How much the Northern Rivers has grown since then....

The NSW State Library and The Mitchell Libray (celebrating 100 years since its doors first opened) now have excellent online facilities and digital collections.

1920s and 1930s in the Northern Rivers District

Top River Street, Ballina
Middle Lismore from Girard's Hill

Middle Tweed River from Razorback
Bottom Maclean in the Clarence Valley

Walcha news

When touring around the countryside it's interesting to see what's in the local news.

Here's a sample of Walcha news:

Bruce Rutherford in this week's Apsley Advocate comments on the recent wet weather in the Walcha district and then puts things into a broader global perspective. Well done, Bruce!

Meanwhile, Coogee over at the Walcha News has a par about expiry dates.

Bailed Up! Now into our 14th day of political uncertainty

Bailed Up by Tom Roberts

It is now fourteen days since Australia went to a general election meant to decide its next federal government and still three of the five newly elected/re-elected members of parliament holding the balance of power in the House of Representatives have not made a decision concerning exactly which minority government they will support - Labor or the Liberal/Nationals Coalition.

The situation entered into farce early on when one successful WA Nationals candidate also attempted to deal himself in as an independent, even though he was firmly in the Coalition camp during the election campaign according to the party's website.

Now we are approaching a political climate in which supposedly considered judgement is beginning to give way to highway robbery as the three remaining unaligned seasoned independent MPs hold the nation and the two main parliamentary parties to ransom.

The fact that the Australian Electoral Commission will not be declaring the national poll within the next few days is no excuse for these prima donnas milking the situation for all it is worth.

By 4.30pm on 3 September 2010, 91.22% of the primary vote had been counted and the two party preferred count was 86.72% complete with only one seat considered technically doubtful according to a finely-honed computer program.

One wonders why any of us bothered to vote at all. Enough is enough. Align by Monday morning Messrs Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor (or announce that you will not be supporting a minority government) if you want to retain any semblance of credibility.

Ride The Talk on Climate Change & Energy Effficiency at Coffs Harbour 6.30pm Tuesday 7 September 2010

RIDE THE TALK

Energy efficiency - not just a free lunch, a lunch you get paid to eat!

Come along to an entertaining, informative, engaging and interactive presentation in YOUR community on ways you (and your friends & family) can save energy and avoid wasting your hard earned money while helping to save the planet. You'll be amazed with how much you can save!

John Knox has decided that, rather than simply complain about the lack of action on Climate Change, he needs to do something positive about it.

This is your one off chance to see this talk by John, who is on a solo nationwide speaking tour by bicycle.

He has the passion;

He has the knowledge;

He has the bike!

Let him share his vision with you at this one off event.

Would you like to know how you can save money (and help save the planet) by making simple changes at home?

Learn how to stretch your dollar in the following areas:

 Heating/Cooling

 Lighting

 Appliances

 Cooking

 Insulation

 Phantom loads

 Solar power & hot water

 Transport

John will be talking for 2 hrs on Tues 7 September at 6:30pm at

Coffs Harbour Education Campus O Block Theatre, Hogbin Drv, Coffs Harbour

Come along (and bring some friends to share the savings!)

To register and to advise of any support needs/requirements,

please contact Cameron Bragg by Monday 6 September

on 0413 674 640 or cdbragg@gmail.com

www.ridethetalk.com.au

Grafton Artsfest 25-30 September 2010

Clarence Valley Review :

Artsfest spring program offers an array of six day textile workshops tutored by Australia's leading artists; the four workshops all run concurrently allowing the student to gain maximum knowledge from the chosen tutor.

Dates for the spring festival are Saturday September 25 to Thursday September 30; hours are 9am until 4pm with the final day concluding at approximately 3pm.

Concerts and exhibitions add to the ambience of the festival, the evening events being presented include Exhibition of the Tutors 'art work, Students' Exhibition, Pub Night where Allan Caswell will provide the entertainment and Grafton Arts Jazz Orchestra Concert presented by John Morrison, Jacki Cooper Ken Stubbs, John Hoffman, Jack Thorncraft and Steve Russell.

A fest of culture enjoyment for the general public and Artsfest participants, for further information pick up a brochure from one of the many outlets in the valley or contact our office details are below.

Claire Brach is the chosen artist for this week; Claire will travel to Grafton for the first time as a tutor of her passion in creativity using textiles....

Email: info@artsfestgrafton.com

Web: www.artsfestgrafton.com

Who kicked the NSW North Coast Nats anthill in 2010?

The NSW North Coast Nats have been in a quiet frenzy since a minority government became the new political reality.
The idea of Rob Oakeshott (who resigned from the National Party in 2002) in the quartet holding balance of power has them swarming out of the nest like so many irritated and agitated green ants.
To anyone who'll listen they are suggesting that if Oakeshott supports a Labor federal government he would be betraying a predominately National's electorate.
Eh? Come again fellas? A National Party electorate?
The region covered by the Lyne electorate is fiercely independent and hasn't supported the Nats at federal level since a September 2008 by-election.
At state level the Port Macquarie electorate hasn't been Nats since 2002 (when first Oakeshott and then Besseling were incumbent NSW state independents) and again at state level the Oxley electorate may have been held by the present NSW Nats leader Andrew Stoner since 1999 but he will be challenged by yet another independent in March 2011.
More than a few locals down that way are talking up the possibility of an indie trifecta by next year.

Walcha to Bingara via Manilla and Barraba

The travelling party was given a tip for a top place to dine in Walcha on Wednesday night - the Apsley Arms Hotel. After studying the menu at great length it looked odds-on that the restaurant in the hotel would be serving us up with one of its specialities, the mixed grill.

The description on the menu for the grill had us watering at the mouth - T-bone steak, lamb loin chop, butcher's beef sausage, bacon, eggs, onion and chips. Priced at $24 a head, we thought we were on a good thing. But, out of the blue came a recommendation from another diner in the restaurant, "Get your laughing gear around the Wednesday night house special - T-bone with salad n chips or veges. You blokes will have trouble finishing it off, the T-bones are gi-normous!"

We could read that bloke like an open book - he was frank and upfront and knew his stuff.

So, having ordered T-bones, the party settled in for refreshers that came in the form of nicely chilled Boags in schooner glasses.

Almost before you could say "Jack Robinson", the T-bones arrived at our table. And, without a word of a lie, the steaks were half the length of my outstretched arm. Mine was medium rare and melted in my mouth. We took the recommendation of staff member Wayne and had a glass of house red ($5) to accompany the meal. And what great value that red wine was! it came from a bottle of Penfolds that sells for over $25 when it's on special.

The evening was rounded off with a lively forum in the hotel's public bar where topics covered included Racism in Oz in 2010 to local rugby, the ups and downs of local businesses and the bloke/sheila on the land .

Speaking about The Land, when I went along to the local newsagency on Thursday morning to purchase a copy of the local paper, the Walcha News, which is published just once a week - on Thursdays - the owner of the newsagency told me the business had the highest sales for The Land of any outlet anywhere in NSW. To prove the point, I was shown the details for last week's sales - 321 copies were sold last week!

After a solid breakfast, had at Cafe Graze (again!), the touring party departed Walcha and headed off to Bingara.

Along the way, the party inspected Bendemeer, Manilla and Barraba. Sadly, solid evidence of towns in serious decline was observed in all three locations, but it has to be said that Manilla has all the appearances of being a cot case - emergency resuscitation could be called for, but the vital signs of life are perilously low that if a second opinion is called for, then it could well be that a decision might need to be taken to euthanise the patient.

Barraba and Bingara are impressive small country towns. They have a real sparkle about them. Local residents who we had short yarns with seem pretty happy with their lot in these places.

A site in Manilla created a bit of curiosity for the party. What's the background to the naming of the bridge shown below? Doesn't it seem odd that the name is still being used? Wouldn't you think the local civic fathers and mothers would be a bit more politically correct and move to have its name changed?

Bolt's lack of research exposed yet again

If the rest of the Australian mainstream media and blogosphere made as many factual errors as journalist Andrew Bolt there would barely be a handful of people left in this country who were using the Internet to read news and current affairs.

Crikey's Pure Poison outed Bolt for his latest blunder in The Herald-Sun on 31 August 2010 set out here:

Something a little more likely and potentially a lot more devastating for the global warming alarmists to fret over:

An asteroid more than a mile wide is heading for earth, posing the greatest threat yet by an object approaching the planet, scientists have warned.

The asteroid – called 2002 NT7 – was spotted only three weeks ago, but could strike on 1 February 2019, the US space agency Nasa said…

Gerrit Verschuur, an astrophysicist and radio astronomer at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, said the impact would create a fireball so intense it would kill anyone who could see it, after which material thrown into the air would shower half the world with flaming debris. "It would be as if the sky itself had caught fire," he said.

The heat would set fire to forests and cities, after which dust would fill the atmosphere, obscuring the sun for a month. That in turn would kill plants and animals, so that only creatures that lived underground would have a strong chance of survival.

Same apocalyptic scenario as the global warmists' own, but missing that vital ingredient for a new mass faith - a narrative of human sin and the punishment to come.

(Thanks to reader Warwick.)

Now a sensible person would have looked at that link to Newshoggers and double checked with NASA and its Near Earth Object Program, but not Mr. Bolt - that would have spoiled his dig at climate change science.

For those who are interested in seeing how few objects pose a real risk there is NASA's Sentry Risk Table . As I write there is only one risk impact on a scale of 0 to 10 that is presently indicated as meriting "careful monitoring" and, it is not Bolt's asteroid of doom (discovered in 2002) and it is not due until sometime between 2048 and 2057.

In fact the asteroid Bolt mentions seems to have been removed from the Sentry Risk Table sometime between mid-2002 and 2004 because the risk was so low as to be negligible over the next one hundred years.

Sweetest headlines of them all this week

Fred Nile caught in web porn scandal

The Sydney Morning Herald September 2, 2010 - 6:29AM

Nile’s porn excuse doesn’t hold water

Crikey Thursday, 2 September 2010

200,000 connections to porn sites on the Netz?

Wasn't me and researcher didn't inhale?

Tut, tut Reverend Nile!

Update:

In Teh Oz on 4th September - News site 'adult' in audit of MP usage