Also interesting is that this could sometimes be a counter-productive process:

people in the grip of the uncanny tend to see patterns where none exist — becoming more prone to conspiracy theories, for example. The urge for order satisfies itself, it seems, regardless of the quality of the evidence.

I knew there was a higher purpose to all those hours I spent watching Monty Python.

Kudos to Kelvin Thompson, federal Labor MP, for having the courage to stand up to the “eternal growth” fools who currently dictate economic and development policies in the western world and point out that excessive population growth is the root cause of most of our serious problems.

It is time for governments and policy makers around the world to come to their senses and take steps to stabilise the world’s population,” he said. “It needs to happen in every country, including here in Australia – especially here in dry, arid Australia.

This probably qualifies Mr Thompson as a member of the ‘green fascists’ that The Australian is always banging on about.

In short: housing is extremely expensive in Australia; we may well be in line for a major correction in house prices; and there appears to be an oversupply of housing, not the oft-cited undersupply.

It’s very interesting to note that for all the talk of how Gen X/Y should just tighten their belts, learn some financial discipline and put in the hard yards to save money if they want to purchase a house, the ratio of income to housing in Australia is far, far worse today than it was in the 1980s, or indeed up until about 1997.  It will be a disaster for the future of the country if an entire generation is talked into excessive debt and then left with houses worth only a fraction of what was paid for them, rising unemployment and rising interest rates.  If that does happen I trust that the real estate institutes, bankers and politicians who constantly talk up the housing market will be the first against the wall.

Similar issues are canvassed in this piece in today’s Age, which is also a good read (and less economics-heavy).

I noticed some very sensible remarks in relation to this article at Larvatus Prodeo from a guy calling himself “hannah’s dad” who actually lives on the Murray and is seeing the destruction of the lower river system first hand.  In particular, this seems to be the indisputable truth:

There is only one perspective that will solve the problem, it has been recommended by studies and reports but essentially ignored.

Too hard politically.

That is to treat the entire river as a catchment and drainage basin as nature has organized it.

Firstly, allocate TO THE RIVER the amount of water it requires to be healthy. Which is probably double or treble or even more the current ‘environmental’ flows. [As an aside the river level has dropped more than a metre in my region in the last month or so and the ferry landings are going to need rebuilding so the ferries can operate.]

Secondly, allocate the necessary amount needed for URBAN purposes, after all this is people we are talking about and they need bugger all when you look at the numbers. 2 million or so people use a fraction of the water used for irrigation.

Finally, irrigation can have what is left over.

And if that is not enough to sustain present levels of irrigation, and it won’t be, then something will have to be done about that won’t it?
But the point is that there is simply not enough water for all at the moment and its NOT going to get any better in the future, probably worse.

Stupidly, these ideas would be regarded as extremist, ‘un-Australian’ and just not worth discussing in the national discourse on this topic.  So strong is the desire to serve political expediency that actual rationality is being completely excluded from the discussion.

As well as talking a lot of sense, some of what he has to say is just incredibly depressing.  Like this:

We had a bat detector at our place for a week some years ago back in the good ol’ days when we had water.
Its a recording device which measures the ultra sound calls of bats and then identifies them by those calls.
We had 9 different species of bat flying around for each night of that week, I had no idea there were that many species.
One was Myotis macropus [or adversus], Large-footed Bat, so called because it flies over the smooth lagoon waters trailing its feet in the water and catching tiny fish with the aid of its sonar. It weighs 8 grams for Pete’s sake.
It’s tiny.
There is no lagoon anymore.

It’s one thing to be slightly paralyzed by a problem as massive as global warming – but it’s something else entirely that we have an obvious problem, an obvious solution, and instead of solving the problem just sitting back and helplessly watching an entire ecosystem die right before our eyes.

Now if only we could find one of those obelisks…

Aurora Australis photographed from the Space Shuttle in 1991

Aurora Australis from an observation satellite (enhanced, I think).

Specifically:

CTFM leader, Pastor Danny Nalliah said he would spearhead an effort to provide every assistance to devastated communities, although he was not surprised by the bush fires due to a dream he had last October relating to consequences of the abortion laws passed in Victoria.

He said these bushfires have come as a result of the incendiary abortion laws which decimate life in the womb. Besides providing material assistance, CTFM will commence a seven day prayer and fasting campaign for the nation of Australia tomorrow Wednesday the 11th February.

And further, Danny tells us that he had God on the Heaven hotline during some kind of peyote-type dream:

In my dream I saw fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably. With this I woke up from my dream with the interpretation as the following words came to me in a flash from the Spirit of God.

That His conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.

If there is a God, one suspects that Danny’s dream is more to do with his final destination than the bushfires. If I ran an organisation called “Catch the Fire” I’d probably have the tact to keep quiet at this point, too.

It was tempting to ignore this completely to avoid publicising in any slight way the sick views of these people. But in the end garbage like this should be dragged out into the light so that they are shown for what they are, cynical opportunists who are prepared to use a terrible event (which should unite the community) to divisively push their hateful message of intolerance. I can only hope that with the dramatic fall of the Bush regime and the tangible shift back towards rationality as the central tenet of Western society, we will see this get the reaction it deserves from our leaders and from the community generally – disgust at irrational and bigoted nonsense, not ‘tolerance’ of ‘religious views’.

Catch the Fire may be a familiar name. That’s because they are the same fundamentalists who received a personalised message from John Howard when he was frantically selling himself to every right wing group of wackos who might conceivably vote for him. Nice work John, you really did the office of PM proud. This is the same Danny Nalliah from Catch the Fire who has previously run as a candidate for Family First, the lunatic fringe party who now seem to be pushing the Government into a mandatory Internet filter via Senator Fielding’s crucial Senate vote.

Old Danny has given us his number, so feel free to use it to tell him what you think:

Danny Nalliah is available for interview on 03 9794 8211 Media contact: Jason Golden on 0404 952 768

Disclaimer: these are my views, and my views only.

Update: here is an ABC Blog on the same topic.  Interestingly, it points to this, which is Danny’s initial “warning” about the fires.  What is deeply disturbing about this blog is that some of the comments posted seems to subtly suggest that if Victoria needs to be punished, maybe the Lord’s followers are going to have to be the ones to inflict that punishment.  For example, “Trevor” says:

Fire will indeed come but not for the reason you have said.

and

Become a father to the fatherless and a friend to the alien. says the Lord. Yes do this and I will save you. I will save you and not as an urchin from a house fire. When you see the fire I start you will smell your clothes and they will be fresh.

Update 2: More on the hilarious antics of Pastor Nalliah and his “magic hands”.

Update 3: Catch the Fire are, of course, Sarah Palin fans, and recount the following, er, ‘prophecy’ to us:

It was at this moment Sarah Palin reached out for me to help her up, and as I was assisting her to stand, I was now face-to-face with her, and God said, “Open up your mouth and I will fill it.”

In moderation, caffeine can increase the capacity for mental or physical labor, but when used in excess, it also can be intoxicating, causing nervousness, irritability, anxiety, muscle twitching, insomnia, headaches and heart palpitations, other studies have shown.

I wonder what my customary 4+ cups does…

Even more interestingly, it also seems possible that we might be able to clone a Neanderthal. The implications of that would be staggering – we would bring into existence another sentient, intelligent species. Apparently the “ethical” plan is to use a chimp as the mother and genetic launchpad, which produced this fairly hilarious quote from the scientist in question:

The big issue would be whether enough people felt that a chimp-Neanderthal hybrid would be acceptable, and that would be broadly discussed before anyone started to work on it.

I wonder how hard this would be to fund in Australia, and whether it would somehow offend our anti-discrimination/hate speech laws, which (like our constitution, according to the High Court) seem to protect every belief system except atheism.