Back again!

Sorry 'bout closing the blog for awhile there, but with my unerring ability to mistime holidays I have been in Queensland for the last 4 weeks visiting family. During that time it was brought to my attention that a company was rather profitably copyright-trolling blogs and litigating accordingly (see: I'm too poor to sue!) thing was brought to my attention, and in a fit of paranoia I just closed the blog until I could get home and do the necessary, tedious searches of my old posts.

Anyone interested in donating to the Queensland flood relief see here. Or alternatively, if you have a high-pressure hose, a pair of gumboots* and live within driving distance of south-east Queensland, they need YOU. (My family has a rich relationship with hurricanes, cyclones and floods ripping through the house. Its messy, to say the least, the mud is quite unbelievable. And as I discovered at the age of 11, if you dont wear shoes in the aftermath of a flood, its quite possible to do something like punch the broad side of a nail covered in mud through the bottom of your foot. Several weeks of crutches and the scar still twinges in cold weather.)

Oh, and for those not of a technological bent, if your house was flooded and you have a solar electricity system, it IS STILL GENERATING ELECTRICITY even though the mains power is out, and if the inverter has been immersed, there can be arcing. Please be careful, some systems can deliver enough DC volts to be fatal.


* Galoshes or wellingtons, depending on where you live.

Waking up is hard to do

Just when you thought funding for ridiculous climate studies was on the wane, Professor Ole John Nielsen of Copenhagen has discovered that gases used in anaesthesia are up to 1600 times more potent as greenhouse gases than CO2. Happily, he reassures us that he won't call for them to be banned. Yet.
Nielsen, who got the idea while his wife was having a baby (whereupon the Daily Suppository will restrain herself from defamatory comments against the male persuasion...its been a rough few weeks) has written in the British Journal of Anaesthesia that the global impact of inhalation anaesthesia is comparative to a million cars. This sounds exciting, until you work out that that is the same as one coal fired power plant. Lets not freak out prematurely or anything.
Prof. "Not a medical doctor" Nielsen, has advised anaethetists that they should "sit up and take notice" of this, and since of the three anaesthetic gases analysed, one is more potent as a greenhouse gas than the other two:

If all three compounds have equal therapeutic work, there is every reason to use the one with the lowest global warming potential.

A statement so cute in its over-simplicity and mis-identification of significance. Just hazarding a guess here, but from what I know of anaesthetics (which isnt much, and Im not looking it up because Im on holidays) Im going to go right ahead and guess that the complex physiological and pharmaceutical science that is anaesthetics takes into account more factors in selecting an agent than its "therapeutic work". Thats because the "therapeutic work" of an inhalation anaesthetic is usually "knocking you out", and they all do that. Amazingly though, the pharmacokinetics of the agent, and dare I say it, the patient's individual physiology, plays a part, too. Not to mention the availability and cost of the agent itself.
Thinking of the anesthetists I know, I'm somehow not too worried that this is going to radically change the profession. Perhaps Prof. Nielsen should have investigated the climate impact of runnning just one hospital laundry, instead.

EDIT: Anthony Watts just debunked the paper's claims in a particularly educated and erudite fasion. His rebuttal is based on science-y stuff, mine on hanging out with anaesthetists at three in the morning on a labour ward, or watching one napping against a wall while I helped put a rubber hose up an unconscious patient's bum. Probably go with what Watts says, Im thinking.

Weather update

Hi All,
Usually I get the irrits with all these medical students who constantly update their facebook pages with comments about how many lives they've saved. Go and notch your stethoscope, or something. Seriously, who saves lives? I certainly dont. I'll be happy if I can just get through the next few years without accidentally killing anyone.
Until two nights ago that is, when I saved a life! It was actually my own. Good for me.
Yes, folks, I had "thunderstorm asthma", and it really sucked. I had never even heard the term before, nor ever had asthma, but realised something was wrong when I couldn't breathe. I find thats usually a diagnostic giveaway. Reasoning that it seemed to be occurring in line with a rainstorm, I thought perhaps pollen could be implicated (in your face all those people who said that being a science nerd is a bad thing, knowing how pollen behaves in the rain is useful after all!) and rummaged around until I found some old antihistamines and a bottle of prednisone left over from the last time the kids had croup. Then I sat around wheezing heavily until they kicked in. This is the point in the story where people are probably wondering: a) Wheres the weather / climate angle? and b) Why didnt you go to a hospital, you retard?
The answers are as follows: a) I'm getting to it. b) Medicos make terrible patients and usually dont go to an ED until they are unconscious, whereupon someone else takes them. Also, the kids were asleep and I didnt want to wake them.
Now, on to the weather angle. Australia is one of the worst places in the world for asthma and hayfever. I could provide links, but cant be bothered, just google it if you dont believe me. Interestingly, when people move to Australia from overseas, they run the risk of developing asthma and hayfever that is a function of how long they have been here for. 2-4 years seems to the magic number, then you get a bunch of expats suddenly presenting to their doctors with their heads exploding, saying things like "I've NEVER had this before." Lets just say our environmental conditions can be tough on the atopic.
Anyhoo, this is one of the wettest, coolest summers in southern Australian since around 1996. All of those bastard pollinating thingies are going apeshit. Then you get a couple of hot days where they pollinate themselves into a frenzy, followed by a thunderstorm, which bursts the pollen grains in the air. So instead of getting stuck in your nose and causing hayfever, you breathe all these antigenic particles down into your lungs and suddenly find it difficult to breathe.
Melbourne has been hardest hit and had 300+ people calling for an ambulance due to thunderstorm asthma in one night, which doesnt count those people who presented to ED themselves (or sat at home in Sydney self-medicating with kiddy prednisone and Phenergan). The Alfred hospital has had to open another wing to deal with the number of cases. Apparantly this hasn't happened on such a scale since the 1970's.
Television news are running stories warning people with hayfever to go straight to a hospital if they start wheezing. Fun times.
Global warming has clearly foresaken us. Bring back the drought.

Update...

Hi all,
I realise I kind of went AWOL for awhile there, so I thought I would put up a quick note to explain that I am around and will return to blogging in another 2 weeks or so. Lets just say that a perfect storm of hospital work, the obligatory hospital acquired illness, end of year exams and Mr. Paua going FUBAR in the head and disappearing on me in the midst of all this has put The Daily Suppository on a backburner for awhile. (BTW Mr. Paua, they have pills for that. Oh, thats right, you stopped taking them...)
I have been reduced to yelling at ABC news 24 stories instead, (which FYI would have made their way into the blogosphere had there been a Daily Suppository intern with a dictaphone and mad typing skills on hand. Just a thought, people.) And listening to angry nerd music about recalcitrant boyfriends.
Whatever gets you through.
See you in a couple of weeks.

Its funny 'cause my nickname for him really is "bitch":

I heart the Gore-acle

Like fading A-list celebs the world over, Al Gore has taken to paid appearances in Asia and the Subcontinent to boost his bottom line. Most of his contemporaries end up lending their services to wierd advertisements for Japanese whiskey or toilet paper, or in the case of Al Pacino, spruiking a C grade coffee in Australia. In Al G's case, he recently jetted in to address a selected crowd of Indian cardiovascular specialists in Chennai.
After picking up his check, he immediately flew out again, avoiding any contact with the media. Even the event organisers thought that was a little wierd:

"His lecture was meant to be a private address to delegates at the congress" the media was told by members of the organising committee. But they themselves found it incongrous that "a man interested in creating global awareness on climate change and other environmental issues should have himself restricted the reach of his message."

Not so surprising when you hear the content of his speech. Al clearly struggled for common ground, and, dare I say it, relevancy when catering to cardiologists and cardio-thoracic surgeons, so went with comparing the human heart with the Earth's hydrological cycle. Clearly because he knows so much about both. I believe the word he was looking for instead was "plumbing". (Sorry, little doctor joke there.)
Also touched upon was the challenges faced by a rising global population, perhaps somewhat impolitic of him considering he was in one of the world's most populous nations.
Now, I've been to India, and I find it seriously hard to believe that the most entertaining thing anyone could come up with was Al Gore? Even the German's do a better line in weird conferecne entertainment. I once had described to me in great detail a German pharmaceutical conference where the entertainment consisted of a middle aged German guy jumping out of a large cake and attaching two toilet plungers to his chest, complete with song. And I probably saw wierder things in India just catching a suburban train through down-town Mumbai.
I certainly hope those doctors were on an all expenses paid junket, because if it was me and I was picking up the tab, I would vote for the Bahamas and Lady Ga Ga next time.

Everything you ever suspected about psychiatrists confirmed

So hands up who saw the "hilarious" 10:10 fest promotional video? I was one of those people who watched it and was completely appalled, and I get splatter humour. Seriously, if you didn't cry with laughter during the lawn mower scene in Peter Jackson's Brain Dead*, theres something wrong with you. The 10:10 promotional video, on the other hand, just wasn't funny.
The predictable fall-out of 10:10's epic own-goal fail, was that all of their corporate sponsors suddenly went the way of Pierce Brosnan's Remington Steele era chest hair in the 1990's, and just disappeared. Which kind of makes one wonder why on freakin' earth 4 of the major UK medical societies suddenly signed up to their campaign after the 10:10 splatter video?

And just like that....it was gone....

Seriously. I don't mean to sound indelicate, but f*ck me drunk and bury me pregnant, what were they thinking?! According to the Royal College of Psychiatrist's own website:

The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), have all joined 10:10, mindful of the threat posed by climate change.

The president of the RCPsych, Dinesh Bughra (is his last name really pronounced the way I think its pronounced?), even goes so far to say that living a low carbon life style will cheer you up. On the one hand, he may be right - apparently people in developing nations have historically rated their general happiness as being better than whingeing princesses in developed nations, but they tend to die quicker of really gross things like TB, and childbirth. Its also been put forward that peopled rated their happiness as higher during the world wars due to factors like a united sense of purpose, but in the long run I would counsel against invading Poland as a means of cheering everyone up.
A more recent compilations of studies into mental wellbeing created a global "happiness map", that showed a differing picture, and fairly clearly highlighted that the main predictors of happiness were access to health care, followed by wealth and education.


In Australia, there are longstanding media agreements to not report certain types of suicides and violent crime. It is well known that publicising suicides off of bridges, in front of trains and knife assaults (unless particularly extreme events) increases the number of similar events in the community. Due to this, most people here are happily unaware of the weekly parade of knifings and jumpers unless they work in a health care field, or, like I did 10 years ago, live next door to a train bridge. So if the media would voluntarily censor itself in the name of the greater good, this begs the question of why a national body of Psychiatrists would back an organisation that normalises blowing up innocents, including children, that show deviation from an arbitrary, political party-line.
Physician, for f*cks sake, heal thyself.


* And to think, this man went on to make Lord of the Rings and is now a knight of the realm.

If you have a job, the Greens don’t like you

How many people who voted Green at the last election have any idea what their actual policies are? Originally the Greens represented a protest vote, and as such were essentially a protest party. It didn’t really matter what their policies were, they were just assumed to be warm, fuzzy and had something to do with lesser spotted quolls or numbats or something. “Maybe”, people said hopefully, “they might legalise pot”. What wasn’t to love, right? Now, however, they have a member in the lower house and the resulting power-broking alliance with the minority Labour government, plus holding the balance of power in the senate. They would have us believe they could be a party of governance. So in the spirit of this, let’s have a little look-see at what they actually want to do with our country.

I started looking at their economic policies first, just because. Most Green’s voters could tell you that they want a price on carbon, but few probably realise that they want to tax you up the whazoo, redistribute your wealth and (probably) send you to the country side for re-education.

First off, let me preface this with a personal position statement: I’m poor. Really poor. However, given that I can get an education with little cash up front, eat pretty damn well and don’t have to bash my clothes on a rock down by the river to get them clean, I figure I have little to complain about. One day, though, I wouldn’t mind being better off, and so I’m a little bothered that the Greens want to:

• Increase the maximum tax bracket to 50% for high income earners, impose a minimum income tax obligation in your bracket so there is no way to reduce your personal tax burden and do away with concessions for capital gains tax. “That’s alright”, you say, “I can put it in a trust for my kids or post a loss on those dodgy soy-burger stocks that never broke even”.

• Au contraire. They want to tax your family trust as a company (whilst mentioning elsewhere that they will increase the company tax rate to 33%) and reckon you can only post a loss on an investment against income from that same investment. (This is kind of missing the point, if you ask me.) “Fine”, you say. “I’ll salary sacrifice and get as many fringe benefits out of my employer as I can”.

• Ha. Sorry. They’re gonna end fringe benefit tax concessions (and remember that fringe benefits tax is paid at the maximum income tax bracket which will then be 50%. Try selling your boss on that.) Purportedly, this is because fringe benefits tax concessions encourages people to drive more in company cars, confirming that, indeed, all Green policy seems to come out of the inner city. Seriously, just look at a map of this country sometime. Some people have to drive for 4 hours just to get to a shop. “Instead of driving the company car, why not just catch public transport?” the Greens say. (It’s the long distance coach that stops past twice a week, you can’t miss it.)

• “Alright then, I can give my hard-earned to my spouse or kids, or failing that, they can have it when I’m gone”. Nope again, if the Greens have it their way, they’re going to end capital gains tax concessions, too, and introduce an additional death duty that would be imposed on estates over a certain amount. Don’t worry, though, Bob Brown has made an unspecified promise he’ll help protect the family farm when you die (which is what I thought family trusts were for). An unfortunate shame when you won’t be able to operate that family farm anymore because of its environmental impact.

“Wow. That’s scary.” You say. But wait, there’s more, let’s have a little look at some of their foreign policies:

• They want to cancel the ANZUS treaty. You know, the one usually touted as “the only reason we aren’t all speaking Japanese or Indonesian right now”. Perhaps it’s time to send a memo to the Greens that the treaty is an agreement to be allies, not best buddies? We can have a treaty and still bitch about the US behind their back when they have a bad hair day, dress tres slutty or want us to cancel our national pharmaceutical benefits scheme.
If you think dropping ANZUS would be bad for Australia, consider what could happen to New Zealand if we dropped the treaty. Since New Zealand took the high ground, and themselves, out of the treaty with the US over their nuclear stance, they enjoyed treaty-by-proxy because we were allied with the US and they were still allied with us. In the event we drop ANZUS, hopefully that would mean their little nuclear-free, small population idyll would be invaded first. Sorry NZ.

• Hidden in the environmental section, I also discovered another gem. The Greens would like to limit our maritime Economic Exclusion Zone to only a 200 (presumably nautical) mile limit. At the moment our EEZ is 200 nautical miles OR the limit of the continental shelf. This was ratified by the UN under the Convention on the Law of the Sea. If we limit ourselves to 200 nautical miles (or the equidistant line between two countries less than 400 NM apart), East Timor may pick up a couple of natural gas rigs, but we would lose rights to 2.5 million square kilometres of seabed. Count them. Not that it matters, because they would lock up most of the oceans in Marine Protected Areas with a minimum 30% of that “no take” zones and oppose any new non-renewable resource drilling operations, anyway.

East Timor picks up a couple of gas rigs that they are already getting royalties from with line C, we lose 2.5 million Sq Km of seabed.
If you think that’s a worry, have a read up on their “Peace and Security” section:

• Among other things, they want to “close all existing foreign bases in Australian territory and end foreign troop deployment, training and hosting on Australian territory” (sorry America, we don’t want any of your high tech communications and satellite equipment anymore, we want to pay for it all ourselves and get a (Greens designated publically owned) Telstra to run it) and “end training and joint exercises by the ADF with the armed forces known to have committed human rights abuses”. Which would kind of rule out, ummm, everyone except the Swiss, who are famously neutral and lay claim to the second most boring city in Europe.

• Now for my favourite: “support the development of an Australian Coastguard to replace military personnel and equipment in coastal policing.” Ba ha ha ha. Just ask the US (while we’re still on speaking terms) how their hooligan’s navy is working out for them. A coastguard isn’t a police force, it’s a repackaged defence force for alcoholics, generally with the primary objective of dealing with illegal immigrants among other things, but with the unintended consequence of harassing recreational boaters trying to get their beer on. This amounts to an expensive marketing ploy, but what scares me is they probably think its solving some kind of imaginary problem. (I have been advised that the US coastguard isnt quite the same as it used to be, and has been known to do scary rescues in huge seas in places like Oregon, but the basic ridiculousness of the Australian proposal still stands.)

There’s more, but halfway through the blatant hypocrisy of their indigenous policy I suddenly needed to go and have a drink, and don’t worry, they’re going to tax that, too, based on the alcohol content of your beverage. I see a Green led future, and it involves light beer.

Tofurkey of the week

The faux-poultry environmental idiocy awards just keep coming. This week, Alain Robert, the French "Spiderman", has been arrested for climbing a Sydney skyscraper in a bid to raise awareness about climate change advertise a web site. (The web site is great (not), BTW, its a ticker that says how many months we have before greenhouse gases kill us all. At the moment its going with 75 months.) Anyway, his efforts weren't widely reported, and he got arrested as a result, so we figure this probably deserves a Tofurkey, since Brad Pitt appears to have gone back to being pretty for the time being.
The Daily Suppository would also like to point out that dubbing Robert a "Spiderman" does not a hero make. For starters, he's fallen off very tall things at least twice, and in addition, he's up against true heroes in Spidey suits. Like, um... SPIDERMAN for one. Or failing that, the Thai fireman who just "happened" to have a spiderman suit in his work locker one day and was able to don it in a hurry to coax a young autistic boy from a third floor window ledge in downtown Bangkok. Sonchai Yoosabai, the Daily Suppository salutes you!

Is that piloerection, or are you just unhappy to see me?

In case you're wondering, piloerection is one of those medical terms, like formication, that sounds rude, but actually isn't. It merely refers to having your body hair stand on end. Which is always a nice introduction to anything to do with Clive Hamilton, Green's candidate, "public intellectual", internet censor, anti-semite, climate hysteric and all round 'freakin wierdo.

This morning your beloved author was busy trying to read her weekly horoscope and Jeremy Clarkson's auto review in the Weekend Australian, when she was distracted by Clive Hamilton's "advice" to the three incumbent MP's who currently hold the balance of power in our newly elected hung parliament. (I really wish I was blogging about the Sex Party right now, because at least they appreciate a well-hung parliament. Snicker.)

Anyway, Clive "it should have been me" Hamilton would like the three (fairly conservative and rural) independents to know that should they back a conservative coalition government chaired by a climate skeptic, that they will be responsible for the worst death of the entire planet, evah, it will rain fire and locusts will eat their babies. Or something. For pure, bizarre vitriol bordering on the libellous, it really has to be read to be believed. Really, he brings in everything from Monckton to the Tea Party movement and with liberal sprinklings of the word "denier".
Even the title of his piece: "MPs' obligations to the planet" sort of misses the point of a democratic election, which in my opinion would put their obligations rather firmly with their local electorates rather than "the planet". Which FYI, would like to see their MPs back a coalition government, and largely have major issues with most Green's policies.

Sensing that his views wouldn't hold much sway with skeptical independent Bob Katter in a bar room brawl, Clive took a swing in print:

Bob Katter is a lost cause, another climate denier from the bush who reinforces every urban stereotype about rural backwardness.

Thanks, Clive. Suspicions about the Greens confirmed. Does it not seem incongrous to you that you and your party seek to speak for the people of rural and remote Australia, whilst holding them in utter contempt and with power based solely on votes from the inner-city? Not just the city, but the inner-inner city?!

A little known fact about this author is that as a very young woman, starting at the age of about 15, my only available mode of transport for many years was via hitch-hiking in rural and remote parts of Australia. I largely avoided any trouble of the "fork it or walk it" kind and emerged from this experience unscathed, but in the process developed a finely tuned psycho-meter. On the hitchiking-teenage-girl-psycho-meter, I can tell you now which out of Bob Katter and Clive Hamilton I would be most concerned about being alone in a car with on a deserted country road.
Bob Katter is exactly the type of guy to yell and bluster alot about politics close to his heart, let out an occasional "yeehaw" when overtaking and take it upon himself to lecture you about anything stupid he thinks you're doing at the present time. However, he would probably drive out of his way to take you to where you were going and stand you a counter-lunch at the pub on the way. Clive Hamilton, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of guy to keep an old tarpaulin and cable-ties in the boot of his car and to think you were "asking for it".

A double-dip Tofurkey

Heres something to go with the impending double-dip recession: Two notable Tofurkey awards for the same week! For those just joining us, the Tofurkey of the Week Award is a faux-poultry plinth awarded to those who have acted like a complete turkey in the name of the environment. This weeks shared prize goes to University of Virginia activist Ryan McElveen and hollywierd star Brad Pitt.

McElveen has been nominated for a Tofurkey for his services in arranging a mass protest against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's continued efforts to formally inquire into Mike "Dodgy Tree Ring" Mann's climate research.

The 2008 UVA graduate had been hoping that at least 50 people would appear for the protest he launched with some emails and flyers. He chose Friday, August 20, because that was the day that a judge, just a mile away, was hearing arguments on whether Cuccinelli’s inquest could move forward. Turns out that’s also the eve of move-in for the fall semester at UVA.
“Bad timing,” McElveen admitted as just two students and two professors rallied with him on the marble steps of the UVA Rotunda.

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt has been nominated for his bizarre on-camera rant against BP, calling for the death penalty for those involved in the gulf oil spill. Slightly excessive, you say? If having an accident by definition attracted punishment by death, we would probably be having difficulty keeping the globe populated. Shhhh, don't tell PopOffSets. Personally, this reader is of the opinion that the death penalty has its place, but should probably be reserved for those people who leave dirty dishwater in the sink for hours under the guise of "soaking stuff" and LEAVE THE SPONGE IN THE WATER, TOO.

I knew carbon trading was a scam...

So anyway, a family member just got a phone call from a telemarketer with a subcontinental accent, who said he was calling on behalf of Microsoft because they had identified a virus on his computer. Apparently, for the low-low price of AUD $59 they could remove this for him, but first they just had to go to this web site and...
Behold! The "your computer has a virus" phishing scam is now available via telephone.
Anyway, in the process of convincing my relative that it was, indeed, a scam, I was checking out the SCAMwatch website, which is where I saw this:

WesternField Holdings Inc. carbon credit investment scams

WesternField Holdings Inc., a bogus overseas based telemarketing business, offering so called ‘investment opportunities’.

SCAMwatch understands that overseas telemarketers are making unsolicited calls to Australian consumers and businesses. Recipients are asked about their views on current environmental concerns and whether they would consider investing in environmental projects.

Recipients who express an interest in the environment or indicate that they are interested in investing are then contacted by a representative from WesternField Holdings.

WesternField Holdings has gone to great lengths to convince investors that it is a legitimate investment opportunity. It has a genuine looking website (www.western-field.com) and assures potential investors that they can review their ‘investment certificates’ online through a supposed independent website registered to CTR Limited (http://carbontrustregistry.com).

Green on black

One thing that has been bugging me for along time, but seemed to get relatively little media play, is the rather overwhelming evidence that the Green party, who bang on about cultural diversity, are racist against indigenous Australians.
Apparently, they care more for beleagured boat people than they do for our first people. Alright, I'll go right ahead and say it: The Greens don't like Aborigines.
Or, to put it another way, they like them as long as they stay suitably poor and nobly savage. How else can you explain the Wild Rivers Legislation?
I dont tend to get too excited over current events, but when the Wild Rivers legislation came in, I was almost apoplectic with horror. I grew up with Eddie Koiki Mabo's fight for basic recognition of his people rights. I still get tears in my eyes thinking of what red-neck cocksuckers did to his grave in Townsville, and this felt far, far worse.
Contrast that with the attitudes of most of our white, urban population, who really think that eco-salvation ranks above economic and cultural autonomy for Indigenous Australians on their own land. Most people either haven't heard of it or think its probably a good idea. The vast majority of people would have no inkling of the true implications for indigenous Australia.
Read more here.
Rather strangely, the conservative opposition leader was so aware of the travesty of this he entered a private members bill to overturn the legislation (which was subsequently quashed). Somewhat not in keeping with the traditional Coalition, and with Labour happy to sell out Indigenous Australia for Green preferences.
Lately, Tony Abbott has even been quoted as saying that on many of his policies, he has been "channelling Noel Pearson". When was the last time a would-be Prime Minister recieved policy advice on non-indigenous affairs from an indigenous Australian?
How bizarre that I still don't particularly like the man, he is just another politician (and I'm not quick to forgive on his Catholic anti-abortion drug stance during the mefipristone block), and I'm convinced that Noel Pearson and Abbott will have wefare recipients on food stamps before this is done, but on the other hand: hes sworn to overturn Wild Rivers, suspend the ridiculous Marine Protected Areas that were once again brought in at the behest of the Pew Conservation Trust and the Greens and is going to stop the ridiculous GP superclinic idea.
He had me at "climate change science is utter crap", anyway.

We're gonna need a bigger flow chart

Hows this for a beauty of a left-wing circle-jerk:

Picture this. A government department hands out cash to community activist groups, who in turn use the money to run a campaign to pressure political parties to devote more money to the department. At minimum, it seems to be a conflict of interest. Foolish, more like it. A betrayal of public trust even. But that's exactly what Australia's overseas aid agency, AusAID, has done

Turns out that under a Labour government grant scheme, AusAID has handed out AUD $1.5 Million in local grants to raise public awareness of global poverty, so that we all donate more money to AusAID. In particular, multiple grants were given under several guises to the Make Poverty History campaign, who seem to spend most of it on plastic armbands.

And the No. 1 goal for Make Poverty History is to "accelerate growth in the aid program" - to push the government to devote a larger share of national income to foreign aid. In other words, boost the AusAID budget.

Noice one, mate.

Where's the love?

Its not that I don't love you guys anymore, I'm just in the process of moving house and was stupid enough to sign up to a Telstra bundle because it was actually the best one going at the time (normally I get a bit twitchy around our national telco). However, true to form, they are moving my connection ahead at the speed of a geriatric snail, and all I have in the meantime is a mobile-broadband USB dongle that is *possibly* faster than dial-up and an LG phone that is begging to be thrown against a wall everytime I try and access the internet. (I never wanted to be a Mac-whore, but after this bloody phone I might treat myself to an i-phone for no other reason than you can get a free medical eponym app that goes over well at trivia nights down the pub.)
At least telstra managed to get my home phone connected eventually, but not before they managed to connect me on an extension to the house next door, and when I say "house", I actually mean "church". A telecommunications factoid I only discovered after the Vicar's wife rang up looking for her husband and got me instead, much to both of our suprise.
Stick with me, and before long I'll be back in full snark, but it does blow my election coverage somewhat. Sorry 'bout that, so in the meantime, here is my take-home federal election coverage boiled down to one pithy statement:

"In the upper house, if you can't be bothered voting below the line and are feeling a bit vote-freaky a la diversity in the senate, read the preference flow cards for every party and vote for one that preferences everyone, including, but not limited to, the Australian Sex Party before they preference the Greens."

Hell, I would preference the Australian Socialist Alliance before the Greens at the moment. I could tell you why at great length, but my internet is going to max out and make me poor (er), so you will have to wait a few days.

New post at the Daily Bayonet...

G'awn. Take a look.

The day I lost the snark...

It used to be so easy to snark away here on my blog, but lately I have found it hard going in terms of subject matter. Im not sure if this is because the media is pulling their head in when it comes to alarmist reporting post-Climate Gate, or whether Im easily distractable. In truth, I think it could be a bit of both, there seems to be less blatent idiocy popping up in my news feed (and I do love an easy target), and I keep getting sidetracked by involuntarily picturing my male colleagues sans accoutrements.
Its not my fault, I can't help it. I am attracted to intelligence and self-confidence, which is oft-times in short supply, but seems to be a pre-requisite for doctors. As a medical student, my job is to generally follow along behind the other doctors on ward-rounds, and well, the end result of this is that I seem to find myself looking speculatively at a lot of bums. Even that short Scottish guy. Sorry Mr. Paua.
Anyhoo, about the only thing I could find to talk about is a recent study that worked out that if you frame climate change in terms of a public health risk, it seems to have more of an impact. Researchers discovered that linking climate change with asthma tends to increase the "positive" response from readers, more so than linking it with more remote issues, such as polar bears and the arctic.
Halfway though reading this, I realised that this isn't a health study, this is market research. I should know, because for one brief, poor stage of my life I worked for a market research company doing telephone interviews. (Sorry. To everyone. I'm really sorry. I was scarily good at it, BTW).
This "study" isn't interested in unbiased research into what peoples attitudes are to climate change, you would do that with a focus group or a survey, this study is trying to work out how best to sell us something we may otherwise be reluctant to buy.
Just ewww, frankly.
This will probably annoy the crap out of me for just so long as it takes for me to get distracted by a pathologists abs.
Sorry, what were you saying?

Winter Sundays...

Some of my cronies in the blogosphere have been posting about the glory of a hot saturday in summer, complete with soundtrack. Well, some of us live in the southern hemisphere, and its been a pretty cold winter. I even had to scrape ice off my car a couple of times (only an Australian can understand the deep and abiding horror of this), so I feel an alternative soundtrack may be in order:











You're welcome.

Living proof that you can't legislate against stupidity....

Professor David Shearman has been at it again. When not busy doing secretarial things over at Doctors for the Environment, he can be found publishing books calling for the end of democracy as a solution to impending climate doom. Seriously, is this the guy you want to perform a rectal exam on you?
He also has his own website, the address of which is his own name with the designation .org. Cute. If you listen closely, you can almost feel the hysteria.
Anyway, he's managed to publish a poorly disguised propaganda piece / self-advertorial over at The Australian calling for the end of coal power due to its alleged deleterious health effects in first world nations. He doesn't actually cite anything, just some "studies" that apparently show that coal particulate is bad for you, but then gets confused between pollution in the form of particulate matter and "pollution" in the form of carbon dioxide that, yawn, will kill us all via climate (but forgets to mention the offshoot of bigger tomatoes). He does a particularly poor job of seperating out the sources and impact of coal pollution, and manages to generate a big cloud of poorly thought out hysteria. For example:

The health burden of coal in Australia is estimated conservatively at $2.6 billion a year. There are also economic losses due to land pollution and degradation and the open mining of good agricultural land in the face of the projected world food crisis.
The main health impact of coal is caused through climate change. The World Health Organisation ranks climate change as one of the greatest threats to public health.
Morbidity and mortality are increasing in the developing world as the effects of climate change take hold of the environment. As the world's fourth largest producer of hard coal and the world's biggest exporter, from which we garner $20bn each year, our contribution to this pollution is far greater than our culpability as the world's greatest domestic per capita producer of greenhouse emissions.

Etc. Etc.
Im not sure exactly what Dr. David lectured in to make him an emeritus professor of medicine, but I somehow think it wasn't epidemiology or public health, at least not in the conventional sense, and begs the question of why he is no longer a professor?
For starters, yes, coal fire particulate is definitely bad for you, but it is particularly bad for you if you are burning it in your loungeroom, which is what people without central, coal-powered (or nuclear) electricity plants do. A quick read through the WHO publication "The health effects of indoor air pollution in developing countries" may prove informative for him. If he doesn't have the time, or finds that reading about babies dying of pulmonary disease or women with premature cataracts makes him go soft, I could probably sum up the entire booklet with just one of their diagrams:

Oh, look. Electricity is better for you. Who'd have thunk it.
I would also hazard a guess that his emeritus status didn't stem from a career in health economics, either. To wit:

Renewable energy industries create more jobs than coalmining; they are generally safer and much healthier for workers and communities. They will offer sustainable economic development in an area where Australia already trails other developed nations. The federal government's proposed resource super-profits tax -- now recast and rebadged as the minerals resource rent tax -- will aid this transition.

Ha ha ha. Thats hysterical in the freaking funny sense. Just ask Spain or New Zealand how their green jobs and their ETS are working out for them.
Once upon a time we had religion for guys like this to feel bad about. Instead of worrying about saving the planet from a trace gas that is, frankly, the least of our worries right now, he would have been wearing a hair shirt in a cave somewhere. Unfortunately, if he gets his way, he'll have all of us doing just that.

Laissez les bon temps rouler

I remember on one occasion during my childhood a lady from Louisiana attempting to teach me how to Cajun dance one night while my parents were out drinking at a folk club. For an eleven year old, it was excruciating. Through the haze of tween-age embarassment, though, I do remember learning the Cajun maxim of "Laissez les bon temps rouler", or "Let the good times roll". Keep this in mind while you read the following.
I haven't been posting as much as usual because to be honest its a slow news month for my usual climate change related ranting, I think the globe has largely started to lose interest in climate hysteria, and I will have to branch out more in my topic matter if this keeps up. Added to which I have been going through the "just-shoot-me-now-and-be-done-with-it" agony of having to find a rental property in today's ghastly, overinflated Australian property market. For those of you who havent had to find a 3+ bedroom house in an Australian capital city lately, they actually bid on rental properties now. Which has led me to really, really dislike real estate agents. More than I usually do. In fact, I can honestly say there is only one real estate agent I've met that I haven't wanted to hand a photograph of and a sum of cash to a large tattooed Polynesian named "Sione", and mention that I don't want the agent's legs to look that way anymore. The real estate agent I liked rented me a commercial property some years ago, was a raging alcoholic named Kevin, and would conduct business in thongs (the footwear) when his gout played up. I liked Kevin.
The Australian housing bubble is running at the level of property values up to 8 times the annual family income. The global standard is from 2 to 3 times the average family income. This bubble is going to burst, and how. Although the vast majority of people here refuse to believe its possible, in fact, even with property analysts finally being forced to admit the bubble can't always keep getting bigger, they still would prefer to believe that the outcome of all of this is that property prices may just stay on hold for a decade until they readjust, like they did in Japan a while ago. Excuse me while I laugh bitterly and take a swig from a port bottle in a brown paper bag. Forgetting for a moment that Japanese interest rates for housing loans are set at something like 1%, I could list you a host of reasons why this is unlikely here, from variable interest rate hikes, the Chinese commodity market problem, to where Australian banks source their finance from (i.e. Overseas). For my US readers ,its also worth pointing out that when you default on a mortgage in this country, you continue to owe the bank the money into posterity, even while they sell the property at the market value. The only way out is bankruptcy, and that isn't so easy to do, here.
Meanwhile, in Europe.....Oh, never mind. Too depressing. Well, in the States.....Oh, don't worry. In short, things aren't looking too rosy in the global financial sphere at the moment, and in other news, Japan let Pete Bethune off on a suspended sentence which allowed him to immediately run back to the welcoming arms of that idiot with the white beard and the black boat.
Then, just to top off my sorry news week, the Climategate whitewash review finally replied to allegations of fudging data. "Shut up." They explained.
Finally, I discovered that even brothels have been forced to close due to an economic slump. When the world's oldest professional, traditionally considered recession-proof, becomes insolvent, then surely the end-times are upon us.
It could be worse, though. I could own a large dog. Or live in California. Which is why, while the world seems to get closer to teetering on an economic precipice, I am reminded of the Cajun directive to Let the good times roll. For instructions on how its done, I refer you to Louis Jordan:

Pikinini bilong rot boskru bilong Sea Shepherd gone bagarup

I love Pidgin English, so forgive my attempt in the title at expressing my thoughts on the functionality and moral character of the Sea Shepherd crew. I thought Pidgin might give this rant a bit of panache. FYI, "pikanini bilong rot" is an illegitmate child. You can work out what I meant by that.

Prior to, oh, about one week ago, I just really disliked Paul Watson (or "Kapten Kok" as I like to think of him in Pidgin. Yes, it means exactly what it sounds like it means. Its not swearing if its in Pidgin.) Then he decided to go to war on Tuna fishermen in the Mediterranean. Thats when it got personal. Now, I hate him. First of all, I like fishermen. Actually, I like sailors in general, but it sounds a bit questionable when I say it out loud like that. Secondly, I like tuna. Alot. And I'm not buying into the hysteria about the species' tenuous hold on the land of the living.

For starters, forgetting for a moment that marine science is as plagued by hysteria as that of climate science, common sense would dictate that since its impossible to actually fish up all the tuna that are out there with our current fishing technology, that one would expect to see a realistic (I stress this) decline in fisheries production should the stocks be getting low, to the point where the industry is no longer economically viable. One has not seen this yet, has one.

To add to this, the actual taxonomy of the "endangered" northern blue-fin is a little hazy, to say the least. Part of a CITES listing for an endangered animal requires that inspectors be able to correctly identify them, which is problematic with bluefin tuna, as even taxonomists have trouble differentiating the northen bluefin from the pacific one, they don't taste any different, and as the kicker, their DNA isn't different enough to tell them apart that way, either.

Unfortunately, saving tuna is the latest hippy cause du jour, and Sea Shepherd and their ilk need to justify their drain on society somehow, so off they went to the Med to harass legitimate and hard-working fishermen during the very brief tuna fishing season. How they managed to fit this into their busy schedule in between selling erstwhile poster-boy Pete Bethune down the river, while he awaits sentencing in Japan, is anyones guess. Poor old Patsy Pete found out the hard way who his mates were when Sea Shepherd threw him out of the organisation and severed all ties with him when it was revealed Pete had taken a bow and arrows on board. Being a supposedly non-violent organisation and all, someone had to go down for it in order to keep their "never convicted" record clean. Which makes me wonder who is going to carry the can for the rubber bullets they have been packing lately? Which brings me to their latest escapade...

Following on from the Greenpeace fail attempt at sabotaging legitimate tuna fishermen in the Med, Sea Shepherd decided to ram a Maltese fishing enterprise. One poor Maltese diver was injured, and another said he was hit repeatedly with rubber bullets. Malta is not impressed.

Luckily for Malta, Japan has just succeeded in getting Interpol to issue a blue notice for Kapten Kok himself. Paul Watson has shrugged it off, since a blue notice does not compel Interpol associated nations to arrest him, but rather that they pass on information about his whereabouts and activities. However, methinks some of Sea Shepherd's overworked lawyers should point out that any country can detain the subject of a blue notice if they feel like it, even if no valid national arrest warrant exists. Which is what they recommend doing for certain Yemeni terrorists, who are also subject to a blue notice.

Things are going to get interesting for Watson now, as Japan has many friends, and Watson is rapidly gathering enemies. A brief check of Japanese foreign aid recipients in the Pacific should put things into perspective for him, if Paul Watson isn't careful, he might find himself, as they say in pidgin, "lookem closeup hallelujah time" at one of his refuelling spots. Et tu, Tuvalu?