"Moggy Musings" (Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat)

Hi! My name is Boy. I'm a male bi-coloured tabby cat.
Ever since I discovered that Malcolm Turnbull's dogs were allowed to blog, I have been pestering clarencegirl to allow me a small space on North Coast Voices.
My first musing:
John Howard doesn't seem to have a companion animal in his household. No dog, no cat, no budgie - hmm.
Does he secretly give houseroom to a goldfish?
Idle musing:
Caught sight of Alexander Downer on the North Coast and all I could think of was his fishnet stockings. Just wanted to rub against those shapely legs.
Do you think this is just a cat thing?
Indignant musing:
Worst political insult on the Net, "Your cat votes Liberal! He told me."
I was most insulted until clarencgirl assured me that they were probably talking about Bored Cat over at Larvatus Prodeo.
Sympathetic musing:
I hear that Brendan Nelson's dogs Lucy and Snif are belly-to-the-ground with embarrassment after their Minister for Expensive Toys was criticised on the same day by both Media Watch for being gullible and Four Corners for being a prize dill. I say that these terriers are not responsible for their human.
Horrified musing:
I was shocked to find a FaceBook entry which said: "So many cats, so few recipes". Felines of the world unite against sick jokes!
Puzzled musing:
A neighbour cat told me that a dog she knew, who was told by a pooch who knew a mutt, said that a Nationals candidate on the North Coast was going to the November 24 election one step ahead of a scandal. Why am I the last to know?
Amused musing:
I just checked my moggy emails and found a bundle telling me that I had won the lottery in a number of countries. To the senders I say - I'm a cat, you ninnies. I may be able to click a mouse, but I walk on all fours and don't have a surname much less a bank account. Dogs may worry about bank balances or the state of their share portfolios, cats definitely do not!
To Rex the Alsatian - thanks for the inquisitive email.
Proud musing:
Charlie Slim, a 3 year-old Border Collie from Grafton won the Australian Working Dog Championships last week. Front paws all over the Clarence Valley pounded the ground in appreciation of this young dog's fine performance.
Concerned musing:
Kevin Rudd told Rove that the cat and dog attend family conferences at his house. Abby and Jasper - now's your chance to strike a blow for other pets' welfare. Tell Kevin that many pensioners who have dogs, cats or birds to keep isolation and loneliness at bay often have to do without in order to feed their companions or take them to the vet.
Troubled musing:
I'm definitely a very troubled puss. Pensioners have been emailing me about the cost of feeding their animals. A thankyou to J. for pointing out that finding landlords who will allow pets is also a problem for some on the North Coast.
Election Day Weather Warning for all dogs, cats, tweeties, ferrets, and other family pets:
Storm clouds, violent winds and electric atmospherics are expected in the vicinity of your humans tomorrow.
Strongly advise you to grab that squeaky toy, slipper, bone or blanket and hide under the bed until this weather passes.
Skies expected to clear by Sunday.

Email: catlives9@hotmail.com

 

Rodney Tiffen looks at the Murdoch media and those 2007 Clayton's editorial endorsements

While the likes of Pearson, Henderson, Windshuttle, Akerman, Milne, and Switzer turn themselves inside out searching for relevancy in the new Rudd Government era, Professor Rodney Tiffen looks back at the Murdoch media's close relationship with the former Howard Government.

 

"Two conclusions should not be lost sight of. Labor won this election without any help, and in the face of some hindrance, from News Limited, and so the government owes the company precisely zero. Second, the Murdoch press has exposed itself as being out of touch with public opinion, and with a more limited capacity to influence it than they might have imagined. Its senior ranks are so dominated by conservative ideologues that this colours all their views of politics. This long ago started to damage their professional credibility, but of more interest to their boss may be the fact that now it is also increasingly threatening their commercial performance."

Tiffen article in Australian Policy Online:
 http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/comment_results.chtml?filename_num=183199

A NSW Northern Coast view of Iemma's love affair with Monsanto and GM crops

With the NSW and Victorian governments announcing the lifting of state-wide bans on genetically modified crop seed planting, Australia now moves closer to becoming a client state of Monsanto and its transnational cronies.

Morris Iemma may expect people in this state to bend over and take it, when his government makes a unilateral decision to interfere with food purity and to limit consumer choice because cross-contamination of produce and product cannot be eliminated.

He may be somewhat surprised when all of us do not blindly follow his lead. 

Many on the NSW North Coast are highly suspicious of genetically modified organisms, which are largely untested with regard to human studies, and concerned about effects on plant biodiversity and virility.

Knowing the Iemma Government's lack of moral fibre, I have slowly been adapting my diet to eradicate all produce and products which are likely to currently contain traces of GMOs and likely in the future to contain a percentage of genetically modified material.

So nuts (forgive the pun) to you Mr. Iemma and any NSW farmer who is silly enough to follow your lead. I won't be eating your dodgy food.

The Northern Rivers Echo local views on GM crops last Thursday:

 http://www.echonews.com/index.php?page=View%20Article&article=19128&issue=304

Only one week into the new Rudd Government and some questions begin to niggle

In recent years the fact that Labor in Opposition often railed against the Howard Government but voted with it, on measures to restrict civil liberties and human rights, did not go unnoticed.
Now the Rudd Government is installed a number of questions arise.

In the March 2008 High Court legal challenge to provisions of Howard's NT Intervention, will the Commonwealth be registering an interest in the matter or will it be defending this racist legislation?

Will the Rudd Government adopt all the considered and moderate recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission's report on Howard's sedition laws or does it intend to drag its heels and hope we all forget about this sustained assault on our fundamental freedoms?

What is the this new government planning to do about the ludicrous situation which allowed Australian territory to be excised from the Commonwealth for the purpose of refugee status assessment?

Will the Rudd Cabinet have the guts to order a full review of Commonwealth anti- terrorism laws in relation to compliance with constitutional and international law?

I suspect that I am not the only one who would like a few answers.

Those glossy Sunday comics of yore

The older I get the more changes I see. It's the way of the world.

Amongst many other things, those wondrous, glossy coloured comic supplements in the Sunday newspapers of childhood are long gone.

However, in their reduced and anaemic modern equivalent at least some of the same cartoon strips remained to give a brief glimpse back to what always seems a gentler time.

So last week it was sad to see the passing of yet another of the cartoonists who drew Ginger Meggs, James Kemsley.

According to news reports, Jason Chatfield is stepping into the breach to keep Our Ginge alive. Welcome to the world of Aussie childhood memories, Jason.

Aussie professor plays at social engineering

The following has to be one of the most bird-witted ideas ever to come out of the ranks of the Australian medical profession.

 

"FAMILIES would pay a $5000-plus baby levy at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child under a plan flagged in Australia's top medical journal.

Every couple with more than two children would be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Perth Assoc Prof Barry Walters outlines his proposal in yesterday's Medical Journal of Australia.

He calls for condoms and greenhouse-friendly services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits for the user and prescriber."

Herald Sun full article today:
 http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22896354-662,00.html

 

How wonderful. The good doctor proposes both a tax on the reproductive capacity of ordinary Australians and a way to earn carbon credits for himself and his cronies by sterilising the poor.

That's what this amounts to because only high income earners would be able to afford a third child under his crazy, crazy scheme.

Not since Hitler's Germany have I heard of such a bizarre approach to social policy.

If I didn't know better I would think this University of Western Australia associate professor had been nipping at the ether. Time for the Dean to have a quiet word with this gentleman.

The nuclear future we all missed by the skin of our teeth

Because John Howard's scare tactics failed him in 2007 and all his rabbits died of old age, Australia can thankfully look forward to another three years without the threat of commercial nuclear power stations being established in this country.

The NSW North Coast has cause to be particularly grateful as there were persistent rumours that this region was likely to find itself on any list of preferred sites. 

 

This is a taste of what we managed to avoid.

"A GERMAN study has found that young children living near nuclear power plants have a significantly higher risk of developing leukaemia and other forms of cancer, a German newspaper reported today.

"Our study confirmed that in Germany a connection has been observed between the distance of a domicile to the nearest nuclear power plant .... and the risk of developing cancer, such as leukaemia, before the fifth birthday," Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted the report as saying."

News.com.au yesterday:

 http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22894204-1702,00.html

Mungo MacCallum writes a book, "Poll Dancing: The Story Of The 2007 Election"

Quick-off-the-mark Mungo MacCallum's book "Poll Dancing: The Story Of The 2007 Election" goes onto bookstore shelves today.

If the edited extract below is any indication it should be a good read for all those who still have a smile on their face because Howard lost, lost, lost.

 

"John Howard clung to a sceptical view of climate change, and the storm of dissent overwhelmed him, writes Mungo MacCallum.

To describe John Howard as a climate-change sceptic, as he and his opponents frequently did, was something of an understatement.

Howard was not sceptical, or even agnostic; for many years he had been a card-carrying atheist, as his actions made clear. He would not ratify the Kyoto agreement; he would not consider carbon trading, let alone a carbon tax; he would not set serious targets for renewable energy, or even for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. From time to time he would politely suggest that the bigger polluters might like to have a look at ways to cut back; if they did, good, and if they didn't, so it went.

As the number of headlines about global warming increased through 2006, Howard remained unconvinced, but he recognised the political usefulness of the issue. If, he mused, there really was a problem (though the jury was still out), then perhaps we should try for cleaner coal; and, of course, any solution had to include nuclear power, because that would wedge the ALP. And would everyone please remember to turn off unwanted lights and put a brick in the cistern, because although Australia was such a small player in the emission stakes that nothing it did by itself could have the slightest effect, individuals could still make a difference, and what do you mean, "Humbug"?

None of this amounted to much, so when Malcolm Turnbull, the newly appointed water and environment supremo, was asked whether the government had a policy on climate change, he was in a sense quite right when he replied that the government had had a policy for 10 years. What he didn't say was that the policy went like this: Climate change probably isn't happening. But if it is happening and there is a problem, then the scientists will fix it. And if they can't fix it, then we'll have to adapt. And if we can't adapt, well, tough. But in any case, it probably isn't happening. This is less a policy than a state of mind, a fatalism of which Mother Teresa might have been proud. It is, however, an unsuitable attitude to take for a government which is meant to prevent rape, rather than invite the prospective victim to lie back and enjoy it.

It was always going to be risky for Howard if the issue suddenly became a significant one, which it duly did at the end of 2006. A wet American political has-been produced a science-fiction movie and a chinless British dilettante came out with a doomsday prophecy, and the bloody mob went mad. Or that's the way it must have looked to Howard: after all, there was nothing really new in either Al Gore's film or Sir Nicholas Stern's report. The scientists had been saying it all for months, if not years, and the lavishly funded critics had successfully held them at bay. Now, suddenly, what had been a scary but far-fetched hypothesis was received truth. The drought probably had something to do with it; even if, as Howard maintained, there was no proven link to climate change, it was a taste of what might be in the not-too-distant future.

There were still sceptics around, and they were getting an inordinate amount of media play. Interestingly, many of them were economists: the pseudo-scientists who delighted in their own warnings of doom and gloom were apparently unwilling to accept the same when it came backed up by hard evidence.

Certainly denial was no longer a tenable position for Howard; the voters demanded action. So they got it - up to a point. They got the Great Big Splash. Announcing it, Howard drew on Crocodile Dundee: Rudd called his education policy a revolution, laughed the prime minister. Well, that wasn't a revolution - this was a revolution. And so it was: a proposal to put $10 billion towards fixing the Murray-Darling Basin, if the states would hand over their water powers to the federal government - which meant to Aquaboy, Malcolm Turnbull. As policy, it presented problems, not least the almost complete lack of detail. But as politics it was Howard at his best, or so it appeared at the time. The government burst back into the game, grabbing the very territory on which it was thought to be weakest. Howard audaciously challenged the traditional federal structure, which Rudd had marked out for reform. He trumped Rudd's water summit and wedged the Labor premiers: in spite of some huffing and puffing, it was really an offer they could not afford to refuse. And of course, the sheer scale of the announcement drove all the other problems off the front pages.

With splendid serendipity the popular environmentalist Tim Flannery was named Australian of the Year. A week earlier this would have been an embarrassment to Howard: Flannery had been a constant critic of the government for its lack of action on global warming, and indeed warned that he would continue to be so. But in the circumstances, the front-page snaps of Howard and Flannery shaking hands seemed to presage a new dawn of environmental concern. You wanted the big picture? They don't come much bigger than this.

The $10 billion figure itself was more than somewhat suspect; it turned out that neither the Treasury nor the Department of Finance had been involved in its preparation. Indeed, neither had done any significant work on the problems associated with global warming and the consequent water shortages.

It quickly became obvious that the figure had simply been plucked out of the air; after all, it was a nice big round number, eminently suitable for a tabloid headline. Detailed costings were simply not available. The National Farmers Federation, which might have been expected to call for a week of thanksgiving at the size of the handout, said it might take a full year to work out the detail, and it wasn't giving the Great Big Splash so much as a tentative tick until the work was done.

But Aquaboy Turnbull was confident. The government's terms would be so generous that farmers would sob with gratitude as they accepted them. So compulsion would not be necessary - except, of course, as a very last resort … This, of course, was precisely what the Nats feared: that this smart-arse little urban playboy was taking over their traditional territory and teaching his grandmother to suck eggs. And it must be said that Turnbull is indeed a courageous choice for the delicate role of salesman-mediator. Turnbull is hugely intelligent, prodigiously energetic and almost insanely ambitious: his macrocephaly is not just physical. And, those who have spent time with him would add, he is an arrogant, abrasive, bumptious little bastard. Irritatingly, he pronounces "nuclear" as "nucular", in the manner of George Bush. Not only that, he has lousy political judgment: at the 1998 Constitutional Convention, Howard played him off a break, manoeuvring him into an unwinnable position which Turnbull was only too eager to take. Anyone with the temerity to try to point this folly out to him was either ignored or, more usually, abused. But defeat at the subsequent republic referendum did not soften the man; he had now brought his messianic temperament into the ministry, this time with Howard's enthusiastic support. His skyrocketing promotion to cabinet, and to a portfolio which was already proving vital in an election year, showed Howard's touching faith in a fellow megalomaniac. When he remembers to use it, Turnbull can exude a certain manic charm; he may be able to woo some of his fellow city-dwellers. But it is a lot harder to imagine him working the suspicious locals in an outback pub.

Even in the Billinudgel Hotel, a place sophisticated enough to serve salt-and-pepper squid on alternate weekends, Turnbull is regarded as just a bit too spivvy. As the No. 1 spruiker for the Great Big Splash, he would have his work cut out - if, indeed, anything remained of the Great Big Splash by the time of the election. A fortnight after its proclamation, its future looked as dubious as that of the rivers it was supposed to save.

Rudd, showing a chutzpah Howard and Turnbull must have found well nigh unbearable, generously offered to help. The issue was so important, he said gravely, that he would roll up his sleeves and get together with the premiers to help allay their misgivings.

Apart from driving Howard to apoplexy, Rudd was driving home the highly relevant point that Howard's Great Big Splash, or at least the trickle that was left of it, was only there to treat a symptom of climate change, not the cause; and on that cause the government seemed as hesitant as ever.

There was a real danger that if it did nothing at all, it would be left hopelessly behind. For instance, Howard had made a political virtue out of declaring the coal industry off-limits: nothing must be done to disturb Australia's comparative advantage as a producer or put at risk the jobs of the miners. And besides, if we didn't sell coal to China, someone else would (the eternal excuse of the arms salesman and the drug dealer). But the industry itself was taking a longer view: its leaders saw that if they ignored the rising tide of public concern, one day it might engulf them.

With great reluctance, Howard - now calling himself a climate-change "realist" - performed another backflip and announced that he would start to initiate the commencement of preparations to consider the theoretical possibility of an inquiry into the desirability of carbon trading. The government, in due course, would act promptly. Trading had been Labor policy for some time, so Rudd and his colleagues could legitimately claim that Howard was just playing catch-up.

It seemed to prove their point when, in reply to a question in Parliament from Rudd, Howard replied that the jury was still out on the link between global warming and man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Several hours later he returned to the House to say that he had misheard the question: he thought Rudd had been referring to the drought, not to man-made emissions, and while he believed the jury was still out over whether the drought was directly linked to climate change, he certainly believed that man-made emissions were, he honestly, truly did.

But, like Howard, Labor regarded the whole issue of coal as basically just too difficult. Rudd made it clear that while he supported all possible efforts to clean the industry up, Labor had no plans to shut it down or even phase it out. However, the Greens, unburdened by the prospect of having to implement their policy decisions, had no such inhibitions.

Bob Brown hit the airwaves to urge the major parties to use the next parliamentary term to come up with a policy aimed at phasing out coal exports - which, in practical terms, meant the industry. Or at least that was what he meant to say; what came out was more ambiguous, and could be taken to mean that the entire industry should be phased out within three years. In a frenzy of anti-Green glee most of the media took it to mean just that, and went on to brand Brown, yet again, as a lunatic zealot, an extremist whose real aim was to destroy industrial society and take humanity back to the caves.

The same tabloids reported a truly demented idea from the US absolutely straight: some deranged (so-called) scientists were proposing to reduce global warming by putting a large number of reflective fragments in orbit around the earth. They admitted cheerfully they weren't really sure what the side effects might be, but hey, it was worth a try. Yeah, and so was the cane toad. In comparison, Brown came across as quite boringly rational."

The Sydney Morning Herald edited extract:
 http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/blown-away-by-climate-folly/2007/12/07/1196813021293.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Hankering for Howard

I'm getting a little better at navigating the Internet since I started posting on North Coast Voices. Never too old to learn it seems.
Want a good belly laugh? Go to http://iserv.com.au/ and see Lord Watchdog vainly trying to preserve the Howard 'legacy'.
The poor Lord Watchamacallit woke up on Sunday 25 November hoping the election result was all a bad dream.
This site has multiple contributors and Whois.domaintools.com tells us that Brad Leet is the registrant contact name.
Someone using an identical IP apparently likes to use naughty words on Wikipedia.
Yes, I finally discovered Wikiscanner.virgil.gr.