It's Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere......

.....with echoes of this time in the old Celtic calendar reduced these days to kids in ghoulish fancy dress trick or treating around their neighbourhoods.
However, 31 October is not celebrated as the last day of Autumn and the beginning of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere - so why has the local supermarket been tarted up with pumpkins and witches all week and why must I expect at least a few knocks on my door tonight from clueless Aussie kids loosely aping a now essentially American custom of sending kids out to threaten mischief and beg for lollies?
Double bah! and triple humbug!

Pic from Poor Reds

Grafton's Jacaranda Festival (30 Oct-8 Nov 2009) gets a ping from Bing

Bing Homepage 30 October 2009

Grafton on the NSW North Coast is holding its 75th Jacaranda Festival starting today and running until 8 November 2009.

Events program here.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old Roo is......

Marge the rain’s here!!!

After months of no rain, dust storms and paddocks slowly browning, the first rain we have results in a flood warning.
A day moving the pump from the river and moving stock to higher ground under much protest from the cows.
I did agree with them; the rain had just washed the dust off the grass and the best grass was down on the flat where the flood waters if they come will cover.
Had to be done though given the time difference of flood peaks means the water should begin swirling in at about 2am in the morning.
Not a good time to be moving cows, they are like me - don’t like being woken up that early in the morning.

One good piece of news is the frogs that had been waiting out the dry in my shower recess have moved back outside.
For the first time in months I've had a shower without them muscling in.
These frogs were very particular about the temperature, not too hot.
The chill of the water was what they like best, I like it a bit hotter than that.
If it got too hot the frogs would jump all over the place, and that place usually was me.
Believe me a frog landing on your privates is not something you would like repeated.

2009 CHOICE Shonky Awards - lemony winners announced

CHOICE is a not-for-profit consumer protection organisation which started life as a magazine and has been operating in Australia for the last fifty years. The group states it currently has 200,000 members. Every year it now announces annual awards for the worst products on the domestic market. These awards are called Shonkys.

The 2009 CHOICE Shonky for:

• Plugging Stuff and Nonsense goes to Reegen Micro-Plug
  
• Cheese-Fearing Surrender Monkey goes to Tiffany FP807 Food processor
  
• Water at What Price? goes to Chef's Cupboard and Massel liquid stocks
  
• Honey (Oat crisp), I shrunk the groceries goes to Uncle Toby Oat Crisp Honey cereal
  
• Blinding us with dodgy science goes to L'Oréal Elvive
  
• Profit Protection Insurance goes to the Credit protection insurance industry
  
• Sky high surcharges goes to Qantas and Tiger Airways
  
• Teleconfusication goes to Tel.pacific phone cards
  

Poor Bolta - he can't even get up a good snark anymore

Early on a Monday morning Andrew Bolt sent a weak and feeble snark down the digital highway which ended up as a Herald Sun post at 7.21am on 26th October 2009.
He'd obviously only recently noticed how many times the Australian Prime Minister makes no apology for this and that and he listed 7 instances of 'no apology' from June 2008 until this month.
It must have been a hard weekend at the Bolt house because he obviously hadn't anything decent prepared for publication and hurriedly cast a short net.

Here is what a quick squiz at Open Australia throws up with a simple search through Hansard records:

As I said in response to a question in this place yesterday, this government makes no apology whatsoever for the fact that it is expanding its cooperation with the Indonesian government in the area of people smuggling. {Hansard 22nd October '09}

This government makes no apology whatsoever for the fact that we have a tough line on asylum seekers when it comes to dealing with the challenges of people smugglers around the world—tough but humane.
{Hansard 21st October '09}

That is the right way to proceed. It is called a rational policy debate. That is what we on this side of the House are engaged in. We do not apologise for one element of it. {Hansard 18th August '09}

I make no apology whatsoever for being conservative about the projections we have made about the impact of the global recession on Australia. {Hansard 3rd June '09}

I would say to the barracking new Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wentworth, this: on the question of terrorism, this government makes no apology for taking a hard line. It makes no apology for making clear-cut statements to the Australian community that we will not brook— ..........
We take a hard line. We make no apology for it. {Hansard 17th September '08}

We are a party and a government of nation-building and we are so without apology. {Hansard 3rd September '08}

We make no apology at all for the fact that we have commissioned Ken Henry of the Treasury to undertake the Henry commission of inquiry. {Hansard 26th June '08}

Families across the country are dealing with real challenges, so we make no apology—while those opposite giggle and guffaw about the financial pressures faced by families today—for delivering $47 billion of tax cuts to those families, no apology for ensuring that we deliver an education tax refund of $4.4 billion, no apology for ensuring that we increase the childcare tax rebate... {Hansard 15th March '08}

Since the snark was posted there have been other mentions, which include this blockbuster later on that same Monday:

Our policy is unapologetically tough but humane.....
is unapologetically tough when it comes to people smugglers and unapologetically
humane when it comes to dealing with asylum seekers. It is a tough but humane approach......
We, the government, make no apology for this regional approach.....
Our policy is also unapologetically humane. We have ended mandatory detention for children.......
It is a balanced approach, a mainstream approach; one which unapologetically also engages our friends and partners in the region, {Hansard Proof 26th October '09}

But even raising the score to 23 versions of what is almost a prime ministerial verbal tic doesn't make Bolt's paid 'professional' MSM post worth the effort. So far that's only roughly one non-apology uttered every month since Rudd was elected. Bolt's post tastes of FAIL. Try again.

Moggy Musings [Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

A Nathan Rees leadership musing: A mutt, who knows a mutt, who knows a moggy I know well, sez that a leadership spill is definitely happening in the NSW Labor Government on Tuesday 1 September 2009. Yet another mutt says that NSW Planning Minister Kristina Keneally is a member of Opus Dei - which would make her the first high profile female I've heard of apparently belonging to this particular kozy kaffee klatch.

*On 1 September 2009 an advisor to Minister Keneally sent an email to Boy which stated in part:

"The Minister is not, and has never been, a member of Opus Dei. This is absolutely untrue.
This allegation has been made before by news publications, and in all cases it has been retracted or a denial has been published."

*Perhaps the Rees Government should have a training day for staffers as that bit of gossip started life in the Labor stable.

A loyalty musing: Malcolm Turnbull's dogs are privately telling their friends that it doesn't matter a jot to them that their master might suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. Jojo, as spokesdog for the Liberal leader's canine pack, says that having a top dog with tickets on himself did no harm in any tree watering contest.

A Fourth Estate musing: My little canine friend, Veronica Lake, tells me that when her friends gather round the fire hydrant they are discussing the rumour that a certain North Coast newspaper editor is said to have threatened a shire councillor with negative press, because this councillor wasn't voting the way the editor wanted with regard to one of his pet projects.

A cats rule the stars musing:

I hijacked the PC keyboard in time for the August 2009 National Science Week and along with thousands of others sent a message to our nearest Earth-like planet; I am a domesticated cat and my kind is one of the most sucessful modern mammals living on Earth. Higher species like humans are our willing slaves. :-D

Fred Mason from Roberts Creek, Australia sent this message:

Hi There: Sorry about the Outer Limits; hope you enjoyed I Love Lucy. Have you got all our missing socks? Love, Earth

A Rooks rock! musing: I've always known birds were smart - for years even the tiny ones have been able to steal the fur from my back to line their nests. So it came as no surprise to find that Rooks use tools; Rooks Use Stones to Raise the Water Level to Reach a Floating Worm

Happy 40th Birthday to the Internetz!

Around 10.30pm on October 29 in 1969 is popularly held to be the time and day the Internet was born.

Happy birthday, Internetz!

Let's party

UCLA media release

Graphic from Google Images

Racial profiling in the Northern Rivers - an unpleasant odour lingers in APN media

It is less than two months since the unlamented departure of Peter Chapman from the editorial helm of The Daily Examiner, so it is perhaps overly optimistic to expect all the bad journalistic habits he fostered with such relish to have disappeared into thin air.

However, it is more than unfortunate that one bad habit which appears to linger is a tendency to report the racial characteristics of persons accused of a crime.

Last Saturday an individual before the court accused of aggravated sexual assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and related charges was described in The Daily Examiner's lead story as Caucasian in appearance.

What alleged racial appearance has to do with such a crime remains a mystery to me and can only be considered a gratuitous mention that this newspaper would be better served by deleting from future editions.

It's been 70 days since an uncontrolled toxic oil leak began from the Montara rig in the Timor Sea

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production Pcl delayed a fourth attempt due today to plug an Australian well that may have spewed 27,000 barrels of oil into areas inhabited by dolphins, sea turtles and humpback whales.
“We’ve got an environmental disaster unfolding,” Gilly Llewellyn, Sydney-based conservation manager at WWF-Australia, said by telephone today. Dolphins, birds, sea snakes and other marine life have been seen swimming in a slick from the field off the northwestern coast, the group said in an Oct. 23 report.
PTTEP, Thailand’s only publicly traded oil explorer, has failed in three attempts to plug the leak that started Aug. 21. It has estimated the well has been spilling 300 to 400 barrels of oil a day into the Timor Sea. The Australian resources and energy department’s estimate is “in line” with that, said Michael Bradley, spokesman for Energy Minister Martin Ferguson.

Bangkok-based PTTEP said today a bid to intercept a 25 centimeter diameter steel well casing 2,600 meters (1.6 miles) below the seabed was now likely later in the week, after drilling equipment became stuck on Oct. 24 and caused a delay. On Oct. 25, PTTEP said it planned to make the attempt today.
The Thai company met yesterday with rival oil companies in a bid to find a way to stem the Montara field leak, the Perth-based West Australian reported, without citing anyone. Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Apache Corp. and Texan oil-well firefighting specialist Boots & Coots, were among those at the meeting, the paper said. Woodside offered in late August rigs, boats and experts to assist PTTEP.

Times Online slide show of oil spill