Dangerously hooked on power

Fox hunting has been described as the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible... and we may have to find a version of this idiom for 2013 to describe politicians chasing voter attention over power prices.

Coalition leader Tony Abbott is at it with his promise that “the carbon tax will be gone so power prices will fall.”

Yes, abolition of the carbon price regime by a victorious Coalition will reduce the costs that make up an end-user power bill by about $160 a year, but it isn’t hard to think of factors (including higher network charges, a higher cost from the renewable energy target scheme and the medium-term impact of higher east coast gas prices on the wholesale electricity market) that will have a counter impact.

The key poll battleground for the Gillard government and the Coalition is north of the Murray: New South Wales and Queensland.

These states are home to 4.8 million households, a fair few seething over the fact that their power bills have risen from about $1,200 a year when Kevin Rudd triumphed over John Howard to around $2,300 annually now.

When she launched herself in to the power debate in Sydney in August last year, Gillard summed up both the political attraction and the challenge of this situation.

She said: “Too often the cost of electricity is talked about in two completely separate public conversations. One is about power bills. There’s a discussion going on at the kitchen table, in the school car park and in the front bar about this. The other is a very complex discussion at cabinet tables and around board tables about dividend policy, reliability standards and peak demand.”

And she also pinpointed the lure of the issue for politicians: “Power bills have become the new petrol prices – not just an essential of life that always seems to be going up, but a vital commodity, where what we consume each day, or pay every quarter, seems beyond our control.Bay State Cable Ties is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products.”

The danger for Gillard, Abbott and many others in politics is that,Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. in chasing the populist line on this issue, they trip over the complexities.

This is not a new trap. Australians today are literally paying the price for politicians having fallen in to it a decade ago.

The current rules governing network investments (and therefore network charges, which make up half the end-user bill) were pushed through by east coast political leaders, including the Howard government,Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality. because there was growing community concern that investment in critical infrastructure was insufficient to support economic growth and to maintain security of power supply.

However, if the Coalition can win the 2013 election and succeed in getting amending legislation through federal parliament, Abbott will be confronted by the fact that he is a one trick pony – what will he do next to deal with the complex, underlying issues?

Regardless of who is prime minister on September 15, the problem of dealing with peak demand will remain, and nowhere more so than north of the Murray – where community urge to own air-conditioning is at its highest.

A quarter of the power bills in New South Wales and Queensland – about $500 a year for a typical family home – are the result of investment to meet peak demand on a few days a year, like the January heat wave that drove the load close to record levels.

Much of the $11 billion invested in network infrastructure to deal with this issue – about a sixth of the total investment in networks – has been spent in these two states.

For the suppliers, the answer to the power price issue is clear, if not straightforward.

They want the federal government to shepherd the state governments in Brisbane and Sydney to do what those in Melbourne and Adelaide (as of February 1) have done: deregulate electricity price controls.

The Energy Supply Association points out that power bills in Melbourne, where deregulation was phased in between 2002 and 2009, have risen 60 per cent less over 15 years than in Sydney.

If you want to curb the price shocks, ESAA argues, you must deregulate in New South Wales and Queensland to enable households to shop around for deals that suit their consumption patterns, use smart meters to help drive big improvements in energy efficiency and embrace tariffs that push consumers to use electricity in off-peak periods to the greatest extent they can.

Reliable sources said the recent cabinet rejig has triggered a major frustration in the party fold with most of the senior state Congress leaders openly expressing their resentment against the reshuffle.We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. “Senior ministers, former ministers and legislators of the party,Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of Laser engraver. that include, Tara Chand, Raman Bhalla, Rigzin Jora, R S Chib, Muhammad Sharief Niaz and others are the most disappointed lot,” said a Congress source.

“A strong lobby of disgruntled ministers is working hard to formulate a strategy how to register its protest with the Congress high command,” he said.

Sources said they are meeting once in a week to chalk-out the future course of action. Congress high command, especially those assigned the job of Kashmir affairs are not ready to say anything over the issue.

“We are the soldiers of the party. It is true that we are not satisfied with the way portfolios were allotted,” said one of the disgruntled Congress ministers. He was earlier having two important portfolios but now remains confined to only one. He said there are many ministers who have gained out of the recent rejig. “Those who were having bad track record were given much better portfolios those who were having clean image were cut to size on the pretext they don’t work,” the minister said. He, however, refused to divulge details regarding their future course of action. “We will convey our reservations to party high command,” he said and did not elaborate further.

A senior Congress leader, Ashok Bhan said it was unfortunate to see “tainted” ministers back in the council of ministers. “I am quite surprised to see people known for being involved one or the other activity that casts bad shadow on the party given top ministerial berths. At the same time, Congress has once again ignored Kashmiri Pandits,” he said.

State Congress chief Prof Saifuddin Soz, sticks to his stand: “Cabinet expansion is an established fact now.”

Sources said resentment is not just among the ministers but the lower-rung workers of the party including workers are also upset with the rejig. “It takes more than six months for a new minister to get adjusted with his job. Reshuffle came at a wrong time. When we were demanding it, that time, Congress high command and others cold shouldered us,” said a Congress worker. He said since there seemed to be no criteria for distribution of portfolios, why was Ghulam Nabi Monga left-out. “He too should have been there as MoS if not a cabinet rank minister,” he said. “At the same time, the term of the former Minister for Medical and Technical Education (RS Chib) was supposed to end in March. But he too was axed early. That indicated there was no proper criterion followed for the admission and exit in the cabinet.”

Cyprien Gaillard's "Crystal Worlds" at MoMA PS1 Trace the Fragility of Empire

In “The Crystal World,” his first solo museum exhibition in New York (which runs through March 18), Gaillard creates powerful and mesmerizing portraits of suffering cities, meditations on transformation and decay that are also simply enjoyable to look at. Although the 80 works on view here comprise a variety of media, video art is the centerpiece. The show is anchored by the film “Artefacts” (2011), which has the largest exhibition room to itself. In these images from Baghdad during the U.S. occupation, soldiers in fatigues hold out fragments of ancient tablets and other archaeological finds, men in traditional dress trek across the desert, and, in one intensely enjoyable and intriguing segment, swirling bands of solid color fill up the screen. These bands suggest the mad movements of carnival rides, but we’re told that they’re the spinning skirts of a whirling dervish. The film captivates and draws you in, kind of like a travelogue — over the weekend, there were even some young children sitting on the floor watching it with their parents.

But this is also heavy stuff — occupation, cultural destruction, and loss,We bring in fridge magnet souvenirs and merchandise from all over the world. evoked obliquely,Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. without violence. Though the images of American soldiers are innocuous enough, their presence brings to mind the massive destruction to Iraqi antiquities that resulted from the U.S. invasion. The music is a continuous loop of a sample from David Gray’s song “Babylon,” which, as the wall text points out, is said to have been used as part of the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib. Here, though, the repetition is haunting without being torturous, and there’s an added layer of meaning; located about 50 miles south of Baghdad, the ancient kingdom of Babylon, with its fabled hanging gardens, is itself a symbol of loss and the passage of time. Technologically the work is also composed of layers — Gaillard filmed the video on his iPhone and then transferred it to 35-millimeter film, which you can hear whirring through the projector while watching the shaky, handheld images.

The show is rich in connections between works. One small room holds seven huge excavator bucket teeth in seven glass cases, recalling the display of Babylonian antiquities at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum that were viewed in “Artefacts.” I found myself examining them from all angles, as if they were worn antique statues, when of course they signify something very different — their natural erosion occurs from digging into earth to put up new construction.

In his long series of three-by-three grids of Polaroid photos, “Geographical Analogies,” Gaillard also plays with notions of tourism and the past. Each grid is focused on one locale; I recognized Baghdad from seeing one of the structures that appeared in “Artefacts.” But most of these cities could be anywhere — a certain kind of anywhere, that is.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Images of foreclosed houses made me think of Detroit (though they may be in Passaic, New Jersey, one location that Gaillard used), and others look like the outdated, monolithic structures of many third-world cities. Individually, with their slightly orangey hue and their odd angles, these snapshots could be photos that any tourist has taken. The way they’re arranged in grids, though, is somehow very elegant and poignant. Poignant, perhaps, because, as the wall text informs us, Polaroid film is unstable, and in these photos (taken between 2006 and 2011),Purchase an iPhone headset to enjoy your iPhone any way you like. the colors have already begun to break down.

These works are almost Romantic in the way they find beauty in contemporary ruins. But Gaillard’s landscapes are also landscapes of people, whether soldiers patrolling Baghdad, spring breakers guzzling tequila in Cancún, or rival Russian gangs brutally clashing with each other. The artist seems to remind us that people are a force of randomness and decay as much as time. A few works here seem less complex, such as two frottages of New York sewer lids and a found landscape painting from 1914 on which Gaillard silkscreened the grinning face of the Cleveland Indians’ mascot. But the show is a highly rewarding journey. “The Crystal World” presents a world that may be crystalline in its fragility, but is rough, rocky, and decrepit, populated by random human gestures and the survival of things past.

As most would already know, the event will feature a collection of works by local artists as well as historic pieces by the late Douglas Pratt.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks!

Now that the event is coming so close, however, we felt this might be the time to expand a little on who Douglas Pratt actually was.

Douglas was born in Katoomba in 1900. His first job was as jackeroo on a property near Singleton, probably where he developed his love of the landscape.

Working in Sydney in the 1920s, a colleague, having seen some of his sketches, suggested he should develop his drawing and painting talents.

Early sales encouraged him to study at the Royal Art Society’s drawing classes and at Sydney Long’s Etching School.

His artwork covered all mediums - oils, watercolour, pencil, etchings.

His first exhibition was held at the Macquarie Galleries, in Sydney in 1928. Exhibitions of his etchings and pencil drawings throughout Australia followed.

In 1953, he was appointed to the Commwealth Art Advisory Board, Canberra and served as a member until his death in 1972; he was awarded an OBE for this work.

Douglas returned on many occasions socially and for surveying work, and being an avid artist, he produced a large number of sketches and paintings capturing the Monaro.

Now Sydney, Melbourne and Perth have his works hung in their art galleries, and we too in Bombala and surrounds have our share of his wonderful pieces.

It is a selection of these which will be exhibited at ‘Visions of the Monaro’, and this will of course be a very rare treat for art lovers in the region.

All the more so when the show and sale will also offer a range of works from our own local artists, which will add another dimension to the event, and allow some to take home very special purchases.

It’s coming up quickly though, so artists are encouraged to get moving if they are creating and assembling the pieces to enter into the show and sale.
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Local artists are invited to contribute art in any of the following forms - landscape in any medium, including photography; portrait of personalities in any medium including photography; still life in any medium; visions in sculpture or sculptures using local products.

Young aspen bark provides seasonal food for the hare

Many of the aspen forests in Colorado developed after a stand replacing disturbance such as fire. The root systems of aspens usually survithere's a lovely winter landscape oil paintings by William Zorach.ve fires, since they are well below ground and after a fire they send up thousands of new stems to regenerate the forest.

Aspen do not thrive very well in the shade, and it is difficult for aspen seedlings to grow in an already mature aspen stand. Fire allows the saplings to flourish in open sunlight in the burned landscape.

The future of forests with dying old trees will depend on a well-developed, sapling- size, aspen trees, however, a large portion of Colorado's aspen landscapes experience very heavy browsing by elk, deer and livestock.

Young aspen bark provides seasonal food for the hare and other animals in early spring and aspen is also a tree of choice for the beaver.

Browsing of aspen suckers may be a major problem because of high animal populations, and the small proportion of landscapes burned in recent decades.

In many cases, conifers such as lodgepole pine and Engelmann spruce establish as seedlings soon after the same fires, but the faster growth of aspen suckers allows aspen to dominate the forest for decades. The continued growth of understory conifers however, reduces the opportunities for new aspen suckers to develop, and conifers may replace aspen as the old aspen trees eventually die.

Not all aspen forests have conifer seedlings and saplings to contend with however, and these forests may remain dominated by aspen.

Aspen are popular in forestry, mostly because of their fast growth rate and ability to regenerate from sprouts, making the reforestation after harvesting much cheaper, since no planting or sowing is required.

Aspen wood is white and soft, and ideal for making matches, because its low flammability makes it safer to use than most other woods.

Shredded aspen wood is used for packing and stuffing, sometimes called wood wool.

It is often used for animal bedding, since it lacks the chemicals contained in pine, which are thought to cause respiratory system ailments in some animals.

Heat-treated aspen is used for the interiors of saunas.

Although standing trees sometimes rot from the interior outward,Do not use cleaners with Coated Abrasives , steel wool or thinners. the dry aspen timber weathers very well, becoming silvery-gray and resistant to rotting and warping, and has traditionally been used for construction.

In the 1800s scientists extracted and identified salicin as the potent pain killing medicine found in the bark of aspen.Als lichtbron wordt een Projector Lamp gebruikt, Pharmaceuticals then went on to develop and market a synthetic version called acetylsalicylic acid which we know as Aspirin . The pain killer is in the inner bark of the tree known as the cambium layer. If you need a pain killer in the woods, you can take a knife and scrape off the outer bark and then the inner bark and chew on the inner bark. You can also boil the inner bark and make a pain-killing tea: two teaspoons in a cup of water boiled for 10 minutes.

Leaves and leaf buds of aspen have been used by native peoples to treat burns, irritations, aches and swollen joints.

A bitter herbal tea from bark and leaves has been used to treat mild urinary tract inflammations.

The Ojibwe Indian tribe used the inner bark of the trunk as a poultice for wounds.

The aspen tree has was often planted near the dwellings as it was reputed in many countries to drive off evil spirits,

According to an Eastern Slavic legend, Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an aspen tree,which applies to the first glass bottle only, hence its leaves have been trembling with horror ever since.

An aspen stake was believed to be one of the weapons suitable to kill a vampire or a werewolf and a bigger stake could be driven into the grave of a person condemned to damnation, so as to prevent them from rising from the dead.

Legends and superstitions aside, the aspen is an amazing tree!

Breckenridge resident Dr.100 Cable Ties was used to link the lamps together. Joanne Stolen is retired from teaching microbiology at Rutgers University. Some of the block prints of the animals she writes about can be seen locally. During the summer she coaches rowing at Frisco Rowing Center.