Today's Spray: It Can't Be Just Me

I'm reading George Orwell's "1984" at the moment - okay, it's one of the three books I have on the go (along with Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" and Karen Joy Fowler's "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves").

I've heard a lot about this book for many years, but have never read it myself.

I think Orwell missed the mark by thirty years.

Newspeak. The Daily Hate. The Thought Police. They're all here in some for our other. The current federal government appears to have it's own version of Newspeak, twisting and turning the facts to it's own advantage. I'm still trying to work out how you can get a far right nutter like Tim Wilson, pay him close to $350,000 to have a seat on the Human Rights Commission and let him get away with claiming $77, 000 worth of expenses and have nobody question this. Seriously?

Okay, but there are bigger problems. I find myself agreeing with Barnaby Joyce. This is a really difficult thing for me to admit to. For the most part, I think Barnaby Joyce is an idiot.



But not on this matter. Barnaby Joyce thinks that the following is moronic as well - and it's a pity he didn't know about it on Monday because he could have gone on Q&A and really gone to town on the matter. Instead he listened to the Prime Moron's edict that no cabinet member was to go on Q&A until Ray Martin had sipped a few lattes on the matter.

What's got us so riled?

See, our Minister for Destroying the Environment, Greg (K)Hunt has just signed off a proposal for a large Chinese Conglomerate to build an enormous coal mine (yes, coal mine - one of those things that the Prime Moron thinks is good for humanity) in the Liverpool Plains. The Liverpool Plains is prime agricultural land.

My first thought when I heard about giving this project the go-ahead is "What the...??? Seriously?!

For a few more facts go here and here.

Oh, and how big is this bloody carbon spewing monstrosity?



(Graphic courtesy of The Age)

But no, it's true. This government would sell their grandmother's to the highest paying pimp. Is there like nothing that this mob won't do to fuck up this country more than it is already.

Other than coal mining, which we know is on the outer, makes a complete hash of the environment, poisoning the water tables and heaven forbid, what it does for carbon footprint of a new coal mine, what about the bloody farmers? What about having viable land to produce food - you know, that stuff that keeps us all alive? What about not putting a finite resource on something that is far more valuable doing what it's doing at the moment - that being growing food - or is the Federal Government thinking that Climate Change will wipe out the crops in the next ten years and why should we protect agricultural land, hey? Oh, that's right. The Prime Moron thinks Climate Change is crap.

Just as coal seam gas mining is proving to poison water tables, making hundreds of people sick and sending people off the land, what the hell is a bloody coalmine in a food bowl going to do. Sheesh.

I'm not sure what has me more perturbed - the thought of all of this going through and we have an eyesore of a Chinese Coal Mine just south of Tamworth - or the fact that for once, I find myself agreeing with Barnaby Joyce.

It's like the day I found myself agreeing with Bob Katter. I called my psychologist for an appointment when that happened. I have a feeling it was over a similar matter.

If we don't look after our farms and our farmers, what the hell are we going to eat? If we mine the shite out of our food bowls, what will generations to come have to nourish themselves. And yeah, I'll admit to being a country girl at heart.

You can't eat money and you can't eat coal.

You'd think they'd know that by now.