A bloke's gonna be sorry he said that

A link to last week's media release from Monsanto Australia was sent to me the other day.

In it this daft farmer from Borowa, Geoff Mason is quoted at length, in fact the entire release is all about Geoff and his luuurv for GM corn.

"It's stems are as strong as tree trunks. I'm impressed with the way it stands up. It'd take a cyclone to blow it down."

Yeah mate, and out Borowa way the flyers are so big that a horse and rider will travel 3 days before getting back out of that pouch they accidentally rode into.

Pic comes from Wikimedia.

New Windows Error Message # 24-12

The lowdown on federal public service job satisfaction

From PS News, Edition Number 107. Updated to Wednesday, 3 December 2008 :

PSsssst...!

Numbers game
Statistics galore have been released this week dissecting the size, attitudes, preferences and personnel in the Federal Public Service with the annual (and thick) 'State of the Service' Report issued by the Commissioner.
Packed with unbeatable information about who's been doing what, where, when and with whom in the past 12 months, the unfortunately acronymed SOTS report also divulged what federal employees really think about their jobs, bosses, workplaces and profession.
And, to some extent, the news is all good!
77% said they had a satisfying job; 71% were proud of their Agency; 65% would recommend it as a good place to work; 45% thought they were well managed and two-thirds said they had a achieved a good work-life balance.
On the other hand the news could be seen to be less rosy.
Looked at another way those same stats tell us that 23% thought their job wasn't really that satisfying; 29% weren't particularly proud of their Agency; 35% wouldn't recommend it as good place to work; 55% thought they weren't being managed well and a third hadn't quite struck a good work-life balance.
What is they say about statistics again?

Who's who and who's moving in the NSW PS

Where's the Murray-Darling, climate change, coastal erosion, water shortages, renewable energy?

This is Media Monitors for 3 December:

The following graphs show the top five domestic, international, business, sports and talkback stories for the week. They count the number of times a story has been mentioned across print, radio and television.

Domestic













Are we all really that shallow? Why does a new film knock major climate change and water issues off the top of the national debate for an entire week?
No wonder the Rudd Government thinks that it can tread water on announcing firm greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to advance the carbon credit scheme.

It's good news week

Over at Pollytics Possum Comitatus takes a squiz at population, age and two party preferred polling at the 2007 federal election:

"The patterns here are interesting – for seats that received a swing that was smaller in size than the average of 5.4% (which happened to be a majority of seats, as it was a chunk of seats with large swings that drove the average up), the percentage growth in the size of the 65 yr and older population in those seats was, on average close to the national average of the 65+ growth, which was 2.7%
However, in the seats where the swings to the ALP were greater than 5.4%, the percentage growth in the 65+ population increased above the national average as the ALP swing increased beyond its national average.
That black regression line tells the story – it tracks the national average in the growth of the 65+ age cohort until it hits the ALP swing average, than grows substantially as the ALP swing grows..
Further food for thought is that the people that moved into the 65+ demographic aren’t even baby boomers – it will only continue to get worse for the Coalition."

Has Julie Bishop reached her use-by date?

There has been much speculation in the media this week about whether Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Julie Bishop, is about to lose her position.
I'm just surprised that it has taken this long before talk surfaced.

After all, in the boys club atmosphere of the Liberal Party of Australia, her elevation to deputy leader was more a case of PR value in 'matching' Labor's move to place a woman as deputy prime minister.
Such PR always has a use-by date.

Ms. Bishop is no Hillary Clinton. She was never a serious contender for leader, so the jockeying for her second-in-command seat is perhaps beginning in earnest.

Northern Rivers message to Della Bosca - no cuts, no way!

In The Daily Examiner last Monday:

Health protest rallies, such as this one at Market Square in Grafton, were staged throughout the North Coast on the weekend.
On a steamy, hot Saturday afternoon people came out in their hundreds to deliver a clear and unequivocal message to the Rees Labor Government cuts to health services will not be tolerated.
Scores of people, most of whom would never have protested against anything in their lives, braved the conditions to get their message to government.
Grafton doctor Hugh Calvey, who stressed he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a contractor to the North Coast Area Health Service, said there was a clear reality if the Government proceeded with plans to strip 30 jobs from the Grafton Base Hospital and seven from Maclean and that would be a cut to services.
"The reality is that we would lose nursing staff and if that happens you have to shut something," he said.
"We need all the facilities we have got. Whatever they decide to shut will affect you.
"It is a very serious crisis. The immediate effect would be disastrous; the knock-on effect worse."
Rally organiser and Member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, said the North Coast Area Health Service had been underfunded for a number of years.
"The funding (resource distribution) formula has been ignored for a number of years," he said.
He said the region had missed out on $70 million a year.
"You can understand why the health service is struggling," he said....

Speakers called on residents to write personal letters to the Premier Nathan Rees the premier@www.nsw.gov.au, Health Minister John Della Bosca office@smos.nsw.gov.au, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd via www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm and Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au.

Photos from The Daily Examiner and The Northern Star