Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has gone up by 81% in the past five years.The significance of that all depends on the base you're coming off, after all.
I mentioned in my photo post of Tasmania yesterday the Salmon Ponds just outside of Hobart, and how much I enjoy visiting them. (I had previously been there by myself in 1995; this time it was to show my family. Children like it a lot because you buy fish pellets with which to feed the large, hungry trout and salmon.)
The place provides a short history on the introduction of trout and salmon from England to Tasmania which involved several failed attempts to ship the eggs there under sail. The credit seems to belong mainly to one Sir James Youl: born in Parramatta, educated in England, moved to Tasmania, then to England again. (Call me ignorant if you will, but I find it a bit surprising to realise that “normal”people from even the first half of the 19th century were undertaking the lengthy voyage to and from England for reasons such as education.) The short story of what he did regarding shipping fish is shown in his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:
Youl is best remembered for the introduction of trout and salmon to Australasian waters. Earlier attempts in 1841 and 1852 had failed because of the difficulty of keeping ova alive under artificial conditions en route to Tasmania. His shipments on the Curling in 1860 and Beautiful Star in 1862 failed, and next year he directed experiments involving the use of moss in ice-vaults. On 21 January 1864 the Norfolk left England carrying more than 100,000 salmon and trout ova packed in moss in the ship's ice-house. Ninety-one days later the first successful delivery of living ova was made into Tasmanian hatcheries on the River Plenty. Victoria and New Zealand had supported the Tasmanian ventures and their rivers were soon stocked also.
But the details are a bit more interesting, and by the wonders of Google Books, you read it all as recorded in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London from 1870. The story starts at page 14. You can download the entire volume as a 47 MB .pdf if you want a full nine hundred or so pages of the Proceedings for that year. (If you do download it, make sure to check the index at the back, where the digitiser’s fingers are caught on the scan on more than one occasion. I suppose he or she must have been tiring of the job by then. )
So, back to the story. It seems they first tried to ship out salmon spawn, but these attempts all failed. They then hit on the idea of transporting the fertilised eggs, but in the first attempt in 1852, in a large tub of water with 50,000 odd ova, they hatched too early, the water got too warm and putrid, and none survived.
Someone hit on the idea of keeping the eggs cold, so the next attempt in 1860(the first involving Youl, it seems) involved using ice in the ship to cool the water. But all did not go well:
Note the reference to Wenham-Lake ice? I noticed at the Salmon Ponds this visit that the ice used in these attempts came from America.(!)
I have a vague recollection that I had once read about the American ice trade of the 1800’s, but I’m not sure. But again, to my surprise, I see now that an enterprising fellow by the name of Frederick Tudor, made a highly successful business of cutting ice from the lakes of New England and shipping it to England and even further afield (it even made it to India.)
I don’t know about you, dear reader, but this strikes me as a little known and unusual example of global enterprise: ice shipped from America then used in attempts to get fish eggs to Australia.
So back to the fish. The next attempt was in 1862, involving a different set up, but the ship struck bad weather, the ice again ran out, the water temperature rose and the eggs again all died. But this time they found that some eggs, laid in moss and put directly in the ice box, had survived longer.
This led to Youl in England running experiments with the fish eggs on ice. (You can’t freeze the eggs, just keep them really cold.) It slows the development down, long enough to get them to Australia.
So the successful method was eventually implemented in 1864, with the fish ova packed in wooden boxes between damp moss (some had charcoal in them too), holes were drilled in the sides, and they were packed in ice in the ship’s ice house. They survived the 3 month trip, and were taken up the Derwent River, being carried overland on poles to the Salmon Ponds, were they hatched and a significant number survived.
Maybe it’s just because I love eating salmon and trout (it’s certainly not because I am a fisherman of any note), but I find this unusual bit of Australian history a pretty fascinating story of 19th century determination and enterprise.
Fight the return of ants as big as hummingbirds - fight global warming!A giant ant growing over 5cm (2in) long crossed the Arctic during hot periods in the Earth's history, scientists say, using land bridges between continents.
The ant, named Titanomyrma lubei, lived about 50 million years ago and is one of the largest ant species ever found.
Fossils were unearthed in ancient lake sediments in Wyoming, US.
Writing in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B, a Canadian-US team shows that giant ants, now and then, almost always live in hot climates.
The family was off to Tasmania a couple of weeks ago, and as is traditional around here, it’s time to put up some photos:
Penguins at Low Head, at the mouth of the Tamar River north of Launceston. The family was pretty impressed how you just had to stand still, and the fairy penguins would wander past your feet on the way to the shrubbery. I expected penguin tours to keep you at a further distance.
We stayed just the one night at Low Head at the Pilot Station. This house was ridiculously good value, and only vaguely gave the impression of being haunted.
It sits right on the water, so you get this view from inside:
Very pretty.
Next: the drive along the north coast is prettier than I expected. And the small town of Stanley, famous for the large protuberance into the ocean called the Nut, didn’t fail to charm:
The photo above was somewhere on the north coast, and I believe they were onions in the field.
Onto Hobart, and one of my favourite places near there is the Salmon Ponds, where trout and salmon were first introduced to Tasmania from England in the 1850’s. This is of itself a pretty fascinating story, but today the ponds are notably for the large, large fish they still breed there, and the lovely gardens:
And of course, Hobart itself is a charming small city, and here’s your stereotypical harbour view:
We stayed at an odd sort of motel at Sandy Bay, but it was in a great location, close to the university, and heaps of cheerful places to eat (with a lot of Asian food in particular.) The streets are full of quite charming cottages and houses:
That’s enough for now, I’ll do a separate post for a few more pics.
Earlier this year the Chinese Academy of Science announced plans to finance the development of a programme to develop Thorium Fuelled Molten Salt Reactors (TFMSR). This is the first of four “strategic leader in science and technology projects” that the Chinese Academy of Science will be supporting.
Cosmic rays crashing into the Earth over the South Pole appear to be coming from particular locations, rather than being distributed uniformly across the sky. Similar cosmic ray "hotspots" have been seen in the northern skies too, yet we know of no source close enough to produce this pattern.
"We don't know where they are coming from," says Stefan Westerhoff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"There's tension in the fields of psychiatry and psychotherapy between those who think Ecstasy could be a valuable therapeutic that's not being tested because of overblown fears, and those who are concerned about the drug's potentially harmful effects," Cowan said.
"We're not on one side or the other; we're just trying to find out what's going on in the brain – is there any evidence for long-lasting changes in the brain?"
The message in news reports needs to be accurate, Cowan said. His team's studies suggest that the current message should be: "If you use Ecstasy recreationally, the more you use, the more brain changes you get."
We find that the recent period of high-melt extent is similar in magnitude but, thus far, shorter in duration, than a period of high melt lasting from the early 1920s through the early 1960s.Funny, I thought, I don't recall seeing this being bragged about at Watts Up With That. Maybe there is something not quite right about the paper.
Ten years ago, I remind you, he had a gigantic influence in one rogue and failed state—Afghanistan—and was exerting an increasing force over its Pakistani neighbor. Taliban and al-Qaida sympathizers were in senior positions in the Pakistani army and nuclear program and had not yet been detected as such. Huge financial subventions flowed his way, often through official channels, from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states. As well as running a nihilist international, he was the head of a giant and profitable network of banking and money-laundering. He could order heavy artillery wheeled up to destroy the Buddhist treasures of Afghanistan in broad daylight. A nexus of madrassas was spreading the word from Indonesia to London, just as a nexus of camps was schooling future murderers.
And he decided to gamble all these ripening strategic advantages in a single day. Then, not only did he run away from Afghanistan, leaving his deluded followers to be killed in very large numbers, but he chose to remain a furtive and shady figure, on whom the odds of a successful covert "hit," or bought-and-paid-for betrayal, were bound to lengthen every day.
It seems thinkable that he truly believed his own mad propaganda, often adumbrated on tapes and videos, especially after the American scuttle from Somalia. The West, he maintained, was rotten with corruption and run by cabals of Jews and homosexuals. It had no will to resist. It had become feminized and cowardly. One devastating psychological blow and the rest of the edifice would gradually follow the Twin Towers in a shower of dust.
Pointing out such failure is the best way to celebrate his death.
The Saxons are a cruel and brutal people, ineloquent and unmusical. A grim and dark race who seem to have never felt Italian sunshine. Throughout history they have persecuted and dominated their neighbors and done great damage to the Faith. Tell me, why are we celebrating their “fertility?”I see Peter Hitchens managed to be a sourpuss about the whole thing too.
The outcomes of giving Kevin a chance to recover in the polls looked like this:The prime minister was a loner, far from consultative and keen to centralise power in his office. He appeared to have no mates in politics.
One veteran who has known Rudd since his days in Foreign Affairs says: "There are only two sources he goes to for advice: God and the cat." Cabinet was often out of the loop, on big issues and small. When Rudd announced the appointment of former National Party leader and deputy prime minister Tim Fischer as the ambassador to the Vatican, cabinet greeted the decision with stony silence. Only Foreign Minister Stephen Smith knew in advance about the appointment.
A well-placed Canberra insider said ministerial calls to the PM's mobile phone were always diverted to staffers, generally a gofer. From the time he became opposition leader in 2006, virtually none of his senior colleagues had a direct line.
They got in touch by sending a text. The story has often been told how Communications Minister Stephen Conroy was forced to get on the same plane as Rudd to give him a detailed briefing on the national broadband network.
Now we learn that booking a flight with the PM to get face-time was almost standard operating procedure. One Rudd staffer joined the boss on a flight to the Middle East, en route to Afghanistan, to brief the PM. The staffer then flew straight back to Sydney.
A month or so ago, I found I was suffering from four Hs: I had an outbreak of herpes, sported hives all over my body and, wonderfully, also discovered I'd developed haemorrhoids. Oh the joy.Well, yeah: more of your typical case of more than anyone (well, me especially) really needed to know about him.
The fourth "H" was heartbreak, ostensibly the cause of the first three Hs, as I mourned the loss of daily contact with my daughter since splitting with my partner late last year.
I suppose we should be grateful that he won't answer break up questions, but honest to God, what else is there in his life that we don't know already?For all of today - that's Friday - from roughly 9am until 5pm, I will endeavour to answer every question or comment posted on the blog.
Soooo, if you have a question or a topic idea, write a comment and I'll do my best to reciprocate. I won't, however, be answering questions about my break-up or daughter.
If you'd like any advice on writing, journalism, getting published, getting into TV script-writing, blogging or how to shag chicks, I'll be happy to offer what help I can.
I'm currently dating a chick. She's the prettiest girl i've ever gotten this close to - i am totally physically smitten with her, and with her demeanour.
We have plenty in common, but also we're quite different.
Things are progessing well, but i have a little doubt in the back of my mind.
what do i do man?
- baz
Shag a lot. See what happens. Don't tell her you love her. Don't get her pregnant. - Sam
Err, I think I've detected a little problem here with Sam's understanding of women.
I was walking down the street a few weeks back and, vain creature that I am, checked myself out in the side window of a parked car and saw something quite disturbing.I don't know, I wouldn't be completely surprised if Sam wasn't someone who's going to have a middle aged or late life sexual identity crisis. If he did, we would hear about it in all the gory psychological detail, I'm sure.
As I moved, my chest was jiggling. Not heaving up and down like we're told a manly pectoral should, but jiggling, like a ... breast...
The next day I bought myself a pair of bathroom scales and stared down at them, dumbfounded: I was 100 kilograms.
Two years ago I weighed 86 kilograms and belonged to group of men I call "Quickdraws" because, as soon as there's a hint of sunshine, I had my shirt off to flex and strut.
I have noticed that Tony Abbott's contribution about the drinking issues in Alice Springs have so far consisted of asking that public drinking laws be enforced. Yet when Uhlmann asked him about large bars that are licenced from 10 to 2 and cater exclusively to an aboriginal clientele, all Tony would say is that he would like companies "from Coles and Woolworths down" to act responsibly in how they supply alcohol. I think it was Radio National today that he was asked about $2 bottles of wine that are available there. (Gosh, I never go below $3 clean skins from Dan Murphy's myself.) Again, he said something like "well, we need to enforce current laws first before we get into more draconian laws."The trip has, again, brought into sharp focus the difficulty of doing anything meaningful to improve the lot of indigenous Australians, partly because they exist in a witch's brew of politics.
The feuding in Aboriginal leaders is extraordinary. And it is not just a divide between urban and regional leaders; there are sharp differences of opinion on the Northern Territory intervention in central Australian communities.
Overlayed on that is the politics of welfare, with competing ideologies fighting for the right to impose their worldview.
Then there is a state government which has, all too often, spent the Commonwealth money intended address indigenous disadvantage in the suburbs of Darwin.
No one disputes that something had to be done to protect children from neglect and abuse and to slow the rivers of grog. It's just as clear that one of the intervention's real failings was the failure to consult. That meant it did not get the one thing it needed to endure: the goodwill and enthusiastic support of the people it was aimed at helping.
But given that consulting here so often ends in a stalemate, it's easy to understand how a professional politician might choose to act rather than sit and watch a tragedy unfold.
