Rivers Run Black: exhibition by Bundjalung artists, Yamba NSW 12 January to 7 February 2009

Brolga by Richard Torrens

Arthouse Australia at Yamba is currently hosting a group exhibition by Bundjalung artists Nancy Torrens, Troy Little, Richard Torrens and Elsie Randal.

The official opening of Rivers Run Black is at Arthouse Australia, Coldstream Street, Yamba on Friday 16 January between 6-8pm.

Ph: (02) 6646.1999 or email melinda@arthouseaustralia.com for details.

NSW North Coast harbours Nazis!

If you tour the NSW North Coast it doesn't take long before you realise that a large number of locals are passionate about protecting their little bit of the Australian environment.

Why the Northern Rivers almost rose as one in 2007 and sent governments and vested interests packing when the Howard Government wanted to dam and divert water from coastal rivers.

Thirty years ago the people of the North Coast went toe to toe with government, police and bulldozers for over a month in order to protect the Terania Creek rainforest.

North Coast residents (including a contingent from Nimbin) also took part in the Timbarra River blockade to stop a new gold mine being established which would destroy forest and pollute the Clarence River catchment.

The Big Scrub still exists because locals were determined that the last plots of that once mighty swath of trees would not be lost to future generations and some toil away to this day.

On the Northern Rivers people even turn out to protect a single lonely native fig tree in their neighbourhood and there is much more than a passing concern about the effects of climate change.

So when Senator Barnaby Joyce came out with the following I knew he had very little hope of a switching to a Federal House of Representatives seat via a northern New South Wales electorate:

The outspoken senator warned of the rise of "eco-totalitarianism'' and said he would not be "goosestepping'' along with environmentalists.

"One has to fall into lockstep, goosestep and parade around the office ranting and raving that we are all as one?"

Senator Joyce rejected a suggestion he was a climate change denier and drew a parallel with the Holocaust, the murder of millions of Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II.

"Climate change denier, like Holocaust denier, this is the sort of emotive language that has become stitched up in this (emissions trading) issue," he said.

It is surprising that Senator Joyce may actually be considering giving up his place in the Senate and going after the New England seat.

Now he has trodden on the toes of a legion of 'goosesteppers' he has ensured that, if in 2010 he contests the seat held by Tony Windsor, there will be quite a few voters out stuffing letter boxes with leaflets pointing out his considerable political and environmental deficiencies.

If for no other reason than many on the North Coast realise that the water raiders over the ranges are desperate for another front man to run with their plan to rob us of our fresh water and environmental river flows.

A Northern Rivers voice of sanity concerning the NSW public dental health scheme

From The Northern Star:

LISMORE dentist Dr Brendan White has slammed the Federal Government's Teen Dental Plan as a 'huge waste' of $490 million.

Dr White, who is also president of the North Coast division of the Australian Dental Association NSW, said the $150 vouchers for teenagers would not solve dental health problems.

"It would be better if the money went to treatment for the most needy people," he said.

"It's such a shame. It's a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars.

"The Government could have refunded the school dental program, boosted the public dental system, or started some preventative education programs.

"I hope the Health Minister realises how bad the Teen Dental Plan is and spends the money on something else."

But the Government is set to continue with the five-year program, and this week urged parents to get involved.

Richmond MP and Aging Minister Justine Elliot, said the program would help more than a million teenagers.

"With tooth decay ranking as Australia's most prevalent health problem, and gum disease ranking fifth, untreated dental decay is a major problem for our teenagers," she said.

The problems were worse for local youth. Dr White said we had the worst dental health for 12-year-olds in NSW, and the second worst for five-year-olds.

"The ADA had no input into the Teen Dental Plan," he said.

"But at least the Government is trying to help those who can't afford any dental care."

Another Lismore-dental practice manager, who did not want to be named, said the plan frustrated dentists.

"We've had people who have never been to a dentist before," she said. "When we tell them what needs to be done, parents walk out in tears. They can't afford it."

She said the practice had about 150 teenagers come in for the free consultation. Only three or four have returned for treatment.

"It's been a waste of money and the Government is just not listening," she said.

Vouchers for 2009 will be sent to eligible families from mid-January.

"Better to treat the needy"

It is a thing of wonder to observe both the MP for Page, Janelle Saffin, and the MP for Richmond, Justine Elliot, continue to defend this scheme which offers so little aid to their electorates and the rest of the NSW North Coast.

It is a scandal that the NSW Nationals MP for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, does nothing of any substance on this issue given that the broader public dental scheme is delivered on the ground by the state.

Turnbull's at it again!

Maud up the Street pointed out to me that Malcolm Turnbull is wanting to rob yet another region of its water.
Not satisfied with his inglorious and unltimately unsuccessful early 2007 ministerial attempts to push the barrow for stealing NSW Northern Rivers water, now as Opposition Leader he thinks it a bonza idea to rob two lakes in the Tasmanian highlands.
He still doesn't get the fact that after such a prolonged national drought there is NO spare water anywhere and argues that this robbery would be saving water from evaporating.
Now that's a weird argument if ever there was one - even I could walk through the holes in that tale!
And this man seriously thinks we should vote for his party at the next federal election?

Need a Justice of the Peace?

Congratulations Thomas George MP.





Many an MP has issued a media release that has been poorly disguised as an attempt to make their constituents think the MP might be worth his/her salt.

However, a recent media release by Mr George, the Member for Lismore, is cause to think he is more in touch with his constituents than most of his colleagues who laze on the green and red leather lounges in the NSW parliament.

The Far North Coaster reports that Mr George has provided details about Justices of the Peace in NSW.

Although most of Mr George's release is about how to apply and become a JP it provides a very useful link that enables details to be obtained about JPs in your local area.

PS. Don't blame Mr George for the register of JPs not being 100% accurate.
Also, remember JPs on the register are volunteers.

John X Berlin pleads not guilty to intimidation and harassment charge

Clarence Valley local identity John X Berlin, also known as John Paul Breslin, pleaded not guilty to a charge of intimidation and harassment in Maclean Local Court yesterday. This is what John had to say afterwards; Adjourned to 25.2.09 without hearing a word of evidence, then it will be adjourned again.

Double-Nick'd
Clarence Valley

* 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@live.com.au for consideration.

Caveat emptor lives!

Which iconic unit in Yamba is being advertised for sale at $1.45 million, even though it is in an area with an estimated statistical 1 in 1,000 chance of sliding towards the ocean in adverse weather conditions?
I'm sure the owners would have experienced at least one subsidence alert during the last three years, so it is passing strange that this unit is thought to be worth so much.
Would you pay over a million for the slide of a lifetime?

How green is our Internet use in Australia?

This is what the final report on a 2008 review of the Australian Government’s use of information and communication technology (ICT) said:
There is a significant disconnect between the Government’s overall sustainability agenda and its ability to understand and manage energy costs and the carbon footprint of its ICT estate.

It would appear that government/business Internet use and just surfing the Web at home may save on paper and sometimes result in decreased car travel, but it does have greenhouse gas consequences.

Webupon discusses a 2007 article originally posted by Floating World:
We asked Aaron Handford, President of Solar Energy Host how much carbon the net itself is generating and he had some surprising answers. According to Handford, “The Internet has a big carbon footprint. It's estimated that globally it takes about 868 billion kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity per year to run the Internet, associated PCs, routing infrastructure, and phone networks.” (UClue: Energy Use of Internet).
He notes, “Of this, about 112.5 Billion kWh are used to power "data centers", which are the servers that store all the websites."

UClue gives a link to Stanford University report ESTIMATING TOTAL POWER CONSUMPTION BY SERVERS IN THE U.S. AND THE WORLD.

This 2007 report concluded that:
Total power used by servers represented about 0.6% of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2005.
When cooling and auxiliary infrastructure are included, that number grows to 1.2%, an amount comparable to that for color televisions.
The total power demand in 2005 (including associated infrastructure) is equivalent (in capacity
terms) to about five 1000 MW power plants for the U.S. and 14 such plants for the world.
The total electricity bill for operating those servers and associated infrastructure in 2005
was about $2.7 B and $7.2 B for the U.S. and the world, respectively.

The Australian media is now reporting on the fact that a typical Internet search generates about 7g of Co2 and that globally there are 200 million searches each day.

All of this gives pause for thought.

If the average home PC user was initially thought to account for around 588 kwh of electricity per year producing an estimated 582 kg of green house gas emissions, then this (or its current equivalent) has to be added to our individual carbon footprints and the national account.
The nation also has to take into consideration not only its own PCs but just how big the carbon footprints are of the servers it uses.

With our national greenhouse gas emissions still rising rather than falling it definitely time to think of how we limit or mitigate our Internet use.

It is also time that ordinary Internet users began to ask the big search engines like Google, AOL, Yahoo, Firefox, etc., just what measures they are taking to actually switch their servers to clean energy.

So far we are hearing about what they are doing to 'green' their employee workplaces or transport, but little is being said about the huge amounts of dirty energy they now draw on to keep their servers going 24 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

The rather impressive Google Climate Change Plan is notably for its failure to really come to terms with its own share of the approximately 868 billion kwhs it takes to run the Internet each year.
When it does allude to this dirty energy it speaks in terms of creating offsets, which do little to reduce actual energy consumption.

The fact that CSC, Dell Inc, Google Inc, HP, Intel Corporation, Lenova, Microsoft Corporation, have joined with the World Wildlife Fund to create the Climate Savers Computer Initiative is more a feel-good piece of PR than anything else, and if it is to be believed, almost all the servers these firms are associated with just happen to be recommended as energy efficient (115 servers in the Asia-Pacific alone).

How many kilowatt hours did you splurge on the Internet today? Using the 7 grams per search as a yardstick, I probably accounted for 1kg of greenhouse gas over only 5 hours last Monday.

Go to CO2Stats: making websites green for more information on how to get a paid audit of your own website.

UPDATE

The 7 grams per search figure is now disputed and Harvard researcher denies quote.

And the cane toad was this big.......

Clarencegirl's favourite holiday story this year about cornering a cane toad in her kitchen the size of a fat hamster, large rabbit, Mack truck - well you get the picture - reminds me that the weather we've been having on the North Coast this summer is rather good for breeding nasty cane toads and Aussie frogs that look a little like cane toads at first glance.
So here's a couple of snaps to help you tell the difference, as you go out at night to nab in a plastic bag and freeze to death the toads at the bottom of the garden.


This is an adult cane toad.

So is this.

This is the Eastern Banjo Frog.

Australian Museum Fact Sheet on the Cane Toad pointing out distinctive features

Pics come from the ABC, National Parks & Wildlife and Picassa

Coles/Bi-Lo need to remember that there is no excuse for sloppy overcharging at the check-out

The Bi-Lo supermarket at Yamba has become a local byword for the worst business practices.

Its overcharging at check-outs has become so common that some alert local residents frequently manage to get at least a few grocery items per month for free when they front the store with evidence of overcharging.

However, the fact that a shopper noticing a difference between shelf price and docket price can get the item in question for free is no excuse for such blatant mismanagement.

Overcharging during the 2008-09 festive break was so noticeable that one regular interstate visitor told North Coast Voices that she found $13 worth of discrepancies on a $113 docket.

This type of bad experience can drive tourists away and, if Coles/Bi-Lo was a good corporate citizen it would take its Yamba management in hand and insist that such stupidity cease.

PETA finally falls over the edge and into The Far Side

This is a screen shot of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign against fishing and eating fish.

Now PETA's main argument is that fish feel pain and therefore suffer when caught and killed.
I don't think anyone would dispute that point.

However, it can be argued that all organic life 'feels' to some degree and that it probably 'hurts' when grain is harvested or fruit picked from trees.

It follows that, if PETA's criteria were to be the universal yardstick, then we humans would be obliged to starve to death.

So a campaign to protect fish by renaming them sea kittens is definitely something worthy of being placed alongside those chatty upright cows in The Far Side .

Conroy gets zinged again on his grand Internet censorship plan

2009 is not shaping up as a good year for the Australian Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy.

First we hear that Derek Bambauer poured cold water on his national mandatory ISP-level filtering plan and now IT experts tell us the Minister is dreaming if he thinks he can selectively filter BitTorrent, LimeWire, Kazaa or other peer -to-peer networks.

Peer-to-peer filtering is an impediment to business is the bottom line it seems.
With few believing the technology exists to do anything but completely block all file sharing networks, thereby starving Australian business, research and development of a useful tool.

Computer World is inviting readers to sign its online petition:

Concerned about freedom of communication? Click here to sign Computerworld's Hands Off Australia's Internet petition. Make your voice heard!

Defining a small coastal town

Letter to the Editor

The Daily Examiner

6 January 2009

Click on image to enlarge

Now many locals as well as some tourists would define Yamba (at the mouth of the Clarence River) by its sense of community, social life, streetscapes and access to river, ocean or beaches.
However, one local in a moment of unconscious humour points out that Yamba might be defined in part by its lack of a cemetery!

New Australian Electoral Commission head: come on down, Ed!

"Mr Ed Killesteyn commenced his five year appointment as the Electoral Commissioner, Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 5 January 2009.
Mr Killesteyn said he was pleased and honoured to be appointed to the position of Electoral Commissioner, and looked forward to continuing the AEC’s strong and well deserved reputation for delivering an electoral system that serves well Australia’s democratic heritage.
Mr Killesteyn has held a number of senior Public Service positions, including four years as a Deputy Secretary at the then Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs, and most recently as the Deputy President of the Repatriation Commission and a Deputy Secretary at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. "
Now Ed has a bit of a chequered history hidden in that wee bio - anyone remember Truth Overboard and the Palmer Report on DIMIA's treatment of Cornelia Rau?

A soft word of warning to Ed, as he starts one of the most important public service jobs in Australia (running our elections) - don't stuff up!

Australian political and religious leaders response to Gaza 2009

Political cartoon from Your Democracy

Australia recognises Israel's right to self-defence

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, Leader of the Federal Labor Party, 5 January 2009

HAMAS must accept Israel's right to exist within secure borders

Malcolm Turnbull, Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and Leader of the Federal Opposition, 5 January 2009

The Australian government must end its acquiescence to Israel's military operations in Gaza

Bob Brown, Leader of The Greens, 9 January 2009

Dead silence so far from Warren Truss, Leader of the National Party of Australia

No word from Cardinal George Pell, Head of the Catholic Church in Australia

No current statement from Phillip Aspinall, Primate of the Anglican Church in Australia.

However he did sign the HEADS OF CHURCHES STATEMENT ON PALESTINE AND ISRAEL in July 2008. Along with these other national heads of churches:
Rev Dr Ross Clifford, President, Baptist Union of Australia
Lyndsay Farrall, Presiding Clerk, Australia Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
Rev Alan Filipaina, Moderator, Congregational Federation of Australia and New Zealand
Rev Gregor Henderson, President of the Uniting Church in Australia
Richard Menteith AM, National President of Churches of Christ in Australia
Archbishop Mor Malatius Malki Malki, Syrian Orthodox Church of Australia and New Zealand
Archbishop Paul Saliba, Antiochian Orthodox Church, Australia and New Zealand
Rev Dr Michael P Semmler, President, Lutheran Church of Australia
Pastor Chester Stanley, National President, Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia
Archbishop Stylianos, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of Australia

No comment found from Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, Senior Rabbi of the Great Synagogue, Sydney

Israel is committing an act of terrorism. It's the duty of all the free people in the world to stand against it and stop this evil.

Ibrahim Abu Mohammad, Islamic scholar from Sydney, 2 January 2009