One response to urban sinkholes caused by flood waters in the Clarence Valley

Jules Faber cartoon in The Daily Examiner 17 January 2011.
Jules professional résumé can be found at JulesFaber.com

Monsanto-Mahyco GM eggplant toxicity study receives a fail from researcher - wonder what the opinion will be on Monsanto's latest SDA soybean effort?

Slowly, study by study, faith in the safety of food on supermarket shelves is being eroded.

From those such as A comparison of the effects of three GM corn varieties on mammalian health (which in 2009 threw doubt on the reliability of Monsanto findings and whose authors apparently successfully defended against defamatory claims by the biotech lobby) to the BT BRINJAL Event EE1 The Scope and Adequacy of the GEAC Toxicological Risk Assessment: Review of Oral Toxicity Studies in Rats (November 14, 2010 by Dr Lou M Gallagher, PhD, Wellington, New Zealand) which found:

SUMMARY

This evaluation of Bt brinjal studies is based on requirements for a rigorous evaluation of food safety for the people of India and their health. Departures from Indian and international published standards for the 14‐day and 90‐day studies are a cause for concern 1.

The current food safety studies for Bt brinjal were not conducted in accordance with published standards, did not accurately summarize results, and ignored toxic endpoints for rats fed Bt brinjal: in particular, rats fed Bt brinjal for 78 out of 90 days (only one dose level) experienced:

• organ and system damage: ovaries at half their normal weight, enlarged spleens with white blood cell counts at 35 to 40 percent higher than normal with elevated eosinophils, indicating immune function changes.

• toxic effects to the liver as demonstrated by elevated bilirubin and elevated plasma acetylcholinesterase.

Major health problems among test animals were ignored in these reports. The single test dose used was lower than recommended by the Indian protocols. Release of Bt brinjal for human consumption cannot be recommended given the current evidence of toxicity to rats in just 90 days and the studies' serious departures from normal scientific standards.

So, if this is the true state of affairs concerning the humble eggplant once it was unconventionally altered, what hope is there that Monsanto's virtual minion in all things genetically modified Food Standards Australia New Zealand will actually have conducted the following stated process?

FSANZ has not previously assessed a GM food crop with a consumer focused nutritional modification.
FSANZ will need to undertake a safety assessment of high scientific complexity and include a nutritional assessment, which is not normally required for GM crops expressing agronomic traits.
This Application is anticipated to involve an assessment of the risk to public health and safety of above average complexity.

Well might you ask because this is what FSANZ found and signed off on:

On the basis of the data provided in the present Application, and other available information, food derived from soybean MON87769 is as safe for human consumption as other commercially available soybean varieties.

Basically telling Australian consumers that a genetically modified enriched soybean food will be safe to eat because the patent-owner Monsanto says that this is so and, this say so probably doesn't involve any in-depth animal studies because FSANZ does not normally require this level of safety assessment.

Will you be feeding any form of soybean product to your children after May 2011?

Given the lax GM food labelling laws in Australia - would you even know if you were?

Is there "Something Rotten in the State of Windsor?"

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 17 January 2011:

The Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia's Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia is one strange entity.

Throwing process transparency to the wind, it is now selectively publishing copies of the 535 submissions received to date.

This is a snapshot example of what the list looked like on 17 January 2011 after the first 160 submissions:

So what is being hidden? Naive submissions of which there were already plenty in the first 160 received? A committee or secretariat in organizational disarray?
Or is it that the Chair just doesn't want the bulk of the over 300 unpublished submissions out in the public arena before the mainstream media reports on the public hearings and the Committee delivers its findings?

It goes without saying that such questions would not even come to mind if submissions had been published in the order in which these were received and not as this highly selective hotch potch.

Just who is it that Australia needs protecting from?

On 18 January 2011 yet another national political party has been registered by the Australian Electoral Commission.

This one is called the Australian Protectionist Party.

A small hint as to its world view can be found on the official website homepage at the moment, with headline grabbers like;
Media Admits that Nick Griffin Has Been Right all Along over Muslim Paedophile Gangs and Say no to a Caliphate in Australia, say no to Shari’a in Australia! A vigil against Hizb ut-Tahrir.

While a current poll asks Should we ban the building of Mosques in Australia? and yet another post trumpets Left-wing extremists declare war on our freedom of speech!

As a final example of the mindset one cannot go past its apparent support of Creationism being taught in Australian schools in this 19 March 2010 press release titled; Protectionists Condemn Government Intolerance.

The registered officer of this new political party is one Andrew Phillips, who according to a 2007 Destiny newsletter:

.....has had a long involvement in Australian politics, having been the Senate team leader for the One Nation Party in South Australia, and is now the National Chairman for the Australian Protectionist Party. This article is purely written in his capacity as an independent political commentator. For more of his independent political articles, see the South Australian site for the Australian Protectionist Party....

"Moggy Musings" [Archived Material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

A Christmas musing: Dear furry friends,
All the best for the festive season and the New Year. Please read the card I have for you at http://www.jacquielawson.com/preview.asp?cont=1&hdn=0&pv=3274601&path=98301
Cheers,
Your mate Rex
PS Go easy on the cherry cheer and fruit cake. I know from experience that it plays havoc with me, but I still cannot resist a bit of over-indulgence at this time of year.

A Rats in teh Ranks musing: My little canine friend, Veronica Lake, paid close attention when her humans were at the breakfast table this week and overhead them discussing the fact that someone in the Tweed had the hide to suggest to the Regional Australia Committee that east coast river water should be piped into the Murray-Darling Basin. Now the only east coast river currently under discussion is the Clarence River and Ronnie thinks the chappie has a hide seeing that the Clarence Valley stood with the Tweed and Richmond when they resisted their water being nicked a few years back. Ronnie said her mob were also sniggering at the sly mention being made of Charles Dean's love of dams in an email sent to the Committee.

A ponder musing: In the face of yet another parliamentary inquiry into water security, I wonder who it was that appears to have convinced one free local newspaper that the issue of Clarence River water diversion is just a media beat-up by a rival paper? Hmmmmm.......

A Which Bank? musing: There is one local who is frankly confused. His bank first sent him letter apologising for 'accidentally' sending his phone account details to a total stranger, then followed it with a letter asking him to destroy a letter never received which supposedly had contained someone else's account details. Finally it capped off it's strange banking behaviour by giving his name and number to a survey company so that it could conduct a survey on bank customers. Whatever happened to privacy?

A court house musing: Maclean moggies have been indulging in some catty muttering about the Grafton legal eagle who stubbornly brought a high profile on-going prosecution to a dead halt because he wanted to attend the Jacaranda Festival's Hazy Thursday and wasn't going to accommodate the court, briefs or defendants and their families who may have wished otherwise.

A they should be sacked musing: Rexie tells me that his petit ami Clouseau was saying that although he's endowed with ears that are close to the ground, sometimes the information picked up isn't fit for dogs' ears, let alone humans. In his recent travels around the Northern Rivers he heard that at a licensed sports club which has CCTV cameras a number of blokes (who are club members and/or visitors and perhaps even staff) have availed themselves of the club's camera facilities to observe at least one female member of staff getting changed in the women's rooms. Gee, those blokes are sick! sick! sick!

A bouquet musing: Rex the German Shepherd sent me this email about a very pleased neighbour............ A bouquet for HP (Hewlett-Packard - Australia) and its authorised repairer North Coast Information Technology in Ballina. A bloke I know created a bit of a problem for himself when he inflicted some minor damage on his HP notebook. With the notebook still under warranty, the bloke decided it was best to contact HP and obtain advice about how he should go about having the damage rectified. HP told him he'd need to have an HP authorised repairer do the job - the nearest repairers are in Ballina and Coffs Harbour - so he opted to take it to Ballina, thinking the job would cost him an arm and a leg. A couple of days later North Coast Information Technology rang the bloke and told him the notebook was repaired. The bloke asked how much the service would cost him. NCIT replied, "No charge, it wasn't a very difficult or time-consuming job to fix your notebook." Three cheers for NCIT! PS. NCIT staff members Colin, Jo and a technician, whose name escaped the bloke, are to be commended for their 5-star service.



Boy

Hey, Google! Give me back my ability to do a decent search or I walk

I only lost Google Search Engine’s Search Within Results option last week when using Internet Explorer – AND I WANT IT BACK NOW! It was more than annoying when Google decided to install Web History which automatically modified search results on a predictive basis thus limiting deliberately wide searches. It was simply awful coping with that intrusive low IQ Instant Search until I managed to permanently switch it off. However, the last straw was finding the search within option deleted by those increasingly highhanded geeks at Google Inc. Now looking about for a new search engine to be my ‘best friend’ in cyberspace.

Browned Off
Bangalow

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

Senator Eric Abetz - the gift that just keeps on giving

This is an excerpt from an Australian Liberal Party Federal Senator Eric Abetz media release on 17 January 2011, in which he demonstrates that he is a serious history buff:

“To imply climate change is responsible for flooding is to deny the World’s history from Noah and beyond.”

Does this mean that when flood mitigation measures are inevitably discussed in the Senate later this year that Abetz might be recommending funding local government areas to build wooden arks for residents and ratepayers?

Image from Google Images

Reader Alert! Pistols, or perhaps handbags, at 10 paces at dawn

Two very seasoned correspondents who appear regularly (some might say, "too regularly") in The Daily Examiner's letters columns seem set for one almighty brawl. 

The correspondent from the lower end of the valley (the area that contributes vast amounts of $$$s to the coffers of the local council and helped bail out the cash-strapped upper valley council via a process of enforced amalgamation) has thrown a red flag in the face of the true-blue, conservative commentator from upstream.

Watch this space!

Abbott's 'flood' politics don't appear to be resonating with the general public

When a public figure like Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott tries to play politics in a rolling natural disaster; from his 'more dams' call, to cravenly trying to scare Queensland flood victims by falsely calling into doubt their basic eligibility for Centrelink's Disaster Recovery Payment and then following that with a reworking of his 'great big new tax' mantra with lines like Queenslanders should not be taxed to fund the rebuilding effort - then he too can find himself amongst the casualties:

Tables from the Essentail Report on 17 January 2011 don't indicate any great enthusiasm for Abbott. The survey was conducted online from 11 to 16 January 2011 at the height of east coast flooding and, after Abbott had given a number of interviews on the subject. It is based on 1,052 respondents.