What navigating a former war zone looks like from the air

Something to think about if you are ever on a Dubai to Paris flight……….

Flying in what looks like an old wartime convoy line over Iraq in the late afternoon of 31 March 2013 ADST according to FlightRadar24:

More Abbott hypocrisy

Nine News 7 April 2013:

"The prime minister shouldn't use an overseas trip to make domestic political comments," he [Abbott] said.

The Australian 18 July 2012:

Mr Abbott told the Heritage Foundation, a leading [American] conservative think tank, that he was concerned Australia's defence spending had fallen to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since 1938.

The West 5 April 2012:

The Federal Opposition plans to retain a key part of Labor's mining tax package, convinced it will generate billions of dollars in the decades ahead.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has confirmed to The West Australian that the coalition would keep the Government's extension of the petroleum resource rent tax to onshore projects.

Until the introduction of the mining tax last year, the PRRT was restricted to offshore oil and gas projects including the North-West Shelf and Bass Strait.

By extending its footprint to onshore reserves, the PRRT will capture massive amounts of tax from the expanding coal seam gas sector in Queensland and NSW.

Mr Hockey said the coalition still intended abolishing the minerals resource rent tax and insisted the decision to keep the expanded PRRT would not come as a surprise to the mining industry. "The coalition has been consistent in its message that our abolition of the MRRT will not automatically extend to the PRRT," he said yesterday.

Abbott’s pre-election ‘discussion’ about absconding with GST revenue assigned to Labor states and giving the billion plus to Liberal mates:

Only one way that Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott will ever fix their budget deficit and that’s strong revenues from the mining industry and the mining industry’s basically Western Australia….

He made comments to me along the lines that, ‘I don’t think it’s sensible to hold back strong parts of the economy to simply prop up weaker parts of the economy’…..

*Abbott photograph found at Google Images

Twitterverse in 2013: Kath doesn't heart Mark the MP

Kath Crosby on her blog Begin Rant:

Mark Coulton had no right what so ever to tell me to go call my father if I didn’t like that the entire executive of the Warialda Branch of the National Party were members of his family. Was I stirring by alerting the Inverell Times to the situation? Yes, but I wasn’t the idiot who tweeted it in the first place – that was his daughter – and I wasn’t the idiot who didn’t make sure there was some diversity on the executive – that would be him.

Desperate to stem the downward trend to its share value Metgasco sneaks into the media 2,000km away from its coal seam gas tenements

 

Coal seam gas company Metgasco Limited on 4 April 2013 trying to talk itself up on Page 51 of The Advertiser in Adelaide, approximately 2,000km away from its NSW exploration tenements:

 

COAL seam gas miner Metgasco says it has been asked to consider gas projects outside New South Wales after new government regulations led to it suspending its operations in the state.

A day after CSG player Dart Energy announced it would suspend its NSW operations and sack 70 per cent of its staff, Metgasco chief executive Peter Henderson said his company is receiving invitations to invest in projects in other parts of Australia and overseas.

 

This company’s 5.5 cent share price at close of Australian Stock Exchange trading on 5 April 2013 does not support Henderson’s hype:

Remember when the Australian coal seam gas industry admitted it would contaminate aquifers?

The Sydney Morning Herald 3 August 2011:

THE coal seam gas industry has conceded that extraction will inevitably contaminate aquifers.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association told a fiery public meeting in Sydney that good management could minimise the risks of water contamination, but never eliminate them.

''Drilling will, to varying degrees, impact on adjoining aquifers,'' said the spokesman, Ross Dunn. ''The extent of impact and whether the impact can be managed is the question.''

The face of a future discerning voter?

wondog1 BillB

A young girl watching Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott

Champagne corks are popping all over the Clarence Valley today!

The Daily Examiner 5 April 2013:
 
Rob Donges will end 16 years of local government work before June 30....
 
assets manager George Kriflick...has tendered his resignation.....