When the dinner party conversation is flagging what a relief it is to have one of the guests throw all caution to the winds and get into a bit of serious character assassination. Outrageous claims are mixed with intriguing conspiracy theories and bizarre links are made between apparently unconnected events. Who would dare spoil the fun by asking for real evidence or questioning some of the assumptions.
Alan Jones provides this sort of entertainment for a living. He does it very well, and clearly we can’t get enough of it if his salary, is anything to go by. To survive, Alan needs to continually unearth material and figure out how to turn it into controversy hence entertainment. The Balmoral Beach parking issue was a corker in that respect, but it was decent of Alan to leave it until his mate and paid parking advocate Dom Lopez was no longer mayor.
All good clean fun you might say – but I wonder. We pride ourselves for being the clever country that is forever finding creative ways of adapting to new challenges. We taxpayers fork out an enormous sum to keep our universities going – universities that are committed to the core to the values of critical thinking, systems thinking, logical reasoning, scientific method and the rational pursuit of knowledge. To have high profile public figures junk these values can hardly be contributing to our intellectual advancement. Read the rest of this entry »
It often happens that Council approves a DA with conditions that are the end point of a lengthy discussion at a Council DA meeting in which both sides have had to compromise. Construction then commences. As the building emerges the neighbours find, to their horror, that the conditions are not being complied with. What redress do the neighbours have? 
Each year 300 babies are born to Mosman mums, and each of those infants will generate 700 kg of disposable nappy waste that goes into landfill. This in turn costs the community big $$ and also results in a lot of greenhouse gas. There is no easy solution as when you consider the entire lifecycle, reusable nappies which require lots of water and energy to clean are not really much better. In fact the biggest problem with disposable nappies is that they are so good that parents have little incentive any more to toilet train at the earliest possible time.
The above route would ensure a reliable 30 minute service. It complements rather than competes with the STA routes. It passes all the key local journey destinations in Mosman – schools, shops, walks, cafes, churches, walks, sports grounds and iconic attractions. It provides a seven day service for the elderly living at the bottom of hills, but is also has a high enough frequency and a short enough journey time to make the Mosman Rider a viable alternative to using the car given the hassles of parking
Crime statistics available from the 
Up until recently the sole source of local news in Mosman has been the Mosman Daily. It has been one of those win-win outcomes – by publishing local news in an interesting format, the Daily builds up a large readership and consequently they have a valuable product to sell advertisers – thousands of Mosman eyeballs. But if you scratch beneath the surface there are some problems with this relationship. It is in the Daily’s interest to stir up controversies – the juicier the rumour the bigger the readership. The recent Avenue Road closure editorial is a perfect example. You would certainly get the impression from reading the Daily (a) that Council was hell bent on closing the top of Avenue Road to make a pedestrian plaza and (b) that this was a stupid idea. 
Last night, Maddocks (the law firm) put on a seminar for Local Government on the implications of climate change for planners. There is now a wide consensus across government, the insurance industry and lawyers that in Sydney the sea level will rise by at least 90 cm, average temperature will rise by 3-5 degrees and rainfall will reduce by 15-20% between now and 2100. These are conservative figures assuming we manage to get to grips with reducing our emissions.
Today there was a small ceremony in Civic Square to celebrate the launch of GoGet in Mosman. GoGet has identified a niche between owning your own car and a rental car. The concept is only possible because Internet and smart card technology now exists. My prediction is that once people cotton on to the advantages it will be big a big success – and all of Mosman will benefit.
Last Sunday I went along to a great community led initiative to get local kids to take to cycling as we all did in the fifties. Held at the 1st Balgowlah scout hall on a superb Sydney clear blue winter afternoon it consisted of talks on safe cycling, a helmet demonstration, road worthiness tests on bikes, cycling games, culminating in one hundred and two cyclists participating in a police escorted bike ride through Manly, mostly on shared bike/pedestrian paths. 