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Thank goodness the State Government has finally had the sense to ban fizzy soft drinks from school canteens.  It’s a good start.  But Dr.Mukesh Haikerwal, the President of the AMA, is not overly impressed.  He told Melissa Doyle, on Channel 7’s Sunrise yesterday that fruit juice was almost as bad as a source of excess sugar, and added: “obviously, if they are thirsty, water is the best replacement for that water that they’re losing during the course of the day”.  It’s a revolutionary concept but one that has caught on in some sectors of the population.  All those jocks and joggers running around clutching water bottles are setting a fine example to anyone who thinks about it, but until kids stop being bombarded with TV commercials telling them food has to be “exciting” and “fun”, a conscientious parent proffering a glass of plain old water is fighting an uphill battle. 

Our local Member, the Minister for Health, has flatly refused to consider a ban on those commercials. 

A straw poll of readers of The Age supported the Victorian Government’s banning of high-sugar soft drinks 85% to 15%.  If anyone asked them, they might express the same opinion about the commercials pushing the drinks.

A film about Al Gore, the man George Bush is believed to have defeated in the 2000 presidential election, is getting standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival. 

Since that election, Gore has been telling anybody who would listen about the effects of global warming – travelling around the world and the United States with a suitcase full of slides and graphs.  The producer of “Pulp Fiction”, Lawrence Bender, is just one of the big names in movies who have combined to turn Gore’s slide and chart show into the story of a man who has devoted his life to opening the eyes of the general public to the existing effects, and those yet to come, of the way we have treated the planet.

In the official Sundance Film Festival guide, the documentary is described as a “gripping story” with “a visually mesmerizing presentation” that is “activist cinema at its very best.”

It will be interesting to see if any mainstream cinemas pick it up when it is released out here.  The movie’s title is “An Inconvenient Truth”.

A citizen panel in the U.S. state of Oregon has recommended that members of the state parliament should not be drunk at work.  They are leaving it up to the members themselves to make a ruling.  Perhaps they are worried that their respected representatives could go down the path of the Lithunaian truck driver pulled over by police when driving down the centre of the road 60 miles from Vilnius, the capital.  His blood alcohol level was 7.27 gms per litre – 18 times the legal limit.  At first they assumed the equipment was faulty but after testing him on a variety of devices they had to believe it. Medical experts say anything above 3.5 grams per litre of alcohol in the blood is lethal for most people. 

This is the month when our local councils invite us to comment on their Draft Plans for the coming Financial Year.  It’s worth taking a look at the Council web sites to see what they are considering. 

The Minister for Local Government has determined NSW Councils may increase their general income from rates for 2006-2007 by up to 3.6%, so it is a fairly safe bet they will go up by about that much.  Changes are also ahead for Planning and Zoning Regulations.  Check it out.