In a slap on the face to the Victorian government, the Gippsland environment group Goongerah Environment Centre (GEC) last week was shortlisted for the prestigious United Nations World Environment Day Awards in the Habitat Restoration and Biodiversity category.

VicForests were exposed for illegally logging ancient old-growth forests, but it was covered up and denied by the government. In face of this exposure by the Goongerah Environment Centre (GEC) they were threatened with prosecution for entering a “timber harvesting safety zone”.

Victorian environment minister Lisa Neville said: “There was extremely poor practice and it was probably a fine line whether this was a breach or not.” This "fine line" meant the vandalism of trees hundred of years old!

“The state government are shielding VicForests’ logging operations from public scrutiny.

GEC spokesperson Ed Hill said: “It’s a great honour to have made the shortlist for this prestigious award that recognises significant contributions to the conservation of biodiversity by local community groups. Ironically the Victorian government are threatening to prosecute our volunteers for doing the exact work the United Nations has recognised and shortlisted us as finalists for.

Green Left:Victorian government threatens environment group honoured by UN

Despite 24 years of glorious "economic growth", more and more Australians are quietly slipping into poverty and third world living standards.

A Salvation Army national survey of 2406 visitors to Salvation Army Community Support Services found those on Newstart allowance hardest hit with just $9.57 a day to live off when accommodation expenses were paid. Despite our cities great tall, glass towers and impressive expansion, it hides increasing deprivation.

Of the children represented, many parents could not afford out of school activities such as, sports trips and camps, and in a third of cases, fruit and vegetables on a daily basis.

An average of all those visiting the centres showed just $17.86 a day to live off when accommodation expenses were paid. It's easy to blame drugs, domestic violence, alcohol, and other vices, but despite "economic growth", why are more people falling outside the safety net?

Our population is growing at over 400,000 people per year, and our budgets mean that more must be spent and don't cover all the needs. Even if a family's combined income increased, and their house price inflated, with more babies and mouths to feed, they can still fall into poverty.

Population growth is outstripping our economic growth, and it's not really "economic growth" if it doesn't stretch to provide basic welfare, public services, social housing and jobs for all the people!

The Age: Salvation Army survey reveals thousands living off less than $10 a day

The Salvation Army should be for emergencies, and for unpredicted family fallouts, and individuals facing harsh times, not to represent the mainstream and fill in for government's harsh policies and economic model that provides for the elite.

Subject was: Of course he's innocent - Ed

I'd like to see the same.

Australia's corrupt succession of governments will do anything to push for increasingly oppressive laws, determined to make every Australian powerless and defenceless. I'm sure they have their reasons, though they'll never tell the rest of us what those reasons are, because they know there'd be a bloody national riot if we ever find out.

This is all no doubt at the behest of the Yanks, who every Australian PM has always been sickeningly submissive to.

It's repugnant, disgusting and vile, just like our politics.

Neutron bomb dropped by IAF plane with Saudi markings...

By Gordon Duff and Jeff Smith, Editors

A video received from Yemen, believed to be taken May 20, 2015, of an explosion, when analyzed by nuclear weapons experts is, by very high probability, a neutron bomb that could only have been an Israeli attack.  The analysis:

A. Its not a conventional 2k lb bomb. It’s much bigger.

B. Its either a very large MOAB bigger than 4,000 lbs. or; ???? Max weight for an F-15 / 16 is about 2,000 lb payload per bomb rack making the deployment of a MOAB impossible.

C. Its appears to be a small neutron bomb. The size, color, lightning effect and duration of the fire ball being suspended in mid air and the very large mushroom cloud is the main give away. The CCD cameras imaging device was “scintillating” (detecting Neutrons) That is the white pixel flashes in the video. When the photo has white pixel flashes in it, that is because it is being hit by neutrons from the nuclear fireball blast. It overloads the ccd’s electronic circuit producing white flashes.

If the radiation is too high it will burn out the chip. They ha big problems with this in Japan with the Fukushima robots cameras failing due to very high radiation counts.

D. Delivery is most likely by an IDF F-16 with a Saudi paint job on the plane. They are not even hiding their use anymore, they just don’t publicly admit it and the IAEA does nothing or says nothing. That is the true war crime. The UN just ignores it unless the US, France or GB complains…….. Russia and China say nothing.

E. This is now the second known use of nukes in Yemen by Saudi Arabia…………..

Jeff Smith is a nuclear physicist and former IAEA inspector.

The frenzy of building houses, struggling to keep up with population growth, is not about providing a service, or creating "affordable housing". It's an industry, to make investors happy and produce good returns. Pumping up our population with skilled economic migrants ensures demand remains inflated, as we all need some sort of housing. It's an investor's market, a reflection of the fading mining boom, we now have a housing boom!
The fact that we are producing more and more homelessness is being ignored by governments. They are just the flotsam and jet-some of "economic growth" and lazy economics. Easier to blame dysfunctional human traits, such as drugs, alcohol, domestic violence and poverty, not the whole cause and effect of unaffordable housing. Liberal governments don't have ethics, or social conscience, so it's just about money and profits.

Then Britain’s leading economist, John Maynard Keynes, explained that capitalism could last indefinitely under the new conditions if certain traditional policies of the capitalist governments and central banks were changed.
Government policies based on Keynesian theories and the institution of central banking form a nexus of central economic planning. It's a winner-take-all proposition for businesses. Housing is one of the three pillars of the Australian economy, along with financial institutions and natural resources, but banks are warning that houses in Australia are the most inflated of anywhere in the world.

Various governments sold out to the international central banking cartel long ago, with a variety of short sighted “deals” such as the GST , compulsory superannuation, FIrst home buyers, High immigration, and "free” trade! The models themselves are based on Keynesianism currency, which we are told means that more circulating money = more GDP= A better economy. Central Bankers need to convert every productive asset and home into a ” bank asset” and drain wages and earnings from workers into their clutches. Melbourne and Sydney are set to double in population in the next few years. It's all about promoting and inflating the housing bubble, lending, and our GDP. The fact that infrastructure backlog is blowing out won't be a problem as the people will pay for it!

ISIS gains in Palmyra I think are correlated to the US-coalition ramping up aid to the extremists:

In Israeli intelligence source DebkaFile's weekly newsletter (which you have to pay to get) they note that

"Bashar Assad’s fortunes have been waning in recent weeks. His army’s morale is in the pits. Some units are keeping to the sidelines of battles. Iran no longer rushes forward with fresh military supplies. Hizballah, the strongest force still fighting for Assad, is taking heavy losses at the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian arm, the Nusra Front. All this is the outcome of the first heavy weapons to reach the hands of the Syrian opposition in years of civil war from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – blessed by Washington after long hesitation."

This, coupled with a recent NYT revelation that King Salman

"has shifted toward an activist foreign policy, going to war in Yemen and increasing support for rebels in Syria as he positions his country as the defender of the region’s Sunnis. In some cases, he has sanctioned allying with Islamists to serve the kingdom’s agenda... And his support for Islamists could end up empowering extremists, just as Saudi support for the Afghan jihad decades ago helped create Al Qaeda... In another shift, King Salman appears to have discarded his predecessor’s rejection of political Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood as a fundamental threat to the regional order... King Salman has a history of working with Islamists. Decades ago, he was a royal point man and fund-raiser for jihadists going to Afghanistan, Bosnia and elsewhere."

King Salman Upends Status Quo in Region and the Royal Family (10/5/15) by Ben Hubbard | New York Times

So in essence, what the NYT is saying without saying, coupled with the Debka report, is that Saudi Arabia, with the blessing of the US, is ramping up aid to ISIS in Syria, and Obama has approved of providing heavier weaponry to the opposition after long hesitation.

And now we see ISIS gaining ground in regions like Palmyra. Coincidence? I think not...

Thousands of foreigners are believed by intelligence services to have traveled from across the planet to fight in extremist groups in Syria and Iraq. They are like predators buzzing around dying prey! The flood of young men and women from all corners of the globe to join the Islamic State (IS) and other groups operating in the power vacuums of northern Iraq and Syria has prompted concerns among security agencies in their home countries over the potential threat they represent if and when they return.

Often they recent converts to Islam and sometimes, are scarcely able to articulate the reasons behind their decision to join the fight. These recruits are from a generation that came of age using social media, and their tweets and postings.

Secular moderates are almost gone -- and the Syrian war has become anything but Syrian. President Bashar Assad is often said to be "brutal", by a mass-media that uses tired and refuted 'evidence' of this, but now regional sectarian ties have turned Syria into an international battleground rife with fighters, funding and weapons from around the world.

Iranian's support into Assad’s forces began in late 2012, when the Free Syrian Army was making major gains, thanks to U.S. military advisers.

Hijra is an Arabic word meaning “emigration”, evoking the prophet Muhammad’s historic escape from Mecca, where assassins were plotting to kill him, to Medina. For most Islamic extremists today, the concepts of hijra and jihad are intimately linked.

Overpopulation, and immigration, has irrevocably been a force in the spread of Islam.

According to research conducted by Peter Neumann of King’s College London, along with Atran and others, the particular goal of establishing a state under Islamic law has shifted noticeably to establishing sharia law and supporting the institution of the caliphate, regardless of the wishes of the local Syrian population.

The United States has begun a long-awaited program to train Syrian fighters to go into combat against Islamic State, the Pentagon said on Thursday, deepening America’s role in Syria’s civil war after eight months of airstrikes against the Sunni militants.

U.S. military starts training Syrian fighters to combat Islamic State (7/5/15) | The Globe and Mail

Critics say that theoretical limitation is unlikely to withstand the realities of Syria’s messy civil war. The civil war has killed 220,000 people and displaced millions since 2011, despite repeated diplomatic efforts to resolve it.
Should Assad's government crumble, Syria could face greater instability and control by extremist groups, U.S. security officials are warning. The U.S. is watching closely to see if Iran and Russia step in to bolster Assad with weapons and supplies as they have in the past.

Remarkably, some media outlets reported that Assad told his visitors, "Some European countries are committing a grave mistake by allying with countries supporting terrorism."

The members of a Belgium delegation were reported as saying, "Syria constitutes the first line of defense in the face of extremism and terrorism. It is the only country fighting terrorism on the ground. If this line is defeated, terrorism will largely reach European countries. This is why we have to support Syria in this war." According to reports, the parliamentarians continued, "Many Western parties and officials now believe in this." This quote has been confirmed by former Lebanese Minister Wiam Wahhab, who told Al-Monitor he heard the Belgian delegation say it more than once.

Read more: Belgian delegation expresses support for Assad (17/5/15) | Lebanon Pulse

Any struggling nation, especially a secular one, could now follow this model of migration, extremism and military intervention.

I have been listening to the budget foreshadowings- re child care subsidies. The thrust is that they want to get women out to work and it seems- if I got the gist right that stay-at-home mothers will lose out to 2 parent working families.

All these child care subsidies must compensate families for the fact that 2 people have to work to service the mortgage or pay rent when one pay packet used to be enough. The tax payer pays for this in taxes and society as a whole pays in services not provided (as the money is diverted into child care) Children lose out as each becomes one of a crowd in a child care centre instead of having the individual attention of his/her mother. This is a really heavy price we are paying for population growth and foreign investment.

I discussed this with a friend yesterday. My point was that I thought adult to child ratios were too low generally in these outsourced arrangements when child care facilities were involved. My friend is sort of the expert as she used such facilities as a single mother in the 1990s. She said that the rule for young children was a ratio of ¼. I said I thought that was to too many kids for each adult . She said –“Well my mother did it.” I said “But you were not a set a quads.” She acquiesced. (Her mother had 4 in just under 5 years.)

But these are the rules:

My interest in this was sparked by the child who was left in a car outside a child care centre in Kyneton for several hours and died. It said to me – “Too many young children for the number of adults.” My friend protested that it was his mother who had left him there. I said that this is not the point. In the transfer or whatever was happening, someone lost track and no-one checked. That’s what happens when people have too much to take care of.

Child Care ratios and qualifications for child care

Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg has blamed "toxic politics, ad hominem attacks, and premature judgment" for the University of Western Australia's decision to pull out of his planned Australia Consensus Centre which would have advised on the best ways to tackle the world's development challenges.

Bjorn Lomborg blames 'toxic politics' for University back down on Australia Consensus Centre (9/5/15) | AFR

Lomborg has argued that climate change is real and poses problems, but is not as urgent a problem to the world as disease, poverty and lack of clean water. Surely climate change will exacerbate the latter, and so will population growth inhibit "development" of nations?

Rather than think-tanks, sponsored by governments, we have universities as business-like institutions, there to create an income flow for governments. Academics who want to build their careers need to play politics and stay on the "right" side, or be retired before they can be open and reveal objective and enlightened ideals. There's an idealistic clash between really dealing with the problems of the world, and with capitalist aims of big growth, profits, and globalisation.

Parents have slammed Bell Primary School’s reliance on portable classrooms ₁ , launching a petition for the school to better cope with growth. Their seventh portable is now in use.

High population growth and distribution of permits for high density housing has pushed local schools to over their limits. The student numbers are clearly going to continue to increase, but parents are demanding that the school must find a solution rather than just putting in more and more portables. Planning has become synonymous with housing approvals, not actually catering for infrastructure demands and public services. Bell Primary is growing at a rate of about 60 enrolments a year, jumping from 343 students in 2013 to an expected 521 next year. Governments love and encourage population growth as being "good for the economy", but the benefits never are sufficient to cater for all the demands!

Sign the petition:

This petition is about planning for growth and engagement at Bell Primary School

Footnote[s]

1. ↑  See also: Parents protest use of portable classrooms at Bell Primary School in Preston (6/5/15) | Herald Sun , Students at over-crowded Preston school lose oval (4/5/15) | the Age.

Now an Internally displaced person cannot seek asylum in the US, and can be denied entry because this might be what she would do? This sounds like a cloak and dagger reasoning, to hide secrets, and this nun is now a threat to US security? She is Christian, not Islamic! Who is the real threat to world peace?

The US is denying the victims of ISIS to claim asylum. One wonders just how complicit the US is in propagating these wars, and don't want to be exposed.
The US and the so-called anti-ISIL coalition claim that they have launched a campaign against this terrorist and criminal group – while supplying them with weapons, food and medicine in Jalawla region (a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq).

“The United States itself has been complicit in training the members of ISIS in Syria who later came to Iraq and began to input their essentially reign of terror on the Iraqis,” William Beeman, professor of anthropology at The University of Minnesota, told Press TV from Minneapolis last year.

Commander of Iran’s Basij (volunteer) Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, has stated that the US Embassy in Baghdad is a command base of ISIS, and that the US still “directly supports” the terrorist faction: “The US directly supports ISIL in Iraq and the US planes drop the needed aids and weapons for ISIL in Iraq”.

The ‘anti-ISIS’ Coalition of Deception. The Deceptive Nature of the War against the Islamic State (16/2/15) | Global Research republished from New Eastern Outlook

With such complexity in the anti-terror campaign, the US is obviously keen on selecting their information sources, and who is allowed to "talk" publically on this issue.

Ballarat health, Victoria, stands to lose $364 million in federal funding over the next 10 years, according to an analysis conducted by the state government. She said the result would mean longer waiting times for emergency treatments and elective surgeries in Ballarat.

"These cuts will be disastrous for the Victorian health system and have horrendous consequences for regional Victoria," Ms Hennessy said.

The federal government has maintained a change was needed to "deliver a more efficient hospital system into the future and it has outlined that hospital funding under the Abbott government continued to rise each year."

So, the implication is that our health care system is inefficient, and wasteful, and needs to be trimmed. On the contrary, numbers of patients have been exploding, and waiting lists blowing out, causing suffering and even deaths! They cut funding then claim it will "rise" each year?

Ballarat is regional Victoria’s leader in population growth, with new figures indicating the city grew by almost 2 per cent in a year. ABS revealed Ballarat was the top regional centre for annual growth in Victoria and New South Wales.

Our Federal and State governments all endorse high population growth, and that "immigration is good for the economy", but they not only fail to provide sufficient services and infrastructure for this heavy "growth" model, they end up slashing funds for something as basic as health care! How can more be done, with less?

Health care is not an optional extra, a luxury, but basic as a first world country, and to our well-being. After more than 2 decades of "economic growth", why are we getting poorer, and why is our economy failing? The basic needs of people are being compromised, and there should be outrage over these savage cuts to health.

The Courier: Health Cut Fear