Retired infantry officer. Conservative by nature and politics; Happily married and father and grandfather of eight. Loves V8 powered Range Rovers, Golden Retrievers, good books and technology and think there should be open season on Greenies. Born in the mid forties and overdue for servicing but most parts still work.

Climate change

I think this piece in Cut & Paste is worth quoting in full Long-time British chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, addressing the New Zealand Business Round Table
AS it is, the temperature projections (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) does come up with in its fourth and latest report range from a rise in the global average temperature by the year 2100 of 1.8C for its lowest emissions scenario to one of 4C for its highest emissions scenario, with a mean increase of slightly under 3C. The average annual temperature in Helsinki is less than 5C. That in Singapore is in excess of 27C, a difference of more than 22C. If man can cope with that, it is not immediately apparent why he should not be able to adapt to a change of 3C when he is given 100 years in which to do so. Let us look at the gloomiest of the IPCC’s economic development scenarios, according to which living standards … would rise, in the absence of global warming, by 1 per cent a year in the developed world and by 2.3 per cent a year in the developing world. It can readily be calculated – using, to repeat, a cost of global warming (based on the gloomiest IPCC warning) of 3 per cent of GDP in the developed world and as much as 10 per cent in the developing world – that the disaster facing the planet is that our great-grandchildren in the developed world would, in 100 years, be only 2.6 times as well off as we are today, instead of 2.7 times; and that their contemporaries in the developing world would be only 8.5 times as well off as people in the developing world are today, instead of 9.5 times as well off. And this, remember, is the IPCC’s very worst case. The major cause of ill-health, and the deaths it brings, in the developing world is poverty. Faster economic growth means less poverty but – according to the man-made CO2 warming theory, incorporated in the IPCC’s scenarios – a warmer world. Warmer but richer is in fact healthier than colder but poorer. The more one examines the current global warming orthodoxy, the more it resembles a Da Vinci code of environmentalism. It is a great story and a phenomenal bestseller. It contains a grain of truth and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed. We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting.
I don’t think it’s a new age of unreason; I think unreason has been forced upon society several times by a number of new “We’ll all be doomed” religions over the last century; Climate Change is just the latest manifestation of certain zealots need to change us to their idea of a clever caring society I see no problems with society changing the way it treats the environment and there are lots of good reasons to pursue cleaner fuel but scaremongering and over reaction will not help at all.

Car fans wanted for Aussie ‘Top Gear’

SBS will produce a “quintessentially Australian” version of the top-rating BBC motoring program Top Gear to hit local screens next year. BBC Worldwide Australasia’s head of sales Julie Dowding said the deal was very exciting.
“We are very proud that the first global deal for a local version of Top Gear has been done here in Australia,” she said.
Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson added:
“I’m delighted that Top Gear is going to Australia. Maybe the first guest could by Jonny Wilkinson He whose name will never be mentioned in my house, referring to Britain’s rugby player and World Cup hero.
Yeah….right! Pommy footballers aside, I do look forward to the show.

Colour me skeptical

AUSTRALIA’S doctor shortage has reached crisis point, with three-quarters of the country’s land area, and more than 12 million people, now deemed as lacking adequate access to primary care. Nowhere in the article is adequate access to primary care defined and as Abbott says, and it’s not unreasonable, the figures were based on a “statistical construct” I’m not suggesting there isn’t a problem but more than half the country lacking adequate access to primary care – I doubt it.

Not news

FIVE Australian-based journalists, known as the Balibo Five, were deliberately killed to prevent them from exposing Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, a NSW coroner has found.
“The Balibo Five died at Balibo, in Timor Leste on 16 October 1975, from wounds sustained when (they) were shot and or stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle, by members of the Indonesian special forces, including (Commander) Christoforus Da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah on the orders of Captain Yosfiah to prevent (them) from revealing that Indonesian special forces had participated in the attack on Balibo,” Ms Pinch said.
We always knew this but couldn’t say it as it might have embarrassed Gough Whitlam
Mr Whitlam insisted at the inquest he had not known of the shooting until October 21, 1975, and could not recall a number of sensitive radio intercepts suggesting the men had been executed on official Indonesian orders.
Not knowing about the shooting until 21 Oct is reasonable but not recalling radio intercepts flies in the face of procedures. He would have been told about something as dramatic as journalists being murdered. The inquest also heard a navy linguist, Robin Dix, who translated an intercepted Indonesian military radio communication on the day of the invasion that was subsequently sent to the office of the prime minister and other government officials. “Five Australian journalists have been killed and all their corpses have been incinerated or burnt to a crisp,” the message read, Mr Dix told the inquest. “I will never forget it. I remember it word for word.” Rob Dix is a classmate of mine from the RAAF School of Languages where we both studied Bahasa Indonesia in the 60s. I’m glad he got his 15 minutes of fame although linguistic work, particularly at DSD, is generally kept hush-hush. Wouldn’t normally want the Indons to know we know, would we?

Something old is new again

A ceremonial handover took place at Robertson Barracks in Darwin today marking the introduction of the fighting vehicle to the army’s 7th Battalion. The vehicles are not new but are an upgraded and redesigned version of the Vietnam-era M113 personnel carrier. Old APC The old APC with 7RAR on operations in Vietnam-1970 New APC The new APC almost ready for deployment to Iraq and/or Afghanistan – 2007
“The extensive upgrade to the M113s have successfully concluded a long and rigorous testing program and the ADF (Australian Defence Force) will receive a vehicle that delivers increased firepower, protection and mobility,” said 7RAR commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Gabriel.
Lieutenant-Colonel Shane Gabriel emailed me yesterday highlighting the event and in reply I wondered;
I don’t know how many APC fleet upgrades or buys there has been but I wonder whether the APC that we trained on in 1968 in Puckapunyal could be there in it’s second or third life. I recall Normie Rowe (the Pop Star) as the driver of our track and Kevin C*** as the Ops O. Are some of the new fleet that old or is it just us?
It’s a rhetorical question but an answer would be interesting. More on the upgrade at Tenix, the contractor responsible and here for the 7RAR website.

Lift your game, Telstra

China’s largest mobile phone service provider successfully tested a transmission station on Mount Everest today, making it possible for climbers and those on next year’s Olympic torch relay to make calls, a state news agency reported. China Mobile had to hire yaks and porters to help transport equipment up to the station site at 6,500 metres, the Xinhua News Agency said
While Beijing hopes the feat will impress the world, groups critical of China’s often harsh 57 year rule over Tibet have decried the torch route as a stunt meant to lend legitimacy to Chinese control.
Who’s going to be first nation to put a tower on the moon?

Woman angered by silence on the Iraq War

From getup.org;
As this election looks more and more a case of “Don’t mention the war“, two brave young Australian women, both victims of the war on terror, have united to put peace back on the political agenda.
Whereas I have sympathy for both of them, they are fighting an uphill battle as news from the war gets better each day. Even the ALP are silent on the matter and the only people who want to raise a noise are the Getup mob. The media have just gone quiet about Iraq, haven’t they? Well with their idea about Iraq being, only bad news is good news, we can see why. The BBCare getting the message and The Observer, a long-time opponent to anything George Bush suggested heads an article –Packed classes hint at peace in battered Iraq in this piece I wonder if it ever occurred to the girls to blame the terrorists for their troubles? Nah can’t bash Howard with that. As usual, getup.org is off the pace but I guess they serve some kind of purpose – I just can’t think what it might be.

Remembrance Day

On 11 November 1918 at 11 am the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare. This year marks the 89th anniversary of the armistice, when Australians remember those who fought and died for our country in war and armed conflicts. Adele Horin says;
Australia is unique in its enthusiasm to fight war on distant shores. The explanation is simple. Successive governments have used troop deployment to curry favour with first Britain, then the United States
It’s strange how those who sit at home and slander hundreds of thousands of their countrymen have this warped view of history. My family have put in appearances in all conflicts since the Boer War. My Grandfather went there under age to be discovered after some time and returned to Australia. I still have photo of him wearing the Queens South African medal riband. His cousins, my great uncles, served in WW1 and two stayed over there while grandfather trained the troops at Blackboy Camp in West Australia. My father and all of his brother and cousins served in WW2 and a host of my cousins served in all the post-WW2 conflicts and yet I’ve never ever heard any of them question the reasons we fought. Us young bucks did our best to slow down communism; our fathers the Nazis and the Japs and our grandfathers, the Germans. It certainly would never have occurred to any of them in WW2 that the reason we were fighting in the Pacific was to curry favour with the Yanks. Some of the family were in Europe and any thought of currying favour with the Brits would’ve been overshadowed iin their desperate struggle to quell the fires of Hitler. The only rationalization I can make from Adele’s piece is that she is currying favour with her peers -those who would denigrate our service and weep tears for the enemy. Poor show Lest we forget I borrowed the graphic from the Australia War Memorial Visit the site and pay homage to the sacrifice of the servicemen who have played their part in the Nations history. I searched for “Horin” – didn’t get any hits. UPDATE: I got this email from fellow blogger Wallace Craig from Midland Texas.
All Veterans should be so blessed as to live in a place like Midland. For the past 7 years Rusk Elementary has had Remembering Veterans as their school project. I get letters of thanks from the kids at all major holidays every year. Today was their big Veterans Day Event. A 1.5 hour show put on by the kids. Probably 1000 people crammed our big CAF hangar, with probably 400+ veterans. At the end of the show all Vets stand and the kids bring a “present” of thanks to each……this year the plaque below. After each Vet has his gift, the kids, 100’s, line up on two sides in a long row and all the Vets pass through, the kids cheering the entire time and shaking hands. There was a Vietnam Marine in front of me and a guy who spent 2 years as a POW in Stalag-Luft 15 behind me…..there wasn’t a dry eye among us. Every Vet then gets a sack lunch made by the kids to eat with the kids. An incredible amount of time and work…

Poor prop selection

Priceless ………………… Priceless! Did anyone else notice that the computer used by Kevin Rudd to illustrate his point that computers “are the toolbox of the 21st century”for his education announcement was a Toshiba Satellite 2590CDT (specifications – processor: celeron 400mhz, ram: 64mb, hard drive: 6.4gb, screen: 12.1”) vintage circa mid 90s! Rudd from cousin-in-law Kerry
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