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Miniposts 0.6.5

Scientist Steve Schneider Flips Fears
On the TV show In Search Of…The Coming Ice Age, Steven Schneider wonders whether mankind should intervene in staving off a coming ice age.  Watch the old footage on YouTube here. (24)

Australian Liberals Oppose Carbon Trading
Australian Opposition Leader (Malcolm Turnbull) will be forced to stare down more than two-thirds of the Liberal back bench if he proceeds with his plan to negotiate with the government over amendments to the emissions trading scheme before December’s Copenhagen climate change conference.   Read more here. (2)

Not Evil Just Wrong
Buy the DVD by clicking on the flashing icon above. (1)

Climate Change Summit in New York
In New York… Chinese leader Hu Jintao … U.S. President Barack Obama more or less shuffled climate control policy off into the great dreamscape of unattainable plans and long range objectives. Like equality for all and peace in our time …  Terence Corcoran, Financial Post (1)

Minerals Industry Now Complaining
THE [Australian] minerals industry has demanded [the Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd overhaul his proposed emissions trading system or risk smashing Australian jobs and the nation’s industrial competitiveness.  Read more here. (1)

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Disclaimer: The inclusion of a blog or website in this list should not be taken as an endorsement of its contents by me.

Counting Cows In Outback Australia

A Queensland jackeroo   (’jackeroo’=cowboy, Australian version!)   is overseeing his herd in remote territory when suddenly a brand-new BMW advances out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a designer suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, ‘If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?’ 
 
The jackaroo looks at the man, obviously a yuppie   (’yuppie’=A young city or suburban resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent lifestyle) , then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, ‘Sure, why not?’ 
 
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite tha t scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany . 
 
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, ‘You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.’ 
 
‘That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,’ says the Cowboy. 
 
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. 
 
Then the cowboy says to the young man, ‘Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?’
 
&n bsp;The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, ‘Okay, why not?’
 
 ’You work for the Australian Government’, says the Jackeroo.
 
 ’Wow! That’s correct,’ says the yuppie, ‘but how did you guess that?’ 
 
‘No guessing required.’ answered the jackeroo. ‘You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used all ki nds of expensive equipment that clearly somebody else paid for, You t ried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about cows … this is a flock of sheep. Now give me back my dog.’    

[via Denis Barrett]

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