And the Opposition flood spin descends into farce

If you thought Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s ''It seems the Prime Minister is going to call this a 'mateship tax' but mates help each other. They don't tax each other.'' was the height of juvenile stupidity, then you are going to love his sidekick's response to the following statement by the Australian Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 26 January 2011:

First, we will deliver a one-off levy. It will not include lower-income earners.

A levy of 0.5 per cent will be applied on taxable income between $50,001 and $100,000 and a levy of 1 per cent will be applied on taxable income above $100,000. Anyone earning under $50,000 will not pay the levy.

In other words it is not like the Medicare Levy, which for most taxpayers applies to all their income – it is like income tax rates which apply only above certain income levels.

Under this levy, someone who has an income of $60,000 will pay just under $1 extra per week. A person earning $100,000 per year will pay just under an extra $5 per week.

The levy will apply only in the 2011-12 financial year and it will raise $1.8 billion.

People who were affected by the floods will not pay this levy.

Anyone who receives the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment for a flood this financial year will be exempt.

Shadow Treasurer and Liberal MP Joe Hockey on 27 January 2011:

It is patently absurd to tax homes that they themselves have been afflicted by the floods.
So their home's drifted down the river and now Julia Gillard comes along and says: good news guys, we're going to put a flood tax on you.

For all those retired teachers out there.....

....especially those who put their hearts and souls into teaching English as a subject in high school.



The original written review was apparently deleted but could still be seen on Google cache last Monday.

Williamson fights against an obvious political reality?

In a March 2011 NSW state election widely expected to give the Liberal-Nationals Coalition a landslide victory, Clarence Valley Mayor Richie Williamson is standing as an Independent.

In The Daily Examiner on 26 January 2011:

INDEPENDENT candidate for Clarence Richie Williamson has dismissed claims that if elected he would not achieve results for the electorate under a Coalition government predicted to win the March state election in a landslide.

Mr Williamson said being an independent he would not have to toe any party line and would fight for the people of Clarence.

“I am totally confident that if elected as an independent in the next government I would be able to get results for the people of Clarence ... I will be able to work with either party,” he said.

I rather suspect that Mr. Williamson is being encouraged to focus his energy and spend his money on this bid for the seat of Clarence by none other than certain elements within the Australian Labor Party, who see the possibility of independents winning seats as a form of moral spoiler on the almost inevitable Opposition victory.

Sadly, if Mr. Williamson should win he would be as politically impotent on the cross benches as the current sitting member has been on the opposition benches and Clarence will continue to be ignored by Macquarie Street for another four years. If at the same time he attempted to retain his position as a shire councillor he would also potentially become a political danger to the aims and aspirations of local government in the area.

The best hope for Clarence voters is if they run the ballot count so close to the wire that a narrowly re-elected Cansdell is thought by the Coalition to need buttressing by state funding largesse to keep the seat out of the hands of either Independents or Labor in 2015.

Gillard Government flood recovery package documents

Peter Martin once again proves that some journalists who also blog are good value, with this posting of the attachments to the Australian Government's Providing Flood Relief to Affected Communities unveiled during Prime Minister Gillard's National Press Club Address today as a downloadable Scribd document:

Complete Flood Package Documents

Keneally fiddles why New South Wales burns. Does O'Farrell intend to throw petrol on the fames?

While the Keneally Government has forced New South Wales to bend over and present to the powerful private energy industry sector with its under the table sell-off of the state’s electricity assets, this is how far we are behind in our undertakings regarding reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation between 14 to 24 January 2011.

Surely not even Premier Kristina Keneally can think that the private sector will seriously address this problem and, at less cost to the consumer?

As for Barry O’Farrell – he’ll probably continue with the sell-off once in office and then consider buying shares in Macquarie Generation, Delta, Eraring, AGL, Origin or Tru Energy.

Last week:

• Total emissions grew by 4.1% or 78,000 tonnes, due largely to an increase in emissions from coal-fired generation.
• Emissions from coal-fired generation, which accounted for 90% of electricity generation, grew by 6.4% or 70,000.
• Emissions from gas grew by 5.7% or 9,000 tonnes.
• Emissions from petroleum fell by 0.1% or 1,000 tonnes.
• Electricity demand grew by 3.6%.
• NSW imported 7.8% of its electricity demand to other states, compared to 7.7% the previous week.

Last year:

• This week’s indicator is 1.0% higher than the same week in 2010
• Total emissions to this stage of 2011 were 1.6% lower than the similar stage last year

Baselines:

• 1990: 22% above
• 2000: 4.2% above

Boing Boing blog comes out fighting over word association defamation claim & ACS:Law flounders over mass mail out

Boing Boing blog on 17 January 2011:

Boing Boing has been on the receiving end of one or two stupid legal threats in our day but this one from the firm of Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh takes the cake, the little cake topper, the frosting and all the candles, as well as the box and the cake-stand and the ornamental forks……………..

There's no legal merit to this, of course. "Commercial libel" is damned hard to make stick (that pesky First Amendment!), and it takes a lot more than a blog post that contains the words "academic" "advantage" and "scam" to make a workable legal case.

No, this is pure legal thuggery, a completely indiscriminate bid to intimidate bloggers and publishers into censoring themselves by threatening dire legal consequences.

And the sad thing is, it probably works. Most people don't know the law (see EFF Bloggers' Rights articles), and can't afford to ask a lawyer what they should do in a situation like this. All we can hope is that the next time someone gets a letter over "academic advantage scam" or similar false positives, they get to this blog post and discover that our legal pals at Dewey, Cheatham and Howe Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh know even less about the law than they do about the Internet.

Boing Boing again on 20 January 2011:

According to this article in California Watch, the tutoring company Academic Advantage has fired the law firm of Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh over its ridiculous legal threats against Boing Boing.

For those of you who missed it, Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh sent us a letter alleging that we had caused "possibly irrevocable damage" to the reputation of its client, Academic Advantage, by publishing a blog post that contained the phrase "academic advantage" and, later, in one of the comments, the word "scam." Neither the original post nor the comment were related to the Academic Advantage tutoring service, and besides, US law clearly places responsibility for message-board posts on the poster, not the people who put up the message board. Lazar, Akiva & Yagoubzadeh's threat was one of the sloppiest, most careless piece of lawyering I've ever seen, a breathtaking example of depraved indifference and bullying.

Text of the original 13 January 2011 legal letter (apparently written by one of the law firm partners) which caused all the fuss can be found at Chilling Effects here:

We represent The Academic Advantage, Inc. (“The Academic Advantage”). It has come to our client’s attention that there is a link on your website which defames The Academic Advantage. This unlawful and impermissible link address is causing my client significant and possibly irrevocable damage.
The Academic Advantage is a well regarded company and community leader, which has received recognition from numerous public officials, including from governors and senators throughout the country, as well as high accolades from scores of parents and children. Unfortunately, however, the BoingBoing website has created an association of “scam” with the Academic Advantage. The following hyperlink is where the libelous web address can be found:
http://boingboing.net/2009/07/16/autism-as-an-academi.html

Enclosed is a printout of the webpage for your convenience.

It is clear there is no purpose to this web address but to falsely accuse the Academic Advantage of being a scam or at least associating the Academic Advantage with a scam. There is absolutely no helpful reason for the website to have the words “Academic,” “Advantage” and “Scam” which leads me to believe it was created for malicious purposes. Claiming that our client’s tutoring services program is a “SCAM” is prima facie defamation and designed to do nothing more than damage our client’s reputation.
We are respectfully requesting that BoingBoing immediately take down any and all such links from the website in order to avoid any further damage to our client’s reputation and business as well as an unnecessary escalation of these matters as between my client and BoingBoing. The Academic Advantage provides tutoring services to thousands of children, from Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade. Given the nature of our client’s services, involving the tutoring of young children, false accusations of lying, cheating, and stealing is particularly damaging to our client’s business. BoingBoing cannot in good conscience allow this hyperlink to remain.

Please kindly remove or rename the above listed link from your site immediately. If you have any questions or would like to discuss things in more detail, please feel free to contact me. In the meantime, I thank you in advance for your cooperation in resolving these matters.

While over at ACS:Law the problems flowing from a mass mail out to alleged copyright infringers and data breach are perhaps a little more serious and, its now blank original homepage and new web site under construction says it all.

Update: Antarctic Killing Fields January 2011

Greenpeace/Culley photograph of Japanese whaling vessell
pulling in slaughtered Minke Whale
Location and date unknown, Google Images

After a 26-day pursuit covering over 4,000 miles, the Steve Irwin caught up with the Nisshin Maru at 1800 hours on January 25^th, 2011 AEST.

“We finally have this serial killing death ship where we want them, and from here on in, we intend to ride their ass until the end of the whaling season,” said Captain Paul Watson from onboard the Steve Irwin. “This whaling fleet belongs to us now – lock, stock, and smoking harpoon gun.”

(Sea Shepherd News, January 25 2011)

Happy Birthday to The Land

The Land rural newspaper has been in existence for the last 100 years today.

Happy Birthday!

I didn't know Clarence MP Steve Cansdell had a sense of humour?

That Nationals good old boy Steve Cansdell was out there hunting local headlines last week and he decided to declare that he wouldn’t “accept a ministry as it would isolate him from his constituents in the Clarence electorate”.
The merriment in our house went on for some time because Barry O’Farrell would have to have rocks in his head to put Steve in change of anything except a chook raffle after the Keneally Government inevitably falls in March.
Anony-mice
Yamba