Lazy Sunday!
March 14th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Life | 41 Comments
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
March 14th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Life | 41 Comments
Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
This post was written by mark bahnisch, who has written 1595 posts for Larvatus Prodeo.
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
I am loving the ‘Indian Summer’ weather we, in the south-easternmost mainland state, are experiencing due to the highest ever high pressure system currently hovering over Tassie. No wind, beautiful mornings for the pre-dawn walk with the deerhounds.
Strange times tho’ when so many weather indicators are recording the highest, hottest, wettest, longest drought, windiest…is something afoot?? Whoops, pink appearing, toodleoo!
Yeah Zorronsky, thanks to ‘your’ highest ever pressure system Cyclone Ului is cushioned along towards ‘our’ Qld coast. It has rapidly intensified over night and models vary in prediction where it will end up. Some have it to hit the coast anywhere between Cooktown and SE coast. If your high persists, Ului is more likely to cross the further north. If the high collapses or moves on, then Ului will move in a natural poleward direction and hopefully without coastal crossing, as Cyclone Hamish did last year. Worst case scenario, SE Qld gets hit by a cat 4-5 system after the recent flooding and a population not familiar with 250 km/h, wind sustained over a few hours or so.
On a side note, I have increasingly become impressed by the technology involved in weather observation and models. How the situation has changed from the 25 or so years since my first experience with the devastating power of a tropical cyclone. Basically when the cyclone warnings were aired on radio, you had very little time to prepare and it was almost too late to evacuate due to massive rain and the waterlogged and windy conditions. Now with internet and the combined power of various weather agencies and their technological armory you can watch real time information on atmospheric pressure, wind speed/ direction on all relevant height levels, temps at sea-surface and on various depths and so on. However, what impresses me most is how the predictive power of the various weather models has increased over the last few years. For example, we were discussing the possible formation of Ului, predicted by the models, as far back as 11 days ago. Thus, if the climate models are anywhere close to the weather models in predictive power, then god or what ever help us.
Hope this isn’t too negative…while perusing online news – ie pup, bingle, and lots of dead people, I found this little gem:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/cheap-solar-on-the-way/story-e6frf7kx-1225840408871
which so far has only been picked up by the Herald Sun. The company is called Technique Solar, based in Brighton, and the business modal is really interesting, as is the technology. Why isn’t this sort of thing front page news!? *heavy sigh*.
Am now vacillating between reading a trashy novel and some French Maths.
There is a chance that TC Ului will moss populous areas of Solomons and Queensland. But the equally desctructive TC Tomas is heading straight for Fiji. http://www.usno.navy.mil/NOOC/nmfc-ph/RSS/jtwc/warnings/sh1910.gif
Zorronsky: check this guy’s storm surf forecasting.
A Tom Lehrer on there is no place today for political satire
“‘I’m not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn’t figure out what sort of song I would write. That’s the problem: I don’t want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them.”
Yes Ootz, the improved warning times apply also to extreme fire days and the improvement has been very obvious to those of us hooked on weather watching in our regions for whatever purpose. Case in point Black Saturday, when the extreme [now catastrophic] conditions were being forecast for over a week. I share your allusion to the science and technology’s accuracy and the implications.
anthony nolan that’s incredible data gathering , just wish somebody would demonstrate this information gathering and it’s accuracy in the MSM.
I started my lazy Sunday with Insiders on ABC at 9AM. If you didn’t see it, the show was graced (sic) with the presence of Glenn Milne, a journalist/commentator for The Australian newspaper.
After declaring himself not one to breach confidences, “but here I go”, he promptly confided in us that Tony Abbott’s feeling “threatened” by homosexuality was a personal issue based on what he saw decades ago when he was in a seminary as part of training to be a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Did Glenn Milne, grabbing at his chance to display real(???) insider credentials, think for a minute about what he was saying here in terms of Abbott’s private history, and his subsequent decades-streching hypocrisy in sitting on what we are assured he saw in terms of his say-nothing-about-this-issue continuing closeness to the men of the Roman Catholic Church in Sydney?
Did Milne even think for a second about what this comment means beyond any consideration of Tony Abbott’s ongoing silence?
That years ago homosexuality as an element of one student’s experience at an Australian Roman Catholic seminary led to a lifetime-held opinion of ‘threat’, while not making clear at all in breaching the confidence the power relationships involved within the seminary.
Did Abbott witness consenting adult behaviour between fellow aspirants to the priesthood? Or did he witness the pressuring of young men by older men they trusted and may well have considered icons of religious-life behaviour, to participate in sexual acts?
Did Milne think at all, or did he simply want to create another entry in his CV of ‘what I know that you don’t’ oneupmanship?
Should anyone at all confide in Glenn Milne about anything? No brainer, like the man himself, it seems.
Micahel M
Absolutely they should, especially if they are Liberals and even more so if they are Tony Abbott.
I’m waiting for the first claim of sexual misconduct associated with his seminary to arise … What did he know, and when did he know it?
That ought to bruise his image …
Hey, about Tony and the seminary. I thought that wuz why. :) I did watch it after fiddling round trying to get my set top box to tune in properly.
Anyway, have spent the weekend mostly writing more of chapter 4 of my book. When I get bored with this I dip into Robert Crawford’s recent biography of Robert Burns which I still haven’t finished yet. (Once I start writing I become something of a slow reader of books not related to my writing.)
Have a new neihgbour in flat 5. Noisy bastard. (Apart from writing its not been a good day. Am also pissed off with neighbourhood kids tearing up or stealing the mail and the landlord’s tardiness in repairing the letter box (which the kids smashed up with a hammer. Lovely area of town I live in – the cops are now patrolling it regularly I gather. Have seen the cop car driving slowly up and down the street recently. )
I’ve been alarmed by Glenn Milne’s comments on Insiders all day. Given the particular brush with which he is by implication tarring a large number of people with, I’m a bit surprised Fran Kelly kept her cool in the face of what Milne was implying.
Terry @ 10,
I don’t think she wanted to embarrass Abbott. Imagine if they’d actually, well, talked about it.
Nana Levu, according to Fiji Broadcasting Corp, evacuation centers have been activated in Fiji as Tomas is bearing down on to Vanua Levu and the Northern Lau group. However, keep in mind Cyclone Tomas is a Category 2 system at 980 HPA and 100kmh wind. Cyclone Ului is Cat 5 at 897 HPA and 280 kh wind and expected to intensify. A true monster, most models have it now turning south in a day or so. With any luck Qld will be spared a major catastrophe. However, I would advice anyone along the QLD coast to check their house and content insurance cover and should they not be covered for such an event to apply for such before the cyclone is declared officially in Australian territory.
As usual reporting on Ului is atrocious by the meja, gold to NEWS for having it located more than 15,000 kilometres northeast of the Whitsundays. Why anyone bothers reading NEWS crap, or worse buying their dead tree version, to be accurately informed is beyond me.
More on Glenn Milne’s betrayal of a confidence on today’s Insiders. The worst thing about it was he betrayed Abott’s confidence. Abbott can’t win on this one. Some, and I stress some, Catholics wuill get upset if he talks about it. Some gays will probably get upset as well because it might put them in a bad light, not than any sensible gay would vote for him, homophobes will be upset because they don’t like hearing it. If you sit down and think about it,there’s probably heaps of cohorts who could be electorally upset by this. The number of votes Milne might have lost for Abbott this morning could be quite large, or not. So, perhaps, unintentionally, he did the left a favour.
Glenn Milne is always a spokesmen for The Liberal Party, Paul. Abbott and the media minders obviously thought it worthwhile to let this one rip. Maybe this discussion should be elsewhere, though.
joe2,
Yeah, probably on that Abbott/homosexuality thread. I’ll just say this. If you’re right, Abbott and his minions have simply confirmed they are as disgraceful as one would imagine them to be.
Ootz @ 12: thanx for the link to Uncle Rupert’s Fantasy Pages. This would be hysterically funny, if it wasn’t yet another case of clueless idiots being paid for disseminating misinformation about something which is, after all, life-or-death. Methinks my idea of mandatory testing of politicians for numeracy/rationality/scientific literacy should be extended to journalists.
NB: a WWW search shows that the credited source, “senior forecaster Brett Harrison”, does exist (and presumably knows the difference between 1500 km and 15000 km), but the “Bureau of Meteorology” to which he is attached is presumably the Federal one, since the State of Queensland does not have its own.
Have just been given some photos and a copy of the Kangaroo Island Courier dated 28 July 1939 by my mother in law, whose 3xgreat grandfather was the first white man to set foot on KI in 1836.
He was 2nd mate on the good ship Duke of York who rowed ashore with the young daughter of one of the directors of the South Australian Company at the behest of the ship’s captain.
The KI Courier had a report of the re-enactment of the landing, plus photos. His grandson played his part in the re-enactment. So there’ll be some scanning and reproductions for the family archives over the next few days.
Ironically, the good burghers of Kingscote had agreed on an annual re-enactment, little knowing that 37 days later WW2 would be declared and all hell would break loose.
joe2 and Paul – it’s delicious, though, isn’t it? I smiled at a likely scenario. Pity there won’t be anything like the Walkley footage for us to gloat over!
A journalist lacking discretion,
Betrayer of Abbott’s confession,
The poisonous dwarf
Has had to run off
To hide from the Mad Monk’s aggression.
Ootz @ 12: Queensland being threatened by a Tropical Cyclone that’s currently off the Greenland coast! Where are those global warming deniers now?? :)
andyc@16, exactly my point. If a concerned punter googles cyclone ului news what is she to find on top of the search? You guess it, yup and it is still 15,000kms off the Whitsundays. Worse, I have seen that mistake spread into other feeds, like bigpondnews. As you indicated the mistake could have been made by the BOMs senior forecaster. However, having watched some of these events closely over a few years I have made some observations. Firstly, MSM in general and NEWS in particular, has a track record of mistakes in news on cyclones, which have the potential for fatal systematic failures. Second, the BOM is consistently very professional in their public communication. Don’t forget these people are scientists and generally know and understand the difference a decimal point makes in the real world. Further, I am positive that their senior scientist and spokespeople would have been extensively briefed on legal and psychological aspects of communication in natural disaster events, as to not evoke a public panic or undue laissez fair and exposing them legally and politically.
It appears to me that most MSM are at best cavalier and worst downright criminal in natural disaster reporting. Can you imagine such sloppiness or lack of attention in major economic or sport event?
At least the SMH has put the cyclone in the Coral Sea, and not the North Atlantic…
Abbott was called subversive in the Weekend Australian over his plan to tax big business. And I don’t thing it was meant as praise, as post-modernist jargon (this artwork is so subversive). I think it was meant in a kind of Mccarthyite way, as if to say: “Uncle Rupert’s going to hear about this and he won’t be happy”.
….subversive thoughts on progressive taxation, it made my weekend.
…don’t thing?…you know what I mean.
News update on the Ului media front. Several bloggies on Weatherzone are reporting of various TV News channel reporting North Queensland been issued with Cyclone watch and possible landfall on Wednesday. I can’t confirm as I have no telly (waste of time watching it and boring one-way interaction) Go and have a look at BOM site here, that’s right no cyclone at present in Australian weather zone, the BOM only acknowledges ULUI once it has past 160deg East, so no cyclone thread being issued as of yet. Further, the place where BOM is mentioning ULUI is the Tropical Cyclone 3-day outlook for The Coral Sea
link. It states
Now that is the official version. The latest and most reliable model has it as a cat 3 in front of Fraser Is and then disappearing towards NZ. How can you take the MSM serious in their reporting on AGW, when this sort of caper is going on with this relatively smaller potential natural disaster?
Realistically, a landfall could happen anywhere between along the QLD coast as well as no landfall at all. As I mentioned before a system that size has some unknown qualities as well as movements of steering mechanisms are not clear yet either. There are favorable above average sea surface temps for ULUI as far as Central Queensland to retain intensity a fair way down the SEQ coast. If you are living along the Queensland coast, you should be alert but not alarmed and DO NOT use MSM to inform yourself on potential live threatening events.
Ootz
Another cheesecake – sublime. Many thanks.
Agree terangeree, I checked SMH and their report is accurate and sensible. They quote properly and extensively BOM forecaster Tony Wedd. The parole is “watching and waiting” as well as they mention the recent inundation of SEQ to make the threat real.
Ootz, now you can see why this still-accredited journalist drives trains for his living…
Cheers Fascinated, just been using dollops of quark on my BBQed eggplants. I have an eggplant grafted onto a Devils Apple and it bears phenomenal. Even the Chooks and half the neighborhood are eating eggplants atm. Can’t be bothered cooking them elaborately anymore, I simply cut them in half, brush of olive oil, dash of what ever herbs come to hand and onto the Weber grill till soft.
Terangeree, does driving trains require more responsibility then writing for NEWS?
Ootz,
It requires more accuracy.
Longer hours.
More responsibility.
Fewer hassles.
And about the same pay.
Take the Brisbanetimes.com headline on Ului this morning at 5:42am “Category 5 cyclone set to hit coast”. Then at 8:18am “Don’t panic: cyclone fears dismissed”. How serious should I take the mainly finacial advertising on these pages?
I wait with anticipation what the next headline will be perhaps “Exposed: “Cyclone Ului – a huge science conspirancy”. It would get a few more clicks.
Naked “Groupthink” visible on Insiders.
All and sundry pushing the meme that Rudd showed “cold shoulder” to Premier Keneally. Some still pushing it today (Monday) on 702 and SMH.
Did it really happen? Keneally says no, but that gets in the way of the meme. It’s only Groupthink if it comes from the Left, apparently.
That’s right CMMC. It is now established fact on the ABC at any rate, along with the idea that Rudd wants to ‘have a fight’ with the States over health funding.
Most reporters on the ABC must have got an A grade in Journalism 303- How To Turn Your Opinion into a Fact.
Seems the Groupthink thinks John Brumby will be leading the fight. He has been plotting, yes, plotting with the other Premiers because he has been (gasp!)RINGING THEM UP! (Shock! Horror! Even Awe!) Hell, we’ve got the bag of money, what else do we need?
Re “cold shoulder” schtick, a couple of indignant letters in the OO this morning, criticising Rudd’s bad manners etc. Are these idiots capable of rational thought?
OK, OK they’re RWDBs, but isn’t this the same mob which accuse him of being a very cunning politician? Seems very unlikely that he’d do something which is the exact opposite of that, imo.
I spent Sunday afternoon cutting down dead shrubs. It was a rest after the nine-year-old’s birthday party on Saturday. Ten boys, three (younger) girls and about 10 adults as well. Amusing gender wars moment: the boys, waving weapons, “attack” the girls, who are pirates. The girls pay no attention whatsoever. Commander Keen calls a strategic retreat as apparently the girls are about to blow them to pieces. Or something. Girls are left in possession of entire back yard…
Update on severe Tropical Cyclone Ului.
Today the media award for creative geography goes to the Heraldsun, with the headline “Queensland holds its breath as Cyclone Ului tracks parallel with coast” with the adjoining JTWC Track map showing the present westerly track and the predicted south, south east movement towards coast.
We at Weatherzone forum were a little puzzled by the BoM spokes people stating that ULUI will not hit the coast and adding we need to wait and see. All relevant models feature a crossing or close proximity to coast. As well as the BoM’s 4 day forecast today has Ului right on Central Queensland coast by Saturday. We think it might be an attempt not to panic the punters, as indeed by the current traveling speed it could be awhile and all option from Cairns to SEQ as well as blow out towards New Zealand are on the table. Therefor, should you live or own property along the Queensland coast now is an opportune time to familiarise yourself with cyclone preparations, start here.
I went to University to do an outreach programme in Asian Studies with Year 11-12 college students but afterwards I went home on my bike and leafletted for the Greens as we have an election coming up. So work and politics …. and God got left out, though normally I would go to Quaker Meeting.
Is’t this fun?
Fielding to rule on young voter rights
I spammed him through Getup. He’s probably worked out if he doesn’t votre for it there’ll be a big stink. But … he is stupid. So my bet is Foetus First will vote it down. Hope I’m wrong.