How Zika Virus Would Effect Tasmanian Politicians

US National Debt Hits $19 Trillion

'Nothing to see here move on'

 This is US government debt. Personal US debt is currently at $17 trillion. Total US debt is $64 trillion or $793,000 per family. The problem is the debt is accelerating. Inevitably what goes up must come down. But how? It will either be cataclysmic or it will be gentle. How much faith do you have in human nature?
Pete Kasperowicz
 The national debt hit $19 trillion for the first time ever on Friday, and came in at $19.012 trillion.
It took a little more than 13 months for the debt to climb by $1 trillion. The national debt hit $18 trillion on Dec. 15, 2014.

That’s a slightly stepped-up pace compared to the last few $1 trillion mileposts. It took about 14 months for the debt to climb from $17 trillion to $18 trillion, and about the same amount of time to go from $16 trillion to $17 trillion.
The federal government has been free to borrow as much as needed for the last several years. Years ago, Congress passed legislation to increase the debt ceiling to a certain level of debt, and borrowing had to stop once that limit was hit.

But increasingly, Congress has instead allowed more borrowing by suspending the debt ceiling for long periods of time. That allows the government to borrow any amount it needs until the suspension period ends.

Back in November, the debt ceiling was suspended again, after having been frozen at $18.1 billion for several months. As soon as it was suspended, months of pent-up borrowing demand by the government led to a $339 billion jump in the national debt in a single day.

Under current law, the debt ceiling is suspended until March, 2017, meaning the government can borrow without limit until then. Obama is expected to leave office with a total national debt of nearly $20 trillion by the time he leaves office.

Lambie Calls On Australian Of The Year Morrison To Resign Over Military Abuse

from smh
Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has made a dramatic call for former Army chief David Morrison to step down as Australian of the Year, claiming he has helped cover up abuse in the military.
In a speech to Parliament on Tuesday night, Senator Lambie raised two long-running cases involving former soldiers who claim to have suffered abuse and said retired General Morrison had been involved in covering up both.
Australian Federal Police officers visited Senator Lambie's office on Wednesday in response to her speech.

One case was SAS Trooper Evan Donaldson, who says he was sexually and physically assaulted, and then had his records manipulated to falsely show he had never actually qualified for the SAS.

The second was former officer Marcus Saltmarsh, whose rifle discharged accidentally in East Timor, killing his friend and fellow soldier Corporal Stuart Jones.
Retired Lieutenant Saltmarsh was cleared by a court-martial but claims he was sent 28 photos of Corporal Jones' autopsy in an effort to intimidate him.
Senator Lambie said General Morrison "should resign from his Australian of the Year position" over these cases and "his appalling advocacy for ordinary diggers and veterans".
A spokesman for the AFP said: "The AFP can confirm it has received a letter from Senator Jacqui Lambie regarding a number of matters.
"As a result, two AFP members attended Senator Lambie's Parliament House office today.
"The AFP will continue to liaise with Senator Lambie's office regarding the issues raised."

COMMENT

This story broke on the same day as an ex-Australian Governor General Peter Hollingworth made another apology for his failure to report pedophiles operating in the Anglican Church. Hollingworth called his own actions 'misguided and wrong'. Hollingworth who resigned as Governor General over his mishandling of sexual abuse in the church was appointed by NeoCon Freemason John Howard.

Tasmania Where Idiots Elect Idiots

70 or 80 bushfires, water restrictions, water contaminations, drought, extinctions, mismanagement and rampant corruption. This is the hellhole Tasmanians have created for themselves in 2016.

Tasmania And The 'Godzilla El Nino'

Three months ago the drought situation impacting Tasmania had been called the 'Godzilla El Nino'. What's it like on the ground in Tasmania? Hot and dry with some disturbing long term effects observed on our native bush. It hasn't been totally rain-free, but falls have been light, often only 4 or 5mms. Hay is already scarce just weeks after harvest.

Current water level in the high altitude Great Lake Tasmania

At the start of 2016 the situation had become serious because water in Tasmania's highland dam system, used to generate electricity, for irrigation and residential supplies had dropped significantly. The storage dams are now at 21% and losing 1% per week.
To make matters worse, on December 22, 2015 the undersea Basslink cable failed. The government had been importing 40% of the islands electricity from Victoria through the cable. Now the shrinking dams have to generate the entire load. They have an LNG-fuelled power station but it takes a month to start it. No wonder the dams are losing 1% per week?
Is anyone to blame? Climate change is bigger than Tasmania but we had been generating 100% renewable electricity before the politicians (Hydro Tasmania) started draining the dams to sell 'clean' power to the mainland. Then they used electricity generated by residential solar panels to prop-up the logging company Forestry Tasmania. The government-owned Forestry Tasmania is causing climate change by removing native forests that evolved over millions of years. They have been doing this at a criminal rate. Sanctioned by the quasi-academic and corrupt Institute of Foresters Australia the forest removal is a continuation of the genocide of the Tasmanian Aboriginals and the rape of a diverse ecosystem. The forestry crooks are releasing the carbon stored in trees that are up to 600 years old. They wood chip them and selling them into the voracious Asian pulp an paper market.
The problem is the Liberal governments in Canberra and Hobart want their cake and to eat it too. They want to keep cashing-in on the colonial invasion of Australia without giving anything back. Now the climate is slapping the bastards down.
Both major parties in Australia are as greedy and stupid as each other. We desperately need leaders who can relate to the Australian bush rather than the drawing rooms of Washington, London and Beijing. Right now, the bush in Tasmania is slowly dying. Wet sclerophyll forests are turning into dry sclerophyll forests and dry forests are shrinking in size. Politicians don't notice trends like this because they are only focussed on money and nothing else. Our economy, our climate and our ecology have merged into one big problem but the corrupt vested interests have not accepted that reality.
Will they get slapped harder by the Earth's climate? Probably. It could get worse before sanity prevails and responsible ecologists are put in charge of the ecosphere.

Turnbull's 'Dumb Ideas Boom' For Australia

At the end of 2015 Malcolm Turnbull unveiled a $1.1 billion 'ideas boom' package to promote business-based research and innovation. What could be wrong with that you ask? What's wrong with it is, Turnbull expects business to innovate while his government sits on it's fat bum in a broken economy, with a broken tax system, a broken constitution, and the idiotic notion that somebody else is going to innovate them out of the hole they are in.

3 months ago we depicted Turnbull with car wrecks because that's what the debt-ridden economy he wanted to lead looks like.
Previously, we had pointed out Australia's 3 most pressing structural problems.
Turnbull needs to know that repairing the Australian economy will take more than farmers using drones. It will take more than the 'patchwork' NBN or looking at 3D graphics of something that can only be built in China.
Australia now has 70% of its work force engaged in 'service' industries. That's 70% of the workforce polishing each other knobs while layers of parasitic governments live off the left overs. Where in the world has that economic model succeeded?
We say Turnbull is all spit and polish and no brains. Just because he's rich means nothing. It just means he didn't mind trashing a lot of people on the way to managing his basket case economy. He didn't mind stealing timber from the Solomon Islands, or letting Gunns corporate crooks dump dioxin into a fishery. He doesn't mind bleating about climate change while he sells coal to any bastard that will buy it.
2016 is going to be a good year for Inside Tasmania because we have nothing to loose and plenty of pictures of Aussie wrecking yards. Pictures of a past 'golden age' in Australia when Monsanto hadn't turned our children into bisexual androids. When we didn't have phuktards building Sharia Law temples amongst the gum trees and we had a future we could believe in.
Inside Tasmania's simple message to Malcolm Turnbull. Clean-up your own backyard before you use innovators to prop-up your lazy, corrupt government. How many good ideas did you Liberals have invading Iraq? It looks like your economy is running out of illusions to sell to it's brain-dead consumers. How about selling real intelligence for a change and not trying to be everything to everybody?

Monsanto Sued For Crimes Against Humanity

Monsanto sockpuppet claims Roundup safe to drink - freaks out when offered a glass.  Watch the video here.

from Hang the Bankers.                                                          

If you’ve been waiting to finally see Monsanto – one of the most hated companies in the world – to pay for its ecocide, knowing harm of human life, and devastation of our pollinators, then you won’t have to wait much longer.

Several activist groups joined by food and farming experts are suing Monsanto for their crimes against humanity.

Finally, Monsanto, the US-based, transnational company responsible for introducing multiple genetically modified crops and numerous toxic chemicals into our environment – including saccharin, aspartame, polystyrene, DDT, dioxin, Agent Orange, petroleum based fertilizers, recombinant bovine growth hormones (rGBH), Round Up (glyphosate), Lasso (an herbicide used in Europe), Bt toxic plants, and more – will have to answer to the world for its reign of terror. Monsanto has acted with severe negligence, and the hubris and supremacy of a corporation given personhood, but no longer.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, along with dozens of global food, farming, and environmental justice groups announced at the United Nations conference held recently in Paris that an international court of lawyers and judges will assess Monsanto’s criminal liability for their atrocious acts.

The court, in The Hague, Netherlands, will use the UN’s ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ developed in 2011 to assess damages for Monsanto’s acts against human life and the environment.

The court will also rely on the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense.

This International Criminal Court, established in 2002 in The Hague, has determined that prosecuting ecocide as a criminal offense is the only way to guarantee the rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.

Speaking at the press conference, Ronnie Cummins, international director of the OCA (US) and Via Organica (Mexico), and member of the RI Steering Committee, said:

“The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment. . . Corporate agribusiness, industrial forestry, the garbage and sewage industry and agricultural biotechnology have literally killed the climate-stabilizing, carbon-sink capacity of the Earth’s living soil.”

The proceedings will take place on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.
 12 deadly products made by Monsanto

How Australia Lies About Renewable Energy

In Australia we often hear some bloated politician telling us we need fossil fuels to maintain 'base load' electricity. It's a lie and here's why:
From the Guardian.
In less than 10 years, Uruguay (population 3.4 million ) has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the national director of energy, Ramón Méndez .
In fact, he says that now that renewables provide 94.5% of the country’s electricity, prices are lower than in the past relative to inflation. There are also fewer power cuts because a diverse energy mix means greater resilience to droughts.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Small nations, renewable giants
Uruguay gets 94.5% of its electricity from renewables. In addition to old hydropower plants, a hefty investment in wind, biomass and solar in recent years has raised the share of these sources in the total energy mix to 55%, compared with a global average of 12%, and about 20% in Europe.
Costa Rica went a record 94 consecutive days earlier this year without using fossil fuel for electricity, thanks to a mix of about 78% hydropower, 12% geothermal and 10% wind. The government has set a target of 100% renewable energy by 2021. But transport remains dirty.
Iceland has the advantage of being a nation of volcanoes, which has allowed it to tap geothermal sources of 85% of its heating and – with the assistance of hydropower – 100% of its electricity. This has made it the world’s largest green energy producer per capita.
Paraguay has one huge hydropower dam at Itaipu, which supplies 90% of the country’s electricity.
Lesotho gets 100% of its electricity from a cascade of dams that have enough spare capacity to export power to South Africa.
Bhutan’s abundant hydropower resources generate a surplus of electricity that accounts for more than 40% of the country’s export earnings. But over-reliance on one source can be a problem. In the dry season, it has to import power from India.

The Catholic Church Should Not Have Tax-Exempt Religious Status

Previously IT has called for the Moslem 'religion' to lose it's tax-exempt status due it's use of extreme violence to propagate it's idiotic message.
Now we are calling for the Catholic Church in Australia to be no longer regarded as a 'religion' due to their systematic sexual abuse of children.

Yesterday we read that just the Catholic 'archdiocese' of Melbourne has paid $16.8 million in compensation to 454 victims over 35 years. So how many Australians in total were sexually abused by the Catholic Church over the same period? And why is the Australian taxpayer essentially funding the sexual abuse of children using the church's tax-deductible, tax-free religious status? We note that while the brain-dead Liberal government wages endless Jihads against Centrelink welfare recipients, they happily allow catholics to rape children at taxpayers expense.
When you put together the contradictory policies of the Turnbull government, you realise they have no hope of defeating religious extremism while they are bankrupting the nation by funding it.

Obese Americans Must Eat Obese Salmon - FDA

FDA Signs Off On Genetically Modified Salmon Without Labeling

by Chris Morran

 

While genetically modified agricultural products have been used in the U.S. for quite some time, the Food and Drug Administration had yet to approve the food use of any genetically engineered (GE) animals — until today. This morning, the agency announced the approval of an application for a salmon engineered to grow to market size faster than other farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

The FDA has declared AquAdvantage Salmon “safe to eat,” noting that testing of the fish “demonstrated that the inserted genes remained stable over several generations of fish, that food from the GE salmon is safe to eat by humans and animals, that the genetic engineering is safe for the fish, and the salmon meets the sponsor’s claim about faster growth.”

According to the FDA, the GE salmon shows “no biologically relevant differences” in its nutritional profile compared to other non-GE farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

Upsize Me FDA

The agency also considered the possibility that these GE salmon could end up mixing with other salmon and determined that the AquAdvanatage salmon farms in Panama and Canada “make it extremely unlikely that the fish could escape and establish themselves in the wild.”

There are multiple physical barriers to prevent AquAdvantage fish or their eggs from slipping out through these farms’ plumbing systems. If a fish were to escape or be otherwise introduced into other salmon population, the FDA says it would not matter because the AquAdvantage Salmon are reproductively sterile.

Today’s approval will not allow AquAdantage salmon to be raised in the U.S. Only the facilities explicitly included in the approval can provide these GE fish for sale in America.

Though the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) gives the FDA the authority to require mandatory labeling of foods if there is a material difference between a GE product and its conventional counterpart, the agency says it is not requiring labeling of these GE fish “Because the data and information evaluated show that AquAdvantage Salmon is not materially different from other Atlantic salmon.”

Instead, the FDA says that it will be up to the sellers of these fish to voluntarily decide whether they choose to label their product as GE.

Genetically engineered animals fall under the FDA’s regulatory umbrella because the recombinant DNA (rDNA) introduced into the animals meets the legal definition of a drug.

In this case, the GE salmon use an rDNA construct composed of the growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon under the control of a promoter from another type of fish called an “ocean pout.” According to the FDA, this tweak to the DNA allows the salmon to grow to market size faster than non-GE farm-raised salmon.

Yum, GE salmon is so good for the waistline

Today’s news did not go over well with our colleagues at Consumers Union, especially because of the FDA’s decision to forgo labeling of the GE fish.

“We are deeply disappointed with the FDA’s decision to approve the AquaAdvantage salmon. And it’s even more concerning that the FDA chose not to require any form of labeling, making it extremely difficult for consumers to know if the salmon is GE or not,” says Michael Hansen PhD, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union. “Consumers deserve to know what type of food they’re buying – and an overwhelming majority has told us that they want genetically modified food labeled in poll after poll. The decision to not require a GE label for this product takes away the consumer’s ability to make a truly informed choice.”

Was The CIA Protecting Rogue Nugan Hand Banker For 35 Years?

By Raymond Bonner, Special to ProPublica
How Michael Jon Hand, who founded an Australian bank with ties to American military and intelligence officials that defrauded depositors and investors, was tracked to Idaho.
It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times.

Amid a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand Bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the CIA, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller.

Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, Merchants of Menace, discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery.

If finding Hand, now 73, solves one mystery, it raises another. How could he have lived in the United States so long without being detected? He changed his name only slightly, from Hand to Fuller, and did not get a new Social Security number, according to Butt.

Hand’s company, G.M.I. Manufacturing, is registered with the Idaho secretary of state. The company “now manufactures tactical weapons for US Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters,’’ Butt writes. Has Hand/Fuller been brazen, foolish, or, as Butt asks, does he belong “to a protected species, most likely of the intelligence kind?”

Two years after fleeing Australia, in 1982, when the CIA was involved in a covert operation to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Hand was working as a military adviser in the region where the anti-Sandinista “contras” were based, according to an Australian intelligence document, which was declassified earlier this year.