A 'drowning in a sea of cutes' moment

In unison the blogosphere sighs; Aawww!

Beautiful Declan - a Clarence Valley 2010 baby captured by the camera of Daniel Deefholts and found in last Saturday's The Daily Examiner

More NSW North Coast babies from Photography Unlimited Grafton here.

Not the way to woo female voters, Tony

Australian Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott is on the woo trail again and this little nugget was thrown into the media mix yesterday with a view to possibly making him seem more human; "And it [sex] is one of life's great pleasures."

Eeeewww! Way too much information and not the type of political transparency most females would be looking for as they weigh up ballot paper options.

This is not the first time that Mr. Abbott has attempted to flirt with the electorate and it is going down like a lead balloon with many women.

From the top of his shiny balding pate right through to those stringy thighs there is nothing about Abbott to set the average voter's heart racing - the yellow lycra, red budgie smugglers and rampant chauvinism are all real turn-offs and these contrived true confessions coyly offered to female journalists are frankly risible.

Tony Abbott is a stud hunk alpha male political legend only in his own mind. Perhaps his wife should remind him of that fact next time he comes home.

Cartoon by Murray Webb

Update:

Patricia WA commenting on a Larvatus Prodeo thread concerning the media interview had this to say:
Nothing new to get excited about here. All Tony’s transgressions have been on the public record for yonks. I guess putting them in the context of the Ten Commandments makes them headline worthy, but more privately in the confessional we can only imagine what his Mea Culpa might consist of.
I have worshipped as my god John Winston Howard.
His image is graven on my heart, and I daily worship at his altar, promoting his word and his Church of the Liberal Party of Australia.
I have taken thy name in vain and been generally foul of tongue.
I have profaned the sabbath, disporting myself near naked on the beaches of Manly.
I have lived an adulterous youth and still lust after carnal satisfaction.
I have stolen the rank and rewards of my colleague Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.
I daily bear false witness against Kevin Michael Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia.
I covet his Lodge though not his ass, nor his wife who is of too independent temper.
I confess that the opportunity for his assassination has so far eluded me.

Luke 'don't let truth get in the way' Hartsuyker on the National Party 2010 federal election campaign trail

Montage of cardboard cut-out incident manufactured by the Opposition in 2008

from Google Images

Not content with making a mockery of the House of Representatives during his first few months on the Opposition benches and refusing a lawful order from The Speaker's chair to remove himself from the chamber, spending the intervening years doing little more than rolling interjections - now the shadow spokeperson for small business and small minds has seized a protected species and begun wielding it as a weapon in the hope of holding onto his very marginal federal seat of Cowper.

Here is the Nationals' Luke Hartsuyker in full flight in The Daily Examiner last Friday, with the Liberal candidate for Page riding in his wake for the photo opportunity:

FEDERAL Cowper MP Luke Hartsuyker had more than flying foxes in his sights at Maclean yesterday.

The MP wants a flying fox colony removed from near Maclean High School and is intent on seeking a solution in Federal Parliament.

Yesterday he slammed the Maclean Flying Fox Working Group as a 'bureaucratic con'. He described Federal Page MP Janelle Saffin as a fence-sitter who had not been genuine with the high school's P&C committee.

Mr Hartsuyker went on the attack at the launch of his petition supporting the removal of the Maclean bats.

Mr Hartsuyker told a small group of media and residents outside the Maclean High School gates that a private member's bill was being drafted. If passed it would provide emergency powers to the Federal Minister of the Environment for the removal of the bats because they posed a public health risk.

"This petition will send a clear message to the Minister and will provide the Clarence Valley with a voice," Mr Hartsuyker said.

"It is outrageous that our school students are exposed to diseases of the third world. Co-existence is not working, disperse the bats now."

Now Mr. Hartsuyker knows full well that there has never been a case in this country where the vulnerable protected species the Grey-headed Flying Fox has directly transmitted Hendra or Nipah viruses to humans. There is of course a vaccine available for the Lyssavirus which is transmitted by a bite/scratch from an infected mammal, but the incidence of this virus is extremely rare and there have only been two cases in the whole of Australia.

He also would be well aware that an properly constructed application to the NSW Government would allow a limited period bat dispersal license to be issued as has happened in the past (it would be interesting to discover just who has been advising Maclean High School P&C to go down the rather torturous joint application route it has taken).

Yet the lack of rampant disease in the playground and an easier alternate route to bat dispersal permission does not stop our doughty, disaster peddling Coffs Harbour politician from holding forth - thereby making Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin appear very balanced and genuinely constructive in comparison.

Distribution of the species within the Northern Rivers Catchment

Previous North Coast Voices posts concerning bats.

When a quote is not a quote in 2010

Tim Lambert posting about climate change denialism reminded me that there are any number of misquotes and absolutely false quotes found on the Internet these days.
Snopes carries examples of some classics which are primarily sourced from America.

However, if one wants to see blatant misquotes and bogus paraphrasing at work in Australia one can do no better than look through Hansard courtesy of Open Australia where complaints about misrepresentation are not uncommon.

This little exchange was set off by that arch word-twister, Tony Abbott:

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister agree with his finance minister that the Home Insulation Program, which has contributed to the deaths of four Australians, was a program where the government could not be expected to dot the i's and cross the t's?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Mr Speaker, on a point of order: it is not in order for the Leader of the Opposition to verbal the finance minister in a question. Therefore the premise of the question is incorrect and therefore the question is out of order.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The chair is not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of quotes contained within questions. On all occasions, these matters are left in the hands of the person that is asking the question, and the remedial action open to any aggrieved party is well known by members of the House.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) I do. And it has just been repeated in the most recent statement.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Please proceed.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) In question time today, the Leader of the Opposition stated that I had said yesterday that the government could not be expected to dot its i's and cross its t's with respect to the administration of the insulation program. As those who are listening might have noted in what was just read out by the member for North Sydney, I was asked a specific question about delaying decisions with regard to the government stimulus matters, and the question related to: why didn't the government deal with issues such as the risk association with metal fasteners at the time it made these decisions? My answer was: these are matters for implementation, rightly to be dealt with by the minister and the department, and this was not a reason for delaying those decisions. So the interpretation that is being placed on my statement by the member for North Sydney and the Leader of the Opposition is totally false.

House of Representatives Hansard transcript for 11 February 2010

Audio of Tanner interview which includes the dotting the i's and crossing the t's quote, courtesy of that excellent resource Malcolm Farnsworth's audio clips.

Whaling Wars: Japan wrong on science and in breach of U.N. international convention

This week the Government of Japan began its trial of two Greenpeace activists who blew the whistle on an allegedly illegal trade in whale meat within that country.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has informed the Japanese Government that it is in breach of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to detention of the Tokyo Two.




This is how Asahi Shimbun sees the trial and this below appears to be the newspaper's current position on whales:

A large whale apparently devours more than 5 tons of krill and small fish per day. One can only imagine the consequences of protecting such a big eater alone could have on the ecosystem......
Because we humans lord it over the land and because the oceans seem all too powerful, we have been too indifferent to their debilitation.
Unlawful actions against research whaling do nothing but distract people's attention from the true peril. It is time to repay the oceans with our wisdom.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 8

A position which is not supported by science according to Discovery News:

Meanwhile,a new study has cast doubt on one of the key arguments of those responsible for Japan's Antarctic whaling program: that the region's minke whales have increased greatly in number in response to greater availability of krill, following the reduction of populations of other whale species as blue, fin and humpback. According to this argument, hunting minke whales therefore not only does not pose a threat to the species, it actually helps those other species.
The new study, funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program and published in the journal Molecular Ecology, used analyses of genetic diversity to examine whether there was evidence that numbers of minke whales in the Antarctic have increased in recent decades. Its authors, led by Kristen Ruegg of Stanford University, extracted DNA from 52 whale meat samples purchased in Japan from minkes killed within four Antarctic management areas. As large populations tend to have more genetic variation than small ones, which have more inbreeding, the researchers were able to use the amount of genetic variation within the population to calculate its historical size. They concluded that the long-term population size of Antarctic minke whales is 670,000, which falls within the range of estimates derived from several ship-based surveys and is indeed in excess of a more recent unofficial estimate of 338,000.
Ruegg and colleagues speculate that one possible reason why minke whales might not have grown in number in response to the greater availability of krill is that minkes may have never experienced strong competition for food because krill may have been abundant enough for all predators, both prior to historic whaling and today. Alternatively, minke whales may not eat krill at the same time, in the same areas or at the same depths as larger whales.

The world according to Abbott in 150 words or less

The world according to Tony Abbott in 150 words or less....

Garrett has committed the equivalent of industrial manslaughter, Stephen Conroy is a Labor bagman carrying election bribes to the media, the poor often prefer to be penniless and homeless, the country will be better off if more income producing government assets are sold, unfair dismissal rules and penalty rates for weekend work should be tossed out the window, NSW & QLD public hospitals would be more economically viable if run by the mates network, a dying Bernie was faking his indignation, it is always the the highway's fault when my official car cuts in front of a truck, every young girl should go to her marriage bed gift-wrapped as a virgin, only women should do the household ironing, climate science is crap, the national economy is boring and my knob is so-o-o much bigger than Kevin Rudd's so you should trust me.

It literally took Barnaby Joyce years before he permanently parted company from reality and started to spout nonsense - the current Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has reached la-la land much sooner it seems.

International Women's Day Brunch, Yamba 6 March 2010

LOWER CLARENCE WOMEN’S GROUP
INVITES YOU TO

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
BRUNCH

SATURDAY 6 MARCH 2010
10 AM – 11.30 AM

TREELANDS DRIVE COMMUNITY CENTRE YAMBA

GUEST SPEAKERS
‘Love Bites Program’
ENTERTAINMENT
‘Youthful voice & guitar’

RAFFLE for local Women’s project
‘Deborah Novak mounted photos’

DONATIONS TO UNIFEM

Cost: $10 per person Concession $5.00

Please book by Thursday 4 March
Yamba Community Centre
Tel: 6646 1478

General enquiries:
Susan Howland – 6645 0001 or 6646 2129 or 0427 975 131
susan.howland@clarence.nsw.gov.au

Support of the Office for Women’s Policy and Clarence Valley Council is appreciated.