Friday 20 November 2009

Going batty over feral humans. Animalia......[3]



Going batty over feral humans

The bats of the Lower Clarence have recently held a meeting to discuss the problems feral humans (which are rumoured to be boat people) are causing in their community.

These boat people apparently arrived some time ago down south somewhere and have been spreading across the country causing problems with the locals wherever they have turned up.

Spokesman for the bats, Rufus, said: "We don't want any of these boat scum in our community. If you let even one of them into the community then it quickly becomes a ghetto.

"They put their boxes up everywhere, vandalism and the crime rate go through the roof, they start cutting down bat houses and harassing law abiding bats that are going about their daily business."

He then added: "After a hard nights work out in the forest pollinating the trees and trying to earn a living so that they can feed their children, they return home to get a good days rest only to find that they are continually harassed by the humans making loud noises and throwing things at them.

"And the racket coming from the place where they keep their young, which are apparently called schools, is quite unbelievable -screaming, screeching and yelling. It is almost impossible to get some sleep.

"Also, there is a foul stench coming from their camps. Some of this comes from the tin boxes they move about in, some from the mechanical contraptions that they push around the grass on weekends, and some from evil smelling burning weeds which they have in their mouths."

The bats have hired an environmental consultant, who after an extensive study of the problem has recommended that Maclean and Iluka be bulldozed and the trees left to reclaim the area and restore it to its former pristine condition.

However, some bats have said that this would only be a short-term solution and that the humans should be rounded up and sent back to where they originally came from -'The African Solution' the bats called it.

The Africans are understood to be resisting this idea, particularly the chimpanzees and the gorillas, who said that the human's behaviour was an embarrassment to the whole family and they did not want them back.

However, a group of red-neck extremist bats has called for the total eradication of the species, saying that the humans had arrived uninvited, were illegal immigrants, were an introduced feral pest that caused massive environmental destruction, and were obviously vermin by any definition of the word.

A vote was held which was attended by all the bats, plus other interested groups such as the marsupials, birds, fish, reptiles and the local vegetation, plus a few mammals.

The result of this vote, which was nearly unanimous, was that eradication was the best solution. Dogs and cats were undecided and wanted more time to consider the merits of the proposal.

As a result of the community consensus vote, a deputation has been sent to Mother Earth to see if humans can be evicted from the planet, as they are bad neighbours who create problems everywhere they are found and don't seem able to get on with anyone.

Mother Nature is considering the proposal and was last seen muttering to herself: "Better an empty house than a bad tenant."

M CASEY,

Grafton.
[Photograph and text,The Daily Examiner, letter to the editor column, 10 November 2009]

Did Stephen Conroy's live trial of national ISP-level Internet filtering run into trouble?

These are images from a Wikileaks document which purports to be a 2009 Watchdog International white paper called List Management Issues When Filtering using URL Blacklists.

Watchdog technology was used within a live trial of the Rudd-Conroy mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

It would appear that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy may have run into a few problems in testing his ACMA blacklist if the white paper is to be believed.

Perhaps this hints at the reason behind Senator Conroy's reluctance to release the live trial report, which has now been twice delayed with no guarantee as to when it will be published.

Click on images to enlarge

Thursday 19 November 2009

GCP Carbon Budget 2008: a brief outline of the major global polluters


The Global Carbon Project Carbon Budget 2008* released on 17 November 2009 reveals that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is now 385ppm which is 38 per cent above pre-industrial levels and, global emissions now stand at 8.7 PgC**.

This is a 2008 growth rate of 2 per cent (up 41 per cent on 1990 levels) and the highest CO2 level in at least the last two million years according to the report.

China, USA and India are responsible for 50 per cent of all global emissions, with 90 per cent of the increase in CO2 emissions from coal emissions between 2006-2008 coming from China and India.

Globally the fraction of total CO2 emissions which remain in the air has risen to 45 percent (a five per cent increase since 1960). It is suggested that the increase may be due to earth and ocean sinks declining in efficiency.

An estimated 20-35 percent of today’s emissions will remain in the atmosphere for several centuries into the future.

2008 Top Six Countries for CO2 Emissions From Fossil Fuels and Cement in MtC/yr (TcG/yr):

1 CHINA 1922687
2 USA 1547460
3 INDIA 479039
4 RUSSIA 435126
5 JAPAN 357534
6 GERMANY 210480

Australia comes in at number 18 on this list with 96168 (down from 101086 in 2007 & 101458 in 2006). However our per capita emissions growth rate is still higher than many other comparable developed countries.

Carbon Budget 2008 full document including graphs here.
Carbon Budget 2008 Policy Brief here
.

*Carbon Budget 2008 highlights.
**[1 Pg = 1 Petagram = 1 Billion metric tonnes = 1 Gigatonne = 1x1015g]

Nomination shortlist for the 2009 Australian Human Rights Awards and Medals


On Wednesday 11 November 2009 the Australian Human Rights Commission announced the shortlist for this year's Human Rights Awards and Medals.
Winners will be announces on 10 December 2009.

These shortlisted entries are not listed in any order of preference.
The shortlist for the Law Award will be available shortly.
Please note there are no shortlists for the Human Rights Medal or the Young People's Human Rights Medal.

Print Media
  • Ticking boxes: Part I and II
    National Indigenous Times
  • Revealed: Australia's suicide epidemic
    Ruth Pollard
    The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Our schools for scandal
    Sushi Das
    The Age
  • Dying to be heard
    Ruth Pollard
    The Sydney Morning Herald
  • Diversity, Difference and Diagnosis (D3) - series
    Copeland Publishing - 'Child' Magazines

Television Award
  • Going back to Lajamanu
    Debbie Whitmont, Michael Doyle, Kate Wild, Anne Connolly
    Four Corners, ABC Television
  • Who killed Mr Ward?
    Liz Jackson, Janine Cohen, Kate Wild
    Four Corners, ABC Television
  • Kids' Business
    People Pictures
  • My name is Jack
    Helen Grasswill, Renata Gombac, Ian Harley, Quentin Davis, John Gunn
    Australian Story, ABC Television
  • Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: Part 1 and 2
    Suzanne Smith, Tony Jones, Brett Evans, John Bruce
    Lateline, ABC Television
Radio Award
  • Holding Our Tongues
    Lorena Allam
    Hindsight, ABC Radio National
  • Dementia and Anti-Psychotics: medication or management?
    Natasha Mitchell and Anita Barraud
    All in the Mind, ABC Radio National
  • Losing Erin
    Kirsti Melville
    360°, ABC Radio National
  • A Sense of Duty
    Heather Stewart
    360°, ABC Radio National
  • Crisis for Children
    Ian Townsend
    Background Briefing, ABC Radio National
Community Award (Individual)
  • Ivan-Tiwu Copley
  • Kate Locke
  • Ikebal Adam Patel
  • Doreen Green
  • Joan Dicka
Community Award (Organisation)
  • GetUp! Action for Australia
  • Accessible Arts
  • The Human Rights Law Resource Centre
  • ACON
  • Centre for Multicultural Youth
Literature Non-Fiction Award

The Native Title Market
David Ritter

Black Politics: Inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture
Sarah Maddison

Culture is… Australian Stories Across Cultures: An Anthology
Anne - Marie Smith (Editor)
The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia

Blind Conscience
Margot O'Neill

Navigating Teenage Depression: A guide for parents and professionals
Gordon Parker and Kerrie Eyers