Lismore Lantern Parade, Satuday 20 June 2009

It is only a couple of months until that wonderful spectacle the Lismore Lantern Parade.

To remind everyone of how special it is to enter the parade or watch from the sidelines, here are some photographs by Tapperboy of the 2008 parade found at Flickr.

Hopefully Tapperboy will be snapping away this year as well.

Lantern making workshops are being held this month starting on Saturday 18 April and going to 30 May.

You can get details or book a place by phoning 6622 6333 or 6621 2464.

Clarence Valley whodunnit

Snapshot from Media Watch

Courtesy of Clarrie Rivers

Ever since ABC TV Media Watch featured The Daily Examiner editor Peter Chapman's ill-fated foray into gender politics, some Clarence Valley residents have been wondering who sent off that copy of Chapman's "Comment" article.

One person caused a smile by suggesting that it would be impossible to tell whodunnit due to the number of those already annoyed with Chapman and that "the perp could've come from a cast of thousands".

While on the subject of The Daily Examiner, this was sent to me yesterday as an example of advertising thinly disguised as news. Something which appears to be cropping up too frequently under Chapman's editorship.

Click to enlarge image

So you want to look through my medical records?

Seems that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Health Minister Nicola Roxon and Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig think it's a beaut idea to have faceless Medicare bureaucrats trawling through the local doctor's patient records just in case he or she is trying to defraud the Commonwealth.
Matching everything (from that brush with the kid's head lice, those uncomfortable haemorrhoids, that dose of the clap, problem with alcohol or recent unplanned pregnancy) to a Medicare billing form with your name on it within 2 years of the date on the audit notice.

But that's not all!
The local hospital, medical specialists and corporate practices can also be asked to hand over your medical records on demand, as well as aboriginal health workers; audiologists; clinical psychologists; diabetes educators; dieticians; exercise physiologists; mental health nurses; occupational therapists; psychologists; socialworkers; and speech pathologists.
Wait there's more!
Not only does Medicare get to look at all those medical records - it gets to take away and keep the originals.
Which means that your confidential records are in yet another government data base.
The doctor's solicitor can also obtain a copy of removed records, so there's yet another person keeking at your maladies.

As to which practitioners will be audited - well it's all a bit of a lottery really because at the moment the government is sorta promising (with fingers crossed behind a few backs) that there will only be 2,500 of these snooping expeditions each year.
Retaining any form of patient confidentiality? Well it's easy to recall those times when Centrelink staff or police officers have been caught out snooping on relllies or selling information from government data bases.

Joe Ludwig expects to have this hunt 'n' hound firmly in place by July this year.
If you want to have a say in all this go to this page on the Department of Health and Aging website for details of the draft legislation which turned up very quietly last Thursday.
You have under 24th April to make a submission.

Copenhagen versus Heartland 2009

The Climate Change International Scientific Congress was held at the University of Copenhagen in March 2009 and, according to its media release it was attended by more than 2,500 delegates from around 80 countries and received approximately 1,600 scientific contributions from researchers.
A synthesis report will be published in June 2009.

Also in March The Heartland Institute held its International Conference on Climate Change and About 800 scientists, economists, legislators, policy activists, and media representatives attended the event which had 80 presenters. The Institute promises videos and power point presentations as they become available.

Now who would have the weaker hand here, I wonder?
Hmm...., think the climate change denialist's offer of dinky little power point presentations gives some indication.

Greg Clancy battles on to save Shark Creek fig trees

Greg Clancy, a longtime resident of the Northern Rivers, is to be commended for his staunch support of the local environment and efforts to preserve remnant habit.

Greg has a special interest in birds and sometimes can be seen out and about making notes on bird behaviour and numbers.

Erin Brady writing in The Daily Examiner last Tuesday:

TWO giant trees and a flock of vulnerable birds could stand in the way of the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) plans to widen the Pacific Highway at Shark Creek.

For close to 125 years two small-leaved fig trees have stood beside the Clarence River, providing food and shelter to a list of vulnerable bird species, but the tree's days could soon be numbered....

Ecological consultant Dr Greg Clancy has made a submission to the RTA to save the trees, claiming they were one of the few remnants left of the forests of the Clarence Floodplain.....

In his submission Dr Clancy also said the presence of four birds, listed as vulnerable by the Department of Environment and Conservation, had been ignored in the RTA's review of environmental factors......

Dr Clancy said the Wompoo fruit-dove, the superb fruit-dove, the rose-crowned fruit-dove and the barred cuckoo-shrike were all present in the local area and could reasonably be expected to feed on the small-leaved fig trees.

Photograph: KCMO

April 2009: Fiji calling.............

Found at Discombobulated Bubu

Click image to enlarge

Silence is an eerie thing when in replaces the voice of a free press.
The silence from Fiji is chilling.

Below is an updated blog list and hopefully Fiji bloggers will be able to continue getting information out.

Raw Fiji News
Fiji Free Speech
Discombobulated Bubu
Luvei Viti – Children of Fiji
Intelligensiya
Fiji Today
Fiji Girl's Weblog
Soli Vakasama
Fiji Democracy Now
Tears for Fiji
Coup Four and a Half
Talking Fiji

Meanwhile Australia and New Zealand have threatened tough new trade and travel restrictions against the Fiji dictatorship and the Australian Foreign Minister has foreshadowed Fiji's expulsion from the the Pacific Islands Forum.

It has also been reported that the small Fiji social network site Sotia Central went off-line after some of its members reportedly expressed concerns about the current situation on the island nation.
Site members appear to be largely drawn from the Fiji military and police and their families.

This comment was found at Matavuvale:

Isa sa qai ca tale..... anyway, came across this little notice while browsing FJ Times ...

"Fiji social networking

The new Fiji Interim Government has issued regulations requiring publishers to first submit all content to Government officials for clearance before publishing it. Because you, not we, generate this content, we are unable to comply. Accordingly, sotiacentral.com has been taken down until further notice."

I guess thats why!

A Twitter real time search shows tweets slowly beginning to build, but it appears that Fiji telecommunications may currently be subject to interference from the dictatorship.

Strange but true from the legendary past.....

Thinking about the Rudd-Conroy foray into Internet censorship brought to mind this American court case, John Doe et al v Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States of America et al from 2005.

Litigation from a time when the US Government, as part of the War On Terror, even wanted to find out what library books its citizens were reading.
Using the mechanism of National Security Letters (NSLs) which request information from a third party and are issued by the FBI or by other government agencies with authority to conduct national security investigations.

Eventually the US Government dropped its pursuit of the Executive Director of the Library Connection, an online service.
He does not appear to have ever given the FBI the information it requested.

However NSLs which attempt to force silence on recipients still exist according to the American Civil Liberties Union:

Through NSLs the FBI can compile vast dossiers about innocent people and obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website. The provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand.

Although the burden of proof as to why a citizen should be gagged is now on government agencies.

This little piece of government spying history is again relevant, as at the end of March 2009 two House of Representatives Democrats have re-introduced the Nadler/Flake bill now known as the National Security Letters Reform Act 2009 to curb excessive snooping using these NSFs.

Barack Obama is said to have supported the bill when it was first introduced in 2007.
Will he now as president support this reform or fight it?

Japan complains about kill numbers as 220 whales go free

Minke whale being dragged onboard a Japanese whaling vessel

The Telegraph UK article on 2009 whale kill numbers on 13 April 2009:
We had set a target of 850 minke whales but were only able to catch 679, and only one out of a quota of 50 fin whales," said Hideaki Okada, a ministry spokesman.
"One of our vessels was damaged in a dangerous attack, so we lost about two weeks of the season, so we could not reach our target," he said. "We needed to reach the 850 quota to carry out effective scientific research, so we have lost that opportunity."

This is what was said during a Radio Australia interview on 15 April last year:

SHANE MCLEOD: Japan had planned to kill around 1,000 whales in the Southern Ocean this season, 850, give or take 10 per cent were to be minke whales, 50 fin whales and 50 humpbacks. The humpbacks were taken out of the formula in December, after Australia led protests lodged directly with Japan's Government. And now with the main whaling the ship, the Nisshin Maru due back in port this morning, Japan has confirmed that it's had trouble meeting the quota it set itself - with 551 minke whales making up roughly 60 per cent of the quota. Shigeki Takaya is a spokesman for Japan's Fisheries Agency.

SHIGEKI TAKAYA: 551 is not reached to the 850 but is not so small numbers. We will get the good result from this number.

SHANE MCLEOD: Japan's whale researchers say part of the reason for not catching so many whales is that they didn't see quite so many of them. But they say it's premature to draw conclusions from that about overall whale numbers.

So a catch of 551 Minke whales in 2008 is still a good result, but a catch of 679 Minke whales in 2009 is not?
It would appear that Japan has been caught out spinning a whale of a tale.

Comic relief ... it's just not cricket

More about that "No penis, no microphone" business

ABC TV's Media Watch has hit The Daily Examiner commentator Peter Chapman, the bloke who started the business, for six.

Media Watch didn't buy Chapman's assurances that he's not a male chauvinist ["...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist (The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009)"]

Media Watch: The horror! Peter Chapman is a sports buff from way back - with views to match.

According to him, this female person didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

Instead she...

...tried to bluff her way through by explaining how we need more swing bowlers and the difference a hard and soft ball can make to scoring rates.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

She has a name, Peter. It's Natalie Germanos, and she's been calling cricket for the South African Broadcasting Corp since 2005.

She's a former player, and coach.

Here she is, bluffing away about swing bowling:

Natalie Germanos: What you've seen in this game that Wayne Parnell, a decent amount of swing and Dale Steyn as well, he hasn't got much swing over the summer, especially here in South Africa, but moved that white ball around quite a bit and was very effective.

— Fox Sports 2, Aus vs RSA ODI, 5th April, 2009

Funnily enough, right after the game, Allan Border seemed to think South Africa's swing bowling was quite important too.

...the way they struck with the new hard ball early, they swung the ball at good pace and our top order crumbled...

— Fox Sports 2 web video, 5th April, 2009

We got a long response from Peter Chapman, who now argues that it's Natalie Germanos's commentary he took issue with, not her gender...

I have no concerns should a female commentator arrive who can deliver the goods, I welcome her.

— Email from Peter Chapman (Editor, The Daily Examiner) to Media Watch, 9th April, 2009

Read Peter Chapman's response to Media Watch’s questions.

That's not quite what you wrote, Peter:

I don't mind female sports journos doing interviews and giving us the colour reports, but for blow-by-blow, it has to be a male.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Mind you, Peter assures us:

...as one of the first sports editors in Channel Ten to employ female sports journalists, I can't be labelled a male chauvinist.

— The Daily Examiner, 7th April, 2009

Oh, I think you can, Peter...

Worrying times under this feathered fascism

All the old newspapers on the farm are used as mulch and weed suppressors in the garden and it works really well. I did not think that there was a downside to this practice until very recently.

Those of you who follow this group blog will know I have been having problems with fascist geese taking over the farm. However, up to this week there was one area permanently declared a goose-free zone and that is the vegie garden.

Yesterday afternoon a panzer division of geese stormed the frontline fence and broke into the forbidden garden.

It was a stealth attack, they made no noise at all.

Which is very hard for geese, since they seem to have opinions about everything and insist on telling the world at the top of their lungs.

By the time I discovered the invasion and rallied the troops (the old dog and myself) to counter attack these geese and drive them from their new found territory, they had a few hours worth of eating all the vegetables they could find.

At first I thought that it was only the vegetables they wanted, but I am not too sure now.

There's been a change in their tactics and something about the way they are conducting themselves does not bode well.

This morning I think I may have found the answer.

While repairing the damage and cleaning up the mess I happened to glance down at the mulch headline screaming up at me, Fiji crisis deepens!!!

It had a muddy goose footprint on it, and one of Commodore Barney's quotes had been ripped out (as was a photo of the infamous leader) and was missing .

The geese have found a soul mate, a hero; with him as inspiration who knows what will happen here on the farm in coming days.

Goldman Sachs threatens blogger but only ends up advertising the dissident blog

Goldman Sachs like any other big financial institution is more than a little sensitive to criticism since the global financial crisis exposed the greedy underbelly of financial institutions.

On 25 March 2009 Mike Morgan set up a blog at www.goldmansachs666.com aimed at airing information about this merchant bank.

The blog's banner is Info, Comments, Opinions and Facts About Goldman Sachs, its first post was on 26 March and its first legal letter on behalf of Goldman Sachs was dated 8 April.

Apparently the banking group is asserting that use of the wording goldmansachs666 is a breach of copyright, unfair competition and implies the blogger has an affiliation or relationship with Goldman Sachs.

Rather a thin argument to put forward I would have thought and somewhat misleading; as it is clear as day that what these bankers are really objecting to is information being published about such matters as the amount of taxpayer money Goldman Sachs received from the US Government's financial institutions bailout.
Information which unsurprisingly is already in the public domain at websites such as Market Watch.

It is very interesting to note that a copy of the legal letter was sent to the blog's host GoDaddy Inc. in what looks like a move to unsettle the host and have it bring pressure to bear on Mike Morgan.

This would have to be a first surely for a young blog - threatened with litigation within the first fortnight of its existence.

One wonders if Sinewave who created the Goldman Sucks blog in April 2009 will also eventually fall foul of these bankers.

Of course once Goldman Sachs decided to set out down the legal path the outcome was inevitable.

Now the blogosphere is discussing the situation with posts such as What's Goldman Sachs Hiding? Is it another Madoff scam?, Goldman Sachs is worried about its reputation ~ LOL and Goldman Sachs Seeks To Stifle Blogger Critic (GS)
While Google is returning over 2,000 results on a search for the term goldmansachs666.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein stated in a speech to the Council of Institutional Investors in Washington earlier this month:

To begin with an obvious point, much of the past year has been deeply humbling for my industry. We held ourselves up as the experts, and the loss of public confidence from failing to live up to the expectations that we created will take years to rebuild. Worse, decisions on compensation and other actions taken and not taken, particularly at banks that rapidly lost a lot of shareholder value, look self-serving and greedy in hindsight.

Might I suggest to Mr. Blankfein that trying to bully a blogger into silence when he does not appear to have actually breached any law (yet) is not the way to rebuild confidence in the Goldman Sachs brand.

Not in front of the children Aussie-style

Caught sight of this over at the Rabbit Scan blog.
A post by Bunny Blighter:
"Be careful of what you do in front of young children. They learn from you!
I grew up in the mallee during the horrific rabbit plagues of the late forties-early fifties; before Myxo helped to control the pest. When I was barely three I was out with my father and a farm worker who were digging up warrens .
Apparently some dear little rabbit kittens were dug up and Dad gave his sweet little daughter one to cuddle.
Sweet little daughter did what she had only ever seen what people do to rabbits. She picked it up by the hind legs and smashed its head into a nearby tree, killing it. Be very, very careful what behaviour you model in front of children!"

Media and blogs respond to Fiji military dictatorship

Chris Merrit and John Stapleton writing in The Australian this morning:

THE Australian judges who triggered Fiji's latest political crisis have branded the Pacific nation's president a dictator and warned that any expatriate judges who accept job offers from him could be seen as treasonous.
The attack on president Josefa Iloilo was unleashed yesterday after he had sacked the country's judiciary, torn up the constitution and reappointed a prime minister whose regime the judges had declared illegal.
"He is effectively a dictator - that is a strong word, but that is the situation," said Ian Lloyd, one of the three Australian judges on Fiji's Court of Appeal who last Thursday ruled that military leader Frank Bainimarama's seizure of power in a 2006 coup was illegal.

The Canberra Times reported today:

Life becomes difficult for the Fiji press during a constitutional crisis. And so it has proved once again for the Fiji Times. Yesterday's edition featured some unusual page layouts, courtesy of the "khaki subeditors" - military censors placed in the newspaper offices by the interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

It is also being reported that Fiji blogs are stepping into the breach and supplying information despite the Fiji Government's attempts to censor media.

From Raw Fiji News on Sunday:

As you are aware His Excellency our President yesterday morning abrogated the 1997 Constitution. His Excellency has informed me that the decision of the then Court of Appeal; the anomaly in the decision, the serious consequent vacuum created by that decision; the existing circumstances in Fiji and the way forward as mapped out by the Charter left His Excellency no choice but to abrogate the 1997 constitution.

RFN says - Frank, there was no anomaly in the appeals court decision. It was consistent with the rule of law and consistent with what many people thought of your illegal acts. Even if there was some degree of anomaly, you could have instructed those taxpayer money thieves QCs who represented you to take that same argument to the Supreme Court. You didn't take it any further Frank because you and your team knew all along that there ain't no chance for you at Supreme Court who without doubt would have upheld the Appeals Court ruling denouncing you as an illegal usurper.

[Our response to Frank's yah dah yah dah yah dah, April 12, 2009]

Short list of other blogs commenting on the military regime and its media censorship posted by Andrew Bartlett over at Crikey:

 Discombobulated Bubu;
 Fiji Girl's Weblog;
 Luvei Viti – Children of Fiji;
 Soli Vakasama;
 Fiji Democracy Now;
 Tears for Fiji;
 Coup Four and a Half.

Goose stepping in all this rain.....

The rain came, the water rises. Since February our little creek has been out of its bed more times than an insomniac with diarrhoea.

The ground is as soft as half-set jelly and I've taken to going barefoot around the farm since I bogged the gum boots too many times to count.

One good thing to come out of the latest flood is that since it shorted out and then washed away the neighbour’s electric fence, I no longer have the continual ticking on the phone line which left an impression that the phone was going to blow up at any moment.

The new fully-automatic weather station I installed couldn't cope with both rainfall and blackouts so we are back using the old rain gauge - a large tin can and a measuring beaker.

It is more reliable that the electric, battery and solar powered gee whiz bang new weather station.
The main problem with the old tin is assessing the frog variable.
How much fluid do the frogs extract or add to the rainwater caught in a tin?

I must admit it has been very peaceful the last few months sitting listening to the rain on the tin roof.
Not much can be done outside until there is a break in the weather.

We've not had any visitors. Even the religious fraternity that use to turn up on our doorstep has taken to leaving pamphlets in our letter box on the main road - they may trust the Lord but not our rain raddled driveway.

The only animals that have completely enjoyed the past few months have been the geese.
They clearly believe they're meant to rule this new watery kingdom and are currently out harassing swans in their new found domain.

When not involved in that pursuit they march in squadrons over sodden pasture without sinking, as they go telling everything to stand clear for the new overlords.

They have definitely turned fascist. So as I sit here, with rain drumming on the roof, I am planning a counter-insurgence.
When the weather breaks the geese had better be on guard for I have found the receipe for pate de foie gras.

To all those Australian politicians out there - especially the Rees Government

Click on image to enlarge

I know its hard if you don't live right on a coast or river to visualise the type of residential land vulnerable to the ravages of climate change.
So here's an aerial view of the small northern NSW coastal town of Yamba, at the mouth of the Clarence River.

You will notice that its northern border is the Clarence River, its eastern border is the Pacific Ocean, its western border is Oyster Channel and its southern border is mostly Lake Wooloweyah with a narrow strip of land on the ocean side.
All of these bodies of water are influenced by the tide.

If the Rees Government consents to furthering urban development of West Yamba by consenting to the recent Clarence Valley Council Draft West Yamba Local Environment Plan then an extra 2,500 people will probably be added to the town's present population of around 6,000 residents (a population which basically doubles during peak holiday periods).

The proposed West Yamba development (involving significant landfill) would be on an identified flood storage area and therefore its bulk would divert some of any future flood water to elsewhere in Yamba and the smaller Wooloweyah village.

That would mean an estimated 4,000 households at the very least would be lining up to be included in any litigation against Clarence Valley Council and the NSW Government for a failure to exercise duty of care.