i'm officially a skeptic.....

" Senator Barnaby Joyce Leader of the Nationals in the Senate 21st October 2009

THE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION In Senate Economics Estimates today, Senator Joyce asked the CSIRO the million dollar question, or should that be the hundred billion dollar question, “Will the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme change the temperature of the globe?” The answer confirmed my worst fears in that I could not get the answer “Yes”. I was told it would depend on global factors of course! There will be no global factors if the rest of the world is not part of a global scheme. The CSIRO was sensibly and more inclined to tell me that my question was a policy issue. That is correct as it lacks scientific credibility that there will be any discernable change in the climate by reason of an Australian ETS. Later in the morning, the chief scientist said there would be a change in the climate by way of an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme. She also acknowledged there would be a change in the climate if I personally parked my car in the garage. That is to say an indiscernible change, apart from the fact that the process involved in the most absurd form of minutia, follows the same mathematics as the overall equation of climate change. The Australian Emissions Trading Scheme is merely a policy, a political statement, a gesture. The cost to the Australian citizen of this massive new tax associated with it, is very real however. If you are involved in the emission of carbon, which might be from anything as obscure as ironing your clothes, cooking dinner, putting fertiliser on your field or pouring a concrete slab for your house, you will pay the tax. You may not see it but you will definitely pay it. The removal of wealth from your life and transferred to the Treasury will be discernable, with the commission going to stock brokers and bankers on the way through. I have to query, is the purpose of the Emissions Trading Scheme to cool the planet, which clearly it will not do, or is it to prop up a parlous state of our Government finances? The more I hear, the more I am inclined to the latter. Australians will deliver tens of billions of dollars to the Treasury by reason of this tax in the near future. There is far more empirical evidence in what it will cost you, the resident of Australia, than any scientific evidence that an emissions scheme will do anything for the climate. Media Inquiries David Allender 074625 1500 0428 196 340 "

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new toys......

i bought a new toy a couple of weeks ago. i justify it by saying i needed a new camera to take good photos on our trip to nz in a couple of days. i still have a lot to learn but i'll get there. i had a couple of good weekends to practice with weddings and football. we'll update whilst on the road hopefully, if our motels have good internet!

the week that was.........

well i dont know where the last week has gone but i guess when you have something on everyday and or night, you dont have much time to think. work has been busy enough with diseases and insects keeping us out in the paddock and a nice drop of rain will get everyone excited about planting. the jury is still out on whether planting now is a good thing or bad thing, but we'll soon see how they look as they get out of the ground.

last weekend chloe and i attended the annual darling downs cotton growers association awards dinner, its always a good night to catch up with people and hand out some awards that recognise different peoples achievments.

then on saturday i had my cousins wedding, another night out, this time with all the skerman relations. twas fun and a lovley day, by late this night i was relying on the coffee to keep me awake.

on sunday we went out to mum and dad's for breakfast, which was really more like brunch, to celebrate fathers day. i gave dad a top gear dvd, probably a lame present but we all love cars and top gear so it was good to watch a couple of episodes before chloe and i.......

......drove to brisbane to watch andrew (and the others in the team i guess) play the 'last' home game of the season. well regular season anyway, i believe they can still get a home preliminary final if all goes well, but we'll be in nz if they do so it was the last game we'll see live for the season. i've never been to as many live games as this year, for obvious reasons. but having andrew playing was a great excuse to get to as many as we could and i think we only missed 3 or so home games. i am sick of the roadworks and traffic getting to brisbane but, there no avoiding it.

which brings me to another topical issue around the parts at the moment, the traffic and road conditions from dalby to toowoomba. we had the unfortuate experience of driving past/taking a detour around the crash near oakey on our way home from the football late on saturday night, and on my way home from toowoomba yesterday after taking a ute down for a service, again i had to take a detour as the road was blocked yet again because of another accident. my stomach churned and i felt sick as i knew one day this would happen and i would know someone in an accident who may be hurt or even killed. and low and behold, i get back to dalby and learn trevor and lyn, whom i have worked for in the past and are good friends of ours were in the accident.

people need to start using some common sense when driving on this road, everyone is impatient and try to overtake at any opportunity, darting in and out from behind trucks to see if another car is coming. you need to allow nearly an hour and a half to get to t'bar during the day and thats just what has to be done.

it makes me nervous. everytime myself or chloe has to drive that way i cringe and pray that we'll make it there safely.

keep it real.
daniel.

teenage affluenza

stu used this video as an intro into his talk on saturday night at the edge cafe. i like a

good dose of sarcasm, but i struggled with the seriousness of the topic and the level of

sarcasm. what do you think??

also the dudes voice sounded sweet through my p.a......

daniel.

winter seems done....

so yesterday and today we got a reminder of what summer is like again. i hadnt forgotton, but i could have held off for a little longer. it was a shock to the body after being out checking chickpeas all day, then having to front up for touch. even though i seemed to consume my 2.5 litre water bottle at least 1 and a half times i still felt ready to curl up in bed. but, as happens every year the body will slowly acclimatise.

we won touch and if i may boast about the one try i did set up. it was the old dont rush up out of the line on darren lockyer situation and leave a wide hole for him/me to run through. i'm really not much of a play maker but it does feel good to make a break a set up a try once and a while. as josh would say, 'it's good for the self esteem'.

daniel.

new blog.....

so i have decided to start blogging. again. the other blog attached to this account was the one i used when i was in canada in 2005 and it served its purpose well, even my grandparents looked forward to logging onto the net (via there dialup connection!) to find out where i was and what i was up to.

that blog died as soon as i got home as i didnt thing i had a reason to keep a blog going. but i think i could use it as a tool to share what i do and what i'm passionate about sharing. i think this one will be a blog mostly about what i do. which i think means it will fit under the category of 'personal' blog and hopefully 'informational'.

hopefully i can make this blog look a bit more visually appealing, i'm one of those people who loves a well designed website or blog, but i have no idea how to do it. so if anyone who happens to read this wants to help me out please feel free to shoot me ideas. i really didnt pay attention to the basics of programming in ipt at high school. even though we did manage a very basic mathematics program in ...... i can't even remember the program but it was a simple version of C+. lachlan and i generally sat up the back eating skittles and playing an little random game we could smuggle in on a 3.5 inch floppy disk.

so i guess i'll stick with a dodgy standard template for now, which i guess does the job fine and correctly displays my ability when it come to that sort of thing!

i'm currently at work, about to go home cause nothing has happened all morning, which is a good thing as i was able to give my ute a good clean out and also set this blog up. and i also got all technical in my ever growing gross margin spreadsheet by adding some new things to help analyise this best options for this years summer crop options. with all commodity prices looking a bit grim at them moment its like picking the best of a bad buch. however, i think if this hot dry weather keeps up the grains are going to continue to be more and more sought after so they might be starting to gain back some ground on cotton.

my old band is also reuniting tonight for a outreach event in dalby town. the youth group from michelton pressy, led by our good old friend and dalbyite stu hoadley are in town. i think they have been up the street this morning with our edge youth group doing surveys and 2 ways 2 live and inviting people to the dinner tonight. i think we are only playing 2 or 3 acoustic songs but its always fun to make some noise. oh, and share the good news of Jesus of course!

cheers daniel.