Cate Blanchett Cops Flak For Saying Yes to Carbon Price

This ad promoting a Carbon Price for Australia has been criticised by opponents for using Cate Blanchett. She's a rich celebrity so her view shouldn't count apparently. Rich mining magnates on the other hand can make as many ads as they like.

Journalist Arrest Over Facebook Photo

My post for Global Voices re Ben Grubb arrest in Queensland:

Australian journalist arrested and iPad seized! No it’s not Julian Assange.

But Ben Grubb’s brief encounter with Queensland authorities raised several serious cyber issues including social media privacy and security, police powers of arrest and confiscation of digital devices, plus journalists’ rights.
Australia: Journalist Arrest Over Facebook Photo

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Carbon Action: Say Yes Australians!

Please spread the word. Time for carbon action is now!

The campaign on Facebook:

Vale Lionel Rose

Boxing legend Lionel Rose dies

Lionel Rose: World Champion and 1968 Australian of the Year

From my post for the 40th anniversary of Lionel Rose's title victory:

Lionel became World Bantamweight Champion on 26 February 1968 by defeating Figthing Harada in Tokyo. He was the Australian of the year for 1968, the first aborigine in that role. He was only nineteen.

Lionel was not a political person in his youth unlike his American counterpart Muhammad Ali. Ali's boxing licence had been suspended a year earlier because of his refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam War. He was also stripped of his world title.

You didn't have to be into boxing to watch Lionel's bouts. We all did. There was no traffic in Melbourne if it was televised. His trainer was Jack Rennie - no relation, though it is a family name.

When he became the greatest boxer in Australian history, he was only nineteen.

Time to Take Carbon Action?

Who thinks it's not time to take carbon action?

From Alister Doyle at Reuters:

Quickening climate change in the Arctic including a thaw of Greenland's ice could raise world sea levels by up to 1.6 meters by 2100...

The AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) study, drawing on work by hundreds of experts, said there were signs that warming was accelerating. It said the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice free in summers within 30 to 40 years, earlier than projected by the IPCC.
Seas could rise up to 1.6 meters by 2100: study

Who cares? Most of us will be dead by then!