Sometimes it seems we just can't win when it comes to water......

ABC Rural News on 13th November 2009:

Australia is running out of recycled water, as the nation's drains and sewers dry up.
Managing director of agricultural research consultancy Arris Pty Ltd, Dr Daryl Stevens, says flows into most Australian sewage treatment plants are declining dramatically, especially in drought-affected country towns.
He says water restrictions, more efficient water-using appliances and recycling of water in homes and on farms are all contributing, and Australia's sewage system may struggle to cope with waste.
"The amount and volumes of water have decreased 25 to 50 per cent going in to some sewage treatment plants," he says.
"One of the tricky things is the whole sewage system is designed on a certain volume of water flushing through it to carry all the solids that are mixed up in the water."

National Party candidate cannot be serious

ON the day Tania Murdock announced she would nominate as the National Party candidate for the federal seat of Richmond (in northern NSW), she was at Tweed Heads Local Court trying to pass herself off as a Queenslander to avoid a driver’s licence suspension.

The Tweed Daily News report continues:

The Roads and Traffic Authority had caught the Pottsville pharmacy manager driving on a Queensland licence under her parents’ Runcorn address when her New South Wales licence was suspended.

Mrs Murdock attempted to appeal the suspension on Tuesday on the grounds she was a fit and proper person to hold a licence.

But Magistrate Michael Dakin was quick to dismiss the application when it was revealed the 40-year-old had accumulated 26, mostly speeding related, traffic offences in Queensland between 1988 and 2008.

Her NSW record was not publicly available.

The long-time campaigner for extra police resources on the Tweed was forced to apologise yesterday.

“I am sorry,” Mrs Murdock said in a statement sent to the Tweed Daily News.

“While I never caused any accidents or drove under the influence, an accumulation of demerit points, particularly over double demerit weekends, has led the RTA to suspend my driving privileges until next April.”

She claimed she transferred to a Queensland licence earlier in the year when she temporarily lived with her parents in Brisbane.

“I looked for legal means to avoid losing my driving licence, and with hindsight now regret that too.”

“Like many local working mums, I do a lot of driving and I just didn’t give myself enough time to get from one place to another.”

“I fully support the road rules, accept the court’s decision and hope this will serve as a reminder to others that you really do have to keep a very close eye on your speed.”

The RTA sent a letter to Mrs Murdock’s Queensland address stating it had banned her from driving in NSW and she took up the option to appeal the decision at court.

“The RTA was advised you have transferred your licence to another state ... in view of the demerit points that have accrued for an offence committed by you while your former NSW driver’s licence was subject to good behaviour conditions, the RTA has determined that it will take action in respect to your driving privileges in this state (NSW),” the letter, which was submitted to the court, said.

“Driving privileges which allow you to drive in (NSW) while the holder of a driver’s licence in another jurisdiction will be withdrawn.”

Mrs Murdock said she hoped the incident would help others avoid the same fate.

“There is a silver lining in every cloud. In this case, I hope some of the people reading about this will take the foot off the pedal and avoid suffering a similar fate.”

Mrs Murdock is the president of the Pottsville Beach Business Association and narrowly missed election to the Tweed Shire Council last year.

If her nomination is accepted by the National Party on December 6, she will be up against former Tweed mayor Joan van Lieshout and current Richmond MP and sitting member Justine Elliot.

Mrs Murdock and her husband Colin have three young boys and have operated pharmacies at Pottsville for 14 years.

Source: Tweed Daily News

Going batty over feral humans. Animalia......[3]

Going batty over feral humans

The bats of the Lower Clarence have recently held a meeting to discuss the problems feral humans (which are rumoured to be boat people) are causing in their community.

These boat people apparently arrived some time ago down south somewhere and have been spreading across the country causing problems with the locals wherever they have turned up.

Spokesman for the bats, Rufus, said: "We don't want any of these boat scum in our community. If you let even one of them into the community then it quickly becomes a ghetto.

"They put their boxes up everywhere, vandalism and the crime rate go through the roof, they start cutting down bat houses and harassing law abiding bats that are going about their daily business."

He then added: "After a hard nights work out in the forest pollinating the trees and trying to earn a living so that they can feed their children, they return home to get a good days rest only to find that they are continually harassed by the humans making loud noises and throwing things at them.

"And the racket coming from the place where they keep their young, which are apparently called schools, is quite unbelievable -screaming, screeching and yelling. It is almost impossible to get some sleep.

"Also, there is a foul stench coming from their camps. Some of this comes from the tin boxes they move about in, some from the mechanical contraptions that they push around the grass on weekends, and some from evil smelling burning weeds which they have in their mouths."

The bats have hired an environmental consultant, who after an extensive study of the problem has recommended that Maclean and Iluka be bulldozed and the trees left to reclaim the area and restore it to its former pristine condition.

However, some bats have said that this would only be a short-term solution and that the humans should be rounded up and sent back to where they originally came from -'The African Solution' the bats called it.

The Africans are understood to be resisting this idea, particularly the chimpanzees and the gorillas, who said that the human's behaviour was an embarrassment to the whole family and they did not want them back.

However, a group of red-neck extremist bats has called for the total eradication of the species, saying that the humans had arrived uninvited, were illegal immigrants, were an introduced feral pest that caused massive environmental destruction, and were obviously vermin by any definition of the word.

A vote was held which was attended by all the bats, plus other interested groups such as the marsupials, birds, fish, reptiles and the local vegetation, plus a few mammals.

The result of this vote, which was nearly unanimous, was that eradication was the best solution. Dogs and cats were undecided and wanted more time to consider the merits of the proposal.

As a result of the community consensus vote, a deputation has been sent to Mother Earth to see if humans can be evicted from the planet, as they are bad neighbours who create problems everywhere they are found and don't seem able to get on with anyone.

Mother Nature is considering the proposal and was last seen muttering to herself: "Better an empty house than a bad tenant."

M CASEY,

Grafton.

[Photograph and text,The Daily Examiner, letter to the editor column, 10 November 2009]

Did Stephen Conroy's live trial of national ISP-level Internet filtering run into trouble?

These are images from a Wikileaks document which purports to be a 2009 Watchdog International white paper called List Management Issues When Filtering using URL Blacklists.

Watchdog technology was used within a live trial of the Rudd-Conroy mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

It would appear that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy may have run into a few problems in testing his ACMA blacklist if the white paper is to be believed.

Perhaps this hints at the reason behind Senator Conroy's reluctance to release the live trial report, which has now been twice delayed with no guarantee as to when it will be published.

Click on images to enlarge

GCP Carbon Budget 2008: a brief outline of the major global polluters

The Global Carbon Project Carbon Budget 2008* released on 17 November 2009 reveals that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is now 385ppm which is 38 per cent above pre-industrial levels and, global emissions now stand at 8.7 PgC**.

This is a 2008 growth rate of 2 per cent (up 41 per cent on 1990 levels) and the highest CO2 level in at least the last two million years according to the report.

China, USA and India are responsible for 50 per cent of all global emissions, with 90 per cent of the increase in CO2 emissions from coal emissions between 2006-2008 coming from China and India.

Globally the fraction of total CO2 emissions which remain in the air has risen to 45 percent (a five per cent increase since 1960). It is suggested that the increase may be due to earth and ocean sinks declining in efficiency.

An estimated 20-35 percent of today’s emissions will remain in the atmosphere for several centuries into the future.

2008 Top Six Countries for CO2 Emissions From Fossil Fuels and Cement in MtC/yr (TcG/yr):

1 CHINA 1922687
2 USA 1547460
3 INDIA 479039
4 RUSSIA 435126
5 JAPAN 357534
6 GERMANY 210480

Australia comes in at number 18 on this list with 96168 (down from 101086 in 2007 & 101458 in 2006). However our per capita emissions growth rate is still higher than many other comparable developed countries.

Carbon Budget 2008 full document including graphs here.
Carbon Budget 2008 Policy Brief here.

*Carbon Budget 2008 highlights.
**[1 Pg = 1 Petagram = 1 Billion metric tonnes = 1 Gigatonne = 1x1015g]

Nomination shortlist for the 2009 Australian Human Rights Awards and Medals

On Wednesday 11 November 2009 the Australian Human Rights Commission announced the shortlist for this year's Human Rights Awards and Medals.

Winners will be announces on 10 December 2009.

These shortlisted entries are not listed in any order of preference.

The shortlist for the Law Award will be available shortly.

Please note there are no shortlists for the Human Rights Medal or the Young People's Human Rights Medal.

Print Media

• Ticking boxes: Part I and II
  National Indigenous Times
• Revealed: Australia's suicide epidemic
  Ruth Pollard
  The Sydney Morning Herald
• Our schools for scandal
  Sushi Das
  The Age
• Dying to be heard
  Ruth Pollard
  The Sydney Morning Herald
• Diversity, Difference and Diagnosis (D3) - series
  Copeland Publishing - 'Child' Magazines

Television Award

• Going back to Lajamanu
  Debbie Whitmont, Michael Doyle, Kate Wild, Anne Connolly
  Four Corners, ABC Television
• Who killed Mr Ward?
  Liz Jackson, Janine Cohen, Kate Wild
  Four Corners, ABC Television
• Kids' Business
  People Pictures
• My name is Jack
  Helen Grasswill, Renata Gombac, Ian Harley, Quentin Davis, John Gunn
  Australian Story, ABC Television
• Foetal Alcohol Syndrome: Part 1 and 2
  Suzanne Smith, Tony Jones, Brett Evans, John Bruce
  Lateline, ABC Television

Radio Award

• Holding Our Tongues
  Lorena Allam
  Hindsight, ABC Radio National
• Dementia and Anti-Psychotics: medication or management?
  Natasha Mitchell and Anita Barraud
  All in the Mind, ABC Radio National
• Losing Erin
  Kirsti Melville
  360°, ABC Radio National
• A Sense of Duty
  Heather Stewart
  360°, ABC Radio National
• Crisis for Children
  Ian Townsend
  Background Briefing, ABC Radio National

Community Award (Individual)

• Ivan-Tiwu Copley
• Kate Locke
• Ikebal Adam Patel
• Doreen Green
• Joan Dicka

Community Award (Organisation)

• GetUp! Action for Australia
• Accessible Arts
• The Human Rights Law Resource Centre
• ACON
• Centre for Multicultural Youth

Literature Non-Fiction Award

The Native Title Market
David Ritter

Black Politics: Inside the complexity of Aboriginal political culture
Sarah Maddison

Culture is… Australian Stories Across Cultures: An Anthology
Anne - Marie Smith (Editor)
The Multicultural Writers Association of Australia

Blind Conscience
Margot O'Neill

Navigating Teenage Depression: A guide for parents and professionals
Gordon Parker and Kerrie Eyers

Better late than never in Coffs Harbour?

For literally decades the Coffs Harbour City Council has merrily developed the district to death, in the face of drinking water scarcity, farm land and floodplain issues.
Now after what is probably the fifth local flood in eleven months, the Coffs Coast News reports last Monday:
"FORMER Coffs Harbour deputy mayor Rod McKelvey has called for a ban on future development projects until proper flood protection is in place.
McKelvey, who stood down at the last local government elections because of family illness, believes future developments without protection could have serious consequences for a number of areas, including Coffs Harbour hospital.
"The more we develop Coffs, the worse the problem will get, McKelvey told The Advocate in an exclusive interview over the weekend.
"There are many possible actions worthy of investigation, including the GM's pump concept.
"But before we go rushing into developing West Boambee, which will add to the hospital's flood woes, or the airport and other areas in the path of floods, we should have a moratorium until proper protection is in place."
McKelvey said he felt there was a moral responsibility as well as an economical one to ensure property is safe from future flooding"
Definitely a case of wanting to close the door after the horse has bolted, but at least there is now some recognition of the deep doo-doo homeowners have been landed in by local powers that be.