'The Australian' & Melbourne Institute's Road to Recovery Conference apparently was a doozy

The Melbourne Institute currently has the The Road to Recovery: Restoring Prosperity After the Crisis 5-6th November 2009 conference program (along with speech and presentation downloads) available on its website.
Almost everyone who is anyone in the field of economic and social policy appears to have been there.
Below is a slide that Access Economics put up during the presentation Will the Budget recover alongside the economy?
Now it's been obvious for a while that Chris Richardson loves to craft statements which toss a live one to the meeja, but this is getting a bit over the top even for him:


















Oh, and thanks Malcolm for that universal tweet alerting all us plebs to this conference - from Richardson's power points to your next sound bite I'm guessing.

Animalia......

Click on image to enlarge
The Daily Examiner,
Letter to the Editor
October 2009

Yet another plan for the proposed new Iluka jetty and pontoon

Cross section visual impacts of proposed Iluka Pontoon and Jetty options at high tide,
Clarence Valley Council, November 2009

The Daily Examiner, 5 November 2009:

AFTER months of wrangling over a site, design and cost of a public jetty for Iluka, another proposal has hit the streets.
The Clarence Valley Council has now put on display plans for a pontoon thatwould be substantially cheaper than the original jetty proposal, but could provide extra mooring spaces for boats............
It was estimated the original proposal would have cost about $165,000. The pontoon would cost an estimated$120,000, with NSW Maritime expected to meet close to half the cost.
If the owners of the Sedgers Reef Hotel agree to the new plan, their pledged contribution of $50,000 will leave ratepayers with a bill of only $10,000.
The proposal will be on public display at the council offices until November 13.
Sedgers Reef Hotel owners were unavailable yesterday.

Deep in my heart I always suspected that Americans.......

I've always suspected that Americans were just a touch pixie-led, loopy,barkers,crackers,looney - a breed apart.
This LA Times media report goes some way towards confirming it:
"A little-noticed measure would put Christian Science healing sessions on the same footing as clinical medicine. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state.
Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.......
The Internal Revenue Service allows the cost of the prayer sessions to be counted among itemized medical expenses for income tax purposes -- one of the only religious treatments explicitly identified as deductible by the IRS. Some federal medical insurance programs, including those for military families, also reimburse for prayer treatment."

The database of ruin coming to your town soon.....

Time marches inexorably on and each day government bureaucracy at every level, health services, financial institutions and even retail outlets are all squirreling away information about each and every one of us in data bases both large and small.

Whenever one inquires about the safety of such databases the assurance received usually goes along the line that there is nothing to worry about - a high level of data security surrounds personally identifiable information and, it would be hard to identify individuals from those information blocs held in long-term digital storage (for comparison/research purposes) because the data has been anonymized.

However, this is apparently not the case.
Due to the large number of public databases accessible on the Internet and by application to various institutions/agencies, it really isn't all that anonymous because most information can be mined and/or manually cross-checked.
Thus potentially allowing re-identification of an individual and the information held concerning that person or family.

This is Paul Ohm Associate Professor of Law from the University of Colorado and author of the research paper Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization :

Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often 'reidentify' or 'deanonymize' individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention...

In an Ars Technica post Paul Ohm is quoted as stating:

"For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. Perhaps it is a fact about past conduct, health, or family shame. For almost every one of us, then, we can assume a hypothetical 'database of ruin,' the one containing this fact but until now splintered across dozens of databases on computers around the world, and thus disconnected from our identity. Reidentification has formed the database of ruin and given access to it to our worst enemies."

With the Rudd Government seemingly stacked with politicians in love with the idea of big data bases and, Health Minister Nicola Roxon's e-health card (with its unique personal identifier within each chip) bearing down on ordinary citizens going quietly about their business in 2010-11, this is a problem we all need to consider carefully. As government legislation will not stop personal privacy being invaded (it can only provide mechanisms to rectify or penalise after the fact) and the hope that IT software will dam the information outflow is fast receding.

Life's like that sometimes.........

........for many an older blogger like me.

NSW Hansard and a case of 'but, butt, but, butt, but'!

Sometimes I wonder how those hardy souls sitting patiently in the NSW Parliament recording for Hansard can actually bear the job, with exchanges like this often being the order of the day:

Mr MATT BROWN (Kiama) [3.53 p.m.], in reply: I acknowledge all those members who made a contribution to the debate, particularly the positive words spoken by my parliamentary colleagues the member for South Coast, Shelley Hancock, and the member for Shellharbour, Lylea McMahon. I was very pleased that the member for South Coast gave the road between Dunmore and Oak Flats, which is the matter we are discussing today, a big tick. The member for Bega asked why I did not acknowledge the Federal money in the project. I want to make it very clear that not one cent of Federal money has gone into the Dunmore to Oak Flats section of the road. They were his words. I do not think the member for Bega understands how this funding works. I agree with the member for South Coast, who said that she would be happy to see that southbound lane opened. I certainly will be because it is still creating a little traffic congestion. However, motorists can see that things are moving ahead extremely well. The member for South Coast then put her big "but" in the debate.
Mrs Shelley Hancock: Point of order: I ask the member to withdraw that remark. It is highly offensive. It is not that big!
Mr MATT BROWN: To the point of order: The member was going along positively and then she said "but".
Mrs Shelley Hancock: I ask the member to withdraw that comment.
Mr MATT BROWN: I am not withdrawing because it is a part of my argument. I did not mean any offence but after a big "but" the debate became negative.
Mrs Shelley Hancock: Madam Deputy-Speaker, I ask you to rule on the point of order I have raised. I take offence at that comment.
Mr MATT BROWN: It is a one "t" but.
The DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kiama has indicated he is not prepared to withdraw the word "but".
Mr Andrew Constance: Point of order—
The DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I hope the member for Bega rises on a valid point of order.
Mr Andrew Constance: Madam Deputy-Speaker, based on your facial expressions you knew full well what the member for Kiama meant in that remark. Therefore, I ask you to direct the member for Kiama to withdraw that sexist remark.
Mr MATT BROWN: You are wasting time. If I offended the member for South Coast I apologise. It was not my intention. I was referring to the member for South Coast saying "but".
The DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kiama has indicated that he was referring to the word "but". The member has the call.

NSW Parliament Legislative Assembly 27th October 2009 Hansard transcript

Talking of sea level change.......

The U.S. University of Colorado has a webpage dealing with sea level change and an interactive map which allows one to plot sea levels for particular areas such as the one below using a lat/long on the NSW North Coast (based on surface height anomoly data from 1992-2009).

Click on images to enlarge

NEWSPOLLING: don't kid yerself, Kev - it's not all about asylum seekers

3rd November 2009 Newspoll release

The Australian's publication of the latest Newspoll results last Tuesday showing the primary vote now a neck-and-neck battle between Labor and the Coalition parties is not as simple as the media is attempting to make out.
It's not all about what journalists think is sexy copy of the moment - asylum seekers.
The Rudd Government is beginning to wilt in the public's eye for many reasons.
Let me count some of the ways:

• Overall policy response to climate change, particularly its pale and insignificant attempt at an emissions trading scheme
  
• The total screw-up which inevitably flowed from federal government accepting the racist premise behind the former Howard Government's NT Intervention and continuing with its provisions
  
• Conroy's obvious determination to censor what information we can access on the Internet
  
• A lazy, late and environmentally dangerous response to the Timor Sea massive oil spill
  
• Supporting a manifestly corrupt Afghan Government
  
• The shocking raid on universal health care that cut the scheduled fee for cataract surgery in half, as well as failure to fix ailing state public hospitals and inadequate dental health programs
  
• Ditto for broken promise to quarantine the one-off increase in the single pension so state government housing authorities and aged care accommodation providers couldn't take a bite
  
• Each and every Labor state government for numerous reasons, including perceptions of incompetence and corruption. 02/11/09:Bimonthly reading of New South Wales voting intention and leaders' ratings {May not be your fault Kev, but you're not helping by appearing to support these drongos}
  
• Peter Garrett and Peter Garrett and Peter Garrett.

At least half of the issues on this list would resonate with those voters under 50 who appear to be the disenchanted according to Newspoll's latest.
The way your going Kev, it's almost as if you're keen to be a one hit wonder.

It's the first Tuesday in November and they're off!

It's the day of the Melbourne Cup in Australia and like the rest of the country North Coast Voices is preparing to stand still for this historic horse race.

Back tomorrow.








Here is the field.......

Click on image to enlarge

Photograph from Google Images and race field information from Racenet