As Tone Abbott goes all out, even for him, in the government’s frenzied bid to create AWB media distractions, it’s been revealed today that, back in March 2000, Australia’s trade commissioner in Washington, Alistair Nicholas, cabled the Austrade managing director to tell him they should consider alerting the trade minister Mark Vaile to problems swirling around AWB’s contracts with Iraq. His cable was forwarded to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Nicholas followed up in a meeting with Trevor Flugge (hasn’t Cole got any contempt charges to deal with this guy?) and two other AWB execs in Washington and told them the UN had concerns about suspected irregularities in the contracts. The ABC reports the Lying Rodent’s response as: “DFAT investigated the matter and AWB categorically denied the allegations”. There now seems little room to doubt that there are only the two possibilities left for the government: either it must own up to extraordinary incompetence or be found complicit in bribing Saddam.
Archive for February, 2006
So “Carmichael and Shane”, the film about the two twins, was announced as this year’s Tropfest winner today. Second prize went to “Burst”, and “The Story of Bubble Boy” and “Fishy” tied for third.
I have to say that I was a little disapointed that neither of my favourites “Carnivore Reflux” or “Glitch” won any of the awards. I thought that they were both very clever and well made. However, at least I can see the merit in the films that did win awards (although “Fishy” was a little too creepy for my taste…).
On the other hand, the film that won the inaugural Tropfest Feature Program award, “Pacific” did nothing for me. In fact, I thought it was quite boring, but that may just be superficial of me.
Did anyone else make it along this year? If so, what did you think?
The Lib Dems in the UK have just proved that a political party can do quite well, thank you very much, without a leader! Take that, Howardians!
Elsewhere: Seriously now, Andrew Bartlett took a look at the Lib Dems’ leadership race some time ago.
A few fun snippets from the interwebs.
It’s been established that Princess Diana’s driver on the night she died was working for the French secret service.
The Da Vinci Code film may not be shown, as alleged “historians” Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent are suing their own publisher alleging that Dan Brown “copied” their trashy stuff about Mary Magdalene and secret Jesus bloodlines. Does this constitute an admission that their “research” is fictional? Surely genuine historians wouldn’t worry about a dramatisation of their work?
And shadowy royal machinations may terminate Prince Charles’ legal action about his diaries. Perhaps Charlie could set up a rather spiffy pseudonymous blog? Any suggestions for a name?
Tony Jones, curse you. Why couldn’t I have interviewed Maureen Dowd? I’ve got more quals, and I’m sure I’d have smiled even more often and even more idiotically. The red hair falling Elvis-like across the right eye, the sexy mouth, the smart tongue, the Irishness, the intelligence, the gonzo track record, the self imagination as Emma Peel: let me count the ways. Pity about that ingrained New York accent, although I’m sure we’d manage it. The red-headed Geena Davis also did well tonight, fighting right-wing male arseholes and steering cleverly across a pile of gender issues, despite her own daughter and the wonderful Donald Sutherland. Dick Cheney, eat shit.
I’m even less inclined to buy the Howard hagiography according to News Limited now that I’ve had a chance to read a substantial excerpt: Caroline Ovington’s ‘Howard’s South Park Pals’. No doubt something sensible could be written about changes in the attitudes of young people, but this ain’t it. It’s hardly even worth bothering with the article after the first few paragraphs:
By 2004, however, when Howard won his fourth election, the ground had shifted dramatically. Less than a third of young people — 32 per cent — voted for Mark Latham, while 41 per cent went with Howard.
Even allowing for the 17 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted for the Greens, the uncomfortable truth for the Opposition was that, for the first time since reliable age-specific polling began, less than half of young people were voting for candidates from the Left.
There may well be a story there about the Libs outpolling Labor in the youth vote, but there isn’t one about “Howard’s young fogies”. Add 32% of Labor votes to 17% of Green votes and you get 49% of votes cast for “THE LEFT” compared to 41% for the Coalition (leaving aside the doubtful practice of reading social attitudes off partisan votes, or whether a Labor or Green vote translates to an identification with THE LEFT and vice versa for a Liberal vote, but hey, it’s Ovington’s “argument”, not mine). If Ovington can’t notice a basic contradiction in figures she herself cites, you wonder how sloppy and slanted the rest of the tome will be.
Update: Ovington’s junk findings conflict with Andrew Leigh’s social scientific research.
It’s been a while since we had a proper blog meet-up over here in Perth. So I thought I’d take some initiative and organise one.
Where: Flying Scotsman, Mt Lawley.
When: 7pm, Monday the 6th of March.
Who: Anyone who reads this and lives in or around Perth.
How you’ll know it’s us: I’ll probably have a sign of some sort saying “PERTH BLOGGING MEETUP THING PLEASE DON’T RUN AWAY”.
And yes, I know it’s the Monday evening at the end of a long weekend but what better way to round out three lazy days of not-working with a chance to socialise with other charming bloggy types?
Several centuries after theocracy was rejected in the West, it can be a shock to find calls for sharia law in Australian places of worship. Still, it would be a big mistake to dismiss this as “un-Australian” rather than to begin the kind of engagement that eventually made Christianity less bloody. Indeed, talking to the more hard-line Muslims, rather than ostracising them or shouting them down, could be one of the greatest services Australia can render to the wider world. Why shouldn’t the Muslim version of the Enlightenment and an Islamic doctrine of the separation of church and state be fostered in Australia? Especially as the task is so urgent.
There are countries that apply religious or sharia law – Saudi Arabia and Iran come to mind. If a person wants to live under sharia law these are countries where they might feel at ease. But not Australia.
And the citizenship pledge should be a big flashing warning sign to those who want to live under sharia law. A person who does not acknowledge the supremacy of civil law laid down by democratic processes cannot truthfully take the pledge of allegiance. As such they do not meet the pre-condition for citizenship.
A bit of a defence of the Australian’s book in… wait for it… The Australian today, in response to criticisms that it will be an unbalanced polemic - from its publisher:
I know for a fact that Leak would not be the only contributor to The Howard Factor who would feel distinctly uncomfortable about being tarred with a right-wing brush.
What disappointed me most about Adler’s observation, as I told her in no uncertain terms from the canned-fruit aisle of Coles where she found me on my mobile, was that The Howard Factor could be interpreted as a polemic work.
God forfend!
No, it’ll be a calm and sober analysis demonstrating in a reasonable and empirical way that:
the Prime Minister has proved himself as the most skilful political player of his generation
Against expectation, Howard has been a moderniser who built on and expanded the work of his predecessor to fundamentally change the nation and reframe the national debate.
The Howard Factor charts how, in the course of a decade, the conservatives have stolen the mantle of reform and the progressives have become the new reactionaries.
Apparently balance is served by the fact that there are, um, stacks of published books on Latho. But has The Australian’s team ever asked itself why David Barnett’s previous hagiography hit the remainder bins after about a week? And why publishers (more likely to be in the game for a buck than “Howard hating”) are wary of tomes on Howard and Howardianism? Could it be that the free market has spoken?
I had it in mind a few weeks ago to ask if any SA and Tassie based readers wanted to provide guest commentary on the elections there, but I guess I left it too late. However, if anyone has any commentary or reports they’d like to share, please feel free to post here. There’s a bit of context on the SA poll at APO, and regular commentary on both campaigns at The Poll Bludger.
LP readers resident in SA might also be inclined to participate in Online Opinion’s web based research.
Apparently there is a growing campaign in Hollywood to disqualify the film, Paradise Now, from the Academy Awards because it gives a sympathetic portrayal of a suicide bomber and ‘takes as given’ the fact that Israel is the evil aggressor. Interestingly this kind of censorship seems to fit neatly into the contrast that we saw earlier this week between the criminalisation of the anti-semitic Irving and the encouragement given to the anti-Islamic Danish cartoons.
We will see, yet again, that only one side of the story is allowed visibility in the West?
I have yet to wade my way through the amazing Ninth Carnival of Feminists, put together by Winter Woods at the wonderful feminist blog from Cardiff, Mind the Gap, but I wanted to draw it to people’s attention it because it is an incredible collection of posts - yet again.
My favourite, so far, is a brief post by Laurelin in the Rain entitled The Patriarchy Phrasebook. Like many of the commenters, I felt the most empathy with this particular translation:
Patriarchy: ‘Smile, love!’
Translation: ‘Why are you not deferential to my masculinity?’
I have experienced this one, or close variations on the theme, on countless occasions and it never fails to both irritate and baffle me. My irritation should be fairly self-explanatory. My confusion is based on my inability to understand how some guys appear to believe that although I have either never met them, or barely know them, my primary concern for the day is whether or not they find me attractive and pleasing. Where did this belief come from? Is this really the message that society as a whole is sending them?
Another post in the Carnival that I had actually stumbled across earlier through a link from Kate’s blog is a post from Mad Sheila Musings about Why WA shouldn’t legalise prostitution. This post was one that I wanted to write about earlier, but was sort of reluctant, because I think that the issue is really complicated. In brief, though, I have to say that I can’t agree with Alyx, over a MSM, despite my sympathy for her concerns about the messages that are being propagated about women within the sex industry.
Continue reading ‘Ninth Carnival of Feminists, and a little exploration of the prostitution debate’
I don’t purport to have a clear answer to the question of whether Paul Keating was right (though one thing that Howard’s decennial round of interviews has put beyond doubt is that the two PMs agree). But there’s some very interesting research on social and economic attitudes in a forum from The Australian Review of Public Affairs on the Howard decade. In research that Paul Norton discussed on the basis of an SMH report, University of Sydney political economist Gabrielle Meagher and ANU sociologist Shaun Wilson have brought together data from a number of surveys to sketch out an answer to the question. As they say, go read the whole thing, but here are some snippets.
We have shown that Australians have not moved ‘off center’ to borrow Hacker and Pierson’s (2005) useful phrase. If anything, the public has drifted leftwards in their attitudes in major policy areas, supporting working women, public spending, and immigration. So we can’t confirm that the Government remains popular because it has succeeded in finding the true centre of gravity in Australian politics. If Howard’s ultimate goal is to instil more conservative values, then he is unlikely to succeed.
Continue reading ‘Does changing the government change the country?’
Angelina Jolie has joined the op/ed ranks - strangely in the magazine of the World Economic Forum. Her piece is a bit schmaltzy, but she has something to say:
Those of us who are still well-disposed towards refugees, and are shocked to see them turned into hate figures in order to win elections or sell newspapers, are failing. We don’t want uncontrolled movements of people across our borders, but we are not prepared to invest financially or politically, or even emotionally in finding solutions in the regions they come from. We will put band aids over the most gaping wounds, because they look a bit ugly. But we won’t pay for a full cure, and we won’t invest much effort in prevention either.
The latest reality show to hit Australia has been Ten’s The Biggest Loser. I admit that I have been seduced by this show and watch it most nights at 7:00pm. The concept of The Biggest Loser is quite simple. Put 12 very overweight people into a house for two months with two trainers and see who can lose the most weight. The pathos, bathos and weight loss that accompanies the contestants makes for great viewing.
As someone trying lose the unsightly pounds (about 25 kilos worth) The Biggest Loser is of interest to me. As much as I enjoy the show certain elements of The Biggest Loser do leave me conflicted.
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