Will Malcolm Turnbull ever find the missing pieces of leadership?

Malcolm Turnbull has been Leader of the Opposition for a year since last Wednesday and he is yet to bring the ratbag element in the Coalition parties into line.
The latest unedifying display from his troops was a motion on Tuesday to no longer hear a minister's reply during Question Time, with no hope of winning the vote yet still insisting on a time wasting division. Followed by spurious point-of-order after spurious point-of-order.
This surely can't have been Truffles idea - it's such a bad PR look when shown live on the teev.
But wait, the camera spied Truffles smirking away at the front of the pack. Guess he confuses being head hoon for real leadership - big mistake.

Column 8 is back online - finally, Fairfax sees sense

Fairfax has restored online access to The Sydney Morning Herald's Column 8.

Read it online at the Herald's site here.

Fairfax's archived copies of the column are here. However, the Wednesday 18 September 2009 column is not there. North Coast Voice's presentation of it is here.

Column 8's email address is column8@smh.com.au

Thursday's Column 8 - you'd reckon Fairfax could afford to put this online

Kevin Ryan, of Wahroonga, was in Penrith South a few days ago, and reports driving past a car wrecker's yard. The name of the business? "Khartoum."

"Koel alert! Koel alert!" we are warned by Anne Moore, of Waverley. "Heard on Monday at 6.45am. I think this is even earlier than my reported first koel in Column 8 a couple of years back, Soon there will be no first report we'll have koels permanently in residence."

More on affect/effect, from Anton Crouch, of Glebe (Column 8, Tuesday): "A simple rule is to use 'affect' as a verb and 'effect' as a noun. Then you'll be right 99 per cent of the time in conversation and 90 per cent of the time in writing. If you want real pedantry (as opposed to Keith Binns's partial attempt), both 'affect' and 'effect' can be used as a verb and a noun. There's also a use of 'affect' where it means something like 'to pretend to'. But all this gets too hard - the simple rule given above will suit for most of us." Yes indeed, Anton. Most effective.

"Tuesday's headline 'Vet on receiving end as whipping becomes frenzied', writes Duccio Cocquio, of Hunters Hill, "reminds me of an old one from the Wellington Dominion that read 'Drive to ban horse whipping mushrooms'. Very evocative: was it a mad horse whipping the poor mushrooms or a cluster of cruel fungi hitting the innocent horse?" Hard to say but wouldn't the second interpretation require a hyphen?

"I did particularly enjoy the back page of the Sport section in Tuesday's Herald," writes Allan Roberts, of Marrickville, "where the article on Kim Clijsters wining the US Open stated that 'She scrambled with the agility of a gymnast to her players' box to find her husband, Brian Lynch, a professional basketball'." What does a professional basketball earn, we wonder? It'd be hard work.

Richard Sewell theorises that the birds circling pylons of the Anzac Bridge at night are attracted to insects, which in turn are attracted by the bright lights. We now recall that we raised this subject two or three years back, when birds were going crazy around the Harbour Bridge during a bogong moth plague. And lo and behold, a bogong flew out of our wardrobe this morning. What are we in for?

"I was brought up in Blackburn, Lancashire, UK," writes Robert Heathcote, of Newcastle, "a cotton- weaving town. All the older members of my family were weavers and used the term 'cotton on' a lot to mean 'Do you get the idea?'. (Column 8, Saturday). "But they all acknowledged that it derived from the process in weaving where a thread breaks, and they had to 'cotton on' to resume the job. I think also it could mean to start work, or a new job, but it definitely comes from cotton weaving."

"My wife bought a litre of orange juice from Harris Farm Markets at Bridgepoint, Spit Junction," reports Peter Schramko, of Artarmon. "The label reads '100% SQUIZEED ORANGE JUICE'. Does that mean that someone has had a good look at it?"

Column8@smh.com.au(no attachments please).Phone 9282 2207 fax 9282 2772. (include name, suburb, daytime phone)

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 17/9/09

Monsanto spinning so hard that its head faces backwards?

On 23 July 2008 the Molokai Dispatch published an editorial titled Monsanto Could be its Own Worst Enemy: Using too much water could force the company to downsize.

This editorial pointed out that:

Last November, General Manager of Monsanto Molokai Ray Foster said that the company was sensitive to the island's water needs and that Monsanto had a water conservation program for times of drought.
Last month however, amidst a 20% water cutbacks mandated by the Molokai Irrigation System (MIS), Monsanto is requesting an increase to its water use. However with water supply levels in the Kualapu`u reservoir over 60 million gallons short of where it was this time last year, many are left wondering where the water will come from?
The MIS was built for the Hawaiian Homesteaders which is why the law reserves two thirds of its water for Hawaiians. As the MIS becomes short on water due to dilapidation and drought, Hawaiian Homesteaders are beginning to feel the pressure.
Non-homestead ag-users like Monsanto currently account for 84% of MIS water consumption. Monsanto itself is using almost twice the amount of water of all 209 homestead users combined.

In a previous article titled Homesteaders Confront MIS:Water scarcity and increasing demands raise concerns the newspaper had reported that:

Water demand continues to increase, while supplies plummet. In one month, the Molokai Irrigation System (MIS) reservoir has dropped 50 million gallons, from 19 feet to 17 feet. Despite the Hawaiian homesteader's two-thirds right to water, roughly 80 percent of MIS supplies are allocated to non-homesteaders.

If the reservoir drops another two feet, a mandatory 20 percent conservation reduction will be issued to all non-homestead users. An advisory board would consult the DOA, which manages the MIS, on how to handle homesteader restrictions.

In an attempt to bypass this cutback, corn-grower Monsanto has proposed to pay for increased MIS pumping from Waikolo Valley. Presently, the DOA is checking into the viability of this proposal by conducting hydrology reports and assessing permit restrictions.

Randolph Teruya, DOA asset manager said Monsanto has increased its producing acreage and water usage in the past year. He also said the DOA will ask all non-homesteaders for a water conservation plan for the upcoming summer, but the agencies hands are tied because conservation enforcement is a county responsibility.

MIS board member James Boswell motioned for the MIS to send a letter to Monsanto to stop watering with a cannon during the day, where most of the water evaporates in the hot sun and wind. The MIS will request watering be done at night for efficiency and conservation.

In the Monsanto & Co. blog Monsanto According To Monsanto on 8 September 2009 when accusing a recent The Guardian U.K. article of selectively quoting the Molokai Dispatch editorial the company blithely did what it allegedly so abhorred in the post Monsanto a Water Bully? Not So.

Nowhere in this Monsanto spin was there any mention of the biotech corporation's desire to increase its water consumption in 2008 and the blog's denial of the existence of a new aquifer is used to deflect from this request to use additional water.

Water which is ultimately sourced from a combination of stream water, spring water and at least one well (sunk into an existing aquifer) within Kalaupapa National Park's Waikolu Valley.

Nor does the company blog mention that it sought to expand land under production during the prolonged drought and asked the Hawaii Dept of Agriculture to service this land with irrigation access.
A request which was denied by the department in July 2008 according to the newspaper, which also pointed to the fact that Monsanto had yet to implement a water conservation plan at that time.

Might I recommend that Monsanto employees acquaint themselves with an excellent little book Straight and Crooked Thinking by RH Thouless, with special attention to the thirty-eight dishonest tricks which are commonly used in argument.

• Financial and Management Audit of the Moloka'i Irrigation System 2008.

The things you see when you don't have a gun....

This week a snapshot turned up in my email and I almost reached for the elephant gun until an appreciation of the absurd took over.
The Daily Examiner team (pictured here) apparently is out to emulate The Australian crew and turn the local rag into a watered down regional variant of that notorious newspaper for climate change doubters.
On 14th September its "Environment: communities caring for the future" page featured a truncated version of what had obviously started life as a letter to the editor (Todd's third or fourth bite at the subject since May this year).
Finally published sans mentioned references it was an attack on the very notion of man made climate change, heavily influence I suspect by Plimer's book Heaven and Earth.
The Daily Examiner is obviously trawling for more letters, but is it being responsible in encouraging this skewed guff to be considered 'news'?


Pic & snapshot
from
The Daily Examiner

What's-his-name: the invisible leader of the Nationals

If you don't know who the leader of the Nats is, don't worry, because you have plenty of mates.

95% of Australians have no idea who he is.

Source: The Age, 16/9/09

Wednesday's Column 8 - ask Fairfax why this is not online at smh.com.au

Wednesday September 16, 2009

"I don't know about the mnemonic for accommodation," confesses Nancy Dickman (Column 8, last week), but when I was in 6th class at Como Public School in 1954 our teacher, a large man with a big voice, would boom 'There is no Como in accommodation!' and I have never forgotten it."

It could have been a lot uglier, Nancy. "When I was young," writes Joanna Davison of Haberfield, "long before spellcheck, my father tested our spelling with the following sentence: 'Accommodated near a cemetery, an embarrassed cobbler met a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of a desiccated lady's ankle with unparalleled ecstasy', which contains most of the hardest words to spell."

"The rubbish bins behind the dispensary of a pharmacy must be full at the end of each day with other pharmacies' prescription folders," suggests Annette Minter of Avalon. "This practice drives me crazy when I take in a prescription to a pharmacy that was previously dispensed by a different pharmacy, why do they have to remove the folder and replace it with their own? It is such a waste of paper and doesn't serve any purpose does it?" You wouldn't think so. I'm sure we'll be told if it does probably by a pharmacist, of all people.

Chris Flynn, at the time a temporary resident of the transit lounge at the airport in Singapore, has sent us a page torn from the September 1 edition of The Jakarta Post. He has scrawled at the bottom "What a name!" and encircled the following paragraph:

"The team from the Trade Ministry, made up of five members, was led by Verry Angri Djono, head of Metal, Machine and Electronics Supervision at the Ministry". Crikey, you wouldn't want to be late for a meeting with that bloke, would you?

"For the past four or five nights," reports Neil Godfrey, "I have watched what appear to be flocks of birds swirling around in the lights of the pylons of the Anzac Bridge. What are they up to?" We have no idea, but have also observed this remarkable ornithological ritual recently, and it's quite a sight. The white birds flicker in and out of view as they bank and swerve in and out of the light beams illuminating the flags mesmerising.

Well, someone did it (numerically freakish golf games, and tortuous disputes, Column 8, since Friday). "Like Terrey Hills golf course, the ninth at Coolangatta/Tweed Heads West course is a par five," writes Grahame Marr of Kingscliff. "After going into the water with my tee shot last Wednesday I had a 9, giving me a 9 on the 9th on the 9th of the 9th, 09."

"While looking for the green shoots of economic recovery," writes a cautiously optimistic Will Owens of Clovelly, "my work colleagues and I talked about what the opposite of 'alert but not alarmed' would be, in this context. I thought 'comforted but not jubilant' would be suitable, given the current economic numbers. I won't order the fridge magnets just yet, however."

Column8@smh.com.au(no attachments please).Phone 9282 2207 fax 9282 2772. (include name, suburb, daytime phone)

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 16/9/09

Your mother wears army boots and carries a gun!!

The harbinger of a local debate on the role of Australian service women in theatres of conflict?

Every women is either a mother or a potential mother and I am quite sure that no civilised person would want a would-be killer for a mother. [Quote from a The Daily Examiner letter to the editor decrying moves to potentially increase the presence of women on the frontline,11 September 2009]

Which leaves a burning question - when it comes to having a parent in the armed forces what is the difference between having a would-be killer for a mother as opposed to having a would-be killer for a father?

National political nong of the week

This week former Howard Government minister Tony Abbott was again demonstrating why he is unfit to be returned to government.
Not content with the blunt sh*t eating grin line (about Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard) trotted out for the media's benefit, he then went on to sabotage Question Time last Monday by deliberately attempting to block a television camera.
A tactic which saw him first warned and then named by the Speaker and at 2.29pm ejected from the House of Reps on an 80 to 62 vote.
The "Mad Monk" easily wins my vote for political nong of the week and that's really saying something coming out of a Coalition barn which saw its cut-out brandishing MPs refuse the Speaker's orders at the beginning of this parliament.
It's pathetic when after more than a year and a half in Oppostion a grown man still can't accept that he is no longer part of the government of the day.

Here is Monday's Column 8 - a reader's protest against Fairfax continues

Fairfax continues to ignore a very large section of its readership by not making this column available online at smh.com.au.

To make your feelings known about this
email Fairfax at readerlink@smh.com.au
phone 02 9282
or fax 02 9282 3253

"Your colleague who found remarkable names for nail polish," writes Adrian Briscoe of Rozelle (Column 8, last week), "might be interested to know that a friend of mine once had one called 'I Am Not a Waitress.' I'm sure many of your readers could come up with even more outrageous names." As it turns out, the company in question has already set the pace. OPI's nail polish website is a treat it's hard to work out whether it's utterly tongue-in-cheek or simply astute, counterintuitive marketing. We assume that there was a very long lunch involved in the concept development of these: "Charged Up Cherries, Dominant Jeans," and our favourite: "part of our Australian collection 'Fair Dinkum Pinkum'." And no, we are not making this up, make-up though she be.

"While I admire Vic Deebles' skill to have a hole-in-one on 9/9/9," writes Chris Lawrenson, of golf courses various, (Column 8, Friday), "the last time I played Terrey Hills, the ninth was a long par five, so unless they have changed the layout substantially, it's a very impressive score!" This is a deeply disturbing allegation. Column 8 will take a day off during the week and play the course, after a lengthy lunch, to be certain of the provenance of the initial claim. On the other hand, it could have been a miraculous slice shot, picked up in the rough by a nesting magpie, and deposited in the hole as a humiliating testimony to the waste of the time and effort by the gentleman in question. Far sillier things have happened in golf.

"A report prepared by Kempsey Council on designs and uses for a street mall at Kempsey," we are advised by a concerned and amused Mike Dutton, of thereabouts, "includes, among suggested events, an 'Antic Market' to be co-ordinated by a 'mall manger'. I wonder what would be for sale there - silly walks? Handstands? The mall is also to be upgraded, in accordance with 'design principals'." Hmm not too flash on the face of it. When's the next council election up there, Mike?

"An ad in the Herald classifieds on Saturday," reports John Williamson of Tewantin, Queensland, "is for the sale of the Bali Villa and Restaurant, which apparently 'runs by itself 150 staff'." We have a feeling that a sceptical John may have been in the catering caper, but if true, it seems a bargain at any price.

We don't often run replies to Heckler columns over here but we've had quite a response to Laura Jardine's rant on Friday about dodgy names for kids. "Every generation has its share of creative names for children," replies Janet Power of Blayney. "In past generations, Wendy and Cynthia raised the eyebrows of grandparents. Any teacher will tell you of the disbelief that greets the list of new enrolments each year, but girls named Jordan and Cameron no longer draw a reaction. It's the fanciful spellings that take our breath away. And as for boys' names, my late father (born in 1922) rejoiced in the name Gladstone. Besides, I have to keep an open mind. Just this week I became proud grandmother to Atlas!" Heavens above, Janet - this load-bearing baby isn't a girl is it?

Column8@smh.com.au(no attachments please).Phone 9282 2207 fax 9282 2772. (include name, suburb, daytime phone)

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 14/09/09