Crikey

Interesting method of polling? At the World Masters Games Opening Ceremony on Sunday night at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney, every time Premier Nathan Rees was announced by name a chorus of boos and less that delightful catcalls ensued. Given that there are 28,000 competitors plus family and friends and the bulk are Australian and from NSW, what result can be gleaned from this?

Also, HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark was noted as a Guest of Honour (no appearance though) and every time his name was mentioned the crowd went into hysterics! Maybe we should change our allegiance from Buckingham Palace to Amalienborg Palace?

QF31 A380 from Sydney to London via Singapore scheduled for Sunday evening boarded more than five hours late due to a late arrival due to technical issues. Once the outgoing flight was boarded it got to the runway powered up briefly then stopped and exited the runway right on the 11pm curfew.

All passengers disembarked and waited for nonexistent taxis at midnight, only to return again in the morning for a rescheduled departure at 11am, which also was cancelled due to ongoing technical issues.

Believe it is related to the portside outboard engine, but they don’t seem to know how to fix it.

Things going from bad to worse at Airservices Australia. The negotiations surrounding the staffing crisis (cancelled controllers leave in Sydney) before the Fairwork Commission (aka the AIRC) have been subjected to a gag order which was applied for by ASA … something to hide perchance? Now another unit is subjected to a leave ban and has been added to the dispute. In other news, some controllers who left for overseas jobs are being denied re-employment at ASA on return to Australia, due to what can only be described as a black list.

Following your tip yesterday on Chevron’s informational game on the energy crisis and the requirement to use petroleum, I thought I might get in touch over them about this. I thought you might find their response interesting. My original question was: “I gave up because I had to put petroleum down. I didn’t want that in my city so I stopped playing. Did I miss the point of this?”

Here is their response:

From: willlyoujoinusSupport
Date: 2009/10/13
Subject: RE: I have a comment or question about information, facts, events in Energyville
To: X.XXX.XXXXX@gmail.com

Dear User  — 

Thank you for your interest in Energyville. While numerous alternatives to petroleum are being developed to meet energy demand, petroleum will remain the primary fuel source for transportation well into the future. However, to provide for adequate choice and game play, players are able to use alternatives to meet a significant percentage, but not 100%, of energy demands. A minimum amount of petroleum is needed to meet the demands of various components of the city including airplanes, which at this time have no alternative sources of fuel.

The game was developed by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit (EIU). To ensure that the game was without bias, data was sourced by the EIU from more than 100 organizations  — such as the Organization for Economic Development, International Energy Agency, the Electric Power Research Institute and the Energy Information Administration.

The point of the game is convey that there are no silver bullet solutions to our energy challenges, there is no single right ‘energy’ source and we will need all the energy we can get, in every form, to meet global demand. The goal of Energyville is to create an understanding of these complex issues by demonstrating the trade-offs and opportunities using accurate third party data and realistic scenarios.

We hope this helps. Thank you again for your interest in the game.

Thank you,
The Support Team at willyoujoinus.com
www.willyoujoinus.com