Climate change predicted to dominate Australian economic outlook in 2008

Business Spectator predicts that "Climate change is expected to be the big issue for 2008, dominating public consciousness, affecting company strategies and influencing other issues such as development of alternative energy sources."

 

According to Craig James, chief equities economist at CommSec, other big economic issues are thought to be:

* Inflation/unemployment trade-off

* Agflation

* Aginvestment

* Industry consolidation

* Nuclear energy

* Global labour shortages

* La Nina

* Hilary Clinton

* Recession

 

Business Spectator full article yesterday:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Economic-outlook-2008--climate-change-will-dominat-A9VFT?OpenDocument

It's the year 2008: one European city-state and one Antipodean nation are regressing

According to The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, the Vatican announced this week that it will be training hundreds of new exorcists world-wide, because the young are being exposed to Satanism through the media, rock music and the internet.
And I thought all those devil vibes were coming out of the Bush Administration and the Pentagon!
It seems that Cardinal Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVl cannot decide which century he is actually residing in.
Perhaps it's time for a few good, level-headed Aussie members of his flock to remind His Holiness that it is now 2008.

Meanwhile, according to ABC News on the same day, the new Federal Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy told Australia that all internet connections will soon be subject to mandatory ISP filtering in order to shield the young from violence and pornography.
Leaving us all to wonder exactly how much online news and current affairs will make it past this enthusiastic censor, if such 'filtering' causes regional download speed to decrease even more than the current snailpace or if the mooted opt-out function does not reliably work.
Has Senator Conroy been speaking with his Pope?

Rudd's deeds speak volumes

Mungo McCallum writing in The Byron Echo (January 1, 2008) has a telling yarn about the character of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

 

McCallum wrote, in part: 

"The most interesting political story of the holiday break came not from the news pages, where the election and its aftermath had finally succumbed to the demands of sport, but from the letters column of the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Last week a social worker from St Johns Church in Canberra revealed that on the morning of Boxing Day the Prime Minister, unannounced and accompanied only by a security guard, had arrived to help serve breakfast to the homeless of the national capital, of whom there are rather more than is generally supposed. Kevin Rudd talked to both workers and clients at some length, and then announced as the most serious of his new year resolutions his intention to do something about the plight of the homeless. 

A cynic commented that this would all have been more convincing if he had been engaged in similar activities before becoming Prime Minister – but he had. During the hectic campaign, after the exhausted media retired for the weekend, Rudd regularly visited homeless centres in whichever city he found himself. 

As with St Johns the visits took place without any kind of publicity, and the fact that they had taken place only came out after polling day. They were acts of private charity and compassion which some observers have clearly found surprising and disconcerting in a man who has been seen as a ruthlessly efficient and single minded politician." 

To read more about this go to http://www.echo.net.au/archives/22_29/pdf/p10.pdf

Comment: Former PM Howard had neither the guts nor the common decency to do anything such as this during his 11+ years in the post. What more needs to be said, other than good riddance to bad rubbish.

Want a New Year's resolution that you can keep?

Here's one New Year's resolution that will be relatively easy to keep - reduce the amount of palm oil which comes into the house in products you buy.
Palm oil plantations are expanding to Australia's north and causing rapid deforestation with loss of habitiat for the endangered Orangutan.

According to the Palm Oil Action Group at http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/

"Only 3 vegetable oils must be labelled in food products in Australia and New Zealand. Those are peanut oil, sesame oil and soy bean oil. The reason for this is that a percentage of the population suffers allergies to these oils.
All other vegetable oils can be labelled as vegetable oil. However the label must declare the amount of saturated fat in the product. So if the label states vegetable oil and then goes on to state the amount of saturated fat you can count on that vegetable oil being either palm kernel oil, palm oil or coconut oil. This is a way of potentially identifying if a product has palm oil in it as other vegetable oils are not saturated. This is for Australia and New Zealand only. Labelling may be different in other countries.
Also if palm oil is used in cosmetics it must be labelled. No exceptions. However it is usually not labelled as Palm oil. It is labelled as Elaeis guineensis This is the name given to palm oil by the International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredients. (INCI). Misleading labels on cosmetics can lead to action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Association.
So if you want to avoid buying palm oil, when buying food look for the label stating it is vegetable oil. Then look for saturated fat. If only vegetable oil (no animal fat listed) is used and there is saturated fat in the product - you are buying palm kernel oil, palm oil or coconut oil, most probably palm.
"above information provided by primates4primates quoting Australian Government sources"

The image above shows some products this site identifies as containing palm oil. Not forgetting takeaway foods like KFC fried chicken and most soaps.

Ending the year as it began

Popped across to A Clarence Valley Protest a few moments ago and saw this post.

It seems the NSW North coast may be ending the year in much the same way as it began.

Monday, 31 December 2007

Here they come again?

On the last day of 2007 it appears that the National Water Commission wants to blame everyone, but itself and its former political masters, for the continuing lack of an adequate response to long-term drought.
Unfortunately this also means that the Commission is obliquely taking aim at the NSW Northern Rivers region once more.
It seems that damming coastal rivers, such as the Clarence River or one of its tributaries, is still on the minds of both water barons and bureaucrats.

"Mr Matthews also criticised governments for failing to charge the full cost of water supply, and for implementing "policy bans" - positions taken for political reasons, such as the government stance on desalination plants, dams and other infrastructure.
"It is really important that they should all be on the table, they should go through a process of analysis, logic and evidence," he said.
"To have a policy ban at the outset is, in my view, indefensible."
See link:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22988794-643,00.html

The Rudd Government and local Labor MPs Janelle Saffin and Justine Elliot need to remember that the Clarence Valley voted them in on the back of an unequivocal assurance that a Labor federal government would not seek or endorse water diversion from the Clarence River catchment area."

From http://aclarencevalleyprotest.blogspot.com

 

 

Kevin Rudd will never be a true believer

Kevin Rudd is not one of the true believers of old. Like most modern Labor politicians he is merely a man in a tailored suit following his chosen career path.

However, this same man attained government on a proud Labor history and political pragmatism does not remove him from a place within this history or absolve him from honouring the expectations which voted his party into power.

Therefore in 2008 the Rudd Government needs to remove all Australian military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan. No half measures are acceptable.

Australia broke international law when it marched into both countries and relies on legal fiction to keep troops there.

Just because Iraq and Afghanistan were barely mentioned in the 2007 federal election campaign doesn't give the Rudd Government a mandate to continue war crimes initiated by the Howard 

Government as part of the Coalition of the Willing.

In case you didn't notice, Kevin - people on the NSW North Coast stood on beaches and in fields to literally spell out their opposition to Howard's warmongering.

From the day the Rudd Government was sworn into office it became responsible for every Australian death caused by unrest and fighting in these two countries. The fault now lies with it for every Iraqi and Afghani civilian death.     

Under Brendan Nelson the Libs continue to cloak themselves with hypocrisy

"Whilst it is understandable that Mr Hicks thanked those who helped secure his release, the rest of the country will expect nothing less than an unqualified apology for his self-confessed material support for terrorism," the opposition leader said."

The Sydney Morning Herald article on Saturday:
 http://news.smh.com.au/hicks-needs-to-apologise-nelson/20071229-1jfs.html

 

The rest of the country will expect an unqualified apology? Myself, I'll accept the thankyou from Mr. Hicks.

The apology I expect is one from members of the former Howard Government for their complicity in the US rendition program and treatment of all Guantanamo Bay detainees.

 

If you're not too busy revising history Mr. Nelson, I'd like that apology now.