Absurdity of fiefdoms laid bare
A few years ago a Wodonga friend drove out to Bethanga for afternoon tea.
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Our friends had lived on the Border for far longer than us, but Syd had noticed the large solid concrete structure at the foot of the quarry on the western side of Lake Hume near the Bethanga Bridge.
He asked me what it's purpose was. I rather facetiously answered that it is the remains of Fort Hume, erected during the Spanish Flu crisis by the NSW government to keep that state from being infected by unwashed Victorians.
He was momentarily taken aback by my response, but then realised that I was pulling his leg.
It is, of course, part of the aerial rope-way to carry rock from the quarry to the narrow gauge railway for the construction of the dam wall.
It is ironic that "Checkpoint Charlie" is currently located just up the road around the corner to ensure that unauthorised Victorians are excluded from NSW during the present crisis.
The city-centric bureaucrats who so arbitrarily imposed the regulations as to who is eligible to travel into NSW have shown a total lack of understanding of this area's demographics, to the extreme disadvantage of local cross-border residents and workers.
To draw the blue line within so close to the Murray River demonstrates a totally unacceptable comprehension of real life here.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Here in Bethanga, we are now considered to be a "remote township" yet we are less than 10 kilometres from the Bethanga Bridge.
It seems to me that, as an Australian, we need a national approach to dealing with a national crisis.
It is time to rid this country of these petty fiefdoms, states which are relics of the colonial era.
Jim Jefferies, Bethanga
Cheesed-off by name change
I was sorry to hear that the name Coon Cheese will soon be no more.
I suggest a possible new name: COO-ee, Australia's favourite cheese!
Whatever the new name, when people buy cheese, the name Coon will always come to mind, and the quality will never change.
Mark Bloomfield, Lavington
Climate 'threat' misleading
I write regarding an article published in The Border Mail regarding the response to a declaration of a climate emergency in Indigo Shire by groups of young people, an idea that came from Cathy McGowan.
Early in the year we experienced the "bushfire emergency" that was very real and threatening to many people; lives, livelihoods and properties were lost to this disaster.
A paper published in 1971 by NASA scientists Rasool and Schneider explains why the alarmists' assumption is fundamentally wrong.
Here is a key paragraph: From our calculations, a doubling of CO2 produces a tropospheric temperature change of 0.8-degree. However, as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, the rate of temperature increase is proportionally less and less. Even for an increase in CO2 by a factor of 10, the temperature increase does not exceed 2.5-degrees. Therefore, the runaway greenhouse effect does not occur because the 15-um CO2 band, which is the main source of absorption, "saturates", and the addition of more CO2 does not substantially increase the infrared opacity of the atmosphere.
Let the kids be kids and stop trying to brainwash them with political statements.
Keiran Klemm, Londrigan
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