The people of Gloucester are fighting back against the resources sector increasingly taking over the district...
"... We went to the bank ... They ... said 'your property has been devalued,'" ...
Their efforts over a dozen years to escape the city ... may be rewarded with unhealthy pollution and an ugly outlook ...
... the Jacksons fear that industry will roll over the top of them and they will be unable to sell... Anita, 6, and Bianca, 3, will be inhaling dirty air after they moved to the country for a fresh, clean, affordable life.
The Gloucester region is being galloped over by the resources boom, and many residents resent it ...
... between 50 and 100 ''tree-changers'' moved from Sydney over the past decade...
Some neighbours' lives had been ruined because all their capital was tied up in their property and they could not sell to service debts...
"The immoral thing is, as soon as a mining company says it's interested, your capital is frozen in your land because no one wants to buy it." ...
"… I don't think we can live with a mine in our backyard."
Brought to you by Kristina Keneally: "galloping over" NSW, screwing the environment, wrecking homes, stealing life-long investments, all with a smile and a gleam in her eye.
Gillard’s carbon tax will not only push up electricity prices; it will increase the price of everything.
It sets out to hurt every Australian – to absolutely no point. It can make not the slightest difference to the local climate, far less the global climate.
It purports to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide when we are happily pocketing the billions from selling coal and iron ore to China and the rest of Asia.
Talk about hypocrisy, stupidity and deceit rolled into one.
Putting one hand on heart, Gillard says we have to save the planet by cutting our emissions, while the other hand seeks to grab a bigger share of the profits of the mining companies from helping China double and even triple its emissions.
And here is Woody Woodpecker's Pinocchio's big lie ...
YOUNG Muslim leaders will be hand-picked to try to limit the spread of violent extremism in Australia... through the $1.1 million Building Community Resilience programs...
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said communities had been crying out for help and the Government had received almost 100 applications.
"The program will support activities that directly assist young people to disengage from intolerant and radical ideologies," Mr McClelland said...
Australian Multicultural Foundation executive director Hass Dellal said ...
"This is about young people taking back traditional Islam, and out of the hands of those who have interpreted it as some sort of violent and extreme religion."
Finally! At last we can correct the distorted writings of Islamophobes like Spencer, Bostom, and Ye'or. I mean look at this typical bastardisation of history ...
Tabari, the great Muslim scholar and author of a monumental historical work on the seventh and eighth centuries' Arab-Muslim conquests, describes the Islamic conquest of Basra (Iraq) in 636. Iraq was then a province of Sassanid Persia, where Jews and Christians formed the majority of the population. Tabari reports that Umar b. al-Khattab, the second caliph, instructed the commander of the troops that he sent to al-Basra as follows:
“Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call [meaning they convert], accept it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness [Qur’an 9:29]. If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.”
This is the pattern of the jihad war. Tabari died in 923. By then the Muslim empire had expanded from Portugal to India. After Tabari's death, the Muslim conquests continued into Asia, as well as in Christian eastern European lands... The Muslim armies were only stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683. The jihadist conquest lasted over a millennium ...
Geez, come on, everybody knows "sword without leniency" means "tickle with feather". Ban this book! Lock this woman up for distorting Islam! Sheesh. $1 million well spent. And look at this misrepresentation ...
It is not lawful to make war upon any people who have never before been called to the faith, without previously requiring them to embrace it, because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith, and also because the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making salves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to this call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war. . . . If the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.
Of course you first have to invite people to Islam before making war upon them, I mean it's just good manners, but Bostom makes it sound like a crime. I'm sure the $1 mil will point out that Islam does have standards. And don't forget to get your Ministry of Truth to erase these crazy statements by Cory Bernardi ...
"Islam itself is the problem - it's not Muslims," he told radio station MTR.
"Muslims are individuals that practise their faith in their own way, but Islam is a totalitarian, political and religious ideology.
"It tells people everything about how they need to conduct themselves, who they're allowed to marry and how they're allowed to treat other people."
Senator Bernardi said Islam had "not moved on" since it was founded and that extremists wanted fundamentalist Islamic rule implemented in Australia.
Bah! Nonsense! Of course Islam has moved on. First there was the peaceful Meccan phase, and then the jihadist Medina phase, and the Islamic doctrine of abrogation to ensure the latter has authority. $1 mil will clear up this misunderstanding for sure.
I'm so glad that The Ministry of Truth (AKA Julia Gillard, Robert McClelland and Hass Dellal) is going to set the record straight because it's getting out of hand. Hey, hey, and ban Sam Harris too:
Come on Julia, come on McClelland, get this crazy "acrobat" off the internet. Ban him! Lock him up! And ban Robert Spencer too, he's a crazy nutjob ...
And ban Wafa Sultan too! Mad woman!
Come on Julia, you better ban all these YouTubes before the NBN is finished. Otherwise the entire population of Auburn will be watching Wafa, Spencer and Harris at 100 Megabits per second!
File under: some sort of violent and extreme religion that strangely exists in Julia Gillard's demented and ahistoric brain as sweetness and light.
The company behind a $15 billion coal seam gas development in Queensland is being investigated for damaging an underground water source within the Great Artesian Basin system, tonight's Four Corners program reveals.
The incident was uncovered by a sleuthing Queensland farmer, Anne Bridle, as she investigated rumours of a fracking mishap near her beef and grain property in Dalby...
The problems arose when Queensland Gas Company (QGC) fracked its Myrtle 3 well, connecting the Springbok aquifer to the coal seam below, the Walloon Coal Measures, in 2009.
Ms Bridle has raised several concerns: that chemicals used in the process - which included 130 litres of THPS - may have migrated into the water supply; that water from the different aquifers could intermingle, affecting the water quality; and also that water levels in the aquifer could fall.
The company did not alert authorities or nearby water users about the problem until 13 months after the incident.
"Ultimately there's no-one checking to see what happens under the ground. The accountability is not there," Mrs Bridle said.
File under: Anna Bligh and Julia Gillard - environmental vandals destroying prime farm land and screwing future generations in the process. Farmland and mining don't mix, you reckless morons!
Professor Jonathan Haidt is concerned that lack of conservatives in social psychology is an indication of liberal groupthink shutting out valuable perspectives ...
I am not concerned about the underrepresentation of conservatives in social psychology, just as I am not concerned about the underrepresentation of women or minorities in any occupation. As I said in my talk, "there are many reasons why conservatives would be underrepresented in social psychology, and most of them have nothing to do with discrimination or hostile climate." I am concerned about two things: First:Discrimination. If conservatives, women, or minority group members are being discriminated against, it is wrong and it should stop. And that includes the creation of hostile climates, which discourage students from entering fields in the first place. Second, I'm concerned about the absence of valuable perspectives from occupations that need multiple perspectives. When a group with a unique perspective drops below, say 5%, the majority group may begin to openly espouse its sacred values, create a moral forcefield, and then actively discriminate against the minority group, which now shrinks even further or retreats to the closet. This is what (I claim) has happened in social psychology (and in many academic fields). Most groups and institutions don't need moral diversity. Diversity disrupts group cohesion and effectiveness. But in science, our goal is not cohesion, it is finding the truth, and if moral diversity will help us to disrupt the forcefield and shut down groupthink, then it will help us to do better science. This is why I called for affirmative action for conservatives in social psychology.
Now, you've probably already guessed what happens next. Another professor accuses Haidt of professional misconduct:
I suspect that Haidt is either an incompetent psychologist (not likely) or is disingenuously saying the sort of things controversial enough to get him in the New York Times (more likely).
I have greatly enjoyed our debate. You assert that I “got upset” by your initial post, and you refer to my “outrage” at your accusations. But in fact I was delighted by them. I am an intuitionist. I am building an extended argument that reasoning, when not informed by broad understanding and cultivated intuitions, is an unreliable tool for finding truth. There is mounting evidence in psychology that the evolved function of reasoning is not discovery but social justification and manipulation. We humans use reasoning skillfully to find arguments in support of our intuitively held positions, but we are hobbled by the confirmation bias; we are unable to find evidence or arguments that contradict our favored positions. I believe this is the most serious defect in the writings of the “new atheists” and many other self-proclaimed rationalists: because they are so good at finding reasons to support their views about science and religion, they develop an extraordinary confidence that they are right, which makes them prone to arrogant dismissals of all who disagree with them.
When I issued my challenge to you, I knew that I would soon obtain either an apology or a classroom-worthy demonstration of rationalism in action.
... in Indonesia.... Australian money is needed to keep funding Islamic schools.
If we don’t support the teaching of moderate Islam, extreme Islam will quickly fill the vacuum.
Calls to rein in foreign aid are short-sighted, mean, and downright dangerous...
The Opposition’s proposal to suspend $440 million in spending on education in Indonesia ... is populist policy at its most abhorrent.
Indonesia is crucial. And Islam in Indonesia could go either way...
As wrong as it may seem to spend Australian money to support religious teachings, it’s the outcome here that is important.
The logic is either (a) Islam is inherently violent or (b) Islam is easily distorted by extremists and, either way, the risk of terrorism in Australia increases if we don't take a pro-active role in Indonesia's education.
But if Islam is so easily interpreted as violent, then which is easier: (a) try to pacify 200 million Muslims or (b) go the Fred Nile route of a moratorium on Muslim immigration and contain the problem here?
And worse, if you start spreading ideas of tolerance, democracy and freedom in Indonesia, and parts of it liberalise like the West then guess what results? A strong reaction from Islamic fundamentalists reasserting 7th century Islam. We should stay out of Muslim countries.
The ideology of "ignorant tolerance" never talks about the true nature of Islam, never considers the prudent solution of stopping Muslim immigration, and always takes the high-risk option of thinking it can pacify a religion it refuses to understand.
And whilst we endure their insane solutions, the threat of terrorism increases in proportion to our increasing Muslim population. These people are nuts. Barking mad.
File under: the high-cost, high-stakes gamble of ignorant tolerance.
I'll post something serious on Egypt later, but meanwhile I was thinking about the strange bedfellows of Islam and democracy whilst listening to the song In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine. Can they co-exist? Sure, but it's against all odds, and only in spite of themselves. I can't help but laugh at all the gushing celebration of greenshoots of democracy in the Arab world by Obama and the media. It's just insane. (starts at 1:30, & the lyrics are a bit rude) ...
In truth, a successful relationship between Islam and democracy, if it ever happened, would start by acknowledging some frank truths. But even then, I don't think it will happen.
AUSTRALIA will need nuclear-powered attack submarines among a range of highly potent weapons systems... to answer the security dangers posed by China's massive military build-up...
Ross Babbage ... believes Australia should acquire a fleet of 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines.
... a massive increase in Australia's cyber-warfare investment.
... Australia to host a range of American military bases...
"The challenge posed by the rising PLA is arguably one of the most serious that has confronted Australia's national security planners since World War II," he says...
... this is not a question of distant threats to Australia's region but of direct threat to Australia itself, as it is within range of many existing Chinese weapons systems.
Read the whole article, it's more honest and sober than a Kevin Rudd wiki leak.
The veteran defence analyst wants Australia to do to China what China is doing to the US. China recognises that it could never defeat the US in a full-on, force-on-force conflict. But it can make it incredibly costly and dangerous for the US to operate its military in the western Pacific.
China achieves this by adopting "asymmetric" warfare ...
... we should develop our own asymmetric approach to China, such that Australia could inflict massive cost and damage on China in the event of a conflict.
... there is no single document on China that I would more strongly recommend all Australians to read than Babbage's paper.
... although it is widely known that China has expanded its military, few are aware of the staggering scale of this transformation...
It should be the starting point of a broad national debate.
Another great article, read it all.
But alas, if the past is anything to go by, a national debate will be a Convention For The Ideologically Blinkered.
Just like these two articles by Sheridan fail to mention the role of trade in facilitating the rise of China, you can bet that almost no-one in the debate will raise the topic of trade.
Why? Because all their brains are infected with the ideologies that "free trade cannot be criticised and is good always and everywhere", and "craven appeasement is good because all non-Westerners are inherently good and will liberalise if we make them rich and don't scare them". Which, of course, is delusional.
So I'll make a preemptive comment on the likely farcical debate: to realise "the most serious [threat] that has confronted Australia's national security planners since World War II" and yet not question the wisdom of facilitating China's rise with our trade, is freaking insane! Totally bonkers! Absolutely mad! Completely cuckoo!
Consequentialism refers to those moral theories which hold that the consequences of one's conduct are the true basis for any judgment about the morality of that conduct.
Duh! And yet our leaders cannot criticise trade with China because the virtue of trade is "good always and everywhere" apparently.
... the most significant downsides of neoliberal economics, mean that we are precipitating our own decline and facilitating the rise of China at the expense of our economic security and foreign policy.
Economics and precipitate: are these two words magnetically repelled and cannot be put together in the same sentence by today's leaders? Apparently so.
And what the politicians have done to this country, they should be ashamed of themselves...
... You are not going to solve unemployment unless something very, very stringent is done with regard to China and other countries...
I would tax Chinese products...
We don't have free trade right now. We have a country, China in particular, that is ripping us like nobody's ripped us before.
... I just can't believe how people can be so stupid ...
This country has to be rebuilt. This country is in serious trouble. This country is no longer respected like it was... People laugh at us. They laugh at the stupidity of the people running this country.
----
If we tax China we'd pay off that debt very quickly...
6:00 Bill Gertz: They've made quite clear that there will be no democratisation. They look at democratisation as an alien Western concept. They are taking steps, they have a long-term strategy. The Chinese are working very hard to build what they call their national power ...
But as part of that national power they have to fool the rest of the world while they're in this weak state ... and Deng Xiaoping epitomised this in the phrase "bide our time, build our capabilities".. . Chinese diplomats around the world, one of their highest priorities (their intelligence officers too) is to monitor what they call the China Threat Theory around the world.
They predict that by 2020 the United States will recognise China as a threat, I hope it happens much sooner than that, but they understand that - they call that the dangerous decade from 2020 to 2030 - because they know the US will recognise China as a threat but they won't be ready to confront us, militarily in particular until 2030.
8:00 Howard Phillips: Roger Robinson ... believes that communist China can be a greater threat to the United States than the Soviet Union ever was because of its economic power around the world.
Bill Gertz: Absolutely. There's no question in my mind, having researched this, I think there's no bigger national security problem facing the country than China, and it hasn't been recognised. Everything has been done in just the opposite direction...
17:30 The Chinese military buildup ... shows that China is not this benevolent Panda bear that its supporters try to make it out to be. The Chinese are chess players, they play a game called Go. They think many years in the future. They think strategically. They are acting strategically.
24:00 We need to understand China. We don't understand it today... We don't understand why the view us as their main enemy... So I call for an intelligence blitz... and then developing an American strategy for dealing with China. And, basically, it looks a lot like containment... we need to contain China. We need to find a way to coax them into renouncing communism.
The theory of comparative advantage is a dead duck if we have to spend billions defending ourselves in the process. What we gain by specialising and trading is frittered away in increased defence spending. Net gain:freaking nothing!
And there's another major spanner in the works... The coming balkanisation of Western countries due to diversity. We may not even be unified countries by the time we get sufficiently armed.
So let's stop the problem at its source. Stop the trade. Rogue states should be sanctioned, not supported with trade.
File under: economics and precipitate ... two words magnetically repelled in the demented brains of ideologues.
Senator Nick Xenophon talks to Leon Byner about foreign investment in Australian Agricultural Land. Xenophon has introduced a bill before parliament on foreign investment recommending a move to the New Zealand model where anything over 5 hectares needs government approval. Currently foreign interests can purchase property to the value of $231 million dollars without informing the Australian government.
Celebrities join the campaign. Sound bites here:
Bryce Courtenay - "our kids are going to be there in a third world country because we own bugger all".
Dick Smith - "Once the Chinese buy our prime producing land, people think they have to sell that food to us. They don't. They can ship the food to their own ship and then to China".
The people of Gloucester are fighting back against the resources sector increasingly taking over the district...
