May 2007

Not budging enough

Submitted by rickeyre on

There's three main areas that I have been focusing on in studying this Federal Budget:

  1. Environmental management
  2. Millennium Development Goal No.1 on foreign aid
  3. Tackling indigenous poverty

And the Government is not scrubbing up too well in these areas.

Let's start with foreign aid, and the two opening paragraphs from Alexander Downer's press release on the Overseas Aid budget announcements:

More on:: 
mdg1
alexander downer
budget

Budging it

Submitted by rickeyre on

Even Peter Costello who, one way or another, will not be Treasurer in 2005,...

- Rick Eyre, 1.10.04

Peter Costello is still in parliament, still in government, and still the treasurer, and tonight he handed down his 12th budget. He's been lucky that China has been such an avid buyer of Australian natural resources, a phenomenon that is better known under the expression "The Howard Government's strong economic management".

More on:: 
peter costello
economy

Namibia leads the way in water harvesting, John Howard calls in the Scouts

Submitted by rickeyre on

A short item on the ABC Rural News yesterday grabbed my attention, about a Namibian scientist talking to locals in far west New South Wales about harvesting water from fog.

There's more on the Fog Collection Project at the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre website, and on the Canadian website fogquest.org.

More on:: 
john howard
environment
water
namibia
fog
rainwater
boy scouts

Youtube do dia: Caribbeanwhalefriends.org

Submitted by rickeyre on

Japan has been sidestepping international whaling bans for two decades under the euphemistic banner of "scientific research". Japan intends to add humpback whales to their culinary scientific research list later this year.

Among the countries Japan has brought on board in their attempts to stack the International Whaling Commission are six in the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines. No doubt there's a promise of foreign aid in there. Maybe they'll build sushi bars in all those brand new cricket stadia.

More on:: 
west indies
youtube do dia
whales
caribbean
iwc

Four years of Mission Accomplished

Submitted by rickeyre on

It would be remiss of me if I ignored the fact that today is the fourth anniversary of the end of the Iraq War, as proclaimed by Fighter Pilot Dubya Bush.

(Refer my post for three years of Mission Accomplished).

Oh, and check this item from the Peek blog on Alternet.org about the Commander-in-Chief recently being presented with a Purple Heart.

More on:: 
george w bush
iraq
mission accomplished

Pages