Toms Blog on Life

Why is the New South Wales Government wasting taxpayers money on knocking down and rebuilding two perfectly usable stadiums? Spend the money on improving our hospitals, schools and public transport.
Journalist and former rugby player Peter FitzSimons has started this petition to the NSW Premier. Sign & share if you support:
We, the undersigned, respectfully call on the Premier of NSW, Gladys Berejiklian, and the NSW Cabinet, to reconsider their decision to knock down two perfectly fine sports stadiums – the Olympic Stadium and Sydney Football Stadium – at a staggering cost of $2Billion, to replace them with new ones, at a time when there is ZERO public demand to replace either.
We are tired of taxpayer dollars being lavished on building facilities for Sports Big Business, while community sport withers on the vine for lack of facilities and resources.
We, the undersigned concerned citizens of NSW, believe our money could be better spent with the likes of 100 X $10 million projects being funded across the state, so towns, suburbs and regions could see a thousand fields, pools, courts and arenas bloom, doing something for the wider people of NSW and not merely the tiny percentage involved in elite sport.
We believe some of the money could be used to lower registration fees for kids playing a variety of sports, to remove the obstacles that prevent so many from participating.
This would still allow nearly a billion dollars left over to refurbish the current stadiums, and put much-needed money into other community resources, like schools, hospitals, theatres, galleries, homeless shelters and the like.
Again, we say, Premier Berejiklian, please reconsider.
Thank you,
The Concerned Citizens of NSW
https://www.change.org/p/gladys-berejiklian-scrap-the-plan-to-knock-down-and-rebuild-the-football-stadium-and-olympic-stadiums

A giant coal mine project currently being proposed for Australia will destroy the nation’s unique, rare environment. Tens of thousands of hectares of land will be disturbed to make room for the project.
We should be doing a lot more with solar and wind and sea turbines rather than destroying our environment!
I signed this petition. You are invited to join me.
https://forcechange.com/438852/dont-allow-giant-coal-mine-to-destroy-the-environment/

According to news reports in the British press, Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed Russia’s industries to prepare themselves to be able to make a quick switch to war production. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-business-war-production-sochi-military-talks-a8069951.html
Clearly, the Russian government would not make such an announcement unless it was convinced that the prospect of war with the West was real. For some time I have emphasized in my columns that the consequence of years of hostile actions taken by Washington and its European vassals against Russia was leading to war.
It is easy to understand that the massive US military/security complex needs a convincing enemy in order to justify its enormous budget, that the crazed neoconservatives put their fantasy ideology of US world hegemony above the life of the planet, and that Hillary and the Democratic National Committee will do anything to overturn Trump’s presidential victory. However, it is difficult to understand why the European political leaders are willing to put their countries at risk for Washington’s benefit.
Yet, they do. For example, on November 13 UK PM Theresa May said that Russia was a threat to international security and was interfering in European elections and hacking European governments. There is no more evidence for these claims than there is for “Russiagate.” Yet the allegations continue and multiply. Now the European Union is organizing former provinces of the Soviet Union—Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan—into an “Eastern Partnership” with the European Union. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/11/27/british-pm-makes-clear-eastern-partnership-created-damage-russia.html
In other words, the West is openly organizing former provinces of Moscow against Russia, declared by Prime Minister May to be a “hostile state.” Russia knows that there is no basis for the allegations against Russia and regards them as identical to the false allegations against Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad in order to justify military attacks on Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Having convinced Russia that she is being set up for attack, Russia is preparing for war.
Think about this for a moment. The world is being driven to Armageddon simply because a greedy and corrupt US military/security complex needs an enemy to justify its huge budget, because Hillary and the DNC cannot accept a political defeat, and because the neoconservatives have an ideology of American Supremacy. What’s the difference between the detested White Supremacy and the American Supremacy that President Obama himself endorsed? Why is white supremacy terrible and American supremacy God’s gift to the “exceptional” and “indispensable” country?
The Russian government has openly shared its concern that Russia is being set up for military attack. As I, if not CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, have reported, the deputy commander of the Russian military’s Operation Command stated publicly the concern that Washington is preparing a surprise nuclear attack against Russia. President Putin recently called attention to Washington’s collection of Russian DNA for a US Air Force weapons lab, which implies development of a Russian-specific bio-weapon. On many occasions Russia has called attention to US and NATO bases on its borders despite previous assurances from US administrations that no such thing would ever happen.
We have to ask ourselves why it is not the top item of public and political discussion that Washington has convinced Russia, a premier nuclear and military power, that Russia is going to be attacked. Instead, we hear of football players who kneel for the national anthem, fake news about Russiagate, a Las Vegas shooting, and so on.
We also must ask ourselves how much longer Washington is going to permit any of us via the Internet to report the real news instead of the fake news that Washington uses to control explanations. The effort by the Federal Communications Commission chairman to destroy net neutrality and other efforts underway to discredit factual news as Russian propaganda indicate that Washington has concluded that in order to war on Russia Washington must also war on truth. https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-fccs-order-is-out-it-will-end-net-neutrality-and-break-the-internet-weve-read-it-and-heres-what-you-need-to-know/5619857 and https://www.globalresearch.ca/selected-articles-good-bye-to-net-neutrality/5620061
Washington will not survive its war, and neither will the American and European people.

If you haven’t yet done so, write to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee today to demand they dump the APRA crisis management “bail-in” bill, and legislate a Glass-Steagall break-up of the Too-Big-To-Fail banks instead.
Ordinarily a committee like this would only receive a dozen or so submissions, from the likes of banking associations, APRA itself and other regulators. The issues would receive little scrutiny, the bill would be rubber-stamped, and the public would only know about it when they react in shock to losing their savings and are told it is legal—which has been the repeated experience of bail-in in Europe.
Every letter the committee receives from everyday Australians will force the Senators to realise this bill is dangerous, with far-reaching consequences that they’d better examine in detail before they vote on it. In this way Parliament can be forced to weigh up the disastrous bail-in approach to financial stability, versus the successful Glass-Steagall approach.
Bail-in is a complicated fraud. It’s intended to preserve the current system of casino banking, which preys on customers to feed the US$1.2 quadrillion (US$1,200 trillion) global derivatives bubble. Australia’s banks account for $36 trillion of this financial gambling. Bail-in allows the banks to continue the reckless and criminal practices that caused the 2008 crisis, and puts the risk for their losses on to their customers—you—who will have their savings bailed in!
The latest from Europe is that the authorities are proposing to adjust their bail-in law, to effectively scrap the €100,000 deposit guarantee. Remember that, when a politician reassures you that Australia’s $250,000 deposit guarantee will protect you. If they are going to allow banks to continue to gamble trillions of dollars, there will never be enough money to cover their losses, and APRA, which is closely connected to the European banking authorities, will look for ways around the deposit guarantee.
By contrast, a Glass-Steagall separation of deposit-taking banks from all other financial services, and all forms of speculation, is straightforward and secure. It’s the most successful banking regulation in history, having protected America’s banking system from any systemic crises for 66 years, 1933-1999. It ensures financial stability in the obvious way—by stopping banks from engaging in the speculative practices that cause instability! Glass-Steagall makes perfect sense to everybody … except bankers, who are desperate to keep gambling with deposits, and their political and media stooges, who are sell-outs.
While many G20 countries already have bail-in, Australia doesn’t, thanks to the CEC’s ongoing mobilisation since 2013. We can stop this bill, but it will require an all-in effort, starting with you writing to the committee today.
Write to the committee today
The deadline for submissions to the Senate committee is Monday 18 December, which will be upon us very quickly, so write a letter today. There are three ways to write to the Senate committee.
The committee staff have asked the CEC to direct people to use the Senate’s on-line submission process, which is at this link: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/OnlineSubmission
If you are computer literate and feel confident to make a submission this way, go ahead.
BUT, as some people may find that process complicated, the CEC recommends writing an actual physical letter, and mailing it to the committee. It will have a big impact on Senators that someone has gone to the effort to write and mail a latter.
The address of the committee is:
Senate Standing Committees on Economics
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
The third way is to email a letter to the committee, but please ensure that you have properly identified yourself with a name and address, so they know it is genuine. If you wish your letter to be private, and only read by the Senators, write “Confidential” at the top of the email (this also applies to physical letters). Email your letter to: economics.sen@aph.gov.au
REMEMBER: It doesn’t matter how long or how short your letter, or how you write it. Just say what you think about APRA getting bail-in powers, and the Glass-Steagall alternative.
Write today, and notify the CEC that you have done so, by email at cec@cecaust.com.au, or by calling our toll-free number 1800 636 432, so we can gauge how many letters are being sent.
(For essential background information you can use in your submission, click here for “Questions MPs must ask before they vote on the APRA crisis management—‘bail-in’—bill”.)
Click here for a free copy of the 22 November issue of the Australian Alert Service, which documents the disastrous instances where bail-in has been imposed in Europe. http://cecaust.com.au/main.asp?id=free_AAS_latest.html

Wise words from Carl Sagan…