Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify it from another source. Do you understand? No? Then read it again, and repeat this process, until you understand that you cannot sue me for anything you read here. Also, having been sucked into taking part in the mass-murder of more than 3 million Vietnamese people on behalf of U.S. Big Business "interests", I'm as mad as a cut snake (and broke) so it might be a bit silly to try to sue me anyway...

Monday, February 26, 2007

humphffff..

I just wish people had the guts and the lack of goddamn politeness required to tell me exactly what they think of me, my blogging, what I say, how I say it, etc, etc.

Warts and all...

I hate politeness... It's so insincere... It's so withholding... It's so ... dishonest...

And I think Brownie's shut her blog down. I'm sad about that.

All in all, a lousy day....

Get stuffed the lot of you....

a general strike?

Some of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Full story >>> (Heads up by DS)

I'm reminded of Hitler and his senior generals in the lead-up to WWII. They apparently tried to tell him that his war plans were nuts and protested emphatically. He told them they were wrong and cajoled them into going ahead with the annexation of Czechoslovakia, insisting that the Allies would do nothing except blow a lot of hot air. The Allies proved Hitler right, the generals were proven wrong, and the rest, as they say, is history. How many millions were killed in WWII? 60 million? If only those German generals had resigned or staged a coup.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Insha'Google...

I will be dead one day.

Insha'Google, my thoughts will live on via this blog...

Google Akbar...

What can I say...

the war on reason...


Courtesy of Peter Nicholson and The Australian

(Compliments of Bilegrip)

(For overseas readers, the cartoon depicts a caricature of the Australian Defence Minister.)

friends...

A sign of the times...

"Do you have genuine friends, or are they all networkers?"

Compliments of ABC TV.

Friday, February 23, 2007

mushrooms kept in the dark and fed on bullshit...

HoWARd says pulling troops out of Iraq is tantamount to aiding and abetting the terrorists. But not when the Brits do it. Then it's a sign of how well the Brits are winning "the war on terror".

Opposition leader Rudd says he wants our troops out of Iraq, but he's more than happy to send them to Afghanistan where the Coalition of the Oil Swilling are soon to get their collective arses kicked, big-time, by the same mob of murderous religious nutters the CIA organised, whipped into a frenzy, and armed, and trained, in order to expel the Russians in the 80's.

Mr Rudd, you're about to see a bloodbath. And for what? To ultimately realise that the Afghanis won't brook foreign intervention in their domestic affairs? The Russians couldn't "liberate" them, Mr Rudd. What makes you think a bunch naive troops sent there by mass-murdering, lying, cheating, oil thieves can?

Bullshit still reigns supreme in Oz politics. Bullshit which further fuels the terrorists' cause. Bullshit which offers the basis for the best recruiting campaign the terrorists could ever hope for.

I just feel sorry for the brainwashed, abused and deceived troops who end up there, believing they're "fighting for democracy", or "fighting for their country", or whatever crap they've been fed this week by their corrupt political masters.

It makes me sick...

harry, don't be a hero...

Harry loves to wear a uniform.

Any uniform, it seems...

And now he's off to war...

Please, dear God, get me off this planet. There's been some mistake. I don't really belong here.

elephant #1

There are elephants in the room.

Lots of them.

In fact, the room is so full of elephants, it's hard to move, let alone think clearly.

Here is elephant #1: Over-population.

We can talk all we like about CO2 levels, resource depletion, or the rate of species depletion/extinction, but it will mean zip until we factor into the debate the real impact of over-population, either at the national, regional, or global level.

And it's an elephant for very good reasons: No one (except the Chinese) is game to tackle this issue either as a topic for debate or as a subject for policy-making.

Sticking our heads in the sand will not make this elephant go away...

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

they knew...

Good news for beautiful people
Watching the world go by
Make love in the middle of a warzone
Hey - ya never gonna die

Don't rock the boat - keep your head down
Just another fool in the crowd
Everybody knows - you can be a winner
C'mon - shout it out loud

On the fat of the land I been living
Now it's only a matter of time
Sooner or later - you open your eyes
And return to the scene of the crime

Dig deep at the top of the heap
Now you've bitten off the hand that feeds you
You got nothin' but your soul to sell
You got nothin'

When the river runs dry
You will return to the scene of the crime
When the river runs dry
Salvation will rain on you one last time
When the river runs dry

You got the power I got the money
Another million miles to run
I'd cry - cry for the future
But I wouldn't get anything done
Relax - abandon ship
Turn your back on Mother Nature
Blind luck - destiny - do me a favour

When the river runs dry
You will return to the scene of the crime
When the river runs dry
Salvation will rain on you one more time
When the river runs.. dry

Good news for beautiful people
Watching the world go by
Make love in the middle of a war zone
All of God's children
Never gonna die

You will return to the scene of the crime
When the river runs dry
Salvation will rain on you one more time
When the river runs dry
You will return to the scene of the crime
When the river runs dry
Salvation will rain on you one more time
When the river runs

I'm going home to where the river runs dry

Salvation will rain on you one more time

It's only a matter of time
Only a matter of time
when the river runs dry...

(c) 1989 Hunters and Collectors - Ghost Nation album

Friday, February 16, 2007

Silent scream of a military wife

Two husbands broken in body and spirit. One child driven to suicide and another deeply depressed. How life became a nightmare for one military wife.

Full story in The Bulletin >>>




(Heads-up by Satanical Susan)

Thursday, February 15, 2007

road map to despotism...

"In George Bush’s America there is no place for activists or dissidents. And when they finish with those on the margins of our society they will turn, if we let them, on the rest of us."

Read more >>>

(Heads-up by DS)

thirty-six sure-fire signs that your empire is crumbling...

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

isn't it nice?

Isn't it nice? Here I am, world famous blogger extraordinaire, saviour of the free world, and a complete stranger wants to make me rich. Very rich indeed. I just KNEW there was a God...
FROM THE DESK OF DR MIKE SAWA.
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER.
AVENUE DE LA RESISTANCE DU 17 MAI.
BANK OF AFRICA. BURKINA FASO.01 BP 362.
FOREIGN REMITTANCE DEPARTMENT.
OUAGADOUGOU ,01 BURKINA FASO.

DEAR SIR.

I am the manager of bill and exchange of the foreign remittance department,(B.O.A) BANK OF AFRICA Burkina ,

Sir i am trusting this deal to you buy faith and hope that you will handle it without know problem .In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of US $10.m (Ten million US dollars ) In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in january 12th 2000 in a plane crash with (kenya air line)in cote d'voire, abijan.

Since we got information about his death , we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim this money because we can not release it to any person unless somebody apply to the bank as a next of kin or relation to the deceased customer as it is indicated in our banking guidelines
and laws , unfortunately , we discovered that the only next of kin died alongside with him a prolitical problem being his only daughter left nobody or relation for claim.

It is therefor upon this discovery I decided to make this business proposal to you as a foreigner and for you to stand as the next of kin or a relation to deceased person for and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for the claim and I don’t want this money to go into the bank’s treasury as unclaimed bill fund .

The request of a foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasion the fact that the customer is a foreigner , a Burkinabecan not stand as a next of kin to a foreigner.

I agree that 35% of this money will be for your as foreigner partner in respect to the provision of a foreign account , 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business , 60% will be for me thereafter, I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage
involved asindicated .

To enable the immediate transfer of this money to your private account You have to apply first to the bank as relation or next of kin to the deceased customer .

For me to be re-assured that you will not betrayed me i want you to send to me your full datas as stated below.

Your full name.
Your house resident address .
Your telephone number.
And you national identity card

Upon receipt of your reply , I will send to you the text of the application that you will use to apply to the bank as next of kin I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is 100%hitch free and do not entertain any fear as all required arrangement has been made for the
transfer .

Trusting to hear from you as soon as possible .
Your’s faithfully
MIKE SAWA
You must be absolutely green with envy, no?

Galloway - a George of a different kind...

George Galloway's speech to the House Of Commons (UK Parliament) on Iraq, 24 January 2007 (YouTube video)

When I was his warm-up act, I used to describe the right honourable member for Manchester Gorton [Gerald Kaufman] as the best foreign secretary we never had, and his speech this evening showed why.

Indeed, an alternative administration of all the talents became clear on the Labour benches, including the right honourable gentleman's friends, the right honourable member for Holborn and St Pancras [Frank Dobson], and the honourable members for Islington North [Jeremy Corbyn] and for Liverpool Walton [Peter Kilfoyle].

How much stronger the Labour Party's position would be in the opinion polls today if those were the men sitting around the cabinet table, rather than the men and women who are.

What a contrast there was between those shafts of light and the myopia displayed by the foreign secretary. So rose-tinted were her glasses that she had even spotted the first elections in Saudi Arabia.

As one who follows events in the Arab world closely, I must tell the house that I missed the first elections in Saudi Arabia, probably the un-freest, most undemocratic and most anti-democratic country on earth. So keen was the Foreign Secretary to describe the success of Anglo-American policy in the Arab world that she prayed in aid [appealed to] a grant to the youth parliament in Bahrain.

Lebanon

But those were not the most foolish of the things that the foreign secretary said in her long speech. She talked about supporting the government and people of Lebanon. Well, let us split that proposition.

She was not much help to the government of Lebanon when its prime minister was weeping on television and begging for a ceasefire, and when the British and American governments alone in the world were refusing, indeed blocking, any attempts to demand an immediate cessation of the Israeli bombardment.

Worse, she was not much help to the government or the people of Lebanon when British airports were being used for the trans-shipment of American weapons to Israel that were raining down death and destruction on the very people of Lebanon whom she now claims to stand beside.

But, of course, that was code for saying that she does not support the one million demonstrators in the square in Beirut who are demanding democracy.

The foreign secretary describes the government of Lebanon as a democratic government. If the minister will listen, I can educate him. There is no democratic government in Lebanon. The minister should know that.

If there were a democracy in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah would be the president, because he would get the most votes. But of course he cannot be the president, because you have to be a Christian to be the president, and you have to be a Sunni to be the prime minister, and you have to be a Shi'ite to be the speaker.

What they have in Lebanon is precisely the opposite of democracy. It is a sectarian building-block government that they have in Lebanon, and moreover one based on a census that is more than 50 years out of date.

If those one million demonstrators had been in Ukraine or Belarus or Georgia, they would be described as the orange revolution, or given some other epithet – perhaps even "the cedar revolution".

Palestine and Iraq

So myopic was the foreign secretary that she talked about the peace process in Palestine and refused to condemn the theft, as the right honourable member for Manchester Gorton put it – he used the word – of $900 million, stolen from the Palestinian Authority.

The right honourable member for Liverpool Wavertree [Jane Kennedy], without a hint of irony, advanced the extraordinary proposition that we are fighting for democracy in Iraq, while we can steal the money of the Palestinian Administration in the occupied territories because the people voted for a government whom Olmert, Bush and Blair did not like.

So myopic was the foreign secretary's view that she prayed in aid an opinion poll from Basra which told us that the people had every confidence in the police – we had to send the British in to blow up a police station and kill umpteen Iraqi policemen because we said that they were about to massacre the prisoners in their jails.

The foreign secretary prayed in aid the Iraqi government – a virtual government – saying that, more importantly, the Iraqi government do not consider that they have a civil war.

Of course they do not, because there is no Iraqi government. As the right honourable member for Manchester Gorton put it, we have installed a gang of warlords in power in Baghdad, the heads of competing militias, some of them at war with our own soldiers in the south of Iraq.

It is not a government, but Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" that we have put in charge in Baghdad. That is not my concept. That is the concept of the right honourable member for Manchester Gorton.

Iran

So myopic was the foreign secretary that she had her finger out and wagging at Iran, warning it of what it must do, or must not do in terms of nuclear weapons.

She is the foreign secretary of a government who are about to spend £75 billion on our own nuclear weapons, who declare themselves the best friend of Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the non-proliferation treaty, and who say nothing about Pakistan, a military dictatorship acquiring nuclear weapons. It would make you laugh if it did not make you cry.

Most serious of all was the extent to which the foreign secretary sought to lull us to sleep walk into a coming conflict with Iran. Invited by one of her colleagues to describe, as the former foreign secretary had, an attack on Iran as inconceivable, she refused, preferring instead the formulation that no one is contemplating it.

But they are contemplating it. Israel has a war plan carefully worked out to do it. As we know from the journalism of Seymour Hersh, the greatest of all American journalists, who brought us the stories from Vietnam, American generals have to the nth degree worked out an attack upon Iran.

Trial

The foreign secretary says that we stand by our soldiers. We stand by them so much that we pay them so little. We had to give them a Christmas bonus to make up their wages. Their families are claiming means-tested benefits and living in houses that you would not put a dangerous dog in. We send them, ill clad, ill equipped, ill armed, without armour, on a pack of lies into war after war after war.

Let me invite the house to contemplate this and see if I am as right about this as I was about Iraq four years ago. If a finger is raised against Iran by Israel or the United States, the first people to pay the price will be the 7,000 young men and women of the British armed forces that we have stationed in the south of Iraq, where Iran, thanks to us, is now top dog.

If members want to know what that will look like, think about the film "Zulu", but without the happy ending. That is how irresponsible our government are. They are part of an axis that is contemplating a war against a country that we have made powerful in a place where we have our soldiers standing in a thin red line in the sand.

For the moment, the trial of Tony Blair merely takes place on Channel 4 television. The day will come, and it is coming soon, when a real trial of Tony Blair will take place in a real court.

And you might recall George Galloway's response to US Senators back in May 2005.

(Heads-up by DS)

it's in our interests...

Political rhetoric is often sprinkled with phrases like "it's in our interests", or
"it's in Australia's interests", or "it's in the best interests of this country", or "in the interests of the economy", etc, etc.

I've come to realise that whenever a politician trots out one of these phrases, they're peddling highly questionable bullshit which they don't want you to question at all. These phrases are designed to have you accept as "the obvious truth" something which is highly questionable.

It's one of the classic ways they try to hypnotise us into going along with them.

So, dear blog reader, your eyelids are getting heavy... you are feeling tired... you are drifting into a deep, deep sleep... but you can still hear my voice... From this moment onwards, whenever you hear a politician tell you that "it's in your interests", you will feel a sharp pain in your brain, you will sit bolt upright and experience a blinding flash of light, and you will scream in your loudest voice, "Fucking bullshit !!!" On the count of three, you will be wide awake, feeling really good. One... Two.. Three...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

will I or won't I ???

So tell me, all you who have gone over to New Blogger, should I, or shouldn't I?

hypothetically speaking...

Suppose, for the purposes of this exercise, that the leaders of both major parties in this country actively sought to legalise the unlimited importation of huge quantities of dangerous drugs into this country. Just suppose.

Let's also suppose that when they were quizzed about such bizarre action, they said it was necessary to do this in order safeguard the jobs of the thousands of drug dealers in this country. That it was vital for the economy for this to be done.

Let's suppose further, that when the damage these drugs caused was pointed out, our Dear Leaders suggested that it's OK, we'll soon be importing "clean" ice, "clean" heroin, and "clean" cocaine.

Nuts?

Sure.

Now tell me, how's this any different?


************

Earlier post >>>

he's losing his marbles...

John Winston (what were his parents THINKING!?!) HoWARd, the Prime Minister Idiot of this country, is losing his tenuous grip on reality...

There he was, on the weekend, lecturing Obama on Iraq War policy.

Say what????

A sycophantic little twerp, George Bush's running dog, temporarily in charge of a country of 20 million people, is presuming to lecture someone stepping up to the plate for the presidency of a country of 400 million??? Is he mad? Does he not understand the idiocy of such an act of hubris? Has he lost it completely?

And then there's the fact that his comment is tantamount to attempting to interfere in the politics of another country. Oh... I forgot, HoWARd is so used to doing that, he's all but forgotten the unethical nature of such actions...

Fuck off, HoWARd, you're not impressing anyone...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

are democracy and capitalism incompatible?

an interesting read...

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

civilisation redux...

From deep within this blog's archives:
Thanks for welcoming me to "civilization", Jeff. But till I see some form of "civilisation" which I can respect, I'd rather not feel welcome.

What passes for "civilisation" at this time is the greatest travesty of justice since Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR. It's just that this mob have refined the art of conning people into believing they are free, that they live in a democracy, and that killing millions of "enemies" of this system is the right and proper thing to do. This is an elitist capitalist totalitarian system which screws the whole world to enrich itself at the expense of those it exploits. If that's "civilisation", I'd rather not feel welcome.

DIY failed states - the US way...

DS emailed me an article from Daily Kos. I was particularly struck by this bit:
We're sternly reminded we cannot pull US forces out or Iraq would become a failed state, in blissful, willful ignorance of the fact that Iraq is a failed state and, more to the point, it became one while occupied by US forces.
I'd like to add that not only did Iraq become a failed state whilst it was occupied by US forces, but much more significantly, it became a failed state because it was occupied by US forces.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Alan Burrows, I doffs me lid...

I generally don't have much to do with other Vietnam veterans if I can help it. Generally, I find them to be ignorant racist rednecks and that type makes me want to rip their heads off and shove them where the sun don't shine. (Yeah, you guessed right, I'm still not enlightened.)

But here's a story which reduced me to tears.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

the old geezers...

An elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of
years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him
fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to
hear 100%.

The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the
doctor said, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really
pleased that you can hear again."

The gentleman replied, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet. I just
sit around and listen to the conversations. I've changed my will
three times!"

Keep reading

Two elderly gentlemen from a retirement center were sitting on a
bench under a tree when one turns to the other and says: "Slim,
I'm 83 years old now and I'm just full of aches and pains. I know
you're about my age. How do you feel?"
Slim says, "I feel just like a newborn baby."
"Really!? Like a newborn baby!?"
"Yep. No hair, no teeth, and I think I just wet
my pants.

Keep reading

An elderly couple had dinner at another couple's house, and after
eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The
two gentlemen were talking, and one said, "Last night we went out
to a new restaurant and it was really great I would recommend it
very highly." The other man said, "What is the name of the
restaurant?" The first man thought and thought and finally said,
"What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love?
You know.... the one that's red and has thorns."
"Do you mean a rose?"
"Yes, that's the one," replied the man. He then turned towards
the kitchen and yelled, "Rose, what's the name of that restaurant
we went to last night?

Keep reading


Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being
discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one
elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a
suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn't need my help to leave
the hospital. After a chat about rules being rules, he
reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator. On the way down I
asked him if his wife was meeting him. "I don't know," he said.
"She's still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital
gown."

Keep reading

A couple in their nineties are both having problems remembering
things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they're
physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down
to help them remember. Later that night, while watching TV, the
old man gets up from his chair. "Want anything while I'm in the
kitchen?" he asks. "Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?"
"Sure."
"Don't you think you should write it down so you
can remember it?" she asks.
"No, I can remember it."
"Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too.
Maybe you should write it down, so's not to forget it?"
He says, "I can remember that. You want a bowl
of ice cream with strawberries."
"I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll
forget that, write it down." she says.
Irritated, he says, "I don't need to write it down, I can remember
it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for
goodness sake!" Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20
minutes, the old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a
plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment,
then asks, "Where's my toast?"

Keep reading

A senior citizen said to his eighty-year old buddy: "So I hear
you're getting married?"
"Yep!"
"Do I know her?"
"Nope!"
"This woman, is she good looking?"
"Not really."
"Is she a good cook?"
"Naw, she can't cook too well."
"Does she have lots of money?"
"Nope! Poor as a church mouse."
"Well, then, is she good in bed?"
"I don't know."
"Why in the world do you want to marry her then?"
"Because she can still drive!"

Keep reading

Three old guys are out walking. First one says, "Windy, isn't
it?" Second one says, "No, it's Thursday!"
Third one says, "So am I. Let's go get a beer."

Keep Reading

A man was telling his neighbor, "I just bought a new hearing aid.
It cost me four thousand dollars, but it's state of the art. It's
perfect." "Really," answered the neighbor. "What kind is it?"
"Twelve thirty."

And finally...

Morris, an 82 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.
A few days later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street
with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.
A couple of days later, the doctor spoke to Morris and said, "Wow,
you're really doing great, aren't you?"
Morris replied, "I'm just doing what you said, Doc: 'Get a hot
mamma and be cheerful.'"
The doctor said, "I didn't say that! I said, 'You've got a heart
murmur; be careful.'"

(Compliments of MangoMan)

the upside of global warming...

he's still not getting it...

George W. Bush's Australian sock puppet, John HoWARd, is a bit thick.

Speaking yesterday, about global warming, he said, in effect, that he would not support any counter measures which would "hurt or damage the economy".

I've got news for him...

An economic train wreck is utterly unavoidable.

Here's why:

Any measure, or group of measures, effective enough to reduce the CO2 levels on the planet fast enough to prevent a global warming catastrophe of economy-trashing proportions, will, ipso facto, trash the economy.

Let me put it to you another way: If we keep "the economy" going, the planet gets trashed which in turn will trash "the economy". If we implement measures capable of saving the planet, "the economy" gets trashed.

So, "the economy" is a dead duck anyway.

Now maybe we're ready to address the REAL issue: The global population has reached plague proportions and something has to be done FAST to vastly shrink it, or it's "Goodbye, Mother Earth."

Saturday, February 03, 2007

free kareem...

(1) Start here.

(2) Then read this.


(3) And then sign the petition here.

(Thanks to Sad Susan for the heads-up on this.)

Friday, February 02, 2007

jesus loves osama...

It's official: Jesus loves Osama. Here in Sydney, there's been an outbreak of Christian love. About 100 churches have put up signs proclaiming Jesus's love for Osama.

Makes a lot of sense, when you think about it...

Yeshua of Nazareth (hi Davo) taught his followers (before his teachings were repackaged by the Roman Empire) that they should love their enemies, and spent quite some time up on a mountain, beseeching them not to respond to 9/11 by splattering the Afghani and Iraqi people.

Now, here's the problem... Bush and his sock puppet, John HoWARd, don't seem to have quite understood the sermon on the mount. Either that, or they must think they have special dispensation from da man himself...

Not surprisingly, HoWARd was quick to distance himself from any of that loathsome "love thine enemy as you would thine friend" kind of mamby-pamby, Nazarene hippie shit. HoWARd's a real dude, bro! He's got gonads the size of his brain, doncha know...

Thursday, February 01, 2007

a graph is worth a thousand words...



Global population levels since the year dot:




CO2 levels in the earth's atmosphere since the year dot:






Rate of species extinction since the year dot:




What's a poor little platypus to make of all this?

eat money, John...

Australia's major coal loading port, Newcastle, has a bit of a problem. They can't load coal (for export) fast enough. There are currently fifty coal freighters waiting in the roads off Newcastle.

This got me thinking...

Coal is one of the major greenhouse pollutants, right?

We can't sell enough of the stuff, right?

John HoWARd's justification for selling as much coal as possible to anyone who's willing to buy it, is that if we didn't sell it, they'd buy it elsewhere. I've heard that exact same rationale used by drug dealers to justify why selling drugs is OK.

Oh, and did you know that after ten years of John HoWARd's rule, Australia is the biggest greenhouse polluter (per capita) on the planet?

Anything for a buck, eh?

I'd like to remind John HoWARd of a 19th century Cree Indian saying: "Only when the last tree has died and the last river poisoned and the last fish been caught will you discover that you cannot eat money."