Posted by Ian on
December 25, 2005
Redneck map of Sydney
Some work done by two Sydney academics has produced the above map showing the level of racial tolerance or intolerance in different parts of Sydney. In the survey on racial attitudes, residents were asked to respond to two statements: 1) It is a good thing for society to be made up of different cultures. 2) Australia is weakened by different ethnicities sticking to their old ways.
The least accepting groups were in outer suburbs where populations are mostly solidly Anglo. But the least tolerant also include culturally diverse places such as Liverpool and “old” wealth areas such as Mosman and Woollahra. Among the most tolerant are people living in the local government areas Sydney, South Sydney, Leichhardt, Auburn and Pittwater. Wealthy, better-educated areas of northern Sydney were generally quite tolerant and inner-city areas highly tolerant. Less tolerant areas include outer locations such as Gosford and Campbelltown, but also culturally mixed areas such as Bankstown and Ryde. Bankstown has a substantial Muslim population, while Ryde has many Chinese and Koreans. Culturally diverse areas such as Parramatta, Marrickville and Penrith, and the suburbs Hurstville, Randwick and Botany, are tolerant.
Posted by Ian on
December 25, 2005
Resurrection at Christmas?
I always thought the resurrection was an Easter thing, but apparently its happened in Queensland this Christmas. Police there have revised the official road toll downwards by one. They had included a fatal motorcycle accident south of Brisbane on Saturday in the count but have withdrawn it on Monday morning.
Unfortunately, this does not mean the victim has risen from the dead, merely that he was killed on private property rather than on a public road, which meant his death would not be included in the national toll. So, he’s still dead, but doesn’t count statistically.
As usual at Christmas, the road toll is stacking up ….so far its 4 in Queensland, 3 in South Australia, 2 in WA, and one each in NSW and Victoria. Amazing, and tragic how so many people manage to get themselves killed ….reading some of the reports about the accidents, you wonder how? For example, a 12 year old boy was killed in a 4WD rollover on the brand new M7 Motorway in Sydney yesterday.
Then again, with idiots like this, is it any wonder people manage to get themselves killed? (This dickhead, doing 178 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, and a P-plater, should lose his license and never get it back!)
Unfortunately, this does not mean the victim has risen from the dead, merely that he was killed on private property rather than on a public road, which meant his death would not be included in the national toll. So, he’s still dead, but doesn’t count statistically.
As usual at Christmas, the road toll is stacking up ….so far its 4 in Queensland, 3 in South Australia, 2 in WA, and one each in NSW and Victoria. Amazing, and tragic how so many people manage to get themselves killed ….reading some of the reports about the accidents, you wonder how? For example, a 12 year old boy was killed in a 4WD rollover on the brand new M7 Motorway in Sydney yesterday.
Then again, with idiots like this, is it any wonder people manage to get themselves killed? (This dickhead, doing 178 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, and a P-plater, should lose his license and never get it back!)
Posted by Ian on
December 25, 2005
Happy Christmas
Well, Christmas Day has almost been and gone and I’ve eaten too much and drunk too much. Everyone here has their presents, and I’ve tried out my daughter’s new hammock, my son’s guitar, watched a DVD, listened to one of the CD’s I got (Franz Ferdinand’s “You Could Have It So Much Better”) etc. We’ve done all the phone calls to/from family and friends interstate and overseas, and now everyone’s just sitting around quietly reading, watching TV, net surfing.
I’ve still got 2 more days off work, thinking of going to see “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (speaking of which, my wife’s church was spruiking this at the Christmas Eve service last night, and had been sent footage for this purpose), probably on Tuesday. Got a couple of jobs to do round the yard, some drinkies with friends, watch a bit of the cricket …..
Happy Christmas to all who read my blog!
I’ve still got 2 more days off work, thinking of going to see “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (speaking of which, my wife’s church was spruiking this at the Christmas Eve service last night, and had been sent footage for this purpose), probably on Tuesday. Got a couple of jobs to do round the yard, some drinkies with friends, watch a bit of the cricket …..
Happy Christmas to all who read my blog!
Posted by Ian on
December 24, 2005
Centrelink - the Grinch strikes?
Jess Maulder, a medical student who performed much voluntary work following the Boxing Day tsunami last year, has been denied Federal Government support to return to Thailand for the first anniversary of that massive tragedy.
The Government is providing free flights and $300 in accommodation costs for each of the 60 bereaved Australians returning to the region. A spokesman for the Department of Family and Community Services said Miss Maulder did not fit the criteria. However, Centrelink told her she was ineligible to receive the financial aid available to Australians who were caught up in the disaster.
“It’s something that would have been very, very important to me,” Miss Maulder said.
“But, as I’m a student, I couldn’t afford it. I wrote to the Government and asked if, given the unusual circumstances, they could help me. But they declined.”
Jess Maulder was seen in some of the tsunami’s most inspirational images after she abandoned her Thai holiday to work 14-hour days in a morgue. She tended the wounded, identified bodies and comforted scores of bereaved relatives on the island of Phi Phi. A month after her work in Thailand, Miss Maulder went to Sri Lanka to volunteer at refugee camps on the devastated east coast. She later resumed her second-year studies at Monash University and has been on a scholarship scheme working at the Aboriginal community of Yuendumu, about 280 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.
I reckon that the Government will end up stumping up for the cash for her to go. I expect that someone with some political savvy will very quickly decide that a couple of grand is a small price to pay for some positive PR, even if they don’t just do it because its the right thing to do. No doubt the decision to refuse to pay for her to go was made by some minion in Centrelink.
Update: After this story appeared, some generous donors, including a Sydney travel agent, Goldman Travel Corporation, paid for her to go to the reunion in Thailand.
Coincidentally, she was voted Australian woman of the year by readers of “The Age” newspaper. Some interesting choices in this voting - the first 3 women are good choices, after that we’re getting silly (Amanda Vanstone??? Missy Higgins???). In the man of the year, good first choice, Nobel prize winners Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, Michael Long … does good work for aboriginal Australians (if thats what people voted for him about, not simply the fact he was a good footy player), Warney …. come off it, great cricketer, but otherwise a dickhead!
Posted by Ian on
December 22, 2005
We’re not racists here in Australia
… thats what PM John Howard has been saying ever since the Cronulla drunken, racist rampage. Yet, ugly racist behaviour has been on display again, this time directed at South African cricketers during the Test in Perth this week.
Ashwell Prince, Garnett Kruger, Shaun Pollock, Justin Kemp and Makhaya Ntini all complained of being the victim of racial slurs hurled across the fence while fielding on Sunday. Ntini confirmed the players were called “kaffir” and “kaffir boetie” (brother of blacks), which are deeply offensive insults.
And it seems it was not South African throwbacks to the apartheid era making the remarks. According to Cricket Australia PR manager, Peter Young:
“The belief is that they were Australians, that they were using Afrikaans terminology that we have now briefed into security personnel around the country so that they can be familiar with the fact that these particular words that they might not be familiar with themselves are actually offensive to South African players out on the field,”.
The idiots in Sydney, and now Perth, are really doing Australia proud, aren’t they?
Ashwell Prince, Garnett Kruger, Shaun Pollock, Justin Kemp and Makhaya Ntini all complained of being the victim of racial slurs hurled across the fence while fielding on Sunday. Ntini confirmed the players were called “kaffir” and “kaffir boetie” (brother of blacks), which are deeply offensive insults.
And it seems it was not South African throwbacks to the apartheid era making the remarks. According to Cricket Australia PR manager, Peter Young:
“The belief is that they were Australians, that they were using Afrikaans terminology that we have now briefed into security personnel around the country so that they can be familiar with the fact that these particular words that they might not be familiar with themselves are actually offensive to South African players out on the field,”.
The idiots in Sydney, and now Perth, are really doing Australia proud, aren’t they?
Posted by Ian on
December 22, 2005
Science?
I would love for some Japanese person to explain to me the scientific validity of their so called “scientific whaling“. It is barbaric slaughter, and has no place in today’s world. What is the research that is being conducted ….apart from the taste of whale meat.
Update: Love this comment by Senator Bob Brown:
“What is it after 20 years that they’ve discovered? That whales go well with soy sauce?”
Posted by Ian on
December 21, 2005
Iraq heading towards Shi’ite Theocracy
The early indications from the Iraqi elections are that the Shi’ite religious parties are heading towards being the dominant force in the Iraqi government. The Shi’ite religious coalition has won a total victory in Baghdad and the south of Iraq. The Sunni Arab parties who openly or covertly support armed resistance to the US are likely to win large majorities in Sunni provinces. The Kurds have already achieved quasi-independence and their voting reflected that. The election also means a decisive switch from a secular Iraq to a country in which, outside Kurdistan, religious law will be paramount.
So, does this mean the result of Iraqi democracy will be a country divided in 3, Kurdistan, plus Sunni and Shi’ite states, the latter closely aligned with Iran. The Americans and their allies must be delighted at that prospect. A squillion dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, and the “axis of evil” loses one stable, if barbaric, member in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and gains one, maybe two new ones in the form of unstable, probably unviable theocratic states, one at least heavily influenced by the US’s enemy of the moment, Iran. And, as a bonus no doubt the Sunni and Shi’ite states will be unable to get along and will end up continually in conflict with each other.
Interesting comment by an Iraqi observer:
“People underestimate how religious Iraq has become. Iran is really a secular society with a religious leadership, but Iraq will be a religious society with a religious leadership.”
The other huge non-surprise in the election is that the losers are crying foul over the fairness of the voting.
Posted by Ian on
December 21, 2005
Really sick
This is Justin Berry, an 18 year old who has been exploited by paedophiles via the internet since he was 13. He started out using a webcam to chat with other teenagers, but only heard from men. Then one day in 2000, a man sent a proposal: he would pay Justin $US50 to sit bare-chested in front of the webcam for three minutes. So began Justin’s secret life of selling images of his body over the internet. Over five years he made hundreds of thousands of dollars performing in front of the webcam - undressing, showering, masturbating and even having sex - for an audience of more than 1500 people, many of whom were doctors, lawyers, businessmen and teachers.
Justin’s father also took an interest in his pornographic career. For a share of the profits, Knute Berry procured prostitutes for Justin to have sex with in front of the webcam.
Isn’t it great to know there are such predatory scum in the world that take advantage of a teenage boy in this way? Hopefully they all do gaol time (preferably getting a bit of an arse raping from some of the paedophile hating inmates). For his father in particular, you deserve to rot in hell.
Posted by Ian on
December 21, 2005
Intelligent design not science
A US District court judge has ruled the teaching of “intelligent design” would violate the Constitutional separation of church and state.
To quote from the judge’s ruling:
“We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,”
“To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions,”
Intelligent design activists criticised the ruling, saying it would marginalise beliefs based on religion. Opponents of intelligent design say the decision by Republican judge John Jones was a landmark ruling and represents quite a blow to religious conservatives. In his ruling, Judge Jones demolished assertions by members of school administrators, that the theory of intelligent design (ID) was based around scientific rather than religious belief. The judge said he had determined that ID was not science and “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents”.
Good decision by the judge, who incidentally was a Bush appointee (and Bush has backed ID teaching). “Intelligent design” is just a try on by the Christian conservatives who for some strange reason have such a huge influence in the USA.
Posted by Ian on
December 20, 2005
Liberals defending each other
First, we’ve got John Howard defending Peter Costello’s handling of the “non-existent” Treasury advice about the economic impacts of the workchoices legislation. He says Costello did not mislead Parliament.
Mr Costello last month denied in parliament claims by the Labor party that he had asked Treasury to prepare advice on the economic impacts of the workplace reforms.
Mr Howard today said the treasurer had done nothing wrong.
“What he denied was the existence of specially commissioned research or analysis, and there wasn’t,” he told the Nine Network.
Mr Howard said there were differences between minutes and commissioned research.
“If you ask your department to do a whole lot of special research it’s normally done in collaboration with other departments and so forth, and Peter has been falsely accused and I support him to the full,” he said.
I still call Costello’s defence, and Howard’s defence of that defence, hair splitting.
The question asked of Costello, which all of this dates back to, was:
WAYNE SWAN: Can the Treasurer confirm he was briefed on modelling undertaken by his department in April and May of this year, estimating the impact of workplace relations proposals on employment, wages and productivity.
Treasurer, what precisely did this modelling show, and if the modelling backs up the 50-million advertising campaign claims …
SPEAKER: Order, the Member for (inaudible).
WAYNE SWAN: … of more jobs and higher wages, why has the Government chosen to keep it secret?
(sound of ministers saying “hear, hear”)
and the answer:
PETER COSTELLO: It was so secret, Mr Speaker, this report hadn’t even been written. That’s how secret it was.
(sound of ministers heckling)
And, Mr Speaker, not only was it so secret that it hadn’t even been written, Mr Speaker, it was so secret that it’d neither been written nor used.
SPEAKER: Order!
Mmmm ….maybe Costello is correct very literally speaking in denying the existence of modelling or analysis? Still splitting hairs though - advice in the spirit of the question did exist if not in the exact form the question was phrased as.
Secondly, Costello is backing Liberal cheerleader Alan Jones over the suggestions that Jones had done much to whip up the racist violence of the last week or so.
Asked if he thought Jones “went too far”, Mr Costello said he did not.
“That’s not what I mean by whipping up,” Mr Costello said.
“I think it can be fanned if gangs of youths come into a neighbourhood and try and take it over. That can fan racism.
“If people, say, get down and launch an attack, a counter-attack on gangs of youths, they can whip it up. It can be whipped up from both sides.”
So it doesn’t look like Alan Jones will be expecting a call from ASIO or the AFP anytime soon.
