名誉のない国: Japan launches whaling fleet for summer slaughter in Pacific

名誉のない国 - A nation without honour intends to kill gentle mammals such as this sperm whale pictured above. Why? Not because it's people are starving and in need of food, but simply because it can.

The Global Times 10th June 2010:

"Japan launched a summer whaling mission Wednesday, with the target of killing 260 of the giant sea mammals in the Northwest Pacific, despite legal action by Australia. Three harpoon and two research ships set sail from three separate ports in Japan with more than 200 crew to hunt whales in the Pacific Ocean, said the Institute of Cetacean Research, which is sending the state-backed whaling fleet. Due to obstructions by the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Japan said that its catch was down to 507 whales in the 2009-2010 expedition in the southern waters, below a target of about 850. In the latest whaling trip, the fleet led by the Nisshin Maru mother ship plans to catch 100 minke whales, 100 sei whales, 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales. The expedition comes after Australia launched legal action with the International Court of Justice in an effort to stop Japan from killing whales in the name of science."

Pic found at Google Images

The Great Cup Hunt

The last couple of months I've been lost in a mind fog.
I'm finding that I have the attention span of a goldfish with Alzheimer's. Nice rock....nice rock....[thunk]....where did that big hard thing come from?

My vagueness was brought home to me when I went to get a mug for my morning cuppa. There were only three mugs facing me.
Since I usually have about eighteen mugs in the cupboard I had to wonder where all the other mugs had got to?
I've never seen mugs migrate north for the winter before. Was this a new phenomena? Something to do with global climate change?

Then it occurred to me that every morning I make myself a cuppa, go down to feed Arnold the calf and then wander around the farm checking on things or down to the garden to work. So off I go on six cylinders, with only two firing.

Sure enough there are three cups sitting like nesting birds around Arnold's stall. The cup hunt is now on in earnest.

Next stop the garden. Each tap yields a cup, two on various garden posts and another one that had fallen off its wooden perch. I’m on the right track.

So then I walk the yard fence and this comes up trumps with another five. By the time I get to the main gate I have a bucket load of cups, a sense of destiny and a great hunger for breakfast.

After breakfast I unload the cups ready for washing and something occurs to me - where is the mug with the fish pattern I had with me this morning when I went on the cup hunt?

Pic from Google Images

Weekly Greenhouse Gas Indicator for NSW 28 May-3 June 2010

If anything is needed to convince there is an urgent need for a national legislative response to global warming, it is the fact that the Australian states display such variance in greenhouse gas levels under different state policies and strategies.

According to the Climate Group, between 28 May and 3 June 2010 South Australia was 11% below the average equivalent 1990 weekly emissions and 16% below the equivalent 2000 weekly average, Queensland 97% above the average equivalent 1990 weekly emissions and 27% above the equivalent 2000 weekly average, Victoria 31% above the average equivalent 1990 weekly emissions and 1.8% above the equivalent 2000 weekly average and New South Wales 23% above the average equivalent 1990 weekly emissions and 5.7% above the equivalent 2000 weekly average.

Neither West Australia, Tasmania nor the Northern Territory are tracked in this data set.

Weekly Greenhouse Indicator - New south Wales

This week's (28 May to 3 June) NSW Indicator is 2.043 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, the breakdown is as follows:

In tonnes:

Electricity from coal: 1.192 million; 58.3%

Natural gas: 0.177 million; 8.7%

Petroleum: 0.675 million; 33.0%

This week

NSW's emissions from energy fell by 0.9% or 18,000 tonnes, due to a decrease in emissions from both gas and coal-fired generation.

Emissions sources

Emissions from coal-fired electricity, which accounted for 88% of electricity generation in NSW this week, fell by 1.9% or 23,000 tonnes.

Emissions from gas fell by 8.7% or 17,000 tonnes.

Emissions from petroleum products grew by 3.3% or 22,000 tonnes

Demand & Import/Export

Electricity demand fell by 0.7%.

NSW imported 4.6% of its electricity demand from other states, compared to 2.3% last week.

Comparisons

This week's Indicator is 1.0% higher than the same week in 2009 and total emissions to this stage of 2010 are 4.9% lower than the similar stage last year.

This week's Indicator is 23% above the average equivalent 1990 weekly emissions and 5.7% above the equivalent 2000 weekly average.

Overview: WEEKLY GREENHOUSE INDICATOR - SUMMER REPORT 2009/10

Possum had a bright shiny graph of Teh Convergence

Click on Pollytics graph to tumefy

Two party preferred trend as we approach the 2010 federal election.
Will it be curtains for Rudd or the long drop for Abbott?

Yamba in world's top ten places

Charlie Kemp, a no frills blogger from the Old Dart, has just returned home after 129 days on the road.

Charlie, who blogs at Nap Year Diaries, listed the the Top Ten Places he visited. They are (in chronological order): Delhi, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Panjim, Arambol (India), Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An (Vietnam), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Yamba (Australia).

Other highlights from Charlie's journeys include:
Best country - Vietnam
Best beach - Booti Booti, NSW
Best hotel - Hotel Siddartha, Agra, India
Best breakfast - bagels at Café Stir, Christchurch
Best lunch - 'Two-Steak Tuesday' at a forgotten pub on his first day in Sydney - a forgotten pub!?! I didn't think such an institution existed.
Best dinner - Tandoori Pomfret on the beach in Anjuna, Goa
Best beer - Tui (New Zealand)
Most attractive women - Vietnam
Most attractive men -New Zealand - Charlie didn't say if this was before or after the beer.
Best film - Invictus
Best book - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Here are a few of Charlie's other thoughts about his journey:
Turning the corner into Delhi's Main Bazaar an hour after landing on our first day in India to see a seething mass of humanity, motorcycles, dust and rotting vegetables, and wondering if this was such a good idea.

Trying to catch the sleeper train from Agra to Jaipur, squeezing into an approximately coffin-sized berth, realising we were on the wrong train, giving up on our actual train once it was more than five hours late, heading back into the city and finding a hotel room around midnight.

Cycling from Siem Reap (Cambodia) into the ancient city of Angkor and around its remarkable temples in sweltering heat on decrepit but loveable bicycles.

Tweedie knocking an old Vietnamese man off his motorcycle almost as soon as we landed in Hanoi, and moments later the smiles on the faces of everyone involved.

Hopping into a tiny fishing boat in Hoi An where a tiny old Vietnamese lady had agreed to take us up and down the river, only for her to hand me the paddle and roll an enormous reefer.

Going on an irrelevantly unsuccessful fishing trip with our new Australian friends Paul and Gillian on their friends Ross and Helen's boat on an otherwise empty lake near Yamba.

It would seem that Charlie had an A-1 holiday.

Axe the billionaires!

Axe the Tax!

Save a mining billionaire!

Reweavers: the quiet achievers

David Bancroft, editor of The Daily Examiner, pens some well-deserved praise of reweavers on 8 June 2010:

IN about 1900, former US president Theodore Roosevelt wrote how he had been impressed with an African saying: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

He believed people who followed the adage would go far.

It is an adage that would apply to virtually all the people who attended a modest dinner in Grafton on Friday night.

I was honoured to accept an invitation to attend the annual dinner of the Clarence Valley's reweavers group, a group committed to 'reweaving' the tapestry of society.

Most of those attending were committed environmentalists, people who had dedicated most of their adult lives to improving or at least protecting what remains of the environment of the Clarence Valley and neighbouring regions.

Those up for special mention were Stan Mussared, Carmel Flint and the Koala Protection Society.

These people, and the 70-plus others who attended, gain nothing from their environmental advocacy and hands-on effort apart from making the world what they believe to be a better place.

They are quietly spoken, reserved and non-confrontational but prepared to stand their ground when they believe it necessary.

It can sometimes get them offside with industry and government, but their motivation and commitment should not be questioned.

They offered a valuable lesson to us all.