Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

November site stats & financials.

Forests pump salt back down into the ground. They retain water to minimise flooding and feed the water into the water-table over a much longer period of time, as well as through condensation contributing further to precipitation, thus pushing back desertification. They stop erosion and rebuild soil. They lock up millions of tons of carbon, provide habitat and corridors for creatures of foot and wing, deal with all manner of toxins in highly creative ways, and produce oxygen. They keep rivers alive.

When we swipe our card for a clothing purchase, we might think twice about the price, or the bill we’ll get at the end of the month, but we should really be thinking about what we don’t see when we pick up the end product. Could my weakness for new clothing purchases not only be costing me a pretty penny, but also be costing the environment a fortune?

I want nothing short of transformational change in Australia’s schools. Let’s be honest. Current achievement levels are simply not good enough in too many schools. Australia still performs well in international studies. But we do not achieve as highly as we should or could. Our performance at the higher levels of achievement is static or declining. And our persistent tail of low achievement, associated as it is with socioeconomic disadvantage, is too long. (Julia Gillard)

Let’s take it from the top. Fran Kelly put this project together and she is well respected by other journalists (an interesting enough tale in itself). In my view she hasn’t done a very good job but when all you have to do is sit back and watch a bunch of self-important dimwits who’ve never done a decent day’s work in their lives commit hara kiri in front of you, I guess you lose the incentive to try any harder.

It’s a bit like passing a pub on a very hot Australian afternoon – there are times when you just can’t resist. The two things that took my eye today in the job ads were this. What does one have to do to be a real professor in Wagga? And this that I must just reproduce in full because it offers such a fun opportunity for a jape in tough times ...

In doing so, they've shown the control order as unnecessary.  The idea of asking the AFP for the order was passed to the South Australian Government by our Foreign Minister, Bush sycophant Alexander Downer.  There are two perceivable useful political purposes for such an order.  One is that it showed the South Australian public that Hicks was a bad man that needed watching.  The other is that it showed the world that another government was prepared to participate in the Guantanamo military tribunal system by honouring its findings. 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew; And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true; That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four -- Rudyard Kipling, 1919

The answer to the question of who owns water is that no-one owns water. Water belongs to the earth, it belongs to all species, it belongs to future generations. It's a common, and it's a public trust, and it's a human right. And ... no-one has the right to appropriate it for personal profit while other people are dying. (Maude Barlow)

Child care in Australia is in desperate need of an overhaul. The crisis that we are seeing with ABC Learning Centres is simply the tip of the iceberg. For years and years, we have seen the child-care sector in Australia being taken over by profiteers and being seen as an industry. Child care should be seen as an essential service. (Senator Hanson-Young)

The US National Intelligence Center releases its quadrennial scenario for the next twenty years. Grim reading.

Chinese Democracy will not be an instant classic ... . It’s Guns N’ Roses for the twenty-first century with all the rock you were missing but less of the sort of arrogance that led Axl Rose to release songs like the over-produced My World ...

The Aboriginal Housing Company was formed in the early 1970’s for the purpose of appropriating property for the purpose of providing affordable housing for the local indigenous community. The AHC gradually acquired the whole of what is now known as ‘the Block’, establishing a strong, family-centred community in the area by the early 1980’s. The 80’s also saw the rise of a hard drug culture in the area...

"If you give me $1, I promise to give you 15¢". The SMH can't understand why people aren't taking up this outstanding offer. I think I can ...

I want to get my predictions on the record before the event. A little bit of ego, but mostly as a test of how well I have understood the events, the submissions, and the workings of the Inquiry. Others may want to make their own test.

While this smokescreen runs across the media, defence bosses are coming out ahead of the ABC doco on Howard's government and saying that Tampa was a lie.  Oh, and by way we shouldn't have gone to Iraq.  And the reaction?  Stuff-all. The yin-yang of the Liberal-Labor stories is turning into the two snakes eating each other's tail.  The quiet castigation of the Howard government's two thronged attack on the people of the  Middle East is sneaking past us in the smog.

To achieve change we need to break down existing mental models. We do this by continually challenging existing models, at every opportunity and avenue. The financial crisis provides an opportunity, as people are more amenable to change in an environment of uncertainty. Let’s use it wisely.

I'm acutely aware of the extraordinary complexity in our system, especially when tax is combined with transfer payments. I can probably take responsibility for some of that complexity. Even so, on reading the Treasury paper, it was a revelation to me that Australia's system now has no fewer than 125 taxes. It turns out that there are more taxes in Australia than there are northern hairy nosed wombats. (Ken Henry)

People from the Eastern Suburbs will tell you that the North Shore is nothing compared to their suburbs and people from the North will of course tell you their part of the city is the best. Ironically, people from other suburbs will say none of the two is that good because of the people living there.

If Australia is to stay a living nation we need to provide ourselves with continuing moments of definition, great moments in our history that reflect both our changing nature and yet reinforce the principles by which we govern ourselves. For our generation of Australians such a moment of definition will be the establishment of our republic.

All political leaders conduct themselves as though they were in a state of permanent media, cultural and political warfare. Media cycles must be managed, everyone must stay on message, and leaders become so insulated that they actually start to believe as true their own spin. All politics becomes destructively partisan, with everything reduced to petty point scoring, when larger and more important issues loom, demanding serious attention.

Can faith pull us back from the brink? Award-winning documentary maker and former Dominican Friar Mark Dowd takes a challenging and somewhat humorous approach to the urgent issue of our time. He asks if carbon use is the new sex, i.e. a ‘sin’ in today’s world.

There was another milestone this week – the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” so known because of the shattered glass from the windows of Jewish homes and businesses, when murderous riots were orchestrated in nearly every town and village in Germany where Jews could be found.

The presence of various ethnic communities and different cultures is one of the trademarks of the modern metropolis and Sydney, with its ethnic and linguistic diversity, prides itself on being the most multicultural city in Australia.

"Every dollar spent on defence research is a theft.  They are thieving, and they are lying.  And why?  Sometimes people like (SA Premier) Rann, despite themselves, tell the truth.  He'd invited people here to have a look at the terrific business opportunities in South Australia" - Jacob Grech

Out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together. (Paul Keating)

The climate is such that we are going through a lull. The field, as Farmer George well knew, has, from time to time, to lie fallow in order to yield at a later time. Now we are beset by mangels, wurzels and turnips; I have confidence the new year will see a bumper crop of exotica.

Governor-General Quentin Bryce joined hundreds of Australians in the town of Le Hamel in Northern France, at a moving ceremony to rededicate a memorial to honour Australians who fought a decisive World War I battle. (ABC Online, Just In)

You might remember about a month ago, a 7-year-old boy fed 13 animals to a crocodile at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre. During his 30-minute killing spree, the boy beat animals to death with a rock, then threw them to the croc to finish off.

Nestled almost appropriately between a funeral parlour and a railway station, railway consortium Freightlink's office would seem too small a monolith to cast such a shade. However, when you consider who set the company up, who was at its head, and who was behind it, international interest in Freightlink's self-controlled collapse isn't surprising. The answers are: Halliburton, Dick Cheney and Malcolm Kinnaird.