"Digger"

The term "digger" in Australia is a word for an Australian soldier.  It is a respectful term, originating from an awareness of the hardships of the troops in trench warfare etc.  Our forces have often had to "dig in".

It is one of Australia's nicer customs that the term is frequently used to address frail and elderly men.  If you want or need to say something to a man who looks as if his life is pretty much over, you address him as "Digger" -- as in, "Do you need any help with that, digger?"

Use of the term implies an assumption that although the man may not be good for much now, he served his country honourably in his youth so still deserves respect for that.  It is a respectful form of address. 

Australia has been involved in lots of wars -- mostly as allies  of the Americans or the Brits -- so an assumption that an old man was involved in one of them will often not be astray. Nonetheless many of the men addressed as "digger" will not in fact have served in the armed forces --  but the term is used to convey that the man was once much more than he now is.  It is respect for the elderly generally.

I myself normally used the term in addressing elderly men but now  I find that I too am on occasions addressed that way if I get into some sort of a pickle.  At age 76, I am in fact pretty frail these days so I appreciate that respect and the eagerness to help that goes with it.

And I am even one of those who have some claim on the term.  I did reach the rank of sergeant during my time in the Australian army.






Climate change signals part of socialist plot

In his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay describes how crowd psychology drove numerous “national delusions”, “peculiar follies” and “psychological delusions” in the 16th and 17th centuries. US financier Bernard Baruch recounted similar madness preceding the Wall Street crash of 1929.

Without wanting to appear disrespectful to Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and her councillors, something about their declaration of a “climate emergency” suggests a similar psychological irrationality.

Their gullibility matches that of audiences at the UN climate conference in Poland and the Davos World Economic Forum who sat spellbound as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg lectured them on climate catastrophism.

Moore and her colleagues mindlessly chant slogans about how “climate change poses a serious risk to Sydneysiders” because “successive federal governments have shamefully presided over a climate disaster … Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased for four consecutive years. (The) federal government’s policies are simply not working.”

It’s true. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising marginally. But per capita they are falling. Even if you believe CO2 influences global temperatures, at 1.3 per cent of global emissions and a 1 per cent growth rate, they are hardly a danger to the planet. Besides, Australia is on track to meet its Paris commitment. A recent study found the world overall has only a 5 per cent chance of reaching its goals.

Australian National Univer­sity research confirms our per capita renewables deployment rate is four to five times faster than in the EU, the US, Japan and China. Contrast this with a world that, for the first time since 2001, saw no year-on-year growth in renewable power capacity.

With Australia already leading the world, how much more is the government expected to do? How many more billions must taxpayers and industry pay?

Virtue signalling is one thing, but it is deceptive for the City of Sydney Council to claim that by next year it will use 100 per cent renewable energy. It surely must know that in NSW 80 per cent of electricity is coal-generated.

Still, Sydney, along with another 651 trendy green councils in 15 countries, is now eligible to attend a group hug where the collective can again remind governments to “adopt an emergency response to climate change and the broader ecological crisis”, as a campaign launched in left-wing stronghold New York City has just declared. It’s the first US city with more than a million residents to do so.

Democratic-controlled Los Angeles City Council flirted with the idea but simply passed a ­motion to set up a Climate Emergency Mobilisation Department.

Conspicuously, no Chinese city has had the urge, despite China’s “greenhouse” gas emissions growing at the fastest pace in seven years and outpacing the US and EU combined. No Indian city has either, despite faster emissions growth than any other major energy-consuming nation.

Meanwhile, Britain, France, Canada and Ireland have capitulated. Britain has introduced legislation to become CO2 neutral by 2050. It will mean a change to almost every aspect of life and carries an estimated cost of more than £1 trillion ($1.8 trillion). Ireland, having missed both domestic and EU emissions targets, is simply virtue signalling.

As financial and social costs accumulate, it is not surprising to find signs of mania fatigue.

Growing numbers of credible whistleblowers and respected climate scientists are calling into question the integrity of the science. Their claims that global warming theory is unproven and that data is “untrustworthy” and “falsified” are slowly entering mainstream consciousness.

Repeated catastrophic deadlines have proved false. Climate-change threats to food produc­tion proved unfounded. Between 2005 and 2016, there was a global decline of 15 per cent in undernourished people, despite the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declaring 2016 the hottest year on record.

And, inevitably, faith and reality are colliding. University of Colorado scientist Roger Pielke Jr calculates getting to net zero global CO2 emissions by 2050 “requires replacing one million tonnes of fossil fuel consumption every day, starting now”.

These impracticalities and increasing voter hostility mean governments representing more than half the world’s population can’t agree on a long-term net zero emissions target. Nor on a UN scientific report on the ­impact of a 1.5C rise in global temperatures. Perhaps most revealing of all is the growing realisation that climate change is not about science but politics.

Potsdam Institute director Ottmar Edenhofer confirms this: “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy,” he warns. “This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy any more. We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”

Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres agrees: “The whole climate change process is a complete transformation of the economic structure of the world.”

This is orthodox Marxist, socialist ideology and the West is being bullied into parting with trillions of dollars for the privilege of surrendering to an authoritarian central government. When enough people grasp this, the climate change delusion bubble will burst. Perhaps this explains why desperate organisers of protests such as the Extinction Rebellion are now resorting to violence.

Meanwhile, like Wile E. Coyote, Moore and her global catastrophists are suspended over the cliff, leaving behind a trail of destruction. Sooner or later they will look down, leaving us to pick up the pieces.

SOURCE  






'Tell them to make their own Breakfast

Famous children's author John Marsden slams Aussie helicopter parents for doing 'irreparable damage' to their kids by telling them they're perfect


One of Australia's most prolific authors has spoken out against what he perceives as the 'disempowerment' and' impotence' of today's youth through damaging parenting.

John Marsden, most known for his Tomorrow When the War Began series, has written a non-fiction book entitled The Art of Growing Up where he shares some of the insight he from 30 years of writing for young adults.

Mr Marsden said the country is in the midst of an 'epidemic of damaging parenting' which will likely have long term ramifications.

He wrote the number of parents who don't just love their children but are 'in love with them' had reached 'critical levels'.

As a result Mr Marsden believes parents could be passing on their own narcissism.

'They minimise their child's transgressions, have no regard for those hurt by their child's narcissism … and blame others for their child's aberrant behaviour. They are doing irreparable damage to their kids,' Mr Marsden wrote. 

Mr Marsden, who has six stepsons of his own, told The Australian elaborated on his viewpoint and said he was keenly aware many parents would balk at his suggestion.

'I do think there's a need to be more direct in the way we talk to parents ­because parenthood has become this great untouchable area, this sacred topic, which you dare not criticise except in the most insincere ways,' he said. 

The major theme of Mr Marsden's argument was giving children more freedom and refraining from putting too much undue pressure on them from a young age.

He encourages parents to allow their children to explore their physical and intellectual world with more freedom and to allow them to make mistakes.

Mr Marsden wrote in his book saying no to children at least once a day could go a long way towards this goal.

His advice to parents early in the book is to be brutally honest and aware of the parenting techniques they use which are unhelpful to adolescents.  

To rethink their 'prejudices' and realise their children do not have to be perfect because no one alive is perfect.

A key piece of advice given to parents in the book is to simply set out the goal of helping their children live their lives to the fullest, including the joys and sorrows. 

PARENTING TIPS FROM THE ART OF GROWING

1) 'The first principle of good parenting is to be aware of the unhealthy ways we construct childhood and adolescence. Parents may need to rethink their prejudices. Their children may not be as perfect as they pretend to be, and their teenagers might be better than is generally acknowledged.'

2) 'We must give our children fear. It is a rich and immensely valuable experience to know fear. The only myths many modern parents want to offer children are Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. We are scared to give them the Bogeyman as well, not realising how nourishing the Bogeyman can be.’

3) 'We can reasonably assume that a parent who does not say ‘no’ at least once a day to their child is failing as a parent.'

4) 'Parents should strongly — even forcefully! — encourage teenagers to get paid jobs. They are, after all, members of a family, not business class passengers on a plane.'

5) 'People who feel angry or upset when they get a glimpse of children’s hatred or greed or sexuality or rage or dishonesty are overlooking the fact that the child is acting in the same way as every other human being in the history of the world.'

6) 'The only important academic skill needed by children is literacy. We must ensure that children have access to books with realistic characters, credible situations, authentic language and we must not shrink from showing life in all its many forms.'

7) 'It is worth teaching your children how to be interesting conversationalists. Face it, some kids, like some adults, are boring. Some are excruciatingly boring.’

8) 'Parenting means teaching children to get their own Weet-Bix.'

9) 'Every parent should wish for their child nothing more than ‘I want him or her to experience life to the fullest’. Every child should be able to exult in the 10,000 joys that life brings, and feel with full force the sadness of the 10,000 sorrows.'


SOURCE  






Half of Australian schoolkids can't name where bananas, bread and cheese come from - as Scott Morrison blames militant vegans for making students believe farming is wrong

And Australia is a major primary producing nation

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is baffled as to why almost half of Australian primary schoolkids can't name where bananas, bread and cheese come from - and think cotton comes from animals.

The father of two young daughters expressed his concern about Australia's potential future leaders to farmers at Dubbo, in the New South Wales central west.

Quoting an Australian Council for Educational Research study, he was perplexed as to why '75 per cent of grade six students believed cotton socks came from an animal and 45 per cent believed bananas, bread and cheese didn't come from farming'.

Mr Morrison suggested militant vegan activists were possibly to blame for 40 per cent of year 10 students believing farming was bad for the environment.

'Any wonder that we've now got activists storming farms,' he told the Daily Telegraph Bush Summit on Thursday.

'We have to bridge this divide and connect Australians once again with what's happening in our rural and regional communities and ensure there is an appropriate balance in what our kids are being taught in our schools and in our communities.'

Following a spate of farm invasions by animal rights activists, the Prime Minister has promised to tackle agricultural trespassing during the next sitting of Parliament.

'That legislation we'll deal with in the next fortnight,' Mr Morrison told Sydney radio 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones on Friday.

Mr Morrison also declared this week that 'our farmers are Australia's best environmentalists'.

Taxpayers from next year will be stumping up $10 million to fund city kid visits to farms.

'So that kids can understand what happens on farms, how things grow, and how that changes and supports their livelihoods and their daily lives,' Mr Morrison said.

SOURCE  

 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here