living in filth?

People often go about their daily business and remain ignorant of the systems and methods we use to enable ourselves to live.

People who live in western countries are often oblivious as to why we live comfortable lives and places in developing countries are often squalid and filthy. Much of public health comes from clean water and effective waste water disposal.

I read today that the floods have damaged the Brisbane waste water treatment plant:

Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) director general John Bradley said Oxley Creek's enterococci levels, which indicate sewage contamination, were "250 times higher" than normal.

"Unfortunately there's nothing to stop that sewer outflow coming into Oxley Creek," he told ABC Radio.

"Queensland United Utilities has a team of 60 people working around the clock to get the plant back online.

"But that's still likely to be six weeks before they have got disinfection processes in place to remove the sewage contamination."

Mr Bradley said there were concerns for the health of fish. "Queensland Health have advised people to avoid coming into contact with water in the Brisbane River system and also Moreton Bay," Mr Bradley said.

its lucky for us we have separation of water supply and waste water treatment, unlike some areas of Australia where the water supply comes from the river ...

So we need to be careful in our planning and building that we don't make our systems fragile enough that they can be destroyed by a natural disaster and have us all living in filth.

Think about how long it would take Brisbane (let alone Sydney or Melbourne) to become unlivable if utilities such as:

• water
• waste water
• garbage
• transport

broke down.

We'd quickly be living in filth

how wrong thinking perpetuates false facts

Why do people just go on repeating things, with no concept of the meaning of what they are saying. Its how, once something gets into the public consciousness its hard to get rid of it. Stupid shit like "the world is the center of the solar system" perpetuates because the people in charge of communications perpetuate it.

Climate Change is currently all the rage and quite a significant contentious issue, but it shits me to tears when people (who don't have a clue) pull out current buzz words to jazz up their articles.

Here's a classic example:



Looking into the article we see something completely different; its raising taxes for repairing the flood damage ... Susan either has no idea that the flood is not linked to Climate Change or is simply trying to make her headline stand out from the pack of other writers.

However she essentially does her small part in confusing the public and perpetuating the mis-information about climate issues. If you have any interest in understanding why I say this is not related to "Climate Change" I encourage you to listen to this podcast with Professor Stewart Franks, interviewed recently on the ABC

Susan, if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
So, what she really should have written was "Australia raises a tax to assist in flood recovery"

more accurate and to the point.

Attributing things to wrong causes simply makes defeating that thing easier when there is no relationship found. So when people identify that there is no link to climate change the will rightly attack the levy for the wrong reasons.

Susan ... stop being part of the problem.

Draining the Spit

we tried to go swimming yesterday on the beach which is 10Km from our home. When we got near to the location we found that the Police had closed the road.

We were taken aback as there was nothing published about this, no sign on the entry, nothing.

I called the Road Traffic authority this morning and found that the reason police had closed it was to "allow it to drain". So the Police were in effect doing what every trumpet player does, which is to drain the spit.

Nice expression and neatly sums up how I feel about the vast tide of people who now come here every holiday.

Since the 50's the Gold Coast has been portrayed by "business leaders" as variously:

• a great place to invest in real estate
• a grate place to come and be unemployed and just hang out
• famous for fun

Its a circus .. come one come all ...

Well if you live here for long enough it starts to grate. If you've lived here for 10 years you start to get the shits with things because in that time development will have made it more crowded, more hassle, and more annoying then when you arrived.

The Spit is the classic example of blatant irresponsible development. Out on the Spit we have:

• public boat access
• public beach access
• major hotels
• major tourist attractions (like Sea World)

with one thin road as access into it.

As you can see you come in to the Gold Coast on (say) the Smith St entrance you funnel down to Marine Parade. From there there is really nowhere for those 4 lanes of traffic you came down the M1 in to go to, as the ultimate squeeze will happen as you go across the bridge and attempt to go into either Surfers Paradise, or over onto the spit (and up to Sea World or any of the other "attractions").

With thousands of cars attempting to get in and get out at the same time on a road with roundabouts no wonder it bloody clogs up.

Yesterday was Australia Day and like almost any other day which attracts heaps of people to the coast the place was filled up, and the Police blocked off the road access into the Spit.

What is annoying to a resident like me is that there was no sign, no warning, nothing at all to let me know that I should just stay inside my home and not go out.

Growing up on the Gold Coast you learn as a kid that holiday times mean your favorite places to hang out are suddenly over crowded with a bunch of people who have no respect for you and think that they own the place. Naturally this creates a feeling that tourist = negative.

Strangely enough things get worse when you get older as the only jobs in the area are in "service" positions kowtowing to and cleaning up after these people. It does not create any positive aspects for the local people. Actually this story can be found all over the world where tourists are encouraged to flock and frolic.

Back to the urban development issue, its worrying that this development was allowed to occur in the first place. It is more worrying that the Government has removed public transport into the place (notice the street called Railway street just there in Southport?)



Well that's where the old Southport railway station used to go to. From there its just a quick walk to the broardwater and easy to provide effective transport around the place.

But now the station is out at Helensvale ... so people just drive here.

Like all things in this country its all about allow someone with a lot of money to make more and the locals and general taxpayer to sort out getting around the problems created by it all.

the price of juice

Filled the scooter this morning (took 12l) and had to pay just over $18 for the pleasure.

Gosh, it wasn't that long ago that it was under $12. I wondered "why is fuel going up so much lately" and a quick look at the spot prices seems to show that crude is going up too.



strangely however compared to a few years ago it is only just re-gaining ground on the 2008 prices ...



I don't recall paying AUD$1.4 / liter for fuel back in 2008 ... so why the spike now?

Is it just that the real value of the dollar is falling? Personally I find currency fluctuations make looking at things difficult ... so lets toss in gold values from Kitco(instead of that fiat paper monopoly money stuff)



So while oil went from US$85 per barrel up to $137 and back down to US$34; gold had a trip up to US$1000 / ounce and back down to US$700, so it seems to be following gold at first glance.

So maybe my $1.40 is only worth what $1 bought me in 2008 ... I don't like that inflation rate.