Is the Liberal Party lining up behind Murdoch and old media?

The Liberal Party of Australia's Simon Birmingham is a senator who doesn't usually swim across my line of vision.

However, this week he came to my attention because of his exchanges with the ABC's Managing Director Mark Scott and the Federal Communications Minister during a Senate estimates committee hearing on 19 October 2009.

After dealing with Bananas in Pyjamas and a few other matters, Senator Birmingham's queries began to focus on the advisability of Scott's public comments on the future of Australian media and the ABC's continuing role in providing free to air and free online news content:

The question relevant to Mr Scott here is whether, as head of the national public broadcaster, he feels that in any way his remarks stepped beyond commenting on the role and responsibilities of the national public broadcaster and into the commercial operations of his competitors in the news world.

and

What risk, if any, do you see in terms of the future of that mixed model, given that the ABC does have a clear and, while you can debate about the levels from time to time, guaranteed source of revenue, whereas the income model for commercial news operators is a rapidly changing and very uncertain world?

and again

But I am acknowledging the reality and I would have thought that as communications minister you would acknowledge the reality that the income model for commercial news broadcasters is changing dramatically and is very uncertain into the future. It is reasonable for them to be hypothesising about the impact of that on the future of news broadcasting and, indeed, on the potential that if their traditional income revenues dry up and the online world does not provide enough revenue, then we will be left with the ABC as the major news provider in that market space. That is the argument being put by some. I am not saying that it will happen, but there is some validity to it.

At the same hearing Senator Abetz revealed a Liberal Party still trying to inflict payback for what it sees as ABC bias and misconduct in its political coverage during the Howard Government years and beyond.

Murdoch & Co are ploughing fertile ground here and all Australians should be very wary of the Liberal Party's intentions with regard to public broadcasting if it is returned to government.

Support your local dairy - give a multinational the finger and wave to a cow today

It sometimes seems that the world's farmers simply cannot win when it comes to negotiating fair contract prices for their produce with wealthy corporations.
Particularly those which hold considerable market share, are downright monopolies, behave like cartels or harvest national agricultural sectors under flags of convenience.

Yet another media report on the plight of Australia's dairy farmers, faced with the market power of multinational food companies, was shown on ABC 7.30 Report last Monday.

It is worth noting that it was alleged that National Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kirin Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd (which is the cover name for the Japanese multinational Kirin Holdings Co Ltd which deals in products and services in alcohol, soft drinks, foods and pharmaceuticals) is using its market muscle to force milk prices at the farm gate to below the cost of production.

For those interested in consumer activism, here is a basic list of Kirin food brand names/products:

• PURA Dairy Farmers
• Berri Yoplait
• Tasmanian Heritage
• Coon King Island Dairy
• Moove Farmers Union
• Dare BIG M
• Masters Australian Fresh
• Australian Gold
• Cheese of the World
• Daily Juice Divine Classic
• Farmers Union Iced Coffee
• Frûche Heidi Farm
• Just Juice Masters Flavoured Milk
• Mersey Valley Mildura Sunrise
• Prima South Cape Sunny Boy
• Tasmianian Heritage Vitasoy
• YoGo Yoplait formé
• Yoplait Go-Gurt Yoplait Le Rice
• Yoplait Petit Miam Zooper Dooper


Head Office Address:
National Foods Centre
737 Bourke Street Docklands,
VIC, 3008
Telephone (03) 9188 8000
Mailing address: PO Box 6089 Melbourne, VIC, 3004

Pondering the global warming debate in a paddock.....

I have been following the global warming debate with interest since being a farmer it will impact on me; I may have to fit phart retarders to all the cows for one thing since methane has been identified as a major greenhouse gas.

There are a few questions I would like answered to help me understand what is going on.

What should the temperature of the earth be?
Since the climate is a dynamic system and there have been many variations in temperature, ocean levels and the like over the last couple of million years - how do we definitely know that this change is not another natural change?

Do the models that are used to show global warming, when run backwards show the climate we know has been recorded?
This is important in that the models should be based in what is known and work to the unknown. Once you put in the variables and run the models forward to predict global warming, if you add the same variables and run the model backwards do the models show the climate that we have records for?

The Earth's climate is a very complex system - do we have enough knowledge of these systems and how they interrelate to identify specific global warming causes?
Even if the final out come is that global warming theory is fault ridden and sloppy science, I have come to the conclusion that the development of sustainable energy should be encouraged.

It is not wise to be so reliant on fossil and mineral resources for our major energy needs.

That old farmyard saying comes to mind, “don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.”

Cartoon credit: Vincent Chow dot Net

APN Media threatens ABC with possible future ACCC complaints. Plans to put NSW North Coast newspapers behind paywalls?

There is little truly independent mainstream media when it comes to daily local newspapers on the NSW North Coast, with the print media dominated as it is by the APN News and Media corporation.

In recent times APN has begun to lift its game with regard to its one-size-fits-all online media presence and, it was noted by alert local residents that the sudden interest in providing more timely (if limited) online news co-incided with the Rupert Murdoch and News Ltd push to introduce paywalls for news on the Internet.

Now we see that APN is definitely aligning itself with both the effort to monetise news and perhaps even with the attack on public broadcasting providing free online news and current events.

Here is an excerpt from ABC TV Media Watch on 19 October 2009:

In fact, the funds are flowing the ABC's way. In the last budget, it received 15 million dollars to create whiz-bang multi-media websites serving regional Australia.

But media company APN, which owns fourteen regional daily newspapers in New South Wales and Queensland, argues that it's risked a lot of its shareholders' money already, trying to do the same thing.

Brendan Hopkins: Of course we're looking to monetise those sites going forward but we've taken, I think, a very brave decision on behalf of our board and behalf of our shareholders that we want to invest ahead of that curve.

Jonathan Holmes: So when you see the government giving the ABC tens of millions of dollars...

Brendan Hopkins: I think it's got to be questioned... I can't believe that the government itself wants to pursue a business model for the ABC, or a model - there's no business involved - a model for the ABC where the cost of the ABC goes up and up and up and up, with all of the public outcry that that will bring, when bona fide commercial operators like ourselves have been investing ahead of the curve in those centres... and if we feel the ABC are competing or trying to compete with us unfairly then we'll go and talk to Mr Samuels at the ACCC and we'll maybe hold them to account.

Jonathan Holmes: In this world of media plenty, that's so different from what it was seventy years ago, is there really a reason for the ABC to exist at all?

Brendan Hopkins: I think now is a good time to have that debate.

— Media Watch interview with Brendan Hopkins (CEO, APN), 16th October, 2009

Once more the APN business model shows just how far removed it is from the idea of a just and fair society with equality of information access which public broadcasting in Australia represents.

Visit the Media Watch video page to watch the extended version of Media Watch's interview with Brendan Hopkins

Centuries old celestial dust trails to produce Orionid meteors visible in both hemispheres 21-23 October 2009 [links to sky maps]

Orionid 2008 from NCDCR

In the International Year of Astronomy Australians will be able to see what is predicted to be a splendid celestial night show from 21 to 23 October 2009 peaking on Thursday night.

Radiating out across the sky from a point between the constellations Gemini and Orion and just below Betelgeuse (Orion's red star) will be meteors caused by ancient debris from Halley's Comet.

On average the Orionid shower produces 20 meteors every hour at its peak (less seen with the naked eye in Australia) and 2am to 4am looking east to north-east is probably the best time for viewing from the Southern Hemisphere.

NASA information page
Sydney Observatory night sky map for October 2009 This star chart shows the stars and constellations visible in the night sky for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth for October 2009 at about 8.30 pm (summer time). For Darwin and similar locations the chart will still apply, but some stars will be lost off the southern edge while extra stars will be visible to the north. Stars down to a brightness or magnitude limit of 4.5 are shown on the star chart. To use this star chart, rotate the chart so that the direction you are facing (north, south, east or west) is shown at the bottom. The centre of the chart represents the point directly above your head, called the zenith point, and the outer circular edge represents the horizon.
Orionid Sky Map 1
Orionid Sky Map 2

Byron Lighthouse Run on Sunday 25 October 2009

Want to have a great time this weekend? Go to Byron Bay for the fun run.

Byron Lighthouse Run to benefit the NSW Cancer Council

25 October 2009 - Start time 7am

Choose between a 10k run or an 8 k walk.

To enter click here cost is $40

Entry from 24 October or on the day of the run is $70

To enter by mail the entry form and details is here

Team entry is possible. A team is 5 members entered and paid for in one transaction. Team members enter at $5 discount. The team leader needs to know each full name, address, phone number and date of birth of team members. To enter click here. Aged 17 and under entry fee is $15 per entry. To enter click here.

Major prizes include luxury accommodation packages in Byron Bay.

Further details at http://byronrun.com/

The twang of duelling banjos in Canberra on the weekend as all God's children met the flesh

Asked what evidence of Satan there was in Parliament, Mr Nalliah said: "The number of politicians who have serious marriage problems." [Google News quotes] Photo from Catch The Fire Ministries website

Catch the Fire Ministries is always good for a chuckle if one visits this religious group's website.

Last week the group was promoting its Sunday 17 October gathering on Mt. Ainslie in Canberra; which was held to exorcise Beelzebub and those pesky imps, whose evil spells are causing members of parliament to vote in a manner not approved of by certain right-wing Christians and bringing in their wake bushfires or other disasters.

The Australian Sex Party climbed the mountain in response to this threat to the well-being of Australian politicians and held a counter-demonstration, which according to unconfirmed Twitter reports drew a larger crowd.

A demonstration of religious-political warfare in action if, former Family First candidate and running mate of Steve Fielding, Pastor Nalliah's language is any indication.

Wonder who had the bigger sausage sizzle?

KRudd makes the Top 10 list of the world's most well-paid pollies and Oz pensioners are happy for him

According to The Times online Oz Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is the world's 10th highest paid political leader.

This fact is of course immensely pleasing to aged and disabled pensioners across the country - particularly those he promised to protect against the recent pension increase being eaten into by public housing rent rises.

Oh, he didn't keep that promise did he?

KRudd pic from News.com.au

Federal Coalition laboured to produce a Clayton's CPRS

Under the headline Coalition Plan to Save Jobs and Reduce Costs, yesterday the Liberal Party and Nationals Coalition produced a train wreck of an emissions trading scheme outline, with its published list of 'amendments' to the Rudd Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Set out below is what Malcolm Turnbull (with the approval of his shadow cabinet/party room) wants to negotiate in allegedly good faith.

I particularly like the fact that, on the face of it, 90 per cent of carbon credit permits will apparently be free to major polluters virtually forever after - which leads to the inevitable question; "Why bother to implement an emissions trading scheme in the first place?".

Which would of course be the whole aim of this Coalition exercise in intransigent anti-global warming spin.

Trade Exposed Industries

• Amend the CPRS to provide a single level of assistance for emissions intensive trade exposed (EITE) industries at 94.5 per cent until 2015 and 90 per cent thereafter.
  
• Lower the threshold for assistance from the CPRS proposal of 1000 tonnes of CO2 per $1 million of revenue to 850 tonnes of CO2 per $1 million.
  
• Continue to provide assistance to Australian EITE industries at 90 per cent until 80 per cent of their international competitors have also implemented carbon abatement measures.
  
• Include primary food processing such as dairy and meat in the EITE scheme.
  
• Allow industries that include a series of sequential or parallel production processes to have these assessed as a single activity in determining assistance.

Agriculture

• Permanently exclude agricultural emissions from the CPRS.
  
• Obtain Government agreement to introduction of an agricultural offset scheme in line with similar offset schemes to be introduced in comparable economies such as the US and EU.

Coal Mine Emissions

• Exclude coal mine fugitive emissions from the CPRS.
  
• Provide the Minister with authority to use regulation to control fugitive emissions with the objective of achieving a 30 per cent reduction by 2025 as technology and international best practice allow.

Lower Electricity Prices

• The Coalition will continue to advocate an intensity-based cap-and-trade model for generators. This delivers the same emissions cuts as the CPRS but with a much smaller increase in electricity prices.
  
• This would greatly reduce the burden on small and mid-sized businesses, which receive no compensation for higher power bills under Labor's proposals.
  
• Under the CPRS retail electricity prices will rise by close to 20 per cent in the first two years. Under an intensity approach, retail electricity prices would rise by less than 5 per cent in the first two years.
  
• If the Government continues to refuse to consider the intensity model, the Coalition will negotiate for an alternative approach to cushion near-term electricity price increases for small businesses.

Compensation for Electricity Generators

• Coal-fired generators must be better compensated for loss of value they experience from the CPRS, to ensure security of electricity supply and enable them to transition to lower emission energy sources.
  
• The CPRS offers coal-fired generators 130 million permits over five years worth $3.6 billion. Yet three respected private sector analysts estimate their losses at $9–$11 billion.
  
• Assistance should be increased to 390 million permits over 15 years (or about $10 billion). Assistance should be allocated to all generators in proportion to the losses they suffer.
  
• In the absence of access to the Government's secret Morgan Stanley report, this represents the Coalition's best estimate of appropriate generator compensation given the available data.

Energy Efficiency and Voluntary Action

• The Coalition will negotiate for a national "white certificate" energy efficiency scheme so households and businesses earn credits for efficiency measures, and contribute to reducing national emissions.
  
• Likewise, the Coalition supports creation of a voluntary offset market in advance of the introduction of the CPRS, and amending the CPRS to ensure voluntary abatement leads to a lower national level of emissions.
  
  

If Malcolm Turnbull understands an ETS the way he knows his Shakespeare then Australia is in real trouble

I couldn't believe my ears on Sunday last, there was our fearless Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull holding forth on Shakespeare in an attempt to denigrate the upcoming Copenhagen international climate change talks.

He was foolishly repeating what he'd said to a gathering of foreign correspondents on Monday week; "And as another one of my companions noted it is worth remembering that Copenhagen was the home of Hamlet, famous principally for indecision. So that is a sombre reflection."

Uh, no, Malcolm. Hamlet is popularly supposed to be a tale played out in "Elsinore or Helsingør north of Copenhagen, on the place where Denmark is closest to Sweden - only 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of water divides the two countries", (possibly in a castle which was erected around 1420) and on a nearby plain and in a generic churchyard.

Denmark's capital Copenhagen while situated close by is historically separate from the old port town of Helsingør.

Every final year highschool English student would be bound to know the difference.
I certainly hope that Turnbull has a better grasp of the principles of an emission trading scheme, than he does of geography and the Bard.

Horatio
Byron

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents.
Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

Ralph Lauren brand owner hits out at blogger for laughing at advertisement blunder and blogger hits back

PRL USA Holdings, owner of the brand Ralph Lauren, issued a DMCA notice on 2 October 2009 to the blog PsD: Photoshop Disasters, for laughing at a Blue Label advertisement of a super skinny model (with distorted dimensions) which is still being displayed in Google cache as I write.

PsD now has a second Lauren advert posted The hits keep coming with a photo allegedly taken in Sydney - proving once more that displaying a humour deficit can lead to more people finding out about your company's photoshop blunders than if you had originally just taken it on the chin.

Image from PsD post The hits keep coming, 14 October 2009

Mysteries of the sea.....

Greenpeace International has an online blacklist of fishing vessels allegedly involved in unlawful commercial fishing.
One of these boats was built in Castile, operates out of an Italian port and apparently sailed at one time under the flag of Afghanistan while fishing in the Mediterranean.
It seems that you can legally register an ocean going vessel in that war-torn landlocked country.
This must rank up there somewhere with the notion of a Swiss Navy.

Local film maker Pauline Clague's latest work featured on ABC TV in October 2009

Pauline Clague, originally from the Clarence Valley and with family still living there, is featuring on ABC Message Stick this month.

Pauline is now an accomplished writer and film maker - I'm sure that the documentary will be both interesting and informative as this press release suggests:

Maralinga-The Anangu Story

Producer: Pauline Clague
TX Date: Sunday 18th October, 1:30pm, ABC 1
Monday 19th October, 5:00pm, ABC 2
Friday 23rd October, 6:00pm, ABC 1

50 years ago British atomic tests were carried out on Australian soil at a place called “Maralinga” in north-western, South Australia.
Yvonne Edwards talks about her feeling on the bomb tests: “When the bomb went off. Like the spirit of the people that were buried there, went up in the bomb, and this man looked down and he is crying and all the kangaroos and emus are just skeletons around the place were the bomb went off”
Originally a Reserve for the Anangu, their mission at Ooldea was shut down, but they were not told why. They were mostly moved to new country, Yalata on the coast near the start of the nullabor plains.
Some of the Anangu people had effects from the radiation poisoning, others were workers in the seventies and eighties at Maralinga Village. Many have passed away, but some are still enduring the effects of the exposure to the poison today.
Many are still grieving the loss of their people and land from that time, Yvonne Edwards ”sometimes I cry at night. My aunties, uncles, they was young, they all died. Just like us here now, in our fifties, we got nobody over sixties and seventies in our community. Even people died when they was young. I lost a sister, when she was in her twenties, from cancer. I lost an uncle, forties, from cancer. My aunty died, from cancer”
Earlier this year a book of Anangu stories and paintings about their lives and the effects the bomb had on the Anangu people of that region was published. Christobel Mattingley the co-author, who worked alongside the Oak Valley and Yalata communities, states how she feels about the project “ The story of the injustices to the Aboriginal people, the Anangu people, through the Maralinga atomic testing are not widely known or remembered now. It’s a chapter that people have forgotten and it’s a tragic chapter and it’s an –extremely important chapter of Australian history.”
Despite the history of this area and the hardships incurred by the bombing, the Anangu are hoping that the final restricted zone, of which Maralinga Village is a part, will be returned to them in December this year. The soil may be contaminated, but it is still their home. They know they may not be able to camp in some of the areas, but like their stories they are trying to pass on to the future generation the stories and the land of their peoples.

Photograph from Australia Council for the Arts

What's in that icecream you are eating?

What's in that icream you are eating that wasn't there in your grandmother's day?

In Australia the Federal Government has in total eight pages listing foods using gene technology and approved for sale under the Food Standards Australian New Zealand Act 1991.

Including nine versions of New Leaf potato, canola seed/oil/flour/syrup, corn/flour/oil/syrup/food grade ethanol, cotton oils/cottonseed oils, glucose made from fungus, soy foods/oil/protein meal, pectin, baker's yeast/yeast, icestructuring protein made from fish, food processing enzyme made from a bacteria, and sugar beet.

Genetically modified organisms can now form part of the production process or ingredients in foods - from takeaway foods like fish & chips/meat pies, frozen convenience food such as lasagna/pizza, to staples like bread through to traditional desserts that your grandmother used to make.

GM products approved as food, food additives and processing aids (PDF 79 KB)
GM products approved as therapeutics (PDF 19 KB)
GM products approved as pesticides or veterinary medicines (PDF 9 KB)

List of applications and licences for Dealings involving Intentional Release (DIR) of GMOs into the environment on behalf of CSIRO, BSES Ltd, Florigene P/L, Dept of Primary Industry (Vic), Bayer Crop Science P/L, Monsanto Australia Ltd, Queensland UT, University of Queensland, University of Adelaide, Hexima Ltd, Dept. of Primary Industries & Fisheries (Qld), Imugene Ltd, Dow AgroSciences Australia P/L, Syngenta Seeds P/L, Dept of Primary Industries, Aventis CropScience P/L.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Photo from Google Images

The adorable cuteness of being

Baby Squirrel from Daily Squee