Has Abbott joined the coastal river water raiders?

This is Tony Abbott speaking at the Official Coalition Election Campaign Launch on 8 August 2010:

The Coalition will end Labor's procrastination and fully and finally implement the Howard/Turnbull/Anderson plan for the Murray Darling basin.

NSW North Coast residents will no doubt recall that in 2006-07 the Howard Government (with Malcolm Turnbull as Water Minister) was actively exploring the possibility of damming and diverting fresh water from the Clarence River catchment and then piping this water into either the lower part of the Queensland section or the upper part of the New South Wales section of the Murray Darling Basin river system, with a view to providing water to inland irrigators, mines, power stations and, as an afterthought, to increase environmental flow.

Other North Coast rivers were also being considered by Howard, Turnbull and Anderson.

A brief history of proposals to raid the Clarence River catchment:
Clarence Valley Council Mayoral Minute CLARENCE RIVER DIVERSION, April 2007
Dam the Clarence? No Way? June 2007
Dam the neighbours, April 2007
Clarence River dam proposal slammed as deceptive, August 2009

Now I've heard it all! Transcript of Tony Abbott's official election campaign launch 8 August 2010

When an official Federal Coalition election campaign launch includes the following lines delivered by its Brave Leader then one knows the rhetoric can only go downhill from there:

So today, my fellow Liberals and Nationals, we face a historic challenge. Not since 1975 has there been such a time in Australian politics. Our task is nothing less than to save Australia from the worst government in its history.

Full transcript here.

Abbott & stripping the young of their dignity

It's always easy to look at teh yoof of today and think that their dress and behaviour leaves them with little dignity to loose - until you cast your mind back to your own green days and recall the depth of feeling hidden beneath that mess of hair and suede shoes.
So 'Phoney Tony' Abbott's latest talk of visionary ideas about breaking "the youth welfare subculture" by supposedly supplying yoof with jobs in exchange for their voluntarily giving up welfare sounds a bit suss from a man who only months ago wanted to ship young people holus bolus across a continent to barren mining camps run by his free market mates.
Fer gawd's sake! The latest ABS figures show that total unemployment is still trending down, full-time and part-time employment is increasing and labour force participation has increased slightly.
When is comes to the Oz youngsters - the employment to population ratio of all 15 to 19 year olds in June 2010 was 47%.
Around 693,000 teens were in a job last month. A big slice of the rest are either still full-time students (over 1 million), overseas on their gap year, or actively looking for full-time work in this country (about 69,000).
Fact is that the percentage of unemployed yoof is less in June 2010 than it was in May 2009 and last year 84% of Oz teenagers 15 and over were either studying full-time or working full-time, according to the Foundation for Young Australians.
Doesn't sound like much of a welfare subculture to me.

Tones track record on respecting the young.

2010 Election Campaign Day 24 - And the media thinks he's joking?

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Nauru President Marcus Stephen:

"Sometimes I think we need a guided democracy," Mr Abbott joked as they wrapped up discussions, noting that the media in some other countries were "much less disruptive than they are here."

Graphic from Still Life With Cat

Juxtaposition - who said it was a lost art?

The Tweed Daily News website provided a wonderful example of how not to advertise a product in its reporting.

Tweed Daily News, along with other APN publications, is conducting a competition for its readers with 26 BlackBerry Smart Phones to be won. The phones have a recommended retail price $649.

Someone should have told TDN that running an item about security fears over the smartphones on the same page as the competition isn't a good look.

All is revealed: Grafton's Red Herring is a closet socialist

A correspondent in the letters column of The Daily Examiner deserves an award for outing a serial pest who makes far too many appearances on the paper's letters page.

The serial pest, known in some circles as Red Herring, should be given his marching orders by the paper's editor - in the courts such a person is deemed to be a vexatious litigant and, like scamsters associated with horse racing, is warned off and not allowed to expose themselves and their false and fraudulent activities.

A few coping strategies in the event Tony Abbott becomes prime minister

For your consideration. A few coping strategies in the event Tony Abbott becomes Australia's next prime minister on 21 August and you find yourself in the unhappy position of not being a White, Anglo-Saxon Christian Male with a profession or independent income:

1. Unilaterally declare civil war
2. Buy advanced survival gear and head for the hills until 2013
3. Empty your bank account and bribe your way onto the first small boat heading to New Zealand
4. Apply for refugee status with the United Nations
5. Join a protest movement and live underground until the Liberal Party decapitates Abbott or the next election comes around (whichever comes first)
6. Wear RM Williams from top to toe, stuff a pair of footy socks down your pants and loudly thump a bible in order to pass yourself off as a White Anglo-Saxon Christian Male

7. Go on a three-year bender

8. If you are female throw way your shoes and stay pregnant, or if you are a male start bullying your significant other, to show that you're with the Agnus Dei New Order
9. Revert to the superstitious and boil wax effigies of The Great Leader, set fire to his image and generally call upon the dark forces to take their spawn back from whence it came
10. Pretend to be invisible and watch silently from a barricaded house as the country marches backwards into the Middle Ages..........

Cartoon from Google Images