Blogger SNAFU affecting us here at North Coast Voices

From: Blogger Employee

Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 17:45:25 -0700 (PDT)

Local: Sat, Aug 2 2008 10:45 am

Subject: Today's False Positives

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Hey folks,

As everyone is aware, we miscategorized some blogs as spam and have
inconvenienced an unfortunate number of users. We assure you that no
data is lost, and that we will restore these blogs very shortly.

We appreciate all of your patience and once again apologize for the
trouble.

Thanks,

Gatsby
The Blogger Team

http://buzz.blogger.com/2008/08/spam-fridays.html

North Coast Voices apologizes to anyone who finds that Internet Explorer will either not open this blog or is closing it within seconds.

As you can see this situation is outside of our control.

It's not me McCain is after, it's you! says Obama

Yesterday's AEST 8.35 am email The Low Road from Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, which uses a rather clever ploy concerning exactly who is the intended target of the latest McCain campaign advertisements.

A few hours ago John McCain, the same man who just months ago promised to run a "respectful campaign," said he is "proud" of his latest attack ad.

That's the one attacking your enthusiasm, comparing me to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and making false claims about my energy plan.

Now, we're facing some serious challenges in this country -- our economy is struggling, energy costs are skyrocketing, and families don't have health care.

Given the seriousness of these issues, you'd think we'd be having a serious debate. But instead, John McCain is running an expensive, negative campaign against us. Each day brings a desperate new set of attacks.

And they're not just attacking me. They're attacking you.

They're mocking the desire of millions of Americans to step up and take ownership of the political process.

They're trying to convince you that your enthusiasm won't amount to anything -- that the people you persuade, the phone calls you make, the donations you give, the doors you knock on are all an illusion. They believe that in this election the same old smears and negative attacks will prevail again.

They're wrong.

And right now, we have a few hours left to prove them wrong in a very concrete way.

Make a donation of $5 or more before the July fundraising deadline at midnight tonight.

Show the strength of our movement for change.

Thank you,

Barack

Quote of the Week or how a U.K. climate change sceptic sees Our Malcolm Bligh

This week, Gerald Jackson, in The Market Oracle out of the U.K. is somewhat disenchanted with the cost and efficiency of 'eco-friendly' light bulbs.

"However, this fact didn't faze Malcolm Turnbull , one of the economic illiterates responsible for the policy of banning incandescent light bulbs."

Ger it seems is not afraid to say what many suspect - Malcolm Turnbull is a lightweight.
Something the electorate might also agree with about now, as the latest Newspoll had voters only giving Turnbull a 24% heads up as prospective Liberal Party leader.

dark matter

I was watching a T.V. program about the cosmos.

It seems that for Newton's laws of gravity to work on the galaxy or universe scale there has to be a lot more matter and energy than we can currently account for.

So the idea of dark energy and dark matter has been developed to explain the difference between what we can see and what the laws of gravity need to work on this scale.

The problem with this theory is that no one has been able to find all this new dark energy and matter.

This worried me, so I sat down and wrote this poor excuse of a poem:

The cosmos does not weigh enough

So the wisdom goes

The stars that twinkle in the night

To light, to light

Cry the people here below.

A theory made to fit the scheme

To balance out the din

How many dark energy angels

Can dance on the head of

A dark matter pin.

In this same program it was stated that the laws of gravity do not work in the very small quantum level, so being a dumb farmer this started me thinking that the very small level could be first gear, the solar system scale is the second gear in Newton's gravity laws and third gear at the galaxy level.

It seems to make more sense than a dark matter/ energy theory whose stuff can not be found.

Kevin on Earth begins to show some cracks

The latest Newspoll in The Australian on How we see our leaders [31 July 2007] demonstrates that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has the beginnings of an image problem.

The percentage of those Australians interviewed who thought Kevin Rudd arrogant rose from 34% in November 2007, to 33% in February-March this year and presently sits at 43%.

Brendan Nelson on the other hand fell in the arrogance stakes from 48% in February-March 2008 to 42% currently.

The Prime Minister also faded somewhat across all the survey categories , particularly when it came to perceptions of the degree to which he was 'in touch with voters'.
There Rudd dropped 13 percentage points this year.

Perhaps his initial love affair with popularist politics and those almost daily media announcements of 'grand ideas' were more than passing mistakes from which he could recover easily.
Credibility does just not rise up out of the ballot box, it is something that is hard earned in the weeks and months that follow electoral success.

Link to poll here.

Splendour in the Grass - 2008 winning artist

Splendour in the Grass Emerging Artist Grant.

The $5,000 Emerging Artist Grant is for artists living in the Northern Rivers region. It is not restricted to any specific artform but the work must retain a presence within a large audience, function day and night and strongly respond to the music festival and site.
Eligible artists must reside in the Northern Rivers and be practising for less than 7years.

The 2008 winner is Anna Parsons.

Photograph of her winning piece is from Lismore Regional Art Gallery website.

Australian Foreign Minister chides China over internet censorship - talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

According to ABC News yesterday, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is hot under the collar about the International Olympic Committee agreeing to allow China to impose certain website restrictions on access to the Internet by the international media during the Beijing Games.

What was that again, Stevo? Open internet good, restricted access bad.
Thought that was what you were muttering.

Well this view of China and internet access doesn't exactly jibe with the fact that the Australian Federal Government has installed Websense filters on almost every parliamentary PC it can get its hands on and senators have had trouble researching political and social issues.

It certainly doesn't sit easily with the fact that four days ago that other Stephen, one Senator Conroy, was reported in The Australian on the progress of his national ISP filtering scheme:

"THE Federal Government will embark on the next step of its internet filtering strategy after initial trials proved successful, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said.
Senator Conroy today released the findings of a recently concluded ISP-level internet filtering trial conducted in Tasmania by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in a closed environment.----
Senator Conroy said the tests proved that the web filtering technology could be expanded to a wider base. "The next step is to test filter technologies in a real-world environment with a number of ISPs and internet users."
An expression of interest seeking participation in the live pilot will be announced shortly."

Come on, Stevo. Say it again for the laughs - open internet good, restricted access bad!