Australia has had low fertility rates since the 1970's, so any population growth is not through natural births over deaths
This is a common misconception which is explored in Mark O'Conner's Overloading Australia. Australia's fertility rate isn't really low - its currently at around replacement rate. However even with the average fertility rate at around 2 children per women, there are still about twice the number of births as deaths in Australia. This is due to demographic momentum, a consequence of our relatively young population (thanks to the aftereffects of a very high birthrate in earlier decades plus continuous high immigration). I'm pretty sure this myth of deaths exceeding births is deliberately promoted by the Murdoch mass media, amongst others.
Comments
"Terra Nullius" is still alive in Victoria
Matthew Guy is more than "managing Melbourne's projected population growth". Our government, in lieu of any real productive economy, is inviting people here from interstate and overseas. Once the land is sold and the houses constructed, people will be drawn here. Just what skills are needed in these 6 new suburbs, considering that it's skilled immigration that is the driver of our population growth? Australia has had low fertility rates since the 1970's, so any population growth is not through natural births over deaths.
It's assumed that by just bringing people here means that the economy will create jobs for them! The jobs now are mainly customer service types, selling services and mainly imported goods - adding to our trade deficit. There's little production left compared to what we had in the past.
As for providing "affordable housing", the 100,000 more people in 30 years will ensure housing prices are kept healthy, with all the competition and market forces. A supply of housing less than the demand is the basis of our State's economy, with revenue from stamp duty and land taxes. It's a self perpetuating and self-consuming economy, one that consumes our natural open spaces, parklands, horticultural food bowls, and wildlife grasslands. The concept of Terra Nullius, that land without infrastructure or housing is non-productive and excess, is alive and well today in Victoria's Parliament House.
Already Victoria is in ecological and economic overshoot, and adding more people will exacerbate our tenuous hold on any "sustainability" we have now.
Respect wildlife rights to roam in their home range
"Authorities in Yellowstone National Park have linked a grizzly sow they captured last week to two fatal maulings this summer and killed the bear Sunday, the park announced Monday.
The grizzly's two cubs, which were captured Sept. 29, were placed in a wildlife facility in West Yellowstone, Mont.
Park officials said that adult bears do not adapt well to captivity, whereas cubs may.
Genetic testing indicated that the female bear was responsible for the death of hiker Brian Matayoshi of Torrance on July 6 and that the 250-pound sow was present at the scene of a fatal attack on hiker John Wallace in August.
In the July incident park officials determined that the sow had been defending her cubs when she attacked Matayoshi and his wife on the Wapiti lake Trail. In that case, even if authorities had immediately found the bear they would not have killed it, since it had no history of interaction with humans.
And, even though the grizzly was one of nine bears in the area where Wallace's body was found, Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk said the sow was euthanized to "eliminate the risk of future interaction with Yellowstone visitors and staff."
[Source: 'Yellowstone grizzly bear involved in attacks euthanized', 20111003, Greenspace, Los Angeles Times, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/10/grizzly-attack-yellowstone-national-park-.html]
This is hardly fair on the Grizzly. Tourist and wild animals do not mix. Wild animals in their native habitat have habitat rights that morally take precedent over human leisure. Humans have a choice where they roam - wildlife no longer does. Ban uncontrolled tourism where dingos have native habitat!
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria
Australia
Dingoes are wildlife, and children don't mix
I wrote before that the accusations against dingoes "slurred the reputation of our native dogs as dangerous, a threatening animal and vicious". The case should have been closed very quickly, with the obvious conclusion that a wild dingo or hybrid took the baby. However, governments didn't want responsibility for any legal action against them for failing in their duty of care to tourists.
Dingoes are not "bad" or vicious animals, by nature, but they are wild animals. As such, children need to be supervised around them, and cross-breeding avoided. There should have been warning signs, but where there?
The coroner reasonably says that various wildlife and park management authorities around Australia are responsible for balancing the needs of visitors and wildlife.
Jennifer Parkhurst says; "this is a fair statement, and we can take note of similarities in the circumstances of both the Clinton Gage case and that of Azaria Chamberlain, suggesting the management of dingoes by parks authorities may have been a factor in both cases".
However, Clinton Gage was harassing the hungry animals, and obviously hungry animals saw a new-born baby as simply an easy meal!
Lindy Chamberlain saw a dingo leave the tent, and saw dog paw marks on the blanket inside. She gave the evidence to the police, who washed it!
The lack of management, and warnings, meant the NT government had to deflect responsibility away from them, the the alternative theories of what happened are far more media-sensational than the basic, simple truth!
Dingoes are not dangerous, threatening or vicious, but excessive and cruel Fraser Island dingo management policies are justifying it by evidence from this case.
Why let facts spoil a good story?
New! Dingo hair expert response to Coroner's Azaria decision
Why did it take so long to finally admit that a dingo took the baby Azaria? This result was obvious to me right from the start. Mrs. Chamberlain would have had to be twice as clever as Houdini to accomplish what she was accused of. I thought that it was over and done with after I identified Dog (Dingo) hairs found on the jump suit and singlet. But no, the 'power to be' did not like to admit that Dingoes can be a danger to children as this could have badly affected tourism. A lot of the scientific evidence given was scandalous and perverted and left the door wide open for a conviction. We can't blame the judges when they were fed with lies.
But now I am elated that the truth has finally been accepted.
Hans Brunner (Verified - but I can't seem to alter this field - Ed. Candobetter.net )
Ed. I think Hans means "powers that be" not 'power to be'.
RSPCA compromising their integrity
The kangaroos are "over-abundant"! That's the reason they must be managed, to protect other native species of flora and fauna. Just how is "over-abundant" measured? It can't be as it's a subjective, qualitative word. Just how do they measure their "over grazing" or any threats to other species? Kangaroos are soft-footed native animals, and have co existed and co evolved with other native species for millions of years. It assumes that human "management" is better than Nature's.
The kangaroos must be "culled" because when Summer comes, they will starve and it's better to preempt their deaths now than wait for then. The last major kangaroo massacre was because the animals were "starving" (when they weren't) so they had to be shot for their own good. Long grass, short grass, the "cull" is for their own benefit because of their high reproductive rate!
I suspect it has no ecological foundation. Without wildlife corridors, and wildlife over passes and under passes so the animals can avoid the busy roads of Canberra's burgeoning human population and urban sprawl, it's easier to use bullets! The RSPCA are compromising their integrity and public image by supporting these massacres.
NO HUNTING RALLY - Thursday 14 June 10AM NSW PARLIAMENT HOUSE
This Thursday at 11.00AM, NSW Parliament House. Please, come to support the wildlife and rangers and your PARKS!
Glad Lindy finally exonerated, don't find dingo 'slurred'
I would like to say publicly that I am very glad for Lindy Chamberlain and hope that she somehow can live well and flourish despite what she has had to go through. I feel that she suffered by a society where the institutions are dominated by people with low intelligence and poor imagination.
I don't see the finding as a slur on dingoes. (However I have not read the details).
We live in a world where all populations (human and other) are increasingly disorganised and therefore unpredictable to each other.
Our relations with other populations are haphazard, often exploitative, frequently cruel.
Getting food when your environment is in flux must encourage new adaptations, opportunistic feeding.
In a stable ecology animals, including people, follow predictable pathways and know the locals of all species.
Our species is very out of whack in Australia. There are so many examples of this - from the attacks on migratory kangaroos in the ACT after running cattle in national parks then blaming roos for loss of native plants etc.; the unaccountable facial cancers in Tasmanian Devils; the rabbit plagues; the hendra virus response to destroying bat habitat... The evolution of the epidemiology of humans over many centuries shows how blind we are to our impact. Virolution, about which I have spoken before, shows how disturbance of habitat and local populations even causes immunological havoc at a cellular level.
Hans Brunner, an Australian ecologist, was the expert that validated the dingo hair correctly as 'dog hair' at the Appeal some years ago. He is very committed to helping Australian wildlife, but he expressed to me much sympathy for the Chamberlains and what they went through. As far as I know the Chamberlains were not anti-wildlife. I feel that Mrs Chamberlain went through a nightmare for which she had no responsibility at all. The dingo, or half-breed, also had no responsibility in any 'moral' sense.
The way the whole thing has dragged out is a testimony to the deep disorder of our society. Which has since got worse. And will deepen.
The decision to attribute Azaria's death to a dingo sounds to me a good one. (But, as I said, I have not seen the details.)
Vote now on Rosebud pool project
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/council-set-to-vote-on-controversial-rosebud-pool-project-20120611-2064o.html
See this Age article of today and think that this could change how planning is done on the whole coast, as this sets a precedent.
If you are involved with the coast or the peninsula do contact your local councillor and urge them to vote against it. The residents say there is an excellent place to put it back from the water front. Why should a pool be on the waterfront anyway? It can be anywhere.
"Dingo" took Azaria Chamberlain - it's official
A DINGO was responsible for the death of Azaria Chamberlain in 1980, a Northern Territory coroner has found.
After 32 years, it's now official! The whole long and painful saga for the Chamberlains can be put to rest. It sold a lot of papers, got a lot of tongues wagging, caused a lot of political debate and consumed the time and expense of a lot of legal experts. Lindy Chamberlain spent 3 years in prison, and their marriage broke under the strain. It slurred the reputation of our native dogs as dangerous, a threatening animal and vicious.
However, the reality is that the "dingo" could have easily been a wild dog or a dingo hybrid, known to be more aggressive than pure dingoes. Predatory animals, like the laws of Nature, have no special rules, or values or consideration for humans. A small baby would have simply been a meal, an "animal" to prey on.
How many indigenous babies and small children would have been consumed by dingoes if this was part of their history? There's no folklore known of to support this type of aggression by pure dingoes.
Letter in The Age - bloodthirsty Obama not worthy!
THE call by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay for an investigation into the legality of the US drone strikes is long overdue (''UN official urges Pakistan to query legality of drones'', The Saturday Age, 9/6). The drone strikes expose the evil, bloodthirsty side of President Barack Obama, who promised an end to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a just solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict and the building up of a peaceful world.
The Nobel peace prize was awarded to President Obama not for what he had done, but for his promises for peace. He betrayed his supporters in the United States and all around the world who longed for peace after years of bloodshed and misery. He has proven himself to be unworthy of this noble prize.
Bill Mathew, Parkville
Read more: Age Letters page of 12 June 2012.
When US President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, it was in recognition “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.
Contrary to his campaign promises, Obama has left most of the foundations of Bush's counterterrorism approach intact. While the language of the "war on terror" has been dropped, the mindset of the Bush approach – that America is forever at war, constantly on the offensive to kill "bad guys". President Obama has become personally involved in an elaborate internal process by which his administration decides who will be the next victim of America's drone strikes. The Oval Office normalized extrajudicial killing – as well as the dramatic escalation in drone strikes, which have now killed at least 2,400 people in Pakistan alone, since 2004 – represents a betrayal of President Obama's promise to make counterterrorism policies consistent with the US constitution.
Obama has opted for this quieter, less messy kind of war – the remote-controlled wars of the drone in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and even Libya last year. Obama acquiesced to an ever-expanding war zone by Predator drone, a remotely controlled, unmanned plane that hovers, undetected, two miles or so above the ground and then strikes with like an assassin in a darkened room.
Yet even as most Obama Administration officials are insistent that they can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a drone program, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA, has acknowledged its existence on numerous occasions.
The notion that the United States government should wage ongoing war in multiple countries while keeping it secret from its own citizens is noxious.
Quebec by-elections in LaFontaine and Argenteuil ridings
The following was posted in response to the article Quebec: Making War on Our Children on the web site entitles A Socialist in Canada. It is still awaiting approval.
Update, 13 Jun 12: Comment is still "awaiting approval".
I am also interested to know the outcome of the elections that were held on Monday in the Quebec ridings of LaFontaine and Argenteuil.
It would have been a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate to the world the illegitimacy of the current Quebec Liberal Party dictatorship which only secured 33% of the votes in 2008 (See also Wikipedia article on 2008 Quebec elections.)
By-elections to be held in Quebec on Monday
The following was posted in response to the article A night of protest and chaos as Montreal hosts F1 auto race of 9 June on the web site entitled A Socialist in Canada. It is still awaiting approval. Update, 13 Jun 12: Comment is still "awaiting approval".
If there was a fair electoral system in Quebec, it should be possible to translate popular rejection of austerity and the globalisation of Quebec’s tertiary eduction system into a parliamentary majority. Unfortunately, Quebec’s “first-past-the-post” system is not a fair system as you have pointed out.
Part of the struggle by students and their supporters should be:
1. A demand for a fairer electoral system, namely preferential voting[1]; and
2. Rejection of unfair parliamentary majorities resulting from
“first-past-the-post”.
More effective use of the Internet with bi-lingual web-sites and open discussion could help overcome the bias of the news media against students and their supporters.
Footnote(s)
[1] It is known here in Australia as “preferential voting”. In the U.S it is known as or “instant-runoff” voting. By the way, “instant-runoff” would have prevented George Bush’s election in 2000
Will Australia impose sanctions against Quebec dictatorship?
This question below was posted to ABC Television's Q and A website to be put to Prime Minister Julia Gillard tonight.
The ruling Liberal party of Quebec, which is attempting to impose University fees against popular protests, only received 33% of the vote in the 2008 provincial elections five years ago. It was only able to hold onto power because of the undemocratic first-past-the-post system.
Assad got a much higher vote in elections that were held in Syria this year in spite of Syrians being threatened with death by insurgents if they voted.
Why won't your government impose sanctions against Quebec?
Leave the Feral Animal Control to the Professionals
We operate a professional goat mustering business that provides a contracted professional service to some NSW National Parks mentioned on the list of National Parks and Reserve areas Barry O'Farrell has decided to open up to Sporting Shooters. This decision is bad at every level. How is this decision going to benefit NPWS? Answer it is not! No matter what spin can be written or said. There is no way volunteer hunters can be policed and there is no way they should be trusted. Each Park and Reserve area covers hundreds of acres and when no one is watching people with guns and pig dogs can do what they like. What will happen if someone gets shot? What is going to happen when we are conducting mustering activities and come across a shooter that does not see us, or we don't see them? Is Barry O'Farrell going to be responsible for closing existing control measures that actually work to focus on keeping the Shooters Party happy? If so he must understand this decision is going to effect jobs - ours, truck drivers, meat processors, park staff, yards men.... We pay a royalty to the OEH from our Goat Sales and this should be used to aid our consulted feral goat management program. We make money for Parks - How are the volunteer shooters going to do this? Answer they won't - they will only cost, cost, cost! and with no real positive results. Leave the Feral Animal Control to the Professionals.
Can Barry O'Farrell or the Shooters Party exclude shooting goats as they are a valuable commodity? - in fact they are the most consumed meat in the world and Australia exports most of what it produces. Our business supplies goats for this export market and the cost of this ill considered decision is going to traumatise and damage an industry that works to provide food for the world and turn a pest animal into a viable commodity. Goats have provided a valuable income for people in the Western Districts keeping some pastoralists afloat during the drought. Feral Goats should not be allowed to be shot by volunteer shooters and should be excluded for this reason. We already have goats controlled in the parks which we operate on and don't need way ward hunters coming along and stirring everything up. All they will do is cause the goats to move to another area and return when they are gone. Not helping the cause at all. Goats are very smart animals and I don't agree that this decision will have any real measured benefits.
Hunters are going to create a lot of extra work both in the field and in the office. Park Staff do not need this extra work. Is there a budget for this to work appropriately? If so I feel this money could be better spent on aiding our existing program - provided experts like us are consulted to help direct funds to be used appropriately. Allowing Recreational Shooters to come onto NP and Reserve areas is going against the reasons why we have them - to protect native species. Can someone out there help us? Can we get this ill considered idea and political back flip stopped? Please help to stop this!
Gennie-Anne Woodall
Director
Simwood Holdings Pty Ltd
Bollon QLD
Lost pond
If you are destroying something and do not do it completely, maybe it creates greater cognitive dissonance than does totally annihilating it.
On the way to the local park I used to pass 2 of the most beautiful Grevillea Robin Gordon native flowering trees which were always well attended by nectar gathering wattle birds. I always admired them on my way past until one day I found that they had gone. I was devastated! How could anyone do this? The small trees were on either side of someone's front gate on the outside of the fence - but most probably belonging to that property. Eventually an array of purple daisies, of no interest to wattle birds took their place.
I used to enjoy walking along a mysterious bushy track on the Melbourne suburban foreshore. On my last walk I noticed that something was alarmingly wrong. It had all been clipped and cleared. What had been a winding tunnel of bushes with intermittent glimpses of the sea was now a wide clear straight path. Once again I was devastated! My access to nature and escape from the grinding, throbbing ballooning city had been further reduced. I contacted the council to let them know of my anguish and was told by the relevant officer that for every complaint like mine , the council received 10 asking for the path to be cleared. It is most likely that the people who asked for the path to be cleared are the same people who want the foreshore vegetation removed and replaced by lawn so that their houses opposite are afforded "uninterrupted" sea views. A great way to advertise a house for sale!
Even though I did not know your pond, Tim, I feel sad that is has gone. If it were the only pond to disappear maybe we could live with that , but it is part of a terrible process, unfortunately.
Bricks & mortar don't normally explode after 30 minutes of fire
I don't agree with the "mortar exploding" argument. As a son of a brick layer I know a brick wall can sustain very high temperatures. A brick fire place for instance sustains very high temperatures for hours let alone the 15 to 30 minutes of the initial passing of the fire front. Most destroyed brick houses are caused by the fire burning the internal structure of the house first. In a bush fire this is caused by embers gaining access. I do agree with Peter with building materials, the house only needs to resist the extreme heat for no longer than 30 minutes.
Requiem for a pond
My condolences, Tim.
Rubbery and permeable concept of sovereignty is to be feared
According to Wikipedia, Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange."
"Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways involving the relations and perceptions of an ingroup towards an outgroup, including a fear of losing identity, suspicion of its activities, aggression, and desire to eliminate its presence to secure a presumed purity".
It's actually a rational fear when it comes to Australia losing control of our territories, our food security, and our sovereignty. Our government has a rubbery, loose and permeable concept of Australia as a nation.
With more than one in four of it's about 856 million people undernourished, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the most food insecure region in the world today, this is according to a report launched on 15th of May 2012 by the United Nations Development fund UNDP.
"The greatest threat to food security is climate change," the Asian Development Bank said in a 45-page report, ‘Food Security and Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: Key Challenges and Policy Issues’, released late last month. The report’s findings ring especially true in Sri Lanka, where experts are increasingly expressing concerns about the twin crises of food security and global warming.
With more than one in four of it's about 856 million people undernourished, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the most food insecure region in the world today, this is according to a report launched on 15th of May 2012 by the United Nations Development fund UNDP.
Around 1800, demographer Thomas Robert Malthus warned that food supplies wouldn’t be able to keep pace with growing numbers of people. And he predicted that at a certain threshold—which he set at ONE billion—there would be massive disease outbreaks, famine, and a crash in human numbers.
Jonathan Foley, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. “Humans aren’t exempt from Malthus’s observations. We just postponed it again and again and again through innovation.”
Foley says the industrial revolution, the green revolution and other new technologies boosted agricultural productivity far beyond what Malthus predicted.
“But at the end of the day, Malthus’s ghost is still lurking above us,” he adds.
Wilderness Society northern Australia campaigner Gavan McFadzean said northern Australia could not hold the large-scale agriculture that would transform it into a "food bowl" for China. "Australia now feeds 60 million people, so whatever way you cut it that insignificant increase in farmland still leaves a hell of a lot of China's more than 1 billion people with little in their food bowl," he said.
Australia has ancient, poor quality and infertile soils. Do the Chinese think they can simply add water? What will they use for fertilizers?
However, while we have farmers warning us not to be complacent about Australia's food security, and the real threats to our food bowls, any foreign land grab must be questioned, and feared. There's no point to even massive economic growth and a big GDP if it means we must rely on imported food, and our sovereignty and identity as a nation is weakened. The economy is suppose to provide food, shelter and all the goods and services as our servant, not master over us and justify losing valuable land for overseas buyers, to our detriment.
Dr Mary White, scientist, in her address to the Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population (now SPA) on 3/3/95, stated:
* Whole civilizations (in the Mediterranean region and the Aztecs for instance) disappeared when their soils became saline.
* A great deal of Australia's soil had blown or washed away.
* We are running out of the means to grow food. Soil is a finite resource.
* It is possible that in 50 years, the Murray Basin, Australia's main breadbasket, will be a salt desert.
We are already too numerous for our country to support indefinitely. Only 6% of the Australian continent is arable. Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world.
In this sense we are only a small country.
There's a suspicious undercurrent for the reasons for these foreign land grabs, and the free-trade with Australia has become actually about consuming Australia!
Torturing animals a red flag
"How many criminals start their careers torturing animals? Acts of violence towards animals are symptomatic of a deep mental disturbance. Research in psychology and criminology shows that people who commit acts of cruelty to animals don’t stop there—many of them move on to their fellow humans. There are numerous examples of such evidence from the childhoods of well-known serial killers."
That is exactly right.
This week a Professor of Criminology at Simon Fraser University (near Vancouver) was asked about the news that a man arrested for murdering a student and mailing his body parts to various Canadian locations was found to have tortured cats in his youth. He responded that a great many convicted sociopaths were found to have tortured animals in their youth. Cruelty to animals is not only despicable, but a harbinger of what may later be the fate of human victims that such sadists will choose. It is interesting that typically such people are said to have behaved like "animals", but the truth is, such conduct seems to be the exclusive trademark of human animals. How many wild creatures inflict pain for the mere pleasure of it?
Tim
Dr Emerson - "Back to the 1950s"? We had cheap food then!
Australia may have the lowest density of population with regard to the size of our land, but it's dangerously deceptive to base food security on this. A large proportion of Australia is desert or bushy scrub, but with infertile ancient soils, very hot and irregular water supplies.
We only have a little over 6% arable land, and these areas are desirable real estate locations. If food security hasn't been a priority over the last 200 years, it's because we had a small population and thus cheap food. Global and Australian populations are growth, and we should be wary of foreign investment or "land grabs".
"Put the walls up... back to the 1950s that's what you get with Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott," Dr Emerson told the ABC.
Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce has raised questions about whether Dr Emerson is favouring a Chinese bid to take over the Ord River irrigation scheme in the West Australian Kimberley region because his former boss Bob Hawke is reportedly representing Chinese firm Shanghai Zhongfu.
Foreign powerful nations, all roaming the planet to secure their own food and energy supplies, will prey on corrupt nations or those with loose borders and those with flexible "free trade" open policies like in Australia. Is it "white guilt" that is making some of our politicians feel that we have an obligation to "help" other countries ensure their food security - even to our own detriment?
The Nationals Senator, Barnaby Joyce, who has pushed for tougher restrictions on foreign ownership of land - a move seen as breaking ranks with the Liberals - said it was a worry for urban as well as regional Australians.
Regional Development Minister Simon Crean said Australia was open to foreign investors and could be a "big contributor to the world's food security". However, we could contribute to world food supplies without actually selling the land!
On the contrary, it's hardly a retrograde step to focus on food security, and it is not simply a political issue. It's vital to our future, and owning our land - the driest continent on the planet- is essential.
Selling off land to foreign investors is like selling the family farm to cover cash-flow shortages but losing the main capital asset - the land!
Rather than the 1950s being a step "back", we were actually prosperous then. After decades of suffering through the Great Depression and World War II, the 1950s were vibrant years for Australians. Employment was high, housing and food were cheap, and people were encouraged to spend their money freely. We had a strong identity as a growing nation.
Senator Barnaby Joyce is right. Securing our land for the future, and ensuring it stays in Australian hands so we have control of our food chains, is not "xenophobia" but simple, and plain, common-sense.
A better future for Australian agriculture would be to sell produce to a growing world population, not sell off our farms, factories, water and ports to foreign interests.
Kangaroo Killer Nigel Franks
It appears that the disgusting and cruel treatment of Kangaroos is not considered serious by Judges and Magistrates, let alone Politicians. What is wrong with the Justice system, Nigel Franks is a disgrace showing no remorse for his shocking crime and is set free to continue killing and maiming Wildlife with a pitiful penalty.
Logging Victoria's central Highlands - email to Tony Burke
Dear Minister Tony Burke
I am concerned that VicForests sent bulldozers in to Mt St Leonard last week, one of the most controversial logging locations of recent years.
Local business operator Toby Eccles said. “These forests in Toolangi were untouched by the terrible fire in 2009, and they are now a sanctuary for endangered wildlife. It is abominable that the Baillieu government is now choosing to destroy them.."
These forests remain an island in a sea of burned forests and provide a safeguard for Victoria’s wildlife.
Fifty per cent of the habitat of Victoria’s faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s Possum, was burned in the fire and it is now estimated only a few hundred possums remain in the wild. Why is this allowed to go ahead, and logging exempted from any policies to protect endangered species - when it's what is actually threatening them?
VicForests’ should pull out of native forests and to move the logging and woodchipping into plantations. Why isn't Premier Baillieu accountable to public pressure and legislation to protect even Victoria's fauna emblem, the Leadbeater's Possum? Just how valuable short-term benefits - jobs and profits from woodchips - have become? The will deprive our environment, local communities, and future generations of the beauty of this area of old growth forests and the native species that we thought were once already extinct.
If our Leadbeater's Possums are gone, forever, just how is this logging "sustainable" -as VicForests spin claims? According to a study by the ANU the forests of the central highlands have the world's highest known total biomass carbon density of 1,867 tonnes carbon per ha. Since the Black Saturday fires only 1% of remnant old-growth forest remains in Victoria. Tall eucalypt old growth forest is less fire prone than young regenerating stands. A combination of declining rainfall and extensive areas of regrowth in the central highlands of Victoria means that there is a risk of fundamental landscape change in this region whereby an increased fire frequency will favour faster maturing eucalypts and acacias to the detriment of Eucalyptus regnans and other mesic forest species (Lindenmayer et al., 2011). His research cannot be ignored or dismissed. His recent paper describes how the value of remaining unburned forests after the 2009 fires has increased substantially for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Large areas of unburnt forests need to be retained. Jobs and economic benefits in a free market economy cannot always justify environmental destruction. VicForests (ie State government) is to trying to say - "how dare environmentalists object and take us to court..." So they more aggressively are determined to get rid of the little critters, Leadbeater's Possums, once and for all to teach the public a lesson. No more old-growth forests, no endangered species, no State emblem, so problem solved!
Please do something to stop VicForests log Mt St Leonards, and ask Premier Baillieu to respect the local community, and Victorians, our natural treasures of wildlife and iconic old growth forests.
Is Murdoch being persecuted for having regained his conscience?
When I read Arjay's earlier post on Online Opinion, reprinted below, I responded with this post.
Having just read Arjay's insightful comment at the start of the discussion, it seems possible that Rupert may have found his conscience again after all these years.
So, the overlooking of Rupert Murdoch's earlier crimes against democracy in Australia, the US, the UK and elsewhere, and, instead, focusing on relatively trivial and more recent actions by employees of the Murdoch Press by the Leveson Inquiry may have been no accident.
In truth, as Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker pointed out in "Towers of Deception" of 2007, more harm has been done in recent years to democracy and world peace by phony socialist groups and phony alternative news media than by pro-war corporate newsmedia (wherever the truth about the Murdoch media may lie).
The reason they do more harm is that they are trusted more by knowledgeable people. When lies used to justify war, such as the Official 9/11 conspiracy theory are peddled on their pages, informed and humane people are more likely to believe them.
An example is the ostensibly socialist UK group, Workers' Liberty which supported NATO's illegal war against Libya last year, in which more than 50,000 Libyans died and which is now supporting NATO's attempt to destabilise Syria with terrorist mass killers. See for yourself at http://workerslibety.org/world/syria and http://workersliberty.org/world/libya.
Those interested in knowing the truth about Libya and Syria should compare the lies linked to above with sites like http://globalresearch.ca and http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com
Arjay's Post on Online Opinion
I don't think that the Murdoch phone tapping is all that cut and dry. It was common knowledge that much of press media was involved in phone tapping,so why was Murdoch attacked so?
Fox News was the only mainstream media to host Judge Napolitano and "Freedom Watch". Fox was the only media outlet that put on ads by http://www.ae911truth.org asking for a proper investigation into 911.
Just recently the Napolitano show "Freedom Watch" was ended.I think Murdoch was trying to break from the insanity of this New World Order and he was being made an example of what happens to those who break ranks.
The elites are fighting amongst themselves as their plans for Global dominance are in disarray.
Murdoch's earlier crimes against democracy overlooked
This was posted to an Online Opinion forum in response to an article of 5 June by John Pilger, The Leveson Inquiry: what a lovely game.
It seems as if Rupert Murdoch's earlier crimes against democracy have been largely overlooked. They include his turning on the Labor Government of Gough Whitlam in 1974. Until then, many, including myself, considered the Murdoch press, particularly The Australian newspaper, to be a source of truth and enlightenment.
Suddenly in 1974 -- and I don't recall whether it was before or after the mid-term federal elections -- the Murdoch Press began carrying headline stories which blew up every minor indiscretion of members of the Labor government -- The Jim Cairns/Juni Morosi affair, Rex Connor's ill-advised attempt to raise money through Khemlani for the laudable goal of buying back Australian mineral wealth, etc.
The end result was the CIA engineered dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975, and his defeat in the subsequent election campaign, largely rigged by Murdoch Press disinformation. Since then, a series of Governments, led by people more beholden to vested foreign interests than to Australia, have been elected and entrenched in office with help of the Murdoch press. These include Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard.
Syrian Girl interviewed on Infowars
From Info Wars of 21 May:
Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson is joined by Syrian Girl, an outspoken activist against NATO’s campaign to use Al-Qaeda terrorists as a means of destabilizing the Assad regime. In this interview, Syrian Girl reveals the true intentions behind NATO’s agenda in Syria as well as discussing other topics such as the charge that she is a pro-Assad mouthpiece, women in the truth movement, the Arab Spring and more.
See also: www.youtube.com/SyrianGirlPartisan linked to from Young Syrian patriot fights corporate media lies against her homeland of 10 May and other articles about Syria.
World Environment Day - protect Mt St Leonards Yarra Valley
Tuesday, 5th of June is World Environment Day and the Save Mount St Leonard Community Campaign has agreed to take the message into the city by joining The Wilderness Society's Action in Melbourne's CBD. The idea is to have enough people to link hands all the way around a city block - the equivalent of 10 Blocks are logged every day in Victoria.
The Save Mount St Leonard contingent have decided towear something green. You may also wish to carry or wear a eucalyptus leaf and bring a banner or poster.
We shall all meet at 1:00pm at the corner of Elizabeth and Bourke Streets.
For those travelling in from Lilydale, trains leave at 11:09 (arriving Flinders Street at 12:06) and 11:39 (arriving 12:37).
Weekly Times - protesters blockade Mt St Leonard
RESIDENTS and environmentalists blockaded the Baillieu government's logging of Mt St Leonard in the Yarra Valley this morning.
VicForests sent bulldozers in to Mt St Leonard last week, one of the most controversial logging locations of recent years.
Logging on the side of Mt St Leonard can be viewed from Kinglake and has residents who survived the 2009 fires fuming.
“Premier Baillieu will have to personally come out here and remove us from this site,” local business operator Toby Eccles said.
“These forests in Toolangi were untouched by the terrible fire in 2009, and they are now a sanctuary for endangered wildlife. It is abominable that the Baillieu government is now choosing to destroy them.”
The forests of Toolangi, including Mt St Leonard, were completely surrounded by the 2009 Black Saturday fires, but were spared the blaze.
These forests remain an island in a sea of burned forests and provide a safeguard for Victoria’s wildlife.
Fifty per cent of the habitat of Victoria’s faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s Possum, was burned in the fire and it is now estimated only a few hundred possums remain in the wild.
Residents are angry that the logging is reopening scars that are only beginning to heal from the 2009 fires.
“The logging of Mt St Leonard is not just scarring the landscape, it is psychologically scarring the community,” said Deanne Bail, local resident and tourism operator.
Local tourism operators condemn the logging as it is undermining the future of the region.
“The future of this community is dependent on these forests being protected, not destroyed by logging,” local touist operator Chris Veenhuizen said.
“The logging is making visitors to the areas, including guests of local accommodation, feel uneasy and uncomfortable about exploring the forests and going bushwalking along the National Trail. The logging is ruining the goodwill of our businesses.”
Local residents are calling on Premier Baillieu to pull VicForests’ out of native forests and to move the logging and woodchipping into plantations.
Message from Coalition against Duck Shooting
The recreational shooting of native waterbirds was banned in NSW by Labor Premier Bob Carr in 1995.
But there is disturbing news coming from NSW. The Game Council and Shooters Party of NSW are pushing for a return of a new model of duck and quail shooting - even though the Liberal O'Farrell Government had originally opposed any return of a duck shooting season.
In order to push legislation through to privatise electricity companies, O'Farrell's government needed the Shooters' Party votes in the Upper House. In exchange the Shooters' Party want a return of duck shooting seasons and to be able to shoot introduced species in National Parks.
This poses an enormous problem for tourists and any members of the public wanting to use National Parks. (In late 2010 a school teacher was shot and killed in a Conservation Park in New Zealand, while cleaning her teeth. The shooter claimed he mistook her for a deer. In Victoria some years ago another deer shooter shot a youth who was walking his dog - a similar mistake).
Of course once allowed into National Parks shooters will also be shooting native wildlife.
Please take five minutes to write a letter to the editor, expressing your strong opposition to hunting in national parks.
Key points to consider including in your letter:
- I am dismayed that the Premier has broken his promise on hunting in national parks.
- I am strongly opposed to hunting in national parks, nature reserves and state conservation areas.
- Hunting by recreational shooters in national parks presents very real risks to public safety, and is not a proven method for eradicating feral animals.
The Premier must take urgent action to restore his government's credibility on environmental matters.
Please follow up your letter with an email or letter to the Premier's office:
Premier Barry O'Farrell, GPO Box 5341 , Sydney NSW 2001
Email: [email protected]
Campaign to respect roos in Canberra
Animal Liberation ACT
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Please see Animal Liberation ACT’s latest media release regarding a shot kangaroo found after shooting occurred on Friday morning. See photo attached and please share to your networks.
Shot Kangaroo found after Cull on Nature Reserve
Activists witnessed another night of the kangaroo cull at several Nature Reserves in the early hours of the morning on Friday 1 June 2012. One of the areas where activists reported shooting was Kama Nature Reserve, near Hawker.
Shortly after the shooting had ceased on Kama Nature Reserve, the activists came across a kangaroo body left behind in the Reserve. The kangaroo had only recently died from a very fresh shot wound in the head (see photo attached).
Given that the Government’s contractors had been shooting in the same Nature Reserve that very night, it is difficult not to conclude that the animal had been shot as part of the Government’s cull and left behind to die a slow and painful death. This directly contradicts statements from the Government that each animal shot is accounted for and taken away. Daniel Iglesias, Territory and Municipal Services Parks and Conservation Director, recently stated that shot kangaroos are immediately removed from the area by the contractors. He also stated that they follow “a very, very scripted process whereby when the animal is shot, it's identified, it's retrieved and it's disposed of and we account for every single one, to the point where at the end of the night, there is not one animal left behind.”[1]
Yet according to Animal Liberation ACT spokesperson Carolyn Drew, “Shooting was heard by activists early in the morning on 1 June near where the kangaroo was found. Several ranger trucks were surrounding the area and police were about. This kangaroo is believed to be connected to the cull because he was found at the very nature reserve they were shooting at, which activists later entered. Unless a member of the public entered the nature reserve and shot a kangaroo at the same time the cull was taking place, then this kangaroo is likely to be connected to the so called “humane” government sanctioned cull currently taking place”.
Animal Liberation ACT opposes the ongoing government sanctioned culls. Ms Drew emphasised that “kangaroos are shot at night and far from any welfare inspectors. Shots often do not hit their lawful target, which is the animal’s brain, and young kangaroos die slowly of exposure and starvation without their mothers. Also, joeys are taken from their shot mothers’ pouches and then killed by decapitation. The ACT Government has given no compelling reason or evidence as to why the slaughter needs to continue”.
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Canberra Frontline Action
Animal Liberation ACT would like to thank local and interstate activists for helping with the kangaroo kill campaign this year. The combination of activists have put in a 24 hour patrol of every nature park on the ACT’s kill list and is ready to act at the first sight of shooting. Thanks to Australian Society for Kangaroos, Wildlife Rescuers Victoria, WRES, and many other activists from the ACT, NSW and SA. Because of this support we have been able to stop and interrupt the kangaroo kill for several nights.
A 24 hour patrol of every nature park on the ACT's kill list and is ready to act at the first sigh of shooting. This team is made up of ASK, Animal Liberation ACT, Wildlife Rescuers Victoria, WRES, and many other very dedicated front line activists from the ACT NSW and South Australia.If you would like to help in some way with this please contact Lara on 0402 599 293 or [email protected]
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Lodge your Protest
Remember to lodge your protest against the ACT Government’s ongoing destruction of kangaroos and joeys. Politicians may not always read letters but they do count them. Please write to Katy Gallagher.
ACT Chief Minister- Katy Gallagher
Phone :(02) 6205 0840
Email: [email protected]
Kangaroos easy targets for "managers"
The "human like" size and qualities of fully grown male Eastern Grey kangaroos maybe part of their downfall. They are seen as a threat to the "managers" of the Nature parks, and to residents who are encroaching onto their habitats.
Population growth has placed on Australian capital cities increasingly unmanageable stress. Investment in physical infrastructure, such as transport, water, gas and electricity networks, has not kept pace with population increases.
Canberra's burgeoning population growth, due to politically-engineered policies, means housing is spreading out to grasslands of native species. Without wildlife corridors, there are road accidents and collisions, and kangaroos are being blamed.
The United Nations estimates the planet's agricultural output will need to increase by 70 per cent by 2050 in order to feed the world's population. With food security stresses, kangaroos are seen as eating grass, on land that could be feeding livestock, providing food for people!
The limited "nature" parks for endangered species means kangaroos must be the scapegoats for the threats to long-term survival, not developers or the human population.
The competition for natural resources is heating up, and thus kangaroos - who live gently and in harmony with their grasslands and bushlands - are easy targets for reprisals. They are too "Australian", while our population continues to be "diverse". They are a afront to modern values of Australia as a globalized economy, a "big Australia" and an overpopulated planet.
Humble, gentle creatures make easy scapegoats, easy targets for human violence and an outlet to justify Government departments environmental "management".
The animals on our Coat of Arms are being massacred, ironically, in our "bush" Capital Canberra. It's a destruction of our national symbol and these photos should be front-page pictures in the international media. With live exports, Australia is not the "clever" country any more but more and more famous for extinctions and cruelty.
Citing Godwin's Law
Citing Godwin’s Law www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6408927/Internet-rules-and-laws-the-top-10-from-Godwin-to-Poe.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
The cause is now lost.
Thanks so much Sheila
WA Independent opposes foreign buyout of Australian rural land
Western Australian Community Independent, Mark M Aldridge has recently posted a page on his web-site, www.markmaldridge.com, Australia -- Not For Sale on that page is a link to a petition opposed to the sellout of Australian rural land. Please sign.
The article begins:
The world’s population set to hit 7 billion later this year?and predicted to hit 10 billion by the end of the century, food production and?top quality agricultural land has never been a more valuable asset for any countries long term future.
From many different countries in particular those with limited ability to feed their population, government-backed companies have begun buying up farmland around the world, with Australia’s vast tracts of top quality primary production land a prime target. Qatar-based “Hassad Foods” has been a major player in the big local farmland buy-up, the company has invested more than $60 million in prime Australian sheep grazing land in the past year, with more properties in the company’s sights.
The Weekly Times reported Hassad were poised to snap up a further 8500 hectares of land in Victoria’s western district in a deal worth $35 million?—?about 20% above market price.
China state-owned conglomerate “Bright Foods” has also been desperately looking to acquire local agribusinesses because of the federal governments ideals making it easy for overseas investors. The Shanghai-controlled company have reported to be interested in Foster’s wine division, while last year they made a failed $1.7 billion tilt for sugar producer CSR. The company has also managed to get the backing of the NSW government to explore local wine, diary and sugar investment opportunities.
In the south-east of Australia, Brazilian beef giant JBS has been busy buying up abattoirs and meatworks, while Singapore-based “Olam International” now control almost 45% of Australian almonds,?thanks to its purchase of “Timbercorp” and its 8096-hectare plant. Ausbuy CEO Lynne Wilkinson made it clear the issue of food security is paramount to the rest of the world and should also be just as important to Australia.
Lynne also went on to say there have been many recent instances, including the sale of over 100,000 hectares of farmland in Western Australia to the Arab States, which show the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and the ACCC are not looking after Australia’s long term security interests....
Mark is also a wildlife carer. The facebook Page for his Willow Bank Wildlife sanctuary is here.
Mass rallies grip Montreal as tuition talks fail
From Russia Today of 2 June
Thousands of Canadians marched in Montreal despite rainy weather. The peaceful protest against tuition hikes kicked off in the province of Quebec after talks between students and the local government failed. ...
Up to 7,000 students, their parents and supporters were marching by mid-afternoon on Saturday according to CLASSE – the largest and most militant of the student groups behind the protests. Some wore costumes and played music.
Syria Regime Change On Bilderberg Agenda
Pro-NATO intervention SNC head in attendance at elite confab
From Global Research:
The presence of Syrian National Transitional Council head Bassma Kodmani at the 2012 Bilderberg conference clearly indicates that power brokers at the elite confab will be discussing the effort to topple President Bashar Al-Assad and install a NATO-friendly administration in the violence-stricken country.
Kodmani is the Head of Foreign Affairs with the SNC, a coalition of Syrian opposition groups based in Istanbul, Turkey. While at the Bilderberg meeting she will be in the company of the likes of former Secretary of State and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger, warhawk Richard Perle, and Thomas E. Donilon, National Security Advisor for the Obama White House.
Having overseen numerous wars during his tenure in the White House, Kissinger is a staunch advocate of so-called “humanitarian” interventions. Before last year’s toppling of Colonel Gaddafi, he advocated a U.S. ground invasion of Libya.
During last year’s Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz, Switzerland, members discussed expanding the war in Libya. Four months later, Gaddafi was killed and the country was under the control of NATO-backed rebels and the National Transitional Council of Libya. ...
Robert Francis Kennedy was a wonderful asset to humankind
Thanks for that.
This further enhances the admiration I have long had for both Robert Francis Kennedy (RFK) and his elder brother. They were both truly selfless, courageous and intelligent individuals. Both had the moral fortitude that drove them to turn on even those that less honourable politicians in their shoes would have felt indebted to, namely the gangsters that had helped get John F Kennedy elected in 1960. There had to have been ballot rigging on Nixon's side as well as JFK's in the 1960 presidential ballot, Otherwise, why didn't Nixon take his complaints further? On JFK's side it was organised on his behalf by his father, whilst he kept arm's length from it. Without that, he would have lost instead of winning narrowly.
Robert Kennedy and his brother could have chosen to feel indebted to those gangsters. Instead Robert, as Attorney General, launched the most effective campaign of prosecutions against criminals in the history of the US. It was as if JFK and RFK particularly felt the necessity to demonstrate that they would not be beholden to the corrupt influence of anybody.
However, I have one small concern about Robert Kennedy. In one sense of which I am aware, he did not provide a good example to the world. He had 11 children, which hardly sets a good example to a world with a population increasing as rapidly as it was in the 1960's. Still, I think given what he, Robert and Edward achieved (and what JFK junior might have achieved had he not been killed in that air crash of 1999), a few more Kennedys in the world today would easily do far more good than any harm caused by their increased ecological footprint.
Senator Robert Kennedy spoke of the end of the growth
It's time to end the Ponzi-economic growth scheme. Our planet is under stress from declines, destruction, species losses and overpopulation. In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill wrote ‘Of the Stationary State’ of a post-growth economy. Thomas Malthus was writing on the relationship between exponential population growth and food supply in the 17th and 18th century. The present "food security" issues are all revealing the truth of Malthus' predictions. Post growth thinking was even around as far back as Aristotle’s time.
On 18 March 1968, RFK directly challenged growth and the use of GDP as a barometer of success for nations in his University of Kansas speech.
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
A free-market growth economy has no parameters for the natural environment, ecological soundness, the wealth and well-being of individuals, of intrinsic values, of non-human species with no commercial value, or future generations. It's about profits, cash-flows, one global planet or market territory and devalues anything that makes our lives worthwhile.
Evidence of Houla massacre lies on Al Jazeera
Also embedded on SydWalker.info
The above Youtube video, adapted from an Al-Jazeera broadcast, which attempted to blame the Assad goverment for the Houla massacre, reveals the claims made on that broadcast to be lies. As examples:
1. Why are there no bodies of the children's parents lying amongst the dead children?
2. Why, if the homes were shelled by Syrian government artillery and tanks, is there no dust or other debris over the dead children?
Campbell Newman, not Sheila Newman (she is the good guy)
That's Campbell Newman you're talking about, of course, not Sheila Newman.
I seem to be the only good Newman around in land-use planning in this country. If there are any other Newmans who are counter-growth lobbyists, we should have a reunion and form a solidarity.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Petition to cut out useless letters from words
This was from Valerie Yule:
Petition to spellcheckers, press and public – a trial of help to readers and spellers
Sign the Petition if u agree with it! Tell your friends. It's at www.change.org/petitions/spellcheckers-the-press-the-public-trial-cutting-out-useless-letters-from-words
Look up my web pages home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spelling.htm Spelling and how it could be changed. home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spellresearch.htm.
We hav been doing this for many words - like oeconomy to economy, and daemon to demon - but spellcheckers ar stopping progress. Why not gardian, garantee, and probabl, for exampl home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/intspel.htm?
And for fun - download as a pdf the Book of Spells & Misspells - home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spmisspells.htm.
And 2011, Yule, Valerie 'Recent developments which affect spelling. On the possibility of removing the unnecessary difficulties in English spelling, while leaving the basic appearance of English print intact.' English Today, 107, vol 27, No 3. Sept 2011, pp 62-67 journals.cambridge.org/repo_A839oLF6.
Val Yule
Dr Valerie Yule, M.A., Ph.D, Dip.Ed., M.B.Ps.S. Academic positions at Melbourne, Monash and Aberdeen Universities in departments of Psychology and Education; Teacher at all levels, from preschool to adult and migrant literacy and PhD supervision; Clinical child psychologist at the Royal Children’s Hospitals, Melbourne and Aberdeen; Schools psychologist chiefly but not only in disadvantaged schools, Present research on imagination and literacy.
Warnings on the Great Barrier Reef - to be ignored by Newman
The UN warns that if action is not taken to protect the Great Barrier Reef its World Heritage status could be threatened.
The UN's environment organisation, UNESCO, released a report yesterday that said further development of the reef could threaten its World Heritage status.
THE Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, will not stop development in and around the Great Barrier Reef. Mr Newman said: ''We are not going to see the economic future of Queensland shut down.''
Obviously, the "economic future" of Queensland is not built on principles of sustainability. A growth-based free market economy has no respect for environmental natural treasures, or World Heritage listings.
Modern humans have been on the planet for 200,000 years, but present politicians, governments and economists are ensuring that they won't be around for the next 200,000 years, at the rate of economic and population growth of this generation!
Halting port and infrastructure development connected to the coal and liquified natural gas industry " is not an option". His contribution to Australia's economy will be at great expense, and the inevitable destruction should be included on his tombstone as his "patriotic" contribution to Australia. He will be party to humans wrecking their own nests.
A destructive "free range" economy has no respect for Nature, of the natural jewels inherited by our for fathers and the indigenous peoples of Australia.
"We are in the coal business. If you want decent hospitals, schools and police on the beat we all need to understand that." he says.
It's past the era of growth, and now time for refinement and improvements.
Dead turtles, diseased fish and sediment loads that trigger the cessation of dredging surely are matters of concern from coal mining. Development in Gladstone Harbour is to enable liquefaction of CSG and the transfer of LNG to large vessels, whose access to the LNG plants requires a large dredging program that will continue until 2015, with maintenance dredging thereafter.
An economy based on perpetual economic growth means that "red tape", how environmental protection is threatening "developments", will ultimately consume and destroy even iconic world heritage marine treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef. At what cost?
Sign the petition for Greenpeace
NATO death squads in Syria destabilizing the country
The residents of Houla have stated that the people who carried out the massacre in Houla were the opponents of Assad, in other words, the CIA's death squads. It was only a matter of time before NATO’s hired killers were tasked with carrying out a massacre in Syria that NATO stooges at the UN could then attempt to blame on the Syrian government.
Back in 2010, four US soldiers killed unarmed civilians in Kandahar. They were found guilty of forming a "kill team" that murdered Afghan civilians for sport.
On 11 March 2012, a GROUP of American soldiers murdered 16 civilians, including nine children, in southern Kandahar province in Afghanistan.
John Negroponte, who was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, was instrumental in supporting and overseeing the Nicaraguan Contra killers who, although based in Honduras, engaged in horrific acts of terrorism inside Nicaragua. Ultimately, this operation claimed the lives of approximately 50,000 innocent civilians.
The mainstream media refuses to address the issue in any manner other than direct obfuscation.
Since early last year, US, UK and perhaps other NATO and regional special forces operated in Syria. So have CIA and MI6 agents. Israel is also involved. So are other regional states. It replicates the Libya model. Heavy arms reach Syrian insurgents regularly. Women, children and the elderly are targeted. Kofi Annan's sham peace plan was cover to permit it.
Foreign terrorists and criminal Syrian elements that are being backed by Anglo-American and pro-NATO governments and intelligence agencies. It is now widely apparent that al-Qaeda is nothing more than the United States’ Arab legion.
A divided opposition is obviously much easier to defeat than a united one. This theory has been proven accurate time and time again.
Robert Ford's (who, at the time, had been appointed political counselor to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad) very presence in Syria was nothing more than a destabilization tactic. He has drawn quite a bit of international attention to himself by traveling across the country in 2011, “meeting with protestors” (read: instigating terrorism) and turning terrorists into martyrs in the minds of the Western public.
UN Security Council ‘ambassadors’ from the UK, Germany, France and Azerbaijan wasted no time in pointing the finger at the Syrian government.
It has already been well and officially documented that there are hundreds of US, Israeli and British-backed mercenaries operating in Syria and armed with American weapons.
Report confirms Houla massacre victims supporters of Assad
I just received the following in an e-mail from Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research. They have posted here the text of the article by Russian journalist Marat Musin. Chossudevsky wites:
This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media.
The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts. Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists integrated by professional mercenaries were not pro-government militia as conveyed in chorus by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA):
"When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children.
Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the Abdul Razak.
The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something
that was not verified by any marks on their bodies."
We call on our readers to forward this report far and wide. The massacre in Houla is being blamed on the Syrian government without a shred of evidence. The objective is not only to isolate Syria but to develop a pretext and a justification for waging an R2P humanitarian war on Syria.
It is essential to reverse the tide of war propaganda which uses civilian deaths as a pretext to wage war, when those civilians deaths were carried out not by the government but by professional terrorists operating under the helm of the US-NATO supported Free Syrian Army.
Houla: Opposition Terrorists Killed Families Loyal to the Govt.
THE HOULA MASSACRE: Opposition Terrorists "Killed Families Loyal to the Government"
Detailed Investigation
By Marat Musin
Global Research, June 1, 2012
ANNA NEWS (Original Russian) and syrianews.cc
URL of this article: ww.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31184
Global Research Editor's Note
This incisive report by independent Russian journalist Marat Musin dispels the lies and fabrications of the Western media.
The report is based on a chronology of events as well as eyewitness accounts. Entire pro-government families in Houla were massacred. The terrorists integrated by professional mercenaries were not pro-government militia as conveyed in chorus by the mainstream media, they were in large part mercenaries and professional killers operating under the auspices of the self-proclaimed Free Syrian Army (FSA):
"When the rebels seized the lower checkpoint in the center of town and located next to the local police department, they began to sweep all the families loyal to the authorities in neighboring houses, including the elderly, women and children.
Several families of the Al-Sayed were killed, including 20 young children and the family of the Abdul Razak.
The people were killed with knives and shot at point blank range. Then they presented the murdered to the UN and the international community as victims of bombings by the Syrian army, something that was not verified by any marks on their bodies."
We call on our readers to forward this report far and wide. The massacre in Houla is being blamed on the Syrian government without a shred of evidence. The objective is not only to isolate Syria but to develop a pretext and a justification for waging an R2P humanitarian war on Syria.
It is essential to reverse the tide of war propaganda which uses civilian deaths as a pretext to wage war, when those civilians deaths were carried out not by the government but by professional terrorists operating under the helm of the US-NATO supported Free Syrian Army.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Montreal, June 1, 2012
Local Syrian residents' testimony of Houla massacre
The following is from FaceBook:
Truth about massacre in village Al-Hula and others villages near Homs, Syria.
________________________________________________
The residents of Tal - Dow and Al-Hula saying:
Grandmother from the Al-Hula:
"There was a massacre, and we want to see Al Jazeera show that there has actually happened, not what they passed by unknown people.
Police road posts were attacked. All soldiers were killed, and then they attacked our villages, torched a hospital in Al-Hula.
Bandits killed our pharmaceutist near his pharmacy just because he has treated a wounded soldier.
Nobody except army will help us. All this violence is because Kofi Annan is going to arrive. Our children can not go to school, we can not go to our fields, our gardens and on the job.
That was yesterday - it's unbelievable cruelty. Thousands of thugs from the Al - Rastan attacked the town, killed all the soldiers at checkpoints. Burned the city hospital."
Fatima Mustafa, a resident of Tal - Dau, Syrian Turkmen:
"I worked in the field when I heard the gunfire from the north and east, I have ran to the house, and have seen it burned. Near the house was a road post, there were good people. I dropped everything and fled to their relatives.
As a citizen of Tal - Dow I want security and stability. Wish that the army continued to guard us. As long as I can remember, the army guarding us. They never hurt us. I'll always sit at home and open the door only to the soldiers to give them a drink of water."
Syed Abdul Wahab, a resident of Tal - Dau:
"The terrorists who supposedly want to be free came to take control. We have always lived in peace. We can't leave the house now. Twenty six hours we were hiding in their homes because of the bandits."
Corr:
"Al-Jazeera shows clips supposedly from the Tal - Dow and Al-Hula, how you look at it?"
Syed Abdul Wahhab:
"Al-Jazeera - it's a lying channel, the whole world knows that. We don't believe what they say because we are seeing it with my own eyes."
Grandmother to UN observers:
"They say there was airstrikes!. Lies, lies, lies. Liars, all of them come from Ar-Rastan."
A local resident:
" I'm from Tal - Dow and Al-Hula.
Yesterday armed bandits have come, they have told us: "Either you are with us will kill soldiers and policemen, or we will kill you." They killed our wives and children, were all killed. They killed soldiers and police. I wish, what an army to come and clean our villages from this thugs. I want us to live as before in the security and stability."
A local civilian:
"I am a resident of Tal - Dow and Al-Hula. Armed groups attacked road posts all guards there were killed. They told us to go with them, or they will kill us. They burned our house and started filming the neighborhood and talking to phones, which were used as cameras, that this was an airstrike. They killed and burned soldiers.
We want to be rid of these gangs, we can no longer be tolerated."
A local woman:
" We are from the Al-Gaunt village, which is located next to the Al-Hul. Nine my relatives were killed by terrorists in the field. Bandits have burned houses and we fled into the Al Gore, but there were bandits too who kill us. There was a martyr, who was burned alive.
Why, by what law did they die? Is this Islam? Is this justice? All this from Hammad from Qatar. Is Hammad satisfied now?"
These are just some eyewitness words of what happened - the inhabitants of Tal - Dow and Al-Hula, but they are enough to figure out who is guilty for the tragedy of Al-Hula.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpgQ2l5CbNA
Assad would be out if his rule was as inept as Carr's
This was posted to sidwalker.info:
If you want to get an idea of how ineptly Bob Carr governed NSW and how unpopular he was, check out Bob Carr's words belied by his record as Premier of NSW of 1 Jan 2009. Much of that article consists of comments posted to the site http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2008/09/18/2362259.htm. Those words from members of the public which tore to shreds Carr's record as Premier have since been removed by 'your' ABC. So what has been put on my web-site remains the only accessible record of that valuable historical material of which I know.
If Bashar al Assad had governed Syria anywhere near as ineptly as Carr ruled NSW in those years he would have been removed from office years ago.
Syrian Australian opposes terrorism against Assad Government
The following was posted in response to The assault on Syria: Australian justice trashed of 30 May by Syd Walker:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-DCZxsrt9I&feature=related
Hello
I am a Syrian/Australian living in Sydney. I agree with everything your wrote and thank you for your effort. Media is a weapon used against my country u can find a lot of youtubes on the fabrications.
A lot of our community people would like to oppose the government decision by protesting in front of the parliament house at macquarie st what do u think and can u help us in this matter please.
thanks
Why neo-liberal markets are not free
The following is adapted from a coment posted to johnquiggin.com in response to Salient Green's comment, reproduced above.
I remember how, in 1983, Paul Keating, like a bolt out of the blue, with no
electoral mandate whatsoever, announced that he would 'float' the Australian
Dollar. Although few ordinary Australians realised it, this was the first step
towards an extreme of neo-liberal fundamentalism formalised in Professor Fred
Hilmer's rigged National
Competition Policy inquiry which commenced in 1993.
The description of Australia as the "Taliban" of free markets is most apt.
If the market was truly 'free' then sovereign communities (a.k.a. 'government'
at the local, state and federal levels) would also be free to own and operate
enterprises which produce wealth and provide services.
The fact they are forbidden from doing so shows the very term 'free
market', often used as synonym for economic neo-liberalism, to be lie.
Why shouldn't governments be allowed to operate banks, insurance companies,
manage our retirement income, mine our minerals, build houses, own land and
buildings, manufacture cars and other goods or operate funeral services?
Naomi Klein should could have included a chapter on Australia in The Shock
Doctrine of 2007.
Hawke's treachery hardly new
A comment, linking back to this story and quoting the article and some of the comments attracted the following response on johnquiggin.com:
... I saw Bob Hawke as guilty of treason and treachery long ago for opening up Australia to the free – read unfair – market without warning or compensation to most of those who would be adversely affected.
Howard just turbocharged the process.
Nick Xenophon said this week that the Eurozone regards Australia as the “Taliban” of free markets. In other words, the “fundamentalists” of free markets.
Thanks for the link. It’s very informative.
UN Failing is its cultural incapacity to mitigate Civil Wars
The United Nations tragic failing is its cultural incapacity to mitigate Civil Wars.
This is exacerbated by the self-serving and extreme unlimited resources of the United States Pentagon.
The Pentagon is the most evil institution on Earth directing the CIA, US Presidents, US Military and manipulating the leadership of sovereign nations to suit its ends.
It is all the jihadies in one pentagonal building.
It has inflicted more war crimes than Nazism and Stalinism
John Marlowe
Lease land, don't sell it
There is no excuse for this. The land could have been leased instead of sold. We need laws to protect our land from going beyond our democratic control.
Writer sees Bob Hawke as guilty of treason and treachery
Who would have thought Bob Hawke could descend to the low level of betrayal? He is negotiating the sale of 30,000 ha of irrigation land and our biggest man-made water storage at Argyle river in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. A Chinese investment company is interested to secure their food security.
The land will be irrigated by Lake Argyle, which is three times the capacity of Lake Eildon and 18 times the size of Sydney Harbour. This is in Australia, the world's driest continent made up of over 90% desert!
The Shanghai Zhongfu group is one of few remaining bidders for the 15,000ha of West Australian land and wants Northern Territory's 15,000ha also in one parcel. Shanghai Zhongfu has offered to develop irrigation infrastructure, a sugar mill and an abattoir.
AUSTRALIA may not be able to re-acquire land to grow food in times of need if the land is owned by a foreign government.
A parliamentary estimates committee accuses Trade Minister Craig Emerson of supporting Chinese proposals to secure the prized land because former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke was lobbying for one of the Chinese companies, the Shanghai-based Zhongfu Group.
According to Senator Joyce, Emerson " .... is following on the heels of his former boss Bob Hawke, who does not hide that he is involved in selling large parts of regional Australia to the Chinese," and "I don't blame the Chinese for being prudent and planning ahead for their own food security, but if this is in their best interests to buy our farms, then it can't be in ours as well."
The FOR argument is that "Australia needed Chinese investment if agricultural production was to increase". We in Australia don't have the skills or economic power to develop and harness the irrigation potential of our own land - our natural heritage.
Zhongfu wants the right to develop all 14,000ha of land on offer to grow sugar cane for ethanol and sugar production. We can't buy land in China, or Korea or Japan. The land-grabs are one way - towards Australia- and the lack of leadership in Australia means that these wealthy predatory nations are able to buy their way into and eat away our future food security. We are only the consumers and service industries to support China's growth.
The punishment for treason in the past was to be hanged, drawn and quartered, or at least shot by a firing squad! Now, it's all part of business-as-usual, our economic "growth" and global "expansion"?
Candobetter Ed. Title changed slightly for defamation risk reasons. See also: Conflict of interest claims in China farmland deal of 1 June, WA Nationals tell Joyce to welcome China of 1 June, ABC News Radio transcripts of 7 June.
Our wildlife has hardly any
Our wildlife has hardly any safe refuge now. Birds will flee in terror at the deafening sound of guns exploding and shattering the once pristine silence. Non-target native animals will be shot and killed by speeding bullets. Gone will be the peace of our fauna's paradise to be replaced with trashy humans littering Gondwanana land with lead bullets and their rubbish as they trample ever more threatened fauna, spreading seeds feral weed seeds.
Who will police these hunters to make sure they are in fact all licenced, following the guidelines and not causing inhumane suffering to animals, and most importantly, not shooting the wrong type of animal? The answer is nobody will - they will police themselves! That's right, the fox is guarding the hen house which means our national parks, nature reserves and State Conservation areas will become hoons' paradise to enter anytime day or night and shoot whatever, however. NPWS is already overworked and understaffed - same with the police force.
Who will be liable for the first human killed by a bullet in a national park while hiking, camping, picnicking?
Will it be a child, a pregnant woman or an overseas tourist?
Is a $3 billion deal worth sacrificing a $35 billion international tourism industry?
Barry O'Farrell should be up for charges of manslaughter. Unfortunately we have to wait for people to die before anything will change ..... that's why he needs to be implicated now, ahead of time.
Skills and labor shortage a myth
We've heard over and over there's a shortage of skilled workers, but from my experience its a myth. Anecdotal I know, but it goes against what we've been hearing from the immigration and business lobbies. I know a fully qualified tradesman with decades of experience who was told that at 45 he was simply too old at every firm he applied to. You read about recent graduates in the supposedly lucrative fields of engineering and science unable to find any work at all in the fields they were trained in. I'm not sure what things are like in the mining areas, but if Gina Rinehart claimed she couldn't find enough Australian workers, I'm betting she wasn't looking very hard, if at all.
Racism accusation last port to defend the indefensible
The corporations engineering displacement by foreign workers of people already here know that what they are doing is wrong and indefensible. So they go on the attack. Their attack is very weak. It is to accuse people of racism when they are obviously simply trying to defend their rights. That is all the greedy corporates and their friends in government and the opposition can think up. There are so many good arguments against importing workers when people already here cannot get jobs and housing are inflated by over-demand, that the corporate press has to bend over backwards to keep the good arguments out and only run with the pathetic one, the so-called 'racism' one.
With regard to Pauline Hanson, I don't think that anyone would deny that she had guts and thereby stood out among most politicians of the era. However, on the question of immigration, when I read her biography by Pacholli, who wrote her speeches, including that famous maiden speech, he seemed to be saying that British immigrants were fine and bring them on. Well British immigrants also take Australian jobs, so fewer immigrants of any kind (zero net is a good number) would help a lot to restore democracy and slow the pace of the processes that are depleting energy and driving pollution.
Petition - Protect the Peninsula and Victoria's Beaches
Please take 30 seconds of your time to sign the petition - its easy and simple, just click on the address below:
After you've signed the petition please also take a moment to share it with your family and friends who also care about our beaches and foreshores. It's super easy – all you need to do is forward this email.
PETITION: Save our fabulous bay foreshores and coastal reserves from inappropriate development
Getup website to start community petitions
Comments on this page have been closed. Please add further comments here. - Ed
Growcom report of Food Security 2011
Growcom report on food security to download
(the italics are mine)
The report found that Australia is not as food secure as suggested by simplistic examinations of the relevant data. Australia already imports 34 per cent of fruit consumed and 19 per cent of vegetables. The report found that these imports could disappear as the world population heads for 9 billion people by 2050 and countries retain their production for their own people.
The world will need to double food production by 2050 just to ensure that the number of hungry does not increase from its current level of 1 billion people. This is unlikely to happen, with phosphorus fertilizers disappearing, peak oil, and declining quality and quantity of land and fresh water.
The current diminishing level of food security in the world is being driven by a number of factors. These include a burgeoning world population heading for 9 billion by 2050, loss of land and water due to degradation and urbanisation, speculative trading in commodities, and the increasing appetite for meat, milk and other sources of protein in countries which have become more affluent in recent years.
While more than half of Australia’s land surface is used for agricultural purposes, the area of productive land is decreasing as a result of increasing urbanisation, land use competition and degradation (e.g. salinity, nutrient depletion, erosion, weeds etc., ABARE-BRS 2010).
Based on current levels of immigration of above 260,000 per year, research undertaken for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship found that by 2050, 430,000 hectares of agricultural land surrounding Melbourne and Sydney will be taken up by housing (National Institute of Labour Studies 2010; Peckham 2011).
The best soils for horticulture occur predominantly in the peri-urban areas of Sydney, Melbourne, South-East Queensland, and a number of regional cities in Queensland (CDI Pinnacle, Street Ryan and Associates, and Growcom 2004; Buxton and Low Choy 2007). Horticulture cannot simply just move further west, as is sometimes suggested.
Obviously cash-up property developers have more lobbying power than fruit and vegetable growers. We are eating ourselves into a "corner" through population growth and a vacuum of leadership and vision
The weakening of cultural links between urban consumers and rural producers contributes to the current situation where consumers do not recognise the true value and worth of food.
While the media and politicians are debating issues such as racism, gay marriage, EMA, corruption and mis-use of funds, economic growth, etc, our food security is disappearing under the radar
Growcom recommend establishing an Australian Food Security Agency:
This agency would co-ordinate the development and implementation of policies and programs targeted to improving Australia’s food security.
This includes:
Determining how many people Australia can environmentally sustainably support, and where to house them while minimising the alienation of good quality cropping land and urban encroachment.
Meanwhile, Minister for Sustainable Population, Tony Burke, remains mute!
In another report, (1994) scientists have noticed similarities, for instance, between the changing shape of Los Angeles as seen by space satellite, and the changes visible in petri-dish cultures inoculated with E. coli bacteria, organisms that live in animal guts. Both the bacterial and human colonies expand in intricate fractal patterns, gradually filling the spaces surrounding them. Judging from satellite pictures, human beings in Los Angeles exhibit no more ability to control their own collective growth than do the E. coli germs.
Social problems - injustice, economic inequality, genocide, cultural extinction, etc. - exist and should be addressed. But they're insignificant compared to overpopulation. The overpopulation problem will eventually solve itself, as it did in the Petri dish - eventually the bacteria consume all the agar and die!
A free-market economy based on perpetual growth and greed will not consider non-monetary needs such as fresh food production, environmental conservation, human survival and living standards. It pushes only for economic growth, even to our detriment.
Manipulated by "white guilt" - reverse "racism"
Prime Minister is in the firing line, accused of fueling "racist innuendo" in the debate over enterprise migration agreements (EMA). Industry chiefs have likened the backlash against foreign mine workers to the White Australia policy. Pauline Hanson said mining jobs should be reserved for Australians. It's not about "race" or ethnic origins, and we don't know which "race" the foreign workers will even come from!
Pauline Hanson is right - mining jobs should be reserved for Australians. We are still a sovereign nation?
Who are "Australians" now? On the contrary, the enterprise migration agreements are more like "reverse racism" as we in Australia - a multicultural country - are being disadvantaged and singled out at a time of high youth unemployment, lack of opportunities to gain skills, and high educational and training costs. What other nation would allow corporations to give employment to foreigners over the local, national, people?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/capital-circle/racism-c...
It's an absurd accusation and assumes those protesting are the "white" Anglo elements on our community.
Bring back Pauline Hanson - for all her mistakes and failures, she was brave enough to speak some home-truths. We are being socially engineered by "white guilt" so that we are ready to cave in and allow ourselves to be manipulated to our own detriment.
Mimi exposes Houla massacre corporate media liars
Check out Mimi al-Laham's latest broadcast in which she tears to pieces the fabric of lies (shamefully repeated by Australian 'Labor' Foreign Minister Bob Carr on ABC LateLine on Monday night) about the Houla massacre. A still later broadcast Al CIAdA in Syria montage (which I haven't yet watched) is to be found here. Also check out the on-line debates on The Punch and Crikey. Last time I looked, those peddling the corporate lies about Syria appear to have gone silent. These show how open and uncensored discussion wherever it is allowed on the Internet as it is allowed on candobetter enable the truth to be discovered fairly quickly by those wishing to do so.
This shows why both JFK and and Solon were so passionately in favour of controversy.
Ocean contamination from Fukushima
Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.
Scientists believe the caesium-134 found in tuna off California, therefore, had to come from Fukushima.
The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. One of the largest and speediest fish, Pacific bluefin tuna can grow to 10 feet and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
Bluefin tuna absorbed radioactive cesium from swimming in contaminated waters and feeding on contaminated prey such as krill and squid, scientists say.
Pacific bluefin tuna are prized in Japan where a thin slice of the tender red meat prepared as sushi can fetch NZ$32 per piece at top Tokyo restaurants. Japanese consume 80 percent of the world's Pacific and Atlantic bluefin tuna. Scientists do not expect the nuclear fallout to linger in huge fish that sail the world because such fish can metabolize and shed radioactive substances.
Now that scientists know that bluefin tuna can transport radiation, they also want to track the movements of other migratory species including sea turtles, sharks and seabirds.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes in a bulletin that radioactive iodine, which has a short half-life, would be gone by the time migratory fish arrive in U.S. waters, and that radioactive cesium hasn’t been detected in any tuna imported from Japan.
Many fisheries have been even more dismissive about the chances of contamination.
The mystery surrounding the deaths of at least 877 dolphins in Peru deepened on Wednesday as the government said "human activity was not to blame". But it did leave open the possibility that abnormally warm surface water temperatures and high levels of algae may have played a role, saying further analysis would be needed to determine if any red and brown plankton species in the sea were toxic.
High levels of algae could easily be a symptom of over-fishing and ecological ill-health of the oceans as predatory fish are being eliminated by fishing, and toxic flows.
This month, warmer surface waters sent anchovies lower down into cooler waters where pelicans could not dive deep enough to reach them. Some 5,000 birds starved to death as a result. Our dying oceans are the result of mining, over-fishing, pollution - "human activity was not to blame" does not hold any substance!!
JFK had to work amidst the military-industrial complex
This is a response to a discussion on johnquiggin.com which began with a post linking back to this article.
the issues you raise are far too complex for me to fully respond to here (although you are welcome to discuss them on the page I linked to above). JFK had to work in the midst of the military-industrial complex against which his predecessor Dwight D Eisenhower warned in his departing speech of January 1961. This and other facts, put in "JFK and the unspeakable - Why he died and why it matters" of 2008 by James Douglass, explain why
Kennedy supported the Bay of Pigs invasion whilst absolutely refusing to provide any direct military assistance with warships near the Cuban coast at the time nor aircraft after a popular uprising against Castro did not result
from the establishment of the beachhead by the Cuban exiles.
I suggest you look at the speech to the American University given by JFK on 10 June 1963 at www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG2PwhT0TDc five months before his murder and ask yourself if the man who gave such a speech would have been capable of launching two illegal invasions of Iraq resulting in the deaths of
2 million Iraqis since 1991, the invasion of Libya in 2011 in which more than 50,000 Libyans died and the current destabilisation of Syria with terrorist proxies.
The post to which the above post is a response follows, - Ed;
Reading these excerpts show that it is not possible to exaggerate the good intentions and greatness of JFK. His example leaves to shame most of today’s warmongering world ‘leaders’.
Hmmm
1. Responsible for isolation of Cuba; numerous assassination plots against Castro, attempted disruption of Cuban economy through industrial and agricultural sabotage, swine flu etc ..
2. Responsible for October missile crisis through positioning of missiles in Turkey. Had the USSR not backed down, a nuclear exchange might have occurred
3. Responsible for support of Ngo Dinh Diem and then murderous coup against him in Vietnam; began escalation that led to Vietnam War
Like Obama, he was very intelligent, and on the surface, a genial fellow, but he was driven by exactly the same thing that all US imperialist leaders are driven by, and acted accordingly. Had he lived long enough, he’d not have acted much differently from LBJ.
The post, to which the post immediately above is a response, follows, - Ed;
Sorry if this seems off-topic, but today happens to be JFK’s 95th birthday. Reading Alistair Horne’s “A savage war of Peace” of 1977 about the Algerian War of independence shows that in the 1950?s Senator Kennedy was an outspoken supporter of the Algerian Independence and was able to shift US policy from supporting French colonialism to neutrality even before he was elected to the office of President. Reading these excerpts show that it is not possible to exaggerate the good intentions and greatness of JFK. His example leaves to shame most of today’s warmongering world ‘leaders’.
What passes for pop policy is just inflationary scam marketing
I think that you are absolutely right.
And the relentless growth impulse derives from commercial sector growth marketing campaigns. The growth lobby acts as a de facto government and markets population growth strategies and population growth management policies (i.e. jobs for the growth lobby industries). The government then seems to go along with this. How could it not; the realtors and developers, bankers and financiers now occupy many seats in parliament and on boards in the mass media. The marketing campaigns are then presented by the mass media (who are part of the growth lobby) as if it were thoughtful government policy.
But they are just seat of the pants bargain basement scams to provoke inflationary prices for investments.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Does Australia even have population strategy?
Many people, particularly those on the pro-growth side, tend to assume the Australian government has some kind of coherent population growth strategy. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have any kind of long or even short term strategy whatsover. It has a multiplicity of sub-departments responsible for immigration, who will act in their interests, often by bringing in as many people as possible, who don't even talk to each other, and only plan a year or so ahead.
The figure of 36 million quoted by Rudd wasn't a specific goal, its just a side effect of this relentless growth impulse. And growth won't even pause when we hit 36 million, we'll keep growing willy-nilly to 50 million, 60 million, etc. Any liberal or labor government is probably incapable of establishing a concrete population goal. They only have one de facto policy, which is "grow forever" which in practice will mean "grow until something forces us to stop".
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY
"'When he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.'"
At the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlanta City, less than one year after his brother's death, Robert Kennedy was wracked with emotion as he waited out a 22-minute standing ovation. He ended his brief remarks about his slain brother by quoting, at sister-in-law Jackie’s suggestion, the above verse from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Too many people, not enough jobs
This "credentialism" has a simple basic cause too many people, not enough jobs. Whenever the growth lobby starts whining about labour shortages, I laugh to myself.
Australia - a universal resource rather than a nation
There's no way to assure that the "temporary" foreign workers go and stay where they are needed if more than 50% of the people who come here under the permanent migration program end up in either Sydney or Melbourne competing with unemployed Australians for work. It' globalization that's the problem. Our politicians obviously don't see Australia as an entity, as a sovereign nation, but part of the "Asian Century" and a sub-set of Asia's booming economy. Australia is simply an international resource, an Economy, not a nation of peoples with a distinct identity, culture, economy, work-force, or a home for 23 million people.
Employing temporary foreign workers is a short-term solution to a perceived skills shortage. It could exacerbate long term shortages if not remedied. It's an indication of inadequate training and education facilities within our own nation, and lack of jobs to train in and gain experience. Housing and construction for our booming population is not adequate and only accommodates more population arriving here.
There's nothing more permanent than a "temporary" worker. Most of them intend to apply for permanent residency, sponsored by their employers, and then bring their families. Their family members may not have skills, and thus we are landed with more unskilled people here.
Be sure to catch the repeats of 4 Corners program of last night, Casualties of the Boom tonight (Tuesday) at 11.35PM and also on Saturday at 8.00pm on News24. - Ed
Australia afflicted by credentialism
What you write of is symptomatic of the far broader problem of creeping credentialism. Back in the 1980's and earlier it was possible for many people to obtain good jobs and decent career paths without being required to attend University for many years in their own time and at their own expense.
Some, who even left school before year 12 could still hope to do well provided they had the aptitude. A most striking example of this is former Prime Minister Paul Keating who left school at the age of 15. Ironically, because of Keating's own 'reforms' to the Australian economy, no 15 year old high school drop-out in 2012 would stand a chance of matching even a small part of Keating's own career advancement.
Apprenticeships were once offered to large numbers of young workers, including to young prospective nurses. To be sure pay for trainee nurses was modest, but they were provided cheap accommodation, so whilst undergoing training, they had security and shelter and obtained a qualification for life after only three years, without any need to retrain.
In many other jobs, training that enabled career advancement was provided by most employers in their time.
Where clerical careers were once offered by both government and private employers to high school leavers and even to those who had only reached year 10, Today at least a university degree and often post graduate qualifications as well are needed before many employers will even grant an interview to a prospective employee.
Thanks to the 'reforms' to the tertiary education system. also made by Keating, as well as by Hawke and Howard, most will also start their careers with a huge debts incurred obtaining their University education.
Expensive Nursing courses a scam
Over the years that I have been nursing I have heard nothing but criticism about nursing courses being taken from hospitals to Universities. Now that Universities are demanding nurses pay $10,000 to do a 3 month refresher course the anti-nurse lobby is happy.
I am a University trained nurse and 3 years into my career I was forced out of the industry due to a work injury. After being out of nursing for 10 years I did a refresher course within a hospital setting and met all the requirements of AHPRA within 6 weeks, thus I was re-registered and able to resume normal nursing duties again. I then commenced work and rapidly moved into senior roles.
The point I am making is that the fundamental skills in nursing never change, thus there is absolutely no reason why nurses should be forced to pay $10,000 to do a refresher course or (worse) retrain from scratch. If you ask me they could do a one month online refresher course followed by a two month supervised clinical placement to bring their skills up to date. This would save a lot of time and it would be very cost efficient. As it is PCAs do a 3 week government funded course and they are allowed to administer drugs in nursing homes even though they have had no formal training in pharmacology or drug calculations. If the government was really concerned about the welfare of Australians, they would fund the refresher course for nurses instead of replacing them with unskilled labourers.
Source of above comment
More of NurseUncut
Wikipedia on David Hoggan and Holocaust Denial
It was curious that nowhere in any of your posts did you raise the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and the mentally ill. I would be interested to read your response to the treatment of David Hoggan, mentioned by you, in a paragraph in the Wikipedia article Holocaust denial:
The beginnings of the modern denial movement
In 1961, the American historian and a leading protégé of Barnes, David Hoggan published Der Erzwungene Krieg (The Forced War) in West Germany, which claimed that Germany had been the victim of an Anglo-Polish conspiracy in 1939. Though Der Erzwungene Krieg was primarily concerned with the origins of World War II, it also down-played or justified the effects of Nazi antisemitic measures in the pre-1939 period.[39] For an example, Hoggan justified the huge one billion Reich-mark fine imposed on the entire Jewish community in Germany after the 1938 Kristallnacht as a reasonable measure to prevent what he called "Jewish profiteering" at the expense of German insurance companies and alleged that no Jews were killed in the Kristallnacht (in fact, 91 German Jews were killed in the Kristallnacht).[39] Subsequently, Hoggan wrote one of the first books denying the Holocaust in 1969 entitled The Myth of the Six Million, which was published by the Noontide Press, a small Los Angeles publisher specializing in antisemitic literature.[40] Hoggan became one of the early stars of the Holocaust denial movement, because he had a number of university professorships.
Too much credence to corporate lies against Syria given by RT
Whilst Russia Today is a vastly more truthful source than the corporate newsmedia and the phony left. The beginning of the following story on the Houla massacre from Russia Today gives far too much credence to claims of atrocities made against the Syrian government. In fact, the claims mage have been shown to be lies in the Global Research story US-NATO SEEK TO TRIGGER INSTABILITY IN SYRIA: Death Squads Ravage Syrian Town - West Calls For "Action" of 26 May. Whilst the broadcast finishes by interviewing the Syrian Foreign Minister, something the corporate media rarely does, this broadcast leaves the viewer grappling for too long with lies that he/she could have been made aware at the start were most likely untrue.
More than 50,000 killed by NATO in Libya
From AN ONGOING DISASTER: Libya, Africa and Africom - More than 50,000 Deaths
of 26 May on Global Research:
The scale of the ongoing tragedy visited on Libya by NATO and its allies is becoming horribly clearer with each passing day. Estimates of those killed so far vary, but 50,000 seems like a low estimate; indeed the British Ministry of Defence was boasting that the onslaught had killed 35,000 as early as last May. But this number is constantly growing. The destruction of the state’s forces by British, French and American blitzkrieg has left the country in a state of total anarchy – in the worst possible sense of the word. Having had nothing to unite them other than a temporary willingness to act as NATO’s foot soldiers, the former ‘rebels’ are now turning on each other. 147 were killed in in-fighting in Southern Libya in a single week earlier this year, and in recent weeks government buildings – including the Prime Ministerial compound – have come under fire by ‘rebels’ demanding cash payment for their services. $1.4billion has been paid out already – demonstrating once again that it was the forces of NATO colonialism, not Gaddafi, who were reliant on ‘mercenaries’- but payments were suspended last month due to widespread nepotism. Corruption is becoming endemic – a further $2.5billion in oil revenues that was supposed to have been transferred to the national treasury remains unaccounted for. Libyan resources are now being jointly plundered by the oil multinationals and a handful of chosen families from amongst the country’s new elites; a classic neo-colonial stitch-up. The use of these resources for giant infrastructure projects such as the Great Manmade River, and the massive raising of living standards over the past four decades (Libyan life expectancy rose from 51 to 77 since Gaddafi came to power in 1969) sadly looks to have already become a thing of the past. ...
Should it by any mystery as to why Syrians are so resolved to stop NATO's proxies doing to their country what they have already been done to Libya?
See also: Carr tries to justify Australian support for NATO war against Syria of 12 April.
Gina Rhinehart prefers foreign workers and gets her way
Gina Rinehart, has won an historic deal from the Gillard Government to import more than 1700 foreign workers for a $9.5 billion mining project in the Pilbara. As the Prime Minister faces renewed rumblings about her leadership, some senior Labor MPs turned their anger on Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and vowed to fight to water down the deal. The Labor leaders have betrayed their grassroots - the workers of Australia.
Unions say Australian workers should be the priority.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on Friday announced that the nation's first enterprise migration agreement (EMA) had been reached with Gina Rinehart's $9.5 billion Roy Hill iron ore project in Western Australia's Pilbara region. There were not enough people in the local workforce to get the job done. Surely existing Australians looking for employment are more "local" than foreigners?
It was revealed earlier that Ms Gillard, who had been in the United States, was not informed of the decision until she returned to Australia on Wednesday. It's obvious who is running our nation - the richest mining moguls and wealthy corporations. The announcement was made by the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, and the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, and Ms Gillard was uneasy at the message the deal would send.
Skills Minister Chris Evans says the deal is a necessary step to manage the workforce, saying the move is a "sensible economic solution".
If Australia lacks skills it's because our tertiary education system is failing to provide them, and universities are too focused on the economic benefits of educating foreign students, they're too expensive and there's not enough jobs to train on and gain skills. Jobs are going off-shore.
Ms Gillard went into damage-control mode, saying that a "jobs board'' would be created that would give Australian workers information about what jobs were available in the resources sector. What about supporting local manufacturing, limiting globalization, buying back some of our own infrastructure and utilities, and investing more in TAFE and tertiary education?
Foreign workers are more amenable, cheaper, and their numbers are uncapped. Many of them end up being sponsored for permanent residency by their employers.
This is only a short-term solution to skills shortages. Foreign workers could solve the immediate problem, leading to less investment in skill training. Also, once they have PR they are likely to sponsor their relatives under the family reunion scheme, bringing in more people who may not have skills.
The "Asian Century" means that Australia is a sub-set of Asia's booming economy, and we must homogenize our work force and population accordingly.
Phillip Ruthven, 1998, Chairman of IBIS Business Information said:
"By 2025 Australia was likely to have ceded some sovereignty over population and some financial and legal matters to a grouping based on our closer neighbours in the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) countries".
Good Reading. Toronto
Good Reading. Toronto website design
Thanks for the kind complement. in this case we will allow the link to the site of your web-site design service to remain although we normally don't allow advertising to be posted as a comment. - Ed
Nazi Germany Started WW2 Is Disputed!
This is a response to Where has it ever been disputed that Nazi Germany started WW2? - Ed
Maybe you should stop living in a propaganda cocoon and do some real research instead of rehashing wartime canards. To say the invasion of Poland was without provocation is an out and out lie. The German government tried negotiation with the Polish government for years before deciding on a military option. www.cwporter.com/letter13.htm Two objective books on the subject - The Forced War by David L.Hoggan and The War That Had Many Fathers by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof. They also appealed to the League of Nations to help arbitrate the peaceful return of land which they lost due to the treaty of Versailles. The Polish government which consisted of a military junta took a belligerent attitude and refused to negotiate because of the British guarantee of aid in case of war with Germany. The Polish military welcomed war with Germany because they thought they would win having defeated the Red Army of the USSR in the 1920's when they invaded Poland. Behind the scenes the administration of US president Franklin Roosevelt was also fanning the flames of war by secretly promising the Poles assistance. www.ihr.org/jhr/v04/v04p135_Weber.html
There is also the fact that ethnic Germans in Poland were being massacred which was confirmed by observers from neutral countries and the Red Cross. www.jrbooksonline.com/polish_atrocities.htm The warmongers in Britain and France got their wish when those countries declared war on Germany. The fact that Britain and France didn't declare war on the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland is proof positive that the British and French governments did not care about Poland or it's people they simply used it as an excuse to go to war against Germany. This was made even more glaringly obvious in 1945 when Poland, the reason for going to war in the first place, was given to Stalin and turned into a communist dictatorship. So much for going to war for the independence of Poland! I might point out that Stalin was a lot worse than Hitler. He was busy killing millions of people before Hitler came to power, he was busy killing millions of people while Hitler was in power and he was busy killing millions of people after Hitler left power. For instance in 1933 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany Stalin was busy starving ten million Ukrainians to death in a man made famine called the www.holodomor.org And the slave labour camps of the gulag existed before there were nazi concentration camps. The fact that you support an alliance with such a blood drenched, mass murdering tyrant as Stalin shows that you are morally bankrupt. As for saying that Germany/Japan are responsible for all 60 million deaths of world war 2 this is rubbish. Where does personal responsibility start with you? Both sides are to blame for any deaths. Whoever pulled a trigger or dropped a bomb from whichever countries armed forces are to blame. How can you say Hitler is responsible for the soviet massacre of Polish officers at Katyn? That's just rubbish. How can you say the Japanese are responsible for the Anglo-American firebombing of Dresden? More rubbish. For your information Hitler made many peace feelers to Britain through neutral Sweden and Switzerland as he was an Anglophile and didn't want war with that country to begin with. Rudolf Hess risked his life flying to Scotland in an attempt at a peace mission. It was Roosevelt and Churchill who with their insistence on unconditional surrender that prolonged the war and caused many more millions of casualties on both sides. Instead of a negotiated peace through neutral channels they made it a fight to the death. World war 2 ended in 1945 - that's 67 years ago! It's about time people started looking at that conflict in a more even handed and objective manner instead of regurgitating anti nazi and anti japanese propaganda.
Editorial Comment: Whilst much that is contained in this post is true, I can't say if I can draw from that the same conclusions that Robert Brasillach does. At least the 'propaganda cocoon' Geoffrey Taylor is living in does not in include the lies of 9/11, 'incubator babies', 'Iraqi WMDs' which have been used in the last two decades to start wars in which over 2 mlliion have died. I would be interested to hear from Robert that he also rejects those lies.
Québec students fight globalisation of tertiary education
This was posted as a comment in response to the story "Québec's Student Strike Turning Into a Citizens' Revolt " of 25 May at http://truth-out.org/news/item/9372-quebecs-student-strike-turning-into-a-citizens-revolt :
This fight against the globalisation of eduction in Canada sets an example to the whole world and is to be warmly applauded. What the Quebecois students face is precisely what we faced in Australia in 1986 when the 'Labor' Government of Prime Minister Bob Hawke and Treasurer Paul Keating introduced the so-called "Higher Eduction Contribution Scheme" (HECS).
As the name implies, HECS was sold as merely requiring students to make a modest 'contribution' to the cost of their own tertiary eduction. In fact 1986 is the very year I commenced my own tertiary education as an adult. I participated in protest against HECS. The protests failed in part because the Australian students' associations had previously been undermined from within by forces funded from without.
After HECS was introduced, the 'Labor' government proceeded to ramp up the amounts that students were required to 'contribute'. The even more reactionary Liberal/National Government of John Howard, which succeeded then Prime Minster Keating's Government in 1996 continued that process. Now as a consequence, Australian tertiary education has been almost completely globalised with native Australian students comprising only a small minority of students at many campuses.
See also:
On Candobetter:
Montreal students protest fees and civil liberties for more than 100 days of 2 June 2012
On Global Research:
The Quebec Student Strike Celebrates Its 100th Day
“We Didn’t Know It Was Impossible, So We Did It!”
- by Malav Kanuga - 2012-05-23
Quebec student strike: Police begin to apply draconian Bill 78
- by Keith Jones - 2012-05-24
Charest Wants to Transform Quebec Into a “Right-to-Study State”
- by Pierre Dubuc - 2012-05-25
From the mainstream newsmedia:
Quebec students challenge bill aimed at protest crackdown of 25 May in the Globe and Mail
Quebec education minister blasts pro-strike employees
?Ministry scolds employees who support Quebec students ('employees' changed to 'bureacrats' in heading just now) of 25 May in the Sun News
Quebec students return to the streets of 26 May in The Australian
Thousands rally against Quebec crackdown on protests of 25 May in The Australian
Quebec's 'truncheon law' rebounds as student strike spreads of 24 May in The Guardian
Alpaca and Marema breeders could be a new lobby
Of course there is money to be made from producing and selling poisons and traps. We should not ignore the invisible presence of vested interest and lobby groups. I suppose that Marema and alpaca breeders could step up their profile here and make some profit. Maybe pro-dingo reintroduction supporters can co-opt Marema and alpaca breeders...
Certainly these natural industry solutions sound a lot more pleasant and interesting than factory work producing poisons.
What if Melbournians don't want to be re-newed?
What if Melbournians actually like their city the way it is, or was, when families could afford a house with a front and back garden, and a veggie patch with room for kids and pets to play? This "urban renewal" is a plan by developers, and State governments, to impose population growth onto us and high density living.
Our suburbs are being engulfed by opportunistic developers and planners, imposing their will onto the public. Political correctness, will stop any mention of what's driving the demand for housing - population growth through yet to be increased immigration levels. (It can't be mentioned without being accused of being "racist" or "anti-people")
State governments not only are trying to meet the demand, but by building more accommodation they are actually inviting buyers into this Ponzi scheme.
There's no vision for Australia, no long-term planning, but just knee-jerk reactionary policies based on maximizing profits in lieu of the loss of our economy that once thrived on manufacturing and production. Now, housing, banking and real estate depends on and thrives upon population growth!
Code-Assess now is about "moms and dads" having applications for fences and small home extensions streamlined and approved quickly without all the "red tape", but the "red tape" is to allow community consultation - something that is being scrapped! Something that appears benign holds big implications for Melbourne's high-rise future.
Dingoes need to be reintroduced
Instead of the insanity of "one size fits all" poison for rabbits and other feral animals - poisons that threatens wildlife and pets too - the solution would be to have mandatory desexing of pet dogs and cats. Too many wild dogs and cats are simply pets that have been able to breed and escape, then they cause the problems to livestock and native animals. Dingoes have a role to play more today than in the past. They should be allowed to be a top, apex, predators, as there are none naturally. There's an ecological gap without top predators.
Of course, this could cause some threat to livestock, particularly sheep and lambs, but there are alpaca and Maremma dogs that bond with sheep to protect them.
The animal kingdom causes problems when humans spread them and allow overpopulations, but the animal kingdom can also be a solution. Nature, rather than poisons, are sometimes a better solution. It takes tolerance and a bit of creative thinking.
It's likely that our Tasmanian Devil, being a carnivore, is threatened by poisons used for pests and by the logging industry to kill of animals after land-clearing. The main-stream media, scientists and government won't admit it. They eat the carcasses of already dead animals - carrion. Poisons thus spread down the food chain.
Rabbits and foxes would make nice meals for dingoes. The spreading of horrific and deadly poison is a one-stop, easy to administer "solution", but it ignores the terrible costs and suffering of non-targeted animals. But first ---- the problem of wild dogs must be solved and contained. Hybrids of dingoes and dogs are more aggressive and are greater breeders.
High rise prisons now needed to sustain immigration Ponzi scheme
It's funny how the Australian dream of the "1/4 acre block" has gone out of fashion in "planning" circles. That's the same lobby group that benefits from destroying the lifestyle that is still the envy of the world.
It's a lifestyle that has had a magnetic attraction for people from all corners of the globe. It has produced more Olympic gold medals per capita than just about any nation on Earth. It has produced a virtual super race.
But suddenly, now that we have reached the limits of suburban capacity, this town planning model has been discovered to be "obesogenic". It's not McDonalds or stupidity that makes us fat, it's suburbia. Where was this obesity epidemic while we've been dominating the world (on a per capita basis) in sporting pursuits for the last 50 years?
The only "obesogenic" element in Australia's enviable social and physical structure is in the fat heads of the imbeciles who promote the immigration Ponzi scheme. They're now telling us that, to be healthy, we need to consolidate our urban environments. That means converting the most desirable urban environment on Earth into yet another high density, multi-story urban consolidation that can be found anywhere on the planet. It's the same urban model that people who come to Australia are trying to escape.
Where is the data to support their argument? If suburbia is so detrimental to health, why have we continually been better off statistically on virtually any measure than nations with long histories of urban consolidation? Why have we been relatively healthier? Why has our longevity grown faster than populations that live in crowded environments?
We're losing here. We need to get angry and fight harder.
Where has it ever been disputed that Nazi Germany started WW2?
No serious informed person of which I am aware has ever disputed that Nazi Germany started the Second World War when it invaded Poland without provocation on 1 September 1939. Of course, Britain and France were right to declare war on Germany on 3 September when it failed to end its invasion. If anything they stand condemned for failing to provide effective aid to Poland during the "Phony War" which ended with the start of the Nazi German blitzkrieg against France, Belgium and Holland on 10 May 1940. The Soviet Union behaved even more reprehensibly, when it invaded Poland from the east on 17 February. Sadly, after the Nazi German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, many millions of Russians were to pay with their lives for Stalin's unconscionable conduct in 1939.
Were the French 'invasion' of the Saar, referred to above, a serious attempt to fight Nazi Germany it should have been applauded, but, far from being that, it was a stunt which "did not result in any diversion of German troops" from Poland.
How anyone could see anything commendable in the anti-Semetic Vichy French regime, which sided with Nazi Germany is beyond me. The Vichy France of Petain may well have made the difference that would have resulted in the triumph of the industrialised savagery of Nazism in Europe. That could only have been even more terrible than 60 million having to pay with their lives to rid the world of Nazism (and Japanese colonialism).
Comments from 20 April 2012 have been closed. Please post further responses here. - Ed.
Response to Tigerquoll
1 - website is there and works quite well!
2 - Fleet of approximately 40 aircraft is based across the state and is detailed on the web site.
3 - This 889k PDF document details what the aircraft fleet do and how much they cost.
4 - About 10 extra aircraft were brought on on Black Saturday. Anybody who knows anything about firebombing aircraft knows they have little ability to stop fires in Black Saturday conditions - doesn't matter how many you have. The response was far from business as usual.
5 - On black Saturday a number of aircraft could not fly due to weather conditions.
6 - The whole story is in Royal Commission documents on the web if you have a look. Fact is aircraft saved a lot of lives and millions of dollars worth of assets on Black Saturday. Just because John Fein or Neil Mitchell didn't say so doesn't mean it didn't happen. You would do well to remove yourself from your liability of ignorance.
7- Unfortunately you too have been sucked in by media and politicians in believing that aircraft or CFA or anybody else can put out all the fires and keep the world a safe place for everybody. Fact is they can only help and individuals need to take responsibility for their own safety.
Costs and demands of economic growth
Economists, academics and politicians all worship and cave into the demands of "economic growth". This model is flawed and unrealistic in a finite, fragile planet. Economic growth means exploiting the capital of natural resources, and using the Earth's living systems as commodities - to our detriment and of other species. Economic growth means continually weakening environmental boundaries and policies that protect it. Economic growth is not necessarily in our interests once a we reach an optimum sized economy.
A free-market economic-growth-based economy promised wealth, but we see continual cut-backs and budgetary failures. China has had enormous economic growth, but they are leading consumers of illegal timber imports, predatory mining companies polluting corrupted third-world nations, and leading ivory buyers. About 70% of the world's e-waste, from computers and technology, end up in China. Smuggling is rampant because of the profits from recycling.
We should be investing income from our resources boom for the future, in renewable energy sources, ensuring our rivers and waterways are safe from climate change, our ecosystem are robust and healthy, and technology for clean energy - all cutting-edge challenges that should be exported to the rest of the world. Instead, Australian politician are in a dead-lock of the past, in an age of growth, when we should be moving on to maturity and enhancements. The natural world illustrates ecological succession- the stages of a community or organism. Growth can't be forced to go on forever. A "steady-state" economic model must be implemented or we will be crushed under the enormous environmental losses and the waste costs due to the demands of economic growth.
457 scamigration scheme
Dead right there. Here is a of couple snippets that support your assessment.
See 457 Outrage in the Tasmanian Times of 21 May.
After years of gutting our tertiary education system and transforming it into a scamigration scheme, and with 600,000 willing Aussies unemployed, Lib/Labrats pamper
the oligarchic parasites with the 457 scamigration scheme. Poor Gina struggled by on wealth accrual of ~$600 a second last year. That's close to what I earn in a week. I gained a tertiary qualification and bust my gut to feed my family but still this privileged heir
earns ~600,000 times more than me. What's not to declare "class warfare" on when some slob like that can climb on a flatbed truck and cry poor?
See Misplaced concern over house price slide on ABC Radio's PM of 23 May.
Population growth is squarely aimed at propping up the real estate Ponzi scam. The only way to prop up the scam is by importing foreign "aspirational" types who have seen the writing on the wall in their own over-populated slums. Where Australia should have been developing an advanced economy, the dim witted Lib/Labrats have resorted to feather bedding dead end industries like residential construction, real estate agents and financial backers and credit providers for that so-called industry.
We think we're "oh so clever" but when the natural resources run out and the immigration scam loses international cache we'll just be a mongrel/white trash rabble cannibalising ourselves. In our inevitable decay we might constitute a protein source ready to harvest. At the very least we'll make half decent fertiliser.
I wish I had a Kelvin Thompson to vote for in my electorate and I wish he was more than a tokenistic relic in the "LABOR" Party. As it stands, Labor are only offering me a gormless half-witted party hack.
Expletives removed from the above comment - Ed, 24 May
Can we send the culling practice to Ashmore Reef?
Can we send the culling practice to Ashmore Reef?
This way we will be respecting the rights of indigenous Australian over the invasion of pest refugees seeking the good life.
But according to NAZI ACT Australians are pests in their own country.
John Marlowe
OLO Debate: Refugee boats: a plane distraction
By William Bourke
"Although some politicians and media commentators would have you believe otherwise, ‘big Australia’ population growth is not about boats or refugees. It really boils down to planes.
Australia’s total annual intake of around 14,000 refugees makes up only four per cent of our recent annual population growth of around 350,000 people. More importantly, asylum seekers arriving by boat (around 5,000 per annum) make up less than two per cent. In any case, boat arrivals do not increase Australia's rate of population growth. This is because asylum seekers that are deemed to be genuine refugees are included within the total number of refugees we accept each year.
The population issue is really about an excess of permanent immigrants over permanent emigrants, combined with a temporary excess of births over deaths. At present, including our open borders arrangement with New Zealand, our excess of permanent immigrants is nearly 200,000 per annum. Our excess of births is presently around 150,000 per annum. However, with the current fertility rate of around two children per woman, births and deaths will naturally find equilibrium over coming decades."
The rest can be read and you can leave comments: Refugee boats: a plane distraction
Most widely accepted view of cause of Second World War disputed
No subject given. Subject supplied by me. - Ed
I don't see any such comparison. Marshal Petain and the Vichy government were the legitimate rulers of France and given diplomatic recognition by the USA, USSR and other countries. At least they stayed behind and looked after their country - Charles de Gaulle took off with his tail between his legs. I would also point out that France declared war on Germany - not the other way around. On September 3 1939 because Germany invaded Poland. But when the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17 1939 in keeping with the Nazi-Soviet pact to divide that country France did not declare war on the USSR. I would also point out that France invaded German territory first - in 1939 French forces invaded the Saar.
The Australian politicians who have completely sold out the Australian people are in no way patriotic. They are all internationalists and globalists. You may disagree with the Vichy government and its methods but at least they thought what they were doing was for the good of France. The sell out politicians of Australia know very well that what they are doing is not for the good of this country.
Zombie economics
The logic of our government goes beyond comprehension. Unemployment is rising, jobs are declining, yet we will bring in more foreign workers. All indications of the economy would surely scream to us that the demand for immigration is declining, not increasing. Gina Rhinehart wants foreign workers to push down pay rates as those from developing countries are easily swayed and easily manipulated. If they don't comply, they will not be sponsored for PR.
It makes us wonder who is actually running our country, behind the up-front puppets - obviously the big mining companies, banks, corporation and property developers.
The increased immigration is not about needing more workers, or economic rationale. It's about filling the property market.
Victoria's economy was based largely on vibrant manufacturing industries until globalization killed them off - one by one. Now, it's being replaced by property development - an industry kept healthy and successful by pumped up demand from population growth. It's an economy that lacks vision, long-term strategic planning, and eventually crumbles under the costs of infrastructure.
There's no way of ensuring the imported workers actually work in their area of skills, or they go to the mining areas where they are needed. Most of them cluster to the cities. It's a dead-end economy based on short-term-ism and lack of vision. The benefits of the mining boom should be used to enhance our amenities, ensure our future and improve our lifestyles. Instead, improvements are being traded in for growth.
Barbarous killing of kangaroos by ACT government, citizens
This is absolutely disgusting...This Government is horrific, useless...We desperately need a cull of humans starting with the useless government officials that are carrying out this barbarity and then the 79% of Canberra sheeple that support this...Rot in hell you murderers...
This comment was accidentally deleted. We don't know who posted it although we have what he/she posted. In truth, the 'culling' of humanity and human overpopulation, which has helped to motivate the ACT government to murder other creatures, are no more than two sides of the same coin. More chilling examples of 'culling' of humans include the murder of 2 million Iraqis since 1991 as well as the murder of tens of thousands more in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria since then. The same sorts of forces which support human overpopulation, supposedly out of their deep love for all humanity, also, in effect, support that culling. An example is the fake UK socialist group, Workers Liberty which last year enthusiastically cheered on NATO's barbaric conquest of Libya and is now cheering on NATO's proxy war against Syria.[1] In this 2005 article, they dismiss concerns against population growth and high immigration into the UK.
where a massive increase in population, particularly from Eastern Europe, has driven up the cost of housing and driven down the wages of the native British.Footnote(s)
[1] In both cases they have claimed, against the evidence concealed from their readers, that the wars waged by NATO aided popular uprisings for democratic reform.
Population stabilization "immature"?
"Marcus Mannheim in his op. ed. in The Canberra Times last weekend claimed that 'Signs emerged in Canberra this week that this [population] debate is maturing'....resisted calls from many to recommend limiting our population."
So the very idea that a region can only support a finite population is "immature"? That the pro-growth lobby dismiss the very idea of population stabilization so flippantly says a lot.
Dodgy ACT Gov Carrying Capacity report
Marcus Mannheim in his op. ed. in The Canberra Times last weekend claimed that "Signs emerged in Canberra this week that this [population] debate is maturing. The Legislative Assembly's environment committee finished its inquiry into the ''ecological carrying capacity of the ACT and region'', and resisted calls from many to recommend limiting our population. Instead, it pointed out that ''consumption patterns and environmentally sustainable behaviours of individuals are likely to change over time … Case studies, including Australian ones, have shown that populations sometimes significantly reduce their rates of consumption and, in turn, their ecological footprints.'' (Correctly quoted from the Report, p. 67)
He was referring the ACT government's very recent Report on carrying capacity, titled Inquiry into the ecological carrying capacity of the ACT and Region, at
http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/downloads/reports/CCEW06%20Ecological.pdf
In reply Mark O'Connor wrote: "I challenge Mannheim to cite one Australian city whose growing population has genuinely reduced its overall consumption of late."
The Report itself, on p. 67, seems to be citing such a study. In a footnote to the sentence in bold print above, it cites the example of
the City of Port Phillip’s reported reductions in its ecological footprint on the Victorian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) website http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/caseStudies/portphillip.aspThis URL, however, when checked (which the Report's authors should have done) only says that 28 self-selected residents of that region who entered a program had, at the end of the program, reduced their footprints somewhat - by about 8%! (The international examples looked iffy, too. One of the two was from Findhorn in Scotland, hardly a typical suburb.)
French Gov leads by example, unlike Australia and U.S.
In contrast to the increasingly 'Do as I say, not what I do' style of Anglophone governments, the new French government intends to lead by example:
For example, Ministerial salaries have been reduced by 30 %, including the President's. This brings French salaries below German ones but above Spanish ones.
Of the 34 members of the French government, 17 are women.
Source: Journal Televise, France2, 17 May 2012.
Paul Watson's arrest is a political plot by the CIA
Paul Watson's arrest is guaranteed a political plot - CIA doing deals again.
It is a matter of whom he has upset most and so who has most to gain and the means to internationally plot against him.
“In our efforts to defend the lives of whales, dolphins, seals, sharks, and fish we have made some powerful enemies, most notably the government of Japan. It is no coincidence that the extradition request by Costa Rica was issued the same month (October 2011) as the Japanese whaling (ICR) lawsuit against Sea Shepherd was initiated. The extradition request was in reference to a complaint from Costa Rican fishermen who I caught poaching in Guatemalan waters. The fishermen were not injured and their boat was not damaged. The incident was fully documented for the film Sharkwater. Interpol originally denied this extradition order and deemed it as politically motivated. Therefore the question must be asked why Germany is now taking into account accusations made by illegal poachers.”
- Captain Paul Watson
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria
Australia
Please save Captain Paul Watson
THE leader of controversial environment group Sea Shepherd has been arrested on what is believed to be an attempted murder charge . Captain Paul Watson was arrested in Germany over the weekend and will be extradited to Costa Rica on an outstanding arrest warrant from an incident which occurred in 2002.
Paul Watson was arrested on an Interpol warrant for a complaint from Costa Rican fishermen for a collision at sea. Watson claims the fishermen were illegally poaching shark, and he intervened. The incident in question was caught on video by the crew filming Sharkwater, a feature length documentary film originally released in Canada in 2007.
The crew of the Varadero (a vessel in Guatemalan waters illegally hunting for shark fins) accused the Sea Shepherds of trying to kill them, while video evidence proves this to be a fallacy. No one was injured.
The Australian people oppose whaling yet their government does nothing to stop the Japanese from reaping their slaughter within their economic zone. Why? Quite simply: money.
The general public prosecutor finally submitted his motion for a preliminary extradition arrest warrant against Captain Paul Watson.
The keys to Captain Paul Watson’s freedom are in the hands of the Honorable Minister of Justice and the Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs. Sea Shepherd therefore ask all supporters of Captain Paul Watson to immediately contact the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to ask them to end the unjust and politically-motivated extradition of Captain Paul Watson before a panel of judges decides Captain Paul Watson’s fate on Friday.
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger
Federal Minister of Justice
Deutscher Bundestag?
Platz der Republik
11011 Berlin
Telephone 030 - 227 751 62?
Fax 030 - 227 764 02?
E-Mail: [email protected]
Federal Ministry of Justice
Mohrenstrasse
37?10117 Berlin
Germany
Telephone: +49 (030) 18 580-0
Telefax: +49 (030) 18 580-9525
Dr. Guido Westerwelle - Minister of Foreign Affairs
FDP-Bundestagsfraktion
Platz der Republik 1?11011
Berlin
Tel.: 030 / 22771636
Fax: 030 / 22776562
E-Mail: [email protected]
The Taiwanese Shark Fin Mafia has had a $20,000 bounty on his head for years. We know the arm of the Taiwanese Shark Finning Mafia reaches not just to the illegal fishing industry in Costa Rica, but also to the prison system there. Sea Shepherd fears that not only would Captain Paul Watson not receive a fair trial in Costa Rica, but he would likely not survive jail long enough to see the inside of a court room.
This is not only about saving the life of Captain Paul Watson, but also save the lives of whales, dolphins, seals, and fish that he has spent his life courageously defending.
State moves to reduce building appeal rights - The Age 16 May
The government said the changes (to planning laws called "code assess") would apply to ''small-scale, low-impact applications such as home extensions and small works such as fences''.
But a detailed ministerial advisory report released last Friday indicates the new system would also be used for new buildings and subdivisions.
See: State moves to reduce building appeal rights by Jason Dowling in the Melbourne Age of 17 May 2012
The community is being kept in the dark about the extent in the changes of the planning laws, and the reduction in the rights of appeal.
Mr Matthew Guy said the changes would be for "small" building applications, the Property Council of Victoria, those with vested interests in the growth of the property market, would like to use it for multiple-storey developments.
An economy based on the myth of perpetual growth not only means intergenerational stealing, as future generations won't have the benefits of growth that this generation has, but also a continual suppression of democracy.
Code Assess
Yes, it is important for the community to be fully aware of what is being proposed but before you start circulating a petition, you should be aware of what is being proposed you numpty. Scare mongering like you are doing is foolish. The announcement of exactly how it is going to work has not been made yet, but it certainly is not going to be a situation where someone comes home one night to find a high rise building going up next door without having been told about it. Saying such things is idiotic and shows a complete lack of understanding of the planning process. Find out the facts for yourself first before protesting and don't rely on newspaper articles to tell you that information. Everyone knows that jouralists love stirring up controversy. Be a leader not a sheep.
Mark O'Connor challenges Marcus Mannheim to prove assertion
"Race is not an issue in concerns about our population growth"
Date: May 15 2012
Marcus Mannheim's opinion piece (''Racists wearing green clothes'', Forum, May 12, p3 [1]) shows the extremes to which promoters of rapid population growth are led. He begins with a straw-man ploy against those who write to him complaining that his Public Sector Informant fails to question Australia's annual rates of population growth. (The demographer Graeme Hugo says these rates are more than three times the average of advanced countries.) Mannheim claims his critics are extremists who plan to slash Australia's population by ''genocide''!
Not so, there is no practical or humane way to reduce population quickly. That is precisely why responsible policy makers must ensure that each country steers away from over-population, as both the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society have pointed out. Was [former Treasury secretary] Ken Henry a ''green racist'' when he suggested that Australia had passed its sustainable population, and expressed concern at the government's course, which would lead to 35 million Australians by 2050?
As for Mannheim's other main claim, that rapid population growth is fine because we're all going to reduce our consumption of resources, he cites two flimsy authorities. First, the politician Andrew Leigh who, it seems, believes that technology will sustain an ever-increasing population - but who is no expert on demography or technology.
Secondly, Mannheim cites an ACT Legislative Assembly committee which, he claims, found that growth was not a problem because ''populations sometimes significantly reduce their rates of consumption and, in turn, their ecological footprints''.
I challenge Mannheim to cite one Australian city where a growing population has genuinely reduced its overall consumption.
Mark O'Connor, Lyneham
Comment: Thank you for posting this. I somehow doubt that Mannheim will rise to meet Mark O'Connor's challenge, but please let us know should he do so. - Ed
See also: Population stabilization "immature"? of 21 May below - Ed
Footnote(s)
[1] Also in the SMH and Brisbane Times.
Brian Tees's petition.
Wasn't it Brain Tee's labor government that proposed changes to the Planning Act which included the proposal to introduce "code assess"? And now he is criticizing the Coalition for proposing the same changes.
You just cannot trust any of them!
Jack Roach
President
Boroondara Residents' Action Group (BRAG)
No railway lines, more houses