Well they can afford the water.....

Aunty ran with a story this week about a study which obviously hopes to find that people with higher incomes have leafy gardens:

"The University of Tasmania study aims to help urban landscapers design greener cities that satisfy their residents.

Findings from the three-year nationwide study will be used to plan leafier cities.

Professor James Kirkpatrick, who is leading the survey, says socio-economic status is the main influence on choice of garden.

"There was no relationship whatsoever between how close you were to your neighbours and what your garden was like, so quite dramatically different gardens can be right next door to each other," he said.

Professor Kirkpatrick says the tertiary-educated prefer leafy gardens, while bare turf was popular in gardens in poorer areas.

"It tends to be associated with income, the higher the income the higher the proportion of trees in front gardens, we found that for the whole of eastern Australian cities," he said."

The tertiary-educated have more aesthetically pleasing front yards? G'arn! Aside from the blindingly obvious fact that people with more money can afford to buy those leafy plants, pay increasingly hefty water bills and probably don't have physically demanding jobs and so aren't as bone-tired on their days off, all this study is telling me is that higher education gives life-long advantage.

The good professors collared $130,000 to prove that? And not for the first time either. Presumably there is more to this on-going study than Aunty has revealed so far. Otherwise taxpayers will have a right to feel browned-off.

Pic from Wall Jungle

How to help our dolphins - join Australian east coast sighting network

The Dolphin Sighting Network is an opportunity for anyone to contribute directly to the research, appreciate and learn about dolphins and their environment. The DEAP Dolphin Sighting Network is an important initiative that will provide education and awareness throughout the community in addition to improving the understanding of the status and ecology of cetaceans along the Australian coastline.

It is an opportunity for you to help monitor the populations of dolphins in your local area or in areas where you are visiting. As we, the researchers, can not always be out observing the dolphins all along the coastline, we are appealing to the community for assistance. In doing so, you can help provide important information on the status and health of dolphins in your area.

Anyone can become a certified dolphin observer by attending one of our regular training workshops held between the Gold Coast, Queensland and Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. By becoming a certified dolphin observer, your reports will be contributing to the knowledge base of the dolphin populations from south east Queensland to central New South Wales. (Southern Cross University Dolphin Ecology & Acoustics Project)

Workshop Timetable

21st May Byron Bay

• Byron Bay Community Centre (upstairs SCU room)
  2-4pm
• Byron Bay Community Centre (upstairs SCU room)
  4.30-6.30pm

28th May Gold Coast

• GECKO House – Currumbin 2-4pm
• GECKO House – Currumbin 6-8pm
  

Book your attendance at a workshop - cost $25 individual, $60 family, group booking rate available.

Dolphin Sighting Network Workshop Booking Form

Kevvie H descends early into political hypocrisy in local letter

There are so many holes in the argument concerning climate change policy in this 1st May 2010 letter in The Daily Examiner that one has to wonder at the state of the candidate's grey cells.
For starters it would have been more illuminating if Kevin Hogan had actually mentioned the terms "climate change" or "emissions trading" - as it now stands many who don't closely follow the political debate will be left wondering exactly what is supposed to be triggering a double dissolution because the Coalition has given the Rudd Government so many to choose from!
Or was obscure what Hogan aimed for. Had he mentioned those terms readers might've immediately asked themselves; "Hey, didn't the Lib-Nats Coalition block the ETS legislation and don't they hold enough Senate seats to do that again?"
You're not letting Murray Lees ghost write are you Kevvie H?
Big mistake if you are. How many candidates has he failed to get up at Australian federal elections so far?
Or did you just crib from your fearless Coalition leader?

Teh Lettah:
Kevin Rudd's leadership
A FRIEND of mine a number of years ago use to admire two opposing politicians equally, Jeff Kennett and Paul Keating.
While he appreciated they were very different on the policy front, he viewed both men as leaders with conviction.This week has shown our current Prime Minister does not fall into this category.
How can a leader go from believing something is the 'greatest moral challenge of our generation ... and to delay would show cowardice', to six months later doing a back-flip on the issue.Every person in the country is entitled to the answer of this question: Why is he not prepared to go to a double dissolution election on something he supposedly feels so strongly and passionately about?
This, added to the him backing out of the mismanaged home insulation scheme, changing his policy on border control, (till the next election at least), shows the only thing Kevin Rudd seems to believe in, is the latest opinion poll on an issue.
KEVIN HOGAN, Nationals candidate for Page

Pic from the NSW Nats website

Possum Comitatus tweets on that 3 May 2010 Newspoll & full poll results

Possum tweets on that Newspoll result - Coalition 51% and Labor 49% on a two party preferred basis.

Pollytics
Just food for thought before the ALP folks commit suicide or the Libs go out and order cases of Moet......
If anyone thinks that the ALP vote is 35% - Simon Crean territory - they're smoking crack. Newspoll - rogue.....
It's worth mentioning that in the 494 Newspolls, the ALP vote has only ever moved by 8 points or more 4 times. All rogue
via TweetDeck on 3 May 2010

Here is the full 3 May 2010 poll which appears to be rogue and an excerpt image:
















Here is a February poll:




Click on images to enlarge




















Past Newspoll opinion polls

* I apologize for the there-and-gone-again stutter in publishing this post - one of the tables would not show (think I may have accidentally doubled up images). That full poll is now a PDF link.

Placing censorship of Australian Internet on the backburner is a feint not a backdown by Rudd Government

Remember John Howard's very carefully crafted weasel words in 1996 about the possibility of his Coalition government introducing a goods and services tax in Australia?
Howard introduced GST legislation hot on the heels of the 1998 federal election didn't he?
After introducing a GST policy cloaked in the mantle of taxation reform in the lead up to that election, it subsequently took him less than four month to get 17 GST bills through the House of Representatives.

Well Prime Minister Rudd and Communications Minister Conroy have further refined lying to the electorate in an election year by attempting to disguise ongoing policy by seemingly placing it on the backburner while continuing to progress the same outside of public scrutiny.

Rather unobtrusively Conroy has been dragging his feet on presenting the federal parliament with legislation introducing mandatory national ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet - thus leaving the policy in play but not at the forefront of the national election debate.

Should Labor be returned to government the way is then open for Rudd's authoritarian right-wingers to claim that the people gave Labor a mandate to introduce this information technology censorship.
Presumably argued on the basis that a vote for Labor covered every single one of its policies, even those it was attempting to camouflage because of sustained opposition from a significant numbers of Internet users.

As for Conroy's assertions that policy consultation is transparent or that filter circumvention will not become an offence under law - well I'd take that with a grain of salt.

While his claim that the intention is merely to block unlawful content or content ACMA deems refused classification can be seen to be by all to be a flat out falsehood, given information in North Coast Voices on 5 March 2010 and Delimiter on 9 February 2010 concerning filtering of senators' Internet access. Websites ranging from an online gay newspaper to political comment in the mainstream media are currently filtered out.

Delimiter on the current censorhip debacle.

Can your local fish and chip shop equal this Maccas record?

Now I don't know about you, but my local chippie is a quiet family-run business which also sells hamburgers to go.

Whenever I lob down there I'm more likely to stumble upon a youngster wanting ice cream than trip over crime scene tape.

This doesn't seem to be the case at Maccas stores around the world.

Do you know there have been over 114 customers murdered at McDonald's since it first opened for business in 1940, according to McMurder?

Pic from WPClipArt

McDonald's Australia accuses ABC Radio of bias in reporting on its move to build a 24hr fast food outlet in Yamba

One would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have noticed that Yamba (a small coastal town at the mouth of the Clarence River on the NSW North Coast) is coming out strongly against the McDonald's Australia Limited application to build a 24hr eat-in and drive though fast food outlet in Treelands Drive.

Indeed, the Yamba community has been quite successful in getting its message across to both Clarence Valley Council and the wider community. Nevertheless it is facing off against a very large multinational and a financial investment group quite skilled in the way they approach local government and used to getting their own way on matters such as this.

So it was rather amazing to find that McDonald's only gave the ABC a short written statement after refusing to have a spokesperson interviewed for a segment on ABC North Coast Radio's Sunday Morning program out of Newcastle on 2 May 2010 - citing a belief that the ABC would not give the corporation a fair hearing.

The mind boggles as to why it would state something so blatantly untrue. Unless it was attempting to get the radio presenter to over compensate it its favour during that on-air segment or was looking to curry a sympathy vote from Clarence Valley shire councillors.