Powerlines and potatoes: the renewable energy transmission project causing angst in central Victoria

2nd May,2022

By Tim McGlone, The Guardian

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/02/powerlines-and-potatoes-the-renewable-energy-transmission-project-causing-angst-in-central-victoria

In the central highlands north-west of Melbourne, farmers are fighting plans to install 85-metre towers through their properties

For the past year, “PISS OFF AUSNET” has been expertly mown into the rolling green hills at Blampied in Victoria’s central highlands. The quaint, 157-year-old Swiss Mountain Hotel has panoramic views of the scene, which is surrounded by farmland.

Despite the serenity of the setting, the message reveals a community of farmers and tourism stakeholders allied in a dogfight against the company behind the Western Victorian Transmission Network Project (WVTNP).

AusNet, a private company controlled by Canadian alternative energy giant Brookfield Asset…

By Douglas Blair ~

Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, has given us yet another disturbing example of modern American colleges’ disdain for free speech.

David Azerrad, a professor at Hillsdale College’s D.C. campus, gave a lecture at Saint Vincent on April 8, “Black Privilege and Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America,” and the speech rubbed Gary Quinlivan the wrong way. Quinlivan is co-director of the program series at the private Catholic college about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, where Azerrad spoke.

Debate over what types of speech should be allowed on college campuses has become highly contentious, most recently at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Pictured: Demonstrators gather Oct. 19, 2017, at the site of a planned speech by a white nationalist on the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus. (Photo: Blanco/Getty Images)

In a letter addressed to the school’s students and faculty, Quinlivan accused Azerrad of “minimizing the role of several highly accomplished…

By P.J. Gladnick ~

Will the new Disinformation Governance Board be forced to label mockery of it as disinformation? They might have to because at this point there is such widespread mocking of that new section of the Department of Homeland to Security that it could well be laughed out of existence. One measure of how popular the mockery of what is being called the updated “Ministry Of Truth” is that even Politico is laughing at it.

On Friday, Politico‘s senior media writer, Jack Shafer, demonstrated his libertarian streak by ripping that new squad to shreds in “Biden’s Hopeless Disinformation Police.”

On Wednesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced at a House hearing the formation of a Disinformation Governance Board, which will carry the agency’s fight to a new front. The board will battle disinformation.

…The idea that the Biden administration would pulp the First Amendment and institute an authoritarian…

By Gary Bauer ~

George Washington famously said, “If the freedom of speech may be taken away, dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.”