Further sign of slow growth. More evidence from the Australian Bureau of Statistics this morning that economic growth is less than the Treasury and Reserve Bank experts had expected. Unemployment in June remained at 4.9%.
Like a slow lingering death. Europe’s financial crisis staggers on. Interest rates on Portuguese and Irish bonds reached new high points overnight and they are on the rise again for Greece.
The attack of the jellyfish giants. Those slimy, gelatinous creatures of the deep are on the warpath. The London Daily Mail website reports how a huge swarm of jellyfish clogged up the Orot Rabin nuclear power plant in Hadera, Israel, a day after the Torness nuclear facility in Scotland was closed in a similar incident.
Hadera ran into trouble when jellyfish blocked its seawater supply, which it uses for cooling purposes, forcing officials to use diggers to remove them.
A serious problem no doubt but the jellyfish tentacles are not only felt closer to shore. Back in November 2009:
And what’s to blame for these problems? Well some scientists are putting it down to climate change, specifically ocean acidification. Reports the Daily Mail:
“Scientists say the number of jellyfish are on the rise thanks to the increasing acidity of the world’s oceans driving away the blubbery creatures’ natural predators.
The warning came in a report into ocean acidification – an often overlooked side effect of burning fossil fuel.
Studies have shown that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doesn’t just trigger climate change but can make the oceans more acidic.
Since the start of the industrial revolution, acidity levels of the oceans have gone up 30 per cent, marine biologists say.”
Change the brew. I think I have worked out why the NSW State of Origin drought continues.
How can a NSW side win when it is sponsored by Melbourne’s Victoria Bitter? Bring back Resch’s or switch sponsors to Tooheys.
Orot Rabin is actually a coal-fired power plant, not nuclear.
Yes, but it’d still have issues if it lost its cooling.
Totally with you on the NSW sponsorship, it was just plain wrong. But it wasn’t the cause of the NSW defeat…that was more to do with the peas missing from the refs’ whistles, particularly while Cameron Smith lay all over tackled runners. But, as Shayne Hayne has said on television before*: “Our job is to make sure the right team wins”. And how well they managed it in games one and three!
*Channel 9 interview following the Roosters/Tigers debacle in last year’s semi final series.
You might blame the refs for a missed try, but that surely wouldn’t have won the Blues the game. The Maroons’ opening 15 minutes was stunning, which was also slowed somewhat by Blues holding their tackles for too long. Having understood that the refs were going soft on it, the Maroons took better advantage of the game’s conditions.