Day: May 25, 2009

Kim Jong-il – Na Na Na Na Na Na Na, I Want To Start A Fight

May 25, 2009 / Augustus / 0 Comments

North Korea conducted a powerful underground nuclear weapons test today.

The UN security council will meet. No doubt Kim Jong-il is quaking in his tiny boots as he contemplates the arrival of another letter telling him how angry they are.

President Obama and other world leaders have said they are gravely concerned. All to be expected. Not so expected is that China has also condemned the test.

Share markets have fallen slightly in response to the news of the test. Asian oil prices have also fallen.

On the other hand, shares in defense related companies jumped.

I think Kim Jong-il is on a mission to change his theme song. I’m So Ronery just isn’t doing it for him any more.

But if he wants to start singing ‘So What,’ I think I like Pink’s version better.

Cold Water On Warming

May 25, 2009 / Augustus / 0 Comments

This column by a physicist and climatologist is a week old. But it is worth reading because of its clear comparison of the predictions of global warming theory with real word observations.

The conclusion: global warming theory is: a political movement with nearly all the recognised climatologists throughout the world dissenting from the man made global warming theory. This can be seen on the US Senate Environment committee web site with over 700 leading climatologists from 24 different countries including Nobel Prize laureates all dissenting from the man made global warming theory.

The magnificent Cardinal Pell, a champion of compassion and common sense, also notes that global warming just doesn’t seem to be happening:

… history shows the planet is dynamic and the climate is always changing, sometimes drastically.

Contrary evidence is already changing the debate. Australia, with its tiny economy, is no longer aiming to lead the world. The threat of massive job losses and increasing awareness of new evidence will provoke even greater caution in the future…

Evidence shows the wheels are falling from the climate catastrophe bandwagon.

The end to the global warming nonsense cannot come soon enough. Eventually governments will stop wasting vast amounts of time and money, and sabotaging key industries, to prevent something that isn’t happening.

Perhaps then, at least until the next mindless scare, we will have the will to deal with some of the world’s real problems.

Kleenmaid Bankrupt

May 25, 2009 / Augustus / 0 Comments

Kleenmaid is (was) an Australian whitegoods manufacturer. I have owned a few of their products over the years, and found them to be well-designed and well-made.

Creditors including the Westpac bank (the same bank that mistakenly deposited $10 million in a NZ customer’s account), voted this morning to wind up the company, which has nearly $100 million in debts.

Directors Brad and Andrew Young said they were really upset, you know,and the financial situation and everything, and they were like, sorry and everything.

But liquidator John Greig, a partner of Deloitte, warned it was unlikely that creditors would ever see their money. He said the brothers appeared to have put all their property in their wives’ names.

Mr Greig said he had alerted the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over the removal of 30 boxes of documents from Kleenmaid’s Sunshine Coast headquarters on Friday by two of the company’s three directors, Andrew Young and his brother Brad.

Deloitte reported to creditors that it was likely that Kleenmaid had traded while insolvent for at least two years.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, franchisees are claiming the mess could have been prevented five years ago if the ACCC had taken their claims of malpractice seriously.

Trading in shares in another major whitegoods manufacturer, Fisher and Paykel, was halted on the ASX today pending a statement on the company’s financial position.