Make a Difference

Day: September 19, 2010

Why We Can’t Make Good Cheese

OK, so this is hardly a burning issue. And Australia does make OK supermarket, frozen food cheese.

But exceptional cheese requires unpasteurised milk. Because like good wine, really good cheese is complex. That complexity requires a variety of cultures.

The question is, should Australian producers be allowed to make, and Australian consumers allowed to consume, cheese made from raw milk?

‘Allowed to?’

Yes. We are presently not allowed to. Because a committee has decided the health risks are too great. And members of that committee naturally claim that those who question it are motivated purely by greed.

There are some very minor health risks. In modern manufacturing these risks are almost non-existent for harder cheeses, and only marginally more for soft cheeses like Brie.

But Australian consumers are babies. So even if cheesemakers label their products as being made from raw milk, the government still won’t let you make the decision to buy them.

Muslims Have More Rights

And are safer in Western countries than in any Islamic country.

So says Muslim woman Raheel Raza, formerly of Pakistan:

The Pakistan ambassador gets up and leaves in obvious annoyance that a woman should be allowed to speak to him in this way. It would never happen in Pakistan!

She makes the same point, that she would not have the same freedom of expression in her country of birth.

Nor are Muslims victimised in the West. So, she says, they should stop whining and get on with being responsible citizens.

Incidentally, I am thoroughly fed up excuses for muslim violence which are based on claims of oppression and provocation by the West.

The simple fact is, the Koran and the example of Mohammed both encourage violence against unbelievers.

The usual response to this fact from islamic leaders and appeasers is to deny that it is so.

Then when examples from the life of Mohammed are given, and verses from the Koran and the Hadith, the claim is made that it is not fair to point the finger in this way, because the Koran and the Bible are morally equivalent since the Bible also includes verses which incite violence.

This is either dishonest or ignorant.

The Bible tells the story of God’s revelation of himself to a small desert tribe, who initially undertood him through their own culture and modes of thinking and acting, which were typical of the time.

Gradually, as the Jews understood the nature of God better, and the nature of their relationship to him, they were led from ‘an eye to an eye’ (meaning measured and comparable response to injury – already an improvement on existing law) to ‘Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who insult you and persecute you.’ (Matt 5:44)

In the Bible, the later verses of love and forgiveness overwrite the harsh verses of a thousand years earlier.

The Koran is exactly the other way around. It takes a small group of desert dwellers, and leads them from the savage temperament of their time, into even deeper savagery and cruelty.

The later verses of violent aggression overwrite the early verses of reluctant tolerance.

The Koran undoes the Bible. They are not morally equivalent.

Gillard: What I Said Before, Forget About It

Julia says things are different now. And they are. She doesn’t need you to vote for her anymore, and won’t for the next three years, by which time you will have forgotten. So bye, bye promises.

Also, Julia says the Opposition should stop acting like an opposition, and just be nice. By being nice she means they should agree with everything she says.

Apparently, now is not the time to be disagreeing about stuff. We should all agree about stuff. Like a carbon tax, and the National Broadband Netwreck.

But the job of the Opposition is to oppose. To pick holes, to ask questions. To try to ensure that legislative and executive decisions made by the government are in the best interests of the country.

Which may not always co-incide with the best interests of the ruling party.

But Julia wants to keep a light burning:

“With restraint and civility we can put aside the empty rancour of partisanship and seek to work together,” she said.

“We can strengthen opportunity for all Australians and build an enduring legacy for future generations.

“That is how we will honour Ben Chifley and keep the Light on the Hill burning bright.”

At yesterday’s Liberal conference, Mr Abbott says Ms Gillard’s admission that several election promises will be broken due to the hung parliament is an example of why she cannot be trusted.

“The more we see of Julia Gillard, I’ve got to say, the better Kevin Rudd looks,” he said.

“I never thought I would say that, but Kevin Rudd looks strong and principled by comparison to the current incumbent.

“We have Prime Minister Gillard saying that she has a blank cheque to break promises.

“What an outrage. If the Prime Minister did not believe that she could put her election commitments into practice she should not have accepted a commission from the Governor-General.”

Hear that Julia? If you did not believe you could put your election commitments into practice, you should not have accepted a commission from the Governor-General.

Unwarranted Assumptions

It turns out unwarranted assumptions are the largest single source of renewable energy.

Take for example the Zero Carbon Australia, 2020 report which claimed that all of Australian energy could com from renewable energy sources by 2020. Ted (F.E.) Trainer, a well known Australian energy theorist pointed to some of the plans flaws,

To summarise, my back of the envelope impression is that when the foregoing points are added the ZCA conclusion is out by the following factors:

i. The efficiency gain assumed for electric vehicles should be perhaps halved.
ii. The assumed proportion of travel that can be transferred to electric vehicles is too high, in view of how well people and freight can be got to intended destinations by light vehicles and public transport, and in view of what people will accept.
iii. The embodied energy costs of plant might be much more than 10 times as high as has been assumed.
iv. Far more storage for solar thermal needs to be assumed, perhaps 96 hours, as distinct from 17.
v. The amount of solar thermal capacity might need to be trebled I am right about the peak vs average issue.
vi. Very optimistic assumptions and estimates have been made throughout, including regarding costs.

Trainer was not the only critic of the ZCA plan to point out its unrealistic optimism.

Dave Burraston has offered fact based critiques of the ZCA plans assumptions about wind implementation time, and solar facility construction times Martin Nicholson and Peter Lang, offered a long and detailed critique of the ZCA plan. They note, BZE make a number of assumptions in assessing the electricity demand used to calculate the generating capacity needed by 2020. In summary these are:

1. 2008 is used as the benchmark year for the analysis. BZE defend this by saying “ZCA2020 intends to decouple energy use from GDP growth. Energy use per capitais used as a reference, taking into account medium-range population growth.”.
2. Various industrial energy demands in 2020 are reduced including gas used in the export of LNG, energy used in coal mining, parasitic electricity losses, off-grid electricity and coal for smelting.
3. Nearly all transport is electrified and a substantial proportion of the travel kmsare moved from road to electrified rail including 50% of urban passenger and truckkms and all bus kms. All domestic air and shipping is also moved to electric rail.
4. All fossil fuels energy, both domestic and industrial, is replaced with electricity.
5. Demand is reduced through energy efficiency and the use of onsite solar energy.

Thus the net effect of these assumptions is to reduce the 2020 total energy by 58% below the 2008 benchmark and 63% below the ABARE estimate for 2020. The plan thus assumes that over 50% of energy demand will simply disappear by 2020 because of efficiency improvements.

The Nuclear Green Revolution site from which that comes is a left-wing climate alarmist site. But their analysis of the costs and practicality of so called renewable power is spot on.

If the whole disastrous anthropogenic global warming scary monster thing were true, and if reducing CO2 production by 20% would really do something to stop it (it isn’t and it wouldn’t), it would be possible to do so. But not with ‘renewable’ engery.

Reducing CO2 and other greenhouse emissions by 20% could be done if the pointless NBN was cancelled, and the $45 billion planned to be wasted on that was instead spent on nuclear power and the introduction of fuel cell technology for most land transport.

And that wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway.

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