WORLD LEADERS SIGN PACT TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER

June 18, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOP HEADLINE: WORLD LEADERS SIGN PACT TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER
Newspaper Ignites Hope, Announces “Civil Disobedience Database”

* Civil-disobedience database: http://BeyondTalk.net
* PDF of printed newspaper: http://iht.greenpeace.org/todays-paper/
– Online version: http://www.iht-se.com/
* Video: http://iht.greenpeace.org/video/ (coming soon)
In a front-page ad in today’s International Herald Tribune, the leaders of the European Union thank the European public for having engaged in months of civil disobedience leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference that will be held this December.

“It was only thanks to your massive pressure over the past six months that we could so dramatically shift our climate-change policies…. To those who were arrested, we
thank you.”

There was only one catch: the paper was fake.

Looking exactly like the real thing, but dated December 19th, 2009, a million copies of the fake paper were distributed worldwide by thousands of volunteers in order to show what could be achieved at the Copenhagen climate conference that is scheduled for Dec. 7-18, 2009.

At the moment, the conference is aiming for much more modest cuts, dismissed by leading climate scientists as too little, too late to stave off runaway processes that will lead to millions or even billions of casualties.

The paper describes in detail a powerful (and entirely possible) new treaty to bring carbon levels down below 350 parts per million – the
level climate scientists say we need to achieve to avoid climate catastrophe.

One article describes how a website, http://BeyondTalk.net, mobilized thousands of people to put their bodies on the line to
confront climate change policies – ever since way back in June, 2009.

Although the newspaper is a fake (its production and launch were coordinated by Greenpeace), the website is real. Beyondtalk.net is part of a growing network of websites calling for direct action on climate change, building on statements made in recent months by noted political
figures.

For example, in September Nobel laureate Al Gore asserted that “we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to
prevent the construction of new coal plants.”

Leading American environmentalist Bill McKibben was enthusiastic about the newspaper’s message and the methods BeyondTalk.net calls for.

“We need a political solution grounded in reality – grounded in physics and chemistry. That will only come if we can muster a wide variety of political tactics, including civil disobedience.”

“Non-violent civil disobedience has been at the forefront of almost every successful campaign for change,” said Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes
Men, who helped write and edit the newspaper and are furnishing the technology for BeyondTalk.net. “Especially in America, and especially today, we need to push our leaders hard to stand up to industry lobbyists and make the sorts of changes we need.”

“Roosevelt would never have been able to push through the New Deal if people hadn’t taken to the streets, occupied factories, and demanded
it,” noted newspaper writer/editor and University of California professor Lawrence Bogad.

“Segregation, British rule in India, and apartheid wouldn’t have ended without a lot of people being creatively uncooperative – even if that meant getting arrested. Nonviolent civil
disobedience is the bread and butter of progress.”

The fake newspaper also has an ad for “Action Offsets,” whereby those who aren’t willing to risk arrest can help those who are.

A HOPEFUL NEWS PANDEMIC?

Today’s fake International Herald Tribune is part of a rash of recent publications which mimic prominent newspapers. Last November, a fake edition of the New York Times announced that the Iraq War was over. A few days earlier, a hoax USA Today featured the US presidential election result: “Capitalism Wins at the Polls: Anarchy Brewing in the Streets.”
And this April 1st, a spoof edition of Germany’s Zeit newspaper triumphantly announced the end of “casino capitalism” and the abolition
of poor-country debt.

The rash of fakes is likely to continue. “People are going to keep finding ways to get the word out about common-sense solutions those in
power say are impossible,” said Kelli Anderson, one of the designers of the fake International Herald Tribune and co-designer (with Daniel
Dunnam) of BeyondTalk.net.

“We already know what we need to do about climate change,” said Agnes de Rooij of Greenpeace International. “It’s a no-brainer. Reduce carbon emissions, or put the survival of billions of people at risk. If the political will isn’t there now, it’s our duty to inspire it.”

* CONTACT:
– The Yes Men, mailto:press@theyesmen.org
– Mark Breddy (Greenpeace), mailto:mark.breddy@greenpeace.org,
(+32) (0)2 2741 903, (+32) (0)496 15 62 29 (mob.)
– Lawrence Bogad, mailto:l.m.bogad@gmail.com,
+1-212 300 7943

Good Riddance: SMH Editor Alan Oakley Hands Over the Race-baiting Ignorance Flogging Boob-soaked Flesh Wand of Destiny.

Alan Oakley

Former SMH Editor

STILL A TOTAL KNOB

Of course it’s not all good news. The Zionist douchebag did step down yesterday – whatever that means is yet to be clear – but has apparently been offered an important strategic position at Fairfax. That probably means he’ll be getting paid six figures to Photoshop well-oiled breasts on to dead Arabs and equally dead polar bears.

As always, the Herald’s own article about the departure of one of Fairfax’s own is a vapid piece of sh*t which quite literally functions as nothing more than a press release. How quality of the paper is it that today another executive, David Kirk, has been dumped, so they sent an intern round to his back fence to take this photo.

What a shame he wasn’t pissing on a tree or rolling drunk and morbid in his own vomit at the time. Still, they have at least managed to make him appear mildly depressed, even though he’s actually just busy sending a text message.

The Australian’s article about Oakley’s departure from the Simply Moaning Hairball at least makes clear why he felt it necessary to turn the paper into a piece of glamorous mindless populist piece of turd largely written at a fourth grade reading and analysis level. Seems his lateral elevation was all about Sunday papers – tits, car ads, and Michael Jackson stories, basically.

Anyway – good riddance. If the Herald hadn’t formerly been a very worthwhile newspaper, and if it wasn’t still holding a stable of very good writers and journalists, then there would be no reason for frustration with the wad of 90% trans-fats that it has become in the last two+ years under Oakley and the completely visionless board of Fairfax.

One might hope that Oakley’s departure will open the door for a dramatic improvement of the ailing newspaper culture at the Sydney Morning Herald and Farifax’s other outposts, but based on their sustained form there is little reason for that hope.

Michael Duffy is a moron; why does Fairfax pay him?

It is strange that Fairfax, the publisher of Sydney Morning Herald, puts out a far better paper in Melbourne – The Age – than they do in Sydney. It could perhaps be because the Sydney editor is a nonce. But that doesn’t explain why the hell Fairfax employ a conservative editor in what continually tries to be a progressive society. Perhaps they would rather we resist that impulse.

Or they think we are idiots, which would explain why they keep on their stable of narcissistic pundits-of-no-merit. Like Miranda Devine. Like Gerard Henderson (could somebody pleeeease tell him that John Howard is gone already). Like Michael Duffy.

Duffy is like a tumour that masquerades as a boil. His bio is hilarious – he relaunched his image at the Herald lately by presenting himself as aged cool like a turd with chocolate sprinkles, making special efforts to emphasize that he has been on the dole, AND played in bands. I would bet Madonna’s left nut that they were horrible pieces of shit who largely played or ripped off other people’s songs that sucked way before they even lost all relevance.. Because this feels like the kind of guy that Duffy is, and it’s exactly the way that he manages information. He’s like some second rate Christopher Pyne trying to present as a first rate Shaun Micallef, thereby coming across quite a bit like a skid mark from Peter Costello’s underpants but without the charisma.

In the tradition of ripping off shit that need never have been exuded in the first place, skunkjunk has just run an op ed in the Herald Truly inconvenient truths about climate change being ignored. Wow! Genius! Who would have ever thought to use the title of an increasingly old movie ironically in pursuit of climate change denial? Never. Seen. That. Done. A. Million. Times. Already.

And what a piece of crap it is.

Someone else who’s looked closely at scientific journals (although not specifically those dealing with climate science) is epidemiologist John Ioannidis of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He reached the surprising conclusion that most published research findings are proved false within five years of their publication. (Lest he be dismissed as some eccentric, I note that the Economist recently said Ioannidis has made his case “quite convincingly”.)

So, one of Duffy’s convincing sources reads magazines that aren’t anything to do with climate science, and has found inconsistencies in those non-climate findings which a non-climate magazine has apparently once agreed add up to some kind of non-climate argument, and therefore climate change is bogus? I’m so convinced, I must read further.

Exxon crude oil $US45.45: US Supreme Court ruling

In a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court today slashed the damages bill against Exxon for the 11 million gallons of oil their drunken captain poured into a pristine Alaskan ecosystem just 20 years ago. Deciding that “the people” – as in of the, by the, and for the – of the original jury were brain damaged for originally awarding $5 billion in punitive damages against the company, Justice David Souter today pissed mightily in the faces of victimized communities, environments, and species for generations to come.

He found that Exxon should only have to pay $500 million in punitive damages, seeing as the company had already paid $507 million in damages to directly compensate communities of Prince William Sound for economic losses.

$500 million totals about $15 000 for each of the 33 000 claimants, and 4 days worth of Exxon’s profits last year,

Microsoft’s fraudathon: Screw charity, let’s self-promote!

Parker Whittle is so real. He shaves. He uses Flickr, where his name is P-Whit (too easy to make something else out of that, hey?). And with a heart of gold, he’s launching himself into a 30-day email and i.m.-a-thon to raise an unknowable amount of money at an undisclosed rate for a handful of mainstream charities.

And the best part? It’s not your money. It’s Microsoft’s money. It’s like you’re reaching into the Man’s pockets and taking cash and handing it to a hungry person, every time you hit “enter.” The i’m Initiative turns you into Robin Hood with a goofy screen name.

Every time Parker, the Parkster, the P Man, or Da P, as his close friends call him, uses Windows Messenger or any other similarly contorted piece of Windows communicationware over the next month, Microsoft – “the Man” – sweats “coin”.

Parker could have just said “money” but he’s so “shtreet” he says “coin”!!

Oh no he di’n’t!!

He better talk to the hand…gurrlfren’!!!

Dollar Implodes: Oh you crazy Carlyles, you’ve done it again!!

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.

Obama v. Clinton defined

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?

Whaling: Peter Garrett’s most convenient problem looks like this…

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.

Another unappealing Australian forestry decision

A crucial, complex, and under-reported court battle for Australian forests and endangered species came to a head in late November, as three judges of the Federal Court overturned a decision which had previously seen Greens Senator Bob Brown triumph over the state government of Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania, and the federal government.

Brown has been in court for the last two years, fighting to establish an important understanding of Australian environmental law by arguing about the way it should apply to endangered species in Tasmania’s Wielangta Forest.

The major piece of environmental legislation in this country – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBCA) – has, in practice, been excluded from all forests governed by Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) between the state and federal governments. In essence, this means that any forest being logged with state approval is exempt from the protections of this particular law.

Brown’s argument – previously upheld in December of 2006 – was that the EPBCA was only excluded because the RFA was meant to confer federal responsibilities for species protection to the state authorities, by virtue of the RFA. Where these responsibilities were not honoured in practice, Brown argued, the RFA was invalidated and endangered species provisions of the EPBCA must therefore be applied.

While the appeal judges seemed to agree that logging in Wielangta has a significant and unacceptable impact on endangered species, they overturned the key finding of last year’s decision, supporting instead the conclusion that areas of logging are exempt from protection other than that deemed necessary by departments of forestry under agreement with state and federal governments.

“It’s a case of the law intends to protect endangered wildlife but if Canberra and Hobart ignore logging which endangers their existence, they can,” Senator Brown said.

“I will ask both Prime Minister Rudd and Peter Garrett to put the Howard years of indifference behind and insist these habitats be protected as the law intends,” said Brown. “I have also asked my barristers to weigh up the obvious grounds for an appeal to the High Court – this nation’s natural heritage depends on us taking action.”

Bob Gordon, Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania took a different view of the decision’s significance.

“Propaganda put out by extreme elements in the anti-forestry movement claimed we were somehow acting outside the law,” said Gordon. “This has been an expensive, emotionally draining and time consuming exercise – but it has been worth it. There is now no doubt that our forest operations are legal.”

Of course, there is still doubt. Unlike Forestry Tasmania and the two governments they are joined by, Brown has not had the benefit of departmental budgets or tax moneys to fight his battle – a battle which is not yet over.

 

Drunken thugs brutalize whale

Captain Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd has just posted this horrific recounting of a recent tortuous death inflicted by wannabe customary warriors:

(excerpt) The unsuspecting whale had no reason to fear the approach of the boat. After all, the whale had been in these waters for years without threat. People and boats were harmless. So when Parker drove the first harpoon into the whale’s back, the whale screamed in pained surprise and jerked on the line causing Wayne Johnson to drop the .50 caliber gun into the sea. In desperation the shocked amateur whalers sank three more harpoons into the whale and then they opened fire with a .460 Magnum rifle shooting 16 bullets into the whale’s body and failing to hit a vital organ.

It’s a tale that’s as disgusting and disturbing as it is aggravating and clarifying, but definitely worth taking the time to read.

The New Yorker, the prestigious journal known best to some through the fim Capote recently did a deeply dug profile on Watson & Sea Shepherd which you can check out here.

The Shepherds are in Australia at the moment preparing for this summer’s Operation Migaloo. Named after a white humpback whale (Migaloo is one tribe’s word for “white fella”) who seasonally travels the east coast of Australia, this Sea Shepherd operation has particular significance.

Under authority from… well…. from themselves, Japan have not only approved the slaughter of 950 minke and fin whales, but have added for the first time since their hunting was stopped 50 humpbacks. Still an endangered species, humpbacks have perhaps a greater emotional attachment and significance for mainstream Australians than any other whale. Furthermore, Migaloo follows on from last summer’s operation which saw Sea Shepherd prevent the deaths of around 500 whales by the Japanese, but also saw Greenpeace deliberately withold information about the whaling fleet from Sea Shepherd.

The Japanese whaling fleet was inconvenienced by fire and one human death aboard its all-important factory ship, the Nisshin Maru. More importantly, however, the pristine Antarctic ecosystem was threatened by the possibility of a massive industrial toxic spill.

This time around, Greenpeace are tracking the Japanese whalers with updates posted constantly – removing the p.r. need for them to block Sea Shepherd. Furthermore, before election the new Australian government made a commitment to use air and naval vessels to, at best, stop the slaughter. At lamest, they will monitor it.

Here’s hoping for a complete shutdown of the Maru crew this Summer. May their boats rust and their captains, owners and government minister f%&$ing starve.

Politicising Australian science – Old King Coal

There’s an excellent article in yesterday’s New Matilda. Written by Polly Simons, a journalism student at UTS, the piece considers the relationship between the CSIRO’s ability to operate effectively, and the government’s desire to use it merely as a stamp of credibility… or an extension of major donors’ corporate policies.

When The Canberra Times revealed in February that a report by CSIRO scientists questioning the cost and efficiency of clean coal technology had been suppressed because it was not in the best interests of the coal industry, it confirmed what many scientists had long suspected — that when it comes to CSIRO energy research, the coal industry is King.

‘The reality is that the research of most of the CSIRO is completely distorted,’ says Dr Mark Diesendorf, a senior lecturer at the University of NSW’s Institute of Environmental Science, and a former CSIRO scientist.

Those in the know have described the report as the ‘smoking gun’ of a debate that has seen the CSIRO accused of kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry, derailing valuable renewable energy research in favour of so-called ‘clean coal’.

Do yourself a favour and keep reading

Joint anti-pulp-mill campaign targetting ANZ bank to launch Wednesday

MEDIA RELEASE

A co-ordinated national campaign takes aim at the ANZ bank.

WFCA (Women For Change Alliance) and TAP (Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill) will be launching their joint campaign targeting the ANZ as Gunns’ bankers and potential financiers of the proposed pulp mill, on Wednesday October 10.

Danielle Ecuyer, director of WFCA and resident of Bondi (Malcolm Turnbull’s electorate) is in Tasmania at the invitation of TAP to launch a joint “ANZ Sign the Letter” Campaign directed at ANZ’s Mike Smith.

“Huge numbers of signatures are pouring in”, said Danielle Ecuyer. “Banks like ANZ are at risk of severely damaging their reputation and losing market share, which takes years to establish”.

“I would warn any other bank that seeks to finance the mill that they too will be subjected to a similar campaign”, she said.

TAP spokesperson Bob McMahon said: “Once ANZ realizes what a risky and unsustainable business this pulp mill is they will decline to be involved in financing it. With that as a judgement why would any other bank touch the project?”

“As a community group TAP aims to put the risk back into risk capital.”

The campaign will be officially launched in City Park near the Albert Hall at 1.00pm tomorrow, Wednesday October 10^th, 2007.

Tasmanian Gunns speak out in today’s Mercury

In a very thoughtfully written article in today’s Hobart Mercury, Nick Clark describes an intriguing brief encounter. He met the Gunn family at the weekend’s pulp mill protest and captured some of their anger over what they believe John Gay – head of Gunns and managing director appointed by their father/ husband/ grandad – has done to their family’s name. It’s a worthwhile read, but the best bit is in the accompanying forum. The following online comment was submitted by Sarah Gunn – now I’m not certain if she’s actually a Gunn or somebody going with an online moniker… ‘she’ might even be a guy… but I love this short burst of writing and I’m assuming it’s from a real Gunn:

the naming rights to gunns ltd remained when the family sold its controlling share in the 1980s. the goodwill value of the name may allow the company to get away with more damage than they should. eg how gunns ltd got a woodchip licence in the first place, for which the federal court found minister for resources erred in law, 1994. some members of the public may have thought the company was still controlled by the family. thank you to the mercury for making the situation clear. i have sent submissions against this mill in the past. i am pround of my family heritage, and i use paper, so what! they are building a pulp mill with my name on it! but seriously, best practice is not wood sourced under RFAs, because of the high proportion that gets chipped. in eden nsw 87% of logs go to woodchips, tasmania it is more like 90%. in upper northeast nsw 18% to pulplogs, it should be no higher than this anywhere. value adding means logs go to timber not pulp.

– Sarah Gunn 08/10/2007

No escape for Turnbull yet – pulp mill opposition loud and heading global.

I have somehow confused Alan Ramsey at the Sydney Morning Herald with somebody else. His article on the pulp mill decision took me so by surprise in its detail and point of view that I ran around googling to see if he was the narrow-minded bigot I had thought he was. I ended up finding an interesting reference in this piece which identifies Ramsey as the Australian writer earliest off the mark in suggesting that America’s Middle East policies and unconditional support for Israel may have been the main factors behind the 9-11 attacks on America. So I’m taking him off the Gerard Henderson-Miranda Devine-Tony Abbott list and once again considering him to be a commentator of merit.

Asides aside, Ramsey’s article today – describing how Malcolm Turnbull has condemned Tasmania for at least the next fifty years – is an utterly cracking read with particularly excellent reportage of recent interviews with well-resourced activist Geoffrey Cousins.

“Because if that mill does pollute the environment, it’ll be decades if not hundreds of years before anyone can correct it. And for Malcolm to say, ‘Well, if it pollutes, we’ll close the mill down’, which is what he said, I mean, that is ludicrous. You tell me anywhere in the world where a multi-billion dollar project has been closed down by a government. It doesn’t happen. What you’ve got to do is make sure all the environmental standards have been met before it’s approved, not some time after.”

Lateline’s Tony Jones: “Let me put to you what Richard Flanagan had to say about the influence of Gunns on ordinary Tasmanians. ‘The woodchipper’s greed not only destroys their natural heritage, but distorts their Parliament, deforms their policy and poisons their society.’ Do you buy that far into his argument?”

Cousins: “Well, look, Richard has a much greater knowledge of these things than I do. I finished reading that article and found it so compelling that I contacted the magazine and said, ‘How do I get in touch with this bloke?’ I didn’t know him, I knew his novels. And I spoke to him and said, ‘I’ve got to do something.’ I mean, I’m not somebody who runs around protesting in the streets normally, but it was such a compelling piece of writing that I said, ‘I don’t know how I can help, but whatever I can do, I want to try.’ “

A speech by Cousins’ inspiration – Richard Flanagan – to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association at the American Press Club is also reported today.

Pulp Mill Decision due, but big issues unresolved – updated

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be handing down his decision in the matter of Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley this week.

Turnbull was applauded by Greens Senator Dr. Bob Brown when he retained Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Peacock to conduct an independent review of Gunns’ submissions. The Department of Environment has already spent a week picking apart Peacock’s recommendations, probably seeking a politically expedient route to compliance.

The day that Turnbull received the report he declared on ABC’s Lateline that Peacock’s findings would soon be made publicly available along with Turnbull’s own response. Matthew Denholm points out in today’s Australian that this fiercely undercuts his initial insistence in late August that there would be opportunity for public consideration of the report and comment before the making of his final decision. Denholm quotes from the report filed by ABC journalist Felicity Ogilvie on August 30.

When the Chief Scientist gives us his report, we’ll publish it, and Gunns and everybody else will have an opportunity to comment on it, and then I would hope to be in a position to make a decision.

That position has since been ‘clarified’. Publication of the report for public consideration shall now follow the announcement of a final decision. Prior to any other media picking up on this ministerial backflip it was actually pointed out by Ogilvie reporting, again, on ABC national radio.

That was five weeks ago.

Today, Mr Turnbull’s changed his tune – he’s backtracked on the undertaking to let the public as well as the company see the Chief Scientist’s report before the decision’s made.

Mr Turnbull’s office calls this a ‘clarification’ of his comments.

Meanwhile, Gunns has been the only stakeholder to enjoy access to the contents of the report, via discussions with Turnbull’s Department of Environment. Funnily enough, Gunns CEO John Gay apparently denied Gunns having been privy to any such accomodation – the same day that Turnbull’s Department was admitting to it.

Many observers are expecting “conditional approval”, allowing construction to begin but requiring more effluent-related data before the mill begins operation in two years.

Facebook – many reasons not to.

A number of people i dig muchly have invited me to join Facebook over the last year but there are some things I just can’t get past. Without sounding at all like Miss Teen South Carolina, I hear you say ‘such as?’

Well, apart from the idea of giving some random entity your email password?

I haven’t seen the issue covered anywhere quite as well as in this article on New Media by James Massola in New Matilda earlier this year:

Given the volume of information that Facebook gathers, the question of who has access to it is an important one. A Privacy International report on the privacy policies of some of the biggest websites in the world — think BBC, Google and MySpace — gives Facebook its second lowest ranking.

More speculative than inquisitive, Binoy Kampmark has written a similarly valuable piece, Giving Good Face, at Counterpunch. Kampmark recontextualizes Facebook post-Virginia Tech massacre which backgrounds the visible head of the company well (but also makes me ask ‘can you name a single bombed out Iraqi School?’… ‘Baghdad Junior High’ gets points for effort). This article by Marie at CommonGroundCommonSense (!!!! – sheesh – there’s an idea, hey?) gives a very good rundown of some of the most concerning elements to the Facebook back story.

The Information Awareness Office seems to have survived some of its original purposes in a mutated form, found in today’s Facebook. In fact, one of IAO’s original example technologies included “human network analysis and behavior model building engines,” [10] a surprising echo of the social networking mapping that Facebook does using SVG visualizations.

Burmese bloggers & the monks’ demands…

This is straight from Al Jazeera. They spoke by phone with a Buddhist monk called Uppekha, who is part of the All Burma Buddhist Monks Alliance.

Uppekha said he had expected more help from the UN and emphasised that all the protests had been peaceful.
He said: “We have a chance to create our own rights. We have a chance to create our own freedom.
“We are peaceful demonstrators but the government is taking this violent crackdown. We are suffering violence from a military junta.
“We dont understand why the UN aren’t helping us. They are just talking, talking, blowing in the wind.”

When a monk suggests military, martial, or international action to support gunned down peaceful protests… it’s gotta mean something. I just think it’s disgusting that the “world leaders” are congratulating themselves on cutting military and financial aid to Burma’s military regime. The media are also singing this song – when there really should be more questions about why these bastards didn’t have their lines of weapon supply and access to foreign assets cut long ago.

And it does seem kind of sick that “democracy” can be delivered by missile, bomb, dictum, and invasion… but not by request or obvious necessity.

Al Jazeera also reports on the cutting of access to Burmese blogs and provides hyperlinks for easy direct access to what remains up online. Al Jazeera has compiled a wide array of background and update pieces and they can all be explored via any of these links.

And thank God for Australia’s strong grip on context. The fact that protesters were allegedly beaten up today by police outside the Burmese embassy in Canberra does not say anything specific about Australian reverence for the military junta. But it does highlight how inappropriate the reflexive clamping down on peaceful protest really is. That Australian protesters in Australia were beaten up for protesting against a government that has been killing its own critics simply provides a striking back drop. The complete picture points toward the natural endpoint of the excessive laws forced through in the last 5 years, with a tip of the hat to the consequent problem of overzealous policing.

Still, at least common sense has prevailed somewhere. Because there is nothin more logical than invading an allegedly despot nation to take away their non-existent weapons, realizing you fucked up, and then selling their unstable government $2.3 billion worth of armaments so you can come back and do it all again, gee – i don’t know, maybe next week?

A Department of Defense official speaking anonymously said “well that clinches it. This time next week, we’re going to be bombing the shit out of Irony.”

Forced Limbo on Gunns Pulp Mill

Interestingly, mainland papers are obsessing on the mill proposal as a political rather than environmental issue. It is legitimate, obviously, to identify the issue as both politicised and political, but it is a somewhat shameful indictment of social priorities that people are perhaps too “green fatigued” from all the discussion of climate change to give a damn about biodiversity. Anyway, political editor at The Age Michelle Grattan has the story here and Sue Neales at Ground Zero has the story here for the Hobart Mercury.

Long story short – the chief scientist has both rescued and wedged the federal government. Rescued, in that the onus of responsibility for the ineptitude of the proposal is shifted back to Gunns, and there is now an option for the environment minister to legitimately delay further while more modelling and legislating is called for. Wedged, in that the Howard Cabinet most likely wants to just sign off on the mill and lock in their aspirational marginal Tasmanian forest industry lobbyist vote – you know, the easily bought one which both major parties seem so desperate to coddle that they’ll piss away evolution, principle, common sense, and leadership.

Chomsky’s latest view around Iran.

Noam Chomsky’s latest writing on US foreign policy – Cold War II – is as eloquent, insightful, readable, and profoundly clarifying as ever. I actually got the urge to go info-seeking after reading this appalling new piece on Al Jazeera about how Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh is currently being denied permission to place a wreath at the WTC site in New York when he attends the UN next week. So Iran can help the US locate Al Qaeda operatives in the Middle East… but can’t lay flowers at a shrine? It’s as much about symbolic hypocrisy as the anti-abortionists who support war.
If you need a reason to take 20 minutes to properly digest the article, check out the following excerpt. If you really don’t have the time right now, please do yourself a favour and get clued up on this later. Either way – not to be missed, seriously.

Without irony, the Bush administration and the media charge that Iran is “meddling” in Iraq, otherwise presumably free from foreign interference. The evidence is partly technical. Do the serial numbers on the Improvised Explosive Devices really trace back to Iran? If so, does the leadership of Iran know about the IEDs, or only the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Settling the debate, the White House plans to brand the Revolutionary Guard as a “specially designated global terrorist” force, an unprecedented action against a national military branch, authorizing Washington to undertake a wide range of punitive actions. Watching in disbelief, much of the world asks whether the US military, invading and occupying Iran’s neighbors, might better merit this charge — or its Israeli client, now about to receive a huge increase in military aid to commemorate 40 years of harsh occupation and illegal settlement, and its fifth invasion of Lebanon a year ago.

It is instructive that Washington’s propaganda framework is reflexively accepted, apparently without notice, in US and other Western commentary and reporting, apart from the marginal fringe of what is called ‘the loony left.” What is considered “criticism” is skepticism as to whether all of Washington’s charges about Iranian aggression in Iraq are true. It might be an interesting research project to see how closely the propaganda of Russia, Nazi Germany, and other aggressors and occupiers matched the standards of today’s liberal press and commentators..

The comparisons are of course unfair. Unlike German and Russian occupiers, American forces are in Iraq by right, on the principle, too obvious even to enunciate, that the US owns the world. Therefore, as a matter of elementary logic, the US cannot invade and occupy another country. The US can only defend and liberate others. No other category exists. Predecessors, including the most monstrous, have commonly sworn by the same principle, but again there is an obvious difference: they were Wrong, and we are Right. QED.

Trees Not Tantrums: bitchy whining and the Gunns pulp mill

or

The Poncey Sulks of John Gay & the new green propaganda.

This will not be a long and detailed analysis, this doesn’t proffer intriguing new interview insights, this is simply a short piece to draw attention to a tendency gone too far and a future newly mapped.

Even if we don’t consider Gunns’ action of directly trying to target 20…15…14 protesters with massive financial penalties, and even if we don’t go digging into the murky background of the decision to chase the Weld Angel for buck$ – even if we just consider John Gay’s pulp and whinery projects (not a typo, btw) then there is an alarming tendency to tantrum on the part of Tasmania’s biggest splinter-maker.

Hell, I can only take so much of thinking about this because it really pisses me off – let’s even limit the discussion to this year.

APEC – Gulag Sydney sends hugs (and pics)

Simple, clear, to the point. A single focused demo round this simple instruction would be awesome. My favourite sign at all of APEC so far.

Although this one’s also pretty catchy.

Tassie bureaucrats go after Weld Angel – urgent campaign support needed.

From Huon Valley Environment Centre

You may have heard that the beloved Weld Angel is being sued by Tasmania Police and Forestry Tasmania for close to $10,000 (see articles below).

Allana Beltram needs your help to defend this court case and take on this issue for all forest activists. Please help by donating to her defence fund.

You can donate online at Huon.org or send a cheque to:

Huon Valley Environment Centre
PO Box 433
Huonville 7109. Tasmania. Australia

Mercury
The Age
ABC Online

Forest Industry of Tasmania – Asked & Answered.

Reprinting this from here because it is a shittily arranged site and more chance that all you deep green commie lefties will look at this if you don’t have to click through to a clearfell lobbying www. And because I’ve… (answered it). Thanks David Obendorf for pointing out this piece of poop.

The Editor – Mercury, Examiner, Advocate 28/08/07

by Julian Amos as Chairman of Forest Industries Association of Tasmanistan

The arguments of those opposed to the pulp mill border on the surreal (because they are filthy dirty hippies who smoke mushrooms and collect Dali posters). Let us put some facts on the table (whoa big fella, let’s not get carried away).

The amount of dioxin being released from the mill each year is minute. It will, in
volume, be less than one grain of rice (rice that can destroy reproductive systems at concentrations of less than a grain of sand – not good for marine reproduction at all). Most of these substances will be discharged in the effluent not to the air. (thank god – i like pigeons and John Gay but i fucking can’t stand seals)

The level of dioxins and furans from the proposed mill is miniscule (0.111 grams) compared with the output of these substances from existing wood heaters (0.883 grams or over 96%) in the greater Launceston area (me think you is confused – particulate matter and dioxins are different. particulates are small solid pieces of air pollution that get stuck in lung tissue, dioxins are persistent pollutants that alter genetic functions at incredibly low concentrations). Wood heaters seriously affect the overall air quality in the Tamar and it is wood heaters and not the pulp mill that is the real issue to be addressed. (goddamn wood heaters! why should people be allowed to stay warm in their homes while Gunns lose millions of dollars a day. Shame Launceston, shame!)

The effluent from the mill, including the “grain of rice”, (which is actually one of the most lethal persistent poisons known to humanity, as opposed to actual rice which is an edible grain) will be dispersed via a 3km outlet pipe into Bass Strait, in an area where there is no commercial scallop fishery (so if nobody’s making money off it, we really should bugger it – it’s what the market would want). The Maryvale mill in Victoria has been discharging its effluent into Bass Strait for years, with no adverse effect on the marine environment or any fishery. (may be because they claim to have eliminated emissions of 2378TCDD dioxins. no reported effect from a company with 70 years in pulp industry that as of 10 years ago was still 90% native forest dependent. Nice example.)

The mill will be situated in an area where there are vineyards. In the premium grape growing districts of Provence and Bordeaux, in France, vineyards inhabit the same territory as pulp mills, with no loss of reputation, tourism attraction, or wine quality. (yes, good talking point – in Bordeaux, an inexperienced company that nobody trusts has run a million tonne pulp mill for years. There has never been an accident and people travel there every year for fresh wine, clean air, and France’s breathtaking biodiversity.)

Those who argue for a site move to Hampshire from the Tamar for environmental reasons are being less than honest (that would bother you?). First, there is no proposal to do so, and anyway, why is that site any more “environmentally appropriate”. (no air shed issues, in the middle of Gunns’ plantations, not disrupting existing industries, would have to be properly assessed in the way that Tamar wasn’t)
Industrial plant in Tasmania operates under license conditions. If those conditions are breached, the plant is shut down. The pulp mill will operate under license conditions, and will be treated no differently to any other industrial plant. (as long as Gunns turn themselves in every time they fuck up. That’s another job created right there.)
Those who argue that the mill will destroy Tasmania’ forests conveniently ignore the fact that no additional timber will be cut to feed the mill – woodchips that are presently exported as woodchips will be the feedstock for the mill. (this is false, not only will the mill continue to consume native forests while plantation chips are exported, but the woodchips that are presently exported will most likely have been used overseas by the time the mill can be built.)

And finally (i doubt it), those complaining of the fast-track process (and corruption of due process, and incompetence, and fat belly laughter) by the State Government should reflect on the fact that it was the RPDC process that was flawed, because of the lack of a timeline. (no, we’ve all been over this. The RPDC process was flawed because nobody submitted a competent or complete or accurate Integrated Impact Statement for them to work with, despite numerous invitations and requests for someone to submit said item.) To say that the public has been denied the opportunity for input is wrong. The public had input into the RPDC process and that input has been included under the present arrangements, both State and Federal. (‘inclusion’ is not the same as consideration. And reluctant inclusion without proper consultation, compared with encouraging a corporation to draft and edit legislation before elected unrepresentatives even get a look in?)

The public needs to have the full facts and not simply the biased presentations from the anti-mill lobby. (Yes, the public needs to have the full facts,so give em the facts, fool! Oh, that’s right. Facts are commercial in confidence aren’t they?)

Tasmania’s Pulp Mill Crescendo – media round up

In Tasmanistan’s House of Rubber Stamp it’s full steam ahead : Pulp Mill Victory (for JohnPaul) which has Lord High Out-of-touch believing that Gunns full commitment to the project is still worth getting excited about. Big Red’s a bit excited because he has oh-so-competent Tasmanian Government legal advice that Malcolm Turnbull has fatally fudged administrative procedure, thereby putting the legality of his assessment in doubt (again?).

But the Australian Medical Association, a potent political force – not to mention occasional voice for good sense – has just upgraded its health concerns on the mill: Health Risk Too Great.

Meanwhile, and most comprehensively, Lateline got fully stuck in last night.

They revealed that like a liquid turd running down the leg of a grandmother dead from shock, the CFMEU are wanting to again make their election-year presence felt. How imaginative to threaten stacking marginal electorates in the year that the ALP might get rid of Howard if they can just convince people that the unions aren’t self-indulgently irresponsible, power-hungry bullies. Thanks for the last three years of dual house Liberal domination Michael O’connor – how about WorkChoices hey? Well done CFMEU. Why not try for WC II, The Enfuckwittening.

Taking advantage of child abuse – Howard Government takes it even further.

This story filed with Crikey by Henri Ivrey is incredible – not because it is any kind of exception to the rule, or because it is unlike Mal Brough to screw desperate people over, but because the practice has been thoroughly exposed in detail by a non indigenous paper that’s almost mainstream.

It is also amazing because the detail of the story is prescient – this is part of the next mega-grab by Howard et al. and therefore there is some hope if these actions are rejected by the broader national community. It’s an essential story which you’d probably be glad to read in full, but at the very least check out this excerpt:

The early targets appear to be urban-based Community Development Employment Programs (CDEP). In a letter to these CDEP projects in towns and cities up the Stuart Highway, IBA’s “national manager business funding”, Kim McIlveen is keen to introduce “new products and services that your CDEP organisation might qualify for”.

One of these “new products” is “establishing an Indigenous Economic Development Trust, through which assets will be leased to Aboriginal businesses”.

And he is cheerfully offering a helping hand.

“IBA staff and contracted service providers will be visiting each CDEP over the next few months to provide more information and invite you to discuss your business needs.”

The sheer effrontery of it is extraordinary. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), in at least one instance, will be “resuming” an asset from an Aboriginal business which is being offered back for commercial rental to the very Aboriginal business from which it was compulsorily taken.