Simon Crean said John Howard mistaken to join US war in Iraq
Former Labor leader Simon Crean says it was a mistake to join the war in Iraq, because it diverted Australia's attentions away from Afghanistan. John Howard willingly went to war because the US asked him to.
"My view is the decision was wrong," Mr Crean told ABC News 24. "The weapons of mass destruction weren’t found and I think the people who justified that on that basis ought to explain."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/simon-crean-said-john-howard-mistaken-to-join-us-war-in-iraq/story-fncynkc6-1226608928181
Mr Smith said around 1000 of the 1550-strong force would be out of the country by December this year.
While pockets of the country are certainly far more secure than they have been, there is real concern about the Taliban quickly filling the security vacuum left once troops withdraw. It is estimated that 162,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion.
The Bush administration made the argument that in the post-9/11 climate there should be a belated reckoning with Saddam Hussein.
Thirty-nine Australians have been killed in action and more than 245 wounded, many seriously, during the war 11-year-war. Canada refuse to go to Iraq, but not Australia or Britain. Almost 4,500 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq and 30,000 wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqis were killed.
“It was absolutely an error,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “It’s obviously clear the evaluation of weapons of mass destruction proved not to be correct.”
Since there was no direct connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, George Bush probably would not have taken the risk of invading Iraq.
According to the UN's latest estimates, at least 3.6 million people are internally displaced in Syria. The 70,000 refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia still living in Syria are facing the same hardship and dangers as their Syrian hosts.
Of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, only about 80,000, or 5 percent, have been resettled in the U.S. In the years following 2003, Iraq’s refugee problem has grown into what many observers regard as an unprecedented crisis. Engineers, artists, lawyers, academics, doctors, and other professionals were among the first to escape the war. It dismantled many of Iraq’s cultural and educational institutions and social fabric. Few refugees plan to return.
In an overpopulated planet of many crises, and more threats and conflicts over scarcities to occur in the future, never has there been a time in history when steady-state planet-wide stability was needed.
There are no new frontiers to conquer, no new lands to colonize, no places where the displaced are welcomed, and wars and the displacement of humanity must be avoided at all costs.
Comments
Sea Turtles under threat from coal mining at Abbot Point
Mining giant Adani plans to build a new monster coal port, Terminal Zero, just metres from a beach where sea turtles have come to lay their eggs for decades.
Hundreds of extra coal ships would travel through a narrow passage, greatly increasing the risk of collisions and spillages. Then once the coal is burnt, it’ll drive global warming faster than ever before. It’s another monster coal plan with monstrous consequences.
The Port of Abbot Point is one of Australia’s most significant emerging bulk ports and is undergoing a major transformation into a port precinct of global importance. It is an existing operating coal port located just north of Bowen in north Queensland.
The National Environmental Significance Management Plan needs to maximise the ongoing protection and long term conservation of EPBC listed threatened fauna
Several management plans will manage potential impacts on the values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and species including dugongs, turtles and migratory birds. Greenpeace's Georgina Woods says there is some information about possible environmental impacts that has been withheld.
She says there is sea grass providing for green turtles and dugongs and other marine life such as dolphins in the area that would be affected.
Since obtaining a 99-year lease of the X50 Abbot Point Coal Terminal, Adani identified the need to increase terminal capacity.
Profits and economic growth should not be at the expense of habitat destruction and ongoing threats to species while we are on the cusp of an era of mass extinctions.
Greenpeace - Take Action Now
Australia's population boom to reach 40 million
JULIA Gillard is steering the nation's population on a course to more than 40 million by 2050, despite warning just three years ago against "hurtling towards a big Australia". Demographer Bob Birrell warned that, in the flattening labour market, such a rapid rate of population growth posed a threat to Australian jobseekers.
Despite an Intergenerational survey in 2010 that revealed that about two thirds of the population do not want 35 million people in Australia, it will be at least 40 million by 2050! Julia Gillard has broken her first promise as PM, to not "hurtle towards 'big Australia'".
While population growth no doubt does increase the crude size of the economy, the GDP, it's at a great cost to the environment, our jobs market, the environment, climate change and our life styles.
Despite Gillard cutting down on the 457 visa "rort", the number of temporary 457 visas being issued was feeding into the surge in net overseas migration. It proves that there's nothing more permanent than a "temporary" migrant!
Foreign students graduating in Australia will be free to work for 4 years in Australia, and no doubt once they have a job they will stay here!
Besides MP Kelvin Rudd, all the politicians are intent on increasing the size of our economy at whatever costs. At an election time, when one would assume the government would be in listening mode, they are isolating themselves and distancing themselves further from the voters.
Australia's economic growth has dwindled and plateaued, but our government, bereft of ideas, are resorting to the only way they can think of to stimulate the economy - the no-brainer one of making our borders even more permeable and opening the flood gates to more immigration!
Great
It would take far more than the space allotted here to comprehensively describe the philosophical and ethical debates that have contributed to the foundation of animal law. Suffice to say that although in the law animals are regarded as the property of human animals, yet in being accorded some protection against mistreatment and cruelty, it could be said that animal law has an ethical, or moral, cornerstone that other property law does not have.
Agricultural census covert government surveillance of US farms
USDA agricultural census program is a covert surveillance operation to compile government database of food and farm assets
Wednesday, 27 March,2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) The USDA "census of agriculture" is a government-run farm surveillance program designed to register and inventory detailed private data on farm assets, operations and personnel. A census form is mailed to each farmer in the United States, accompanied by threats of compliance and a warning that farmers who do not comply will be visited in person by government agents.
These agricultural census forms -- see a link to a scanned copy below -- demands farmers reveal the following information, all of which is compiled into a vast government database:
- # of acres of land owned
- Physical location of the land
- # of acres of croplands harvested
- # of acres of pasture land
- # of acres leased for cash
- # of acres irrigated
- How much money you've received from state or federal agricultural programs
- The exact number of acres grown and harvested for each crop: corn, oats, peanuts, cotton, rice, soybeans, wheat and many more
- # of acres of hay or forage crops
- # of acres used for Christmas trees or maple syrup
- Detailed inventory of your greenhouses, vegetable seeds, mushrooms and "propagative materials"
- ...
Should we put our money under the mattress now?
Does Ellen Brown have any advice about what ordinary people might do to prevent loss of their savings if governments and banks start making moves on accounts outside Europe, similar to what has happened in Cyprus? Should we all just convert everything to gold and bury it somewhere?
Editorial comment: You could consider posting part of the above question to Ellen Brown's twitter page, as I have already done. if you can compose a message no larger than twitter's limit of 140 characters per messsage. Your post would look something like:
@ellenhbrown http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3213#comment-32385 Does Ellen Brown have any advice about what ordinary people might do ...
Need we care about threatened crash of global paper economy?
The following was posted to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt. This is further to the two tweets:
twitter.com/malthusista/status/316797626425176064
twitter.com/malthusista/status/316794317182226432
It seems to me that people, who otherwise know better and work to expose the lies of the rulling elites, including Paul Craig Roberts and Alex Jones (in the YouTube broadcast embedded below) have failed to see through private banking and similar frauds. Were more governments simply to establish public banks (as you have pointed out that the U.S. state of Montana has done), then all the crises of the paper economy -- the "all ordinaries index", exchange rates of the Australian Dollar, US Dollar, the Euro, the UK Pound, etc., news of which puts us to sleep each night at the end of the evening news -- would be history.
Alex Jones and Paul Craig Roberts discuss global economic crisis
BIO-ENERGY: THE NEXT HORROR FOR OUR FORESTS
ACTION ALERT
BIO-ENERGY: THE NEXT HORROR FOR OUR FORESTS
It’s the next wave of destruction for our native forests. The forestry and energy industries are now poised to unleash their plans to feed our forests into furnaces to produce electricity, convert them into bio-fuels, and into pellets for export. This will mean more destruction of forests and their wildlife, and release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Industry calls this ‘renewable energy’. It wants the government to help pay for it in the form of ‘renewable energy certificates’ and other subsidies at the community’s expense.
This is despite the fact that many eminent scientists and researchers consider this form of bio-energy to be neither clean nor renewable.* And despite the fact that this form of energy will actually outcompete genuine renewable energy like solar and wind power.** It’s imperative governments don’t support this industry.
Join us to show the energy industry and energy retailers, the forestry industry and governments that we will not stand by while our forests are destroyed for energy production. Let them know that our precious forests must be protected for wildlife, climate, water and the air we breathe, not trashed for electricity or fuel.
Join our Action on April 15 -
we'll have a giant toaster ‘incinerating’ threatened wildlife!
When: 15, 2013 at 9am
Where: Outside the ‘Residues to Revenues’ conference
Bayview Eden, 6 Queens Road Melbourne , VIC 3004
What to bring: Just show up, we will have all the materials you need.
Phone Lorraine on 0414958714 for further information
http://www.noforestfurnaces.wordpress.com
Facebook causes
Protect native forests for climate change
Energy needs are obviously becoming in short supply, needed to fuel our economic growth.
You can't be friends of Saudi Arabia AND friends of democracy
I see that this article posted by Geoffrey comes from a press release from the Syrian Foreign Ministry in Damascus. For those unfamiliar with a non-Western alliance interpretation of events in the Middle East, it might be helpful to clarify that last comment,
"The source stressed that "such biased, non-objective and unbalanced resolutions" consolidate the double standards policy practiced by some countries that claim to defend human rights while at the same time they ignore the outrageous record of human rights in the countries sponsoring this resolution."
The comment undoubtedly refers to the United States, Britain and France as countries claiming to defend human rights whilst at the same time ignoring the outrageous record of human rights of Saudi Arabia, which forms part of that alliance.
It is indeed amazing that the US, Britain and France can stand, as it were, shoulder to shoulder with Saudi Arabia and speak of human rights. http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-saudi-arabia
Many people also feel that the United States, with its huge numbers of people in prison, of people below the poverty line and without secure shelter, of violent crime, prostitution and addiction, is also an abuser of human rights at home, as well as based on its record of illegal invasion of foreign countries.
Syrian rebel coalition crumbling: President resigns
From antiwar.com. Comment: Let's hope that Jason Ditz is right. However, even if the terrorists within Syria are crumbling under the blows of the Syrian Army, there is a vast reservoir of people to be used against Syria in the Middle East and Central Asia and amongst the regular and clandestine armed forces of the West. The only way to permanently end the war is for people in the countries whose governments are supporting the terrorists, to hold their governments to account. - GT
Syria’s National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (CORF) has repeatedly claimed to be on the brink of unifying the rebel movement in a way that would facilitate more international aid. This weekend though, it looks like the CORF is on the brink of collapse.
The group’s president, Moaz al-Khatib has announced his resignation today, citing the lack of international support as a principle reason. Khatib had only held the position for a few months, and was controversial in being one of the few rebel figures who gave lip-service to a negotiated settlement, something which riled others in the CORF.
Khatib's departure leaves Ghassan Hitto, who was named "prime minister in exile" last week, as the closest thing the group has to a leader. Yet his position is enormously weak, and that weakness stretches beyond him being just a few months removed from being a middle manager for a small company in Dallas.
Gen. Salim Idris, the head of CORF’s military branch, has announced that he will not recognize Hitto as prime minister, and says the Free Syrian Army (FSA) won’t endorse Hitto unless he gets more support.
Though Hitto got a solid majority of the votes cast last week, he had the bare minimum of votes needed, with 15 of the 63 active members refusing to vote for anyone at all. There is concern that the lack of unity on Hitto would make him a weak leader, and this is doubly so without the FSA’s imprimatur.
Online forum: How to stop the Syrian 'civil' war?
The following is a response to questions put to me in a debate on the Iraq War of 2003 on johnquiggin.com. This post was deleted on 25 March 2013. Another copy of this post is to be found on candobetter here.
Thank you both for your interest. My apologies, on my part, for my slow response. I was intending to write a sizeable article to publish on my web-site (candobetter -dot- net -slash- syria) in response to your questions. Please consider the response below to be only interim:
Whilst it could seem hyperbolic to liken the crimes, committed the New World Order against Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Libya, and now Syria, with those of the Third Reich, given that the death toll of 3.3 million, so far killed since 1990 in Iraq alone, is barely an order of magnitude less than that caused by Nazi Germany and its allies in the Second World War, this likening is not unreasonable.
Given that the rulers of the New World Order have, in their hands, vastly more terrible and sophisticated weapons of war than those possessed by Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, it is not hard to envision the death toll greatly surpassing the terrible toll of 60 million deaths in the Second World War should they triumph against Syria.
So, the whole civilised[1] world has a vital stake in the Syrian Army defeating the so-called "Free Syrian Army" and its New World Order controllers in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Israel, the Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Israel, etc.
Given the effective abolition of the rights guaranteed in the US constitution by President Barack Obama, it will only be a matter of time before democratic rights, free speech, parliamentary democracy are abolished in Western Nations, should the Syrian people be defeated.
J-D wrote:
I am confused by your questions and wonder whether you could clarify.
J-D, I was simply pointing out that the history of which Professor Quiggin has written has been repeated in Libya and now threatens to be repeated in Syria and Iran. Surely, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, we need to consider whether that illegal invasion was a once-only occurrence or whether it was only one in a pattern of events which is now being repeated. If the latter, in the case of Syria, is true, then we should surely be interested in applying the terrible lessons of the Iraq war so as to prevent their repetition in Syria.
Ken_L wrote:
@malthusista, I would also appreciate clarification of exactly how you believe 'we' could stop the Syrian civil war? A little elaboration of who 'we' are would also be helpful.
Ken_L, The civil war in Syria could be ended simply if the U.S., Israel, etc., accepted the principle that any people have a right to national self-determination. It is obvious that President Bashar al-Assad and his government enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of Syrians. Those, who have waged the terrorist war against the Syrian government, comprise, at most, a small minority of Syrians. The vast majority of the FSA is comprised of sectarian Islamist extremists from countries like Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, mercenaries, the U.S. SAS, the U.K. SAS, the French Special Forces, the C.I.A., Mossad, etc.
Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel should cease giving these killers sanctuary and passage into and out of Syria.
An unprovoked attack on the armed forces of Syria or on the armed forces of any sovereign country is a crime and, even more so, the murder of unarmed civilians. Supplying weapons to those killers by the U.S. and its allies is complicity in that crime and should cease. Were that to happen, the war in Syria would be finished in days.
Early last year, the Syrian government received overwhelming support (and, I might add, far more than U.S. politicians typically get in national elections with barely 50% of the population in participating in most) from its people in a referendum proposing constitutional reform. Part of the reform was to remove from the Syrian constitution, any privilege give to the Ba'ath Socialist Party. President Assad and every member of the Syrian Parliament must now stand for re-election. Any one of them will be voted out were they not to enjoy popular support.
Were there ever to be free elections in Syria, which cannot possibly be held in the middle of the war now raging, there can be little doubt that President Assad would win overwhelmingly and that the FSA would get a miniscule vote.
The war and killing in Syria only continue because the rulers of the U.S. and their allies wish it to continue.
Footnote[s]
[1] I don't mean 'civilised' in the sense of the European colonialists claims of bringing 'civilisation' to the 'backward' people of the Third World in previous centuries.
Less concern about war against Syria now than Iraq war of 2003?
This was posted to a discussion about the Iraq war of 20003 on John Quiggan's web site.
So, can anyone explain to me how NATO's Syrian "regime-change" in Libya in 2011 and its ongoing "regime-change" proxy war against Syria, which some estimate has cost 70,000 lives, differ from its illegal wars against Iraq in 2003 and 1991?
Can anyone explain why we should be less concerned about a war, which is raging now in 2013 and which we stand some chance of stopping, than a war, which we failed to stop, ten years ago?
So-called Syrian rebel groups using slaves to fight
The end of the article cited under the heading, '2000 Tunisians are fighting in Syria' carried the really awful punchline which destroys the credibility (if any is left) for the so-called rebels fighting the Syrian government. They are mercenaries and slaves. This guy fled Syria where he was being forced to fight as a slave.
"The Tunisian terrorist said that he and his Tunisian colleagues are being treated as slaves by the armed terrorist groups in which ranks they are fighting, which made him flee Syria and return to Tunisia."
This is what the governments of the U.S., Britain, Saudi Arabia and France have aligned themselves to support.
There should be no foreign national soldiers in Syria.
2000 Tunisians are fighting in Syria
TUNIS, (SANA) - The Tunisian e-newspaper 'Al-Jarida' revealed that around 2000 Tunisians are fighting among the armed terrorist groups in Syria.
Abo Qusai, a Tunisian who fought in Syria, told the newspaper that the Tunisian fighters are of various ages and include students, workers and jobless people.
Abo Qusai revealed that there is a direct line through which those terrorists go to Syria which is that of Libya/Benghazi.
He referred to a terrorist group called 'al-Darneh Battalions' which arrived in Syria from Libya two weeks before he fled Syria.
The Tunisian terrorist said that he and his Tunisian colleagues are being treated as slaves by the armed terrorist groups in which ranks they are fighting, which made him flee Syria and return to Tunisia.
H. Said
Something you should know about the euro crisis
The euro crisis is not something what is caused by some countries or people.
It's an general issue about how money is working.
How money works:
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYi0deWPibU
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Y1FIZ-cPY
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty1HvJGhiJo
Alternatives:
Maybe youtube heard or readed already about Bitcoins?
http://www.weusecoins.com
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page
Bitcoins are limited and every day more people know about them, the value is raising since months and will raise much more.
All problems in the world where caused because of the money system.
Sorry for spamming but this is important.
If you like it anyway you could also think about donating some Bitcoins.
Bitcoin Address: 1PHvSMNeh7XzqauYUyHyUEWGz63ich1XkB
Population growth is a "no brainer" way of economic growth
Just add people and stir economic formula! Leaders with little ideas and innovation of ways to stimulate the economy, and starved of any thoughts for the future, will just resort to population growth! The same is happening in Tasmania. It creates new customers for businesses, and it means tenants and buyers for the real estate industry. There's no long term thought for the future, and the fact that there's already high youth unemployment in Adelaide.
| Region of Adelaide | Unemployment | |
| total | youth | |
| North: | 8.1% | 44.6% |
| West: | 4.6% | 13.9% |
| East: | 4.2% | 18.6% |
| South: | 5.1% | 29.3% |
The "skills shortages" claim is a convenient rort to justify more immigration and get fillers for the housing market. This is not an economy in overdrive, but one sector that's being manipulated for convenience without thought for the costs of growth. Water security, climate change, the end of Australia's oil production, debt accumulation, social division and lowering living standards will plague Adelaide as it is in Melbourne and Sydney.
Outbursts against foreign workers & pop growth in Adelaide
Some fantastic letters to the editor below, which should not be lost to the public knowledge:
Forget visas, kids need jobs
THOUSANDS of workers from overseas are being allowed to come into our country under the 457 special visa program.
Yet just as many desperate young people in Australia are missing out because companies - big and small - prefer to hire skilled labour from wherever they can get it instead of providing apprenticeships and traineeships.
And they don't care about paying for the airfares and accommodation.
My son completed courses at TAFE SA in welding and fabrication three years ago. Since then he has applied for work at many companies here and interstate and almost always the answer is the same: we want experienced workers.
The few places that advertise for apprentice welders are usually overwhelmed with applications.
My son has even done cold-calling and door-knocked businesses - but to no avail.
He has all but given up on pursuing his dream job and is, instead, working as a tyre fitter. My advice to the Gillard Government: Stop the work visas and provide incentives for local companies to take on kids who just want to work; who want a future.
E. LAWRENCE, Upper Sturt
Look after our own
WHILE many oppose the Federal Government's plan to scale back the use of special work visas for migrant workers, I support the move.
I can't understand why we would be bringing in hundreds of workers when there are many in Australia unable to get jobs, particularly in the high-demand industries such as mining and construction.
The answer is that companies aren't willing to pay the going rate to employees. So, instead, they pay much less to foreigners to help boost their profits.
Whatever happened to looking after your own first? There are people out there who can't get work because employers can't be bothered spending the money on training.
ANNE GRAHAM, Gawler
Population boost plan must be cut
FOR the thousands of concerned residents battling urban sprawl and suburban high-rise, one piece of information from Heather Kennett's article ("The never-ending storeys", Sunday Mail, 17/3/13) holds the key: "The plan proposes boosting Adelaide's population by 560,000."
The entire 30-year Plan for Greater Adelaide hinges on those few words. Read the sentence and let it sink in.
If the proposal to boost our population is abandoned, the plan falls over. No population increase, no need for the plan's 258,000 additional dwellings, meaning no urban sprawl or suburban high-rise.
The Property Council's biggest fear is that the public will tweak to this. Believe me, the last thing they want is a genuine debate about population growth and what it means for society and the environment.
Those two factors always take a back seat behind big industry's holy grail of economic growth.
The justification for abandoning the population target is right under our noses. We read about it every day.
We wear T-shirts that say we love it. A few short years ago we nearly lost it. It is the staple of life in this state. It is the River Murray.
The Murray cannot sustain any increased demand for water, even with the desal plant on line.
Add climate change into the mix, causing more frequent and severe droughts, and it's a no-brainer that we should not be pursuing population growth.
And let's be absolutely clear that population growth of 560,000 will not occur naturally; it requires government-initiated programs to attract large numbers of migrants.
That is by no means an anti-migrant statement. It's simply a fact that SA cannot sustain deliberately accelerated population growth.
So jump up and down and make your voice heard. Cabinet approved the population target and Cabinet must be made to rescind it.
It is the only thing that can save our river, our city-fringe agricultural land, our low-rise suburbs and backyards and our quality of life.
C. FAULKNER, Cheltenham
City under attack
LIKE many Adelaideans, I am watching with increasing alarm, anger and frustration as our supposedly most livable city is hijacked by developers with the full support of both major parties, which are completely out of touch with the people who vote them in.
There is now clear proof that the Mt Barker rezoning debacle was bulldozed through via a murky, flawed process, where the five lengthy DAP consultations were just a smokescreen to con residents into believing that the State Government cared about their concerns.
Has anyone asked the people of Adelaide whether they want another half a million people living in multi-storey flats with the associated crowds and traffic congestion?
Why are so many people fleeing here from Sydney and Melbourne?
Our beautiful heritage city is under attack; is it any wonder people are questioning developer donations to the major political parties?
I wonder also how many politicians live in the areas earmarked for high-rise living.
ALEX HODGES, Birdwood
Original source was: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/letters-protecting-australian-jobs/story-e6freabc-1226604152321
NATO-backed "rebels"
The cleric had been a prominent supporter of President Bashar Assad since the uprising against the Syrian leader began two years ago. The slain cleric Bouti was imam of the ancient Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The Free Syrian Army rebels denied responsibility and said that targeting houses of worship was not part of their strategy. At least 42 people have died and 84 more were wounded in the attack.
Sunni Cleric Afshin Rattansi expressed hope that in the context of the bombing, “the whole idea of a NATO-backed instability creation in Syria, and three million displaced people in Syria, people within the State Department in Washington will realize that funding must stop for these insurgent groups.”
At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo. European Command leader Admiral James Stavridis has confirmed that the US and other NATO member nations are engaged in joint planning for the possibility of military intervention in Syria’s Civil War.
A couple of US senators have written to President Obama to express their strong belief that it is in their "national security interest to take more active steps in Syria, together with friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe, to stop the killing in Syria and force Bashar al-Assad to give up power," the senators wrote, adding that 70,000 people have been killed in the troubled nation, with 1 million displaced.
Any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and along side Western-backed terrorists inside Syria.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-us-nato-backed-al-qaeda-terrorists-us...
The Syrian government's SANA news agency reported that terrorists fired a rocket containing chemical substances in the Khan al-Assal area of rural Aleppo and confirmed that at least 25 people, most of them civilians, were killed.
Has been secretly reported that NATO has done this attack, not the so called "rebels".
Test, just a test
Wow that was odd. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn't appear. Grrrr... well I'm not writing all that over again. Regardless, just wanted to say superb blog!|
A clever detective knows to consider all possible suspects.
This is one reponse to the New York Times article Chemicals Would Be ‘Game Changer’ in Syria, Obama Says of 20 Mar 2013.
Something is rotten in the state of the U.S.A. A clever detective knows to consider all possible suspects. So why do US officials and media pundits have no interest in pondering if FSA rebels or other anti-Assad groups might have employed chemical weapons?
In the fall of 2011, US Representative Mike Rogers urged the White House to secure deadly stocks of sarin and mustard gas that were vulnerable to being looted in Libya.
On October 19, 2011, Hillary Clinton said, “I am pleased to announce that we are going to put even more money into helping Libya secure and destroy dangerous stockpiles of weapons.… And the Administration, working with Congress, is going to provide $40 million to support this effort….We will also work with Libya to destroy chemical weapons stocks.”
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who went to Libya to search for the above unsecured munitions, said "The problem is that the locals usually find out first and by the time we arrive and we can get some guards there, a lot of the most dangerous weapons have already been taken away.”
Thus, any dimestore detective should conclude that CWs are on the black market and available to folk other than Assad. That our people aren’t even going to consider the possibility—well, it’s very telling. It’s Iraq Redux. Whether Assad has done it or not, U.S. leadership really WANTS him to have done it, because they WANT a reason to attack.
See also, on Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA):
Syria Requests UN to Form Mission to Investigate Terrorists' Use of Chemical Weapons in Khan al-Asal of 21 Mar 2013.
Gatilov: Russia Hopes UN Will Soon Answer Syria's Request to Investigate Use of Chemical Weapon of 21 Mar 2013.
Syrian Students, Community Abroad Denounce Terrorists' Use of Chemical Weapon in Khan Al-Asal of 21 Mar 2013.
Iran Condemns Chemical Attack Against Khan Al-Asal of 21 Mar 2013.
President al-Assad to Families of Martyred Pupils: Battle in Syria is Battle of Will and Steadfastness of 21 Mar 2013.
NATO proxy terrorists have killed 35 Syrians in chemical attack
The same mass murderers, who illegally imposed sanctions and launched two wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 causing a horrific death toll possibly as high as 3.2 million, are now, through terrorist proxies, waging a war against the people of Syria and its government. Amongst the latest victims of this war are 35 Syrians killed in a chemical weapons attack.
From Global Research, 19 March 2013
After a 10 year war/occupation in Iraq, the death of over a million people including thousands of US soldiers, all based on patently false claims of the nation possessing "weapons of mass destruction," (WMDs), it is outrageous hypocrisy to see the West arming, funding, and politically backing terrorists in Syria who in fact both possess, and are now using such weapons against the Syrian people.
At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo.
Aleppo is located near the Syrian-Turkish border. Had Libya's looted stockpiles of chemical weapons been shipped to Syria, they would have passed through Turkey along with weapons sent from Libya by the US and thousands of Libyan terrorists who are admittedly operating inside Syria, and would most likely be used to target cities like Aleppo.
Worse yet, any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and along side Western-backed terrorists inside Syria.
...
This was also posted to a discussion on Iraq on johnquiggin.com.
See also: West delaying UN probe into Syria chemical attack: Russia of 21 March 2013 on PressTV
Russia has accused Western powers of attempting to delay a United Nations probe into the recent use of chemical weapons by foreign-backed militants in the Syrian city of Aleppo.
During a Wednesday session at the UN Security Council, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin voiced Moscow's support for the Syrian government's call for an independent inquiry into the chemical attack by foreign-backed militants in Aleppo.
Population set to reach 23 million in just four weeks
THE Australian population is set to reach 23 million in just four weeks, due primarily to an immigrant arriving every two minutes and 20 seconds.
The 23 millionth person is more likely to be a migrant than a new baby, experts estimate. Our politically engineered population growth rate has reached new dizzy limits, on the wave of political correctness and fear of an "ageing population". Ponzi demographics is the new economy, creating fear of the costs of aged care and pensions.
Our governments are participating in a growth-fest, to increase the size of our economy to match those of our neighboring Asian countries. It's a chance to be more competitive, to lower our living standards to those more equal to that of the rest of the globe. Living standards will decline, and so will wages and conditions.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/australian-population-jumps-by...
People see open land and equate it with having the capacity to build more houses and provide for more people (customers) for big businesses.
Whatever we benefit from new arrivals into Australia can't be maintained forever. Migrants become citizens, adding to our general cultural diversity. That inherently means we must keep adding migrants as the former influx integrate and become blended into Australia's cultural mix. The multicultural push is about supporting this ideal, and mass immigration.
While most people intuitively believe animals can overbreed and overstetch their habitats, when it comes to our own species, the Cornucopia myth is real and dominating.
There are no limits when it comes to people! Nature will simply keep providing all we need, abundantly. What Nature can't provide, technology will have all the "answers".
It's counter-intuitive and defies logic that Australia has unlimited "carrying capacity". What transcends culture, the economy, human ideals etc is our environment's capacity to keep providing for ever expanding human needs, when the constraints for growth keep getting more obvious! We should take warning from the countries with high immigration, such as the USA, Canada and UK, and see how their economies are stalling, and living standards for the majority are declining.
Elephant mega-slaughter in Chad
86 elephants -- 33 of them pregnant females -- have been gunned down by poachers in the Central African country of Chad.
The ivory tusks have been hacked out and stolen. The ivory will be sold on the black market, and then eventually carved into products nobody needs.
Entire elephant families - even the pregnant mothers brutally killed...to make ivory trinkets?
The price of ivory has passed $2,000 a kilogramme on Asia's black market, according to non-government groups [EPA]
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a written statement on Tuesday that about 50 Arabic-speaking poachers on horseback carried out the mass killing of the elephants last week. Bas Huijbregts, head of WWF's campaign against illegal wildlife trade in the region, said the Chadian army was sent to stop the poachers.
Activists say it is the worst killing spree since early 2012 when poachers killed as many as many as 650 elephants in a matter of weeks in Cameroon's Bouba Ndjida National Park.
"Ivory consuming nations – notably China – have to make a concerted effort to reduce the demand for ivory in their own backyards. Otherwise, the battle to save elephants will be lost," said Jason Bell of IFAW.
China's economic growth has some very dark and inhumane aspects, and comes at great cost to the world's declining species, including mega-fauna.
Letter to Ingam Enterprises
It was dismaying in the extreme to see the treatment of turkeys in Ingham's Sydney's processing plant on Lateline last night. I have no reason to expect that the cruel and aberrant behaviour shown by workers is not widespread. Why does it take the work of Animals Australia to reveal this conduct? Why does the company not supervise properly to ensure this does not happen and that standards are maintained?
The statement from Ingham in reply to this is that training of staff would be reviewed. I don't see that it is possible to retrain a person who is so damaged, himself as to deliberately and gratuitously inflict pain with such brutality on a helpless and doomed creature. People with no level of awareness of or care about the feelings of a fellow creature are unsuitable to for work in a bird processing capacity.This work actually requires special qualities and skills to ensure the welfare of the birds. It seems to me Ingham have hired the worst possible staff for this job. What is the reason for this? Is it desperation to find someone to do the work?
I could not bring myself ever to eat turkey again after seeing the footage of this cruelty. I am not a vegetarian , but may be forced to become one if I see too much more of the abominable and unnecessary practices involved in processing meat for human consumption .
Sincerely,
Miscellaneous comments now operational again
We only just realised that people could not post because they were full up.
Sorry! Try again.
66% French against family allowances
66 per cent of French have said that they are in favour of ceasing child benefits, at least for anyone with an income above a certain level. Benefits amount to 15 billion euros per annum for the nation and start with the second child only.
In 1973 the French birth rate dropped and the immigration rate was cut in response to the oil shock.
We can expect this to happen again, as the US borrows but forces austerity measures on everyone else.
Source: France2 Infos, 2000hs http://www.france2.fr/jt/20h/17-03-2013
"Nightmare superbug" CRE
A widely feared superbug has contaminated hand-washing sinks in Dandenong Hospital's intensive care unit, causing 10 patients to fall ill with the ''nightmare bacteria'' that have killed many people worldwide.
The Age: Nightmare superbug alarm
The 440-bed hospital in Melbourne's south-east has been struggling to contain the multi-drug-resistant bacteria since 2009.
The hospital is preparing to replace some sinks, suspected of spreading disease through splash-backs off the drain.
Two weeks ago the director of the US Centres for Disease Control, Tom Frieden, labelled CRE ''nightmare bacteria'' because of their resistance to nearly all antibiotics and their high mortality rate. Some types are estimated to kill up to half of the people they infect.
While there have been reports of CRE (Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae) in about 200 US hospitals, the superbug is thought to be an emerging issue in Australian hospitals.
“These are nightmare bacteria that present a triple threat,” said Thomas Frieden, director at CDC, in a USA Today report. “They’re resistant to nearly all antibiotics. They have high mortality rates, killing half of people with serious infections. And they can spread their resistance to other bacteria.”
CDC and other officials warn that if the CRE isn't contained soon, even common infections — urinary tract, pneumonia, diarrhea, could become lethal. That's because, the biggest threat from CRE, is that it can share its antibiotic resistance genes with other bacteria, which are more common, such as E. coli. The CRE emergence, and similar resurgent and new diseases internationally, constitutes the potential for "ecological holocaust".
New 'Nightmare Superbug'
Overuse and improper use of antibiotics over the years, both in the medical community and the livestock industry, has led to an increase in the number of bacteria that are drug-resistant. Doctors are getting better at proper use of antibiotics, the CDC reports, but they could do more. The livestock industry could be doing a lot more.
Germany's Ministry of Agriculture and Consumer Protection recently announced its intent to force farmers to reduce the amount of antibiotics given to livestock, a practice most scientists agree increases the likelihood of bacteria mutating into antibiotic-resistant forms.
An article in the Medical Journal of Australia says that a ''plague'' of multi-drug-resistant bacteria that would make many illnesses untreatable.
Yet more evidence of the cruel sadism of the Syrian 'rebels'
I just witnessed yet another gruesome video of an atrocity committed by members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) against a supporter of a the Syrian Government, only one of seven beheaded that I was able to bring myself to look at in the video entited FSA Raise AlQaeda Flag After Beheading 7 Civilians on http://www.liveleak.com/c/syriangirl. Just as the UK government Chilcot Inquiry last year found the UK (and Australian) government war against Iraq in 2003 to have been illegal, how can the supply of weapons and money to these sadistic killers by France, the UK, the US, etc. not be criminal? Given Bob Carr's expulsion of the Syrian ambassador on the pretext of the absurd and proven lie that the Syrian Government killed its own supporters in the Houla massacre of last year, how can Australia not be also held morally culpable for such crimes?
The sterilization of our land for property developers
All the environment protection laws and "protected" status for wildlife again proves to be nothing in front of the power of property developers, supported by record high immigration rates. The EPBC Act can easily be overcome, and all these policies are rubbery and flexible. These profiteers won't be happy until each tree, each bush, and each native animal is eradicated, biodiversity functions are at a full-stop, and the land sterilized for concrete, glass and timber house frames.
Crime rates in our cities are escalating, and being perpetrated by younger and younger teenagers and kids. The dis-ease of urban living and suburbia is penetrating onto hapless native animals.
While human populations explode globally at exponential levels, wildlife are diminishing - being pushed to the extremes of their habitats and annihilated. Australia has below replacement levels of fertility, as a developed nation, but we are forced to cope with third-world rates of population growth - due to an eco-hostile and unsustainable economic growth model.
QLD Lib-Nats: Langbroek replaced by Newman to privatise assets?
Read the above article and note that the Liberal Nationals replaced John-Paul Langbroek with an imported politician who was not even a member of the Party - Brisbane's ex-Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman when they went to the hustings in 2012. Campbell Newman then brought in a devastating spate of privatisations. There was not, of course, any referendum.
Lazarus Project - rising from extinction
In what may be considered an early Easter miracle, an extinct species of native frog has begun its rise from the dead.
Australian scientists have grown embryos containing the revived DNA of the extinct gastric-brooding frog, the crucial first step in their attempt to bring a species back to life.
The dead genetic material of the extinct amphibian into the donor eggs of another species of living frog, a process similar to the technique used to create the cloned sheep Dolly. The eggs continued to grow into three-day-old embryos, known as blastulas.
Extinct frog hops back into the gene pool
The Southern Gastric Brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus silus) was a bizarre frog that swallowed its eggs, brooded its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth. The frog species became extinct in 1983. The Southern Gastric Brooding Frog was an interesting frog in its own right. The females actually cared for its babies. Over the last five years, the Lazarus Project research team has performed repeated experiments using a laboratory technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. Fresh donor eggs were harvested from the distantly related Great Barred Frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus.
While the embryos had yet to develop into tadpoles, genetic tests revealed the dividing cells contained the DNA of the extinct frog.
The Lazarus Project team has been able to recover cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer. The "de-extinction" project aims to bring the frog back to life.
UNSW's Professor Archer spoke publicly for the first time today about the Lazarus Project and also about his ongoing interest in cloning the extinct Australian thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, at the TEDx DeExtinction event in Washington DC, hosted by Revive and Restore and the National Geographic Society.
Researchers from around the world are gathered there to discuss progress and plans to 'de-extinct' other extinct animals and plants. Possible candidate species include the woolly mammoth, dodo, Cuban red macaw and New Zealand's giant moa.
Scientists have managed to extract DNA from Thylacine carcasses. Unfortunately the DNA is in little fragments and trying to reassemble the DNA in its original order is proving difficult without an intact model. At present the researchers are hoping that the use of the DNA model of the Thylacine’s closest relative – the Tasmanian Devil – will lead to better progress.
While many scientists have argued it would be impossible to bring a species back from the dead like in the film Jurassic Park , the Lazarus project's breakthrough suggested the revival of extinct species was no longer the realm of science fiction.
The team has also demonstrated that the cloning technique, known as somatic nuclear cell transfer, could be used to conserve the genomes of other critically endangered species, particularly frogs, whose populations have plummeted around the world.
Frogs are disappearing world-wide, even without habitat disturbances. Although some of the factors responsible for the sudden fall in frog numbers are not clear, a number of human activities are harmful to frogs. Some of these activities include habitat loss, predation by introduced animals, insecticide and herbicide use, increased salinity and changes in the water management of streams, ponds and wetlands.
Loss and destruction of habitat by the explosion of human numbers means that any resurrected extinct species would have limited habitat and a limited gene pool. The planet's resources are dwindling and pushing out non-human species.
Response to tirade for war and against candobetter
The following is my response to a comment which excused wars conducted by the U.S and its allies in the 20th and 21st centuries on johnquiggin.com
Mel (@ # 39) wrote:
Malthusista,
You have written numerous posts praising the brutal murderer, torturer and serial rapist, Muammar Gaddafi.
The articles about the illegal invasion of Libya in 2011, by the US, France the UK, Libya's former coloniser, Italy and other NATO allies are to be found here. There are 18 articles in all and the first is Hugo Chávez proposes mediation mission to Kadhafi of 4 March 2011. Feel most welcome to post comments beneath any one of these articles to show us where we are wrong. In particular, please feel welcome to produce evidence that you have of Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942-2011) being a "brutal murderer, torturer and serial rapist". Other factual reporting about the criminal invasion of Libya and NATO's current proxy terrorist war against Syria is to be found on Global Research, VoltaireNet and LandDestroyer, the Corbett Report and elsewhere.
Mel continued:
I also note with considerable merriment and mirth that your Can Do Better website runs pro-Lyndon LaRouche and anti-fluoride propaganda.
The articles which address the concerns of the Citizens Electoral Council include: About the Citizens Electoral Council of 18 Oct 2010 and
Call for the re-establishment of a true national bank of 17 Jan 2013. I think most who read those articles will find them to be balanced appraisals of the Citizens Electoral Council. Again, feel most welcome to post comments to those pages to shw us where we are wrong.
There are also a number of articles against the fluoridation of drinking water, many of which do not originte from the CEC. Please also feel welcome to produce any scientific evidence you have that water fluoridation is not harmful.
Mel continued:
I'm unable to take you seriously ...
Unless you can bring yourself to subsantiate your claims, the feeling may be mutual.
Those opposed to war and terrorism may also find of interest this popular article about a recent meeting of Syrian Australians for Peace in Syria in the Melbourne Unitarian Church. It includes broadcasts by three Syrian Australian speakers who have suffered personal tragedy in the war agzinst their homeland, which has been shamefully excused by Australia's 'Labor' Foreign Minister Bob Carr.
Discussion closed on johnquiggin.com
10:58AM. Discussion on his sandpit page was closed by Professor Quiggin before I could post the above comment. So I posted the comment below, including a link back to this comment on his subsequent Weekend Reflections page.
Professor Quiggin has closed the discussion on sandpit, before I had a chance to respond to Mel’s tirade against me and my web-site, candobetter. I think this is unfortunate, both for me and other site visitors. Those wishing to read my response to Mel, including links to other resources including a very popular article, which includes video broadcasts of a recent public meeting of Syrian Australians for Peace in Syria at the Melbourne Unitarian Church can read it here.
Robert de Castella: Junk food driving childhood obesity epidemic
De Castella calls for obesity intervention
by Philip Thomson in the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 Mar 2013
Morbidly obese kindergarten children and year 6 pupils weighing 100 kilograms are evidence of a health crisis needing a multimillion-dollar intervention to fix, former world champion marathon runner Robert de Castella says.
Mr de Castella runs the not-for-profit SmartStart for Kids program, which has been delivered to 52,000 overweight children in the past 13 years. He has also written to the ACT government proposing a program for children at extreme risk that he says is ''absolutely critical''.
The proportion of overweight and obese kindergarten children in NSW increased from 17.7 per cent in 2004 to 18.7 per cent in 2010, according to a Sydney University study.
See also: Iraqi Children: Deprived Rights, Stolen Future by Bie Kentane, 13 March 2013 on Global Research.
Song does justice to leader of Venezuela sadly lost to the world
Thank you, David Rovics. In a fair music market this song would easily shoot to the top of the music charts. For more information about this selfless and kind leader, read Vivienne Ortega's Hugo Chávez: a true, passionate Latin American leader of 12 March.
Nice one there
Nice Post.
Broadcast of Syrians marching in support of President Assad
Youtube broadcast at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu0FHs7w-lo
The text and dialogue is all Arab language. Nonetheless, the scenes shown are more confirmation that the claim that President Bashar al-Assad is a hated tyrant, repeated [1] by Australian foreign minister Bob Carr, is a fabrication of the Australian and Western newsmedia.
This video shows that actions against Syria ,in which the Autralian Government is complicit
Footnote[s]
[1] Bob Carr's words include on 8 2012:
This additional funding is a step forward in helping the thousands of Syrian civilians caught up in the struggle against the Assad regime.
Paul Craig Roberts' obituary for Hugo Chavez
The obituary below was posted to PaulCraigRoberts.org on 5 March. Thank you, Sheila, Vivienne for having helped me to understand what a moral and intellectual colossus Hugo Chávez was.
Only a notable few of the other world leaders of today are larger than midgets by comparison. - GT
On March 5, 2013, Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela and world leader against imperialism, died. Washington imperialists and their media and think tank whores expressed gleeful sighs of relief as did the brainwashed US population. An "enemy of America" was gone.
Chávez was not an enemy of America. He was an enemy of Washington's hegemony over other countries, an enemy of Washington's alliance with elite ruling cliques who steal from the people they grind down and deny sustenance. He was an enemy of Washington's injustice, of Washington's foreign policy based on lies and military aggression, bombs and invasions.
Washington is not America. Washington is Satan's home town.
Chávez was a friend of truth and justice, and this made him unpopular throughout the Western World where every political leader regards truth and justice as dire threats.
Chávez was a world leader. Unlike US politicians, Chávez was respected throughout the non-western world. He was awarded honorary doctorates from China, Russia, Brazil, and other countries, but not from Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford.
Chávez was a miracle. He was a miracle, because he did not sell out to the United States and the Venezuelan elites. Had he sold out, Chávez would have become very rich from oil revenues, like the Saudi Royal Family, and he would have been honored by the United States in the way that Washington honors all its puppets: with visits to the White House. He could have become a dictator for life as long as he served Washington.
Each of Washington's puppets, from Asia to Europe and the Middle East, anxiously awaits the invitation that demonstrates Washington's appreciation of his or her servitude to the global imperialist power that still occupies Japan and Germany 68 years after World War II and South Korea 60 years after the end of the Korean War and has placed troops and military bases in a large number of other "sovereign" countries.
It would have been politically easy for Chávez to sell out. All he had to do was to continue populist rhetoric, promote his allies in the army, throw more benefits to the underclass than its members had ever previously experienced, and divide the rest of the oil revenues with the corrupt Venezuelan elites.
But Chávez was a real person, like Rafael Correa, the three-term elected president of Ecuador, who stood up to the United States and granted political asylum to the persecuted Julian Assange, and Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia since the Spanish conquest. The majority of Venezuelans understood that Chávez was a real person. They elected him to four terms as president and would have continued electing him as long as he lived. What Washington hates most is a real person who cannot be bought.
The more the corrupt western politicians and media whores demonized Chávez, the more Venezuelans loved him. They understood completely that anyone damned by Washington was God's gift to the world.
It is costly to stand up to Washington. All who are bold enough to do so are demonized. They risk assassination and being overthrown in a CIA-organized coup, as Chávez was in 2002. When CIA-instructed Venezuelan elites sprung their coup and kidnapped Chávez, the coup was overthrown by the Venezuelan people who took to the streets and by elements of the military before Chávez could be murdered by the CIA-controlled Venezuelan elites, who escaped with their own venal lives only because, unlike them, Chávez was humanitarian. The Venezuelan people rose in instantaneous and massive public defense of Chávez and put the lie to the Bush White House claim that Chávez was a dictator.
Showing its sordid corruption, the New York Times took the side of the undemocratic coup by a handful of elitists against the democratically elected Chávez, and declared that Chávez's removal by a small group of rich elites and CIA operatives meant that "Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."
The lies and demonization continue with Chávez's death. He will never be forgiven for standing up for justice. Neither will Correa and Morales, both of whom are no doubt on assassination lists.
CounterPunch, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, and other commentators have collected examples of the venom-spewing obituaries that the western presstitutes have written for Chávez, essentially celebrations that death has silenced the bravest voice on earth:
Obituaries for Hugo Chávez
2013
In Death as in Life, Chávez Target of Media Scorn
Perhaps the most absurd of all was Associated Press business reporter Pamela Sampson's judgment that Chávez wasted Venezuela's oil wealth on "social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs," a poor use of money that could have been used to build sky scrappers such as "the world's tallest building in Dubai and branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi."
AP: Chávez Wasted His Money on Healthcare When He Could Have Built Gigantic Skyscrapers
Among the tens of millions of Washington's victims in the world--the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Mali, with Iran, Russia, China, and South America waiting in the wings for sanctions, destabilization, conquest or reconquest, Chávez's September 20, 2006 speech at the UN General Assembly during the George W. Bush regime will stand forever as the greatest speech of the early 21st century.
Chávez beards the lion, or rather Satan, in his own den:
"Yesterday, the devil himself stood right here, at this podium, speaking as if he owned the world. You can still smell the sulfur."
"We should call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: ‘the Devil's Recipe.'"
The UN General Assembly had never heard such words, not even in the days when the militarily powerful Soviet Union was present. Faces broke out in smiles of approval, but no one dared to clap. Too much US money for the home country was at stake. [A reader pointed out that although Chávez's speech was not interrupted with clapping, he received a healthy round of applause at the end.]
The US and UK delegations fled the scene, like vampires confronted with garlic and the Cross or werewolves confronted with silver bullets.
Chávez spoke about the false democracy of elites that is imposed by force and on others by "weapons and bombs." Chávez asked, "What type of democracy do you impose with Marines and bombs?"
Wherever George W. Bush looks, Chávez said, "he sees extremists. And you, my brother--he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him. The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It is not that we are extremists. It is that the world is waking up. It is waking up all over and people are standing up."
In two short sentences totaling 20 words, Chávez defined for all times early 21st century Washington: "The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists."
Throughout South America and the non-western world, Chávez's death is being blamed on Washington. South Americans are aware of the US congressional hearings in the 1970s when the Church Committee brought to light the various CIA schemes to poison Fidel Castro.
The official document presented to President John F. Kennedy by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, known as the Northwoods Project, is known to the world and is available online. The Northwoods project consisted of a false flag attack on American citizens in order to blame Cuba and create public and world acceptance for US-imposed regime change in Cuba. President Kennedy rejected the proposal as inconsistent with morality and accountable government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
The belief has already hardened in South America that Washington with its hideous technologies of death infected Chávez with cancer in order to remove him as an obstacle to Washington's hegemony over South America.
This belief will never die: Chávez, the greatest South American since Simon Bolivar, was murdered by Washington. True or false, the belief is set in stone. As Washington and globalism destroy more countries, the lives of elites become more precarious.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood that security for the rich required economic security for the underclasses. Roosevelt established in the US a weak form of social democracy that European politicians had already understood was necessary for social cohesion and political and economic stability.
The Clinton, Bush, and Obama regimes set about undermining the stability that Roosevelt provided, as Thatcher, Major, Blair, and the current prime minister of the UK undermined the social agreement between classes in the UK. Politicians in Canada, Australia (emphaisis added), and New Zealand also made the mistake of handing power over to private elites at the expense of social and economic stability.
Gerald Celente predicts that the elites will not survive the hatred and anger that they are bringing upon themselves. I suspect that he is correct. The American middle class is being destroyed. The working class has become a proletariat, and the social welfare system is being destroyed in order to reduce the budget deficit caused by the loss of tax revenues to jobs offshoring and the expense of wars, overseas military bases, and financial bailouts. The American people are being compelled to suffer in order that elites can continue with their agendas.
The US elites know what is coming. That is why they created a Nazi-style Ministry of the Interior known as Homeland Security, armed with enough ammunition to kill every American five times and with tanks to neutralize the Second Amendment rights of Americans:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34259.htm
1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security? It's Time For A National Conversation
Pistols and rifles are useless against tanks, as the Branch Davidians found out in Waco, Texas. The protection of a small handful of elites from the Americans they are oppressing is also the reason the police are being militarized, brought under Washington's control and armed with drones that can assassinate the real leaders of the American people who will be, not in the legislative, executive, or judicial chambers, but in the streets:
Internment camps in the US appear to be real and not a conspiracy theory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfkZ1yri26s
http://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-InternmentResettlement.pdf
The threat that the US government poses to its own citizens was recognized on March 7, 2013, by two US Senators, Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY), who introduced a bill to prevent the US government from murdering its own citizens: "The Federal Government may not use a drone to kill a citizen of the United States who is located in the United States" unless the person "poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to another individual. Nothing in this section shall be construed to suggest that the Constitution would otherwise allow the killing of a citizen of the United States in the United States without due process of law."
Cruz, Paul Introduce Bill to Prohibit Drone Killings of U.S. Citizens
The "indispensable people" with their presidents Bush and Obama have begun the 21st century with death and violence. That is their only legacy.
The death and violence that Washington has unleashed will come back to Washington and to the corrupt political elites everywhere. As Gerald Celente says, the first great war of the 21st century has begun.
A giant compared to Australia's rulers
It would be impossible to diminish Hugo Chavez's proud legacy as the mainstream media (MSM) has attempted to do if his record were ever to be compared with the records of those who have ruled Australia since the late 1970's - Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Jeff Kennett, John Howard, Nick Greiner, Bob Carr (as Premier of NSW and now Foreign Minister of Australia), Morris Iemma, Wayne Goss, Peter Beattie, Anna Bligh, Campbell Newman, etc.
Between them these people have acted to serve foreign colonisers, beginning with Malcolm Fraser's dismantling of the Australian Government controls of Australia's mineral wealth established by Rex Connor (1907-1977), Minister for Energy and Resources in the Whitlam Labour Government from 1972 to 1975.
Since the overthrow of the Whitlam Government in the CIA-engineered coup of 1975, many of the wealth-producing assets owned by the Australian people, common land and government services have been privatised and effectively handed across to foreign corporations. The list inclues: The Commonwealth Bank, the state banks, state government insurance corporations, Telstra retirement income (aka 'superannuation'), electricity generation, railways, ports, public land and public buildings.
United States murder conspiracy against Chavez?
There are conspiracy theories circulating that the United States deliberately caused the death of Chavez. The American government performed unethical medical experiments on Guatemalan prisoners in the 1940s. Despite President Obama’s condemnation of those experiments – and apology to the Guatemalan president - there are people who are still suspicious.
The American government has tried to assassinate and poison leaders of foreign countries — most notoriously Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Chavez was a friend and admirer of Castro.
Cancer is actually not one specific disease but the name for a broad group of related diseases, which have different causes. There are countless carcinogens in our environment, from natural fungus to asbestos to sunlight.
Venezuela will set up a formal inquiry into suspicions that the late President Hugo Chavez's cancer was the result of poisoning by his enemies abroad. The 58-year-old president was diagnosed with cancer in his pelvic region in June 2011 and underwent four surgeries before dying of what sources said was metastasis in the lungs.
Unremitting cancer, intractable respiratory infections, massive heart attack, one after the other … It is well known that during the Cold War, the CIA worked diligently to develop substances that could kill without leaving a trace. “Fidel always told me: ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what.”
"There was no one in the entire universe that those who own and run 'United States, Inc.' wanted to see dead more than Hugo Chávez. He was worse than Allende. Worse than Fidel Castro. Worse than any world leader not in the American camp because he spoke out in the most forceful terms about US imperialism and its cruelty..."
(said William Blum is author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2; Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower; West-Bloc Dissident, A Cold War Memoir and Freeing the World to Death, Essays on the American Empire - and numerous analytical essays.
President Hugo Chávez Frias: Cause of His Death
by Les Blough in Venezuela. Axis of Logic
Tuesday, Mar 12, 2013
Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez told the BBC the United States and Israel were to blame for Mr Chavez's death. He said he hoped the special commission would provide evidence.
Mr Maduro said that one day a scientific commission would prove that Mr Chavez's cancer had been "injected by imperialist forces".
On Monday, the US expelled two Venezuelan diplomats following the expulsion of their officials from Caracas. The new leader of Venezuela, Mr Maduro, likened the death of Chavez to that of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Some investments are not in our interests!
The federal government's new powers over coal and coal seam gas could delay dozens of projects and ultimately cost the industry billions of dollars, companies say. Environment Minister Tony Burke released new guidelines recently.
Miners feel the heat of coal seam gas rules
Conservation groups said the additional safeguards on water contamination would be useful in sifting out the riskier, more marginal mining and fracking projects.
Mining corporations are getting edgy and objecting to all the rules. ''Rather than drowning Australian industries in regulation, we should be focusing on reducing costly project delays, which are harming Australia's reputation as an investment destination,'' deputy chief executive of Australian Mining Association Greg Sullivan said.
Australia doesn't want to be an "investment destination" if it's not in our interests. Delays are costing investors $10 million a month. Fracking is hydraulic fracturing and involves pumping pressurised water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas.
Fracking has come under considerable pressure from those who fear contamination of underground water reservoirs. Critics of the methods say that fracturing formations could lead to mixing of freshwater with saline aquifers, pollution of water by fracking liquids, or pollution of water reserves by gas.
A preliminary study by the University of Texas revealed many allegations of groundwater contamination appeared to be related to "above-ground spills or other mishandling of waste water produced from shale gas drilling, rather than from hydraulic fracturing itself".
New South Wales Government revealed (Feb 2013) that it would implement safeguards banning the extraction of coal seam gas near suburbs, country towns and some rural industries, such as horse breeders and wine producers, potentially ruling-out hundreds of proposed gas wells and some $4 billion worth of gas. AGL, which had plans to drill in 66 gas wells near and under housing estates in Western Sydney, looks to be a big loser from the new safeguards.
The uncontrolled nature of the drilling , the damage and the widespread nature of the various drilling programs affecting huge swathes of the US are affected is alarming.
Risking our health, our soil, our water supply and our landscape for a short-term supply, and a pretty profit, is utterly unacceptable.
GASLAND- When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarked on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown."
Some "investments" are not in our interest, especially when they wreck the land, the air and the water we need for our livelihoods!
Privatization - selling off the family jewels
Privatization is the selling off of the "family assets" without permission of the family. It's an admission of poor financial management, and excessive debt. It's a way of paying off the running costs of the State at the expense of long term captital. It's also a perverse way of further globalizing Australia, and having the powers off-shore away from immediate accountability. It also avoids trade unions, and the deprivation of skills training will justify further "skills" shortage and mass immigration. Thus, we become part of the "Asian Century", ready for Asian investment.
Syrian Girl:FSA Beat And Humiliate Old Man - 'Yellow Man' Aleppo
See also on the Syrian Girl's Channel: Media Sugar Coat UN Monitors kidnapped by Rebels - Syria of 8 March 2013.
Happy to be inferior
People accept the superior land speed of the jaguar, the ability of birds to fly and the superior climbing ability of the orang utan, but appear uncomfortable at the suggestion that information processing is involved in a seemingly miraculous feat of an animal or bird.
I mentioned this article to a friend yesterday whose response was that ”lower order" abilities had to drop off to make room for higher order processes. He meant that humans probably used to have this ability but now have more important things to do with their brains. He expressed no wonder or appreciation of this finding re the abilities of the chimpanzee.
Other friends cannot encompass any cleverness on the part of other species and put all behaviours down to "instinct". They seem uneasy that an animal gets any credit or may have (non athletic) abilities beyond our own.
I am happy to accept that the minds and the perceived world of other species are mysterious, different, and "intelligent".
I put the word "intelligent" in inverted commas for lack of adequate definition in this comment. Perhaps an acknowledgement of superior cognitive skills in other species implies a responsibility towards them and giving them maybe "undue" importance?
I'm happy to accept that chimpanzees can do this number/memory task far better than I can and that this is probably not an isolated example of superior cognitive processing skills not to mention the examples of processing superior sensory inputs in other species.
More than 800 whales saved by Sea Shepherd
More than 800 whales escaped the harpoon this season because of anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd, its director Bob Brown said.
He said the assertion by Japan's fisheries minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, that eating whales was the same as Australians eating kangaroos was the first time the Japanese had not used science as an excuse for whaling. They have obviously discarded their thinly-disguised smoke-screen of "scientific research".
Nothing very scientific has even been published on their research results, except demographic data. It's killing the "data" to find out the age and location! It's totally unscientific and unethical.
Except for indigenous Australians, who killed and ate kangaroos on a subsistence level, Australia has never had a "culture" of eating kangaroo meat. It was only eaten in desperation by early settlers, when there wasn't enough meat from sheep and cattle. Kangaroo meat is mainly for pet food, skins and an export. It's not part of Australia's mainstream diet either, despite being touted by the industry!
Sea Shepherd's success in saving the lives of 800 "protected" whales in a whale sanctuary puts to shame all the waste of time and money the government's diplomatic efforts have been. A not-for-profit charity/animal rights/conservation group should not have to rely on donations that the government's ADF or coast guards should be doing. If policies are NOT backed up by implementation, they are nothing but political spin!
How dare Japan kills whales in a whale sanctuary, in the protected Antarctic. They are also signatories of the Antarctic Treaty and have a duty to comply with its policies, not flout them when they already have a massive stockpile of un-eaten whale meat.
Mr Brown said Sea Shepherd was not optimistic the hearing on whaling at the International Court of Justice in The Hague would begin soon. If Australia loses this court case, a lot of public money and diplomatic effort will be lost, and whatever basis our government continues with their facade of being "anti-whaling", it will be further weakened.
Direct action at the onset, instead of all this procrastination and brow-beating, should have put an end to Japan's illegal whale slaughter years ago. Instead, they have allowed it to escalate to dangerous dimensions, all to be unsuccessful. Policies need implementation, not political spin and inaction.
How can we keep our koalas?
How can we keep our koalas when "development" is an ongoing daily activity? The destruction of bushland equals "Business As Usual" in Australia. The ongoing expansion of human activities, swallowing up the habitat of other species is considered normal. Growth, which includes the mandatory doubling (or more) of Australia's underlying population growth rate through high immigration is considered to be not only good but essential. Ever more people mean more houses, more economic activity and more resources used. And it doesn't end there. People don't just sit in the houses for which koala habitat as been destroyed. They then require jobs which mean roads for the cars they will buy to get to the jobs they need to pay their house mortgages. Jobs mean another set of infrastructure, offices, mines, ports where the work takes place. All this expands each year with no envisaged end point. Business and governments want this to continue and the public generally seems to accept that we "must have growth". Growth of one thing in a finite system means a retreat of something else. Frequently on the Melbourne radio airwaves there are announcements about a kangaroos tangled up on busy roads in peak hour traffic or trapped in the airport car park. Humans live and work where the kangaroos lived hitherto. The kangaroos are not going to win. How can the koalas win?
Privatisation promoted by corrupt politicians for private gain
This article confirms (as if I needed more confirmation) that privatisation is a corrupt activity engaged in by politicians to benefit their friends in the private sector. It is a form of grand theft. The reason there is so much propaganda in favour of it is because the public can see if for what it is so the privatisers have to absolutely ladel the propaganda on to deaden the sound of protest. They have no intention of letting democracy stop them.
The fact that the mainstream press and ABC are so eager to relay this propaganda is another indication that they are also focused beneficiaries of the narrow benefits of privatisation - in rent-collecting sinecures on essential services.
Reply to Alan re anthropologists
Alan,
You have misunderstood just about everything you say is in the book and you have missed a great deal. I will insert my responses to your statements:
Alan: Newman important to anthropology, but anthopology NOT important
Newman is important to anthropology, but anthopology is NOT important to policy. If I were in the business of hiring anthopoligists, I might well hire Newman. But I have no intention of hiring any anthopologists, even if I win election and become governor, because I will be too busy hiring contraceptive nurses.
Sheila Newman: Although my book is about population, it is also about land-tenure and inheritance, which are the basis of economies and political systems. Political systems are very important for the promotion of stability or of overpopulation. Contraceptives seem ineffectual against big population systems. For instance, in Australia, where contraceptives are available and affordable, we nonetheless have massive and unsustainable population growth.
What does your theory of contraception as the only way to reduce population growth have to say about overpopulation in Australia?
My first volume analyses why this is so and identifies political qualities that help stabilise populations. These political qualities are primarily variations in inheritance of land and other assets.
This first volume of my proposed 4 volumes of Demography, Territory, Law, looks at how human and other animal populations work. It says nothing against hiring contraceptive nurses. It says nothing against contraceptives.
The populations I discuss are not all 'in the past' and not all 'in the Pacific'. However, of Pacific Islanders, plenty extant populations are stable and small. I point out that certain systems - notably the English originating ones - cause overpopulation in Pacific Islands and elsewhere. For instance, Japanese and French Pacific islands do not have the overpopulation problems of the English colonised ones
Alan: I also not how Newman only seems to be counting "legitimate" children, leaving the rest of the children to die slow, horrible deaths and I am totally unwilling to consider that kind of scenario part of my post-petroleum goal.
Sheila Newman: This is a really silly criticism that shows that the writer has not read the book carefully.
Where do I advocate for children to die slow horrible deaths as a post petroleum goal? I don't.
I am also critical of the bulk of writers in the field for placing too much emphasis on the role of infanticide. I point out on page 70 and on other pages that they fail to take into account the effect of biofeedback on genetic algorithms in reducing sexual activity and fertility via incest avoidance and the Westermarck effect.
"Infanticide, as mentioned previously, is another factor often suggested to be important for limiting births among hunter-gatherers, but rarely is it mentioned that infanticide has also been well-known in agricultural and 19th century industrial societies - which had unstable population growth rates and higher populations. Dilworth does argue that infanticide and abortion were often discouraged in agricultural societies because of the need for slaves, servants, laborers and warriors, however we know that it was still practised, albeit covertly where discouraged. Speaking of agricultural societies, Dilworth also says that up to one quarter of Chinese newborns were disposed of by infanticide (he does not give dates) and that there were also very high rates in 19th century India. It is however important when referring to such catastrophic rates of population growth and the explosion of measures to combat them to look at factors disorganizing the society, rather than assume that such high rates of violent birth control were the norm for centuries. In the case of India we know that massive overpopulation accompanied the disorganization of stable peoples and their territories through British colonialism. The beginning of China’s population explosion coincided with Portuguese colonization of Macau in 1557 and was in full swing by 1750 as the trade wars were capped by the British industrial revolution and colonial diaspora."
I did not invent the term or the condition of legitimacy. Legitimacy is a legal and anthropological term similar to 'citizenship' or membership of a group or tribe, conferring rights. Only with huge fossil fuel-based societies did it recently become economically possible to remove the stigma of illegitimacy. Whether or not Alan likes the idea, illegitimate children suffered from fewer rights of inheritance and thus fewer chances of survival prior to these heady days of lots of fossil fuel. In a post petroleum era, I am reasonably certain that automatic regulation of fertility will occur as travel between communities winds down and that infanticide will not be a frequent occurrence. Inevitably marriage [i.e. legitimacy] rules will reflect those natural patterns and citizenship/immigration rules will reflect local democratic perception of resources.
AlanI do believe strongly that the fossil fuels will run out at least as fuels, though enough MUST remain to produce synthetic contraception or we get hell on earth. Thus I am unwilling to consider old, population stable Pacific island societies as role models for the future partly because I don't believe they were that low fertility but rather that they allowed "illegitimate" children to suffer and die, which is NOT part of my future plans.
Sheila NewmanIn my book I argue carefully that, not only Pacific Island populations were stable, but most populations (human and non-human) were small and stable in usual circumstances. You, Alan, to the contrary, offer no evidence for your 'belief' that Pacific Islander populations relied mostly on infanticide. You also fail to criticise my arguments. I would suggest that you are exercising contempt prior to investigation in that you have not read my book but you are engaging in arguments based on fantasy against a book you have not actually read. In other words you are making things up for some reason of your own.
Since I am a scientist advancing several new theories, I welcome critical appraisal of those theories, since they are bound to evolve. But you need to have read them before you can help improve them.
Alan: Even reading her book would take 20 bucks, which is 20 bucks less for contraception beyond free as exemplified here: http://www.projectprevention.org/ and the same would be true if I were a mayor with a library budget.
Also, she seems to oppose migration where I support political migration of contraception supporters for the purpose of concentrating ourselves into political majorities as is taking place here http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php where restrictive land use planning is a major hindrance to concentration of forces (see military concept).
Sheila Newman Immigration has a huge role to play in increasing population growth and democratic societies with self -government regulate immigration in line with the wishes of their membership and perception of resource limits.
Alan
I WAS one of those depressed young men in the basement (or worse) for 7 years, from 18-25 and I have no intention of foisting that experience on others through regulated housing shortages.
Sheila NewmanSo, let's see. You think that by providing contraceptives you won't have to provide houses because people will have fewer children? How are you going to get people to want to use those contraceptives if they see no reason to have small families? In Australia the property developers continually build new suburbs and then import immigrants to live in them, driving up the price of housing, so there are still plenty of depressed young men in basements etc, despite oversupply of housing.
In France, where housing supply and immigration are well-regulated and where fertility has naturally been low for centuries, the housing situation is no worse but the population situation is better.
Alan
As for "Demography, Territory & Law" I can believe that some ancient societies achieved steady states. But I will not believe for a second that these steady population states were anything but horrific by modern standards, involving almost always high and lingering child mortality or in rare cased draconian sexual repression.
Sheila Newman That belief again. Just prejudice for your own culture and experience. Not based on knowledge, not citing or dismantling documented evidence.
This is the kind of attitude one finds time and again on both sides of the population debate. People who advocate big populations and people who advocate small populations live with the delusion that for thousands of years humans lived short brutish lives. Yet there is so much evidence that this is nonsense that we are coached to believe in order to remain in harness in our own miserable economies with their repressive social structures. Again, Alan, you are talking through your hat about my book. You obviously are completely unaware of the evidence I cite.
Maybe, however, your anger will ultimately lead you to investigate what actually happens rather than what you kind of assume must happen.
Alan: These societies were light years from utopic and cannot be considered goals.
Sheila Newman Not 'goals'; factual information about how human societies usually are. Our current societies are aberrant. Where do you get 'goals' from what I have written (if you had read it?)
AlanThe ONLY possible goals relating to overpopulation involve MODERN contraception, where we have little to learn from ancient civilizations.
Sheila NewmanYou seem to be completely unaware that 'modern' contraception is impractical in many societies, for reasons I cited in an earlier reply. It is fine to disseminate modern or any contraception, but it is really silly to ignore what already works. We continue to dispossess people of their land and remove them from steady state villages etc in order to 'develop' them, and then their populations explode. That's really dumb.
Alan: Though we might have a little to learn from modern continental Europe, it does not involve land use planning.
Sheila Newman How would you know? You obviously have no idea of my arguments in this because you don't cite them and you don't counter them. You just put forward an opinion that exposes your total ignorance of the subject. The system is different in Europe and the outcome is much less population growth. That should interest you if you are worried about overpopulation. Why doesn't it? Are you wearing ideological blinkers that tell you that population numbers are only affected by contraception, when a lot of other factors actully affect them hugely.
Alan: Newman's theryy basically says that if you can't mate with your cousin and you can't mate with a strange[r], then you can't mate at all and this enforces celebacy and limits population growth. Well SO WHAT?
Sheila Newman Um, well, it makes for small populations unless you have modern transport. And knowing this makes you aware of what is generating such huge population growth in modern societies in the non-continental European first world. That's a big piece of information. I also have a lot to say about social organisation and self-government emanating from intact clan systems, which can persist in modern societies and do, of course, among those with inherited wealth and influence. Also, I do advocate relocalisation, because this strengthens self-government, empowers communities, democracy, improves biofeedback to populations and enhances chances of population stability (with or without modern contraceptives).
Alan: Does she imply that we should return to such draconian sexual repression as a goal? As long a we can remember how to produce modern contraception, I'm not about to go there and neither is hardly anyone else.
-Alan
Sheila NewmanNo, I don't imply that we should 'return' to such 'draconian' sexual 'repression'. This just sounds like macho-old man talk. Consumer societies of the late 20th and 21st century are characterised by a huge emphasis on and status invested concept of sexuality. It is (once again) very clear that you have not read my book because you have completely missed the theory of automatic hormonal regulation that winds sexuality and fertility down or up depending on biofeedback to a [human and non-human] population and individuals within it from the environment. In those circumstances there is nothing 'draconian'. It is automatic. People and other animals' energies simply turn to other activities. Romance as a basis for marriage is largely a modern fashion. In a lot of societies, romance occurs outside marriage and marriage is mostly for allocating land to children in most other societies.
I must say that a few old men have reacted similarly, as if I had somehow insulted their manhood. And as if I were pushing some line of white knuckle abstinence, like the pope, but I am not. So, Alan, you are feinting at shadows and you are being dishonest about my book, which you are quite unfamiliar with.
Great post.
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Newman important to anthropology, but anthopology NOT important
Newman is important to anthropology, but anthopology is NOT important to policy. If I were in the business of hiring anthopoligists, I might well hire Newman. But I have no intention of hiring any anthopologists, even if I win election and become governor, because I will be too busy hiring contraceptive nurses.
I also not how Newman only seems to be counting "legitimate" children, leaving the rest of the children to die slow, horrible deaths and I am totally unwilling to consider that kind of scenario part of my post-petroleum goal. I do believe strongly that the fossil fuels will run out at least as fuels, though enough MUST remain to produce synthetic contraception or we get hell on earth. Thus I am unwilling to consider old, population stable Pacific island societies as role models for the future partly because I don't believe they were that low fertility but rather that they allowed "illegitimate" children to suffer and die, which is NOT part of my future plans.
Even reading her book would take 20 bucks, which is 20 bucks less for contraception beyond free as exemplified here: http://www.projectprevention.org/ and the same would be true if I were a mayor with a library budget. Also, she seems to oppose migration where I support political migration of contraception supporters for the purpose of concentrating ourselves into political majorities as is taking place here http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php where restrictive land use planning is a major hindrance to concentration of forces (see military concept). I WAS one of those depressed young men in the basement (or worse) for 7 years, from 18-25 and I have no intention of foisting that experience on others through regulated housing shortages.
As for "Demography, Territory & Law" I can believe that some ancient societies achieved steady states. But I will not believe for a second that these steady population states were anything but horrific by modern standards, involving almost always high and lingering child mortality or in rare cased draconian sexual repression. These societies were light years from utopic and cannot be considered goals. The ONLY possible goals relating to overpopulation involve MODERN contraception, where we have little to learn from ancient civilizations. Though we might have a little to learn from modern continental Europe, it does not involve land use planning.
Newman's theryy basically says that if you can't mate with your cousin and you can't mate with a strange, then you can't mate at all and this enforces celebacy and limits population growth. Well SO WHAT? Does she imply that we should return to such draconian sexual repression as a goal? As long a we can remember how to produce modern contraception, I'm not about to go there and neither is hardly anyone else.
-Alan
Please read these petitions advocating municipal environmental
contraception funding, which is increasingly politically realistic due
to The Big Sort in more and more towns, and helps women's rights, quality of life, and school taxes as well as being at
least 5 times more cost-effective than any other environmental effort.
http://tinyurl.com/townBC2
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=12874
http://tinyurl.com/towncontraception
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/condoms/condoms.shtml
http://www.facebook.com/alan.ditmore
https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAc tion&id=5319
http://nwhn.org/newsletter/node/1383
http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=599 9
http://tinyurl.com/opcensor
http://www.change.org/petitions/asheville-lgbt-rights-for-environment
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/transfer_all_environmental_funds_to_ contraception
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/transfer-all-environmental-funds-to-cont raception-especially-municipal/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/childfreetown/
http://www.thebigsort.com/maps.php
The prochoice and contraception movements are placing too high a priority on defensive actions in the red states when we should be going on the offensive, the side of "change", in the blue states, and cities. The worst places
will get even worse no matter what we do, but the unrealized political potential, the low hanging fruit, is in making the best places even better. This opportunity is being caused by The Big Sort. Mayors are not answerable to rural voters, unlike governors and presidents.
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily4_&page=NewsArtic le&id=34158&security=1521&news_iv_ctrl=-1
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily4_&page=NewsArtic le&id=27823&security=1521&news_iv_ctrl=-1
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily4_&page=NewsArtic le&id=27825&security=1521&news_iv_ctrl=-1
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily4_&page=NewsArtic le&id=32477&security=1521&news_iv_ctrl=-1
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=12891
https://secure.ppaction.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id= 12828
http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/end_abonly
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5041388
We americans love cars more than babies, Very soon we will have to choose, and we will choose cars.
http://www.projectprevention.org/
http://www.news.com.au/world/hillary-clinton-tries-to-silence-brave-bindi /story-fndir2ev-1226560803039
http://populationaction.org/newsletters/prioritizing-gender-and-climate-c hange-in-municipal-budgets-in-the-philippines/
Lawyers from 4 western countries call for peace in Syria
Call for peace in Syria
Published on VoltaireNet on 3 Mar 2013.
For almost 2 years western media and governments have been leveling a flurry of accusations against the legal and legitimate head of the Syrian state, against his government and against Syria’s military. They try to pass the victim off as the culprit, as they did in Libya and in other free and independent countries. Indeed armed groups some more organized than others, some coming from abroad are spreading terror in Syria. It is therefore normal for the legitimate regime of Syria to send in the police and the military to fight the uprising. According to the most basic legal principles which are the only way to secure peace between nations, governments have the duty to protect the people from domestic and foreign attacks. Ensuring law and order is a government’s main duty. What would our governments do if part of the population took arms to overthrow them with the help of foreign mercenaries ? Wouldn’t they send in the police and the military ? Would they step down without batting an eyelid as they ask the legitimate Syrian government to do ?
The truth is that not only is there an aggression against Syria, there is also an organized propaganda campaign orchestrated at the international, this campaign is aimed at misleading the public and stirring trouble. Some footage on the so called repression from the Syrian army were not even shot in Syria. The aim of that propaganda campaign that blatantly flouts international law is to egg on the uprising, to fuel the civil war and to deny the regime its legitimacy by demonizing it. Those who are orchestrating that campaign are judges and executioners.
Indeed the same countries, their servants and their allies (such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are cruel and intolerant toward their own people) are on the one hand presenting themselves as the judges of the Syrian Government and the Syrian Army and on the other hand they support, bankroll and give weapons to mercenaries, who are often foreign, who inflict destruction and violence upon Syrian civilians. It is these mercenaries the Syrian military is fighting. The actual criminals are western governments and their servants that is Qatar and Saudi Arabia. They triggered that fratricidal war and they have been fueling it since the very beginning. If it hadn’t been for their support to the rebels and mercenaries, order would have been restored in Syria a long time ago and the western media wouldn’t be able to carry out that propaganda campaign.
Western governments took advantage of the wind of revolt that was sweeping some Muslim countries to spark off armed rebellions in other countries whose leaders they disliked because they were not bowing and scraping to them. Western governments along with subservient media outlets are well intent on taking advantage of the situations they have created to speak out against the legitimate governments of those countries, to discredit them and finally attack them militarily. They have no qualms resorting to lies and falsehoods. They systematically hold the governments in power and their armies responsible for the atrocities committed by foreign aggressors themselves.
Whether it be out of ignorance, cowardice or lack of morals, politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and jurists in Europe, in the Middle East and in other places are part of that propaganda campaign with the blessing of the United states. They all believe they can speak in the name of righteousness and the fight of good against evil.
They are wrong. The signatories of this petition are lawyers from different countries, they don’t want to interfere in Syria’s domestic affairs. They just want to say in the name of reason and dignity that they are outraged by the tactics used against Syria. We support the Syrian government in its just struggle against a domestic and foreign aggression. We condemn all forms of support from abroad to these good-for-nothings who spread terror and death, who are presented by the west as « the free Syrian army ». We pledge to do our utmost to help the Syrian government defend its legitimacy and authority and to bring the truth on this aggression to light. The sole victim of this aggression is the Syrian people. As in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya Western imperialism shamelessly denounces the suffering it has caused in the first place.
The list of signatories
Up to this day the petition has been signed by 10 lawyers from 4 western countries.
Bruno BARDECHE, (Paris).
André CHAMY, (Mulhouse).
Fabrice DELINDE, (Hauts de Seine).
Eric DELCROIX, (Paris).
Pascal JUNOD, (Geneva).
Henri LAQUAY, (Brussels).
Philippe MISSAMOU, (Hauts de Seine).
Bernard RIPERT, (Grenoble).
Stefano SUTTI, (Milan).
Damien VIGUIER, (Ain).
Growth after maturity is usually malignant
Both of our political leaders have headed towards Western Sydney, of high population growth and neglect over the past five years. This week, when Julia Gillard campaigned in western Sydney, she announced an offer of $1 billion of taxpayers' money to help build an expressway to the city. Gillard offered the money to the NSW government on three provisos: that the highway include a freight link to Port Botany to take truck traffic off suburban roads; that it run all the way to the city rather than stopping short; and that the state not impose any new tolls on existing roads.
The NSW government rejected the deal and the cash.
Barry O'Farrell said the federal conditions would add $5 billion to $8 billion to the cost of a project estimated originally to cost $10 billion to $13 billion.
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/politics/the-first-rule-that-elu...
There comes a time when the costs of economic growth outweigh the benefits. Political spin means that Gillard got her headline, she managed to look like she cared about the people of western Sydney, yet it will not cost the taxpayer a cent.
Western Sydney is a multicultural region with a growing population, with long neglected infrastructure that is slowly choking the region. Gillard stated that the residents of Western Sydney were not “second class citizens”. When it was heard, the reaction was “who said we are?”
I's a revealing slip of the tongue? People are being amassed as consumers, as second-class citizens, for the benefit of the mainstream. They are shelved away and ignored until they are convenient - at election time.
NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson says the government is ignoring western Sydney's massive population growth. Mr Robertson says Sydney's population is forecast to grow from 4.6 million to 6 million people within the next 20 years, with almost 60 per cent of that growth occurring in Western Sydney. Infrastructure, roads, and public transport haven’t kept up with the booming population.
Most of the New South Wales infrastructure plans are about connecting western Sydney with Sydney, not about connecting it with itself.
Gillard said that “I'm a migrant. We've built a great multicultural society together,” she said of the post-war migration program which brought her own family from Wales in the 1960s. “It's been good for our economy, it's been good for our society.”
Gillard's experience as a migrant would be totally different that those of today, living in Western Sydney! She came at a time of zero unemployment, prosperity and great opportunities.
Gillard has broken her first promise, to not hurtle towards "big Australia".
Australia as an infant modern nation provided many opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs. What was successful, beneficial in the past, and part of our nation's foundation, can't necessarily be extrapolated and projected in the future with the same positive outcomes.
There are limits to any growth, and Australia has come to maturity as a nation. Growth is only one part of a community's, nation's, or individual's life cycle. We are facing an unknown future, especially with regards to energy sources, climate change, food security and increasing scarcities of natural resources. No ongoing growth can be perpetuated on a finite landscape.
Our migration-based population growth was a major contribution to our society. However, growth after maturity is usually detrimental and malignant.
The age of growth is over so why accommodate it?
No planning policies can be maintained at current levels of immigration. What planning has descended to is abandonment of ideals and principles to cater for massive growth. With out present high rate of population growth, at a doubling rate of under 50 years, infrastructure and housing stock must also be increased at the same rate. It's planning in free-fall, with abandonment!
When something is not beneficial any more, it's time to take stock and alter the direction. However, vested interests are forcing the hand of governments to continue the growth formula.
People are inevitably going to spill out over our green wedges, be squeezed up higher into ever climbing towers casting shadows over our streets, and the urban growth "boundary" will continue to be elastic to cope with massive growth.
It's not "planning" but rampant obesity! Growth after maturity is usually malignant, and surgeons don't try to accommodate it but remove it!
Minister for "sustainable" Population, Tony Burke, remains mute and continues to pass on the problem of growth onto the States, and the people.
The elites are cocooned in their privilege and wealth, with the rest must cope with rising debt and lower standards of living.
We don't have to accept this growth. The September elections is an opportunity to vote for a stable population. Immigration should equal emigration. We don't even need the 14 point population plan! Our neighbouring countries in Asia and Africa do not have immigration, and neither do we. Immigration has benefited us in the past, but this age is over. Australia is already satruated.
Ask Tony Burke to protect Kangaroo Island's marine life
Vital whale habitat off Kangaroo Island is once again under threat from an oil and gas company. Australia is nearly running on dry, and will be dependant on imported oil supplies in the near future. The race to find fossil fuels, in the form of gas, is mounting. Economic growth requires fuels.
Environmental Minister Tony Burke decided that the proposed seismic testing should not proceed without additional scrutiny of the company's proposal.
Bight Petroleum withdrew their proposal, and then re-submitted it with some new material added. Thanks to this loophole in the review system, the 30-day comment period for public comment has now been reduced to only 10 days!
Our whale experts have reviewed the new material and found that none of the changes will really help whales. So all this withdrawal and re-proposal did was reduce the time for the public to comment.
Seismic testing can be devastating to marine life. Just imagine -- intense, deafening blasts of compressed air...every 10 seconds...for 24 hours a day...for weeks on end.
IFAW Oceania director Isobel McCrae says: Please tell Minister Burke, right now, that it is too much to risk. Kangaroo Island's whales and other marine life, must be protected from oil and gas exploration.
Protect Kangaroo Island's Marine life - AGAIN
The economic/population growth paradigm means constantly imposing on our precious environment, threatening non-human species, and loosening environmental protection protocols.
DLA Piper Useless
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Morgan, The Australian Regular Army's leading psychologist and policy officer, is morally right to whistleblow publicly tonight (ABC 730 TV programme of 7th March 2013) on senior Army officers' intractable culture to ignore, brush aside, cover up widespread institutional abuse from basic training in the past and current, throughout the organisation.
DLA Piper's investigation is/was useless. Their bill should not be paid due to incompetence and substandard delivery of key outcomes.
Watch programme:
'Breaking Ranks' Thursday 7th Feb 2013.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/?series=2186770#/abc1
Amassing people will produce an underclass of economic units
Like packages, these wealthy elite imagine that they can accummulate people as surfs, or economic unit, to exist for their own self-serving ends. It's doublful if the millions of extra migrants who would need to be imported would really benefit, except if they were lifted from abject poverty and disenfranchement in their own countries.
The feudal system was similar, and used people as slaves, in return for patronage and simple housing. Under the feudal system, the peasants were landless and had no inheritance. Future generations of Australians are also doomed to be landless.
Due to high immigration and rapid population growth, California is rapidly becoming a near-feudal society. On one side is an older, educated, landed, wealthy elite that lives on California's beautiful coasts. Then there is a much larger, younger, less-educated, indebted mass living inland, many of them working farm jobs at subsistence wages.
The overpopulation of Australia will produce a massive underclass of cheap and competitive labour. The amassing of consumers will ensure customers for the big box stores, and will mean entrenched debt and further eroded standards of living more on par with the rest of the globe.
Protecting the environment means more jobs than mining
Well said, Vivienne: "Protecting heritage areas has never caused poverty or unemployment. They bring tourists and environmental benefits. Burke's precedent is a disaster, and population growth - as for the rest of the planet - is Tasmania's greatest threat."
It is pretty clear that Mr Burke is protecting the influential corporates and is too scared to offend them to actually allow ordinary people to enjoy and work in a healthy and beautiful local environment.
All this 'jobs, jobs, jobs' stuff we hear is just another route to total enslavement as we lose all democracy.
Contempt for kangaroos as an indestructible "pest"
I just read a very inspiring photographic book called "Kangaroos" by Steve Parish. His writing was very empathetic for the roos, and the many challenges they are facing. The photos were superb. However, at the end he supported the kangaroo meat industry! He said they can grow to "plague" proportions and must be "culled".
He obviously is a grazier or a big meat eater, and his perspective has been warped by Western values. Already the challenges to our kangaroos are almost consuming, and some are already extinct. Six macropod species have become extinct in the past 200 years and a number of species are threatened or endangered. It's assumed the ones that have survived are indestructible, will never be extinct and breed in exponential proportions!
The Murray Darling Report (2004) is a scientific report published by the Murray Darling Commission and written by government and independent scientists. It makes clear warnings regarding the risks of hunting kangaroos below 5 kangaroos sq/km (‘quasi extinction’).
The NSW Scientific Committee is examining a submission that challenges the science behind kangaroo census data. The most recent studies for the Office of Environment and Heritage put roo numbers in NSW at a fairly healthy 11 million, based on regular aerial surveys. Ray Mjadwesch, spent years comparing kangaroo population data, gathered at a national level for commercial harvesting of the animals, with the situation on the ground.
His findings, which have the support of some animal welfare groups, suggest critical declines in roo numbers are not being picked up by aerial surveys.
What other native and endemic animal to Australia has ever been so vilified and misunderstood with such ongoing Colonial-attitude contempt?
Population growth- Tasmania's greatest threat
Recently Environment Minister Tony Burke gave access to the Tarkine wilderness area because he wanted to maintain mining jobs. Premier Lara Giddings said she expected Venture Minerals’ proposal for a $200 million tin mine at Mount Lindsay to be approved, creating 1000 jobs.
Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke rejected the advice to give the area national heritage protection, saying he is confident existing protections in the area are sufficient instead of national heritage protection. Instead just a narrow 21,000 hectare strip of coastline will be protected for its Aboriginal heritage.
State Premier Lara Giddings says that paves the way for the expansion of mining activities. "The potential of many, many more jobs and for many, many more years ahead," she said.
Mr Burke says the region's high unemployment rate and Tasmania's faltering job market , mean there's no way to recognise the natural heritage values of the Tarkine, without causing "unacceptable" social and economic damage.
Tasmania's unemployment woes continue to grow, with new figures showing the jobless rate has climbed to 7.4 per cent. "The disastrous forestry deal has ravaged regional communities across the state and it's clear that mining is the next industry to face attacks."
So, adding more people to Tasmania in a natural environmental jewel of world and national heritage significance will be the death-knell for more wilderness areas - for logging and mining. It the destruction of the Tarkine is justified by jobs for the unemployed, a higher population will eat away the State, in an effort to avoid more "social and economic" damage.
Protecting heritage areas has never caused poverty or unemployment. They bring tourists and environmental benefits. Burke's precedent is a disaster, and population growth - as for the rest of the planet - is Tasmania's greatest threat.
Delphi method original intentions defended
I don't know where you get your sources from but the Delphi Technique was developed as a forecasting method for new and emerging technology and was used extensively by AT&T in the US in the 60's (among others). It successfully forecast pretty much all of our communication systems and gadgets developed since then. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method for a summary)
As a 'management method' it doesn't deserve the abuse heaped on it in your article. If its been 'bastardardised' by users over the years since then, you would have to look at the motives of the users rather than denigrate the method by describing it as a "psychological weapon (used) during the cold war. However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end" It depends on using experts as members of the panels with the facilitator collating and recirculating the response to specific questions until a predetermined number of iterations was reached and the outcomes (or forecasts) were published. To my knowledge there was never any intent to 'manipulate' people in the technique.
Great blog
Wow! This could be one particular of the most helpful blogs We have ever arrive across on this subject. Actually Fantastic. I am also an expert in this topic therefore I can understand your effort.
overpopulation, scarcity of resources = conflict
In addition to poverty, backwardness, repression, rapid population growth, religious and ethnic hatred, "Arab Springs", and stateless peoples (such as the Kurds and the Palestinians), the region has unstable borders. The Middle East is in the eye of the turmoil of a global cyclone of change and unrest.
Almost 70,000 people have been killed in what has become one of the most brutal conflicts this century.
An estimated 80,000 are sleeping rough in caves, parks or barns. An estimated 300,000 people have been wounded and desperately require medical care, but more than half of all Syria's hospitals have been damaged
Escalating conflicts in the Middle East threaten to engulf neighboring countries like Lebanon into a "vortex" of unrest, a U.N. official said. U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman said "Regrettably, the warring parties remain locked in a military logic which is bound to bring more death and destruction." Additionally, he said: “We are concerned at any actions that risk drawing Lebanon into the conflict in Syria.”
The "vortex" could suck in the rest of the world too.
Despite heavy criticisms of North Korea's nuclear testing, the US remains the only country to have used nuclear weapons against another nation. The US has approximately 5,113 nuclear warheads, including tactical, strategic, and non-deployed weapons. According to the latest official New START Treaty declaration, the United States actively positions 1,722 strategic nuclear warheads on 806 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers. [1]
President Obama has increased the budget for nuclear weapons and the weapons complex. The president doesn’t like to talk about it as much — he prefers the lofty speech about a world free of nuclear weapons — but the truth is that in this realm he’s a big spender.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-08-31/opinions/35490294_1_nuclear-weapons-nuclear-warheads-and-bombs-nuclear-stockpile
The United States has the most accurate, powerful and modern nuclear force in the world. The long-term US funding of anti-government programs in Syria has raised questions about the types of groups being supported. The argument that the US and its allies have only armed the “moderate” rebels is a deeply flawed one. Weapons are in high demand by all rebel factions and there is little means to effectively prevent arms from gravitating toward hardcore Al-Qaeda fighters. The track record of allied Western and Gulf states shows that they are more interested in enabling terrorism for their own purposes rather than preventing it.
Population growth is creating difficulties for economic and human development in the Arab world in general. In addition to population size, the poor quality of education is not producing a knowledgeable young people who are innovative and competitive. The Middle East is host to the largest refugee population in the world. As the demand for the scarce resource increases in the developing Middle East, water could be a source of regional destabilization as well as a political tool or target for terrorist attacks. The world won't need heavy explosive weapons in the future against enemies, or to keep "peace", but scarcities of natural resources will limit human-caused aggression.
Footnote[s]
- See North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please Stand Down? of 4 Mar 2013 by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers in Global Research for a most chilling read about all the wars that have been fought against Korea since 1866 including the Korean War of 1950-1953 in which nearly a third of 'North' Korea's population of 8-9 people were killed.
The Delphi Technique of group manipulation
More and more, we are seeing citizens being invited to “participate” in various forms of meetings, councils, or boards to “help determine” public policy in one field or another.
The Delphi Technique, developed by the RAND Corporation for the U.S. Department of Defense as a psychological warfare weapon in the 50s and 60s. The “change agent” or “facilitator” goes through the motions of acting as an organizer, getting each person in the target group to elicit expression of their concerns about a program, project, or policy in question. The facilitator listens attentively, forms “task forces,” “urges everyone to make lists,” and so on. While she is doing this, the facilitator learns something about each member of the target group.
The facilitator seeks to polarize the group in order to become an accepted member of the group and of the process. The desired idea is then placed on the table and individual opinions are sought during discussion. Soon, associates from the divided group begin to adopt the idea as if it were their own, and they pressure the entire group to accept their proposition.
It was originally intended for use as a psychological weapon during the cold war. However, it was soon recognized that the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end.
The job of the facilitator to find a way to cause a split in the audience, to establish one or a few of the people as “bad guys” while the facilitator is perceived as the “good guy.” Rarely does anyone challenge the process, since each concludes that he or she was in the minority and different from all the others.
During the recess, the facilitator and his spotters (people who observe the crowd during the course of a meeting) watch the crowd to see who congregates where, especially those who have offered resistance. If the resistors congregate in one place, a spotter will gravitate to that group and join in the conversation, reporting what was said to the facilitator. When the meeting resumes, the facilitator will steer clear of the resistors. Do not congregate. Instead gravitate to where the facilitators or spotters are. Stay away from your team members.
How do you know that the ideas on your notes were included in the final result? You Don’t! You may realize that your idea was not included and come to the conclusion that you were probably in the minority.
The government agency can then tick the box "community consultation" and continue with the plans they have already planned to do anyway!
Urbis and government
The firm you mention, Urbis, is often consulted by govt as highlighted in this article. It is also engaged by developers alike. On many occasions Urbis has made recommendations to govts of all levels on matters which may affect broad aspects of social and planning policy. Even a general google search like: 'urbis report government', 'urbis report planning land use council', 'urbis report planning state government' reveals how extensive Urbis's involvement with government is; adding other search criteria reveals an seemingly endless involvement with government. It also represents developers and possibly other commercial interests. Do these interests have the potential to be affected by the govt policies which Urbis has previously advised on? This is a question, not a claim or judgment.
Whilst my intention is not to cast aspersions on Urbis, I do question the governmentt practice of engaging firms such as Urbis without debate. Are these matters which affect the public interest? Particularly if the advice given on is matters may involve multiple stakeholders including community, government and commercial interests, the latter two groups being with conflict interests to communities and both potential clients of Urbis? Should Urbis be engaged by government in providing planning or land use advice if it actively represents large commercial interests which may also be stakeholders down the track?
VOTE: Bob Irwin wants end to hunting of dugongs, turtles
WILDLIFE campaigner Bob Irwin has made a rare public appeal, calling for a stop to the killing of dugongs and turtles by Aborigines.
"The killing has to stop," the statement, under the banner of the Bob Irwin Wildlife & Conservation Foundation, said.
"Dugongs and turtles are endangered and we are witnessing a rapid and unwarranted decline.
"Traditions" are human constructs, no matter how deeply engrained into Aborigine culture. They can, and sometimes, must be changed.
VOTE: "I fully support it:
VOTE: I fully support it
Prime Minister promises end to Thai ivory trade
A major victory has been won in the war against the illegal slaughter of elephants, which claimed 25,000 animals in 2012, after Thailand’s Prime Minister pledged to outlaw her nation’s legal domestic ivory trade.
Thailand is the key place where illegal ivory from Africa is laundered into products destined for their biggest market in China.
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra stood before a crowded hall of delegates attending an international wildlife trade meeting and told the world that she would take steps to end the ivory trade in her country. This commitment would close a major global loophole that contributes to tens of thousands of elephant deaths every year.
It was a decision that did not come easily, and would not have happened if not for you. You were part of a 1.4 million-strong petition urging her to stand up for elephants and ban Thai ivory trade.
The announcement, which pleased environmentalists, places additional pressure on China to halt its legal ivory trade, a thriving industry that experts say has helped fuel the highest rate of African elephant poaching in decades.
There were 1.3 million African elephants in 1979, but poaching has reduced the population to as few as 400,000. Officially there is a total ban on international trade in ivory, but there is a rampant black market, fuelled in places by organised crime and terrorist groups including the Lord’s Resistance Army in DR Congo and al-Qaeda’s al-Shabab in Somalia.
This is an enormous step forward in the fight to stop wildlife crime.
Royal Commission into Defence
The Royal Commission into Defence shows no evidence of transparency, justice for victims or public outcome.
It is a stain into perpetuity just like Breaker Morant.
Adelaide the country's most liveable city
In the Property Council of Australia's report released on Monday, Adelaide was awarded the best liveability score, with Canberra second and Hobart third.
Darwin scored the worst on overall liveability ranking, with Brisbane coming in 6th, Melbourne 7th, and Perth 9th of 11 cities.
So, the cities that Property Councils and their developers have had the most experience "planning" and "managing population growth" have turned out the least liveable.
Property Council CEO Peter Verwer said Australians had clear views on what made cities effective. "They continue to rate our cities poorly in housing affordability, environmental sustainability, congestion and public transport," he said.
Adelaide is one of the least dense cities with regard to residents per hectare. Canberra has the least of the capital cities. This means they are not overwhelmed by lack of public transport, they have space and room to move, and not crowded in. Canberra is the least dense.
Population growth in Melbourne is outstripping any effort to provide infrastructure and services, and now there is a $10b debt to provide for it. With further growth planned for Melbourne, debt will become even more entrenched, and liveability will continue on a downward spiral.
Once growth continues beyond maturity, and optimum size, it becomes malignant. Dr Warren Hern, a public health physician studying urban geography in 1969, was struck by the stunning similarity between images of the growth and invasiveness of cities over time and the images of malignancies that he had seen as a medical student. He saw these patterns in relationship to other characteristics of the human population: rapid, uncontrolled growth, invasion and destruction of ecosystems adjacent to human communities, and distant colonization (metastasis) throughout all of human experience.
As seen by astronauts and photographed from space by satellites, millions of manmade patterns on the land surface of Earth resemble nothing so much as the skin conditions of cancer patients.
We need some leaders with vision to comprehend a nation's maturity, and the courage to end the growth stage of a city's lifecycle - and go towards the long -term stage of stabilization before growth becomes detrimental.
My email to Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor
Dear Minister Brendan O'Connor
Minister for Immigration
Dear Sir,
I want to congratulate you and your staff for the sensible scaling down of the 457 visa class. I have read Drs Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy's report regarding "Immigration Overload" and excessive numbers of migrants- both temporary and permanent - causing disadvantages to Australian jobs seekers.
Thank you for facing the wrath of big businesses that seem to think they can run this country for their own convenience- with cheap and compliant labour from overseas!
Actually, except for a few exceptional circumstances, and asylum seekers, our heavy immigration program needs to be wound back. Our neighbouring countries don't have reciprocal immigration programs for Australians, and we can't be an "immigration nation" forever. It defies science and logic to think that Australia has an unlimited human carrying capacity, especially in light of all the globe's threats, such as extreme weather, climate change, human overpopulation, environmental devastation, increasing scarcities of food, water and natural resources.
Australia should be setting an example of sustainability and common-sense, not hurtling deliberately towards "big Australia" - that the overwhelming majority of Australians don't want! We need a sustainable economic model, not one based on the unsustainable weight of perpetual human growth!
The age of immigration should wind down, and Australia's population should be stablized. Thank you for starting this trend.
A Fail for this assignment
I wonder if the Metropolitan Strategy for Melbourne would get any marks at all from Michael Buxton if it were an assignment from one of his university students. Would it even get "E" for effort? What a pity it's for real and not just a student's exercise. With its built in population growth it is taking the people of Melbourne steadily down a path of diminishing livability. I'm curious to know what Roz Hansen and even Michael Buxton think is going to happen to Melbourne's population after 2050. Mid century is an arbitrary point in the future which is only 37 years away. If the projected population of Melbourne in 2050 is 6.4 million even at an average rate of population growth of 1% per annum (and it is greater than that now ) the population would double to 12.8 million by 2120. What was once a pleasant place to live will be an overcrowded, overactive nightmare. The Victorian government needs to get a grip on what the future really might hold with anticipated fossil fuel depletion, the loss of arable land at Melbourne's fringes to development and a huge population of city dwellers. The state government is reprehensible in embracing population growth as it does and should by now be doing a Bob Carr and telling the federal government that Melbourne is full. (Bob Carr is famous for saying that Sydney was full when he was NSW state premier.)
A one-way "talk" of planners' vested interests in growth
I was at this session at the Wheeler Centre too.
Rather than a “talk”, this was an uncontested piece of political spin, full of contradictions, and generalities. There was no contesting speakers on the panel, and it was assumed that this "future" for Melbourne was inevitable when it isn't. The panel was loaded with vested interests, promoting an assumed future Melbourne, and propagating their professions.
Professor Roz Hansen is an urban and regional planner with more than 30 years experience working both in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region. From 1986 to 2011 Roz was a director and then the managing director of a multi award winning consultancy, Hansen Partnership. A Ministerial Advisory Committee has been established to direct the development of Melbourne's growth strategy, chaired by Melbourne-based international urban planner Professor Roz Hansen.
Dr Alan Davies is a principal of Melbourne-based economic and planning consultancy, Pollard Davies Pty Ltd and is the editor of the Melbourne Urbanist blog.
Dr Alan Nichols is an academic in Architecture, Building and Planning, specialising in suburbs, heritage and planning. He's written a book on The Bogan Delusion – in defense of the working class suburbs.
The growth of Melbourne to 6 million was justified as we will be “more competitive” in the future. It's politician-speak for eroding our standard of living and working to be more competitive internationally, on a global level. It will mean depressing our wages and working conditions, driving up unemployment and widening the gap between the rich and poor. Mass immigration will drive down the Australian workers to more like that at a world level.
Actually, they did mention homelessness, but the panel failed to make the connection between Melbourne's shameful rate of homelessness and our rapid rate of population growth. With 22,000 sleeping “rough” each night, and more growth to be projected, the standard of living can only decline.
The Wheeler Centre needs to make sure their program planning is equitable, transparent and “talks” actually allow two-way communications.
W.A.'s Rabbit-proof fence causing grave native animal loss
Western Australia’s State Barrier Fence is designed to keep emus out of farms – but at what cost? Graeme Chapman.
Every five or ten years Western Australia’s emus undertake mass migrations in search of food. On the way they encounter the 1,170km State Barrier Fence, which seeks to stop dingos, emus and kangaroos entering farms.
A large proportion of these emus die of starvation, after becoming tangled in the fence, or are shot. The WA Government’s current plan to extend the fence poses even more serious threats to the region’s native plants and animals.
The WA Government plans to build a multi-million dollar, 490km extension of the existing fence, creating a largely continuous barrier through five bioregions from north of Geraldton to Cape Arid.
The extension will cut through the largest intact temperate woodland on earth, the Great Western Woodlands.
The WA Government, under pressure from farmers, will argue they are removing threats to stock and crops. They must also acknowledge however that they are creating another, potentially greater, long-term threat to native flora and fauna.
A key issue here is that there has not been an adequate, transparent cost-benefit analysis. Will there be a net profit from building the fence? A thorough cost-benefit analysis would consider the relative costs and benefits of different ways of solving the problem. It would also consider all of the costs, including the impacts on Australia’s natural heritage.
And the impacts are most likely substantial. A recent report Dr Jenny Lau (Birdlife Australia) and I prepared for the Ecological Society of Australia, the peak group for Australian ecologists, lists three areas where the State Barrier Fence could be undermining natural processes. Peer-reviewed research suggests that the barrier fence is likely to increase fox and cat numbers by excluding dingos, fragment populations of native species and stop seed dispersal.
Emus inadvertently disperse native seeds because they eat fruits from a range of native plants. Emus are estimated to transport seeds from 12 to more than 200 plant species, depending on the region. Emus travel long distances, and by restricting their natural movement the fence is also preventing dispersal of seeds.
In the absence of this dispersal, plant species may decline across large areas. Isolated populations, with no source of replenishment, may die out. This is particularly concerning for the future because many species need to alter their ranges due to global warming. Plants that no longer have the ability to travel long distances inside an emu may not survive accelerating rates of climate change because they cannot keep up with the shifting climate.
Australia needs forward thinking management to sustain natural heritage through climate change. The three consequences of the State Barrier Fence illustrate that the fence is inconsistent with these ideals. We need to enable native species to shift their range to stay within their climatic tolerances. Instead of providing dingo-free space where cats and foxes can flourish, we need to reduce pressures from feral predators so that larger populations of native species survive and have a chance to adapt to climate change.
Unfortunately with this fence, the WA Government is going in the opposite direction.
As it stands, there is certainly enough evidence of important environmental concerns to immediately halt all work on the extension to the State Barrier Fence. The next step is for the WA Government to support a transparent assessment of the costs and benefits of the fence.
My guess is that the costs to farmers of crop damage caused by migrating emus once every five to ten years will be dwarfed by the expense of building and maintaining the fence combined with the cost of the lost ecosystem services provided by migrating emus. Alternative solutions need to be sought.
It is time for the value of Australia’s natural heritage to be fully included in the development equation.
More here
Whatever happened to the Peace Movement in Australia?
Thanks for an enlightening article.
I'm not a man, so I'm unlikely to be sent to war. I have no son, no brother, and my father and partner are too old to go to war. So, why should I care about war? Actually I hardly ever think about it - except in relation to unfair aggression against some other countries. I imagine that Afghanistan and Iraq must be like hell. But the invasions there are called 'peace-keeping'. Are they war?
When I was younger, lots of people marched for peace and talked about stopping war. During Vietnam, for instance.
But it seems like war is no longer a concern for most people. James Corbett says, that
"For many in the anti-war movement in the Western world, completely demoralized by the utter abandonment of the movement by many on the pro-war left who are unwilling or unable to criticize Obama’s avid pro-war policies, the idea of criminalizing war will seem a pipe dream, no more realistic than the idea of stopping all violence in the world or making everyone a millionaire. This is precisely the problem. The long-time activists and campaigners have become so disillusioned that they no longer even try to implement the changes they would really like to see take place in the world. The weight of their experiences has taught them to be grateful for small advances here and there, and to expect that big changes can never happen."
That seems to be happening about everything. What is left that the public show initiative on? Is there anything that gets them on the streets anymore?
No recognition of population growth
The issues of Melbourne's planning paradox and the decline in standards and priorities unfortunately stayed fixed on building heights, boundaries, open spaces, green wedges and amenities. However, the "elephant in the room" of full-speed ahead population growth was hushed and thrown out as "racist" and inappropriate.
None of the proposed standards of planning principles can be implemented without considering population growth! With population growth at record rates, people will spill out over the "growth boundary" and demands for housing will mean more people will be pushed up into higher density housing and towers!
It's like designing an aviary and ignoring the vital factor of the number of birds that will be housed in it! Due to record levels of immigration, our population growth rate means that our total numbers will double in under 50 years. We are outstripping our existing infrastructure, and our cash-strapped State government can't afford to fund even essential services such as health care and education, but they continue to lure more people to Melbourne!
Any planning strategy must consider population growth, no matter how it makes people squirm. PPL must develop their own population policy or open spaces and parklands will be encroached on by all the demands an extra 2 million, or more people, will put on them.
Stop the Ivory Trade and record levels of elephant poaching
Across Africa, elephants are being slaughtered by poachers in record numbers -- and their tusks hacked off with chainsaws -- to make luxury items, statues and trinkets in Asia.
It’s heartbreaking to hear conservationists use the term ‘killing frenzy’ to describe the scale of elephant poaching right now -- it’s the worst it's been in over 2 decades.
Thailand is the world’s largest unregulated ivory market and a top driver of the illegal trade.They’ve been in the hot seat for years, yet so far little has been done to clamp down on their role in the elephant attack. But there is a window of opportunity, a glimmer of hope!
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has just announced that she is considering a full ivory ban. That's why Avaaz has started global petition, to give this campaign the last push it needs to win.
?This is the best chance we’ve had in years to have a meaningful victory for Africa’s elephants -- we just need to put people power behind it. Join me now to stop the bloody ivory trade. Sign the urgent petition and share it with everyone:
Leonardo DiCaprio is representing this cause. He says that these beautiful and highly intelligent creatures are being annihilated is a tragedy, but today we can right that wrong.
candobetter.net is amazing
Well done candobetter.net webmaster, keep up good work
Australia running on dry
A new report on Australia's liquid fuel security says we need a Fuel Security Plan and also a home-grown alternative fuels industry.
The report, commissioned by the NRMA, says that if there are any major disruptions to oil imports it would take just three weeks for the country to grind to a standstill.
The report argues that Australia's liquid fuel security has been hurt by the federal government's move towards greater dependence on foreign liquid fuel supplies, with 85 per cent of transport fuel coming from overseas crude oil or imported fuel.
“We have about three weeks' worth of fuel at our disposal before the country would come to a standstill.”
It says there are no coherent contingency plans to deal with the devastating impact of any cut to overseas supply because of war, economic turmoil or natural disasters, instead adopting a “she’ll be right” approach.
Not only is our government entangled in their own petty arguments and internal conflicts, but they are still growing in the antiquated "economic growth" and mass immigration modes.
Coal and (increasingly) gas will remain two of the most widely used fuel sources for many years to come. Coal and (increasingly) gas will remain two of the most widely used fuel sources for many years to come. Australia has limited arable land, and CSG mining is a threat to land and water supplies.
In the past decade, the expansion of the coal seam gas (CSG) industry in Australia has been nothing short of momentous.
Conflict with agricultural land has been aggravated by the environmental and social ramifications of coals seam gas expansion. The extraction of coal seam gas is reliant upon the use of gallons of groundwater. In an arid landscape such as Australia, where water is a scarce resource, any depletion is concerning.
Coal seam gas is an unsustainable fossil fuel and there are clean energy alternatives that are commercially and economically available to be developed in Australia right now. Large tracts of farmland will become unavailable for food production, forests and native bushland will be cleared and fragmented, and residential communities and metropolitan centres will become industrialised.
It's a pyrrhic type of economic "boom" if our land and food sources are gone and water polluted.
My letter to Premier Campbell Newman
I am not a Queenslander, but I'm still very concerned that your State Government plans to reopen logging in two million hectares of environmentally sensitive land put aside by the previous government, including in Central Queensland. Why are you caving into to this industry group?
Some people kill their parents and grandparents for their heritage. Some people will destroy their own homes and land for cash- and then cry poor! There are a lot of crimes justified by money, the root of all evil! Why let these forests be logged? We have only one inhabitable planet in our solar system, yet people like you want to denude it! Greed, greed and jobs and jobs!!
Please re-consider the environment, our natural heritage, our responsibility to wildlife and ecosystems, and consider that this life-systems are ancient and have great intrinsic value - much more long term value than chopped up wood! Get some advice from the local aboriginal elders! They appreciated the custodianship of their land.
Please reconsider this decision. What we need in these perilous and threatening times is leadership - not just more politicians. Please be a leader, not just another weak politician caving into a powerful lobby group. Thank you
Not irrelevant
Hi Alan,
Firstly, please don't get me wrong and assume I have something against modern contraception. Not at all. The contraceptive pill in particular is a very liberating technology and so is the morning after pill. However contraceptives do not make me decide whether or not I want to have children; they only make it possible to avoid having them (for the most part) when I have sex. You may also misunderstand the way I use the term 'marriage'. I am not using it as some kind of sacred sacromony or a civil 'right'. I am using in the sense of a legal situation that gives a child membership of a tribe or state (i.e. citizenship) and rights to inherit (under most laws, although not in most English-speaking systems, where children can easily be disinherited - a flaw in my view.)
Thanks for coming out and saying how you feel! I welcome debate. Bring it on, I say. I don't care if you prove me wrong. I'm keen to hone my theory. So, anyway, to answer your specific challenges:
It's not really a matter of belief; you can read the examples documented in the book. It's not as though I made the animal incest avoidance and Westermarck Effect patterns up [a basis for endogamy/exogamy], nor their impact on fertility. If you read the book you will see that Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to biological and zoological work on many other lifeforms that also practise varying degrees of endogamy and exogamy, gender separation (e.g. living or travelling in different areas), seasonality, delayed sexual maturation and other behaviours which affect fertility and fertility opportunity. Hormonal tests on monkeys have shown that, in the presence of close relatives, females do not ovulate and males have to look elsewhere (but also do not mature sexually). Note that other creatures also live in discrete populations which are the equivalent of clans and tribes. And that most creatures have stable, small populations unless disrupted by unusual events. (You need to read the book. If you have already done so then you would need to debate specific examples because, so far, absolutely no-one has disproven any parts of my theory and the examples. One or two have completely misunderstood them, perhaps because of prior prejudices and unwillingness to consider that maybe they did not already know everything.) The field is more vast than a single discipline, such as medicine or demography.
With regard to your statement that "Fertility has hardly ever been significantly influenced by difficulty finding mates..." this is easily disproven. It requires the simplest arithmetic to see that most kinship rules mean that a population of closely related individuals (of human and non-human species) must seek partners elsewhere and that opportunity here is affected by transport and population density as well as status and wealth and concerns to marry within one's tribe. [In Australia's contractual society tribal concerns have often become 'values', 'interests', workplaces, activities, fashion, drink venue, drug preference etc. where individuals lack strong traditional social contexts]. What I did in chapters 2 and 5 (from memory) was to (a) show how Pacific Islanders and others had obviously for thousands of years had stable populations without 'modern contraception' and (b) that their land-tenure inheritance traditions enshrined the same kinds of fertility opportunity affecting behaviour one finds in everything from wolves through to cockroaches, starting from incest avoidance and the Westermarck Effect, following through with relevant gender specific behaviours - including, for instance, females living together away from males. It is an ecological theory and fact.
Another example of current relevance could be that marriages and having children are decreasing among some classes because men lack the assets, income and housing (and therefore status) to attract a woman and support her in parenting. I suspect also that poor access to housing for males and females in Australia means that people of marriage age have to live at home under the shadow of their respective fathers and mothers and that this probably depresses hormonal output (as in the marmoset studies I cite at length from about page 89) and makes them unconfident, unadventurous and low-sexed. I am reminded of depressed young overweight men living in their childhood bedrooms playing computer games, lacking prospects or confidence to get a job, and, even if they got a job, still being obliged to stay at home because incomes no longer match house and rent prices. In many societies staying at home or in the mens' quarters was normal, so it is likely that depression was not a factor, but in our society, it is expected that men leave the nest.
With regard to your statement that fertility [is]"certainly an almost pure function of contraception access in the present and future", it sounds as though you may be unaware that modern contraceptives are not widely available in every country. They may be too expensive (for the poor in the United States, for instance); they may be technologically poorly adapted to certain environments and cultures as well as expensive. For instance, in the bush, desert, jungle ... using IUDs without access to pharmacies and doctors, or using diaphragms, without western hygiene options, is pretty impractical. Depot injections also need monitoring. The pill requires a pill-taking culture, habituation to calenders, a place to store pills and money and access to doctors for prescriptions and chemists for supply etc etc.
Also, population is not just about sex and fertility; it is also about settlement patterns and interactions, which then affect fertility opportunities and readiness. We have many many lonely disconnected people in Australian society where, not so long ago, those people had a geographical and social place and connection. Even in the 1950s and 60s there was much more stability. In other cultures, such as those of the Indian sub-continent, clan structure tends to prevail despite economic change in society. Parents help their children find mates, thus increasing their chances of marriage. The choice of mates is still much affected by status, money, location, profession, land-holdings etc. so that there are many obstacles ruling out every man for every woman and narrowing opportunity right down. Unfortunately, due to the increased size of populations and of communication between them, population momentum is overcoming the traditional impediments to fertility, with Indians still tending to aim for and succeed in high rates of marriage and children.
I also did not make it clear in my article (one cannot reproduce the entire book in an article) that we are talking about legitimate children. Legitimacy is not just a fuddy-duddy concept; it is about entitlement to membership of a group, i.e. citizenship and the rights that go with that (which foreigners do not have). Without the synthetic interface of industrial economies legitimacy obviously boiled down to inheritance of land-rights (to produce food). In my view, it still does, but those land-rights have been transformed and symbolised by money and contracts ... but that is for my second book, which should be out in the next month or two.
The kind of society that you, Alan, probably consider the norm, is one that has depended on plentiful fossil fuels, especially oil, to provide elastically for a growing population. This fossil-fuel economy has been so remarkably rich that the old rules to discourage (a) marriage between people without sufficient assets to provide for a child and (b) children born out of marriage (i.e. meaning born into poverty if you take (a) into consideration) were dropped.
Now maybe you believe that we will always have plenty of cheap fuel and things will go on forever as they have done since the second world war. We will have to disagree there. We are already getting much poorer with great social division and more and more children born into poverty to parents who have been misled by confusing signals that encourage them to have children and to believe that they have sound economic prospects when they probably do not. E.g the Australian baby bonus
Contraception would work for those people if they used it, yes. (But what makes them meet in the first place and decide to have children, or not to have children? This is also a very interesting and relevant question. It reflects social organisation.)
My scenario is that, as petroleum becomes more and more expensive the chemicals used to make industrial quantities of cheap contraceptives are going to become more expensive as will the fuels to run the factories, the supermarkets, the pharmacies on every corner...
So, what you seem to consider absolutely secure, I consider a blip in the 40-60,000 years history of humans in the Pacific... and elsewhere. Modern economics is based on this flawed concept of 300 yrs of industrialised fossil fuel society somehow establishing a new norm suddenly forever. (By the way, I deal with this in Chapter 1.)
Finally, I have argued in the article above that people will relocalise as things get tougher and the economy and government fall apart. Then the hormonal feedback factors that interact with environment will, not only determine fertility levels, but they will also determine dominance hierarchies and styles of local government and cooperation. In a local context environmental/situational bio-feedback is much more relevant, effective and clear than in a global or national context. In my view we should encourage everything in our societies that will assist this transition. Australians will hopefully rethink their inheritance laws and stop buying and selling land, preferring to lease - like the Maoris in New Zealand. But the basis of this assertion is complex and, once again, you would need to read the book.
Thank you again for your input. It was very welcome.
Logging resumes in Central Queensland
THE Queensland State Government plans to reopen logging in two million hectares of environmentally sensitive land put aside by the previous government, including in Central Queensland.
Logging will resume in south-east Queensland, the western hardwoods area, cypress regions in the west, Central Queensland and north Queensland.
"Premier Newman is ripping up the agreement between industry and environment groups forged over decades to protect our remaining native forests, and has already offered 25-year sales permits to 14 cypress sawmills," Green Senator Larissa Waters said.
"The re-opening of native forest logging will trash invaluable habitat for native wildlife, destroy carbon stores, and is an economic risk given plantation forestry is a more sustainable and provides reliable employment into the future.
http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/state-plans-re-open-logging-cen...
With a mere signature, "Minister McVeigh has approved that the areas of State Forests previously excluded from further harvesting by the former State Government, as well as the State Forest areas proposed for tenure transfer to the protected areas estate, are now available for commercial log timber production and associated harvesting once again. This includes the State Forest areas within the 1.2 million hectares identified in the Western Hardwoods and Cypress Regions for proposed inclusion in the protected area estate and the remaining State Forest areas in central Queensland, the Mackay-Proserpine area and the north Queensland ecotone forests."
Forestry Minister John McVeigh told the ABC in December 2012 "We believe there is in the order of 100,000 hectares of forest that can be accessed on quite a sustainable basis," he said. "We have also got the Western Forest and we are working on 25-year access agreements for cypress for our struggling timber industry."
This environmental vandalism is "good" for the economy, and the powerful logging industry, but it's destroying our natural heritage and our environmental foundations. Allowing fools and eco-criminals to run our State governments is like the blind running with an axe - they only see $$$ and megalomaniac power and fail to see environmental and intrinsic values of trees, vegetation, natural systems and biodiversity.
Contact Premier Campbell Newman:
http://www.thepremier.qld.gov.au/tools/contact.aspx
The Karen and Japan
Thanks, Sheila,
I'll try to answer your questions briefly.
1) Yes, the Karen were (many still are) animists. If you look here: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=0a586522c3d55a14 you will see a book I translated from Thai (but written by a Karen) about the annual cycle of swidden farming and the (animist) rituals that are performed. The Karen were first introduced to Christianity in the mid-19th century in what is now Burma, but that was Protestantism. In northern Thailand now there are Protestants, Roman Catholics, traditional animists, Buddhists and a few professing other religions. The major reason why (it is said) many Karen converted to Protestantism is that under the animist way of life there some rituals that need to be carried out when there are illnesses and other problems and these rituals require the presence of the whole (matrilineal) family and also need specially raised animals for the cooking of ritual food (the rituals take place over three days). This is all difficult to do, AND there must be no mistakes during the ritual! These rituals were therefore a considerable burden, and when Christianity came along, promising the same results with far less trouble, the people slowly began to convert.
The introduction of Roman Catholicism in northern Thailand is a rather different story. It starts after WW2, includes some missionaries, but there is one central Thai Roman Catholic father (whom I have met several times and who is mentioned in the novel) who has played a very important role. In the late 40s and 50s, many of the villages were poor, and with agricultural production fluctuating from years to year (as it usually does) some years some villages had food problems and other years other villages had problems. This was all very vigorously attacked by this man and the missionaries (all French as far as I can make out) and they have done a very good job of improving the Karen "economy" in northern Thailand, for which many of the Karen are very grateful. I am not a Roman Catholic and I do not even call myself a Christian, but it is not hard to see that the Catholic church has done some very positive work in northern Thailand, and not only with the Karen. Interestingly, the Catholic church in Thailand has NOT attempted to force the people to stop doing their traditional animist rituals (though many have stopped now) and neither do they try to deny animist spiritualism. My feeling when visiting villages (and I have been to 25 or 30, including some Protestant and mixed religion villages) is that the animist spirituality spills over favourably into the Catholicism. To me, this is not European Catholicism at all. It also seems to be quite different to what I see on TV and so on of the Catholicism in the Philippines and Central/South America. The Catholic church also works to protect the Karen from the Thai government/bureaucracy and army, so in that sense they are actually rather anti-colonial.
Yes, we are VERY ignorant about other ways of life. Modern Japan is not so different from European-type societies on the surface, but below the surface it is very different. Having been in Japan for over 30 years I then went to Thailand to observe the Karen for a year (after three years of sporadic visits and study) and was not expecting to find all that much except an interesting agricultural system, but walked into another universe (Thai society is also interesting in itself!). People who live in European style cities (as most Japanese do) have NO idea about the indigenous mountain lifestyle. The only way you can find out is go there and experience it (leaving most of your previous ideas at home).
The Edo Period population was fairly stable due to social rigidity (little technological innovation in agriculture) and due to the fact that the population had practically reached a limit given the farmland areas and technological level. There were several well-remembered famines in the Edo Period (at one quarter of the population of today, as I keep saying). Things changed after the Restoration of 1868, and for a short while in the late 1910s, when the weather was apparently warm and stable (something for global warmers to chew on there), Japan was even a net exporter of food. But still at about half the current population.
The Japanese are also traditionally animists. We can point to Shinto, which is traditionally an animist religion, but modern Shinto is very formalistic and it's hard to tell what the priests and the shrine visitors are really thinking. One sect that is interesting is "Fujikyo" - a branch of Shinto based on the natural environment of Mt. Fuji. I have participated in their rituals a few times and spoken with some of their spiritual leaders, and these people seem to preserve very much more of the original animist spiritual content than modern "shrine" Shintoism. Unfortunately, the Japanese who live in the cities are just about as "lost" as people in cities anywhere. You have to laugh when you watch NHK TV every day, because they show a lot of short video clips (between other programs or as travelogues, etc) of the countryside here. Clearly, they are doing this for the benefit of the city people. "It's still there. Don't forget it!" We laugh. So idealized and formalistic. (Especially after the nuclear disaster!)
Romance in Japan. Hard to generalize. Traditionally, you're right. The "house/family/clan" is everything and the secret wishes of the girl (sometimes boy) are of no concern to anyone. Basically, it's political, but that includes matters of land ownership and clan power. How has this changed since the Edo Period? For some people, it has not changed. Some of my Japanese friends here say that the Edo Period never really finished. It's still tapering out as the "new democratic thing" is trying to taper in (and not very effectively). Put all the people back into Edo Period costume and you won't be able to tell the difference. (There have been a few TV dramas recently about moderns finding themselves back in the Edo Period for one reason or another, but they fit in quite well. They just have to hide their modern knowledge and what they know about the future. One was a doctor who went around perfoming "miraculous" operations, but have a failed romance with one of the women he came into contact with. He simply accepted it as the way things were/are.) So are the young teens/twenties Japanese more romantic now? Not really. Or more accurately, they have always been romantic, but kept it well hidden. Like the Thais, the Japanese are pretty good at keeping their thoughts to themselves. It's historically "programmed". In that sense there has not been much change. However, the modern city has had a huge influence on behaviour and "fertility opportunities". Despite which Japan has one of the lowest total fertility rates - the reasons for this are complex, both to do with economic circumstances and medical problems, possibly due to a generalized pollution of the environment. Chris Busby would probably say it was largely the fault of nuclear weapons testing and the nuclear industry.
irrelevent
I don't believe this for a second. Fertility has hardly ever been significantly influenced by difficulty finding mates and certainly an almost pure function of contraception access in the present and future. The past is past and though there were a few societies that actually succeeded in keeping poor people from breeding until they could afford feed children, this had little to do with the clan of their prospecive mate; and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with it since the invention of modern contraception. This stuff is a historical footnote at best.
King Juan Carlos hunts elephants as Spaniards protest austerity
Denouncing Austerity: Mass Demonstrations against Financial Coup in Spain
of 25 February from Global Research
Hundreds of thousands take to the streets to denounce austerity and defend democracy as corruption scandals shake Spanish royal house and government.
Europe's 2013 protest season finally kicked off this week. On Saturday, three days after the umpteenth general strike paralyzed Greece, a "citizens' wave" of indignation washed over Spain with hundreds of thousands of protesters swarming onto the streets of Madrid and over 80 cities in yet another major popular outcry against the ongoing financial coup d’étât. In Madrid, clashes broke out and at least 40 were arrested after police sought to disperse protesters who had once more encircled Parliament.
Saturday’s demonstration in Spain was deliberately timed to coincide with the 32nd anniversary of El Tejerazo, an attempted coup d'étât by Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero, who in 1981 led a military contingent of 200 armed officers as they stormed into Congress while it was in the process of electing a new Prime Minister. Although King Juan Carlos publicly condemned the coup, Der Spiegel last year revealed secret documents showing that the King privately sympathized with the coup.
For millions of Spaniards, the embarrassing issue of the country’s anachronistic aristocracy is enough of a headache already. As Spain’s crisis burst out into the open, King Juan Carlos infamously went elephant-hunting in Botswana, amply displaying the insensitivity and aloofness of the head of state (who also serves as honorary president of the country’s WWF branch). Meanwhile, the King’s daughter and son-in-law are facing major corruption charges for multi-million euro fraud and money-laundering.
Humans will default to family, clan, neighbours as fuels deplete
What you say about the internet is true. The internet adds a mixmaster to exogamy.
And the same internet mixmaster applies to housing sales in Australia. Since the late 1990s the sale of Australian land - and visas and citizenship - via the internet to the highest bidders has removed control over their local environment from Australians and created a second economy of investors and rentiers located overseas, feeding on high immigration that creates competition for housing and resources, as well as increasing fertility opportunities. Speaking of die-off, the increases in speed seem entrophic.
Yes, I think that clans would reestablish in the resulting global situation after oil depletion in an energy constrained world. Relocalisation seems inevitable and desirable. As Joseph Tainter said in The Collapse of Complex Societies, the default position of humans is the family unit. Rising fuel costs and shortages will diminish the ability to travel, to produce goods, to find work ... As this happens people will go back to live with relatives, sharing houses and land which they would not have contemplated doing in the 1970s. If people do not have relatives, they will cooperate with their neighbours. Neighbours will cooperate with each other to produce and exchange items of food. They will have to organise themselves locally. They will begin to act like clans in villages. Endogamy/exogamy balances will reassert themselves in line with emerging local conditions, in biophysical responses to environmental indicators.
Thanks for asking those questions. We need a lot more debate and discussion on these topics, Quark.
We seem to be disrupted
Reading this article makes one realise how disrupted people living in Australia really are. Even if they are of British Isles descent with e.g. an Irish Scottish or Scottish English mix as many Australians are, they are descended from people plucked out of their environment so that they meet where they normally would not. Sheila talks about the motor car postwar increasing travel to more possible marriage partners. To take it one step further, but it is not as ubiquitous, now there is the internet where one can meet with very little effort initially. A meeting could be between a Lao migrant living in Canada with a person of Scottish decent living in New Zealand or any other far flung combinations one might think of.
I am curious to know if Sheila thinks that clans would reestablish in the resulting global situation after oil depletion in an energy constrained world and does she have any idea how long this take to happen?
The Karen: endogamy and fertility opportunities
Thanks Tony. It was great to read your update on the Karen. Yes, I did recollect your story about the first cousin marriage and put it in the book. When first cousins frequently married conditions were no doubt different. Marrying third cousins makes for fewer fertility opportunities unless travel or a population explosion brings more Karens together. It is a pity that Catholicism has taken hold. The Karen managed for so long and so well with their local religion, didn't they? Was it an animist religion?
What was the role of the Catholics? When did they come to the Karen? Under what circumstances? I have learned that missionaries often spearhead the disorganisation and dispossession of colonisation.
I like your examples of traditional barriers to adjust fertility opportunities.
It seems that, with the drift to the cities and then the contraceptive pill and the development of a kind of sexual and romantic consumerism linked to status, in the West, has made us naive and ignorant of other ways of life.
The idea of limiting fertility opportunities by simply avoiding contact and using different gender activity areas and pathways etc can strike 'liberated' Westerners as bizarre or even a cruel denial of sexuality or reproductive 'rights'. i get some angry, disbelieving reactions. Sometimes people simply cannot believe that traditional fertility regulation was effective for thousands of years, as testified by long term stable populations mostly before the industrial revolution.
As you wrote in your chapter on Japan in The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, 2008, population in Japan was pretty stable during the Edo period, which sounds like a kind of golden age for Japan to me. I get the impression that the Japanese are still largely animistic too - so remain in touch with nature. Is that still the case in the cities? And, what was the traditional view of romance? Was romance something for outside marriage, with children and estates the responsibility of marriage? How has this changed in Japan since the Edo period? (If you have time to comment)
Sheila N
Adjusting population by changing the incest prohibition rules
As you say, the Karen tend to be quite endogamous. When I was observing the Karen directly 7 or 8 years ago, the Thai officials from the Thai Forest Department were continually claiming that the Karen (Pgaz K'Nyau) rotational swidden farming would eventually "destroy the whole forest" as the village populations rose and the swiddens expanded to feed the extra people. My Karen friends explained that this was patent nonsense for at least three reasons. 1) Rotational swiddening has a rotation of at least six years, so it is impossible to use more than one sixth of the forest at any one time. 2) Actually, only limited parts of the forest are suitable for swiddening. Since the Karen know where they are and have taboos about swiddening in many other (sensitive) areas, then it is impossible to "destroy the whole forest." 3) The population is rising very slowly (despite the fact that the villages I was generally visiting were predominantly Roman Catholic) and the Karens insisted to the officials that "We know how to control our population and that is no business of yours. You just leave us alone to do what we do as a people." (Thai officials, of course, think that populations 'naturally' increase, since they are usually from Thai cities, where fertility opportunities abound - the greatest of these being Bangkok).
At the time, the statement in 3) "We know how to control our population" was not clear to me, especially with the fact that the people saying this were Roman Catholics. When I tried to quiz an informant about this, I was told, "Oh, yes we have our traditional ways." It seemed that there was either something they didn't want to tell me (infanticide??) or something they did not actually themselves know. I think now they knew, but could not explain it very well. Anyway I was a bit puzzled.
Although the Karen are not obviously so now, they are traditionally matrilineal. Even now, a man will move to his new wife's village when they get married (and it is usual for marriages to take place between villages, rather than within them) - which does not, of course, prevent first cousins from marrying. As you said in your book, Sheila, Karen folktales suggest that first cousins will be allowed to marry, but that is in the folktale and may be a practice from a long while ago and a different location. In northern Thailand, the Karen and other ethnic groups have known for at least two generations that the land horizon has disappeared and they cannot easily move to found new villages. However, food-producing land is not unlimited and therefore population growth cannot be allowed to get out of hand. There is some outmigration from the villages due to study and work, but surpisingly little of that is permanent. Most Karen return to their villages. So what's the situation now? My most reliable imformant was very emphatic that cousins would not marry. It seems that, at least among my Roman Catholic friends, the current 'rule' is that it's OK for third cousins to marry. In terms of your diagrams above, they have effectively blackened out some of the cells in order to reduce fertility opportunities.
So the "game" for young Karen men and women now is to find a partner who is at least a third cousin and who preferably is from another village. I have described one of the ways in which boys and girls from different villages traditionally met and became acquainted in chapter 6 of my novel "Look Down, See the Women Cry" - through attending funerals in different villages. But that is not happening now! Also, since the Thai government stopped the people in many villages from doing rotational swiddening, many have been forced to turn to cash cropping to make ends meet. The difference is that with swiddening there was a two-month break between harvest and slashing the next swidden, and during that time many people would travel to other villages to visit their relatives, thereby giving young people the chance to meet potential mates in other villages. But cash cropping has made them busy 12 months a year, and now that is not happening (though with motorcycles and cars it is easier to get to other villages, but these visits are often for not more than one night...) So the fertility opportunites are again reduced. (Arguably schools make up for this. The children have to attend school with Thai children from middle school, about age 12, at the latest, many from primary school.) It appears that these 'barriers' put up to adjust fertility opportunities are the mechanisms by which the Karen attempt to control their population. It was not clear to me at the time, but it makes a bit more sense to me now.
Say NO to the exploitation of kangaroos
A South Australian kangaroo meat processor has exported its first products to Russia since a trade ban was lifted. Nine other Australian suppliers are still waiting to resume their trade. More meat would be exported, leading to the hiring of more workers in South Australia.
It's assumed that kangaroos will always be plentiful, are indestructible, and never be extinct. Their reproduction rates are so prolific that their numbers can be killed, but they will recuperate. They are nothing more than weeds, natural resources for human consumption and economic value. The orphaned joeys can be bashed to death, or left to die slowly, such is the brutality of this industry.
Australia remains silent on Japan's abusive and illegal whale slaughter in a whale sanctuary, but with the kangaroo industry re-emerging, they can't be hypocritical. Avoiding an "diplomatic incident" with Japan is our government's primary concern, and economic growth!
"Hoo-roo? Kangaroo survey bucks data" asks if kangaroos will go the same way as koalas?
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/hooroo-kangaroo-survey-bucks-d...
While roos are often described as existing in ''plague proportions'', some ecologists say the national icon is in dangerous decline and should be listed as an endangered species in parts of the state.
The ecologist who wrote the submission to the Office of Environment and Heritage, Ray Mjadwesch, spent years gathering information at a national level regarding the commercial harvesting of the animals, with the situation on the ground.
He was shocked! ''There are huge areas where, according to the data, there should have been thousands of kangaroos, but the landscape was just empty.''
His findings, which have the support of some animal welfare groups, suggest critical declines in roo numbers are not being picked up by aerial surveys.
Mr Mjadwesch said roo numbers are continuing a long-term decline of 90 to 98 per cent in many districts since European settlement, under pressure from development, land clearing and commercial shooting.
Despite 16 million years of adaption and evolution in their land, the explosion of human numbers, severe changes to our landscapes, competition for resources and livestock, kangaroos are meant to have the magical qualities of not only surviving, but profligately be a "plague"!
The reintroduction of the kangaroo meat industry means that if Russia and China acquire a taste for this meat, thousands and thousands of consumers could be added to the threats to kangaroos, in a land already famous for extinctions.
Humans are generally blind to their own devastating growth of numbers, but usually they are also blind to the finite-ness of natural resources, and the intrinsic value of non-human species.
MP Geert Wilders visit clouded by misconceptions by the media
Social engineering in the form of political correctness is a very strong and successful blanket to quieten public debate. The fear of being "racist" or "xenophobic" is so strong a taboo that the public are unable to break the silence or actually find out some common truths.
The media are supposed to report facts and inform the public. Instead, they are determining opinions and clouding issues, disguising the truth.
Dutch MP Geert Wilders came to Australia to inform us of Europe's experience with Islamic immigration. However, he was accused of inciting "race hate", prejudice, being secretive and actually questioning our immigration policies! He stepped on sacred ground!
He was invited here by the QSociety. www.qsociety.org.au
"Freedom of speech is a basic right of free citizens in Western Nations. The ability to freely criticise, write satire, to mock and poke fun at the King and his merry men is as Australian as koalas and kangaroos..."
QSociety want to make the public aware of the Islamisation of our schools, our food, (halal slaughter), unwelcome social customs and legal system.
Islam is not a "race", but a religious/social/legal ideology. Those who claim it is a "racist" attack are shooting blanks!
"Everyone is entitled to peacefully and lawfully practice any religion or spiritual belief, chosen of free will. However, we draw a line when a religious and/or socio-political dogma seeks to discriminate and impose rituals and customs upon others; when followers of an ideology perceive their own laws and customs to be superior to the Constitution of Australia and above the laws of the land; and when such followers demand apartheid and special dispensation incompatible with our democratic, free and egalitarian Australian Nation".
Wilders should be free to inform the public of the experiences in Europe of mass immigration and multiculturalism. We should avoid the mistakes of other countries. We don't want segregated communities, discrimination and apartheid based on gender and belief. We don't want the model of a parallel judiciary based on barbaric Islamic 'justice' and Sharia 'law', or the large-scale inhumane slaughtering and animal-cruelty to comply with Islamic Halal rituals.
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant". - Karl Popper (1945)
Terrorism with a “Human Face” in El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, ...
Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads
by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, published on Global Research on 4 January 2103 and in Nexus Magazine.
Death Squads in Iraq and Syria. The Historical Roots of US-NATO's Covert War on Syria
The recruitment of death squads is part of a well established US military-intelligence agenda. There is a long and gruesome US history of covert funding and support of terror brigades and targeted assassinations going back to the Vietnam war.
As government forces continue to confront the self-proclaimed "Free Syrian Army" (FSA), the historical roots of the West's covert war on Syria -- which has resulted in countless atrocities -- must be fully revealed.
From the outset in March 2011, the US and its allies have supported the formation of death squads and the incursion of terrorist brigades in a carefully planned undertaking.
The recruitment and training of terror brigades in both Iraq and Syria was modeled on the "Salvador Option", a "terrorist model" of mass killings by US sponsored death squads in Central America. It was first applied in El Salvador, in the heyday of resistance against the military dictatorship, resulting in an estimated 75,000 deaths.
The formation of death squads in Syria builds upon the history and experience of US sponsored terror brigades in Iraq, under the Pentagon's "counterinsurgency" program.
Military icebreaker arrives to defend Japanese whalers
Japan has sent a giant military icebreaker to bolster its whaling fleet in the conflict with Sea Shepherd off the Australian Antarctic Territory, anti-whaling activists say. It is a 12,500 tonne Shirase, operated by the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/whale-watch/military-icebreaker-arrive...
The Korean tanker Sun Laurel was making a renewed attempt to refuel the whalers' factory ship Nisshin Maru under the shelter of a Coast Guard helicopter from Shirase.
It has since sent a helicopter into the sky to monitor the Nisshin Maru, and a Korean-flagged oil tanker, the Sun Laurel, which is being tracked by the Sea Shepherd's Sam Simon eight miles away, he said.
The war against whales has been raised to new and disturbing levels. Military hardware, illegal refueling, and ship ramming means more violence and a greater level of audacity and flagrant violations of whaling policies and the laws of the ocean.
Japan is violating the Australian Federal Court injunction against their whaling, and there are calls for the government to send a Customs vessel down there.
Years of inaction means that the problem of Japan's illegal whale slaughter has magnified and extended, and they now assume that they have the laws on their side. We all know this is not "scientific research"!
Killing animals to get no more than demographic data is a self-defeating way of conducting research into wildlife. It's like a surgeon saying that an operation was successful and the medical problem was fixed, but unfortunately the patient died! One dead whale is much like another and there is already a huge stockpile of whale meat.
This military hardware is about Japan flouting their economic and military power and superiority. There is more at stake here than the whales- it's a whole agenda of having dominance in the Antarctic for future mining resources, and fishing rights.
Brilliant video - Syria clearly resisting the Shock Doctrine
The film in here is terrific! It clearly and quickly lists signs of the shock doctrine (which the speaker calls 'The New World Order) as described by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine a few years ago. I was particularly moved by Syrian Partisan Girl's reference to how the new Egyptian government had signed away their country's banking and taken on debt. Syria's still has public banking owned by the state.
I want to congratulate candobetter on this article.
Intelligence of many living creatures not appreciated
This example shows that the difference between humans and many other forms of life are not as great as many of us had thought. As an example, I read about 15-20 years ago that octopuses in one aquarium were known to display as much curiosity about each new group of human visitors as the human visitors did about them. As each new group approached, the octopuses would emerge from their shelter in order to gaze at their new visitors.
Octopuses tragically perish as a result of youthful carelessness
Sadly, some decades ago, in about 1976, as a youth in my mid-teens during a holiday at Byron Bay on the coast of northern New South Wales I did not appreciate the character and intelligence of octopuses. I collected possibly six octopuses, each weighing approximately 0.3-0.5 kg with sizes roughly matching my hand. I placed them in a bucket and left the buckets outside our tent about 200 metres from the water and stupidly walked way. About two hours later I returned to find all the octopuses had escaped from the bucket and had perished on the dry sand less than metre away trying to make their way back to the water.
Whilst the scale of the loss may seem minor compared, for example, to the industrial harvesting of octopuses, fish and other sea creatures from the sea for human consumption, it was still a tragedy that was needless and stupid.
New housing serfdom keeps prices high
They will be trying this out in Australia soon. Don't let it happen.
'Every day, it seems a new report comes out praising the ongoing housing recovery. In Georgia, home prices are up 5% over last year, a year in which we also had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Seems a little odd, doesn't it? Don't foreclosures usually drive down the market?
'That's because the housing "recovery", as they're calling it, is fuelled almost entirely by Wall Street private equity firms, hedge funds and the Fed's unwavering support. After creating a massive bubble in home prices that eventually burst and caused our economy to go into a tailspin, these guys have decided to come back for more, and figured out a way to profit off their destruction - by turning foreclosed homes into rentals and securitizing the rental income.
'The Blackstone group, the biggest player in the new REO to rental market, has spent $2.5bn in the last year purchasing 16,000 homes, a number that amounts to over $100m per week. Property records show that many of the homes Blackstone has acquired in Fulton County over the last few months were purchased on the courthouse steps at the monthly foreclosure auction, or through short sales-when a lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed on a loan. The vast majority of these homes are not empty, but occupied by homeowners who fell behind during the great recession.
'Gone are the days of calling up your landlord to let them know rent will be there on the 7th instead of the 1st this month. As more and more Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and wages continue to decline or remain stagnant, paying rent a few days late could lead to a negative credit score, impacting their ability to secure resources and move up the ladder of the middle class.'
More here: http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/the-housing-recovery-producing-a-nation...
Whales and the Moral Lives of Animals by Dale Peterson
Dale Peterson, co-author of Demonic Males, has published a really solid scientific book called The Moral Lives of Animals, which has a fantastic final chapter on cetaceans. I was going to write a review but am too busy to do so at the moment.
Japanese whalers ram Sea Shepherd vessels
The anti-whaling group's long range vessel Bob Barker was hit in the stern by the factory ship Nisshin Maru, said Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson.
The Age: Whalers ramming damages Sea Shepherd ship
Its engine room had taken on water, but the vessel was upright and no-one had been hurt, Mr Watson said.
These sea-bound eco-criminals, illegally slaughtering protected wildlife in a whale sanctuary, are breaking the marine laws - such is their confidence and audacity! Australia has done nothing over the years to confront these illegal vessels.
The Nisshin Maru had also hit the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin multiple times, as security men aboard the Japanese ship threw stun grenades and used water cannon, Mr Watson said.
They were in the Southern Ocean, north of the Australian Casey Research Station.
Dr Bob Brown said another illegal activity in the area was causing great concern. He said yesterday that a South Korean oil tanker was leaking oil as it dodged icebergs in the dark to re-fuel the whaling fleet. Capt Watson said the Japanese ship had also struck the Korean-owned fuel tanker, the Sun Laurel. Bob Barker, with 38 crew aboard, was hit a number of times as they tried to stop the Nisshin Maru from refuelling, which he says is illegal in the Southern Ocean.
Japan's whalers seem to think they are above the laws, and have a carte blanche to do what they like Australia's EEZ and the Southern Ocean.
Dr Brown said the Australian Government had promised in 2007 that it would stand up to the whalers. The Minister for the Environment, already under harsh criticism for recent environmentally-hostile decision, is turning a blind eye instead of taking action.
The Australian Federal Court in 2008 issued an injunction against Japan's whalers. However, it's not being implemented.
Australia to be globalized - native animals are in the way!
Australia already has the biggest and appalling extinction rate of the modern world. The power of developers and miners means that any guarantees or policies to protect wildlife are simply over-ridden by profits.
Koalas are simply impediments to progress and be ploughed into the ground, or full under the path of bulldozers!
It' s heartbreaking, and Australia is being destroyed as a unique continent of mega-diversity. It's being transformed into a generic open quarry for mining, and globalized as a common resource for big businesses and global corporations.
Future generations will be likely to see native animals such as koalas only in nature reserves and zoos. Tony Burke is masquerading as an "Environment" minister but should be in the position of Minerals and Energy!
Delightful
How wonderful to see a wild animal freely enjoying very thing so many of us humans love, and so refreshing not to see any humans in the footage. Its great how the animal handles his/her own weight in this medium.
Good on the Singaporeans
Way to go. Citizen solidarity instead of commercial manipulation. Australia and Singapore have lots in common - rotten governments.
Tip of the 'Defence Secrets' Iceberg - so true
Please read and consider contacting me. ABC Interview in 2004 http://maryannmartinek.wordpress.com/2004-abc-radio-interview/ and 9 Sunday Programme in 2000 https://maryannmartinek.wordpress.com/2000-cover-story-9-sunday-program/ regards, MM
Australia needs to drop its international trade obligations