Previous Posts
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May 18, 2013
No CommentsAlfred, Lord Tennyson meets Richard Strauss
My earliest memory of Tennyson’s poetry was my father’s singing lines from The Lady of Shallot to the tune of Mowing the Barley. ‘On either side the river lie, long fields of barley and of rye, and up and down the people go, waving lilies to and fro.’ One or both of us didn’t remember...
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May 17, 2013
2 CommentsShock, horror! It’s true, there is consensus on global warming!
The ABC ran a radio news piece yesterday about how scientists really do have a consensus about global warming, and it even mentioned the author of the paper, John Cook, of the University of Queensland (but didn’t mention that he is the founder and active presence of the oddly named Skeptical Science, a website that...
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May 16, 2013
No Comments‘Climate change’ gets the heave-ho in the Budget
As has become usual, much of the news in the Budget had already been offered up as teasers and stories over the weekend and Monday, but I hadn’t found anything much there about ‘climate change’. And the Treasurer didn’t say a lot about it. No longer are we hearing glowing accounts of how investing in...
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May 15, 2013
No CommentsIs a ‘prat’ the same as a ‘ratbag’?
I’ve come across a new blog, Pointman, that contains good essays, some of them on ‘climate change’, and one post published a year ago has come to my notice. It was about the ‘prat principle’. Now I think ‘prat’ is an English term, though you’ll hear it in Australia from time to time. Exactly what...
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May 13, 2013
1 CommentScience has a problem — no, several problems
I laughed out loud when I saw this cartoon. It speared the situation so well, and with such a funny outcome. My thanks to Bob Carter, who sent it me and others, and to his nephew in the US, who sent it to him, and to the brilliant Jorge Cham, who drew it, and was...
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May 13, 2013
7 CommentsCarbon dioxide is at 400 parts per million!
On Saturday, while doing something important, I heard an ABC news broadcast go on and on about CO2 having passed 400 parts per million. I kept yelling out as each of a series of loaded statements came out, until my wife asked was I having a seizure. ‘Scientists say…’ When will the ABC learn to...
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May 11, 2013
No CommentsAn evening of Russian music
What would you offer if you were asked to program an evening of Russian music for your symphony orchestra? Oh, and the major task is to fill your concert hall. Well, Russian music is a pretty good drawcard anywhere, so you would look for the stand-out pieces. The standard concert structure is an overture, a...
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May 10, 2013
2 CommentsShould Local Government be in the Constitution?
Almost as an afterthought, the Prime Minister has announced that there is to be a referendum, as well as an election, on September 14th. We are to decide whether or not ‘local government’ should be recognised in the Constitution. No doubt you have been discussing the finer points of this issue with your family and...
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May 09, 2013
No CommentsA Solar Fall from Grace
In the dear dead days of the old Australian Research Grants Committee, when I was the Chairman, a name that kept coming up was a young chap at the University of New South Wales called Martin Green. He was a whiz at solar cells, and was rapidly improving their efficiency. We in the ARGC were...
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May 08, 2013
3 CommentsClimate change: what consensus?
I have come across a long and most interesting report published by a Norwegian think-tank/consultancy called SINTEF, about the question of ‘consensus’ with respect to ‘climate change’. It is well worth reading, and its author, Emil Royrvik, is a well published social anthropologist. SINTEF works closely with companies in the alternative energy domain, and Norway...