The Journal
2009
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Collects for Good Friday
In Anglican usage, the ‘Collect’ is a prayer that collects together the themes of the liturgy and readings for the day into a single short prayer. Good Friday is unique in having not one but three…
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Two Posts on Climate Change from Watts Up With That?
First, despite the ceaseless bleating about ice melting and shelves collapsing and sea levels rising, Antarctic sea ice has been growing at a rate of about 5% per decade for the last thirty years, and set…
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Obama Bows to King Abdullah
While Queen Elizabeth gets a nod. This is all over the internet, I know. Perhaps because it seems to say something important. I wasn’t going to comment, but this YouTube video makes it clear just how…
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$43 Billion and No Business Plan
Kevin Rudd admitted today that the Federal Government had no business plan to confirm the new broadband plan’s viability or cost effectiveness compared with other options. Malcolm Turnbull said: “This is the most reckless statement about…
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Somali Pirates and Abu Sayyaf – Paying Bad Guys Doesn’t Work
Having made millions from ransoms in recent years, Somali pirate gangs are using increasingly sophisticated boats and radar equipments to spot, chase and capture other vessels. On average a ship is attacked every day. About one attack…
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Three Interesting Lists
The top 100 films (listed by genre) – a Guinness list. I have seen all of them except a couple of the silent films. Plenty of room for debate in this list. I might have put John…
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Courtney Love Ripped Off for Over $700 Million
That’s about $45 million in cash and $700 million in real estate. She didn’t notice the money was going until there wasn’t any left. This is the estate left by Curt Cobain to Courtney Love and…
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Varied Responses to Barack Obama. From ‘Non’ and ‘Nein’ to ‘No’
And yet, the things the Europeans said ‘no’ to were things I would have said ‘yes’ to. Namely, a stronger response to North Korea’s missile launch (which was meant to be threatening, demonstrated an ability to strike as far Alaska…
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Education Tax Refund
I only heard of this today. Australian parents and caregivers can get back up to 50% of the cost of eligible education expenses for primary and secondary schooling. The link is worth following if you live…
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Global Warming – a Brief Inroduction
I have just uploaded a brief introductory essay called Profits of Doom – An Introduction to Global Warming. Left click the link to open the PDF file in a new tab, or right click to save.…
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Barack Obama Won’t Visit Normandy to Avoid Upsetting Germany
It’s 65 years since the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy. Over 9,000 Americans are buried at the American cemetary there, including the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. President Sarkozy invited President Obama to visit…
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LED TVs
Faster, brighter, lighter, more colour depth, more power efficient, vastly better contrast ratio. And you can get one now (or in early May if you live in Australia) What’s not to like? Well, apart from the…
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Breastfeeding Mum Too Drunk for Breath Test
Oh dear. A 19 year old woman drives her car out of a hotel car park into the path of a police vehicle. She is breast feeding her baby son, who is unrestrained. She is so…
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Take Care at the ATM
A couple of different reports over the last 24 hours about skimming (information trapping) devices attached to automatic teller machines. Just take care. If an ATM looks suspicious, don’t use it, and report it to bank staff or…
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Couldn’t Some of the Internet Cash go to Emergency Medical Care?
Emergency medicine specialists say as many lives are lost in Australia each year because of inadequate ER resources (including staff), as are lost on our roads. Time to think about your priorities, boys and girls. Or…