English Power Station reduced to rubble

2014 ... and coal fired power stations are so last century ...

Could this be Bayswater's future? One day soon?

Anyhoo notwithstanding whimsy speculation underpinned by Australia's appalling committment to climate change mitigation, it was heartening to read '10 reasons to be hopeful that we will overcome climate change' in The Guardian this week ... 

... albeit somewhat embarrassing given that it's a 'global given' we're going to do sweet fuck-all to help ...

Sigh ...

And fancy being described by the BBC on their website as:

'... the developed world's worst polluter per head of population'

The shame.

Sigh again.

But hey I'm not finishing on that note ... we're not all bad ♥ ❤

Santos & Velo-City14 on a bicycle built for two

I'm so disillusioned ... sigh.

How can this happen?

How can a bicycle meeting accept money from an oil and gas company?

How can bicycle delegates not feel compromised by the oily $$$ being splashed around?

Doesn't this fly in the face of everything this conference stands for?

Doesn't this fly in the face of everything that sustainable urban transport stands for?

Are we so gullible we didn't see Big Oil rubbing their greasy palms together as they watched us sign up for this faustian bargain.

How can we buddy up with such an environment wrecker?



This is Australia ... sigh again



















(also published on Freedom Cyclist Blog)

Fossil fuel power generators checking boundary fences

After listening to last week's Background Briefing programme on 'The Price of Power' I couldn't help but feel extremely suspicious of the Ausgrid helicopter that flew over my place today.

"Hmmmn why are you here?" I thought. "What exactly are you looking at? What infrastructure recommendations will come out of your joy-flight over my roof?"

I just can't trust any of the fossil fuel power generators anymore; they've completely blown it and the fact that they're cosying up to the PM to get him to axe the 'renewable-energy target' is unfathomably dispicable.

Definitely time for a spot of marching ... #marchinmay

Capitalism should be finished

(Images: Chunkymark's The Watchers, YouTube)


British, but could just have well been written for us here in Australia.

FYI:

Fucking PFIs (fucking private finance initiatives)

... equivalent to

Fucking PPPs (fucking private public partnerships)

The Last Stand

(Image: 'Save the Hunter Valley,' YouTube)


Fighting for our home, our children's home and their children's home ... the beautiful youtube clip above from the Hunter Thoroughbred Association (HTBA) will make you weep.

... and so far this PR fail is all the Minerals Council can come up with in answer to the stellar success of the HTBA's video!!! 

(a chink in Mineral Council's armour methinks?)

Sigh

"Fucked it faster than rabbits"

(Image: Georgie Abbott, YouTube, A Song for Tony)


Ok ... so I'm bursting with pride - BN4 and the struggle she has with her last name!!!!!

(also published on Freedom Cyclist Blog)

Out, out brief candle - last gasp for planet earth

(Image: 'Banking over coal' - Jeremy Buckingham, Flickr)


Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty place from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

(Act V, Sc V, Macbeth from Macbeth, William Shakespeare)

Open Blogpost: Matter of Incorrect Traffic Record

(Photos: Georgie Abbott, Boca del Rio near Veracruz, Mexico)


Mr Greg Smith, MP
Attorney General & Minister for Justice
Level 31 Governor Macquarie Tower
1 Farrer Place
SYDNEY NSW 200

Dear Mr Smith,

I am writing to you because I am most disturbed about the ‘administrative’ way my recent bicycle helmet cases were handled, and because given your position as Attorney General of NSW and the Minister for Justice, you seem to be the most appropriate person for me to turn to.

Notwithstanding that I was representing myself in the Local Court last September 2013, I was somewhat bizarrely taken by the Police Prosecutor to see the Duty Solicitor, who asked me about matters pertaining to somebody else’s apprehended violence orders which had been incorrectly attached to the police brief against me.

I am sure you can imagine my absolute horror at being asked about such a serious matter that had nothing to do with me, and then having to deny that it was actually anything to do with me all the while wondering if I was being believed or not.

Not a good start, I can assure you.

The next potentially prejudicial issue that raised its ugly head whilst I was in the Local Court was the matter of my Traffic Record Report which was incorrect.

Inexplicably it noted that I had been booked (in September 2009) for riding a ‘motorbike’ ... yes, a 'motorbike' ... alone and without a helmet and that the matter had then gone to the District Court in March 2010 where it was noted on my Traffic Record Report that I had been given a section 10 for the aforementioned crime of riding a motor bike alone without a helmet.

I would like you to know that I have never been the driver or rider of a 'motor-bike' with or without a helmet, 'alone' or in company. I have never learnt to drive or ride one, nor have I ever possessed a motor-bike licence nor for that matter a motor-bike itself. The recording of such an offence on my Traffic Record Report was an egregious error and completely untrue.

As I am sure you can appreciate, details like these are important as they have a bearing on people’s reputations particularly at the sentencing stage of defended hearings. Furthermore as I know I do not need to tell you, riding a motor-bike without a helmet is a matter that will be recorded on one’s traffic record whereas riding a bicycle without a helmet is a matter that will not.

My question to you is the same one I asked the District Court earlier this month; was my Traffic Record Report deliberately altered to make it appear substantially 'naughtier' than it was so that my earlier court matters that ought not to have appeared on my Traffic Record Report would get an airing one way or another on it after all?

I am gravely concerned about the prejudice these errors potentially contributed to my matters both in the Local Court (September 2013) and the District Court (March 2014) where my Traffic Record Report was looked at by both the magistrate and judge in their respective courts.

Which government-funded body got it so wrong? Was this administrative ‘stuff-up’ a police error or a Roads & Maritime Services (RMS) one?

From a personal interest perspective I am very keen to learn which government department will (a) remove the traffic record listing of the traffic matter that never happened and (b) remove the court cases that ought not to appear given that the traffic matter they are listed for did not happen and that the bicycle helmet matter they are actually representative of would never have been listed on a Traffic Record Report?

I certainly am looking forward to hearing from you soon and having my Traffic Record Report restored to its former state before it was polluted with incorrect data, so thank you in anticipation.

Yours sincerely,

Sue Abbott
(Freedom Cyclist)

(also published on Freedom Cyclist Blog, and sent via email to office@smith.minister.nsw.gov.au)

What will it take to stop Grand Prix madness?

The video Shell doesn't want you to see from Greenpeace on Vimeo.

That was last year in Belgium, but still Grand Prix madness continues.

Back at it again in Melbourne, the 2014 Oz Grand Prix has been polluting the city with noise, fumes, and denial of freedom to access Albert Park.

The planet can't afford Big Oil's promotional events and current modus operandi.

When will we ever learn?

... but maybe just maybe we're starting to

#BanGrandsPrix #BoycottGrandsPrix #BoycottBigOil #SaveTheArctic

Australian Electoral Commission accepts my reasons for not voting as 'VALID & SUFFICIENT'

(Getting around Tokyo unencumbered by Australian helmet law)




Further to the matter of me not voting at the last General Election for all the reasons I outlaid here, I received a letter this week from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) in which it was stated that they (the AEC) considered my reasons to be 'valid and sufficient.'

As a result the AEC proposes 'to take no further action in this matter.'

So if in this instance my reasons for breaking Australian law are considered by a relevant government body to be 'valid and sufficient' why have they not been in 'matters helmet' when to all intents and purposes Australian courts have accepted that my arguments are reasonable and valid and going a long way to explain why I choose to ride a bicycle without wearing a helmet?

If the AEC has the power to judge and decide questions of law occasionally accommodating law-breaking in favour of the law-breaker, why can't Australian courts?

Is it the $$$$$$ involved?

Are the stakes higher?

And/or is it that voting is just an utterly irrelevant, little red-herring game played by the masses to keep us busy and deluded?

So much to sigh about ...

(also published on 'Freedom Cyclist Blog')

Oz Federal Election 2013 - my reasons for not voting

(Queen Victoria, outside her building in George Street, Sydney)


Attention Returning Divisional Officer:

Thank you for the letters dated January 7, 2014 and February 10, 2014. Thank you also for giving me this further opportunity to explain my reasons for not voting in the Federal Election last September 7, 2013.

I do apologise for not supplying you with them sooner. I returned from overseas on January 31, 2014 and have been somewhat overwhelmed with matters that have languished during my 4 ½ month time out of Australia, a time that involved both family and work.

In my earlier fax to you, I outlined my grave concerns over the plight of asylum seekers, the continuation of live animal export, the perennial military aggression overseas at the behest of the United States of America, and the lack of leadership in the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time,’ Climate Change.

It occurred to me last September that neither of the major parties, likely to assume a leadership role in the representative democracy of Australia at that time, would be representing me and I was no longer prepared to observe silently these inhumane practices.

Neither of the two candidates in the electorate of Hunter (Mr Joel FitzGibbon MP or Mr Michael Johnson) offered me any confidence that they could or would address my concerns. In fact whilst in government and with regard to Live Animal Export, Mr FitzGibbon had said to me that it was a profitable industry and would continue. I communicated with him that just because something is profitable does not make it right, and that live animal export ought to be halted immediately and permanently.

With regards to climate change and the coal industry that lays siege to my part of the world, my candidates were as one and as united as you would ever see any members of the same party let alone opposing candidates. With both of them and with coal, it will remain business as usual notwithstanding the evidence of dire consequences locally, nationally and globally.

Observing the recent Australian Labour Party’s support of the Liberal National Party’s outrageous plans for asylum seekers, it is clear neither major part shares my belief in the right for all people to seek asylum when they believe they need asylum. The LNP’s new and savage plan to discourage and put peoples’ lives at risk will not be done in my name.

I no longer have confidence in my useful role in Australia’s representative democracy. In my view as it stands today and as it stood last September, Australian-style representative democracy has become irrelevant, in fact no more than just a quirky distraction, somewhat akin to ‘cake and circuses,’ distributed in a bid to prevent us revolting.

In my view, those elected politicians democratically representing us in Canberra do not represent me but rather the interests of Big Business whether they be Big Coal, Big Agriculture, Big Border Security you name it...

I refuse to play this game and I refuse to give my consent to the continued diminishing of hard-earned and hard-fought rights that we somehow did muster over the decades in our national community.

$$$ It is cruel to deny asylum to asylum seekers, and it is cruel to deliberately set out to demonise such stricken folk who have no choice but to leave their lands however and whenever any opportunity presents.

$$$ It is cruel to export animals whilst they are still alive and not able to be protected by our reasonably sound animal welfare laws because they are no longer in our jurisdiction.

$$$ It is cruel to wage wars for corporate interests under the misleading flag of liberation-for-all. It is cruel to deploy drones to terrorise foreign communities again under that misleading flag of liberation-for-all.

$$$ It is cruel to ignore our responsibilities to the rest of the world in reducing our carbon consumption. It is cruel not to commit to an immediate programme to ensure that we do shake our coal addiction.

There were no candidates in my electorate who had the mettle to represent me therefore I was in no position to give my consent to any of them standing for election to represent me in the important business of running Australia ... hence, my informed refusal to vote.

Thank you once again for giving me an opportunity to set out my reasons for not voting, and thank you also for considering them.

Yours sincerely,

Sue Abbott
conscientious voting objector

(also published on 'Freedom Cyclist Blog')