Monday 28 May 2012
Scoop Teh Northern Territory News Missed!
Sunday 27 May 2012
The Thomson Saga: Just how unlucky can a person be?
83526612 ORG INTERNATIONAL IMMOBILIARE PTY. LIMITED. |
106620900 ORG INTERNATIONAL IMMOBILIARE PTY LTD |
146891778 ORG INTERNATIONAL IMMOBILIARE PTY LIMITED |
118001415 ORG INTERNATIONAL IMMOBILIARI (AUSTRALIA) PTY LIMITED |
The first company on the list was under a court-ordered liquidation which commenced in 2001 and was eventually deregistered on 1 October 2003.
At the same time one might characterize a journalist who found credit card documents pertaining to a long-defunct company strewn across his investigative path - records which at least two police investigations and a Fair Work Australia investigation apparently failed to find - as nothing less than an incredibily fortunate member of the Fourth Estate.
Indeed Lady Luck has been staggering across the public square in such a way as to make one suspect that she is more than a little inebriated.
However, not quite as inebriated as Channel Nine's A Current Affair which appears to be relying on the memory of a former sex worker, who allegedly met a union official once seven years ago (before he lost weight, his hair went gray and that bald patch developed) and was willing to indentify him this year from a photograph - in exchange for an undisclosed payment.
** The former owner of this escort agency apparently now resides near Mission Beach in New Zealand where he is still finding his way into the news and the New Zealand woman interviewed by A Current Affair is believed to be living in Cabarita Beach area on the NSW North Coast.
NEWS FLASH: CSG miners have HUGE bladders?
Saturday 26 May 2012
Baselines tell the real story on NSW main greenhouse gas emissions
- Emissions from energy grew by 1.7%, or 34,000 tonnes, with an increase in the use of coal-fired generation more than offsetting decreased use of gas and petroleum.
- Emissions from coal-fired generation, which accounted for 91% of electricity generation, grew by 4.6% or 48,000 tonnes.
- Emissions from gas fell by 4.3%, or 9,000 tonnes.
- Emissions from petroleum fell by 0.8% or 6,000 tonnes.
- Electricity demand grew by 2.3%.
- NSW met 10% of its electricity demand with imports from other states, compared with 9.0% the previous week.
- This week’s indicator is 12% lower than the same week in 2011.
- Total emissions to this stage of 2012 were 6.7% lower than at a similar stage last year.
- 1990: 22% above
- 2000: 4.5% above
Growing dirt pile is getting closer to NSW O'Farrell Government Resources and Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher - Part Three
It would appear that the Ashby virus is spreading……………….
The Sydney Morning Herald 19 May 2012:
POLICE are investigating a claim Senator Bill Heffernan assaulted an employee of Chris Hartcher, the NSW Energy Minister, in an alleged homophobic attack at a fractious Liberal Party meeting on the central coast.
Ray Carter, 67, has accused Senator Heffernan of assaulting him and, according to sources, vilifying him over his sexuality at a gathering of party members in the federal electorate of Robertson.
Senator Heffernan was acting as an emissary of Tony Abbott at the Breakers Country Club at Wamberal on May 3. A Liberal source said the pair had been seen to physically clash on two occasions during the evening and also alleged that Senator Heffernan had aimed ''homophobic slurs'' at Mr Carter. In a statutory declaration, Mr Carter alleges Senator Heffernan hit him on his shoulder, causing him to fall into his seat, and later saying to him: ''I didn't know you were a poofter.''……..
Mr Carter, who has been suspended from Mr Hartcher's electorate office over a donation scandal, waited nearly a fortnight to report the allegation to Gosford police.
Part One here.
Friday 25 May 2012
Yet another Craig in hot water on the Hill
Fractured Political Fairy Tales: Once upon a time in Clarence.............
Thursday 24 May 2012
Daily Examiner's leading opinion piece contains errors of fact
Without commenting on the merit or otherwise of the damages claims a number of persons have launched against the State of NSW in relation to the so-called 2010 Valentines Day Yamba riot, it needs to be pointed out that the local newspaper, The Daily Examiner, has started things off rather poorly with an opinion piece in today's paper. Written by Tim Howard, the piece contains errors that should be corrected.
According to Howard, the criminal trials were conducted "last year".
Wrong - the trials commenced in 2010 and concluded in 2011.
Also, according to Howard, the trials involved "a judge and his associate, the police prosecutors, eight barristers and two solicitors".
Again, wrong - the trials were conducted in the local court before a magistrate who did not have assistance of an associate. The adult defendants were represented directly by seven barristers and three solicitors. A fourth solicitor appeared as an instructing solicitor for two of the barristers.
Elsewhere in today's paper, Howard has a piece "Damages claims over riot arrests" where he wrote:
"Coffs Clarence patrol commander Superintendent Mark Holahan said he was aware a number of people were taking action against the police force.
He said, as the matters were the subject of legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate for him to comment on them.
He said court was the best place for these matters to be dealt with."
Perhaps Howard should take the Superintendent's advice. Otherwise, Howard and the paper may have to answer to a case or two of their own.
Growing dirt pile is getting closer to NSW O'Farrell Government Resources and Energy Minister, Chris Hartcher - Part Two
Mr CHRIS HARTCHER: I seek to give a supplementary answer to a question I was asked earlier. My chief of staff, Andrew Humpherson, worked in his own consultancy business for seven months up to March of 2011. His website has been dormant and was not switched off due to an administrative oversight. He transferred his mobile phone number when he commenced as my chief of staff. His LinkedIn profile confirms that his government relations business discontinued in March 2011.
** Rather interestingly, Prattenmoore Pty Ltd with its registered office listed in Chatwood NSW is elsewhere described as an investment company. Waratah Advisory appears to be one of the business names under which this company operates.
The Tony-Abbott-Andrew Bolt-Alan Jones Army out in force? WARNING: Coarse and explicit language
U.S. Presidential Election 2012: Down and dirty in Romneyville
Although Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is publicly disavowing the 'battle plan' of the GOP-aligned super PAC, one gets the general impression that this tactic to smear Obama during the Carolina Democratic Convention being held 3-7 September 2012 falls well within the campaign strategy of the Romney camp.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Down Under: Yes, we are causing our own climate change
ScienceDaily (May 17, 2012) — In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists have used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the last 1000 years….
Lead researcher, Dr Joelle Gergis from the University of Melbourne said the results show that there are no other warm periods in the last 1000 years that match the warming experienced in Australasia since 1950.
"Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1000 year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region," she said…..
American Meteorological Society Journal of Climate 2012 ; e-View:
Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium
JoĂ«lle Gergis,1 Raphael Neukom,1 Steven J. Phipps,2,3 Ailie J. E. Gallant,1 David J. Karoly,1 and PAGES Aus2K Project Members†
1 School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia
2 Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
3 ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
This study presents the first multi-proxy warm season (September-February) temperature reconstruction for the combined land and oceanic region of Australasia (0°S-50°S, 110°E-180°E). We perform a 3000-member ensemble Principal Component Reconstruction (PCR) using 27 temperature proxies from the region. The proxy network explained 69% of the inter-annual variance in the HadCRUT3v SONDJF spatial mean temperature over the 1921-1990 calibration period. Applying eight stringent reconstruction 'reliability' metrics identified post A.D. 1430 as the highest quality section of the reconstruction, but also revealed a skilful reconstruction is possible over the full A.D. 1000-2001 period.
The average reconstructed temperature anomaly in Australasia during A.D. 1238-1267, the warmest 30-year pre-instrumental period, is 0.09°C (±0.19°C) below 1961-1990 levels. Following peak pre-industrial warmth, a cooling trend culminates in a temperature anomaly of 0.44°C (±0.18°C) below 1961-1990 levels between A.D. 1830-1859. A preliminary assessment of the roles of solar, volcanic, and anthropogenic forcings and natural ocean-atmosphere variability is performed using CSIRO Mk3L model simulations and independent palaeoclimate records. Solar and volcanic forcing does not have a marked influence on reconstructed Australasian temperature variations, which appear to be masked by internal variability.
In 94.5% of the 3000-member reconstruction ensemble, there are no other warm periods in the past 1,000 years that match or exceed post-1950 warming observed in Australasia. The unusual 20th century warming cannot be explained by natural variability alone, suggesting a strong influence of anthropogenic forcing in the Australasian region
† Aus2K project member data and other contributions from Kathryn Allen, Patrick Baker, Gretel Boswijk, Brendan Buckley, Matthew Brookhouse, Edward Cook, Louise Cullen, Mark Curran, Rosanne D'Arrigo, Pavla Fenwick, Anthony Fowler, Ian Goodwin, Pauline Grierson, Erica Hendy, Braddock Linsley, Janice Lough, Andrew Lorrey, Helen McGregor, Andrew Moy, Jonathan Palmer, Christopher Plummer, Chris Turney, Tessa Vance, Tas Van Ommen and Limin Xiong.
Corresponding author: Dr Joëlle Gergis, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, AUSTRALIA. Email: jgergis@unimelb.edu.au
20.500 ways to feel the Earth move
This diagram shows an edge-on view of our solar system. The dots represent a snapshot of the population of NEAs and PHAs that scientists think are likely to exist based on the NEOWISE survey. Positions of a simulated population of PHAs on a typical day are shown in bright orange, and the simulated NEAs are blue. Earth's orbit is green.
The diagram shows that the orbits of the PHAs tend to be more closely aligned with the plane of our solar system, or less tilted above and below the plane, than the NEAs. This characteristic of PHAs was known before the NEOWISE survey. Now, NEOWISE has found the PHAs to be about twice as likely to have these "lower-inclination" orbits than previously thought.
To make these estimates, the NEOWISE project observed a small portion of the total PHA and NEA populations. The survey not only looked at the objects' orbits but also their total numbers and physical properties such as size. The latest results provide the best count yet of the total PHA population, finding about 4,700 plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). These numbers are in loose agreement with prior, rougher predictions. The NEOWISE team estimates that about 20 to 30 percent of the PHAs thought to exist have actually been discovered to date.
In an earlier study, NEOWISE estimated that there are about 20,500 near-Earth asteroids larger than 330 feet, fewer than previous estimates.
NEOWISE is the asteroid-hunting portion of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, mission, which scanned the entire sky twice in infrared light before entering hibernation mode in 2011.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Was Bronwyn having another bad hair day yesterday?
Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar) (18:49): ... I have had conversations with people who had abided by the previous scheme and kept their receipts and claimed them. They actually got more money back than they will get out of the cash splash, which the government has dressed up as an education bonus but requires no evidence of being spent on education at all.
Bishop was referring to the SchoolKids Bonus and what she failed to do was tell the whole story.
In a previous post clarencegirl pointed out:
"the federal government website states; The Education Tax Refund provides up to 50% back on a range of children's education expenses.
Seems Ms Bishop was speaking with well-heeled constituents who are going to miss out on the bonus because ... are you ready for the truth? ... they don't qualify for it. And why don't they qualify for it? Their earnings are such that won't get it because they don't need it.
Really, what Bishop was doing was speaking to prop up middle class welfare spending that should be given the drop-kick more often.
When political spin turns to reputation shred
Kelly O’Dwyer and Senator Abetz started their spin cycle early. Kelly tweeted this with the caption “A picture paints a thousand words”.
@KellyODwyer: A picture says a thousand words twitpic.com/9m6no4 (pic below)
Terrible isn’t it? On the surface it looks like another small business struggling in the patchwork economy. Another black mark for the government?
Kelly went on to tweet more “detail” to this picture.
@KellyODwyer: Business downsizes from 2 shops to 1. reduces staff from 3 to 0. Owner unhappy with Gillard Gov policy IR, Super and Carbon Tax
Well thankfully a little check of a website by one @greenj revealed a little different picture. And it seems Kelly has been a little negligent with the truth.
http://allpress-antiques.com.au/documents/2031-Shop2
Shop2
Please click on any of the photos below to see all of the stock in Shop2Recently my original showroom, three doors down (1425 Malvern Road), became available again and as I hold the lease I’ve stocked it until relet.
Over the last four years I’ve been wanting to open another shop but not in Malvern as the mix of industrial, retro, glass and unusual items doesn’t quite fit this area.
I have called it Shop2 and will until further notice.
Shop2 is closing down as most stock is sold and now subletting, so having a clearance sale!
“Over the last four years I’ve been wanting to open another shop but not in Malvern as the mix of industrial, retro, glass and unusual items doesn’t quite fit this area“. That’s what he said. Nothing about the carbon tax, IR policy, or Super. More about location, location, location!Yeah that’s right! The shop is not ‘closing’ down, but having a clearance sale because business has been so good, they have run out of stock!
Thank you Julia!
And yes Kelly. A picture really does say a thousand words. A thousand words for fake come to mind.