Category: News

Winners from the first eight seasons of American Idol — sans Idol 7 champ David Cook — united to perform “We Are One” during Wednesday night’s Idol 9 Grand Finale.

Jukka Perttu wrote:

Chemically fueled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are one of the deadliest hazards to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sarin gas attack in Tokyo have demonstrated that civilians, too, can be the targets of chemicals and explosives. Now two organizations with Massachusetts roots are collaborating to offer a tool to protect professionals trying to identify explosives and other hazardous and toxic substances.

The Wilmington, MA-based Ahura sensor division of Thermo Fisher Scientific and the mobile robot division of QinetiQ North America, acquired in 2004 from Waltham, MA-based Foster-Miller, are equipping QinetiQ’s Talon robots with a powerful chemical detector. Ahura developed the laser-based instrument, called “FirstDefender RMX,” as a handheld device, and appropriately enough, the Talon robot carries the sensor on its gripper arm.

Sold to military organizations, bomb squads, police, hazmat specialists, and fire departments, the robot-sensor combination can quickly identify suspicious chemicals from a library of more than 10,000 substances, including explosives, toxic industrial materials, and chemical-warfare agents, according to the companies.

Foster-Miller introduced the Talon in 2000. The model, which carries the FirstDefender RMX, costs about $100,000, with options such as a gas and radiation detector kit adding to the cost; the Ahura sensor package costs an additional $50,000 to $65,000.

But despite the serious price tag, demand for the combined product is strong, especially because of the growing IED threat, says Duane Sword, vice president of marketing and international sales at Thermo Fisher Scientific. The total cost of $200,000 to $250,000 for a FirstDefender-equipped Talon is “a small price to pay for saving just one soldier from getting injured or worse,” Sword says.

The companies won’t talk much about exactly who buys the robots. These are sensitive devices, not sold to suspicious customers or countries.

Ahura’s FirstDefender sensor proved itself in the field last Christmas Day, when it was used by the Warren, MI, fire department at Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport to confirm that the substance that the notorious “underwear bomber” had attempted to ignite on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was a chemical called PETN.

Founded in 2002, Ahura specializes in the development of rugged, ultra-compact, field-enabled optical systems for the immediate identification and verification of liquid and solid chemicals. Using a “point and shoot” laser, the FirstDefender RMX system can identify chemicals through sealed glass or plastic containers, protecting personnel from exposure to harmful substances. If you can see the substance with your eyes, Sword says, the instrument can identify it.

To develop its technology, Ahura raised venture funding totaling $29.5 million from venture capital firms that include Arch Venture Partners, Castile Ventures, Fuse Capital and …Next Page »

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

If you’ve been waiting to get the Nook experience on your iPad, your wait is over. Barnes&Noble just announced the availability of their Nook app, available free from the App Store.

Nook is behind in the race to ereader hegemony so they’ve decided to add a few iPad specific including eight different fonts, customizable line spacing and margins, different font sizes, and themes. In short, B&N reps said, “It’s a giant canvas.”

The app has two book “views:” grid – showing all of the covers and split which shows details of the book on a split screen with the cover. You can also lend books to friends by shooting emails to contacts using the built-in contact book interaction.

The app supports in-book search, bookmarks, and syncs among devices. It also supports ePub formats. They also said the Android App is arriving this summer.

Click through to read the full release.

Barnes & Noble Introduces BN eReader for iPad™,
The Most Easy-to-Use, Customizable iPad App
for Reading and Buying eBooks and Periodicals
Free App Offers Access to Company’s Expansive eBookstore Featuring More Than

One Million Digital Titles and Personal Barnes & Noble Digital Library
Only iPad eReading App That Allows Sharing eBook with Friends
Free Classics and Bestseller Samples Pre-Loaded for New BN.com Customers
New York, New York – May 27, 2010 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today launched its free BN eReader app for iPad™, offering
the most personalized and easy-to-use eReading experience for Apple iPad owners. BN
eReader for iPad users can customize the way they read with professionally designed or
completely personalized themes, shop more than one million eBooks, newspapers and
magazines in the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, and access their personal Barnes & Noble
digital library, including most periodicals. BN eReader for iPad is the only eReading app
that offers eBook sharing with friends.
BN eReader for iPad is designed to offer an easy, yet sophisticated, customizable reading
experience. Users can choose from multiple ways to view their library, including
professionally designed themes with elegant and complementary text and page colors, as
well as fonts; and instantly switch between portrait and landscape views based on
personal preference. BN eReader for iPad users can further personalize their reading
experience with unparalleled options: literally millions of colors for text, pages,
highlights and links; eight typefaces and five text sizes; and a variety of margins and
customizable spacing options. Learn more or get the new application at
www.bn.com/iPad.
“We’ve designed the most easy-to-use, highly customizable eReading experience for the
iPad. Ours is the only app that enables iPad users to share eBooks with friends, shop
Barnes & Noble’s vast catalog of eBooks and periodicals and access your personal
Barnes & Noble digital library across multiple devices.,” said Douglas Gottlieb, Vice
President, Digital Products of Barnes & Noble.com. “We believe our customers will
appreciate the book-centric touches we’ve incorporated into our iPad app experience –
including some extra large text sizes, ample margins, and line lengths and spacing
inspired by classic book design conventions – along with the opportunity to fully
personalize that experience to enjoy reading books whichever ways they like best.”
Lend to Friends
Using Barnes & Noble’s breakthrough LendMe™ technology, BN eReader for iPad
customers can share eligible eBooks with friends who can enjoy the titles on a NOOK™
eBook Reader, iPad, iPhone®, iPod touch® and PC enabled with free BN eReader
software. Last page read, highlights, notes and bookmarks will also sync across BN
eReader for iPad and PC, and in early summer, with iPhone and iPod touch, with more to
The LendMe experience was designed to be seamlessly integrated with the iPad. BN
eReader for iPad users can simply choose an eligible eBook flagged with the LendMe
icon, then access their existing contacts in iPad’s onboard address book, tap the contact
and send the lend offer — all without needing to type a single word. The friend can accept
the offer and enjoy the eBook for up to 14 days, a unique feature offered only by Barnes
& Noble. And BN eReader for iPad users will receive LendMe offers from friends within
the application, showing them the eBook’s cover and the message from their friend.
Additional features available in the BN eReader App for iPad include:
Shop the expansive eBookstore: Search, explore and browse through the Barnes
& Noble eBookstore of more than one million eBooks, magazines and
newspapers titles at www.bn.com/ebooks directly by touching Add Books from
the Library. There are more than a half-million free eBooks available, and free
samples are available for all eBooks. Learn more from thousands of editorial and
customer reviews. Pick a current bestseller, a classic or anything in between and
download it wirelessly in seconds.
Access your personal digital library: All eBooks and most newspapers, and
magazines purchased through the Barnes & Noble eBookstore, including those
purchased on NOOK, are at your fingertips in your Library. Customers with large
digital libraries will appreciate the search option that helps them find the desired
book quickly.
Choose from two views: Library Grid view displays big, beautiful covers that are
large and easy to read. Library List displays a column with digital content titles
and eBook covers next to a second larger section that provides rich product details
for the selected eBook including the synopsis and more books from that author.
Sort by recently read, author or title.
Get to your content, faster: The most recently read titles appear on top to easily
get you back to your last great read. And an in-book search also helps you locate
a particular word or phrase.
Take notes: Bookmark pages, make highlights and write notes. Simply tap a
word or drag your finger across a section to highlight it or make a note. In
addition to appearing on your iPad, your bookmarks, highlights and notes will
also appear on iPad and PC enabled with BN eReader software. iPhone and iPod
touch will be added soon, followed by other devices.
Read across multiple devices: Sync the last page read of the last eBook, magazine
or newspaper opened on your iPad with BN eReader software-enabled PCs.
Coming next month, both will sync with BN eReader enabled iPhone and iPod
touch with more devices to follow.
Learn more: Tap a word on the touch screen and the in-text dictionary offers you
the word’s meaning. Want to learn more? Simply tap one of the options to take
you to the Google or Wikipedia page on that word or term using the Web
browser.
Follows the standard: Read eBooks, magazines and newspapers formatted in
ePub, quickly becoming the industry standard.

Barnes & Noble’s free eReader app is here, and shockingly, it’s probably the best ebook app on the iPad, for now. Better than Kindle, and better than iBooks. More »










Barnes & Noble – IPad – E-book – nook – Apple

Every time the last Thursday of the month rolls around, I’m reminded of the fun and interesting crowd that gathers at the Hoxton Hotel in London for the Last Thursday CMS social events

In this bonus lesson for How to Cook Real Food, the online cooking class hosted at Nourished Kitchen, you’ll receive a quick, sneak-peak into the cooking class through this brief video covering how to properly prepare nuts and seeds including recipes for a basic pesto sauce and a basic fruit and nut snack bar. Please note that videos in the online cooking class will be more comprehensive than the brief look at nuts and seeds you see below here.

In this video and using these downloadable print materials.

Preparing Nuts and Seeds Traditionally

Nuts and seeds can be a powerfully nutritive food: rich in minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. However, as is the case with many foods, nuts and seeds are also potent sources of antinutrients: particularly food phytate which binds up minerals preventing their full absorption and enzyme inhibitors which makes them difficult to digest. Fortunately, the simple act of soaking nuts and seeds in slightly salty water overnight improves not only their digestibility but also the availability of minerals naturally found in these foods.(…)
Click here to read the rest of Video: Pestos and Fruit & Nut Snack Bars (186 words)

Wondering where your full feed went? Click here to learn why The Nourished Kitchenmoved to summary feeds. Don’t forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and
© Jenny for The Nourished Kitchen, 2010. |
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The world of Mobile tech is always a great and unpredictable world; well I made a new place for those that are considered “Tech Freaks.” This new group I created on XDA for those that are into Technology, and would like to talk to others like themselves. The group is mostly about mobile phones, mostly HTC devices, but you can start your own conversation, and see what people say about it.

I would love to see how many people will join us and speak about their awesome love of technology. If you are interested in technology, please join the group, and I would be very happy because my personal goal is 2000 people in the group. If I get to that number I would be very happy, and might even throw in a giveaway item to one of the members.

So please join me at XDA and let’s talk tech.

Join the Group *Here*

Article Tags: Lawrence Solomon

90 top global warming scientists have turned their sights on the biomass energy industry, until recently seen as allies, warning that biofuels sometimes increases rather than decreases greenhouse gas emissions.

“There may be a public perception that all biofuels and bioenergy are equally good for the environment and are all lower in carbon emissions than fossil fuels, but that’s not true,” said one of the signatories, Dr. William Schlesinger of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in a press release yesterday aimed at the U.S. Congress. “Many produce just as much or more carbon pollution than oil, gas, and coal. If our laws and regulations treat high-carbon-impact bioenergy sources, like today’s corn ethanol, as if they are low-carbon, we’re fooling ourselves and undercutting the purpose of those same laws and regulations.”

That ethanol in your gas tank, the climate change scientists are telling us, could be bringing us closer to Armageddon by undercutting their efforts at saving the world. “Many international treaties and domestic laws and bills account for bioenergy incorrectly by treating all bioenergy as causing a 100% reduction in emissions regardless of the source of the biomass,” the scientists explain.”Under some scenarios, this approach could eliminate most of the expected greenhouse gas reductions during the next several decades.”

The letter by the 90 scientists is a response to the American Power Act, which was recently introduced by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. This proposed legislation promotes the bioenergy sector while downplaying wind and solar. Under the Kerry-Lieberman proposal, the National Academies of Sciences would study the role that biomass could play in reducing greenhouse gases while contributing to energy independence. The Environmental Protection Agency would then submit recommendations to Congress based on the NAS study and another study, this one a joint effort by EPA, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture Congress would then act on the basis of the new information before it.

Source: opinion.financialpost.com

Read in full with comments »   

Team17 Software has announced the upcoming release of Alien Breed: Impact for the PS3 and PC. Set for release this summer, the highly explosive science fiction arcade-shooter promises to resurrect the classic franchise with brand new features

Bionic star Christina Aguilera joined the ladies of American Idol Season 9 for a performance medley of some of her biggest hits — including “Beautiful,” “Fighter,” and “You Lost Me” — during the Idol Grand Finale at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Wednesday night.

Michael McDonald performed last night in one of television’s biggest event, American Idol 2010 Finale Episode.

The gold and platinum-selling American singer and songwriter is described as a “blue-eyed soul” singer and said to have a range of “husky”, “soulful” yet baritone range.

McDonald started his performance in the show with it’s official, “We’re taking a trip back to ’80s AC radioland“.

Judges on American Idol and fans selected last night winner from the final two contestants, Crystal Bowersox and Lee DeWyze. The episode was also the final appearance of the long time judge Simon Cowell. Fans awaited as Simon gives his final critique. The former judge Paula Abdul made her appearance later on the show, and vocalist Christina Aguilera also performed.

As for the result, Lee DeWyze wins American Idol. After the show, he said indeed he intends to sing.

Related posts:

1. Who won American Idol 2010?
2. Say ‘Hallelujah’ to Lee Dewyze
3. Judges Pick Songs for American Idol’s Top Three

Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman, MalariaGate

Many climate change alarmists have predicted a wide range of calamitous side-effects to be caused by global warming. One such link that frequently surfaces is that global warming will cause the spread of malaria, leading to a world wide pandemic. A new study, just published in the journal Nature, has shown that malaria is actually declining worldwide. Furthermore, proposed future climate induced effects are insignificant compared with the observed natural trend and easily overcome by current disease control mechanisms. In short, claiming that malaria will spread around the globe due to climate change is an outright lie.

An increased malarial threat has been popular with the media and global warming alarmists for decades. Conscientious scientists like Paul Reiter, a medical entomology researcher at the Institut Pasteur, have denounced such exaggerated claims for more than a decade. “Environmental activists use the ‘big talk’ of science to create a simple but false paradigm,” Reiter said in testimony before the US Senate in 2006. “Malaria specialists who protest this are generally ignored, or labelled as ‘sceptics’.” Now he and others have who have fought against such non-science have been vindicated. A new article, entitled “Climate change and the global malaria recession,” by Peter W. Gething et al. has driven a stake into the heart of this blatant nonsense. Writing in the May 20, 2010, issue of the respected scientific journal Nature the international team of researchers explain their study:

The current and potential future impact of climate change on malaria is of major public health interest. The proposed effects of rising global temperatures on the future spread and intensification of the disease, and on existing malaria morbidity and mortality rates, substantively influence global health policy. The contemporary spatial limits of Plasmodium falciparum malaria and its endemicity within this range, when compared with comparable historical maps, offer unique insights into the changing global epidemiology of malaria over the last century. It has long been known that the range of malaria has contracted through a century of economic development and disease control. Here, for the first time, we quantify this contraction and the global decreases in malaria endemicity since approximately 1900.

Click source to read FULL report from Doug L. Hoffman

Source: theresilientearth.com

Read in full with comments »   

Lockheed Martin has won a $3.93 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop high-tech rifle-scope attachment. Designed to improve marksmanship over distances of between three and 600 meters, the Dynamic Image Gunsight Optic (DInGO) system combines a low power laser rangefinder, an embedded ballistics computer and onboard sensors that determine wind and other environmental effects.
..
Continue Reading Lockheed Martin to develop advanced rifle scope attachment

Tags: DARPA,
Lockheed Martin,
Sniper,
Weapons

Related Articles:

• Lockheed Martin receives contract to develop FBI’s Next Generation Identification System
• HULC robotic exoskeleton to get fuel-cell Power Supply
• U.S. Army to deploy Aerostat Surveillance System In Iraq
• Successful Compact Kinetic Energy Missile Test
• PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile successfully tested
• The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle – NASA awards design, develop, and build contract

David Jaffe has said that while he would love the idea of a new Twisted Metal, he isn’t. That’s what he said, alright, but the Official PlayStation Magazine is saying otherwise.
 
 
 
 

Despite the fact that it’s opt-in and has decent privacy settings, I find Google Latitude’s location history dashboard a bit creepy. It now gives step-by-step views of where I’ve been and even knows how many total miles I’ve traveled. More »










Google – Google Latitude – Searching – Search Engines – Companies

The latest hearing in the trial of the five men accused of murdering three Christians in Malatya, Eastern Turkey was held on 15 April 2010. In mid April 2007 three Christian men, Necati Aydin, Ugur Yuksel and Tilmann Geske, were murdered while working at the Zirve Christian Publishing and Bible Distribution Company. Five local men were arrested at the scene of the crime and later charged with the murders. Their trial opened in November 2007 and still continues in Malatya, which, oddly enough, is also the hometown of the Turkish man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. The area is well known as a radicalised, angry region of the country.
The most recent hearing took place just a few days before the 3rd anniversary of the murders, and there were some surprising developments. It brought to light information that had not been known before: evidence from witnesses revealed that these murders may have been linked to a series of earlier murders carried out by a group of ultranationalists using the name of “Ergenekon”. The group is named after a place in Turkish mythology located in the inaccessible valleys of the Altai Mountains, the original home of the Turkic speaking peoples; and is a shared symbol of pride.

At the previous hearing in February the prosecutors had pressed for the trial to be concluded and for the five defendants each to be given the maximum possible sentence but two of the defense lawyers excused themselves from the hearing, thereby preventing the judges from issuing a verdict. The judges have decided to call a new witness to the next hearing, which is scheduled for the 14th of May 2010. This witness provided evidence to the court that he had been offered money for killing Christians. Lawyers representing the victims are now planning to formally request that this case be integrated with the ongoing Ergenekon investigation. In the previous hearing the judges rejected a prosecution request to link the Malatya and Ergenekon trials but the evidence is now stronger.

Middle East Concern, a Christian advocacy organisation, pointed out on their website that this action is based on the allegation that the leaders of Ergenekon clearly stated that missionary activity in the region was linked to the terrorist organization known as Kurdistan’s Workers Party. Information gathered earlier by the Ergenekon investigators found that such nationalists had been documenting all the Christian activity in the region. They also found that the same people had links to one of the perpetrators of the murders as well as to perpetrators of assaults against other Christians in 2006.

The news service ‘Compass Direct News’ quoted the Chairman of the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey, as saying that while churches want to see closure for the sake of the families who lost their loved ones, they also want “the truth, the real culprits and mindsets behind the killings to be revealed somehow.” He said that their prayer is that “God who is the worker of miracles will work these two contradictory expectations out; a closure and an exposure at the same time.”

Turkish Christians need our awareness of their situation, our concern, and our prayers asking that a full investigation will be undertaken against Ergenekon, and others in any political group that may have participated in these crimes, that the families of the victims will know the presence of Jesus throughout the trial process, that the legal team will know the Spirit’s guiding and equipping, and that the judges, lawyers and journalists present will be receptive to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

According to a review of a recent book “High Society – How Substance Abuse Ravages America and What to Do About It ” by Joseph Califano (Public Affairs, April 2007), the cost of drug abuse has grown to approximately $1 trillion dollars per year to America. Mr. Califano, the former US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, highlights how substance abuse is a major cause behind America’s most destructive social problems: substance abuse is related to poverty, violent crime, academic under-achievement, high health care costs, family breakdown, child abuse, homelessness, teen pregnancy, work problems, and diseases like AIDS. He also shows the costs of drug abuse in the nation’s criminal justice, health care, and social service systems, and states that this one epidemic is responsible for the death of more Americans than all America’s wars, natural catastrophes, and traffic accidents combined.
http://alcohol-abuse.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_economics_of_alcoholism_and_drug_abuse

All of these issues are also to be found in Australia, in proportion to our population. The cost begins early in life. In Australia maternal alcohol abuse is associated with adverse perinatal outcomes. These include the foetal alcohol syndrome, pseudo-Cushing’s syndrome, alcohol withdrawal in the newborn, and increased risk of perinatal mortality. The incidence of foetal alcohol syndrome has been estimated to be between one and two per thousand live births, or 250 to 500 new cases per year in Australia.

During childhood, we also have problems with underage drinking. The sight of a mother screened on television news recently, trying to revive her fourteen-year-old son in a Sydney High School following a school class drinking bottles of whiskey, disturbed many viewers. Research shows that more young people are drinking alcohol, drinking at an earlier age and increasingly adopting harmful drinking patterns. The 2001 National Household Drug Survey found that the average initiation age for drinking alcohol was 17.1 years, and it is estimated that at least two thirds of the alcohol consumed by young people under 25 years of age poses a risk of short-term or acute health consequences.

A study of almost 400 young people in the manufacturing, building, hairdressing, fast food and retail industries in Melbourne found that these young workers face major health issues including smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. Another study of 300 first year building trades apprentices found that a substantial proportion consumed alcohol at harmful levels. Nearly 50 per cent consumed alcohol more than weekly and just over 50 per cent drank six or more drinks at least weekly. Those who reported that alcohol was available at work reported higher drinking rates.

This obviously leads to many hospitalizations. In Australia the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) estimated that approximately 72,302 hospitalisations were attributable to the misuse of alcohol and the financial burden of alcohol misuse to the community has been estimated to be $4.5 billion per year, including lower productivity due to lost work days, road accident costs and legal and court costs, as well as health costs.

In Australia drinking alcohol at risky and high risk levels for long-term harm was estimated to have caused 3,290 deaths in Australia in 1997, accounting for about 4 per cent of all male deaths and 2 per cent of all female deaths. The short-term and long-term effects of excessive drinking make roughly equal contributions to these deaths. As a minister of religion I have conducted the funerals of nearly a thousand people. Far too many of them contributed their own deaths, depriving the country of what might have been, and bringing upon their family unnecessary hardships.
Many other funerals have been of victims of someone else’s irresponsible alcohol consumption through road accidents (many innocent victims) and violence by partners that lead to deaths.

In Australia, past studies have found that alcohol abuse plays a significant role in violent crime. It is estimated that about 13% of Australians aged 14 years and over (well over one million people) have been physically abused at least once by someone affected by alcohol, while 16% have had their property damaged at least once. Alcohol has also been implicated in about one-third of sexual assault cases. In 1992, 294 people died from alcohol-related assaults in Australia. Many other innocent people bear the scars of glassings, assault and injury in road accidents.

In Australia thirty-seven per cent of road injuries in males and 18% in females are attributed to alcohol, as are 12% of male and 8% of female suicides. Alcohol is also implicated in 47% of assaults, 44% of fire injuries, 34% of fall injuries and drowning and 16% of child abuse incidents. At least 1% of our population (about 180,000 people) has a close family member with a serious alcohol problem. Isolation, neglect, aggression and disruption within the family, particularly spouse abuse, are frequent. Sexual and financial problems, stress, verbal and physical abuse, separations and divorce are also common between couples where at least one partner abuses alcohol.

A Victorian report in 1988 found that alcohol was definitely or possibly involved in 53% of several thousand reported incidents of family violence. Children are particularly affected by having an alcoholic parent and they are more likely to become depressed, have lower IQ, and be alcohol dependent themselves in the future. In 1992, there were 226 hospital episodes resulting from alcohol-related child abuse in Australia. However, the extent of family problems is probably underestimated because there is underreporting of alcohol-related domestic violence.

Alcohol and drug abuse have reached epidemic proportions: crime, violence, divorce, cancers, cardiovascular diseases, organic brain syndrome, school problems, job problems, mental health problems, family problems, financial problems, etc., are all consequences of alcohol and drug abuse as it ripples throughout society and all of these have financial costs. Police and paramedics and others involved in public security are often assaulted. We need a return of the Summary Offences Act so that violent drunks are locked up for the sake of public safety.

I can never laugh at the antics of a drunk nor can I accept his fellow drinkers praise of how well he holds his drink or what he achieves in spite of it. The rest of society pays the price of his drinking. I have spent fifty years of my life helping people who have willingly drunk alcohol only the find the cost was extremely high. I have worked every week for fifty years with those who were homeless, who lost their mental capacity, whose marriage and professions were in tatters, whose children were on their own, and whose actions in the end added nothing to our nation.

I am sick of caring for unpleasant drunks with watery eyes appealing for compassion, and crying in their drinks to a bar attendant, excusing their violent actions and promising never to do it again. It doesn’t matter what office they hold nor what achievements they have accomplished, if they have the intelligence to know the consequences of their actions and still continue to drink, they are a disgrace to society which has a right to be protected from them.

When I was 8 years of age, I found my father dead in the gutter near our home. He was 38 years of age but suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, hardening of the arteries and brain damage due to drunkenness. That was trauma enough, but over the next 25 years I watched my mother struggle to bring up four children, the youngest only two months old, run a family business was that left without the breadwinner and children who had lost a father. We all paid a price for his drinking. Of course he achieved something, but his failure to discipline himself had consequences far greater than any achievement.

I realise that many people lack the confidence to live without mind changing stimulants. I know that many depend upon alcohol to lower their inhibitions so that they feel better. But their need is no excuse to so behave, as others always bear the cost. May I ask you to examine your own practise and do something positive about it now?
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC