Robert Briseno and Kelly McFadden take on ConAgra Foods Inc over deceptive GMO food labelling

According to the Food Court blog:

two separate class-action suits (McFadden et al v. ConAgra Foods Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, no. 11-3186; Briseno et al v. ConAgra Foods Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, no. 11-5379) seek millions of dollars in refunds on behalf of recent purchasers the Wesson oil line — including canola oil, vegetable oil, corn oil and a blend — as well as a court order prohibiting Con-Agra from making its all-natural claim on Wesson oils.

An application to merge Briseno et al with McFadden et al appears to have been lodged on 16 August 2011.

Robert Briseno et al versus ConAgra Foods Inc [2011]

Ooopps! Google bombs again

Is Google Inc. getting so big that it can't keep an eye on its management staff or has You can make money without doing evil been tossed out the backdoor onto obsolete corporate philosophy pile?

Reuters 24^th August 2011 - Google Inc has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a criminal probe into ads it accepted for online Canadian pharmacies selling drugs in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

The advertisements led to illegal imports of prescription drugs into the country, the Justice Department said.
The forfeiture is one of the largest ever in the United States, according to the department. It represents Google's revenue from Canadian pharmacy advertisements to U.S. customers through Google's AdWords program and Canadian pharmacies' revenue from U.S. sales.
Google had previously set aside that amount for a possible settlement over its advertising practices, according to a regulatory filing in May.
Google, the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, had $29 billion in gross revenue in 2010.

The sweet sound of silence as Bolt gunned down

I don't think it is too long a bow to draw between Andrew Bolt eschewing political comment today.....

News Ltd issuing a statement and apologizing across a number of its banner heads.....

Clive Mathieson, editor of The Australian, said in a statement: ”We’re investigating the Prime Minister’s claim of inaccuracies in the story. As the correction points out, we regret that the PM was not given any chance to respond to the allegations. Glenn Milne remains a contributor to The Australian.”

and this yesterday.........

PM a lost cause for warring unions

The Australian - 16 hours ago

THE real import of the alleged brothel creeping scandal surrounding Craig Thomson has been missed. And it is this: key factions and unions within the Labor ...

Milne appears to have drawn on a Bolt blog for some of his 'ínformation'.

North Coast Voices Petering Time  predicted  a rocky road for Bolt in a 25 August post and it seems he was correct.

2011 may well be the year in which this so-called journalist is finally stripped of his Teflon ® coating.

UPDATE:

The disappointment is profound - Bolt promises to be back tomorrow ;-)

UPDATE
Afrer discussions, I now feel free to speak my mind. So I shall. In tomorrow’s column. I apologise for the mysteriousness, but I did not want to act in anger or before matters had been resolved. I had to be fair to my employer and to my readers, and I apologise if you think I’ve had the balance wrong over the past 24 hours.
Thank you to everyone who has rung, emailed or commented on this post, here and on radio.

All bow down before The Great God TAbbott

When you recover from the desire to shout aloud with laughter, reflect on the overweening conceit contained in this error laden sentence delivered to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia by the current Federal Opposition Leader:

As health minister, I strengthened the cost-effectiveness tests that helped to drive increased life expectancy of more than two years over the course of the government’s term.

Oh, if only longevity was that simple!

Here is the Australian Bureau of Statistics view of life expectancy:

Since the late 1800s, life expectancy for Australian boys and girls has increased by over 30 years. During 1881-1890, the average life expectancy of a newborn boy was 47.2 years and that of a newborn girl 50.8 years. By 2007-2009, average life expectancy had risen to 79.3 years for newborn boys and 83.9 years for newborn girls.
Over the past 125 years there have been changes in what Australians have died of, and the age at which they have died. Up until 1932, infectious and parasitic diseases caused at least 10% of all deaths each year, with death rates from these diseases highest among the very young and very old. Improvements in living conditions in the early 20th century, such as better water supplies, sewerage systems, food quality and health education, led to overall lower death rates and longer life expectancy at all ages.
During the 20th century, degenerative diseases such as heart disease, stroke and cancer replaced infectious and parasitic diseases as the main cause of death of older people.  Not only had infection control measures improved in medical facilities, but public awareness of the value of preventative actions such as hand washing had grown. Increases in life expectancy at all ages in the second half of the 20th century have been attributed to improving social conditions and advances in medical technology such as mass immunisation and antibiotics.
The past two decades have seen further increases in life expectancy. These increases have been partly due to lower infant mortality, fewer young people dying in motor vehicle accidents, and fewer older men dying from heart disease. The reduction in deaths from heart disease has been linked to medical advances and behavioural changes such as improvements in diet and less smoking.

As one can see, with or without The Great God TAbbott, Australian life expectancy at birth has been steadily rising for the last two hundred years.

The entire Abbott address is here.

Two guinea pigs walk into a Queensland bar and create polling heaven

Logging onto The Internetz to see how Oz pollie polling is going this morning? That’s so old school!

Now this is a poll…..

Hartsuyker attempts to deceive Parliament

This is the Nationals Federal MP for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, according to his own media release on 25 August  2011:

Federal MP Luke Hartsuyker tonight (Thursday) has told the Federal Member for Lyne Rob Oakeshott that it’s not too late for him to change his position on the carbon tax and start reflecting the views of his electorate.

During a speech in the House of Representatives, Mr Hartsuyker said a poll which appeared in the local newspaper – the Port Paper - confirmed Mr Oakeshott was ignoring the views of his electorate. “We come to this place to represent our electorates. We come to reflect the hopes and aspirations of the people from our communities, and a member of this House occupies their seat at the pleasure of the voters in their electorate,” Mr Hartsuyker told the Parliament.

“A member who acts contrary to the wishes of their electorate will ultimately be judged at the ballot box. Today's headline in the Port Paper, 'Oakeshott support plummets', says it all. We see in today's paper a reflection of what everybody on the North Coast knows. The people of Lyne know that they have been abandoned by their local member. The people of Lyne know—and I will use their words—that they have been betrayed. The people of Lyne know that they have a representative in this House voting against their interests.

As Clarrie Rivers posted last week, the Port Paper appears to be a front for the Nationals.

When Hartsuyker rose to his feet in the House of Representatives and told Parliament The people of Lyne know—and I will use their words—that they have been betrayed he was knowingly directly quoting a Port Paper article written by the editor who is a National Party member and former staffer of three Nationals MPs (including Hartsuyker until May this year).

An article Port Paper displays online at a domain address registered by yet another Nationals staffer.

Hartsuyker would have also known that the survey commissioned by Port Paper and conducted across the Federal electorate of Lyne on Tuesday night (23rd August) used fully automated voice broadcast to contact the 448 respondents. Even right-wing journalist Andrew Bolt hedges his bets on this polling technology.

One has to wonder why Hartsuyker has such little regard for the Australian Parliament that he would attempt to deceive it in this manner.

Teh Rabbit continues to demonstrate an inability to place matters in the proper historical context

The Whitlam Government was dismissed in 1975. Gough Whitlam himself retired in 1978. The Greens did not get elected to the Australian Federal Parliament until 1993. Bob Brown first entered the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Denison in 1983 and later the Senate in 1996.

Yet Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott commits this impossible historical comparison in August 2011:

“You know, it’s often been said that the Gillard Government is the worst since Gough Whitlam. Well, I think that’s very unfair to Gough Whitlam who didn’t lack idealism and who never sold the soul of the Labor Party to Senator Bob Brown and the Greens.”

What is a whale worth to Australian coastal communities?

Humpback Whale off Sydney, Australia, in 2011

from The Sydney Morning Herald

Government of Japan subsidised whale hunting in the Antarctic runs at a loss and has done so for years. Even after meat collected on this allegedly scientific hunt is sold on to Japanese retailers for an estimated 6 billion yen ($64.5 million) a year, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on January 23 2010 .

Australian coastal communities have been watching the annual whale migration since people first began to collect on the shoreline. Over the last twenty years this whale migration has begun to play a significant part in many local economies.

As the 2011 IFAW Valuing wales for International Whale Day: Final Report  points out:

What’s a whale worth to Hervey Bay?

Data collected by O'Connor et al (2009) valued direct ticket revenues from whale watching in Hervey Bay at $5.9 million in 20081.

Indirect expenditure associated with whale watching was estimated at $7.0 million, giving a total of $12.9 million.

From these figures and the above population estimates, we calculated present value per whale of AUD $97,000.

What’s a whale worth to Warrnambool?

Data collected by O'Connor et al (2009) found that total expenditure by whale watching tourists was $2.6 million in 20082.

From this total revenue figure and the local population we estimated the following on average present value per whale of AUD $1,259,000.

This value is significantly larger than the values in Hervey Bay and Broome because revenue from whale watching in Warrnambool is high and the population is very small by comparison to the other two regions.

What’s a whale worth to Broome?

O'Connor et al (2009) found direct ticket revenues from whale watching around Broome were $169,000 in 2008.

Indirect expenditure associated with whale watching was estimated at $244,000 giving a total of $413,0003.

From these figures and the above population estimates, we estimated average present value per whale at AUD $32,000.

Pollies living in glass houses begin to hear the sound of smashing glass

When Aussie pollies on The Speaker's left get all holier than thou, this is what sometimes happens.......................

In The Canberra Times last Wednesday:

“The Canberra Liberals were producing invitations to a $950-a-head party fundraiser when they were caught misusing public printing resources last month.

And The Canberra Times can reveal that the breach of parliamentary code of conduct only came to light after one of the flyers advertising the exclusive event was left on a photocopier.

Liberals' Leader Zed Seselja, who apologised last week to the Assembly over the incident, repeated yesterday that the breach had been an honest mistake by a junior staff member who had just begun working at the Assembly.

The flyer that was being produced was an invitation from Mr Seselja to the party faithful to ''an exclusive and intimate'' dinner with NSW Minister for Resources and Energy Chris Hartcher.

Supporters could choose to donate $550, $750 or $950 to attend the event at the up-market Boat House restaurant on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin on July 21.

Under political donations rules, payments to political parties of less than $1000 do not have to be disclosed to authorities.

Last month the Liberal Party paid back $10,000 it had claimed from a government fund set up to help volunteer groups look after the city's poor and needy through the global financial crisis.

In the wake of the latest incident, the Speaker of the Assembly Shane Rattenbury was forced to issue a warning to 11 non-executive Assembly members last week reminding them of their obligations concerning the use of public funds.”

Update on the National Party's very friendly Port Macquarie newspaper

Comments flowing from National Party sources about the independence of  The Port Paper don't stack up.
Although the paper parades with the banner "Your 100% locally owned and totally independent newspaper" some very elementary investigations reveal that the paper's website is owned and administered by Rob Nardella, who (like the paper's editor Sharon Davidson) has serious form in The Nationals' camp.

 Nardella, a former councillor on Port Macquarie Council, is now a policy adviser for NSW Nationals leader Andrew Stoner. 

The information Nardella provided when setting up the domain portpaper.com reveals he's not real strong in Australian geography. He located Port Macquarie in the Australian Capital Territory!


PS Stoner has a few problems of his own on his plate. Stoner had a prominent member of the local branch of the National Party fast-track his solar bonus scheme application. Read a report in today's edition of a Sydney newspaper about that scandal here.

Liar, liar?

“Thanks for all the support. I believe what happened today is completely unfair .. And I am seeking advice on the matter” tweets CamPriceBris after being sacked for lying about where he was reporting from during ‘live’ television coverage.

According to his now former employer “Cameron Price joined WIN Television in Toowoomba after graduating with a BA of Journalism from the University of Queensland. After a two year stint there, Price joined the Nine Network in 2008”.

I would’ve thought that Queensland Uni would have taught him that indulging in fakery to ginger up the nightly news is just not on.

It's all about E*T*H*I*C*S, Cam.

Pic from The Age story

News footage video here.

How could anyone believe anything that appears in this cellar-dwelling rag

Thanks, ABC North Coast Radio, for alerting listeners to a very bodgy newspaper that had a free, below the belt, shot at Rob Oakeshott, the independent member for Lyne.

The piece in the rag was written by its editor Sharon Davidson.

Davidson has extensive form in The Nationals' camp. She spent a bit of time at a desk at a Grafton local newspaper, but she's spent a lot more time in the company of  North Coast National MPs.
Davidson's CV lists, among others,

1. Former MP for Page Ian (Bull) Causley

2. The do-nothing MP for Clarence, Steve (One-Too-Many-Trips-to-the-Boxing-Ring) Cansdell, who said  Davidson was one of his "gals" in his inaugural speech , and

3. Luke (Tilting at Windmills) Hartsuyker

Another local voice on the big stage

Wooli's Don Firth, who's a frequent contributor to the letters pages of The Daily Examiner and The Sydney Morning Herald, has been part of the ongoing shots at QANTAS in the Herald this week.
 

SMH Letters, August 24, 2011

Qantas flying low

Michele Zehnder (Letters, August 21) is quite right: Qantas should lose the right to adorn the tails of its planes with that wonderful stylised kangaroo. It should, instead, be given to Ausflag, the group looking to secure support for a truly Australian flag, so it can produce a flag to match Canada's in the instantly recognisable stakes.
Don Firth Wooli

 SMH Letters, August 25, 2011

The flying prawn? It could take off

I really like Don Firth's suggestion (Letters, August 24) that the wonderful stylised kangaroo from Qantas be given to Ausflag. It could then be flown above all government buildings and internationally, and would represent all things good. For instance, the downsizing of the Australian international fleet and also the utilising of offshore resources to save shareholder investments, a clear representation of our broken economic motor that is creating holes in our national fuselage.
Michael Cronk Dubbo