Minister for sale on eBay What's your bid?

Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been put up for auction on eBay. Bidding had got up to $700 before the auction was cancelled. Full story HERE.

Can you imagine anyone bidding on any of our ministers? BOGOF?

Motion for vibrator: MP told to go screw herself.

From the Oz Daily Telegraph:

POLICE were called to check harassment claims against a Sydney councillor who put a motion to buy a sex toy for NSW Fair Trading Minister Virginia Judge so she could go "screw herself".

Independent Strathfield councillor Danny Lim lodged the motion last month, recommending that the council purchase a vibrator for Ms Judge to encourage her "to stop screwing with the people of Strathfield and screw her- self instead".

Nice one. Could someone please put in an EDM to get a vibrator for Gordon Brown?

Climate change part 28 - Aussie vote.

Even though Australia is suffering from terrible bush fires in he south, the Aussies aren't falling for the Global warming Myth. ABC News is holding an online vote on whether Global Warming to blame for the current heatwave in Australia. So far 15575 votes have been counted and I think you will be surprised by the results:

Click HERE

Hat tip. Tom Nelson.

It wouldn't happen in Labour HQ.

The headquarters of Austria's ruling political party has been broken into. It looks like someone got in by wriggling through a 35x35cm post flap in the front door. The thief stole laptops, mobile phones, notebooks and cash before crawling out of the Social Democrats HQ.

If any hard up soul was to break into Labour HQ, it would be him leaving lighter in the pocket.

It's Stone-Bloody-Henge mate.

Australian Ross Smith intends to build a full size replica of Stonehenge on his land on the south coast of western Australia. Ross will be using 2500 tons of granite to reproduce the monument in its original glory.

He hopes it will attract 300,000 visitors per year and he will be renting it out for weddings and other special occasions.

I think he could be onto a winner.

Save the planet - Eat a kangaroo (their farts are green).

Skippy could come to the rescue once again. Only this time old Skip could save the entire planet. Scientists have discovered that Kangaroo flatulence does not contain the greenhouse gas Methane. It's all down to the bacteria living in the Kangaroo's stomach, and scientists are trying to find a way to transfer the bacteria to cattle and sheep. Another plus point is that the bacteria is also 15% more efficient at digesting food, which would mean a reduction in feed costs.

It could take several years to develop a method of transferring the bacteria, so in the meantime scientists are recommending eating less beef and lamb in favour of good old Skippy. Peter Ampt of the University of New South Wales's institute of environmental studies said: "It's low in fat, it's got high protein levels it's very clean in the sense that basically it's the ultimate free range animal. "It doesn't get drenched, it doesn't get vaccinated, it utilises food right across the landscape, it moves around to where the food is good, so yes, it's a good food.''

I'll have a leg.

Australian General Election - Is it all over for John Howard?

It looks like it could be all over for John Howard and the Coalition. Exit polls carried out by Sky show that Howard will lose his seat in Bennelong, and predict a two-party preferred result of 53 per cent to Labor to 47 per cent to the Coalition. If the results match the exit poll, then Labor will have attained the swing of 5 per cent required to win an outright majority in the lower house of parliament. Casting his vote this morning, Labor leader Kevin Rudd said: "It's a tight and tough race ... I've been saying that all year. Nothing's changed. "I have to say there is a strong mood for change in Australia. People want new leadership with a positive plan for the future."

Officials have begun to count votes and preliminary results are expected within a few hours.

One other thing to note is that participating in elections is compulsory in Australia, and more than 13.5 million people are expected to vote. Should we have compulsory participation?

UPDATE 09:30: 20% of the votes are in and it looks like Labor are on track to win the 16 seats needed to gain office.

UPDATE 10:00: Labor are claiming victory saying it's a matter of whether this will be a narrow win or a landslide triumph.

UPDATE 10:30: It looks certain that Labor have won the 16 seats needed.

UPDATE 11:15: Labor win. Kevin Rudd will be the next Australian Prime Minister.

You've got to love the Australian approach to health and safety (Crocodile in pond).

In our country kids can't play conkers anymore unless they are wearing safety goggles. All risk is being removed from childhood. In Australia they are not so strict and are willing to let their kids face a little more danger:

Apparently a fisherman hooked a 2m crocodile in a drainage pond in Cairns Australia. He was quite surprised when it popped out of the water, however local workers have reported seeing a 3m croc in the same area.

This pond is apparently used by the local kids to have a bit of a swim, so I had to laugh at the statement given by a spokesman for Cairns City Council. The spokesman said: the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service would be called in to remove the croc if it became a threat.

Koala News - They are at it like Rabbits on Viagra.

Scientists from the University of Queensland studied 130 koalas in captivity. They found that female koalas indulge in lesbian "sex sessions", rejecting male suitors and attempting to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time, according to researchers. The furry, eucalyptus-eating creatures appear to develop this tendency for same-sex liaisons when they are in captivity. In the wild, they remain heterosexual.

Meanwhile in Austria, A SEX-MAD koala recruited from Scotland to teach his counterpart in an Austrian zoo about the birds and the bees is finding himself very much in demand.When romantic music, erotic movies and aphrodisiac food failed to entice their male koala, Bilyarra, to mate with female Mirali, staff at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo sought the help of Edinburgh Zoo's resident stud, Chumbee.

"Chumbee hasn't stopped since he got here," said Schoenbrunn Zoo manager Helmut Pechlaner. "It has been almost non-stop sex in the koala enclosure ever since, and now even our own male is joining in." Zoo vet Hanna Vielgrader said Chumbee could not restrain himself. "The only break is to eat or sleep, other than that there's no stopping them," she said. Several other zoos have been in touch in the hope Chumbee might be able to invigorate their koala colonies.

Future Darwin Award Winner

A 15-year-old boy from Sydney has managed to blow the end of his finger off with an home-made pipe bomb. The genius (who has not been named to protect the stupid) filled a copper pipe with sparkler powder and then proceeded to hit the pipe with a hammer. A nearby 18-year-old man had shrapnel embedded in his arms and also suffered burns (no doubt the genius's willing, but not too bright sidekick).

There are those who manged to go all the way and win the last award they would ever receive. To read their stories click HERE for the Darwin Awards 2006.

When Teaching Politics In School Turns Bad.

An Australian education authority has defended a school's anti-war themed entry in the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge and said the event was about freedom of expression. Education Minister Julie Bishop has accused Davidson High School of hijacking the event to protest against a visit by US President George W Bush. The school's production, Bad Knight II, depicts Mr Bush as the pilot of a crashing plane and attacks the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Ms Bishop said: "There appears to be a teacher's political agenda here. And I think that's a shame, because I'm concerned that the message of the Rock Eisteddfod Challenge will get lost if the event is hijacked in this way."

Full story HERE

It seems that pupils could not participate without parental approval. However I must agree with the Education Minister that this is not about teaching politics, or freedom of expression, it is the hijacking of what should be a fun educational event to promote a political agenda. I agree that politics should be taught in School , but it should be done in a way that puts forward all sides of the argument. That way the pupils can make an informed decision while armed with all the facts. This is a slippery slope, teachers should teach, not use their students to promote their own political views.

Australian Scientist Makes An Alzheimer's Breakthrough.

Professor Colin Masters, an Australian scientist who has been working on a cure for Alzheimer's for the last forty years has cracked the genetic code that causes the disease. It is believed that this discovery could halve the number of sufferers by the year 2020. Tonight in honour of his life's work, Professor Masters is to be awarded Victoria's most prestigious science award - the Victoria Prize.

Professor Masters said: "The whole field is moving to a point where we are guardedly optimistic that we have the chance to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by a certain factor. That's a major achievement if in fact we can do that... that will have a major effect on the prevalence of this disease in our community."

Full Story HERE

Meanwhile back in the UK, the Alzheimer's Society and their fellow campaigners failed to win their High Court bid to have the NHS provide drugs to those people in the early stages of the disease. They are now planning to appeal the decision. Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern, said: "The drugs can cost as little as £2.50 a day per person and could make day-to-day life far more manageable for thousands of people."

Anyone that has had a loved one suffer from this disease will know what a cruel affliction it is. Let's hope that this is not the end of Alzheimer's Society's legal challenge.

The E-Petition is still running: It asks the Prime Minister not to deny people in the early and late stages of Alzheimer’s disease access to drug treatments.

Please click HERE to visit the Alzheimer's Society.

Australia are to start cloud-seeding to fight the drought

THE Queensland Government are to start cloud seeding by the end of the year to combat the drought. It is hoped that the seeding will boost rainfall by up to 30%, based upon results taken from similar programs in Tasmania and South Africa. Water Minister Craig Wallace said: “Some people may doubt that cloud-seeding works, but it's science fact, not science fiction.” Climatologist Professor Roger Stone, from the University of Southern Queensland, said: “If it's done with the utmost precision it has the potential benefit of perhaps a 10 or 30 per cent increase in rain per rainfall event. It may still not break the drought but at least give us what may otherwise be an average year (of rainfall).”

Cloud seeding works by adding particles of silver iodide to existing clouds, this causes ice to form which then melts falling as rain.

Australian Government is to ban it’s cricket team from September’s tour of Zimbabwe.

THE Australian Government is to ban it's national cricket team from participating in September’s cricket tour of Zimbabwe. The cricket governing body, Cricket Australia (CA), received confirmation that Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer was intent on stopping the tour. The Government’s intervention will prevent the CA being fined a compensation sum of $2.4million which would be paid to Zimbabwe.

Mr Downer said: "I think if the Australian cricket team goes - and the Australian cricket team is the greatest team in the world - the message that it will, inadvertently, of course, be sending to the Mugabe regime is that it's not isolated. That the world's greatest cricket team is happy to go and participate in a sports festival there in Zimbabwe ... I don't think that is the right message."

The ICC have taken away Zimbabwe's test status, but national teams are still obliged to play them in one day events. If it is unacceptable to play a test match against a country being governed by a corrupt regime, why are national teams expected to play against them in one-dayers? This beggars belief, the ICC need to sort this out and not leave it to individual governments to ban their national teams from playing.

I think we can be sure that if any compensation was to be paid to Zimbabwe, the oppressed people of that country would not see a penny of it.

Coal - the fuel of the future? (clean coal technology)

THE Green Party of Australia have called the coal industry plans to raise $1 billion to research CCT (clean coal technology) a waste of money. The $1bn required for the research will be raised by the mining companies by means of a 10 year levy on industry.

The Australian Coal Association executive director, Mark O'Neill, said: "This should leave no doubt about the coal industry's intention to partner with state and federal governments on nationally significant clean coal projects."

Australian Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle, said: "We should be putting money into renewable energy that we know works and that can work right now, rather then putting the money away for a technology that we don't know that it works."

Current uncertainty in the global supply of oil and gas has brought coal back as a viable source of energy. Coal is widely available, according to the World coal Institute there are enough reserves to last 164 years (Oil 41 years, Gas 67 years) at current production rates.

The International Energy Agency has a Clean Coal Centre, it’s managing director, John Topper, said: "If you are in China or India where you have huge resources of coal and you have elements of the population that do not have access to electricity then your driver is to build and operate power stations as quickly and as effectively as possible." It is hoped that the development of CCT (clean coal technology) will allow coal to be used as a environmentally friendly fuel.

CCT comes in many forms, the US FutureGen programme, is a $1bn project attempting prove the viability of near-zero emission coal-fuelled power. The project will involve the integration of an IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) electricity plant with hydrogen production, carbon dioxide capture and geological storage.

The major concern is not if the technology will work but how long it will take to implement. Michael Cupit, director of energy at Ernst & Young said: "It all depends upon the uptake among the big companies. Once somebody takes the bull by the horns, you can usually squeeze the technology and make it commercial fairly quickly."

Australian special operations team deploying to Afghanistan

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has announced the deployment of a special operations team Afghanistan. The 300 strong special operations team will be made up of Special Air Service commandos, intelligence experts and other officers.

This new deployment is the start of a build up of Australian forces in Afghanistan to a presence of 1000 troops by 2008. The 300 personnel will operate under Australian command, targeting supply routes in the country's south with the aim of disrupting an expected Taliban offensive.

Full Story HERE

Aussie Ankle Biters

The weather is always on our minds in this country - just be thankful you don't live in Australia.