(We) can do better

Events on 26 & 27th August and a report on the 19th of Augst planting at Bayles Street Grasslands.

From the Baba & Ganoosh YouTube channel :

Politically incorrect. It picks up after a short dialogue.

There is his huge gap between what the people want and what politicians and their masters want.

All states and territories of Australia aggressively tout for economic immigrants via their state website ‘immigration portals’. Despite our infrastructure, congestion, unemployment, cost of living and housing problems, these state websites continue to present our cities and states as regions in need of mass economic immigration, from foreign homebuyers, investors, professionals and their families. These portals put wealthy people overseas in touch with migration agents, solicitors, property sales people and offer government sponsorship. Business has speeded up and expanded globally with the internet, since the late 1990s. It is bipartisan Lib-Lab and supported by the Greens, who suppress any discussion of immigration rates.

Since 1945 the Korean people have been at war. Shortly after the establishment by anti-Japanese resistance fighters of the Korean People's Republic that was to become the government of North Korea, in Seoul, the US has been at war with North Korea both technically and in reality. The most bloody chapter in that war was the three year war between 1950 and 1953. In this war, approximately 20% of the population of North Korea perished in fighting under aerial bombardment, through biological warfare and flooding. Many hundreds of thousands of their allies in the South also perished at the hands of the American occupiers and their south Korean puppets. The Korean Peninsula was divided up between the United States and Russia after the defeat of the Japanese. Under President Roosevelt the arrangement might have been temporary, but President Truman's cold war politics furthered the desires of military-industrial-complex's ambition to enforce capitalism on the whole world and the Korean War was a part of this.

The Washington Post has published a story claiming that the North Korean regime of Kim Jong Un has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead small enough to fit onto an intercontinental ballistic missile. It’s another “leak” coming from an intelligence community that seemingly does little these days but leak like a sieve. Which raises the question: Should we believe them? [This article by Justin Raimondo was first published at original.antiwar.com/justin/2017/08/10/what-are-we-to-believe/ on August 11, 2017.]

"As Sustainable Population Australia is an environmentally focused organization, we advocate policies that encourage human activity that is sustainable within finite natural limits and question the ongoing growth paradigm. Growth in the capital cities is reaching limits, whilst coastline development impacts fragile ecosystems. However, inland Australia is more subject to temperature extremes, water shortages and a lack of locational comparative advantage to sustain livelihoods. Within the context of an increasing climate emergency and peak fossil fuel energy, investment will be better spent on resilient communities and foreign aid rather than growth for growth's sake."

James Damore was the man who sent a memo in Google in which he suggested that maybe the low participation of women in tech areas was because women in general had less desire to work in those areas. For this he was sacked.

Now for purposes of this article I am not so interested in whether he was right or wrong. I am interested in how he was treated. I think how James was treated in this matter reflects a far deeper malaise within our culture; that malaise is a lack of love and concern for others. If we really want to create a better society, with less conflict, hatred and violence, then we really need to consider deeply why people are punished and to what end.

Chinese investors are often blamed for Australia’s escalating house prices but a number of factors might mean the demand will drop off in coming years. A recently released report found investment in residential real estate by the Chinese is slowing. As the gap in rental yields between the two countries closes and house prices increase, Australian residential real estate is beginning to look less attractive. The lifting of restrictions on Chinese urban residential property ownership and personal investment monetary restrictions may also play a part. [Article first published on The Conversation, May 1, 2017]

The Victorian Liberals have been running public population forums for their "Victorian Population Policy Taskforce." Please read on to get an idea of what is involved and how you might use these forums for good, despite their cynical nature. The article includes a list of the forums still to be held at time of writing this article. As you would expect, the people comprising the Taskforce include some heavy hitters from the extreme growth lobby and, really only one person who has questioned population growth policy - Dr Bob Birrell. We can be sure that the Liberal politicians and other growth lobby activists behind the forums are pushing for extreme population growth to continue despite its awful consequences, just as the Victorian Labor Government is. The purpose of the forums is to manufacture consent by pretending that current immigration numbers cannot be stopped or reduced, however bleak their impact. The message is put in pseudo solidarity as, "Yes, we feel your pain, we wish we could do something, but we cannot." This throws the audiences into a state of helplessness. However, the forums do present the possibility of people who actually know the facts and are concerned about citizens, residents' rights and wildlife needs, to reach the wide spectrum of people who come to the forums and point to the way out of the false dilemma. Those audiences are dying to hear that the political parties (in and out of government) have the capacity to stop the massive population growth and that Australians should and must resist it. Consider taking copies of The Residents' Bill of Rights, which proposes that Australian growth be brought in line with the OECD average. Consider printing out this recent Population Flyer and taking copies. You might also consider taking a copy of recently retired Labor MP Kelvin Thomson's 14 point plan, which is a viable and well-informed plan to stabilise Australia's population. Inside this article there are also recent ABS and OECD graphs and a population doubling time calculator.

Australia's Catholic Church was Australia's biggest private property owner in 2005[1] and probably still is. It is deeply embedded in Australia's housing-fueled ponzi-scheme, which costs the rest of us so much environmental heartache and financial pain. It also a major source of the immigrationist propaganda that is fed the public. The author has been particularly sickened to read lately of how the church is reaping untaxed benefits by wrecking a local creek whilst developing a site now infamous for its institutionalised child-abuse, and how it continues to be granted a privileged seat at the planning table.

How Microsoft's Office software, which used to be permanently licensed, may now expire while you are using the computer you bought if for, because the user has no control over Microsoft versions. The result is that the buyer is greatly disadvantaged, but Microsoft makes money hand over fist for a self-limiting product.

Save the date: Sunday 30 July 2017. Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs for National Tree Day. Walk in St Kilda Road grand boulevard on Sunday 30 July 2017 or join an information walk in St Kilda Road and Environs. There will be information meeting points along St Kilda Road, from opposite Victoria Barracks down to near the intersection of Toorak Road and St Kilda Road, manned at least from 1.00pm to 4.00pm., and planners, engineers, politicians, arborists, heritage consultants and others will be invited and available for information and discussion on St Kilda Road and Environs. Video inside explains what is at stake.

Clearing our Koalas Away is a damning new report by Dailan Pugh (North East Forest Alliance, July 2017) that puts together intensive logging maps recently obtained via Freedom of Information, and the EPAs new koala habitat model. [Candobetter.net Editor: This article is republished from The North East Forest Alliance site at nefa.org.au. There is also an article about this by Sue Arnold at Independent Australia: Koala extinction looms on NSW North Coast due to Government 'vandalism'.]

Josh Frydenburgh, the minister for Energy and the Environment has belatedly released the greenhouse gas pollution data for the period up till the end of 2016. According to the report there has been a considerable improvement in the way the data is recorded allowing them to give more accurate estimates from individual sectors. The data show a total increase of GHG emissions of 0.7% for the last 2 quarters of that year but a considerable drop in emissions from the electricity sector. This could be due to more solar, hydro and wind use, the closure of big users like smelters but also the impact of high energy prices causing more restrained use.

While the freefall of oil prices seems to have stopped for now, the inevitable rise of energy demand from developing economies may turn the current overflow into a critical shortage. How long before oil becomes a treasured resource in major demand again? And with new technology coming into play, how will the energy market affect our lives in the coming decades – will it fuel growth or new conflicts? Former Executive Director of the International Energy Agency Nobuo Tanaka is on SophieCo.

Follow @SophieCo_RT

"Dear Mum and Dad, I am writing to you from what we used to call the future but for me now it is the present. I'm in fact living in 2017, yes 17 years beyond the turn of the century that we used to think of as so far ahead in time. I am living in Melbourne still, in one of the reasonably well- heeled areas in the suburb of ***** where yesterday I saw 2 beggars sitting on the footpath along the shopping strip. Now there are thousands of homeless people sleeping rough on any night of the week in Australia." Sally, who in her youth described the cities of her travels to her parents, now writes to them as ancestors, describing the Melbourne of today, a place which would be quite unfamiliar to them. It is a cold winter and she cannot afford adequate heating in her middle class home.

[Illustration from screen print of Prof Justin O'Connor's slide presentation.]The population and development behemoth is so multi-faceted that many of us feel like blind people trying to describe an elephant. Far richer than the bewildering 'policy porn' we are constantly subjected to by planners and growth merchants, the videos from this wonderful symposium provide vital clues to how we have been ambushed and sidelined by the nightmarish infrastructure juggernaut. "The ‘Creative City’ attempts to mobilise culture and creativity for city branding, urban regeneration and cultural industries growth, which also point to new forms of urban planning and governance. It has been closely associated with the “creative class” and the creative- entrepreneurial city in ways that have frequently become divisive and exclusionary, focusing on arts flagships, photogenic CBDs, and real estate profits. So too, cultural production has been reformatted under the rubric of the ‘creative industries’ in ways that foreground their contribution to economic growth. Increasingly calls have been for social justice, citizenship and the rights to the city, with a return of community and activist-focused arts activities, as well as new forms of ‘post-capitalist’ production communities." Source: "Smart City - Creative City", which is where the video of which this article is mostly a transcript, comes from, along with four others. The symposium took place at the Chunky Move – Dance Company Melbourne, Southbank, Australia on 15 June 2017.

Seemingly, as a pychologically understandable response to the smearing of Russia by the corporate presstitute media, and now US President Donald Trump, many otherwise well-informed and insightful alternative journalists, who oppose the corporate newsmedia, find it necessary to defend the conduct of the dictator Josef Stalin (1878-1953) with spurious rationalisations.

An example is Tell Trump the Soviet Union didn’t invade Poland in September 1939 by the Saker.

Some extracts: "What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? [...] Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!" This is from "Howl" by Gregory Corso (1926-1997) was written in 1984. Full poem plus background at http://howlcriticaledition.weebly.com/howl-by-allen-ginsberg.html

I like watching movies a lot. Syria has become topical (to say the least) and there have been a number of subtle mentions of Syria in new Hollywood movies, not to mention in the TV series Ancient Aliens. Some of these interpretations almost rival the creativity of 'reports' in the mainstream news on Syria. Westerners might also be interested to hear that Syrian TV interprets western events and has its own version of Game of Thrones. [Candobetter.net editor: New title replaces the old title which was "How Hollywood and Ancient Aliens do Syria and Syrian TV does Trump".]

Paul Joseph Watson asserts that "We are being indoctrinated to accept ugliness as a form of beauty." This is what is proposed for Melbourne and for most cities in Australia: oppressive tower blocks and architecture that dwarfs individual humans. It is a trend that began after the first world war and accelerated after the second world war.

“The big issues we feel are job security, housing affordability, planning in our suburbs and our environment. And all of those major indicators are going backwards with this onslaught of rapid population growth. So, it’s changing our daily lives. It’s gone beyond some big number into the future. It’s actually hitting us in the face when we drive out of our driveway in the morning and we try and get to work. Or when we try to look up a job when we try to get our next opportunity. Or when we look at our green space in our suburb that’s disappearing. Or looking at our urban heritage… that’s just being bulldozed for this highrise development”. (William Bourke, Sustainable Australia Party, speaking on 3AW to Neil Mitchell)

This song is sung in Bengali, which is a language from Bangladesh. It was a theme song for World Population Day 2013. I liked the tune and found the singers appealing. I wondered what the words were and obtained a translation through a friend in India. See inside.

Press Statement Lays Groundwork for US Attack. Raising speculation that the US is about to attack Syria again, the White House has issued a statement late this evening accusing the Assad government in Syria of conducting “potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack,” claiming that such an attack would involve the “mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.”

The godless in Australia say enough is enough. After today’s release of Census data showing that non-believers make up 30.1% of the population – easily overtaking the previously-highest response “Catholic” for the first time in Census history – the Atheist Foundation of Australia says it is time to stop pandering to religious minorities and take religion out of politics. [Ed. This article also notifies of a 2018 Atheist convention in Australia featuring Salmon Rushdie.]

For the record: Anthony Searles of Boronia speaks at 'Restore Residents' Rights', a Planning Backlash Rally organised by Mary Drost on the steps of Victorian Parliament on 8 June 2017. This rally was a huge protest by many residents' and ratepayer groups against the Victorian Government's despotic plan to privatise the planning system in order to provide for an increase in Victoria's population from approx 6m to 10m by 2050, mostly through economic immigration, in order to satiate the greed of developers who have taken over this country and the political parties. (This report and video have been uploaded out of sequence with the other speeches made on the 8 June and published on candobetter.net, owing to an editorial oversight. Apologies from candobetter.net editors.)

Cdb Ed Update: Broken link to source of this article has been fixed. Vladimir Putin has backed the idea of expanding a program that offers citizens a free hectare of land in Russia’s Far East to all of the country’s regions. The Russian president made the comment during one of his annual Q&A sessions on Thursday. Source: Putin backs extending free land giveaway all across Russia

John Pilger and Vanessa Beeley talk about the amazing growth in mass-media supported war propaganda in our times, including the grotesque fantasies manufactured about Russian intervention in US elections and the creation of a false cold war. Vanessa Beeley describes how, when she was in Aleppo, she was witness to the absolute fabrication of what was happening there. And now, the almost complete silence on what seems like American ethnic cleansing of Arabs in Raqqua - where the US is using depleted uranium, phosporos weapons and not providing any humanitarian corridors.

The regional and international standoff headed by Saudi Arabia against Qatar is not going to be resolved anytime soon. What does the simmering crisis mean? And why has Donald Trump taken the Saudi side? CrossTalking with Sharmine Narwani, Mohammed Cherkaoui, and Foad Izadi.