Australian crocodile enters a camper's tent

An Australian family, on a fishing trip in the Northern Territory, set up their camp about 15 metres from a creek in the Daly region, a couple of hours away from Katherine. In the early hours of the warm morning, a 19-year-old member of the family was awoken by the presence of an animal tugging at his leg. He soon realized that he had been attacked by a saltwater crocodile, which was trying to drag him out of his tent.

The fellow succeeded in using his other leg to kick the animal away. The following morning, his family drove the fellow to Katherine, to receive medical attention for his wounded lower leg. He was psychologically shocked, because people don't normally imagine that they might receive the nocturnal visit of a crocodile inside a tent. A safety campaign tries to warn people that they should be "crocwise", and a video on this question uses local Aboriginal language. The organizers will now need to define the precise meaning of the expression "crocodile wisdom".

My green mate at Gamone

Tineke took these lovely photos of my mate a few days ago.

Click to enlarge

Although he has been around for quite some time,

I'm ashamed to admit that I  haven't really given him a name yet...
but I'm keen on Bill the Lizard from Alice in Wonderland.

Australian river on fire

The muddy bed of the Condamine River in Queensland is a source of methane gas, and it's easy to light up. Many observers believe that the exceptional presence of this gas is due to fracking operations that are being carried out nearby.

Click here to see a video made by an on-the-spot witness.
The NSW Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham who made this video is particularly excited,  partly because he almost set himself on fire.

Data supplied kindly by my Australian friend Jan Brown.

Australian newspaper refuses to believe facts about problems of the Great Barrier Reef

Click here to access a shocking piece of bad journalism. Queensland's Courier Mail simply refuses to face scientific facts concerning the disastrous coral bleaching that has hit the Great Barrier Reef. This is an appalling example of idiotic "thinking" in Australia. Unfortunately, there is so much intellectual mindlessness and stupidity of this kind in Australia that I'm not convinced that the nation will survive for long.

Did Australia take notice of my advice of 2008 about the superior qualities of French submarines?

In my blog post of January 21, 2008 entitled Expensive, aesthetic and nasty [click here], I made an out-of-the-way suggestion: If Australia's armed forces wish to purchase a new fleet of excellent submarines, why don't they examine what France has to offer? At the same time that I made those remarks publicly in my blog, I got into direct contact with Ross Babbage, chairman of the Kokoda Foundation in Canberra. He's the man who actually signed the Kokoda paper #4 of April 2007, which was the main source of the media articles that had presented this submarine affair to the public, as explained in my article of 26 December 2007 entitled Australia's submarines [click here]. Ross Babbage reacted kindly by sending me (airmail to France) a complimentary copy of his report, along with helpful explanations that clarified the situation considerably.

French Barracuda submarine

For the moment, I don't know whether Australia has reached a decision on this question. But I heard yesterday that France is highly placed.

Hypnotic space image

Bubble nebula viewed by Hubble

Click here