Ali Moore's interview with Dr Marc Faber, editor of the 'Gloom Boom and Doom report'

A much needed voice of reason on the ABC:

"... ALI MOORE: So let me just interrupt you there. So we're talking I guess two timelines. You have got economy recovering because of massive government stimulus. Within that next 12 to 18 month period do you see a risk of another sort of banking crisis if you like whether it's triggered by commercial property in the US? Do you see that as risk?

MARC FABER: Not a pronounced risk for the simple reason that, you know, I don't hold a very high opinion of bankers. But you really have to be dumb, dumb, dumb - not to make any money when the government gives you money free of charge. The bankers get money free of charge. I wished every person in Australia who has an honest business would get money free of charge and they would also make a lot of money. The bankers get a lot of money free of charge and they, the more market the Government in the US will throw at the system and the more bailouts will follow. You should buy bank stocks in the world. For the next, say, 12 months or so.

ALI MOORE: What do you mean by that?

MARC FABER: The system collapse occurs when at the moment we have the private sector failing basically and triggered partly by government policies and by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae which were government-sponsored enterprises in the US. But the government was still in a position to bailout but the next time around the government will go bust, basically. And so before they go bust and fold, in other words don't pay the interest on their government debts because - don't misunderstand it - as the fiscal deficit goes up, the interest payments on the government they also go up. They're now around $400 billion annually. I think they will be around the trillion dollars in five to so seven years time and that will then become burdensome on the GDP.

And so then the government goes bust but before it does that it will try to inflate its way out. That won't work. So the next step will be to go to war. And the whole thing will collapse. ..."

"... Giving the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival 20 years after father Rupert Murdoch addressed the same meeting, he said the lines between different forms of media - television, newspapers and publishing - had blurred but broadcasting alone remained centrally planned...

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit," he said.

'Threat to independence'

Mr Murdoch said the BBC was crowding out new and existing news providers.

"The scale and scope of [the BBC's] current activities and future ambitions is chilling," he said.

"In this all-media marketplace, the expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision, which are so important for our democracy.

"Dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the Internet."

Mr Murdoch said government intervention was curbing free speech and it would be better served by adhering to the principles of free enterprise - namely the need to make a profit - and trusting customers to pay for the news they valued..."

"A 'Jesus crusade' led by Fiji's police force has been compared to the rule of the Taliban.

Editor in Chief of the Fiji Times, Mr Netani Rika, addressed journalism and communications students at the University of Queensland yesterday, telling them of life under the illegal rule of interim Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.

Mr Rika said police converts to the fundamentalist New Methodist Church had replaced military personnel as in-house censors in newsrooms.

He said the police and the Bainimarama regime were strong backers of the new church and aimed to draw popular support away from the more independent traditional churches such as the dominant Methodist Church.

Mr Rika said police were interpreting and enforcing Fiji's laws from an extremely fundamentalist Christian perspective..."

"Fiji's interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has abolished the country's main sugar cane grower representative group.

Commodore Bainimarama claims the Sugar Cane Growers' Council is trying to influence national politics.

He says growers will now deal directly with the country's cane processor, the Fiji Sugar Corporation..."

"Workers at Bundaberg Sugar in south-east Queensland have vowed to keep fighting for a better pay deal, despite a company lockout.

The Bundaberg company says it shut down operations at its two mills and refinery last night because it could not justify running the mill during the strike action.

Employees resolved this morning to reject the company's latest offer, saying any agreement that includes a buyout of travel leave is unacceptable..."

Guess They'll All Have To Buy New Cars Too!

"BRENDAN TREMBATH: In less than two weeks the island nation of Samoa will undergo a very dramatic change.

Drivers in this Pacific paradise who have long been using the right hand side of the road will have to start using the left.

The country's Prime Minister is driving the change and he says speed limits have been lowered and big arrows are being painted to prevent people from crashing.

But a group of locals vehemently opposed to the switch this week took its concerns to the Supreme Court in Samoa...."

Timely Bit Of News, Given The Current Debate About Abortion In Queensland

"Queensland Health says it "deeply regrets" any action which may have led to body parts or foetuses being dumped at a Thursday Island tip.

Queensland Health yesterday confirmed a whistleblower contacted it in May with reports body parts and foetuses were taken from the Thursday Island Hospital in the Torres Strait and buried at the local council dump in the mid-1990s..."

Why Aren't Trains Travelling On These Railway Lines?

"Two mates have found a novel way to make the most out of old rusting railway lines.

A few years ago Julio Mottola and Michael Albert hatched a plan to create a unique bike that could be ridden on rusting tracks.

Enter the "locobike" - two bicycles joined together with a solid aluminium frame with four little polyurethane wheels attached.

The wheels then lock the bicycles to the railway tracks and away you go.

Secret and illegal trials of the prototype, on the disused Casino to Murwillumbah rail line on the NSW north coast, were a success..."

Repeat The Lie

"Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran to stop its disputed nuclear program, after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"There is not much time," he said.

... Widely considered to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear armed power, Israel suspects Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program - something Tehran denies.

Israel considers the Islamic republic to be its main foe following repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state is doomed to be 'wiped off the map.'"

Will Anyone Highlight The Link?

"... Crown prosecutor Tony Moynihan SC said Colless graduated to raping women after spending his teenage years as a "voyeur".

Colless stole women's underwear from washing lines and was addicted to pornography, the court was told.

In 2005, he began having fantasies about raping women he saw exercising in public areas on his way to work.

Between April 2006 and and July 2008 he attacked the women in the early hours of the morning, covering their mouths and pinning them to the ground..."

"... One of the problem programs, Naked Wild On, featured sexualised montages of US college students, while another, Cathouse, is a reality series set at a brothel in Nevada.

A spokesman for Foxtel pointed out that the company had worked co-operatively with the regulator to implement additional safeguards.

''We work very hard to ensure that our programs comply with relevant classification obligations as our customers expect it of us,'' he said."

"The Supreme Court has granted six former James Hardie directors a stay on bans from directing a company.

Ten former executives who lied about asbestos compensation were last week fined and disqualified from running companies.

Today's court ruling means that five-year bans for Meredith Hellicar, Michael Brown, Michael Gillfillan, Martin Koffel, Geoffrey O'Brien and Gregory Terry will not begin until September 24.

Meanwhile, former Hardie executive Peter Willcox has resigned from his position as Telstra director effective immediately.

Mr Willcox has been banned from managing a company for five years and fined $30,000 for lying about asbestos compensation.

In a statement, the Telstra board thanked Mr Willcox for his contribution to the company as a highly respected member of the board since joining in 2006."

"When Wayne Swan announced in this year's Federal Budget that Australia's retirement age would rise to 67 years from 2023, he was hysterically and unfairly attacked by far too many people who should have known better.

Swan's decision was a responsible one. Without, Australia would be heading down a path to bankruptcy as our nation will progressively become unable to afford the coast of pensions, health care and housing for its rapidly ageing population..."

"A married father-of-four who preyed on women exercising along Brisbane bikeways for two years has pleaded guilty to five counts of rape.

Luke James Colless, 32, pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to five counts of rape and six counts of sexual assault.

The crown has asked he be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Judge Marshall Irwin has reserved his sentencing decision to tomorrow morning. Colless sexually attacked 11 women on Brisbane's bikeways and at Kangaroo Point between April 2006 and July 2008, the court heard...

The court was told Colless was caught only when a witness took down his car's registration and reported it to police after a Kangaroo Point attack."

"The United Nations says Australia is breaching its international human rights obligations by continuing the Northern Territory intervention.

The UN's special rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms of Indigenous people, Professor James Anaya, says the intervention is also discriminatory and has urged the Government to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act..."

A Question For Q & A

A question for the panel:

Why is it that people who are so opposed to abortion, aren't as passionate about campaigning against the death penalty?

Not On Your Nelly

http://stopmurdoch.blogspot.com/2009/08/not-on-your-nelly.html

"A terminally-ill hunter has climbed up a New Zealand mountain and says he is willing to stay there until he dies as a protest against the use of the pesticide 1080.

Chris Short has cancer and is believed to have just weeks to live.

He climbed up Mount Tongariro in the North Island on Sunday, after telling his wife he was going to buy milk.

The 50-year-old says he will not come down until an anti-1080 documentary is screened on national TV.

Leanne Short says she is proud of her husband.

"I didn't know that he was going to demand them to play the documentary but I think that's great really for New Zealand to see," she said.

This is not Mr Short's first protest against 1080.

In 1995 he confronted three men, who he suspected were spreading the pesticide from their helicopter, with a shotgun. He took the men hostage and was jailed for two years... "

I Like It Both Ways

http://stopmurdoch.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-like-it-both-ways.html

"... Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also paid tribute to Senator Kennedy.

"Ted Kennedy was a great American, a great Democrat, but also a great friend of Australia," Mr Rudd said. ..."

"Protestors who try to stop next week's Repco Rally Australia will be arrested and prosecuted, say police who will have the riot squad on duty at the international event.

The warning comes after Tweed Shire Greens councillor Katie Milne asked the Federal Court to issue an injunction to block the September 3-6 event -- round 10 of the FIA World Rally Championship - which is expected to pump more than $30 million into the local economy.... "

"Over the weekend, Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times published a column urging Congress “to move quickly to grant the newspaper industry at least a temporary exemption from antitrust and price-fixing laws so that publishers and proprietors can, in essence, collude for survival.”

Rutten is half-right. There is indeed a legitimate and an increasingly pressing need for government to intervene in the journalism crisis. But the policies Rutten prescribes would actually undermine the goals he professes to champion. Suspending antitrust protections to allow digital collusion, whereby newspapers erect online price-fixing schemes and place their content behind “pay walls,” is exactly the wrong policy to encourage democratic discourse.

As Rutten notes, there is a rich history of government involvement aimed at enabling and protecting a free press. But circumventing antitrust law will not achieve those ends. At best, pay walls would forestall the inevitable by artificially extending otherwise diminishing corporate profits as the business model of advertising-supported journalism continues to falter.

At worst, pay walls would create a media system that shrinks the range of political debate, penalizes commentary in the blogosphere, and drives an already struggling media system into the ground. ..."

Imperialism, Vile Practices And The Cheapness Of Women's Lives

"... After its independence, Bangladesh became a parliamentary democracy, with Mujib as the Prime Minister. In the 1973 parliamentary elections, the Awami League gained an absolute majority. A nationwide famine occurred during 1973 and 1974, and in early 1975, Mujib initiated a one-party socialist rule with his newly formed BAKSAL. On August 15, 1975, Mujib and his family were assassinated by mid-level military officers.

A series of bloody coups and counter-coups in the following three months culminated in the ascent to power of General Ziaur Rahman, who reinstated multi-party politics and founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Zia's rule ended when he was assassinated in 1981 by elements of the military. Bangladesh's next major ruler was General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, who gained power in a bloodless coup in 1982 and ruled until 1990, when he was forced to resign under western donor pressure in a major shift in international policy after the end of communism when anti-communist dictators were no longer felt necessary. Since then, Bangladesh has reverted to a parliamentary democracy. Zia's widow, Khaleda Zia, led the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to parliamentary victory at the general election in 1991 and became the first female Prime Minister in Bangladesh's history. However, the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina, one of Mujib's surviving daughters, clinched power at the next election in 1996 but lost to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party again in 2001.

In January 11, 2007, following widespread violence, a caretaker government was appointed to administer the next general election. The country had suffered from extensive corruption, disorder and political violence. The new caretaker government has made it a priority to root out corruption from all levels of government. To this end, many notable politicians and officials, along with large numbers of lesser officials and party members, have been arrested on corruption charges. The caretaker government held a fair and free election on December 29, 2008. Awami League's Sheikh Hasina won the elections with a landslide victory and took oath of Prime Minister on 6 Jan 2009..."

The state functions as an ambiguous power that sustains and supports discriminatory practices, yet allowing spaces for them to be challenged. For instance, gaps in state-sponsored medico-legal services prevent women from protection supposedly guaranteed them by the newly-established laws.

" ... The State Government says an amendment to Queensland's Criminal Code will not lead to wider changes to abortion laws.

Premier Anna Bligh says the update to the Criminal Code will happen as soon as possible, but there is no plan to free up the law for more abortions.

"It is my assessment that there is not sufficient support on the floor of the Parliament for any change beyond that that I am suggesting and frankly, if anyone has a different assessment, then they are able to bring a private member's bill," she said.

Meanwhile, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says it would be inappropriate to comment on the ongoing abortion debate in Queensland.

Ms Roxon says it is a state issue.

"That is a matter for the Queensland Government - there have been reforms and debates in other states and territories," she said.

"It's really a matter for them - it's always a matter that's really very contestable, a lot of personal views, a lot of emotional views and a lot of different perspectives in terms of health outcomes." "

Sunshine Coast councillor Ted Hungerford's concerns that a "combination of testosterone, visual stimulation and alcohol are a potentially explosive mix" have done little to deter his colleagues from approving an adult club in Kunda Park. ... [Fairfax 25/8/09]

Why Have Australia's Media And Politicians (Other Than The Greens) Forgotten The "Bali 9"?

"Convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby has gone insane and will not survive her 20-year sentence unless she is moved out of Bali's Kerobokan jail, a top Australian psychiatrist has warned..."

"Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has expressed distaste for plans for a nightclub on the site of the Sari Club, where many Australians died in the terrorist attack on Bali's Kuta tourist strip in 2002..."

"I pass on this message in the spirit of open community participation in a community asset. Triple Zed needs to act like the radical, democratic institution it’s subscribers expect.

Whatever contravention of radio code this announcer may have been involved in certainly cannot compare to the work of the shock jocks like Alan Jones who incited real, racist, riots resulting in real physical harm. Yet Jones is still on air and paid handsomely for it.

The secrecy surrounding an already public incident is not warranted. To an outside observer like myself, it reeks of witchunt, providing a convenient avenue for reactionary, conservative forces within the board to suppress dissenters.

To paraphrase Voltaire, we may not agree with what was said, but we must defend a persons right to say it. Suppressing and penalizing dissent does not make it go away, and does not allow the issue to be resolved through discourse.

We lack the right to free speech in Australia, we must fight for it."

Age Of Stupid

"...It's how you say it. We now know that the critical element with coal is hygiene. Just six months ago, you would have struggled to hear a speech from PM Kevin Rudd, premiers such as Queensland's Anna Bligh or industry flunkies without the useful term "clean coal".

As one of the landmark contributions of the spin industry to modern languarge, clean coal evoked a warm inner glow and calm reassurance that digging coal out of the ground - a process not always entirely dirt-free - was not such a bad thing for the environment after all.

We all hated dirty coal, but who could object to simple clean goodness? Sadly, thanks to dastardly environmental groups in the US that ran a most unfortuante advertising campaign to suggest clean coal was not a totally accurate description, the term has fallen from vogue.

Didn't they realise how much the coal industry paid to invent that expression?

Now it's like, so last month. Clean coal is a dirty word. Or words.

This posed a semantic challenge for Bligh, as head of the state with the highest absolute and per capita carbon emissions, with its reliance on big, bad and dirty coal-fired power stations, when she launched the state's latest climate change policy in parliament on Thursday.

Not once did her 10-page speech mention the term "clean coal".

The key new term is carbon capture and storage, or CCS.

It means the same thing (capturing CO2 emissions and burying them somewhere dark underground) but it doesn't try to portray a big dark lump of coal as being anything but a, well, big dark lump pf coal.

Think carbon lite. A lot of creative thought has been going into this - in Canberra, the discovery by Malcolm Turnbull that coal seam gas is a renewable resource was another semantic triumph.

Bligh also helpfully noted that new coal-fired power stations would not be approved unless they used "world's best practice low emissions technology", and they must be ready to retrofit CCS technology.

That is, if CCS technology ever proves out.

Until then, a coal power station by any other name..."

Most Impressive News Desk Of The Week Award

Wydarzenia from Polsat in Warsaw (As seen on SBS 2)

... CANDY BOWERS: Yeah, I just feel like it feels like going, okay, so we get this much democracy, these many kids die but we get this much democracy but these things happen over here. But we get this much - it's like how can we get - how can we, as westerners, get to decide what those, you know, amounts are. Sometimes I just think I don't know anything about being in an Islamic country, so I don't even want to judge - you know, like I kind of think who are we? We have completely different value systems and the thing that just gets me every time because, yeah, I have you know my third world looks about me and I know what it feels like to come from, you know, generations of people making babies from who were colonised, I just want to always question how come we think we know best?

ANTHONY LAPAGLIA: Yeah, whose democracy?

CANDY BOWERS: That's what I question.

MAXINE MCKEW: Well, I'm sorry, I argue with that. I have no trouble in making a judgment about an Afghani widow, and there are a lot of Afghani widows, right, who are out on the streets begging to keep their children, because they're not allowed to work. If they work they'll be condemned and brutalised by the...

CANDY BOWERS: Okay...

MAXINE MCKEW: I have no trouble making a judgment about that, Candy.

CANDY BOWERS: Sure, but I mean, I'm just - what I'm talking about really is when we get down to law and we get down to Shiite laws and Islamic laws as well, I just think there should be someone here representing the culture speaking from that point of view.

MAXINE MCKEW: Why, they wouldn't respect your point of view?

CANDY BOWERS: Oh, I think that's a really big thing to say.

MAXINE MCKEW: Well...

CANDY BOWERS: Wow.

ANTHONY LAPAGLIA: But, I think...

MAXINE MCKEW: That's an extreme...

ANTHONY LAPAGLIA: But whose - the point she's making is it's our democracy, right. It's out version, our perception or democracy. I'm not endorsing the Taliban. I'm not endorsing the treatment of the women. What I'm saying is it's a different culture.

MAXINE MCKEW: Yep, but...

ANTHONY LAPAGLIA: That's thousands and thousands of...

MAXINE MCKEW: And I...

TONY JONES: Okay. We're nearly out of time and I wouldn't interrupt except that apparently we're getting bombarded with the same web question. Here's one example of it from Marie Fox in New South Wales: "Why does Anthony LaPaglia have a mohawk?" ...

"Ten people each month take their lives either inside a state health facility or within a week of having contact with one.

Discharged too soon from emergency departments, left unobserved in psychiatric wards or denied admission to overcrowded inpatient facilities, their deaths reveal a pattern of repeated systemic failures that demands urgent reform..."

"... Their transgression was essentially one of spin: they were found guilty of authorising a misleading statement that said the foundation Hardie set up in 2001 to compensate asbestos victims was "fully-funded" and would provide victims with "certainty"..."

"It's a wonderful feeling to wake up each morning knowing your job is about shedding light, dispelling confusion and ushering in the golden age of information.

This is the happy lot of the public relations professional. The Prince understands Australia has about 30 million of them each richly deserving a salary about 10 times the pittance paid to lowly newspaper hacks.

Thursday morning's glow would have been even more splendid than usual, with Justice Ian Gzell's revelation that it doesn't really matter what they say in their endless labours to spread truth. When understandable errors creep in, there is no comback for a professional PR. Actually, they can say anything at all without regrets. It's company directors who need to worry.

Even when a press release issued under the PR chief's name turns out in hindsight to be "simply false in every important particular" - as in James Hardie's former chief spinner, Greg Baxter [now News Ltd.'s Director of Corporate Affairs], put it - it's not the flak's problem.

Baxter and his offsider at Hardie, Stephen Ashe, worked with outside PR firm Gavin Anderson & Co, chiefly with Jane Rotsey and Brian Tyson. They did their job commendably - Baxter won an award as corporate spinner of the year - but it seems they were all duped, either by the directors or Hardie executives - or maybe they didn't grasp the finer actuarial points of transferring Hardie's asbestos liabilities and the claim that the new foundation was "fully funded"...

"A 32-year-old woman is in a stable condition at the Princess Alexandra Hospital following a shooting incident involving police at Runcorn last night. The incident occurred about 9.45pm when police attended a residence on Beenleigh Road.

Initial investigations have indicated that a woman lunged at police with a knife and stabbed a police dog. Police have responded by discharging a firearm. The woman was struck in the body and received treatment at the scene by the Queensland Ambulance Service before being transported to hospital. The police dog underwent emergency treatment and is in a serious condition.

The Ethical Standards Command is investigating the incident.The investigation will be overviewed by the CMC."

"... Opposition police spokesman Vaughan Johnson told State Parliament, the Gold Coast is getting a reputation as the drug capital of Australia.

"The Gold Coast region does not have a drug squad, does not have a fraud squad and the Burleigh police station has no uniform police officers," he said..."

"Noosa's Main Beach has been named one of the top 10 beaches in the world on the Lonely Planet website..."

"Four hospitals on Queensland's Sunshine Coast have failed to meet accreditation guidelines.

Gympie Hospital failed a mandatory staff fire safety training audit.

Drug cabinets were also found unlocked in some clinical areas at Caloundra, Nambour and Malaney hospitals..."

"An economic and industry board says yesterday's announcement of a $50 billion gas deal between Australia and China will ramp up competition in Queensland's liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry..."

"A New South Wales family have made the gut-wrenching decision to leave the home and friends they love and move to the UK because they say Australia cannot provide the support and services they need for their autistic son...."

"The ABC’s catch-up TV service iView is set to be available on Sony’s Playstation 3 from later this year as the public service broadcaster begins a push to widen its audience.

The non-exclusive trial is the result of a collaboration between the ABC and Sony.

Kim Dalton, the ABC’s director of TV, said the move was “the first step in integrating ABC TV content into new online platforms and technologies.”

He said: ”We want to make our content as accessible as possible to our audience. Increasingly, that means extending our online reach so Australians can watch what they want, when they want it.”Last month iView averaged 764,000 visits.The ABC is also in talks with other platforms."

"Queensland is allowing de facto couples to adopt, but Premier Anna Bligh says there is next to no chance that same-sex couples will be included in the near future.

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties (QCCL) president Michael Cope has condemned the Bligh's Government's stance as confused and confusing.

Yesterday Ms Bligh announced new laws allowing same-sex couples to participate in altruistic surrogacy would be in place by the end of the year, and Parliament passed a bill allowing people who have been in a de-facto relationship for at least two years to adopt.

"I can advise the House that same-sex parents will be included among those who will be affected by the decriminalisation of surrogacy, because everyone - regardless of their sexual status or their gender - should be afforded the privileges of parenthood," Ms Bligh said.

But Ms Bligh says she does not believe allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt would have community support... "

"Rail network to stay in state govt hands

The Queensland Government will retain ownership of the state's non-coal and non-suburban rail networks.

In June, the Government announced a significant asset sale program, and a preference to keep the below rail network of non-coal and non-suburban lines in public hands.

Premier Anna Bligh today told Parliament she had discussed the sale with the federal government's Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), but as it was involved in $1.2 billion of projects nationally, it was not in a position to buy the network.

"My Government has taken the decision, given the view of the ARTC to retain ownership of the below rail network of non-coal and non-suburban lines," Ms Bligh said.

"Retention of the network in public ownership provids certainty for the future of the state's rail network as our network operates on a different gauge to the rest of the country."

Ms Bligh said the asset sales team, charged with disposing of infrastructure including Forestry Plantations Queensland, Queensland Motorways Limited and Port of Brisbane Corporation, was "well established".

" ... "When you pocket nearly $10,000 on a personal donation, of course you're going to continue to advocate for their commercial interest," Mr Robertson said.... "

"Prime Minister Kevin Rudd famously labelled the Exclusive Brethren (EB) a "cult" while in Opposition. But it seems that, in Government, he is more generous to the Christian sect.

Figures obtained by The Greens in Senate Estimates reveal that funding to schools run by the controversial Christian sect have increased by 50 per cent under the Rudd Government...."

"In 1859 Brisbane was declared a township in its own right, with its own local council that made it independent from the government in New South Wales for the first time. But such independence didn't come easily. Only for the perseverance of Brisbane's founding families did the city we know today gain the right to stand on its own two feet.

John Geofrey Petrie knows the truth of this statement all to well, as his forefathers were among those who campaigned so vehemently for Brisbane's independence...

Five generations later, John Georfrey Petrie is understandably proud of his heritage and will be among 20 descendants of Brisbane's founding fathers who will join forces for the first time since 1859 to take part in the Founding Families relay as part of the Brisbane Marathon in South Bank Parklands on Saturday 22 August...A copy of the original petition the founding fathers signed for their city's hard won independence will be encased in a special hand-made baton to be passed between the 20 runners during the marathon, which is a key even in the Brisbane 150 celebrations."

Environment Minister Peter Garrett speaks with Kerry O'Brien.

"Far-right pundits like Bolt make personal attacks rather than engage with the issues. Jason Wilson asks if we should reward Bolt's contempt for reasoned debate by putting him on the ABC.

Last week, I once again had the pleasure of being "Bolted". ..."

"Premier Anna Bligh has previously announced that altruistic surrogacy will be decriminalised, although commercial surrogacy will remain illegal.

Ms Bligh has told Parliament the new laws will be in place by the end of the year.

"I can advise the House that same-sex parents will be included among those who will be affected by the decriminalisation of surrogacy, because everyone - regardless of their sexual status or their gender - should be afforded the privileges of parenthood," she said."

"A pro-choice campaigner says she is disappointed a petition demanding abortion law reform, with more than 800 signatures from residents in Cairns, in far north Queensland, has not been tabled in State Parliament.

The petition was deemed ineligible for tabling because of an abortion case that is due to be heard in the courts next month..."

"Mumbrella [Everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella] holds its first Question Time breakfast in Sydney on Thursday August 27, with only 30 places still up for grabs. A limited audience of 100 will quiz four people from different areas within Australia's media and marketing industry. What they have in common is that they are leaders within their field..."

"Barack Obama faced a backlash from the left today after his administration signalled retreat over the introduction of a government-run national health plan.

Progressives dubbed the move 'treachery' and 'betrayal'.

Obama will continue to push for reform this year but the new healthcare provision is now likely to be run by private insurance companies rather than by the federal government, which had been his preferred option..."

"The Federal Government has ruled out capping junior doctors' working hours in the wake of the suicide of a Newcastle University medical graduate.

William Huyhn, 26, died in January, just two weeks before finishing his internship at Wagga Wagga Hospital.

His family is now calling for a coronial inquest, after his friends claimed he was working dangerous hours.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon says she is concerned by reports of overworked and stressed junior doctors but will not follow Europe's lead in capping their hours to 48 hours a week.

She says adequate help is available to doctors feeling stressed."

"Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas says swine flu is to blame for a significant increase in the cancellation of elective surgeries in the state's hospitals in the last month.

More than 250 elective surgical procedures have been cancelled in the past month, which is more than double the cancellations for the same time last year..."

Personally, I don't think the choice is the best possible one. I know from personal experience how much of a weight a community provided health care system lifts off people’s backs. Of course, calling it "community provided" doesn't sound nearly as ominous as provided by "big government". That whole storyline about "big government" gets more distorted by the day anyway. The American government appropriates at least as much money from its citizens as for example the German one. At least. A $14.8+ trillion US stimulus bill so far leaves no doubt about that. The main difference is that where US taxpayer money is handed to corporations, the Germans use the money their citizens pay in taxes to alleviate the problems those same citizens find themselves in, whether it's through health problems, job losses or other causes. Take your pick.

"Queensland Chief Justice Paul de Jersey has cautioned against the introduction of televised court cases, questioning whether broadcasting verdicts and sentencings would bring transparency to the legal system..."

"Australia’s major churches are to unite for what will be Christianity’s largest ever Australian advertising push.

The “Jesus. All About Life” campaign – created by Sydney ad agency 303 with PR done by Taurus Marketing - begins in three week’s time.

Thousands of churches across 15 Christian denominations in NSW are behind the project which aims to market the message that the teachings of Jesus are still relevant. ...

ELEANOR HALL: The New South Wales coroner says she will consider holding an inquiry into the suicide of a young doctor who was working in the state's hospital system.

Dr William Huynh's family members have been calling for the inquiry saying they deserve to know if it was his job that prompted him to take his life. His friends say that he was working extremely long hours but health officials deny this.

"... Karzai has been the talk of many conspiracy theories over his supposed consultant work with Unocal (Union Oil Company of California), since acquired by Chevron in 2005. Spokesmen for both Unocal and Karzai have denied any such relationship, although Unocal could not speak for all companies involved in the consortium. The original and only claim that Karzai worked for Unocal originates from a December 6, 2001 issue of the French newspaper Le Monde..."

"In perhaps the most amusing effort to discredit US President Barack Obama's plan for nationalized health care - if not the most ridiculous - US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily has said that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead.

"The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary," read a recent editorial from the paper. "The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script...

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

The paper has since been notified that Hawking is both British and still among the living. And it has edited the editorial, acknowledging that the original version incorrectly represented the whereabouts of perhaps the world's most famous scientific mind. But it has not acknowledged that its mention of Hawking misrepresented the NHS as well.

"I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking told The Guardian.

"I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

The best you can say about Investor's Business Daily is that unlike US radio talk host Rush Limbaugh, it has not compared Obama's health care logo to a swastika."

Senor Chavez, per the hold yer breath 'til you turn blue New York Times, wants to close the golf courses of his fair South American people's republic. Calling golf a "bourgeois sport", Chavez and his supporters are making moves to shut down two of the nation's most popular golf courses.

From the NYT:

“Let’s leave this clear,” Mr. Chávez said during a live broadcast of his Sunday television program. “Golf is a bourgeois sport,” he said, repeating the word “bourgeois” as if he were swallowing castor oil. Then he went on, mocking the use of golf carts as a practice illustrating the sport’s laziness...

"The Federal Government says it is not considering considering [sic] targeting Australia's richest home owners with a capital gains tax.

Treasurer Wayne Swan's office has released a statement rejecting speculation that it is considering placing a wealth tax on family homes valued at $2 million or more..."

"Queensland's prostitution laws are failing to protect sex workers, and are forcing them into illegal brothels, a team of Brisbane academics has found..."

"Aung San Suu Kyi's legal team is calling on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to use his ties with China to push for her freedom..."

"Lawyers for a group of Australian veterans involved in the British atomic tests at Maralinga will seek a hearing date to begin class action against the Federal Government..."

And Why Do Stories Like This:

"Arab states are lobbying the European Union for support in their drive to force Israel to open up its secretive nuclear program to international perusal, documents show.

In a letter addressed to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, Amr Moussa, secretary general of the 22-nation League of Arab States, urges Sweden to back an Arab resolution entitled Israel's Nuclear Capabilities. The document is to be submitted for a vote at next month's 150-nation general assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ... "

Always Get Smothered?

"Islamist radicals from a pan-Arab group have defied the Hamas rulers of Gaza by declaring an "Islamic emirate", leading to clashes which killed 16 gunmen...."

"High priority cancer patients were having to wait up to a month for radiation treatment as Queensland's public hospitals struggled to keep up with the demand, a new report reveals.

Queensland Health's quarterly public hospitals performance report has included for the first time radiation therapy data.

Only four hospitals, The Mater, Princess Alexandra, Royal Brisbane and Women's and Townsville hospitals, provide radiation therapy. Unveiling the report's findings today, Queensland Health Minister Paul Lucas admitted some hospitals were not keeping up with the demand for radiation therapy.

However, he said that as of July 1, all four hospitals had reduced cancer patients' waiting time within the recommended 10 days time frame.

"Three of the four facilities which provide radiation therapy are not meeting demand (in the last quarter)," Mr Lucas told reporters in Brisbane today.

High priority cancer patients had to wait on average 23 days for radiation therapy at the RBH, 20 days at the PA, 19 days at the Townsville Hospital and 10 days at the Mater centre as of June, the report says.

Queensland Health director-general Mick Reid said the increase in cancer patients was partly due to people living longer. ..."

"Tap water containing twice the recommended level of of fluoride has sparked calls for an immediate halt to the addition of 'poison' to the city's drinking supplies.

A Runaway Bay resident concerned about fluoride's effect on her health sent away a sample of her tap water for testing last month to an independent research laboratory...

Anti-fluoride campaigner and Gold Coast City councillor Grant Pforr has demanded a immediate halt to fluoridation...

Queensland Health failed to comment."

"The Rudd Government must today immediately rule out a savage increase in fuel excise which has been proposed to the Henry Tax Review and would hit regional Australians particularly hard.

Academics hand-picked by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry have put forward the idea that the tax on fuel bought by the average motorist should go up by 10 cents a litre, with extra costs imposed on trucks..."

"Consumer group Choice has described lawyers as sneaky overchargers because up to 40 per cent of complaints to legal watchdogs around the country relates to fees..."

"KERRY O'BRIEN PRESENTER: Earlier tonight I spoke with Attorney-General Robert McClelland. Robert McClelland, you're seeking to toughen up anti-terrorism laws that are already quite draconian. You want to expand the definition of the Terrorist Act to include psychological as well as physical harm. Why is that necessary? What sorts of psychological harm? What prompted the change?

ROBERT MCCLELLAND, ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Really, advice. But people can suffer most certainly psychological harm as well as physical harm. I mean, the evidence of people seeing traumatic events, seeing people injured, the fear of that occurring can most certainly cause psychological harm. At the end of the day, one of the modes of operation of terrorist organisations is trying to evoke fear and insecurity in societies. Those emotions of course being psychological. But I should say, look, the laws - and this package of measures we've issued for discussion - really seek to achieve a balance. In some areas we're hardening the laws. In other areas we're moderating, introducing safeguards. And as well as clarifying for more effective use.

So it is ... a motivator of terrorist acts is in fact to cause fear and insecurity in the community... "

"... In the case of Dr Mohammed Haneef, who was detained in 2007, police were allowed to question him without charging him for a total of one day.

The clock stops ticking, however, when the suspect goes to sleep or the police need time to check with agencies overseas.

In the end, Dr Haneef was held for 12 days without charge before a magistrate ordered his release..."

Sauciest Cooking Program On Telly So Far This Week

" ... Australian psychiatrist, Professor Bernhard Baune, of James Cook University in Townsville says there are no age-related warnings on antidepressant labels in Australia.

He says it is too early to draw conclusions of the kind drawn in the FDA study, since the studies relied on are very large scale and contain a very diverse range of individuals.

Baune says as a clinician it is clear to him that antidepressants can increase or decrease the risk of depression and suicide in individuals, regardless of their age.

He calls for greater research into the genetic differences between people that influence the effectiveness and risk of different antidepressant for them individually.

Such research may help clinicians choose the antidepressant with the lowest suicide risk for the individual they are prescribing for, say Baune.

He also says there is a lack of long-term research on the impact of antidepressants."

"Indonesian police have confirmed a man killed in a raid in Central Java on Saturday was wanted, but he was not the notorious fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top.

Indonesian police had hoped and then believed the man they had surrounded and then killed after a 17-hour siege in a remote rural house in Temanaggung was Top - the region's most wanted terrorist.

DNA tests have now confirmed that the man responsible for every terrorist attack in Indonesia since the first Bali bombings has escaped yet again.

The identity of the dead man is now confirmed to be Ibrohim, the florist who worked at Jakarta's Ritz Carlton and Marriott hotels ... "

"Locals in the New Zealand city of Christchurch are searching their backyards for an escapee who has been on the run for five days.

Minty the monkey made a daring escape from a wildlife park in the city.

Minty, a South American Capuchin monkey, is about the size of a cat.

Jeremy Maguire, the manager of Christchurch's Willowbank wildlife reserve, says Minty has escaped before but this time she went to extraordinary lengths.

"We think she's fallen from the flax bush or from the bank into the water and she swam across the water to the electric fence and climbed over it, probably got a shock unfortunately, ended up in the water on the other side and got out that way," he said.

Mr Maguire says staff are trying to tempt her back.

"I have a boiled egg - that's one of their favourite things," he said.

But for Minty, freedom seems to taste a lot sweeter.

"Obviously the Queensland Government, in what is becoming a true to form act is doing a back flip. It appears the government has found another way to plug the 'black hole' that is the budget. John Paul Langbroek LNP has said that "the Bligh Government has secretly and shamefully removed the $20 note limit for poker machines despite research showing the cap, cut problem gambling.

... As more gambling venues are granted in lower socio-economic and demographic areas, institutions like charities and community welfare groups are seeing more families with problems and despair.

... Treasury figures reveal player losses increased 10 per cent to $167 million statewide in December 2008 after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's first stimulus package. Paul Keating commented once that pokies are a tax on the poor. I believe that still is a very true statement.

... Gambling is a major problem in our community, whether it be the pokies, horse racing, 2 Up or a lotto ticket. In one form or another we have all gambled but it is the lack of interest of the Government in facilitating quick loss of personal money by the addictive gambler that is still the issue and needs to be remedied quickly. Ms Bligh for once stay true to your word and reverse the cap on note limits in poker machines."

"... What does it take to get someone to the point that they believe that the US Congress is passing a healthcare reform bill that will allow the government to exterminate seniors? What does it take for them to impute that motive to a president from the feeble Democratic Party? And, at that, one of the most Milquetoastian creatures to hit Washington since Hubert Humphrey ran for president acting like he was a guy named Hubert Humphrey? From Minnesota, no less.

What do you have to do to humans to get them so stupefied that they believe Obama's Hawaiian birth was some sort of conspiracy, replete with fake 1961 newspaper announcements? What sort of powerful drugs does one have to be on to make the argument that this rather considerably conservative president is a socialist? And then to call him a fascist in your next breath, blissfully unaware that the chasm separating the two ideologies not only makes them wholly different, but, indeed, oppositional. (You know, like in World War II. Maybe they've even heard of that.)

In fact, this is not a matter of stupidity, though there's loads of that to go around. But I bet that when it comes to finding arcane deductions to insert into their tax forms, these folks are actually quite clever. I bet a lot of them could reel off sports statistics or bible verses that would put your head in a fog. No, it's not stupidity. Something else is going on here..."

"A new study has found more than 40 per cent of Australians believe it is acceptable to torture enemy soldiers in certain circumstances.

The survey of over 1,000 people by the Australian Red Cross found two in five believed torturing to obtain important military information was OK, even though most knew it was illegal.

The "People on War" survey was released to mark the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions.

Red Cross strategic adviser on international law Helen Durham says about half of those questioned believed the Geneva Conventions made no difference.

"There was a lot of cynicism expressed, but that's consistent with other countries that actually haven't been exposed to armed conflict directly," she said.

"For example, in a place like Afghanistan, 75 per cent of people believed the laws of war made a difference, and in places like Liberia 85 per cent of those surveyed thought the laws of war did actually reduce suffering.""

Gold Coast Monopoly Press State School Bashing Again [12/8/09]

Why aren't private schools mentioned in this story?

"Gold Coast parents are fuming that local state schools are taking a mid-week pupil-free day for the Brisbane Ekka today, leaving them high and dry and without a child-minder.

The day is not a designated public holiday -- unlike the Gold Coast Show day on Friday, August 28 -- so parents will be expected to work, but it is earmarked on calendars as a pupil-free day at local state schools

Molendinar mother Jenny Dawson said because her children's school, Ashmore Primary School was opting to have a pupil-free day in line with the Ekka she would have to take the day off from working as a nurse ..."

Schools let all parents know the pupil free days in advance.

People, we've said it before, and we'll say it again, don't talk to News Ltd. They don't care about you and your child care concerns, they are always pushing a neocon agenda.

And as for the 'Tortilla Driven Recovery' story, why not say how delicious locally produced San Diego tortilla's are, and that their popularity could have something to do with the fact they aren't made with genetically modified ingredients?

Trenches Full Of Poets

"Ilargi: I've written before about the US health care issue(s), and I'm hesitant to spend (too) much additional time and space on it. The reason is that just about right from the start is has been clear that the "dialogue", if you can even call it that, has been rigged and bought a long time ago.

A Reuters article from this weekend, Angry Americans disrupt town-hall healthcare talks, describes a concerted campaign to disrupt Democrat town hall meetings on health care reform and operates at the following level:

[..] speakers asked about "martial law" and "forced vaccinations" and when the topic turned to illegal immigrants in the Bible Belt town, someone shouted: "Bus them home."

How obvious would you like it? The level of misinformation and disinformation is stunning, and other than perhaps Jon Stewart there doesn't seem to be any balance

I'm not the only one who hesitates to further address the issue on account of this. Yves Smith had this on Friday in "The Health Insurers Have Already Won":

"[..] My bullshit meter went into high alert earlier this week with this New York Times story, "For Health Insurers’ Lobbyist, Good Will Is Tested," which was clearly a PR plant."

As Yves also rightly notes:

"One of the defining characteristics of Team Obama [is] its preference for spin in lieu of substance."

And that means the entire discussion, from all sides and ends, is drowning in bullshit. So yes, the industry has long since won this one.

It also means there will certainly never be any healthcare reform that is more substance than spin, either. Which is what the industry lobbyists have been aiming for ever since they got wind of any attempt at reform, long before you heard about it ..."

"... Queensland's National Trust executive director Stewart Armstrong said the heritage buildings kept as part of the Howard Smith wharf redevelopment needed to have an ongoing use to make the project viable.

"They need to have activity in them so it makes the need to maintain them worthwhile," Mr Armstrong said last night.

"They need a use and that use needs to be compatible with what is going on around them.

"It needs some form of a management structure and none of that seem to be coming out in the development structure to date."

... Mr Armstrong said the National Trust realised it commercial operations were needed to preserve heritage sites. [sic]

"I think the reality is that most heritage places can't support themselves entirely and there needs to be recognised that there needs to be some other activity to preserve them." "

"... Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has signalled she has no intention of changing the Criminal Code, which makes it illegal to procure or help someone to procure an abortion.

It states a person cannot be held criminally responsible for any "reasonable" surgical operation performed "for the preservation of the mother's life", but does not refer specially to medical abortions.

Marie Stopes national clinical adviser Jill Michelson would not discuss the legal issues in detail last night.
"We certainly have advice from our legal team and they believe we are acting within the law," she said, adding the organisation would support changes to the law to allow its practitioners to act "without fear or favour".

However, Right to Life Australia yesterday strongly criticised both the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and Marie Stopes International over the issue.

"The TGA's decision to allow more widespread use of RU486 is neither therapeutic nor good because they have given a green light to a pill specifically designed to kill innocent people," president Marcel White said.

The pro-life campaigner described Marie Stopes International as "a fundamentally evil organisation in some ways similar to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups".

"(This is) because their modus operandi is to move into peaceful neighbourhoods and to visit the violence of abortion upon that area," he said.

"To enact national pregnancy termination laws along the same lines as divorce law - which allow for legal, no-fault and guilt-free processes for women seeking termination."

... Experts concerned about the possible impact of mobile phone radiation on developing brains have recommended children be cautious in their use of the devices. ... "

"Seven Media Group's Pacific Magazine's division and American publisher Rodale are looking at launching more products in Australia after the introduction of a local version of 'Prevention' magazine on September 7.

Pacific is producing 'Prevention' a monthly "healthy lifestyle" magazine pitched at women aged 40 to 54, under license from Rodale.

Pacific also publishes local versions of Rodale's 'Men's Health' and 'Women's Health'. ...

(Seven Media Group is owned by Kerry Stokes' Seven Network and American private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts)...

Ms Meyercord [Senior Vice-President of Rodale's international division] said the magazine's editorial content was the key to its success.

"'Prevention' is able to take complex health issues and distil them to useful, actionable advice better than anyone else." "

Will this be a publication that gets down and dirty to find out what's causing cancer (and other diseases), rather than blaming the individual or giving unquestioning publicity to the supposed miracle cures being developed in corporate biotechnology labs?

"The days of a New South Wales north coast landmark may be numbered.

The Ballina Shire Council has received a submission seeking permission to demolish the Big Prawn ..."

If It's Not Noordin Mohammed Top, Who's The Guy They Murdered?

"The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has thanked Indonesian authorities for their attempts to track down wanted terrorist Noordin Mohammed Top.

Indonesian authorities believe they may have killed the terrorist mastermind during a raid on a central Java home yesterday.Authorities are waiting on DNA tests to confirm whether the suspected organiser of bombings on two Jakarta hotels last month and other attacks, is dead.

Mr Rudd says it is a sober reminder of the threat of terrorism and has praised Indonesian police and security agencies ..."

Dear Minister,

Please find attached a copy of an advertisement for the "Media and You" kit which appeared in today's 'Courier-Mail' [10/8/09].

This advertisement is directed at individual teachers.

Can you please advise:

1. Whether Education Queensland has/will provide any funding in relation to these "kits"?

2. If Education Queensland endorses this program?

3. Whether you have any ex-News Ltd. employees advising/working with you?

Regards,

"The national depression initiative, Beyond Blue, successfully sought an injunction preventing a story airing on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes just before the program went to air last night. The story was to be on the suicide deaths of four students at a Geelong High School over six months, but Beyondblue has concerns it could jeopardise the welfare of the school's students and teachers..."

"More than a third of trips on buses, trains and ferries in South East Queensland now use the go card, a new survey reveals..."

"The father of one of the Bali Nine has embarked on a concentrated effort to abolish the death penalty around the world.

Lee Rush yesterday launched a petition calling for the worldwide end to capital punishment.

Mr Rush’s 23-year-old son Scott is facing execution in Indonesia following his conviction for attempting to smuggle heroin out of the country.

Mr Rush says the next few weeks are extremely important as he aims to spread the message of ending the death penalty at events in Melbourne and Brisbane.

He said the death penalty was an extremely disturbing punishment that was mentally draining for prisoners and their families.

Imprisonment had taken a great toll on his son. “He’s not in good shape, waking each day or having to go to sleep at night thinking he’s likely to be executed,” he said.

"The Queensland Resources Council (QRC) wants a review of security at the state's ports after protests at two coal terminals last week.

Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the Hay Point coal terminal near Mackay in north Queensland and held a similar protest at the Abbot Point terminal near Bowen, south of Townsville.

The safety of Government infrastructure will be discussed at a meeting this week between the Premier, the Police Commissioner, State Government ministers, Maritime Safety Queensland and the Ports Corporation.

QRC chief executive officer Michael Roche says the Greenpeace protests highlight how easy it is to disrupt operations at ports ..."

"The medical abortion drug RU486, or mifepristone, will now be more widely available in Australia.

A sexual health clinic has been given access to the drug for its clinics in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and Western Australia.

National clinical adviser for Marie Stopes International, Jill Michelson, says 14 of its doctors have now been given authorised access by the Therapeutic Goods Administration...

Ms Michelson says the organisation has received advice the drug will be legal in all states, especially in Queensland, where a young couple is facing criminal abortion charges after allegedly using a contraband abortion drug."

"In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes "an iceberg of relentless inhumanity" beneath the Guardian's revelations about illegal phone tapping at Murdoch's Sunday tabloid and the impact of his empire in Britain and all over the world.

I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Eddie's son, Adam, aged 14, died in his arms. The "main reason for the disaster", Lord Justice Taylor subsequently reported, was the "failure" of the police, who had herded fans into a lethal pen.

"As I lay in my hospital bed," Eddie said, "the hospital staff kept the Sun away from me. It's bad enough when you lose your 14-year-old son because you're treating him to a football match. Nothing can be worse than that. But since then I've had to defend him against all the rubbish printed by the Sun about everyone there being a hooligan and drinking. There was no hooliganism. During 31 days of Lord Justice Taylor's inquiry, no blame was attributed because of alcohol. Adam never touched it in his life." ...

"New laws have been passed to kickstart a complete overhaul of the unpopular Sanctuary Cove Resort Development Act.

The original legislation, passed in 1985, has now been altered to allow residents at Sanctuary Cove and Hope Island greater access to body corporate companies and improved consultation on land boundary changes.

It is the first of a two-phase reform to modernise the governance and development of six resorts in Queensland governed by the Sanctuary Cove Resort Development Act ...

Mr Hinchliffe said a new proposed Bill would create a process where an application to amend land uses at Sanctuary Cove Resort could be sought without changing the legislation (in line with the other five resorts).

Broadwater MP Peta-Kaye Croft told Parliament she would back ongoing reform of archaic rules and regulations.

While considered best practice 20 years ago, the resorts legislation no longer reflects contemporary best practice, said Ms Croft.""

"The illegal regime took another step on its Roadmap to dictatorship with the announcement that it plans to set up a commercial arm of the prisons department.

Slave labour is a well established part of every evil dictatorship. Stalin had his Gulags. Hitler’s Auschwitz had a banner over the gate: “Work Brings Freedom.” A large slab of the North Korean economy is carried out by half-starved prisoners.

So it looks like we’ll be going down that path.

If prisons can help pay for themselves, the regime can afford to throw more people into prison.

With no independent courts or constitutional protections to stand in their way, the regime will be able to jail its opponents at will.

With the plan to farm 1000 acres, this is no small plan. I’m not making it up... "

"MITCHELL GRADY: Look, the fact is that you can have the best buildings in the world. You can give every kid a brand new 17 inch MacBook Pro and still have a bad school. I mean it starts and ends with, really, (a) the curriculum; and (b) having quality teachers to interpret and teach that curriculum and that's where the majority of our money should be going. You know, I've just three years ago finished high school. I can tell you how Othello reinforces the male patriarchy in society, but I can't spell patriarchy and that's the problem with our education system. It's been hijacked by people hell bent on this post-modernism that invades our curriculum and so, you know, one example was an assignment a kid did in my school that got absolutely praised by the teacher and he did a feminist analysis of Rapunzel and he said even the choice of the name Rapunzel - Rapunzel is a type of lettuce - was symbolic of the oppressive domestication of women. But he spelt oppressive wrong, but the teacher thought it was fantastic. I mean, we need to start from basics then build up if we can and instead of throwing money at buildings; instead of giving kids a new computer, let's pare it back a little bit and go, well, our numeracy rates are lowering. Our literacy standards are lowering. We're not going to fix that with a new gymnasium. We're going to fix that with better teachers teaching better curriculum..."

Mmmmm. This Looks Like A Fair and Balanced 'Foreign Correspondent' - NOT

"Campbell witnesses the exodus of Venezuela's middle class - bright young professionals fleeing a nation ravaged by crime and - they claim - moribund with an indulged welfare class..."

'The War on Democracy', directed by John Pilger & Chris Martin, has won Best Documentary at the prestigious One World Media Awards in London.It beat a field that included the documentary Oscar winner, 'Taxi to the Dark Side'.

."... It is not deregulation that is driving electricity prices," Ms Bligh told reporters on Saturday.

"They are going up in every state of Australia, whether they are regulated or deregulated.

"Electricity prices are going up because of massive investments in our network and improvements in electricity supply and security.

"In Queensland, one of the things that is driving up the cost of electricity is the number of households putting on air-conditioning ..."

Mary MacKillop Services In Adelaide, Sydney And Melbourne Trump Australian Motorcycle Council Conference (Taking Place In Brisbane) On Brisbane ABC Evening News : It's A Miracle! (Not Even A Snippet From The St Stephens Service???)

"More than 1,000 people have arrived at a special mass recognising the 100th anniversary of the death of Mary MacKillop.

St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne is packed with worshippers, young and old, for the celebration of the life and legacy of the Catholic nun who co-founded the Sisters of St Joseph..."

"Queensland's private schools outperformed their public counterparts in national literacy and numeracy testing last year.

Parents are able to access the NAPLAN results for every school in Queensland for the first time today.

Education Minister Geoff Wilson has made the information available, saying it signals a new era of transparency.

The 2009 national test results are due out later this year."

"The Federal Government has given struggling car maker Holden a $200 million lifeline.

Federal Industry Minister Kim Carr says the line of credit was made available to the company more than a month ago..."

... In March, broken fuel tanks from cargo ship the Pacific Adventurer leaked more then 270,000 litres of oil, coating the region's beaches.

Swire Shipping says it will pay $25 million towards the clean-up bill, in addition to the $2 million it has already spent.

The rest of the estimated $31 million will be funded by an increase in shipping levies.

Premier Anna Bligh says it is a good outcome..."

... KRISTINA HARAZIM: But Kirra has lost more than its break.

KRISTINA HARAZIM: Marine biologist and Kirra local, Bob Moffatt says the reef has all but disappeared and so too have the dive businesses.

BOB MOFFATT, SURFRIDER FOUNDATION: The reef's been completely covered. There used to be a rich ecosystem and now this ecosystem is reduced to just a few fish and very little reef at all.

KRISTINA HARAZIM: Locals say they tried to warn the Government all of this would happen even before pumping started.

JOHN STANDING, KIRRA RESIDENT: Local knowledge from a lot of people I mean we're talking about hundreds of locals that really know the area and what happens hasn't been really taken into account.

WAYNE DEANE: What we've been trying to do is to get amendments to the agreement between the two States so that the volume of sand that's placed in the bay can be placed on demand or placed in outlets to the west and north of here.

KRISTINA HARAZIM: The local Member's been trying to find out which if any of their suggestions made it into the contract.

JANN STUCKEY, MEMBER FOR CURRUMBIN: It is within these contracts between New South Wales and Queensland that the truth lies and until we have our hands on the contracts, we really are not able to clearly ascertain the extent of the issue..."

Are They Also Going After The Individuals Who Produce These Websites And Images?

"An Ipswich man caught with more than 24,000 child porn images on his computer will spend one year behind bars.

Ipswich District Court heard Neil James Gorman, 38, visited pornographic websites between April 2006 and April last year, downloading 24,874 child exploitation images and 19 videos onto his computer.

The images depict children about 16-years-old to as young as infants in sexual poses, performing sexual activities with other children and sexual activities between adults and children..."

"Like most people, I wasn’t born with star-quality skin. I remember when I first started getting acne I was about 16. Bad timing! At the same time as I was breaking into the music and acting scene, my skin was really starting to break out. When I first started releasing music I was very shy anyway, so the added blemishes didn’t help. They made me feel even more self-conscious. And the worse my skin got, the more make-up I had to wear which made my complexion even worse..."

NAPLAN testing:

A Hobart teacher writes: Re. "Tips and rumours" (Friday, item 6). When reading Tips and Rumours, the paragraph on NAPLAN testing caught my attention. I'm a state school primary teacher of year 5s in Hobart who has just administered the test. The results of these tests from the state schools are frequently used by the media to BASH state teachers for their poor classroom?-?practice, teaching, etc.

League tables as they have become known, are used to show a school's success based solely on these results without consideration of socio make up of the school's students. Not once have I seen the results of private schools - Catholic or Independent published along side the State School results.

It's time for private schools who receive large amounts of public money to be placed under the spot light along with state schools … Cheating aside! Wouldn't it make for interesting reading? As receivers of public money private schools need to be more open and transparent. We State teachers are sick of having to cop all the criticism while Private schools are exempt.

Would Crikey be prepared to follow this situation up?

The Member for Nanango used a debate over changes to the Adoption Bill yesterday to air her views on gay couples and why they should not be allowed to adopt children.

"I am very pleased that there was no allowance in this bill for homosexual couples not to adopt a child. I feel very strongly about that," Ms Pratt said....

The statements drew fire from Labor MP Peta Kaye-Croft, who said she had considered adopting a child with her de facto partner and found Ms Pratt's comments "highly offensive."

Other MPs spoke of the right of gay couples to be assessed on their suitability, not their sexual preference."Society is continually changing and evolving. Our legislation, processes and attitudes by necessity change with it," Burleigh MP Christine Smith said.

"Children need a loving and a stable environment in order to reach their full potential. Whether this is in a heterosexual, de facto or same-sex family is irrelevant to me."

The reforms include provisions for the establishment of an open adoption system between birth and adoptive parents for the first time in Queensland.

Federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson has criticised Australia's existing immigration laws, calling for the slashing of migrant numbers and more rigorous background checks on prospective residents...

The publisher of Perth's only daily newspaper has seen its full-year profit plunge 21 per cent on falling advertising revenue.

Broadcasting legend John Laws wants to get back on air, he hinted today.

In an interview broadcast on Vega in Sydney this morning to mark the launch of digital radio, Laws – nicknamed the Golden Tonsils – sent the strongest signal yet that he wants to come back...

Seven’s winning run came to an end on Thursday night with TV Burp and Double Take both rating disappointingly. Sketch show Double Take, at 8.30pm, rated 832,000 (down from 942,000 last week) while TV Burp rated 774,000 (down from 846,000). From next week Seven is to reverse the order the two shows are aired in, giving TV Burp a stronger lead-in from The Amazing Race which did 1.1m last night...

ANKARA, Aug 6 - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday signed protocols on cooperating in the fields of natural gas and oil.

The accords, whose signing was witnessed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, came during a one-day visit by Putin to seek Ankara's support for the South Stream pipeline project aimed at protecting Moscow's dominant share in the European gas market.

Details of the documents were not immediately clear.

A senior Russian official said Wednesday that the memorandum on natural gas would see Ankara allowing the start of exploration work for building part of the South Stream pipeline in Turkish territorial waters.

The South Stream project is a direct rival to the Nabucco pipeline project, backed by the European Union, that would carry Caspian and Middle East gas to Europe via Turkey, by-passing Russia, thus diversifying gas resources.

Russian gas giant Gazprom is in a pertnership with Italian energy firm Eni to build South Stream.

"... The details come straight from two sworn affidavits filed late last night by persons who identities have been sealed to protect their identity, men who have previously cooperated with federal prosecutors in the criminal inquiry into Blackwater. From John Doe number two, a former member of Blackwater's management team, quoting the affidavit, "it appears that Mr. Erik Prince, Blackwater's founder, and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who had provided information or were planning on providing information to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct. On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence."

John Doe number two also stating that Mr. Prince, pictured here, smuggled unlawful weapons into Iraq, including sawed-off, semi-automatic machine guns with silencers and illegal hand grenades. The affidavit also says that Prince, quote, "views himself as a Christian crusader eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the crusades. Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game."...

Some custard products have been taken off the shelf in New South Wales and Queensland because of fears they may contain Listeria bacteria.

"Images in popular culture have been blamed for contributing to the stereotype that Australia is a racist country, amid claims that racism motivated a spate of attacks on Indian students in Melbourne this year..."

The Sunshine Coast Regional Council has dismissed claims it is forcing developers to leave the region.

... SOPHIE SCOTT: Researchers in Canada found that people who were heavy beer and spirit drinkers face a much higher risk of developing many types of cancer. In the case of oesophageal cancer, there's seven times the risk, the chance of colon cancer jumps by 80 per cent, lung cancer by 50 per cent.

The reasons why beer and spirits might be more of a cancer risk are unclear. Whilst spirits have much higher alcohol content than wine, that's not the case for beer. But health experts are quick to point out that the findings don't mean people can drink as much wine as they want ...

"Hundreds of babies, flying to Canberra next month for a national home-birth rally, were this week bumped off flights after the airline's computerised booking system failed to alert staff that too many infants were being put on each plane..."

To celebrate the launch of digital radio, ABC NewsRadio is giving you the chance to win your very own digital radio.

Listen to ABC NewsRadio Breakfast and Drive from Monday 3 August to find out how to enter.The digital radios on offer include the Elite (portable radio), Highway (in-car portable) and Siesta (clock radio) models.

Digital radio is currently available in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
To find out more go to the ABC Digital Radio website.

The Queensland Health Minister has defended the Gold Coast Hospital's practice of using taxis to transport patients 200 metres to a day surgery facility.

The aluminium industry is warning the Federal Government's decision to link its emissions trading scheme legislation to the renewable energy target will cost the sector hundreds of millions of dollars.

The head of the Aluminium Council, Miles Prosser, has told a Senate inquiry the Government's renewable energy target will cost the industry about $700 million over the next 10 years but will be dramatically higher if it is linked to the emissions trading scheme legislation.

"That $700 million dollars more than double," he said.

The Government linked the schemes because both deal with industry assistance and the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, is not backing down.

"We're determined to get both these pieces of legislation through," she said.

The Opposition and the Greens say the only reason the Government linked the legislation was to try to get its unpopular emissions trading scheme legislation through the Senate.

"Low-Carbon Hubs

In a world moving to cut carbon emissions, foreign direct investment will start to shift towards low-carbon energy grids and low-carbon economies. Low-carbon energy grids are already becoming attractive to a range of energy-intensive industries. Notwithstanding their banks, Iceland is a good case in point. This nation in the Arctic Sea has been trying to lure aluminium smelters and data centres for years. Aluminium smelting is one of the most energy-intensive industries in the world; energy accounts for 30 per cent of the total cost of aluminium production. Alcoa, one of the world's largest producers of aluminium, is building a US$1.5 billion smelter in Iceland, in addition to the two already operating there. The small Nordic nation has carved out a niche by attracting energy-intensive industries that invest and build plants on their shores.

Why would an aluminium smelter want to invest in Iceland? Because 99 per cent of the electrciity supply comes from geothermal or hydro power. These clean-energy sources, with a stable supply, are not subject to the price volatility of fossil fuels. However, there is an additional benefit for locating to Iceland. By investing in a country that has a carbon-neutral energy grid, Alcoa would be eradicating any future carbon liabilities from manufacturing in Iceland. Alcoa can also promote low-carbon aluminium to an increasingly aware market that is demanding more action on climate change. Iceland is become the first low-carbon hub for manufacturing - now technology giants Cisco and Microsoft are thinking about relocating their energy-intensive computer data centres there. Iceland is benefiting from carbon neutrality by attracting foreign investment and boosting their manufacutring sector. All other factors being equal, energy-intensive industries would be mad to invest in a carbon-intensive energy grid, given potential future carbon liabilities. Production of aluminium in Queensland, for example, uses a nearby coal-fired power station for its energy supply, which makes it the most carbon-instensive aluminium in the world. Why would Alcoa or any other energy-intensive industry want to build new plants in Australia, with its high-carbon grid, vulnerable to any future carbon price shocks?"

More Well Placed PR For Go-Via/E-Tags Courtesy Fairfax [6/8/09]

" ... Naturally, I'm cautious about dissing an advertiser in these recessionary times, but this is a dissing that is totes necessary and probably in their best interest. I authorised my eToll account on the phone about a month ago, and presumably the two eTags I bought for my two cars. (Yeah, yeah sorry about the planet and everything)..."

"Men are masturbating at public library computer terminals on the Sunshine Coast after using them to download hardcore pornography, it has been revealed.

The Sunshine Regional Council does not employ internet filtering in any of its nine local libraries, where several people have been asked to leave after being caught accessing pornography and performing lewd acts in recent weeks..."

August 04, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -The world renowned journalist, author and film-maker John Pilger has been awarded the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize. The jury’s citation reads:

“For work as an author, film-maker and journalist as well as for courage as a foreign and war correspondent in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard. For commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form." ...

Two Sydney journalists have been arrested inside the army base that was the alleged target of a terrorism plot.

Five men were arrested in Melbourne on Tuesday and charged with plotting to attack the Holsworthy base.

On Wednesday afternoon, army personnel caught two journalists from the Daily Telegraph newspaper who had allegedly broken into the Holsworthy military reserve.

Police say the army detained the men until police arrived and a laptop and a camera were seized.

The men, aged 26 and 38, have been granted bail to face court next month, charged with taking photos of a fortification.

Dozens of protesters have rallied outside a Khartoum court in support of a Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public, a case that has become a public test of Sudan's indecency laws.

Erin Burnett, an anchor on American financial news channel CNBC, launched a verbal attack targeting Mr Rudd following the Federal Government's decision to spend $19 million culling feral camels in the outback.

The Ghan has left Adelaide on another journey to the Top End - this time celebrating its 80th anniversary.

Coal loading operations at central Queensland terminal were disrupted this morning when 10 Greenpeace activists climbed onto a coal loader. ..

Daniel Gschwind from the Queensland Tourism Industry Council says it is not just another foreign takeover.

The UN's Yvo de Boer, on his way to Australia to meet Pacific leaders at their annual forum meeting in Cairns next week, says it would benefit Pacific countries to work with Australia in negotiating a global climate deal.

"The Pacific Island countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change - most likely to be impacted by sea level rise, saltwater intrusion and changes to their climate as a result of global warming," he said.

"I think it's in the direct geopolitical interests of Australia to ensure that we craft a response to climate change that addresses the concerns of your Pacific Island partners."

The organisers of a Moulin Rouge-themed charity ball on the Gold Coast say they will abide by a request to rename the event.

Lawyers representing the French cabaret in Paris have sent a letter to the Hear and Say Centre asking them to remove the reference from their promotional material.

Organiser Nicholas Rone says the ball is being held in early September and is raising money for deaf children.

The Treasurer Wayne Swan has announced reforms to foreign investment review laws that he says will reduce compliance costs.

The main change is to increase the threshold below which deals can proceed without a foreign investment review - overseas businesses buying a stake greater than 15 per cent in companies valued below $219 million can now proceed without review.

Queensland police say a car which hit and killed a traffic controller just north of Brisbane last night had entered an area closed by roadworks.

"A Brisbane computer programmer has been jailed after being caught with an "extraordinary" child porn collection of almost one million images ..."

Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateur, French for "inciting agent") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.

Five men being questioned over an alleged terrorist conspiracy had sought a religious ruling to authorise an attack in Australia, a court has heard.

Their arrests come after a seven-month counter-terrorism operation and police raids across Melbourne this morning.

'Left Out! Government drops the 'S' word from ministry

Seniors have missed out in the State Government's planning for the future, not rating a mention in the breakdown of new Department of Communities responsibilities in the post-budget reshuffle.

The omission comes despite a recommendation fromt he Seniors Sector Roundtable, representing key seniors' organisations, that a dedicated unit be created for seniors within the Premier's Department.

National Seniors chief executive Michael O'Neill said despite the ageing population, no priorities for seniors were mentioned in the State Budget.

"The dropping of seniors from the Minister's title is more than just symbolic," he said.

"There has been a disregard for seniors, probably stemming from the creation of a super department (Department of Communities), and seniors have barely been given a mention when citing the government's ambitions for the future."

***

'Carol fears frogs will croak

Children's author Carol Moody is a passionate advocate of the wildlife of the mountains and rolling banana and cane-planted hills of far north Queensland.

Carol lives on a scenic hilltop near Tully where, with husband of 32 years Trevor, she cultivates tropical fruit and raises a small herd of fat, contented cattle...

Ask her about the possible importation of bananas from the Philippines, a topic raising ire and nervousness throughout the Australian industry, and she is adamant.

"I'm a bush person and I walk a bush track," she says firmly.

"People who don't live up here and don't know the country really cannot understand just what importation might mean because the best knowledge is based on hands-on experience.

"So often decisions about the country that grows their food are made by those too far away to really know, and to me this seems like literally bting the hand that feeds them."

... Carol is an ardent supporter of the Cairns Frog Hospital's Frog Decline and Reversal Project which operates by donation. Its valuable research was begun by the CSIRO but is now in limbo due to lack of funding.

"Once there were frogs everywhere, and so many different kinds," she said. "it is almost impossible to believe so many extinctions are happening and we are finding so many diseased frogs.

http://www.fdrproject.org.au/ [This is a terrific website, but it's worth mentioning that Steven Wettenhall's - if you can't save the Old Cairns Yacht Club how can you save the frogs? - office is listed as a collection point for the "AdoptA Frog" card campaign. - Ed]

"... Andrew Neil, a former editor of Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times and now the publisher of The Spectator, has called it "one of the most significant media stories of modern times"... "

The Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPIF) says about 4,000 noxious tilapia fish have been found in dams near Bundaberg in south-east Queensland.

The pest was discovered in the Bullyard area in April. Poison is now being added to 16 privately-owned dams on two properties to eradicate the fish.

Queensland Transport Minister Rachel Nolan says she is working with the cattle industry to ensure livestock can continue to be transported by rail.

In Bed With Malcolm And Rupert And The ABC

"Scientists have discovered a common genetic difference in women at risk from ovarian cancer, in an important development they say could save lives..."

"... A spokeswoman from the Breast Cancer Network of Australia said it was very positive news, but it would be some years before women saw the benefit of this work."

"Douglas McGray, in writing about Green Dot Public Schools, quotes its founder, Steve Barr, as saying, "Now, every year or two, there's some new reform. You get reform fatigue" ("The Instigator," May 11th). When I started teaching in new Orleans, in 1991, the latest reform movement was to end ability grouping. The idea was that the lowest-performing students needed to interact with higher achievers, and that average and better students would benefit from those relationships, too. Yet now, with the emergence of charter schools (nowhere more so than in post-Katrina New Orleans), we are essentially reviving the practice. Private and magnet schools take the honors students, charter schools attempt to create a "regular" track, and the failing public schools, drained of the top and middle kids, warehouse the hardest-to-reach students. Charter and magnet schools worsen the problems of the most vulnerable children by isolating them in schools with the most dysfunction. If Educaiton Secretary Arne Duncan is serious about reforming the lowest-performing schools, he needs to revisit a model that has unfortunatley fallen far out of fashion - integration.

Ann Marie Coviello

New Orleans, La."

Mudgeeraba’s the friendliest town around

It’s official, Mudgeeraba is the friendliest town in south east Queensland and they have the certificate to prove it.

The announcement was made today, Monday 27 July, at the 2009 Ergon Energy Tidy Towns South East Queensland Regional Awards held in Ipswich.

Divisional Councillor Ted Shepherd said he always knew that Mudgeeraba was the friendliest town around.

“You only have to wander down the main street and chat to some locals to discover that we have warm and friendly community here,” he said.

Cr Shepherd said locals were also very proud of their pioneering history.

“We love to share our heritage with others and people find this enthusiasm contagious,” he said.

“That’s why I’m not surprised we won, we love where we live and it shows ..."

Funniest Thing I've Read All Day!

"... In Queensland before Fitzgerald the journalism practised was of the old school variety. Those journalists who could successfully gain the confidence and the "scoops" of the powerful, including the police, were seen to be masters of their profession. In return for the scoops they had to compromise their objectivity and, in fact, many became the mouthpieces for corrupt police. Nowadays they teach these pitfalls in all the journalism schools..."

"A dog rescued from a Melbourne backyard will be reunited with its Queensland owners nine years after going missing.

The RSPCA, acting on a tip-off, discovered Muffy sleeping on a scrap of cardboard in a filthy backyard.

To their surprise, they found Muffy was microchipped, and tracked down owner Natalie Lampard at Burleigh Waters on the Gold Coast..."

Question for Anna Bligh:

What do you think of the overwhelming control of the media by News Ltd. in Queensland, and its effect on the proper functioning of our democracy, especially given that they dominate so many ABC broadcasts?

"The most heartbreaking part of the job for staff at the Cittamani Hospice Service is turning away families from the care it was built to provide.

But this has become a regrettably regular process as nurses are forced to turn away up to 25 families a month through a severe lack of funds.

After lobbying unsuccessfully for increased government funding, the service's staff has turned to fundraising in the community to keep delivering palliative care to people who are dying and their families..."

"A Queensland political analyst says voters will expect reform from the State Government after the criticism by former corruption inquiry head, Tony Fitzgerald.

Mr Fitzgerald says standards have been eroded by Cabinet secrecy and cash for access for the business community.

He says neither side of politics is interested in fixing the issues..."

"Queensland auditor-general Glenn Poole has found the state's public hospitals need to better manage beds.

Mr Poole's report has found there needs to be better management of patients from admission to discharge to stop 'bed block'.

The report found hospitals across the state are using their own bed management systems and there is no electronic data available to show where beds are free.

The audit recommends a more coordinated approach to reduce delays in allocating beds..."

"July 28, 2009 "Times Union" -- - Secrecy is endemic in all governments. It goes with the turf, especially if their leaders hope to hide illegal or immoral behavior, such as torture of foreign prisoners.

Many Americans heaved a sigh of relief last January when President Barack Obama banned the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It made the administration look more humane than the Bush-Cheney team. But that is not the whole story.

Obama left unaddressed the possibility of torture in secret foreign prisons under our control as in Abu Ghraib in Iraq or Bagram in Afghanistan, not to mention the 'black sites" sponsored by our foreign clients in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Thailand and other countries.

In June 2008 Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing wrote a post about the AP selling these "quotation licenses." If you want to quote 5 to 25 words from an AP story, you're supposed to pay them $12.50 for a quotation license. If you want to quote 26 to 50 words, that will cost you $17.50. How about 51 to 100 words? That will be $25.00 please, and you'd better not use the quote to defame the AP or they'll revoke your license. Cory concludes, and I quote him for free:

"Welcome to a world in which you won’t be able to effectively criticize the press, because you’ll be required to pay to quote as few as five words from what they publish... The people pushing for this stuff are not well-meaning, and they are not interested in making life better for artists, writers, or any other kind of individual creators. They are would-be aristocrats who fully intend to return us to a society of orders and classes, and they’re using so-called 'intellectual property' law as a tool with which to do it. Whether or not you have ever personally taped a TV show or written a blog post, if you think you’re going to wind up on top in the sort of world these people are working to build, you are out of your mind."

Posted by Marilyn Terrell on Sat 25 Jul 2009 at 09:19 AM

"... Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.

"But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies..."

"The Biological Farmers of Australia have applauded the recent move to ban the irradiation of imported cat food into Australia. The ban was put in place following evidence of cats suffering neurological damage, fatal in some cases, after ingesting irradiated, imported dry cat food."

"... Notwithstanding their support for the extreme free-market policies that have underpinned much of the crisis, the neo-liberals of the political right now refuse to accept any form of political responsibility for the fruits of their own ideological handiwork: the current global recession..."

The Cost Of Living For Splendour In The Grass

"... Rolling Stone found it commonplace for Byron holiday houses to charge at least 150 per cent more over the Splendour weekend, with a minimum stay of five to seven nights, pushing many properties above $4,000 a week.

Many operators refused to take bookings in July until festival dates were officially announced, and others cancelled early bookings after the announcement due to "sudden renovations" - or simply demanded more money.

"Accommodation is definitely a concern and it's something we've been frustrated with for a long time," says festival co-organiser and Byron local Jessica DuCrou.

"Of course, there's not a lot of places in Byron for an event of this size, but I do think some renters and hotels are being quite mercenary. While there's still some reasonably priced deals out there, in some cases it's just outrageous."

The issue, DuCrou says, is one of the main reasons she and co-organiser Paul Piticco are still fighting for permission for a new Splendour site at Yelgun, 20 minutes north of Byron."

"... A torrent of propaganda has poured out of the corporate media monopoly. Former BBC Controller, Stuart Hood, argued that both the BBC and commercial TV have always "interpreted impartiality as the acceptance of that segment of opinion which constitutes parliamentary consensus. Opinion that falls outside that consensus has difficulty in finding expression". (Ibid, p.200)

But if media "impartiality" is based on the "parliamentary consensus" then, by definition, even highly rational challenges to that consensus will be rejected as "biased" and will "find difficulty in finding expression". An example was provided in 2006 by the BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent Bridget Kendall:

"There's still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?" (Kendall, BBC Six O'Clock News, March 20, 2006)

The "parliamentary consensus" does indeed limit thinkable thought between the two poles arguing that the invasion was either "justified" or, at worst, a "miscalculation". The far more reasonable argument - that the invasion was a war crime - is usually ignored because it falls beyond "that segment of opinion which constitutes parliamentary consensus"..."

"... Yesterday, as part of The Bulletin's campaign for Gold Coast drivers to lift their game, a photographer and reporter staked out the roundabout at the intersection of Gooding Drive, Robina Parkway and Nerang Broadbeach Road.

If you have never been for a ride around this mother of a thing, it is quite an experience.

From 9am to 10am, they watched as drivers failed to indicate, failed to drive within marked lanes and chatted on their mobile phones..."

"...I've spent the last two years helping build the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN). Initiated by a team of Australian medicos, ICAN, after only two years, is a thriving network of civil society organisations and individuals, with supporters including the Dalai Lama, Malcolm Fraser and Hans Blix. Our goal is the implementation of a global abolition treaty. I have by now quizzed scores of dedicated and knowledgeable experts from five continents - diplomats, politicians, legal and technical experts: what is needed to break the logjam in nuclear disarmament? Almost to a soul, they told me: 'a groundwell of public opinion' ... to force them to walk the talk. Clearly, we will have to push the politicians if they are to instruct the diplomats to negotiate and implement a convention. Otherwise they'll muddle on for decades, shuffling up the 'incremental steps', plastering over cracks in the disarmament edifice, wavering in the shadow of annihilation..."

"Greens Senator Hanson-Young holding doorstop at Adelaide hearing of Childcare Senate Inquiry 1pm TODAY in ADELAIDE

WHAT: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will be holding a doorstop press conference at the Adelaide hearing of the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee's Senate Inquiry into the provision of childcare, which she established in the wake of the ABC Learning corporate collapse late last year. WHEN: 1pm SA time, Wednesday 22 July WHERE:Adelaide Town Hall 128 King William St ADELAIDE WHO: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, senator for South Australia and Greens spokesperson for Early Childhood Education and Childcare."

Random Acts Of Kindness Are Rare And Nice To See

"A good friend of RS had a chance meeting with Chris Martin during Coldplay's recent Australian tour - she bumped into him in a drum shop, where she was looking to buy a drum kit for her new band. Martin didn't approve of her choice of kit (which was severely limited by budget), so he showed her the one she should be getting - and then bought it for her! Who said charity is dead. And who knew Chris Martin was a drum guru?"

"The Queensland government has appointed a consortium comprising Rothschild, Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland as commercial advisers to help sell $16 billion of public assets."

"... The CMC report from its long-running Operation Capri has been tabled in State Parliament, finding 23 police officers were involved in misconduct, mainly involving prisoner informants.

It says some officers offered rewards for confessions, accepted gifts from informants, and improperly accessed confidential police information ..."

"... Ms Bligh told reporters the Swire offer was not good enough.

She said the government would now consider an across-the-board shipping levy to protect the environment and “flat bans” on Swire interests, including Cathay Pacific..."

"Fled Mass. facility before extradition"

By Bryan Bender

"July 21, 2009 "Boston Globe" -- July 17, 2009 -- The mystery has lingered for more than two decades, spawning conspiracy theories about the US government’s connection to one of Africa’s most brutal leaders: How did Charles G. Taylor escape from a Massachusetts county jail in 1985, setting him on the road to a bloody reign as Liberia’s president?

Taylor, on trial in The Hague for war crimes, broke his silence on the question this week, saying he was sprung from jail as part of a US intelligence operation.

On the night of Sept. 15, 1985, he recounted Wednesday, a guard unlocked his cell at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility - where he was awaiting extradition to Liberia on embezzlement charges - and escorted him to a less-secure unit of the jail. Taylor then tied sheets together, climbed out an open window, and clambered over a fence before meeting two men he assumed were US agents, who whisked him to New York by car ..."

Who Is Puppeteering McClelland?

"The Federal Government is set to release changes which will make it easier to prosecute people who encourage others to commit acts of violence.

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the Government is proposing the establishment of a new offence of inciting violence against someone on the basis of race, religion or nationality.

Mr McClelland announced the proposed changes in a speech to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute last night.

And he warned that centres for Islamic studies at tertiary institutions should have a particular responsibility in identifying people at risk of becoming extremists.

"A range of reforms will be put forward for consultation including seeking public input in relation to an offence of inciting violence against an individual on the basis of race, religion or nationality," he said. "

"James Murdoch, the News International executive chairman, was aware of Gordon Taylor's breach of privacy claim and agreed with the decision to settle for £700,000 after a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive's phone, MPs were told today.

The News International head of legal, Tom Crone, and the News of the World editor, Colin Myler, took the settlement figure to Murdoch for his approval, MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee hearing into privacy, press standards and libel heard.

Myler told the committee that Crone – who was also giving evidence to MPs today – advised him after taking legal advice that News International should settle the case brought by Taylor, whose phone messages were hacked into by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire ..."

"Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has ruled out selling off the Port of Gladstone in the state's central coast region.

The chairman of the Inland Rail project, Everald Compton, says he cannot understand why the Gladstone Port is not included in the State Government's asset sale.

A spokeswoman from the Premier's office says the Government has detailed the assets involved in the Renewing Queensland Plan and Gladstone Port is not one of them."

A 36-year-old man has burst into flames after being shot by a police Taser in Western Australia.

Police say they were trying to arrest the Aboriginal man for petrol sniffing at the Goldfields Aboriginal community of Warburton yesterday when he turned violent.

Queensland Gulf Indigenous leader Murrandoo Yanner has been remanded in custody on new assault charges.

Yesterday, Yanner, 35, appeared in the Mount Isa Magistrates Court, in north-west Queensland, on four charges including common assault and assault occasioning bodily harm, after an incident earlier this year.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says it is inevitable that uranium will be mined in Queensland.

A pregnant woman in the Townsville hospital in north Queensland with swine flu complications has lost her baby.The 19-year-old from Palm Island, off Townsville, remains in a serious condition in intensive care.

There are now more private security officers in Australia than police.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has approved the purchase of six rural properties in north-west New South Wales by Chinese-owned coal miner Shenhua Watermark.

The Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan at the weekend has been farewelled by his colleagues at their Tarin Kowt base.

The principal of a proposed Islamic school in south-western Sydney has attacked local and state government figures for bowing to racist pressures after the Education Department blocked the development. The Al Amanah College twice won approval in the Land and Environment Court but has now lost out to a decision to buy back the land and build a special needs school instead.

Kick 'Em When They're Down

The Queensland Government will trial wheel clamping cars and selling the property of people who do not pay fines.

Attorney-General Cameron Dick says from next year the Government will be able to place wheel clamps on people's cars and suspend drivers licences until fines are paid.

Mr Dick has told a Budget Estimates hearing that other property will also be seized and sold to cover fines.

Does That Include The Corporate Box At The Footy Blighty?

Premier Anna Bligh wants to ban glass and replace it with plastic in any public bar or nightclub deemed a problem.

The Italian newspaper L'espresso has released tape recordings of what it claims is a recording of the night the Italian Prime Minister spent with a prostitute. The escort, Patrizia D'Addario, gave the audio to the newspaper after recording her alleged two visits to Silvio Berlusconi's official residence in Rome last year. In one conversation, a man can be heard telling a woman to wait for him in "Putin's bed" while he showers. Mr Berlusconi has not denied Ms D'Addario was at his residence, but insists he did not pay for sex.

"South Australian Democrats MP David Winderlich has threatened to become an independent if the party does not recruit 1,000 more members by November."

After three months of culinary triumphs and defeats, pressure tests and blind tastings, working mum of three Julie Goodwin has been crowned the winner of MasterChef Australia.

"We journey to the geographical heart of the continent in search of the Aboriginal descendants of the Afghan camel drivers.

In this program, we meet a pillar of the Afghan-Aboriginal community in Alice Springs, a hostel worker twice descended from the camel drivers and a well-known artist from the Riverland.

You'll also hear from Aunty Mona Wilson whose parents, Jack and Lallie Akbar, were banished from Western Australia in the 1920s for falling in love."

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says the real estate industry has been put on notice.

An amendment to the Trade Practices Act is due to be further scrutinised by Federal Parliament next month.

It is proposing fines of more than $1 million for companies and up to $220,000 for individual agents that underquote, use dummy bidders at auctions and airbrush photos of properties.

The ACCC says it hopes the changes will become law next year.

Chairman Graham Samuel says the crackdown has been prompted by complaints of misconduct.

"If we have a suspicion that there is a problem in relation to a particular auction or in relation to a particular agent, we'll be able to issue a substantiation notice," he said.

"That is a notice to the agent to say 'please substantiate your claim that this property was for sale' for example at $500,000 when we may have reason to believe in fact the reserve price was $600,000."

Mr Samuel says stronger powers are needed to investigate discrepancies between the reserve price and the advertised price of some properties.

He says larger fines will deter agents and vendors from engaging in misleading conduct.

"By the end of this year we're hopeful that laws will be passed at a Federal level that will enable the ACCC to collect very substantial fines from business, corporations ... and from individuals ... for engaging in these sort of deceptive practices," he said.

4ZzZ Jumps The Shark Pool

Bush's Key Men Face Grilling On Torture And Death Squads

"America is bracing itself for a series of investigations that could see top officials from the administration of President George W Bush hauled in front of Congress, grilled by a special prosecutor and possibly facing criminal charges.

Several investigations will now cast a spotlight on Bush-era torture policy and a secret CIA assassination programme, examining the role played by big names such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney and the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In one investigation into the controversial firing of federal prosecutors, Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, has already been forced to appear before Congress and give testimony behind closed doors. Another investigation, by the House of Representatives' intelligence committee, has already asked for documents from the CIA and has now announced that it will examine the legality of keeping a secret CIA hit squad hidden from Congress, something alleged to have been ordered by Cheney himself ..."

Most Obvious Missed Opportunity Of The Week To Do Some Real Journalism For A Change

"Only one who is guided by the moral self is truly free. The imperatives of the moral self are given to us not by our conditioning, nor by any outside agency, nor by the state or God or philosophy, they are given to us by our own inner nature."

Clive Hamilton in 'The freedom paradox. Towards a post-secular ethics'

"The mystery of Kevin Rudd's impressive work rate has been solved - by his wife, Therese Rein, who reports that the Prime Minister can get by on as little as three hours' sleep a night.

In her first extended interview since the Federal Government's election, Ms Rein - herself a weekly intercity commuter, charity worker, fitness fanatic and global business owner - has described to Fairfax how one of the most driven partnerships in politics has adapted to life at the Lodge ... "

"Queensland Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace has ordered a safety audit review on Brisbane's Gateway Motorway after a cattle truck overturned last night.

The accident happened at roadworks at Eagle Farm on the city's northside and is the second accident in the area in the past two weeks ...

Mr Wallace says he has asked for a third safety report to see if anything can be done to improve the road.

"But I must point out that two earlier safety audits on that section of road had found that section of road was safe, was able to be opened," he said.

"We do that when we open new roads right across the state.

"However, these two accidents in close proximity to each other and close in timing has got me worried."

... Rural lobby group Agforce says the crash highlights the need to use the existing rail network to transport stock.

Agforce spokesman Grant Maudsley says although roads around the state are being upgraded, rail is a better way to transport stock.

He says Queensland Rail has the capacity to transport more than 400,000 head of cattle, but it needs to upgrade its services. "

Does This Mean Those Of Us With Old Saggy Ones Or Mozzie Bites Now Have A Chance At Gaining Employment In This Wonderful Establishment?

"The busty Hooters name looks set to survive on the Gold Coast, despite the family restaurant's US-backed parent company being placed in liquidation.

The chain, which has failed at its second bite at the domestic market in the space of a decade, is poised to fall into Australian hands for the first time, with the liquidator revealing yesterday that at least two buyers were circling the business...

Hooters first entered the Australian market in 1997, introduced by disgraced former FAI Insurance boss Rodney Adler.

The venture failed to gain traction with diners at the time."

"New South Wales fire crews have neutralised an acid spill near Sydney's north shore.

About 2,000 litres of sulphuric acid leaked from a tank at a property in Lane Cove last night.

Around 30 people were evacuated from surrounding areas while fire firefighters contained and neutralised the spill."

"They only want you when you're seventeen
When you're twenty-one
You're no fun
They take a polaroid and let you go
Say they'll let you know
So come on "

'seventeen' 2002 Ladytron

"A group of Australian veterans involved in the British atomic tests at Maralinga will launch a class action if the Federal Government fails to respond to a letter by the end of August.

The Australian Nuclear Veterans Association sent the letter to the Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin this week, seeking compensation for ill health after being exposed in the tests during the 1950s and 60s.

The association's president, Ric Johnstone, says he expects the Government will attempt to stall the process.

"We've sent a letter to the Government which explains that we have two options, either he can settle with us out of court or else we'll go to court," he said.

"It's not unusual for a response to take a month or so from the Department of Veteran Affairs, but we'll give him a couple of weeks.""

"GARY CROOKE: I'd like to see the public take a much more active part in what is going on. To recognise that they are the ones that set the standards as to what's expected of their elected representatives and to make it quite clear that certain conduct is not acceptable and that's what our democratic system is all about.

JESSICA van VONDEREN: How can they do that?

GARY CROOKE: They can do that by first of all hopefully being objectively informed by the media as to what is going on and I mean objectively because that’s most important. It's only when the public is properly informed that they can make a proper decision and they can do it my expressing their outrage and by communication with the media, on talk back shows, just to make themselves heard that they don't expect this from the people whom they have elected to be trustees for them."

Attorney-General Cameron Dick says Nuttall's home at Sandgate on Brisbane's northside could also be sold to recover the $360,000 in secret commissions, plus interest.

Sydney's radio 2UE has been fined $360,000 for reckless breaches of sponsorship disclosure rules by its former presenter, John Laws.The Federal Court has found that John Laws failed to disclose lucrative sponsorship deals 13 times.

"The State Government will ask the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to lift classroom work bans and intervene in a bitter row with the Queensland Teachers Union (QTU).

The QTU has ordered teachers to stop work on literacy and numeracy projects, which Education Minister Geoff Wilson says will hurt the state's most disadvantaged students.

Teachers have rejected a 12.5 per cent wage increase and will strike again later this month.

Mr Wilson says says students are suffering.

"We are at a crossroads, so the Government has decided to asked the Industrial Relations Commission to intervene to protect school kids from this irresponsible industrial action, and to mediate between the parties to keep the parties at the negotiating table," he said.

"The Teachers Union needs to act responsibly - at the moment they're being highly irresponsible.

"We've put a fair offer on the table - the rolling strikes and the bans that they have placed in the last week, they are going to damage the education outcomes of Queensland kids.""

The Queensland Government has formally lodged a development application with the Ipswich City Council for a $100 million project at Amberley, west of Brisbane.

The proposed Aerospace and Defence Support Centre would be built on land adjoining the RAAF base on the Cunningham Highway.

"... News Digital was top for page impressions in the news & weather category – up 37% to 393m in June 2009 compared to a year before. But NineMSN saw the biggest growth – with PIs up by 71% in the category to 121.8m. Fairfax was up 53% to 369m ..."

"Friends,

For technical and operational reasons the Friends of the NSW Executive have decided to terminate the FABC List & Digest.

This will be the last message.

Thanks to all those who have contributed over the past 10 years.

Chris Cartledge

FABC List Moderator"

"Seven anti-war activists entered the Shoalwater Bay military training area in central Queensland during joint US-Australian Talisman Sabre exercises. The seven remain in the area and are presently moving towards the ‘live fire’ areas with the intention of shutting down the exercises. They remain undetected by Australian Defence Force Security and the Qld Police guarding the area..."

"A number of commuters have complained bitterly about being unable to get past cyclists and about the ugly rundown appearance of the walkway, which is supposed to be one of of Brisbane's tourism hotspots.

The Riverside walkway re-opened yesterday after being closed for almost 12 months to protect cyclists, joggers and walkers if the section near Admiralty Quays collapsed into the Brisbane River.

This section has been updated at a cost of $2.5 million with new steel strengthening bars and anti-corrosion coatings applied to the steel.

However, the 400-metre section near the Riverside CityCat terminal has several sections fenced off, rubbish is collecting in disused garden beds, and pedestrians and cyclists are squeezed together for about 100 metres.

Two-metre fencing around Riverside City Cat terminal has cabling and pipework exposed and in some sections the walkway is now only a metre in width."

"... Yes, there are no rules in Origin.
Origin owes its success to the brawl.
In recent years, political correctness has blurred that brutal heritage.
Wednesday night reminded us that it is the toughest game of all."

"Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the fatal shooting of radio presenter Jonathan Petalvero in a restaurant in Bayugan, in the southern province of Agusan del Sur. Petalvero hosted a programme that supported a local politician.

“It is too soon to say whether this murder was linked to the victim’s work as a journalist, but the authorities must quickly assign enough personnel to the case to be able to identify the killer and the instigators,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Three other radio hosts have been killed in the Philippines since the start of the year. That is more than in Iraq in the same period.”"

"In a statement, Mr Neale says says he is very grateful to authorities and hospital staff for their help and support.

Superintendent Tony McWirter, commander of Blue Mountains area police, has dismissed claims that the incident may have been staged.

"There is nothing in any of the things that have been reported to us so far that suggests he is anything but credible about what has occurred," he said.

Earlier, police said they could have found Mr Neale if he had stayed in the same spot when he got lost in the Blue Mountains."

"British youth to come to Australia on a ‘tenner’
STA Travel, in association with Tourism Australia and Qantas, have announced the return of the ‘£10 Pom’ - a promotion reminiscent of the ‘Assisted Passage’ scheme of the 1950’s - which provides anyone with a valid Working Holiday Visa the chance to travel to Australia for just ten pounds.

With a 21% rise in the number of Australian Working Holiday Visas granted in 2009 and over 35,000 British youth travelling on the program each year, the new generation of ‘£10 Poms’ will be able to fly into one of five Australian cities and experience all that the Australian tourism industry has to offer, while supplementing their travel with paid work.

The ten-pound tickets are available from 5 August and will ensure that Australia continues to draw a steady stream of vibrant youth to our shores."

"Premier Anna Bligh said the government would move to recover the state-funded component of Nuttall's superannuation.

Court action would also be launched to recover state money already paid to him, she said.

"After all avenues of appeal have been exhausted, if these convictions stand, then the state will act firstly to recoup any of the employer-funded contributions to his superannuation that he has already received and act immediately to cease any future payments of his employer-funded contributions," she told reporters in Brisbane."

"The Minister for Indigenous Affairs was advised by own her department against formally consulting with Aboriginal people over the compulsory acquisition of their land because it would be too expensive, tie up too many resources and the whole process was unlikely to get the outcome the government wanted, leaked documents reveal.

The explosive revelations are contained in a suite of sensitive government documents, including private briefings from the Department of Families, Housing, Communities and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) to minister Jenny Macklin, copies of which have been obtained by the National Indigenous Times.

They reveal Macklin has deceived Aboriginal people over the Northern Territory intervention consultations currently underway, and the government's moves to compulsorily acquire the Alice Springs town camps.

Ironically, the advice was 'read, agreed and noted' by Macklin on March 26, just one week before her government endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a human rights vehicle which commits the federal government to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people..."

Become The Change You Want To See In The World

...but what if the change everybody wants to see is the disintegration of all these old lies and vile institutions?

I went to a football game last weekend where over 30,000 people booed the democratically elected state premier.

It was illuminating.

Nobody likes politicians any more.

Nobody trusts newspapers.

People want change, but not the Barak Obama kind of change. And not violent change. Just change.

The answers, to most of us, seem obvious. Why should they be so hard to attain?

We don't really care which party is in power, just so long as they don't kill our children and stop screwing us over.

"... Health care policy has become insider heaven. Even Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House health reform director, served on the boards of several major health care corporations.

President Obama has pushed hard for a public option but many fear he's wavering, and just this week his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel -- the insider di tutti insiders -- indicated that a public plan just might be negotiable, ready for reengineering, no doubt, by "the select few who actually get it done."

That's how it works. And it works that way because we let it. The game goes on and the insiders keep dealing themselves winning hands. Nothing will change -- nothing -- until the money lenders are tossed out of the temple, the ATM's are wrested from the marble halls, and we tear down the sign they've placed on government -- the one that reads, "For Sale.""

"The taskforce established to investigate two-headed fish larvae spawned at a Noosa fish hatchery has been denied access to crucial chemical spray records from three farms at the centre of contamination claims...

While the DPI&F chemical use inspectors have the right to seize chemical spray dockets from farmers, they are not entitled to distribute that information without the farmer's consent -even within the department."

"Former Queensland Government minister Gordon Nuttall has been found guilty of corruption in the District Court in Brisbane.

The jury found him guilty on each of the 36 counts of corruption and he faces a maximum of seven years in jail for each charge.

Nuttall, 56, was accused of corruptly receiving almost $360,000 in payments from Queensland businessmen Harold Shand and Ken Talbot."

You Cannot Transplant Bohemia Into A City When You've Spent The Last Few Decades Destroying Its Unique Buildings And Places, Implementing Draconian Liquor Licensing Laws And Stifling Organic Talent And Creativity With Government Funded Entertainment/Cultural Precincts

"Today John McInerney, the man responsible for the "small bar and laneway revolution" in Melbourne and Sydney, will visit Brisbane to press the case for a change in Brisbane's beer barn planning mindset...

Brisbane City Council is already considering changes to its Fortitude Valley planning guidelines to allow small bars to flourish in the district.

Planning committee chair Amanda Cooper is considering allowing small bars to be "self assessable", if they hold up to 60 people, are under 100 square metres in size, did not involve any building work, were closed by midnight and did not back on to any residential areas. Cr Cooper said this would reduce costs."

"Maddow: Jeff, briefly, we're just about out of time -- but religion is obviously a private matter in this country. Do you think that the members of Congress who belong to this religious group should feel compelled to tell the country more about the group? Do you feel that would be appropriate?

Sharlet: I think when you have -- when you have members of Congress who are looking to a particular religious group for a sense of authority, which is explicitly antidemocratic, that explicitly fetishizes strength and dictatorial power, if they want to do that, that it's their choice. But I think they owe it to their constituents to say, "Here is why I have chosen to leave the mainstreams of American religion and affiliate myself with this sect that is so unorthodox and so really brutal in its theology.""

"Throughout 2007, the money rolled in for Turnbull; the Forum raised over $1.1 million for his re-election campaign. A total of 92 individuals joined the Forum in this period, mainly as Members or Sponsors. There were only 10 people among the Patron and Benefactor group and one Governor. The latter was Bob Rose who listed his company as Coastal Hamlets, the development company for the controversial Catherine Hill Bay project.

Bob Rose's companies did not donate to the Liberals after the 2007 election and Rose hasn't renewed his Wentworth Forum membership. This change coincided with the federal Coalition losing government. Rose's companies are generous donors to NSW Labor and have given almost $120,000 since mid-2007. Last March, the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett's findings, allowed the Catherine Hill Bay project — which involves the development of some 700 homes — to go ahead."

Well Given That You Can't Make Speeches In Public Anymore ...

We will select 27 people with an extraordinary talent for public speaking. They will strive to be crowned Australia's best public speaker in this brilliant new program.

"Bono might talk the talk, but Garrett is walking the walk - with all its trials and tribulations.

What he's changing: Labor Member for Kingsford Smith, Minister for Environment, Heritage and for Arts, and occasionally still frontman for Midnight Oil, Garrett is living proof that screaming from the outside for long enough can earn you a voice on the inside. And even if Garrett is finding it a tough fight to make his long-held views those of his new political party, the fact remains - he is fighting.

Frenemies Say: Bob Brown explains, "We talked about this. I said, 'Don't do it, don't go into a big party, they'll eat you up and spit you out."

Next fight: Garrett is still trying to prove that the Rudd Government can put environmental interests ahead those of industry groups. He has imposed tough conditions on the Gunn's pulp mill project in Tasmania - the test wll be to see if he can use those to block it altogether."

"Wednesday 5 August

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Early bird rates end 24th July:Canberra (1 day conference): MEAA Member: $300, Non Member: $450, Not-for-profit: $400

Program now available on our website.

Topics include:·

Utegate - Whistle blowing in the public service· Freedom of Information and disclosure - what next?·

Professional standards & ethics - the new Ethics Advisory Service·

Reporting on election campaigns - an analysis of the last 30 years·

Staying focussed under pressure - Swine Flu & Canberra Raiders

Speakers include:· Malcolm Farr, National Political Editor, The Daily Telegraph· Marcus Mannheim, Editor, The Public Sector Informant· Paul Casimir, Director, Ethics Advisory Service· Archie Law, CEO ActionAid (formerly Austcare)· John Flannery, Senior Public Affairs Advisor· Ben Pollack, Media Manager, Canberra Raiders· John Flannery, Senior Public Affairs Advisor· Christine Wallace, political journalist & author with special guest MP ...

This highly informative conference will examine media relationships in a Public Affairs context covering government, not-for-profit and the private sector. The convention will provide an important professional development and networking forum for media advisors, public affairs, communications and public relations specialists."

"Now call Dr Mumbo an old cynic, but he wasn’t entirely surprised to receive a press release from campaigning organisation GetUp yesterday.

As regular readers will recall, the group is behind “Censordyne” ads created by Fnuky to protest the Government’s Internet filtering plans.

It said that it was raising money to show them on Qantas flights to Canberra to catch politicians’ attention. Somewhat precictably, yesterday’s follow-up release announced:

“Qantas censors anti-censorship ad campaign”.

Dr Mumbo suspects that was a press release that was written well before the campaign launched."

"Jet-ski accidents have doubled in the past year while recreational boaties were also responsible for an 11 per cent spike in marine accidents in 2008...

Broadwater MP Peta-Kaye Croft said the figures were concerning and urged boaties to use common sense."

"The Greens and environmental groups say a new uranium mine in South Australia's north will pollute groundwater for centuries and fuel global nuclear tensions.

The Four Mile mine is owned by Quasar Resources and is about 550 kilometres north of Adelaide.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett yesterday approved the operation of the mine, which will extract uranium just a few kilometres from the Beverley mine that he allowed to expand last year."

"Ms Bligh's intervention is welcomed by Coal Association executive director Ralph Hillman.

"I think it'll help - we're very pleased that she's delivered this message to the Federal Government because it's a message we've been delivering for the last nine months," he said.

"Coal has been unfairly treated, its competitiveness is going to be undermined by the CPRS and jobs will be lost in regional Queensland and regional New South Wales, a lot of jobs.""

MUNICH (Reuters) - The Desertec Industrial Initiative, the world's most ambitious solar power project, will map out investment plans by 2012 to develop carbon-free energy that could supply up to 15 percent of Europe's needs by 2050.

Twelve companies, including Siemens, Munich Re, E.ON, RWE and Deutsche Bank Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish DII by October 31, with spending plans to be released within the next three years.

SBS World 6.30 PM News Bulletin Interrupted Again [14/7/09]

This is what appeared on screen for what was nearly 5 minutes

MPs investigating allegations of widespread use of private investigators by the News of the World to hack into phones were handed documents today revealing that more journalists were involved in the practice than the paper's owner, News International, has previously admitted.

During testimony to the Commons committee on culture, media and sport, the Guardian investigative reporter Nick Davies produced previously unseen records which showed that two senior figures on the paper as well as a junior reporter had a role in obtaining the contents of private voicemail messages through a private investigator.

The Federal Government says the cost of the new Houghton highway from Brighton to Clontarf on Brisbane's northside has more than doubled.Queensland Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace says the Houghton Highway will cost another $183 million more than first estimated.

A meeting of creditors in Brisbane has decided to place Queensland hospice Zoe's Place into liquidation.The hospice for terminally ill children closed its doors at Mount Ommaney in Brisbane's west yesterday.

"Tuesday, 14th August, 2007, 11.30 p.m.

On the train down to Canberra I think about America, and then Rupert Murdoch, and I number his iniquities in my mind. In November 1975, after Kerr sacked Whitlam, his papers published only ugly pictures of Gough - half-blinking, his lip curled sneeringly up - plus a rumour that he and Margaret were breaking up. In 1969 he bought the London Sun and with daily bare-breasted girls on page three began his Toryising of the lower classes of Britain and his dumbing-down of journalim everywhere. In 1979 with his headlines 'Give the Girl a Go' and 'Maggie the Magnificent', and his villainising of the unions during the Winter of Discontent, he narrowly achieved the election of Thatcher, and with his 'Gotcha!' treatment of the Falklands War in 1982, her rescue from oblivion. In 1983 he published articles called 'Why I Am voting Labour by Joseph Stalin' and 'Why I Am Voting Conservative by Winston Churchill, dictated by a spirit medium, in The Sun.

In 1986 with his technological improvements he destroyed the printers' union and with his move to Wapping began the destruction of Fleet Street and with it the fellow-feeling of equal, convivial boozing souls in which was rooted,the high standards of British journalism. In 1981 he bought The Times, in 1976 the New York Post, reducing the former to indifferent blandness and the latter, which used to publish Mailer, Buckley, Vidal, Galbraith, Breslin, Steinem, to a New York equivalent of The Sun. In 1996 he started Fox News ('fair and balanced') and with its mixture of loud accusatory babble and minute-by-minute celebrity trials (O.J. Simpson, Bill and Monica) debased the moral judgement of the stupider Americans and ensured the Republican Congressional majority that impeached Bill Clinton. In 1995 he promised Tony Blair his vigorous support so long as Blair continued Thatcherism (which Blair, a cradle Tory, was anyway inclined to do), privatising the railways and so on, and allowing Murdoch the astral domination he craved in his Sky News channel, which started out as a fair equivalent of the BBC, and slowly evolved into a rape-and-murder-thronged equivalent of Fox News.

And in 2000 he elected George Bush.

This was done when on election night there were still half a million votes to be counted, and the Fox News election expert John Ellis, a first cousin of George Bush, called a Republican vitory at 2.05 a.m., thus causing a baffled CBS and NBC in half an hour to glumly and edgily follow suit. so instead of an undecided verdict that lasted for six weeks, which was the truth of the matter, the official story became Al Gore, the haughty whingeing loser, conniving squalidly to reverse his defeat.

This caused the Bush era, the War on Terror (which the yapping Fox News droids puffed up into a national paranoia), the Iraq War (which Fox News touted as a holy War that only traitors would decry), the deaths of, oh, maybe, half a million Iraqis, the angry exile of three million more, the creation of, oh, twenty million potential suicide bombers, the waste of three trillion dollars (according to Joe Stiglitz, who has a Nobel Prize for getting the figures right) and, oh yes, the abandonment by the US of the Kyoto Accord and therefore, not that it matters too much, the end of the word.

His puppets also ended my regular column in the Courier-Mail in 1998, thus losing, in my estimation, Beazley two of the four Queensland seats he would have won government with.

These are Genghis Khan levels of damage done by a single mild-mannered Oxford graduate, a man who seems almost supernatural in his force (his father covered Gallipoli, his mother, still living and highly intelligent, is ninety-eight, and he himself looks like a centenarian in the making) and utterly unrepentant of the harm he has done. In 2003 he said the Iraq War would 'halve the price of oil', then thrity dollars a barrel. In 2004 he told Mike Rann Fox News was 'balanced in its coverage' and a much-needed correction to the left-wing bias of CNN and CBS and NBC. Being wrong doesn't worry him. Like the Roman emperor he resembles, it never troubles his drowsing thoughts.

When a student at Oxford, he corresponded fondly with Ben Chifley, complimenting him on his socialist progress. He was known as 'Red Rupert' back then. A strange man. The dry brown landscape goes past my window. Soon I am asleep."

OMFG! An Australian Musician Gets Political On Late Night Regional Television

John Paul Young discussing his opposition to Centennial Coal's proposed coal mine with Tony Nicholls on Southern Cross Television's 'State Focus' show [14/7/09]