Yes, it is.

New Australia!

According to the article from the BBC, Australia has just added over ten New Zealandsworth of land mass under UNCLOS. Which means that we can now let the people of East Timor have access to more than 10 per cent of their own gas and oil reserves.

Just kidding. But it does mean that coal producers will have a harder time finding a sympathetic ear and wallet from government because we now stand to lose even more precious ecosystems to climate change.

Just kidding. It really just means that due to the fact that the average Australian 8-year old now weighs over 147 pounds, the entire continent has had to get fatter, just to cope with a land covered in supersized sedentary Wii-jiggling pedometer-pushing fatties.

Already XXXL and pushing the boundaries of what might reasonably be defined as an island, the entire country now needs to buy new pants and pop the top shirt button to avoid chubby-necked asphyxia. The only exercise that sixth graders in Australia now get comes from the gruelling effort of convincing Mum to take them to the drive thru at Macca’s, or the adrenalin-pumping thrill of cyber-bullying their classmates into either killing themselves or going on a third-rate current affair show to say they hate the extra attention. How is obesity a health crisis? Malnutrition, AIDS, George Bush - these things are crises. Getting obese from feeding your face with reckless disregard for basic physiology isn’t a crisis with unforeseeable health outcomes, any more than shooting a dirty needle full of cocaine and fungus into your cock-eye is a good way to meet people.

Quit choking, get smoking! All that money that fatties are wasting on food should be spent on cigarettes. With the new smoking laws, nobody will let you in their restaurant because there’s such a good chance that you’ll give their customers terminal cancer. Meanwhile, you’ll feel less hungry, naturally slim down, and look cool doing it.

Course if that doesn’t work, there’s about ten million kids living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Spend some of your lunch money on a plane ticket, head on over and grab a sandwich full of that little problem. Burger full of AIDS will surely get rid of your man-boobs by 2010 you smorgasbores. Hell, forget the AIDS. Just feed your ass to some starving villages while you’re over there. It’s sure to be better than the dirt some of the starving kids are eating to numb the hunger pain. Or just eat less.

Good on me.

Any takers? Flamers? Trolls?

Didn’t think so.

Brendan sez “I assure you, I’m going nowhere.”

No shit, you coiffured fuckdoodle.

I support terror.

The use of fear, intimidation, the threat and the actual act of violence to further a political, ideological, or religious aim, message, or belief.

Hell yes!

Bring it.

5 years on, and Iraq is just getting warmed up.

So many bombings and beheadings and mass graves that if less than 60 people die, nobody notices.

Unless one of them is an American, or an English, Israeli, or Aussie,

etc. etc.

Saddam – an amateur.

Killed 5000 civillians and got hanged for it.

Used chemical weapons.

That he got.

From my daddy.

Hee hee hee.

I killed 3, 4, 5 hundred thousand civilians and got re-elected.

Not like my daddy.

Hee hee hee.

So let’s look at what I’ve got.

Tax money for life? Yessirree.

Impeached? Not likely!

Gunned down? Not yet…

And I’ve sure got this military-industrial complex all up in this bee-yatch.

Machine Accomplished.

No American President can ever back down again.

I’ve killed too many parents and children.

Not for the House of Bush.

Not for my sidekicks – a Dick and a Con and a Robber(the ‘t’ is silent).

But in the name of the US People.

Vengeance ain’t mine ‘cause I have nothing to avenge,

Nobody wronged me ‘cept Barb when she gave birth,

But revenge will be my legacy.

Global hatred as intergenerational equity.

That ain’t me talkin’.

That ain’t even me writin’.

Have too much trouble with them words as big as Texas.

So Happy Birthday Iraq War.

We Won, but you – you’re five!

Don’t get lonely though, li’l camper.

I know our wonderful toys have killed your sons and daughters.

So we’re going to get you a sister!

I think her name’s Irene?

It’s just spelt kinda different.

Heh.

Crazy A-rabs…

This has been a preemptive strike in the name of the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm…..

Last train to Lhasa, originally a gorgeous piece of thoughtful music by Banco de Gaia, now a worthy way to reflect on yet another struggle for independence that has turned into bloodshed and brutality unleashed.

Mixed reports, almost impossible to confirm because of the Chinese regulation of Tibet, have emerged claiming anywhere from 10 to 67 protesters dead in the latest actions - the commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the events which forced the currently exiled Dalai Lama to flee Tibet. Probably a good time to brush up on the International Tibet Independence Movement if you’re not familiar with the struggle.

While it would be great to see the world reject China’s soft support for the slaughter in Burma and direct support for the slaughter in Tibet by boycotting the Olympics, it would suck for all the athletes, and it would be inordinately hypocritical. The US seems to export far more misery globally than China sews domestically, but where’s the outrage against America’s longstanding foreign policies which are responsible for the deaths of millions, even during the past couple of decades?

Grrrrrrrrrr. Enjoy the video played loud - the song is beautiful. The shorter version below has a collage of stunning and disturbing pieces of footage not included in the longer form above.

Go little squiggle! Go!!

It’s all happening a bit fast now for anybody to garner an official ‘WTF?’, but how funny is it that the Carlyle Group - post-Presidency employers of George Bush sr., negotiation partners of Osama Bin Laden’s family, and the American mass weapon exporter of choice - is this very moment the latest leading reason for the utter implosion of the US dollar and global share markets? Go team!!

That’s too funny!!! See the dudes on the left - it’s meant to look as though Carlyle Group is all about respecting and connecting with foreign cultures that encourage the accumulation of wealth, but it’s actually two coked out merchant bankers watching their friend all the way from the top of their building to the pavement below.

Don’t worry though, the US Federal Reserve will probably just cut their overnight rate a few more times so that by July they will actually be paying people to borrow American dollars. Then the whole thing might meet more than 87% of requirements necessary for the current clu$terfuc to be termed a “recession”.

It’s like when that prick with ears on the American Today show or Good Yawning America came out and announced that The Network had decided to call the war in Iraq a Civil War. I’m sure that semantic pedantry really made a difference to the bodies in mass graves who thought they had been put there as part of a regional conflict or neighbourhood dispute.

Further Bushes & the Carlyle Group info at

The Information Clearinghouse -> big assortment of interesting info-bytes, background, and collected links.

This one from Third World Traveller is awesome:

Dick Cheney and the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone

The Carlyle Group: Crony Capitalism without Borders

excerpted from the book

How Much Are You Making On The War Daddy?

A Quick and Dirty Guide to War Profiteering in the Bush Administration

And there’s a more recent one here at Culture Change which gives good background and I like simply because it quotes Tom Paine.

In early March Sydney University’s Faculty of Law launched a new multidisciplinary initiative – the Climate Law & Policy Group.

In line with recent developments – the UK’s Stern Report in 2006, reevaluation of the Kyoto Protocol during 2007 and Australia’s current review process under Professor Ross Garnaut – the initiative aims to fill critical voids within current thinking and activity, both locally and internationally.

Key organisers Professor Gillian Triggs, Dean of Law at Sydney University, and Dr. Rosemary Lyster, an internationally respected teacher and practitioner of environmental law, spoke briefly of the new group’s reason for existence.

They identified the need to transverse various branches of law – administrative, environmental, international, trade, migration, taxation, corporate, criminal and public health – in making way for the emerging field of climate law and preparing legal infrastructure for an all-embracing response to the growing challenge of climate change.

With Australia’s emission trading scheme due to launch in 2010 and with Kyoto having so far failed to adequately engage developing countries, this first-of-its-kind initiative will work with individuals and governments to develop research projects and policy.

Keynote speaker John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, addressed the lawyers, academics, NGOs, Justices and students who came to hear his insider’s account of last year’s Bali negotiations and their implications for Australia. Though unsurprisingly absent, environmental barrister extraordinaire, Chris McGrath, did receive an honourable mention as the legal frontiersman keeping the Australian government falling over its legislative toes.

Connor signalled that there are powerful undercurrents building within global negotiations. Developed nations may yet group together to go beyond currently tentative Kyoto targets to cut their carbon emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. He identified 2020 as the proving ground, the year by which bold initiatives must be taken and, if successful, replicated on a grand scale.

He said China and South Africa were leading the negotiations to build bridges with the developed world, while Australia is crossing a bridge of her own. The American position of controlled stalling has been rejected, traded for the quantum leap of the Garnaut Review and its broader consideration of the national interest in responding to climate change.

The way forward mapped out by these pragmatists seems to be a multi-layered paradigm shift already set in motion, from changes taking place in local planning laws and research financing to regional partnerships and global transparency and accountability.

The Climate Law & Policy Group’s first conference will be held on August 8.

Following the welcome trend of reversing previous intransigence, the Australian Government has successfully floated a measure intended to heavily reduce, if not eliminate, Japan’s exploitation of “scientific research” as a justification for trying to kill close to one thousand whales annually.

During an international meeting at Heathrow during the first week of March, Australia found “a strong chord of support” for new Australian proposals to eliminate lethal research, according to a spokesperson for Environment Minister, Peter Garrett.

She rejected claims by the UK’s Independent that the meeting had somehow been secret, pointing out that it had received significant media coverage during the last week. She also flatly rejected the central claim of the article – that nations are moving to formalize approval of Japanese whaling – as selective quoting, misrepresentation, and a media beat-up.

Far from some sort of sinister new phase in negotiations, the central substance of the Independent’s claims regarding the nature of the meeting come from mentions made at the recent Heathrow meeting of a paper by the Pew Environmental Consultancy first tabled at a Tokyo meeting of the IWC in January.

She characterized the support for Australian proposals, voiced both formally and “at the margins” during the meeting, as a very pleasing result for both the Australian delegation and ongoing efforts to protect whales. Australia’s reforming proposals have now been accepted as formal items on the agenda of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference due to take place in Chile in June.

The measures would see concrete recovery plans established under the IWC. Supposedly scientific research would be subject to the IWC as a whole, rather than the standards determined appropriate by individual nations, as is currently the case with Japan’s program, sanctioned under their self-regulated JARPA II regime.

I’ve resisted any temptation to post about the US primaries simply because when kids are screaming and whining it’s not a situation that’s going to benefit from more attention. But this line from an article by Jonathan Freedland following the Texas-Ohio-Mordor primaries just nails it:

Democrats could be facing a choice between a woman who can win the party nomination but not the presidency and a man who could win the presidency but not his party’s nomination.

And this picture by Mr. Fish says as much:

I really think that American politics is way out in front in the global race to the bottom, Orwell-fantacizing irony-missing fart-sniffing bullshit-spouting sweepstakes, but Jeezus Effing Christ! After this week’s tri-state clusterfukkk, Hillary emailed her supporters to say that

Together, we are making history and showing every little girl in America that she can be anything she wants to be.

Now I may be mistaken, but I think that if Barack Obama emailed his supporters to say

Together, we are making history and showing every little black in America that they can be anything they want to be.

then the response would be an almighty “WTF?”. Which leaves me feeling pretty confident in my diagnosis of Billary as the all-time passive aggressive power-hungry hypocritical pantsuit motherfucker ever.

Your democracy is a joke America. I’m skipping the wait and printing up my Chelsea 2024 t-shirt now.

McCain may be a big White Elephant, but the Democrats are really a bunch of asses. It’s increasingly obvious how their own system worked to deliver the astoundingly pointless John Kerry as some kind of wannabe answer to George Dumber-than-you Bush. Maybe Barack should angle to be dismissed as a lesbian by Bill Clinton, then he too could claim to have Hillary’s level of leading edge experience in being close to the presidency.

Hi I’m Barack Obama. Bill Clinton wouldn’t fuck me, so how about giving me a chance to not fuck you.

I mean, really, anybody using the fact that they served cucumber sandwiches to visiting dignitaries and went on tourist jaunst to ‘80 countries on the taxpayer-dime as a reason to vote for them really must just not have anything better to offer.

God knows Dennis Thatcher would do an awesome job of running Britain, eh what?

After more than a decade as a self-financed band of gypsies practicing random acts of canine survival, Monika’s Doggie Rescue became a fully registered charity in 2001. Now a network of over 300 volunteers, Doggie Rescue is reshaping its Sydney pawprint.

Speaking with Monika, she explained that their Drummoyne outlet, mainly used for weekend meetings between dogs and potential owners, has recently been dispensed with.

Increasingly, the refurbished Doggie Rescue website will play an important role for rescued dogs and their potential new families. People can look at online profiles of any of the hundred or more dogs housed at the Doggiewood compound at Ingleside. A half hour from the city, amidst scenic forests and the Northern Beaches, Doggiewood is already the main point of consolidation.

Fun, furry, pre-arranged happy petting sessions take place every Saturday at Pet Barn in Alexandria. This ongoing adoption program through Pet Barn provides an important physical gateway to potential inner city owners and foster homes.

Combined, these elements currently see Doggie Rescue place about a thousand dogs in new homes each year. But Monika’s real hope is for a change in the culture that produces abandoned animals.

Just last year, a small amendment to NSW law introduced a compulsory reporting mechanism for councils. As reported in late January, for the first time official figures confirmed that of close to 50 000 cats and dogs taken in by NSW pounds alone, nearly half were killed.

The Department of Local Government’s most recent figures also include the death rates from all other shelters, and indicate that over 60 000 cats and dogs were killed by the NSW system in 2007.

“We have an oversupply of animals because they get pumped out of impulse outlets,” said Monika. “And until people start thinking more about what they adopt when they take an animal – that it’s not just a disposable item – we’re just going to continue all these problems.”

In an effort to challenge this situation, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has been working to put the Animals (Regulation of Sale) Bill through state parliament. If she can build the necessary support, what began as a bumper sticker – ‘Say No to Animals in Pet Shops’ – could become law.

“Clover’s Bill,” said Monika, “really is the most crucial thing in trying to stave this awful production line, this breeding without very much care or nurturing.”

Monika described ‘the rescue cycle’. Similar to the cycle of homelessness facing many street kids, abandoned animals get dumped and re-dumped, usually ill-treated by more than just one home.

The proposed law, currently sidelined following a motion by Joe Tripodi, would end the sale of companion animals in pet stores. Sale would instead be restricted to breeders, shelters, vets, and pounds with a proviso that potential buyers are screened, educated, and matched to the needs of their new pet.

Monika’s Doggie Rescue already follows such a process. Perhaps uniquely, they also follow the progress of re-homed pets, requiring that mismatched pets be returned – an outcome that occurs in less than one per cent of cases according to Monika.

Doggie Rescue also provides a permanent backstop. In the event of an owner’s death, departure, or if it is at all needed, they offer permanent right of return for all dogs that come through their doors.

She lists her husband as the group’s biggest supporter who, along with Double Bay Vet Clinic and a number of private donors and supporters, makes it all possible. On the feeding, cleaning, caring, and financing rollercoaster, Monika’s ride has elements of Zen, Old Yeller, and Superfriends.

It is this environment which seems to produce the many Monika’s stories - one particularly sweet one being of a family that adopted a needy little dog with heart problems to keep their father company as he struggled with heart problems of his own.

Drop by www.doggierescue.com, Pet Barn Alexandria, or call Monika’s on 02 9486 3133 to find out more, or even see how you can help.

Tasmania - where blokes are blokes, and trees are nervous.

A state where everything is above board, but Royal Commissions - the highest level of independent inquiry into allegedly corrupt use of authority - are practically banned. Oh Tassie - thank goodness for you, the one place on Earth where destroying forest ecosystems defies physics, biology and chemistry to fight global warming. How? Buggered if I know, but some big blokes with beetroot-blood pressure and friends running chainsaws seem to have worked it out.

Barely a week ago, Paul Lennon - the spectacularly inept Premier of Tasmania and occasional dinner-buddy of Gunns’ CEO John Gay - made a baffling announcement. In response to Professor Ross Garnaut’s analysis of the climate change issues and options facing Australia, Lennon declared that once and for all it was time to get the facts straight about Tasmania’s forests.

This was baffling for two reasons.

Firstly, Lennon and his colleagues in government, industry, and small-minded lobby groups have spent decades arguing that old growth grows on trees and should therefore be woodchipped as quickly as possible lest it get out of control. This argument shifted in the ’90s toward the need for human-led forest management for the good of forests, because without humans, forests are incapable of cutting themselves down. The latest model is two-pronged - logging prevents bushfires (just like abortions prevent cancer) and clearing forests makes room to plant more trees and therefore fight climate change (yes, they are that stupid). In essence, these people have deemed themselves the source of all forest facts. By calling for someone intelligent and with no connection to forestry cash to disseminate facts, Lennon risked undoing decades of half-assed but ubiquitous propaganda.

Secondly, for any non-Greens member of Tasmanian parliament, let alone the bug-eyed, frothing, rabidly pro-Gunns Premier to call for a setting aside of nonsensical argument and the genuinely independent presentation of clear, firm, scientifically credible facts about the environmental impacts of logging is simply unheard of.

But today everything is back to normal. Thanks to our good progressive friends at GetUp, we can see Lennon’s message for what it was. Thanks largely to his timing, it was just another hot, steaming, cow chip of media distraction from a sociopathic Tasmanian bureaucrat. GetUp has just circulated the following release:

You may have missed it, but the Tasmanian Government last week unbelievably signed an agreement handing over Tasmania’s forests to the Gunns pulp mill for the next 20 years - in the very same week Professor Garnaut warned them of the dire climate change consequences facing us.

If we don’t act now, bulldozers will start clearing land for the mill that will contribute 2% of Australia’s greenhouse emissions - at a time when we’re being told we need to drastically cut our emissions. But unfortunately Australia’s forests were largely left out of Garnaut’s recent interim report.

We have only one opportunity to put them in the picture. A proper assessment in his impending Climate Change Report of our native forests’ climate change value may just sink the mill project. Click here now to sign the petition asking Professor Garnaut to examine the full climate impact of this mill madness and the logging of Tasmania’s native forests:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/DontPulpOurClimate

There’s a real risk the Garnaut report won’t include a comprehensive assessment of native forests - despite new research finding the stopping of deforestation a “large, immediate and perishable opportunity”* to massively reduce emissions. Costing out the real value of native forests will not only prove Tasmania’s trees would be better left in the ground but make this teetering project financially unviable when Gunns realises they will have to pay for the carbon embedded in our forests.

Native forests are invaluable sources of carbon storage - and it costs nothing to leave them in the ground. But 80% of the 4.5 million tonnes of wood needed to supply the pulp mill each year will initially come from Tassie’s native forests - permanently destroying forests that can hold 10-20 times the amount of CO2 than plantations.

A proper assessment of their climate change value will undoubtedly make the arguments in favour of the mill, whose climate change impact has never even been assessed, untenable. Take action to protect nature’s lungs before the bulldozers move in:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/DontPulpOurClimate

Long story short, Lennon can dance naked down the main street of Hobart wearing wattle in his hair and singing about how he loves the freaky forest critters and their precious wooded homes because he has already pushed through the legislation guaranteeing that they will all be turned into dioxinated mulch.

What visionary leaders he, his state Labor Party, and their big-L small-minded ‘opposition’ are.

Many people may have missed it, but Kyoto in its current incarnation is the best hope for global climate action. Even supposedly progressive governments in supposedly first world countries still treat Kyoto as though it’s too hard, but it is riddled with perverse incentives.

For example, emissions from international shipping and air traffic are not included on anybody’s scorecard at the moment - even though these vapours are as damaging as those of any American cattle ranch or any Chinese coal plant. More directly, Kyoto rewards the cutting down of trees that were planted before the 1990s by recognizing the carbon uptake potential of new trees planted in their place - which means that governments have incentive to replace 600-year old eucalypts with water-intensive saplings.

Brilliant.

Add in the fact that Tasmania’s forest ecosystems are administered by people you wouldn’t trust to look after a goldfish, and all the big environmental research, studies, reports, and recommendations look less and less like progress, and more and more like good ways to feel proactive about doing less than nothing.

The above picture comes from an excellent animal update by Maxine Firth here in today’s SMH. Amazingly, the RSPCA endorses the conditions in which these thousands upon thousands of birds at the Pace Farm facility in Buchanan, near Newcastle, are kept. More amazingly, their spokesperson, asked about these specific conditions and the ongoing commission-for-approval arrangement between Pace and RSPCA contributed to the following exchange:

Chief executive Heather Neil said: “RSPCA standards for accredited egg production ensure that hens are given the freedom to exhibit natural behaviours.

The program involves a process of stringent and regular inspections every eight to 12 weeks to ensure standards are being met.”

Ms Neil confirmed the RSPCA endorsed beak clipping of birds at the Buchanan facility.

“The RSPCA is aware of behavioural problems with this particular flock at Buchanan, specifically feather picking,” she said.

On the allegation that the birds were too cramped, she said RSPCA standards allowed for seven birds per square metre as opposed to the national code of practice standard of 12.

Animal Liberation said the RSPCA standard gives each bird an amount of space equivalent to a piece of A3 paper.

Ms Neil said the demand for eggs in Australia was about 200 million dozen eggs a year.

“Such a demand necessitates large-scale commercial production,” she said. “The RSPCA would prefer to be in there helping to improve the welfare of birds in commercial egg production rather than not being involved at all.”

Now, I may be wrong, but if birds are forced to live in such squalid and cramped conditions that they have to have their beaks burnt off so that they don’t peck each other to death… is that really a “behavioural problem”? Or is that a “human contempt for animal life problem”? And would the RSPCA have helped improve conditions for horses at race tracks or increase the size of steel pigpens if “large-scale commercial production” as opposed to “animal welfare” or “prevention of cruelty” was meant to be their priority.

Ha!! more like “eggs have the tick because it’s one less reason for you to give a shit about how these fucking trolls cash in on animal torture”

I have been pissed off at the way eggs are packaged, bought and sold for ages. Pace, for example, has a facility with close to a million chickens about 4 hours south west of Sydney, near Wyalong, in the appropriately named Bland Shire (seriously). These bastards have the nerve to produce a line of free range eggs, and people are either so busy or so ignorant that they buy them.

Here’s a simple question: If, for example, I keep a million chickens laying eggs in conditions similar to a concentration camp from the moment of their birth until their premature over-medicated death, but have another hundred thousand that run around in a nice field, should ANY self-respecting consumer be rewarding me with their cash?

Or to put it another way: If I run Auschwitz and I butcher 5 million people, turning them into soap, gold, and ashes, but I supply half a million with false papers and make sure they get across the Channel to England, am I a saint, am I halfway toward redemption, or am I so fucking evil that I should never be allowed to sell eggs again?

Basically - do not EVER buy ANY kind of egg from ANY company that runs ANY battery/cage hen facilities. Fuck PACE FARMS. Fuck INGHAM CHICKENS. FUCK KFC. Etc. LET YOUR SUPERMARKET KNOW –> tell them that you don’t want Pace Free Range eggs, tell them you want any other kind of remotely ethical free range eggs.

Buy organic if you’re really concerned about your own health. Buy free range if you’re concerned about the chicken whose period you’re eating.

And to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, as opposed to henpecked and cemented, here are photos from this page which allegedly details a 2002 investigation-of-sorts by local activists into the Pace facility near Wyalong.

These happy lookin’ fellas down the bottom have been in chook rehab. Not yet 100%, I’m guessing.

so the obvious question is “which bit’s funniest?” - ‘not very friendly’, ‘not house broken’, ‘no collar’ or ‘might be scared’? O yeah, there’s also ‘CAT FOUND’!!

*Nelson sez* Haaa Haa

grabbed from Counterpunch because I know that even the supposed greenies who are mostly huffy and pissed off about people ragging on Greenpeace still have at least some interest in adventure stories and animals.

The Art of Finding Whalers

By Captain PAUL WATSON

Back in the early days of Greenpeace under the leadership of the late great Robert Hunter we resorted to plenty of unorthodox methods of locating whaling ships on the high seas. Strangely many of these methods actually worked. Stranger indeed has been our record of finding whaling ships on vast oceans armed with little else but our intuition and pure luck.

Bob Hunter used to call this karma. Bob was a Buddhist and a mystic and most likely a saint. He believed in reincarnation. I used to believe in reincarnation also but that was in a previous life.

But in May of 1975 we set out in a small little fishing boat of only 85 feet looking for the Soviet whaling fleet. They were operating in the North Pacific somewhere between the northern end of the Queen Charlotte Islands down to somewhere off of San Diego. We knew that they were somewhere within 200 miles because this was before the 200 mile limit law was introduced and the Soviets delighted in killing whales off the coast of the United States. It also provided a great cover for espionage activities and judging from the incredible array of electronics displaying antennas they were certainly doing more than just whaling.

We started out from Vancouver and journeyed north to the Queen Charlottes. We swam with Orcas in the Straits of Bella Bella and visited an abandoned whaling station in Rose Harbour, on the Charlottes. We saw whales but not a sign of the whalers.

We then headed south and Bob began to throw the I-Ching and in what was probably a first in the history of navigation we began to navigate by the messages received from the I-Ching readings.

This divided the crew into two groups, the mechanics or non-believers under the leadership of Patrick Moore and the mystics under the leadership of Bob Hunter. As a sailor and navigator I kept one foot in the camp of practicality and as a person who had experienced a vision quest under the guidance of Wallace Black Elk during the occupation of Wounded Knee, I had my other foot firmly planted in Bob’s camp of merry mystics.

(more…)

Kind of strange that the “Save the Tassie Devil” website is posted by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water, also known as the Department of Slime and Industrial Slaughter. Funny that the website tries to make the devil out to be cuddly and pitch it to Japanese tourists, like this

when the reality, the utterly malignant and horrid reality, is that more and more Tasmanian Devils are being delivered unto an even crueler and more painful fate like this:

Some are tipping the Devil for extinction within a matter of decades. Even though the so-called Devil Tumour Facial Disease (DTFD) was first classified in 1996, fuck all has been done until now by the Tasmanian government. Why? Because it’s just the environment. It’s just an animal. It’s just a low-grade tourism attraction. Let’s not do anything until it’s at absolute crisis point because all that will be left to do by then will be to watch the last bunch die and say some nice sad words, then get back to the business of turnng Tasmania into one big toxic splintery carpark.

Which happens to be something that the DPIW is well into, when they aren’t throwing up token websites telling tourists that it’s okay to come and spend your yen in Tassie because nobody marries their sister there anymore. Of course there has been kerfuffle lately around the notion that chemicals from abandoned fridges are the main catalyst for this horrific condition that is decimating the devil population, but scientists close to the problem aren’t yet buying into that position.

My bet is that once it’s too late, someone with qualifications will work out that it was the accumulation of Tassie government-subsidised 1080, atrazine, and other hardcore chemicals used in the clearfelling processes that continue to destroy devil habitat, somehow interacting into a spiky and horrible cancer cocktail which is causing such suffering and doom for the devils. Still, an American scientist thinks that there may be an$wer$ for human cancer in treating the devils, so they may have more than a hope in hell.

If this is something you would like to know more about, there is a very proper treatment of the situation with a detailed background here and here in parts I & II of David Obendorf’s ‘Poison Island’. Thoroughly worthy reading about one more possibly irreversible tragedy in the making.

hat tip to gruffybear for getting these all in the one place.

ed: read this here if you like, but I would recommend this version. Celsias has grabbed a copy and done a beautiful job of the layout. It’s worth spending time there, is what I’m saying. Anyway…

Round Two for Sea Shepherd’s Operation Migaloo

By Captain Paul Watson

The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin is refueled, repaired, re-supplied, re-crewed and re-energized to depart from Melbourne on Valentine’s Day bound for the Southern Ocean to intervene against the on-going massacre of whales by the outlaw whaling fleet from Japan.

In January we discovered that we can stop the whalers by finding them, pursuing them, and harassing them. We initiated an international incident and we shut down the slaughter of the whales for more than three weeks. Most importantly for the first time ever this issue was dramatized in the Japanese media and it is escalating into a costly embarrassment for the Japanese government.

There is no question that the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society pushes the envelope on this issue. Someone has to and we don’t mind the constant stream of abuse and name calling. If governments don’t have any respect for us, we have even less respect for governments.

(more…)

…but for the wrong reasons.

Like most of the lip service Liberal/National(ist) opposition, he still misses the point. By miles.

Adding myself to the growing list of thousands of Australians who have already admitted to crying during Kevin Rudd’s speech just a few hours ago. It was more than a gesture and much deeper than was expected. Unfortunately it’s not up on YouTube yet so I can’t embed it for you, but if you go to the ABC’s official apology coverage you can find it there. I would also heartily recommend checking National Indigenous Times for coverage, analysis, and reactions which will likely be posted there shortly - NIT absolutely rocks.

Until then, here is the welcome to country ceremony, performed at the opening of Parliament yesterday for the first time in the history of this country.

It was truly moving to see the array faces of all colour of beautiful skin, lining the Parliament and telling their own stories from moment to moment as the words this dry land has been needing for so long fell from Kevin Rudd’s mouth like a building spring rain. This moment is an unforeseen opportunity for this generation of Australians and all that follow, and I can hardly remember a moment that I’ve actually taken such pride in thinking of somebody as ‘our Prime Minister’.

But do yourself a favour, and avoid the supposedly non-partisan response of supposed support for the apology from opposition leader, Dr Brendan “Halfwit” Nelson. According to this idiot, we can not judge the past, the people who stole kids and committed genocide were only trying to help, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that white people die in war all the time, sometimes breaking up families turns out really well, Aboriginals really are their own worst problem, they should get a job, they shouldn’t get any compensation, dead Aboriginals helped make Australia great, their culture is only 60 000 years old even though artefacts date back at least 116 000 years… o yeah, and he’s sorry. Really.

update: ABC’s official “apology pages” here.

It’s a bloody good piece of writing, it’s long overdue, and perhaps it’s also one big step closer to our nation eventually saying Thankyou. We wouldn’t be who we are as a culture without the influence of Aboriginal peoples and nations from the moment modern Australia insisted on being born of blood. I think that this action tomorrow by Kevin Rudd will ultimately have greater positive effect on the domestic relationships and politics within Australia than ratifying Kyoto has had on our international relationships. Tomorrow will be a real beginning and much more than the token gesture that some would like to reduce it to.

Brendan Nelson is an utter spoogemop, while Kevin Rudd has balls the size of a goat’s head. Oh yeah, the text -

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

Check out the coverage at National Indigenous Times, as well as the excellent pre-Sorry Day coverage on the February 12 edition of the 7:30 Report

Dear Abby,

My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and, when I confront him, he denies everything. What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating.

Also, since he lost his job eight years ago, he hasn’t even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and shoot the bull with his buddies, while I have to work to pay the bills.

Since our daughter went away to college he doesn’t even pretend to like
me, and even hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do?

Signed: Clueless

Dear Clueless:

Grow up and dump him. Good grief woman, you don’t need him anymore!
You’re a Senator from New York running for President of the United States.
Act like one.

Signed: Abby

by Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd, first posted at Counterpunch, and properly titled

How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Death of the Great Whales

The Other Whaling Industry

By Captain PAUL WATSON

On board the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin.

“It does not matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”

– Dr. Patrick Moore, President of Greenpeace Canada 1981

As the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society struggles to borrow and raise enough funds to return to the Southern Ocean, we feel incredibly frustrated by the fact that tens of millions of dollars have already been raised to defend the whales yet this money is not being spent for that purpose and it will not help put fuel in our tanks to resume our defense of the whales.

Enough is enough. The Greenpeace fraud about saving the whales must be exposed. For years, I have been tolerating their pretense of action and watching them turn their ocean posing photo ops into tremendous profits from whaling. And now they say they can’t return to the Southern Oceans with their ship the Esperanza because they don’t have the budget for it and because they are going to direct their energies into lobbying for change inside Japan.

Yet they still continue to collect money to save the whales. Greenpeace has booked all online advertising in the major Australian and New Zealand newspapers. Their ads are splashed across the internet from Google to MySpace. Send money, send more money. Television ads, millions of pieces of direct mail.

Greenpeace International raised 127 Million Euros last year. Greenpeace Australia has about 18 million dollars in the bank. Greenpeace USA sits on tens of millions of dollars. Yet they claim they do not have the budget to return to the Southern Oceans yet they also claim they stopped the whalers for two weeks in January, and if such a claim is true then they should go back and stop them again.

But they will not. They have surrendered the Whale Sanctuary to the whalers yet the ads keep popping up and the contributions keep flowing into the Greenpeace coffers. It is incredibly frustrating to see stories about Sea Shepherd’s successful interventions against illegal Japanese whaling usually sprinkled with criticisms by Greenpeace about our methods. And right beside these articles pops up an ad asking the public to send money to support Greenpeace. Even if Sea Shepherd wanted to invest in these ads, we cannot because Greenpeace has booked all the ad space for three months.

Greenpeace makes more money from anti-whaling than Norway and Iceland combined make from whaling. In both cases, the whales die and someone profits. We continue to receive reports from people who have received highly emotional appeals from Greenpeace for money to save the whales including appeals to help refuel their ship.

This is simply out and out fraud. (more…)

The Australian government has just released these pictures of Japanese whaling in the waters of the Australian Whales Sanctuary off Antarctica. The federal opposition are opportunising the moment by proclaiming their intention to create a global whale utopia, through their Environmental Orifice, Greg Hunt. Of course, while in government the Liberals’ greatest contribution to whaling was to legally block all efforts to stop it, but that was weeks ago. Tossers.

Speaking of tossers, the land-loving chief of Japan’s Whale Kill Inc. has hit back by denying that the two whales in the picture aren’t related and that this is just Australian propaganda. Off course this is the same guy who claimed that Sea Shepherds‘ accusations that their crew members were tied to a pole aboard the Yushin Maru 2 were lies and Sea Shepherd propaganda… even as photos proving the accusations were fired around the world.

The Labor Party, and specifically the Attorney-General, have really moved in a (perhaps too) measured but dynamic manner on this issue. They removed legal blockages, allowing Humane Society International to test the matter of Japanese whaling in the Australian Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in Federal Court. Without this commitment from the government, HSI could not have succeeded, as they now have.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has forged ahead in discussions with Japan and under a siege of sorts from media as a result of the new paradigm, under which Australia is actively, rather than just conveniently, challenging and threatening Japan’s farcical, but vicious, ‘scientific whaling‘ program.

Of course, without the involvement of Sea Shepherd, and even Greenpeace, the government’s ‘effort’ in Antarctica would merely have meant three more weeks of photos like the one above, rather than whales actually having their endangered lives protected. Because the government’s greatest input at the moment seems to be all about getting out of everyone elses’ way. (more…)