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Tram Town
Saturday, June 30, 2007
 
Category: Shrinkage
With the onset of northern hemisphere summer, the ice lingam at Amarnath is shrinking. It was 12 feet tall and is now only 4 feet tall. This shrinkage has been attributed to... you guessed it, global warming.
For those who are having trouble working out what a lingam is, this definition may help.

Friday, June 29, 2007
 
Category: Space TFF
Great! Mars Rover's coming to Victoria!!
Oops, sorry, wrong Victoria.

Thursday, June 28, 2007
 
Category: Pixar
Whatever else we do during the upcoming school holidays, we will definitely go and see this exhibition at the ACMI.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007
 
Category: Nightmare
I used to read Melanie Phillips' Diary regularly but for some reason I just kinda stopped. Stupid, really. The good folk at Diogenes' Lamp have pointed out a couple of items there recently and I am now going to stick the site into my feed reader. She is fantastic. Read this post, Jack. Oh, and, I'd love to see her at a speaking engagement, DL!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007
 
Category: Fillums
One of our favourite fillums is Blade Runner which has just turned 25 and has been subsequently Myth Busted.

 
Category: Climate
In the spirit of the Julian Simon/Paul Erhlich bet comes this challenge to Al Gore from Scott Armstrong. Interestingly, Armstrong has quite a strong association with an academic from Monash.

Sunday, June 24, 2007
 
Category: Art
I don't know much about art and I can only assume that the person who wrote this article for the ABC website is in the same boat because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Somehow, it seems, regulating the aboriginal art world will stop certain groups sniffing petrol.
The Central Land Council says the recommendations of an Indigenous art inquiry will help tackle anti-social behaviour.
Please, somebody, read it for me and explain!

 
Category:
The following image comes from this article. It shows the number of degrees of our current global average temperature that can be attributed to carbon dioxide. Note how it flattens out as CO2 increases. Food for thought!

 
Category: Property
This magnificent read from the Sunday Tasmanian opens with these bullet points:
  • Residents may actually own land next door
  • Resident's house 'sold' to Queensland developer
  • Many houses sold in 1982 for a dollar

Saturday, June 23, 2007
 
Category: Audio
These people have a tool called the Audio Animator the instructions for which read:
All that needs to done is to pass the AUDIO ANIMATOR just over the surface of both sides of the CD.
The results include:
  • The performance shows more energy, no matter how loud you listen. Also reveals more width in the sound stage, which is no longer restricted in scale.
  • The bass has more swing and more rhythm ...the brushed hi-hats seem to be more subtle.
  • Music pulses with animation, is livelier and fresher…
  • The triangle in Liszts first piano concerto (Katchen, Decca) attained almost 3D room qualities, the piano stood out with a more contoured sound.
They are deluded.

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra is not deluded. Click here to see a YouTube of them buying, constructing and playing their instruments. Great stuff!

Friday, June 22, 2007
 
Category: Obesity
Maybe we need a wake up call. If so what could be more powerful than this thought
Fat Aussie kids won't win medals: champ
Australia's international sporting success will drop off because children are staying indoors instead of being physically active, an Olympic champion has warned.
Thanks, Petria.
TimT has an opinion on this that is worth reading.

Thursday, June 21, 2007
 
Category: Warmening
A man who is apparently known as "the father of scientific climatology" has a few things to say about the anthropogenic status of the current warming trend following the Little Ice Age which ended a bit over two hundred years ago.
The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down so it is getting warmer, he said.

 
Category: Nutrition
A young bloke by the name of David Stuart-Marquez discovers that perhaps the science of nutrition has been a bit too quick to reach conclusions and not so quick to realise the diversity of our bodies' requirements. It's a good read, IMHO.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
 
Category: Reminiscing
This article on FrontPageMag entitled "Good Fathers Put Their Children First" was a very pleasing read.

Monday, June 18, 2007
 
Category: Hymns
Over at Diogenes' Lamp, with order having been restored following a recent Marxist coup, a straw poll is being conducted to establish the favourite hymns of the readers. The Lamp makes this possibly controversial observation:
The first thing to say is that Roman Catholic hymns are quite unmemorable. The Micks lead the way in every other area of Christianity, but for some reason their hymns are lousy.
Me, I'm only really familiar with a small range of Anglican hymns anyway but my vote is with To Be a Pilgrim (the Dearmer text with the Monks Gate melody).

Saturday, June 16, 2007
 
Category: Warmening
Over at Canada's National Post, Ross McKitrick has suggested that a rational response to the global warming "threat" might be to introduce a tax which is indexed to the increase in global temperatures. If the catastrophist modelers are correct they should be happy that the disincentive for carbon usage will increase. If the "denialists" are correct, they should be happy that nothing will be done. It sounds a lot more sensible than the whole Kyoto mess, doesn't it?

 
Category: Health
This article about the politics of salt is a fascinating read and is apparently quite well known. It finishes:
"The problem with this field is that people have chosen sides," he says. "What we ought to do is let the science drive the system rather than the opinions."
What hope of that in our post-scientific age?
We Have Way Too Many Scientists in this World™.

 
Category: Humour
From rec.humor.funny:
I rear ended a car a few days ago.......
I tell you, It was a REALLY bad day!
The driver got out of the other car, and he was a friggin DWARF!!
He looked up at me and said, "I am NOT happy!"
So I said, "Well, which one are you then?"

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
 
Category: Animals
Formula One driver Anthony Davidson misidentified a groundhog as a beaver while travelling in excess of 200kmh. Careless of him, really!
"A beaver? Give me a break. I think the last time there was a beaver in Montreal was 1649. This is all because of [British journalists] who have probably never seen a beaver in their lives."

Monday, June 11, 2007
 
Category: Confusion
There are some things that I can make sense of and some that I can't. Slatts pointed me at a decent chunk of common sense in today's Oz editorial. You need to read the whole thing but I will quote an example paragraph:
It is hard to reconcile these objective facts with the commentary taking place in the parallel universe inhabited by disaffected intellectuals who insist that critics are gagged in the gulag they like to call "John Howard's Australia". In his contribution to Silencing Dissent, Robert Manne claimed the nation was headed on "the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the political culture" under Mr Howard.
The entire editorial makes sense. Soon thereafter I encountered an article by Jill Singer in the small paper where she tries to convey her experiences of the 52nd Venice Biennale of Art. Can anyone explain to me in terms that a non-intellectual like myself can understand what the hell her point is? In amongst it all she says:
The subject of our pavilion is way off the Government's radar, hardly surprising when you consider Australia doesn't even have an arts policy.
I'm personally not concerned about the lack of an arts policy (if such a shortfall really exists), in fact, I'm quite happy with government having no policy regarding the arts. In fact there are quite a few "sectors" that I would prefer government to steer clear of.
Just One Guy's Opinion™.

Sunday, June 10, 2007
 
Category: Obesity
Well... not so much obesity as toebesity. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Friday, June 08, 2007
 
Category: Spacemen
This alien abduction lamp is an absolute cracker. I want one. Scroll down to see accessories including an abducted cow.
the Martians are busy collecting Earth cows to keep Elvis with a steady supply of hamburgers

Tuesday, June 05, 2007
 
Category: Warmening
Over at the Watts Up With That? blog, a series of posts entitled "How not to measure temperature" gives an insight into the urban heat island problem. If the samples shown really are part of the collection mechanism for the global temperature calculation that is supposedly so scary then we can all stop being scared and start pointing at the scientists and laughing.
So far parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 have gone up. Great work, I now subscribe to this blog.
Oh, and while we're on the topic, over at Deutsche Welle, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt is quoted when queried on Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming™ as having claimed "The topic is 'hysterical, overheated, and that is especially because of the media'" (scroll to the bottom).

Saturday, June 02, 2007
 
Category: Cricket
In today's Tele, Tim Blair quotes Don Bradman on the topic of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming™.
In the meantime, Juliette Hughes at the A☭E has this to say of the producer of The Great Global Warming Swindle:
Sources including Lobbywatch.org and Sourcewatch have claimed that Durkin is part of a cabal of ex-Revolutionary Communist Party members who decided after the 1980s that they would never gain power through worker revolution. It is claimed they decided to direct their considerable energies into supporting corporations dealing with media and science policy because that is where they identified the real power to be.
No conspiracies here, citizens. Move along.

Friday, June 01, 2007
 
Category: Neptune
The ever sensible Zoe Brain has some interesting commentary on solargenic global warming and she suggests that more data and knowledge would be useful.

 
Category: Health
Another terrific article in the Junk Food Science blog hosted by Sandy Schwarz. In this case she tells of a woman who, though below average size for UK women, was deemed ineligible for a hip replacement because she was six pounds over the deserving weight limit. There is a need for some market feedback mechanism in modern health systems, of that I am sure.

 
Category: Space
I thoroughly recommend a wander around The Project Apollo Archive. I'm probably going to spend hours there over the course of the day.


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