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News Report Issue 48
Index
1. Thought for the day - Neil
2. Opinion: White farmers in Zimbabwe
- Antonia.
3. Opinion: Jobs - Sunday Life magazines
Top 10 - Antonia
4. Opinion:The Seven Second grab -
Antonia
5. Article: The facts about unleaded
petrol - Forwarded by Antonia
6. Life Sciences: Monsanto's Latest Bt
Corn - Forwarded by Veronica
7. Feedback: Media promoted violence -
Peter
8. Feedback: ACTU's annual ritual -
Richard
9. Feedback: Are all politicians crooked -
Tony
10. Feedback: Politicians escape blame -
John
11. Feedback: Homosexuals in the Army &
West Papua - Peter
12. Feedback Contacts:
13. Editorial Policy:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thought for the day:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do,
than I have ever done; It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have
ever known". (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two
Cities).
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Opinion: White farmers in
Zimbabwe
Things are not looking good for white farmers in Zimbabwe. Last week, one family found over 100 blacks armed with axes and spears camped outside the 3 metre (!) fence that surrounds the house. The husband rang his neighbours for help only to discover they were under siege too. When he refused to sign over his 1000 ha farm, the blacks simply divided his corn and tobacco field into half hectare plots to be given to the landless. Over twenty years the government has bought 2,000 white-owned farms, but most of them have been leased to the politicians and their cronies. The government still holds some 800,000 ha but has not redistributed it as it promised to do. So the whites, who are very productive farmers, are the scapegoats for the government's failures, and now their land is being stolen. It's a recipe for disaster. Ian Smith has been proved right. He predicted the chaos that would follow majority black rule and was made an international pariah for his views. Mugabe has destroyed what was the once prosperous nation of Rhodesia. The blacks were better off then than now. Antonia ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Opinion:
Jobs A list of the top 10 jobs in the Sunday Life magazine shows just how divided Australian society is. In order they are, 1. childcare worker. Sadly, the number of children spending 35 hours a week in care is rising. 35 hours - that's a 9 to 5 job, for mercy's sake! 2. call centres 3. hospitality - waiters, kitchenhands etc 4. household help - people to mow, cook, walk the dogs of the winners 5. day spas - beauty therapy, facials, etc for "time poor" winners 6. netrepreneur - people establishing web businesses 7. IT 8. cybercops - detecting online fraud 9. life coaches - according to a practitioner, "I help people get clear about what they want". His clients are professional people whom he counsels over the phone. At between $250 and $500 a month you'd think it cheaper to go to the pub. 10. anti-ageing centres - the winners routinely attend "health and healing" centres. It doesn't get clearer than that - winners and losers. well-paying skilled trades almost disappeared. Antonia +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The seven-second grab Kim Beazley said something intelligent last year. Talking about the republic referendum he said: "The problem in politics today is the seven-second grab. You can't argue constitutional change in seven-second grabs." (Australian 28/10/99) So who's responsible for the seven-second grab? The mainstream media. And why does the mainstream media reduce everything to the seven-second grab when it's in their power to lift standards of public debate? The answer is pretty obvious: it suits them. They think they'll benefit from a deliberately dumbed-down populace. But it's becoming ever more obvious that their strategy isn't working. People are neither as stupid nor as malleable as the media contemptuously think they are. It's quite amusing really to see how the media keep being disagreeably surprised by the voters. Keating copped it, as did Goss, and most spectacularly, Kennett. The people see through them, and they get their deserved come-uppance. When's the next election? Antonia ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Article:
The Facts about unleaded Petrol - What they didn't
tell us!
The following article was published in the
October '94 edition of "The Pugilist" (monthly magazine of the Peugeot Car Club
of N.S.W Inc.), which was, in turn, a copy of an article in the VCCC
News.
A Report on the Dr David Warren
Theory - from The V.C.C.C. News
We were fortunate to have Dr. David Warren as our guest speaker at our May General Meeting. Dr. Warren is a retired Research Scientist for the Department of Defence and was the Energy Resources adviser to the Victorian Government in the early to mid eighties when the unleaded fuel debate was gathering momentum. What Dr. Warren had to say was of interest to us all, a subject that is being continually debated, namely leaded and unleaded fuel, one which affects all of us who drive motor cars. The History of Leaded petrol The early car engine had a very low compression ratio and the reason for this was the available fuel. Once the compression started to go past 5 to 1, pre-ignition (or knocking) became a problem. In the early 1920s Thomas Midgie discovered that platinum, silver and lead stopped "knocking" in car engines. With further research, Midgie found that a compound called lead tetraethyl was an ideal substance that not only stopped knocking in the car engine but was also soluble in petrol and vaporised like petrol. Also it broke down into lead at upper cylinder temperatures. Midgie's research took the octane rating from 50 to 65 and with improvements at the refinery the octane number during the forties and fifties climbed to 80 and finally with further developments to 110 for aviation fuel. The Green Debate During the sixties and seventies the call to clean up the atmosphere started to make Governments quiver. "Clean up car exhausts" was the cry from the Green lobby. "Lead is poisoning our children and should be banned" was some of the emotional material that caught the attention of Governments and the public at large. It is a fact that lead is a poison if absorbed by the body, but does it follow that the lead found in our bodies came from lead in petrol? Tests were carried out all over the world to
check the effect of lead emissions from car exhausts on humans.
The German Government cut lead in petrol from .4 to .15 grams per litre
and after five years discovered that there was no detectable reduction in blood
lead levels despite lead content in petrol being reduced by
two-thirds.
In London, a Professor Lowthur of
the University of London, pointed out that the lead that comes out of
the car exhaust has been baked at 2000 - 3000 degrees centigrade (like a house
brick) and is microscopically small. It does not get absorbed by
the lungs and does not even get dissolved in the hydrochloric acid of the
stomach. Dr. Warren's research showed that the lead in our blood
came from eating or drinking it and that the main source was from soldered food
cans, lead based paints and lead pipes.
In fact, research showed that blood lead levels were higher in country people who drank bore water, New Guinea Highlanders and people on some remote islands (where there were no cars) than in blood samples taken from those living in the heart of Melbourne. Despite the evidence, the Greens used the fact that "lead is a poison therefore it must be bad" as a way of railroading the Government into introducing unleaded petrol into Australia. Enter Unleaded Petrol The real reason for the introduction of unleaded petrol was that Catalytic converters were required on cars to get rid of nitric oxides, carbon monoxide and the unburnt petrol that came out of car exhausts. And lead rendered catalytic converters useless. This was the reason other countries introduced unleaded petrol - we did it because lead was a poison and we thought it was dangerous. The problem, however, is that if lead is removed from petrol what is going to be used in its place so that the octane level can be maintained? It was decided that benzene was the "best" alternative. Benzene is a known carcinogen (produces cancer) and Dr. Warren said that unleaded petrol now appears to be so dangerous that under no circumstances should it be used in any car not fitted with a catalytic converter. It should not be used in your motor mower, chainsaw, whipper snipper or outboard motor and it should never be used to wash parts. Also, avoid getting unleaded petrol on your hands and avoid the fumes when refuelling. As the catalytic converter does not work until it reaches 400 degrees centigrade, avoid breathing the fumes from the exhaust of a cold engine. In Britain this risk is so clear that the National Society for Clean Air has removed their support for ULP. In the USA all new cars are fitted with anti fume filters so that the fumes emitted whilst refuelling are kept away from the person doing the refuelling. I have also noticed that the advertisements (featuring Gary Sweet) urging people with pre 1986 vehicles to use unleaded petrol where possible, have suddenly disappeared from our TVs. It also seems that the cost of producing ULP is significantly higher because more oil is used (creating more pollution) to derive benzene from oil. The alarming thing about the introduction of ULP in Australia is that we have replaced an almost harmless substance like lead in our petrol, with a frightening hazard like benzene. It has been done because a vocal minority stole the agenda and through misinformation have saddled us with a potential time bomb that could increase cancer rates in Australia. Dr. Warren urged all people to question what is put forward as "fact" and to take note of scientific evidence, which was certainly being promoted through this sorry saga but which the politicians ignored. I believe they are still ignoring the scientific evidence as we have seen with the Gary Sweet advertisement. (This report was compiled by Grant Harvey of the VCCC, using both a lecture at their May meeting and an article published in "Restored Cars") Forwarded by Antonia ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Life Sciences:
Action Alert: Monsanto's Latest GE
Corn
February 28, 1999 In August 1999, Monsanto petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve a new variety of corn genetically engineered to kill corn rootworms, important pests in the U.S. Corn Belt. The corn has been engineered to produce a specific toxin originally derived from a soil micro-organism, bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Bt corn varieties that have been grown commercially in the United States since 1996 target European corn borers, whose adult stage is a moth. Monsanto's new variety of Bt corn is
the first to target corn rootworms, whose adult stage is a
beetle. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) calls on EPA to deny
approval of Monsanto's new corn variety because of inadequate testing for
environmental impacts and lack of a credible resistance-management
strategy.
EPA is reviewing company data on the new crop and is expected to make a decision later this year whether or not to allow the Bt-corn seeds on the market. The public comment period on the application ends March 20. Write to EPA and urge the Agency to deny Monsanto's application. Corn rootworms have become major pests in some parts of the Corn Belt-costing growers hundreds of millions of dollars each year in reduced yields and insecticide use. For the last few decades, many farmers have
kept corn rootworms under control by using either insecticides or rotating corn
and soybeans. The two-crop rotation held the rootworms in check because
the adults laid eggs in corn fields and then died off when that field was
rotated to soybeans. Recently, however, some of the pests have
adapted to the two-crop rotation by laying their eggs in soybean fields so the
worms have a ready food source the next summer when the field is rotated to
corn.
Past control of corn rootworms by alternating corn and soybeans is a testament to the power of crop rotation to suppress pests, although sustainable farmers generally recommend three-to-six-year rotations as a more effective method. Had multiple-crop rotations rather than continuous corn or two-crop rotations been the norm the past few decades, corn rootworms would in all likelihood not be the problem they are today. Action: Write EPA and tell them not to approve commercialisation of Bt corn targeted at rootworms because: 1. Monsanto has submitted only an outline of a resistance-management strategy. Because rootworms present different problems than corn borers, the company will need to do considerably more research before it can devise a comprehensive plan to delay the evolution of resistance to Bt in corn rootworms. 2. Monsanto has not submitted data needed to conduct a rigorous ecological risk assessment. For example, the company submission does not contain sufficient data to evaluate potential impacts of Bt-toxin-containing root exudates on soil beetles. 3. The Agency itself does not yet have in place a strong program to ensure that all potential environmental impacts of Bt crops are fully evaluated. Public confidence in EPA's ability to protect against the risks of engineered crops was badly shaken last summer when the Agency failed to even note the possible effects of Bt-corn pollen on monarch butterflies. Before it approves any more Bt crops, the Agency must establish a scientifically credible framework for ecological risk assessment. Send comments before March 20 to: Public Information and Records Integrity Branch (PIRIB) Information resources and Services Division (7502C) Office of Pesticide Programs/EPA, 401 M St., SW, Washington, DC 20460 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Include the docket control number OPP-30487 on all correspondence. Source/contact: Union of Concerned Scientists, 1616 P St., NW, Suite 310, Washington, DC 20036; phone (202) 332-0900; fax (202) 332-0905; http://www.ucsusa.org. For further information: * Gray, M.E. "Prescriptive Use of Transgenic Hybrids for Corn Rootworms: An Ominous Cloud on the Horizon?" Crop Protection Technology Conference, January 5-6, 2000, sponsored by University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. http://www.biotech-info.net/rootworm.html. * Institute for Agricultural Trade and Policy, Science and Environmental Health Network, and Consumer Policy Institute/Consumers Union, "Comments Submitted to Docket Number OPP-50864: Application for an Experimental Use Permit for Cry3Bb Transgenic Corn," January 7, 2000. http://www.biotech-info.net/rootworm.html. * Saxena, D. et al., "Insecticidal toxin in root exudates from Bt corn," Nature 402:480, 1999. http://www.nature.com/server-java/Propub/nature/402480A0.pdf. Articles Forwarded by Veronica Griffin
Ph.D..
Kerawa Qld.
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Feedback:
Media Promoted
Violence.
Channel 9 TODAY show this morning 6 Mar - at
0715
Alan Jones words. "Lt Col David Grossman statements re roll of media and entertainment in conditioning children to violent and selfish behaviour. Grossman is an expert on de-sensitising troops to kill, and well qualified to identify effective mind conditioning. PC dilemma - 'Movies, TV and‘entertainment’. Does media influence young minds?
Media emphatically states NO, but is it so? If media does
not influence: SEATTLE: A five year old boy, apparently angry at some playmates, got his mothers gun, loaded it, pointed it at the two playmates and then fired into the ground, police said. No one was injured in the incident. The boy was referred to a counsellor and no charges were filed because the gun had been stored properly – unloaded and on a high shelf – police chief Randy Hamilton said. The boy told police he knew how to load and fire the gun from watching television. The incident occurred on February 23 outside an apartment complex in Chehalis about 130km from south east Seattle. Mother Tabitha Dizer, said the boy got upset while playing with her eight year old daughter and another playmate. The boy went inside, got his mothers pistol off a 2m high shelf, found an ammunition clip, loaded it and came back outside. He then “aimed it at us and shot at the ground”, his playmate Brandon Howard said. AND Lt Col David Grossman states media and entertainment is very effectively conditioning children to violent and selfish behaviour. He should know - Grossman is an expert on de-sensitising troops to kill, and well qualified to identify and use effective mind conditioning – on behalf of government! – the same government which preaches peace and actively prevents good people the means and rights to self defence. INSTEAD Movie media and entertainment industry readily pins the blame on the tool – guns – absolving itself of any complicity or responsibility in the deterioration it so obviously causes in society. A secure position indeed – a vested interest in the cause, and also the callow and ineffective remedies sought by ideological fools and governments. Where too now? More laws to restrict the rights and responsibilities of the law abiding? Continuance of present ways? FOOLS they are not - FOOLS are those who ignore reality and seek scapegoats, who demonise tools, who breed intolerance and who divide society and actually perpetuate violence. WHY do I write so? - because there is nothing so enlightening as having your life in the hands of another. The feeling of helplessness I know. The feeling of providing effective resistance I also know. I am but a product of my life's experience, which has been wide and varied - moreso than most people. Other people who scribe on these pages are products of different experiences / environments. The thinking people who express themselves so well on various issues on this forum, would be a formidable force if co-ordinated. Oh what a cake it would be with such great ingredients. Oh what a threat it would be to entrenched entities. Peter Cunningham
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We shall just have to help you bake that cake Peter.
Neil
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Feedback:
ACTU's Annual
Ritual:
6 March 2000 The Editor, Toowoomba Chronicle PO Box 40, Toowomba Qld 4350 Dear Sir The ACTU's claim for a safety net adjustment is becoming an annual ritual, but one which does continuing harm to the Australian economy. Since the end of the Accord years, the union claims have been more than three times the size they were then. Moreover, and what is clearly of greater concern, the outcomes have been significantly higher. The ACTU pretends that this is a trivial increase in costs which will have negligible consequences for employment. Yet one of the main reasons the very strong economic growth experienced over the past two years has not been translated into an even stronger labour market outcome has been the continuous growth in the cost of labour. No amount of propaganda about a "living" wage can disguise one fact: increases in the cost of labour without corresponding productivity improvements have to be accommodated. It should be understood that the increases sought by the ACTU are not just in the minimum wage, but are to apply to all award rates. The pretence made that these are increases to help only the low paid can be seen as merely hollow rhetoric when it is remembered that some of those on award rates are paid more than $1,000 per week. Annual safety net adjustments achieve very little for those who keep their jobs and cause major havoc in the lives of those who are unable to find jobs in the first place or who lose their jobs as a result of increased labour costs. Yours sincerely.
Richard Wood Richard J. Wood +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Feedback:
Are all politicians
crooked?
For allowing the perpetration of criminal policies against our children to continue for so long, the adult population of Australia should hang its collective head in shame. Every Australian knows that politicians are feathering their own nest at the expense of taxpayers and the weakest members of our community - mainly mothers and children. The only problem is that ordinary people dont know how they do it. When it is suggested that every family in Australia should have their own home if they want it, the politicians and their cronies are quick to defend their corruption in this area by pointing out that 'the country cannot afford it'. Yet, if we follow the trail of the
taxpayer dollar in the same way we follow the trail of the drug and
prostitution dollar it is easy to see how they are cheating us out of our
rightful prosperity. It is not Housing this country cannot afford,
but the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats themselves we cannot
afford.
When a pensioner or a dependent single
mother receives taxpayer dollars they have to pay half of their money
out in rent - and if their rent is too high they receive more taxpayer
dollars in rent assistance. What we must ask ourselves is who is getting the
taxpayer dollar rent money? Since taxpayer funded Housing is a thing of
the past ( Revenue in 1999, $160 billion, - Housing $Nil ), people must
be made to realise that landlords and banks are receiving $ billions of
taxpayer dollars in rental money for every pensioner and single mum,
who have to rent their house.
In this scam, for that is exactly
what it is, not one cracker is returned to the taxpayer. If you
or I ran a racket like this we would be jailed for life! N.B. In 1946,
Ben Chifley used taxpayer dollars enough to place 48% of all families into their
own home. If his policy had been allowed to continue under the
corrupt Menzies, every family who wanted one would have owned their home by
1960.For every landlord who is paying his/her property off through the banks -
and if that property is being rented to a pensioner or single mother - then the
banks are receiving at least one hundred dollars of taxpayer money every week in
interest. Over one million unemployed people, pensioners and
single mothers make the banks the biggest welfare recipients in the
country.
Annual $2 billion profits of banks from taxpayer dollars are the real reason Australia is riddled with child poverty. It is why students have to pay for education. It is why public servants are losing their jobs and why cuts to the ABC , SBS and Health are being made. It is why Australia is no longer the 'lucky country'. Many rich and well-to-do people know how the scam operates yet they remain silent for reasons known only to themselves. I would hazard a guess and say they are like every other politician in this country - they are negative gearing rental housing at the expense of taxpayers, mothers and children. ARE ALL POLITICIANS CROOKED? My word. Tony Lee N.B. On 6th March 1998, Bob Hawke apologised
for his part in the great Australian family rip-off
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Feedback:
Politicians escape
blame.
Dear
Community Liaison Committee
The bungled blasting in the Canberra Hospital demolition has its sequel in court. However the politicians seem to have escaped court action. Responsibility has been sheeted home to a total of eight groups and individuals for their part in the bungled implosion. John Massey St Lucia Residents' Association ---------- From: Web Server 7 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ABC - NewsMail Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2000 2:01 PM Dead girl's family begins damages action over bungled implosion The family of the 12-year-old girl killed during the implosion of the Royal Canberra Hospital in 1997 has begun legal proceedings. Katie Bender's family was standing by her side when she was hit in the head by a piece of steel from the explosion. Five members of the Bender family are suing a total of eight groups and individuals for their part in the bungled implosion. They are seeking damages for nervous shock caused by the death of Katie Bender in July 1997. The family's lawyer has officially filed a writ which identifies a number of defendants including Totalcare, the government-owned corporation which supervised the project, a senior Totalcare employee, and the demolition project directors. Demolition contractor Tony Fenwick along with shot firer Rod McCraken are also included in the Bender family's claim. Fender and McCracken have already been ordered to stand trial. The ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell has escaped any court action, but a claim has been lodged against the ACT for failing to ensure a competent contractor. John Massey
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Feedback:
Homosexuals in the Army & West
Papua
ANTONIA
- On the contrary - Homosexuals
should be in the army - at the front line. Strange is it not? The nation's best get killed off in
times of conflict - The nations deviants survive. Put 'em in the front line - Reverse the
trend!! Flippant? - yes!
I have some poofter friends who are the most decent and honourable people
imaginable. Blatantly
advertising themselves is what I find obnoxious.
ANTONIA
- You say "All the other Balkans states like Bosnia have been deliberately
partitioned, let's not mince words - ethnically cleansed" - Rubbish! -
Genocide and murder are the words, not the sterilised version you quote.
Media indoctrination has succeeded in changing even YOUR thinking.
"politically correct", is another - which is neither political nor is it
correct, so there is more throw away rhetoric.
We should all remember the dangerous path we tread - "Victims, suffering and slaughter are the preserves of the defenceless" ( a PC observation). David Rydstrand - West Papua seeking independence - Not recognising events engineered by foreign interests. GOOD. Ethnically and 'culturally' the island is one - totally different to Indonesia - save for local exceptions. Combining PNG with West Papua (WP) is a natural thing to do. It was obnoxious for two foreign entities to manipulate the future of another nation to suit a foreign one.
Aust has
sought recognition on the world scene - well! - we have it - and the
responsibilities.
Interfering can be costly. Oh what interesting times.
Peter Cunningham
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Let us know what you think. Feedback is
important. Comments on articles read would be of value. Do you agree / disagree?
Can you add more or a different perspective. Your contributions are greatly
appreciated.
Send this email on to as many as you
can. The more that read it the merrier. In time email communication
will make government censorship impractical and the newspapers will have to
start reporting it as it really is, rather than the smoke and mirrors tricks
they currently indulge in, or loose readership, and therefore advertising
monies. While we have a long way to go before that happens, each epic
journey must start with a single step.
Antonia Feitz [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Editorial
Policy
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