One last nasty shot from Sol Trujillo and one Telstra customer's reply

Sol Trujillo came in as CEO of Australia's main telecommunications company, Telstra, in the wake of an unpopular part-privatisation of this federal government business unit.
He leaves after less than four years with (by Australian standards) an obscene amount of money in his pocket, after presiding over a prolonged share worth loss which saw many ordinary mums and dads lose money and customer complaints about the telco's service rise by 240% to record levels.

Yesterday ABC News ran an audio bite which had Sol hitting out at his lucrative milch cow in a very nasty fashion by accusing us of being racist towards him.

Now there is no mistaking the public perception that Sol was arrogant and inept as Telstra's chief executive officer, however I doubt that this view had a racist basis.
If anything the dislike was initially a cultural response to his particularly aggressive US-style of business management and communication, which was perceived through Aussie eyes as common hustling.
Over the couse of his time at Telstra initial attitudes became entrenched as downright animosity when he demanded and got those fat, fat, fat salary packages - around AU $13.4 million annually in 2008 and a generous tax break on leaving the company.

In fact the principal mention of Sol Trujillo's racial ancestry can be found in his own boasting bio blurb.

So, Sol; your ancestry was never an issue with the Australian public - it was your bl**dy grasping greed!
And that's the honest opinion of a fair dinkum Telstra customer.

Pic from Granny Herald "catch the vision or catch the bus" article in July 2005.

Flooding down on the farm

I knew we were in trouble when the termites stopped eating the wood in the old house and started to build boats.

Cruise liners these were if you compare their size to the construction.

I kept an eye on how things were progressing at the dock side - the front veranda.

It is a hive of activity and when the ants arrived, bringing all sorts of goods to the dock, I was sure that the termites were selling tickets for this cruise.

My suspicions were confirmed on Saturday morning as the flood levels rose and the termite ships started to float away in the flood waters.

Yes, there were ants onboard.

I don't think they appreciated my ticker tape send off, I generously threw a toilet roll at the departing armada.

The insects left on the docks were very agitated and things were looking nasty so I hastily retreated.

The floods have abated, but the termites are still building and the ants are arriving in greater numbers.

I don't know if this means another east coast low is on its way down here in June or July or if the termites are just cashing in on the gullibility of the ants.

Only time will tell.

Memo to Minister Keneally: Yamba streets flooded again last night

Kristina Keneally, NSW Minister for Planning, are you listening?

Monday night's high tide produced the third consecutive night of flooding in many parts of Yamba.

And, it's no surprise!

If Minister Keneally cares to ask the residents of the flooded areas what they think about their recent experiences she'll be told that the flooding was exacerbated by developments that have seen low-lying wet land areas filled by developers.

If proposals for further development in West Yamba, which are currently on the Minister's table, get the nod prospects for local residents are indeed very grim.

Pic: smh.com.au

Church of Scientology on trial in France on charges of organised fraud

... and the case could lead to the nationwide dissolution of the controversial organisation.

The so-called church is accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain.

France, which categorises Scientology as a sect, has previously convicted several individual Scientologists of fraud over the past decades – most notably its science fiction-writing creator, L Ron Hubbard, in 1978.

The Guardian reports that the case stems from the testimony of a French woman who filed an official complaint against the organisation in 1998.

Lawyers for Aude-Claire Malton claim Scientologists preyed upon her at a time when she was "very psychologically fragile", pressuring her into spending €21,000 (£18,000) – her life savings – on products including "purification packs" and vitamins.

The investigating magistrate in charge of bringing the case against the church, Jean-Christophe Hullin, said the church, which has been glamourised by Hollywood members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, made a profit by placing individuals in a "state of subjection". The organisation, he argued, is "first and foremost a commercial business" whose actions reveal "a real obsession for financial remuneration".

Marohasy shows her ignorance on NSW North Coast flooding

When the first inklings appeared of a coming May 2009 flood event in the Clarence Valley one local warned me that such flooding would be used to raise the issue of further damming in the Clarence River catchment area.

Sure enough, yesterday climate change denialist Jennifer Marohasy opened her mouth and displayed a level of ignorance which quite frankly surprised:

It doesn't matter what time of year you drive through this region, known as the Northern Rivers District, it is always green and the wide Clarence is always brimming with water.

Oh dear, let's ignore the fact that the Clarence River is salt from above Grafton right down to the river mouth, that it appears to brim with water because of a strong tidal influence, stay silent on the fact that there is a large dam on one of its principal freshwater tributaries and let's also conveniently forget that the Clarence Valley goes in and out of drought with the same regularity as the rest of the NSW North Coast.

I honestly don't have the patience to correct the many misconceptions on which her post is based, so I'll just refer all to the blog A Clarence Valley Protest which was created during the last big John Howard - Malcolm Turnbull push to rob the Clarence catchment of its fresh water and, which includes the political response at local, state and federal level.

NSW North Coast flood photos sent to local media

With newspapers being in short supply on the NSW North Coast at present due to the number of roads still cut by water, here is a link to a bundle of flood photographs sent to the media by local residents.

View readers' flood photos

A fun piece of trivia from Core Economics

Sometimes the trivia machine works overtime and produces grin-inducing posts such as "Was someone short of fact checkers?" with statistics like this:
Australian PM Physical Data
I always wanted to know that Kevin Rudd was 2.5cms taller than John Howard!
As the PM data spreadsheet is a work in progress, join in and give Alistair a bit more info.

Pic from Wikipedia