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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
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This is rubbish. The present Labor governments problems are pretty much all down to the personality defects of the current Labor prime minister - Kevi n Rudd. He's a brilliant politician but a rotten political leader, which is why the Labor party slung him out a few years ago and replaced him with Ju lia Gillard, who was a much better political leader, but couldn't get the e lectorate onto her side. Kevin Rudd campaigning non-stop against her didn't help, and by the time he'd managed to stab her in the back and get back in to power, Labor's standing with the elctorate had evaporated.
The carbon tax was non-event. The leader of the conservation opposition - Tony Abbott - told everybody that it was going to wreck the Australian econ omy, which was doing fine before the tax was brought in and continued to do just as well after it had been brought in, making him look like an idiot, but sadly not enough of an idiot to make him obviously unelectable.
The Murdoch press doesn't present Abbott as an idiot, and does what it can to make him more electable, and the Labor Party less so, It's been quite bl atant about it over the past month or so.
I wonder what you think the coal story means?
China is number one producer, with 49.5% of the international production, w hile the USA is second with 14.1%, leaving Australia fourth at 5.6%.
If we weren't digging it up, we'd be subject to a hostile take-over by some one more enthusiastic about digging it up - probably US-inspired. The US ha s a long history of installing grotty puppet regimes to dig up fossil carbo n in insufficiently cooperative countries.
This went badly wrong in Iran and may well go wrong in Saudi Arabia. The in vasion of Irak was probably a particularly incompetent attempt to set up a complaisant regime there. Granting the history, our digging it up and shipp ing it out as fast as possible is simple prudence.
I've pointed this out to you before, but your brain seems to be set up to s oak up right-wing propaganda and reject conflicting facts. Jim-out-of-touch
-with-reality-Thompson doesn't seem to have the capacity to absorb any new facts outside of circuit design, but you demonstrate an amazing capacity to absorb right-wing non-facts as long as they have been served up by one of the right-wing publishers to whom you have given the exclusive rights to re
-program your world-view.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
BEEP! My name is Robot Baer. BEEP!
This news just in!
?Climate change is absolute crap?
- Tony Abbott
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Nothing personal, just an automatic reaction, common in such situations. Episode 103 of the HHGTTG by Douglas Adams explains it all:
ARTHUR: I, um, you startled me.
SLARTIBARTFAST: Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you.
ARTHUR: You shot at us! There were missiles.
SLARTIBARTFAST: Merely an automatic system. Ancient computers ranged in the long caves deep in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty databanks.
They take the occasional potshot to relieve the monotony. I am a great fan of science you know.
ARTHUR: Really?
SLARTIBARTFAST: Oh yes.
ARTHUR: Ah.
SLARTIBARTFAST: You seem ill at ease.
ARTHUR: Yes, well, no disrespect, but I gathered you were all dead.
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Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 USA +1 845 480 2058 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
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h all down to the personality defects of the current Labor prime minister - Kevin Rudd. He's a brilliant politician but a rotten political leader, whi ch is why the Labor party slung him out a few years ago and replaced him wi th Julia Gillard, who was a much better political leader, but couldn't get the electorate onto her side. Kevin Rudd campaigning non-stop against her d idn't help, and by the time he'd managed to stab her in the back and get ba ck into power, Labor's standing with the electorate had evaporated.
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economy, which was doing fine before the tax was brought in and continued to do just as well after it had been brought in, making him look like an id iot, but sadly not enough of an idiot to make him obviously unelectable.
can to make him more electable, and the Labor Party less so, It's been qui te blatant about it over the past month or so.
bor-bias/
on, while the USA is second with 14.1%, leaving Australia fourth at 5.6%.
someone more enthusiastic about digging it up - probably US-inspired. The US has a long history of installing grotty puppet regimes to dig up fossil carbon in insufficiently cooperative countries.
he invasion of Irak was probably a particularly incompetent attempt to set up a complaisant regime there. Granting the history, our digging it up and shipping it out as fast as possible is simple prudence.
to soak up right-wing propaganda and reject conflicting facts. Jim-out-of- touch-with-reality-Thompson doesn't seem to have the capacity to absorb any new facts outside of circuit design, but you demonstrate an amazing capaci ty to absorb right-wing non-facts as long as they have been served up by on e of the right-wing publishers to whom you have given the exclusive rights to re-program your world-view.
Note that the Senate results won't be available for about a week. It's very likely that Abbott won't have a majority in the Senate, and quite likely t hat Labor and the Greens will have enough seats to block any of his sillier initiatives - we'll probably end up with a couple of barking mad fringe pa rty Senators who might be persuaded to support Abbott lunacies.
He certainly said it - once. He got enough stick about it to have backed of f since.
"At an October 2009 meeting in the Victorian town of Beaufort, Abbott was r eported to have said: "The argument is absolute crap... However, the politi cs of this are tough for us. 80% of people believe climate change is a real and present danger".[134] On 1 December 2009, when questioned about that s tatement, he said he had used "a bit of hyperbole" at that meeting rather t han it being his "considered position"."
At the time he was in the process of kicking out the then leader of the Lib eral Party - Malcolm Turnbull (who happens to be my MP) - and taking over t he job, so he was - to put it kindly - distracted.
Malcolm Turnbull is a much more impressive character, who does understand t hat climate change is real, which didn't suit the mining interests who help fund the Australian Liberal Party.
Abbott took enough of a kicking about the Beaufort incident to get the mess age that he wasn't allowed to express his ignorance in public. To that exte nt he has proved more educatable than you are.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
In case anyone missed the point, there are 22 million Australians, and the average Aussie generates about 18 tons of CO2 per year. The government is punishing them for it, to reduce climate change.
Australia exports about 500 megatons of coal per year, which, when burnt, makes around 1.8 gigatons of CO2. That's about 82 tons of CO2 per Australian.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com http://www.highlandtechnology.com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
"Bill Slowman is all WRONG"
** WRONG:Kevin's smug arrogance was only really apparent and annoying to the members of his cabinet - making a cabinet revolt a possibility.
BTW: Australians do not elect their prime minister - the cabinet does and can change that person at any time.
** WRONG:Julia simply had more friends in cabinet than Kevin and was far more easily influenced to make deals. That is not necessarily a good thing, but it got her the prime minister's job.
** WRONG:As always, the commercial media constantly crucified the Labor Party for every small mistake and events beyond their control.
** WRONG:It became a huge bat to hit Julia with - as she had faithfully promised there would NOT be one under her governance.
** It was a very controversial tax, unpopular with consumers and business folk alike. It seemed to be a pointless bow to Green madness and just an excuse to grab for cash to spend on election time promises.The Labor Party came across as internally conflicted, irrational and making far too many nutty sweetheart deals with the Green loonies. The Liberal Party are not likely to do the same, so folk voted them in yesterday.
Far as Global Warming is concerned, while most Australians think it must be real ( cos all the media keeps telling us so) hardy anyone believes there is a thing we can do about it.
... Phil
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It didn't make a cabinet revolt "a possibility". The cabinet revolt really happened. Kevin was obnoxious enough that his colleagues were prepared to e ndure the side-effects of slinging him out.
dIt's a bit more complicated than that, but if the prime minister is obnoxio us enough it can happen.
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Which is to say she could work out compromise deals - she kept a minority g overnment in power for three years, and got some useful legislation passed, which is fair evidnece of leadership skills.
You might not be best placed to understand her particular political skills.
The Murdoch press is always with us, and even the Fairfax Press was distinc tly pro-liberal - they may have confined themselves to reporting real news, but they did give more emphasis to the bits that were less favourable to L abor.
One of those cabinet compromises that turned out to be a horse designed by a committee.
In the long term the world is going to have to wean itself off fossil carbo n. We've made a pretty feeble start, but at least the mechanisms are being put in place.
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ng
The Greens are likely to retain their hold on the balance of power in the S enate. Tony Abbott is probably going to have to make his own nutty sweethea rt deals to get legislation through the Senate, just as Gillard had to.
And the Greens aren't loonies - in the way say Gina Rinehart is (despite be ing the wealthiest person in Australia, due to her astute choice of father) . I'm more worried about Tony Abbott's habit of taking her silly ideas seri ously (which presumably pays off in terms of contributions to electoral exp enses).
be
is
A misconception that Tony Abbott is happy to feed.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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The US is close behind at 17.2 tonnes per head. The poor in Australia aren' t as poor as the poor in the US, and the population density here is lower. We are working on doing better, while you aren't.
It's not punishment - the carbon tax makes very little real difference to a nybody's standard of living, and anthropogenic global warming is starting t o chew away at the everybodies standard of living.
The tax is having very little effect on carbon dioxide outputs - it's enoug h to tilt the playing field towards renewable energy, but not high enough t o persuade anybody to shut down fossil-fueled power plants before they wear out.
Except that most of it goes to China, where the carbon emission per head wa s about 6.2 tonnes per head in 2009 (which is when the Australian and US fi gures came from). China is now burning more fossil carbon per head - as it' s economy catches up with the advanced industrial countries - but it is als o investing in renewable energy sources.
As I mentioned, Australia doesn't have a lot of choice about exporting the coal. If we weren't digging it up and shipping it out, we'd find ourselves with a new government who would be more sympathetic to fossil carbon extrac tion. There'd probably be some implausible stories about weapons of mass-de struction put about to justify the regime change.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
The carbon tax issue doesn't have much to do with why Rudd / Gillard were turfed out. Most Aussies could name many reasons before they got to the carbon tax. The carbon tax probably gets a high profile as some large companies have media "pull".
It seems most Aussies including many members of my family voted for obscure independent candidates as both of the major parties are s**te.
With the rate & prices we are selling our (Australian) assets off we shall soon be the broke owners of a large, deep & spent quarry.
A much safer asset to own than the iron ore and coal that used to fill it.
If we'd been silly enough not to dig it out, our government would been denounced as making weapons of mass destruction (or something equally bogus) and there would have been a sudden regime change.
Granting the enthusiasm with which Rupert Murdoch was promoting Tony Abbott (as if he was Australia's own version of Tony Blair) one can only wonder what our Tony is going to be giving to Rupert.
Blair has - of course - denied that he gave Murdoch's media empire free reign in the UK, but this is the same guy that told us that Irak's weapons of mass destruction were real.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
At 500 megatons a year, how long will it take the entire Australian continent to disappear?
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
:
It's a continental plate which is drifting north at about 5.6 cm per year.
suggests that it might weigh something like 4x10^22 kg - 4x10^19 tonne - wh ich means about 8x10^10 years. The continent would have circumnavigated the planet about 100,000 times while this was going on, but since the Sun will have expanded to a red giant when the job would be only 6% done, Australia ns will have other things to worry about before they need to think about em igrating, or stepping off onto another continental plate as it drifted by.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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