When making your New Year's resolutions please remember..............

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Here's Figure SPM-4 from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment report. The blue bands show temperatures if you just include natural forcings and natural variability. The red bands include the effects of human activities. The black lines shows actual temperature averages.

Deltoid posted an easy to understand graph which I intend to keep in mind as I draw up my To Do list for 2009.

What about you?

Quick, Kev, do something! The media cycle is slipping through your spin

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Google Trends shows that Team Kev didn't quite manage to hold the attention of the national electorate over the last 30 days.
Despite Rudders Christmas 'bonus' to so many households, Santa Claus trounced the PM everywhere it mattered for most of December 2008.
It's obviously time for another media release.
Announcing funding in 2009 to save Aussies from athlete's foot perhaps?

Ah, the memories: Fraser Government cabinet papers

Image from Wired.com

How well I remember those salad days when a rumour went around that disgraced former US president Richard Milhous Nixon was likely to make a formal visit to Australia.

Long before the Internet and instantaneous communication, on a rural exchange where you could still 'phone in your telegrams, I fired off a stern word or two to then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser telling him that in my opinion Nixon should not be allowed into the country in any capacity.

I eventually received a letter in reply (marred by the fact that the Prime Minister assumed that he was writing to one of the men in the family) which was carefully diplomatic about the possibility that Nixon might visit and, if memory serves me correctly, pointed out that his government was not in the business of barring people from visiting Australia.

Cabinet papers released this week show that behind the scenes, the Fraser Cabinet was working hard on 22 August 1978 to make sure Tricky Dicky did not publicly express a desire to visit down under and that he stayed well away from our shores.

See digital copy of the cabinet minute here.

Marohasy and Co. raising funds to fight Rudd's carbon pollution reduction scheme

While criticising GetUp! at every opportunity, Jennifer Marohasy (Chair, Australian Environment Foundation) is requesting donations to oppose the Rudd Government's emmissions trading scheme:

At our recent conference and AGM in Canberra, members decided that the best thing we could do as an organisation for the environment over the next year would be to oppose the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)...........
There is a temporary holding page for our new campaigning website www.ListenToUs.org.au .You can subscribe at the site to the campaign newsletter as well as make a foundation investment in the campaign through PayPal. We have so far raised $17,000. Our target for the campaign against the Emission's Trading Scheme is $30,000.

According to AEF media releases, Jennifer Marohasy can be contacted on Mobile 0418 873 222.

The mind boggles at such a naked attempt to wreck any chance Australia and the NSW North Coast might have of minimising the longterm impacts of climate change.

All I want is.......a new front tooth

Some of the many wishes which turn up on the Internet:

All I want is world peace...
...and a pony.
Grafitti from the syndicated Ginger Meggs comic strip

All I want is an honest press.
Post title at Crooks and Liars blog

All I want is my face on TV,
But they're always rolling text over me
From The Credits Song on The Chaser's War on Everything

All I want is to be left in peace to get on with earning a living, with as little interference from government as is possible.
A British musician commenting on a UK Telegraph article Coping class is the new working class

All I want is to be able to make a call and get what is now a basic home service (the internet) to my home. No delays, no explanations just a service.
Is that too much to ask?
Blogger David Says on the perils of setting up an Internet connection in Australia

All I want is everything
Ambit claim made by a book title aimed at teenagers and found at Amazon.com

All I want is the government to give me a good reason why I must vote or must attend the polling booth.
Phanto sounding off at The Forum

All I want is a smoke!
Plaintive cry on ehealthforum

All I want is a normal life
Title given to a blog

All I want ... is to live in peace with my family
A child's wish from Gaza in 2006 which still hasn't been fulfilled by the international community