At last - a little sense comes out of the American heartlands

CBS News Health Watch 28^th March 2012:

“An Oklahoma judge on Wednesday struck down a state law requiring women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound image placed in front of them and to listen to a detailed description of the fetus before the procedure.

District Judge Bryan Dixon ruled the statute passed by the Legislature in 2010 is an unconstitutional special law because it addresses only patients, physicians and sonographers dealing with abortions and does not address them concerning other medical care….”

Did the NSW Attorney-General tell the truth to the NSW Parliament? O'Farrell and Fraser need to answer questions about Cansdell Affair

The burning questions raised by this media report; Did the NSW Attorney-General tell the truth to the NSW Parliament about the Cansdell statutory declaration? Did Cansdell not sign the back of the original infringement notice he received or was a second false stat dec created in 2011 for presentation to NSW Police?

The Daily Examiner 7 April 2012:

THE woman who took the fall for disgraced MP Steve Cansdell has revealed details of the statutory declaration she signed to prevent the former member for Clarence from losing his licence over a speeding fine in 2005.
On Thursday, Kath Palmer told The Daily Examiner the statutory declaration she signed was on the back of a NSW speeding infringement notice.
Inquiries to the Office of State Revenue yesterday confirmed all NSW infringement notices were printed with NSW statutory declarations on the back.
But this information is at odds with what NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith revealed when he passed the matter on to the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) on March 7.
"The office of the NSW DPP has advised me that Mr Cansdell signed a Commonwealth Statutory Declaration and therefore it's not expected that any state charge will be brought," he told the NSW Parliament during question time……

Fracking chemicals may be making you ill, but even your doctor will be forbidden to tell you precisely how or why in Pennsylvania USA

In February this year House Bill No. 1950 was passed into law by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. In effect this new law states that if chemicals released in the coal seam gas mining process make you ill, then in certain circumstances your doctor can make a written request to discover the details of those chemicals from the mining company involved.

However he is not allowed to tell anyone about those chemicals – even if you are the affected patient according to the public health and environmental community.

(11) If a health professional determines that a medical emergency exists and the specific identity and amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret or confidential proprietary information are necessary for emergency treatment, the vendor, service provider or operator shall immediately disclose the information to the health professional upon a verbal acknowledgment by the health professional that the information may not be used for purposes other than the health needs asserted and that the health professional shall maintain the information as confidential. The vendor, service provider or operator may request, and the health professional shall provide upon request, a written statement of need and a confidentiality agreement from the health professional as soon as circumstances permit, in conformance with regulations promulgated under this chapter. [my red bolding]

As Walter Tsou, president of the Philadelphia chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, put it, "What is the big secret here that they're unwilling to tell people, unless they know that if people found out what's really in these chemicals, they would be outraged?"

One wonders how doctors in Australia would fare if they made similar requests of coal seam gas exploration and mining companies operating in this country.

Art on the wing over Northern NSW

Katherine Castle Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos

Tanya Walker jabirus

Elizabeth Starkey Albert's Lyrebird

Noel Caldwell Boobook, 2007