Less than a week ago, my other site South of the Border crashed and I had to rebuild it from scratch. With another two country blogs signing on, the name was no longer descriptive so it is now called Rural Victorian News.

It now has two distinct Blogs – the primary one syndicates posts from the rural Victorian blogs and is supplemented with opinion posts from the left and right of politics.

The second blog is called the Seniors Weblog and syndicates posts from sites catering to our ageing population, senior citizens and retirement. Both blogs invite contributions from readers using an inline editor which has already been used.

We have a page accessing Victorian rural newspapers and another dealing with Human Rights and Sustainability. There is also a Discussion Forum and a page titled My Fight.com indexing my writings about prostate cancer.

Overall, I believe Rural Victorian News offers a great resource for everyone living in rural Victoria, I hope you make good use of it.  Come on over and take a look.

Last month I built a new web site called South of the Border.  A self hosted WordPress site, it offered a greater potential to build a content management system alongside a traditional Blog.  Anyhow, the server I was using collapse and went off the air and so too did all my work.  Being the positive type, I have welcomed the opportunity to start again from scratch.

The New version is being hosted by Dreamhost where I have my own domain titled www.gregsweb.info .  To get started, I installed WordPress 2.8 which has only been around for a week or so. 

Then I installed the ‘Atahualpa’ theme which offers more than 200 configuration options.  It allows for 0ne, two or three columns with a different format for every page if you want.  The rest of the day will be spent configuring the theme to meet my requirememnts.

The front blog page and all search pages (categories, tags, archives, authors} will be a three column format with blog access (posts, comments, etc.) along with a tag cloud and site access details on the left.  The posts will be featured in the centre whilst the right column will offer an events calendar and a daily editorial.

Take a look and add it to your favourites/bookmarks and watch it grow into something special.

• untitled
  (tags: no_tag)
• 500 Internal Server Error
  (tags: no_tag)

Written by STEVEN BURKE. – Source: Wangaratta Chronicle

PLANS are under way to re-visit the idea of building a Ned Kelly interpretive centre in Glenrowan.

The Rural City of Wangaratta has set aside $20,000 in this year’s draft budget for a re-scoping of the concept, which has failed to get off the ground in recent years.

But the timing could be right to re-visit the idea, according to council’s economic development and tourism portfolio holder, Councillor Lisa McInerney.

“It is the same idea (as in the past), but we are trying to find a different way to go about it,” she said.

“With the creation of the Winton Wetlands and Warby National Park, there may be some possibilities in the future to involve a few different stakeholders.

“But it won’t be the tens of millions of dollars idea it was in the past.”

Cr McInerney said Tourism Victoria had thrown its support behind the idea.

“It has been mentioned in the Tourism Victoria strategic plan as something they see as a priority for the region,” she said.

In terms of what the centre would actually do, Cr McInerney said that would depend on the outcome of the scoping study.

“It may look at the history of Ned Kelly, as well as the history of the region, and also have an educational facility,” she said.

“But that’s what the study is for.“

Greg’s Comment:

In the 10 years I have lived in the district, I have seen project after project being funded by the Rural City of Wangaratta to capitalise on the Ned Kelly heritage of Glenrowan and I reckon it has all been wasted.  It must amount to more than $1,000,000 and what have we got for it.

Tourist buses stop there for a meal/toilet break.  I am not aware of specialist “Ned Kelly” tours that make Glenrowan their destination.

If it wasn’t for the giant fibreglass statue of Ned Kelly – not funded by council – tourists could drive throught the township and not notice anything different to hundreds of similar freeway by-passed towns accross Auacross.

The following post was made on Coldstream 3770 blog and sparked my attention.

TO BE DISCUSSED AT THE NEXT COUNCIL MEETING

Yarra Ranges Shire Council is committed to the protection and preservation of the Human Rights of its residents and ratepayers, employees and visitors to the Shire. All Council decisions, policies and actions will take into consideration and assess whether, and the extent to which they may limit, restrict or impede the Human Rights of any person.

Council undertakes that in all its decisions, actions and policies it will only limit, restrict or impede the Human Rights of any person or group to the extent that is reasonable, taking into consideration the benefits for the majority of residents, ratepayers and employees of and visitors to the Shire of Yarra Ranges.

Further, Council, in all its actions, decisions and policies, will not deliberately unreasonably limit, restrict or impinge on the Human Rights of any individual or group.

I responded with the following comment on Mario’s blog:-

The Yarra Ranges Shire Council is completely out of order – and certainly outside of International law on Human Rights – by undertaking that “in all its decisions, actions and policies it will only limit, restrict or impede the Human Rights of any person or group to the extent that is reasonable”.

If they were talking about civil liberties, it might be fair warning that they may be curbed (as in terrorism threats or something), but they are not!  They are talking human rights … as in the right to food, the right to clean air, and the right of free passage.

If your council thinks it can take away human rights – in any form – you need a new council and we need to complain to the human rights commission.

Am I missing something or has the Yarra Ranges Council overstepped its authority

MP’s staffer quits over Ball boob grab claims

ABC-Online

A staff member of Federal Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella has resigned over his behaviour at last night’s Press Gallery Ball.

According to witnesses, Tony Scrinis, who had been working in Ms Mirabella’s office for three days, approached a number of women and tried, or asked, to touch their breasts.

Ms Mirabella said the staffer admitted that “some of his behaviour was inappropriate but he doesn’t accept the allegations.”

Ms Mirabella is the Opposition spokeswoman for childcare, youth and the status of women.

Wasn’t there a similar problem with one of Sophie’s staffers a couple of years ago?

Once is unfortunate.  Twice is unacceptable!

The following story appeared on South of the Border (syndicated from Thoughts on Freedom) and is a pretty good description of the Global Economic crisis.  I guess I am guilty of the same thing in using the story as a blog post.

I read this on a trading blog  which I thought was really amusing. Some parts seem wrong but it does get the essence of what’s going on, particularly in the bailout and other government actions.

It is a slow day in the East Texas town of Madisonville. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich tourist from the East is driving through town. He enters the only hotel in the sleepy town and lays a hundred dollar bill on the desk stating he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. As soon as the man walks up the stairs, the hotel proprietor takes the hundred-dollar bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to pay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer then takes the $100 and heads off to pay his debt to the supplier of feed and fuel.

The guy at the Farmer’s Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has lately had to offer her “services” on credit.The hooker runs to the hotel and pays off her debt with the $100 to the hotel proprietor, paying for the rooms that she had rented when she brought clients to that establishment.

The hotel proprietor then lays the $100 bill back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler from the East walks back down the stairs, after inspecting the rooms. He picks up the $100 bill and states that the rooms are not satisfactory…… Pockets the money and walks out the door and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However the whole town is now out of debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government is conducting business today. If that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, then I don’t know what will.

Having just purchased a new home in Euroa with a raised vegie plot in the back yard, I am looking forward to setting some spring vegetables when we arrive at the end of August.

Lasy year, Kieran Bennet set out a vegie patch as did I.  This year, I want to challenge my fellow bloggers to joining the worldwide movement to grow as much of our own food as is possible.

If it is good enough for The Queen and Brack O’Bama, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

Queen turns backyard into allotment

from The Guardian World News by Caroline Davies

Decades after she dug for victory, Queen Elizabeth gives the royal seal of approval to the grow-your-own movement

For the first time since the war, fruit and vegetables are to be found in an allotment-sized plot in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

The first harvest – a selection of Cambridge Favourite strawberries – was served to the Queen and Prince Philip, on his 88th birthday last week.

She is not the first head of state to highlight frugality in these cash-strapped times. Barack Obama has put his wife in charge of a White House herb and vegetable patch, though the Queen’s plans are said to have been devised long before the president’s inauguration.

Challenging Prince Charles in the eco-stakes, chemicals have been banned. Liquid seaweed is being used to feed the plants and garlic to deter aphids. Mulch from the palace compost heap was used to bed in and the palace borehole will irrigate the crops.

Any weeds will be burned by a machine using the same liquefied petroleum gas that powers Prince Philip’s taxi, which he has used for decades to drive himself anonymously around the capital.

On Friday afternoon, Philip Greenwood of Big Trousers web design, announced on Twitter, that Benalla Online,  authored by Bruce Keogh, is now online .  So I went and had a look.

It is a great looking magazine style blog covering all the issues and events around Benalla.  Unlike the other North Eastern blogs, Benalla Online is a commercial blog with advertising and a comprhensive business listing.

Like Kieran Bennett’s Border Journal and my blog review site, South of the Border, it is built on WordPress used as a content management system and  invites content from its readers.  It seems that Citizen Journalism is taking off in our region.

Go take a look as it is a great way to get Benalla news and views.  I’m sure the locals will enjoy it.