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Category: Current Affairs (Page 10 of 76)

Dead Fish, The Murray, and Blaming Cubbie Station

January 15, 2019 / / 0 Comments

The problem with Greens like Jeremy Buckingham and Sarah Sea Patrol is that, being dwellers in an alternative Starbucks-half-shot-low-fat-pumpkin-latte-with-a-dash-of-organic-breast-milk-from-an-Ethiopian-shepherd-girl universe, they are completely unfamiliar with the nature they wish so desperately to save.

When they do encounter nature, they are terrified, for example, Jeremy Buckingham’s horrified discovery that natural gas (swamp gas) is both natural and flammable, and his certainty that this meant we were on the edge of the apocalypse. I can only assume he thought natural gas was made by specially trained Oompah-Loompahs, and served a merely symbolic purpose, gas ovens and hot water supplies actually being powered by organically grown pixie dust delivered in chemical-free hemp handbags.

Or if they are not terrified, they are disgusted. For example, poor Jeremy’s throwing up at the sight of a dead fish.

Jeremy Buckingham vomits at the sight of a dead fish

Jeremy Buckingham vomits at the sight of a dead fish

One of the Groan’s most cherished fantasies is that prior to invasion day, the Murray-Darling was a constantly flowing, ever-clear stream. Anything short of this, therefore, is considered proof of human greed and disregard for nature and also the dangers of capitalism. Also, white people are bad. Especially men.

In reality, before European settlement, the Murray Darling was, for most of its length, a series of interlinked waterholes which, every couple of years after heavy rains, changed into a massive, roaring river, gradually settling to a gentler flow, and then returning to its default; dry riverbeds and muddy ponds and lakes.

Fish died, frogs died, things dried up. Until the next flood. A bit like that poem:

I love a butthurt country, a land of weeping swains,
of plump transgender penguins roaming proud across the plains.

Or whatever.

Jeremy Buckingham says the lack of flow downstream is all the fault of Cubbie Station. They’ve got plenty of water, which they are meanly holding back so everyone downstream has none. Because they are mean, and have paid off the government. Or something.

A summary of Cubbie Stations’ recent water use and water diversions can be found on their website. Cubbie diverts less than one quarter of one percent of the Murray’s flow. That is a lot, but it is nothing like the gigalitres allocated for irrigation downstream. And Cubbie’s allowance is almost entirely taken during the once in ten years or so storms that send massive amounts of flood water down the system. Cubbie’s storage acts as a flood mitigation system, reducing flood damage downstream, and catching water that would otherwise be lost to evaporation.

The water currently in Cubbie’s storage is water that would have been lost if Cubbie were not there. Despite the claims made by Jeremy Buckingham and others, Cubbie Station’s water allocation does not reduce flow lower in the system, nor reduce supplies available to irrigators downstream.

But if Cubbie is not the problem, what is?

The Murray-Darling is no longer a series of muddy water holes linked only in times of flood. By installing locks and pumps, we have essentially turned the lower half of the river into a massive canal and irrigation system.

We have also created a huge artificial fresh water lake system at the bottom of the Murray. Because of evaporation, the lower lakes require approximately 2500 gigalitres of fresh water flow from the Murray every year to maintain levels. This is in addition to local rainfall and inflows.

The simple fact is this: there is enough water to maintain irrigation and steady levels in the Murray, or enough to maintain the lower lakes, but not both.

The simple solution is this: build a weir at Wellington, remove the barrages, and let the Coorong and lower lakes return to their natural state.

This will return 2500 gigalitres per year of water to the Murray, and restore the natural habitat of the lower lakes and Coroong.

All that is need to solve the problem is politicians for whom the future of the country is more important than popularity.

Catholic History, Sex, and Cardinal Pell Part II

January 10, 2019 / / 2 Comments

This is part two of a two part response to media articles (not in Australia, where the media are banned from reporting or commenting on this issue), Facebook and Twitter posts responding positively to the conviction of Cardinal George Pell on charges of child sex abuse. Part one discussed general issues about the history and credibility of the Catholic Church. This second part addresses the child sex abuse scandal, and the trials of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

Strangely, for one usually so sceptical and questioning, the alleged high rate of child abuse in the Catholic church was something I simply absorbed from the ether, or perhaps from the ABC, which, since I disagree with it about almost everything, is my primary news source. Looking back, I am still not sure why, while enthusiastically poking holes in most other ABC reporting, I was content to accept their claims about the church being the locus of most child abuse. I wasn’t a Catholic at the time. Perhaps it was simply comforting to be able to think of something so nasty as being nothing to do with anyone I knew, or any organisations I was involved in. Except it wasn’t true.

It is hard to know where to start with this, so I will make just a few key points, which you can follow up or check if you wish. During the Royal Commission into institutional child abuse, the ABC breathlessly reported that 60% of child abuse in a religious institution took place within the Catholic Church. Shocking! How disgusting! What a hive of degenerates! Except that by not telling the whole story, the ABC was saying something completely untrue. What was left out was that during the time under investigation, 80% of children who attended a religious school or were resident in a religious institution, were students in or resident in a Catholic institution. The twenty percent of students/residents in institutions run by other religious groups accounted for 40% of the total abuse reported. In other words, a student in a non-Catholic religious school was more than twice as likely to have been molested than a student in a Catholic school.

In fact, Catholic clergy have lower rates of abuse than clergy of other religions or denominations (some groups, for example the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have far higher reported rates of abuse than any mainstream denomination). In turn, clergy of other denominations have lower rates of abuse than occur in secular community and sports groups and public schools (the boy scouts in the US has just filed for bankruptcy because it cannot keep up with payouts for abuse claims). And abuse in any church, school or community group is far outstripped by abuse in the home. Bettina Arndt noted “It’s total hypocrisy. We jump up and down in the Royal Commission about abuse of people in institutions. We don’t give a stuff about the major risk for children which is, you know, children in single parent families being abused by boyfriends passing in and out of those families … There are a whole lot of areas [of sexual child abuse] we don’t discuss because they are not politically correct. Obviously, we’re trying to get the Catholic Church and attack churches.” Ninety percent of all child sexual abuse occurs within the child’s own home.

The Royal Commission noted that there had been 2504 incidents of alleged child sexual abuse in the Uniting Church between its inauguration in 1977 and 2017. This compares with 4445 claims of abuse in the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2015. Some parts of the media pounced on this figure as again proving the disproportionate amount of abuse that occurred within the Catholic Church. But two other factors need to be considered. The Commission did not consider any abuse claims made against the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches during the 27 year period from 1950 to 1977. Most abuse claims in the Catholic Church occurred in the 1970s. This may also have been the case in other denominations. But whether so or not, this is 27 years in which abuse in the Catholic Church was considered and counted, but not in other denominations. In addition, media reports generally failed to note that the Catholic Church has five times as many members as the Uniting Church. On the Commission’s figures, a child attending the Uniting Church was more than twice as likely to have been molested than a child attending the Catholic Church.

Another important fact that become clear in the cases reported to the Royal Commission is that almost all reported abuse in the Catholic Church occurred in the sixties, seventies and early eighties. Was it disgusting? Absolutely. Was it wrong? Absolutely. Should perpetrators be brought to justice? Absolutely. Is it still happening? No. Or hardly.

So what changed, that the rate of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, already lower than other denominations and community groups, was reduced dramatically even further? Part of the answer is that strong leaders like Phillip Wilson and George Pell were appointed to positions where they able to make a difference. It is no co-incidence that those two, who were most vigorous in setting up systems to support victims and to ensure that perpetrators were stopped, are also the men who have been targeted by the media and the courts.

At the time Archbishop Wilson was charged, I spoke to a senior priest, now a bishop. The charges seemed incomprehensible to me. On the evidence available it was not clear how any responsible prosecutorial team could reasonably expect a conviction. He agreed. “They don’t care,” he said. “They just want to get a senior Catholic.” Hard to believe, but if so, then the trials of Wilson and Pell are not so much trials of those two men, but a trial of Australia’s system of justice.

I wrote an article shortly after Archbishop Wilson’s conviction (that he had known of and failed to report abuse by priest James Fletcher) which was published in Quadrant Online. In it I argued that the malleability of memory is so well understood that a conviction could not possibly safely be based on two alleged conversations never noted or reported to anyone else until formal complaints were made over forty years later. I suggested that the presiding magistrate’s finding that the case against Archbishop Wilson was proven could only be understood in the light of the kind of media bias noted above, and predicted the verdict would be overturned on appeal.

It was. District Court Judge Roy Ellis offered similar reasons to set aside the conviction as I had suggested in my article. Some of the evidence considered at the original trial as contributing to a finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt was even more ludicrous than I had first believed. One of the two conversations which contributed to the “proof” of later Archbishop Wilson’s alleged guilty knowledge of the sexual abuse perpetrated by James Fletcher took place in the confessional. The complainant acknowledged he could not see the priest was to whom he was speaking clearly, but thought he saw red lips, and said the priest had a deep voice, and on this basis came to the conclusion it was Fr Wilson, then a 25 year old parish priest. But Archbishop Wilson does not have red lips or a particularly deep voice. The original finding that Archbishop Wilson had known and deliberately covered up knowledge of the activities of James Fletcher, based on this and one other alleged conversation more than forty years earlier, was clearly and grievously wrong. Justice is not done, nor are victims helped, when innocent people are vilified and persecuted.

One of George Pell’s first actions on becoming Archbishop of Melbourne was to set up clear processes for dealing with complaints of sexual abuse. This was not in response to media alarm about child abuse. The Boston scandal, for example, was five years in the future. Nor was it an attempt to protect the reputation of the Church. Pell was one of the first in any organisation in the world to put protocols in place which protected victims, supported them through whatever processes they wanted to follow, including police action where appropriate, required any accused person to stand down during independent investigation, and which instituted a one strike you’re out policy.

It is hard to think of anyone in Australia who has done more to prevent child sexual abuse, to bring those responsible to justice, and to support victims and simplify processes for them.

However, it did not take long for The Guardian and the ABC to identify Archbishop, later Cardinal Pell, as an enemy, a prime target. He is on friendly terms with John Howard and Tony Abbott. He has publicly dismissed climate alarmism as a scam which, if policies based on it and urged by the UN and various celebrities were instituted, would cause serious harm to the world’s poorest people. He publicly described abortion as the worst possible child abuse. He declined to be sorry when some Catholic teachings, on the nature of marriage, for example, or the sinfulness of homosexual activity, were claimed to be offensive. He believes that Western culture is worth preserving, and that immigrants to Australia should enter the country legally, and apart from a carefully measured number of refugees, should be people who are willing and able to make a contribution. And perhaps worst of all, he noted that it is impossible to take proper action to correct a problem until the problem is correctly identified and therefore any proposed remedies to sex abuse in ecclesiastical settings needed to take account of the fact that while girls and young women are overwhelmingly the most common victims of sexual abuse, almost all of the child sex abuse that had taken place in the Church involved homosexual men and adolescent boys. Others who have pointed out this connection have been met with similar fury, most recently, German Cardinal Walter Brandmueller .

If you did not know Cardinal Pell, and you wanted to invent a perfect nemesis for Australia’s left-wing media, you could not do better than to come up with a an intelligent, energetic, tough-minded, rugby-playing, politically and religiously conservative straight white male.

The ABC’s almost psychotic obsession with finding something dreadful to report about Cardinal Pell was noted at least as long ago as 2015, when veteran Australian journalist Gerard Henderson suggested the mainstream media had the wrong target, and was focussing on Pell simply because he is a social conservative.

Then there are comments from left-wing media consumers. “He must have done something, they’re all at it.” (No, they’re not). “Even if he is not a pedophile himself, he protected them, moved them around.” (There is no evidence whatever this is the case.) “He had to know something.” (ABC journalist Paul Bongiorno, who shared a house with notorious pedophile Risdale says he didn’t, and never said anything. As soon as Pell was in a position to do something to stop child sex abuse happening and to support victims, he did). “Someone needs to be held accountable.” (Yes, the perpetrators and anyone who assisted or covered up for them. As I noted above, there is no correction to injustice in committing the further injustice of vilifying and convicting people who are innocent.)

But what of the specific charges against Cardinal Pell? They were that, while Archbishop of Melbourne, he found two choir boys drinking altar wine after Mass at the Cathedral, and demanded they give him oral sex. Shocking? Yes. Terrible? Yes. And ludicrous, as Andrew Bolt noted at the time this claim was first made public .

Firstly, despite the gruesome headlines, there was one complainant, not two. The second boy alleged to have been a victim denied he had ever been abused. The accuser only claimed the second boy had been involved fifteen years after the alleged event, and after that boy, then a young man, died of a drug overdose in 2014. So a single, uncorroborated complaint.

The accuser was not able to specify an exact time when the claimed abuse took place. Instead, he claimed it occurred on a Sunday some time between August and December 1996. St Patrick’s Cathedral was being renovated during much of this time, and Archbishop Pell celebrated Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral only twice during the accuser’s four month window. On both of those occasions, Pell remained at the door of the Cathedral after Mass, greeting and talking with parishioners and visitors before leaving for other engagements. On both of those occasions he was accompanied by another priest who gave evidence that he was with Pell, rarely at more than arm’s length distance, for the entire time he was at the Cathedral.

Other witnesses pointed out that on both of the occasions on which Archbishop Pell celebrated Mass between August and December 1996, choir practice was held immediately after Mass, and that the absence of two choirboys would have been noted immediately. Other witnesses gave evidence that the accuser’s description of finding and drinking altar wine in a back room was unlikely in the extreme, given that altar wine was kept in a vault and only brought out in required quantities before Mass.

The presiding judge instructed both defence and prosecution teams that they were not to question, or to bring into evidence anything that might call into question, the credibility of the accuser. This is a frankly astonishing instruction – the case against Pell rests entirely on the credibility of his single accuser. More than one of the choir members at the time has said that even if it had only been the accuser’s word against Cardinal Pell’s, given the personality and history of the accuser, there could be no confidence any such events ever took place.

But it was not merely the accuser’s word against Cardinal Pell’s. Journalists and members of the public present at the trial said it was “a slam dunk for the defence.” The defence evidence, some of which is summarised above, showed not only cause for reasonable doubt, not even that Cardinal Pell did not commit the alleged offences, but that it was not possible for him to have done so.

The verdict is not an indictment of Pell and the Catholic Church. It is an indictment of the media, whose vindictive witch hunt led to a public furore and frenzied demands that someone, anyone, be punished. It is also an indictment of police departments and court administrators who allowed themselves to be driven by that frenzy, and perhaps, of the running of the trial and instructions given by the trial judge to the jury. There is a long-standing principle of Western jurisprudence that if there is a reasonable explanation of the evidence which is consistent with the defendant’s innocence, a verdict of not guilty must be returned. At very least, that should have been reiterated to the jury, and evidence of the accuser’s personal and criminal history made available as bearing on the credibility of his accusations.

The verdict will be overturned on appeal, as was the equally egregious verdict against Archbishop Wilson. So no harm done.

But harm has been done. Firstly to Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell, both faithful servants of the Church and the wider community. Secondly to the Church, which despite having lower rates of abuse than other bodies, has been, with a few appalling exceptions, open, forthright and pro-active in acknowledging abuse where it occurred, and putting processes in place to support victims. Many other institutions face a far larger public reckoning; there is filth lurking in places yet undreamed of. Thirdly to Wilson and Pell’s friends and families, who, like many other friends or family of alleged child abusers, have been subject to irrational hatred and slander, as well as unnecessary pain and doubt and confusion. Fourthly to genuine victims of child abuse, who, seeing these trials and their politically-driven outcomes, will wonder how they can rely on those whose duty it is to listen to them and protect them. And finally, following these debacles, harm has been done to Australia’s courts and police, whose credibility and independence is rightly called into question.

Catholic History, Sex, and Cardinal Pell Part I

January 10, 2019 / / 0 Comments

There have been several media articles (not in Australia, where the media is banned from reporting the issue), posts on Facebook, and comments on Twitter over the last two weeks rejoicing in the conviction of Cardinal Pell on charges of child sex abuse.

That trial and its outcome are nothing to rejoice in.

I intended to respond to those posts and articles by addressing the trial and the evidence presented. But when I began, it became clear that I could not do so without first considering the context of some of the other reasons the Catholic Church is commonly held in contempt by Australia’s left-wing media and others.

Consequently my planned response is in two parts. This first part addresses some of the common misconceptions about the Catholic Church and its history. This is not a comprehensive discussion, but a brief summary. For anyone seeking more information, I recommend Diane Moczar’s Seven Lies About Catholic History, which is both well-research and documented, and easy to read.

The second part focusses specifically on the child sex abuse scandal, and the trials of Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

I became a Catholic a few years ago because I was convinced that the faith taught by Jesus to the Apostles, and by the Apostles to those who came after them, was the same faith taught in the Catholic Church today.

Paul describes the Church (1 Tim 3:15) as the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Jesus (Mat 16:18) said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. But the entire edifice of Protestantism is built on the belief that between the 1st and 16th centuries the Church had fallen away from the truth, the gates of hell had prevailed against it, and there had been a great corruption of the faith, an apostasy so deep that remedying it required the formation of an entirely new church.

There is no evidence this large scale apostasy ever took place. Reading the early church fathers makes it clear that what the early church held and did and believed was the same Catholic faith as now.

For example, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c 110 AD) bear witness to the structure of ministry (bishops, priests and deacons), the day of worship (Sunday), and the crucial role of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood.

Justin the Martyr (c 140 AD) writes of the incarnation, the trinity, Sunday worship as opposed to the Jews who worship on Saturday, grace and the call to love as the reason “God cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, setting it aside and nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:14) He writes of the Eucharist as the defining form of Christian worship, and the importance of careful and humble adherence both to revealed truth and to reason.

There is clear continuity from the Apostles into the early Church. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (in what is now Turkey), had been taught by the beloved Apostle, John. Amongst those taught by Polycarp was Irenaeus, who was born in Smyrna and later became a priest, then Bishop of Lyon in Gaul, now France. Amongst other things, Irenaeus (c 150 AD) bore witness to the importance of the church in Rome, stating that all churches everywhere must be in fellowship and agreement with that pre-eminent church. He talked about the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her co-operation with the will of God. He talked about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and he identifies the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the only gospels to be given credence in their description of Jesus’ life and work.

Or read the history of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), where the generous and formidable Bishop Nicholas of Myra (better known to us as Santa Claus) slapped the heretical priest Arius across the face. Not because what Arius taught about the person of Jesus could not be taught from Scripture – both Arianism and Orthodox Christianity can be supported from Scripture – but because everyone knew, including Arius himself, as St Nicholas suspected, that Arianism was simply not what the Apostles had taught, was not the tradition in which St Paul had commanded the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:15) to stand firm and to which they were to hold fast.

These are just a few examples of hundreds of possibilities. “Sola Scriptura,” the idea that the Christian faith in its entirety can be formulated exactly from the Bible alone, is a late medieval invention, a nonsense. No text can be read without context, or outside of an interpretive community. Sola Scriptura leads to a never-ending splitting of the Church, and a never-ending parade of prophets and preachers who have at last discovered the real meaning of the Bible, or who have received some new revelation.

There were other issues I needed to consider. I already knew that the claimed opposition of the Church to science was nonsense. Science and the scientific method could only take hold in a world view that the material world is objectively real, not simply an illusion, that the material world is good – something worth investigating, not an evil to be escaped from, that the material world is ordered according to rules which can be investigated and understood, and not by the whim of inhabiting spirits or an god who rules by fiat, and that faith has nothing to fear from the truth. This is the standard Western understanding, so it seems difficult to many Westerners to imagine that people could think otherwise. But in reality this combination of beliefs is uniquely Judeo-Christian. This is why science, the systematic and objective study of reality for its own sake, has taken root and flourished in the West as nowhere else, which has in turn given the West enormous advances and advantages in science and technology. The Church has always been the patron and protector of science.

The usual response to this claim by detractors is: “But what about Galileo?” The fact that most people can think of only one possible counter-example in 2,000 years of Church history is itself telling. In reality, Galileo was never tortured, never imprisoned, and was always free to teach the Copernican theory as a theory, as was done in other Catholic universities throughout Europe. (Catholic universities is a tautology, by the way – every university was Catholic.)

The Church insisted that students be taught every reasonable alternative, with the evidence for and against, and allowed to make up their own minds. The problem the Church had with Galileo was that Galileo refused to teach anything except his own pet theories. In many of these, he was completely wrong. For example, as Einstein noted in 1953, his theories about tidal action were nonsense. Galileo believed the rings of Saturn were not rings but a large moon on either side. He was savage in his attacks on Jesuit astronomer Orazio Grazzi, who correctly described comets as small heavenly bodies, while Galileo insisted they were reflections shining on vapours rising from the earth, and refused to teach or consider any other possibility. As philosopher of science and Berkeley professor Paul Feyerabend noted, it was the Church, not Galileo, which was on the side of reason and science.

But what about the Crusades? Don’t they prove a violent and imperialistic tendency in the Church? Well, hardly. The Crusades were a limited response to nearly 400 years of Islamic aggression. The magnificent Christian civilisations of the Middle East and North Africa were crushed, millions tortured, raped, murdered, leaving a legacy of violence and poverty that remains to this day. Spain was invaded. The great centres of Rome and Constantinople were besieged. Nor was it only Christians who were affected. Zoroastrianism was virtually wiped out in Persia, and the invasion and destruction of the peaceful and creative Buddhist society of what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan was well advanced. The Crusades were not even an attempt to regain lost territory, but to stop the advance of terror any further into Europe, and to enable safe passage of pilgrims to the holy land.

But the inquisition – that was horrible and violent, and there can be no excuse for that, right? Well, again, no. Kings and queens from the earliest days of humanity until quite recently almost all held that uniformity of religion was vital to a unified and loyal state. Anyone who did not believe as the King did should be executed as a traitor, or at least exiled. At no time was this more clear than in Spain following the Reconquista in 1492. The Church stepped in and said, in effect “Wait. If anyone is going to decide who believes the right thing, that should be us.” During the entire period of the Spanish Inquisition, from 1480 to 1700, of 44, 674 cases heard, 826 people were handed back to civil authorities for execution – less than 2% of the total. What would have happened without the Inquisition? Without that brake on royal power, as many as 72,000 Lutherans, Catholics and other religious undesirables were executed by Henry VIII in the last 20 years of his reign. The Inquisition saved thousands of lives.

But what about child abuse? Surely a church whose leadership is so prone to child sexual abuse must be deeply corrupt? Part two of this article addresses that issue, and the cases against Archbishop Wilson and Cardinal Pell.

On Jetties and Aquaculture

November 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

A couple of news articles of possible interest over the last week or so.

From Portland in Victoria, Yumbah has entered the public consultation phase of its application to construct a new abalone farm in close proximity to the port facilities at Portland in Victoria. The new abalone farm will be approximately the same distance from ships berthing at Portland as ships berthing at Smith Bay will be from Yumbah’s existing farm there. See satellite image below.

Yumbah's Proposed New Aquaculture Facility Adjacent to the Jetties at Portland

Yumbah’s Proposed New Aquaculture Facility Adjacent to Jetties at Portland, Victoria

The jetty at Smith Bay will initially service about twelve ships per year over a three month period, shipping approximately 600,000 tonnes of natural timber each year. Portland facilities include six berths which operate 24 hours per day throughout the year, exporting over six million tonnes of mixed products, plus imports and cruise ships.

As part of the application process, Yumbah is required to estimate effluent flows into the bay. These are expected to be some 5200 litres per second or up to 500 Megalitres per day. For comparison, the entire treated sewage waste output from the city of Adelaide and surrounding areas is approximately 200 Megalitres per day.

Included in the projected waste outflow into Portland Bay is some 660 tonnes of suspended solids per year, including 406 tonnes of abalone faeces. Research conducted so far into the impact of this volume of waste on local marine eco-systems has been completely inadequate. In particular, almost no research has been conducted into the impact on marine mammals of the bacterial load of more than 400 tonnes of faeces dumped into the bay each year, or in the case of Smith Bay, a much smaller and more sheltered bay, about 200 tonnes of faeces per year.

Waste and Faeces Outflow from Yumbah's new Portland Facility

Waste and Faeces Outflow from Yumbah’s new Portland Facility

 

Waste and Faeces Outflow from Yumbah's new Portland Facility

Waste and Faeces Outflow from Yumbah’s new Portland Facility

Despite busy port activity, the waters around Portland are clear and inviting. Dolphins are permanent residents, and Portland is known as Australia’s whale watching capital. Both Southern Right whales and Blue whales make regular visits along their migration path. Portland’s famous whale viewing platform is about 600m from the Port breakwater, and about half-way between the Port and Yumbah’s proposed new site.

Yumbah's new Facility at Portland will Dump 400 Tonnes of Faeces into the Bay Every Year

Yumbah’s new Facility at Portland will Dump 400 Tonnes of Faeces into the Bay Every Year

I am not sure what the marine wildlife will make of 500 million litres of effluent pumped into the bay every day, along with over 400 tonnes per year of faeces. The abalone farm on KI is about half the size, with about half the waste output.

In other news, last week’s Islander reported that the proposed jetty, which was to have been about two thirds the length of the Kingscote jetty, will now be about the same length. It is not clear why this is news, considering this information has been publicly available for the last six months. There is nothing nefarious about this change. It has been proposed to reduce the amount of dredging necessary, and consequently reduce the impact of the development on the sea floor, and to move the berthing area further from intakes to the abalone farm.

Then there was this, from SA Wilderness Society Director Peter Owen:

“Smith Bay is a completely inappropriate location for another port, both from an environmental and public safety perspective. The coastal vegetation in the area and the pristine marine environment must be protected. Log truck traffic on the long haul down to Smith Bay… creates a tourist hazard and raises serious public safety concerns. Surely there are more appropriate locations than Smith Bay… ”

But wait a minute.. This is being reported by the same people who were telling us only two weeks earlier that the even longer haul down to Ballast Head, using major tourist and school bus routes was great, peachy, much better.

And “surely there are more appropriate locations than Smith Bay.”  Easy to say, but name one. It must be within reasonable distance from plantations to optimise safety and reduce road maintenance. It must have good road access. It must have power on the property or available nearby. It must not be in a marine park. It must drop off into deeper water, 14 meters with minimal dredging, within 100 metres or so of shore. It must have level or near level land adjacent to the jetty so that product can be stored securely and in a way that prevents any runoff. And it must be available for purchase and development.

The objections to Smith Bay have been:

Firstly, that jetties and shipping are incompatible with aquaculture. Half an hour’s research and few phone calls make it clear that this is not the case; ports and aquaculture exist side by side in Australia and around the world. Yumbah’s proposed new development at Portland demonstrates they are not in fact concerned about this at all.

And secondly, that Smith Bay is a pristine marine environment that must be preserved. In reality, from any common-sense perspective, the fact that there is already industrial development at Smith Bay, of a far more visually unattractive and environmentally hazardous type than a jetty loading twelve ships per year with a natural, sustainable native product, makes it a more, not less suitable location. Why add a jetty to a genuinely untouched (that is what pristine means) part of the North coast, when there is a site that meets all practical and logistical requirements, and already has industrial development?

It has been suggested that if I had my way I would see the abalone farm and other local businesses closed. It is certainly true that I regard the abalone farm as an abomination. I was horrified the first time I saw it, and am still dismayed every time I think of the visual damage caused by that hideous construction to what was a truly lovely little bay. It is visual vandalism of the worst kind. The potential damage caused to the local marine ecosystem from the astonishing quantities of waste pumped into the bay is even worse, and make it a perfect example of profit-driven environmental vandalism. If the foreshore could be reclaimed as reserve, or a picnic and play area, as an outdoor exercise course, or even as a camping ground or any other of hundreds of visually attractive and environmentally responsible possibilities, I would be delighted. However, the abalone farm is there, and its needs and concerns need to be taken into account. On the other hand, to suggest a jetty is unattractive or off-putting to visitors is simply silly. Our jetties are some of our most loved and visited landmarks. They would be rare visitors who did not depart from KI with photos of at least one of our jetties in phones or cameras.

I could not feel more differently about other local businesses, which have received great reviews, which are a perfect match for KI, and of which their owners are justifiably proud. I am a little at a loss, though, to know why a few extra trucks each day, turning off out of sight of, and eight hundred metres from, another business’s gate, should have any significant negative impact. However, people are entitled to ask questions, and if concerns exist, to ask for clarification, and that KIPT work with them to ensure positive outcomes for all parties.

Sustainable harvesting of farmed native timber on Kangaroo Island will bring over 240 new jobs to the island. In the end, everyone will benefit.

Retail Fuel Strike? Yeah, Nah..

October 25, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I have seen a few posts on Facebook over the last week suggesting a two day fuel strike.

The idea seems to be that if people don’t buy fuel for two days, the oil companies will learn their lesson, and reduce the price of petrol.

This isn’t quite the dumbest idea ever. That was voting for Rebeka Sharkie. But it is definitely up there.

Quite frankly, the oil companies couldn’t give a stuff if a handful of people decide to buy petrol on Wednesday or Saturday instead of Thursday or Friday. You are still going to buy petrol.

In addition, of course, the oil company margins and retailer mark-up are a long way from being the single largest component of the cost of fuel. I will let you guess what that might be.

What this proposed strike may affect in a negative way are the mostly small, family owned fuel outlets, who still have to employ staff, pay their power bills, buy stock, regardless of how many people come in on any given day.

Fuel strike? Yeah, nah. Write to your pollies and demand lower fuel taxes. Or just elect politicians who know how to balance a budget.

Independents Betray their Electors

October 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Our Federal member (for Mayo) has been in Wentworth over the last week campaigning for Kerryn Phelps, safe-schools supporter and promoter of the early sexualisation of children.

Now it is looking likely Dr Phelps will be returned, Ms Sharkie has formed an alliance with her and Cathy McGowan, and despite having promised not to support any no-confidence motions, now says she will do so unless a list of demands are met.

What exactly are these three blackmailing the government to get? Better conditions for their own electorates? Cheaper electricity? More attention to schools, the disabled, veterans?

Nope, nope and nope.

They want “action on climate change,” which will achieve no change to climate at all, but will make power prices higher, businesses less stable, manufacturing and processing priced out of competitiveness with Asia, more unemployment, and less tax revenue for the government, which means either higher taxes for everyone else, or less money for schools, roads, hospitals.

Then they want illegal immigrants who have not been able to pass security checks or who simply refused to co-operate with authorities to be settled in Australia. At what cost, in both money and security risks?

These are their two “top priorities.”

What about the people who elected them?

Fossil Fuels and Subsidies in Australia

October 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments
 
Anyone who claims that coal mining or other resource production is subsidised in Australia is trying to sell you something.. It isn’t. Claims it is are deliberately misleading.
 
There are no subsidies, just the same tax reductions for business costs that apply to all Australian businesses. “But that amounts to a subsidy!” No, it doesn’t. Subsidies are when money is taken from one group – taxpayers or businesses, and given to someone else to give the someone else an artificial advantage in the marketplace. Not taxing business input costs is not a subsidy.
 
Even then, some people are not happy. “But they get a huge discount on fuel!” No, they don’t. Like all primary producers, coal and other energy companies do not pay road tax on the fuel they use when on their own properties, and on roads they themselves have built and maintain.
 
The only incentive given by government to the mining industry is the Research and Development tax incentive, and this applies to all industries.
 
“The weekend release of the Productivity Commission’s (PC) latest industry assistance review again confirms that Australian mining receives ‘negligible’ government assistance.
The report states that the effective rate of combined assistance for the mining industry is just 0.2 per cent, having fallen by half a percentage point since 2010-11.
 
The effective rate of assistance is the ratio of total assistance to output.
 
The net tariff penalty on mining has increased since 2010-11 and 85 per cent of the budgetary assistance attributed to mining consists of the R&D tax incentive – a measure applicable to all industries.
 
The PC’s finding is consistent with the message successive Australian governments have reiterated to their G20 partners that Australia does not maintain fossil fuel subsidies.
 
The review shows that despite claims by the anti-mining lobby, the Fuel Tax Credit scheme, which refunds the tax paid on diesel fuel used off road, is not industry assistance or a subsidy.
 
Refunding the tax paid on diesel used in mining ensures that diesel – a critical input-cost – is not taxed. All businesses and industries in Australia do not pay tax on diesel fuel consistent with the basic tax principle to not tax business inputs.
 
Over recent years, the anti-mining lobby has sought to characterise the Fuel Tax Credit scheme as a subsidy for Australian mining. This is false and is confirmed by the Productivity Commission.
 
The Fuel Tax Credit scheme ensures that businesses in the manufacturing, mining, farming, construction, irrigation and commercial fishing industries do not pay road tax on fuel used in off-road activities.
 
Without the scheme, tens of thousands of Australian jobs, especially in rural Australia, would be at risk.”

Last Word on the Mayo By-election

July 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

If you are voting in the by-elections tomorrow, who should you vote for?

The key question is: “What do you want Australia to be?”

When you have a clear image in your mind of what you hope our future will be, you need to compare the candidates and ask which of them has the education, experience, tenacity, energy and intelligence to help make your vision a reality.

This is a Federal election. That means we are electing people to be part of the government of our nation. Local issues, and “What can you do for me?” should be a long way down the list.

I know that often they are not, and Liberal/National candidates are just as bad as anyone else at pandering to the notion of electorate X deserves more, without ever asking “More than who? Which electorates deserve less?”

The idea that Federal members are elected primarily to look after their electorate is not only alien to our history and constitution, it can have disastrous results. This is sometimes called pork-barrelling. It means that more needy electorates are neglected, or projects which would benefit the country as a whole are mismanaged or left undone entirely.

I will just add at this point that I am not a “rusted-on” Liberal supporter. I have never been a member of the Liberal Party. I did not vote for the Liberal candidate at the last Federal election, and sometimes when I have, it has not been with any enthusiasm, but simply because all the other parties and candidates were worse.

I am still not entirely enthusiastic about Malcolm Turnbull’s government. But in terms of candidates this time, there is one who is clearly more likely to form part of an effective, positive national government.

There are seven candidates in the Mayo by-election. Only two, Rebekha Sharkie and Georgina Downer, have any chance of being elected. Neither Family First nor Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives have a candidate this time.

There have been suggestions about both Sharkie and Downer that they do not belong, or are ring-ins. I don’t accept those arguments on either side.

Rebekha Sharkie lives in the electorate and clearly cares about the community. I wish she had sorted out her citizenship issues before causing this expensive and frustrating election, but now that she has genuinely revoked any citizenships other than that of Australia, she is clearly entitled to stand.

Georgina Downer’s family has lived in, worked in and been part of the Mayo electorate for over 100 years. She was raised here, went to school here, was married and had her early working and family life here. It is just silly to suggest she does not belong or cannot represent Mayo. By that argument, anyone who left Kangaroo Island for whatever reason; work, family, education, and then returned, would never again be a local or belong, no matter how long they had lived here, or what their family connections to the Island’s history. Some of those who make that absurd argument about Georgina would be rightly upset and angry if the same reasoning were applied to them.

I have never met Rebekha Sharkie. I get the impression from those who have that she is pleasant and well-spoken, and is genuinely concerned about the needs of the community. That is great. So is Georgina. At the same time, it is impossible to pin down what Ms Sharkie really believes, or what are her guiding principles.

She was a member of the Liberal Party, then deserted to join Nick Xenophon. That in itself is an issue, because apart from trying to stop poker machines, a cause in which he was completely ineffective, Nick’s political career seem to have been a mixture of self-promotion and following whatever issues he thought might win him votes. When Nick failed to get elected, Rebekha became an independent who votes mostly with Labor and the Greens. If you think Bill Shorten and Adam Bandt have the answers, then by all means go ahead and give her your vote. But think about what this means, both for the nation and for our electorate.

I will just give two examples of why this matters.

Small businesses include fishing, farming, tourism, medical practices, retailing and service. Small businesses are important. They belong to their communities in ways that big business cannot. They are responsive to their communities’ needs in ways that big businesses cannot be, and they employ locals when there are no big businesses to do so.

Small businesses are in trouble. The number of Australians employed by small businesses decreased by 330,000 (-7 per cent) between 2007 and 2016. High taxes, high energy costs and growing red tape have all contributed to this. A reduction of costs and of compliance burdens will help family businesses and help employment, especially in smaller communities.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016 reduced the tax burden on small businesses. Rebekha Sharkie voted against this. There are nearly 20,000 small businesses in Mayo. If she and the Labor/Greens alliance had had their way, every one of these businesses would now be worse off.

Ms Sharkie also voted with Bill Shorten and the Greens against legislation to tighten Australia’s immigration policy. This is not to stop legal immigration. No one has a problem with that. Most of us, if we are not immigrants ourselves, are the children or grandchildren of immigrants. The Migration Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 stopped people applying for visas which could lead to citizenship after they had arrived in Australia illegally. This is about security, fairness, and economic cost to legal immigrants and taxpayers.

Of course we have a duty to welcome genuine refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries who are desperately fleeing war or famine. That legislation did not apply to those people, but to those who tried to shortcut the rules, enter the country illegally, and once here, apply to join a process leading to citizenship. That is wrong, unfair to Australia, and unfair to those who want to come, who have skills to offer, and who make the often time-consuming and expensive effort to do the right thing.

Rebekah voted against this amendment. If she and Bill Shorten and the Greens had won that vote, those who show no regard for our rules and attempt to jump the queue would have been treated better than those who show their respect for Australia by acting in accordance with our laws.

Because of these kind of votes, and because Ms Sharkie has so frequently changed her mind about her allegiances, it is not possible to have any confidence in her future votes or actions, regardless of how nice a person she seems to be.

There could not be a greater contrast with Georgina.

Georgina, as I have noted before, gained degrees in Law and Commerce in Melbourne and a Master’s Degree from the London School of Economics. She has worked as a solicitor and consultant, was a director of the Indigenous arts project The Torch, was a researcher for US Senator Chuck Hagel and for Baroness Howe of Idlicote in the House of Lords in the UK, represented Australia as a diplomat with the Australian Embassy in Japan, and has been a research fellow at the IPA, Australia’s leading free market, small government, evidence-based policy research and lobby group. And on top of all that has raised two young children, Henry and Margot. She has an exceptional degree of education, experience, commitment and skill.

What is just as important for Mayo and for her role in our national government is that she is clear and consistent about the principles that guide her thinking. She is committed to freedom of speech, to free markets, to small government and lower taxes, and to evidence based policy.

It comes down to this. What do you want Australia to be? Who of the candidates can you best rely on to make this vision a reality?

Mayo by-election …

July 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I note with concern the report in today’s Islander in which candidates in the current Mayo by-election are asked “What will you do for us..?” as if this should be the key factor in deciding who to vote for.

I cannot fathom why anyone with any understanding of our Federal parliamentary system would think this question has anything to with the reasons for which a Federal member is elected.

Of course local members should know their electorates, and where possible, should have life, work and educational experience in them. But imagine every member thinking their job was to gain every possible advantage for their own electorate. It would be chaos.

We are not electing a lolly lady. We are, or should be, electing the person we believe has the experience, education, energy and intelligence to make a strong, long-term, positive contribution to an effective national government.

“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests;
which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates;
but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole;
where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide,
but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.”
Edmund Burke

A Bridge to Kangaroo Island

July 24, 2018 / / 0 Comments

A bridge to Kangaroo Island..

It would be an amazing project, and an amazing feat of engineering. It could certainly be done.

https://www.facebook.com/7NewsAdelaide/videos/2053622871335024/?t=0

But not everything that can be done should be done. Would it be a good thing?

Firstly, by the time additional required infrastructure is installed on both sides, and provision made for safe passage of tankers and container ships under the bridge, the cost will be $12 billion, not $5 billion.

Secondly, Kangaroo Island certainly doesn’t need any more debacles like the airport. We were promised no cost to ratepayers, and more flights and more passengers. Ratepayers have been left with a $2 million debt, fewer flights and fewer passengers. But we’ve sold some paintings, so that’s nice..

So NO taxpayer or ratepayer funds, unless there is a genuine, independent business plan, as opposed to the in-house fairyland plan that was used to justify the expenditure of $22 million of taxpayer and ratepayer money on an airport. For fewer passengers. But some nice paintings.

Let’s say the bridge makes economic sense even with realistic costing and a rigorous business plan. Economic considerations are not the only considerations.

I have been amused, I have to say, by comments from a few of those who talk loudly about equity, diversity, open borders, inclusiveness, blah, blah, blah, saying this must not be allowed to happen because it would make it too easy for the riff-raff to get here. I’ll just go past that one…

Then there is this: “Nature’s island would be ruined! More people means more environmental destruction.” I can understand that concern, but it doesn’t hold up based on experience elsewhere. The more people who come to visit a place to admire and enjoy the environment, the more incentive there is, and the more money there is, to ensure local habitats, wildlife and scenery are preserved. More people coming to the Island would help to ensure the Island’s unique combination of wildlife and scenery are preserved for future generations, and for their own sake.

“Foxes and rabbits would get to the Island!” Well.. it’s a long walk across a long bridge, which would almost certainly be gated for tolls on one side, so that seems unlikely. Unless a bridge means people are going to start hiding those things and bringing them over over in their vehicles. Well, maybe. I guess. We’d certainly still need some biological restrictions and perhaps random checks.

“The crime rate would go up!” Yes, probably. That’s what happens when the population increases and there are more visitors. We would also have more police, and more available police and other emergency service workers. I think that one evens out.

“We’d need more accommodation, better services, better roads.” Absolutely. We need better roads and services now. One of the ongoing financial issues for KI Council is how to provide services over such a large area for such a small population. Increased population density means more efficiency and better services. Increased population and tourism means more government spending on infrastructure. This would mean most of the population would be both better off, and have access to better services.

There would be less reliance on ferries and planes to Adelaide, and no, or at least far fewer, issues with cheap and easy transport to the Island. This means greater convenience, and greater cost saving for both residents and visitors, even if, as seems inevitable, the bridge was partly funded by a toll.

Possibly, given better insfrastructure, services and accommodation, direct flights from cities other than Adelaide might then be feasible.

A bridge would transform the Island. Would that be a good thing? I would be happy, as long as environmental protections remain in place, and as long as Islanders are not saddled with another massive debt.

Georgina Downer and the Mayo By-Election

July 24, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The current by-election in Mayo has been made necesary because Rebekha Sharkie was not entitled to stand or be elected because she was a citizen of another country at the time of her election.

That is not just my opinion! That is what the Court found, and that is why another expensive election is necessary.

One of the things that has frustrated me is that some of those who have expressed their intention to vote for Rebekha have had the unmitigated hypocrisy to describe Georgina Downer as a “ring-in.” Georgina, whose family has lived in, worked in, and been part of this electorate for over 100 years. Who grew up here, went to school here, worked here, got married here, had her early family life here.

Apparently going interstate and overseas to broaden her education and work experience means, according to some, that she doesn’t belong here. What rubbish.

Georgina gained degrees in Law and Commerce in Melbourne and a Masters Degree from the London School of Economics. She has worked as a solicitor and consultant, was a director of the Indigenous arts project The Torch, was a researcher for US Senator Chuck Hagel and for Baroness Howe of Idlicote in the House of Lords in the UK, represented Australia as a diplomat with the Australian Embassy in Japan, and has been a research fellow at the IPA, Australia’s leading free market, small government, evidence-based policy research and lobby group. And on top of all that has raised two young children, Henry and Margot.

Georgina Downer and Family at Home in the Mayo Electorate

Georgina Downer and Family at Home in the Mayo Electorate

With a long-standing background in Mayo, and this breadth of education and experience, it is difficult to imagine anyone more qualified both to represent Mayo, and to make a strong and positive contribution to our national government.

This is not a local Council election. An interest in, history in, and commitment to the local community is important, and Georgina has all those things in spades. We are electing someone to form part of the Federal Government. We need to elect someone with the skills, energy, intelligence and experience to help Australia grow strong and prosperous into the future.

We have a choice between a lolly-lady and a future Prime Minister.

Non-whiny Students Leave the Plantation

July 5, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Some Hispanic students express the view that their failings are their own fault, and that the way forward is to accept responsibility and work harder.

Naturally, academia is appalled. Can’t you see there’s no point in trying? You’re oppressed! It’s all whitey’s fault!

Thankfully more and more young people are rejecting the elite/liberal/luvvie/progressive philosophy that leads to a lifetime of failure, poverty and resentment.

Who Are the Fascists?

July 4, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Wikipedia is not always the most reliable of sources, but its definition of fascism is a reasonable starting point for discussion. A fascist is a follower of a political philosophy characterized by authoritarian views, desire for a strong central government, and no tolerance for opposing opinions. All forms of socialism, including Germany’s national socialism, are inherently fascist. They embody the two key identifying factors of fascism; strong central government and no tolerance for opposing views.

So what about the US president the media consistently denounce as a fascist, an idiot, and “literally Hitler”?

The Trump administration has removed red tape as fast as practically possible, repealing twenty-two regulations for every one enacted. This removes the brakes on private effort and enterprise, and shifts power away from government to the people. The opposite of fascism.

One of the first actions of the Trump administration was to reduce taxes. This gives more wealth and more freedom of choice to the people, while reducing the power of government. The opposite of fascism.

The Trump administration has partially reversed the onerous, limiting and expensive burden of Obamacare, restoring the right of individuals and businesses to buy whatever health insurance they want, or not to buy insurance at all. This reduces the power of government and bureaucrats and gives more power and choices to the people. The opposite of fascism.

He is insisting on rule of law, acting on resolutions passed by Congress, ie, the will of the people’s elected representatives, rather than simply ignoring the law, or directing law enforcement bodies not to enforce laws he does not like. The opposite of fascism.

One example is the decision of Congress, made while Bill Clinton was President, and ratified by Congress every few years since, that the US embassy to Israel should be in Israel’s capital city, Jerusalem. This decision by the people’s representatives was simply ignored by Clinton and subsequent Presidents. But not by President Trump. The opposite of “literally Hitler.”

Trump is the only Western leader in sixty years to bring North Korea into direct discussions with South Korea and the West. With this he has brought the hope of peace and freedom for the first time to millions of North Koreans. South Korean leaders have expressed astonished gratitude and openly said they believe Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reporters asked in mocking tones whether Trump was happy with the level of respect he had shown Kim Jong-Un and other North Korean leaders, and whether he regarded Kim Jong-Un as an equal. Trump replied that he would do whatever was necessary to secure peace. The opposite of fascism.

OK, but what about his racist Muslim travel ban?

Firstly, Islam is not a race. It is a religious and political ideology. Secondly, the seven countries affected by the ban were highlighted as severe security risks because of poor control of identity and travel, not by Trump, but by the Obama administration. Thirdly, 80% of Muslim countries and ninety percent of Muslims are unaffected, and fourthly, two of the countries, Venezuela and North Korea, are not Muslim countries. A nation’s leader has not only has the right, but the responsibility to work to ensure the security of his country and its people. That is not fascism.

OK, but what about tearing children away from their asylum-seeking families?

Rules requiring that children not be held in adult detention centres were established under President Bill Clinton in 1997. They have been enforced ever since, including during the eight years of the Obama administration.

Just as the media in Australia suddenly discovered a conscience about children in detention immediately after a government was elected which did not put children in detention and was doing its best to get them out and into the community, so the US media suddenly discovered a conscience about children being separated from their families as soon as a President was elected who was not convinced that this policy led to the best possible outcomes for the children concerned, for their families, or for the US.

By the time Time Magazine published its article denouncing Trump’s policy (it wasn’t his policy) and picturing him looking down sternly at a little girl in tears after being separated from her parents (she was never separated from her mother, they were housed together in a family unit in Texas) and by the time the shrieking hordes gathered in the street calling Trump a fascist for this heartless policy and demanding its repeal, he had already signed an executive order requiring that minor children arriving illegally in the US with their parents be housed with their parents for the duration of any necessary detention.

OK, but what about Melania visiting a detention centre wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care. Do you?”

Let’s note first of all that the husbands of first ladies Clinton, Bush and Obama all placed children in detention separately from their parents. Not one of those ladies ever visited a centre where they were being held. Melania did. And she didn’t wear that jacket in, to, or anywhere near the detention centre. She wore it as she got on the plane in Washington as a message for the purveyors of exactly that kind of fake news.

Now let’s look at the self-titled “resistance.” Antifa wear masks to their violent riots, where they protest about laws they don’t like by beating passers-by, burning cars and breaking windows. That’s fascism.

Coddled university students stage sit-ins and violent protests to prevent speakers whose opinions they do not like from speaking or being heard. That’s fascism.

Democrat Maxine Waters said businesses should be forced to serve anyone who comes in the door anything they want, unless the customers are Republicans, in which case case they should be denounced and refused service. That’s fascism.

You don’t have to agree with all of President Trump’s policies. I am not convinced by his policies on trade. But I also know that a system where other governments, eg Canada’s, impose huge tariffs on US goods while expecting unfettered access to US markets, or, like the EU, provide huge subsidies to farmers and manufacturers while expecting the US to operate on a “level playing field,” is both unfair and unsustainable.

Disagreements about policies do not entitle me or anyone else to call Trump a fascist. He is simply not.

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