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When the tsunami hit – @julieposetti Location of that extraordinary #Japan #Tsunami video RT @gumb Kesennuma-shi, Miyagi-ken. Co-ords: 38.9089, 141.5698 #
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Before and after
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All right, it’s time to stop the Fukushima hysteria. – this story was written before one incident turned to another
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Why aren’t these well-meaning twits discussing and extolling Synroc as a means of safe waste disposal? Whorestralia has a sublime opportunity to value add to U exports by insisting that waste be returned to sender for a non-negotiable fee, for processing and safe burial.

Perhaps Garrett and co would prefer we all choke – there’s no way solar and wind can fill the vast energy needs of China and India, particularly considering the number of reactors already under construction and those projected to come online in the next few years. And fat chance of stopping dirty brown coal exports with Beattie’s gungho attitude. Thirty years ago solar and wind might have been a realistic mass alternative, but that chance has long lapsed. Do Midnight Oil use biodiesel/solar/wind to power their amps? Noooooooo ….

With the water crisis worsening, the rodent gives us a preview of his next fear campaign – we’re all gonna starve, folks, if the rains don’t come. Git down on yer knees and pray, says the fat rat. Luckily, we have enough pumpkins and bananas to trade with our veggie growing friends – and since our shire has kept its trees, we still have plenty of rain. We were well aware many years ago the Australian environment was incapable of supporting its existing gobbling, guzzling, land-ravaging population in the long term. The long term has turned out to be the short term. Another year of drought and the country will really have to think hard about sustainable population. Death to economic rationalism and its sick worship of perpetual economic growth fuelled by taxpayer-funded breeding frenzies!

“If indeed there is a position which says nationally we will mine uranium, then we will mine uranium, if however, the resolution give discretion (to the states) then we will not, we will stick the existing policy.”

“Therefore the wording of the national conference resolution is crucial as to whether there is mining in this state.”

Mr Beattie said he would support whatever position was taken by Kevin Rudd to give Federal Labor the best chance at the polls.

“I understand that there are people who have got strongly held views about this both within and outside the party and I respect that.”

“I think we need to support Kevin at this time. I think he’s going to win the federal election and I’m not going to say anything that will be disruptive to it.”

If Beattie is happy to support clean coal tech, when is he going to put his money where his mouth is and assist Queensland’s premier clean coal company, CXY, with whom Queensland Government discussions are underway?

Who wouldn’t like to have been a cashed up Chinese investor this year, rolling in US dollars, eager to drop them into cheap physical resources as the United Stupids economy sags under the weight of precarious hedge and subprime mortage funds and a tenuous bond market?

And where better to invest than in relatively insulated CGT free rich Australian resources at bargain basement prices – particularly uranium (Citic has been buying up more SAU this week), gold and zinc.

Kiss goodbye to your birthright treasures, fellow Whorestralians – and don’t expect to reap any of the proceeds of the fire sale in additional community services in this election year – Howard’s mudslingers need every cent to artificially deflate the trade deficit, to buy more crappy US jet fighters and electioneering pork. And as for you pathetic, whinging Whorestralian mortgagees, get ready to wear another interest rate rise you have to have, trust me, it’s for your own good,.

Michael Klare examines “energy blackmail in a great-power world and the Big-Brother-style dangers of making nuclear power a major future alternative source of energy.”

An excerpt:

“Surprisingly, there are very few energy haves in the world today. Most notable among these privileged few are Australia, Canada, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq (if it were ever free of conflict), and a few others. These countries are in an envious position because they do not have to pay stratospheric prices for imported oil and natural gas and their ruling elites can demand all sorts of benefits — political, economic, diplomatic, and military — from the foreign leaders who come calling to procure copious quantities of their energy products. Indeed, they can engage in the delicious game of playing one foreign leader against another, as Kazakhstan’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev

– a regular guest in Washington and Beijing — has become so adept at doing.

Pushed even further, this pursuit of favors can lead to a quest for political domination — with the sale of vital oil and natural gas supplies made contingent on the recipient’s acquiescing to certain political demands set forth by the seller. No country has embraced this strategy with greater vigor or enthusiasm than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”