Pay per view at Tasmania's The Examiner online? No thanks

I happened on a story about that high profile and influential sect, The Exclusive Brethren, via an overseas open media site last week and trying for a source article I stumbled on Tasmania's The Examiner out of the Fairfax stable.

This is what this newspaper's website stated when I attempted to access the July 2009 article Sect stole my kids' Tasmanian father tells of Exclusive Brethren anguish - SPECIAL REPORT:

PAY-PER-VIEW

If you decide to read the whole story your account will be debited by the number of credits indicated next to the heading. If you think you might want to refer back to this story you should print it out or save it to your hard disk.
The cost of stories (daily news and archive*) from July 1 2002, is 20 credits (AUD 22 cents incl. GST) but you will not be charged any more than 100 credits (AUD $1.10 incl. GST) in any one session. This equates to the average cost of The Examiner hardcopy.

A nice polite offer, but no thank you. I'll spend 5 minutes more on the Internet digging further.

The original online mention gave me enough information to go straight to the free published court judgments without findings being filtered by paid journalists and here they are:

Peter Elspeth [2009] FamCA 551 (25 June 2009)

Elspeth Peter; Mark Peter; and John Peter [2007] FamCA 655 (5 July 2007)

Elspeth Peter [2006] FamCA 1385 (21 December 2006)

Which quite frankly makes The Examiner's attempt to make me pay for information somewhat laughable. Especially as pay per view online newspapers will obviously have to continue running homepages with revealing 'teasers' in the hope of attracting paying customers - thereby defeating their aim of locking away the news.

Now Launceston in which this newspaper is based had an estimated population of 103,000 in 2006 and this same newspaper bragged in 2008 that it had a readership of 33,488 Monday to Saturday and 103,000 on Sunday. Enough said.

A not so comic look at property rights.....

From Natural News

Wise words about food......

Remember that every time you buy food you vote for the system that produced it. Choose wisely.
MADGE newsletter, Friday 17 July 2009

The Moon...........

Earth's Moon from NASA archives

Forty years ago today the Americans first successfully landed men on the Moon.

That this anniversary is marked by humankind's inability to come to terms with the fact that dangerous global warming is occurring here on Earth demonstrates that while space exploration may have added to the sum of scientific knowledge it remains somewhat peripheral to life on the home planet.

NASA Apollo 11 video, audio tapes and transcripts here.

Young Emma Moffatt makes the NSW North Coast proud

Photograh from Google Images

Her parents and the people of Woolgoolga - Coffs Harbour must have their chests puffed out this week as the now Gold Coast-based triathlete Emma Moffatt goes from strength to strength.

The Australian reported on Saturday:

OLYMPIC Traithlon bronze medallist Emma Moffatt has enforced her newfound international dominance, winning her third consecutive top-class race in as many weeks.

Moffatt, 24, won at the Kitzbuhel round of the world championships series yesterday.

Emma's record since 2004 here.

Well done, Emma. Athletes on the North Coast are barracking for you.

Winter now no barrier to tick poisoning for local pets?

The Northern Star reported last Friday:

Dog owners are being warned by experts that mild winters are causing ticks and mosquitoes to remain active, as well as ensuring the survival of most of their larvae, meaning greater numbers of offspring in the warmer months.

Lismore veterinarian Richard Creed said yesterday that he knew of six cases of paralysis ticks affecting dogs this month alone.

Angourie

Angourie

Visit Sean Scott Photography and Ocean Art for more great snaps.

Unhappy with EBay? Users explains why

Anyone who has ever over time looked at items for sale on eBay would have noticed some hilariously puffed up item descriptions, obviously phoney buyer/seller feedback history entries and sometimes the odd fraudulent offering.

One regular eBay user now details how common shills are on the auction site.

SHILL BIDDING

In eBay's own words, "Shill bidding is bidding that artificially increases an item's price or apparent desirability", and it's just as common on eBay as it is in any motor auction room up and down the country. But just because that dodgy geezer in the sheepskin coat, upping the interest on that Mondeo, is all part of the "charm", it doesn't mean it's OK on eBay. In fact, it's a criminal offence and there have been several prosecutions, here in the UK. Not only that, but eBay's rules prevent you bidding on items being sold by your friends, family and (take note) your work colleagues! The only exceptions are purchases made using the "Buy it Now" option or fixed price listings. So how can you recognise if you're being taken to the cleaners? Well, this is one of the easiest frauds to carry out, so many shill bidders are going to leave some clues for you. Check the number of bid retractions a bidder has - we can all make mistakes, but could we really enter the "wrong amount" over and over again? See if the user IDs are in the same format, or look similar in more obscure ways. Look out for sellers who immediately relist an item - wouldn't you try to communicate with a non-paying bidder first, instead of arbitrarily relisting straight away? Although it's easy to manipulate, have a look at the location given by the IDs concerned, and remember that eBay's "distance from seller" feature can be used to weed out those sellers who deliberately enter the wrong location (see my other guides for details of how this feature can be used to your advantage). Does the pattern of bids look right? Finally, although I'm not allowed to provide a link, there is at least one on-line tool that allows you to enter the eBay IDs of both the seller, and the suspected shill bidder, to view the historical transactions between the two parties, but you'll have to do a search for that one.

He also lists nine other scams.

While another user is so incensed with what he sees as eBay's refusal to adequately police the practice of false bids that he has written a lengthy case study.

Homeless fact sheet for the Richmond-Tweed area on the NSW North Coast

Living as we do on the NSW North Coast in a physically beautiful coastal environment with a constantly shifting sea of tourists in our midst, it is often easy to overlook some of the less palatable facts of life such as the level of homelessness some areas experience and the impact that has on the individuals and families involved.

Excerpt from Mid-July 2009 Northern Rivers Social Developmental Council newsletter:

The Richmond-Tweed Region has a total of 1765 people [1638 non Indigenous and 127 Indigenous] experiencing homelessness.

Much homelessness in the region is hidden, as 50% of the recorded homeless population in the Richmond-Tweed Region are living temporarily with friends and relatives.

10% are living in specialist homelessness services.

29% of the homeless population in the Richmond-Tweed Region of NSW are living in improvised dwellings and on the streets.

Within the Richmond-Tweed Region, Tweed Heads has a rate of 66 per 10,000 non Indigenous people and 81 per 10,000 Indigenous people facing homelessness every night.

Lismore has 64 per 10,000 non Indigenous people and 401 per 10,000 Indigenous people facing homelessness every night.

An additional 85 per 10,000 non Indigenous people and 135 per 10,000 Indigenous people within the remaining Richmond-Tweed statistical division are facing homelessness every night.

In NSW as a whole, 27,374 people are homeless tonight.

Of these 6% are living in the Richmond-Tweed Region of NSW.

The Richmond-Tweed has l3% of the State's population.

Lismore's community garden begins to grow

Lismore City Council has agreed to provide land to a Commonwealth Dept. of Health and Ageing funded joint project of Rainbow Region Community Farms Inc and the Northern Rivers Social Development Council which will establish and run a community garden.

Garden plots will be organic and use only hand tools.

Anyone who would like to get involved with the community garden can call Linda on 6620 1815 to register their interest.

Full story at The Northern Star A garden, but not common

Carbon reduction labelling in the supermarket aisles?

Planet Ark has a new website devoted to its partnership with U.K. The Carbon Trust.

This new site is called Carbon Reduction Label and it invites Australian business and industry to join in a scheme to have products, including food and other grocery items, identified by their carbon footprint.

Planet Ark hopes to have the scheme running by 2010.

This type of labelling will assist shoppers to calculate the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the manufacture of goods and allow a more accurate calculation of an individual or household's total carbon footprint for each shopping trip.

Who's complicit? The newpaper? The newsagency? Or both?

Although home subscribers to the Daily Examiner have become accustomed to finding all sorts of rubbish inside their papers the recent inclusion of a scratchie ticket hit an all time low.

Trying to tell youngsters who have access to a mobile phone that a ticket similar to that shown is something less than a "winner" is a hard call.

The next door neighbours' youngsters found their Mum and Dad's paper contained a "winning" scratchie. So the youngsters, reckoning a prize was just waiting to be collected, sent a text message to the promoter ... and several text messages later ... a prize was theirs. Their 'prize' was one of the 7,999,898 "advertised" prizes that was access to Pixel Multimedia Pty Ltd's 'free' games site .(That's right, there are almost 8 million of these bodgy prizes.)

However, the 'free' games wasn't all the youngsters were lined up to receive. They were also about to 'receive' two txt messages every week and they'd pay the princely sum of $10 a week for the messages.

Thankfully, the youngsters woke up to the rort and stopped the messages being sent to them.

'Generous' bookie bet punter 100/1 about a 10/1 winner ... why wasn't this on the front page?

Okay, hands up those who think bookmakers belong to the same genus as parasites.

Tony White, a freelance galloping journo, must think otherwise. That has to be the explanation for the item he produced for The Daily Examiner (Grafton) appearing on page 3 rather than the front page.

100/1 about a 10/1 winner! ($20,000 to $200 each-way)

Hey, Tony, what's the bookie's home address and phone number? I'd like to get set with that bloke a couple of times before he's pensioned off to the benevolent bookies retirement village.

Source: The Daily Examiner (unfortunately, it's not online)

Australian PM says no comments supporting the Opposition on my blog thankyou

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is prepared to have a limited dialogue with others on his new blog at PM Connect starting off with the question; How do you think we can make Australians more aware that we need to act on climate change now?

But only between 2pm 16 July 2009 and 5pm 22 July 2009 and only if you restrict yourself to 300 words or less.

Don't think that you'll be able to anonymously offer a comment or two either in this mini debate as you have to register a legitimate email address, but pen names for publication are O.K. apparently.
Due to comment moderation only occurring during business hours be prepared for a long time lag until your own after-hours comment is published.

Oh, and don't dare include a link in your comment or indicate that you support a particular political party or you'll be binned!

do not include internet addresses, videos, images or links to websites, or any email addresses, in your contribution; and

do not post overtly party political comment (eg. reference to candidates, fundraisers, support for political parties).

Here are the 55 moderated comments published on the first day.

Spontaneity is definitely missing from this blog and it seems that the Prime Minister's minders have learnt nothing from Stephen Conroy's abortive attempt at an official blog.

There always was a suspicion that Senator Fielding would eventually spin out into the troppo-sphere

Watching the nightly news this week and observing Senator Steve Fielding attempt to buttonhole Al Gore and then quickly pop up in front of a television camera, it was easy to see that this particular senator no longer had his feet planted firmly on the ground.

So it was hardly a surprise to find his website now featured this graph:

I'm sure people are becoming quite tired of pointing out to Steve Fielding that his use of surface temperature over so short a period is bound to be a trifle misleading.

Looking at near-surface temperatures over a longer period it is obvious that although global temperature may drop over a relatively short period there has been a pronounced rising trend for over a century and a half:

U.K. Met Office/Hadley Centre

It is hard to feel sympathy for Steve Fielding's alleged dilemma, when faced with data for May 2009:

U.K. Met Office/Hadley Centre

Perhaps this lone representative of the Family First Party (who only made it into parliament on the back of preference votes) needs to re-read a simple 2007 fact sheet from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.