The Age is carrying a rather nice smack down of “Lord” Christopher Monckton, who is peddling his climate change denialist crap in Australia at the moment. An excerpt:
Monckton is a mathematician. Baloney. He has a Cambridge degree in Classics, ie Latin and Ancient Greek, and a diploma in journalism (whatever that means) from Cardiff. He can blather mathsy stuff in TV interviews, but that doesn’t mean he’s a mathematician. I know every song the Rolling Stones ever wrote, but that doesn’t make me Mick Jagger.
Monckton was a science adviser to Margaret Thatcher. Wrong. Thatcher has a science degree herself; she hardly needed a science adviser who didn’t. Monckton was hired in 1982 as a low-level drone in her policy unit, working on public housing and the like.
Read the rest at the Age. The cartoon is particularly nice.
Taylor Point
It has been a wet week following Cyclone Olga last Sunday, with 254mm recorded at the airport. Yesterday was particularly wet, and I only ventured out to get some bread. Despite consulting the radar to try to pick a gap in the rain, I got caught in a downpour on the way back. It was, however, nice to see some heavy wet season rain.
Today we’re seeing a bit of sunshine and a fair bit of blue sky, so I went for a wander around Taylor Point. King tides occur at this time of year, and a 3.44 meter high was due at 10:08. Around at Taylor Point the track was cut by the water, and the beaches were totally submerged. The coconut palms at the end of the track were experiencing more erosion around their bases, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two fall in the not too distant future.
Six foolhardy souls in Sydney have filmed an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide by overdosing on homeopathic sleeping pills. Alas, the pills only provided a small increase in their caloric intake.
This was part of the 10:23 event which targets homeopathy, possibly the most stupid “alternative medicine”. The only good things that can be said about it are 1) it has a placebo effect in some; 2) it’s very difficult to have any side effects.
The Washington Post follows up a brief comment on theodicy by Dan Dennett (whose Breaking the Spell is my current reading material) with a stinging attack by Richard Dawkins on Pat Robertson and the Christian response to Robertson’s comments about Haiti. An excerpt:
You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson’s suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the devil. But you worship a god-man who – as you tell your congregations even if you don’t believe it yourself – ‘cast out devils’. You even believe (or you don’t disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the ‘devils’ in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class. Pat Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?
Educated apologist, how dare you weep Christian tears, when your entire theology is one long celebration of suffering: suffering as payback for ’sin’ – or suffering as ‘atonement’ for it? You may weep for Haiti where Pat Robertson does not, but at least, in his hick, sub-Palinesque ignorance, he holds up an honest mirror to the ugliness of Christian theology. You are nothing but a whited sepulchre.
Ouch!
A new Mr Deity…
Glancing at the Today show while getting ready for work one day this week, I noticed host Karl Stefanovic acting a little odd (well, more so than usual) over a comment by sports reporter Cameron Williams about sunlight poking through a lighter patch in the cloudy sky, referring to it as a corona (technically incorrect of course). There was no joke, but Stefanovic laughed, saying “Nice one Cam” or something like that, and carried on a little.
There’s an old game that TV people sometimes play in which they challenge each other to work a word into their broadcast, and I assume the Today crew were playing. I’m guessing that the word of the day was Corona beer.
There’s something very right about crashing in a beachside cafe with a cappuccino and a piece of cake while the radio plays a cyclone warning for the area. It’s very Far North Queensland I guess.
Cyclone Olga is passing to the north, and looks like it will cross between Cape Tribulation and Cooktown. Judging by the radar, the center is about 98km north northeast of me at present. It is, of course, wet and gray here in Trinity Beach, and the waves are a little higher than usual. I didn’t see any kids surfing, as I have in other low level cyclones, though that may be because the waves still aren’t big enough to make it worthwhile. The winds are a little gusty at times, though the BOM is only reporting 30-50km/hr winds between here and Low Isles at the moment. It forecasts destructive winds north of Port Douglas.
Yawn. Oh well, no four day weekend for me.
Cairns Post headline writer at work
Three Mornington Island children were stung by a jellyfish yesterday after they callously swam into the creature, which was peacefully swimming by trying to catch some small fish or prawns for lunch.
The children were taken to the island’s hospital for treatment, with two released shortly afterwards. The third remains in hospital in a stable condition. The fate of the innocent and unidentified jellyfish is unknown.
Authorities have denied that the population of children is out of control, and said that a cull is not being considered. Child-proof netting is installed at many Far North Queensland beaches to contain the menace and protect jellyfish, but it is sometimes difficult to keep children inside the designated areas.
BOM's predicted course of TC Olga
Tropical Cyclone Olga has formed off the FNQ coast and is predicted to cross in between Cairns and Port Douglas as a Category 2 on Monday. The shops are very busy today, with a few shelves now bare. Woolworths at Smithfield seems to have had a run on baked beans. I guess baked beans might be a fitting meal when a big wind is approaching. Long life milk also seems to have been popular.
Bunnings seems to be doing a good trade in batteries and torches at the moment. I saw staff unpacking Dolphin brand torches when I was there, and I saw people grabbing multiple batteries and torches. I was actually there to buy a new hand trolley for carting water from the beach for my aquariums, but did grab a battery for my large torch. I also grabbed a pot and some potting mix for my newest garden addition, a Rainforest Gem finger lime.
The generator I bought last cyclone season had a test run a couple of weeks ago when we had a series of blackouts one Sunday. If the power goes out, the generator will run the aquarium and my TV, as well as a battery charger so I can run the tanks with a little less noise at night.
The rest of this weekend will be spent watching cricket and doing housework as previously planned, but will now include a tidy up of the patio to make sure nothing goes flying around.
So it looks like it will be an interesting few days around Australia Day. It’s possible that we’ll have a four day long weekend due to the cyclone, and have a bit of a clean up to do on Tuesday. If the track prediction proves accurate, the eye may extend over Cairns, which will be an interesting experience.
Update (23:00 Saturday): It looks like Olga is impatient, and may cross the coast some time late afternoon or early evening on Sunday. It’s rapid movement gives it less time to intensify, so hopefully it will be big enough to be interesting but small enough not to do any damage.
Update (08:15 Sunday): Sigh… It looks like Olga’s going to visit Cooktown instead of Cairns. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. We’ll have a wet and windy day, but nothing terribly interesting.
