We Spend a Million Dollars a Day on the Bureau of Meteorology.
Do you think we're getting value for money?
The Bureau of Meteorology want indemnity from any claims against them as a result of dodgy weather forecasts. It’s an inexact science, they say.
Wait. What?
I thought the science was settled!
What about the indemnifying US from costs, loss or damages if Chris Bowen's Net Zero fetish, based on BoM forecasts, is wrong?
Here’s my take …
This is from a story from London from a piece by Mary Wakefield in the The Spectator about a "Say my Name" exercise in the public service, designed to convey the correct pronunciation of names in signing off correspondence.
The Say My Name movement actually began in a reasonable fashion in America s part of the anti-racist business. African American names are often mispronounced, the theory goes, and so a phonetic guide spares people the need to constantly correct their colleagues. But it's astonishing the
speed with which 'allies' now co-opt - colonise, perhaps - the things devised for minor y groups.
Within a year, Say My Name had made its way into universities and institutions, both in America and
the UK, where it swiftly became a code of conduct everyone must participate in - a test of loyalty.
The Met Office, owned by the Department for Science, is full of enthusiasm about pronunciation, and in a list of its Diversity and Inclusion highlights for 2022-23 there is a detailed description of how they approached the process. First came an 'Empathy Lab', a three-day event for nearly 300 employees in partnership with some thing called 'All Able'.
It's a mistake to rush into something as significant as spelling, so no actual decision was made
but a steering group was formed to 'grow knowledge and skills of digital accessibility across the
Met Office'. After an untold number of further meetings, the steering group has decided, cautiously, to introduce an 'audio name badge'. I'm unsure quite how an audio name badge works. Do you
press the other person's? That seems intrusive. Do you proudly press your own at intervals in the
office?
The most significant objection to an imported fad like Say My Name is that although it's of no real
use to civil servants, it's extremely handy for any of their HR minded overlords. It sorts the
problematic dissenters from the agreeable compliant types in no time. It's just a shame for the
country that it's the civil servants who have the guts not to sign up who are exactly the ones it
needs most.
Did anyone else notice the inconsistent media coverage of Cyclone Jasper in FNQ and the flooding that occurred following that? There were several journalists up there in various places just before Jasper hit, going on and on about how devastating this cyclone is and how much damage it would cause, as though this category 1 or 2 cyclone was going to be another Yasi or Tracy or something. I thought that the journalists looked like nitwits standing out in the rain, shouting like drama queens. One of them even breathlessly shouted about how there are trees uprooted all over the place. But when I looked at the scene behind her, I couldn't see one tree that was uprooted. The locals up there understood better. They described it as a 'friendly cyclone' because that is exactly what it was. They were not worried about the cyclone itself. The cyclone itself was no more damaging than a typical low.
But when the flood occurred straight after the cyclone, where was the media then? It took days before I could find any media coverage about this event. And yet, it was the flood, not the cyclone, that shook the whole of Cairns. The locals were in a state of shock (they still are) because they had never seen this kind of flooding in their whole life. My parents have lived in Cairns for 39 years and have never witnessed flooding anywhere near this level for the entire time they have been there. They say this flooding was worse than the 1977 flood and some say it is unprecedented. And yet, while rivers were rising and overflowing and houses were being inundated - for a couple days, I could not find any media reports on this situation. It wasn't until a few days later, that the media started reported on it.