Why indeed! Because it has nothing to do with stopping deaths and everything to do with increasing government control of the population. Read and understand the Omnibus Bill already passed by the lower house in Vioctoria to understand the level of tyranny to which Andrews and his cohorts have sunk.
Adrian Gualano writes:
The Omnibus bill currently trying to be passed will give police (and non police public servants) the authority to arrest someone they “think” is likely to commit a crime. Courts.will have the power to detain your children for up to 30 months.
To everybody with children, this is the ultimate wake up call.
And yes of course this is an initiative of Dan Andrews , what other politician wants to take away your freedoms and break up your families?
This is not about health anymore.
If you don’t agree with the proposed bill, I suggest you start bombarding your MP’s with phone calls and emails ASAP. Find out who your upper house members are via the Parliament Victoria website and harass them like a telemarketer. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/victorias-covid19-omnibus-legislation-an-astonishing-attack-on-democracy/news-story/018937689c5b12f84a3e3187bda77b53
As I thought of sending this the counter-intention arose that many who receive this would vehemently reject that they could have much influence in creating a better world.
If that fits you I would like to raise your perception of your cause level.
Every single action you do helps or harms. Every contact you have with another living being either drags them down, affects them not at all or lifts them up.
Just the mere fact that you smile at someone as you pass them on the street, the fact that you admire their dog or something about them contributes to them having a better day than they otherwise would have.
Sure, these are small actions when you compare to what the bad guys do at the other end of the scale, drop a bomb that wipes out a wedding party in Afghanistan or Syria, locks down a state for no logical reason and more but if you did your beneficial actions each day and figured out how you could do more and encouraged others to do the same, you could start a movement for good that could grow to be a tsunami that would totally overwhelm the negative influences on this planet.
It’s not at all hard to do.
Two days ago I gave a fruit cake to a new neighbour moving in.
Yesterday I was doing my chinups and body pulls a the exercise equipment in the park and got to talking to the girl and her personal trainer at the exercise station. From their conversation they felt inspired.
Tonight I saw a woman walking her dog. This boy is a brute! Looks like an American bulldog with tons of energy. Just wants to jump up and start biting in play. It’s only ’cause she’s a big girl herself that she can hold onto the leash and keep him (somewhat) in check. Now most people giver her and her dog a very wide berth but I go up and have a rumble with him. Consequently when he comes in the park and sees me he recognises a playmate. He and I have a quick play and I chat briefly to her. How much better must she feel not being ostracised by all she meets?
Tonight I also met two other sets of two girls walking their dogs. My Schnauzer and I stopped to chat to both and I met a bearded Collie for the first time. She was only 18 months old and quite reserved to start with but within a couple of minutes she was wagging her tail and enjoying a scratch from me as I spoke to her owners.
I acknowledge that all of these actions are only drops in the ocean and are not life changing. I do go for those when the opportunity arises. The ability to pull someone out of depression or to alleviate aches and pains or address long standing health issues obviously have the potential to change lives far more than a conversation in the park or on the side walk. But you don’t get people opening up to you unless they know you are safe to talk to so the first thing is to be in communication with those in your environment. Sometimes all it takes is a smile and a “Hello!”
In the backyard of his 500-square-metre rental property, biologist James Stanistreet has created a garden capable of feeding his family of four — and many more.
Key points:
A student biologist says his average-sized backyard is large enough to feed a family
He says all elements of a garden have an important role to play, even weeds
A garden is most productive when you care for all aspects of the ecosystem
Chicken and ducks fertilise and carry out pest control on neat rows of vegetables and fruit trees while native bees set to work on pollination.
Mr Stanistreet said his northern New South Wales garden produces more than enough for his family, the rest he trades with neighbours or sells at the local farmers’ market.
He is completing a Bachelor of Science at Southern Cross University in Lismore, focussing on the symbiotic association between fungi and tomato plants, and how advancing that knowledge can help minimise the use of industrial nitrogen.
When not in the laboratory he works his day job — designing, building, and planting ‘agroforests’ for private landholders that can incorporate everything from cabinet timbers to commercial-scale food production or native revegetation.
He has devoted years to understanding plants and using this knowledge to create his thriving back yard food bowl.
“A lot of what this garden is about is testing out ideas and seeing what can happen when we change what we do and put different things into practice.”
Weeds not the enemy
Mr Stanistreet said he uses cover crops, such as clover and other ‘weeds’, to fix nitrogen to the soil rather than relying on manufactured chemicals.
“You don’t see weeding in nature, yet trees grow very strong and healthy and it is because there is that organic matter and each plant has a role to play,” he said.
“What humans see as a weed it’s not just something trivial, it is something that the environment requires. It has a place and a role and it’s been developed over millions of years.
“Unfortunately we just weren’t able to see that in the past. Now we are really focussing on them and saying ‘okay, what is their role? What do they do?'”
Mr Stanistreet lets many of his crops go to seed, producing flowers that attract bees and hover flies to pollinate the garden, and wasps to eat pests including aphids.
“You have to remember you are looking after a whole ecosystem here,” he said.
It also allows him to collect the seed for the next crop, which he does by hanging the plant upside down over a large bowl and shaking it once the plant is dry.
He rotates his crops to deprive a ready food source for parasitic nematodes — bugs that live in the soil and can destroy a plant’s root system.
He keeps his garden beds at 70 centimetres wide because a lot of tools are made at that width, with a 30cm walkway between beds.
Each bed is topped up annually with woodchips that will decompose and add nutrients to the soil.
Between crops in any one bed he will add 100 litres of manure, 200 litres of compost, along with regular additions of fish and seaweed emulsions.
To keep costs down he makes his own compost, collects seaweed from the beach, and has a worm farm to produce castings and tea for the garden.
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Fantastic fowl
Ducks and chickens share Mr Stanistreet’s backyard coop, but the birds play very different roles in the garden.
When a crop is finished and a bed needs to cleared and fertilised, he fences it off and puts the chickens to work scratching it up.
The ducks are often left to roam the garden, picking off the slugs in the morning and other insects that would otherwise attack the produce.
The chickens are given kitchen scraps and garden trash, while their bedding and manure gets composted and returned to the garden beds.
“It is a closed system in many ways and these animals certainly help with that,” he said.
Mr Stanistreet said although his biology degree is helping him with the theory, anyone can use whatever space they have in their yards to grow food.
“Just get a seed of anything and find some soil and just start,” he said.
“If you can start with one seed and one plant it will grow from there.”
He said he loved everything about gardening.
“It brings you back to nature, it reminds you that you are a part of the Earth with the plants and the animals, and it is a system,” he said.
“When you grow your own food you know where it comes from and it just tastes better.”
By keeping healthy children under quarantine, we are cruelly depriving them of the in-person free play and social interaction that are critical to their development and emotional well-being.
(Tom: It is well past time to end the lockdown. Kids almost never get COVID-19 and world-wide there has not been a single instance of student to teacher transmission of it identified.)
An Op-Ed in The Guardian by Actor and Activist Alec Baldwin and Paul Paz y Miño of Amazon Watch
At a time when so many are protesting systemic racism, we’d like to highlight a different story of marginalized people speaking truth to power on behalf of their most basic human rights.
It’s the story of how “big oil” is using Harvey Weinstein-like destroy-the-accuser tactics to try to crush environmental defenders. It is also the story of how we can all help those defenders peacefully fight back.
In 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco, including all of its assets and a giant liability known as the “Amazon Chernobyl,” a 1,700-square-mile environmental disaster in Ecuador. Texaco admitted that it deliberately discharged billions of liters of toxic waste into the environment, which ended up in the local water supply, causing cancers and other chronic health problems. According to multiple Indigenous witnesses, the company actually claimed that the oil wastes were medicinal and “full of vitamins.”
Originally, the company attempted to walk away with impunity, but somehow David beat Goliath. After 18 years of court battles, a coalition of Indigenous peoples and local communities won $9.5 billion in damages.
But Goliath won’t pay up. In the words of one Chevron official: “We will fight this until hell freezes over, and then fight it out on the ice.” In 2011, the company filed a retaliatory civil RICO case in New York against the group’s US lawyer and all 47 Ecuadorian villagers who signed the lawsuit, claiming the case was a “racketeering conspiracy.”
(Tom: One very smart girl with her head on straight and her heart in the right place. Kudos to her!)
Hello fellow patriots!! I just love you all!!
My name is Lindsey and my story may be a little different. I was at Virginia Tech during the massacre that killed 32, locked in a classroom for six hours. I saw people running for their lives and experienced things I’ll never forget…
I was never political, but after the shooting (mostly due to pressure from family & society) I thought I was for gun reform. I wanted to be a part of the party that stood for “love”… but it’s all an illusion on the other side. Eventually I started to see right through the propaganda.
After tons of research, I now blame big pharma for much of our country’s mental illness and many of these shootings (prescriptions and anti depressants that can change behavior, as well as other pharma products that affect the gut and brain).
I now realize how important it is own a firearm and be properly trained in how to use one… The only reason the government would want to take our guns away is if they’re planning to do something we would shoot them for… so, I now stand for FREEDOM and the right to protect ourselves and our families. And I’ll keep my guns, thanks.
