Cane Toads the movie - who da thunk it!

After hearing about Cane Toads the movie wowing them at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, I'm wondering if I should take an autograph book out into the backyard tonight and ask one of the not so little blighters if he (or she) would get one of their movie star cousins to give me a footprint signature.
To Pete with affection would do nicely.

Facts gleaned from the movie's website:

Cane Toads: The Conquest is a comic yet provocative account of Australia's most notorious environmental blunder from filmmaker Mark Lewis.
Shot against the harsh and beautiful landscape of northern Australia, Cane Toads: The Conquest tracks the unstoppable journey of the toad across the continent. Director Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, The Natural History of the Chicken) injects his trademark irreverence and humor into the story as he follows a trail of human conflict, bizarre culture and extraordinary close encounters.
Filmed with high-resolution 3D technology, Cane Toads is the first Australian digital 3D feature film. Custom designed equipment allows viewers to get up close and personal with these curious creatures like never before. The unique viewing experience is like being immersed in the world of the toad......

The storyline? 102 Cane Toads (Bufo marinus) were imported to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to rid the country of the Greyback Cane Beetle, which was decimating Queensland sugar cane crops. Unfortunately, the toads were disinclined to eat cane beetles.
Instead, they set about doing what cane toads do best - multiplying, migrating and thriving. 75 years later, an estimated 1.5 billion toads occupy over 1 million square kilometers of territory – and their conquest steadily continues......

Meet Kevin Ladynski, toad taxidermist, and his 2.5kg pet toad Melrose; Monica Kraus remembers her massive childhood friend Dairy Queen; Merinda Sharp explains why she sends toads on 'trips to Alaska'; Tip Byrne laments the day his father released the toads onto their Cane Farm.

The principal cast? Millions of cane toads Australia wide, mostly from the North.

Coming to a venue near you on the NSW North Coast if cinema owner-operators have any sense.

The truth revealed? Uncorrected transcript of former British Pm Tony Blair's evidence to the Iraq Inquiry

Evidence taken on 29 January 2010 by the U.K. Iraq Inquiry was a rather pointless exercise at times - for the most part questions carefully walked around a former leader rather than confronting issues head-on.

The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair was allowed to interrupt committee members and drag out his political soap-box at length almost unchallenged.

However, what clearly comes through is the fact that Blair:
(i) was probably heavily influenced on a personal level by George W. Bush;
(ii) was determined on regime change in Iraq;
(iii) held a desire for change which was never predicated on Iraq as a hive of international terrorism;
(iv) was aware U.N. sanctions had effectively 'contained' Saddam; and
(v) presented a supposedly intelligence-driven policy position to the British people in which any identified breaches of U.N. sanctions or allegations of weapons of mass destruction were only the smoke screen behind which the Coalition of the Willing had agreed to advance their invasion agenda.

Full uncorrected 249-page transcript here.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 2010, British press shocked at Blair's no regrets on Saddam

Australi, austra, austri....dammit - Oztria!

Travel World website on 23 January 2010
Click on image to enlarge

General info about Australia
Once the center of power for the large Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria was reduced to a small republic after its defeat in World War I. Following annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938 and subsequent occupation by the victorious Allies in 1945, Austria's status remained unclear for a decade. A State Treaty signed in 1955 ended the occupation, recognized Austria's independence, and forbade unification with Germany. A constitutional law that same year declared the country's "perpetual neutrality" as a condition for Soviet military withdrawal. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 and Austria's entry into the European Union in 1995 have altered the meaning of this neutrality. A prosperous, democratic country, Austria entered the EU Economic and Monetary Union in 1999.

I don't know who should be more insulted at this sloppy confusion - Australia or Austria.

A Saturday walk on the arts side

Voyager
Tamasin Pepper



Arctic Meander 2009
Suvira McDonald








School of Fish
Mark Gibson
















These artists can be found at Visual Arts Network

Make your own schools league table for the NSW North Coast - everyone else is!

What with many newspapers already publishing regional school performance lists from the Rudd Government's My School website (and one coyly pretending that by creating tables containing only 6 high schools & 22 primary schools it wasn't giving a quick start to local schools league tables), we all might as well join in.
Here are links to official comparative information on many (but not all) NSW North Coast schools:

Clarence Valley Anglican School
Clarence Valley Anglican School, Clarenza campus
Grafton High School
Grafton Public School
St Mary's Primary School
Westlawn Public School
Bishop Druitt College
Casuarina Steiner School
Coffs Harbour Christian Community School - Coffs Harbour Campus
Coffs Harbour Public School
Coffs Harbour Senior College
John Paul College
Narranga Public School
Orara High School
St Augustine's Primary School
Tyalla Public School
Westlawn Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Tweed Heads Public School
Afterlee Public School
Kyogle High School
Kyogle Public School
St Brigid's Primary School
Evans River Community School
Richmond Christian College
Biala Special School
St Joseph's Primary School
Ballina High School
Alstonville High School
Woodburn Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Broadwater Public School
Cabbage Tree Island Public School
Wardell Public School
Coraki Public School
St Joseph's Primary School
Empire Vale Public School
Rous Public School
Wyrallah Public School
Tregeagle Public School
Emmanuel Anglican College
Ballina Public School
St Francis Xavier Primary School
Alstonville Public School
Alstonville High School
ALESCO Learning Centre - Northern Rivers, Lismore
Caniaba Public School
Lismore High School
Lismore Public School
Lismore South Public School
Modanville Public School
St Carthage's Primary School
St John's College Woodlawn
Trinity Catholic College
Wilson Park School
Wyrallah Road Public School
Vistara Primary School
Summerland Christian College
Blue Hills College
Modanville Public School
Caniaba Public School
Kadina High School
Richmond River High School
Goonellabah Public School
Wooli Public School

Update:
On 30th January The Sydney Morning Herald released PDF download files of an A-Z list of all NSW school scores and 2 league tables containing Top 50 NSW High Schools and Top 50 NSW Primary Schools.
According to these media-produced tables:
Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School came in at an equal 49th in the reading skills section. Otherwise North Coast high schools just didn't rank highly in this particular league table.
Wilsons Creek Public School (Mullumbimby) came in an equal 9th in the reading skills section,Tweed Valley College 22nd, St Mary's Primary School (Belligen) 48th in the same section and that was the limit that our primary schools rated a mention in this league table.

I can't believe it's a leader! Australian climate change policy responses

The Sydney Morning Herald reports this morning that the Federal Coalition under the leadership of the Liberal Party's Tony Abbott is considering raising the price of cigarettes to help fund the so-called environmental programs he is proposing to establish in lieu of creating an emissions trading scheme and a price for carbon.

This tax increase on tobacco is apparently part of Abbott's supposedly wide range of options on the table to replace making big polluters pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.

From 15-21 January 2010 in just seven days Victoria produced 1.895 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (via electricity from coal, natural gas and petroleum), New South Wales produced 1.970 million tonnes from the same sources, Queensland 1.592 million tonnes, and South Australia 330,000 tonnes. Without any real requirement for business to curb these gases and without the Coalition having any intention of imposing any such requirement should it return to government.

So when that internal light bulb lit up, Tony Abbott had a brilliant idea - let's tax smokers instead.1
After all each cigarette must give off at least 15mg of carbon monoxide, plus the flick of the Bic!

Is Tony Abbott turning into yet another Clayton's leader?

1 Just for the record I don't smoke

Aussie flag fuss

Now here's a man who shows some old fashioned commonsense.
David "Bangers" Bancroft, editor of the Daily Examiner in Grafton giving his Australia Day view on the fuss about flags.

THIS might sound 'unAustralian', whatever that means, but I wouldn't be disappointed if I never saw or heard another Australian flag flapping from a car window.

It might not be the right thing to say on Australia Day, but I can't stand the things.

No doubt those who buy the flags are being patriotic, and good luck to them.

But to me they are more jingoistic than a demonstration of national pride and are unnecessary.

This new addition to patriotic fervour has all the hallmarks of a commercial campaign aimed at getting the gullible to feel they aren't demonstrating properly their support of Australia unless they adorn their vehicle, their home and any other display area with an Aussie flag.

This, to me, is more at home in America than Australia, where the Stars and Stripes have always been part of the national psyche.

Such outward demonstrations of nationalism have never seemed necessary in Australia, and aren't now.

Sure, support Australian sporting teams, throw a barbecue with a few mates and feel pride in living in the best country there is. But try not to fall for the commercially motivated need to put a flag in your car window.

And at the risk of raising the ire of rampant nationalists, how about getting rid of the emblem of another country from the top corner of our flag?

You don't need a flag on your car to prove you're Australian.

Couldn't agree more.

Upriver Bill

Northern Rivers

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

DBCDE is sending out emails on Conroy's mad Internet censorship scheme

A short, snappy (and blatantly untruthful) version of the Rudd Government's plan to censor the Australian Internet from an email sent out last week by the Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy.

Better be careful what you say about Stephen Conroy on Twitter then. No more threatening to set his undies on fire or vote him out of the Senate! ;-)