Herding cats in the Liberal Party

This week Malcolm Turnbull held the line according to his Newspoll results.
With the Nationals partner well off the reservation on the subject of an emissions trading scheme and its own Wilson Tuckey very vocally critical of teh leader, senior members of the Liberal Party must be holding their breath at the thought of what the Coalition backbench will do once Parliament resumes.
Will the boastful claim, that all Liberal MPs aren't bound to the party line in any vote but are allowed to follow their conscience, lead to a WA-inspired debacle gleefully watched by the nation?
Or will party heavies pull the climate change deniers into line behind Turnbull?
Despite all the closed door chest thumping that is obviously underway, I'm betting the latter. There's not a political tiger among the lot and the Bradfield by-election announced yesterday has thrown another spanner in the works.

Newspoll graphic

Brendan Nelson continues parliamentary tradition by treating the electorate as his personal plaything

If there is one thing I hate above all else in Australian politics it is that elected members of parliament appear to think that (after standing for election and entering into a contract which lasts until the next general election) it is best practice if they decide for matters unrelated to their health or family that they will retire early.

Liberal Party MP Brendan Nelson is the latest to treat electors as his playthings and the public purse as his to order, by deciding that he will retire at the end of September from the safe seat of Bradfield ahead of the next federal election saying:

"I would not be returning to the frontbench or the Liberal leadership should I stay, as such it is time to go'' .

Well, tough cheddar Mr. Nelson. It will cost the public purse at least a half million before poll results are called and, it is the height of self-indulgence (obviously endorsed by the most narcissistic of political parties) for you to decide that you have had enough of playing at politics outside of government.

An unnecessary burden on taxpayers in times of national economic uncertainty, by a typical specimen of the political class who will also be putting his hand out for a handsome pension/superannuation payout.

About that garden outside your back door.....

One look at the calendar tells me that Spring is not far away and it's time to take another look at the garden with an eye to surviving Summer, keeping water use to a sustainable level and, cutting back the amount of greenhouse gas the household is responsible for by reducing the number of food items which have to travel great distances to get to the table.

How is your garden going? Yes, I know that many of us these days have woefully small backyards to potter about in and some have little time to spend in them.

However, no matter how small the available area, space can usually be made for a few low maintenance home-grown herbs. With a little more room one or two veggie crops can also be added.

So get out there and turn over a patch, add some decent compost and organise a top mulch this month. Chose a spot that gets a decent amount of full sun during the day, but not so much that the ground bakes and plants require a lot of water to survive.

Next month, go to the local nursery and pick yourself up some parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme plants. Add basil, chives, coriander, lemon grass and dill to the list or whatever else you fancy in your cooking.

If you have the garden space look out for some of that hardy mint our grandmothers used to grow (after all mint sauce is no more than infused mint leaves with a little vinegar and sugar thrown in) and try planting out some rocket for a prolific quick pick alternative to lettuce.

Hunt about for a small variety of chilli bush and find a spot for it among the flowers.

For those wanting to add a vegetable - you can't go past that old staple silver beet for an easy growing and plentiful crop of spring and summer greens and two or three cherry tomato plants will give you a constant supply for months.

Consider making space for spring onions if you are daunted by the thought of tending tomatoes or think about adding a few capsicum plants instead if that takes your fancy.

Towards the end of Summer pick up a few Australian garlic bulbs from the green grocers and do a staggered planting of the individual cloves in March so that next year garlic will be coming up to keep company with the other herbs.

If you live in a flat, bring home the biggest pot you can purchase and make yourself a mini herb garden on the balcony or place a row of small pots on the kitchen window sill.

Ask the neighbours what they are growing this year - it might be possible to extend the veggie range by acting cooperatively on your street.

There is really no excuse for buying absolutely everything from the grocery store when it is so much more convenient to open the backdoor and gather in from the garden.

Saffin brings home the bacon for Lismore

Federal Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin again demonstrates that she is an effective advocate for her electorate with the announcement that the Rudd Government is funding eight extra Medical Assessment Unit beds at Lismore Base Hospital.

"This is in addition to over $600,000 recently provided to the hospital for new surgical equipment under Stage Two of the Rudd Government's Elective Surgery program.....

The Commonwealth is providing $4.1 million in operational funds and $5.7 million in infrastructure funds over two years to establish the University of Western Sydney's new Rural Clinical School in Lismore and Bathurst.....

The Lismore Integrated Cancer Centre is a NSW Government project to be located at the Lismore Base Hospital. The centre will include radiation oncology, medical oncology and haematology services. The Rudd Government has delivered $15 million for the Centre to be fast tracked."

After years of being taken for granted by the Nationals when the Coalition last held federal government, Ms. Saffin's ability to keep the electorate and Lismore on the national health agenda is most welcome.

Let's hope that she has as much success with ongoing funding for Grafton Base Hospital and the smaller district hospitals within her bailiwick.

The recent announcement of electoral redistribution may naturally enough have Janelle focusing on the north-west section of Page right now, but she needs to remember that the Clarence Valley and the rest of the coast delivered for her in November 2007.

Transcript of Lismore doorstop interview with Kevin Rudd on 24th August 2009.

National Party of Australia launches a new slogan under the same brand

It will take more than the National Party of Australia's new slogan "Nationals for regional Australia" to restore confidence in this party on the NSW North Coast.

Too many people are aware that the Nationals have not abandoned the idea of turning water from east coast rivers inland and more than a few recall the dismal performances of previous local MPs of that ilk. As well as note the politically hypocritical stance of their only federal MP left on the North Coast, Luke Hartsuyker, who only discovered local problems in a big way once he was out of government and incapable of doing anything about our urgent issues.

With so many in the party either outright climate change sceptics or loathe to rock the agricultural vote, the latest federal council held on 21-23 August 2009 has produced little but green wash when it comes to major climate change or environmental policies.
In part because some policy involves decisions taken by the states, such as the zoning of prime agricultural land.

It unanimously rejected the Rudd Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme but offers only vague promises of amendments when it comes to tackling national greenhouse gas emissions.

According to The Daily on Sunday:

Not all of the Nationals federal council's motions received unanimous support.
There was some minor disagreement between members over the student services fee and adopting a policy to support a gross feed-in tariff for small scale renewable energy systems across the nation, something the Greens have been championing in the Senate.
However, despite some discord, both policies were carried.
The federal council continues on Sunday when members will vote on two motions that were deferred due to disagreement on their wording.
Those motions cover protecting prime agricultural land from future mining and forestry developments, and calls for the federal government to conduct a social impact study on its water buyback scheme.
Another motion the party is yet to vote on but has also drawn concern from the regions is the Beale Report's recommendation to the government to allow the importation of foot and mouth disease virus samples into the country for research purposes.

The National Party of Australia (formerly known as the Country Party) did little but mark time during its decade-long term as part of the federal Howard Government and, has been a woeful loyal opposition in the NSW Parliament since under Fahey's leadership it lost power in mid-1995.

Next year the party will celebrate its 90th anniversary. By that time its irrelevance to Australia's coastal regions may be established beyond all doubt.

Update:

From Antony Green's post The decline of the Nationals 24 August 2009.

Food for thought....

Found at WebDiary during the week:

Recently on SBS's Insight program, Woolworths' Environmental Manager Kane Hardingham confessed to throwing out 65,000 tonnes of food a year. "We know that's a waste," he admitted.

From Peter Martin last Sunday:

The hessian bags that carried the asbestos James Hardie transported were subsequently sold to carpet companies (among others) who used them to make carpet underlay.

Only now, two or three decades later, is that carpet being ripped up and replaced.

The Australian workers or families who rip up their carpets are being exposed to asbestos fibres and a high risk of a painful lingering death.

Spotted on a bumper sticker:

Beware of promises of life where death is prerequisite.

In The Record Searchlight on Friday:
"[I'm] a proud right-wing terrorist" said by voter at Redding townhall meeting on Obama health care reform.

Are we there yet?

Snapshot Channel 10 Weather by State

Click on map to enlarge

Today at Evans Head the temperature reached 37.4 C at 1.30pm.

I can't remember a hotter winter day on the NSW North Coast, coming as it did off a relatively hot night.

Often accompanied by a very warm wind the unseasonable weather had gardens wilting by midday and some locals nervously wondering how dry summer may actually be this year.

It's now 6.45pm. at the tail end of the day, the temperature is still between 20.5 to 30.5 C across the region and I'm sitting at the keypad in full summer gear.

Am I being superstitious here or is this climate change?

Where is Andrew Bolt when you need him!

BOM Evans Head temperatures for Monday 24 August 2009

Whatever happened to our blogging PM and why is he failing to connect with regional voters online?

If anything clearly points to the fact that the Australian Government still doesn't get the communications revolution it is the fact that, after creating a PM's Blog with a gentle riff of publicity and posting two one-way 'discussion' topics, the blog has gone into dead time.

The Prime Minister as KRudd still uses hisTwitter account from time to time, but those short tweets just remind voters that he is alive - they don't add much to the national conversation on political, social, economic and environmental questions that concern the country.

Kevin Rudd obviously didn't fancy the blog format all that much, because since 10 August 2009 he is now selectively inviting 20 Internet users to have a Web Chat when the mood takes him.

Of course such chats omit so many low income households in regional areas from the conversation as it is obvious that a dial-up connection is not about to get you a timely invitation to 'chat' because all day online is not possible and, yes, rather more understandably those chats are now in dead time also.

The Prime Minister might like to tell the world that he rather likes Twitter, however he doesn't use these tweets to really connect with regional Australia. Today Kevin Rudd is said to be in Lismore on the NSW North Coast as part of his inspection of health facilities across the country, but one wouldn't know it from his public tweets on the weekend.

The fact that he is in the Northern Rivers is of some interest to local voters as our public hospitals are under sustained cost-cutting attack by the North Coast Area Health Service and just last Saturday The Daily Examiner reported that it is on the cards for Grafton Base Hospital to lose another 10 ordinary beds and fail to gain funding for 17 new beds that are part of the promised departmental upgrade.

Hopefully, when it comes to old fashioned face-to-face contact, Kevin Rudd will fare better as the Rudd Government is fast becoming our last faint hope for decent regional hospitals, as one wouldn't know how dysfunctional matters are becoming if one reads the 2007/08 NSW Health annual report and it is obvious that maintaining the health system is getting beyond the capacity of the state governments.

Japan ploughs on with its defence of whale hunting

Photograph: Whales in Antarctic waters, The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 2007

Still up on a Government of Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries website:

Thank you for your coming to our web page. We established this page to share the idea of the sustainable use of marine resources with people as many as possible.

As recognized from the page title, the main contents of this page are about the sustainable use of marine resources, especially, cetaceans. Cetaceans are one of the most important marine resources not only for human being but also for all other creatures. These marine resources are complicatedly connected to each other, and then proper managements of cetaceans are critical to keep marine ecosystem healthy. Cetaceans also contribute to our cultural life and economic activities directly and indirectly. You can enjoy great taste of whale meat as well as can enjoy whale watching. Therefore, we are caring all environmental issues concerning cetaceans such as the natural environment, social environment and economic environment. In these contexts, we, the Whaling Section of Japan, understand that only the sustainable use of marine resources can satisfy these aspects.

We realize that the earth be shared by all creatures including human being, not dominated by only a specific group of countries or creatures. It is our brief that we should respect each other, getting over the difference of culture, ethic groups, species, etc. in order to achieve the sustainable world. It sounds difficult? No, it is very simple. Just start recognizing our world is not only for a group of people but also for every creature, regardless the difference of smartness, physical abilities, etc. Why not start with us - the Whaling Section of Japan?

From the Embassy of Japan in Australia:

In Japan, whales have been caught and utilized as food for more than 2 thousand years. The culture of food and eating habits has been formed in the course of history under the specific environment of each country or each location even within a country. People in Australia have made use of many creatures such as cattle, kangaroos and rabbits, or like Hindus, other cultures have never had beef.
We believe it is not appropriate to lightly condemn the behaviors of others as bad, barbarous or primitive, or rather there should be an attitude of respect for the cultures and habits of different cultures.

Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research - media kit, July 2009

Another day, another indignity as Malcolm Turnbull gets squirrelized

Big Mal Turnbull gets done over by squirrelizer

Supply your own caption

Who'll lead the Libs at the next election? Turnbull is blowing like a gale

Bookmakers Sportingbet no longer rate Malcolm Turnbull as a raging red hot favourite to lead the Liberals at the next election.

In June, when Peter Costello announced he was heading home and would not be around for the next election, Sportingbet rated Turnbull a near certainty to lead the Libs and offered odds of $1.15. Joe Hockey was seen as the only challenger with any prospects and was rated a $4.25 chance. Other pretenders (oops!) contenders that bookies rated were Tony Abbott ($11), Julie Bishop ($13), Andrew Robb ($15) and Peter Dutton ($15).

Turnbull's odds are now out to $1.90, while Jockey has firmed to $3. Other firmers are Abbott $5.50 and Robb $7.50. Bishop is out the door at $21. Dutton is also a blower and is now $21 - perhaps Costello should have kept his mouth shut rather than singing this bloke's praises.

Fairfax's Age and Herald report that Liberal staff and MPs despair about their prospects of winning the next election and continue to canvas leadership alternatives to Malcolm Turnbull. The mood is so bad that a gathering organised by Mr Turnbull's office at the B Bar in Canberra on Wednesday night to boost morale descended into a discussion about ''saving the furniture''.

According to one Liberal who attended, the leadership question - including the merits of replacing Mr Turnbull with Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey or Andrew Robb - was loudly discussed, with four or five of Turnbull's staff nearby.

''We were not talking about crunching numbers [for a leadership vote] … but the fact that it was being so openly discussed with so many people was just extraordinary.

''The dynamic was incredibly interesting. Turnbull's staff … didn't want to talk to anyone, they just sat in their own little group.''

The source said there was widespread dissatisfaction about poor tactics from the leader's office, a lack of preparation for the next election and the absence of an overall message.

Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton, Victorian senator and former Costello adviser Mitch Fifield, South Australian Liberal MP Jamie Briggs and NSW Liberal MP Alex Hawke were all present.

Pic credit: Fairfax

Clarence Valley Council intends to ask NSW taxpayers to fund a bigger slice of the jetty primarily being built for a privately-owned waterfront hotel

At its ordinary monthly meeting last Tuesday, after a small amount of argy-bargy, Clarence Valley Shire councillors unanimously voted to go ahead and build a jetty in front of Sedgers Reef Hotel at Iluka.

Never mind that the community preferred any new jetty to be sited elsewhere in Iluka Bay, the cost blow-out, a lack of transparency or a growing public perception that Council is doing favours for mates.

Just vote to ask New South Wales taxpayers to fork out all or part the $65,000 plus extra funds required to bring additional customers to the hotel.

For years local government has rightly complained about cost-shifting by the states and Commonwealth and called for this third tier of government to be taken seriously.

On Tuesday Clarence Valley Council voted for a good example of why local government is always a poor second-cousin twice removed; not to be taken too seriously by the rest of the political family.

So if you live elsewhere in New South Wales and are finding it hard to get additional funding for vital infrastructure like health services operating out of the local hospital, extra school sports equipment or that much needed community hall - just remember that Clarence Valley Council may have got into the Rees Government treasury ahead of you so that one North Coast hotelier can have his latest wish fulfilled.

Iluka jetty and pontoon: The Glass House revisited?

Secretary to the Treasury Ken Henry on the good, the bad and the ugly

From Dr. Ken Henry's speech to the Australian Economic Forum on 19 August 2009 concerning the Rudd Government tax review now underway:

"So what does this mean for the panel’s deliberations? As a first step, the panel is considering taxes and transfers on their individual merits, how they sit within the overall architecture of the tax-transfer system, and how they will meet the opportunities and challenges of the future. Importantly, this assessment is being undertaken without regard to the level of government which currently administers that particular tax or transfer.
The Panel’s concern is to ensure that our tax-transfer system is calibrated to emerging challenges and opportunities that arise from things like population ageing, the re-emergence of China and India and continuing technological change.
As part of its enquiry, the panel is assessing how different taxes and transfers rate against the standard policy assessment criteria – fairness, efficiency, simplicity, sustainability and coherence. These criteria will enable us to identify taxes which should be levied, taxes that are so irredeemingly poor that they should be abolished, and taxes that are reformable – the good, the bad and the ugly."

Clarence River topography as art

Small the Clarence River

The Mighty Clarence

Jessica Birk

Other Aussie pollies with domain names up for grabs

After the brief kefuffle over the fact that the Nats managed to corral nathanrees.com.au, I decided to have a looksee at which other Aussie pollies may be vulnerable at the next round of state and federal elections because of domain parking or cybersquatting on their names.
The first to surface was malcolmturnbull.net which is up for sale.
Followed by the rather puzzling active but restricted site kevinrudd.net (created in the USA) which was also up for eBay auction by Sean Slater in 2007.
It was still for sale just before Kevin07 won the federal title bout against John Howard.

User #20153 4024 posts Sean Slater Whirlpool Forums Addict

It's only worth what someone will pay for it at the end of the day. Anyone want to buy KevinRudd.net?? I tried to sell it a few months ago on eBay, and couldn't muster $300 for it ... I'll give it another go after the election...

anchor posted 2007-Nov-4, 1pm AEST

Although NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell has managed to get his dot coms all to himself, nobody in his party thought to capture barryofarrell.net or barryofarrell.org it seems.
As for NSW Nats Leader Andrew Stoner - well he has andrewstoner.com.au (andrewstoner.com is another restricted currently inactive site) but andrewstoner.net as well as andrew stoner.org appear to be up for grabs.
Which sorta makes the Nats open to a little payback after all their crowing on ABC News Radio yesterday.
And before other senior pollies start to feel smug - a fella in Los Angeles has parked on joehockey.net and tonyabbott.net is about to become available to the first taker.
Already available is tonyabbott.org.
One can almost feel the online political parodies forming out in cyberspace.

North Coast Voices: blog visitor profile

Earlier this week North Coast Voices received a rather nice email via Boy the Wonder Cat's address:

Just a short note to say what a good job you do at independent news gathering. The site looks great. Too many great contributions to reply to all, so pass on my regards. I felt a bit intimidated that there are no comments for any posts. Do you get many hits locally? I hope so, it is a much better read than the Star or the Echo.

Now it is true that there are few comments made on North Coast Voices posts and, it is always fascinating to see the number of emails sent to our blogging cat or mention made of us in the local media in lieu of using the blog's comment section.

However, this is not something that troubles us as we are like half the blogosphere ourselves - mostly 'lurkers' nor comment makers.

The email did get me thinking though about giving readers a little feedback.

Yes, we are getting a growing number of local northern NSW visitors to the blog and North Coast Voices now appears in blog roll links on a number of other Australian websites for which we are grateful.

Current readership is roughly divided into 50 per cent Australian visitors to the blog and 50 per cent visitors from overseas. Some readers stay for a minute or so and a few stay for half an hour or more.

Readers can be as close as the Tweed and Coffs Harbour or as far away as Tunisia and Chile. Both Canberra and Washington DC frequently feature in any location breakdown by month.

Various government department and university computers across the country also have a peek at what our authors have to say. As of course does Monsanto and other multinational companies we mention from time to time.

North Coast Voices has been up and running for twenty-two months and has it's second birthday in early October.

A big thankyou to all who read this blog.

Sounds of Australia film and sound archive nominations for 2010

Media has been reporting the fact that this month the 1954 Vegemite advertisement jingle has made it into the national film and sound archive, along with recordings of the Newcastle Steelworks Band, TI's Georgia Lee singing the blues, Bidjigal man Vic Simms' protest songs, and six more examples of Australiana.

The National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia is a public registry of recordings that celebrates the unique and diverse recorded sound culture and history of Australia. It was launched in February 2007 with a foundation list of 10. Each year, public nominations are called and 10 recordings added to the Registry, selected from the nominations by a panel of experts from the recorded sound industry and cultural institutions.

Complete archive list.

Nominations for next year's inclusions on this list officially begin in January 2010.
How to nominate, including online form, here.

About Vegemite:

In 1922, Dr Cyril Callister, a young food chemist, created a distinctive 'pure vegetable extract' at the Fred Walker Cheese Factory and food processing plant in Dandenong, Victoria. A nation-wide competition in 1923 yielded the name Vegemite. In 1926 Walker sold their creation to Kraft Foods of Chicago and passed over the secret recipe.
The first radio jingle for Vegemite appeared in 1954. In this, three 'Happy Little Vegemites' sang their toe-tapping song almost ad nauseam. With the advent of television in 1956, the jingle became a television commercial. The Vegemite jingle has been used in advertising campaigns for Vegemite ever since.

NSW Nats caught namejacking in cyberspace. Labor not amused

ABC TV let the cat out of the bag last night and the NSW Nats are red faced and protesting that purchasing this domain name and setting it up with Melbourne Information Technologies Australia Pty Ltd was sooooo innocent - not namejacking the Premier at all, at all:

Whois Record

Domain Name: nathanrees.com.au
Registrar ID: Melbourne IT
Registrar Name: Melbourne I
Status: ok

Registrant: NATIONAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA - NSW
Registrant ID: ABN 40538388169
Eligibility Type: Registered Business

Registrant Contact ID: 0322O988805
Registrant Contact Name: NATIONAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA - NSW
Registrant Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs

Tech Contact ID: 0323T988805
Tech Contact Name: Nathan Quigley
Tech Contact Email: Visit whois.ausregistry.com.au for Web based WhoIs

Name Server: rns1.melbourneit.com.au
Name Server IP: 203.27.227.123
Name Server: rns2.melbourneit.com.au
Name Server IP: 203.27.227.124

Update:

A Cameron Jackson of Rosebery, NSW has owned nathanrees.org since September 2008.
Ownership expires in September this year unless renewed.
The same person appears to own nathanrees.net.au
While Privacy Protect hides registration details for nathanrees.com, nathanrees.net and nathanrees.info since September 2008 and is probably a domain name reseller.
It seems Nathan is a popular boy.

What do they say? No press is bad press - just spell the name right

The hard working North Coast Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin found herself picked out for a rather truncated mention in a bible-quoting Canadian market opinion blog post courtesy of Joel Bowman, reporting from Taipei, Taiwan on 17 August 2009.

This post was apparently echoing seven other blogs or media reports, mostly from earlier in the year, which commented on the fact that $900 2008-09 tax refunds sent out as part of the Australian Government stimulus package also went to the estates of taxpayers who had died in or after the last financial year.

Apparently the general sentiment was; when it comes to tax refund money you're not supposed to take it with you no matter how hard you worked when alive.

Never mind, Janelle - at least they all spelt your name correctly!

A case of the biter bit, but few are chortling over AFP intelligence fiasco

I was watching ABC Four Corners last Monday when this little comment came up:
"ANDREW FOWLER: The site was called root-you.org, and for the last two weeks the Australian Federal Police in cooperation with the South Australian Police have run the perfect sting.

TIM DAVIS, FEDERAL AGENT, HIGH TECH CRIME OPS. AFP: We've infiltrated that site and so now we've got control as well.

NEIL GAUGHAN: What we've done with that particular network is we've captured all the identities of all the people that've been using that network. We can operate in a covert activity here fairly seamlessly with no harm to our members with continual and actual significant penetration.....

ANDREW FOWLER: In the case of root-you.org, the Federal Police decided the best result was to effectively blow up the site by posting a notice that it was under law enforcement control.

TIM DAVIS, FEDERAL AGENT: Mate are you right to post that message on the forum.

MAN (on phone): Yep.

TIM DAVIS, FEDERAL AGENT: Well if you can do that now that'd be great."

I did idly wonder if there would be a cyber response and thought - "Naw, won't happen".
Then it well and truly did and F-Secure has links to this not so funny episode of counter-hacking, which was the almost inevitable result of all that televised bragging by the boys in blue (this also saw police computer files of actual bank, building society and corporate credit card details exposed to the view of at least one other hacker).

Some of the hacker chatter {A little **** covers words which offend those bluidy filters}:
"After the authorities FINALLY posted their little "ohhh, we have been monitoring this website", we finally said "Enough is enough, we are sick of these f**ks acting like they are hackers, lets see what they really know".
So After writing another FTP report yesterday.. I decided I would move on to getting control of r00t-y0u.org. See what the authorities know about server maintenance.. and how secure they can make stuff.
Lo and behold, their server was windows! I couldn't stop laughing at the sight of this, but I soon moved on. After visiting a 404 page, I instantly noticed that they were using Xampp. Those lazy f***s
can not even just install apache, and php themselves. So instead, they download some application to do it all for them.
Figures.
Now, of course.. they were just SO F***KING SMART, that they left the MYSQL password BLANK! After screwing around with their database, I dumped a vulnerable query into a php file, thus giving me full access to their servers.
After taking a look at the r00t-y0u database, lookie what we find.
User: "h1t3m" (Administrator)
Email: macrobber@gmail.com
These dipsh*ts are using an automatic digital forensics and incident response tool.
They can't do sh*t all themselves, because like I have said before, they have no skill. Anyways, after looking on their win32 machine for a while, I noticed some really awkward stuff. They have credit cards, and bank accounts all on a seperate drive (G:\)."

Four Corners transcript

Pic from Google Images

Obama and Newsmax online polling

There is a rather badly constructed Newsmax poll out there in cyberspace at the moment which is yielding these results concerning U.S. President Barack Obama:

Full 'Obama is the anti-christ' survey results here.

Twitter gets a mention in the House of Reps - does that count as "pointless babble" too?

The Twitterverse seems to be full of bods trying to get in their tongue-in-cheek 40% of babble for the day or commenting on a Pear Analytics critique of these digital conversations.

In the House of Reps yesterday the Aussie Prime Minister apparently hadn't heard that tweets were being dissed as mostly froth and bubble because during Question Time he quoted a David Speers tweet:

• Another messy Coalition partyroom. Much debate over tactics on Renewable Energy Target. Nats angry at Hunt flagging Coalition support.

Here are a couple of speerisms which didn't make our mate Kev's top of the hits list:

• turnbull could get done for enviro vandalism with that branch of wattle he's wearing for Vietnam Vets day
• watching PM give detailed powerpoint presentation at AIG Forum. Some of the best Rudd-speak i've heard

May a plague of ravenous grasshoppers descend on all your front lawns and a horde of hungry mice infest your homes!

The Rudd Labor Government wants to introduce a national emissions trading scheme which doesn't do much to reverse the growing amount of greenhouse gases Australia is pumping out each year.
The Liberals and Nationals are determined to delay the scheme but eventually want any scheme to do even less that Labor's current plan.
The two Independent senators are almost deliriously exercising their power to frustrate the nation, while The Greens are at least consistent in their message that neither major party has put forward an ETS which benefits the country and appear to have good intentions for what it's worth so far.
In last week's wanton self-indulgence by these short-sighted wizened gnats on The Hill, it felt like the rest of us were being slowly nibbled to death by ducks as we waited for the inevitable trashy Senate outcome.
This week we endure endless posturing over the now separate renewable energy legislation.











Up to my ears in climate change
Byron #

Why is the Rudd Government defending the oppression of women with the blood of our troops?

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been enjoying a high level of public approval since the 2007 federal election and part of the reason for this is that he is obviously careful of his public persona.

Mr. Rudd is quick to issue statements and face the cameras whenever there is a serious foreign affairs incident, a overseas terrorist attack or Australian service personnel die on active service in the 'good war'.

However, he is very, very quiet when the Afghanistan Government he continues to support is reported in this manner by Human Rights Watch this month:

Afghanistan's influential international supporters should insist that President Hamid Karzai act to amend the notorious law that formalizes discrimination against Shia women, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch learned today that the amended bill was published in the official Gazette on July 27, 2009 (Gazette 988), bringing the law into force......

A copy of the final law seen by Human Rights Watch shows that many regressive articles remain, which strip away women's rights that are enshrined in Afghanistan's constitution. The law gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands. It grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers. It requires women to get permission from their husbands to work. It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying "blood money" to a girl who was injured when he raped her.

Perhaps Mr. Rudd might care to break his silence and confirm or deny that he has investigated this report and inform the nation of the position his government intends to take if women's human rights are being extinguished in this way.

The new Afghanistan law cannot be condoned on a political, social or cultural basis - it makes all Shia women little better than chattels and married women slaves who can be starved to death.

At the time of writing this post there were 31 separate Google News items concerning this new Afghanistan legislation, starting with the BBC.

Dear Mr. MeadowLea, about those seeds...........

I have noticed a MeadowLea margarine advertisement screening on television for the past few weeks which focuses on the goodness found in the seeds used to make its spread.

On the MeadowLea website it claims:

Farmers grow our canola & sunflower seeds
MeadowLea spreads are made from over 70,000 natural seeds. The canola seeds that go into our MeadowLea spreads are Non-Genetically Modified. Our canola seeds are sourced locally from Australian Seed growers, whilst the sunflower seeds are sourced from the warm climate of South America.

Now I do not doubt that at this moment MeadowLea intends to honour this online claim.

However, I did not catch this non-GM pledge repeated in the particular television ad I saw.
Neither have I seen this exact claim on MeadowLea packaging.

What is claimed on the MeadowLea tubs is that the Canola Oil used is non-genetically modified. Something that can be safely stated in Australia, as refined oil made from GM seed does not have to be so identified on a food label because it is not considered to have identifiable genetically modified plant DNA remaining.

There appears to be a long silence on the nature of the sunflower seed used in the manufacture of the margarine.
No mention is made of the fact that in the warm climate of South America mentioned by Goodman Fielder there have been genetically modified sunflower seed field trials underway since 2007 and, although there isn't a commercial quantity available yet the absence of a non-GM claim for this ingredient leaves the company with a lot of wriggle room should it chose to source from GM sunflower in the future.

So Mr. MeadowLea, Original, Salt Reduced, Light, Extra Light, Canola, Lactose Free - I think I'll give all margarine a miss for now.

If you genuinely want your products to be viewed as special a rethink of your labelling and advertising strategy might be advisable.
This is not the time for commercial ambiguity.

Oh, Mr. KRudd! Case of the missing punctuation mark and the body in the library

Sometimes Twitter gives everyone a bit of a laugh at the expense of those pollies who use it.
This is Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday last when (with a missing full stop the culprit) he accidentally told all that climate change and global economic recovery were critical for his personal future:

KevinRuddPM Melb last night spoke 2 US leadership dialogue. Working w Obama Admin on climate change & global economic recovery critical for future KRudd
about 11 hours ago from web

{I know, I know - little things amuse little minds!}

However, Twitter was the last of a working week's worries for the Libs and Nats.
It is getting harder and harder for them to ignore the cadaver sprawled behind the chesterfield in the library, as each new poll keeps pointing to a politically deceased Malcolm Truffles Turnbull.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, in the 13th to 15th August AC Nielsen poll the Leader of the Opposition's approval rating sank to 31% and his disapproval rating is a graveyard 60%.
In June 2009 his Nielsen poll approval rating was a lowly 32% and his disapproval score was already running at 60% - which rather indicates that Aussie voters are well and truly ready to plant him in the ground.
Something I'm sure KRudd will point out all week long, with careful attention to punctuation.

Iluka jetty and pontoon: The Glass House revisited?

Almost a year after Clarence Valley Council deferred any decision concerning the proposal to site a new jetty and pontoon on the Iluka foreshore until a formal community consultation was completed; a number of residents in this small but vibrant North Coast community at the mouth of the Clarence River are beginning to mutter about a lack of transparency on the part of both councillors and staff and, the growing smell of an all-mates-together attempt to give the owners of a local waterside hotel cheap year-round access for those weekend and holiday boaties who wish to front the hotel bar without having to worry about tides.

The original quote obtained for a jetty and pontoon (at concept stage and dependent on additional siting costs) was $35,000, which when real sites were actually canvassed quickly blew out to an estimated $100,000 - $135,000.

The first $100,000 for this 36 metre long jetty (plus 10 metre by 3 metre floating pontoon and 11 metre gangway) is apparently to be sourced from a $50,000 State Government Waterways grant and a further $50,000 private donation from the owners of the hotel.
Although given the current economic climate, one wonders just how secure these offers really are.

According to Clarence Valley Council documents, in April 2009 it gave development consent for the jetty and pontoon project. A project which by that stage was firmly constrained by the wishes of the private donor.

Since then the Iluka community has been informed that Council will be obliged to find an additional unbudgeted $65,000 (plus unspecified costs for electricity/lighting) in view of the detailed structural plans now at hand.

At an extraordinary meeting on 29 June this year councillors voted to slip this $65,000 into an already strained 2009/10 budget, having previously outlaid $10,200 on pre-construction work to date.

This makes Clarence Valley residents and ratepayers (through Council and the Clarence Coast Reserve Trust) significant financial contributors to the proposed limited-access recreational facility and, it is highly likely that if the jetty goes ahead costs will have risen further by the time construction commences.
At least one resident is raising concerns that this jetty is a mini-Glass House in the making.

What is also worrying residents is the fact that neither councillors nor council staff seem to have considered ongoing maintenance costs for this timber-piled jetty or factored in the possibility that a predicted increasing frequency for severe adverse weather events may also add to these costs.

An additional concern is that this jetty and pontoon project is being progressed ahead of any completed Iluka Bay foreshore plan of management and, at present this plan's projected objectives are being informally massaged to fit the jetty project in argument put to councillors.

Quite frankly, local government has handled this matter badly from start to finish, having been initially mesmerised by the offer of a private donation and never really taking the time to stand back and consider any legitimate Iluka community priority list before tallyho-ing after the hotelier's dream.

For those locals who like to keep watch, a brief online history of the jetty and pontoon proposal:

Clarence Valley Council Civil & Corporate Committee Meeting,11 November 2008
Clarence Valley Council Business Paper, 9 December 2008
Clarence Valley Council media release, 6 January 2009
Clarence Valley Council Extraordinary Meeting, 29 June 2009
Clarence Valley Council Business Paper for 18 August 2009
Attachment to August 2009 Business Paper

Swell of support for jetty upgrade
Council calamity over Iluka jetty
New jetty will take 28 small boats
Iluka jetty price tag goes up

Photograph from G'day Pubs: Existing private jetty

Memo to Dear Rupert and the Mainstream Media

These past few months I've been reading a lot of online chatter about how mainstream media needs to recoup the costs of providing news, make a profit for shareholders and stop advertising revenue haemorrhaging.

I've also been reading items on the expense associated with researching in-depth news stories and how unfair it is that bloggers apparently get a free ride on the backs of MSM journalists.

Now I can't answer for every other blogger or online news website visitor, but I think that Rupert Murdoch and other print media owners are allowing their financial problems to overly colour commercial responses to emerging trends in how ordinary people access/receive their daily news.

I suspect that part of the reason that traditional media owners are so blinkered is that their own editors and journalists are not being entirely honest with them about how they come by some of the facts which end up in published articles (and it's not just that some journos surf the blogs looking for information or ideas for a story).

The reality is that not all bloggers or online news readers simply take from the MSM without giving back.

Whenever I come across something of significant political, environmental or social interest and, after I have gathered together a parcel of research on same, I often pass it on to journalists at no cost and for no glory.

I do this because I feel the material is important and traditional media still has a readership reach that I, as a small blogger among many millions world-wide, cannot hope to emulate.

It is not unknown for my research to form the body of a Page One or Page Three article in local and sometimes even national newspapers.

I rather suspect that I am not unusual in doing this and, I also expect that Australian bloggers like myself will no longer feel inclined to pass on what has often been many hours of research (including emails/long distance phone calls to confirm documents) if the likes of News Ltd or Fairfax decide that MSM news will no longer be free to view online.

So Mr. Murdoch, be prepared for the possibility of an inexplicable spike in costs associated with news gathering and 'scoops' if you go ahead with user-pays news online. Bloggers may just decide that giving you something for nothing is no longer a good idea.

At least Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters realises that matters are not as black and white as Murdoch suggests when he writes Why I believe in the link economy.

Thoughts of the Global Financial Crisis & Climate Change not bringing you down? Then try NASA's Asteroid Watch

Pic from Astronomy 1307

Thoughts of the Global Financial Crisis & Climate Change not bringing you down?
Feeling rather guilty because there are still some days when you wake up smiling?
The answer is a mouse click away!
The US Government space agency NASA has gone all Flash Gordon over at Asteroid Watch:
"Nuclear explosions and spacecraft impacts are two of the more relatively mature options for deflecting Earth-threatening objects and they have been studied in some detail (for example, see Ref. 1). Another option has been suggested for the small subset of asteroids that might also pass close to the Earth a few years prior to the predicted Earth impact. For these unique cases, the pre-impact close encounter affects the asteroid's motion so strongly that a relatively tiny change in its velocity prior to the close approach will be multiplied several fold during the flyby, thus allowing the asteroid to miss the Earth on the next pass. In these relatively infrequent cases, even the very modest gravitational attraction between the asteroid and a nearby "micro-thrusting" spacecraft (nicknamed a "gravity tractor") could provide enough of a change in the asteroid's velocity that an Earth collision could be avoided (see Ref. 2). Successful mitigation requires that a threatening asteroid must be discovered and physically characterized soon enough to allow the appropriate response; the current NASA Near-Earth Object Observations program is operated with this in mind. But, since the number of near-Earth asteroids increases as their sizes decrease, we are most likely to be hit by the relatively small objects that are most difficult to find ahead of time. As a result, consideration must also be given to the notification and evacuation of those regions on Earth that would be affected by the imminent collision of a small, recently-discovered impactor. However, if the object could be found far enough ahead of time and our space technology used to deflect it from the Earth threatening trajectory, it would be a tremendous demonstration of our space-faring capabilities!"

Yup! Always knew that a hot rock banging on the noggin was a

B-I-G threat to my peace of mind 'n' life and limb.

Don't believe in global warming? Then you may belong to a mere 2.5% of the approximately 17.7 million Australians over fourteen years of age

Roy Morgan Research asked the question; "There's proposed legislation before Federal Parliament for a carbon emissions trading scheme to be introduced in Australia. Do you approve or disapprove of this legislation?" according to a special Morgan Poll telephone survey conducted last Wednesday and Thursday nights (August 5/6, 2009).

Six hundred and eighty-seven people over 14 years of age responded, which is a relatively low number for statistical accuracy.

Some of the poll findings:

A clear majority of Australians (55%) approve of the Government's proposed carbon emissions trading scheme.......

Special analysis by age group shows 66% of 14-17 year olds in favour of the legislation compared to 55% of 18-24 year os, 62% of 25-34 year olds, 61% of 35-49 year olds and just 45% of Australians 50+......

Those who disapproved of the legislation were then asked "Why especially do you say that?" The most prominent reasons Australians disapproved of the legislation were: 'Australia should wait for the World to act' (3%), 'Costs too much' (3%), 'Doesn't stop pollution/ carbon emissions' (3%), 'Don't believe in Global Warming' (2.5%), and 'Carbon emissions are not responsible for Global Warming' (2%). Of all Australians, 2.5% disapprove of the legislation because it 'Doesn't go far enough.'

Roy Morgan Research Finding No. 4405

Australian population clock and projections

Australia's Future Tax System Review Panel releases paper on Road and Transport sector tax reform

Commercialisation of the Australian road system will not be as simple as commercialising former public utilities such as power generation. Much more attention needs to be directed at practical issues of implementing such arrangements. [from Summary 6, A Conceptual Framework for the Reform of Taxes Related to Roads and Transport, June 2009]

On the NSW North Coast we have limited access to air, sea or rail freight and so are dependant on state and national road systems being used to supply us with many of life's necessities.

The purchase price of these necessities are frequently higher in regional areas because of added transport costs.

This same limited transportation also means that more of our personal and business travel is conducted on the east coast road network and fuel costs possibly impact more heavily on rural and regional households than they do on metropolitan households.

When Australia's Future Tax System Review Panel released a paper on 13 August 2009 titled A Conceptual Framework for the Reform of Taxes Related to Roads and Transport it is of direct interest to our local communities:

This report concentrates on road transport and the supply of road services. Section 1 provides background to the general tax‐transfer policy problems that arise in relation to road transport; Section 2 discusses partial and general equilibrium methodology issues; Section 3 discusses excises on fuels and other vehicle‐related charges; Section 4 discusses congestion and pollution‐related transport externalities; Section 5 singles out traffic accident and insurance externalities; Section 6 deals with road capital and maintenance issues; Section 7 considers general equilibrium and double dividend issues; Section 8 briefly considers rail, taxi, air services and shipping issues. Section 9 synthesises the main policy issues raised.

PDF download here.

Is nature having the last laugh on Monsanto & Co?

Photograph of Palmer Pigweed from Syngenta blog

This U.S. report from Memphis Online last Sunday:

All across the Mid-South, hundreds of thousands of acres of cotton and soybean fields have been infested with a rapacious, fast-growing weed that's become resistant to the main herbicide on which farmers have relied for more than a decade.

Palmer pigweed, often called "careless weed" by field hands, often is surviving and even thriving despite treatments with the chemical glyphosate -- most commonly sold under the trade name Roundup.

In Arkansas alone, the weed has invaded some 750,000 acres of crops, including half the 250,000 acres of cotton. In Tennessee, nearly 500,000 acres have some degree of infestation, with the counties bordering the Mississippi River hardest hit.

The infestation is cutting farmers' cotton yields by up to one-third and in some cases doubling or tripling their weed-control costs.

The invasive noxious weed Amaranthus palmeri which is doing all that damage in America is also found in Australia and has other cousins here, including the noxious weed Amaranthus blitoides (prostrate pigweed).

Pigweed is not the only pest which has become resistant to glycines and the world-wide list includes a number of other pasture or crop weed species which are found in this country.

The biotechnology industry's boast used to be that the glycine derivative Glyphosate or RoundUp was effective in suppressing 76 out of 78 of the world's worst cropping weeds. This boast appears to be a pale shadow of its former self.

Which leads to the inevitable question - just how long will Australian farmers have before the touted 'benefits' of GM crops disappear into thin air?