Wolf Creek Sydney Style

*



It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I though of the door
With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.

Back over the sill
I bade a 'Come in'
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.

So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.

Robert Frost The Lockless Door



At first the news came across as just another odd event in the city, callous cruelty, the banality of evil. Two people had jumped from a balcony in Hunter Street, Waterloo, the neighbouring suburb to Redfern. There wasn't much peace now. Drugs, probably, they thought dismissively, barely able to arouse any interest, beyond the quirkiness of it. Ever since ice became the drug of choice for many of the city's alcoholic-addict-derelict fraternity strange things have been happening constantly. Were you there when she died? the police asked the beggar woman outside the station as I passed. She hadn't stood up when they arrived, and just shook her head.

The police were always trying to move her on; but she was always back within hours. She gave them a mouthful every time they tried. It was curious the depth to which they had sunk. But as the days followed, the story of the couple who had jumped from the balcony took over the conscience of the city, duly horrified. They were young Asian students, 18, 19, boyfriend, girlfriend. The girl died. The boy remains in hospital with multiple fractures, broken pelvis, broken everything. There had been four Asian students in the unit; they often cram together to save money. It had been just another Sunday evening, when hell broke loose. An aboriginal man known as Brendan Peter Dennison broke into their unit; fuelled, the newspaper reports say, on ice. Locals who knew him confirm that he had been seriously into the ice.

Another black man on a short circuit to nowhere, running seriously into trouble. Even shadows dance, here in the sickness. He had allegedly raped them, forced them to have sex with each other. The names of the victims have been suppressed; more censorship, more control. Some newspapers blacked out the faces of relatives, others didn't. Where were the boundaries in these things? Why was there so much control? It was the quiet, genteel, almost delicate lives of the Asian students; face to face with the raging, screaming, terrifying madness of the street, dangerous of soul, dangerous of body. He arranged them in tableaus. He allegedly forced them to do things to each other. He was gripped in the urgent carnality of the drug, able to do anything, driven with desire.

And the shadows flickered outside the unit. Muffled shouts. Disturbances in the ether. Evil has arrived here. Big, powerful, strong, smelly. A towering psycho determined to wreak havoc. He couldn't understand why they didn't like it, as he forced them on each other. Oddly, the newspapers report court documents recording that he touched the boys anus with his tongue. A bizarre clinical analysis. Get down and dirty. So terrified had they become, that they jumped three floors to the concrete; or there is some suggestion pushed. This story gripped the city, people shook their heads. Imagine how terrified you would would have to be to jump from a third floor balcony, 25 metres, to escape from someone, they said. He was captured by blasts from the past, everywhere.

Here we're in shadow, different pasts, different jobs, time enfolding in on itself. He measured the dalliance. He asked strangers for information. They shook their heads. It could happen to anyone, any race, they turn bad. As zombies hobble past in the street, clearly stoned. Odd parallels to the story he was chasing. Each one of these people, or drifting couples, could tell a drug fuelled story of brutality, viciousness. He came down from the country and went off the rails. He stayed with friends until they kicked him out. No one could ever be certain of what really happened. Party, party, they said, chortling, laughing at the limitless opportunities that were opening up. But at the end of the party there was nothing but dead bodies and holes in their memories.

There were always these weird crazy things that were happening in the neighbourhood. Were you there when she died? Clearly someone had overdosed on the street, only a day after the balcony murderer had been caught. He could see the gloved police going through bags, harassing itinerants. It seemed an entirely pointless exercise, persecuting people for their drugs of choice, darkening the shades of time, picked out in a hyper-real light as they bent over to examine the drug paraphernalia in their bags. What was the point? Arrest them and they'd be back within hours, or days. The jails were already full with the city's dysfunctional. The middle classes were out of fashion. Every one wanted to save the world. The c... died in me lap, she said. It was just another bit of weirdness in the city landscape; another echo. Suddenly the police were running, chasing after another woman, cornering her further up the lane. Were you with her when she died, they no doubt asked. As if anyone would admit anything, not to whitie, not to the forces of repression; not here, not now, not ever.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/a-nation-reborn-at-anzac-cove-utter-nonsense-keating-20081030-5enw.html

FORMER prime minister Paul Keating has challenged one of the nation's most cherished narratives: that Australia's nationhood was baptised within the Anzac spirit of Gallipoli.

Dismissing the idea as "utter and complete nonsense", Mr Keating said he had never been to Gallipoli and "never will".

This puts him at odds with former prime ministers Bob Hawke and John Howard and former Labor leader Kim Beazley, who have all made moving speeches at Anzac Day ceremonies at Gallipoli in which they placed the 1915 landing there at the heart of the Australian story.

Mr Keating made it clear that he believed the estimated 20,000 Australians who make the pilgrimage to Gallipoli each year were misguided.

Mr Hawke was in South Korea last night and could not be contacted, and efforts to contact both Mr Howard and Mr Beazley also failed.

"Gallipolli was shocking for us," Mr Keating said. "Dragged into service by the imperial government in an ill-conceived and poorly executed campaign, we were cut to ribbons and dispatched. And none of it in the defence of Australia."

The former prime minister, an avowed republican, challenged the Anzac legend while launching a new book, Churchill and Australia, written by Gough Whitlam's former speechwriter, Graham Freudenberg, who had written of Gallipoli that "in an almost theological sense Australian Britons had been born again into the baptism of fire at Anzac Cove".

Mr Keating said he believed the author was questioning, "somewhat tongue in cheek, whether we needed being reborn at all".

"The 'reborn' part went to a lack of confidence and ambivalence about ourselves — who we were and what we had become," Mr Keating said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/drought-aid-down-the-drain/2008/10/30/1224956238414.html

BILLIONS of dollars in drought assistance to farmers and rural businesses has been inequitable, ineffective and divisive, and encouraged poor farming practices, the Productivity Commission says.

In a draft report requested by the Federal Government and released yesterday, the commission recommends most forms of drought assistance be scrapped by 2009-10 and replaced by spending on things such as climate research and business training that help farmers better manage risk so they can survive drought without taxpayer assistance.

Struggling farmers everywhere - not just in drought-declared areas - should get temporary income assistance, but with much tighter eligibility criteria.

The report also recommends scrapping $150,000 exit grants - designed to get unviable farmers off the land - because they have attracted only 550 applications.

The commission said: "Most farmers are sufficiently self-reliant to manage climate variability. In 2007-08, 20 per cent of Australia's 150,000 farms received drought assistance, totalling over $1 billion, with some on income support continuously since 2002. Even in drought-declared areas, most farmers manage without assistance."

The report is scathing of subsidies from the Federal Government for interest rates and from the State Government for the transport of livestock, water and fodder because they "can perversely encourage poor management practices. In marked contrast to the policy objectives, current drought assistance programs are not focused on helping farmers improve self-reliance, preparedness and climate-change management."

Interest rate assistance was directed to those "more heavily in debt, farmers who have strong balance sheets are ineligible".

Transport subsidies pushed up the price of fodder for other farmers and exacerbated environmental damage because farmers retained excessive stock for the prevailing conditions.

Exceptional Circumstances assistance is supposed to go to needy farmers in areas that are suffering droughts that come along only every 20 to 25 years, but "it has been common for 30 per cent or more of Australia to be [drought] declared. Indeed, as at June 2008, more than half of the country was declared and some areas had been declared for 13 of the past 16 years. When compared with rainfall records, it would appear that a generous interpretation of the criteria, rather than protracted low rainfall, is mainly responsible for such widespread declarations.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24579240-5013871,00.html

SINGLE pensioners will be the most affected by the price increases to flow from emissions cuts, adding to their claims for reform of their benefits.

Government modelling released yesterday predicts costs would rise by an average of between 1.3 and 1.8 per cent for single pensioners in 2010, compared with 0.8 to 1.2 per cent for the wealthiest singles.

Single pensioners would be left worse off than all other households, including sole-parent households or people on unemployment benefits.

"Lower-income households are likely to be slightly more affected by the introduction of an emissions price than other households, as they generally spend a higher proportion of their disposable income on emissions-intensive goods, and may be less able to substitute away from these goods," Treasury acknowledges in its report.

The average annual electricity bill is tipped to rise by an average $208 to $260 per household when emissions trading starts in 2010, with gas and other fuels adding another $104 to the total.

Inflation will rise by up to 1.5per cent in a one-off shock in the same year, with a second hit at the supermarket checkout likely some years later when the trading scheme widens to take in farming, pushing up food prices.

But Wayne Swan said yesterday households would continue to prosper even under the deepest emissions cuts considered by Government by 2020.

"Real disposable income per capita grows at an annual average rate of around 1 per cent in the policies modelled between 2010 and 2050, compared with 1.2 per cent in the reference scenario," the Treasurer said.

National Seniors chief executive Michael O'Neill said pensioners would hold the Government to its July pledge to increase their payments to compensate for the 2010 price hikes.

Old Queens Exploited Without Conscience

*



I see the boys of summer
Where once the twilight locks
A process in the weather of the heart
Before I knocked
The force that through the green fuse
My hero bares his nerves
Where once the waters of your face
If I were tickled by the rub of love
Our eunuch dreams
Especially when the October wind
When, like a running grave
From love’s first fever
In the beginning
Light breaks where no sun shines
I fellowed sleep
I dreamed my genesis
My world is pyramid
All all and all

Dylan Thomas



All in shadows, all in giant floating egos. All his life he had wanted somewhere to escape, somewhere he wouldn't be bashed, ridiculed, beaten, humiliated, somewhere he could call his own, somewhere safe. In shadows and in lightning, in pain and triumph, these days were crawling over themselves like billowing clouds. He had made so many mistakes. He had longed for a solution, longed for warmth. That little stretch of pavement, that moment, kept coming back, the rivers of asphalt, the uncaring swish of the cars on the black river of the road, the splash of rain, the glowering bouncer.

Stay there, sober up, he had ordered, the big beefcake of a man giving the impression he would rather not have touched him, was worried about catching some disease. He washed. He was human. He was drunk and maudlin and all his greatest moments now involved being tossed out of clubs. Thrown down the steps of the Taxi Club at 3am; the indifferent cackle of the transsexuals and the clang of the poker machines going on uninterrupted. Drunk as he was, he felt every step on the way down. Bang, bang, bang. When he hit the outside the cold night air woke him up, and he realised where he was. The bouncer was sneering and laughing and threatening all at the same time. And he decided to disappear. Confrontation got you no where.

Catastrophe and struggle and a broken spirit, that was all that was left. Obscure scribblings. A pretence once that he wanted to write. A sad determination to be something, somewhere, someone. To keep on typing. To record peak experiences. To document the world as it shifted on its axis. To remember those moments under the giant tree in Darling Point. To see the dreams; to see time enfolded in upon itself. Years later, pulling up outside that block of units. Now renovated. The giant tree gone and the rear garden landscaped. All his little secret selves long washed away. And pointless diatribes more meaningless than ever.

But it was the pavement, the lurch into consciousness, the shaking off of disaster, the tiny mouse scutterings of rescuing a coherent whole, these places, these experiences, were what he had become. They were an odious group, he knew that, reviled by the city. He had known that from his time as a teenage boy, when every where they went were underground clubs and secret late night cafes; where they were invisible against the city whole, and liked it that way. Before G-man. Before buffed bodies and bulging t-shirts and gay pride, feather boas and shrieking political correctness. Back then they were the underground, and they liked it that way.

He was being slaughtered inside his own skull. He couldn't wait to get more alcohol into him, and could never get enough. Never. Except for those magic moments at 3am, when he heard the click and was at one with the world, the thumping beat and the disco balls, and knew he wouldn't remember anything beyond that point. Knew he could wake up anywhere. On his favourite rooftop. In a stranger's bed. In a suburb he had never heard of. He didn't want to grow any older. He didn't even want to be on the planet half the time. Born out of sorts, a stranger in a strange land, he was looking for love in the bottom of a glass; and all he found was the dank sweat that seeped out of every pore the following day.

There must be someone he could talk to, someone to whom he could tell his story. Someone who would embrace him affectionately, tell him it was alright. He wasn't really growing into that terrible thing they had feared so much, the old queens they had exploited without conscience. He could see the traffic passing; lights picked out in the false dawn. He could feel the hangover already beginning its assault. He could feel the sad chaos that had become his inner core, the utter hopelessness, the derision from outsiders, the sad tale of the bitch who died, death already eating his person as he swished past him to have a joint at the rear of the hotel, with his little coterie, without him. Embarrassingly he started to heave, threw up into the gutter and then stumbled, before any one could associate the smelly mess with him, into the Darlinghurst night. He gathered himself like a sheet around a central core; and went home to hide.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24573905-11949,00.html

THE Rudd Government will press ahead with its emissions trading scheme, arguing that modelling to be released today proves it is pro-growth and good for the nation's long-term economic competitiveness.

In a strongly worded speech to be delivered today, Wayne Swan will make it clear the Government will stare down critics who argue that the introduction of the emissions trading scheme should be put on the backburner during the global economic crisis.

Instead, the Government will press ahead with a "soft start" in 2010 as planned.

"The modelling will show we can have a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme without having a dramatic impact on economic growth," the Treasurer said yesterday.

Mr Swan will assert that the emissions trading scheme is in fact a "pro-growth, pro-competitiveness strategy for the Australian economy" and needs to be implemented as quickly as possible.

But concerns were raised yesterday about the assumptions behind the modelling that has been so critical in bolstering the Government's resolve to impose the new carbon market.

An analysis for the Minerals Council of Australia by a former head of the Australian Bureau of Resource Economics, Brian Fisher, says the Treasury assumptions are overly optimistic and questionable and could drastically underestimate the scheme's economic impact.

And many energy-intensive industries are mystified by the modelling's conclusion that there is no risk of investment moving offshore to countries that do not impose a cost on carbon.

The Treasury modelling finds that the impact of an ETS on Australian GDP will be modest, that efficiently produced commodities such as coal and iron ore are likely to increase their share of the global market, and that other emissions-intensive processes such as steel-making will at least maintain their international competitiveness.

Mr Swan will argue it builds a case for Australia to introduce its emissions scheme quickly, even if an international climate change agreement has not been concluded.

"The modelling proves that the longer we delay, the more expensive responding to climate change will become," Mr Swan will tell the Per Capita think tank at a Brisbane conference this morning.

http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/2613/218/

Anyone concerned about the environment and seeking the best solutions for how to protect it will find The Really Inconvenient Truths, by Iain Murray, to be a valuable, fact-filled resource that is both informative and entertaining.

A man named Benjamin Cone from North Carolina bought land with no trees and allowed the forest to grow back on it. Once the forest returned, a protected woodpecker moved in, prompting the government, under rules of the Endangered Species Act, to prohibit any meaningful use of a large portion of his land — he was denied the right to any logging, driving the value of his property down from $1.7 million to about $260,000. The new feathered resident and the accompanying plunge in his land's value caused a reasonable response: the owner decided to clear-cut the rest of the forest to avoid losing it to the woodpeckers and their bureaucratic allies.

Throughout the United States, landowners have become so fearful of losing the right to manage or sell their land if a protected species decides to make its home on the land that the Endangered Species Act has been sarcastically termed the "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up Act." Instead of doing everything possible to attract and safeguard endangered species, landowners often manage their properties to avoid inhabitation — and secretly kill the species if they do show up.

One inescapable conclusion that a logical person would reach after reading The Really Inconvenient Truths by Iain Murray is that the quasi-religious, big-government, environmentalist movement creates disincentives for people to take care of the planet — and actually prevents proper care of the planet.

The book makes a compelling case against the liberal approach to preserving the Earth and its resources, arguing that government controls usually have unintended consequences that prove far worse than the problems they were originally intended to fix. To make his case, Murray explains some of the tragic effects that liberal policies have produced.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/29/pakistan-earthquake1

At least 170 people have been killed after a powerful earthquake hit south-west Pakistan, leaving thousands homeless. The death toll is expected to rise.

The aid agency Care International put the death toll at 500-600. Several villages were reduced to rubble. Local television pictures showed lines of bodies in white shrouds with victims' names written on them.

The earthquake struck in the early hours of the morning about 40 miles (60km) north-east of the provincial capital Quetta. There were aftershocks throughout the day including a powerful tremor at about 5.30pm local time.

"We went to a village, Wam, where we saw mass graves being dug," said Hasan Mazumdar, Care International's country director in Pakistan.

"Bodies were still arriving. I estimate that 200 died in that village alone.

"There was a big jolt while we were standing there. The mountains shook. Boulders came crashing down. The people were really scared. They never experienced anything like this. I spoke to a man in his early 30s who had lost four daughters. He was just completely heartbroken."

The earthquake of 2005 in northern Pakistan claimed about 73,000 lives. Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, was flattened in 1935 by an earthquake that killed 30,000.

The Pakistan meteorological department put the magnitude of today's quake at 6.5. The official death toll is around 170 but reports are still coming in from remote areas.

The army has been sent in, bringing tents and blankets flown, but thousands are spending tonight in the open because their homes were destroyed or they are too frightened to go back indoors.

Sub-zero temperatures are expected. Khalil Gill, a worker with Oxfam who was in Quetta, said: "It was very cold this morning, we just ran out, no shoes, no jackets. There was a shock around 8am. This evening was the strongest, the whole town was shaking. Everything shook for about two minutes. We rushed outside. Women and children were crying. We are too frightened to go back into any buildings. We are all spending the night outside."

Asphalt Rivers

*




Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Reluctance, Robert Frost.



Well, if only the journey hadn't been internal. If only he had been allowed to laugh at the party. The quick and the dead. The soft echoes of recrimination. It was time to begin again. Again. They were shadowed through the back streets. He always thought there was someone else in the room, even when he was entirely alone. He was sick at heart and sick of soul. There had been too many mistakes. The binging had destroyed his integrity. He was shadowed, followed, and he turned around sharply to see dark shapes disappearing down side alleys, he ran to find an empty lane. Disintegration. Paranoia. Emotional disturbance. He was here and he was gong to make something of it.

Lifting hi head from the asphalt, he knew there could be a fresh start. He knew, despite the sighing despair of his gut, that he would have no choice but to find the courage, to begin again, to make it through the day like every other person, if that indeed was what he was. All night drinking had become more than just a past time, it was a masterful art. Nobody else could dissolve themselves with the same finesse. He shadowed these dark stages, trying instinctively to hide when the night was already over, the sun was picking its way over the horizon, the buildings were taking shape in the dawn light. Whatever had happened? Who had he spoken to? Where had he been?

He remembered smiting from something the bitch had said. Past it. You're past it, love. She would say that, frightful queen. Why did he let these stray comments get through the wall? Why was he concerned at something that should never be? Because he wanted to be part of the crowd, one of his inner coterie. He wanted to be liked, to be sitting on those bar stools ordering more drinks and surrounded by acolytes, to be, God forbid, popular. The city alcoves where he had watched the sunrise barely seemed to justify the energy any more, the climbs up 14 floors, the dodging of boarded windows, the quiet breathing, the fear that someone would awake and find him there, on top of the world.

Nothing could be more beautiful than the glinting harbour, the smudged pinks and oranges of the clouds, the ripples on the water as the ferry made its first trip of the day across to Manly, the giant cargo ships heading into Darling Harbour. He wanted to be anyone but who he was. Embraces in the middle of the night, fervent, urgent, completely drink. He remembered no faces. All he remembered was abstract desire, as if the whole city was searching for love and he had been caught on the interchange, the cross currents as the suburban boys flooded in and out; and the old vultures chuckled to themselves, smoking and pawing at the passing the passing talent.

There had been a point when he had been at home, one of the crowd, laughing, gossiping, loading pressure on to pleasure, unconcerned over the transmission of diseases. They were there in the night and that was their sexuality, orgasms en masse, the packed and hunting crowds, the flows of lines in his sketch pad as he tried to capture everything, before the obliteration of message, before alcohol brought unconsciousness and blessed relief. He was shattered. He wanted to come from a normal family. He didn't want to feel universal angst sighing in his guts. He didn't want to see the tragedy of the ages in every dropped wrist, every exaggerated gesture, every shrieked outburst: darling, darling, she's not well.

All he wanted to see was familiar gardens and people who loved each other, families with children, young, handsome teens with the world in front of them, normal people who didn't perve at everything that passed. He didn't want to grow old and sad, sitting on a bar stool. He didn't want to find meaning in the liquid flows of darkness that was the city, the streaming asphalt rivers, the swish of traffic on a wet road, the memories that meant nothing to anyone else. These bars. These people. Their stories. But Aids swept through the lot of them; and increasingly he saw the final results, just nearby at the St Vincents Hospice. There wasn't any fun any more, in these ravaged, skeletal figures. They reached out and wanted to be loved, now, most of all. And all he could see was the black clouds of fungus and viruses that surrounded them, the contagion, the dismal ends. He didn't want to end that way, a tribute in a local magazine, the tiniest of blips in the history of the city's underbelly. He did what he thought was right, and continued to visit.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24569402-462,00.html

PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd's pledge to ease the financial pressure on families is failing with a growing number of workers struggling to make ends meet.

Nearly two million workers have fallen behind in paying their mortgage and credit card debts, reinforcing fears that Australia will be hard hit by the global meltdown.

Eleven months after Labor's election victory, millions of workers also remain vulnerable to harsh workplace laws - with one-third existing under "precarious" conditions.

The alarming results are contained in a national survey of more than 7000 workers. It found that Australians are working longer hours - but are less likely to belong to a union.

The Workplace Research Centre survey has renewed calls for the Federal Government to reinstate tougher safeguards for vulnerable workers.

As the Government scrambles to help families cope with worsening economic conditions, the survey found that millions of employees are already doing it tough.

The survey, to be released today, found 56 per cent are just "coping" or struggling to get by - compared to 52 per cent last year.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24569306-2702,00.html

THE federal Government has thrown mortgage and investment funds a lifeline with a scheme that allows them to apply for a banking licence to qualify for a government guarantee on deposits.

After days of crisis talks, the offer came as hundreds of thousands of investors learnt they had become unwitting victims of the freeze in deposits through their superannuation accounts.

An AXA spokeswoman said that of the $2.1 billion frozen in its mortgage funds, $1.4billion was wholesale, and most of that was superannuation. About half the $2billion caught in Perpetual's six frozen funds is also wholesale.

In a bid to unlock the funds, the Government has instructed the banking regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, to fast-track applications for banking licences. But the Government has ruled out extending the safety net of a guarantee to the millions of investors in managed funds.

In a speech to the Australia Unlimited roundtable in Melbourne last night, Kevin Rudd made clear that any financial institution wanting a government guarantee would have to apply for a banking licence.

"Subject to the successful application of these financial institutions (which means meeting the prudential standards), they will of course be covered by the government guarantee. But only if they meet the prudential standards of deposit-taking institutions."

The announcement, which followed two days of consultation between Treasury, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and industry bodies, will bring little comfort to the hundreds of thousands of investors whose funds, totalling more than $25 billion, have been frozen in mortgage and property trusts.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/29/2403969.htm?section=business

Frozen investment companies may be able to access the Federal Government's deposits guarantee if they subject themselves to tougher rules and regulations.

The Federal Government is encouraging the companies to apply to come under the control of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) like banks and other institutions.

That would give the companies the protection of the deposits guarantee and stop the flow of funds out of their investments.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced $80 million for the financial regulators with some to be used to help speed up the application process.

At least 15 companies have frozen assets to stop investors taking their money to banks and other institutions that are covered by the guarantee.

Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen told ABC 1's Lateline the move will help some fund management companies lift the freeze.

"After discussions with these funds over the last two days, [we] moved to improve their liquidity via bringing them under the APRA regulation if they choose to," he said.

"Now, a number of those funds have indicated to us that they are actively pursuing that.

"We wouldn't have done this unless they had indicated to us that they thought it would be helpful."

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd concedes the move will not help all investment companies with liquidity problems.

He Died In My Lap, She Said.

*



A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
- Herm Albright

Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.
- Marlo Thomas

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
- Anatole France

There he had built his stolen shack.
It had to be a stolen shack
Because of the fears of fire and logs
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:
Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.
We know who when they come to town
Bring berries under the wagon seat,
Or a basket of eggs between their feet;
What this man brought in a cotton sack
Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.
He showed me lumps of the scented stuff
Like uncut jewels, dull and rough
It comes to market golden brown;
But turns to pink between the teeth.
I told him this is a pleasant life
To set your breast to the bark of trees
That all your days are dim beneath,
And reaching up with a little knife,
To loose the resin and take it down
And bring it to market when you please.

The Gum Gatherer. Robert Frost.



Fearful, faithful, lost in the shadows, neglected by the others, there was nonetheless hope, as he crinched himself forward. We weren't sorry about what had happened. We weren't even truly aware of the commitments we had made. He was prepared to deal with a brighter future, but kept destroying opportunities as they approached. He was uncertain of his whereabouts. Every put down by the wide wide world cut him to the quick. He saw the house of his forebears. It was significantly over rated, this life. He looked at ordinary people with astonishment. He didn't understand how they held themselves together, everything was motivated. He couldn't understand why they weren't on the side walks, screaming.

Thieves huddled on street corners, planning what to do with the proceeds of their morning efforts. He had lost heart, lost love. They wouldn't be riding around the corner, soldiers, saviours. He couldn't believe he was suddenly old. Where had it all gone, life vanished? You hear the oddest conversations around here, beloved Redfern. He was walking past a ragged group near the methadone clinic. A large aboriginal woman was talking: "My 15-month-old son was breast feeding when I dropped him. The c... died in my lap." He looked back, deciphering the sentences. What did that woman say? The c... died in my lap. Lovely. They're so dysfunctional; and have no idea. Everyone around them is the same.

We were in shadows, shadowed; and he was uncertain; and not just of his whereabouts. There was always boasting and competition. I suppose you're property hasn't gone up in value at all? he asked, sneering. And he explained how it might have increased in value by about $20,000, judging from other prices being asked in the village. What was this shadows, this confusion. The c... died in my lap. Piss off dickwad, a woman shouts, as a hopeless looking bloke mucks around, pretending to make a grab for her bag. He could hear the shouted arrangements for them to meet afterwards. After she had scored. He couldn't do it because he had already robbed alleged dealer, something like that. These streets. This hopelessness. It was everywhere.

And amongst the welfare dependent, it was virtually encouraged by the government. None of them had to get up and go to work. None of them were just living quietly on the pension. Everyone is concerned that the welfare dependent are outstripping the people who are working. How can the nation afford this? They were settled into their neat despair. Houses were locked down. Police cruised the streets. These appalling stories were just grist to the mill. He saw the difference between public housing and the private dwellings. They breed like rabbits, a rich man said dismissively. And there's just so many of them.

A kid at foot and a kid behind, one in the belly and one on the hip. They breed like rabbits that's for sure, as the welfare dollars pile in. As the boyfriend sneaks off to work. As everyone is engaged in feeling sorry for the country's most vulnerable, a massive industry built around them. Once he had wanted to make life better for the poor and disenchanted. But the government had taken over all the philanthropic roles, dishing out money and counselling and guidance, until there was nothing left for the churches and the voluntary organisations to do. The left had distorted all the normal functioning. The right had joined in the free for all, buying votes. ZHis conscience was free, but bewildered.

Everything he had ever believed in had turned out to be false. Shadows flickered across the screen. Dickwad, she turned around and shouted again. He was just laughing, they were always laughing off insults and failures, particularly when it came to their women folk. There weren't any shadows, just over lit glare from a harsh sky. Bright boxes. Empty rooms. The c... died in my lap. Did she look upset, scarred by this terrible experience of watching her toddler son die after she had dropped him. Must have been quite a drop. On the head. She was probably off her lolly. They always were when these sort of things happened. Make way for the hero, he thought, as he flickered by. Nothing will be resolved. None of you will be saved. All is negligence and chaos; and in these lives you have created for yourselves nothing but absolution in moments of oblivion, wiping clean their conscience.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilTtTsbBw_Uh91fH-Mcdj_EgneRg

BEIJING (AFP) — World leaders have vowed to overhaul the global financial system in the face of recession fears, but US President George W. Bush urged nations to "recommit" to free markets despite economic turmoil.

After a week of growing economic gloom and plunging stock markets, Asian and European leaders meeting in Beijing promised Saturday wide-ranging reforms while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also called for quick change.

"Leaders pledged to undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems," the 40-member Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) said in a statement released late Friday.

"They agreed to take quickly appropriate initiatives in this respect, in consultation with all stakeholders and the relevant international financial institutions."

China's Premier Wen Jiabao called for more regulation of the world's financial system , saying after the summit "we need to draw lessons from this crisis."

"We need financial innovation to serve the economy better, however we need even more financial regulation to ensure financial safety."

Wen confirmed China's participation in a crucial summit in the United States on November 15 aimed at tackling the financial meltdown, without specifying which Chinese leader would attend the meeting of 20 industrialised and emerging powers.

The economic turmoil has led to growing criticism of US-style free market capitalism, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this week saying "the ideology of the dictatorship of the market... is dead."

But Bush on Saturday, moving to set an agenda for the upcoming international economic summit, said its participants must "recommit" to the principles of free enterprise and free trade.

"As we focus on responses to our short-term challenges, our nations must also recommit to the fundamentals of long-term economic growth -- free markets, free enterprise, and free trade," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

The US president, who leaves office in January, added that "open market policies have lifted standards of living and helped millions of people around the world escape the grip of poverty."

http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/2580/252/

Most people almost instinctually try their best to be responsible stewards of this earth’s valuable natural resources. But the abrasive approach and militant tactics of many who fill the ranks of the environmentally conscious have led me to believe that the movement has gradually devolved into a kind of Religion. In fact, if we look closely at some of the social initiatives and assorted orbiting causes that are championed by the so called “green movement”, one may discern some eerie similarities with some less well organized religions.

I received confirmation of my suspicions that this Religion had become a widespread phenomenon only a few days ago, when I witnessed what surely must have been one of its disciples indignantly refusing a plastic bag from a grocer who kindly offered to bag her purchases. The customer seemed horrified that this clueless shop owner had not been duly briefed on how plastic bags are a known contributor to the destruction of our fragile planet. This was followed by an even sterner reprimand to the callous philistine for being so blissfully out of touch with the widely accepted new creed.

Upon closer examination, I realized that - like any other self respecting Religion - the necessary building blocks and quasi-spiritual tenets that ensure its survival are also present in this well entrenched belief system.

There is, for example, Mother Earth, the Religion’s primary object of devotion, sometimes also referred to as Mother Nature. According to garden variety environmentalists, this God must be worshiped and respected. The more hard core adherents believe that it should also be feared, for it is a rather unpredictable deity which indiscriminately indulges its thirst for wholesale revenge; ergo the standard compulsory tithes (or sacrifices) to appease its rather capricious wrath.

These tithes usually take the form of carbon offsets, veiled pecuniary fines for the unrepentant souls who insist on purchasing SUV’s and don’t follow the prescribed emission standards, the purchase of energy efficient light fixtures, and even compulsory dietary regulations for the newly initiated, to name a few. On occasion one finds followers like Dave Chameides - what one may call a true believer, presently residing in Los Angeles - whose devotion extends to storing garbage in his house to protect the eco-system.

This Religion also boasts of a collectively agreed upon narrative that those claiming fidelity are encouraged to learn and propagate. This narrative speaks of a hope of man’s future atonement for the sin of pollution against mother earth, and contains specific doctrines which, when properly followed, offer a return to the pristine form nature once possessed prior to humanity’s entry into the scene. Conversely if these doctrines are ignored, the narrative renders its respective vision of apocalypse, should remedial action and repentance not be soon forthcoming. The evils of famine, Global Warming, wars and rumors of wars, are but mere preemptory signs pointing to this final judgment.

Naturally, this Religion is not bereft of a divine mission to indoctrinate the unwashed masses. Albeit pursued by different denominations, they all share an equal affinity for a common worldview that essentially brands humanity as the enemy.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/free-icecream-on-the-day-hotel-addressed-the-stink/2008/10/26/1224955853325.html

ON THE day the Coogee Bay Hotel stood accused of serving gelato contaminated with human faeces, it made a novel offer to its patrons yesterday: free ice-cream.

It may have won the Australian Hotels Association's hotel of the year award in 2005 and 2006, but yesterday the sprawling beachside pub - in the suburb local Aborigines knew as Koojah, meaning "stinking place" - was fighting for its reputation.

Stephen and Jessica Whyte and their sons had been at the hotel more than three weeks ago to watch the NRL grand final. After complaining about several issues to management, staff offered them a complimentary bowl of ice-cream as a conciliatory gesture.

Mrs Whyte says that when she took a spoonful and put it to her lips, she knew she was getting more than gelato and became violently ill. She spat the contents into a napkin her family later sent to the National Measurements Institute, which found it had "properties similar to human excreta".

"It doesn't take much to join the dots," said the family's lawyer, Steven Lewis, who yesterday said the family contacted him on Friday after giving up trying to deal with the hotel.

After extensive stories about the incident appeared in both Sunday papers, the hotel called a media conference, in which its general manager, Tony Williams, read a statement but would not answer questions because it was "a serious legal issue".

"If indeed this allegation is proved to have occurred, we believe it must have been some form of sabotage," he said.

Whether yesterday's ice-cream was an attempt to calm a horrified public or was a regular practice was unclear, as the hotel would not answer questions.

The statement said that when the claim was first made, the hotel "immediately stopped service of the product, quarantined the product and began conducting an internal review to assess whether there was any further evidence of contamination, such as that claimed by the Whytes. There was not.

"We also tried to maintain open lines of communication with the Whytes. However, our discussions ultimately broke down … if we did not pay them up to $1 million."

Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood

*



Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost




He found himself alone in an enormous warehouse. He was walking on a myriad of glassed in chambers. His shoe almost covered an entire world, a story, people, a microcosm. As he approached the meditation site, he knew his life was about to change forever. As the exercises progressed, he decided to empty his mind, to do as they said. Immediately she was there. She laughed at his surprise. We're psychic, too, she said. Didn't you know? Didn't you believe us? Didn't you know this was what it was all about? She held his hand. What is this place, she asked, looking around the giant empty room, the myriad of dimly lit chambers at their feet, the slime on the walls far off.

Where are we, he asked, what is it all about? Let me show you, she said. Immediately they were floating in infinity, could somehow sense the other worlds, the spirits, if that's what they were. It was a very big place, far bigger than any warehouse, however complex. Shallows and shadows, not here. There was nowhere to hide. The fire was warm at his feet. Could any of this be real? It's here, she said joyously, it's all here. How do you know what to trust, or who to trust? You have to have faith in the munificence of it all, she responded. It's a bounteous place. There isn't any end to the generosity of everything.

He looked up from the asphalt on the street and had never been more messed up. Nothing was contained. He knew there was a better life, somewhere. Time was folding over and over upon itself. The urgent, unashamed desires of the handsome robber weren't going to hold him now. She looked at him, curious. What a weird head he had. She smiled at him, curious, he grimaced back, ruthful. He felt ashamed. He didn't know why, just everything. He had wasted so much. Don't worry about any of it, she said, we're all broken when we get here, we will help you, we will make you whole, we will cure you and make you healthy in head and body. He could see the clouds of worlds spread out. He couldn't deny it any more.

These are are secrets, she said later. We are open, but no one knows what we really are, how advanced we are, here; and there. You can't know unless you've been there yourself. Because it's all madness otherwise, and they dismiss us as eccentric. He smiled, said little, let her talk, the conversion process. He didn't know what had been real. And what was not. As they parted she looked him straight in the eyes, a look which said she knew, she was there, don't pretend. As he walked to the car he thought: what just happened? He had gone there knowing his life would change forever, but what had happened was bewildering. They had seen the giant empty room that was his heart. They had eyed the thousands of dying or extinct stories at his feet, surprised, having never seen anything quite like it.

And then they had shown him something far grander. Far more real. He had been taken there and given a spirit guide. Different, perhaps even in addition to the one which had always been with him. He had approached the meditation site and now he was approaching his car, a not so subtly different person, the seed was there and would evolve. There was nothing to be frightened of. All that hallucinatory literature had served a purpose. He was open to unsettling new worlds. There wasn't going to be an early end to this story. Suddenly he knew he was going to live till he was 95. That the best truly did lay ahead. That the gods were telling him to finish the book. That past mistakes meant nothing, what mattered were the days ahead.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ims-Nj4pVMPxNO_NIjW7m4fvNWOA

Obama slams McCain on return to White House trail

15 hours ago

RENO, Nevada (AFP) — Barack Obama mocked John McCain as an acolyte of unpopular President George W. Bush Saturday as the White House foes waged close combat in western states which are key stepping stones to the presidency.

Just 10 days from election day, Senator McCain meanwhile warned the Democratic nominee, who leads most polls and boasts a big financial edge, was taking victory on November 4 for granted and vowed never to give up.

Obama threw himself back into full-bore campaigning in the swing state of Nevada, less than nine hours after touching down on the US mainland following an emotional visit to Hawaii to be at the side of the gravely ill grandmother who raised him.

He said he was grateful for an outpouring of prayers and flowers for ailing Madelyn Dunham, 85.

"It means a lot," Obama said, before launching a new assault on McCain who is trying to unshackle himself from Bush.

"John McCain is so opposed to George Bush's policies, that he voted with him 90 percent of the time for the past eight years," Senator Obama said.

"That's right, he decided to really stick it to him -- 10 percent of the time."

"John McCain attacking George Bush for his out-of-hand economic policy is like (Vice President) Dick Cheney attacking George Bush for his go-it-alone foreign policy."

"It's like Tonto getting mad at the Lone Ranger," he said, noting that the president cast an early ballot for McCain on Friday.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24552122-5012980,00.html

SUPERMODEL Kristy Hinze is in love and a 35-year age difference with her US billionaire beau hasn't curtailed the excitement over their engagement.

There have been text messages, Facebook postings and even a special sexy photograph.

Queenslander Hinze, 29, advised family and friends in recent days that she was wedding Jim Clark, 64, an internet and property tycoon, probably in April at a venue to be announced.

The couple, who have dated for nearly three years, are this weekend at a secret location, possibly London or Hamburg, shopping for her engagement ring – a bauble many expect to be as big and sparkly as Hinze's beaming smile.

Hinze's close friend, Sydney-based fashion PR agent Tracey Baker, was among those who received a text last week advising of the engagement.

"It read 'We're over the moon' and that really says everything – they're so happy," Ms Baker said.

Others privileged enough to be among Hinze's Facebook "friends" also have been exchanging messages of congratulations.

Many said they were not surprised as Hinze had openly displayed her love for Clark during a fashion shoot for the latest Sportscraft campaign in June.

"At the end of the shoot she said she wanted to do one special shot for Jim," Ms Baker said.

As thousands of supporters cheered, the power supply for the Democrat's microphone cut out, and he joked that a McCain operative must have pulled the plug. "That's a joke guys, there is no evidence of foul play," Obama said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/specials/science/when-law-is-patent-nonsense/2008/10/24/1224351544031.html

When law is patent nonsense

October 25, 2008

A ban on public laboratories testing for inherited breast cancer shows the pitfalls of selling off the rights to our DNA code to big business, writes Julie Robotham.
Advertisement

Ron Trent studies the genetics of motor neurone disease. That might appear an impossibly intense and narrow field: the disease affects at most five in 100,000 people, and only a minority of cases run in families. But a breakthrough here could benefit not just patients with the degenerative and fatal condition; it might also offer startling new insights into paraplegia and other neurological disorders.

Trent, the University of Sydney's professor of molecular genetics, has seen science throw out plenty of serendipitous surprises. The most inspiring research, he says, happens when people pursue an unexpected observation out of simple intellectual curiosity.

But such creative leaps increasingly are blocked by large corporations, who have staked out vast swathes of the human genome for their own exclusive use by taking out patents on excerpts of the DNA code that dictates the form of the healthy human body along with its diseases.

"As a researcher, I just innocently keep going," Trent says. He knows, though, that there is a very real possibility he may one day receive a legal letter accusing him of trespassing on someone else's patch.

Human gene patents - awarded in abundance during the 1980s and '90s and only a little more sparingly now - lurk like landmines. They threaten not just basic exploration such as Trent's, but also established diagnostics and treatments already used in hospitals.

From November 6, the Melbourne company Genetic Technologies Ltd is insisting that public hospital laboratories no longer conduct their own testing for the inherited breast cancer gene mutations known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, implicated in up to 10 per cent of cases and associated with a younger age of onset. Instead, the labs will have to send their patients' samples for processing by the company, at $2100 a test.

That Overlit World

*



For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To the truths we keep coming back and back to.
So desert it would have to be, so walled
By mountain ranges half in summer snow,
No one would covet it or think it worth
The pains of conquering to force change on.
Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The babe born to the desert, the sand storm
Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans--
"There are bees in this wall." He struck the clapboards,
Fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted.
We rose to go. Sunset blazed on the windows.

Robert Frost The Black Cottage



There was a set of parallel streets which ran down from the main boulevard. He was constantly being hampered in his delay, time out of joint. The warehouse was huge. He was compelled, determined to survive. The typewriter pounded through the night. Records collected in piles around his desk. Late at night, wired at 3am, he could hear every last splash of rain as it hit the iron roof. Why would there be anything in here? Just an endless sequence of stories. And sometimes he would duck out and chat to his prostitute friend in Riley Street, who was always up to no good. Just about every one in the neighbourhood seemed to be up to no good.

The story of the car was a classic of the genre, if he said so himself. By day the abandoned car was home for a homeless man. By night it played host to a pimp who needed a shelter close to the action and a base for his drug dealing. The girls were always excellent customers; cashed up and crazy. In the course of its various roles the car was pushed around the block from one spot to another. Residents, outraged at the increasingly derelict and unsightly car dumped in front of their gentrifying terraces would also push it from one spot to another. Over weeks, the car get going around and around the one block. Complaints to the council went unheeded.

As luck would have it after he had convinced the paper there could be a story in it, as they climbed out of the taxi, the homeless man was busily pushing the car to a quieter spot on the street. Just like that we had the best shot. And he looked up from the floor and thought, will this never end, the seep of hangover through his every cell. One alcoholic to another. The man was large and wore several layers of coats, all filthy. He had wild scraggly hair and clearly hadn't washed any time recently. You know why you write about those derelicts so well? Malcolm asked, and then answered his own question. Because you're halfway there yourself.

The tale of the pimp, the prostitute, the derelict, the outraged residents and the migrating car got a good run and caused much hilarity around the city and on the airwaves. They were stories off the city streets; and the paper lapped them up. At night he got pissed. Very pissed. Very often. The streets continued to radiate personalities, he was fascinated by the tableaus. In the morning, all was not lost. Calcification had not set in. He was not premised on somebody else's existence. The days of love were not over. It was an easy thing, there was always someone. Look up, look out, go home with whoever.

And rain splattered on the roof and obsessional conduct collapsed them together. There was always intrigue. Nick had set up a bed in a mezzanine kind of arrangement in one corner of that massive warehouse. It took up an entire block, massive old brick building. It's not there any more. It was bulldozed and in its place are upmarket apartments. He was shattered they weren't coming. He was dedicated to change. The world was going to be a better place once he left it, kinder, more compassionate. They talked long into the night. They were always wired. Everyone was wired. They lived in a hyper-real world. He was never going to be satisfied. The fingers flew and the pages mounted; and the terrors simply got worse. There weren't any shadows in that over lit world.




THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/23/1224351449199.html

A MAN described as an ASIO agent stood by as a naked US marine wearing a condom threatened Mamdouh Habib with rape, the former Guantanamo Bay inmate alleges.

In a book to be published next week, Mr Habib says he saw the words "Allah Akbar"' [God is great] written on the condom to compound his humiliation.

The claims are detailed in My Story, excerpts of which will appear in Good Weekend tomorrow.

The book includes Mr Habib's first explanation of why he was in Afghanistan before the September 11 attacks.

Australian intelligence agencies have long accused Mr Habib of training with al-Qaeda during that period but Mr Habib says he fled to Afghanistan some weeks before the attacks after Pakistani police had abducted him and shot one of his companions while they were on a business trip.

Mr Habib recounts in excruciating detail the torture he says he was subjected to by Pakistani and Egyptian security agencies after his arrest in early October 2001, and describes the grim reality of life in Guantanamo Bay, where he was subsequently imprisoned.

The book rejects the repeated assurances the Howard government gave that Mr Habib was well treated during his years in the US prison.

In the book Mr Habib alleges:

■ That he and fellow Australian David Hicks stayed at the same Islamic guesthouse in Kabul in the days before the September 11 attacks. Mr Habib says he saw Mr Hicks in the company of the Melbourne man Jack Thomas (later known as Jihad Jack), and Richard Reid (the Briton who became known as the "shoe bomber" after he tried to blow up an aircraft with explosives hidden in his shoe).

■ While in Kandahar before September 11, Mr Habib says he met Matthew Stewart, a former Australian soldier who complained about the "rape and murder" committed by Australian peacekeepers in East Timor.

■ When Mr Habib and Mr Hicks met in Guantanamo Bay, Mr Hicks apologised for telling people that Mr Habib was a CIA plant (a claim Mr Habib says resulted in inmates spitting and urinating on him).

Mr Habib told the Herald yesterday that when Mr Hicks was in Guantanamo Bay, he had been shown a videotape of Mr Habib being tortured in Egypt in an attempt by interrogators to force Mr Hicks to confess. He said he was disappointed that Mr Hicks had not spoken out about Guantanamo.

Mr Hicks has maintained his silence since his release from the Cuban-based prison last year, and his lawyer, David McLeod, said yesterday Mr Hicks would be making no comment on the claims.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24549087-643,00.html

Kevin Rudd buys time with new plan on bank guarantees

INVESTORS in cash management trusts remained in limbo last night after the Rudd Government's bid to end confusion over its banking guarantees failed to provide a plan to stop non-bank financial institutions haemorrhaging funds.

Wayne Swan waited until after markets had closed yesterday to reveal that, from November 28, banks would have to pay the Government a fee of between 0.7 and 1.5 per cent for the privilege of a government guarantee for their wholesale funding. Buying the guarantee will be optional for big deposits, while deposits of under $1 million will receive a government guarantee for free.

Despite the clarification of the Government's position, more cash management trusts and mortgage funds are expected to close their books for withdrawals next week as investors seek the safety of term deposits in the major banks.

Markets remain extremely volatile, with the S&P/ASX200 falling a further 3.1 per cent yesterday to 3869 points. It has dropped by 10.9 per cent since a brief moment of optimism on Tuesday. European markets recorded heavy falls in early trading last night, with Germany down 10 per cent and London off more than 7 per cent.

The Australian dollar sank to a five-year low, losing 4.2 per cent to end domestic trading at US63.91c, down from US66.71c yesterday. It was the dollar's lowest close since September 3, 2003.

Crisis talks will be held next week, with Mr Swan appointing Treasury secretary Ken Henry and Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Tony D'Aloisio to consult with the non-bank financial sector to identify what the Government could do to help financial institutions that are not covered by the guarantee.


http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/2571/218/

Climate Alarmism's Flimsy Foundation
Written by Paul Chesser, American Spectator

on Oct 24, 2008

earth-temperature.jpg

Forget pretty much any news reporting you see that attributes disastrous phenomena to global warming, because it's all designed to create a fog surrounding the core issue: is climate change human-caused or not?

A most recent example is from Monday's Washington Post, in which alarmist reporter Kari Lydersen (who has a long record of such journalism, in addition to work she does for leftist publications such as In These Times and the Progressive, on topics including "environmental racism") told about how waterborne diseases are expected to multiply due to future climate devastation:

Now, scientists say, it is a near-certainty that global warming will drive significant increases in waterborne diseases around the world.

Rainfalls will be heavier, triggering sewage overflows, contaminating drinking water and endangering beachgoers. Higher lake and ocean temperatures will cause bacteria, parasites and algal blooms to flourish. Warmer weather and heavier rains also will mean more mosquitoes, which can carry the West Nile virus, malaria and dengue fever. Fresh produce and shellfish are more likely to become contaminated.

The inevitable devastating consequences, as in so many environmentalist reporter articles, dominate the opening paragraphs of Lydersen's piece. She follows by asserting that a trend of heavier rainfalls "will accelerate," citing the 2007 report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I asked Lydersen where in the IPCC report it states with certainty that heavier rainfalls would rapidly increase, and she promised to get back to me on that -- "That was paraphrasing, not a direct quote from the report," she told me in an email. I'm sure.

Regardless, this kind of distractive reporting buttresses the lucrative industry that is global warming alarmism. "It's going to cause sea levels to rise!" cry the coastal scientists and fisheries experts. "It will massively displace wildlife!" scream the biological scientists. "It will prolong droughts and intensify rainfalls," warn the geologists and agricultural scientists. Their wailing fills up their applications for billions of dollars in grants from governments and sympathetic nonprofit foundations.

But these outcries miss the point, because they do not address the core issue of whether the temperature uptick (of one degree Celsius) over the last century is attributable chiefly to man's influence and thus mitigable, or to natural fluctuations and that nothing can be done about it. In other words, the vast majority of research (80 percent? 90 percent? more?) tied to climate change has nothing to do with its cause.

Therefore we have a whole derivative economic sector constructed on the foundation of a single premise: that increasing greenhouse gas emissions are having a greater impact on global climate than are other phenomena such as solar activity, cloud cover, ocean temperatures, El Niño/La Niña, etc. If that single thesis is deemed false, then all these offshoot opportunities for researchers, government, universities, nonprofits, rent seekers, and media goes into a deep chill. Goodbye grants. Adios agency positions. Ciao, charitable contributions. So long, subsidies. And where hast thou gone, writing awards?

Just think -- if it's shown beyond the mainstream media's reach that carbon dioxide and its gaseous sisters (methane and a few others) do not jack up the atmospheric temps, we would no longer have to live under the environoia of this collaborative claptrap.

So obviously it's in each of the alarmists' interests to dismiss their dissenters and undermine any evidence that global warming is not a threat to the planet or to mankind. Jim Martin, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, has said, "You could have a convention of all the scientists who dispute climate change in a relatively small phone booth." There was the classic Newsweek smear job by Sharon Begley last August which labeled some differing-but-credible climate scientists as a fossil fuel industry-funded "denial machine." Meanwhile the green-journalism Society of Environmental Journalists marginalizes the opposers as "skeptics and contrarians." Discourteous folks call 'em "flat-earthers."

But the difficulty of the alarmists' protectionist task only grows. There has been no significant warming since 1995, and none at all since 1997. The numbers of detracting scientists were already sizable and are only continuing to grow (PDF). The oceans are cooling, Antarctic ice grows, current temperature measuring data are biased in favor of heat, and legitimate explanations for Arctic ice loss (by the way, not an unprecedented phenomenon) other than increased greenhouse gases are published.

When you think about it, the global warming industry is not dissimilar to the current mortgage-instigated mess the country now faces. We have a planetary heat crisis and an insufficient home ownership crisis. Government demands intervention to remedy both mistaken theories. Media joins in celebrating and promoting the new agenda. A bubbling system of artificial wealth is created. But because both foundations are shaky, they cannot hold up the continued weight placed upon them.

One has finally collapsed. When will the other?

You're A Bit Past It, Love...

*



In the Drink
He would have gone to Hell ageine, and earnest sute did make:
But Charon would not suffer him to passe the Stygian lake.
—Ovid, Metamorphoses (tr. Arthur Golding)

Never mind phantom forms, the Keaton-crash
that dumped us in that sea-fed swamp,
the Dutch kill, Latin nihil, thing without
opposite—attend instead the transcendent,

the flying, for god's sake, what we saw
the moment before we thwocked overboard:
a heron stutter-flapped and lifted off,
clumsy as a wind-mauled tarp at first,

but couth beyond sublime once clear
of cattail punks and saltgrass tips,
the overturned rowboat's rusted hull.
Or the cormorant that plunked and dipped,

rose flipping fish from beak to tongue
and down its neck, water beading on its head.
But the crown that really pleased the crowd
my maiden voyage was iridescent green,

brilliantined, a merganser's spiky coxcomb.
He swam right by, chasing red herrings
and cackling so happily I had to pull
a feather from his cap. And so I surfaced

solo. I tell myself, I only launch the bark,
I never book the seats. I didn't stop
to spin the prop or wipe the rail, just tipped
the motor up and paddle-poled, bottom-

stirred. Rousted horseshoe crabs, sleeping
ducks, cranky grebes, slapped along
the little waves, the seeping tide, lonelier, sure,
indignant, too—what better lover

has plucked and boasted, over what better lyre?
An open boat: it's company, not coin, I want.
I'll tune the wake to silence, court grace, make change—
still trading on the laughs I've jerry-rigged.

John Hennessy

Poetry
October 2008



Shadowed, warned, in giant rooms and muffled sounds. He looked up from the floor. He could see giant feet moving all around him. He could smell stale beer and cigarettes, and see the slops along the tray at the bottom of the bar. He could hear voices coming from far away. He was troubled, dependent, crashing. This wasn't the first time. They were crying out; and he couldn't hear them. Lyn was pushing the pram, little Blaize all tucked up inside. This was the psychic centre of the known universe, this little web of streets, these people he knew. He was surprised to be accepted by them. They were everything he wanted to be.

Fabulous, funny, money no object. He was curled up inside dying and here they were partying like there was no tomorrow; drinks raised. Bottles of champagne littered the floor. All he could smell was alcohol. Someone was trying to shake him awake. Is he alright, alright, he heard a voice ask, alright? Nothing was right, he thought, as his consciousness dissolved. A trite thought. He had sought oblivion, and now found it. Nothing would ever change. Nothing would ever be the same again. Nothing was in his heart. He recognised the voice of the bitch. What's this? The smallest joint in the world, rolled just for you.

They stamped over him like cattle, someone kept shaking him. Where had it begun? What had happened? Was it the pills, what pills? He couldn't remember. Was it the gin and tonics? Hadn't there been gin at some time in the afternoon; as the light poured in the window of an inner-city apartment. He ahd written so beautifully about the mad, and now they were dying, he was dying. What, what? But even now he couldn't rise to the surface. Perhaps it was the double bourbons that did it, the triple ouzos, the loss of life. The rooster crowed in the dawn. He would never remember.

The bitch was going to die with a pillow over his face, deliberately smothered by his lover to escape the final agonising throws of AIDS. What turmoil it had been. How fabulous they had felt. There in the know, their secret enclave, the club that could only belong to them. Outside, strangers went about their lives as if nothing was happening. They kept shaking him, wake up, wake up, but he didn't want to wake up anymore, hadn't wanted to wake up for a very long time. He had made a mess of absolutely everything. Why surface, why let them ridicule him yet again?

It had been easy when he was young. All he had to do was walk down the street and eyes would turn. They followed him hungrily. He took it as his due. It's for some to have and for some to want, an old queen said, and he smiled benevolently, giving away hope because it was cheap. You want to live forever? I don't think so. And here he was an old man; almost 30; and nobody was chasing him any more. From the hunted to the hunter. Not even he could stop time. The shaking grew more persistent. Is he dead? someone asked. It was just like the day he drowned in the pool, he didn't care whether he came back or not. It was all a joke.

Big feet, smelly feet. The poorly cleaned carpet. The slops, perhaps he could drink the slops. Someone had grabbed him and lifted him to his feet. He tried to stand, and instead found himself draped across a stranger. What? Who? I love you, he mumbled, slumping again. They dragged him outside into the street. He could see the bitch and his little coterie laughing. They would. He came back into himself. Sorry, he slurred, sorry. It's alright mate, just sit here, the bouncer said, dumping him in an alcove along the side of the building.

Are you alright? the beefcake asked, looking him directly in the eye.
Alright? he repeated back. No, I'm not alright. I don't know what's wrong. I'm sorry. It's nothing to do with you.
Just sober up, mate, the man said, and left him there.
Shortly afterwards the bitch swished by, heading to the alley at the rear of the building for a smoke. You better not, he said dismissively, when he rallied, trying to join him. You're a bit past it, love.

The coterie laughed. The traffic continued its sad swish past the bar, oblivious to the little scene in the street. He heard the phrase repeated as the group turned the corner of the building, their derisive laughter. You're a bit past it, love... You're a bit past it...



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/clock-ticking-for-mccain-obama-warns/1342254.aspx

Front-running Democrat Barack Obama has warned his White House rival John McCain he is ''running out of time'' after rejecting new Republican gibes about his own candidacy as a risk to national security.
Senator Obama, flanked by top veteran military officials in Virginia, mocked Senator McCain as ''out of touch and running out of time''.

But just 13 days before the presidential election, the Republican candidate cautioned the senator from Illinois not to take victory for granted despite his mammoth financial edge and solid lead in a slew of opinion polls.

Senator McCain also returned to his attack after recent comments by Democratic vice-presidential pick Joe Biden that, just like former president John F.Kennedy, Senator Obama would be ''tested'' by an international crisis within six months of taking office.

The Republican, a military veteran, noted that he had some ''personal experience'' with crises, citing his role in the 1962 US-Soviet showdown over Cuban missiles known as the Cuban missile crisis when he was a fighter pilot assigned to Cuban targets.

He told an enthusiastic rally at a high school football field in Green, Ohio, ''I know how close we came to a nuclear war and I will not be a president who needs to be tested. I have been tested.''

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/10/23/1224351397415.html

A Sydney telco employee has learned the hard way the perils of sharing too much information on Facebook after he was caught by his boss faking a sickie after a big night out.

In an email exchange doing the rounds of office blocks, Kyle Doyle was asked by his employer, AAPT, to provide a medical certificate verifying a day of sick leave in August.

Doyle, a call centre worker, protested, saying his contract stipulated he did not require a medical certificate for taking only one day off.

His boss replied that this was usually the case but in this instance the company had determined that the leave was not due to medical reasons.

"My leave was due to medical reasons, so you cannot deny leave based on a line manager's discretion, with no proof, please process leave as requested," Doyle responded.

The manager then sent Doyle a screen grab of Doyle's Facebook profile, highlighting a status update written on the leave day in question.

"Kyle Doyle is not going to work, f--- it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!," it read.

Sprung and with no room left to move, Doyle replied to the boss: "HAHAHA LMAO [laughing my ass off] epic fail. No worries man."

Doyle did not respond to a request for comment sent over Facebook but a friend of his confirmed the incident was not a hoax.

The employer would not comment.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/24/content_10241863.htm

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain lost his lead in rural American voters as more of them favored his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, in handling the country's economic crisis, said a poll released on Thursday.

According to the survey conducted by the Center for Rural Strategies, Obama slightly led McCain by 46 percent to 45 percent among the 841 likely rural voters in 13 battleground states including New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

About 49 percent of rural voters favored Obama on key issue of the economy, while 40 percent supported McCain in this regard.

The result was in strong contrast with a poll released a month ago, showing McCain led by 51 percent to 41 percent among rural voters.

"That is really bad news for John McCain," said Seth McKee, a political scientist at the University of South Florida, to the National Public Radio on the survey. "If the rural vote is essentially split in these swing states, then John McCain's certain to lose."