'The Australian' & Melbourne Institute's Road to Recovery Conference apparently was a doozy

The Melbourne Institute currently has the The Road to Recovery: Restoring Prosperity After the Crisis 5-6th November 2009 conference program (along with speech and presentation downloads) available on its website.
Almost everyone who is anyone in the field of economic and social policy appears to have been there.
Below is a slide that Access Economics put up during the presentation Will the Budget recover alongside the economy?
Now it's been obvious for a while that Chris Richardson loves to craft statements which toss a live one to the meeja, but this is getting a bit over the top even for him:


















Oh, and thanks Malcolm for that universal tweet alerting all us plebs to this conference - from Richardson's power points to your next sound bite I'm guessing.

Animalia......

Click on image to enlarge
The Daily Examiner,
Letter to the Editor
October 2009

Yet another plan for the proposed new Iluka jetty and pontoon

Cross section visual impacts of proposed Iluka Pontoon and Jetty options at high tide,
Clarence Valley Council, November 2009

The Daily Examiner, 5 November 2009:

AFTER months of wrangling over a site, design and cost of a public jetty for Iluka, another proposal has hit the streets.
The Clarence Valley Council has now put on display plans for a pontoon thatwould be substantially cheaper than the original jetty proposal, but could provide extra mooring spaces for boats............
It was estimated the original proposal would have cost about $165,000. The pontoon would cost an estimated$120,000, with NSW Maritime expected to meet close to half the cost.
If the owners of the Sedgers Reef Hotel agree to the new plan, their pledged contribution of $50,000 will leave ratepayers with a bill of only $10,000.
The proposal will be on public display at the council offices until November 13.
Sedgers Reef Hotel owners were unavailable yesterday.

Deep in my heart I always suspected that Americans.......

I've always suspected that Americans were just a touch pixie-led, loopy,barkers,crackers,looney - a breed apart.
This LA Times media report goes some way towards confirming it:
"A little-noticed measure would put Christian Science healing sessions on the same footing as clinical medicine. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state.
Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.......
The Internal Revenue Service allows the cost of the prayer sessions to be counted among itemized medical expenses for income tax purposes -- one of the only religious treatments explicitly identified as deductible by the IRS. Some federal medical insurance programs, including those for military families, also reimburse for prayer treatment."