Monsanto can Twitter but it can't hide

Not long back I added MonsantoCo to my Twitter list.
It has been fascinating to watch the parallel universe in which its public relations employees live.

Equally fascinating is that this urge to tweet appears to follow on from its earlier advertising campaign which was apparently based around the concept of 'sustainability'.

One has to suspect that the campaign in print and radio was not the success Monsanto hoped for, hence the back-up.

Of course Monsanto & Co is not alone in pushing the GMO cause - its clones are out there doing their bit as well.

The Mid America Croplife Association apparently wrote to Michelle Obama trying to head that new White House vegetable garden off at the pass and, Croplife Australia is still plugging way.

Needless to say SourceWatch cites BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, FMC, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta as key funders for the Croplife group.

Such is Monsanto's chutzpah that through Croplife International (of which it is a member) the company attempted to hijack the U.N. sponsored International Day for Biological Diversity this month which had as its theme Invasive Alien Species.

Invasive alien species are plants, animals, pathogens and other organisms that are non-native to an ecosystem, and which may cause economic or environmental harm or adversely affect human health. In particular, they impact adversely upon biodiversity, including decline or elimination of native species - through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens - and the disruption of local ecosystems and ecosystem functions.

If you believed Croplife, the international day was actually all about the pesticides/herbicides, genetically modified seed etc., supplied by its member companies.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Over at A Clarence Valley Protest the water wars continue....

Clarence River Gorge from Gilmore at Flickr

Former Clarence Valley shire councillor Terry Flanagan is one of those calling former National MP for Page Ian Causley to account in Clarence Valley pours scorn on Nationals has-been over past water policy.

Planning Minister Keneally please note that Clarence Valley's mayor has accidentally highlighted one of the many reasons West Yamba development is a dumb idea

Channel 10 State Focus on Sunday 31st May ran a telephone interview with Clarence Valley Mayor Cr. Richie Williamson in which he admitted that 6,500 people in Yamba were cut-off by flooding for almost seven days.

This is the same shire councillor who voted to send down to the NSW Minister for Planning a draft plan to put another 2,000 to 2,500 people in Yamba on flood-prone land.

Only one councillor, Margaret McKenna, held out against the well-heeled North Coast and Queensland developers driving this flawed development agenda.
The rest of Council only seeing floating visions of additional rate revenue and disregarding risk to life and property.

The question many in the Clarence Valley are asking; "Is Kristina Keneally also in the pocket of developers?"

Picture of Endeavour Street, Yamba in May 2009 from ABC North Coast.

Those media moguls ain't getting my readies!

Last week the Australian public broadcaster ABC via its online website told us that a couple of dozen media execs met in a Chicago hotel to "discuss ways newspapers can protect their internet content and in some cases, charge web surfers to read it".

Previously both ABC News online and free-to-air television had informed us that Rupert Murdoch had plans to make his online media a pay-for-view affair.

So why would I pay for (as an example) News Corp's The Australian 26-line puff piece on the technology Rupert wants us to buy so he can charge for online 'news'?

Ah yes, because Rupert wants me to! {falls about laughing hysterically}

Look who's a big user of the OpenAustralia website...

OpenAustralia did a bit of digging into its user profile and came up with a surprisingly large number of government PCs using its website.


It looks as though OpenAustralia is easier to use than Hansard records as it comes with the added feature of email alerts.
Perhaps MPs whose staffers use this website might consider whether a donation or two would be in order to keep this handy site going.

Truth in advertising missing from Turnbull's debt and deficit advertisement

Liberal Party advertisment May-June 2009

This week I saw a news clip on the teev showing Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull spruiking the former Howard Government's financial record and bagging the Rudd Government's level of public debt.
There was even a snippet from a coming Liberal Party advert on the subject.
"18 months ago we had no debt and cash at the bank."
And there's the rub - Mal was so foolish as to say that the Howard Government went out on zero debt.
How stupid does he think the average punter is?
Does he really think no-one was watching the growing current account deficit, outstanding Treasury bonds, level of government borrowing and interest payments before November 2007?
For heaven's sake - in 2006 total public sector gross foreign debt was 9.1% of GDP, in 2007 it was 7.7% of GDP and a big chunk of that was general government & Reserve Bank borrowing.
As for total gross national public debt.
Well, let's look at that graph again.







A history of public debt in Australia

See a 2006 0r 2007 zero there anyone?
The fact that Turnbull appears to be bragging about a lack of net public debt by 2006-2007 doesn't mean that there is absolutely no Commonwealth debt.
It simply means that government liabilities (mostly in the form of debt) were matched with financial assets which it could if needed sell-off to meet outstanding debt and interest obligations.
However, I suspect that with Costello as Treasurer these net figures became a trifle rubbery over time. Commonwealth unfunded superannuation liabilities and net claims were an ongoing problem in the final Costello budget.
As a millionaire ex-merchant banker, Turnbull can't pretend that he doesn't know that the Libs are trying to pull the wool over voter's eyes and he can't walk away from the fact that he is telling a political whopper in that first advert of a blatant disinformation campaign.
Who could honestly feel comfortable with the thought of this man's hands on the national helm?

"Over my dead body" - a reminder of the Northern Rivers water wars

The Daily Examiner letter to the editor posted at A Clarence Valley Protest on 28 May 2009:

It is on again.

Floods in the Clarence and droughts in the Murray bring out the ratbags.

On my walking and paddling trip down the Darling in 2007 I encountered a host of people, nearly everyone in fact, who wanted the Clarence River diverted inland.

In 2008 we had a Fellow of Engineers Australia advocating the same. Now in 2009 we have the Citizens Electoral Council issuing a press release about the desirability of the scheme and radio programs picking up on it.

We diverted the Snowy River inland destroying much of it, created severe salinity issues, took the sustainable dairying industries from the Northern Rivers to irrigated land in the
Murray basin, created huge wealth for some and drove many Victorians to suicide when the grand ideas fell over.

After 5,000 kilometres of dragging and paddling a kayak, with decades of engineering experience in the water industry, I have been humbled. I came to realise that a river is much more than we were taught at university. The link between ground water and surface water is inextricable. The effect of taking any water out of a river can be profound.

But people don't seem to get it. They think that we can carry on with even more arrogance. Look at what has been destroyed already by our attitude and still we do not learn.

There is one thing the people of the Darling understood. "You can divert the Clarence over my dead body," l told them.

They didn't like it but they understood.

There are plenty of us who will fight for the river but be warned, the issue will never die. We just have to be ready - always.

STEVE POSSELT

Grafton resident 1952-1969
Author of Cry Me a River