Decision Confirms Kelly’s V8 Crown

Holden’s Rick Kelly is the official V8 Supercars champion after a protest hearing judged in his favour, and Ford rival Craig Lowndes ruled out taking further action.

A three-man Confederation of Australian Motorsport panel of race stewards took four hours to decide Kelly had been sufficiently punished for his role in a dramatic accident in the season finale at Phillip Island.

Kelly and Lowndes had gone into the last race of the season level on points, and there was a early tangle between the two of them which effectively cost Lowndes any chance of winning the title.

Race officials ruled Kelly was responsible and issued a drive-through penalty during the race, but he recovered to finish 18th, while Lowndes’ steering was badly damaged and he could only finish 29th.

Kelly has won the title without winning any of the 13 rounds, while Lowndes won four rounds, including Bathurst.

The points system will be changed for 2007

There has been some consolation for Lowndes at the annual V8 Supercar awards.

He has won the prestigious Barry Sheene Medal for outstanding leadership, personality, fan appeal and sportsmanship.

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Garrett vows to roll sleeves up on climate change

From the ABC Online, Peter Garret, former Midnight Oil front-man prepares to take up the fight for climate change from a new perspective… He has certainly got the credentials, and the profile to make this issue one which may now impact on the next few elections.

Go Garret!!

[28] New Labor team: Mr Garrett says he is eager to hold the Govt to account on climate change. [File photo] (ABC TV)

Former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett will join Labor’s new frontbench as the spokesman for climate change and the environment.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has announced the portfolio responsibilites of his new frontbench in Brisbane today, on the first day of his 10-day national tour.

Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard takes on industrial relations and Wayne Swan will continue as treasury spokesman, despite his support for former Labor leader Kim Beazley.

Mr Garrett says he is eager to join the frontbench and hold the Federal Government to account on climate change.

“Climate change represents one of the most significant and important issues that Australians must confront now and into the future,” he said.

“I want to work for leader Rudd to make sure that we roll up our sleeves and do the very best that we can, and I want to put the Howard Government on notice that it’s fiddling while Australia burns.”

Stanwell laments lost power station benefits

Well well well. are we serious about the environment? NO
The bottom dollar is all powerful.
Should it all be about economics, I know there needs to be a balance, as the money needs to come from somewhere, and increased power costs is a great way of hobbling economic development and growth… But…

ABC News Online

The Stanwell Corporation has expressed regret that the environmental benefits of a power station to be built near Rockhampton, in central Queensland, will be lost… [after] A feasibility study ..found that the $330 million project is not economically viable.

The future of the planned $1.4 billion coking plant nearby is still being assessed. Stanwell acting chief executive Gary Humphrys says the power station would have turned the waste heat of the coking plant into electricity. “And that goes to again our disappointment that the economics for us didn’t stack up,” he said. “Accepting the waste heat and converting that into electricity was certainly an environmentally sustainable and sensible thing to do … and yet the economics didn’t stack up.”

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Govt puts brakes on Townsville V8 Supercar funding

    Hmmmm….
I am worried that this is an omen. This post in Two Sections. 1. Qld Govt. Decision and; 2. V8Supercars response…
First the QLD govt. decides not to fund another race in the streets of Townsville. OK. I can see it from a politically defensible position. The they do fund the Gold coast Indy, but that race makes the state a pile more money than it cost. With hundreds of thousands of ticket sales over the weekend it is a huge direct boost to the economy. Then there are the Thousands of jobs, and millions spent on supplies. This is spent in QLD, and that is spent and so it goes…
But the numbers have until now shown the Townsville race to be a better return on the investment. So I don’t quite understand this decision from the government…
    ABC Online …

Can you believe this?

Wonder if those who are so scared of the over-hyped anti-recycling establishment will even notice?

The answer is simply no. for some reason there is a large portion of the population who are willing to discount any and all science and evidence from ‘the esablishment’, but believe the whimsiest scaremongering from anyone who says any-thing MIGHT be dangerous.
The scariest thing is the tenuous links they draw to some ludicrous “examples” of why they MAY be right. The next person who compares the potential dangers of reverse osmosis filtration (molecular level) with the long term damage caused by supposedly safe products like Abspestos and Thalidomide, May feel the end of my walking stick..
Speaking of which, I am off to see the surgeon in just over 12 hours, so may be able to sit and walk soon. Then I promise to catch up on presenting some real evidence for some of my rambles…

From the ABC On line today…
The drought has taken a turn for the worst in the past four months.

The National Climate Centre (NCC) says the drought has intensified, especially during November, as a result of a severe lack of rain and hot temperatures.

Senior climatologist Grant Beard says conditions are now the worst they have been since the 2002 drought.

“The water supply situation is continuing to get more and more dire as we go on,” he said.

“The water supplies never really recovered after the 2002 drought.

“What we needed was a good wet year to replenish water supplies but we haven’t had that.”

Mr Beard says with hotter summer months to come, things could get even drier.

“The picture through a lot of the east of the country is of water supplies getting gradually drawn down more and more,” he said.

“This acute water deficits of rainfall, which have developed in the relative short terms this year, have made the conditions worse obviously.”

Govt calls for states to dump uranium mining bans

Will It happen?

Not on your life.
The states will try to assert their authority. Especially since they are ALL run by the “Opposition!”

This is going to be a messy debate, and will impact not only on the next round of elections, but the shape of both the Australian political landscape, (which has a new national “Opposition Leader” after yesterday), and the face of the future shape of trade, power and climate change/greenhouse management for decades to come.

The current micro management may be over, in favor of bold, sweeping and controversial solutions. I have to post on this SOON,

I have a sore back/leg again. Find out in less than 24 hours about surgery/epidural… Will be back then.

Pat

From the ABC Online…

Gov. Inquiry to urge backdown?

It looks like even the state Governments own inquiry, that was supposed to back their No-Uranium-mining-in-our-backyard policy may have backfired…

It looks more and more like the PM’s election positioning, (because I’m sure that is what re-ignited the debate) is on track to put him in power for (another) record term…

From: ABC Online

: ABC Online

 

A federal parliamentary inquiry is today expected to recommend that the state bans on new uranium mines should be lifted.

 

The committee has taken extensive evidence on Australia’s uranium resources.

It is understood the call for more mines will be endorsed by the three
Labor members of the committee but they will reject any nuclear power
or uranium enrichment.

 

The Labor Party will vote on changes to its uranium policy at next year’s national conference.

Technorati Tags: Uranium, Mining, Nuclear Debate

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Resource firm hoping for uranium mine start.

But it’s not coal. It won’t be allowed to happen.

For some reason the establiched players always get their way, regardles of the common sence involved, or the envioronmental impact of carbon emmissions, or the…

Anyway I t will be shot down. But they don’t have any money for more doctors. One wonders sometimes!

From ABC Online

Resource firm hoping for uranium mine startA major resource company says a uranium mine could open in north-west Queensland as early as 2010.

Summit Resources hopes the federal Labor Party will relax its policy ban on new uranium mines at its national conference next April.

Managing director Allan Eggers told a mining conference in Mount Isa, the region’s uranium deposits could generate up to $4 billion worth of exports every three years.

“There’s been considerable support and discussion for the issue within the Labor Party … Kim Beazley, the current leader, has come out and said he will recommend dropping the policy on not approving new mines and [Queensland] Premier Beattie has stated quite clearly that he would support the development of new uranium mines here in Mount Isa should the federal policy change,” he said.
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Lets state the obvious!!

If there is one thing you can be sure of it is that in any referendum on re-cycling you get those who are easily led, and those who refuse to be led, both being manipulated by the scare-mongers.

In the recent Toowoomba referendum on the water recycling issue the facts where lost in a concerted, vocal and inflammatory scare campaign run by a few vested interests. All the science, common sense and the reality of an increasingly desperate situation are overshadowed by fear. One of my friends was so convinced that the science could not be trusted, that they actually could draw parallels in their mind to drugs and asbestos. I know that the thought is a little disconcerting, but the product is as safe as houses, and it is a finite recourse that we can re-use.

These people who are to scared to drink the recycled product can join the 20+% (citation missing, but I read this in a government publication before our referendum earlier this year) of the population that refuse to drink town water now. You can either trust the water from the big soft drink companies, or, like my aforementioned friend, drink UNTREATED bird shit (which is known to be a fantastic transmitter of all sorts of goodies), bacteria, dead frogs, decaying matter and dirt from your roof in the form of rainwater. Or better yet, move to Ethiopia, or Calcutta… Our water is pretty good…

I found a description of me!!

Surfing through my growing list of feeds this morning on Google Reader (the BEST aggregator for mine!), and I came across an interesting feed from Read/Write Web on filtering feeds…

Anyway, I saw this description of the author, and I am going to adopt it as a Motto. Helps keep the brain pre-occupied as my primary form of pain management…

“I’m an Information Omnivore (I’ll devour anything and everything!),”

Technorati Tags: me, information

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