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| More!? More!? |
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| The Dingo is Innocent! | |
Your ABC reports
Researchers from the University of New England at Armidale in New South Wales
say urgent human intervention is vital if the pure bred native dog is to have a
future.
and quotes Professor Gisela Kaplan as saying
I'm happy to say, .. there are individual breeders who are making sure the genetic stock remains pure.
This is just plain weird. The usual Greenie arguments against
extinction are that any creature's DNA may contain a cure for cancer, and once
the species goes extinct, the genetic material is lost forever
(untrue in the age of cloning from DNA strands, but as that technology is still
formative, they get the benefit of the doubt). But no such extinction seems to be in store for the dingoes, who are just
interbreeding with other varieties of domestic dogs. Clearly all the genes are
still present, they are just scattered though a bunch of half-breed mongrels
instead of being in their 'pure' form. And the problem with this is ..? Perhaps these members of the intellectual elite
regard racial purity as a desirable thing in itself, and don't think that pure
races should be polluted with impurities? If this is the case, then shouldn't
this apply to humans as well as other species? Perhaps Professor Kaplan and his peer-reviewing colleagues think there
should be government funded programs to 'make sure the genetic stock
remains pure' and free of the inevitable pollution from cross-breeding?
Pure Aryan perhaps? Perhaps they think the Negroid races fill a particular
ecological niche in manual labor? Or that the Mongoloid races are needed for laundry
maintenance? Your taxes at work in the educational sector.
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| Big Kim | |
The Art of War is not Simon (the-UN-defines-morality) Crean's strong point, so
perhaps he should have avoided the current war of words with his predecessor,
Kim (Fat Boy) Beazley. Kim did an interview for The
Bulletin, and started shooting off at the mouth about 'if I were PM', and
then got onto 'if I were opposition leader again'. It wasn't clear whether Kim
was testing the water for a comeback, whether he was the stalking horse for
another contender, or whether he just can't shut-up, but his musings were
certainly noticed. With Simon's popularity at an all time low, and more Australians wanting
Kim Beazley as ALP leader than
Simon Crean, Simon was a more than a little testy on the subject, and shot back
with accusations about disloyalty, and whined about how he'd been a good an
faithful deputy to to Kim, so why couldn't Kim just shut up and let him run the
ALP into oblivion in his own way. Kim suggested that Simon was 'overeacting'. It wasn't only the Saddamites who lost the Gulf War. The ALP have realized that
Simon's short-term-popularity strategy was disastrous (they were counting on
more Iraqis dying), and they have to decide whether to effect a regime change of
their own. They have realized that Simon can't possibly win the next election, but they
also know that Kim (two time loser) Beazley can't either. So why should they
change? Because Kim will hold on to more seats than Simon. And that is the best
they can hope for when hunkering down for an indefinite opposition. It's a big job, but Kim's got to be the best man for it - he's used to having a
lot on his plate.
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| Not you guys again! | |
Fortune favors the bold, and there are enough happy asylum seekers reaping
the fruits of of Australia's welfare system to silence any
doubters. But selling all your possessions and boarding a rickety boat to sail
across dangerous waters to face an uncertain reception from the inhabitants of
the great southern land is a bit dated now. And it's an investment whose window
of opportunity appears to have closed. But humans are gamblers by nature, and
another boat of unwanted human refuse is reportedly making its way to Australia to try their
luck. Their boat ran out of fuel in Indonesian waters and, in
usual fashion, the Indonesians refueled the vessel, fed its occupants, gave
them a compass and pointed them to the international human garbage dump -
Australia. Of course this boatload is fundamentally different from the previous
boatloads. This lot are Vietnamese (presumably Christians), and perhaps
they think Australians will have a softer spot for people who don't have a
cultural predisposition to strapping on explosives and immolating themselves
while screaming 'death to the infidels'. On the other hand, they may just be sailing to Australia for a cruise. They
might pop into Sydney Harbour, visit some relo's, catch a show at the Opera
House, buy some of those little stuffed koalas with 'made in China' on the
labels, and cruise home again to the People's Socialist Paradise Republic
of Vietnam just in time to feed their flock of flying pigs. But it's not
likely. This is a bit of a novelty for Australia - it hasn't happened for 15 months
since the drownings, the hugely popular SAS storming of the MV Tampa and the
relocations to Nauru and Manus Island. And it comes just as the Iraqi war is
slipping off the front page, and the country is hunkering down for an Asian
invasion of SARS. What amazing timing! What will the government do with them?
Well, Nauru is a nice place this time of year. Actually, since it's almost on
the equator, Nauru is a nice place any time of the year, and with the asylum
seekers reportedly eating better than the Nauruans, maybe its not so bad. And
the new arrivals will have a chance to practice their multicultural skills
with the current detention-center inhabitants. And with rumors about Johhny ('I'll be making an announcement about my
long term future in the not too distant future') Howard still basking in
the glory of war, this could be just the ticket to ensure another
box-office-success at the polls for Johhny's fourth-term victory lap. The lefties have always called Johhny a US lap-dog. Now he looks set to become
a victory-lap-dog. What a life!
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| Backs to the Wall in China | |
There are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who freely
admit to making a mistake immediately after they realize it, and try to avoid
it in the future. And there are those who try to cover mistakes up, and then
lie about it even when the error (and the lies) are exposed. It takes a lot of
confidence, and sometimes courage to admit to making mistakes, and many people
think that it is a sign of good upbringing. People will carry into adulthood the strategy which worked best in their childhood. Bureaucrats, of
course, are notorious for covering things up, and countries with the biggest
bureaucracies (command
economies) could be expected to cover up more than freer political systems. The most
famous example is the Soviet Union's nuclear
reactor meltdown in Chernobyl - the entire Soviet bureaucracy simply went into
cover-up and denial mode, in spite of the fact that it was quite obvious that
even the legendary Soviet information suppression machine was no match for a
disaster of that scale. Now it comes as no surprise to some to find that the Chinese government has been
lying again. This time they have been lying about the number of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases in the country. Previously we were told that
only 4 had died in China, suddenly the number has been 'revised' up to 20. And
the previously 44 cases has been 'revised' upward to 248. When the SARS outbreak looked like it was small and controllable, the media control could contain
the facts. But then the outbreak spread to other countries, and the World
Health Organization (WHO) became involved. For a while the Chinese just kept
lying and blocked WHO's access to information. Eventually though, the pressure
became too much, and the truth had to be told. Chinese Authorities are still denying any wrong doing - blaming
'bureaucratic inefficiencies' and 'poor communication' for the 'incomplete
information' available. But in a concession to popular expectations of government
accountability they found some scapegoats, sacking the Health Minister and the
Mayor of Beijing. Seeing junior politicians falling on their swords to protect the careers of
more senior politicians is something we normally only expect in enlightened
democracies like Australia. In a country where telling a lie - any lie - has been safer than telling the
truth, this is a significant shift. Now it seems, even telling a lie may not
save you. How can Chinese bureaucracy function with that level of uncertainty?
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| 'I don't like it!' | |
Computers are a
wonderful example of modern technology - they enable
more processing, and greater economies of scale
than our forebears would have dreamed. But they also enable greater
stuff-ups. The NSW Electoral Commission is in crisis because they can't count
(or at least process) the Senate votes for the last election. Jokes about
having to wait for a result until Easter appear to be understated - we may be
waiting until the second coming. Your ABC reports
The Electoral Commissioner, John Wasson, says it is not entirely his fault."The problems which have arisen were [of] a technological nature and I guess
that's all I can say," he said.
Right, a public
servant denying responsibility, and
insisting his job isn't to understand technology, just to boss
the people around who do. And it sounds like they need some bossing around too
- either that or they need to be left alone to solve the computer problems. Apparently all of the results have been faithfully entered into a computer
database, and all that is needed is to run the program to count the results.
A non-trivial, but not overly complex process - even for the 4 million votes
which have to counted. But computer experts know that just because computers are predictable, doesn't
mean that you can predict their results. Every self-respecting computer nerd
knows that if you don't get the result you want, sometimes you have to keep
running the computer program until you do. And apparently the NSW electoral commission doesn't like the results they are
getting from the computer program, and are going to keep going until they get a
result they like. With Pauline
Hanson still trailing behind the Shooters Party, and still not knowing
whether she will win her coveted final Senate seat, she may be quite justified
in demanding 'Please Explain?'.
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| Cradle of Civilization | |
The peace-mongers have been screaming about the US allowing massive looting on the
streets of Baghdad in the power vacuum created by the collapse of the
Saddamites. While many people smiled smugly at the poetic justice of the Iraqis
trashing the German
embassy, few people have rejoiced in the looting and destruction of the Iraqi
National Museum. Much of the looting may be from people actually keeping the
articles safe for later, but it is clear that many of the artifacts have been
simply smashed. Iraq has been called 'the cradle of civilization',
archaeological treasures dating back millennia are gone forever, and the loss
to the discipline of Archeology is immense. But is this so bad? The fact is that some individual (or individuals) made a decision in Iraq
to deprive the collective of these
relics of the past. Perhaps this was the act of a thoughtless hooligan, or
perhaps it was someone who thought that it was time for Iraq to move forward. Living in the past hasn't worked well for Iraq. Controlling people by forcing
them to live by rules laid out in a 1000 year old scripture didn't work well
for the average Iraqi. Centuries of tradition has given weight to the mindset
which has controlled and repressed people at least for decades and arguably for
centuries. Being the cradle of civilization hasn't made for a very civilized
Iraq. Instead of being fixated on the past, perhaps Iraqis can now be fixated on the
future. New freedoms, new responsibility, new wealth, new possibilities, new
opportunities. Iraq has a chance to move from serfdom straight into the 21st century. Dusty
old artifacts are not needed for that. Hopefully the cradle of civilization
for Iraq begins here and now.
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| Property is Theft | |
Operation Iraqi Freedom has has pretty much bombed the Saddamites into
submission (apart from a few war criminals who still think that Allah's
intervention will provide sudden victory) and many Iraqis have finally come out
of their homes and expressed their feelings about their former
rulers. For many, this expression has involved theft and looting. Looting and smashing Saddam's palaces may have looked a little uncivilized to
those who just paid for the war through taxes on cable-TV subscriptions, but
few would deny that it is good therapy for Iraqis, and even leftist
anger-management counselors would doubtless approve of the trashing of the
palaces. Libertarians too, are likely to rejoice in the idea of the people looting
government buildings. After the government had stolen from the people so long,
they were just stealing some of the stuff back. And looting the UN offices too
may be seen as rough justice after the UN's efforts to prevent the recent
toppling of the Saddamites. But the looters haven't stopped there - they have started on
hotels, restaurants, private homes and even hospitals. There are several issues for the Coalition forces to deal with. - The Coalition forces have to demonstrate they have no interest in stealing
Iraq's wealth, and hence no interest in securing Iraqi government properties.
The best way to demonstrate this is to ignore the Iraqis liberating it
themselves.
- The coalition must be seen as liberators, not as conquerers - or to be dictating
to Iraqis what their behavior should be.
- Much of the violence will be directed against members of Saddam's Baath
Socialist party members. Stopping this kind of payback is a low priority.
Significantly too, the simple fact is that after a prolonged period of
systematic theft, some redistribution is appropriate. Wealth distribution
is always a contentious political issue, but most would agree that in a corrupt
dictatorship, wealth distribution is not based on any kind of justice. Having
the poor steal from the rich is not something most people would get upset about
when most of the wealth is obtained through exploitation, corruption and graft. Looting hospitals will clearly cause greater suffering, and they are
the best institutions to protect at this time. But the average Iraqi can't really see the problem with liberating the
possessions of the very rich. Nor can most other people.
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| Not happy, George. | |
Orwellian wisdom suggests that Socialism is the embodyment
of a boot stamping on a human face forever. But the boot was on the other foot
in Baghdad as residents gleefully jumped on the face of the Socialist Baath
Party leader's statue, pulled over by a US armored military vehicle. Saddam
seems to have bitten the dust. 21 days into the war, the oppressive regime was rendered disfunctional -
even the ubiquitious Information Minister had vanished from the screen of Al
Jazeera. No more daily denial of continuous military defeats in the face
of the Coalition forces. As Iraqis danced in the streets and
welcomed US troops, the US felt
it had its vindication. Less than totally happy about the collapse of the Saddamites are many
Arabs. Not only did they have to face the reality of the unexpectedly quick
fall of Baghdad (which most people expected to last many weeks), they then had
to face the TV images of Iraqi jubilation and destruction of Saddam's statues. Disappointed! The Middle-Eastern strong man, idolized for his continued defiance in the
face of America went down without a serious struggle. All the rhetoric about
entering the gates of hell at Baghdad was shown to be the usual Arabic
rhetoric. Lots of Arabic bravado, but an inability to back it up. As George W
himself might say: Big hat, no cows. The US got to Baghdad, spent two days regrouping, and went straight in. And even that only took so long because of their care to minimize civilian
casualties. In a real war, they
would have simply carpet-bombed the cities for six weeks, and then moved in to
get the oil. The Arabic bravado will continue - the favored rhetoric about the
viper's nest of the infidels being washed away in their own blood, and their
lies, which are the hissing of vipers being silenced by the mighty cries of
Jihad of the brave martyrs of Islam or whatever. But many people in Middle-East now have to face the reality of what they
have actually known all along. The only reason they are still there is because
the US has chosen to tolerate them. Americans choose to buy oil because they
are unwilling to take it by force, not because they
unable to do so. This realization is unlikely to make the US many friends in Syria and Iran,
but will achieve other purposes. Shock and Awe was a poor tactic in Iraq, but
is an effective outcome for the rest of the Middle-East. This is what America
does in a toy war. It might be best not to find out what happens in the real
thing. Both the fanatics and the governments of Syria, Iran, and even Saudi, have
been put on notice. Anger the sleeping giant at your peril.
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| No Contest | |
Fox News
reports today:
An estimated 600 to 1,000 Iraqi troops were killed during the operation, said
Col. David Perkins. "We had a lot of suicide attackers today," he said. "These
guys are going to die in droves ... They keep trying to ram the tanks with car
bombs." Earlier in the war, US
forces appeared to be struggling against waves of brave, if misguided, soldiers
attacking their supply lines. As one soldier put it 'this is not the enemy
we war-gamed against'. However at Baghdad, the Republican Guard have taken
on the US forces head to head and this Jihad is making the US soldiers think that
all their Christmases have come at once. Thousands of years ago when enemy clans ran at each other with club or
swords and hacked at each other, bravery was critical. But a culture of bravado is no match
for a modern military
machine. A car bomb will simply not take out a US tank. These people are
throwing away their lives. They would actually do more good for their cause if they lay in front of
the tanks and let themselves be crushed. The military impact would be the same,
and the psychological impact (from being televised around the world) would be a
thousand times of times greater. The strongest image of the 1980s was a picture of a single man standing in
front of a tank on the Avenue of Eternal Peace after the massacre at Tienanmen Square. One
man who was willing to come out in the light of day, to challenge those who had
stolen his right to his liberty - to cut him down for the whole world to
see. He didn't win his liberty, but he kept his life, and won his dignity in a
nation of exploitation and repression. The image of ten men, praying for peace while being crushed by an
American tank, beamed into a billion homes around the world, would stop the
war. The most formidable fighting machines in history cannot roll over 300
kilos of soft, yeilding pacifist flesh. The resulting shock and awe would force
the Americans to stop the advance on Baghdad, and to negotiate a truce. But Saddam's men won't do that. That strategy doesn't feature in a mind-set
obsessed by bravado, force
and repression. They will run into a battle screaming for another's blood, and
the entire world will be thankful for their deaths.
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| When duty calls .. | |
There are few things in life more pleasurable than spending other people's
money. Indeed the average
voter in a social
democracy likes it so much they are even willing to let other people spend
their own money in exchange. Surely a worthy tradeoff for those volunteering
for it, just a little unfair on those of us who would like to opt out of the
scheme. But spending of other people's money is about to happen on a massive
international scale. Billions of dollars are going to be spent on rebuilding Iraq when the current regime
falls (or is ignored), and the bill is going to be sent to Iraqis, and taken
out of future oil sales. Nothing wrong with this in principle - the oil has been stolen from the
Iraqi people by a psychotic dictator for the last 25 years, and there is not
yet a legitimate government in Iraq. The US is going to set up an interim
administration - like the proud guardian of a orphan with a rich estate, which
they can use at their discretion to provide for their charge until they come of
age. There are going to massive rebuilding contracts, administered by the US,
and the one contract given so far is to (you guessed it) a US company. And the
taxes from any profits go to (yup) the US government. Further, your ABC reports that
The US House of Representatives passed a supplementary budget amendment
excluding Russia, France, Germany and Syria from taking part in US-funded
reconstruction bids in Iraq.
Not a very utilitarian way to appropriate other people's money, but a very
effective one. Anxious to do the right thing, Australian officials, have raised questions
about the legitimacy of automatically giving the contracts to US companies.
But they haven't called for open tenders to all and sundry, with the contracts
going to the best-and-cheapest. They have simply demanded a slice of the action
too. Apparently they don't want to compete fairly on an open market - they want
a 'fair' share of the contracts for rebuilding Iraq! Apparently the notion that spending other people's money has obligations
(like getting the best value for that money) hasn't occurred to the US
government in the rush to Baghdad. Buying new Iraqi infrastructure on
international free
market would be more equitable than the hand-in-pocket solution. Giving a
contract to a Frog would
stick in the throat of any reasonable person, but if they are the best bidder,
then does it not become an obligation? Sadly, it seems that all of Iraq's oil is not enough to lubricate the free
market.
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>> Please Sir, I want some more
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| Feedback/Forum |
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- ANON -- Anonymous Coward 2011-12-02
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