occidentalis

Yeah you're right, but that's why I mentioned confidence levels. A properly managed fishery should only be harvested to the point where there is a high probability the population will survive whatever contingency is likely to occur. And yes, very few fisheries are properly managed. But I am interested to see how many whales the Japanese actually want to take in the commercial hunt because I suspect it would be very low. No I don't have any specific information - I'm going off general ecological principles Basically the rule is that each trophic level passes on 10% of its energy to the next one up that means zooplankton get 10% of the energy photosynthesised from phytoplankton (the rest is used in the growth of the phytoplankton) small fish get 10% of the energy that the zooplankton have (the rest is used in the growth of the zooplankton) bigger fish get 10% of the energy that the small fish have (you get the picture) by the time the top level predators get involved, they only contain a fraction of a percentage of the original energy that was fixed from the sun Baleen whales cut out all the middlemen, and go straight to the source so they are a very direct pathway from solar energy to edible protein It's also why they're so big they need to be in order to actually filter enough water to make a meal another species that has done a very similar thing is the whale shark, which are the largest shark The same kind of thing occurs terrestrially with cows, elephants, sauropod dinosaurs, and other grazers. Anyway eating lower on the food chain is almost always more sustainable although as you hint 'sustainable' is a highly complex and contested word. I don't know, the moratorium has been in place over 20 years, and Japan just keeps getting more stubborn about it. I don't think either diplomatic pleading or Sea Shephard activism is going to change things. I actually just want to see what they do when they are allowed to whale. I kinda wonder if they will do it for a few years and then give up on it. It's only fun when you're not allowed to ;).

I don't think so. Have a look at some fisheries modelling stuff. There is LOTS of research in this area because there is lots of money involved, and fish are important food for millions of people. Of course there are always varying levels of confidence with all modelling and there may be other factors involved (like illegal catch as you say with bluefin tuna) - and that's where the precautionary principle comes in. Baleen whales may be a more sustainable food source than tuna, or shark. Both of which eat from higher up the food chain which means much less efficiency. Goats are also good. Too tired to discuss all the other points in detail - I agree with a lot of what you have said but none of it has done anything to convince me that the current situation is any better for conservation or welfare of whales than a regulated commercial catch. Japan is not going to back down and the actions of Sea Shepard et al. just give their government further ability to maintain their rhetoric to their people. Just like with the drugs trade, if you can't stop it completely, a regulate and control approach will result in less harm than allowing criminals to have their way - even if that regulation and control is not perfect. If Japan breaks the rules, deal with that when the problem arises. If you start with an assumption that they will, then you will never be able to reach any lasting agreement.

No, it's actually quite easy to calculate if you know enough about the biology of the species, and although I'm not an expert on whales I'd guess that for most of the whale species that would be hunted we would know enough to be able to predict population sizes and calculate a sustainable harvest rate. You really just need to know the rate of reproduction, the lifespan, and a bit about the ecology to fairly accurately predict population sizes and determine sustainable harvest levels, which is how all fisheries are managed (or should be). In fact because of their long lifespan whales should be even easier to do long term population modelling with, because a bad year will not wipe out the fishery like it would with sardines, it will just result in less reproduction for that year. The baleen whales may be some of the most sustainable meat out there... they feed from the bottom of the food chain which means they are extremely efficient at converting something humans can't eat (plankton) into something humans can eat. On the other hand, whale meat is highly contaminated with mercury; the baleen whales less so than the toothed whales but still not something I would eat simply for that reason regardless of the other issues. I think what we 'must eat' is whatever it is that sustains the highest number of people with the lowest environmental, social, and animal welfare cost. Why draw a line between farmed and wild? If it's sustainable, and the animal had a happy and healthy life and a humane death, what difference does it make? Considering much of the world either can't get enough to eat at all, or is obese and diabetic from eating the shit spewed out of the industrial food system, we need to consider all options from a rational perspective. That's why I'm asking people to step back from the emotive 'environmental' rhetoric around whaling and see it for what it is, international politicking at its best with little to no relevance to the real issue at hand (ie the conservation of whales). That's the thing, under the scientific research loophole there is no bag limit. Under a commercial whaling arrangement there will be. As for how to actually police it, I can't answer that - but there are dozens of other international treaties that would have very similar enforcement protocols and I'm sure if you did a bit of googling on international law you would find some examples of regulatory mechanisms that would work in this situation. What are the regulatory mechanisms in the IWC that prevent commercial whaling under the current moratorium?

Fair point, but animal welfare is not the stated reason behind the IWC moratorium; and it would be impossible for western nations (and particulary the US) to make any argument against whaling on animal welfare terms because of their horrendous treatment of animals in factory farms.

I have an alternative view that may prove unpopular; I believe that regulated commercial whaling (of some whale species) would be far better for whale conservation than unregulated 'scientific' whaling, which is what we have now. This only applies to species of whales whose numbers have increased to levels where they can be sustainably taken (ie without reducing the long term viability of the population). Any whale species still under any threat of extinction should be outright banned from hunting. Without getting into too much conspiracy theory, I think the current state of affairs actually suits all the powers involved - Japan basically gets to continue doing whatever it wants while being able to complain about western interference, Australia and other anti-whaling nations get to feel morally superior without actually having to do anything, and Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd get to raise funds and make their supporters feel good. The losers in all this are the whales who basically have no protection. Remember, the IWC is entirely voluntary; Japan could just choose to leave it as Iceland did. Iceland can now legally do whatever type of whaling it wants. Japan could do that, but it doesn't, because wants to stay in the IWC so that it can play a particular role in international whaling politics, so it can present a particular narrative to its citizens.

Download http://www.knoppix.net/ Use it to save your photos and other documents to an external harddrive Throw laptop away buy a mac

watch out kids, the serpent has teeth ;)

Yes there are a couple of species, they occur in moist areas in the karri forest around Margaret River and Walpole.

Hi guys, a good friend of mine has just found out that the seminoma (testicular cancer) he was hoping he was free of has come back. This guy is a really beautiful soul and I am offering him my complete support. I'd like to request any assistance from all of you generous people. He's not a member here but he's definitely one of us. Treatment of this type of cancer has an excellent prognosis, and my friend has an excellent attitude. He is having conventional treatment but wants to go hard with well-studied 'complementary' therapies also. He is well informed and capable of high level literature review himself, but if anyone has any ideas for less well known therapies then throw them out there ;) I'm going to get started growing some reishi for him today, but I need a culture. Can anyone help out with that? Or any other medicinal mushrooms that may be of help. I have trametes which I will get going also. However Reishi are quite slow to grow, so if anyone has any dried mushrooms, or knows a good supplier in Aus, that would be awesome. Also, if anyone has any good general wellbeing medicinal herbs, or anything you think might help in this situation, we would really appreciate it. Thanks a lot C

slime molds - check this out: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s189608.htm

Really? There's a gall wasp named after Acacia longifolia: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T3Y-48XKR9T-2D&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F1985&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1580218926&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=583cbc1710c859334a86f7f83d744d3d&searchtype=a

Wasps are a common cause of galls in Acacia

I think that many people have missed the fact that while this is an unbiased release, the data itself is entirely biased, because it was all written from the perspective of the US. Perhaps that is why it doesn't have any terrible dirt on Israel (or really the US itself)? Because US and Israel views mostly align. Take a different angle on it - maybe he just doesn't have any direct information that contradicts the official story of September 11 or reveals sinister machinations of the Bilderberg meetings, and so he's just saying he supports them because he doesn't want to get drawn into the type of paranoid delusionary conspiracism that abounds on the internet... which would be one of the greatest dangers he could face. He would instantly be written off as a nutjob. I'd take the same tack if I was in his position. The thing about wikileaks is it doesn't really express opinions on the material it releases or world events generally. They just release it, in fairly raw form, and allow others to do the interpretation. Assange calls it 'scientific journalism'. Dude, do you know much about Anonymous? They are perhaps the most anarchistic 'organisation' in the world. They are not part of any kind of intricate conspiracy, because there is no 'them'. Their antics generally resemble those of most other bored teenageres; ocassionally displaying a hint of intelligent thought. Maybe if there is an intricate conspiracy at work here then Anonymous are being manipulated to some extent, but if so the conspirators are doing a pretty piss poor job of it. Their attack on Amazon was a complete flop and their other targets have only taken minor damage. If the people behind the Grand Conspiracy had plotted a false flag in order to restrict internet freedom, I think we'd be seeing something more equivalent to September 11 itself in the online world. man, Rense is a big dangerous fucking con job.

Under Australian copyright law, you never lose the rights to your creation unless you deliberately sign them away. Creative Commons licenses are pretty useful. You can pick one that suits your purposes and make it clear in writing that you are allowing the use of your photo under those conditions only. with the guy who lost his photo to CSIRO, as I understand it the only situation where that could happen would be if he couldn't prove that he took the photo originally. If you have proof that it is originally your photo (ie you have the original raw file, or an uncompressed jpg on your computer, and the other party doesn't; and/or if the EXIF data says it was taken with a camera and lens that you own, etc...) then you should be fine if it came down to a court case. You can also put tags in EXIF data with some cameras, so you can put your name. Not that hard to strip out EXIF data, but another layer of protection. Whether or not you watermark is up to you; some photographers do, some don't. Personally i think it's a bit of a waste of time and the only reason I would do it is if I was making available sample photos for a client or whatever, and in that case I would put a big watermark across the whole photo. Small ones on the bottom can always just be cropped out. Basically if you're dealing with the kind of person who will intentionally try and steal your photo, then there are very few technical barriers in the way of that, so why ruin your photos with watermarks?

The narrow phyllode variety tends to be found in drier areas, further north and east.

If there's any more to go around, count me in. Let me know and I will pay you straight away.

An Interpol warrant has been put out for Assange, so it seems the powers that be have decided he is more than just a nuisance now. He has hinted that if anything happens to him, there is a very special cache of information that is ready to be released so he has a bit of collateral. He is also a very well known person now and has a lot of supporters, some of whom are no doubt very well connected.

Different countries implement the UN treaties on drugs in different ways, and change will occur at state and national levels before it is formalised in international agreements. Look at Cannabis in the US and to a lesser extent in Australis. It is managed very differently in different jurisdictions. While you might be right that Coca leaf may be legalised through the UN, that won't necessarily have any effect on Australia and if it does, it probably won't be for quite a long time.

I think the flavouring agent thing is just there to cover Coca Cola and other companies that use decocainised coca in their soft drinks. I don't think it would apply to the tea bags. I do not believe Delisse to be decocainised as it is the most popular brand in South America and people there wouldn't waste their time on a decocainised product. I think that Customs has just not caught on to this yet. It seems you are maybe also slightly confused about Customs and Quarantine (AQIS); as they are entirely separate agencies and do not always communicate.

Thankyou once again Mr Trout

Why are 'fatty foods' included in this ? because they are higher in carbon ?

I'm pretty sure those very linear features in radar images are just artifacts as I've seen them many times. They always appear towards the far end of the range of the radar. They also always occur in directions radiating outwards from a single point directly from the station (ie like spokes where the station is the hub), and they tend to occur when there are spotty rainshowers in the area.

I've been there. From the ground it just looks like a bunch of antennae. It wasn't until I got google earth and started looking around that I noticed the crazy geometry. The official story is that it's a radio telescope used to communicate with submarines in the Indian ocean. The fireball story is pretty cool though.

Ok, I just read the article. It doesn't actually give me anything to go on. It just says he thinks that genetics has failed as an explanation for cancer, but doesn't give any reasons why. Then he says : Which says to me that either his english is not very good, or perhaps he doesn't really know what he's talking about, because one thing you learn in first year medical school is that disease is usually a process resulting from a combination of all three factors that he mentions. I think that infections has been understudied as a cause of cancer and I think that we will find out a lot more about this over the next few years (particularly viral infection). No doubt, infections play a role in some types of cancer. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and so far he has not presented us with ANY evidence. Just conjecture.

I have no idea about him or what he believes, but the line of logic I described is pretty much exactly what the video used. Maybe they misrepresented his ideas. However, if one wanted to prove that Candida caused cancer, it would be pretty easy as far as cancer research goes. Expose some healthy rats to high levels of Candida and see if they get cancer more often than rats not exposed to Candida.