Bahnisch & Warhurst on Abbott and Abbott on Abbott.....

"Abbott's Catholicism hearkens back to a much older tradition in Australian political culture, born of sectarian antagonisms, and an overweening ambition to impose a particular social and moral economy on the unwelcoming terrain of Anglo-Australian Protestant soil." said Mark Bahnisch over at The Drum on 1st April.

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"Other current politicians have connections through their parents and through its residue in party and union politics. But no one else has ties as deep as Abbott, who stresses the closeness of his association with Santamaria, his personal inspiration and mentor from school days onwards." John Warhurst quoted in Bahnisch's "Can Tony Abbott separate faith and politics?"

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"I was initially quite hesitant about accepting The Weekend Australian Magazine's invitation to write about the Pope's visit to Australia for World Youth Day. For one thing, a "Captain Catholic" reputation is supposed to be bad for my political prospects. For another, as revealed by a well-publicised youthful romance, I'm more than capable of breaking the church's rules. But on reflection, this papal visit seemed a rare chance to have Australians focus on the things that really count.
Many Catholics are understandably ambivalent about their church. The gospels are uplifting; the sacraments are a wonderful source of inner peace; attending mass should be a time of solace amid the daily rush; and many priests are wise and kind. On the other hand, sermons are often trite or dull; some religious services are tacky; and the official church too often resembles the caricature drawn by her enemies. For every inspirational pastor, there are plodders who make the "whiskey priest" of Graham Greene's novel seem like the saint that, deep down, he probably was. Most of us intuit God's existence but he remains elusive.
It's just over 20 years since I stopped training for the Catholic priesthood. It wasn't a "loss of faith". Rather, I'd reluctantly concluded that I wasn't cut out to be a parish priest; was unlikely to stay celibate for the rest of my life; and didn't quite have the sense of closeness to God that a priest would need in order to inspire faith in others. To this day, though, bringing people closer to God strikes me as the finest thing anyone can do. Next to my dad, Father Emmet Costello, a Jesuit mentor from school days, has been the most important male influence on my life. I've never had a better friend than Paul Mankowski, the American Jesuit who inveigled me into the boxing team at Oxford University." from My life as a Catholic by Tony Abbott sometime in 2008.

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The 2010 Easter Message

A breakdown of the Easter message coming from major Christian religions this weekend:

Atheists are neo-Nazi spawns of Satan and devotees of a new religion which is trying to destroy Christianity and the world.

Anyone who criticises the paedophile-ridden organisational structure of the Catholic Church is a bigoted and racist spawn of Satan trying to systematically persecute members of the one true religion.

Obviously religious leaders will continue to wonder why their congregations are so small and the Easter Bunny's following so large.

Poster from Google Images

How the Easter Bunny gets those eggs.......

How else?
Pic found in Google Images

Prawn farms fined and managers gaoled

The NSW North Coast is sometimes called the Northern Rivers or Many Rivers region with good reason. Most of its local government areas contain major river systems and those on the coast also feature estuaries. The largest of these estuaries is on the Clarence River with the small towns of Yamba and Iluka on its banks .

Local economies depend on these coastal estuaries which support both professional and recreational fishers and contribute to tourism, so it is particularly chilling to read a media release such as this from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry:

DAFF10/001D31 March 2010
Three prawn farm operators from Australia’s east coast have been sentenced to up to four years in jail after being found guilty of illegally importing feed products.
The two prawn aquaculture companies involved have also been fined a total of $80,000 by the Brisbane District Court over the illegal importation.
Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) officers from the Federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) uncovered the breach during an investigation in 2006 called ‘Operation Penaeus’.
Deputy Secretary, Biosecurity Services Group Rona Mellor said prawn feed which is imported without proper quarantine checks could pose a biosecurity risk to Australian seafood industries, through the introduction of exotic prawn diseases or pests.
“The sentences handed down by the Brisbane District Court send a strong message to anyone considering illegally importing products into Australia,” Ms Mellor said.
The Mission Beach farm manager and company director of Fortune Enterprises Australia Pty Ltd, Fang Che Yang, and the Yamba farm manager of Fortune Enterprises Australia Pty Ltd, Chung Yan Lee, both pleaded guilty to aiding in the commission of an aggravated illegal importation offence contrary to section 67 (3) of the Quarantine Act 1908.
Mr Yang and Mr Lee were each sentenced to three years jail and could be released after a period of six months on entering into $1000 good behaviour bond for a further period of two years.
The Proserpine farm manager of Hamilton Prawn Farm Pty Ltd and company director Hsien Chin Tsai pleaded guilty to aiding in the illegal importation and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Mr Tsai was sentenced to three years jail on the illegal importation charge and a further year on the charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Mr Tsai may be released after a period of nine months on entering into $1000 good behaviour bond for a further period of two years.
The companies, Fortune Enterprises Australia and Hamilton Prawn Farm Pty Ltd both entered guilty pleas to aggravated illegal importation charges and were fined $40,000 each.

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.