Month: January 2022
Australian media blockades the truth
As I write this there’s a convoy of trucks that are effectively blockading Ottawa, Canada. It has been brewing for a week now and has been pretty hard to miss but then, I don’t take any of my news from local news sources.
On Friday I worked with my business partner who is a very clever Elec Eng who takes his news from ABC, Ch7 or Fairfax. When I asked what he thought of the Canadian truckies, he just looked at me with a complete blank.
He’d never heard of it … not even a whisper.
So today I did some Googling (for what that’s worth) and confined the searches to Australian sites. Tried Microsoft Edge too but I got nothing except for a single mention from news.com.au
Media blackout.
How is it that such a significant event is effectively wiped from the Australian consciousness?
All of them … all at once?
CBC News in the US reckons it’s the Russians of course.
So how does everybody feel about being lied to on a national scale?
Are we feeling safer yet?
Environmental Issues with Construction of RE Facilities
Briefing Note 22.1 February 2022
Background
Serious environmental issues arise at ten stages of RE production, from mining raw materials to the disposal of turbines, batteries and solar panels at the end of their working lives.
Critical issues at the phase of construction
RE facilities, including the poles and wires required to carry the power to market from remote locations, demand massive amounts of land, concrete, steel, and metals including the essential rare earths.
A single wind turbine contains around 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic. Transport of the materials adds to the environmental impact, as does the disposal of the components when the facility is decommissioned.
The AEMO Integrated System Plan to double our electricity supply using wind and solar power calls for a ten-fold increase in large-scale wind and solar capacity and more than 10,000 km of new transmission lines.
Environmental impact is the dirty secret of the RE industry and when environmentalists realise what is happening many will not tolerate that amount of damage.
Recommendation. Legislate for comprehensive environmental impact statements to support applications for RE development, taking account of the ten stages from exploration to waste disposal.
Mark Lawson. Journalist and author. Website Highly recommended (RC)
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
For more information on the ten stages of environmental impact see the paper by Bill Stinson that can be accessed at this link.
The ten stages
Phase 1 – Raw material sourcing – Environment Destruction.
Phase 2 – Raw material mining
Phase 3 – Raw material processing – Environment Destruction, Human Rights Abuse, Toxic Waste
Phase 4 – Approval – Supply Chains – Modern Slavery, Human Rights Abuse
Phase 5 – Fabrication – Large Scale Environment Destruction
Phase 6 – Transportation “Throughout the solar PV manufacturing process all of the materials and products must be shipped to and from more than a dozen countries around the world in large barges, container ships, trains or trucks – all powered by non-renewable oil.”
Phase 7 – Construction – Environment Destruction, Tenuous Supply Chain, Toxic Waste
Phase 8 – Operation – Environment Destruction, Flora and Fauna Destruction,
Phase 9 – Demolition and Rehabilitation
Phase 10 – Disposal – Environment Destruction, Toxic Waste
“A tiny minority with unacceptable views”
There is some resistance growing to the insanities associated with Covid across the world, with the Canadian truck convoys leading the pack. It’s not even that they are anti-vaxxine as such, just anti being forced to take the vaxxines and then each of the mandated “boosters” to participate in normal life, like going to the shops, sitting in a cafe or taking in a movie.
The Great Reset means that the nitwits who we have inadvertently installed as political leaders, or the complete nincompoops who have had one success in setting up Facebook or Twitter are now to be our leaders in perpetuity.
Is there actually anyone in public life stupider than Daniel Andrews? Perhaps the Premier of Queensland. Or the chaps who run WA or the NT.
We are ruining our lives for a mild disease that if you find you have it, the protocol is to stay home for a week.
The tiny minority with unacceptable views was the nonsense statement about the truckers from the Canadian Prime Minister whose greatest previous accomplishment are found listed here.
These are the people who are the tiny minority with unacceptable views.
Open Thread – Weekend 29 Jan 2022
Guest Post: Speedbox – A Disturbing Trend
Over the past few years the trend to hold ‘candlelight vigils’ for child victims of crimes or accidents seems to have accelerated. Within hours of the admittedly terrible event, the media announce that a vigil will be held at the local school, footpath, bush setting or other nearby/relevant location to where the event occurred.
At first pass, the vigil allows those affected to express their grief although it could be said that the funeral service is a more appropriate opportunity. In any case, the media duly report on the vigil with interspersed comments from assorted attendees who sometimes knew the victim but more often, appear to have had no relationship to the victim other than they lived on the same street. Continue reading “Guest Post: Speedbox – A Disturbing Trend”
It’s all about unifying the community
At the beginning of November, and after former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian had announced previously that on 1 December unvaccinated residents of NSW would be able to re-join the social fabric of the State, the new Premier, Dominic Perrottet, reneged, saying that the date would be changed to 15 December. In doing so, Perrottet explained that the delay was designed to ‘Unify the Community.’ The Government’s reasoning was that in certain LGAs/geographical areas vaccination rates were not as high as it wanted them to be.
I remember thinking at the time that if some people had decided against being vaccinated – and had held out until then – what difference would another 15 days of F…ing them over make to get them to change their minds, apart from reducing to ten days their Christmas celebrations’ organising. Basically, the decision seemed both petty and desperate to me.
And, I thought, if a reasonable minority of residents of one LGA had made the decision not to be vaccinated, why would their vaccinated neighbours or perhaps another LGA’s residents see their decision as being anything like a Continue reading “It’s all about unifying the community”
Meme of the Day #11
Guest Post: Speedbox – The Putin Gambit
Gambit (?æm·b?t): noun; a clever action in a game or other situation that is intended to achieve an advantage and usually involves taking a risk.
For the past several weeks, in particular, the Ukrainians, the EU, the USA among others have been speculating and commenting on the Russian troop build-up on the eastern border of the Ukraine. More recently, Russian troops have been building up on the Belarussian border to Ukraine’s north.
The assorted commentators speculate that Russia is planning to invade the Ukraine while Moscow has insisted it has no such intention and has simultaneously accused Ukraine and its allies of making up the claim to cover for their own aggression.
WolfmanOz at the Movies #6
The Gunfight
One of the stables of the Western genre is the showdown/gunfight, often between the main protagonists. The fate of those involved is settled within a split second as to who was fastest on the draw.
Of course, the reality in the old West was that it was nothing really like this. Often gunfights were a flurry of shooting with accuracy usually taking a back seat to desperate panic and mayhem.
A good example is the often filmed Gunfight at the OK Corral . . . where in the older classic films like My Darling Clementine and Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, the filmed gunfight bore little resemblance to the actual event.
Although the more recent staging of the gunfight in the more recent and under-rated film Tombstone was reasonably close to the mark.
But in terms of staging a gunfight in a movie, the absolute master was the spaghetti western maestro Sergio Leone.
The following two clips, are amongst some of my favourite movie sequences of all time, in which the images and music combine to produce cinematic magic.
In The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Leone stages the climatic gunfight not with two gunfighters but with three and then strings it out for over five minutes as each man sizes up his two opponents.
The rhythmic editing is perfectly complimented by Ennio Morricone’s magnificent music where Leone utilises his trademark extreme close-ups to increase the tension as the cutting becomes more frenzied as we near the point of the gunfighters drawing their pistols.
Leone followed that up with another unique gunfight at the end of Once Upon A Time In The West, where the character Frank (Henry Fonda) finally gets to face Harmonica (Charles Bronson) where he hopes to find out who he is.
Again, this is uniquely staged by Leone where Frank walks in the background from right to left, and, you are anticipating to see Harmonica appear in the foreground to the left of the screen, but then he appears to the right facing away from Frank. Of course all this is again scored by Ennio Morricone’s marvellous music. Was there ever a better director/composer combination in
As the two men finally face-off, Harmonica’s reason for seeking Frank out is then revealed.
It’s just all great cinema, the such of which we just don’t see anymore.
Enjoy.