Through Warsaw 
Climate Crisis Summit
By Countercurrents.org

Typhoon Haiyan’s trail of devastation in the Philippines prompts three groups of developing countries to call for climate compensation scheme to be rolled out. The call came at the 12-day UN Climate Change Convention’s 19th Conference of the Parties (CoP) that began on November 11, 2013 in Poland's capital Warsaw. The typhoon devastated Philippines dominated the first day of the Warsaw climate crisis meeting as the country started to count the human cost of one of the most destructive typhoons on record

Philippine Representative Makes Plea For 'Global Solidarity' To Fight 'Climate Madness'
By Lauren McCauley

The climate crisis is "madness" and environmentally vulnerable nations such as the Philippines do not have time for failed climate negotiations, Philippines climate negotiator Naderev "Yeb" Saño told the delegation at the 19th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP19) Monday as he vowed to go on hunger strike until "clear progress is made."

Military Curfew Imposed As Humanitarian Crisis Engulfs Philippines 
By Joseph Santolan

A humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions is taking shape in the Philippines in the wake of super-typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines by its local name Yolanda. Though the current official count of confirmed dead issued by the Philippine government is only 1,774, it is expected that the death toll will be far larger. The estimated figure of at least 10,000 dead in the city of Tacloban alone has not been revised. One million Filipinos are in makeshift evacuation centers

Somalia Is Absent In Warsaw, As Climate Change Wrecks The Country
By SOMESHA

Somalian representatives are absent in Warsaw where a 12-day UN Climate Change Convention’s 19th Conference of the Parties (CoP) is taking place

Economic Growth: A Social Pathology 
By Roger Boyd

The pathological pursuit of economic growth is central to the way in which our societies are run, and forms a major barrier to reaching a sustainable state for humanity. That such growth endangers our very survival by degrading and exhausting the environment upon which we are dependent upon, and per capita wealth above a given amount has been shown to not improve general well-being, is irrelevant to the dominant worldview

http://www.countercurrents.org/index.htm

Yes Gus,

I reckon that anyone wondering if we might witness a "reformation of our parliamentary democracy" under the stewardship of Bronwyn 'Boadicea' Bishop would have a greater chance of seeing James Packer leading a "cultural reformation".

Poor fellow our country!

John. 

Bronwyn Bishop thinks Parliament under her Speakership has seen a "big improvement", but senior correspondent Barry Everingham is not quite so sure.

THE NEW ABBOTT PARLIAMENT has gotten off to a decidedly poor start and, with Bronwyn Bishop in the Speaker's chair, the Opposition has already been relegated to second class citizen status.

Madame Bishop's ruling yesterday that calling the Opposition Leader "Electricity Bill" was not unparliamentary is a grim omen of things to come.

Yet, incredibly, despite the name-calling and rancour, and the angry dissent motion against her absurd ruling and incorrect ruling holding up proceedings for more than an hour yesterday morning ‒ something Fairfax called an “epic fail” by Bishop ‒ in an interview with Tom Elliott today on Melbourne radio station 3AW today, Bishop grandly stated there had been a “big improvement in decorum”.

What planet is she on?

Then, believe it or not, Bishop had the gall to take The Greens to task on 3AW for calling Tony Abbott “Typhoon Tony” later on in the same Parliamentary day.

From the 3AW article on the Elliott interview:

"Today's Question Time was a big improvement in decorum. I didn't want it to be a polite debating society but we got through 21 questions and people were able to set the record straight."

However, Bishop did criticise the Greens for labelling the Prime Minister 'Typhoon' Tony yesterday.

"It was inappropriate, but the Greens are like that, aren't they?"

So, in the kerosene-soaked world of Bronwyn Bishop, deriding the Government benches is shamefully “inappropriate” and outré, whereas name-calling the Opposition is presumably merely charming, playful and amusing.

You can only shake your head.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-everingham-files-electricity-bill-typhoon-tony-and-kerosene-bronny,5893

----------------------------------------------------

Yes Barry, at our senior age, it's a bit late to start a proper revolution... We could need a nurse to hold the serum bottle on a wheeled tripod as we shuffle along to the barricades... And let's not mention the bladder pit stops...... So we shake our heads...

At least some of us have replaced the serum with red ned and feel fabulous for it. But a revolution we need... So, where are all the outraged youth? Nowhere to be seen apart from a few in Newtown. All the others are playing on their iPhones, destroy things on Wargamus 64 and twitt about nonsense or play the stock market in suits...

We're in for a rude shock... Decency has gone out of the window, old man... It has been replaced with individualistic narcissism and nasty itchy trigger fingers. Happiness has been replaced by a can of coke and caring is now chained to wallets behind walls of fear. The spirit of equitable sharing has now been destroyed by gangs of politicians and a monolithic neolithic Uncle Rupe has replaced social relevance with inane pay-for-view and pay-for-read dithering entertainment...

Hopefully the weather will sweep clean all the crap.

The incoming Abbott government campaigned on “restoring trust” and “no surprises”, yet in power abandoned an astonishing number of pre-election promises extremely quickly. Alan Austin starts the count.

MOST GOVERNMENTS fail to keep some commitments. Soon after their elections to office in 2007 and 2008 respectively, Australia’s PM Kevin Rudd and US President Barack Obama were confronted with the global financial crisis. Many pledges had to be set aside.

In 2010, Australia’s PM Julia Gillard and her British counterpart David Cameron found themselves leading minority governments in hung parliaments. Both were obliged to shelve key undertakings.

The Abbott Government, however, has no excuse for the multiplicity of post-election u-turns, broken promises and hypocrisies. The list is rapidly becoming longer than for any Western government in memory.

They include:

At the Garma Festival in Arnhem Land in August, Tony Abbott gave a clear, specific promise to

“... spend my first week as prime minister – should that happen – on your [Yolngu] country.”

This was greeted by warm applause by the people present and positive comment in the national media. If people voted for Abbott as a result of this praiseworthy commitment, then they were dudded.

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-broken-commitments-so-many-so-soon,5898

Two years after Australia’s carbon price passed parliament and almost 18 months after the initial fixed-price carbon “tax” took effect – with a one off 0.4% increase in the cost of living and almost no impact on economic growth – the House of Representatives has voted to repeal it.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, called on Labor to “listen to the will of the Australian people at the recent election” and agree to repeal its own carbon pricing scheme, but Labor and the Greens opposed the repeal.

“This is a debate, this is a vote about keeping your word. We said the election would be a referendum on the carbon tax and it was,” Hunt told parliament. “This is about honour and dignity and the sovereign will of the Australian people.”

He argued against Labor’s alternative proposal, to bring forward by 12 months the planned shift to a lower floating carbon price, saying it amounted to “Julia Gillard’s carbon tax lock stock and barrel, but with a name change and a 12-month discount”.

In the end the Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, refused to allow Labor to put its amendment to bring forward the floating price, though it faced certain defeat in the House of Representatives anyway.

Bishop justified her controversial ruling – which resulted in a fierce tactical battle on the floor of the house and an unsuccessful motion of dissent in the Speaker’s ruling from the opposition – on the grounds that Labor’s plan might conceivably have resulted in a tax or charge being increased, something only a government minister can propose. (The fixed price is $23. At current market levels, the floating price would be less than $7.)

Labor’s climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, said the Coalition was repealing an effective scheme and intended to replace it with Direct Action, which he described as a “stinking dead albatross” of a policy which no independent modeller or economist believed would work.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/last-rites-carbon-tax-dumped

The Coalition (CONservative) government has no intent to implement anything that will reduce carbon emissions... NONE WHATSOEVER... The Direct action plan is only a way to reimburse the polluters from what they had to pay as carbon pricing... and give them MORE FOR HAVING been patient with the whole process... The senate has to stop this destruction of the best prospect AUSTRALIA HAS TO REDUCE ITS EMISSIONS OF CO2...

There is real frustration building on the Labor side of the house over Bronwyn Bishop’s performance as speaker.

Bishop has declared a number of Labor’s points of order as “vexatious” and sits down members, often while refusing to even rule on points of order.

Bishop was herself a specialist at taking points of order during her time in opposition. Her favourite line was “if the prime minister can’t answer the question, she should just tell the house”.

Anthony Albanese has been thrown out while refusing to sit down on her orders. Julie Owen and Mark Butler have also been thrown out.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/arthur-sinodinos-fallout-labor-donation-payback-parliament-live

Bronwyn Bishop is playing by her bent rules — not that of parliament — and Anthony John Abbott, Dictator of the Abbott regime, is letting her get away with it. May their beehives burn in spontaneous combustion during a particular bad day of global warming... 

Labor says Federal Parliament has descended into a "protection racket" for Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his ministers, in a veiled swipe at Liberal Speaker Bronwyn Bishop.

But the Government says Opposition frontbenchers are on the "verge of bullying" the Speaker, and is rejecting any assertion that she is biased.

Manager of Opposition Business Tony Burke says the climate in the chamber is "heating up".

"People are fast losing their patience with a House of Representatives and a Question Time that looks less like ministers being held to account and looks more like a protection racket to protect Tony Abbott from ever having to answer a question," Mr Burke said.

"Some people have remarked to me that the relationship's not going real well.

"The smirks, the jibes, the different ways that the Parliament has descended, I don't believe reflect well on this Parliament or this Government."

But Mr Burke declined to specify who was directing the "smirks" and "jibes" Labor's way.

"I'm not going to be more specific than that, I think everyone knows why," he said.

MPs are forbidden from reflecting on the Speaker outside the chamber.

The Leader of the Government in the House, Christopher Pyne, hit back, saying Labor has been "rude" to the Speaker and is on the verge of "bullying" Bronwyn Bishop.

"The truth is Bronwyn Bishop is doing a very, very good job," Mr Pyne said.

"My advice to the Opposition is to stop being as rude as they are to the Speaker.

"I've never seen such an ill-mannered rude group of people to the person who is in the chair."

Mr Pyne singled out Mr Burke and fellow Labor frontbench MPs Mark Dreyfus and Anthony Albanese as speaking rudely to the Speaker.

"It is verging on bullying," he said.

"Now I know Bronwyn Bishop pretty well, she is a pretty tough character and I'm sure she can take it, but that doesn't mean that the Labor Party should be allowed to get away with the incredible rudeness that they demonstrate in the chamber."

The Speaker has denied Labor MPs the opportunity to raise points of order at times ruling them invalid before they have even been aired.

Asked if that was fair, Mr Pyne said the Labor Party raises the same points of order to disrupt Question Time.

"I think she's extremely fair and reasonable," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-25/parliament-run-as-a-protection-racket-for-pm-burke/5343270

MPs are forbidden to reflect on the Speaker of the house OUTSIDE THE CHAMBER? Was Mr Pyne outside the chamber when praising Ms Bronwyn Bishop... I believe NOT. Pyne is in BREACH of the rules of the House. He should not comment and leave it to the gallery of journalists of the MMMM to say whatever.

selective cropping