It was a wet weekend. Why not play a climate game instead of trying to game the climate like almost everyone else? Governments and international agencies are playing them too. Monetizing the atmosphere at our expense has never been so much fun.

Traveling incognito and with help from 'six stalwart Meccans', Sir Richard Francis Burton eventually reached the Black Stone -- a meteorite, he thought -- when some Bedouin turned on him for being too pushy. They had no daggers and resembled 'living mummies', leading Burton to recall he 'could have managed single-handed half a dozen of them'

For Socrates, the only difference between the sexes was physical function, as in procreation. Apart from that, he reasoned men and women can and should pursue the same range of occupations and be able to perform the same functions. What he might have said about genetic males beating the daylights out of female boxers we can only guess

The current 'restructuring' of Australia’s energy grid, will it ultimately produce Goldilocks weather for everyone everywhere and forever? Not a chance! Far more likely is the ongoing grand folly will accelerate as foreign companies and rent-seekers drive the pursuit of 'renewable energy superpower' fantasies

There are no laws of climate change, no Newton or Einstein has emerged to codify how the atmosphere works. Instead we get simulations of a counterfactual world. At the risk of offending modellers and ministers of climate change everywhere, such speculation is in the same category as astrology

They aren't quite prepared to put their names to a categorical statement that eruptions bear some relationship with global warming, but if you're sufficiently gullible to heed the hint and suggestion that such might be the case, well scare-mongering careerists won't expend too much energy setting you straight

By such mischief the Church of Climate Change has extended its unholy empire far and wide. It now has followers everywhere, from the highest office in the Vatican to the lowest carbon cowboy. All are keen to conjure riches out of thin air, marvelling at their good fortune. Such is the greed and gullibility of humankind

Whales and their songlines, the emotional buoyancy of totemic turtles, sacred trees' right to be eaten by bugs presumably no less sacred -- no, we're not talking about recently discovered chapters from Through the Looking-Glass. From the High Court to state governments' eradicators of noxious pests, utter nonsense makes its voice heard

Not that I'm overly suspicious by nature, but there is something about marking my Voice ballot with an AEC-provided pencil that just doesn't sit right. Official assurances give good reason to believe there will be no playing fast and loose with erasers, and that security measures guarantee the integrity of the count and result. Be that as it may, I'll still be taking my ballpoint into the voting booth