Cansdellgate - up to episode 10001 and there's more to come

A correspondent to The Daily Examiner has thanked the paper for running a piece last week (Was it the ghost of Steve? 29/2/2012) about Hansard inadvertently showing the former and disgraced MP for Clarence Steve Cansdell as having voted in parliament recently, despite the former MP having hastily resigned from parliament as a consequence of failing Stat Decs 101.

FUNNY STORIES

Thanks for your funny story about how Steve Cansdell still gets to have his vote recorded in the NSW Government six months after he resigned.

Would be even funnier if it wasn't serious.

Nevertheless, I'm sure there are some other funny stories with which you can entertain readers no end, by adding a little detail.

Firstly, isn't it funny that Mr Cansdell is still driving when he supposedly lost his licence due to losing all points as a serial speeder?

Secondly, who owns the car?

Wouldn't it be funny if the NSW Government has forgotten to repossess it?

And the ultimate funny story: if a statutory declaration is made falsely under the Oaths Act, there has historically been a mandatory four-year jail term - no ifs or buts.

If Mr Cansdell has admitted to such a falsehood, isn't it funny the law is not applied and taxpayers are pacified with the old "ongoing investigation" furphy?

Is this like the "ongoing investigation" of Wollongong council's planning decisions, involving many other state members?

How funny is that?

Mike Gorrie, Grafton

Source: The Daily Examiner, 5/3/12

Read Clarencegirl's piece on the Cansdell-Gulaptis Roadshow here. 

Mormon's posthumously baptise people who when living were likely to be very unwilling converts

Organized religion rarely disappoints as in a Los Angeles Times report of 15 February 2012:

The Mormon Church apologized Tuesday for a "serious breach of protocol" after it was discovered that the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized as Mormons. The church also acknowledged that one of its members tried to baptize posthumously three relatives of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

The efforts, at least in Wiesenthal's case, violated the terms of an agreement that the church signed in 1995, in which it agreed to stop baptizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Wiesenthal and Wiesel gained fame for careers spent grappling with the legacy of the Holocaust, Wiesenthal by hunting down war criminals, Wiesel by writing books that became part of the canon of 20th century literature.

Coming at a time when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the public eye as perhaps never before, the revelations could prove embarrassing — and, conceivably, influence perceptions of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's faith…..

The latest revelations came from Helen Radkey, a former Mormon who independently researches Mormon genealogy. Radkey is perhaps best known for discovering in 2009 that President Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, had been baptized after her death.

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

The New York Times online Politics

Click on map to enlarge

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