If you thought that the Sydney Morning Herald offered serious journalism - think again

Last Saturday I happened to read an article in The Sydney Morning Herald which claimed that global warming wasn't really happening and For most of the past seven years, those temperatures have actually been on a plateau. For the past year, there's been a sharp cooling. These are facts, not opinion: the major sources of these figures, such as the Hadley Centre in Britain, agree on what has happened, and you can check for yourself by going to their websites. Sure, interpretations of the significance of this halt in global warming vary greatly, but the facts are clear.

Well, the facts may be clear to Michael Duffy of the Herald; but his interpretation is not supported by the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre he cites as supporting his position and, this research body clearly states on its website:

Climate change goes on
There is clear evidence that global temperatures are rising despite counter claims from climate sceptics.

The Centre goes on to observe:

The evidence is clear – the long-term trend is that global temperatures are rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise. Global warming does not mean that each year will be warmer than the last. Natural phenomena will mean that some years will be much warmer and others cooler.

You only need to look at 1998 to see a record-breaking warm year caused by a very strong El Niño. In the last couple of years, the underlying warming is partially masked caused by a strongLa Niña. Despite this, 11 of the last13 years were the warmest ever recorded.

Average global temperatures are now some 0.75 °C warmer than they were 100 years ago. Since the mid-1970s, the increase in temperature has averaged more than 0.15 °C per decade.

This rate of change is very unusual in the context of past changes and much more rapid than the warming at the end of the last ice age.

Sea-surface temperatures have warmed slightly less than the global average while temperatures over land have warmed at a faster rate of almost 0.3 °C per decade.

and

Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand.

So exactly why did The Sydney Morning Herald decide to devote inches to Michael Duffy's reworked nonsense and hold itself up to ridicule? I'm still wondering.

Walk Against Warming, Ballina Sunday 16 November 2008

Walk Against Warming

9am

Fawcett Park,

Ballina NSW

Sunday 16 November

For details of other NSW or interstate locations go here.

Those doppelgänger folks at Twitter

Everybody it seems is using Twitter and many Aussie identities are finding that they now have a doppelgänger who has at some time happily used this site.
Here're some entries from the archives.

Stephen Conroy aka Chr*st Almighty:
"Nice morning in Melbourne.. i can smell the coffee and the distaste for me like never before! FRESH! "
"yes.. fantastic stuff.. now im behind the firewall DVDs are the only way i can get "relief"

Malcolm Turnbull aka Member for Goldman Sachs aka God:
"Julie Bishop is such a babe, the pant suit looks totally hot on TV"

Kevin Rudd aka Chairman of the Bored:
"Pity Barack isn't Twittering. How else will he find out that I'm totally on his team?"

John Howard aka Die Führer:
"Found this picture of me and Condi...she never calls anymore :( "

The real Malcolm Turnbull is of course found at Twitter/TurnbullMalcolm.

While yesterday the real Kevin Rudd became a tweeter at Twitter/Kevin RuddMP for the first time.
Maaaaaaate! That was a mistake. Because it didn't take long for the 'clean feed' pixies to start flying in:


Go pixies - give'm heaps!

Hey, girls - daddy's found that dog

Crikey comp 1: Name Obama's puppy

We can't guarantee that the Obama family will take the slightest bit of notice, but we'll find a way of sending your suggestions to the Transition Offices of the Obama administration.

This will, after all, be one of the key decisions of the first 100 days of the Obama presidency: what to call the puppy Barack has promised to buy for his children.

Give it your best shot. Tell us your suggested name and preferred breed. Send entries to boss@crikey.com.au. Put "dogname" in the subject field.

Grenfell Record and Bland Advertiser finally wake up to Monsanto threat

It would appear that the rural and regional media are just a little slow to notice probelms with the push by Monsanto and other biotechnology corporations to establish a GMO presence in Australia.

Last Sunday's article:

The situation in the signed agreements means that farmers also give the right to Monsanto to "inspect, take samples and test all of the growers owned and/or leased fields and storage bins" and to obtain copies of all operational documents for three years according to the Canberra Times.

A spokesman, international law expert, Duncan Currie, believes the implications for growers are dire. He said that "in general these contracts are very one-sided.

"One provision is particularly onerous and it includes re-imbursement for Monsanto's attorney fees, including expenses incurred in enforcing the company's rights and investigation expenses.

"However it appears that these rights are included in Australian Patent law and it highlights the need for patent law reform to deal better with biological law" said Matthew Rimmer, a patent law expert at the Australian National University".

Which Bank's money boxes really paid off!

Every time I enter a branch of Which Bank? I can recall being a nipper (with Mum in tow) going in to collect my first bank building tin money box.
By the looks of it enough adults remember that same experience for this bank to have apparently cornered the market on kids savings.
Now I'm wondering just how many dollars that mounts up to nationally, because weekly pocket money is now way beyond the trays, zacs and bobs of my younger years.
Odds on there'd be some tots who are now more solvent than their investment banker dad.

Roy Morgan Research Young Australians Survey:

Bank where account held

Commonwealth Bank 60%

St. George 4%

Suncorp Metway 1%

Westpac 6%

National Australia Bank 3%

ING 0%

Bank of SA 2%

Adelaide Bank 0%

BankWest 2%

Citibank 0%

Challenge Bank 1%

Bendigo Bank 3%

Some other bank 4%

Credit union 8%

ANZ Bank 6%

Sample data – the child 6 to 13 years

The eleventh hour.....

Lest we forget