Woolgoolga Curryfest: a celebration of community, culture & cuisine. Saturday 17 April 2010

Woolgoolga Curryfest is a celebration of Community, Culture and Cuisine.
A wonderful day of food, music and dance in one of NSW's best beachside villages.

Woolgoolga has the largest regional Sikh/Punjabi population in Australia and it is the site of the first Sikh temple built in this country. Our Festival will celebrate the cohesiveness and harmony between the Sikh culture and the wider community.
The curry theme links our major ethnic group, the Sikh Indians as well as representations from many other groups from Germany, Thailand, Holland, England, and Scotland.
Finals for the FutureStar Competition held on the day.

Saturday the 17th April 2010 is the date for this year's festival.
Entry Fee: $2
Curryfest events and festivities will be held at the scenic Woolgoolga Beach Reserve which adjoins Woolgoolga main beach and has un-interrupted views of the local coastline and Solitary Islands group. The area is fully grassed and some shaded areas are available.

Further details PH:02 6642 9700 or go to http://www.curryfest.com.au/

And these are some of the bureaucrats that the Australian Health Minister expects to have access to a national personal health infomation data base

Fifty-two per cent of the agencies

we assessed using capability models had not established

effective controls to manage IT risks, information security

and business continuity. Thirty-one per cent of agencies had

not established effective change controls and 33 per cent

had not established effective controls for management of

physical security [Information Systems Audit Report, March 2010]

On 26 March 2010 Computer World reported on Part Two of a West Australia Government Information Systems Audit Report covering 56 government agencies including the WA Health Department:

Ineffective security measures in Western Australian government agencies are failing to protect sensitive staff and taxpayer information, according to an official security audit....

The audit report found that Royal Perth Hospital and the Department of Commerce do not keep accurate records of laptops. It claimed that Perth hospital "could not provide any assurance on the number of its laptops, where they are or who had them" and possessed two conflicting record lists with a disparity of 277 devices....

"All seven agencies lacked comprehensive management, technical and physical controls over their laptops and portable storage devices to minimise the risk of them being lost or stolen and of sensitive information being accessed," the report states.

Six of the seven agencies failed auditor expectations by not enforcing access controls for laptops or portable devices that would help prevent sensitive data leaving the organisation. The WA Police received praise for encrypting all outgoing sensitive information.

The auditor found critical software vulnerablilities across each of the seven agencies due to a lack of patching. WorkCover was the only agency to enable laptop firewalls to protect computers from introducing potential infections from insecure networks into the corporate environment.

The second part of the report, tabled by acting auditor general Glen Clarke, blasted the agencies for poor application and general computer controls.

Out of the 52 agencies investigated, two had stored unsecured credit card data — one via a network "accessible by any user" and the other within an application — in direct violation of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard.

Auditors were able to access sensitive information through "highly privileged" accounts that were accessed by simple password guessing. One agency allowed users to access accounts with a single character password that did not expire.

Thousands of sensitive records were cracked with the same basic password guessing in "several agencies".

Auditors were able to manipulate staff and contractor paychecks stored on freely accessible folders before they were processed.

Another unnamed agency sent out names and addresses of clients to external contractors, and many were found to lack basic account access controls that stop users from accessing inappropriate sensitive data, or even creating administration accounts without approval.

Boot passwords were scarcely employed by the agencies, leaving laptop hard disks vulnerable to hacking. Contractor service level agreements were found to be not enforced by another agency.

Weak access controls were found in 41 per cent of agencies, followed by poor network security in 23 per cent, polices and procedures, password control, and physical security.

Support our local products: Federal's Green Cauldron Coffee

From the Green Cauldron Coffee website:

Green Cauldron Coffee started with one big idea—to produce the world's finest specialty coffee. Our journey began in 2007 with the purchase of Federal Estate in the rolling hinterland of Byron Bay. Having recognised the inherent quality of our regional bean we set about reviving the plantation by removing noxious weeds, improving soil health as well as installing onsite infrastructure such as a new processing facility and state of the art recycling systems. After a meticulous restoration we were able to harvest and process our 2008 crop onsite making Green Cauldron Coffee's Federal Estate one of the largest and most technologically advanced producers in New South Wales.....

Coffee from our region benefits from conditions similar to those of traditional growing regions however unlike our equatorial counter parts Australia has a distinct natural advantage of being free from any of the major coffee pestilence or disease. Also in contrast with these traditional producers is Australia's strict industrial regulation which provides fair rates of pay and ensures workplace health and safety. The dual effect is a greener, more sustainable and fairer approach to farming.

This coffee may be purchased online here.

Federal NSW originally named Jasper is in the Byron hinterland.

Abbott's 2020 predictions......

In Chapter 7 of his 2009 book Battlelines Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott predicts that by 2020:

A) Australia will still have one of the world's strongest economies....

B) our partnership with America will still be the foundation of our security....

C) We will still be a 'crowned republic'.....

D) We will be more cosmopolitan than ever but perhaps less multicultural....

E) Some progress will have been made towards 'closing the gap' between Aboriginal and other Australians' standards of living.....

F) Families won't break up anymore often....

G) there will have been bigger fires, more extensive floods, more ferocious storms because records are always being broken....

H) sea levels will be much the same, desert boundaries will not have changed much, and technology, rather than economic self-denial, will be starting to cut down atmospheric pollution.

Thankfully, Abbott doesn't predict that he'll be leading a Coalition government in Canberra at the start of that decade.

Obama resigns overnight!

from White Rabbit Cult

David and Goliath. Yamba versus McDonald's

On Tuesday 30 March 2010 a community meeting was called at Yamba to discuss opposition to multinational McDonald's move to establish a 24 hour drive-through food franchise in that coastal town.

The meeting was well attended and the crowd spilled out of the space and onto the street.

Yamba Chamber of Commerce, Valley Watch and Coast Care all spoke out against the McDonald's development application, as did local residents and some small business owners.

A number of Clarence Valley shire councillors attended the meeting and it was obvious that they had already started to receive emails lobbying against the fast food giant's plans.

The meeting convenor invited anyone who supported having a McDonald's in Yamba to the microphone to put forward their views. No-one came forward.

Some background:

The NSW Food Authority keeps what is popularly known as a name and shame file.

In 2009 no Yamba restaurant, cafe or small take-away food business was listed on this file.
However the multinational fast food company McDonald's was mentioned six times.Three times under management by franchise operators and another three times under its own Australian management.

Penalties were issued for Mcdonald's at Armidale, Lithgow, Penrith, Randwick (twice) and Ultimo.

Examples of official findings regarding these outlets:

• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - live cockroaches observed on the premises
  
• Fail to maintain the food premises to the required standard of cleanliness
  
• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - live cockroaches observed in the food preparation area
  
• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - Customer complaint of fly found in burger. Several flies found in food preparation area

While elsewhere in Australia in April 2009 at 3am; McFilthy - you want gastro with that?

Graphic from NO to McDonalds in YAMBA at Facebook

Third world medicine on the NSW North Coast?

Premier Keneally needs to shift her focus from early electioneering and seriously address funding and service delivery failures in NSW North Coast public hospitals.

This report in The Northern Star last week is yet another pitiful example of how this region is being short-changed by the Keneally Government's management of NSW Health:

AN ELDERLY man suffering from asbestosis had to call Triple-0 from his hospital bed in Lismore Base to get help from a nurse.
Eighty-seven-year old World War II veteran Kevin Park called the emergency number after night shift failed to hear the brass bell he was given as a replacement to the electronic call system at the hospital, which is still not operational.
Yesterday a still angry Mr Park said after ringing the bell for 45 minutes, 'desperate times demanded desperate action'.
"This is like the Third World. We are being treated like dogs."
Patients in Lismore Base's surgical ward were issued with brass bells four weeks ago after both the emergency and nurse call systems failed.
North Coast Area Health last night offered the air force veteran from Iluka an apology 'for any distress that may have been caused to Mr Park and his family'.