Tuesday 12 January 2010
Fox News: what more can be said?
Still chortling over this NYT knifing of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes:
"I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to," said Matthew Freud, who is married to Ms. Murdoch and whom PR Week magazine says is the most influential public relations executive in London.
Hat tip to Larvatus Prodeo for tweeting a link.
Monday 11 January 2010
Sh*t happens....
We finally decided to upgrade the old pit toilet on the farm.
It was a hard decision since it was agreed that a septic system would use too much flushed water and the potential to cause problems with the ecological balance of a swamp near the house was too great.
Not that toilet water would have been a problem in this year of five local floods, but dry years do occur.
We finally decided that a composting system would be the best in our situation.
It was then we had a great stroke of luck, the son-in-law was at an auction and there, large as life, was a brand new unused state of the art composting toilet.
The fact that he was over 1,000 kilometres away from the farm did not cause him to hesitate - at the fall of the gravel he was the proud owner of a massive virgin crapper at a bargain basement price.
So this Christmas he loads the dunny on the back of a trailer behind the family car and heads north to the farm, turning heads all the way up the Pacific Highway.
On the family's arrival at the farm we wander around the house yard, beers in hand, working out where the new toilet should be sited.
It had to be conveniently placed near the house, yet have a good view and not interfere with other aspects of the house yard design. A few beers later we agreed on the best site for the new toilet.
It was a hard decision since it was agreed that a septic system would use too much flushed water and the potential to cause problems with the ecological balance of a swamp near the house was too great.
Not that toilet water would have been a problem in this year of five local floods, but dry years do occur.
We finally decided that a composting system would be the best in our situation.
It was then we had a great stroke of luck, the son-in-law was at an auction and there, large as life, was a brand new unused state of the art composting toilet.
The fact that he was over 1,000 kilometres away from the farm did not cause him to hesitate - at the fall of the gravel he was the proud owner of a massive virgin crapper at a bargain basement price.
So this Christmas he loads the dunny on the back of a trailer behind the family car and heads north to the farm, turning heads all the way up the Pacific Highway.
On the family's arrival at the farm we wander around the house yard, beers in hand, working out where the new toilet should be sited.
It had to be conveniently placed near the house, yet have a good view and not interfere with other aspects of the house yard design. A few beers later we agreed on the best site for the new toilet.
It was time to get the ditch dingo working, since the base section has to be buried over one metre into the soil.
About 800cm into the dig we struck solid clay - the heavy solid sticky type. It was useless to continue digging as this type of clay will expand quickly when wet. So the decision was made to build up the soil around the compost unit instead.
The new toilet now nick-named The FARTUS (apologies to Dr Who) was in place and waiting for the actual building of the toilet hut section. One of the cousins who had been in the Navy said he thought that the new installation looked like a submarine conning tower.
That night it rained and stormed, then it rained again.
The misty morning light revealed the sight of the composting toilet bobbing incontinently in a muddy sea. We now had a Collins-type sub.
So later that day we downed a few more beers (I had switched to rum and coke by this stage) and decided that this was a sign from Huey. The whole toilet situation had to be re-thought.
About 800cm into the dig we struck solid clay - the heavy solid sticky type. It was useless to continue digging as this type of clay will expand quickly when wet. So the decision was made to build up the soil around the compost unit instead.
The new toilet now nick-named The FARTUS (apologies to Dr Who) was in place and waiting for the actual building of the toilet hut section. One of the cousins who had been in the Navy said he thought that the new installation looked like a submarine conning tower.
That night it rained and stormed, then it rained again.
The misty morning light revealed the sight of the composting toilet bobbing incontinently in a muddy sea. We now had a Collins-type sub.
So later that day we downed a few more beers (I had switched to rum and coke by this stage) and decided that this was a sign from Huey. The whole toilet situation had to be re-thought.
Graphic from My Little Family's Genealogy
Minister for Aging Justine Elliot shines a welcome light on aged care facilities
The Federal Minister for Aging and MP for the NSW North Coast Richmond electorate, Justine Elliot, promised last year to name and shame those aged care providers who were not meeting standards set for residential aged care.
Since then there has been a steady trickle of media reports on nursing homes which were found to be sub-standard in some manner. However, it is the Dept. of Health and Aging which has published the official non-compliance lists.
List by state and current as of 4 January 2010 (details of notices of non-compliance remain on this list until such time as a sanction is imposed on the relevant approved provider or the provider has addressed the non-compliances):
Archived Notices of Non-Compliance list aged care services, by state and in alphabetical order, which have remedied the problems within their facilities.
Although the low number of currently non-complaint facilities and the growing list of those which have fixed sub-standard practices is reassuring, it is of some concern to note that issues of reportable assaults and patient malnurition feature in details concerning some of these nursing homes.
I am sure that there would be many in the aged care industry who would not agree with the Minister's course of action.
Just as I am equally sure that families who have a member in aged care would be reassured that residential facilities are being regularly monitored for compliance -especially families faced with the limited choice rural and regional Australia has to offer.
Keep up the good work, Ms. Elliot.
** Aged Care Providers' Financial Data for 2006-2008 here. This is de-indentified data broken down by generic categories city and regional.
Photograph from Google Images
Sunday 10 January 2010
Is this the beach at the bottom of your backyard? Mapping predicted sea level rise (5)
BEFORE
AFTER
AFTER
This Google Earth mapping shows the effects of a 1 metre sea level rise on a residential area of the New South Wales coast, with the beach gone and surf reaching back boundaries of the houses shown.
The 2009 Federal Government report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts contains a 'worst case' scenario involving a 1.1 metre sea level rise along the NSW coast sometime within the next 90 years.
The 2009 Federal Government report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts contains a 'worst case' scenario involving a 1.1 metre sea level rise along the NSW coast sometime within the next 90 years.
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