Just hours after the UK Parliament’s vote to bomb Syria on December 2, four British jets were scrambling from their base in Cyprus, on their way to strike oilfields held by ISIS.

Rupert Murdoch, executive co-chairman of Fox News' parent company, wrote on Twitter that while Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz "bets uniting white conservatives/evangelicals enough [...] Trump appealing across party lines. Surely the winning strategy".

Over the past decade Australia bet hundreds of billions of dollars that the rest of the world wasn't serious about tackling climate change. It looks like we lost. World demand, and in turn the prices we receive for our precious raw materials, are collapsing under the weight of the oversupply we helped cause. While demand for coal stubbornly refuses to live up to the optimistic forecasts of Australian politicians, the price of renewables keeps falling faster than its most ambitious boosters predicted.

Is the hydrocarbon economy too big to fail?

The battles are furious... The debates are like tar pits and asphyxiating feather pillows... but one of these candidates will finish on top...

I believe Al Bundy would do a great average job as President of the USA... or grandpa Simpson (with a Abraham Lincoln top-hat)...

The rat before Homer, though... 

Yes, in this article from the SMH, 1959, the notion of global warming had not penetrated our brains and science was still going as if the "natural" rhythms of the climate was in charge. As I have mentioned before on this site, science believed rightly that the earth's climate was going towards another ice age.

Governments in Hobart and Canberra have discovered that trees make their carbon accounts look good, but it’s a con.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has sent out a research note calling for clients to brace themselves for what would be a "cataclysmic year" on the markets.

The bank's advice? "Sell everything".

In Gus collection of odd stuff, there was this article published in the SMH (1961), before the Gladesville Bridge, Sydney, was built... The amazing story here is that engineer Tony Gee was just 22 years old when he was given the job to design the bridge. After searching for a month, I have found the picture above. Hurray...

------------------