floating floors

I have just laid a floating floor and it is easy. Do all the painting in the house and then put in the kitchen cupboards if you are changing these followed up by the floating floor then the skirting boards in this order. The floor is the last surface to be installed before the skirting boards as damage from paint tools and moving things can scratch the floors. I have just finished putting in a floating floor in my house and all you need to do the job is a Triton saw table small hammer and the special tool which is about twenty dollars. Before you try to put the pieces of flooring together with force use dry soap or candle wax on the joints as this will allow them to slip together easily.  Remember that it is all common sense which seems lacking these days, doesn't matter if you are building a house boat or barn.

Beef and sheep meat

About twenty years ago I worked as a slaughter man in a meat works. I remember that after the meat was cooled in the cool rooms over night the carcasses were dry to touch. I now open meat from the supermarkets blister packs of any of the supermarket giants and the meat is wet and they have a nappy under the meat to soak up the water. 

Now where did this water come from? 

I wont answer this question as I could mislead you and would like the supermarkets to reply on there own with there comments and they will be published in full. I think I will be waiting til I go blue in the face til the cows come home, for there answer....don't be alarmed  about the hormone thing as you have been eating it for years. The best way to eat from a supermarket is to go round the edges of  the shop as that is where the essentials are,remember that variety is the spice of life and this goes for what you eat.

Are they going to stop water being pumped into meat? great way to get more money for the same work.

Beef industry roasts Coles over campaign

Mark Russell

January 23, 2011

SUPERMARKET giant Coles has defended itself against a scathing backlash over its ''no added hormones'' beef campaign, which critics say has created a ''monster'' that could damage Australia's $7.6 billion beef industry, financially cripple some farmers and butchers, and add to the environmental degradation caused by meat production.
Meat and Livestock Australia, which acts on behalf of 47,000 meat producers, said Coles' marketing strategy could frighten consumers into thinking beef from cattle raised on growth-promoting hormones was unsafe, despite years of scientific testing showing it posed no risk.
The group told The Sunday Age it was too early to tell if customers had stopped buying beef from retailers other than Coles, but if the industry was forced to stop using hormones due to unwarranted fear, ramifications could be widespread.

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''It is crucial that consumers maintain their trust in the product - that the safety of Australian beef is not brought into doubt unnecessarily,'' the lobby group said.
Coles' high-profile campaign boasts that since January 1, all beef sold in its stores has been free of hormone growth promotants, or HGPs - supplements of naturally occurring hormones that reduce farming costs because they cause cattle to produce more beef from less feed.
Victorian Farmers Federation president Andrew Broad warned that Coles was ''treading a dangerous road'' by exploiting the naivety of consumers to gain a competitive edge over Woolworths at the expense of farmers.
''They're creating a monster in the mind of consumers that this is bad … when the reality is there are no health risks with HGPs,'' he said. ''The campaign implies that there's some chemical being pumped into the beef, which is just a nonsense.''
HGPs are used widely overseas, but were banned in Europe in 1988 following concerns about possible links to serious diseases including various cancers. The World Health Organisation and Australia's Department of Health, however, found no scientific evidence to support the ban.
Woolworths, Coles' main rival, dismissed the campaign as ''a supermarket gimmick that will be bad for the environment and bad for Australian farmers'', with spokesman Simon Berger saying it would not follow Coles' lead.
''We have absolute confidence in the Australian beef industry … We have no plans to dictate to them how it's produced,'' he said.
''Removing technology means you need more cattle, eating more food, on more land, producing more methane over more time to produce the same beef. Someone will pay for that - either farmers or customers, as well as the environment.''
The Coles campaign, featuring chef Curtis Stone, declares that: ''All the fresh beef you find in our meat departments … will be nothing but 100 per cent Australian beef, with no added hormones. So all that great Aussie beef you love to feed your family will now be even more tender than ever.''
Choice's Christopher Zinn said the ''clever'' marketing strategy could jeopardise Australia's beef industry. He said Coles would have known how emotive the term ''hormones'' would be to the public and the impact it would have on beef sales at other outlets.
But Coles spokesman Jim Cooper defended the campaign, and stressed that Coles wasn't saying HGP-raised beef was unsafe, it was saying that HGP-free beef was of a higher quality and tasted better.
''We are doing what we need to do to improve the quality of beef we sell to customers and that's all this is about for us,'' Mr Cooper said.
He said Coles, which processes 350,000 cattle each year, had been planning the move to HGP-free beef for years. The initiative will cost tens of millions of dollars, as Coles will have to pay its suppliers more to farm a greater number of animals to produce the same amount of meat. He said these costs would not be passed on to customers.
The move is clearly part of a strategy by Coles to stock ethically produced food and follows announcements that it will ban pork from pigs kept in sow stalls by 2014 and will stop using cage eggs for its house brands by 2013.
The Cattle Council of Australia said it was disappointed in Coles' latest beef campaign as it usually ''encourages consultation'' with retailers over the language that they used for beef marketing.
The CSIRO's Professor Alan Bell confirmed there was no proof that HGPs in beef posed a health threat to consumers. But a recent CSIRO study, published in the journal Animal Production Science, supports Coles' assertion that HGP-free beef is more tender. The study found the hormones had a ''negative influence'' on tenderness, taste and quality''.
HGPs have been used in Australia since 1979, and about 40 per cent of cattle are now implanted with slow-release HGPs, which add an estimated $210 million in production gains to the Australian beef industry each year.
According to Meat and Livestock Australia, if HGPs were not used, the Australian cattle herd would need to increase by 7 per cent, or more than 2 million head, to produce the yearly quota of 2.3 million tonnes of beef. This would increase water and feed costs, further straining farmers already struggling after years of drought and floods.
The group said the amount of hormones found in HGP-raised beef was far lower than the level of hormones naturally occurring in many foods. One egg contained about the same amount of oestrogen as 77 kilograms of beef.
But Biological Farmers of Australia spokesman Dr Andrew Monk said most people would be surprised to learn that the beef they normally bought had any added hormones at all.
''We see the Coles move as certainly positive, a move back into the direction of recognising natural as arguably a better option for consumers,'' he said.
Australia banned added hormones in chickens 50 years ago due to health fears, but a persistent myth remains that hormones in chickens have been causing girls to reach puberty earlier and grow bigger breasts.
HGPs are not used in lamb but pork farmers use a hormone called porcine somatotropin, which replicates a natural hormone produced in pigs.

Jail for contempt over contraceptive sales

Justice Conti of the Federal Court has ordered that Mr David Hughes be imprisoned for contempt for a total period of six months. The orders follow Australian Competition and Consumer Commission action.
Mr Hughes will serve two months immediately and the remaining four months was suspended. The four months would be served if Mr Hughes again breaches the previous orders.
Justice Conti also ordered that Mr Hughes transfer his website to the ACCC. The ACCC will then post a consumer notice on the site, advising consumers of the illegalities under the Trade Practices Act 1974 of the conduct. 
The ACCC brought the contempt proceedings against Mr Hughes alleging he breached orders of the Federal Court made on 18 March 2002.
Then, Justice Allsop held that Mr Hughes had misled or deceived by:

• not telling consumers that it was illegal to supply or acquire oral contraceptives without a prescription in Australia and the US 
• failing to tell consumers of significant health risks involved for some people in taking some oral contraceptives 
• failing to tell consumers that within Australia free medical assistance is available to Australian citizens and permanent residents contemplating using oral contraceptives and 
• failing to tell consumers that it is significantly cheaper in Australia to get oral contraceptives from a pharmacy.

Justice Allsop made the following orders:

• that Mr Hughes be restrained from supplying oral contraceptives in Australia without disclosing in any promotional medium, including any internet site, that:
• it is illegal to supply the specified oral contraceptives to persons in Australia without prescription
• it is illegal for a person to acquire the specified oral contraceptives without prescription
• that there are significant health risks in taking some oral contraceptives without obtaining medical advice about the suitability of those medications for use by the particular individual
• that within Australia free medical assistance, including where appropriate the issuing of a prescription, is available to Australian citizens and permanent residents who are contemplating using oral contraceptives
• that it is significantly less expensive to obtain oral contraceptives upon prescription from a pharmacy in Australia than it is to buy them from his group, Crowded Planet.
• that Mr Hughes be restrained from supplying the specified oral contraceptives to persons in the United States of America
• that Mr Hughes pay the ACCC's costs.

The ACCC alleged that Mr Hughes had set up a new website and offered contraceptives to persons in Australia and the United States in violation of those orders.
The ACCC had assistance from the US Food and Drug Administration which bought contraceptives from a website run by Mr Hughes. Mr Hughes also sold contraceptives to an officer of the ACCC without the warnings being on the website.
The court agreed that Mr Hughes had engaged in the contempt and that it necessarily followed that there had to be a term of incarceration.
Justice Conti took into account Mr Hughes personal circumstances in setting the time for imprisonment.
"The ACCC could not simply allow persons to disregard orders of the court", ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today. "The ACCC does not take any court action lightly and expects respondents to abide by any orders awarded by the courts".

where is this blog taking me

 When the drug sub hits the water things will change. Its into summer here and the weather is hot and dry usually. First thing to do is sea trials and setting up the boat to live on for extended periods. Then there is where to go and I think the first trip will be up to the head waters of the Shoalhaven river which is 60 km of salt water. I haven't had a good look yet on Google earth, with the holiday season ending I will have the place all to myself. No traffic noise total quiet as the river is in some steep gorges which will keep out the sound. Its national park or impenetrable scrub I might look at building an underground shelter to stay in over winter. It will be like staying in the high country near Kosciusko without the occasional visitor and the bitter cold. Wonder if there is brumbes there?  "O" how the mind wanders and the imagination runs rife.

drug sub

I have the motor on and is all connected up all seems well. I made a bush that was missing and have the throttle working, couldn't wait for the factory part. Where the cables go threw the deck I used electrical cabnet connections as they have to be water tight as the bunks are below and these don't want them to get wet.

This photos shows the cables and electrical joints set into to the deck.

Western Australia fires

Massive destruction has happened in Western Australia around Perth. Fires and high temperature have made good conditions for fires and this is what has happened. The media is consumed with the floods in Queensland and the same I guess happened in the Tennessee floods in the U.S.last year as we heard nothing of this. The media have a lot to answer for with there paranoia. All we here about 24/7 is floods at this time. We hear in Australia about the shootings and the death of a small child but in America, then you have the bill of rights and you believe in the carrying of arms then you wonder why! Well if people can not behave themselves then they must loose the privilege. More damage has happened in Shrelankia than Qld. and we hear nothing of this. There is a lot of bad things happening around the world and our thoughts go out to all these people.