Round the Yamba traps listenin' to Macca mumbles....

Maud on Maccas.....Maud up the Street tells me that if McDonald's does manage to get a 24/7 hamburger factory going in Yamba it's patrons will be extra lucky - there's an ambulance station just across the street.

Only in a small town like Yamba....is it possible (after a Facebook page is created with thousands of fans in the first couple of weeks) that someone who knows you well threatens to tell your mother!
# f**k maccas get kfc ha ha jokingg March 26 at 2:52pm
# I am goin to tell your mum you said that!! You know she wouldnt approve of you eatin maccas or kfc!! March 26 at 4:13pm

Daily Examiner editor issues another public invitation to NSW Premier Kristina Keneally

Last Friday The Daily Examiner editor, David Bancroft, expressed an opinion shared by many on the NSW North Coast:

IT'S a pity NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell had not arrived on the North Coast a little earlier yesterday to inspect the section of Pacific Highway between Ballina and Coffs Harbour that we believe needs urgent and major upgrading.

If he had, he would have been able to see for himself the carnage that happens all too regularly on this section of highway.

Sadly, another person lost their life on the highway yesterday and lives will continue to be lost until the entire section of the highway is divided carriageway.

Currently the NSW Government has no plans - at least for the next five years - to make any large sections of the highway in this area divided.

And while it remains undivided, vehicles will continue to crash head-on and innocent people will continue to die.

Mr O'Farrell missed his plane yesterday and arrived hours late for his tour. But at least he arrived.

The same cannot be said of the Premier, Kristina Keneally, who is still to accept an invitation from four North Coast mayors to join them on a tour of the highway.

Yesterday Mrs Keneally was in Dubbo opening the headquarters of the State Water Corporation.

There is no doubt the Premier is a busy woman and that there may have been a long-standing commitment to open the headquarters.

But the mayors have left their invitation completely open-ended and will agree to meet the Premier anytime that suits her.

Being Premier involves more than smiling photo opportunities ... sometimes it means getting out and facing some of the more problematic issues in the community.

And there can't be anything that is a greater problem then people dying needlessly on our roads.

Come on Mrs Keneally, it's time to come and have a look at the highway for yourself.

Man dead after car, truck collide The crash happened on a straight section of the Pacific Highway on an overtaking lane near the Iluka turn-off last Thursday.

A reminder of why whaling in the Antarctic is not scientific research

Photograph of Migaloo from The Sydney Morning Herald

From the Humane Society International website in 2006:
The bulk of the evidence against Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha comes from the Japanese Government's own reports to the IWC on its scientific research program. The Japanese Government submits JARPA Cruise Reports and Research Plans to the International Whaling Commission for their information.
From these reports HSI has calculated that since 2000, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha has openly and illegally killed over 1300 minke whales within the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

It is possible that of the 505 Antarctic minke whales killed in Antarctic waters in 2006-07 by the Japanese whaling fleet, 262 of were pregnant females, while it is suspected that one of the three fin whales killed was also in calf. The New Scientist reported this week that; The three whaling nations [Japan, Norway and Iceland] now kill around 1600 whales a year.

An estimated 679 minke whales and 1 fin whale were killed by the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctic waters in 2009, allegedly for scientific research but in fact purely for commercial sale.

Many of the whales harried and hunted by the Government of Japan and its whaling fleet are those whom we Australians have carefully shepherded out to sea when they have come too close into shallow water, have disentangled from netting, have reunited with a their pod, or simply looked happily on as they swam up and down our coastlines in many thousands of years old migration patterns.

Now with America's connivance and at the whaling nations' insistence, the International Whaling Commission looks as through it is going to endorse a ten-year suspension of the international ban on whaling to allow nations like Japan to continue rape and plunder the oceans at will with impunity. Migaloo the white humpback whale (who once again successfully completed his Australian east coast migration in 2009) and all his cetacean kind are in danger.

Chair's Report to the Small Working Group on the Future of the IWC

Song knowledge is thought to transfer from male whale to male whale evolving over time in a similar fashion to verbally transmitted tribal lore in the world's oldest continuing culture, indigenous Australians. A YouTube video recording of The Oceania Project whales and their songs.

Clarence Valley Review finally catches up with the rest of the world

Teh Clarence Valley Review finally catches up with the rest of the world and posts some of its recent editions online here. I'd been waiting so long that I'd stopped checking this local rag's website and twas sheer chance which saw me light there this week.