Ian Plimer on the Science Show

(9/9/09 – Note that this is a post from 2007 about a radio interview, well before the publication of the book Heaven & Earth, though many issues dealt with here are still being raised in more recent interviews, so you may find it to still be of interest, but for up to date info you can see this update)

This week Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide was one of the guests on the ABC’s Science Show to talk about his scepticism of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). There is a transcript available here. There was some response to his points later in the show, but I have quite a bit more to add below the fold.

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[gigs]

Big news this week is that The Silvermine Tapes are playing their second gig of the year! And it’s together with the excellent Sea Thieves who played a fantastic show a while back at the Jade. So, the Grace Emily on the 8th of July is the place to be.

In the meantime you can go to see No Through Road this weekend in the wake of their triumph at the Entertainment Centre, go see the photos here.

JUNE
29th – No Through Road, Antony of the Future, Fire! Santa Rosa! Fire, and Fake Lake at Rocket.
30th – All Made of Rubies and Moments (ACT) at the Prince Albert.

JULY
6th – Cosmic Psychos and the Celibate Rifles at Jive.
6th – Terrance Dicks and Aviator Lane at the Prince Albert.
8th – The Silvermine Tapes and the Sea Thieves at the Grace Emily.
12th – Hit the Jackpot with Quebec at the Exeter.
13th – Dinosaur Jr at the Gov.
14th – Macromantics at Rocket with Birth Glow.

AUGUST
4th – The Shins at Thebarton Theatre.
6th – The Cure at the Entertainment Centre.
9th – Mountains in the Sky are playing with Gotye at the Gov.
21st – Bob Dylan at the Entertainment Centre.

On the Stereo
Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity cd (Kill Rock Stars / Trifekta)
Deerhoof – The Runners Four cd (Kill Rock Stars / Trifekta)
Ninetynine – Worlds of Space, Worlds of Population, Worlds of Robots cd (Unstable Ape)
Laughing Clowns – Cruel, but Fair 3cd (Hot)
Amon Tobin – Foley Room cd (Ninja Tune)
The Dead C / Konono #1 – Split 12″ (Fat Cat)
Slint – Spiderland LP (Touch & Go)
Mayo Thompson – Corky’s Debt to His Father cd (Drag City Revolution)
Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden cd (EMI)
Various – Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set 4cd (Flying Nun)

Extraordinary Extradition

Peter Martin of the Canberra Times writes about the largely unreported story of an Australian who was extradited to the US and given a prison sentence for intellectual property theft. He also received a $700,000 fine despite the fact that he never made money out of his crime. Now, people can debate the impact of  this sort of crime and the punishment it deserves, but for me the big issue is that an Australian can be extradited to another country and tried under their law for a crime committed in Australia. This, it seems, is one of the “benefits” of our Free Trade Agreement with the USA. Take note that this man had never even set foot on US soil, meanwhile the US Navy are trying to get custody of one of their sailors who was arrested in Australia for grooming an underage girl for sex over the internet (actually a police officer posing as a 14 year old).

Who Makes the Nazis?

Most of us don’t like the Nazis for what they did, but for others it’s more a matter of who they did it to.

Also worth reading:
– Nazi torturers on trial and “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
– Four Corners on torture and rendition from an Australian perspective. I’ve been disappointed that this story hasn’t caused more of a stir than it has, for the evidence of the Government turning a blind eye to rendition of an Australian citizen, but also because of the apparent dishonesty of both politicians and public servants in the light of the documents obtained by 4C. I am happy to see now that there may be some action being taken regarding this matter.

Of course with any mention of Nazi’s one has to be careful to avoid Godwin’s Law.

[gigs]

Plenty of choice this weekend, tonight we have the Beasts of Bourbon at the Gov, Batrider at Urtext, or the one I’ve opted for – Darren Hanlon at the Jade, supported by Laura Jean.

Tomorrow night I hope to make it to both Brunatex and Little Ice Age.

15th – Beasts of Bourbon at the Gov.
15th – Darren Hanlon at the Jade Monkey with Laura Jean.
15th – Batrider at Urtext.
16th – Brunatex at Electric Light with Leighstardust and Finishing School.
16th – Little Ice Age at the Prince Albert.
22nd & 23rd – Mick Harvey plays at the Cabaret Festival.
29th – No Through Road, Antony of the Future, Fire! Santa Rosa! Fire, and Fake Lake at Rocket.
30th – All Made of Rubies and Moments (ACT) at the Prince Albert.

JULY
6th – Cosmic Psychos and the Celibate Rifles at Jive.
6th – Terrance Dicks and Aviator Lane at the Prince Albert.
12th – Hit the Jackpot with Quebec at the Exeter.
13th – Dinosaur Jr at the Gov.
14th – Macromantics at Rocket with Birth Glow.

AUGUST
4th – The Shins at Thebarton Theatre.
9th – Mountains in the Sky are playing with Gotye at the Gov.
21st – Bob Dylan at the Entertainment Centre.

Rumours: Could there be an All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in Australia? According to a rumour in dB magazine there possibly could be.

On the Stereo

Various – Box of Dub 3LP (Soul Jazz)
Various – Studio One Women 2LP (Soul Jazz)
John Coltrane – Live in Seattle 2cd (Impulse)
Harmonia – Musik von Harmonia LP (Lilith)
Stereolab – Fab Four Suture 2×10″ (Duophonic UHF / Too Pure)
Brunatex – The Current Music of … cd (Kinderbox / Surgery)
The Smiths – s/t LP (Rough Trade)
The Fall – The Real New Fall LP LP (Action)
Black Flag – The First Four Years LP (SST)
Satan’s Cheeleaders – Live Demo cdr (no label)

The Flying Nun Story

This is damn good! A comprehensive doco on one of the greatest record labels ever.

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Thanks to Derek for telling me about it.

RAN Repeats

Only just noticed that SBS are currently repeating the 6 part drama series R.A.N.- Remote Area Nurse starring Susie Porter as a nurse working on a remote Torres Strait island. It’s an excellent series, and I’d recommend watching it even if you missed the repeat of episode 1 last Sunday. Read more at the SBS site.

Published by , in TV.

The bands I’ve seen the most times

I was just updating my list of gigs and was wondering which bands I’d seen the most times, so I looked it up. Currently there is a tie for first which is about to be broken on Saturday. By the way, anyone going to Brunatex on Saturday should take note that they will be on early (about 8:30). Also there’s an interview in RIU.
It reminds me that I’m well overdue to see Ed Kuepper again. Apparently at a recent London show with Jeffrey Wegener they were also joined by Chris Bailey for “Messin’ with the Kid” and Louise Eliot for “Eternally Yours”. Now that is something I would have liked to have seen. (Update: Just got the latest Wire – was disappointed that their ATP review doesn’t give Ed & Jeff a mention)
18 – Brunatex, Ed Kuepper
14 – Kim Salmon (incl. Scientists, Surrealists etc)
11 – The Silvermine Tapes
10 – Flat Stanley
9 – Straight to Video
8 – Little Ice Age, No Through Road, Screamfeeder, Spindickle, Underground Lovers
7 – 2 Litre Dolby, Art of Fighting, Bergerac, Dirty Three, Fourplay, The Necks
6 – Aviator Lane, Bluebottle Kiss, Crow, Gerling, Hit the Jackpot, New Pollutants, Swervedriver

Note that Swervedriver are the first band not based in Australia to make the list – here are more, but being in Australia, and even moreso since being in Adelaide, opportunities to see acts from overseas can be few and far between (good thing there’s plenty of great local bands then)
6 – Swervedriver
5 – Cat Power
4 – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (remember, I said not based in Aus)
3 – Archers of Loaf, Kid Koala, Luke Vibert, Mr Lif, Pavement, Teenage Fanclub, Will Oldham/Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

And finally I noticed that there are just two bands that I’ve seen in three different states (NSW,SA,VIC). They are 2 Litre Dolby and The Blackeyed Susans.

Keating in fine form

Former PM Paul Keating had plenty to say on Lateline last night, and as usual he wasn’t holding anything back.
On Workchoices:

The great lie of the Howard Government in respect of workplace changes, they are simply a set of arrangements to keep unions out of workplaces. They’ve got nothing to do with productivity and the quicker we move away from that kind of discriminatory structure to a truly trust based co operative sharing of work and workloads, then we get back to reasonable levels of productivity and again, reasonable rates of growth in real wages.

On Labor’s top advisors:

They’ll do him no good. Because in the end those kind of conservative tea-leaf-reading focus group driven polling types who I think led Kim into nothingness, he’s got his life to repent in leisure now at what they did to him. They’re back, they’re back. Gary Gray lost the ’96 election with me and then lost ’98. He’s been given Kim Beazley’s best seat in Western Australia.

The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they’ve had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.

and

They don’t have the structure or the creativity or the passion or the belief to go and grab the prize. They don’t understand a victory.

and

I know it’s happening again, but the current Federal secretary is the author of “don’t fight them on interest rates” at the last election. You wouldn’t put much faith in him, would you?

On AWAs:

AWAs as they are now have to be scrapped because they have a bias against the right of an individual to talk to another individual about their wages. I mean, show me any democracy worth having Tony and I’ll show you one where people can meet freely and talk about conditions at work and be represented by a union. That’s the poison in the AWA. That’s the only point of the AWA. It’s got to go.

On Joe Hockey:

Silly what’s his name, the “Shrek” whoever he was on the television this morning. What’s his name?

On the economy & Peter Costello:

Everything in those national accounts yesterday, everything, that is the growth in the economy and the low unemployment, the reason the system is not blowing, the tinder box has not taken off is because of the float, because of the tariff changes and because of the IR changes, structural changes. That’s why they’re there. Not because of any superior management by Mr Costello. You know this pat line tonight about you wouldn’t put an L plater. God, he’s the greatest L plater of all time.

Full interview here