Why do I think the preservation of a working fifty-year old bluestone toilet block, in the face of its unnecessary replacement by a production-line designed one, so important that I can bring myself to promote a change.org petition to save it? Because somehow this blocky polylith has shown the capacity to unite us, where we can agree on little else. We live in a very atomised society, suburbanites here in Australia, victims of change and population engineering. People find it difficult to agree on complex politics, but the toilet block is an obvious example of something that does not need fixing, but that someone is fixing to fix. It should be too small for the council to fight us over it, but since the council intends to replace all bluestone blocks, stopping this would obviously frustrate a significant financial transaction. Someone is benefiting financially from this overkill, but not us.
Somehow the threatened removal of the sturdy bluestone toilets symbolizes important elements of our disempowerment. Some of these are our resentment at impermanence, our growing lack of local self-determination, lack of real consultation in favour of manufactured consent, industrial design over artisanship, synthetics over stone and trees, abuse of authority, planning facism, consumerism, delocalisation of decisions, spin replacing argument, and corporate beneficiaries taking over local employment and manufacture.
Our state-ruled local government has different values from many of the locals. These values are for the imposition of unnecessary new infrastructure of banal style and flimsy construction in place of something that anyone can see is durable and which has taken on the thermodynamic patina of age and locality – a sign that it belongs. Somehow this toilet block seems the right place to make a stand. See the petition here or republished below.
This disgraceful rebadged “Statement of Planning Policy” for 
Mortality rates of young Australian men due to suicide and accidental drug overdose appear to follow a strikingly similar pattern, as observed in statistics provided by the ABS.
Reports have appeared of activity by the White Helmets group, or militants posing as White Helmets, consistent with an intention to stage a ‘false flag’ chemical incident in order to provoke Western intervention. These activities have reportedly included the transfer of eight canisters of chlorine to a village near Jisr Al Shughur, an area under the control of Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham, an affiliate of the terrorist group Al Nusra. Some reports refer to the involvement of British individuals and the Olive security company. Other reports indicate a build-up of US naval forces in the Gulf and of land forces in areas of Iraq adjoining the Syrian border.
From the Kosovo Protection Corps in the Balkans to the White Helmets of Syria, a group of well- connected people with the fundings of governments and elite billionaires have sought to wage a war on public opinion and have recently exploited Jo Cox’s death to do so.
A new study into recent cases of Ocular Syphilis warns increasing numbers of people in developed countries are at risk of permanent damage to their vision, even with adequate treatment. More cases in the United States, Europe, and Australia show that it is not only a problem in Brazil.
Dr Liz Allen of the ANU, who describes herself as a demographer, has written another mass immigration promotion article within the disappearing post-war paradigm of jobs and growth. In 
“To wish to maintain the same number of persons as the post-war 15-64 age bracket in the total population would be to impose the consequences of a never-ending baby-boom. The hypothesis is absurd and leads to [absurd] immigration rates.” (Henri Leridon, Senior researcher at the French National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED).) This article is based on an article which appeared in Population & Sociétés, No. 358, Juin 2000, in response to an article on the front page of Le Monde, which expressed mirthful amazement at a United Nations paper that proposed replacement migration for Europe and other countries. I am republishing this article because it seems that this folly of proposed population engineering may actually be behind the mass immigration currently causing havoc in Europe. [Article renamed from "Warning on folly of trying to increase and maintain a country’s youthful cohort by mass immigration," on 26 Aug 2018.]Similar policies are currently contentious in Australia, Canada and America.
During the 80 years following 1789 that it took for the French Revolution to acheive its aims as the Third Republic, the people of the third estate (that is neither church nor noble) launched many newspapers and founded many societies where they could meet and discuss matters. With the support of the church and the powerful, the State attempted to close down all these newspapers and to prevent people from distributing them. Finally meetings became almost impossible. Because of this, the 1848 revolution was organised through a series of massive banquets, held all over France, at one stage, on an average of every three weeks. Maybe this is what ordinary Americans should do, because their political masters certainly want to scuttle any real political debate by targeting the alternative media - starting with the US's Alex Jones, an independent radio show host operating from Texas. Jones is possibly the biggest threat to the corporate 'mainstream' media. The Alex Jones Channel on YouTube existed for over ten years and reputedly had over a billion views, [1] but it has suddenly been banned by YouTube.
An Australian parliamentarian, Senator Hansen, has called for a plebiscite on immigration levels to this country. "In the decade to 2016 the Australian population increased by 3.5 million, 60% of which was from overseas migration. Given the impact a continuing population growth of this same order will have on already over-stretched infrastructure particularly, in our major cities, a national plebiscite should be held at the time of the next general election to allow the people of Australia to express their opinion. The plebiscite will ask Australian their views on continuing with the current high rate of migration. The Plebiscite (Future Migration Level)Bill 2018 (the Bill) would establish the legislative framework for a compulsory, in-person vote in a national plebiscite that would ask Australians, in view of the level of population increase from migration in the ten years to 2016: “Do you think the current rate of immigration to Australia is too high?”"
Interview begins around 9.40 minutes into the show.Gung-ho interviewer, Bart Chilton, apparently hoping to recommend investing in Australian stocks, found out that Australia's economy is about as diverse as Uganda's and Ethiopia's, that it consists of holes and houses, and that Australian governments have stupidly marketised energy, making costs too high for Australian manufactures. "Energy and telecommunications are both being disastrously mishandled." Banks and mines dominate the Australian stock exchange, which reminds Keen of when they dominated the Japanese stock exchange - just before the 1990 bubble burst, with no important banks situated in Japan anymore. Our stock market is trivial compared to our bond market. Dr Keen also mentions the 
Nobel Peace Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once said that you can have mass immigration or you can have the welfare state. But you can't have both. 
A jaw-full of mega shark teeth – rare evidence that a shark twice the size of a Great White stalked Australia's ancient waters – is to be unveiled at Melbourne Museum on today, Thursday 9 August. Usually shark teeth are found singly, but this time they have the whole set for the gigantic Great Jagged Narrow-Toothed Shark.
The Victorian branch of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) expresses deep concern that Australia will reach 25 million people this week. In anticipation of this milestone, SPA literally took to the sky on the issue by flying a small plane over Melbourne to see first hand whether bigger means better.
The National Dingo Preservation and Recover Program (NDPRP) today congratulated the Victorian government for recent progressive policy initiatives regarding dingo conservation in that state. This has included recognition of aspirations for protection of the dingo by Indigenous Victorians. Policy references to protecting apex predator function within Victorian ecosystems, including in north western Victoria, are welcome and long overdue. The NDPRP, however, called upon the Victorian government to follow through in practice and to cease being captive to the environmentally draconian ideas still propagated by reactionary elements within the farming lobby.
As well as discussing the danger of opera house yabby nets for Australia's platypuses, Doug Gimesy talks about the impacts of human population on platypus populations.
Registration with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has been confirmed for the 
"Single-minded focus on economics allows thousands of pigs and poultry to be kept, and if you're next door in any rural or green wedge or urban growth zone, your rights to know about it, object and go to VCAT are being extinguished. This Affects all rural and regional areas of Victoria, and Green Wedge and Urban Growth zones in metropolitan Melbourne. Pig and poultry business interests, and State government, are very happy. The rest, and the environment, can fade away." Macedon Ranges Residents' Association has distilled a huge body of information about shocking rule-changes for intensification of pig and poultry farming in Victoria's Green Wedges, called, in the bullying way of our political class, "Getting things done." We have kept the original formatting for the time being, for practical reasons. Thanks to Christine Pruneau, Secretary of the Association, for putting her extensive knowledge at our disposal. 
Australia’s annual permanent migrant intake has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade after a Federal Government crackdown on dodgy claims. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the government had restored integrity to the migration program to make sure the “best possible” migrants were brought into the country through tougher vetting. William Burke from 
Recently Donald Trump accused Germany of being dangerously dependent on fuel imported from Russia. The Russian foreign minister has responded to this sally by pointing out that Germany is still occupied militarily by the United States Army. As for importing fuel from Russia, Germany has done so for over 50 years, reliably, without interruption due to political differences. Trump wants to sell fracked fuel from the US to Germany and other parts of Europe. Inside is a video with the Russian foreign minister's comment.
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