The one about the Asian century has evaporated and immigration has evaporated?
Candobetter.net ed. Could you repost please? I have no idea what happened, unless it got mixed up in a SPAM deletion, which sometimes happens. I'm sorry about this.
Comments
Oh my God! What next?
I wonder which native animal's or bird's habitat this is taking over.
Glyphosphate birth defects - Farmer alarm re Monsanto Roundup
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25426-one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-is-monsantos-roundup-to-blame
"One little piglet was born with only one large eye. A second piglet was missing an ear. A third piglet had a large hole in its skull. A fourth piglet had a monstrously huge "elephant tongue." A female piglet was born with testes. Still others had malformed limbs, spines, skulls and gastrointestinal tracts.
The pigs in question belonged to a Danish pig farmer. For three years he had fed his pigs ordinary, non-genetically modified soy. When he ran out, he bought the cheaper genetically modified (GM) soy pig feed. His herdsman, unaware of the feed switch, immediately noticed that the pigs lost their appetite and that the piglets developed diarrhea. Even worse was the sudden and shocking increase in birth defects. The farmer, eager to understand the cause, had 38 of the deformed pigs euthanized and tested for glyphosate, the herbicide used on the GM soy. The results were published in the April 2014 issue of the Journal of Environmental and Analytic Toxicology. The samples of lung, liver, kidney, brain, gut wall, heart and muscle all tested positive.
Glyphosate is the world's most frequently used herbicide. First marketed by Monsanto in the 1970s under the trade-name "Roundup," it is used extensively wherever GM crops are grown. Monsanto has touted Roundup's safety, claiming that, since it attacks an enzyme system not present in animals, it is harmless to people and to pets. We are beginning to find out that this is simply not true. As scientists start to investigate the effects of glyphosate residues in humans and animals, a horrifying story is beginning to emerge. It begins with what we have learned about glyphosate's propensity to cause birth defects."
Read more, see pictures here: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25426-one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-is-monsantos-roundup-to-blame
Opposed to $500 million Chinese theme park for NSW Central Coast
Subject was: Imperialism.
Australia First Party
Mr Ya Zhang Zhong 13th July 2014
Executive Official
Shanghai Municipal People’s Government OPEN LETTER
200 People Avenue Post
SHANGHAI CHINA Zip: 200003
Dear Sir,
RE: CHINESE THEME PARK PROPOSAL - WARNERVALE, AUSTRALIA
I write on behalf of members and concerned citizens, in relation to reports of your intentions of economic exploitation and political propaganda in Warnervale via a Chinese Cultural theme Park.
The concern is that the any such undertaking by foreign sources is imperialistic, undermines our integrity and independence, and is not in the interests of our Australian People.
In addition, the cultural decline from such an alien concept dumped into our Australian society, together with likely resulting deterioration to the critical eco-systems of this near pristine region, is not acceptable, We consider this a very serious matter.
It has also been reported that Messrs Doug Eaton and Robert Stokes MP, members of the political caste in Australia has been acting to facilitate this exploitation, but be under no illusion that this has any sanction of the Australian People.
Your Shanghai Government enterprise may have been further misled by other elements of our political caste that foreigners’ exploitation in our economy is welcome, however this stance emanates from Quislings, the likes of whom our Australian Peoples Movement will ensure accountability for such actions.
Your attention is drawn to understanding that imperialism in the economy of Australia in dispossessing Australians of the ownership and benefit of our own resources, is an intolerable compromise of the Commonwealth of our People.
It may also be that the Shanghai Government has been influenced by the current large scale transfer of your fellow country men into Australia, a virtual re-colonisation process that has never been sanctioned by the Australian People as it undermines and degrades our European derived civilisation. This is a matter that can now only be addressed by either their voluntary departure, or directed repatriation back to your own country.
I therefore caution against ignoring this situation in continuing with this imperialistic intent, and bring to your notice that our Australian Peoples Movement, under the full authority of our People, will enforce without redress or compensation, the eradication of such projects, as a necessity for our national self respect and independence
I therefore urge your enterprise to add to the process of mutual respect between the Australian and Chinese People by refraining from such imperialistic activity as has been reported.
To this end, I request a public announcement from you rescinding from this exploitation, which will effectively close this very important matter.
Your immediate attention will be appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Bob Beavers
State Convenor
NSW Branch P. O. Box 593 Rockdale 2216
www.australiafirstparty.net ausfirst [ AT ] hotmail.com National Contact Line - 02 8587 0014
Australia First Party - Reclaiming Australia for Australians
Why is Natalya NOWHERE to be found in the mainstream media?
In its 'reporting' of Ukraine the Western mainstream media (msm) never misses an opportunity to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegedly annexing Crimea. The mainstream media barely ever reported, and has long since 'forgotten', that over 97% of Crimeans voted to join Russia, rather than be subject to the same kind of rule to which the Kiev fascists are now attempting to subject their countrymen in East Ukraine.
An even less explicable omission by the msm is mention of Natalya Poklonskaya. Searches of the Melbourne Age, The Australian, the BBC and The Guardian found not one mention of Natalya (see image below).
A search of the Melbourne Age newspaper for "Natalya Poklonskaya" (quotes omitted) using the DuckDuckGo search engine failed to find anything. Stories about "Crimea" and "Vladimir Putin" were found. Similar results were obtained with the Google Search engine. Other newspapers and magazines on which no mention of Natalya were found include: The Australian, the BBC and The Guardian.
Why is it that the newsmedia, that focuses so excessively on attractive young women, has judged such an unusually attractive figure, who paid a key role in Russia's supposedly immoral 'annexation' of Crimea, to be totally un-newsworthy?
The reason for their total exclusion of Natalya is this: the editors understand full well, that what they write about Ukraine, Crimea, Russia, as well as the MH17 tragedy, is a tissue of lies. Were their readers to ever learn of Natalya and that she repudiates their claims about Ukraine, then many of their readers could not help but to become more curious and start to look more critically at what they are being fed.
In all likelihood, given the widespread availability of alternatives to the mainstream media – RT, PressTV, Global Research, Voltaire Net, Land Destroyer and Paul Craig Roberts – it would take very little time for their readers to see the msm editors for the unconscionable liars that they are.
Met Mal Fraser and Mother Agnes in June - talked about this
This is a comment from one of our authors, David McIlwain, who is currently traveling. He has just spent a couple of months in Syria and Russia. On the above interview he emailed me:
"I have watched Oksana’s interview with Fraser. I’m a great fan of hers, but I must admit also of Fraser. Perhaps I don’t have to struggle with the evident baggage of those who lived here while he was PM, but even they would admit to his change of mind which sees him even on the ‘left’ of the Greens. What really made a difference for me was meeting him with Mother Agnes Mariam last June, and hearing him talk about his experience in the Balkans when he was head of CARE. This seems to have turned him against the US in a fairly solid way, following the illegal NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. Mother Agnes of course is not a great admirer of the US, and shared her views on the centrality of the CIA in fomenting conflicts. I understood Fraser to feel that, in relation to the US, Australia’s agreement – the ANZAS treaty - was only an agreement to come to each other’s aid if one was threatened by a foreign power. It wasn’t an agreement to cooperate in fighting the other’s wars, and this was entirely undesirable.
Fraser also told us how he had met Vladimir Putin at that time, and found him a very smart as well as ‘amusing’ man.
I would like to know what Fraser has to say now, following the downing of MH17 – I’d be surprised if he is suffering the delusions being encouraged by our media and governments.
In desperation, I recently sent a letter to the AGE. I know they won’t print it.. but perhaps someone will look at the articles I included links to. There were so many other letters I could have written today, about the Gaza massacre, about the ‘threat of terrorism’, about the 69th anniversary of the Hiroshima war crime, which went unnoticed yesterday...
It’s getting hard to keep up!"
The Australian humpback dolphin has been declared a new species
The humpback dolphin, which dwells in the waters of northern Australia and New Guinea, joins a group of close relatives in the genus Sousa: the Atlantic humpback dolphin (S. teuszii), the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (S. chinensis), and the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin (S. plumbea).
Australian Geographic
Identifying it has not been easy as it has many similarities with it's close relatives. The Australian humpback dolphin has a low dorsal fin with no hump, and a distinct skull shape and number of teeth; it also bears a darker 'cape' on its back, compared to its closest relative, the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin.
Australia is famous for mammal extinctions, and for mega-diversity threatened by climate change and expanding human activities, so it's rare to be honoured by a "new" species of dolphins - all of our own!
TWA 800 covered up too
Intelligence analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it. Associated Press reporter Robert Parry said "some US intelligence sources had concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame". Malaysian Airlines confirmed that the pilot was instructed to fly at a lower altitude by the Kiev air traffic control tower upon its entry into Ukraine airspace. Spanish air traffic controller claimed it was not an accident, that the Ukrainian authorities shot down MH17 and were trying to "make it look like an attack by pro-Russians" . His Twitter account was closed down shortly after the tragedy.
The Malaysian Airline MH17 Crash: Sixteen Central Issues Which Cannot be Ignoredon GeoEngineering Watch
Although his account has yet to be fully corroborated, some of his claims have been confirmed by Malaysian Airlines and the Russian authorities.
Despite claims to the contrary, there has not been a shred of tangible evidence to support the conclusion that Russia supplied the rebels with the BUK-M1 anti-aircraft missile system that would be needed to hit a civilian jetliner flying at 33,000 feet. How could such a conclusion be formed so early, before full investigations? Pro-Russian activists fighting the Ukrainian government said the jetliner had been shot down by a Ukrainian jet.
Looking at photo-reconstruction, one can easily tell that the SU-25 or other fighter-jet that was firing into the cockpit from the pilot's left side didn't just riddle the area surrounding the pilot with bullets, but that it then targeted-in specifically onto the pilot himself, producing at his location a huge gaping hole in the side of the plane precisely at the place where the pilot was seated.
Evidence Is Now Conclusive: Two Ukrainian Government Fighter-Jets Shot Down Malaysian Airlines MH17. It was Not a ‘Buk’ Surface to Air Missile (8/8/14) by Eric Zuesse on Global Research
July 17, 1996 at 8:19, TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747, was cleared for takeoff at New York's JFK Airport on a flight to Paris. Twelve minutes later, TWA 800 exploded, the parts raining down in the Atlantic ten miles south of Long Island.
There were 270 eyewitnesses of the explosion of the TWA 800 who said they saw what looked like a missile strike the aircraft. The testimony of these witnesses was corroborated by radar data and the investigators ignored all these witnesses. There were three investigations into TWA800 that did not agree with the "official" story. One was by the Union for aircraft workers, one by the organization for retired air crash investigators, and one by the NTSB (National Transportation and Safety Board).
Operation Northwoods (see Wikipedia page - Ed) was a series of proposals written by Department of Defense back in the 60s, which directly advocated committing acts of terrorism within the United States, and even proposed shooting down a civilian airliner in order to blame it on Cuba, and this would be used to justify a war. These documents were declassified in 1997, and there are thousands of copies available for download on the internet (for example this one from George Washington University). On July 3, 1988 the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 killing 290 people. The TWA flight 800 tragedy occurred exactly 18 years before the MH17 tragedy, on the very same day. On July 17, 1996 TWA flight 800 was downed over Long Island.
Kiev confiscated the voice recordings of the Ukrainian air traffic controllers and is not making them available and if the US Military do not release their radar and satellite raw data, chances are slim that we get the undoctored versions.
AWPC letter re bandicoots to Sen Birmingham, Sec Environment
Senator Simon Birmingham Federal Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment,
We, in the Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc, write to request that you ensure that Sub Regional Species Strategy for the Southern Brown Bandicoot, which we understand you are about to approve, be strengthened.
There are, at present, no commitments in the revised Sub Regional Species Strategy for the Southern Brown Bandicoot.
Approval by you must fix the absence of
- specifications on the quality of the wildlife corridors,
- sufficient width and security in the four specified corridors within the UBG from the RBGC to the boundary,
- security of tenure for land for wildlife corridors and for the management especially outside the UGB,
- evidence of sufficient funds from the levy and transparent costings to achieve the incentives and on-ground actions for substantial land use change and restoration of natural functioning wildlife corridor(s)
- planning controls to require (the negotiated) land use changes
Under the current plan, presented by the Victorian Government, including the recent amendment, there is no reasonable expectation that there can be a sustainable population of bandicoots in the Southeast of Melbourne. Yet this is what the Commonwealth and the State of Victoria signed an agreement to achieve in the Program report of the Strategic Assessment.
This is a once in generation opportunity to get the planning right for people and nature.
Thank you Senator
Signed by Maryland Wilson, President, Australian Wildlife Protection Council
It would be great if there were petitions regarding population
It would be great if somebody were to write petitions (to the relevant authorities) regarding population. One would have to be to the minister who is responsible for immigration and the other would have to be to the minister who is responsible for family allowances and/or the baby bonus.
No country should be offering financial incentives for people to have children (especially if they already have 2). Although a "signature" on a petition is not as effective as an individually-written letter or e-mail, if my experience is anything to go by, many activists are trying to follow so many e-mails, online articles and sources of media in general that they rarely focus on a single issue to write their own letter or e-mail. A petition enables many people to do at least something. It would be good if the petition had a "country" field so that people from outside Australia could "sign" (and that way nobody could accuse the "signers" as only being interested in protecting their own standard of living). A letter-to-the editor of a newspaper is a good idea but I cannot write to an Australian newspaper because I live outside Australia, and the letter would probably not get printed because I am "obviously" not a regular reader, and even if the letter did get printed, I would have no way of knowing because letters-to-the-editor that appear in the printed newspaper are not visible online. In 2013, I wrote to the ministers for immigration of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America because these countries have a high per-capita ecological impact and I am opposed to the white colonization of these countries. I would be interested to know what Australian Aborigines and Native Americans think about immigration. I am not sure who the relevant ministers for family allowances in the mentioned countries are. Immigration cannot be totally separated from breeding because people generally immigrate whilst they are of reproductive age.
Humans and human activities (especially animal farming and commercial fishing) already take up more than their fair share of the land (and ocean) and they should stop spreading into and destroying the habitats of other species.
I immigrated into Australia with my parents in 1970 but returned to my country of origin, Croatia, in 1992 and encourage others to do the same. I am disappointed that more people have not done the same and I condemn my family and friends for continuing to live in Australia. I regularly complain if the Croatian media speak or write positively about emigration to and life in Australia or North America. I never say "congratulations" or send a card or gift or go to the Christening when somebody has a child and I bring up population in front of relatives with more than 3 children. In addition to being a burden on ecosystems in the country that them moved to, immigrants also harm their country of origin because it is often left without scientists, engineers and medical practitioners. I also do not like the idea that "successful" people are expected to emigrate to some country with a "high" standard of living or one that is a "leader" in science and technology. People should stay in their original country and work to improve it.
Southern Queensland & northern NSW’s worst drought in 113 years
Not since the drought of 1901 has the slab of land – stretching from Bundaberg to Coffs Harbour in northern NSW and west to St George – recorded so little rain.
The Australian: Southern Queensland and Northern NSW's worst drought in 113 years
It comes as the state’s wheat crop became the first crop casualty of the drought, with half of the $300 million growth simply not planted because of the dry conditions. Dairy and cattle farmers have also been crippled. Cotton production in Australia is set to plummet as much as 50 per cent next season because of the persisting drought, growers and shippers predict. A large swathe of eastern Australia, including coastal regions from Coffs Harbour to Bundaberg, is in the midst of its driest year since the Federation Drought more than a century ago, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
It has been more than a year since farmers in the Kyogle and Casino districts recorded decent rain.
The Bureau of Meteorology is on watch for an El Nino event this spring. It could bring drier conditions to areas already experiencing a lack of rainfall.
And while many farmers have welcomed recent announcements of state and federal assistance, many say -- it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the relief that only rain can bring.
Australian Researchers have found that extreme versions of the cyclical weather pattern El Niño — dubbed 'super El Niños' — will double in frequency under projected global warming scenarios, with repercussions for many countries across the globe. Crop losses as a result of the 1983 super El Niño were worth US$12 billion in the USA alone.
The megalomaniac plans for "big Australia" and the "food bowl" of Asia should be trimmed back in line with reality.
Mr Hunt the perfect "Environment" minister for Abbott government
"Environment" Minister Greg Hunt should be concerned about the environmental impact of big population growth, and any further "developments" in the north of Australia! What aspect of the environment has he referred to in this nonsensical response? It's too "complex" to comprehend, that human population growth and encroachments on natural resources and land is an environmental threat?
With the Abbott government's anti-science stance, cut backs to scientific and climate change research, loosening of environmental laws, more prohibitions to higher education, and the trashing of climate change mitigation strategies and the World Heritage status of the Great Barrier Reef for the coal mining industry, Mr Hunt is the perfect "environment" minister for a government that is willing to sacrifice any concerns for the environment to promote businesses and profits!
They assume "business as usual" and there are no limits to human growth.
The revelation that the Department of Immigration is corrupt, full of incompetencies and rorts, and the numbers being allowed to cross our borders into Australia is completely congruent to social, economic and environmental concerns is quite timely. It's only MP Kelvin Thomson whose got the integrity and audaciousness to question these issues - and expose the incompetence of his colleagues.
It would be actually incongruent to have an Environment Minister with integrity, environmental credentials and knowledge! It's an Orwellian title, meaning just the opposite! While we've had some very lacklustre environment Ministers in the past, exploiting loopholes to affirm corporate interests above environmental impacts, Mr Hunt must take the prize as the biggest and most blatant mis-fit!
To be honest, I'm still
To be honest, I'm still trying to digest exactly what is occurring in that area, though I think whether there are "nazi's" there is of little consequence to those outside of the Ukraine. As for why they are there, I can only answer it thus. When it came to toppling the broken old regime, they were there in the street.
Like it or not, it is those who challenge the established order to obtain power, and Svoboda and Right Sector have been doing the work. Again, I'm not saying this to support one side over the other, only to point out that if you refuse to acknowledge that something is an issue, because your ideology says it can't be an issue, someone else will take power on that issue. Expect fringe groups in Australia to bolster their popularity in the future, by the simple virtue of being the only ones who'll bother to actually treat the very real problem of foreign residential property ownership as a problem in need of a working solution. Can you blame them, if everyone else refuses to address or solve this pertinent issue?
As to why "The West" is supporting "fascism"? I don't think they are, not intentionally anyway. I suspect, strongly, we simply have no idea whatsoever as to what we are doing anymore. It appears we support them, because we are fighting some poorly understool neo-cold war against Russia, and these guys just happen to be the ones who bothered to take power by addressing real issues.
There is a good article here about the West's failure to understand Russia, which explains how we have kind of lost our ability to deal with the rest of the world (the fact that people thought it could be possible to have a working Iraqi nation for example, and this chaos was just due to 'bungling', is to me, clear evidence to this effect. Only a broken model of the world could conceive such a thing as a possible outcome.)
http://20committee.com/2014/04/07/putinism-and-the-anti-weird-coalition/
You can see Putin's POV here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcD__8qynoQ
and
http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2013/09/20/putin-depicts-russia-as-a-bulwa...
As I said, people tend to fight the last war, especially the victors. The west which won the Cold War (and hence lost the need to make Capitalism ostensibly work for the people as proof of it being a better system and can allow Capitalists to destroy our way of life), is still fighting the old cold war. The West still thinks its about Soviet Ideology and all that crap.
It's not. Putin (and many in the world, and even in Europe), see a growing split between Western Decadence, with its multiculturalism, moral permissiveness and its seeming willingness to dilute our traditional identities, and national integrity and survival of a people. Russia has been offering support to aligned political groups in Europe, and likely sees "The West" not as the torch bearers of civilisation, but its destroyers, and he may well think that he has an obligation to protect Europe from us.
I don't think the lines are between "Free World" and "Fascism". If anyone is the Fascists, its we, whose nations are controlled by a dysfunctional democracy-in-name-only government, who rule on behalf of big business and corporate interests and treat the people as just a resource.
North is our garden
Strange that people like the environment minister and the prime minister don't see our "undeveloped", unspoiled areas as part of their/our own garden, to be treasured and preserved; accessible to them to enjoy.
Endless bounds to share in Australia
“For those who've come across the seas, We've boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine, To Advance Australia Fair”. According to our "environment" minister, Australia still has no limits to economic and population growth. In a parallel world, Australia has rich plains of arable land, excellent and regular supplies of fresh water that never runs out, or never deluges, and the benefits of Nature are never extinguished . Mr Abbott describes northern Australia as not our last frontier but our next frontier; he sees it as being afflicted by ''ongoing development deadlock'' because of the lack of infrastructure and supportive investment.
The operation of our present industrial civilization is wholly dependent on access to a very large amount of energy of various types. If the availability of this energy were to decline significantly it could have serious repercussions for civilization and the human population it supports. A model, known as the "World Energy and Population" model, or WEAP, suggests that the world's population will decline significantly over the course of the century. The Government wants to develop a food bowl, which could double Australia’s agricultural output, and build a $150 billion energy export industry with a strong focus on clean and efficient energy in the North.
A substantial increase in food production will require major improvements in the efficiency of existing systems, plus the expansion of farming into new areas. That will mean spending an estimated A$600 billion to upgrade and add to the ageing network that currently supports Australian farming. Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming. Similar losses have been experienced in eastern Australia, and although the science is less certain it is probable that global warming is behind these losses too. But by far the most dangerous trend is the decline in the flow of Australian rivers: it has fallen by around 70 per cent in recent decades, so dams no longer fill even when it does rain. The CSIRO has demonstrated that the water for large-scale, intensive agriculture does not exist in the North. The water that is present in the North plays a crucial role in the region’s ecosystems, and the impact of removing or redirecting it will be significant.
It seems that money for "infrastructure" is the only constraint to the megalomaniac plan for the last frontier of Northern Australia to be expanded! The solution obviously is to lease or sell the whole north of Australia, and allow foreign interests to create the new "food bowl of Asia"!
More than 4000 sheep cooked alive on board ship
Most of the sheep died on an afternoon of extreme heat 15 days after leaving Fremantle on board the Livestock Shipping Services Pty Ltd–operated Bader III. They were travelling to the Middle East. The "incident" was covered up and not reported within the time line, of 12 hours. This death rate was well over the accepted mortality rates, but the Department of Agriculture was not notified until after 13 days!
The on board veterinarian did not supply daily health reports as required by the law. This is about as relevant as having a doctor in a death camp, or a chaplain for the slave trade!
The DoA, which made no adverse findings against LSS after investigating the incidents, rejected claims from Animals Australia that it covered up the reporting delay and the lack of daily updates. No "bad news" is allowed to seep through the thick veneer of how lucrative and "safe" the live export trade really is. Nobody wants scandal!
The sheep arrived dead at the Doha in Qatar. The live export trade is Australia's trade of shame, exporting animal cruelty and lies.
Mr Hunt- population growth to spread to Northern Australia
Hon Kelvin Thomson questioned in Parliament, Mr Greg Hunt, our Minister for Environment. The former questioned the policy of open-ended population growth on our infrastructure costs, and natural and built environments. (Hansard, 13th May, 2014)
He said that setting a fixed population growth masked the "complexities of the issues".
There are many aspects of our population growth that cannot be changed, such as our fertility levels!
Considering that 60% of our population growth is due to net overseas migration, and fertility levels continue to be below long term replacement levels, there is a LOT of population growth that can be changed!
Mr Hunt said that "Australia has jobs, infrastructure and services to provide for our population growth". This ignores the $770 billion infrastructure deficit we already have, record levels of youth unemployment, the lack of jobs, and the "heavy lifting" we must endure of the cuts to health and education, and welfare! Reality flies on the face of Mr Hunt's contradictory spin!
There's plenty in the Ivory towers of Canberra, and our politicians need regular reality checks. The cornucopia myth is alluring, but it's only a myth!
There is a plan to develop Northern Australia, with infrastructure, mining and shale gas projects.
mines, gas fields, dams? Powerful voices in government and big business are promoting a future of massive new dams, huge shale gas fields, fracking, extensive land clearing, more giant mines, ports and industrial developments in Northern Australia– fast tracked by weakening environment laws.
Read more on the Australian Wildlife Protection Council website.
ACF: The beautiful North - make a submission to the Northern Australia white paper
With bipartisan support for big population growth, and weakening environment laws, Australia will be consumed by big businesses with nothing but profits in their sights. Already Australia's native species extinction record is the fastest of the modern world, and we will become famous for dead landscapes, wildlife, holes in the ground, pollution, poverty and over-population!
Climate change aid to Vanuatu cut off yet population surges
Prolonged dry spells and less water is threatening Vanuatu's food security. When rain does comes it's more intense and destroys the island's staple food - cabbage crops. Food security is a vita issue in Vanuatu. It's something that has implications for the rest of the world too. Market gardens and coconut plantations are being destroyed by storms, the cash crops that supported many people.
The Gillard government gave $2 million as aid to finance climate change adaptation, as part of a UN plan. Not for profit organisations have been encouraging the residents to grow alternative crops such as capsicans, beans and tomatoes that are more resilient than the cabbages. However, the Abbott government cut the funds and they have run out!
Some graves have had to be removed and the dead reburied due to coastal erosion destroying the cemeteries. Our present government's denial of climate change means that it's "business as usual" and the planet's changing weather patterns will create "climate refugees" in the future. The Pacific region.
The Age: Vanuatu Climate worries rise as aid cut off
Totally inconsistent to their worries, Vanuatu has the highest annual population growth rate of 2.3 per cent in the Pacific, followed closely by Kiribati 2.1%. It's hardly cogent that the people are struggling with climate change, and relying on foreign aid, yet at the same time are procreating with abandon!
Vanuatu has the fourth highest total fertility rate at 4.1 (average of 4.1 children out of 10 per woman in Vanuatu. Populations of many Melanesian countries in the southwest Pacific Islands region are expected to double in a generation. There are many teenage pregnancies and there's a tradition of having large families. If a woman decides to use contraceptives, there's a fight in the family!
We have a micro-example of climate change happening on a small island, mirroring humanity's inconsistency and lack of intellectual capacity of allowing "culture" and "tradition" to over-ride the evidence at hand of a growing food security threat. It's assumed that the help will be "out there" from some foreign source, and that there will be a new land of opportunities to start afresh, in some colony where there's a "better life" in Cornucopia - but it's a dangerous myth!
Study finds logging increased intensity of Black Saturday fires
THE heat and severity of Kinglake and Marysville fires that killed 159 people on Black Saturday was significantly increased by clear-fell logging of forests, scientists believe.
In a landmark two-year study of Victorian fires, scientists from Melbourne University and the ANU examined satellite images of hundreds of thousands of trees burnt on Black Saturday.
The scientists say the study showed conclusively that logging in the decades prior to Black Saturday made the deadly blaze much more extreme. Professor David Lindenmayer, Australia’s leading scientist of forest ecology, who headed the study said it showed conclusively that clear fell logging increased the danger from bushfire.
HS: Study finds logging increased intensity of Black Saturday fires
Rather than limit logging, the Victorian government intends to fight the fires through more fires, contrary to logic and good stewardship of our environment. Following the disastrous Black Saturday wildfires, the Victorian Government established a policy to burn 5% of all public land each year despite any fires naturally caused by lightning or other means. Sadly, most of the burning occurs in national parks and wilderness areas (where no one lives), simply to reach their ‘target’ of burning nearly 400,000 hectares annually.
Please sign the petition:
End deadly prescribed burns in Victoria and the carnage to native animals
Comment published by SBS but no other comments
The above comment has been published on SBS, but there have been no other comments at all. Does this indicate absolutely no interest in what is happening in the Ukraine? It is extraordinary.
Kangaroo cull is disgraceful
It is totally unfair on these innocent creatures. Makes me sick.
More than 1500 kangaroos shot during ACT government cull
No wonder Japan is not taking our win at the International Court of Justice seriously! Tony Abbott didn't even mention the issue of their illegal whaling during the recent talks about free trade agreements with Japan!
So much hypocrisy comes from Australia, and kangaroos are meant to be "protected" native species - just like the whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
A small group of activists gathered outside the Legislative Assembly on Friday afternoon, leaving flowers and a gravestone for the animals, killed as part of controversial efforts to protect native grasslands and woodland sites which the government says are threatened by overgrazing from eastern grey kangaroos.
Canberra Times: More than 1500 kangaroos shot during ACT government cull
It assumes that native grasslands and woodlands are threatened by native kangaroos! It's totally ignorant and based on unfounded fears of over population of these native grazers that actually benefit the environment. It's like killing whales or other top ocean predators to protect the prey - when they actually co-exist naturally and part of the food chain!
There will be an attempt to "move" bushland out of the Bush Capital to create opportunities for property developers! In an attempt to balance urban expansion with the ongoing loss of threatened species in the Bush Capital, the ACT government proposes that impacts from development on threatened species in the ACT must be offset by restoring equivalent biodiversity elsewhere, including in NSW.
SMH: The Bush Capital threatens biodiversity
The translocation of kangaroos was considered too risky, so they were shot! Now, it's assumed that biodiversity will automatically be moved along with these "off sets". How can threatened species be protected and also simply moved?
Biodiversity offsets have attracted criticism from scientists and public interest groups around the world as a “licence to trash” biodiversity. It's simply land-clearing and declaring another existing piece of land it's replacement! It's tokenism and pure deadly economics that puts housing growth ahead of the environment. How do you "off set" a 300 year old native tree, or grasslands that have been endemic to Australia for thousands of years? Native animals and plants have taken millions of years to co-exist and be co-dependant, and it's expected magically that they will just shove-off for urban expansion.
Australia's rapid human population growth should be stemmed, not that of low-impact native kangaroos!
Response to Dennis K's subtle important differences
I can see that targeting Nazism can miss the real agents and sponsors of bad change, that is, the elites using and benefiting from the Nazis or other fascists. Fascists are the street, army and policy face of fascism in parliament and big business. The Svoboda Party members are apparently in control of most security forces in Ukraine. These forces are continuing, even though the Prime Minister has resigned. There have been fist fights in parliament itself, and parliamentarians and other high officials have been beaten up.
It seems to me that the Ukraine is, par excellence, the place where a relaunch of Nazism with its anti-communist hallmarks and street frighteners is particularly authentic, however the real people pushing these violent elements appear to be aligned with the United States and NATO, as far as I can tell. The United States seems especially concerned about any possibility of an alternative to capitalism and appears to fear a return to communism in a confident Russia. The United States seems to resent any attempt to prioritise civil rights over the market. Europe's civil code, and Russia, at least in principle, seem to give social values more importance than mere economics.
The Australian Government is giving these fascism beneficiaries support. Most at fault is our mainstream media, which should be exposing what the Kiev Government (currently in disarray) has permitted and encouraged on its watch. The Murdoch and Fairfax press and the ABC have consistently failing to question the doings of Kiev. This excision of the major actor in Ukraine is bizarre and glaring, especially in the light of the MH17 airliner downing.
You suggest that jackboots etc are not necessary to completely disempower a people, or for genocide. Are you referring to drones - which carry out secret wars and assassinations on behalf of elites, with the support of a complicit media? Or are you talking about huge mass immigration, to overwhelm a people and all their networks? I agree that these are both forms of aggression. I wonder why they use the old-fashioned jackboot in Ukraine then. Why aren't they using drones to do their dirty work there?
This response to you has been sitting here for about three days. Feel free to come back at me if I have missed your point, or write an article, perhaps hardly mentioning Nazis, but talking about the forces that use them and similar fascist militia.
Comment on SBS reporting bias on Ukraine and MH17
Just watched a podcast of tonight's SBS news (http://www.sbs.com.au/news/video/313807427755/SBS-World-News-31-July-630-part-1) and made the following comment, which is pending:
SBS fails to report on the huge extent of bombing houses and creation of refugees in East Ukraine by the Ukrainian (Kiev) government. Homeless refugees streaming across the border for weeks now. It should make clear that the Kiev army spokesperson alleging actions by separatists is at war with them and probably engaging in propaganda. It needs to tell Australians that the Kiev government is in disarray, with the PM having resigned, soldiers unpaid. It should tell us of the terrible atrocities committed against civilians protesting the Kiev government, beginning with the Odessa Massacre on 2nd May 2014, rivaling the worst in the world, which has hardly been reported in Australia or the US. It should tell how neo-Nazis are now in charge of most of the security in the country, with three neo-Nazis now in Parliament, outlawing political parties they disagree with. It should report how the Russians have reported the presence of Ukrainian fighter jet near the MH17, and how the cockpit shows clear signs of having been machine gunned. SBS and other Western media's reporting is so biased and simplistic that it is manufacturing tensions in this important geopolitical region. Don't you guys realise the danger of war and your responsibilities as reporters?
Global disease and dis-ease the result of globalisation
Almost 700 people in West Africa have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record. There is currently no vaccine, and due to its fast onset and horrific symptoms it has become one of the world's most feared diseases. Ebola virus takes advantage of the climate of peace and globalization effect in West Africa: the best transport and no wars (compared to the former Zaire) explain the case of Liberian died at age 42 soon after arrival at the airport in Lagos, the Nigerian metropolis of 20 million inhabitants.
Ebola is a zoonotic disease. The bushmeat trade (the catching and eating of wild animals, including primates such as gorillas and chimpanzees), is thought to play a role in outbreaks of the disease. Ssevere EVD outbreaks in macaque monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) farmed in Philippines and was detected in monkeys imported into the USA in 1989, 1990 and 1996, and in monkeys imported to Italy from Philippines in 1992. Mis-use and abuse of animals has bad karma! It would be ironic that animals used for laboratories become the reason for the distribution of one of the world's most untreatable and infectious diseases! Pig farms in Africa can play a role in the amplification of infection because of the presence of fruit bats on these farms.
The World Health Organisation has specifically noted traditional healing and burial practices in rural regions as a factor in the spread of the disease.
Since March, there have been 1201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The largest Ebola outbreak on record, which took place in Uganda between September 2000 and February 2001. Four hundred and twenty five people developed clinical symptoms in three geographically distinct parts of the country (Gulu, Masindi, and Mbarara), of whom 224 (53%) died.
One person in Britain has been tested for ebola, the Department of Health (DoH) ministry confirmed, but the tests proved negative. Health-care workers have frequently been infected while treating patients with suspected or confirmed EVD. This has occurred through close contact with patients when infection control precautions are not strictly practiced.
Nigerian health authorities are racing to stop the spread of the flesh-eating Ebola virus after a man sick with one of the world’s deadliest diseases carried it by plane to Lagos, Africa’s largest city with 21 million people.
Your immune system, completely out of control, attacks every organ in your body. Tiny blood vessels burst everywhere and you begin slowly to bleed to death.
In the globalised world with huge amounts of merchandise and millions of people transported by air from one part of the planet to another, the ‘traffic’ of microbes and the diseases they cause are facilitated to such an extent that infectious agents, previously confined to limited ecological niches, are now capable of spreading rapidly to every corner of the earth.
Environmental activists and officers under lethal threat
A man 79, is accused of killing 51-year-old NSW Environment Department compliance and regulation officer Glen Turner at Croppa Creek, 55 kilometres north of Moree in northern New South Wales. The land was being inspected for illegal clearing and environmental assessment. There had been a long running dispute with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, and the 79 year old had a criminal history.
Such is the value and pressure on land that we are becoming like third world nations, where the death toll for environmental activists is horrendous. The anti-environmental movement is more cashed-up and powerful than the altruistic environmentalist protecting the integrity of Nature, because of it's natural values and non-human benefits.
According to a report released by the London-based NGO Global Witness, at least 908 environmental activists have been killed over the last decade. That number is comparable to the 913 journalists killed in the course of their work in the same period and is likely on the low side—reporting is inconsistent in many countries, and full data for 2013 hasn’t yet been collected. 2012 was deadliest year ever for environmentalists, with 147 killed.
Not only do activists and rangers get threatened and murdered, but corruption allows "environment" ministers to cave into the enemies – and their economic powers can't be resisted! There is a money trail to the Government from big banks, and mining and infrastructure corporations that increasingly have more clout than the public, or grass-roots opinions. Investments and money have swayed decision-making and moulded so-called independent political decisions to suit the big money spinners at the cost of integrity and long term interests in the environment – even the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef! Greed is the "god" of today, and as natural resources become more expensive and lucrative to own it means more destructive and invasive techniques to obtain energy and power.
See also: Man, 79, charged with murdering environment officer after alleged shooting at Moree, NSW (30/7/14) ABC News, Moree shooting: Croppa Creek unites for Glen Turner's family (30/7/14) The Northern Daily LEADER, Government environmental worker shot dead after serving notice to man illegally clearing vegetation at Croppa Creek (30/7/14) Daily Telegraph, Tragic end to disputes over illegal land clearing (30/7/14) Glen Innes Examiner, Land clearing linked to NSW farm killing (30/7/14) Yahoo News.
Dredging of the Great Barrier Reef - mockery of "Environment"
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has caved to the mining industry and approved Indian mining giant Adani's monstrous Carmichael Mine, threatnening the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Hunt has given the green light to the $16.5 billion Carmichael Coal and Rail Project in Queensland's Galilee Basin, tying it to 36 "strict" conditions focused on conserving groundwater.
The coal mine will be the biggest in Australia. It will pollute our climate with massive CO2 emissions for decades. It will mean massive and continual dredging and dumping in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and will fill the Reef with thousands of coal ships every year.
Minister Greg Hunt had the simple task of rejecting absurd proposals for the biggest coal mine ever proposed for Australia — the Carmichael mine — which requires a new coal export terminal and destructive dredging and dumping in our beloved Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. But for whatever reason, Mr Hunt couldn't do it. The reason for not enacting the role of "Environment Minister" is not so obscure - it's filthy lucre!
Carmichael mine will cover an area seven times that of Sydney Harbour. The only way to get coal out of Carmichael mine is via the Great Barrier Reef. Millions of tonnes of seabed will have to be dredged and dumped in the World Heritage Area to make way for port expansions to service this mega-mine.
Five million tonnes of seabed will be dug up and dumped within the Marine Park in order to expand Abbot Point.
Green groups estimate an extra 450 ships a year will have to travel through the Great Barrier Reef to get the coal.
We've had some very discouraging, to abysmal "Environment Ministers" in Australia, bending backwards to corporate power and giving "green" ticks to their mining and logging, but Mr Greg Hunt must take place of pride to holding the position of the biggest Oxymoron of all times - as "Environment" Minster when his interests are clearly elsewhere!
Regarding my e-mail about prescribed burns; Animals in Croatia
Dear James,
(I apologise that this is quite long and do not feel obliged to publish it. I was not sure how much detail to go into.)
I completed my e-mail and sent it to the Premier of Victoria; the Minister for environment and the Minister for Agriculture about 22 hours ago just as my night shift was about to end. I have yet to forward a copy of the e-mail to Maryland Wilson and a list of other people from Australia that I correspond with regarding Australian wildlife (to avoid making this too long and double-checking names, I am not listing them here but I can if you wish). Would you like me to send you a copy? (If I click "contact" and use the webform, the text will lose its format and I am not used to the formatting method destribed below and I do not guarantee that I will not end up doing it correctly without a lot of trial-and-error). Most of the text is simply from the petition text; some is copied from a text by Maryland Wilson - page 11, "A Voice for Wildlife, August 2014; and I have added a paragraph about Croatia in an attempt to personalize the e-mail. Of course, it is always possible to say that I could have writen a better e-mail. I have been working on the issue of Australian wildlife since 2003. (I am not sure if I should go into details because it will get too long). Unfortunately, I am not sure if I spelled some species correctly: "Mallee fowl" is often spelt "Malleefowl"; "Mallee Emu Wren" is spelt "Mallee Emu-wren" when I checked using Google. I am not sure why the capital letters even if the word is not at the start of a sentence.
Regarding animals in Croatia - it depends how one looks at it. Most people are rednecks but an animal rights organization has been active since 2001 and I was one of the first activists although I would not describe myself as being able to continuously do good work. In 2007, the keeping of dolphins and whales in captivity has been banned, as has the "use" of wild and exotic animals in circuses; primates are not "used" in experiments although they are not actually banned; even the major Croatian brands of personal hygiene and cleaning products are not tested on animals; the population of bears and wolves has trippled since 1995 - to about 1,000 bears and 200 wolves - according to daily newspapers although bear hunting is still allowed; forests cover about 45% of the land and are nature-identical in composition and not decreasing in area; GMOs are not grown in Croatia; the human population is decreasing (births - deaths) by about 10,000 people per year although emigration is still happening. (I am against people emigrating to Australia and North and South America because of the genocide of indigenous peoples).
I returned to Croatia in 1992 and am disappointed that my family and friends have not returned from Australia and that one sister has 4 children and they have married non-Croatians and will almost certainly not be returning. I have thought about returning to Africa - the original homeland of humans - to live with chimpanzees but think that that is not an idea that many people would follow. I am a member of and donate to many organizations including the Jane Goodall Institute (UK) and PETA (USA) since 1993. I recycle over 99.5% (by mass) of my waste, do not drive a car, live in high-density housing; am vegan since 1995 and since 2002 most food that I eat does not involve killing the plant, I have no children although that is partly because I have never had a girlfriend (or boyfriend!). My income is above average and I have invested in the stockmarket in the past (until my mother demanded that I buy a flat in 2003) and I am able to make donations although I am not really prepared to add new organizations to those that I already donate to. On a more negative note, I buy several daily newspapers and the light is on in every room now! Last night, I read one of the articles about arson. When I went for a walk after catching up on sleep after night shift, I noticed that somebody had set fire to 6 big paper recycling bins close to my block of flats although the fires had been put out.
Best regards,
Sime Validzic (I also spell my name "Simon Validzic and "Šime Validži?")
ACT anti-wildlife government affects judicial outcomes
Again this year the ACT Government has show just how dictatorial they are. The case put before the ACTCAT was once more defeated even though the case against the slaughter was sound and backed up by eminent scientists. But how can anyone win when cases such as this are judged by people on the Government pay roll? Shane Rattenbury should get out of the Greens Party and join the Coalition. His empathy seems to be with his position and pay packet, not animals and the environment.
Those who give their time to opposing this slaughter should be given the highest congratulations, unless you've been there you have no idea what it like for them and yet they do it year after year, they are truly remarkable.
http://www.theage.com.au/act-news/kangaroo-cull-draws-to-an-end-on-thursday-activists-plan-memorial-on-friday-20140729-zxnjv.html
Contact details for Minister Ryan Smith- Victorian government
Minister Ryan Smith can be contacted on the following page:
Ministerial Office
Street Address
Level 17, 8 Nicholson Street, Melbourne, VIC 3002
Phone
(03) 9637 8890
Fax
(03) 9637 8880
Internet
Email
[email protected]
Thank you for taking an interest and concern for Victoria's wildlife. Free market policies and liberalism don't allow much regard for wildlife or natural environments, and we are being governed more and more by the power of corporations and the mega-wealthy. Our "environment" minister, Mr Hunt, despite his title, gives little regard for the environment and it's more about ticking the boxes for mining and logging companies. The drive to "manage" more bushfires in Victoria is about mass burnings to save money on insurance and litigation payouts - and at the same time allow for urban expansion close to forested and vegetated areas.
Croat concerned by Australian wildlife extinction threats
Subject was: "The link to Minister Ryan Smith will not click."
I am in the process of writing my own e-mail and it is taking longer than expected because I always get "bogged" in something that I notice along the way. I notice that the link to Minister Ryan Smith will not click; I searched his name using Google and found his e-mail. I did not "sign" the petition because the address format is for residents of Australia and I live in Croatia and would rather send an e-mail where I can use my correct details. I am not sure if there is time to send a paper letter. (I was not sure whether to write this in a comment or send a message; but when I click "contact" it refers to James).
Dear Sime,
Our apologies for the incorrectly typed mail links. That's been fixed now. I have also included the e-mail addresses in the page so that they can now be copied and pasted, as well as clicked on. (I prefer the former method.) Thank you for your post and for your concern about animal rights in Australia. Sadly, they are no not going well right now, but we are confident we can change that (although, possibly not before a few more endangered mammals become extinct).
How are animal rights in Europe these days? I trust that animals are faring better in Croatia than they are in England where there is almost no wildlife to be found. Please stay in touch. - best regards, James (aka 'Ed')
KAL007 faulty air path no accident
NEO – Cold Case...MH17 faint echos of KAL007 Shootdown (23/7/14) by Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor of Veterans Today
KAL007 pilot trainer David H. Adrian quoted saying the Korean pilot Capt. Chun could NOT have flown by accident into Soviet airspace in 1983.
Record numbers living on Melbourne streets
In recent years Melbourne City Council's regular survey of rough sleepers has found a relatively stable homeless population of about 100 people. But the most recent survey has revealed an unexpected 40 per cent increase since the last count in 2012.
The Age: Record numbers living on Melbourne's streets
Volunteers also noticed a large number of people sleeping outside the traditional count area, including in public toilets in Docklands and Royal Park, meaning the actual figure is likely to be much higher.
There are few journalists willing to join the dots between the housing boom propped up by high immigration, and increasing homelessness. One of the first actions of the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was to address homelessness, but contradictorily he increased immigration to new record levels as house prices started to fall after the GFC! He also doubled and tripled the First Home Owners Grant, to encourage spending and mortgage growth. Now, we have foreign investors also predators on our housing market.
With up to 2000 new arrivals each week, and about 200 each day, Victoria's population growth is unsustainable and forcing young people out into the streets, and out of jobs. We are in population overshoot! Public housing is insufficient to meet demand, and the waiting list is decades long.
Our economy has narrowed down to be beneficial to a select elite,while the rest are becoming more in debt, and locked out. It's a predatory housing market, and one that's boomed for the banks, real estate companies and property developers.
Philippine population officially hits 100 million
The symbolic 100 millionth Filipino alive has been born, but the government reiterates its commitment to fight poverty.
Baby Chonalyn was born at the Dr. Jose Fabella Hospital in Manila at 12:35 am, officially pushing the population of the country to the historic milestone that highlights the challenge of providing for more people in the already-impoverished nation.
Deputy Presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said, "Even if the Philippine population is growing, what's important is that we must be able to tailor fit our programs to help the fifth quintile of the population to be able to get out of that demographic." It's going to be hard to lift the nation out of poverty while populations boom! Already about 25% of the people are living in poverty. It's about riding a wave of contradictions.
Efforts to control the Philippines’ population growth have long been hampered by the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which counts about 80 percent of Filipinos as followers and which disapproves of all forms of artificial birth control.
The population of the Philippines has been steadily growing for many years. In 2014, it is the 12th most populated country in the world, between Mexico and Ethiopia, and continues to grow at a rate of 1.89% per year. Today around 80% of the country’s citizens are Roman Catholic Christians. Of the remaining people, 10% are from other Christian denominations and around 5% are Muslim, mainly based in the South West in the country.
Advocates of the new health and reproductive law say it will help slow the country's population growth of more than 2% annually by providing people more access to contraceptives. However, opponents say the law violates the Philippine Constitution by promoting contraceptives, imposing population control and violating religious beliefs. A survey that showed 84% of Filipinos agreed that "the government should provide free supply or service to the poor who wish to use any family planning method," such as condoms and contraceptive pills. It also found that 68% of respondents were aware of the law and 72% favored it.
Access to contraceptives should be available to all those who need it, and it should not "violate religious beliefs" - the welfare of the nation as a whole is more important than the parts!
Narrowly consolidated media makes bad stuff easy
Public opinion is pathetically easy to manipulate when the print and TV news, and the Hollywood films, are made by a handful of companies with similar [even if not quite identical] agenda.
The situation in Australia is much the same: Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch, R. companies compete.
The public is now salivating, I'm told, at the prospect of 100 or more Australian troops going to eastern Ukraine. What is the purpose of that, please, if not to set the kindling for a conflagration with Russian separatists and possibly even Russia itself?
Subtle differences are the most important one.
I understand how people are determined to never let this happen again. My point is that by assuming labels are the same, we may miss the real threats.
Back in the 30s, Nazism was new, in the sense that they created a novel label. They could have just resusitated and old movement, but didnt. Today, thay are rehashing old movements.
There is truth in the saying that people are always fighting the last war, especially if they won.
After WWI the French built a super trench called the Maginot Line. This was a heavily upgraded trench near the German border, to overcome the problem of trench warfare. However, Hitler learned something in the trenches and went for highly mobile forces, and just went around the line and invaded from the north through Belgium. The French were trying to prevent a trench stalemate and didnt anticipate change. They were looking for more trenches.
History repeated, an ill prepared army ready for the last war was outdone by newer tactics and newer methods.
This is what worries me, not a bunch of Nazis. That people are fighting the last war, when the real one is overlooked.
You don't need gas chambers or murder for genocide. You don't need jack booted thugs on the street for totalitarianism. Just like how the French were waiting for trench warefare and were outmaneuvered, we're are waiting for theatrical fascism and camps, and we will be out maneuvered again. The next genocide wont be camps and chambers. It may not even be violent. You can eliminate a people with policy and propaganda , which is far better for those who advocate it, they can even get the support of the people they want removed.
Again, we will miss this, looking for someone doing something old, instead of something new with the same pattern as the old. You can enslave people and create authoritarianism by economic means.
If you listen, you can still hear people advocate that the world would be a better place if there was one race., and supporting having a race disappear to achieve it. But because they don't dress up like boogeymen, people think it cant be a problem
Nazi menace to humanity cannot be exaggerated
Dennis K wrote:
There is a difference between being a true Nazi, and just doing Nazi stuff because it matches what you wanted to do anyway. ...
Your post seems to be splitting hairs.
If it is possible to take issue with the over-use of the term "Nazi", then surely that is preferable to what the mainstream media are doing: concealment of the facts that the extreme right-wing Ukrainian Government includes 3 Nazis and its security forces are dominated by Nazis and the demonisation of those who are fighting against them?
Whatever label we give to these people, they are thugs and killers in the pay of the ruling elites of Ukraine and the West no less than German Nazis were in the pay of German elites and the most corrupt elites in Britain and the United States from the 1920s until 1945.
Islamist jihadists, who have waged a bloody war against Syria since 2011 and, before that, Iraq and Libya, are no less in the pay of the ruling global elites.
The conflicts of 2014 in Syria and Ukraine are no less a struggle for the future of humanity than was the Second World War.
Those who are fight Nazis and their like in Syria and Ukraine are no less fighting for us than were Australians on the Kokoda Track or the Red Army at Stalingrad in 1942.
It's the action, not the label
Thanks for the considered reply.
While I'm not pulling the bandwagon for one side or the other (my understanding is the corruption has been rife in Ukrainian politics for a long time, and Russia's history is not endearing towards its own people), repeated use of labels raise alarm bells.
This may sound simplistic, but it seems to be true and reliable. Someone who repeatedly uses a particular accusation, is almost always guilty of that accusation. Whether it is "liar" or "hater" or "fascist" or "fornicator", when it becomes someone's mantra, it reveals THEIR colours. The Liberal party and their bullies droned on and on about Julia and Labor being liars, so I expected them to be compulsive liars, which they are. I've never met anyone quite so keen on practising totalitarian politics than "anti-fascists" and those who constantly talk about opposing hate are usually full of hate. Their view of the world is coloured by their own personality. They see people as being themselves, and if they see hate everywhere, its because thats how that person operators.
So when the term Nazi is overused, alarm bells go off. Why is this information being produced? What are they trying to achieve? What are the implications?
As for the Nazi imagery, my question is, had the Nationalist Socialist regime in Germany not existed would these people be acting significantly differently? Or would they just have adopted some other political ideology, imagery or identity and the same stuff happening, but with different labels? I'll bet the latter. The ideology just fulfils a role, it doesn't make a role for itself.
While they adopt Nazi imagery etc, I think it's something aside from the point. It is to me, the means, not the cause and that Ukranians would have some kind of nationalistic party now no matter what. The far right is inevitable, not just the result of the fact that we just 'happen to have Nazis in the past'. There is a difference between being a true Nazi, and just doing Nazi stuff because it matches what you wanted to do anyway (or at least your distorted understand makes you think it is). The same is true for Communism. These ideologies just played a role which was inevitable.
In this case, because of the explosive political potential in the term and idea, everyone's rushing to use it, and some so much so, the tail wags the dog and they think they are supposed to be Nazi's and forget what they were setting out to achieve in the first place.
It is, in my opinion, a mistake to focus too much on the labels. People thought it was "Christianity" which impeded academic freedom, persecuted heretics to a faith based dogma and had inquisitors hunting down those who deep down didn't truly adopt their ideas, but it wasn't. We see the very same thing today with "Political Correctness". Political Correctness is NOT new, its a rehash of what we've had in the past. The label misleads people into thinking its new, and therefore, not understanding what is happening or why.
The danger here is I think people think they can radically shift things by just changing words. That is, if we got rid of "Nazism", then we wouldn't have the "far right". If we got rid of "Leftism", we wouldn't have "Political Correctness". This simple model then means people focus on just persecuting those who say the wrong words, or subscribe to the wrong ideas (which is probably the intention of shouting "Nazi"), rather than understanding why.
Check population policy of organisations first
Before joining or supporting any environment or planning group, it's best to check their population policy, or their attitude to population growth. Ignoring the "elephant in the room" is hypocrisy and time wasting. We have enough green Pharisees as it is!
At the dawn of agriculture, about 8000 B.C., the population of the world was approximately 5 million. Over the 8,000-year period up to 1 A.D. it grew to 200 million. In 1989 there were 5.2 billion people globally, today there are 7.2 billion, and we are heading towards 10.9 billion by 2100. Rapid population growth has already complicated efforts to reduce poverty and eliminate hunger in Africa, whose population of 1.1 billion is expected to more than double by 2050. The Global Footprint Network estimates that by 2030 we will need two Earths to meet our demand for renewable resources, and if everyone in the world lived like the average American, we would need at least five planets to support us.
Do these organisations think that the impacts of swelling numbers of people have no impacts on the environment, ecosystem destruction, natural resources depletions and the stretching of natural systems. By 2045, the report states, the effects of climate change, coupled with global population growth -- particularly in urban areas -- will increase the severity of humanitarian crises, especially since the majority of urban areas will be vulnerable to flooding due to being on or near the coast.
Organisations trying to address wildlife declines, environmental cause, humanitarian issues, and planning schemes should all have relevant population policies to be honest and effective.
Rotten Kieve (Ukraine) government collapsing
Maybe this is a sign that the Kiev Government, never cohesive, is breaking apart under the probable guilt of the Poreschenko government in downing the MH17. Not that I want to preempt a real investigation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-24/meanwhile-ukraines-government-collapses-pm-yatsenyuk-reisgns
Meanwhile, Ukraine's Government Collapses, PM Yatsenyuk Resigns
. . . 07/24/2014 10:46 -0400
As if Ukraine was not struggling through enough turmoil currently, Bloomberg reports that the fragile coalition government has collapsed after two parties quit. The UDAR and Svoboda parties said they’d leave the government and seek a snap parliamentary ballot. Tempers have been fraying recently as numerous brawls have broken out in parliament ahead of President Poroshenko's pledge to call elections this year. All we have to do now is find out who Washington would like to see in power? The end result: Prime Minister Yatsenyuk just resigned. ***The big question now is what will the IMF do about the remaining tranches of its loans?*** Via BBG [[[Bloomberg Global?]]]:
*YATSENYUK RESIGNS
*YATSENYUK SAYS HE RESIGNS BECAUSE OF COALITION COLLAPSE
*YATSENYUK SAYS HE WON'T CALL FOR A NEW COALITION
*YATSENYUK SAYS HE RESIGNS ALSO BECAUSE GOVT LAWS FAILED TO PASS
*UKRAINE SPEAKER TURCHYNOV CALLS FOR INTERIM PREMIER
How The Ukrainian government has settled these problems in the past.
[link to short video of "Rada brawl video: Ukraine parliament fistfight..."]
As Bloomberg reports,
___
Ukraine’s coalition collapsed after two parties quit during a months-long pro-Russian insurgency in the nation’s east that downed a Malaysian Air jet last week.
The UDAR and Svoboda parties said they’d leave the government and seek a snap parliamentary ballot, according to statements today on their websites. Under the constitution, the former Soviet republic has 30 days to form a new coalition or it must call early elections. The existing cabinet will remain in place in the meantime.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government, took over the country in February after pro-European street protests prompted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia. Yanukovych’s successor, billionaire PetroPoroshenko, had pledged to call parliamentary elections this year.
“We will probably have snap parliamentary elections at the end of October,” Yuriy Yakymenko, the head of political research at the Razumkov Center, said by phone from Kiev today. “This option was probably agreed on by political parties seeking elections and the president.”
The government and the current parliament will keep working until new institutions are formed, he said. Olga Lappo, Yatsenyuk’s spokeswoman, declined to comment when reached by phone today.
Non-rebel Ukrainian gov air defence exercise behind MH17 crash?
25 July 2014, 15:55
Ukrainian air defence exercise might be behind MH17 crash
The Malaysian Airlines MH17 that crashed in southeast Ukraine could have been brought down by an accidental launch of a missile by Ukrainian forces during an anti-aircraft exercise, Russia's RIA Novosti agency reported, citing an unnamed source in the Ukrainian defence ministry.***
“On July 17 the commanding officer of 156th Anti-Aircraft Regiment was instructed to conduct a training exercise of ground troops stationed near Donetsk, which involved deploying the troops, and carrying out a routine tracking and destroying of targets with the Buk-M1 missile,” the source said.
The source added that the actual launch of the missiles was not intended.
Two Sukhoi Su-25 combat aircraft participated in the exercise. It is likely that at some point, the routes of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 and a Su-25 jet overlapped.
Despite flying at different levels, they became a single dot on the radar of the missile system. Of the two, the system automatically chose a larger target.
The reasons for the actual missile launch - if indeed it did occur - are under investigation. Practical exercises with the Buk missiles have been banned since 2001, when a Russian Tu-154 passenger airplane en route from Novosibirsk to Tel Aviv was shot down by the Ukrainian military.
Impartial investigation
At the moment, an international team of 24 experts is investigating the plane crash. The B777-200 aircraft had a clean maintenance record and was last checked on July 11 at Malaysia Airlines’ hangar at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Russia insists on an impartial, independent and open international investigation under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) into the crash of MH17.
“It is necessary to ensure an absolutely impartial, independent and open international investigation under the auspices of the ICAO,” said Andrei Kelin, Russia's Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), quoted on Russia's Foreign Ministry website on Friday.
“Total transparency should eliminate any possibility of fraud and falsification,” he said.“Unfortunately we have reasons to be concerned.”
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed on July 17 near the city of Donetsk in Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
Kiev placed the blame on pro-independence fighters in eastern Ukraine for bringing the plane down, but the rebels insisted they did not have the means to hit an aircraft flying at 32,000 feet.
(RIA Novosti, ITAR TASS, VoR)
MH17: China Defends Russia, Criticizes the West
China’s state media has strongly condemned the Western response to MH17, and largely backed Russia.
By Zachary Keck
July 24, 2014
After an initial degree of hesitancy, China’s state media has come out strongly in favor of Russia regarding the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17.
A number of editorials in Chinese state media in recent days have strongly condemned the Western response to the downing of MH17. The nationalistic Global Times, for instance, featured an editorial on Monday that ostensibly called for full disclosure from Russia, as well as an extensive and fair investigation led by either the United Nations or the International Civil Aviation Organization. Much of the editorial, however, was a scathing critique of Western efforts to implicate Russia in the attack. [...]
Read more here: http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/mh17-china-defends-russia-criticizes-the-west/
Global wildlife decline driving slave labor, organized crime
Date: July 24, 2014
Source: University of California - Berkeley
[snip]
Global decline of wildlife populations is driving increases in violent conflicts, organized crime and child labor around the world, according to a policy paper led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The authors call for biologists to join forces with experts such as economists, political scientists, criminologists, public health officials and international development specialists to collectively tackle a complex challenge.
The paper, to be published Thursday, July 24, in the journal Science, highlights how losses of food and employment from wildlife decline cause increases in human trafficking and other crime, as well as foster political instability.
"This paper is about recognizing wildlife decline as a source of social conflict rather than a symptom," said lead author Justin Brashares, associate professor of ecology and conservation at UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. [[[Aren't both "wildlife decline" and "social conflict" symptoms of population overshoot?]]] "Billions of people rely directly and indirectly on wild sources of meat for income and sustenance, and this resource is declining. It's not surprising that the loss of this critical piece of human livelihoods has huge social consequences. Yet, both conservation and political science have generally overlooked these fundamental connections."
Our earth is not static, and climate change not new
Ignorance, humanitarian, and religious-dogma groups are usually responsible for human overpopulation - and silencing of the debate. It's not helped either by environment groups that air-brush out human growth impacts.
How can the Earth's ecosystems be dismantled, the constitution of the atmosphere be irreversibly altered without expecting climate change? According to NASA, the Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Heat-trapping carbon dioxide affects the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere and is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
Earth has also experienced several major ice ages—at least four in the past 500,000 years. For hundreds of thousands of years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stayed between 200 and 300 parts per million. Today, it's up to nearly 400 parts per million, and the amount is still rising. In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused primarily by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.
Our planet is not a static ball in the solar system, something that will stay in a steady-state condition despite everything humanity throws at it! It has changes naturally, or traumatically, in the past, and can do so again.
Save Ballina's koalas from Extinction
Send a clear message to the environment minister to step in and save Ballina's koalas from extinction!
A couple of months ago about the plan to upgrade the Pacific Highway in NSW, part of which will destroy a critical koala colony in Ballina.
40,000 people petitioned for the highway to be koala-friendly. However, despite this public outcry, and the numbers who objected, it's "business as usual". The NSW government has made the decision to steamroll ahead with the contentious Stage 10 upgrade.
Even our iconic native species are incrementally being removed from their strongholds, by lack of protection in their own country.
Shocking new analysis broadcast on ABC on Friday night revealed that the current proposed Stage 10 development will result in the local koala population becoming extinct within the next 20 to 25 years.
Tell the government to save our koalas.
Send an urgent message to Mr Greg Hunt, the Environment Minister , and the newly appointed Threatened Species Commissioner, Gregory Andrews.
Tell them to act now to prevent this catastrophic local extinction. The fate of this nationally significant koala population rests with these two men.
Please act now. This really is the last chance to save Ballina's koalas. Make sure your voice is heard.
Protect Ballina's Koalas from Extincion
Sign the petition to end deadly prescribed burns in Victoria and the carnage to native animals
Jonathan Moylan, 1yr-8mnth prison commuted 2 yr bond
3.40pm, Friday 25th July, 2014. Supreme Court of NSW, 184 Phillip St, Sydney.
Jonathan Moylan, 26, was today sentenced to 1 year 8 months imprisonment, but will be released immediately on a 2 year good behaviour bond following a hearing at the Supreme Court in Sydney. 150 supporters held a vigil in support of Moylan outside the court.
“The determination of the movement to protect the Maules Creek community, farmland and Traditional Owners is only getting stronger and I’m confident that determination won’t be broken,” said Jonathan Moylan.
“In 30 years time our children will look back on us and we will have to answer to them,” he said.
Rick Laird, farmer from Maules Creek whose family has farmed in the district for over 150 years, travelled to Sydney to support Jonathan Moylan.
"Jono is a young man of great principle and conviction and we are incredibly grateful for the stand he took to support Maules Creek. We remain determined to fight off Whitehaven's coal mine to protect Maules Creek and Leard State Forest," said Rick Laird.
“To most people ANZ is just a bank, but to our community at Maules Creek their loan to Whitehaven Coal threatens to put an end to 150 years of farming in the region."
“We’ve been fighting this mine for years but what Jono did means the world knows what is happening to Maules Creek farms and the Leard State Forest," said Rick Laird.
In January 2013 Jonathan Moylan issued a press release on ANZ letterhead saying the bank had withdrawn its $1.2 billion loan facility from Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Coal Project on environmental and ethical grounds. Whitehaven’s share price temporarily fell before quickly recovering.
Moylan was charged under section 1041E of the Corporations Act, pertaining to the making of false or misleading statements.
FOR COMMENT: Rick Laird, Maules Creek farmer on 0427 056 418
FOR MEDIA ASSISTANCE: Nicola Paris on 0422 990 040, Madeleine Egan on 0423 100 113
IMAGES: High-resolution photographs are available at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/standwithjono/sets/72157645492344138/
BACKGROUND
ANZ provides a $1.2 billion loan facility to Whitehaven Coal, primarily intended to develop the Maules Creek Coal Project. The Maules Creek Coal Project is a new open-cut coal mine being developed in Leard State Forest and adjacent farm land near Maules Creek in north west NSW.
On the day of the hoax, Whitehaven Coal’s (WHC) share price dropped from $3.52 to $3.21 before a trading halt, and bounced back to $3.53 within an hour of trading resuming. Since January 2013, Whitehaven's share price has plummeted in the face of the slumping global coal price, closing at $1.68 yesterday.
Leard State Forest is located between Narrabri and Boggabri, it includes the most extensive and intact stands of the nationally-listed and critically endangered Box-Gum Woodland remaining on the Australian continent. The forest is home to 396 species of plants and animals and includes habitat for 34 threatened species and several endangered ecological communities.
The Maules Creek Coal Project is approved to extract up to 13 million tonnes of coal annually, and is estimated to produce 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The mine is expected to operate for more than 30 years. The coal will be railed from the mine in north west NSW to the port of Newcastle for export. The coal mine project boundary is approximat
Jono Moylan decision - immediate release on $1000 bond
Jonathan Moylan, from Newcastle, received a 20-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to disseminating false information, but Supreme Court Justice David Davies ordered his immediate release on a $1,000 bond.
Read more here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-25/jonathan-moylan-judgement-for-fake-anz-press-release/5624542
Nazism more than a fashion statement - reply to Dennis K
[Editor's note: We should precise that the Odessa Massacre referred to here is the recent event of 2 May 2014, in order to avoid confusion with the Odessa Massacre of 1941. The 2 May 2014 atrocity is reported here
and here:http://scgnews.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened among many other sources.]
Hi Dennis K.
Hope you will appreciate that I have gone to some trouble to respond carefully.
You wrote that "
This article destroys its own credibility by using the word "Nazi" ad infinitum."
Hadn't noticed such excessive use of 'Nazi' in this article, but agree that Daniel Bushell's work is very confronting and generally scares me, so I don't look at it all that often. That said, he is usually right, just too close to the awful truth. For me, the Nazi ideology in the Svoboda political party in Ukraine seems undeniable and fits into the history of Russia vs Nazi affiliations in Ukraine. We will try to get together an 'About Ukraine and the Nazis' page on candobetter.net to deal with this one.
You also write:
"That term is 70 years old. Can people not think of anything new to label political opponents? I mean, the original hippies that used it are in nursing homes now."
An oldie but not a goodie? That is the way I thought it might be at first, as a kind of grotesque attempt to label a nationalist movement in Ukraine. Footage of the Svoboda leader, Oleh Tyahnybok,[1] was kind of persuasive that he really is a Nazi, but it was the participation of Svoboda and the extreme persecution of communists and anti-Kiev protesters at the Odessa Massacre, that convinced me, on top of the special history of Ukraine vis a vis Nazis and the official celebration of the role of a Nazi collaborator ( Stepan Bandera) in the second world war. The extreme cruelty of the Svoboda paramilitary at the Odessa massacre, seemed very Nazi style, and they wore Nazi insignia. They barricaded the doors of a trade union building where anti-government protesters were then set fire. When people jumped out the windows but survived, there was systematic beating of those survivors and, notably, they were ultimately stabbed or strangled to death. Apparently those who made it to hospital all had stab wounds as well as burns and injuries from jumping. [The footage is widely available and there are multiple direct reports. See the film called "Fascism as it is" by Andrew Karulov embedded in the notes below for a statement on this.] Reports also exist about how snipers targeted both sides of the Maidan. These also seemed like hallmarks of fascism, and since the Nazi insignia appears prominently among people in the crowds, and the Svoboda logo seems derived from the Nazi insignia, no matter how vieux jeux this may seem, I do find it credible. Oh, also, attacks on people marching in anti-Nazi war commemoration parades in Ukraine. Some references for these statements in the footnote. [2]
Fashion is one thing and you can have fascism under different names, but the ultimate use for Nazi and like movements is to frighten other citizens into submission. They are doing this very well in Ukraine. (See [2] again)
You also wrote:
"Nazi" is used so often to describe people against global ethnic homogenisation, its no wonder that young people end up adopting Nazi imagery as means of saying "F$%# You" to the system.
Initially you seemed to question whether there really are actual Nazis operating at a significant level in Ukraine (Kiev side). Just above, you seem to concede that young people may indeed be adopting Nazi imagery as a means of revolt against a system that marginalises them. So you seem to be saying that they are putting on a kind of act, but not sincerely being Nazis. However, it is clear that some people wearing Nazi insignia are going through with the whole thing - anti-communist, sadistic, bullying, beating up citizens and politicians, and political murder - where the Odessa massacre is only one example of several to hand.
You say:
Is the tail wagging the dog here? Is the mainstream media and popular repetition of the "Nazi" theme causing young people to take it up in opposition to the globalist ideals of that media?
Well, this is something you and I have touched on before here. That is, that people may feel they have nowhere to go except towards the extreme right in order to find expression of their disagreement with mass immigration taking over their jobs and communities. It is probably true that the globalist media has a role in modeling some of this behaviour. I would suggest that the behaviour is also manipulated to a large degree by power elites (sorry about the cliche)via the globalist media in order to sow unrest in the communities they seek to disorganise, by getting people acting out roles of Nazis to frighten ordinary citizens and attack alternative political organisations, especially communists and socialists.
However, my understanding is that in Ukraine the Nazi narrative (with its historical opposition to communism) has a long-lasting life of its own since WW2 due to oppression under the Soviet regime causing people to embrace the Nazi promise to liberate Ukraine from communism. Even though the Nazis had a documented plan to get rid of the Ukrainians and slavs, many Ukrainians believed them and presumably felt they had little choice. This acknowledges that the Stalinist regime was a terrifying and deadly one. It does not however take the position, for instance, that communism or socialism are any worse than capitalism and, if they embody social rights, I would say they are better. However, I also have a position that anarchism - or local democracy - is better than any overarching political hierarchy. People prefer to retain power in their local communities and delegate upwards, rather than receive policies from distant imposed governments - such as the Victorian State Government - when those governments do not really represent them and do not really permit them any significant say in public life. I prefer the European system of communes - like France's (which is unfortunately changing).
So, again, my understanding is that there is significant actual Nazi activity, however anachronistic that may seem to someone in Australia today.
The globalist capitalist agenda is also to blame by removing social protections and promoting rampant unemployment, unfair wages, criminal powerbrokers in the form of the oligarchs who behave like an ultra-rich mafia - as they also do in the United States, Russia and elsewhere, but here they are promoted unfettered by the United States and NATO.[3]
You wrote:
I would hazard a guess it does, just how people became "satanists" to rebel against Christian moral tightness.
There may as you say be something in that, however my understanding of Satanism is that it is seen as another way to get power over people, just as the Christian religion is. i.e. they are both kinds of political systems that use magical thinking (praying, sacrifices, deities etc). The Christian Church (with christianity as its doctrine or ideology) was the major form of government in the Middle Ages and was one of the forces, along with royalty that battled the French revolutionary forces and Napoleon. Satanism was also derived from 'pagan' or naturalistic religions of animism etc and these religions - like local governments by clans and tribes - were taken over by the Roman empire with its gods and later by the Roman Church (which became the ideological head of the Roman Empire). So pagans were designated as anti-Christ. Where the 'devil' came in I am not sure, but there must have been a lot of opportunities.
You wrote:
Oh, and of course the russian media would say this!
Criticism of the media needs more analysis than this. I find that RT interviews people on both sides, whereas the mainstream anglo (and EU media) does not. There are also numerous alternative sites to get more info from, and people whom one can actually contact. RT gives a lot more detail and variation and documents that you can investigate, whereas the mainstream media in US/Australia gives almost nothing but rumour and does not even acknowledge the other side. The Oz media representation of the recent downing of aircraft has been almost pure fiction, totally illogical and based on no evidence at all and leaving out entirely the role of the Kiev regime. Its political theory seems to be some pop-psychology one about personalities on the world stage. Sorry, but that ignores the geopolitics entirely. In fact, it is my strong impression that the Australian PM was so taken in by his disinformation sources that he actually had absolutely no idea even that there was bombfire going on in East Ukraine all the time, making his suggestion of putting in an international force to safeguard the accident scene completely ridiculous. And that is just one of my criticisms. See my articles for further ones.
NOTES, REFERENCES
[1] Oleh Tyahnybok is the leader of Svoboda. Although criminal proceedings against him for anti-semitism have not yet succeeded, his actions and words embrace Nazi-values of anti-semitism, anti-communism, and violence. A reference to start with is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Tyahnybok#cite_ref-SIEKP81212_2-0":
"In October 1991 Tyahnybok became a member of the Social-National Party of Ukraine. He is characterised as representative of Ukraine's far right. From 1994 until 1998, Tyahnybok served as a member of the Lviv Regional Council. In 1998, Tyahnybok was first elected to the Ukrainian Parliament as a member of Social-National Party of Ukraine; in the parliament he became a member of the People's Movement of Ukraine faction. In 2002, Tyahnybok was reelected to the Ukrainian parliament as a member of Victor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc. In parliament he submitted 36 motions for debate, but the parliament adopted only four of them. In the majority of his motions, he opposed the introduction of the Russian language as the second official state language; proposed recognition of the fighting role of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army during World War II; called for the lustration (regulation of political involvement) of former communist officials, security service officers and undercover agents; and demanded the prohibition of communist ideology. None of these motions was adopted.
On 20 July 2004 Tyahnybok was expelled from the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction after he made a speech in the Carpathian Mountains at the gravesite of a commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In the speech, which was aired on television in the summer of 2004, he made comments such as,
"[You are the ones] that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most"
and
"They were not afraid and we should not be afraid. They took their automatic guns on their necks and went into the woods, and fought against the Muscovites, Germans, Jews and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian state.""
[2] The following film contains footage of violent fascist and nationalist activities with neo-nazi insignica prominent and public. In the film, people are seen repeatedly carrying an image of Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis in WW2 in an effort to achieve Ukrainian independence from Stalin's regime. Roman Shukhevych who was a political assassin and carried out many executions of Poles during WW2 for the Nazis is also celebrated as a hero in this footage. That this ambiguous hero is celebrated widely and publicly in Ukraine gives insight into how ambivalent the Ukraine population may be towards Nazi philosophy. Oleh Tyahnybok is also shown as a public figure in one of these events, around 08.15 minutes. At 9.33 minutes footage of the unbelievably awful Odessa Massacre begins. Note that other massacres of people in public buildings have also occurred in the same style in Ukraine since then, but I cannot document everything here. At 12.02 we see Victoria Nuland (foreign ambassador for United States) and John McCain in company with Oleh Tyahnybok and the acting President of Ukraine, Oleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov, who was also received by the President of the United States, prior to Porischenko being 'elected'.
Below is a less sensational, but with more detailed documentation, film by journalists about fascism in Ukraine today. It documents murders and disappearances, harassment of journalists, and shows some footage from the Odessa Massacre as well as other incidents.
Battleground Ukraine by Professor Andrei Fursov
[3] Promotion of fascists and oligarchs by US/NATO: I'll refer to the above film from 12.02 minutes and note that the US has constantly suppressed criticism of Ukraine or even consideration of its likely role in the bringing down of the Dutch airliner and of its continuous bombing of East Ukraine, its use of Nazis, etc. See the first part of this video compilation:
Agreed. It won't go away without applying scientific logic
But are Humanitarian and Environmental organisations actually the worst enemies of humanity and the environment?
http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3945
Religious-style dogma is no substitute for the facts about the root cause of human rights abuse and the destruction of the global environment.
It's a matter of opinion whether the only reason for trashing the Carbon Tax was denialism. Most people don't dispute that anthropogenic climate change is occurring.
The denial argument suits the mindset of dogmatic people who cannot decipher their own unscientific logic. Most of the proponents of the "believers versus denialists" argument are also denying that population growth management is a primary consideration relevant to emissions management.
Jonathan Moylan returns to Supreme Court for verdict on sentence
What: Jonathan Moylan, 26, will appear before the Supreme Court in Sydney for sentencing tomorrow, Friday 25 July, at 2pm. Supporters will hold a vigil outside court from 1.30pm.
The sentencing this Friday follows a hearing on July 11, at which the judge adjourned sentencing to allow time for deliberation.
In January 2013 Moylan issued a press release on ANZ letterhead saying the bank had withdrawn its $1.2 billion loan facility from Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Coal Project in NSW on environmental and ethical grounds.
Moylan is charged under section 1041E of the Corporations Act, pertaining to the making of false or misleading statements. The maximum penalty is ten years in prison and a $765,000 fine.
When: 2pm, Friday 25 July. Supporters will hold a vigil outside the Supreme Court of NSW from 1.30pm.
Where: Supreme Court of NSW, 184 Phillip St, Sydney.
Media Contact: Rick Laird, Maules Creek farmer, is available for comment. Call Nicola Paris on 0422 990 040 or Madeleine Egan on 0423 100 113 to arrange an interview and for further information.
Rick Laird is a farmer from Maules Creek. His family has been farming in the district for more than 150 years, but the future of their farms is now under threat from Whitehaven’s ANZ-funded Maules Creek coal mine. Rick will travel from Maules Creek to support Jonathan Moylan at court on Friday.
Jonathan Moylan will not be available for comment before sentencing. His availability to comment after sentencing is TBC, subject to the outcome of the sentencing.
BACKGROUND
ANZ provides a $1.2 billion loan facility to Whitehaven Coal, primarily intended to develop the Maules Creek Coal Project. The Maules Creek Coal Project is a new open-cut coal mine being developed in Leard State Forest and adjacent farm land near Maules Creek in north west NSW.
Leard State Forest is located between Narrabri and Boggabri. It includes the most extensive and intact stands of the nationally-listed and critically endangered Box-Gum Woodland remaining on the Australian continent. The forest is home to 396 species of plants and animals and includes habitat for 34 threatened species and several endangered ecological communities.
The Maules Creek Coal Project is approved to extract up to 13 million tonnes of coal annually, and estimated to produce 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The mine is expected to operate for more than 30 years. The coal will be railed from the mine in north west NSW to the port of Newcastle for export. The coal mine project boundary is approximately 5 kilometres from the Maules Creek township.
Maules Creek farmer Rick Laird speaking in support of Jonathan Moylan on July 11 told media: “ANZ’s loan means Whitehaven Coal can turn Maules Creek from a farming village into an open-cut pit. We rely on groundwater to water our livestock and for our household water supply, and the Whitehaven Coal mine will lower our water table by 5-10 metres. We’ve been fighting this mine for years, and the stand that Jono took means that people now know what’s happening at Maules Creek. Jono stood with us, and now we’re here to stand with Jono.”
On the day of the release Whitehaven Coal’s share price went from $3.52 to $3.21 before a trading halt, recovering to $3.53 within an hour of trade resuming. Whitehaven's share price has since plummeted due to slumping coal prices, closing at $1.68 yesterday.
Overseas student complaint/support/contempt?
This comment was initially posted, possibly erroneously, as a comment in response to the article MH17 Airline tragedy and Abbott's antics: Who needs evidence when you've got 'conviction'? (23/7/14) by Sheila Newman. The spelling and grammatical errors in the included letter have not been corrected. - Ed
Letter re Australia First Party campaign to retain Australian education for Aussies. www.australiafirstparty.net
[Writer name deleted for privacy]
Hi
I am an oversea student.
Obviously I have no offence towards you. You can still fight for our absence, call us thieves or whatever and we just prepare for our new semester or get a new job. That's completely legal and we are all comfortable, aren't we?
But I want to remind you that don't always blame on Asian culture. I always long for getting a table in Chinatown without lining up with Australians. I always hope my Australian classmates to stop copying my homework.1 I always want Australian coffee shops could take the place of bubble cups. However, the reality shows most of Australians adapt to Asian culture. There is nothing about the culture but the ppl. If Australian don't like it, the culture would die automatically. If you want to blame on the culture, please blame on those Australians who like it first.
I still hope you can succeed in getting all oversea students away from Australia. I could foresee that Myki2 would be 7 dollars per touch on and the medical entry fee would be 16 dollars. You know the government better than me, right?
Footnote[s]
1. ↑ This is the first time I have heard an implied allegation that native Australian students routinely cheat. Whilst it cannot be assumed that any group of students is either wholly dishonest or wholly virtuous, I have heard much anecdotal evidence that there is more cheating amongst foreign students than amongst native born students. - Ed
2. ↑ Myki cards are used to store credit with which to pay fares on buses, trams and trains in Victoria.
This Miscellaneous comments page has been closed. Please add further comments to the page Miscellaneous comments from 24 July 2014. - Ed
Not the first time commercial airline shot down
Before pointing the finger and blaming anyone, we should keep an open mind. Leaked audio clips reveal the moment Russian rebels realise they have shot down flight MH17, Ukrainian intelligence agencies claim rebel commander Igor Strelkov boasted his forces had shot down a Ukrainian air force Antonov-26. He tweeted: “We just hit down An-26. We warned you… do not fly in ‘our sky’.
Another intercepted phone conversation between two militants known as "Major" and "Grek" was made just after they apparently inspected the wreck. Major is recorded as saying: “It’s 100% a civilian aircraft.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mh17-crash-hear-moment-russian-3...
The US government believes that pro-Russian separatists most likely shot down a Malaysia Airlines jet "by mistake," not realising it was a civilian passenger flight, US intelligence officials said.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/rebels-likely-downed-mh17-by-mistake-say-us-...
If MH17 was shot down by a missile, as US intelligence officials have claimed, it will not be the first time a passenger jet has been the victim of military error. Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 came down over the Black Sea on its way from Israel to Siberia in 2001.
The USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser, was in the Persian Gulf in 1988 to help keep the key oil shipping lane open and to monitor the war between Iran and Iraq. According to the U.S. government, a helicopter from the Vincennes came under warning fire from Iranian speedboats. Instead of being an F 14 fighter plane, it was actually a civilian Iran Air Airbus A300, flying over Iran's territorial waters on its regular route from Tehran to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The Vincennes fired a surface-to-air missile that destroyed the plane, killing all 290 onboard. Under a 1996 agreement at the International Court of Justice, the U.S. agreed to pay Iran $61.8 million
it’s rare for a civilian airliner to be shot down from the air even though it’s not unheard of. With the number of conflicts growing globally, and airspace of Europe being crowded out by growing international airtravel, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ensure that they are safe. The innocence of the world has gone, and the distinction between military, civilian and commercial is not so easily discerned.
It leaves little comfort for the victims, and those grieving their losses.
This article destroys its own credibility
This article destroys its own credibility by using the word "Nazi" ad infinitum.
That term is 70 years old. Can people not think of anything new to label political opponents? I mean, the original hippies that used it are in nursing homes now.
"Nazi" is used so often to describe people against global ethnic homogenisation, its no wonder that young people end up adopting Nazi imagery as means of saying "F$%# You" to the system.
Is the tail wagging the dog here? Is the mainstream media and popular repetition of the "Nazi" theme causing young people to take it up in opposition to the globalist ideals of that media?
I would hazard a guess it does, just how people became "satanists" to rebel against Christian moral tightness.
Oh, and of course the russian media would say this!
Who needs evidence when you've got conviction?
Dear Mike P.
To accuse me of prejudice for failing to convict without evidence puts you in company with Mr Abbott, who is also very gung-ho based on no evidence at all! Let's see how it pans out. There is more to my article than you have criticised.
Hmm, that just gave me an idea for a title: http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3956
Downed Plane
Editorial comment: MikeP clearly has either not read the article or, if he has, has chosen not to respond to the arguments and evidence presented in this article. Whatever may be the case, nothing has been added to the discussion. Those who wish to know the truth and find out who is trying to conduct a proper investigation into the MH17 tragedy and who is trying to prevent a proper investigation and protect the guilty will find it on Global Research, VoltaireNet, Paul Craig Roberts, Land Destroyer and RT and here, on Candobetter. - Ed
What an incredible article that is breath taking in how nonsensical you can be when you are blinded by partisanship.
Who do you think the pro Russian movement in Ukraine is funded by which countries weapons do they use? They are well organised and trained. They may well have a perfectly good cause as most of East Ukraine is ethnically Russian and they have been part of Russia for most of the. last six centuries but Russia pulls the strings and runs the strategies. They fired at what they believed was a Ukrainian army Transport with a very sophisticated major army weapon that could knock a plane out of the sky at 30,000 feet That is blindingly obvious. That is was a stupid mistake is blindingly obvious and brought down worldwide opprobrium on Putin is axiomatic they stuffed up pure and simple. It's a public relations disaster for Putin to be sure so like all such disasters you spin to cover up your miss deeds. Blaming anyone but the obvious idiots who did it is madness. But then I suspect you might recognise that little problem.
Matthew Guy: "We're having more babies"
Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy suggests that 720,000 extra people will live within Melbourne’s suburban boundaries by 2031. A report on regional growth in Victoria means that until 2051 more people moving out of Melbourne to towns like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo.
The report also showed the tide had turned on falling fertility rates. Mr. Guy said:
“Since the early 1970s, our fertility rate has been falling and the number of children born every year has remained virtually unchanged. But now that’s turned around, with twice as many babies expected to be born in 2050 than in 2000.”
This massive growth is because we are having "more babies"! It's a deliberate obfuscation of the truth! Victoria’s TFR in 2007 was 1.889, and in 2012 it was 1.891. This is a minute difference, a slight increase in the overall number of births per woman, on a State level. We are importing more people with higher fertility levels, but overwhelmingly our population growth is due to net overseas migration!
Predictably, the report comes from a property developers' website, with our population growth a cause of celebration! It keeps the housing bubble inflated. This means more areas in outer Melbourne, regional towns and semi-urban Mount Macedon must be "developed"! It's an oxymoron.
http://propertyupdate.com.au/melbournes-population-grow-8-million-2/
Korean airliner KAL 007 shot down by USSR in 1983
The Russian army is not unified and controlled as well as in other developed countries. Maybe the separatists bribed the army to get the weapons, or hijacked it. It needs investigation. Korean Air Lines flight 007 from New York to Seoul (after refueling in Alaska) flew into Russian airspace due to a navigational error and was shot down by Soviet fighter jets. All 269 passengers and crew, which included 63 Americans, were killed. There's an eerie parallel.
Editorial comment: There is much printed and on-line material to suggest that the KAL 007 incident was a staged provocation by the United States. One example is KAL 007 on what-when-how. It cites works on KAL007 including KAL 007-The Cover Up (1987), by David Pearson, which I own and much of which I have read. One outcome of the deaths of 269 people aboard KAL 007 was that public opposition to the deployment in Europe of Cruise and Pershing missiles directed against the USSR was overcome. - Ed
No gain for Russia in airline incident - article response
The Daily Mail article cited above shows a covered truck and gives a very vague story.
Even more importantly, it doesn't supply a motive.
What gain could Russia have in shooting down an airline?
There is no obvious motive (that I can see) and plenty of reasons not to. I've written an article here "Motive lacking in Russia blame for airline attack"in response to the Daily Mail allegations. I welcome ongoing discussion of the points I make at the base of that article, or here.
What weapon was used to shoot down the MH 17?
Seeing as the Malaysian Air 777 was transiting from west to east, high over the border between the two rivals, may have classified the aircraft as a Ukrainian military aircraft? A friendly fire incident was quite possible if airliners continued to use routes over the troubled region.
If rebel forces were either given these surface to air missile systems from Russia, or one similar such as the more modern SA-11/17 "Buk" — it is fairly clear Russia has backed these forces — or at least initially, with material and training, then it would also implicate Russia in this tragic event.
it is quite possible that Russia's air defense apparatus along the border with Ukraine was on high-alert as it may have already shot down two Ukrainian aircraft. Ukrainian officials believe Russian separatists fired a ground-to-air BUK missile that downed the plane, but in an interview with TIME, separatists leaders claimed they had nothing to do with the incident.
What was a passenger plane doing anywhere near the area? As it turns out, aviation authorities had addressed the Ukraine situation and taken precautions. They just didn’t think non-combatant planes flying at 33,000 feet were at risk. Flight restrictions often apply only under certain altitudes. Planes are most exposed to ground-level threats when they’re taking off and landing—that’s when they’re within range of small arms and shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles.
Malaysia Airlines had flown this route repeatedly over the past several weeks without incident, as had other carriers.
The SA-11 "Buk" is designed to engage military aircraft and missiles at altitudes of up to 72,000ft. It is in service with the Russian and Ukrainian armed forces, as well as other forces around the world.
Reports from Ukraine suggested a BUK had been smuggled in the dead of night into Russia soon after the plane was blasted out of the sky on Thursday last week.
It came after images were released of a launcher rumbling through Torez, held by pro-Russian separatists, just two hours before the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2699170/Is-BUK-missile-launcher-shot-MH17-smuggled-Russia-Motorist-captures-military-truck-carrying-BUK-M1-border-town.html#ixzz383f42eoF
Tragic loss of MH17
Malaysia is reeling from the second tragedy to hit its national airline in less than five months. Russia Today cites a report from the Interfax News Agency quoting unnamed sources who claim the doomed flight had a similar path as a plane carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin.0
Some relatives of those on board the MH370 accused the airline of engaging in a cover-up, and there have been persistent conspiracy theories over the fate of the plane, including that it might have been shot down.
In an incident still shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories, a Korean Airlines flight 007, flying from Alaska to Seoul in South Korea, was shot down by a Russian fighter on September 1 1983. The aircraft came down at sea, killing all 269 people on board. Eighteen years ago today, TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean near on July 17, 1996. There were no survivors. Government investigators concluded the plane was brought down not by a missile but by a spark in one of the plane’s fuel tanks. Aircraft wreckage that was inconsistent with a centre fuel tank explosion. In addition, they allege a conspiracy by the NTSB and FBI to destroy and cover-up evidence.
While the Crimea was regarded as too dangerous to fly over because of military aircraft movements, eastern Ukraine was not deemed off-limits even though two Ukrainian military aircraft were shot down this week.
Flight MH17, a Boeing 777, first flew on 7-17-97 and crashed 17 years later, on 7-17-14. There is also the mystery of Malaysia Airline Flight 653, which crashed on Dec. 4, 1977, after a reported hijacking, the details of which are still unknown.
The tragedy of modern airline travel is that they are easy targets for mass killings, political cover-ups, and conspiracy theories. Could this mean the end of safe international air travel?
Animal cruelty
What a great idea and the $1million promised by opposition leader Daniel Andrews "if he wins the election" for a "flying squad for the RSPCA" (what baloney), well he can give that to local government to help them eh?
Fairy wren
Flitting, darting,
flashing blue green tail
Brushing, hopping , stares with beady eye
Bright eye like pin head sees me stopped on asphalt path
Bird on little patch of bush is on display
She makes the best of this mean reserve,
Surrounded by the constant roar
of, eager homeward bound traffic
Little wren, it could be worse,
At least this meagre noisy space
is officially
yours
Unemployment surges correlate directly with immigration surges
There has been a direct statistical correlation between surges in immigration and surges in unemployment. In 2010 and 2013 the surges in unemployment were roughly 25% of the step changes in population in the preceding two years. The stereotypical family of four with one wage earner fits in with this.
Over the last decade the compound annual rate of growth in homelessness has been 3.2%. This rate is growing faster than population growth (1.5% per annum for the last decade) and faster than unemployment growth (which has been roughly 2.3% per annum for the last decade).
It seems pretty clear that population growth is potentially a root cause of the extreme and unsustainable growth in both unemployment and homelessness.
So why doesn't the government or the ABC expose this correlation and use due diligence to investigate?
Markets are subject to peoples wishes, but not "Free Markets"
When people talk about "Free Markets", they are talking about a dogma.
They say nothing should impinge upon the markets, not even the market itself!
Consider a democratic society (or any society which has some form of governance for the benefit of the people) which regulates the market to ensure that excesses don't hurt the society. According to the dogmatists, you shouldn't intervene or regulate, at all. Not even if those who comprise the market want to use their systems of government to restrain excess or prevent abuse. But surely, if the people who partake choose particular restrictions (such as trade barriers) for their benefit, that is the market's wishes?
This is where the dogmatism comes in. The dogma says that any intervention is bad, and government intervention is bad, so this is taken as an absolute. As a result, if the people who participate in the economic market want a particular regulation (such as lowering skilled migration), it is, due to their dogma, redefined as not being part of the market at work, and therefore ignored and vilified. As a result, peoples ownership over their own systems is denied.
If the people have no choice as to certain market actions which affect them, how can the market be claimed to be free and representing the aggregate will of the people?
I do believe a market system is the best one (I consider this question settled), though don't assume this means individualism. The "economic unit" may be the family or tribe (ie, communalism and shared property with the tribe, but trade with other tribes).
I'm not sure whether Abbott, Hockey and all the other dregs of humanity which calls itself the Liberal Party operate according to an ideology, or naked self interest for their plutocratic mates. I suspect a bit of both, but probably more the latter. I think what is happening is our standard of living, and social progression is being liquidated on the market for cash for a few to pocket. Hockey's comments about the end of the age of entitlement is just to ensure people accept this, as people don't realise their way of life is being sold, or are too blindsided with they money they've made selling our way of life (through high property prices) to bother weighing things up.
Poverty and poaching
The ideal of neoliberalism is to destroy all barriers to markets, and commerce, and privatise resources. It means free markets to extract profits. Its' about predation on third world countries, under the smoke-screen of "helping" them to reduce poverty.
The neoliberal experiment has failed to combat extreme poverty, has exacerbated global inequality, and is hampering international aid and development efforts. These policies discourage government intervention into economic, financial and even social affairs. Thatcher-led governments in Britain brought immense damage to the social and economic fabric of the country to profit her rich backers. For Thatcherites unless someone is incapacitated (for instance, by poor-health, by disability or simply by their age), long-term, structural deprivation can only be the consequence of hindrances to the operation of the market —state-imposed regulation that can and should be swept away.
Unrestrained free markets destroy the middle class, push working people down the economic ladder and concentrate wealth at the top.
In a speech in London in April 2012, Australia’s future treasurer Joe Hockey boldly proclaimed “the end of the age of entitlement”, and foreshadowed some of the tough measures the Coalition has since taken to reduce government spending. If you are poor, you have to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and aspire to middle-class consumption. If you cannot muster that, you are lazy, stupid, Godless and generally undeserving.
The irony now is that we poach professionals and the skilled from third world countries, for our "skills shortage" when government are reluctant to spend money on education and universities.
What links do unions have with Socialist groups?
I have observed unions opposing things like the 457 Visa worker program, but I have also noted that the same unions are still beholden to appropriating misinformation from the radical left.
The CFMEU in Brisbane attacked Australia First actvists in Brisbane, due to the incorrect belief that AF supported Campbell Newmans laws on associations, attacked demonstrators at the behest of the far left who gave them this information(I believe Andy Slackbastard?). Many CFMEU members did not support this action and I'm reasonably confident that this action was not representative of the union, but it still happened, which is odd. Why does an organisation which represents working people have such ties?
But I've heard far left radicals in the past tell me about how they can get, or have gotten, the unions to do "dirty work" against their political enemies. While the comment was about the MUA, there do appear to be ties between the upper echelons of the union movement and internationalists, and one has to look closely at whats actually going on.
Union members need to take a closer look at their leadership.
Petition: Save Byron Bay Koalas from Housing Development!
target: NSW Planning Minister Pru Goward
signatures: 12,108
In Byron Bay, NSW, developers want to construct a sprawling housing and industrial project that would wipe out koala habitats and potentially poison local marine wildlife. So why is the New South Wales planning department considering approving the endeavour?
Byron Bay is a sweet, sleepy seaside town with gorgeous beaches and unique wildlife populations. Every weekend, backpackers and families drive into the area to walk along the sandy streets and admire the pristine views. A massive housing development, which would increase Byron's population by a full third, could ruin the village's green-conscious character forever.
Plus, the planned project cuts straight through the habitat of a population of around 240 koalas, all of whom would be put in grave danger by the construction and increased traffic. And given that the buildings will be constructed on wetlands containing soil elements that can become toxic when exposed, the water trickling from there into the sea could be lethal to fish and other marine wildlife.
Byron Bay's mayor thinks the development would be a "monstrous addition." Its residents are terrified that their home will be forever destroyed. NSW officials must listen to the state's people rather than big companies' pocketbooks.
Tell NSW planning minister Pru Goward to stop the West Byron development and save one of the jewels of the coast!
Petition: Save Byron Bay Koalas from Housing developement
Cultural Celebration
Australia First Party
NATIONAL WATTLE DAY
1st September
1st September, was the date chosen by our earlier generations to be an occasion "primarily to inspire and stimulate an Australian national sentiment". It was felt this could be accomplished by embracing such sentiment in a native flower, and uniting as a people on the day to do it honour.
The Wattle had been selected as the most suitable of our native flora because of its accessibility, and occurring throughout the length and breadth of our continent.
In addition, it was desired that the Wattle Blossom, as the Australian National Flower, should be worn, and its cultivation and display encouraged.
The call was made to "all citizens to foster, protect and cherish the Wattle; for a sacred charge to every Australian to plant it in all parks, reserves, and pleasure grounds and also private gardens, that it might become a source of pilgrimage in blossom time. Also to rouse the young people's sense of chivalry, and make the Wattle synonymous with Australia's honour."
Wattle Day was first celebrated in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in 1910, promoted by the citizens who had formed the Wattle Day League.
The Sydney Morning Herald editorial about the Day stated "To the Native Australian the wattle stands for home, country, kindred, sunshine and love - every instinct that the heart deeply enshrines".
The Wattle Day League was truly a patriotic society, in the vein of the Australian Natives Association, and promoted "Australia First" not only in our national values, but in a sense directly linked to the preservation and appreciation of the uniqueness of the flora of our land.
This attitude for patriotic sentiment included an "Order of the Wattle Blossom" award for contribution to our Australian society, and for the day to give recognition to Australian manufacturers and Australian productions.
The theme suggested from the Golden Wattle was a representation:- "the golden fleece - the wool; the golden green - the wheat; the golden sunshine - the golden hearts of the Australian people".
In addition, there was a call for the three cheers of hip hip hooray, of Danish/Polish origin, to be replaced by an Australian cry of three COO-EE'S, our then well known bush call.
Sadly, this developing folkloric celebration was later submerged by "Imperial and Empire" type politicians, who lacked interest in Australian sentiment in practical terms, and the day has largely passed into memory.
Australia since WWII has seen further decline of our Aussie cultural values due to “Americana” and crass consumerism influences accompanying the extensive buy out of our natural and productive wealth by American/multinational corporations monopolising for their Globalist market.
In this present era, Australia hating multiculturalists’ programmes, designed to inflict a culturally deficient, low grade multiracial society, of no common heritage or real values, are being used to assail our Aussie culture and to break down the community bond that makes an Australian - that being European derived and of our Native Soil. The Asian Graveyard Century is their goal!
History shows that no nation can endure the destruction of its identity and culture, as is occurring via the plagues of Third World peoples and cultures now being dumped into Australia by Globalisers, and their paid politicians.
Regime change is now necessary for our Australia to survive!
In Wattle Day, Aussies have the great legacy of an inheritance which is uniquely Australian. It flies in the face of multicultists and must be reclaimed as an essence of our Australian culture.
Australia First Party calls on all fairdinkum Australians to join with our Australian Peoples Movement in ensuring a High Culture for our people, and where the spirit of Wattle Day is enshrined.
Celebrate National Wattle Day as an expression of our Aussie heritage; of environmental awareness/ecological sustainability; genuine patriotism and sentiment in support of a modern independent nation, with its own strategic and self-sufficient industry base where wealth is created, owned and shared by Australians.
TO PARTICIPATE:- Wear a sprig of Wattle; plant a Wattle shrub in your garden; rub hands on the bark of a Wattle tree, and reflect on the unique eco-diversity of our Southern Land; read some verse of The Banjo or Henry Lawson; play a few Larrikins songs; dwell on our cultural heritage with thanks to our earlier generations. And support our Australian Peoples Movement.
The Australia First Party is committed to the advancement of Australia's traditional culture and identity, founded on economic, political and cultural independence. If you don’t fight - you lose!
But now that we have made the land And we must sing a rebel song
A garden full of promise, And join in rebel chorus.
Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
And come to take it from us. O' those that they would throttle;
So we must fly a rebel flag, They needn't say the fault is ours,
As others did before us If blood should stain the wattle!
Henry Lawson
Australia First Party
www.australiafirstparty.net. email: ausfirst [ AT ] hotmail.com
National Contact Line 02 85870014
AUSTRALIA FIRST PARTY - RECLAIMING AUSTRALIA FOR AUSTRALIANS
Is the message that globalisation isn' t sustainable?
Great thoughts. Is the fundamental truth here that globalisation is inherently unsustainable? Just like the spreading of seeds and fungi from one ecosystem to another would destroy all ecosystems by creating a mishmash dominated by weeds? Isn't the concept of every person on earth having access to an equal share of global GDP just an economic illusion that delivers nothing to everyone?
MUA right to oppose cheap foreign crews in Australian waters
Michael S.'s confused and self-contradictory contribution seems to propose that the MUA adopt a form of unconditional internationalism which may have been appropriate in Europe in the early 20th Century:
"... The MUA seems intent on depriving its foreign comrades of work. ..."
... but would be suicidal for the MUA to adopt in the race-to-the-bottom globalised world economy of 2014. Michael S. continues:
Also these foreign workers don't necessarily qualify for residence in Australia based on their temporary work in Australian waters; so they don't necessarily contribute to the permanent glut caused by mass migration of wealthy opportunists into Australia.
What point Michael S. is trying to make here escapes me. Australian seamen should hang their hopes on foreign crews, who have taken their jobs, "not necessarily" being given permanent residence in Australia?
The post continues on a confusing meander. Michael then complains that "the MUA benefits from imposing the requirement to break up [foreign] crews when they enter Australian waters and imposing its own construction crew on the vessels' management." Michael objects to how this requirement "exposes foreign contractors to unpredictable cost and schedule risk in Australia."
Michael claims that "The offshore industry generally has high safety standards." Then, contrary to that claim, he states, "Displacing foreign crews with Australian crews does not necessarily improve safety." ?
Michael then wanders off on a tangent into the debate about global poverty, refugees and the boat people. Then he asks rhetorically:
Does this petition misleadingly depict MUA members as having their human rights violated as if they are "starving refugees"?
No, Michael, the petition doesn't attempt to liken MUA members to starving refugees. Should we wait until the working conditions of Australian workers, including the waterfront workforce and seamen, have been reduced to Third World conditions (as is happening in the United States) before we deem them worthy of support?
Michael then argues:
The real issue here is not the crew on foreign contractor vessels that temporarily enter Australia; it is the mass migration of relatively wealthy opportunists who have a net negative impact on Australia's economy ...
Why can't you see that these two issues are, in fact, part and parcel of the ruling elite's attempt to destroy the living standards of all Australians who now enjoy decent living standards, whether they are middle class professionals or workers, such as members of the MUA?
Michael continues:
Foreign contractor vessels should arguably be allowed to choose their own crews. Imagine if all foreign contractors boycotted Australia because of this MUA restriction. Necessity would then defend foreign contractor rights to make their own hiring decisions without the interference of the MUA. Without these foreign construction vessels Australia's offshore industry would be severely disabled. Many believe that it is currently being disabled by the MUA.
Foreign shipping companies would (arguably(?)) be justified in boycotting Australia if the MUA were not to allow shipping bosses to choose the cheapest and most servile crews to work in Australian waters?
Claims Ukraine article "biased and incorrect"
Subject was: "Biased and Incorrect".
This article is biased and incorrect. The main picture used for this article is cropped and actually contains a third person which is wearing a hooded sweater that says "I am Russian" in Russian ...
Editorial comment: Perhaps you could show us where the original uncropped image is? I am not aware of any evidence of pro-Russians or Russian government agents working alongside Nazis, like those shown in the above picture, against the government of then President Viktor Yanukovych. If there were any so openly pro-Russian anti-government protesters, as you claim, then surely there would be abundant film and photographic evidence? - Ed
The Offshore Sector in Australia is unique because of the MUA
This petition doesn't explain that "workers in every other country" are generally not prevented from working on their "own" offshore construction vessels by another country's unions. The MUA seems intent on depriving its foreign comrades of work in this internationally mobile offshore working environment. There are many types of shipping in Australian waters. These include domestic shipping, international shipping, cruise ships and offshore construction ships hired to perform work related to construction, drilling and other maintenance of Australian offshore oil and gas fields on an ad hoc basis. This petition is dealing with the latter.
Foreign workers who might normally form an integral part of an offshore construction ship's working team anywhere else except Australia don't necessarily qualify for residence in Australia based on their temporary work in Australian waters; so they don't necessarily contribute to the permanent glut caused by mass migration of relatively wealthy people (by world standards) into Australia. Over 80% of Australia's migrant intake is NOT "starving refugees".
Foreign construction vessels typically comprise marine crew and construction crew (riggers, fitters, welders, etc). The MUA benefits from imposing the requirement to break up these crews when they enter Australian waters by imposing its own construction crews on the vessels' management. This practice can expose foreign construction vessels to unpredictable cost and schedule risk in Australia. The offshore industry generally has high safety standards. Displacing foreign crews with Australian crews does not necessarily improve safety. It could do the opposite if the Australian crews need to go through a learning curve that the displaced crews have already completed.
Saying "Abbott has used secrecy, force and deception to stop starving refugees desperate to come to Australia for a better life but has opened the door for employers to fly in foreign workers to take our jobs." is arguably misleading.
Does this petition seek to depict MUA members as having their human rights violated as if they are "starving refugees"?
The real issue here is not the small number of construction crew on foreign construction vessels that temporarily enter Australia; it is the mass migration of relatively wealthy opportunists who have a net negative impact on Australia's economy, thereby limiting the philanthropic foreign aid that Australia can provide to the desperately poor who do not receive sufficient help in their homelands. Many of those desperately poor are dying from preventable disease and malnutrition/starvation.
Foreign construction vessels entering Australia to perform essential services may be an exception that should reasonably be allowed to choose their own crews on safety grounds alone.
Imagine a situation where a foreign surgeon visits Australia to perform an operation that no Australian can perform. He wants to bring his anaesthetist with him, but because the operation is being performed on an offshore construction ship only anaesthetists who are MUA members are allowed to perform the work. So the surgeon has to work with someone he has not personally chosen for the work.
Imagine if all foreign construction vessels boycotted Australia because of this MUA restriction. Necessity would then defend foreign construction vessel rights to make their own hiring decisions without the interference of the MUA. Without the ability of these foreign construction vessels to enter and leave Australia when required, Australia's offshore industry would be severely disabled. Many believe that it is currently being disabled by the MUA.
Make Australia a generic, globalised landscape
Australia is one of the few mega-diverse nations in the world, teaming with endemic wildlife. This gives us a rich diversity, the result of long periods of evolution. The arid interior occupies approximately 70 per cent of the continent, with tropical monsoon areas to the north and a Mediterranean and temperate climate to the south. It's been more than 20 million years following the break-up of the ancient Gondwanan landmass, a period that saw extensive evolutionary divergence of its plants, animals and microorganisms.
Australian species are adapted to poor soils, are tolerant of extreme conditions and can be easily propagated and regenerated which makes them highly valued worldwide. It is estimated that 40 per cent of tropical plantations in the world are of Australian species.
Clearing the land of vegetation and wildlife, through prescribed, or deliberate burning, will create a landscape ripe for farmers, for short term profits, and more opportunities for housing and industries. There will be no more accountability for the environment, such as the Environmental Impact assessments, the EBPC Act, Ramsar or any other hindrances to "progress". It's the natural conclusion to a free market economy, where businesses determine political policies, and they're allowed a free rein to dismantle our country as a generic and barren landscape suitable only for industries, grazing, mining, logging, hunting and other destructive economic activities. There will be no accountability to wildlife, or any other hindrances.
Humanity remains indebted to Red Army
Captain Obvious wrote:
The Internet allows every man and woman free access to information. The truth is out there for anyone who wants it.
So, on which Internet pages can your own claims can be verified?
Captain Obvious wrote:
They fed [the soldiers of the Red Army] lies, disinformation, and propaganda. They did their best to invoke the inner sadist in every soldier and let them loose on the "fascist invaders".
The Nazi German invaders and their Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian allies were not fascist invaders? Are you saying that they were liberating the Soviet Union from communist tyranny?
13,684,692 Soviet civilians died as a result of the Nazi invasion in addition to 8.7 million military dead according to one estimate. That is a total of 22,400,000 who died as a result of the Nazi invasion. Add to that:
| Country | Total dead (estimates) |
| Poland | 5.62 million - 5.82 million |
| Yugoslavia | 1.03 million - 1.7 million |
| Greece | 0.32 million - 0.81 million |
... killed by the Nazis and their allies.
Between 6 million Jews and between 130,565 and 285,650 Romanies perished in the Nazi death camps. (Some of these deaths are included in the figures above.) Hitler planned to exterminate 25 million inhabitants of Eastern Europe and Russia in order to create "lebensraum" on which German ubermenschen were to settle and breed.
No-one has attempted to deny the political repression carried out by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, nor excuse the brutality of some Red Army soldiers towards the people of Germany and other Eastern European countries, but how anyone can claim that instances of rape by brutalised soldiers, who had just gone through such a horrific ordeal and had seen so many of their own people perish, is worse than the war crimes and attempted genocide by the Third Reich is beyond me.
Coastal Australians will be climate refugees
Thanks for this, Post Growth Era. And, if sea-level rises as some predict, since most of us live on the coasts, where most food is also produced, and most infrastructure is built and more being developed, we will become climate refugees in our own country. I note however that scientific promulgations on climate change have still not taken on board valuable work in Russia (and elsewhere) which shows a strong relationship between coastal forest removal and changes in wind patterns leading to reduced rainfall inland and desertification. This is absolutely crucial in my opinion. See also the new article on candobetter.net about Victorian prescribed forest burning policy - our foolish and uneducated politicians are are creating a hell on earth in Victoria. http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3940
Australia's south to become even drier
The US study found that southern Australia is drying out because human activity has changed the concentrations of greenhouse gases and ozone in the atmosphere.
SMH: Australia's south to become even drier
In an accompanying article in Nature Geoscience, Professor David Karoly from the University of Melbourne wrote: "The study is one of the very few instances where regional rainfall changes have been linked to human-caused climate change."
Increasing greenhouse gas levels, depleting ozone layer are shifting rain belts southward. Scientists believe the world is still on track to become more than 2 degrees Celsius warmer - and that potentially means whole ecosystems could be wiped out.
There is the possibility of widespread and permanent damage to coral reef systems, particularly the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo in Western Australia. Some native species could be wiped out. CSIRO chief research scientist Mark Howden said the latest science predicted production could drop by up to 40 per cent under a severe drying scenario. The Murray Darling Basin will change dramatically and will no longer be the food bowl of Australia.
We hear a lot about Australia becoming the food bowl of Asia, but Australian agriculture potential will be restricted by decreasing rainfall in the South.
The dream of Australia being the "food bowl" of Asia is an economic dream not based on reality. She should be building up a fortress of sustainability and self-reliance, and independence - not globalisation.
'Strange' to challenge mainstream media Syria narrative?
The comment below is a continuation of the abovementioned Online Opinion forum discussion on Syria. It was posted on 12 July 2014. Nothing further has, so far, been posted since to that forum. - Ed
As of 30 May 2015, over 20 months later, nothing further has been added. - Ed
At (previous post), Plantagenet wrote, "Your odd posts which appear to be blaming Western and Sunni Governments for the sins of Syria's Shiite regime are more than a little strange. Are you sending this stuff from Damascus?"
Why strange? Because they don't swallow the nonsense put out by our press? The explanations we get for NATO shennanigans are a lot stranger than reality, IMHO.
I'm writing from Melbourne, but the video I linked to was of US observers filmed in a UN forum. I am blaming the US/NATO because I do not see how a civil war unsupported by the majority of Syrians could have gone on so long in the absence of their underwriting, interference and massive propaganda. The Syrian government was not and is not a 'regime', nor is it religious. Syria is a non-sectarian state. Much of its law resembles the French civil code as usually happens to once-French colonies. Religious extremism is coming from the outside, including the awful Gulf States in league with NATO. Syria contains several strong tribes, used to settling differences between them. Their members are of all kinds of religions and non-religions. Outside interference is destroying a functional state. I have a background in petroleum politics so I can see why US/NATO is messing around in this region, trying to isolate both Iran and Russia. My knowledge here alerted me to the extreme superficiality of mainstream press reporting, a la Murdoch, Fairfax, CNN. I did some research by talking to a lot of Syrians, here and elsewhere and using other news sources. Syrian Girl Partisan is a fantastic source you may not have heard of: Two weeks prior to recently concluded elections Syrian Girl argues case for Syria at http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3861 and (articles about) Mother Agnes Mariam: http://candobetter.net/?q=taxonomy/term/4510 .
NOTE: I also tried to find out why Bashar al Assad was supposed to be such a brutal dictator. I have yet to find out why. Do you know why? I promise you I have looked long and hard. Even to Hilary Clinton's reasons for viewing Bashar this way in her diary on her role as US Secretary of State, e.g. here: Review: Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices - the Syria Chapter at http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3906 .
Cart before horse?
As the USA becomes demographically closer to Mexico, we can expect its economy and political structure to also resemble Mexico.
Many say that the Californian economy is in decline, but it isn't. It is merely equilibrating to a new standard, as is the rest of the USA.
But it's not the fault of the Mexicans. Obama has expelled more illegal immigrants than any previous president.
Republicans have been at the forefront of pushing this demographic change. There is essentially little to no operational difference between the two parties (a difference in rhetoric, image and stated philosophy yes, but not in operation).
The USA has been sold off years ago. It is a dying empire, resembling all previous dying empires. Increasing wealth inequality. Hedonism. Rule by a few rent seeking wealthy vested interests. Overstreched imperialism and increasing control and tyranny at home.
Blaming Obama (he is definitely corrupt as well, with a very poor sense of freedom) is passing the buck. The entire plutocratic class should be held responsible. I sense that soon, or even beginning now, will come a time when those who caused this problem will deny they were ever part of it.
Fascism today
NSA Whistleblower Speaks: “The Ultimate Goal is Total Population Control” at http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/07/11/nsa-whistleblower-speaks-the-ult...
Total surveillance is no longer a conspiracy theory. Those who said I was a kook for suggesting that our "freedom loving" government would even consider monitoring everyone are wrong. Edward Snowden showed that the NSA is tracking pretty much everything. They have 8 million American's on a list of people to watch. Thats one in 37. Doesn't sound like many, but think about that. That includes old people, babies, children. Out of any 37 people, how many are politically active, one, two? They're on a list.
I would be very astonished, if surveillance in Australia by our intelligence agencies does not extend far beyond what they are legally allowed to do.
People in the "Allied" countries, have gone to jail, for expressing an opinion. In Britain, you can get arrested for speaking in defence of your nation. "Truth is no defence" there. You can go to jail for saying something TRUE. In Australia, the media are pushing to defend maintaining laws which allow one to be jailed for expressing opinion.
TODAY, people are fleeing the USA to avoid political persecution from revealing illegal government surveillance.
And yet people are worried about some people the media calls "neo-nazis". Leftist "Heroes" are busy fighting against some working class Australia who's not happy with diversity.
Liberals have utterly failed to defend our liberties. They are now lock step with our authoritarian governments, defending their limitations of free speech, excusing surveillance and complicit in allowing big media to push the states agenda. They are attacking the working class for expressing the wrong opinion, and saying they are the fascists and nazis. In the USA, they are too beholden to Obama to criticise him. In Australia, they work to silence opposition to foreign imperialism in Australia!
Don't lose sight of the real problem. We have, today, corporations running our government (the very definition of fascism). We have, today, surveillance even stronger and more pervasive than what Hitler had. We have people reporting thought crimes to the state. Today, our media is nothing more than the propaganda arm of those who own us.
The real threat to our liberty, our way of life and our freedom and national existence are wearing suits and ties. They are in boardrooms, golf courses and at expensive dinners,
The point is not to equate,
Make no mistake. The victory of the Red Army saved humanity from entering new era of death and slavery.
Yet Communism caused much death and slavery.
The point isn't which has the higher body count, to count if one had a few more victims than the other, the point is the "Free World" vs "Totalitarianism" narrative isn't quite so. It's not black and white. It's not "goodies vs baddies". This is what governments give to the population to get them to fight, and to justify wars. It'
Churchill was worried about the "balance of power" in Europe. A growing Nazi Germany was a threat to his 19th century idea of two powers in Europe balancing (England and Germany, this is largely why WWI was fought). He was behind the times, and failed to realise that the Soviet Union was a growing power challenging Europe (America was another power) and that it was no longer about England and Germany.
So Churchill was stuck in the pre-WWI 19th century and failed to realise the emerging geo-political dynamic. He thought had to keep Hitler in check to ensure powers in Europe were balanced. Hitler in some respect had more foresight here, realising that Communism was the future force (he was right, the entire cold was was the West (Europe) vs Communism). He had to solve the problem in Western Europe to free himself up to attack Bolshevism.
Two competing views. One where Germany and England were the two powers, and one where Europe and Bolshevism were the two powers. There were also competing views with regards to international finance, monetary systems, political systems and ideology. These were, of course, instrumental in fermenting war. Hindsight now tells us that indeed, there was coming an existential crisis for Europe which is under way now.
At the Yalta conference, Churchill was upset that Roosevelt and Stalin seemed to consider him a third wheel of sorts. He was old hat. Britains place post WWII was to just be the USA's sidekick, a declining power and dying nation.
Just recently, we were told that our engagement in Iraq was about WMD's. When the WMD's argument was revealed to be a sham, they quickly changed it to being about "Democracy". It seems many have forgotten the shift around 2004-2005 from "WMD" being the reason to "Democracy".
All wars are just extensions of politics, but people don't fight for politics. So, like WMD/ "Operation Iraqi Liberation", like the Gulf War's babies thrown out of incubators, like WWI's "Huns impaling babies on bayenets", like all other wars, simple reasons are given to the masses to get them to die. Mothers don't offer their sons for geopolitical manoeuvring or power politics. You must offer them more solid reasons, reasons like "Freedom" and such. Some reasons are given before the war, some are made up after to justify the action. Sometimes new reasons are invented decades later, to fit the morals of the time. WWII being about "ending racism" came about some time after, when "ending racism" was a fashionable and just cause. I remember being told, in all seriousness, a number of times, that if it weren't for Australian WWI veterans, we would all be speaking Turkish. It's what people do to justify the massive loss of life.
I don't see much of a threat coming from the Ukraine. I doubt Ukranian stormtroopers are going to be marching down Swanston St anytime this century. We should be far more concerned with Chinese imperialism, which IS currently making inroads in eroding our sovereignty and IS buying up our resources and homes.
The risk in Ukraine is not Svoboda or Right Sector, but hawks calling for another military action, another overreaction, because they disapprove of their political ideology, and using the standards reasons of 'freedom' and 'tolerance' as yet another excuse for death.
boat people used as wedge tactic
Greg,
What about the 240,000 invited economic immigrants, the 600,000 or so temporary immigrants (work visas, students)?
It seems that the media just focus on the boat people to polarise Australians on the issue and take their attention away from the nearly one million other immigrants floating around this island.
What say you?
GMO pet food and tumours in cats and dogs
Read this article about rats and tumour and GMO and immediately wondered about the food most people give dogs and cats - crap out of tins and dry food. Went looking for discussion and found this:
GMO Dog Food – Fast “Dog” Food Goes Frankenstein - http://healthydogforlife.com/non-gmo-dog-food-fast-dog-food-goes-frankenstein/#sthash.ZGh5eyaA.dpbs
December 28, 2013 By Dan
Non GMO Dog FoodThe convenience of feeding your dog GMO dog food from cans and packets means your dog eat’s fast food forever. All the while scientists cleverly create genetically modified organisms or GMO’s to make that fast food even faster…
But at what cost?
GMO or non GMO dog food – do you really care?
If you still feed your dog from cans and bags, now is the time to sit up and take note because the clock is ticking and the outcome won’t be good.
Not to sound overly dramatic but it’s critical you read this article and act on it for your dog’s sake because their future health is very much at stake.
GMO’s Killed Off Rats at an Alarming Rate
You see, in the US the corn based ingredients in pet food is closing in on being 75% made of genetically modified Organisms – GMO’s. Now while you are being lulled into a sense of complacency by the media, the truth is as your about to find out is that GM corn is anything but healthy.
Independent studies have repeatedly shown that liver and kidney disease in rats fed GM corm is significant as well as affecting other vital organs. Our dog’s liver is large because it’s the primary cleaning organ of their body. The increasing rates of liver disease I’m contacted about by dog owners today are alarming.
Back to those rats. They not only got sick but got mammary tumors and died early – it was the females that were worst affected.
How GMO’s Affect Your Dog?
If you’re thinking how GMO’s are going to affect your dog’s health, here’s some alarming feedback.
GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) have been known to mutate and have proven unstable which means the control the scientists thought they had over these synthetic manmade organisms is simply nonexistent. They have released into our eco system a bug that cannot be controlled and cannot be put back in the bottle and every day the potential for disaster is rapidly growing.
Independent animal feeding studies have concluded that the unexplained and abnormal inflammations and cell growths in the gastro intestinal tract, liver, kidney, heart, pancreas and brain are as a direct result of feeding GM foods.
The highly toxic insecticidal agent Bacillus thuringingiensis is active in many GM crops and ends up in pet food.
Independent health and nutrition experts are now connecting the rise in human health disorders with GMO organisms. The alarming rise in allergies, skin disorders and GI tract problems from eating GM dog foods combined with synthetic food additives is linked to GM soy and corn products.
The herbicides Glufosinate and glyphosate used in products like Roundup made by Monsanto have now become the market leader in organism eradication. Millions of gallons of this herbicide are used daily around the world by unsuspecting gardeners and farmers alike. These poisons are absorbed into crops and your garden with the aim of killing certain weeds.
WARNING: It may well say on the label that the contents do not affect pets or aquatic life but they do. It also states that the content breaks down easily into the ground, but this again is not true. I have seen with my own eyes the deadly affect this poison has on garden animals and it’s an indiscriminant killer.
Glufosinate and glyphosate AKA Roundup cause terrible damage to sensitive animal organs on the land and in the water. It’s also linked to human birth defects, miscarriages, premature births and lymphoma.
When Even Non GMO Dog Food Brands are Just Not Enough – Go Fresh!
My sincere advice for better dog health:
Do not use toxic herbicides and pesticides in your yard – ever! Your dog is in ever present danger of falling prey to health disorders from the absorption of these toxins.
If you can afford it only feed organic or free range grass fed produce to your pet.
Do not use the most heavily GMO related products that use corn and soy. And while dog food labels are most often misleading due to lack of clear regulation, if you can find pet foods that categorically state they do not use GMO ingredients then at least you can be clear on that point.
I wholeheartedly recommend you feed your dog a fresh raw dog food based diet. Corn and soy products do not belong in your dog’s body and they are the basis of most commercial pet foods. They are not your dog’s natural diet and certainly not biologically appropriate food. If your dog has any allergies, skin disorders, gum and teeth problems, foul gas, gut or diarrhea problems it’s because of the diet you presently feed. Get fresh food into your dogs system and health complaints start to fade away fast.
- See more at: http://healthydogforlife.com/non-gmo-dog-food-fast-dog-food-goes-franken...
Relevant facts about Syria added to Online Opinion discussion
The following was added to the forum discussion about Syria, referred to above. As Paul Night has already advised, the article and nearly all of the posted comments are a waste of most people's time. Some of the factual contributions content could be of interest to scholars of obscure, specialised aspects of Syrian history, but little is relevant to the life and-death struggle that the Syrian people have faced these last three years. An exception is the post which preceded that post. That post also confirms what we have said about Syria on candobetter.
Over 160,000 Syrians have died since March 2011 as a direct consequence of the decision by the rulers of the Western 'democracies' and Israel together with the dictatorial rulers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to launch a war against the people of Syria and its government. Australian governments, including the previous 'Labor' government, and particularly former Foreign Minister Bob Carr, have been shamefully complicit in this grotesque crime against humanity. The Australian 'news' media has also misled the Australian public about Syria since March 2011.
Conclusive proof can be found in the video the Press Conference of 3 Jun 2014 held by the United Nations Syrian ambassador, Bashar Al-Jaafri, following the Syrian elections on 20 June 2014. See http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3888
http://candobetter.net/?q=syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFQd4wBXnk http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrias-press-conference-the-united-nations-doesnt-want-you-to-see/5387795
At this press conference sat five United States citizens who observed the elections. They all confirmed what had already been known to people who were informed about Syria - that the Syrian people overwhelmingly support President Bashar al-Assad and had shown this in the elections of 3 June 2013 which were fair and transparent:
10,319,723 or 88.7% of the 11,634,412 who voted or 73.4% (the figure should be 65.13% - see Footnote 2 above - Ed) of all 15,845,575 Syrians eligible to vote, voted for Bashar al-Assad.
What other political leader, can claim to enjoy anywhere near as much support? Compare this support for President al-Assad with that achieved by President Obama in 2012. compared to 73.4% of all Syrians, both at home and abroad, with the enormous difficulties they faced, a mere 29.7% of eligible voters voted for Barack Obama in December 2012 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012 http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2012G.html).
The fact that the Syrian Arab Army still controls nearly all of Syria after 3 years of conflict is further confirmation that claims that Bashar al-Assad has overwhelming support. What dictator, so hated and corrupt as has beenS claimed by the media has been able to cling to power, without any help from a foreign army of occupation, for so long?
US will become a third world country
A Republican lawmaker said the country will be destroyed if the U.S. continues to allow thousands of immigrants to cross the border illegally. "You cannot bring hundreds of thousands of people in this country without destroying the country,” said Rep Louie Gohmert. “Then there’s no place that people can dream about coming.”
Gohmert continued: “Either we’re going to enforce our law and remain strong economically and otherwise, or we ignore the rule of law and go to being a third world nation.”
There’s a growing recognition that Barack Obama is an incompetent poser, working out of his depth, and his administration is the gang that can’t shoot straight. The “humanitarian crisis” on the southern border is the most persuasive evidence of all that America is adrift in a sea of incompetence, blown about by every ill wind that blows.
Mr. Obama promised in 2008 that he intended to transform America, and he is well on his way. Anyone who looked closely at the man and the influences that shaped who he would become risked being called a racist, a nativist, a bigot and a redneck yahoo.
Making the United States over into a Third World country is exactly what this president is about. He is of the Third World. He spent his formative years in the Third World, and when his mother, obsessed with the Third World, brought him back to America, he sought out the company of those who dreamed of making America over into the world’s largest welfare state
PRUDEN: An immigrant surge en route to a Third World USA
He has no intention of deporting more than a few token illegals, probably the gangbangers who came in with the rest.
Not a single U.S. city is included in the world’s top 10 most livable cities. Only one U.S. airport makes the list of the top 100 in the world. Roads, schools and bridges are falling apart, and trains—none of them high-speed—are running off their tracks. High school students are rated 30th in math, and some 30 countries have longer life expectancy and lower rates of infant mortality. The only things America is number one in these days are the number of incarcerated citizens per capita and adult onset diabetes.
"If the "Communists" were no
"If the "Communists" were no better than the Nazis, how do you explain the great heroism and terrible sacrifice of the Soviet people, including Ukrainians, against the Nazi invaders during the Second World War?"
IGNORANCE. The people living under the Soviet Regime were ignorant to the truth. They were living in a closed society where all media & official channels of communication were tightly controlled by the communists. The Soviet party had complete control over information, they decided what "news" the people heard and what was censored. Anyone who challenged the party line was shot or sent to the gulag. The soldiers of the Red Army were what the party bosses called "useful idiots". They fed them lies, disinformation, and propaganda. They did their best to invoke the inner sadist in every soldier and let them loose on the "fascist invaders". The Red Army committed the most brutal atrocities imaginable on their march to Berlin, they raped any women who had the misfortune of being along their axis of advance. Women aged from 8 to 80 were raped, and not just German women, they raped their own too, even raping the liberated Soviet women imprisoned by the Germans. The Red Army was anything but heroic, they are guilty of the most heinous of atrocities.
Which makes me wonder about your own ignorance.... How are you so woefully misinformed? The internet allows every man and woman free access to information. The truth is out there for anyone who wants it. Why are you repeating laughably false Soviet version of history & Soviet propaganda as if you were still living in the Eastern Bloc?
Boat arrivals a tiny percentage?
I don't thinks nimby.
You are conveniently ignoring the fact that, towards the end of the Rudd/Gillard era some where in the vicinity of 50,000 illegal immigrants arrived by boat.
And all the signs were that this would have continued ballooning out of control.
That represents around 15% of Australia's total immigration intake and a major sovereign risk to Australia.
You CANNOT maintain a peaceful civilised law abiding society with open borders. Just look at much of the middle east and Africa. Those nations have largely open borders and look at the political, social and economic mess that they are in.
How do you explain the heroism of Soviet people against Nazis?
DennisK,
No-one here has attempted to cover up or apologise for the monstrous crimes of Stalin against Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Caucasians, Crimean Tatars, other East Europeans and Germans.
However, to equate Stalin's crimes with those of the Nazi Third Reich is contrary to the evidence.
If the "Communists" were no better than the Nazis, how do you explain the great heroism and terrible sacrifice of the Soviet people, including Ukrainians, against the Nazi invaders during the Second World War?
Make no mistake. The victory of the Red Army saved humanity from entering new era of death and slavery.
Today, in 2014, the same fate awaits humanity if the Nazis are allowed to win in Ukraine.
Online opinion has a really silly Syria article
There is a really silly article about Syria on online opinion here http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16435 The comments are all pretty naive as well.
Judge deliberating; Moylan sentencing deferred
JUDGE DELIBERATES, JONATHAN MOYLAN TO BE SENTENCED AT LATER DATE
3.40pm Friday 11th July, Supreme Court of NSW, 184 Phillip St, Sydney.
Jonathan Moylan, 26, will be sentenced at a date yet to be set following a hearing at the Supreme Court in Sydney today. 200 supporters held a vigil in support of Moylan outside the court, while dozens of supporters filled the court room.
In January 2013 Moylan issued a press release on ANZ letterhead saying the bank had withdrawn its $1.2 billion loan facility from Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Coal Project on environmental and ethical grounds. Whitehaven’s share price temporarily fell before quickly recovering.
Moylan is charged under section 1041E of the Corporations Act, pertaining to the making of false or misleading statements.
Rick Laird, farmer from Maules Creek whose family has farmed in the district for over 150 years, travelled to Sydney to support Jonathan Moylan.
“ANZ’s loan means Whitehaven Coal can turn Maules Creek from a farming village into an open-cut pit. We rely on groundwater to water our livestock and for our household water supply, and the Whitehaven Coal mine will lower our water table by 5-10 metres.
“We’ve been fighting this mine for years, and the stand that Jono took means that people now know what’s happening at Maules Creek.
“Jono stood with us, and now we’re here to stand with Jono,” said Rick Laird.
Ros Druce from the Maules Creek Community Council travelled to Sydney for the first time in two decades to support Jonathan Moylan at the Supreme Court today.
“Whitehaven’s coal mine threatens to wipe Maules Creek off the map. The Maules Creek community stands with Jono,” she said.
FOR MEDIA ASSISTANCE: Nicola Paris on 0422 990 040, Madeleine Egan on 0423 100 113
IMAGES: High-resolution photographs are available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/standwithjono/sets/72157645609183785/
Jonathan Moylan will not be available for comment before sentencing.
BACKGROUND
ANZ provides a $1.2 billion loan facility to Whitehaven Coal, primarily intended to develop the Maules Creek Coal Project. The Maules Creek Coal Project is a new open-cut coal mine being developed in Leard State Forest and adjacent farm land near Maules Creek in north west NSW.
On the day of the hoax, Whitehaven Coal’s (WHC) share price dropped from $3.52 to $3.21 before a trading halt, and bounced back to $3.53 within an hour of trading resuming. Since January 2013, Whitehaven's share price has plummeted in the face of the slumping global coal price, closing at $1.45 yesterday.
Leard State Forest is located between Narrabri and Boggabri, it includes the most extensive and intact stands of the nationally-listed and critically endangered Box-Gum Woodland remaining on the Australian continent. The forest is home to 396 species of plants and animals and includes habitat for 34 threatened species and several endangered ecological communities.
The Maules Creek Coal Project is approved to extract up to 13 million tonnes of coal annually, and estimated to produce 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The mine is expected to operate for more than 30 years. The coal will be railed from the mine in north west NSW to the port of Newcastle for export. The coal mine project boundary is approximately 5 kilometres from the Maules Creek township.
World Population Day 11th July
The day was established by the United Nations Population Fund, whose mission is to deliver a world “where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, and every young person's potential is fulfilled.”
By 2050, demographers from the United Nations project that the population will reach 9.6 billion. Asia is facing a shelter crisis as its population continues to grow with 500 million people already living in slums. That figure is set to grow to a staggering 840 million people by the end of the decade, according to Habitat for Humanity Australia. In many developing countries, adolescent girls lack access to quality health care. They are prevented by cultural norms and lack of education from making decisions about the timing, number and spacing of their children or whether they deliver their babies in hospital.
Approximately 77 million people are added to the earth's population each year. That’s nearly 220,000 people added to the planet every day. The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in use of resources is linked to threats to the ecosystem, including rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, water shortage and pollution.
Most of Australia’s population growth is due to immigration, about 500,000 a year (less than 3% of whom are refugees) and while Australia has an immigration policy it doesn’t have a population policy.
The world's population has implications for the distribution of resources and balance on our planet. A Media Release by Sustainable Population Australia says that by 2050 about two-thirds of all humans will live in urban areas. Most of the anticipated urban growth by 2050 will occur in Asia and Africa. Already, more than half the global population lives in cities. Three years ago, naturalist Sir David Attenborough expressed such a concern, saying urbanised people were growing out of touch with the natural world “of which we are, in fact, a part.” “Conservation efforts should protect habitats of endangered species, but many countries in Africa and Asia where the greatest population and urban growth will occur, are too poor to protect such areas.
SPA Media Release: Global urbanisation good for some, but for nature
The Center for Biological Diversity will be distributing 40,000 “endangered species condoms” Friday, which is World Population Day. The stunt is designed to highlight the link between rapid human population growth and the decline of some wildlife species. The Endangered Species Condoms are wrapped in colorful packages featuring six different endangered species and information to help volunteers start the conversation about the impact of runaway human population growth on polar bears, panthers and other imperiled wildlife. The Center has given away more than half a million Endangered Species Condoms since 2009.
Center for Biological Diversity: Endangered species condoms
Today: Jonathan Moylan to be sentenced...
TODAY: JONATHAN MOYLAN TO BE SENTENCED IN SUPREME COURT, FACES 10YRS FOR HOAX PRESS RELEASE
Friday July 11th, 2014. Supreme Court of NSW, 184 Phillip St, Sydney.
Jonathan Moylan, 26, will appear for sentencing at the Supreme Court in Sydney at 10am today. Supporters will be outside court from 9:30am.
In January 2013 Moylan issued a press release on ANZ letterhead saying the bank had withdrawn its $1.2 billion loan facility from Whitehaven’s Maules Creek Coal Project on environmental and ethical grounds. Whitehaven’s share price temporarily fell before quickly recovering.
Moylan is charged under section 1041E of the Corporations Act, pertaining to the making of false or misleading statements, and faces ten years in prison and a $765,000 fine.
Rick Laird, farmer from Maules Creek whose family has farmed in the district for over 150 years, has travelled to Sydney to support Jonathan Moylan.
“ANZ’s loan means Whitehaven Coal can turn Maules Creek from a farming village into an open-cut pit. We rely on groundwater to water our livestock and for our household water supply, and the Whitehaven coal mine will lower our water table by 5-10 metres," said Rick Laird.
“We’ve been fighting this mine for years, and the stand that Jono took means that people now know what’s happening at Maules Creek.
“Jono stood with us, and now we’re here to stand with Jono,” said Rick Laird.
Ros Druce from the Maules Creek Community Council traveled to Sydney for the first time in two decades to support Jonathan Moylan at the Supreme Court today.
“Whitehaven’s coal mine threatens to wipe Maules Creek off the map. The Maules Creek community stands with Jono,” she said.
FOR COMMENT: Rick Laird, Maules Creek farmer on 0427 056 418
FOR MEDIA ASSISTANCE: Nicola Paris on 0422 990 040, Madeleine Egan on 0423 100 113
IMAGES: High-resolution photographs will be available from ~10am at https://www.flickr.com/photos/standwithjono/sets/72157645609183785/
Jonathan Moylan will not be available for comment before sentencing. His availability to comment after sentencing is dependent upon the sentence handed down.
BACKGROUND
ANZ provides a $1.2 billion loan facility to Whitehaven Coal, primarily intended to develop the Maules Creek Coal Project. The Maules Creek Coal Project is a new open-cut coal mine being developed in Leard State Forest and adjacent farm land near Maules Creek in north west NSW.
On the day of the hoax, Whitehaven Coal’s (WHC) share price dropped from $3.52 to $3.21 before a trading halt, and bounced back to $3.53 within an hour of trading resuming. Since January 2013, Whitehaven's share price has plummeted in the face of the slumping global coal price, closing at $1.45 yesterday.
Leard State Forest is located between Narrabri and Boggabri, it includes the most extensive and intact stands of the nationally-listed and critically endangered Box-Gum Woodland remaining on the Australian continent. The forest is home to 396 species of plants and animals and includes habitat for 34 threatened species and several endangered ecological communities.
The Maules Creek Coal Project is approved to extract up to 13 million tonnes of coal annually, which is estimated to produce 30 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. The mine is expected to operate for more than 30 years. The coal will be railed from the mine in north west NSW to the port of Newcastle for export. The coal mine project boundary is approximately 5 kilometres from the Maules Creek township.
Friends in Australia tell of high cost of living
I do have some friends there at Australia, and from them I know these facts about the high living cost they have. They say that, it is getting high every year, and the government is not much doing anything to control it. This in fact do affects the middle class of the country.
Sounds like RMC was a place
Sounds like RMC was a place full of plenty of scumbags especially in early 80's. I know a guy who went there then and the amount of thieving and other misbehaviour was out of control and senior military turned a blind eye!
The west is comitting suicide
Firstly, we can't forget that Communism killed millions, and that Stalin ranks among Hitler in terms of mass murder, probably higher if you just take into account killing your own.
The Soviet Union killed somewhere between 20 - 60 million people. Our "allies". It enslaved a third of Europe. I've met people who risked their life, quite literally, to get out. Evading machine guns. As I saw well said elsewhere, the entire Soviet Union was a gulag, just that some parts were 'gulagier' than others. We fought to free Western Europe from a totalitarian regime, and in doing so, gave another 1/3rd of Europe.
Britain fought to free Poland, and ended up at the end of the war with Poland under another totalitarian regime.
Britain fought to protect their empire, and were left without one at the end.
They fought to defend their isle, and now the original British are becoming a minority, as elsewhere in Europe. Europeans are now facing the biggest existential threat since the world wars, perhaps even bigger, due to the populations policies of the victors.
Yet they were our "allies". Maybe overlooking this eases our mind. Even Churchill said "we slaughtered the wrong pig". Patton wanted to continue the war against the Soviet Union. We chose one evil over another, and then we've spent nigh onto 70 years convincing ourselves we choose the lesser evil. This was made easier due to many academics and intellectuals being Marxists and supporters of the regime.
And freedom? Did we defeat fascism, or allow our own corporatists to take control. We have PRISM, overrarching surveillance, corporate control of the state and debt servitute. Talk of having a world of one race, when another is no longer recognisable still continues (oddly no one objects this time around...).
If, theoretically, Germany had won the war, I wouldn't think it would have lasted. Perhaps not even 70 years. All empires fall, and totalitarian regimes extinguish themselves. They never last.
I think in some ways, WWII was not a pivotal point, but just an event in a declining west, delcining empires slaughtering thesemlve, as they do. The events of WWI created a brutalised population (lets not forget Hitler and Mussolini were in the thick of perhaps the most violent event in human history) and proved that nations would spill their very own blood for vague reasons. Also note that the USA, which grew in ascendancy entered both wars late, after pressure.
Environmentalist must be silenced due to energy demands
According to a report released in April this year by the London-based NGO Global Witness, at least 908 environmental activists have been killed over the last decade. That number is comparable to the 913 journalists killed in the course of their work in the same period and is likely on the low side.
More than two-thirds of these killings took “took place in the context of conflicts over the ownership, control and use of land,” reflecting the dark side of rapid development in many emerging economies.
Worldwide, the most violent years were 2010, when 96 activists were killed, and 2011, the most recent year assessed, when 106 were slain. Latin America and Asia-Pacific particularly hard hit. Impunity for these crimes is rife: only 10 perpetrators are known to have been convicted between 2002 and 2013—just more than one percent of the overall incidence of killings.
In 1914, one hundred years ago, the world had 1.75 billion people. In 1914, Europe dominated the world with 25% of earth’s total population. In 2014, Europe’s population represents a mere 10% of the world’s total.
Since 2007, world population has grown by more than a half a billion people. A recent U.S. National Intelligence Council assessment found that by 2030, population growth and a burgeoning global middle class will result in a 35 percent increase in demand for food, 40 percent increase in demand for freshwater, and 50 percent increase in demand for energy. This demand for natural resource will explode, and more natural environments will be encroached on,consumed, and destroyed.
Pakistan, has less than 5 per cent of its original forest cover owing to rampant and mostly illegal logging. The harvested timber is not being used to make homes, furniture or woodchips. The trees in Pakistan's cities, towns and regions are being cut down to be burnt so people can stay warm and eat cooked food.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 18 per cent of the world's population have no access to electricity at all and 38 per cent are dependent on wood, crop residues and animal waste as their main cooking and heating fuels. The IEA expects global energy demand to increase by one-third by 2035, with developing economies contributing 90 per cent of this growth. Demand for electricity will increase by two-thirds, more than other form of final energy. Coal continues to be the largest source of electricity generation, growing steadily at around 1.2 per cent per year. Climate change doesn't happen in a vacuum, but it's due to unsustainable population growth and energy demands on the planet. The IEA concludes that: “It is currently difficult to envisage a future in which coal is not used to meet growing power demand – not only in non-OECD regions, but also in many OECD countries.”
Environmentalists must therefore be at least silenced by imprisonment, or removed permanently by being killed.
A little late commenting on
A little late commenting on this one, but...
I'm always a little stumped at the confusion caused by people calling scuba air cylinders "oxygen cylinders". Standard scuba tanks are filled with air at the normal 21% O2. Therefore pose no risk of fire or explosion from the gas contained.
Anti-whaling letter to Japan's Prime Minister
Senator Peter Whish-Wilson hand-delivered a letter to Japan's Prime Minister Shinto Abe, from activist group Sea Shepherd, during an official dinner at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday night. The letter warns that ships and volunteers from the group would resume their harassment of Japanese whaling ships.
"Our ocean is dying, Mr Prime Minister, and when the ocean dies we will follow," Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told Mr Abe in the letter.
"We cannot live on this planet with a dead ocean."
SMH:Senator hands Abe Anti whaling letter
A team of biologists from the University of Vermont, under conservation biologist Joe Roman, have tallied several decades of research on whales from around the world; it shows that whales, in fact, make a huge difference — they have a powerful and positive influence on the function of oceans, global carbon storage, and the health of commercial fisheries. “The continued recovery of great whales may help to buffer marine ecosystems from destabilizing stresses,” the team of scientists writes.
The letter reassured Abe that Sea Shepherd were not anti-Japan, or contrary to their culture. Many of their citizens support whales, they claim.
Although Japan's whaling was ruled as not scientific by the International Court of Justice, and illegal, in a great contradictory leap of logic, they plan to still engage in research to collect the "indispensable scientific information in order to manage the whale resources".
Whales are not commercial "resources" and do not need to be managed! Their freedom should be part of the "free" trade negotiations. Whales have peacefully and harmoniously existed for millions of years in the oceans, adding to marine ecosystems. Modern humans have been around for only 200,000 years, and it's the latter that needs "management"!
The development will start
The development will start with a Buddhist temple.
Wyong Mayor, Doug Eaton says the park, to be known at Chappypie China Time, will cater for the growing Chinese tourism market and provide a massive boost to the coast's economy. If Chinese tourists want to come here, why would they want to be in China-land? Surely they could see Chinese icons in their own country? It would be like Australian tourists going to China to see a theme-park based on Australiana! All the mock Colonial houses, transplanted gum trees, wildlife that are considered "pests" in their own homeland, and other tacky reminders of our past!
The development would provide thousands of jobs! As if this justifies it? Jobs and jobs, and tourists who don't want to be immersed in Australian natural bushland, but will see it cleared, denuded and sterilized into a comic, clique of their own country!