Clarence Electorate By-election - why bother?

According to NBN TV news the sudden exit from state parliament by former member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, who has some not insignificant worries on his plate, the major parties are falling over themselves to have Richie Williamson stand at the by-election.
Williamson stood at the March election as an independent. He finished third behind Cansdell - daylight ran second!
Local wags are saying that this endorses the notion that when an elected member is unable to serve a full term for reasons other than those that are beyond their control, such as an illness, the runner-up ought to get the guernsey (or is that jersey?).

Did Clarence MP, Steve Cansdell, do an "Einfield"?

Shock! Horror!
Steve Cansdell, the NSW MP for Clarence, has thrown in the towel and is quitting state parliament after serving just six months of the current parliamentary term of four years . Early reports suggest the former pugilist may have taken one punch too many, causing him to sign a statutory declaration that contained something significantly less than the truth.

Burrunan Dolphin: celebrating Australian biodiversity in 2011

Monash University September 15, 2011:

They’re one of the most intelligent marine mammals, well known for their inquisitive and playful nature and now, following an amazing discovery by a Monash University researcher, Victoria’s dolphins have been formally recognised as a new species.

Kate Charlton-Robb, a PhD researcher in the School of Biological Sciences unearthed the remarkable findings, which have been published in the latest PLoS ONE Journal, showing that coastal dolphins in southern Australia greatly differed from any other dolphin worldwide.

The dolphins were originally thought to be one of the two recognised bottlenose dolphin species, however by using multiple lines of scientific evidence these dolphins were found to be unique. The discovery was made by comparing skulls, external characteristics and a number of DNA regions from the current day population as well as specimens dating back to the early 1900s.

Ms Charlton-Robb has formally named the new dolphin Tursiops australis with the common name, the Burrunan dolphin, being an Australian aboriginal name given to dolphins in the Boonwurrung, Woiwurrung and Taungurung languages, meaning ‘large sea fish of the porpoise kind’.

“This is an incredibly fascinating discovery as there have only been three new dolphin species formally described and recognised since the late 1800s.

Congratulations to Kate Charlton-Robb, Lisa-ann Gershwin, Ross Thompson, Jeremy Austin, Kylie Owen, and Stephen McKechnie for spending those long hours to bring Australia this welcome news and thankyou to Monash University and the unidentified funding stream which allowed this research.

PLoS ONE article here.

Who is further along the human evolutionary path?

Picture 1

Picture 2

Question: Who is further along the human evolutionary path - the unknown male Australopithecus sediba in Picture 1 or the unidentified members of the Republican Party represented by the orange line and the Tea Party represented by the dark red bar in Picture 2?

Answer: The young fella in the first picture. Republicans and Tea Party-ites seem to have stopped evolving before hominids developed opposable thumbs and here's the proof.

O'Farrell Government to rob 68,000 NSW pensioners of millions every year

In 2009 the Rudd Labor Government increased the base rate of Australian pensions.

Since then those NSW pensioners renting social housing (who comprised less than 5 per cent of all public/community housing tenants in the state in 2010) have been fighting a rapacious state government which immediately saw this increase as a jam pot which it could dip into in order to improve its fiscal bottom line.

It would do this by taking 25% of the payment increase from the approximately 68,000 pensioners in NSW public housing, nearly one-third of whom are probably 65 years of age or older.

The windfall would come to an estimated $13.2 to $16.5 million annually for the NSW Government – depending on how many lone person households there are in this group.

In September 2011 the O’Farrell Coalition Government announced in the budget papers that it intends to commence stealing these millions from elderly, disabled and widowed pensioners.

NSW Nationals MPs who dominate North Coast electorates are remarkably silent concerning this theft. Why should they care - after all they are sitting quite comfortably on a salary package of over $140,000 per year plus an electoral allowance.