[wind farms] what's all the fuss

Unlike in posts involving such issues as Common Purpose and Them, which I'll vehemently debate with anyone, your humble blogger comes to this issue as a WindFarm virgin.

We're told that they are awful for the environment, that they are an eyesore, that they do not produce anywhere near the power that is claimed for them. I really can't say. They're certainly not beautiful, spread out like Brown's cows over the countryside but if they're contained within a narrow area, in rows, then why not?

There was a bank of these on the road from Catania to Modica, in Sicily, high on the hill in the distance and they didn't seem too bad. The blades were all turning in unison, in some sort of futuristic ballet in plasticized nature .

When one considers the alternatives - the Tar Sands of Alberta or the nuclear waste dumping off the Ivory Coast, then windfarms seem, to me, to be the least worst alternative, apart from solar panels, of course. Solar panels are great for countries such as Australia and there are many on roofs, especially the further north you go.

For Britain, with its scant sunlight and for the Netherlands, open to the elements, windfarms would seem a sensible idea. Perhaps you can correct me on this.

[endless beer] at no extra cost

Let's say that at one time, the Canadian and US dollars were discounted by 10 cents on each side of the border (i.e., a Canadian dollar was worth 90 US cents in the US, and a US dollar was worth 90 Canadian cents in Canada).

A man walks into a bar on the US side of the border, [long ago when beer cost 10 cents], orders 10 US cents worth of beer, pays with a US dollar and receives a Canadian dollar in change. He then walks across the border to Canada, orders 10 Canadian cents worth of beer, pays with a Canadian dollar and receives a US dollar in change.

He continues this throughout the day, and ends up drunk with the original dollar in his pocket.

Who pays for the drinks?

Here's what the official answer was.

[dare to design] six to consider

[the next day] some photos

Sorry, sorry, I know it doesn't interest you but I just had to run these pics from the Herald Sun because they summed it all up and paint a picture. It's the last time, I promise:





Just a word about this one above. That's a man regarded as one of, if not the best player ever and the young baldy in the photo above is his son who played a champ's game yesterday.

OK - all done. You're safe again.

[round the world] another youngster trying it

What's going on here? Is there something in the atmosphere?

Remember 13 year old Laura Dekker and how she attempted to sail around the world solo but was stopped by a Dutch court?

Well now another one is at it:

Adventurer Don McIntyre is standing by teenage sailor Jessica Watson in the wake of an official report that calls into question her ability to survive her journey.

Mr McIntyre says he won't strip the 16-year-old of the $150,000 yacht, Ella's Pink Lady, he provided for her solo trip around the world.

That may be so but even though I'd prefer his judgement to that of a court, still:

A Maritime Safety Queensland report into the teenager's collision with 63,000-tonne cargo ship Silver Yang found she had probably been dozing at the time. She had not turned on an alarm, could not produce a clear plotted plan for her journey and had not developed a fatigue management plan, according to the report.

She was less than 24-hours into a 10-day test run from Mooloolaba to Sydney when the accident occurred in the early hours of September 9.

That is more damning and now I really think out what is involved in a voyage, the idea of a kid being able to remain up to it for the whole time and in all conditions is a bit much.

I can understand how Mr. McIntyre would have faith in her. A girl that age can be pretty confident and give the impression of competence. She's probably a good girl with her head screwed on right.

That crash was not good though.

[karma] and the need to remain circumspect

Further to that business of all the cars arriving at once when I reach a certain spot on the pavement with my bike, I did a little research and it seems that coincidences or maybe conjunctions of circumstances have been going on for a long time:

In 1893, Henry Ziegland ended a relationship with his girlfriend. Tragically, his girlfriend took the news very badly, became distraught and took her own life. Her distressed brother blamed his sister’s death upon Henry, he went round to Henry’s house, saw him out in the garden and tried to shoot him.

Luckily, the bullet only grazed Henry’s face and embedded itself in a nearby tree. In 1913, twenty years after this incident, Henry decided to use dynamite to uproot a tree in his garden. The explosion propelled the embedded bullet from the tree straight into Henry Ziegland’s head – killing him immediately.

What about this one from February this year?

The chance of winning the lottery is often said to be a tad bit smaller than the chance of being hit by lightning. Lightning is said never to strike twice at the same place. So consider the odds of someone winning the lotter. Twice. On the same day. From the same lottery.

That’s what happened to James McAllister (62) from Acworth, USA, when he bought two scratch off tickets on Valentine’s day. James brought his wife for a Valentine’s breakfast. Along Highway 92 he bought a Georgia Lottery Millionaire Jumbo Bucks scratch off ticket — and won $5,000.

Apparently not completely satisfied, or maybe feeling this was his lucky day, later on in the day he bought another ticket as he was shopping for a Valentine’s card for his wife. Scratching that one off was worth $250,000.

Agatha Christie played with the idea by putting these words into Mr. Satterthwaite's mouth, the woman he was addressing considering suicide:

“You say your life is your own,” went on Mr Satterthwaite to her, “But can you dare to ignore the chance that you are taking part in a gigantic drama under the orders of a Divine Producer? You, as you, may not matter to anyone in the world but you as a person in a particular place and a particular context may matter unimaginably.”

Broadening this

Today I had a commenter on one post [now deleted] and instantly, the moment came to mind when Poirot said this to Jacqueline de Bellefort who was contemplating murder:

‘Don’t open your heart to evil, Mademoiselle because if you do, it will surely come and make its home in there.’

You can call that melodramatic but I really do believe that if you pursue MAD, you really do become mad in the deepest and most permanent sense and you can't get it off your back or out of your system. You get locked in until something is destroyed but the black joke is that it is never destroyed - it comes back at you and destroys you from inside.

I don't think "turn the other cheek" was an exhortation to weakness, quite the opposite - it was something which requires great willpower. Today I paused and I was going to make the mistake of responding. Now I'm glad I didn't.

Positive karma

Don't start getting the idea I'm a tree-hugger but I do believe that if something occurs, it may well have a bearing on something else or have a reason for it. Douglas Adams made fun of that with his "fundamental interconnectedness of all things", the Australian aborigines are right into this stuff and I think there's something in it. Not sure what but there is.

Enough mysticism for one evening.

[late evening listening] harmony

[missionaries and cannibals] get them to the other side

Three missionaries and three cannibals want to get to the other side of a river. There is a small boat, which can fit only two. To prevent a tragedy, there can never be more cannibals than missionaries together.

Work out the combinations necessary to get them all safely to the other side. The solution is going to be something like:

1 missionary and 1 cannibal there, 1 missionary back;
1 missionary and 1 cannibal there .....

And so on. Solution will be given tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning: Answer is here.

[police tactics] watch and decide for yourself

Harry Hook has posted a series of vids but this one in particular got under the guard:


The reason it did is because it is so different from anything I've seen before. In my young days I wasn't above attending demonstrations and I observed out and out provocation by professional demonstrators who worried the police horses into bolting - these are the same people who screamed about animal rights.

On the other hand, I also saw inexperienced officers goaded by experienced officers into overreacting, out of all proportion to the provocation.

I have not seen police all dressed in black, with POLICE written across their chests in big letters, advancing on university students and beating on their shields in unison, like something out of Zulu. Say what you like but that is intimidation, psy-ops, pure and simple.

In the natural state for most of us, we'd prefer a comfortable life of full employment and looking after our families. Left of centre, right of centre, whatever - what we are not prepared for is actual police state tactics like this. Watch the Pittsburgh video and decide for yourself.

The bottom line

Those men behind that armour have wives and kids. Some of those kids are at that university. The kids on the balconies were not bad kids, ASBOs, as you could see. They were uni students. Those humans behind the armour were firing on kids. Who told them to do that and why did they follow that order?

This is America?

2009 AFL Grand Final - Geelong v St Kilda

All photos are courtesy of The Herald Sun Online and The Age Online.


Luke Ball neatly summarised the grief that washed over the St Kilda rooms after their loss of a desperately close 2009 AFL grand final to Geelong on Saturday.



Tears were plentiful - not least from inconsolable captain Nick Riewoldt - as the Saints came to terms with the fact that this was a year in which they carried all before them except the premiership cup.



"Half an hour ago was the worst feeling I've had in my life, to be honest. It was shocking," Ball said. "Just looking around at a few of the older guys as well, it was as bad as I've felt.



St Kilda's efforts in 2009 were inspired by how the Cats had raised the standard of the game over the previous two seasons, and Ball said the league owed much to the Geelong club for their combination of class and unstinting application.



"Full credit to them, they're a fantastic team," he said. "The competition as a whole has a lot to thank Geelong for over the past three years, the way they've gone about it. We certainly chased them pretty hard and tried to model ourselves on them a bit, but they were just a bit too good when it mattered."



A word of explanation about this. The AFL instituted, in the early 90s, a new policy which evened up the competition. Until then, the moneyed clubs [the Man Us of the world] usually won or were thereabouts and consequently had the largest number of fans. The also-rans, like St Kilda, were the perpetual whipping boys and some of these clubs broke up in the reorganization.



St Kilda, one of the original teams, did not break up and slowly, over 5-7 years, built itself up until this season, when they swept all before them, including Geelong. In Australia, there is great affection for St Kilda and many rate them as their "second club", along with the old Fitzroy. No one dilikes them.



So, in 2009 unfortunately, Geelong were cast as the party-poopers and yet theirs too, many forget, was a rags-to-riches story, some years earlier.



Geelong was one of the two original teams, with Melbourne, in 1859 and is from a coastal town [now a city], often referred to as "sleepy hollow". Let's face it, they can be a bit provincial down that way and the city slickers make a lot of fun of the town's reputation as "hicksville" though this was far from the truth.



For all that, over the decades, they've produced some stunning teams, country boys, farmers' sons and while discipline was never their catchcry, exciting, free-flowing football was their motif, not unlike the southern hemisphere clubs and the Barbarians in rugby.



As the outsiders in the competition but never one of "the city clubs", not unlike me in the Britblogosphere, they rebuilt and had some hearbreaking losses in the past five years, despite co-opting a coach [manager] from one of the city teams, a proven champion and a hard taskmaster.



He taught them self-discipline and dedication and two years ago, the result came - they took the flag after a 44 year layoff, that previous flag itself after an 11 year layoff. You get the idea - always up there but never getting the cream.

In 2007 though, they were the champs.



In the modern system, teams tend to be up for three, maybe four years and any flags have to be won during that time, before players age too much and the machine shows signs of cracking. That's why, last year, having won almost everything during the 2008 season, often grinding other sides into the dirt, they were pipped on the one day which counted - the last day in September.



As you can gather from the opening remarks in this post, that hurt. That really kicked them in the guts. Would they recover in 2009?



Well, they did and they didn't. The new golden boys, St Kilda, all praise to their coach and to them, were now sweeping all before them. After Geelong lost to them mid-season, they fell apart a bit and it was touch and go if they'd even see the grand final.



As you know by now, they did manage to get there but as the underdogs to St Kilda and throughout the game, that's how it was panning out - St Kilda having far more scoring shots but Geelong pressure and their nerves not helping them in their cause.



Geelong, now an ageing team, would surely succumb to the fresh youngbloods but in the end, it was sheer grit and experience which saw them over the line in a very close battle all day.



Relief, more than elation was the prevailing emotion, some sort of redemption after 2008 and the coach, Bomber Thomson, made that point in the after-match press conference. The other coach, Ross Lyon, stoical, put it down to those small percentage things on the day.



What next?

Can St Kilda show real character and bounce back next year to "avenge" their loss?

Can Geelong do it one more time, after their sell-by date? Will they still have the hunger?

There are 14 other teams who'll have a say in that matter as well.



... for now.