Twitterverse is tittering at PETA

There's been a lot of re-tweeting out there on Twitter since someone discovered the phonetic resonance of the name given by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to its blog - The PETA Files.

If nothing else it should give Aussie graziers and woolgrowers a bit of a laugh - as well as possibly falling foul of one or two overly sensitive filtering software programs.

Perhaps I should send a memo to the Minister for Censorship and Rememberance of Children, ol' Stevo Conroy.......

Penny Wong talks to Asia Society about Copenhagen and beyond - 11pm [AEST] Wednesday 23 September 2009 webcast, listener questions

The Asia Society wants to let you know about an upcoming webcast, Copenhagen and Beyond – The Post-2012 Agreement.

Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change and Water will be speaking with Asia Society's own Orville Schell, the director of the Center on US-China Relations, tomorrow at Wednesday, September 23, 2009 from 8:30-9:30 a.m., ET (New York).

We hope that you will join us online by visiting our website www.AsiaSociety.org, and following the directions there.

The webcast will be available 30 minutes before the program begins.

Listeners will also have opportunities to send their questions in to moderator@asiasociety.org, where they will be addressed during the program.

Policy Programs,

Asia Society

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

How did your pet get its name?

Contributors to The Sydney Morning Herald's Column 8 provide insights on naming family pets.

John Barselaar, of Coffs Harbour, ''My local vet is a man of fine humour and a pundit like myself, but I have to take my hat off to his recent repartee in the surgery. A woman came in with two dogs feeling poorly. When asked the dogs' names she replied Beethoven and Bach. Immediately he saw the problem, and advised her they were feeling Lisztless!'' (Monday 21/9)

''Naming family pets after famous composers is not all that unusual,'' writes Steve Zervos of Abbotsford (Column 8, yesterday). ''We named our kitten Beethoven because just after we picked him up and brought him home, he made his first movement on the piano.'' (Tuesday 22/9)

''Beethoven the cat,'' writes Michael Morton-Evans (Column 8, Monday), ''puts me in mind of Tyson the dog. A friend many years ago bought a dachshund and named him Tyson, after the Lancashire-born fast bowler Frank 'Typhoon' Tyson. When asked why, he explained: 'Because he has four short legs and his balls swing both ways.'' (Wednesday 23/9)

'Losing to win' a pandora's box for bowls

Here's Iluka resident Jim Brigginshaw's take on allegations that Kiwi lawn bowlers folded in a game against lowly-ranked Thailand in last month's Asia-Pacific championships in Malaysia to ensure rivals Canada would be eliminated.

Brigginshaw, who has a regular column in The Northern Star, wrote:

IF, as Bowls Australia chief executive Dalrymple is reported as saying, there's nothing in the rules of bowls to stop a team deliberately losing a game, it's time there was.

Assuming he's been quoted correctly, his wishy-washy response to allegations against the New Zealand national team is less than reassuring that this blot has no place in our sport.

Attributed to him are comments such as 'hard to find fault', 'people willing to push the limits', and the top clanger of all, 'there's a question of whether it's in the spirit of the game'.

A question? There's no question - if bowls has degenerated to the stage where we have to think whether to ask questions about the legality, or even propriety, of what clearly is a breach of sporting integrity, heaven help us.

The difficulty, of course, is deciding when a team is not performing to its ability. But if there is obvious evidence of it, the culprits should have the book thrown at them.

The New Zealand team says it was a legitimate loss. The official inquiry will have difficulty proving otherwise.

These allegations gave Bowls Australia an opportunity to take a strong stance against deliberately losing a game. Instead, we got a weak-kneed response.

Source: The Northern Star

Images from abc.net.au and bowlsnz.co.nz

A phone, a phone. My kingdom for a phone! [or the dubious joy of living in a regional blackspot]

The children have grown and moved to cities across Australia, however they were all back for a family gathering recently.

We had a great time; the only thing that caused problems was the mobile phone reception or more correctly the chronic lack of phone coverage.
Though since they all had different carriers I thought for sure someone should get a signal.

The first symptoms of phonitis appeared within 4 to 6 hours of arriving. "I’ll just pick up any messages from work", friends etc; then the cold sweat, and the realisation of no reception.

It was like a snowball affect, as soon as one discovered they could not use their phone you could see the panic in the eyes of the others. They all stampeded to their phone lifelines.

The youngest daughter discovered that if she squeezed herself under my desk and held the phone at a 45 degree angle pointing north she could get one bar of coverage. Just enough to receive SMS. The look of relief on her face was classic. So much so I could not resist and took a photo to record the event.

The others headed outside, showing great faith in their various phone companies. Then looks of horror on their faces when none received a signal.

One headed for higher ground where he eventually found reception over 1 km away at the left front gate post. If he stood on the post he could talk on his phone. Mind you it did drop out quite a bit.

The younger son who is not much on exercise decided that he would go up to the third floor of the house. This was not enough, so by trial and error he discovered that if he hung out of the east facing window on the third floor and held the phone in one hand and the TV aerial cable in the other he was intermittently in contact with the outside world.

The eldest girl showed great calm and headed for my computer. The facade of calm was shattered when she realised that it was dial-up and only marginally faster than snail mail.

When the neighbour's hazard reduction burn accidentally set fire to the telephone junction box and the landline went out, then smoke from the fires interfered with what little signal they had, it all became too much. They all headed into town for Maccas and 'real' phone coverage.

Graphic: Google Images