs about the car addiction of his mega neighbor to the north. “I love that scene in L.A. Story where Steve Martin gets behind the wheel, backs out of his driveway, and drives to his neighbor’s driveway,” Foster says...

Of course, there are still plenty of cars in Long Beach (though Foster himself drives an electric one), but bicycles are getting more respect, not to mention resources, than ever before. With help from state and federal grants and pressure from local cycling enthusiasts, the city government has installed 130 miles of bike trails, established protected bike lanes (that is, lanes separated from vehicular traffic by physical barriers) on major commuter thoroughfares, created bike boulevards that enable kids and parents to bike or walk safely to and from school, and installed fifty new bike racks.

Perhaps most innovative has been the city's effort to establish bike-friendly shopping districts—the first in the country, officials say—engaging local merchants by showing them how, contrary to common belief, biking can actually bring more customers and vitality to shopping districts. "The math is pretty simple," says April Economides, the principal of Green Octopus Consulting and the leader of the city's outreach to local businesses. "You can park twelve bikes in the amount of space it takes to park one car. And someone who shifts from owning a car to a bicycle tends to have more discretionary income, because, for a commuter, the typical cost of a bicycle is $300 a year, compared to $7,000 a year for a car."...

http://www.thenation.com/article/165585/can-long-beach-prove-bikes-are-good-business

The prospect of peak oil is no longer a ''fringe'' theory held only by a few scaremongers. It is a geological reality that has been acknowledged even by conservative, mainstream institutions such as the International Energy Agency, the UK Industry Task Force and the United States military. Even the chief executive of one of the world's largest oil companies, Total, said recently he expected demand to outstrip supply as early as 2014 or 2015. Given how fundamental oil is to our economies, this signifies the dawn of a new era in the human story.

While the supply of oil is stagnating, demand is still growing considerably. China and India are industrialising at an extraordinary pace, requiring huge amounts of oil, and even in the Middle East and Russia – the main oil exporting regions – oil consumption is growing fast. What this means is that competition is escalating over access to the limited supply, and basic economic principles dictate that when supply stagnates and demand increases, oil is going to get much more expensive – a situation that is already playing out...

Some energy analysts are even suggesting peak oil might signify the ''end of economic growth'', as economies need cheap energy to grow. If that is so, the future is not going to look anything like the past, and we should be preparing ourselves for this – psychologically, socially, economically and politically.

The rise of consumer societies since the industrial revolution has only been possible due to the abundant supply of cheap fossil fuels – most notably, oil – and the persistence of consumer societies depend upon continued supply. In the absence of oil, for example, the average Australian would need the labour of about 130 ''energy slaves'' working eight hours a day to sustain their lifestyle. The looming implications of peak oil suggest the global consumer class should begin preparing itself for a significant downscaling of the highly energy and resource-intensive lifestyles that are widely celebrated today.

This may be desirable for environmental and social justice reasons, of course, but oil supply may soon enforce such downscaling, whether it is desirable or not. While the requirement to consume less stuff will be a great and unpleasant cultural shock for all those who do not anticipate it, members of the global consumer class could actually benefit from this transition by voluntarily embracing a ''simpler life'' of reduced energy and resource consumption. Consume less, live more. It's well worth considering...

THE strong Australian dollar and the slide in world aluminium prices has triggered the loss of 250 jobs across two smelters in the Hunter Valley, as the federal government is spending billions of dollars to prop up the car industry.

The cuts, equal to 15 per cent of employment at the two smelters, will hit the Norwegian-owned Kurri Kurri smelter hardest, with 150 jobs to go in addition to 45 jobs cut late last year...

THE federal opposition is rethinking its plan to cut $500 million from car industry assistance as a new political consensus emerges about the need for taxpayer subsidies to protect Australian manufacturing jobs.

The opposition's industry spokeswoman, Sophie Mirabella, and resources spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, finalised a review of manufacturing policy for the Coalition leader, Tony Abbott, late last year.

The Herald understands it recommends that the Coalition review its plan to cut $500 million from the Automotive Transformation Scheme, saying continued subsidies should require long-term investments from the carmakers for models with export potential...

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/coalition-moves-into-reverse-over-plan-to-cut-car-subsidies-20120111-1pviw.html

Point-to-point cameras measure the time it takes for motorists to move between locations. Fixed cameras register speeding motorists at specific points.

Motorists typically slow down within 800 metres of a fixed camera. But the 15 point-to-point cameras installed on highways across NSW monitor heavy vehicles on stretches of road up to 60 kilometres long.

The Australian Trucking Association echoed Dr Job's call to extend the system to all motorists. The NRMA has resisted the idea.

Dr Job also said NSW would benefit from a sharp increase in the number of mobile speed cameras that operate in unpredictable locations...

http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/road-safety-expert-calls-for-pointtopoint-crackdown-on-all-vehicles-20120111-1pvj7.html

I don’t know why, but when I found the details online, I expected some anger, some shock in the words that revealed the details of the accident — Oliver’s car had gone into a tree, which had crushed his side of the car. But there were none. It was standard, objective reporting.

I’ve written so many similar words before, but I didn’t appreciate the impact they can have on those who read them, and have to deal with the grief and anger, while I simply got to work on yet another story on yet another young life being snatched away.

It was a sobering moment.

Every summer, police make special appeals for people to drive carefully. It never works. Almost daily, the holiday road toll is read out on television news programs and written about in newspapers, almost like sport scores. Which state or territory has done the worst, had the most fatalities?

Oliver’s death will affect so many people. His parents, step-parents, older sister and younger brother; his extended family of cousins and aunts and uncles; friends and colleagues. And don’t forget the emergency services people who were at the scene, working for more than an hour to release him and his girlfriend, who survived, from what was left of the car.

The effect will be different for every person. Forever, they will carry the burden of being ‘‘touched by the road toll’’, a club no one wants to be part of...

Incentivation - is that a real word or did you read it in the Tele

2012-01-10T07:28:00.001+11:00

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What incentivises you?

More... http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/06/28/rsa-animate-crisis-capitalism/

Maldives - the last resort.

2012-01-07T09:04:00.003+11:00

AFP spies targeting green activists

THE Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, has secretly pushed for increased surveillance by federal police intelligence officers of environmental activists who have been protesting peacefully at coal-fired power stations and coal export facilities.

Documents released to the Herald under freedom of information laws confirm the police are "continually monitoring" anti-coal mining and other environmental groups. Much of the intelligence collection is carried out for the federal police by a private contractor, the National Open Source Intelligence Centre*, in Melbourne.

Freedom from Information?

*Established in August 2001, the National Open Source Intelligence Centre (Australia) provides state and federal agencies with a dedicated open source Issue Monitoring, Research and Analytical Support capability.

NOSIC specialise in public order intelligence, transnational threat awareness and crime intelligence support.

NOSIC aims to provide Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) on the identity, capability and intentions of organisations or individuals that engage in radical activism, criminal (terrorist) activity or unlawful behaviour motivated by politics, ethnicity, religion, radical dissension, hate or financial gain.

NOSIC also supports global business operations and seeks to provide those clients with a tailored service aimed at supporting and enhancing in-house security and emergency response capabilities. This extends to meeting upstream situational awareness needs whilst stimulating downstream operational security considerations...

No information is collected unlawfully or obtained at its source by clandestine or covert means.

http://www.nosic.com.au/

Growing vegies becomes a question of life and death

...The market gardens have been worked by Chinese for at least a century. Two farming operations produce bok choy, fresh herbs and other vegetables for local grocers, restaurants and Flemington markets. Part of the site has been vacant since a third business closed last year.

Now, Randwick Council is moving to rezone the gardens from residential to small lot rural ''in recognition of its contribution to local food production, biodiversity, heritage and scenic values''. If successful, cemeteries would be a prohibited use. Strong community interest in having access to locally grown vegetables was a factor in the council's decision, a spokeswoman said.

The proposal goes on public exhibition in a few weeks...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/growing-vegies-becomes-a-question-of-life-and-death-20120106-1pofi.html

Man charged with killing AA mentor

HE WAS a former alcoholic who had turned his life around to become a full-time volunteer, bike builder and environmentalist.

But John Foss, a ''brilliantly funny, crazy bon vivant'' who moved from Sydney to the mid-north coast six years ago, allegedly still fell victim to the tragic effects of the addiction on people.

A member of Alcoholics Anonymous driving a white van allegedly mowed down Mr Foss, an AA volunteer, as he rode his motorised bicycle along Coolamon Scenic Drive in Mullumbimby on Tuesday...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/muchloved-volunteer-run-down-from-behind-on-bike-murder-charge-20120105-1pm2d.html

Ford plays down minister's meeting with US car bosses

...Local car makers have been campaigning for more government assistance in order to commit to long-term investments that could top $1 billion and carry local manufacturing into the next decade...

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/ford-plays-down-ministers-meeting-with-us-car-bosses-20120106-1pogb.html

Mission to rescue car industry

A government minister has been dispatched to Detroit in a desperate attempt to rescue the Australian car industry.

Kim Carr's mission has become all the more pressing since sales figures confirmed the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon had taken their biggest hit in more than half a century...

Ford Australia is in a particular bind because factories in Thailand have, with local government support, won contracts to build Ford's Focus small car, a new small sports utility vehicle, and the Ranger ute.

A new Ford hatch unveiled this week - which was engineered and designed in Brazil with some involvement from Ford Australia - will probably be made in India. With the Ford vehicles being built in Thailand representing the three largest categories in Australia, Broadmeadows has been forced to find a business case to produce a medium or large car - sales of which are declining worldwide.

Australia is one of only 13 countries that can build a car from scratch: design, engineer and manufacture. The industry estimates it employs directly and indirectly 59,000 people...

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/mission-to-rescue-car-industry-20120105-1pmyu.html

One million new cars for 2011

It was a year of change and challenges for the automotive industry as new-car sales snuck past the one million mark for only the fourth time.

Australians last year bought more than 1 million cars, for only the fourth time, but they continue to shun Australian-made cars.

The 1,008,437 sales represented a 2.6 per cent drop over 2010's level and 3.9 per cent off the industry's official vehicle sales forecast of 1.05 million.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries pointed to environmental disasters, supply problems and global economic uncertainty as hurdles in the car buying charge that makes Australians rank in the top 10 nations for car ownership...

"What I think we're going to see over time is a transition on the part of the manufacturers that will be informed by and driven by consumer preference.

"Australians are embracing SUVs as the new family car. Cars people are buying are getting smaller. Small and compact vehicles saw the greatest increase in consumer support."...

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/one-million-new-cars-for-2011-20120105-1pm5y.html

Boat saw us and left, say survivors

...The asylum seekers say the vessel that found and then abandoned them was an Indonesian search and rescue vessel. Indonesian authorities are adamant it was not.

The incident, 40 nautical miles out to sea, led to at least 20 deaths. It occurred after about 35 asylum seekers had been at sea for three days without food or water, clinging to the upturned vessel in heavy waves.
The 13 people who stayed with the boat were eventually rescued by a passing ship. Three of those men, now in detention in Surabaya, said many of their fellow asylum seekers were gripped by despondency and panic after the appearance of the vessel, first in the morning, then in the afternoon.

''We saw the boat of search and rescue twice. We waved our shirts above our heads, we shouted but they didn't come and save us,'' said Samin Guhl, a Pakistani.

''They saw us, I am sure of that … because they stopped and they were looking at us … If the rescue boat had stopped and helped many people would now be alive.''...

Ali Mohammad, an Afghan, had a black eye and two deep gashes on his legs, which he said were the result of a savage beating by guards who caught him trying to escape.

Some said they had been hit with electric prods after a riot in which they lit mattresses, tried to smash the fence of the detention centre and threw rocks at staff.

''I told them I was a refugee, that I had lost my whole family,'' said Dawood Waladbegi, an Iranian whose wife and two children died in the sinking. ''They spat on me, beat me and told me I was in their country now and it was their rules,'' he said...

That sinking feeling

...As a man who lives with the consequences of climate change, and looks out his window at a rising sea every day, Nasheed brooks no argument from deniers.

Even Male - the Maldivian capital and the most densely populated island in the world, with more than 110,000 people crammed onto 1.77 square kilometres of land - required tens of millions of dollars spent on a three-metre sea wall to keep the ocean out.

''The science here is very sorted,'' Nasheed says. ''They say there is a window of opportunity of about seven or eight years.''

For some in this archipelago, that window is already closed. Already, 14 of 200 inhabited islands are gone. Coastal erosion has made their seaside villages unliveable. A further 70 islands rely on desalinated drinking water because aquifers have been overcome by seawater. At least 80 per cent of the Maldivian landmass is less than a metre above sea level, the archipelago's highest point a mere 2.4 metres above high tide.

A sea-level rise of 59 centimetres over the next century, the upper limit forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would render most of the Maldives uninhabitable.

The government is already saving money, stashed away from its $600 million tourism industry, to give it the option of buying land in another country. Sri Lanka and India, for their proximity, and Australia, for its space, are the names that have been publicly considered.

But that is a last resort...

Beware the white van and ute

2012-01-05T10:23:00.004+11:00

A man has been charged with murder after the hit-and-run death of a cyclist in the NSW Northern Rivers, police say.

A 60-year-old man was riding his motorised bicycle in Mullumbimby about 10.30am on Tuesday when he was allegedly hit from behind by a white van.

The van driver allegedly failed to stop at the scene.

The cyclist was found by a passer-by and taken to Mullumbimby Hospital where he died, police said.

Police arrested a 53-year-old man yesterday morning at a house in Nashua, where they also seized a white Toyota HiAce van for examination...

MORE than 900 NSW petrol stations and depots could be leaking fuel into soil and groundwater and petrol-related land makes up the bulk of the state's 300 most contaminated sites, official data shows.

Figures contained in a NSW Auditor-General report released late last year show 770 service stations and 176 other petroleum sites were actually or potentially contaminated, with many leaking fuel from underground tanks.

In two of the worst confirmed cases, high levels of the cancer-causing agent benzene leaked from a Brighton-le-Sands petrol station and were detected beneath a waterfront park, and elevated concentrations of a toxic chemical mix were recorded inside a home near a service station at Rosebery...

YOU have to wonder about people sometimes, don't you, eh? EH? We say that because a two-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo has suspended its head chef after a diner came close to death having deliberately eaten the most poisonous part of the potentially fatal pufferfish, the London Telegraph reports. Eating fugu pufferfish is widely viewed as the mealtime equivalent of Russian roulette: it's very popular among idiots. This is because the expensive winter delicacy in Japan contains a concentration of anhydrotetrodotoxin 4-epitetrodotoxin in its liver or ovaries that is up to 1200 times more lethal than cyanide. Anyway a 35-year-old woman eating at the Fugu Fukuji restaurant, in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district, in November, apparently asked the chef to serve her the liver of the fish, and well - this will come as a shock - but it made her very ill, and now she is being treated at a local hospital. But the Tokyo metropolitan government has temporarily withdrawn the licence of chief chef, Takeshi Yasuge. ''The chef served a liver knowing that it is toxic, even if it was a request from the customer,'' a public health official said. He got off lucky. Traditionally, chefs who failed to prepare the dish correctly and caused the death of a customer were bound to commit a ritual suicide with their own fish knife. A spokesman for Michelin said it had no plans to withdraw the restaurant's two stars, which were awarded this month after two of the guide book's assessors ate a fugu dish. There is a safe genetically modified fugu fish, but no one buys it because it isn't dangerous enough. Pfft.

Dreams don't die, they just silently rust away

2011-12-31T07:10:00.002+11:00

White chicks running down the streets not being chased by thugs in limos. Two hundred hipster kids on bicycles arrive two days before the re-opening his the most successful night ever, and this entrepreneur only wants to bring back Cadillac?

Only in Detroit where dreams never die, they just get wrapped in naphtha and slowly turn to rust.

http://www.palladiumboots.com/video

"Detroit has always been a place where things have been made," says Alex Feldman, one of the project's creators, who works on economic development strategies with the company U3 Ventures. "That tradition is still alive here. But it's starting to shift in a small way to a more [artistic] culture of manufacturing and creation."

The FAB Lab, a part of Wayne State University's TechTown initiative, recently won a planning grant from ArtPlace America, a collaboration of charitable foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and federal agencies. The funding is designed not just to feed starving artists or prop up grand old arts institutions. Under the banner of "creative placemaking," these grants aim to inject new life into local economies.

"Our idea is that we will invest in art and culture as part of a portfolio of strategies meant to transform communities," says ArtPlace president Carol Coletta.

In September, ArtPlace announced $11.5 million in grants for the Detroit FAB Lab and 33 other projects designed to "integrate artists and arts organizations into key local efforts in transportation, housing, community development, job creation and more." Two months prior, the NEA doled out $6.5 million in the first round of Our Town grants, funding 51 public-private partnerships that are also trying to both buoy up the arts and reshape communities...

"Advocates of creative placemaking are careful not to present their work as a panacea. But they firmly believe that art has a central role in reviving urban economies and communities. As examples, Coletta offers the Design District in Miami; the ArtPrize festival in Grand Rapids, Mich.; WaterFire, which lights up the rivers in downtown Providence, R.I., with dozens of bonfires; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, which is credited with helping to fuel the resurgence there.

It's the SoHo story gone viral. But beyond anecdotal evidence, what kind of evidence is there that this kind of thing works? Nationally, arts and culture organizations generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, according to the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. But measuring the economic impact of the arts is a slippery business.

Coletta says her organization will be watching the recent grantees closely, in an effort to gauge something she calls "vibrancy." What does that mean? ArtPlace will track the number and kinds of people that come to these communities, the types of jobs and activities there, and the value of real estate and other amenities over time.

"Vibrancy is probably the best proxy we have for the quality of place," Coletta says. "Quality of place is essential for attracting and retaining human capital. And human capital is essential to the economic well-being of communities."

There you have it: the arts recast as urban revitalization strategy...

http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-11-03-can-the-arts-save-struggling-cities

It's not what you do, but the way that you do it

2011-12-30T09:26:00.000+11:00

Recent reporting states Neanderthal's brain cavity is 10-20% larger than Homo sapien.

...Neanderthal cranial capacity is thought to have been as large as thatof a Homo sapiens, perhaps larger, indicating their brain size mayhave been comparable, or larger, as well. In 2008, a group ofscientists created a study using three-dimensional computer-assistedreconstructions of Neanderthal infants based on fossils found inRussia and Syria. The study showed Neanderthal and modern humanbrains were the same size at birth, but by adulthood, the Neandertalbrain was larger than the modern human brain...

(Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal Sunday, 1 January 2012)

Liberals (American small L type) are prone to skepticism, and hence higher in anxiety and neuroticism. Conservatives (American big C type) have no such doubts, and hence need ask no further questions - everyone else has it wrong. With that sense of surity and lack of doubt comes a sense of entitlement unless it is tempered by compassion. Maybe religion exists to prevent the rich from eating the poor, and not the other way around, as is so often claimed.

...This elevated tendency for depressive and anxious disorders is compelling evidence of fundamental differences in the neurophysiological make-up of Liberals and Conservatives. Elevated depression and anxiety rates provide further evidence of a right hemispheric bias in the average Liberal. There is substantial evidence that the right hemisphere is more strongly linked with depressive and anxious disorders than the left.

The stronger the Liberal belief, the greater the probability of depression and anxiety. Conversely, the stronger the Conservative belief, the lower the probability of anxious disorders. However, depressive disorders do not follow this trend in the males, as the Very Conservatives were slightly more likely to have a depressive disorder than the regular Conservatives, but still much less than the average Liberal...

In our March 2005 survey we found a few other things that could also be considered survival advantages for those with susceptibility towards depression.

The first is the enhanced tendency for multitasking. Multitasking is simply the ability to inter-mingle multiple unrelated behaviors simultaneously. The phenomenon of multitasking is common in animals that live in predator-rich environments, where attention to the environment is crucial during feeding, nesting, and mating behaviors. While humans generally do not live in predator-rich environments, there can be an advantage towards enhanced environmental focus while still attending to the tasks at hand.

Depressives (and the anxious) also have a stronger tendency towards offspring entitlement. It seems that depressives have a stronger desire for improving the material wealth of their children.

We also found evidence that depressives are more likely to follow societal rules. They are less likely to be involved in confrontations with others, especially violent confrontations. The depressives also tend to be much less competitive, thereby reducing the overall level of intra-group competition at work, school, or other social environments.

Brack and Zhang, October 2005

http://neuropolitics.org/defaultoct05.asp

retreived from Neuropolitics 30 December 2011

It's not me, it's you.

2011-12-29T08:39:00.000+11:00

Driving has lost its cool for young Americans

...But even though the U.S. lags way behind other developed countries on public transit, American teenagers are increasingly losing interest in driving too. Long gone are the days when a car symbolized ultimate freedom and cruising Main St. was a preferred teen pastime.

In 2008, just 31 percent of American 16-year-olds had their driver's licenses, down from 46 percent in 1983, according to a new study in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention. The numbers were down for 18-year-olds too, from 80 percent in 1983 to 65 percent in 2008, and the percentage of twenty- and thirtysomethings with driver's licenses fell as well. And even those with driver's licenses are trying to drive less; a new survey by car-sharing company Zipcar found that more than half of drivers under the age of 44 are making efforts to reduce the time they spend packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.

The decline in driving by younger Americans is fed by many factors: the high cost of gas and insurance at a time of economic insecurity; tighter restrictions on teen drivers in many states; and roads that are more congested than ever, making driving less fun than ever.

But the impact of the internet is big too. "It is possible that the availability of virtual contact through electronic means reduces the need for actual contact among young people," says Michael Sivak, research professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and coauthor of the study on driver's licenses. "Furthermore, some young people feel that driving interferes with texting and other electronic communication."

"American youth have fallen out of love with automobiles"...

http://www.grist.org/transportation/2011-12-27-driving-has-lost-its-cool-for-young-americans

My Plague Round

2011-12-27T10:00:00.000+11:00

MY PLAYGROUND - PREVIEW from KASPARWORKS on Vimeo.

Interesting take on accessing public and private space in the urban setting. Less equipment needed to start. When you grow up you stop playing? When you stop playing you grow up? Or, when you stop playing you just get old and die.

For those 10% psychiatric casualties that understand what the proactive exercise of parochial pastoral care precipitates. Or what the subtext was when "the messengers" continually "harped" on at me that I should GROW up.

The same "messengers" who told me that artists don't build houses, don't ride bicycles, don't have sexual elations with women, that kind of thing.

The annual Big Dink in the cruel offing

2011-12-26T08:46:00.000+11:00

Booze the problem in wealthy suburbs

THE northern suburbs of Sydney could have the healthiest residents in the city if it weren't for just one thing - their drinking.

A Herald analysis of NSW health statistics by local government area has found vast disparities in the health of Sydneysiders, with poorer suburbs bearing a far greater share of the burden of disease.

While the northern suburbs were the healthiest parts of Sydney, they were let down by hospital admissions linked to alcohol use. Hunters Hill, Manly and Mosman made up three of the five local government areas with the most admissions. The figures include only residents of those suburbs - not people who visit them to drink.

The healthiest local government area in Sydney, which topped three categories and did not fall in the bottom five for anything, was North Sydney.

Ku-ring-gai and Lane Cove were first in two categories and not in the bottom five for any.

The director of population health for the South Western Sydney and Sydney local health districts, Peter Sainsbury, said alcohol was almost unique among health indicators in that risk was not linked to poverty...

Professor Sainsbury said socio-economic differences were the most significant factor in explaining health inequalities. Poorer people tended to have less access to safe jobs, quality housing and good education.

"These harmful factors hunt together in packs and they augment each other," he said. "It's the way we structure society that makes this happen. It's not just the result of individual fickle behaviour."

The data was compiled from the Health Statistics NSW website of the Ministry of Health.

The Herald used Australian Bureau of Statistics data to rank local government areas by socio-economic status. Each was rated according to 11 indicators, from antenatal care and smoking during pregnancy to alcohol and smoking-related hospital admissions and potentially preventable deaths such as those linked to unhealthy lifestyles or lack of healthcare.

Campbelltown was in the bottom five for nine of the 11 categories. Blacktown was the second most unhealthy area.

Holroyd, Penrith and Rockdale came third and Botany Bay and Sydney fourth. Sydney, which has extremes of rich and poor and is in the middle in socio-economic disadvantage, had about double the potentially preventable deaths of other poor performers, and nearly five times more than the best performing area...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/booze-the-problem-in-wealthy-suburbs-20111225-1p9l6.html

Oh helleluja, how far we have come in embedding social attitudes and tropes of John Howard's 1950s American idyll...

“Membershipin each social class tends to impose its own kind of strain on peoplein it. There seems to be a general agreement that the most severestrain (or the least capacity to withstand strain) is in the bottomclass. People of that category have twice as many psychiatricbreakdowns as they should have if mental illness were distributedevenly over the population. A team of sociologists and psychiatristsat Yale University, headed by August B. Hollingshead and Frederick C.Redlich, made an exhaustive study of the social relationship betweenmental illness and social class. These investigators found that aperson in the bottom class (Class V) was eleven times as likely tosuffer from schizophrenia as a member of the top class (Class I).Schizophrenia it should be added, follows to a large extent thegeneral pattern of distribution of mental breakdown over the classes.(By this I mean it is not by its nature peculiar to the lowestclass.) Some types of mental disorder do show some tendency to favoura certain class. The manic-depressives are three times as prevalent,proportionately, among the two upper classes as among people in thebottom Class V. Juergen Reusch has notice a preponderance ofpsychosomatic reactions (ulcers, hypertension, allergies) in peopleof the lower-middle (or limited success) class. He attributes this toa lack of expressive facilities, because of their drive to conformityand their excessive repression. And Joseph A. Kahl points out: 'If thesymbolic middle-class neurosis is obsessive compulsivity,complicated by ulcers, the upper-class illness is ennui, complicatedby alcohol'. And speaking of alcohol, earlier investigators have notedthat among nationality groups the Irish have led, by severallengths, all other in alcoholism.

Whatis more startling, perhaps, is the discrimination show againstpersons of the lower classes by psychiatrists, both in privatepractice and at the free or low-cost clinics. This discrimination,arises in large part from the inability of upper-class psychiatriststo communicate with lower-class patients; so that the patients arenot regarded as good prospects for extended individual treatment.

TheYale team found that, even at the out-patient clinic where cost is nofactor, 'the higher an individual's social class position, the morelikely he was to be accepted for treament, to be treated by highlytrained personnel, and to be treated intensively over a long period'.(Students treated the lower classes, residents-in-training tended tobe assigned to middle-class patients; and the senior staff memberstook the higher class patients.) It was found that these clinicsspend eight times as much money treating a Class II patient as they dotreating a Class V patient. There is a tendency to give individualpsychotherapy to the higher classes, and administer shock treatment,drugs, organic therapy, etc., to the lower-class patients.

Hollingsheadand Redlich report that this finding of discrimination 'came as a“bolt out of the blue” for the men who determined the policitesof this clinic. It was certainly not planned. A similar situation isfound in the public mental hospitals, where, also without regard tothe ability of the patients' families to pay, the acuteschizophrenics in Class III are more likely to get psychotherapy thanClass IV and V patients in the same disease group who entered thehospital at approximately the same time'. The Class IV and Vschizophrenic, they add, may receive one or two series of organictreatments in a a public hospiral. If these do not succeed, 'the patient drifts to the back wards where, in stultifying isolation, heregresses into a world of his own'.”

VancePackard

TheStatus Seekers(1959)

pps230-231

Of the diseases mentioned above one is conspicuously 'present' - ulcers. Unless they are of the skin kind, ulcers of the stomach are generally caused by Helicobactor pylori. The treatment for which earned two Australian medicos the Nobel Prize for Medicine, and removed a bread and butter income stream cash cow for the Gastroenterologist and the Harmaceutical professions.

The history of self-experimentation is littered with corpses, proof to the truism no good deed goes unpunished.

http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=24&ClientID=18959

Early on in my Honours year at RMIT, a sucker punch (sucre punch? Sugar is apparently a key ingredient to spell casting, something to do with the way it effects metabolism and psychobiology, as is trust, oxytocin, dopamine, etc.) was being delivered by 'the messengers' to have me study religion(s), "as part of your fine art training, religion is infused in all aspects of polity".

And so it is.

Alcohol is the somatic substance of one particular branch of western spiral theocracy, typically the Catholic 'tragic' strain of the Christian arm of Abrahamic narratology.

Cannabis is the somatic substance of the eastern theocracy, the basis of the lotions and potions, smells and spells, of the the kundalini serpent of the symbolic dragon/draco spiral arm of IndoChinese origin.

Now if I could only figure out what induces sane men and women to worship ascetic, self-hating, sack-cloth-socialism... and bottle it.

And, so it came to p'ass.

'The messengers' were both rite and wrong. Affectively creating a theatrical space in which the Other(s) were alternately script writer, off stage prompt, film crew, editor, broadcaster and audience. Impossible mission to call it "spiritual" so much as i-ron-ic.

Her's one/won/juan Ron ~~prepared~~ softened up, earlier.

Was it Dionysus, Jim ~~Bacchus~~ Backus or Nietzsche that was the god of madness? (One for the kiddies). What was the point in sending Apollo to the Moon to play with the lunatics on the dark side, when his project was to balance the horned and hoved devil (that waskally ~~Bacchus~~ Dionysis) here on earth. Did the cojoining of a sun god and lunar diety produce harmony or just another blues harp?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, volumes have been writ and published about the positive, health giving effects of green space, more so for the poor for some reason. Can you join the dots between Rockdale, Botany Bay and Sydney - population density? Pub density? Traffic density? Library density? Human density?

The veracity of any state sponsored or institutionally ingrained metaphysic is in the epidemiology. The gold standard for epidemiology is suicide and the suicide rate goes up when conservative governments are in power. Hmmm.

Voodoo Economics anyone?

http://www.vice.com/en_au/hamiltons-pharmacopeia/nzambi-episode-1

Nigh Eve

2011-12-25T11:07:00.001+11:00

On the second day of christmas

An Xmas witch.

GreenWay news

2011-12-24T13:14:00.002+11:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More marrickville

Flip to page 5 for a sort of confirmation the GreenWay is back on track, or still a turtle on its back.

The Killing Joule Economy

2011-12-24T08:53:00.002+11:00

Given that carbon is a naturally occuring substance and taxing carbon is like taxing water. Water has its own cycle in which it goes through various states from almost gas to liquid to solid, acquiring through admixture a range of particles and disbursing itself of these particles along the cycle.

There needs to be another way of measuring consumption and waste to balance the equation of only consuming enough to maintain life and minimising waste. This leads to the ideal measure of consumption as being energy. The measure of energy in Australia at least, is the joule, or more correctly the kilojoule.

This brief introduction to reimagining debt was the result of a hypnotic anger induction delivered by age old means - using telepathy. The result of such induction scares the neighbours and probably scares the horses and forms part of the reason I am being thrown out of my apartment - two days before Xmas I received a letter telling me I had 90 days to remove myself.

Thanks to all who perpetuate this anachronistic form of telepathy for the process driven, mental manipulation, repression, torment and disruption it has caused my life. It has helped me define how not to live - magic is applied religion, and religion is applied fear - and strengthened the resolve to practice the lessons learned from authors such as Foucault, Onfray, Ehrenreich, Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.

Calories
The Currency of All Economies
by Thomas J. Elpel

Adapted from Direct Pointing to Real Wealth: Thomas J. Elpel's Field Guide to Money

Most economists rely on computer printouts of numerical data for their financial planning. By comparing one series of digits with another they can find the immediate trends in the economy and take advantage of those trends. To most people that seems normal. To me it always was, and still is, artificial. I have always wanted to help both people and the environment, and I learned at an early age that knowledge of the economy could be one tool to reach that end. However, I wanted more than just the knowledge of how to generate a positive series of numbers. I was looking for something bigger. I was searching for universal truths. I wanted knowledge about the economy that was constant from year to year, from culture to culture. I wanted knowledge that would be useful to a poor person or a rich person, in our culture, or in any culture. The truths about economics that I found were not in the New York Stock Exchange, but in anthropology and nature.

Little has changed since the Stone Age. We still have the same basic needs today as in millennia past for such things as physical and mental well-being, shelter, fire, water, and food-it is only the way we meet those basic needs that has changed. For example, as hunter-gatherers we met our needs largely on our own; each of us produced every aspect of our culture, from shelter to clothing to entertainment. Today we have the same needs, but we more often meet those needs through the network of society, trade, and money. Nevertheless, if we look beyond the illusion of money we will discover that our economy today-like the economies of all past cultures-is based not on dollars or Duestche marks or yen, but on calories of energy.

The calorie is a unit of measuring energy. Specifically, it is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius. The caloric value of food is measured by igniting the food to find out how much heat it releases. As human beings, you and I require approximately 2,500 calories of energy to fuel us through each day. The calories we consume come from the sun. Plants convert sunlight into food that we and other animals can eat. Petroleum and coal also contain calories of solar energy, but that energy was captured by plants millions of years ago. The calories from these and other sources are ultimately the basis of all economies.

The economies of our ancestors may have seemed different from ours, without all the institutions of finance that we have, but they were still surprisingly similar, even before there was money, and even before the very first trade or barter ever took place. Our ancestors of long ago may not have had money, but they still had to make decisions that were economical. For example, there were a great many edible plants and animals in their environment which they could harvest and consume for calories, but not all animals or plants were economical to hunt or gather. There were many food resources which were difficult to gather, so more energy would be expended than gained in the process. The result was a caloric deficit. For a food resource to be economical, the people had to be able to gain enough calories of energy from the food to replace those expended, plus enough extra to expend on other chores and activities such as making tools as shelter, sleeping, or singing and dancing. At first they harvested only food calories. Later they started harvesting additional calories, in the form of firewood, which I call fuel calories.

Money is simply a token we use today to represent calories of energy...

http://www.greenuniversity.net/Green_Economics/calories.htm

retreived from Green University Net on 24 December 2011

Fuel efficiency in transportation

Walking

A 140 lb (64 kg) person walking at 3 mi/h (~5 km/h) requires approximately 80 kcal (330 kJ) of food energy^[3] per mile (~205 kJ/km).
Given that 1 gallon (~3.7854 liter) of gasoline contains about 114,000 BTU^[4] (120 MJ) of energy, this converts to roughly 360 MPG (0.65 l/100 km).
The latter figure, however, assumes a 100% conversion of the stored energy in gasoline to mechanical work. To use the example of an actual typical modern gasoline internal combustion engine, in which roughly 20% of the energy of combustion does actual work (approximately 70% of the energy is lost as heat, and an additional 10% to parasitic losses and mechanical drag), the above figure converts to about 72 MPG (3.25 l/100km). Some motorcycles and a handful of very small cars are able to achieve such consumption rates in practice.

Bicycling

As a relatively light and slow vehicle, with low-friction tires, and an efficient chain-driven drivetrain, the bicycle can be an efficient form of transport. A 140 lb (64 kg) cyclist riding at 16 km/h requires about half the energy per unit distance of walking: 43kcal/mi or 3.1 kW·h/100 km (0.11 MJ/km; 0.050 kW·h/mi).^[3] This figure depends on the speed and mass of the rider: greater speeds give higher air drag and heavier riders also consume more energy per unit distance. This converts to about 732 MPG, or 146MPG assuming a 20% conversion rate.^[5]

A motorized bicycle such as the Velosolex affords the rider to cycle under human power or with the assistance of a 49 cm³ (3.0 cu in) engine which equates to a range of 160–200 mpg_-US (1.5–1.2 L/100 km; 190–240 mpg_-imp).Electric pedal assisted bikes run on as little as 1.0 kilowatt-hour per 100 kilometres (0.036 MJ/km; 0.016 kW·h/mi), while maintaining speeds in excess of 30 km/h (19 mph). These best-case figures rely on a human doing 70% of the work, with around 3.6 MJ/100 km (55 BTU/mi) coming from the engine.

Human power

Including the human energy dramatically changes the efficiency of cycles quoted above. As with walking, this would include the increase in food consumption due to caloric efficiency of human muscle and cardio vascular efficiency. However, only the rise in food consumption above the diet of a non-cyclist should be considered.

To be thorough, a comparison must also consider the energy costs of producing, transporting and packaging of fuel (food or fossil fuel), the energy incurred in disposing of exhaust waste, and the energy costs of manufacturing the vehicle. This last can be significant given that walking requires little or no special equipment, while automobiles, for example, require a great deal of energy to produce and have relatively short life-spans. Also any comparison of electric vehicles and liquid-fuelled vehicles must include the fuel consumed in the power station to generate the electricity. In the UK for instance the efficiency of the electricity generation and distribution system is around 0.40.

Automobiles

Main article: Fuel economy in automobiles

Automobile fuel efficiency is often expressed in volume fuel consumed per one hundred kilometres (i.e., L/100 km) but in distance per volume fuel consumed (i.e., miles per gallon) in the US. This is complicated by the different energy content of fuels (compare petrol and diesel). The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) state that the energy content of unleaded gasoline is 115,000 BTU per US gallon (32 MJ/L) compared to 130,500 BTU per US gallon (36.4 MJ/L) for diesel.^[6]

A second important consideration is the energy costs of producing these fuels. Bio-fuels, electricity and hydrogen, for instance, have significant energy inputs in their production. Because of this, the 50-70% efficiency of hydrogen production has to be combined with the vehicle efficiency to yield net efficiency.^[7]

A third consideration to take into account is the occupancy rate of the vehicle. As the number of passengers per vehicle increases the consumption per unit distance per vehicle increases. However this increase is slight compared to the reduction in consumption per unit distance per passenger. We can compare, for instance, the estimated average occupancy rate of about 1.3 passengers per car in the San Francisco Bay Area^[8] to the 2006 UK estimated average of 1.58.^[9]

Finally, vehicle energy efficiency calculations would be misleading without factoring the energy or "fuel" cost of producing the vehicle itself. This initial energy cost can of course be "amortized" over the life of the vehicle to calculate an average energy efficiency over its effective life span. In other words, vehicles that take a lot of energy or fuel to produce and are used for relatively short periods will require a great deal more energy over their effective lifespan than those that do not, and are therefore much less energy efficient than they may otherwise seem. Compare, for example, walking, which requires no special equipment at all, and an automobile, produced in and shipped from another country, and made from parts manufactured around the world from raw materials and minerals mined and processed elsewhere again, and used for a limited number of years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation

retreived from Wikipedia 24 December 2011

Mine! Mine! All mine!

2011-12-21T07:18:00.000+11:00

Much angst over wind turbines is just hot air

This year South Australia drew more than 20 per cent of its electricity from wind turbines, while in Victoria the Baillieu government all but gutted the industry by requiring two-kilometre set-backs from houses, ruling out new turbines in vast tracts of the state. As the O'Farrell government considers whether to follow Victoria or South Australia, it is timely to look at the culture of complaint that is hell-bent on demonising wind energy.

The British Acoustics Bulletin has just published what is now the 10th independent review of the evidence on wind farms causing annoyance and ill health in people. And for the 10th time it has emphasised that annoyance has far more to do with social and psychological factors in those complaining than any direct effect from sound or inaudible infrasound emanating from wind turbines.

A few extracts give the flavour: "the degree of annoyance is only slightly related to noise level"; "the fact that someone was complaining was mainly determined by the personality of the individual"; "fear of the noise source can increase annoyance"; and "adverse feelings … were influenced by feelings of lacking control, being subjected to injustice, lacking influence, and not being believed".
Advertisement: Story continues below

Two factors repeatedly stand out. The first is being able to see wind turbines, which increases annoyance particularly in those who dislike or fear them.

The second factor is whether people derive income from hosting turbines, which miraculously appears to be a highly effective antidote to feelings of annoyance and symptoms...

Complaining about wind farms appears confined largely to parts of Australia, Canada, the US, Britain and New Zealand. And these complaints have accelerated in the past five years, despite turbines having been operational in many locations for more than 20 years.

This contagious "wind turbine syndrome" - a condition not recognised by any international disease classification system and which appears not once in any title or abstract in the massive US National Library of Medicine's PubMed database - appears to be spread by the vector of anti-wind farm activist groups.

In Australia, the leading opponents are the Waubra Foundation and the Australian Landscape Guardians, which share a post office box with a mining investment company, Lowell Resources. Australian Landscape Guardians has been totally silent on any other intrusion on the landscape, apparently unperturbed by mining, highway construction or suburban encroachment.

Simon Chapman is professor of public health at the University of Sydney. He has no financial associations with any wind energy company. Judy Prisk is on leave.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/much-angst-over-wind-turbines-is-just-hot-air-20111220-1p3sb.html

Mister 99% meet mister 1%

Threats to Landscape

Access to pleasant surroundings is a right of all peoples, fundamental to their physical and emotional well being. Aesthetically pleasing landscapes are a resource for all, which must not be compromised by inappropriate development.

Developments which threaten landscapes include:

Excessive urban sprawl, whether for residential, holiday or retirement homes, when it obliterates rural vistas and access to open landscapes as enjoyed by others.
Inappropriately sited and/or badly designed buildings, including both individual homes and agricultural or industrial structures such as silos or car yards.
Poorly placed infrastructure, including roads, pipelines, powerlines, communication towers and wind turbines.
Intrusive and ugly signage.
Land clearing which removes aesthetically, culturally or biologically valuable vegetation remnants, including roadside vegetation.
Recreational developments, where they result in loss of open land because of associated subdivisions, and sports fields with obtrusive lighting.
Ill-conceived tree planting, including large-scale monoculture with afforestation unsympathetic to local landscape values.
Poorly planned mining and quarrying, particularly where inadequate provision is made for site restoration when operations cease.
Land and water degradations including waste dumps and derelict buildings, poorly managed septic systems, uncontrolled erosion and salination.

http://www.landscapeguardians.org.au/about/

Welcome to Lowell Resources Funds Management

Lowell Resources Funds Management Ltd. is a responsible entity and specialised investment manager

Lowell Resources Funds Management Ltd operates through an investment committee which concentrates the experience and knowledge of a group of individuals who have direct working experience in the oil & gas and minerals industries, broking, banking, applied research and funds management.

http://lrfm.com.au/

Rotor Rorter

2011-12-20T07:38:00.000+11:00

Wind farm opponents 'aided and abetted' by climate sceptic groups

...Industry sources said a US Tea Party-style ''astroturf'' campaign, which mimics grassroots local opposition but is at least partly directed from elsewhere, was being waged against wind energy in NSW, which was expected to bring up to $10 billion in investment this decade as it accelerated to meet the national 20 per cent renewable energy target.

Wind farm opponents include a coalition of local groups under the banner ''landscape guardians'', and the Australian Environment Foundation, which sprang up seven years ago from a conference run by the right-wing think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, but is now a separate group.

''Our role is, if you like, aiding and abetting what local communities are doing and helping them voice their disapproval over wind farms,'' said the foundation's executive director, Max Rheese.

While local groups say they believe the inaudible noise and vibration from wind farms affect human health, the foundation does not think humans have a role in causing climate change and therefore believes wind farms are an expensive extravagance.

It hosted the British climate sceptic Lord Monckton last year and says it ''questions the whole science behind anthropogenic global warming''.

Mr Rheese said the foundation had paid for anti-wind signs at public meetings and lobbied the Shooters and Fishers Party, and the National and Liberal parties in NSW...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/wind-farm-opponents-aided-and-abetted-by-climate-sceptic-groups-20111219-1p2l6.html

Shake-up for arts body after 30 years

THE Australia Council for the Arts, the federal arts funding and advisory body, is getting its first shake-up in nearly 30 years.

The Arts Minister, Simon Crean, announced an independent review of the council yesterday ahead of the release of a national cultural policy. But the results of the review, to be conducted by corporate adviser Angus James and company director Gabrielle Trainor, will not be made public.

Arts organisations reacted positively to news of the review, saying it was timely given the formulation of the cultural policy and that the world had changed greatly since the last major review in the mid-1980s.
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The executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, Tamara Winikoff, said the review had been on the cards during the development of the cultural policy.

It was good for organisations to periodically reappraise their performance, she said. ''I think the only reason that the Australia Council and the arts sector would be worried is if this heralded any intended cut to government funding,'' Ms Winikoff said...

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/shakeup-for-arts-body-after-30-years-20111219-1p2k1.html

An end to means

2011-12-20T07:07:00.001+11:00

The benefits of a physical, mental and emotional exercise are well documented and publicised. Memory is part of the complex biological functioning of the human organism. The human body is more like a city of disparate cells, that may or may not chose to co-operate, than a monad independently operating and autonomous unto itself.

Memory is conflicted by stress, auto-immune responses, fear, pleasure, and of course abuses of trust. John Ralston Saul and others have commented upon the fact that a memory is required to be a functioning adult in a complex and dynamic social structure. Creating a body of ciphers and zombies requires the suspension of disbelief and a disinfecting of the mind through various forms of thought reform.

One of the mechanisms of thought reform is an effective "cloaking mechanism", a way of hiding the truth from the analysand/querent/neophyte/mark/sucker and a veritable flag to alert others to the presence of said "fresh meat".

Exercise, fresh air, green spaces that fulfil the savannah hypothesis, decrease in stress caused by noise, pollution, disagreeable social settings, etc., all contribute to the rehabilitation of someone who has undergone, or is undergoing the worst these cloaking mechanisms seek to occlude, from the target as well as their 'support network'.

And as always it is the poor who have the lions share of the fiscal burden to deal with: as early as the 1950s social analysts such as Vance Packard noted that the poor were eleven times more likely to suffer from mental illness as the rich. And it was Professor Richard Taylor who noted that suicide - the marker of mental illness - spiked under conservative governments in Australia and Britain.

A cynic would say follow the money trail to see who benefits and who pays.

Schizophrenia Costs

"Schizophrenia - the cost revealed . . .

A landmark new report from SANE Australia - 'Schizophrenia: Costs' - reveals the alarming human and financial costs of schizophrenia.

pdf 866.48 Kb Download the full report

The report - 'Schizophrenia Costs: An analysis of the burden of schizophrenia and related suicide in Australia' - was commissioned by SANE from Access Economics.

The human cost
One of the most alarming facts noted in the report is that people with schizophrenia are 12 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, and that they are particularly vulnerable when not receiving appropriate rehabilitation and support in the community. Yet over 80% of those affected are not receiving rehabilitation . . .

The financial cost
The real financial costs of schizophrenia in 2001 totalled $1.85 billion - over one-third of this cost is borne by people with the illness and their carers. Within 10 years this cost is calculated to spiral to $10 billion per annum unless action is taken.

Where to from here?
By investing increased funding in effective treatments and support, government will no only reduce the human cost of schizophrenia and related suicide, it will also reduce the financial cost to health systems.

SANE is distributing this landmark report nationally, and calls on Australian governments to take urgent action to reduce the appalling cost of schizophrenia."

http://www.sane.org/information/research/382-schizophrenia-costs

Published in 2002 by Access Economics you would be right in concluding that this is but one of many such damning reports published in the last twenty years, and going back to Stan Alchin's revelations of the abuse being meted out to inmates of Rozelle Hospital (Callan Park: Kirkbride and Broughton Hall) all of which point in the one direction: we are a despicable species who can time and time again convince ourselves and others that our ideas are worth killing for and that the end justifies the means.

The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric

Highly creative people often seem weirder than the rest of us. Now researchers know why

...Schizotypal personality can appear in a variety of forms, including magical thinking (fanciful ideas or paranormal beliefs, such as Schumann's belief that Beethoven channeled music to him from the grave), unusual perceptual experiences (distortions in perception, such as Dickens's belief that he was being followed by characters from his novels), social anhedonia (a preference for solitary activities—Emily Dickinson, Nikola Tesla and Isaac Newton, for example, favored work over socializing), and mild paranoia (unfounded feelings that people or objects in the environment may pose a threat, such as Hughes's legendary distrust of others).

Schizotypal personality is a milder version of the clinical psychiatric condition called schizotypal personality disorder, which is among a cluster of personality disorders labeled "odd or eccentric" in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The schizotypal diagnosis grew out of large epidemiological studies in which researchers noticed that the relatives of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia were more likely to exhibit odd behaviors and beliefs than relatives of those not afflicted with schizophrenia. Schizotypal people, for instance, may dress in an idiosyncratic style; their speech patterns may be somewhat out of the ordinary; they may respond ineptly in social situations; their emotional responses may be inappropriate; they may believe in supernatural phenomena such as telepathy and omens; and they may be hard to get close to—both physically and emotionally. In short, schizotypal individuals are eccentric.

Not all schizotypal people have a personality disorder, however. They are often very high functioning, talented and intelligent. Many of my students at Harvard University, for example, score far above average on schizotypal scales, as well as on creativity and intelligence measures...

Brain-imaging and electroencephalography (EEG) studies support the theory that highly creative individuals tend to experience more cognitive disinhibition than do less-creative control groups. Beginning in the late 1970s, researcher Colin Martindale of the University of Maine initiated a series of EEG studies related to creativity. He and his colleagues found that highly creative people tend to produce more brain waves in the alpha range (a frequency of eight to 12 hertz, or cycles per second) during creative tasks than do less creative people. Martindale and his group interpreted alpha power as a marker of decreased cortical arousal and defocused attention and suggested that creative people were allowing more information into their conscious awareness during creative work...

Another brain-imaging study, done in 2010 by investigators at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, suggests the propensity for both creative insights and schizotypal experiences may result from a specific configuration of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. Using positron-emission tomography, Örjan de Manzano, Fredrik Ullén and their colleagues examined the density of dopamine D2 receptors in the subcortical region of the thalamus in 14 subjects who were tested for divergent-thinking skills. The results indicate that thalamic D2 receptor densities are diminished in subjects with high divergent-thinking abilities, similar to patterns found in schizophrenic subjects in previous studies. The researchers believe that reduced dopamine binding in the thalamus, found in both creative and schizophrenic subjects, may decrease cognitive filtering and allow more information into conscious awareness...

Clearly, however, not all eccentric individuals are creative. Work from our lab indicates that other cognitive factors, such as high IQ and high working-memory capacity, enable some people to process and mentally manipulate extra information without being overwhelmed by it. Through a series of studies, we have, in fact, shown that a combination of lower cognitive inhibition and higher IQ is associated with higher scores on a variety of creativity measures...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-unleashed-mind&print=true

Human and Non-Human Telepathic Collaborations from Fluxus to Now

Jacquelene Drinkall

...Telepathy challenges the agency of the individual artist/author, as does collaboration. Miller‘s conceptual work with hypnosis and Hiller‘s conceptual art telepathy experiment both unleashed potentially unsettling, even dangerous, automa-tised agencies, other to the self, in the creative process...

Like Schneemann, members of the activist terrorist group Weather Underground, in operation from the 1960s to the 1980s, also famously en-gaged in self-liberating and group bonding sexual orgies. The orgies of both Schneemann and the activist/terrorists worked to shatter individualism and monogamy, and to create a new group-based countercultural identity in which the boundaries of bodies and minds are violated, overlapped and synchronised. Modern social theorists such as Gustave le Bon and Mikkel Borche Jacobsen associate group telepathy with galvanised groups, crowds, political collaborations and public demonstrations.12 Borch-Jacobsen states, ―… the mass bond may have to be thought of as a tele-pathic umbilical cord.‖13 Borch-Jacobsen posits that a group and crowd un-conscious fuses and melts subjectivities: ―Taken to the extreme, it is thought transmission, telepathy.‖14 Artists such as Gianni Motti and Jean-Jacques Lebel have placed telepathy at the centre of their work with par-ticipatory group collaboration and revolution work. Motti‘s artwork Psy Room (1997) was an insurrection that succeeded to telepathically threaten the president of Colombia, and Lebel‘s text On the Necessity of Violation (1968) situates telepathy as a crucial intensification force within both artistic Happenings and the Paris May 1968 riots.

Schneemann‘s more recent work from the 1990s titled Vespers in-volved collaboration with her telepathic cat. Her familiar, called Vesper, would ritualistically kiss her amorously in the morning and before sleep, and this is captured in the video Vesper’s Pool and in 140 wall photos. Schneemann‘s occult-like body-based work engages with this problem of an artistic partnership, psychic contact and interspecies-communication. Schneemann loves her cat, Miller loves his deceased mother, Beuys cares for the environment—including dead and feral animals—and Miller is a friend with Second Life avatars/fleshtars. These artists grasp collaboration and telepathy simultaneously as they reach beyond their own known world for a special connection with another co-creator being.

There is something similar in the role-play of the real life (yet robotic-looking) performances of Gilbert and George and avatar performance art, and both are clearly influenced by Fluxus. Gilbert & George‘s The Singing Sculpture (1970) performances are semi-autonomous, like puppets, auto-mata and mime artists. Green explains that elimination of personality is an important part of this process of roboticised tele-acting.15...

Men generally find it more difficult to work with hyper-feminine and/or ―crazy‖ forms of creativity and identity that are not valued within a persistently patriarchal aesthetic value system. Women artists such as Yoko Ono who have worked with conscious femininity and/or feminism in collaborative art prac-tice stemming from Fluxus have been quick to acknowledge the pitfalls of working with telepathy...

In both France and Australia telepathy discourse can be found em-bedded in political discourses, including within very the attempts for it to be quarantined and demonised as outside the realm of political, collaborative or aesthetic usefulness. Telepathic collaboration is ancient and complex enough to invite and survive fierce political debates. The promise of tele-pathic collaboration to transcend cultural difference is potentially dangerous and threatening for certain political situations, but this is what it offers and it can sometimes be what is necessary...

Psychoanalysis has always been troubled by the idea of telepathy, despite its being founded on the concept of telepa-thy and transference. As Lisa Blackman shows, telepathy and psychical re-search is recently shown to have important relevance for contemporary af-fect study, 77 but within most respected disciplines telepathy remains a very difficult thing to discuss. By inviting spiritual leaders to collaborate with them, Abramoviç/Ulay were able to relate their work with telepathy to exist-ing spiritual practices outside of gallery walls...

Te-lepathy may just be an extreme and unusual form of empathy (perhaps also combined with awe, wonder, excitement, sympathy). However, Abramoviç/Ulay‘s collaborative exploration of physical and mental extremes has resulted in numerous witness reports and extensive art historical com-mentary on the artists‘ heightened telepathic powers...

Telepathy is more aligned to the realm of dreams, imagination, per-ception and spiritual enlightenment (and even psychosis); whereas collabo-ration is more aligned to professional exchange, bureaucratic tasks, fac-tional empowerment, strategic coordination (and even conspiracy). Tele-pathic collaborations as political collaborations certainly exist, as do mo-ments of resistance and political moments opposed to certain forms of col-laboration, telepathy and various other factors and issues. Like the old combination of politics, sex and religion, telepathic collaborations are capa-ble of creating some dangerous fireworks.

Telepathic collaboration occurs in unlimited media, but manifests as a particularly strong fusion within a dyad/twin/couple and performance, or a work that features and documents the energy and/or symmetry of the two artists‘ bodies. Artistic telepathic collaborations are contagious, and since Fluxus they have mutated like a virus and gained virulence and the ability to enter diverse representation within art and art history. Telepathy and col-laboration share the ability to multiply and share subjectivities. Artists, me-dia, and contemporary art institutions are recognising the power of tele-pathic collaboration more quickly, in part due to the ongoing mythic mem-ory of Abramoviç/Ulay‘s enduring recuperation of telepathic collaboration within international and Australian art scenes as well as the art-historical work of Green. Younger generations of artists such as the Manganos, Kildall/Turner and the Mattes are quick to build on Abramoviç/Ulay‘s legen-dary practice-based evidence that powerful telepathies and collaborations build their fusion through the energy generated between dyadic and twinned bodies; and they are doing this through new digital and social me-dia. The technological mediation of all human telepathies is further appar-ent through the connective contrast between Fluxus and current art. In-stead of it being unusual for artist twins and couples to collaborate and work with telepathy, such work is now quickly supported and not viewed as just a passing curiosity or celebrity fashion. Telepathic collaborations are recognised as having important cultural value and providing crucial insight into how art works as a knowledge discipline of shared subjectivity.

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ecps/colloquy/journal/issue022/drinkall.pdf

TouristEats Native

Review essay by PaulBrennan

The Edge of The Sacred -

Transformation in Australia

by David Tacey

Harper Collins 1995

...Taceyhas no time for secret blokes’ business. “As the masculinistpubs, churches, convents and barber-shops go broke or close down inAustralian cities, new age book shops and awareness centers arepopping up everywhere, offering the public a broad range of largelynon-Christian, non-patriarchal esoteric arts and sciences such asastrology, tarot, I Ching, karma sutra, sacred sex, herbalism,naturopathy, meditation, yoga, psychic massage, channeling,neo-paganism and wicca, martial arts, reincarnation, easternreligions and philosophy, native American vision quests and goddessspirituality. The values of eros, soul, body, are held in highesteem, whereas mind and intellect logos are regarded with a gooddeal of suspicion.”

“Somemay laugh,” warns Tacey, “but they will not be laughing for long,because a teleologically oriented... new age spirituality, femininetheology and deep ecology are on the way. Then we will all be shownthe “Feminine face of God.” A new spirit will be born, savage,untamed and primordial... also scarlet, bloody and sacrificial”...

PhilosopherNo 5

p48

Revealed: Australia's suicideepidemic

“RuthPollard Investigations Editor

August21, 2009

AUSTRALIAhas dangerously miscalculated its suicide statistics - by as much as30 per cent in NSW and Queensland - leaving a silent and growingepidemic of mounting deaths.

Thefigures are in stark contrast to years of backslapping by state andfederal governments, congratulating themselves for reducing suiciderates from a peak of 2700 in 1997.

TheHerald can reveal the suicide toll is as high now as it was in the1990s - if not higher – with experts predicting a further rise asthe impact of rising unemployment and other economic factors bite...

JohnMendoza, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydneyfaculty of medicine, said the real rate of suicide was about2500-2700. “With this economic downturn we can expect that toincrease by around 10 per cent, so we are looking at approximately3000 people each year,” he said. “None of this takes into accountsuicides by way of single vehicle accidents - these are the onlyaspect of road accident deaths rising as a percentage of totaldeaths...”

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/revealed-australias-suicide-epidemic-20090820-es3p.html

Friday, 27 November 2009

The obvious danger is that in an effort to be amusing and provide entertainment, artists are in fact being induced to kill each other off - in the real world - in a sort of neo-colonial neoclassical Dionysian frenzy of sadistic proportions. Something that approximates warfare and so create the arena to justify the imposition of various forms of antiquarian and contemporary martial training.

Meanwhile experts in the field of terrorism and counter-terrorism say their is no way to train troops for defense against torture and/or interrogation. Moreover, going back to Victor Papanek in the 1970s, it had been known that toughening people up, as per bastardisation, does not work, and that it is the existence of a support network, sympathetic and compassionate peers and not burly, hard bitten and laconic thugs, that enable soldiers to reconnect with the citizenry after a period of service.

Fascinating?

Just how poor did you say you were?

2011-12-19T18:06:00.000+11:00

Private & public sectors
Full-time adult ordinary time earnings $1,322.60 (per week Aug 2011)

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6302.0

Percentage of the world living on $2 per day

Mommy Dearest

2011-12-19T17:45:00.003+11:00

Just what is an integrated, comprehensive, active transport policy?

2011-12-19T10:07:00.000+11:00

~~Pollution~~ Politician trail to megadump

...A spokesman for the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, said he was made aware of the investigations by the OEH before attending the opening party for Mr Malouf's new venture at the Eastern Creek landfill site on December 8 - a $500,000 celebration that featured 600 guests, acrobats, fireworks and a lion cub.

Mr O'Farrell's spokesman said: ''That's why he went out of his way during his remarks at the opening to say the NSW government has a strong independent environmental regulator and he expects all companies to comply or face the full force of the law.''

But inquiries by The Sun-Herald have revealed that Mr Malouf - who with his wife has donated almost $40,000 to the Liberal Party in recent years - has not yet been granted a licence to operate the landfill known as the Genesis facility. The application is with the OEH, which is considering it.

Alexandria Landfill and Boiling are yet to complete the clean-up ordered at the Alexandria sites.

Mr Malouf said the property on Red Hills Road at Marulan was cleaned up at his own expense. He said it was inadvertently contaminated with asbestos after a delivery of landscaping materials to the family property.

''Naturally I would not endanger the health and wellbeing of my children intentionally,'' he said.

Mr Malouf said the companies had never been prosecuted and that he ''would have preferred that these events necessitating clean-up notices had not occurred''...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/pollution-trail-to-megadump-20111217-1ozxi.html

Orica finishes clean-up after latest leak

Embattled chemical giant Orica has finished cleaning up a corrosive acid leak at its plant on the NSW south coast.

The company said there was "contained leakage" of about 3000 to 4000 litres of concentrated sulphuric acid at its Port Kembla facility yesterday, but it has now been cleaned up.

"The clean-up is complete ... we are moving into investigating the cause and making any repairs necessary," a spokeswoman for Orica said today...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/orica-finishes-cleanup-after-latest-leak-20111217-1ozv1.html

Orica at risk of losing licence, says O'Farrell

THE chemical company Orica will lose its licence if it fails to comply with environmental laws following another leak at one of its plants, the NSW Premier, Barry O'Farrell, said.

Orica finished cleaning up a corrosive acid leak at its Port Kembla plant on Saturday, the third since August.

''They will only get their licence, they'll only continue to keep their licence if they are able to abide by the state's environmental laws,'' Mr O'Farrell said yesterday...

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/orica-at-risk-of-losing-licence-says-ofarrell-20111218-1p0u4.html

New South Wales Government
Premier's Council for Active Living

Walking and Cycling Routes

Walking and cycling are the most sustainable and active forms of transport. Many of our daily trips are short and can be walked or cycled. In addition, a walkable environment is very important to support good public transport, as all public transport users are pedestrians at the beginning and end of their trips. Neighbourhoods that are easy and safe to walk in can increase the potential catchment of public transport services. Therefore, the walking and cycling network should be integral to the design of land uses, neighbourhoods, towns and cities.

Both pedestrians and cyclists need a legible and direct network of paths, off or on-road, and other facilities (such as bicycle parking) at destinations. Both modes of transport require attention to urban and traffic design details, such as footpaths or shared paths, kerb ramps, shade, signage, signal timing, lighting as well as other design features that improve safety, convenience and attractiveness.

Design objective

To provide an accessible and integrated network of walking and cycling routes for safe and convenient travel to local destinations and between key land uses within urban places.

Design considerations

Plan and construct legible, connected walking and cycling routes leading to local destinations and focal points such as shops, schools, parks and public transport stops. Routes should be continuous and direct. Proximate duplicate paths should be avoided to maximise use and safety.
Create safe places for people to walk and cycle, which are overlooked by buildings and have clear sightlines. Provide information to assist with safe route planning, such as route maps.
Provide and maintain footpaths on all streets. When appropriate in terms of the streets hierarchy they should be provided on both sides of the streets.
Create stimulating and attractive routes to encourage repeated use with careful consideration of details such directness, lighting, shade, opportuniites to stop and rest, landscaping with appropriate species choice, pavement and edge treatments and directional signage.
For on-road cycle routes, allocate sufficient operating space for cyclists and use signage and road marking to reduce ambiguity about where it is. Provide safe places to cross streets close to the direct line of travel for pedestrains and cyclists.
Ensure that shared paths are carefully designed with sufficient width, adequate sightlines, gentle gradients and turns and marked centrelines.
Incorporate end-of-trip facilites within buildings to encourage walking and cycling. Locate secure bicycle storage in well lit, visible locations conveniently close to building entries and/or at ground level in multi-storey buildings.
Connect local walking and cycling networks to regional routes linking centres and facilities.
Provide walking and cycling information infrastructure as early as possible in the land development process, to encourage use, and deter the development of car-dependent communities.

Key references

Planning Guidelines for Walking and Cycling
Improving Transport Choice Guidelines for planning and development
Particularly: Principle 6 - Improve Pedestrian Access and Principle 8 - Improve Cycle Access (pp. 14-17)
Healthy By Design
Particularly: Walking and Cycling Routes (pp. 9-10)

Additional resources

http://www.pcal.nsw.gov.au/planning_and_design_guidelines/walking_and_cycling_routes

Go you Chicago Police Department

2011-12-17T10:33:00.000+11:00

Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

Who have you been seduced by lately? Who's dog-whistle do you answer to?

2011-12-17T09:04:00.002+11:00

The stingy rich need to dig deep

...But the sad story about Australia's rich is that some have no interests beyond their business and amassing a fortune. Simon Mordant, adviser to some of Australia's major corporations and a philanthropist who, among other gifts, gave $15 million towards redevelopment of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has had direct contact with the impoverished inner life of Australia's rich.

Prompted by his example, some wealthy folk approached him saying they did not know how to give. He was gratified by their seeking his advice, he told me, and shocked they had no idea what to do with their money. They had no passions, and he had to prompt them into thinking about sick relatives and hospitals, their children and schools, and so on, to spark a light.

At least these Australians felt a desire to change. Mordant is not the only one to have told me other high-fliers feel no duty to give back. Daniel Petre, the former Microsoft executive, said: ''It's pretty sad, but there's lots of wealthy people who'll write cheques for $10,000, very few who'd write a cheque for $1 million … ''

The issue is proportionality. A lot of people have benefited hugely from the prosperity of the past two decades. They have worked hard and they have been lucky, they have benefited from government policies such as superannuation tax breaks that helped them amass fortunes. And their children will benefit from lack of inheritance and wealth taxes.

But how much is too much to leave the kids, given the potentially corrosive impact on character of an unearned fortune? How many Paris Hiltons are in the wings with the prospect of a $10 million inheritance that generates $600,000 annual income for doing nothing?...

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-stingy-rich-need-to-dig-deep-20111216-1oyjr.html

Edmund Capon, an unlikely choice, was a risk worth taking

...Over the years, Capon has built a collection valued at $841 million - including his favourite Twomblys - established the Asian gallery and opened the gallery after hours. He long ago abolished general admission fees, guided by a belief that you should make it easy to get in but ''pay'' to get out - hence the well-positioned shop, cafe and restaurant.

Capon, who briefly joined the Communist Party as a young man, has proved politically nimble, having worked with both sides of politics. He does not believe the political pressures on the institution have intensified.

''If you manage an institution like this and a culture like this reasonably well, I don't think the government wants to be involved. It only feels the need to be involved if something is going awry … we have been pretty much happily left to get on with the job.''...

Having become not only the gallery's longest-serving director but one of the most enduring heads of any international art museum, Capon has retained his wit - and an abiding impatience of bureaucracy.

''Today we have audit and risk committees,'' he says. ''Personally I'm for more risk. I want a pro-risk committee.''

He approves of the adage that ''successful people don't have meetings, they have parties''.

''Meetings on the whole are for people who can't make a decision. I still have great faith in the wit and humour of the individual,'' he says.

And he has faith in the power of art: ''Art is optimistic on the whole.''

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/edmund-capon-an-unlikely-choice-was-a-risk-worth-taking-20111216-1oykf.html

Patches of carcinogen seen after Orica leak

A GOVERNMENT officer saw splotches of a carcinogenic chemical on cars, a letterbox and next to a table used to clean fish in the Newcastle suburb of Stockton a day after hexavalent chromium had ''rained'' down from a vent at the Orica chemical plant, documents show.

Documents, including a detailed report describing the visible fallout of the chemical from the incident, were released yesterday at the same time as a mechanical fault further delayed the start-up of part of the Kooragang Island plant.

The report from an employee from the Office of Environment and Heritage, who visited the plant and surrounding area between midday and 3.45pm on Tuesday, August 9, the day after the leak, has been made public as part of an upper house inquiry into the incident.

Hamish Rutherford wrote that he questioned Orica employees about the extent of the fallout when he arrived at the plant. ''They were evasive in wanting to answer and said words to the effect 'I'd rather not say, we are still assessing it,' '' he said.

Mr Rutherford discovered the substance pooled on the ground and coating walls.

''The surface of the plant, sections of the ground and parts of buildings such as the control building/room in the immediate downwind path were coated in a yellow substance,'' he wrote.

He then drove to Stockton, where he encountered more evidence near a table used by fishers: ''I observed some brown spotting on a … sign adjacent to the fish-cleaning tables … it appeared that the fish-cleaning tables had been used by the public today.''

Spots were also discovered on a letterbox and a resident's car. Mr Rutherford also wrote he encountered a contractor from the Orica plant who said he had been told to ''get inside as it's been raining yellow shit'' when the incident occurred....

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/patches-of-carcinogen-seen-after-orica-leak-20111216-1oyo5.html

Unarguably the end of the line for Hitchens, atheist, intellectual and 'charmer'

FOR Australians who saw Christopher Hitchens, the robust polemicist, in a linen suit with a glass in his hand onstage in Sydney last year, it is hard to believe that he has died at 62 from oesophageal cancer.

On diagnosis of his illness, Hitchens cut short the publicity tour for his memoir Hitch-22 shortly after he attracted record-breaking crowds at the 2010 Sydney Writers' Festival to hear his views on topics ranging from the Iraq War (for) to women's humour (against).

He continued to write and speak about his physical condition until recently. There was no softening of the hard-line atheist argument in his best-selling book God Is Not Great, which he discussed at the Opera House Festival of Dangerous Ideas in 2009.

''Looking death more closely in the eye, as I have been doing, doesn't teach you much that you don't already know, surprisingly,'' he said in an interview with Tony Jones on the ABC's Lateline a year ago...

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/unarguably-the-end-of-the-line-for-hitchens-atheist-intellectual-and-charmer-20111216-1oyqp.html

A sad and pathetic abuse of power when a process claimed to be upholding the rights of women is used to repress, oppress, defame and ritually humiliate men - parapsychology and reactionary religions/spiritualisms in the many and varied guises set to the cause of misandry through 'humour'. How many self centred egoists/shy introspective passifists on shaky ground due to dithering by their authoritarian mOther did Alister Crowley cure?

How many cases of ersatz schizophrenia (the disease with no pathology or etiology) or psychosis - the real result of disordering of the mind in accordance with Pavlovian techniques know of since the mid 20th century and played with excellent results in the 1990s - resulted in psychiatric casualties.

Necessary martyrs to the cause of positive discrimination? Or simply fodder, expendibles, for the various back-lashes as this or that totalitarian regime or thought reform cult, that threw front line tokens to the baying crowds. Lives wasted on the excess of bathetic pseudo-warfare (war is the making of a man) and process - my imaginary best friend has better structural intiation rites than your imaginary best friend. Fool!

Q: How-many dog-whistles does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Depends on witch form of softening up was used preceeding witch formulaic, hypnotic induction. And whether you can convince the dog its life is so pathetic, its ambitions so base or grand, that it needs to change and parapsychology is the method to adequately effect that change, to meet the needs of society, class, family and business interests. Or whether the dog was promised 72 78 dancing bacchantes in the after party. And of course the light house must want to change.

Why suffer in silence and be a martyr and a victim to this silly abuse.

Those afraid of making mistakes are afraid to learn

2011-12-16T08:05:00.001+11:00

Results prove there's power in the pack

...''The idea I've been trying to push at this school for a decade or more is that the lone wolf is dead. We actually have to [work] together if we want to improve results and to break down the totally competitive kind of environment that you see in selective schools, so we can share with each other as well as compete against each other.''

His teachers collaborate on projects, observe each other's classes and share their experience.

Dr Jaggar acknowledged that changing the competitive culture took time, but said co-curricular activities, such as the community service program, encouraged students to help others.

''People come from a coaching college culture where they're all striving to get themselves into selective education and beat the next guy,'' he said. ''They're all very interested in marks. But when it comes to the learning process they're prepared to share with each other.''

The tension between a student's desire for individual achievement and for engagement in collaborative learning ''is more easily resolved when the whole school starts to improve. They're starting to see that what's good for me and my buddies is good for the whole school''...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/results-prove-theres-power-in-the-pack-20111215-1owyh.html

So 'collaboration' to overcome and undermine marginalising, isolating and alienating, interpersonal rivalry and ego driven competition is not just about 'post-hypnotic suggestion', 'structural initiations', 'mystical incantations' and 'just following orders'? Damn, I want my money back, I paid for a five minute arguement.

Former France president Jacques Chirac guilty of corruption

..."Justice has spoken, it must be respected but it's unfortunately a great pain for our family and for Jacques Chirac," she told reporters.

The opposition Socialist Party's candidate for next year's presidential race, Francois Hollande, said "justice has been done" but added that he "had a thought for a man who has more health problems".

Members of Chirac's right-wing UMP party expressed regret.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the case had taken too long to resolve, with the ruling falling two decades after the crimes.

"I don't think this decision will alter the personal relationship that exists between Jacques Chirac and the French people," he said.

Chirac was president of France between 1995 and 2007 and enjoyed legal immunity while in office. He denied all the charges, but the case is only one of many corruption scandals to have dogged him in a long public career.

Doctors say he has "severe and irreversible" neurological problems including memory loss and dementia linked to his advanced age.

While he still makes occasional public appearances as a respected centre-right elder statesman, he was unable to attend the trial.

He was tried alongside nine alleged accomplices. Two were cleared, but the rest were convicted of helping Chirac run a system at Paris city hall under which political allies were paid municipal salaries for fake jobs.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/former-france-president-jacques-chirac-guilty-of-corruption-20111216-1oxds.html

Scientists create "the world's smallest steam engine"

...Despite the dampening effect, the University of Stuttgart researchers claim that their engine is as efficient as a regular Stirling engine. Though there is no immediate practical application so far, the researchers claim that it demonstrates there is no principle preventing the construction of tiny, efficient engines.

"Our experiments provide us with an initial insight into the energy balance of a heat engine operating in microscopic dimensions," Bechinger added. "Although our machine does not provide any useful work as yet, there are no thermodynamic obstacles, in principle, which prohibit this in small dimensions."

Is this a Stirling engine in the strictest sense? One might argue not, but at the very least it's an illuminating analogy with which to describe a notable breakthrough in micro-engineering.

http://www.gizmag.com/smallest-stirling-engine/20861/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=3546496a27-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

MASH it up.

2011-12-15T11:32:00.001+11:00

As I ruminate on the corruption-anticorruption debate, I cannot help but think of con-sequences, hence this gem from 2005.

Shame and humiliation common suicide triggers

By Ruth Pollard Health Reporter
September 1, 2005

The intense public shame and humiliation - known suicide triggers - showed no signs of abating as the story of John Brogden's fall from grace rolled on.

At 36, he was in the age group of men who account for 50 per cent of all suicides, and under a dangerous amount of pressure.

He succumbed, but survived.

"You would have to be a pretty hardy soul … to withstand that kind of exposure," said the chairman of
Suicide Prevention Australia, Michael Duffy.

About 2500 people die from suicide each year in Australia, with men in the 25 to 44 age group most at risk. For every person who commits suicide, eight will attempt it.

Along with shame and humiliation, the threat of imminent disciplinary action and relationship conflict are the most common triggers for suicidal behaviour, Dr Duffy said.

Describing the last two days as a "feeding frenzy", he said it was important for the media to "allow some kind of space for someone to reflect on what has happened, and ensure they are getting support".

"He had nowhere to hide."

A professor of psychiatry at the University of Newcastle, Vaughan Carr, said the descent into suicide can happen surprisingly quickly.

"If the magnitude of the stress or shaming experience is large enough, it can produce a catastrophic degree of despair and sense of hopelessness associated with the loss of self-esteem … that can trigger a very sudden and very lethal suicide attempt."

Mr Brogden's feeling of humiliation would have been magnified by repeated exposure after his resignation, compounding the problem, Professor Carr said.

All suicide attempts were serious, but some were more lethal than others: "Because a person survives is no indication at all as to whether a person remains at high risk of suicide."

At least 80 per cent of those who die from suicide have some form of mental illness, with those living
with depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia most at risk.

Experts were not prepared to speculate on whether Mr Brogden had an underlying mental illness such as depression, saying only that it was important for him, his family and his colleagues to receive ongoing support. "It is not a problem unique to him," Dr Dudley said. "Men in their mid-life make up 50 per cent of all suicides, and men rarely seek help."

According to NSW Health mental health protocols, the first few weeks following discharge from hospital after a suicide attempt is a period of greatly increased risk for people. The patient's next of kin, and their general practitioner, psychiatrist, psychologist or local mental health team must be involved in any hospital discharge.

To get help: Lifeline: 13 11 14; Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800; SANE Helpline: 1800 688 382.

Who would want to hurt John Gilbert Brogden? Or more appropos of the time, who would manufacture circumstances where John Gilbert Brogden would want to hurt John Gilbert Brogden.

If suicide is painless, who is the dentist?

Driving brain-free. Isn't there an app for that?

2011-12-15T08:54:00.001+11:00

US push to ban mobiles in cars

AMERICA'S top transport regulator has urged all 50 US states to ban the use of mobile phones by drivers after studying a fatal crash in which a Missouri teenager sent and received 11 text messages moments before ploughing into the back of a truck.

Citing several other incidents of driver distraction causing death - including train and boating mishaps - the National Transport Safety Board called for a ban on the use of all portable electronic devices other than GPS navigation systems.

But its primary target was mobile phone use, which is subject to myriad and varied laws from state to state: only 10 states plus the national capital currently ban hand-held phone use and texting, while six others - Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Ohio, South Carolina and South Dakota - have no restrictions, not even on learner drivers...

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-push-to-ban-mobiles-in-cars-20111214-1ouva.html

Fatal: The multi-car pile up near Gray Summit, Missouri in August 2010 when a 19-year-old driver crashed into a slowed car just after he either sent or received 11 text messages in the 11 minutes prior to the accident

The board made the radical recommendation following a deadly highway pileup near Gray Summit, Missouri last year when a 19-year-old pickup driver Daniel Schatz and 15-year-old student Jessica Brinker both died in the crash.

Daniel was driving his GMC pickup truck and sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash, prompting the proposed ban.

The pickup, travelling at 55 miles per hour, collided into the back of a tractor truck before the pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle, and a second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus...

http://investmentwatchblog.com/drivers-face-ban-on-using-all-phones-even-hands-free-radical-plan-after-teen-texts-eleven-times-in-11-minutes-before-death-crash/

Mangled leg makes London hard row to hoe for gutsy Free

LISTEN to Duncan Free describe how badly his femur was broken when he was hit by a car while cycling in May, and you wonder at his strength of will to still make the Olympics next year.

Asked about the accident on May 25 - his birthday - which resulted in his right leg being shortened by 2.6 centimetres, Free, 38, yesterday told the Herald: ''The bone got shattered in so many places. It was like having to put a jigsaw puzzle together and you are missing a few pieces.

''You do what you can do to put it back as it was. But there was too much gap between some of the bones to fuse them together. Unfortunately, the result was 2.6cm.''

Free, who won a gold medal with Drew Ginn at the 2008 Olympics in the coxless pair, is one of 66 rowers vying for a seat in one of the 10 boats Australia has qualified for at the Olympics. The battle starts today with a five-kilometre time trial on the Nepean River, Penrith...

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/swimming/mangled-leg-makes-london-hard-row-to-hoe-for-gutsy-free-20111214-1ouym.html

Howard's support of Plimer stranger than fiction

With the help of John Howard, Ian Plimer this week launched his new climate change book, How to Get Expelled from School (''CBD - Jeers and Cheers'', December 14). It is meant for students and parents and Plimer's aim is to have teachers quizzed about Plimer's arguments against human-induced climate change and about what teachers are teaching about climate change.

As an ex-teacher I would welcome the book in my class. After having read the book with my class, and yes, parents would be welcome, too, I would then ask them to check the claims made by Plimer. By the time they had read comments such as those by Professor Ian Enting on Plimer's work and Skeptical Science's Plimer vs Plimer, I would think my class would know Ian Plimer had written another fictional work and they would be even more convinced humans were the major cause of this present climate fever.

It would not only be a good lesson for them on science but also investigative journalism.

I also wonder if Ian Plimer decided to pick on schools and teachers after his other book Heaven and Earth got such a pasting from real climate scientists.

Tony Doherty Cundletown

John Howard's attendance at the book launch by geologist Ian Plimer (who has no background in atmospheric physics), poo-pooing climate science, and his attack on those teaching climate science in schools, was a disgrace.

Apparently Howard is willing to believe in the Big Man in the Sky (who knows everything we say and do and has infinite love for us, but if we don't believe He exists we burn in hell for eternity).

However, he won't even consider the possibility that the world's scientific community - including NASA's leading scientists - might be right when they tell us that atmospheric pollution is an existential threat to humanity.

What on earth is he thinking? Apres moi le deluge?

Victor Webster Balgowlah

John Howard supported the science when he went to the 2007 election advocating an emissions trading scheme. Now he says the science is wrong.

I cannot understand why the media is now not accusing him of ''lying'' in the same way that Julia Gillard was accused when she changed her mind.

Toni Lorentzen Fennell Bay

Recently I walked in the Swiss Alps with a Scottish scientist. Looking up at the bottom of the Eiger Glacier we read a nearby government-sponsored sign which I photographed. It said 150 years ago the bottom of the glacier was one kilometre below us and ''today the glacier is melting rapidly, and has receded more than 300 metres over the past five years''. This lead to conversation about global warming and he was astounded to learn we have senior politicians in Australia who are climate change deniers.

What will he say when I tell him a recent prime minister happily launched the latest book by Ian Plimer?

John Hodges Cammeray

Howard launching Plimer's book reminds me of his efforts to put his personal straitjacket on education. If Howard is concerned that politics is invading scientific debate, the converse is certainly not true.

There is no way science plays any part in politics.

Christopher McLelland Kirribilli

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/howards-support-of-plimer-stranger-than-fiction-20111214-1ouyj.html

Ladies and Gellcomes

2011-12-14T08:07:00.001+11:00

http://coalseamgasnews.org/

Breakdown in relations is everyone's business

...Economists see them as milestones on our path to prosperity. Schluter sees the downside. So, last month, in troubled Britain, he and a colleague, Jonathan Rushworth, launched a plan, Transforming Capitalism from Within: a Relational Approach to the Purpose, Performance and Assessment of Companies.

He proposes that enlightened firms submit themselves to the discipline of a 10-step ''relational business charter''. Step one is for the company to include in its articles of association a goal to become a profitable and sustainable business for the benefit of all its stakeholders - owners, directors, managers, employees, suppliers and customers - and the wider society.

Step two is to promote dialogue among company stakeholders, preferably through regular, face-to-face meetings.

Step three seeks to reduce ''relational distance'' between shareholders and the employees and other stakeholders by promoting share ownership by named individuals and family trusts rather than institutional investors such as pension funds.

The goal could be 25 per cent direct ownership pursued, partly, by encouraging employees to own shares. Ideally, a growing proportion of shareholders will live close to the company's main base.

Next, to achieve commitment, involvement and responsibility by shareholders, relational firms should encourage long-term ownership, perhaps by issuing additional shares to those who hold their shares for long periods.

Step five is for companies to help their employees achieve work-life balance by minimising long working hours and work at unsociable hours (including weekends) wherever possible. These things have a direct effect on the families of employees, particularly if the employee will not be present to share the bringing up of children.

Then firms will seek to respect the dignity of all employees by minimising remuneration differentials within the business. A ratio of 20:1 between top and bottom would be a good benchmark.

Relational companies will treat suppliers fairly and with respect, paying them promptly and giving them support to develop their businesses.

Relational companies will treat their customers and the local community fairly, respecting their concerns about reasonable payment terms and adequate service.

Step nine involves companies protecting their business and stakeholders by minimising the risk of financial instability, limiting their ''gearing'' - ratio of borrowing to shareholders' funds.

Finally, relational companies will fulfil their obligations to the wider society by paying a reasonable proportion of profits in tax in the country where those profits were earned. They will also spend a reasonable proportion of profits on corporate social responsibility.

The musings of a hopeless dreamer? I think our companies' present ruthless pursuit of profit at any cost is an excess that can't last. Schluter is a prophet pointing the way back to more sensible capitalism.

Ross Gittins is the economics editor.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/breakdown-in-relations-is-everyones-business-20111206-1ogwl.html?skin=text-only

Australia has been feeding its people for 200 years? Before that everyone was on food stamps.

Listening to Alan makes you wonder if he understands the concept of irony. He could just as easily be talking about land rights for indigenous Australians who according to British Law have rights over all the resources this bountiful land has to offer. And being a law abiding citizen he would also understand the concept of sovereignty, the head of state - the Queen or King of Britain, owns all land in Australia, we the plebs get various bits of paper that allow us various forms of access to that land. Just lucky we aint in some South American country where some North American company owned the right to water falling from the sky.

Or, he could be talking up the right of Australians to chose less polluting and less resource hungry forms of personal transport. Especially since Sydney's roads were never designed for cars, but for horses, and things horse shaped, i.e. about two metres long, less than a meter wide, with one maybe two human beings astride. And studies have been conducted on Sydney's BTEX pollution and those stinking cars and petroleum fuels he champions are the major culprit. And the one complainant who morphed into a bamboozle of shopkeepers objecting to the Bourke St Cycleway saying it would fade the curtains and keep children from doing their homework.

But I digress. For all the sense he talks about food security he will probably next appear spruiking the benefits of uranium mining, if he hasn't already been given a portfolio of shares in the company in exchange for advertorial air time. You wouldn't expect Alan to kick one employer in the teeth without having the next lined up in the wings.

It's so mean being green, statistically speaking

2011-12-14T07:10:00.001+11:00

White paper warns of power price hit on households

...In the white paper, the government sought to pressure NSW and Queensland to sell all the remaining state-owned power industry assets, including the ''poles and wires'', to offset rising power prices, although the NSW government immediately rejected the move.

''It is not for the federal government to determine the sale of the state's assets,'' the NSW Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher, said.

The paper forecast new investment of $240 billion would be required by 2030, in part to deliver cleaner energy with the launch of the carbon tax. ''The magnitude of required investment means current energy cost pressures are likely to continue,'' it noted...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/white-paper-warns-of-power-price-hit-on-households-20111213-1ot6k.html

A year of magical thinking

...Albert Einstein said: ''There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is to live as though everything is a miracle.''

Most of the guests have been from that second category. Across a wide range of issues, they have brought optimism and a feeling that existence is miraculous and mysterious and compels compassion and empathy. Many of them work to help some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people - the homeless, victims of sexual, psychological and physical abuse, asylum seekers, the legions dealing with mental health problems, addicts, the terminally ill, the poor and the hungry.

Many others seek to improve the world by driving change in urban design, energy use, technology, entrepreneurship, education, law and politics.

Leadership has been a key element. The common understanding of leadership as involving power derived from an institutional hierarchy is a misconception; it confuses management and leadership. Management is about providing stability, which is, of course, important; leadership is about providing possibility, and that often has little to do with an org-chart...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/a-year-of-magical-thinking-20111213-1osyx.html

Dirty power plant rules abandoned

THE Gillard government has dumped an election promise to introduce rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants...

Labor went to the 2010 election proposing regulations that required new power plants to emit less than 0.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour and be carbon-capture and storage ready - that they could have ''clean coal'' technology attached if it became viable. Mr Ferguson said the commitment was made before a decision to introduce a carbon price...

Mr Ferguson urged state governments to rationalise ''the dog's breakfast'' of rooftop solar incentive schemes - known as feed-in tariffs - following the introduction of the carbon price. Central to the white paper is a priority to reinvigorate energy market reform, including urging state governments to privatise energy infrastructure and deregulate pricing regimes...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/dirty-power-plant-rules-abandoned-20111213-1ot4h.html

Muppets and messages

A US Fox news anchor has labelled the latest Muppet movie as communist, The Guardian reports. Fox Business Network's Eric Bolling told viewers that The Muppets features a character named Tex Richman, a greedy oil boss who wants to drill under the Muppets' theatre. ''Liberal Hollywood depicting a successful businessman as evil - that's not new,'' Bolling said. He then asked his guest, media-bias alarmist Dan Gainor, if Hollywood was deliberately trying to brainwash kids. ''Absolutely,'' Gainor said. ''And they've been doing it for decades.''...

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/muppets-and-messages-20111208-1olh8.html

Sustainable Harvesting of Solar Resources...

2011-12-13T14:00:00.000+11:00

Japan Has 55 Percent of World's Renewable Energy Patents

Japan boasts the world's highest number of patent applications in the field of renewable energies, with 55 percent, followed by the U.S. with 21 percent, EU with 7 percent, PCT Applications [Note], South Korea, and China, according to a document released by the Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MOE) on July 27, 2011. The document was compiled by MOE based on a 2010 report by the World Intellectual Patent Organization (WIPO) and presented at the 94th Global Environmental Committee of the Central Environment Council as a position document from the former session.

[Note] A PCT application is an international patent application that is filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), an international patent law treaty.

Japan's research and development in the renewable energy field is "very advanced" both in academic/public research institutes and private sectors, according to the 2011 edition of "International Comparison of Science and Technology/Research and Development 2011" produced by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). Japan is leading the world in the solar cells field, and its wind power and geothermal generation technologies have maintained equivalent positions to the US and European nations. However, when it comes to biomass technologies, Japan depends too much on technology transfer from overseas, except for particular technologies such as biofuel. Japan thus needs to carefully select and focus on specific fields.

On the other hand, the technical capabilities of production sites in Japan's private sector lag behind those in Western countries and China, and were evaluated as "advanced." Japan's market is small and as such has been slow to commercialize technologies, the report points out. While the global markets for solar cell and wind-power generation have been rapidly expanding, the cost performance of Japanese industries remains weak. Industrial technologies in geothermal generation, however, have maintained large shares globally.

Japan Ranks First in Number of Patents Filed in the Fields of Environment and Energy (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/027151.html
Japanese Automakers Round Out Top 3 in Fuel Cell Patent Applications (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/026811.html

Thanks to http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/031454.html

Democracy: cleanliness is next to middleclassiness

2011-12-13T07:51:00.002+11:00

Platypus death demonstrates danger of discarding rubbish thoughtlessly

...''It is a process of exclusion,'' Dr Johnson said, of determining a cause of death.

He finally concludes that the plastic ring around the animal's neck reduced its ability to care for itself and hunt, enough for it to starve to death or drown.

''Platypus use their bills to probe in and around small crevices, and [the plastic ring] probably got stuck,'' he said. ''It's how they search for food.''

An ecologist from the University of NSW, Tom Grant, said that until recently these types of human-induced platypus deaths were rare in Sydney.

Around Melbourne's waterways, however, 10 per cent of platypuses captured by scientists had been found with some form of rubbish attached to them.

''Sometimes it has drowned them, sometimes it has strangled them, sometimes it has just cut them,'' Dr Grant said.

Dr Johnson said the public needed to understand the effect rubbish, especially plastic, could have not just on platypuses, but on sea creatures including green turtles and on seabirds.

''All this crap that people throw away ends up somewhere and it is not biodegradable,'' he said.

Q. Dear Umbra,

I strive to reduce/reuse/recycle, but as someone who is sensitive to chemicals, purchasing used clothing presents problems. Sometimes soaking the clothes in borax or vinegar, and washing as much as a dozen times (in less toxic, unscented detergent) fails to remove the ferocious stink of the previous owner's detergent and fabric softener. Any suggestions?

RebeccaSeattle, Wash.

http://www.grist.org/green-living-tips/2011-12-12-ask-umbra-how-can-i-de-stink-secondhand-clothes

...Mr Kelly resigned from Parliament in early June, before the investigation became public. If charged and convicted, he could be stripped of all parliamentary super entitlements bar his own contributions. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The commission has recommended the prosecution of Mr Watkins for using a false document and seeking to mislead ICAC by asking that the letter be included in material forwarded to the commission by the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

The ICAC has recommended Mr Costello face prosecution for using a false document.

Mr Watkins was sacked from the public service in July after 41 years and the inquiry report says Mr Costello is no longer employed by the state.

Despite the findings of corrupt conduct over the backdated letter, the ICAC found that, on balance, Mr Watkins was unaware that he was not authorised to carry out the purchase of Currawong.

The essence of Brogden’s policy resonates Greiner’s second reading speech for the Independent Commission Against Corruption Bill, which was introduced in 1988:

"Nothing’s more destructive of democracy than a situation where people lack confidence in those administrators that stand in a position of public trust. If a liberal and democratic society is to flourish we need to ensure that the credibility of public institutions is restored and safeguarded and that community confidence in the integrity of public administration is preserved and justified."

Webdiarist Jozef Imrich interviewed Greiner in 1997 and we have extracted parts of the interview which include Greiner’s reflections on the success and failure of his reform policies and the creation of Independent Commission Against Corruption, which he established during his leadership.

Interview with former Premier, the Hon. Nick Greiner by Jozef Imrich, Macquarie Street, Monday 24 February 1997

Jozef Imrich: If you look back at the political landscape in New South Wales during the Greiner era, what were your most successful decisions?

Nick Greiner: It is too hard to say! If I look at it in a macro level, I think it is fair to say that the reform agenda that I started has now been accepted as common across politics in Australia, across state politics - but really across politics generally. The notion of the importance of the market and competition, of breaking down some of the differentiation between public sector management and private sector management, of running the state’s balance sheet on a broadly practical and agency basis, the importance of debt, these are all important reforms. These are probably more than one decision, but that agenda is now in Mr Carr’s Office. As I was driving in this morning, I heard him say how proud he was of the AAA rating that we had. I think simply establishing the fundamental importance economic management at state level is the most important single thing. It had a great impact.

The second one is the integrity issue. I guess on that one almost everyone is in broad agreement about, that I do not get such good marks there. It is an issue which can be accurately marked because the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) not only helped to kill me, but it is generally regarded as a failure. I actually think that the primary objective to be achieved, which is once and for all to change the culture of integrity in the public sector in New South Wales at every level of judiciary and public servants and politicians, has been lost. The pendulum has clearly gone too far and a lot of the public sector people, both politicians and bureaucrats, are using ICAC as an excuse for not doing anything. The ICAC undoubtedly got some things wrong. All of that is bad, but I think the decision to make integrity an issue and to actually do something serious about it, was actually a pretty important decision. It has actually worked, despite having what you might call unintended consequences, including my departure.

Webdiary columnist Harry Heidelberg recalls his youthful enthusiasm for Greiner’s initiatives and contemplates deja vu a la Brogden with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Haven’t we been through all this NSW stuff before? You ask the question about who would be game to clean up politics, particularly in NSW.

I remember Nick Greiner very well. That's what he promised. I think we all know that NSW has long been riddled with corruption. I clearly remember a Nick Greiner election ad that said "vote Liberal and together we can clean up NSW". It was an effective slogan because we all knew that NSW stunk and that it would be great to clean it up.

Greiner didn't win in 1984 but he won in a landslide in 1988. He seemed to have such exciting ideas. The idea of an Independent Commission Against Corruption. It seemed so well conceived. The irony of course was that this body was instrumental in Greiner's own demise years later...

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/06/1046826473062.html

In Russia it is the growing middle classes that have taken to the streets.

HERE is the rub for Vladimir Putin: the people who stood outside the Kremlin on Saturday chanting epithets directed at him are the ones who have prospered most during his 12 years in power.

They were well travelled and well mannered, they wore hipster glasses. In short, they were young urban professionals, a group that has benefited nicely from Moscow's skyrocketing real estate market and Russia's oil wealth.

It is a paradox, but one that has been documented by social scientists: the residents of Moscow and other large cities tend to express greater frustration with Russia's Prime Minister as his government helps make them wealthier.

One explanation is Russia's high level of public corruption, which threatens new personal wealth. A second is a phenomenon seen in Augusto Pinochet's Chile: that economic growth can undermine autocratic rule by creating an urban professional class that clamours for political rights...

Authoritarian leaders who pursue effective economic policies become victims of their own success. In Russia, after a decade-long oil boom, about a third of the population is now considered middle class.

Canberra's abject submission to US pressure is shameful.

On selling uranium to India, Julia Gillard is wrong, dead wrong. Ramming the policy change through a deeply divided ALP national conference last weekend was not smart politics, but a failure of leadership.

The unequivocal longer-term consequences of this policy backflip are aggravating India's nuclear arms race with Pakistan and eroding the already failing brakes on proliferation of nuclear weapons.

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is not some theoretical possibility, but a real and growing danger. War has broken out between them three times since World War II, and cross-border support for terrorism has created further crises. An attack on the Indian parliament building in December 2001 triggered the mobilisation of half a million troops...

The old wives were wrong. Getting outdoors is a great idea when it's rainy and cold, say experts in infectious diseases.

As Sydneysiders endure the coldest start to a summer in 50 years, Peter Collignon, director of Infectious Diseases at the Australian National University, says the motherly advice - "don't go outside, you'll catch a cold" - is not only wrong, but potentially dangerous.

"While people think it's going out in the rain that makes you sick, it's actually the staying indoors," said Professor Collignon...

To highlight the message, another expert likes to tell his students about an experiment conducted in England many years ago.

"It was at the Common Cold Research Unit in Salisbury," said Professor David Isaacs, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Sydney.

"They [researchers] put them [volunteers] in an outdoor pool in England in the middle of winter with a rectal thermometre up their bottoms."

And what did they find?

"Getting cold doesn't give you a cold," Professor Isaacs said. "Stress and time of year, because you're crowded indoors, are much more important."

Miamii Hazell, of Maroubra, hasn't seen this research, but she's been raising her child as if she'd known it all along. Her 11-year-old son, Ethan, has asthma and chronic lung disease, and Ms Hazell said it was good for him to be outdoors in the cold and rain.

Ethan was splashing in the mud at Centennial Park with his friend, Eliane Sage, 8. Eliane's mother, Annette, said she was a passionate believer in all things wet, dirty and cold.

"I've got three kids," said Annette. "We go camping and they don't have showers for a week and they get wet and cold and they swim in the sea in winter and they go into dams in winter and they don't get sick.

"The people that sit at home and clean their houses with disinfectant all the time are the ones that have sick kids."

Think impure thoughts, role in the dirt and do some muck-raking, stop faking your holier-than-thou cleanliness, and leave it to the atom smashers to find god. Easy peasy. Time for a walk, Lotto.

So you see Toto, everything is connected, from Ashton Kurcher's butterfly wings to Keith Pratt's anti-cartel fine to Kerry Packer's buying of every gambling licence the public once owned to Kevin McLeod's fish. And we are being micromanaged to ensure the rich only eat enough of the poor to stop them from starving in their garretts and other such tromped loweed cliches. Now step out of my sun big boy, your/you're/yore/yaw wearing the soap... thin.

Fine Art writ BIG

2011-12-13T06:42:00.000+11:00

Fine art, writ large: Billboards become gallery space

..."Oftentimes our interactions with the natural world are mediated by our lives as consumers," Battin said of the piece. "It's not about going out into the environment, it's about purchases -- what you're wearing or how you look. Maybe you don't even leave your house. You watch a documentary. You see the world through someone else's window. This is my window."
Battin's work was a part of the Billboard Art Project, a nationwide effort hatched by Richmond, Va., artist David Morrison. Since its start a few years ago, the project has displayed the work of hundreds of artists on digital billboards around the country, turning a landscape of corporate advertising into supersized, outdoor art galleries...
http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-12-09-fine-art-writ-large-billboards-become-gallery-space

Question 1: How many Liberal party members have shares in: a/ Solar companies; b/ Bicycle companies? Question 2: How many Liberal party members receive donations from: a/ Solar lobbyists; b/ Bicycle lobbyists? Question 3: How does which witch is which spell corruption? - Australia the best democracy money can buy.

2011-12-12T08:53:00.001+11:00

Warning over cuts to solar scheme

...The state government called for electricity retailers to begin using the lower rate for all new customers.

''Less than 5 per cent of NSW electricity customers are participating in the Solar Bonus Scheme, yet the blown out costs of the scheme are imposed on all NSW consumers,'' the Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher, said yesterday.

''IPART's draft determination ensures that customers without solar are not footing the bill for generous subsidies to customers with solar.''

IPART's analysis shows the average household saves $330 a year by generating its own electricity, and earns an average of $60 on top of this by selling any surplus electricity into the electricity network.

IPART said its 8-10c figure represents the ''direct financial gain electricity retailers make when their [photo voltaic] customers export electricity to the grid'', although green energy groups warned the IPART rate undervalues solar energy.

''By completely discounting the cost savings from avoided infrastructure spending, IPART has signed the death warrant for the roof-top solar industry,'' Greens MLC John Kaye said.

Clean Energy Council director Kane Thornton said: ''These recommendations would discourage people from purchasing solar panels and put thousands of jobs at risk in NSW. The NSW government should move to … mandate a minimum price for solar electricity.

This would be equitable for solar households and result in no additional cost to taxpayers or electricity users.''

IPART has undervalued the full range of benefits that solar provides for Australia's electricity systems and consumers, he said.

Solar Power Much Cheaper to Produce Than Most Analysts Realize, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 7, 2011) — The public is being kept in the dark about the viability of solar photovoltaic energy, according to a study conducted at Queen's University.

"Many analysts project a higher cost for solar photovoltaic energy because they don't consider recent technological advancements and price reductions," says Joshua Pearce, Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

"Older models for determining solar photovoltaic energy costs are too conservative."

Analysts look at many variables to determine the cost of solar photovoltaic systems for consumers, including installation and maintenance costs, finance charges, the system's life expectancy, and the amount of electricity it generates.

Dr. Pearce says some studies don't consider the 70 per cent reduction in the cost of solar panels since 2009 . Furthermore, he says research now shows the productivity of top-of-the-line solar panels only drops between 0.1 and 0.2 percent annually, which is much less than the one per cent used in many cost analyses.

Equipment costs are determined based on dollars per watt of electricity produced. One 2010 study estimated the this cost at $7.61, while a 2003 study set the amount at $4.16. According to Dr. Pearce, the real cost in 2011 is under $1 per watt for solar panels purchased in bulk on the global market, though he says system and installation costs vary widely.

Dr. Pearce has created a calculator program available for download online that can be used to determine the true costs of solar energy.

The Queen's study was co-authored by grad students Kadra Branker and Michael Pathak and published in the December edition of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111207132916.htm

Aircraft noise rules concern developers

THE property industry is concerned about possible changes to aircraft noise regulation that could restrict development in areas closer to Sydney Airport.

A federal-state advisory group to monitor land use planning around airports has discussed making changes that could, according to developer lobby the Urban Taskforce, cruel housing developments like those at Green Square and Victoria Park.

Airports in Australia use a system called Australian Noise Exposure Forecast (ANEF) to determine where higher levels of aircraft noise should prevent new housing development...

Sniffer dogs get it wrong four out of five times

A RECORD 80 per cent of sniffer dog searches for drugs resulted in ''false positives'' this year, figures show.

The figures obtained from the state government in response to parliamentary questions on notice show 14,102 searches were conducted after a dog sat next to a person, indicating they might be carrying drugs.

But, in 11,248 cases, no drugs were found.Only 2854 searches - 20 per cent - in the first nine months of this year, resulted in drugs being found, the figures show...

Answer 1a:

Rooftop Solar Power A Better Investment Than Shares

by Energy Matters

Solar power investment financial benefits

An independent think tank believes Australian retirees investing in solar power will find it a more profitable investment than BHP Billiton shares and safer than bank shares.

Writing for the Australian Financial Review, David Hetherington, Executive Director of independent progressive think tank Per Capita, says new "solar plus storage" technology for homes and small businesses offers a way for retirees and others to future proof against rapidly escalating electricity costs...

http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=1582

Or, anyone with an ethical investment share portfolio.

Answer 1b:

Malvern Star - From bikes to brands
by R J Katz (1993)

In 1970 Electronic Industries was purchased by Philips. The sale included the General Accessories business, the Malvern Star brand name and the organisation that supported it. Philips are a major Dutch-based multinational and are not related to the Philips Bicycle Company from England. Bicycles did not fit within the core business strategy of Philips and Malvern Star was sold to Raleigh, the British manufacturer, in 1980. At that time the industry was riding the crest of the BMX wave and strong profits were flowing from the business. Philips sold at a good time.

Raleigh's UK parent went through a number of hands and changes in direction thereafter. In Australia it had purchased the bicycle business of the Hanimex corporation which had two principal brands; Bennett, a specialist dealer product; and Cyclops which had been focused mainly at the mass merchant market. The purchase of Malvern Star gave Raleigh a major share of the Australian bicycle market. However, problems started to emerge in the Raleigh operation both at the parent level and locally by 1987. This saw the sale of the worldwide Raleigh business by its then owner, TI PLC, to Derby PLC. In 1988 Derby sold the Australian operations, including Malvern Star and the various brand names it had acquired over the years, in order to concentrate on its successful businesses in the UK and Europe, where it maintained the leading brand (Gazella) of bicycle in the very large Dutch market.

The purchaser of Derby's Australian bicycle business was Pacific Dunlop Limited. At the beginning of 1992, the South Pacific Cycles brand names were also acquired and folded into the Malvern Star business. As a result of these various takeovers, Pacific Dunlop, through Malvern Star, controlled; Speedwell, Cyclops, Bennett, Graecross, Peugeot and Raleigh brands, as well as Malvern Star.

Another major Australian name historically associated with bicycles is Repco. Repco's primary business is in the automotive parts area but it has long been a rival to Malvern Star in the Australian bicycle market. Repco was a listed company on the Australian stock exchange up until the days of leveraged buyouts and entrepreneurs in the mid 1980's. At that time it was acquired by Ariadne Corporation, led by Bruce Judge. Ariadne soon started to get into problems as a result of its rapid debt financed expansion. The 1987 stock market crash saw Ariadne's problems escalate and by 1988, within a month of acquiring Malvern Star, Pacific Dunlop was able to acquire the Repco Group, including its bicycle interests, at a distressed sale price.

Through the acquisition of Malvern Star and Repco, Pacific Dunlop (since bought by Sheppard Industries, famous for Sheppard castors, when Pacific Dunlop rationalised and reverted to Ansell) acquired a strategic position in the bicycle market where in 1993 it controlled an estimated 60% of unit sales...

http://www.bicyclehistory.com.au/malvernstar/from_bikes_to_brands.htm

Plus, anyone who has an ethical investment share portfolio.

Answer 2a:

To be fare the Motor Traders Association of South Australia shared the wealth around to most major political parties, http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=24&ClientID=2802 a bit like Kellog Brown Root and Halliburton did in the fiery days of the second Gulp war, http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/Donor.aspx?SubmissionID=5&ClientID=6125.

Still there were no solar industries identified, http://periodicdisclosures.aec.gov.au/SummaryDonor.aspx

So, any party who took donations from Ethical Investment companies...

Answer 2b:

See 2a, no bicycle industries identified.

So, no one really.

Answer 3:

88% not corrupt, according to the Corruption Perception Index http://sydneygreenring.blogspot.com/2011/12/will-real-einstein-factor-please-stand.html; http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/

Or, about three newts, the tongue of a toad, heart of a starling, some freshly extracted Kali-Durga incantations and some rather silly ritual activity that signifies how seriously we take superstitious (authoritarian religious) processess... and chain letters.

Now Pollyanna, Toto, Dorothea Dix and I are going for a nice ride up and down the garden path whilst infants are murdered in their ~~cradles~~ adolescence, sacrificed to the Dionysian element of western ritual acculturation in their alcohol fuelled and fooled, auto-de-fes.

I wander...

2011-12-11T19:59:00.001+11:00

Collective nouns for sheep:

Is it a gaggle of geese and a superfluity of ganders or the vice a verse?

Canard here me voice above the cackle of old sheep.

Why not bring back Child Labour and other hangovers

2011-12-10T12:54:00.001+11:00

Tests reveal contaminated water near gas site

THE state's first case of water contamination from coal seam gas drilling has been discovered in north-western NSW, according to independent tests.

High levels of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, lithium, cyanide, bromide and boron were found around a water discharge point near a Santos coal seam gas operation in the Pilliga forest, near Narrabri.

The state government last night confirmed it would conduct its own investigation and testing of the site...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/tests-reveal-contaminated-water-near-gas-site-20111208-1oldj.html

Bring on uranium exploration, says O'Farrell

Yellowcake uranium ... the search in NSW begins.

THE Premier, Barry O'Farrell, has opened the door to uranium exploration in NSW days after federal Labor lifted its ban on exporting the nuclear fuel to India.

The state government will review "hangover legislation from the 1970s" prohibiting uranium searches which could pave the way for yellowcake to be mined in NSW.

''The NSW government will have a look at that ban on uranium exploration," Mr O'Farrell told a meeting at the Lowy Institute in Sydney yesterday.

Last weekend the ALP national conference overturned the party's ban on uranium exports to India and the Gillard government will soon negotiate a bilateral safeguards agreement with Delhi as a precursor to sales...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/bring-on-uranium-exploration-says-ofarrell-20111209-1onq6.html

Income enjoys growth spurt

WELLBEING grew twice as fast as gross domestic product in the September quarter thanks to a big rise in national income from the boom in commodity prices and cheaper imports.

The Herald/Lateral Economics Index of Australia's Wellbeing rose 2.2 per cent in the quarter, outstripping GDP growth of 1 per cent.

The index is a Herald initiative that adjusts GDP for changes in the nation's physical, natural and human capital, and in health, income inequality and job satisfaction.
Advertisement: Story continues below

In other good news, the pace of deterioration in our physical and mental health eased slightly in the September quarter. But the erosion of our natural environment continued to be a small - but growing - negative for wellbeing...

http://www.smh.com.au/national/income-enjoys-growth-spurt-20111209-1onqa.html

NSW uranium ban should stay: opposition

...During a question and answer session at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Friday night, Premier Barry O'Farrell opened the door to the possibility of allowing uranium exploration and mining in NSW.

"We don't know whether there is any uranium in NSW so it may come to nought," he said.

"But we should at least be prepared to work out what resources we have across the state and then have a mature and sensible discussion about whether those resources should be exploited for public good."

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson has attacked the premier's comments, saying he's "got it wrong".

"I'm sure the premier doesn't want a uranium mine in his Kuring-gai backyard and he shouldn't dump it in someone else's," Mr Robertson said in a statement on Saturday.

He pointed to comments by Mr O'Farrell and NSW energy minister Chris Hartcher in August when they denied reports that the government was considering overturning the state's long-term ban on uranium exploration and mining.

"This is a massive back-flip by the premier, who only months ago declared his emphatic opposition to uranium mining and exploration in NSW," Mr Robertson said...

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nsw-uranium-ban-should-stay-opposition-20111210-1oock.html

Fracking pollutants detected in water wells

WASHINGTON: The US Environmental Protection Agency has linked hydraulic fracturing with groundwater contamination in Wyoming - a first-of-its-kind conclusion by the federal agency that could trigger new scrutiny of the practice used to extract oil and natural gas.

The agency's findings are part of a three-year investigation into possible water pollution in Pavillion, Wyoming. The agency said it had found synthetic chemicals associated with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids inside deep water wells.

The study is limited to a gas field in west central Wyoming and is only in a draft form but it could have a big impact on the oil and gas industry, which has insisted that hydraulic fracturing is safe and should be regulated solely by state officials, rather than the federal government.

The report is sure to stoke calls for stepped-up regulation of fracturing and natural gas drilling...

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/fracking-pollutants-detected-in-water-wells-20111209-1onqw.html

Will the REAL EINSTEIN FACTOR please stand up

2011-12-09T07:03:00.001+11:00

What is corruption?

"Corruption" is defined by Transparency International (TI) as "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain" and its mission is "to create change towards a world free of corruption."

Each year TI creates a report entitled the "Corruption Perceptions Index" which scores the world's nations out of ten for their public sector honesty and the results of the just-released 2011 report indicate that the integrity of people in authority in nearly all of the world's countries, is still sadly lacking.

Firstly, for those who have not come across the report previously, the 2011 CPI draws on 17 data sources from 13 institutions gathered between December 2009 and September 2011. All sources used provide a score for a set of countries/territories and measure perceptions of corruption in the public sector using published methodology...

http://www.gizmag.com/transparency-international-corruption-perceptions-index/20730/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=6e890eda36-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

These methods were compiled by Dr. Gene Sharp and first published in his 1973 book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action. (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973). The book outlines each method and gives information about its historical use.

You may also download this list of methods.

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION

Formal Statements
1. Public Speeches
2. Letters of opposition or support
3. Declarations by organizations and institutions
4. Signed public statements
5. Declarations of indictment and intention
6. Group or mass petitions

Communications with a Wider Audience
7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications
9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books
10. Newspapers and journals
11. Records, radio, and television
12. Skywriting and earthwriting

Group Representations
13. Deputations
14. Mock awards
15. Group lobbying
16. Picketing
17. Mock elections

Symbolic Public Acts
18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors
19. Wearing of symbols
20. Prayer and worship
21. Delivering symbolic objects
22. Protest disrobings
23. Destruction of own property
24. Symbolic lights
25. Displays of portraits
26. Paint as protest
27. New signs and names
28. Symbolic sounds
29. Symbolic reclamations
30. Rude gestures

Pressures on Individuals
31. "Haunting" officials
32. Taunting officials
33. Fraternization
34. Vigils

Drama and Music
35. Humorous skits and pranks
36. Performances of plays and music
37. Singing

Processions
38. Marches
39. Parades
40. Religious processions
41. Pilgrimages
42. Motorcades

Honoring the Dead
43. Political mourning
44. Mock funerals
45. Demonstrative funerals
46. Homage at burial places

Public Assemblies
47. Assemblies of protest or support
48. Protest meetings
49. Camouflaged meetings of protest
50. Teach-ins

Withdrawal and Renunciation
51. Walk-outs
52. Silence
53. Renouncing honors
54. Turning one's back

THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION

Ostracism of Persons
55. Social boycott
56. Selective social boycott
57. Lysistratic nonaction
58. Excommunication
59. Interdict

Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Institutions
60. Suspension of social and sports activities
61. Boycott of social affairs
62. Student strike
63. Social disobedience
64. Withdrawal from social institutions

Withdrawal from the Social System
65. Stay-at-home
66. Total personal noncooperation
67. "Flight" of workers
68. Sanctuary
69. Collective disappearance
70. Protest emigration (hijrat)

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS

Actions by Consumers
71. Consumers' boycott
72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods
73. Policy of austerity
74. Rent withholding
75. Refusal to rent
76. National consumers' boycott
77. International consumers' boycott

Action by Workers and Producers
78. Workmen's boycott
79. Producers' boycott

Action by Middlemen
80. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott

Action by Owners and Management
81. Traders' boycott
82. Refusal to let or sell property
83. Lockout
84. Refusal of industrial assistance
85. Merchants' "general strike"

Action by Holders of Financial Resources
86. Withdrawal of bank deposits
87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments
88. Refusal to pay debts or interest
89. Severance of funds and credit
90. Revenue refusal
91. Refusal of a government's money

Action by Governments
92. Domestic embargo
93. Blacklisting of traders
94. International sellers' embargo
95. International buyers' embargo
96. International trade embargo

THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (2)THE STRIKE

Symbolic Strikes
97. Protest strike
98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike)

Agricultural Strikes
99. Peasant strike
100. Farm Workers' strike

Strikes by Special Groups
101. Refusal of impressed labor
102. Prisoners' strike
103. Craft strike
104. Professional strike

Ordinary Industrial Strikes
105. Establishment strike
106. Industry strike
107. Sympathetic strike

Restricted Strikes
108. Detailed strike
109. Bumper strike
110. Slowdown strike
111. Working-to-rule strike
112. Reporting "sick" (sick-in)
113. Strike by resignation
114. Limited strike
115. Selective strike

Multi-Industry Strikes
116. Generalized strike
117. General strike

Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures
118. Hartal
119. Economic shutdown

THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION

Rejection of Authority
120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance
121. Refusal of public support
122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance

Citizens' Noncooperation with Government
123. Boycott of legislative bodies
124. Boycott of elections
125. Boycott of government employment and positions
126. Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies
127. Withdrawal from government educational institutions
128. Boycott of government-supported organizations
129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents
130. Removal of own signs and placemarks
131. Refusal to accept appointed officials
132. Refusal to dissolve existing institutions

Citizens' Alternatives to Obedience
133. Reluctant and slow compliance
134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision
135. Popular nonobedience
136. Disguised disobedience
137. Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse
138. Sitdown
139. Noncooperation with conscription and deportation
140. Hiding, escape, and false identities
141. Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws

Action by Government Personnel
142. Selective refusal of assistance by government aides
143. Blocking of lines of command and information
144. Stalling and obstruction
145. General administrative noncooperation
146. Judicial noncooperation
147. Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents
148. Mutiny

Domestic Governmental Action
149. Quasi-legal evasions and delays
150. Noncooperation by constituent governmental units

International Governmental Action
151. Changes in diplomatic and other representations
152. Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events
153. Withholding of diplomatic recognition
154. Severance of diplomatic relations
155. Withdrawal from international organizations
156. Refusal of membership in international bodies
157. Expulsion from international organizations

THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION

Psychological Intervention
158. Self-exposure to the elements
159. The fast
a) Fast of moral pressure
b) Hunger strike
c) Satyagrahic fast
160. Reverse trial
161. Nonviolent harassment

Physical Intervention
162. Sit-in
163. Stand-in
164. Ride-in
165. Wade-in
166. Mill-in
167. Pray-in
168. Nonviolent raids
169. Nonviolent air raids
170. Nonviolent invasion
171. Nonviolent interjection
172. Nonviolent obstruction
173. Nonviolent occupation

Social Intervention
174. Establishing new social patterns
175. Overloading of facilities
176. Stall-in
177. Speak-in
178. Guerrilla theater
179. Alternative social institutions
180. Alternative communication system

Economic Intervention
181. Reverse strike
182. Stay-in strike
183. Nonviolent land seizure
184. Defiance of blockades
185. Politically motivated counterfeiting
186. Preclusive purchasing
187. Seizure of assets
188. Dumping
189. Selective patronage
190. Alternative markets
191. Alternative transportation systems
192. Alternative economic institutions

Political Intervention
193. Overloading of administrative systems
194. Disclosing identities of secret agents
195. Seeking imprisonment
196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws
197. Work-on without collaboration
198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government

Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).

Download PDF

http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations103a.html

Horse Sense vs Horse Power

2011-12-07T07:38:00.001+11:00

HORSE SENSE

..."Maybe it's a [glimpse] into the future," says Adam Davidoff, co-owner of New Family Farm in Sebastopol, Calif. Davidoff is 25 and relatively new to farming; he works with a team of three draft horses to pull various farm implements that prepare beds, cultivate, plant, and harvest row crops. But he also sees horsepower as a proactive approach to mitigating negative environmental changes. Instead of buying manure or fertilizer, farms with draft animals have a built-in source; they also compact the soil less than machines -- a big concern for farmers who want to develop and conserve healthy soil for years to come. He also sees them as a kind of back up plan. "If we have some sort of a collapse ... draft horses could become a lot more viable," he says.

Farmers may choose to lead draft animals for sustainability reasons, but they quickly learn it also changes the pace of the operation. In sharp contrast to working with tractors, Davidoff explains that horses slow you down. "Stopping, breathing, and rubbing their bellies -- just letting them settle into it -- forces me to take smaller and slower steps." He believes the horses have had a profound impact on other aspects of the way he farms...

http://www.grist.org/sustainable-farming/2011-12-06-small-farmers-crave-horsepower

HORSE POWER

...Yes, Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Mercedes cost a lot of money, but there were only 14 vehicles in total in the pile-up and no-one was killed or even seriously injured. Just three days prior to this 14-car accident, there was a far more serious pile-up in Tennessee which involved 176 vehicles, one death and 16-18 injuries.

Just a month ago, there was an even more tragic (and costly) pile-up on the M5 in Somerset. It involved 34 vehicles, seven fatalities and 51 injuries and while there may not have been as much expensive machinery involved, insurance companies will be paying out far more money than will occur in Japan.

Mass pile-ups of far greater magnitude are not that uncommon and you don't need to do much research to recognize that there have been many more expensive automobile accidents including a 60 vehicle accident in UAE in March 2008 during which 25 vehicles caught fire, three people died and 277 were injured.

The same Wikipedia entry lists 18 accidents in which more than 100 vehicles have been involved and there are almost certainly many more which are not listed.

Wikipedia also lists dozens of accidents where more than 14 people were killed (the same number of cars in this accident) and people are worth more than Ferraris...

http://www.gizmag.com/the-worlds-most-expensive-automobile-accident-not/20727/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=bb4481b028-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Picture this, a pile of bicycles strewn along the Bourke Road Cycle Path, the faces of all the riders injured and mutilated bear an eerie similarity to Alan Jones (one 'l' Alan), the mangled wreckage of burning bicycles spewing filth and pollution into the urban sky, whilst Alan Jones (one 'l' Alan) trotts past mounted on one of his coal-eating, scapegoating, thoroughbred ponies, 'coaching' his team of world beating rugger buggers who are all driving cars instead - all that jogging and sweating just coal seams like too much hard work... just a thought.

Stranger in a Strange Land - Tan Le

2011-12-03T18:18:00.001+11:00

You have been droned.

2011-11-30T07:07:00.001+11:00

...The installation involves a fleet of quadrocopters that are programmed to interact, lift, transport and assemble the final tower, all the time receiving commands wirelessly from a local control room. The tower, which will boast a height of 6 meters (19.7 feet) and a diameter of 3.5 meters (11.5 feet), will be constructed within a 10 x 10 x 10 meter (32.8 x 32.8 x 32.8 foot) airspace, in which up to 50 vehicles can be tracked simultaneously at a rate of 370 frames per second with millimeter accuracy. This "Flying Machine Arena" was developed by D'Andrea, and features a state-of-the-art motion capture system...

http://www.gizmag.com/flying-robots-to-build-6-meter-tower/20639/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=969a86fc77-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

Do mine eyes deceive me?

2011-11-30T07:00:00.001+11:00

Airport's goal

Claims by the No Aircraft Noise Party that Sydney Airport wants more people to drive to the airport are not true (Letters, November 29).

Sydney Airport has long campaigned for the removal of station access fees to the two airport stations.

We have also called for the expansion of bus services to the airport, as well as introduced free parking at both the terminals - ours is the only capital city airport to do so.

Ted Plummer

Sydney Airport Corporation, Mascot

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/pleasing-no-one-maybe-rescue-plan-is-on-target-20111129-1o5aw.html

accessed Wednesday 30 November 2011

Helmets are for soldiers

2011-11-29T06:59:00.001+11:00

HowNowBowWow

2011-11-23T18:44:00.001+11:00

Optimizing through-put with designer landfill.

2011-11-19T09:42:00.001+11:00

Is your stuff falling apart? Thank Walmart

...Since 1994, the consumer price of apparel, in real terms, has fallen by 39 percent. "It is now possible to buy clothing, long a high-priced and valuable commodity, by the pound, for prices comparable to cheap agricultural products," notes Juliet Schor. Cheapness -- and the decline in durability that has accompanied it -- has triggered an astonishing increase in the amount of clothing we buy. In the mid-1990s, the average American bought 28 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy 59 items. We also throw away an average of 83 pounds of textiles per person, mostly discarded apparel, each year. That's four times as much as we did in 1980, according to an EPA analysis of municipal waste streams [PDF].

Most consumer products have followed a similar trajectory over the last two decades. Walmart has done more than any other company to drive these changes, though other retailers have since followed its model. Where once we measured value when we shopped, Walmart trained us to see only price. Its hard bargaining pushed manufacturers offshore and drove them, year after year, to cut more corners and make shoddier products. As union-wage production jobs and family-owned businesses fell by the wayside, many Americans could no longer afford anything but Walmart's cheap offerings.

Today Walmart says it wants to reduce the amount of pollution involved in making some of the stuff it sells. That seems like a good thing -- except that everything else Walmart does is designed to undermine the durability of consumer goods, accelerate the flow of products from factory to landfill, and get us to buy more stuff. Even if Walmart does succeed in reducing the resources used to make a T-shirt or a television set, those gains will be more than outstripped by growth in the number of T-shirts and TVs we're consuming...

Thanks to Grist

http://www.grist.org/business-technology/2011-11-11-is-your-stuff-falling-apart-thank-walmart

Just replace America and Walmart with Ameralia and K-Mart to get the "Gist".

And here's one I prepared earlier

2011-11-17T09:16:00.001+11:00

A DIY bike lane in Mexico City

BY JESS ZIMMERMAN11 NOV 2011 4:01 PM

Tired of waiting for the Mexico City government to deliver on a promise to build 186 miles of bike lanes (they've managed 14), a group of residents decided to take matters into their own hands. Eighty people from local pedestrian and bike organizations built three miles of priority bike lane in eight hours.

These bike lanes don't have legal status, and the DIYers did interact with police at one point (they just told them "we are just doing what government should be doing themselves"). Chances are probably not good that the "WikiLane" will stick around. But the organizers are trying to prove a larger point: that residents want this, and that it's not that freaking hard.

We worked for 8 hours. We painted 5 kms. We spent less than 1000 dollars. How much would it cost to actually build the bicycle infrastructure the city needs?

No rite or wrong way to play?

2011-11-16T08:18:00.001+11:00

Charlie Todd on TED doing Improv Everywhere.

Reading J Huizinga, Homo Ludens at the moment, and his contention is that culture is the natural result of play. That includes religion, warfare, politics, art, science, and a whole lotta stuff that results in the bested and worsted mankind has to say for itself. It would seem then, following the argruement, that there are many, many wrong ways to play, and usually they have to do with rites of passage.

Maybe Guru Adrian should have the last word on this one,

http://www.guruadrian.com/adrianetics/adrianet.html

How To Buy Off A Community

2011-11-15T17:38:00.001+11:00

From the horse's mouth (Toby Ralph was introduced in a previous episode as being in the Liberal bunker for each of John Howard's federal election campaigns) comes the strategy employed to white-ant any grass roots campaign pitted against big money. Joyce Cary/Carey would be shocked.

Anything you can do I can do... with remote control

2011-11-14T12:27:00.001+11:00

Mind mapping

2011-11-14T07:50:00.001+11:00

It's the extra 'l' in Allan that seems to make all the difference.

2011-11-12T11:20:00.001+11:00

Ten years after the all-clear, Maralinga is still toxic

...While the documents indicate ''no radiological contamination of groundwater'' has been detected, the government has been obliged, under its 2009 agreement with Maralinga Tjarutja for the handback of the test site, to initiate further work.

The Taranaki trench was used to bury radioactive debris and soil, mainly from numerous ''minor trials'' - British nuclear weapons safety and development experiments - that between 1956 and 1963 caused the heaviest radioactive contamination.

A brief prepared in April for the Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, questioned the capacity of the Maralinga Tjarutja to manage the site...

The contamination was not assessed as a radiological hazard but the uranium toxicity prompted consultations on a clean-up of the site, and the Maralinga Tjarutja expressed concern about a risk to children playing on the ground.

Federal officials were more concerned that adults could wrongly interpret the yellow uranium fragments as meaning the site was radioactively contaminated, ''which could create an image issue''.

Alan Parkinson, a retired nuclear engineer and whistleblower who questioned the management of the clean-up, yesterday said the remediation had only been partial and ''the remarkable thing really, is how little [radioactive material] we buried''.

Safety-conscious St Andrew's puts spoke in the wheel of city's cycleway plan

ST ANDREW'S Cathedral School appears poised to win a bruising battle to force the City of Sydney to change plans for a cycleway outside its front door, with the lord mayor now supporting amendments the City says will cost an extra $1 million.

At a briefing this week, councillors were told the City had agreed to the unusual step of publicly exhibiting two designs for the Kent Street cycleway, one preferred by council staff and an alternative scheme designed after mediation between the school and the City.

The City's preferred scheme is to extend an existing cycleway south to the end of Kent Street, taking over part of the road that runs past the school's front door and is used by parents to drop off about 60 children each day...

Kids who walk are on track to better health

Joint media release
Embargoed - Thursday 08 April 2010

Children who walk to school are more physically active in their day-to-day activities around their neighbourhood than those children who are driven to school, a new study finds.

The study, undertaken for VicHealth by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), also suggests that children who walk to school are significantly more connected with their local community.

ACER Chief Executive Officer, Professor Geoff Masters said: “The research involved analysing surveys and pictures drawn by 659 primary school aged children between the ages of 9 and 12.“Our study found that only 26 per cent of the years 3 to 6 primary school aged children walked to school in the past five days.”

“Children who walked to school demonstrated a greater awareness of, and familiarity with, their local environment. They drew detailed elements of green space such as parks, trees, grass, flowers, sporting ovals and children playing football, people riding bikes, walking their dog and playgrounds.”

“In contrast, children who travelled to school by car tended to depict abstract, isolated images of their neighbourhood environment with the car and the road as the central theme. They drew images of traffic lights, road signs, school crossings, local schools, office buildings, shopping centres, and fast food outlets. They also drew their own street and a lot of empty blank spaces,” Professor Masters said.

VicHealth CEO Todd Harper said: “This study is a great insight into the hearts and minds of our children. It shows that we need to invest a lot more in their physical and emotional wellbeing.”

“This study is also an innovative look at young children, their physical activity and their connection to their local environment.”

“We know the development of healthy young minds and bodies are essential for reducing the huge burden on our health system when these children reach middle age and beyond.”

“This research has been commissioned to evaluate a VicHealth program calledStreets Ahead, aimed at increasing physical activity in children aged 4 to 12 years through promoting independent mobility.”

“There is overwhelming evidence that when children walk or cycle to school, they are better off physically and importantly in terms of their social and emotional wellbeing,” Mr Harper says.

The three year evaluation study is analysing results from 1,412 primary school aged children from Prep to year 6 across 19 Primary Schools in Victoria.

The research is being presented by ACER researcher Catherine Underwood at the inaugural International Healthy Parks Healthy People Congress in Melbourne next week.

Further informationVicHealth Media Coordinator Antony Balmain: T 03 9667 1373 M 0413 627 336 abalmain@vichealth.vic.gov.au

ACER Corporate Publicity & Communications Manager: T 03 9277 5582 M 0419 340 058 Reynolds@acer.edu.au

http://www.acer.edu.au/media/kids-who-walk-are-on-track-to-better-health/

Public cool rooms suggested for future heatwaves

COOLING rooms - airconditioned public centres where heat-stressed people can take refuge - may become necessary by 2050, when deaths from extreme heat events are likely to double today's toll.

The cooling room concept has been raised in a high-level report into Australia's preparations for a future, hotter era. It is one option for those whose lives may depend on respite from 45-degree temperatures.

Heatwaves kill more Australians than any other natural disaster and that is likely to get far worse, particularly for Melbourne and Brisbane due to their particular climatic conditions, says the report produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers in collaboration with government and meteorology experts...

Fracking lobby pays $747m to stop laws

WASHINGTON: Oil and gas companies that hydraulically fracture wells and trade groups that represent them spent $US747 million to lobby federal policymakers and contribute to lawmakers' campaigns from 2001 to late 2011, an advocacy group has reported.

Common Cause, a liberal nonprofit organisation that advocates tougher campaign finance laws, said the industry employees and political action committees gave $US20.5 million to legislators' campaigns from 2001 to June 2011 and spent $US726 million on lobbying at the federal level.

I Miss Conviviality

2011-11-12T07:11:00.001+11:00

Define: Rust Belt Suburb

2011-11-11T10:21:00.001+11:00

An aging rust belt town becomes a laboratory for sustainability

...What Orr came back with -- and what Oberlin's city government and the college's administrators and Board of Trustees eventually supported -- was the Oberlin Project. A "green arts district" would catalyze a green redevelopment of the city and surrounding area as a whole. The outdated Oberlin Inn would be replaced by a new hotel, bars and restaurants, a conference center, student residences, facilities for the college's arts programs, and a sustainable-design center. Those facilities would employ local craftsmen and use local products in their construction, kick-starting a local wood-products industry.

Photo: Scott Carlson

The college dining services and restaurants would get their food from a 20,000-acre greenbelt in the region -- Orr is working with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy to identify a patchwork of Ohio farms that might be willing to give up some commodity crops to grow more vegetables for the city. Students from the local vocational school, which has a top-notch culinary program, would work in the conference center and restaurants. All the sewage would run through a Living Machine -- a system that uses plants and microbes to clean wastewater.

The project unfurls from there, with details changing as Orr makes new deals and dreams up bigger plans. Most recently, he said that the Great Lakes Brewing Company, in Cleveland, had stepped forward with an interest in setting up a brewpub in the green arts district. Orr scrapped his plans for setting up a Living Machine in town. Instead, he said, why not build a sewage digester at the town's wastewater-treatment plant to produce methane for electricity?...

http://www.grist.org/cities/2011-11-10-the-oberlin-project-1-an-aging-rust-belt-town-becomes-a-laborato

You power it and they will come

2011-11-09T12:02:00.001+11:00

Clean options look good for area written off as a wasteland

...''We want to be one of the top 10 clean-energy regions in Australia,'' he told the Herald, rattling off a list of projects in the final stages of planning.

There's a wave energy pilot project set to begin in December, a rare earth minerals processing plant - providing metals used in modern technologies such as hybrid cars and iPods - also set to begin construction this year, well-advanced plans for a large-scale solar project and a study showing the region has the potential to provide big amounts of wind power.

Mr Cant said companies including Pacific Hydro, Orica and Origin Energy had bought land in the area and put up monitoring systems in preparation for possible wind-power investments and the region intended to apply to the federal government's clean energy fund for a high-voltage transmission line to connect the proposed projects to the national electricity network.

Mr Abbott's prediction (the ''wiped off the map'' phrase was repeating the forecast of a local union official) was based on the impact he believed the tax would have on One Steel, the region's largest employer.

But when the carbon tax was announced, that company issued a statement saying it was ''appropriate and sensible''. The package offers OneSteel about $120 million of a $300 million, four-year steel assistance package. The company would also receive 95 per cent of its required pollution permits free. But the industry remains under pressure because of the strong Australian dollar and the long-term impact of the tax, so OneSteel is reviewing its Whyalla operations...

It's a bicycle Jim, but not as we know it

2011-11-08T11:38:00.000+11:00

SRAM pART PROJECT auctioning off bicycle part art

If you're a cycling enthusiast, you've probably seen plenty of bracelets made from bike chains, clocks made from chain rings, or other items constructed by local hobbyists from cast-off components. Fun as those kind of curios may be, imagine what you might get if you took 46 established artists from across the U.S., gave each of them a box of 100 brand-new bike components, and asked them to make those into whatever they wanted. Well, that was the idea behind the SRAM pART PROJECT. The resulting sculptures have been shown at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas, will go on display in a juried exhibition at a gallery in Chicago, and are about to be put up for auction online...

Thanks to Gizmag for the link

http://www.gizmag.com/sram-part-project/20410/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b2642e8629-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

sooo many green rings...

2011-11-08T10:35:00.004+11:00

The ART of city making - how imagination

and creativity play their part.

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/podcasts/citytalks/default/default.asp