Queensland election called for March 24
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has just announced that the state election, originally intended to be held on March 3, will now be held on March 24. Local Council elections, scheduled for March 31, will be delayed until April or May. [...]
The Big Dumb Number approach to fire hazard reduction redux.
I have previously posted about the potential pitfalls of framing the fire hazard reduction task in Australian landscapes in terms of simple numerical targets, which I characterised as a Big Dumb Number approach. Nonetheless, the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission decided [...]
Remembering the floods
As I write we have brutal heat in Brisbane, with a dry west wind. On 11 January last year Robert Merkel put up a post, Queensland floods get worse. Later that day Mark put up a post, Brisbane flood maps and up [...]
Norton’s Five (Descriptive) Laws of Social Movement Gatherings
Many LP contributors and readers will have come across the principles of Open Space Technology (OST) at social movement gatherings. These principles are: 1. Whoever turns up are the right people. 2. It starts when it’s meant to. 3. You [...]
Quick link: IEEE Spectrum’s account of the Fukushima accident
While comprehensive accounts have apparently appeared in the Japanese media, this IEEE Spectrum article is the best attempt I’ve seen to present an English-language timeline of initial events at Fukushima Dai-chi in the wake of the tsunami.
Science and responsibility
Nature‘s news section reports on the trial of six Italian seismologists and one government official for manslaughter. They face charges based on statements made by the committee the accused were members of in the days leading up to an earthquake [...]
Overproduced, Overwrought, from Over the Ditch
A few years back we had a very entertaining thread titled Cheezy Listening. Posts #17 and #48 of that thread referenced the bathetic “Tell Laura I Love Her”, and specifically the 1974 version by New Zealand band Creation. I have [...]
Queensland Floods Commission report Roundtable
The Queensland Floods Commission released its interim report today. Prominent findings are reported at the ABC. The full text of the report can be found here. We hope to revisit the report with some analysis in the near future, but [...]
Addressing the preconditions of atrocities: Silvestri
Writing at Open Democracy, Sara Silvestri makes an excellent argument about the massacres in Norway, and how we should act to avoid their repetition.
So, does that make Obama Sauron?
Titanic battles between good and evil are fantasies, and the debt ceiling crisis illustrates what can happen when the fantastic power of ideology prevails.
On leadership and Christine Nixon
It appears that former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon’s new book (of which you can read an extract here) has relit the metaphorical fires surrounding her tenure. Her political battles with sections of the force, and News Limited, were brought [...]
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