tomo,
I'm generally doubtful when I hear about Australia punching above its weight, but I think we really are a tough act to follow when it comes to eco-fruitcakes.

Sorry to hear about your brother in law. Thankfully, nobody in my immediate family circle appears to have suffered any ill effects. I wish I could say the same about my circle of friends, but among that (rather small) group there have been three rapid onset cancers as well as one "died suddenly". Boosters anyone?

As for your energy provider, I don't think that website is intended to educate. All they've done is taken a big pile of bs, shovelled it around a bit and trowelled it to neaten it up. Still bs. The thing with 100% renewable is that time shifting should not be allowed. If the electrons aren't being pushed by some windmill, somewhere as I turn on my microwave, then I'm not getting virtuous electrons. You can't say "ah but we bought the nice electrons earlier in the day when there was a fresh breeze".

The accounting should be simple: (a) what is the power demand right now; (b) how much renewable power is available right now. When a > b, 100% renewable is out the window. It doesn't matter that at some other time b > a; the damage (such as it is) has already been done.

tomo,
I see he's an Aussie. Quite funny skimming that Wiki. His article (from 2012) recommended the death penalty for deniers responsible for the deaths of over a million people, but showed his softer side by offering clemency (life imprisonment) to those who turned and actively repudiated their previous positions. Then we get:

... At the end of that process, some global warming deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them.

Parncutt replaced the text by a shorter explanation and then by an unconditional retraction and apology.

Hardly a surprise; what would you expect from someone who was so good a physics that he steered into music (I suppose to bamboozle the poor old musos with pages full of integrals and the like).

Turns out Australia is hatching its own CDC. A likely acronym would be ACDC; apt, but a little late since we're already getting close to the other end of the Highway to Hell.

Sorry about yesterday's effort. I had things to do so just rattled something in. I though it'd be conversational. Reading it back today, it's a jumble with too many adverbs and parenthetical clauses. Punctuation was a bit wayward too.

One advantage of growing up in Australia was that we got most of the British comedies *and* some American comedies, some of which were actually funny, e.g. Get Smart, Green Acres. The latter had a terrific character, Hank Kimball, a complete scatterbrain who could hardly get a sentence out without interrupting himself with another thought, and again, and again. I'm afraid I'm a bit prone to it myself when speaking, but I catch myself on and say "Sorry, slipped into Hank Kimball mode there". Don't often do it in writing, but gave it a good go yesterday.

tomo,
Another good John Anderson effort there, and it's a vote for my original feeling that they were being deliberately savage in the attacks. I think, having gone to the other side, I'll stick with the lost control of their fighters theory (not that it matters).

I do hope the Israeli spoof stings them at the BBC. Their reputation has fallen, but it deserves to be a lot lower. As you say, OFCOM has done little but clear the path for the BBC to spiral down the drain.

Since those Anderson talks are so good, I've added his RSS feed to my morning listening. Most of the ABC listening has a common trajectory: listen to the intro; Ah, feminist lesbians discussing misogyny again; skip to next. I'll clear them out and catch up with Anderson's ones gradually. Might make me a little less grumpy getting out of bed...

One ABC item I did persevere with was an interview with a senior scientist/team leader from the Doherty Institute; it was a hindsight visit to Australia's COVID capers. There were several "you have to be joking" statements (of course), but one story made it all worthwhile.

The Institute had been given $5m early on to fund some COVID research, but they also had a $2m donation tied to COVID research focussing on Aboriginal wellbeing. The interviewee was to disburse the $2m (termed a "prize", but I suspect that's for tax reasons).

After deliberating for a while, she opted *not* to commission any researchers looking into special problems that might be faced by the remote townships, etc., but to make the money available exclusively for COVID researchers who identifed as "First Nations" people. The donation aimed for the general welfare of Aborigines ended up in the pockets of a small number of urban, well-heeled and (I'm sure) rather pale Aborigines.

tomo,
The bureaucrats are in the midst of everything and, worse, lots of people, rightly seeing a problem, loudly cry for an "independent regulator" to fix it. You wonder why they'd do this having seen how miserably pharma, building, corruption, ... watchdogs have performed.

On universities, I wonder whether Victor Davis Hanson's suggestion in that video (at least I think he suggested it) wouldn't pretty much solve *everything* wrong with universities: put the unis on the hook for all student loans.

Feel a bit of pity for Phil Clarke. Yes, he taints the air here every now and then, but he has to live with the corrosive fumes 24x7, poor sod.

Mailman,
Agree with most of what you said there. Still don't agree about it being "simple". Just because it's can be stated in simple words doesn't make it easy: playing the piano is just pressing the right keys in the right order at the right speed; how hard can it be?

As you say, Israel seems to be pursuing its aims with greater determination this time. I enjoyed the suggestion in that video yesterday that this is largely, ironically enough, because of the Democrats being in the White House. Had the Republicans been in office, the Democrats would have felt free to oppose on the basis of being in political opposition, but in the hot seat they can't ignore the barbarity of Hamas's attack, and the Republicans, despite being in opposition, aren't going to oppose on this point. So, for once, America's pollies are (probably only briefly) united behind Israel.

I was wrong about the ABC yesterday. Last night's news *did* have an item on the US universities, and mentioned the donors threatening to close their chequebooks. You'll be pleased to know that they maintained BBC-style "due impartiality" by embedding in the same report coverage of recent attacks on muslims in US universities.