and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space
Miss Gillard will appear in the Women’s Weekly knitting a toy kangaroo for the royal baby …
The remarkable image … was not the magazine’s idea.
Instead, the concept of a cosy PM knitting a toy kangaroo – while in the company of her cavoodle Reuben – came directly from Ms Gillard’s own staff.
The Prime Minister’s chief press officer John McTernan is credited by the Weekly for coming up with the idea.
“It was a no-brainer,” Mr McTernan told the magazine.
No-brainer, what could I possibly add?
Safe and sound, must find my blue tie and get down to work.
A quick scan of the news finds this very interesting headline …
… it seems an odd ambition even for a Fairfax journalist but in fact it’s abuse the noun not ab-use the verb.
I will soon get around to detailing my adventures in the Kimberley and the results of my quest for the Black Grasswren …
Ahh, and it feels good.
Melbourne Airport, heading for Broome. Expect nothing for three weeks.
By the time I get back the thought police will have had time to shut down the AFL and King Kong the musical. I won’t be here to defend them.
Instead I shall be off in the wilds of the Kimberley looking for the elusive Black Grasswren, sorry Indigenous Grasswren …
Stay well, photos when I get back.
Rob.
As a youngster going to court for the first time … to give evidence … I was given the advice, “Dress up, stand up, speak up.” I guess this guy was, too. I wonder how it will help his cause …
WASHINGTON — A New Jersey resident showed up in full Nazi uniform to a local court on Monday, charging that his political beliefs cannot legally be held against him as he fights to secure visitation rights to his son.
The father, Heath Campbell, named his children Adolf Hitler, Aryan Nation, Honzlynn and Heinrich Hons. Heinrich was taken into custody by social services in 2011, and Campbell is fighting for access.
He arrived at the court house in head-to-toe Nazi regalia, matching the swastika tattoo on his neck.
In the old fashioned sense. But in the new Wales one does have to be careful …
Newport shopkeeper told to remove ‘obey our laws’ T-shirt
9:08am Wednesday 29th May 2013 <HERE>
ARREST THREAT: Matthew Taylor and the T-shirt police have forced him to remove from displayA NEWPORT shopkeeper has been forced by police to remove a T-shirt from his shop window because they felt it “could be seen to be inciting racial hatred.”
Matthew Taylor, 35, the owner of Taylor’s clothes store on Emlyn Walk in the city, printed up and displayed the T-shirt with the slogan: “Obey our laws, respect our beliefs or get out of our country” after Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, was killed in near Woolwich barracks in London last week.
But following a complaint from a member of the public, police came to his store and threatened to arrest him unless he removed the Tshirt from sight.
It’s been a while since I last posted anything from Tim Minchin. His career is going gangbusters …
So, with only two swear words in the whole piece, here’s Tim …
GEORGE Brandis: Was Ms Suzanne Jones on the initial short list?
Glanville: She was on the second short list.
Brandis: She was not on the first short list?
Glanville: No…
What happened between drawing up the two lists? Mark Dreyfus became Attorney General …
Brandis: I do not doubt that Ms Jones was an experienced industrial law specialist … What strikes me as surprising about this appointment is that I know from conversations I have had with many senior figures in the court is that the court was looking in this particular case for a family law specialist to handle the family law list, which comprises 80 per cent of its work, and instead, from the large number of applicants for the position received, it ended up with an industrial law specialist with no background in family law matters at all.
And the winner, announced by Mr Dreyfus, is …
The wife of ACTU secretary Dave Oliver. Her prize is the $314,000 job as a judge of the Federal Circuit Court.
Suzanne Jones is a former ACTU advocate and is joining the judiciary just 19 months after the government made her a commissioner of the Fair Work Commission.
It ain’t so much what you know …
I will be voting NO at the referendum …
Currently a warm topic in Oz because Bill Gates has just endorsed the practice and because of recent legislation in NSW.
I heard a discussion on your ABC recently of the great good that vaccination can do. Talk back radio being what it is, a nicely spoken gentleman called in to disagree. The thrust of his argument was that the gold standard investigation is a double blind cross over trial, since this hadn’t been done for vaccination the practise should be abandoned. He was a polite version of the terrorists in Pakistan who are shooting the health workers who are getting close to eradicating the scourge of polio.
I doubt he is reading but I am sure he would be interested in this paper by Smith and Pell in the British Medical Journal BMJ 2003; 327 …
Abstract
Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.
Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.
Data sources: Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet sites and citation lists.
Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall.
Main outcome measure Death or major trauma, defined as an injury severity score > 15.
Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.
Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.
Indeed, with his profound interest in the wellbeing of our community he might even volunteer for the study.
bobmcgee 