Tuesday - Thursday, January 26 - 28 2010 (diary)

Tuesday, January 26 is Australia Day. For several days already cars have been driving everywhere with small Aussie flags clamped to their windows. Girls dressed in T-shirts, swimsuits, pants, dresses all printed with the Australian flag. There seem to be even more of them than last year. Is this country becoming ever more patriotic ?

Curiously this is the day that I feel most strongly a total stranger in this country. I consider myself a fully integrated member of multi-cultural Australia, but Australia Day harks (in my view) too much back to the Aussie Ocker image and culture I absolutely detest. Anyway, the good news is that this is also the last day of the school holidays.

Wednesday and Thursday are pure bliss. The school holiday goers have all returned home and us locals have the beach, the Surf Club, the township to ourselves again. No more searching for parking spots, squeezing into impossible places, the caravan park is three quarters empty, the beach is clean, and there is little chance of bumping into someone when trying to do a body surf.

If you are from overseas or interstate and ever contemplate to visit our Sunshine Coast I strongly suggest you come in February or March. The weather is good then, sea temperatures around 25-26°C (77-79°F) and the large holiday crowds have gone. Also this month (February) there will be several Surf Carnivals and outrigger canoe races on the beach always held on weekends, which are fun to watch.

I am completing a few chores, like seeing my GP, getting my annual blood tests done, preparing my tax files for the accountant and having my 6 monthly dental clean from the periodontist.
I have also made special Overview entry pages for two of my Blog text series : Life Awareness and A Philosophy of Happiness. This will make them easier to access for readers.

Friday - Sunday, January 29 - 31 2010 (diary, climate change)

Finally the long awaited rain has arrived at the Sunshine Coast. A few sprinkles late Friday afternoon, then at night and the following two days good downpours, but with plenty of good somewhat cooler weather in between. There is not much surf in the ocean, but swimming, now without the big crowds, is lovely.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is the official body reporting on Global Warming to the United Nations, is in the papers on a daily basis and has now been totally discredited. Numerous scientists have complained about the unreliability of the IPCC for years, but finally more and more evidence against the Panel is coming out.

1. First it were the emails revealing their massaging of scientific data to fit their predictions,
   
   
2. then it was the catastrophic melting of the Himalayan glaciers which proved to be unfounded speculation, (and despite being well aware of this fact the Head of the IPCC has managed to get large sums allocated to his company for research on it)
   
   
3. after that it were the predicted climatological extremes (storms, hurricanes, sever temperature variations), used by President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and other National leaders as evidence of global warming in their speeches, which have no scientific basis of truth whatsoever,
   
   
4. and this week it has been revealed that high ranking officials of the Climate Research Centre of the University of East Anglia have deliberately and systematically refused several requests from bona fide concerned scientists to reveal their collected data.