(We) can do better

This scientific submission on commercial kangaroo management was closely based on the literature from the industry, which proved to be a revelation in what it actually admitted about its manipulation of kangaroo population numbers. Basically, the very small number of scientists dominating the academic literature and the industry have stated (variously) that the industry artificially stimulates population growth rebound beyond normal numbers in targeted populations of kangaroos; that they then justify their industry and culls on the basis that the animals are too populous and a pest; that the Australian public would not allow the industry to continue if they did not swallow the line that kangaroos are a pest; that although the industry and population culls are justified in order to prevent damage to grasslands and erosion by overgrazing, this is in fact false, and the example is given of kangaroos even at 50 per square km making almost no impact on the land, whereas the sheep that the industry is purportedly saving the land for, devastate it. This is my second article on kangaroo science (see the other one here) and I did not go into it expecting to find such blatant snake oil passing for research among a very small cognoscenti, but here it is. I’m was surprised as you will be. Also, one final word, even if the industry is correct in saying that it artificially boosts kangaroo numbers in order to have enough kangaroos to ‘harvest’, as I say at the end, that does not apply to all populations and that does not mean that the strategy is not causing population crashes and demographic anomalies, for reasons that I raise in this article. If you think there are fewer kangaroos around, you may well be right and have a better idea than the industry itself. (This researched article by evolutionary sociologist Sheila Newman [1] was originally submitted to the South Australian Commercial Kangaroo Management Plan 2018-2022 (kmp@sa.gov.au) on behalf of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council on 7 October 2017.)

Public Seminar with two speakers: Jack Roach, immediate past president of Boroondara Residents Action Group and Adrian Whitehead. Adrian Whitehead will speak on "Population Perspectives, from global to local." Public Welcome. Free Parking near venue. Financial members may nominate for any committee positions. See details inside re how to nominate.

Video: Jesse Ventura and Brigida Santos revisit the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Witness David Wallace reflects on the events from that day and shares rare photos from the crime scene. Expert JFK researcher James DiEugenio dissects newly-declassified documents. What does the US Government have to hide about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy after 45 years? If Lee Harvey Oswald really killed the President, then what is the big deal in releasing unredacted documents? Obviously the government has plenty to hide and this gives us every reason to question the official story. The documents have been released with huge gaps in them due to whiting out and other forms of illegibility.

An example of the effect of the liberalisation of labor laws combined with massive increase in economic immigration in Australia. See more about how this came about in Australia. The Fair Work Ombudsman has secured almost $400,000 in penalties against a company and three individuals – including an HR manager – for systematically exploiting overseas workers at a Chinese restaurant in NSW and fabricating records to try to cover it up. The penalties have been imposed in the Federal Court after 85 employees at the New Shanghai Charlestown restaurant at Charlestown were underpaid a total of $583,688 over a 16-month period in 2013-2014. Justice Robert Bromwich has imposed a $54,672 penalty against the mastermind of the exploitation, restaurant owner Zhong Yuan “John” Chen, and penalised his company NSH North Pty Ltd a further $301,920. Justice Bromwich imposed a $18,496 penalty against restaurant manager Jin Xu for her involvement in the exploitation – and in addition, imposed a $21,760 penalty against the restaurant’s HR manager Ting “Sarah” Zhu, dismissing her argument that her culpability was greatly reduced because she had been following her boss’s orders.

We live in increasingly 'interesting' times. US Journalists and government employees are afraid to criticise their government's outrageously authoritarian move against one media outlet, because they are afraid of being harassed themselves. According to the US Department of Justice, RT is an agent of a foreign, even hostile, power. All the while, the United States Department Of Justice refuses to explain why this is the case or even cite what laws RT may have broken. But something else is in play: critics warn RT is a test case for a wider campaign of media suppression. The UK is following suit, with parliamentarians attacking journalists who write against its illegal foreign wars, because they are afraid of being pursued one day for war crimes. Julian Assange has rightly described Australia as being governed by Washington, so we Australians had better look out and stand up and defend RT and anyone who writes a different point of view.

The driving force behind the Protectors of Public Lands, Julianne Bell, passed away on Friday January 27 this year. Julianne was an indefatigable and tireless campaigner for the protection of Melbourne’s public open spaces. She was most well-known as the defender of Royal Park against any and all who would seek to diminish it for their own purposes, and she told me that she was most proud of her role in stopping the East-West Link, a Freeway which would carve up Royal Park in an outrageous act of environmental vandalism. She was the driving force behind this organisation and used it to defend public open spaces far and wide from all manner of threats – the Carlton Gardens, the Catani Gardens, the Exhibition Gardens, the Rogers Memorial Reserve and many others too numerous to mention – no public open space was too far away or too small to merit her attention.

Julianne worked closely with me on the problems caused by Rapid Population growth for the world in general and for Melbourne in particular. She understood that it is people, it is us, who are responsible for environmental damage, and was prepared to cut through the vanity that prevents many of us from acknowledging this. She had worked in the Immigration Department, and told me a number of times about the propensity for migration agents to tell fibs on applications, and the trouble an understaffed Department had in verifying claims and uncovering rorts.

We are embedding this show because it is educational. Mike Papantonio invites lawyers on each week to discuss major public interest cases, most of which have international impact. In this episode, Mike Papantonio reminds us of how media once had many diverse owners and actually sought to inform us. He and Holland Cooke discuss the looming mega-merger between media giants AT&T and Time Warner, which even the pro-business President Donald Trump has warned could be dangerous. Mike then talks with Brigida Santos about how some states are using artificial intelligence against criminals during sentencing. Then Farron Cousins, Executive Editor of the Trial Lawyer magazine, tells Mike about how Grubhub, along with other app-based companies, argue in court that the people whom they hire are not employees. The show was first published on November 9, 2017 at https://www.rt.com/shows/americas-lawyer/

Although we commemorate those who died on Remembrance Day 11 November, the courage and sacrifice of those who fought to prevent World War One from ever happening and who tried to remove from power the criminals who had caused that war, and others that followed, is never acknowledged.

Abusive breeding of arctic foxes by the fur industry in Finland. Finland's Frankenstein foxes - weighing five times their normal weight, unable to stand for long, with huge pelts that hang over their eyes and form rolls on their bodies, kept standing with their soft paws on wire floored cages that give them little room to move, fed pulped animal offal that they cannot bite. I had no idea that Norway held such disgusting and unbearable secrets, close to equaling the Chinese bears milked for bile.

The Russian revolution of 7 November 1917, one hundred years ago today, was a profound political upheaval which put in power political leaders resolved to remove poverty, exploitation, unemployment, economic chaos, and war from Russia and the rest of the world. The Russian revolution and sympathetic revolts in Germany in 1918 helped finally bring to an end the First World War, in which 18,000,000 died.

Had the revolution spread to Germany, Hitler's Nazi Party could not have seized power in 1933 and the Second World War, in which an estimated 60 million died, would have most likely been prevented.

Title previously was: How the Second World War almost didn't happen

This article was republished on the Syrian Free Press on 4 Nov 2017.

[UPDATE 7 Nov 2017: Added excerpts from President Rouhani's speech.] I was riveted by this video in its presentation of the antithesis of United States policy in new agreements between Russia and Iran. The video begins with a remarkable political message in the ceremonial exchange of documents of agreement on very important material matters, which should make a big difference to politics in the region - and won't please the United States. These included agreements on nuclear energy transport cooperation, oil and gas exploration, technology and information technology, railway electrification, urban construction and development, trade in the energy industry, visa-free travel for groups between Russia and Iran, and agreement on extradition of convicted persons between the two countries and cooperation on legal affairs. In addition they agreed on mutual cooperation in fighting Islamic extremism, the encouragement of cultural exchange and sports, and working on the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea. This news conference was part of a trilateral meeting of Vladimir Putin, President of Iran Hassan Rouhani and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Putin and Rouhani appear in the video. You have to be aware of the momentous nature of the agreements in order to appreciate this otherwise somewhat stilted piece of diplomatic theatre. America has been trying to isolate and weaken Iran, which has both considerable oil reserves and a catbird seat on the shores of the oil-rich (if logistically highly problematic) Caspian Sea. America has backed wars in the region, invaded neighbours, and tried to undermine support for Russia in the Middle East because it wants permanent influence there. Obama, in his negotiations about Iran's use of nuclear power, may have been trying to keep some communications open, but Mr Trump has breached all democracy by openly threatening Iran. Iran (now that Syria has been crippled) is the leading technological and socially progressive power in the region, bitterly resented by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Now, apparently ironically, but actually quite naturally, Russia has resealed and expanded its friendship with Iran. In so doing, it has made Iran much more secure. How will the United States, NATO and the EU respond to this?

"This proposal by Ms Turnbull is just a diversion, an absurdity not worthy of being called a thimble and pea trick, but the agenda behind her smokescreen is worth examining. The GSC is a body set up by premier Baird who, you will recall, had been elected in 2011 on a platform of getting rid of what was undoubtedly the unaccountable and corrupt planning regime of the Labor government. But Premier Baird's promises of returning planning to the community and the councils was soon forgotten and his new government launched reforms that bypassed all community input. These proved to be so unpopular with the public that they were withdrawn and, instead, Premier Baird introduced the GSC, which essentially did the same thing."

In November 2016 I co-wrote an article for New Matilda exploring why it is important for those on the left to discuss population sustainability. Although the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, it was suggested that the debate is invalid unless it is inclusive of migrants or indigenous Australians. Which got me thinking …

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has apparently called on Hungarians to beware of the power of the Sith in his latest speech on migration crisis in Europe. He also declared Eastern and Central Europe the last ‘migrant-free zone.’ "We should never underestimate the power of the dark side," the prime minister said, referencing Star Wars as he referred to the plots of those behind the “migrant invasion,” adding that they “have no solid structure but extensive networks.” Article first published 23 October on RT with the title, ‘Never underestimate the power of the dark side’: Orban goes Star Wars on EU ‘migrant invasion.’

"All sensible stuff [...]. No reference to irrelevant issues like race or culture. Just a sensible focus on Australia’s extreme immigration levels and their various deleterious impacts on ordinary Australians’ living standards. Sadly, while the speech reads like something that should have come from the Left, it instead came from One Nation’s Pauline Hanson. And because of this, it was blocked without debate by the Senate." (Article by Leith van Onselen)

This article comes from a response to a Quora question and sumarises a lot of material from my books on population theory.[1] It raises a number of factors that 'traditional' demographic theory usually cannot investigate due to its very narrow range of inquiry. There are more than three factors mentioned here and they are: Sea-level rise after last glacial maximus pushed populations together and created more fertility opportunities; Changing transport technology created more fertility opportunities; The rise of cities created more fertility opportunities; and the commodification of land and the rise of money created more fertility opportunities; local tribes had immunity to local pathogens so had lower infant mortality and better life expectancy; Inheritance law variations and the creation of land-less labor; The importance of fossil fuel (coal, petroleum) in expanding and supporting bigger populations; to which I could have added, the importance of wood supply as a pre-fossil-fuel limiter of population. I also mention that the theory explored does not conflict with Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory which Dawkins used to develop his 'Selfish Gene' theory, however it does identify countervailing forces to the associated 'Every creature breeds to the maximum' theory.

The other day whilst walking on a quiet bush track with a friend, we came across a magpie standing on some grass surveying the scene, including the pair of us. My friend said rather scornfully "I don't like those birds!" People who would never dream of vilifying a group of people on the basis of their race seem to have no compunction in vilifying members of an entire species often on the basis of nothing. Comments may seem harmless enough at first but on further reflection one realises they can be an incitement to harm. Is there a moral difference between racism and "species-ism"?

On this episode of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio talks about the numerous lawsuits pending involving antipsychotic medication Abilify (aripiprazole). Then he reviews a pathetic $4.5 million settlement from an Arizona drug company that has caused overprescription of an addictive narcotic, and this has been compounded by medical insurance policy. Ordinary people are queuing up for this drug, and it may take years for their endorphins to resurrect. Then Farron Cousins investigates why corporate air polluters are being waived from paying pollution fines. Neutrino: With regard to Abilify, it became a popular new antipsychotic because it was less likely to cause obesity than most of the antipsychotics and it lacked the 'negative' 'parkinsonian' side-effects of most. I could immediately see how it might combat obesity, because patients seemed not to be able to stop moving. It was a kind of akathisia, but it didn't seem to bother them. They were impelled forwards as it were, but that was a relief to those who had suffered the negative side effects of inertia, stiffness, and ambivalence, which are also symptoms of schizophrenia. I am not surprised, however, to hear that Abilify has been linked to new compulsive drives, like gambling. The anti-parkinsonian drugs have also been linked to such bizarre changes in character. It takes imagination to realise that the mind is connected to the body and the biochemistry of the brain is fundamental to the personality.

It has been a difficult year for PPL Vic following the death of our longstanding Secretary, founder and driving force, Julianne Bell at the end of January, 2017. Notwithstanding this huge loss, we have continued the good work of PPLVic. See inside for details.

VicRoads doesn't really respect wildlife corridors and rarely includes wildlife crossings in its vast expensive highways, despite its Fauna Sensitive Road Design Guidelines (on what page here to find link to pdf document is unclear). The excuse seems to be that they are too expensive. However VicRoads is costing us all more than money. And last week it sent a giant mulcher to mow down forests of trees which had been planted along the Mornington Peninsula median strips as a climate change mitigation measure by previous regimes.

The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman has expressed dismay that politicians continue to argue over energy policy while small businesses suffer.
Ombudsman Kate Carnell said the latest East & Partners SME survey* of 1280 businesses showed 70 per cent would reduce investment in capital expenditure because of higher energy prices.

With NSW’s (read Sydney’s) population growing at a break-neck pace (see below chart), last month it was revealed that there was a revolt underway from within the NSW Liberal Party against the federal government’s mass immigration program and over-development across Sydney (watch video).

On 30 October 2017, Port Phillip Bay Keeper, Mr Neil Blake and Mr Jay Gleeson, AGL Community Relations Manager, Strategic Projects, will be speakers at the Annual General Meeting of Port Phillip Conservation Council, Inc. Mr Neil Blake’s talk 'From the back blocks to the Bay' discusses likely threats to the Bay from population growth, urban consolidation and climate change. He will also give an update on his Bay Keeper citizen science initiatives promoting community stewardship of our waterways – including his project recording recent changes to beach profiles and erosion around the Bay. Mr Jay Gleeson's talk will involve a presentation on AGL’s assessment of options for shipping Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from interstate and overseas, receiving it at an import jetty and injecting it into the pipeline transportation system for supply to south-eastern Australia. After assessing sites around Australia, Crib Point in Westernport Bay has been identified as AGL’s preferred option. Mr. Gleeson will give an outline of AGL’S Import Jetty Project and implications for Westernport Bay and Crib Point, and will take questions from the audience. For background to the LNG project see: www.engageagl.com.au. Time: 7pm 30 October 2017 Venue: Longbeach Place - Chelsea Community Centre, 15 Chelsea Rd., Chelsea.

In Syrian Girl's Facebook Ban Linked to Russia-gate Twitter Purge? - an Exclusive Interview (30/9/17) | Russia Insider, Charles Bausman reported that Facebook had blocked SyrianGirl's account after she had criticised Kurds.

There had been a general public opinion poll conducted by independent sociologists and political scientists from all around the world in war-torn Syria. The citizens of the state shared their views on the main events and situation now taking place in the country, their attitude towards other countries acting actively on the fate of the country and also called the main problems of the state.
Article first published at https://www.globalresearch.ca/first-opinion-poll-held-in-war-torn-syria-showed-general-feeling/5611409

An effective declaration of war on Russia in Syria by the US over the last two weeks has gone unnoticed in Western media. How long can they keep this deception going?

Are Antifa just fascists fighting for turf with other fascists? Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook discusses the movement's perception that it is countering the rise of the far-right and responds to Chris Hedges' critique of the violent tactics used by the activists. Chris Hedges suggests that Antifa's targets and strategies play into the hands of the corporate enemy. He also makes an odd mistake in suggesting that German Communists failed to counter Hitler as strongly as they might have because their leader had been jailed, but there is no history of the German Communist leader of the 1930s having been jailed at the time. (In fact Stalin advised the German Communists not to form a united front with the Social Democrats against the Nazis and they stupidly followed that advice.) Chris Hedges thinks Antifa is dehumanising fascists the way that fascists dehumanise their targets. (i.e. Antifa are actually fascists fighting for turf with other fascists.) Mark Bray thinks it is okay to shut presumed fascists up by making them too afraid to come out of their houses. The problem with this is, essentially, that just because an Antifa thinks someone is a 'fascist' does not mean that they are, especially when Antifa is shouting too hard to hear what someone may really be saying. Bray seems to be justifying the judgement and street-policing of people on the most superficial appraisal. Everyone is entitled to a defense, but not according to Antifa. [At the beginning of this program RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at the origins of Antifa and gets them terribly wrong. Just bear with it.] A critical point overlooked by Chris Hedges is that Antifa is funded by George Soros. Wonder why?

The video inside is composed of utterly breathtaking views of Everest and surrounding mountains and snow in high definition, totally dwarfing climbers. Why have we published it on candobetter.net? Because it highlights man's place in the scheme of things and the beauty of our natural environment. Enjoy.

Dick Smith has started a campaign supporting the ABC TV news and current affairs as his favourite network, but wants them to show more balance when it comes to reporting population issues.

This is a great interview because it voices the kinds of anxieties many people feel in reaction to the crazy analysis we are being presented with by the mainstream media vis a vis North Korea and the United States, but it brings some common sense to the matter in the form of Senator/Dr Ron Paul. Alex Jones, head of Infowars dot com is an interesting and flamboyant product of US capitalism, religion, and the education system. Loyal to Trump, but spooked, he wants to see something positive in Trump's posturing against North Korea. Senator Ron Paul is an American author, physician, and former politician, with an excellent historic and current grasp on foreign affairs, who finds war a dangerous and stupid creation of the deep state. And he talks from experience. In this interview, Senator Ron Paul points out that Alex has been falling for the neocon propaganda where the US always goes to war to 'defend' nations from 'mad dictators'. Of course the nations finish up almost destroyed by the US, worse off than before, and, you have to wonder why the neocons get away with the same cartoon-like frame up of leaders who have territory that they want. Ron Paul points out Alex Jones dancing to the neocon tune on North Korea, "Alex, you've swallowed the neocon line!" Alex entertains with his typically grotesque, original, and dramatic rhetoric, such as, "Horrible little communist third-generation dictator, fat off the blood of his little skinny citizens." As he interviews Ron Paul, Alex draws a cartoon of plump Kim Jong un approaching Donald Trump with a thought bubble, "Food!" It somehow reminded me of how Trump talked about missiles and chocolate cake in the same mouthful not so long ago regarding another 'mad dictator' (there are so many, apparently).