We have again survived the long trip between our Northern Summer home and our Southern Summer home. Now to endure a few days with jet-lag and get back into some real work.
The trans-Pacific flight with Qantas leaving LAX late on last Thursday was a lot more turbulent than in the past. This was probably due to the effects of “Gullible Warming” 
John
In lieu of the term “Global Warming”, the committee has decided to adopt the term “Gullible Warming” for all future reports.
Fact: Temperature is a measure of the average energy within matter. The hotter the matter, the more energy.
Fact: Energy/Temperature has a tendancy to move from a higher state to a lower state. i.e. Higher temperature matter tends to lose energy to surrounding matter with a lower temperature.
Fact: The inner core of the Earth is about 7000 degrees Celcius. The mantle is just below 1000 degrees Celcius. Then there is the surface where we all live and we know how much cooler it is where we reside.
So, heat has always migrated from the inside of the Earth toward the surface. This will continue for millions of years to come. The effect is that this cools the Earth. The energy rising to the surface passes up through the atmosphere into the cold of space as radiated heat.
We also receive some heat from the Sun. This is the source that Gullible Warming pundits always quote. If /(when) the Sun stopped/(s) shining, we will cool at a faster rate. But for now, the Earth is still in cooling mode. Remember, the core is still at around 7000 degrees C. Maybe we are cooling at a faster rate! This would explain why “some” measured surface temperatures are higher now than 100 years ago. But we are still cooling.
Grrrrrrr.
So, to rescue the US Banks and Insurance companies from their own self-inflicted pains driven by greed, the US Government is to jump to the rescue!
The alternative seems to let natural market forces prevail, and have a lot of them go bust! This would hurt all investors (direct and indirect). By using government funding, the burden will be spread across the whole population. Which is the better option? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, the federal regulators need to put some kerbs in place to prevent a recurrence.
I suggest the new regulatory body be named:
Finance and Underwriters Committee of Kerbs.
John Griffiths
Ok, so what is this software BlogDesk all about?
Hopefully, I can write a blog entry on my local PC, and then use this software to POST the entry.
This seems much simpler than being looged in on the internet and working through my browser.
But I wondered if it was all that simple.
So, if you see this blog entry, then all went as advertised.
John
p.s. Later I added this note via online WordPress login and YES, it all worked as I had hoped.
Our neighbour saw a possum a few nights ago so he set up a small live animal trap in our front garden. It was armed with a peanut butter sandwich.
I peeked out early this morning, and yes, there was an animal in the trap.
Problem was, that it was not a possum! It was a SKUNK.
At that stage there was no bad odour around, so I phoned the neighbour to alert him to the facts. Dang, his wife answered the phone and advised me he had gone to church and would not be back home until around midday.
I was not going to go anywhere near the thing, and we had people coming later this morning and we certainly did not want a bad smell around.
My wife had the presence of mind to phone the local Live Animal Control centre. And, Sunday morning, we managed to find someone on the phone.
About 45 minutes later, a young woman, (about 23 years old, dressed in t-shirt, shorts and wearing flip-flops – no sign of the protective gear we expected) arrived and assessed the situation. She sneeked over to where the trap was and peeked around the garden wall at it.
Then she came back and assured us that she would take care of it!
We withdrew back into the house and were dreading what would happen.
It seems she managed to cover the cage with a sheet of plastic, and then proceeded, with much caution, to anaesthetise the beast.
It took about 15 minutes, and she soon had the sleeping animal in a small bag.
She certainly knew what she was doing, and looked as if she had done so many times before.
Reminds me of an occasion, back in Western Australia about 40 years ago, when my Father set a trap near a hole in our back garden. He used a rat trap like this:-
We approached the trap the next day and could not make out just what was in the trap. We could determine that it was a reptile, and that it had legs.
It was all curled up inside the trap. After cutting the trap open, we discovered that it was a…
… a Race Horse Goanna. He was about 4 foot long and once free, headed for the bush.
Morale of the story:- Animals are not aware which specie the trap is set for!
