You all need to write some limericks. Write us a limerick to get the count up to 50 and the Solomon Islands Tsunamis appeal gets some more money. Only 15 more needed!

If you think that Hicks’s trial, subsequent conviction and undertakings are bizarre, check out the case of one David Henson McNab, a Honduran (despite the name) fisherman and businessman, doing eight years on a 2001 federal conviction in Alabama based on a law in another country that was repealed in 1995.
[LINK]
Is this loony or what?

Mally, darling, I agree, but there is this little matter that you really will should fess up over to the citizenry at large, having made a substantial amount (one would like to think) of your current completely and utterly OTT wealth from precisely that–logging.

Backgroud Briefing Transcript March 2, 2007

Wendy Carlisle: But way back before the Republican campaign and before HIH, Malcolm Turnbull specialised in corporate turnarounds through his company, Turnbull and Partners. And in his first big corporate play, the future minister for the environment showed that money does grow on trees.

The date is 1991, and Mr Turnbull and two other Australian investors briefly got involved in the Solomon Islands logging industry after buying a 16% stake in the logging company, Axiom Forest Resources, for $200,000.

In not much more than 12 months, Malcolm Turnbull had sold his stake for $25 million.

I have no problem with Damascus-like conversions, but unless the Minister for the Environment willing to reinvest the $25 million he made from Axion Industries, through their rape of the Solomons, into ‘re-aforestation’ the hypocricy is nothing short of breathtaking.

The Government have this nerdy school kid mentality which suggests that they are not prepared to make concessions unless every body else does, (so there). Meantime Mally has gone off to lecture and berate, poorer nations about doing their bit and not chopping down trees.

As David points out, he had to distort the (unattibuted) pic of Juanita Wheeler in order to make her look bad enough for his post to be “funny”.

I see the Age has indulged in no such distortion.

I will seek guidance from relevant authorities about how to deal with both terrible omissions. All non self-harm suggestions welcome.

So the famous Doctor Kellogg’s favourite remedy for all ills is out then?

David Jackmanson (surely not your real name), I am very sorry indeed I didn’t acknowledge your role in the production of the “Beauty and the Beast” graphic we used in our exclusive expose of the Greens preselection in the Perfect State. I certainly welcome your tabloid treatment of the issue on your site, very nicely done.

Come to that, I also failed to credit evil Hollywood Left multi-national Disney who I gather own the Beauty and the Beast franchise.

I will seek guidance from relevant authorities about how to deal with both terrible omissions. All non self-harm suggestions welcome.

As for the Qld Greens, our sources up there (some guy called Sam and others) are unsure about what’s going on. Certainly Lipstick Larissa Waters won the postal ballot but Big Juanita seems unhappy about being done over so comprehensively so may be attempting to impose herself using an alternate process to a ballot. When we find out, the OC will let y’all know in our usual subtle and caring way.

Easter peace everyone, even to Phatbaldboy Alex above who seems like an angry chap to be involved in the domestic violence field, hopefully he follows his own advice and stops beating those he meets,

Andrew

Yes, get your sorry arse to work and be productive.

Absolutely not.

Certainly Easter and Christmas exist as public holidays, even for secular people, because our society derives from one where the Catholic Church and its feast days regulated society.

What we could do is say that if any religion wants a day off, then everyone gets a day off that day. So there would be new, universal public holiday’s for Eid, Chanukah, etc.

Talk Like A Pirate day http://www.talklikeapirate.com/ and the related followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster http://www.venganza.org/ cannot be forgotten, either.

That would probably help make multiculturalism and religious tolerance more popular.

Yes, get your sorry arse to work and be productive.

I’m well aware that the constitution doesn’t in this respect bind the actions of the states. None the less it’s relevant that in a supposedly secular state, provision is made for the followers of one religion and not others.

“The government is planning to give away 3 billion dollars in its water plan to ‘buy out’ irrigators in the Murray Darling River system.
Thats nearly $300 for every taxpayer in Australia going to people who paid nothing for the water and many of whom are rich anyway.”

Hey Paul, I’m one of them [R. Murray irrigators]!

However I sympathise with your sentiment.

But perhaps you don’t understand the system.

What happens [as in my case] is that if you want to use large quantities of water from the Murray, say 100 million litres every year [whether there is water in the river and associated waterways or not], you first need to buy a licence for that quantity.
These licences are issued and controlled by the state governments but there is a trade in them that is not controlled. For example I bought my licence for many megalitres from some bloke I never met, via a broker, and it cost me several thousand dollars.
I can now, if I don’t want to use that water anymore, sell it to whoever [anywhere along the river] at the current price [about 3 times what I paid about 10 years ago].
Once I have that licence I can use as much of that amount as I want at no cost [well except for pretty minimal pumping costs] up to the maximum if there is no temporary quota limit cos of drought.
It is only the licence that costs money.
The water itself is free.

Now the problem is that so many of these licences have been issued in the past in SA [and other states] that irrigators actually are taking out more water than the river can deliver and stay [sic] healthy or even flow. It stopped flowing past my place about 3 months ago. It’s actually just a big puddle at the moment, getting smaller daily, as irrigators drain it. On average SA irrigators use about 4-5 times the amount used by the city of Adelaide for all purposes in a bad year.
So you need to balance some conflicting needs here.
The river, the irrigators, the people in the state that drink etc the water.
Remember the river can only deliver a finite amount [which will probably decrease in the future].
So where can we get more water from if the climate and dams won’t deliver enough to satisfy all those needs as above?
So which sector do you cut, river or irrigators or city, and how do you do this?
If you cut the amount allocated to the river then its ecosystem will die faster than it already is and will probably make irrigation impossible in the very near future and the water unfit for human consumption, its pretty close to the edge already.
If you cut the amount allocated to the cities [nearly 2 million people in SA depend on Murray water part of every year] what impact will that have?
If you cut water from irrigation, by buying back some of the licences, what impact will that have on irrigation and irrigators, the river and the cities?

See the problem[s]?

The answer, or part therof, by the government, is to buy back some of the irrigation licences thus compensating the irrigators for their initial outlay on the cost of the licences [and probably giving a very nice profit in the process].

By the way, I use about 2% of my water allocation even when my laggon is full.
And I’m going to sell to the govt. any of my allocation even at a hefty profit.
I don’t trust the buggers.

Your turn.

a) Easter public holidays are gazetted by the several States and Territories, not the Commonwealth.

b) There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents State Governments from declaring public holidays around the times of festivals that have traditionally been highly significant in the Christian Churches.

Declaring a public holiday is hardly the same as ‘imposing any religious observance’.