Sea Shepherd and Whaling

One of the rants we’ve had a few times here on Rant n Rave Radio is about whaling and countries that keep whaling.

We’ve exposed the lies behind “scientific” whaling and the other weak excuses used to continue this barbaric practice.  And, if you’ve caught those particular rants, you’ll know that Greg and Alex are big fans of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s work during the southern hemisphere whalers’ hunt.

So when we heard the Sea Shepherd’s “Steve Irwin” whale hunter vessel was to port in Australia we thought we’d contact them for a gig on the show.

At first we thought we’d get told to bugger off since we’re a small (very small) operation, if you can call it that.  But Greg never gave in and set about finding out what was going and who we had to speak to to get an interview. We explained how the show works and that there’s essentially no censorship; we’d give them the air time to vent their grievances about the ongoing whale slaughter however they wanted to express them. Apparently they thought this was an awesome idea.

Now we’re following up with them to find the exact person, the one with that’s in-the-know, and give them time to vent their spleens about whaling.  We’ll keep everyone up-to-date with how we’re going securing an interview.

A more philosophical rant

Today’s show was huge!

It was totally massive. And if you didn’t catch you still can coz the good folk at Blog Talk Radio have saved it for us so you can play it back. You can even download it to your iPod or MP3 player.

We covered a range of good topics from solar energy to U2’s not-so-free free gig/wall fiasco. Of course it was our usual huge show! But given the unseasonably warm weather ie it was f*!king hot, we were a little more mellow. It perhaps helped us be a little more articulate and really rant when needed. Although we love the shows where we rant from the top of the show to the bottom. Despite the apparent indications we weren’t on air we found we were. Not that it would’ve stopped us ranting, just to make sure we produced a new show.

From next week we’ll be renaming the episodes ie instead of “The Agenda” only it’ll be “The Agenda – 08-11-09″, to make it easier to find the recent episodes in our player you’re after.

Pollution Agenda in Victoria

Published at theangle.org

The Premier of Victoria just happens to be one of the worst apologists for big polluters. And it’s no wonder when the state of Victoria is seemingly beholden to the interests of big polluters.

John Brumby has shown little remorse for the kind of planet he and his government are leaving behind to future generations. Since the departure of Steve Bracks, Brumby has been hell-bent on stepping up the efforts to strip the state of any and all natural resources. In the past few weeks Brumby has come out well and truly behind the heavy polluting industries. Unsurprisingly he has been particularly backing the brown coal out of the Latrobe Valley; continuing his rhetoric about geosequestration (carbon capture & storage), including advocating further compensation measures for heaving polluting industries and more investment in so-called “clean coal” technologies.

And Brumby essentially has to with his government’s policies on water (the government still hasn’t instituted level 4 water restrictions in Melbourne despite the dams being very low and a very hot summer expected) and the government’s insistence on building a desalination plant. Oh and we can’t forget the government’s continuing deforestation policies for native and old growth forests, including the forests that provide our water catchments. Plus there is the strong efforts to increase international shipping to Melbourne with the dredging of Port Phillip Bay.

John Brumby. Credit: Andrew Kelly (flickr.com)

Remarkably, the Victorian Government, Brumby, Hulls and any other senior cabinet minister remain starkly unmoved by the type of policies they are pursuing while attempting to convince voters they’re serious about action on climate change. The only serious action on climate change the Victorian Government is taking is to help accelerate climate change impacts. There has been little investment in renewable energy or research in associated industries; including failing to support the training transition for clean energy jobs – yep they’re increasing fees for TAFEs, the traditional training for most people that will be in and associated with clean energy jobs.

The government believes that it can continue to use the Mildura solar energy plant as its centre-piece on tackling climate change. The only problem is, it’s the only thing the Brumby Labor government has to talk up its environmental credibility. And with that the Labor machine will find it hard pressed to run on environmental sustainability or climate change in next year’s state election.

New place to discuss Australia’s multicultural society

From today, Australians will have the opportunity to contribute to the growing conversation about our multicultural society by logging onto the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum. Through an online community and a variety of portals, the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum will enable registered users to choose how they wish to engage with cultural diversity issues – from blogs and closed or open forums, to formal consultation processes.

“For a great many people in this country, cultural diversity, and the human rights issues associated with it, are a part of their day to day experience, yet discussion of these issues is often absent from political debate in Australia,” said Race Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes. “The Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum aims to fill this gap by enabling all people to participate in sustained and informed debate about cultural and religious diversity, racism, the promotion of human rights, human development, freedom, harmony and social inclusion.”

Located on the Institute for Cultural Diversity’s newly established website at www.culturaldiversity.net.au, the Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum establishes an electronic forum and clearing house for communication across the community, government, service provision, non-government/advocacy, academic and other relevant sectors.

“As the e-Forum grows, we anticipate that community members, professionals, researchers, artists, students and people from all walks of life, will add ideas, events, resources, comments and web links,” said Commissioner Innes. “The e-Forum will thus enable the construction of a national network of research and researchers who commission, publish and review articles that will support cultural diversity in our country.”

The Human Rights and Cultural Diversity e-Forum, an initiative of the Australian Human Rights Commission in partnership with the Institute for Cultural Diversity, is financially supported by the Australian Government.

Visit www.culturaldiversity.net.au

Catching the show?

Have you been catching our show lately?

Over the following month we’ll be rigidly sticking to our 5:30pm time slot so we can get in more ranting – and so you can too. Of course we’re not guaranteeing that we’ll start dead on 5:30pm but we’re definitely going to be starting closer to 5:30pm.

There’s been a lot of issues to rant n rave about; we’ve been having some pretty good rants. And their only going to get better as summer comes on and the  outdoor broadcasts become more regular. Of course there will be some good old rumour and inuendo but it’s all in good fun.

The Minister is apparently making a re-appearance after another unexplained absence. We’ll get to the bottom of it.

If you can’t catch the show then listen to it through our player (top left hand side nav bar).  Or get a reminder so you don’t miss the show.

Catch us Sunday from 5:30pm for “The Agenda”

Happy listening.