Keneally bombs in NSW floods leadership stakes

In NSW Premier Kristina Keneally only rated 13 per cent in the good leadership stakes re floods according to Essential Report 110124 24th January 2011.

Floods - Leadership

Q. Thinking about the recent floods across Australia, how would you rate each of the following for providing leadership in dealing with the floods?

	Total good	Total poor	Very good	Good	Average	Poor	Very poor	Don't know
Prime Minister Julia Gillard	42%	23%	15%	27%	28%	10%	13%	7%
Opposition leader Tony Abbott	19%	32%	4%	15%	36%	19%	13%	13%
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh	77%	6%	52%	25%	11%	3%	3%	6%
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh (Qld)	71%	9%	48%	23%	17%	2%	7%	3%
Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman	61%	4%	28%	33%	16%	2%	2%	19%
Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman (Qld)	75%	7%	46%	29%	14%	2%	5%	4%
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu	34%	8%	8%	26%	26%	4%	4%	32%
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu (Victoria)	47%	12%	10%	37%	27%	6%	6%	14%
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally	21%	23%	4%	17%	28%	11%	12%	29%
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally (NSW)	13%	40%	4%	9%	30%	18%	22%	18%

Nationally, 42% think the Prime Minister Julia Gillard provided good leadership and 23% poor – while the Opposition leader Tony Abbott was rated good by 19% and poor by 32%. In Queensland Julia Gillard rated 42% good/26% poor.

Nationally the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh was rated 77% good/6% poor and in Queensland 71% good/9% poor. The Mayor of Brisbane Campbell Newman was rated a little lower nationally (61%/4%) but slightly higher in Queensland (75%/7%).

In Victoria, the Premier Ted Bailieu was rated 47% good/12% poor and in NSW, Premier Kristina Keneally was rated 13% good/40% poor

NSW Electricity - Christ on A Bike!

Christ on a bike! Now The NSW Upper House inquiry into the Keneally Government fire sale of electricity assets has been told that taxpayers will probably come out of the deal with next to nothing!

Now the Keneally-Roozendaal "gen-trader" model in which retailers and generation trading rights have been sold might yield just $2-3 billion.

The Government's sales team admitted yesterday that billions could be ripped from the proceeds because of a web of contract deals.

The Government will spend $1.3 billion building the Cobbora coal mine from the proceeds, which it promised to private sector bidders to supply power stations. It will subsidise the price of coal coming from that mine to the tune of up to $1 billion.

But it also risked losing hundreds of millions out of the $1.3 billion it has been paid by Origin Energy and Tru Energy for the rights to trade power generation.

Former Labor minister Kim Yeadon told the parliamentary power inquiry that, under the bizarre "gen-trader" deal, should power stations fail, some of that money will have to be handed back.

The hundreds of millions it cost to put together the sale will also be deducted.

A senior Government source confirmed there may be "not much money" available to pay for roads and rail.

Seeing Red & Voting Green
Yamba

* Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at gmail dot com to submit comment for consideration.

A U.S. job offer for Wikileaks?

This is the latest U.S. attack on Wikileaks reported in The Age on 22 January 2011:

WASHINGTON: WikiLeaks, condemned by the US government for posting secret data leaked by insiders, may have used music- and photo-sharing networks to obtain and publish classified documents, according to a computer security firm.

Tiversa Inc, based in Pennsylvania, has evidence that WikiLeaks, which has said it does not know who provides it with information, may seek out secret data itself, using ''peer-to-peer'' networks, its chief executive, Robert Boback, said.

The company, which has done investigative searches on behalf of US agencies including the FBI, said it discovered computers in Sweden were trolling through hard drives accessed from popular peer-to-peer networks such as LimeWire and Kazaa. The information obtained in those searches had later appeared on WikiLeaks, Mr Boback said. WikiLeaks bases its most important servers in Sweden.

''It would be highly unlikely that someone else from Sweden is issuing those same types of searches resulting in that same type of information,'' he said.

Tiversa's claim was ''completely false in every regard'', said Mark Stephens, WikiLeaks's London lawyer.

So this should put a smile on a few faces this morning courtesy of a mention on @BernardKeane:

Joint Request for Statements of Interest: Internet Freedom Programs

January 3, 2011
Department of State
Public Notice

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Joint Request for Statements of Interest: Internet Freedom Programs

SUMMARY

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) announce a Joint Request for Statements of Interest (SOI) from organizations interested in submitting proposals for projects that support Internet freedom under the “Governing Justly and Democratically” Foreign Assistance program objective. This solicitation does not constitute a formal Request for Proposals: DRL and/or NEA will invite select organizations that submit SOIs to expand on their ideas via full proposal at a later date.

PLEASE NOTE: DRL and NEA strongly urge applicants to access immediately http://www.grants.gov/ in order to obtain a username and password. It may take up to a week to register with grants.gov. Please see the section entitled, “DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS” below for specific instructions.

REQUESTED STATEMENT OF INTEREST PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

DRL and NEA invite organizations to submit statements of interest outlining program concepts and capacity to manage projects that will foster freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet and other connection technologies in East Asia, including China and Burma; the Near East, including Iran; Southeast Asia; the South Caucasus; Eurasia, including Russia; Central Asia; Latin America, including Cuba and Venezuela; and Africa. Programming may support activities in Farsi, Chinese, Russian, Burmese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, and other languages spoken in acutely hostile Internet environments. Concepts may be global in nature, regional or country-specific.

Statements should clearly address a) support for digital activists and civil society organizations in exercising their right to freedom of expression and the free flow of information in acutely hostile Internet environments, or b) support for ongoing evaluation and research to enhance global Internet freedom policy and diplomacy. (my emphasis)

Supporting digital activists:

1. Statements of interest should address one or more of the following potential program activities:

Counter-censorship Technology: Development and support of web-based circumvention technology to enable users in closed societies to get around firewalls and filters in acutely hostile Internet environments. DRL and NEA will consider projects that support the deployment of individual technologies in specific environments, as well as projects that identify a lead organization to provide sub-grant and contractual support to non-profit organizations and for-profit companies that develop and maintain circumvention technologies. Statements of interest proposing a consortium of technologies under a lead organization should clearly identify potential technology partners and include an indication of those organizations’ interest in participating in the proposed project. In all cases, preference will be given to peer-reviewed technologies……..

For Gillard & Roxon: A lesson in one easy sentence on the folly of a nation health information database

A server storing sensitive patient information for more than 230,000 people was breached by unknown hackers so they could use its resources to host the wildly popular Call of Duty: Black Ops computer game. [The Register, 14 January 2011]

I can almost see the demand for bigger, better Clarence River levee walls starting

On 21 January 2010 The Daily Examiner ran articles pointing to the findings of a paper presented at 47th Annual Floodplain Management Authorities Of NSW Conference on 27 February–2 March 2007 at Gunnedah, titled BIG LEVEES – ARE THEY A GOOD IDEA?, authored by Drew Bewsher & John Maddocks of Bewsher Consulting Pty, Ltd, Sydney and Ian Dinham of Clarence Valley Council, Grafton.

One of these newspaper articles was careful to inform Clarence Valley residents that overtopping existing levees would have a warning period of only hours:

The paper states that the amount of time communities had to respond varied from town to town. In Maclean, modelling suggests the 100-year flood would overtop the levee there within just three hours.
Grafton comes out a bit more fortunate, taking about 10 hours before the town became inundated with water.

While the conference paper in question did point to some levee wall risk factors (see below), it finally came out in favour of the idea of levee walls in the final paragraph; This is not to say that we shouldn’t build big levees. Depending on site limitations.

Almost as a matter of course it totally ignored the fact that these upriver levee walls make unprotected downriver small villages like Iluka and Yamba more vulnerable during major flooding.

I think it was no accident that at least one Clarence Valley shire councillor made a rather gullible local journalist (renowned for rarely seeking alternative viewpoints) aware of this conference paper – it certainly paves the way to lengthen or create new upriver levees, despite the numerous qualifications it contains.

The former of these two gentleman would be well aware that community pressure on the back of national debate will demand more, not less, physical protection as populations unrealistically squat on ancient floodplains and, it is highly unlikely that either he or his fellow councillors will deny these demands with that last paragraph cop out just waiting to be quoted in any debate within the Chamber.

The Impact of Levees on the Flood Risk

Levees are built to reduce the flood risk to a community. They may be particularly useful in eliminating small or nuisance floods, and depending on their height, may also havesome success in mitigating larger floods. The flood risk to the community ‘protected’ bythe levee is reduced – up to the point that the levee is overtopped or it fails. After thispoint, there may be rapid inundation of the previously ‘protected’ area and deep inundation depths, resulting in a very high flood hazard to residents and occupiers of the area. In some cases, evacuation routes may be cut at an early stage, leaving occupants isolated and trapped in extremely dangerous conditions. In smaller catchments, there may be little warning that the levee will overtop, and virtually no time for the community torespond. There is also the threat of catastrophic levee failure, either before overtoppingor shortly afterwards.When the levee does overtop, the risk and threat to life will nearly always be greater (and often significantly greater) than when there was no levee. When the probabilities and consequences of all sizes of floods are considered, those thatovertop the levee and those that don’t, it may be that in some levee situations where the consequences of overtopping are disastrous, that the levee actually represents a netincrease in flood risk, not a reduction. Clearly where high levees are already ‘protecting’ extensive urban areas andcommunities are complacent about the consequences of overtopping, public awarenessinitiatives are essential to initially establish, and to then maintain the community in a ‘floodready’ state so that the flood risks can be mitigated.

If Baby Boomers were worried aged care might be stuffed by the time they turned 75 - worry no more

Read and enjoy current aged care recommendations in the Caring For Older Australians: Draft report presented to the Gillard Government by the Productivity Commission and released on 21 January 2011.

Less direct accountability for government, less transparency if that is actually possible, a freer hand for aged care providers (including the ability to palm-off aged care bed categories with low profit margins) and the potential for all manner of agencies to increase costs on a whole range of services (including removing the cap on high care accommodation charges), ‘supported’ beds for low-income frail aged eventually assigned to the lowest tenders, a more market-driven provision of aged care services for special needs groups, and as an added bonus, the continuing option of being faced with no nursing home bed available in the area in which you live in your retirement – I give you A framework for assessing aged care: draft recommendations.

However, as has been the case down the centuries, if you enter old age with significant assets and investments you will still be able to afford the best on offer and probably do a little better out of those same proposed aged care provisions.

The entire report can be found here.

We have all been invited to examine this report and make written submissions to the Productivity Commission by Monday 21 March 2011.
Email agedcare@pc.gov.au for further information

One response to urban sinkholes caused by flood waters in the Clarence Valley

Jules Faber cartoon in The Daily Examiner 17 January 2011.
Jules professional résumé can be found at JulesFaber.com

Monsanto-Mahyco GM eggplant toxicity study receives a fail from researcher - wonder what the opinion will be on Monsanto's latest SDA soybean effort?

Slowly, study by study, faith in the safety of food on supermarket shelves is being eroded.

From those such as A comparison of the effects of three GM corn varieties on mammalian health (which in 2009 threw doubt on the reliability of Monsanto findings and whose authors apparently successfully defended against defamatory claims by the biotech lobby) to the BT BRINJAL Event EE1 The Scope and Adequacy of the GEAC Toxicological Risk Assessment: Review of Oral Toxicity Studies in Rats (November 14, 2010 by Dr Lou M Gallagher, PhD, Wellington, New Zealand) which found:

SUMMARY

This evaluation of Bt brinjal studies is based on requirements for a rigorous evaluation of food safety for the people of India and their health. Departures from Indian and international published standards for the 14‐day and 90‐day studies are a cause for concern 1.

The current food safety studies for Bt brinjal were not conducted in accordance with published standards, did not accurately summarize results, and ignored toxic endpoints for rats fed Bt brinjal: in particular, rats fed Bt brinjal for 78 out of 90 days (only one dose level) experienced:

• organ and system damage: ovaries at half their normal weight, enlarged spleens with white blood cell counts at 35 to 40 percent higher than normal with elevated eosinophils, indicating immune function changes.

• toxic effects to the liver as demonstrated by elevated bilirubin and elevated plasma acetylcholinesterase.

Major health problems among test animals were ignored in these reports. The single test dose used was lower than recommended by the Indian protocols. Release of Bt brinjal for human consumption cannot be recommended given the current evidence of toxicity to rats in just 90 days and the studies' serious departures from normal scientific standards.

So, if this is the true state of affairs concerning the humble eggplant once it was unconventionally altered, what hope is there that Monsanto's virtual minion in all things genetically modified Food Standards Australia New Zealand will actually have conducted the following stated process?

FSANZ has not previously assessed a GM food crop with a consumer focused nutritional modification.
FSANZ will need to undertake a safety assessment of high scientific complexity and include a nutritional assessment, which is not normally required for GM crops expressing agronomic traits.
This Application is anticipated to involve an assessment of the risk to public health and safety of above average complexity.

Well might you ask because this is what FSANZ found and signed off on:

On the basis of the data provided in the present Application, and other available information, food derived from soybean MON87769 is as safe for human consumption as other commercially available soybean varieties.

Basically telling Australian consumers that a genetically modified enriched soybean food will be safe to eat because the patent-owner Monsanto says that this is so and, this say so probably doesn't involve any in-depth animal studies because FSANZ does not normally require this level of safety assessment.

Will you be feeding any form of soybean product to your children after May 2011?

Given the lax GM food labelling laws in Australia - would you even know if you were?

Is there "Something Rotten in the State of Windsor?"

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 17 January 2011:

The Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia's Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia is one strange entity.

Throwing process transparency to the wind, it is now selectively publishing copies of the 535 submissions received to date.

This is a snapshot example of what the list looked like on 17 January 2011 after the first 160 submissions:

So what is being hidden? Naive submissions of which there were already plenty in the first 160 received? A committee or secretariat in organizational disarray?
Or is it that the Chair just doesn't want the bulk of the over 300 unpublished submissions out in the public arena before the mainstream media reports on the public hearings and the Committee delivers its findings?

It goes without saying that such questions would not even come to mind if submissions had been published in the order in which these were received and not as this highly selective hotch potch.

Just who is it that Australia needs protecting from?

On 18 January 2011 yet another national political party has been registered by the Australian Electoral Commission.

This one is called the Australian Protectionist Party.

A small hint as to its world view can be found on the official website homepage at the moment, with headline grabbers like;
Media Admits that Nick Griffin Has Been Right all Along over Muslim Paedophile Gangs and Say no to a Caliphate in Australia, say no to Shari’a in Australia! A vigil against Hizb ut-Tahrir.

While a current poll asks Should we ban the building of Mosques in Australia? and yet another post trumpets Left-wing extremists declare war on our freedom of speech!

As a final example of the mindset one cannot go past its apparent support of Creationism being taught in Australian schools in this 19 March 2010 press release titled; Protectionists Condemn Government Intolerance.

The registered officer of this new political party is one Andrew Phillips, who according to a 2007 Destiny newsletter:

.....has had a long involvement in Australian politics, having been the Senate team leader for the One Nation Party in South Australia, and is now the National Chairman for the Australian Protectionist Party. This article is purely written in his capacity as an independent political commentator. For more of his independent political articles, see the South Australian site for the Australian Protectionist Party....

"Moggy Musings" [Archived Material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

A Christmas musing: Dear furry friends,
All the best for the festive season and the New Year. Please read the card I have for you at http://www.jacquielawson.com/preview.asp?cont=1&hdn=0&pv=3274601&path=98301
Cheers,
Your mate Rex
PS Go easy on the cherry cheer and fruit cake. I know from experience that it plays havoc with me, but I still cannot resist a bit of over-indulgence at this time of year.

A Rats in teh Ranks musing: My little canine friend, Veronica Lake, paid close attention when her humans were at the breakfast table this week and overhead them discussing the fact that someone in the Tweed had the hide to suggest to the Regional Australia Committee that east coast river water should be piped into the Murray-Darling Basin. Now the only east coast river currently under discussion is the Clarence River and Ronnie thinks the chappie has a hide seeing that the Clarence Valley stood with the Tweed and Richmond when they resisted their water being nicked a few years back. Ronnie said her mob were also sniggering at the sly mention being made of Charles Dean's love of dams in an email sent to the Committee.

A ponder musing: In the face of yet another parliamentary inquiry into water security, I wonder who it was that appears to have convinced one free local newspaper that the issue of Clarence River water diversion is just a media beat-up by a rival paper? Hmmmmm.......

A Which Bank? musing: There is one local who is frankly confused. His bank first sent him letter apologising for 'accidentally' sending his phone account details to a total stranger, then followed it with a letter asking him to destroy a letter never received which supposedly had contained someone else's account details. Finally it capped off it's strange banking behaviour by giving his name and number to a survey company so that it could conduct a survey on bank customers. Whatever happened to privacy?

A court house musing: Maclean moggies have been indulging in some catty muttering about the Grafton legal eagle who stubbornly brought a high profile on-going prosecution to a dead halt because he wanted to attend the Jacaranda Festival's Hazy Thursday and wasn't going to accommodate the court, briefs or defendants and their families who may have wished otherwise.

A they should be sacked musing: Rexie tells me that his petit ami Clouseau was saying that although he's endowed with ears that are close to the ground, sometimes the information picked up isn't fit for dogs' ears, let alone humans. In his recent travels around the Northern Rivers he heard that at a licensed sports club which has CCTV cameras a number of blokes (who are club members and/or visitors and perhaps even staff) have availed themselves of the club's camera facilities to observe at least one female member of staff getting changed in the women's rooms. Gee, those blokes are sick! sick! sick!

A bouquet musing: Rex the German Shepherd sent me this email about a very pleased neighbour............ A bouquet for HP (Hewlett-Packard - Australia) and its authorised repairer North Coast Information Technology in Ballina. A bloke I know created a bit of a problem for himself when he inflicted some minor damage on his HP notebook. With the notebook still under warranty, the bloke decided it was best to contact HP and obtain advice about how he should go about having the damage rectified. HP told him he'd need to have an HP authorised repairer do the job - the nearest repairers are in Ballina and Coffs Harbour - so he opted to take it to Ballina, thinking the job would cost him an arm and a leg. A couple of days later North Coast Information Technology rang the bloke and told him the notebook was repaired. The bloke asked how much the service would cost him. NCIT replied, "No charge, it wasn't a very difficult or time-consuming job to fix your notebook." Three cheers for NCIT! PS. NCIT staff members Colin, Jo and a technician, whose name escaped the bloke, are to be commended for their 5-star service.



Boy

Hey, Google! Give me back my ability to do a decent search or I walk

I only lost Google Search Engine’s Search Within Results option last week when using Internet Explorer – AND I WANT IT BACK NOW! It was more than annoying when Google decided to install Web History which automatically modified search results on a predictive basis thus limiting deliberately wide searches. It was simply awful coping with that intrusive low IQ Instant Search until I managed to permanently switch it off. However, the last straw was finding the search within option deleted by those increasingly highhanded geeks at Google Inc. Now looking about for a new search engine to be my ‘best friend’ in cyberspace.

Browned Off
Bangalow

* Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at gmail dot com to submit comment for consideration.

Senator Eric Abetz - the gift that just keeps on giving

This is an excerpt from an Australian Liberal Party Federal Senator Eric Abetz media release on 17 January 2011, in which he demonstrates that he is a serious history buff:

“To imply climate change is responsible for flooding is to deny the World’s history from Noah and beyond.”

Does this mean that when flood mitigation measures are inevitably discussed in the Senate later this year that Abetz might be recommending funding local government areas to build wooden arks for residents and ratepayers?

Image from Google Images

Reader Alert! Pistols, or perhaps handbags, at 10 paces at dawn

Two very seasoned correspondents who appear regularly (some might say, "too regularly") in The Daily Examiner's letters columns seem set for one almighty brawl. 

The correspondent from the lower end of the valley (the area that contributes vast amounts of $$$s to the coffers of the local council and helped bail out the cash-strapped upper valley council via a process of enforced amalgamation) has thrown a red flag in the face of the true-blue, conservative commentator from upstream.

Watch this space!

Abbott's 'flood' politics don't appear to be resonating with the general public

When a public figure like Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott tries to play politics in a rolling natural disaster; from his 'more dams' call, to cravenly trying to scare Queensland flood victims by falsely calling into doubt their basic eligibility for Centrelink's Disaster Recovery Payment and then following that with a reworking of his 'great big new tax' mantra with lines like Queenslanders should not be taxed to fund the rebuilding effort - then he too can find himself amongst the casualties:

Tables from the Essentail Report on 17 January 2011 don't indicate any great enthusiasm for Abbott. The survey was conducted online from 11 to 16 January 2011 at the height of east coast flooding and, after Abbott had given a number of interviews on the subject. It is based on 1,052 respondents.

Trust Joe Hockey to state the obvious in an attempt to point score

I rather think that Opposition shadow spokesperson on Treasury matters is beginning his 2011 push to pressure the Gillard Government concerning the Australian national budget’s bottom line, by using the January 2011 floods as his lever starting with these tweets on Saturday 15 January:

JoeHockey JoeHockey

......so watch for inflationary pressures as massive infrastructure and labour demands of rebuild kick in with higher commodity prices.

JoeHockey Joe Hockey

Prime cut meat currently $32 a kilo and producers in FNQ get $2.20 a kilo (undressed so say $4.40 equiv). Southern Aus. prices up to $3.20!

JoeHockey Joe Hockey

Watch commodity prices surge after floods. Not just coal etc but food and meat in particular. Road damage makes access to markets very tough

Emailers obviously don't know their audiences

Went to the mail box today and found amongst the assorted cattle-dogs and other junk mail one message that almost tugged my heart strings. It nearly had me convinced it was the real thing, but there was one dead-seat giveaway clue that meant it wasn't truly meant for me.

Read the e below and see if you can find the clanger.

From: Mrs. Barbara Bruno.

Dear Friend,

I am the above named person but now undergoing medical treatment.  I am married to Dr. William Bruno (Jnr) who worked with British Judicial Commission in Chelsea England for over a decade before he died on 5th of July in the year 2003. We were married for fifteen years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for two weeks.

When my late husband was alive he deposited a Huge sum of money with one Finance/Security Company now a Bank in London (United Kingdom). Presently, this money is still with the Bank. Recently, My Doctor told me that I would not last for the next 150 days due to cancer problem. Though what disturbs me most is my stroke. So, you know my predicament, I have decided to donate this fund to an individual or better still a God fearing person who will utilize this fund the way I am going to instruct here in. I want an individual that would provide succor to poor donate to orphanages, widows, and propagating peace in the universe.

I took this decision because I don’t have a Kin that would inherit the funds, My Late husband's relatives are not inclined to helping the less privileged and I do not want my late husband’s Estate misused. Thus, the reason for taking this bold decision, I’m not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Almighty.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the My late husband's Lawyer In London he would assist in re covering the funds from the Finance/Security Company . I would also issue you a letter of authority that will empower you as the original Benefactor of this fund. I want you to always pray for me.  Please assure me that you will act according to my specification herein, Write back soon.

Thank you and May the Almighty bless you.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Barbara Bruno.

barbrabrun@aol.com

 Yep, it was the "God fearing person" bit. Don't ya just hate it when spammers cannot get basic facts right!

And where was Tony?

TwitPic

And where was Tony Abbott? Oh, he was doing doorstops, filmed walkabouts and radio interviews playing at 'flood' politics.
Before that? Well he was doing the odd 'flood' interview while on holidays.
Definitely a talker not a doer when it doesn't involve wearing lycra or showing off the navel.

Jules tongue-in-cheek scores a Keneally bullseye

After a year of ignoring NSW North Coast invitations to inspect problems on the Pacific Highway, NSW Premier Krisitina Keneally quickly hops up by helicopter for a photo opportunity during the recent flooding, and...............the locals noticed!

The Daily Examiner political cartoon on 15 January 2011

Slightly stir-crazy in Yamba, January 2011

Locals are quietly smiling at the fact that Clarence Valley Council set up a road block just out of town.

Rumour has it that after endless rain then flood, tourists just wanted to go home - please!

Unfortunately they wanted to take the family cars and caravans though flood water coursing over a narrow river causeway which is one section of the only road which ties the village to the outside world.

Yamba Road is expected to be open today.

Photo from The Daily Examiner

Oh, Germaine! It can't be the tyranny of distance at work - you're just around the corner

A hat tip to Clarrie Rivers for sending this Germaine Greer quote concerning the Clarence Valley flooding in January 2011:

An eight-metre levee has kept the town of Grafton dry, though the Clarence river is in massive spate, but Yamba, further downstream has no levee and is under water.

Actually Germaine, Yamba stayed relatively dry even if flood waters had cut it off from the rest of the New South Wales North Coast.

That’s because it had stopped heavily raining in the catchment about 36 hours before the flood peak came past this little coastal town during a very low tide period on its way out to sea.

Germaine presumably was submitting her copy electronically to The Guardian U.K. from somewhere in Queensland and did not think to click onto the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website to double check her ‘facts’.

It is difficult to find an acceptable raison d'être for modern whaling by advanced nations

Minke whale image from Mad Black Cat

Japan is not the only nation which, despite not being protein poor, insists on clinging to annual whale hunts as a national ‘right’.

Iceland which resumed commercial whaling in 2006 also vigorously protects its hunts in the face of world-wide calls to desist.

How far removed this right to hunt is from any societal food need or commercial reality is seen in an extract from a 9 July 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable:

¶2. (SBU) Staff members of Hvalur, hf, which is the only company in Iceland with the capability to hunt large whales, told Emboff on July 3 that whaling is providing jobs for 150 to 200 people. However, they admitted they are keeping their fingers crossed that there is a market for the meat and said, otherwise "this is a doomed operation." Since minke meat is the only whale meat consumed and sold in Iceland, the fin meat must be exported to another market, such as Japan. In May, Greenpeace and a local environmental group held a press conference which featured a recorded conversation with the Japanese importer of the Icelandic whale meat who stated he would not be importing any meat from Iceland this year. In late June, the Japanese Charge d'Affaires told Emboff that he didn't believe there was a market for the fin meat in Japan.
¶3. (SBU) Charge d'Affaires met with the Minister of Fisheries on July 9 and strongly protested the renewed whaling, particularly the large number of fin whales hunted. CDA reiterated that whaling is an impediment to agricultural and fish exports to the U.S, particularly to environmentally conscious outlets like Whole Foods grocery store, and underscored the Japanese CDA's belief that there is no market for Icelandic whale in Japan. The Minister responded that this was a sovereignty issue and that Iceland is a coastal nation that is using all its marine resources sustainably. He noted his political party is generally against whaling and the government is redoing the country's whaling laws, which date from 1947. He
also said the government has tasked the University of Iceland Economic Institute to create a cost and benefits report on whaling, which the Minister expects to use to develop a new whaling policy at the end of this whaling season. Regarding the reported absence of a whale meat market overseas, the Minister said that marketing was a private commercial issue which did not concern the government.

In the 2009-2010 whaling season the Iceland Government was reputed to have allowed a total hunt quota of 200 minke whales and 150 fin whales.

In the same year Japan’s stockpile of unsold whale meat was thought to be more than 6,000 tonnes.

The Wall Street Journal on 14 January 2011:

Read the WikiLeaks cables with Japan mentions in regard to Iceland’s whale hunting policies here:

June 10, 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik

June 13, 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik

January 30, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik

June 10, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik

July 9, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik

September 24, 2009 cable from the U.S. Secretary of State

Google's visual aid to Australian January 2011 flooding

Google Australia Floods Map 16 January 2011 as flooding moves southwards

NSW's Show Pony made a rare visit to the north coast of NSW

Nice to see the Sydney media pick up on the selective visit Premier Kristina Keneally made to the NSW north coast.

Keneally cannot be bothered to take up a long standing invitation from north coast communities to travel the Pacific Highway and experience the deathtrap first hand , but she managed a flight there as quick as a wink for the flood. 

The Sun Herald's Heath Aston had this piece in his column Naked Eye.

Well done, local journo Terry Deefholts (The Daily Examiner)! 

Media Matters CEO Brock calls Palin out on her 'blood libel' counter attack

This is an interesting vid we thought NCV might run.



Anony-mice
Yamba

* Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at gmail dot com to submit comment for consideration.

The GMO lobby creates a LOL

So which contributor in the BIOfortified: stronger plants, stronger science and stronger communication online community was responsible for telling the world that the humble macadamia nut (eaten by indigenous Australians for thousands of years) is a relatively new food?

franknfoode Frank N. Foode

@HerbRealm How many years have Kiwifruit and Starfruit and Macadamias been trialled on humans to ensure their safety? (relatively new foods) 13 Jan

The joke gets better when we remember that 'Starfruit' is merely the commercial branding of a fruit cultivated and eaten for hundreds of years in Asia and, that 'Kiwi Fruit' is the marketing re-brand of a conventionally created cultivar of another ancient food.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Ethanol production link to modern slavery confirmed?

This is an extract from an August 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable 08SAOPAULO432 (coordinated with and cleared by the Embassy in Brasilia) speaking of forced labour and posted on Wikileaks this month:

1.(SBU) Brazil's high profile, high-tech ethanol industry has fallen under an international spotlight for alleged use of forced or slave labor to harvest sugarcane. The press focus on sugarcane has drawn attention away from other sectors which may be at higher risk for forced labor/slave exploitation (cattle ranching, charcoal production, the sex industry). Top NGO labor experts have stated that while isolated problems remain in the sugarcane industry, the situation is improving and these other industries should be of more concern. Singling out or over-emphasizing sugarcane could play into the hands of some in the GOB who allege that U.S. TIP policy is only a cover to attack Brazil's flagship ethanol industry (Ref B). Mission suggests a broad anti-TIP strategy that enlists the large, more advanced sugarcane producers as allies in the fight against forced labor. Our efforts should also emphasize that the USG commitment to TIP is global in scale and rooted in our commitment to human rights. End Summary. Sugar is (Again) King

2.(U) Brazil has been a sugar producer for centuries and the development of ethanol as a promising green fuel has lent new energy to this key industry. The country's contemporary sugar industry is worth $40 billion, or 2.35 percent of GDP. It directly employs 1.1 million people, and its prospects for growth are tremendous (Ref A). Understandably, Brazil's leaders take great pride in their country's world class status as a leader in green fuels production. The Evidence for Forced Labor/Slavery

3.(U) Reports of forced or slave labor in sugarcane harvesting have marred the image of Brazil's ethanol industry. In May, the State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report characterized forced labor on sugarcane plantations as a growing trend. Days later, Amnesty International echoed the TIP report's assessment. With Brazilian ethanol production for export on the rise, the issue has caught the attention of the international press, particularly in the U.S. and Europe (Ref A).