Sunday 21 December 2008
The former candidate objects!
At least one failed local candidate for political office also has a personal list of 'unwanted content', if a comment recently posted on North Coast Voices is any indication.
It's seemingly quite alright to keep a 'sanitised' campaign website alive long after the event and cheerfully link a current blogger profile to that site, but having another's legitimate political opinion still posted for the world to see apparently goes against the grain for one who obviously would rather forget a foray into the political arena earlier this year.
I wonder if newspapers were also asked to remove any mention of the candidate from online articles commenting on that local government election campaign? I suspect not.
After all - that would be changing the Clarence Valley historical record.
A record of which North Coast Voices is now part, along with a number of other blogs, bloggers and letters to the editor correspondents.
Scheduled posts during Australian national Internet censorship trial 24 December 2008 onwards
Predictably the Minister's office refuses to clarify his recent obtuse remarks about a new 'closed' trial without customer involvement.
However, it now appears that the 'live' trial is to go ahead based on the existing ACMA black list and a further 'closed' trial will be conducted using a vastly expanded dummy list to test performance levels.
In an effort to keep online we have pre-scheduled a number of posts for the festive season.
Please pop in to see how we are faring and leave a comment or two.
Cha ghéill sinn!
As the world turns.......
A Vivid View
More than four centuries after the brilliant star explosion witnessed by Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of the era, NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space observatories and the Calar Alto observatory in Spain captured this image of the supernova remnant. This composite image combines infrared and X-ray observations. The explosion left a blazing hot cloud of expanding debris (green and yellow). The location of the blast's outer shock wave can be seen as a blue sphere of ultra-energetic electrons. Newly synthesized dust in the ejected material and heated pre-existing dust from the area around the supernova radiate at infrared wavelengths of 24 microns (red). Foreground and background stars in the image are white. Image Credit: MPIA/NASA/Calar Alto Observatory
Saturday 20 December 2008
Age and gender profile of NSW North Coast electorates
It will soon be a new year and, although it won't exactly be a political new day, it will be time for all good community lobbyists to gird their loins and go forth once more to front all three tiers of government and explain our wants and needs here on the NSW North Coast.
Here is a little something which will help in gauging the electorate in which you live; AEC NSW Elector Count by Division, Age Groups and Gender, September 2008.
For those who just like a bit of trivia; this elector count shows that one voter in John Howard's old seat of Bennelong has no assigned gender - and is listed as indeterminate-unknown.
It seems that if you have a gender neutral first name, the good folks at AEC can only assign you a gender if you tell them and 8 people across the state (and 22 across the nation) have forgotten to say.
PDF copy here.
Windows Error Message #1926
A poem for Mr. Five Per Cent courtesy of Salter-Duke & Crikey
In 2007 we listened to Kevin
And we thought he was boring, but probably straight.
He'd put his green garb on and vowed to cut carbon,
So we thought he'd deliver in 2008.The Murray is drying, the Reef may be dying,
Kakadu's flooding and farmers face drought.
The evidence clearly says we'll all pay dearly
For ignoring the facts with inaction and doubt.Rudd consulted with Garnaut, but then he said, "Ah, no,
Even those feeble targets are out of our range.
It's too much ambition to cut our emission
To the point where we'd actually stop climate change.""It might cause job losses, or so say the bosses
Who make buckets of money from coal and cement.
They can keep on polluting, while I'll be diluting
My promises down to a mere five per cent.""So bugger the science, I'll propose an alliance
With the Libs -- that'll make 'em break ranks.
In my new coalition, Greens can go to perdition.
I won't save the rivers, but I might save the banks."
Friday 19 December 2008
NSW Health enters a patient care phantasy land
The "please explain" directive comes as hospitals try to meet a demand from the director-general of health, Debora Picone, to reduce so-called "avoidable admissions" by 30 per cent this financial year.
Medical groups say they are sick of administrators telling them how to care for their patients and argue the policy contradicts an undertaking yesterday at a Garling report forum by the Health Minister, John Della Bosca, to improve communication between clinicians and hospital management.
NSW Health's Acute Care Taskforce has identified 12 medical conditions, including pneumonia, bronchitis, urinary tract infections, chest pain and gastroenteritis as suitable for community-based acute treatment, such as hospital-in-the-home, where nurses visit patients to administer medication."