News That's Fit To Punt - 01/Aug/2016

The Rudd Rejection

It's already a fiasco, but this business of the Coalition Government not nominating Kevin Rudd to run for Ban-Ki Moon's office of Secretary General of the UN is already spinning wayward.

Kevin Rudd says he was told he had Malcolm Turnbull's strong support for his bid for the top job at the United Nations before the Prime Minister suddenly reneged on that commitment, according to private letters from Mr Rudd to Mr Turnbull, obtained by Fairfax Media.

In an explosive new development in the aftermath of the Turnbull government's official rejection of Mr Rudd's request for endorsement to run for the post of secretary-general of the United Nations, Mr Rudd has released letters, which, while only showing one side, suggest that agreements had been reached to support the Rudd bid, but that this support was suddenly withdrawn on May 1, just days before the election was called.

This is quite awkward.
Over the weekend, Peter Garrett was heard this first concert since returning to being a vocalist, that the world dodged a bullet when Malcolm Turnbull refused to back Kevin Rudd as a candidate. It's a bit cruel but I guess there's no love lost between Rudd and Garrett*.

It's not exactly a great move by Turnbull. Now he'll have a vindictive Rudd on his case and god only knows how that will play out. After all Kevin Rudd can be a spectacular media tart and if he signs up for something like Sunrise again to prefer his political opinions on a regular basis, it mightn't be long before he will actively say things to sway public opinion against the government. Rudd was always going to be better for everybody concerned, outside of Australia.

Anyway, Pleiades tells me this won't be the end of it because Rudd doesn't know how to quit. Not only that he has significant recourse with his international friends. Dr. Geoff Raby has an article in the AFR today that illustrates possible path back for Kevin Rudd. If the election/selection for the UN Secretary General does not conclude before the US election and if Hillary Clinton should win,therein every chance that a President Hillary Clinton might back Kevin Rudd for the job. At which point it's going to be an uneasy phone call for Malcolm Turnbull.

In a matrix of fifty-fifty coil flips, there's a 25% chance Turnbull doesn't have to revisit this issue, 50% chance that the issue remains irrelevant, but a 25% chance that he's going to have to eat crow.   That 25% however is looming larger when you think through the fact that the next Secretary General is being selected in sync with the next US President. The US will moe than likely delay the selection until after the election, and that Donald Trump is (for al his blather) unelectable. That means there is a great probability Malcolm Turnbull will be asked to revise this topic.


* - As a side note, I've been pondering for long time why as a fellow leftist Peter Garrett's stance on things have bothered me over the years. My old working theory was that he was a prat, but that seemed too simplistic. The most accurate representation of his position might be that he is a regressive leftist. Once you understand that about Peter Garrett, the rest of it is rather easy to decode. 

One Seat Majority

The last seat in the Lower House fell to the ALP, which means the Coalition have only a seat majority. One would surmise then that Malcolm Turnbull has no margin for error.

No Coalition MP will be able to cross the floor. Even an abstention would force the Speaker to cast a tie-break vote, creating the appearance of party weakness. Coalition discipline will need to be watertight. 

2212`1`12Coalition figures have been fond of saying that a narrow majority will enforce its own discipline. That's true in the sense that it forces the party to stick together like glue. But on whose terms will it stick together? 

Mr Turnbull's challenge of managing his right flank becomes that bit harder because the handful of lower house MPs who might actually take the rare step of defying party discipline at the point of voting in Parliament will need to be placated down to the last man or woman. 

Those passionate outliers within the party will be empowered by knowing Mr Turnbull cannot afford to lose a single vote.

Well... one would imagine that's a two way street. If the fringy-crazy want to threaten to cross the floor, it would be over a policy that the ALP may actually want, and would a fringy-crazy rightwing nut job MP want to cross the floor just to spite their moderate PM? There can't be that many bills that satisfy both the ALP and the Greens and the fringy-crazy right wing of the Coalition. Not even Bob Katter would cross the floor to do that. It's hard to image that fringy-crazy rightwing MP of the Coalition would be going that far as well, no matter how unhappy they are with Malcolm Turnbull.  

Of course Bob Katter's not happy Malcolm Turnbull hobbled Katter's friend Kevin Rudd's aspirations so maybe therein a scenario where Bob Katter crosses the floor (Katter's already signalled he's not going with the ABCC legislation).

Didn't Last The Week

In the last post I pointed out how untenable the Royal Commission that was announced was, having Brian Martin heading up the Royal Commission, and surely enough he's resigned.

Former Supreme Court judge Brian Martin has resigned as the head of the royal commission into the NT juvenile detention just days after being appointed. 

His replacements have been announced as former Queensland Supreme Court judge Margaret White and, following calls for an Indigenous co-commissioner, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda.

Citing the need for public and stakeholder confidence in the joint Commonwealth-NT inquiry, Mr Martin said that criticisms of him had been "disingenuous" and ill-informed.
"However, notwithstanding the nature of the commentary, it has become apparent that, rightly or wrongly, in this role I would not have the full confidence of sections of the Indigenous community which has a vital interest in this inquiry," he told media in Canberra.

As teens like to say, "sure, whatevs". You have to love people putting up defences of their positions that fly in the face of reality. If it were exactly as he said it was, he wouldn't be quoting, would he? Both things cannot stand and one thing we know for sure is he's not doing this Royal Commission any more. You can't put a man in charge to investigate himself.

The Downside Of Identity Politics

Here's something about a statue going up in Ashfield.

It's the peace statue that is dividing Korean and Japanese community groups, with legal threats issued to a church minister and complaints escalated as high as the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. 

At the centre of the dispute is a statue commemorating the "comfort women" of World War II - the women and girls who were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese troops - which has been imported from Korea by a local Korean community group.

The group - called the Peace Statue Establishing Committee - plans to unveil the statue, which they describe as a "peace monument", at a traditional welcoming ceremony to be held at the Korean Community Hall in Croydon Park on Saturday. 

The statue, which cost $35,000 and was donated by a Korean benefactor, is about 1.5 metres high and depicts a Korean comfort woman sitting beside an empty chair, as a symbol of the victims who have since died.

And so it is that we come to the Comfort Women issue, exploding on the streets of Sydney. Really, we ought to ask, should this issue be played out in Australia? Should it be played out in Sydney?

Now, this statue was meant for Strathfield but was soundly beaten back by a presentation by the Japanese community. The main plank of the rebuttal, so to speak, was that there actually is no mythical girl who was forcibly taken away by the Japanese Army to be a sex slave prostitute. Except this is accepted as fact thanks to the Yoshida Testimony of 1982, as published in Asahi Shimbun. Since then there has been much research on this area to corroborate the Yoshida Testimony, and nobody has been able to corroborate any of it. There has even been a US Senate enquiry into it and the the US Senate recognised that there was no truth to the Yoshida Testimony. Seiji Yoshida himself made statements before his death to the effect that he had made it all up.

Last August Asahi Shimbun finally retracted the Testimony as false, which has led to a class action against Asahi Shimbun for insisting on its provenance for 34 years, providing ammunition for the claims that the comfort women were forcibly taken away by the Japanese government orders. It's been such effective bullshit that people in the west are refusing to give up that talking point, now that Asahi Shimbun has retracted the claim. The new of its retraction and what it means has been very slow in getting around the globe.

So yes, the statue is inflammatory. That's the whole point. It's primarily being put there to offend while proclaiming peace and remembrance or whatever. The people who want to put it up want to do so to stick it to Japan over stuff that happened in World War II. The people who don't want it put up are fed up with South Korea trying to stick it to Japan for an apology and an extra pay out.

Except as of 28th December 2015, there has been a new apology and an agreement to pay the claimants. The terms of the agreement stipulate several things including, this is the last discussion to be had on the topic of comfort women, their recompense, their status and as a bargaining point between South Korea and Japan. Part of the agreement was for the government of South Korea to work with the activist group to remove the original statue placed in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Now, it should be noted that it is against international convention to stick a protest statue in front of another country's embassy, regardless of the cause. We don't do it, the Americans don't do it, nobody in Europe or Africa or the Subcontinent does it, Japan certainly does not do it in retaliation, not even Israel does it to the German embassy.

If the agreement of 28th December 2015 is to stand, the South Korean government has to remove the original of the statue. That's what they agreed and signed upon, and eight months later they're yet to do it. It is therefore in incredibly bad faith (and bad taste) to be sticking a replica of that very same statue in the streets of Sydney proclaiming it to be an act of peace. It's extremely disingenuous of this Reverend Bill Crews to be talking about apologies an peace.

Be that as it may, it should be asked of the Korean community if an equivalent statue ought to be erected in tribute to the Vietnamese comfort women the South Korean Army procured for itself during the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War (late 1960’s – early 1970’s) South Korea sent troops to Vietnam in an attempt to keep South Vietnam free from communism. It was reported later that many South Korean troops raped Vietnamese women and committed atrocities such as massacring farmers and aged people, and many others were forced into working as prostitutes for the South Korean soldiers. Many of these women would then later become pregnant and after these mixed Korean-Vietnamese children were born they were shunned by Vietnamese society and their soldier fathers returned to South Korea never to be seen or heard from again. The plight of these women was lost to history and not discussed until the late 1990’s when many of the victims began to speak out against the Vietnam and South Korean governments and demand recognition and compensation. To date the South Korean government has done little to acknowledge the issue but has continued to pursue further financial compensation from Japan for their own comfort women survivors and some say that their actions have become hypocritical and they are using the issue as their own political tool. In fact, South Korea orchestrated with Korean-American’s politically-driven campaign in the U.S. continent against Japan.

Yes, that's right.

I'd be okay with the statue going up in Ashfield if the Korean Community acknowledge what their troops did in Vietnam and build a plaque next to it, mentioning it. I doubt they would - it's all about bullshit nationalist fervour. So unfortunately for the Reverend Bill Crews, there's not much moral high ground going around there.

It's kind of pathetic people are still fighting over this terrain, seventy-one years after the conclusion of World War II, but that's what happens when identity politics is given full rein. 

View From The Couch - 26/Jul/2016

Runaway Trump

Since confirming his nomination as GOP nominee for the POTUS elections, the critiques, the attacks and brickbats have mounted against Donald Trump. It's game on for everybody to have a hack.

First cab off the rank was Michael Moore who pessimistically prognosticated a Trump win.

I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this! 

You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate are women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority of any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for a buffoon or against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way of trying to protect you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the street and you think, “oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with firecrackers?” because you don’t want to think you just heard someone being shot with a gun. It’s the same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness reports on 9/11 said “a small planeaccidentally flew into the World Trade Center.” We want to – we need to – hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and it’s hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. We can’t handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something scary is actually, truly happening. The first people plowed down by the truck in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped the curb: “Watch out!,” they shouted. “There are people on the sidewalk!” 

Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today, as things stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal with it, I need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way out of the mess we’re in.

It's not a happy thought, and he's right in assuming we're all in denial that this is going on.

The more urgent hit came from the Washington Post, famous as the home of the guys who brought down Richard Nixon. This time it appears they're not taking any chances.

DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, thisweek became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew. 

Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump a peril. We recognize that this is not the usual moment to make such a statement. In an ordinary election year, we would acknowledge the Republican nominee, move on to the Democratic convention and spend the following months, like other voters, evaluating the candidates’ performance in debates, on the stump and in position papers. This year we will follow the campaign as always, offering honest views on all the candidates. But we cannot salute the Republican nominee or pretend that we might endorse him this fall. A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world.

And on it goes, right down to the end where they say:

The party’s failure of judgment leaves the nation’s future where it belongs, in the hands of voters. Many Americans do not like either candidate this year . We have criticized the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the past and will do so again when warranted. But we do not believe that she (or the Libertarian and Green party candidates, for that matter) represents a threat to the Constitution. Mr. Trump is a unique and present danger.

Look, I don't know about you, but the candidacy of Donald Trump and the surprising Brexit vote and even the election of Tony Abbott indicates a world where democracy seems to have one to mean much less than it used to. We seem to be voting in favour of less tolerant less meaningful, less nuanced, less informed, less intelligent positions in spite of ourselves. A little like how we seem to like to cut off our noses to spite our own faces or cut off our dicks to spite our balls. We should know better than to be voting in the likes of Abbott or Turnbull, or listening to demagogues lie Farage, Gove and Boris Johnson, or for that matter making one Donald J. Trump a serious candidate for the Presidency of the most powerful nation on the planet on nothing but a promise to make that land great again (whatevertjhe hell that means). There are a lot of asshole voters giving into their inner fascist assholes in the first world.
I don't exactly relate to that mentality.

In that light, it is perhaps valuable to assay the catastrophes of the past that we as humans inflicted upon ourselves.

So zooming out, we humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self imposed to some extent or another. This handy list shows all the wars over time. Wars are actually the norm for humans, but every now and then something big comes along. I am interested in the Black Death, which devastated Europe. The opening of Boccaccio’s Decameron describes Florence in the grips of the Plague. It is as beyond imagination as the Somme, Hiroshima, or the Holocaust. I mean, you quite literally can’t put yourself there and imagine what it was like. For those in the midst of the Plague it must have felt like the end of the world. 

But a defining feature of humans is their resilience. To us now it seems obvious that we survived the Plague, but to people at the time it must have seemed incredible that their society continued afterwards. Indeed, many takes on the effects of the Black Death are that it had a positive impact in the long term. Well summed up here: “By targeting frail people of all ages, and killing them by the hundreds of thousands within an extremely short period of time, the Black Death might have represented a strong force of natural selection and removed the weakest individuals on a very broad scale within Europe,“ …In addition, the Black Death significantly changed the social structure of some European regions. Tragic depopulation created the shortage of working people. This shortage caused wages to rise. Products prices fell too. Consequently, standards of living increased. For instance, people started to consume more food of higher quality.” 

But for the people living through it, as with the World Wars, Soviet Famines, Holocaust, it must have felt inconceivable that humans could rise up from it. The collapse of the Roman Empire, Black Death, Spanish Inquisition, Thirty Years War, War of the Roses, English Civil War… it’s a long list. Events of massive destruction from which humanity recovered and move on, often in better shape. 

At a local level in time people think things are fine, then things rapidly spiral out of control until they become unstoppable, and we wreak massive destruction on ourselves. For the people living in the midst of this it is hard to see happening and hard to understand. To historians later it all makes sense and we see clearly how one thing led to another. During the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme I was struck that it was a direct outcome of the assassination of an Austrian Arch Duke in Bosnia. I very much doubt anyone at the time thought the killing of a minor European royal would lead to the death of 17 million people. 

My point is that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people only have a 50–100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s happening again. As the events that led to the First World War unfolded, there were a few brilliant minds who started to warn that something big was wrong, that the web of treaties across Europe could lead to a war, but they were dismissed as hysterical, mad, or fools, as is always the way, and as people who worry about Putin, Brexit, and Trump are dismissed now.

It makes for some sobering reading. The rest of it is no less somber and sobering. History tells us we're heading in for some self-destructive times. We'd better take note.

Meanwhile The Arseholes We Have Down Here

It's no secret Kevin Rudd wants to be the Secretary General of the UN. He has two problems on that front. One is that the Australian government hats officially endorse him as the Australian candidate. The other is that Helen Clarke is also running. While none of this is fresh news, the Australian Government has prevaricated mightily over Kevin Rudd's candidacy. In short, they don't want to give him the nod in cabinet. Why? Partisan politics.

Except John Key over in New Zealand's quite happy to endorse Helen Clark, who was the NZ Labour Prime Minister.

Mr Key, who hails from the conservative National Party in New Zealand, is barracking hard for his former Labour party rival Ms Clark to become the UN Secretary-General.
It marks a curious contrast with his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, still struggling to decide whether his government will do the same for Mr Rudd. 

Mr Key also revealed he had spoken to Mr Turnbull about the race and was quizzed about whether he'd asked him not to support Mr Rudd. 

"I've had a couple of chats with him about it," Mr Key told breakfast television in New Zealand, but was coy about details. 

"All I'd say is if any person wants to be in the race, be in the race … You've got to get either your host country, preferably, or a country, to nominate you. At the moment, he [Mr Rudd] doesn't have a country nominating him. 

"I still think anyway, if it's a drag race between Kevin Rudd and Helen Clark, New Zealanders - and I reckon a hell of a lot of Australians - know who the best candidate is, and it's not Kevin Rudd."

It's all bit academic really, because the man in the lead is Antonio Guterres from Portugal. All the same, it's worth pointing out that Kevin Rudd was quite nice to departing Coalition politicians. The least they could do is return the damn favour. The fact that they don't immediately say yes says tons about these people. 

IOC Takes A Stand Against Doping And Passes The Buck

Nobody really has spine. 

It seemed a mere formality that the entire Russian team would be rubbed out, saving the Olympics any more of the embarrassment that the host city keeps heaping on itself with incomplete facilities. 

There was an expectation – not a mere desire – that Russia would be excluded.
Instead, the Olympic Committee's executive board has displayed the type of leadership that allows doping to flourish: it passes the buck and instructs individual sporting federations to decide which Russian athletes can compete in Rio. 

In other words, it has been left to sporting federations to wade through a legal minefield … in 12 days. 

Some of these sporting federations are loyal to Russia and the bottomless money it provides. Some are too scared. Some are complicit to doping themselves, turning a blind eye to the poison in their own sport and yes, cycling, we are looking at you. 

The IOC has had an appalling bet each-way. Foremost, it is a slap in the face for WADA, which has again been undermined. 

"WADA is disappointed that the IOC did not heed WADA's Executive Committee recommendations that were based on the outcomes of the McLaren investigation and would have ensured a straight-forward, strong and harmonised approach," WADA president Sir Craig Reedie said. "The McLaren Report exposed, beyond a reasonable doubt, a state-run doping program in Russia that seriously undermines the principles of clean sport embodied within the World Anti-Doping Code." 

That's not a few rogue athletes. That's not even a rogue sport. That's a rogue country. If the same happened here, we'd be calling for Royal Commissions, lifetime bans and jail time for those responsible.

Oh the outrage blahblahblah. As I asked - rhetorically - in my previous entry, are we done with this PED hysteria yet? We really need a new approach to the problem especially if the body that allegedly is in most favour of the current method of shaming athletes and banning them, won't back itself to carry out its policies. Go figure.  

We live in a world where haters are gonna hate and cheaters are gonna cheat. It's just the way it goes when sport is anachronistically wrapped up in nationalism of 200-odd nations,some of whom have no shot at any medal, but more importantly some of whom whose national pride depends upon it. Like Russia and Australia. The dumbest thing about the Olympics is how somebody from some nation wins a gold medal and the whole nation gets to thump their chest over that win. This idiotic bit of identification is bolstered by nationalist sentiment and misplaced identity politics. These are really 19th century kinds of modes of thinking, unbecoming of the 21st century. Yet here we are again at another Olympic Games ready urge our boys and girls on to medals. 

Go you beautiful Aussies as you swim through the raw sewerage waters of Rio! Do we relate to this experience? Really?  

The Same Old Shi-ite

Gina, If You Don't Like The Business, Get Out

Gina Rinehart is complaining mining projects cost too much in Australia.

"You know if Australia doesn't export, someone else will," Mrs Rinehart told Fairfax Media on the sidelines of the Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast conference, in Perth, on Wednesday. 

Mrs Rinehart, who is estimated by BRW to have a $20 billion fortune, said it was high costs, rather than low iron ore prices that affected her Roy Hill project. 

"What affects the project is high costs," Mrs Rinehart said. "As I have said so many times it is really important government cost burdens are lowered. We have regulations; be it approval processes, be it permits, be it licences, be it the checks that have to go on after those compliances." 

She said governments needed to take regulatory costs seriously.
"They have to cut these government cost burdens because our costs are incredible," Mrs Rinehart said.

And there you have it. It costs money to do business in Australia and the governments at both State and Federal level want a piece of the action. This, from the woman who famously complained that African workers are willing to work for $2 a day, why couldn't Australian workers do the same? It was a stupid rhetorical question that completely ignored the absence of choice involved in people getting exploited at $2 a day. 

But of course, Australian workers want a lifestyle and this is not acceptable to Gina who on the same occasion opined the average Australian was bone lazy and undeserving of the opportunities on offer - completely oblivious to the $2-a-day condition she wanted to have here.

It strikes me that if all these things really are such dreadful things, she should get out. God knows she has enough money, she doesn't need to do more. If it's not going to make money, fit's not going to break even, then stop doing it. It's not like we're putting a gun to her head to do this stuff. 

Because Bog-Off Really Means Bog-Off

Tony Abbott's really in some kind of warped zone where logic disappears and strange chains of thoughts manifest as utterances and complaints. He's certainly not about winning friends at the international level. 

In the correspondence, Australia told the UN it "sincerely regrets" missing by almost a year the 180-day deadline to respond to the committee's July 2013 ruling, which called for the refugees to be released and compensated. 

But the government's eventual response, made in December last year but not public before now, gives no ground to the UN committee finding that Australia was "inflicting serious psychological harm" on the refugees in indefinite detention.
The government said prompt medical treatment is provided and "Australia is committed to minimising the factors that contribute to mental health deteriorations of individuals in immigration detention". 

The majority of the refugees with negative assessments are detained at a Broadmeadows detention centre in Melbourne's north, where a spate of suicide and self-harm attempts have taken place. 

Police were called to the centre as recently as December and laid mattresses on the ground after a Burmese man spent a night on the roof threatening to jump.
The government also disagreed with the committee's interpretation of "arbitrary" detention and "arrest" that Australia has accepted under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

Professor Saul said the UN committee – an expert panel elected for four-year terms to act as independent legal experts – is the closest the world has to a human rights court.
In a written submission to the committee he described the government's response as "wholly unacceptable". 

"The key legal point is the government is completely rejecting the committee's authority to interpret and apply human rights standards in the convention, which Australia has agreed they should do," Professor Saul said. 

"It is really giving the two-fingered salute to the world."

Well, no surprises anywhere there. It's like he's going for broke in the Pan-Galactic Interstellar Dickhead Stakes. In his case, it really is a lifestyle choice. 

News That's Fit To Punt - 09/Mar/2015

He Said WHAT!?

There are days where you simply don't have words to describe the acute surprise, the acute embarrassment, and the acute pain of having this idiot:

...as our Prime Minister. Today is one of those days.

In extraordinary comments on Monday afternoon, Mr Abbott attacked the UN and said its representatives would "have a lot more credibility if they were to give some credit to the Australian government" for stopping boat arrivals.

"I really think Australians are sick of being lectured to by the United Nations, particularly, particularly given that we have stopped the boats, and by stopping the boats, we have ended the deaths at sea," Mr Abbott said. 

"The most humanitarian, the most decent, the most compassionate thing you can do is stop these boats because hundreds, we think about 1200 in fact, drowned at sea during the flourishing of the people smuggling trade under the former government."

The un-ironic stupidity is breathtaking. The boats being "stopped" only happened because of the deterrence offered by the Manus Island detention centre being a terrible place to end up. So even the "stopping the boats" he wants credit for, rests on the fruits of what the UN would term torture. Which means he can't get credit for that.

Worse still, the asylum seekers are being sent to Manus Island because the ALP choice of Malaysia was disqualified because Malaysia wasn't a signatory to the UN convention on refugees. And thanks to Tony Abbott's own drama-queen efforts as the opposition leader, they could not be brought to Australia, and had to be sent to Manus Island as a last resort. There's nothing in this that isn't somehow Tony Abbott's own damn fault.

As Paul Keating said, "God help us all, God help us all."

The Mental Health System Is About To Break

"Big" works in Mental Health and he is always full of stories about how the system is stretched to breaking point, and then they halve the resources. Or stop replacing broken fluoro tubes in the building. Or stop fixing broken toilets. And stop cleaners' contracts. Alas, making the situation even more miserable to the outside eyes, the mental health workers are with the HSU. Yes, that same union that had that Craig Thomson guy spend fantastic plastic money on hookers and had Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson and all kinds of characters that had the smack of corruption about them. Having ended up in court in the wake of the Craig Thomson affair (and never was the use of the word 'affair' been more accurate as double entendre), ensnared by their own bizarre politics and rorting, the HSU became the least effective representation for its union members. 

Worse still, the mental health workers have had a gag order placed upon them as a term of their employment. Not only are they sewn up with medical confidentiality, they're specifically not allowed to talk about their conditions at work to the media lest they get terminated. When you consider there aren't may private sector posts for mental health workers, you can see the New South Wales government has been gagging an entire sector of workers. 

Finally, the Sydney Morning Herald has put a slit into the curtain of silence. But they're only getting the doctors' side of the story. 

For years doctors have complained about the serious underfunding of mental health services. The reason? Most people think it's because performing more surgeries and cutting waiting times in emergency departments wins elections, while making sure someone with schizophrenia is properly supported and medicated in the community doesn't. 

Today Fairfax Media revealed that the situation is reaching crisis point. 

Doctors around the state cheered when the government, just after it was elected, allowed local health authorities more control over health services in their area. But the downside of the decision was that some areas with particularly stretched budgets have looked to mental health services to find savings. It's almost impossible to close a hospital bed without serious political ramifications, doctors say. But leaving a community health worker position unfilled? That's much easier to get away with.

All of the charts might be correct but it's only scratching the surface of the problems in funding, and worse still, it hasn't even gotten down to the day-to-day people who handle all the mentally ill people who live out in the community. There are horror stories to tell there. 

Consider this fact. When Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan were making cuts in their last budget, one of the two places to get an increase in funding was Mental Health. It hasn't been nearly enough to cover for the shortfall in funding; and WTE Joe Hockey has been trying to cut even that funding. 

Politicians are really fucking this up badly. There simply is no other interpretation. 

Screen Australia - Abnormal Business Practices

Pleiades sent in this link.

Companies associated with actor and film producer Claudia Karvan were paid $10.5 million by Screen Australia last year. Karvan is on the board of Screen Australia. 

Companies associated with fellow director Joan Peters, a media and entertainment lawyer, received just under $14.8 million in production grants, consultancy fees, travel grants and assorted transactions with Screen Australia.

Companies associated with actor and film producer Claudia Karvan were paid $10.5 million by Screen Australia last year. Karvan is on the board of Screen Australia. 

Companies associated with fellow director Joan Peters, a media and entertainment lawyer, received just under $14.8 million in production grants, consultancy fees, travel grants and assorted transactions with Screen Australia.

Companies associated with fellow director Joan Peters, a media and entertainment lawyer, received just under $14.8 Companies associated with director and film producer Rosemary Blight picked up $2.2 million in production grants and travel to the Toronto Film Festival. 

Payments of $1.5 million were made to companies associated with filmmaker Rachel Perkins and for a project in which a "close family" member of Perkins was involved.
Payments were also made to companies associated with the former chairman of Screen Australia, Glen Boreham, companies associated with deputy chair Deanne Weir and companies associated with another director, Richard Keddie. 

There is no suggestion of anything amiss. The transactions are duly recorded in the notes to Screen Australia's financial statements and the website features a conflict of interest policy. One can't help wondering though – as normal procedure on conflicts is for a director to leave the boardroom when a related party transaction is being discussed – that Screen Australia board meetings must resemble more a game of musical chairs than a traditional, boring old board meeting, as members excuse themselves. 

In two decades of digging around company accounts, this reporter has never seen anything quite like it; no less than five pages of related party transactions. 

"Screen Australia is fortunate to have an expert industry board ensuring decisions are well informed with an industry perspective. The agency adheres to a strict conflict of interest policy that ensures fairness and accountability," a spokeswoman said. 

We had stumbled on this quite by accident, in the process of researching a story on why the Australian film industry was not living up to its potential.

Are we surprised? It's a freaking rort. That it's all nepotism and paying one's spouses out of the public purse is as rife as it is, as costly as it is?

Need I say any more?

Double Standards

It's That Kind Of Day

The reports in the news sites say that Australia really swung behind getting a meaningful resolution out of the UN, in the aftermath of the MH17 event.  The SMH is really giving our diplomats a pat on the back - seems to me they're just finally earning their keep after years of cushy livin' in New York on the public purse! Besides, suddenly beset with Julie Bishop's death stare, how could the unsuspecting people of the world say no?

Of course jokes about Julie Bishop's death stare aside, the dynamic diplomatic deal-making does stand in stark contrast to the way this government minces words and tries to parse interpretations that do not exist (let alone be supported) from our commitment to the UN Charter on Human Rights and how we treat refugees. On that score, we're one of the worst violators but we keep on coming up with legal fictions as to why it's okay to run concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru. Millions have been displaced by civil wars in places like Syria, and our government is buys telling them they can't come. 37 Australians die in a plane hit by a Russian missile an we're all over it at the UN. No mater how you look at it, it's a kind of double standard.

In the mean time, PUP senator Jacqui Lambie has made international press on the back of an interview where she claimed her ideal man would be rich and well hung.

Later, when a prospective suitor called up the show, Lambie enquired (sic) if 22 year-old Jamie was "well-hung".
This induced great mirth from Kim and Dave (ratings gold!), but just imagine if a male politician had offered a similar opinion, about say, a woman needing to be "really rich and have massive boobs".

It would be a career-ending, resigning offence. Facebook groups would spring up in protest. People would make t-shirts and take to the streets in outrage.

In recent months, Tony Abbott has weathered howling storms for suggesting a Liberal candidate had sex appeal. And for winking when a talk back caller revealed she worked on a sex line.
Clive Palmer has also raised the eyebrow of disapproval for calling female journalists "madam" and "my dear".
And yet, Lambie is sure to stroll away from her Heart appearance and into her next set of public comments with nary a scratch.
Yes, they are lighting up the internet - but only for their "omigawd" value. Not because they might be construed as demeaning and well, sexist.

The thing is, it probably is some kind of double standard that lets Lambie off the hook when if she were a member of another party and a male, she might not have gotten off so lightly. I'm not saying she should be condemned or that this bit of double standard is particularly noteworthy - merely that double standards seems to be the notion of the day.

Obviously there's a fine line between the double standard thing and the deliberate hypocrisy inherent in the double think we are asked to endure with all its cognitive dissonance, but this is a country made up of inherently contradictory ideals. It stands to reason that there's a different rule or standard applied to everything, based on the values of nothing-in-particular.

War On Terror? Try Marketing

I found this funny pic on the web. Whoever drew it is one funny guy.

When You Can't Point A Finger, Point A Gun
Mr. Geoff Murphy recently joked to me in passing, "They say WWII was a war against fascism. The only conclusion we can draw is that we lost!".

The thing is, a 'war on fascism' or a 'cold war on communism' has some kind of philosophical basis. "Those guys across the sea believe in this doctrine or this idea and we disagree with it". And whatever the outcomes of actual battles and wars may be, the fact of the matter is, you can argue cases for an against these ideas like: Absolute Monarchy; Democracy; Constitutional Monarchy; fascist dictatorship with Fuhrer-Prinzip; Military juntas by coup; Marxist, or even Communist Totalitarianism (a.k.a. Stalinism); Islamist Theocracy; Cult of Personality (Maoism & Kim-ism) and so on. Some might actually argue a case for any of these types of state, as one were running a kingdom/nation in a game of 'civilization'.

The problem I have with this so-called war on terror is that 'Terrorism' is not an ideology of state that you can argue for or against. In trying to do so, it's such a stupid notion that we are reduced to un-nuanced moral arguments ourselves. A construction like, "Terrorists believe in terrorising us through terrorist acts." can be writ large. - Well, clearly, that's wanton violence and we don't like it, but that's largely a moral issue against violence. However, you cane see that Terrorism as such isn't much of a way to run the Reserve Bank, for example. What are they going to do? Threaten to blow up the vault unless we buy government bonds? Terrorise people into taking out home-loan mortgages in order to control the interest rate? (having written that, I realise now that maybe I already do live in a 'terrorist' state)

Anyway, the point stands that the war on terror is largely bunkum fed to us by media hysteria and governments keen to curtail our civil liberties in the name of war-time.

On that note, I'd like to present this link from Pleiades:

(3) PROMOTING TERRORISM:

Fauzi Hasbi's death led to a flurry of speculation about shadowy intelligence links to Indonesia's terror networks.

UMAR ABDUH (Translation): So there is not a single Islamic group, either in the movement or the political groups that is not controlled by Intel. Everyone does what they say.

Umar Abduh says his terrorist group was incited to violence after infiltrators showed a letter saying Muslim clerics would be assassinated.

UMAR ABDUH (Translation): There is a document stating that the Muslim leaders would be executed, we as a younger generation were immediately angered. Damn it, this is not right, we have to kill all those Cabinet members and military leaders, that was our plan.

And he's not the only one who says he was used by intelligence agents. Another convicted terrorist is Timsar Zubil who exploded three bombs in Sumatra in 1978. Although no-one was killed, he paid a heavy price.

TIMSAR ZUBIL (Translation): At first I was sentenced to death, it was changed to a life sentence, I served 22years.

Zubil now believes he was set up by former president Suharto's intelligence agency.

TIMSAR ZUBIL (Translation): We may have deliberately been allowed to grow in such a way, that we young people who were very emotional, were provoked into committing illegal acts.

REPORTER (Translation): Who let this happen?

TIMSAR ZUBIL (Translation): The ones who had the authority to ban us, in this case the ones in power, the Suharto regime. I have only started thinking of this recently, but at the time I was active, I didn’t think it through.

After Zubil was captured, beaten and tortured, something remarkable occurred. The authorities made up a provocative name for his group - Komando Jihad.

TIMSAR ZUBIL (Translation): It hadn’t occurred to us to use that name, but they told us that was to be the name of our organisation. We had no plans to use the name Komando Jihad. They told us to just accept it for the time being and if we wanted to deny it later in court, that was up to us. But it made no difference to the court, they insisted that the name was indeed ours.

This above bit caught my eye in particular because it matches what they've done with 'al Qaeda'. Give them a name like some band that's haggling with a record label.
"You are Kommando Jihad".
"err... Okay. We were thinking more along the lines of The Justice League"
"No, you are Kommando Jihad; the public won't buy your records if you call yourself The Justice League, and we need to sell records."
"...but we like the word Justice and we like the idea of a League of people who all agree."
"You are Kommando Jihad, because that's your image. Dangerous, threatening, with lead codpieces stuffed down really tight pants. Hide-your-daughters stuff. It always sells when you threaten their chicks."
"...but we want to grow out of that image and go more main stream..."
The record hits the streets. They are called Kommando Jihad. Substitute 'Records' for 'Terror' and you've got something that reads more like the blueprint for the 'War on Terror' as a marketing strategem.

And this is also why I'm saying these bombings in Bali and whatnot are media pseudo-events, much like the launch of a new album by a rock act. Sorry about the people who actually have to get blown up, but it's just a big stage show launching some campaign to convince your or me that the world is one fuck of a dangerous place and unless we give up a chunk of our civil liberties, we'll never get through this together alive. Well do you really buy that shite?

In turn, you know you're being marketed this absurd notion that we can indeed fight a war on terror, as opposed to any tangible idea. The lesson that was really learnt from WWII is that if you have an ideology that you're fighting, it opens you up to the need to argue a case. Well, clearly, you might lose those arguments if they have a superior argument; or a totally different set of cultural values. So the best thing is to just insist on a moral imperative, and what better moral imperative can there by than "we have legitimate reasons to fear..."
As long as you can legitimate your fears by making yourself the 'victim', then you can go on the offensive to excessive violence because you've won the right to do so through the court of public opinion.
It's a crock, boys and girls.

No Contributions Without Representation
Japan shoulders the second largest contribution in support of the United Nations. 19.5% of the UN budget is supplied by Japan. Recently Japan asked to join the Security Council as a permanent member, and were resoundingly defeated in the process. So now Japan has decided to argue to lower its fees to the UN on the grounds that it need not pay so much because it doesn't shoulder 19.5% of the decision making. After all Russia only pasy 1.1% and is a regular member of the Security council.

The Ambassador to the UN, Mr Ozawa stated, "If you exclude the United States, the amount Japan contributes to the UN surpasses the sum total of what the 4 nations on the Security Council contribute."
He also said, "our people strongly feel that our contribution is not being appreciated fully. There is also a growing despair and disillusion with financing the United Nations amongst our people."
Them's fightin' words. So potentially, Japan might become the first nation too leave both the League of Nations AND the United Nations... only joking. But it may well be possible that they simply stop paying in protest. Imagine the hypocritical international furore when that happens.

Just for the record, the ratios are:

US 22%
Japan 19.5%
UK 6.1%
France 6%
China 2%
Russia 1.1%

I'd be pissed about that too, especially when China actively campaigned to stop Japan getting a seat; and the only reason the Japanese asked for a seat wwas because, well, if you were paying 19.5%, you'd want representation too. The thing is, to quote the famous Paul Keating quip, these people sitting and negotiating at the UN ARE 'Unrepresentative Swill'.

Naturally, the Russian line has been there is no need to discuss changes to the contribution ratio each nation must make. Well, if I was a nation sitting on the Security Council while paying only 1.1%, I'd say the same thing too. But this is going to prove to be very challenging for the UN if Japan says "we're not paying at all unless you do review it." That's like a fifth of the budget at stake. The UN could go aground faster than you can say, "corruption in the offices of Kofi Anan"

Now, Japan aren't saying, "give us a seat on the Security Council or we don't pay". They're saying, "we understand we're not getting a seat on the Security Council. That's fine. Then we want to lessen our burden because our financial burden is disproportionate to our representation."
This is going to to be so much fun.

Walk-Off HBP Mailbag
This is funny only because I don't have a boss. But it is very funny:

Introducing SerfChoices
October 19, 2005

New work laws offer a brave olde worlde, writes Charles Purcell.

The Government is proud to unveil its new industrial relations program - SerfChoices. You may have seen the ads for it already: smiling peasants plough the fields while soothing mandolin music plays. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find peasants with full sets of teeth for those ads, this being the Middle Ages and all. Or ones that remembered how to smile. But I digress.

SerfChoices features exciting changes to the way your lord handles your employment. In the past, there were many ways you and your lord negotiated. Some lords liked to beat their serfs with maces; some cudgels; some preferred the rack. The Government is pleased to announce there will now be one standard method for beating peasants with large sticks, making it a simpler and fairer system.

SerfChoices also changes the way you, the peasant, negotiate your weekly payment of turnips.

In the past, you negotiated your turnip ration in the presence of your lord and the Government's official torturer, Dagmar the Terrible. The Government is pleased to announce it has eliminated third parties such as Dagmar. Now your lord will beat and torture you directly as you beg for scraps. Once negotiated, your contract will be cast in iron. You can't get much more cast-iron than manacles.

SerfChoices guarantees that many of your employment conditions remain unchanged. As a peasant, you're not entitled to holidays, so there's no change there. Your medical benefits remain intact - when you pass out in the fields from exhaustion, you will be left until you recover or the wolves take you.

The Government has made it illegal for your lord not to beat you because of race, colour, sex or age. Everyone will be given the same number of beatings, making it a better system for all.

The maximum number of working hours a day will be fixed at 23. One hour is permitted for sleeping, smoking noxious weed from the West Indies, and turnip consumption. Casual peasants will earn a quarter of a turnip and a piece of weevil-infested bread for each hour they work over 23.

Your protection from unfair dismissal will depend on your individual bargaining power - that is, whether or not you can talk your lord out of shooting you with his crossbow. Yet another way the Government is rewarding individual talent.

Thanks to SerfChoices, Sunday will no longer be a day of worship, but of work. Your lord is your living god - you may worship him whenever you please. Collective bargaining - otherwise known as peasant rebellions - will be treated in the usual manner, with the king's horses using the dissenters for speed bumps until they drop their demands.

Over time you may notice that your daily turnip ration goes down. That's because peasants in Upper Saxony and Timbuktu are willing to work for less. SerfChoices will allow us to build foundations for a stronger, more prosperous kingdom. If we don't act now, soon there'll be no turnips for your children and your children's children. And no one wants that.

Sums it up nicely. :)