NSW North Coast UFO tales

This month the UFOManiacs blog posted UFO LANDING ON HARWOOD ISLAND? a potted history of unexplained sightings on the NSW North Coast.

Thanks to North Coast Voices' Clarrie Rivers for passing it on.

Beam him up, Scotty!

Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009 [transcripts]

Seven years ago the Council of Australian Governments commissioned a steering committee to produce regular reports against key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage.

Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators 2009 has just been released

Full transcript of and tables/appendices to this Australian Government Producivity Commission report can be downloaded from here.

Overview Booklet 65 pages.

Newspaper porkies for sale in the Clarence Valley

Oh dear, The Daily Examiner editor is at it once more.

On Tuesday 30 June 2009 he proclaimed he never did it - yet again.

Forgetting established chronology (the first published article appeared on 11 June and the first letter some four or five days later) he blames the Grafton-based APN newspaper's readers.

Unfortunately for Peter Chapman his previous words and those of the newspaper's journalists live on and show the heavy-handed, hearsay-ridden attempt to link crime, Beachside, Ngaru Village and "men of aboriginal appearance" as well as "Young people running around the streets staging break and enters and smashing property".

Here are two of those The Daily Examiner articles from 11 June and 12 June 2009:

Click on images to enlarge

Blame it on the bloggers!

Chairman and CEO of News Ltd John Hartigan had a simple message to deliver as part of his televised address to the National Press Club on Wednesday 1 July 2009.
Pared down to the basics it went like this: Journalists good, bloggers B-A-D. Hard copy and online newspapers very good, blogs even B-A-D-D-E-R!

Just last month ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden writing in The Washington Post opined that the blogosphere was partly to blame for a CIA analyst withdrawing his nomination for U.S. Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence.

Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy obviously doesn't know what to make of bloggers and oppressive regimes world-wide try to silence the most politically vocal of them.

One gets the general impression that the blogosphere must be doing something right.

Image from Google Images

Update:
The Herald Sun has obligingly published the full text of Hartigan's address.

Migaloo the 'white fella whale' has survived another year!

Despite Japan turning the Southern Ocean into its own private killing fields, Migaloo the brilliant white albino humpback whale was sighted travelling north towards Byron Bay waters on the NSW North Coast last Tuesday.
Migrating pods sighted this year appear to be getting larger with some groups containing up to ten whales.

Photographs: ABC.net.au & Cairns.com.au

Parliament begins its inquiry into the relationship between the banks, Storm Financial, Opes Prime & MFS

In all the hullabaloo about the Federal Leader of the Opposition's political nosedive, there has been little mention of the fact that last week the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services began public hearings in its Inquiry into Financial Products and Services in Australia.

The basic terms of reference are:

1. the role of financial advisers;

2. the general regulatory environment for these products and services;

3. the role played by commission arrangements relating to product sales and advice, including the potential for conflicts of interest, the need for appropriate disclosure, and remuneration models for financial advisers;

4. the role played by marketing and advertising campaigns;

5. the adequacy of licensing arrangements for those who sold the products and services;

6. the appropriateness of information and advice provided to consumers considering investing in those products and services, and how the interests of consumers can best be served;

7. consumer education and understanding of these financial products and services;

8. the adequacy of professional indemnity insurance arrangements for those who sold the products and services, and the impact on consumers; and

9. the need for any legislative or regulatory change.

Hopefully those who lost their life savings when Storm Financial spectacularly failed will receive some answers as to why financial advisers are apparently so under-regulated that they can act like irresponsible cowboys.

As yet the transcript of the 24th June 2009 has not been posted. Perhaps because that first hearing day appears to have been taken up with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission explaining itself and its track record.

There have been over 110 submissions to this inquiry so far. Mostly from ordinary individuals, some with sad tales to relate.

The next hearings will be held:

26/08/2009	Melbourne, VIC
28/08/2009	Canberra, ACT
02/09/2009	Townsville, QLD
03/09/2009	Brisbane, QLD
04/09/2009	Sydney NSW

Costello still leads by a length in the political stakes

He may have announced his impending retirement from politics, but as the dust settles in the wake of Ute-gate, former Howard Government treasurer Peter Costello still leads Malcolm Turnbull as preferred Opposition Leader according to The Australian online opinion poll results last Monday morning.

In the Grafton post code results he leads by at least two lengths.