Every day, ordinary men and women, climb into the driver’s seat of machines capable of high speeds where a collision with each other, an obstacle, or a living thing, can cause serious injury or death. These people, when they start their engines, could be feeling calm, stressed, angry, sad, or confused. The extent of these feelings may or may not be sufficient to impair their ability to drive safely to their destination. Even if their feelings are sufficient to affect their driving, most times they will be lucky enough not to encounter any problem and will live to drive another day. The same applies to the extent to which they may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The viability of our cities, commerce, societies, relies on the trust that people behind the steering wheels of motor vehicles will behave themselves, will not endanger others, and they that they will not use the full potential of the engines they control.
Alan Hood is a Flood Researcher. Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin and their maintenance contractor, John Holland - KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in "late January" - any day now. This could be an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins. Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where such dams create potential loss of life or significant damage. The attached Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded.
The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.
All the news today is about Turkey attacking Afrin, a Kurdish governed city in northern Syria and threatening another Kurdish run city named Manbj. This is a very dangerous situation and another devastating assault on the Syrian people who have already suffered so much from a war that that was started by foreign manipulation and fed by foreign fighters, foreign weapons and foreign cash. The war should have ended by now and be winding down, but Syria’s enemies are persistent and cunning. We should not forget, however, that the foremost enemy of Syria, the strongest, most powerful country, the managing force in this war to destroy Syria is the United States [
Melbourne Water is about to de-tree Frankston koala corridor by removing mature trees from banks of a huge park with a water retarding basin in it at Lee Street Frankston 3199. They are claiming that the trees are 'destabilising' the banks. But of course the trees are holding the banks together and keeping the water-table down. Who is accountable for these kinds of decisions that are based on what sound like lies that make no sense? Frankston Council is apparently going along with this. It seems totally insane and anti-life and nature. Inside is a video alerting us to the details. 
VicRoads recently closed down Hoddle Street for a week to work on streamlining the corridor. The project is expected to continue for the rest of 2018.
Although the US presence in Syria is illegal, the US is talking about putting more troops there, presumably to fire up a war that the Russians and the Syrians have almost succeeded in extinguishing. Erdoğan has accused the US of planning to form 'terror army' in Syria: 'Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born’, said the Turkish president of 30,000-strong force aimed at dividing and conquering Syria by promoting a Kurdish separist movement. In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a journalist and political commentator from London, and Wafik Moustafa, the chairman of Conservative Arab Network, from London, to discuss the United States' plans to station 30,000 militants on the Syrian borders with Turkey and Iraq. This videoed debate was first published on Iranian Press tv on Tue Jan 16, 2018 at 
Wildlife rescuer and carer, Rebecca Koller, has observed an unprecedented number of Spectacled flying fox casualties in a traditional breeding site located near a new hotel construction in Cairnes. The spectacled flying fox is a threatened species.[1] Despite many attempts to get the Australian government to investigate and or intervene, the government has failed to get back to her. This is even though the problem has received extensive publicity and the species is about to have its threatened status upgraded from vulnerable to endangered. The source of this article is correspondence between Ms Koller and The Australian Wildlife Protection Council.
Bob Couch and Michael Roberts will be contesting the Legislative Council on behalf of Stop Population Growth Now at the March election. Their website is at www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com.
The #metoo campaign gives the impression that women go through life suffering constant sexual advances and harassment. I obviously have no experience of this (nb: I have experienced similar, but not as awoman) but what I can confidently assert is that many men go through life suffering constant physical violence, or threats of violence.
Hoddle Street is a very long road in Melbourne, Victoria. Congestion in Melbourne is reaching ludicrous and unforgivable proportions. The treelined part of Hoddle Street is apparently being sacrificed without public consultation for the no-win race of government-engineered population growth.
Leading real estate rent-seeker, the Property Council of Australia (PCA), is pushing for another idiotic policy “solution” to fix Australia’s housing affordability woes: offering a government-backed low deposit home loan scheme. 
(Article by Sally Pepper.) On New Year's Day, January 1st 2018, as I surfaced around 10.00 a.m, I heard on the news that power prices and tolls on roads around Melbourne will both increase and, that this year many Victorians will experience additional economic hardship. My immediate defensive thought was, "Well I don't use tollroads and I guess I can be more frugal with my use of gas and electricity."
These are photos of horses on a property on Moorooduc Hwy, Mt Eliza, in Victoria, Australia. People have expressed concern at the condition of these horses, which looks dire, and the paddock, where there appears to be no grass at all - only dirt. One horse photographed has gross leg deformities, although this could be a birth defect. The person who took the photos says that the RSPCA has informed them that they are working with the owners. The photographer has expressed alarm at how long this is taking and fears that the delay will doom these horses. Barrie Tapp of Animal Cruelty Hotline has passed this information on to candobetter.net because it needs public attention. Please let your local member of parliament know. Animal cruelty hotline is Freecall 1800751770
Hooray, hooray, it's New Year's Day
A new approach to reducing bulging tummy fats has shown promise in laboratory trials. It combines a new way to deliver drugs, via a micro-needle patch, with drugs that are known to turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat. This innovative approach developed by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) reduced weight gain in mice on a high fat diet and their fat mass by more than 30 per cent over four weeks. This is good news for fat mice, but fat humans will need to wait until human trials start.
Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank (Economic), is very pro immigration. Some have wondered whether she may be making the running on this question behind the scenes more than is Philip Lowe, the Governor. Recent migrants may be somewhat more likely to hold degree-level qualifications than locals but this does not mean that their professional qualifications are well suited to the Australian labour market. (We should also ask ourselves, what is it about the Australian education system that makes Australians less likely than some immigrant streams to hold degree-level qualifications?)
Australian Dick Smith, techie, environmentalist who founded National Geographic, and millionaire, has recently attempted to educate Australians about the wealthy population growth lobby in their country, which benefits from Australia's rapid immigration-fueled population growth whilst the rest of us pay the cost. To do this, he has run his own expensive campaing, including taking out expensive ads in newspapers. Among other things, Smith has decribed Australia's public media, the ABC, as 
"The proposed “Smart Planning” must not proceed in its current form. The Group does not support fast tracking development, weakening permit or planning triggers or referral requirements, or permit exemptions, or the removal of appeal rights." Inside find Port Campbell Community Group Inc's submission to the Victorian Planning Provisions Discussion Paper.
Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, is the latest to question Australia’s mass immigration program, which flooded NSW (read Sydney) and VIC (read Melbourne) with a record 185,500 net overseas migrants (combined) in the year to June, further crush-loading our two biggest cities. This article was first published on Macrobusiness at 
A Crest-tailed Mulgara, a small carnivorous marsupial known only from fossilised bone fragments and presumed extinct in NSW for more than century, has been discovered in Sturt National Park north-west of Tibooburra.
Propaganda is how they got people to go along with the so called 'revolution' in the first place. 
Check out the advertising: “Divide and Conquer Unsurpassed Development Opportunity.” Tootgarook Swamp on the Mornington Peninsula is under widespread threat from developers. They need your help. 92 Elizabeth Ave, Caple Sound, is for sale for 'environmentally friendly' residential development (a contradiction in terms). Environmentalists suggest that this might be the least developable block on the entire Mornington Peninsula, due to flooding risks alone. Meanwhile, the site's biodiversity values are incredible and that’s without even considering the site's implemented VCAT order for illegal clearance, P2706/2016. The site's values and species need your help to step forward and make a stand for biodiversity on the Southern Peninsula. The site serves as critical habitat for one federally listed wetland bird, and is also utilised by many migratory and state listed species. Please write to your Councillor, you State and Federal Members requesting that this site be acquired by purchase and protected forever. Please share this message with those who care about Tootgarook Swamp and the Peninsulas biodiversity. 
What does happiness mean to you? We tend to search for it in material things, substances, and career achievements, but often lose sight of what really matters to us in the process. London-based artist and animator Steve Cutts is taking a long hard look at this ‘rat race’ to which we’ve all found ourselves tied, and is examining our modern sources of joy in a satirical new short film that depicts us as the ‘rats’ we’ve become in the eyes of the system. It’s titled after that mysterious high we’re always chasing; “Happiness.” Take 4 minutes out of your busy day and watch the clip for yourself below, and tell us in the comments if you think Cutts hit the nail on the head.
"Labor is developing what is meant to be the most fundamental restructure of the Victorian planning system since the 1996 introduction of the Victoria Planning Provisions, the new Smart Planning program. [...] A simpler, more efficient and certain planning scheme is long overdue, but Smart Planning is not the way to provide it. This is a $25 million program managed through the Smart Planning program Rules team. If the system is simply to implement five minor changes, along with online access, then the program is a massive waste of money.
This is dismantling planning schemes, removing impediments to what developers want, and allowing development on developers’ terms. What is happening under “Smart Planning” has no relationship to either of those words. Read it and weep – or get angry, and loud. This is essentially about making a single planning scheme for Victoria, controlled by the State government (and whoever may have its ear). You are having YOUR planning scheme stolen from you.
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