This shows how the law can be used to produce a one world legal system, or regulation, regardless of national boundaries:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/court-justice-european-union-limits-free-speech

“On October 3, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in a judgment that Facebook can be ordered by national courts of EU member states to remove defamatory material worldwide: "EU law does not preclude a host provider such as Facebook from being ordered to remove identical and, in certain circumstances, equivalent comments previously declared to be illegal. In addition, EU law does not preclude such an injunction from producing effects worldwide, within the framework of the relevant international law which it is for Member States to take into account." The ruling came after the Austrian politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, chairman of Die Grünen (The Greens) party, sued Facebook Ireland in the Austrian courts. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union: "She [Glawischnig-Piesczek] is seeking an order that Facebook Ireland remove a comment published by a user on that social network harmful to her reputation, and allegations which were identical and/or of an equivalent content. "The Facebook user in question had shared on that user's personal page an article from the Austrian online news magazine oe24.at entitled 'Greens: Minimum income for refugees should stay'. That had the effect of generating on that page a 'thumbnail' of the original site, containing the title and a brief summary of the article, and a photograph of Ms Glawischnig-Piesczek. That user also published, in connection with that article, a comment which the Austrian courts found to be harmful to the reputation of Ms Glawischnig-Piesczek, and which insulted and defamed her. This post could be accessed by any Facebook user."

     First, go to this site and see how you go determining the real photograph from the photo-shopped one:
  https://landing.adobe.com/en/na/products/creative-cloud/69308-real-or-photoshop/index.html

     It fooled me too. Consider then the emerging significance of the ability of IT for reality manipulation:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/technology-spurs-our-ability-deceive
  http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2019/11/technology-spurs-on-our-ability-to.html

     When I was at school my biology teacher said that the human brain stopped growing in the teenage years, and after that brain cells simply died off. Live long enough and your head would be empty! I did not believe him, and we now know that this sort of thought is nonsense:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-10-23-your-brain-doesnt-stop-growing-in-your-90s.html

“Some experts believe that the brain stops producing new brain cells after childhood — but that’s not the case, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine. This study suggests that the brain continues to grow even in your 90s. Researchers from Spain reached this conclusion after looking at the brain tissues donated by 13 individuals who died at the ages of 43 to 87. All donors were neurologically healthy before their deaths. The researchers detected these brain cells by sending antibodies to find the proteins, which are oval for older neurons and longer for younger ones. The researchers found that healthy brains contained new brain cells, which were born in the dentate gyrus, a part of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is a region in the brain that plays a key role in emotion, learning, memory, and mood. However, the number dropped steadily with age. Around the ages of 40 to 70, the number of new brain cells spotted in the dentate gyrus declined from about 40,000 to 30,000 per cubic millimeter (mm3). The number also dropped with the cognitive decline that comes with old age. This indicated that in middle age, nearly 300 fewer neurons per mm3 are made in the dentate gyrus with every advancing year. These findings suggested that even though people lose brain cells in old age, they may still be able to produce new ones to replace them, opening the possibility of creating new memories using new brain cells. After they studied healthy brain tissue, the researchers examined the brains of people who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease before death. The brain tissues were from 45 patients aged 52 to 97. All had new brain cells in the dentate gyrus, including a 97-year-old patient – the oldest person found to still produce new brain cells.”

To The Age        Chris Zappone is no doubt right to warn against various acts of misinformation and disinformation that taint discussion in public forums ("When the language of democracy is hijacked", 25/11), but his assertion that often the most vocal defenders of intellectual liberty and freedom from censorship are really opponents of "sensible debate" looks well over the top. So does the claim that there is a "linguistic sham growing and invading our national conversations." Journalists need to be cautious when assessing arguments, yes, but they also need to be fully committed themselves to free speech and to defending those who in various contexts genuinely honour that principle.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

To The Australian        Ian Maloney's assertion (25/11) that "a constitutionally established voice to parliament" would not "diminish the parliament's authority" is unconvincing. There is already a peculiarly powerful push in many quarters in support of what is really a policy of Aboriginal separatism. How many MPs or which parties could be expected to resist this, once such a significant change to the constitution has been effected? How firmly would parliament resist unjust and selfish demands from the constitutionally entrenched "voice"? Scott Morrison and his government need to pause for reflection on this issue. They have already done damage by appointing known partisan activists to the ministry and to the new committee. A much more impartial and truth-based approach to "Aboriginal rights" is required. Justice demands it. The future security and political stability of this nation needs it.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

To The Australian         Telling the truth about Aboriginal matters will not lead in the direction espoused by Chris Kenny ("Truth is at the heart of an indigenous voice", 23-24/11). It is not good enough to complain about "dishonest conservative opposition" without specifying what that is and why it is dishonest. Secondly, the people whom he describes as "constitutional conservatives" are not really such at all. The conservative position, well expressed recently by Greg Sheridan ("A constitution that distinguishes us by race: this way madness lies", 14/11), is that constitutionally all citizens are to be treated equally, regardless of their ethnicity or where and when their ancestors lived. The controversial Uluru statement (its claim to come "from the heart" is questionable and it could perhaps more accurately be characterised as political propaganda) very definitely does seek to unjustly extend especial privileges to a group that has its own ethnicity or racial mix as well as having (not always wholly by any means) "traceable inheritance rights to this land". As is typical of proponents of Aboriginal constitutional recognition, Kenny does not really address the powerful arguments against it which are now on the public record.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Can exercise aid in cancer treatment? Here is one opinion, with the usual disclaimer that this is not medical advice, only information for debating purposes:
  https://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2019/11/01/exercise-prescription-for-tumor.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1ReadMore&utm_campaign=20191101Z1&et_cid=DM378590&et_rid=741085039

“Cancer is at epidemic proportions around the world. An estimated 1,762,450 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer in 2019,1 and approximately 1,663 die from it every day. Based on what we now know about the origins of cancer, it's clear that this avalanche is largely the result of inappropriate diets and unhealthy living. Lack of exercise is part of this. Evidence shows exercise not only is a key component of effective cancer prevention, but also cancer treatment and prevention of recurrence, so it's really a triple-win. I first heard of this about 30 years ago and was delighted but surprised and did not understand how this could occur, but now the physiology is well understood as I discuss further below. Not surprisingly, few oncologists ever tell their patients to engage in exercise beyond their simple daily, normal activities, and many cancer patients are reluctant to exercise, or even discuss it with their oncologist. This may soon change.

     Democrat presidential hopeful and dopeful, Elizabeth “false news Indian” Warren, plans to tax the rich out of existence. Now I know that at first blush that might sound good, but the way the system is set up, it is likely to lead to social disaster, since the rich are rich because they are totally ruthless, so they are going to fight back, and if necessary, bring down the temple. The thought had occurred to me that it is a pity that social credit was not being proposed here, but immediately I was in horror of such a thought, for these people would finish off the movement for all time if they ever embraced it. Better to keep it up our sleaves to rebuild after the collapse.
  https://www.infowars.com/some-would-be-taxed-over-100-under-elizabeth-warrens-plan/
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warrens-tax-plan-would-bring-rates-over-100-for-some-11573819200

“Potential tax rates over 100% could result from the combination of tax increases the Massachusetts senator proposes for the very top tier of investors. She wants to return the top income-tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, impose a new 14.8% tax for Social Security, add an annual tax of up to 6% on accumulated wealth and require rich investors to pay capital-gains taxes at the same rates as other income even if they don’t sell their assets.
Consider a billionaire with a $1,000 investment who earns a 6% return, or $60, received as a capital gain, dividend or interest. If all of Ms. Warren’s taxes are implemented, he could owe 58.2% of that, or $35 in federal tax. Plus, his entire investment would incur a 6% wealth tax, i.e., at least $60. The result: taxes as high as $95 on income of $60 for a combined tax rate of 158%. The rate would vary according to the investor’s circumstances, any state taxes, the profitability of his investments and as-yet-unspecified policy details, but tax rates of over 100% on investment income would be typical, especially for billionaires. Warren has promised free healthcare, childcare, housing, and education, amongst other things, and has promised to do so without raising taxes on the middle class. Her plan to pay for Medicare for All without raising taxes on the middle class can’t even be done, and that’s just one proposal. Warren’s plans to pay for all of her proposals are clearly more radical than she wants us to believe. “Under current law, investors without dividends can add their annual gains to their fortunes and pay little or no income tax,” Rubin explains. “After Ms. Warren’s one-two punch, some billionaires who generate pretax returns could pay annual taxes that would leave them with less money than they started with.”

     The Pope is on the verge of declaring a new sin, an ecological sin:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pope-proposes-new-sin-thou-shalt-not-destroy-harmony-environment
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-weighs-adding-ecological-sin-to-church-teachings-11573839966
  https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/16/while-warning-nazi-fascism-and-corporate-crimes-pope-francis-proposes-adding

“Pope Francis on Friday issued a warning against the rise of fascist forces worldwide that remind him of the Nazis of the 20th Century as he also railed against corporate crimes and announced consideration of adding "sins against ecology" to the church's official teachings. During a speech at the Vatican before the 20th World Congress of the International Association of Penal Law, a network of justice system and criminology experts from around the world, the leader of the Catholic Church said worrying developments both in the political arena and from the world of business remind him of dark episodes from humanity's past, including Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. "It is not coincidental that at times there is a resurgence of symbols typical of Nazism," Francis said as he decried the "culture of waste and hate" represented by contemporary politicians who spew derogatory and racists attacks against homosexuals, gypsies, Jewish people, and others. "I must confess to you," he continued, "that when I hear a speech (by) someone responsible for order or for a government, I think of speeches by Hitler in 1934, 1936." The Pope also highlighted environmental degradation and said the church was considering adding crimes against nature and the environment to the catechism—the official text of church doctrine and teachings. "We have to introduce, we are thinking about it, in the catechism of the Catholic Church, the sin against ecology, the sin against our common home, because it's a duty," he said. Francis has been championed by climate activists for using his position to preach about the urgent need for humanity to recognize the dangers of human-caused global warming and calling on other world leaders—and the estimated 1.2 billion Catholics in the world—to act boldly to address the crisis.

     Emails fly into the ALOR mail box, where once pigeons blissfully slept, constantly asking questions about Uncle Len. Questions like: what is the thickness of the corrugated iron in his shed, and why is a product, which is obviously steel (having a carbon content, and hence by definition, mild steel) called “iron” anyway? Then there are email letters asking about Uncle Len’s gender status. I am pleased to publicly respond that I now identify with all genders, and all creatures, making my sexually completely multidimensional, universal, cosmopolitan and global. Just as the good folk of the University and College Union (UCU) propose:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/11/17/university-and-college-union-anyone-can-self-identify-black/

“The University and College Union (UCU) has declared that anyone can “self-identify” as “black, disabled, LGBT+ or women”. “UCU has a long history (from predecessor unions) of enabling members to self-identify whether that is being black, disabled, LGBT+ or women [sic],” a six-page position statement from the union, which “represents over 120,000 academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, managers, administrators, computer staff, librarians and postgraduates in universities, colleges, prisons, adult education and training organisations across the UK.” “UCU supports the right of all women (including trans women) to safe spaces… UCU also supports a social, rather than a medical, model of gender recognition that will help challenge repressive gender stereotypes in the workplace and in society,” the statement added. The document focused primarily on gender like this, but that reference to “enabling members to self-identify whether that is being black, disabled, LGBT+ or women” was repeated three times.

     This time round I am going to get on the winning side, and not have the next five decades of my life wrecked by being a loser. China has won, it is done and dusted, there is no fight left in Australians, if there ever was, and we should get down on our knees and beg China for our pitiful lives, like I do every night before sleeping! There, I have said it, I repent, forgive me! Can I now have a big wad of money please? My 30 + pieces of silver too, just like all of those academics, business folks and pollies got, and get?
  https://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinese-australian-billionaire-chau-chak-wing-un-fbi-case-2018-5
  https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/where-is-australia-china-makes-a-bold-play-for-the-south-pacific-s-treasure-islands-20191115-p53b4g.html
  https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2017/chinas-operation-australia/hard-power.html

     Then, we have those few remaining pests, the die hards from a Bruce Willis movie, wanting the last dregs of Australia to resist the inevitableness of China, China, China:
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-17/andrew-hastie-james-paterson-refuse-to-repent-china-criticism/11712160

     Like many conservative critics of feminism, I have used material from academic feminist critic of feminism, Camille Paglia. But each time I quoted her, I always wondered, would this be a double-edged sword? Of course, how could it not eventually be?
  https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2019/09/camille-paglias-approval-child-pornography-sexual-contact-with-children.html#more

“Camille Paglia is a self-described libertarian feminist and is a professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. For a number of years now, Paglia has been promoted by conservative pundits and media outlets as a sane voice of reason in the midst of an increasingly absurd and malevolent political climate. She is touted as being a renegade feminist, and as an unlikely ally who daringly opposes the most egregious excesses of modern feminist philosophy. YouTube abounds with videos dating all the way back to the early 90s of Paglia playing the foil to mainstream feminist currents. Paglia has gone on Fox News to speak with Tucker Carlson, who recommended her most recent book, calling her "one of the more interesting people out there". Breitbart recently published an article in support of Paglia, praising her as a renowned scholar, and applauded her criticism of "social justice culture on campus". Paglia is frequently promoted by Ben Shapiro's online news publication, The Daily Wire, often to showcase her most recent takes on the subjects of transgenderism, feminism, and campus politics.

     In the name of political correctness, if the past is allowed to exist, it must come with a health warning, naturally:
  https://summit.news/2019/11/14/disney-puts-outdated-cultural-depictions-trigger-warning-on-old-movies/

“Disney’s new streaming service includes trigger warnings on old movies that caution the viewer about “outdated cultural depictions.” The launch of the new Disney+ service in the United States made available many classic films, but they could not be presented without the need to genuflect to political correctness. Movies including Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, The Aristocats, Peter Pan and The Jungle Book all feature the trigger warning in their plot descriptions due to negative racial stereotypes like the Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, the Native American characters in Peter Pan, and the crows in Dumbo. “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions,” reads the disclaimer. Movies deemed too controversial due to their stereotypical depictions of non-white people, such as the 1946 film Song of the South, are not included as part of the Disney+ service. There is a constantly increasing number of movies and songs that are being forgotten or done over in order to conform to the ever changing social mores of progressivism. John Legend and Kelly Clarkson recently released a re-recorded version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside, completely changing some of the supposedly “misogynistic” lyrics. The song was a total flop, receiving almost twice the number of thumbs down than thumbs up on YouTube. Get woke, go broke.”

     Here are some of the latest items on the Trump impeachment saga. People on our side are basically sitting it out until Trump strikes back, or just gives up and offers his neck for execution. There does not seem to be any reason for the impeachment other than, we are the Democrats and we will not permit anything we deem undesirable to exist. It is as simple as that. How then can America survive as a unit in any form? It cannot, and should not. It is time to start divorce proceedings.
  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/13/the-latest-false-news-on-the-trump-impeachment/
  https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2019/11/12/impeachment-frenzy-nets-aim-destroy-trump-96-negative-news

“As the media are all out to get Trump, there is no way to get any valid information about the so-called impeachment. But you don’t have to pay too much attention to notice that the Democrats and the presstitutes are constantly changing the focus. The alleged whistleblower, who only had hearsay information, if that, has dropped out of the picture, being too compromised by his affliations and prior meetings with Adam Schiff during which the “whistleblowing” was planned as an attack on Trump. The Democrats and presstitutes then shifted focus to state department types who also heard second hand from “staff” about the alleged conversation containing a quid pro quo, a claim unsupported by the transcript of the telephone call or by the President of Ukraine. So now a new alleged phone call has emerged, or been invented. The acting ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor, a sleazy State Department type, today (Nov. 13) testified that a member of his staff heard Trump in another telephone call asking Sondland about the Ukraine investigation of the Bidens. This second-hand information is described by the presstitute media as a “bombshell.” God help us. It is nothing of the sort. But the presstitutes will repeat it until it is.

     I love nuclear power, even the waste is exciting, at worst creating super-heroes, but it need not be like that. Now it looks like nuclear waste can be zapped by lasers, making it safe enough to kick around as one would a football:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/nobel-prize-winner-suggests-blasting-nuclear-waste-lasers

“But now, for the first time, there may be a solution to the previously unsolvable nuclear waste issue.
Nobel laureate Gérard Mourou has proposed a novel solution that smacks of science fiction and revolves around blasting nuclear waste with lasers. Morou and his research partner Donna Strickland won their Nobel Prize in 2018 for their work with Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA), a revolutionary invention that creates extremely rapid and ultra-powerful laser pulses with lots of different potential applications. “The original research focused on applications like laser machining and eye surgery,” reports ExtremeTech, “but scientists could also use it to observe atomic processes that happen at almost unfathomable speeds. If we could speed it up a bit more, Mourou says CPA could have a use in processing nuclear waste, too.” According to Mourou’s hypothesis, CPA could turn even the most nuclear waste we have sitting in secure storage facilities around the world, where it will otherwise remain radioactive for millions of years, into a substance so safe you could hold it in the palm of your hand. Of course, the CPA process will require a bit of tweaking to get to this point of capability. “Currently, CPA can produce laser pulses as brief as one attosecond — that’s a billionth of a billionth of a second. To transmute nuclear waste into something safe, Mourou says you’d need to increase the pulse rate by roughly 10,000 times,” says ExtremeTech.

     Socialism, if humans were rational and not subjected to unending manipulation, should have died in the 20th century, but it is making a comeback, especially with young people at universities… this is one of the reasons why we need to close down the universities and put in place new training institutions, without the Humanities and Social Sciences:
  https://mises.org/wire/4-reasons-why-socialism-becoming-more-popular

“The supporters of socialism are not simply the young, but rather, disproportionately those among the young who are college-educated. And the more college they have, the hotter for socialism they get. According to a 2015 poll , support for socialism grows from 48% among those with a high school diploma or less to 62% among college graduates to 78% among those with post-graduate degrees. Those on the left probably stop thinking hard about now and jump immediately to the conclusion that support for socialism is just a natural outgrowth of big brains and elite educations. But there is, in fact, a less obvious but ultimately far more compelling explanation that also manages to account for the general fact that more education correlates with more leftism: something — something bad — is happening at universities themselves to pull students toward the (far) left. We have already seen above that what’s not happening at universities, even elite universities, today is a whole lot of education in important subjects like history. What we are getting instead is a lot of groupthink and indoctrination. Universities have always skewed a bit left. But beginning in the early to mid 1990s (for reasons I’ve explained in some detail elsewhere ), ideological diversity began to vanish entirely, as the leftward deviation turned tidal. As documented in a 2005 paper from Stanley Rothman et al., as of 1984, 39% of university faculty were left/liberal, and 34% were right/conservative. By 1999, those numbers had undergone a seismic shift: faculty was now 72% left/liberal and 15% right/conservative. Since 1999, the imbalance has become starker still. A comprehensive National Association of Scholars report from April 2018 from Prof. Mitchell Langbert of Brooklyn College, tracking the political registrations of 8,688 tenure-track, Ph.D.-holding professors from 51 of U.S. News & World Report’s 66 top-ranked liberal arts colleges for 2017, found that “78.2 percent of the academic departments in [his] sample have either zero Republicans, or so few as to make no difference.” Predictably, given the composition of the professoriate, survey data also indicates that students’ political views drift further leftward between freshman and senior year. In light of this data, it should not be a surprise to us that students who have gone to college in this age of ideological extremism have come out radicalized and … socialized.

     The politically correct Marvel movies (e.g. Captain Marvel) get a well-deserved kick in their super-guts, with the incel Joker, now becoming the most profitable comic book movie of all time:
  https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2484350/holy-cash-cow-batman-joker-is-now-the-most-profitable-comic-book-movie-of-all-time

“For a while, it seemed like Avengers: Endgame and the MCU were poised to completely dominate the cinematic landscape this year -- at least as far as comic franchises were concerned. That changed this October, when Joaquin Phoenix’s Clown Prince of Crime danced down those now-iconic stairs, and demanded a place in box office history. Now, Joker isn’t just one of the most successful films of the year — it’s the most profitable comic book film of all time. It was previously reported that Joker was on track to match Avengers: Infinity War’s overall profit. And Forbes confirmed that as of Friday, November 8, Joker will have grossed more than a $304.2 million in North America, and a staggering $957 million worldwide. Against a $62.5 million budget, that gives the Batman villain’s origin story an edge over films like The Mask, Venom, Aquaman, and even the Joker’s nemesis Batman. And the film hasn’t even finished its theatrical run. Joker has been racking up records since its debut, posting the biggest opening weekend for a film in October, and quickly surpassing Deadpool to become the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. They’re staggering accomplishments for any film, but especially one with subject matter that doesn’t necessarily have family-friendly appeal. Before it hit theaters, Joker stirred controversy and debate due to its dark tone and unflinching violence. It’s divided critics and audiences, who either view it as an unnecessarily dark contribution to the DC canon, or an important film that elevates the entire comic book genre.”

To The Australian        Reactions to remarks by British eco-warrior Roger Hallam about the Holocaust seem excessive and unjustifiable ("Holocaust not unique: eco-warrior disowned", 22/11). His point that there have been a number of large-scale killings of peoples in history and that the Holocaust is another but not, in that context, unique, is surely correct. The scale and irrationality of subsequent attacks on him are extraordinary. My goodness, a rebuke from the German government and the withdrawal of the German version of his book, and all because of a sensible if controversial comment! German Greens co-leader Robert Habeck's claim that there must be no "downplaying of the Holocaust" is contemptible in a nation that routinely jails Holocaust revisionists and thus affronts disgracefully the vital principle of intellectual freedom. It's time this sacred cow was laid to rest.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     So, Janet Albrechtsen thinks we should become a republic because a relatively minor Royal (8th in line to the throne) is in the spotlight (Australian 21/11/19). Of course, were she an American, I doubt that she would be calling for a return to the monarchy because of the various matters being revealed in the impeachment process against the president! She forgets that we have our own constitutional arrangements which are subject only to the Australian people and to no one else.  We have nothing whatsoever to do now with the British parliament and because we, not anybody else, have opted to remain under the Crown, the Governor-General, as representative of the Queen, is our executive head of state. We therefore have the best of both worlds.  We have a system that blocks politicians from absolute power, and we have the independence to decide for ourselves on whether we wish to retain our current system or move to another.  It is the people’s choice, not the Queen’s, not the politician’s and certainly not that of Janet Albrechtsen or her friends in the media. Only the people.

Philip Benwell
National Chair
Australian Monarchist League

     Listen carefully to a typical bush-fire warning: “A big fire in the XYZ National Park is now threatening adjacent homes and farms”. For decades now politicians have been recklessly locking up more land in National Parks, Reserves and Heritage Areas. There are now over 500 national parks covering over 11% of Australia.

     In addition to this huge area of nationalised parks, the Howard government, in cahoots with compliant States, created untouchable Kyoto forests on private land in order to meet silly carbon dioxide obligations imposed by the Kyoto Protocol. This conversion of private grazing land to protected “Kyoto Forest” was accelerated by state government tree-huggers who used aerial surveillance to identify “remnant vegetation” and “regrowth areas” on private land which were then subjected to preservation orders (without ground checking or discussions). Graziers were also prohibited from harvesting timber on their own land. Then some greedy landowners created private plantations of eucalypts to earn credits from carbon fairies in Canberra. This vast area of “protected” land soon became a tinder box of unburnt weeds and flammable scrub.