Bruce

How does that work OME? I thought that the deposit was paid by the consumer at the point of sale and then collected by the consumer when returning the bottle. Do you mean to say that only a small percentage of bottles are returned? Or have I got it all wrong? If only a small fraction of bottles are returned, that says to me that the deposit is too small.

Good stuff there kg but wrong about costs of nuclear.. The cost of pumped hydro is very high. Nuclear ( especially the coming hybrid fission/fusion stuff ) will be much cheaper, even with the artificial cost extras added.

Tasmania should be able to operate really well from a combination of solar, wind and hydro. They should be the state with the cheapest power by far. Similarly with new Zealand, at least the south island. I wonder why not? Nuclear is still better for mainland Australia, but the ignorance of the population is astounding in this matter. Why did they applaud two nuclear power reactors in the heart of Melbourne while they ban a much safer power station south of Broken Hill? Maybe they are afraid of tsunamis getting it there, while Port Melbourne is safe that way?

Darn it I need to have a cataract operation. While I was looking up the detail of what is involved, I came across the unwanted bit of info that cataract surgeons earned $ 28,000 a day. The specialist side of medicine in Australia shows what an all-powerful unio.... errr college can achieve for its members. You need the absolute power to stop newcomers entering the field and you need government enforcement to back this power. GP's don't have this in Australia, but they do in the US, where the AMA rules supreme. There are lots of new GP clinics springing up around here, I reckon they are already feeling a bit of pressure from competition. Why don't they become specialists? Lots of them want to, but its a closed shop.

Marty, I would doubt that those solar panels could provide winter heating for that big place not to mention electricity for a dairy. I bet there was a mains connection.

Jerry, if you make it to Adelaide one day I'll take you over the Wolf Blass winery at the northern end of the Barossa Valley, that is if you are humble enough to fly in the home-built old Jabiru in the pic. It is actually owned by a French conglomerate these days, but we still call it the Wolf Blass winery.. its really big and I like their wine, not that I am hard to please when it comes to red wine. Then you can visit there on the ground and sample some stuff.....

Thanks for that Jerry. Here's something I have wondered about which I'm sure you know... Does the Reserve Bank lend to the private retail banks at say 2% and then they on-lend that to house-buyers at say 6%? If so, then is this not corrupt?

In Tas ( or England) I would think a copper coil in the combustion-heater chimney ( or wrapped around the base of the flue) would serve during the winter. The system would need another circulation pump, this one in parallel with the fan on the combustion heater.

Once I worked out that it would be $1000 to buy batteries to operate her fridge for a day. That's at one dollar per watt-hour, which is what hobbyking batteries cost. Elton Musk gets them for half of this, but its still too expensive for me. BUT how about this idea... a thermally insulated tank ( all that waste-wool can be used between the inner and outer tanks) on the ground. Then a couple of solar water-heating panels on the roof with a PV driven pump to circulate the water. If I can keep any bureaucracy from getting involved it should be quite cheap. Solar hot water is just great. It feels so much better knowing it was heated for nothing. Yes, you do need to turn a blind eye to the true cost, but I still want to do it.

Is there any jurisdiction in the world which treats taxpayer's money with respect? Locally, we have a fat council CEO who gets $1000 a day for shuffling papers and sucking up to the fat mayor. You would think the ratepayers would be angry... 365 people have to pay $1000 rates a year just for this d#head. But they seem resigned. Why am I the only angry one?

The guy was a woodwork teacher. He was no good at mathematics either. And one of the dumbest guys I ever knew had a Phd, and this was without any redeeming features at all. My son did a trade and has done better financially than any of his mates who got degrees, so you did the right thing Marty. Mind you, medical degrees still work to make money. The rot set in with the rise of "managerialism" which has given us people on million dollar salaries who regard the students as customers and the teaching staff as workers. That ended the "community of scholars" idea which had been in play for many years.

I wish you to be right Marty, but my pessimistic side still thinks there will be dreadful shortfalls on overcast and windless days. Storage works for sure, but it is too darn expensive.

I am not kidding Marty, for example there was a high-school teacher who couldn't write his own report cards. His senior had to do it for him. Now he probably should have learned more at primary school, but the main thing is he should not have been made a graduate teacher.

In my day, the heads were the professors running each department. They cared about the quality of graduates and actually failed some. They thought that a poor graduate would reflect on them. The chancellor was a stuffed shirt figurehead and the vice-chancellor was the chief clerk. How times have changed...Vice-chancellors getting a million a year and some graduates are nearly illiterate. I feel cheated and angry, but don't know what to do.

Wish you were right Yenn. But according to a survey, the members of parliament are way more religious than the general public. There must be some reason for this. Once when Tony Abbott was on the defense about being almost a monk, he pointed out that Rudd was much more religious than he was. It is because of Rudd's religion that we have accepted thousands of Sudanese refugees. And continued to ban voluntary euthanasia for his time in office. They make me feel sick, because the likes of Rudd and Abbott will get the best in palliative care and live in suburbs far away from where they put the refugees.

There is this theory that the only hope for the human race is that the computers will take over and look after us. Yep, it is a small chance but it is our only one. We are way too stupid and short-term in our thinking to survive without this happening.

There was a good bit in "2001" where the computer decided to lock the spaceman out of the ship because he couldn't be trusted. Quite right too...how can you predict just what a person will do?

When my brother-in -law was about to get married, he asked me about a Catholic thing. His woman was Catholic, but all his older family was anti-catholic. His woman was not devout, and he could have chosen anything. My advice was to do the Catholic wedding thing to see if the rest of them would even turn up. In fact they did, and they were amazed at how ordinary the ceremony was. God knows what their ignorant ideas had expected.

Completely agree with you gareth. My parents both suffered long drawn out suffering and I hate those smug religious frauds who make this happen. As OME says, you would be prosecuted for treating an animal in this way. I know this for a fact, my old lecturer George Karolyi was prosecuted by the RSPCA for NOT putting a suffering dog down. Now George in his prime, had been an animal-rights activist and he didn't stint on vet care, but the prosecution was right in my opinion, even though I suspect there was a measure of revenge in the decision to prosecute. Anyway, hang in there and know that you are not the first to suffer like this and we think you are right to complain.

It's the central problem of our time, how to run a nice humane society without the very means of helping those in need being exploited. Actually, I think the worst damage is done by saboteurs disguised as bleeding hearts. They work hard to defeat any reforms. Prospective employers need a lot more help than they are being given if some things, like employing disabled, are to happen. Just consider it from an employers point of view, say you consider employing a disabled person around your house. At present, I would be crazy to employ even an able-bodied young person here at the farm, both from financial and liability considerations. So there are hundreds of young people idling away their days while farmers in their 70's are struggling in the fields.

If you look up welfare benefits in Australia, you will find that they can top $50,000 tax free, which is equivalent to $65,000 wages (on which you would have to pay about $15,000 tax.) Why can't wage earners on less than $65,000 get welfare to boost their income?

Wow Space, 14 kids! And I thought an aeroplane was expensive... Apparently well-cared for kids cost about $250,000 each, but luckily you don't have to pay that up front.

Well Old K, I finished up better than Ted, but I was never picked to be in the footy and none of the girls wanted to be the girlfriend of a boy who was younger and smaller than they were. My grandson was deliberately started a bit later to avoid being like this, and he is in the top sports group and lots of girls want to be his friend. He is really having a great time at school.

Jerry, there was a documentary which showed a welfare family in England where they were getting so much money that the father would have needed an executive job to get more than the welfare money. I think they were on about $50,000 welfare, all things added up. How could this be true?

Planedriver, that Roseville head was quite wrong. The girl should have been given extension work to do quietly by herself, or hopefully with another smart little girl after awhile. Taking a kid from their age-group is not generally a good idea. In my case, I was young for my class and this was an awful thing.