The Turanor PlanetSolar, the world's largest solar boat, will berth at Brisbane's Riverside Centre pontoon near Eagle Street tomorrow.

The 31-metre Turanor PlanetSolar.

It will be the first Australian stop on its quest to become the first entirely solar-powered vessel to circumnavigate the world.

The $16.7 million yacht, which has been compared to Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, relies on the force of the sun and its extremely powerful batteries.

The multi-hull catamaran, which measures 31 metres by 15 metres, is fitted with 38,000 high-efficiency solar cells.

Page 21 of the Daily Telegraph, Sydney — a Murdoch paper... 21 may 2011

picture by Gus

We have the choice of burning all the oil left and hacking down all the remaining rainforests - or saving humanity

from Crikey .....

Pollies grumble at writers' fest: 'good govt and ALP are strangers'

Margot Saville writes:

from Crikey .....

A fascinating, and depressing, graph popped up in The Economist this week ...

It got us thinking. If every Australian over 17 loses an average of $1300 a year on gambling - that's about $22 billion for the whole country each year - how does this compare with the money we actually spend on tangible things? And how does it compare to the money that we could spend on important or valuable things?

OK, so here's what President Barack Obama should say today about the Middle East. We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel.

Americans will force the Israelis - and the European Union - to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold all future funding for Israel unless it ends, totally and unconditionally, its building of colonies on Arab land that does not belong to it.

Out of all the various groups of asylum seekers in Australia, why are asylum seekers arriving by boat being persecuted by the Australian Government?

Why is Prime Minister Julia Gillard being so vindictive to desperate people arriving by boat on our shores? Why does she allow the erratic Tony Abbott and his attack dog, Scott Morrison, to set the boat arrival agenda? They don't make an issue of refugees arriving by aircraft, however those arriving by boat receive their racist bile in bucket loads.

First it was the grocery giants, then the petrol retailers, then the banks and the mining companies. Now it's the turn of Big Tobacco to unleash a campaign of mass confusion on the Australian public in an attempt to undermine government reform of an industry.

Leading this latest blitzkrieg of bluster, the boss of British American Tobacco Australia, David Crow, held a press conference to spell out the various ills that will beset this world if the government is successful in having all cigarettes sold in plain packaging.

The government has accused Tony Abbott of being in bed with big tobacco after the fitness fanatic and former health minister backed away from supporting plain packaging for cigarettes.

After saying begrudgingly a year ago he supported plain cigarette packets with very graphic warnings, the Opposition Leader said yesterday he was unconvinced the changes would help reduce smoking.

The Nationals declared it would not support the move to plain packaging.

The Liberal Party accepts donations from tobacco companies, and the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, implied this was behind Mr Abbott's reluctance.