"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message
...
that's it. along with the oddball opinions, it creates doubt in one's
mind.

I must admit that I don't mind oddball opinions if it's not opinions
being foisted on me by politicians who actually have to power to impact
on my life. I might argue strongly against them but I find that they
make me think about why I don't like them so I think they are often a
good brain tester.

i should probably rephrase that, as i don't mind oddball opinions either
in fact. well, i'm sure i object to some of them.

what i object to is oddball bits within an otherwise non-oddball system of
belief/thought/argument.

e.g.: there's nothing oddball about espousing ripping systems to
regenerate soil and doing various things to promote soil health nor the
idea that soil health is the key to saving us all. BUT, if within that
system of thought the yeomans are _also_ espousing nuclear energy as part
of the system when we all know it cannot be made economic for 30- 50
years; advocating broad-scale clearing (because they've decided carbon
sequestration into soil, rather than or as well as trees is the key); and
making bizarre claims such as that nuclear waste has a 90% breakdown
within 50 years when no other person (e.g. nuclear scientists) say any
such thing (even most plastics don't break down that fast!). the first
example makes no sense - it's totally uneconomic; any benefit would simply
be too slow and any potential advantage is tainted by the question of what
to do with the waste (obviously "we" can't just "put it in the titanic").
the second example is daft because even if carbon sequestration into soil
is "better" than into trees, trees clearly have many other uses other than
as carbon sinks. and afaik, the third claim is simply wrong. i could give
other examples but i'm concerned i'm just whingeing :-) the whacko booklet
is quite recent but is already out of date, that would be one problem
(e.g. no mention of geothermal energy).

Just got home from a few days away travelling and the Yeoman's Red Book has
arrived - not yet had time to do more then flip through it - saw the
coulters you mentioned! Was it the Red Book you received from them? Look
forward to looking for their wacky ideas.

so yeah, people can be oddball & that's fine, but if they're promoting a
system, the whole system has to be consistent & logical on its own terms.

Not sure I'd agree with that. Some parts of systems can be good whilst
others parts of a system may be totally impractical, not working, a total
loon idea etc - depends on the system. But will look at the yeomans in a
systems light before saying more.

In agricultural terms I think it was new to this country and given that
they also export to the US, I think they were certainly there in the
earliest of days. If you read the Yeoman's books you'll se what I mean.
I know there are at least some chapters available online if not the whole
of the first book.

Yeomans was the equivalent of the Peter Andrews (of natural sequence
farming fame) of his day.

mm, but ripping-without-turning was/is entirely promoted in australia by
the permies, i thought(?)

Yeoman's has been around much longer then permaculture - wouldn't surprise
me if the permies got the idea from Yeoman's to beging with.

not to put too fine a point on it, the yeomans are
pretty obscure.

Not in agricultural terms where Yeomans is quite well known. In agri terms,
it is the permies who are considered to be tree hugging loons by the more
unenlightened agribods.

if they stuck to their part (making machinery for those
types of ends) without telling everyone to chop down trees and go nuclear
& that there's "no point" in anyone saving energy(!), maybe things would
be different! (similar to my gripe about the biodynamic set ;-)

ZI guess it's like most things in life - we need to take from it the bits we
like, experiment with them and themn either tweak them, live with them or
abandon them.

I actually don't find Costello creepy at all.

i find his love affair with those hillsong snots to be very, very creepy
and dubious.

Yup. But then if you look at politics in its entirety over a long time
frame, you'll find that the recent tilt to the right (both religion and in
terms of the drys vs the wets) just about all of the would be players are
flirting with religion. Not only that but the house is now infested with
religious groups who meet for regular prayer fests. Dunno whatever happened
to the idea of "representation". If they were truly representative, most of
them would be heathens like the rest of us.

other than that, and most of his politics and policies, i don't
have a problem with him :-)

The real problem for many
pollies is that they are very differnt in the flesh than they appear on
the box or in the 10 second grabs on the radio. He is a very decent
human being (with that good sense of humour you mentioned) and I could
cope with the Libs being in govt if he was at the helm

i'd prefer it, to tell you the truth. i think that moment came last year,
was not taken up, & there's going to be a few people sorry that it didn't
happen.

(except I do have some concerns
given that he was the legal eagle involved in the infamous Dollar Sweets
court case). He isn't up himself like some. I also like Bronwyn Bishop.
Pity she gets such undeserved bad press - she actually has a conscience.

i think she's a bitch from hell who also plays the man but not the ball in
a humourless evil way,

Well from now on, watch her and actually lsiten to what she says. She is
not humorous, but she is even handed in whom she gives a serve to and most
(but not all in common with all of them) of what she says is worth listening
to. She gave a serve to Howard recently on childcare ("he is a man!") and
she was quite right again in being even handed about who got what.

but then again i rather like amanda vanstone for her
forthrightness, which makes people fall off their chairs sometimes when i
say that :-)

Which says more about them than it does you. Amanda has at least 3 really
shitty jobs now that I can recall without even thinking about it, and she
has handled them all reasonably well. When she has cleaned up the shit in
all of those jobs, Howard has rewarded her by moving her to another shitty
job, putting one of his toadies in her place and finally giving her the sack
and promoting more toadies. He's not loyal, but then I guess Amamda could
expect no more - she's too much of a wet for his very dry tastes.

Thanks for the offer but since I've already asked them for it, I'm
probably in the system somewhere - I mailed them so I might just have to
do as you did and go online if it's not here in a couple of days.

have a moan at them about their terrible spelling - it makes them sit up &
take notice ;-)

Will do when I get to it.