Perhaps we’re giving it too much attention (given that it was a pile of negative dross and dire warnings that if Labor does anything about global warming YOUR JOB WILL DISAPPEAR and anyway, union bosses will soon drag us back to TEH BAD OLD DAYS… when incidentally productivity was higher and we weren’t just reliant on being a quarry, but anyhoo…, oh and all that being sacked and hired back on a lower wage stuff, nothing to do with WorkChoices, trust us). But we’re not alone.
Paul Kelly thinks that climate change isn’t remotely a moral issue, and that Howard is a political genius, while Dennis Shanahan can hardly contain his glee at the fact that now the government are supposedly back on the front foot (his evidence being that he thinks so, and perhaps he gives the game away when he refers to Rudd’s “media honeymoon” - us humble voters apparently have no role to play whatsoever in an election year.)
I’m not buying it for an instant.
In truth, probably no one outside the political class, the punditariat and us politics junkies took any notice whatsoever. All that “cut through” from Howard’s speech was a couple of soundbites where he bags Labor and makes his infamous “moral challenge” claim which is just going to reinforce the head in the sand on global warming theme.
But, anyway, since a Rudd government looks more likely than not, I thought this snippet from Martin Kettle’s Guardian column on the death of New Labour in the UK was interesting. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts on how valid his criteria for a centre-left government are, and also how Labor under Rudd measures up (either in prospect or so far).
Continue reading ‘That speech!’
The Valley Jazz Festival started on Tuesday night, back this year bigger and better with an infusion of promo and artist dosh from some dedicated fund raising from the folks at Jazz Queensland. I haven’t been down the road to see any of the gigs yet, due to a combination of the end of a lingering virus and the school night issue. But, swearing to stick to soda, lime and bitters, I can’t resist venturing to The Press Club tonight to hear Megan Washington sing. She’s just about the best jazz vocalist I’ve come across for quite some time, and having recently decamped to Melbourne, opportunities to see her in Brisvegas are now much rarer than I’d like. Check out some samples on her myspace and read a review of a previous gig by Kim from the LP archives. There’s an absolute plethora of good things going on through til Sunday, and I’m sure I’ll be checking some more out on the weekend (when perhaps a smidgeon of vodka might be added to my glass!)…
Ps: Melbourne readers might like to know that Megan is playing Bennetts Lane on the 18th of May, 1st of June and 22nd of June before she heads off to Tokyo.
I’ve just been looking over the web-site of the Right Honourable Mr John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, in particular, the speeches in the Media Centre section. One striking thing is the orotundity of some of the titles, which are written in a classic, 18th century style, with an evident eye to the posthumously published collected writings. For example:
Address to the Nation on Committing Australian Forces to War in Iraq
Address to the Quadrant Magazine 50th Anniversary Dinner, Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney
Address at the Launch of the Publication ‘The Conservative’ Parliament House, Canberra
Continue reading ‘Things to Come: Collected Writings’
I remember, as a kid, when the first planets outside our solar system were discovered. But these strange new worlds, inferred largely through watching the gravitationally-induced wobble in “nearby” stars (where “nearby” means stars whose light only took decades or centuries to reach us rather than millennia), were all very different to the planets in our own solar system. Not only did many make Jupiter look like a minnow, they seemed to like getting up close and personal with their parent star. With conjectured surface temperatures hot enough to melt steel, let alone lead, the large number of such planets discovered started to lend some credibility to the Rare Earth hypothesis, which claims that complex life is rare (or even unique to Earth) because planets, like Earth, capable of supporting life are exceedingly uncommon.
As one who has not entirely given up the Star Trek dream of meeting three different alien species a week, therefore, it’s exciting to hear that the most Earth-like planet yet has been discovered. Gliese 581, an otherwise undistinguished little minnow of a red dwarf star about 20 light years up the road from the Sun, has three planets orbiting around it. One of them, with the rather undistinguished name Gliese 581 c, is a planet rather different to the heaving “hot Jupiters” that have been found so far. With a mass roughly 5 times that of Earth, and a diameter conjectured to be about 50% larger, the planet’s orbit is such that liquid water could exist on its surface, and modelling suggests that it will either have a rocky surface like our own Earth, or possibly be covered with oceans.
Continue reading ‘A watery neighbour round a friendly local red dwarf’
Brian of Backseat driving has made a real bet on global warming - as opposed to those vague publicity stunts from BetUS.
John Howard says that he won’t sacrifice Australia’s great economy on the altar of climate change. Our Dear Leader is shining a torch towards a future where we can all be at ease. But, but, has he considered the most pressing threat that our security faces? DoD consultants in America are planning for a guerilla war against the coming alien invasion. Can we really sleep soundly in our prosperity when space octopi might threaten our sacred way of life? Our great mates in the sprawling American defence complex are taking this possibility with the ominous seriousness it deserves. Could it be that our own man of steel is asleep at the wheel?
Military glory - that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood - that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy…
~Abraham Lincoln
Jessica Lynch has been testifying to Congress.
“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies,” Lynch said.
Update: Glenn Greenwald is scathing about the role of the press in the stories invented about Lynch and Tillman.
Continue reading ‘Foundationalist myths’
They shall not grow old,
As we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them.
We will remember them.
The ANZAC Dedication: For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon
Open Anzac Day Thread.
According to John Howard’s opening to his major speech on “Australia Risingâ€? yesterday, Queensland is the down-under equivalent of California. Sorry, I’m digressing already – not a promising start. Let’s move on to substance of the speech, which begins where the sucking up to locals leaves off.
My speech today is about the future of our nation. It looks ahead to an Australia rising to the challenges of the next decade and beyond – to an Australia within reach.
Continue reading ‘About that Speech’
A new study, whose findings were released today, provides further evidence to suggest that there is no link between induced abortion and breast cancer.
A 2003 international expert panel convened by the National Cancer Institute reviewed and assessed research regarding reproductive events and the risk of breast cancer, and concluded that based on existing evidence, induced abortion is not associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. “The data from the NHSII provide further evidence of a lack of an important overall association between induced or spontaneous abortions and risk of breast cancer,� the authors conclude. “Among this predominantly pre-menopausal population, neither induced nor spontaneous abortion was associated with the incidence of breast cancer.�
Now, before any one decides to go there - even if induced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer, it is not a reason to ban the procedure. The only issue is ensuring that women are made aware of all risks involved with any medical procedure.
But lying to women is not on. This is just the latest piece of research to suggest that there is no link. Even anti-choicers themselves implicitly accept that there is no proven link when on rare occasions they decide to use language more carefully. Continue reading ‘Truthiness’
…But that’s my business really.
Women are either hussies or oppressed. Either way, we’re objects for a lot of folks. Go read all about the incredible tale of a Muslim woman who was reduced to a symbol of teh Islamic oppression in an Oxford swimming pool at Pandagon. And no matter what she said, no one would listen to her. It’s not a horrendous incident, but just a very compelling example of how everyday prejudice does harm in everyday lives.
Yes, we do exist! 
Tigtog wrote last week about the reactionary Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart. If you’re an American citizen, and are concerned, you should urge your Senator and Congressperson to co-sponsor and support Barbara Boxer and Jerry Nadler’s Freedom of Choice Act. I’ve always been of the view - given considerations both of public sentiment and political strategy - that the legislative protection of reproductive rights will be much more secure than judicial decisions. Time to put Congress on the spot!
[Via Feministing.]
No, this isn’t a post about the McCain Walnuts! cabin on the Death Star, but Rupe’s corner of the dark side of the force.
(Though, over the fold, you can see something of the cyber-savviness of McCain’s campaign wonks who haven’t apparently been told that YouTube will preview a vid exactly in the middle of the tape. Aside from that, it’s just the usual string of disconnected and pointless quotes from the elderly gentleman.)
Over at News Limited central (Australian subsidiary division), methinks Janet Albrechtsen is protesting too much:
Against that background, it’s not surprising that the conventional wisdom is that Murdoch has made up his mind on Rudd for PM. And so I’m waiting for a directive from HQ to that effect. Lord knows I’d be topping the Forbes Rich List if I had a dollar for every time someone accused me of writing a column in response to some memo from Murdoch telling me what to write. So now I’m waiting for a memo telling me that WorkChoices is bad, unions should be back dictating wages and conditions and that we ought to decamp from Iraq. Alas, there has been no memo, no directive, not even a “how you doin’� from the Boss.
Continue reading ‘At least you can get a free bowl of chili on the Death Star’
I’ve always been perplexed, and annoyed, by the tone of much of the conservative criticism of university education in the humanities and social sciences (I deliberately omit the words “logic” and “argument”). Either pundits, pollies and culture warriors extrapolate from some personal or anecdotal experience of a few isolated sociology departments from the 70s and early 80s and imagine an Althusserian circle of hell trapping innocent young minds in the cold dead hands of French structural-Marxism, or completely forget that teaching Australian literature and history was a radical thing to do in the 1960s, and one which many of their forebears opposed.
There never, also, seems to be any recognition that teaching history, “great books” or classics is something that the feared (and largely imaginary) academic left generally support, and that the evisceration of the teaching of these disciplines which are loudly trumpeted as essential to our nation has in fact been the work of managerialism and quasi-market funding mechanisms.
The story of redundancies and the failure to replace history, religion and classics staff at UQ, for instance, is a narrative not of insurgent postmodern hordes, but of the Vice-Chancellor’s creaming departmental budgets for “strategic initiatives”, and the creation of accounting models which allocate funding based on bums in lecture theatres rather than the intrinsic value of subjects and disciplines while seemingly always facilitating a proliferation of Pro-Vice Chancellors and a modicum of marketing staff.
The actuality of the situation is very starkly in view in moves announced by the Vice-Chancellor of QUT last week to close the School of Humanities and Human Services, where I was employed from 2000 to 2004.
Continue reading ‘QUT farewells the “old” humanities?’
I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than five minutes of Difference of Opinion tonight (not for the first time). Let me just say that bullying existed before cyber bullying, pron existed before the intertubes, teenagers were writing angsty poetry before typewriters, and subcultures existed before Myspace. All this technology blaming obscures the fact that technology is an enabler - and what it enables is a mirror of its environment. But it also enables the contestation of that society, as the feminist blogosphere for instance tries to do, and the anger and angst and abuse that arises in response is not something new either.
Instead, I was going to blog about the coverage of the tragic suicide of two young Melbourne girls, which goes way beyond an examination of the circumstances into classic moral panic territory. But Mr Lefty has beaten me to it, so go read his post.
Incidentally, I wonder whether anyone in the meejah has noticed the irony between blaming those intertubes for all manner of social ill given the trash fest that Fairfax Digital and the News tabloids serve up online. Well exposed on Media Watch tonight.
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