skip to main |
skip to sidebar
An unusual occurrence - happening today. Lots of rain on Uluru [ Ayers Rock].
 |
| Raining on the Rock |
Central Australia is getting a decent amount of rain, in fact one of the wettest May days on record. Many areas west of Alice Springs receiving 40 - 60mm to 0900hrs this morning, with Alice Springs rain commencing around lunch time.
Rumours hath it that Darwin may also get some of this from the same system. BUT BUT........they are finally predicting some true dry season weather by the weekend, after this burst of rainy weather moves east. Cooler nights, drier days and maybe no more rain - for a while.
Unfortunately, there are a few indicators in the climate sphere, that do not augur well for a decent dry season, with predictors of possibly more rain in coming months around the Top End and certainly more rain for central Australia.
Should not complain too loudly - the past two dry seasons were fantastic weather. It cannot always be like that though.
Looking forward to this coming weekend for better weather!
Scientific American recently published an interesting piece on guns, titled Gun Science, and written by Michael Shermer, the writer of the Skeptics column each month. Published in May 2013, and available here - http://www.michaelshermer.com/2013/05/gun-science/ .
The comments deliver a lot of flak to the writer, as he trys to justify better gun management /control / laws in the US.
As an outsider looking in, I do not pretend to fully comprehend the deep psyche that seems to condone gun ownership in the US. That may be understandable.......but the timid steps being taken over heavy military type guns seemed eminently sensible to most outside the US. Better management and control of "heavy düty guns" seemed a no brainer.
Shermer covers some details of evidence based policy management on firearms, injuries and deaths from guns as well as referencing a seminal book about how society turned over confrontational dispute settling by mostly violence [ think PNG or aboriginal society as an example in our neighbourhood] to the rule of law and judicial action [ Steven Pinker 2011, "The Better Angels of Our Nature"]. Most societies seem to have found another solution, but that might not apply to those seemingly ostracised from that society, sometimes an element in major gun or violent events.
The NRA and associated law makers from both major political parties seems to have society by the short and curlies in the US over gun control, and nothing seems to happen on the issue in the USA.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4658044.html
This is a link to a recent article entitled "Can innovation drive sustainable growth" by Satyadit Das.
Provocative, thoughtful and even confrontational..........but there is a lot of thoughtful background that seems to suggest that growth is a bit problematical right now.
Maybe, it is an illusion. More like changing deck chairs on the Titanic - going down was inevitable! And is growth going down or backwards? While parts of Asia are growing at around 5-7%, much of the world is less than 1%; some are in recession.
Is a better music player, or a new version of Twitter or Facebook really progress and growth in the world? Maybe more effort in producing food might be economic growth?
Read the article, and there are lots of comments, many of which are reasonably thoughtful, not just crappy sound offs.
Is the author correct in the assessments he makes?
The weather is a bit crazy.......and many say that anyway.
But today marks the start of the dry season officially. And we have a cyclone brewing in the Coral Sea and rain forecast for the next few days across the Top End.
Night minimum temperatures are still above 25C in Darwin, although creeping down below 20C in the rural area.
Are we going to have a non dry season, dry season?? It has happened before with the May to September period with very few cool nights and not too many dry days, and the max temperature often a few degrees above 30C.
Not nice........got to have a few cool nights to actually belive it can cool down in Darwin.
Lets see wht happens after this damp period coming. Surely we must get some cooler nights SOON!!!
