Oh for goodness sake - leave me with something!

I'm doing my best to reduce my consumption level and live within a smaller environmental footprint in response to the threat of global warming - like a lot of other Australians I suppose.
I re-use where possible, limit the amount of household waste I produce, purchase second-hand goods in preference to new, shop locally, buy Australian almost exclusively when it comes to groceries, avoid buying food with ingredients which were produced by denuding rainforest, limit my meat eating to flesh that is less carbon intensive, walk everywhere I can or get public transport, don't load my garden with chemicals and I'm getting quite miserly when it comes to electricity and water.
So why do I feel like too much is being asked of me?
Because Larvatus Prodeo has opened my eyes to the fact that someone somewhere has written a book called "Time to Eat the Dog? the real guide to sustainable living" and those authors obviously want me to feel guilty about having a pet.
What next will I have to offer up on the altar of climate change - the heart of my first born?

Katz
Grafton

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.

The Guardian newspaper kills Blair softly [with laughter]

Pass notes No 2,763: Tony Blair
All you need to know about the man who would be president of the European Council

The Guardian, Wednesday 28 October 2009

Age: 56.
Appearance: Two parts ambition to one part madness, wrapped in flesh.
He's still alive? Yes, although he is now held together entirely by his all-consuming thirst for power.
Which manifests itself how? He's got his eye on the job of president of the European Council.
Got his eye on? He hasn't officially declared his candidacy.
Why not? According to a friend, "Tony will not put himself into a position where he is humiliated like Guy Verhofstadt."
Ah, well, obviously no one wants to end up like Guy Verhofstadt. Quite.
You can't get much more humiliated than Guy Verhofstadt. Nope.
I mean when you think of the word 'humiliation', you immediately think . . . You don't know who he is, do you?
Not even slightly. Please fill me in. Verhofstadt was due to be the next President of the European Commission but, once he became the frontrunner, Blair and Silvio Berlusconi vetoed him......

The rest of the article here.

In the land of the blind today a one-eyed Health Minister is queen

"MEDICARE rebates for the most common type of cataract surgery will be slashed by more than $280 from Sunday, after the federal government sidestepped a Senate vote blocking its planned cuts and announced a new set of reductions only slightly less severe."
Ah, Nici, Nici, Nici - a true believer you never were and now it seems you're an ersatz Liberal decked out in Howard feathers as you begin to reduce healthcare access for the very poor from today onwards.

I don't know what's more offensive - Abbott's arrogance or his monumental stupidity

Earlier this week Tony Abbott said that he wasn't worried about climate change.
Sky News repeated the exact words that he used in interviews that night.
Sea levels had risen along the NSW coast by more than 20 centimetres during the past century, the Liberal frontbencher said. 'Has anyone noticed it? No, they haven't,' he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
The man's mad. Doesn't he look out the window during a big storm or go down to the beach afterwards?
More importantly, hasn't he been reading news from small towns up and down the coast where houses are losing front yards to the ocean and landslips are becoming common?
I've got my own news for Abbott. Mother Nature doesn't stop misbehaving just because you and your cronies don't believe in global warming and you can't hold back the sea by pretending that the tide isn't getting higher each year.

Martin
Coffs Harbour