How sweet it is watching Howard bark his shins

How sweet it is watching former Oz prime minister John Howard bark his shins against the reality of his personal and political reputation.

L'l Johnnie wonders aloud about the unfairness of being refused the vice presidency of the International Cricket Council - he doesn't for the life of him understand why he has been rejected.

"The 70-year-old said yesterday the most "disappointing" aspect of the decision was that he was given no explanation for the knockback."

Gar'n John!

Even in your own country you have a dodgy reputation as a closet racist.

And remember this from 2003? "Prime Minister John Howard was yesterday censured by the Senate for misleading the public in his justification for sending Australia to war with Iraq. It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office."

Some of your fellow countrymen even laid complaints at The Hague alleging that you're a war criminal {first was by a Melbourne-based academic and in 2008 by a group}.

Besides which mate - you're a fair dinkum pie chucker.

Cartoon displayed at Google Images

Telstra's telephonic logic

 

During the telephone outage that hit the Clarence Valley last week I used my mobile phone to contact the faults number and report the problem.

 

When I finally got to talk to a human I gave them my mobile number and warned them that since reception on that phone is intermittent the conversation could be cut off at any point.

They suggested that I could use a computer to fault register; not very convenient when the only connection you have is dial-up.

 

I managed to report the fault but half way through confirming my identity the phone cut out. Since they did not ring back I thought that the fault was registered.

 

It was mid-day the next day before the landline worked and it surprised me to find a message on the phone that I reported faulty asking me to call back so Telstra could confirm the fault report.

 

All this made me question the intelligence of people who work for Telstra.

I think I may invest in some homing pigeons - much less complicated, more reliable and if the worst happens at least I can make pigeon pie.

Gillard sucks all the air out of the political debate and Abbott panics.....

One of the most amusing things to observe over the last week has been how Julia Gillard becoming Australia's first female prime minister sucked all the air out of the political debate and left Opposition Leader Tony Abbott beached az 'n' gasping.
Desperate for some positive air time poor Tones has had to resort to an outright gimmick and then tweet about it in case some missed his silly stunt with old bathers and a bonfire on the Matt & Jo Show:
TonyAbbottMHR Burning speedos with Matt and Jo in Melbourne this morning. http://twitpic.com/215vt

















However even panic driven stunts fall flat:

ern_malleyscrub

Yes, but won't people ask why you're not in them while they're burning?

But the best bit has to be the camera jockey caught in frame - snapping away at a pair of flaming budgie smugglers. Yep, sophisticated political coverage at its best!

At last! A reason why Territorians see so many UFOs?

On any day you can go to The Northern Territory News online and this is a slice of what you'll bring up from the archives concerning Unidentified Flying Objects:

Cops investigate NT UFO invasion Northern Territory News ...

27 May 2010 ... A FULL-SCALE alien invasion of the Northern Territory has begun.

"But highly-qualified UFO-ologists said they believed the bright lights were space ships on a pre-attack scouting mission.
Darwin-based UFO expert Alan Ferguson said the flares were obviously aliens. "This all sounds like UFO activity," he said."

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/05/27/150751_ntnews.html

So are Territorians the darlings of the intergalactic set or is something else at work here?
Well, at last we have an answer - the area around News Ltd's most northern Oz newspaper headquarters in Darwin is affected by gravity to a different degree than most of the nation.
A few little brains reacting to a difference in pressure perhaps? ;-D



Pic from BBC

Original BBC article here

NAIDOC Week in Yamba

NAIDOC WEEK IN YAMBA

Monday 5 July (10am-3pm)

Treelands Drive Community Centre, Yamba

10am “Official Opening” MC Trevor Kapeen (Yaegl Man)
10.15am “Flag Raising” Mrs. Veronica Pearce, Aunty Boona (Yaegl Elder)
10.30am “Welcome to Country” Mrs. Lillian Williams, Aunty Lil (Yaegl Elder)
11am Welcome to Country Dancers (Lenny Anderson)
11.20am History of NAIDOC & Aboriginal Medical Service Grafton Speakers Jordan Walker and Talarna Gardiner (Year 12 Students Maclean High)
11.30am (Trevor) “Thank you to Dignitaries in Attendance” and Apologies
11.40am Lunch Announcement Trevor
11.45am-12.45pm Services Information Share
1pm-2pm Lunch
2pm-3pm Entertainment Jerry Byers local entertainment country & western as well as Andrew Hegedus from Grafton

Wednesday 7 July (9am-3pm)

Family and Children’s Day (Children aged 0-10 years) at Angourie Sports Field – Angourie Road, Yamba

* jumping castle
* pony rides
* Indigenous games
* farmyard Nursery Animals
* age Races
* face Painting
* boomerang design
* story telling
* BBQ lunch
* light entertainment after lunch “The Maclean Mob”

Friday 9 July (9am-3pm)

Yamba Youth Fun Day (young people aged 11yrs-18yrs), Raymond Laurie Sports Centre off Angourie Road, Yamba

* hip-hop workshops
* boxing workshops
* Indigenous games (Balund A Boys)
* jewelry making
* soft ball
* basketball
* table tennis
* boomerang design
* BBQ lunch
* girls Rugby league exhibition game
* basket weaving

Terry Randall Memorial Golf Day (Maclean Golf Club) – All Welcome

Friday Evening

Women’s Karaoke Yamba Bowling Club, 7pm-10pm hosted by Eileen McLeay

More information:
Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

More information and to reserve a place:
Contact Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

Bl**dy Typical Pollie or The Nats At Play

Rumour round the water cart is that now McDonalds has its Yamba development consent safely tucked under the arm, the North Coast Nationals are looking to create a little mischief by encouraging locals to bombard the NSW Minister for Local Government with letters complaining about Clarence Valley Council's conduct.

Of course the sitting federal and state Nats MPs were very careful to keep a low profile while there was actually a chance to send Maccas packing when the development application was first being considered (in fact I heard that Hartsuyker outright refused to get involved) and they're obviously not telling anyone that the real way to go is a formal complaint to the department head cc'd to the minister.
And pollies wonder why they're considered lower than a snake's belly!

Coral snake gif found at Google Images

Julia Gillard: time for a little context....

Ever since the news broke that Kevin Rudd had been removed as prime minister by the parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party there has been noise about him being the only PM to be deposed in a first term without being able to 'go to the people' and, about Julia Gillard rolling a first term leader, not being elected by the people, being unmarried, having no children, being a migrant. As well as constant chatter about how 'unique' this is.

Of course Abbott, Bishop, Joyce and the entire Coalition chorus are attempting to hammer many of these points as political negatives.

However, an Australian prime minister is always elected by the party not the people. Further to that - with the exception of her gender - little else is unique about Gillard. Or unique about Rudd for that matter.

According to the Australian Prime Ministers Centre at Old Parliament House of our twenty-seven prime ministers:

..... most have only served one term......

Indeed it seems that, if I have the count correct, at least 17 of the 27 Australian prime ministers to date were installed by their respective parties in periods between federal elections. So Gillard replacing Rudd is almost a mundane experience in an historical context.

A potted history garnered from the Internet shows that:
Bruce became Australia's first prime minister without a general election being called.
Page became prime minister due to the death of a sitting leader and so he too never faced a general election as leader to get there. He gave way to Menzies who became prime minister without facing the people as head of the party (although he did stand for election as leader of the opposition the second time around).
Forde took the same route as Page.
Deakin, Watson,Reid, Barton, Fisher, Hughes, Menzies all resigned rather than be pushed by either their party or the House.
McEwan came to the prime ministership on the death of Holt. He was unmarried during his brief term as prime minister and also childless. He gave way to Gorton without a general election being called.
When it came to party room coups - Bruce rolled Hughes in Billy's incarnation as a conservative, McMahon rolled Gorton (à la Gillard and Rudd but with more blood on the carpets) and Keating rolled Hawke, to become prime ministers without going to the electorate for ersatz approval.
Neither Watson, Reid, Page, Fadden, Forde or McEwen went to a general election while holding the office of prime minister. McMahon's government lost the only time he went to the polls as PM.
Of the many who did not last long heading a federal government, the record for brevity must go to Forde who gave way to Chifley after eight days.
Whitlam was unique in that he was removed by the Governor-General using the reserve powers of the Crown.

Oh, and by the way - a total of six prime ministers have been born overseas. One of our most well-known prime ministers William 'Billy' Hughes was born in Wales just like the 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

** My apologies for this post seeming to appear and disappear in the early hours - a sudden power shortage left me with an unedited version out there in cyberspace which the software decided to publish. The text is now corrected.