Washing day at W. H. Corkhill's home Marengo, with Gertrude McKern and Maude Bate aust

When I had a Monday-Friday job, Saturday was naturally laundry day. Every week I would have to ask Mr FD to carry the laundry hamper downstairs for me, as it was often too heavy for my back. May I repeat, EVERY Saturday I had to ASK Mr FD to bring down the laundry hamper from our bathroom.

Now, I don't have a Monday to Friday routine, and I do laundry during the week, trying to leave the weekends free. You know, just in case the last threads of our sanity tear and we give in to spontaneity, heaven forbid!

NOW that I no longer do laundry on a Saturday, every Saturday without fail, WITHOUT A REQUEST, Mr FD brings down the laundry hamper and places it with pride in the middle of our small laundry. It sits there like a dog poop on your priceless heirloom rug. I say nothing, trying to ignore it, but oddly enough it makes me want to rip his throat out.

I do not do the laundry. It sits there until the day I do, in the meantime, our dirty clothes mount up on the floor of our bathroom. I prefer not to say anything as when I am back in the work force I will no doubt want him to bring that damn laundry hamper down each and every Saturday again.

I just want to know - does he know what he is doing? Is he playing games with me - stirring the lizard he calls it. Passive aggressive games of marriage...sigh. Or did he just finally get the message through his damn thick skull and is now probably wondering why I am not postulating myself at his feet in gratitude?

Is it him, or is it me? I know, it's him. It is always him. 

How have the ways you used the Internet changed over the years? How did you use it ten or fifteen years ago compared to how you use it now?

Sponsored by Yahoo!

 

My first experience on the world wide web stands out very clearly in my mind. Probably because I was one of only a few people to have access to this new "research tool" in a company with 2,300 employees and branch offices in 10 different locations across the city I lived in at the time.  Fortunately, this situation didn't last long as it quickly became apparent that the internet was something that shouldn't be limited to the research department but could benefit everyone. What amazes me more than how I am using it is how my children are using it. Wikis, podcasts, homework assignments involving the internet in virtually all courses, integrating ipods and lesson plans. My kids are fearless about technology and I am glad for it.

'HOME SWEET HOME'

I have been sitting and thinking about my Dad today. Dad died in 2000 at the age of 76. He was the 13th child in a family of 18th children born to first generation German-Australian migrants. By the time he was born some of his elder siblings were young adults. It was the depression and his father, though they farmed was more interested in drinking and partying than feeding his family. Often my Dad went hungry. He told me tales of catching rabbits at the age of 9 or 10 just to have something to eat. Once he was sent to live with am older brother who would disappear for days on end and not leave any food in the house for my Dad, a small child, to eat.

Back at the family "home" many of the children actually slept out in the shed [barn] and used hessian sacks as blankets. The bathroom was the dam or the creek. Food, usually, what they could find. Dad often told me that he probably owes much of survivial during his childhood to the lady who lived on the neighbouring farm, who would give Dad food to eat. I wonder if that woman ever knew what a role she played in my Dad's life? Other people no doubt would have just thought him a waif from a hopeless family, and not cared, but she did. Her generosity shaped my Dad.

Thoughout his life, he was always concerned that no one left his table not full and content. If anyone hung back he would urge tidbits on them. Sharing his food and his table was a joy to him, and one of the ways he showed his care and concern.

As Christmas draws near, I think of Dad, and the love and pride he had for his family. No Christmas ever passes without one of his Grandchildren remembering how Grandpa would steal food from their plates and pretend that he was going to eat it, and when they played the games and complained would return the food, and usually some from his own plate as well. He hated to think that someone might go hungry, or miss out. We neve did of course, we would all have a very full tummy when we rose from the table. Dad would complement the food and say "isn't that wonderful"! He showed his appreciation to all.

So, in many ways, though he is not physically with us, Dad still shapes our Christmas. We plan the menu, we talk about the food we will make and share. We strive to bring pleasure to each other. And to ourselves. Dad also taught us to honor ourselves as well. We deserve good things too. The real pleasure though comes from sharing and giving to others. That nourishes our spirit and our family bonds, even more than the physical food. That is the finest lesson Dad taught us, that caring for others is the greatest gift that we can give ourselves. Caring for others can change lives and shape generations to come. Just like the woman who shared her food with my Dad, sharing what we have can have far reaching effects that no one can know or see, but they are there. Through her simple kindness, our family continues to grow and prosper and pass on the gift that she gave my Dad.

Care about those around you, do the little things and the world grows and the gift goes on and on.

Clean future in nuclear power

Second, nuclear accidents have happened in the past, suggesting this technology is dangerous.

Third, expansion of nuclear power would risk the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Fourth, we would leave future generations with the legacy of long-lived nuclear waste.

Fifth, large amounts of energy (and possibly greenhouse gases) would be required to mine, mill and enrich uranium and to build and later decommission nuclear power stations.

All the above points have merit, although their relative importance comparedwith climate change and critical energy shortages is debatable. But there is little point in debating these objections because none will apply to future nuclear energy generation.

Almost all today's nuclear power stations are thermal reactors. These use water to slow the neutrons that cause uranium atoms to split (fission) and to carry the heat generated in this reaction to a steam turbine to generate electricity.

Because of the gradual build-up of fission products (neutron poisons) through time, we end up getting less than 1 per cent of the useable energy out of the uranium. The rest is thrown out as that long-lived waste.

In contrast, newer fast reactors are able to use almost all of the energy in uranium. There is enough energy in already mined uranium and stored plutonium from existing stockpiles to supply all the world's power needs for more than three centuries before we need to mine any more uranium.

Fast reactors can be used to burn all existing reserves of plutonium and the nuclear waste from the past and present generation of thermal reactors. With additional uranium mining, there is enough energy in proven deposits to supply the entire world for many thousands of years. This deals with the first objection.

As to the second objection, modern reactors use passive safety systems requiring no operator intervention to shut down the reaction. This makes them safe. So safe that a certification assessment for Westinghouse's AP-1000 reactor put the risk of a core meltdown such as the one that occurred at in the US in 1979 at Three Mile Island at once every 24 million reactor years.

Comparing the flawed Chernobyl design to today's reactors is like saying modern aviation is too dangerous because the Hindenburg airship exploded in 1937.

On the third objection, proliferation, the nuclear fuel used by fast reactors is initially very radioactive, making it impossible to divert to a nuclear weapons program without an expensive, heavily shielded, off-site reprocessing facility that would be readily detected.

In fact, the only nuclear waste materials that will ever leave an Integral Fast Reactor complex (which has on-site recycling) are fission products, which decay to background levels of radiation within a few hundred years.

Unlike conventional nuclear waste, which can last for hundreds of thousands of years (the fourth objection), the waste from IFRs can be more readily stored because of its small volume (150 times less than used nuclear fuel from thermal reactors) and short storage times.

The fifth objection, concerning greenhouse gases generated in building nuclear power plants, has never stood up to detailed life-cycle analysis.

Renewable energy sources (such as wind and solar) use significantly more raw materials per unit of energy generated than even present-generation nuclear power stations and the full life-cycle emissions, including nuclear fuel production, are similar from both sources. When energy storage and fossil-fuel back-up are included, wind and solar emissions are much higher.

A possible sixth objection could be that we don't need nuclear power when we can use renewable energy. This is a valid objection for countries with abundant hydropower, conventional geothermal power or biomass, the only three renewable sources of proven reliable power that can deliver energy 24 hours a day at an acceptable cost. Solar and wind sources, however, still rely heavily on fossil fuels to deliver reliable, continuous energy.

At today's pace of commercial development we won't see many fast nuclear reactors delivering power to the grid before 2020. This will seem too late for some, but at the present pace, non-hydro renewables will only meet 2 per cent of global energy use.

Either option, therefore, requires radically accelerated research, development and deployment if it is to make a difference to climate change and energy supply. What's required is a project of Manhattan-style proportions or the audacity of the moon-shot vision.

Let's be clear. We have the means to fix the climate and energy crises, or at least avert the worst consequences. New generation nuclear power, supported by an expansion of the thermal reactor fleet, is one possible path to success and one that all nations should support. Rationally considering energy planning requires letting go of old-school thinking about exciting new technologies.

Martin Nicholson is the author of Energy in a Changing Climate. Barry Brook is professor of climate change at the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute.

Tuesday night:

FD rolls over in bed.

Mr FD : Be careful!

FD: What?

Mr FD : Be careful of the chicks!

FD: Chicks? We have chicks in our beds?

Mr FD : Penguin chicks.

FD: How many penguin chicks are in our bed?

Mr FD : Lots - 8 to 12 at least.

FD : We have 8 to12 chicks sleeping in our bed with us?

Mr FD : Yes, so be careful when you move.

FD: If they poop on the sheets I won't be happy

Mr FD : Oh they won't do that, they have diapers.

FD : Of course they would! How long are these chicks staying with us in our bed

Mr FD: I don't know, awhile. Until their parents come back for them.

FD: And where are their parents?

Mr FD; On holiday.

FD: You are making them breakfast. 

Wednesday night

Mr FD : I am going public

FD: Going public about what?

Mr FD : Tiger Woods and I.

FD : You've had an affair with Tiger too?

Mr FD: Yes. I feel so used now.

FD: Where did you meet him?

Mr FD : In the valley [night area].

FD: What were you wearing?

Mr FD : A tight little number. Blue, orange, a splash of red.

FD: Did you wear heels?

Mr FD: Oh course! And sequins. It was kind of a jumpsuit thing.

FD: Do you think you will recover?

Mr FD : I feel sooooo used...sigh 

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/12/02/coalition-enters-a-policy-free-zone-on-carbon/#comments

Coalition enters a policy-free zone on carbon

So the Liberals have sorted out the leadership, at least for now. Tony Abbott may have only beaten Malcolm Turnbull by a single vote, but that’s as good as a landslide. Plenty of other leaders have won only narrow victories. Billy McMahon, Billy Snedden, Bill Hayden, Mark Latham, Brendan Nelson and Turnbull himself….

Hmmm. Perhaps the less said about that the better.

And for now the moderate-conservative divide has been papered over, with the conservatives in the ascendancy, moderates being told to toe the line or have their preselections threatened (“they owe their careers to the party”, their new leader warned yesterday, unsubtly) and troglodytes such as Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella in line for promotion.

That’s two of the three issues that caused this whole disaster.  On the third, things aren’t looking so good.

Putting aside its dog of a CPRS and its determination to use climate change as a political weapon, the government has been dead right to point out  that the coalition has repeatedly delayed settling a position on the CPRS.  As each stage of the debate has unfolded — the Garnaut Review, the Green Paper, the White Paper, the first cave-in to polluters early this year, the introduction of the actual legislation and its inevitable senate committees  — the coalition has put off determining a position, saying it would wait until the next stage, or commission its own review (it’s had two of its own reviews or wait for the legislation to appear), or wait for Copenhagen, or wait for the Americans.

Finally, for exactly one week, they had a position on implementing the policy John Howard took to the last election.  Then, yesterday, they demolished their own position and began calling the very policy they had negotiated with the government and accepted last week a “giant tax” that they would fight tooth and claw.

This confusion is mirrored in Abbott’s own position on climate change. As Turnbull accurately noted, there isn’t a position on climate change and the CPRS Abbott hasn’t held, despite his reputation as a bloke who says what he believes.

Apparently he wasn’t saying what he believes when he called climate change “crap” or claimed that the science “wasn’t settled”. Yesterday he was back to claiming climate change was real and at least partly caused by humans.  He also, crucially, committed the coalition to the same emissions reduction target range as the government — 5-25%.

Anyway, that’s politics, and no one would be able to do anything without a little hypocrisy.

So now Abbott has the same problem that Turnbull and Nelson faced: what will be the coalition’s policy to address climate change? Specifically, how will it reduce Australia’s emissions by at least 5% by 2020, unilaterally? Because that’s what Abbott signed himself up to on his first day in the job.

Turnbull solved the problem. He got the government to agree to an ETS even less effective and even more rewarding to polluters than Labor’s. Now Abbott has to do the same.

He has very few options, and none of them good, and that’s before he even takes it to a party room divided between reactionary denialists, emissions trading sceptics and the 29 who backed the Turnbull-amended CPRS.

A carbon tax is not an option, and Abbott appeared to rule it out this morning. You can’t campaign against a “giant tax” and propose one of your own. The party of the Right can’t campaign for a vast tax while the party of the Left wants a market-based mechanism.

You can’t have another version of the CPRS. Again, it clashes with the coalition campaign against the CPRS if it is proposing a variant of the same thing. And their own, Keatingesque mantra if you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it” would apply equally to the coalition variant.

After that, you’re down to non-economic tools: throwing money at technology, which the government is already doing, except Abbott might be tempted by nuclear power, the most expensive technology of the lot, and the most frightening one to voters. Or regulating industries to compel carbon emission reductions. Again, the party of the Right promising big government spending, or regulation, when that of the Left wants a market-based mechanism.

Or there’s voluntary action, which is now being promoted as some sort of silver bullet, both for households and for agriculture.

If voluntary action was going to do the trick on climate change, we wouldn’t be having climate change. All the tree-planting and switching off lights and biosequestration in the world won’t get us within cooee of 5% reductions by 2020.

And you know what’s worse about the coalition’s position? They’ve signed up to a unilateral 5%, but look like they’re walking away from the mechanism that would have allowed Australia to actually increase its emissions while still notionally meeting that 5% target, by buying foreign permits. Abbott seems to have signed up to a far more draconian target, a real 5% reduction, unleavened by trading credits from PNG and Indonesian forests.

Quite the greenie aren’t we, Mr Abbott.

That’s why more sensible Australian businesses are mortified that the chance of passage of the CPRS has slipped away.

Whatever Frankenstein’s Monster of a policy Abbott and his team craft over the summer break — it needs to be done by the end of January, because the government might call a double dissolution election in March — as Christopher Pyne noted last night, that will need to go through the same trial by fire that Turnbull’s went through. Most or all of the Nationals, the denialists, the ETS sceptics and the moderates will need to be happy with it.

The coalition has spent two years running and hiding from having to take climate change seriously, littering public debate with a string of increasingly implausible excuses while they sought a way to deal with their own internal divisions. Turnbull made them stop running and face up to the challenge. Now that they’ve overturned all his work and shown him the door, they’ve resumed running.

But they can’t run forever. Eventually Abbott will desperately wish more Senators than Judith Troeth and Sue Boyce had crossed the floor and got the government’s CPRS over the line.

Calm waters ahead

I am bringing my rampaging soul back into balance. Daughter1 had a meeting with Small Balls the Principal - she took HR and the union with her. I don't have details as yet, except what The Boy has passed on but the meeting went ok and Daughter1 is feeling 'empowered". Empowered is a good word in the Flamingo Dancer world. The union rep was so impressed on how she presented, and the information she wrote that he wants to offer her a job! That's my girl!

Daughter2 is feeling back in balance too, and Son has found out he is the last man standing for the next round of job interviews. I have asked if I can resubmit my assignment and I am waiting for a reply - if not I will live with it. I obviously made some errors and so I may have to suck it up and be a big girl.

Thank you for your support during my blood letting. Small Balls the Principal is still going to get his. Maybe Daughter1 should resign the first week  that school returns in 2010, then he can squirm and find a replacement when all the good teachers are taken! My quiver of sticks are in readiness... 

And it is raining so the heat has decreased. I am going to make a superb dinner tonight, inspired by Jamie Oliver, and maybe even crack a red and sing Christmas carols at the top of my rather off key voice. What I lack in talent I make up for with gusto and volume! 

Pecked to death by ducks

This week is one of those weeks when the whole Flamingo Dancer family feels that there is a bounty on their head and that we are slowly being pecked to death by ducks. Daughter2 was in tears last night due to workload stress and a work environment where no one provides the information that they are required to but fly to appropriate blame for their failure on others, Daughter1 is of course having ongoing issues but has her union with her now, Son is being put through the treadmill of third and fourth round interviews for job he could do blindfolded, Mr FD struggles to get his business onto firm footing (and some regular income!) and me...well, my family is under attack and so I have to protect them AND I got an unexpected bad mark on one of my last assignments and I am asking to resubmit - heavens I am human after all!  Daughter2 tried to cheer me up with the comment that other people my age (51) are slipping in dementia (!) but that I am out there learning new things and tackling a new life - but perfectionist that I am that doesn't soothe my wounds.

I think I need a back up stick - a quiver full of sticks. Open hunting season had been declared. Gird you loins ye foe and foul, Flamingo Dancer strides forth!

Flamingo Dancer is going to take out the duck peckers of this world!