Protagoras

I know that you are not an extrem nationalist or racist but you are hard with migrants-refugees and this is not helpfull for us. Soften litle your retoric and try to see how you can help us!
I think we must create 5-6 lakes and send our waters to them. We know, less or more, in which areas we have the flood waters and we can find where to create the lakes. With the lakes we can save our waters, we can create oasis for the birds, animals and plants and with more work we can convert them to turist atractions. It is sad that we lost so much water in East Cost, it is sad that the flood water damaged so many properties etc, it is sad that so many people had to leave their homes.
Torrential rains flood Australia's east coast
Thousands in two cities flee; some areas under 32 feet of water
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30886460/

"Why is this so Antonios when many of today’s ethnic groups huddle in enclaves and have little desire to embrace the Australian population at large?"
Protagoras you know why!
1. Each one of them feel weak, feel that is under threat and prefers to live all together in the same area for beter protection.
2. Each one will lost, all together can create their schools to teach their language to their children, , they can create their churches, mosques etc.
3. They can assist each other as with children their home works etc. Every first generation of migrants create their getos, the problem is if they continue this to the next generations. I found the Greek community in Adelaide starts to split, today you can find Greek Australians in any part of Adelaide. In my area I do not know what races live, I think mainly Anglos, I do not know any migrant arount me.
Do not worry for this BUT IF YOU ARE IDIOT RACISTS THEN YOU PRESS THEM TO STAY IN THEIR GETOS, IN NORMAL CONDITIONS AND IF THEY FEEL OK THEY WILL SPLIT SOON OR LATER.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

*1. Each one of them feel weak, feel that is under threat and prefers to live all together in the same area for beter protection.*

More likely Antonious, that each of them is tribal and a bit racist,
seemingly preferring the company of their own and not ready to
change, to suit the new environment.

Do you see French ghettos, or Swedish ghettos, or Swiss ghettos?

Not that I know of. Yet with some nationalities, I've known them
to be here for 30 years and some refuse to even learn English.

Stop blaming Australia. I've been here since 1974, am from
Europe originally and have never faced discrimination, but then
I've been flexible and accepted change and this environment, not
some rubbish about my origins

The Pied Piper
"Belly that was a really weird thing to say."
My good friend this is not from Belly but from Yabby! Did you see even you make mistakes!

Belly
"SEE you get a chance to hate me, for saying what most say in private"
I had to read your post some times to find what chance you gave me to hate you. Do not worry my friend I am not so bad! If my good friends can not understand me then I understand your question.
Australia is a rich country, is a big country.
I want this country to be strong and play an important role not only in our area but worldwide.
We can become strong if we increase our population and improve the relations between australians. Understanding and cooperation between Australians for mutual benefits is the best conditions to improve our relations and overpass any diferences between australians.
There are some people who speak for lack of water in Australia but we remember last time in East Cost we lost huge anount of flood water because we did not have a right system, I prefer lakes, to save all this water protecting simultaneously our properties from flood damages and creating oasis for wild animals, birds or plans. I am sure if we are not so lazy to use our brain we can find many ways to solve our water problems. If we create lakes to save our waters we can convert them to turist attractions.
42% of the Australian land mass is leased for some dollars per year it is time for australian government to cancel all colonial, privileged agreements and to try to creat the best conditions for a strong Australia. While australia is not any more a colony many things remain uncahanged from the colony era.
Let's try to minimize the divisions between Australians. let's promote the understanding between them.
While we are fighting each other we should not forget that there are more things which join us than divide, we NEVER should not forget our common country, our common future.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Yabby
May be you can not understand it! If you never was interested for human rights, if you never was interest for people rights, for worker rights,for women rights, for children' rights, if you did not care what happened around you, if your social sensitivity is close to zero, if you did not trained your self to recognize various kind of discriminations then PROBABLY YOU CAN NOT RECOGNIZE THE RACE OR ANY KIND OF DISCRIMINATION AND VICTIMIZATION.
You know while I can recognize ONLY 300-400 smells an expert, a professional, a person with deep interests on various smells can recognize more than 20.000 of diferent smells!
It is me who spend all his life fighting for human rights in many countries and from many organizations not you. Do you understand it Yabby?
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Antonious, what I understand is that you are extremely passionate
about the things that you believe in. That is wonderful, but sometimes
often also a problem, for emotion and reasoned thinking are not
the same thing, they in fact often contradict each other.

So all we can do use use reasoned thought and look at the evidence.

What the evidence shows is that there are plenty of migrants who
have come to Australia, showed at least a little respect for the
locals and their culture and made at least a bit of an effort to
try and adapt. The majority of them have gone on to thrive.
Just look at the many success stories.

What we also know is that some migrants do nothing but complain,
wishing they could recreate what was in Italy, Lebanon or
wherever. Seemingly the Aussies have it all wrong and nothing
is ever right here. Believe me, I've met a few like that and
I ask them if they want another Italy, another Greece, another
Lebanon, another England, what on earth are they doing here?

I know plenty of migrants and for them, discrimination is just
not an issue. But they did make an effort to understand and adapt
to the culture, or at least parts of it.

In my experience, racism in Europe is far worse then in Australia,
for people are pretty tribal and live tribal. Here they kind of
got used to many cultures living together, as long as everyone
at least tries a little bit to adapt. Many migrants only have
themselves to blame for their situation.

That is the reality of it.

Protagoras
It has been assumed that global warming would cause an expansion of the world's deserts, but now some scientists are predicting a contrary scenario in which water and life slowly reclaim these arid places.
"The heating of the Earth would result in more evaporation of the oceans, in turn resulting in more rainfall."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8150415.stm