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

Post-election musing:
Well it's all feeling rather flat at my house. Watching the tellie is no fun because my human has stopped shaking her fist and yelling at the pollies. Though I did catch her saying a rude word when little Morrie Iemma told everyone in rural NSW that we have to give up the security of a state-owned electricity supply so that Sydney can get an expensive metro train service.
Warning musing:
I saw you girl! Just because you wear young Butcher Bird feathers doesn't mean you can sneak into the kitchen and steal my breakfast. What is the world coming to when a cat has to fight off impertinent youth in the middle of a quiet meal.
Cautionary musing:
Bruce the Superdog from Yamba was thrilled to learn that he had won 480,152 pounds in a British lottery this week and most disappointed when his human pointed out that the email personally addressed to him was a scam. Bruce would like to warn anyone receiving this sort of email to junk it immediately.
First 2008 musing:
Happy New Year to every living thing with fur, feathers, fins, shells or scales!
I am pleased to report that I tolerated the noise of local fireworks with never a care. However my little canine friend, Veronica Lake, hid under clarencegirl's desk and wouldn't come out until all those big bangs ceased.
Hip, hip, hooray! musing:
On the third day of 2008, Diff the bull mastiff was rescued from a cliff on Mt. Maroon in south-east Queensland.
Welcome back down, Diff. Congratulations to Mark Gamble who climbed up to save him.
Well done, chaps musing:
Saw this in the news as I looked over clarencegirl's shoulder.
Two Australian kayakers have completed their journey across the Tasman Sea.
James Castrission, 25, and Justin Jones, 24, reached shore at Ngamotu Beach, about 4km west of New Plymouth on NZ's West Coast, on Sunday 13 January 2008 after spending two months paddling across the Tasman Sea.
Well done, James and Justin. Me - I'll just stick to paddling in the bath.
Natural disaster musing:
A thought to ponder.
In case of bushfire or flood - do you have an emergency evacuation plan for the family pet?

Australian business has poor record on climate change action

"A new survey has found that despite the warnings, just 22 per cent of Australian businesses have taken action in response to climate change.
The report surveyed more than 300 business groups around the country that had an annual turnover of $150 million.
It found that four out of five corporate leaders want to take a more active role but expressed concern about the quality of emissions data available."
ABC News:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/30/2149464.htm?section=business

Such a typical response from Australian business - blame someone else, preferably government.
Action on climate change could start tomorrow with most companies, when it comes to waste generated, transport, electricity consumption and product packaging.
Companies with potentially high emission levels are also quite capable of contracting their own assessments of greenhouse gas produced by the company.
However it seems that many businesses has eyes firmly on carbon trading offsets as the easy way out, rather than actual greenhouse gas reduction at production sites.

Crikey gives Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty a serve

Greg Barns writing in www.crikey.com.au yesterday gives Mick Keelty a well-deserved serve.

"Are there two Mick Keeltys? Last night a man calling himself Mick Keelty and claiming to be the Australian Federal Police Commissioner told a Sydney audience that he wants a black-out of all media coverage of terrorism investigations and cases. This Mr Keelty claims that police records of interviews are being leaked to the media to help the person under investigation get public sympathy. And this Mr Keelty thinks there should be a secret society of editors that he and his fellow security agency heads can brief, on an off-the-record basis, so that matters are set straight.

 

Now, let's turn to the other person who calls himself Mick Keelty and who also claims to be the nation's top cop. This is the Mick Keelty who revels in media publicity about terrorism cases, whose organisation leaks to the media and who runs a police force which wrongly accused a Gold Coast Indian doctor of terrorism offences (besmirched his name in the media in the meantime).

 

Could the real Mick Keelty please stand up? Is it the man calling for media black-outs and secret briefings, or is it the man who uses the media relentlessly to chase his quarry? The evidence suggests it's the latter."

 

"Aunty ABC" took a more measured approach which canvasses similar views.

 

"After taking sustained criticism for the Australian Federal Police's handling of the Mohamed Haneef saga, AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty has gone on the front foot to defend his organisation's handling of terrorism cases.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night, Mr Keelty took a swipe at media coverage of such cases, saying it is often uninformed and gives an incorrect perception that the AFP is failing in its duties.

But lawyers and journalists involved in the Mohamed Haneef case say Mr Keelty is simply shooting the messenger in what they say is a crude attempt to regain credibility for the AFP.

When Mr Keelty addressed the Sydney Institute last night, he had a few things he wanted to get off his chest.

"For most people, their sole source of knowledge regarding the AFP's counter terrorism investigations is in the mass media," he said.

"As such, it would be perfectly understandable if they mistakenly thought or held the belief that the AFP has failed the community.'-------

The Australian newspaper's Hedley Thomas won Australian journalism's highest award, the Gold Walkley, for his coverage of the Mohamed Haneef affair. He describes Mr Keelty's reasoning in the speech as strange.

"On the one hand he was saying that defendants and suspects deserve a much better go in the court of public opinion, as he described it, and that the media should treat them more kindly," he said.

"But the facts are that in the Mohamed Haneef case and others, it's been the police, the security agencies and the politicians using police information, that have smeared the character of the suspects before they have even been charged."

Dr Haneef's barrister, Stephen Keim, is equally perplexed with Mr Keelty's views about media coverage of AFP operations."

ABC News report yesterday:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/30/2149867.htm

Ex-Ministers get the begging bowl out

What a joke. Yesterday The Australian let us all know that ex-Howard Government ministers were having a little difficulty adjusting to lower pay as ordinary MPs.

The Liberals Tony Abbott apparently "has taken a $90,000 pay cut on the $200,000-plus salary he earned as federal health minister. With three daughters and a mortgage to pay in Sydney, it's blown a sizeable hole in the finances."

An annual MP's salary of $127,600 plus electoral allowance, mailing allowance, living away from home allowance and some travel expenses.

My heart bleeds for you, mate. Try living on less than $20,000 a year like a good many other Australians, then go crying to the media. I might have some sympathy then.

Japanese whaling fleet's false advertising

Photograph of MV Yushin Maru, a 1,025 tonnage whale catching vessel in Japan's whaling fleet, showing the large spurious signage "RESEARCH".

With both protest vessels returning to port, Japan's whalers are now free to resume the whale kill.

"Greenpeace claimed its actions had saved more than 100 whales by effectively rendering the rest of the Japanese fleet impotent. "Without the factory ship, the remaining hunter vessels have been unable to operate, bringing the entire whaling programme to a halt," it said.
It estimated that the whalers needed to catch about nine minke whales a day, and an endangered fin whale every other day, to meet its quota of 835 minkes and 50 fins by the time the hunt ends in mid-April.
Though commercial whaling was banned in 1986 Japan is permitted to conduct annual culls for what it describes as cetacean research.
The campaigners' exit from the southern ocean whale sanctuary will allow Japan's six-vessel fleet to resume the cull within days.
The Oceanic Viking, an Australian coastguard ship that was dispatched to collect evidence for a possible legal challenge to the annual slaughter, is still tracking the fleet but will not attempt to frustrate the whalers."
Guardian Unlimited yesterday:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/29/whaling.conservation

Exactly who did the Northern Rivers Area Health Service consult with before deciding on 'surge' beds?

The NSW North Coast Area Health Service took the region by surprise this week when it announced that it would be withholding some hospital beds from normal use and instituting a policy of 'treatment in the home'.

 

No mention was made of how such home treatment would be implemented by community nursing already stretched by the North Coast's increasing population and changing demographics.

Nor was there any indication of whether it was expected that local GPs and their practice nurses would play a part. Which given the limited number of bulk-billing medical practices in certain areas, would involve patients in additional costs.

 

No consultation with local communities was advertised. I'm left wondering exactly which chronically ill patients the NCAHS chief allegedly consulted with, and whether those consulted happen to fall within a socio-economic band which allows them greater facility to draw on other home assistance which would make home treatment an attractive personal option.

Certainly the frail-aged pensioners of my acquaintance, with no family living close by, would not be clamouring to receive home treatment during episodes of illness normally requiring hospital admission.

It is distressing to see North Coast residents short-changed in this way.

 

According to ABC News yesterday.

"The nurses' association is meeting the North Coast Area Health Service executive this afternoon over a plan to slash bed and nurse numbers across New South Wales north coast hospitals.

The plan would see more than 80 beds at 14 north coast public hospitals converted into 'surge' beds for seriously ill patients at times of high demand.

Less ill patients would be treated at home or at outpatient clinics.

Union organiser Susan Pearce says the initiative was to have come into play today, but is on hold because health management failed to consult nurses.

"We're just amazed that they would seek to introduce such a change today without any consultation with our members whatsoever. It doesn't set us off on a good track for discussion about this particular issue," she said.

The chief executive of the North Coast Area Health Service, Chris Crawford, is defending the surge-bed plan.

He says the strategy is the result of consultations held with medical staff and chronically ill patients.

"Particularly patients have given us feedback that they'd prefer to be treated in their homes if they could be in a familiar environment rather than having to go to hospital," he said.

But the chairman of the Port Macquarie Base Hospital medical staff council says the move has taken it by surprise.

Dr Steven Begbie says it has been working with the area health executive to try and solve the bed crisis at Port Macquarie Base Hospital.

"There is a vision to increase the footprint of the hospital so that we can have more beds, an increase in services, and yet this plan comes out of left field as an option that reduces the beds in our hospital on a day-to-day basis," he said."

Exit polls: Obama campaign sends another email to Oz

Well, I should give the Barack Obama campaign team their due for persistence, and report yesterday's email content on the Democrat presidential nominee from Illinios.

 

"Here are a few details about our victory in South Carolina. According to the official results and CNN exit polls, Barack won:

• 55% of the total vote, more than twice as many votes as any other candidate
• 57% of voters who had never voted in a primary
• 66% of voters who had never voted before at all
• Every type of community -- urban, suburban, and rural
• 58% of voters between ages 18 and 64
• 67% of voters between ages 18 and 29

The clear lesson from South Carolina is that voters are ready to bring this country together and solve the problems that matter to ordinary Americans."

 

Although the political system and stats are not exactly comparable, I get the feeling that Senator Obama is starting to poll in a similar fashion to Kevin Rudd in 2007.