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shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#556New Post! Dec 09, 2019 @ 15:38:00
Sad news coming from across the ditch...
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#557New Post! Dec 31, 2019 @ 11:19:36
Extremely annoying to have climate alarmists seeking to use the current bushfires to push their political agenda. Of course dear Greta and her devoted followers are claiming the bushfires we are experiencing are due to man made climate change. This despite the fact that leading climate scientists have stated that they don't actually understand what causes drought and that there is no identifiable link btw climate change and drought. Climate activists however claim to know better.

What we do know is that state governments have underfunded the departments that look after our state parks. We know that 'greens' have successfully opposed preventative back burning, firebreaks and fire access roads. And according to those actually fighting the fires these things do make fighting the fires that much more difficult.

It should also be pointed out that those risking their lives trying to protect the lives and property of others are almost exclusively white males, that most evil of demographics.
bob_the_fisherman On January 30, 2023
Anatidaephobic





, Angola
#558New Post! Dec 31, 2019 @ 21:24:29
And a lot of fires are now being deliberately lit. Far more than there used to be, it seems.

But yes, the fact that we have let inner city vegans decide how to manage the land they have only seen in documentaries is a major factor contributing to the devastation. People living in inner cities probably don't know this, but more fuel = more fire. It also = more heat and more speed of movement. And it means less accessibility for fire fighters.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#559New Post! Jan 03, 2020 @ 09:03:58
Bloody annoying hearing 'celebrities' on the other side of the world making hugely ill informed comments about what's going on here.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#560New Post! Jan 05, 2020 @ 12:12:32
@bob_the_fisherman Said

And a lot of fires are now being deliberately lit. Far more than there used to be, it seems.


The latest figures i have heard quoted state that 85% of the fires that have hit Australia over the past three weeks have been started by humans with 50% thought to have been deliberately lit.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#561New Post! Jan 05, 2020 @ 13:28:58
Heard just yesterday that Biden and dear old Hilary are among the latest to have taken the opportunity to use the destruction of our bush fires to help push their political agenda. They are essentially blaming our bush fires (and their severity) on 'man made' climate change. Presumably they believe that 'man made' climate change causes drought which leads to the bush being highly susceptible to fire. However, as previously stated, leading CLIMATE scientists have stated that they don't understand what causes drought. Obviously they are not as smart as people like Biden and Hilary. The CLIMATE scientists also state that there is no identifiable link btw climate change and drought. Again, people like Biden and Hilary dont seem to have any trouble finding a link. The link is there because it suits their political narrative and if it suits their political narrative then it must be true!

What people like Biden and Hilary clearly don't understand is that drought and bush fires are a fact of life in Australia. Have been for as long as we have written records, and the evidence is that they have been for thousands of years.

So on to our current bush fires. What caused them and why have they been so severe? Obviously the on going drought has had a significant impact. The bush was tinder dry. This meant it was particularly susceptible to ignition, and that once alight it had the potential to spread quickly. As for the sources of ignition, the latest figures are that 85% of the current fires were started by humans, with 50% of all fires thought to have been deliberately lit.

There are other important factors though that have made the bush fires difficult to fight and therefore more severe. These include a lack of fire access roads, with ones in use not always properly maintained. The lack of access roads is partly a result of insufficient funding and partly the result of successful lobbying by the greens. Insufficient funding, and lobbying by the greens, are also the reasons why there has been inadequate fuel reduction programmes in the cooler months. The greens also managed to block plans for preventative fire breaks. Then there is the general lack of funding for the CFA and RFS. None of these things have anything to do with climate change - made made or not. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a political narrative...
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#562New Post! Jan 05, 2020 @ 13:32:40
It was interesting to hear a woman saying she was only shaking the PM's hand on the condition that he would improve funding for the RFS. Only problem is that the RFS is a NSW body, and is funded by the NSW government...not the Federal government. Indeed the PM seems to be copping a lot of criticism for things that are the responsibility of state governments and not the Commonwealth.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#563New Post! Jan 06, 2020 @ 13:56:59
So Rusty is the latest celeb to tell us that it's an undeniable fact that the bush fires are the result of man driven climate change. Of course he knows this is a fact as he is a celebrity and his views on climate change, the drought and our bush fires therefore carry more weight than the views of ignorant climate change scientists and senior fire fighters. After-all, what would they know? How many twitter followers do they have? You tell 'em Rusty. You tell all of us.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#564New Post! Feb 13, 2020 @ 06:45:53
How outrageous was the High Court's decision to effectively elevate those with any claim to aboriginal ancestry above every one else? The High Court's ruling has effectively created a dual law process whereby a person has either greater or lesser 'rights' than someone else based on the race they identify with. It's extraordinary.

The ruling was based on a case whereby the Government were trying to deport two people who were not born in Australia, who didnt have Australian citizenship, and who had committed serious, violent offences. Both the people in question had claim to a relative who had some aboriginal 'blood' and both claimed to identify as aboriginal. In a 4-3 ruling the High Court stated that, in effect, anyone who identified and was accepted as aboriginal couldn't be deported under any circumstances as they were automatically Australian citizens. The High Court claimed that anyone with any claim to aboriginal ancestry had a unique connection to the land. In so doing they elevated people who identified as aboriginal above other Australians. They asserted that such people had special rights that no other Australians have based simply on the race they identify with. How is this not a form of racism?

As far as being recognised as being Aboriginal the court stated that three criteria needed to be met. These are as follows:
1. The person must have at least one relative with aboriginal 'blood'. At this stage we don't know what the High Court's criteria is. We know that simply having a grand parent with claims to aboriginal blood is sufficient but how about a great, great uncle or auntie? Where is the line drawn? They can't or won't tell us.
2. The person must identify as aboriginal.
3. The person must be recognised as being aboriginal by a tribe or aboriginal group. In effect this simply means that if one elder recognises you as aboriginal then you have fulfilled the criteria. This ruling essentially means that a single elder can exercise more power than the Australian government. And of course no potential for abuse eg blackmail, bribery etc re these elders.

Of course the biggest problem is that the Government are bound by the High Court's decision unless there is a referendum to change the relevant part of the constitution. And this is exactly what the government need to do. The Australian people need the chance to decide if they wish to live in a country where some people are afforded more rights under the law than others based on their 'race'.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#565New Post! Mar 17, 2020 @ 14:53:28
Interesting how we are told that climate change driven drought was largely responsible for our summer bushfires even though:
a. The CSIRO and BOM have conceded that there are currently no studies that link climate change to drought or more severe bushfire conditions, and
b. We have received noticeably MORE rain in the first 20 years of this century than we did in the first 20 years of the 20th century.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#566New Post! Mar 17, 2020 @ 14:56:26
Really bloody annoying how we have had bus loads of people from the city coming into our town and clearing out our supermarkets. We havent had much in the way of panic buying and so we had a reasonable supply of most goods. Then along come the buses crammed with city folk who then descended upon our supermarkets like a plague of bloody locusts leaving us with FA. Cheers.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#567New Post! Apr 23, 2020 @ 05:59:12
Very saddened to hear of the deaths of four Victoria Police officers in Melbourne overnight.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#568New Post! Apr 24, 2020 @ 18:57:08
In memory of the 8,709 Australian soldiers who were killed, and the 20,000 who were injured fighting in the Gallipoli campaign.

Also remembering the 2,721 NZ fallen and the 34,072 dead from the UK, 9,798 from France, 1,358 from British India and the 49 dead from Newfoundland. Also remembering the 56,643 ottoman troops who lost their lives, and the nearly quarter of a million troops who were injured.

Lest We Forget.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#569New Post! Apr 24, 2020 @ 19:01:04
We see them now, our servicemen of the war to end all wars, through a photographic lens that is tinged in sepia; faces seen stern, or laughing with mates, in black and white; shown moving in the film of the day in somewhat stilted motion.

It shapes our thinking.

Their letters and their diary entries, in copperplate handwriting and more formal in expression than our modern idiom, adds a layer to the sense that they were somehow different; that their world, their hopes, their aspirations and fears are removed from ours by more than just the passage of 100 years. They are a generation seemingly set apart. And at one level they are.

When the fighting finally stopped and they returned from France, from Palestine, from service abroad back to Australia, the land of their birth or where they now called home, so much had changed - family, friends, community but most of all themselves. Our New Zealand brothers in arms experienced the same.

The certainties of 1914 had been washed away in waves of loss and failed hope, now replaced by the strangeness of a world if not at peace, then one, at least, no longer at war.

Children met for the first time; partners and parents rediscovered; mates mourned over and remembered, and so much had changed. They were, through fate and bloody circumstance ANZACs by name but more essentially men changed forever by war.

And for those who had crossed a foreign shore (over) one hundred years ago this morning - under fire, amidst the terrible new sounds and sights of battle, of dying, of calls for courage and for duty done, who had improbably survived to see their world made new, what must they have felt on their return?

The long journey from Gallipoli to the breaking of the German line in November 1918, marked by failure and success, loss and life long mateship had left its indelible mark on them and their country.

But at another level there is little that separates them from we who gather to remember. Like us, they were men of their time - responding to their events in their world in the context of the society and families in which they lived. Like us, they dreamed of something better; they loved and were loved in return; were prepared to fight for their beliefs; were, like us, prey to fears and human despair.

It makes their sacrifice, and their capacity to endure, real despite the passage of time. It gives colour to those shades of black and white.

And there is a line, too, that connects all of us to those who lived in this country 100 years ago. It is a line rooted in our freedom of expression and of belief, and the affirmation of our democratic nation state.

That is why we remember them - the first ANZACs and all of those who have followed. They left us that legacy and we, in turn, commemorate their sacrifice when we ask what legacy we shall leave for those who follow us.

We have not forgotten and we are defined, at least in part, by that act of remembrance. It makes us who we are and reminds us, in the face of an unknown future, who we can be – courageous and compassionate, resolute and resilient, - a people of our own time, reaching back one hundred years with pride and solemnity, looking forward with a sense of purpose to a better world.

- Lieutenant General David Morrison AO
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#570New Post! Apr 24, 2020 @ 19:04:11
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

LEST WE FORGET
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