Comments

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2016-01-12 17:56

Title was: "I dont think he is innocent". - Ed

I don't think he is innocent but we don't know the full truth either because his mother said he had aspergers autism and I don't think that's true. People with aspergers do have a problem with their tempers but if Martin maybe she only said it to help him out because I've never heard of anyone else with it killing anyone and I don't believe the government had anything to do with it either I just think we don't know enough about what kind of problem he had that is what we should focus on.

Editor's response: I suggest you take the time to read the facts in this article and Was Martin Bryant the Port Arthur killer? (3/4/14). Should you decide that you still think he is guilty, then I suggest you explain what claims made by the authors are wrong and why.

Martin Bryant never faced a jury trial for allegedly killing 35 people at Port Arthur on 28 April 1996. Any competent juror would have easily been able to see the 'case' against Martin Bryant for the fabrication it was and he would have quickly been found not guilty. However, instead of facing trial, Martin Bryant was held in isolation for months and put under intense pressure to confess. It is claimed that at one point he confessed. After he 'confessed', the trial was called off and he was locked away. Martin Bryant's supposed defence attorney colluded in this frame-up.

John Bentley (not verified)

Mon, 2016-01-11 18:58

Thanks, John Bentley for this post. I encountered some problems when I was checking the information contained within (see notes below). That is why it took so long to publish this comment. My apologies. – Ed

While the weather has been as hot as again, I've been doing a spot of reading in the last couple of days. In no particular order:

2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle (7/1/16) | Our Finite World

A fine piece by Gail Tverberg - 2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle, next the venerable Steve Keen with an article on Joe Stiglitz at Forbes -

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/01/06/note-to-joe-stiglitz-banks-originate-not-intermediate-and-thats-why-aggregate-demand-is-stuffed/ – this URL eventually takes you the right page, but only after redirecting you to the "Welcome" page. At least it's not behind a paywall. -–Ed

... and then a couple on the bushfires - this one via Dr Bill Johnson at The Conversation -
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/87cf62366063879dca256ecf00077084/$FILE/05-02.pdf – when I tried to load this URL into my Firefox web browser, I was advised "Page not found". When I tried to download the page using the free open-source wget program, I was advised: "HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 400 Bad Request. 2016-01-12 22:51:46 ERROR 400: Bad Request." – Ed

... and of course the recommendations of the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission and the implementation of them or not -
https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=vbrc%20recommendations – This is the Google search page with the search terms 'vbrc' and 'recommendations' (quotes omitted). As was put to me by a librarian once, there is no guarantee that this search will give the same results on each occasion in which it is used. It is better to include one or more specific URL links within the text, for example <a href="http://dpc.vic.gov.au/index.php/component/content/article/22-html/867-2009-victorian-bushfires-royal-commission">2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission<\a> .

The above HTML code would be rendered on your Firefox Web browser as: 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission . – Ed

... and file:///C:/Users/John/Downloads/BushfiresRoyalCommissionImplementationMonitorFinalReportJuly2012%20(1).PDF As Dr Bill says the lack of common sense in the ongoing bushfire saga is enough to make a grown person weep!! For those who are interested. – This 'URL' points to PDF file on your own desktop computer and cannot be used by anyone else on the Internet. – Ed

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2016-01-10 11:36

What's wrong with our universities?

The 55 minute program, which was repeated at 8:05am this morning, was originally broadcast on 16 July 2015. The 26Mbyte podcast file can be downloaded from here.

We are forever talking about the importance of education, but what type of education are our universities providing? According to Richard Hill, the contemporary Australian university is under-funded and characterised by overburdened academics, falling standards, and never ending reviews and audits. It's a world he describes as Whacademia and he speaks with Paul Barclay about it.

Richard Hill is author of Selling Students Short (Allen and Unwin - 2015).

Other problems that students face at University, as described by Richard Hill, include: Students don't make friends at University any more. This seems to be the consequence of many having to work part time to make ends meet and the huge level of competition between students. Diminishing rates of employment for law and psychology graduates. Many Psychology graduates find themselves stacking shelves at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets.

John Bentley (not verified)

Thu, 2016-01-07 17:23

Double oops!! Not only stuffed up the link, but also the author of the piece, it was actually written by Syd Stirling the former Labour Member for Nhulunbuy, thanks Ed.

One has to look quite carefully to see that the article "is a guest post by Syd Stirling, the Labor member for Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1990 to 2008" and not written by the blog owner Bob Gosford, so I wouldn't be too hard on myself, if I were in your shoes, John. Thanks for the informed and insightful contribution. - Ed

quark

Thu, 2016-01-07 13:57

Referring to " Turnbull's plan to unlock the north", in contemporary bureaucratic parlance "unlock" means to break in, exploit and ruin. The word "unlock" was once harmless, unthreatening and not irreversible. It used to imply that whoever did the unlocking had a key and entered legitimately and could secure again after entering and exiting. The new "unlocking" is done against the will of others and to their permanent detriment.

anon (not verified)

Thu, 2016-01-07 11:38

The German city is reeling after a series of apparently co-ordinated sexual assaults on local women, allegedly committed by large groups of "Arab-looking men". thousands of people were drawn to year-end festivities outside the western German city’s main train station and its famous Gothic cathedral on New Year's Eve. Various reports give startling accounts of dozens of offenders surrounding victims, robbing them and in many cases sexually violating them. At least one rape has been reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement, called the assaults disgusting – even though she authorized their arrival!

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention is from a different era, and totally inappropriate today. The world has changed and populations have exploded since this time. Now, it's about back-filling people into mature nations, in absence of peace, stability, security - and overwhelming conflicts over resources.

The UN are allowing the spread of criminals, Islam, and mis-fit deviants. How can all these "refugees" be checked for valid ID and security? The era of migration must end, and problems in dysfunctional nations, and conflicts, must be fixed at their source, not spread to developed countries of the West.

These Middle Eastern factions, and divided people, need dictatorship1 under Syrian President Assad and Saddam Hussein to control them. The US and NATO should never have intervened, under the false flag of WMD and installing "democracy". Now the borders of the West are opened and the hoards have been allowed legally to invade. The only thing Europe can do is to shut their borders, increase domestic security, and send back home any "refugees" that fail to assimilate.

Opening the hornet's nest is foolish policy and comes back to haunt the allies that supported intervention in the Middle East.

Footnote[s]

1. ⇑ The presstitute media claim that President Bashar al-Assad is a ruthless dictator is a lie that is, unfortunately, not challenged as strenuously as it should be, even by apparently sincere supporters of Syria. Some opponents of war even repeat that lie and other lies.

UK MP George Galloway in his successful opposition to plans by the British government to launch war against Syria in August 2013, nevertheless, accepted the claim that the Syrian President would be ruthless enough to use chemical weapons against his own people in different circumstances (longer video, in which I believe he made that claim, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Han5fgzy4KU , is no longer available. The shorter 0:25 minute video of that speech is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPzvy808pr8).

As shown Syria's press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see of June 2014, republished from Global Research, the Syrian president has the overwhelming support of the Syrian citizens, both internal and expatriate. (The article includes an embedded 55 minute video.) The support that President Bashar al-Assad enjoys in Syria is far greater than that enjoyed by any of his enemies – Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, Angele Merkel, the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, Benjamin Netanyahu, then Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ... . These 'leaders' claim to legitimacy cannot be anywhere near to that of the Syrian President. - Ed

John Bentley (not verified)

Thu, 2016-01-07 10:57

Thanks for the timely reminder of the folly or should that be land grab by our elected representatives. Bob Gosford had an even more timely article, Good money after bad. The NT Government and the Ord River Irrigation Scheme (13/2/14) in the Land Rights News (Northern Edition) back in 2014 and can be found at: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2014/02/13/good-money-after-bad-the-nt-government-and-the-ord-river-irrigation-scheme/ (not http://blogs.crickey.com.au/northern/2014/02/13/good-money-after-bad-the-nt-government-and-the-ord-river-irrigation-scheme/ - Ed)

Not only is this throwing good money after bad, they made many of the same mistakes up north as they have in the Murray Darling Basin plus they have invented a few more to boot. I wonder whether the Food Bowl Modernisation Scheme can have the same disastrous effects up there as they did down here??

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2016-01-06 22:58

See "Developing the North" [1]

I've been receiving "Developing Northern Australia Conference" invitations for a couple of years. I think that the forces pushing this one along are hoping to break down indigenous land tenure and bring in freehold. That would lead to an international land-sale bonanza for developers looking for finance. There would also be a huge immigration program to assist development and industrialisation. Organisations like APop and the Property Council of Australia are aiming at something like 50 huge cities around Australia and a population of 200 million. Some also hope to exploit nuclear power. The general idea is that once Australia's population is over 50m, no-one is going to be able to protect indigenous rights or mitigate mineral and energy exploitation. Horrible plan. Hope it fails miserably.

[1] "DEVELOPING THE NORTH
IN June the Federal Government released the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia, to create a development zone for everything north of the Tropic of Cancer and the entire NT.

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott drove the push, but it was embraced by “the Rich Dude who became PM”, Malcolm Turnbull, with the appointment of a dedicated Minister for Northern Australia, Josh Frydenburg.

In November more than 200 investors worth $1 trillion descended on Darwin for a conference looking at investment opportunities. Interestingly, the agriculture and tropical medicine opportunities attracted more interest than the resources sector.

The conference was hosted by Trade Minister Andrew Robb, who successfully negotiated the free trade agreements with China and the Trans Pacific Partnerships during 2015.

In December, an NT delegation, including key industry stakeholders from the cattle, resources, and produce sectors visited China to gauge market opportunities. They came back aware that supplying demand will be a challenge."

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2016-01-06 17:07

The Federal Liberal Government has released its mid-year economic review. Health cuts announced involve slashing workforce programs including education and training across the nation by $595 million over four years and bulk-billing changes to the tune of $650 million that will shift the cost back onto patients and the public hospital system. Queensland's health minister has heavily criticised the federal government over new health cuts he says will hit the state hard. Cameron Dick said the slashing of health funding will shift the cost back onto patients and the public hospital system. The population boom will mean less health care for each person. Independent Parliamentary Budget Office modelling confirms a 15% GST on everything will make all Australians pay: At least $10 billion every year more for fresh food, At least $7.4 billion every year more for school fees and education, and At least $9.6 billion every year more for healthcare; visiting the doctor. The cuts include: another $650m cut from Medicare by slashing bulk billing for diagnostic imaging and pathology services – services on which cancer patients rely; axing radiation and oncology programs; slashing $420m in aged care support for seniors with complex needs; and cuts to child care before the government’s reforms have even started. Medicare is being dismantled, piece by piece. There's no precedent for endless "economic growth". Instead of wallowing in increasing wealth, Australians are facing more austerity and cut-backs to meet budgetary short-falls. Despite the stringency, hardship, and increasing costs of health, education and welfare, our population growth is not being adjusted to match. We are still on a growth projectory, and "big Australia" is still on the horizon. There will be more of us in the future, but less spending on each individual.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2016-01-06 08:14

Letter in The Age: Firing up burn debate (6/1/15) Fuel-reduction burning takes place across all public land tenures, parks included (Comment, 5/1 – see Age article linked to from above comment - Ed)). Furthermore, it is unfortunate that poor planning decisions allowed Mark Adams' house to be constructed on a steeply wooded slope on the edge of a forest where even planned burns are difficult to control. Current fire science tells us that fuel reduction burning is least effective in times of acute fire weather, the very thing we are increasingly experiencing under climate change. And given that we have had more fire in the landscape across Victoria, planned and otherwise, than at any time in recorded history, it's time to rethink fire policy. We need far better planning laws, we need to increase our capacity for rapid aerial attack on fires, and people who choose to live in vulnerable areas must take added responsibility. That should include installing well-designed private fire bunkers, a forgotten urgent recommendation of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. Philip Ingamells, Victorian National Parks Association http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-letters/federal-cabinet-ministe... – above letter is second from the bottom of the Age letters page.

Olaf (not verified)

Tue, 2016-01-05 12:39

There is a law under consideration in New York State to make support
for BDS and, actually, any public dissent against Israel, a
crime.     This is ridiculous, but it sets a terrible precedent and
everyone should sign the petition against it and forward widely. 
There is a link to the actual bills on the website

Say
No to Anti BDS Legislation in NY

The legislation would create “A LIST OF PERSONS IT DETERMINES
BOYCOTTS ISRAEL,” and defines boycotting Israel  as

“ENGAGING IN ACTIONS THAT ARE POLITICALLY MOTIVATED AND ARE
INTENDED TO PENALIZE, INFLICT ECONOMIC HARM ON, OR OTHERWISE
LIMIT COMMERCIAL  RELATIONS  WITH THE  STATE  OF  ISRAEL  OR
 COMPANIES BASED IN THE STATE OF ISRAEL OR IN TERRITORIES
CONTROLLED BY THE STATE OF ISRAEL.”

Who will it affect?

  • Individuals or Community groups that support
    Palestinian human rights by supporting a boycott of Israel.
  • Contractors and other businesses seeking partnerships
    with New York State.
  • Non-profit organizations that receive New York State
    grants.

Say
No to Anti BDS Legislation in NY

James Sinnamon

Tue, 2016-01-05 04:52

The following is from Better forest management can help prevent bushfire disasters (5/1/16) | The Age:

"... Our place was built using second-hand along with new materials. Much came from the demolition of the Large Lecture Theatre (LLT) in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. ...

"An irony is that generations of foresters were taught about the ecology and management of forests in that large lecture theatre, or LLT, as it was known. ...

"... We hoped that at least once, the authorities would come and run a fuel reduction fire in the forest behind. Like most, we are strong supporters of the Country Fire Authority. ... (my emphasis)

"I know – and I mean I know – that for more than a quarter of a century there had been no serious fuel reduction within cooee of Sep and Wye. Sure, there had been the odd cosmetic burn along the Ocean Road, but the serious fuels to the north and west – the quarters from where the big risks would come with hot dry winds — were ignored. Easier by far to declare the forests a national park and then let nature take care of itself.

"For decades foresters were taught how to manage fuels in concert with the ecology of the forests. Some of it they learnt by sitting on the same blackwood stools that are now piles of ash. It wasn't too hard for them to manage forests so that disasters were avoided.

"..."

The above article was also published in the Canberra Times. The author, Professor Mark Adams, is director of the Centre for Carbon, Water and Food at the University of Sydney. The CSIRO book Burning Issues (2011), which he co-authored, supposedly "examines the many facets of fuel reduction burning in forests." Claims, similar to those made above, were made on the ABC Radio National Background Briefing program Fighting fire with fire (transcript here, 23MB podcast here).

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2016-01-03 13:30

Regarding Salt's pronouncement that "Mum's at work" and kids are in after-school activities, I would have thought the first would be the cause of the second. It's also a cyclic argument, that there are no back yards because kids don't have time to play in them, and parents are enslaved to paying off mortgages and costs of living. The demand for housing, and the crushing of our suburbs with high density housing, is manipulated by high population growth. Our lifestyles are being manipulated too, and robbing kids of the lifestyles of past generations. It's being twisted by Salt as if it's our own choice, and more "efficient" living! Back yards provide valuable play space for kids, and room to move. It's a place for pets, veggie patches, fruit trees, family gatherings, and part of our Australian culture. The only beneficiaries of the loss of amenities and back yards are the capitalistic owners/investors in property, and real estate industry. The big con is that we are better off, and more prosperous? Our living standards are being made more streamlined, and efficient, by having to do nothing but work, eat and survive. We are seen as no more than rats in a maze, trained to obey orders and forced to fit into a model imposed on us, and not unlike pigs in factory farm, with designer lives from birthing crates to the abattoir- streamlined to the fatal END.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2016-01-03 13:19

According to an Age article. "Eighteen aircraft have been bombarding the Otways fires, trying to save the surf coast towns."

Inside the herculean effort to save surf coast towns (2/1/15) | The Age

The CFA has 60 aircraft at its disposal across the state. Of those, 18 have been used in the Otways, including helicopters of various sizes, air tankers, an aircrane? similar to "Elvis" and, for the first time in Australia, a Chinook – the enormous twin-engine helicopter used by the American military.

Wayne Rigg a CFA helicopter pilot said "throwing more aircraft at the fire wasn't the answer. Relatively speaking, this fire is not over a large area, so you have to remember that we have to manage these aircraft in a very tight area.....Air crews don't put fires out; ground crews put fires out and there's ground crews down there who are, quite frankly, slogging their arses off and we support those ground crews in any way that we can."

Maybe there were fears about damaging properties, from water bombing, such as breaking tiles and structure? It's about being damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

John Bentley (not verified)

Sun, 2016-01-03 11:21

As a late '49er I was born into a large family and raised in Kew with a small backyard and no room to have a kick of the footy. Our place backed onto the local council yard which became "ours" for footy, cricket or whatever. We later moved into a brick veneer at Lower Templestowe (don't know if A. V. Jennings was the builder) on a corner block with a large back yard, no incinerator. Backyards are wondrous places whether big, small or otherwise. As a kid I remember different things about both of them, they were both mystical and banal, they kept your secrets (I had a strong imagination, still have) and you could play for hours with or without your siblings and/or friends. Then as we grow up we discover that the backyard isn't big enough and we annex the community. There are those who are still growing up and want to annex anything and everything, but that's another story. Memories of growing up in the backyard are treasures I'll take to the grave, the good and the bad alike some were defining moments in my life, some painful others total rapture. "Leaner, cleaner more efficient way of living"?? I think Bernard should relax his grip as nothing could be further from the truth. Leaner - obesity is increasing rapidly, our bloated society; cleaner - definitely not, never has the world been more polluted; more efficient way of living - only if we make the effort but most of us don't and there's too many of us to boot. As the article states Salt is writing for Murdoch (he could also be writing for Fairfax) both companies are pro-growth, pro-big population, products of capitalistic absolutism, its what he gets paid to do although his scruples are in the sewer.

Vivienne Ortega

Wed, 2015-12-30 09:26

As the centre of the bushfire zone is opened up in coming days, hundreds of native animals will require rescuing and we anticipate that the rescue efforts will continue for weeks, perhaps months. .They are seeking assistance for the purchase of medical equipment, fire-suitable rescue gear, transportation costs, professional veterinary costs, species-specific burn creams and bandages. These items are required urgently and all donations, no matter the size, are most welcome. They are also hoping to provide wildlife rescue kits to all our active volunteers so that no animal is left without the immediate care they require. They are a volunteer organisation with volunteers who have been rescuing wildlife in the Surf Coast region for 25 years. By supporting them, you help us to: - provide immediate veterinary care to injured wildlife - transport wildlife out of the fire zones - provide ongoing rehabilitation of wildlife until they are ready to be returned to the wild - place orphaned wildlife in long-term foster care - supply wildlife rescuers with efficient wildlife rescue kits - supply wildlife carers with ongoing medical supplies - provide public awareness and educational programs specific to the rescue of wildlife in the region Donate generously and thank you for your support They need $35,000, and there's a long way to go!

david macilwain

Sun, 2015-12-27 18:33

While I intimated that Alloush could not possibly be taken seriously as part of a negotiated settlement, it wasn't only SBS which had this idea - this morning's Al Jazeera interviewed someone from the Opposition 'SNC', which has already made a complaint to the UN about the 'targeting of Alloush by Russia'. The Syrian Army has acknowledged that the SAA carried out this strike, so the SNC's attribution to Russia is just another piece of propaganda. Also AJ said that the Yarmouk settlement had been delayed, but also noted that Syria and Russia had negotiated with IS and Al Nusra to leave Yarmouk (presumably to be bombed later - but that's their choice) and insinuated that once again Syria was working with IS, and against the interests of Syrian opposition groups. Considering the role proposed for Alloush and Jaish al Islaim by the Saudi coalition, and the fact that he has been the orchestrator of continuing attacks on Damascus from Douma, the SAA no doubt made a special effort to dispose of him. The stand off between the Saudi's FM, Adel al Jubair and Moscow will now be final I think, after he rejected Russia's proposal for joint counter-terrorism action back in July, and continues to have the ear of Kerry, in as far as the man has ears.

Olaf (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-25 19:54

Ref: UEV-20151214-51249-USA Situation Update No. 1 On 2015-12-24 at 12:09:02 [UTC] Event: Non-categorized event Location: USA State of California Los Angeles County Situation A court ordered SoCal Gas Company to provide temporary housing for thousands of Porter Ranch, Los Angeles, residents made sick from fumes from a massive gas leak. An infrared camera captured the size of the gas plume that\'s been leaking for two months. The court order issued on Wednesday will come as a relief to more than 2,500 families in Porter Ranch, a northwest San Fernando Valley community, who have been waiting to be relocated by SoCal Gas since the leak began spewing methane into their homes and schools on October 23. As of Tuesday, the company had paid for temporary housing for more than 2,000 other households, according to the Los Angeles Times. There are 30,000 residents who live in Porter Ranch, an upscale bedroom community of gated developments where the average 4,000-square-foot home is sold for $1 million. Judge Emilie Elias directed the gas company to relocate the remaining residents within 24 to 72 hours. The court order follows a restraining order sought by the Los Angeles city attorney that would have required the company to relocate residents within 48 hours of their request, and called for a \"special master\" to oversee the moves. The gas company is having increasing difficulty finding alternative housing nearby, because most of the available hotel, motel rooms and rental homes have already been snapped up by relocated Porter Ranch families. The shortage is also sending home rental prices as high as $8,500 a month as landlords, who prefer leases of a year or longer, seek compensation for renting properties for much shorter terms than the three to four months SoCalGas said it needs to cap the damaged well.\r\n\r\nNew aerial footage of the leak was also released on Wednesday by the Environmental Defense Fund, which captured the intensity of the leak by infrared camera. The video footage shows a steady, thick plume pouring into the air over a densely packed residential area. It is hard to judge the width of the plume from the video, but EDF said it is pumping out 62 million cubic feet of methane into the atmosphere each day. Methane packs 80 times the 20-year warming power of carbon dioxide. "What you can\'t see is easy to ignore. That's why communities that suffer from pollution from oil and gas development are often dismissed by industry and regulators," said Earthworks spokesman Alan Septoff in a statement. "Making invisible pollution visible shows the world what people in Porter Ranch have been living with every day for months." Trouble began at SoCal gas' Aliso Canyon, a gas storage field, on October 23, when gas company employees noticed a leak out of the ground near a well called SS-25. Efforts to fix the leak were unsuccessful as gas billowed downhill into Porter Ranch, and customers a mile away began to complain about the smell. Since then, thousands of complaints of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds have been made to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. LA Weekly reported that the well was drilled in 1953 and was designed with a sub-surface safety valve 8,451 feet underground. That valve broke and was removed in 1979, but was never replaced. The company says it will take until March for them to drill a relief well to resolve the problem and cap the current well. "I hate seeing SoCalGas' pollution billowing over my home and community. Knowing this gas leak has been polluting us since October and won't stop until March, if then, makes it clear there's only one way to keep us healthy and safe now and in the future," said Matt Pakucko, president of Save Porter Ranch in a statement. "[California] Governor [Jerry] Brown needs to shut down the Aliso Canyon facility." The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that the LA city attorney sued SoCalGas, alleging that the utility failed to prevent the leak and then exacerbated \"the effects of that failure by allowing the acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than one month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future," according to court papers. Gas officials could be deposed in that case as soon as January 7, according to the city attorney. The city wants to determine the cause of the leak, the amount of gas released, and the effectiveness of the air infiltration systems being provided by the company, the newspaper reported. "Events of this size are rare, but major leakage across the oil and gas supply chain is not. There are plenty of mini-Aliso Canyons that add up to a big climate problem - not just in California, but across the country," said Tim O'Connor, director of Environmental Defense Fund\'s California Oil and Gas Program in a statement. "Regardless of what the future holds for the Aliso Canyon storage field, this is one reason why strong rules are needed to require that oil and gas companies closely monitor for and manage methane leaks." RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS)

Judy Bello (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-22 17:13

We are always taking this arrogant stance that women have more rights here (in the US, say) than anywhere else and somehow this is an outgrowth of our democratic and capitalist society. This is hogwash. Two specific situations came to mind when I read your comments here. First, when I was a single mother with a toddler working odd jobs to get by, I knew other single mothers who, unlike myself, had gone through a divorce from a man who now had a new family, often living in a comfortable suburban home with a new family while these women were living with their children in the city and leaving them alone to go to work because they didn't have money for a babysitter. On a lighter (?) note, when I was in Boston on a business trip a few years ago I visited the Mary Baker Eddy house and museum. The museum was mostly feminist news from the first decade of the 20th century. One article that stayed with me was titled "Does a Woman Own Her Own Clothes?". The title was meant to be facetious, I suppose. But in fact, a married woman in the US at that time often didn't own anything at all except through her husband. By making constant war on the more secular and open minded governments in the Middle East, we guarantee that those women will not be in a position to assess and then develop their rights. War privileges men in a society, as you say. Christianity is no more innately open minded than Islam. Peace, prosperity and education allow societies to open up and become more supportive of the rights of individuals so both women and men benefit. The fact that the nations targeted are specifically the ones that have these characteristics is telling. These wars are undermining our freedoms just as surely as they are destroying the targeted nations.

Geoffrey Taylor

Tue, 2015-12-22 00:22

Just briefly, for now:

DennisK wrote:

Any site which [disallows discussion of conspiracy] is not worth the bytes of data to load it.

In fact, sites like NoFibs.com.au, and the political groups behind them, are worth a lot, but not to those who oppose the vested interests of the wealthy elites, or at least the more overt consequences of their misrule, as NoFibs purports to.

They cause people, who might otherwise be truly effective, to pour their effort and money into political activism that will make almost no tangible difference.

Those of us who are able to see NoFibs for what it is, should, amongst other tasks, show it up for what it is.

Dennis K

Mon, 2015-12-21 20:29

There is pretty much nothing you can't do on the Internet now, that you couldn't in the mid 90's. Some rubbish ISP's like AOL tried to create a cloistered, "consumer" internet, but thankfully AOL is dead. With regards to the NBN the two hurdles which may occur are 1) Download limits, which don't exist in many other Western countries and 2) Asymmetric speeds, which means you might be able to download and watch movies in real time, but may have trouble transmitting video. The highest NBN plans have a 100MBit download, and 40Mbit upload, which is OK, but the lesser plans are for people consuming data, not creating data. They are limited if you want to put out a lot of data, such as transmit in real time high quality video. The mindset is very much that we are recipients of information, and not transmitters of it. Imagine if everyone could host a TV channel from their home. You could set up a camera, and using a program, have a "channel" which others could tune in on. Like YouTube, but without a third party hosting. All this is currently possible, but its not they way we view Internet. Apple, Facebook, Microsoft push a vision of the Internet were we are clients rather than peers.

Dennis K

Mon, 2015-12-21 20:21

By banning "conspiracy theories", they are essentially forbidding any criticism of "official stories". If one was to question why the USA took so long to fight ISIS, has failed to defeat it, has taken measures to avoid fighting it, and turns a blind eye towards their oil trafficking, and suppose that perhaps this was the result of foriegn policy, then this would make one a "conspiracy theorist".

If one was to suppose, or suggest that the government was using policy to keep house prices high, then this would make one a "conspiracy theory", as such a suggestion is a suggesting that a conspiracy is occurring.

Any site which does this is not worth the bytes of data to load it.

Here some conspiracy theories which turned out to be true. Note this is only a selection of what is available:

7 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories that turned out to be True (21/10/12) |  news.com.au

Geoffrey Taylor

Mon, 2015-12-21 11:28

Protesters push Facebook to revise 'real name' policy

from RT, 16 Dec :

Facebook will take a small step back from its current hardline “real name” policy after being flooded with pleas and protests from a variety of vulnerable groups.

The social media company is preparing to test new tools that will allow people to share any special circumstances they feel prevent them from using their actual name.

It should help vulnerable people such as those who have suffered domestic abuse or in cases where a user’s sexuality may put them at risk.

The company is standing firm on their "real name" policy in all standard situations, however.

They say forcing people to use their real names makes them more accountable for what they say online.

A point not all online users agree on.

Margo Kingston, author of Not Happy, John (2003) who now edits the 'Citizen Journalism' web-site No Fibs, also insists upon contributors to No Fibs using only their real names.

Some time after 2006, Kingston disallowed any posts advocating 'conspiracy theories' on her web-site, then known as 'Web Diary'. Not withstanding her claimed objection to then Prime Minister John Howard taking Australia to war against Iraq in 2003, her objection to 'conspiracy theories' has since morphed into a failure to oppose any the ongoing wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries by the United States or its vassals – Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, ...

The only mention of any of these conflicts, which I could find on No Fibs is an article about the Syrian conflict, War, greed and the future of #Syria: (3/11/15). This article repeats the current mainstream media cover story for war to overthrow the democratically elected 'Assad regime':

"Experts have warned that the Isis militant group cannot be beaten without regime change in Syria, after a group of defectors revealed the horrors they had witnessed at the hands of Bashar al-Assad’s government … a doctor, a pathologist, a judge and a chemical weapons official from within the Syrian regime spoke about the atrocities they saw committed – and their frustration at the lack of attention from the international community.

"Forgetting about the institutionalised atrocities of the Assad regime only aggravates the situation on the ground. Bombing Isis from the air while turning a blind eye to Assad will just slightly shift the balance of power in Syria – where the civilian population is effectively trapped between the Assad regime and Isis … the removal of Isis necessitates the removal of Assad and a positive long-term engagement with moderate rebel groups including moderate Islamist groups. Because only these groups can actually make a difference for the population on the ground"

The above quote on No Fibs is from Syrian defectors reveal horrors of life under Bashar al-Assad's regime in reminder for West to 'not just focus on fighting Isis' (17/8/15) The Independent.

John Bentley (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-21 10:02

While not being an expert of any description in this field, I reckon you've put that pretty well Dennis. I like the last paragraph in particular, unfortunately I don't think the NBN will ever its true potential, at least while the neocons are in power. And while the people perceive in thinking that they are doing OK, their will to support an open, free and democratic internet will remain missing. I truly despair at what most people perceive to be freedom, when in most cases they are being told what to do, nicely, but nevertheless they are being cajoled and manipulated into doing things that are totally unsustainable.

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2015-12-20 17:58

This is to be posted to johnquiggin.com.

Ikonoclast wrote on December 8th, 2015 at 08:03

I know we disagree about Bashar al-Assad because we have disagreed about him in the past.

My response, which seems to have vanished after 'awaiting moderation' has also been published on my own web-site, candobetter.net, as The most unjustly demonised national leader in history?.

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, by labelling the Syrian President a 'butcher' and a 'murderous tyrant' have revealed to us that they are uninformed - whether wilfully or otherwise - at best.

Bashar al-Assad, far more than either Turnbull or Shorten ever has been, has been scrutinised by the global newsmedia, including, as an example, in a marathon 56 minute interview by 60 Minutes on 10 Sep 2013. This is far scrutiny has been subject to in recent years. (Only the Russian President Vladimir Putin has come even close.)

In my view Bashar al-Assad came out of all of those interviews look very good. Had there been any truth in the claims by Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull that would not have been possible. I have yet to see either of those two be subject to that kind of scrutiny.

Like Labor Prime Minister John Curtin and President Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War has so far, succeeded in defending his country against foreign aggression. Given the ferocity and ruthlessness of the invaders - armed and paid for by the United States, the United Kingdom, the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and others, the trials endured by the Syrian President surely surpass even those trials. Certainly, the Syrian President, unlike either Turnbull or Shorten, will be be left standing alongside the likes of Roosevelt and Curtin by future historians.

Dennis K

Sun, 2015-12-20 14:11

The open natures of the Internet is paradoxically part of the problem. The protocols and data formats which drive the core of the Internet remain open. Transmission of data occurs openly without owners. It is still a system where anyone can connect to anyone without any intermediary (except the ISP's to transmit data), and anyone can host a service (though some ISP's dont take too kindly to this being done with "home" internet accounts. Facebook is actually a small island of closed, regulated, unfree Internet connectivity operating among a free and user controlled net. People choose to use Facebook to chat, instead of other chat protocols, or through direct connections. People choose to put their photos on Facebook and have Facebook own them, instead of using their own personal webspace. Admittedly, personal webspace isn't offered by many ISP's, but some, like iiNet still offer reasonable amount of space. Security and privacy can be obtained through PGP and in more trying circumstances, TOR. I don't condone what Apple or Facebook do, nor consider it desirable or worth celebrating, but centralised control isn't being forced. It's being adopted by people who don't know, or want to know better. It is being adopted and becoming de facto standard by people who place convenience and ease over everything else. Facebook users either don't care about their rights and privacy, or simply are willing to yield for the supposed benefits of social networking. Australia had a good opportunity with the NBN to create a true peer to peer internet, with good upload speeds, which will allow decentralised communication and collaboration, instead of centrally controlled portals. The technology is there, it has been there for decades, and will remain for years to come. What is missing is the will of people to support an open, free and democratic internet.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-12-20 12:23

Your point on the notion of linear chronological 'progress' is taken, Quark. Thank you. There is, however, a much more cogent and vital measure of women's rights, and that is land rights, notably their distribution via inheritance. Taditionally Muslim women have been accorded one third their brothers' rights, but in the 'good sister syndrome' they often give this up to their brothers, supposedly in the hope that their brothers will take care of them. (Note that this problem of unfair distribution is corrected for Muslims living under Roman law in modern Europe, but not under Anglophone country law - i.e. Australia, England, most states of the USA, New Zealand.) As in all societies in all regions, there was a point where fertile land was not at a premium and female humans, like other animals, dominated their own territory and passed it on to their children, whence it descended in male and female lines. I argue in Sheila Newman, Demography, Territory, Law2: Land-tenure and the Origins of Capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, 2014, that past eras of global warming which reduced land-areas and provoked migrations may have been a catalyst for the reduction of women's rights, the development of agriculture as a more intensive method of getting food, and the formation of tiered societies under separate ruling castes. I don't think that agricultural society was a gain; agriculture was a technological solution to the problem of sudden loss of territory associated with widescale sudden population pressure. I would maintain that hunter-gathering with modest traditional gardens (as are maintained still in the Pacific Islands) was the first choice. England was reinvented under Norman (Viking) law as a frontier administered by soldiers who earned land-rights through service to their leader. That service entailed defending the frontier. Women could not inherit this land because it was land to be defended by [male] soldiers, but it could be transmitted through women to their husbands. This situation persisted in England until the early 1920s, when it finally became permissible to leave women land. Nonetheless, in England and in her colonies, there is no obligation to leave land to women and women continue to be land and asset poor compared to men. (Spousal inheritance was an attempt to partially correct this, but brings its own problems, see end of this comment.) In contrast, in Roman law, women were able to inherit (although not to manage) land. Napoleon reinforced this law and made it mandatory for all children to inherit equally, whether they be male or female. His example of the civil code was taken up by all countries except Britain by the 19th century in Europe. This gives women a much better footing in the non-anglophone countries of Europe, with the exception of Portugal which was influenced in some ways by British law. I do not know if it was under Islam that women lost fair access to land through inheritance in the Middle East or if it occurred earlier or independently. I must investigate! I understand that in Hindu traditional law women have the right to nothing at all! This subject of discussion is SO important and women in the anglophone countries have so little understanding of how recently they were in a similar position to the women of the Middle East in this way. It is this historical skew, in my opinion, that is the most important factor in the lack of respect for women in many societies. Basically lack of assets translates to lack of power and lack of power translates to lack of respect. Note also, that in Pacific Islander and African societies, 19th and 20th century colonials tended to revoke through new laws the tradition of female land-inheritance lines, impacting not only on wealth, but also on power and fertility, turning women and children into slaves of slaves (i.e of colonised men). Were there similar effects of colonisation in the 19th and 20th century in India and the Middle East? We must always bear in mind that until the industrial revolution, most societies were clan and tribe based and probably had multiple land-tenure systems, with many of them limiting marriage to a small proportion of the population with the rest cooperatively housed in extended families or male and female houses. As for the question of whether we are entering a new Dark Age: the settings are right for it in Australia (and globally). For Australia governments are engineering drastic land-scarcity. Our inheritance laws do not safeguard children's or women's rights. There is no obligation for parents to leave their assets to their children nor for them to apportion them equally to each child regardless of sex. If a man or woman remarries and has a second family, the first family can be and is often left out of the inheritance in favour of the new spouse.

anon (not verified)

Sun, 2015-12-20 11:51

From RT (19/12/15)

The Syrian president Bashar Assad and his wife, Asma, visited the Notre Dame de Damas Church, an ancient cathedral located just 2 kilometers from the rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar in Damascus.

They attended Christmas preparations at Our Lady of Damascus, just two kilometres (around a mile) from the rebel-held Jubar district.

The visit coincided with the adoption of Friday’s UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and political settlement in Syria, which was unanimously adopted. The resolution refrained from mentioning the Syrian leader.

Assad, a member of the Shiite Muslim Alawite sect, presents himself as a protector of minorities in Syria. He says that his administration is an example of tolerance that contrasts with the behaviour of jihadists, including the Islamic State group that has seized large swathes of the war-torn country. Alawites like Bashar al-Assad celebrate Christmas and Easter as well as all the Muslim holidays, but the American media portrays Assad as a monster to be removed and vilified.

Alawites make up just 10% to 15% of Syria’s population, and they are usually presented as fervent supporters of Mr. Assad. Alawites ignore the religious practices associated with Islam, and they keep their own rituals secret.

quark

Sat, 2015-12-19 16:23

Jeremy Salt's comments regarding the enlightened views of Islamic scholars on women's rights during the Middle Ages is worthy of further study. His observations are further evidence that "progress" is not necessarily a linear phenomenon linked to perceived time, stretching ever forwards Are we entering a new Dark Age?

admin

Thu, 2015-12-17 17:34

Open letter calling for both sides of Syrian conflict to be put to the Australian people

Dear Tanya Plibersek,

I note that in the Guardian article "Tanya Plibersek: Australia deserves a seat at the table in Syria negotiations" (15/12/15) 1 you claimed that "[Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad has proved to be incapable or even unwilling to protect Syrian civilians."

Whilst this is nowhere near as serious as other accusations made by the mainstream newsmedia against the Syrian President, it is, nevertheless, a grave allegation that I don't believe can be substantiated. Certainly, please feel welcome to send me any evidence that you have in support of that allegation.

Given Australia's own record in the Middle East in recent years, I fail to see how other countries in the region could be expected to trust Australia to play a constructive role in any negotiations to end the war against Syria.

Australia and other members of the 'coalition of the willing' took part in two illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Australia also imposed sanctions against Iraq after 1990, even denying food to starving children and medicine to sick children. As a result, many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. According to former United States' Attorney General, Ramsey Clarke on 17 Sep 2013, the death toll may have been as high as 3,300,000! 2

As a consequence of these wars and sanctions a total of 1,300,000 million Iraqis fled to neighbouring Syria to be cared for alongside 543,400 Palestinian refugees, according to Wikipedia. 3

I am not aware that Syria has ever been compensated for the huge trouble and expense caused to it by Australia and its allies.

Instead, based upon the pretext of the unsubstantiated allegations that the Syrian government had massacred its own citizens at Houla, the then Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr expelled the Syrian ambassador and imposed sanctions against Syria. As far as I am aware, Bob Carr never gave the Syrian ambassador the opportunity to put to him his government's account of the massacre.

As Professor Tim Anderson and many others have explained, there is far more evidence that the massacre was committed by terrorist 'rebels' against supporters of the Syrian government. 4 No doubt the additional difficulties caused by these sanctions have contributed to the awful death toll that has reached 250,000 so far.

The Syrian government has come out very well under media scrutiny

Are you aware that since March 2011 the Syrian President has been subject more often to more intense media scrutiny than any other world leader I know of? This includes the marathon one hour interview of 10 September 2013 by Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes. 5 Most Recently he was interviewed on 11 December by the Spanish News Agency EFE. 6

Other recent interviews of the Syrian President include: by the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO 7 and by the Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel. 8

For someone held by the mainstream media to be a corrupt mass-murderer, Bashar al-Assad came out of all of those interviews looking surprisingly good. In fact, it seems to me that the Syrian President demonstrated far more humanity compassion and intellect than I have seen in most leaders in the West and that includes Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

Would you be willing to undergo the same level of public scrutiny?

The Media Services of countries allied with the Syrian government, including Iran's PressTV and Russia's PressTV often allow people who are critical of or even opposed to their government to put their views to their audiences in interviews and panel discussions. Such shows include , on RT, "Worlds Apart" 9 compered by Oksana Boyko, "SophieCo" 10 compered by Sophie Shevardnadze, grand-daughter of the late Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze(1928-2014) and "CrossTalk" 11 hosted by Peter Lavelle and, on PressTV, "The Debate". 12 In contrast, Australian media, particularly the ABC, almost never interview the opposite side of these international questions. I am sure that Bashar al-Assad would be entirely willing to explain himself on our national television, if permitted and that Australians would benefit from this exposure.

If you still believe that you are right, then why not offer to put your views to those media outlets and show them and their audiences why they are wrong about Syria and its President?

Yours faithfully,

James Sinnamon ph 0412 319669

Appendix: response from Tanya Plibersek

The response I received from Tanya Plibersek, at 2:56PM, is:

James --

Thank you for your feedback. If your matter is urgent you may wish to contact my electorate office on 02 9379 0700 or at Tanya.Plibersek.MP [AT ] aph.gov.au.

Best wishes,

Tanya

Footnotes

1. ⇑ Tanya Plibersek: Australia deserves a seat at the table in Syria negotiations

2. ⇑ Fmr US Attorney General: US Sanctions Are Genocidal (17/9/13) | YouTube

3. ⇑ Syria - Demographics | Wikipedia

4. ⇑ The Houla Masaccre revisited: "Official truth" in the dirty war on Syria (16/12/15) | Global Research

5. ⇑ The full transcript of the CBS interview is at President al-Assad's Interview with CBS News. Video and Transcript (10/9/13) Global Research – also republished here on candobetter.net.

6. ⇑ President Al-Assad Interview: "The West Is Not Serious in Fighting Terrorists" (11/12/15)

7. ⇑ President al-Assad to the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO: ISIS has no incubator in Syria...Terrorists are main obstacle in front of any political progress (19/11/15) | SANA

8. ⇑ President al-Assad to Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel.. From the very first day, we were determined to fight terrorism (25/11/15)

9. ⇑ Worlds Apart | RT

10. ⇑ SophieCo | RT

11. ⇑ CrossTalk | RT

12. ⇑ The Debate | PressTV

Olaf (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-16 14:24

Thanks for these fine articles on Homs. Have you noticed the pseudo dialogue between the US and Turkey?

'We want them to do more' – US defense secretary asks Turkey to seal Syria border (15/12/15) | RT

Publicly the USA pretends to be 100% opposed to ISIL and is shocked that Turkey is not helping out enough to defeat it. Privately, USA policy involves helping and nurturing ISIL. In this case the US calls Turkey to task for not doing enough. Of course, the ISIL/TURKEY oil smuggling was actually brokered by the CIA. But the USA can't admit that ...

By asking Turkey to 'control' the Syrian- Turkey border, the US is thinking it can maintain control over ingress of weapons and fighters and egress of wounded or retreating fighters.

If Syria and Russia were able to jointly pull off sealing the border, well, then most of the current duplicitous game would be over.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-16 07:18

"No available territory for kangaroos"! There seems to be endless "territory" for human expansion, even the destruction of food bowls and arable land! The fringe of Melbourne is being impacted by the city's obesity - and keeps expanding. There's no urban boundary, and it's simply growing and sprawling with market forces, and heavy population growth. The growth monster has no boundaries, and is always seen as "good". Their solution to kangaroos endangered by roads and fences is "culling". They have no economic value, and are a risk to drivers and the people coming in contact with them. The sterilization and the destruction of our landscape to create generic housing estates is destroying our country, and making it into a featureless desert of concrete and commercial structures.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-16 07:12

VicForests seem to think they are a law unto themselves, and because they are a company set up by the Victorian government, they can do what they like, when they like - with State government endorsement! Like the Japanese illegal whalers, they think they are above the laws of the country, and can shift the goal posts to do what they want - to make their destruction "legal". The forests of Victoria belong to all Victorians, and our future generations. They are not just sterile trees, or natural resources, that can be plundered and somehow not make a difference. They are focuses of myriad ecological systems, and the homes to so many species. It's like extracting the heart of a city, or demolishing a significant building full of workers/public, and wondering why people are shocked and complain? Our Victorian government is meant to be the custodians of our wildlife, our unique environment, and our natural heritage. Instead, they are violating it, for short-term $$ from logging! Who do they think they are?

quark

Tue, 2015-12-15 17:34

i have just spoken to a representative from the State Dept of the environment regarding wildlife on the urban fringe , particularly kangaroos. I wanted to know what preparations are made re wild life as Melbourne expands He told me that the department works with local councils to avoid creating "gaps" when new developments are created, where kangaroos become trapped then are killed by cars on the roads. He said that kangaroos cannot be re-located firstly as there is no available territory for them and of course they become extremely stressed and there are very high mortality rates if they are "darted" and captured. He mentioned "precinct planning groups" regarding wildlife which I gathered are made up of council and Environment reps. The officer pointed out to me that once there were kangaroos in Kew but i was already aware that wildlife is always expended as suburbs extend. He apologised to me that there was no good news and that development in his observation is accelerating.

John Bentley (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-15 10:33

It was good to see Aunty doing a bit more Syria bashing last night. The lies and innuendo that the ABC now indulges in is sickening. Not only is it sickening, it is also absolutely pointless. As a public broadcaster, it has failed its charter. As a medium for the accurate depiction of fact, it is a failure. The integrity of the ABC has made the quantum leap from the gutter into the sewer with startling aplomb and joined the rest of the spineless pack otherwise known as the mainstream media.

admin

Tue, 2015-12-15 01:10

The following was posted to a discussion on JohnQuiggin.com. It is now 'awaiting moderation'.

Ikonoclast wrote on December 8th, 2015 at 08:03

I know we disagree about Bashar al-Assad because we have disagreed about him in the past.

Could you please explain again your views about the Syrian President? I cannot recall what you wrote about President Bashar al-Assad and I couldn't find anything you had written about him. The discussions about Syria on JohnQuiggin.com that I could find are:

Monday Message Board (7/12/15), Monday Message Board (9/9/15), Monday Message Board (24/8/15), Sandpit (26/10/14), Yesterday's enemies, today's allies ... and tomorrow? (7/10/14)

It seems to me that the Syrian President could well be the most unjustly demonised political leader in all history and those 'journalists' and politicians who continue to push the narrative that he is a murderous tyrant are ignorant and lazy at best.

What other political leader has been so closely scrutinised by all the world's newsmedia including CBS's 60 Minutes on 10 September 2013? Only last month he was again interviewed by an Italian TV station and by the Chinese Phoenix TV station. If he really were the monster claimed by the mainstream media and by the likes of Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in November 2015:

Interviewer: ... has described Assad as a butcher. Is that how you would classify him, and is that why he has to be removed?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well, he's killed - he's been responsible for killing many, many thousands of his of his citizens. So, the many people have described him as a butcher. I think he has been a murderous tyrant. There is doubt about that.

The calculation is this. There is a lot of opposition. Obviously there is a very deep enmity, as I've said the other day, towards Assad and his regime by many people - perhaps most people in Syria. Well, it's hard to tell. There's obviously, there's deep enmity towards him by other players in the Middle East - the Sunni, you know the Sunni majority states. His supporters, of course Iran and Russia. I think the reality however is that the approach has to be a pragmatic one, and whatever combination of players that are able to achieve the settlement - that includes groups inside Syria, with the exception of Daesh, who as I say, have no interest in settlement and nobody has any interest in a settlement with them, but there is going to be a need to be very pragmatic about it.

If you look at the other countries that are close to the scene and, that is, certainly what neighbouring countries are talking about, now. A more pragmatic approach and I think that David Cameron spoke for the room in [Antalia?] when he said the negotiations had to be approached in a spirit of pragmatism and compromise.

The fundamental problem is that there is a war there that is going on there that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is still killing thousands of people and there are 4 million plus refugees - two and a half million of them, or thereabouts, in Turkey alone. So this is a humanitarian catastrophe of extraordinary scale. It's said to be the worst since the Second World war and I have no reason to doubt that. So a resolution is absolutely critical.

... and by 'Opposition' leader Bill Shorten:

Bill Shorten: I do not believe that long term peace in Syria can be guaranteed while Assad the butcher remains in control. Now I understand that in transition arrangements, some compromises may have to be made in the short term.

Well, what I am completely convinced of, is that if Assad was to remain in charge of Syria, then there is no prospect for any stability and peace for the millions of people who live in Syria and there's very little chance of the millions of Syrian refugees wanting to return to Syria whilst Assad remains in control.

... Bashar al-Assad would surely have been torn to shreds more than once in these interviews recent years. Yet in each interview the Syrian President stood his ground, confronting all allegations made against him and refuting them.

Katie (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-14 14:39

As Jenny Warfe writes, Melbourne on current trends is headed towards being a city of 20 million by the end of the century. I really hate to imagine the quality of life at this point for its inhabitants. The level of hygiene would have to plummet for lack of adequate water to drink, to wash in and for sewerage. Australians seen once by Europeans as people fanatical about showering every day would be long forgotten. When I try to illustrate to my friends the problem we have in Melbourne with our massive population growth, I do so with a picture of Melbourne as a city of 20 million. At this point, nearly everyone says, "Well, I'll be dead by then." It seems that they just give up contemplating the issue when the numbers get too great and the anticipated future is beyond their lifetimes even if they have children or grandchildren who may still be around. How do you get this message across? Does it need to be demonstrated in full technicolor and in 3D? How do we make it real for Environment Victoria and everyone else?

John Bentley (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-14 11:32

The true cost of the Wonthaggi Desal Plant is $23.5 billion over the 30 year lifespan of the plant on a take it or leave contract. This does not include operating costs or the cost of infrastructure to get power to the plant, deliver the desalinated water to customers or maintenance. Similarly owned and operated by Melbourne Water as part of the drought proofing of Melbourne was the North South Pipeline at a cost of $1 billion. As the erstwhile Ken Davidson commented at the time Melbourne Water had several options available to it at a fraction of the cost. The upgrading of the Carrum Water Treatment plant has since been completed at a cost of $159 million further boosting Melbourne's water reserves. The Werribee Water treatment Plant is currently being upgraded and will further enhance Melbourne's reserves. Davo also advocated several other proposals including the catchment of storm water which currently flows down our gutters into drains and streams into the Port Phillip and Westernport Bays. This water by the time it reaches the bays is polluted with various contaminants from sewage, to chemicals, to sediments, to litter. The water outlook for Melbourne remains "well placed to deal with a warm dry summer" according to Melbourne Water. "Melbournians are to congratulated for continuing to use water wisely (220 litres/person/day) with household demand over 20% lower than 10 years ago" they said. Currently Melbourne's storages are at 70.4% full and water restrictions won't be applied this summer let alone the running of the desal plant. For those wishing to install tanks which come in all shapes and sizes, to catch stormwater, this can be facilitated by purchasing the tank and materials and installing it yourself or getting a plumber/handy(wo)man to do the work and it is relatively cheap. Anybody who suspects that the stormwater may be contaminated can get the water tested by any of the various water testers around Melbourne.

anon (not verified)

Sun, 2015-12-13 18:17

The obvious solution for water supply, in the face of increasing exponential population growth, is more desal plants! The desalination plant was commissioned at the height of the drought by the Bracks Labor government in 2007, and the final construction milestone was achieved later than scheduled in October 2013. Victoria needs a desalination plant because of the population growth, climate change and drought. The desalination plant is being put in place to guarantee the reliability of our future water supply. Of course the parameter of population growth is assumed to be fixed, with no debate or democratic input. It's part of our economy, with population needed to keep up our GDP and economic growth model. The Victorian desalination plant, southeast of Melbourne, will have cost water users $1.2bn by the November 29 state election, rising to $2bn by the end of the next financial year. The real problem is our government's addiction to population growth, for the benefit of business elite and property investors, but the real costs are passed onto the people of Victoria. What retailer would survive such an arrangement with massive fixed costs and only a small amount for what we are supposed to be paying for - the actual water? It is expensive overshooting our ecological limitations. Access to water and housing are basic human rights, not privileges, but both rights are being violated by our Brumby government. The cost has soared, despite no water having been drawn from the facility since its opening in 2012. The desalination plant, built to guarantee the state’s water supplies amid the population ponzi. Of course, population keeps being "projected"! If Melbourne’s population had remained stable at 1995 levels, there would have been no need for desalination. Our "ageing population" needs fresh, young migrants, to stop it's assumed decline! This growth mania capitalizes on our inherent fear of personally ageing, and that ageing population must be bad, crippling, arthritic, and disease-prone - leading to "death" of our economy! So, we need to spend $BILLIONs to secure that growth will continue, despite climate change! The fetish for endless growth is seen as the path to future wealth, but it's about chasing the pot gold at the end of the elusive rainbow. Demographically we'll be confined to the a retirement village, or nursing home, waiting for our economy to shrivel up and die, unless we keep up the growth mantra - and pay out for whatever this monster demands! Growth is good, but being what's called "stagnant", a stable population, will attract microbes, bacteria, fungii and amoeba!

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-12-13 17:51

First published at RT Published time: 12 Dec, 2015 09:19 Edited time: 12 Dec, 2015 09:51 Saudi Arabia is holding municipal elections on Saturday, in which for the first time women will be allowed to vote and run for public offices. The ballot is being ignored by the majority of Saudi citizens and no women may be elected in the end. The ultraconservative Arab kingdom was the last nation on Earth to introduce universal suffrage. During the previous election in 2011, King Abdullah did not allow women to participate, but promised this would happen in 2015. His successor Salman has delivered on the late monarch’s promise. Municipal elections are the only kind that Saudi Arabia allows. Two thirds of the seats in 284 councils are up for grabs with the remaining officials being appointed by the ministry of municipal affairs. The councils have limited power to run things, such as cleaning the streets and looking after public parks. There are about 5,938 men and 978 women competing for the vacant offices, according to the BBC. The count of registered voters is similarly disproportionate – 1,360,000 men versus just 131,000 women – and is only a small fraction of Saudi Arabia’s 20-million population. Bureaucratic obstacles, a lack of awareness of the process and gender segregation laws all hinder female participation. “People are put off by segregation and restrictions. They think: ‘Why should I bother?’ That is true for voters and candidates. Registration is difficult because you need to bring a lot of documents. They are not accustomed to voting and don’t have a lot of faith in it. To a lot of people it feels like a waste of time,” said Jeddah journalist Samar Fatany as cited by the Guardian. Campaigning for female candidates was more difficult than for their male competition as well. While both genders were banned from publishing their photos under election rules, for women it was almost impossible to meet voters. Social media and online chats were the main means of communication for female candidates, although some recruited their male relatives to act as proxies for speaking to the public directly. While many women rights activists in Saudi Arabia see the introduction of universal suffrage as a milestone, there are fears that no female candidates will win a seat in 2015. “What if no woman wins? My fear is that at this stage we have momentum, but once things settle, and if women are not elected, life goes back to normal,” Fatin Bundagji, a board member in Jeddah’s Chamber of Commerce, told the Foreign Policy. Hope remains that even without a single win some female officials may be appointed to councils. Saudi Arabia has been slowly drifting towards allowing women take a greater part in public life. Women have lately served in executive positions in big companies and as cabinet-level officials. They are not barred from the Sharia Council, an appointed body advising the royal family on legislation. Heavy resistance remains in Saudi Arabia’s conservative circles against giving women more rights, which is perceived as crippling westernization by critics. Women are not allowed to drive, travel alone, arrange marriages or apply for jobs without a guardian’s consent. Neither are they allowed to meet with male non-relatives.

Vivienne Ortega

Fri, 2015-12-11 12:18

9th December 2015: for immediate release Ignoring the major while emphasising the minor: population increase in Pacific nations. The emphasis which the Federal Government is placing on sea level rise affecting Pacific Island nations, swinging $1 billion from foreign aid for adaptation purposes is seriously misplaced says environment NGO, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). National president of SPA, Sandra Kanck, says that greater long-term good could be achieved if this money was used to address a far more serious, immediate, as well as long-term problem affecting these people. As an example, the population of the Pacific Island nation, Kiribati, has more than trebled, from 30,000 in 1960 to 105,000 in 2014. This means that even without climate change or sea level rise each member of that population now has access to less than one third of the land, less than one third of the fresh water and less than one third of all the other resources, such as fish stocks, than they did just 55 years ago. Thirty four percent of Kiribati’s population is under 15, still to enter their reproductive years. Without strong family planning tied to limiting the size of families the current rate of population increase of 1.25% is likely to continue for many years. At this rate the population will double by 2071 to 210,000 thereby halving the existing meagre resources available to each person compared with today. Yet only a quarter of all couples use modern contraceptive methods. This pattern of population growth is common across most of the Pacific Island nations. It presents a far more serious and more immediate problem than sea level rise. It would be far better use of Australia’s one billion dollars if this money was used to ensure that all Pacific Island people had access to family planning, contraception and an understanding of how population growth reduces every person’s share of finite resources. As sea levels rise - as they inevitably will given the failure of governments around the world to take the necessary more stringent action - redirecting aid in this way would help to ensure that far fewer people would be impacted by this and other climate changes. Any other adaptive solutions developed would be easier to apply. - ENDS - Media contact: Sandra Kanck, Ph. 08 8336 4114 or 0417 882 143

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-09 10:21

"Although immigration (overseas and interstate) were acknowledged as components of population growth, most respondents were probably not aware of how large this discretionary component was, especially the overseas part." Few people really know the implications of our high, and manufactured, population growth are, and understand our demographics. The "immigration" news is repeatedly focused on asylum seekers and "boat people", but how would the public know that they comprise only a very small proportion of our net overseas migration? High unemployment, unaffordable housing, costs of infrastructure, rising costs of living, lowering living standards, the crush of traffic congestion etc etc are all incremental, and come to be the norm! Linking all the impacts of high population growth to immigration rates is unlikely to happen. Linking them as causal is unlikely, so without solid experience or knowledge of immigration, demographics and sustainable population number for Australia, any answer to surveys are likely to be of zero value! (except as confirmation for the growthists)

Dennis K

Tue, 2015-12-08 23:57

Hi Sheila, I note that the drop in birthrate did lead to a overall drop in population, briefly, but I don't find the use of "any" or "no" contentious, even if not technically 100% true. Even so, it wasn't a conscious choice to shun growth at a social level, and no large complex human society has ever declared its population levels sufficient. Any stasis in population size was not the result of a social endeavour to keep a particular population target, but due to individual or small community choices taken with regards to their environment, culture, etc (which is what I advocate as the most feasible solution to propose today for sustainable population). I'm not aware of ANY population which ever decided to keep a static number as a goal, except for maybe a hippie commune here or kibbutz there,and in this case it is true to say there is little to no evidence of human societies choosing a population target of no growth. It may have incidentally have occurred, but not as a matter of policy. The only time a policy has been put in place to control a population, or limits its proliferation or its proportion in a society,, is when that policy has had genocidal intentions.

'Vark (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-08 23:47

A mob of kangaroos have lost their home Melbourne’s north as works begin on Mernda South Primary School. Picture: William Sharp THE Education Department has locked out distressed kangaroos from proposed new school sites in Mernda. Mernda residents have described upsetting scenes of roos crashing into wire fences erected around a site earmarked for Mernda South Primary School as they try to get back into a paddock they’ve grazed on for years. In a carefully worded statement, Department of Education senior media adviser Diana Robertson wrote: “There are no kangaroos located on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) schools sites in Mernda”. Ms Robertson confirmed the Mernda South Primary School site had been recently fenced but did not answer whether the department would consider relocating the mob. “Environmental management planning is undertaken for each school site to ensure that the Department complies with all applicable environmental legislation and regulations,” she said. But that’s little consolation for residents who see the loveable marsupials bounding through their streets at night. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/north/department-of-education-banishes-homesick-roos-from-mernda-paddock/news-story/219f2222eb274e94f33313023d76fe27

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2015-12-08 21:33

Hi Dennis,

It is true that humans are very easily led. They are not so easily led astray in smaller societies, which have local biofeedback. Australia at the turn of the 19th century was much more functional society in terms of people communicating to each other and participating politically I think. Now we are much more passive, due to the mass-media having stolen the public talking stick. However, I agree largely with the problem as stated.

Just wanted to say this. The author writes:

"Nor has any human society with the means and opportunity to expand its population or economy ever consciously and willingly shunned further growth. No large, complex human society has said "enough is enough," and declared itself satisfied with its current population or GDP levels."

That is untrue for many small societies (as he implies) but also for quite a few European societies, which remained localised although they could have gone and plundered to expand.

Notably, France after the French Revolution spontaneously controlled its numbers. See "English translation of Etienne Van de Walle: “French fertility in the 19th century,” by Sheila Newman".

That may seem like nit-picking except that it is perfectly true. Why?

I think I know, but most people, it is true, believe it is impossible to know, or that they have no right to know, so show no curiosity.

quark

Tue, 2015-12-08 09:02

I suppose the mainstream media keeps Bashar -al- Assad hidden from view because to hear what he has to say would contradict the image of him they wish to create.

James Sinnamon

Mon, 2015-12-07 23:33

Anonymous, paraphrasing Donald Trump, wrote above:

"Assad might be replaced by someone worse if he were ousted." (my emphasis)

It's unfortunate that so many lies about Syria and its President Bashar al-Assad are being parroted by otherwise informative and well-meaning people.

In fact, far from being a ruthless dictator – or worse – as he has been portrayed by the pro-war mainstream media – and even some people opposed to war including Donald Trump – since March 2011, Bashar al-Assad, for a national leader who has led his country through such a terrible and bloody conflict, is surprisingly humane, compassionate and good-humoured.

Also, he seems to have an intellect that towers well above that of any of the world leaders opposed to him.

This can be seen in the large number of interviews President al-Assad has given in recent years, including the 27 minute interview with the BBC of 9 Feb 2015, embedded below. Other recent examples include:

President al-Assad to Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel ... From the very first day, we were determined to fight terrorism (22/11/15) | SANA

President al-Assad to the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO: ISIS has no incubator in Syria…Terrorists are main obstacle in front of any political progress (19/11/15) | SANA

Three earlier examples, republished on candobetter, include:

Interview: Syrias President Bashar al-Assad: "The West has no Desire to Combat Terrorism"; channels money and arms to terrorists (31/3/15) with embeded video – previously published (6/3/15) on Global Research.

Swedish Expressen Newspaper interviews President Bashar Al-Assad 17 April 2015 (18/4/15)

Syrian President al-Assad interviewed by CBS News (10/9/13)

Syria conflict: BBC exclusive interview with President Bashar al-Assad (FULL)

 

anon (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-07 16:46

If Middle East strongmen Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi were still in this world, it would have been a better place, because what came instead is much worse, US presidential candidate Donald Trump said.

Both Hussein and Gaddafi were dictatorial leaders who ruled with a strong hand. Hussein was ousted by a US-led coalition that acted with no mandate on a pretext that he had a clandestine program of weapons of mass destruction. The accusation was later proven to be false. He was tried and executed by the post-invasion authorities.

World would be a better place with Saddam, Gaddafi still in power – Trump (26/10/15) | RT

So was the "regime-change" theory of the war wrong from the start, or is it still possible that the theory was right and the execution incompetent?

Trump mentioned the countries in comparison to current efforts to drive Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power.

"You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there, it's a mess," Trump said on NBC.

Middle East would be more stable if Saddam, Gaddafi still in power: Trump (4/10/15) | Reuters

Trump said last week Assad might be replaced by someone worse if he were ousted.

According to the findings of a recent survey by local rights NGOs, women were treated better during the Saddam Hussein era – and their rights were more respected – than they are now. According to the survey, women's basic rights under the Hussein regime were guaranteed in the constitution and – more importantly – respected, with women often occupying important government positions.

What Iraq needs is a strong leader, a man who can keep a violent, bloodthirsty argumentative Iraqi population all under total control. Iraq has always been violent, that's how Iraqis are.

DennisK (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-07 16:31

Exactly. How are people supposed to determine the optimal size? Even if it were a valid question, does anyone actually know how to begin answering that question? Growth lobby included! Good point. And shows how these surveys just manufacture consent. The most reliable means to judge, is to evaluate the results of the program thus far, which is congestion, poor infrastructure, cultural and suburban destruction and the erosion of the middle class and creation of a rentier class. Based in this, the program goes against the people's interests, so any government or entity which promotes it is hostile to Australians interests. This we know. There is no "debate". Its a one way conversation from one lobby trying to get the people to accept wholeheartedly their program.

John Bentley (not verified)

Mon, 2015-12-07 11:03

I've just watched a lecture by Kevin Anderson which takes us behind the scenes and bullshit of the climate change debate. The main thrust of the lecture was prepare yourselves for 4 degrees celsius of global warming if not 6 rather than 2 degrees. The lecture can be found at:

Kevin Anderson — Frustrated In Flatland

... A must for all who wish to prevent the destruction of the anthropocene.

quark

Sun, 2015-12-06 18:30

Good points, Dennis. Getting people to engage with national numerical population targets is getting them to engage with something which is ultimately to their detriment. Furthermore, people don't really know how many people the country can accommodate unless they study such issues. Most of the country is remote from them, so they would have a better idea if the discussion centred on the number of people in their street or suburb where they have direct experience. I, for one am now totally over all the talk about population growth in the media, the "debates" , the submissions and other ways of having one's say etc.(and then being ignored) Once it annoyed me that the population was rising fast and obviously causing congestion type problems but the media was silent on it. Now they are wallowing in it. You are right that we are not being given the chance to respond naturally to our environment(s) and to collectively determine our own demographic destiny.

Dennis K

Sun, 2015-12-06 15:31

With regards to why people don't quite see that mass population growth is an issue, maybe these articles may help. I rarely recommend articles to read because of the imposition of time, and only do so when I believe that there is truly something big to gain. Adventures in Flatland This article links to a part 2, 3 and 4 which are also just as good. The author of this blog, Decline of the Empire takes a rather unique (and sensible) approach, by acknowledging that human nature itself is limited, and our ability to solve problems and provide technical solutions and run society are limited by inherit characteristics. He's position is it isn't just particular lobby groups or interests which cause peoples to misunderstand or not acknowledge major issues, but it's a fundamental aspect of human nature, which goes the whole way through our society. Our psychological makeup, determined by evolution and the needs of being a social species is ultimately the problem, not merely BP, Shell, Frank Lowy

Dennis K

Sun, 2015-12-06 15:24

The trick here is you "ask" people what population target there should be. 30m? 35m? 50m? 15m? Whatever the answer is, it is predicated on the assumption that the people need to set targets. Can anyone find similar policies prior to the post WWII era, anywhere, where countries set specific population targets? We act as if this is business as usual, as if it were a normal part of the functioning of society to set population targets like this, but it is actually a curious anomaly. In posing the question this way, it assumes that you should have a target, and therefore the fight the government has to override the peoples wishes is already done. All thats left is to argue about the numbers. I do repeat this point often, but I think its critical. The question as I see it is, "Should the government have the right to override the nations natural demographic development so some can profit?" That's REALLY the issue at stake, isn't it? Thats REALLY whats happening, and the choice that is being denied to us. That the state is overriding peoples wishes for population size, to benefit a few? We don't really want to choose what the number is, do we? We want the state to stop messing with our population and leave it be determined by our OWN choices with regards to the numbers of children we have?

Katie (not verified)

Sat, 2015-12-05 23:45

Most people i speak to on the subject of immigration or population growth have virtually no idea of the numbers. The sorts of things they seem to worry about are the spate of perfectly good houses being bought and bulldozed and replaced with high density dwellings of some description or a monster house reaching boundary to boundary, traffic jams, high rise in their area, and parking problems. On the whole they cannot or will not see what is causing these things. A friend I was with yesterday insisted to me that immigration had nothing to do with the ever increasing traffic even though she had just spent 90 minutes driving through the city of Melbourne at around 4.00pm.Her explanation of increased traffic is that we are all much better off than we used be and now we all have cars and have "children" who drive cars. Her solution (half tongue in cheek) is that older people need to get off the roads. I argued that very large numbers from overseas are coming into the country and that most of them will drive cars. She insisted that other drivers she sees on the roads are not migrants. I asked how she could tell and she said she could tell by looking at them in their cars! What are migrants supposed to look like in her estimation? Are they all supposed to be in full national costume to be thus classified? This is a particularly zany example but typical in my experience of the level of confusion.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2015-12-05 22:32

Hi Mark Allen,
Your article is generating some interesting debate. Well done. On the subject of Matthew Guy 'calling for a population policy', my opinion is, unfortunately, it's the same old. Read the detail:

"I think there has got to be a genuine community, business and governance discussion about how we really focus on building the population of our regions, because I am very, very sure that the four-and-a-half million people of Melbourne think ... our city is bursting," Mr Guy said. "Can you imagine it with another million people on top of this, as it will be within 15 years time?" Source: http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/guy-calls-for-population-debate-and-places-east-west-link-back-on-the-agenda-20151130-glbnac

No way this little politician is going to have a real 'debate'. He is looking for big business support by signalling (a) reverse EW Link decision (b) signal to big construction (c) signal he will push population growth via the usual pretend 'debate' mechanisms. What he has said is utterly unnewsworthy, but it is what the growthist newspapers like to pretend is news.

It's about as newsworthy as saying that a well-known prostitute has just got out of the drug rehab and is announcing she will be pounding the streets again.

With apologies to the sex industry.

Dennis K

Sat, 2015-12-05 20:40

I do get the gist of your point, which is thoughtless planning can undermine multicultural communities due to the haphazard nature in which this planning takes place. My argument isn't so much that this isn't true (it is), but that this argument is one which appears contradictory and is, at least in my opinion, one which undermines the goal or message by sending mixed signals. It is a line of reasoning which undermines that anti-rampant growth project by implying particular value judgements. That implication is that some communities are more valuable than others, or that some demographic make ups are more valuable, or virtuous than others. This is a common mistake, and seems to be one the majority of those who push for sustainable growth make. The inaugural Victoria First meeting spend about 1/3rd of the time pushing the virtues of looser immigration policies, either through affirmations that diversity and multiculturalism was good and necessary, or that a fight against immigration restriction in the 60's was a worthy fight. It then seems ironic that the same people would then want tighter immigration controls, after celebrating the results of what loosened immigration restrictions brought. The irony of people who pushed against any policy or party which had a whiff of 'xenophobia' complaining about that overzealous sentiment coming back to bite them was lost on pretty much everyone. My argument is that affirmations and propitiations to the ideals of diversity and multiculturalism must be left out entirely from discourse, because any support of it then must be explained in the context of wanting to reduce the migration which led to it, which means having to explain your position in further detail, which means your point is lost, because 99% of people WON'T go back for clarification.

anon (not verified)

Sat, 2015-12-05 16:40

Cut mass migration - visas in line with job creation

Letter to Australian Parliament:

We the undersigned respectfully request the Government to reduce the number of people coming into Australia on “term visas” namely:- migration visas, s457 and s417 work visas and student visas.

We request that the current level of over 600,000 visas per year be reduced to a number that is one-half of the new jobs generated annually.

This would mean a reduction in the number of “term visas” from 620,000 per year to around 100,000 per year.

And further that the Government takes note that our economy is:

1. Only generating around 200,000 new jobs a year.
2. There are over 200,000 school leavers and other young Australians seeking those jobs.
3. These 200,000 along with the 620,000 “term visa” arrivals makes over 800,000 people now competing for only 200,000 jobs.
4. The visa entrants are often from low wage countries, they will therefore naturally get job preference over Australians, so it is Australians in the main that will be forced onto welfare.

We the undersigned assert that since the Federal Government cannot afford this cost burden they therefore will be forced to cut health care, education, pensions and other essential services to Australians or maintain massive budget deficits burdening future generations.

We further ask the Federal Government to recognise that a continuation of this policy of mass migration is placing Australians at risk.

The 13 November 2015 events in Paris and the three publicly identified serious incidents in Australia in just one year, demonstrate clearly the dangers. In two of these incidents three Australians were murdered and in the third a group was discovered who were planning the mass murder Australians on Anzac Day. There were other potential mass casualty events averted by our security agencies.

We ask the Federal Government to acknowledge that reducing visa access to Australia will contribute to a lessening of the risk of violence and harm to our fellow Australians.

And that the Government acknowledge that with mass migration some terrorists will slip through the net and use Australia as a base for violent jihad in Australia and to fight decent Islamic people overseas striving to provide a civilised and stable life for their citizens.

Finally we the undersigned in making this request to Government and assert that:

a. We oppose the persecution or isolation of any group in Australia and remind our fellow Australians that for example, Afghan Cameleers were an integral building block in the creation of our nation. They sought to, and became, ordinary patriotic Australians. Many varied ethnic groups have successfully integrated into Australian society including Italians, Greeks, Vietnamese, Chinese and scores of others.

b. Persecuted minority groups (such as the Sikhs – 80,000 killed in one year alone) where such have a demonstrable history of “Rule of Law Democracy” and are “from areas without a terrorist paradigm” must continue to be allowed into Australia.

c. A situation where Jewish people in their own country - Australia - have to have armed guards at their children’s schools, synagogues and at Jewish functions, shows clearly the failure of the mass immigration policies of successive Governments.

Petition to end mass immigration

Vivienne Ortega

Sat, 2015-12-05 05:32

There is a strong element of population growth being pushed onto us, in a type of feudal system. Those making these "growth" decisions, without concerns for human/environmental welfare, are in a sense cushioned from the impacts - and the crush. Their own status, as elites, will allow them to continue enjoying their privileges, and simply discard concerns and debt to the public arena. They have their pensions, superannuation, homes, holidays, tax breaks and chauffeur-driven cars. There's a great distance between the public, and mere taxpaying mortals, and the high status of politicians, and economists. There are various techniques used to damped protests, such as PC, the refugee debate, the allure of "economic growth", "xenophobia", "racism" and it's assumed inevitability. They are all ways of social control.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 23:33

"It then become a paradox to argue that this diversity is a plus and multiculturalism is an enrichment, while simultaneously arguing for policy which slows this enrichment. Again, a mixed, confusing message." I do not want to get further embroiled in this debate but I will make this final point before bowing out. I am saying that the current policy of high migration is what is slowing down and even reversing this 'enrichment' because it forces planning policy on the hoof with the knock on effect of suburban sprawl and high density development in multicultural communities, the latter of which has a gentrifying effect on the neighbourhood. A slower rate of migration allows for more considered planning outcomes which enables the development of meaningful and cohesive communities. At the end of the day Dennis we will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 23:13

'do you not think that they will be derided by the major parties and the mainstream media Australia wide'. I agree with you John but I do believe that if the Greens were to frame the issue properly, they would win the empathy of the vast majority of people who do not wish to see a big Australia. The media I believe would continue to try to avoid the population issue precisely because their arguments for large scale migration do not hold up to scrutiny. If anything the media would fail to report the issue and wait for the topic to pass as they did over the reaction to Kevin Rudd's Big Australia "gaffe". Matthew Guy has even raised the population issue in the past few days (though I am suspicious of his motivations) but it is an indication that the issue of population is becoming less politically dangerous. This can only be a good thing.

Dennis K

Fri, 2015-12-04 22:56

Worrying about being called "racist" or "xenophobe" is counterproductive. Making changes to your position or speech, in order to avoid these labels is counterproductive. The purpose of these labels is not to describe what you are, but to stop you speaking, or adjust your tone and argument, or make concessions, maybe just enough to make your argument untenable.

Dennis K

Fri, 2015-12-04 22:53

I firmly believe that the very presence of a "Population Policy" will lead to an evil, regardless of its intention. Population policy assumes that the state has the right, the obligation and duty to shape the population, ahead of what the people choose to do themselves. This can manifest itself in policy which is designed to remove a particular ethnic group, either through murder, displacement or demographic engineering and assimilation. A fatal flaw in "sustainable population" arguments, is that it pushes the virtue of a population policy, which thereby supports the position that the government, not the people, decide who makes up the nation. Because the state can argue for population policy based on "economic growth" and "inclusion", it then has the upper hand, and can argue that policy should be based on their dictates, and not the will of the people. In short, it argues for a losing position. How do the people decide what the population should be? Through their individual reproductive choices. I think, at least in Australia, or the Western world, this alone is sufficient. If it weren't for mass immigration, we would already have stable population levels (thereabouts), without having to cede power to the government to decide for us. Government policy is therefore ONLY about dealing with our choices. If the population starts to fall, the state must adapt. Lastly, if we are to accept the places like Footscray are a boon, because of their "diversity", then we are then tacitly back to accepting a population policy, because we are then arguing that demographic engineering and altering is a desirable goal and therefore there is a 'benefit' in displacing one ethnic group from suburbs with another. It then become a paradox to argue that this diversity is a plus and multiculturalism is an enrichment, while simultaneously arguing for policy which slows this enrichment. Again, a mixed, confusing message.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 22:45

Australia takes up to 20,000 refugees a year. This is 10% of our annual migrant intake and it is by comparison a modest number of people, so I think it is important to put things into perspective. The question of how we choose our annual refugee intake is complex and it would be completely out of my area of expertise to try to add to that particular conversation. I am however proud of our rich history of welcoming refugees into Australia and I believe they have done and continue to do so much to enrich our society. If you are against multiculturalism, well that is your prerogative but please do not blame refugees for the environmental impact of large scale migration. Otherwise you are playing into the hands of the big Australia advocates who shout xenophobia every time someone tries to start a serious conversation about the impact of rapid population growth. The issue here for me is about numbers, not about questioning our cultural mix.

Dennis K

Fri, 2015-12-04 22:37

The problem is that the government which is itching to push these people out of their homes, is the same government they voted for. It seems people want their cake and to eat it too. They cheer their rising house prices, then wonder why their home is then seen as a "prize" and now people want to get their hands on it. Well, DUUHH! Did people think that their homes could rise so much in price, and nothing would change? I don't get how so many Australians want the rising house prices, but then complain about the units and subdivision, when that is the inevitable result....

anon (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 16:48

That's not the only "development" that is along the Yarra! While they won't be megalomaniac towers, like a massive cascade of levels, this one is typical of the downfall of Melbourne's non-productive economy! A mini suburb approved for Alphington paper mill site.

New mini suburb approved for Alphington paper mill site (3/12/15) | the Age

The creation of a new mini suburb comprising 2500 homes to built on the old Amcor paper mill site in Alphington has been ticked off by an inner city council.

Yarra Council passed a resolution on Wednesday night giving the green light to a revised development plan for the 16-hectare site which would house up to 5000 residents.

It was the former Amcor paper mills, with a huge plant close to Chandler bridge and the Yarra river. The Alphington Paper Mill development, situated on the 16.5 hectare former Amcor paper mill site, is centrally located, 6.5 kilometres northeast of the Melbourne CBD.

The population of Alphington will surge, and overload the already limited schools and add to unemployment. Victoria's economy in the past relied on high levels of manufacturing and productivity, but now it's housing and finance lending.

One Yarra councillor for the area, Stephen Jolly, said the plan would mean too many homes built on the site. "It's sardine central," Cr Jolly said. "They are squeezing the equivalent of the entire population of Alphington into [this site]. And it has no primary school."

And he said the development would be too close to the Yarra River banks – 30 metres in some cases. This is the new standard of living, in little boxes straddling what used to be a place of jobs, industry and productivity.

Del (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 01:51

I would recommend voting for the Sustainable Australia Party at the next election - votesustainable.org.au

They are running a candidate at the by-election in Joe Hockey's old electorate in north Sydney - the candidate is William Bourke. I think at the by-election the party will still have to use their original name 'the Sustainable Population Party'. They are the only political party that recognises the devastation caused by overpopulation, and have actual policies to address the problem. The Greens are too busy loving all the humans on earth (all seven billion of them) to actively address the issue, in fact I don't believe the majority of Greens members or supporters even comprehend the impact of overpopulation on our environment (or human societies).

Del (not verified)

Fri, 2015-12-04 01:34

Your are, as is typical in all media today, suggesting Australian Australians look after everyone else, at significant cost to themselves, their society and their land. It's time the bleeding hearts woke up to the bigger issues that affect our world and our lives, and stopped the 'let's rescue everyone' mantra. Because, in particular, those who chant the loudest, don't appear to lose out with the 'humane' 'generous' policies they support. They don't live in western Sydney, they don't live in Dandenong or Springvale. They don't care about loss of native habitat. They are also usually immigrants themselves, or first generation Australians. Not only do they not care what we have already lost through mass immigration, (environmental damage, beyond repair as well as destruction of the very fabric of our society), they have not 'improved' the lives of the people already here, nor do they themselves believe they should. It's merely about improving the lives of the immigrant or refugee.

Multiculturalism is a failure. It's merely the segregation of the population, into an incoherent, non-cohesive mass of human beings. It's the antithesis of culture and community. And while we pander to the needs and wants of 'others', we lose more and more of our own freedoms. The title of the book reflecting on the damage we've done to our country through immigration and subsequent overpopulation should be titled 'At What Cost'. I for one, would say, it hasn't been worth the cost.

It think Mark Allen acknowledged that population growth was at a significant cost to native inhabitants and to our environment. I think he was arguing that we discriminate in favour of refugees over economic migrants. Of course, even this is problematic, given 1. the enormous number of refugees in the world today; and 2. the difficulty in deciding who amongst refugee applicants are genuine refugees.

Also, could contributors, try to specify the subject in the Subject field above the comment? If you don't, the Drupal content management system will attempt to create a subject from the first words in your comment. I this case, the subject was "Your are, as is typical in". - Ed

John Bentley (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 16:19

Mark while I don't disagree with you that the Greens (and even if the independents are in accord) need to challenge both the Coalition and Labor over their growth fetish, do you not think that they will be derided by the major parties and the mainstream media Australia wide. It would be an honourable and it would a courageous exercise on their part, but, unfortunately, they would be outvoted and therefore it will not be enough.

We, the electorate, had our chance 12 months ago and we weren't up to the task. We caved in to the false prophets who espoused more of the same bullshit we've been dieting on since we got Jeffed!! Why?? Because we're shit scared of having to forgo a couple of creature comforts, of having to get our hands dirty, terrified of having to put our values on the line, petrified of the unknown.

WE ... got ourselves into this mess and WE have to get ourselves out of it.

I earlier suggested that the ballot box would be the way forward which it will be, however, if more prompt action is required, WE must extract the digit and become more verbose about our thoughts and actions. WE must show both Labour and the Coalition that we don't want more of the same. WE must demonstrate that Melbourne's/Victoria's burgeoning population is a noose around our necks. We want to be able to live in peace and harmony into our old age with our kids and grandkids. But first we must demonstrate and demonstrate hard and long until they give in. There is no other way!!

With the preferential voting system, it is possible a voter to give her/his first second and voting preferences to small party or independent candidates who stand for policies that the major parties won't. Before you vote at any election, find out which of the candidates in your electorate commits himself/herself to opposing 'growth' and allocate your voting preferences accordingly.

Other policies of candidates I would vote for are listed in the article Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections of 14 Oct 2014. - Ed

Mark Allen (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 12:02

"I would add that population policy should be to the benefit of people already living in Australia that is apart from refugee policy which is in the interests of the people arriving." Population policy can be about both. Refugees are a small component of our annual intake and they have played and continue to a play a major role in enriching our multicultural society. Ironically, I believe that due to large-scale migration aimed at boosting GDP, we are making it harder for incoming refugees to build meaningful communities, precisely because multicultural areas such as Footscray are in danger of being gentrified through high density apartment development. The savings in infrastructure that we would make by slowing non-refugee migration could free up more money to help refugees whilst also giving us the opportunity to start to catch up on our existing nationwide 200 billion dollar infrastructure debt.

Cienwen Hickey (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 10:43

There are times when I totally despair for our wildlife, there are people who have the courage of their convictions and take action to bring Governments comply with the wishes of the majority. Not an easy task, people need cause and motivation to do this and they need strong leaders to make Governments realise that they are given a Mandate by the people to govern on their behalf. Unfortunately in the genre of wildlife there is massive complacency and too many armchair wildlife warriors who have a lot to say on social media but are mute when it comes to taking action to write or lobby Governments about their concerns. When was the last demonstration about the plight of our wildlife? When was the last demonstration about urban sprawl? When has a comprehensive petition been presented to the Victorian Government dealing with wildlife the urban sprawl or over population? Nothing will change until we force the Victorian Government or the Federal Government take our dissatisfaction seriously. If we want change we have to get out there, spread the word and confront the government.

Chris (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 14:22

Older people might think that they have a moral duty to vacate their houses to make room for our societies' "children" i.e young couples with their children. Most of them will not be able to think this through since understanding of Australia's population growth is generally very poor, at least amongst those I speak to. If Australia had a stable population number within its shores with birth numbers equivalent to death numbers and immigration equivalent to emigration then there would be sufficient housing, without needing to stress vulnerable groups and pressure them to vacate their premises. We would have a pretty happy situation for most except developers and those who actually want rapacious population growth to fuel associated enterprises such as shopping centres and barn- like furniture stores; anything that feeds on growth. Australia does not, unfortunately enjoy a stable population but rather one that grows very rapidly with more than half of the growth from overseas migration. So vulnerable older people would be almost half right in thinking they were cooperatively making way for younger Melbourne families - not their own family but at least someone local. But it's more likely that they will be moving out to make way for a family from overseas that already has somewhere to live in that country! It won't be homeless people from anywhere who will be buying their Glen Iris or Murrumbeena bungalows! Is this remotely morally right? Once older people sell up the "family home" it cannot be left to their children. It amounts to stripping property and very modest wealth from middle and working class families. They have paid for their houses paid with after- tax dollars. Nobody has a right to move them on.

quark

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:48

I cannot see how any wild life can continue to survive when its habitat is alienated from it. What could Mr. Temby have possibly meant when he said that is was possible? What he says now, I'm afraid is more realistic. I live in an established suburb and there are no kangaroos here. I'm sure there would have been 150 years ago. All the kangaroos in the path of Melbourne's development juggernaut will die eventually, as they have in my suburb, whether they are massacred by a "wildlife authority" or they die adventitiously as cars mow them down. It is painful to hear any news item about this. It is even distressing to hear of one poor animal trapped in a car park or on a road. Sometimes an incident will be depicted as humorous by various radio presenters when they issue their radio warnings to motorists. Maybe the attempt at humour is to stop us feeling and to objectify the suffering animal. Painful as it is , I think people should be confronted with it more often. The newspapers and television should be full of it complete with photographs and footage so that people know what population growth is costing. Wildlife corridors as suggested would be palliative for the situation because in the end the habitat is gone and it seems to me that the animals would be escaping to nowhere. Correct me if I am wrong. The only kind and humane solution, really is to stop population growth. Why doesn't Mr. Temby say that?

John Bentley (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:17

Good stuff Mary! John Quiggin has a good article on the financial sector at johnquiggin.com

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:07

The Greens launched their plan for a “Better More Liveable Melbourne” but what impact will this plan have considering Victoria's population is increasing by a hundred thousand a year! Just how are they to propagate the "liveable" policy while this number of people keep swelling our city? What other designers and professions need to try and manipulate and plan around ongoing growth? What we have now as town planning is not really planning at all, but a knee-jerk reaction to accommodate growth, and then tring contradictorily conserve our living standards and open spaces. It's a contradiction in terms. It's more about damage control, and retro-fitting to make the best of a compounding system of "economic growth" that actually creating more poverty and deprivation. We once benefited from high immigration, when there were advantages for all - the hosts and the migrants. Now, there's little joy for anyone, except for those from the third world, those who are lucky to find employment and others who can take advantage of our welfare system! The Greens are avoiding the issue of population growth, and are trying to keep "green" above the housing Ponzi pyramid. The power of PC is so great, we may as well live in a country that lacks freedom of speech, such it's is social power!

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 08:59

Erysikhthon or (Erysichthon) was a mythological Thessalian king who chopped down the sacred grove of the goddess Demeter in order to build himself a feast-hall. As punishment for the crime the goddess inflicted him with insatiable hunger, driving him to exhaust his riches and finally, in poverty, devour his own flesh. After Demeter had noticed that this tree in her sacred grove had been chopped down, she told Famine about this, which led to Famine inflicting voracious hunger upon Erysichthon. This caused Erysichthon to grow hungrier and hungrier and the more he ate, the hungrier he got. So, in order to get more money to buy more food, he ended up selling his own daughter, Mestra to a ship's captain as a slave. What we have seen over the years is the globalization of an economic system that sees money as an end in itself—in fact the production of money has become one of the main endeavours of our time, money and its derivatives having become the main trading good on the world’s markets. Perpetual growth is the exponential rise of nothingness, interest upon interest, fire that feeds fire. It swallows and consumes everything in its path. Land, natural resources, housing, living standards, open spaces, biodiversity and wrecks pristine climatic systems. Perpetual growth consumes our forests, ecosystems, native species, and means always loosening environmental laws and policies to cater for Capitalistic growth. We end up devouring the very elements that make up our own identities as Australian! The pursuit of endless growth means diving into an abyss of debt, deprivation, and disadvantage. The costs of growth are never considered, and we end up with an economy addicted to almost forced to keep selling off portions of our country, so much so that we end up eating our own "flesh"- like Erysichthon.

quark

Tue, 2015-12-01 22:55

I would add that population policy should be to the benefit of people already living in Australia that is apart from refugee policy which is in the interests of the people arriving. There is no chance of Australia being able to significantly alleviate overpopulation globally. As the article points out, 40% of us live in 2 cities. We do not inhabit the whole continent mainly because it is a desert. The worlds population increases by about 80 million per year so if we took the whole global increase of one year over 5 years we would be hopelessly out of our depth and it wouldn't work at all and the rest of the world would still have an extra 360 million people to accommodate and feed. Australia cannot help the world's problem of overpopulation in my opinion. It is an arid land with impoverished soils and a deteriorating environment. That's the reality.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2015-12-01 20:21

Syria needs your help. We need your help. Next week we will be in Syria.

November 27, 2015

Dear Friends of a Sovereign, Independent and Unified Syria,

At the invitation of the Syrian Ministry of Reconciliation, a delegation of 6-8 members of the Syria Solidarity Movement will arrive in Syria on Dec. 4, 2015. Its mission is to pursue all means of supporting the internal efforts of Syrians to overcome divisions and to end foreign intervention.

The delegates include analysts, researchers, commentators and organizers like Ajamu Baraka (US, living in Colombia) and Glen Ford (US) of the Black Agenda Report, Eva Bartlett (Canada) and Paul Larudee (US) of the Free Palestine Movement and human rights advocates Vanessa Beeley (UK) and Jacob Cohen (France). Palestinian organizer and civil rights campaigner Amal Wahdan will also join us from Ramallah, and hopefully community organizer Dr. Issa Chaer from the UK, as well. Many of us are on SSM governing committees.

We will meet with former armed opposition members that have accepted government amnesty, with representatives of civil society groups, religious leaders and community representatives. We will try to arrange for some of them to come to Europe and North America on speaking tours and to meet with their counterparts, as well as government officials. We hope to challenge established thinking on the issues that are driving the conflict.

But we are in desperate need of your help in order to make this happen.

We do not need a lot of financial support to accomplish what we have in mind, but we need some. In fact, we need only $3000 to make this mission possible without cutting corners and causing hardship to the participants. But until now we have managed to raise less than $850.

PLEASE, PLEASE help. We do so much on a volunteer basis, and we’re willing to sacrifice. But we have been unable to pay even the meager stipend of $250/month that supports our hardworking webmaster, Eva, who has nonetheless accepted to continue on a volunteer basis. SNAG, our weekly news magazine has almost entirely been the volunteer work of the tireless Rick Sterling.

Please help us bring a different voice to the issues affecting Syria, one that is not well heard or understood. Shouldn’t we hear all the points of view? What is the point of having an open mind if some viewpoints are inaccessible?

SUPPORT OUR WORK with your donations, at http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/donate-2/. Please be generous. Thank you.

The Syria Solidarity Movement

PLEASE NOTE: A group in the UK is illegally using our name and also recommending illegal actions against Syria. We are pursuing legal remedy to compel them to stop using our name, but the process is slow. Please be aware of this problem. Your donations to help with our effort are gratefully appreciated.

All donations are US tax exempt.

Mary (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 17:40

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4363283.htm I heard this interview today- with Eleanor Hall and a rep. from the Productivity Commission. Gist of it was that people now live in houses worth lots of money and most of many retirees' wealth is in the family home (which to me says they are not very well off) and so they need to either downsize or take out a reverse mortgage. It was couched in terms which made it sound as though the Productivity Commission had the retirees' interests at heart (Ha!) - they will have a much better quality of life if they can unlock the capital in their houses. The general idea was that they should give up the idea of leaving the family home to their children. Then there was the acknowledgement that it was better for people to “age in place” which is also Federal government policy. To overcome this conflict the idea put forward was that people should be able to purchase something smaller within their area. (What a ridiculous complication to face late in life, and, living in the same area is not the same as having your garden, street, floor layout remain the same - which is what elderly people need, especially if likely to dement.) It’s government polices that have inflated housing prices - and they are colluding with industry lobbies like the Property Council, Real Estate Institute of Australia and others among the few who actually benefit from this terrible situation. It’s not the fault of people who saved and possibly even built their own houses (an example was a 90 year old war veteran on the ABC today who would like to stay where he is, thank you!) and have paid taxes. This is all about cutting these people out of the Age Pension. It’s not fair. And it is also about passing on all our pension money to a small bunch of tycoons in the finance, property and similar industries. This kind of big business interest is quickly slithering us down the road to fascism. We have already experienced undemocratic changes in planning laws in order to allow these bastards open slather and unending population growth.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 13:16

Unfortunately we do not have enough time on our hands to rely upon the ballot box to save Melbourne from the worst of sprawl and concrete boxes. Even if we did, the Greens' infrastructure goals would not keep up with population growth. While their planning policies are an improvement on Labor and the Coalition, it is nevertheless going to be a case of too little too late. Therefore, unless the Greens confront the State and Federal government now on population and infrastructure policy, they will find that they are lulling their electorate into a false sense of security. It is after all their job to hold the government accountable. It would be a tragedy if they were to find themselves dangling the carrot on the very stick that the developers are holding.

quark

Tue, 2015-12-01 13:02

A computer technician working on my computer activated or downloaded Windows 10, responding to the pop -up. The next time I turned on my computer I had to go through an activation process which could not be completed. About half way through an error message appeared and I would have to start again but could never get any further. This problem prevented me from using Microsoft Outlook. A few days the same technician kindly fixed it up for me but it was extremely complex involving about 6 re-boots of the computer during a process lasting about 1 hour. (after which he did not not want to charge me) He said it was something to do with Microsoft not recognising me as a legitimate user (but I am). He said that Microsoft just left it up to technicians to pick up the pieces after these debacles.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 12:08

I believe that many of the middle suburbs are lacking in housing diversity and while I do not wish to see an end to the quarter acre block, I do realise that there is a growing demographic who are willing to sacrifice larger backyards for all the benefits that come with medium density living. This is why the inner suburbs are so much in demand. It is fair to say that there are a large number of post-war houses in the middle suburbs that are not just not worth retrofitting. Therefore it makes sense to use this opportunity to create more duplexes and in turn make the middle suburbs more appealing to a wider demographic. However there are many houses that are worth retrofitting and many gardens that are worth saving. Unfortunately planners cannot pick and choose on a house by house basis which ones should be saved and which ones should go. Also, upon demolition, the general tendency is that the whole site is cleared, including all of the soil that has been enriched over the years and all the fruit trees etc. Therefore new incentives need to be put in place to ensure that the area that is cleared is restricted to the space in which the new building is going to sit. I agree that the design of new builds is generally poor and they often do not look any better than what replaced the original building. This is why we also need to focus on ensuring that better design guidelines are put in place. It would be impossible to halt all development in Melbourne so it is still preferable in my opinion to direct more development to the middle suburbs where residents would nevertheless have access to at least some private open space and where any poor design outcome is less intrusive than many of the disasterous apartment blocks in the inner suburbs. In the meantime we must continue to exert pressure on the powers that be to ensure that improved measures are put in place.

John Bentley (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 12:02

I hear your lament Dennis and I agree with you wholeheartedly! I've also just read admin's piece on the Greens and while the Greens may be a tad fanciful, at least their proposals are better than what is occurring currently. The neo-liberal policies of both of the major parties is not only killing Melbourne, but Australia as a (w)hole!! The way I see it is if we don't vote for an alternative party or an independent, we'll continue to suffer at the hands of these megalomaniacs for years to come. Which leads me to the point which I don't understand. Why do the people of Melbourne and Australia put up with this crap? Why do we allow ourselves to be force fed tons of bullshit and act as if nothing is happening? Where is our intestinal fortitude? Are we waiting for some white knight to come to the rescue? To me we, as Australians, have had it too easy. We are prepared to wear it as long as we're comfortable and some mug in a suit tells us that is so. We're being shafted and we don't know it. Our governments at all levels and all persuasions are rolling over to the ruling elites, the transnationals and are selling us out. This is a glimpse of the dark side. And it will only get darker unless we, the electorate, do something about it!!

admin

Tue, 2015-12-01 00:24

The above interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only one of many in the last four years, should be compared with an interview below by ABC News 24 with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Oppostion leader Bill Shorten. The 'interview' lasted only 3 minutes. The interview video was included within a short article in the Age newspaper, Australia's stance on Assad (19/11/15).

The interview

Interviewer: ... has described Assad as a butcher. Is that how you would classify him, and is that why he has to be removed?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well, he's killed - he's been responsible for killing many, many thousands of his of his citizens. So, the many people have described him as a butcher. I think he has been a murderous tyrant. There is doubt about that.

The calculation is this. There is a lot of opposition. Obviously there is a very deep enmity, as I've said the other day, towards Assad and his regime by many people - perhaps most people in Syria. Well, it's hard to tell. There's obviously, there's deep enmity towards him by other players in the Middle East - the Sunni, you know the Sunni majority states. His supporters, of course Iran and Russia. I think the reality however is that the approach has to be a pragmatic one, and whatever combination of players that are able to achieve the settlement - that includes groups inside Syria, with the exception of Daesh, who as I say, have no interest in settlement and nobody has any interest in a settlement with them, but there is going to be a need to be very pragmatic about it.

If you look at the other countries that are close to the scene and, that is, certainly what neighbouring countries are talking about, now. A more pragmatic approach and I think that David Cameron spoke for the room in [Antalia?] when he said the negotiations had to be approached in a spirit of pragmatism and compromise.

The fundamental problem is that there is a war there that is going on there that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is still killing thousands of people and there are 4 million plus refugees - two and a half million of them, or thereabouts, in Turkey alone. So this is a humanitarian catastrophe of extraordinary scale. It's said to be the worst since the Second World war and I have no reason to doubt that. So a resolution is absolutely critical.

Bill Shorten: I do not believe that long term peace in Syria can be guaranteed while Assad the butcher remains in control. Now I understand that in transition arrangements, some compromises may have to be made in the short term.

Well, what I am completely convinced of, is that if Assad was to remain in charge of Syria, then there is no prospect for any stability and peace for the millions of people who live in Syria and there's very little chance of the millions of Syrian refugees wanting to return to Syria whilst Assad remains in control.

Other recent, more informative interviews

To become better informed about recent developments in Syria, read:

President al-Assad to the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO: ISIS has no incubator in Syria…Terrorists are main obstacle in front of any political progress (19/11/15) | SANA and

President al-Assad to Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel.. From the very first day, we were determined to fight terrorism (22/11/15) | SANA.

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2015-11-30 23:18

An elderly relative and a friend have both had their computers wrecked by downloading and then activating Windows 10. It looks as if it works, then, when you try to reboot your computer, or turn it on after shutting it down, you cannot access any microsoft program. The elderly relative, who is a 92year old avid windows user, had to take his computer to a specialist in data recovery. Then he still could not recover some windows program that he used for email and as a calendar. In the end he found that he had to buy a new computer. My friend gave in to the frequent messages to activate Windows 10, "It's free!". Now, all she can do is open her computer; she cannot access any windows program. She cannot read her email. I don't know if these Windows 10 free downloads are the real thing or a virus. I also have a constant invitation to download and activate Windows 10. The invitation tells me that my computer has been assessed and it is compatible. Frankly, every time I have to move to a new windows version I lose a lot of time and often software I paid dearly for turns out to be incompatible. But Windows 10 seems to be truly destructive. Pass it on. Also, here is a link to a Windows discussion where lots of people have experienced this catastrophe. No indication that Windows is going to compensate anyone. They should be taken to court, but how does one do that? http://forums.windowscentral.com/ask-question/336439-hard-drive-destroyed-after-windows-10-anyone-else.html

Dennis K

Mon, 2015-11-30 20:48

I'm not sure how the new tenements and townhouses being put up are any less boring. No eaves. Square blocky architecture. Similar colour schemes. Similar frontage. Similar fake grass lawns with succulents and rocks (yes, so many new houses have PLASTIC lawns now). Melbourne is devolving into a slum, and it's sad to see it happen piece by piece, but I can't help but think that the rot started a long time ago. Our society values nothing but "economic progress", whatever that actually is, and "growth", whatever that means. It was like that when I was a child, a teenager and is like that now. It's just now that "progress" and "economic growth" has reached peoples homes and backyards, and now they grumble. Have things changes, or is it just that the destructive nature of comsumer culture has come home. We've sold everything else off, now there is nothing left to sell except the very land from our childrens feet. This is like traffic. I spoke 15 year ago about this outcome, and no one cared then. Now they suddenly care when its too late. Likewise, the congestion and housing crisis will only become a problem when its too late. I think I may just have to leave Melbourne and leave the idiots here stew in the mess they've created.

quark

Mon, 2015-11-30 20:30

Kangaroos are in the news again and not for any positive reason. The poor creatures are caught up in unending inexorable development on Melbourne's urban fringe. They end up trapped in people's gardens, and one was even featured caught on a roof. They get killed on the roads after traumatic bids to escape. The authorities receive 40 calls per day regarding kangaroos in outer suburban areas in the "wrong" places. The problem is that they are losing their habitat as developers arrive on the scene.They are just "collateral damage". There is really no hope for them once their territory is taken over. It is completely uncivilised. It's a "jungle" out there in the most disturbing sense. Population growth needs to be curbed which would be very easy since over 50% of it is from immigration and far better overall planning is needed for the additional population from "natural increase" each year. And how about incorporating wildlife corridors if they absolutely MUST develop on the urban fringe? At least the poor animals would have escape routes although where they might go is an unanswered question.

admin

Mon, 2015-11-30 13:39

Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Ronald Reagan's Presidency and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal shows the inconsistencies in tyhe official account of the Paris Terrorist attack of 13 November.

Clearly elements of the French security security services colluded with the terrorists in order to provide 'socialist' President Francois Hollande with a pretext to launch military attacks against Syrian territory. Supposedly these attacks are against their ISIS footsoldiers, but, in reality,they are against the popular and legally elected government of President Bashar al-Assad.

anon (not verified)

Mon, 2015-11-30 12:40

Quite incredible that the weapons sold to ISIS are now being turned on the suppliers. In the late 1700?s French general, expert strategist, and leader Napoleon Bonaparte would note that, “an army marches on its stomach,” referring to the extensive logistical network required to keep an army fed, and therefore able to maintain its fighting capacity. The current conflict with ISIS in the Middle East is operating, and simultaneously fighting against, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments.

When militants launched a string of coordinated attacks in Paris on Friday night, they carried AK-47s and were wrapped in explosives. The Islamic State picked weapons from deceased soldiers, slipped arms across borders, and stolen Humvees and guns from fleeing Iraqi forces. ISIS has in the past showed off its American M16 rifles in flashy propaganda videos, and Russian-style Kalashnikovs are considered a favorite. Terrorists and weapons left over from NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 were promptly sent to Turkey and then onto Syria – coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies.

Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published the first video report from a major Western media outlet illustrating that ISIS is supplied not by “black market oil” or “hostage ransoms” but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey’s borders via hundreds of trucks a day.

Why is ISIS not running out of weapons and ammunition? Where do they continue getting arms? (undated as of 30/11/15) | Quora

Now, the Europe, thanks to the UN and EU, have opened up routes for migration, and the war against "terror" can be spread in further implemented, destabilizing the world and promoting the arms industry.

Stop the housin... (not verified)

Mon, 2015-11-30 12:28

What irony! The drabness and predictability of Australian bland suburb, the 1/4 acre block, triple fronted cream brick veneer what was ridiculed as being predicable and even boring - is now almost a dying species. What we took for granted, in middle Australia, is now dying out like threatened species, being eradicated by bland, concrete-facaded boxes and towers that are called "apartments". While most people now would concede that the days of 1/4 acre blocks have passed, with "progress", but what's happening to our once gracious and dignified city, Melbourne, is a tragedy. So bereft of ideas, productivity, innovation and creativity are our political leaders, and economists, what we are selling out now is our housing to the real estate, mortgage and property developers. The mess the unfettered housing industry is forcing upon us is unemployment, entrenched deprivation, increasing poverty, loss of amenities, and a bland city. Congestion is being addressed by ever-increasing road capacity, freeways, more public transport costing multiple billions, but still the frenzy of "developments" continues. It's like a self-consuming monster, eating away at our city and leaving behind a cheap imitation of itself - and the housing Ponzi pyramid keeps growing and consuming our individual incomes, wealth and living standards.

Katie (not verified)

Fri, 2015-11-20 14:28

As if the kangaroos at Somerton have not had enough to contend with being boxed in by new roads, noise and traffic as Melbourne spreads with ever increasing population, now I hear there is a fire in a disused rubbish dump, the smoke from which is about to impact on residents of the area. Fire fighters are undergoing decontamination. The poor kangaroos have probably been displaced by development over the past 5 years but if any of them are still alive then it seems they will be in danger of severe smoke inhalation. Human residents have been advised to stay indoors but kangaroos will not have that "luxury". What an environmental mess!

Geoffrey Taylor

Wed, 2015-11-18 23:33

It seems to me that the track record of at least the most recent four decades shows that Islamic governments are just as tolerant, inclusive and socially just as non-Islamic governments. Examples include: Iran, Libya before the government of Muammar Gaddafi was destroyed in 2011, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. (Of course, there are a few striking exceptions including the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.) Moreover such countries have formed much of the axis of resistance to the plans of the New World Order to destroy national sovereignty and take away much of the wealth of the people across the world and give it to large corporations. Political organisations opposed to these governments, such as ISIS (aka ISIL and Islamic State) and al-Qaeda which claim to be Islamic, have, in fact, been set up and funded by the United States and its allies in order to organise supposed colour revolutions to overthrow sovereign Islamic governments. This is how the Libyan Government was overthrown in 2011 and how the current conflict in Syria started in March 2011. There's abundant evidence that the current mass exodus of refugee/immigrants from the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa has been organised by the same interests who started those wars against Libya and Syria to: 1. create political chaos in Europe; and 2. enable them to concoct pretexts to invade Syria amidst that chaos. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris were committed by terrorists who were already known to French authorities and could have easily been prevented had they the will to do so. The attacks could have occurred without the massive influx of refugees. Of course the chaos caused by the large influx helped the French government to sell its explanation of the terrorist attacks.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 16:24

How can anyone claim that Terrorism is a new ideological trend, and nothing to do with Islam! The US and NATO forces of course have initiated the problems in the Middle East, with intervention and support for terror in Syria, and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've open and poked a nest of venomous vipers. The word Islam means "peace", but it's a contradiction in term, an oxymoron. The citizens of France are the ones paying the price for the aggression of their nation. Western aggression in Iraq was directly responsible for the conditions that have given rise to ISIS. Pervasive among these conditions is bitter hatred for America and its allies. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had people killed for insulting him or for criticizing his religion. This included women. Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad. Muhammad directed Muslims to wage war on other religions and bring them under submission to Islam. The Qur’an contains injunctions that call both for peace and for violence. The problem is not that they are there; the difficulty is that non-violent and militant Muslims appear equally justified. Christians and Buddhists also have a track record of fanaticism, such as the bombing of abortion clinics and hardliner Buddhists in Myanmar. Today violence racks the Middle East, South Asia and much of Africa in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, many Muslims, like their neighbours of other outlooks, recoil in horror. The goal of French intervention in Mali was then to free the northern part of the country from jihadist occupation, bring back peace, and restore Malian sovereignty on the whole territory. In 2013, the motives were questioned, even by relatively conservative sources, given the massive strategic resources of the African nation, what GlobalResearch described as an ‘El Dorado’ of uranium, gold, petroleum, and strategic minerals. The question that Malians have to ask themselves is: Do they prefer having to fight against jihadists for a long time, or having their sovereignty challenged, and their territory occupied by an ancient colonialist state or partitioned to satisfy a group allied with the colonial power? Islam’s scriptures forbid forcible conversion. Unbelievers are always given a choice: exile or conversion. The punishment for apostasy, or conversion away from Islam, is death. The problem of terror is not just in the Middle East. The Nigerian-based terror group, also known as Islamic State’s West’s Africa province (ISWAP), was responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014. In comparison, Isis is believed to have killed 6,073 people in the same period. Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society. The ideological goal of ISIS is cemented in its name: Their objective is to create a large-scale theocracy made up of Syria, parts of Iraq, Lebanon, and much of Palestine and Jordan. It's a totalitarian, Right wing cult. Islam is not just a religion, but has military, social, legal and political arms. The route to "Peace" is strewn with weapons, and hard-line military tactics, without tolerance for what's "Western". The UN's migration pathway to Europe has created a route for terror to enter, under the guise of humanitarian compassion. What started as a humanitarian-crisis, became a refugee-crisis, a migration-crisis, and now a terror-crisis!

Vicki (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 12:54

There were no 'internships' a few decades ago. Anyone trying to employ someone for nothing would be hauled off to court on a charge of slavery. And you get nursing students, social work students, and just plain looking for a job people, working as 'interns' for nothing, full time. They can only afford to do this because they pay with prior savings, with taxpayer money via work incentive schemes, or their parents/spouses pay. Worse, this seems to happen a lot with charities. Charities are often another big scam; a kind of tax deduction arm of big business, another way to get people to work for nothing; a new slavery with a white collar uniform.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 12:48

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/be-the-one-to-stop-working-for-free-by-asking-the-boss-to-go-home/news-story/c26db405edb4cffa95d0a90ed03b6d43 I heard this on the ABC this am— workers donate more in unpaid overtime to their employers than they do to charities - then found this article. It would have been interesting to have heard this during the time when it was predicted that our biggest challenge in the future would be filling our leisure time. The boundaries between work and leisure are now burred also with technology - i.e. being able to respond to work emails from home. Who are the “leaners”? but I guess that is now quite an old question.

quark

Wed, 2015-11-18 09:44

The SBS French news today played a few different statements over the past months from Francois Hollande, which indicated a changing point of view regarding the enemy in Syria. Whereas before the Syrian government was included as part of the problem, today's sound bite was that Da'esh was the enemy.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2015-11-17 23:12

French Primeminister, Francois Fillon, on a France 2 news special of 16 November 2015, announced that he will ask the French president to reopen a French embassy in Damascus in order to reengage with the Syrian 'regime' (meaning the Syrian Government) towards fighting Daesh. See http://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/terrorisme/attaques-du-13-novembre-a-paris/attentats-du-13-novembre-francois-fillon-revient-sur-les-annonces-du-president-au-congres-de-versailles_1178937.html

Mr Fillon also volunteered his opinion that this route should have been taken long ago, soon after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks. "So much time lost, so much time lost. On this very forum, a year ago, I said that we needed to organise with the Russians, with the Iranians, with all the countries of the region, in a true coalition to attack ISIS. ... During the time that has elapsed since then, ISIS has grown; the monster has become more and more powerful, and now much harder to fight."

Australia should invite Damascus to reopen its embassy/consulat in Canberra, which Australia shamefully closed down some time ago in an abject refusal to keep communications open.

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