JohnB

Tony, you've got it on me. I've only been married 13 years or so. But I'm still damn happy about it. I'm also glad to see I'm not the only one still doing those things that my mother taught me were simply "good manners". "Walking on the outside" is quite mystifying for some of our younger female friends when I do it, they can't work out why I change sides occasionally. What some people don't get is that relationships are like learning to walk. The first times you tried it you fell on your a*se, but you got back up and kept trying and eventually you could walk. It is quite sad to see Green Xenon advocating that everybody would be happier if they stayed crawling on the floor. Green, the problem with your view is that it is neither logical nor sensible. You cannot judge what being in a relationship is like without experiencing it. Do you choose which car to drive based on reports, or do you take a couple for test drives? Do you judge whether you will like a food or not based on reports or do you try it? Actually going out and trying new things is to experience and savour the full gamut of what it means to be a human being in our marvellous and varied society, to not do so is to very sadly limit yourself to the well known and mundane. Although I must admit that with your professed attitude any relationship you entered into would be doomed. Not because relationships are poisonous, but due to your attitude being poisonous to any effective and caring relationship. "My way or the highway" usually results in a person sitting alone.

Could I just add that mega-tsunamis are also caused by oceanic meteorite impacts. Mega-tsunamis typically leave deposits known as "Chevrons" in their wake and such deposits are far more common that I like. The ad hoc group "Holocene Impact Working Group" is looking at this matter. After reading some of the papers, it's scary. We're talking waves hundreds of metres high and travelling tens of kilometres inland.

Not an opinion Greg, simply the fact. Perhaps you should read about something called the "Holocene Optimum", about 8,000 years ago when temps were warmer and seas were higher than today. I put it to you that if temps were higher 8,000 years ago then the long term trend is downwards. I do tend to agree that using 10 years of data out of 100 years to "establish a trend" is pretty pointless, it's only 10%. Now can you justify using 100 years out of 8,000 to "establish a trend"? The proportion is far less. If you look at the Holocene temps, you can see the downward trend with the old Mk1 eyeball.

It would be very helpful to know more about the provenence of the video, however a few things can be said. 1. It was daylight. 2. It was within about a mile of a road. (Telegraph poles) 3. It was probably in America. (The scrubby nature of the vegetation is indicative of a drier region.) 4. The slightly "off" colour is reminiscent of footage from the 60s or 70s. 5. The object retains form after the first impact implying strong structural integrity. 6. There is a complete lack of explosion or smoke after either impact. This implies that there was little or nothing conventionally combustible associated with the object. (It wasn't a fancy jet) The biggest problem with things like this is that many people don't like where logic and evidence takes them, it destroys their sense of superiority. We have an object on film. There are two and only two possible types of object. It is either natural or manufactured. Due to the changes in trajectory both before and after the first impact, "natural" can almost certainly be ruled out. The option left is that it is a manufactured item. Again we are faced with two and only two possibilities. Either humans made it or they didn't. If the film is from the 70s and we were in the 70s, I would say some sort of secret aircraft development. However this is 2011, 30-40 years later and military technologies tend to filter down and into the civillian sphere, or at least become more common militarily if they work. The news gets out somehow. This counts against it being ours. However it is also possible that it was a secret project that was an almost complete bust. The project gets closed and the files filed away and everybody forgets about it. Knowing the reason for the failure would be informative. I sometimes wonder how many old, closed projects could be reopened with much better results now. If the idea was good but the materials and technology were lacking, then the project would fail and later people coming up with similar ideas would be told "We tried that and it didn't work" and would therefore drop the idea. But this may not be true today. To use the object in the film as an example, assuming it was a radical drive concept from the 70s. Perhaps the drive was workable but control was too unstable for practical use, pilots and computers simply weren't up to the task. With the vastly increased computing power now available, perhaps the control would be stable enough for the drive to be workable, but nobody tries because "We tried that and it didn't work". Just a thought. Of course, if the object was not the result of human manufacture then that only leaves one other option.............

What a pity that the long term trend is towards cooling, the current warming is just another uptick on the general downward trend.

The result of that would be the extinction of the human race in about 70 years. This is hardly a "logical" or "rational" outcome.

It was the light from the planet Venus reflected off the wings of migrating geese as they rode a wave of swamp gas.

Yes John, but the general point was that it was wasting good food growing land for inefficient ethanol production. This is pretty much being done so that people in the West can still happily drive, but salve their consciences. Down here we use sugar cane, it props up the cane farmers and the government can say that it's "doing something" about climate change. This allows people to drive their huge 4WDs that never leave the bitumen while feeling that they're "doing their bit" by using 10% ethanol fuel. It used to be called "Selling Indulgences" when the Catholics did it. In general, because it differs from nation to nation, what subsidies do the oil companies get in the US? They don't get any down here.

"Far fetched" is perhaps where we differ ajb. I find the idea that "aliens did it" to be irritating and demeaning to our ancestors, but I find the idea of visitors or teachers to be not that "far fetched". To really consider the idea as far fetched requires belief in one of two things, both of which I classify as "extraordinary claims". It must be believed that either; 1. We are alone in the Galaxy. I view this as "special pleading" for Earth. If it is accepted that neither the Sun nor Earth are special in any way, then it follows that there must be many other worlds with life. or 2. You must believe that our current understanding of the "Laws of Physics" is complete and correct. (At least in the basics) This belief is manifestly untrue. Working from the basis that Earth is an average planet in development then there must be many others with life, couple that with some of them having an extra 10,000 years or a million years of research into physics and medicine it would be quite unusual to think that they haven't found some way around the relativity problem if they should so desire. Hence I don't find the idea far fetched. (I don't regard it as certain or proven though.)

Oh Dekan, do you have some fun in store. "Get thee to an Apiarist!". AFAIK there is virtually nothing that can be added to this marvelous food, we can't even water it down. And so many different types! I don't know where you're from but I'm sure that any local honey producer in your area can tell you about the amazing variety of flavours. I'm in Brisbane, Australia. There is the normal honey from shops, there are 4 apiarists in my suburb who have hives and each provides honey with a slightly different flavour. I can go up the mountain (about 20 mins drive) and get rainforest honey and Lantana honey. SuperBee down the Gold Coast has a good 20 different types available. You think that there is a big range in tea leaves? Honey has tea beat hands down. Honey isn't a food, it's an experience! Moontanman, down here the loss of the native bees isn't that much of a worry, they make bloody awful honey. But what the imported bees do with the Australian flowers is fantastic. And I have to disagree about the honeycomb. I have a wonderful piece that's aged about 8 years now, getting darker and crystalising. As a special treat I have a spoonful now and then. Glorious. Store bought honey is fine. It's tasty, nutritious and is an antiseptic on wounds. But anybody who has the chance to try the different flavours and textures available and doesn't take it is really missing out on something special.

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about job ads, not about killing babies. Just so that I've got this right. You think that having job selection criteria that you don't agree with is like "killing a baby" and you think there is an error in my logic? Here's the deal. I, as an employer have the final say in the criteria I use to employ someone, providing I don't discriminate on the grounds of age, sex, race or orientation which is fair enough. However only a complete twit wouldn't discriminate (if you want to call it that) on the basis of "work history", and whether a person is currently employed is definitely part of their "work history". If you don't like this, you are perfectly free to put your house on the line and start and run your own business as you see fit, using whatever selection criteria you choose. You are also free to start your own employment agency and accept or reject advertisements on any basis you choose. If you won't "ante up" and put your own future on the line, then sit back down in that cheap seat and enjoy the view. However, whether or not you do these things will never give you the right to tell me how to run my business or to dictate that my selection criteria have to pass your approval. There is an old saying that "He who pays the piper calls the tunes". If it's my money and the futures of myself and my employees at stake, exactly what makes you think that your opinion is worth diddly squat?

Actually the numbers are pretty scary. If we assume Wiki is correct; 1. The grain required to fill a 25 gallon gas tank with ethanol would feed 1 person for a year. 2. In 2006 the US produce 4.86 billion gallons of ethanol. That means enough food to feed more than 194 million people was burned in cars etc in 2006 just from the US production. Brazil wasn't far behind at 4.3 billion gallons, or enough to feed a further 172 million people. That is food for some 366 million people being burnt as fuel. Any way you cut it, that is a lot of people going hungry so that Europeans and others can drive their "biodiesel" BMWs and feel good about "saving the planet". (Yes, it was field corn rather than the more edible sweet corn, but it's still a staggering amount.)

36grit, you have a ways to go before you can even properly consider Mooeypoos comments. First you need to find a way to demonstrate that "consciousness" is indeed represented on the electromagnetic spectrum as I would put this as by no means certain. IOW determine what form of energy you are actually looking for, without that you can't possibly describe a detection mechanism. You can't find radio waves with a microphone. This is the very real problem that any hypothesis in this area faces. To give a simple example; Let's say that there was a person who could, through an act of will cause items to combust, a "firestarter". We can hook them up to an EEG and we can use IR to see the target object heat up and finally burst into flame. We can see both the brain waves and the build up of heat. However if the transmission energy involved is not electromagnetic in nature, then there is no detection device known to human kind that could detect the energy passing from the person to the object. So how do you find it? How do you find radio waves with a microphone? To make matters worse, the unknown energy might also have a spectrum analogous to the elecromagnetic one. How do you find the right part? You might hit the right spectrum but you've built an analogy of a gamma ray detector and the bit you're looking for is in the infra red. Detection and proof are a lot more complex that people usually think. Mooey, to a great degree (and on methodology totally) I agree with you, however you are asking him to take a room full of microphones and prove the existence of radio. Simply can't be done, the tools aren't right for the job.

I have to agree. There have been a couple of times where I've avoided car accidents that seemed certain. I had to pull over and sit and think to work out exactly what happened and how I avoided the prang. It does feel to the conscious mind like some sort of magic, one second you're seeing the other car getting bigger and bigger and the next second you're past the danger. It leaves you feeling as if time got quite out of joint and that "There is a hole in your mind".

Like ajb said, this is a pretty old idea. The thing that separates different versions is how far you want to take it. Visitors coming and giving basic advice of architecture, agriculture and animal husbandry are a far cry from Von Danikens "aliens did everything" (Which is really demeaning to those unknown ancient geniuses who did create new technologies). The hypothesis is valid and there may be proof to help validate it, but the proofs are all archaeological and therefore open to interpretation. For example the "Bahgdad battery" could be evidence of alien teachings, or evidence of a human genius around 200BC or it could be something else entirely and we have misinterpreted what its purpose is. Why they would help, if they did, is anybodys guess. We in the West try to help others improve their agriculture and standard of living, we help others who have problems, all without thought of reward. Maybe they are the same. Perhaps they have found that sentient life is rare in the Galaxy and feel it is their duty to help nurture it. Who knows? Speculation about the motives of a purely alien species cannot be more than speculation, at least until we get to sit down for a long chat with them. The Drake equation is meaningless. Due to the inherent unknowns the equation can provide any probability from zero to one as to the likelihood of meeting another intelligence. I've always thought that Drake came up with it to demonstrate just how little we know and without knowledge of those factors in the equation, then any answer is possible. The Galaxy could be teeming with life or we might be alone, with the current state of our knowledge, both answers are (mathematically) equally likely. By all means watch the show and be sceptical, but also be just as sceptical about objections to the hypothesis.

Sorry for the delay, I've been inspecting the Queensland hospital system from the inside. Thank you both for the replies, at least now I know the idea doesn't seem crazy. md65536. I agree actually that knowledge is key factor. The thing is that knowledge can only increase rapidly if there is a segment of the population who are free to think rather than spend their time in finding food. A hunter gatherer society is very labour intensive and people spend more time looking for food that actually thinking about better ways to get food. Consider the effect of domestication on food supply. In a HG society the men would go out and spend a day or days trying to find the food, then they had to kill it and then transport it back to the tribe. You could be talking about having 10 men occupied for 4 days just to get the meat from one cow. Once you have domesticated animals, it's a simple matter for 2 men to get a cow from "that pen over there", kill it and provide the meat. This frees up a lot of time and allows knowledge to grow. Aside: It wouldn't surprise me if the first "domestication" came from finding a herd in a sheltered valley and some bright spark saying "You know, if we build a wall across the valley mouth, they can't get out and we will know where to find them next time." Shortly after that the tribe moved closer to the valley and became more stationary. Similarly HG societies tend to move around a lot because the prey animals start to avoid the areas the tribesmen hunt in. They move to follow the herds, if the herds stop moving, so do they. pantheory. Totally agree about north Africa, but who said it had to start there? Humans had spread all the way to Australia by 40,000 years ago. There was forest and savannah across southern Europe and east of the Med all the way to India. All the animals that were later domesticated were available to the early humans, all the plant species that were domesticated were also available, so the question was "Why the delay?" All the tools, plants and animals were there, why weren't they used? There is no obvious reason why the fertile cresent was (or had to be) the region where agriculture started. What I'm suggesting is a mechanism and explanation of why it was the fertile crescent. Consider my aside above. During the Ice Age due to the rather wild swings climate went through, that walled off valley would have become quickly too wet or too dry for holding cattle (too dry and the grass runs out, too wet and foot rot sets in), the tribe would have had to move and the process restarted elsewhere. I'm suggesting that the climate was simply too variable for extended stays in any given area. The fertile areas kept moving. The reason that agriculture flourished in the fertile crescent was that that was the "fertile area" when the climate stabilised. If the climate had stabilised at a slightly higher temp, then the "fertile Crescent" might have been on what are now the Mongolian grasslands, if a bit cooler, then perhaps India or subtropical Africa. The argument is based on the premise that knowledge can't grow without leisure time away from survival and that this time can only become available once domestication of plants and animals is achieved. Domestication takes time in a stable climate and since the Ice Age was decidedly unstable domestication could not occur. Hence it was not the Ice Age per se that prevented development, but the wild swings during that Ice Age that did. To put it another way, if the Ice Age had had a stable (but much colder) climate than now, domestication and civilisation would have risen much earlier and in a totally different place. (This is actually starting to bug me. I guess I'll have to add Anthro texts to my reading list now. )

Thanks for taking the time michel, the photos are incredibly informative. (You do realise that you are making me disgustingly jealous of your access to amazing archeaological sites, don't you? )

Firstly this is pure speculation, but I thought I'd chuck the idea out there and see what happens. I'd very much appreciate comments from anyone with knowledge of Anthropology on this. I don't know what is said in the literature and haven't been able to find anything looking at this, but I could simply be looking in the wrong places, so input is welcome. There is something about human societal development that I've always wondered about. H Sapiens evolved some 120,000 years ago (give or take). They are us, same brains, same intellect. So how come they sat on their fat, hairy arses for 114,000 years before developing societies above "Hunter gatherer"? Why was all the development in the last 6,000 years? The idea that most of the time was in an Ice Age doesn't cut it. Yes, there was a lot of ice, but large populated areas of the planet were quite fine for long term human habitation. Europe was iced over, but Africa was lush and fertile, so was Asia. Similarly the animals that became domesticated were available to those early humans in north Africa, so why the delay in domestication? I think that the answer is constant climate change. To develop farming, animal husbandry and a stable society requires reasonably stable climatic conditions. You can't develop farming techniques if you have to move the farm every 3 generations or so. Development of farming techniques is a trial and error thing and you can only do this if most of the external factors (ie. Climate) remains reasonably constant. When we think about the last 40,000 years, we tend to divide it into "Ice Age" and "Holocene". The Holocene being characterised by a warm and reasonably stable climate and the Ice Age as being "bloody cold", but we think of the ice age as constant too. Hence the quandary, if the Ice Age was reasonably constant, then farming etc should have developed much earlier in North Africa than it did. So why didn't it? I invite you to look at this graph from Greenland covering the last 40,000 years. Notice that most of the changes recorded by the ice in the Holocene are quite mild compared to general changes for the preceeding 30,000 years. (The current warming as we exit the Little Ice Age is that uptick on the very right of the graph.) The large spikes in the 25-45,000 year range are known as Dansgaard–Oeschger events. Notice their size, 10-15 degrees in a century or less. There is arctic amplification involved here, but it is reasonable to assume changes in the lower latitudes of at least a degree or two. These are tremendous changes in short periods of time and indicate a very unstable global climate. Dansgaard–Oeschger events make the climate unstable. Once we were into the Holocene and climate stabilised it took some 2,000 years to go from Hunter Gatherer to building cities. If we assume this time period to be reasonable for such development, then the lack of any stable 2,000 year period in the preceeding era precludes the development of stable farming communities and the later development of cities and towns. So I submit that human development was not delayed by the "Ice Age" per se, but specifically by the highly unstable climate during that time caused by the Dansgaard–Oeschger events. Thoughts?

The thing is Hal, I don't care. Rioter or looter along for the ride, I don't give a damn. Same actions, same punishment. Stupidity can be a capital offence.

So what percentage of ads had this proviso? Unless the proportion was large it strikes me as people using a storm in a teacup to exercise their righteous indignation. I can only presume that the view is pretty good from the cheap seats. If truemajority or whatever are really so incensed over the thing then maybe they should start their own job placement website, run along lines they prefer. Or would that be too much like hard work and it's so much easier to sit back and tell others how they should run their businesses?

They looted, smashed, went armed with chunks of wood and burned buildings. They assaulted and robbed both businesses and individuals. Just out of curiosity, what would they have to do for you to class them as "rioting"? Me? I think that they were rioting and looting, and the water cannon and rubber bullets should have been brought out much sooner. And if that didn't work then on the second day issue live ammo.

Not a strawman Greg. The point is that interstate immigration drove up our population. Reducing our national immigration to whatever level will have little effect on interstate immigration. Short of closing the borders, how do you suggest we stop the Victorians moving to Queensland? I wasn't talking about National borders, I was talking about the one at Tweed Heads. Can you provide some evidence of this? According to the ABS the demographics haven't changed all that much. The average age of a first home buyer was 33 in 2005-6 compared to 32 in 1995-6. Similarly, according to Domain, while only 50% of the buyers are "Australian Born" in the 3000 area (65% for Melbourne in general), 66% of the 3000 buyers and 73% of the Melbourne buyers are working and not attending Uni etc. I can't your "vast majority" in any figures I can find. The 20-39 agegroup were 47% of buyers which makes it pretty normal compared to the ABS figures. If your assertion was correct there should be a higher than usual number in this bracket in Melbourne. I thought that you were a "Climate Change Believer"? Isn't the whole point to leave the stuff in the ground, not for "future generations" but "forever"? Or do you think it's wrong for us to mine coal now but it will be okay for "future generations" to do it? Reduced mining activity and reduced jobs mean a reduced economy. This is generally called a "recession", if it gets really bad it's called a "Depression". This is your answer? Trash the economy so that nobody wants to come here any more? Big whoop. You seem to be far too impressed by awards and letters over substance. The award is political, like Times "Man of the Year". Don't get me wrong, I fully grant him credit for his outstanding work in zoology, but his views on climate are waaaaay too coloured by his religion. And Gaia worship is a religion. To give yet another example of his off the planet thinking, are you ready for the sky to change colour? Back in 2008 he said we would need to perhaps add sulphur to jet fuel to dim the planet and that Well, it's 2011, three years have passed and I can't see that he's achieved what he was trying to achieve. Only 2 years left to use "the last resort that we have, it's the last barrier to a climate collapse." Tell me Greg, do you believe that we are two years away from "climate collapse"? Or do you think he's blowing smoke? (Again)

Hmmm, something we actually agree on. Why is it that a person can work their way up through say, the education ranks, finishing up as Regional Director in charge of dozens of schools, but if they go to Parliment the absolute, guaranteed, one and only portfolio, that they will never get is "Education"? I thought I was the only one who thought that this was bloody silly. A surgeon will never get "Health". Are we the only democracy on the planet that is this dumb? I think that you are equating "education" with "Wisdom and Knowledge". The two don't go together. A freshly minted BSc isn't more likely to vote rationally than a 50 year old who has started with nothing and built up a large business. The 50 yo is more likely to vote rationally because his and his employees livelihoods depend on the economy, the BSc only cares whether he gets a job or not. In many cases, people with degrees are chattels to be bought as needed and dispensed with when not. (Sorry if that hurts any feelings anywhere.) I have a Solicitor so that I don't need a law degree, I have an accountant so that I don't need that degree either. In some cases, degreed people are like plumbers, just tradesmen and nothing special. Similarly if education "responds more" to science and common sense then why are so many govt programs complete clusterf*cks? They were designed, implimented and over seen by a large number of people with relevent degrees, so they should have been outstanding successes shouldn't they? Not having a degree doesn't make a person a yobbo and having one doesn't make a person smarter or more rational. Nor can I agree about "Ethics". Whose ethics? Yours? Mine? Bob Browns Greenshirts? The Union bloke who stills calls people "Comrade" and is waiting for the uprising? One of the Lib/Nats that has their "Born to rule" ethos? Ethics like morality is ill defined and possibly undefinable. Aside from the basics "Don't lie, cheat or steal" what can be taught that can be agreed upon? I won't give you an argument over Bracks and Brumby except to say that Bligh gives them both a good run for their money. It takes a very special kind of stupid to more than double govt income in 10 years and still be short on money. (Mind you it takes an even more special kind of stupid to not be able to beat such a govt in an election. ) As to Wonthaggi, why they didn't take the cheaper and better option of a new dam I will never know. (Actually I do know, the Greens would have raised merry hell over the idea.) Not only supplying drinking water a dam would have helped in flood mitigation. (Could it have been that they litened to the educated and degreed "experts" who said it wasn't going to rain any more? ) Either way, Bracks, Brumby, Bligh and the rest did absolutely nothing before going to Parliment that in any way showed that they value society over their own personal ambitions. (Gillard is another great example.) Put it another way. If we were voting for President of the Australian Republic, I would put General Peter Cosgrove with his proven record of caring for and looking after those under him and his proven ability to make the hard choices and actually get things done against any and all politicians from any party we currently have. Which is why our next Premier will almost certainly be Campbell Newman, an ex officer with a high honours civil engineering degree.

Hmmm, a bit unconstitutional, but I suppose we could close the borders to New South Welshmen and Victorians. You see Greg, it isn't the foreign immigrants that drove up the housing prices, it was the cashed up Victorians who decided not to pay $500k for a 2 bedroom "Workers Cottage", so they came up here and blew out our market. House prices have trebled in the last 10 years in my area and virtually all the money is coming from south of the border. Where do you think all those extra people came from? Overseas? They came from the south. As was true 30 years ago and is still true today "Southerners spend the first 50 years of their lives bagging Queensland and the last 20 living here." That is where your argument falls down. Even if we cut foreign immigration to zero, it wouldn't effect movement between the States. Qld needs infrastructure because of all the other Australians that like to live here. The only way to prevent the need for new infrastructure is to close the borders to interstate migration. Edit to add. Who cares what Flannery thinks? As I've shown elsewhere the guy has an incredible record of being wrong.

Why would education or acclaim be a valid reason for voting? Education can impart knowledge but not wisdom, nor can it actually stimulste a civic "care". Acclaim would mean a nation governed by Britney Spears and Lady GaGa. I must admit I tend to be rather "Heinleinian" in this. To have a well functioning system, authority must always equal responsibility. Giving authority without responsibility is a recipe for disaster and similarly a person cannot be held responsible for things that they have no authority or control over. We try to make politicians responsible by elections, if they don't do a good enough job, they lose their position. However this makes no move towards addressing the problem of choosing the politicians in the first place. Ideally we would want politicians who value the society over themselves, thereby (hopefully) they would make decisions in the best interests of the society rather than their own interests. Voting or being a politician is the ultimate authority over the State and should be balanced by accepting ultimate responsibility for the State. To my mind the only groups that fit the "ultimate responsibility" category are military and emergency service personnel. (Especially Police) Only these groups have voluntarily shown that they value the society they live in so much that they are willing to place their own lives on the line in defence of that society. Many in the military or emergency services have "paid the ultimate price" for the safety of society, as such, and as a group, they have demonstrated a greater concern for the welfare of society than any other group. As I said, authority and responsibility should balance. A person who wants to assert ultimate control over the State (by voting or standing as a candidate) should demonstrate that they are willing to accept ultimate responsibility for the State.