Welcome to the column where you provide the content. Australian scientists say they are close to the holy grail of clean, green power, using high-powered lasers to fuse boron and hydrogen atoms together to generate electricity without any emissions apart from helium. Splendid, said John:
“Limitless energy, but we will all be talking like Alvin the Chipmunk.”
Christian was concerned:
“So instead of bleating about CO2, the Greens will have helium to complain about.”
No problem, said another John:
“At present usage it is estimated that we will run out of (helium) in the next 30 or so years. It is so light that it can escape the earths gravity.”
Jokes from Jimothy:
“Any solution that does *not*, as an unavoidable side effect, destroy the economy, will not be acceptable. Listen to the science.”
BigBossMan boasted:
“This kind of science is exactly what Scott Morrison is talking about. Smart. Beats paying silly socialist carbon taxes. It’s early days but mankind is a resilient lot. Just watch what capitalism can do.”
Damien looked for a downside:
“How much electricity is needed to drive the lasers and will it have to come from a base load source like a coal fired power station?”
Mirth from Matt:
“I can see the scientists slapping their foreheads as they read this: ‘Why didn’t we read the comments section first?!’ ”
Peter William smelled a rat:
“There will be a short delay as they turn their attention to their perpetual motion machine.”
TonyW too:
“The announcement by UNSW of progress on its fusion research coincides with a new focus by the Morrison government on technology to combat climate change. And there you have it. An announcement of a new tranche of taxpayer dollars ready to be thrown away brings them out of the woodwork.”
G was glad:
“Excellent news. Globally, there are a number of promising approaches to nuclear fusion being developed: when one is commercialised, All other electricity sources will become redundant, or at least of niche importance only.”
Dev wanted a discount:
“I am not interested in electricity without emissions or waste. I am interested in reducing my bills to a third of what I am paying now.”
Heather was happy:
“Brilliant and creative minds are working on clean energy. Thank you to them and our government for encouraging and supporting them. Let’s get the word out to our younger generation who won’t hear a bar about this from the Greens.”
Xi was anxious:
“The Chinese military have probably already stolen this.”
A dampener from dam023:
“Humans first worked with fusion in 1952 when the Yanks detonated the first thermonuclear bomb. The fission of Uranium drives the fusion of heavy Hydrogen isotopes.
“Harvesting electrical energy from controlled fusing atoms has been nailed many times in many labs and projects. No one has ever been able to produce more energy than is required to initiate and maintain the controlled fusion process though. That’s the issue. Someone will nut it out eventually. Hopefully it’s these dudes. As for time? 5 months, 5 years or 5 decades … who knows?”
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Janet Albrechtsen hailed the news that at two Australian universities, students could now begin a bachelor of arts in Western civilisation as “a shard of intellectual light in a dismally stupid period of Western self-loathing”. Rob reasoned:
“The triumph of the cultural Marxists everywhere is simply the outcome of the failure of conservatives to mount any kind of defence. The absence of mainstream political leadership on the right is the key enabler of the long march of the radical left through our institutions.
The last political leader in this country to try to push back against these people was Tony Abbott and look what happened to him.
“All efforts were mobilised to drag him down, aided and abetted by the allies of the cultural Marxists within the Liberal Party, the so-called ‘moderates’.
“The greatest irony is that the radical left are only able to push their ‘diversity and inclusion’ anti-Western Stalinism precisely because of the space created for them by Western civilisation’s past success in pushing back the forces of secular and religious tyranny. The absurd paradox of the radical left is that they pick the fruits of the tree of liberal democratic capitalism whilst striking at its roots.”
Robert recounted:
“My daughter started uni this year at UQ. She sent me a text of the posters all over the uni screaming Marxism, Socialism, Revolution and Intro to Climate Activism. Beside the fact it is interesting that Marxism and Climate activism are promoted together, it was wonderful that my daughter quoted: ‘They were in fact actual multifaceted people that happen to have astonishingly bad political beliefs’. Oh thank goodness I taught her something.”
Tess cautioned:
“She will need to be careful as dissenting views often give a bad result. As I told my daughter, just regurgitate their ideas and get a good mark. Go out to the world and profess your own views.”
Michael noted:
“As the forces of hate and despondency rise, they are greeted by hope and opportunity.”
Frequentlymoderated feared:
“I can hear the student union preparing the tar and feathers right now in the name of being tolerant and inclusive. The tantrums are going to be hilarious. I do hope the 60 students who had the courage to enrol will stand up to the lynch mob that awaits them at every lecture.”
Eagle said:
“Truthful presentation of history is anathema to ‘progressives’. This is hardly news. So giving a realistic/positive picture of the Western civilisation that is SO desirable, especially to people not living in it, that is very SCARY stuff for our ‘progressives’!
“Which is why they were last seen running for nearest ‘safe space’, when told truthful history was coming their way. This would be funny, but for the fact that the totalitarian ‘progressives’
are in control of our campuses. Why is mainstream common sense all but outlawed at our universities? P.S. Janet Albrechtsen’s articles are consistently outstanding in substance, clarity and logic.”
MikeO said:
“I thank and appreciate what Western civilisation has done for me and the society I live in. But why are there so many who wish to destroy it within our society? The socialists are at the door and we are going to just fold and give it to them? I wish this attempt well and hope to see an end to the naysayers.”
Jason expanded:
“At the door? Mate, they’re in the house with their feet up on the furniture, eating and drinking at our expense and monopolising the TV remote.”
John despaired:
“Australian unis are a lost cause. They have a left of left and a forty shades of Green agenda, paid for by the hapless taxpayer and their very own education/immigration scam.”
Maic was measured:
“I too would have misgivings about the agenda of the diversity brigade when it comes to allowing without hindrance the study of Western civilisation. It seems to me that the last thing the left and activist groups want is a learning system or construct which enables learners to assess cause and effect and which challenges previously held views. The ability to arrive at judgments and conclusions and to later test them against other proposals is sure an invaluable
and essential educational objective. At the same time students need the ability and motivation to clearly set out their ideas both orally and in writing.
“No, it should not just be about ‘This is the way I feel about it at the moment’. Surely all the above skills should also be addressed in the earlier levels of education. The left don’t want you to think for yourself — they never have. They will tell you what to think and what you are allowed to say.
“Young people entering university and taking up significant student loans will benefit from advice (should they care to take it) of courses that will genuinely engage their thinking and intellectual skills. One wonders just how many courses in the arts will actually do this — with various groups waiting in the wings seeking to influence course content and values.”
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The end of 164 years of Australian history came in an announcement from Detroit that GM was axing the iconic Holden brand, which motoring writer Philip King described as “more than a car … a part of our family, cultural, sporting and sex life”. Rupert Pupkin protested:
“I remember my brother’s Holden (HD) station wagon with curtained windows and a mattress in the back. His shaggin’ wagon, as he proudly called it. Being much younger and much more innocent I thought it might be used for camping but strangely his camps were always cut short as the six cylinder roared down the street to home at 2-3 in the morning.
“As for me, my early driving lessons were in my aunt’s EH wagon. My first ‘real’ car was a 1975 Kingswood after a brief experience with a 62 Hillman Imp. I knew I had made it when I drove off to western Queensland for my first teaching job in that second hand Kingswood. I couldn’t believe how smooth it drove.”
Memories for Maree:
“Ahh, the shaggin’ wagon, surfing up the coast with my husband in the 60s-70s, before the kids came along. Lovely times.”
Lee laughed:
“There was a sticker: ‘Don’t laugh. Your daughter could be inside.’
Deborah was depressed:
“I can remember when my Father bought our second car home — it was a Holden and we were really excited, blue with a white roof and brand new. The first one was an old Ford that had a crank start and plastic roll up windows- I was embarrassed whenever we went out in it. Days at the beach, the boys with their boards and sandman panel vans. Nights at the drive in. Yes I had a great youth and am grateful for it.
“One of the things on my bucket list was ‘own a soft top convertible’ but it had to have an automatic roof mechanism and the imported cars start at a price that I would not pay for a depreciating asset like a car but I spotted a second hand Holden Astra soft top convertible in a car yard and bought it for $13K.
“The roof works like a dream and it drives well but it has some strange electrical ‘issues’. I couldn’t figure out why the battery was always going flat so I took it to the local lads and the apprentice had a hard top version and he told me that you have to lock the doors whenever you park it. I thought this was a bit strange but I taught him and knew he was clever so I followed his advice and now lock it all the time when it is parked at my farm and he was right.
“I am not sure what happened to the easy going place where anyone who wanted a job had one, but hey how good is mass immigration, multinationals, multiculturalism, casual employment and wage stagnation, high electricity prices, dog box apartment living with no backyard and having to watch every thing you say for fear of giving some one offence?”
Jonathan was conflicted:
“I learnt to drive in Mum’s FC and my first car was a rusty HT ute. Over the next few years it was followed up by a HK panel van and a EJ panel van, both set up for ‘camping trips’.
None were good cars, gutless, thirsty, with terrible handling and brakes. But I loved them all!”
David H declared:
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but if GMH really had been in touch with what the punters wanted they would have designed, built and exported a Land Cruiser. And when the mood changed from a Holden Ute to a light pick up, they would have designed, built and exported a Hi-Lux. No, the decisions were made in Detroit where they blocked exports, to protect their other, more profitable areas of manufacturing.”
Sobriquet said:
“Ah, the Sandman panel van. Sometimes it was referred to as a pressure cooker — ten minutes in there and they were done! Jack may have thrown gelignite out of the window of a Ford, but never out of a Holden.”
Last word to John’s wife:
“My father bought a Holden in 1954/5, another in 1959, a Vauxhall Cresta in 1963 and back to Holden (Kingswoods) in 1968 and 1973. Our wedding photo has me stepping out of the ‘Kingy’ in 1974; it wasn’t flash but my father (who could afford better) said he bought it ‘because parts are so easy to come by, and cheap’. He wanted a car that was affordable and that he didn’t have to think about again!
“(In 1984 he bought a flasher Mazda with electric windows and I said to him, ‘more things that can go wrong’, and so they did.) Kingswoods with vinyl floors and no seatbelts or headrests are the abiding symbols of my childhood! The image of his steel safety helmet resting on the tray behind the back seat as he drove off to BHP to work 6 days a week is etched on my brain.
“We four kids stood up in the back and leaned on the front bench seats, much to our parents’ annoyance. ‘You girls be quiet or your father is going to stop and I’ll get a switch from the side of the road’. I could write many funny anecdotes about those days but the clincher was when my mother died in late 1984; the spent 1968 Kingwood was on our father’s farm, broken down and forlornly sitting with grass up to the top of the wheels way behind the house. The funeral director came that day to discuss arrangements and parked his own car right next to it, thinking it was still roadworthy!”
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