Monday 19 October 2009
If Malcolm Turnbull understands an ETS the way he knows his Shakespeare then Australia is in real trouble
I couldn't believe my ears on Sunday last, there was our fearless Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull holding forth on Shakespeare in an attempt to denigrate the upcoming Copenhagen international climate change talks.
He was foolishly repeating what he'd said to a gathering of foreign correspondents on Monday week; "And as another one of my companions noted it is worth remembering that Copenhagen was the home of Hamlet, famous principally for indecision. So that is a sombre reflection."
Uh, no, Malcolm. Hamlet is popularly supposed to be a tale played out in "Elsinore or Helsingør north of Copenhagen, on the place where Denmark is closest to Sweden - only 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of water divides the two countries", (possibly in a castle which was erected around 1420) and on a nearby plain and in a generic churchyard.
Denmark's capital Copenhagen while situated close by is historically separate from the old port town of Helsingør.
Every final year highschool English student would be bound to know the difference.
I certainly hope that Turnbull has a better grasp of the principles of an emission trading scheme, than he does of geography and the Bard.
Horatio
Byron
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.
Ralph Lauren brand owner hits out at blogger for laughing at advertisement blunder and blogger hits back
PRL USA Holdings, owner of the brand Ralph Lauren, issued a DMCA notice on 2 October 2009 to the blog PsD: Photoshop Disasters, for laughing at a Blue Label advertisement of a super skinny model (with distorted dimensions) which is still being displayed in Google cache as I write.PsD now has a second Lauren advert posted The hits keep coming with a photo allegedly taken in Sydney - proving once more that displaying a humour deficit can lead to more people finding out about your company's photoshop blunders than if you had originally just taken it on the chin.
Image from PsD post The hits keep coming, 14 October 2009
Mysteries of the sea.....
Greenpeace International has an online blacklist of fishing vessels allegedly involved in unlawful commercial fishing.
One of these boats was built in Castile, operates out of an Italian port and apparently sailed at one time under the flag of Afghanistan while fishing in the Mediterranean.
It seems that you can legally register an ocean going vessel in that war-torn landlocked country.
This must rank up there somewhere with the notion of a Swiss Navy.
Sunday 18 October 2009
Local film maker Pauline Clague's latest work featured on ABC TV in October 2009
Pauline Clague, originally from the Clarence Valley and with family still living there, is featuring on ABC Message Stick this month.Pauline is now an accomplished writer and film maker - I'm sure that the documentary will be both interesting and informative as this press release suggests:
Maralinga-The Anangu Story
Producer: Pauline Clague
TX Date: Sunday 18th October, 1:30pm, ABC 1
Monday 19th October, 5:00pm, ABC 2
Friday 23rd October, 6:00pm, ABC 1
50 years ago British atomic tests were carried out on Australian soil at a place called “Maralinga” in north-western, South Australia.
Yvonne Edwards talks about her feeling on the bomb tests: “When the bomb went off. Like the spirit of the people that were buried there, went up in the bomb, and this man looked down and he is crying and all the kangaroos and emus are just skeletons around the place were the bomb went off”
Originally a Reserve for the Anangu, their mission at Ooldea was shut down, but they were not told why. They were mostly moved to new country, Yalata on the coast near the start of the nullabor plains.
Some of the Anangu people had effects from the radiation poisoning, others were workers in the seventies and eighties at Maralinga Village. Many have passed away, but some are still enduring the effects of the exposure to the poison today.
Many are still grieving the loss of their people and land from that time, Yvonne Edwards ”sometimes I cry at night. My aunties, uncles, they was young, they all died. Just like us here now, in our fifties, we got nobody over sixties and seventies in our community. Even people died when they was young. I lost a sister, when she was in her twenties, from cancer. I lost an uncle, forties, from cancer. My aunty died, from cancer”
Earlier this year a book of Anangu stories and paintings about their lives and the effects the bomb had on the Anangu people of that region was published. Christobel Mattingley the co-author, who worked alongside the Oak Valley and Yalata communities, states how she feels about the project “ The story of the injustices to the Aboriginal people, the Anangu people, through the Maralinga atomic testing are not widely known or remembered now. It’s a chapter that people have forgotten and it’s a tragic chapter and it’s an –extremely important chapter of Australian history.”
Despite the history of this area and the hardships incurred by the bombing, the Anangu are hoping that the final restricted zone, of which Maralinga Village is a part, will be returned to them in December this year. The soil may be contaminated, but it is still their home. They know they may not be able to camp in some of the areas, but like their stories they are trying to pass on to the future generation the stories and the land of their peoples.
What's in that icecream you are eating?
What's in that icream you are eating that wasn't there in your grandmother's day? In Australia the Federal Government has in total eight pages listing foods using gene technology and approved for sale under the Food Standards Australian New Zealand Act 1991.
Including nine versions of New Leaf potato, canola seed/oil/flour/syrup, corn/flour/oil/syrup/food grade ethanol, cotton oils/cottonseed oils, glucose made from fungus, soy foods/oil/protein meal, pectin, baker's yeast/yeast, icestructuring protein made from fish, food processing enzyme made from a bacteria, and sugar beet.
Genetically modified organisms can now form part of the production process or ingredients in foods - from takeaway foods like fish & chips/meat pies, frozen convenience food such as lasagna/pizza, to staples like bread through to traditional desserts that your grandmother used to make.
GM products approved as food, food additives and processing aids (PDF 79 KB)GM products approved as therapeutics (PDF 19 KB)
GM products approved as pesticides or veterinary medicines (PDF 9 KB)
List of applications and licences for Dealings involving Intentional Release (DIR) of GMOs into the environment on behalf of CSIRO, BSES Ltd, Florigene P/L, Dept of Primary Industry (Vic), Bayer Crop Science P/L, Monsanto Australia Ltd, Queensland UT, University of Queensland, University of Adelaide, Hexima Ltd, Dept. of Primary Industries & Fisheries (Qld), Imugene Ltd, Dow AgroSciences Australia P/L, Syngenta Seeds P/L, Dept of Primary Industries, Aventis CropScience P/L.
* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.
Photo from Google Images
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