NSW Most Unwanted: Frank Sartor

Most Unwanted

Unwanted and dangerous NSW Labor Minister for Planning, Hon. Frank Ernest Sartor, MP.
Suffers from a Napoleonic complex and sometimes tries to pass himself off as a reincarnation of the late and unlamented Liberal Premier Robert Askin.
Has committed crimes against the environment, urban areas and regional communities.
Currently rampaging through the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act wielding a development industry scalpel.
Known to go berserk when faced with a democratic process and exhibits an irrational rage towards local government.
Do not approach. May be rabid. Call dog catcher if sighted.

National Goanna Pulling Championships, Wooli Sunday 8 June 2008

This Sunday, Wooli on the NSW North Coast will be holding the National Goanna Pulling Championships at the Wooli Sports Ground.
This annual event kicks off at 9am through to 4pm. Entry is free.
Winner in the heavyweight division takes home a cash prize of $500.
Day also includes kids fun events, foot races, market stalls, beer garden and mobile farm nursery.

This hilarious and intensely competitive sport is something like a tug-o-war match between two competitors pulling from a strap attached around their necks. The belly-down position up on two legs and the backward-scuttle motion required to gain ground is reminiscent of a goanna's gait.

Contact Details:
Australian National Goanna Pulling Competition
Wooli Sports Ground
Wooli, NSW 2462
Telephone: 02 - 6649 7540

Totally underwhelmed by the latest Bright Idea, Prime Minister

Everyone's noticing. It's almost as though the Prime Minister can't stand one moment of media time passing without an announcement of one of his Bright Ideas.
Yesterday it was teh vision for South-East Asia.
Something to rival the European Union and presumably the UN (after all our Kev doesn't think small).
To be smooched into place by veteran diplomat Richard Wilcox in time for, you guessed it, 2020.
Anti-terrorism, defence, free trade, regional politics, energy and resource security - all would be resolved through harmonious cooperation.
Yeah, Rudd wants it all and he wants America in the mix. I'm sure adding an imperial barracuda like the US would seal everyone's fate and possibly destroy the region.
Oi, Kev! Hold the horses, mate. Did you even run any of this by the Australian electorate in the lead up to last November's federal election?
Any mention you might have had slipped in during a workshop at the unrepresentative, undemocratic and elitist Australia 2020 summit earlier this year doesn't count.
Fer gawd's sake! Will the Deputy PM gather a few sane Labor souls and have them bundle Rudd into a quiet, dark room for a week until his hyperactive imagination subsides.
At the very least - don't let him on Sunday's flight to Japan unless he is sufficiently medicated.

US 08 and the media: change we can believe in?

It seems that some American online media and I suspect the Obama for America campaign team have a desire to manipulate impressions of the obvious crowd-drawing strength of the Democratic candidate for the 2008 US presidential election.
It is all image, image, image.

The Washington Post online edition yesterday ran what looks suspiciously like an undeclared montage or digital enhancement.
Although this is not the first manipulated image of the senator, it is perhaps the most clumsy.
It also highlights how easily media slips into grey areas surrounding ethics and partisanship.

There is a little Mugabe in every world leader

No-one should wonder at an UN conference on world food security which allows the attendance of a despot like Robert Mugabe who has reduced his own country to abject poverty and food shortages.
The fact that neither the UN or any other international organisation have found an answer to chronic food shortages or cyclical famine lies in the nature of modern societies and their leaders.
Each and every one is willing to make symbolic and one-off gestures to assist the world's poor and starving, but none are willing to abandon their single-minded pursuit of political power and economic dominance.
Like any despot they all only look to their own personal interests and that of their immediate entourage and ignore all else.
Like Mugabe they each point a finger of blame when they should be remedying their own failings.
So when Ban Ki-Moon calls for a 50% increase in world food production to help feed the 100 million food poor, you know it will only happen if major food exporting nations are able to reap substantial profits.
That many Western nations would prefer to write a cheque like Great Britain, rather than seriously look at how to increase the agricultural self-reliance of the poorest nations and reduce the world's reliance on energy intensive farming and the associated costs of water, fuel, fertilisers and copyrighted seed.

The shortsighted view relying on successive foreign aid fixes has resulted in above world map found at BBC News yesterday.

Link to International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, website and debate on who pays the price.