All's well with the world as the rich keep getting richer

Sometimes it is hard to fathom how inequitable the global distribution of wealth is, particularly as the current economic crisis is affecting the relatively little advanced economies give to the hungry, ill and dying across the world from Africa and Asia through to the Americas.
Ordinary people who more often than not live on less than two dollars a day.

Or why the UN Millennium Project does not appear to be meeting its goals.

But never fear, the world is righting itself and greed is once again triumphing as a Goldman Sachs recent media release attests.

Yesterday the Goldman Sachs Group reported that total assets were worth $890 billion, total capital as of end June 2009 was $254.05 billion, with net revenues of $13.76 billion and net earnings of 3.4 billion for the second quarter of 2009.

Compensation and benefits (including salaries, severance expenses, bonuses, payroll tax etc.,) for the same period were $6.65 billion.

On 17 June it even repaid the $10 billion is borrowed from the U.S. Government and taxpayers in that over-the-top bankers feeding frenzy at the beginning of the global economic crisis.

Goldman Sachs Group media release, 14 July 2009

New York Times article, 12 July 2009

Photo: Google Images

Jules loves Mr. Squiggle & Mr. Squiggle loves Jules

Well done, Jules!

Images from The Daily Examiner

Big Ben's birthday reminds me that almost every event has an anniversary

On the weekend both radio and television were constantly reminding me that Big Ben (that very large clock in London) was 150 years old on 11 June 2009 (or 12 June if you were across the odd dateline) because it first struck time on that day.

Which had me thinking of what else happened in the ninth year of past centuries.

Here's my potted selection, with apologies to The Book of Key Facts (1978):

8009 Harun al-Rashid dies but the Book of a Thousand and One Nights gives him a good review
9009 The King of Wessex kicks Northumbrian Danish butt
1009 Persian poet Firdausi is almost finished his epic and is possibly running an early spell check to make sure history is suitably impressed with his efforts
1109 Lois of France and Henry of England diss each other and go to war
1209 Cambridge University is founded with an advanced undergraduate degree in punting
1309 The papacy moves from Rome to Avignon and a whole lot of religious angst is goin' on
1409 Teh English recapture Harlech Castle from those dastardly Welsh rebels
1509 Spain establishes the city of San Sebastian in Columbia as part of a bloody colonisation of South America
1609 Galileo Galili improves his telescope
1709 Afghan state wins independence from Persia and continues down history's page until she is owned by the Coalition of the Willing
1809 Napoleon divorces his Josephine but remains silent about his hemorrhoids
1909 Bakelite is born thereby making a whole collectors' genre for 21st century Australians
2009 Malcolm Bligh Turnbull 'discovers' an email and loses his 'judgment'

Want to shop locally for GM-free food?

So you want to shop for GM-free food? Well, good luck, because there is still no reliable product labelling in place across Australia.

The next best thing is to access the True Food Guide which at least broadly points concerned consumers in the right direction.

The guide now lists alcohol products.

Download updated 16-page True Food Guide here.

If you are blessed with a comfortable income, then Santos Wholefoods of Byron Bay and Mullumbimby offers an online GM-free, organic and natural produce shopping service.

Coastal erosion, land slips, seawater innundation, storm surges which may occur due to climate change - not covered by residential property insurance

Graphic at Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Evidence given by Karl Sullivan of the Insurance Council of Australia to the House of Representatives Inquiry into Climate change and environmental impacts on coastal communities in June 2009 confirms that coastal residents are on their own when in comes to property damage from coastal erosion, land slippage, sea water inundation and storm surges and, in the future insurance premiums may be higher or insurance unavailable if there are no or insufficient climate change impact mitigation measures built into coastal residential properties.

This position has been well-known for some years now and yet the NSW Government and local councils continue to give rezoning, concept and development consents for urban growth in vulnerable coastal areas.

It is past time that all tiers of government stopped merely talking about climate change impacts and passed legislation which severely limits coastal development within at least a half kilometre of the coast.

Inquiry transcript for 4 June 2009

Moggy Musings [Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

An Easter Bunny musing:

It was a bit of a shock to the Easter Bunny when on Easter Sunday the ABC TV Landline program ran not one but three stories on rabbits - involving killing by poisoning, trapping, blowing up burrows and preparing for the pot.

Who won't be getting a chocolate egg next year?

A New Puppy musing:

Finally those Obama girls are getting that dog. A 6 month-old Portugese Water Dog that they are thinking of naming Frank or Moose.

An escapee musing:

Yakini is a 9 year-old gorilla living at Melbourne Zoo.

In early April 2009 he managed to take an unsheduled stroll around the pathways of this zoo before being lured towards waiting zoo keepers by a bunch of bananas. Next stop Africa if this young gorilla can resist the fruit in future!

A Very Happy Ending musing:

A big welcome home to four year-old Aussie blue heeler cattle dog Sophie Tucker who has been found and reunited with her owners after being swept overboard from the family yacht and surviving for 2 months on a tropical North Queensland island. Story and video here.

Dewey Readmore Books musing:

Clarrie Rivers sent me this link leading into a loving tribute to a ginger library cat called Dewey Readmore Books, who was found in the books return shute one morning and lived for 18 years at Spencer Public Library in the USA. Dewey's bio.

Iz ded wiv shames musing:

In the middle of the night Clarencegirl saw me running away from a big, fat cane toad which hopped into the living room.

At first I tried to pretend that I didn't see the warty monster, but then in jumped on me. Eeeewwww!

I was brave enough though to watch my hero put that toadie in the freezer for a painless death.

A quiet victory over adversity.....

From Biddle and Taylor's 2009 working paper Indigenous Population Projections, 2006–31: Planning For Growth:

Between 2006 and 2031 the Indigenous population is projected to grow from just over 517,000 to almost 848,000 (Fig. 3). This growth is reasonably steady over the period and it represents an annualised rate of 2.00 per cent. By way of comparison, between 2001 and 2006, the Indigenous population was estimated to have grown from 458,500 at an implied annual growth rate of 2.43 per cent (ABS 2008a). Clearly, the model projects a decline in the rate of growth. Over the same period to 2031, the non-Indigenous population is projected to increase from around 20,179,000 to around 25,621,000. This represents a lower growth rate compared to the Indigenous population, resulting in an increase in the Indigenous share of total population from 2.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent (Fig. 3). An interesting point to note from Fig. 3 is that a continuation of the growth trend shown would result in one million Indigenous Australians by 2040.