Tag: Australia
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Will BOM Bomb its Forecasts and Could AI Do Better?
by John Mikkelsen, ©2025 (Jan. 5, 2025) — As we head into 2025 with Australia living up to its reputation of a land of huge weather contrasts, our farmers are not the only people wondering if our national weather forecaster, the Bureau of Meteorology, will get it right this year. It’s a very valid question,…
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Australia The Dumb Country – Can We Get Lucky Again?
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Dec. 14, 2024) — A few short years ago, Australia was known as The Lucky Country; now in the eyes of the developed world, we are rapidly becoming The Dumb Country. Much of that is down to the fact that our Labor Federal Government refuses to acknowledge the rest of the…
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Our Unique Aussie “Affectionate Irreverence” is Almost Broke by the Woke Folk!
19 November 2024 Dear Editor, Would Australia’s current Federal Labor Government led by PM Anthony Albanese have me charged under its proposed new laws on Aussies’ expressions of opinion with ‘hate speech’ and/or ‘misinformation’ if I was to stand in the middle of Pitts St Sydney, and/or Bourke St Melbourne, shouting at the top of…
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Adjusting the School Calendar Year
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Nov. 5, 2024) — School education systems have seen significant financial investment over the past 50 years – more teachers and substantial spending on infrastructure. But one thing hasn’t changed: the school calendar. Breaking Down the Numbers in Australia In 1973, Australia had 2.85 million…
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Dwindling Delights and Mobile Frights
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Oct. 23, 2024) — A former Liberal Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, told us life wasn’t meant to be easy, but his plagiarized quote left out part of the original message. George Bernard Shaw added the more optimistic: “but take courage, it can be delightful.” Unfortunately those delights seem to be dwindling, and in…
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Our One and Only Right is Faith
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, First Principles on Education, ©2024 (Oct. 14, 2024) — What is happening in the Middle East today and how it is spreading into the Western world is more than a geopolitical crisis; it reflects the erosion of the fundamental principle of faith and confusion of our alleged rights. A shared language…
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Curses, China Syndrome Again
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Oct. 2, 2024) — Israel’s recent very successful targeted attacks on Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon with exploding pagers and walkie-talkies have been praised or condemned depending on political perspectives, but one factor seems to have universal acceptance by the Right and the Woke Left. They have shown how susceptible we are…
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Covid Chaos; Lest We Forget!
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Sep. 14, 2024) — With new issues confronting Australia and the world every day, many apparently would sooner forget the early covid years and massive over-reach of vaccine mandates, lockdowns, mental health problems, suicides and business closures which continue today. But those of us who resisted and remained unvaccinated despite the coercion,…
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Double Dip and Sacrifice
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Aug. 26, 2024) — Between them, my two girls have attended 10 schools. Some moves have been because of my vocation and living overseas; others have been due to other circumstances. My younger daughter also spent a short period of time in home schooling when…
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The Life of Zye – Who Will Cry?
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Aug. 22, 2024) — Here’s a macabre little story that illustrates where humanity is headed – let’s call it The Life of Zye even though Zye never had a real name, or a life. It all began in the usual way, with the coupling of the mum and dad he never knew,…
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Multiculturalism
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Aug. 12, 2024) — In 1973, Al Grassby, the Minister for Immigration in Gough Whitlam’s Labor Government, introduced the term multicultural to describe Australian society. Although it was true that our population was comprised of people who represented different cultures, it was also clear that Australia had always been…
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A Pilot Plant for Net Zero
by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2024 (Jul. 24, 2024) — Both solar and wind energy have fatal flaws – solar stops when the sun goes down or if a cloud blocks the sun; wind fails if the wind is too strong or too weak. But every day we hear of some fantastic…
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Trumping Australian Education
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Jul. 17, 2024) — I first published this article on 18th December 2016 – 33 days prior to President Trump taking office. A great deal has happened since this article was written, most notably in terms of how much I have researched and learned. A…
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First Aid for Flicker Power
by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2024 (Jul. 12, 2024) — Wind and solar energy have a fatal flaw – intermittency. Solar generators won’t run on moon-beams – they fade out as the sun goes down and stop whenever clouds block the sun. This happens at least once every day. But then at…
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Battery Baloney, Hydrogen Hype and Green Fairy Tales
by Viv Forbes, Executive Director, The Saltbush Club, ©2024 (Jul. 1, 2024) — How low Australia has fallen – our once-great BHP now has a “Vice President for Climate”, the number of Australian students choosing physics at high school is collapsing, and our government opposes nuclear energy while pretending we can build and operate nuclear…
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The Most Dangerous Part of Bird Flu is the Cuckoos Selling It
by John Anthony, The Truth Monster, ©2024 (Jun. 13, 2024) — If we are not frightened enough of avian flu here in the U.S., Australia joined the fray by killing over 500,000 chickens suspected of being infected with the disease. This was bad news for the owners of the farms located in Melbourne, not far…
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Beyond Mad Max with Dystopian AI
by John Mikkelsen, ©2024 (Jun. 8, 2024) — The dystopian future predicted in the Mad Max movie franchise may be closer than ever and it won’t take World War 3 to make it a reality. To me the only ones worth watching were the original and its sequel starring homegrown hero Mel Gibson. Those drab…
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Solutions Lie in Focussing on Solutions
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Apr. 24, 2024) — Parents, by and large, are educated. Funding for schools continues to grow. One can assume there is community support for schools and schooling. It should be of no surprise then that demand for school accountability – particularly the measure of value…
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Financial Literacy in Schools Make Sense
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, First Principles on Education, ©2024 (Apr. 9, 2024) — Calls for Financial Literacy in schools make sense! There’s no question of its importance. Acting on the call literally, makes no sense. What constitutes Financial Literacy, who will develop the curriculum and who will be charged with teaching and assessing such a…
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Diverse Ability: The Dignified Currency
by Cheryl Lacey, DSJ, Take The Lead On Education™, ©2024 (Mar. 28, 2024) — A school is a system within a whole raft of other systems. The intersections, influences and impact on education and life are limitless. If the tea leaves are accurate, schools in Australia are about to have one of the biggest shake-ups…