We had a bit of rain in Sydney last night. Not a lot, and certainly nothing worth getting excited about. There was something very interesting about it however. At about 20:00 the light outside turned orange. It was very surreal and very bizarre - almost the type of orange light seen when the sun shines through bushfire smoke. The biggest difference was the quality - this one seemed to be a more vivid, but not more bright, type of orange - almost as though it was wet :-)
Either way it was fantastic, and as best as I know I'm the only person who picked it up. LGR was still awake but didn't really care and Mrs G was trying to get a cab from the airport in order to come home ....
Mrs G did make it home at about 20:45 - just after the orange light had turned a distinct shade of night time. Not surprisingly she was very talkative and full of enthusiasm for her trip and her job in general. It's great to see so much passion and enthusiasm. Especially if it means I can play the role of toy boy in the years to come (even though I'm definitely no longer young - or even younger than Mrs G for that matter ...).
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I saw the two extremes of dangerous drivers on the way to work this morning. The first was a red P-plater driving with one arm hanging out the window at a leisurely 40km/h in a 70km/h zone. His slow speed was blocking up a lane of traffic very nicely and causing those behind to take risks to move into another lane. It also caused the other lanes to begin to back up. It is possible to drive too carefully and too slowly - although I find it hard to call someone who is driving with one arm hanging out of the car 'careful'.
The second was a red P-plater. This guy was driving a very slick looking Monaro GTS and he was quite clearly enjoying - accelerating extremely hard, changing lanes randomly, revving the motor at lights. As with the guy who was driving very slow this chap was also causing traffic chaos - by making others vigorously brake when he suddenly veered in front of them. The irony is that he wasn't really getting anywhere. I could also point out how much petrol he would have wasted but I will make a presumption Mummy and Daddy are picking up the tab ....
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I had a couple of politicians make some very interesting points during the week.
The first was Morris Iemma saying NSW had an impeccable record when it come to negotiating public/private contracts. I guess he's forgotten the Cross City Tunnel? Plenty of others won't.
The second was John Howard stating that the 'jury is still out' regarding the impact of human activity on climate change (this was in response to a question without notice during parliament). It seems he was reminded by his helpers that the current Liberal policy is one of pretending to care - because he returned to parliament a short time later stating that he had misunderstood the question. He did believe there was a significant chance human activity was influencing climate change.
Edit: I'll have to give benefit of the doubt here. While answering the original question on 6th February John Howard did make reference to a connection between drought and climate change. It's on Page 10 of Hansard.