11 July 2014 Thought for the Week:
Two Prime Ministers, One Speech!
Who was pulling the strings of these two puppets? Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 20 March 2003 and Australian Prime Minister John Howard 18 March 2003. In 2003, Stephen Harper and John Howard delivered largely identical speeches urging their nations to join George W. Bush's Coalition of the Willing to go to war with Iraq. Shame, shame….
Uploaded on Oct 7, 2008 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYfDTsjwE58#t=151
http://jandeane81.com/threads/2858-Two-Prime-Ministers-One-Speech-Iraq-War-2003

REMEMBER PETER SPENCER AND HIS STAND FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS?

“Peter Spencer’s Hunger Strike against unconstitutional carbon-fuelled actions by the Commonwealth Government”

Farmer Peter Spencer – Victim of World Government Agenda

“How galling. The very political parties who approved the legislation permitting the stealing of Peter Spencer’s land are saying he should take his case to the courts! The courts will try the case based on that same legislation which is now LAW! Australians need to wake up. The one-worlders are in positions of power. They must be disabused as to their role and purpose in Parliament.” On Target, Vol.46 No1 - 15 January 2010: https://alor.org/Volume46/Vol46No1.htm Peter Spencer: Finally will present his case ABC News: “Peter Spencer will finally be allowed to comprehensively present his case to the court on the 24th November (2014) after over six years of overcoming many obstacles. If successful the case will set a precedent to make governments of all descriptions to think twice before arbitrarily taking property rights.

ABC News: Farmer Peter Spencer from Cooma, New South Wales, outside the High Court in Canberra on September 1, 2010. Mr Spencer is challenging NSW and Commonwealth native vegetation laws.

“The case centres around the right of the Australian Commonwealth to acquire carbon credits from farm land, without compensating the farmers, or landholders. The 2010 Senate Inquiry found that the carbon credits available from the various States’ Vegetation Management acts were used by the Commonwealth to meet the Kyoto protocol. Peter Spencer has been out of the media for some time as a result of a media blackout imposed by the NFF’s Australian Farmer’s Fighting Fund which was for a time funding him. Now with the end in sight the AFFF has withdrawn their funding… Hunger striking farmer Peter Spencer, says he intends to call two former Prime Ministers and a former state Premier of New South Wales, to give sworn testimony at his court case in November.” Peter Spencer explained: "On my witness list I have called former PMs John Howard and Paul Keating, former Premier Bob Carr and current [Agriculture] Minister Barnaby Joyce." Mr Spencer claims that state and federal governments colluded to introduce land clearing legislation, to lock up carbon on Australian farms, so Australia could meet carbon targets in the Kyoto Protocol. Mr Spencer says the Federal Government should compensate all Australian farmers for the billions of dollars in lost revenue from the carbon deal and the right to farm.

He has filed approximately 10,000 documents before the court, mostly from the Commonwealth and some from NSW. In 2010, the High Court, in an unusual move, agreed that the matter should be sent back for a full hearing in the Federal Court. The matter will be heard by Justice Gleeson.”

WILL OUR HISTORY RECORD PETER SPENCER’S STRUGGLE NOT IN VAIN?

On the 24th November 2014 Mr. Peter Spencer will appear before Justice Gleeson in the Federal Court – just over 800 years to the day since a group of Barons and Cardinal Stephen Langton swore an oath before the high altar to compel the reigning King John to accept The Charter of Liberties – which led on to the signing of Magna Carta in 1215.

St. Edmunds Abbey Church in background

“St. Edmundsbury has a pivotal role in the history of Magna Carta. One chronicler, Roger of Wendover a monk from St. Albans, describes a meeting at Bury St. Edmunds in 1214. The most likely date for this meeting is November 20, 2014 because that was St Edmund’s day. A group of Barons met in St. Edmunds Abbey Church and swore an oath to compel King John to accept The Charter of Liberties, a proclamation of Henry I. It was the direct precursor to Magna Carta a year later. Some historians contest whether this account is reliable but the people of Bury St. Edmunds have always celebrated their role in the Magna Carta story. In 1849 two commemorative plaques were erected in the ruins of the Abbey Church. The Borough’s motto Sacrarium Regis, Cunabula Legis (Shrine of the King, Cradle of the Law) seems to date from this time.” http://magnacarta800th.com/events/st-edmundsbury/

There is a plaque among the ruins of the Abbey at Bury-St Edmunds commemorating the stand taken by Cardinal Stephen Langton, and the Barons of Magna Carta fame. The introduction reads: Near this spot on 20.11.1214 Cardinal Langton and the Barons swore at St. Edmunds altar that they would obtain from King John the ratification of Magna Charta.

The last lines say:
Langton – Fitz Walter – slumber in the grave,
But still we read in deathless records how –
The high-souled priest confirmed the barons vow,
And freedom, unforgetful still recites,
The second birthplace of our nation’s rights.

WHEN WILL IT START COOLING? … A ‘COOL’ QUESTION INDEED!

What’sUpWithThat website http://wattsupwiththat.com/ June 28, 2014
Guest essay by David Archibald: David Archibald is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

“A couple of years ago the question was asked “When will it start cooling?” Of course solar denialists misconstrued this innocent enquiry. There is no doubt – we all know that lower solar irradiance will result in lower temperatures on this planet. It is a question of when. Solar activity is much lower than it was at a similar stage of the last solar cycle but Earthly temperatures have remained stubbornly flat. Nobody is happy with this situation. All 50 of the IPCC climate models have now been invalidated and my own model is looking iffy. <

Friss-Christenson and Lassen theory, as per Solheim et al’s prediction, has the planet having a temperature decrease of 0.9°C on average over Solar Cycle 24 relative to Solar Cycle 23. The more years that pass without the temperature falling, the greater the fall required over the remaining years of the cycle for this prediction to be validated. The question may very well have been answered. David Evans has developed a climate model based on a number of inputs including total solar irradiance (TSI), carbon dioxide, nuclear testing and other factors. His notch-filter model is optimised on an eleven year lag between Earthly temperature and climate. The hindcast match is as good as you could expect from a climate model given the vagaries of ENSO, lunar effects and the rest of it, which gives us a lot of confidence in what it is predicting. What it is predicting is that temperature should be falling from just about now given that TSI fell from 2003. From the latest of a series of posts on Jo Nova’s blog:

Temperature ‘falling out of bed’: The model has temperature falling out of bed to about 2020 and then going sideways in response to the peak in Solar Cycle 24. What happens after that? David Evans will release his model of 20 megs in Excel in the near future. I have been using a beta version. The only forecast of Solar Cycle 25 activity is Livingstone and Penn’s estimate of a peak amplitude of seven in sunspot number. The last time that sort of activity level happened was in the Maunder Minimum. (Maunder minimum (astronomy) -- Encyclopaedia Britannica. Maunder minimum, unexplained period of drastically reduced sunspot activity that occurred between 1645 and 1715…) So if we plug in TSI levels from the Maunder Minimum, as per the Lean reconstruction, this is what we get:

This graph shows the CET record in blue with the hindcast of the notch-filter model using modern TSI data in red with a projection to 2040. The projected temperature decline of about 2.0°C is within the historic range of the CET record. Climate variability will see spikes up and down from that level. The spikes down will be killers. The biggest spike you see on that record, in 1740, killed 20% of the population of Ireland, 100 years before the more famous potato famine. I consider that David Evans’ notch-filter model is a big advance in climate science. Validation is coming very soon. Then stock up on tinned lard with 9,020 calories per kg. A pallet load could be a life-saver.”

FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, SOVEREIGNTY … AND SCIENTIFIC TRUTH

Source: The Galileo Movement - The Restoration of Freedom, Democracy, Sovereignty & Scientific Truth in Australia - Identifying The Failings And Moving Forward.

Introduction: The Galileo Movement is a voluntary, independent and nonaligned apolitical group of volunteers dedicated to restoring scientific integrity to climate science and dedicated to implementation by government of honest policy based on empirical scientific evidence. It's clear for all to see that climate science is corrupted. It's self-evident that corruption is driven in large part by dishonest and/or weak national governance. Climate policy has severe future ramifications on governance and freedom. Australia's sovereignty is threatened by politically-driven falsehoods from UN agencies and Australian government agencies funded by taxpayers. As a result efforts to restore scientific integrity encroach politics.

UN Agenda 21 in particular is a highly politicised umbrella campaign encompassing three parts:
• biodiversity;
• sustainability;
• fraudulent climate alarm as the crisis used to stir public support.

All three parts rely on claims contradicting empirical scientific evidence. UN Agenda 21 is a politically driven campaign to undermine Australian sovereignty and governance. Graham Williamson is a private citizen whose immense dedicated work aims to inform and hold accountable politicians and advocates of cutting human CO2. Prior to posting his documents he readily agreed to posting his personal declaration of interests, below. As a non-political group, The Galileo Movement Advises that statements in Graham's already widely circulated documents are not necessarily those of The Galileo Movement. We are pleased though to share Graham Williamson's carefully researched articles. Loss Of Independence And Integrity: The Decline Of The CSIRO And The Agendas Behind That Decline (PDF 1,138KB)

Continue reading here.. https://www.galileomovement.com.au/australia_democracy.php And now to the ‘Climate Conscious’ website:

AGENDA 21: POLITICIANS SHUTTING THE DEBATE DOWN

Response of the Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage To Agenda 21 - Graham Williamson March 2013 (Revised Ed) https://www.conscious.com.au/docs/letters/GregHuntAG21Rev.pdf

A ‘Planet Saving’ Program Which is Simply Too Good To Publicise
In recent decades Australians have been increasingly sold out by their political ‘representatives’ who now increasingly represent big business and global political organisations such as the UN rather than Australian citizens. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the implementation of the UN Agenda 21 program which has been implemented by both major parties for twenty years without giving Australians a democratic choice. Australian politicians claim AG21 is an ‘embedded’ policy and therefore there is no need to declare it to voters or give them a democratic choice. And the mainstream media, predominantly controlled by global interests, also remains complicit in this mass deception.

One person who is at the forefront of Australian politics and should be well informed about bipartisan ‘environmental’ initiatives such as AG 21, is Greg Hunt, currently the Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage. Between 1994 and 1998, Greg worked as a senior adviser to the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer. In 2004 he became Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Environment and Heritage and in January 2007 was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. After the November 2007 Federal election, Greg was appointed Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water, a role that brought together the great interests of his time in parliament. In September 2008 his role was expanded to include all water responsibilities. In December 2009 Greg’s role was expanded once more when he was appointed Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage.

Greg has clearly been well situated, over a long period of time, to observe the implementation of AG21 first hand. The following account details Greg’s inability to respond, or deliberate determination not to respond, to simple questions about the implementation of AG21. In my correspondence with Greg Hunt I asked the following questions with his partial responses in blue below (see Appendix A for full details)…

To summarise.
Fact 1 - Agenda 21 is being implemented nationwide by state governments and councils. Do you deny this?
Fact 2 - Though you claim that “I had never heard of it raised once during the entire period of the Howard Government in the party room or in ministerial discussions” in fact it was included in the 2006 State Of the Environment (SOE) report under your watch. Do you deny this?
Fact 3 - Since the continuing implementation of AG21 is a simple fact, this raises serious questions about who is taking political responsibility for this since the electorate has never been given a democratic choice and politicians, like yourself, deny knowledge of it even though bureaucrats under their portfolio are implementing it (as is clearly evidenced from enclosed) Do you deny this? Part of the problem of course was the decision by successive governments that Australia needed an imported sustainability program, one that was designed by a foreign agency and was monitored by the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD and part of UN). Of course, governments, such as the Howard government, were required to send annual implementation reports to the CSD.

Response from Greg Hunt: “There is nothing to ban. It is a 20 year old non binding declaration. I can honestly tell you that I had never heard of it raised once during the entire period of the Howard Government in the party room or in ministerial discussions.... For the final time I had never heard of the issue, heard it raised by Ministers, MP's or constituents until 19 years after the thing was apparently signed...... Given that for the first 19 years the issue appears to have escaped both of our attention can I respectfully suggest that the discovery of a dead, irrelevant declaration 19 years after the fact may cause everyone to be calm...... I will respectfully draw this engagement to a conclusion and encourage you from here to approach State based Governments as we have no powers over local Governments.”

So according to Greg, AG21 is a “20 year old non binding declaration”, it is a “dead, irrelevant declaration” and he has “never heard of the issue, heard it raised by Ministers, MP's or constituents until 19 years after the thing was apparently signed.” Greg then advised me he no longer wished to discuss it saying he wished to “draw this engagement to a conclusion”.

In my subsequent unanswered response I drew Greg’s attention to the Government’s web site:
If you look on the Government’s web site https://www.environment.gov.au/about/international/uncsd/index.html#agenda21 you will see “Australia's commitment to Agenda 21 is reflected in a strong national response to meet our obligations under this international agreement.”

I then asked Greg: “Is this what you mean by a dead irrelevant declaration?” So although the Government states it is implementing AG21 with a “strong national response to meet our obligations under this international agreement”, according to Greg “it is a 20 year old non- binding declaration” or “dead agreement” which he has never heard of until recently. Where on earth has he been? Greg’s blatant denial of both our “strong national response” and our “obligations”, even after 20 years of implementation throughout Australia, is indeed alarming.

As Greg should also be aware, Agenda 21 is the cornerstone of the Commonwealth Government’s National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development which states: “the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 provide a broad framework for global sustainable development.”

As pointed out by Bayside Council’s 2003 submission into the Commonwealth Government’s Inquiry into Sustainable Cities 2025:
“Australia’s National Strategy for ESD provides a national framework for the implementation of Agenda 21. The National Strategy fulfils the obligation Australia entered into in Rio De Janeiro to implement Agenda 21.”
The full report can be downloaded… https://www.conscious.com.au/docs/letters/GregHuntAG21Rev.pdf

From On Target files. Vol.17 No.8 - 6 March 1981:
Jeremy Lee reports from Fort St John British Columbia: “…In July last year Toronto was the venue for the First Global Conference of the future, sponsored by the World Future Society. This unlikely sounding assembly was attended by over 5,000 from many parts of the world. Amongst the speakers was Aurelio Peccei, leader of the nefarious Club of Rome, and Orville Freeman, the C.F.R. member who is chairman of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association, U.S.A. Canada's contribution to the panel was one Maurice Strong, who ran the Canadian International Development Agency for four years. He is currently chairman of Petro Canada, the State controlled company now being used to nationalise energy in Canada. Strong told the conference: "An international system of government is not an option; it is a necessity. It has just got to be put into place...." Maurice Strong also happens to be a member of the Trilateral Commission!...”

Bending the Knee to ‘Mother Earth’: David Thompson, On Target 19 June 1992:
The "Mother of all Junkets", the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, appears to have produced another costly international conference, and two more international 'treaties'. The long-term effect will include further psychological conditioning to solve problems (real or imagined) internationally, and another imperceptible move towards international controls. The Secretary General of "Earth Summit" was Maurice Strong, an avowed internationalist, world government advocate, and prominent member of the Club of Rome. Australia sent a delegation of 40 to Rio, which was criticised as excessive by Senator Bill O'Chee. Mrs. Kelly defended the delegation, as did Opposition spokesman on the environment, Fred Chaney. He noted that the Japanese are reputed to have sent 1,000 delegates!

Further Centralisation:
Mrs. Kelly is lucky not to have done herself an injury in her hurry to sign the two new International conventions. The first is on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. There appears to have been no discussions on the quality of evidence for the thesis that man is causing global warming. This is regarded as an article of faith in the New Green Religion. The second convention is on the protection of endangered species. The League warned of this in 1989 in the booklet Greenhoax. While neither of these treaties are as far-reaching as the green extremists proposed, it is clear that they offer enormous opportunities for further centralised power in Australia…. A global environmental facility was also established, in order to fund environmental programmes. The West is expected to provide the funds. Mrs. Kelly agreed to this, and it is expected to cost Australia an initial $10 million. The Fund will be an arm of the World Bank, and will help finance subsidised technology, aid, debt relief, and "debt-for-nature-swaps" in the Third World. This provides the eventual form of proposals put to the Colorado 4th World Wilderness Conference by some of the world's most powerful bankers in 1987. While the greens might be scathing about Rio, the internationalists will be well satisfied. https://alor.org/Volume28/Vol28No23.htm

‘DEBT FOR EQUITY SWAPS’… On Target, Vol.46 No.24 2010

“… We thought the following campaign worth reporting on. It seems to be a union initiative - good for them. While we may not agree with all of their aims or claims, we certainly do agree that “… Queensland’s assets belong to the people and should not be sold off, as has happened in other parts of the Commonwealth under various traitorous governments. But, where were these unions when Jeremy Lee was writing the following ten years ago? (On Target Vol.35 No.4 and Vol.36 No.23:
DEBT-FOR-EQUITY-SWAPS by Jeremy Lee:
Those who can recall the gathering politicisation of the conservation movement at the end of the '80s will remember the first mention of the idea of "debt-for-equity-swaps". The theme was set out in an article in The Chicago Tribune (20/9/1987) in an article headed “BANKS STRIKE DEAL WITH CONSERVATIONISTS”

It said: "ESTES PARK, Colorado. At the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park last week, some of the world's most powerful bankers advanced a bold new strategy for dealing with environmental degradation in the Third World. Their plan is to use the immense debts owed by many impoverished countries to pressure them into taking steps to conserve their threatened environments.... Dubbed a "debt-for-nature-swap"' the plan calls for outside forces to pay off parts of a targeted country's outstanding debts in exchange for concessions to protect natural regions.
The proposal was advanced last week to a largely enthralled audience of diplomats, scientists and conservationists from 52 countries at an 8-day series of presentations.... The 4th World Wilderness Conference....
Congress meetings are held every four years in different countries to allow UN officials and a number of major conservation groups to discuss urgent environmental issues. Among those at the Colorado Conference backing the new approach to Third World ecology were David Rockefeller of the Chase Manhattan Bank and Edmund de Rothschild of the European banking empire... At sessions attended by Rockefeller, Rothschild and other major world figures (Canadian banker) Michael Sweatman advocated setting up a 'World Conservation Bank' to make such deals...
But many of the Estes Park participants, with equal fervour, laid much of the blame for the current crisis at the feet of these self-same bankers, whose loans have financed so many of the disastrous development projects... While many at the conference seemed enthralled by the smooth presentations from Sweatman, Rockefeller and Rothschild, others were sceptical and noted that it was bankers like them who did so much to cause the very problems they now want to solve.

At one session, Dr. Raymond Dasmann, of the University of California at Santa Cruz, told Sweatman and an audience of several hundred, 'Beware of bankers bearing gifts'..."

Queenslanders may have forgotten One Nation’s Senator Len Harris who warned of vast tracts of North Queensland being “officially valued by none other than the chairman of the Wet Tropics Management Authority, Tor Hundloe in conjunction with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. " And it all had to do with DEBT!” https://alor.org/Volume46/Vol46No24.htm

QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT: NEW BILL DENIES NATURAL JUSTICE

Source: Evacuation Grounds Blogspot:
The property rights and principles of natural justice of landholders will be severely compromised by certain provisions in the Mineral and Energy Resources Bill (that was) tabled in the Qld Parliament on June 5. Quite simply, this Bill just once more pushes the balance even more in favour of the mining companies at the expense of the landholders.

Peter Anderson, Central Qld grazier, photo sourced PRA 2014 conference

200 metres is the restricted distance; if you own anything that is not in the above list there are no restrictions. Peter Anderson addressed the PRA conference in Roma on June 13, 2014. Peter and his family run a vertically integrated cattle breeding, finishing and feedlot operation at Clermont and Alfa, Central Qld. In recent times the Anderson family's cattle operation has become threatened by mining lease applications in the Galilee Basin. The concern to the operation in the future is the threat of mining operations to underground water impacts on bores that have sustained their cattle operation for many years, especially in drought when they rely on bores after dams go dry. Attempts to strike meaningful Make Good Agreements with international mining companies that recognises this legitimate concern has seen land holders like us in an untenable situation. The Anderson's and their neighbours were forced to take their very real concerns to the Land Court where they had a significant win that set good precedents for other landholders.

If the new Mineral and Energy Resources (Common Provisions) Bill 2014 is passed in its current form the ability for neighbours to object to any new mining or coal seam gas project will not be available. The property rights and principles of natural justice of landowners will be severely compromised by the proposed changes. For those attending the PRA conference it was very evident the personal and emotional toll this battle has had upon Peter due to the stress of not having his issues addressed by the neighbouring Coal Project and the disregarded impacts on their water supply for their cattle and livelihood.

Please click on [https://www.beefcentral.com/news/letters-to-the-editor/letter-why-landholders-need-to-review-resource-act-changes/] to a letter from Glen Martin of Shine Lawyers for a very readable summary of some very worrying aspects of this new bill.

Summary of Letter – Why Qlders need to review Resource Act changes by June 30
By Glen Martin, 17 June 2014
Landholders should review, consider and make appropriate submissions to the Agriculture, Resources and Environment Committee by 30 June 2014 and otherwise voice their concerns on the Bill by that date. If they do not we fear the consequences now and in the land term for many could be dire. https://www.beefcentral.com/news/letters-to-the-editor/letter-why-landholders-need-to-review-resource-act-changes/

The submission deadline for this new bill is (was) June 30. This is far too short of a time span set in the busy timeframe of the end of the financial year to understand a long, complex new bill and amendments to 5 other existing resources acts. PRA urges all Queenslanders to contact their local member of parliament, write a letter to the editor and to write a submission to the parliamentary committee if only to say nothing more than that before such sweeping changes are made wide public discussion should be allowed in a time frame more suitable to the length, complexity and grave implications of this new bill.

Source: Evacuation Grounds Blogspot http://evacuationgrounds.blogspot.com.au/

CONSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE: MORE REVEALING DETAILS ABOUT ABORIGINAL RECOGNITION

by Peter Ewer
It is interesting to note what the bipartisan committee considering changes to the Constitution to “acknowledge Aborigines” has rejected. It gives us some indications of their thought patterns. One thing which has ended up on the Constitutional ‘cutting room floor’, so to speak, is a section acknowledging Aboriginal languages. This was to be put in a new section 127A which was to say that “the original Australian languages, a part of our national heritage” were Aboriginal languages, even though the national language of the nation is English. (The Australian 19 June 2014, p.3)

This is obviously absurd because if one recognises a “first people” (which I do not,) then logically their languages are “first languages”. The committee wants to remove the “race power” from the Constitution, which they regard as “discriminatory”, but inconsistently are faced with the problem of how to legally justify special laws to be made on what we would call an affirmative action basis.

The ruling idea is to add a special section for “advancement”. This, as I see it, will be an eternal affirmative action section that politically correct lawyers will exploit until Australia ceases to exist, probably in about 30 years time.

Keep spreading the word: say NO to the lawyers who want to get their hands on our Constitution. Just imagine what they would do if a new section 116 A is added prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin? When Australia becomes majority Asian – in less than a few decades – do you really think that any of this pc stuff will survive? But open immigration is precisely what will be produced.

NOW THEY WANT OUR MILK!

by Richard Miller
For our Asianised, globalised capitalist elite and political class, foreign investment is an unquestionable good. Sell off the family farm to the rich Chinese, and expect a pat on one’s pointy head. Now corporate Chinese interests, that is the Communist Party’s Chinese Investment Company, is set to buy 49 percent of Tasmania’s largest rural property as the Chinese are now looking to buy up Tasmania’s dairy industry.

At the moment there is great demand for Tasmanian milk products in Asia, so the self-destructive logic of Australian globalism and Asianism is to sell, sell, sell, so that the Chinese can optimise their profits by simply owning dairy farms. Does that make any sense? I guess it does if your government is a puppet government merely serving the interests of the global elite. Source: The WE Australian 21-22 June 2014, p.2.

WHEN FOOD BECOMES A LUXURY ITEM

by Chris Knight
Across the world food prices are sky-rocketing, and not just in the “developing world” – isn’t that terminology optimistic? According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, US food prices are rising 367 percent faster than inflation – the official US inflation rate being 2.1 percent. The prices of meat, poultry, fish and eggs increased 7.7 percent in the past 12 months. The prices of these foods have increased by 664 percent in the past five decades and are set to continue rising. (See https://www.naturalnews.com/045601_food_inflation_chemical_agriculture_collapse.html)

There are many hypotheses about the cause of this, including the mounting evidence that Big Agri, with its GMO crops and Dr Frankenstein approach to food production is nearing collapse. But linking all of this is the fact that in the end the elites don’t care if we ordinary plebs starve. No doubt they have massive stockpiles of food and weapons to make the folks on the TV show Doomsday Preppers look… well… unprepared. So, how about we little folk start to get prepared as well?

THE NATURE OF A GOOD JUDGE

by Ian Wilson LL.B.
There has been an intense debate in legal circles about the appointment of Tim Carmody as incoming chief justice of Queensland. It is usual for such appointments to be made from either a Supreme Court judge or some high-flying QC/SC. Not in this case for the career path has been from Chief Magistrate to chief justice. I can see nothing wrong with this and I can see much good because Justice Carmody has given every indication of being a very good judge who respects the separation of powers and decides cases based on the rule of law and not the popular appeal to conscience-based decision-making.

Justice Carmody has said that “separation of powers doctrine is a two-way street. In return for the unfettered independence to make decisions, judges must not meddle in the administration of enacted laws by the executive and departments of state. They do not have the liberty of allowing curial decisions to be infected by bias or extraneous considerations such as personal opinions or ideological, political or religious belief. It is clearly wrong… for judges to deliberately frustrate or defeat the policy goals of what they might personally regard as unfair but (which are) none the less regular laws under cover of office as a form of redress or amelioration.”

For such comments Justice Carmody (then Judge Carmody) was criticised by various sectors of the politically correct establishment, who saw the judicial role as going beyond the allegedly limited view of upholding the rule of law, to embrace social engineering and judicial innovation. Former High Court Justice, Michael Kirby, is good example of the social innovation judge, who used his own values as a guide for decision-making. The appointment of Tim Carmody is good news and a step in the right direction.

A WORLD JUST PLAIN RUNNING OUT OF STEAM

by Brian Simpson
Professor Robert Gordon is something of an exception among economists: a technological pessimist. Most orthodox economists are technological optimists believing that human ingenuity will continue to churn out advances. The technological pessimists – and Gordon is but one of them – point out that the rate of innovation is slowing down and truly radical paradigm changing inventions are not coming. There is no equivalent to, say, the development of nuclear reactors. Thinking machines would do it, but the AI (Artificial Intelligence) crowd is always telling us that such robots are just around the corner, just like the popular science magazines of the 1950s saw flying cars by the 1980s. Where are they?

IN his paper “Is US Economic Growth Over?” (September 2012) Gordon makes the point that it is simply an assumption that economic growth will continue forever. As he says, “there was virtually no economic growth before 1750, suggesting that the rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well be a unique episode in human history rather than a guarantee of endless future advances at the same rate.” Thoughts about the limits, if not the end of growth, are also offensive to many alternative economists who also believe that technology will ring in a paradise on earth. I am naturally sceptical of all such proclamations given the intrinsic limits of humanity, or what Christians used to call, original sin.