Shame Rudd Shame: government gets a fail on pension increase

State government housing authorities and community housing are lining up to take a bite out of the Rudd Government $60 per fortnight base pension increase for single pensioners.

Those on low incomes in public housing normally pay 25 per cent of their total income in rent, however the NSW Government has already changed rent calculation rules for community housing so that single pensioners are often paying more than 25 per cent of their total income on rent each fortnight and, in many parts of NSW that steep late 2008 rent increase was implemented in one fell swoop despite the Federal Government being told that there would be a graduated increase over years.

That particular fiddle saw at least an extra $22 per fortnight immediately removed from the pockets of single pensioners living in community housing.

At present state governments are considering a twelve month delay of any rent increase based on the higher fortnightly pension payment, but there is no guarantee that incorporated community housing won't take a cut of the extra money before the end of the year.

When the Rudd Government first announced it was considering a pension increase it assured the electorate that the additional income would be exempt from consideration by nursing homes, aged care hostels, and supported accommodation when factoring accommodation costs. No ifs, buts or maybes.

One now wonders if even these pensioners will actually be getting the full benefit of the additional payment.

The Rudd Government had within its power the ability to make this pension increase an exempt fortnightly allowance or exempt pension supplement for other pensioners but it chose not to do so.

I suspect that this failure to quarantine the increase was a deliberate pandering to state interests and Rudd, Swan, Macklin et al hoped that pensioners would keep quiet as greedy state governments cut into their payments to subsidise fiscal mismanagement.

If Ms. Macklin has a red face as the Brisbane Times cartoonist infers - it's probably only due to media scrutiny and a caught-out Treasurer Wayne Swan needs to do more than threaten to take on the states over this issue - he needs to act this week.

Shame, Rudd & Co, shame - you have treated single old age, disability and other pensioners living independently in the community as though they are the undeserving poor.

What I think of the Rees Government is of course unrepeatable in polite company.

What I think of a virtually silent federal and state Coaltion Opposition defies description (I'm particularly looking at you Nationals MP for Clarence Steve Cansdell, who thought previous NSW rent increase tactics were fair).

Tingle, Smith and Borsak think a name change will make the Australian Shooters Party more palatable to the electorate?

The Australian Electoral Commission has announced that The Australian Shooters Party now has a new name - Shooters and Fishers Party or just plain Shooters and Fishers for short.

If I remember correctly, at the 2007 federal election this party received less than one per cent of votes cast and it has certainly been on the nose recently due to the conduct of Robert Borsak in New South Wales.

When it comes to hunting, elephants would have to up there with the whales as iconic untouchables for many Australian voters and the overseas hunting trips taken by Borsak almost guarantees a poor voter turnout if he stands at the next federal election.

I suspect that this has something to do with the name change and attempt to widen its base - but I don't think Tingle, Smith or Borsak remember the old adage of a leopard and its spots.

Cybersquatting on photographs: one form of identity theft on the Internet

One hears a lot about identity theft these days and the need to protect personal online information, but what one doesn't hear about that much is the use of photographs of real people to represent other people who are using the Internet to promote or sell either themselves or saleable items (sometimes through use of a fictitious online persona).

This type of photo squatting is not as simple and straightforward as commandeering the image of a famous person from the past or a current politician/celebrity as an avatar accompanying online comments made using a pen name; this is more a stated claim involving the downloading and re-naming of an existing jpg file and then uploading it again to the Internet to represent a second person/fictitious persona without the knowledge or permission of the first person in the original photograph.

These 'fake' photographs often turn up on auction and dating sites. Sometimes the fakes appear to involve activity bordering on the unlawful, sometimes they appear to simply be misrepresentation of the second person's actual physical appearance - a type of wishful thinking.

What is obvious is that the people who have had their photographs hijacked in this way rarely have any idea that their faces are out there in cyberspace often inserted in biographies which give them street addresses, phone numbers, emails, jobs, partners and/or families that bear no relationship to their own lives.

Do you know where those happy snaps you may have posted on your website or social networking page have migrated to?

Graphic from Silhouette Clip Art

Australian Goanna Pulling Championships, Wooli 4 October 2009

It's almost October, when it will be time for the Goanna Pulling Championships.
Date: 4 October 2009

Venue: Wooli Sports Ground, Wooli

Contact: (02) 6649 7740 for details.

Past contestants

battling it out

in Wooli on the

NSW North Coast.

Pic from Google Images

A pre-Copenhagen 2009 climate change question for governments of the day

It is widely accepted that (i) there is an increase in global warming due to anthropomorphic activity (principally though greenhouse gas emissions), (ii) this increase in warming is/will result in climate change with a significant deleterious effect on natural environment, infrastructure and society, (iii) there is limited extant legislation and/or binding treaty which seeks to adapt human activities in order to reduce these emissions at the national or international level, and (iv) the continent and territorial waters of the Commonwealth of Australia are/will experience the negative effects of climate change earlier or to a greater degree than some other nations.

What is also beginning to emerge is the possibility that few, if any, national governments are willing to create legitimate policy or enact legislation which seeks to either curb actual greenhouse gas emissions or limit exposure to climate change impacts. To date political rhetoric on climate change has been profuse and relatively worthless.

It is also becoming apparent that with a few exceptions change of government is unlikely to lead to real policy change in relation to how a country deals with global warming and, in Australia, any change of government is just as likely to result in a weakening of structural response.

So when will Australians start to band together and sue one or all of the three tiers of government (under existing common, statute law and/or international treaty) in order to effect climate change mitigation?

An critique: CLIMATE CHANGE LITIGATION IN THE LAND AND ENVIRONMENT COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND OTHER COURTS,The Hon. Justice Brian J Preston Chief Judge Land and Environment Court of NSW,August 2009

A little dust storm? Don't worry be happy!

Dust plume passing over the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef
24 September 2009
From Universe Today

If you thought that anti-science 'what anthropomorphic climate change?' blogs couldn't get any worse, then Watts Up With That just proved you wrong.

WUWT thinks that the recent massive loss of top soil across three states due to the big dust storm (larger picture) which hit the Australian east coast on 23 September 2009 is a real bonus:

That dust headed to sea has an unappreciated benefit – it will fertilize the ocean with its mineral rich dust. There may be some interesting blooms of sea life in the weeks to come.

Unfortunately, some of these interesting blooms may occur on the Great Barrier Reef which is already negatively impacted by silt and nutrient rich run-off from adjacent coastal lands.

Some readers' comments shown on the blog also posit that a dry Lake Eyre might be to blame for all that dust. Confusing the much larger Lake Eyre Basin with the actual lake.

Image from The Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement Click to enlarge

NASA which had a space-eye view of the storm's progress pointed out that dust was rising from multiple sources including agricultural land not just from the salt lakes.

The second dust storm which formed on 25 September also crossed three states and reached the coast.

On a continent with some of the oldest and most depleted soils on Earth, dust storms and the potential for erosion they represent, don't actually have an upside.

On the NSW North Coast four days of dust-laden air followed in some areas by a day of bushfire smoke on Sunday were not ideal living conditions for the very young, frail aged and those with respiratory problems.

Smoke from mulitple fires mingling with dust
27 September 2009
Southern Queensland to Northern NSW
From MODIS

iSnack2.0: the 'new' Vegemite being panned?

Every time I visited my local supermarket these last few months it seemed that its display of the 'new' Vegemite and cream cheese spread didn't move very many jars from the shelves into shopping trolleys.

Last week the store was forced to offer the spread at almost half price in the hope of finally getting rid of all those yet unnamed jars ahead of Sunday's announcement that it was to be called iSnack2.0.

Here are some of the responses to The Daily Telegraph story on the naming competition:

1.0 of bondi Posted at 3:44 PM Today

That's the best they could come up with??

origimite Posted at 3:46 PM Today

what the hell kind of name is that? I will admit, it's a crap product - it tastes like bum, but giving it a name like that is just stupid. If I were Apple, I'd be getting my lawyers ready

Stephen of Quakers Hill Posted at 3:47 PM Today

WTF ???????? That is the stupidest name....Ever ! No argument.

JOHN STRONGER of BRISBANE Posted at 3:48 PM Today

MORE LIKE CRAPMITE!!!!!

Timothy Dub Posted at 3:53 PM Today

iSnack2.0 sucks. Worst. Name. Ever. What about vegelite. Anything would be better than that generic name. Why does everything have to have a 2.0 at the end of it these days. So passe. I won't be buying iSnack2.0 it doesn't sound very appetising, well maybe to a Dell Laptop it may.

Medusa Knows of Banana Republic Posted at 4:03 PM Today

You're kidding!?

N of Bondi Posted at 4:04 PM Today

That has got to be the stupidest name ever

It was always going to be chancy, fooling around with an Aussie icon. At this rate it's odds on there'll be a name change and then removal from the Australian market sometime in the next two years.

UPDATE:

Kraft Foods Inc. calling out 'uncle' - after less than a week it has announced it is considering a name change for its new spread.

Matters are moving so fast that it might be gone from the supermarket shelves by New Year. ;-)