All happiness to them and all that, but this is how I think it went:
Come on, Wills! Just think what you could do for the economy, the tourist trade, the morale of the people! Pull your finger out and man up for your country!
I bet the Royal FB page was put up recently with this in mind. Last time the world watched on TV. This time the back Twitter stream could provide some extra entertainment.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission has again shown it’s willingness to adopt and make the most of new media with it’s shiny new ABC News site. It’s really cool – personalized tagging, great embedded video and audio, and an attractive interface, among other features.
(photo credit: Australia Post)
Today Australia Post is issuing a stamp set featuring five of the 150-or-so Australian Big Things, large roadside attractions that seem to occupy an odd little corner of our national identity. The legendary Reg Mombassa is the artist, an inspired choice, as his style reflects the quirkiness and humour with which the big things are regarded.
The big merino about an hour up the highway from us in Goulburn was moved a few weekends ago. It’s an almighty concrete ram nicknamed Rambo, but has a souvenir shop nestled between it’s hind legs instead of rambo-ishness. It used to be on the Hume Highway to Sydney, until Goulburn was by-passed, but now it will be again. Sadly it seems that after all the effort, it is visible but not exactly predominant.
There are a few pictures of the move:
IBN News slide show
Newspix gallery
Tiscali News: On the rig
(Photo by Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)
The ABC NSW also has a photo of the ram being built, and details of its construction. It actually is a light glass-reinforced concrete skin. Like a number of other big things, it was made by an Adelaide based company, Glenn Industries.
Big Things: Australia’s Amazing Roadside Attractions by David Clark is also a good source if you are interested in how the big things were made, although from my point of view they never give enough detail. I like the stories of those that were made just by one or two people, eccentrics with a bee in their bonnets.
Back to Reg to finish off. This postcard has been on my fridge door since some campaign in 2002. I love the title as much as the drawing:
KAREN WILLIS: The NRL has said, “We don’t accept violence against women, and we think this is wrong,” and they are a large male dominated organisation who’s stepped up to the mark and said quite clearly, “We will be doing something about this, we will be changing our culture. We will be educating our players. We will be setting protocols in place, and we will do everything we can to stop violence against women within our game.”
“Private contractors like Blackwater work outside the scope of the military’s chain of command and can literally do whatever they please without any liability or accountability from the US government,” Katy Helvenston, whose son Scott was one of the Blackwater contractors killed, told the committee. “Therefore, Blackwater can continue accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money from the government without having to answer a single question about its security operators.”
Here are three biology-related stories that I have found interesting in the last few days.
Great Turtle Race: up-beat site championing action to save the critically endangered leatherback turtles. The turtles have been tagged and you can monitor online their swim from Costa Rica to The Galapagos Islands. Only 59 turtles came to the beach this year as compared to 1,500 in 1988… shocking! Sand temperature determines the gender ratio in turtle nest: the warmer the sand the more females, the cooler the sand the more males. Bring in global warming… if the sand temperature goes over 89.5 degrees, they will all be female…
Bee Hive Colony Collapse Disorder: A comprehensive run-down on possible causes for the worrying disappearance of bees from hives resulting in deaths of whole hives on a large scale. The suggestion that its likely to be the impact of imidacloprid, a nicotine-based pesticide marketed under the names Admire, Provado, Merit, Marathon and Gaucho, looks more plausible
than most to me. Apparently its designed to make termites disoriented and lose memory, among other things, so maybe it does the same with bees.
G Spot and related matters: The ABC’s Health Report has audio download and transcript of a great interview with Professor Beverly Whipple of the College of Nursing at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is a pioneer in the scientific study of female sexual physiology and in particular the female orgasm.
During all the fuss about the chocolate Jesus in the US over the last week or two I kept thinking: ‘Hang on, that was done here years ago!’. Lo and behold, the Canberra Times eventually dredged up their 1994 article on Trans-substantiation 2, by Richard Manderson. With a story beginning with the sale of 100 raspberry-fondant-filled smaller Jesuses at the Gorman House markets, an Easter-egg-foil loin cloth, chocolate-dipped string for hair, a sound artistic statement, a clever title, and the cultural superiority of leading by 13 years, whats not to like?!
As I have said before. And even when it is a tyrant. It’s barbaric.
This is a satellite image of the Victorian bushfires from the satellite NOAH/AVHRR at 10.15 am ESDT, on Dec 7 2006 (click on the image to see it full size). It was processed by Edward King from CSIRO’s Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research. The colours indicate green for forest, blue for smoke and cloud, and red for heat of 45 degrees Celsius and above. The squiggly red lines just to the left of centre are the actual fire fronts – amazing!
The fires were started by lightning over a week ago, and there is a lot of worry that in the extreme weather conditions expected this weekend, they will merge into a 100 km front. It’s scary stuff.
This all reminds me of Doc’s idea for a river of news site for bushfires. He was talking about California, but we could surely benefit from a similar site here. But I’m not sure how you go about setting up an aggregator like that.
A couple of other links:
Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment’s Statewide Map of Current Fire Incidents
NASA’s Earth Observatory satellite coverage
Smoke plumes: NASA satellite image : this was why it was so hazy in Canberra yesterday – the smoke was swept around and back over us at high altitudes
Sentinel Hotspots
