Nearly four and a half days out of Nagoya – fascinating marriage of Solar PV and aeronautical technology. If you click on the Flight button top right you get the distance to Hawaii. They had to wait four weeks in Nagoya to get ideal weather conditions for the very long leg to Hawaii.

First we heard of France – France attack: Man decapitated at factory near Lyon
then Tunisia – Tunisia attack on Sousse beach ‘kills 39’
Kuwait reported next – Kuwait Shia mosque blast death toll ‘rises to 27’
then Somalia attack: Al-Shabab ‘kills 30’ at AU military base
In Australia we argue over the niceties of granting a Minister power to cancel a passport if national security is an issue – compared to relying on our marvellous court processes to cancel a passport. Bearing in mind the Minister’s decision would be subject to judicial review.
Motorist who struck schoolboy acquitted after experts suggest ice can have positive effects on driving. In the middle of a national ice epidemic and campaign costing $150Million to fight same – truly Australia is a wondrous nation.

Islamic State conflict: Kurds ‘capture Syrian town north of Raqqa’
Lets just hope the Kurdish forces are supported by western intelligence and have good communications links with western air power.

The headline in The NZ Herald says – New Zealand hit by record cold temperatures overnight – Yet a reading of the article gives no examples of actual records.
But some bone chilling -20°C overnight lows in the South Island. Hopefully some Kiwis might have better information.
The Met Office over there and NIWA have a very poor online data sources to check weather history. The Australian BoM is light years ahead with their www site.
Kiwis who are interested in weather history would be better served by the NZ weather authorities abandoning their pitiful WWW efforts and contracting that www weather history stuff out to the BoM.

Unless you keep up with MichaelSmithNews.com then it is likely you may not be up to date with revelations at the TURC.
Editorial sound file by Michael Smith
Friday morning 19 June 2015 – Friday Afternoon A few extracts further down page.
Imagine the meeja hysteria if Govt people were involved?
Govt should commission a series of free DVD’s with editorials so citizens can see-hear for themselves the amazing and voluminous testimony from the TURC which otherwise will mostly go through to the keeper.
Some extracts below from transcripts –
Alex texts Nectari giving directions as to how much money to give to various persons, including “2,500 to Darren”. Ms McNaughton reminded Mr Greenfield that he is under oath. She was exquisitely precise in describing the location from which it will no doubt be alleged Mr Greenfield retrieved money at the Alex apartment.

One text message from George Alex to Mace Hourari “put $5K in toilet”.

Its main Get More Info levitra shop function is to cure inflammation of kidneys. So these two discount viagra sales appalachianmagazine.com/2018/11/29/granddaddys-gun-my-most-prized-possession/ factors probably are the most important. Impotence is just about the most common cause of ED is atherosclerosis- hardening / viagra australia appalachianmagazine.com narrowing of the arteries. More to the point, professional pharmacists are hired by the reliable online pharmacies levitra 60 mg always ready to help you with prescription, in scenario of its absence. Mr Greenfield now claims that he would go to the Alex toilet to collect documents from the drawer – a text from Alex to Greenfield says, “toilet, first drawer”.

Another text from George Alex to a 3rd man says, “put $2500 in drawer under sink”.

Somehow Mr Greenfield kept a straight face when he answered that he would arrange to pick up business papers from Mr Alex’s home – in the drawer under the sink in the toilet.

Ms McNaughton, “Is it your honest answer that you have never seen cash in the toilet, is it your honest answer that documents were left for you in the toilet drawer?”
Greenfield says, “Yes, it’s a serious answer.”

A reader has sent me a spreadsheet that amazed me when I got around to examining the data. We have all been aware of occasional media reporting of high credit card interest rates compared to the RBA cash rate and we see the rates near 20% on our card statements. For example – The $2 billion credit card ripoff – and from two years ago – Big banks in credit card gouge
Until I plotted the data for myself I had no idea that the banks have been increasing the difference between the interest they charge on cards compared to the RBA cash rate over the years.
Note how both the ANZ and CBA Visa Card rates stay near 20% and very near one another as the RBA cash rate reduces.

But this chart of the two differences leaves no doubt as to what is happening.

The Government should move to increase real competition in our retail banking sector – these charts show there is no competition. When I last looked banks were big contributors to political parties.
I would appreciate people sending me data from other credit cards and the other two banks. Enter columns into a csv file or old xls please – not new fangled xlsx. If you are concerned at these ever increasing credit card interest rates lease send this information on to wherever it may help.

During his TV interview last night with Leigh Sales on the ABC 7.30 Report outgoing Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison was asked “Can an ideology be defeated militarily?” He replied “No. I don’t think that there’s a military solution to anything. …” He added later “…throughout recorded time, there’s been – there’s never been a military solution to anything. …”
You can read his full reply in his second reply at the 7.30 Report transcript.
It left me a tad puzzled as to what General Morrison thought the British Empire, USA, France and Allies should have done when faced with aggression by Germany and then Japan in WWII ? Imagine yourself back in time to September 1939 and put yourself in the shoes of a farmer in Poland seeing a grey tank column approaching surrounded be determined looking armed guys in field grey and steel helmets – he strolls over and says “..look, we are just creating the society we want to live in…”. Good luck with that General.

How wrong I was – the weather instruments are just on a lawn in a commercial area – see pink X – the parklands near Norwood start in bottom left.

This is additional to the post on 11 April 2015 commenting on Fairfax media reports that the Kent Town site has to close in July due to lease running out and the BoM are relocating back onto parklands near the original West Terrace site. I am hoping somebody from Adelaide can send me photos of the new site.
Just found this 26 Mar 2015 Agenda of the Adelaide Park Lands Authority – 14MB pdf. See pages 54-88incl – lots of fascinating information and nuances piled on politically correct nuances.
Anyway – this aerial map sets out the essence.

Would still appreciate any photos of activity at the site.

Watching the Australian media it is possible to get a distorted view of the place of ANZAC in history.
On twitter hardly one person states correct historical situation that in late October 1914 naval ships of the Ottoman Empire including two German crewed cruisers chose to attack and sink Russian ships around the Black Sea. This resulted in Russia and the Allies – France and the British Empire declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. After that the Ottomans declared Jihad on all the Allies I think. The Ottoman Empire could have remained neutral – might have survived after WWI and Gallipoli would not have happened.
There is a great need for better public knowledge of the bare essentials of WWI origins and basic history.