For those so terminally bored that they are following the U.S. GOP preselection race

The New York Times online Politics

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Romney Takes Washington Ahead of a Big Election Day

Mitt Romney won Saturday’s nonbinding caucuses in Washington State, handing him a symbolic victory in his quest for the Republican nomination as he heads into the critical Super Tuesday contests just three days away.

Wash. Results »

Candidate		Pct.
	Romney	37.6%
	Paul	24.8%
	Santorum	23.8%
	Gingrich	10.3%
	Others	3.4%

 

The vote was a nonbinding straw poll and has no bearing on the selection of the state’s 43 delegates. Of those, 40 are up for grabs, but they will not be picked until later.

All four candidates remaining in the race — Mr. Romney, Rick Santorum, Representative Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich — actively campaigned in Washington, but none concentrated their efforts there as intensely as Mr. Paul.

The victory gives Mr. Romney some momentum heading into the big contests this week on Super Tuesday, when 10 states vote. With 81 percent of the Washington votes counted on Saturday night, Mr. Romney had won about 37 percent, with Mr. Paul at 25 percent, Mr. Santorum at 24 percent and Mr. Gingrich at 11 percent.

Resident concerns about proposed Dorrigo Plateau set out in letter to the editor

From The Coffs Coast Advocate on 24 February 2012:

Mining dangers

AS CONCERNED residents of the Tyringham area we would like to bring to the attention of your readers some facts regarding proposed mining on the Dorrigo plateau. Anchor Resources, a 90% Chinese-owned mining company, has been doing exploratory drilling at sites on the plateau and have found gold, copper and antimony.
They are proposing to proceed with open cut/underground mines. It is important that the following points be made known.
The Dorrigo plateau has been identified as a "refuge" for native wildlife under threat from climate change (mapped in the Northern Rivers Regional Biodiversity Management Strategy, a strategy that has been adopted federally).
The Mt Hyland Nature Reserve is directly adjacent to one of the prospective sites currently under license to Anchor. These mines will be between two World Heritage areas (will our tourists share the Waterfall Way with mining trucks and swim in polluted waterfalls/rivers?)
The plateau is located in the overlap zone of the New England Tablelands and NSW North Coast bioregions. Because of this, the area contains higher biodiversity values than those typically encountered in either of the bioregions when considered individually. It is also situated at the center of the McPherson-Macleay overlap, an area that supports a mix of species from subtropical and temperate Australia. As a result of these, the region is recognised internationally as a biodiversity hotspot.
The plateau is also the catchment for the Coffs Clarence Regional Water Supply and, I believe, the Bellingen area, providing drinking water for probably more than 100,000 people. The minerals proposed to be mined result in cyanide and arsenic waste, along with other toxic substances which cannot be safely stored in ponds in one of Australia's wettest zones. Contamination of our waterways is totally unacceptable. The industry associated with the rivers (coastal fisheries, tourism) will be directly affected at huge economic losses
Financial and employment benefits to Australians from mining are minimal. Compare this to the benefits from tourism, and eco-tourism in particular.
I have a feeling we will be reassured and told of the strict, world's best standards that will be employed, and the range of safeguards Anchor will be forced to put in place. However, the same assurances were given for all the world's recent environmental disasters - Deep Water Horizon's Gulf oil spill, the Exon Valdez, and others. If you want evidence of what can happen when things go wrong with mining, New Guinea, Amazonia, and Indonesia have multiple examples.
In this region of Australia, we have unfixable pollution in the upper Macleay, Urunga Lagoon (from similar antimony), and the Mole River near Tenterfield from past mining. In more recent times we had a serious oil spill off WA a couple of years ago, the Barrier Reef was recently struck by a freighter, and I understand there have been literally hundreds of toxic spills from the uranium mining adjacent to the Kakadu World Heritage Area.

KATHY AND IAN REALPH

Tony Abbott's wet dream?

Ideas in The Guardian last month which I think privately get Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott all excited:

“They used to do it subtly; they don’t bother any more. Last week a column in the Telegraph argued that businesses should get the vote. Though they pay tax, Damian Reece maintained, they have “no say in the running of local or national government”(1). To remedy this cruel circumscription, he suggested that elections in the UK should follow the example set by the City of London Corporation. This is the nation’s last rotten borough, in which ballots in 21 of its 25 wards are controlled by companies, whose bosses appoint the voters(2). I expect to see Mr Reece pursue this noble cause by throwing himself under the Queen’s horse.
Contrast this call for an extension of the franchise with a piece in the same paper last year, advocating an income qualification for voters. Only those who pay at least £100 a year in income tax, argued Ian Cowie, another senior editor at the Telegraph, should be allowed to vote(3). Blaming the credit crisis on the unemployed (who, as we know, lie in bed all day devising credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations), Cowie averred that “it’s time to restore the link between paying something into society and voting on decisions about how it is run.” This qualification, he was good enough to inform us, could exclude “the majority of voters in some metropolitan areas today”. The proposal was repeated by Benedict Brogan, the Telegraph’s deputy editor(4).”

Only your loving family reads your blog? Finkelstein thinks you're too dangerous to be left to your own devices

Despite the fact that your blog may have a little as 41 ‘visits’ per day (including bot scans) the Australian Government’s Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation advises that there is a need to regulate your website:

3.80 Internet users generally are much more likely to visit the websites of news organisations than news blogs for online news. More than 60 per cent of internet users in each age group reported visiting websites of news organisations, with the proportion rising to more than three-quarters for those aged 18–34. More than half of those aged 25–34 and 35–49 visited the news websites at least weekly. In contrast, significantly fewer people in each age group reported visiting news blogs. In each case, visits to news blogs were seldom more frequent than weekly. Only around one in 10 of those in the 18–24 and 25–34 age groups reported daily visits to news blogs.

11.67 The second change arises from the fact that there are many newsletter publishers and bloggers, although no longer part of the ‘lonely pamphleteer’ tradition, who offer up-to-date reflections on current affairs. Quite a number have a very small audience. There are practical reasons for excluding from the definition of ‘news media’ publishers who do not have a sufficiently large audience. If a publisher distributes more than 3000 copies of print per issue or a news internet site has a minimum of 15 000 hits per annum it should be subject to the jurisdiction of the News Media Council, but not otherwise. These numbers are arbitrary, but a line must be drawn somewhere.

Welcome to the bizarre world being created by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Stephen Conroy.

More than Timber - one perspective on Australia's forestry industry

http://youtu.be/RbxWIG3gbHE

http://youtu.be/mybeo-uaYls

Meet Bob Carr, Australian Foreign Minister Presumptive

Given how much former NSW Premier Bob Carr likes the sound of his own voice, I wager conservative meeja types will be scouring his old lectures, talks, speeches and off-the-cuff remarks for months to come on the off chance that he will become an embarrassment for the Australian Prime Minister.

Here are the man’s views on a variety of subjects at his own blog Thoughtlines with Bob Carr:

Labor Leadership February 27, 2012The public reaction against Labor if leadership speculation is resumed will be catastrophic. It will be branded the “New South Wales disease”.
Uranium Mining in NSW February 15, 2012

Of course the O’Farrell Government is right to attempt legislation to permit uranium exploration in NSW. I said this two months ago.

The Federal Government has expanded uranium mining and opened exports to India. South Australia boasts what will become the world’s largest uranium mine. The ban for NSW reflected the anti-nuclear sentiment of the 1980s and it is irrelevant today when to beat global warming we urgently need every available source of carbon-free energy.

Shooters Party MPs and the Christian Democratic Party would be well-advised to vote for this legislation on common-sense grounds.

The Primary in Florida February 1, 2012
The victory for Romney confirms that dominance in money and organization still counts. So much for the Gingrich insurgency. They confirm the Republican establishment is not in fact on the run from whooping and hollering members of the Tea Party.
The Dumb Demo Looks Dumber: The Nostalgic Left at Work January 29, 2012
UPDATE. Oh my God, so Unions ACT was the tip-off party. No revelation could make my point below more apt. The myth of the demo. The bankruptcy of old Left culture – paint the placards, stoke the anger and abuse, confront the police, produce scuffles. Create a lovely day out for the local anarchists and Trots. For them, a picnic excursion. This is the point I have been making: this outdated, campus-days, Teachers Federation amateur politics helps the Right. It makes Abbott look good.
Tent Embassy Demo January 27, 2012
I agree with Tony Abbott and think his remarks entirely sensible. The tent embassy in Canberra says nothing to anyone and should have been quietly packed up years ago.
Guns and Bibles January 23, 2012

That Rick Santorum is polling double figures in Republican contests confirms this is a B Team contest. But I warmed to the line from his election night speech in support of Americans who live for their guns and Bibles.

It does inspire this thought, however.

Imagine if a senior Iranian politician – a candidate for leadership – said his people should rally around the Koran and their guns.

And imagine the huffing and puffing on Fox, the op eds from the neo cons, the grim faced commentary from the Washington elite that this confirms the threat from Teheran and that war was all the more likely as a result.

There is little sense in the great republic, the US, of how its domestic antics get projected in the wider world.

Why super injunctions are as leaky as a sieve

The Telegraph U.K. 29 February 2011:

A parliamentary committee published a document revealing the details of one of Britain's last remaining super–injunctions.

In the submission to the 26–member committee, Mark Burby, a businessman based in the Channel Islands, claimed that he had been gagged by the "ex–spouse of an Asian head of state" in 2009.

He said the "Asian head of state" – whom he does not identify – was a "substantial" backer of al–Qaeda, and had advance warning of the suicide bombings on London's transport system in 2005.

The ex–wife "and her solicitors have boasted to me and others that she 'owns' the courts in England and Wales and the Government", he said.

Mr Burby alleged the unnamed ex–spouse, whom he described as one of the wealthiest women in the world, had a sexual relationship "with one of her two solicitors"…..

Evidence presented under parliamentary privilege to the U.K. Parliament Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions here.

Neither the media article nor the written submission disclosed much more than what is quoted above. However, I’m of the opinion that a quick Google search based on the name of former air flight attendant Mariam Abdul Aziz would indicate that the silly court-imposed super injunction is not worth the paper it is printed on. This is supported by previously published legal judgments freely available on the Internet which allude to some of the pertinent facts.

If my supposition is in fact correct, then it might make one wonder why Archerfield Partners LLP and the British Courts continue to pursue the fiction that in today’s digital world a legal injunction can or will stop the flow of publicly available information.