Worrying times under this feathered fascism

All the old newspapers on the farm are used as mulch and weed suppressors in the garden and it works really well. I did not think that there was a downside to this practice until very recently.

Those of you who follow this group blog will know I have been having problems with fascist geese taking over the farm. However, up to this week there was one area permanently declared a goose-free zone and that is the vegie garden.

Yesterday afternoon a panzer division of geese stormed the frontline fence and broke into the forbidden garden.

It was a stealth attack, they made no noise at all.

Which is very hard for geese, since they seem to have opinions about everything and insist on telling the world at the top of their lungs.

By the time I discovered the invasion and rallied the troops (the old dog and myself) to counter attack these geese and drive them from their new found territory, they had a few hours worth of eating all the vegetables they could find.

At first I thought that it was only the vegetables they wanted, but I am not too sure now.

There's been a change in their tactics and something about the way they are conducting themselves does not bode well.

This morning I think I may have found the answer.

While repairing the damage and cleaning up the mess I happened to glance down at the mulch headline screaming up at me, Fiji crisis deepens!!!

It had a muddy goose footprint on it, and one of Commodore Barney's quotes had been ripped out (as was a photo of the infamous leader) and was missing .

The geese have found a soul mate, a hero; with him as inspiration who knows what will happen here on the farm in coming days.

Goldman Sachs threatens blogger but only ends up advertising the dissident blog

Goldman Sachs like any other big financial institution is more than a little sensitive to criticism since the global financial crisis exposed the greedy underbelly of financial institutions.

On 25 March 2009 Mike Morgan set up a blog at www.goldmansachs666.com aimed at airing information about this merchant bank.

The blog's banner is Info, Comments, Opinions and Facts About Goldman Sachs, its first post was on 26 March and its first legal letter on behalf of Goldman Sachs was dated 8 April.

Apparently the banking group is asserting that use of the wording goldmansachs666 is a breach of copyright, unfair competition and implies the blogger has an affiliation or relationship with Goldman Sachs.

Rather a thin argument to put forward I would have thought and somewhat misleading; as it is clear as day that what these bankers are really objecting to is information being published about such matters as the amount of taxpayer money Goldman Sachs received from the US Government's financial institutions bailout.
Information which unsurprisingly is already in the public domain at websites such as Market Watch.

It is very interesting to note that a copy of the legal letter was sent to the blog's host GoDaddy Inc. in what looks like a move to unsettle the host and have it bring pressure to bear on Mike Morgan.

This would have to be a first surely for a young blog - threatened with litigation within the first fortnight of its existence.

One wonders if Sinewave who created the Goldman Sucks blog in April 2009 will also eventually fall foul of these bankers.

Of course once Goldman Sachs decided to set out down the legal path the outcome was inevitable.

Now the blogosphere is discussing the situation with posts such as What's Goldman Sachs Hiding? Is it another Madoff scam?, Goldman Sachs is worried about its reputation ~ LOL and Goldman Sachs Seeks To Stifle Blogger Critic (GS)
While Google is returning over 2,000 results on a search for the term goldmansachs666.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein stated in a speech to the Council of Institutional Investors in Washington earlier this month:

To begin with an obvious point, much of the past year has been deeply humbling for my industry. We held ourselves up as the experts, and the loss of public confidence from failing to live up to the expectations that we created will take years to rebuild. Worse, decisions on compensation and other actions taken and not taken, particularly at banks that rapidly lost a lot of shareholder value, look self-serving and greedy in hindsight.

Might I suggest to Mr. Blankfein that trying to bully a blogger into silence when he does not appear to have actually breached any law (yet) is not the way to rebuild confidence in the Goldman Sachs brand.

Not in front of the children Aussie-style

Caught sight of this over at the Rabbit Scan blog.
A post by Bunny Blighter:
"Be careful of what you do in front of young children. They learn from you!
I grew up in the mallee during the horrific rabbit plagues of the late forties-early fifties; before Myxo helped to control the pest. When I was barely three I was out with my father and a farm worker who were digging up warrens .
Apparently some dear little rabbit kittens were dug up and Dad gave his sweet little daughter one to cuddle.
Sweet little daughter did what she had only ever seen what people do to rabbits. She picked it up by the hind legs and smashed its head into a nearby tree, killing it. Be very, very careful what behaviour you model in front of children!"

Media and blogs respond to Fiji military dictatorship

Chris Merrit and John Stapleton writing in The Australian this morning:

THE Australian judges who triggered Fiji's latest political crisis have branded the Pacific nation's president a dictator and warned that any expatriate judges who accept job offers from him could be seen as treasonous.
The attack on president Josefa Iloilo was unleashed yesterday after he had sacked the country's judiciary, torn up the constitution and reappointed a prime minister whose regime the judges had declared illegal.
"He is effectively a dictator - that is a strong word, but that is the situation," said Ian Lloyd, one of the three Australian judges on Fiji's Court of Appeal who last Thursday ruled that military leader Frank Bainimarama's seizure of power in a 2006 coup was illegal.

The Canberra Times reported today:

Life becomes difficult for the Fiji press during a constitutional crisis. And so it has proved once again for the Fiji Times. Yesterday's edition featured some unusual page layouts, courtesy of the "khaki subeditors" - military censors placed in the newspaper offices by the interim prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

It is also being reported that Fiji blogs are stepping into the breach and supplying information despite the Fiji Government's attempts to censor media.

From Raw Fiji News on Sunday:

As you are aware His Excellency our President yesterday morning abrogated the 1997 Constitution. His Excellency has informed me that the decision of the then Court of Appeal; the anomaly in the decision, the serious consequent vacuum created by that decision; the existing circumstances in Fiji and the way forward as mapped out by the Charter left His Excellency no choice but to abrogate the 1997 constitution.

RFN says - Frank, there was no anomaly in the appeals court decision. It was consistent with the rule of law and consistent with what many people thought of your illegal acts. Even if there was some degree of anomaly, you could have instructed those taxpayer money thieves QCs who represented you to take that same argument to the Supreme Court. You didn't take it any further Frank because you and your team knew all along that there ain't no chance for you at Supreme Court who without doubt would have upheld the Appeals Court ruling denouncing you as an illegal usurper.

[Our response to Frank's yah dah yah dah yah dah, April 12, 2009]

Short list of other blogs commenting on the military regime and its media censorship posted by Andrew Bartlett over at Crikey:

 Discombobulated Bubu;
 Fiji Girl's Weblog;
 Luvei Viti – Children of Fiji;
 Soli Vakasama;
 Fiji Democracy Now;
 Tears for Fiji;
 Coup Four and a Half.

Goose stepping in all this rain.....

The rain came, the water rises. Since February our little creek has been out of its bed more times than an insomniac with diarrhoea.

The ground is as soft as half-set jelly and I've taken to going barefoot around the farm since I bogged the gum boots too many times to count.

One good thing to come out of the latest flood is that since it shorted out and then washed away the neighbour’s electric fence, I no longer have the continual ticking on the phone line which left an impression that the phone was going to blow up at any moment.

The new fully-automatic weather station I installed couldn't cope with both rainfall and blackouts so we are back using the old rain gauge - a large tin can and a measuring beaker.

It is more reliable that the electric, battery and solar powered gee whiz bang new weather station.
The main problem with the old tin is assessing the frog variable.
How much fluid do the frogs extract or add to the rainwater caught in a tin?

I must admit it has been very peaceful the last few months sitting listening to the rain on the tin roof.
Not much can be done outside until there is a break in the weather.

We've not had any visitors. Even the religious fraternity that use to turn up on our doorstep has taken to leaving pamphlets in our letter box on the main road - they may trust the Lord but not our rain raddled driveway.

The only animals that have completely enjoyed the past few months have been the geese.
They clearly believe they're meant to rule this new watery kingdom and are currently out harassing swans in their new found domain.

When not involved in that pursuit they march in squadrons over sodden pasture without sinking, as they go telling everything to stand clear for the new overlords.

They have definitely turned fascist. So as I sit here, with rain drumming on the roof, I am planning a counter-insurgence.
When the weather breaks the geese had better be on guard for I have found the receipe for pate de foie gras.

To all those Australian politicians out there - especially the Rees Government

Click on image to enlarge

I know its hard if you don't live right on a coast or river to visualise the type of residential land vulnerable to the ravages of climate change.
So here's an aerial view of the small northern NSW coastal town of Yamba, at the mouth of the Clarence River.

You will notice that its northern border is the Clarence River, its eastern border is the Pacific Ocean, its western border is Oyster Channel and its southern border is mostly Lake Wooloweyah with a narrow strip of land on the ocean side.
All of these bodies of water are influenced by the tide.

If the Rees Government consents to furthering urban development of West Yamba by consenting to the recent Clarence Valley Council Draft West Yamba Local Environment Plan then an extra 2,500 people will probably be added to the town's present population of around 6,000 residents (a population which basically doubles during peak holiday periods).

The proposed West Yamba development (involving significant landfill) would be on an identified flood storage area and therefore its bulk would divert some of any future flood water to elsewhere in Yamba and the smaller Wooloweyah village.

That would mean an estimated 4,000 households at the very least would be lining up to be included in any litigation against Clarence Valley Council and the NSW Government for a failure to exercise duty of care.

Remember when you could get money back by returning soft drink and beer bottles? Well here's another chance

The Total Environment Centre is alerting people to the fact that an initial decision on whether or not to pursue a national container deposits scheme will be made by Federal and State Environment Ministers on 22 May 2009.

A container deposit scheme has operated successfully for years in South Australia.
Here is what is said about it:

Container deposits are effective - Tonnage rates achieved in South
Australia for beer bottles, softdrink glass and plastic soft drink containers are far in excess of those achieved in other states ofAustralia. South Australia recovers 85% of non refillable glass soft drink bottles, compared with36% nationally. The return rate for plastic soft drink containers, (PET), is 74% whilst the national returnrate is 36%. Liquid paperboard, a recent inclusion, has a return rate of 40% increasing. [Recyclers of South Australia Inc.]

Introducing CD has many benefits to the environment, local government and community groups because it:

• Increases recycling rates in the state providing clean recyclate to manufacturers
• Significantly reduces litter in our parks and streets
• Provides 'recycling hub' infrastructure with the opportunity for more than just container recycling
• Is compatible with local council kerbside services and makes them more economic (via unredeemed deposits and reduced collection trips)
• Addresses 'away from home' container waste
• Creates local jobs
• Generates revenue for charitable and community service groups. [Total Environment Centre]

If you would like to see a dollar return on part of your recycling efforts and cleaner streets and parks in local areas, it's time to write or email your state and federal MPs asking for a national container deposit scheme to be put in place across Australia.

If you belong to a NSW community group you might like to discuss the issue and contact the Total Environment Centre at sarahve@tec.org.au about signing a group letter before 1 May 2009.