December 9th, 2008 — Issues
by Neil Hair
In the second half of Year 2007, commentators said we were experiencing the worst financial crisis for many years, inter-bank trust evaporated overnight and credit markets froze around the world. With the benefit of hindsight, we were just practising for what was to come in 2008! Apparently there hasn’t been a year of financial turmoil to match 2008, since the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression of the 1930s. The Bank of England governor described conditions as the worst in British banking since the start of World War I, when the banking system almost collapsed; the Brazilian president said speculators had turned the world into a gigantic casino; governments underwrote and recapitalised their ailing banks. In USA, the weaker banks fell like tenpins, gobbled up by larger banks; Wall Street became a shadow of its former self, with only two of five top investment banks surviving; Germany’s Finance Minister said USA’s economic dominance was on the wane. In October, the chief executive of ANZ Bank remarked wryly on his February warning of a financial “Armageddon”; he’d understated the impact, the situation was much worse!
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November 18th, 2008 — Issues, Martin Oliver
By Martin Oliver
Most human beings now live in a sea of invisible electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that is millions of times stronger than anything encountered during our long evolution as a species. Networks of towers and base stations emit a cacophony of radio, TV, wireless internet and mobile phone signals. Further emissions are produced by domestic appliances such as computers, microwaves and hairdryers. Metal objects in your living environment can attract and re-radiate these energies.
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November 5th, 2008 — Issues
By Neil Hair
Editor’s Introduction – While some of you may be reading this after the fact, we feel that this piece, by our contributing numeroligist Neil Hair, casts a revealing light on the main players in this historic election of the latest US American President.
The US federal election on November 4, 2008, was once described by Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, in lofty terms, “Our nation faces a truly historic decision that will affect not only America’s destiny but the course of human history”. What John McCain didn’t tell us, and why would he, was that USA will soon elect its 44th President.
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October 1st, 2008 — Issues
By Teresa Ralton
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Chicken jokes abound. So do chicken stories, anecdotes and tales about the funny and endearing behaviour of chooks. In America, there is the well-documented and celebrated case of a chicken called Mike who, in the 1940s lived for 18 months without a head; being fed by means of an eyedropper through his open oesophagus. Chickens are considered by some people to be as intelligent as dogs or cats and those people who have spent a lot of time with them have observed individual traits, qualities, likes and dislikes. It seems that chickens are rather fond of television and have different tastes in music.
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August 30th, 2008 — Issues
genetically engineered foods, global bio-pollution and the resurrection of local food systems
By Lisa Reagan
‘…a master plan had been crafted to control the world’s food supply. This was made clear at a biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped Monsanto create that plan. First, they asked Monsanto what their ideal future looked like in fifteen to twenty years. Monsanto executives described a world with 100% of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson Consulting then worked backward from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct.’
From the book, ‘Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating’ by Jeffrey M. Smith.
It was the mid 1960s when high-schooler Deborah Koons stared at the gnarled radish plants in her bedroom window and frowned, ‘I’m not going to eat that’, she decided. Following in the footsteps of the notorious Dr. Frankenstein, the Texas teenager purposely cultivated the monster plants by gene manipulation and irradiating them at her dentist’s office.
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