I’ve been asked to open a new thread. So, why not introduce a new topic? I really like goat’s cheese, and especially Meredith Dairy goat cheese. 
This is an unsolicited advertisement for one of my favourite foods.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
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As open subjects go this is verging on the desperate!
Goats cheese!! OK, I like goats cheese, but what else is one supposed to say?
Cheese …
I could mention the annual cheese building competition in Lenzie. It’s a rather exclusive club (my family), but the rules are simple: build the longest bridge from cheese. (Although last year due to a slight misunderstanding with my wife who did not realise that just because it was lunch, we wanted the cheese for serious purposes and that cutting it into thin slices was not ideal … we had to allow cocktail sticks to hold it together).
And no … it wasn’t goats cheese … it was instead that brick like block of plastic that has “cheese” on the label.
Jen, I’ll look out for the Meredith Dairy product, but I’m a sheep cheese man. I chase the stuff, and I’ve also been chased away by big wooly Maremma dogs in the sheep country south of Siena. (Just wanted to get close to the source, but those Maremmas…)
Liberalisation of pasteurisation laws might be a good topic. If it’s legal to import those high end cheeses which aren’t pasteurised why not allow unpasteurised local product. Standards need to be sky-high, but Aussie producers would be up to the challenge.
I’m not a sophisticated cheese man myself but have tasted some exotic samples recently. I’ll have a go at goat’s cheese one day if I get the chance.
Here’s another example of their ABC distorting history AGAIN. Poor Pete Seeger was just a nice progressive who followed that other nice progressive uncle Joe Stalin, who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Geeeezzzzz don’t these dummies ever read any real history at all?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/if_stalinism_is_progressive_then_what_do_we_call_the_abc/
What to do at the beach… http://www.viralnova.com/beach-art/
Boy oh boy Jennifer that’s a bloke with a lot of time and energy, but good luck to him. Certainly a talented bloke as well.
BTW California is at present suffering a drought that some BELIEVE is made worse by CAGW. I think Obama and Brown have both jumped on this bandwagon recently.
But droughts in California were much worse over the last few thousand years. In fact some mega droughts lasted for hundreds of years and the last 100 years has been one of the wettest for thousands of years.
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more
Boy ya gotta luv these scientists that want a bet each way. It seems that cyclones are fewer ( around OZ) today than at other periods during the past 1500 years.
But this could be due to AGW of course and atlantic cyclones have increased according to the same team. Duuuuhhhh. But the IPCC tell us there has been a reduction in Atlantic cyclones over the past 50 years as well , so who do you believe?
You couldn’t make this stuff up, but they all do it.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/cyclones_rarer_today_than_for_1500_years_global_warming_thanked/#commentsmore
Moving effortlessly from cheese to cutting cheese:
Nov. 2013: Fiercer El Nino weather ahead
Australia will face fiercer El Nino weather patterns – causing severe drought – as a result of human-induced global warming, world-first research by Sydney scientists has shown.
As the world gets warmer, the eastern Pacific is expected to warm faster than the west.
These extraordinary events involve sea-surface temperatures warming in the west of the Pacific Basin and spreading eastwards, the reverse of more typical El Ninos.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/fiercer-el-nino-weather-ahead-20131118-2xrg5.html
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n2/full/nclimate2100.html
16 January 2014, Nature 505, 276–278 (16 January 2014) doi:10.1038/505276a;
Climate change: The case of the missing heat
Scientists may get to test their theories soon enough.
At present, strong tropical trade winds are pushing ever more warm water westward towards Indonesia, fuelling storms such as November’s Typhoon Haiyan, and nudging up sea levels in the western Pacific; they are now roughly 20 centimetres higher than those in the eastern Pacific. Sooner or later, the trend will inevitably reverse.
“You can’t keep piling up warm water in the western Pacific,” Trenberth says.
“At some point, the water will get so high that it just sloshes back.”
And when that happens, if scientists are on the right track, the missing heat will reappear and temperatures will spike once again.
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
January 22, 2014
Tipping El Ninos harder as Pacific sensor array output ‘collapses’
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tipping-el-ninos-harder-as-pacific-sensor-array-output-collapses-20140122-318q4.html
Paul Sheehan has written a top column in the Canberra times exposing the scum in the Labor party and their union mates. We need a royal commission into these con merchants, fraudsters and thugs tomorrow.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/craig-thomsons-day-in-court-gives-cause-to-remember-gillards-day-in-parliament-20140129-31mv5.html
Love cheese.
This is the MT of cheese imported into Australia each year since 1964
1964 3 (1000 MT) NA
1965 3 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1966 4 (1000 MT) 33.33 %
1967 4 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1968 4 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1969 6 (1000 MT) 50.00 %
1970 7 (1000 MT) 16.67 %
1971 6 (1000 MT) -14.29 %
1972 6 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1973 8 (1000 MT) 33.33 %
1974 7 (1000 MT) -12.50 %
1975 8 (1000 MT) 14.29 %
1976 10 (1000 MT) 25.00 %
1977 11 (1000 MT) 10.00 %
1978 11 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1979 12 (1000 MT) 9.09 %
1980 12 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1981 13 (1000 MT) 8.33 %
1982 17 (1000 MT) 30.77 %
1983 20 (1000 MT) 17.65 %
1984 22 (1000 MT) 10.00 %
1985 22 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1986 20 (1000 MT) -9.09 %
1987 19 (1000 MT) -5.00 %
1988 21 (1000 MT) 10.53 %
1989 20 (1000 MT) -4.76 %
1990 21 (1000 MT) 5.00 %
1991 23 (1000 MT) 9.52 %
1992 25 (1000 MT) 8.70 %
1993 25 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
1994 27 (1000 MT) 8.00 %
1995 28 (1000 MT) 3.70 %
1996 33 (1000 MT) 17.86 %
1997 32 (1000 MT) -3.03 %
1998 31 (1000 MT) -3.13 %
1999 33 (1000 MT) 6.45 %
2000 38 (1000 MT) 15.15 %
2001 43 (1000 MT) 13.16 %
2002 45 (1000 MT) 4.65 %
2003 51 (1000 MT) 13.33 %
2004 49 (1000 MT) -3.92 %
2005 49 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
2006 61 (1000 MT) 24.49 %
2007 68 (1000 MT) 11.48 %
2008 70 (1000 MT) 2.94 %
2009 65 (1000 MT) -7.14 %
2010 76 (1000 MT) 16.92 %
2011 72 (1000 MT) -5.26 %
2012 76 (1000 MT) 5.56 %
2013 76 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
2014 76 (1000 MT) 0.00 %
As you see the increase each year is directly increasing at the same rate as CO2 ppm concentration in the world. Just jokin…..
Yet our production of cheese has fallen from 364,000 tonnes to 349,000 tonnes in the last five years.
Just about all manufactured products in Australia have decreased over the last six years, apart from unfortified wine and Alumina.
But Woolies & Coles domiate cheese sales, to the exclusion of Australian made and owned.
And deception is rife also, I think BEGA only make BEGA Vintage on site. This started years ago and now I buy from our local Kennilworth Cheese or other manufacturer I know is true Australian.
But I have never taken that well to any goats cheese, but will try this one.
Sorry, but did you say cheeseshop?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yci3Fa6zDLg
Have not checked, but think there was no goat cheese available
Is goat cheese less carbon intensive than brie?
sp. so many different types of cheese, except in that clean shop.
and thanks for the cheese stats Dave.
Jennifer,
That’s raw data too. Not homogenised, thermomixed and adjusted.
Just raw cheese data. Many government bodies should follow this lead. As the raw data seems to tell a true story.
Labor’s mess just continues to grow.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/trusting_craig/
The EU seems to be waking up to the ponzi schemes of useless S&W but still intends to waste 7 trillion dollars for no measurable change to climate or temp and ditto SLR.
Has there ever been more obvious fraud and corruption in world history?
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/project_syndicate/2013/11/climate_change_the_eu_wants_to_spend_7_trillion_on_projects_that_will_barely.html
“Has there ever been more obvious fraud and corruption in world history?” yes in climate denial – Neville now a refugee from Bazza’s kindy maths class.
Luke you mean bazza’s wishful thinking, dumbing down via his silly nonsense class of fantasy. He just stupidly made up his own fantasy numbers then tried to con everyone it was factual. What a joke. But you’d fall for it every day of the week you dummy.
The piece above is a bit like their ABC’s latest garbage and lies about illegal que jumpers. They just keep making up more lies and deception to replace their past lies.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/disgrace_abc_reports_more_mistreatment_when_it_actually_found_evidence_our_/
Meanwhile thanks to Scott Morrison and the Coalition there hasn’t been any boat arrivals for 6 weeks. And most importantly there has been no drowning since the Coalition’s election. Don’t forget Howard had fixed the illigal immigration problem for years, but Rudd and Gillard wrecked the system and over 1000 people lost their lives because of Labor’s stupidity.
More on the Coalition’s good work stopping the the illegal immigration fraud. You’d think the morons at Fairfax and their ABC would be happy with these excellent results, but they’d rather return to the clueless Labor and Green’s mess and over 1000 people drowned as a result.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/no_boats_and_no_drownings_for_six_weeks_greens_and_labor_demand_answers/
Anyone for abrupt CC? From Gail Combs at WUWT.
Gail Combs says:
January 30, 2014 at 11:36 am
dbstealey says: @ January 30, 2014 at 11:26 am
…..The temperature fluctuation over the past century and a half has been an amazingly steady ±0.8ºC……….People just do not understand how good the present climate is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes! Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations, Bond events and Heinrich events that cause global temps to change 16C and 8, 10C in dramatically short times.
Richard B. Alley of the U.Penn. chaired the National Research Council on Abrupt Climate Change. for well over a decade. In 2002, the NAS (alley chair) published a book “Abrupt Climate Change”:
. From the opening paragraph in the executive summary:
“….Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age….”
In his book, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future Richard Alley, one of the world’s leading climate researchers, tells the fascinating history of global climate changes as revealed by reading the annual rings of ice from cores drilled in Greenland. In the 1990s he and his colleagues made headlines with the discovery that the last ice age came to an abrupt end over a period of only three years….
Prehistoric art of the Kimberley
http://www.convictcreations.com/aborigines/bradshaws.htm
Take a gander at the first picture at the top of the page. He appears to be a white guy. Yes, that could be face paint. Moreover he has a Roman nose.
Now here’s the kicker: The person in this 20k(?) year old rock art appears to be wearing eyglasses! Caveat: In all fairness, only half the people to whom I’ve shown this picture can see the glasses. And AFAIK, I’m the first person to have noticed this.
Other Bradshaw rock art shows that the ancient people of the area were boat builders. In a technological sense, the Bradshaw people appeared to more advanced than their contemporaries everywhere else on the planet. With or without eyeglasses.
The late Graham Walsh has taken many thousands of photos of the Bradshaws. In his Politically Incorrect paleo-artistic investigation of the area, Walsh has opened quite a can of worms. I’d also like to thank Chad, who is an artist in his own right, for putting the Bradshaw article on his website.
FYI. A letter received about the ABC…
Dear Jennifer Marohasy,
The ABC is out of control.
Last week’s disgraceful and unsubstantiated smears are just the latest in a radical ideological campaign by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.
The ABC’s consistent support of fringe big-government policies, and its consistent refusal to present balanced reporting, is a national disgrace.
The ABC receives a staggering $1.1 billion in our taxes a year – and for what?
It should surprise no-one that 40% of ABC journalists surveyed admitting voting for the Greens, and a further 32% for Labor.
And can you name even a single non-left broadcaster on ABC Radio – remembering that the ABC has over fifty radio stations?
We need to take urgent and decisive action now.
Tweaking the ABC Board is not the solution – it’s been tried and failed.
Re-examining the ABC Charter is not the solution – the ABC has shown it can and will ignore its charter.
It is time for a wholesale root and branch review of the ABC and its future in Australia. And it needs to happen now.
In an era of unparalleled media diversity in Australia, with the media bringing with it a wealth of diverse independent entertainment and news services, what role has a taxpayer funded, government run juggernaut have to play?
Do we really need ABC music-radio dominance destroying the Australian Music scene?
Do we really need ABC blogs crowding out independent online media?
Do we really need a government run 24 news channel?
The list of question goes on…
The Federal Government needs to seriously address these issues and ask the hard questions.
But we need your help to make them do it.
Earlier today, Federal Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull defended the ABC – something he has done many times in the past.
This is not surprising; given the high degree of support the ABC has given Mr Turnbull.
However, as Minister for Communications, Mr Turnbull’s priority must be to the Australian people – and not to his mates at the ABC.
We have set up a campaign for Australians to contact their MP and demand an urgent review.
… visit https://www.taxpayers.org.au/the-abc-is-out-of-control/
Jen, re all the media claims of cyclone flooding with the “highest tide of the year” today, I thought I would let you know that in SEQ it is about 10 cms lower than the HAT earlier this month.
Which was in turn about the same amount lower that 68 years ago.
Still waiting for SLR!
The only good thing about their ABC is that it is surely driving a stake into the heart of barking mad media groups like Fairfax etc.
There is only a certain number of morons who read , listen and view this sort of garbage and the ABC is now crowding out these other mad left groupings.
But we should all demand a fair go for conservative and libertarian groups from this taxpayer funded left wing and biased corporation because we pay our taxes as well.
I can hardly stomach any of their garbage on TV and radio anymore and we should demand more commonsense from our pollies. Although Turnbull is a lost cause as far as I’m concerned.
.
Hi Jennifer,
Sorry, I couldn’t think of any suitably ‘cheesy’ comments for this open thread. I’ll have to rest on my laurels. *puts on serious face*
Why not defund the entire ABC, and save a few bucks in the process? My outsider’s understanding is that they don’t do anything that the privately-owned media cannot do better.
That said, the mass media situation in the USA is no bed of roses. President Dogpile has committed at least two acts of treason — Operation Fast & Furious, and Benghazigate — in which he supported foreign enemies who killed American citizens.
Moreover our spineless infotainment industry refuses to hold his feet to the fire. The blogospere is doing a much better job in that respect.
We Americans have had much experience with mostly private mass media. Exception: National Public Radio has received goobermint funding in the past. However that funding is either drying up, or is completely dead.
Junking the ABC will probably be a baby step in the right direction for you Aussies. But don’t be too shocked if the ‘independent’ media jumps into bed with your goobermint.
Hey Larry
That link to the Bradshaw rock art was interesting… dated to circa 17,000 years and claims the painting were done by ‘farmers’. OK. I’m exaggerating a little. But isn’t that what the text you link to was more-or-les saying. Maybe the archeologist just don’t understand that Australian aborigines were managing the landscape. Could that constitute farming?
The rock art is interesting, but goat cheese and goat milk products in general have become favorites in the hunter houshold. Just picked up my goat milk yogurt today. And will also enjoy happy hour in a couple of hours with a nice goat cheese cheddar and rye crackers, along with some nice wine. Goat and sheep cheese are becoming more popular in Texas.
Interesting question about the definitino of farming. Good food for thought (no pun intended).
Of course, if any of you deniers had been keeping up on the latest test results from core-sampling, you would have read of the interesting validations of “natural” against “Anthropogenital” warming….It was contained in a paper By a Massure Rocqfort, in some core-sampling done deep into a very old cheese found at the back of the “curing-cavern”, dating back at least to the Neolithium period!…samples taken at different depths reveal natural change at both the “Neoprene” and the ‘Plastecene” periods …though some human intervention is noted at the shallower “Styrene” period.
I would have thought ‘Neville” or “sp” would have been on to it as quick as a flash…after all, it’s all over water-crackers!
On a serious note..just read some of the above posts…..”Oh sweet Jesus!”…come on back to the “five and ten” Josef Goebbles Josef Goebbles..all is forgiven!
Gee you Limp-wristed greenies have no humour.Any opinion regarding the depictions of water craft Jaycee? Re: Bradshaws
I have bought some goats so I can make my own cheese.
Have named them Luke, Bazza and Jaycee.
They bleat a lot (aaaa ggggg wwww), walk around in circles and head-butt each other, and everything else. Is this normal for goats?
Hope the cheese is not too bitter
“Gee you Limp-wristed greenies have no humour…” SIRRR !…I trrrust you are not implying I am in the same category as Mr. Alan Jones or Mr. Tim Wilson ?….whyyyyy youuuu……
Anyway…What is a “Bradshaws” ?
sp…Now don’t you go “acting the goat” with those goats!
Hi Jennifer,
You’ve asked a big question. Since I’ve never been to Australia, am not an archaeologist, and have a ‘purple thumb, I cannot give a definitive a answer. That said, I’ll take my best shot.
The two Bradshaw boats — one of which had a rudder, and carried more than 20 people — is preliminary evidence of a settled, prehistoric lifestyle in the Kimberley. (Or that their art depicted the earliest known science fiction!) Do nomads have sufficient food that a class of craftsmen could build boats? Was there also an artist class who produced the 100k or so Bradshaw paintings?
The Bradshaw people predate the present-day aborigines who live in the Kimberley. And there’s a huge disconnect between the two cultures. Nobody knows what happened to the Bradshaw people. This fact partly explains the academic sniping directed at the late Graham Walsh by ‘Establishment’ archaeologists in Australia.
There’s a widespread belief that ALL aborigines were semi-nomadic, hunter-gatherers until 1788. If the Bradshaw people had cereal grain crops or starchy root crops, they left no trace of either.
This article about eel ‘farming’ by the Gunditjmara people in NSW is a counterexample. Some experts estimate that their agricultural system had been ongoing for something like 8k years by the time Europeans arrived. The take-home: At least some ancient Australians had agriculture.
Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape
Sacred to the Gunditjmara people, the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape is home to the remains of potentially one of Australia’s largest aquaculture systems.
For thousands of years the Gunditjmara people flourished through their ingenious methods of channelling water flows and systematically harvesting eels to ensure a year round supply. Here the Gunditjmara lived in permanent settlements, dispelling the myth that Australia’s Indigenous peoples were all nomadic.
Dating back thousands of years, the area shows evidence of a large, settled Aboriginal community systematically farming and smoking eels for food and trade in what is considered to be one of Australia’s earliest and largest aquaculture ventures.
Read more here.
http://www.lakecondah.com/budjbim.html
Oops! L Condah is in Victoria, not NSW.
Hi Larry,
Ferdinand Magellan was playing ‘ducks and drakes’ with Portugal and Spain , for funding.
The Spanish had signed some agreement giving Portugal right of way to this area , so needed to find another route.
There is credible evidence that Portugal sent three ships to ambush Magellan. Maps showing parts of OZ and NZ were around and seemingly used to find refuge etc , by Cook.
The famous ‘mahogany ship ‘ is likely one of these, as the old maps end there . (Warnambool)
At least one of these ships spent a lot of time lurking around Northern Oz. Only one made it home and they missed Magellan’s expedition , who had seemingly already gone by.
The captain of the lone returnee was last heard of, tryng to sell his maps.
The Wandjinas are theorised by some, to be representations of the Portuguese of the day , with their frills and bonnets.
It is possible, but may not ever be known.
Back in the Dreamtime the Murray River’s mouth closed over… http://www.mythandthemurray.org/when-ngurunderi-walked-across-the-murrays-mouth/
I thought this was interesting
http://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/greenland-surprises/
“Ice-penetrating radar and drilling have led to some surprises in Greenland during the last few years. The continent is bowl-shaped, it has a massive canyon running down its middle, and it contains a large aquifer of liquid water beneath the ice.
NASA’s ice-penetrating radar is interpreted to show that the bedrock of the island is bowl-shaped as shown in the image below. That means that the continental ice sheet is in no danger of slipping into to ocean as some have proposed.
The radar imaging shows a large canyon running down the center of the island (see story from LiveScience.) The canyon starts in the middle of the island and heads northwest to the Petermann Glacier on the coast. The canyon is about 460 miles long, six miles wide, and up to 2,600 feet deep. This canyon must have been carved before the ice sheet formed 1.8 million years ago.
More recently, a giant aquifer of liquid water has been identified below the ice sheet (see story here). This discovery is based upon both NASA’s Operation Icebridge radar data and upon drilling. Researchers estimate that the aquifer covers about 27,000 square miles. The aquifer is apparently fed by meltwater that percolates from the surface during the summer. Researchers speculate that the thick ice and snow cover insulates it and keeps the aquifer from freezing.
But there is another possibility for why the water is not frozen. The Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, claims that “The Greenland ice sheet is melting from below, caused by a high heat flow from the mantle into the lithosphere.” “The Greenland lithosphere is 2.8 to 1.7 billion years old and is only about 70 to 80 kilometers thick under Central Greenland.”
Even though the continental ice sheet is confined by topography, there will still be calving from outlet glaciers in fjords along the coast. During the 2000s, there was much media hype about faster than normal calving of these glaciers, but research shows that the rate was similar to that in the 1930s and due to the North Atlantic Oscillation (source).