In July 2011 Australia really began to drag its knuckles in the dust

In response to a journalist who wrote of her dislike of the term Juliar, a foot soldier in Abbott's Army wrote this:

Albert Henry of Tamworth: "Your story was the greatest lot of crap ever written. It is obvious your political bias does not give a true picture of how we true Australians think and the hatred we have against traitors like yourself, defending that very ugly female atheist communistic destructive Prime Minister Juliar Gillard.
It is so easy for second-class lesbian reporters like yourself to run down ordinary Australians who see very clearly that this ugly ranga with the long ears and witch-like nose and a big-arse has set her sights on destroying the living standards of all Australians. Claire, we realise you can't change your lesbian ways and your love for that ugly Juliar Gillard, but the chances of you bedding her are zero. Sorry Claire, you will have to just dream. I truly understand your problem in getting yourself a man because you are so ugly."

The Australian, Rintoul and the truth about recent research into regional mean sea level rise deceleration

Snapshot from Google search index on 23 July 2011

Stuart Rintoul is variously described as a senior journalist and/or author currently working for News Ltd’s The Australian newspaper.

On Friday 22 July 2011 he wrote an front page article loosely based on interview with Phil Watson, from the Coastal Unit in the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.

As soon as I read the article I began to wonder at the level of misrepresentation by The Australian this article by Rintoul might involve, given the stable from which it sprang.

I went to the quoted peer-reviewed article and found that all was not as The Australian would have us believe and this NSW Government Office of Environment & Heritage letter to the editor bore out my suspicions:

Letter to the Editor - Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records
Media release: 22 July 2011
I refer to today's article titled, Sea-level rises slowing: tidal records.
Your article has misrepresented our Mr Phil Watson's research paper by saying that "global warming is not affecting sea levels". This is untrue and misleading and it is not what Mr Watson told your journalist. Mr Watson’s research looked only at measurements of historical data. It specifically did not consider predicted linkages between sea level rise and global warming predicted by climate models.
Our organisation is committed to open scientific investigation. This important research will help us understand the different contributions of the El Nino-La Nina Southern Oscillation and of climate change to sea level change. The research and underlying data is entirely consistent with the rate of global average sea level rise for the 20th century advised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was of the order of 17 +/- 5 cm.
There is strong national and international evidence that sea levels will increase substantially in this century. The world is warming and this includes the ocean. When water warms, it expands and sea level rises.
Sea level rise is a slow process but it has serious medium and long term impacts. The projections are for a rise of 40 cm by 2050 and 90 cm by 2100 in NSW, and this data is reflected in NSW policies. Our scientists are working with others to increase understanding of what and where the impacts may be, so that we can better plan for and help local communities adapt. If we are prudent now, we can substantially reduce future costs.
Yours sincerely
Mr Simon A Y Smith
Deputy Chief Executive - Environment and Heritage Policy and Programs
Contact: Public Affairs

This is a brief outline taken from Watson’s actual article published in The Journal of Coastal Research:

Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia? by P.J. Watson

There is unequivocal measured evidence of a global average rise in mean sea level during the 20th century on the order of 17 +- 65 cm (IPCC, 2007)
….. Satellite altimeters that have been measuring changes in the world’s ocean water surface since late 1992 with improved global accuracy and reliability have focussed attention on measured global trends that appear to be increasing at rates exceeding 3 mm/y, generally in line with the upper bound projections of global average sea level rise (IPCC, 2007).
It is, however, important to understand that there will be specific localised or regional variations compared with the global average sea level rise projections. In addition to international scientific endeavours, it is imperative to analyse and understand the trends emerging from the longest Australasian tide gauge records to improve the picture of ‘‘regional’’ sea level rise to augment forecasting capabilities.
Very long, continuous records from Fremantle (1897), Auckland (1903), Fort Denison (1914), and Newcastle (1925) have been analysed to investigate whether there is evidence of acceleration in the rise of mean sea level over the longer term at these particular locations…..
The longest continuous Australasian records, Fremantle and Auckland, situated on the western and eastern periphery of the Oceania region, respectively, exhibit remarkably similar trends in the relative 20-year moving average water level time series after 1920. Both time series show a rise in mean sea level of approximately 120 mm between 1920 and 2000 with strong correlation (R2 $ 0.93) to fitted second-order polynomial trend lines that reflect a tendency toward a general slowing in the rise of mean sea level (or deceleration) over time on the order of 0.02–0.04 mm/y2. The Fort Denison water level time series after 1940 similarly reflects a decelerating trend in sea
level rise at a rate of 0.04 mm/y2 based on a strongly correlated fit (R2 5 0.974) to the second-order polynomial function.
This decelerating trend was also evident in the detailed analysis of 25 U.S. tide gauge records longer than 80 years in length (Dean and Houston, pers. comm.) and a general 20th century deceleration, driven predominantly by the negative inflexions around 1960 evident in many global records, are well noted in the literature (Douglas, 1992; Holgate, 2007; Woodworth, 1990; Woodworth, Mene´dez, and Gehrels, pers. comm.).
In considering shorter term recent accelerations, it is evident that there is a high rate of relative sea level rise averaged over the decade centred around 1994. Although average decadal rates of rise in relative ocean water levels are clearly high during the 1990s, they are not remarkable or unusual in the context of the historical record available for each site over the course of the 20th century. Similar conclusions have been drawn by Holgate (2007) in examining global data and by Hannah (2004) examining long-term sea level records for New Zealand. These recent post-1990s short-term accelerations fit within the overall longer term trend of deceleration evident in these long Australasian ocean water level records.
Using a 20-year moving average (10 y either side) water level time series limits the current analysis to the year 2000 (although the year 2000 uses data up to 2010). It is probable that if there is any longer term increase of significance in the rate of sea level rise embedded within the latter portion of the record, as distinct from a cyclical short-term attribute, this may take a further 10 to 20 years to influence the longer term time series.
Further research is required to rationalise the difference between the acceleration trend evident in the global sea level time-series reconstructions and the relatively consistent
deceleration trend evident in the long-term Australasian tide gauge records. These differences are likely to have a significant bearing on the global average and ‘‘regional’’ projections for sea level rise into the future.

The Australian publishes for the lulz

Hold on to your hats, good folk in the media! opens The Australian newspaper's Media Blog article on 12 July 2011 titled The little crap sheet that could, as News Corporation was preparing to front a U.K. parliamentary committee.

It went on to say:

Crikey says today that it’s going to draw up a Code of Conduct - for itself!
Of course it won’t be some wanky document it uses to fan its face.
Once it’s done, you can expect:
a) to get a call from Crikey staff, each and every time they intend to smear you;
b) no more using the answers you give, in good faith, to sneer and giggle at you a second time; on the contrary, you’ll get a fair, honest, mature hearing;
c) no more quoting from cheap-shot anonymous emails which, whether they believe it or not, most media outlets get, and most choose to ignore;
d) no more nastiness, in the putrid swamp that is the Crikey comments thread;
e) no more publishing, verbatim, the emails from PR flaks that yes, everyone gets, but no-one else goes near (Did you see this mistake, on Nine?! Did you see that mistake, on Seven!) not least because it makes them look cheap, nasty and lazy;
f) a celebration from Crikey, each and every time one of their enemies (none of which they’ve ever met) does something good, as opposed to piling on the bile;
g) some original reporting for a change, instead of endless raking over what other media are doing;
h) no more carping at successful media companies that employ many staff, do many good things, try new ideas, and who occassionally [sic] fail but at least give it a go, when the best Crikey can do is put out a dicky little newsheet, 90 per cent of which is recycled, bitchy, or wrong;
i) pigs, flying.

Now I've stopped uncontrollably laughing at The Howard Abbott Gazette, I would point out to its management and staff that, as a newspaper in the News Limited group, it also has a Professional Code of Conduct which was drawn up by the parent company itself - presumably which it also uses to fan its face et ectera.

The anonymous journalist sarcastically writing in Media Diary unintentionally furthers the case for removal of the media's right to self-regulate its own behaviour through that tame and toothless body, the Australian Press Council.

Deliverance country?

An attempt to normalise the abnormal?

The Monday editions of the the Clarence valley's local paper, The Daily Examiner, regularly feature a stand-out happy snap of members of the local gun club.

What's next? Can readers expect to see weekly pics of people playing the pokies?

Hendra - a perspective

Grey-headed Flying Fox

In September 1994, the death of Vic Rail and his race horses alerted us to the emergence of a new virus - called firstly equine morbillivirus, and then named Hendra, after the suburb where it was first identified.
Despite its regular occurrence since that time, it is considered to be rare, and not easily transferred.

Morbillivirus are not new to us – measles among people, and distemper among dogs are two examples that have been around for a long time, and both are now successfully managed with vaccination.

Tests have indicated that Hendra is found in the natural world in flying foxes, but experiments have not yet shown if, or how it moves across species to horses, and then from horses to people.

Wildlife carers with many years of intimate contact with flying foxes have shown no sign of antibodies that would indicate that the virus moves between people and bats.

At this stage, where it comes from, and how it is transmitted seems less important than working out how to manage it when it presents in horses.
Until a vaccine is available, and Biosecurity Queensland places that about 1 year away, risk management seems to be the best way to prevent outbreaks of Hendra.

To minimise chances of horses contracting the virus, the Australian Veterinary Association recommends that all horse feed and water containers be covered, and that horses be stabled at night, or kept in areas where they are not exposed to night feeding flying foxes.

To minimise risk to people, they recommend that good hygiene, like hand washing, and avoiding coming into contact with horse saliva, will lessen contact with possible viral fluids.

The Biosecurity Queensland web site has regular updates, and can be followed on Facebook and Twitter.

Carole West / Gill Bennett / Wildlife SOS


* 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 gmail.com for consideration.

GetUp! shoots over the bows of Mining Billionaires

Newspaper advert which began appearing on breakfast tables across Australia last Friday.
Just gotta love these young scrappers.....

A local voice on the national stage

 

Yamba resident Paul Stephen contributed this item to the letters section of The Age:

Credit: Letters, The Age, 22/7/11

And you thought some of those climate change contrarians may have had a modicum of intelligence? [Part Two OR The Pollie's Version]

Tony Abbott: See, one of the things that people haven’t quite twigged to is that carbon dioxide is invisible, it’s weightless and it’s odourless. How are we going to police these emissions…
{Tony Abbott interview with John Laws on 7th July 2011}

Yep, the little lad from Warringah really said that.
Why have I set him in the dunce’s corner? Well………………
1. Carbon dioxide is not always invisible.
2. This gas is definitely not weightless.
3. It’s not always odourless either.
4. Australia already requires companies with a high carbon dioxide equivalence to record greenhouse gas emissions and civil penalties can be imposed for non-compliance.
So just for Tones the Terrible………….
1. 'Freeze' enough of the pesky element and it’s there for all to see as a block of ice – sometimes keeping the party punchbowl cool.
2. Its molecular weight is around 44.01, its specific gravity about 1.521 and its density 1.98 g/dm3 or thereabouts – so yes, science can measure it. 1 part per million by volume of atmospheric CO2 equals 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon according to available calculation.
3. As a gas it can sometimes have a slightly sharp odour and a sour taste – and if it comes to it, occupational health and safety boffins know that carbon dioxide is toxic in high concentrations.
4. Tones was Health Minister (and Leader of the House) in the then Howard Government when it introduced the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 in August-September of that very year.
Crikey, mate - even the little tacker down the street has your number by now!

#Google Images spat out the drawing of a carbon dioxide molecule

Quote of the week in which we all get told

“Political observation in this country is like watching a guy slumped on a couch trying to eat pre-chewed food out of his chest hair.”
{Heathen Scripture Australiar and the f*cking idiot dilemma18^{th July 2011}}

Viscount Monckton: House of Lords publicly knocks down one of his many false claims after Spencer interview in Australia & journalists do the rest

One could be forgiven for thinking that florid climate change denialist Christopher Monckton’s recent Australian speaking tour did not return value for money to his backers or give comfort to the anti-science views of Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott.

First Monckton was forced to publicly apologise for the fascist/Nazi slur thrown at one Australian economist before the start of his journey and now this………………

An open letter to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley from the Clerk of the Parliaments published at www.parliament.uk after Monckton’s ABC Sydney Breakfast with Adam Spencer radio interview on 7 July 2011:

Dear Lord Monckton

My predecessor, Sir Michael Pownall, wrote to you on 21 July 2010, and again on 30 July 2010, asking that you cease claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication. It has been drawn to my attention that you continue to make such claims.

In particular, I have listened to your recent interview with Mr Adam Spencer on Australian radio. In response to the direct question, whether or not you were a Member of the House of Lords, you said "Yes, but without the right to sit or vote". You later repeated, "I am a Member of the House".

I must repeat my predecessor's statement that you are not and have never been a Member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House. This is borne out by the recent judgment in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office) where Mr Justice Lewison stated:

"In my judgment, the reference [in the House of Lords Act 1999] to 'a member of the House of Lords' is simply a reference to the right to sit and vote in that House ... In a nutshell, membership of the House of Lords means the right to sit and vote in that House. It does not mean entitlement to the dignity of a peerage."

I must therefore again ask that you desist from claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication, and also that you desist from claiming to be a Member "without the right to sit or vote".

I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.

David Beamish
Clerk of the Parliaments

15 July 2011

Monckton publicly and somewhat pathetically hit back during the televised National Press Club Address on 19 July, when a journalist raised the issue of the open letter, with a classic piece of misdirection along the lines of 'my passport says I'm a peer and because I'm a peer I must be a member of the House of Lords' or words to that effect.

In answer to a question from another journalist concerning his so-called expert status, Monckton also stated that he had a peer reviewed scientific paper in the APS Physics Journal titled Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley.

Predictably, the American Physical Society has a very different perspective:

Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate." [my emphasis]

And you thought some of those climate change contrarians may have had a modicum of intelligence?

 

A quick look at a climate change denier from the transcript of ABC Background Briefing “The Lord Monckton Roadshow” on 17th July 2011. No comment is actually needed on this gem of absurdity from Archibald and it’s hard to get my jaw up off the floor anyway in order to form the requisite sentence:

Wendy Carlisle: A few years back, David Archibald gave a speech at a Lavoisier Group conference and it made for interesting reading.

David Archibald: I'm a member of the Lavoisier Group.

Wendy Carlisle: You gave a speech at, I think, a conference a couple of years ago now and -- can I quote? -- 'My reward for this work, as it is for every member of the Lavoisier society, will be in heaven. For the forces of darkness control the science journals, government departments, public institutes and universities.' Did you say that?

David Archibald: Yes, I did, and I'm quite proud of it, thank you. And thank you for bringing it up for your listeners.

Wendy Carlisle: His motive, he says, is truth.

David Archibald: For people on our side, there is no financial reward; we're all doing it out of love for country and love of humanity and all that sort of thing.

Wendy Carlisle: Do you believe that the 'forces of darkness' are running universities?

David Archibald: Yes, I do.

Wendy Carlisle: The 'forces of darkness' are running science journals?

David Archibald: Yes, I do.

Wendy Carlisle: Government departments?

David Archibald: Yes, I do.

Wendy Carlisle: Public institutes?

David Archibald: Yes, I do.

Wendy Carlisle: Who are the forces of darkness?

David Archibald: Those who wish a carbon-constrained economy on Australia.

Will NSW Premier O'Farrell protect local government investment in NSW North Coast sustainable urban water infrastructure?

 

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 18 July 2011:

There are ninety kilometres (90 km) of underground pipelines linking the Nymboida River with the Shannon Creek Dam in the Clarence Valley, the Rushforth Road Reservoir at South Grafton and the Karangi Dam near Coffs Harbour.  The combined value of this infrastructure to Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour local government has been estimated at $200 million.

On 18 July 2011 The Coffs Coast Advocate reported Coffs Harbour City Cr. Mark Graham as stating:

…he had inspected a site on Wild Cattle Creek where Anchor Resources was exploring for antimony and there were already large plumes of antimony which could leach into Wild Cattle Creek and into the Nymboida River.

“There is a massive plume washing from the exploration site into the headwaters of our drinking water catchment,… There is a great need to protect the catchment of the regional water supply and our collective investment of about $200 million"

If these plumes are as reported, then the China Shandong Jinshunda Group Co Ltd through its Australian mining exploration arm, Anchor Resources Ltd, is placing local government investment, an urban water supply (which supports an estimated 3 million residents and visitors/tourists each quarter across Clarence Valley-Coffs Harbour regions) and, a high-value natural environment, at risk even before antimony mining and processing has begun.

According to a report commissioned by Clarence Valley Council in 2008; On average, domestic overnight visitors spent $118 per night, International overnight visitors spent $76 per night and domestic day trippers spent $80 per trip.

Will NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell and Minister for Resources and Energy Chris Hartcher ignore potential risks to the interests of Northern Rivers and Mid-North Coast communities in order to facilitate the interests of this international mining corporation?

Assange Appeal to U.K. High Court: skeleton argument [warning - explicit language]

Julian Assange (of Wikileaks fame) has concluded his appeal to Britain's High Court concerning an unfavourable lower court judgment in relation to extradition proceedings initiated on behalf of the Swedish Prosecution Authority and, the Justices retired to consider their verdict at the end of the day on 13 July 2011.

For perhaps the first time since the mainstream media began reporting on the issue, a relatively clear-eyed view of the complainants' evidence is publicly available concerning the circumstances of the alleged rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.

The blog Sweden vs. Assange has posted the skeleton argument put before the Court by Assange's legal team.

The Assange defence team asserted on the basis of the two complainants statements:

Julian Assange engaged in ’rough and impatient’ consensual foreplay with complainant AA, and he complied with her wish that he used a condom once she expressed her desire for him to use one.

Julian Assange used a condom upon claimant AA’s request. The condom split.

Julian Assange pressed his naked erect penis against AA whilst they were voluntarily sharing a small bed. They had shared the bed for several days and engaged in consensual sexual activity previously.

In the context of repeated acts of consensual sexual intercourse, Julian Assange penetrated SW whilst she was ’half-asleep’. The penetration was met by consent on the part of SW, in full knowledge that Julian Assange was not wearing protection.

It is noted that the Swedish Prosecution Authority rejects the claim that all sexual activity was consensual. Details can be found in the translated European Arrest Warrant.

It is also noted that to date Assange appears not been formally charged with any sexual offense under Swedish law, as by the Swedish Prosecution Authority's own admission the investigation is still only currently at the stage of "preliminary investigation".

Publicly available documents presented to earlier U.K. lower courts hearings can be found here.