Moggy Musings [Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

A died and gone to heavenz musing: The whisper is that this applies to moggies also: The Observatory Hotel offers pet-friendly rooms at an additional charge (from $50 per pet per night). Dogs will receive a pet bed and their owners can choose dinner from the Scoopy Doo room service menu.

A how not to respect your professional peers musing: Sometimes I even get emails on various subjects from hoomins. Like this snippet for example........."the reality is many of the APN's stories are beat ups - this is inevitable when their journalists are trained to use emotive and adjectival language and make judgements in what are supposed to be objective reports - (this despite the journalists' code of ethics) - However, I do acknowledge that this is becoming the 'norm' in a rapidly changing media world, where stories are dumbed down to appease the lowest common denominator on a populist basis (print/digital/broadcast). The sad thing about this lazy and inept form of journalism is that most readers don't know they are being hoodwinked - so, in many cases one lazy journalist uses another lazy journalist's 'facts' as a given, without doing their own research."

A Rex the German Shepherd in gossip mode musing: Hey Boy, Don't know about you, but Dudley, a mate of mine down the road, reckons our local daily rag, The Daily Examiner, might have introduced a Family First Employment Policy. Dudley pointed out to me that about a month or so ago he noticed a DEX photographer's son was on the payroll and yesterday he noticed a DEX higher-level journo's nephew started scribbling for the paper. Cheers, Rex

A sad goodbye musing: Goodbye, Artemis. We didn't know Artemis except through her family's online mentions of her antics and those posted pics, but all the moggies and doggies associated with Moggy Musing will, I'm sure, join me in wishing her family and many furry friends well after hearing of her sad passing.

A happy, happy musing: Scooter, a 9 month-old Labrador went missing on Christmas Eve and was handed into the Grafton pound and reunited with his family on 30 December 2010 - just in time to have a long nap or three after his big adventure and then join in New Year celebrations.

A furry friend grapevine musing: If your dog or cat appears to be grinning this week it's probably because it has heard that Clarence Valley shire councillor Margaret McKenna has begun to get examples of McDonald's (Yamba) branded rubbish in her mail - sometimes a vote for unpopular development will come back to haunt in the most unusual ways!

Yamba Rugby players go too fast

Although they lost three games at Crescent Head on the weekend, Yamba's rugby players, The Buccaneers, really do need to slow down a lot more.

The team was on the losing side of the ledger to Campbelltown (35 to 5), Sunnybank (35 to 7) and Wollongbar (25 to 7).

However, a report in The Daily Examiner states 

The team travelled three hours down the Pacific Highway to the Crescent Head Sevens.

Heck!  Three hours for the trip from Yamba to Crescent Head! That suggests the rugby boys were putting their feet a tad too heavily on their accelerator pedals.

According to three independent sources, Google Maps, Whereis and TravelMate, it's a distance of about 270kms from Yamba to Crescent Head and over 250kms of it is on the very dangerous Pacific Highway.

Fellas, have a good season in 2011 and travel safely to and from your games.

Image credit: Yamba Buccaneers

Aerial crop spraying on NSW North Coast in the news again

Excerpt from NSW Environmental Defender’s Office newsletter on February 10, 2011:

Byron Shire Echo : Spraying locals with pesticides (8 February 2010)

Helicopter spraying of potentially harmful chemicals on corporate macadamia nut farms in the area has sparked calls for greater transparency in spraying practices.

The United States based Hancock Agricultural Investment Group – which owns several macadamia farms near Dunoon – used choppers for aerial spraying on at least two occasions late last year, causing serious concerns within parts of the local community.

During the November incident the chopper sprayed difenoconazole, a substance that is described as a ‘possible carcinogen' and suspected of damaging the hormone system, according to a recent report co-written by the Northern Rivers EDO, and the National Toxics Network.

To read this article, please visit:
http://www.echo.net.au/newsitem/spraying-locals-chemicals

Everyone likes Tony!

Tony Abbott is an extreme right wing, redneck, homophobic, sexist, bible-thumping, puppet of the mining sector, climate change-denying dinosaur. He would take Australia back to the dark ages if elected - let's make sure he doesn't!!
(TAWNBPM)!!!!!

This little Facebook page has been quietly chugging along since about mid-2010 and now has over 5,000 followers.

Gillard Government increases Family Tax Benefit A and amount pensioners can earn

Welcome reforms will help local families and pensioners

Page MP Janelle Saffin has welcomed two pieces of legislation introduced into the Parliament this week will benefit thousands of local age pensioners and families with teenagers.

Ms Saffin said age pensioners in Page are set to benefit from a new, more generous Work Bonus taking effect from July 1 this year.

“This delivers on the Government’s election commitment to help age pensioners who work earn more before their pension is affected

“Under the new rules age pensioners will be able to earn up to $250 a fortnight without it being assessed as income under the income test.

“An important part of this, and something I have lobbied for, is that pensioners will be able to build up any unused amount in an ‘income bank’ to a total of $6500.

“This means pensioners will be able to earn up to $6500 per year without it affecting their pension, and this can be from regular work or from a short term of employment for example as an HSC exam supervisor or census collector.

“There are more than 29,000 pensioners in Page and I am pleased to see this fairer system coming in that will help those who want to stay connected to the workforce.

“In another welcome reform, the Government has introduced legislation to increase the family payments for families of teenagers aged 16 to 19 years.

“From 1 January 2012 the maximum rate of Family Tax Benefit part A will increase by more than $160 per fortnight for 16 to 19 year olds who are in high school or equivalent vocational training.

“Under the changes the 16 to 19 rate will be the same as the rate for 13 to 15 year olds.

“This is another reform I have lobbied for on behalf of people in my electorate because currently the rate drops when a young person turns 16, even though teenagers do not become cheaper to care for as they get older.

“This sharp drop in family support can be hard for families and in some instances can lead teenagers to leave school early if their family can’t support them.

“Families with teenagers turning 16, 17, 18 or 19 in 2012 will be the first to benefit with increases of up to $4200 a year per teenager,” Ms Saffin said.

“The exact amount that each family will receive depends on family income and the age and number of their children.”

11 February 2011

Extracts from The Fitz Files

Source The Sun Herald, 13/2/11

"Sh* t happens": Did Tony Abbott just illustrate a lesson never learnt from Viet Nam?

With Tony Abbott’s relaxed and laid back “sh*t happens” reassurance to Colonel Jim Creighton (US sector commander directing military operations in which Australian troops were deployed) making the news recently, one has to wonder if the explanation he so easily accepted that fire support of Australian troops was “more than adequate” should have been explored further.

Given that the American penchant for fudging facts has apparently survived intact beyond the Viet Nam debacle (a war which blundered on from the early 1960s to 1975) and now allegedly rears its head again in Afghanistan in this decade.

The US Center for Public Integrity on 6 February 2011 stated that an investigation found that Civil Affairs reservists tasked with winning the hearts and minds of locals have died disproportionately in Afghanistan and Iraq. The statistics offer a grim picture. Though these soldiers only make up about 5 percent of the Army’s reserve forces, they account for 23 percent of the combat fatalities among reservists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We also found that generals in the field, unable to obtain sufficient Civil Affairs units, sent reservists into harm’s way without hardened vehicles, protective plates for their armored vests, and machine guns. Further, the Army inflated the number of active-duty Civil Affairs soldiers to give Congress the appearance of a fully-staffed division.

NSW pre-election campaign 2011: sometimes it's hard not to laugh

Liberal Party of Australia NSW Branch

Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, it's 2011 not 1911!

In what can only be described as flabbergasting,

the NSW Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, backs a NSW law that allows private schools to expel gay students simply for being gay.

Hatzistergos described the 30-year-old law as necessary "to maintain a sometimes delicate balance between protecting individuals from unlawful discrimination while allowing people to practise their own beliefs".

A relic of the Wran era when homosexuality was still a crime, the law exempts private schools from any obligation to enrol or deal fairly with students who are homosexual. An expulsion requires neither disruption, harassment nor even the flaunting of sexuality. Being homosexual is enough.

Read the full report in today's Sydney Morning Herald here.

Grog notices Hartsuyker's underwhelming performance

Nice to know that other bloggers notice the often inane performance of the Nationals Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker during Question Time in the Federal House of Representatives.

Here is Greg Jericho over at Grog's Gamut on the subject last Wednesday........

Late in the session Luke Hartsuyker got up to make sure Hockey’s question wasn’t the dopiest of the day:

Mr HARTSUYKER (2.53 pm)—My question is to the Prime Minister. On 31 March 2009, thousands of residents in my electorate of Cowper were severely impacted by a major flood event. Despite the flood being declared a natural disaster, the government never provided victims with one-off Centrelink disaster payments of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child. Will the Prime Minister now ensure that people who suffered a substantial loss as a result of the floods of 31 March receive those payments and be exempted from the government’s flood tax?

Yep, Hartsuyker wants people whose houses were flooded in a previous financial year to be exempted from paying a levy in the next financial year. And these people who he wants exempted are those who did not even qualify for disaster relief in that previous financial year! Geez, if we let them get out of paying, we’ll be having to exempt people who were around for the 1956 floods in South Australia.

It’s not that such a question is so dumb that is astonishing, it’s that it got through the Liberal’s tactics committee. Unfortunately for Hartsuyker, the Primer Minister had had enough of playing nice, and she danced down the pitch and put this ball somewhere in the upper deck of the stands:

Ms GILLARD—I thank the member for his question and I am very happy to answer it and, as I answer it, to clear up what is clearly becoming a set of misapprehensions on behalf of the opposition which I do not think we should allow to run unchallenged. The guidelines under the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements are the same guidelines operated by the Howard government.

Eww, don’t you hate it when it turns out the Howard Government did the same thing…

They are the guidelines that the Leader of the Opposition called on me just before Christmas to make sure applied to natural disasters this summer. So any question about the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements guidelines we are operating are the very guidelines the Leader of the Opposition called on me to have for natural disasters this summer.

Oops. Nice one Luke, I’m betting Abbott just loves being used as a baseball bat with which to slap you around the head.

I know consistency of purpose is not the Leader of the Opposition’s strong suit, so if he has changed his mind—other than on the question of additional assistance for people in Cyclone Larry that he has raised in parliament today and raised in the Sunday newspapers—generally about the architecture of natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements and he now believes, as the questioning of his members would seem to imply, that they should extend to meeting all losses sustained by every business and every householder then the Leader of the Opposition should say that, we will have it costed for him and he should nominate matching savings. I think he is going to find that pretty hard to do.

Ouch. A question on people being exempted from paying the “flood tax” becomes a tool for Gillard to slap down Abbott for being one to go back on his word. This answer needs a point of order quick smart:

Mr Hartsuyker—Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I would like the Prime Minister to be directly relevant to the question, which related to the Centrelink disaster payments that existed in 2009.

Good of Hartsuyker to ram home the illogical aspect of his question. It was 2009 Luke, let it go!!!