Although I am writing this at 250 words per minute, (maybe a bit less with accuracy of about 15%), it will take about 2 days for it to hit the web because my internet access has been throttled back to half the speed of a dial-up. Now I guess throttling the account is a preference to a) no internet access or; b) getting changed excess megs and getting a huge bill at months end, however……

My particular ISP, which tries to make me feel good by having singing animals in its adverts, has been having problems of late. Firstly, the internet usage graph was running 24 hours behind, so I got told my quota was up 24 hours after it was used up.

I went on-line to upgrade to the next plan, but because their pages are geared to broadband users, it takes longer than John Howard takes to say sorry before the page loads.

I upgraded and the confirmation message said it will be completed within 24 hours. That was 25 hours ago.

I just rang the ISP. The fun starts with the fact that answering the phone is a human-free activity. A charming pre-recorded voice asks what you are calling about and then a computer tries to figure out what you said. “Upgrading broadband internet” I said, “Did you say ‘I’m dating a broad called Annette?’” comes the reply.

“I’d like to talk to a human!!!” I scream down the phone. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand that, I’ll put you through to an operator” whispers the cyber-seductress.

When I finally get through to Brian, who surprisingly speaks English (albeit somewhat inarticulately), I am told that the online upgrading system isn’t working at the moment and it will be 24 hours before the manual upgrade goes through.

Whilst on the phone I was looking at the service status page of the provider. It tells me the usage meter is running a day late, but nothing about the on-line upgrade being out of action. But it does talk about “the high level of service expected by our customers”. Yes, we expect it, it just doesn’t get delivered.

The dam levels in Sydney have finally fallen below the 40% level that is supposed to trigger the use of groundwater supplies. The groundwater that was discovered in the large empty spaces in Morris Iemma’s head was one of the factors that suddenly made Sydney drought-proof without having to risk marginal seats in the Sutherland Shire.Unfortunately the groundwater supplies are still being investigated and might not be ready for two years. So there is a real possibility that the dams will fall to 30% (the trigger level for the desalination plant) before a drop of water is delivered from the groundwater fields.

But the real miracle of the situation is how despite one of the worst droughts on record, the dams have only fallen 1% over the course of the year. The answer is massive transfers of water from the Shoalhaven. In any one week, up to 80% of Sydney’s weekly water supply comes from the Shoalhaven and has averaged 27% for the year.

It takes a lot of power to move this much water around. The Sydney Catchment Authority is no longer publishing its current electricity usage on its web site, but in between 2001 and 2004 (the period in which this pumping began) electricity usage for the SCA went up by 4500%. The additional usage, almost certainly coming primarily from Shoalhaven transfers, was the same amount of electricity that would be required to power a 125Ml/day desalination plant. The size of the transfers has greatly increased since 2004, so how many desalination plants worth of electricity are these transfers using now.

It seems ironic since the Iemma government is using all this electricity to artificially keep the dam levels above the trigger point at which a desalination plant will have to be built.

The graph below shows the extent of transfers for the year.

Salisbury is not so much a place as a location and Salisbury Road passes straight through it with little recognition of its existance. There is a fork in the road at the end. One fork goes into the Barringotn Tops National Park and the other towards the Barrington Guest House and the Barringotn Wilderness Cottages. The address is 2940 Salisbury Road which I think indicates that it is 29.40km from the start of the road. There is not much along the way.

The Barrington Guest House was just down the hill from our cottage, not more than 50m away. I say was, because six weeks ago to the day it burnt down. The place was totally destroyed and all that remains is a pile of charred beams and rusted corrugated iron. A tractor arrived today to start tidying up the ruins. The noise echoes throughout the valley, so our quiet holiday in the wilderness is now like having a holiday on a building site.

The fire was supposedly accidental, caused by faulty wiring, but the caretaker of the Wilderness Cottages (who looks like the caretakere unmasked at the end of a Scooby Doo cartoon) has his doubts. The fire occured when there was no-one staying in the house and only an old coupled staying in an adjacent building. The morning of the day of the fire, a group of emus which normally roamed the grounds were supposed herded into the tennis courts. Allegedly many of the antiques decorating the house had been removed in previous weeks. It is said that the Guest House had not been making money and had gone into receivership. The insurance is apparently not enough to rebuild, so it seems that this landmark of the region is gone forever.

John Howard today annouced $60M in funding towards projects designed to reduce Greenhouse Gas. While this is a good thing (despite the piddling amount of money involved and the fact that only $5M of it was for renewable energy) it contrasts with the $90M in funding for school chaplains. Does Howard honestly think it is more important to get a resident god-botherer in every school than it is to try and halt climate change?

The man has seriously got his priorities back to front. This is clear evidence that Howard has lost the plot and needs to go. If only the Federal Labour Party could find a leader that people want to vote for, it might be a possibility.