That the Senate is aware:a) of reports that approximately 200 000 people are held in hard labourconcentration camps in North Korea;b) that prisoners allegedly include people caught listening to foreignradio broadcasts, families of accused persons and those who have failedto show ‘proper respect’ to the President; andc) that after 12 to 15 hours work daily, Continue Reading →
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 10:28pm
IF A Brazilian butterfly’s tiny wing beat can generate a tropical hurricane, the Greens weekend win in the West Australian state by-election for the seat of Fremantle should generate a cyclone in Canberra.
Fremantle was once a hard-core union-dominated seaport with an associated fishing fleet, a collection of infamous pubs, run-down brothels, a popular mission for seamen and the state’s principal jail.
Now it hosts more coffee shops per hectare than almost any other inner-urban city, stylish and expensive outdoor restaurants, arts and crafts shops, an excellent maritime museum and a population of academics, public servants, students and artists.
Held by Labor since 1924, it has gone Green. In a city where voting Labor was as much a habit as picking up fish and chips at Cicerello’s, fishing from the South Mole or swimming at Port Beach, it signals a major change in the new Freo.
Labor is blaming the Liberals – who didn’t run a candidate – for its loss. Labor’s argument is that, without a Liberal candidate to vote for, conservatives voted Green.
Only three years ago the Australian Electoral Commission abolished the federation seat of Gwydir, in North West NSW, because a population decline in the far North West combined with urban growth elsewhere triggered the need for a boundary change.
Half a million US citizens defy the law on a regular basis to buy raw milk according to the US Food and Drug Administration. A patchwork of state lawslead to a complicated situation, where the product can be bought in some states and sold in others, leading to clandestine car-park sales of the product on state borders. Raw milk drinkers enjoy the health benefits of the range of enzymes and organisms in the fresh cows milk, that are killed by the pasteurisation process. Pasteurisation of milk was enforced by a variety of laws to prevent food poisoning from unhygenically handled milk and milk products. The US Pasteurised Milk Ordinance bans the transportation of raw milk across state borders for sale.
Four Spanish students have sent a $100 camera into space and back to take a series of stunning pictures of the earth and its atmosphere. The camera was only one of the recording instruments the Catalonian students attached to the two metre balloon which was filled with helium. The experiment has highlighted the power of low end technology, but was assisted by Google earth which tracked the balloon in flight and helped the students retrieve the equipment.
Here is a simple, stone cold fact. You cannot read or hear the truth about what is happening in Gaza from any corporate media in the United States. The only thing you will find there are regurgitations of Israeli spin, which are themselves only regurgitations of the kind of spin that American militarists have put on their own depredations — for centuries now.
Up and down the American media and political establishments, you will find nothing but bleatings about Israel being “forced” to launch its vicious blunderbuss attacks against heavily populated Gaza because of the “recent spate of Hamas bombings” since the end of a six-month ceasefire. This is of course a damnable and deliberate lie. Papers in Israel — in Israel, but not the United States — are reporting the truth: the murderous assault on Gaza was planned not only before the six-month ceasefire ended — it was planned before the cease-fire even took effect.
Labor the big loser in Green chaos theory