Considerable publicity is being given to an article by Byron Lamont and Tianhua He titled “Why prescribed burns don’t stop wildfires” (published in New Matilda, and also WAToday 22 January 2020).
  https://newmatilda.com/2020/01/17/hazard-reduction-burns-dont-stop-wildfires-says-one-of-the-nations-most-eminent-ecologists/

Lamont and He are academics from Curtin University in WA, the former a botanist and the latter a molecular biologist. They argue against the use of fuel reduction burning in bushfire management because it does not "stop bushfires". The article should be filed among works of fiction.

     Prince Charles has in effect, posed the question, ‘Do we continue business as usual while our livelihood deteriorates?’ It behoves all to think seriously about the question. In parable terms it means; was the Sabbath made for Man or Man made for the Sabbath? One link not addressed is that of debt and the massive impact it has on all nations.  For instance Australia is on a treadmill to develop, produce, populate through immigration and trade with other countries, in large parts to keep the economy functioning and to service the debt. It is obvious that if the debt question of finance is not rectified, an artificial drive to use natural resources to keep the economy in overdrive to service the debt will continue. This would be unnecessary if the financial system functioned as intended; that is, a ticket system to distribute goods and services and facilitate the needs and running of the economy for the benefit of the citizens of the nation. In real terms Australia is a wealthy nation.  The natural wealth, knowledge and labour to feed, clothe and house everyone are in abundance.  It is essential that finance accurately reflect this reality and be balanced with the life-giving forces which sustain us. Technology is replacing much of the physical labour and the money ticket system could facilitate in such change to benefit all. Every nation could be responsible for issuing their own money debt-free for its housekeeping which would ease the pressure to compete for artificial markets.  There would be no need for IMF intervention if the citizens of every nation were responsible for their own political, economic and cultural decisions while respecting other nations and trading where genuine needs exist. Money is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  This is the key to the question posed and is subject to the answer.
  Jennifer Grundy
  January 2020

To The Age        Australians in general respect Aboriginal culture and see it as an important part of our national heritage, providing a distinctive element unique to our history. However, this does not mean that we should transform the nature of our wonderful Constitution to specially privilege one small minority of present-day Australians - those claiming Aboriginal ancestry ("Indigenous history vital to Australia Day", 25/1). The Constitution originated as an agreement between the then colonies to form a single nation. It is not appropriate to turn it into a political manifesto. Divisive proposals that only make sense if there is a long-term goal of political separatism should be shunned.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Australian         We have a rare slip from Geoffrey Blainey ("An epic endeavour, a vexed debate", 25-26/1): Aboriginal peoples were not "the first discoverers of Australia" but only of this continent - and there may have been others even before them. There is also a furphy from Angela Shanahan ("No welcome mat laid out for early European arrivals", 25-26/1): immigrants from non-British nations have certainly contributed to our national character, but not (despite her claim) as much as "the English-speaking majority." Australia remains primarily a British cultural creation, just over a hundred years old (if we date its origin as Federation) or twice that (if we go back to 1788). We enjoy a free way of life here (though not, alas, as totally free as it should be) thanks, essentially, to British endeavour. Any attempts to downplay the British contribution should be strongly opposed, since they also involve downplaying the importance of political freedom and open debate in public forums.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

     It has got this bad; while children are groomed and raped by the thousands, and violence is inflicted upon people with knives and grenades, Renaud Camus, the French intellectual founder of the Great Replacement theory has been given a two-month suspended sentence merely for saying that mass immigration is an “invasion.” Surely, harder things than that could be said:
  https://vdare.com/posts/france-sentences-renaud-camus-to-jail-for-calling-mass-immigration-an-invasion-unless-he-pays-anti-european-groups

“File this one under "There is no Free World."
Renaud Camus, the French intellectual who coined the term The Great Replacement for the ongoing invasion of the Continent, is facing jail unless he pays money to anti-European organizations. French intellectual Renaud Camus has been given a 2 month suspended prison sentence for saying that mass immigration into Europe represents an “invasion.” Camus will only avoid jail by paying 1800 euros to two “anti-racist” organizations, SOS Racisme and the LICRA (International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism). The writer, who is the author of Le Grand Remplacement (The Great Replacement), was charged with “public incitement to hate or violence on the basis of origin, ethnicity, nationality, race or religion.” The conviction stems from a November 2017 speech in Colombey-les-deux Eglises to the National Council of European Resistance in which Camus declared, “Immigration has become an invasion.” “The irreversible colonization is demographic colonization, by the replacement of the population,” said the author, adding, “The ethnic substitution, the great replacement, is the most important event in the history of our nation since it has existed; as with other people, if the story continues, it will not be that of France.” [French intellectual sentenced to 2 months in Prison For Calling Mass Immigration an "Invasion," by Paul Joseph Watson, Summit News, January 21, 2020] Camus is not the first to be imprisoned nor the last for "crimes" of speech and writing. The regime has repeatedly persecuted iconic French actress, Brigitte Bardot for defending animal rights, which she feels the Islamic influx endangers.”

     If anyone thinks that we gave Meg Markle a hard time in critical posts this week, simply consider that her sister and dad are her harshest critics:
  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10775155/samantha-markle-meghan-harry-never-find-happiness/

“MY sister has ripped through the Royal Family like a tornado. With this historic institution close to collapse, we have to ask whether peace can really be found. Her Majesty’s words show great diplomacy but Meghan’s behaviour has so far not been diplomatic. A diplomat wouldn’t fall out with her own family. Her friends leaked negative comments about the “toxic” Royal Family. She also allowed damage to be done against our family via friends and PR advisers. She watched the media taunt and torture my dad, never springing to his defence like a true humanitarian would. Thomas was an incredible dad. He paid every penny of her education and cared greatly for her. He is now frail, with a heart condition. He doesn’t have a PR team to spin him a good story. The Queen, at 93, shouldn’t have had to face the stress of seeing her family torn apart. Meghan hasn’t stepped forward to minimise the damage. She knows how Harry leaving has affected them, but she hasn’t spoken up in their defence. Yet in her statement, the Queen says she is “particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family”. Her Majesty is building bridges there. It would be good if Meghan could do the same. She could have expressed her thanks for the kindness of the Queen and Prince Charles. She could have expressed gratitude to her own father or her first husband, Trevor, who gave her career opportunities. My sister has become a totally different person, choosing wealth and fortune over family.”

     Australian Fire-lighters come in six colours – yellow, black, white, blood red, dark green, and light green. All are relevant to bushfires and forest management. “Yellow” is the Fire-lighter that has been with us forever. It is the yellow flash of lightning which has always ignited the Australian bush. We’re dreaming to think we can lock yellow fire out of parks, forests and heritage areas. But good forest management can reduce the ferocity and destruction of lightning-strike fires. “Black” Fire-lighters came with the first Australians. Without matches or tinder boxes they probably captured the fire genie from a lightning fire. Or they carried it here on clay hearths on the floor of their canoes. They valued this magic tool for warmth, cooking, insect control, vegetation clearing, animal trapping and fighting enemies. Some also learned how to light fires using heat generated by friction, but this was a slow laborious process and it was far easier to preserve and carry fire in a burning fire-stick. To keep these sticks alight or to light a new one as they travelled, nomadic parties on the plains and deserts renewed them periodically by setting fire to a clump of dry vegetation. Then they moved on. They lit fires for many reasons, anywhere at any time. They tried to keep out of the way of fires, and were known to redirect mild grassland fires but never tried to put them out. This continual mosaic of small fires created the magnificent grasslands and open forests that Europeans admired when they first arrived. Aboriginal fire management followed no central plan, but it worked, making most lives and forests safer.

     “White” Fire-lighters were introduced by the next wave of settlers – the British, bringing matches, flints and tinder boxes. They marvelled at the grasslands and open forests they found. Soon the sheep and cattle of the squatters were flourishing on the fresh nutritious pastures of frequently burned land. They soon learned about bushfires as the “Yellow” and “Black” Fire-lighters were still operating. The squatters soon learned two new skills to protect their pastures, flocks, herds, stock-yards, wool sheds and homesteads. Firstly, reduce fire loads and encourage new grass using cool season burning. And secondly, when faced with invading fires, fight fire with fire – back burn from station tracks, freshly burned bush or creeks towards the invading fire. We need to relearn these valuable lessons. “Blood-Red” Fire-lighters are carried by the fire vandals – the arsonists. And the greater the fire danger, and the more headlines it creates, the more active are these pyro-maniacs. “Light-Green” Fire-lighters were developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s for professional foresters to protect forests with prescribed burning. These marvellous tools were banned by political fools, and are hard to procure today.

     Even a crusty old cynic like myself never thought that the Vatican even under the present Third World Pope would descend to levels like this, well, not as quickly:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-21-pope-francis-hosts-drag-queen-circus-vatican-hall.html

“It was a celebration of all things strange, sexual and satanic at the Roman Catholic religion’s Vatican Hall on January 8. Pope Francis reportedly invited a group known as “Aqua Circus,” Europe’s response to “Cirque du Soleil,” to dance around on stage and pay homage to the reptile “jesus” idol perched up in a display behind him. During this postlude to Rome’s General Audience event, Francis tossed a hula hoop to the “artists” in the performance troupe who were acting out a tale about a mermaid and a man under the sea trying to fight contamination of the ocean. In other words, the purpose of the show was to offer worship to Francis’ god of global warming and climate change. In the below video footage, watch as creepy Francis smirks with satisfaction at the pagan performance happening right in front of him. And keep in mind that Vatican Hall itself is shaped like a giant serpent, both inside and out (pictures of Vatican Hall are available at Now The End Begins)”:

     I am a lover of large fighting and survival knives, just the sort of things which men need in this world to keep their T-levels up. While I thought I knew a fair bit about the Bowie knife, this was mainly American knowledge.     Gustavus von Tempsky, born in East Prussia in 1828, one year after Jim Bowie’s famous Vidalia Sandbar fight, was an adventurer who moved to Australia during the gold rush period, but did not make much money, so he tried his hand in New Zealand. He wound up in the Forest Rangers, a type of special ops designed to fight the Maori uprising in the bush. Firearms in the 1860s were more reliable than in Jim Bowie’s day, but von Tempsky felt that men should be equipped with a Bowie knife, and the fighting techniques he had learnt while in America and Mexico. So, he introduced the Bowie knife to New Zealand. This is what a leading expert on the Bowie, Paul Kirchner, has to say about the  significance of this fine act of cultural exchange:
  http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/2011/04/bowie-knife-fighter-gustavus-von.html

“To equip his troops, Tempsky had about 30 bowie knives made to his specifications by a cutler in Auckland. They were crafted from wagon springs, one of the few sources of steel available to New Zealand blacksmiths in 1863. The blade was about nine inches long, 2½ inches wide near the handle, and ¼-inch thick. Tempsky taught his men to use the knife in close-quarters combat, holding the knife in the left hand to fend off an opponent's attacking blows while using a revolver with the right hand. Here's a brief mention of Tempsky in Britain's Roll of Glory; or the Victoria Cross: Its Heroes and Their Valor:

     Companies will get diverse, or else:
  https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/goldman-says-it-wont-take-companies-public-without-at-least-one-diverse-director-heres-what-it-should-have-said/

“Now Goldman Sachs  has made an announcement of its own that’s very much a part of the times: its CEO, David Solomon, today told CNBC that beginning this year, Goldman will no longer take companies public if they don’t have at least one “diverse” member on its board of directors. “Starting on July 1st in the U.S. and Europe, we’re not going to take a company public unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women,” Solomon said specifically on the network’s “Squawk Box.” Some will, perhaps rightly, see the announcement as little more than marketing. After all, it’s already widely viewed as unacceptable for a company to go public without at least one female board member and preferably far more “diversity” than that. WeWork, for example, tried to go public last year with an all-male board, only to realize soon after that if it wanted to pursue an initial public offering, it had better mix it up a bit. (Of course, by the time it amended its S-1 to name Harvard professor Frances Frei as its first female board member, its offering was already starting to implode.) Adding one’s first female board member ahead of an IPO is such a cliche at this point that the more interesting question is how close to the filing a related announcement will be made.

     Anyone who was following the immigration and multiculturalism debate in the 1980s and 1990s, would remember that the key argument of the Growths was that none of this would change the Australian way of life, but that diversity would enrich it, with all the metaphors of meals, dinners, salads and things that the decadent chattering class, liked. It was a lie for the time, just like populate or perish was for the World War II era. Here is Ross Gittins, still going at it, God bless him:
  https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/high-immigration-is-changing-the-aussie-way-of-life-20191126-p53e5e.html

“The nation’s economic elite – politicians of all colours, businesspeople and economists – long ago decided we need to grow our population as fast as we can. To them, their reasons for believing this are so blindingly obvious they don’t need to be discussed. Unfortunately, however, it’s doubtful most ordinary Australians agree. A survey last year by researchers at the Australian National University found that more than 69 per cent of respondents felt we didn’t need more people, well up on a similar poll in 2010. This may explain why Scott Morrison announced before this year’s election a big cut in our permanent migrant intake – while failing to mention that our booming temporary migrant intake wouldn’t be constrained. He also foreshadowed measures to encourage more migrants to settle in regional cities. What he didn’t say is what he’d be doing differently this time, given the many times such efforts had failed in the past. In between scandalising over the invading hordes of boat people, John Howard greatly increased the immigration intake after the turn of the century, and this has been continued by the later Labor and Coalition governments. “Net overseas migration” accounts for about 60 per cent of our population growth. In 2000, the Australian Bureau of Statistics projected that our population wouldn’t reach 25.4 million until 2051. We got there this year. Our population is growing much faster than other developed countries are. The growth in our economy has been so weak over the past year that they’ve had to stop saying it, but for years our politicians boasted about how much faster our economy was growing than the other economies. What they invariably failed to mention was that most of our faster growth was explained by our faster-growing population, not our increasing prosperity. Over the year to June, for instance, real gross domestic product grew by (a pathetic) 1.4 per cent, whereas GDP per person actually fell by 0.2 per cent. That’s telling us that, despite the growth in the economy, on average our material standard of living is stagnant. All that immigration isn’t making the rest of us any better off in monetary terms.”

     Can it be that all of those rockets scientists-to-be, who will be paying for Swedish boomer pensions, are abusing the welfare system? That must be some kind of racist prank, surely?
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/10/former-insurance-directors-warn-migrants-can-abuse-welfare-system-easily/

“Three former Swedish insurance fund directors have claimed that since 2015, accounting for migrants in the Swedish national social insurance system has practically collapsed, leading to a high potential for abuse. Stig Orustfjord, Gunnar Johansson, and Erik Kärnekull have claimed that the large number of migrants received by Sweden at the height of the migrant crisis has overwhelmed the bureaucracy and accounting for migrants has “almost collapsed”. “The system got its final crack in 2015 when the integrity of the public records could no longer be guaranteed. Today, the bookkeeping and control of immigrants have almost collapsed. We no longer have control over who lives and resides in the country,” the three said in a debate article in Nyheter Idag. “We have a large number of co-ordination numbers, which give the right to social security’s residence-based contributions, to persons whose identity is not confirmed. Swedish citizenship has been assigned to people whose identities we have not been able to establish and who have in many cases been assigned parallel Swedish identities,” they explained.”

     Here is a problem, at least prima facie, for the abortion argument; unborn babies before 24-weeks can feel pain:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7903507/Unborn-babies-feel-pain-24-week-abortion-limit-scientists-say.html

“Unborn babies may be able to feel pain before reaching 24 weeks, say scientists – meaning they could suffer as they are being aborted. Until now, the consensus of medical opinion has been that foetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks' gestation, after which abortion is illegal in Britain except in special cases. But two medical researchers, including a 'pro-choice' British pain expert who used to think there was no chance foetuses could feel pain that early, say recent studies strongly suggest the assumption is incorrect. The studies indicate unborn babies might be able to feel 'something like pain' as early as 13 weeks, they say. Women going for abortions who have reached this stage of pregnancy should be told the foetus could experience pain while being terminated, they argue. And medical staff should ask if the woman wants it to be given pain relief. To carry on regardless of new evidence 'flirts with moral recklessness', they write in the influential Journal of Medical Ethics. Last night, anti-abortionists said the scientists' claims should change attitudes towards abortion and the practice of it – suggestions that were swiftly rejected by the country's biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The lead author of the controversial article is British professor Stuart Derbyshire, who has acted as a consultant to the Pro-Choice Forum in the UK and Planned Parenthood, a leading American pro-choice organisation. In 2006, he wrote in the British Medical Journal that avoiding talking to women seeking abortions about foetal pain was 'sound policy based on good evidence that foetuses cannot experience pain'.”

     There was a group of young Chinese girls handing out leaflets on a city street here in Melbourne, and I naturally took one, which read: “Falun Gong Meditators Killed in China for Their Organs.” Naturally I was interested. But before I could speak, this large Chinese guy rushed over to me, telling me not to read the leaflet. Maybe he was a Kung Fu expert, which John Steele tells me, quoting Mixed Martial Artist Ramsey Dewey (himself based in Shanghai China) would make me relatively safe, given how bad Kung Fu is as a fighting system:
  https://www.youtube.com/user/balletman/videos

     Anyway, I told the lad to rack off, or words to that effect, that this is still Australia, land of the free, and if he wanted my leaflet, he would have to take it from me, prying it from my cold, dead fingers. At this point, he simply snatched the leaflet from me, as easy as his country men are harvesting, with their combine harvesters, Australia’s water, and he viciously tore it up. But, then I got another leaflet, and ran, or did what I thought was a close approximation to running, zig zagging to make it hard for him to follow me, maybe even see my aged form. At times I stopped running, gasping for breath, and went in reverse, then did a few circles. People looked on in amazement, as he had long ago stopped following me. For your reference on organ harvesting:
  www.EndTransplantAbuse.org
  https://endtransplantabuse.org/organ-transplants-crimes-against-humanity-in-china-an-australian-issue-maria-a-fiatarone-singh/
  www.dafoh.org
  www.fofg.org

To The Age         Brian Edgar is surely right (21/1) that there is only one race on our planet - the human race. However, this is divided into various ethnic groups and loyalty to one's own ethnic group appears to be natural and should not be condemned as "racist". That word should be carefully reserved for unjust behaviour based on ethnic identity. It was surely inevitable that, as a global culture developed during recent centuries, more and more mixing would occur between ethnic groups and that, while very welcome to some, this would be unwelcome to others. Caution, patience and consideration for those of different ethnicity and different views about ethnicity should be encouraged. This includes care to avoid misuse of the word "racist".
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Age        There is self-interest behind Dvir Abramovich's commentary on the Holocaust ("We have to fight anti-Semitism at every turn", 23/1). Is this not really a case of a Jew demanding special treatment for his own group at the expense of others? And is this in fact another example of that promotion of Jewish supremacism which rightly worries many decent commentators around the world? Abramovich uses excessive language several times ("hisses with diabolical resonance", "This earthbound place of limitless hell", "acts of unspeakable cruelty", "a crime against all humankind" and "this demonic factory"). This is typical of those who wish to establish the Holocaust as being beyond criticism, the centrepiece of a new quasi-religious cult. What really is a crime against humankind is the ongoing demonisation of Holocaust revisionists. To stop that an evil taboo has to be lifted. This does not mean approval of Nazi crimes against Jews or others. It does mean genuine commitment to intellectual freedom.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Albert Einstein once complained in a letter about how pushed around American men were by their women, and he did it in tones that would be howled down today; but he was right. I can’t quickly find the letter on the net, but Einstein has been in hot water for realistic portrayal of various nations in his travels at the time.
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/einsteins-travel-diaries-reveal-shocking-xenophobia

     Now the tide turns, and the claim of his wife Mileva Maric Einstein, to his intellectual contribution is being made:
  https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-forgotten-life-of-einsteins-first-wife/

     The annual Women’s March has occurred in the US, basically a Leftist, feminist, anti-Trump event, with a mast song in Spanish, America’s soon to be national language, titled, “A Rapist in Your Path”:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/17/womens-march-promotes-2020-rallies-spanish-language-song-titled-rapist-your-path/

“The anti-Trump inspired Women’s March is taking place on Saturday in Washington, DC, with “patriarchy” and “rape” as themes, according to the event’s website. “Three years of marching, training, organizing, and building power – it’s all been leading up to this. In 2020, we have the chance to strengthen the movement we started three years, and to unite together in the face of continued attacks on our bodies, our rights, our immigrant communities, and our planet,” the website states. “This year, we aren’t just marching. We’re putting our bodies on the line hand in hand with other mass movements.”

     Many municipalities in Germany are clambering, indeed, falling over themselves to get more magical refugees, whom they believe will pay boomer pensions, I suppose. The idea is that as always, migrants will solve every problem, being, well, magical.
  https://www.dw.com/en/german-municipalities-demand-action-refugees-mediterranean/a-51990144

     But, maybe not:
  https://www.dw.com/en/immigration-not-going-to-stop-germanys-demographic-problem/a-18993548

     The growth of survivalism, or doomsday prepping has been attributed to the media generating fear of existential threats:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-14/new-study-finds-media-generated-fear-driving-doomsday-prepping
  https://www.studyfinds.org/study-finds-rise-in-doomsday-prepping-due-to-mainstream-american-culture-of-fear/
  https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/obamageddon-fear-the-far-right-and-the-rise-of-doomsday-prepping-in-obamas-america/BDF4879C45C6F86F4E2F9FBEBF35D55E
  http://allnewspipeline.com/2019_The_year_Of_The_Prepper.php

““Doomsday prepping” or stockpiling food, medicine, weapons and other supplies in case of an apocalyptic scenario has long been considered peculiar behavior only exhibited by conspiracy theorists and other extremists in the United States. However, such prepping has actually been steadily on the rise in the U.S. over the past decade. So, what’s causing this surge in stockpiled rice packets and underground bunkers? One group of researchers say it is an ever growing sense of impending doom in American culture. Many have speculated that this surge in doomsday preppers over the last 10 years was linked to an extreme political reaction among many conservatives to Barack Obama’s initial election in 2008, but a new study out of the United Kingdom finds that neither the Obama presidency nor extreme right-wing conspiracy theories in general are the main cause of this growing phenomenon. Researchers interviewed preppers from 18 U.S. states and asked about their motivations for stockpiling food and supplies. The results indicated that, although most did seem to be conservative and fear liberal policies, the main reason behind their motivations was the overall sense of fear currently dominating U.S. culture across a variety of media channels. Most Americans can’t seem to log online or turn on the television without being hit by a grim view of the future being reported or speculated on.