Longest solar eclipse of the century on evening of Tuesday 21 and sunrise of Wednesday 22 July 2009 (beginning in India)

2003 total solar eclipse in Antarctica

At sunrise on July 22, 2009, (the evening of July 21 PDT), the moon's umbra—the cone-shaped part of the moon's shadow—will fall on India's Gulf of Khambhat. The shadow will sweep across Asia and the South Pacific before leaving the earth near the Marshall Islands about 3½ hours later. The path of totality will cover a distance of approximately 9,500 miles (15,200 km). The maximum duration of totality is an exceptionally long 6 minutes and 39 seconds, which will come while the shadow is over the Pacific.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like Australia will get much of a view, however more information can be found at Eclipse and NASA, including animations and models.

A nice little earner

Today's edition contains this gem.

We have to hand a clipping, sent by Mark Southcott of somewhere in the wilds of the Illawarra, from the Bristol Post of June 21. A little late, but it's a timeless piece: "Outside Bristol Zoo is a car park, with spaces for 150 cars and eight coaches. It has been manned six days a week by the same charming and polite attendant. The charges are £1 per car, and £5 per coach. On Monday he did not turn up for work. Zoo management phoned Bristol City Council to ask for a replacement. The council said: 'The car park is your responsibility.' The zoo said that the attendant was a council employee. The council asked: 'What attendant?' Gone missing from his home is a man who has been taking daily car park fees amounting to £400 a day, for 23 years, or 2 million quid."

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Pay per view at Tasmania's The Examiner online? No thanks

I happened on a story about that high profile and influential sect, The Exclusive Brethren, via an overseas open media site last week and trying for a source article I stumbled on Tasmania's The Examiner out of the Fairfax stable.

This is what this newspaper's website stated when I attempted to access the July 2009 article Sect stole my kids' Tasmanian father tells of Exclusive Brethren anguish - SPECIAL REPORT:

PAY-PER-VIEW

If you decide to read the whole story your account will be debited by the number of credits indicated next to the heading. If you think you might want to refer back to this story you should print it out or save it to your hard disk.
The cost of stories (daily news and archive*) from July 1 2002, is 20 credits (AUD 22 cents incl. GST) but you will not be charged any more than 100 credits (AUD $1.10 incl. GST) in any one session. This equates to the average cost of The Examiner hardcopy.

A nice polite offer, but no thank you. I'll spend 5 minutes more on the Internet digging further.

The original online mention gave me enough information to go straight to the free published court judgments without findings being filtered by paid journalists and here they are:

Peter Elspeth [2009] FamCA 551 (25 June 2009)

Elspeth Peter; Mark Peter; and John Peter [2007] FamCA 655 (5 July 2007)

Elspeth Peter [2006] FamCA 1385 (21 December 2006)

Which quite frankly makes The Examiner's attempt to make me pay for information somewhat laughable. Especially as pay per view online newspapers will obviously have to continue running homepages with revealing 'teasers' in the hope of attracting paying customers - thereby defeating their aim of locking away the news.

Now Launceston in which this newspaper is based had an estimated population of 103,000 in 2006 and this same newspaper bragged in 2008 that it had a readership of 33,488 Monday to Saturday and 103,000 on Sunday. Enough said.

A not so comic look at property rights.....

From Natural News

Wise words about food......

Remember that every time you buy food you vote for the system that produced it. Choose wisely.
MADGE newsletter, Friday 17 July 2009

The Moon...........

Earth's Moon from NASA archives

Forty years ago today the Americans first successfully landed men on the Moon.

That this anniversary is marked by humankind's inability to come to terms with the fact that dangerous global warming is occurring here on Earth demonstrates that while space exploration may have added to the sum of scientific knowledge it remains somewhat peripheral to life on the home planet.

NASA Apollo 11 video, audio tapes and transcripts here.

Young Emma Moffatt makes the NSW North Coast proud

Photograh from Google Images

Her parents and the people of Woolgoolga - Coffs Harbour must have their chests puffed out this week as the now Gold Coast-based triathlete Emma Moffatt goes from strength to strength.

The Australian reported on Saturday:

OLYMPIC Traithlon bronze medallist Emma Moffatt has enforced her newfound international dominance, winning her third consecutive top-class race in as many weeks.

Moffatt, 24, won at the Kitzbuhel round of the world championships series yesterday.

Emma's record since 2004 here.

Well done, Emma. Athletes on the North Coast are barracking for you.