Having your cake and eating it too: Learn how to simultaneously destroy and protect the environment at an Archers Body Corporate seminar!

I find it both hilariously ironic and kind of scary that our email from Archers Body Corporate one week enthusiastically promotes by-laws that prevent people who live in units from hanging their 'unsightly' washing to dry on their balconies, and their email the next week is titled "Energy Affordability", with the byline "After a whopping 13.29% increase in electricity prices on 1st July 2011, and further increases expected in the future don't miss your opportunity to attend the next Education Seminar Series with a focus on how to reduce your electricity use and save you money into the future"
Sent via BlackBerry® from Telstra

In Australia we don't even get the pretence of 'fair and balanced'

That fine old mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch, The Australian, has openly called for the Greens to be 'destroyed'. Every person with two brain cells to rub together knew that the News Ltd rags are biased, sure, but for them to be so bold as to actually come out and say it is a pretty scary thing, in my view. They have just called for the destruction of the only party with a humanitarian, non-bigoted policy platform, the only party in favour of free universal health AND dental care. The only party who support an egalitarian system of free public education instead of funnelling money into the pockets of schools attended by the children of people like Rupert Murdoch. The only party who have enough conviction on climate change to actually do something about it. Rupert Murdoch wants them destroyed. Makes me even more glad we signed up as Greens members after the election. That's just incredible. What a bloody hide.

Via Jeremy @ Pure Poison.

Outrage from alcohol industry as Rudd implements recycling scheme

Oh nooooooo! Not a whole extra $3 on an entire CARTON of beer to fund a national recycling scheme! That's a whole 14c per can! I won't be able to afford to drink 24 cans of beer a night any more if I have to pay 14c more per can! That's a whole $23 a week that Kevin Rudd is trying to slug me :-o Whatever will we dooo? I'm so outraged!!

[Don't mind me, I'm just trying on the response that the alcoholic beverages industry with the aid of the Courier Mail's "Recycling rebate under fire as cost of alcohol to rise" article is pathetically attempting to provoke].

Victorian energy minister paints greenies black

Say what?

'Eco-terrorists' the Earth Liberation Front are thought to be active in Victoria, after a threat was made on the house that belongs to Hazelwood power station boss Graeme York.

Victorian Energy Minister Peter Batchelor, drawing what any sane person might think to be a rather long bow, claims that this means that environmentalists want to abolish electricity:

"For some time now environmentalists have been stepping up their campaign, trying to turn the lights out in Victoria," Mr Batchelor said.

Yes. All people who are concerned about the negative impact of coal-fired power stations on the environment hate electric lighting and the ability to refrigerate their food and want to prevent everyone else from having these things. Damned crazies.

There you have it: environmentalist = terrorist, according to the Batchelor Dictionary.

Gold Coast beachfront millionaires demand ratepayers' help

Every time this happens, and it happens on the Gold Coast with alarming regularity thanks to their history of approving pretty much any and all development applications despite the environmental ramifications, I laugh.

I mean, come on. Everyone knows building on sand right on the beachfront is a stupid idea, and these moronic gits are bleating about how the council should pay to stop their precious McMansions from falling into the sea? Screw you guys! I hope they all fall into the sea! Idiots.

If there's anything to sue over, it's whoever allowed the environmental rape-fest to occur in the first place. The Gold Coast is notorious for approving buildings on what should be left as dunes. But to sue for that would basically be to admit that your stupid beachfront McMansion should never have been built in the first place, and you don't want that, do you? Even though your stupid house is about to be washed into the sea, you want to stay there and enjoy the multimillion dollar ocean views and force ratepayers to to pay to shore up your goddamn backyard. Oooh the Courier Mail found a single person in the neighbourhood who was a pensioner and not a multimillionaire (except in assets!). Fuck. Off. Rich. Whiny. Bogans. I hope you have to pay and then I hope your stupid houses are washed into the sea. I guarantee you, I will enjoy, savour even, the footage broadcast on the commercial TV channels that will air 'heart-wrenching' sob stories of how your godawful McMansions were eaten up by nature. Good bloody riddance.

Liberal Party Makes Decision to Not Make Decision

After meeting with his opposition buddies it looks like Malcopops (stolen enthusiastically from the pollbludger's comments) has decided what to do about the government's emissions trading scheme. He's decided to wait till someone else makes a decision before getting together to try and make a decision. Pathetic.

In his press release, Malcopops stated that Kevin Rudd only wanted to pass an ETS so he could show leadership at the next world meeting in Copenhagen. YES!!! you slimy little toad! Leadership is the whole fucking point! We might not be going fast enough but at least it'll be in the right direction, as opposed to a collection of decrepit halfwits still arguing about if climate change exists while their electorates are flood and drought declared at the same time! His argument is basically that he won't show any leadership on the issue until someone tells him where to go. Hopefully someone foreign. Pathetic. The Liberals always want to be the absolute fucking last people on earth to do the right thing. They don't even have enough balls to outright oppose the ETS they can only decline to make a decision on the future of the fucking planet.

"Captain Turnbull! We just hit an iceberg!!! What should we do?"

"Well, I think we should delay any decisions till the passengers have a meeting and decide how they want to handle the situation. Now give my hammock a push and close the cabin door on the way out."

War by other means

Apparently Rudd has delayed the start of the emissions trading scheme and has dropped the price of carbon from $40 to $10. This has pretty much resulted in a ETS that no one can really oppose. It's not enough, but from that point of view there's always the argument that an ETS is better than no ETS and once we have legislation for trading carbon, the government of the day can change prices etc. without having to pass further legislation.

More importantly this seems to be another massive Howard style wedge on Turnbull, who of course has no climate change policy despite having been environment minister under Howard, where the ETS started and having been part of the debate for months. Climate change seems to be an issue that cuts accross party affiliation. Turnbull will be trapped between Liberal moderates who are pro an ETS and Howardites who are anti-anything-Kevin-Rudd.

Also the 'save the world' aspect of climate change and the timing of the legislation, long enough after the last election to avoid election fatigue, to give the government the attractive option of having an issue to take to an early election that isn't the economy. An issue that Labor has control of and that they seem to poll well on. I'm not sure that the govt. would go to a double dissolution, though it might solve a lot of their problems, they should still be able to call an early election and get a similar result if the Liberals play along and look intransigent when it comes to Saving The World (TM). The Greens quite rightly oppose the watering down of the ETS, which I suspect is part of the plan. The idea is to put Turnbull in a hard place and force him to capitulate publicly and ruin him before the next election, or be obstructionist and face annihilation in some sort of emotive issue election of doom. There's no way you can campaign against 'I know it's hard, and I know it's not what everyone wants, but I'm trying to save the world.'

Please let it end

It doesn't matter who you vote for, you still get a free cane toad.

Why is it that come time for an election the only jobs that exist are 1) nurses and 2) anything involving a hard hat and fluro work gear? The QLD state election is no different. In the last hour an angry man in a hard hat has demanded that Lawrence Springborg explain his hereto unannounced opposition to spending on building bridges to nowhere to keep QLD jobs. This is the best Anna Bligh can do? The only way QLD can stave off recession is to pay one guy to dig a hole and another guy to fill it in. how about keeping jobs going by designing and building the infrastructure network of the future? The Labor ads are all negative, trying to make me scared of Springborg. Hello! Labor campaign HQ Springborg isn't scary, at worst he's dumb. The rest of the LNP filled with people like Clive Palmer and his oily offspring, rednecks and woolly headed dingbats daydreaming about the zombie corpse of Joh running the place again. The LNP ads on the other hand tend to be focussing on happy happy change with the occasional negative ad.

I'm thinking that if Labor win, it'll be the shattered remnants of a once seemingly unbeatable party that just manage to stagger accross the line, and deservedly so. Not that it would teach them anything. My hope is for a hung parliament with the Greens having the balance of power, but this is Queensland, redneck capital of Australia so I won't hold my breath.

Speaking of the Greens, Sarah told me that Green HQ had done a deal with Labor where Labor would give them preferences in our electorate but that they would give Labor preferences in the electorate where the Traveston Crossing dam is being built. Justifiably feeling betrayed, the local party workers sent back their how to vote cards back to Brisbane and told party HQ to get fucked. Good on them. Every other party would have clicked their heels and quickly gotten to work contradicting themselves.

2009 Queensland state election: Indooroopilly up for grabs?

We've been receiving the odd bit of political junk mail here over the past few weeks, but not a single piece from Labor. The LNP snapped up the big billboard on Brisbane/Benson/Coronation/Wish-they'd-make-up-their-mind-and-just-give-it-one-name Street weeks and weeks ago, while Ronan Lee has been making his presence felt for a while, just not necessarily as Green a presence as he could have been. He's dropping the word 'green' at least three times in every sentence he utters now, but has yet to say a word on Queensland's backward social policies, including the fact that abortion is still illegal here, that gay couples have no right to civil unions or adoption (in the last fortnight or so Anna Bligh finally got around to changing the law so that unmarried couples could adopt- previously they were not allowed to do so), that our surrogacy laws are 20 years or so behind the rest of the country etc. etc. etc... Lee hasn't had much to say about health or education either, which is a shame, because the Greens' strong stance on improving the public health and education systems is one of the reasons I vote for the party in the first place. At least he has now stuck little 'Greens' stickers to the bottom of those dodgy signs...

It's not just that it's hard for the Greens to get a soundbyte out there- I only have to look at the almost non-existent coverage of the Greens' 2007 federal campaign launch to know that- but even on his own electoral advertising material Ronan Lee does himself no favours (even ignoring the missing comma, grrr):

Delivering better local public transport and tackling traffic congestion are high on his list of priorities.

Well, that's a really good start...

Ronan is a regular public transport user and passionate advocate for more train and bus services, better commuter parking and extending the NightLink bus service schedule to include Thursday nights.

Um, that's good too, I guess. I'm in favour of politicians and government bureaucrats in charge of transport being forced to use the public transport infrastructure they oversee and claim to care about... I'm also a regular public transport user and passionate advocate for more train and bus services (as is anyone who has to use the bloody things)... the way this is sounding I'm starting to think that maybe I could be the Greens' candidate... I could be Ronan Lee!

Working hard for his local community Ronan has delivered record funds for local schools, sports clubs and seniors groups...

Whoa, hold it right there- did anyone actually proof read this thing? Bloody hell...

Ronan is also a keen cyclist, bushwalker and enjoys canoeing.

That's it? I enjoy canoeing and bushwalking- even cycling when I don't have to ride on a 'bike path' with cars parked in it. That doesn't in any way make me qualified to help govern Queensland. Ronan Lee is coming off as an incredibly one-dimensional candidate.

Now, god knows about the Labor candidate, as we haven't seen hide nor hair of her. It's my belief that Anna Bligh has actually written off the seat of Indooroopilly; Ronan Lee holds it with a 2.5% margin, apparently, and I'm guessing that margin is the one between him and the LNP candidate. The LNP smells blood.

Scott Emerson, the LNP candidate, is someone we seem to see just about every day lately, and not just on the billboards or electioneering. A couple of days ago he was returning a DVD at the Gailey Five-Ways video rental place at the same time we were there, and we saw him at Gailey Five-Ways again this afternoon. He drives a 4WD with some wanky sticker attached to the bumper going on about how it's carbon neutral (presumably because he paid some dodgy company to plant some trees for him). We're pretty sure we know where he lives, too- and if we're right he is one loaded sonofabitch. Definitely more Liberal than National. Nevertheless, this is what Scott Emerson had to say about the policies that the LNP is taking into the next election:

• Fight for more upgrades around Walter Taylor Bridge to help traffic flow.
• Work for more regular and safer rail services on the Ipswich line to encourage greater use of public transport- better for traffic flow and better for the environment.
• Seek greater balance in urban planning and protecting our valued green space in St Lucia.

You've got to love that personal touch- he really cares about St Lucia... obviously the LNP has forked out for some election advertising that not only refers to the electorate Emerson is standing in but they've gone with suburb-specific mailouts to make it seem like the guy is really in touch with local issues. What's with pretending to be Green? I wonder if they did this only for St Lucia, meaning, perhaps, that they think the 'riche' residents of this suburb are the ones who are going to hand them the 2.5% swing they need, or if they did it for Indooroopilly, Taringa, Chelmer and Graceville too? Hmmm...

But where are the policies? The state government runs our hospital system and the public education system, among other things, and oversees a massive budget. Not a word about any of those things. Traffic traffic traffic, sure, but half of that is the Brisbane City Council's problem- and that's run by the Liberal Party and their chimp-in-chief Campbell Newman. Development in our area is a problem too- a massive new shopping centre and residential high-rise is being built along Moggill Road in Taringa, right near the train station. Traffic along Moggill Road is already in near-constant gridlock, even on weekends, and the council has made no provisions for traffic management (it's already in need of serious improvement even before the stupid shopping centre has been built!). It's all within cycling distance of our house, but it would be suicide to ride along there, so .

All of this, to the best of my knowledge, is council's responsibility, not the responsibility of the Queensland government. As is the steady depletion of green space in the suburbs in the Indooroopilly electorate thanks to council approval of projects belonging to developers and McMansion-building rich people. Scott Emerson has insinuated that if elected he will be able to exert some kind of control over these things. What utter rubbish.

• Campaign for a park and ride facility for Indooroopilly station [...]

I'm pretty sure that one has been directly stolen from Ronan Lee, actually.

• Campaign to relieve traffic congestion by reducing rat-running by people from outlying suburbs looking for shortcuts on our local streets.

WTF? First and most obvious question: HOW? Oh wait, he said 'campaign'- that just means jumping up and down and yelling without actually doing anything; a method isn't necessary when he has no intention of actually acting on anything. Second- how do you determine who has a right to be on 'our local streets' and who doesn't? Is Emerson seriously claiming that if some vital traffic artery is blocked up because of an accident he would happily force people to sit there for hours until traffic was flowing rather than accept that people still need to get home and will find another, quicker route?

Pre-cycled books & magazines = free reading!

Apparently this was my idea! I'd forgotten, perhaps because Gam is the one who did all the hard work, printing out a sign and lugging a bunch of old magazines and novels down to the bin room to get it started. Our resident managers replaced the initial cardboard box with a milk crate, which was very nice of them.

Anyway, our pre-cycling idea had a slow start, but people started dumping magazines and the occasional novel, and taking (and later replacing) ones we'd left, and now I think it qualifies as a roaring success. We have a great turnover of books and random residents regularly dumping new ones, which is just great. Sure, a lot of the books and magazines I'm reading I wouldn't pay for, but I'm always running out of things to read in the morning while I drink my coffee, and as long as it's entertaining or interesting that's fine by me. Besides, it's free! Also, the odd Vogue or Harper's Bazaar magazine dumped in the box has come in handy when I've needed to hide my Playboys for the occasional visit of a crazy-religious-grandma or crazy-religious-boyfriend-of-cousin.

Currently I'm reading 'French Women Don't Get Fat', by Mireille Giuliano, which is just as irritating and stupid as it sounds. Apparently all French women drop weight by eating nothing but 'magical leek soup' for a whole weekend... I guess in an ideal universe the book would have been written by a sociologist or a nutritional anthropologist instead of some corporate-moron Americanised French woman. The stupid title would be forgiveable if the book actually had some substance but like every other diet book ever written for insecure women, it doesn't.

The other day, Gam and I actually had to weed out and recycle some of the stuff in the crate because it was overflowing. Here are some pictures of some of the pre-cycled books:

Ronan the Red and the impending Queensland election

Over the last month or so, we've seen plenty of spruikers sitting by the roadside, accompanied by sandwich boards advertising either Ronan Lee or the LNP candidate for the state seat of Indooroopilly. Despite Anna Bligh's denials that she is going to call an early election, it looks like the other political parties are all calling her a liar.

Anyway, as someone who intends to vote Green- and who unexpectedly wound up with a Green MP as the sitting MP in our electorate- I've been very interested to see that the signs Ronan Lee has been using to advertise in fact make no mention whatsoever of the Queensland Greens, or any Greens for that matter. The signs are coloured bright red and white, and contain no indication as to what party Mr Lee is sitting for. When I saw these signs soon after his defection, I assumed their lack of party insignia was due to not yet having had signs printed promoting him as the local Green MP. Almost 3 months on, I'm not sure that excuse would hold water. At least his placeholder website, though woefully incomplete, appears to portray Ronan Lee's party affiliations accurately.

Apart from his careful avoidance of any of the social issues upon which the Greens are renowned for their strong stance- Lee has been a one-note 'green' Green- I find it curious, although not entirely surprising, that he appears to be essentially running as an independent, despite possibly having an even higher profile now by virtue of his defection to the Greens from Anna Bligh's Labor party. Why?

The reason that first springs to mind is the fact that aside from the hordes of students who inhabit this electorate, there live thousands of 'riche' whose political leanings more naturally align with Howard-era Liberal philosophies. Some of them must have voted for Lee during the last two state elections for him to be elected. It wouldn't be surprising if polling showed that members of this particular group of voters were turned off by his visible association with the Greens and that his less-than-low-key association with the party in his advertising were an attempt to retain those votes.

That's pretty much the only plausible explanation I can come up with. If this is really the case, then, as a Green voter and more of an idealist than a pragmatist, I find it dishonest. As dishonest as Lee's failure to address any issues that don't concern the environment- as if the same issues of social equality and reproductive rights that affect the rest of Australia don't exist here- given the fact he has failed to reconcile his conservative Catholic background with the principles and policies espoused by the Greens. The Queensland Greens might be happy to play this game and retain a rare sitting MP in the state parliament, but if voters in the Indooroopilly electorate are voting for Ronan Lee and not the Queensland Greens' policies, then what's the point of having him there? And why on earth wouldn't he run as an independent if he feels like the 'Green' label is such a taint?

I'd be much happier voting for an honest loser than a dishonest Green, and indeed I will if it turns out there's someone running as an independent whose policies align with my values to a greater extent than do Ronan Lee's. This was the highlight of the Queensland Greens' year?

Dear God: Please direct wrath here...

If there ever was a place that deserved some horrible disaster to strike, it would be the obscenity that is the upcoming Palazzo Versace hotel in Dubai:

The Palazzo Versace fashion house will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface, reports The Australian.

The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.

I was going to add that hopefully the tsunami/typhoon/earthquake/volcano/terrorist attack would happen before the monstrosity is filled with guests, but frankly I don't think that wiping from the face of the earth anyone who chose to stay at that place would be a disservice to humanity, I really don't.

The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.

"We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on," said Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace.

"This is the kind of luxury that top people want."

In that case I'll add to my wishlist of disasters to befall this place the hope that the giant blowers will somehow malfunction and suck Soheil Abedian and the rich tossers who holiday at his hotel into a fast-rotating fan blade, mincing them up finely and then spraying their bodies out to sea. This hotel isn't just an act of supreme wankery, it's spitting in the face of every normal human being who is set to suffer the consequences of global warming. These fuckers are just busy imagining all the new places they'll be able to moor their yachts if sea levels rise.

Would you like RoundUp with that, Sir?

Good news, everyone! The fact that Aussie farmers are growing and flogging GM canola now means that you can get more RoundUp in your daily diet! Mmm, tasty toxic residue...

I've always thought canola oil was gross- Mum used to cook with it when I was a kid, and the smell would make me nauseous. I was so happy when she started cooking with olive oil- and that was before I knew about the health benefits. I firmly believe canola was never meant to be eaten by humans, and I avoid buying products that contain it as an ingredient (primarily because it tastes foul).

The news that we're going to be getting a bunch of extra round-up-soaked GM canola in the food supply makes me even happier that I don't eat the stuff. By putting it in processed foods they'll largely be able to get away without labelling it as GM. As for this:

The company's trading manager, Archer Walters, said he expected Australians would accept GM canola given that they already eat meat from animals fed imported GM soya bean meal and fish and chips fried in oil pressed from Australian GM cotton seed. "I think within four years, GM canola will dominate Australia."

Does that really make it any better, or is GM canola just another turd to add to the shit-sandwich we're all being fed? Cotton seed oil is another thing that wasn't designed to be eaten by humans- it's toxic and has to be processed to remove the toxic components from it. It's a waste product, not a food product. The reason food companies use it is because it's cheap. Plus, being from Australian cotton, the growers are responsible for the rape and pillage of the Murray Darling- wonderful! Our fish & chip 'local', A Salt & Battery, uses sunflower oil to fry their fish, thankfully, and I never eat franchise fast food, so I consider my diet safer than most people's, but the thing with eating out is that you almost never know exactly what's being used.

It's not that I have anything against the canola plant itself- it's very pretty. We had one grow spontaneously in our garden once (probably from a packed of birdseed) and it had nice yellow flowers and was visited by native bees. But it's not food. Not to me.

Putting climate change in perspective

Is this, or is this not, fairly terrifying?

A temperature rise of 2 degrees, which is likely by the second half of this century, would reduce the range of most kangaroo and wallaby species by half, the James Cook University study found.

A 6-degree increase, which is at the extreme end of possible temperature rises predicted for 2070, would lead to the territory where kangaroos can survive reducing by 96 per cent - a level that would cause large-scale marsupial extinctions.

Think about it- Kangaroos are fairly hardy animals. They live in some pretty inhospitable areas of Australia. For their range to be so drastically reduced, things must have to get pretty bad- and it looks like they're going to. Not just for kangaroos, but for people too. It helps the concept of climate change look like more than the hypothetical that the Liberal party and business groups who complain about the 'cost' of a carbon trading scheme would have us believe it is.

The cost of implementing a carbon trading scheme over the next couple of years is nothing compared to what the cost to Australia, and the world, will be if we don't do everything in our power to minimise the damage we cause through climate change.

Anna Bligh thinks Green voters are stupid

"We only tried to build over 30% of the Brisbane river!"

Newsflash, Anna Bligh: Green voters aren't morons. They're more likely to have a tertiary education than voters for any other party and they don't just care about trees.

So trying to highlight your government's 'environmental credentials' (North Bank? Traveston dam, anyone?) simply isn't going to work when you're doing such a shithouse job of managing the health system, public education and public transport systems, all of which are extremely important to people who vote Green.

Anna Bligh, you're on a hiding to nothing. Greens voters are just as angry with your government as the rest of Queensland is.

Peter Garrett loses his soul

I wonder if Peter Garrett ever anticipated becoming such a sell-out when he joined the Labor Party?

From The Australian:

PETER Garrett has approved part of the environment management plan for the $2billion Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley, despite it failing to meet conditions set by the chief scientist.

The federal Environment Minister confirmed last night that he had approved part of the plan relating to road-killed animals, despite Gunns failing to meet conditions covering a baseline survey.

You would think that for someone who once had such a huge amount of credibility when it came to environmental and social causes, it would be hard to sleep at night and not lie awake pondering how you turned Judas on your highest-held principles.

Petro Georgiou stood up for his beliefs, at a cost to his own career, when he publicly disagreed with and voted against the Howard government's inhuman stance on refugees. Why is it so hard for Peter Garrett to do the same?

Solar power

One question: Why is a tiny island off Denmark putting Australia to shame?


What exactly are we doing to match the progress of the likes of Samso and Germany?

Uhhh... clean coal? And by clean coal we mean burning coal as we've always done but collecting the carbon dioxide emissions and stuffing them in cavities under the ground from which they may or may not (but inevitably will) escape. Yeah, Australia is really keeping pace. Let's just keep telling ourselves that.

I Paid for your Folden

Good for going sideways making lots of smoke, burning shitloads of petrol and not much else.

And so did you if you bought a car not built by what we laughingly call our automotive industry. Thanks to the tariffs placed on imports, Holdens and Fords cost less than imported cars. Of course this is because putting together pre-manufactured bits of prehistoric automobiles built by companies rapidly going the way of the dinosaur is a deep part of our national image and makes us who we are as a nation, at least if you read the marketing.

We've just had a review of the moribund 'industry' completed by Steve Bracks and, big shock, it recommends that we keep subsidizing Folden to keep making crappy cars for not very much money, only dropping the subsidy to 5% in 2010. And what are Folden doing with the $20 billion in subsidies they get from the taxpayer? Are they trying to catch up to European car makers who are making more efficient, more powerful engines that emit less greenhouse gas? Are they trying to catch up to Asian car manufacturers' hybrid technology? As if. It's just giant, petrol swilling engines and ever more desperate advertising. These guys should know better, they're part of the same companies that spent decades wringing money out of the US government to protect them from leaner, smarter, better European and Asian cars, only to spectacularly implode recently. Propping the turkeys up over here will have the same result.

I don't give a stuff about this manufacturing industry bullshit. We don't even make computers here and they're a damn sight more important to our economy than the Holden Commodore. why should I shed a tear if they're forced to get their act together and, gasp, actually compete with other companies? Are we to keep every car industry employed forever? Despite truckloads of government cash they've been shedding jobs for years (still managing to fine executive bonuses though). Why can't the people we've got build Toyotas or something? Of course that won't happen, because Holden mean$ a great deal to Australia.

Water efficiency in farming- why is Australia so backward?

From the New York Times:

Israel is as obsessed with water as Mr. Ovits is. It was there, in the 1950s, that an engineer invented modern drip irrigation, which saves water and fertilizer by feeding it, drop by drop, to a plant’s roots. Since then, Israel has become the world’s leader in maximizing agricultural output per drop of water, and many believe that it serves as a viable model for other countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Why not Australia? Because we're content to let the Cubbie Cottons of this country rape and pillage our river systems, and then pay welfare to the farmers who grow our food because there's no longer any water for them to work. Why don't we have a system that forces water efficiency on our primary producers?

Cubbie Cotton: lower than leeches

Another article I hadn't got around to posting for over a week... Cubbie Cotton are officially the scummy water thieves everyone thought them to be. No real surprises, just some vindication. Screw Cubbie Cotton. Give the river back some life.

ON THE Condamine-Balonne river system - home to Australia's biggest cotton farm, Cubbie Station - an average 53 per cent of the natural flow of surface water is being harvested, a CSIRO report has found.

At Narran Lakes in north-western NSW, an internationally recognised wetland that relies on water from the system, this "extremely high level of use" has reduced the number of years with optimal bird breeding conditions by more than 60 per cent.