What Does the Finkel Review Really Do For Us ?

Posted on by royce1232

Is science actually jeopardised by commercial restraints?

Let us look closely at realities. What do we expect a scientist to do? All expectations are deeply rooted in our culture.

The Latin word “scientia” is our beginning.  Its meaning: “knowledge based on demonstrable and reproducible data.” Vital words these: “demonstrable,” “reproducible” and “data.” Their connotations are crucial. Their implication is that science must use, to check validity, methods that are open for all to see. Science too, needs reliability so that its methods can be repeated with confidence to check outcomes. Above all, its findings must spring unquestionably from the data base obtained by the research.

Observe the work conditions of Australia’s Chief Scientist. Note well the requirements and constraints of the position.

The Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) is part of the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Its primary responsibilities are to enable growth and productivity for globally competitive industries. To help realise this vision, the Department has four key objectives: supporting science and commercialisation, growing business investment and improving business capability, streamlining regulation and building a high performance organisation. Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Chief_Scientist_(Australia)                          Date Accessed: June 25, 2017

Now this poli-speak is worrying me.

I’ll try to give you some of the reasons. It’s all a matter of truth and its link with science.

When my own words seem inadequate, I often seek help from greater minds than mine. Perhaps these lines from R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Karel Capek will help me explain what I mean.

Robots throughout the world, we command you to kill all mankind. Spare no men. Spare no women. Save factories, railways, machinery, mines, and raw materials. Destroy the rest. Then return to work. Work must not be stopped.

There is a little help too from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre .

Unless I have the courage to use the language of Truth in preference to the jargon of Conventionality, I ought to remain silent.

Those quotations might help you understand why I am having trouble working out the priorities of my present world, especially regarding the Finkel Review.

What has greater importance, business or human survival?

Are the two always related? There lies my problem. My doubt.

How do I feel about this? Here I can turn to Gustav Flaubert:

L’avenir nous tourmente; le passé nous retient;  c’est pour ca que le present nous échappe.

The future torments us;  the past imprisons us;  in this way we flee from the present.

 My big worry is the focus of OCS.  Is my planet in danger or isn’t it?

Is global warming really a threat to us now; to you, to me, to our children and our children’s children? In other words are all those scientists reported in reliable journals wrong? If the weather is going to kill me, I am not so interested in the rising cost of my electricity or the job potential of a proposed massive coal mine.

I really am worried about the weather. And I am not alone.

Just now the clocks seem to be striking thirteen. We trust scientists, with their weather reports, to keep our planes flying safely. We put our bodies willingly in the care of scientists when doctors save our own or our loved ones’ lives. We plant or harvest our crops with scientists’ guidance. And we prepare for flood, fire or tempest under the constant watch of scientists. So why O why have recent years been contaminated by a sudden, whimsical doubt concerning 97 percent of world scientists regarding climate change?

Are vested interests exerting pressure and distorting reality for profit ahead of our wellbeing? Where do you buy “clean” coal? Is it for sale with left handed hammers and tins of striped paint?

Some Other Vital Questions Regarding OCS

  1. Should growing business investment be the motive for scientific research ahead of universal human problems such as illness, pain, suffering or death?
  2. Should growth and productivity control evaluation of scientific data ahead of benefits to lessen human suffering?
  3. Are “streamlining regulation” and “high performance organisation” better scientific objectives than needs based validity and reliability?

Now Here Are Some Other Causes Of Concern

  • I cannot understand why, after the recent review, Australia will still be among world leaders in per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, climate change inertia, and trading in coal, gas, iron ore, uranium and methanogenically-derived meat. Is commercial gain or sustainability unduly influencing this science? Why do Dr Alan Finkel and team confirm gas and coal use for 50 years?  Eventually 2067 will see GREAT BIG NEW TAXES to repair the damage, will it not?  

I x Y = RC x D

(Inertia x Years = Repair Cost x Disasters)

  •  The Finkel Review sees coal-fired generators as being part of our lives until 2050. But we need to get to average zero emissions by then if we are to keep up with the Paris Agreement.
  • The media clearly neglect Australia’s renewable energy successes already achieved. Australia is now a leader in per capita solar installation for homes. South Australia has 40% renewable energy, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) approaches 100% renewable energy and water stocked Tasmania also aims for 100 % renewable energy. Look around you at the individual solar fittings on the rooftops of ordinary people.
  • A vast storm involving several cyclones massively damaged South Australia’s energy system in September 2016. The ensuing blackout was falsely blamed by the federal government on failure of renewable energy sources. Despite the organised lies, the South Australian Government stayed relatively calm and rapidly moved to ensure back-up power with batteries and (alas) promised a new gas-fired power plant.
  • Finkel’s Review favours gas as a reducer of emissions. My information is that natural gas is grubby energy containing 85% methane that has a global warming potential 105 times greater than CO2 over twenty years combined with the expected impacts from aerosol.
  • To know is to be responsible! This was Mordechai Vanunu’s stated reason, a long time ago now, for whistleblowing about Israel’s atomic weaponry. It makes me sad to think that distinguished scientists, when reporting on the state of things in our world, would not focus in detail and with great energy on the dangers of air pollution as well as global warming. The  World Health Organization tells us that seven million people die each year from air pollution. World production of coal was 7, 823 million tonnes in 2013 of which 336 million tonnes  were Australian coal exports.  The use of this  coal  for energy or metallurgy is linked to about half of the 3.5 million outdoor pollution-related deaths annually.

Now the next bullet reveals a disturbing link from the web. I share it here for you to assess. The source is:  Dr Gideon Polya  of countercurrents .org

  • 10 billion people may die this century in worsening climate genocide. Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia Hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have estimated that only about 0.5 billion people may survive this century because of unaddressed, man-made global warming. If we note that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, we will see these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. DARA has estimated that presently 0.4 million people die annually from climate change  but this may be a considerable underestimate because presently 17 million people die avoidably from deprivation in the developing world (not counting China) that is already impacted by climate change . 

A Final Question

Shouldn’t the line between certainty and doubt concerning a people’s wellbeing be something more than the bottom line of a stock market report?

Further to this matter of words

Posted on by royce1232

How can we do justice to the importance of words?

We speak. We listen. We write. We read. In all my teaching years I have tried to tell my students that with these deeds we can change the world.

There was a Chinese saying I often shared with those students:

I hear what you say but I see what you do.

Now this leads me towards one human category of power, politics. Politicians’ words and actions have had a vast influence on my life down the years into my eighth decade. They have inspired me, disgusted me, helped me, hurt me, led me to war, brought me brief peace, dismissed me and often flowed from kneeling figures begging for my vote.

Now have you noticed how frequently honourable members use the expression “the bottom line”? It’s an expression taken from profit and loss accounting and I believe it came into first real use c. 1967. I was alive then but, as with so many other things, it was not part of my detailed understanding. But oh my! Do I notice it now?

So many things are “monetised,” to use the YouTube category. Money is the route of all weasels. Education is not vital. The real problem is can we afford it? Same for health, including research. As for climate. Well. Old King Coal was a merry old sole (sic).

And all those weasel words are of extreme importance if you are into shady deals. We now know, for example, the terminology used by the gods of the Watergate affair. Some interesting examples: “correct endeavour,” “correctly impede,” “correct motive,” “political containment.” Each of these we can now recognise in the context of Watergate as a euphemism disguising culpable behaviour.

Another discovery from that time is the presidential coaching of accused staff for survival in the courtroom. These were some of those words: “I don’t remember;” “I can’t recall;” “do not volunteer anything;” “deal only with established facts.”

Two other expressions come into mind as well: “classified” and “business confidentiality.” I have seen “classified” countless times in my lifetime. One example will do. Information on the Phoenix Program was classified during the Vietnam War. We now know that this secretive scheme was responsible for the massacre of at least 20,000 Vietnamese civilians during that war.

What of business confidentiality? I have no real evidence here. Therefore it would be wrong of me to make unsubstantiated claims. But I feel justified in making the following comment. In the light of human misdemeanours documented throughout history, is it not reasonable to ask for something more than a label “business confidentiality” when  misbehaviour could be possible?

I feel pretty sure that some of my readers will know more clearly what I mean and even have access to tangible evidence to set the truth free . . . Ah me! Despite my advanced maturity, my glass is still half full. I just wish proof would be easier to find. Life would be far better if we could trust the powerful.

To end this little sharing of ideas,  I strongly urge you to follow this link. It has helped me better understand the bright and dark side of words. You may find it interesting.

R.

Words are crucial; so study and protect them.

Posted on by royce1232

Words.

Loaded pistols said Sartre. Powerful drugs said Kipling.

Yes, the true meanings of words seem to vary in these recent times.  So-called “truth” constantly needs further investigation. This little piece of fiction plays around with that idea.

Dr Yorec VeilPhoto on 22-09-2016 at 7.45 AM

Doctor Veil is a former citizen of Elysium, in the Land Of Two Rivers. Born in hard times within a country where university study was mostly no more than a poverty stricken dream, he broke free of pauperdom by winning scholarships. His rise in Academia was rapid and distinguished, leading him to several teaching posts and awards.

Sadly his former university was destroyed in the Iraq invasion of 2003. Fortunately for mankind he survived and is now a distinguished staff member at Hope University in Brazil. His works and philosophy are now part of a broad canvas.

His most recent missives follow.

***

Snake Oil Sales 1Snake Oil Sales 2Snake Oil Sales 3Snake Oil Sales 4.jpg

Now Some Non-fiction From Me

Recommended Source: Don Watson weaselwords.com.au.

Weasel words are the words of the powerful, the treacherous and the unfaithful, spies, assassins and thieves. . . To speak the words the powerful speak is to obey them, or at least to give up all outward signs of freedom. Don Watson (205 p.1). 

I want to share with you some weasel examples. Maybe it will help to explain my contempt.

Once, when applying for a job teaching English to migrants, I asked a CEO if there was a predominant approach to the teaching of essay writing. I needed to know if genre writing was used as well as or instead of traditional methods.

The reply was very brief: world’s best practice. Now what did that answer do for me, a professional seeking to do his job well? Did it mean: “I want to test you not me so I will tell you nothing” ? Did it mean: “I am ignorant actually, so I will use this high sounding language of emptiness to cover my tracks”? Or was that CEO simply under the influence  of Edward Bernays, trying to control me with  Bernaysian manufactured consent ?

You decide. As for me, I did not get that job and went to teach in a university where it was a little harder to cover up the truth. Not always impossible though.

When leaders fire weasel words at us we have a problem. Don Watson sums up weasel power pretty well regarding President Bush, The Younger, and Prime Minister Howard.

Our two leaders have sucked the meaning out of the words . . . They are shells of words: words from which life has gone, facsimiles, frauds, corpses. (loc.cit.)

These shells of words bring power to such rulers. The effect of this power on war and peace is disastrous and on our society catastrophic.

Look what such people have done to the proverbs I learnt as a child. Weasel words below for sale: half price.

Look before you cut and run.

He who hesitates is decruited.

All that glitters is not an accounting irregularity.

A miss is as good as change management.

Fortune favours critical success factors.

Manners maketh the self actualiser.

While there’s life there’s a mission statement.

Actions speak louder than the chattering classes.

Call a spade an action plan.

Give credit where credit is clear evidence.

A picture is worth a thousand absolutely collaborative events.

A change is as good as a capability gap.

A friend in need is a circle of strength.

A pot calling the kettle non-core.

Every dog has its global bulge bracket pedigree.

Two heads are better than a Client Infrastructure Representative (CIR).

What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t disconnect.

Silence is bulletproof.

What you eat today walks and buys-in tomorrow.

As you sow, so shall you drill down.

And pop goes the weasel.

 

Principal Reference: Watson, Don. 2005. Watson’s Dictionary of Weasel Words. Sydney. Random House.

 

 

Tears In A Desert

Posted on by royce1232

Down the ages children have endured pain and suffering for many reasons. Today, as a consequence of bungling and crude reasons for detention, covered up abuse, poverty in postcodes, and heinously accurate weapons of mass destruction used deliberately with sham excuses against thousands in civilian populations, the trauma and anguish of children tears us even further apart.

This brief post is only a little cry against the anguish inflicted. Butterflies wings in a tempest probably.  But the tiny fluttering may start a small breeze. Nothing never happens.

R.

 

Suffer little children to come unto me … Matthew 13:16

On Testing English

Posted on by royce1232

Words are loaded pistols according to Rudyard Kipling.

You certainly can shoot yourself in the foot with those unruly, dangerous little things. Some political power-seekers are showing  prodigious naivety when they claim a one-off test of English skills will be a valid and reliable measure of acceptability for new citizenship. This Fallacy of the Crucial Experiment, the implied existence of evidence that doesn’t exist, is the Trump Card of too many leaders now in power. Today, when I hear a politician speak, I tend so often to think both feet are wounded and there isn’t a leg to stand on.

My evidence won’t take long.

Here are three pieces of writing for hypothetical assessment. Let’s see what hypothetical marking achieves.

Sample 1

Fellers of Australier,

Blokes an’ coves an’ coots,

Shift yer bloody carcasses,

Move yer bloody boots.

Gird yer bloody loins up,

Get yer bloody gun,

Set the bloody enermy

An’ watch the blighters run.

MARKING: Spelling Errors 7; Comma Splices: 3; Vulgar Words: 5; Excessive Abbreviations: 3; Capitalisation Errors: 0; Punctuation Errors: 0; Style Ranking: Extremely low class, repetitive and undignified. Test Result: FAIL.

Sample 2

The soil on which we now live was not a gift bestowed by Heaven on our forefathers. But they had to conquer it by risking their lives. So also in the future our people will not obtain territory, and therewith the means of existence, as a favour from any other people, but will have to win it by the power of a triumphant sword.

MARKING: Spelling Errors 0; Comma Splices: 0; Vulgar Words: 0; Capitalisation Errors: 0; Punctuation Errors: 0; Style Ranking: Elegant and emotionally moving.                            Test Result: DISTINCTION.

Sample 3

Hi Royce

How are you doing?

Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you and your wife would be happy.

Royce I would like to thank you on your assistance during I study here. Royce here is my souvenier. I do hope you still remember me by this souvenier.

Although  my structure sentences are not good, I still receive your corrections. Again, thank’s very much on your assistance.

(Name withheld )

MARKING: Spelling Errors 2; Comma Splices: 0; Vulgar Words: 0; Excessive Abbreviations: 3; Capitalisation Errors:3; Punctuation Errors: 4; Style Ranking: Much improvement needed in sentence structure. Test Result: FAIL.

FINAL DECISION: Candidate 1 Citizenship Denied; Candidate 2 Citizenship Approved. Candidate 3 Citizenship Denied

Sources:  Sample 1 Candidate 1 C J Dennis. Extract from his poem  “The Australaise.” Sample 2 Candidate 2  A. Hitler Extract from Mein Kampf, page 556. Sample 3 Candidate an unnamed student from Indonesia completing a Masters program at an Australian university. Special Note: The Sample 3 student became aware that I was a widower who had married again. The souvenir was just a little card. The student went on to graduate. The date was December 29, 1992. I still have the card. Another graduate, on becoming aware of my second marriage at age 62, sent me a card from Thailand hoping I would soon have lots of little grandchildren. Such people would still be honoured in my life now, for as long as they desired, if they could survive the regulations.

politifact-photos-Standardized_test_image

[Image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons; photographer unknown]

EPILOGUE: The Earth is peopled not by categories but by extremely complex human beings. Progressive, structured assessment over a period of time, with workshops and teaching is an essential way to rank us. A study-guide controlled, hit or miss showcase of pretence test is not.

But I’ve been a teacher K to university for the last fifty years or so and politicians don’t seem to listen to us.

r.

Afterthought

Here’s a little poem I wrote some years ago. It may be relevant; I don’t know…

Dear Teacher Did You Read It?

‘Our headmaster thought the school was marvellous and wouldn’t face up to facts.’ A fifteen-year- old school-leaver, quoted in The Newsome Report: ‘Half our future’–1963 (England)
Dear teacher did you really read my story really truly read it really truly?
What I said was true–
My darling mother died when I was only ten.
It is true I didn’t understand we’d never meet again.
It is true I longed just one more time to hold her hand in mine.
It is true I jigged away on trains
To the end of every line.
It is true my father ran away
When his world seemed to end.
It is true I searched the human race and couldn’t find my friend.
It is true you are busy every day planning and doing your work.
So much to read and so much to say that it’s only rest you shirk.
But why did you talk about full stops and little slips of the pen
And give me an E on my report card and make me write it again?
Dear teacher did you really read my story really truly read it really truly?

August 2006

PS: I love C J Dennis. He is one of my favourite writers. He provided good material for this piece however. r.

Fake News

Posted on by royce1232

Here’s a little poem I wrote in a fit of recent despair. If it drives you mad, please don’t be sad or tear out the roots of your hair.

Fake News

The sun rose at noon today at its dawning

And all senators now tell the truth

Wild birds flew backwards into this morning

Now the city takes care of its youth

That whale danced a jig on Bondi Beach

Our border’s not a barbed wire fence

The Chopard Blue Diamond was a seed in a peach

Now when lying, CEOs recompense

A cartoon has become Migrant Minister

All schools’ resources are equal

Now the Irish have conquered Westminister

And no WMDs have a sequel

The Town Clock played jazz in the afternoon

While all lawyers served their clients free

A firebug set fire to the silver moon

Wrong investment advice has no fee

A cuckoo sang the lead in Bach’s chorus

Junk food does not fatten your daughter

They kill ten and it’s news; thousands die they ignore us!

That reporter’s an exporter of the slaughter

Now before we end, here my friend are the headlines

To logic and truth we holdfast

As the mania for profit at this end declines

We live in a peace unsurpassed

The End (Of the Start)

__________

NOW HERE IS SOME FAKE FAKE NEWS TO BRIGHTEN OUR MISERABLE DAYS A LITTLE

Image Attribution: the wonderful CREATIVE COMMONS.

_________

Canbury Friday. From Lofty Price, our Political Correspondent:

The Treasurer gave a moving speech on Friday at the Cut Back The Nonsense Small Business Conference at Winterhill.  Here are his closing remarks…

We stand for freedom. We must lift the chains on small business. To Hell with Political Correctness. Here I stand for the good of the economy. This is my station for the greatness of my nation.

The Treasurer’s Mission Statement

Image Source Creative Commons

Sunday, Heron Atoll. From Pinocchio Pressbutton, our finance reporter:

A vast crowd of overseas and local visitors attended the opening on Sunday of the Barrier Reef Silver Lead and Zinc Mine. There was movement at that station since the word had passed around that the dolt from our regret had held his sway.

One of the great Free Trade Agreements of modern times was completed on this Sunday. The Minister For Trade, Heberton Mydeal,  used these words:

A new era has begun today for our great nation. Jobs will grow and profit will flow to levels hitherto undreamed of. The Government is proud of this achievement. The future is ours to seize. Now and for evermore. 

The Process Of Negotiations Observed

n-CORRUPTION-large570

Image Source Creative Commons

Tuesday 13th At High Noon. Reporter Martial Raleigh, War Correspondent:

Today’s Commemoration Ceremony was very moving. Old men with medals multiples seemed to dominate the numbers as the young were away, most likely in Afghanistan.. The dominant speaker however was a woman: Lucretia Borderkill, a Splintergroupie, who seems to attend these occasions whenever possible.

Her words had a ring of battle about them. She spoke very loudly and was appreciated most warmly by those who were listening yet busy doing something else — knitting or doing calculations on iPhones. Political commentators suggest Lucretia’s loud volume is critical to her success as followers find it convenient to listen only to the words and focus meaning on something else. Thus split attention is possible which saves both time and effort.  Lucretia’s loudest words received wild applause from her supporters, especially the delegates from the Lithgow Small Arms Factory.

My fellow citizens. Danger is everywhere. I am the voice of the people. I am not interested in others. My only concern is us. Why do I say this?

Well my dear ordinary people like me it’s your interests I care about. Nobody else does. I will stand up for you. I will fight for you.

Yes I will fight to ban the thong. That dangerous thing that the others wear often falls off their feet. What happens then?

Why, they tread on seedlings with bare feet and ruin our crops. My friends this has got to end. And on this day I promise you it will. 

(Loud cheering and repetition of the slogan)

Ban the thong! Ban the thong! Ban the thong!

Thank you my friends. Thank you.

Finally, I have had my Deputy Con King go out into the fields researching the trouble. I have had multiple copies of one incident he captured because it sums up our dangers terribly well. Take it home and show it to your children so that all generations can unite in their purity. Have faith in us as we are you and you are we. All hail to our country. All hail to our land! Our life! Our country! All hail!

(More extremely loud cheering)

Con King’s Image

Image Source Creative Commons

Thursday February 29. Reporter Peter Owt, Finance Editor:

GST is dominating the news today. The nation is rort by conflict between the states concerning fair share GST justice. At the last COAG meeting state treasurers came to many verbal blows. At the ensuing press conference the attractive, buxom, first female federal treasurer, Lucy Lullham, known to some as “Private Eyes,” was forced to make an extremely didactic speech.

It was very long of necessity so I shall simply repeat her constant chorus: Get it right! Her powerful message was beautifully reinforced by a visual theme she supplied, here appended.

pie chart_0_0

Image Source Creative Commons

Wednesday March 15. Reporter Verity Candour, Literary Editor:

Dear Reader

There is little doubt this will be my last story. I was  warned way back in 2003, with the Iraq invasion piece I did, not to swim so openly against the tide. Until now I have kept my obedient silence.

Today I must speak. Why? The reason is the current blatant attempt in Australia to make violent speech legal. Here is a quote.

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to do an act that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity.

Section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act contains exemptions which protect freedom of speech. These ensure that artistic works, scientific debate and fair comment on matters of public interest are exempt from section 18C, providing they are said or done reasonably and in good faith.

Those words are from the Australian Human Rights Commission. As you can see, Section 18c clearly protects freedom of speech already!

Here then is the visual part of the story. My last.

Look at him.

5757504378_51e25a1800_o-1200x850

Image Source Creative Commons

This kind of anger. Does it need to be protected as freedom of speech? Should this state of mind that you see be permitted to  “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate”? Is “harass” enough protection for us all, and especially the vulnerable? Incidentally, that word “harass” derives from the French “to set a dog on.”

Is that face not the dog itself?

So it’s goodbye from Verity and it’s goodbye from me,

r.

Incompetent Scientists Trumped

Posted on by royce1232

Bilge

Creative Commons Is Our Image Source

Vale Global Warming AKA Climate Change

NOTE WELL:The Hogwash, Bilge, Claptrap And Hooey Are Over

AT LAST OUR REALITY IS VERIFIED, VALIDATED AND ENDORSED

All Hail to Post Truth!

Now we can put the lies of 98% of the world’s scientists in their rightful place.

Look at this example of what we can now cast aside forever…

Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.1

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.

The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2 Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.

Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient or paleoclimate evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.3

The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling:

If you want to read more of this claptrap go here.

Ah but the folly of all the rot, moonshine, hooey, garbage is over now. The recent brave, dramatic act of the Australian Treasurer:  holding up before the cameras a piece of coal as a stage prop, is now bearing fruit.

Yes It’s All Over! Scientism Bites The Dust!

We now have the world’s most powerful ally.

2016-08-08-1470670721-3250713-donaldtrump
Image From Creative Commons

President Donald Trump Agrees With Us…

Wow! What an ally!

Take a windswept look at this:

President Trump’s proposed budget plan calls for a $100 million cut in funding for climate change programmes. 

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said during a press conference: “We’re not spending money on that anymore” because he said federal climate change programmes are a “waste of your [tax] money.”

Wow! Wow! Wow! Now he is spreading the word around the world. Jobs! Jobs for the miners and coal CEOs will follow.It’s great!  Great! Great! Great! Great! Great! Great!

Yes! The Age of Action at last has arrived, thank Gold;

Truth and Certainty.

Now it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye to stormy weather,

r.

On The Matter Of Unjust Laws

Posted on by royce1232

Obedience to the Law is on our Australian minds just now. Fascinating questions on a recent  ABC’s 7.30 Report concerning cutbacks to penalty rates and obeying the law as a duty.

Just thinking…

Saint Augustine: An Opinion

A law proven unjust is no longer a law.

Now here is a law passed by a democratically elected government:

The Enabling Act:  Source: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports2013/hitlerenablingact.htm Date March 1 2017  6.58 AM.

“Law for Removing the Distress of Volk and Reich.”

The protection of the frontiers of the Reich, and with them the life of our Volk and the existence of our economy, is now in the hands of our Reichswehr which, in accordance with the terms imposed upon us by the Treaty of Versailles, can be regarded as the only really disarmed force in the world. In spite of its small size prescribed therein and its totally insufficient arms, the German Volk can regard its Reichswehr with proud satisfaction. This slight instrument of our national self-defense came into existence under the most difficult conditions. In its spirit, it is the bearer of our best military traditions.

Those reading this who, like me, were alive during World War II, will understand my attitude to that particular law. Of many more examples, I choose just one more:

1640 — 1660: The Critical Period: Custom to Law when Status Changed to “Servant for Life”

  • 1639/40 – The General Assembly of Virginia specifically excludes blacks from the requirement of possessing arms
  • 1642 – Black women are deemed tithables (taxable), creating a distinction between African and English women.
  • 1662 – Blacks face the possibility of life servitude. The General Assembly of Virginia decides that any child born to an enslaved woman will also be a slave.

You can read more on my second example here.

My consent for them is not engineered.

I have nothing more to say so I will make this my shortest ever post.

Thanks for being here and happy thinking dear reader,

r.

Bring Forth What Is True

Posted on by royce1232

Bring forth what is true

Write it so it’s clear

Defend it with your last breath.

Goethe Faust

Hello and welcome here. You may have discovered by this that I am in the extreme maturity stage, 83 to be exact. I have spent my last two posts sharing memories, largely related to many years of teaching. This one will be a continuation of that process.

I love history. Always loved teaching it. Theatre history in universities, Captain Cook in primary schools, Adolph Hitler in high schools.

Adolph Hitler! Now there’s a subject that might out-rate even the crime soaps of the present.  I am remembering the Hitler of those high school teaching days. I’d love to be still teaching. About the Führer especially. He was a relatively easy subject to conjure up interest in, although not necessarily complete understanding. More thoughts have emerged since my teaching days. So this post will be about that subject, Hitler and his time. Yes. More thoughts.

Now I was not a contemporary of Thespis or Cook when I taught about them. But I was of Hitler. He and I breathed from the same vast canopy of air. Certainly I was only in kindergarten when he consolidated power in Germany. As maturity increased, I was taught to hate him and drew his funny moustache with the rest of his face on my Fifth Class desk (I am ashamed now  to tell you). But just now things are very different. I’ve grown up a bit.

Words! Words! Words!

Are words the “loaded pistols” Jean Paul Sartre knew?

Here are some words from recent research that I could use in new history lessons.

Adolf Hitler – Official Speech on the Enabling Act to the Reichstag:
Berlin, March 23, 1933

In the course of the past fourteen years, our Volk has suffered deterioration in all sectors of life, which could inconceivably have been greater.

Adolf Hitler – Official Speech on the Enabling Act to the Reichstag:
Berlin, March 23, 1933
The program for the reconstruction of the Volk and the Reich is determined by the magnitude of the distress crippling our political, moral and economic life…
Adolf Hitler – Official Speech on the Enabling Act to the Reichstag:
Berlin, March 23, 1933
The theoretical concept of equality before the law shall not be used, under the guise of equality, to tolerate those who despise the laws …

Source of the above: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports2013/hitlerenablingact.htm Date Accessed: 8.2.17

REICH CITIZENSHIP LAW  Nuremberg, September 15, 1935

The Reichstag has unanimously enacted the following law, which is promulgated herewith:

Article 1.

1. A subject of the state is a person who enjoys the protection of the German Reich and who in consequence has specific obligations toward it.

2. The status of subject of the state is acquired in accordance with the provisions of the Reich and the Reich Citizenship Law.

Article 2.

1. A Reich citizen is a subject of the state who is of German or related blood, and proves by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich.

2. Reich citizenship is acquired through the granting of a Reich citizenship certificate.

3. The Reich citizen is the sole bearer of full political rights in accordance with the law.

Article 3.

The Reich Minister of the Interior, in coordination with the Deputy of the Führer, will issue the legal and administrative orders required to implement and complete this law.

Nuremberg, September 15, 1935.

At the Reich Party Congress of Freedom
The Führer and Reich Chancellor [signed] Adolf Hitler
The Reich Minister of the Interior [signed] Frick2

Source of the above laws: http://media.bloomsbury.com/rep/files/primary-source-133-nuremberg-laws-1935.pdf Date Accessed: 8.2.17

Instructions to Invading Commanders In Chief:    Joseph Goebbels
…there was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be the man in the street.
Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology…Hatred and contempt must be directed at particular individuals.

H. Trevor-Roper (ed), The Goebbels Diaries, p. XX, cited in Regan, Geoffrey. 1987. Great Military Disasters. New York: M. Evans and Company.

Source of diary comment:  http://www.psywarrior.com/quotes.html Date accessed: 8.2.17

Law and Order In Nazi Germany – Sicherheitzpolizei, Sipo (Security Police)

Here is a list of the protectors of the German way of life of the time:

– Kriminalpolizei, Kripo (Criminal Police), handled regular crimes and worked in close association with the Schupo.

— Weibliche Kriminalpolizei (Women’s Branch of the Criminal Police), worked with women and children.

– Geheime Staatspolizei, Gestapo (Secret State Police), handled political crimes.

 – Grenzpolizei (Border Police), handled border protection.

Source for Sipo: http://www.axishistory.com/axis-nations/161-germany-polizei/polizei-unsorted/4624-overview-of-the-polizei-forces-in-the-third-reich Date accessed: 8.2.17.

BORDER PROTECTION IN NAZI GERMANY Outlawing and Blocking of the GYPSIES/JEWS
Nuremerg Laws 15 September, 1935

“Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour”

Terminology and Status

Deutschblütiger =  Belongs to the German race and nation; approved to have Reich citizenship = German-blooded = German.

We must prevent further intermingling of blood, and which regulates all the most pressing questions which go together with the existences of Gypsies in the living space of the German nation.  

 Joseph Himmler

Source for terminology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Text_of_the_laws Date Accessed 8.2.17.

NAZI CONTEMPT FOR FOREIGNERS: More Instructions For Invading German Leaders :

God knows, you are not sent out there to work for the welfare of the people in your charge, but to get the utmost out of them, so that the German people can live. That is what I expect of your exertions. This everlasting concern about foreign people must cease now, once and for all. I have here before me reports on what you are expected to deliver. It is nothing at all, when I consider your territories. It makes no difference to me in this connection if you say that your people will starve.

Hermann Goering on the 6th August, 1942.

Source of instructions: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judwarcr.asp Date Accessed: 8.2.17.

NAZI SEPARATION OF THE POWERS   Leader vs Law Courts

The Courts of Pre-Nazi Germany

The independence of judges, before the Nazi regime, was guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution. The fundamental principle was stated briefly in Article 102:

“Judges are independent and subject only to the law.”

Source of the quotation: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/nca/nca-01/nca-01-07-means-18.html Date Accessed: 10 February,2017.

The Courts of Hitler 

If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice for conviction of the offenders, then all that I can say to him is this: in this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people!

Source of Hitler’s words: https://jimsnowden.com/2013/11/06/the-nazi-judiciary/ Date Accessed: 10 February, 2017.

GERMAN MOTHERHOOD, FAITH AND RACIAL PURITY

Extract From a  Journal in Nazi Germany

Hold fast to what your mother taught you early on, in her lap,
Before your little heart had protection against the alien,the false.
Dead is that which you get from strangers,
To which your blood does not testify.
Flee! It will smother you, as it has brought many people to its knees.

Source of the poem:   Date Accessed : 8.2.17.

On The Nazi Spirit of Things

The slogan that inspired the Fatherland:

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer – “One People, One Nation, One Leader.”

_________________________________________

Well there you are. It’s time to end this brief  “lesson.” Once long ago my theatre students and I wrote these words for a children’s  play we were producing:

Don’t be surprised if you find you are not where you think

Imagination can set you free.

For just a few moments, let us speak through our imagination. Please ring the school bell below to end the lesson.

That bell in our imagination can sound the end of our lesson linked to a school of my memories.

“Well thank you everyone for your good attention. Homework is up to you for this subject. In this recess maybe you will find time to chat to each other. Out into the playground now. Perhaps our lesson will make that playground of life more understandable. Keep on thinking about things anyway; that is how we will all survive.”

More thanks for your company.  Royce