As a farmer I find the inquiry into food pricing insulting.

The fact that the National Farmers Federation did not wish to apportion blame to supermarkets says more for its lead-headedness than anything else. Some thought bloat was a condition that affected cattle on lush pastures rather than bureaucrats in a good paddock.

You can go to any saleyards and see what a duopoly does. It is obvious and shameful. All the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission needed to do was look at simple figures: what it costs to slaughter animals, transport them, cut them up and present them.

The reality is that supermarkets have been making 18 to 20 times the profit per kilogram on meat that farmers make - not bad for 10 to 14 days' work as opposed to the 17 months the farmers put in for their meagre earnings.

The federation stated that many farmers had "market arrangements" with these supermarkets and it didn't want to upset that. With a monopoly or duopoly, who else can you have an arrangement with?

Any wonder supermarkets sales are up 30 per cent a year and double-digit profit growth is the norm. This information is easy to find - it appears neither the federation nor the commission wanted to know.

Kevin Rudd clearly didn't - he opted for the Grocery Watch publicity prank instead. Perhaps the Prime Minister is utilising the ABC (via The Hollowmen) for his policy directions?

Vince Heffernan Dalton

What about a trial for driver of injustice?

Ironic is it not that, a decade or more after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, America has replaced the former's show trials with equally farcical military tribunals behind closed doors and razor wire ("Both sides claim victory after Osama's driver convicted", August 8).

Ideological supremacy has led to the victors aping the vanquished.

David Jordan Dee Why

For goodness sake, he was only Osama bin Laden's driver. When is something going to be done about prosecuting the US Commander in Chief, who has personal responsibility for thousands of needless Iraqi and American deaths and is currently grandstanding through China to no good effect?

Peter Wilson Hunters Hill

Congratulations to the US Military for the trial that found bin Laden' driver guilty. With such swift and pervasive justice, when will we see it trying Mugabe's milkman or Karadzic's doorman?

Caven Tootell Rydalmere

An unkind reminder

Privacy issues with Google's Street View can be more complicated and personally distressing than simply the viewing of a few car number plates ("Ogle cam: up close and impertinent", August 8).

Yesterday, on viewing images of my parents' home on Street View, both of them were easily recognisable. Yet sadly, my dad passed away a month ago to the very day. While recognising that Google-time is never real time, the image renews the raw loss.

Invasion of privacy is never a simple issue.

Janice Creenaune Austinmer

While others may have legitimate complaints about Google publishing pictures of their house, I was delighted to views ours, with me pictured hard at work in the garden, complete with broom and bucket, thereby dispelling any uncertainty as to who is the gardener in the family.

I just hope it wasn't a day I called in sick to work.

Elizabeth Maher Bangor

Support our students

The HSC is internationally renowned for its rigour and standards. It sets the benchmark for senior certificates throughout Australia.

Your editorial ("HSC is more than a piece of paper", August 8) assumes all students qualify by simply turning up, and ignores the efforts of those students who are awarded the credential.

Each year, hundreds of students do not achieve this qualification.

Students must meet stringent requirements, including completing courses that total 22 units over years 11 and 12 and assessment tasks.

They must also achieve a number of course outcomes and sit for the requisite HSC exams.

Unfortunately, a number of students do not qualify for the HSC because they do not meet these requirements. As students are undertaking their trials and preparing for the final HSC exams, let's recognise the effort they are all putting in at the moment and support them to reach their full potential.

Dr John Bennett General Manager,

Office of the Board of Studies, NSW

Let the children play

So the Federal Government has a plan for an early learning program for children from birth to five years ("Cooing on the syllabus", August 7).

This plan involves retraining the existing child-care workforce to interact more with babies, to encourage children's creativity and intellectual inquisitiveness and to encourage the formation of positive relationships and self-awareness.

I am a child-care worker of eight years' experience. What does the Federal Government think we are doing now? Why is society in such a hurry to "educate" our children? Children learn through their play, the importance of which is terribly undervalued.

Instead, they are placed under pressure to achieve, which, according to statistics, just seems to be bringing depression to their world.

Lyn Cannon Caparra

Swap the bridges

To Eric Roozendaal: why not cancel the $100 million duplicate Iron Cove Bridge (which nobody wants) and spend it on a new Spit Bridge (which everybody wants)?

Nicholas Poynder Rozelle

Coal scuttled

Two centuries after the Battle of Trafalgar, the French have scored a powerful victory over England. The French-owned EDF electric company has just announced English electricity price increases of 17 per cent. In France it is only allowed to raise its price in line with the inflation rate of 3.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, like John Brown's body, English coal lies a-mold'ring in the grave, as ours might soon be, at a similar cost to us.

Greg Thorp Turramurra

Funding all sides

David McKnight, of the University of NSW, alleges that ExxonMobil has funded "junk science" with the intent to "deny" climate change ("The climate change smokescreen", August 2).

ExxonMobil agrees climate change is a serious issue and is taking action to address it. We are an active player in the debate on Australia's climate policy. We are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at our operations and have invested in energy-efficient cogeneration technology that has saved more than 10 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

The work of ExxonMobil scientists has produced more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed literature. Our scientists participate in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and numerous related scientific bodies. We have supported major climate research projects at some of the finest academic and governmental organisations in the world, representing a range of positions on the science of climate change.

McKnight has ignored the fundamental point that ExxonMobil does not try to control the views and messages of those whom we support. A case in point: one of the institutions we have funded for many years is McKnight's employer.

Trisha Perkins Public affairs manager, ExxonMobil, Australia

Protesting is not bad manners, it's a statement of free speech

Rod Lander (Letters, August 8) thinks it is bad form to launch a political protest in Beijing during the Olympics. I beg to differ. With his attitude, serious problems such as our treatment of Aborigines, or China's suppression of dissent, would be swept under the carpet.

On a recent trip to China I was surprised how friendly ordinary Chinese are, despite being stuck with a vile government. The Beijing Olympics is a chance for the world to register its abhorrence of China's policies. I have nothing but admiration for any high-profile athlete who is prepared to stick his neck out for such a worthy cause.

Mike Phillips Wollstonecraft

Interest in the America's Cup yacht race waned after the historic Australian win, largely because it ceased to be a contest between sailors and became a competition between lawyers. The Olympics are going the same way. It is increasingly becoming a contest between the chemists and drug manufacturers of the competing nations.

Richard Keyes Enfield

If I'm any judge, Beijing's javelin judges will be eliminated before the second round.

Kevin Gartrell Cooranbong

I can't see why Tourism Beijing didn't follow Tourism Australia's "So where the bloody hell are you?" campaign.

Hendry Wan Matraville

What is all this fuss about Beijing's air quality and fear for the health of "our" athletes? That's good Aussie coal that they are breathing.

Darren Whitaker Surry Hills

Are the Chinese really accountable for the state of their environment? It could be argued that Australian consumer habits have contributed to China's problem. If you have a plasma TV or mobile phone, there's a good chance it was made in China.

The Australian consumer has enjoyed cheap imports from a workforce being paid a pittance, with no health and safety protocols and where there have been no environmental impact studies. Governments have been happy to do business without asking questions and corporations have been keen to turn our natural resources into dollars.

China's economy is going gangbusters and our economy has defied recession by being dragged in its wake. So, as our athletes wheeze over the finish line, we should not forget our own contribution.

Christopher Woodley Vaucluse

I have not heard of Doug Deep being selected for the Australian Olympic team. This must be the first time he has missed selection in years.

Terence Bright Penrith

When in doubt, don't sign contract

Are the people complaining of the difficulty of ending gym membership supportive or critical of Sonny Bill Williams ("Pay up, in sickness or in health", August 8)? Here's a tip: if you sign a contract, be prepared to be bound to its terms and conditions for the life of your contract. If you don't like the terms and conditions - don't sign it.

Craig Selman Mosman

Welcome to real life

Get a real life, Nicole and Keith ("Kidman calls halt on blanket coverage", August 8). Stop playing that borish celebrity game. Like proud parents, hold Sunday Rose up for all to see. Go for walks along the boulevard at Bondi beach. Go shopping. Do everything the rest of us do and after a short frenzy the paparazzi will drop you like hot cakes. That is what you want, isn't it?

Max Fischer Scarborough

Dishing it up

Eat roo? Why not? As the Canadian restaurant chain Saskatoon maintains: "There's plenty of room for all God's creatures … Right next to the mashed potatoes" ("Put roo on the menu or rue the day", August 8).

Larry Mounser Waverley

Count myself lucky

I have a 13-year-old addicted to Michael Buble (Letters, August 8). She has all the other teenage traits and our house shakes with loud music at all hours. But instead of death metal and offensive lyrics it is the honey-voiced crooning of Gershwin and Porter, Mercer and Morrison. I must have been born lucky.

David Hale Gordon

Abba hate a Vicious lie

Tim Cowell (Letters, August 8) may be disappointed to learn that neither Glen Matlock nor Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols shared his contempt of Abba. Vicious was such a fan of the Swedish foursome that, on spotting them in Stockholm Airport in 1977, he raced over to get Frida and Agnetha's autographs. According to Johnny Rotten's recollection in 1992: "Sid was completely drunk and stuck his hand out. They screamed and ran away. They thought they were being attacked." Unfortunately, no photographers were on hand to record this momentous event in 1970s rock history.

Tim O'Neill Camperdown

POSTSCRIPT

THE Olympics are meant to help build a "better world" and to take place in a "spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play". Such fluffy sentiments did not cut much ice with readers this week.

They were angered by subsidies to the athletes (the Australian Institute of Sport was labelled "government-sponsored parasitism"), the behaviour of the hosts, pollution, unfair swimsuits, TV coverage, commentators, competitors and indeed the very existence of sport. At least our knowledge of China's politics is expanding: one reader suggested the Games' motto should be "Faster, Higher, Uighur".

Parasitism also featured in debates on refugees and migration, which mostly aroused old and unresolved grievances.

There were many thoughts on the proposed changes to the Hungry Mile development, not all hostile, and even more on the shadowy location of the North Shore's boundaries. The answer is surely that North Shore is a state of mind as much as a place, and detractors and admirers alike know it when they see it.

One reader admonished us for running many more letters by men than women on Monday. We don't like a large imbalance, but we do get more letters from men, and sometimes the page works out that way. The next day argument briefly raged on the merits of dishwashers, which quickly raised the number of female writers - almost all in favour.

Mike Ticher Letters co-editor