Wednesday, 2 December 2009
National's Kevin Hogan - rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief?
The National's candidate for the seat of Page at the next federal election is one Kevin Hogan.
Rather oddly no other bod's put their hand up to vie for this marginal electorate, which leaves me wondering if the Nats think the seat is unwinnable and Hogan is merely being run as a spoiler.
Kevin has been variously described as a small business operator, financial consultant, grazier and former high school teacher or deputy principal of St. Mary's High School, hailing from Clunes in the Northern Rivers region, or all of the above.
Little is known of Kevin on the coast and he will have to rack up the campaign miles if he's to become more than an unknown on the ballot paper in what may yet turn out to be a three-way contest between the major political parties.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Looking forward to Christmas because.......
This November tweet set me wondering about Christmas:
iPhoon
Looking forward to Christmas, a time when all families behave like the Liberal Party. #spill
iPhoon
Looking forward to Christmas, a time when all families behave like the Liberal Party. #spill
The other side of the coin: Usually I don't mind Christmas, don't love it but I tolerate it and look time to spending time with family.
Last year I asked Santa for a baby, I wrote a note and put it on our tree hoping that we may get some kind of Xmas miracle. It didn't happen......
And a final word from a satirical post at Glossy News:
Oh yes, Christmas is coming, just around the corner in fact. The Festive Season of Peace on Earth and Good Will to all Men.
So, are we all prepared for an evening’s visit from our local Church group’s carol singers? Mince pies and mulled wine at the ready, along with a handful of shiny silver coins for the collection tin?
Er – actually no – the Spirit of Xmas, under new E-USSR ‘Scrooge’ legislation and personal household security guidelines, has gone the way of the dinosaur and is deader than the Dodo.
While the sound of carol singers at the door at Christmas is as traditional as stuffing the ubiquitous turkey, since the Treaty of Lisbon has now been ratified and the Brussels bully boys can impose their totalitarian iron will, carollers will be banned from approaching private houses anywhere in the European community.
Householders across the UK are being provided with posters by local council jobsworths that warn carol singers will not be welcome this Christmas because many residents are ‘uncomfortable’ with having groups of strangers knocking at the door of their manky mangers – even if they are posing as Wise Men and bearing gifts of gold, frankenstein and myrrh (WTF is myrrh?).
The posters are to be affixed to windows or garden gates – or hung from a Pit Bull’s collar – informing carol singers that their unsolicited ‘cold call’ intrusion is an assault on privacy and constitutes an act of gross harassment – and further advises that they f*ck off sharpish-like and ply their joyful hymns and festive spirit elsewhere..........
Climate change: how Australia's oceans are faring
The CSIRO has released Marine Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation: Report Card Australia 2009.
Based on the science it is stated with confidence that ocean temperatures have become warmer since the first half of the 20th Century and are expected to become even warmer over our lifetime and beyond, there has been a thirty percent increase in hydrogen ion (acid) concentration in sea water over the last 250 years, sea levels rose 20cm between 1870 and 2004 and are expected to keep rising (with every centimetre of rise expected to take one metre of vulnerable land), ocean wave processes are becoming more variable in certain instances, coastal estuary habitat is starting to change and fish population spatial distribution is also altering, first observations of sea birds beginning to react to changes in temperature and food availability, the East Australian Current is becoming stronger while the Leeuwin Current on the other side of the continent appears to be weakening.
Climate change is happening now.
Report Card PDF download
That's not at house. THAT'S a house!
Largest house in Australia. Share accommodation. Owner seeking new tenants for right-wing suites.Aussies are supposed to be living in the world's largest homes if all you're counting is floor space.
New homes are now averaging 214.6 square metres and free standing houses are coming in at a record average of 245 square metres.
So why are bathrooms and loos still so small in this country if living and sleeping areas are obviously getting bigger?
New homes are now averaging 214.6 square metres and free standing houses are coming in at a record average of 245 square metres.
So why are bathrooms and loos still so small in this country if living and sleeping areas are obviously getting bigger?
Monday, 30 November 2009
Peter Martin takes a hard look at Joe Hockey and Turnbull's approval rating plunges further
Peter Martin writing in his blog of the same name reminds Australia that Joe Hockey has a more than spotty record as a minister in the Howard Government and a mixed record in the current shadow ministry.When one looks at the three candidates (Hockey, Abbott and Andrews) posited as replacements for Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal Party Leader and thus Opposition Leader, Malcolm almost begins to look an attractive proposition - almost being the operative word.
That he is unpopular with voters is not an issue for the latest Newspoll results show Turnbull's approval rating has fallen to 14 per cent. Yet another nail in his political coffin.
Alternative names for the position of deputy leader are also quite frankly appalling. Peter Dutton for heavens sake - I seem to remember that he was one of those parliamentarians who walked out at the start of the Apology to the Stolen Generation and later he tried to abandon his electorate when redistribution made this seat unwinnable. As the current shadow minister for health and aging he has almost been a non-event when it comes to alternative policy.
None of the Liberal front bench have covered themselves with glory in this political bloodbath and the entire situation only highlights a lack of substance at the heart of the party.
While their Coalition partner, the virtually leaderless National Party, continually exposes itself as belonging to the lunatic fringe, which contains minor political parties on the Australian scene such as the rabidly intolerant Christian Democratic Party.
Today and tomorrow should provide an interesting and at times amusing spectacle, as the amended Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and associated climate change bills come before the Senate.
It is hard to see an overall electoral win for the Coalition at the next federal election unless Labor is involved in a monumental scandal.
Photograph from ABC News
Is this your house? Mapping predicted sea level rise (2)
Before and after a 1 metre sea level rise affecting one of the coastal rural areas within Clarence Valley local government area. Latest official 'worst case' predictions are for a 1.1 metre sea level rise in NSW coastal zones, occurring from2009 onwards and peaking anytime up to 2100.
Click on images to enlarge.
Google Earth now has a sidebar function which allows the plotting of predicted sea levels rises due to climate change.This is a chance to get a visual appreciation of just how your home may be affected in light of the Rudd Government's recent report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts.
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