Friday 29th of March 2024

genetically modified lies...

wheat

Fields near Tamora, NSW. (Picture by Gus)

Australia's GM wheat will only worsen world hunger

Kumi Naidoo

From my first introduction to Australia via a picture book as a child, I was captivated by Australia's vast and pristine landscapes. To my mind yours is the country of health, nature and purity.

Yet on my first voyage to Australia as the executive director of Greenpeace International, I am devastated to find myself in a country set to become the first in the world to produce genetically modified (GM) wheat.

rattus at law .....

rattus at law ......

all hail the sun king .....

all hail the sun king .....

from Crikey .....

Michael Wolff, June 20, AdWeek:

"...this really appears to be an unstoppable thing.

gold surplus....

grain loading

Grain loading in WA (picture by Gus).

Australia recorded a trade surplus of $2.33 billion in May, easily exceeding analyst forecasts of a sub-$2 billion number.

It is the fifth biggest trade surplus since the ABS figures began in 1971.

The Bureau of Statistics figures show exports increased 3 per cent to $26.26 billion, seasonally adjusted, while imports remained roughly the same at $23.93 billion.

The biggest rise in exports came from non-monetary gold, which jumped 49 per cent (but is highly volatile), while rural goods were up 6 per cent.

no longer my abc .....

no longer my abc .....

Our ABC was at it again the other night, when it decided to put its size 15 boot into North Korea, courtesy of an emotial but fact poor diatribe by its North Asia correspondent, Mark Willacy, called North Korean children begging, army starving.

The ABC report falsely claimed that "Footage shot inside North Korea and obtained by the ABC has revealed the extent of chronic food shortages and malnutrition inside the secretive state." Through the entire article, there is not a single statistic quoted in support of the assertions made.

killing the first stone...

stoning...

...

Dickson is not yet finished with me. He correctly quotes me as saying that the famous "cast the first stone" scene "was added centuries after John was written." He then accuses me of confusing the fact that


"this narrative doesn't appear in the best manuscripts of John's Gospel, something all modern Bibles acknowledge in their text of John 8, with a conclusion that the story was concocted 'centuries' later."


But I didn't say that the story was "concocted" - I don't know its provenance, but it clearly seems to be controversial - I said that it was "added," and Dickson then goes on to confirm that it was indeed added later.

our open secret .....

our open secret .....

The City of Sydney has voted to replace the words "European arrival" in the official record with "invasion". The deputy lord mayor, Marcelle Hoff, says it is intellectually dishonest to use any other word in describing how Aboriginal Australia was dispossessed by the British.

the bolt report...

boltreport2

The Bolt Report has attracted larger television audiences than ABC’s Insiders every week since its 8 May launch, OzTAM data shows.

Last Sunday, The Bolt Report attracted its largest audience to date when 322,000 tuned in to the program’s two editions, beating the show’s previous best of 305,000 achieved on 15 May.

The ABC’s Insiders program, presented by Barrie Cassidy, last week attracted a combined audience of 264,000 – 58,000 fewer than The Bolt Report.

The Bolt Report airs at 10.00 am on Sunday morning and is repeated at 4.30 pm the same day.

the price of fish...

nickelcobalt

Nickel/cobalt refinery north of Townsville (Picture by Gus)

 

ONE of Australia's richest men, Clive Palmer, is buying nickel laterite ore for his Yabulu refinery from an Indonesian company that is defying a ban and mining in Raja Ampat, the world's most ecologically diverse marine environment.

raising the roof...

deficit obama
To the Limit


By PAUL KRUGMAN


In about a month, if nothing is done, the federal government will hit its legal debt limit. There will be dire consequences if this limit isn’t raised. At best, we’ll suffer an economic slowdown; at worst we’ll plunge back into the depths of the 2008-9 financial crisis.

So is a failure to raise the debt ceiling unthinkable? Not at all.

kryptonite...

kryptonite

A reluctant Tony Abbott has pledged, after Peter Reith's assault on his reticence to talk about industrial relations reform, that the opposition will take a ''strong and effective'' policy to the election. Abbott's office swore he wasn't saying anything new. Other participants in the debate - from Reith to the ACTU scaremongers - saw his comment on Tuesday as a significant development.

The reality is that the IR issue is on Abbott's plate and it will become very hot. He must take control of it, or it will badly burn the Coalition.

thin ice in our whisky...

melting ice...

As I have mentioned before, the melting of ice sheets is masking the full potential of global warming though we can measure a strong (in geological timescale) warming trend anyway...

Again here, I use the "ice in the whisky" image: the ice cools the whisky. Yet the sum total of temperature is rising despite the ice being cold... The ice melts and there is a tipping point at which the influence of the ice becomes so negligeable, the whisky temperature quickly rises to room temperature...

the cost of dreams .....

the cost of dreams .....

The total cost to America of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the related military operations in Pakistan, is set to exceed $4 trillion - more than three times the sum so far authorised by Congress in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.

Click HERE to view graphic (101 kb)

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