Higher speed limits?

Good to see there’s a move for more sensible speed limits. The cynic in me says it won’t happen because of the lose in speeding ticket revenue.

Not according to pro-speed campaigners, who are agitating for governments around the country and around the world to raise speed limits, particularly in rural areas and on stretches of high-quality highway.

They passionately argue boredom and frustration, rather than speed, are the main killers when people are travelling between isolated rural communities.

With car safety rapidly improving, they see remote parts of western NSW and Queensland, the Nullarbor, north-west Victoria and parts of Western Australia and South Australia as prime candidates for a substantially increased speed limit. Some advocate the total removal of speed limits on these types of roads as a way of reducing the road toll.

Tales from the Cosmic Crypt

As we approach the dreaded date of December 21st, 2012 (12/21/12) the world waits with baited breath for the end of our world. Yet would it not be more poetically significant numerically if our End Day have been say, December 12th, 2012 (12/12/12) or even June 6th, 2006 (6/6/6) to make it even more significant biblically.

But, what ever date satisfies your own particular fancy there is no denying the fact that we humans have a special place in our hearts for tales of terror associated with the unseen and supernatural forces that lurk in the darkest recesses of our collective imagination what ever the date of the year.

Today being Halloween my mind couldn’t help but wander over recent tales that humans have waived for themselves before and after the dawn of the space age concerning the terrors that lurk in the depths of cosmic night. Here is a collection of tales from the darkest recesses of the cosmic crypt. The cosmic grim reaper lies in wait; scythe in hand, in some dark corner of the universe ever ready to bestow some dark faith upon us. So happy Halloween to you, one and all and may you all suffer a frightful and delightful night of terror. So go to Cosmic Visions for your terrifying treat.

Authors Note: This special Halloween blog was first posted last year. And one more additional note for our dear readers:

The Great 2012 Scare – and What You Need To Know

On December 21^st, 2012, in all probability the Earth’s magnetic poles will not flip, California will not break apart and slide into the sea, and a secret monster planet will not smash into Earth out of the invisible nowhere.

What you basically need to know is that it is all a load of “You Know What.”

So we can all sleep a lot more easily tonight.

Ken is gay

What other explanation can there be for a man to wear an outfit like that. I suppose it would explain why he never married Barbie, she’s just his fag hag.

HybriDiving

Is this the future of underwater exploration? Sure looks good and I like the idea of diving without a heavy tank. However I’m concerned about the idea of ascending with a lung full of compressed air. You will need to breath out all the way to the surface unless you want your lungs to burst.

HybriDiving from Michael V. deGruy on Vimeo.

Thanks to Sarah Jane Pell for the link

When Flying Saucers Really Land

Today marks the seventy-first anniversary of the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast that panicked America and it is only fitting that we at Discovery Enterprise mark the occasion with a triple video billing.

The UFO Files- When UFOs Arrive

An examination of secretive government policies for dealing with extraterrestrial visitation – from the military reporting guideline “JANAP-146”, to a curious chapter in a FEMA disaster guide on what to do in case of a UFO crash.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach.

Watch The Day The Earth Stood Still 1951 in SciFi & Fantasy | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

This is the 1956 film classic whose title speaks for itself.

Watch Earth vs the flying saucers.wmv in Science Fiction | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

My letter to Senator George Brandis

Liberal Senator George Brandis recently gave the Alfred Deakin lecture.( The transcript was published in the Australian.) He went to considerable length to position the party as the party of freedom, something Malcolm Turnbull has also been pushing. At the same time he distanced himself from the conservatives, especially Tony Abbott.

I fully agree the party’s central philosophical direction should always be  liberty, but to ignore its conservative base is suicidal. The mainstream of Australian life is conservative. It has to appeal to that base if its to succeed. Now, the Australian people don’t give a stuff for political philosophies  but the do care about the policies politicians put out to address their concerns.

So this conservative libertarian sent the Senator the following letter:

Dear Senator Brandis,

Today I read your recent Alfred Deakin lecture and was moved to write to you.

Personally I don’t regard conservatism as a political philosophy. I regard it as a world view based on practicality, compromise and common sense. Conservatives don’t appose change but they are sceptical of it. As such conservatism is not exclusive to any party , Labor leaders like Wran and Hawke were conservative. As the Australian mainstream is essentially conservative a political party has to conservative to succeed.

I read Mr Abbott’s book but as a small government liberal, I was disappointed by his big government, centralized government approach. In my view the end result would be big taxes and increased bureaucracy. We would eventually end up with a nation wide version of the NSW Rees government.

However to his credit, practical conservative Tony Abbott did provide policy options for various social issues everything from extending Medicare to include dental work to paid maternity leave for mothers.

I think its up to you and other self declared liberals of the party to come up with a proper response to “Battle lines”. The conservative in me wants to know how different would your policies be? What different direction would they take?

I have been assured by House of Representatives members that Senators don’t have much to do so perhaps you can turn on the word processor and come up with some liberal policies.

Regards

Ralph Buttigieg

Governor Schwarzenegger tells what he really thinks

The Californiaian governor has sent a law maker a special message:

Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger typically attaches a message to bills he signs or vetoes telling law makers why he took the action.


A Democratic assembly man who heckled the governor during a recent event in San Francisco actually received two messages: the veto letter itself and a not-so-subtle rebuke creatively hidden within it.


Like a find-the-word puzzle, the second message was visible by stringing together the first letter of each line down the left-hand margin. It consisted of a common four-letter vulgarity followed by the letters “y-o-u”.

The letter is here.
.

The Future Is Wild –Episode Two: Return of the Ice

Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to take a voyage five million years into the future with our world once again finding itself griped in an Ice Age. Just as in the past, life has managed adapt to these bleak conditions and has taken on new fantastical forms to deal with the unforgiving conditions of an ice covered world.

The episode is set in North Europe, five million years into the future. The episode focuses on three species: (1) Shagrat, a descendant of the marmot that has grown in size and developed thicker fur and a smaller nose to protect it from the cold; (2) Snowstalker, a descendant of the wolverine that has evolved sabre-teeth and white fur for camouflage; (3) Gannetwhale, a descendant of the gannet which has grown to immense size to replace the sea mammals. The episode explains that the onset of the ice age was very fast, so many animals died out. The ones that did survive had to have quick generations so they evolved fast. This is why rodents are still successful. The episode follows the story of a female Snowstalker teaching her cubs to hunt, the Gannetwhale’s breeding season and the mass migration to the south of the Shagrats.

The Future Is Wild –Episode Two: Return of the Ice

Ares 1-X Rocket Test Flight Launch a Major Success

Today’s test flight launch of the Ares 1-X rocket was a major success today. This brings us step closer to fulfilling NASA’s ambition of returning to the Moon and going onward to Mars. The flight test will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

Discovering Ardipithecus

We Humans, in every age and across all cultures have had one major question – Where did we come from? It is perhaps the most profound question humans could possibly ask and has been the central driving force in the development and evolution of many of the world’s major religions and all the most important braches of scientific inquiry.

We human beings seem so different from the rest of the animal kingdom that it was easy to conclude that we are the pinnacle of a special act creation. This illusion was to be scattered when Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” and his conclusion that human beings, like all living creatures in the natural world, evolved through the process of natural selection from a common ancestor shared by the other great apes . But, Darwin did not have the human fossils to support his ideas. Now from a remote African desert, buried for more then four million years, comes the conclusive fossil evidence that Darwin could have only imagined with the discovery of Ardipithecus.

Human Evolution – Discovering Ardipithecus