Miscellaneous comments from 14 Sep 2014

Comments made on the previous Miscellaneous comments page from 2 July 2014 can be found .

If you have anything you would like to raise, which is likely to be of interest to our site's visitors, which is not addressed in other articles, please add your comments .

Update, 30 Nov 14: Comments are now closed on this page. Please add further comments .

Comments

Below is a copy of a message I will be posting to James di Eugenio, author of (2013) and administrator of the web-site (http://ctka.net)

The first episode of "The Sixties", "The assassination of President Kennedy" screened tonight in Melbourne Australia at 8:30PM UTC +10:00. It is yet another cover-up. You might want to watch it yourself at:

On the surface, The Sixties – The assassination of President Kennedy could appear to be objective and giving both sides of the story. For example, witnesses, who saw mysterious figures on the grassy knoll, around the time of the murder are interviewed, but all too briefly, in my view. Even critics of the Warren Commission, including Mark Day and the late Jim Garrison featured. At one point, one of the legendary 1960s rock musicians, whose name escapes me now—it was either David Crosby or someone like him—was interviewed and said that there was a conspiracy to murder President Kennedy.

However, apart from , now aged 87, not one of the other current authorities against the JFK murder conspiracy cover-up featured on the program. A quick look at, for example, , managed by James DiEugenio would have given the producers a large number of critics of the Warren Commission, including James DiEugenio himself, who could have been approached to appear on the program, but evidently none were.

Much of the time was given to Vincent Bugliosi, author of the discredited Reclaiming History (2007) – see and for reviews on ctka.net. Bugliosi was permitted to ramble on at length purportedly refuting arguments put by others. Bugliosis's word was treated final as no-one, neither the credible anti-cover-up authorities omitted from the program, nor even Mark Lane, was given the chance to respond to Bugliosi. At the end the name of Jim Garrison, who, as shown in Oliver Stone's movie of 1991 JFK tried to bring the assassins to justice, was dragged through the mud using all the familiar smears.

The program concluded with its own pronouncement as to why some people won't accept the official cover-up of JFK's murder. That explanation is that such people are psychologically unable to cope with such terrible tragedy occurring only as a result of bad luck. Belief that the tragedy was the result of a conspiracy is somehow more comforting.

To the contrary, I think it is highly unlikely that anyone who has discovered the truth about JFK's murder would not prefer, instead, to be able to believe that it was just bad luck. If JFK's murder was only the result of bad luck that allowed Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone nut gunman, to murder the President of the United States, then, surely, it would have taken quite some time before another such tragedy occured? Yet in only five more years after 22 November 1962, three other outstanding American political leaders, each of whom stood for the people against corrupt vested interests, were also murdered: Malcolm X, JFK's brother Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. In the case of Martin Luther King, that he had been murdered as a result of a conspiracy by the Army and the police force.

Banyule City Council will deal with a motion at its meeting on Monday 15 September 2014 proposing to proceed with the sale of land - the old Bellfield Primary school site. The successful purchaser of the Haig Street site is a syndicate led by interests associated with Metricon Homes (Metricon syndicate). Contracts of sale have now been executed and the final sale price is $16,000,000 subject to conditions being met. The proposed development is for 118 two-storey homes and based on the attached concept site consistent with Development Guidelines established by Council. The height and number of dwellings proposed is within the guidance provided by Council of 80-140.The Expression of Interest (“EOI”) for the Ivanhoe redevelopment site closed on 19 June 2013. Submissions are now being assessed. Council is continuing to advocate an education site opportunity at 230 Banksia Street, Bellfield, to the state government and opposition. There have been 9 public school closures over the last 20 or so years, This is despite a strong call from the community to halt the redevelopment of the sites and return the site to the community for public education uses. You can rest assured that council will now proceed to develop the land for medium to high density housing. There is only one secondary college servicing the needs of the southern end of the municipality of Banyule - Viewbank Secondary College which is now at capacity with just over1100 children enrolled for 2015. Population projections, or social engineering efforts, predict that there will be almost 4,000 more children in the 0-17 year age bracket by 2031 requiring access to education in Banyule. Of those 4,000, 82% will reside in the southern end of Banyule alone. Housing and population growth, inverse to schools growth, is a recipe for disaster and a lack of planning! The shortage of local public school places will not go away. In fact, the shortage of schools and their overloading will be increased by the proposed developments because families that move in will create further demand for public schools places. Additionally, there are foreshadowed development proposals to occur along Darebin Creek, as Darebin Council deals with its Northland structure plan for that precinct. With massive unit developments proposed, again, this will only increase demand for public education places not only in Darebin, but also in Banyule. Reopen our schools does not support the resuming of public park lands to accommodate schools either. A loss of green space and/or public park lands will only exacerbate the further loss of community that has occurred with the closing of these schools. By the year 2030 increases in population for the 0-17 age bracket are forecast as follows; Heidelberg 57%, Heidelberg Heights 38.5%, West Heidelberg/Bellfield 48% and Ivanhoe 48%. These are massive increases in the amount of young people in our municipality, and these children will need access to schools amongst other services. Our State's Planning Department has been captured by the housing industry, and has forgotten about the needs of families, education, and infrastructure costs. All this "growth" is about cashing on on the revenue from housing growth, and ad hoc approvals, but basic human needs are being ignored! No doubt will full-throttle "skilled" immigration, education will become less important as we can just import skills, and housing fillers, from overseas!

The Federal Court recently threw out a challenge by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) to measures introduced by the Abbott Government, which made it easier to employ non-Australian workers on the sites. There was a protest against easing of restrictions for foreign workers by unionists. This comes after condemnation of the unemployed as "leaners" on our economy, and tough new restrictions on NewStart allowances! The Abbott's government's contradictory message is that mining companies want easier access to foreign workers, while there's more skilled unemployed in Australia going to waste! Senator Michaelia Cash addressed the annual Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) Skilled Migration Conference in Perth. Australia’s immigration program is running at record high levels, despite the recent slump in employment growth in Australia since 2011. Official unemployment figures do not reflect the true extent of joblessness among emerging communities, leading migrant and refugee settlement agency AMES Chief Executive Officer Cath Scarth has told a conference last year. At the conference, Scarth called for the creation of a national program to help migrants and refugees with skills find work quickly. A better question to ask is why are our so-called "skills shortages" being broadcast over the world, when we have high unemployment and don't have enough jobs for all the "skilled" migrants and asylum seekers? Most of the growth in employment over the past three years has gone to overseas-born migrants who arrived in Australia during these three years. Successive governments have justified the current high level migration on the grounds that it is delivering scarce skills and thus is not in conflict with the aspirations of Australian resident job seekers. This study shows that this is not the case - yet the scam continues and population growth has become a way of disguising our weak economy!

The Western Australian government is chopping down the pine plantations where Carnaby's black cockatoo make their homes -- a catastrophe for these endangered birds. Carnaby's Black Cockatoo is an iconic species beloved by Perth people. Cockatoos form strong bonds with their partners for their whole lives (males often fly over 12 kilometres to find food for nesting females) and can live for 50 years in the wild. But in just 20 years these intelligent, affectionate birds could be extinct. Like many woodland species, Carnaby's have seen their homes destroyed as native forests are felled to make way for timber plantations. Cockies have proved more flexible than many; in the 1950s, they started moving into the Gnangara pine plantation north of Perth and have settled there. Now the pines the birds rely upon for food and nesting are to be cut down. The trees require a great deal of water and the Western Australian government has been clearing the 23,000 hectare plantation to protect the region's water catchment area. But the government has failed to replace the razed trees with native forest where Carnaby's could live. Banksia woodland is being cleared for development and most pine plantations will be harvested without replacement over the next 14 years. These woodlands are being cleared to make way for housing and infrastructure while pines are being harvested to fulfill a commercial contract and because these trees limit groundwater recharge. Swaths of native bush that provide food for the birds are also being eliminated. No wonder that cockatoos' numbers are falling by 15 percent every year. According to BirdLife Australia- "The cockies have adapted to feeding on pine plantations in response to the annual loss of about 1,000 hectares of native bush around Perth. Unfortunately, Perth’s plantations are also being cleared. It’s easy to understand why the birds are in so much trouble". About 10 percent of the world's population of Carnaby's lives in the Swan River Region. The Western Australian government must stop clearing the area's bushland until trees where cockatoos can live are planted and have matured. We can stop the loss of these birds before they disappear for good. Since late-2006, Western Australia has experienced the highest rate of population growth in the country, averaging nearly 3.0% per annum over this period, Perth faces a huge water shortage and you can see 100+ year old trees now dying as the water table recedes due to overuse of bores. Almost 2/3 of water is forecast to be from desalination by 2060. Our absurdly high rates of immigration are causing our cities to choke on greed, and destroy our nation's natural heritage and wildlife.

Up to 6000 firefighters are battling a wave of bushfires raging across California, which is gripped by one of the state's worst droughts and near-record temperatures. Groundwater accounts for about 60 percent of California’s water supply -- about 20 percent more than it would in an average year. Until now, California had been the only state in the U.S. West without such a plan to manage ground water supplies. Nearly 62 trillion gallons of groundwater have disappeared from the U.S. West in the past few years due to drought and population growth, California scientists said last month. So far this year, the state has seen only about one-fifth of its normal rainfall. Agriculture consumes 80 percent of the state’s water, and much of its output is not consumed here, but shipped around the country and world. In turn, California imports food from all over the world, and much of that is from irrigated farmland. California, baking in temperatures of nearly 40 degrees, is in the third year of its worst drought for decades, devastating its largely agricultural Central Valley in particular. California’s ongoing three-year drought combined with slow responses from co-ops, has doomed many of the state’s dairies, raising questions about how just sustainable this form of “sustainable farming” really is — economically, ecologically, and otherwise. Pastured dairies throughout California, once exemplary models of sustainable and organic farming, are in jeopardy of imminent collapse. The dairy industry is a thirsty one. The Department of Finance projects that California’s population will grow to 53 million by 2060, a population gain that would exceed the current populations of either Illinois or Pennsylvania. More people, less water. It is not a pretty picture.

A ground-breaking analysis released on Thursday shows there is a 70% chance that the number of people on the planet will rise continuously from 7bn today to 11bn in 2100. The work overturns 20 years of consensus that global population, and the stresses it brings, will peak by 2050 at about 9bn people. Prof Adrian Raftery, at the University of Washington, who led the international research team, said that “There is now a strong argument that population should return to the top of the international agenda. Population is the driver of just about everything else and rapid population growth can exacerbate all kinds of challenges.” Lack of healthcare, poverty, pollution and rising unrest and crime are all problems linked to booming populations, he said. However, governments and world leaders remain oblivious, and the alarming rate of human population growth is a threat to our planet's ecosystems, wildlife, and global peace. Every living thing could easily be hunted and preyed upon, for "food", in a desperate attempt to feed the hungry. Already the Ebola outbreak is threatening human health, due to the consumption of "bush meat", or wildlife. This population projection is a dangerous precedent for our future, and it unsustainable. The new research shows the issue of ageing population will affect countries whose populations are very young today. We can't have booming birth rates without eventually an ageing population! It's all the same thing. In Ghana, for example, women without education have an average of 5.7 children, while women with secondary education have 3.2 and women with tertiary education only 1.5. However, there's a lot of misogyny that's preventing woman gaining access to education, careers and family planning. The UN should be ensuring that all the world's countries have access to, and practice, sustainable family planning. We are at about "peak" everything! Those who are concerned about anthropogenic climate change should first be addressing global overpopulation,and promoting efforts to slow it down. Our planet it finite, and humans are far too successful. The fate of Easter Island is a model of what happened with humans overpopulated - the forests were destroyed, food became scarce, and violence erupted. The UN are in denial, and Western countries like Australia are basing their economics on "population growth, foolishly ignoring global trends and threats.

I don't get this "ageing population" line. Doesn't everyone get older at the same rate, all the time? Hasn't it been this way for eternity? If the population is growing, doesn't this mean the portion of people who are younger will always be bigger than that which are older? How can Australia, which has among the highest population growth rate in the first world, have an 'aging population' problem. If its immigration causing the issue, why let old people in? For those who haven't seen it yet, I recommend this video. Arithmetic, Population and Energy, a presentation by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett

Lions have disappeared across Africa as human populations and their livestock herds have grown, competing for land with lions and other wildlife. The African lion faces extinction across the entire West African region, according to a new report. Lions once ranged continuously from Senegal to Nigeria, but the new paper reveals that only about 250 adult lions survive in the region. Lions have disappeared across Africa as human populations and their livestock herds have grown, competing for land with lions and other wildlife. The more people on the planet, the less biodiversity we will see. A lack of funding for conservation coupled with an increasing human population and impoverished economies, means lions are increasingly vulnerable, researchers say. Around 200 wild lions were culled in South Africa between 2010 and 2012. These were not lions bred for hunting but lions on reserves known for photographic tourism- canned "hunting" or canned killing! Human population numbers are rising and the demand for land for agriculture and housing is ever increasing, not to mention physical human barriers such as roads. Humans have no more right to overpopulate than animals do!

Australia's People's Climate March is one of around 2500 rallies taking place around the globe ahead of a United Nations summit on climate change in New York next week. More than 30,000 people converged in Melbourne to the Treasury gardens to demand support for the mitigation of climate change. Organisers of an international climate rally say the Melbourne leg of the global demonstration has seen 30,000 protesters converge on Melbourne's Treasury Gardens on Sunday afternoon. Australia's People's Climate March is one of around 2500 rallies taking place around the globe ahead of a United Nations summit on climate change in New York next week. World leaders will meet on Tuesday where Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop will represent Australia. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said it is important he stay in Canberra but will head to the US the next day for a UN Security Council meeting on terrorism. While terrorism is an important topic, it shouldn't over-ride the importance of climate change, and it's power as a global threat! A 100 per cent renewable energy target and putting an end to coal mining were hot topics on the agenda at the rally, which ended at Treasury Gardens after winding through the CBD. Speaking in the offices of his nation's mission to the United Nations, Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum said he and the leaders of other Pacific island nations were bewildered by what he called "backsliding" on climate change by Australia, which the region had considered to be its "big brother down south". "Not only [is Australia] our big brother down south, Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and Australia is a Pacific island, a big island, but a Pacific island. It must recognise that it has a responsibility. Last year Tony Abbott has disbanded the Climate Commission, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and sacked Tim Flannery. The CSIRO have had savage cuts to funding. Whether our government want to recognise the threat, and scientific basis of climate change, should not hinder their responsibility to take it seriously. Personal opinions must be put aside, democratically, when in government. Australia is supposed to be a leading developed nation, with high per capita greenhouse gas emissions, and an exporter of energy, and personal opinions to the contrary must be put aside for the benefit of the greater good. The EU's 20 per cent target is equal to a 24 per cent reduction in emissions for each European from 1990 to 2020. Australia can't even commit to a paltry 5% due to aims to increase population growth. Europe's population is not projected to grow between 1990 and 2020. By contrast, Australia's population is projected to grow by 45 per cent. The best thing we could do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is reduce our insane rate of population growth through zero net immigration. Then we might have some chance to scale up renewable energy sources, rather than make the scale of the problem bigger and bigger.

THE BIG POPULATION DEBATE Will Melbourne still be the most liveable city by 2050? ROBERT DOYLE, Melbourne’s Lord Mayor “Population growth is inevitable in our great urban centres so we need to plan for it.” AND KELVIN THOMSON, MP, President, Victoria First “Population growth is neither inevitable nor desirable, it damages our way of life and our children’s future.” Moderator : MICHAEL SHORT The Age Editor of “The Zone” with open mike for questions DEAKIN EDGE, FEDERATION SQUARE MONDAY 13TH OCTOBER 2014 COMMENCING 5.30 pm sharp until 7 pm FREE ENTRY Brought to you by Planning Backlash, a coalition of Melbourne’s community and resident groups

On Tuesday, South Australian legislators voted against the Surveillance Devices Bill, which aims to criminalise the public release of information collected through the use of surveillance devices, with a maximum penalty of $75,000 for a corporation and $15,000 or imprisonment for three years for individuals. So-called 'ag-gag laws' have already been introduced in some parts of the United States. So, the laws that protect animals has a sting in the tail - if animal cruelty is reported, not the perpetrators but the messengers will be pursued as criminals! At least the South Australian government has rejected this draconian Surveillence Devices Bill, which will make it illegal to film or spread animal abuses. Instead of prosecuting the criminals, the messengers will be hounded, charged and possibly imprisoned! Our so-called civilized society is descending downhill, ethically and morally, to ensure that farming corporations' profits are protected, and that industrial farming can continue in secret. In July this year, PETA USA revealed a shocking video filmed within Australian shearing sheds, giving the public an unprecedented view of the wool industry. The acts of senseless brutality on defenceless sheep exposed in footage from 19 Australian shearing sheds last month should have shocked the nation. What they saw was horrific abuse: sheep being violently body slammed, repeatedly punched in the face, beaten and their bloody wounds sewn roughly with needle and thread and without pain relief. Voiceless says: "Ag-gag laws operate to hide the truth about how animals are raised on factory farms by silencing advocates and stifling transparency. These laws effectively suppress the public’s right to question our present use and abuse of farmed animals while permitting the concealment of animal cruelty and neglect". Victorian Farmers Federation egg group president Brian Ahmed said farmers wanted extreme animal activists held to account. It's an admission that their intense farming practices don't hold up to scrutiny, and rely on inherent cruelty. What is "extreme" about preventing animals from cruelty? Of course, there are cases where animals must be moved, injected, separated and endure some discomforts, but we all do! Animal cruelty can't simply be wiped out because it's illegal to use surveillance cameras! That's just ignoring the messenger! Where are we going as a society if we tolerate cruelty? It's an admission that it's happening, but governments won't do anything. Will this happen with other crimes too? We will be a "crimeless" society, with all of it happening underground, in denial. Only criminals want exposure of crime criminalized!

Understanding how the power structure thinks, and how it intentionally manipulates the emotions of the masses, is key to overcoming and rolling back totalitarian ambitions. I have spent the last few posts talking about how instilling fear throughout the general populace is one of their primary tactics. Indeed, to borrow a term from Glenn Greenwald, “fear-manufacturing” has been in overdrive across the Five Eyes nations over the past several weeks. In the UK, we saw it used to convince elderly Scots to overwhelming vote against independence, thus swaying the result decisively to the NO side. In the USA, we have seen it used to drum up support for another pointless war in the Middle East, which will benefit nobody except for the military/intelligence-industrial complex.

From the same source:

Australian spies will soon have the power to monitor the entire Australian internet with just one warrant, and journalists and whistleblowers will face up to 10 years’ jail for disclosing classified information.

 

The government’s first tranche of tougher anti-terrorism laws, which beef up the domestic spy agency ASIO’s powers, passed the Senate 44 votes for and 12 against on Thursday night with bipartisan support from Labor.

 

The bill, the , will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where passage is all but guaranteed on Tuesday at the earliest.

 

Anyone — including journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers — who “recklessly” discloses “information … [that] relates to a special intelligence operation” .

 

Any operation can be declared “special” and doing so gives ASIO criminal and civil immunity. Many, including lawyers and academics, have said they fear the agency will abuse this power.

 

Those who identify ASIO agents could also face a decade in prison under the new laws, a tenfold increase in the existing maximum penalty.

 

These changes have opposition support and would make it a criminal office to travel to a terrorist hot-spot without a reasonable excuse.

Editor: This comment has been made into an article on the front page, here: Australia does totalitarianism poorly. The PATRIOT act at least appeared to have some limitations. These laws don't encroach on privacy, they completely obliterate it. The Liberals are doing what the Nazi's did, minus the economic improvements, conservation and infrastructure (there's something to think about!). It essentially implements the Internet monitoring that we were worried about years ago. There is little reason to doubt that Australian spies won't have a warrant to monitor one computer or device on the internet as soon as they can (I strongly suspect these laws legitimise what has been long standing practice and that such monitoring has been in place). We can consider the internet monitored, as these laws define no boundaries. This is no different to if the government had said "we will monitor the internet however we like". I ask which "terrorist" organisation has the capability to threaten our liberties and rights to this extent? And all this from what? The media lying to the population by stating there was a beheading planned! As mentioned in the article Remember, when the power structure sees a meme is working they double and triple down on it. With the beheading videos effectively pushing the American public back into a post-9/11 fetal position, it became clear that the fear of “beheadings” is enough to send the Western public into a total panic state. Then, suddenly a plot emerges that ISIS related terrorists were planning to publicly behead an Australian citizen in the middle of Sydney. As usual, mainstream media rushed to scare the shit out of everyone. Note that the police only confirmed 'violence', NOT beheadings being planned (or merely discussed or mentioned). Colour me cynical, but this is a blatant attempt to jerk Australia back under the boot of authoritarian conservatism and give licence for military action against Syria, oops, sorry, ISIS... All the government agencies have to do, is follow anyone they want to make a target, and it is inevitable you can find something to blow up. The ISIS angle works doubly well, because objecting to the coming conflict paints one as someone against a humanitarian mission. Consider the following, if one wanted to ban the Macrame and Crochet society, or ban knitting needles. 1) You begin surveillance of members of the Macrame and Crochet society, infiltrate meetings, etc. 2) Wait. Record everything. 3) Have a record of a phone call of Mavis telling Ethel "That Tony, I tell ya, he needs a good kick in the bum". Every Australian at some point or another says something along these lines about some politician. Chaff bag anyone? 4) Say that members of the organisation have been "planning violence" against Australians (true in a very strict sense), then LATER, mention its a politician. 5) Have the media use phrases like "The Macrame and Crochet society has been under surveillance...." . It is technically true and people will assume they must have done something wrong to be under surveillance. "Known to the police", "Was under surveillance" are scary sounding phrases which imply guilt and danger, but could actually be completely meaningless. 6) Organise 800 riot goons to arrest Mavis, complete with media presence (how do they know?). Call it the biggest anti-terror operation in history (again, technically true, because you've made it true). 7) Don't make effort to correct the media of they talk of 'stabbing people with knitting needles'. The media are allowed to get things wrong. Journalists don't get fired for mistakes. You can talk of remaining calm, but neglect to mention the media whipping things up, and do nothing at all to calm people. And there you have it, you can have the population in hysteria, thinking that old grannies are going to gouge eyes out with knitting needles. The beauty of this scam is you don't have to lie! Hand on your heart, its all true! edit: The scariest thing was, as I was writing this, I had in the back of my mind that this could be a risk. That this would be monitored, put against my name. I would have never thought 20 years ago that in Australia it would be like this, but here we are... I remember as a child my grandmother telling me stories of how everyone was monitored in Nazi Germany, that people would dob on each other (often just out of spite) and that things you said could be used against you later. From what I've heard of people who lived in Communist countries, it wasn't too different there. These regimes did NOT have armed guards at every corner, STOPPING you form speaking. No, you were free to speak in Communist Russia, or Nazi Germany, but you never knew what was recorded, and you would find, sometime in the future, after exercising your 'freedom', you're in trouble.

A bipartisan parliamentary committee has found the Abbott government's proposed "learn or earn" budget measure would breach Australia's human rights obligations if implemented. The government wants to strip people aged under 30 of the dole for six months unless they are in training or in work, and raise the eligibility age for the higher-value Newstart payment to 25 from 22. The proposals are "incompatible with the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living", and "incompatible with the rights to equality and non-discrimination on the basis of age". This war on our unemployed young people is based on the assumption that they are dole bludgers and too lazy to work or study! What about the funding ripped from TAFE training, and unaffordable university fees? Jobs are draining from Australia due to our manufacturing industries disappearing, or going off shore. Productivity is low, and we have record rates of skilled immigration, and there are about one million temporary migrants at any one time, with permits to work in Australia - including foreign students. The government is still perpetuating the myth that ALL people who claim a support payment are some how cheating the system or bludging off government welfare. 36 per cent of all migrants over the past 5 years have joined the long-term unemployment queues. This includes up to 90 per cent of some ethnic groups. As technology replaces labour, employment opportunities could possibly significantly recede. Those promoting mass immigration should seriously consider this situation. (one Nation report). Our government is meant to be at the helm of our economy, and while the generous entitlements of politicians remain untouched, the rest of the community is being shaved of them! Job creation is failing to keep abreast with population growth, and this megalomania is locking many people out of our economy. A free market economy might be "good" for the economy, but if it doesn't provide basic human needs of housing, food, water and employment to pay for them, then it's a flawed model.

To boost their own vested interests in housing construction, and increase their profit base, the Property Council of Australia will turn its focus to boosting South Australia’s population in order to drive job creation and economic growth. Clearly there's not enough planning approvals being allowed for their satisfaction, and they want the trend in South Australia that's descended on Victoria! “One of my key goals", says the Property Council's executive director, "is to help simplify South Australia’s complex and cumbersome administrative migration processes – if we can do this, we’ll go a long way to attracting more skilled migrants to our state". In gross terms, more people will increase the size if the economy, in raw terms, but what about considering other parameters other than warehousing humans for their spending ability? South Australia is the driest state in the driest continent on the planet. He says “If we fail to recognise that people are one of our core assets, then we’re allowing other jurisdictions to capitalise by taking our people, taking our innovation and taking our tax revenue." A human "core asset" means that people will buy or rent property, and the buyers will become slaves to the banks and have new victims to drain away their savings on life-long mortgages. South Australia’s population growth rate is already “really rapid” says one of the country’s leading demographers, Director of the Australian Population and Migration Research Centre at the University of Adelaide Professor Graeme Hugo. In Greater Adelaide the general unemployment rate is 6.7%, and youth unemployment is at 14.6% The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) released the data earlier this month, (Sept) which revealed outback South Australia has a staggering youth unemployment rate of 29.8 per cent. Housing is distorting and twisting our economy, and failing to produce enough jobs for their growth "projections" - or deliberate tweaking of immigration rates to match their desired number of new construction permits!

Wildlife numbers have plunged by more than half in just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, a survey of more than 3000 vertebrate species shows. From 1970 to 2010, there was a 39 per cent drop in numbers across a representative sample of land and sea-dwelling species. Global human overpopulation means the encroachment onto, and destruction of, native animal habitats, and is the silver bullet of deaths and extinctions. With demographers projecting that human numbers will continue to swell to 12 billion by the end of the century, there's little wilderness space for non-human species. We are a "pest" species on the planet, in plague proportions! Freshwater populations declined 76 per cent. WWF's Living Planet report, 2014, says that 'the number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish across the globe is, on average, about half the size it was 40 years ago. Humans were consuming natural resources at a rate that would require 1.5 Earths to sustain - cutting down trees faster than they mature and harvesting more fish than oceans can replace. Human population overshoot is more than what individuals consume, but the gross pressure from sheer swelling numbers! The report warned, 'with the world population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 and 11 billion by 2100, the amount of biocapacity available for each of us will shrink further'. Humanity's greed for natural resources will overwhelm that of animals, and force their demise. The people of Kuwait had the biggest overall footprint, followed in the top 10 by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Belgium, Trinidad and Tobago, Singapore, the United States, Bahrain and Sweden. Australia has the biggest rate of mammal extinctions of the modern world.

Australia's ecological footprint is the 13th-largest in the world - and is likely to get bigger following the repeal of the carbon tax, conservation group WWF has warned.

WWF's Living Planet Report found the demands placed on the planet are more than 50 per cent what nature can sustain. The introduction of a price on carbon was the likely cause of our country's improved ranking, but the repeal of the two-year-old carbon price scheme in July would likely see Australia go backwards in future rankings.

The new report tracks the growth or decline of more than 10,000 populations of 3038 species ranging from forest elephants to sharks, turtles and albatrosses. Humans were consuming natural resources at a rate that would require 1.5 Earths to sustain – cutting down trees faster than they mature and harvesting more fish than oceans can replace.

The report found that if the rest of the world lived like Australians, 3.6 planet's worth of natural resources would be needed to sustain the demands placed on nature. We are in serious ecological overshoot, and our growth and living standards can't be sustained, but this report simply is incomprehensible to our leaders, and general public, and business continues as usual!

Freshwater species, which have suffered a 76 per cent decline since 1970 - double that of land and marine animals. Small mammals in Australia such as bilbies, bettongs and bandicoots, which are battling predation from introduced species such as cats and foxes.

(30/9/11) at http://www.theage.com.au/environment/global-biodiversity-suffers-as-humanity-lives-beyond-its-means-20140929-10nl6b.html

The WWF report says it expects the world’s population to exceed 9.5-billion by 2050, and half of all future population growth is expected to occur in just eight countries, six of which are in Africa.

In just 40 years as Earth's human population has nearly doubled, while there was a 39-percent drop in numbers across a representative sample of land- and sea-dwelling species. Mankind was chomping through Nature's bounty much faster than the rate of replenishment, the WWF warned.

Read more: at http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-wildlife-numbers-halved-over-past-four-decades-wwf-2014-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-wildlife-numbers-halved-over-past-four-decades-wwf-2014-9#ixzz3EwMQraeD

After a year of ongoing live export breaches in Jordan, the exporter implicated continues to operate. Animals Australia have shown evidence that Australian sheep being sold outside approved supply chains in Jordan, ahead of the upcoming Festival of Sacrifice. The Department of Agriculture and industry officials have been informed of “widespread, ongoing” breaches of the Exporter supply Chain Assurance System (ESCAS) at the Jordan market. One of the most significant traditions in the Islamic calendar is the four day festival of Eid, involving families slaughtering animals at their homes, usually sheep or goats. Under Australian law, animals can only be slaughtered in approved abattoirs in foreign markets. Animals Australia has lodged FIVE formal complaints since June 2013 about the illegal sale of Australian sheep in Jordan, in breach of live export regulations. But, still the industry continues, "business as usual". AA investigators documented evidence of more than 600 Australian sheep being illegally sold through dozens of roadside sellers in Jordan. Exporter Livestock Shipping Services, is again implicated. And right now LSS is loading more cattle and sheep on a ship off Adelaide.

AN Apple Tree Creek man, Colin Candy, will take legal action after 10 officers from the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection and Queensland Parks and Wildlife arrived at his home to seize five of his kangaroos. Police officers, and a vet, all came unannounced with a warrant to seize the offending animals - his red kangaroos!

He didn't have a permit to keep the kangaroos, but he insists he's doing it to rescue and protect them. "Kangaroos are treated like pariahs in their own country so I don't understand why I can't keep them. They are harmless beautiful creatures who don't come out of the bush to hurt you like tigers. I applied for a permit numerous times in the past and have only been rejected".

"Only rescue permits are given out." Plenty of permits are given out for killing the "pests", but they are not meant to be protected and secured.

Under the Nature Conservation Act 1992, there is no provision for taking or keeping kangaroos or wallabies with a view to domesticating them.

If the gates are left open and the kangaroos continue to stay in the safety of their homes, it should be their choice. On the other hand, if they leave they are likely to be victims of traffic collisions, or lethally "managed" - killed!

This action by Parks and Wildlife is not about concern for animals, but the contradictory nature of keeping what they consider to be "pest" animals that must be controlled - lethally!

In 2001, the Queensland Parks and Wildlife officers raided his home and seized his Kangaroo, Mitchell and in November the same year his beloved Marcy was taken away. Both kangaroos died shortly after being taken away.

It's a threat to have these magnificent and threatened native red kangaroos seen to be safe, domesticated and safe! They are meant to be raging wild animals, causing threats to fences, grasslands, farmers, and wreckers of our country - ready to attack or kill any intruders on their land. Having kangaroos kept by the public is a threat to the myth of kangaroos are vermin and pests, and that's not in the interests of the Queensland government.

Pam H wrote: " 'the seizure was a culmination of a long standing investigation.' They make it sound like some great drug bust operation ffs! This country is going down the toilet fast. And we're paying for it"!

Other articles about Colin Candy: (5/12/13), (1/8/13), (29/7/13), (14/7/13), (31/5/13), (27/4/13).

Muslim women wearing burqas and niqabs can have their driving licence photographs taken after hours and are not restricted from entering public sector work. Turbans and hijabs are not a problem as they do not cover the face. Pauline Hanson said that Jacqui Lambie has made some good points and she's grateful to her for raising these issues because they’re on the minds of a lot of Australians. We can’t walk into a bank or government building with my helmet on without being stopped and told to show our face, which is fair enough. The same should apply to women wearing the burqa. 11th century costumes are not appropriate in 21st century Australia! The wearing of the burqa is not about religion, or Islam, but a muslim tradition -part of their developed culture. How stupid can Australia get! This extreme clothing is un-Australian, and not suitable for our culture, weather and doesn't belong here! How can these women get employment, or be recognized with their faces covered? It's not about "race" but about respecting the public and our laws that we must be transparent and be identifiable. We should be able to express our "religion" but it shouldn't be imposed on the rest of us, in public! Islam is more profound that simply a religion, and this dress has much more to do with culture and misogyny. It's assumed that Australia can, and should be, the great global melting-pot for all cultures and traditions, with no identifiable cultural norms ourselves. It's assumed that Australia is a blank canvas, to absorb and project religions, cultures, ethnic preferences onto! We have no history, arts, traditions or ethnicity! We are assumed to be "racist", "xenophobic" or "bigots" if we challenge multiculturalism and having to adapt to new-comers instead of visa versa. Migrants who come here must learn to adapt, and assimilate. WE shouldn't have to change to fit them! With immigration rates ramped up five-fold since the Howard government, Australia is being overwhelmed by "diversity". The burqa debate symbolizes the challenges we are facing due to to political-correctness, and being forced to adapt to foreign influences. The burqa is inappropriate in Australia, and anonymity is threatening, and anti-social. The great social experiment of Multiculturalism is showing cracks, and should be abandoned and replaced by a patriotic surge of Australianism and national unity!

I ask this honestly. Do their husbands and fathers expect them to be able to get a job, have a career, be independant? Maybe not being able to get a job is not an issue, as they will be housebound anyway. Some who pushed for cultural pluralism, did it with the belief that the West was a racist, brutal patriarchy, and that culture busting would fix this. They didnt realise the rest of the world wasnt much better, it not, worse. People say assimilation will fix this, but if the immigration rate is higher and rising, then there will always be significant numbers who have not assimilated. The "they will assimilate" argument only holds water if immigration will stop and time is allowed for things to settle. With continued immigration, these issues will persist indefinately. But one thing I do object to, is people blaiming Islam, or blaming Muslims for cultural friction. If we dont like the attitudes towards women, then that is our problem, not theirs. I do believe that objectively, some cultural practices are better than others but I'm not keen on banning their practices. This is a free country, and I object to ANY loss of freedom to support "diversity". This includes broad hate speech laws and banning cultural dress. I should have the right to voice my opinions of the wearing of the burka without going to jail or losing my job for "offending" and they should have the right to believe that women are mens property and keep them covered (an attitide I disagree with). I find the curtailment of freedom disturbing. We recently have lost rights, to monitor people we invited. We are championing multiculturalism, and strenthening authoritarianism to make it work. Here is the thing. We invited people on the pretext of multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance. We preach acceptence, legitimacy of all cultures and preach against eurocentrism and the belief that our ways are better. You cant do that, then complain about the result. It is we, we alone who are responsible for protecting our nation, our human rights, our values, our dignity and the progress we have made. Some time ago, we supposedly decided that we shouldnt control our nation, that it wasnt ours, and we have no right to control how it is constituted for our benefit. As a result, we cant complain about not being able to keep what we have given away.

On Four Corners at 8:80PM AEDT Mon 6 Oct 2014, repeated 11:35PM AEDT Tue 7 Oct or watch on-line or on :

Monday 6th October 2014

When a contractor from America's National Security Agency (NSA) downloaded tens of thousands of top-secret documents from a highly secure Government network, it led to the largest leak of classified information in history - and sparked a fierce debate over privacy, technology and democracy in the post-9/11 world.

In leaking the files, Edward Snowden had not only exposed classified information, he also exposed how the US Government had co-opted major tech companies to help it spy on millions of people in the United States and around the world - including Australians.

That surveillance did not simply mean detailing the source and destination of communication, but the communications themselves.

...

Critical appraisal: Coming from 4 Corners, which has copped out on issues like , , the  , 9/11 and most foreign conflicts, this program is surprisingly good.

Hundreds of international medical students will miss out on internships next year despite a doctor shortage that is predicted to occur within 12 years! Tertiary education has become a lucrative export industry, but at the cost of creating internal "shortages"! Like the NSW gas "shortage" scare last year, mining companies have unlimited LNG to export, but not enough reserved for domestic consumption. It's the same with medical training - we have a lucrative export industry of education, and then end up with "shortages" of doctors! New figures show Australia's medical workforce is growing strongly but not at a level to head-off concerns of a looming doctor shortage. Population growth, due to importing people, means that the number of doctors we are producing is being outstripped by net population growth. Australia is still losing medical graduates to other countries because there is a chronic shortage of all-important internships. These doctors should be returning home anyway to their own countries. In 2012 the ABC reported that the Australian health system had been accused of ‘poaching’ African doctors, a country that has long supplied doctors to rural Australia. The active recruitment of health workers from developing regions compounds what are acute gaps in their health care provision, while the wealthy destination countries benefit from receiving trained stocks of workers. Australia relies heavily on poaching the doctors & nurses of under-developed countries, who are even more desperately needed in their countries of origin than here. We may give aid, and then lure their best and brightest health care workers here! Effectively we are killing people in those countries in order to fix medical access problems of our own making. Obviously we should be increasing the number of places for local aspiring students who want to study medicine, rather than "waste" training resources on foreign students and find we are cutting ourselves short because of lack of allocated funds for doctor training. According to the World Health Organisation, the world will be short of 12.9 million health-care workers by 2035. While the largest shortages in numerical terms are expected to be in parts of Asia, it is in sub-Saharan Africa where the shortages will be especially acute. Are we to join third world ranks? We should be a sending-out country, not poaching doctors from developing nations!

A recent plague of feral cats devastated Queensland's former stronghold for the endangered marsupial. There are said to be only 200 left. Astrebla Downs National Park previously was home to an estimated 700 bilbies. More than 3,000 feral cats have been shot by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service within the park over the last two years, costing the department $350,000. However, cats have a huge reproductive rate, and even these killing are not enough to control the feral predator. A plague of longhaired rats in recent years provided a food source and allowed feral cat numbers to skyrocket. Our wildlife numbers are plummeting, and it's a national disaster. The bilby once inhabited approximately 70% of the Australian mainland. However, destruction of suitable habitat through land clearing, and competition and predation by introduced animal species such as rabbits, foxes and feral cats, has greatly reduced the wild bilby population. Now it lives only in grassland and acacia scrubland. In these areas it must compete for food with rabbits and livestock and it is preyed on by foxes and feral cats. In times of drought the bilby comes under severe pressure and cannot compete with the introduced species.

We all use the internet if we read candobetter.net, so others among you may have been encountering a huge problem of delayed keystrokes - i.e., when you try to reply to emails, write emails, you have to wait for ages while Firefox deliberates for some reason. It slows down your work and causes stress. It makes you want to avoid looking at your inbox.

I went to my add-ons settings in Firefox and disabled the following program:
OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems Inc. 1.1

It seemed to solve my problem immediately. Let me know if you have a similar experience.

Since the 1980s, many developed countries have come to rely heavily on overseas-trained health workers, especially from developing countries, for both highly specialised services and aged and domestic care. As in Britain, Canada and the US, Australia’s reliance has become "convenient" and strategic. The active recruitment of health workers from developing countries to developed countries has become a major threat to global health. A shortage of doctors and nurses to care for Ebola patients is being exacerbated by the sheer number of health workers becoming infected. With risks growing that Ebola could flare on foreign shores, the U.S. is calling for nations to dispatch doctors and nurses to West Africa, where thousands of lives are on the line. Few have heeded the call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba. The shortage of health professionals is felt not only in Africa, but also in Europe, the U.S. and other developed countries. Worldwide, an estimated 4.3 million doctors are needed, according to the WHO. Some countries like Australia actively recruit high-skilled health professionals from other countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. And legislation is pending in the U.S. Congress that would give better immigration benefits to foreign-born doctors. Due to a shortage of doctors in Africa, they resort to traditional healing, which can often be harmful when used as the only treatment. There is no known cure or vaccine for the virus and the disease kills between 25 and 90 per cent of its victims. The fatality rate of the current strain appears to be roughly 70 per cent, according to the latest WHO figures.

The fifth annual study by the Swiss bank of global wealth trends found the median Australian adult was worth more than $US225,000 ($258,000) in June. Credit Suisse says Australians deserve their spot at number one because of the rapid accumulation of wealth, especially household property wealth, over the past 14 years. Brian White, chairman of one of Australia’s largest real estate groups Ray White, said much of our wealth could be attributed to our obsession with owning property. It's not an "obsession" but was part of being one of the world's richest countries in the past, and a naturally assumed as normal when houses and land were cheap! We were once called a "lucky country" not for nothing! Highly inflated house prices is not necessarily an indication of "wealth", or an owned asset, unless the owner is an investor. How many of these housing "assets" are actually debts? Released last month, Veda’s second Australian Credit Scorecard report showed that of the 2.1 million people at risk of mortgage default in the next year, 601,380 are at high to extreme risk. On the index measuring price-to-income ratio, Australia clocks in at 140, indicating home prices, relative to income levels, are 40 per cent higher than the historical average. Australian homes ranked fifth among the world's most ''overvalued'' housing markets. Low interests rates, high population growth, and a flush of Asian investments has caused a rush of reckless investments. All this "wealth" in Australia is balanced on a flimsy pedestal, and can easily be knocked over when the housing bubble is deflated. Australia's wealth should be based on productivity, knowledge-investment and 21 century innovation, not on the dubious nature of housing and mortgage growth. "Wealth" based on property is simply fools gold, a glossy facade to increasing poverty and struggles to afford housing. Ponzi schemes are always alluring, but the wealth gravitates to the apex, and the rest of those participating end up being drained of their earnings- or discarded!

Australia has one of the highest levels of private debt. Our houses are expensive, and we go into deep debt to finance high prices. Welcome to modern "economics", where a liability is counted as an asset. It takes quite a bit of mental gymnastics to work around it, but we have. Do you owe a million? You're rich! Owe even more, you must be wealthier. Why, if I take out a 50,000 dollar loan to buy a second hand Toyota Corolla, I must therefore be richer than the guy who has the older model which is paid off. My car is worth 50K! This is insanity, one that will lead to another financial crisis. Perhaps only a collapse will end the madness. Who knows..

People are complaining because of lack of planning - and what's happening is that Melbourne and it's suburbs are being wantonly surrendered to property developers and planners for their vested interests. Behind the "population growth" is demographic engineering, or massive increases in net overseas immigration - not organic or natural reproductive rates!

Between 2000 and 2001, net overseas immigration numbers were are about 80.000. Now the numbers have soared to 241,000 permanent immigration and set to increase again next year. (not counting humanitarian intake or New Zealanders who do not require a visa).

The public are not being given any right to query the overwhelming of Melbourne by housing growth, and suburbs being forced to accept high density housing at the detriment of living standards and traditional values.

We need some real economic activities, not just a heavy reliance on the overly easy option of housing - and the downstream costs of population growth.

Any other method of stimulating our economy, apart for amassing people, would take innovation, thought, planning and intellectual capacity. Population growth, the selling off of our housing and "lifestyle", is a no-brainer and an easy option. Real economic growth requires investment in productivity, knowledge industries, and creativity, A flow of immigrants is a short-term option, one that produces cash flows but downstream accumulates massive infrastructure debts, and actually dilutes the "lifestyle" that's being promoted!

As writer Donald Horne said, ", ".

at http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/melbournes-going-skyhigh-but-so-are-complaints-about-planning-20141016-116vxe.html

High immigration, likelihood of future economic gloom. Perfect recipe for rampant xenophobia and division. Made even worse by the fact that there is clear division with regards to where Australia should go. Add to this the propensity of Australians to accept a police state, authoritarianism and such, and you've got the perfect recipe for a quasi fascist takeover. Why the hell would young Australians pay through the nose to live here, when they can pack up and leave and have a fighting chance OS. (where overseas? - Ed) This government must hate young Aussies. The entrenched oldies must think they have capitve debt slaves.

Animals Australia's chief investigator Lyn White says the evidence of Australian animals being slaughtered outside the official supply chain in the Middle East is proof that the live export system is not working. Cattle are being tied up and stabbed in the neck and live sheep are being thrown into car boots, struggling and bloodied! People are watching and cheering the atrocities. The live export supply chain assurances are NOT working and are a sham! Animals Australia's chief investigator, Lynn White, said that there has not seen a single charge laid, or a single prosecution launched against any export company despite the fact that these are ongoing, deliberate breaches of Australian regulations. The ESCAS system is a paper tiger, meant to give false assurances and quieten the concerned public. Thanks to Animals Australia, this corruption has been exposed - again! "This is criminal behaviour, ongoing, deliberate breaches of Australian regulations by large, influential companies that are showing absolute contempt for these regulations and treating the Australian Government as fools," she said. ‘Tough Australian regulations’ mean very little when animals are still being beaten, stabbed, and brutalised. They mean even less when those responsible for cruelty are permitted to reoffend without sanction". It's like having a legal system, that's ignored! Of course crime will proliferate. If live export regulations cannot stop animal welfare atrocities from continuing, the answer is simple: the live export trade must end. This is about sacrificing animals on the altar of big $$ at the loss of Australia's integrity.

An NRMA-commissioned report on the nation’s liquid fuel security, released in February, says that Australia’s liquid fuel stocks have slumped by 16 per cent in less than a year and that the country is now hurtling towards 100 per cent dependence on imported liquid fuel and oil for transport. Even our Defence Force will be relying on imported fuel.

Australia’s Liquid Fuel Security report is the second part of an inaugural study released last year and paints a bleak picture of a country which it says does not have a viable level of fuel security, or a government plan to improve the situation at a time when local refineries are closing.

According to the company, Australia now sources 90% of its crude and fuel imports for transport, up from just 60% in 2000. Even the Australian Navy is feeling the heat with news that the domestic supply of a special type of fuel will no longer be refined locally by mid-2014.

The NRMA-commissioned report on the nation’s liquid fuel security warns that Australia’s severely declining oil refining industry, and increasing demand for liquid fuels, could result in a scenario in 2030 where it has less than 20 days worth of fuel in reserve, and 100 per cent imported liquid fuel dependency. It's a threat to our nation's security. The report, updated by Jamison in 2010, proposed a series of steps to end Australia’s dependence on imported oil and secure its own transport energy future.

China, India, and other developing countries in Asia account for 72 per cent of the net world increase in liquid fuels consumption, with Middle East consumers accounting for another 13 per cent.

Twenty-eight per cent of the refining industry is set to close by the end of this year, according to report's author, retired Air Vice-Marshal Blackburn. The former deputy head of the RAAF also accused previous reviews of energy security of being purely economic. He urged the government to consider dropping barriers to the adoption of gas as vehicle fuel and to work with the refining industry to retain capacity in Australia. However, our LNG is being sold off at export prices for the overseas market!

The Reserve Our Gas coalition will not apologise for pointing out Australia is the only gas-exporting nation on earth allowing a free-for-all on the export of its gas. Australian gas prices are projected to triple over coming years as a result.
“Let me make this absolutely crystal clear: Australia is the only nation on earth allowing multinational gas companies to extract our gas - without restriction - and sell it back to us at the high global price,” AWU National Secretary and Reserve Our Gas spokesperson Mr McDine said.

According to the ABS, renewable energy extraction, which has been steadily increasing since 2008-09, decreased in 2011-12 by 15 PJ and remains at 2% of total domestic energy production. Solar energy extraction increased by 3 PJ, or 21% and hydro-electricity supply, which fluctuates according to water availability, decreased by 10 PJ, or 16%. Our government's belief in the cornucopia myth, and anti-science stance, could finally jeopardize the eternal "growth" paradigm!

by David Swanson , first on , 23 Oct 2014

According to a book by George Williston called This Tribe of Mine: A Story of Anglo Saxon Viking Culture in America, the United States wages eternal war because of its cultural roots in the Germanic tribes that invaded, conquered, ethnically cleansed, or -- if you prefer -- liberated England before moving on to the slaughter of the Native Americans and then the Filipinos and Vietnamese and on down to the Iraqis. War advocate, former senator, and current presidential hopeful Jim Webb himself blames Scots-Irish American culture.

But most of medieval and ancient Europe engaged in war. How did Europe end up less violent than a place made violent by Europe? Williston points out that England spends dramatically less per capita on war than the United States does, yet he blames U.S. warmaking on English roots. And, of course, Scotland and Ireland are even further from U.S. militarism despite being closer to England and presumably to Scots-Irishness.

"We view the world through Viking eyes," writes Williston, "viewing those cultures that do not hoard wealth in the same fashion or make fine iron weapons as child-like and ripe for exploitation." Williston describes the passage of this culture down to us through the pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts and began killing -- and, quite frequently, beheading -- those less violent, acquisitive, or competitive than they.

Germans and French demonstrated greater respect for native peoples, Williston claims. But is that true? Including in Africa? Including in Auschwitz? Williston goes on to describe the United States taking over Spanish colonialism in the Philippines and French colonialism in Vietnam, without worrying too much about how Spain and France got there.

I'm convinced that a culture that favors war is necessary but not sufficient to make a population as warlike as the United States is now. All sorts of circumstances and opportunities are also necessary. And the culture is constantly evolving. Perhaps Williston would agree with me. His book doesn't make a clear argument and could really have been reduced to an essay if he'd left out the religion, the biology metaphors, the experiments proving telepathy or prayer, the long quotes of others, etc. Regardless, I think it's important to be clear that we can't blame our culture in the way that some choose to blame our genes. We have to blame the U.S. government, identify ourselves with humanity rather than a tribe, and work to abolish warmaking.

In this regard, it can only help that people like Williston and Webb are asking what's wrong with U.S. culture. It can be shocking to an Israeli to learn that their day of independence is referred to by Palestinians as The Catastrophe (Nakba), and to learn why. Similarly, many U.S. school children might be startled to know that some native Americans referred to George Washington as The Destroyer of Villages (Caunotaucarius). It can be difficult to appreciate how peaceful native Americans were, how many tribes did not wage war, and how many waged war in a manner more properly thought of as "war games" considering the minimal level of killing. As Williston points out, there was nothing in the Americas to compare with the Hundred Years War or the Thirty Years War or any of the endless string of wars in Europe -- which of course are themselves significantly removed in level of killing from wars of more recent years.

Williston describes various cooperative and peaceful cultures: the Hopi, the Kogi, the Amish, the Ladakh. Indeed, we should be looking for inspiration wherever we can find it. But we shouldn't imagine that changing our cultural practices in our homes will stop the Pentagon being the Pentagon. Telepathy and prayer are as likely to work out as levitating the Pentagon in protest. What we need is a culture dedicated to the vigorous nonviolent pursuit of the abolition of war.

Climate change and food insecurity are "threat multipliers", and 32 countries dependent on farming face an "extreme risk" of conflict or civil unrest in the next 30 years, a global analytics firm said on Wednesday. Threats to food will exacerbate global tensions, based on finite resources, religious, ethnic and political divides. The already overpopulated countries of Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Ethiopia, Philippines, Central African Republic and Eritrea face the highest level of risk, the Maplecroft report said. 65 per cent of their combined working populations are employed in farming, which contributes 28 percent of their overall economic output. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the production of staple crops such as rice, wheat and corn could fall by as much as 50 per cent in some areas over the next 35 year as a result of climate change. Over the next 50 years population growth, climate change and environmental degradation will jeopardise international food security. By 2050, 9 billion people are expected to inhabit the planet. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that US$83 billion in investment is required per year to meet global food demand. A report on food security 2014 found that while the number of people who experience chronic hunger was reduced by 100 million over the past decade, there are still some 805 million people that go without enough to eat on a regular basis. There are already too many people on the planet, and this overpopulation drives the ongoing environmental crisis. Why, then, do we fixate on technological fixes like solar power and carbon capture, rather than addressing global population growth? São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year. One of the causes of the crisis may be more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the growing deforested areas in the Amazon region. With fewer trees, the Amazon’s capacity to work as a water pump, absorbing moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and releasing millions of liters of humidity into the air, is being reduced, scientists say. A devastating global pandemic that killed 2 billion people was only projected to reduce population size to 8.4 billion, while 6 billion deaths brought it down to 5.1 billion. Global population has risen so fast over the past century that roughly 14% of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today. A report released last week by researchers from Lund University, in Sweden, said the ability to produce food in the Sahel region in Africa is not keeping pace with its growing population, and global warming will only exacerbate the imbalance. Mass migration will spread the problem, not solve it!

I whole heartedly concur with you on this one. The answer to climate change and global food shortages is rampant overpopulation yet here we have Doyle, Napthine and the Wabbott (dumb, dumber, dumbest) promoting growth and especially population growth as the panacea to all our problems. Those of you who may be wondering where we're up to with climate change ie the 2 degrees Celsius tipping point, well we're knocking on the door with maximums at 1.5 degrees and minimums at 2 degrees Celsius above the norm. Last summer was the second hottest on record after 1980-81 followed by 2009-10, 2008-09, 2012-13 &c. Further to this, according to my reckoning (via Inigo Jones method of rainfall forecasting) 2015 will be average at best and 2016 poor. Please keep in mind that even Inigo wasn't always correct, the forecast for this year was for good rains which occurred early in the year, but have petered out during the latter months. Unless overpopulation is addressed head-on we as a species will find the going a lot tougher in coming years as food, water and energy scarcity really kicks in. These scarcities will lead to wars even more horrid than we're currently experiencing. Rising sea levels will see low lying land inundated with millions upon millions displaced with developed nations overrun by refugees. Once we have crossed the 2 degree Celsius tipping point which occur anytime soon, there may be no turning back. Now is a time for action not shilly-shallying, but, alas, I don't think our government (state or federal) have the balls!!

It's a David and Goliath battle, with mere canoes of Pacific Islanders blocking massive coal export vessels bound for overseas! Members of the 15-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) finalized the Majuro Declaration, named after the Marshall Islands' capital where they gathered in September, saying it should be a "game changer" in faltering efforts to address global warming. The burning of coal and other fossil fuels has contributed to climate change, which in turn will causes sea levels to rise. That poses an existential threat to residents of low-lying areas around the world, especially in the Pacific, where entire island countries could disappear. Of course the action failed! Newcastle handles more than 4,000 ship movements annually, more than 90 percent loaded with coal from the nearby mines of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Glencore and others. The industry is an unbeatable Goliath, a monolith of power and wealth. Australia appears set to fast-track approval of a coal port expansion project that would dump millions of tons of dredged material onto wetlands near the Great Barrier Reef - for the benefit of coal export to China and India. The dredging at Abbott point will be fast-tracked, instead of carrying out a full environmental impact report, which is standard practice for a project of this size. Australia has the fourth-largest share of proven coal reserves in the world. Australia has 110 years of black coal and 510 years of brown coal. Australia is the world’s fourth-largest coal nation, with a A$16.9 billion industry that produces 401 million tonnes a year – almost 8.9% of the world total. Coal prices are already falling, and Australian exporters could also face the extra prospect of having to “wash” their product to bring ash and sulphur within China’s new guidelines – which will add costs and damage profit margins. While environmentalists are trying to combat the impacts of climate change, our Australian government is doing it's best to increase exports! China’s coal demand, which currently accounts for more than 50% of global demand, has been so strong that the IEA called for coal to surpass oil as the leading global fuel before 2030. China’s coal demand could surprise people by peaking in 2016 and then decline gradually thereafter, driven by efficiency measures, increased renewables, hydro, gas and nuclear and tougher policies to cut air pollution. Galilee Basin is one of the largest coal projects in the world, the new mine will cover 200 square km and add up to 60 million tonnes annually to Australia’s existing coal production. Conservationists seeking an emergency injunction to stop winter clearing of the Leard State Forest. Whitehaven insists it is sticking to an approved biodiversity management plan. Whitehaven boss (Mr Flynn) said that "global demand for cleaner coal, as well as carbon capture technology, which is now being used commercially in Canada, was the best way to address climate change". So, coal is the "solution" to climate change is surely an oxymoron!

BHP is refusing to allow Central Queensland locals the opportunity to work in its two newest Bowen Basin mines. The Queensland District is fighting with the Federal and State Liberal National Party (LNP) governments over their locking out local workers from local jobs through 100% FIFO practices and temporary foreign workers on 457 visas. Caval Ridge and Daunia have a compulsory 100% FIFO policy – only employing permanent workers from Brisbane and Cairns. This policy locks out workers from all Central Queensland regional cities and local towns like Moranbah, just kilometres from the mines. It also denies freedom of choice for FIFO workers so they can choose to have their families move closer to where they work in regional Queensland. Can you sign our petition to CEO Andrew Mackenzie and tell BHP to stop locking locals out of work and to end its discrimination against regional communities? CFMEU Mining & Energy Queensland President Stephen Smyth said workers at the 100% FIFO mine deserve better than what is on offer. The region was still reeling from BHP’s ruthless decision to cut 700 permanent jobs from across its Bowen Basin coal mines weeks ago.

Native waterbirds in Victoria need your voice. Over 50 animal welfare, conservation and environmental groups have united to call on the Victorian Labor Party to support an end to duck shooting. And you can add your voice too! The Victorian Labor Party has a vital opportunity this election to take a stand against the cruelty of duck shooting. It was Labor Governments that banned duck shooting in WA, NSW and QLD on cruelty grounds. But both major parties in Victoria still support the recreational slaughter of native waterbirds. And our birds are paying the price... Many ducks aren't killed instantly. Instead they suffer fractured legs, shattered bills, splintered wings, pellets through their eyes and gunshot lodged in vital organs. These wounded birds often face a slow, painful death. With duck shooters making up less than 1% of the community, it’s time the government listened to YOU , the Victorians who oppose duck shooting. So please join RSPCA Victoria, Animals Australia and over 50 other organisations, in urging Victorian Labor to ensure our native waterbirds are safe, not shot. You can add your voice by contacting your Labor MP or candidate or by visiting Yours sincerely, Ms Glenys Oogjes Executive Director Animals Australia Dr Liz Walker Chief Executive Officer RSPCA (Victoria) LABOR: we want our wildlife safe, not shot.

What sort of government deliberately burns our land and deliberately extinguishes our species knowingly in the process! The Victorian Government stands accused of all but guaranteeing the extinction of threatened Mallee birds as a consequence of its bushfire prevention policy. The Mallee emu-wren, in particular, is just one fire away from being wiped from the planet. Policies are meant to guarantee their protection, not their extinction! There are not many people, or properties, in the remote Mallee, but it's easy to burn and reach the quantitative target of 5%! With the sixth extinction means that many species are disappearing off our planet, due to human overpopulation and destruction or degradation of habitats, our Victorian government wants to burn 5% each year, and thus have our whole State made "safe" from bushfires - and the lives of native animals and birds are considered no more than collateral damage in the process". It's a deliberate scorching and incineration of our land, and the specialists habitats of native species, to their demise. There are 314 most important sites for birds in Australia – and five of them, including the Victorian Murray Mallee - are in danger of losing the species for which they were nominated. Birdlife Australia's report says vegetation in the Mallee "recovers slowly after fire" and, to be suitable for threatened Mallee species, "cannot be re-burnt for at least 15 to 20 years". The Wildlife Act, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, and the EBPC Act are all nothing but a thin facade that assumes to "protect" our wildlife , but the dangers that's causing them to fall down the extinction cliff are those that are "exempt" from the laws- such as logging, mining, and State government who ignorantly make these draconian, deadly and cruel decisions.

The two-year super trawler ban ends in November already! But there is an international fleet of freezer-factory trawlers on our doorstep and the industry is still trying to bring them into our waters. Sign the new petition and help convince Prime Minister Tony Abbott to permanently protect our marine life, fisheries and the future of our fishing, from all super trawlers! Dear Prime Minister, We call on the Australian Government to permanently ban super trawlers – large freezer factory trawlers - from Australian waters. Super trawlers are large freezer-factory fishing trawlers that threaten our unique marine life and fisheries, and the recreational fishing, commercial fishing and tourism industries that rely on these. Super trawlers are part of a global problem that has led to the devastation of the world’s fisheries, marine life and local livelihoods, and we don’t want that kind of fishing in Australia. We want fishing activities that ensure healthy oceans, sustainable employment for local fishermen, science based fisheries management, and no unwanted by-catch.

Australia has a major population problem. In many parts of the country, the population is growing faster than our capacity to provide the infrastructure and services the people need. City dwellers face traffic gridlock and crowded public transport. Hospital waiting lists are a problem in several States. Many schools are stretched to capacity. In established residential areas, we are being told that the family home must make way for five storey units, and along our coastline the environment is under threat from spreading urban development. The common factor in all these problems is population growth. Those who exercise power in this country treat population growth as inevitable. We are constantly told we must plan for change, because there will be millions more of us in 20 years’ time. Has anyone asked Australians whether they want millions more people? The extra people have to live somewhere. Have you been asked whether you want more people in your area? The Purpose 1. The aims of the We Will Decide proposal are: - To give people control over the population density in their residential area, by preventing development in that area which would allow the population to grow by more than the people want. People have a legitimate self-interest in controlling the scale of development in their local area. - To provide a connection between the number of migrants and the preference of the people for more or fewer people in their area. The number of migrants permitted to enter the country in Australia’s self-interest will be restricted by reference to the total of the local decisions made by people about the population in their area. - To continue to allow the Commonwealth Government to determine the number of migrants permitted to enter the country pursuant to our international obligations. The online census of 2016 will give us screens to decide on these important issues, and gives a guide on how to answer them. The proposal only applies to the online census form, for administrative convenience.

The most recent figures from the Bureau of Statistics confirm the economy has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.5 per cent over the past two financial years. Since it needs to grow at its medium-term trend rate of about 3 per cent just to hold unemployment steady, the jobless rate has been rising slowly over that time. It is not surprising people are wondering what more we could be doing to get things moving. Some have noted the impending loss of jobs in car making and elsewhere, and are wondering where the new jobs will come from. Growth in consumer spending is being constrained by weak growth in household income because growth in employment is so slow and wages are rising so modestly. "The most recent figures from the Bureau of Statistics confirm the economy has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.5 per cent over the past two financial years". At the same time, with population growth at nearly 2% per year, it means that our population has growth nearly 4% in 2 years, faster than the economy! No wonder we have increasing poverty and unemployment. We are in population overshoot! The more of us there are, the more thinly our wealth is spread between more people. Per capital GDP is shrinking relative to population growth. Per person income and wealth on average is shrinking. It's only being disguised by a high immigration rate of wealthy Asian immigrants that have the cash to buy into the upper-middle end of the residential market and squeeze the existing middle class out. Unfortunately there are limits to growth that we have no, or very little control over. The main restricting factor being we live in a closed natural system called planet Earth, within it's spherical form.

The two-year ban on super trawlers has just run out THIS WEEK. But an international fleet of industrial freezer-factory trawlers (with nets large enough to fly a fleet of aeroplanes through) could soon be back on our doorstep. And the industry is still trying to bring them into our waters. In 2012, together with our supporters, we stopped the Margiris super trawler from causing irreparable damage to our marine life and coastal fishing communities. Super trawlers represent the most extreme excesses of global over-fishing, wreaking ecological havoc in our oceans. Once they have a foot in our door, there is an international fleet around the world just like it - where would it end? A permanent ban is the only way to protect our marine life, fisheries and the future of our fishing from all super trawlers. Sign the petition today. We call on the Australian Government to permanently ban super trawlers from Australian waters. Super trawlers are large freezer-factory fishing trawlers that threaten our unique marine life and fisheries, and the recreational fishing, commercial fishing and tourism industries that rely on these. Super trawlers are part of a global problem that has led to the devastation of the world’s fisheries, marine life and local livelihoods, and we don’t want to set a precedent for that kind of fishing in Australia. We want fishing activities that ensure healthy oceans, sustainable employment for local fishermen, ecosystem based fisheries management, and no unwanted by-catch.

The Great Forests National Park proposal is a vision for a multi-tiered parks system for bush users and bush lovers alike. It is a Parks system that protects and maintains important ecosystem functions critical for our way of life. See the Park Plan. The tallest flowering trees on Earth grow north-east of Melbourne. In their high canopies dwell owls, gliders and the tiny Leadbeater's (or Fairy) Possum. Victoria's precious and endangered faunal emblem lives only in these ash forests of the Central Highlands. Montane ash forests flourish along the Great Divide receiving high rainfall. They harvest water from the air and provide most of Melbourne's drinking water. Research has shown these forests to be among the most carbon-dense forests on Earth due to their rapid growth and relatively slow rates of decay in the cool, wet climate. The Park, stretching from Kinglake through to the Baw Baws and north-east up to Eildon, will host a range of activities such as bike riding, bushwalking, fishing, bird watching, four-wheel driving, motor biking, camping, zipline tours and much more. David Lindenmayer, from the Australian National University, is an ecologist and conservation biologist who has spent over 30 years studying the Mountain Ash Forest of Victoria. Iconic naturalist and filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has lent his support to the Great Forest National Park proposal to help save the Leadbeater’s (Fairy) Possum, while more than 30 groups have called on all Victorian election candidates to do the same.

The gory Gadhimai Mela festival is held in the remote border village of Bariyapur to honour Gadhimai, the goddess of power. In a primitive quest for elusive "power", Hindu devotees in Nepal begin slaughtering thousands of animals in a ritual sacrifice of 300,000 animals in a "festival" of carnage, violence and bloodlust!

Devotees with swords are expected to kill thousands of animals in the two days of worship, including buffaloes, goats and rats. It outrages animal activist, and condemns Nepal to savagery, ignorance and enslavement to poverty of thought and practice.

Animal rights activists accused the temple holding the festival of "cashing in on people's beliefs", and have called for it to be abolished. As for many evils and ills, money is at the root of this "power" worship!

"They are extorting money ... in the name of entry fees, parking, and so on," said Manoj Gautam, president of Animal Welfare Network Nepal, who is in Bariyapur to protest against the ritual.

The festival kicked off at midnight amid tight security, with the ceremonial killing of a goat, rat, chicken, pig and a pigeon. Worshippers on the first day were expected to sacrifice only buffaloes, thousands of which have been corralled into holding pens in a large field, before moving onto other animals.

According to legend, the first sacrifices in Bariyapur were conducted several centuries ago when Gadhimai appeared to a prisoner in a dream and asked him to establish a temple to her. When he awoke, his shackles had fallen open and he was able to leave the prison and build the temple, where he sacrificed animals to give thanks.

It is based on a 260-year-old ritual that a feudal lord dreamt up while imprisoned, but it's high time for it to end.

In keeping this great tradition, and cultural experience, the sacrificed animals have continued to grow in numbers to their thousands, and the spilt blood spreads like a sea of deprivation of compassion, ethics and slavery to human "tradition".


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