Yamba's drunk golf buggy driver has his day in court

A Yamba man’s adventure in his golf buggy whilst intoxicated on a Friday night last month had its sequel in the Maclean Local Court on Tuesday, July 13.

The man, who recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.135, was convicted on charges of driving the golf buggy whilst intoxicated and using an unregistered vehicle on a public road. In addition to fines of $500 and $250, respectively, the man was disqualified from driving for 6 months.

The man’s legal representative proposed to the court that the level of criminality was lessened by the man driving his buggy rather than the car parked in his garage.

However, the magistrate would not have any of that argument and said that it would have made no difference had the defendant been riding a push bike. By his actions the defendant had put others, along with himself, in danger.

Garrett needs to intervene on the NSW North Coast

Forests NSW is once more in the news - this time over allegations that it is improperly harvesting trees within endangered ecological communities in Doubleduke State Forest. Including areas containing koala, sugar glider and giant barred frog habitat.

Doubleduke, Grange, Yabbra; the list of forest habitat under threat from mismanagement by the very agency designed to protect old growth and threatened species in these working forests is growing.

Federal Minister for Environment Protection Peter Garrett, along with his department, needs to intervene on the NSW North Coast.

It is patently clear that the Keneally Government in New South Wales cannot effectively manage the conduct of its own agencies and NSW Minister for Mineral and Forestry Resources, Paul McLeay, is failing in his portfolio.

While it is obvious that timber cutters working within state forests have little respect for the one year-old NSW Department of Climate Change, Environment and Water which appears to be directly responsible for policing aspects of forestry management.

Along with poorly implemented state environmental policy (where it even exists), sustained population growth along the NSW coastal corridor is placing so much pressure on what remains of the natural landscape that increased local species extinction is inevitable and future fresh water quality compromised in some areas if the present approach to environmental issues is allowed to continue unchecked.

The Sydney Morning Herald on 30 June 2010:

Forests NSW is already under investigation for breaches of licence conditions at a separate logging site about 30 kilometres from Doubleduke state forest, the scene of the latest logging.
It was fined $1200 by the department in May for a separate series of licence breaches in the same district, but the relatively small sum angered environment groups campaigning for more oversight.

ABC North Coast on 1 July 2010:

The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) says State Forests has committed 20 breaches of environmental safeguards in the Doubleduke State Forest south of Ballina. This follows similar breaches in the Yabbra State Forest for which State Forests was prosecuted.
Sue Higginson from the Environmental Defender's Office says NEFA is looking at what legal action it can take over the Doubleduke issues.
"The proper course of action is for the State regulatory agency to be the regulator in relation to the compliance and enforcement of the environmental laws," she said.

Brisbane Times on 9 July 2010:

Evidence of systematic damage to rainforests in northern NSW as a result of government-supervised logging has forced the environment department to again investigate its state-run counterpart, Forests NSW.
The alleged logging of old-growth rainforest, inaccurate surveys and damage to endangered species habitat in Grange State Forest, near Grafton, amounts to the third time in three months that the forestry agency has been accused of breaching its own guidelines in northern NSW.
''It's really a disaster, and very, very depressing to see country that has never been logged before destroyed in this way,'' said a spokesman for the Clarence Environment Centre, John Edwards, who helped document the damage. ''It does appear that the guidelines are being breached in a routine way. And if Forests NSW is just fined it is the public that ends up paying anyway. People inside the organisation should be held personally accountable.''

Update:

Felled tree might have been 1000yo The Daily Examiner 14 July 2010

Julia has a big...........WTF?!

Like some other political tragics that I know (and quite a few pollies' staffers that I don't) - as we inexorably creep ever nearer to a federal election I have created a small handful of Google Alerts to keep abreast of the debate.
Imagine my surprise when (instead of news of the doings in Canberra) down the digital highway comes a post about the new Australian Prime Minister's genitalia.
More than a little taken aback I did a quick Google and found that I was not alone:
"Who in God's name is searching for pictures of 'julia gillard's tits', 'julia gillard upskirt', 'dirty pictures of juilia (sic) gillard' and 'julia gillard porn' in general? Seriously!
For the record, there are no sordid images of Julia Gillard on this site. There never have been and there never will be….even if she is a Barry Island girl." complains Gobbledegeek 2.20.
And very briefly there was a pic out there in cyberspace.............

Whither now, Fortress Australia?

Apart from the indigenous peoples of Australia, all those living here in 2010 could be considered the descendants of migrants or migrants themselves.

From those whose forebears were either convicts forced to migrate by the Crown or Irish and Scots landless poor who were among our earliest economic migrants, right though to World War II refugees and others seeking a better life in the years since that tumultuous era.

It can't have been an easy decision to leave one's roots and journey so far, sometimes with no hope of return. Surely a trace memory of this lingers in many families, so why is it that as a community we seem to swiftly run into Fortress Australia anytime the nation's immigration policy is debated?

Are we so xenophobic that any population change (even sustainable growth) is automatically considered bad and any subsequent shift in cultural nuances thought to be intrinsically harmful?

Right now as I write, approximately 45 per cent of the population was either born overseas or had one or both parents born overseas.

As well as people coming into this country to live many also leave within the first ten years of residency. In 2008-09 there were 39,769 permanent departures of those born overseas.

Australian-born citizens also permanently leave our shores - around 117,275 of them left between 2006-07 and 2008-09. Compared with the 158,021 of overseas-born people who came to settle in this country in those same years (48 per cent of which had a profession or trade), one can see that net population growth through immigration is not that high a figure.

As one of the many migrants who came to settle in Australia as a subsidized 'Ten Pound Pom' perhaps Prime Minster Gillard would do well to temper her language in the current election year debate. "People like my parents, who have worked hard all their lives, can't abide the idea that others might get an inside track to special privileges." Inside track to special privileges? What on earth does she think subsidized migration from Great Britain was, if not an inside track?

When it comes to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on the subject of immigration - his dog whistling is utterly shameless couched as it is in terms of border protection and 'restoring' sovereignty.

If Fortress Australia ever really existed then it has been an abject failure and, as someone whose forebears stepped off those first uninvited boats in 1788 I for one am eternally grateful.

Population Flows: Immigration Aspects 2008-09 Edition

Immigration update 2008-2009

Tony Abbot cartoon from Laberal

Australian Federal Election 2010: Jeremy gives us all something to mull over before we vote

From "Isn't a vote for the Greens a wasted vote?" over at An Onymous Lefty on the 5th July:
"Several of my friends are Labor voters, despite disagreeing with 90% of what the party actually does in office. "Why waste my vote by voting for the Greens?" they ask. "They'll never be in power!"
For progressive ALP voters there's a very simple answer to this question: because voting Greens will make the ALP a more compassionate, humanitarian party.
If you vote ALP regardless of how far to the right they lunge, then they know they can ignore you while they chase conservative votes. If you vote Greens and preference ALP, then you tell them that they need to represent progressive views or risk losing seats to the Greens. They'll {have} precisely two choices then: either adapt by paying attention to what you want and stopping emulating Tony Abbott – or you, along with other progressive voters, will eventually end up electing Greens MPs. (And they'll hold the ALP accountable to your views in Parliament.)"
Read the rest here.

Catch the Fire Ministries: Is this the beginning of the end for Australia?

Catch the Fire Ministries - oh so predictable on 6 July 2010:

As you all know by now I tell people, 'what they need to hear and not what they like to hear.' Let's give credit where it is due. Unlike Kevin Rudd, at least PM Gillard has been honest in telling the people that she DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD. However, is this the beginning of the end for Australia ?? This will depend on how you vote at the next election which could be anytime between now and November 2010......

In October 2009 we at CTFM carried out a spiritual warfare prayer assignment.....we stretched our hands over federal parliament and prayed for ungodly leaders in parliament to be removed and righteousness to be restored........

Now I wish to take you back to Federal election in 2007 when God gave me a clear prophetic word that Kevin Rudd was not God's man for Australia. If we Christians had PRAYED & ACTED IN UNITY, we would had been given a coalition government once again with John Howard & Peter Costello as our leaders.....

A few months after he was elected I had a vision at one of our weekly intercessory prayer meetings, that Julia Gillard came behind Rudd and stuck a knife in his back and Rudd fell to the ground, then she took over the government. Immediately I shared the vision with my team and we prayed about it.....
Tony Abbott is a Godly man with good moral values. I have spent time with him personally and I know that this man produces good fruits as he is very keen on protecting Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage.....
I believe if the church Prays & Act's wisely, the way God removed Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd, He will also remove Julia Gillard. For if we have Julia Gillard elected as PM the church for sure should get ready for PRISON TIME....

While we are sleeping a total eclipse of the sun is occurring in the South Pacific on 11-12 July 2010

Animated map from NASA
While the NSW North Coast and the rest of Australia sleeps the Sun will be giving a spectacular light show for those lucky enough to live elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean on 11 July 2010 according to ABC News:

The Moon's umbral shadow will cross the South Pacific Ocean making landfall on the Cook Islands at 8:22am local time on Sunday morning (4:22 am Monday AEST). It will then travel over Easter Island and end soon after reaching Patagonia in southern Chile and Argentina.

The next partial eclipse which we will possibly be able to see here on the east coast will be on 14 November 2010 but the next total eclipse won't be until 22 July 2028.

First, the Moon's cool shadow will sweep across the landscape, bringing a breeze of its own to compete with the sea's. Attentive observers might notice shadow bands (a well-known but mysterious corrugation of the Moon's outermost shadow) rippling across the beach as the temperature and direction of the wind shifts. The ensuing darkness will have an alien quality, not as black as genuine night, but dark enough to convince seabirds to fly to their island roosts. As their cries subside, the sounds of night creatures come to the fore, a noontime symphony of crickets and frogs.
Next comes the moment that obsesses eclipse chasers: The corona pops into view. When the Moon is dead-center in front of the sun, mesmerizing tendrils of gas spread across the sky. It is the sun's outer atmosphere on full display to the human eye.

Solar eclipse over Cook Islandson 22 July 2009 from NASA files