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That's news to me. Although this says "it comes as no surprise that a leaked Stratfor client list included a large number of subscribers from the US foreign policy and military bureaucracies." (True, it's not a big contract.)

Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask North Korea the US owes them 75 trillion dollars in "compensation" for "war damages". Link.

The real reason that these researchers are being sacked is that someone high in the administration has what I term an "Edifice Complex". A common affliction in Australia, it consists of building something akin to the pyramids as a memorial to the wonderful wisdom, forsight, leadership, etc, etc, etc of the person at the top of the "pyramid". The edifice in question is called the "Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease".

Blaming the funding problems on falling student numbers, or routine maintenance, is incorrect.

If you are interested, read the gory details at http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3822688.html

Erratum
Post date 21 January 2005
Essays: "The scientific consensus on climate change" by N. Oreskes (3 Dec. 2004, p. 1686). The final sentence of the fifth paragraph should read "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords 'global climate change' (9)." The keywords used were "global climate change," not "climate change." [emphasis added]

In any case, here are the problems. That page explains it at least as well as any other single source. But one point should be clarified, and that is what I stated about "self-selection" because of her search terms. You see, of all the climate papers written during that period, the only papers out of the whole bunch that were likely to mention "global climate change" at all, were papers specifically about AGW, by researchers who were pushing that very same idea. The rest were simply not likely to use that phrase, either positively or negatively. It simply didn't appear.

Also, if you go looking for information on this, I would be skeptical of the website "skeptical science". It lies by omission. For example, one page devoted to AGW "consensus" states that Benny Peiser retracted his criticisms of Oreskes' essay, and it links to another source that makes the same claim. But in fact Peiser had only retracted one of his many criticisms, which had to do with the particular number of documents found in the search. He maintained all his other assertions that Oreskes did not in fact show what her paper claimed to show.

To summarize: (a) Oreskes had mischaracterized what she had actually looked for, and in fact did not explain her full selection criteria until later. (b) Oreskes could not have examined the 928 abstracts she claimed, because there were only 905 abstracts with those keywords in he ISI database. (c) Her actual search criteria were self-selecting for materials that supported her premise. This alone invalidates her findings. (d) If she had used more representative search terms, he numbers would have been vastly different.

Erratum
Post date 21 January 2005
Essays: "The scientific consensus on climate change" by N. Oreskes (3 Dec. 2004, p. 1686). The final sentence of the fifth paragraph should read "That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords 'global climate change' (9)." The keywords used were "global climate change," not "climate change." [emphasis added]

In any case, here are the problems. That page explains it at least as well as any other single source. But one point should be clarified, and that is what I stated about "self-selection" because of her search terms. You see, of all the climate papers written during that period, the only papers out of the whole bunch that were likely to mention "global climate change" at all, were papers specifically about AGW, by researchers who were pushing that very same idea. The rest were simply not likely to use that phrase, either positively or negatively. It simply didn't appear.

Also, if you go looking for information on this, I would be skeptical of the website "skeptical science". It lies by omission. For example, one page devoted to AGW "consensus" states that Benny Peiser retracted his criticisms of Oreskes' essay, and it links to another source that makes the same claim. But in fact Peiser had only retracted one of his many criticisms, which had to do with the particular number of documents found in the search. He maintained all his other assertions that Oreskes did not in fact show what her paper claimed to show.

To summarize: (a) Oreskes had mischaracterized what she had actually looked for, and in fact did not explain her full selection criteria until later. (b) Oreskes could not have examined the 928 abstracts she claimed, because there were only 905 abstracts with those keywords in he ISI database. (c) Her actual search criteria were self-selecting for materials that supported her premise. This alone invalidates her findings. (d) If she had used more representative search terms, he numbers would have been vastly different.

There is a real a definitive end to copyright. Either their greed kills us all or we get rid of them. The copyrightists, the pigopolists, tend not to work in the one field but dabble in many destructive areas including patents, the military industrial complex and politics. Copyright will assuredly end one day maybe closer than many people think http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-18/who-orders-bird-flu-research-kept-secret/3838008. If some corporate executive can come up with a way to profit by it, you can bet it'll be released the next day.

There are pious canons that Green Warriors take as unquestionable dogma, in regard to Nuclear Energy. Firstly, nuclear opponents state that nuclear energy is “... more expensive than conventional or alternative power sources...” Fortunately, in The Age, 28/04/2005, there appears an article by Lesley KEMENY containing favourable quantitative costings of nuclear power versus other sources – including waste disposal & decommissioning, see http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Going-nuclear-its-the-new-green/2005/04/27/1114462096097.html The companion opinion article on 28/04/05, by Peter GARRETT, was starkly revealed as only that - unjustified opinion. Secondly it is asserted that there are no adequate technologies “... in place to safely quarantine radioactive waste ...” This is abysmal luddite ignorance, and for better information, one should now consult the ABC news article on-line at: http://www.abc.net.au/ news/newsitems/200504/sl 346616.htm Also see: http://velocity.ansto.gov.au/velocity/ans0008/article_03.asp. These internet articles report on 25-year old Australian SYNROC technology, invented by Ted RINGWOOD, which more than matches any safety requirement for disposing nuclear waste. This technology can store the entire world’s current annual nuclear waste in a small 20metre cube, unharvestable by terrorists, buried underneath any stable Australian geology, (a mere nothing) for eons. A portable or permanent SYNROC plant set beside every reactor can immobiise its waste into a deep rock-steady mass, avoiding the necessity to transport any unstable waste overland or water. Thirdly, there is raised the spectre of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. These were mainly political disasters, not so much as technical ones. The Luddites of this world should remember that - “The cure for BAD technology is not NO technology, but BETTER technology”. No one is going back to living in caves as some kind of halcyon rebirth! Even greenies need electricity and computers and transport to distribute their views. Yes, recyclable energy is environmentally attractive, but it can’t be developed quickly enough to cure the crises which confront our energy hungry populations. Only nuclear technology can get there in time, and one better nuclear technology is the High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR), which can be explored at: http://www.iaea.org/inis/aws/htgr/topics/article 04.html This reactor is intrinsically stable, and cannot “go critical” - any loss of moderator gas just causes the nuclear fires to snuff out like a candle. Fourthly, in terms of “the risk of terrorists attacking reactors”, such reactors can be buried deep underground, to minimise nuclear leakage from any militant attack. Though one notes that every kind of above ground power plant is equally vulnerable to attack, it is granted that radio-active isotopes need special protection against dispersal. Fifthly, other letter writers have expressed concern about “Nuclear Mining” – a separate topic to nuclear energy to be sure – but not so distant that it can’t be solved in one further paragraph. The concern is about Australia shipping Uranium ore to countries with poor supervisory & management schemes which might allow U238 to be diverted into a weapons program. Solution? Don’t ship the U238, refined or not, but ship the energy it represents. We know Northern Australia has abundant ore bodies of Uranium and Aluminium. So build the nuclear reactor(s) close to the Uranium ore deposits (reduced transit risks), bring the Aluminium bauxite to the reactor (which outputs abundant electricity), and smelt the bauxite into pure Alumium metal, now b

The Square Kilometre Array Telescope (SKA) will delve further into the Universe than ever before, produce more data about the cosmos than modern-day computers can handle, and shift the focus of radio astronomy from the 'dish' to silicon.

In essence, what we are seeing is the evolution of telescopes away from the concrete and steel that forms the antennas and into the world of supercomputing, says Professor Brian Boyle, CSIRO's SKA director.

"The supercomputer is as much a part of the telescope as is the antenna.
"In the 1960s you built really big dishes to take all the data, now you put all your effort into the silicon brains behind it," Boyle says.

An array telescope is composed of lots of different antennas connected to a supercomputer via a super-fast fibre optic network.
"So in the SKA's case we're talking 3000 antennas over a minimum distance of 3000 kilometres.
"All that data is transported from the SKA at speeds of 400 terabits per second across the continent — that's about ten times greater than global internet traffic today.
"Then it's processed by a super computer capable of doing one million, million, million operations per second — about one hundred times faster than the world's fastest super computer today," says Boyle.

Scientists hope that by delving deeper into space than ever before they will be able to investigate fundamental questions about the universe, such as the evolution of galaxies, dark energy and cosmic magnetism, and probe the earliest stars and black holes.

Source & further Info:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/14/3430265.htm

The Murray Darling river basin is fucked up from agriculture taking too much water from it. It is at the point that it does not have enough natural flow to keep the river mouth open from silt buildup. This, coupled with salinity issues from over-irrigation, is causing major issues.

And don't forget Boron removal.

Australia remains a colony in all but name. Australian intelligence agencies are, in effect, branches of the main office in Washington. The Australian military has played a regular role as US mercenary. When prime minister Gough Whitlam tried to change this in 1975 and secure Australia's partial independence, he was dismissed by a governor-general using archaic "reserve powers" who was revealed to have intelligence connections.

WikiLeaks has given Australians a rare glimpse of how their country is run. In 2010, leaked US cables disclosed that key government figures in the Labor Party coup that brought Julia Gillard to power were "protected" sources of the US embassy: what the CIA calls "assets". Kevin Rudd, the prime minister she ousted, had displeased Washington by being disobedient, even suggesting that Australian troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

In the wake of her portentous rise ascent to power, Gillard attacked WikiLeaks as "illegal" and her attorney-general threatened to withdraw Assange's passport. Yet the Australian Federal Police reported that Assange and WikiLeaks had broken no law. Freedom of information files have since revealed that Australian diplomats have colluded with the US in its pursuit of Assange. This is not unusual. The government of John Howard ignored the rule of law and conspired with the US to keep David Hicks, an Australian citizen, in Guantanamo Bay, where he was tortured. Australia's principal intelligence organisation, ASIO, is allowed to imprison refugees indefinitely without explanation, prosecution or appeal.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3806462.html

Perhaps you don't realise that clicks count when it comes to advertising dollars on the internet and as I enjoy using stumbleupon I want to ensure that News Corp is not financially enabled by my choice.

As for news choices, give it a rest News Corp troll, http://www.allyoucanread.com/, 22,800 online magazines and newspapers from all over the world. I think I can safely skip News Corp shit without missing anything ;D.

As for regulars I am quite content with http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and http://www.abc.net.au/. How much time do you think I have to take up news, especially when I don't buy into that "you will die if you don't read and watch" bullshit.

Oddly enough there was a different Robyn Williams with parts in the original Python TV series. He's the presenter for the very long running ABC Science Show.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/about/

And this is why lobbying and campaign contributions need to be outlawed.

Exactly. I feel the "Occupy" movement missed an opportunity to focus its energy on that one issue which is at the root of a great deal of the rot of democracy and fair play, and not just in the US.

This interview with Jimmy Carter is worth hearing. Towards the end he says the same. When he was campaigning long ago, it could be done on a shoestring. Now you have to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to get anywhere. Which of course means enormous corporate influence in policy decisions.

It's insane, and it is the one main thing everyone should be fighting to fix, for all these terrible policies stem from it.

Yeah, that's right. It's Australia Day and flying the flag means you're a racist.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-24/aussie-flag-bearers-more-racist3a-survey/3790172

Good on Japan for having a high-profile prize like this.

Here in Australia we award sportsmen, celebrities, wealthy businesspeople and public service fatcats. Scientists are spurned. (this article says 'scientists', but doesn't mention any. Googled around the other news websites and couldn't find any mention of them either.)

Foodie icon Maggie Beer received an AM for her service to the tourism and hospitality industries and the promotion of Australian produce and cuisine. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-26/australia-day-honours-2011/3792896?section=sport

Oh joy!

It's simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.

Good points all, but the real reason for this is not that those ideals are not believed in. It's unfortunately a matter of political survival that government has to listen to big corporations.

Listen to this talk by Jimmy Carter, at one point he says the same thing. Back then, he was able to run a campaign on a shoestring, hardly having to raise money at all.

Now, he says, candidates have to raise *hundreds of millions of dollars* to campaign. This has driven politics insane as corporate interests compete against the public interest - all because it's now become *necessary* to make deals to raise a heap of cash from corporations. This must stop. It will only get worse over time.

The one thing we should be concentrating on - and "Occupy" completely missed the boat on this - is political reform for the "separation of corporation and state". We can moan about corporate influence till the cows come home, but only concerted demand by people for reform will stop the inevitable slide into some kind of extreme socio-political dysfunction, if we're not there already.

Money must be taken out of our political system so it can return to concentrating on serving the interests of the people and the country as a whole. As it is now, politicians have no choice but to play the money game, ideals or no ideals.

It is up to us to demand not just our freedom, but the freedom of our politicians to think and make choices without being bound by corporate deals in order to survive. If things continue down this road, I don't see any result other than extreme social unrest.

So, how can we help fight them?

I admire their chops, but this is ultimately a waste of effort. The *only* thing which will stop this happening is *getting money out of politics*.

Listen to this talk by Jimmy Carter, at one point he says the same thing. Back then, he was able to run a campaign on a shoestring, hardly having to raise money at all.

Now, he says, candidates have to raise *hundreds of millions of dollars*. This has driven politics insane as corporate interests compete against the public interest.

The one thing we should be concentrating on - and "Occupy" completely missed the boat on this - is political reform for the "separation of corporation and state". We can battle with Big Media, Big Pharma, big whatever, but it will never end unless money is taken out of our political system so it can concentrate on serving the interests of the people.

Sure as hell corporations aren't interested in the public good over their profit margins, so why should they have so much influence on policy? It makes no sense.

And here we see why the "Climate Change" nee "Global Warming" movement is so subversive and dangerous. If someone where to say, "I don't belive in Einstein's theory of relativity", he would be told he is wrong, or ignored. If someone were to say, "I don't believe in the theory of continental drift", she would be told she is wrong, or ignored. But to DOUBT or DENY climate change is sacrilege - you are vile, selfish, practically an evil doer fit to be punished. Scientists who see the data differently are in danger of losing their jobs, and funding. It has happened before. What other science acts that way? What other theory demands such fealty?

If you choose promote a theory by using death threats to attempt to silence those who disagree with you then yes, vile evil doers is a perfectly appropriate term Even those denialists who repudiate the more radical arm of their organisation, and are horrified by those who pursue the ideologue and rhetoric to it's logical extreme are still culpable for their statements. How can they not be? If I drink and drive, and consequently kill someone, I'm culpable, even if I'm ignorant of the law. Ignorance is not an excuse. And most denialists, honestly, are not ignorant. They know very well the climate change is happening and that the causes are anthropogenic, but choose, for the sake preserving a conflicted world view, to live with the subsequent cognitive dissonance. I think they are culpable for the consequences of their actions (delaying action on climate change, thus making the effect slightly worse), and should be held to be so.

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 [senate.gov]

How many scientists are there in the US? Oh, wait, I already know 500 000 which means the number of scientists in the US who think that climate change is not anthropogenic is 0.08%.

Yes in Australia we have branch stacking http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1688866.htm transcript of Janine Cohen's report "The Right Stuff"

What about the innocent palestinians who have their houses bulldozed so that Israelites can have a new settlement? Or the ones that die from diseases which have been cured for decades because of the complete blockade of foreign aid?

Israel is far from innocent in all this. They routinely execute people in foreign countries who they believe to be terrorists, even going as far as forging travel documents from foreign countries to make things easier. It really wouldn't surprise me if the so-called hacker ended up being "disappeared".

God only knows what they haven't gotten caught for...

Why wait? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-29/samoa-time-zone-jump/3751254

a turf war fought through other means?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-23/holmes-hacking-scandal-overblown/3687192

"As recently as last Friday, The Australian featured a front page story by its media diarist, Nick Leys, sub-headed, in lurid red, "The Age Hacking Scandal". It's a story which The Australian and the Melbourne Herald Sun have been following off and on for months. To read about it in those newspapers, you would think that this is a case of 'hacking' similar to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal."

advances in materials will make the thing work better in practice...

You're making an assumption that the people know what they are doing rather than just putting a piece of kit together out of any metal they can find.

We have a desalination plant in Australia which rusted out before it even finished construction. I kid you not, someone built something that goes into the ocean with the wrong metallurgy.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3713222.html

High voltage is of course a completely different scenario, luckily one most wont have to deal with... Like a water cooling system next to a 132kV transformer... ugh...

Actually, HV transformers CAN be water cooled: http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1221697.htm (In this case, it was a 33kV/11kV transformer)

The news clip broadcasted last evening on ABC.

I generally would support having US style free-speech laws in Australia, but the current situation is not as repressive as some Americans on /. seem to imagine.

I didn't know anyone thought it was repressive here. To carry the point further, here's an example of how repressive it is - a comedy show about the PM http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-20/julia-and-tim-at-home/2908250 That's from the state owned/run broadcaster. Note - the PM's the dopey looking chick, not the dude with the stupid look on his face.

Your post would make so much more sense if you simply would omit the word baseload and replace it with "load".

Baselaod ios a VRY VERY low load. Baseload has nothing to do with fluctuations in demand, nothing to do with your wind farms only produce 0.9x ... etc. p.p.

Sure you can build them in areas where long term study of the conditions mean that you can pretty much know the normal bounds of the conditions (namely the wind speed in this case - and too high can be as bad as too low). If you build your entire infrastructure on the assuring that you always had x load, then you're in trouble.

The current energy grids in civilized countries are exactly built like that. And further more civilized countries interconnect their energy grids.
You all on /. believe that there are magical new problems coming up just because you switch the source of your energy. No there isn't any fundamental new problem. The energy grid can not distinguish a lack of wind at the west coast from a nuclear power plant emergency shut down in texas. It is just the same problem!
The grid is already built to compensate for a "lack of power" (production) in one area and the need of feeding from another area.
Looking at the USA e.g.
They have an east coast 1500 miles long (sorry, google maps is switched to miles right now, to lazy to calculate that int km.). The east coast and mexican gulf coast is roughly 3000 miles long.
There are "hills" or mountain chaines in the middle west of the USA going from north to south roughly 2000 miles long.
If you place every 100 miles a wind farm of 5x5 miles area you can produce 5 times or 10 times the energy the USA are needing right now.
So to have "not enough" power would require that more than 80% of all those plants fail/have no wind (and you have no failover). How likely is that???

Nothing operates in a vacuum of course, except my sample drying on the schlenk line, but if you're adding in other power plants to "cover" that potential loss in base load that your wind is meant to be creating then that's hardly ideal is it?

Again: base load is not what you think it is.
Base load: bottom part of energy production, hence the name: base. Midrange or residual load, the anticipated load (varying with daytime) which is supplied by plants that can be powered up and down relatively quickly. Peakload, the load you need to adapt to quickly in means of 30 seconds or a few minutes. Unexpected (not planned ahead a day before), e.g. here see an image: http://www.abc.net.au/science/indepth/opinion/img/baseload.jpg
Or google for better informations.

The /. crowed completely gets it wrong: you can produce base load with every plant (type). You can produce peak load: not so easy with a nuclear or coal plant.

Germany is replacing its complete base load capacity with wind plants ....

simple. you tell that it is due to cyberhack. everyone goes nuts, endless number of articles spread throughout internet. then you admit that it wasnt. at this point it is now impossible to change misinformation. the misinformation spreads, public opinion is shaped. you can pass your $OPA act.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/11/3265013.htm

http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/07/14/1235220

Not on the defensive eh? Hpw about this. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-04/death-threats-sent-to-top-climate-scientists/2745536 This is the behaviour of the brainless so called sceptics.

See it more as a "own a brand in the USA", "make in China", protect in the US with a "Medical Devices" sticker model.
Very low manufacturing cost, a cozy cartel market and "Medical Devices" laws keep it all safe.
Everybody wins.
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/stories/s785987.htm shows what this cost for medical devices can do:
"Dr Shetty insists heart care does not have to be as expensive as the World Health Care Organisation and international medical companies make it."
"If you make an eco-machine which gives the image of the liver, then that machine say costs 10,000 dollars but the same machine, you say it images the heart, it will be sold for 50,000 dollars. Anything to do with the heart, everyone wants a premium. "
So yes good luck with this, but its interesting to see how and why medical tech is protected.

Greenpeace would be declared terrorists

They are. Can't say I feel too bad for them. The power company was probably just checking to see if they were next on the list. Maybe if they didn't destroy things that ran counter to the fearmongering they use to generate donation revenue I'd feel differently.

I wrote about your excellent question on my blog.
http://systemsaviour.com/2011/11/11/slashdot-iea-warns-of-irreversible-climate-change-in-5-years/

My answer: I already am doing something about it. There’s room for improvement, but I know I must be doing better than 99% of Australians. Here’s how:

* My wife and I don't have kids. I'll probably get modded down for saying this, but IMO there can be no greater selfishness. It may be said that the significance of all of our environmental problems are directly related to now 7 billion people on this planet. It's been known for decades that the Earth's population growth is unsustainable, and yet here we are.

* We don't own a car. Easily achievable. I know lots of people say "but I live in an area where there is no public transportation" or "I live too far away from work to ride" - but that's because they're selfish. They were not considering the environmental impact of their decision to live in such a location. My wife and I on the other hand have always expected we will not be relying on a car, and have planned our lifestyle accordingly. As such, it is no problem.

If more people chose such a lifestyle, maybe councils around the country and the world would better cater for the needs of people like ourselves who do not drive. For example, the detours I need to take to ride to work are ridiculous - just because my local council didn't pay any significant consideration to cyclists when planing and paving the roads.

* Don't rely on an air-conditioner or heater. Until the Australian summer heat wave of 2009, my wife and I had never owned an air-conditioner. We did buy a portable unit for those few weeks with over 40-degree heat since our apartment tends to get very hot as it is, but I don't think we've ever used it since. Under ordinary circumstances, we have no problem adapting by simply changing to lighter clothing. When it's cold, we wear a jumper and jacket, or dressing gown for night time. If that's still not enough, we'll just get a scarf or even a blanket until we're comfortable. Use thick curtains, keep the windows closed, etc. It's all common sense stuff - and it works.

Contrast this to basically any workplace I've ever worked at. If somebody just came back from a jog, the air-conditioner gets cranked up. Same deal if the air feels 'mucky'. If it's a few degrees too cold, don't bother putting something on - with a couple of button presses it'll magically feel better. It's a sad thing to witness. I usually just bring in a jacket so I can wear it if I'm cold, but almost every day someone will still turn on an air-conditioner. And worse - leave it on when they leave! Meanwhile, I don't think there has ever been a time I have turned on the air-conditioner or heater at any of my workplaces - past or present.

* We're vegetarian (and speaking for myself, I've been vegetarian for around 8 years). That means, we eat a lot of food that isn't processed. My wife is always buying fresh vegetables to cook something for dinner from. Further - and more importantly, we are not contributing to the damage caused by extensive cattle farming - the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions in places like Brazil, and it makes up about 17 per cent of Australia's emissions. Our choice to be vegetarian certainly isn't because we're religious or too poor - it's because it's unethical from a number of viewpoints not to be at least a strict vegetarian. Some would say the same thing about being vegan, although I haven't taken my diet to that level.

* Limit use of shopping bags and plastic bottles. I personally drink about 1 litre of soft drink each day at work - but I make it at home with

Today, Australia's government implemented a "Carbon Tax". Funnily enough, the ultra-right-wing opposition fearmongerers have been explaining the devistation to australia if we implement such a tax. (Coal companies will lose profits! Gasp!)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-08/carbon-tax-passes-senate/3652438/?site=newcastle

Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source

Yet tens of thousands of people from Fukushima are unable to return to their homes. The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong it tends to go very wrong. The economic and human cost of nuclear power failures can be huge. 80,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Fukushima meltdowns: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3343819.htm

Not really. The difference is that in the case of nuclear disaster the effects happen in a very small timeframe, whereas with e.g. coal plants the effects accumulate over time. That's why it SEEMS like nuclear is the worse choice of the two. People just forget to take into account that e.g. coal plants constantly pollute environment and create all kinds of secondary negative effects all the way from the pollution and environmental destruction caused by coal mining, and all this happens even when the plants are operating normally!

So yes, nuclear IS indeed safer and cheaper, it's just human tendency to look at things in very small timeframes that makes it look like it's not and then we exaggerate things when they happen unexpectedly.

Nuclear is safer, by far, than any other power source

Yet tens of thousands of people from Fukushima are unable to return to their homes. The problem with nuclear power is that when it goes wrong it tends to go very wrong. The economic and human cost of nuclear power failures can be huge. 80,000 people have been displaced as a result of the Fukushima meltdowns: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3343819.htm

Your question is answered, and your theory doesn't quite fit:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1428081.htm

In the army there is a known fact/myth that female voices are easier to understand on noisy radio links.

There's a corollary to this, though...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1428081.htm

The human brain processes male and female voices differently, so it actually takes more effort to comprehend what a female voice is saying.

The place I notice this the most (other than the obvious) is with the news. There's no question, across the board, it's easier to comprehend 30 minutes of info-packed news reports from a male anchor than from a female, even with all else being equal (same show, different day). Obviously this would be a bit politically incorrect to talk about, and make decisions based upon.

I should've waited before I hit submit, I didn't think it'd be so easy to find: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1314925.htm

You might enjoy this radio program broadcast on Australian Radio National in 2009 when the GFC was more topical.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2009/2526727.htm

The program examines the change in cluture from management as an apprenticeship to the advent of the MBA.

Mining contributes 9% of Australia's GDP (post crises) and less than 2% of jobs.

Linky

I don't think that counts as 'keeping our economy chugging along'.

Brian Schmidt's Nobel Prize may add or at least secure new or continued funding. Nobel Prizes tend to make politicians softer. Which is good, of course! :)

Here is an article about Brian http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/10/05/3333015.htm

I wonder how the Australian Government feels about this? After all, the CSIRO (Aus gov research division) holds the recognised patent on 802.11 technology: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/04/23/2550483.htm.

thankfully Australian judges are usually honest and they are expected to be impartial and not let their political views affect their judgements. Not to say it can not happen it's just a lot harder to do.

ie : catch the judge with little boys etc.

(whoops sorry I made a mistake here sorry Lionel Murphy it was David Yeldham I ment to link to.)

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s72790.htm (infamous case in australia)

It isn't like non-religious people are particularly immune to rationalising monstrous acts of their own - see the Khmer Rouge for example.

That's a classic (flawed) anti-athiest argument. "Sure, religious people do evil deeds, but athiests do evil deeds too -- see (Hitler|Stalin|Khmer Rouge|etc)." The flaw in this argument is that when religious people do evil deeds, they are commonly (not always, but often) done in the name of the religious beliefs. For example, last month Anders Breivik shot up a bunch of people in Norway, and they found hundreds of pages of journals he'd kept saying he was a soldier representing Jesus on a mission against Islam. Just the other day, a teenage girl in Japan was killed when her parents took her to see a Buddhist monk who water boarded her in order to exorcise evil spirits -- accidental death, but a completely brutal act performed in the name of religious beliefs.

Conversely, no athiest has ever done evil deeds in the name of atheism. There have been terrible regimes run by people who do not believe in a deity, but nobody ever said "because I don't believe in a deity, I feel the need to kill people" or any such thing (at least, never to my knowledge, and if it has, it is surely dozens of orders of magnitude rarer than the daily killing in the name of religion).

In short, that both religious and non-religious people commit evil deeds is irrelevant. Some (many) evil deeds are motivated by religion, some are not. But no evil deeds are motivated by atheism.

Actually yes it is that old:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/ancient/AncientRepublish_1385489.htm

And the source of the petroleum is entirely beside the point. It doesn't matter if it's biogenic, abiogenic or put there by Jesus to confuse us, if we bring it out of the ground and burn it, we're adding to the total CO2 in the atmosphere from an outside source - at the same time that we're burning rainforests clear, no less.

There are some claiming the imminent demise of SMS, and that email is already dead. The argument is that sending SMS costs money and sends your message through a third party but somehow misses the point that Facebook/Google +/etc. cost money in data charges, send your message through several third parties, cost in loss of privacy, and ultimately line the pockets of the same telcos.

Hack : Wednesday 21 September
Could SMSing be dead within 5 years? The public launch of Google + draws the attention of some social media analysts who says texting and email are dead men walking. Also, we take a look at what the high profile Afghan assassination means for the war... and an Adelaide gaming bar runs into licensing dramas and not just because of its name: Pimp Pad.
download mp3: 12 MB

FFS, just climb up the top of the parliament house flagpole and you can see the whole state

Dear retard - do you mean the "state" of Canberra or the "state" of ACT.

Either way - there's a bit more to it than Dickson, Civic, your flat over on Ainslie Avenue, Fyshwick, and maybe Manuka.

And the story in the Canberra Times is about how to safely pursue speeding criminal drivers.

The article misrepresents a police suggestion that they be able to use speed cameras to get additional evidence in situations where it's unsafe to pursue speeding drivers in a police car and if the pursuit is continued with a UAV (which they'd like, as helicopters are expensive) to then additionally use pictures from the ground based speed cameras (for evidence in prosecution). Presently the police are not allowed by law to use those pictures from speed cameras to help prosecute people being pursued by police, and police have to stop a pursuit if the car being chased - is in traffic, and exceeds the speed limit.

Any debate as to whether our education system is a fucking failure?

Yes, this is correct. Wait a month and you'll see that we turned the corner about a week ago.

You made that statement on the 31st March 2011, which means you claim all these things were done by 24th March 2011. It's not my fault that you made a lazy and vague point to make your grandiose statement. Your bullshit is on the record as is you inability to define what you mean by your statement and your subsequent attempts to backpedal and massage some meaning into your statement as new information becomes available and then claim that you were right all along to satisfy your sense of self importance and attempt to recover some dignity. You took a gamble that I didn't have any facts to present and that I would back down like everyone else you have bludgeoned with your arrogance, that is so sickening to watch, and you turned out looking like a fool.

Why don't you shut up and do step one. Show that my statement was false? I can wait.

First, I've already done that here.

Second, looking back to June a sharp rise in radiation meant they couldn't even get near the plant. So almost three months after your claim it still hadn't "turned a corner"

Third, Spontaneous criticality is still occurring at the sites, disturbingly, it is suspected that this is also happening in the spent fuel cooling pools. That's not even under control. The evidence; the site is still outputting radiocesium. Source Tepco report (June 20 – June 28: approx. 1 billion Bq/hr (1.0 x 109)) Jul/Aug/Sep data not available

Fourth, Tepco's Official Plan for dealing with the accident has, ironically, has not achieved Step One "Maintain Stable Cooling" (So *you* can shut up now) Source; Japan Prime Ministers Office.

Fifth, Overall, the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious. Source IAEA

Sixth; Plant has not yet acheived a cold shut down - Source Japan Prime Minister report on Fukushima.

Bloomberg, Reuters, Summary of Reactor Status (2 June 2011) - Presentation Transcript etc etc

There is so much more that tells us the corner hasn't been turned yet, not even a cold shutdown has been achieved yet. The workers can't even get into the plant to assess the damage yet but you will likely come up with some word twist to justify your position. The worst thing about your position is you show no respect for the workers there who continue to risk their lives to bring the situation under control.

You are lost.