A MOMENT IN HISTORY

On Wednesday 23 October 2013, or more correctly at 1am Eastern Standard time Thursday 24 October, we will experience a moment in history for only once before has the monarch and two successive generations of heirs to the Throne gathered together for the christening of a third generation in line.

The reigning monarch is, of course, Queen Elizabeth II, and the three direct heirs are: the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and baby Prince George. Whilst the christening will have its modern touches it will also be an event steeped in history with a replica of the lace and satin gown, originally made for Queen Victoria's eldest daughter Victoria in 1841, and subsequently worn by more than sixty royal babies including the father of the baby, Prince William. It was necessary to create a replica as the original gown is now too fragile.

Whilst the Royal baby will start life with less royal trappings and protocol than his forebears, it should always be remembered that he is in no way an ordinary child for he, like his father and grandfather before him, belongs to the nation for he will in time be king.

- - Philip Benwell, National Chair, Australian Monarchist League

IT’S TIME TO TELL THEM: WE WON’T SELL OUT!

DLP Senator John Madigan has launched a petition to stop the foreign sell-out of Australia.

Senator Madigan writes:
“Since launching the We Won’t Sell Out petition a few weeks ago I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback that has been received. This feedback has reinforced my view that the time has come for us to all work together to make a stand. When Parliament sits next month I want to put pressure on the Abbott government to change our foreign ownership laws - but, I can’t do this without your help.

The latest formal foreign ownership data was last updated in 2010. We have since sold out hundreds of thousands more acres to foreign governments and multinational corporations. Please consider forwarding www.wewontsellout.com.au to friends and families through facebook, twitter and email. If we all collect as little as 10 signatures each, the government can’t ignore us. This is a grassroots campaign – it is only through our combined efforts that we can stop our land becoming a global commodity.

By working together we can ensure that Australia remains in the capable hands of those of us who have and will keep our future generations’ best interests at heart. Thank you for helping me to tell Tony Abbott that now is the time to stop the sell-out. Let’s keep Australian land in Australian hands.” Will you join all concerned Australians in this campaign?

Click on the www.wewontsellout.com.au site and put the cursor on the various States to discover more detail. Sign the petition and forward it to your contacts. It is important to get a changed policy.

The Ballarat Courier reported
“DLP Senator John Madigan launches petition to stop foreign sellout” by Gavin McGrath, Sept. 27, 2013.

Contact details:
Senator John Madigan - https://www.wewontsellout.com.au/
www.facebook.com/SenatorJohnMadigan
www.johnmadigan.com.au  

THE MAGICAL “JUST– SO” WORLD OF SCIENCE

by Chris Knight
Once upon a time one of the big arguments for atheistic materialism was that the origin of life could be accounted for solely by conditions existing on the primitive Earth. There was even a laboratory experiment to show this: passing electricity through a test tube of organic chemicals led to the formation of amino acids, the building blocks of protein. However, conditions on the primitive Earth were such as to destroy any amino acids formed.

It has been proposed that organic molecules could have been brought to Earth in an icy comet. Cosmic rays have been shown to be able to produce amino acids in a super-cooled gas. It is hypothesised that the impact of the comet striking the Earth could jolt the amino acids into forming proteins. An experiment involving firing steel projectiles at high velocity into ice mixtures was apparently found to produce amino acids.

Even so, there is a bit of a distance from this, to producing amino acids in the primitive Earth, let alone proteins, let alone cells! But for scientists, these “just so” stories do not matter so long as a creating God is out of the picture.  

GILLARD’S MURDEROUS RAGE? NEVER MIND, HERE’S THE JERUSALEM PRIZE

by Richard Miller
Sitting with an adoring audience of fans at the Sydney Opera House in early October, Julia Gillard in a discussion with fellow feminist Ann Summers spoke of her “murderous rage” at the “darker elements of society who denigrated her as a woman”. (The Australian,1 October 2013, p.6)

Well Julia what about all those single mums thrown on to the dole, struggling to get by? One article said that some had turned to prostitution and others to eating out of rubbish bins. Any thoughts on that Professor Feminism?

Not to worry though. Julia has won the 2013 Jerusalem Prize for strengthening Australia’s connection with Israel. She was described as “an unstinting supporter of the Jewish and Zionist cause”. What more could be said?  

FURTHER TO GILAD ATZMON’S ARTICLE ON ASHKENAZI LINEAGE

Nature and Environment: “DNA Samples Confirm Ashkenazi Jews are of European Descent”.
A latest DNA study solves the long standing controversy regarding the origin of Europe's Ashkenazi Jews stating that their maternal lineage came from Europe.

The researchers at the University of Huddersfield used archaeogenetics to solve the controversy of the origin of Ashkenazi Jews of whether they migrated from Palestine in the first century AD or their ancestors were Europeans who converted to Judaism. They analysed the DNA samples to investigate the prehistoric settlements of Europe by migrants from Near East.
Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA samples revealed that the Ashkenazim female line descended from southern and western Europe and not the near East. DNA analysis claims that most of the Ashkenazi Jews were at least half genetically Europeans debunking the previous assumptions that they were of Middle Eastern region.

"The origins of the Ashkenazim is one of the big questions that people have pursued again and again and never really come to a conclusive view," said Professor Martin Richards, head of the Archaeogenetics Research Group based at the University of Huddersfield and co-author of the study, who has described the new data as "compelling".
Ashkenazi in Hebrew means 'Germans' and is used for Jews of eastern European origin who historically spoke Yiddish or Judeo-German language. Not much is known about the history of Ashkenazi Jews before they moved out from the Mediterranean and settled in present day Poland around the 12th Century.
According to Dr. Harry Ostrer, pathology, pediatrics and genetics professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, on an average, all Ashkenazi Jews are genetically as closely related to each other as fourth or fifth cousins,

LiveScience report:
In the current study, the researchers found that a majority of Ashkenazi Jewish lineages were closely linked to the Southern and Western Europe and they were residing in Europe for thousands of years.
"This suggests that, even though Jewish men may indeed have migrated into Europe from Palestine around 2000 years ago, they seem to have married European women," states Professor Richards.

By studying the mitochondrial genomes from more than 3,500 people from Europe, the Near East, the Caucasus, including the Ashkenazi Jews, the researchers discovered that they basically originated some 10,000 - 20,000 years ago. They found that four founders were responsible for 40 percent of Ashkenazi mitochondrial DNA. More than 80 percent of the maternal lineages of the Ashkenazi Jews could be traced to Europe, NBC News reports. This genetic study confirms that Ashkenazi women were basically converts from local European population.
"....This suggests that, in the early years of the Diaspora, Judaism took in many converts from amongst the European population, but they were mainly recruited from amongst women. Thus, on the female line of descent, the Ashkenazim primarily trace their ancestry neither to Palestine nor to Khazaria in the North Caucasus - as has also been suggested - but to southern and western Europe," according to the press release.

The findings are documented in the journal Nature Communications.

For those who want to read the findings go here…
Publications and Other Research Outputs 2013 Costa, M., Pereira, J., Woodward, S., Eng, K., Macaulay, V., Carr, M., Soares, P., Pereira, L., Richards, M., Pala, M., Fernandes, V., Olivien, A., Achilli, A., Perego, U., Rychkov, S., Naumova, O. and Hatina, J. (2013) ‘A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages’ Nature Communications , 4 (2543). ISSN 2041-1723  

FOR THE LAYMAN...ONES SUCH AS ME
 - Outline of Cell featuring Mitochondria
At times, a picture is worth a thousand words.

What is DNA?
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
The information in DNA is stored as a code made up of four chemical bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T).
Human DNA consists of about 3 billion bases, and more than 99 percent of those bases are the same in all people. The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism, similar to the way in which letters of the alphabet appear in a certain order to form words and sentences.  
DNA bases pair up with each other, A with T and C with G, to form units called base pairs. Each base is also attached to a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule. Together, a base, sugar, and phosphate are called a nucleotide. Nucleotides are arranged in two long strands that form a spiral called a double helix.
The structure of the double helix is somewhat like a ladder, with the base pairs forming the ladder’s rungs and the sugar and phosphate molecules forming the vertical sidepieces of the ladder. An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself.
Each strand of DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present in the old cell. Source here...

HEY, CAN I BE “WRONGLY DETAINED” TOO ?

by Peter West
It was hard to read this article without choking : “$21million Handed Out for Wrongful Detention,” (The Australian 16 September 2013, p.8). This is what it says: there have been hundreds of people wrongfully detained in immigration detention centres and compensation payments total $21 million. There has also been $6.9 million in damages for the settlement of 102 claims of breach of the government’s duty of care to these people in detention centres.

What a joke – and the joke is on the Australian taxpayer. There could not be a better argument than this for Australia withdrawing from the UN refugee convention. It is time to start putting pressure on the Coalition for this.
As well, all public funds given to refugee/immigration legal centres should cease. Let the lawyers fund their cases themselves. Why should we have to put up with this any longer?

MICHAEL SMITH NEWS GIVES DETAILS

The Refugee Review Tribunal cases this year, 20 October 2013: Just click on one at random to get a sense of the time, expense and lawyers holiday houses associated with this industry.

Start with 2013 Refugee Review Tribunal of Australia Decisions

“BREAST JOBS” AND ASYLUM SEEKERS: WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE?

by James Reed
Have you seen those young and keen socialist types on campus and in our city streets going on about the “refugees”, and “victims of racism”? I wonder what their response is to recent claims by a former director of medical health services for these asylum seekers, that some asylum seekers had requested “breast jobs”. The officer said that his impression was “that many of these people were not genuine refugees”. (The Weekend Australian 5-6 October 2013, p.1)

This is of course true because a genuine UN-defined refugee is a person facing persecution and outside of their country because of it. Such people request urgent medical assistance, not vanity cosmetic surgery. Asylum seekers are basically economic illegals, cashing in on us. And I suppose the Socialists would give them a “breast job” – hell why not, party on until the ship crashes.  

THE USELESSNESS OF MOST UNIVERSITY DEGREES

Aaron Clarey, who runs the Captain Capitalism website, published “Worthless: The Young Person’s Indispensable Guide to Choosing the Right Major” (2011). This book looked at the US university system, where they really do go after debt. Basically, if someone really does want a degree and is not ‘rolling in money to burn’, one should only consider STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and medicine. Even here there are still great uncertainties. Better yet, get a trade.

It was good to see journalist Adam Creighton (“Degree Fallacy Costs Us Dearly” The Australian 27 September, 2013 p.23) have a crack at this sacred cow, the “getting-a-degree-mania” which so grips young people today. Common sense tells us that Australia would be better with less degrees and more trades. Having 40 per cent of young Australians with at least a bachelor’s degree by 2025 – as Gillard wanted – is a sure way of economically damaging Australia. And as Creighton argues, the mindless degree mentality is just keeping bright young people out of the workplace.

There is another downside to the degree cult. Merely hanging around universities so long, in my opinion, corrupts the minds of the young with liberal “progressive” (actually degenerate) thought. Ending all forms of compulsory student fees is a good idea. Increase tuition fees for Arts degrees to three times of Medicine for starters.  

PETER DOMINY’S “DECODING MAMMON”

First I want to record my thanks to Reverend Peter Dominy of the Church of England for having the moral courage to write this book, to which I would like to respond - not to intentionally criticise his work, but to add to the story.

Over the years I attempted to engage members of the clergy in discussions on who or what was ‘Mammon’ but they would ‘shy away’ from any approach, so you can imagine my eagerness to read Reverend Peter Dominy’s book “Decoding Mammon”.
I now have something in writing from a clergyman on the subject with which I can come to grips. This could take a number of articles so please bear with me over the coming weeks. What about purchasing a copy of Peter Dominy’s book in order to follow my train of thought.

Another Anglican priest, Canon Peter Challen, wrote in the foreword to the book:
“It brought immediately to mind a sentence that has haunted me throughout the current world crisis of confidence: ‘A contradiction lies at the heart of the great sadness of our civilisation that by using money we turn the world into it.’

I saw an historical parallel in that statement whilst looking back into the legend of King Midas of Phrygia and his ‘golden touch’. King Midas, (around 7th century BC) “by using gold as a form of money, turned the world into gold (money).”
In other words, we are seeing history being repeated – the Ring of Power has risen again…

“And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the ring (of money-power) passed out of all knowledge.”

The Greed and Avarice of King Midas and his Golden Touch
Just briefly:
“The story of King Midas is a myth about the tragedy of avarice and narrates what happens when true happiness is not recognized. Midas was a man who wished that everything he touched would turn into gold. However, he had not thought that this wish was not actually a blessing, but a curse.

Midas was a king of great fortune who ruled the country of Phrygia, in Asia Minor. He had everything a king could wish for. He lived in luxury in a great castle. He shared his life of abundance with his beautiful daughter. Even though he was very rich, Midas thought that his greatest happiness was provided by gold. His avarice was such that he used to spend his days counting his golden coins! Money was his obsession.
One day, Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, passed through the kingdom of Midas. One of his companions, a satyr named Silenus, got delayed along the way. Silenus got tired and decided to take a nap in the famous rose gardens surrounding the palace of king Midas.

There, he was found by the king, who recognized him instantly and invited him to spend a few days at his palace. After that, Midas took him to Dionysus. The god of celebration, very grateful to Midas for his kindness, promised Midas to satisfy any wish of him. Midas thought for a while and then he said: I hope that everything I touch becomes gold.
Dionysus warned the king to think well about his wish, but Midas was positive. Dionysus could do nothing else and promised the king that from that following day everything he touched would turn into gold.

The curse: The next day, Midas, woke up eager to see if his wish would become true. He extended his arm touching a small table that immediately turned into gold. Midas jumped with happiness! He then touched a chair, the carpet, the door, his bathtub, a table and so he kept on running in his madness all over his palace until he got exhausted and happy at the same time! He sat at the table to have breakfast and took a rose between his hands to smell its fragrance. When he touched it, the rose became gold. I will have to absorb the fragrance without touching the roses, I suppose, he thought in disappointment. Without even thinking, he ate a grape but it also turned into gold! The same happened with a slice of bread and a glass of water.

Suddenly, he started to sense fear. Tears filled his eyes and that moment, his beloved daughter entered the room. When Midas hugged her, she turned into a golden statue! Despairing and fearful, he raised his arms and prayed to Dionysus to take this curse from him.

The atonement: The god heard Midas and felt sorry for him. He told Midas to go to river Pactolus and wash his hands. Midas did so and was astonished to see gold flowing from his hands. The ancient Greeks said they had found gold on the banks of the river Pactolus. When he returned home, everything Midas had touched had become normal again. Midas hugged his daughter in full happiness and decided to share his great fortune with his people.

From now on, Midas became a better person, generous and grateful for all goods of his life. His people led a prosperous life and when he died, they all mourned for their beloved king.” Story according to:

AMERICANS PREPARE FOR AN ‘EMERGENCY DRILL’

by Arnis Luks
Remember the Y2K scare? The 2000 scare scenario that the media hyped up and had us all thinking “What If?” What if the technology failed? How would the modern city-man cope if the electricity power system failed that new-year’s eve? It certainly had many thinking and asking themselves, well yes, in just such a scenario how would we cope?

Thirteen years later and it is again the electricity supply, the power grid; this time American folk are going to be put through ‘an emergency drill simulating physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid’.
The New York Times reads: “As Worries Over the Power Grid Rise, a Drill Will Simulate a ...”: The electric grid, as government and private experts describe it, is the glass jaw of American industry. If an adversary lands a knockout blow, they fear, it could black out vast areas of the continent for weeks; interrupt supplies of water, gasoline, diesel fuel and fresh food; shut down communications; and create disruptions of a scale that was only hinted at by Hurricane Sandy and the attacks of Sept. 11.

This is why thousands of utility workers, business executives, National Guard officers, F.B.I. antiterrorism experts and officials from government agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for an emergency drill in November that will simulate physical attacks and cyberattacks that could take down large sections of the power grid….”
Read further here…

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster.... The Plot - a brief summary
The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine… Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine called the speaking apparatus, with which people conduct their only activity, the sharing of ideas and knowledge. The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, live on opposite sides of the world… Kuno, is a sensualist and a rebel… He confides to her (Vashti) that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission and that he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine. However, the Machine recaptured him, and he has been threatened with 'Homelessness', that is, expulsion from the underground environment and presumed death…

Vashti continues the routine of her daily life … People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and threatened with Homelessness. The Mending Apparatus – the system charged with repairing defects that appear in the Machine proper – has also failed by this time...

During this time, Kuno is transferred to a cell near Vashti's. He comes to believe that the Machine is breaking down, and tells her cryptically, "The Machine stops." Vashti continues with her life, but eventually defects begin to appear in the Machine… But the situation continues to deteriorate, as the knowledge of how to repair the Machine has been lost. Finally the Machine apocalyptically collapses, bringing 'civilisation' down with it. Kuno comes to Vashti's ruined cell, however, and before they perish they realise that Man and his connection to the natural world are what truly matter, and that it will fall to the surface-dwellers who still exist to rebuild the human race and to prevent the mistake of the Machine from being repeated.
(First published in Oxford and Cambridge Review, November 1909) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops

THE MACHINE STOPS SERIES by Arnis Luks:

The Y2K scare stopped me in my tracks. I thought seriously about how my family and community would cope if I woke next morning to find the Machine really had stopped. All governments, utilities, business, industry, commerce and trade had ceased to operate. What was I to do? Where was I to turn for help or guidance to understand and then work my way out of this dilemma? How is this to work in the real world and what is the real world anyway?

I started by looking in my back yard to see what was growing (short term) and how long would it continue to grow before the soil needed nutrients (long term). What are my water stocks and where can I get a steady supply of water? Could I gerry up some form of power to run a pump or generator and what would I use for fuel? What could I use for transport? Most importantly where can I recharge my iPhone… yea right!

All our children are grown and making their own way in life. I had spent 35 years working for oil or gas companies, of which, working away from home for the last 11 years. The single income alone allowed us to give most things a go and live a reasonably comfortable life. The trips away for work were becoming less enjoyable, as home life became more enjoyable. My wife Beata and I both decided for me to move off the work merry-go-round and try a different approach to life.

When we married 3 years ago we decided to not have a functioning TV in the house; which gave us extra hours in every day to do other things. We now spend a day or two each week working in our gardens. She tends most plants and trees from seed to harvest and I prepare the soil, clear the weeds, mulch and compost, lay down paths, build walls and fix the fences and gates, etc. You would think it is a large concern by the sounds, but it is not. Our quarter acre keeps us busy and as often quoted “nearer God’s heart than any other place on earth”.

Each day is a day of beauty and loving as we potter around our home, relying on God for the earthly produce and for each breath we take.  

LETTER TO THE PRESS

The Editor, Wangaratta Chronicle
Dear Sir,
The minutes of the 8th October 2013 meeting of the Wangaratta Rural City Council record that $4,354,000 (excel GST) have been spent on the Ovens Riverside Project at Wangaratta to provide a public meeting place. We already have public meeting places, the Performing Arts Centre, King George Gardens, Merriwa park, Bachelor’s Green and more. There are no figures given for the estimated cost of maintenance of the project.
Meantime calls for a safe Wangaratta to Whitfield Road and a second Ovens River Bridge at Wangaratta are ignored. When the Councillors we elected to explain Council policies asked questions they were sacked. The truth must come out about the administration and management of the Rural City of Wangaratta and Council participation in the United Nations Agenda 21 program.
The agenda at the Samuel Griffith Society 25th Annual Conference 8th to 10th November 2013 in Sydney lists speakers on the subjects of Federalism, the Commonwealth Parliament, Judicial Power and Referenda. Addresses given will include by Prof Peter Craven “A Federal Agenda for the Government’s White Paper” and Prof Anne Twomey “Money, Power and Pork Barrelling – The expenditure of public money without parliamentary authorization”.
There is concern by people with legal knowledge at the use of the Council of Australian Governments to ignore the authority of constitutional law.

- - Yours sincerely, Alison G Walpole, Whorouly South, Victoria  

ARE YOU MAKING YOUR COUNCIL ACCOUNTABLE? THIS LADY IS!

ACEO Kevin Spiller,
Rural City of Wangaratta,
P O Box 238, Wangaratta, Victoria 3676.

Dear Sir,
Down loaded from the RCOW website I attach copy pages 40-42 of the WRCC meeting 8th October 2013. Please note it is printed as Business paper—ordinary meeting, not Minutes. I request a more detailed listing of the sources of funding of the Ovens Riverside Project given on page 41. Under what programs and for what reasons were funds allotted for the project?
$4,354,000 (GST excl) available for a community public space when this is already available at the Performing Arts Centre, King George Gardens, Merriwa Park, Bachelor’s Green and more.
There is no estimate of the cost of maintenance of the Ovens Riverside Project. Why was this money not provided to make the Wangaratta/Whitfield Road safe or a second bridge over the Ovens River at Wangaratta as frequently requested by residents and ratepayers?
The announcement 18th October 2013 of Victorian State Government electorate changes will affect the future of the City of Wangaratta joined in an electorate of Ovens Valley with Myrtleford and Bright. These changes will affect the concept of the Hume Regional Growth Plan Background Report September 2013.
There has been little publicity of the Victorian Regional Policy Advisory Committee paper “Thinking Regional and Rural/ Guidelines for Assessing Regional and Rural Impacts of Government Policy and Legislation.” April 2013.
The Rural City of Wangaratta Draft Report “Population and Housing Strategy” September 2013 reintroduces many situations soundly rejected in submissions to the previous Rural Land Strategy consultation.
The Councillors we elected to represent us on rural planning matters have been sacked. It is evident there is need for review of the administration and management of the Rural City of Wangaratta considering the introduction of a private investigator by executive staff. I attach copy from Melbourne Age 19th October 2013 reporting a situation with Wyndham Council, Melbourne area.
To my knowledge the Auditor General’s Report 12th December 2012 ”Management of the Provincial Victoria Growth Fund” was not debated in the Victorian Parliament or by the Wangaratta Rural City Council. Obviously the now introduced Hume Regional Growth Plan relates to the Victorian Waterway Management Strategy “Improving Our Waterways” December 2012 and the future of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
The difficulty in accessing this information is making it almost impossible to plan and work a rural business. The secrecy of the Rural City of Wangaratta about its documented involvement in the United Nations Agenda 21 policy can be compared to what happened before the 39-45 War when Hitler took control of the German Government. We elected Councillors to represent us, that they were dismissed without the opportunity to present their case is a contravention of democracy. (emphasis added…ed)

- - Yours sincerely, Alison G Walpole Rural resident rate payer.
Whorouly South, Victoria.  20th October 2013