OZ!

[John Dolva]

Divinyls - Science Fiction (1982)

[John Dolva]

AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

[John Dolva]

Chrissy typifies a particular australian trait. Basically summed up as (some) ''aussies dont take much s..t'', but often they don't let people know quite the way Chrissy does.

[John Dolva]

AC/DC - T.N.T

"wow i never expected this many views when i made this. thanks for watching" - well, of course there's a roughness there but it's a vision interestingly displayed (loved gandalph with the geetar, that was a particularly good one.), the angus shots at the end are great.

I'd like to see more.

[John Dolva]

Resistance National Conference - April 24 - 26

http://www.resistance.org.au/sites/resista...20page%20ad.pdf

[John Dolva]

Abbott's idea of direct action is business as usual

February 6, 2010

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Tony Abbott's new ''direct action'' climate change policy is endorsed by the Australian Coal Association. Enough said.

The association's boss, Ralph Hillman, gave it the kiss of death on Lateline on Tuesday: ''We think the Coalition policy has the prospect of leading to reduced emissions while at the same time preserving the competiveness of Australia's biggest export industry.''

This is the same ACA, mind, that played fast and loose on the likely job losses if the government's emission trading scheme was introduced. Its campaign claimed the ETS could cause 16 mines to close by 2021, with the loss of up to 9,000 jobs. Citi's environment, social and governance analyst, Elaine Prior, was sceptical: ''We assess potential CPRS impact on ASX companies' coalmines under various CPRS designs - for BHP, Rio Tinto, Wesfarmers, Centennial & Macarthur. Our results don't lead to significant concerns about mine closures.''

The association, of course, wouldn't say which mines - its figures were based on confidential responses to a survey by ACIL Tasman. The real argument was whether slightly fewer new jobs might be created under the ETS. The only question is whether coal mining in Australia grows fast, or faster.

And this is the same ACA that extracted $1.5 billion in compensation from the Government during the torturous ETS negotiations, to cover the industry's liability for emissions from so-called ''gassy'' coalmines. At an estimated 25 million tonnes of CO2 emitted annually, and a forecast carbon price of about $20 a tonne, that was three times the ballpark financial liability of $500 million.

Finally, this is the same ACA that since 2006 has talked about a $1 billion ''Coal21'' industry fund to invest in clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage. That fund had spent only about $35 million by last June, according to its most recent accounts.

Abbott concedes the Coalition's policy would do nothing to limit the growth of the coal industry - so long as it stays within current levels of emissions intensity, it's business as usual - and he begs to differ when coal-fired power stations are described as polluting. ''These are the people that keep the lights on,'' he says, as though no gas or renewable energy technology or company could do that.

The Government says the Coalition policy can't achieve the 5 per cent targeted emissions reductions by 2020 for just $3.2 billion; rather, emissions would rise by 13 per cent, and the plan would cost about $10 billion.

The Business Spectator columnist Alan Kohler this week commended the Coalition's Emissions Reduction Fund as a plan to pay British utility International Power, operator of the developed world's dirtiest brown-coal-fired power station at Hazelwood, in Victoria, and Chinese-owned Truenergy, operator of the similarly polluting Yallourn station nearby, to switch to cleaner gas-fired power.

But will the available funds be enough? The UBS utilities analyst David Leitch recently estimated the enterprise value of Victoria's brown-coal-fired power stations was about

$8 billion, and the Government factored in $7.3 billion in compensation for the electricity sector under the revised ETS negotiated with then energy spokesman Ian Macfarlane, after fierce pressure from industry.

Fully 60 per cent of the Coalition's expected emissions cuts come from trapping carbon in the soil, using techniques like biochar.

Citigroup's Prior noted this week that ''the critical variable is the opposition's assumption that substantial soil carbon can be achieved at $8 to $10 a tonne. We think additional research is required to be confident.''

Noting there was no clear fallback if the cost assumptions, many based on letters from industry bodies, proved optimistic, she concluded: ''The proposals do not present a clear path towards substantially lower emissions in the industrial and electricity generation sector.''

There can be no path to lower emissions while our coal industry is misleading the public and writing its own rules.

Exhibit A: In a court decision which is under appeal, the Macarthur Coal founder and then director Ken Talbot was found to have paid the then Queensland industrial relations minister Gordon Nuttall almost $300,000 between October 2002 and September 2005. After the Crime and Misconduct Commission laid charges against Nuttall, Macarthur Coal's chairman, Keith de Lacy, issued a statement denying any suggestion of a link between the payments and an arrangement with the state government to relocate road and rail infrastructure at Coppabella Mine. The infrastructure deal preceded the payments, de Lacy said.

In the words of the District Court chief judge who found Nuttall guilty last year, and jailed him, he had believed Talbot was seeking favours and although he ''may not have intended to perform the act of favouritism, by the mere act of receiving the benefit with that belief to the intention of the favour, you knowingly encouraged the donor in paying you doing an act against the Criminal Code in this state''.

Nuttall's appeal against that decision will be heard next Friday. Talbot's own trial, on criminal charges of making payments to a minister of the crown, is set down for August.

Exhibit B: The top political donor in 2008-09, according to Australian Electoral Commission disclosures this week, was the mining magnate Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, who gave almost $800,000 to the Liberal and National parties.

Palmer's Resourcehouse, which has the former foreign minister Alexander Downer on the board, is hoping to raise up to $US3 billion for a float on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in March (although it has been delayed).

Resourcehouse subsidiary Waratah Coal this week upgraded its resource estimates to 7.4 billion tonnes. It is part of a race to develop Queensland's vast reserves in the Galilee Basin, with players like Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting claiming

5 billion tonnes and the secretive Anglo-Swiss commodities trader Xstrata touting major plans.

Xstrata this week said it would develop a $15 billion, 100 million tonnes-a-year coal resource over the next 10 to 20 years that would more than double Queensland's thermal coal exports and could ultimately exceed the NSW Hunter Valley in production.

It will take legislation to stop all that coal being burned. Which politician has the guts?

Exhibit C: Another top political donor last year was Ric Stowe's Devereaux Holdings, parent company of Griffin Coal, which collapsed into administration in January along with three related companies with total debts of up to $1.2 billion. The collapse was reportedly triggered by missed payments of $25 million to bondholders, and $5 million to the Tax Office. Stowe, one of Australia's richest men, last year settled a $173 million dispute with the Tax Office. The administrator is investigating possible insolvent trading. Devereaux gave almost $100,000 to both Liberal and Labor parties. Other coal industry donors included Felix Resources, giving $35,200.

Tony Abbott and his environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, seem to have come up with an even worse plan than the federal government, which not only entrenches but encourages the coal industry. That makes it so much harder for cleaner rivals in gas, renewables, distributed or even nuclear generation. Copenhagen failed, so let's double coal exports. Copenhagen failed, so let's refinance our loans to Hazelwood (as a syndicate of banks just have). Copenhagen failed, so let's get back to our usual business of being the world's highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gasses. Copenhagen failed, so let her rip.

paddy.manning@fairfaxmedia.com.au

[John Dolva]

''Charge of failing to produce ID to police beaten

A 23-year-old medical student, who claims he was wrongfully arrested and charged after trying to be a Good Samaritan and alert police to a woman in trouble, is relieved the charge against him was dropped at the last minute today.

But Sean Woodcock, a former pharmacist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, still says he is the victim of a "gross injustice".

Mr Woodcock said he was walking home from the Red Sea nightclub in Subiaco in January this year when he approached four police officers doing a vehicle search to draw their attention to a woman he had earlier seen in a frightened state inside the club who he believed was involved in a domestic dispute.

He claims the police dismissed him and asked him for identification, which he questioned. Mr Woodcock was then arrested and taken to the East Perth lock-up, where he was strip searched.

In the Perth Magistrate's Court today the matter was expected to go to trial but the police asked for the charge of failing to comply with a request to produce identification to be dismissed because there was "no reasonable prospect of conviction."

The court was told police decided to drop the case after Mr Woodcock's defence lawyer Simon Watters and police had watched CCTV footage from the nightclub earlier this week.

The prosecutor said police needed to see the footage to ascertain the strength of its case, but magistrate Robert Lawrence asked why police did not make inquiries about the footage in the first place. The police prosecutor was unsure.

In a statement Mr Woodcock said he was relieved the matter had come to an end and wanted to "put this incident behind me and complete my studies at university."

Mr Woodcock was awarded $4290 in legal costs.

Outside court, WA Police Deputy Commissioner Chris Dawson said while he did not have specific details of Mr Woodcock's case, he made no apologies for police strip searching anyone who was taken into custody.

"Persons that are brought into police custody, it is a matter of standard practice that we search person who are brought into police custody. That is for the safety of both the individuals and the safety of those around them," he said.

Mr Dawson said the matter would be reviewed and any subsequent legal action would be addressed.

Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter''

There is a Bill underway that seems to revisit the dark years of the Premiership of Charles Court when more than three people stopping to talk in the streets were subject to arrest: arbitrary search for no reason of any person.

This sort of actions by the Right Wing government in Western Australia will only serve to aid Criminality as it, and actions such as reported above, will create a divide between Citizens and Law enforcement. Now that persons know that such actions will occur, good samaritans such as the young man mentioned above, will think twice before approaching Police Officers and potential Crimes end up not being dealt with.

Is the Government acting in the interest of West Australians?

Is Law Enforcement staffed by Public Servants or not?

Do these supposedly public services (yes, including Government, and any of its departments) believe they are a force unto their own, accountable to no-one???

Edited April 23, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Lest We Forget

Redgum

[John Dolva]

These guys had a rough time and they are integral to Australian history, there was a pretty good documentary of Us Mob* touring outback

*for non australians: Mob has a particular meaning. In a way, for non Aborigines, the meaning can be a door to a deeper understanding of Aboriginal Culture.

[John Dolva]

[John Dolva]

starting With Melbourne, the Capital City of the State of Victoria (interestingly the largest greek city apart from Athens)

Australia (contrary to popular belief is nearer the top of the world than just about any country. For some reason someone must have turned things upside deown so that when you turn it the right way up the writings all wrong!) is an interesting place replete with nuts of all kinds. Heres a Melbourne, Victoria, just above tassie, scene from the seventies. I reckon it must have been on a sunday, but the old rattlers are still there. In todays Melbourne many don't know what they've missed out on. They'd fled Perth (yet they're Perth youth) Perth then truly was nowhereland afa as the rest of the world was concerned (isolated by an unsealed east west crossing, when "I Crossed the Nullarbor" meant something) (till Bond buggered it up, the bastard) by the time I got into the pub scene and they were off to the top.

Melbourne in the seventies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiBMltWg2RQ...feature=related

Here you can see some of the architecture near the centre of the CBD

for some reason the url keeps shifting and directing to another version : for now this is the one showing Melboutnes Architecture in the mid 70's

a long way

Edited May 5, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

These guys were so funny. Last time I saw them live was at a uni in melbourne while hitching through in the 80's, first time was at highschool or maybe uni (or was that Captain Matchbox? maybe both) Anyway, a bit of a mix of Zappa, AccaDacca and .. er... Auntie Jack.

Mother Goose - Baked Beans

[John Dolva]

some of the comments are worth a read

Edited May 11, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Edited May 13, 2010 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Lest We Forget

Redgum

WALTZING MY MATILDA

Edited May 13, 2010 by John Dolva