From the Environmental Defender's Office (NSW) weekly bulletin:
Australia's Climate Action Summit 2010
The grassroots climate movement summit is happening in Canberra at the Australian National University between 13-15 March. http://www.climatesummit.org.au
It's not unusual for there to be differing perceptions within society of a particular group or institution and this week Scientology was under the microscope once again.
Here are what might be characterised as the two faces of this quasi-religion.
The official Scientology website indicates how this group would like the world to see it:
In the five decades since the founding of the first Church of Scientology in 1954, Scientology has become the fastest-growing religion in the world. Read more »
This is what the Federal Nats MP Luke Hartsuyker is saying in his first 2010 e-newsletter sent this week:
"Many tertiary students have started their 2010 studies uncertain about the entitlement to Independent Youth Allowance and Commonwealth scholarships."
Of course they have Luke - you and your mates voted to block passage of the government bill which would have established the guidelines and payment schedule for these entitlements!
Given Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's recent creep up the Preferred Prime Minister ladder, this look at how we pick our pollies is worth considering.
Have a geek at those happy-go-lucky two percenters who told the Essential Report that they just tick and forget!
Factors determining voting behaviour in Federal or State elections
Q. When you vote in Federal or State elections, which of the following best describes how you decide who to vote for? Read more »
One of the most sensible government backflips in years; "The Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has reversed a decision that came in just eight days ago allowing beef imports from countries which have had BSE, better known as mad cow disease. Instead there'll be two years of analysis."
Onya Burkie! Leave the creation of shonky biosecurity policies to the likes of former Howard Government ministers if they ever return to power - you just concentrate on keeping Australian primary production as clean, disease free and safe as possible.
Since he successfully knifed 'Truffles' Turnbull in the back and vaulted over the corpse into Liberal Party leadership, Tony 'Mad Monk' Abbott has been almost unrelentingly negative in what he says for public consumption in his unofficial 2010 federal election campaign.
Presumably he thinks that constant carping and attack will compensate for the tissue thin economic, social and environmental policies in which he wraps himself.
Even when he attempts a 'positive he fails. You've just gotta laugh at his latest contribution which will be welcomed like a dose of plague by the Coalition's traditional supporters in big business. Read more »
The Women's Walk for Peace follows a route from Brisbane in Queensland to Sydney in New South Wales. The walk will be held from February to May 2010.
Stages of this walk pass through all major NSW North Coast towns and villages between 20 March to 15 April 2010.
If you wish to join a stage in your area go to Footprints for Peace Australia for details. Read more »
This is a big thank you to State Emergency Service personnel from Yamba (at the mouth of the Clarence River in north-east New South Wales) for their prompt, efficient and cheerful response to my sudden emergency in this last week's wet weather.
I sincerely appreciate their efforts to keep me dry under a compromised roof.
JM
Yamba
* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak at live dot com dot au for consideration.
President Obama's appointment this month of former Pew Institute director of whale conservation to the post of U.S. commissioner for the International Whaling Commission does nothing to bolster support for Australia's determinedly anti-whaling position.
In fact Monica Medina's views at the end of the day would seem to run parallel with the current Japanese push for limited commercial whaling in the Antarctic.
Limiting Japan's Whale Hunting
Read more »
The Essential Report pollsters asked 1,816 people for their opinion of various personality traits in relation to the Australian Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, with 1009 responding to this 23-28 February online poll conducted at Your Source.
Kevin Rudd as incumbent Labor prime minister still wipes the floor with his Coalition counterpart across all positive categories - intelligent, hard-working, visionary, down-to-earth, capable leader, good in crisis, trustworthy, understands problems facing Australia, more honest than most politicians etc.
In relation to what might be seen as negative characteristics both men are considered equally demanding, with Rudd viewed as more superficial and complacent than Abbott who is seen as more out of touch, inflexible, narrow-minded and arrogant by most respondents. Read more »
Maud up the Street has a big grin on her face because she's just noticed that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's discreet baby frontal comb-over has been turned into a close crop which he obviously hopes will play better to the camera. Read more »
Where do some nongs keep their brains - in a box down in the garden shed?
Somehow I'd always thought offering a reward for political assassination was just a trifle over the top, even if you're young and stupid enough to say it on a Facebook page displaying your own mug shot for any potential complaint laid with the Australian Federal Police about advertising a willingness to fund murder.
Google's search engine indexes 2,870 items which have this word sequence "kill kevin rudd" and the item with top ranking is a free game called, you guessed it, Kill Kevin Rudd by Pictogame
There are only 4 items for "kevin rudd must die". Read more »
PROGRAM OF EVENTS
There is a range of activities during the week before and after 8th March, the
official International Women’s Day. Council and the NSW Office for Women’s
Policy are supporting the following events. Read more »
The ladies at the croquet club have been looking at me with strange sideways glances since Bob’s encounter with the bunyip.
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It is disturbing that incorrect information about the bats in Maclean has been widely circulated. The management of urban flying-foxes is complex.
The community is entitled to be presented with information that is free of hysteria, stereotypes and political manoeuvrings.
Everytime one turns around some government or multinational corporation appears to be gathering data concerning our lives and habits and, in the process attempting to treat citizens/customers as though they have little or no right to know the extent of these activities.
This time it was Microsoft's turn to be outed and Cryptome posted a downloadable file titled Microsoft Spy Guide which contained the company document Microsoft Global Criminal Compliance Handbook, March 2008.
Read more »
In ABC online The Drum's Unleashed four articles have been posted by journalist and former Greens candidate for the seat of Higgins Clive Hamilton this week as part of a series of five:
Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
Think tanks, oil money and black ops
It's a tragedy that men have died installing government subsidized roof insulation and that some homeowners have had house fires as a result of faulty installation.
However banging on about ministerial responsibility and calling for Environment Minister Peter Garrett's resignation allows the real culprits off scot free.
It was those business owners who contracted with householders to install roof insulation (and sometimes then sub-contracted the work to unskilled individuals) who are responsible for the dangerous manner in which some of this insulation was laid down.
Their greedy desire to gain as many customers as they could, do as many jobs as humanly achievable in the least possible time with insulation material which gave them the biggest profit margin, which led to the deaths and housefires as surely as night follows day.
They cared for nothing except their own bank balances and should be publicly condemned. Read more »
Tim Lambert posting about climate change denialism reminded me that there are any number of misquotes and absolutely false quotes found on the Internet these days.
Snopes carries examples of some classics which are primarily sourced from America.
However, if one wants to see blatant misquotes and bogus paraphrasing at work in Australia one can do no better than look through Hansard courtesy of Open Australia where complaints about misrepresentation are not uncommon.
This little exchange was set off by that arch word-twister, Tony Abbott: Read more »
Possibly a true story.....
The day was just like many others. Dusk was falling and the frogs were warming up for the night-time chorus.
Then we heard a strange yodelling sound and looking down towards the flat we saw someone running up the creek bank and falling into the long grass.
So the hubby and I jumped into the paddock basher and motored down to see what was going on. Read more »
The community debate on the flying fox colony roosting in bushland adjoining Maclean High School has been ongoing for literally years.
In fact one former Maclean mayor initially got himself elected on the back of beating up on bats.
Federal Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin has the right idea; removing the bats is not a long-term solution and she is committed to discussing permanent options including moving the school.
Here is one local resident's recent letter to The Daily Examiner on the subject:
Read more »
Clarence Valley Review 10 February 2010The saving grace in this story is that Cr. Karen Toms has had the good sense to suggest to Clarence Valley Council that it start following Dept. of Lands guidelines and its own policy and procedures, now that irregularities in how council allocates trust fund monies has been brought to her attention.
What on earth can one say about this from Objective Ministries except why is the poor Australian Platypus dragged into the IT conspiracy against Christianity?:
Hypnotically encased iMacs trick unsuspecting computer users into accepting Darwinism . Read more »
Nicholas Duckworth, Grafton - Open Photography Prize
Other North Coast winners were:
Anna Jackowiak-Hoare, Bonalbo - Open Art Prize
Oliver Lifford, Teven - Children’s Art Senior Prize
Isabella Laura Jones, Ballina - merit award Children’s Art Senior Prize
Blair Trigger, Byron Bay - merit award Children’s Photography Read more »
On 5 February 2010 The Daily Examiner proudly announced:
TODAY four North Coast mayors and the region's three main newspapers start a combined campaign to get much-needed improvements to the Pacific Highway accelerated. Clarence Valley Mayor Richie Williamson, Coffs Harbour Mayor Keith Rhoades, Richmond Valley Mayor Col Sullivan and Ballina Mayor Phil Silver yesterday sent letters to the NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell inviting them on a highway road trip between Coffs Harbour and Ballina - a road most of us travel regularly.
It is the first step in what is likely to be an ongoing campaign to get the government to rethink its highway priorities and it is a campaign that has the strong support of this newspaper, the Coffs Harbour-based Coffs Coast Advocate and the Lismore-based Northern Star. Read more »
I am confused about the federal opposition policies and I hope someone, anyone can clarify them for me.
Mr Abbott is talking about being tough on boat people. It is as if one day the future refugee wakes up and thinks : “I am going to put my life into the hands of people smugglers where I'll be at their tender mercy to be ripped off, crowded onto unseaworthy boats, packed into airless shipping containers and have a very high chance of dying and for this privilege my parents are going to sell close to everything they own so I can have my great adventure.”
I know what I would say to any of my kids who suggested this to me. Read more »
Malcolm Turnbull speaking today in Parliament on anthropomorphic global warming and an emissions trading scheme, in direct opposition to his leader's new policy position:
The White Paper estimates the CPRS will result in a one off increase in the CPI by 1.1% – compared to the 2.8% one-off increase in the CPI caused by the introduction of the GST. Most households are compensated for this increase in costs either in whole or in part.
I should note that the largest component of increases in electricity prices in NSW over the next five years is, in fact, additional network charges to recognise the increased investment in the security and reliability of electricity infrastructure. Those increases, unlike the CPRS element, are not the subject of any compensation.
But given we have an apparent bi-partisan agreement that emissions should be reduced by 5% of 2000 levels, is an Emissions Trading Scheme, at a general level, the best policy to achieve the desired reduction in emissions? Read more »
For days Tony Abbott's been popping up all over the evening tellie talking about the cost of food and shaking his head solemnly; calling lamb the "new lobster".
I couldn't afford to eat lamb chops in 2006 under Howard or in 2009 under Rudd - so why does 'Phoney Tony' Abbott expect me to believe that he will somehow make lamb affordable to poor people post-2010 if he's made Prime Minister.
Pull the other one, Abbott - those budgie smugglers are strangling your brain!
Lucky to afford mince
Maclean
A private member's bill Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Prohibition of Support for Whaling) Bill 2010 was tabled in the Australian Senate and read for the first time on 4 February 2010.
The bill's aim is to create new offences and penalties related to providing service, support or resources to an organisation engaged in whaling.
Although no-one would doubt the motives of Greens Senator Rachael Siewert, her identified co-sponsor Eric Abetz raises the possibility that this bill might also be a long-shot attempt by the Liberal Party to embarrass the Rudd Government and increase any Australian-Japanese diplomatic tensions in the months before a federal election. Read more »
Institute of Cetacean Research photograph allegedly showing impact
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society photograph of the Bob Barker Read more »
There is a state-wide community survey of the Ibis underway today and NSW North Coast residents can help by keeping their eyes open.
National Parks & Wildlife information:
The Australian white ibis, Threskionis molucca, is a highly visible native water bird in New South Wales. Read more »
In Mach 2009 the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, was reported as having rather improperly commented on a matter which was sub judice:
"I saw iiNet's defence in court under oath ... they have no idea if their customers are downloading illegally music or movies," he said today at the Commsday summit in Sydney. "Stunning defence, stunning defence," he continued in what appeared to be a sarcastic comment.
I thought a defence in terms of 'we had no idea' ... belongs in a Yes Minister episode.
Read more »
Now let me get this straight.
Kristina Kerscher Keneally becomes Premier of NSW and takes over the Twitter account of the abruptly ousted Nathan Rees.
In swift order she deletes all his tweets and begins what has to be a very desultory approach to digital communication using this account. Read more »
This great graphic comes via the very astute Peter Martin, who in his turn picked it up from the Harvard Business Review.
AdelaideNow... had great fun publishing this after the Internet went wild.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Michael Atkinson has made a "humiliating" backdown and announced he will retrospectively repeal his law censoring internet comment on the state election. Read more »
From time to time I will attempt to produce a broad-brush outline of what voters on the NSW North Coast are discussing in the months preceding the 2010 federal election.
Here is the first post in this series.
The Daily Examiner letters to the editor, 28 & 30 January 2010
Fair work farce Read more »
Take a good look, Prime Minister Rudd.
This is the current state of play in relation to opinion change according to Possum Comitatus and it is not as healthy a situation as Labor might like or have expected:
On 25 January 2010 Monbiot.com announced a new website called Arrest Blair: for crimes against peace.
The new site is dedicated to the concept that Blair must face justice for his part in the Coalition of the Willing's unlawful invasion of Iraq:
This site offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen's arrest of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, for crimes against peace. Anyone attempting an arrest which meets the rules laid down here will be entitled to one quarter of the money collected at the time of his or her application. Read more »
Evidence taken on 29 January 2010 by the U.K. Iraq Inquiry was a rather pointless exercise at times - for the most part questions carefully walked around a former leader rather than confronting issues head-on.
The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair was allowed to interrupt committee members and drag out his political soap-box at length almost unchallenged.
However, what clearly comes through is the fact that Blair:
(i) was probably heavily influenced on a personal level by George W. Bush;
(ii) was determined on regime change in Iraq;
(iii) held a desire for change which was never predicated on Iraq as a hive of international terrorism;
(iv) was aware U.N. sanctions had effectively 'contained' Saddam; and Read more »
The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that the Federal Coalition under the leadership of the Liberal Party's Tony Abbott is considering raising the price of cigarettes to help fund the so-called environmental programs he is proposing to establish in lieu of creating an emissions trading scheme and a price for carbon.
This tax increase on tobacco is apparently part of Abbott's supposedly wide range of options on the table to replace making big polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more »
A short, snappy (and blatantly untruthful) version of the Rudd Government's plan to censor the Australian Internet from an email sent out last week by the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy.
Better be careful what you say about Stephen Conroy on Twitter then. No more threatening to set his undies on fire or vote him out of the Senate! ;-) Read more »
Just as Keneally has exposed the power of the Right's faction bosses in all its bankruptcy, so has Abbott's ascension exposed the bankruptcy represented by the old guard of the Federal Liberals.
No Going Back post in The Piping Shrike post on 23rd January 2010
By now no-one is in doubt that this is an election year across Australia and, if Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce, Joe Hockey, Stephen Conroy, Jenny Macklin and Nicola Roxon are any indication, this will be a year filled to the brim with politically motivated misinformation.
Although I (like many others) have come to expect a high degree of doublespeak and obfuscation from those elected to federal and state parliaments, it is not something the electorate should tolerate. Read more »
.......the courage and resilience of those original Australians, the Aboriginal communities across this nation.
There is nothing like a uninformed argument over constitutional monarchy versus republic and it was played out again in the letters column of The Daily Examiner on 23 January 2010 between a Scots-born Aussie letter writer and a Currency Lad deputy editor.
The crown
Remember over the course of 2009 the Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon assuring everyone within hearing that the new Medicare smart card would contain data and, give access to a database, which could be checked for accuracy by individual patients and that information would only be given out if the individual patient agreed to participate in the e-health scheme?
This is what the Minister was putting about at the time: Read more »
In the Tweed Daily News yesterday:
MURRAY Lees has resigned from his position as Tweed National Party chairman after being convicted of his fourth drink-driving offence at Murwillumbah Local Court yesterday.
Read the rest here.
I once read a very simple explanation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applied to quantum mechanics which went something like this - you can make predictions about how x will behave over the long run but you can never say how x will behave over the short run. Read more »
A friend sent me a link to Just Answer Law (Ask an Australia Law Question, Get an Answer ASAP!) which had me wondering where on earth some people park their common sense as they grab the keys and decide to take a little ride on the NSW North Coast. Read more »
When Peter Chapman resigned as editor of The Daily Examiner at Grafton on the NSW North Coast to move to a similar position with the Frazer Coast Chronicle in Queensland, the Clarence Valley almost seemed to echo with a collective sigh of relief.
Read more »
There was probably some method in the Mad Monk's verbal incontenience during the last few weeks - without it he may not have come close to keping pace with a prime minister who was being talked about even when he was going low profile during the parliamentary break. Read more »
Now that headline's a bit rich I know {slaps own hand}.
It may have been the meaning of the words the Federal Leader of the Opposition strung together in a radio interview aired on ABC News Radio early last Friday morning, but it was obviously not what Tony Abbott wanted to convey to the Australian electorate as he began his pursuit of the 'green vote'.
The fact that I posted the headline is a good indication of the level of faith I place in Abbott's sudden discovery that he is a "practical environmentalist" committed to a green country and economy.
His vision for Australia is a frightening mixture of naivity and old, limited solutions based on an idea that the environmental problems can be somehow kept seperate from the issue of climate change and an historical failure to assign a direct economic cost to pollution by industry. Read more »
At the end of last week Granny Herald mentioned that Google had taken down a website at the request of an Australian citizen:
"Google has agreed to take down links to a website that promotes racist views of indigenous Australians.
Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt recently discovered the US-based site by searching "Aboriginal and Encyclopedia" in the search engine.
He tried to modify the entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satirical and extremely racist version of Wikipedia, but was blocked from doing so.
Mr Hodder-Watt then undertook legal action, that resulted in Google acknowledging its legal responsibility to remove the offensive site. Read more »
Anyone who has been following the fortunes of biotech companies associated with genetically modified seed will recall Monsanto & Co's oft repeated claim that it's really in the business of feeding the world and not the simple pursuit of profit.
Once more in 2010 this monopolisitic multinational's actions give lie to the PR spin, as it is discovered trying to assert royalty rights over Cefetra's imported animal feed product made from GMO Roundup-ready soybean and accusing this company and others of infringing its patent.
The ruling mentioned below appears to be an interim opinion with the court's final ruling expected sometime later in the year.
Read more »
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According to the Weekly Greenhouse Indicator published by The Climate Group there is a little good news but New South Wales needs to do a lot better if we are to get on top of carbon pollution:
This week's (26 Feb to 4 Mar) NSW Indicator is 1.953 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, the breakdown is as follows:
In tonnes:
Leader of both the Australian Liberal Party and Coalition Opposition, Tony Abbott, has announced his 'official unofficial' parental leave policy with an initial broad brush annual costing of over $3 billion per annum.
This is what Abbott told ABC TV Lateline:
TONY ABBOTT: Well, the total cost of this will be about $3.8 billion. About $1 billion will come from the baby bonus, $2.7 billion though I'm anticipating will come from a levy on the taxable incomes of larger businesses.
So what exactly does this mean at face value?
Read more »
There's a lot of not so quiet muttering on the North Coast as retirees discuss the possibility that the subsidised roof insulation installed in their homes over the last year is unsafe.
All the media exposure about shoddy work and greedy spivs has masked another emerging problem - that of other types of roofing work contracted for by local affordable housing providers.
Seems at least one provider is canvassing its tenants to find out if one particular company has left a trail of leaking or unsafe roofs in its wake after sub-contracting work to non-tilers. Read more »
Bring out your dead e-waste! Bring out your e-waste!
Heard that call from your local council sometime in the last two years? Then you are one of the lucky ones.
Responsible people are running out of room in their garages and sheds to safely store this waste, while local government often only pays lip service to policies on garbage, recycling, safe disposal and landfill.
Clean Up Australia Day founder, Ian Kiernan, has stepped up calls for national laws to crack down on e-waste producers, as almost 600,000 Australians rolled up their sleeves and got stuck into the annual litter bust. Read more »
It wasn't all that many years ago that a series of royal commissions and investigations revealed that Australian police officers were not above inappropriately accessing information about ordinary citizens and that in New South Wales a corrupt trade in personal information had occurred.
If you have ever lived in rural and regional Australia you will be aware that doctors gossip about their patients, and not just amongst themselves.
That even now public hospital computer access is not always secure.
Read more »
FREE Seminar: Tweed Draft LEP
The draft Tweed Local Environmental Plan is on public exhibition until Wednesday 31 March. In response to requests from the local community, the EDO Northern Rivers office is holding a public seminar to discuss how well the draft Plan protects the area's unique biodiversity and how the community can make effective submissions.
Where : CWA Hall, 20 Queen St MURWILLUMBAH
When : 5.45 for 6 pm sharp to 8 pm, Tuesday 23 March
Light refreshments provided. No booking necessary. Presented by the EDO NSW Northern Rivers office Read more »
Rudd described some opposition to the government's Internet filtering schemes as "stupid debate" about "extreme civil libertarianism" that claims filtering "means the imposition of Soviet Communism a la 1980". He said most people "are sensible folk" who "know where the balance lies", according to Computer World on 1 March 2010.
Is that why the Australian Senate runs a web filter on all the internet connections it assigns and censored those of senators so that they were unable to read a reputable gay online newspaper - because it was "sensible" to reduce parliamentarian's access to information about a significant voter demographic? Read more »
There are currently 43,648 mentions of Australian Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott on Google Blog Search.
Here are a few:
If you had him in your family or as one of your friends, you'd quickly learn to ignore him. You'd laugh at him, write him off as a hysterical drop kick, or both. Oh, you'd say, there goes Tony again, with his lunatic conspiracy theories. Don't take any notice of him he's over-the top........ Read more »
The Clarence Valley holds a wealth of young talent and the music trio Boneless Pony (pictured above) formed by three final year music students from Maclean High School are a delight.
The trio will be performing next at the Yamba International Women's Day Brunch on Saturday 6 March 2010. Details here.
Glenda MacPhail of Townsend [see insert] a tireless worker on behalf of the Clarence Valley indigenous community has received some well-deserved recognition.
She was named a finalist in the NSW Woman of the Year Award 2010.
Winner to be announced on Monday 8 March.
From Bigpond News: Read more »
At 5.30 this morning the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued the following information for New South Wales:
MEDIA: No use of the Standard Emergency Warning Signal (SEWS)
TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE AND FREQUENT BROADCAST Read more »
Did we really need to know that the somewhat notorious alleged Liberal Party mole Godwin Grech obviously has a passion for collecting antique clocks, a penchant for decorating with gilt cherubs and reads books about Hitler?
Nup, didn't think so.
In The Daily Examiner on 24 February 2010:
THE riot in Yamba on February 14 has attracted plenty of unwanted attention for the holiday town. A report in the metropolitan media at the weekend pointed the finger at Yamba's Aboriginal population as the cause of the town's problems. Today, Yamba Aboriginal leader and NSW Aboriginal Land Council member PATRICIA LAURIE responds. Read more »
This is the content of the very small tag cloud found on the Dept. of Broadband, Communications, Digital Economy and Compulsory National Censorship webpage Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy,Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate:
NBN Broadband Read more »
If you think your blood pressure can cope with a snippet from one recent anti-science email newsletter, read on:
The Next Climate-gate? Read more »
From an Essential Report poll of 1,834 respondents released on 22 February 2010:
Approval of the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott Read more »
It has to be true if Justia lists it on the U.S. court dockets - this month an obviously intelligent, articulate American woman living in an extended-stay hotel and who does not appear to be currently employed is suing the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Affiliates, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Pentagon, Barrack Obama, Michelle Obama, Office of Inspector General, Federal Reserve Board, United States Congress, George Bush, Jr., Laura Bush, Joshua Bolten and Police and Trooper Departments of the United States in a civil rights application over what she insists is the overuse of virtual technology to access living beings, as well personal harassment by littering, being video monitored at the direction of a government agency etc., and is seeking $950 trillion in damages.
Read more »
Montage of cardboard cut-out incident manufactured by the Opposition in 2008from Google Images
This week the Government of Japan began its trial of two Greenpeace activists who blew the whistle on an allegedly illegal trade in whale meat within that country.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission has informed the Japanese Government that it is in breach of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to detention of the Tokyo Two. Read more »
LOWER CLARENCE WOMEN’S GROUP
SATURDAY 6 MARCH 2010
10 AM – 11.30 AM
TREELANDS DRIVE COMMUNITY CENTRE YAMBA
GUEST SPEAKERS
‘Love Bites Program’
RAFFLE for local Women’s project
‘Deborah Novak mounted photos’
DONATIONS TO UNIFEM
Cost: $10 per person Concession $5.00
Please book by Thursday 4 March
Yamba Community Centre
Tel: 6646 1478
General enquiries:
Susan Howland – 6645 0001 or 6646 2129 or 0427 975 131 Read more »
A Response to Climate Change Denialism
1. The essential findings of mainstream climate change science are firm. This is solid settled science. The world is warming. There are many kinds of evidence: air temperatures, ocean temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and much more. Human activities are the main cause. The warming is not natural. It is not due to the sun, for example. We know this because we can measure the effect of man-made carbon dioxide and it is much stronger than that of the sun, which we also measure.
Woolworths went to the media with the big news that now one can do a price check online of 5,000 items it carries in its supermarket outlets across Australia.
Like plenty of other Clarence Valley Council residents I've been waiting very keenly for council to undertake its annual kerbside cleanup. This annual event enables residents (and especially those who don't have access to a suitable vehicle) to dispose of items that either won't fit into the weekly garbage bin or are viewed as still having some redeemable features ... "one person's junk is another person's treasure". Read more »
After deciding that climate change was a giant global conspiracy, that governments across Australia were against the humble farmer and the Rudd Government determined to bring down Armageddon on our heads, Opposition Finance Spokesperson Senator Barnaby Joyce was finally given a dastardly plot all of his very own.
"Tony told me there was a campaign directed against me and it didn't matter if I got 99 per cent of what I said right: everyone would latch on to the 1 per cent that was wrong," Senator Joyce told The Australian.
What more could an Opposition Leader do for his faithful National Party sidekick? Read more »
It was not a good week for Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott.
Former Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull rises to his feet and takes a scalpel to the Coalition's greenwash climate change policy and, in full election mode, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey declares to anyone who would listen;"There is a very clear message to the Rudd Government from the Reserve Bank: Stop spending so much money (or) interest rates will rise" only to be knocked down by every blogger capable of reading what the Reserve Bank had really said. Read more »
Sometimes the moon and stars just don't align and blogging becomes an obstacle race rather than a pleasant ride through cyberspace.
This is one of those times.
Most of North Coast Voices' regular contributors are down for the count at present due to injury or illness and, that leaves me holding the fort for the next week or so.
However, my PC has taken full advantage of this opportunity to create mischief and become highly dysfunctional - my apologies in advance for any spotty postings over the next few days.
First it was the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking out against the evils of Internet censorship in January and now it seems the U.S. courts are expressing a view on censorship by government.
From Australia Uncensored in Stephen Conroy swims against the tide: Read more »
A chapeau flourish to Malcolm Farnsworth at AustralianPolitics for uploading and Possum at Pollytics for spreading around this audio example of Tony Abbott's unrepentant chauvinism, which I cheerfully dedicate to all those Northern Rivers female free spirits who never iron!
Read more »
The Opposition's Greg Hunt spoke to the Rudd Government's third reading of the CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME BILL 2010 on Thursday 4 February 2010:
The ABS lists 8.7 million Australian families. Read more »
Sometimes comic relief is all there is in Question Time and the Nationals MP for Cowper shovels in on with a predictable response from the other side.
The question voters are left with - is the butcher an honest catalyst in this exchange?
I sorta think his use of the term "great big new tax" hints at a a more thhan passing acquaintance with the Coffs Harbour Nats. Read more »
ABC TV The Insiders Sunday 7th February 2010:
"BARRIE CASSIDY: You see the credibility problem for you is that you're a conviction politician. You call it as you see it. And yet you seem to be slightly half hearted about it. And then of course you have to live with the comment that you made, that you think climate change is crap.
TONY ABBOTT: I think what I actually said was that the so-called settled science was a little aromatic. Now you don't have to accept the totality of the science to still think that there is a reasonable argument for taking sensible precautions against possible risk and that's what we're doing." Read more »
The political disinformation campaign is alive and well on the NSW North Coast in The Daily Examiner letters to the editor and what passes for the party faithfull are gearing up for the next federal election campaign:
Teaching, nursing students targeted Read more »
Certain rural landholders are trying to make land tenure an issue in the 2010 federal election.
These landowners are upset at state restrictions on their ability to clear land of native vegetation and hold an erroneous belief that the Australian Government has 'stolen' their ability to take advantage of any carbon credits this land might produce.
This drive to roll back state law by making the Federal Government politically uncomfortable in an election year may not be as easily undertaken as it first appeared, when the initial reaction to their announcement of a lead-off campaign rally was rather underwhelming in a regional area which has a established rural component in direct competition with a growing residential sector for occupation and use of coastal lands.
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The clouds are that fat that they are bumping along the tops of small hills and large tree tops, scratching their bottoms like wormy dogs.Brunswick Riverside Market
Memorial Park Fawcett StreetEvans Head Community Market
Park Street Recreation Reserve
4th Saturday of each month Read more »
Jonathan Green writing at The Drum
"It's an important issue but even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it's still not the 'great moral challenge' of our time - as Mr Rudd has described it on 14 occasions - let alone the 'greatest' moral challenge of our time - as Mr Rudd has described it at least four times," Mr Abbott said.
"Adapting to changing rainfall patterns, for example, will be hard but it won't supplant the threat of war, injustice, disease and want as the biggest problems with which humanity must grapple."
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You've gotta love the boy. Here he is gamely battling for that extra spin by having a go at Rudders and Swanee over the latest Intergenerational Report released yesterday.
Apparently the PM and Treasurer are guilty of elder bashing by pointing out that growing numbers entering retirement are posing a bit of a problem for a national economy which was traditionally coming off on a strong base of taxpaying workers.
Leader of the Coalition Opposition Tony Abbott hopes that I'll accept that he's my true blue friend, working flat out protecting me from Labor's nasty age discrimination. Read more »
Starting to wonder just how much money the major political parties will p*ss down the drain during the 2010 federal election campaign?
The 2007 election was a pretty expensive and wasteful affair and this one will have to equal it, if only because of the level of noisy desperation which is bound to consume Abbott and his mates.
An Australian Electoral Commission media release on 29 January reminded us of just how much the pollies spent trying to swing our votes last time round.
The actual 2008-09 disclosure documents for that between elections period will not be online until 1 February 2010, but here is part of what the AEC is saying: Read more »
What with many newspapers already publishing regional school performance lists from the Rudd Government's My School website (and one coyly pretending that by creating tables containing only 6 high schools & 22 primary schools it wasn't giving a quick start to local schools league tables), we all might as well join in.
Here are links to official comparative information on many (but not all) NSW North Coast schools:
Now here's a man who shows some old fashioned commonsense.
David "Bangers" Bancroft, editor of the Daily Examiner in Grafton giving his Australia Day view on the fuss about flags.
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In situations such as a hectic Emergency Department or a large onsite trauma situation, the adherence to business processes which promote unique identification and authentication of users of the HI Service may not be practically possible.
The Medicare smart card and national health information database rolls on. Read more »
This coalition included Australia, but thus far former Prime Minister John Howard and his Cabinet are escaping scrutiny at home, with the exception of an October 2003 censure motion passed by the Senate.
Perhaps the Chicot-led inquiry (which is still conducting public hearings through 2010) will give some indication as to Howard's role in staging the invasion, given he was so publicly proud of this role and his association with then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush on 28 March 2003:
Colin Jacobs of Electronic Frontiers Australia has posted the following questions for the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy:
The top 10 filtering questions yet to be answered
The Rudd Government's mandatory ISP filtering bill will soon be introduced into Parliament, and we can only hope that the debate there will focus more on the real merits of the scheme – which are few and far between – than empty rhetoric about protecting children. When the debate happens, here are some questions the Government needs to answer under the glare of public scrutiny. Read more »
Our local newspaper just announced that Tweed councillors are asking for a hefty pay rise.
TWEED councillors have "selflessly" voted to push for a 55 per cent pay rise – not for themselves but for the many other people they say will consequently be encouraged to stand for election.
Councillors voted six to one on Tuesday night to ask the NSW Remuneration Tribunal to raise their annual councillors' fees by $8500 with only Greens Party councillor Katie Milne voting against the motion. Read more »
The Lismore Community Garden at 50 Brewster Street is a joint project of Rainbow Region Community Farms Inc and the Northern Rivers Social Development Council, funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health & Ageing and land supplied by Lismore City Council for the establishment of an urban community garden benefiting all Lismore residents.
Ground was seriously broken at the beginning of December 2009 and numerous training events will be held this year. Read more »
Clarence Valley Australia Day 2010 Awards Ceremony
Event Begins at: 10:00 AM
Event Ends at: 12:30 PM
The Event is on: Tuesday, 26 January 2010
The Event will be Held at: Nip Welsh Park, Minnie Water
Event Type: Awards & Presentation, Citizenship Ceremony, Family Fun Day, Food & BBQ's, Music & Entertainment, Novelty Events, Official Ceremonies Read more »
When the subject of driving while on the turps comes up at my local watering hole quite a few fellow greybeards immediately start pointing a finger at young drivers. Read more »
Over the years I have heard many Yamba residents, who happen to enjoy cycling, express concerns over the fact that the only road between their town and Maclean is nigh on impassable for two-wheeled traffic and, that Yamba might as well be an island when it comes to bicycle travel.
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Conspiracy theories have probably been around since humankind began to congregate in large numbers, but there is little doubt that the Internet has allowed the genre to flourish and endure as never before.
So much so that academic papers are now written on the subject. Read more »
This month Rolling Stone magazine takes a sharp American pen to the growing band of climate change disinformation peddlers in an article titled The Climate Killers: Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming.
The Disinformer
Rupert Murdoch
CEO, News Corporation Read more »
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