Eco-priests, repent of your green folly
(26Feb09) “.....Just when you think that sin has gone out of fashion, you discover it has made an unexpected comeback. Britain's Energy Minister Ed Miliband has joined forces with two Church of England bishops to call for a "carbon fast" this Lent... The carbon fast represents a semi-conscious attempt to transform environmentalism into a caricature of a religion.... From this standpoint the idea of original sin has been reinvented as an act of carbon emission. There are several ways that the sinner can gain absolution. Those with serious financial resources can gain redemption through carbon offsets. The rest of us need to go through the appropriate rituals -- recycling garbage, avoiding disposable nappies or using re-usable bags -- that provide proof of sacrifice..... So while environmentalists are looking to turn routine forms of human behaviour into eco-sins, some religious leaders are searching for activities that they can brand as a form of moral transgression. In such a climate, is it any surprise that moral entrepreneurs in the Church of England want to rebrand sin and have decided to cobble together a shopping list of new no-nos for the 21st-century consumer? They are frequently joined by modernisers in the Catholic Church, who believe it is easier to make people feel guilty about their impact on the environment than about committing one of the seven deadly sins. They think religious institutions might recover some of their credibility if they reinvent themselves as the promoters of ecological virtue, keeping a close check on the eco-sins of polluters....” Eco-priests, repent of your green folly , Frank Furedi, The Australian “.....We live in era where belief in human development and progress is often condemned as irresponsible...... Numerous moral entrepreneurs have embraced the cause of global warming in order to offer moral lessons about the conduct of human behaviour. However, the moral lessons transmitted through initiatives such as carbon fasting are essentially misanthrophic. Instead of celebrating the human imagination and its capacity to transform nature, they use the term "human impact" to argue that our species is essentially a destructive force. Terms such as carbon footprint masquerade as scientific concepts but, as James Woudhuysen and Joe Kaplinsky argue in their new book, Energise!: A Future For Energy Innovation, they are essentially moral categories oriented towards curbing human behaviour. At a time when government ministers and leaders of the church opt to embrace gimmicks such as a carbon fast, it is important to remind ourselves that any problems that people have inflicted on the environment are technical ones that are susceptible to technical solutions and not moral policing.....”
Voters feel so utterly betrayed
(24Feb09) “.....Last week, the British National Party won a council seat in Sevenoaks, Kent. This should make us all sit up and take notice. Kent is not ethnically-riven Tower Hamlets or Bradford. True, it was a Labour seat on this council that fell to the BNP's Paul Golding - a charming character whom the party once expelled for allegedly attacking another BNP councillor. Yet Suburban Sevenoaks is not some angry, marginalised working-class area but the placid Tory home counties...... The reason for its increasing success is obvious. Like all populist, neo-fascist parties, the BNP is opportunistically exploiting the failure by the political establishment to address issues of pressing and legitimate concern to the public. It is making hay with the terminal alienation of the British electorate, not merely from the current Government but from the entire political mainstream. Many voters have concluded that 'they're all the same as each other'. Labour is irredeemably incompetent and sleaze ridden. The LibDems (with the exception of their impressive economics spokesman Vince Cable) are irredeemably irrelevant. As for the Tories, although they are benefiting from the collapse of Labour's support, there is precious little enthusiasm for them either.... ” Voters feel so utterly betrayed , Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail “...... At a more profound and altogether more explosive level, however, is the fact that all three parties not only refuse to address the issues that concern the public most deeply and emotionally, but also demonise those who express such anxieties as racists or fascists . In particular, they have colluded in a refusal to acknowledge that nationalism or attachment to one's own country and its values - is a perfectly respectable, even admirable, sentiment. Instead, anyone who maintains that British culture and identity are rooted in the history, language, literature, religion and laws of this country - and must be defended as such against erosion, undermining or outright attack - is vilified as a racist or xenophobe..... This effectively presents such people with a choice - between being demonised as racists and standing silently by as their culture evaporates. For Britain is changing before our very eyes. ...”
(22Feb09) “…..Until the 1970s Australians were remarkably self-reliant. Unemployment was low, home ownership was widespread, and wages were generally high enough for workers to support themselves and their dependents with little government assistance.There was a welfare state of sorts. Families with children received the Child Endowment, retirees and widows were eligible for government pensions, and there were unemployment benefits for those few workers who couldn't find a job. Governments also provided free education for children. But most people took care of most of the things they needed themselves. They worked for their income, saved to buy a home, and insured their family against ill health. Because their demands on government spending were so low, taxes stayed low. Most working families paid little or no income tax. In the space of just 40 years all this has changed dramatically. Back in 1965 just 3 per cent of the working-age population relied on government welfare payments for most or all of their income. Today the figure is around 16 per cent. Some 1.8 million Australians of working age today look to government to give them an income….Forty years ago there were 22 people in employment for every one person of working age relying on benefits. Today the ratio is five workers for every one claimant. No wonder taxes have spiralled……The proportion of working-age people drawing DSP has more than doubled in the past 25 years, even though the health of the population has improved. The reason is that people who in earlier times would have been defined as "unemployed" are today often defined as "disabled". Three-quarters of a million Australians claim DSP, and at least half of them should probably be regarded as unemployed rather than incapable of working…..” Living off the public teat , Peter Saunders Sydney Morning Herald “…..The growth of single parenthood in Australia began slowly. The number of single parents increased from 124,000 in 1966 to 183,000 in 1974. But this increase was enough to prompt the Whitlam government to change the rules governing eligibility for welfare payments. Before Whitlam, only widows and deserted wives were eligible to claim financial support from the government. There were around 40,000 such claims each year. But in 1973 Whitlam extended the right to benefits to all single mothers, irrespective of their circumstances. Within three years this shift to an unconditional right to welfare led to a trebling in the number of claimants to 116,000. That was just the beginning. In 1982 the claimant total passed 200,000. It reached 300,000 in 1994, and topped 400,000 in 2001. The number of claimants had risen tenfold in less than 30 years…when government support becomes widespread, this virtuous circle reverses and a culture of dependency and irresponsibility begins to take root. There is no longer much point in saving or insuring if you see the government bailing out those who have failed to make provision for themselves. Any stigma that used to attach to the receipt of charity of government assistance disappears when many of the people around you are routinely and openly claiming. Gradually, people lose the habit of self-reliance….”.
David Miliband on Geert Wilders
(17Feb09) ....It's interesting that in this 2 minute piece from BBC's Hardtalk programme that David Milliband speaks about and criticises the Geert Wilders film FITNA, a film he admits he hasn't seen. If he had, he would have seen that the religious hatred and villification of which he speaks, is the toxic sludge presented by Muslim preachers advocating actions as per the Koran against the infidel, all brought together in the 15 minute film. This is not just about shooting the messenger but also about ignoring the message...
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: recession may be jolt that selfish Britain needs
(16Feb09) “…..Pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth: sometimes it feels as if Britain is in the grip of the seven deadly sins. There are arrogant politicians, greedy bankers, lecherous television presenters, furious trade unionists, obese children, competitive shoppers and an underclass of people who do not work. To the doom-mongers, British society is not broken, it is shattered…. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said. “This particular recession is a moment - a kairos - when we have to reflect as a country on what are the things that nourish the values, the virtues, we want to have….. I think people did lose their way a bit. It has been difficult to bring up children with the kind of values we want. Let's face it, we now have a ‘me, me' society, a more consumerist society, a utilitarian society, and our values and virtues have become diminished….” Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: recession may be jolt that selfish Britain needs The Times “….. Everyone was cashing in. People kept borrowing as well as bankers lending. People kept shopping. I think shopping fills a void. If you have one car, you need two. Everyone wants the latest trainers and clothes. It is awful to go to a house and see in a corner hundreds of unused toys. It's so profligate. What children need is security and love, not huge amounts of money. The benefits system, he said, undermined the family. “Clearly you have an obligation to look after people, whether one-parent families or broken families, but if all resources are put on them, it isn't right. Every social policy should have, at its heart, benefit to the family.” He said that much of the benefits system “obviously doesn't benefit people. The tax system must benefit the family. The greatest evil in this society is the breakdown of the family.” There was a danger that politics was losing touch with faith. “Fifty years ago there was an underlying Christian ethic that was held by most MPs. That is not true anymore. There's a tendency to utilitarianism, a rationalism that is not underpinned by anything,…”
(16Feb09) “.....If anyone had doubted the extent to which Britain has capitulated to Islamic terror, the banning of Geert Wilders a few hours ago should surely open their eyes..... Wilders, the Dutch member of parliament who had made an uncompromising stand against the Koranic sources of Islamist extremism and violence, was due to give a screening of Fitna, his film on this subject, at the House of Lords on Thursday. This meeting had been postponed after Lord Ahmed had previously threatened the House of Lords authorities that he would bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the Lords if Wilders was allowed to speak.... But now the government has announced that it is banning Wilders from the country..... let's get this straight. The British government allows people to march through British streets screaming support for Hamas, it allows Hizb ut Tahrir to recruit on campus for the jihad against Britain and the west, it takes no action against a Muslim peer who threatens mass intimidation of Parliament, but it bans from the country a member of parliament of a European democracy who wishes to address the British Parliament on the threat to life and liberty in the west from religious fascism......” Britain capitulates to terror , Melanie Phillips, The Spcetator “.....It is he , not them, who is considered a ‘serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society'.... It was the same reasoning that led the police on those pro-Hamas marches to confiscate the Israeli flag, on the grounds that it would provoke violence, while those screaming support for genocide and incitement against the Jews were allowed to do so. The reasoning was that the Israeli flag might provoke thuggery while the genocidal incitement would not. So those actually promoting aggression were allowed to do so while those who threatened no-one at all were repressed. And now a Dutch politician who doesn't threaten anyone is banned for telling unpalatable truths about those who do.....if they fail to hold the line against the threat of violence but capitulate to it instead, they will be signalling that Britain is no longer the cradle of freedom and democracy but its graveyard.....”
2002 COAG Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management
(10Feb09) This is the David Packham submission to the COAG inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management from 2002. As you read you can't help but notice with the 2009 fires still raging, that despite promises to learn from their mistakes, 6 years on the authorities have learnt nothing or perhaps that should be “chosen to learn nothing” .
As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons at the time of the French Revolution “They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”
“ ..... Around 1980 CSIRO closed down one of its two dedicated bushfire research groups and actively discouraged any remaining bushfire research. The grounds for this policy was that fuel reduction burning had effectively solved a serious Australian problem. It was also considered that the major factors determining fire spread were now understood. The inescapable fact is that if fuel builds, as it does, to dangerous levels a conflagration must result at some time in the future.....For almost three decades State and Commonwealth governments have been warned of the potential of a 1939 repeat fire disaster. Those warnings by fire managers and fire researchers have been ignored, discounted or discredited. Well the disaster is here, the response has been to deny, hide and deceive. There has been no acceptance of responsibility or action other than spin and deception and a policy of silence...”. 2002 COAG Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management, David Packham “......The motives for this disgraceful public response are entirely political and reinforces the politics of marginal preferences......The fuels in our forest environments have been allowed to build to such a level that the inevitable wildfire has a most damaging heat release and an elevated fire spread rate. The energy releases are thermonuclear in scale. In can be safely stated that the energy release in the 2003 fires in NE Vic and SE NSW was equivalent to some 50,000 Hiroshima fission weapons. The outcome was catastrophic..... The tragedy of this response is that the resulting infrequent high intensity fires will result in massive environmental change including stand replacement and other extreme ecological effects. The very values sought to be protected by fire exclusion are finally destroyed.... Only fuel management will yield healthy and safe forests, continued water and timber yields and secures communities.... The urbanized Australian, our administrators and many of our leaders remain ignorant of the enormity of the scale of a high intensity bushfire. Its inevitability and environmental, water resource and infrastructure destruction remain unrecognized.....” (you need Adobe Pdf reader to view this doument- a free download)
Victoria bushfires stoked by green vote
(10Feb09) “…..Victoria has suffered the most tragic bushfire disaster to have occurred on this continent throughout its period of human habitation….. How could this happen when we have been told in a withering, continuous barrage of public relations that with technology and well-polished uniforms, we can cope with the unleashing of huge forces of nature. I have been a bushfire scientist for more than 50 years, dealing with all aspects of bushfires, from prescribed burning to flame chemistry, and serving as supervisor of fire weather services for Australia. We need to understand what has happened so that we can accept or prevent future fire disasters…..The science is simple. A fire disaster of this nature requires a combination of hot, dry, windy weather in drought conditions…..The third and only controllable factor in this deadly triangle is fuel: the dead leaves, pieces of bark and grass that become the gas that feeds the 50m high flames that roar through the bush with the sound of jet engines. Fuels build up year after year at an approximate rate of one tonne a hectare a year, up to a maximum of about 30 tonnes a hectare. If the fuels exceed about eight tonnes a hectare, disastrous fires can and will occur…..” Victoria bushfires stoked by green vote , David Packham, The Australian “…..It has been a difficult lesson for me to accept that despite the severe damage to our forests and even a fatal fire in our nation's capital, the political decision has been to do nothing that will change the extreme threat to which our forests and rural lands are exposed. The decision to ignore the threat has been encouraged by some shocking pseudo-science from a few academics who use arguments that may have a place in political discourse but should have no place in managing our environment and protecting it and us from the bushfire threat…..The conclusion of these academics is that high intensity fires are good for the environment and that the resulting mudslides after rains are merely localised and serve to redistribute nutrients. The purpose of this failed policy is to secure uninformed city votes…… The politicians who willingly accept this rubbish use it to justify the perpetuation of the greatest threat to our forests, water supplies, homes and lives in order to secure a minority green vote. They continue to throw millions (and no doubt soon billions) at ineffective suppression toys, while the few foresters and bush people who know how to manage our public lands are starved of the resources they need to reduce fuel loads…..In the face of this inferno, the perpetrators of this obscenity should have the decency to stand up and say they were wrong. Southeast Australia is the worst place in the world for bushfires, and we must not waste any time in getting down to the task of making our bush healthy and safe…..”
APPEAL!! Victorian Bushfire Appeal
To contribute to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal , or you can call Red Cross on 1800 811 700.
APPEAL!! Flood Relief for Queensland
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has launched an appeal for residents of the state's flood-affected north and north-west with a $500,000 contribution from the State Government. With a damage bill so far estimated at $142 million and with 62% - or one million square kilometres - of the state flood-affected, north Queenslanders were doing it tough and were in need of all the help they can get. People can donate to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal by:
• Phone: 1800 173 349. The Smart Services Qld Call Centre will be open 24 hours a day.
• Mail: Premiers Disaster Relief Appeal, PO Box 15185, City East, Qld 4002.
• In person: Visit CBA, NAB, Westpac, ANZ, Bank of Qld or Suncorp.
• Internet banking: Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal, BSB: 064 013, Account number: 1000 6800.
This cartoon is dated 28 November, 1956 !!
Unfortunately, with the exception of the characters nothing has changed... (In case you don't recognise the players here, they are Abdul Nasser President of Egypt & David Ben Gurion Prime Minister of Israel )
Wilders Prosecution is a Welcome Opportunity to Expose Islam
Dr. Sami Alrabaa, an ex-Muslim, is a professor of Sociology and an Arab/Muslim culture specialist. Before moving to Germany he taught at Kuwait University, King Saud University, and Michigan State University.
(1Feb09) “ ..... Prosecuting Geert Wilders, member of the Dutch Parliament, is a welcome opportunity to expose fascist Islam and radical Muslims. Wilders and his lawyers do not need to go far away to fetch crystal clear evidence that Islam, i.e. the Koran and Hadeeth incite to violence and hatred, and radical Muslims are behind numerous crimes against humanity...... A summary of quotations from the Koran which clearly incite to hatred and violence can be found in the following link : .....There is an abundance of fatwas (religious edicts) by Muslim authorities inciting to genocide and suicide attacks against Christians and Jews. All these fatwas are based on the Koran and Hadeeth......Yousef Al Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the fundamentalist organization, the Muslim Brothers, urged on Al Jazeera TV (Jan. 9, 2009) Muslims to kill the Jews, not only in Israel but also worldwide. He added, "No peace can be made between us (Muslims) and the non-believers. This what our holy book says. This is what Allah says.".....Most recently, demonstrators in Berlin and Munich, and elsewhere in Germany, raised banners reading, "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas". The police did not arrest anyone of them and nobody filed a court case against them for inciting to murder which in the German law is punishable.....” Wilders Prosecution is a Welcome Opportunity to Expose Islam , Dr. Sami Alrabaa “.... Wilders' comparison of the Koran to Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and describing it as a fascist book is not inappropriate. Hitler referred to the Jews as "rats and vermin" and the Koran and fascist Muslims call the Jews "The descendants of apes and pigs"......It is not Wilders who should be prosecuted, but people like Gom's, Al Qaradhawi and their peers. They must be brought to justice before the International Tribunal. Inciting to genocide is an egregious crime..... Wilders' prosecution is a defining point in the clash between fascist Muslims and the rest of the world. Regardless whether he is convicted or not, he must be thanked for his courage.... Tarek Ramadan visited the Islamic Center in Bilelefeld, Germany (May 21, 2008) and gave a speech Ramadan is well-known for telling his infidel audience something and his Muslim audience another thing. Ramadan said, "My brothers and sisters, we must exploit the so-called democracy and freedom of speech here in the West to reach our goals. Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the Koran teach us that we must use every conceivable means and opportunity to defeat the enemies of Allah. Tell the infidels in public, we respect your laws and your constitutions, which we Muslims believe that these are as worthless as the paper they are written on. The only law we must respect and apply is the Shari's. ... "
For other interesting features be sure to visit January 2009