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on planet rabido-stupido...

zorg

Steve Fielding, the Family First senator and creationist identified as more stupid than an earthworm by visiting English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, appears to have taken the classification literally and gone underground.

For days Canberra's ABC radio afternoon shift announcer Genevieve Jacobs had spruiked the senator's appearance on her bravely oxymoronic ''Pollies Without Politics'' segment.

Fielding was booked for an early-morning taped interview yesterday but, when Dawkins's field notes were front-page news, the Victorian senator went underground. ''His office rang to cancel,'' Jacobs said. ''No reason was offered.''

Fielding, normally loquacious to a fault, sought sanctuary in Parliament all day and so avoided being questioned about his backbone or lack of one.

Maybe it was for the best.

Jacobs has a knack of winkling gems from her guests - recently she managed to flush out of NSW Liberal senator Bill Heffernan the curious fact that he had not read a book since he left school, a revelation that may have confirmed the suspicions of as many people as it surprised - but if her guests break the rules and start politicking they are gonged out by loud cowbell.

The Minister assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, was ringing a bell of another sort for Megan Clark, the CSIRO chief executive. A CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report seems to have undermined the climate change deniers and Tony Abbott's position on the issue.

A pleased Combet told Parliament: ''Megan Clark had this to say: 'Climate change is real. Our records show there is no disputing that.' All of the evidence … is in stark contrast to the utterances of the Leader of the Opposition on this issue. He, notoriously, has contributed that the evidence about climate change is 'absolute crap'.''

Meanwhile Abbott's few hours lost in the wilderness earlier this month during a fact-finding mission on native title has produced one immediate outcome: it has hardened his resolve against customary welcome-to-country ceremonies.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/contributors/fielding-goes-to-ground-after-being-likened-to-a-worm-20100315-q9pb.html

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Are some of our parliamentaries like Abbott and Fielding just there for the ride or have they understood nothing about the price of fish?... Terrible indictment on this country to see than 45 per cent of its citizens approve of Abbott. Are we mad? MAD???? These people are ill-informed, decidedly refusing to be informed, thus totally moronic. MAD!!! Pity Dawkins said Fielding is more stupid that a worm. It does not help the case of the atheists, but it could be pretty accurate on planet Rabido-stupido when the infantile bullies rule...

Meanwhile in a million years...

Meanwhile in a million years...

There is a high probability our solar system will feel the effect of a close encounter from a nearby star, according to a new study.

The star, known as Gliese 710, could disrupt planetary orbits and send a shower of comets and asteroids towards the inner planets when it passes in 1.5 million years time.

Dr Vadim Bobylev, of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St Petersburg, is the author of the study, which has been submitted to the journal Astronomy Letters.

He estimates that the likelihood of an impact between Gliese 710 and the outer edge of our solar system to be as high as 86 per cent.

"That's about as close to certainty as this kind of data can get," Dr Bobylev said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/16/2847284.htm?section=justin

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May be planet rabido-stupido will be hit first... we can hope.


Thank you Gus.

You certainly have a way with words.  Australians don't have much to laugh about in politics these days but - fair dinkum - "as stupid as an earthworm"?  I agree with Mr. Dawkins and was impressed with his appearance on Q & A.

Of course I don't laugh at the more serious posts of you and John and other subscribers, but levity can be good medicine.

What price the "earthworm" gets elected again since he is the only candidate on the F.F. ticket?

Cheers mate - "don't let the bastards get you down".

welcome to planet...

From the Nestlé man

World Water Day: Why business needs to worry

Monday is World Water Day, but I suspect relatively few will have noticed.

While the world is rightly moving to address the challenges presented by climate change and depleting supplies of fossil fuels, the same awareness and consensus does not exist when it comes to addressing our usage of water. Yet the harsh fact is that we will probably run out of water long before we run out of fuel.

We need to act fast, now.

Most people equate water consumption with what they use in their homes and places of work, but the challenge facing the globe goes much, much further than that. The 2030 Water Resources Group, a collaboration between the private and social sectors to discover solutions to combat water scarcity, estimates that global water requirements will grow by over 50% over the next 20 years. Such levels of usage will be 40% greater than what can currently be sustainably supplied.

Of course this global figure is an aggregation: at a more local level the situation is far worse. For example, by 2030 one third of the global population, mainly concentrated in developing countries, will have only half the amount of naturally renewed water available they need.

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Yes... Here on planet rabido-stupido, business people have to worry: increasing sales may become a mirage in the face of necessary sustainability... Increase in customer population might mean a downward push to less available cash per person — because of less water. Less cash, less profits despite greater aping consumer base... And we all know water is one of the keys for expansion of anything, including the consumer population... No water and powdered milk is... powder. Hard to swallow.

An increase of 40 per cent supply of fresh water is a MASSIVE UNDERTAKING in a world where the water resources are "naturally" dwindling. More crops, more cows, more population, less space for native wild species. Less water... The rethink is not to keep finding solutions to a growing world population, but to find a way to arrest the world population at below 7 billions. And business has to help find the way to rewrite the capitalist system without its endless population growth. That is the true challenge. Meanwhile providing access to clean water for all is the present big challenge.

And big business, as well as all of us, have to carry-the-can for changes in the weather patterns that have led to desertification of big chunks of Africa... Global warming is far more than just a global "cycle". We have added much CO2 that was not part of the atmospheric carbon equation for at least 120 million years. We are likely to add more by the end of this century, compounding the present problem of water shortage.

Warmer climes and decimation of forests lead to warmer climes thus less precipitation of water, thus more desertification.  Not only this "cycle" is self-feeding, it is increasing the desertification rapidly. This cycle is an exponential spiral rather than a loop...

And if it's not just constant water shortage, it can be an exponential spiral of powerful floods and long-lasting droughts.

Sustainability has to become the key... and the key to sustainability is RESTRAINT in not pushing things to their limits at any cost for profit.

We need bigger "buffers" and "slack spaces" within our system of greed to prevent us from consuming all we can and bulldoze the rest. Greed on credit has been the bane of sustainability. Capitalism, as we know it, is mostly based on greed on credit. We've sold the future of this planet many times over...

Welcome to planet rabido-stupido, Mr. Peter Brabeck-Letmanthe, the nestlé man...

see toon at top.