Bruce

I have the agree with storchy about how politicians have got a bad name these days and trust is low. The demolition of Port Augusta power station was so amazingly fast that the thing had a bad smell in my opinion too. That power station could have been mothballed until the shortcomings of intermittent solar and wind became obvious even to idiots. But we are sort of democratic and in theory we could change all those pollies next election. In reality, we can't even change the local council while we pay ripoff rates to support obscene fat-cat salaries in the same council. Those in control know that a few thousand of advertising money brings in the votes at the right time. So I'm joining storchy in the grumpy old buggers corner.

Good onyer neil. I look forward to having a red with you . I can provide a non-alcoholic red easily enough and I admire non-drinkers. I don't care that much who wins. Actually, I like the precedent of the postal vote. It makes it more obvious at all the things we are NOT given a say over, like immigration and about 5 other things.

Is your bet on a no vote storchy? I reckon it will be yes and I'll bet you a glass of red just to put some interest in the outcome.

That has actually happened in Australia jerry. People moved to Qld to die because there was no inheritance tax there. Yep, crazy.

The success was measured by the fewer deaths and less child neglect in the areas tested, Ceduna was cited. Among aborigines, the matriarchs are the ones who should be listened to.. It was great to see these matriarchs stymie some city bleeding hearts who were opposed to the card test. ( this was at Indulkina, but it could have been anywhere) But it should never be an aborigine thing, there are plenty of whites who need it just as much. The only sensible argument is that there may be more crime as the drug addicts seek to fund their problem. But I have not heard this argument as being the main objection and it doesn't stand up to critical adding-up of moneys.

Getting back to criticizing the greens... I was amazed to read how the welfare card ( not valid for drugs and alcohol) has been tried in test areas with wonderful success but its further use is opposed by the greens. And the greens are supported in a lukewarm way by labor. Wow are they showing their hatred of aborigines and unemployed and they want to do them harm or what?

Yep. if solar plus pumped hydro can work economically, thats great. The cost will be way higher than just the solar during sunlight hours.

I find rugby real embarrassing to watch on account of how they stop the game and have a gang-bang all the time. They call it a scrum I think.

Is "gee" a shorthand word for geesus? I worried this religious kid in school by asserting it was, actually I've no idea.

I really wanted to have solar and wind for our house on the farm but alas that stuff is only for rich people. What annoys me is the lunacy we see against nuclear power. It can be as safe as you want it to be. Right now there are nuclear reactors in the very heart of Melbourne ( that US aircraft carrier is nuclear and probably has 2 reactors). Yet the green lunatics, their labor party idiots and the poll-driven liberal weaklings have vetoed the very idea of a big nuclear power plant in outback SA. So the potentially richest state in the world is becoming poor. There are other lunacies around, but this is the worst.

The cost of solar and wind has to include the cost of providing power at the times when solar/wind is not operating.But if the alternative is there, why not run the alternative 24/7 and save the cost of the solar/wind? That makes sense with some types of backup, but not with batteries. My guess is that when you include the cost of backup, solar and wind become very expensive. Hydro seems the best backup system as it can be turned on fairly quickly. Why is Tasmania not putting heaps of wind-generators on their hilltops? New Zealand even more so. I checked out the Tesla powerwall and it comes to $1.40 per watt-hour ( purchase price only, thanks octave), which is more expensive than what I buy from hobbyking at $1 per watt-hour. ( Mind you, this is a refined product which a carton-full of hobbyking batteries is not) .Also it only has 14kWh which would operate the fridge alone for just 24 hours. You would need a top-opening fridge ( 5kWh per day) to make this practical.for living off the grid.

I'll do some checking Marty but I doubt those figures. The battery which starts my Jabiru is 8.4 amp-hours at 13.2 volts which is 110 watt-hours and it cost about 100 dollars so that is about $1 per watt-hour or about 1000 dollars per kWh. I noticed the big battery for SA was about half the price of what I can buy. That is about $500 per kWh. There is about 2000 times the difference with your figure of 23 cents per kWh. It would be great if your figure were right but I doubt it. If you were right , a new car battery ( they go about 100 watt-hours) would cost about 2 cents.

but Marty, the cost of battery-stored solar is nowhere near 2.9 cents per kWh, and therein lies the problem.

I heard of a house inhabited by 5 families of refugees where the welfare money coming in to that house was $20,000 a fortnight. Gosh I hope it isn't true.

Storchy, you are only right to the extent that it would be easier to convince the average centerlink clerk that 2 guys were not in a "relationship". But I know a young woman who is doing just the same thing. Mind you, her guy has to be careful cos he claims to be living elsewhere. I think he does for a few days of the week. Stupid rules huh.

Well said Nev but I still don't know of an economic storage method for intermittent energy. There are lots of uneconomic ways. The big breakthrough would be a truly cheap rechargeable battery. In the meantime , have a good look at the latest safe nuclear power ideas. Personally, I would prefer the economic battery as it would free us from the big exploiters, but it just aint there.

Thanks jerry, you are obviously a lawyer. Is it not strange that these legal reasons for the move have never been explained to us plebs by the powers that be? Maybe we will hear more as the voting day comes closer... I wonder.

Jerry, there have been some horror stories about life-long homosexual partners getting nothing from an estate because of lack of marriage. That's why I reckon they could always have had a ceremony where they signed wills and powers of attorney and guardianship. This would be as strong as marriage in my unlawyer opinion. But heterosexual unmarried partnerships do have protections which I think are as good as being married, at least after a while.

I don't think the past was any good space. Aborigines had terrible lives and the whites of those days not much better. I am amazed at the ignorance of those who think that any of those olden day people lived happy lives in harmony with nature. Personally, I would hate to live in a world without dentists, to name just one example. We have surely lived in the best of times. I share your worry about the future, but we just don't know what is going to happen for sure. For the sake of my grand-children, I just wish we were approaching the future more cautiously instead of having a mad rush with population growth and resource depletion.

English common law leaves a lot to be desired. There have been some bad miscarriages of justice here in Australia which probably would not have occurred in Europe. The faulty conviction of Lindy Chamberlain was one, and the acquittal of Ivan Milat on a previous rape charge was another. In the case of Milat, he went on to do several murders after this. But I too hate how we are handing too much power to the bureaucracy... CASA is a good example of what harm this can do.

Amazing picture Phil. I wonder how the hygiene facilities work

So very true Old K, it defines our species I reckon. We have the ability to sincerely believe whatever suits us and accordingly select some bits of evidence and ignore others. I particularly like reading of studies which "prove" how good red wine is for you.

Its true guys, I have told the story of how an old but lucid aboriginal man who remembered the time before whitefellows had any impact on their lives told me exactly that.( well he told his grand-daughter who asked him for me) " Much better after whitefeller" he said " before there was all this killing" Read Jared Diamond for a fuller account of why this was so.

Phil, I am not surprised that the Nazis liked Napoleon. After all, they copied him even to the extent of losing their armies in Russia.

In Australia, we have curiously done the opposite thing and we are atoning for atrocities which never happened. There is a move afoot to rename the arrival date of the first fleet as "invasion day" . Yet contemporary accounts describe how the aborigines didn't even look up from their oyster gathering as the fleet went past. Not a very convincing invasion, methinks. More of an arrival. And we have the stolen generation.. I would have known if any of the black kids in town had been stolen. In grade 4, I sat next to this black kid from Borroloola and he went home for school holidays . His name was Walter and we all correctly reckoned he was like at boarding school. Apparently there is great compensation payments available for "stolen generation" examples but hardly any can demonstrate it happened to them... strange huh. There were kids removed from bad circumstances, such as when you come across a dehydrated baby lying in 3 days of excrement in its cot, and some of these cases were reported as stolen.