I can't eat a web site, Mr. Rudd

Last night on the evening news I heard that the Rudd Government was to set up a web site as its answer to rising grocery prices.
"Grocery Choice" it's going to call it and this site will give us all a snapshot of the monthly cost of an average basket of groceries across 61 regions.
Fat lot of good that will do us on the Northern Rivers.
Where I live there is only one, that's right one, retail grocery store and it can charge what it likes and serve up whatever dubious quality of goods it likes.
The idea of encouraging competition and instituting unit pricing is a real laugh - since the beginning of the year this Coles store has offered at premium prices rotten potatoes, peanuts in the shell infested with insects, packaged tomatoes with splitting skins and mould, spoiled apples and cheese well beyond its shelf life.
"Grocery Choice"? Silly, silly, silly.
I can't see how Labor's Chris Bowen kept a straight face when he fronted the cameras over this one.

North Coast Pensioner

Visual feast from the NSW North Coast region

Untitled

Penny Evans

Homage to Babel

James Guppy

Stars of Banyabba

Bevin Skinner

All works found at

Arts Northern Rivers

Lismore

My favourite website disclaimer

Disclaimer found at an Alaskan version of The Flat Earth Society, "Deprogramming the masses since 1547".

"The Flat Earth Society is not in any way responsible for the failure of the French to repel the Germans at the Maginot Line during WWII. Nor is the Flat Earth Society responsible for the recent yeti sightings outside the Vatican, or for the unfortunate enslavement of the Nabisco Inc. factory employees by a rogue hamster insurrectionist group. Furthermore, we are not responsible for the loss of one or more of the following, which may possibly occur as the result of exposing one's self to the dogmatic and dangerously subversive statements made within: life, limb, vision, Francois Mitterand, hearing, taste, smell, touch, thumb, Aunt Mildred, citizenship, spleen, bedrock, cloves, I Love Lucy reruns, toaster, pine derby racer, toy duck, antelope, horseradish, prosthetic ankle, double-cheeseburger, tin foil, limestone, watermelon-scented air freshner, sanity, paprika, German to Pig Latin dictionary, dish towel, pet Chihuahua, pogo stick, Golf Digest subscription, floor tile, upper torso or halibut.
Copyright © 1998 Flat Earth Society Inc. All rights reserved."

News on the 'real' Flat Earth Society found here and here.

US 08: when fat counts at the ballot box?

It seems that many political commentators are reduced to reading tealeaves at this early stage of a U.S. presidential race. One which will apparently be decided more on the basis of the voluntary turnout level at polling booths than it is by the stated preferences of current poll respondents.

Image from Cleveland.com

From The Hindu on Sunday

London (PTI): Barack Obama, who hopes to become the first Black-American President, may be ahead of Republican candidate John McCann in some opinion polls, but when it comes to figure, he is far behind. In fact, 'The Wall Street Journal' has indicated that Obama is too thin to win the White House as his slim physique could be a liability in a nation of mostly obese voters and it might also affect his presidential campaign.

To be specific, the report suggested that Obama might be too thin and too fit to appeal to voters who tend to like candidates with flaws that they can identify with, British newspaper 'The Sunday Times' reported.

The Kansas City Star points out

When I'm 64

John McCain holds a 10-point lead over Barack Obama among likely Florida voters who are older than 55 — 51 percent to Obama's 41 percent, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

The Star tells us

Just when you think you've got the presidential race figured out, something comes along to upend your carefully wrought conclusions.

Mainstream media provided lavish coverage of Barack Obama's trip abroad the week of July 21 and predicted he would get a bounce in the polls. Some of his supporters believe he has put the election away. Other observers employ the hackneyed and meaningless phrase, "it's his to lose."

The poll numbers tell a different and more nuanced story. The two national tracking polls showed Obama getting a bounce while he was in Europe, especially after his speech before 200,000 or so Berliners. Gallup showed him rising from a 46 per cent to 42 per cent lead over John McCain on July 22 to a 49-40 per cent lead on July 26. The Rasmussen tracking poll showed him rising from a 47 per cent to 45 per cent lead on July 23 (reflecting the previous days' polling) to 49-43 per cent on July 26.

But over the next several days, Obama bounced back down. Gallup showed him leading by a statistically insignificant 45 per cent to 44 per cent as of July 31. That's the closest the race had been in Gallup all that month. Rasmussen had him down to 48-46 per cent on the same day. The world tour bounce has begun to look like a bubble.

Yesterday The Associated Press reported

WASHINGTON (AP) — Intensified attacks by Republican John McCain on the character of his Democratic opponent have coincided with Barack Obama losing a nine percentage point advantage in a national poll, which showed the candidates running dead even over the weekend.

McCain, who had vowed to avoid the kind of negative tactics that were used against him in the 2000 Republican primary contest with George W. Bush, began attacking Obama during the Illinois senator's trip to Iraq and Afghanistan late last month.

In the course of the McCain offensive, Obama's lead in a Gallup Poll tracking survey slid from nine percentage points on July 26, when he returned from overseas, to nothing by Saturday, when the poll showed the candidates tied at 44 percent.

While KSWO 7 News lets us know

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A new poll found little support among Oklahoma voters for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
The Oklahoma Poll found that Republican John McCain has broad support in the state to lead Obama by 32%age points, 56% to 24%. Seventy-one percent of those questioned say they are firm in their decisions.
The poll, sponsored by the Tulsa World and television station KOTV, is a statewide survey of 750 likely voters that was conducted July 19-23. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3.58%age points.

2008 scenario for Aussie cartoonist heaven

Cartoonists' dream scenario:

Peter Costello, Leader of the Liberal Party and Loyal Opposition

Tony Abbott, Coalition Shadow Treasurer.

Oh, Bud.....

Pic found at The Official Abbott & Costello Website

Mungo MacCallum writing in Crikey yesterday penned a witty summation of Peter the Great's chances:

"If you believe everything you read, the Liberal Party is poised to forgive and forget 12 years of indolence, cowardice, arrogance and self-indulgence."

National Missing Persons Week 3-9 August 2008

National Missing Persons Week is an annual event held in the first week of August organised by the NMPCC.

The aim of the Week is to raise community awareness of the issues and impacts surrounding missing persons.
In 2008, the focus is on young people as a significant group at-risk of going missing. Out of the estimated 35,000 people who are reported missing each year, approximately 20,000 are under the age of 18.

If you are now living on the NSW North Coast and haven't let your family know you are safe and well, perhaps it's time to phone home or let them know anonymously.

This can be done through:

National Missing Persons Coordination Centre

PO Box 401

Canberra City ACT 2601
Ph: 1800 000 634 (toll free)

Fax: (02) 6246 2353

OR

Family Tracing Service

The Salvation Army

P O BOX A435,

Sydney South NSW 1232

Ph: (02) 9211 0277

How convenient for Senator Conroy; media is buying the Internet sky is falling story

Net blamed as 10,000 kids turn to crime screams an article in The Age on Sunday.
An unnamed Victorian Police source said it was so in that state and never mind that there was no evidence (nor could there be) supplied to support this claim, or that named sources did not think to mention this startling fact

If this dodgy claim had any veracity it should be reflected in similar crime statistics from other states.

This would be especially true of New South Wales, which has roughly the same percentage of children under 15 years as Victoria but accounts for around 33% of all Australian internet connections .

Those NSW figures for the first quarter 2008 clearly indicate that there is not an increasing horde of juveniles turning to crime.

Over the last five years the recorded rate of juvenile involvement in crime fell in six major categories, rose in two and remained stable in the other nine.

Offence Trend Average annual percentage change
DV related assault Up 5.1%
Break and enter non-dwelling Down -5.0%
Motor vehicle theft Down -7.1%
Steal from motor vehicle Down -4.2%
Steal from retail store Down -4.1%
Steal from dwelling Down -5.1%
Steal from person Down -10.8%
Malicious damage to property Up 5.7%

Ever since the Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, announced that he was proceeding with his national ISP filtering scheme, despite the obvious technical drawbacks and censorship overtones [Full report PDF], I have been waiting for the first media story ploughing the ground ahead of the ultra-conservative senator's next move.

I suspect that The Age article will be the first of many. Most pushing the spurious claim that Conroy's censorship is all about 'protecting' the children.