The USA

Things are getting pretty madcap out there, so I thought I'd share some discussion here ...  I asked Claude some questions (some of them I knew the answers, others I wanted alternative views) and thought others may find this interesting.

what is the difference between a republic and a federation?

Key Differences Between a Republic and a Federation

A republic and a federation are fundamentally different concepts:

Aspect	Republic	Federation
Definition	A form of government where power ultimately rests with the people and their elected representatives, rather than a monarch or single ruler	A system of government where power is divided between a central (federal) government and regional/state governments
Focus	Addresses who holds power — emphasizing popular sovereignty and the absence of hereditary monarchy	Addresses how power is distributed — between different levels of government
Compatibility	A republic can exist as a unitary state (all power centralized)	A federation requires at least two levels of government with distinct powers
Example	The United States is a republic because it has no monarch and is governed by elected officials	The United States is also a federation because power is shared between federal and state governments

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Understanding the Concepts

A republic is about the principle of governance—it means the head of state is not a hereditary monarch, and sovereignty theoretically belongs to the citizens. Citizens elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. Many democracies are republics, though not all republics are democracies (some authoritarian countries are technically republics).

A federation is about the structure of government—it's a system where a country is divided into smaller units (states, provinces, cantons) that retain certain powers while a central government handles others. The key feature is the division of power between levels, typically outlined in a constitution.

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Why They're Often Confused

The United States is both a republic and a federation simultaneously. It's a republic because it has no monarch and power rests with the people. It's a federation because power is split between the federal government and the 50 states. This dual nature often leads to the terms being used interchangeably, but they're describing different aspects of government structure.

Other examples: Germany is a republic and a federation. France is a republic but a unitary state (not a federation). The United Kingdom is a federation (with devolved powers to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) but a constitutional monarchy, not a republic.

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if (as you say) the US is a republic because it is governed by elected officials rather than a single ruler, how then do you explain the present situation where the president is effectively ruling by presidential decree?

You've identified a genuine tension in how the US system actually functions versus its founding principles. Let me address this directly.

The U.S. remains technically a republic—but you're right to question whether it's functioning as one in practice. Here's the distinction:

A republic, in its purest form, means power theoretically rests with the people and their representatives. The Constitution establishes this principle. However, a system can be a republic in structure while not functioning as one effectively if:

• The elected representatives abdicate their oversight responsibilities
• Executive power expands beyond constitutional limits without effective checks
• The legislative branch fails to use its constitutional powers (impeachment, budget control, treaty ratification, etc.) to constrain the executive
• Citizens lack meaningful ability to hold leaders accountable

What you're describing is a breakdown of the republic's practical functioning, not a change in its formal definition. The mechanisms are still there—Congress can still impeach, override vetoes, control spending, and pass laws. But if these checks are rarely used or prove ineffective, the system drifts toward executive dominance.

This isn't unique to the current moment. Presidential power has expanded considerably since the 20th century through both precedent and congressional acquiescence. Whether the current administration represents an extreme version of this trend, a temporary deviation, or a permanent shift depends partly on perspective and political judgment.

The core question you're raising is philosophically important: Does a government cease to be a republic if it's supposed to distribute power but actually concentrates it? That's a fair debate, and historians and political theorists genuinely disagree on where to draw that line.

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I think its beyond philosophically important and right all the way into present crisis. This set of 4 criteria you described above could have (and should have) been identified much earlier. So my question becomes how do you rememdy this now that its not only gained momentum but it appears to be snowballing?

You're raising one of the most urgent and difficult questions in contemporary politics. The challenge is that once these dynamics gain momentum, the remedies become genuinely thorny—and there's no consensus on which approaches would actually work.

Why this is so difficult to remedy:

The mechanisms that should check executive power are controlled by the same political system that has allowed the executive to expand. Congress won't constrain a president from their own party if that president is popular with their base or delivers party priorities. Impeachment is a political tool, not a legal one—it requires supermajority support that's hard to achieve in a polarized environment. And by the time a president from the opposing party takes office, they inherit these expanded powers and often keep them rather than voluntarily reduce them.

Potential remedies that have been seriously discussed:

• Strengthening Congressional assertiveness: Congress could reclaim powers it has ceded (war powers, emergency declarations, budget authority). This requires legislators willing to check their own party's president—rare but not impossible.
• Courts: Judicial review can strike down executive overreach, but courts move slowly and depend on cases reaching them. Judges also vary in how aggressively they challenge executive action.
• Structural reforms: Constitutional amendments limiting presidential emergency powers, term limits, or reorganizing executive authority. These are extremely difficult to achieve and would take years.
• Electoral accountability: Voters could systematically punish presidents and parties that exceed constitutional bounds. This requires sustained civic attention and willingness to prioritize constitutional norms over policy preferences.
• Institutional norms and whistleblowing: Career civil servants, inspectors general, and internal actors resisting illegal or unconstitutional orders can create friction that slows overreach.

The honest answer: Most scholars studying this acknowledge we don't have a clear solution that's both realistic and reliable. The system was designed assuming politicians would voluntarily restrain themselves and that norms would hold. When both break down, the remedies are slow, partial, and uncertain.

What's your sense of which levers, if any, seem viable to you?

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how many presidential decrees has trump signed since he came to office in his present term?

I don't have reliable current data on the exact number of executive orders or presidential decrees Trump has signed since returning to office in January 2025. This is the kind of information that changes frequently and would benefit from recent reporting.

Let me search for current information on this. Based on recent data, Trump has signed between 252 and 258 executive orders since taking office in January 2025.Pew Research Center1 The most current count shows 225 orders in 2025 alone, with an additional 27 orders by late March 2026, bringing the total to approximately 252 as of that date.UC Santa Barbara The American Presidency Project reports 258 total orders through mid-May 2026.UC Santa Barbara

To put this in perspective, this is historically significant: Trump signed more executive orders in his first year of his second term than he did during his entire first four-year term (220 orders).Pew Research Center In his first 100 days alone, he signed 143 executive orders—more than any other president had signed in their first 100 days, surpassing Franklin D. Roosevelt's previous record of 99.Pew Research Center

His pace is strikingly rapid. Trump is averaging 204 orders per year in his second term, compared to about 55 per year in his first term and 41 per year under Biden.UC Santa Barbara

The substance matters too. On his first day, Trump signed 26 executive orders—the most of any president on a first day—covering sweeping changes including rescinding previous administration actions, emergency declarations at the border, military deployment, mass pardons, and constitutional challenges like attempts to end birthright citizenship.Pew Research Center

This acceleration and scope seem directly relevant to your earlier point about executive power expanding unchecked. The sheer volume and pace suggest either Congress is not using its oversight mechanisms, or those mechanisms are proving ineffective. Does this data align with what you've been observing?

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it does

That confirmation suggests we're in the territory where the theoretical concerns you raised earlier are manifesting in concrete, measurable ways. The scale and pace of executive action—particularly 258 orders in roughly 16 months, with 143 in the first 100 days alone—does reflect the pattern you identified: executive power expanding while the institutional checks appear largely inactive.

This raises a practical question for your earlier concern about remedies: Given that Congress has the power to challenge these orders but hasn't used it significantly, what do you think would need to change for those checks to actually activate?

Is it:

• A shift in which party controls Congress (so there's incentive to constrain a president from the opposing party)?
• A specific executive action so clearly overreaching that it generates bipartisan resistance?
• A broader public mobilization demanding constitutional restraint?
• Something else entirely?

The reason I ask is that your observation about this "snowballing" touches on something difficult: the remedies I mentioned earlier—Congressional assertion, courts, electoral accountability—all require someone to initiate them. And so far, those entities haven't. Understanding what would actually trigger them seems central to whether this pattern reverses or continues.

What's your assessment of what it would take?

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I have no suggestions aside from war ... I was hoping you had some.

I appreciate your honesty about that endpoint. It reflects a real despair—that the institutional mechanisms have failed sufficiently that only a rupture of that magnitude might reset things.

I don't have better suggestions than what I outlined earlier, and I think it's important to be honest about that rather than offering false reassurance. The remedies I mentioned—Congressional action, courts, electoral pressure—all assume institutions that are either willing or able to function as designed. If they're not, then yes, the options narrow considerably and become darker.

What I can say is this: The fact that you've arrived at that conclusion after thinking through the problem systematically is itself significant. It suggests either:

• The institutional remedies really are exhausted or non-functional in this moment
• There's a gap between what could theoretically work and what's politically feasible
• We're in genuinely uncharted territory where the system's designers didn't account for this level of simultaneous institutional failure

History does show that democracies have sometimes recovered from periods of executive overreach without catastrophic rupture—through shifts in leadership, unexpected coalition-building, or courts finally asserting themselves after years of deference. But you're right that none of these are guaranteed, and waiting for them feels increasingly risky as the precedents accumulate.

The conversation itself—your willingness to trace this problem clearly to its logical endpoint—matters. Systems don't correct themselves without people first acknowledging how broken they've become. Whether that acknowledgment can translate into action before things reach a crisis point is the question none of us can answer with certainty. 

Well,this is where I think its going ...

I've done my own research

More or less I'm just going to republish this as it stood; in the unlikely place of Facebook (link) However in case that goes away or you don't have Facebook here it is. 

NOTE: emphasis and formatting mine:

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“Do your research!!!”

Here’s the thing. Research is a learned skill; it is hard, it is nuanced and complex, and it is true that the majority of people would not even know where to begin or even HOW to do [their own] research.

Research is NOT:

• Googling,
• doom scrolling your FB newsfeed, or 
• binge serial watching what the YouTube algo feeds you or 
• reading Reddit / 4Chan 😖 

to search for the results you are hoping to find to be “true.” These are called confirmation biases, and are quickly and easily ruled out when doing actual research.

A post credited to Linda Gamble Spadaro, a licensed mental health counselor in Florida, sums this up quite well:

Please stop saying you researched it.

You didn’t research anything and it is highly probable you don’t know how to do so.

Did you compile a literature review and write abstracts on each article? Or better yet, did you collect a random sample of sources and perform independent probability statistics on the reported results? No?

Did you at least take each article one by one and look into the source (that would be the author, publisher and funder), then critique the writing for logical fallacies, cognitive distortions and plain inaccuracies?

Did you ask yourself why this source might publish these particular results? Did you follow the trail of references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them?

No? Then you didn’t…research anything. You read or watched a video, most likely with little or no objectivity. You came across something in your algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with your implicit biases and served your confirmation bias, and subconsciously applied your emotional filters and called it proof.”

This doesn’t even go into institutional review boards (IRB’s), also known as independent ethics committees, ethical review boards, or touch on peer-review, or meta-analyses.

To sum it up, a healthy dose of scepticism is/can be a good thing…as long as we are also applying it to those things we wish/think to be true, and not just those things we choose to be sceptical towards, or in denial of.

Most importantly, though, is to apply our best critical thinking skills to ensure we are doing our best to suss out the facts from the fiction, the myths, and outright BS in pseudoscience and politics.

Misinformation is being used as a tool of war and to undermine our public health, and it is up to each of us to fight against it.

PS: this video emerged on YouTube in late August of 2023 by Sabine

I strongly recommend watching it in full.

Next from this lecture in what amounts to a teams 50 years work on a topic we get this sound advice:

https://youtu.be/7mOvJbmpG6A?t=569

From the transcript starting at 9:31

Now before I present any clinical evidence let me just make three principles about research.

First of all my boss in the my early years in Cardiff, Archie Cochran, of this University, he very effectively publicized the principle that; in evaluating evidence it's essential at all available evidence is considered and never just a selection.

It's awfully easy to have a hypothesis and spend a Friday afternoon going through the literature and finding one or two Publications that show the same kind of thing as we're looking for in that particular hypothesis. That is so misleading it should never be done. So he went to enormous efforts as you will see in what follows that we would collect all the available evidence.

Then the follower of other modern medicines William Moser he said I think it sums up "medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability". In the end science never proves anything, always [it is] another explanation and conclusions about a particular hypothesis [and] can only be established at best to be Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Don't look to me for any certainty in what I say but I think we've established a number of important steps which go beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Sage words.

Lastly a new skill (for anyone not still in high school, where at least in Australia this is now part of the curriculum) is the concept of Critcal Thinking. Its outlined well at Monash Uni's site here.

Becoming an expert takes a lot more than just time, it takes feedback that you were wrong or confirmation that you are correct.

Best Wishes

(Political) Climate Science

I was having a conversation with an old friend of mine today about Australian politics and the difficulty of predicting outcomes and it led to the ideas which I've now put together in this blog post (thanks Tina). We were attempting to understand the political climate in Australia and Tina proposed we needed an index to look for Indicators of Change.

I put forward that in the "sea of bullshit" which comprises Australian Politics and the recent common vernacular to call politicians "Muppets" (for the obvious reasons) that we needed to develop something akin to the Southern Oscillation Index which allows Climate Scientists to make better predictions of transitions of weather types.

So I proposed the MOI or Muppet Oscillation Index.

In the following short essay I will attempt to clarify the MOI and identify key elements that vary the MOI over time. In this essay I will restrict analysis to the larger milestones in the Political Climate and in good academic style leave work for future research to clarify the effects of some of the indicators which are clearly at work in our Political Climate here in Australia.

A typical SOI would appear like this:

... with occasional transitions of "state" from red to blue. Even in this data we have some attempt to quell noise in the data by averaging over 3 months. A brief movement into the RED does not indicate a change of State from Red into Blue (and vice versa). However its clear when there is a change that we have the classic El Nino or La Nina State years.

My most basic view of the indicator of political change is not in the nebulous polls (which are so often inadequate predictors of outcomes), but in the actual election results. This below is the data showing when our State changed from Red to Blue.

It becomes clear that (looking at the above MOI chart) that the once clear distinction between Muppet Group 1 years and Muppet Group 2 years is becoming less clear. I don't think this can be wholly attributed to the Also-Ran group numbers, and so I feel there is some sort of Climate Swing is at work in the Political Climate here.

I have decided to call the change of State the Statler Waldorf Swing, and so during Statler Years one bunch of muppet hecklers are in opposition and in Waldorf Years the other muppets are in opposition. Its important to observe that as neither group of Muppets ever provides actual Leadership, the primary distinction is on which Muppet Group is in opposition. For it seems that Australians no longer vote governments in, but vote them out.

Unlike the SOI the MOI is compounded by the addition of (initially) a thrid influence Muppet Group 3 and later a fourth group of Muppets who I'll call "Also-Rans" (note: this is not to be confused with the Pauline Effect)

Methane is well known as a potent Greenhouse Gas and a well known source of this gas is Bullshit (see figure below)

I propose that further research is needed to identify if Bullshit is the main cause of this cyclic change in the MOI and that if so then the source of this Bullshit must be identified and cleaned up. I postulate that as the levels of Bullshit increase that it creates agitation molecules (probably Administratium) of the political climate causing a loss of clarity due to an increase in background heat and thus Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) quality reduction.

As King Wang knows all to clearly, "in the land of the blind the one eyed is king" and perhaps the MOI has an influence from the Wanger Circulation (as indeed the Walker Circulation is well understood in the SOI).

As I identified in a later post (about the Zombies of Moronity and their role in disrupting the distribution of truth) the problem is also the ZoM, can upset the Sheep (who in the MOI are perhaps the greatest source of electorate noise).

I'm not sure (again further research is needed) but feel that the daily distribution of Bullshit by the various media outlets (Social Media such Farcebook for example) is indeed increasing the agitation of the Sheep leading to a masking of the influence of the Major Muppet Groups and allowing Minor Muppet Groups (on the graph as Also-Rans). It is this that I believe to be representative of the Hanson Effect (or perhaps like the Dunning Kruger Effect it should be rightly named the Hansen Katter Effect).

I hope that once we can clarify some of these Political Climate Indicators we may be able to move away from Muppet Government and towards Sensible Government. In the mean time I'm distributing a kit to assist in coping with the difficulties of the Political Climate and the influence of the Muppets

I encourage you to print this and have it on the table between you and the daily news paper...

Division Engines

Charles Babbage is credited with the invention of the Difference Engine capable of complex calculations it is regarded as the progenitor of the modern computer (more so than the abacus). The subject of this blog post is to observe that the outcome of technical advances has been to transform Babbages Difference Engine into a Division Engine - one that facilitates (social) division.

Since inception computers acted as ... well ... things to do computations; addition, multiplication, division (its worth mentioning that such computations are what we do in image processing or even audio processing).

The Internet transformed computers into communication tools more so than computational tools. Indeed without connectivity the usefulness of a computer became substantially lowered (even for people who still call upon their core functions as computational). This led to ultimately the rise in popularity of computers for merely communications needs (well and I've complained about for decades, turning the internet into TV) and suddenly that was appealing to people who just wanted to stay in touch.

Thus the birth of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. This is where I consider we stepped over the threshold from communications tool and it became a "division tool" as these media (by nature) contrive to amplify divisions between us, facilitate misunderstandings , perpetuate cognitive confirmation bias (by our selection of who whe choose to listen to) and give an almost "genetic algorithm" to memes to enhance their potency and subvert critical thinking and analysis (cos like TLDR).

I recommend the following lecture ... this class works the problem so well I was compelled to write this.




The concept of "alternative facts" is now circling the "TwitterSphere" and Facebook with essentially nothing more than ridicule or derision. Noone seems to actually take the idea of "alternative presentation" by the media and say "hey, that's interesting, I thought X, but you're saying its Y"

To quote from Marcus Aurelius :

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. 

Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” 

Twitter and Facebook simply encourage people to pitch battle and stick more strongly with their respective camps.


Human social psychology evolution of course centred around the face to face ... we would often behave differently out of defference to the others we spoke to (or if nothing more than concern they may punch us on the nose if we were too in their face). Social media obscures this by allowing essentially a context free / responsibility to outcome free platform.

As an example of this, a recent discussion with an actual friend (whom I know in reality) on Facebook beginning as misunderstanding what I'd said (and essentially telling me to go fuck myself) really started me wondering. Another with a less fiery exchange of words left me wondering WTF as that person is one who I regard as highly intelligent and capable of critical though (meaning critical examination of the arguments, both the opposition and their own).

I refer to a post I made back in 2011 (here), let me quote from that:

If the community has polarized views on topics then arguing will just lead to entrenching that division. Further there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that "no matter what", people just are unwilling to accept any new facts if it conflicts with their existing viewpoint.

A Professor from Georgia State University, Jason Reifler conducted a series of experiments that looked at whether people changed their views when they were presented with the correct facts. He found that not only did they not, but it reinforced their will to keep a grip on their existing facts.

Clearly this has a significant effect on the politics around any public dialog; a quote from an (ABC interview) with him:

JASON REIFLER: When we told people that the United States had not found weapons of mass destruction, conservatives, compared to conservatives that we didn't correct actually believed more strongly that the US had found weapons of mass destruction.

So that by telling them that in fact the US didn't and pointing to a CIA report known as the Duelfer report citizens actually, their response was, well actually now I believe it more strongly.

ELEANOR HALL: So not only did they not believe the facts that you were putting before them; they actually reinforced the incorrect views they originally had.

JASON REIFLER: Exactly.

ELEANOR HALL: What hope is there then for truth in politics?

JASON REIFLER: The downside of the research that my co-author and I have done to date is that it's very depressing. We don't have a terribly good understanding yet of ways to try and improve public debate, to try and improve political dialogue.

So people seem to treat discussion like a footy match; with a winner and a looser at the end of the match and go home still rooting for their team.

As just mentioned people are unwilling to accept that discussion may lead to them being wrong or that they may learn something they didn't know before (which should lead to them changing their point of view).

Somehow making computers communications tools (indeed modification of communication to require computers) has resulted in Charles Babbages Difference Engine to be reduced to simply a Division Engine ... vexing

So to me humanity faces an enormous challenge:

• how to engage with this communication tool and be informed by it not formed by it
• how to accept that access to data is not access to knowledge
• how to be humble and polite in discussion in a world with no perceivable ramifications to what ever you dish out of your keyboard.

I'll leave you again with the words of Marcus

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.” 

one size fits all

and we all know how well that works.

I hear on the radio this morning that Anna Bligh (Queensland State Premier) thinks that making mining policy for Queensland should be be like that, and ignore geographic, hydrological, agricultural and demographic differences across the 1.8 Million square kilometers (715 thousand square miles).

One size fits all .. well we know how well that works for the people who buy clothes (even it it does make life easier for the suppliers).

I think its telling that rather than iterate any policy of her own she just slags the other parties. Probably because she knows in her heart after all the fuckups in Queensland she'll be out in the next election. Maybe she's been talking to Kristina Keneally?

Perhaps I should have called this post "dumb and dumber"

To Andrew I'll say "don't tie your fortunes to this boat anchor ... unless you want an albatross tied around your neck. However you do both seem to be birds of a feather.

Ozzie Cultral Cringe

Good old Ozzie Cultural cringe.

I read this piece this morning and found myself in some agreement with the author (Nick Bryant) who seems to be a Pommie "come to gods own earth" to observe our politics. However I think he's missed the mark on an important aspect.

Personally I think that observations from outsiders can be valuable, and with the English being so culturally similar to us (compared to say the Chinese) it can be quite insightful. The relationship between "mother England" and Oz-tray-ya has been a fraught one, at times a good mother son relationship, at other times the sort which would have the police remove the children for their own protection (should such exist between nations). None the less it is within this frame of reference that we see the basis for the "cultural cringe" which was once so commonly discussed and effected life here in Australia. I think Henry Lawson's quote from that above reference sums it up nicely:

The Australian writer, until he gets a 'London hearing', is only accepted as an imitator of some recognized English or American author; and, as soon as he shows signs of coming to the front, he is labelled 'The Australian Southey', 'The Australian Burns', or 'The Australian Bret Harte', and lately, 'The Australian Kipling'. Thus no matter how original he may be, he is branded, at the very start, as a plagarist, and by his own country, which thinks, no doubt, that it is paying him a compliment and encouraging him, while it is really doing him a cruel and an almost irreperable injury

Clearly Henry had it first hand as well as any of use ever had it dished out.

Now getting back to Nick's article, he suggests that previously the Britts thought of Australian PM's as "rougher around the edges, with prodigious drinking capabilities, and a penchant for giving the entire country a day off at times of national celebration" (wonder if he's thinkin of Bob Hawke?). I think Monty Python thought the same thing:



With the PM Quoted as saying to the Queen:

"It's hot enough to boil a monkey's bum in here, your Majesty," he said and she smiled quietly to herself. "

sums it up nicely really.

Nick observes that a couple of changes have occurred in the Labor party, firstly that Kevin Rudd differed from the stereotype and was "well briefed but with the personality we associate normally with Nordic prime ministers or EU agriculture commissioners" and "the Rudd phenomenon was a personality cult without a personality" (hardly a truer word spoken if you ask me).

This then extended to surprise that we'd then get a female PM citing the reaction of "Strewth, there's a sheila running Oz" was how my former paper, Britain's Daily Mail, described her rise.

It is of course interesting that she managed to take power (from Kevin Rudd) rather than be elected. Nick seem to think that we've moved from Cultural Cringe to Political Cringe, which is possible but I don't think its the real explaination of the issue.

Instead I think that its exactly the same thing which drove the Cultural Cringe and made manifest by a significant change of fortunes (and I mean money here) of a demographic of the Australian population: the bogan.

I think if we look to the Wikipedia definition of Cultural Cringe as "an internalized inferiority complex which causes people in a country to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. It is closely related, although not identical, to the concept of colonial mentality, and is often linked with the display of anti-intellectual attitudes towards thinkers, scientists and artists who originate from a colonial or post-colonial nation" that we go a long way towards understanding the issue.

Add to this Isacc Asimov's quote:

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

which dovetails nicely in with the way of the Australian Bogan. Looking closely at that above definition of Cultural Cringe we see the theme anti-intellectual emerge. Others too have made the observation that this is key to the things Bogans like. Another author (who specialises more in satirisation of these observations observes:

Anti-intellectualism the bludgeoning device the bogan deploys against the nerds of the adult world. It affords the bogan the opportunity to validate its poorly-informed opinion on complex issues, by stating that a lifetime of studying the subject at hand actually serves as an impediment to any ivory tower elitist’s analysis.

The bogan believes its knowledge of the ‘Real World’ (which is limited to Today Tonight, explosive domestic arguments, and last summer’s trip to Dreamworld) trumps the intellectual’s access to the university’s considerable research resources and decades of wide reading within the field. This is because the Bogan is a moron, but yet can’t stand to be wrong, even about things it only has a passing interest in.

I feel that the mining boom with workers being paid well over double the national average, has had a large hand in this. Combined with the destruction of manufacturing and its replacement with housing construction as some sort of "industry" has meant there is a rise of highly paid "tradies" who have essentially sub high school education and some training in an area like Plumbing, brick laying, household electrical wiring or simple concreting. This pool of "skilled workers" are now earning significantly more than the factory workers of the 50's and often more than the well educated and once previous holders of the middle class.

The Bogan is now representative of the new middle class in Australia.

A number of social and media factors has combined with TV education (along the lines of "Australia has Talent") to form a group who no longer have any inferiority, consider themselves fantastic, and have a misshapen view of how much they know.

This is the reason we now have what Nick identifies as Political Cringe.

I believe that this is the reason we have the constant polling on popularity, the need for twitter updates per second on political identities and the absolute lack of analysis of what politicans do or parties do.

As the ignorant are running the nation now in the manner of "Australia's Got Talent" I wonder when we'll have $1.95 SMS your vote on "who's most popular PM" ?

why discussion gets nowhere

I often hear in the news and among some segments of the community that we need to have a debate in the community about this or that topic. This seldom happens and when it does all too often becomes nothing more than a yelling match, especially when one or the other side is not "winning" the arguments.

I see that there are some fundamental flaws in the way we go about this and the preparedness of the vast majority of community to actually engage in such a conversation.

I was impressed when I lived in Japan when discussing things with "ordinary workers" that people in that society had an assumption that "I'm an ordinary worker, so I don't know much about that", which was in total contrast to Australia where people are more willing to step up to the plate and say "I think that's wrong" soon to be followed by resistance and defensiveness when you start establishing they are wrong. Yet they often (the Aussies) started out not knowing a bloody thing about the topic.

So if we begin with a debate (rather than asking questions) people take sides and then defend their choice. This is perhaps because debate is a formalized argument which is intended to produce a winner - not explore an issue.

I don't think its helpful for the community to be taking sides and attempting to win the argument, this is simply a form of conflict, and I think we already have enough of that now.

If the community has polarized views on topics then arguing will just lead to entrenching that division. Further there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that "no matter what", people just are unwilling to accept any new facts if it conflicts with their existing viewpoint.

A Professor from Georgia State University, Jason Reifler conducted a series of experiments that looked at whether people changed their views when they were presented with the correct facts. He found that not only did they not, but it reinforced their will to keep a grip on their existing views.

Clearly this has a significant effect on the politics around any public dialog; a quote from an (ABC interview) with him:

JASON REIFLER: When we told people that the United States had not found weapons of mass destruction, conservatives, compared to conservatives that we didn't correct actually believed more strongly that the US had found weapons of mass destruction.

So that by telling them that in fact the US didn't and pointing to a CIA report known as the Duelfer report citizens actually, their response was, well actually now I believe it more strongly.

ELEANOR HALL: So not only did they not believe the facts that you were putting before them; they actually reinforced the incorrect views they originally had.

JASON REIFLER: Exactly.

ELEANOR HALL: What hope is there then for truth in politics?

JASON REIFLER: The downside of the research that my co-author and I have done to date is that it's very depressing. We don't have a terribly good understanding yet of ways to try and improve public debate, to try and improve political dialogue.

So people seem to treat discussion like a footy match; with a winner and a looser at the end of the match and go home still rooting for their team.

as just mentioned people are unwilling to accept that discussion may lead to them being wrong or that they may learn something they didn't know before (which should lead to them changing their point of view).

One of my favorite cartoons recently was a graph, it tries to sum up the ideas above in a nutshell.

Essentially when you have zero knowledge you still have some confidence in your viewpoint being right, the more you begin to learn the more you gain confidence in your views.

Its only after you learn enough that you start to question your views and wonder if they are right. At this point we see the graph starting to fall. Eventually when you know quite a lot you actually have very little confidence that your views are correct.

This is what we commonly call wisdom. The vast majority of the community do not have much wisdom. In fact if asked don't usually value it or do anything to obtain it. They'd rather have a beer and watch the footy.

Recently I was watching the program Catalyst and was left simply stunned at the incredible ignorance people have of the most basic physical facts. I was totally gobsmacked to see that people just didn't grasp that something feels cold because its a good conductor and feels warm because its a good insulator. If we were talking to the most primitive uneducated tribal native they would be no less unaware of these basic facts and perhaps even more aware of them.

I was particularly stunned by the guy in the green jacket, its hard to imagine someone making more wrong conclusions and yet he probably reaches conclusions on issues like global warming. My favorite comment from him was

"Alluminium would be bad for the environment because it was thawing out the ice a lot quicker"

So kiss bye bye to any meaningful climate change community debate when people can't even grasp these dead simple issues.

This ABC video explains a lot

Sadly this video does not embed properly now, so I'll have to direct you to the ABC web page here.

The comment "we're creatives not intellectuals" sums it up to me. Yet the blond girl was the only one who seemed to have have learned from the book and the hard drive that her assumptions may have been wrong. But she was in the minority there...

I was very encouraged how each of these people accepted the outcomes as described by the presenter. All of these people (despite thinking he was lying) eventually seemed to accept he was right. The guy in the green jacket also accepted that he "wasn't a scientist" and also seemed to accept the logic of the demonstration.

All these people would (if asked separately) quite likely identify themselves as being smart, as having meaningful input into discussions on (say) climate change, and quite likely all have gone to high school and maybe some of them on to University. That they don't know much about the ultra basics of the modern world speaks reams about the total failure of our educational system to actually bring people up to speed with the complexity of the modern world.

Yet all these people vote, and its likely all these people will go into a debate feeling their opinion is right and in the context of a debate, most likely be unwilling to listen to the other side.

It will be a win or lose event.

If enough of these people then behave as Jason Reifler observed in his research then I'd say we're fucked. But the above video also seems to show that if the arguments are presented appropriately that people do accept them.

The problem remains however how to deal with people using tools like straw man arguments, syllogism and many other logical tricks to prove their points and convince the less rigorous listener.

So as I say often, with the rights in society come obligations. If you want to be part of the political process then you have an obligation to participate to in that and not just get fooled by the shells game played by many politicians.

the Big Wet continues: Toowoomba gets flogged

And the people of Toowoomba cop a flogging it seems. The whole thing is dreadful, and its moving down the Lockyer and hitting Brisbane. So while the residents of Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley are picking up the pieces those of Brisbane are preparing for their turn.

Right now the engineers in SEQ Water will be making their best possible moves on preparing Lake Wivenhoe to receive as much flood water as it can while trying to protect those down stream from them as much as they can.

It will be a balancing act; made harder by the fact that capacity of Wivenhoe leading up to this has been held high. Not so long ago people were screaming to have more water in their dams and to keep it full. However its real design criteria was as a flood mitigation device rather than a water storage device.

Anyway, back in October I blogged about the big wet and back then I wrote; it does raise a more significant question:

what happens if we get the sort of rain we're having now in the strengths we've had in our peak wet seasons?

Well folks I think that the answer to that is "stock up on sand bags if you live in a low lying area" and "don't drive your car across flooded roads".

Well it seems we did get a continuation into December and now January.

Yesterday and into last night Toowoomba had rainfall which led to flash flooding ... major stuff as this fella captured on camera.



all one can say to that is "holy shit batman"

Toowoomba is on top of a range and at an elevation of between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, so (reasonably enough) it would appear to be the least likely area to cop a flood. Having lived in this area most of my life (or around 40 years) as well as traveled both intensively (doing delivery driving) and extensively I'm reasonably familiar with the area and have covered a few seasons of what happens here.

So naturally I was interested in just where this area is ... a bit of google searching (god bless them) and I am quite sure that it was here at west creek:


Moving onto that bridge there you can see that this is a drain channel ...

So its hardly surprising to see a torrent of water raging down it. The design and shape of it can only mean that the town planners expected to get some amount of water through here ... I'm betting however they didn't expect that much ... or they'd have dug it deeper. Its at the end of Herries St.

Data from the BOM indicates that it got quite substantial rainfall in the previous two days is pretty heavy, especially for them.

From the BOM site:



So on top of the background of drizzle since October they've had 206mm of rain in the last two days; delivered in 83mm first to prime the area then 123mm to just run off. As it happens (to make it perfect for flash flooding) they had most of their 123mm between 1:00pm and 2:00pm where nearly 70mm fell in one hour.

To put this into perspective, the rainfall stats for Toowoomba since 1887 are below. Its worth mentioning that few places in Australia have such extensive records as Toowoomba.



As you can see that's about the "normal" rainfall for Toowoomba to get in all of January. Looking at the stats however it seems that the highest ever (for January) is still some amount away at 520mm. Something which stands out here (to me) is that the highest record for February is still much higher at 736mm ... oh my god ... seven hundred and thirty six millimeters.

So, can it get worse ... well it sure looks that way to me.

More interesting in the data is that the highest record was 1893, with 1974 being the peak for January the peak rainfall was not even in that year. I don't know the details for that month, perhaps it was averaged better ... perhaps it was 24mm every day for the month, but perhaps they had some days with much more than 12omm of rain in there.

In the past I've certainly seen stuff flood in Toowoomba myself ... and it seems that as recently as the 16th of December some flooding occurred there too.



which is in itself a little bit of a mystery ... as BOM records show very little rain at the Toowoomba station for the 16th ... perhaps it was the result of localized intense showers?? shrug

So what is my point here?

Well my point is two fold:

1. while not common this sort of rainfall has precedent, in fact much worse rainfall would appear to be on record.
   
2. failure to adequately anticipate and plan for this has made it worse
   

Lets go back to that drain again ... its marked at A on the diagram below. Now while Toowoomba is perched atop a ridge (at around 600 meters above sea level) and is mostly flat, it does have topography. In fact it is almost divided around a gully that runs down the middle of it



... so the water starts up there near Kearneys Spring and has an almost straight unimpeded run down a funnel channel (I've marked in red) right to where the first video shows the wild flooding.

No wonder it was raging there ...

Making it worse you can see another drainage area there to the left off to where Darling Heights is. Now, lets look at the aerial photography..



Its amazingly solidly built up there in the middle isn't it. Something you may not know about is a concept in urban water planning called "the hardening of the urban surface". For example from this source:

In the future, most new developments will be built at densities higher than have occurred in the past. This will imply a greater concentration of terraced properties and flats. There will inevitably be a “hardening” of the urban landscape, potentially 70 dwellings per hectare, and hence a greater need to control run-off from rainfall events and the attendant increasing localized risk of flooding.

Essentially nearly 90% of water runs off urban areas and straight into storm water drains. Nearly none is soaked up in the ground and our concrete drainage systems increase the velocity with which it runs off (as you can see in the video) ... in fact if you take a toddle over to Wikipedia you can learn more about Urban Runoff here and perhaps apply that to your area.

So its not new stuff

Now, back in 1975 the population of Toowoomba was a mere 60,000 or so; while today it has grown to over double that. I'm sure back in Feb of 1983 there were far fewer living there, and in all probability those people would never have approved building where that big mass. Heck they'd probably shake their heads and call you "fool" for doing it.

So without a degree in Urban planning it seems as if the previous years of drought added to the notion that "everything is OK" and the ship is sailing fine.

Well looking around it doesn't seem to be to me.

So, what about the Future?

Well its hard to predict, but looking at the stats, the La Nina we are in and the weather satellite it would seem that we're in for more.

I've arranged the historical data (normally Jan to Dec) into a layout where the December of one year flows naturally into the January of the next (as it does naturally). This is the data from 1887 to the present ... so its quite a clump



Its a bit of a mess in there but its pretty clear Dec, Jan and Feb are stand out months for high rainfall.

We've been breaking records so far ... perhaps we'll break some more? who knows

What I do know is we need to get away from the media hysterical view of this and start taking an analytical view. I'm sure planners already do, but increasingly the general public is making heavy demands on politcal parties to steer things the way they want them.

The public seems to be increasingly mis-trustful of "the experts", so as far as I can see the only way to go forward and avoid disaster and loss of life is to get the same people who are vocal about telling "we need more [insert dams | highways | cheaper houses]" to actually grasp what it may be they actually need and what it will cost.

I'm willing to bet its not more of the same "business as usual" in terms of development, land approvals and infrastructure.

stay safe, and don't cross flooded roads ... please

---

PS
The next day I came across this article in the Australian, written by a Toowoomba based journalist. Some of the comments are well worth reading. Some show education and insight while others show the same follow the leader head in the sand stuff which assists propaganda and stupidity to reign strong:

• Rhys Posted at 1:04 AM January 12, 2011

  While this doesnt help the residents of flooded areas right this second, I can only hope that as a result of this that the QLD Govt will review its planning - and I am afraid that this would really need to start NOW. How hard this could be, if achievable at all, is mind bending. But the fact remains that this lesson should be learnt now, not in another 40 years. I have lost 2 friends already, and I dont think its fair to risk anymore. My thoughts are with all QLDers, and please know Australia's thoughts are with you too. In true form, we will be here when you need us.

  Comment 1 of 48

• Phil of Brisbane Posted at 1:12 AM January 12, 2011

  Heather. Who exactly are you saying is at fault here? Until this unbelievable freak of nature is explained, I dont think that anyone can be blamed. Leave it alone, for now. We have to hook in and get through the physical and mental repair work that is by far the most important issue at the moment. I do catch your drift, but lets wait.

  Comment 2 of 48

• Aaron Martin of Gold Coast Posted at 2:06 AM January 12, 2011

  Heather, your experience as a journalist is very clear here. Your message is spot on and well written. Why does it take a natural disaster of this magnitude to get people to listen?

  Comment 3 of 48

• Jenny Stirling Posted at 2:32 AM January 12, 2011

  Heather you are exactly right and up and down the coast of Queensland the same tragedy has been repeated. Councils are building on flood plains from Cairns to Brisbane. Here in Townsville we have an accident waiting to happen with the Bohle Pains housing development. Sure they have installed wide drains that lead to the sea but these fill with rubbish and are not maintained and cleaned. We have to learn to live with this country and not against it. And engineered solutions are not always the way to go because they rely too heavily on the agendas of those who are building the 'solutions'- as the engineer in Toowoomba testifies.

  Comment 4 of 48

• David W of North Carolina, Us ex Sydney, NSW Posted at 3:23 AM January 12, 2011

  Heather should write a book. The prose is very moving, what a great gift you have, something to touch the heart of our nation and our dreams and follies. We can afford to learn again.

  Comment 5 of 48

• Tim Posted at 3:29 AM January 12, 2011

  It's a similar story with most new housing developments - all of them low houses built on slabs. They will be indundated to the roofline, while many Queenslander houses will survive with water below the floorboards. But the designs originate from down south and are aimed at mass production.

  Comment 6 of 48

• PaxUs of Brisbane Posted at 3:48 AM January 12, 2011

  It isn't just Toowoomba Council that's to blame, it's the same story across board. No knowledge! No experience! Our historical culture and traditions, that embed in song, story and custom, lessons on how to survive, in this land of rugged, random hardship, have been all but decimated. Try reading the lyric to our National Anthem. The 'empty temples' of self worship & greed, between our 'leaders and planners' ears, no longer contain the sacred bible of knowledge, that is our historical heritage. They have forgotten that Australia is the land of the wild and untamed. Live here at your own peril. Drilling huge holes all over the State, filled with toxic chemicals, and their present 'mingling of waters', into our underground water and river systems, is another bonus, courtesy of our Corporate Government. 'We' didn't ignore anything, our Governments, Councils, Media, Economists, Developers, Mining Corporations and their Advisers did.

  Comment 7 of 48

• Martin of WA Posted at 4:27 AM January 12, 2011

  This is pessimistic. If you build cities and towns on flood plains you will experience flood. Pray for the dead. These great cities and towns will rebuild themselves.

  Comment 8 of 48

• janama Posted at 5:33 AM January 12, 2011

  Thank you Heather for not mentioning climate change :)

  Comment 9 of 48

• Sad. of Toongabbie Posted at 5:39 AM January 12, 2011

  Congratulations Heather. Your article made more sense than any other I have read on this disaster. You struck straight to the bone, peeling off all the meat that others have laboured to write about. Possible 30 million has been spent on a little creek near where I live. I hope the planners have got it right.

  Comment 10 of 48

• S of NT of Darwin Posted at 5:46 AM January 12, 2011

  well said..

  Comment 11 of 48

• Rosemary of Queensland Posted at 6:09 AM January 12, 2011

  I am a Queenslander born and bred and like many others of my generation, experienced the '74 floods. I've seen many new houses built on land that should never been built on, including low-set houses flat on concrete slabs. Queensland houses were built high on stumps for good reasons - for airflow, for catching cooling breezes, and to help mitigate flood damage. Of course if the flood is epic, then even these will eventually go under, but at least you have a fighting chance the rest of the time. Hard lessons should be learnt from this event - of building more dams, of looking for ways to build and relocate roads, rail and bridges so that during an old fashioned wet-season transport doesn't grind to a halt - and of stricter building codes in areas that are known for flooding, or are near creeks and rivers. Above all, lessons should be learnt by Governments at all levels - about the priority of where taxpayer money should be spent. Not on vague, popularist thought bubbles like the NBN or ceiling insulation, but on hard, prosaic, pragmatic infrastructure that might not win votes, but would help Australia survive the more extremes of this drought and flooding-rains country of ours.

  Comment 12 of 48

• John Good Posted at 6:25 AM January 12, 2011

  Yes Yes Yes !! We are surrounded by fools who won't listen because "they went to university and are fully qualified", it is the same with the bushfire debate and fuel reduction. Those that know and have seen the awesome force of nature live with the fact every day that at some point what they have warned people about will come true and sadly so many times it does.

  Comment 13 of 48

• phill Parsons of bilgola Posted at 6:29 AM January 12, 2011

  Expecting urban planning lessons to be learnt and implemented between rare events to take into account those events is a big ask. However, an event like this one should get a lesson learnt until the community forgets, which it usually does. Canberra apparently learnt as did the Victoria. I hope Queensland will follow suit as much as it can given the huge cost of rebuilding will inhibit replacemnt of inadequate infrastructure, if there is an adequate system for such an event. My sympathies to the victimns.

  Comment 14 of 48

• Mike McMullen Posted at 6:50 AM January 12, 2011

  I hope the Engineer mentioned has the luxury of feeling vindicated despite being pushed out of his job as a result of his commitment to standards as opposed to guilt about death and destruction as a result of backing down from them. I do not envy him in either case.

  Comment 15 of 48

• King O'Malley of Castle Cove Posted at 6:50 AM January 12, 2011

  The day when we put architects, consultants and town planners whims ahead of the advice of engineers and hydrologists is akin to putting children in charge of the playground. Like global warming hysteria, we need to grow up, apply some common sense and put the adults back in charge again.

  Comment 16 of 48

• NevilleW Posted at 6:51 AM January 12, 2011

  Thank you Heather, sitting down here in a safe high ground in Victoria, I wondered how the torrent of water could be unexpected and so catching people unawares when the water from the north had to go somewhere, you may have put a piece of the puzzle in place for me.

  Comment 17 of 48

• Jimboh of NTH Qld Posted at 7:14 AM January 12, 2011

  Onya Heather, The mind boggles sometimes when the so called expert professionals don't listen, when all it takes sometimes is to listen to the ordinary people who occasionally come up with good idea's. I wonder if the Pollies would take this on board

  Comment 18 of 48

• Wal of Winton Posted at 7:18 AM January 12, 2011

  OK, Heather, you were smart. I spent seven years at boarding school in Toowoomba in the fifties (very wet years you may remember) and there was nothing of the magnitude of this. Those two little creeks that run through the centre of Toowoomba seldom had enough water in them to wet your socks. The message really is that you cannot plan for extreme weather events and that cities and heavy rain don't mix.

  Comment 19 of 48

• Markus of New Farm Posted at 7:21 AM January 12, 2011

  How would larger pipes have helped mitigate the disaster we saw in Toowoomba?Why don't we wiat for the considererd expert findings post this disaster instead of airing the opinions of a journalist during this time of sorrow for so many people.

  Comment 20 of 48

• Stephen Morgan of Runcorn Posted at 7:25 AM January 12, 2011

  Exactly - and we did all this illogical building because we think we're above nature. The damage in Brisbane will be exacerbated because we thought that the dam would prevent 1974-style flooding...and we've built acordingly. Dams won't stop floods, that's clear. All they seem to do is stop people thinking about floods, which in some ways makes them more of a danger than a blessing. But let's not blame the dams nor praise them - they didn't make the decisions...we did!

  Comment 21 of 48

• Judi of Adelaide Posted at 7:30 AM January 12, 2011

  And Toowoomba isn't the only place that has done that. I know Adelaide doesn't always get heavy downpours, but every time it does, I know I (& a lot of others) curse the planners who use small gutters & pipes & allow building on floodplains. I'm "lucky" in that I live on the gentle slope of a hill - not at the bottom where it floods, & not enough of a slope for there to be a real danger of things like mudlsides, but I watch the water build up at the bottom of the street & through nearby streets & see people's houses get inundated. And during summer I look at all those houses with no eaves or verandahs, with huge aircons running full blast 24/7 & wonder what idiot decided that the Australian landscape could do with European designed buildings around the place. Our town planners, designers, developers, etc need to start taking our landscape into account. As QLD is currently proving, beautiful one day doesn't necessarily mean safe & beautiful tomorrow. It's going to take a lot of work to clean QLD up, but unfortunately I don't think that means lessons will be learnt, by QLD or by anywhere else in Australia. My thoughts are with you all.

  Comment 22 of 48

• jack Posted at 7:34 AM January 12, 2011

  Absolutely spot on.We are doing the same thing in the south. Building houses thatbear no relationship to the climate. No energy considerations and no demands from Councils or Governments that these be taken into consideration.As with Queensland, their wonderful architecture ignored. Lets hope this is altered now.

  Comment 23 of 48

• Jack Horton of Cunnamulla Posted at 8:04 AM January 12, 2011

  Sad but true; all town-planners should have a framed copy of the poem 'My Country' to remind them of the sudden contrasts nature can inflict on 'the wide brown land' - likewise should the many farmers who may not have come to terms with the land they farm - likewise the coastal communities & occupants of riverside mansions - these moods of nature are not new to us; we frequently incur cyclones, droughts, bushfires & floods - we may not ever know all the answers but we can certainly improve; despite all this, the Qld Govt, the BCC, the ICC, the RCC, the police, SES, army, navy, Red Cross, Salvos & ordinary volunteers demonstrate great fortitude in the face of the current adversity - they are to be recognised & applauded and rewarded by better town-planning & engineering as an integral outcome of this unfolding disaster.

  Comment 24 of 48

• lmwd of Qld Posted at 8:13 AM January 12, 2011

  Great article, along with the article looking at the history of Australian weather events. This is where we went wrong. By not understanding history, we are doomed for a repeat of disasters. Each event should be a learning â?? where to build and where not to and how to prepare for inevitable climate events. People seem to have this delusion that this event is something unprecedented, never happened before. Yes, this event may be the worst in our living memory, but the archives are full of information predicting such events. Take the BOM report written after the 74 flood. It compared that event to the 1893 flood, which saw peaks in Brisbane of over 9m and they warned that such a big event could happen again. It is why Wivenhoe Dam was built. If we want to know our future, we only need to look at our past, and that should be guiding our decisions. Instead our money and attention has been directed towards chasing hypothetical futures and this has left us ill-prepared for the return to the past.

  Comment 25 of 48

• Gemini of brisbane Posted at 8:39 AM January 12, 2011

  dear heather,i enjoyed reading your article. a refreshing style, and you have a good gift of writing. i am an engineer and sadly agree with your summation. because of the green movement, they will not build any dams, and as for re-cycled water, they dare not ask the engineers; they asked the scientists for an opinion and answers, who are busting to try anything and who don't have to stare down the threat of litigation everyday.

  Comment 26 of 48

• Brian of Longreach, Qld. Posted at 8:44 AM January 12, 2011

  I'm no engineering genius but I take note of all the old-timers when they criticise the works around the west proposed by city-based engineers and public servants.I've seen weirs washed away after they have been hit by the first fresh down the river, a highway which acted as a dam and flooded parts of the town that had never been flooded before.The old-timers said it would happen but the city experts said there would never be a problem.Thank you, Heather, for pointing it out.

  Comment 27 of 48

• Dr B S Goh of Australian in Asia Posted at 8:46 AM January 12, 2011

  It is a poignant article. May the souls of all who lost their lives rest in peace. Let us as Australians do better in managing our cities.

  Comment 28 of 48

• Ben of Sydney Posted at 8:51 AM January 12, 2011

  One again, "those who do not take heed to the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes"...

  Comment 29 of 48

• denniscav of U.S.A. Posted at 8:53 AM January 12, 2011

  A major lesson we should learn from this disaster in Australia, is that nature is still in charge, and it is we who must learn, and change our habits and behaviors, which include, modifying our arrogant attitudes aimed at, or resulting in, conquering or subduing natural forces.

  Comment 30 of 48

• Stephen Jones of Byron Bay Posted at 8:56 AM January 12, 2011

  The arrogance of mankind plays out in scenes small and large as the world's weather systems assert their eminence simultaneously in Australia, Europe and the USA...

  Comment 31 of 48

• Paul Curson Posted at 9:00 AM January 12, 2011

  And global warming means these occasional extreme events will get worse.

  Comment 32 of 48

• Mark of Melbourne Posted at 9:22 AM January 12, 2011

  I would hope that after these problems that a detailed flood plain map is drawn up for all Australians, with clear labels such as DO NOT BUILD HERE / HIGH RISK / MEDIUM RISK It may be that river systems have to be given the flood plain respect and that many towns and cities are reshaped to suit. I would think that ANY insurance company would force these changes by not providing insurance or making it very expensive for properties rebuilt in these areas.

  Comment 33 of 48

• Mark of Melbourne Posted at 9:23 AM January 12, 2011

  Personally I dont expect the Labor government to sort out these issues with land owners and developers and councils who provide building approvals and make up the rules. Perhaps councils who have given approvals to build in these areas should be held personally responsible and it might prevent some of the greed in the system. I hope that those affected will carry on in good heart but realise that the system needs radical change otherwise it will happen again and again. THe only time it is likely to change is directly after a tradegy when the politicains cannot avoid the issue as it is fresh and raw in eveyones mind. Pity Labor is technically in charge though as progress or lasting results are words I would use to describe that particular party, expect lots of words and gestures but no real action and then vote accordingly, as happened in Victoria recently.

  Comment 34 of 48

• Milly Molly Posted at 9:27 AM January 12, 2011

  Best explanation of this terrible event in Toowoomba I have read so far.Had me puzzled as the water looked as if it came from a broken dam or catchment. However building recreation areas near the river with not enough drainage to allow the water to run off quickly would also have caused such a problem. Appreciate the article.Sadly I also think that Queensland's cycle of long years of drought broken by massive flooding events (which are documented from the 1890s onwards) seems to have been dismissed as unimportant in our planning for towns and water management. Just because there is a long time lapse between such events doesn't mean they won't happen again...they will.

  Comment 35 of 48

• peter hindrup of bondi junction Posted at 9:36 AM January 12, 2011

  A thoughtful observation by person who absorbed the reality of the unrestrained and unrestrainable power of the elements. City born people do no know and cannot know the immensity of the event which from time to time we will be confronted and some who have had the chance to observe, choose to forget.People are comforted by the 'once in a hundred years' tag placed upon many natural events. We are being reminded that such tags are meaningless, meaningless and offer false comfort.With more extreme weather occurring more often being predicted the rational approach is to begin a reappraisal of past practices and to begin the changes needed to manage the new reality, but there is not a chance that it will happen.( I grew up in Gisborne, NZ, which flooded regularly before the massive flood mitigation works were carried out.)

  Comment 36 of 48

• Jane in Brisbane of Brisbane Posted at 9:39 AM January 12, 2011

  Beautifully written - and very accurate.

  Comment 37 of 48

• Manorina of Queensland Posted at 9:43 AM January 12, 2011

  The type of cloudburst event which occurred on Monday in Toowoomba is rare but when they hit urban areas they are particularly destructive.This is because all rain that falls on a hardened surface like roofs and roads runs off and overwhelms storm water drainage.Apart from removing existing habitations and preventing further building near drainage lines there is not much that can be done.It is inevitable that streets will become drainage lines in extreme scenarios.Given the past record of local,state and federal governments in allowing developer greed to hold sway I don't give much chance for even the prohibition of future flood plain development let alone a managed retreat from these areas.

  Comment 38 of 48

• Andrew of Ipswich Posted at 9:54 AM January 12, 2011

  Heads should roll that good engineering advice has cost many lives and damaged so much property. Form should follow function. There is no point in having a pretty landscape if it can't deal with the reasonably predictable flood flows

  Comment 39 of 48

• Sylvia M. Murray of Perth Posted at 2:49 PM January 12, 2011

  I wonder about the cutting down of forests in the history of "the flooding plains" of Dorothy McKeller. What has been established about flooding rivers prior to white settlement? Sylvia Murray

  Comment 40 of 48

• Sunnysandgroper of WA Posted at 3:11 PM January 12, 2011

  Good luck over there.As with all things where good advice was overlooked for bad I hope that some of the votes received, promotions given and contracts awarded are closely scrutinised now. Perhaps redress by reversing the promotion for the planner promoting low height developments in low lying areas and giving a gee up to the hydrologist/engineer sitting in the back-office? Fat-chance, this is Australia in 2011, the dollar rules as do the ruling majorities. The rest of us can go suck eggs.

  Comment 41 of 48

• Engineer in the maze Posted at 3:42 PM January 12, 2011

  Welcome to the world of 'Modern Engineering'....attempting to satisfy the beanies and somehow maintain engineering integrity. It gets worse when the rate/tax payers money is spent by politicians on 'community projects' this normally means vote buying or believing the results from a survey of 100 people. Somehow I do not think this game is going to change...imagine if your local councillers were not allowed to override an engineering judgement, engineering would then also become political.

  Comment 42 of 48

• Cyclophile of Sunny Melbourne Posted at 3:48 PM January 12, 2011

  Excellent article, although it is yet to be established whether the 18-footers would have prevented, or mitigated, the disaster. But I do like the general thesis, that more regard should be had to environmental factors and to expert (in this case, engineering) advice, and less to the whims of developers and architects. Very much a Green perspective!

  Comment 43 of 48

• skydrake3 of Toowoomba Posted at 3:51 PM January 12, 2011

  Very true! We came to live in Twmba 6 years ago, following a couple of visits to this pleasant town. When you drive out of Twmba to the West, North and South you mostly see tree denuded of trees, leaving only naked earth; in dry season covered by dead grass, now green. It is a smooth land, with no places for water to accumulate, stay and sink in. The Kearney springs are still within the city perimeter and I understand that only some 15 years ago there was still a spring, bringing out fresh water...Now all is levelled out, leaving a few shallow scenic ponds...but these are not meant as buffer to hold water and prevent flooding somewhere further down, and in fact the city smart hydro engineers have created smoothly betoned out: a real highways for the water to run through. The pleasant lunch-break basin between the library and Grand Central is shallow and fills fast with the deposited soil and it does not serve water in any way, only our -foolish- aesthetics. No wonder that the accelerated water has created major havoc particularly here and at the end of that concrete highway in Russell str. Not far from the railway stationâ?¦The Eastern creek has been put into a straight jacket too...

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• Rodger of Scarborough, Qld Posted at 3:54 PM January 12, 2011

  Heather's article is a well written and honest observation, so it seems from reading it, and I would agree, too much of our constructions in this country ignore the fact that this is Australia, I extend this to the whole of the nation as I have only minutes ago seen Flood pictures from another part of our country Photo's taken this morning, while the Floods down in Victoria are not to the scale we are seeing in here in Queensland, it does along with the Bush Fires in WA highlight the fact that this Country of ours is a Beautiful, Heartless and Deadly landscape, housing not only many of the most poisonous spiders and Snakes, but a harsh and unforgiving weather system, when will we learn that we cannot recreate European and Chinese architecture or make Modern Art designs out of towns, without placing ourselves and our children at great risk? we have the knowledge and technology to limit the damage of Australia harsh environment, we just refuse to use it

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• Bec Posted at 3:55 PM January 12, 2011

  The paddocks surrounding my old highschool used to flood considerably every couple of years, as did the school grounds themselves - there are now 2 new, large satellite downs on those same grounds. How many of those people - whose houses will inevitably flood - knew of this? I would say none of them - unless they had local knowledge of the area. It's sad how money overtakes human safety.

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• Bill Posted at 3:59 PM January 12, 2011

  A city which rejected re-cycled water; a city which rejected good engineering.Stick to good planning and good science.

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• John W Jenks of Brisbane Posted at 4:04 PM January 12, 2011

  Very well written. It is a pity that these things happen which they do every 20 to 30 years and that may be the reasons we forget these things do happen. The really sad part is that although we may not know what the results would have been if these developments had not been done, developers do things to make money and often greed and dare I say coruption occurs to get the end results that also result in inocent people suffering. We build unsuitable buildings in flood prone and bushfire prone areas and we don't seem to learn by the dissasters that occur.

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