Sarkozy (who has been posturing alongside Merkel) had the old ‘rabbit in the head-lights’ look when Standard & Poor’s stripped France (as well as Austria) of AAA ratings and further downgraded Italy, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.  There have been moves internationally to have the number of letters in the alphabet  increased, but as to whether this is political move; finanical commentators don’t believe so, they said they will wait to see what happens and then report on it.

As Ms Gillard settled more comfortably into the 1.5 seat (no doubt enjoying not being on the defensive), and her her brittle laugh echoed around the bank loans manager’s outer office, she said there is always a price to be paid by governments that had put off reforms, spent more money than they had and borrowed like there was no tomorrow (well at least not in their electrol term). She warmed up to the task and continued by suggesting that for too many years, European governments have deferred the nation-building, productivity-enhancing reforms which Australia has made the foundation of our dynamic and resilient economy …

In stark contrast to Europe, Australia had strict fiscal rules that would return it to surplus in – at this stage her voice lowered to a mumble but an aide (the minister from NSW who is clearing his name with respect to misappropiated funds) stated “she said 2012-13″.   Ms Gillard stated she was available – along with world’s second greatest treasurer (Wayne Swan) – to advise them how to (mumble but it sounded like) ‘cook the books’, but it would cost and she would bring along some pay sheets to validate her (and Wayne’s) hourly rate … (but they would bring their own gutting knives and other ‘tools of their trade’). She said European leaders should swiftly undertake structural reforms to boost their economic potential and lift growth.

When no-one asked AMP economist Shane Oliver, he warned swift action to repair European budgets could cut growth further and is alleged to have said ‘fiscal austerity leads to economic deterioration and budget deficits that blow out; effectively worsening the economic outlook’. Poor little rich kid and sometime shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey – walking out of Jenny Craig – lambasted Ms Gillard for the intervention, saying it was “a little rich” for the Prime Minister to lecture Europe; then he muttered ‘did someone mention lamb, mmm BBQ lamb’.

In August, the world’s most succussful borrowing country ever – the USA – had its credit rating cut from AAA to AA (it would have been lower but the agency had an offer they couldn’t refuse; a drone with coordinates of their homes or $1 billion in any currency they wanted – which the USA would print).  Now the Germans are stoic people and their economy is used to pretty much prop up the Euro with a AAA rating. Another unasked question (till now) is why have Portugal’s and Cyprus’s ratings been cut to junk status and not the USA? Oh yeah, the drone.

France is the Euro fund’s second-biggest guarantor and before the downgrade, the head of the French central bank, Christian Noyer, used diplomatic means (he cried like a girl) to have Standard & Poor’s strip Britain of its top rating before France (little realising that England had threatened to send over soccer hoodlums).  Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, offered to shake his hand (no doubt for the ‘Yorkshire hand shake’ – a rapid knock of his forehead on the bridge of the Frog’s nose) and said (in his best Prince Charles accent) ‘the suggestion was unacceptable, do please calm the rhetoric’ and logically pointed out that Britain is not part of the euro zone and should be spared a downgrade.

What gets me is why do they need to keep borrowing money? When the man in the street gets a loan, he just pays it back. …

The British Acoustics Bulletin has just published what is now the 10th independent review of the evidence on wind farms causing annoyance and ill health in people. And for the 10th time it has emphasised that
annoyance has far more to do with social and psychological factors in those complaining than any direct effect from sound or inaudible infrasound emanating from wind turbines.

Two factors repeatedly stand out: a) being able to see wind turbines increases annoyance, particularly in those who dislike or fear them and b) people derive income from hosting turbines, which miraculously appears to be a highly effective antidote to feelings of annoyance and symptoms.  Wind companies don’t publicise what they pay landowners each year to host turbines, as it varies with topographical conditions and the amount of energy that can be generated. So each price is negotiated. Amounts from $7,000 to $18,000 – depending on the landowners topography and accessible windy ridges – can drought-proof the farm by turning generally useless land into a major earner requiring zero labour and investment.

Neighbours with unfavourable topography look on with envy and worry about the relative re-sale value of their land. Some apparently worry themselves sick. Anti-wind farm groups argue that there are many angry turbine hosts who have signed gag clauses preventing them from speaking out. However, blank contract forms from Australian companies have no such clauses and no contract would indemnify any person being harmed from a claim of negligence, so the silence is telling. Other indications of the sociogenic nature of “wind turbine syndrome” are the recency and the anglophone nature of the complaints. There are an estimated 120,000-plus turbines globally, with major construction now occurring in India and China. In France, turbines can be seen in many parts of the country.

A tourist recently asked public health colleagues and neighbours and were given a blank look when asked about negative public opinion or health problems; the same goes for Spain. The surprising thing is complaints about wind farms appears confined largely to parts of Australia, Canada, the US, Britain and New Zealand and these complaints have accelerated in the past five years, despite turbines having been operational in many locations for more than 20 years.

In Australia, the leading opponents are the Waubra Foundation and the Australian Landscape Guardians, which share a post office box with a mining investment company, Lowell Resources. Australian Landscape Guardians has been totally silent on any other intrusion on the landscape, apparently unperturbed by mining, highway construction or suburban encroachment, not to mention the invasive CSG industry.

So why would anyone be against wind farms? Is it the noise … aesthetics … ecology (they have been known for birds strikes, but what of migratory birds that land where water once was that is now as car-park or major road-way. Is it the competition?  The coal industry didn’t complain about nuclear power stations did it?

So, who is it? The fossil fuel industry is pushing the line that more renewable energy undermines their business model, and thus “puts the energy supply grid at risk”. How and why would climate sceptics spend good money opposing wind farms unless they are funded by the ‘business as usual’ coal, gas  and oil industries?

The Salvation Army indicated that it will need to feed 2.2 million Australians at Christmas … all in an environment of massive earnings from royalties for the sale of our diminishing resources by these same tow governments; and the solution according to ‘the Honourable’ Karen Struthers (Minister for Community Services, Housing and Women, in a December 21st 2011 press release) … Two local bunnies MPs Peter Lawlor and Peta Kaye Croft are all for the rights of caravan park dwellers.

As we see more and more people unable to pay their electricity bills or being kicked out of their homes, it begs the question, are we turning into a state of the USA and is this the start of Aussie Trailer Trash, displaced and marginalized people unable to sink roots and no possibility to become part of a community?

Ms Struthers claims caravan park dwellers and residential park home owners and the broader community have a say, but in her press release, you can tell it’s already a done deal, the government has given up not just on these people but the greater community. She visited manufactured home parks on the Gold Coast and encouraged participants to make submissions to the recently released discussion paper on growing the industry’s future, then puts some spin on it (sugars the bullshit) by pretending that ‘it’s important home owners and support agencies join discussion on how the government can ensure sector growth while also protecting the rights of manufactured home owners; that input from industry forums and the discussion paper are vital in determining future government policy when it comes to this type of home ownership and the parks that accommodate them’.

Of course her statement that ‘it will be a growth industry’ further confirms the complete and utter failure by the Labor government/s to make housing affordable; of course politicians, their families and relatives (many now employed in government) will all live in gated areas to separate the riff-raff and growing number of homeless and marginalized trailer-trash and the pensioners (now past their productive life) from their neighbourhoods.

Yet another example of the total failure of urban planning. ‘Let them eat cake …’

The Australian Medical Association released its public hospital analysis, revealing Queensland has 2.4 beds per 1000 people – lower than the national average of 2.6; 10,911 public hospital beds in 2009/10 – up 106 from the previous year; about a tenth of what doctors believed were needed.

Public hospitals’ performance in every state and territory was well below target for access to emergency departments and elective surgery set by the Council of Australian Governments, with the median Australian waiting time for elective surgery 35 days.

However, Queensland although stating it was 27 days, the real waiting time was far higher, but I guess that’s why they pay so much money to administration.

How this happens is, before people appear on a waiting list for elective surgery, they have to see a specialist and be booked in for surgery, so there is a big delay in waiting to see said specialist, which can in itself, take 6 months; but if you’re waiting for ear, nose and throat surgery in Queensland, it can be more than five years. A doctor suggested that because of the length of the wait, some people don’t make it to surgery.

WTF ?

How can anyone in their right mind – let alone Ms Gillard – swallow that crap?

Bernanke (head of the USA Federal Reserve and chief architect of the American financial collapse) has also offered guidance to the European Union. What drugs do these imbeciles take?

Listening to either of these two failures in financial management will not help the IMF or the EU. And what exactly will Australia contribute in money we don’t have?  We Australians must look like right Wallies to the world given this ill thought out, rush of blood to the head gibbering.

Does Gillard really believe the pap that she and Wayne Swan peddle to the masses in OZ ? They can change the G 20 Go Broke Summit in gay Paris (Cannes to be specific).  Our least liked Prime Minister (ever) says she plans to ‘garner support for the idea in bilateral meetings with other leaders from the world’s most powerful countries’; shouldn’t that be the most indebted countries ? The implication that Gillard implies she is pushing for support among non-EU members to pressure European leaders to resolve their debt crisis impasse, what a crock.

Gillard met with Brasil’s (first lady) President Dilma Rousseff to ’discuss the importance of providing the IMF with adequate resources to help manage the crisis and restore confidence to the markets’ her spokesman is to have said; Brasil is far more viable than Australia. Gillard can meet with whomever she wants, but they should – and most likely will – be sceptical about anything she says. Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey asked Gillard how much money Australia would provide to help fund a Eurozone bailout; that the British are not prepared to do so, but Joe, the Poms couldn’t help even if they wanted to; their banking system is also in a rotten state.

I can remember being short of money and my children (then aged 10 and under) offering me their pocket money (even future pocket money earnings) and that is exactly what Gillard’s offer is worth, Australia offering to bail-out one of the world’s largest economies – also built on poor financial practices (thats why they are in the pickle they’re in) – we haven’t got the money, but we’ll borrow it – and put our citizens last – so she can look good; how generous Julia.

Leaked US embassy cables published by WikiLeaks have revealed that the government has “weakened” the compulsory pilotage regime for large vessels, including oil tankers, chemical tankers and liquefied gas carriers, sailing through the sensitive maritime environment of the Torres Strait. Owners and masters of vessels that fail to use a pilot to navigate the narrow and hazardous channel will not face any penalty if they do not subsequently call at an Australian port.

On learning the Torres Strait pilotage regime was quietly amended 17 months ago, the chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry, said it was “absolutely essential” that all shipping [through the strait] has pilotage. The cables reveal that the US and Singaporean governments reacted strongly against the Howard government’s October 2006 announcement of a compulsory pilotage regime in the Torres Strait designed to reduce the risk of oil and chemical spills in the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef.  Singapore’s Foreign Minister, George Yeo, wrote directly to his Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, “to complain about the decision and its negative impact on larger strategic interests”.

The leaked cables show the US shared Singapore’s concerns and served as Singapore’s “closest ally on the Torres Strait issue”. American diplomats lobbied other countries with large registered merchant fleets such as Panama and Cyprus to protest to Australia as well. The Howard government was unmoved. In early 2008 the new Labor government under Kevin Rudd would not change its position either. However, in July 2008, the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s international law branch, assistant secretary Adam McCarthy, told the US embassy in Canberra that “Australia recognises that it has not handled the Torres Strait pilotage issue particularly well” and indicated Canberra was prepared “to explore ways to address US concerns”.

After detailed talks between US and Australian officials in Washington in August 2008, the department sought American agreement to a compromise formula that would allow Australia to save face while meeting US demands. This would involve leaving the “compulsory” framework in place while in practice reverting to a voluntary scheme for many vessels by not enforcing penalties against ships that passed through the Torres Strait without a pilot, but which did not call at an Australian port. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority formalised the change on April 17, 2009.

So there you have it, a piss-ant under secretary selling out Australia’s interests for what ? A night out with ladies of the night or was it laddies …

Premer Anna Bligh said Queensland Treasury had been tasked with investigating investment opportunities to fund the Connors River Dam and proposed Multi-Cargo Facility at Abbot Point.

A report examining funding models and options is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with the Government possibly in a position to approach the market in early 2012.

“Queensland taxpayers stand to benefit from the increased royalties the infrastructure investment will reap from enhanced export potential without having to foot the bill,” Mr Bligh said.

“The government’s plan is unashamedly to create opportunities for private sector investment that results in increased benefits for Queenslanders – be it through increased royalty revenues, new jobs or growth in our regional centres.

“Money speaks and business investment is flowing in Queensland, creating export capacity, developing our natural wealth and securing future prosperity.”

The proposed $2.6 billion Connors River dam and pipelines project involves a 49,500 megalitre dam and two pipelines; a 133 km pipeline from the dam to Moranbah and a 265 km pipeline from Moranbah to Alpha.

Ms Bligh said the projects would deliver reliable water supplies to the Bowen and Galilee coal basins as well as the townships of Nebo, Moranbah and Alpha.

“This massive project will underpin the water supply needs for the development of this resource industry corridor and the towns that support it,” Ms Bligh said.

“With the continued development of the Bowen Basin, and indeed the opening of the Galilee Basin, there is also strong demand for additional export capacity in the north of the state.

“Abbot Point represents a prime opportunity for additional export capacity which is why a business case is currently underway to capture the potential opportunity of combining development of the sites known as T2 to T7.”

Ms Bligh said the business case was due by the end of the year and start of construction of $2 billion-plus project targeted for 2014-15.

“Combine development of T2 to T7 in an offshore multi-cargo facility could provide for up to 12 cape-sizeable berths and tug harbour,” Ms Bligh said.

The Government has already awarded development rights of up to 60 mtpa to BHP and Hancock at T2 and T3; and T4 to T7 expansions is already in an expression of interest stage as companies look to secure future capacity

The Qld government – after selling off QR – will support mining companies that despoil the land via tax cuts and expemptions …

After a billion dollars plus on water infrastructure in SEQ, even more precious water and above costs to Queensland tax-payers will be allocated to water intensive mining processes for a pittance in royalties …

In the never ending greed of corporations the world over, we have seen cultures and civilisations all but wiped out in the quest to maximise the use of every energy source known to man. Climate change, global warming and environmental damage to regions that these energy sources were wrested from have now been joined by the ‘self inflicted’ terminal wound of the Japanese nation. A government that aided and abetted the nuclear energy industry that now has repercussions we can only imagine. Hari-kari - a ritual suicide by disembowelment practiced by the Japanese samurai – is too good and above the honour of government officials and the nuclear power industry heads; perhaps better they be buried up to their shoulders and a slow death by passers by with the blunt saw will also be too quick when compared to what will now follow.

The world is becoming unlivable and Japan is the first major country to pay the ultimate price … the following two articles are a sad indictment on human nature …

Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March.

The allegations raise concerns that the facility was doomed even before the earthquake triggered the disaster. Problems with deteriorating pipes at the plant had been reported for years. The cooling system failed to stop reactors going into meltdown after it was hit by the 40-metre-high waves. The plant has been leaking radioactive material ever since, despite efforts to clean it up.The allegations raise concerns that the facility was doomed even before the earthquake triggered the disaster. Problems with deteriorating pipes at the plant had been reported for years. The cooling system failed to stop reactors going into meltdown after it was hit by the 40-metre-high waves. The plant has been leaking radioactive material ever since, despite efforts to clean it up.

http://rt.com/news/fukushima-doomed-reac…

“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.

…”The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor,” Gundersen added. “TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water.”

…”We have 20 nuclear cores exposed, the fuel pools have several cores each, that is 20 times the potential to be released than Chernobyl,” said Gundersen. “The data I’m seeing shows that we are finding hot spots further away than we had from Chernobyl, and the amount of radiation in many of them was the amount that caused areas to be declared no-man’s-land for Chernobyl. We are seeing square kilometres being found 60 to 70 kilometres away from the reactor. You can’t clean all this up. We still have radioactive wild boar in Germany, 30 years after Chernobyl.”

…”Units one through three have nuclear waste on the floor, the melted core, that has plutonium in it, and that has to be removed from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said. “Somehow, robotically, they will have to go in there and manage to put it in a container and store it for infinity, and that technology doesn’t exist. Nobody knows how to pick up the molten core from the floor, there is no solution available now for picking that up from the floor.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/fea…

However, in the SMH (Aug 8th) the story suggests another direction to the spin ‘The unemployment rate in flood-affected Queensland rose to 5.6 per cent in July from 5.2 per cent in June’.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/jobless-rate-jumps-in-july-20110811-1inr9.html

‘Early stage testing in animals has shown that a Nanopatch delivered – flu vaccine – was effective at a lower dose and can combat needle phobia, needle injuries and cross contamination and it doesn’t need refrigeration, which makes transport to developing nations easier’. The Premier said the exciting new develop showed how the State Government’s investment in the Smart State Strategy was resulting in new and exciting commercial biotech ventures.

Anna Blight said ‘it used to be that after developing a concept here, Queensland innovators would need to go offshore to bring their project to fruition; now Queensland can be the true home of innovation and a new bio tech industry – our State can profit while doing good in the world’ and ‘the Government partner with US businessesHealth Care Ventures and Eli Lilly to establish a Bio Capital Fund and (sic) on its way to reaching $250 million for investment in biotechnology ventures and Queensland-based venture to be supported through this fund’.

Wow … how smart is that ?

On top of inhaling medicines (and other not so friendly chemicals) we can apply them via patches … just wait till the tobacco companies find out ….. what … they have?

Maybe that’s why Anna Bligh calls herself ‘the minister of reconstruction’ ….