Ben Eltham takes aim right between the eyes of a pop demographer

It is no secret that here at North Coast Voices some of the bloggers haven't much time for relentless self-promoter Bernard Salt's demographic pontificating.

In the past we looked at his pronouncements in The weird world of Bernard Salt and Bernard Salt says Angourie is dead: Angourie villagers and visitors fall about laughing.

However it took Ben Eltham over at Larvatus Prodeo to finally take a blunt scalpel to this pop demographer in a post titled Bernard Salt: pop demographer.

Apparently Bernard's last foray into urban growth areas was more than poor Ben could take and he decided that a demographer's mounted head would look good hanging over the fireplace.

Eltham has issued this invitation over at LP:

Salt's final two paragraphs barely deserve discussion. Attacking that venerable straw man, the "urban elites", plays well with Murdoch journalists eager to file some supporting "expert opinion" in their copy, but this particular assertion is completely unsupported by any data. And as for "this satellite existence" being the "new Australia", the last time I checked, outer-suburban housing development has been going on in Australia for at least a century.

Got any more fallacies and outrageous generalisations from Bernard Salt? Post them here, and we'll attempt to exert at least some scrutiny of Australia's most-quoted and least accurate "demographer."

Photpgraph from www.bernardsalt.com.au

Just a little question, Kev. Whatever happened to the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?

In July 2007 Federal Labor announced a plan for International Development Assistance and Climate Change.
In November 2007 it won government.
So Prime Minister, what is the state of play concerning the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?
With Oxfam Australia and the Australia Institute releasing a report stating that up to 75 million people are likely to be on the move in the Asia-Pacific due to climate change over the next 41 years, the fate of the promised alliance is more than a trifling concern.
Many of the areas where climate change refugees will be first forced out are within easy sailing of Australia.
It's also hard to run away from the distinct possibility that a lack of food, water and land security will destabilise our region and that armed conflict will occur if land pressure intensifies.
The Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting begins in Cairns this week, so perhaps I won't be the only one asking this question.

Want to find out what population displacement might feel like, Kev?
Then keep f**a**ing about just like the former tenant of The Lodge.

Talking about effluent in the Big Dry.....

Every few years it seems that somebody wants to turn one or another New South Wales coastal river inland against the wishes of the majority of coastal dwellers.
Well, for about 40 years there has also been an alternative idea doing the rounds under the radar so to speak - pumping treated effluent via a pipeline through the Great Dividing Range into the Murray and Darling river network.
So that this now almost potable water goes inland rather than into coastal rivers and the ocean.

Lower Clarence River resident

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

Boy the Wonder Cat receives the ultimate Nigerian phishing scam?

This rather amusing email turned up in Boy the Wonder Cat's email inbox recently:

Good day,
This programme is awarded for all victims who were previously scammed by the internet fraudsters ,
The Financial Commitee of the UN-HABITAT Programme have deposited your Settlement Check Parcel of $500,000.00 USD with Reference Number UN013-0156/UPS-UN-HABITAT to the United Parcel Service of Nigeria(UPS)
You are to contact the United Parcel Service of Nigeria (UPS) with
your details for more information.
CONTACT:
E-mail:ups_deliveryunits02@live.com
Tel: +234-7060-516-059
Accept Our regards.
Pathangery Latha
UN-HABITAT Senior Information Officer
PLEASE REPLY TO:ups_deliveryunits02@live.com

Show me the money Mr. Crawford says NSW Industrial Relations Commission

The NSW Industrial Relations Commission has temporarily short-armed the North Coast Area Health Service's drive to shed another 300 jobs.
Chief Executive Officer Chris Crawford has been asked to show proof of current savings and outline savings anticipated by further staffing cuts.
Fractured fairytales coming up!

Editor made use of internet sources, but he forgot to thank them

The front page of today's Daily Examiner carries a report written by its editor, Peter Chapman, about the disqualification of a jockey whose urine sample tested positive to a banned substance.

Racing NSW stewards disqualified the hoop for 12 months on the basis of an analyst's finding of an opioid in a sample taken from the jockey after he completed trackwork in July.

According to Chapman, "the test revealed traces of the prohibited drug, Buprenorphine, in his system".

No, Peter, stewards did not reveal to the public just what the jock's sample contained.

Chapman proceeded to provide readers with the duck's guts about Buprenorphine.

Although it made for interesting reading, Chapman didn't say that the information provided about the substance was lifted from any one of a number of sources on the internet. And, of course, he didn't acknowledge the source/s.

Even more interesting, was what Chapman (with all his editing skills) elected to leave out about the substance's adverse effects.

In addition to the effects stated, the source/s Chapman 'borrowed' from also stated that the substance had the potential to affect a chap's love making.

Thanks, Peter, for sparing the readers those details!

Read Chapman's piece in The Daily Examiner's here.

Australia can now participate in Kyoto international carbon trading according to Minister for Climate Change and Water

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong this week announced that Australia's emissions trading registry has been issued with Australia's Kyoto units for the 2008-2012 Kyoto Protocol period.
The Secretariat to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has confirmed Australia's units, or Assigned Amount Units, for the 2008-2012 commitment period, were 2,957,579,143 tonnes of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.
This is equivalent to 108 per cent of 1990-level emissions. Senator Wong said the issuing of the Kyoto units meant Australia could now participate in international emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol allows for countries to create and acquire Kyoto units from other countries via three mechanisms and use those units to meet their targets.
The registry, which will be administered initially by the Department of Climate Change, will track and record all Australian trade in Kyoto units.
[Queensland Farmers Federation Weekly Bulletin,31 July 2009]