animal cruelty

Convicted Lockerbie bomber innocent?

A story in Scotland On Sunday suggests that the Libyan security officer, convicted in 2001 of the 1988 murder of all 259 passengers and crew on as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie, may have been innocent after all.

The begins:

A RETIRED Scottish police officer who worked at a senior level on the Lockerbie case has made a series of astounding allegations against his fellow investigators, accusing them of tampering with evidence.

The detective, who is not named but is given the codename Golfer throughout the defence submission to the SCCRC, makes a number of dramatic claims. Foremost among them is his contention that bogus evidence became central to the case against Megrahi, 55.

If they are proved to be true, his astonishing claims that evidence was fabricated and planted to create the Maltese chain of evidence linking to Megrahi will cause irreparable damage to a Scottish justice system already tarnished by its handling of the case.

The are also very interesting.

Yungaba objection

This is a submission about the current proposal to alter the historic Yungabah building and grounds, and environs. It comments on aspects of heritage, and urban and architectural design. I write as a Brisbane citizen with an interest in these matters. I was a member of the Brisbane City Council’s Heritage Advisory Committee for its first twenty years, the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ Planning and Environment Committee, the Green Paper Committee which advised on the Goss Government’s heritage legislation, and the Queensland Heritage Council’s Heritage Register Advisory Committee for some years from its inception. Subsequently I have been appointed an Assessor under the current Heritage Act, and have been active in teaching and consulting in heritage since the 1970s. I have some strong objections to the Yungabah proposal, summarized as follows: 1. An inappropriate change of use for a building which physically embodies a major strand of our State’s history, as a benign amalgam of many and varied immigrant and indigenous cultures. 2. The fabric of the building is compromised in ways that conflict with the exemplary Conservation Plan prepared by Jim Kerr some years ago, and used by me as a model for study by students of Heritage and Conservation at UQ. 3. The “new” buildings in the proposal are visually in conflict with the historic Yungabah buildings, and despite recent modifications to the proposal, still compromise their important relationship to the river and beyond. Their nominal obeisance to height limits imposed by supposedly significant sightlines from the Storey Bridge carriageway is nonsensical. 4. The unique townscapes created by the later construction of the Storey Bridge should be respected. This includes the contrast in scale between bridge and pedestrian / domestic elements; and the spatial dramas created by the bridge, its steel understructure and articulated pylons, the river’s meander and significant buildings on the opposite bank. Much of this urban drama is stifled by the proposed residential blocks crowding up to the carriage way height. 1. Symbolic Value The essence of Queensland’s modern history is the contribution of the waves of immigrants, reflecting the world’s cultures and political currents over a century or more; and Yungabah is a landmark in many of their stories. Its strategic riverside location, its axial composition grandly addressing the river, and the generosity and quality of the building design and detail, by our finest architect of the day, symbolize the values placed by our young colony on its immigration policies. 2. Architectural Fabric Yungabah was one of a very small handful of buildings by one of the greatest architects in our short history. The Kerr Conservation Plan draws attention to the need to preserve and present the physical evidence of its history as a significant element of Queensland’s heritage and for its architectural value. To divide up the building into dwelling units, inserting small rooms and mezzanines into some of the grand spaces and turn them into private spaces- no longer accessible to the public or indeed to inspection of their preservation - is on several accounts a denial of the solemn duty of heritage protection required under the Act. 3. New Buildings In my opinion the new buildings form an undistinguished cluster which helps to destroy the scale and urban charm of this little historic peninsula. While I recognize that their maximum height is apparently imposed by a Brisbane City Council ruling about sight lines from the Storey Bridge carriageway, I believe that these rules are, to say the least, misguided. I do not see what they are supposed to protect unless they contemplate a developer’s ambition to go even higher than the bridge, a policy that the Council considered and rejected long ago. The sight lines shown on the Australand drawings seem to contemplate drivers on the bridge needing to admire an uninspiring distant view of New Farm buildings; the view of the river is blocked. The Australand design consequently shows clumsy building elevations whose upper edges trace an enigmatic shallow sloping line towards the east, thus perpetuating this foolish regulation in solid form. Understandably there is no aesthetic acknowledgement of this strange line showing up in the rest of the buildings’ design. At the public presentation of the proposal to the community on a recent Saturday, I witnessed a conversation between an official spokesman for Australand and a couple of design professionals who had asked him if the new buildings were designed to be “sympathetic” to the historic building they flanked. He replied emphatically that that was certainly not the intention. I agree that they are anything but sympathetic, so the developers have succeeded in their aim. It seems that the developers seriously believe that to design a new building to be “sympathetic” to a heritage place is an infringement of good practice. This must be a confused misunderstanding of the Burra Charter principle that new work should be distinguishable from historic fabric in such cases. In many cases this principle means “distinguishable on close examination”, although in many good examples of new buildings placed in comfortable proximity to historic ones, the difference in age is unmistakable and both are excellent, the new not trying to ape the old. In my opinion these new buildings are aggressively unharmonious with Yungabah owing simply to an ignorant misreading of the principles of good design in heritage contexts. It is an indictment of the level of care or competence of those briefing and commissioning the proposal, as well as of the designers. 4. Significance of the Storey Bridge Environs The impact of the proposal on the iconic Storey Bridge structure and setting is also of the greatest importance. Apart from the hypothesized aesthetic pleasure of motorists driving across the bridge (referred to under 3), the height limit allowed by this line results also in the loss of the spectacular view of the bridge from below, against the sky (that part of the structure at the southern end below the carriageway that contributes so importantly to the local townscape). On a smaller scale it is reminiscent of the visual play between the Sydney Harbor Bridge and The Rocks, a hard-won urban landscape that was saved decades ago by community action, and whose correctness is now no longer in dispute.

We live in a razor thin band of temperatures

Posted to (not by me) You don't have to be an Oxford Scholar. Try this little thought experiment. 1. The diameter of the Earth is 12,700 km. 2. 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is squeezed into a skin of gas only 11 km thick. 3. Stop and digest that for a minute. 4. Think of all the dense carbonaceous material we have gasified (fluffed up volumetrically) over the last 150 years. 5. Imagine all the forests, coal and oil burnt in the service of industry, economics and population increase over that time. 6. We have used our tiny gassy skin as a rubbish tip for 150 years. We "externalised" the costs (or so we thought, until now). 7. Because we couldn't see gas, we thought it didn't matter. Because we dumped our rubbish in the name of a false god (profit), we thought we were being awfully modern and clever. 8. It turns out that we were monkeys in suits all along (apologies if there are any actual monkeys reading this). No-one is denying that the pulse beat of the Sun and Earth brings about inexorable change. We can measure some of it's history in the rocks, ice and tree-rings. It is the SPEED of the present change which is alarming. It is the speed of the present change which is defeating the biosphere's ability to adapt in time. Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Sunday, 24 June 2007 2:40:22 AM Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard The other thing to consider is the span of temperatures that range across the globe and encompass all living things. The difference between the cold of the poles and the heat of the Sahara seems extreme to us. Yet in fact, this is a very narrow band of temperatures indeed. The North Pole is an extremely warm place in the solar system. The Sahara is an extremely cool place in the solar system. We and our fellow life-forms live in a razor thin band of temperatures. We, together with our little blue planet, have enjoyed an almost impossibly improbable existence. What will it take to steer us off this narrow track? Just some jumped-up monkeys in suits? A dessicated coconut? A bat-eared galoot for a Treasurer? Is that all?

Sweep Out Brisbane City Hall in '08!

The recent unanimous decision by the Brisbane City Council (BCC) to approve the destruction of the near Cannon Hill confirms utterly the bankruptcy of all sides of the political 'divide' in Brisbane City Hall. In this case, instead of merely being the cowardly 'opposition' acquiescing meekly to Liberal Lord Mayor Campbell Newman's dictates for Brisbane ratepayers and renters to foot the bill for an ever growing list of extravagantly expensive , it is indeed the Labor Party itself which is primarily culpable for the latest planned act of environmental vandalism. It was Labor Lord Mayor Jim Soorley who entered into the contract with the developer BMD to build both a golf course and a luxury residential development in the Minnippi Parklands, home to sugar gliders and other endangered Australian fauna. In the 2004 elections, Campbell Newman enlisted the active support of Cannon Hill residents, by promising to bar the Minnippi development. At no point did Newman offer any caveats. However, in a sudden about-face on 13 June, BCC Liberal planning spokesperson Carol Cashman announced that she had legal advice that backing out of the deal would have been too expensive. Leonie Lea of Minnippi Against Development remains extremely skeptical of this excuse as any properly written contract would have had to have allowed for environmental assessments and community consultation. Until they are able to see the claimed legal opinion about the Council's liability for compensation for themselves, Brisbane voters are entitled to suspect that Campbell Newman cynically exploited the Minnippi cause only in order to become elected. Unless a community-based grass roots alternative to either of the two morally bankrupt political camps emerges before the March 2008 elections, the choice that Brisbane voters will face then will be very bleak indeed. See also, on

Port Phillip Mayor steps up possum kill in Catani Gardens

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.

MEDIA RELEASE

Sunday 3 June 2007

Port Phillip Mayor steps up possum kill in Catani Gardens

On Friday last, around lunchtime, a friend of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc (PPL VIC) observed workers of CityWide (a contractor hired by Port Phillip Council) high up on a cherry picker in St Kilda's Catani Gardens. They appeared to be taking out a sleeping possum from a large "possum box" (read trap) installed 20 metres up in one of the giant cypress trees and were forcing it into a large white bag, obviously for disposal. This represents a new development in the saga of the Council's bid to exterminate the colony of tame possums, which have lived in the Gardens for 80 years, delighting residents, tourists, plus generations of Melburnians.

Jill Quirk, PPL VIC Committee member, explains: "This latest covert operation follows the progressive installation over the last year of huge possum exclusion bands and traps designed to drive out the possums from their homes in the palm trees and to trap and euthanase them. It is most disturbing to discover that any possums, which managed to survive and flee to the cypress trees in the Gardens, are still being hunted and trapped. The absurd and discredited rationale for the banding given by Council bureaucrats in the past was that the possums are chewing fronds on the 103 palms and are damaging the trees. It is surprising that senior DSE officers and even Government Ministers appear to have swallowed the Council line that the colony of possums (now reduced to only 41) can damage enormous 90 year old palm trees by chewing fronds. They can hardly use the same excuse for kidnapping possums from cypress trees "

Julianne Bell PPL VIC Secretary points out: 'Port Phillip Councillors and bureaucrats constantly reiterate that their "management" of possums in the Catani Gardens is legal. They cite the Governor in Council Order of 10 July 2003, which requires them to have a management plan for brushtail possums that includes "non lethal" control measures. While Council may well have issued a management plan back in May 2006 it has, by its own admission, adopted lethal control measures of possums. It has openly stated that possums are trapped, collected and euthanased. (The Mayor denied it at a recent Council meeting but has subsequently written to enquirers admitting to a policy of euthanasia of possums.) Last Friday's incident in which CityWide workers apparently removed a possum from one of the latest traps (possum boxes on cypress trees) is further evidence. We are forced to the conclusion that, under Council directions, it is CityWide workers who are destroying the animals, given that veterinary surgeons in the municipality have vehemently denied that they are party to euthenasing possums under Council orders (or anyone else's orders)"

PPL VIC members have observed that ring-tailed possums are living in the Gardens' cypress trees and so are threatened with being trapped and destroyed. This species is protected without any of the qualifying clauses that relate to brushtailed possums. Thus Council is entirely deficient in its responsibilities to protect wildlife in its parks and gardens. Council may well claim that the Gardens are overpopulated with possums but PPL VIC has countered this by having a respected ecologist/zoologist undertake a possum count and certify that the numbers are sustainable.

It is imperative, therefore, that work on installation of possum exclusion bands and traps on the palms and "possum nesting boxes" on the cypress trees be halted forthwith as it can be considered illegal under the Wildlife Protection Act 1975 and under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986; it is patently inhumane and cruel; and is destructive of a tourist icon and much loved feature of St Kilda. The work involved in the installation of the possum exclusion bands and traps is also disfiguring and mangling the heritage palms trees listed as the State Heritage Register as the most significant in Victoria. A great deal is at stake. Will commercial interests involved in making work for Council's bureaucrats, consultants and contractors in parks and gardens outweigh heritage, community and animal welfare considerations?

Media contact: Julianne Bell, Secretary, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria (PPL VIC) 98184114 or mobile 0408022408 or Jill Quirk (PPL VIC) on 95097429 or 040 09742927

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