"Ziggy plays down nuclear waste fears" [The Age]:

Dr [Ziggy] Switkowski today attempted to quell community fears about the disposal of radioactive junk, saying modern reactors generated "very little waste".

"A typical nuclear power station would probably produce as much waste as would fill maybe a bathroom in a small house," he told the Nine Network.

The article completely fails to mention the most important piece of information. A bathroom sized slab of nuclear waste per... what? Day? Week? Year? Ever?

How could they possibly have missed that? Wikipedia indicates a large reactor creates "3 cubic metres (25-30 tonnes) of spent fuel each year".

So I suspect the answer is "per year".

The recent report into Australian nuclear energy suggested 25 nuclear plants. So that's 75 cubic metres of nuclear waste per year. Waste that will be dangerous for, under the best circumstances, hundreds of years.

One of the main arguments for nuclear plants is that other industries (such as coal power or chemical industries) create just as much or more "indefinitely" dangerous chemical waste, so why single out nuclear plants?

Everyone else is an idiot so why can't we?

I guess Dr Hook are proof that you can play any old thing to a kid and they just won't get it.

I lived on a steady diet of Dr Hook, John Farnham and Abba on the various trips to and from Rockhampton from my home town of Moranbah in Queensland when I was a kid. It's about a three to four hour drive.

I listened to Dr Hook's Greatest Hits yesterday. Almost all of the songs are immediately familiar. I remember many of the words. But not all of them...

Almost every darn song is beyond filthy. In a PG 1970s kind of way. I mean, one of their albums is called "Sloppy Seconds"... Who knew? My mum I suppose. Her violence in requesting their albums not be played is suddenly justified.

They remind me of what Frank Zappa sounds like in my head. I've no idea what Frank Zappa sounds like having deliberately avoided him. But when I look at Frank Zappa, Dr Hook is the kind of music I imagine him playing.

Competent music, country/pop/rock twang, stupid lyrics.

Actually... more like Cheech and Chong only more subtle...

In some ways they remind me a little of some Ween songs, and I suspect Ween are often parodying this kind of music without me realising it.

I found the whole album a lot more listenable than the Bee Gees best of 2CD, which started very well, but really lost it's way after the Staying Alive soundtrack era...

Freaky.