Is Barnaby Joyce Bill Heffernan's 'love child'?

Listening to the Nationals Barnaby Joyce is a real treat these days.
With Bill Heffernan apparently depressed into near-silence by the Coalition's trouncing at the last federal election, there hasn't been a designated clown regularly performing on parliament's doorstep for over a year.
The new Joycean stream of consciousness turning up in Hansard and the media fits the bill nicely.

"It's like a madman giving you free beers at a pub - you'll drink them but you won't respect him."
"We have had the claim that Malcolm Turnbull is crab-walking on this. I can tell you that Mr Rudd makes Mr Turnbull look like Rudolph Nureyev."
"Don’t worry about your workers in the Illawarra and your workers in the Hunter Valley. No, don’t worry about them. You put on your Giorgio Armani suit and go and do the light fandango at a coffee shop near wherever you live,.."
"The guy's a psycho chook,'' ....."Who in their right mind gets onto a plane and because he doesn't get the right colour birdseed has a spack attack?''
It's an employment termination scheme.......it's an employment termination scheme. {repeat endlessly if you like the sound as much as Barnaby obviously does}
"You are going to have a piece of policy that comes direct from the manic monkey cafe of inner-suburbia nirvana-ville straight to you,"
"Don’t leave me out; I want to be in."

Leave you out? Never, Barnie!

The Australian Economy May 2009: Rudd grins, Turnbull glowers

Graphic: Thomson Reuters

This graph has to be the Liberal Party of Australia's worst nightmare. Not only does it allow the Rudd Government to successfully defend its economic policy to date, it also signals the likelihood of increasingly rebellious displays by its Coalition partner.

The Australian economy may not be out of danger yet, however it is far from the train wreck under Labor predicted by Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and Joe Hockey.

Monsanto can Twitter but it can't hide

Not long back I added MonsantoCo to my Twitter list.
It has been fascinating to watch the parallel universe in which its public relations employees live.

Equally fascinating is that this urge to tweet appears to follow on from its earlier advertising campaign which was apparently based around the concept of 'sustainability'.

One has to suspect that the campaign in print and radio was not the success Monsanto hoped for, hence the back-up.

Of course Monsanto & Co is not alone in pushing the GMO cause - its clones are out there doing their bit as well.

The Mid America Croplife Association apparently wrote to Michelle Obama trying to head that new White House vegetable garden off at the pass and, Croplife Australia is still plugging way.

Needless to say SourceWatch cites BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, FMC, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta as key funders for the Croplife group.

Such is Monsanto's chutzpah that through Croplife International (of which it is a member) the company attempted to hijack the U.N. sponsored International Day for Biological Diversity this month which had as its theme Invasive Alien Species.

Invasive alien species are plants, animals, pathogens and other organisms that are non-native to an ecosystem, and which may cause economic or environmental harm or adversely affect human health. In particular, they impact adversely upon biodiversity, including decline or elimination of native species - through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens - and the disruption of local ecosystems and ecosystem functions.

If you believed Croplife, the international day was actually all about the pesticides/herbicides, genetically modified seed etc., supplied by its member companies.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Over at A Clarence Valley Protest the water wars continue....

Clarence River Gorge from Gilmore at Flickr

Former Clarence Valley shire councillor Terry Flanagan is one of those calling former National MP for Page Ian Causley to account in Clarence Valley pours scorn on Nationals has-been over past water policy.

Planning Minister Keneally please note that Clarence Valley's mayor has accidentally highlighted one of the many reasons West Yamba development is a dumb idea

Channel 10 State Focus on Sunday 31st May ran a telephone interview with Clarence Valley Mayor Cr. Richie Williamson in which he admitted that 6,500 people in Yamba were cut-off by flooding for almost seven days.

This is the same shire councillor who voted to send down to the NSW Minister for Planning a draft plan to put another 2,000 to 2,500 people in Yamba on flood-prone land.

Only one councillor, Margaret McKenna, held out against the well-heeled North Coast and Queensland developers driving this flawed development agenda.
The rest of Council only seeing floating visions of additional rate revenue and disregarding risk to life and property.

The question many in the Clarence Valley are asking; "Is Kristina Keneally also in the pocket of developers?"

Picture of Endeavour Street, Yamba in May 2009 from ABC North Coast.

Those media moguls ain't getting my readies!

Last week the Australian public broadcaster ABC via its online website told us that a couple of dozen media execs met in a Chicago hotel to "discuss ways newspapers can protect their internet content and in some cases, charge web surfers to read it".

Previously both ABC News online and free-to-air television had informed us that Rupert Murdoch had plans to make his online media a pay-for-view affair.

So why would I pay for (as an example) News Corp's The Australian 26-line puff piece on the technology Rupert wants us to buy so he can charge for online 'news'?

Ah yes, because Rupert wants me to! {falls about laughing hysterically}