Monckton — The bull and the Borg

Christopher Monckton is very popular in outback Australia isn’t he? For the sake of the farmers I’ve met, it seems only fair to spread a voice telling some more of their stories. (The ABC certainly weren’t too willing to inform Australians about the Thompsons plight or Maxwell Schulz either.)

The inner city and rural producers have become so disconnected, it is like a visit from aliens  — Jo

————————————-

The bull and the Borg

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Captain’s Log, Stardate 2013.67: Antipodean climate extremists are going to have a field day with this one. In Australia (where else?) a pedigree Hereford bull has been named “Lord Monckton”. And the Prime Directive forbids me to intervene.

Peter Manuel, who farms many thousands of acres in the Lofty Ranges, became so exasperated with the Natural Resources Management Board of South Australia for interfering with farming that he arranged for Lord Monckton (the real one, that is) to visit the state and give a series of talks to farmers.

Lord Monckton’s semen is now available at premium prices


Peter is chief executive of Farmers’ and Landowners’ Group Australia (FLAG), which campaigns to defend farmers against the ridiculous environmental over-regulation that is destroying their livelihoods.

Earlier this year, I spent ten days with Peter and his family on their beautiful, impeccably-maintained spread high in the hills above Adelaide. The only way for us jackaroos to cover all the rolling acres and herd the cattle and sheep (in Australia, the word “sheep” is spelt “IPCC”) was on off-road motor-bikes, keeping a sharp eye out for snakes as we thundered across the rock-strewn terrain at speeds that would have been illegal on the roads.

After I had ridden (or slidden) fearlessly after my kind host down a shifting, rock-strewn 60-degree brae that no visitor had dared to attempt before, Peter announced that this year’s best pedigree bull on the farm would be named Lord Monckton, and would make an early appearance at the Adelaide Show.

Australia has more poisonous critters than any other continent – including the spooky, spiky officials of the ever-expanding Natural Resources Management Borg, who now outnumber police officers by a handsome margin in the country districts, where former precinct houses and cop-shops have been Assimilated and are now nests of Borg, dedicated to the eradication of farming throughout South Australia in the name of Saving The Planet against non-existent “global warming”.

Farming is Australia’s biggest business. Or, rather, it was. The number of farms in this vast, desert continent is down by 100,000, and, remarkably, the state of Victoria has already become the first in the Federation to become a net importer of food – in Australia, of all places, where a vast continent the size of Europe feeds a tiny population the size of greater London. Peter Manuel is determined that South Australia shall not be the next net importer of food.

The pretext for the Borg’s cruel attacks on farmers is Agenda 21, the U.N.’s sinister plan for global domination via environmental over-regulation.

The Borg, a universally-hated bureaucracy, are actively putting the U.N.’s nihilistic, anti-irrigation, anti-pesticide, anti-farming, anti-business, anti-environment, anti-population, anti-human, anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-everything Agenda 21 program into ruthless effect.

During my visit to the Lofty Ranges, Peter introduced me to a local farmer with a shocking story. For weeks bureaucrats with binoculars had hidden behind a shed and spied on his farm. Then, one night at 11 pm, They pounced.

Three of Them drove at the farmer in a pickup truck with a massive roo-bar on the front. He ended up hanging from the bar, with an agonizingly bruised leg. He had to be taken to hospital with bruising, lacerations and post-traumatic stress, and remains in pain to this day.

The Borg got to the police before he did, for he was still crook. They alleged he had driven at Them and not the other way about. Wisely, They did not pursue that allegation, but it was enough to ensure that the police disregarded his allegation against Them.

Instead, They took him to court for unlawfully extracting water from a nearby creek. In his absence – his injuries had rendered him unfit to attend – the rube judge in the local criminal court, on no evidence and taking no account of his condition, savagely fined him $18,000 for allegedly having used water from the creek near his property to irrigate his crop of lucerne on the day of the bureaucrats’ raid.

Fortunately, the farmer neither paid the fine nor did the 320 hours’ community service the hanging judge handed down on learning that he had not paid. Though the judge had inflicted what – even if a real offense had been committed, which it had not – was a flagrantly disproportionate fine, not everyone in the civil service is heartless. The judge’s order was simply ignored. The farmer went unpunished.

Just as well: for he had committed no offense. True, he had extracted water from the creek that day, but he had used it to fill his cattle-troughs. I have seen his permit granting him the lawful right to extract water from the creek for his household and for his cattle.

The court is soon to be asked to set aside its judgment and expunge the victim’s record of this non-offense. It may yet also be asked to issue a summons against the Borg ex proprio motu for conspiracy to attempt to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to perpetrate wilful misfeasance in a public office.

The farmer who wanted to water his cows is by no means the only victim of the Borg’s regime of terror here in South Australia. Another farmer told me They had used satellite photos to estimate the size of his reservoir.

The dam’s true capacity, when professionally surveyed on the ground, was found to be 6.1 million liters, but their Mickey Mouse method, using satellites monitored by zitty teenagers eating too many Krispy Kreme donuts and doing/drinking too much coke/Coke, had incorrectly overestimated it at 10.2 million liters – a shocking error. The satellites can assess the area of a reservoir but not its depth. The Borg’s rule of thumb is calculated to exaggerate the depth of just about every reservoir.

All reservoirs above a threshold capacity are cripplingly and expensively regulated, allegedly to conserve water. As a result of this incident, farmers all over South Australia with reservoirs that the Borg say are just over the threshold for regulation are now demanding surveys to check Their math. But farmers have to pay for the surveys themselves.

In any event, there is no need for regulation at all. Farmers’ reservoirs represent less than 1% of the land area; and, aside from evaporation, they do not cause a net loss of water flow through the creeks and rivers. For Lord Monckton and his fellow cattle do not so much drink the water as rent it.

While I was in South Australia, at the height of the blazing summer drought, the Borg decided to let out a third of the water in the Mount Bold Reservoir, the only major public dam in South Australia and the main water supply for Adelaide, which is now desperately short of water. You couldn’t make this up.

Of course, They were not billed for the water They used to top up the ocean. Their excuse for this monstrous waste? “To maintain environmental flow”. Yet in the summer months the natural “environmental flow” is vanishingly different from zero. They should have left well alone.

Another farmer who cleared silt from a river on his land to assist the river flow was fined a staggeringly disproportionate $35,000 by the vicious judges, who are in the Board’s pocket and act as though they were in Their pay.

Yet another farmer was told a costly water-meter had to be fitted to his borehole, so he could be charged for using his own water, even though water used for his household and his cattle is by law exempt from any charges. No one had been to read the meter ever since its installation several years previously.

Another farmer who had annoyed the Borg by refusing to comply with an unlawful attempt to enforce upon him a regulation that did not apply to him, was told: “We can fine you for shifting a rock.”

Bullying notices along the roadsides here tell passers-by that they must not touch or disturb soil or vegetation at all. Presumably people are expected to hover a few inches above the ground. But most of the population are not Catholic, so they cannot do that. So going for a walk in the countryside is now illegal in much of South Australia.

The Borg are ordering farmers all across South Australia to plant thorny weeds all along the road verges: and Their reason is that “some clusters of acacia paradoxa will protect the river banks from kangaroo intrusion.” The kangaroos, an indigenous species, were here long before the Borg. But now, in the name of saving the natural environment, the natural environment and its iconic symbols, They are out to destroy the kangaroos.

Planting acacia paradoxa is a bad idea. Only bureaucratic panty-waists who have never ridden a farm bike would have thought it up. Spiny acacia is also known as the kerosene bush. As its name implies, it catches fire explosively. The bushes planted on the Borg’s orders will help bush fires to spread. One farmer put it to me bluntly: “That’s what the Agenda 21 maniacs want. They want to burn us out and drive us off our land forever.”

He is right. I have spoken to a sheep-farmer whom the Borg menaced with massive fines because, They said, he had more stock on his land than the arbitrarily low permitted maximum. They had double-counted his lambs, math not being a strong point with the hive mind. In any event, that farmer had plenty of feed for his stock, which were in magnificent condition.

The Borg wrote ordering the farmer to reduce his stockholding. He complained to a senior administrator (Locutus of Borg, perhaps). Eventually They climbed down – but without any apology. Instead, an official, furious at having been caught out in yet another error, told the farmer They would now arrange a forced sale of his farm.

Many other tales, such as the story of the prawn-farmer and the bogus koala claw-marks, will have to wait for another time. But the Borg felt the lash of the Viscount’s tongue. Towards the end of my visit to South Australia, they began turning up at my speaker meetings and muttering angrily to Themselves at the back.

No doubt Ban Ki-Moon, secretary-general of the useless United Nations, is delighted that his willing agents at the Natural Resources Management Borg are making the corrupt U.N. and its environmentally destructive Agenda 21 program even more hated than it already is.

Time to arrange a forced sale of the U.N.’s lavish New York HQ and send its pampered officials to do some real work on Australian farms. I have said it before and I’ll say it again. Let us convert the U.N. building to fancy apartments for the rich and famous. I shall take the penthouse.

Meanwhile, may the Natural Resources Management Borg and all their works wither and perish in the drought Their mad policies have needlessly created, and may Lord Monckton and his vigorous progeny thrive not merely ad multos annos but usque in saeculum. Make it so!

—————–

 

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70 comments to Monckton — The bull and the Borg

  • #
    Bloke down the pub

    I hope the income from the sale of Lord Monckton’s semen is spent in a good cause.

    40

  • #
    Sunray

    In the immortal words of the late Jackie(y)? Gleeson, “How Sweet it Is”!

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  • #
    Turtle of Western Australia.

    Good one Jo. As I drive to and from work I keep seeing cars with ‘Ban Live exports’ bumper stickers. I wonder, do these people realise that to anyone from the bush (with few exceptions), this sticker reads ‘I hate farmers’. They’re free to believe what they want, but I’m sure that in most cases, these people have never been off the bitumen.

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    • #

      these people have never been off the bitumen.

      ¶ They don’t understand where food comes from.
      ¶ They don’t understand that the importing countries don’t have Woolies and Coles in every town.
      ¶ They don’t understand that people in the importing countries seldom have reliable electricity for refrigeration.

      Most important, they don’t realize that the easiest was to eliminate the need for live exports is to provide cheap, abundant and reliable energy. With the World Bank denying loans to poorer countries to build up an infrastructure for such energy supplies, live exports will have to continue as a matter of necessity to supply food to a lot of people.

      I’ll leave the last word to Lord Monckton:

      µ !

      170

    • #
      Turtle of Western Australia.

      Spot on, Bernd. Hey, what does the Greek letter ‘mu’ mean again?

      30

  • #
    JMD

    That looks more like a steer to me.

    If it’s a bull I’d wait a while yet.

    40

  • #
    handjive

    Winter inflows help boost storage dams

    Central Victoria’s water storage dams are full and spilling after above-average rainfall this winter.

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    • #
      handjive

      More good climate news:
      June 13, 2012: RIVER experts believe it is increasingly likely the giant Dartmouth Dam will spill this year.

      It would only be the sixth time in its 34-year history Dartmouth’s rocky steps have overflowed.

      Water is pouring into southeast Australia’s “drought reserve” from the early winter rain, at a peak of about 20 gigalitres a day.

      The entire Murray Darling Basin storages are now 90 per cent full, with Hume Dam 91 per cent full.
      .
      And for our overseas friends, here is a good news story from the area (the canary in the coal mine), where the ole bull Monckton is pastured:

      “ACROSS the lush farmlands of South Australia, a once-in-a-generation crop is emerging.

      The crop is set to shatter past records and breathe new life into the farming sector.
      “This will be one of those years that will be talked about for a lifetime,” Mr Larwood said.
      “Importantly, the benefits will include helping to keep farmers on the land and feeding the world.”

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    • #
      handjive

      5 Sep 2013: Coalition cuts projects, delays water buybacks

      The Coalition will axe Labor’s Regional Infrastructure Fund and delay some Murray-Darling water buybacks if it wins government.
      .
      August 21, 2013
      EXCLUSIVE: THE Murray River from the Darling to the sea was listed as “critically endangered” in a final act of federal Labor.

      The Weekly Times can reveal Environment Minister Mark Butler added the Murray and associated wetlands, floodplains and groundwater systems to the threatened ecological communities list just before the Government entered caretaker mode.

      20

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    A truly frightening story. But well told. I hadn’t imagined Lord Monckton as a novelist. The Borg of course are alive and full of shit here in Tasmania. It is mandatory as of July 1 that a bore be fitted with a meter. Apparently the Borg insist they have the authority to mandate where the bore shall be situated. I cannot imagine a lilly-livered bureaucrat with palms as white as snow divining for water.
    I was surprised at Lord Monckton’s stature when I met him. He sort of towers over a person, and shakes with a powerful friendly handshake. I can well imagine him astride a quad and pouring the coal to ascend a ridge.
    On the other thread he LITERALLY towers over gormless Shehan. Is he licking his wounds somewhere?

    100

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Thank you again Lord Monckton for pointing out what happens when you sign over your country’s sovereignty to a foreign power, madness!
    At Monckton’s address I raised the question of “significant roadside vegetation” signs along country roads, the overgrown mess is just a fire hazard, he told me about the Spiny acacia bush and floored everyone including a CFA volunteer who added the CFA were backing the DSE in limiting land owners in what they can clear, so in summer the CFA can put more of a risk on their firefighters lives?
    This is F&*%$#G INSANE, this treatment of any Australian citizen going about their rightful business is flat out illegal and should be considered an act of treason, how can we have such dynamite laws against supposed rampant terrorism when the real terrorists are in action right now and worse trained and funded by the twats we vote in.
    MV I’m feeling your pessimism mate.

    141

    • #
      handjive

      Yonniestone, using the clueyvoter, which came with the Galileo link you provided, and having another window open with a search engine ready to go, I am quickly going through the list, typing in the party name in search engine with the word ‘preferences’. If they give them to greens, they get 2 thumbs down , others stay neutral, others who diss the green, 2 thumbs up. This way, I am making sure the greens get no votes in the senate.
      This is only a guide to how I MIGHT vote, not instructions.

      Also, I am aware this MIGHT give a hung parliament, but, until these politicians get the message, ” Make their lives hell too, just as they wished a diminished life on you.”

      51

      • #
        Yonniestone

        handjive I used it and 2 others just to make sure I got it right :), looks like you’ve got it nailed though.
        Yes a hung parliament happens when the parties are not that different.

        20

  • #
    Debbie

    Sadly this type of story can be repeated right accross regional/rural Australia.
    Natural Resourse Management (NRM) is overwhelmingly peopled by Monkton’s Borgs.

    70

  • #
    gee Aye

    someone needs to repair the caps key on Monck’s computer. Kangaroo is a species?

    112

    • #
      Dave

      GA,

      I thought kangaroo was the common name.

      Isn’t the genus Macropus that has to be in capitals?

      someone like a lettuce leaf short of a sandwich, all of which are small letters.

      50

    • #
      Grant (NZ)

      So picky. He didn’t italicise either 🙁

      20

  • #
    Dave

    I know this is basically about over regulation of our agricultural industry.

    But there may be more to it than this.

    The shift from the 1970’s to 2012 has been fairly dramatic.

    All in consumption of Kilograms per person per year for MEAT consumption in Australia.

    1. Lamb and mutton dropped from 50 kilos to 10 kilos.
    2. Beef & veal dropped from 40 kilos (high in the late 70’s) to 32 kilos.
    3. Pig Meat rose from 14 kilos to 25 kilos.
    4. Poultry rose from 11 kilos to 45 kilos.

    What has caused this shift from sheep and beef to poultry and pork.

    Like white meat, hate red meat?
    Cooking shows?
    The Greens?
    The Vegan movement?
    WWF?
    Hatred of red meat?
    Environmental Borgs?

    Or maybe it has become economics of production, as chooks are very quick in food production per square meter of land (and dollars).

    Or maybe the new generation of lazy eaters in food preparation, where they only like fast food, 6 chicken nuggets & a latte for $2.95 after your walk in a broncos tracksuit along Southbank in Brisbane for young political supporters past a homeless guy on a park bench?

    I don’t think many today do a Gravy beef casserole, lamb stew, brains, liver or kidneys anymore? I used to love spag bol with cheap mince.

    This maybe is a new Australian age of lazy eating GREEN Chicken munchers, that don’t mind the occasional pork pig. Definitely no tough chewing or time wasting for 97% of CAGW’ers.

    Overall we are eating less meat and more tofu, rice and greens, but consuming more alcohol.

    What’s happened Australia?

    Here’s what to do.

    And in this article is Animals Australia who have been an ongoing critic of the Australian livestock industry and has targeted general meat consumption. Their new campaign calls on Australians to give animals a day off on Australia day, “by throwing some cruelty-free tucker on the barbie”.

    CRUELTY FREE TUCKER???? What do you suggest, road kill or maybe baited feral cat, you fruitloops. Who sponsors Animals Australia???

    I am really over all this garbage by the Green Vandals started by Bob Brown and Tim Flannery.

    And to finish off – this Animals Australia have 10 reasons not to eat meat:
    Here’s number 4:

    “Because you CAN win friends with salad. Especially a grilled tempeh salad with sweet corn, roast capsicum, rocket and avocado”.

    END OF RANT. P.S. Love rabbit stew, snails and frogs legs.

    110

    • #
      farmerbraun

      Just for the record, chicken, veal and lamb (probably suckling piglet also) are all white meats in the Health Food Bible. Even those 2 yr. old Aussie “lambs” probably qualify as white meat.
      Red meat includes beef , mutton and pork.
      But as someone above observed , your average townie would know jack-shit about that.

      50

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I like chicken. It tastes just like cat.

      60

  • #
    pat

    eventually all the farms will be owned by hedge funds, not exactly well-known for their food producing skills.

    meanwhile, don’t expect to see the CAGW travellin’ sideshow in a rural town near you anytime soon:

    5 Sept: Guardian: Graham Redfearn: Australia’s federal election just couldn’t face up to climate change
    But whatever happens beyond Saturday, it’s worth thinking about how Australia will be seen in the next round of United Nations climate change negotiations – that’s Poland in November, Lima in 2014 and then the key meeting in Paris in 2015.
    Failing to tackle rising emissions from mining and burning coal and gas should see Australia marked as a hypocrite.
    If Australia is led by a Government doing nothing meaningful to tackle fossil fuel burning on its own shores while backing an export boom, then who knows how the country will be branded?
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2013/sep/05/australia-election-climate-change

    Redfearn – we might be branded sensible.

    50

  • #
    Andrew McRae

    This story of anti-farmer legislation has similarities to the impacts of Queensland’s Vegetation Management Act 1999 which (amongst many other things) prevented farmers from clearing native vegetation on their own land. The way the State believes itself to know how to preserve the value of land better than farmers and believes itself to be above the law when depriving farmers quiet enjoyment of their private property is quite odious. Applying such conditions to leasehold land would be bad enough, but this applied to freehold land too.
    Luckily the damage has been somewhat reversed in May this year.

    10

  • #
    Fenbeagleblog

    Britain’s space programme combines Green Aliens and Bull. But is entirely renewable…

    http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/bongo-dog-do-do-banned/

    40

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Bonzo Dog Band – Rhinocratic Oath – you had to have been there.

      00

      • #

        Say, I know it’s miles off topic, but the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, while only having one major hit, have a seemingly ironic place in music history.

        The venerable Eric Clapton, (ex Yardbirds, ex Bluesbreakers) was at the height of his (early) game with that monster, Cream.

        Bonzo (etc) was one part of why Cream folded.

        Clapton mentioned that Cream could record anything at all and it would be a huge hit, and yet bands like Bonzo (etc) could make such wonderful music and get virtually zero credit for it.

        Eric was a huge fan, and probably, in the same manner as he mentioned, (say or do anything – get big) he further contributed to Urban Spaceman becoming the huge hit it was.

        Sorry about sneaking away off topic. (Say, what’s new!)

        Tony.

        10

  • #
    Ian H

    What a load of bull.

    10

  • #
    Tim

    Under Agenda 21’s ‘Wildlands Project’,one of the strategies used to remove the landowner from his land includes…

    Denying water and/or grazing rights to farmers and ranchers or limiting their use of pesticides and herbicides, which in turn will force the farmers and ranchers out of business, causing the land to possibly fall into the hands of the federal gov’t.

    http://www.agenda21course.com/lesson-3-wildlands-project/

    40

    • #
      farmerbraun

      Preventing the overuse of pesticides, herbicides and antibiotics is not a bad idea because it ensures the efficacy of these substances when they are really needed in life or death situations.
      The advertising budget for anthelminthics in Godzone is very big, and a lot of the usage is totally unnecessary. The net result is worm drench resistance. We know about MRSA , and now glyphosate resistance is rearing its ugly head.

      10

      • #
        Rod Stuart

        Same old story. Everything in moderation.
        I was using an Anthelmintic, (Cydectin oral) in the chickens’ water for gizzard worm and round worm.
        Effective oral drench, but the eggs are not edible for seven days.
        Then found out about pumpkin seeds. The guts of a pumpkin, liquified in a blender, and fed after fasting, followed by a dose of buttermilk and bran works a treat on poultry. A chemical in pumpkin seeds seems to stun the parasites, and the buttermilk and bran (to a chicken) is a douche like the crap they give you before a colonoscopy.
        There is almost always an alternative to the expensive easy way out.
        PS After a 24 hour fast with no water, those birds DIVE into the liquified pumpkin seed and DE (diatomacious earth) like they haven’t eaten for a week. Just don’t go behind one the next day after they gorge themselves on the buttermilk and bran!

        30

        • #
          farmerbraun

          By buttermilk you mean a fermented probiotic low -fat milk? Or do you make your own butter?

          10

          • #
            Rod Stuart

            Grocery store buttermilk. Got no cow. Alpacas don’t milk worth a darn. LOL.
            The chickens don’t mind if it’s gone a bit off though.

            10

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              I hear that “thems in orfority” want to introduce high-rise farming.

              You may be forced to invest in an Alpaca-stacker.

              10

        • #
          Annie

          I’ve heard of the pumpkinseed method. On a small scale of chook keeping I used garlic cloves in their water from time to time…that helped too.

          10

  • #
    Tim

    Just released by the Galileo Movement: The prominent Australians who’ve betrayed us by hiding their involvement in the global warming scam. On Youtube…

    2013 Election Special Video – know who you are voting for!

    http://www.youtube.com/user/GalileoMovement

    20

  • #

    Off-topic intermission. 🙂

    For those in Western Australia about to battle the Senate ballot paper, I’ve drawn up a chart showing how preferences flow for those who vote above the line.

    Voting below the line is the only way to ensure that preferences will be directed as intended by the voter. I think it’s worth the effort.

    40

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    It is to be hoped this will put to bed any remaining questions around the potency of the membership with which Lord Monckton is endowed.

    31

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    About importing food I can only say, welcome to the club.

    If they want to destroy the human race just keep on destroying its agriculture.

    Damned fools!

    50

    • #
      Annie

      Except that the ‘elite’ will make sure they are ok and won’t go hungry, just as the party elite did in the communist countries last century and North Korea in this one.

      40

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Except that the ‘elite’ will make sure they are ok and won’t go hungry, just as the party elite did in the communist countries last century and North Korea in this one.

        Obviously correct but I think you weren’t supposed to notice that little detail. 😉

        Actually they’ll only be OK until all the people who really know how to keep the wheels turning are gone and then I think they’ll repent — possibly too late but I think they will ultimately repent; or: simply fall as in the old Soviet Union.

        In the meantime that leaves the rest of us looking less and less secure without a good prospect for a turnaround any time soon. 🙁

        00

    • #
      Manfred

      If they want to destroy the human race just keep on destroying its agriculture

      …and return Gaia to an alternate version of ‘Oblivion’ – where a closeted elite exist in corporeal heaven and a few rancid nomads, scratch a feral and primitivised existence within limited ‘production zones’. The rest of Gaia is designated an untouchable eco-sanctuary.

      10

  • #
    Peter Miller

    Is anything good or useful ever done by government environmental agencies or ‘independent’ activist groups?

    Many years ago, perhaps.

    Can anyone give a single instance of this today?

    50

  • #
    NoFixedAddress

    Further highlights that we should put to referendum/ae(?) our involvement with the modern ‘United’ Nations and, at a minimum, never allow Australia to become a signatory to any UN article without a corresponding debate in Parliament and the agreement of all the States.

    30

  • #
    ianl8888

    The inner city and rural producers have become so disconnected, it is like a visit from aliens — Jo

    That has been so for over twenty years. I remember the SMH about 15 years ago running an editorial lamenting this situation while simultaneously running front page stories on farmers and miners as environmental vandals

    City dwellers simply remain unaware that cities cannot feed or energise themselves. End of story

    50

  • #
    Power Grab

    The comment about the zit-faced kids running the models having the power to ruin things made me think – what if we started expecting that anything that anyone wants to do based on a computer model has to first have any action be proven viable by boots-on-the-ground folks, like farmers and ranchers? I completely agree that townies have little to no understanding of what’s involved in producing food.

    I play with data all day. It’s mighty fun. But whenever I think I’ve put together a bombshell, I know better than to fire it off myself. I pass it off to the people who have real, hands-on experience with the situation. Sometimes they veto it. Sometimes they come back and want some tweaks done.

    30

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    A cracker of a new paper in the released teh other day UK

    10

  • #
    Manfred

    Great post – thank you Jo!

    I haven’t noticed any trolls willing to goose step to the defence of UN Agenda 21 or the bureaucratic efficiencies described in this post. Where are the anonymous ?

    One defence to use against the ’21’ characters is to ask them for their names and the precise location and room number of their offices. Make it as uncomfortably personal as possible. Never allow the little people exercising their little power to its fullest extent, hide behind the collective. An approach of this nature always fosters enormous disquiet. Inform them you hold them personally responsible. Ignore protestations to the contrary.

    Keep calling it out for what it is.

    31

  • #
    ianl8888

    One of the sillier examples of trolling for votes:

    http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/5/diary-date-persuasion.html#comments

    If you log into BH from an Aus net address, you are met with the Hyphen (Hanson-Young) advertising for your vote tomorrow

    The BH site (having added advertising recently) is dedicated to hard, cool analysis of exactly the sort of stupid nonsense that Hyphen constantly spouts

    One wonders at the sanity of the Hyphen

    50

    • #
      Another Ian

      Ian

      In the spirit of “The Double Cross System in the war of 1939 to 1945”, J.C. Masterman

      where the British ran the German espionage network in UK and the Germans funded it?

      10

      • #
        ianl8888

        It is true that the Greens are paying BH for vote trolling for the Hyphen – I posted this for the irony, of course

        But as I understand it, and I may well be out of whack here, the website only gets payed if the ad button is clicked. I just cannot imagine many clicks for the Hyphen from the BH denizens 🙂

        20

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    Mark D.

    Agenda 21 is the roadmap. ICLEI is the vehicle. Search them on the web and read. Then act!

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    Rod Stuart

    BREAKING NEWS
    There has been an assassination attempt on a polititcian in the USA.
    The Mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska is recovering following medical attention.

    Rereke, who is the current mayor of the Republic of Whangamomona? Is it the outspoken Billy goat or the ornery Porker?

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      Sometimes, it actually pays to have such a high calibre Mayor as ‘Stubbsy’, as he is referred to.

      Talkeetna Alaska is on the Susitna River, site of what will be the fifth tallest Dam on Earth. They are also including a large hydro plant as part of the dam, and when completed, it will supply two thirds of the power needs for all Alaska.

      Green factions oppose the dam as the river is one of the many Salmon spawning grounds in Alaska.

      Perhaps they could use Christine Milne there.

      Naah!

      Stubbsy would eat her up.

      Tony.

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        ianl8888

        Stubbsy would eat her up

        Why is that bad, Tony ?

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        Roy Hogue

        The dam is a sort of double edged sword, Tony. I don’t think we should simply dismiss the salmon. It is possible to build a way around the dam for the fish to use. Salmon are very agile and can jump some pretty tall natural obstacles so a ladder of some sort could be built unless the terrain presents an untenable engineering problem.

        I’ve no idea what’s actually being done but I hope the salmon are considered. In the meantime, dump the green factions. They aren’t at all realistic about the situation.

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    Rod Stuart

    I used to love Republic Day, what I could remember of it!

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    Ross

    This completely OT but the Aussie’s need to take note of this. It makes Topher’s video even more relevant, even though it also makes Topher’s figures look very, very conservative.
    Take not of the last bullet point summary about CO2 emissions.

    http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/australias-carbon-tax/

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    Rod Stuart

    There was plenty of “bull” on that thread with Dick Shehan on it.

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      Eddie Sharpe

      It has kept them of this one, having endless circular arguments with themselves, like a Troll magnet.

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    pat

    did a search to check if the sceptic blogs had already posted the IPCC piece, & discovered marc morano had at climatedepot. next to it, he had the naomi klein link below, which is interesting coming from klein, if u know her past work:

    4 Sept: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Scientists call for overhaul of UN ‘blockbuster’ climate reports
    As the IPCC prepares for its next major assessment, experts and governments propose more targeted and frequent studies
    Thomas Stocker, a climate scientist at the University of Bern and a co-chair of the UN climate panel, said he had sought permission to convene a public debate on the future of the IPCC at one of the biggest gatherings on the scientific calendar, the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
    Some 22,000 people are expected at the meeting, which takes place in San Francisco in December. Stocker said he saw the meeting as a chance to broaden the discussion on the future of the IPCC.
    “With that input directly bottom-up from the scientists, I can help in this discussion and certainly facilitate that the views of scientists, those individuals and colleague that carry the burden of the assessment and provide their time and intellectual expertise, are heard,” Stocker said…
    “I think myself that the IPCC has outgrown its usefulness in the way in which it does things,” said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.
    Andrew Weaver, a lead IPCC author and a Green party leader who earlier this year was elected to the British Columbia legislature, agreed it was time to shift away from the blockbuster style of reports…
    Trenberth argued that with the effects of climate change already visible in real-time in terms of extreme weather events, the international community could not afford to wait for several years to hear from scientists.
    “We can’t wait seven years between assessments,” he said…
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/04/scientists-overhaul-un-climate-report-ipcc

    Earth Island Journal: Interview with Naomi Klein
    Jason Mark: In a piece you wrote for The Nation in November 2011 you suggested that when it comes to climate change, there’s a dual denialism at work – conservatives deny the science while some liberals deny the political implications of the science. Why do you think that some environmentalists are resistant to grappling with climate change’s implications for the market and for economics?
    Naomi Klein: Well, I think there is a very a deep denialism in the environmental movement among the Big Green groups. And to be very honest with you, I think it’s been more damaging than the right-wing denialism in terms of how much ground we’ve lost. Because it has steered us in directions that have yielded very poor results. I think if we look at the track record of Kyoto, of the UN Clean Development Mechanism, the European Union’s emissions trading scheme – we now have close to a decade that we can measure these schemes against, and it’s disastrous. Not only are emissions up, but you have no end of scams to point to, which gives fodder to the right. The right took on cap-and-trade by saying it’s going to bankrupt us, it’s handouts to corporations, and, by the way, it’s not going to work. And they were right on all counts. Not in the bankrupting part, but they were right that this was a massive corporate giveaway, and they were right that it wasn’t going to bring us anywhere near what scientists were saying we needed to do lower emissions. So I think it’s a really important question why the green groups have been so unwilling to follow science to its logical conclusions. I think the scientists Kevin Anderson and his colleague Alice Bows at the Tyndall Centre have been the most courageous on this because they don’t just take on the green groups, they take on their fellow scientists for the way in which neoliberal economic orthodoxy has infiltrated the scientific establishment. It’s really scary reading. Because they have been saying, for at least for a decade, that getting to the emissions reduction levels that we need to get to in the developed world is not compatible with economic growth…
    http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/naomi_klein

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    Thanks, Peter, for having the courage to challenge bureaucratic bull.

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