Never a truer word said by CNN

Australia's best place to visit....
Then a pod of dolphins explodes from the water and the hype about Yamba suddenly appears understated.

Anony-mice

Yamba

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration.

A plea from the heart by the digitally disadvantaged

A not uncommon complaint heard right across the Clarence Valley.

Dreyfuss in July 2011 on a Clarence Conversations forum:

The area around Melaleuca drive in Yamba is in desperate need of upgrading by Telstra. When the subdivision was first done telecom and the developer did some “clever” thing with the phone lines designed to save money and that now stops the residents from getting effective ADSL connections. Speeds of 0.22kbps are common, ADSL 2 is offered by Internet Service Providers (ISP) but not available, is some cases residents are being refused ADSL connections all together. When you contact Telstra about getting the lines upgraded and they say talk to your ISP, then you talk to you ISP and they say there is nothing that can be done until Telstra upgrade the phone lines talk to Telstra. NBN may be some 5 years away (if ever), the mobile reception in the area is appalling so wireless is not an option. This area is only 4 kilometres from the Yamba exchange and less than 1 kilometre from the Treeland Drive retail district! How long will the residents be forced to suffer because of the original cost cutting by Telecom (Telstra) and the Developer? I urge anybody that is affected to contact the Grafton office of Janelle Saffin 6621 9909 email Peter.ellem@aph.gov.au

AntoniusFM in August 2011 on the same forum thread:

No ADSL in Wells Crossing, satellite is no option (too slow, too much delay), so using wireless, which isn't that great (1.5 Mbps if i am lucky), especially because i need it for my work (self employed IT consultant). I would have wished the government invested a bit more in wireless technology. The NBN sounds nice, but there is no way in the world we are going to have fibre optics where I live. Very disappointing !

When ad men go bad

Oh Todd, Todd, Todd.......

what a choice of T-shirt!

Sometimes the young (and assorted others) make my heart sing - Part Four

http://youtu.be/bG7wbAfcKUI

For the purists here is Nick Cave unadorned

Some little known facts...

From the people who inhabit I Can Has Cheezburger.

The highs and lows of public hospital outpatient care according to NSW consumers

Source: Outpatient care module of the NSW Health Patient Survey 2010
Click on graphs to enlarge

In August 2011 the NSW Bureau of Health Information released Patient Care Experiences (part of the Insight series) a survey of patients using outpatient services in NSW public hospitals during February 2010.

Not surprisingly, consumers on the North Coast had mixed feeling about their experience in the larger regional public hospitals and these scored in both the higher and lower satisfaction bands.

In comparison with all public hospitals in this survey, Murwillumbah and Grafton performed well and Tweed, Lismore and Coffs Harbour performed poorly.

When compared with other non-metropolitan hospitals in the survey most fell in the middle of the rating band with only Tweed Heads in the lowest ranking.

How the emergency department experience in non-metropolitan hospitals is rated by NSW Health can be found in Performance Profiles Emergency department care Major non-metropolitan hospitals Hospital Quarterly: January to March 2011.

Christopher Monckton splutters.....

Uploaded to YouTube by countrychannel99 on Aug 8, 2011:

One of the world's most prominent, and controversial, climate change skeptics, has been in New Zealand this week. Lord Christopher Monckton, the 3rd Viscount of Brenchley, is here as part of a world lecture tour promoting climate change denial. Reporter Benedict Collins met Christopher Monckton in Auckland, and while the Viscount might not believe in global warming, it didn't take long for the interview to heat up...

http://youtu.be/5ODCTPGmERw

NBN mapping for NSW North Coast

Go to NBN CO for interactive mapping showing national broadband coverage by anticipated type in each state and region.