This was forwarded to me via email.
The modern version of “green” is so tame. When it comes to recycling material, living without disposable goods, and leaving a smaller carbon footprint, the real experts are the long lived people who’ve been there, done that, and did it so much better, so long ago.
Jo
Eco-friendly TV anyone? (via Amberley Working Museum, England). Photo: By Les Chatfield
The Green Thing
The original low carbon lawn mower. Photo: Kallerna
In the line at the supermarket, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.” The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.” He was right — our generation didn’t have The Green Thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Western Australia. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled fountain pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the tram or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one power point in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person. Remember: Don’t make old people mad.
We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.
From Jeff G.
UPDATE: A late night Saturday posting effect meant I posted a pic of a low carbon mower… that had a motor… Fixed 😉
I can remember going out to the milko for my mum with our own jug to get 2 quarts of milk which use to last us about to days.
Our bread was delivered and we had it wrapped in something like butchers paper, no plastic and our fridge was powered by a block of ice. These kids know nothing.
Most of my pocket money was earned by collecting bottles and getting the 3p back for them.
I often wondered why we went away from that system it seemed to be so simple and efficient.
Ah well you have to make way for progress ..hmmmmmm
Say YES to an election now !!!
10
Cheers!
I love your text.
When I grew up in Sandviken, Sweden, we earned extra money by collecting bottles, aluminia capsules, old newspapers and clothings. The lumpyard paed us off. But we never did feel “green”.
We just did it.
Today it seems we have bunches of science researchers, propagandists and politicians but still have difficulties to perform.
11
There is never a shortage of idiots, and they always seem to need help with something. Never seems to be a shortage of people willing to tell the “right way” to others. Wish we could keep them out of government.
20
From one who is almost as old as dirt:
Climategate is the key to decipher a puzzle – ending now with a solar storm engulfing Earth [1] – beginning with Kissinger’s visit to China in 1971 [2] to initiate secret agreements with leaders of nations, science and the news media to:
a.) Unite nations,
b.) End the space race,
c.) Eliminate nationalism,
d.) Avoid nuclear annihilation.
Consensus science is Big Brother’s way to control information.
World leaders formed BB to protect us from nuclear annihilation in 1971 – a noble goal that deception cannot achieve without establishing a tyrannical one-world government.
Thank God, Australian citizens are uniting in convoys headed to Canberra for a show of no confidence in their government’s support of BB’s environmental cover and AGW fraud [3].
May the rest of the world wake up to reality!
1. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/18aug_cmemovie/
2. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10640850/20110815_Climategate_Harmony.pdf
3. http://www.international.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2035:gillard-convoy-of-no-confidence-rally
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
10
Old age has the benefit of wisdom and snot-nosed brats would be well advised to respect that.
Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher’s wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbours figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.
William Butler Yeats.
Pointman
10
Back in the 1960’s. Yes, I know 1960 is ancient history. There was a constant complaint from many of the young and demonstrably ignorant: “Don’t trust anyone over 30 years old.” I thought then, “Someday you will be over 30. Better yet, you WON’T reach the age of 30.” Many didn’t make it due to their own personal stupidity (drugs, std’s, and self destructive actions). Unfortunately enough of the wanabe dictators did survive and became part of the establishment.
Right now, I think it’s don’t trust anyone who was born after 1940 and don’t have clear memories of the great depression. At least not without carefully investigating the ideas they hold sacrosanct. Most of the ideas many people hold are toxic to both people and the environment in which people must have to live and thrive.
It is not age that counts so much, it’s the ideas that inform choices and actions. As they say, some of my best friends are people younger than I …. They don’t want to control humanity. They just want to live and let live. Interestingly, that is really the only thing that works in the long run.
The idea that top down command and control of nearly everything is necessary has never worked and never will work. People, the world, and reality is simply to complex for any few people to grasp and control with anything but disastrous results. Individuals have enough difficulty dealing with the complexity of their own lives let alone all of mankind or even small chunks of it. The history of the 20th century is filled with evidence attesting to these facts. It’s looking like the 21st century is to be filled with more of the same unless we can successfully exchange the toxic ideas for ideas that actually have worked and will work.
Perhaps a discussion needs to happen on what “it works” means. Otherwise, we won’t have the foggiest what works and doesn’t work. I, for one, don’t think the destruction of the economies of the world, the collapse of technological civilization, and the consequent demise of roughly 99+% of the world’s human population via starvation, war, crime, government action, and the like is what “it works” means.
10
I’m a “selfish old person”, and I take your rebuke in the spirit it was given. As kids we recycled everything. A car tyre made the seat for a swing. An orange box (remember them? – the box not the oranges) and a couple of bits of wood, some nails and four pram or pushchair wheels made a go-cart. In those days we wore out our shoes, not the seats of our pants, and spent every possible minute out of doors, except in the depths of winter.
Kids got wet, fell off trees, walls and railings, broke bones and no-one sued anyone over these everyday mishaps. Vandalism was minor if it occurred, and shops didn’t need steel shutters over windows and doors. We realised that refuse collectors and street sweepers did a useful job, and they weren’t looked down on. Teachers and the police were respected and valued. School trips were frequent and organised by a teacher who simply booked the transport. Parents didn’t expect to be informed, and the teachers didn’t have to fill out a 20-page form on risk assessment and apply for approval months in advance.
If someone was convicted of theft it was the talk of the community for weeks. Rape and child-abuse were virtually unheard of. Anyone convicted of either would be expected to leave the area, and they usually did, for their own safety. Obesity was the exception, and local GPs few and far between. Hospital casualty (emergency) departments saw the police only when they needed treatment for mishaps, or after the occasional pub brawl. They were terrible days, in the 1950s and 60s in the UK, take my word for it. It’s a wonder I’ve survived this long to be rebuked.
10
Uhh, the push mower in the picture has a motor on it.
REPLY: Yup. That’ll teach me for searching for a “push mower” and then just linking to the first decent looking pic that appeared 🙂 JN
10
In the 60s I worked in a milk treatment plant – the worst job was feeding the dirty bottles into the washer as they were recycled. The plant produced plain milk, cream and milk powder. There was no added calcium or low fat etc. Just pure wholesome milk.
10
The obvious point is now with us.
Modern “Greenies” did not invent environmentalism.
They live in a world of paradox where few would ever have seen “bush” let alone walked through it as a form of recreation or pastime and have little understanding of what it is like to touch and feel and be with nature. .
In the fifties it went by many names and different forms of community involvement.
Our Scout group was partly funded by the ongoing collection of glass bottles for , wait for it, “Recycling”.
Newspapers were a more personal item. I could get myself pocket money by collecting old newspapers and selling them to the local butchers.
Thripence for a small bundle and one was so large I once got a shilling.
Our local athletics field was resurfaced by the athletes themselves with many blisters and spre backs resulting.
The above , I’m ashamed to say, might be seen as boasting unless there was a point to be made.
It is this; we did it , we got our hands dirty, we produced it ourselves, we did not litter our beaches or roads or pathways or parks.
Modern Green movement asks only that people “believe’ and talk about it with like minded people and then “convert” others by talking and argument.
The modern Greenie thinks nothing of polluting the air with appalling amplified noise, behaving aggressively in public when drunk, turning up for “work” “hung over” or asking to be “sponsored” to raise money in a charity walk for deserving environmental cause.
At this point you may be saying; “this person hates Greenies” and is just an old grouch, but.
There is always a “But” and in this case it is this; “But for the grace of God, there go I”.
The main difference between my generation and this is that we were “LED”.
We were led by good, decent people who belonged to the community.
The modern “”Green” movement is an opportunistic, political machine used to manipulate others to their great advantage and without opposing leadership we can all be taken in by its surface veneer of “goodness’.
Financially, the last few years have been crushing to many older people who understand the word thrift and the concept of living within your means. The fact that it was caused by ugly political leadership and failure to confront institutionalized theft by banksters makes it that much harder to deal with.
The only bright spot, and source of hope, is that this adversity has created a very keen sense of political awareness among so many voters that it is possible that politicians, in the near future, will be forced to do a little “good” along with looking after themselves and “friends.
.
10
Governments are the trusted employees of the voters.
Governments act as trustees.
A trustee performs an administrative task for the benefit of those entitled.
All laws government make are trust laws.
Trust laws the government are making are detrimental to the benefit of those entitled.
Governments therefore are in breach of trust and must be held accountable for their actions.
Further explanation: YouTube:Max Igan inConversation with Dean Clifford
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPIPH1PdFpI&NR=1
10
Jo,
Slight correction?
Wouldn’t the “original low carbon lawn mower” be one of the kind without engine that you pushed for “pre-gymnasium-era” exercise?
10
Don’t tell me we weren’t green back then. I don’t know if you in other lands had them but everyone here collected S&H Green Stamps given out by every merchant, including the corner gas station. They were redeemable from the catalog for actually useful stuff and were valuable.
Not green indeed! Phooey! 😉
10
Well done Jo and Jeff,
This one should be broadcast far and wide. One of the other negatives with the advent of the disposable society has been that kids first jobs these days seem to be “working for da man”, rather than the entrepreneurial spirit being fostered by solving a problem ( having no money) by doing something for yourself like doing a bottle run.
This is one of the main reasons the environmental movement went from “think global and act local” to “do what they tell you and whinge until someone else forces another group to do something about it”.
Good luck to everyone in the convoy. Stay safe, and give em hell.
10
Every spring my mother would bundle us all into the car and we’d drive to the country and purchase boxes of fresh fruit directly from the growers. Over the next few week she’d bottle it, make jams and chutneys and her own special tomato sauce. The outside shed had rows of shelves all stacked with the preserved produce which would last throughout the year till next spring when we’d do it all again. In those days the mothers stayed home and looked after the house and children.
10
Back then smoking dope was for peace and love and not for the love of green evil oily supported t’ing as it be today. :p
10
Sounds like a perfect script for Grumpy Old (Wo)Men. Loved it.
10
You lot reckon YOU had it tough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
Or, if you prefer, the original version from the “At last the 1948 Show” (in 1967)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA&NR=1
10
I am afraid that kids don’t “make” their parents drive them everywhere. Parents make choices like where they live and where they send their kids to school. The parents are already in the habit of driving everywhere and I don’t thing even consider an alternative to driving.
10
MV #17
I was wondering when someone would bring that up. Priceless!
10
One more thing to remember about the “Good Old Days”, they’re Gone With the Wind. You can’t go back, it isn’t there anymore. Greens just have the hardest time of it, they’re the most pathetic daydreamers on the planet.
10
At the risk of upsetting people, and as wistful as I am for a simpler time and existence, I don’t believe emulating the Luddite regressive green mindset is a good idea. The big G want us using shanks pony to get around, they want us rubbing two sticks together to make heat, they want us living in the dark when the sun goes down, all predicated on a lie that when we exhale we are polluting the atmosphere. If there should be a big new tax, why not tax obsolescence in items that last only short periods and end up in land fill. This would cut out the mass produced Chinese garbage made of cheap material and provide incentive for local or overseas manufacturers to produce quality products that last. I would fully support moves to sustainability (that word again) along these lines, but true environmentalism died when the carbon manifesto was enacted, and forever moves towards this direction will be tainted by association.
Progressive change is a good thing. I well remember the pollution in the 60s and 70s, the Parramatta river was a reeking chemical soup for example. Australia is a far cleaner country than China, yet we are supposed to export MORE jobs and industry TO them, even though we protect the environment far better. So let’s really move forward, new generation nuclear energy and clean coal, hydroelectric schemes, a mix of other newer energy modalities to augment that. The main pollutant I would like to reduce is automotive exhaust, electric vehicles are a good idea (they have less moving parts and require less maintenance etc) and would improve air quality, but not overall CO2 production.
10
Swap and go batteries for electric vehicles using existing service stations with precharged batteries seems to me to be the smart way to go, especially with newer battery technology apparently “in the wings”. Designing vehicles with batteries clipping in and out with a click of two handles on either side would be easier than filling a tank of gas, all you pay for is the power to recharge. If anyone has a better idea, happy to hear it. Ideas are the grist in the mill of progress, and this is the sort of discussion society should be having rather than running around like headless chokes worried about the end of the world or the sky falling in. Unfortunately, ingenuity seems to be in short supply with the current mindset. Edition wouldn’t get a look in.
10
Sorry Edison
10
I am astounded by the number and variety of toys kids have these days. As a child I remember hours of fun with a golden syrup tin with a wire axel on the end of a long wire, ‘driving’ my car or truck everywhere. Modifications were made to ensure ‘jam’ free steering. I would even get a piece of wood and ‘grade’ roads for it, a kind of obstacle course that could then be attempted a break neck speed with the tin.
My brothers and I also had match box cars, which we played with for hours and hours on end. And then later, ‘marbles’ was also a good play. Happy in my own company, or happy with others, they were golden days indeed.
10
The comments here are pukemaking. Also, what’s with the photo of the two-stroke belcher?
10
As one born in the 1920s, I have to support the writer of that article. In the Great Depression we lived with much less, and it was a different world. Those who ‘know’ how we ought to live, the greenies, are becoming worse that the churches who had inquisitions and tried to claim the right to give orders to the whole world in mediaeval times. Are we heading for a new dar age, where all that is not compulsory is forbidden?
10
One thing about the “good old days” we remember the good parts and tend to forget the bad. Partly because we didn’t know the bad parts were bad. They were just how things were and we made the best of them. However, both the good and bad made us what we are. Perhaps the generation now in office simply had it too good and were prepared for a world that did not and could not exist.
One thing for sure, if political elite’s plans are put into action, the next generation will not have it nearly so good. In fact it will be much worse than we old timers experienced. We had a chance if we worked hard, saved, and did a minimum of stupid things. They won’t have that chance.
10
Winston @ 22
Already happening.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/37982/
10
Having lived through those days myself, (well, the 50’s and 60’s anyway) I agree with Winston.
We do remember the best of things.
The one thing more noticeable these days is how Governments of every persuasion, and at every level want to control absolutely everything right down to the personal level.
THEY decide what is best for you, and how you should be doing things.
It seems that there’s a ‘committee’ or Government Department for everything now.
I also note with interest the comment from ‘ad’ at 25, and how ‘pukemaking’ our comments are.
Now that our three children have children of their own, what I find most amazing, is that they are raising their own children in much the same manner as we raised them, despite ‘grumblings’ in their youth that they would never be like us.
Confirms to me that we were actually ‘doing it right’ in an age when there was a lot less interference from those who tell us that they know what’s best for us.
Also, have you noticed the plethora of TV ads from Government these days on things that used to be issues you decided yourself. I’m not sure about people in other States, but here in Queensland those ads are just about in every ad break. Old Joh must be smiling somewhere right now, knowing the crap he took from the ‘left’ about his ads. They were nothing compared to this lot.
Tony.
10
Care for the environment isn’t new, but it used to be more instinctive and less of an excuse for moral authority.
There’s simply so much waste now,, that we need a word to package the guilt that comes with it.
And malign political forces have learned how to craftily harness that guilt, for their own ends.
Which brings us back to the Cultism Jo wrote of recently.
10
“What is depression money or scrip?
Depression money was used during the depression era [1930’s] as a substitute for government issued currency….”
http://www.depressionscrip.com/
10
Another Ian (#11)…
No. I had one of those calisthenics mowers, and it had a wooden shaft and handle – hence more carbon than the one pictured.
I think you’re confusing carbon and carbon dioxide. 🙂
10
ad @ 25
I think what makes ‘ad’ nauseous is the effort to cope with the synaptic leap of individuals with different ideas having a discussion about the pros and cons of regressive vs progressive approaches outside the ‘collective’ unconscious of the group think of the left. Clearly, such ability to allow others to have their say in spite of not all singing from the same hymn book is too much for the poor dear to bear. Return to the hive, little drone, it’s safe there, no need to have to have an independent thought process…. just follow the leader, keep the thinking to a minimum and leave it to the elite to make your decisions for you. Sad commentary on your mindset, my friend.
10
Okay, I make no claim on knowing anything first hand about “back in the day”. I do remember on visits to one of my grandparents in late 1970’s that I found myself pushing one of the reel type push mowers (pictured in the Bing image search linked here: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=push+reel+lawn+mower&go=&qs=n&sk=&sc=1-15&form=QBIR#x0y0 ).
I believe my grandmother had hers well into the 1980’s and it looks as if you may buy a brand new one (even one with a grass catcher!).
10
Steamboat John @ 34
Couple of models to choose from:
http://www.bunnings.com.au/search.aspx?searchTerm=push+mower&searchType=any&searchSubType=site
10
Push reel mowers are fine for small patches of lawn, I know I owned one about 10 years ago and quite liked it for a time. They are no good at all for large blocks, especially bad for slopes of any significant degree, nor for the elderly as they take quite a bit of effort and you have to mow every couple of days in the summer. After you’ve owned them for a while they get harder to use due to blades becoming blunter and the mechanism getting stiffer. They do, however cut flat small patches of lawn beautifully as petrol mowers with rotary blades cut more unevenly by rotating laterally than reel mowers do by rotating perpendicularly.
10
Ad @ 26:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/NMAH_DC_-_IMG_8736.JPG
Don’t know much do you? It is a four stroke belcher. Look it has an oil drain in the crank case. Dumb…… So dumb I bet you believe in AGW don’t you?
10
ad @26
Glad you liked it.
Back in my day …..
Forgot what I was going to say … must be alzheimers.
Or just an old man who feels used and pushing back.
10
Let’s see laptop batteries that last more than two years before you have to replace them, when they last as long as five years at close to full power capacity then I’d consider them workable for a vehicle. Oh, and let’s wait until they are available for an affordable price.
Typical price of laptop batteries is 3 kilojoules storage capacity per dollar. Octane contains 35 megajoule per litre, typical tank is 40 litres making a total of 1400 megajoules. Equivalent storage at laptop battery prices would be around half a million dollars. I ain’t spending half a million bucks on a car that’s going to need the batteries replaced in two years. Dunno about any of you guys.
10
Excellent stuff….. Bluddy young whippersnappers, start flapping their dumb mouths before they’ve even developed a decent brain.
…. and you can’t get th’ lil’ bastards to use a motorized lawnmower, let alone a pusher style…. Little buggers wouldn’t work in an iron lung.
…. I’m feeling old AND I’ve got the damn flu….Grrrrrr.
10
Ahem, thanks to commenters who pointed out the lower carbon kind of mower. That’ll teach me for searching through wikimedia images at 1am and linking to the first half decent photo of a “push mower”… don’t trust those keyword searches!
Jo
PS: And yes, I knew this post would be an excuse for lavish nostalgia — and why not?. No one is suggesting that “everything” was better. But we’d be fools to forget the past and not to ask if we have not lost something precious in the wild rush to upgrade.
10
As a young teen I helped a pensioner with disassembling old junk into its’ metal components to be scrapped. Once a week or so he’d load up his truck and trailer with the sorted scrap and go to the scrap yard to collect the cash value. After that and with an empty trailer, he’d stop by the local grocery wholesaler to pick up “spoiled” food to bring to the landfill. He’d be paid a token amount to haul this “garbage” but the real value was the bounty of unspoiled food still in crates or boxes that he used to feed his large family. After delivering the remainder to the landfill, he’d pick up metals and appliances from the refuse about to be buried. After nearly a full load, he’d complete the days run by stopping at a few plumbers shops to pick up their piles of dead water heaters and head home to begin the scrapping again. This was a complete circle of efficiency and recycling. The man had not one ounce of “green” except for the cash or value received for his efforts in moving “garbage”.
There was no recycling “program” at the time yet he single handedly saved tons of iron, aluminum, brass and copper from wasting in the landfill. In doing so he also fed his family and educated me in how things work. He was a quiet humble man, wise without a great education but managed to put several of his children through college partly with the cash made on other peoples’ garbage.
That is the kind of old and wise I can support.
P.S. For my efforts helping him, I gained a very nice 10 speed bicycle (was going to be scrap), numerous engines to make go-carts, and $60 cash by buying an antique French brass mantle clock from him at scrap price (it was in the scrap bin) then reselling to a clock dealer.
10
Yes Jo,
Even nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, just the same.
10
Ahhh nostalgia – its not what it used to be!
I miss Selbys, the chemical shop in Hay St where you could buy all sorts of chemicals for fun stuff at home. I wish kids still rode bikes to school. I remember when we swam in the Swan river. It was great. Bolt bombs. Cheap petrol. Cheap rents. Pub bands. Steve’s Sunday session. Going to primary school in bare feet. Monkey bar fights. British bulldog. Toilets, taps and bins wherever you needed them. Quarter acre blocks.
Things that are better now:
No caning in school. Better shopping hours. Coffee shops! Croissants. Mobile phones. The internet. Digital TV. Cars. Bicycles. Better roads. Cameras. Lots of things are cheaper. Better variety of beer and wine and bread and many other things. Computers. Washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves. Pharmaceuticals.
10
John @ 45
All those things you mentioned in the list of “things are better now” category arein the sights of the big Green monster- to be taxed at a premium by the ever increasing carbon dioxide tax- Oh well! At least you can still be nostalgic, John, about the time when you used to be able to use them- “Mobile phones. The internet. Digital TV. Cars. Bicycles. Better roads. Cameras………Computers. Washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves.” Ah yes…. I remember when………………..
10
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
“….Civilisation as we know it,is largely the creation of psycopaths. All civilisations,our own included, have been based on slavery and “warfare”. Incidentally the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder.
The prevailing recipe for civilisation is simple:
1. Use lies and brainwashing to create an army of controlled,systematic mass murderers;
2. Use that army to enslave large numbers of people [i.e. sieze control of their labour power and its fruits];
3.Use that slavelabour to improve the brainwashing process[by using the economic surplus to employ scribes, priests, and PR men].Then go back to step one and repeat the process…….”
Kenny’s sideshow:Twilight of the Psycopaths
http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2008/08/twilight-of-psycopaths.html
10
Have to agree with Winston and Tony. JB it is not often I agree with you (actually, this would be the first time), but…
All very well to feel a bit nostalgic about the good old days. I certainly have fond memories of childhood running around my Nana’s huge garden with my brother and cousins, only stopping long enough to graze from fruit trees and the vege patch. We built tree huts, collected tadpoles and had pinecone skirmishes with the neighbouring farm kids. Sometimes we were given tasks like collecting up the walnuts before the Opossums got them, or windfall apples. I remember my Nana doing things like darning socks in front of the fire at night (that was how we kept warm in those days) or peeling windfall apples. There was jam making using recycled jars and Nana was a keen country cook and gardener out of necessity – it was how she had always fed her family.
I asked her before she died, aged 88, what she would have done if given the choice, instead of being married off to a man 23 years her senior (because there were not a lot of young men around after WWII), and raising 4 children and working in the home. She said she would have been a teacher. While she would never say she regretted marrying and having family I suspect much of her depression (repressed anger, which came out as exasperated sighing) was a result of a life unfulfilled – in those days it was rare for country woman with little education themselves to have a career. In reality, her life was about duty, quite often backbreaking drudgery and making do with very little. My Mother has also told me her childhood memories of living in poverty with no electricity or running water – subsistence farm life in the 1940’s. My Mother’s memories are of being cold and hungry all the time so by all accounts, a rather squalid existence and there is nothing to glorify here as Green or ‘sustainable’.
I’ve had the luxury of a good education, hold down a professional job that provides me with financial independence of the kind my Nana did not know until after my Grandfather died. By the time my Nana was my age now, she was worn down, old. Right now I have a little spare time to sit here in my low maintenance home (which I own in my own right) and enjoy reading these posts, as I listen to my dishwasher whirr in the kitchen……
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I just discovered my old hand mower in the storeroom of my apartment whilst preparing to move into a house on small block. No intention of buying a motor mower!
My mother in the 60s used to always take bags to buy groceries or had them delivered in cardboard boxes. We had chooks that were fed on all the food scraps from a family of 7. We used public transport.
As one of 4 siblings it is the 2 very leftist ones that own multiple vehicles, live on large blocks, one with a pool, and rarely use public transport. The 2 Liberal voting ones own one car between us, live on small blocks, regualrly use public transport!
I’m moving out of Canberra, which considers itself oh so green yet produces the highest per capita rate of rubbish of any Australian city.
It’s not the Greens it’s the Groans!
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I wonder how many of these ‘bad’ Mums are still around to be pursued these days by a Government Department for something or other.
Beaumaris mid to late 50’s.
Saturday morning, immediately following breakfast at 7.30AM
“See ya Mum.”
“You back for dinner at 6PM, and I don’t want to be yelling for you.”
“OK Mum.”
Funny, she was always yelling!
Tony.
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When I was a kid back in the early 1950s I helped the morning milk delivery. Horse and cart with large containers of milk. Housewives came to the door with their jugs and I would ladle out half pint or full pint measures. No bottles. Someone always collected the horse droppings for the garden.
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For all those taking a trip down Memory Lane, or Vicarious Street, to the alleged Good Old Days, I just have one question: If it was so damn good why did you voluntarily give it up?
Oh wait, making life better *is* progress.
Surely the preferred solution to the major challenges of Peak Oil and future climate change (natural or otherwise) is not to go backwards but to find a different way forwards. A new balance that gives us as much comfort as we can get without screwing our life support system. If that means building an entirely artificial life-support system completely isolated from nature and living in domed cities Jetsons-style, okay fine, but if it means living in eco-friendly bamboo buildings and reviving all these recycling and near-enough-is-good-enough practices that seem to have gone on the backburner, well that’s okay too. Whatever works. I’m sure different people will suggest their ideas and eventually as the problems worsen the winners will be chosen by popular demand.
But I am puzzled as to how the old timers in this thread can smugly claim to have been more green than Green back in the bad old days. People can only take credit for choosing well from the available options and yet our modern labour-saving all-electric prestocombobulators didn’t exist in 1955. I rather feel the height and beauty of their Moral High Horse is accordingly limited. 🙂
Put old Mr Smuggins back in the stable or the soap factory man will be after `im!
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Malcom # 27
Unless things change and change quickly, timing and a combination of economics, green sciolist zealotry, poverty and limited energy supplies places us at an easy entry point to a new DA.
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The author is obviously suffering from a very selective memory.
I clearly remember my childhood in the 1960s:
– many people threw rubbish and cigarette butts out their car windows. The roadsides were littered with rubbish,
– most people burned leaves and grass clippings on the front lawn
– burning rubbish in backyard incinerators was common
– people drained their engine oil and poured it down the drains
– smoky exhausts on virtually every car
– diesel trucks and buses that belched non-stop clouds of carcinogenic black particulates
– smoky polluting wood or coal fires in most houses
– 2 stroke Victa mowers operating in a haze of blue oily smoke
– cars that used 2-3 times as much fuel as modern vehicles
I missed out on the glorious 1950s when steam trains left a trail of toxic black soot everywhere they went.
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Could any one please explain the post @ 51 for me?
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Andrew McRae at comment 51,
In a manner I agree with you, but, and there’s always that but, isn’t there.
I’m always rabbiting on about electrical power, especially now with this, er, ‘Clean Energy Future’.
It’s the Greens in fact who want to send us back to those times. They want coal fired plants closed, they are diametrically opposed to Nuclear electrical power generation, and now, they’re not all that keen on gas fired power either.
They ‘spruik’ wind power and solar power, neither of which can supply power on a large scale, and neither can supply any amount of power for longer than than 8 hours a day tops.
If this actually eventuates, and perish that thought, there will quite obviously be rationing and even blackouts.
Electrical power is consumed in three areas, the residential sector 38%, Commerce at 37% and Industrial for 24%.
Having been around in NSW in the 70’s I remember the brown outs and the rationing, and with that distribution break up, the residential sector is always the first to be taken off line, and stays off the longest.
We may be nostalgic for better times, but those were not part of those better times, and if the Greens have their way, we’ll be back there sooner than you can think.
For confirmation go and look at this image for NSW.
http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/nsw-demand-master.jpg?w=594&h=435
You’ll notice that demand will be greater than supply as early as 2014/15, and it takes years for any new large scale plants to come on line delivering power, and other than a couple of upgrades, nothing on a large scale is even in a thought bubble stage.
There’s no point. The greens would veto it anyway, and now we have Labor beholden to them.
Tony.
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My father used to tell me about life during the Depression in country Victoria. He said many children wore clothes made from sugar or flour bags bags – CSR was probably a “designer brand” back then.
My grandfather was a butcher and he frequently gave people free scraps of meat and bones to feed their (non-existent) “dog” because he knew they were too proud to beg.
The only meat many families could afford were rabbits. Luckily(?) rabbits existed in plague proportions in Western Victoria during the 1930s.
Ah…the Good Old Days. Let’s bring them back.
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TonyfromOz,
I hope you did not misinterpret my earlier comment as being some sort of endorsement of the Green Death. Like I said, backwards isn’t forwards. The question mark is not about what we want, but about what will be economically possible, green or not, and how to get there. The bamboo huts will happen as last resort if nothing better can be bargained.
My comment was a reaction to what I perceived as disingenuous smugness about sustainable or eco-friendly technology and because I predicted people might misunderstand this to be some sort of covert apology for Green fascism I pre-emptively took great pains to point out that many futures are possible and that pointing out undeserved smugness does not endorse a rollback of progress and living standards in any way.
As to electricity… with the selling of power into the grid across State lines we are all certainly in the same sinking boat there. Lucky we’ve got plenty of coal to go around for another few decades, and perhaps the obvious solution (burn coal) will be done albeit too late. But I reckon the current import of 40% of our oil consumption is the next overpriced cab off the crisis rank. People will get by and for most life will go on, we just don’t know how yet.
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bananabender @53
BB. The things you mentioned were part of those times, and as some say, much worse.
The point is many of those problems and bad practices are “gone” because Various Governments were forced to “do some work” and “clean up”.
Poor industrial practices, like dumping cyanide in the Hunter River, were slowly reined in.
Somehow we have all been led to believe that the “only” thing left to do is remove CO2 from the air and we will have paradise.
The big Green lie.
Shades of promises made to Hamas suicide bombers; 50 virgins await in paradise.
In the meantime there are still serious chemical pollution issues, contaminated food sourced who knows where overseas, and extraordinary financial waste of Taxpayers money all fueled by Government action/inaction (read Corruption) and selective morality ( read UN donations of our tax money ).
There are many Australians in deep sh*t one way or another – undisciplined – drunk — damaged by the dole — damaged by the damage — damaged by the government.
We need the resources going to the UN right here in this country first.
The point about the depression and the post WW11 period is that we felt we were making headway out of the sh*t.
It was tough.
You don’t mind tough if you are building something for your kids.
But at the present, we are up to our necks in it, and building something for the politicians and the Bloody United nations.
Something is going to Give soon.
Many of us and our families have given much to this country and are not pleased with what has been given in exchange by politics.
It may be said that we are a little Testy at the moment and not in the mood to tolerate Governments which put our country’s resources at the beck and call of the Climate Change Banksters and the UN.
Election soon, followed by change of Governments every election hereafter until we give politicians the message that “we want good government”.
At the moment politicians think voters are stupid. Look how long it took NSW to realise they were being had by Labor.
Not saying barry has got off to a good start but if he doesn’t wake up to himself we can get rid of him too, much sooner than he would like.
We have the governments we have been tricked into electing.
Vote smarter.
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Andrew McRae,
To quote Curly, Nyuk nyuk nyuk. I think I can understand
hyperbowl,hyperbolly,hyperb(bugger) exaggeration at most times. This was just me being shameless and getting in another plug.Thankfully, the biggest thing we actually have in favour that will prevent ZThe Greens closing down those coal fired plants is that they have contracts to supply power long into the 20’s and 30’s, but if opinion doesn’t turn soon, we might just be back in those dark ages ….. literally.
Tony.
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Lovely post, Jo. I couldn’t resist the famous Monty python “We were so poor” sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
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Bananabender @ 56
I’ve just read your post to my Mother and it bought back memories, especially the flour bags. She said she learned to sew with flour bags.
She was telling that even though times were hard in post war NZ her Mother Margaret, who was Irish, refused to eat Mussels (which would have been plentiful free protein in post war NZ) because this is what they ate during the potato famine in Ireland. Margaret called them famine food.
I’ve been told that Morton Bay Bugs were also considered poor persons food at one time.
Funny how the famine food of yesteryear is today’s delicacy.
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Fish and Chips wrapped in newspaper!
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Jo,
Survival and working together as a community helped to develop the relationships between everyone in the community to get through the winter seasons and stay warm and safe.
A great deal of creative thinking and making things from scrap for an easier labor intensive life pushed the evolution of much of our technology. Passing down the knowledge of mistakes made and what worked in areas never before explored from farming to machinery.
A great deal of pride and energy went into helping the community where the employer and worker cared for each other and did not go by a number.
When greed and power took over, jobs became number people with no care for their well being except what government imposed. Lost jobs for the cheapest manufacturer and waste of time technology is making for a lazy society and one prone to failure when disaster strikes.
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I remember milk wasn’t packaged or sold in bottles, but door to door by the litre, almost right from the cow. No waste at all, and you boiled it yourself. The same with olive oil, and water in some cases. And so much more. There were almost no cars although gas was dirt cheap. Nobody thought about using a car to drive 2 km, or even in some cases 5, you went on foot. There’s people here driving for 100 m now, and stating the car is “absolutely needed” for that! Nobody needed heating (any sort of it) in winter or cooling in summer, something even I find weird now. Some things improved, others didn’t.
I remember no TV, no radio, and dim 25 W light bulbs, and being scolded for leaving a room for a just while and leave the light on. Obviously no washing machine, no drying machine, no dish-washing machine, no refrigerator, you bought fresh stuff every other day. We had the luxury of a gas bath water heater, and were forbidden to take baths, only showers.
I have been led to believe that young people think the world has always been the way they found it, which is why it is necessary to fight weather and climate variation.
We just spoilt them.
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janama wrote: August 21st, 2011 at 6:55 am: “Just pure wholesome milk.”
There’s no such thing for sale anymore.
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We didn’t have that problem as we had a Flymo, no wheels, mulched and was like a hovercraft. I miss the seventies, life was so simple yet innovative.
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Andrew McRae @51
Nobody “voluntarily gave it up”, times moved on, and we moved with them. Life got easier, but didn’t get simpler. I don’t see anyone here expressing a real desire to “go back”, just sadness for the “good things lost”.
People recycled out of necessity, not a desire to “save the planet” (it seemed to be doing fine then, and I see little difference today). It was the common-sense thing to do – throwing away items with a possible re-use was seen to be wasteful. As to your reference to the “Moral High Horse”, I suggest you make sure you’re not looking down from one yourself.
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There is also a strange disconnect between urban and rural lifestyles that is not unlike the topic of this post.
Farmers were recycling their water and composting their food scraps (or recycling it through the chooks) using rainwater and seperating their rubbish long before it became fashionable in the urban areas.
We were also using solar energy and wind power long before it was fashionable ….we just thought it was smart. There’s no easier way to heat up water than through black pipes. Windmills do a great job of filling dams and troughs.
I’m not a child of the 50s, I’m a little younger than that, but because I grew up in rural Australia I can still remember much of what is talked about here. We actually still do a lot of that stuff out here…we never stopped 🙂
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It’s funny you know, I have a push mower and an organic veggie garden, and dry the clothes outside on the line. I ride my bike to the shops instead of taking the car. I risk parental abuse and rebuke young kids for throwing bottles in the river or damaging trees.
Sometimes friends mistake for some type of greenie. Boy are they wrong.
Growing your own food is paramount to understanding how to cook properly and work with in-season produce. It’s dead cheap as well.
Pushing a mower is a great workout, isn’t noisy, requires no petrol to be stored and hangs on a hook on the wall. And costs 1/3 as much as a petrol mower.
Riding a bike is fun, nobody can deny that.
If everyone just thought about living their lives more simply and gave their hard work for keeping their local environment clean, instead of their opinion on how others should run their lives, then all of this would just go away. Rich, self-sufficient communities, societies and countries can afford the highest environmental standards around. Centrally-run, corrupt economic basket cases are always -and I mean in every single case- much, much worse for the environment.
Witness the case where you’re allowed to chop down local trees so your solar panels can get more sunlight.
Witness the case where building a hydro-electic dam is verboten, but clearing forest for windmills and transmission lines is OK.
Witness the case where you are taxed extra (luxury car tax!) for buying a high-efficieny imported car, but subsidised for buying low-efficiency imported solar panels.
Wtiness the case that the most green votes and support are always recorded in the areas where the least amount of greenery is visible.
The environment is just the latest case where an ideaology is riding and exploiting an issue in it’s quest for ever greater control. Communism used to ride on the backs of workers, happy to sacrifice their jobs and living conditions for the greater glory of the movement and more control. They rode on the back of peoples natural concern that the weakest in society are the easiest to exploit. This new breed of power-lusters rides on the back of peoples natural concern that the natural environment needs the benefit of the doubt.
But challenge a greens supporter to name one policy or one outcome the Greens have actually achieved in ‘saving the environment’ and you’ll get a blank stare and lots of feet shuffing. Get them to name one outcome where they have achieved greater control over people and their previously-free activities and they’ll hand you a folder full.
Greens are Televangelists to real churchgoers. A real churchgoer (and I’m not one) does good in their community and tries to get you to pitch in. A televangelist just asks for your concern and your donations and lets you think you’ve changed the world.
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lmwd @ 62
If you want to predict what will be the ‘hot’ dish, just go somewhere that hasn’t been discovered and find out what the peasants are eating. Eventually it will become staple food of the nose-lifting crowd.
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Stephanie Anderson at Canberra Times is something. no mention of carbon (dioxide) tax, and an attempt to sow confusion:
18 Aug: Canberra Times: BY STEPHANIE ANDERSON: Wallendbeen braces for convoy confusion
Truck drivers travelling to an anti-government rally in Canberra are expected to boost country businesses but itinerary changes have left some small communities in the dark…
Owner of the Wallendbeen Hotel Kerry Murphy said she was informed about a week ago, but was still unclear on the details of the Sunday night stop-over.
”We don’t even know how many people are coming yet,” she said.
”It started with 200 but now its up to 3000 … They’re looking for showers and everything, but there’s nothing in Wallendbeen.”…
Owner of the Wallendbeen Hotel Kerry Murphy said she was informed about a week ago, but was still unclear on the details of the Sunday night stop-over.
”We don’t even know how many people are coming yet,” she said.
”It started with 200 but now its up to 3000 … They’re looking for showers and everything, but there’s nothing in Wallendbeen.”…
The Roads and Traffic Authority issued a warning to NSW motorists yesterday regarding expected traffic delays in the lead-up to Monday’s rally, which will cover issues such as banning live exports and lack of investment in regional areas.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/wallendbeen-braces-for-convoy-confusion/2262423.aspx
Stephanie doesn’t mention the carbon (dioxide) tax again. must be hard being a “journalist”, but Stephanie has an agenda:
21 Aug: Canberra Times: Truck body shuns convoy
BY EWA KRETOWICZ, PHILLIP THOMSON AND STEPHANIE ANDERSON
Check back with The Canberra Times online on Monday morning for updates on the Convoy of No Confidence and the chaos on our roads…
The Australian Trucking Association’s manager of communications and government relations, Bill McKinley, said the protest did not have the ATA’s support because the aim of the protesters was constitutionally unsound.
”What they’re asking for can’t be delivered,” Mr McKinley said.
”This isn’t a trucking industry protest, it only includes people from the trucking industry.”…
The ATA has advised its member associations in each state of its position and he said the message had been passed on to individual drivers who were members.
Mr McKinley said the confused nature of the protest – which included some protesters complaining about Penny Wong and her female partner having a baby – was also a reason why the ATA was not involved.
The protest will also not have the official involvement of another major industry organisation, the National Farmers Federation.
A federation spokeswoman said her organisation was ”not involved”, even though some of the issues in the protest concern many farmers.
”It’s not something being driven by our members,” the spokeswoman said.
”We haven’t been approached either – it’s not a pure agricultural rally.”
President of the National Road Freighters Association Mick Pattel said the sheer costs involved with the convoy had deterred many otherwise willing participants.
”People are joining, doing 200 or 300km and then going home,” he said.
”They just can’t afford the fuel.”
Mr Pattel said he had already spent more than $3000 fuelling his own vehicle despite the fact that the outlay could not be claimed on the usual fuel rebate of 15c a litre.
Between 3000 and 9000 protesters are expected to converge on Canberra tomorrow, causing traffic chaos in the nation’s capital…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/truck-body-shuns-convoy/2265128.aspx
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Peter joins Stephanie and “carbon” gets a mention, but the story is still negative:
19 Aug: Canberra Times: Convoy an ‘unknown quantity’
BY PETER JEAN AND STEPHANIE ANDERSON
Protesters from across Australia are converging on the ACT for the rally where they will voice their grievances to the Federal Government about a range of issues, including the proposed carbon tax and restrictions on live animal exports.
The convoy could prevent thousands of people from getting to work on time…
”ACT Policing is liaising with convoy organisers and will implement plans to coordinate the large number of vehicles coming into the ACT from most major roadways, with the intention to have protest vehicles off ACT roads by 8.30am; though this cannot be confirmed.”…
National Road Freighters Association president Mick Pattel said organisers had been working with the police since planning began three weeks ago and compared the traffic arrangements to a military operation.
”The Federal Police will organise to get them [truck drivers] in to parking locations around the city,” he said.
”When the convoy comes in, they will be going around Parliament House on their way to park. Then we’re going to get buses to take them back to the rally.”
Mr Pattel said police presented the plan to convoy organisers as a means of minimising the burden on Canberra drivers during rush hour.
”Our beef’s not with the people of Canberra, our beef is with Parliament,” he said.
”We just want to get our message to the Government and get out.”…
”Because they’re progressive convoys, it’s just getting bigger and bigger,” he said.
”It’s just become an unknown quantity.”
Convoy leaders will have GPS devices attached to their vehicles to allow their vehicles to be tracked by authorities on the way to Canberra.
Mr Pattel said he had been informed that several universities were closing on Monday to allow students to take part in the rally. ”We’re very excited that they’re allowing the students to do that,” he said.
But the University of Canberra and the Australian National University said the universities would remain open on Monday…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/convoy-an-unknown-quantity/2263601.aspx
Stephanie strikes back:
21 Aug: Canberra Times: Students to strike back in support of carbon tax
BY STEPHANIE ANDERSON
THE Convoy of No Confidence won’t be the only rally taking place tomorrow…
Environmental groups from across the capital will also be holding events, in support of action on climate change, with members of the Australian National University Environment Collective leading the charge.
Collective member Ben Huttner-Koros said students would be positioned along Northbourne Avenue, waiving a banner stating ”Welcome to Canberra, we love 40per cent less CO2”.
”It’s just so they [convoy participants] realise that people in Canberra might disagree with their opinion on the carbon tax,” he said.
About two dozen of the collective’s 150 members are expected to take part, with others joining a cycling event after midday.
Fellow collective member Sean Munro said cyclists would leave Old Parliament House at 12.30pm and make their way around Parliament House and the convoy rally.
PHOTO CAPTION: ANU students Ben-Huttner-Koros, Charlotte Hanson and Sean Munro put the finishing touches to their banner. Photo: GARY SCHAFER
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/students-to-strike-back-in-support-of-carbon-tax/2265129.aspx
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Stephanie finds a truckie who isn’t “up to date” on “carbon pricing”; unlike Stephanie he is obviously ignorant:
20 Aug: Canberra Times: Qbn truckie joins protest over new tax
BY STEPHANIE ANDERSON
But Mr Ablett admitted he was not ”up to date” on the details of carbon pricing, emphasising instead his concerns for his 90 employees, several of whom were family members…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/qbn-truckie-joins-protest-over-new-tax/2264831.aspx
AAP gives SMH a nice opportunity to be negative:
21 Aug: SMH: AAP: Protest convoy lacks confidence
THERE was meant to be a convoy of trucks and cars one kilometre long, but in the end Queensland just wasn’t passionate enough to drive to Canberra.
Beenleigh truckie Ken Wilkie, who led a humble convoy of a half-dozen out of Yatala early yesterday morning, said it was disappointing there was not more interest from south-east Queenslanders in driving to Canberra to deliver a vote of no-confidence petition and protest against the federal government.
“I have to be honest here, I can’t lie; I’m disappointed. I’ve only got about five or six behind me,” he said while on the road yesterday afternoon…
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/protest-convoy-lacks-confidence-20110820-1j43k.html
the MSM has lost all credibility.
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The opening scenario is fabricated.
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God I hated pillow slips made from flower bags, the seams were always in the wrong place. Equally hated sheets made from a roll of cheap unbleached calico. By the time they had worn smooth, they were rotten.
I did not know I was recycling when mum bought a replacement element for the electric jug, the radiator, or the toaster, for me to fit. Was it recycling when the repair man fixed the old valve radio, the copper, or the stove, or just average folk being thrifty? Would you believe we got our watches repaired, & our shoes resoled? No, thought you wouldn’t.
I didn’t get to ride the milk cart, I worked for the baker at busy times & holidays. I’d harness the horse into the cart while he loaded it. God it was cold in Bathurst at 4.30 AM in winter. Chilblains any one?
If Julia gets her way, & in fact if we don’t start building new coal fired plants damn soon, there won’t be power for your fridge & TV, let alone charging any batteries for some fool electric car. Why would you want one, in their full life cycle they create more pollution than a similar sized petrol car, & much more then a LPG fueled car.
I had to chop the wood for the slow combustion heater, & the cooking stove, that also heated the water. I had to gather the wood chips for the bath chip heater. The gravity fed hot water from the stove wouldn’t work the shower, & we didn’t have enough water for filling baths.
A couple of times a month we’d take the back seats out of the 1930 Dodge, & drive out to a friends recently ring barked paddock to get our fire wood. Had to be careful. The branches would suddenly drop off a dead tree you were chopping down.
No I don’t want to go back, but I would like to be able to get some things repaired rather than be thrown out. I’d do most myself, if you could buy parts.
Fortunately I can get parts for my 31 year old car. I recycled two wrecks into one lovely old thing, but it didn’t please the greenies, they want me to take a bus. Fortunately the only bus that comes with in 25Km of me is a school bus, & they won’t let me on that, in case I molest one of the horrors. Fat chance.
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I used to dread Granddad (born 1878) spotting a dead sheep in the paddock for I, or one of my brothers, would be told to go and pluck the wool. The incentive was to bury the stinking thing before he did spot it.
Maternal grandmother (born 1885) once said to me, “The good old days? Don’t give me ‘the good old days’, there was nothing good about them!”
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A whole category of goods has been omitted from this panegyric: those made from fibres. Perhaps it is not too late to edit the original article.
Clothing and bedding, once made entirely from natural fibres (wool, cotton), is almost entirely now made from synthetic fibre, most derived from oil. So low was the demand for wool in the UK 5-10 years ago that farmers were loosing money on each fleece that was sheared.
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is this the Stephanie Anderson writing negatively on the Convoy for the Canberra Times, and failing in at least two articles to even mention the carbon “dioxide” tax?
2010: Punch: Authors bios: Stephanie Anderson
Stephanie Anderson is a freelance journalist and in her final year of journalism studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne…
Steph is very excited to complete her degree in 2011 and continue pursuing a career in broadcast journalism.
http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/stephanie-anderson/
seems Stephanie if off the Convoy stories today. not surprised this would be the next attack:
22 Aug: Canberra Times: City braces for convoy chaos
BY PETER JEAN AND BREANNA TUCKER
Canberra’s public hospitals have activated contingency plans to ensure that services can continue if staff are delayed arriving at work and to deal with any increase in patient presentations…
Ms Gallagher said it was possible traffic congestion could prevent some essential workers, including hospital medical and nursing staff, from getting to work.
She said morning change of shifts at the Canberra Hospital could be delayed.
”It might mean that some of the night staff have to wait back, so we’re going to have to look at that as it unfolds,” Ms Gallagher said.
A Health Directorate spokesman said plans had been developed to maintain essential services, including planning for the unlikely event of a major increase in presentations to hospital emergency departments.
Early discharges from the Canberra Hospital were organised last week to avoid patients having to travel home this morning.
Patients with planned appointments and admissions had been advised of how to plan their route for hospital attendance…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/city-braces-for-convoy-chaos/2265573.aspx
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MattB: What is your point? No, really?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was an interesting show on yesterday on SBS. The Lightbulb Conspiracy – it is a story about planned obsolescence. Clearly there were one or two commentators on the show drawing a rather long bow, like the Frenchman suggesting all economists were evil because they were in on the conspiracy… but otherwise informative.
Back when we were less affluent things were built to last. Now most gadgets are considered disposable along with all the gratuitous wrapping they come in. Clearly there is a case to be made for developing a philosophy of longer lasting gadgets – LED lightbulbs were the shining example … yes, I see what I did there. Also, we should be building stuff with a mind to it being recycled rather than heaped in a landfill or shipped to a devloping country for kids to recycle the metal scraps.
But these are the common sense environmental issues… not taxing invisible plant food…
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i loved this photo
http://users.tpg.com.au/johnsay1/Stuff/youth.jpg
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Question on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/questions/246506838717322/
Over 600 trucks will converge on Canberra today in a ‘Convoy of No Confidence’ in the Gillard government. Those involved want a federal election called immediately. Do you agree?
Go there now and have you vote.
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The recycling thing is still going on – in poorer countries. Like a couple of generations ago, a country like Brazil (where I have numerous in-laws) recycles because it is viable to do so. Food is not wasted, cars are maintained for much longer and basic appliances like microwave ovens and CRT TVs are repaired when they go wrong. A brother-in-law makes a living from travelling around in a battered truck purchasing scrap, recovering the metal and selling it onto larger scrap dealers. The reason it is viable to recycle and repair it because time is less valuable.
Going back to recycling to the extent of a bygone era is to devalue people’s time. We should remember that the very elderly did recycle much more in the past, and spent longer preparing food, because times were much harder.
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Perhaps not an economists perspective but if goods last longer then there will be less jobs for those in manufacturing these goods. Thus planned obsolescence is important to keep the projected growing populations in jobs? (World population one billion in 1900, nearly seven billion now and perhaps nine to ten billion by 2050).
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this is o/t but very funny; written by a law student; (I’ve deleted his name) he must be up to Family Law
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OT but here is how the Convoy is being reported in NZ
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10746652
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We used to swim in North Queensland in the 1960’s off Townsville – used to be scared of shark attacks then too – but they just wanted to eat you then.
Now they attack because of AGW??????
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/conservation/are-humans-to-blame-for-shark-attacks-20110819-1j1ed.html
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Thanks, Ross (#85), not a bad article.
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“energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts”
Probably 2400 Watts.
Yes we did live that way once, not because we were “green” but because we had little choice. It is galling to be told by wet behind the ears kids with little life experience that we didn’t look after the environment. To be fair many of these kids in time will come to realise they were conned by their teachers pushing the green/socialist agenda of their left wing unions.
No thinking person would really want to go back to those dark post depression days, least of all those of us who can remember the lingering poverty of our parents lives. Maybe that’s why we can see where the green/socialist agenda of the present government is taking us.
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POLL: Do you agree with the truckies’ call for an early federal election?
http://ninemsn.com.au/
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thanks for that link Damian; a lot of yes votes there!
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Here are “the thousands” of oil pipeline protesters as reported by the Huffington Post and thousands of other media gasbags.
I counted 47 people, but I might have miss a few down in back tying their shoe or something.
Using Huffpo math, you have millions of trucks on the road to Canberra.
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watching sky news for the past half hour or so.
have not seen a single member of the Convoy. not one image of a truck so far. no sound whatsoever of the protesters or the horns of the trucks/cars.
news ticker saying Bob Brown says convoy of no confidence a bit of a flop.
only coalition pollies and alan jones speeches being broadcast.
you would never know any convoy is in canberra.
it is an absolute disgrace.
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should have mentioned alan jones spoke of the thousands in the convoys, so sky news went to david lipson who said that was an exaggeration as there were only about 400 people.
of course, lipson was not counting the people in the trucks who are being held at bay.
seems the protesters are not being allowed to enter the parliament precinct.
here’s the Australian doing a hit job:
22 Aug: Australian: James Massola: The number of drivers joining the ‘convoy of no-confidence’ has failed organisers’ expectations
Cars and camper vans outnumbered the barely 100 trucks that rumbled around the parliamentary precinct early this morning before returning to the city’s outskirts.
Protesters are returning to Parliament House by bus, with about 200 having arrived on the main lawn to continue their rally.
Many Canberrans remarked on Twitter that traffic in the capital was lighter than usual.
One of the protest’s organiser, Bendigo’s Anita Donlon, told the Australian Online the event would continue to ramp up, with more busses arriving during the morning…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/the-number-of-drivers-joining-the-convoy-of-no-confidence-has-failed-organisers-expectations/story-fn59niix-1226119467817
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The point, Bulldust, is that
1) supermarket check-out folk don’t spend their days abusing elderly customers for percieved sins of their generation.
2) The elderly person comes from an age when plastic bags were not commonplace… you can read ths history of the bags here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_shopping_bag The elderly person most likely sees the return to reusable bags, or a shopping trolley, as a return to a sensible old time practice.
3) “Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.” wow they still do this in South Australia you know:) INdeed though they may not have had “this green thing” but then in their day corporate economic values didn’t override common sense (what we know call “the green thing” apparently.
The issue is that after this hallowed olde-world when people were just sensible, we ditched that for $$$, and “this green thing” is heading back to the norm.
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am getting angrier by the minute. am now watching a piece on abc news 24. so far no images of the protesters whatsoever, and only the faintest of sounds from the crowd. followed immediately by albanese who attacked mick pattel as an extremist and conspiracy theorist. now gone to abc’s lyndal curtis, who says there are 200 at the protest and a “few trucks” circling. note the following piece says horns nearly drowned out jones, yet viewers can’t hear a thing on either sky or abc:
22 Aug: Canberra Times: Trucks circle The Hill
BY STAFF REPORTERS
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has introduced a bill calling for a plebiscite on whether Australia should have a carbon tax.
He said the vote should be held by November…
Meanwhile , protestors are gathering outside Parliament, but hundreds of vehicles are still circling Canberra as part of the Convoy of No Confidence.
Police have estimated the number of protestors on the lawns of Parliament at about 300 people.
Talkback radio announcer Alan Jones began addressing the crowd about 11am, while a convoy of about 150 trucks and other vehicles made its way around Parliament House at slow speed.
Jones was almost drowned out by the sound of horns of trucks passing Parliament House, as he told the crowd that the carbon tax would cost Australia $1.3 trillion…
He said it was a dark day for democracy because people who had come to Canberra to protest were being kept out.
“They can’t get in here. The picture that the nation is being given today is utterly inaccurate. This is the denial of these people – it is the death of democracy,” he said.
People had come from all over Australia, but police had been told not to let them in.
“This is the most disgraceful thing that has ever been done to democracy. That people who come here can’t get into the precincts to be heard. You can hear them driving around and around and around us.”
ACT Policing have confirmed via Twitter that heavy vehicles are not being permitted access to Parliamentary Drive, “for public safety reasons”. Police are using patrol cars to block access to come parts of Parliamentary Drive.
Jones also told the crowd that a convoy of trucks “2km long” had been stopped at the ACT border, however ACT Policing have said no trucks have been stopped…
Mr Albanese also attacked convoy leader and National Road Freighters Association president Mick Pattel, saying he was a former Liberal National Party state candidate who had advocated global conspiracy theories.
“Most people would regard those elements as extreme, but not Warren Truss the leader of the National party,’’ he said.
“Tony Abbott is totally supportive of this convoy and … has a history of calling for a people’s revolt, such as the sort of activity and views that we’ve seem from the Tea Party in the United States.”
It is understood that there are still vehicles heading to Canberra, although the protest has been much smaller than expected.
Police say they escorted fewer than 200 vehicles in the official Convoy of No Confidence this morning. Another 150 came in a convoy from Yass and several smaller convoys were entering the city from other locations…
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the convoy, which he described as a “general smorgasbord of whingers”, seemed “like a bit of a flop”.
“It hasn’t blockaded anything,” he said.
“But it has got the moaners’ brigade in town to moan about everything in general and nothing in particular.”
Mr Pattel said organisers made a conscious decision to reduce the number of people coming to the ACT, partly because of the cost of fuel and partly to reduce the impact on Canberrans.
“[We are] trying to do the right thing, but are now being accused of a flop,’’ he said.
“What we are doing is more symbolic than disruptive.’’
He said the other convoys were being held off until after peak hour.
The first wave of vehicles, which was to have left at 5.15am, was cancelled. There were 64 in the second wave and 106 in the third, which was on its way back to Exhibition Park shortly after 7.30am.
Despite expectations of chaos on major roads as trucks, recreation vehicles and caravans drove around Parliament House and then to staging points at EPIC and Canberra Stadium, many people reported the streets were no busier than normal. Some even said they had an easier drive to work than usual…
Drivers honked and waved as they drove through Civic before crossing Commonwealth Avenue to head around Parliament House and back out to EPIC.
Rosemary Greer walked down to wave at the trucks and cars filing down Northbourne Avenue after hearing helicoptors pass over her Reid home.
She and her husband have just moved to Canberra from Victoria and she said they could sympathise with the convoy’s cause.
“I grew up on a farm in the country so I know all about food miles and the cost it has on the community,” she said.
“I really appreciate the effort these people have gone to, to drive all the way across the country to get the message to [city people] in comfortable surroundings that this country is running into problems.
“I think it’s really exciting to see democracy in action.”…
Interstate convoys from Wallendbeen, Cooma, Coolac and Harden will travel into Canberra via the Federal and Barton highways and follow the same route as the EPIC-based convoys, though they will come up Haydon Drive and finish at Canberra Stadium.
These interstate convoys are not being escorted by police and are not receiving a green-light corridor up Northbourne Avenue. It is not known how many vehicles are in these interstate convoys…
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/trucks-circle-the-hill/2265581.aspx
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Val @ 84
Thanks I needed that!
🙂
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Pat, not sure where you are but the ABC reports are pretty accurate from the walk around PH that I just did. I see no reason why anyone would complain if they just report the activity accurately. There is lots of other news happening you know.
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Bear with me for a moment while I explain how these 11 convoys have turned into such an abject failure.
Those 11 convoys have a large number of rigs, some of them Doubles and even triples.
To actually drive those through the streets of Canberra is illegal, and I feel sure that the escorting Police presence would have quietly mentioned this.
Next, to drive all those remaining and still quite large truck numbers through Canberra for a rally is again not an easy thing.
As Mick Pattel says, it’s a large logistical thing to even attempt to organise large scale protests by those rigs.
He also makes the point that there’s nowhere for all of them to park for the large mostly all day rally.
They make a symbolic point by the early drive through, with small numbers of trucks, again, quietly advised by the Police, and then they go back to the staging point, and then, by organised buses back to the rally.
Those rigs all need fuel for the return trip.
The organisers took local traffic requirements into consideration, especially not wanting to disrupt every day traffic too much.
Because of all these things, it has played right into the hands of the media reporting it, and that Brown Moron, all of them calling it a flop.
This is something that those from the left just don’t realise.
These people have thoughtfully made their protest without ‘too much’ disruption.
They have quietly gone about their protest.
The media reports sneeringly 2 small convoys, with barely enough numbers to even bother counting.
The media also reports that their so called cause is in fact a disorganised ‘group’ of causes with no coordination.
Read the blogs at open fora in some MSM outlets and see what is said in the main, especially at the ‘fair and even handed’ ABC.
Those from the left JUST DO NOT GET IT.
Notice how these people from the left who for so long have protested anything and everything American are the same ones who so quickly resort to those American put downs, ‘TEA Party’, ‘rednecks’ ‘hillbillies’, and even that most disgusting of terms ‘teabaggers’ when they refer to those people making a legitimate argument.
THIS is how they have turned this convoy protest into such an abject failure, which is something it most definitely IS NOT.
We have made our point, and done it in a civilised manner.
Oh, and MattB, thanks for your considered comment with your usual excuse.
We love having you at this Blog, because every time you press Enter at the end of each comment you make here, we thank our lucky stars that we still have the ability to laugh when we are so angry.
Tony.
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Tony – you’re in the wrong thread.
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Gee Aye –
there is a dedicated channel at sky and, at no point, has sky gone to the Convoys, nor has sky had sound that included the protesters, nor has sky shown any aerial views of the convoys.
it has been surreal watching a protest where you do not see the protest at all. just a stationery camera showing addresses by pollies.
having worked in the media for a good part of my working life, i know a stitch-up when i see it, and this is the most blatant suppressiion of a protest i’ve ever seen.
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No Matt, the convoy has hijacked this thread too. It is everywhere! Well, not as much in Canberra as they would have liked. Just to balance my comment re the ABC above to Pat and not meaning to enrage him/her more here is a link to an ABC article .
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UGh… did not close tag
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http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2850098.html OK maybe I need to read up how to set links? There it is for you to find manually
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I still have my old push mower. And I am still trying to get my daughter’ boyfriend to operate it. I have even offered to help, by chasing him with my gas-gassling ride-on to provide an incentive to keep the blades spinning.
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Pat… so the ABC and News Ltd have both come to a similar conclusion about the newsworthiness of the convoy?
Crossing threads here (and off topic for both) but Louise Maher is very much like any other Canberran that I know. Her article though assumed that the protest would be more disruptive than it was.
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Gee Aye @ 104
Didn’t you notice that the journalist who wrote that article for the ABC works for Exiled Online – a Moscow based organisation?
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First hand account, of Sky News at No Carbon Tax rally recently.
As Dr Art Raiche was speaking from the back was heard booing.
Later I investigated to see the dreggs of the comotion ending- there I spoke to the Sky news presenter who was the culprit. He had mispoken the crowd numbers filming from way in the back as being 400. Bad move, he was still in a fluster of embarresment when I had a chance to inquire.
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I don’t see what that has to do with my recent comments or that my comments conveyed any reason to wonder whether I had noted the author’s affiliations or not. I presented two sides of the ABC coverage to Pat. Is there a meaning to this that you want to tell us all about?
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[…] The Green Thing: the old and wise fight back Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured on EcoPressed Fossil Fuels: Will North […]
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There is nothing environmentally friendly about reusing beer bottles, delivering milk by horse and cart or mowing lawns with a hand mower. They all use far more energy than the modern alternatives.
Using human muscles to do work is about the least energy efficient means possible. This is because the energy cost of producing, distributing and preparing food is vastly higher than the energy recovered in human work.
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ad: #26
August 21st, 2011 at 9:59 am
“The comments here are pukemaking.”
ad, look up to the top right hand corner of the page, move your mouse arrow over the red box with the X in it. Left click the mouse key (I assume your mother has an L and R felt tipped on your mouse) and your problem will be solved. Now off back to your play pen!
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some photos up now at http://justgroundsonline.com/forum/topics/the-rally-convoy-of-no-confidence?page=5&commentId=3535428%3AComment%3A271434&x=1#3535428Comment271434
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@ John Brookes #45
haha best post by John everrrr.
No caning in school: Debateable. A bit of caning or six of the best as I used to get at school regularly has it’s benefits as well as cons.
better shopping hours: Oh yeah? tell that to the small business owners. Not to mention the fact that “better” shopping hours is the feedstock of rampant consumerism that you pinko leftard commies hate so much John lol. Nobody failed to do their shopping during restricted shopping hours of days of yore. This is just an excuse to ramp up the credit cards of consumers, employ their kids for low wages hence stop them from being kids much too soon in their lives and many more knock on effects, all in the name of convenience.
Coffee shops! Croissants: hehe hehe spoken like a true latte sipping, on the public teat, Fairfax reading, ABC watching socialist pinko John.
Mobile phones. The internet. Digital TV. Cars. Bicycles. Better roads. Cameras. Lots of things are cheaper. Better variety of beer and wine and bread and many other things. Computers. Washing machines, dishwashers and microwaves. Pharmaceuticals: errrr hang on a minute mate, that’s all the stuff of western capitalism, of consumerism, of technological advance enabled by cheap sources of power and by catastrophic GHG emissions. Surely you jest my friend lol.
me thinks you forgot the /sarc off tag John lol
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Hey Baa, I can’t help what I like. Fortunately I’ve never been attracted to 4WDs, guns and conservative politics.
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John said: Hey Baa, I can’t help what I like.
Yes we know. You are simply a product of your social environment and are not responsible for the contents of your mind, your values, your self identity, and your ability to think. A perfect product of social xerography and totally politically correct.
In other words John, as an individual, does not exist. He is a hologram and a simulated one at that.
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Isn’t that classed up slang for “drugs”? I mean the “Green” kind…..if you know what I mean……..
Lionell @ 116
Exquisite smackdown!
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bananabender @111
Perhaps you could explain how they use “far more energy than the modern alternatives”?
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“Gee Aye” yet another TRAITOR !
STILL WAITING YOU YOU TO BE HONEST AND REVEAL WHO EMPLOYS YOU – EITHER GETUP OR THE ALP…..
SCUMBAG!
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MostlyHarmless @ 118
The reality has to do with more than just the re-use of bottles. Attorneys have mucked things up so re-use of bottles has to consider liability for objects placed inside bottles by previous consumers (essentially terrorist activities) that won’t wash out, regulations about water use and disposal, energy costs for transporting and cleaning bottles, branding failures (because your bottles don’t look as nice and shiny as the competitor), etc. Today the returnable bottle is a relic due to “modern sensibilities”. It is just another sad commentary on the attitude of consumers.
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What are you talking about? Still waiting since when? What have I missed?
I just had a quick look at the Guidelines for commenters. The first heading is “Politeness”. After that I can’t see anywhere that anyone (including yourself) is required to make a disclosure about anything before posting comments. Thanks anyway.
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Damian Allen @ 119
Gee Aye @ 98 refers to his “walk around Parliament House that he just did”. Possibly a staffer?
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Hi, are you conjecturing about my motives/affiliations/employment status because I posted personal observations? I thought they were relevant to some other posts (though not to the headline topic, sorry). If I make any unfounded assumptions or grossly and/or deliberately mis reported what I saw then please tell me what.
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Yeah
98 Definitely refers to walking around PH.
Definitely someone in the area who is:
1. Not a truckie
2. Not at work ( therefore a chance of being and MP or a Green sponsored activist)
3. Not able to empathise with real Australians under Government Induced social and financial
stress.
4. Possibly a cyclist.
All the above point to someone drawing sustenance from out Tax dollars in one way or another.
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That should have been “our” tax dollars.
I shouldn’t have bothered with this but I know he doesn’t like people reading between the lines.
Definitely a greenpiece Lawyer
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MaryFJohnston:
August 23rd, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Yeah
98 Definitely refers to walking around PH.
Definitely someone in the area who is:
1. Not a truckie
2. Not at work ( therefore a chance of being and MP or a Green sponsored activist)
3. Not able to empathise with real Australians under Government Induced social and financial
stress.
4. Possibly a cyclist.
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“”So what is your point and what do you have to contribute?”‘
Dear GEE
You have amply illustrated my point — You have no point.
I just went back through your past posts – not having read them before but they are ALL about your “feelings” and the feelings of the poor maligned ABC reporters.
There is NO expression of feelings for those damaged by Politicians Greed and false Gods of Global Warming.
You seem to claim that people misrepresent you in the manner of a the latte left
— in short man — What are you doing on this blog
— what business do you have here that informs us of something new
or shows something new or helps in any way
– nothing to contribute.
Truly – you are a creature of Canberra.
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Hi Mary,
thanks for expressing your view. It is good to know where you stand.
However your assessment of my “type” is off the mark. I like coffee but I like it black. That is about as close as your assumptions were to being true.
My contribution might be minimal were an insight for me as here is what I found. The fact that I walked around Parliament House got me one abusive comment (OK that abuse was tied to some other misunderstood content of my posts), one person trying to guess what I do and hinting at a conspiracy and one person making some vague and irrelevant remarks that I assume were understandable to a section of the readership.
As a sceptic I would have asked me the following,
“Do you have evidence that you walked around PH”.
My response, “No ,sorry”.
“OK then, I’ll therefore take your claims based on this walk as being unproven”.
“Sure, go ahead”.
Sceptics have 2 choices. Question a claim or ignore it.
No one has time to question every statement that comes to their attention as there are thousands per day – most things are trivial. This is why the more astute sceptics here didn’t bother with my statement. They assessed them to be trivial and saved their effort for more consequential matters. To me this explains why for instance, Oliver K Manual is never questioned. Why would you bother? And also he is polite and takes the time to redraft his advertising to suit the topic. Quite clever really.
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Gee says: “Oliver K Manual is never questioned”
Why don’t you ?
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Quite clever really……
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I don’t want to. Really.
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Hi Mark
Did you see this further important contribution to climate change??
“”Gee Aye:
August 24th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Mark D.:
August 24th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Gee says: “Oliver K Manual is never questioned”
Why don’t you ?
I don’t want to. Really.””
Quite clever, really.
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Yes Mary, I saw that brilliant retort. Clever indeed. The place has been swarming with trolls lately and I’m afraid that Gee might be feeling upstaged.
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Mary in 124… what’s the problem with cyclists. Here’s one I’m not so fond of: http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2010/02/16/1225830/979158-tony-abbott.jpg
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and we didn’t have a shower so my Mum made us all use the same bath. That’s right 4 kids each used the same bath water! and we had one car, one telephone, one TV, wash tub with washing board, patched clothes with holes in them, washed the dishes by hand, no shoes for running in the cross country, chickens in the backyard produced the eggs, fruit from the orange,lemon, and peach tree, we walked or rode bikes everywhere (miles and miles), assignments were hand written, Scout bottle drive recycled the bottles, ice was delivered by the ice truck, on hot nights we slept near open doors, cold nights we wore socks and beanies to bed, …. the youth of today have no idea …….. don’t get me angry …
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From above
“”Mary in 124… what’s the problem with cyclists.””
No problem with cyclists – I ride too.
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Oh ok, just you said that “possibly being a cyclist”…”point(s) to someone drawing sustenance from out Tax dollars in one way or another.”
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well it was obviously not well thought out and a too easy to pull apart. Mary has shown plenty of ability elsewhere to maintain logical argument so I assumed that this was an attempt to get an unguarded response. For example, there are plenty of non-truckies not drawing from the public purse and some truckies that do. Too easy but too obvious, so I don’t believe that this was a serious effort at logic. I don’t think this is a gotchya moment.
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Gee Aye
I drive a UD 12 tonne on contract – I read this and comment – I ride a bike also – your opinions are wrong!
Gee Aye – quote some examples please of TRUCKIES on the public purse (we’re not truckies – we’re heavy vehicle drivers)?
Fruit Loop!!!!
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Dave thanks for you reply but I still contend that most people are not truckies. Most people who read this are not truckies. If untrue I’ll eat my hat.
If the generally accepted definition of a truckie is someone who drives a truck for a living (or as required for their work or business etc) but not on the public purse then you are right and I am happy to use that definition.
If a contractor such as yourself is a truckie and they then accept a publicly funded haulage contract or win for a government tender that involves them driving a truck to complete, are they still truckies?
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“possibly being a cyclist”
A green cyclist trying to get run over by a truck.
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In the context of this post a “truckie” is someone who put themselves out to represent a lot of other people.
They drove from their homes to Canberra and helped bring attention to the impoverished state of our federal government.
A government lacking understanding of economics, people and common decency.
A government which we hope to help “see the light” sooner rather than later.
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There is never a shortage of idiots, and they always seem to need help with something. Never seems to be a shortage of people willing to tell the “right way” to others. Wish we could keep them out of government.
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