Ironically, the demise of bandicoots is happening in MP Greg Hunt's electorate, the Minister of Environment! "The Best Minister in the World" as recently declared! There are no benefits to creating wildlife corridors through the urban sprawl, it's been declared, and they will end up gone- no protection for endangered species in Australia. Housing and urban sprawl will continue, unabated and lethally destroying bandicoot habitat, adding to our extermination of wildlife species in Australia.
Comments
The Pines bandicoot debacle should go down in history
I watched the segment on the bandicoots on ABC news last night. The ABC audience was told that an expensive overpass was constructed near The Pines to save the Bandicoots from traffic from a new road. Part of the plan included a fox- proof fence but this was not built. The bandicoots have now all gone from the area.- local extinction. Now due to urban sprawl the mammals are threatened in other parts of Melbourne's south-east growth corridor. This threat could be mitigated by allowing wild life corridors. The current state government has declared this not to be cost effective. Would that be because they cannot install tolls points at the start of the corridor because the bandicoots can't pay? How does one measure "cost effectiveness" in these matters?
Try this if you are having problems posting comments
Problems have been reported by people attempting to save comments. But, if you go to the bottom of the article that you are posting a comment under, you will find the save button; just keep travelling south.
Tiny Homes provided to homeless removed in USA
Just another example of the cane-toad mentality.
Japan thriving on shrinking population and a real economy
This is a technique to throw the worst case scenario to the residents, of heavy and tall "developments", and when they accept 2 or 3 storeys more they are relieved - and compromised. Our shallow and fragile economy is more and more reliant on housing growth, meaning the demand must be pumped up, and stimulated, by population growth. The fact that it's imposed on communities, undemocratically, and pushed down living standards, destroys the Great Australian Dream of home ownership, exacerbates dis-economies of scale, is not taken into consideration. Rates keep rising, as more people flow in to suburbs. It means more services and upgrades.
In affront to the Growthists, Japan's population is steadily declining. Not only is Japan not in recession but it was growing strongly in the third quarter of 2015, as the country’s gross domestic product data cemented its reputation for unreliability. Output in Japan, Asia’s second-largest economy, expanded at an annualized rate of 1 percent in the three months through September, according to the revised assessment by the Cabinet Office. Living standards can only improve. The Japanese aren’t quite as squeezed into tiny living spaces as they used to be. Of course, the cure for whatever ails Japan is always to increase immigration. On the contrary, it's usually high immigration that causes problems!
Russia bans import as well as production of GMOs
From Russia Bans US GMO Imports (26/2/16) | New Eastern Outlook
Russia is making consequent its decision last fall to ban the commercial planting of Genetically Modified Organisms or GMO in its agriculture acreage. The latest decision, effective February 15, 2016 does not at all please Monsanto or the US Grain Cartel.
On February 15, a Russian national import ban on soybeans and corn imports from the United States took effect. The Russian food safety regulator Rosselkhoznadzor announced that the ban was because of GMO and of microbial contamination and the absence of effective US controls on soybean and corn exports to prevent export of quarantinable grains, also known as microbial contamination. The Russian food safety regulator added that corn imported from the US is often infected with dry rot of maize. In addition, he said, corn can be used for GMO crops in Russia. The potential damage from import and spread of quarantinable objects on the territory of Russia is estimated at $126 -189 million annually.
Selling snake oil remedies for our dreaded "ageing population"
Conventional logic goes that immigrants are younger on average than the Australian population, and an increase in the level of immigration would reduce the ageing of the population. It's as if the average immigrant had the elixir of youth, and stayed the same age while the rest of us age! "Average" age is the age of all of us, divided by our total. If the average age is increasing, it's because all of us age at the same rate, of one year more per year. To dilute the number of aged people it would mean offsetting the older population by millions of "young" people, and it becomes a massive demographic Ponzi scheme, that requires increasing more and more people to keep it going!
This logic requires a continual flow of young migrants, to keep the roller coaster of our average age "younger".
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics projections based on combinations of assumptions concerning the total fertility rate, life expectancy at birth, and net immigration (ABS 2000a), the population will increase to between 24 million and 28 million in 50 years’ time.
The growthists say that migrants generally speaking, because they have high participation rates, because they're young, because they're highly skilled, and they contribute more to the tax base without drawing down more in terms of government services. So, their contribution to the economy is more valuable, and thus use more government services? If this logic was true, surely - with our massive and long-serving immigration rate and period - we should be swimming in revenues and have a great budgetary surplus? So, without immigration, we would "stagnate". There are a lot of "stagnant" economies under this definition. In fact the most wealthy per capita nations are those with "stagnant" populations, not growing or with negative population growth.
The fear of an "ageing population" is fixating on fears of personal ageing, and that young people are more able, work-ready, the new-model, and that we need our collective parts replaced! It's selling snake-oil remedies, and an ageing population should be embraced and encouraged as a sign of good lifestyles, health care, stability, wisdom and on the path to a sustainable population size.
Kennels
Maybe I/we should be investing in some kennels including ones that are seaworthy. I agree that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a dog and a bloody expensive one at $154 million and rising, inferior in these areas: top speed, manoeuvrability, fire power, fuel range, stealth - if it looks like a dog, if it smells like a dog and it barks, the chances are that it is a dog!!
To go hand in hand with our 72 duds of the sky we're going to get the Japs to build 12 seafaring dogs, I mean submarines. So we need 72 kennels and 12 sea-kennels. The potential for us to get really stung here is even greater! The Japs aren't recognised as being at the forefront of Sub building, there better at building....... whaling ships. Which is just another reason why we shouldn't be asking them to build our dogs.
For the privilege of owning all of these dogs is we, the taxpayers, are going to fork out $200 billion for some toys that we haven't yet got, will be dogs when we do and will reduce us to being a global laughing stock. But, don't worry the Yanks'll save us.......... Mmm, I think I''d better get my shanghai out and sharpen it up a bit - you never know??
Immigrants increase aging rate in Australia
It is the millions of immigrants that DISPROPORTIONALLY push up the numbers of the aged.
Can you explain this to Amanda?
Hans
Australia buying substandard weapons
The American F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a dog, a hugely expensive dog, not least because it has only one engine, and jets in dogfights have flame-outs when upside down and their engine dies.
The Russian Sukhoi S-35 (not sure of spelling) has two engines and has vastly superior reliability, range, and manoevrability. Something about Vectoring Jets (guess like bow thrusters on ships). Indonesia is buying S-35s, and presumably China.
As ever, Australia is wheelbarrowing vast hoards of gold to the Boeing-Lockheed military-industrial complex.
Dave ZPG Hughes
Kinship laws and human fertility in ABC Catalyst program
I saw Sheila Newman's theory of kinship laws and fertility opportunities (http://candobetter.net/node/3155) exemplified again on Catalyst of Feb 21, 2016. The Catalyst story was about a woman who is looking at the DNA of tribes in Africa to compare genomes and to compare with Europeans. In describing the hunter gatherers of Namibia she noted that they already knew about genetics and cited their marriage rules which exclude marriage to cousins- I think it was first and second cousins and marriage outside the group is also prohibited. Polygamy is also prohibited because , the scientist explained, it is against their interests as desert dwellers for them to have too many children. These were elements of Sheila's theory in action. The logic and veracity were not questioned, and were presented as a known social dynamic.
More drivel from Aunty
Yes I began watching the program, but turned it off after the second question as the program degenerated into another Syrian bashing affair. The only person making any sense was Rahain Ismail (I think I've got that right) who knew more than all of the pannelists plus Tony Jones put together.
I find most of the programming on the ABC these days to be both shallow and trite. It has been commercialised and dumbed down to the extent they are now running infomercials as news. They are a mouthpiece for government propaganda and the news and current affairs are neither factual or balanced. I do agree with your sentiments as I get more and more of news, current affairs and other entertainment from the internet.
Kilcullen and other anti-Syrian bias on Q & A
I wonder how many of you watched Q&A on the 22nd of February...!
Such sloppy propaganda to keep us sleepwalking to war. How can they bring themselves to do it on the ABC?
I guessed right that Kilcullen would be on it, but I didn’t guess the other participants, with the obligatory Russia and Assad bashing, including an Israeli journalist who suggested that Syrians shouldn’t come to Australia but should stay at home and fight to improve their country, as well as going on about Assad using CW against his own people.
Plibersek reckoned that Russia was trying to wipe out the ‘middle ground – between Assad and ISIS’ so that the West would be forced to choose between the two. What’s the point of writing long letters to someone with such a stupid and deluded idea about what Russia is doing, or what ‘Assad’ is doing?
As for Kilcullen, the only thing Michael Safi has to say about him was a short video with him warning of the inevitable terrorist attack on Australia. Did anyone say: “what, like the ones in Damascus and Homs yesterday, or not so bad?” Why not?
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/23/qa-recap-terrorist...
Getting mightily sick of this constant stream of malicious propaganda, and the twisted ‘ideology’ it is supporting.
The scale of Sydney Middle Eastern rape, bashing
I realise that not all muslims treat women badly, but I wonder if Australia's immigration policies invite opportunists. Maybe we are getting the outlaws here. The article below is by Paul Sheehan, who wrote, Girls like you, a forensic analysis of a Sydney rape trial. You can read the whole article at the link.
The story of Louise: we'll never know the scale of the rape epidemic in Sydney
Louise was exhausted after a double shift when she made a fateful decision. She parked in a lane not far from St Mary's Cathedral and went to sleep.
She was a nurse. Unusually, she also had a degree in psychology. She had been working as an agency nurse, doing casual shifts.
"I was doing shifts at St Vincent's Hospital and I'd just done a 10-hour shift," she told me. "As I was driving away, I got a call to do a four-hour shift at Sydney Hospital. It was a Saturday night, good money, so I said yes."
"I worked through until 1.30am. By then I was so tired a security guard walked me to my car."
She had parked near the back of St Mary's Cathedral but found that after driving a short distance she was too tired to go on. She pulled into a secluded lane, got into the passenger seat, and fell straight to sleep. She was wearing her nursing uniform.
She woke when she felt someone grab her leg. Then she was punched hard in the face.
"I was pulled out of the car and thrown to the ground. There were six of them and they all started kicking me. They were speaking Arabic ...
"Three of them raped me on the footpath. They spread-eagled me. A fourth guy sodomised me. He put me in a doggy position and put a knife to my throat.
"He started to cut me. He was cutting through the scalene [neck] muscle. I knew I was going to die ... I was in incredible pain. I could hardly breathe. I was swallowing blood.
"Then I heard shouting in Arabic. One of the guys who had not raped me knocked the knife from the guy's hand. He said in English, "This is f---ed.
[...]
Read more: The story of Louise: we'll never know the scale of the rape epidemic in Sydney The article mentions Cronulla.
EEG is again suing VicForests in the Supreme Court.
VicForests refused to stop logging an area rich in rare wildlife in the Kuark forest Block, home to Yellow-bellied Gliders, Long-footed Potoroos, rare plants, rainforest and the critically endangered new species of Galaxias fish.
VicForests declined to halt logging after court proceedings were filed.On Friday (12/2/16) our lawyers at Environment Justice Australia (EJA) filed a writ in the Supreme Court against VicForests over its logging in this stand of forest, south of Goolengook (30km NE of Orbost).
VicForests still refused to stop logging and so we were forced to seek an urgent injunction on the Saturday. A temporary injunction was granted and VicForests has since agreed not to log until March 21st. EJA is now preparing the necessary documents for this case to proceed.
A brief article about this appeared in Friday’s (19th February) Age.
East Gippsland logging faces fresh court challenge over endangered species
Surveys like those which have given us information to help base our case on were covered by the ABC. The news story can be read and listened to here.
Environmentalists accuse state logger of forest survey conflict of interest
Just last week the state's logger VicForests agreed to lock up 100 hectares of forest after environmentalists discovered 15 of the gliders.
Environmentalists argue VicForests hasn't done a good enough job at surveying the forests for protected rare and threatened species, so they're conducting their own surveys in other areas.
Of course, VicForests don't want to find threatened species, so they just don't look!
Donate to EEG
http://eastgippsland.net.au/donate-to-eeg
Rising property prices will have other consequences
Part of the issue is that because property prices have skyrocketed, it's not changed merely the dollar value, but the way we look at houses overall.
Because your average suburban house has gone from a large personal expense to a gold mine, it is inevitable that there would be added interest in capitalising on this.
Part of this is what is leading to so much subdivision and towers. Because the land is increasing in price, the appeal of such developments also increases. Also, as the price is increasing, so to is the temptation to draw on that profit. On one hand, retirees are "cashing in" by destroying their backyards to create a unit, on the other hand, there is renewed interest in liquidating those assets to get that money flowing through.
It is naive to think your suburb can increase in value three fold, and nothing would change. Anyone who cheers their home price increasing in value AND complaining about development, traffic and predation is clearly an idiot. It's like your car increasing in value four fold, then complaining it is a greater target for theives.
Well DUH!
As property prices fall, so will the absurd developments and the call to get pensioners out of their homes. It just won't be as profitable to do so.
Productivity by definition
Productivity is defined in economic terms as is the effectiveness of productive effort, work rate, capacity yield ie input versus output. Why then for all of man's improved methods of production is productivity waning? For centuries we have been refining our skills, improving work place conditions and introducing modern technology, and yet productivity declines.
This may be because we are not looking for productivity in the right places or maybe we are applying the wrong definition of productivity. Ecologically productivity means fertility, fruitfulness, richness, etc. If we take this definition further to describe worker satisfaction, I believe that the definition of productivity may take on a completely different set meanings: imaginative creativity, self-satisfaction in the work that you perform, the ability to make the world a better place, the co-operative effort to move mountains, etc.
However, the modern context of productivity is to take the economic definition and to put a a neoliberal slant on it whereby the context becomes "you'll do the job my way, I'll pay you less and if you don't like it I'll take my business off-shore and you can rot in hell"!! I don't know if you call that a Ponzi scheme or not, but probably a bit more like some kind of modern feudalism. And I do agree with your last sentence, only that it's a global phenomenon.
Medibank avoiding insuring the elderly - profits soar
ABC news
Medibank Pivate’s profits have soared . They are going to limit their exposure (or a similar word) to high risk groups such as “the elderly”. Just shows that Health insurance as a profit making business is incompatible with a service to people. Seems "the elderly” are being targeted all round- their houses will become payment for their pensions, their Health insurance premiums will rise and their drivers licences will be confiscated!
The government should not subsidise this insurer.
Letter to Age: Choose allies carefully on Syria
The attacks on hospitals and schools in Syria ("Missiles hit hospitals in Syria", 17/2) are indeed war crimes. But we do not need to be conspiracy theorists to be reminded of the many false flag operations of recent history. Apart from questions of evidence – and so far we've had only predictable finger-pointing – it's wise to ask the old question: who benefits? It's difficult to believe that the forces reportedly now regaining lost territory, the Syrian regime and its allies, would expect any benefit from such actions. Opposition forces, however, facing potential defeat might have much to gain by encouraging "humanitarian intervention" by their Western and regional supporters.
The actions seem intended to doom the current negotiations for a ceasefire, let alone peace, long before any conceivable resolution. It's time Australia reconsidered its choice of allies in a conflict that is obviously not "civil" but rather a disastrous chapter in a new Cold War.
Keith Wiltshire, Carlton
Where's the productivity?
The Productivity Commission should be recommending higher levels of productivity, and economic stimulus, not clawing at the houses of older people. Some of these high-valued houses are not because they have become tax havens, or hidden income stores, but simply have been artificially inflated in price due to many investment schemes, international demands and high population growth. Homes are for families, lifestyles, and the most precious asset of many people. How can the house be liquidated to pay the bills, buy food and then have nothing to pass onto future generations? Personal wealth is being dismantled, and drained to governments to keep up the Ponzi scheme called "economic growth". There should be more honesty that we are nose-diving into desperation to get revenues and that the system is failing. Population obesity is a malignancy.
Closed shop capitalism
What we are heading for is closed shop capitalism where most of the population will not be able to participate at all. The idea promoted by the Productivity Commission in the above comment renders elderly home owners ineligible for the Age Pension until they become only part owners or non-owners. This means probably, in those cases virtually no wealth will be passed down to the next generation. This is a disincentive to save and to do other than rent during one's working life. This will particularly affect the lower middle classes. The middle classes may be self funded retirees but who knows? The Productivity Commission may later come up with a way of making even them sell their houses in order to receive a pension they've saved for during their working lives in their super funds!
So the direction is towards focusing capitalism on the big end of town at the expense of ordinary, average people. They will be locked out of even the crumbs from the system.
Productivity Commission paradigm cruel and dishonest
Today I received this comment, with the accompanying URL, "I think the middle and lower middle class in Australia is under severe attack!" http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/make-pensioners-rely-on-home-equity--productivity-commission-chief-20160217-gmwrnk.html
A 'productivity' commissioner is trying to con people into thinking that more and more people need to cash in their homes, based on a perception that pensions are too dear to pay. The cost of living in our society is actually extremely high due to high immigration (artificially accelerated population growth) inflating the price of land, housing, rent, water, and power. If we reduced population growth, rents and all costs would greatly decline. We would neither have to work so much nor would it cost so much for us to retire. But our government and its elite cronies benefit financially from all this inflation because they have put themselves in a position to do so, by privatising our assets and speculating on them.
The rest of us are blamed for this because the cause is not acknowledged and our population is being made more and more insecure, unable to bargain for wages, nor resist oligarchical economics.
The push to fund retirement with the family home begins with 'very valuable homes' but the value of homes is artificially grossly inflated and the media is trying to characterise ownership of any home as asset hoarding, as if elderly people, indeed anyone, did not need to live somewhere.
The solution is elegant, tried and true by normal societies, but our governments and elites are simply too dishonest to admit this. Below is a link to an article which explains how all these costs could be brought down:
Discussing Australia's Dependency ratio 2009 with graph by Dr Katharine Betts
Sat, 2010-04-24 14:57 — Sheila Newman
We look at Dr Katharine Betts's latest graph of ABS statistics on the ratio of working to dependent in Australia, noting that it is both untrue and discriminatory to imply that the 'Aged' are by far the biggest group of 'dependents.' In relation to the graph, we also look at the role of land-use planning and the social division of work in industrial society in creating financial dependencies where none previously existed. We note that established financial and institutional investment in the post-war industrial-contractual model makes it inflexible and resistant to changes in economic feedback, but that change it must as fossil fuels deplete. Left to their own devices, Australians would probably return to the human default social organisation around kin and place, which is flexible and low cost. This will only become possible, however, with cheaper land and an economic system which permits increasing relocalisation and more flexible use of land than the current plans for packed appartments and dense dormitory-suburbs anticipate.
More on censorship
In the mid 1970s, I loved The Age. I most of all loved the letters to the Editor, which could be several hundred words long. Although there were one or two columnists I enjoyed, I always felt that the Letters were more sincere. Then The Age began to reduce the number of words allowed in the letters. Letters became more and more simplistic, less diverse. Over time the letter length was severely truncated. Then there was nothing left to read except articles that were more and more advertisements and propaganda. I started to interface with real population politics in the early 1990s and would try to interest politicians and the mainstream media. It was exhausting, an exercise in trying to get excited about crumbs dropped occasionally one's way by disdainful politicians and press. Then I did an environmental sociology thesis which was to examine how come France and Australia began the post war era with population growth policies, but France stopped hers in 1973 and Australia continued its policy? I worked out that there was a growth lobby and was horrified to realise that the Age and the Australian were in the drivers' seats for the growth lobby. This became very obvious to me when I realised they owned realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. The growth lobby did not exist in France. This was my major academic contribution to the population debate. It is often mentioned but without my name. More recently, with the infiltration of the US and UK (both growth lobby systems) into the EU, there are depressing attempts to change the systems in Europe that treat growth as a cost to the state, rather than a private business with costs externalised, as in Australia, Anglophone Canada, US and UK.
Thanks for telling us about the links that don't work.
Thanks for telling us this. I've retrieved one link and added a link to Bob's website. One link (http://we.tl/ai7vcKtcHK) still doesn't work. Sorry.
See Bob McDonald's site for fuller set of references: http://www.eclecticparrot.com.au/
World Population simulation Video to 2050
From Population Education at http://www.populationeducation.org/content/world-population-video
World Population Video
Watch human population grow from 1 CE to present and see projected growth in under six minutes. This "dot" video, one of Population Education’s most popular teaching tools, was updated in 2015 and is now more accurate than ever with all dots placed using GIS. Stream below or purchase your own copy of the World Population DVD that includes the narration in six languages and closed captions.
Copyright 2015.
Accompanying the video is the companion site World Population History. Created for both classrooms and a general audience, the site lets visitors zoom in on the map for a closer look at population centers and many of the population dots are annotated with events and information about the location. A historical timeline simultaneously gives context to the changes on the map through milestones that have impacted population over the years. Readings, interactive tools, and classroom lesson plans make the site even more interactive experience for all visitors.
Syrian ambassador: Hospital in Idlib province destroyed by US
February 15, 21:59 UTC+3 http://tass.ru/en/world/856918
The
Syrian authorities did not allow international observers to the site of the
tragedy at the moment, the ambassador says
MOSCOW, February 15./TASS/. A
hospital backed by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Syrian Idlib province was
destroyed in US airstrikes, not by Russian warplanes, Syrian Ambassador to
Russia Riyad Haddad told Rossiya 24 television on Monday.
"The Russian Aerospace Forces
have nothing to do with this," he said citing intelligence data.
He said the Syrian authorities
did not allow international observers to the site of the tragedy at the moment.
"The observer speaking about it will most likely lie," the diplomat said,
marking that the Syrian government had already faced such problems in the
past.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
reported that at least seven personnel and patients were killed and eight MSF
staffers were missing from the strikes when the hospital in Maarat al-Numan was
destroyed on Monday. The organization supposed the hospital could have been
destroyed either by Russian warplanes or by Syrian government troops.
Russia’s Aerospace
Force launched pinpoint strikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat
al-Nusra targets in Syria on September 30 after the Federation Council upper
parliament house unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request for the
use of the armed forces against terrorists in Syria.
Air strikes are delivered at
military hardware, communications centers, transport vehicles, munitions depots
and other terrorist infrastructure facilities. The military operation is
conducted at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Kremlin dismisses
claims Russian planes destroyed hospital in Syria as
unacceptable
February 16, 13:31 UTC+3
The Kremlin spokesman recalled that Syria’s ambassador to
Russia, Riyadh Haddad, said on Tuesday the hospital in Idlib province was
destroyed by the Americans, and not the Russian air group
MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The Kremlin has dismissed as unacceptable the
allegations the Russian air group in Syria has destroyed a hospital in
Syria.
"We are strongly against such claims, the more so, since each time those who
come up with such charges prove unable to somehow confirm their groundless
accusations," Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
Asked for a comment regarding reports a hospital in Syria’s Idlib province
had been bombed, as well as claims the Russian air group was responsible, Peskov
invited everybody to rely "on the root source first and foremost." "In this
particular case the representatives of Syrian authorities are the root source,"
he said.
Peskov recalled that Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riyadh Haddad, said on
Tuesday the hospital in Idlib province was destroyed by the Americans, and not
the Russian air group.
Russia may start
publishing data on US-led anti-IS coalition actions in Syria
Russian Defense Ministry
says fleeing Syria militants are disguised as Aleppo civilians
He added that "the representatives of the Syrian authorities earlier in the
day made a number of statements on that score to declare their opinion as to who
may have been behind the bombings." Peskov refrained from further
explanations.
Earlier, the international organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
without Borders) claimed that at least seven people died and eight of its staff
members went missing at a hospital near the city of Maarrat el-Nu’man, Idlib
Province. The organization speculated that either Russian planes or Syrian
government troops might have been responsible for the attack on the
hospital.
Russia's military
operation in Syria
Russia’s Aerospace Force started delivering strikes in Syria at facilities of
the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups (both banned in Russia)
on September 30, 2015. The air group initially comprised over 50 aircraft and
helicopters, including Sukhoi Su-24M, Su-25SM and state-of-the-art Su-34
aircraft. They were redeployed to the Khmeimim airbase in the province of
Latakia. On October 7, Moscow also involved the Russian Navy in the military
operation. Four missile ships of the Caspian Flotilla fired 26 Kalibr cruise
missiles (NATO codename Sizzler) at militants’ facilities in Syria.
Since 2014, the US-led coalition
has also been delivering air strikes against militants in Syria and Iraq.
In mid-November, after an alleged terrorist attack on Russian passenger jet
that fell in Egypt killing 224 people on board, Moscow increased the number of
aircraft taking part in the operation in Syria by several dozen and involved
strategic bombers in the strikes as well. Targets of the Russian aircraft
include terrorists’ gasoline tankers and oil refineries. Russia’s aircraft have
made thousands of sorties since the start of the operation in Syria, with over a
hundred of them performed by long-range aircraft.
On November 24, a Turkish F-16 fighter brought down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M
bomber involved in Moscow’s military operation against the Islamic State (a
terrorist group outlawed in Russia). Ankara claimed the warplane violated
the Turkey’s airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry said the warplane was flying
over Syrian territory without violating Turkey’s airspace. The Russian president
referred to the attack as a “stab in Russia’s back” and promised that the move
would cause response action from Russia. Moscow deployed new S-400 air defense
systems in Syria in order to protect the warplanes involved in the military
operation and started arming the fighters intended to provide air support to
bombers and attack aircraft in Syria with air-to-air missiles.
Links don't work
This is an interesting aspect of how we "manage" and have caused an increased of fires in Australia. However, the Links don't work!
Censorship
Welcome to the Club! The fact of the matter is as Jeremy and Susan divulge, that the mainstream media doesn't have a shred of integrity let alone have the ability to present both sides of an argument to the electorate. I realised this several years ago when The Age began axing or not replacing quality journos, unbalanced reporting, trotting out their thinly disguised support for American hegemony, etc.
I've recently returned from New Zealand where I note that their media is similarly obsessed with the American neoconservative line. If the Yanks and their parasitic lickspittlers have their way in Syria, where will this all end? Next Iran! Europe is being slowly asphyxiated under a tide illegal immigrants while we are be strangled by so called legal immigrants!!
The media, public opinion and censorship
Excellent interview, Sheila. Thanks for sharing.
Lately I've noticed that even Fairfax media, once an antidote to the corporate sponsored distortions of The Australian, is becoming less willing to give balanced coverage on some issues. Not only are the articles tending towards bias, but readers comments are now being rejected by Fairfax moderators simply because they call out the bias of the article. I completely understand that abusive or off-topic comments will be rejected; fair enough. But rejecting a comment that - politely - points out the extreme one-sidedness of a supposedly balanced article (not an opinion piece) is not OK in my books. There's something disturbingly Orwellian about censorship masquerading as free speech. It used to be that only The Land - and especially the blog written by David Leyonjhelm (libertarian defender of free speech) - was heavy with the censors scissors, but lately the tendency seems to have spread to SMH, the Age etc as well.
.
Joseph Banks noted LACK of bushfires in Australia
John Schauble, "Prevent bushfires the Aboriginal way" (The Age, Feb 16, 2016)
Dear John,
You could not be further from the truth. From Banks 21 st April 1770. "Since we have been on the coast we have not observd those large fires which we so frequently saw in the Islands and New Zealand made by the Natives in order to clear the ground for cultivation; we thence concluded not much in favour of our future freinds. - It has long been an observation among us that the air in this Southern hemisphere was much clearer than in our northern, these some days at least it has appeard remarkably so". This completely contradicts you, Gammage and others. Cook fought with the clans of Botany Bay, killing people. All aboard had reported smoke signals every day stretching up the coast and inland, the largest of
which, up to 50 acres lit in a spiral were for such emergencies - thus the name ‘Smokey Cape’.
Try word searching TROVE digital newspapers. Indigenous people used fire to signal, and for fighting invaders and in only a limited and careful way for hunting. See http://we.tl/ai7vcKtcHK. [This link does not work, sorry. Ed.]Burning the bush kills all the critters that breaking down flammable fuels such as termites, cockroaches and oecophorid dead leaf eating caterpillars."Problems with control Burning NPA Bulletin"
Burning dries bush out and increases the windspeed - making the bush more flammable as is happening now.
See Bob McDonald's site for fuller set of references: http://www.eclecticparrot.com.au/
Russia Has Destroyed the CIA's Arms Smuggling Operation in Syria
The Russians have cut off many of the pathways the C.I.A. has been using for a not-very-secret effort to arm rebel groups, according to several current and former officials. US Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly implored Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to keep the Azaz corridor open, the major supply artery for "moderate rebels' in Syria. The rebels are increasingly cut off from their arms suppliers -- and the US is now begging for peace.
http://russia-insider.com/en/russia-has-destroyed-cias-weapons-smuggling...
Back in August last year, it was apparent even in Western media coverage that the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) is not sustaining its fighting capacity from within Iraq or Syria, but rather through supply lines that lead to and from adjacent nations. These nations include Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and most obviously, NATO-member Turkey. Logic dictates that an army with empty stomachs is unable to march. Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with this quote, found out first hand just how true these words were when his army found itself deep within Russia without supplies, leading to its ultimate and catastrophic defeat. Likewise, ISIS' fighting capacity depends entirely on its supply lines.
We know that the United States provided Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons to use against Iran. This use of chemical weapons, we know that Ghouta attacks in 2013 were blamed on the Assad government, but it was all scam. Assad's enemies have been supplying vetted rebel groups with weapons via a Turkey-based operations center. Some of the vetted groups have received military training overseen by the U.S. CIA. The Syrian government says it aims to seal the border to cut rebel supply routes from Turkey.
Jon Faine today Australia at 24 Million
I am told that presenter Jon Faine will be doing a program around Australia at 24 million this morning on ABC radio Melbourne 774 If anyone wants to ring in I think the number is 94141774
Europe is not a charity
Because Europe has the open borders, it's no reason for them to accept their countries as a soft target for external migration. The Schengen Agreement is a treaty which led to the creation of Europe's borderless area. It was signed on 14 June 1985 by five of the ten member states of the then European Economic Community near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. Due to external migration, the population of Luxembourg increased by 4 527 in 2015. EU is under growing strain from nearly a decade of slow economic growth, a mounting number of migrants from the Middle East and Africa, and internal debate over the EU's core rules. Some 45 percent of Luxembourg’s population of 550,000 are foreigners, over four-fifths of whom are EU citizens.
The EU’s failure to get a grip on the migrantion problem is even more serious because it is well understood that the inflow of refugees and migrants is likely to continue for years and probably decades. Growing migration pressure can also be expected from Africa, which according to UN forecasts will experience a doubling of its population by 2050. Population overflow will continue to spread, instead of being addressed!
Economists believe that in view of the low birthrates in the majority of EU countries, a large number of immigrants will be needed to preserve the potential for economic growth and ensure the long-term financing of European welfare systems. If birthrates are low, it's the decision of the communities in response to rising global populations, and environmental awareness. It's not a flag to retro-fit their countries with floods of foreigners! Welfare is a magnet to refugees, but systems will be broken.
More needs to be done to prevent these human tsunamis, not just accept them as inevitable. There needs to be global overpopulation awareness, a tightening up of national borders, a resurgence of patriotism, and more done to stop Western intervention in the Middle East.
Human smugglers have a document that helps asylum seekers compare the different levels of welfare benefits they can receive in various European countries. It compares conditions in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, telling asylum seekers how much money they can expect, the type of accommodation they will find and how long it will take to obtain residency. Keeping the doors open intensifies the crisis. In the Netherlands 50-70% of former Muslim ‘asylum seekers’ live permanently on welfare. Of the former asylum seekers with a Syrian, Iraqi or Eritrean nationality more than half collect government assistance. 80 % of the 50 million Muslims in the west are on welfare. It's unsustainable. It's assumed that Europe is a global charity, and as a result their economy could collapse.
Europes migration is both legal and illegal
Only a few nations are putting up barriers, and these nations have small populations. Hungary has just under 10 million. Having tens or hundreds of thousands people pass through is a big deal.
But it's not just population size. Victor Orban is also concerned about demographic issues.
Europeans have dealt with "population policy" before. They have been on the receiving end of ethnic cleansing, expulsions and other forced programs.
It is completely rational, and necessary for them to be on guard again for other "population policies" which threaten their national character.
The truth about Syria, Crimea, ... won't be found in the MSM
#comment-182221">Dave Hughes,
Before you make further posts to candobetter, could you please take the trouble to inform yourself about the geopolitical issues of which you write from sources other than the lying mainstream newsmedia? One informative source is this web-site candobetter.net. Other informative sources are linked to from candobetter.net.
For factual information information about Syria and links to other factual information, you could read articles at /Syria. Another informative source about Syria is the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). Others are the Syrian Free Press, Syria News and al-Manar.
Factual information about the secession of Crimea from Ukraine can be found at /Crimea. Factual information about the CIA-sponsored coup in Ukraine by supporters of the neo-Nazi anti-Semitic Svoboda party and the subsequent rebellion in Crimea and East Ukraine can be found at /Ukraine.
You wrote:
"Putin [is] sending Syrian refugees into Europe ..."
In fact, after the Russian Air Force began bombing the ISIS/al-Nusra front terrorists In September 2015 on behalf of the legitimate government of Syria, refugees began to return to Syria. It is, in fact, the United States, France, Britain, Israel, the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and their allies who are "sending Syrian refugees into Europe" by giving money and weapons to the terrorists.
Irony of Europe's response to migration
More than a million migrants and refugees crossed into Europe in 2015, reads the BBC headline.
Europe's population is around 837 million. This is about 0.1% of Europe's population.
Yet Australia's government deliberately floods the country with mass migration equal to 1% of the population annually.
The irony is that Europe is now building walls to restrict the flow while Australia's government continues to sanction chaotic mass migration which is as out of control as the migration into Europe by virtue of its sheer volume in percentage terms.
At last The Conversation sees bleeding obvious
Eco-system preservation key to protection from climate change:
http://theconversation.com/the-best-way-to-protect-us-from-climate-change-save-our-ecosystems-54110?
This (sort of) prominent recognition is both long overdue and welcome but I still have to groan at the almost autistic degree of reticence evident within its content - e.g.:
"There is now clear evidence that intact forests have a positive influence on both planetary climate and local weather regimes."
How can it possibly be otherwise given that climate, along with its sub-set of local weather regime, are entirely the product of bio-physical function?
Is there any doubt that climate would alter due to massive physical change - ie shift in global axis, asteroid impact, etc?
Why then is there such obscurity and caution regarding climatic impact due to the massive disruptions that are cumulative, and continuing, upon the bio-sphere?
Also, how about proceeds from carbon pricing mechanisms go largely toward eco-system restoration rather than to gaming by global financial markets?
Putin plays Syria chess
Is Putin sending Syrian refugees into Europe as revenge for Euro sanctions over Crimea? Merkel led the sanctions campaign. And now Germany is the refugee-self-selected destination for the tidal wave of Muslim invaders. If this is indeed Putin's long term chess strategy, as well as clinging to warm water naval ports, then Russia wins whenever and wherever they drop bombs and fire bullets. Bravo Putin.
Population growth not to be celebrated
Since the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000 the population of Australia has grown by 25 per cent. In fact, since the Sydney Olympics, Australia’s population has grown more than the entire population of Sydney at that time. Based on current trends, the ABS projects that our population will grow to around 40 million in 2061 and depending on migration policies, will grow to between 42 million and 70 million by 2101.
Like a parent boasting of the growth of the children, to strapping adulthood, there's an assumption that our "growth" is to be celebrated. It's as if we are coming of age, with each new million people. Australia has the fastest population growth in the OECD other than Israel and Luxembourg. However, our economy is struggling to grow, inhibited by the massive backlog of infrastructure needed.
The world's population could hit 12 billion by the end of the century, a report by population experts has found. Sub-Saharan Africa countries already with big populations and high fertility levels are expected to drive population growth, including Nigeria, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique and Mali. Some experts worry about a planet growing more crowded and humankind exhausting natural resources, struggling to produce enough food or cope with poverty and infectious diseases. The sacred cow, of not addressing family planning and contraception, still can't be touched.
According to the ABS, with zero net overseas migration, the population would start to decline in 2041 and the effect on Australia's age structure would be very evident. By 2063, the total population would have fallen back to 24 million people - 1 million less than in 2033. The proportion of people aged 65 years and over would increase to 29%, while the proportion of children would be 15%. Working-age people would make up 56% of the population, and there would be 79 'dependents' for every 100 'workers' - a ratio of 4:5. Around 1 in every 13 people (7%) would be aged 85 years or over.
Of course we will face more ageing population, but that's the end result of any population boom! At the moment we have massive unemployed youth, and only a limited number of job vacancies. We should be more concerned about an population overshoot, and the over-supply of disaffected young people with no futures.
Nice symbol but ...
The baby is a nice symbol but isn't it more likely that the 24 millionth person to become part of the Australian population is actually an adult arriving from overseas at either Melbourne or Sydney Airport next Tuesday? After all the greater part of Australia's population growth comes from net overseas migration rather than the surplus of births over deaths.
24 millionth Australian to be born early next Tuesday morning
Australia's population to hit 24 million (12/2/16) | news.com.au
In the wee small hours of Tuesday, Australia's population clock will tick over to 24 million.
The milestone follows record overseas migration, which made up more than half of Australia's population increase in the year before July 2015, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
...
Australia's population increases by one person every one minute and 31 seconds after accounting for births, deaths and international migration.
Australia's annual population growth rate is 1.4 per cent, relatively high compared to the rest of the world.
New Zealand and the United States both have a growth rate of 0.7 per cent, the United Kingdom's is 0.6 per cent and China's is 0.5 per cent.
Japan's rate is actually decreasing, recording an estimated 0.2 per cent decline in population last year.
...
The other aspects of immigration cannot be avoided.
In the middle of this is immigration. Is immigration a means of engineering and pushing some outcome dictated from above, or not?
I think the phrase "You are either a globalist or a nationalist" is prescient, as this will become more and more the issue. The politics of the 20th century is dying. The far left and far right in Europe are rising. Trump and Sanders are both outside of the establishment of their respective parties and somewhat revolutionary (at least as revolutionary as a Republican or Democrat can get away with and still have a chance). The world is moving away form open borders (again, Australia is behind, but Trump want to put a wall and he has a chance of winning, Shengen agreement in EU looking like it will be suspended, walls going back up in Europe).
The establishment is worried.
How is this relevant?
I see this as 21st century politics. We are seeing people moving away from the tired, old, failed 20th century politics and 20th century ideas. I got the sense from Vic First that there was a kind of desire to hold on to the past. To hold on to old ideals, old morals, old values. I see this in related organisations too.
The idea that a population is just administered as a matter of total numbers I think fits less and less with the emerging politics. Granted Australia is well behind (as with everything else!), but this is the future I see. Making concessions to 20th century Political Correctness isn't going to pay off like it might have in the 70's or 80's or 90's, but likely to be more divisive now than it was in the past.
The question of populations sits right on top of the question of immigration, and the question of immigration is fast becoming more and more a major matter and a matter of division, and stark division too,
How do you take a position without getting involved in the major questions arising? For example, do you support the idea of Germany limiting immigration to ensure a strong majority of the population remains ethnically German or not? Hungary openly states it wants to maintain its composition as a Hungarian nation, so it puts up a wall.
You may not want to answer the question, but Europe is having this question FORCED upon them. And its a vital one.
There was an admission in the article that when the issue is brought up, it's pounced about by people who want to bring other aspects in. This is seen as a problem, and is interpreted as being a phenomenon where a valid issue is siezed by a small number of people, but I think this analysis is backwards.
The reason that the question always comes up, is because any discussion of population control MUST address immigration, by virtue of the fact that population here is inflated by immigration. As a result, all the attendant issues are brought in.
It would be like talking about wealth inequality, but not wanting to bring up economic beliefs, or talking about whether prayer works, but not wanting to discuss specific religions.
I don't think it can be done.
No, populations aren't cakes
The analogy was with population (fruit being an ingredient ) in an environmental context (the cake). It's not a political position but an attempt to illustrate what is objectively important- the whole environment.
I care much more that my new neighbour moves in and does an oversized extension on his house and blocks my sunlight than I care that he and his family are from a different religious or cultural background. In fact my neighbour IS from a different cultural and religious background and he hasn't done an extension. His Aussie predecessors with 3 children did an upstairs extension which has deprived me of about 1 hour of winter sunlight per day. This is a microcosm of what I observe that people more in the homeowner category care about and that is anything that threatens their amenity. The people in Carnegie are upset about an overhead rail as it will diminish their amenity. People get upset about losing local open space, they hate to see houses and gardens replaced with units surrounded with concrete or fence to fence huge edifices with cavernous garages and all garden sacrificed. That's my experience and without doing a survey I can only speak from this knowledge. The drive to protect amenity is in fact emotionally charged. I believe people care deeply about their surroundings and their quality of life and so they should. They are dismissed with the appellation NIMBY.
Another driver is environmentalism, typified by people who want to protect the wider environment, who care that that the growling grass frog still exists even if they do not have daily contact with it; who care about the fate of our kangaroos especially affected by outer urban development and increased traffic (as well as being "culled") Environmentalists care about the destruction of our ecosystems, waterways and biodiversity. They sound objective, scientific and soundly logical but their endeavours also have an underlying emotional impetus, the desire to conserve something of great value that they love. Some of them (usually young) put themselves in danger by putting themselves between a forest coupe and a bulldozer. They are often dismissed as "Greenies"
I think you are saying that younger people feel more strongly about social differences than in any argument about long term sustainability and population numbers and that the age group in "Reclaim" is an indication of this (compared with the age of Victoria First members as seen at meetings).
I agree with you that facts and figures will win very few hearts but one would need to do a survey to really get an accurate idea of what concerns "young people" Whatever they do feel , it cannot continue to be ignored.
Too many players in this lethal chess game
US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at a news conference after more than five hours of talks with Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries, a meeting that aimed to halt a recent onslaught that has created tens of thousands of new refugees. A working group chaired by the US and Russia would work out the details of the ceasefire within one week. Kerry acknowledged that differences remain over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but said “you have to be at the table to deal with that.”
The U.N. human rights chief has described the worsening situation around Aleppo as "grotesque," and has warned that up to 300,000 people are at risk of being besieged. The Russian Ministry of Defense rejected the Pentagon’s claim Wednesday that Russian aircraft hit two hospitals in Aleppo saying that it was U.S. aircraft that operated over the city. The Russian Prime Minister's comments came as Russia continued to carry out bombing sorties around the key city of Aleppo, in support of advances by troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The West says the majority of its strikes are targeting moderate groups that are opposed to Assad and the Islamic State. After having long demanded Assad's ouster, the shift in the U.S. focus to combating terrorism has resulted in a confusing mix of priorities and a layered strategy in Syria that few understand. Surely the terrorism they are trying to combat is all a result of their intervention in the first place?
There are too many players in this conflict, and it's a chain of targets. The victims are the people of Syria, being played as pawns in a large, lethal chess game. The U.S. has staked its hopes for an end to the five-year civil war in Syria on the peace talks and Assad's eventual departure. His departure is an unconditional target of these peace talks.
There are no new colonies to settle in, not new frontiers to invade to create a new peaceful haven for these displaced people. Now, it's backfilling in an already compromised and over-populated planet.
Analogy doesn't fit.
Populations aren't cakes, so I'm not sure how the analogy relates.
My argument isn't that numbers don't matter, but that a solution to migration policies which exclude social change will take a backseat to those that do.
So you have NO CHOICE but to weigh in on the issue, because if you choose neutrality, politically, you'll be dead in the water as it will be seen as accepting a status quo.
Besides, it isn't the old ones who are racist, it's the young ones. Compare Vic First with Reclaim in terms of age.
I'd like to see a solution as much as anyone else, but I've realised that trying to narrow the issue to numbers purely is a politically weak strategy, even if it is logical and rational. In the end, social interests win over "logic", and you need to take into account the social issues others deem important.
That is, despite some sustainable population groups having mathematically and logically sound positions in terms of population and carrying capacity and all that, in politics these positions wont go far. Logic and truth doesn't advance political change.
Numbers matter greatly
I am about to bake a fruit cake for which I have a recipe that gives me specific quantities of currants , sultanas , cherries and raisins. These I will categorise as "fruit". The other ingredients make up a batter in which the fruit will be suspended. I have a favourite tin in which I will put the mixture and in which I know, when the cake is properly cooked it will rise just to the top with quantities as specified. I look in the cupboard and see that I have more currants than I need and it would be nice to tidy up the shelves of my pantry. I could throw them in the cake mixture. Currents are so delicious so the cake will be even nicer, perhaps In fact I more than double the quantity of currants in the recipe and see that the mixture looks very dense. I feel a bit doubtful about my rash decision which I must admit was not primarily in the interests of improving my cake! It's too late however so I put the mixture in the oven. The cake rises and a little spills over the edge of the cake tin. I remove the cake from the tin and let it cool. I then cut off a slice and am disappointed with the result. It's not really like a cake! The batter is overwhelmed by the amount of fruit. There seems to be hardly any actual cake in the slice.
I wonder to my self "Would the cake mixture have been affected as badly had they been spare sultanas I had used...... or cherries?"
No, the problem is that I put in too much fruit or if you like , too many pieces of fruit and the cake lost something important because of this; its "cake-iness".
In Australia the population will reach 24 million next Tuesday. It is the increasing numbers that are badly affecting the natural environment, putting immense pressure on coastal areas, waterways, land and biodiversity. Things can only get worse as hyper -population growth continues. Without our high quality environment what is left for the people who live here?
Lobbying is not always polite or even logical
"And partly due to the mass media promoting the social-demographic arguments of Pauline Hanson, One Nation and others to drown out rational ecologically-based discussion." There is really no ideal, or completely politically-correct way of championing the population problem we have. While Pauline Hanson has been the pariah of speaking out about our immigration, and focusing in the Asianization and Islamization of Australia, there really is no polite way of going about it. It takes prods from many angles and sectors to get the message across, and it might not always be pretty. One Nation is hated by the media, and Pauline Hanson is vilified by some, but she does make some good points about how Australian society is "changing", and not for the better. People are NOT pure numbers, and population growth (largely from high immigration) has economic and social/cultural dimensions.
Noting the "ecologically-based" logical discussion, Australia's environmental record is abysmal, and even our Great Barrier Reef, a world heritage listed area, is not immune for "development" for coal. An environmentally-logic argument for a sustainable population is not enough. We need some of the "radicals", and lobbyists without fear of the PC police to say what a lot of us feel, but can't express.
Old Aleppo footage being passed as new by western media
Western TV airing pictures of Aleppo destroyed long before Russian operation began in Syria, calling the aftermath of Russian airstrikes, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Thursday.
"Leading American and European TV channels are showing footage of Aleppo, which was destroyed long before the Russian operation began in Syria; they are portraying it as the aftermath of Russian airstrikes," Konashenkov told journalists.
According to the Defense Ministry's spokesman, it has become a pattern already "to blame Russia in all mortal sins."
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160211/1034560295/western-media-russia-syria-falsification.html#ixzz3zqh89sbv
Composition matters more to people than numbers
Europe is undergoing a crisis from which they will never recover, but the immediate population jump is a temporary issue. The long term issue is the change in composition. I think a "population policy" which neglects this will be seen as less and less relevant.
Why do far right parties gain here? Because of the change in composition. This has a greater effect on group dynamics and social structure than the gain in numbers
All due respect to Kelvin, but I can't see a consensus where the most important thing is numbers lasting very long. That is to say, Political Correctness requires us to hold the idea that a society is just a mass of interchangeable individuals (what neo-liberalism says), and that managing it is managing the size only.
One Nation/Reclaim et al talk about composition, which is heresy, bigotry, whatever, but I can't see a movement which excludes the question of composition making headway against those who do.
In short, in backing the 20th century political theories, environmentally friendly sustainable population groups will struggle due to outdated and incorrect theory.
Lateline talks again to Syrian Gov 9.30pm, Feb 11, 2016
Please watch this Thursday February 11th
9.30 PM AEST - 12.30 Syria Time ABC News 24, Australia - Lateline to listen to the Syrian Presidential Political and Media Advisor, Dr Bouthaina Shaaban. (See article above this comment for the first and only previous interview with her, to my knowledge)
This second planned interview is to be commended, that ABC is giving a Syrian Government spokesperson an opportunity to give the other side.
The other side is available as never before due to the internet. So many readers of candobetter.net are highly suspicious of the US-NATO version of the Middle East. Our greatest reason to be suspicious is the almost complete failure of the Australian press to interview members of the Syrian Government.
We really should have daily statements from the other side in the wars we are involved in and probably, if we did, there would be far less war.
But this is a little tiny bit in the right direction.
Poll on the page link
The poll is in in the middle of the article, in the box.
Editor's comment : A screen of the poll after I voted against culling, is shown below. Can anyone say how many people voted? Is it the figure of 575 shown in the image below?
If your FireFox browser is set up to normally prevent JavaScript running on your desktop (or mobile, or hand-held) computer, it can be a lot of work to give permission to a number of sites related to that web-site to run Javascript on your computer. That page requires permission for 26 web-sites to run Javascript on your computer. A work-around is to use a FireFox plugin to temporarily allow all Javascript scripts to run for one given page. - Ed
Kangaroo cull results so far
The link worked for me. Should kangaroos be culled ? 92.48% NO 6.48% YES and 1.04% said yes but should not be used as pet food.
Talk of increase of GST to 15%
My thoughts exactly. The apparent current need for government to raise more revenue from taxes would indicate to me that more taxpayers do not make it easier for governments to provide for their citizens. i remember that the argument around population and infrastructure, especially related to rail services between capital cities in Australia went like this "We just don't have the population.If we had a greater population we could afford better transport in Australia." It now looks as though we are able to afford less with more people as other needs must be met by governments and there is a call for more taxes. I never hear anyone in the media interviewing members of the government asking why this has happened.i.e that they they now need more taxes than they used to.
Failure of "economic growth"
Surely having to increase GST to 15% is indicative of the failure of the "economic growth" model. If our economy is growing, why is our budget performing more and more poorly, and our nation costing us more to run?
In order to pursue the most central objective of modern economics – perpetual economic growth – amid increasing resistances from the laws of nature, and also the law of diminishing returns, modern economics has had to come up with a wide range of strategies for raking in ever increasing amounts of economic growth from the future.
The massive culture of consumerism and entitlement that has taken over the world, so that we can continue living as far beyond our means as at all possible.
Economic law states that if one input in the production of a commodity is increased while all other inputs are held fixed, a point will eventually be reached at which additions of the input yield progressively smaller, or diminishing, increases in output. A good example of diminishing returns includes the use of chemical fertilizers- a small quantity leads to a big increase in output. However, increasing its use further may lead to declining Marginal Product (MP) as the efficacy of the chemical declines.
If we must keep increasing taxes and costs of living, in a desperate attempt to keep our economy running, enough to keep our health, education and maintenance of infrastructure, then inefficiencies have crept in, and the cogs aren't turning properly. Our economy has become diseased by dis-economies of scale, an imbalance of cost/benefits, and too big and unwieldy to be "economical". Grabbing more and more from the hip pockets of the public, while our services are sliding backwards into crises of funding shortfalls, then our returns are diminishing. Our "economic growth" model sounds lucrative and reassuring, but it's nose-diving into more and more poverty and debt!
Merkel 'horrified' by Russian bombings in Syria
The following is from an article the Washington Post of 8/2/16 :
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that she is "not just appalled but horrified" by the suffering caused by bombing in Syria, primarily by Russia.
For the truth about Russia's precision aerial bombardment of ISIS terrorists since September 2015, read articles such as Information warfare? Russia accused of killing civilians in Syria (1/10/15), Information warfare? Russia accused of killing civilians in Syria (4/10/15) and other more recent articles on rt.com, rt.com, Sputnik News, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the Syrian News, the Syrian Free Press Network, PressTV, Syrian Free Press Network, Syria News, Al-Manar, Global Research, etc.
More to say about Australian media lies on Syria
Great article, but there’s so much to say about this.. ( like why did SBS and the ABC tell us that refugees were going to the Western Bab Al Salam crossing, when the film today shows them clearly at the Azaz-Kilis crossing, north of Aleppo.) The Western one is the route cut by the SAA, and so unlikely to be where they would go. No end of deceptions here, including the idea these people are fleeing Aleppo itself – they aren’t.
John Howard's 1998 rort to bring in the 'never ever' GST
As Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, manoeuvres to try to get re-elected and increase the 10% Goods and Services Tax (GST) to 15%, we should not forget how in 1998 Australia's Parliamentary democracy to bring about the GST that then Prime Minister Howard had previously promised voters would 'never ever' happen. The following has been posted to discussion Increasing GST: not worth the effort. How about inheritance taxes? (5/2/16) on JohnQuiggin.com
Thank you, #comment-267433">Chris O'Neill on February 7th, 2016 at 01:22 and #comment-267440">BilB on February 7th, 2016 at 08:47.
Chris O'Neill wrote:
[Democrats Senator Meg Lees] put up some absolutely bizarre arguments. Like a card player saying she didn't know what to do when she held all the aces.
Another more recent example, is Senator Barnaby Rubble - sorry, Joyce, who promised at the 2004 Federal elections to oppose the privatisation of Telstra (or was it then still called 'Telecom'?). After he got elected, he voted for privatisation, contrary to what he had told voters. I recall that his one vote allowed the legislation to pass the Senate. If he had voted against privatisation, Telstra would have remained in public hands.
Of course, as he did with the GST, Howard said almost nothing about Telstra during the 2004 elections and again, after the vote, claimed a mandate for a policy, about which he and the newsmedia had intentionally kept the public in the dark during the election.
For his part, Kim Beazely refused to commit Labor to reversing privatisation should Labor have won the following election.
On the GST election rort, I found myself unable to find any information on Hansard about the 1998 committee to supposedly 'investigate' 'tax reform'. I am sure that an exhaustive search through the 1998 Hansard pdf files would reveal the information, but does anyone know the name of Liberal member, who, upon realising that it was only a vehicle to promote the 'never ever' GST, resigned from that committee?
BilB wrote:
... I've saved your account so that I can add the next stage in our passage towards the Friedmanian economy.
Thank you. Please feel welcome to visit my own web-site, candobetter _dot_ net which is linked to, over to the left.
On that site, we try to cover a range of topics which we consider critically important, but which are not given space on any other Australian blog site of which I am aware.
Rape allegation a fabrication to get Abu Ghraib whistleblower
Thank you, anon, for giving #comment-182195">more specific details about the two women who set up Julian Assange. I would be interested to hear if those two women have anything to say about the sexual molestation and rape endured recently by Swedish, Danish and German women as a result of their governments' decisions to suddenly allow in huge influxes of unaccompanied male supposed refugees?
The following is a comment posted to WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Claims Full Vindication with UN Ruling (6/2/15) | Top Tech News:
It is patently obvious that the Swedish rogue state is no more interested in justice for the women it claims were raped by Julian Assange years ago than they were in achieving justice for those Swedish women who were recently sexually harassed and raped my male supposed refugees from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia ( see Europe is not a raped woman – she deserved it (1/2/16) | New Eastern Outlook).
The Swedish rogue state could have presented whatever evidence they had against Assange at a trial in Britain years ago or have given Assange a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States should he have gone to Sweden to face trial, but they did neither.
Clearly the Swedish government is not interested in a fair trial and achieving justice. The Sw3edish rogue state in collusion with the United States' government to keep the global public from learning, in future from other whistleblowers, of further crimes like Abu Ghraib and "Collateral Murder" (see video (17:46 min) embedded here at UN rules: "Julian Assange arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the UK, UN expert panel finds" (6/2/16)).
Sign to increase Family Planning Aid to 5%
Sandra Kanck, President of Sustainable Population Australia, writes:
Hello my women friends and compatriots!
I encourage you to sign the petition "The Hon Julie Bishop MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs, The Hon Steven Ciobo MP, Minister for International Development and the Pacific: Increase the proportion of Australian aid spending on family planning to 5%".
There's much talk of providing education to women in developing nations to help bring about gender equality, but nothing empowers them more - and quicker - than family planning and contraception.
Thanks!
Shorebirds are in trouble – serious trouble.
Every year around 5 million migratory shorebirds take flight from Australia to their arctic breeding grounds.
But their numbers are plummeting at an alarming rate because of coastal development in Australia and their stopover sites in the Yellow Sea. "Coastal development" is a euphemism for environmental destruction.
If the numbers keep falling it could mean extinction – forever – for birds like the critically endangered Eastern Curlew which has lived alongside us for many thousands of years. If they don't have their stop-overs, they can die. Tired birds are more apt to collide with obstacles or falter in flight. This is especially true if the birds' flight path passes through storms or unfavorable wind patterns, or if the birds are migrating later in the season and must cover more ground each day to reach their destination.
Illegal hunting and poaching are also a threat at this time, and even legitimate hunters may make mistakes and inadvertently shoot protected birds that they have misidentified in flight.
Deforestation, the draining of wetlands, planting of non-native trees, the loss of areas to urban developments and intensive agriculture are major threats to birds. Numbers of many species are in serious decline as a result of habitat loss and these losses are particularly serious on islands, where bird populations are often small and very fragile.
Shorebirds need champions like you to fight for their survival.
Amazing how crimes can be manufactured to suit politics
Stockholm police were warned not to give descriptions of the perpetrators lest they were accused of being "racist". In Sweden, similar attacks to those on New Years Eve in Cologne in Germany have been taking place for more than a year and the authorities are still playing catch up. Ironically, Sweden prides itself on its sexual equality and has even pioneered a feminist foreign policy. Sweden’s largest tabloid, argued that it was racist to point out that the perpetrators in Cologne had been described as North African or Arab, since German men had carried out sexual assaults during Bavaria’s Oktober-fest. No country is crime-free, or immune from rapes. However, 5,000 incidents have been kept secret, including 559 cases of violence, 194 assaults, two terror threats and four rapes in Sweden! The crime of "racism" is apparently more severe and a threat to peace than the sexual attacks, and assaults? Any information pertaining to the behavior of “refugees” be censored. Details of the molestation of women by Muslim migrants at a music concert in Stockholm last summer being kept under wraps so as to “avoid an anti-immigrant backlash”. Better to risk internal security, apparently, and ignore the violence to women than be guilty of the horrendous crime of being "anti-immigration"?
Julian Assange got so such censorship, or protection, and his identity was exposed to all the world. He was a political "refugee", but he wasn't given the privilege of anonymity to what was really gossip, and being trapped by two malicious women. He's White! Assange was in Sweden in 2010 speaking about the role of media in wars. He had consensual sex with two women, known to each other. Assange applied for a residence permit to live and work in Sweden. He hoped to create a base for Wikileaks there, because of the country's laws protecting whistle-blowers. Both women reportedly say that what started as consensual sex became non-consensual. Somehow, in hindsight, the sex morphed into "rape"?
Swedish police issued an international arrest warrant for Mr Assange via Interpol. The hoards go on the rampage of crimes, and rapes, but there's great interest in Assange's trumped up "rape" charges. Amazing how crimes can be manufactured not according to their validity, severity and evidence, but according to political agendas - and the convenience of the "crime" to harass and hunt-down a whistle-blower.
Govt negligence facilitates actual rape of other Swedish women
The Swedish government has attempted to extradite Julian Assange from London supposedly for an alleged rape for which he was never even charged, even when he previously resided in Sweden.
The same Swedish government has, by imposing high immigration of males from North Africa, the Middle East and North Africa upon Central Asia, brought about circumstances, where large numbers of Swedish girls, like their sisters in Germany and Denmark, have endured sexual harrasment and rape:
Officials: Europe is Not a Raped Woman, 'She Deserved It' (1/2/16) | New Eastern Outlook
It seems to me that we are beginning to live in a world in which reality is overtaking fiction. Who could have imagined a year ago that in the streets of European cities such as Cologne helpless, European women will be violated in ‘broad daylight’? Well, maybe it was still possible to imagine, but that they would be raped by a group of immigrants from countries located thousands of kilometres from Germany?
At this point, public opinion is shocked by the violence of Cologne, however, this is not an isolated event. The difference between Cologne and other places lies in the fact that in this case what happened just entered public awareness. Things like this happen a lot. I cite here just a few examples.
In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, a German policeman said that the type of events like Cologne were previously recorded in Bavaria. 'In the past few months, only once it happened that the offences were committed by a German. The rest of the cases involved asylum seekers'. The Swedish media report that the bulk of cases of sexual harassment of women occurred during one of last year’s youth festivals in Stockholm. Police data shows that at least 150 girls were sexually attacked – in just a few days of the festival – including 11-12 year-old children (data based only on declarations). The perpetrators are alleged to have been a group of approx. 200 young men who came to Sweden from Afghanistan.
In Finland, in turn, 120 complaints regarding assaults on women have been recorded. So far, the police were able to identify 16 people. Most of these people come from "north Africa".
Denmark is the next country on the list. Local government politicians say that in three Danish cities have seen sexual harassment of women by immigrants from asylum seeker centres. This applies to the town of Thisted. Similarly, in Sonderborg, there were numerous cases of touching women in public places without their consent. The perpetrators were immigrants from local centres.
The Weaponisation of the Refugee: Coercive Engineered Migration
"In the book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill, US foreign policy consultant, argues that coercive engineered migration is a strategy which has been used by governments to gain concessions from other governments. In other words, governments often use refugees as weapons in order to exert pressure on other governments for political ends. Greenhill documents over 59 examples of refugees being used as weapons since the Second World War.
While there are undoubtedly many women and children and innocent victims of NATO/Zionist fomented war among the flux of people migrating to Europe who deserve all the help they can get, it is deeply reactionary and dishonest to ignore the obvious instrumentalisation of migration by imperialism. Rational and honest analysis of this complex phenomenon tends to prevail in developing countries such as Russia and Iran, whose press agencies have provided extensive evidence of this problem. However, spurious political correctness often stifles constructive debate in Western countries with some analysts such as this author being slandered on social media as ‘fascists’ and ‘racists’ by soi-disant ‘leftists’ for discussing these facts. George Soros and company would certainly agree with them." Cited in Gearóid Ó Colmáin, "The Weaponisation of the Refugee: Coercive Engineered Migration: Zionism's War on Europe, Part 1."
Read more
Housing was also a right in Syria
Beidas-Strom et al. (2009) [1]reported that 80 percent of the Syrian people live in self-owned houses. The Government has a similar system to the French one and supplies something like 15% of the population with public housing. In such a system government contracts with developers keep prices down. Of course, now that towns and suburbs have been reduced to rubble by US, UK and Saudi supplied weapons, housing is at something of a premium. And the disaster capitalists want to move in and 'rebuild' a private housing system.
You can see that the 'free-market' global economic 'system' (which US-NATO confuses with democracy) seems to need to destroy all successful dirigiste countries. It is a bit like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, that hates to know of something more beautiful than itself. Indeed, the 'free' market system is so very, very ugly, that it seems it must destroy the whole world so that nothing of beauty or justice may remain to show up just how abnormal it is. I saw communism as a reaction to industrial capitalism; similarly too vast and too prescriptive. Relocalise and don't invade other peoples' countries.
[1] Beidas-strom, S., Lian, W. & Maseeh, A. (2009) The Housing Cycle in Emerging Middle Eastern Economies and its Macroeconomic Policy Implications. IMF Working Paper, Middle East and Central Asia Department, international Monetary Fund
Human herd mentality
Researchers discovered that it takes a minority of just five per cent to influence a crowd’s direction – and that the other 95 per cent follow without realizing it. The research findings show that as the number of people in a crowd increases, the number of informed individuals decreases. As the number of our own "herd" increases, it seems that more people fail to see the size of their population, or question its source.
Modern psychological and economic research has identified herd behavior in humans to explain the phenomena of large numbers of people acting in the same way at the same time.
Herd mentality is embedded in the communication systems humans are forced to use for lack of choice as to the source of information.
We end up being blinded by our own herd size, or just see the city as our focus. The more of us there are, the less power is given to each person, and they are unable or feel incompetent in changing the status quo. As for population growth, it's assumed that it's somehow inevitable, uncontrollable and unquestionable. We just adapt to our human-soaked landscape, and the Herd even gives some comfort, of "safety" in numbers. Only the outsiders are vulnerable, from predators. We become robotic, and conformists in this herd culture. People don't want to look outside their framework, and PC is the fence that keeps them silent- with "xenophobia" or "racism"!
Population, planning and permaculture on 3CR
Population, Planning and Permaculture - On The Radio
Tune in to City Limits on 3CR
When: 10 Feb, 9am - 10am
Where: 3CR Community Radio (
Population, Permaculture and
Is it possible to accommodate
high density
should we be looking at and
Join Mark Allen to This
with permaculture principles
When: 14 Feb, 12-12.30pm
Where: Under the Gum,
Forests protectors can't also be the supporters of logging
“Over the past 19 years our forests in East Gippsland and across the country have been systematically clearfelled, mostly sold cheaply to overseas pulp and paper factories”.
It's absurd to give loggers exemption from environmental laws protecting forests. They are almost the main threat to forests - logging and mining companies.
Surely the system is to give the impression that our natural heritage is protected, but when they are threatened by governments and agencies with links to the very organisations that are meant to protect them - it's corruption and smoke-screen. It's like buying a virus protector for you computer, only to find that it's produced by the same company that creates the viruses!
Corporations are growing to global size, and have deep pockets. They have such political power over governments that their support can be bought, at any cost. It like having "border control", or national security, but at the same time welcoming all and sunder through the back door! Environmental standards and protection policies must always be manipulated and broadened to meet government demand "growth" and "jobs".
Germans to deliver verdict on imposed high immigration in 2017
Merkel unlikely to win another term as German Chancellor (1/2/16) | Global Research
Angela Merkel has become all but un(re)electable as chancellor as the electorate comes to the bleak realisation that Germany can now never be the same again after having accepted over two million Muslim immigrants whose high birth rate will inevitably place unprecedented demands on public services and irrevocably replace the centuries-old, German culture and the analytic and continental traditions of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, with a foreign doctrine and faith. Given the Muslim fertility rate at about twice that of nonMuslims, that would equate to about a net increase of 40,000 per year on current estimates assuming all immigration to cease as of now.
With a current population of over 80 million, and assuming that immigration will continue in the foreseeable future, the outlook for the retention of European values in Germany is bleak indeed and the proliferation of mosques will presumably gather pace and momentum throughout the country, thereby permanently changing the cultural and religious profile of the state. That may, or may not, be a good thing depending on your own ethnicity and political persuasion.
eunewsdesk [ AT ] gmx.com
London 1st February 2016
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Anthony Bellchambers, Global Research, 2016
Housing is a metric of our economy
All five of Australia’s major metropolitan areas (cities with a population of more than 1 million) were assessed as being “severely unaffordable” for the 12th year in a row. According to this study, Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, a typical house in an Australian city is 5.6 times the median household income.
In Hong Kong the median home costs 19 times the median annual pre-tax household income. Sydney's income to house price multiple climbed to 12.2 from 9.8 in 2014, the biggest year-to-year jump Demographia has ever reported.
The Housing Industry Association is tipping the 2015-16 year to also exceed 200,000 new home commencements.
House price inflation is not something that's bemoaned by our government or economics, but it's become a metric to measure our economy! With the fading mining boom, and dwindling manufacturing, housing is a big industry, and prices must continue to increase. High population growth, foreign "investors", negative gearing all help boost the prices, and keep the industry going.
There's nothing about human rights, social justice or providing a service to the community! The housing industry is based on pure greed, neo-liberalism, and manipulating our demographics to suit their vested interests. It's an indication of how shallow and dead-end our economy has become. The homeless are simply given lip-service, or ignored.
Everbody in Muammar Gaddafi's Libya owned his/her own home
Unlike in the 'Big Australia', which former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd helped bring about, everyone in Libya owned his/her own home until 2011 when Libya was invaded by NATO on the fraudulent pretext of then roving Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's claim that the Libyan air force was bombing civilians.
Since Kevin Rudd's 'achievement', Libya has descended into chaos.
In Australia, high immigration, which 'Big Australia' Rudd and his successors, continued to encourage, has made shelter even less affordable to ordinary Australians as ever larger numbers of people require shelter from the limited available stock.
The increased demand is being insufficiently met only by by building ever larger housing estates with little or no amenity, where there were previously farms or native bushland, or by crowding ever more people into high-rise slums.
Loss of peace movement, plus west's wars, creates refugee floods
We might note that peace activism has spiraled down to undetectable levels at the same time as refugee activism - and the number of refugees has exploded upwards.
I think this is because the mass media simply stopped reporting the peace activists after global attempts to stop the Iraq war, but it decided to over-report refugee activism. And to leave out entirely the relationship between our support for invasive interventions in the Middle East.
Because the populations of Australia and many other western countries are trained to listen to authorities rather than witnesses, and to identify the mass media as authoritative, many are simply unable to detach from the 'News' and analyse the problem of war, refugees, and the media military industrial complex for themselves. Indeed, realising the extent of our manipulation is frightening and it is understandable that we resist and deny this until we can no longer.
No precedent for peaceful mass invasions
While it is not unexpected that a high proportion of new humanitarian arrivals would be on unemployment benefits, there are government concerns about the apparent difficulty they have in obtaining employment over the medium term and long term.
Refugees will end up costing the government hundreds of millions of dollars a year in welfare and unemployment benefit payments. The mid-year economic report released in December showed Australia had set aside about $640m to resettle Syrian refugees over the next four years.
The Australian Institute of Family Studies study of a group of 2400 arrivals granted visas between May and December 2013, released last week, found 7 per cent of migrants reported being employed and 70 per cent of new arrivals were either working or studying, mainly to gain English language skills.
The 1951 UN Refugee Convention is outdated and should be discontinued. After WW2, it was to give refuge to the homeless after the Holocaust and ravages of war in Europe. Now, the problem is exploding, and long-term. It's unsustainable to keep relocating millions of people around the world. There's no precedent in history for peaceful foreign mass invasions.
Human overpopulation has added to conflicts and displacement. The UN and the US should be doing more to stop intervening in in foreign sovereignties and provoking civil wars. Any war now is much more explosive and it can't be assumed that human tidal waves be absorbed by the West!
When did Australia, or Europe, become global charities? We have increasing numbers of homeless, sleeping in our streets. Farmers are doing it tough, and our budgets are increasingly more and more severe, with savage cuts to health care especially. $24 million in aid was given to Pakistan, and their GDP growth is better than ours!
The coming refugees from Syria will need years of support, housing and welfare. It's a burden that Australia can't maintain. The UN should be doing more to address the causes of migration, and end civil wars, not just distributing populations around the world! The whole mass migration experiment is a failure.
Gulf states diabolical; European leaders faulty, not Europeans
I don't think the Europeans have that religion; I think they are being forced into this intake by their leaders - whose religion is money and power. Merkel did not do this to benefit her people. (One wonders if she even wanted to do it; it seems so barmy; was she being forced through blackmail or such.) The Gulf States, like the US, are financing these wars in the Middle East. They are not exactly friendly to the countries originating these refugees and economic immigrants. But Syria has historically taken in many immigrants/refugees (who now fight in her army), as has Jordan.
We should be learning from this: Our leaders are causing racist and religious divisions, then they train us to say that 'we' are.
Higher interest rates would deflate the market
It is true to argue that as interest rates rise, the cost of the mortgage may stay the same. What would happen is the cost would shift from principle to interest but overall remain steady.
So for home buyers, there isn't much relief. But as the balance shifts to interest, prices fall. Falling prices will act as a disincentive to speculation and to foreign investment, which will bring on further falls. Why invest in a asset which will fall in price?
I've noted that as rents are falling, real estate agents are using 'tricks' like offering gifts, instead of lowering rent. The purpose is simply to keep the rent cost the same on the books, and lower it without admitting it is falling. Perception is very important.
If home prices fall, watch for "rebates", "gifts" and "concessions" in place of a simply lowered price. All this to make the market appear steady.
Gulf states are not selfish, they are prudent
I think the neighbouring countries are closing their borders to the Syrians, to a degree, because they understand what they are bringing in far, far better than the naive and silly Europeans.
Europeans are beholden to a religion which mandates that you can't question whether changing the composition of your nation in this manner could be undesirable. The Gulf States have no such religion, and therefore must act as if there is no negative consequence apart from the initial financial burden.
Testing subject
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Question for James re relevance of Stalin to today's wars
By the way, James, you might care to state your case on how the role of the Battle of Britain in stopping Hitler may have been forgotten or obscured and replaced by a ramped up version of how Stalin's armies defeated Hitler. This suited the ideology of the Left towards war, using Trotsky's argument, that WWII was only a fight between imperialists and workers should not take sides. This would have left the Left looking rather hopelessly mistaken if they had not been able to resurrect Stalin as a great leader of last resort, sort of.
As I recollect, you think that Churchill may have found it convenient to diminish the importance of the Battle of Britain, when he aligned himself with forces that failed to support Italy and Greece's battles to stop Hitler.
(We are all still wondering why this was, and suspect it was because of corporate interests in Nazi enterprise.)
These positions contributed to an attitude that persists into our times, where only the battles of our close allies and trade partners (possibly a tautology) are taken seriously. Countries that are not close trade partners are treated two dimensionally by the press and left in a lurch by our governments. And the Left goes along with this.
Sorry to use the term, "the Left" as if it were a cohesive movement of relevance, but it does seem to have relevance in endorsing propaganda that remains useful to the ruling classes. Maybe it survives as a recreation of the power elites and mass media. (No sneer intended towards true socialists, from an anarchist, or relocalisation advocate).
I have no pretences that this comment is immensely subtle or learned, but look forward to your interpretation James.
Psychological view of Stalin's relationship with Hitler
This is more of a question than a statement.
I was stimulated by a program on RT about The Mystery of Stalin's death. (See embedded at bottom of this comment)
Stalin's father was a violent alcoholic, who frequently beat Stalin's mother up. Issues of trust arise thusly.
Stalin's paranoia could be interpreted as an extreme case of co-dependency, where he trusted no close associate because they could hurt him (emotionally and physically). His lack of trust and the danger he represented to anyone who became close to him meant that he was atrociously lonely. Someone far away did not seem to carry the same threat of close associates, so perhaps he chose to believe in Hitler as the only person he could trust. A father-figure, moreover. An imaginary friend?
And, it turns out that Hitler's father was similar to Stalin's - another violent alcoholic. So maybe Hitler and Stalin spoke the same emotional language and could only trust from afar, whilst demanding absolute control of everyone nearby and absolute power.
I would like to find time to read a bit more about Stalin in order to satisfy my curiosity on this.
I don't pretend to any expertise on the facts of the war. Below is the video. Interesting footage.
Tasmanian fires
I don't entirely agree with this article: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/27/world-heritage-forests-burn-as-global-tragedy-unfolds-in-tasmania
The Tassie fires were all lit by napalm - oops flash 21. Most, 95%, of lightning is negatively charged 'cold' explosive lightning and does start fires. The 5% is positively charge lighting that does every time. It can last 1 second or more, but is almost invariably followed by rain. This is just an attack on the wilderness and natural history - that is not very 'successful' by the sounds of it - despite the hype - 70 fires burning 7,000 hectares not 70,000 as I have been told - hard to confirm and no time.
A human tsunami
Such huge numbers of people suddenly arriving and moving into a country is unsustainable, and inherently a cause of chaos and destruction. It's an emergency, and unregulated arrivals of "migrants" will naturally increase lawlessness, an overloading of resources, disease and crime. This "migration crisis" is back-filling established countries, with our human population overload. It's a human tsunami, a flood of humanity, with nowhere to go.
Global population has doubled since 1970s, and any conflicts or wars will mean that humanity will implode, with no new frontiers to invade and conquer, and no new colonies to safely settle in.
The UN Refugee Convention is totally out-dated and passed its use-by date. After World War 2, there were under 3 billion people in the world, and refugees from Europe and the Holocaust were able to be welcomed. Now, it's about prying open the doors of weaker, Western countries, to back-fill those leaving war zones. Between 20 to 30 million people were displaced in Europe alone – "one of the greatest population movements of history" as one US State Department report described it at the end of the war.
There are over 60 million refugees today, far exceeding the numbers after World War 2. The convention deeply distorts our understanding of 21st-century immigration. Today even people fleeing totalitarianism typically believe they are doing so for economic reasons, not political ones.
People are also increasingly being forced to abandon their homes as a result of the interaction between the effects of population growth, food and energy insecurity as well as water scarcity, with climate change – the key defining problem of our times – clearly accelerating all other trends.
The five wealthiest countries on the Arabian Peninsula, that is, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, not one has taken in a single refugee from Syria. Instead, they have argued that accepting large numbers of Syrians is a threat to their safety, as terrorists could be hiding within an influx of people.
Only Stalin's treachery allowed Hitler to kill so many
#comment-182027">nineofclubs,
After rereading I have changed some slightly abrasive parts of this comment in order to facilitate this exchange.
Thank you for your interest in my comment. Have you seen the 55 minute episode 5 of The World At War, about Operation Barbarossa, embedded below?
Stalin refused before the dawn of 22 June 1941, to pass on to his front line soldiers, warnings from the United States, Great Britain, his own agents and German army deserters, that the German army was preparing to invade.
As a result, many front-line soldiers were practically massacred by the invading German army as they awoke on the morning of 22 June 1941.
nineofclubs wrote:
"... the USSR was technologically ill-prepared for German invasion."
New T-34 and KV-1 tanks, which, until the 1943 advent of Tiger and Panther tanks in 1943, were superior any German tanks, were being delivered to front line units on 22 Jun 1941. The Red Air Force was starting to introduce fighter planes that could hold their own against the German Messerschmidt (Me 109) fighters, the Lavochkin LAGG-3, the MIG-1 and the YAK-1 fighters.
Why do you presume that it was not possible for such an army, given proper warning, to hold its ground against invading Nazis on the morning of 22 June 1941?
nineofclubs wrote:
"I recall seeing an interview with a German soldier who survived the Russian Front. He stated that while the Germans had fine weaponry and relatively good supplies (at least at first) the Russians just kept coming.
"He said words to the effect of 'we killed them by the hundreds but they just kept coming and coming, eventually we were over-run.' This paints a picture of two quite different adversaries, one with technology and the other with a big population making heavy sacrifices to protect Mother Russia from the Nazis."
I, too, am aware of these gruesome claims that the Red Army often resorted to tactics that so needlessly cost so many soldiers their lives. I see no excuse for such tactics. If this is true, it is further confirmation of how little worth Stalin and some of his generals placed on the life of each Red Army soldier.
nineofclubs wrote:
"Stalin didn't trust half of his own executive, so I don't believe that it's accurate to characterise him as having 'trusted Hitler'."
Those on his executive, whom Stalin most distrusted had already been murdered, along with the Red Army's best generals, in the great purge of 1938. In fact, until 22 June 1941, Stalin trusted Hitler far more than his own agents, including German communist Richard Sorge, who warned him, from the German embassy in Tokyo, of Hitler's plans. He trusted Hitler more than American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, who both also tried to warn him of the invasion.
Only a ruler as criminal, malevolent and stupid as Stalin could have made it possible for Hitler to have taken so many Russian, Central Asian, East European and Jewish lives. It is fascinating to try to explain Stalin's actions, although it would probably be impossible to excuse them, although some people still try.
Zika virus in Brazil
There is a massive mosquito threat in Brazil. Health Minister Marcelo Castro said the country will mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading the Zika virus, suspected of causing birth defects. Despite those efforts, he reportedly said Tuesday, the battle is being lost.
The arrival of Zika in Brazil last year initially caused little alarm, as symptoms of infection by the virus are generally much milder than dengue’s. It didn't become a crisis until late in the year, when researchers made the link to a dramatic increase in reported cases of microcephaly, a rare condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads, causing lasting developmental problems.
Brazil has thrown everything it has against the mosquito-borne epidemics ravaging the country: education programs, planes full of insecticides, hundreds of thousands of health inspectors, and even the army. None of those have stopped the march of dengue and Zika, which are estimated to have infected nearly 3 million Brazilians—that is, more than one in 100—in 2015.
The jump in cases has prompted a global health scare, with several countries cautioning pregnant women against traveling to the 22 nations in the Americas where the virus has been reported. Genetically modified male mosquitoes were released in parts of Piracicaba city in Southern Brazil as a pilot project in April 2014. Studies have shown that these GM mosquitoes have reduced the wild mosquito population by 82% in areas covered under the pilot project.
Mutant mosquitoes to be deployed to stop Zika outbreak in Brazil (26/1/16) | Digital Jpurnal
El Salvador is advising all women in the country not to get pregnant until 2018. This small nation is already home to an epidemic of gang violence, pushing tens of thousands of its young people to flee north every year and stretching the government's resources. There seems little impediments available to stop human overpopulation! The drive to reproduce at whatever cost seems to be alive and well in humanity.
Housing affordability and interest
Dennis K's original post on housing affordability is excellent and IMO correctly identifies many of the causes of the housing affordability crisis in Australia's major cities.
With that said, I'd take issue with one small point; that being the role played by low interest rates. The key problem facing Australians today is that housing is unaffordable. Affordability entails more than just the price of the property. For the vast majority of us who need a mortgage to buy a home, affordability is affected by (1) the amount borrowed to buy the property, (2) the borrowers capacity to repay the loan - ie their income and (3) the interest rate charged on the loan.
Dennis notes that low interest rates have allowed borrowers to obtain bigger loans and that this has, in turn, contributed to the rising cost of property. This is all true. But what would happen of interest rates were to rise?
Firstly, those with existing mortgages would be placed under greater stress, because the cost of servicing their mortgage would increase and most wage earners are not in a position to easily increase their incomes to compensate. The extra repayments required will likely have to come from reduced savings or, more likely, reduced spending in other areas.
Secondly, the price of property might (?) come down because buyers could no longer afford to borrow as much as they had in the past. But here's the thing. The only reason that they can't borrow as much any more is because with higher rates of interest, the amount that they can afford to borrow and repay is reduced. The monthly mortgage repayments over 25 years are the same, whether you borrow $250K at 4% or $171K at 8%. So even if property prices were to fall by an astounding 20%, housing would still be less affordable than today if interest rates were around 8%. Lower house prices don't help with affordability if your monthly mortgage repayments stay the same, or go up.
Thirdly, who benefits from higher interest rates? The standard answer is those who have savings invested with the bank. But this is not at all accurate. The vast majority of money loaned out by banks is not your hard earned savings, but rather new money that is created ex nihilo (from nothing) by the banks as a book keeping exercise. When you make a repayment, the principle component of your repayment is written off the books (destroyed) by the bank in the reverse process to that by which it was created. But the interest component of your repayments is not written off, it is retained by the bank and used to help meet the costs of the bank, to pay investors interest on their savings and to generate dividends for the shareholders of the bank.
So, if interest rates on borrowings were to rise, it's possible that banks would increase the interest paid to savers but IMO more likely that most of the benefit would be dished out to shareholders as fatter dividends.
In any case, while a rise in interest rates might - possibly - lower property prices, it would be very unlikely to result in an overall improvement in affordability.
The effect of interest on the economy has been closely studied by Ellen Brown and also Anthony Migchells, both of whose writings can be easily found on the internet.
The other initiatives proposed in Dennis' article are very sound, I think. A reduction in immigration would have wider benefits than just those related to housing affordability, as would a major change to the way that negative gearing applies to property.
USSR not well prepared for war
'USSR' stands for the former 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' for which 'Soviet Union' is a shorter synonym. - Ed
Whatever one may think about Stalin, it is also true that the USSR was technologically ill-prepared for German invasion. Hitler spent some years rearming Germany prior to the outbreak WW2, creating employment and repairing his nation's broken economy in the process.
I recall seeing an interview with a German soldier who survived the Russian Front. He stated that while the Germans had fine weaponry and relatively good supplies (at least at first) the Russians just kept coming.
He said words to the effect of 'we killed them by the hundreds but they just kept coming and coming, eventually we were over-run.' This paints a picture of two quite different adversaries, one with technology and the other with a big population making heavy sacrifices to protect Mother Russia from the Nazis.
Recall also that Russia had been a technological backwater under the Tsars. So they were starting from a lower base than Germany.
Given this scenario and Hitler's obvious loathing of Bolshevik Russia, it might be considered that Stalin understood that German aggression was inevitable and agreed to a pact with Germany over Poland to buy time? Stalin didn't trust half of his own executive, so I don't believe that it's accurate to characterise him as having 'trusted Hitler'.
Time for some admiration for natives
Some excellent points, anon.
It concerns me to hear, repeatedly, that Australia is 'a land of migrants'. This tired old line, trotted out again and again by those with a vested interest in ongoing mass immigration, is completely untrue.
If we accept the dictionary definition of a native person; being "a person who was ?born in a ?particular ?place" then it is true to say that AT NO TIME in Australia's recorded history have the number of migrants here exceeded the native born. Yes, many of our forebears were immigrants, but so what? Just because my GGG grandparents were from Ireland does not make me Irish. I've never been to Ireland, have no real interest in going there and don't feel any affinity for anywhere except my native Australia.
So perhaps we should be promoting Australia as a land of natives, since factually this is what most of us are.
The other annoying assertion, heard in the media on Australia Day 2016, is that because Australia has 'enjoyed' (sic) mass immigration historically, it's now part of our national character. I disagree.
At various stages in Australia's history, immigration has been socially and economically beneficial. But immigration is like eating. The fact that eating some food is healthy does not mean that one should gorge all the time.
In my opinion, Australia has been gorging since at least 1993 and needs a period of abstinence now to digest. The drivers for immigration in the past - usually labour shortages during periods of rapid economic expansion - are nowhere to be found in Australia currently. The so-called skills shortages touted by our plutocracy in recent years are a complete fiction. The fact that Australia's hipster left is in lock-step agreement with this same plutocracy on the need for mass immigration is disappointing but not surprising, given it's lack of intellectual depth.
Aside from those who have speculated in areas dependent on rapid population growth, there is little (maybe no) need for Australia to take any migrants in the short term.
Time to end the cult of migration and look to celebrate the achievements of our native born.
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Most Western nations are manipulated and managed
I disagree with the statement that Australia is unique in the sense that we have our population demographically manipulated. This is occurring in many Western countries, and openly and plainly so.
What makes Australia a little different is the rate at which it is occurring. We have (compared to others) a smaller population and very few big cities, so the effect is more pronounce, as the people are moving into only a few urban centres, and proportionately speaking, the migrants consist of a larger slice of the population.
I have a strong dislike for the idea that people should be free to socially experiment on existing nations, existing populations and existing peoples. It is not excusable to experiment on people and then shrug off the failure, and simply saying it failed, or didn't work doesn't excuse one for being responsible for the damage. No one has a right to experiment on others. No one should be permitted to act in a manner which is hostile, treasonous or otherwise contrary to the benefits of ones own people and nation.
You can embrace diversity. You can decide to create an experimental society on your own own private land. Maybe found a new nation. But you can't do it in an existing one. You don't have the right, and those who suggest it is necessary are bordering on treason to their own nation.
How else do you describe someone who considers their own population, their own nation as a "problem" which has to be fixed through demographic engineering?
I don't care about "embracing diversity" because it's just some rubbish that a few intellectuals created, and there is no successful precedent or good reason. It's basically just bullying people into accepting change, and accepting challenges which shouldn't have existed in the first place.
I hate to think that my Grandparents came to Europe in the 50's just to be a challenge to Australians to overcome. I am physically revolted by those who use the post WWII European migration to make Australians buy population policy propaganda, as if I'm just an excuse to enact a hostile agenda.
There is no point in unifying peoples, because its a pipe dream. It's a dream of an arrogant Western Society which thinks its God, which thinks it can change the fundamental nature of human beings. It's a sign of arrogance, hubris and decadence. A pompous civilisation which is so up itself, that it thinks its crappy decadence can overcome thousands of years of culture and millions of years of natural selection.
It's one think to respect others, to live and let live, and not subjugate others because they are different. That's fine. Mutual respect and trade and good relations is all good. But modern multiculturalism is just imperialism and colonialism by another means.
Video: What British colonialists did to Australian Aborigines...
What British Colonialists did to Australian Aborigines may make you sick to your stomach (BBC)
The Facebook page linked to above, contains an embedded video featuring John Pilger. - Ed
Most Australians treated as objects for convenience of wealthy
We are already objectified as economic products and machines. And we objectify the people we support wars on overseas. We are an Australia divided into wealthy and influential people who believe they have special rights, and the rest of us, who are just supposed to put up with economic engineering and laws that don't represent them.
ABC highjacked by growth lobby
This morning I heard that 774 digital will doing a program about how a higher population is the answer to prosperity for Australia. This will be from 11.00 a.m. I don’t know who is kicking this off , I imagine it will be talk back. How dare they take advantage of the Australia day weekend for this propaganda? It’s obviously not our ABC.
Who is next to be put in a cage?
The powers that be who allow and oversee these experiments necessarily see these animals as "other" and thus objectify them. if they saw them as like themselves in any way they could not condemn these animals to such "lives". This is only one step away from objectifying other humans and rationalising that "the end justifies the means". This is not to say they would take that step, but that's about where it stands. Dangerously close. This has to stop.
Primates used for secret 'Frankenstein-like' studies in Sydney
From the original article Confined, isolated, killed: Primates used for secret 'Frankenstein-like' studies in Sydney (24/1/16) | RT :
Hundreds of monkeys have been sent to Australia for what seem to be dubious medical experiments that raise "serious ethical questions," the local environmental authorities have warned, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
More than 370 primates have been part of the research over the past 15 years, and the scientists who conduct the tests are most probably “entirely lacking” in expertise essential to care for such animals, Australia’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) has said.
Millions of dollars from research grants were used to conduct the experiments, and hospitals connected with the studies refused to disclose the details about the number of primates which have been experimented on, and how many have died or had to be killed.
The experiments are cruel in nature, with one test reportedly involving a baboon, which died after getting a kidney transplant from a pig.
Other procedures included marmosets being given a deliberate drug overdose and having their eyes removed and dissected.
The violent experiments were mainly conducted at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) baboon colony in Wallacia, western Sydney.
Among the 370 primates imported, there were 255 pigtail macaques from Indonesia, 46 owl monkeys from the United States, 59 common marmosets from Switzerland and France, and 10 long-tailed macaques from France, the body added.
The RSPCA also doubted that bringing sensitive human-like mammals was really necessary for the procedures – when there are already three federally-funded breeding centers with four primate species available at the local level.
Australia is adding to the 'ongoing capture of primates from wild populations," the report says.
Primates are "highly intelligent animals with complex behaviour and social structure," with their confinement and use for science raising “serious ethical questions,” the organization said.
The most likely effects of their participation in the studies could be “pain, suffering or distress," and some experiments require the animals to be re-used in several studies or even killed, the RSPCA warned.
Also, the animals are frequently kept in pairs - or in total isolation, which could entail more suffering.
See also: Medical testing on primates: more openness and transparency needed | SMH Comment
Australia is largely unique
Most cultures grow and evolve organically, over centuries of unified ideals and common history, language and experiences. Australia is unique in that our population growth is manipulated politically, and by social engineering. It's artificial, contrived, and "managed" for economic benefits. Just what is "Australian" culture? Except for Aborigines, there is no one sense of culture. Even they are divided and diverse. The multicultural experiment is one way of addressing the problem of nationhood, of unity, and living peacefully together. It's an experiment, not totally successful, but nevertheless one way of doing the impossible - of unifying people of different backgrounds from different countries. In a country in which nearly 30% of the population is born overseas, there's an inherent challenge. We are encouraged to embrace "diversity", and at the same time somehow abide by our laws, and common values. It's arbitrary, and subtle.
It's convenient for the promoters of "big Australia" to avoid strong patriot fervor. It means the symbols of being Australian must focus on how varied we are, of differences, not on sameness. Our multicultural policy is a paradox, devised by academics, in isolation from the real world. It's lofty, abstract and fuzzy.
Assimilation makes little sense
It's time our Government threw away the manifestly failed experiment of 'multiculturalism' and instead brought in a requirement for all migrants from whatever ethnic origin they might spring, to sign a contract with the Australian people to adopt, embrace and integrate into our society.
Which "Australian people"? What "Society"? Contract with who? Who gets to decide what the contract is?
The obsession with trying to absorb and assimilate the other, our us into the other, leads inevitably to manifestly silly ideas, and society doesn't function if it bases its moral on silly ideas.
Mutilculturalisms flaw stems from the idea that somehow society MUST change. It assumes that society has some demographic "flaw" that has to be "remedied" through genetic manipulation. Let's be honest here. Multiculturalism is purely about genetic change, not "culture".
So now we are asking migrants to make a contract with, themselves, "Australians"? As migrants become Australian, we are asking arrivals to contract with other arrivals. Or whatever arbitrary concoction of people have citizenship at that point in time, which will change anyway.
All this comes from the Western disease whereby we somehow think we need to engage in demographic engineering, and our only options is how to make it occur with the least trouble. No one really questions whether the basis for considering the original society flawed had any merit to it.
The limits of Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism was a policy brought in to Australia under the Whitlam government, as a response to the end of the "White Australia" policy. From the mid-1960s until 1973, when the final vestiges of the 'White Australia' policy were removed, policies started to examine assumptions about assimilation. They recognised that large numbers of migrants, especially those whose first language was not English, experienced hardships as they settled in Australia, and required more direct assistance. It was to limit racism, and break up the majority hold of Anglo settlers that were in Australia. It was meant to help integration, of European migrants, not make other cultures separate.
Multiculturalism has positively contributed to Australian culture and to its values. Its overriding ethos of tolerance and harmony has reinforced the character of our democracy. However, it's also an effective tool used to manipulate and facilitate endless population growth, and high immigration. Now, we have some extreme cultures coming into Australia.
It's time our Government threw away the manifestly failed experiment of 'multiculturalism' and instead brought in a requirement for all migrants from whatever ethnic origin they might spring, to sign a contract with the Australian people to adopt, embrace and integrate into our society.
Dutch politician Geert Wilders launched the Australian Liberty Alliance, promising to stop the Islamisation of Australia, as extremist groups like Islamic State stoke fears of terrorism and distrust within the community. Despite the apparent growing public backlash, experts believe organisations like ALA will continue to appeal to just a small number of people! The next elections, we'll see much more influence of the "minor" parties.
Australia Day should be a celebration of the Traditional owners of our land, our history, heritage, food, and customs. Demonstrating patriotism is not "racism", but a threat to the growthists, the "big Australia" advocates, who see it as a barrier to ongoing high rates of immigration - and "diversity".
‘Straya Day Bogan Floatilla’
Australia Day should be a day that unites the nation but instead there are many evils forces at work seeking to ridicule Australia Day with divisive and unnecessary campaigns of hate and bigotry. The evil agitators have done a great job at labelling Australia Day celebrations as a manifestation of “racism”. These troublemakers recently applied pressure to a fun loving group of Australians who proposed holding an event called ‘Floatopia’ at Gordon’s Bay, Coogee.
The event was cancelled in December due to an online smear campaign. One of the former event organiser blamed “mean spirited behaviour” including racism. Apparently the ‘Floatopia’ Facebook event page, which had been liked by over 4,200 people quickly descended into a thread of insults and derogatory comments with venomous haters calling for the event to be cancelled. Regrettably, the event was cancelled due to pressure from left wing activists.
In the spirit of reconciliation and harmony, we believe the event should proceed. Australia Day should be celebrated by all Australians especially by the descendants of the British settlers and aboriginal people who have created a great nation despite the odds. No doubt the establishment of the British Crown Colony of New South Wales on the 26th January 1788 caused the local Aborigines displacement and anxiety but we cannot change the past. Most Australians are mature enough to acknowledge the past sins and troubles that affected the first Australians however it is unfair and unnecessary to blame current generations for this. It is time for the divisive and mean spirited leftists to grow up and celebrate the tremendous gains aboriginal people have made over the past 228 years since European colonial settlement.
One of the fiercest critics of the Floatopia event, Tatiana Sugarplum Sparkle Crauford-Gormly said she was pleased the event was axed. “It’s a small step towards breaking away from the stigma that this is a day of celebration rather than mourning”. Tatiana’s mean spirited comments should be ignored and ridiculed. Her feeble attempt in trying to bring shame on Australia Day typifies how low some people will go in making everybody’s Australia Day miserable. Tatiana also said, those who celebrated Floatopia anyway were, “ignorant, obstinate and disrespectful”. I believe many people and their families attending the upcoming ‘Straya Day Bogan Floatilla’ would probably think the same of her. It is difficult to fathom how families having fun could be considered ‘ignorant or disrespectful’.
It is not only left wing activists but also some privileged migrant groups and their highly paid commissars who like to ridicule Australians on Australia Day. This is the highest form of disrespect and racism but usually goes unchallenged by the broader public due to fears of being labelled ‘racist’. It seems quite odd that many migrant groups seem quite content in spewing abuse forgetting the generosity and kindness the Australian people have shown them.
Racism affects all societies and nations – this is an obvious fact. Most Australians are mature and honest enough to acknowledge that racism exists in Australia and yes, of course we have people who hold bigoted attitudes towards others but it is insignificant and pales in comparison to celebrated ingrained racism that prevails in Asian, Muslim and African countries. In Australia, Australians are the victims of racist and bigoted antics, intimidation and discrimination perpetrated by left-wing politicians, including the political elite, the media and many third world migrants.
We should ignore the hateful Australia Day bigots who use their shallow minded rhetoric. It seems almost every party has its whingers. It just happens that the left and its spineless minions occupying politics, media and the institutions are the party pooper types who sit on the outskirts of a broken iceless esky and point their fingers at the real people, while munching on halal kebabs rolled in sand, swill on discounted third world low carbonated beer and entertain themselves by dwelling on their small and unimportant lives, while the real people party on in a civilised celebratory manner.
The Australian people are a great people who settled a great land and made a great nation possible. Despite this, the haters will always hate due to their cold and jealous hearts. The haters of Australia Day need to seek repentance and emancipation from their wicked thoughts and jealous rage.
On Australia Day, raise a glass to our great nation that is the envy of the world, a nation that has achieved more socially, economically and culturally than much older empires or nations in the pacific region and beyond. The elitist politicians, intellectually handicapped academics and socialist minded useful idiots would always justify their nasty attacks on Australia Day.
As a people, we should be proud to be Australian and proud of our unique culture past and present so come down to Gordon’s Bay on Australia Day and celebrate the great nation that our ancestors have built. Don’t forget to bring your inflatables, zinc cream and refreshments to enjoy a fun filled day at the beach. Also, please respect the local eco-system and take your rubbish with you. And please remember Gordon’s Bay is an alcohol and lefty free zone.
Time: 11am onwards
Date: 26th January 2016
Place: Gordon’s Bay, Major Street, Coogee 2031
Facebook discussion page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634998666765167/
References:
Floatopia event cancelled following outburst and insults online
http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/health-safety/floatopia-event-cancelled-following-outbursts-and-insults-online/news-story/1f1766603927e0667f7aebcdd05ab104
"The fundamental right to asylum does not have a limitation,"
IF the floodgates were going to be opened for refugees from Syria, and all the other "refugees" fleeing dysfunctional nations, and poverty, then at least there should have been some order, a priority queue and a selection process OFFSHORE. As it was, the floodgates were just opened, and anybody was allowed to come in!
Priority should be given to families, with a good work record and character profile. As it is, there's mayhem, rapes and crime in Europe, and mass migration, unfettered by order and logic, is wreaking havoc. Europe, what we normally saw as an exemplary model of civilization, the Arts, and dignity, is being wrecked.
President Barack Obama held firm that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must be removed from office, saying that he doesn’t believe the civil war in Syria will end while the 'dictator' (quotes added - Ed) remains in power. So, the misery and conflict will continue, and more and more people will continue to flee the country, due to international interference in a sovereign, elected government.
The US has a very bad habit of interfering in other nation's affairs and toppling governments in the name of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. In reality, the main reason is to make a subservient client state/nation that would be loyal to the US. The US is going after Assad because Assad is unwilling to toe the American line.
"The fundamental right to asylum does not have a limitation," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "As a strong, economically healthy country, we have the strength to do what is necessary." Such largess and megalomania has been her downfall, and she's pulling down her country.
Merkel to be held to account for imposing high immigration?
From Angela Merkel: Going, Going…Gone? (22/1/16) | Russia Insider:
Today's online edition of Bloomberg news carries a lead story entitled "Merkel in Peril with Window to Tame EU's Refugee Crisis." It is commendable for flagging a possibility of change in command in Europe’s leading country that most mainstream U.S. and even Continental media still overlook.
The authors take into account the direct challenge to Merkel‘s open borders' policy on refugees coming from the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). We get the disparaging words of Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer regarding Merkel’s failure to make the slightest concession to her detractors when she spoke to a CSU gathering in Wildbad Kreuth yesterday. He is quoted as remarking in conclusion that "We're looking at some difficult weeks and months ahead."
Bloomberg also directs attention to what it calls "unprecedented pressure" from within her own faction, making reference to a letter signed by 50 CDU deputies calling for the government to tighten border security to counter the influx, which with the 56 deputies who had previously made known their disapproval brought the number in her faction opposed to her refugee policy to one-third.
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Alarm bells should be ringing for Australia's wildlife