Author: Jin

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Chief Seattle’s Speech

Delbard Matisse Rose

Thanks to 40c for reminding us of Chief Seattle’s wonderful speech which we reprint here to help spread the word.

THE EARTH IS PRECIOUS

In 1854, the “Great White Chief” in Washington made an offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a ‘reservation’ for the Indian people. Chief Seattle’s reply, published here in full, has been described as the most beautiful and profound statement on the environment ever made.

Chief Seattle Speaks (1971 Revision)

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Continue reading “Chief Seattle’s Speech”

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Slog Plog or Plog Shag?

The avante garde blogospherical catchword describing a political blog apparently is plog.

Would that make Beyond the Fringe, as a satirical, political blog, a slog plog, plog slog, stog plog, plog stog, shag plog or plog shag?

Plog Shag, whilst rolling off the tongue, reminds one of those ubiquitous, self-congratulatory, neocon, pundit plogger circle jerks – plogshaggers, the lot of them.

So what about Sharplog? Beyond the Fringe – the Essential Sharplog.

Something for the semiotically obsessed gits prancing round the pocket pissing Asstralian blogocracy to grogblog and plogshag about.

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National Summit on Climate Change

Kevvy has a new site up for airing the outcomes, transcripts and vids from the ALP’s National Summit on Climate Change. Sadly, there’s no facility for interaction, no forums, no blogs. Despite their apparent fascination for broadband tech, as media whiz Trevor Cook points out, Kevvy’s team is behind the net-times!

Nevertheless there’s some interesting-looking downloads on carbon trading at which we’ll have a closer look soon. As yet we can’t spot anything on U, though there’s clean coal info.

We wonder how many Laborites will be inspired enough to put their money for the first time into the enticing range of cleaner energy tech stocks on the market.

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Uncle Frank on Censorship

Here’s a classic vid of Frank Zappa saying it like it needs to be said. And there’s an excellent interview with Frank Zappa by Gerald Seligman here, where Frank argues cogently against the proponents of censorship.

Statistically, I think, that since the beginning of musical time there have been more hymns than there are heavy metal songs. And if the number of words written about Jesus or doing good had any effect, then we’d all be really terrific people, wouldn’t we? Or when they start talking about factors pertaining to suicide, the largest single instance of suicide in the last decade is Jonestown, and there was no Ozzie Ozborne or AC/DC albums down there: there was only religious fanaticism.

Some more of our favourite Uncle Frank pearlers:

“My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.”

The crux of the biscuit is: If it entertains you, fine. Enjoy it. If it doesn’t, then blow it out your ass. I do it to amuse myself. If I like it, I release it. If somebody else likes it, that’s a bonus.

There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it’s going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it.

Frank may have been inspired by Francis Bacon, who in the 15th century opined

Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man’s knowledge.

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Going, going …. sold!

John Howard - Crazy Warehouse Guy

Latest figures on foreign investment in Asstralia are worrisome.

In 2003/04, foreign investment totalled $1,059,345m – and 30.8% of Whorestralia’s total enterprise equity was owned by foreigners, with the United Stupids heading the list at 32% of total foreign ownership, followed closely by the United Kooks at 30%. By the end of the December 2006 quarter, foreign investment increased to $1,433,466m.

That’s an gigantic 35.3% increase in foreign investment in just 3 years. Why did the rodent add more sugar by removing CGT for foreign equities investors last December?

Nett Asstralian foreign debt has risen from $390,565m in 03/04 to a disturbing $521,161m at the end of Dec 06. The vast majority of foreign debt is implicated in the private sector, with a disgraceful increase from $385,490m in 03/04 to $518,841m in Dec 06.

Asstralia’s total liabilities at the end of 2006 were a staggering $900,258m.

So what use has the concurrent resource boom during the past 3 years been to Whorestralia? It is clear that much of the profits therefrom have been expropriated overseas, leaving the Whorestralian economy beholden.

Team Rodent has patently been very busy selling us out.