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Go Australia!

We're number 47! Australia has been ranked 47th out of 56 nations covered by the Climate Change Performance Index, conducted by Germanwatch.

That's three places behind the Ukraine, four behind Indonesia, but six ahead of the USA and seven ahead of China.

Sweden is number one on the index, with the UK at two. Interestingly, India is at nine. Saudi Arabia drags the chain at 56.

The one area that bogs Australia down badly is in the realm of climate change policy.

Anoth

Yabba wouldn't have said it

Some unhappy news in today's press about reports of racial abuse directed at Monty Panesar at the SCG during the England v NSW game this week.

My heading says it all. The great man, Yabba, was a witty barracker in his day ("Hey Jardine! Leave our flies alone!"), but he would never have hit below the belt.

There are plenty of good-natured ways of getting a point across without resorting to abuse, racial or otherwise.

No-fly zones

What do you think when you hear the term "no-fly zone"?

There's the exclusion zones set up to stop prying eyes getting close to top security bases, for example Pine Gap, the top secret US intelligence satellite tracking base in the Northern Territory that everyone has known about for three decades.

There's the no-fly zone set up in northern and southern Iraq in the 1990s by the US and UK governments, ostensibly to stop Saddam from gassing his neighbours.

There's the no-fly zone over the White House, Camp David, the "Western White House" at Crawford Texas, and anywhere else those pesky terrorists might try and mow down His Beloved Dubyaness.

Stern indeed

Firstly, a declaration of slight personal regret today. I was unable to attend the Walk Against Warming in Sydney this morning because it was... er, too cold.

The fact is that I am still recovering from the effects of a rather aggressive little URTI earlier this week. Despite the weather there were still 10,000 people who did the march from Martin Place to the Botanic Gardens, which is great news. More demonstrations around the world on November 4 coming up.

Sir Nicholas Stern's costings of the impact of climate change are massive, yet I feel that they could still be an underestimate.

Rabbits blamed for penguin deaths in landslide

Rabbits blamed for penguin deaths in landslide
- Erosion and heavy spring rains have caused a large landslip on Macquarie Island, in the Southern Ocean about 1500 kilometres south-east of Tasmania, killing penguins in an important colony.
[ABC Environment]

Great moments in freedom from information

"POLICE officers called in to help with the Cronulla riots and their aftermath ate more than $500,000 worth of food, but the force has ruled that what they ate - and who supplied it - is information too sensitive for public release."

Matthew Moore and Jonathan Pearlman take up the story in today's Sydney Morning Herald.

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