What Is Happening With Climate Change?

How often has it happened in the past, I wonder, that a tropical cyclone has dared to venture so far South? Take a look at this :-

At the time, a Tropical Low entered the Coral Sea from the Gulf of Carpentaria and was predicted to become a second Tropical Cyclone – so very late in the season – albeit being further predicted to move away from the coast of Tropical Far North Queensland.

I accept that Tropical Cyclone Sandra was predicted  to remain a very safe distance away from the coast of New South Wales.  What I find very difficult to accept is that this sort of thing is normal and has happened at all before, let alone being a fact of history.

The question needs to be asked, therefore :- How many of these Tropical Cyclones have ventured south far enough to monster Lord Howe Island?  If there's a trend in history then fair enough, but I'm flat-out thinking of any such situation having existed in the whole period of my miserable yet lengthy span of life.

In the absence of a historical trend, would these occurrences – so late in the cyclone season – be evidence for climate change?

Fluoridation – Beware the Ides of March!

So, the Cairns Regional Council was in such a rush at its meeting of 30^th January 2013, that it wanted to be rid of the costs of Fluoridation by 13 February 2013 – and to sell off the Fluoridation infrastructure as soon as possible.  Why was there such an unseemly rush?  The Council would have us believe that they had taken account of the views of the majority of ratepayers and merely acted on the basis that the people didn’t want such a “poison” in the water supply.

In other words, our Council preferred to listen to superstitious mumbo-jumbo rather than to the authoritative voice of medical experience and advice about the dental benefits to all residents within the boundary of the Cairns Regional Council Area.  They have seen fit to place the dental health of ratepayers’ families – especially the very young children in the community – at high risk.  Who will then be responsible for the extra dental costs incurred by a Council that has abrogated its duty of care in this matter?

And I come back to the question… why was there such an unseemly rush?

Well, the rush has been stemmed – at least for a short time – as the Council has become aware of a need to provide 30 days’ advance notice of this very strange and totally unjustifiable intention to the Department of Health.  Will this provide an opportunity for the medical profession to state its case in favour of retaining water fluoridation?  If so, will the Cairns Regional Council take any heed of the advice of people who actually know what they are talking about?

Or will the superstitious mumbo-jumbo continue to sway an ignorant Council that seems happy to ignore its duty of care to ratepayers?

It seems to me that the answer to this lies in the answer to the other question – why was there such an unseemly rush?  According to The Cairns Post, the Cairns Regional Council is apparently so broke that they can't provide many of the services they’re obliged to provide.  Did our Councillors see an opportunity to cut costs and gain revenue from a sale of Fluoridation assets, under the guise of responding to community concerns?

Those same concerns that have absolutely no foundation is established medical fact and can only be seen as superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

The 30-days reprieve for Fluoridation and, as a result, the dental health of ratepayers in general and an entire generation of children in particular, expires on 15 March.  Hence, as a well-known Shakespearean dialogue would caution :- Beware the Ides of March!

Cairns Regional Council – Cash-strapped!

Last year, I established that the Cairns Regional Council was so broke that it had no money to seal a single driveway, despite an initial undertaking to do so.  Now we learn that the largess of our elected council, most ably demonstrated by their decision not to levy development application charges, has now put them into a position which, in any normal business, would almost equate to bankruptcy.  If the reports in The Cairns Post are to be believed, the Council is out of pocket in the sum of 14 MILLION dollars.

It seems clear enough, at least to this writer, that every ratepayer within the area of the Cairns Regional Council is footing the bill for this largess and it is US who will end up paying for it with higher charges – and less chance of services such as a simple driveway.

There seems to be no quick fix for this, so how about this for an idea :-

Every ratepayer within the boundaries of the Cairns Regional Council area shall be shareholders in those developments approved by Council.  Effectively, it is us who have given that 14 million dollars to the property developers, so we must be entitled to a share of the profits from the enterprises.  All those in favour?

AYE!

Telstra – 3 Hearty Raspberries!

On the afternoon of Sunday, 27 January 2013, a little before 6 PM, I lost all, repeat ALL, Telstra services.  This makes 3 strikes, in baseball terminology, which really ought to mean that you’re out Telstra!  Where did these 3 strikes come from?

Strike 1 : In the hours leading up to the invasion of Far North Queensland by Cyclone Yasi, I had no Internet access to find out what was happening.  That date was Thursday, 3^rd February, 2011, and the only information available to me was via a very cheap AM radio, tuned to an ABC AM radio station!  Hell, Telstra, if you can’t do better than an ABC AM radio station in an emergency, why the HELL am I paying you all this money?

You failed dismally there and, for mine, that ailing was also a failing on the grounds of Safety of Life and was, therefore, Strike 1.

Strike 2 : On the day of the total solar eclipse, you couldn’t keep up with demand and I bet you thought you got away with it because of a lack of complaints.  Well you didn’t get away with it because I remember it very well indeed, as I’m sure will many others as soon as they read this blog.  To save you the embarrassment of having to look it up, the date in question was Wednesday, 14^th November, 2012.

The only sources of Internet access that were available to me at the time were via mobile phone or Bigpond Wireless Broadband – neither of which worked for me until the evening of that day.  Gee, thanks for that superior service for which I pay such a high premium!  It worked up until there’s any pressure at all on your precious system, so if I’d had a Safety of Life issue, I’d have died, and that made Strike 2.

Strike 3 : So now we come to Sunday, 27^th January 2013.  I had no mobile phone or Internet access through Telstra from approximately 5:52 PM – even my new mobile Wi-Fi, was useless!  At that time, I was VERY concerned for the safety of friends in south-east Queensland who might be in the path of the current floods that have resulted from ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald.  Could I contact any of them, in any way at all?  With more raspberries to you, the answer to that question is most decidedly NOOOOOOOOOOO!

At the very time when your services are needed the most, where are they?  They do NOT exist.  Why anyone is a customer or yours is beyond me, yet I’m still CHAINED to your useless, unreliable and overly expensive network because I thought that you might have a bit more consideration for your customers – especially in light of the Safety of Life issues that surround telephone and wireless communications these days.

That is the 3^rd failure (and indeed by far the longest!), Telstra, in a time of great need.  It is Strike 3 for yet another reason too.  When I was unable to use my phone to enquire about the problem, I had to drive to the nearest Telstra Shop, where I was informed that your communication centre for the whole of Queensland had gone underwater due to the latest flooding.  Now, as I have already said, I lost my Telstra services a little before 6 PM last Sunday, which was well before any flooding was actually reported in south-east Queensland so how could it have happened?

And, if it did in fact happen, why did it not happen in the much more serious flood event of 2011?

There needs to be a much more reliable system than having all communications going to the same place in your network.  Don’t you know that it’s a very bad idea to put all your eggs in the one basket?  Or didn’t any of you go to school on the day when that lesson was taught?

Am I merely wasting my time – and money – by staying with Telstra?  Please tell me that I’m wrong… and why.