Snack of the Week

Boiled peanuts! Mmm-mmm. I tried them in Ghana and really liked them, so boy was I pleased to discover them on the supermarket shelf when I got home. The packet practically claims that they're a Queensland invention, but I don't know how common a snack they are here, let alone in the other states. I'd read about them as a snack on some US site once and thought they sounded horrible- but that's probably because they referred to them as 'goobers' and to me that sounds like a euphemism for snot.

I don't even usually like peanuts, except for peanut-butter on toast a couple of times a year (I buy the sanitarium all-peanut one and then salt it, because the other kinds are way too sweet). Boiled peanuts barely even taste like peanuts; they have a crisper texture and what I would describe as a 'legume-y flavour'- which is utterly meaningless because I can't point to a legume they actually taste like. But they're really good! If you're making them yourself, just buy raw, unshelled peanuts and dump them in a big pot of boiling salted water... I'm not sure for how long, but the peanut inside should be somewhat translucent compared with a raw peanut. I've only bothered to make them myself once- it's much easier to just grab a packet from the supermarket, and unless you have access to bulk raw peanuts it's probably little more cost-effective to DIY.

Gunned Down in Jo'burg but not for the Merc

I'm not very knowledgeable on South African politics, but I've been following the downfall of ex-Deputy President Jacob Zuma since about 2003, when we were visiting Gam's parents in Gaborone and I picked up one of the weekend SA papers they get there. Since that time Zuma's 'financial advisor' Schabir Shaikh has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for corruption and Zuma was effectively sacked. A company owned by Shaikh made large payments for personal expenses incurred by Zuma and his family. The Sunday Times in South Africa reported:

Accounting records seized during raids, which are attached to the charge sheet, show that Nkobi Holdings paid fees for Zuma's children attending the University of Zululand, Sacred Heart College in Johannesburg, Holy Family College in Durban and St Catherine's Convent School in Empangeni.

Shaik also paid the monthly allowances of the children. Among documents seized during the raid on Shaik's companies were accounting records showing that Shaik also bought a car for one of Zuma's children and paid for maintenance and servicing of several cars belonging to members of Zuma's family.

Jacob Zuma was relieved of his position as Deputy President earlier this year after he had resisted pressure to step down.

Now comes the news that one of Zuma's big financial supporters has been shot to death in his Mercedes in Johannesburg. This happens all the time in Johannesburg, but usually the criminals will steal the car and belongings of the victim. Police have already said that it doesn't appear to be a typical car-jacking. The man, overweight white businessman and ANC member Brett Kebble (picture, right) was booted from his position as CEO of the 3 big mining companies he founded after he "was accused of having irregularly sold 14.4 million shares worth £130m without the permission of either directors or shareholders". The money is so far nowhere to be found. Kebble had at some time previously been arrested and charged with fraud, but the charges were dropped.

Mr Kebble was a substantial contributor to the Zuma-supporting ANC Youth League and assisted in paying Zuma's legal costs.

So who has motive? Shareholders in the company that he apparently stripped A$390 million from? ANC figures who are on the side of President Mbeki and want to cut off trouble-making Zuma's financial lifeline?

Assuming they ever find the killers and the people who ordered it done, this whole sordid story has the makings of a rather engrossing made-for-tv movie!

Sex Ban Imposed By Judge

Apparently this is no joke; it's Texas. Salon reports that a Judge has placed an unusual, some might say irrelevant, condition on the parole of a 17 year old girl. She is not allowed to have sex while she is on probation.

Forgetting for a second that such an order is horribly rude and invasive- how is such a condition supposed to help the girl or the community? And how the hell are they going to police it?

I think this isn't quite as bad as the fact it's illegal to possess any kind of sex toy in Alabama, given that the stupid restriction in this story applies only to a young woman of dubious integrity, while the sex-toy ban applies to all law-abiding, responsible adults of all sexual persuasions, but it's still pretty fucked up.

This Won't Hurt a Bit...

Apparently Australians are now spending an average of $796 per year on healthcare on top of what they already spend on private health insurance. It's already well known that under the Howard Government's 'Medicare Safety Net' scheme wealthier Australians were the ones claiming most of the benefits. Not that it could really have come as a surprise to the government, despite their protestations, because anyone who knows anything about the cost of visiting a specialist knows that someone on a low income isn't going to fork out $130 for 15 minutes unless their life depends on it, whether or not they can claim some of it back once the total goes over $700.

These new figures show that out-of-pocket expenses are rising at twice the level of inflation. This comes on top of the 8% rise in health insurance premiums approved by the government earlier this year. Why do we appear to be going the way of the US, where unless you can provide proof of health insurance you can be refused treatment if your situation is not a medical emergency? Far more people die for lack of proper health care there than here. Wouldn't most people here prefer to have a world-class universal public health system instead of a tax cut that equates to half the price of a movie ticket?

Americans pledge $600 for Rebuilding Iraq

Gam posts on the roaring success of George Bush's appeal to Americans to dig deep for Iraq.

RIP to the Rail

And good riddance too. Today's SMH has news of the NSW State Government's overhaul of Countrylink. They're sacking people, increasing ticket prices and closing ticket offices in an effort to compete with cheap airfares. Frankly, I don't know how they're going to do it. Gam and I have caught the train to visit my parents a couple of times, and returned home by train a couple of times as well. Each time I swear it will be the last. Last time really was the last.

You know how bad travelling cattle-class on an airline is? It doesn't even come close to getting up at 5am to head to a cold train platform full of bogans in tracksuits puffing away on as many cigarettes as they can suck down before the train arrives, then sitting on a cramped seat in a smelly carriage for 8-9 hours on a journey that takes 6-7 by car or one hour by plane. On the return trip it's even worse, as you get on the train not long before midnight and have to try and sleep on those godawful seats. I wound up with a bad neck for a week after each time returning home by train, and I'm not at all prone to neck pain. It's just. not. worth it. We can't bring Feifei and Pork Beast by train either. One or two hours crammed into cattle-class seats on a plane beats 8 hours on one of those crappy trains any day. If they introduce the bullet train to Australia maybe then I'll think about travelling by rail. Countrylink is going to keep haemorrhaging money no matter what the NSW Government does to it.

Infertile Woman Fights to Use Own Embryos

This was reported in the Guardian:

A woman who had some embryos created from her own eggs and her now ex-partner's sperm frozen prior to her undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer is now fighting in the European Court of Human Rights to be able to use those embryos. When they broke up, her partner withdrew his permission for her to use the embryos. The British High Court, Court of Appeal, and House of Lords all dismissed her case, as British law requires that both partners give their consent during every stage of the IVF process.

From my perspective, the law in this case seems really unfair. If the guy doesn't want to have responsibility for the child or children when they are born and he expresses that wish prior to any pregnancy taking place, his wishes should be respected and he should be able to relinquish all financial responsibility to the offspring. However, to prevent this woman, who is infertile, and took what seemed at the time to be all the necessary steps toward ensuring the possibility of becoming pregnant with children that are biologically related to her, from using her own embryos- her only option- seems vindictive.

From the guy's perspective, I suppose the responsibilities towards your biological offspring are not only financial but emotional. No doubt the breakup was a nasty one and he doesn't want to have to deal with those children seeking him out when they are old enough and explain the painful details of why he wasn't around to be a father to them. Maybe he has a new partner now and the prospect of his ex carrying a child he doesn't want will put a strain on his new relationship. Perhaps he doesn't think that his ex will be a good mother to his children (which would beg the question of why he gave consent to his sperm being used in the first place).

Either way, unless he can suggest valid reasons why his ex would not be a fit parent, I believe the woman should be allowed to use the embryos, as this situation is essentially a pregnancy that has been 'on hold' for a couple of years. They made the decision to go ahead with creating the embryos, and I believe that is tantamount to the couple 'becoming pregnant'. It isn't really reasonable to leave her with no other options. If adoption was as simple for plebs as it is for celebrities I would say it would be better for her just to adopt ( I don't understand why some people think it's a less worthy option than having a kid who shares your genetic material, unless you're particularly up yourself). But in Australia, and I assume in the UK, it can be damn hard to adopt. You can wait years, and often you are required to have been married for a certain number of years before you can do so. Hopefully the Human Rights Court might suggest that British laws be changed to cater for situations such as this that aren't explicitly black and white.

Stereotyping 4WD Owners

I read with some glee the article in the SMH on the results of a survey of 24000 4WD owners in Australia by the Australia Institute. Apparently they're fat, aggressive moronic bigots who love John Howard. Funny, my stereotype of them was of underfed, over-coiffed aggressive housewives who love John Howard. Just like the woman they featured in the photo accompanying the article (above).

"People say, what about the environment?" declared Mosman mother of three, Chris Rooney, who drove a Range Rover for years but has swapped to a BMW X5. "For me, my children's safety is more important."

Well the silly bitch can obviously afford the high petrol prices, but if she wasn't so dumb she couldn't have said that with a straight face. As Gam said: "I wonder what she'll have to say when she runs over the kid in the driveway?". The BMW X5 has an NRMA reversing visibility rating of 1 star. Talk about symbolic of the kind of idiocy that prevails among 4WD owners.

3 Australian Cents

From the BBC:

Indian girl's one-rupee suicide

A 12-year-old Indian girl committed suicide after her mother told her she could not afford one rupee - two US cents - for a school meal.

Sania Khatun lived with her mother in a village north of Calcutta under a tarpaulin sheet provided by the state.

Sania normally ate nothing at school but on Friday saw classmates eating rice and asked for one rupee.

Her mother scolded her and when she returned from work found her daughter hanged from the ceiling with a sari.

"She wanted just one rupee... but her mother could not give her the money due to poverty," government official Nakul Chandran Mahato told the Reuters agency.

'Snapped'

The mother, Jainab Bewar, is a widow who works as a maid in the village of Paraspur, 200km (125 miles) north of Calcutta.

She normally fed her daughter with food she could get from the houses she worked in.

India's Telegraph newspaper said Sania was tempted by the sight of classmates eating puffed rice and oil cakes.

Ms Bewar told the newspaper: "I did not give her the money as I did not have it. I snapped at her when she insisted on it."

She and her sons never earn more than $13 a month combined, she says.

India has seen unprecedented economic growth in recent years but many remain untouched by the improvements.

A recent UN report said half of India's children were still malnourished.

Breeding Morons

Today's Age has an article on the large numbers of British women seeking what fertility specialists label "inappropriate or premature" IVF treatment. What do they mean by this? Well, apparently the stupid fucks just can't possibly fit sex into their busy schedules, dahling. These morons are aghast at the idea of having sex two or three times a week because they're so busy, yet they think they have time to parent a child? Oh I forgot, you just pay a nanny to bring the child up for you, while you can, like, subscribe to Vogue kids and shop for cute brand-name baby clothes and book junior into the best private pre-school money can buy.

People that dumb and irresponsible should be sterilised, not given the opportunity to have children. There are way more deserving candidates for IVF.

Roquefort Returns

Mmm, stinky...

Trust I had to find out from the BBC that Australia has lifted its 11 year ban on Roquefort cheese, a blue mould cheese created from unpasteurised sheep's milk and the mould Penicillium roqueforti. I'm a big fan of all kinds of cheeses, though I'm usually limited to what I can purchase at the supermarket or in the odd specialty store, so hopefully I'll get to taste Roquefort before long.

My latest cheese purchase, today, was King Island's 'Hot waxed blue'. I'd put off trying it for ages; I usually buy the Bass Strait Blue because it's the cheapest of the King Island blues, and even buying that as often as I do is kind of extravegant for a student on a Centrelink income! Today, however, it was on special (I think $4.61, down from $6.99). If I'd known just how good that cheese was going to be I would have bought more. Damn that's a nice cheese! It's not quite as good a bargain as the time I was shopping with mum a few years ago in Woolworths and discovered that some delightful idiot had put a $6.99 sticker on an entire giant wheel of camembert ($6.99 was the price it was supposed to be after being cut up and sold individually), but the Hot waxed blue is a way better cheese.

I look on my cheese habit as a tasty way of saving me from the horrors of osteoporosis 40 years down the track.

"Half of all Haitians Struggle to Eat Once a Day"

Food for thought.

While the US spends hundreds of billions of dollars on creating and sustaining the ongoing war in Iraq, people are left to rot in their own backyard.

The Guardian has an article on the problem of Haitian child-slavery in the Dominican Republic.

Wikipedia's entry on Haiti provides some background.

It's not a new situation, but things like this should at least get equal time with celebrity antics on the evening news. People shouldn't be allowed to ignore things like this, and there are a million more situations just like it which are equally neglected by the media and our governments.

Why We Don't Need Increased Privatisation of Healthcare

Smart people learn from other peoples' mistakes.

Australia hasn't. We only need to look at the statistics on Aboriginal health and life expectancy to see that.

Unfortunately there are smart people who happen to lack a conscience, and when they see what happens to poor people when there is no decent public healthcare system they think

"Nope, fuck 'em. Won't affect me"

That's why Politicians' wages should be tied to the minimum wage. The lessons of harsh experience don't happen to those earning over $100000 a year, and that's the only way the scumbags who populate our governments will learn why public healthcare is so necessary- if they're forced to rely on the public system themselves.

Fun With Scanners

NerdSarah Emerges: Thinks Scanner is Cool

I signed Gam and I up for ACNielsen's 'Homescan' program thingy: "tracking the grocery buying habits of Australians". Not really because of their 'rewards' for participation (like trying to retire off your fly-buys points... come on) but because they send you a little infra-red scanner with which to scan all the grocery items you buy. ACNielsen then download that info via the phone-line, which the scanner's cradle is hooked up to. As our flatmate said: "Ah, so they don't have to pay anyone to collect the information!". True... I might be a sucker, but I'm immature enough to find pointing a scanning gun at my grocery items and typing in the prices fun... I'm sure the novelty will wear off before too long, but it is kind of like having a cool new toy! And yes, I may have led a somewhat toy-deprived childhood... so what? :P

Dear Dr Nelson...

In the vein of General J. C. Christian, Patriot, Gam shares strategy with the Honorable Minister for [re]Education, Brendan Nelson.

Tired... Random Pictures

It's been a heck of a week and it's only Wednesday night... I tried to post a bit earlier and blogger ate it. My bio exam today went much better than I expected, which is heartening. When I think of multiple choice exams these days I think of the chemistry MCQs and just about want to top myself, so it was a pleasant surprise to see how straightforward the bio paper was. I'm so tired. Just going to post some random pictures then go and sleep...

In no particular order are Feifei, some weird Japanese calendar girl pic, one of the lizards at the duck pond (credit to Gam for the fine photo) and Belladonna (the porn star).

From the 'Duh' Files: Smoking Ban Improves Workers' Health

Banning smoking everywhere is the right thing to do for public health.

At the a-league games we've been to, people light up before and immediately after the match, right under the big 'NOBODY SMOKES HERE ANY MORE' signs, in quite a few cases blowing smoke all over their own children. That's one of the things that sickens me most; sure, a smoker may not care about exposing strangers to their carcinogenic stench, but their own children? That's fucked up. That should be illegal (as it should for those animals who light up right next to other peoples' children).

Anyway, a study assessing the effects of the nationwide smoking ban in Ireland has shown that particulate matter in the air in pubs has declined by 70%, and the lung function of the non-smoking male bar workers had improved by 30-40%. Of course those who smoked had continuing decline in lung function.

I'll only be satisfied when smoking in any public space, open or enclosed, is banned. If I walked up to someone with a can of bug spray and sprayed it in their face it would be an assault, but if a smoker blows out cigarette smoke into my face I'm expected to hold my breath and just deal with it. Not fair.

Smoking ban improves workers health

September 20, 2005 - 8:14AM

Ireland's nationwide ban on smoking in all workplaces has not only cleaned up the air in pubs and restaurants, it has also improved the health of the people who work there, researchers say.

Since Ireland became the first country in the world to impose the ban nationwide in March 2004, other countries and cities have followed its example.

Professor Luke Clancy, an expert in respiratory disease at Trinity College, Dublin, has shown that particulate matter in the air, which is a feature of smoke pollution, in pubs has decreased and workers are breathing better.

"This is the first time that we have measured the pollution and measured the effects," Clancy said in an interview.

"We found a dramatic decrease in particles. There is something like a 70 per cent decrease in particles in the pub and that makes it quite similar to outdoor air in Dublin, which is quite good."

Clancy and his colleague Dr Patrick Goodman measured particles in more than 40 pubs before the ban was enforced and a year afterwards to gauge its impact.

In research presented at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Copenhagen, they said levels of two types of particles, PM2.5 and PM10, had fallen by 53 per cent and 87.6 per cent over the course of a year.

They also recruited 81 male bar workers and measured their lung function before and a year after the ban became law. The men also answered a questionnaire about their health and smoking habits.

"We found a 30-40 per cent decrease in symptoms, both respiratory and irritant," said Clancy, referring to shortness of breath, coughs and water eyes.

Lung function in the non-smokers also improved but it continued to deteriorate in smokers.

A study in Norway, in which restaurant and bar workers were interviewed on the telephone, showed similar improvements in health after a smoking ban was introduced there.

Opponents of the Irish ban had warned that the law would put Ireland's famous pubs out of business, but their fears have not materialised.

Smoking, a leading risk factor of lung cancer and other illnesses, is the biggest cause of preventable death. Research has shown that second-hand smoke, or passive smoking, kills more than 600 people each year in Britain alone.

Sweden, Italy, Malta, Cuba, New Zealand and Bangladesh have also introduced bans on smoking in public places. Other countries have announced plans to curb smoking.

National Party Wants Compensation for Rural Campuses

I take the call from the National Party for the Federal Government to provide assurances for extra funding for amenities on rural campuses once compulsory student unionism is abolished as an admission that my money has been paying for those bastards' constituents' children to have services they otherwise couldn't afford for themselves.

Which I don't mind. Good for them. I'm happy with the level of services here at uni in Brisbane, and if my student services charge can stretch to help provide some fellow students on a rural campus with what I see as necessary services that's good. Happy to help.

What I don't like, however, is that the National Party and the people who populate the towns that these rural campuses are a part of, believe that it's ok to screw everyone else over so long as they get to maintain the same standard of living. To National Party voters all over Australia, especially the ones whose children are currently in university, I'd like to offer a hearty 'fuck you'.

There.

My position on unionism, contrary as it may sound, is that it should all be voluntary. Just not voluntary in the Howard government sense. I think the fee we pay every year for the range of services offered by the UQU should come with a box to tick if we wish to be counted as a union member or not. It's that simple. The services they provide are essential, and the fee fair, but should a student not wish to be represented 'politically' by the union, that wish should be respected. So under my plan we still have VSU, but aren't deprived of legal advice, welfare advice, the employment site, subsidised childcare... But of course, Howard's great wet dream is that one day only those people who are rich enough to afford all those things without assistance will be going to universities (where of course they can afford to pay the $100000+ fees up front). The rest of us will get $12 per hour casual jobs in retail or in the food industry, or become plumbers. The rich need people to serve them, after all.

Mirror's Revenge on Crackhead Kate

I'd never heard this line from Robin Williams before, until today: "Cocaine is God's way of telling you you're making too much money."

I think he was right.

Kate Moss, however, has apologised to her contractors for her outrageous cocaine-binge and promised she will never get caught... er... it will never happen again. But they bloody well would have known she was on the stuff anyway, they just don't want their images publicly and directly associated with crack. Back in 2001, Kate Moss sued London's Daily Mirror (the paper that published the story this time around) for the 'distress and embarrassment' of its outrageous allegations that she had collapsed after using cocaine. Tut tut. They obviously learned their lesson, which is 'next time get photos'!!

The New Face of National Security- Cartoon

Cathy Wilcox strikes again.

One Rumour I'll Never Believe

So... What's a nice girl like you doing in Parliament House?

Is this. My god, I can't stand John Howard, but it takes an imagination far more flexible than mine to imagine that man even having sex with his compliant wifey Janette, let alone a quite good looking, employable woman like the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward. Nope. I just couldn't believe it, and frankly, I wouldn't want to.

Lunch Today

I had a wholemeal lebanese bread wrap with roasted sweet potato, avocado, marinated artichokes, King Island Duck Bay Double Gloucester, lettuce, some sweet 'bush-tomato' sauce and black pepper... mmm.

Another thing I've been doing lately- mainly because I'm too lazy to cook when I've got lots of uni work- is making what I guess you'd call a kind of pudding: mashed banana mixed with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg and spread into a patty on tin-foil, sprinkled with brown sugar and placed under a hot grill until the sugar caramelises and goes crisp. I have it with connoisseur vanilla icecream (most vanilla icecream is pretty bland, but this is pretty good; my absolute favourite is the honey & chocolate one with almond noughat).

Celebrity Marriage Embarrassment

Why do they do it? Celebrities getting married. Whether it lasts 4 years or 4 months, the media inevitabley give it more credence than it deserves- and when the 'marriage' hits the rocks, they tack on another year or month to make it sound like it lasted longer than it really did. As if an extra month makes their vow "'til death do us part" any less nonsensical. Renee Zellweger and rootin' redneck Kenny Chesney are the latest in the long line of celebrity morons to divorce.

And they say gays are the biggest threat to the sanctity of marriage... please.

I guess we should be thankful that a lot of them don't get around to breeding (cos, like, that would totally ruin their figures and be such a drag on their career and stuff). Pity Kate Moss' poor child, though; Mummy might have a bit more credibility with the fashion crowd than, say, Courtney Love, but she's still a crack-whore, and her current boyfriend is a heroin addict.

Bah.

Tastes Like Chicken and Soon to be Extinct

While the whole 'chicken of the sea' thing is a heap of crap, this article in the SMH is deadly serious:

Tuna nearly fished out of water

By Andrew Darby
September 16, 2005

One of Australia's most valuable fish, the southern bluefin tuna, faces a dire future, according to scientific advice to the federal Environment Minister, Ian Campbell.

The Government's Threatened Species Scientific Committee has told Senator Campbell that even if global fish catches are reduced to zero, stocks might not recover.

As little as 3 per cent of the fish's breeding stock is left and there are signs its distribution is decreasing, the committee said. Also, a spawning ground in the Indian Ocean is under threat.

The committee recommended the species be listed as endangered. The Humane Society International obtained the report and released it yesterday. But the committee also said a listing might further endanger the species. "It may weaken Australia's ability to influence the global conservation of the species and, by implication, its conservation in Australian waters," the committee said.

About 16,000 tonnes of the tuna are caught a year, including 5265 tonnes by Australians who net and fatten the wild fish at Port Lincoln, South Australia. It sells in Japan as a sashimi fish for about $50 a kilogram.

Despite the tuna being listed as critically endangered internationally by the World Conservation Union, the Government approved it for consumption.

The Humane Society will take action next week in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to overturn Senator Campbell's decision that the Port Lincoln fishery is ecologically sustainable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

A spokeswoman for Senator Campbell said last night that the minister had considered the advice and agreed with the committee that listing southern bluefin tuna might harm the species' survival.

The wildlife and habitat programs manager for the Humane Society, Nicola Beynon, said Senator Campbell could put conditions on the tuna fishery to make it more sustainable.

"[The Humane Society] considers Australia's quota to be in breach of domestic legal and policy obligations for sustainable fisheries," Ms Beynon said.

The Country Where Cows Can't Graze

Australian cows still eat grass. Doesn't it sound obvious?

I first read about this in a Salon article some months ago. Today there is an article on the issue in the New York Times.

As an Australian -one who grew up in a dairy-farming area- I buy milk from the supermarket in the expectation that the cows who produced the milk were grazed on green pastures and taken to the milking sheds at dawn and dusk to be milked. I buy our organic milk ('Pure' Organic unhomogenised milk- it's really good) expecting the same thing, only the cows would have been grazed on certified-organic pastures.

Unfortunately for US consumers, they can't expect the same.

The US is the land of the mega-dairy, of feedlot cattle: a place where up to thirty thousand cows are confined in huge sheds for almost the whole year, fed a high-calorie diet of grains to stimulate milk production beyond their normal capacity, and milked 3 times daily. For 3 months of the year they are allowed outside to graze for a few hours each day.

When the mega-dairies saw the potential offered by organic milk- a section of the market that offered higher profits and faster growth- they decided to offer their own brands of organic milk. Did this mean that the cows involved in the production of this milk would be grazed on certified organic pastures and raised in a healthy, lower-stress environment than their 'regular-milk' counterparts? They should be so lucky. The production methods remained identical except for one thing: the high-calorie diet they were fed consisted of 'organic' grains instead of ones grown by conventional means. The number of cows involved was smaller than those in the regular mega-dairies: only about 4000. To give you some idea of the scale: the average dairy farm in NSW and Victoria (who together produce 75% of Australia's total dairy produce) contains around 200-250 cows.

US consumers, of course, don't have a clue. Who would expect that the organic milk they buy in fact comes from a cow that may not have seen a single blade of grass in the past 9 months? Especially when the carton assures you that the milk is "produced on certified organic farms, where 'clean-living' cows 'make milk the natural way, with access to plenty of fresh air, clean water and exercise'." Just no grass.

Of course, this organic milk is healthier than the regular milk from the mega-dairies: when you have 30 000 cows confined together in a shed, disease will spread rapidly- if you don't feed the cows antibiotics, that is. It is still legal in the US to supplement the feed of 'regular' cows with hormones to increase their milk production- and they do.

The real problem with this situation lies in the fact that the US essentially has a cash-for-certification system. If one organic certification body refuses classification for these mega-dairies, the dairies simply find another certification body willing to accept the cash in exchange for certification. The US Department of Agriculture has shown a reluctance to enforce current standards, which require that cows 'have access to pasture' (for how long is not specified), and is even more reticent when it comes to strengthening them. A federal advisory panel has already recommended that the USDA clarify the regulations on confinement of cows to ensure they are only kept in sheds during bad weather and while giving birth. According to Salon "it also advised the USDA to interpret the pasture rule to mean that all animals over 6 months of age graze grass for at least 120 days of the year."

That's not a hell of a lot; 4 months per year for the cows, but they won't even enforce that amount.

It's hard to tell who ranks at the bottom of the US government's priorities in this case- the wellbeing of consumers or the welfare of the cows.

The NY Times article is below:

Does Organic Imply Grazing?

By MARIAN BURROS

Published: September 14, 2005

JOHN MACKEY, chairman of Whole Foods Market, with the buying power of his 173 stores across the country behind him, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he wants the Department of Agriculture to strengthen its standards for organic milk.

"I'm worried that it is getting bogged down in some kind of political process," said Mr. Mackey, who wields great power in the organic food industry.

For at least four years, the National Organic Standards Board, which advises the department's National Organic Program, has sought a regulation to make the standards more rigorous so that milk labeled organic comes from cows that spend a certain amount of time grazing in pastures. Currently dairy farms that keep cows confined most or all of the time can legally claim their milk is organic if they use organic feed and do not use antibiotics or growth hormones.

The current organic standards, which took effect in 2000, require that cows have "access to pasture," but do not require cows to be put in the pasture.

"We think the average customer believes organic dairy cows are grazing full time," Mr. Mackey said, "and we would like organic standards to be more rigorous so the perception meets the reality." Mr. Mackey first discussed his company's position in an interview with Jim Slama in Conscious Choice, a monthly magazine.

The organic standards board has proposed that dairy cows be allowed to graze during the growing season and that a lactating cow should not be confined in a barn.

Farmers who confine cows can give them high-energy feed that helps them produce more milk than cows on pasture, reducing the cost.

In public comments, two companies opposed the proposal: Aurora Dairy and Wild Oats, the 111-store chain of natural food supermarkets.

Aurora Dairy does not allow its lactating cows in pastures. In its comments Wild Oats said the system was working well because it "facilitates the expansion of the organic milk supply."

Ed Loyd, press secretary to the Secretary of Agriculture, said that the labeling of milk as organic has been an issue since 1993. "We don't know whether there is need for additional rule making or for guidance to the industry," he said.

Within the next 12 months Whole Foods will announce what it calls "compassionate" standards for treatment of dairy cows. Mr. Mackey said he was almost certain the company would go beyond the standards the National Organic Standards Board is seeking.

"We will clearly label products that are not animal compassionate so our customers can be fully informed about their practices," he said. Those who meet the company's standards will be so designated.

"We don't want to see organic standards diluted down to where they don't mean what consumers think it means," he said.

One Small Step for Nutrition, a Giant Leap for Kraft,

Here we see the beginning of a trend that I was kind of hoping wouldn't occur for a few years, so I can have a job thinking up stuff like this after I finish my degree! Nevertheless, I applaud Kraft for taking what seemed to me to be the perfectly obvious step of increasing the nutritional value of popularly consumed but nutritionally empty food items.

Kraft have released in the US two varieties of wholegrain cookie: Chips Ahoy Real Chocolate Chip Cookies and Fig Newtons. Obviously the energy content (kJ/calories) per cookie is very similar, but the point is that the calories consumed don't equate to a nutritional vacuum; the wholegrain cookies will contain twice as much fibre, naturally occurring vitamin B (as opposed to white flour, which is fortified with B vitamins), and small amounts of vitamin E and iron. Testers report that the cookies' texture is slightly different- "more akin to oatmeal" and taste more 'nutty' and slightly less sweet than the original non-wholegrain cookies. They are also aiming to release a partly wholegrain version of their popular macaroni cheese.

I think one big growth area for use of wholegrains in existing products in Australia will be the popular kids' cereals such as fruit-loops, rice bubbles, coco-pops and whatever other sugary monstrosities are on the shelves these days. Instead of advertising such patent nonsense as 'the goodness of white rice' in its cereals and breakfast bars, with the use of wholegrains in these products Kelloggs may be able to make some comparatively impressive nutritional claims, and consumers will benefit from eating a healthier cereal.

It's For Your Own Good

It was fucked up enough that Australia cancelled US peace activist Scott Parkin's visa, locked him in detention and then deported him for no apparent reason. To add insult to injury, the Federal Government has billed him $11, 700 for the cost of his incarceration, his forced flight home and two return airfares and accommodation for the two corrective services officers that accompanied this unresisting hippy back to the US.

What really has me boiling, however, is that the Federal Government has metaphorically patted the Australian public on the head and told us to run along and stop asking why Scott Parkin was deported because it's 'in the National Interest' that the people of this country aren't given a reason for the Government's actions.

I don't believe that democracy starts and ends at the ballot box. I believe that the public is entitled to know the reasons behind decisions made by the Government. Without exception. I'm not going to believe a bunch of habitual liars when they tell me they have my best interests at heart; I want solid proof and sound reason.

When no-one, not Scott Parkin himself, not the media (the kings of speculation) or the public can even begin to guess how this guy "violated sections of the migration act and [...] was a direct or indirect risk to [our] national security" then it's pretty clear that an explanation is needed, and not just a "mummy knows best". That one never worked for our parents, and it shouldn't be allowed to work for the Government, who are evidently hoping that the media coverage will just die a quick death now Scott Parkin is out of the country. Well I hope he milks it for all its worth and picks up some media coverage in the US too. If he can get some exposure over there maybe the government will be embarrassed into doing something. It's pretty clear they value the opinions of Americans above those of the Australian public; maybe for once that fact will work in our favour.

When a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

"I think I MAY NEED A BATHROOM break?" [sic]

This is what the President of 'Merka got up to at kindergarten, er, the UN, yesterday.The link to the picture, taken by a Reuters photographer, is here. I also took a screen-capture just in case the link disappears.

114 Freedom-Loving Iraqis Blown Up in Freedom Car-bomb Attack

"Mission accomplished"

When 114 Iraqis are killed in yet another car-bomb it's not really news, because thanks to American Freedom (TM) things like that happen all the time now. The SMH headline says 'dozens' of Iraqis were killed. Yeah, tens were killed too. If 114 people had been blown up in the US you can bet that the headline would have said something like "Hundreds feared dead" or "More than 100 Dead...".

Saddam was an evil, despicable murderer, aided in his crimes by equally despicable people in other countries who will never be held to account (unless there really is such a place as Hell). Nonetheless, I remember a time when there was never any mention in the news of hundreds of Iraqis dying every day. The families of those who die aren't going to be thanking the US for their 'Freedom', they'll be cursing the day the US set foot in Iraq.

Or were the dying words of those who perished in the latest bomb blast "It was worth it"?

Uh-oh... IMF Praises Australia

Since I was too lazy to post yesterday and Gam said it better than I ever could, please go here to find out more :)

The Latham Diaries

Give me my money back, you bitch.

Mark Latham's book is out. In it he accuses Kim Beazley of being a big, fat, stand-for-nothing who spread false rumours about him as part of the campaign to remove him from the leadership. Kim Beazley will reply to those rumours as soon as he finds out what John Howard thinks of them.

Seriously though, I am going to buy this book as part of my own personal 'fuck you' to the Labor Party for being the lamest, most piss-weak opposition we could possibly have in the face of a scummy, inhuman government. I didn't vote for Mark Latham at the last election because I felt that I saw who was really pulling the strings in the Labor Party, but I would LIKE to have a leader that can call a spade a spade and John Howard an arselicker. One thing Mark Latham is right about is that Labor seems to be "irreparably broken". It's going to take the extreme outcome of the continual erosion of our right to free education and healthcare, our right to be treated like people, not animals in the workplace, and our right to an Australian way of life in which people come first and big business comes second for Labor to be able to resurrect itself. When that happens, there won't be a Kim Beazley at the helm, there will be another Gough Whitlam. If John Howard manages to somehow screw up spectacularly shortly before the next election and Kim blunders over the line, it's hard to see exactly how things would change.

Fuck Labor. I want a real opposition.

Joke

One I pinched from this month's Playboy jokes page (I'm relaxing by eating 5 different kinds of chocolate and reading Playboy, as you could probably tell- haha!):

A cabdriver picked up a nun. When she got into the cab, the driver couldn't stop staring at her. "I have to ask you a question" he said, "and I hope you won't be offended."

"My son, the nun said, "I've seen too much of the world to be offended by anything you might say. What is your question?"

"Well," he said "I've always had this fantasy of being kissed by a nun."

The nun smiled and said "I'll grant your wish on two conditions. First, you must be single, and second, you must be a Catholic."

The cabdriver became very excited and said "Yes, I'm single and I'm Catholic."

"Okay, said the nun, "Pull into the next alley."

There, the nun fulfilled his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush. But when they got back on the street, the cabdriver began to cry. "My dear, said the nun, "why are you crying?"

"Forgive me," the cabdriver said. "I lied. I must confess; I'm married and I'm Jewish."

The nun replied "That's ok. My name is Kevin, and I'm going to a Halloween party."

Playboy: Helmut Newton

Books like this should be on everybody's coffee table. When I get a job, this will definitely be one of the things on our 'frivolous expenses' list. Helmut Newton was a master. Anyone who doesn't like his work because it features naked women doesn't realise that their prudishness comes at the expense of a real appreciation of female beauty. Wow.

Media Fall for Israeli Propaganda Coup

The Israeli Army today completed their pull-out from Gaza. All buildings in the settlements- homes, schools, hospitals- have been demolished. Except for a large greenhouse, which a charitable group of Americans, in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority, paid off Israel to leave untouched in order to provide Palestinians with jobs when they move back, and several synagogues, which the Israeli parliament voted at the last minute to leave intact. All holy artefacts had been removed from the synagogues, but SBS 6.30pm World News reported that the Israelis had placed signs in arabic and english (for the benefit of the waiting media) declaring the synagogues 'holy sites'. The Israeli government's intention was obviously for the first pictures of Palestinians moving in to Gaza to be ones of wild, uncivilised Palestinians desecrating 'holy sites'.

The Palestinian Authority got wind of the propaganda effort and hastily declared that the synagogues were to be destroyed. Al Jazeera reports that "the Palestinian Authority called the Israeli decision 'provocation' and 'public relations entrapment".
. Too late, however, as even the Sydney Morning Herald fell for the ploy hook, line and sinker. Its first headline?

Palestinians trash synagogues as Israel leaves

It's not that often the SMH get it wrong, but this is one of its occasional 'tabloid moments'. Compare their article with that of the ABC, who are the only media outlet I've seen to point out the fact that Israel will still control Gaza's border crossings, air space and territorial waters. It's hardly independence. Shame.

David Clarke Rebuts Hurtful Allegations of Fag-Hating and Other Totally Wrong Stuff

There are just so many people willing to jump up and tell us about how David Clarke is a homophobic bigot and woman-hater who believes Australian law should reflect Biblical law on matters such as homosexual sex and abortion. Yeah, that bit in the bible about abortion...

Anyway, as a devout Catholic and proud member of Opus Dei, Clarke is happy to declare that those people are all LIARS!!! and that he is in fact completely down wit' fags and baby killers, er, make that 'those of the homosexual persuasion and women exercising their reproductive rights' just like most fanatical Catholics are. Why, he's astounded, wounded even, that people might actually see truth in such claims. The poor man. Obviously people are just out to get him and his scarily ambitious little Hill$ong-member sidekick Alex Hawke. Everyone knows the Christian love (TM) and charity that Opus Dei and Hill$ong members extend to women who are pregnant and feel they are in such a hopeless situation that abortion is the best thing for themselves and their baby. All they want offer to such women is understanding. That's why they gather outside women's health and abortion clinics shouting and waving placards. If the media wasn't so biased we'd all know by now that those people are in fact offering help to these women by screaming that they will burn in the fires of hell. Yes indeed. The same Christian love (TM) and charity that they extend to homosexuals, just like the Christian love (TM) that George Pell offers to his lesbian cousin and all other gays and lesbians.

So what would several current and former NSW Liberal Party members know? They're out to get him, that's what it is. After all, no politician would say one thing in private and another in public then lie about their beliefs to get ahead! An unprecedented notion!

Put a Politician on the Spot

...During an election campaign and you'll be much more likely to get what you want! Spike in the SMH reports that after months of begging and pleading for a new school library and getting the brush-off from NSW Minister for Education Carmel Tebbutt, Rooty Hill Highschool got former student and ACTU Secretary Greg Combet onboard the cause. Teachers and students all decided to go and sit outside the office of Tebbutt, who happens to be in the middle of campaigning for the Marrickville By-election. Funnily enough, the very next day it was announced that the school was getting its new library!

Are Labor actually worried about their prospects in this by-election?

Yesterday: Football, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Didn't post yesterday... went out for lunch but I wasn't particularly hungry, so I only had fries and chilli mayo. The fries weren't as good as usual; I think it was because the place was packed. After I got home I ate almost a whole packet of starburst fruit chews before going to football practice. No surprise that I wasn't my best after only having consumed fries, sweets, coffee and several cups of tea all day. Ugh. Football practice was fun- Gam morphed into the 'mad soccer dad', as Hayley put it- only with no kids to terrorise, he coached us instead. I probably need it more than anyone, and I definitely had some improvement in my goal-kicking and passing by the end of the session (it's not that hard to improve on 'crap'!).

Anyway, I was feeling so gross by the time we got home I had to eat a whole raw red capsicum to make my stomach settle, before we headed off to Southbank to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Of course it was really good. Since seeing 'Pirates of the Caribbean' I've pretty much come to expect that anything with Johnny Depp in it must be good. Anyone who can single-handedly make a Disney movie watchable has to be pretty damn good.

While I loved and owned the book (this edition) I hated the original 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' movie. It was smarmy and saccharine: Gene Wilder was poorly cast as Willy Wonka, the Oompa Loompas were orange (eeww!!), there was far too much singing and worst-cast of all was the kid who played Charlie. I'm not even going to look up his name, that's how much I believe it ought to be forgotten. Charlie was never a little all-american golden-child with a tan, he was a dirt-poor, ordinary little bugger; the book was set in winter so he wouldn't have had that tan. I could go on all day... the short of it was that I detested the original movie.

All the children in the new 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' were superbly cast; they were all so entertainingly horrible I was sorry to see them go! The only one I didn't think fitted the part 100% was Jordan Fry as Mike Teevee. There was something about him that didn't fit the part. He played a smarmy little bastard perfectly. His parents were exactly what you would have expected them to look like from reading the book, and they even cast the mother to look somewhat like him (I hate it when kids in movies don't resemble their parents in the slightest), but something just didn't click for me.

I even liked the Oompa-loompas in this movie! Their little musical numbers were so cheesy, and each one was different, so you didn't wish you had a fast-forward button every time they did a song. Having them played by the one guy (I've forgotten his name) totally worked. He was so funny looking, and I loved how he popped up in so many different guises- especially 'Doris'!

Usually I don't like it when movie-makers mess with the book, but I loved the 'updated' Violet Beauregarde with her 'all-american pushy-parent mom' mother, played, with another spot-on piece of casting, by Missy Pyle. I also liked the addition of a back-story to Willy Wonka. We all decided that the best comparison here was with 'Flippy' the Vietnam-veteran in 'Happy Tree Friends' who goes from loveable to homicidal with the slightest 'trigger'. I feel that the people who saw the movie and said that Johnny Depp used Michael Jackson as his inspiration for his portrayal of Willy Wonka were merely going for the obvious. So he wears gloves and has pale skin... obviously it's Michael! Nope, Willy Wonka is a man who hasn't been outdoors in 15 years, guys. What would you expect? That he tans naked on the roof of the chocolate factory? Come on. That said, Johnny Depp's portrayal did have a big feeling of familiarity to it. I just couldn't put my finger on it... maybe this is the answer I've been looking for? If anyone used Michael Jackson as inspiration it was probably Tim Burton.

I even liked the ending for the movie; I think perhaps it was more suitable than the one in the book. It really suited the story. All in all, a good movie that didn't abuse the original spirit of the book.

i-i-Suckas: Apple See Australia is Full of Sheep, Launch Yet Another iPod

Sorry, you'll have to pay extra for the other half.

Apple are launching yet another iPod, this time calling it the 'nano'. I guess that was the trick behind making the first ones so sucky. People will tire of forking out for new batteries after 12 months and being forced to buy special software to get their iPod to function as advertised and just decide to get the new one in the hope it will be better. Seriously though, how many companies have got away with selling a faulty product and then making the consumer pay to fix it. That's like Wendy's making people pay to have the severed fingertips fished out of their chilli (that was a scam btw, this is just an example...) No wonder there is a lawsuit.

Apple have decided also that Australian customers deserve only half as much functionality as customers elsewhere in the world. WTF? Australians will be paying just as much for the product, so Apple must just figure we like taking it up the arse. And no doubt it will be incredibly popular because Australians are so damn good at following whatever the rest of the world is doing.

Apple suck. Australians suck worse for putting up with such crap.

Girly Whinge...

So I'm still slogging away at this assignment that's due tomorrow, although I have done enough not to need to pull an all nighter, thank god. But not only am I tired and bored of this damn assignment, I now have a tiny chip on my front tooth thanks to the braces on my bottom teeth (which I don't really need). Whether I grind my teeth in my sleep or whatever, this never happened the first time I had braces (back when I was 14/15), and I imagine now I'm going to have to fork out somewhere down the line to get my teeth capped. Great. I know it's miniscule, but I know it's there, and it's bugging the hell out of me! As if I need any more trouble with my teeth!! My 2 front teeth and bottom teeth are- were- the only ones that had no problems! Dammit!

Plus, I got my implanon replaced (I think it was 2 weeks ago now) and I now have 3 big, hurty blind-pimples on my chin, and 1 on my cheek... same thing as happened last time I had it put in... I guess the fresh dose of hormones is fucking me up. All I need now is to start getting the horrible mood swings... although I wouldn't know if they're down to stress from uni (it's been a hell of a week) or the implanon. Poor Gam, they're all the same to him...

... Anyway, I'm sitting here looking nasty in a bathrobe and ugg boots (but I'm always wearing ugg boots...) with a body-shop mud mask on my face chatting on msn to my brother's girlfriend... making a piss-poor effort at my daily posting quota.

Tired ramblings of Sarah... I'll finish that assignment tomorrow...

NSW Liberals Take a Creepy Turn Hard Right

NSW Upper House MP David Clarke has been in the news a bit lately as part of the emerging picture of the new face of the NSW Liberal Party. And it's not pretty. Mr Clarke has twice been photographed at functions organised by Nazi-associated far-right Croatian groups. He is a member of the Roman Catholic sect Opus-dei, and while he publicly denies wanting homosexuality recriminalised and divorce practically outlawed, with such fanatical religious views it is pretty clear that his denials are for political purposes only; i.e. he realises that such extreme views are not popular enough to get him re-elected. The sign of a true politician... one whose most fervent beliefs take a back seat to personal advancement! Until, of course, they are in a secure position of power and the political winds have changed enough to implement such beliefs into policy (refer also to John Howard and GST for examples).

Quentin Dempster, on the ABC's Stateline program, introduced Mr Clarke as follows:

David Clarke entered the Upper House on the Liberal ticket at the 2003 State election. In his maiden speech he declared himself to be a strong Christian, a conservative, a constitutional monarchist, opposed to institutionalising homosexual concepts, such as same-sex marriage, and unchangeable opposition to the culture of abortion and human embryo stem cell research and compulsory student unionism

Even Mr Clarke's Liberal Party colleagues are afraid of what he represents. Liberal Party Upper House MP Patricia Forsythe had this to say on Stateline about David Clarke and the NSW Liberal Party:

Because he has around him a significant group of people who are absolutely fixated on their agenda, and a very narrow agenda. When I talk of extremism and I talk of zealots, I'm talking about a group of people who in my view seem to lack a focus on normal human decency of tolerance, and the sort of compassion that most of us see is at the heart of the liberalism. It's the basis upon which we operate, as individuals standing up for the rights of individuals - that's not what these people are about. They're trying to shift the agenda of the Liberal Party. I've been in the Liberal Party all my adult life. I believe my policies are grounded in good liberal principles. And I don't see that in many of these people.

As far as I can see, I'm against everything these people stand for. People like these give Christians a bad name. Somehow I can't imagine Jesus would attend the gathering of a bunch of pro-Nazi Croatian racists for any other reason than to berate the shit out of them, yet this guy calls himself a Christian. I guess Catholicism is mostly based on the writings of bona-fide nutbag and self-loathing closet homosexual 'the Apostle' Paul, not Jesus, but religious bigotry among Liberal Party Christians isn't confined to the Catholic members. What a scary movement. Another up-and-coming young creepy Liberal is the Federal President of the NSW Young Liberals, Alex Hawke, who works for David Clarke. With his willingness to put aside his 'Christian principles' to stab political oppents in the back, Alex Hawke will no doubt be very successful in the Liberal Party. Watch out for these guys.

Yahoo! Aids Chinese Persecution of Journalists

In several papers in the last few days has been news of the allegation by the international NGO Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) that internet search company Yahoo!, trying to curry favour with the Chinese government, went beyond its duties as spelled out by Chinese law in helping the secret police in their investigation of 37 year-old financial journalist Shi Tao, who was jailed in April for 10 years after being found guilty of "leaking State Secrets" for sending an email from his Yahoo account detailing restrictions on the media in China (which I thought were common knowledge anyway).

All internet search companies that operate in China must co-operate with the Chinese Government in censoring searches deemed 'inappropriate', which covers everything from pornography to the BBC. In the case of Shi Tao, however, Yahoo was under no obligation to help authorities link Mr Shi's IP to the email he sent, as the 'offence' occurred in Hong Kong, which the agreement between the companies and Chinese Government does not cover (it has a separate legal system).

Clearly there is no such thing as principle when it comes to a company making a buck in China, but for Yahoo to actively participate beyond its legal requirements in China's persecution of journalists who don't tow the line is disgusting. Evidently they were hoping it would earn them brownie points with the corrupt, authoritarian Chinese Government. A journalist has been jailed for 10 years for sending what any sane person would label a perfectly innocuous email, and that doesn't tweak the conscience of anyone at Yahoo?

Yahoo says it is 'looking into' the allegation. No prize for guessing what their conclusion will be.

UPDATE: Yahoo have admitted handing over the info to the Chinese authorities, claiming that they were complying with local law. Crap. They weren't going to risk the Chinese Government holding a grudge against them, that's all. A guy is in jail for 10 years over a harmless email, while Yahoo reaps profits from colluding with a morally reprehensible government.

More Random Photos

No time for a proper post today, I have an assignment due on Friday, and I'm determined not to pull an all-nighter on Thursday (for once in my life!).

First photo is a view somewhere along the Brisbane River... Gam took the photo a while ago, so I'm not exactly sure where.

Second photo is of one of the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos that appear in the area sometimes. We took this one on the way to uni.

Third photo is of a 'pet' spider that lived on our front balcony for a while. Every fly that ventured into my kitchen wound up being caught by me and fed to the spider- you can see their remains strung up neatly in the web!

Sorry about the horrible formatting, I have no time to fix it today...

Government Cuts Indigenous Land-Rights, Lines Own Pockets

Gam posted it first, but this is just a follow-on from last month when the Federal Government yanked control over the granting of mining licences from the Northern Territory Government. Trust it takes Bob Brown to actually get up and say something about it. The Labour Party is too busy feigning outrage over a tasteless joke by Tony Abbott to bother tackling any real issues.

All the Federal Government leaves in the hands of the traditional owners of the land is a mirage, a mere pretense of control. The message is that if they say 'no' to a mining development, the Government will simply label them 'unreasonable' and grant the licence anyway. Putting whose interests first?

Mikey's Bogan Drug-Awareness Day

It would probably be funnier if it weren't a little scary that these people weren't normally confined to the emergency room at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, but the idea of using them to scare kids off trying drugs? Priceless.

Pain-in-the-arse Telstra Execs Spoil PM's Party

After a big win and gaining control of the Senate the last election, Howard obviously thought it would be all downhill to the full sale of Telstra. I'm happy to see that things are going wrong as first he had to deal with uppity Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce who demanded a better deal for people in rural areas, followed by threats of Telstra being split up to prevent it from maintaining its monopoly on telecommunications infrastructure in Australia, and then he gets into a major bitch-fight with the Telstra execs over them being all difficult and talking the share price down (and thus dampening any prospects of a sale) in order to wheedle concessions from the Government on the competition issue. Fine, I can see why he would be pissed off at the manipulations that Telstra executives are attempting right now, but hey, he was the one so bloody determined to sell the thing... and for what? More tax-cuts for the rich!

The thing is, though, that Howard's strategy is always to get the 'nasty' over and done with early in the term -long enough before the next election for short-sighted Aussie voters to empty their brains in time for the next round of election advertising, also known as a 'Public Information Campaign'. If this spat goes on for too long either the Telstra sale will go through strategically too late, and thus be fresh in voters' minds and a factor in the voting at the next election, or he will have to hold off on the sale until after the next election. Which they can't be guaranteed of winning, of course, but given that the Labor Party is practically a cheerleader for the Government these days, it's a big possibility. However, if Howard waits another election he risks losing control of the Senate, in which case the dream is over, which is why he's fighting so hard to settle this thing now.

I love a Man Who Makes Me Laugh

Gam, you crack me up!

When Miss Sweden Went Bad

It must make the Swedes cringe that Victoria Silvstedt is one of their most famous exports after ABBA, but secretly, I think they must be glad to be rid of her. Really. The closest analogy one can make to this beastly apparition at left is that of a poorly done-up pre-op tranny with a bad boob job. Squint through your eyelashes to soften the image a little and you'll see what I mean. This woman has made big money by posing for mens mags, including Playboy and FHM. Admittedly, when she posed for Playboy almost a decade ago (she was Centerfold in 1996 and Playmate of the Year in 1997) she looked a hell of a lot better than she does now, but still hardly could have been the best Sweden had to offer.

Playboy is still digging up dodgy women for display; in the latest issue (September 2005) there is a special on 'Swedish Blondes'. Which I thought sounded like a great idea until I turned the page and saw what appeared to be a realdoll staring out. Actually, the realdoll in that photo somehow has a sparkle in its eyes; Emma Johnsson, in Playboy, didn't. Such a pretty girl, such a piss-poor airbrushing job. She was one of the better girls in this feature, however. Fancy going all the way to Sweden to photograph girls who are utterly indistinguishable from the American ones you usually feature. Shame, Hef! The lack of nasty boob jobs, plastic surgery and fake hair is what makes European/Scandinavian women so pretty... then again, Playboy probably didn't go all the way to Sweden, they might have just hired some Swedish girls who were in America... looking to break into the porn industry, maybe! Not that I'm against porn, mind you, I just hate fake boobs. Playboy is still my favourite magazine too, even if Hef is going senile in his old age and has horrible taste in women.

British Journalist Calls Politicians Liars: Public Feigns Shock

This is bloody hilarious. I couldn't believe my eyes, really. First of all a BBC journalist has the balls to call English politicians for what they are: a big bunch of liars (he must be thinking of retiring soon), and secondly, the pollies have the gall to be outraged at such a suggestion! They should have quietly let it go. Gam said they should be made to sign a statutory declaration that they have never lied... but I'm of the opinion they would sign one. And it would be a lie, yes, and breaking the law, yes. And yes I'm cynical, but this isn't cynicism, it's realism.

I was going to cherry-pick the best bits of the article to reproduce here, but there are so many I might as well post the whole thing. Damn, I enjoyed it so much I just read it again. If only we had more journalists like that in Australia...

Humphrys hits back over 'liars' speech

Today presenter rounds on Times report as BBC chief orders inquiry

Mark Honigsbaum
Monday September 5, 2005
The Guardian

The BBC Radio 4 Today presenter John Humphrys has hit back at allegations that he disparaged senior Labour politicians in an after-dinner speech by implying that all ministers are liars.

Yesterday the BBC announced that it had asked for a full transcript of Humphrys' remarks to the Commercial Directors' Forum on June 8 amid newspaper claims that he had used the speech to pour scorn on Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell.

In a video and transcript of the speech published on the Times website, Humphrys is reported as saying that some MPs "couldn't give a bugger whether they lie or not", and mocking the chancellor as "easily the most boring political interviewee I have ever had in my whole bloody life".

Humphrys also refers to Mr Brown, who lost sight in his left eye after being kicked in a school rugby game, as winking at him from "his one good eye" during a Today interview and pokes fun at Mr Prescott's habit of mangling familiar phrases, saying people "can't understand a bloody word he says".

Yesterday, Humphrys hit back at the Times report, saying it was "disgraceful" for the newspaper to suggest that his remarks were intended to imply that all ministers were liars.

"It's not what I believe and never have done," he told the Guardian.

Humphrys claimed the newspaper and its stablemate, the Sunday Times, which carried a similar report yesterday, had "conflated" a series of remarks he had made about politicians.

"What I actually said was that there are three kinds of politicians: those who do not lie full stop, those who lie if they absolutely have to, and those who do not give a bugger about lying," said Humphrys.

He said the point he had been trying to make was that under the British system of collective responsibility, whereby cabinet members are required to defend decisions in public even if they disagree with them, it was inevitable that senior politicians sometimes lied. The whips also tended not to prefer MPs with a reputation for blunt speaking.

"When ministers leave government we discover that there are all sorts of things they said in government that they did not actually believe," said Humphrys.

Michael Grade, the chairman of the BBC, has now asked the corporation's director general Mark Thompson for a full transcript of Humphrys' remarks to establish what "may or may not have" been said at the dinner.

In one section of his speech Humphrys reportedly refers to the row over the Andrew Gilligan affair, telling his after-dinner audience that the former Radio 4 reporter's controversial claims that Downing Street deliberately inserted false information to "sex up" intelligence in Iraq, were substantially true.

"The fact is that we got it right," he is heard to say.

Humphrys also describes Mr Campbell, who led the government's attacks on Gilligan and Today, as "a pretty malevolent force" and pokes fun at an interview Cherie Blair gave to the Sun during the last general election in which she hinted at her husband's sexual stamina.

He also recounts a stinging anecdote about Mr Mandelson, telling his audience: "I said to somebody once, 'Why do you all take an instant dislike to Mandelson?" and he said, 'It saves time'."

Yesterday Humphrys told the Guardian that he had been speaking off-the-cuff and that the speech was a variation on a talk he had given many times, including at several literary festivals this summer.

He said that newspaper claims that he had been paid £12,000 by the Commercial Directors Forum were a "considerable exaggeration" and that when he had made near identical remarks in a speech last year at the Confederation of British Industry attended by four cabinet ministers, including Mr Brown, no one had objected.

"In fact nobody has ever complained about the sorts of things I say because it is done with affection and is obviously light-hearted," said Humphrys.

He also said that it was hardly the first time he had defended the Today programme's reporting of the supposed distortions contained in the Iraq dossier.

"I have said that a dozen times. I've also written it and my BBC bosses are aware that I have written it. It's not even remotely controversial."

Random Whinge

What is it about exam weather? Every time I have an exam, especially when it is an early-morning exam, I wake up to grey skies and rain!!! As if I need a dampener on my mood when I'm heading off to an exam I haven't adequately studied for! It happened this morning, it happened last time I had an exam... time before that... I then have to make the choice whether to ride, as I usually do, and get there in 5 minutes rained all over, or walk and get there in 15 under an umbrella and just kind of damp and uncomfortable (and looking forward to another 15 minutes home in the rain instead of 5 on the bike). Blargh. Luckily it stopped raining before Gam and I headed off to our exams this morning, but the weather is still awful!

An entirely unrelated whinge- the second possum in two weeks is lying dead on the road right next to a dead baby blue-tongue lizard, probably thanks to the wankers that like to speed down our street. Poor animals... I wish those pricks would have a major crash (with each other, or into a tree, to spare the usual innocent bystanders) to teach them a lesson.

Wait for The Lord- He'll be Here Long Before the President Will

Condoleeza Rice has said that "nobody, especially the president, would have left [the victims of Hurricane Katrina] stranded on the basis of race". Yeah! If black people were wealthier and actually voted for President Bush they might have been rescued a bit sooner! It's not Bush's fault that his voter base is made up of rich, white scumbags and poor, white rednecks... and the rednecks are dumb enough to vote for him no matter how hard he screws them! Just because Condoleeza Rice is black doesn't mean she has any more credibility on issues of race than your average person. I mean, what is the likelihood of her being honest if she really did think that race was the reason for aid being so slow to get to the hurricane victims? Her precious job would be on the line. Not that she has the human conscience required to even think such things in the first place. That's how she got the job. A handy black face (female too! Can she spell 'token'?) with a white Republican man's heart. What could be a better tool for the Bush Administration to defend itself against allegations of racist policies with?

According to the SMH, Rice later sat in on a church service, nodding in agreement as Reverend Malone Smith Jr advised the congregation: "Wait for the Lord."

"There are some things the president can do; there are some things the government can do," Smith told about 300 worshippers during a rollicking two-hour service. "But God can do all things. I want you to know he's never late. He's always on time."

Condoleeza Rice later echoed the words: "The Lord is going to come on time - if we just wait," she said.

On time for fucking who? Not for the people who died already. The Lord obviously looks after those who go shoe-shopping at Ferragamo while others suffer and die...

Placebo Effect of Antibiotics Isn't Worth the Dangers Posed

The New York Times has a very interesting article on antibiotic use causing an increase in the likelihood of a person carrying a resistant strain of bacteria. This is particularly interesting to me, because our Chinese flatmate is a perfect example of the problem: she has literally boxes and boxes of common antibiotics (mostly amoxycillin), all bought in China, that she literally pops open every time she feels unwell. I'm betting this happens a lot in the world's most populous country (for those who can afford it), and over-prescription is rife throughout the Western world also. Our flatmate does have a degree in biology, so it's surprising that she isn't particularly aware of the problems associated with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria; I have passed the article on to her!

You may need to register to read the article, so I will reproduce it below.

Antibiotics Aren't Always the Answer

By DEBORAH FRANKLIN

Published: August 30, 2005

It's hard not to wheedle.

Your throat feels as if you've swallowed broken glass, your sinuses have been clogged for a couple of days, you're coughing up green stuff and you're slated to fly in a week.

Never mind that your doctor thinks you're suffering from a viral infection that antibiotics won't touch. Why not start a prescription of some powerful bacteria-busting drug immediately, just in case?

Dr. Alastair D. Hay, who teaches medical students at the University of Bristol in England and also treats patients, says that until recently, even he may occasionally have succumbed to the pressure to hand over a prescription.

"As a personal policy, I don't get into heated arguments with my patients," Dr. Hay said.

And giving the standard lecture about how antibiotics will not stop a virus but may contribute to the growing, worldwide problem of drug resistance rarely convinces sick people that they don't need the drugs. "Unless you can tell them that there's an immediate downside for them personally," Dr. Hay said, "the message just doesn't sink in."

Now, though, Dr. Hay can quote direct evidence of a downside. An increasing number of studies, including his own work, suggest that even a properly prescribed antibiotic can foster the growth of one or more strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria for at least two to six months inside the person taking the pills.

"Carrying" a microbe inside you that is resistant to drugs also means that, during that time, you're likely to "share" the resistant bug with family, co-workers and others in your path.

That particular strain may not make you sick. But if you find yourself one day immune-suppressed after chemotherapy, cut open by a car accident or surgery or especially vulnerable to bacterial pneumonia after a bad flu, those resistant strains of bacteria living inside you increase the odds that any infection will be hard - or even impossible - to beat.

In a study published in the July 2005 issue of The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, Dr. Hay and nine colleagues solicited urine samples from a broad cross-section of generally healthy people throughout southwest England.

They then checked the samples for E. coli, a common intestinal bacterium that can invade the urethra. Published surveys estimate that roughly 25 to 35 percent of women ages 20 to 40 in the United States have had a urinary tract infection, and E. coli is the most frequent cause.

Of the 618 men and women from whom Dr. Hay and his colleagues were able to isolate E. coli and also get extensive medical records, 39 percent carried a bacterial strain that was resistant to one or more of the first-line antibiotics commonly used to treat urinary infections.

More significantly, Dr. Hay said, a patient's likelihood of carrying a resistant organism was doubled if the patient had taken "any antibiotic for any reason within the previous two months, when compared with those who had not taken an antibiotic."

The findings dovetail with results from other studies that found a strong, though temporary, link between drug-resistant urinary tract infections and antibiotics taken in the previous six months.

"A lot of women have had the experience of having a urinary infection that doesn't seem to be treatable, or of going through more than one drug," said Abigail A. Salyers, a microbiologist at the University of Illinois and a co-author with Dixie D. Whitt of the new book "Revenge of the Microbes: How Bacterial Resistance Is Undermining the Antibiotic Miracle."

"Having to go through a number of drugs magnifies the time that you're miserable," she said.

But the implication of the research goes beyond urinary infections. Doctors are beginning to realize that any oral or injected antibiotic they prescribe to fight a particular infection also cuts a wide swath in bacterial neighborhoods throughout the body, mowing down microbes that are susceptible and leaving room, temporarily at least, for resistant bugs to colonize the empty real estate and thrive.

Bacteria differ in their ability to fend off antibiotics, and in the methods they use. The most worrisome are those that quickly and easily trade genetic material across species. A bacterium that was once vulnerable to any one of several drugs can overnight become impervious to all of them. It does this by picking up an extra loop of DNA - essentially a highly portable genetic suitcase containing several different resistance genes - from a passing microbe.

Public health officials used to assume that these sorts of superbugs arose mostly in hospitals, where a variety of conditions - including a concentration of seriously ill patients, open wounds, hands-on care and the wide use of powerful antibiotics - made the buildings incubators of drug resistance.

But just because hospitals are incubators doesn't mean that's where the problems start or stay.

"Many hospital infections walk in the front door, on the patient, or the patient's family, the doctors, or the guy in the next bed," Dr. Salyers says. "It's the opportunistic bacteria that we all carry around with us that are causing the trouble in hospitals."

Which brings us back to you, with your nasty sore throat, throbbing sinuses and cough, waiting in the exam room, hoping for a prescription from your doctor.

Dr. Ralph Gonzales, an internist at the University of California, San Francisco, is one of a growing cadre of researchers dedicated to improving the way antibiotics are prescribed and taken in community clinics.

Dr. Gonzales hopes to preserve the drugs' powerful benefits while minimizing resistance. Several years ago, he worked with medical associations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to devise evidence-based guidelines for doctors to use in telling which patients need antibiotics for their respiratory infections and which patients do not.

But increasingly, Dr. Gonzales thinks it is the patients - particularly the 30- or 40-year-old professionals with bad colds and overwhelming deadlines - who need to be persuaded, as much as other doctors.

Studies have shown that when patients come into the clinic expecting a drug, Dr. Gonzales said, doctors are more likely to prescribe one.

"Very few ask directly for an antibiotic," he said. "Instead you'll hear, 'I have a wedding coming up - my wedding - and my cold won't go away.' "

To nip patients' expectations of receiving antibiotics before they see the doctor, Dr. Gonzales is putting up posters in exam rooms that, for example, help explain which symptoms suggest a bacterial infection and which indicate a viral source.

And at what looks like an automated teller machine in the lobby of the hospital's acute care clinic, patients waiting to see a doctor can now view video clips and answer questions aimed at guiding them to a better understanding of why antibiotics aren't always the answer.

Will such measures help? It's too soon to tell. But the last bit of advice that the modified A.T.M. dishes out on its touch screen will certainly reduce infections. Immediately find the nearest restroom, the machine advises, so you can wash your hands.