Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Some people have e-mailed asking what's happening: Hamish has taken some well-deserved time off (his first actual break other than Christmas in the last twelve months). Meantime, we seem to have hit a couple of days when the volunteer editors all have been busy on other stuff, so comments editing etc has been a bit intermittent. This is likely to continue for the next few days, so, if your favorite remark doesn't appear for a while, it probably will come round eventually ...

Peter Singer discusses his latest book, The ethics of what we eat, at City Recital Hall on Saturday 27 May 7pm, and joins Naomi Wolf on a panel discussing What makes a civil society? at Sydney Town Hall at 4pm on Sunday 28 May. Haifa Zangana joins several panels discussing Iraq and War: at Parramatta Riverside Theatre, 6:30pm Thurs 25th; at Sydney Theatre, 11:30am, Fri 26th; and at Sydney Town Hall, 6pm Fri 26th. She also discusses the problem of murders of academics in Iraq at Sydney Theatre, 11am, Sat 27th. Add any other recommended spots in comments!

Webdiary GM David Roffey's wrap-up of the Webdiary state-of-play for April.

Webdiary GM David Roffey provides our monthly report on site statistics, finances, registrations and Margo.

David McKnight’s Beyond Right and Left: New Politics and the Culture Wars was reviewed on Webdiary back in October. McKnight is essentially a politician whose analysis of the capture of the parties of the left by the market imperative is used as a basis for a program for regeneration of the left. Almost simultaneously with McKnight’s Australian publication, a very different analysis by a right-wing sociologist, Frank Furedi, was published in the UK: Politics of Fear: beyond left and right (London & New York, Continuum). David Roffey reviews it.

Webdiary GM David Roffey provides our monthly report on site statistics, revenue and sundry.

Our General Manager's monthly update on site traffic, publishing, Webdiarists, finances and Margo.

Well, an eventful December to finish the year off. As you will have spotted, we parted company with Margo, Kerri and Wayne, moved to the new site, and started taking advertising.

After a roller-coaster 48 hours, what happens next?
David Roffey, GM Webdiary

Webdiary will soon (13 December) be moving to our permanent home, and bidding farewell to Typepad. When we do, the design of the site will allow for a small number of adverts, in the sidebars and above the heading - but not within the articles or comments. Details of ad sizes and costs set out here ... David Roffey, GM Webdiary

"CSIRO’s huge Greenhouse 2005 conference opens today in Melbourne. Each day of the conference I’ll be reporting back on what actually got said, and looking forward to what is to come on the next day." David Roffey

Update: Reports from the first day's presentations including a speech by Victorian Deputy Premier and Environment Minister, John Thwaites.

We've previously looked at climate change in Climate Change: where are we at?, and Warming up the energy debate. Some aspects also came up in the Peak Oil debates: Peak oil and our government: what energy crisis?, Horse dung up to our ears and in Rita, Katrina, oil and the economy. Quite a lot has happened since the June "Warming up -" debate, in terms of studies published that look at the detail of phenomena relevant to climate change, and other relevant developments. Here are some of those things.

Webdiary General Manager David Roffey sets out some answers on where we are and where we're going.

"In July we went to Bali for a wedding. The bride and groom were Sydney-based Kiwis who love Bali and wanted to support the island and its wonderful people. We loved it too, and made a small investment in a resort so we could go back again and again. We still intend to do that, despite the events of Saturday night. Once again the primary victims of the blasts were local people. If we abandon the predominantly Hindu people of Bali because of the acts of fanatics we will only hurt them more." David Roffey

"Commentators at the positive end had already started writing their "why the world economy survived Katrina" pieces within a week or so of the disaster. The (economic) question is - will US consumer confidence (and market confidence generally) survive Rita? I leave for others the shorter term questions around whether the US authorities learned enough from the Katrina debacle to ensure that far more Americans personally survive Rita. As I write, Texans are evacuating. A second Cat. 4/5 storm in the Gulf within a few days is a very different thing for public sentiment to cope with than a single, not unprecedented event - two Cat 4 storms in a year last happened in 1915, when 275 died in Louisiana when Lake Pontchartrain broke its banks and 275 in Galveston, Texas a little later ... Even if, as we all hope, Rita passes or fades without the dramas and human suffering of Katrina, the fact that it existed at all is going to change how people feel, and potentially push them toward saving for a rainy day rather than spending. If so, the world economy may be in for a storm of its own." David Roffey

Margo will be out of contact for the next few days in meetings and discussions with advisors to move forward on the longer term plans for Webdiary, including travelling interstate, and will not be able to respond personally to messages, questions or comments. In most cases, Hamish, Kerri or I will be able to deal, but if things really do need Margo to look at them personally, they may have to wait until Monday. Thanks for your patience if this affects you. Meantime, here's some updates on what's happening. David Roffey, GM Webdiary

As has been related by Margo elsewhere, one step on my journey to this place was a meeting with our local MP, Tony Abbott, to express our concerns about the way the war in Iraq had been handled. In that meeting Abbott said “if in the end there are no WMD and Iraq has a fundamentalist government, it won’t have been worth it”. We asked him if he was prepared to debate that in a public forum, and to his credit he said yes, and duly did – you can read a full transcript of the debate at the North Shore Peace and Democracy website.

When we came to advertise the debate with a media release, Margo pitched up in our dining room with a bottle of red and (with frequent breaks for her to nip outside for a smoke) we talked into the night about how hard it was getting to have real debate in Australian politics – both sides just shout slogans and issue soundbites that belittle or ignore the other side – and there almost always is a real point of concern in the view from the other side.

"A recent New Scientist editorial sets out a handy scoring mechanism for energy sources: 'We want them to have a small environmental impact, yet be able to supply energy on a huge scale. We want costs to be low, the method of generation to be safe and for there to be plenty of available fuel. The International Energy Agency estimates that two-thirds of the extra energy demand over the next 25 years will come from developing countries, so whatever sources we choose must be tradable worldwide. Also, in the post-9/11 world, we want energy sources that cannot be abused by terrorists or rogue states.'" David Roffey with the latest on climate change and the future of energy.