Tuesday 11th of November 2008

Recent Comments

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 20:12

G20 backs climate fight, divided over industry caps

A grouping of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters has backed UN-led efforts to forge a global pact to fight climate change, but disagreed on a sectoral approach to curb emissions from industry.

G20 nations ranging from top carbon emitters the United States and China to big developing economies Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa held three days of talks near Tokyo to discuss ways to tackle rapidly rising emissions.

"It's not so much these two groups are at loggerheads with each other, they are also thinking of how they can cooperate collectively," Halldor Thorgeirsson of the UN Climate Change Secretariat said.

The developing world is demanding rich states do more to curb their own emissions and help poorer countries pay for clean technology.

Both sides managed to bridge differences in Bali last December to launch two years of talks on a pact that binds all nations to emissions curbs to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

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Gus: Dear Ms M. D. Why do you think countries would seriously harm themselves just for a fad? Or are they all conned by the "alarmists"? No... not on your Nelly. There are a lot of intelligent people out there guiding the understanding about this major problem. And when presented with the climate change skeptic argument, intelligent people can see for themselves science versus profiteering crap... And let me tell you this: they have at their disposal far more evidence of global warming that is posted out there in the wider stratosphere. Governments do not want to alarm but want to appear to do something and they want to do something, knowing about the urgency of the problem. Even "Aussie Tony", a pragmatic waverer by all means by the way he was a bit floppy while governing the UK, is trying to lead the charge... Would he do that, just for getting a job? Possibly? I do not know the fellow... but I have this little nudgeball in the back of my mind that tells me that Tony is actually fascinated by the problem but secretly, even subconsciously, he is knowingly scared... And so we all should be.

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 19:49

In this era of climate alarmism, humans are seen as the source of all evil. Without humans, goes the addled thinking, there would be no carbon dioxide, and hence no global warming. Thus, when the Medical Journal Of Australia published a satirical letter from Perth obstetrician Barry Walters in its December issue proposing a carbon tax on babies, and carbon credits for sterilisation, it was reported as a serious news story.
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Gus: Ah Miranda, you make me laugh... reporting with brilliance the failings of the climate alarmist, especially those who are not even "understanderers" but possibly just angry old folks who hate kids having a good time... I've seen the same old people in my youth... They all carry the same stick.

This reminds me of my brothers and sister during the war (WWII) who went into a cherry orchard and ate and ate cherries so much they got furious colic... they relieved themselves from up there in the branches and carried on eating the fruit...

Global warming is far more serious than you would ever know, dear Ms Devine... The tragedy is that it is a slow boil... and inconsistent, because of the vagaries of the atmosphere... But global warming there is, furiously fast in geological terms. It could actually be faster than the melt of the previous ice age around 12000 years ago. But we would not know because there are factors hiding incoming tide. Like before a tidal wave, the sea retreats... Then one gets hit for six. Global warming in the polar regions is akin to an old non-defrost fridge, working its guts out and getting clogged up with warming ice while the door seals are leaking bad. One day it starts leaking on the floor and you will come to term with the concept of global warming...

Peter Singer, "the greatest living philosopher" of our time is argualble, but he is a great philosopher. No doubt about that... He express concepts that have permeated many people way before, since the early 1900s perhaps, who have seen the devastating effect of our protection of certain ideals at all cost. Sure mistakes are made, but our relationship with nature is a far greater necessisty than that with a god that we invent to suit our vanity.

The swindles performed by the genetically modified "croppists" are a crime against nature and thus should be a crime against humanity.

The blindness towards global warming — that is not wanting to understand that climate does change with certain mechanical factors and has changed dramatically over the different periods of the earth — is sheer madness. Sure an old folk, who sees or does not see damage to a tree in a park by a kid, but gets irate is worth of a laugh on "Cranky Old Foggies" on television but that's as far as it should get... The damage done to the planet is far more serious by our fulsome (in all its contradictory meanings) exploitation and lack of vision.

And no, humans are not seen as a source of evil by the serious scientists who understand the way the earth works... Evil does not exists per se: damaging events can be created — or avoided if we pay attention. That's all.

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 17:11

As we need a fire chief, especially one with a bit of pull and lots of extinguishers, I wish Aussie Tony the best of luck in chasing reluctant morons. The Europeans are okay, they know where their climate change toast is buttered... They know there is an urgency in attending to the problem... But the US, now in economic doldrums, is not prepared to go the full hard yard thus showing other countries like India and China the wrong way to go... Unfortunately, the downturn in the US economy does not mean a reduction of emission as I joke about from time to time ("Bush did more than Al Gore on US emission", etc)... And as the US Fed and the US Administration fiddle with business, the likelihood of increase in emission is more likely...

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Melting glaciers start countdown to climate chaos 

From 1850 to 1970, the team estimates net losses averaged about 30cm a year; between 1970 to 2000 they rose to 60-90cm a year; and since 2000 the average has been more than one metre a year. Last year the total net loss was the biggest ever, 1.3m, and only one glacier became larger. Worldwide, the vast majority of the planet's 160,000 glaciers are receding, 'at least' as much as this, says Haeberli, probably more - a claim supported by evidence from around the world.

In North America, Dr Bruce Molina of the US Geological Survey says that in Alaska '99-plus per cent of glaciers are retreating or stagnating'.

In the European Alps, a report last year by UNEP said glaciers declined, from a peak in the 1850s, by 35 per cent by 1970 and by 50 per cent by 2000, and lost 5-10 per cent in the mega-hot year of 2003 alone.

 

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 16:51

Five years of occupation have destroyed Iraq as a country. Baghdad is today a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls. Different districts even have different national flags. Sunni areas use the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party, and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag.

The Iraqi government tries to give the impression that normality is returning. Iraqi journalists are told not to mention the continuing violence. When a bomb exploded in Karada district near my hotel, killing 70 people, the police beat and drove away a television cameraman trying to take pictures of the devastation. Civilian casualties have fallen from 65 Iraqis killed daily from November 2006 to August 2007 to 26 daily in February. But the fall in the death rate is partly because ethnic cleansing has already done its grim work and in much of Baghdad there are no mixed areas left.

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 16:40

Iraq: Who won the war?

Not the 90,000 Iraqi civilians or the 4,200 US and UK troops killed since 2003. The big winners are the money men who have made billions. Raymond Whitaker and Stephen Foley report

Five years ago today, Britain stood on the brink of war. On 16 March 2003, United Nations weapons inspec-tors were advised to leave Iraq within 48 hours, and the "shock and awe" bombing campaign began less than 100 hours later, on 20 March. The moment the neocons around President George Bush had worked so long for, aided by the moral fervour of Tony Blair, was about to arrive.

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk," Kenneth Adelman, a leading neocon, had said a few weeks before, and so it proved. Within barely a month, Saddam's bronze statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square was scrap metal. But every other prediction by the Bush administration's hawks proved wrong.

No weapons of mass destruction – Britain's key justification for war – have been found. The Pentagon acknowledged last week that a review of more than 600,000 captured Iraqi documents showed "no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida terrorist network".

In 2008, there are still more American troops in Iraq than during the invasion, with no exit yet in sight. Britain's Ministry of Defence has just admitted that it has been unable to withdraw as many British troops as it planned – there are 4,000 still based just outside Basra, instead of the projected 2,500. So far 3,987 American soldiers and 197 British troops have died in Iraq.

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The main winners of the war are not the ones its instigators planned: Iran and al-Qa'ida. No one in Washington appeared to have calculated that to unseat Saddam, whom the US once supported as a bulwark against the Iranians, would empower the majority community in Iraq, the Shias, or that many of them would look to the world's only Shia nation, Iran. The US insists that Tehran retains nuclear ambitions, despite its own intelligence estimate that work on a weapon has stopped, but its occupation of Iraq has given Iran a hostage it could never have imagined having.

As for al-Qa'ida, it never had a foothold in Iraq until the chaos created by the invasion gave it the opportunity to establish one. And while the US is preoccupied in Iraq, the conflict it neglected, in Afghanistan, is getting worse. Al-Qa'ida has re-established itself in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, while its old host, the Taliban, regains ground on the other side of the Afghan border.

In early 2003, Mr Rumsfeld mused on what might be the cost of the war to come: $50bn (£25bn) or $60bn, he and White House planners thought. Five years on, the bill is already 10 times that, while here the Commons Defence Committee has just warned of a "surprising" 52 per cent increase in the cost of operations in Iraq to nearly £1.45bn in the current financial year, despite the reductions in troop levels. An unprecedented amount has been funnelled to the private sector. The big winners have been the money men.

 

 

by John Richardson on Sun, 2008-03-16 15:24

Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull has described the Prime Minister as gutless for not expressing his view on what the increase to Australia's minimum wage should be. 

The Opposition says the Government was advised by the Treasury Department to call for an $18 a week increase, but did not follow that advice in a submission to the annual minimum wage review. 

But Treasury secretary Ken Henry today issued a statement saying his department had offered no such advice. 

Mr Turnbull says the Government should table all the briefings it has had from Treasury.

"This is very fishy, the only way we will know what really happened is if the Government produces all of the Treasury advice, they have got to table all of the advice," he said.
 

"It's no good having a carefully worded statement here and a few lines out of context there, let's find out what that advice is." 

PM 'Only Pretends' To Care About Low Income Earners

yes, our friend Malcolm the millionaire is right to suggest there is something 'fishy' going on .....

Just ask Professor Ian Harper, part-time chair of the Fair Pay Commission ....

As the above article attests, it screwing the poor & looking after the privileged is something that all givernments do, regardless of who is holding the purse strings.

by John Richardson on Sun, 2008-03-16 14:54

Alan Ramsey writes ….. 

That night, back on the floor of the House of Representatives, the woman MP who took Tim Fischer's southern NSW seat off the Nationals in 2001 and, in two elections, turned it into safe Liberal territory, did an extremely courageous thing. 

Her name is Sussan Penelope Ley. 

She is the daughter of a British colonial police officer who served in British-mandated Palestine in the 1930s, before the United Nations ceded half of it to become a Jewish state in May 1948. Born in Nigeria in 1961, Ley spent most of the first 13 years of her life in what was then the Trucial States, later the United Arab Emirates. Her family migrated to Australia in 1974. She has lived here ever since, working as an air traffic controller, a commercial pilot, a shearer's cook, a farmer, and a senior taxation department official. She has a bunch of degrees, three children and is now a member of the Nelson shadow ministry. 

What Sussan Ley did in Parliament on Wednesday night was speak for the Palestinian people. She was the only MP who did. In fact, the only MHR of the House's 150, apart from the two leaders, to even raise the issue. 

When Rudd and Nelson had spoken at midday I counted 53 Government MPs present, including six ministers, and 39 Coalition MPs. When Ley got the call 7½ hours later, at 7.38pm, to speak on the adjournment, there were five people in the public gallery, four Labor MPs and two Coalition MPs in the chamber, and one journalist in the press gallery. She was the fourth-last speaker before Parliament shut down for the day, after 11 hours, and she was allowed five minutes. 

Here is an edited version of what she said: 

"Today the Parliament passed a motion honouring Israel's 60 years. My purpose tonight is not to diminish Israel's achievements but to note the interests and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine. 

"Israel has many friends in this country and in this Parliament. The Palestinians, by comparison, have few. Theirs is not a popular cause. But it is one I support, in part out of knowledge that the victors of World War II, including Australia, wrote a 'homeland' cheque to cover the sins of the holocaust and centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe, but it was the Palestinians who had to cash it. 

"Israel has much to celebrate after 60 years. It has built a modern, accomplished and intelligent society, one whose scientific and technological expertise offers a great deal to the world. It has a robust democracy, a free press, a secular state with freedom of faith, and an unfettered opposition, regrettably rare in the Middle East. If there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, one can only imagine the achievements of these two cultures today. 

"Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of [illegal Israeli] settlements [on Palestinian land] and its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees have caused deep resentment in the Arab world. Palestinian corruption in government and failure to abandon violence against civilians as a political tool have meant Israel does not feel secure behind secure borders. Sixty years have seen a great deal of bloodshed - Arab, Israeli and others, including 34 US soldiers killed by Israeli forces on the USS Liberty during the 1967 war. I do not find it helpful to engage in a forensic apportionment of blame; each side has legitimate grievances. 

"The current blockade of Gaza, confiscation of Palestinian land, and the expansion of settlements must be mentioned in the context of today's motion. Gaza is besieged, contained and on the brink of starvation. Rockets are fired into Israel every day, and Israel has a right to self-defence, but the crushing economic embargo feeds fury and resentment both in Gaza and the West Bank. [A total] 2679 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli [military] forces in the Gaza Strip since September 2000, [while] an Israeli human rights organisation reported 1259 of those were not participating in hostilities when they were killed, and 567 were minors … 

"We ought not be naive or simplistic about the challenge faced by the Israelis in moving towards peace with a [popularly elected] counterpart, in Hamas, that is funded and supported by a foreign power [Syria] and which retains an explicit commitment to [terrorism] as a political instrument. But may I remind the House of the example of the Northern Ireland peace process [which succeeded] after a more than 40-year struggle. 

"There are signs the Israeli people are developing a renewed hunger for peace. A recent Tel Aviv University poll indicates 64 per cent of Israelis believe the [Israeli] Government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza towards a ceasefire. Military occupation, blockades and hostility against civilians in the name of security will result in [more] violence and terror. We must think what we can do [for] ordinary Israelis and Palestinians to give them some faith in the peace process … 

"We are the leaders of our generation. We are accountable for results. If the principal protagonists and the rest of the world community hand Palestine on to the next generation as a twisted mess of grievance, hatred and retribution, then we have failed. The last two generations of leaders have failed to produce peace. Let us renew our efforts.

" Unlike earlier in the day, nobody applauded - though I wished I could have. Many Australians, too, had they been present, surely would have wanted to acknowledge such a speech of such honesty and sensibility, about the Israelis as much as it was about the Palestinians. Ley put the grovelling Rudd and Nelson to shame. The truth is there is no real debate in this country about the travesty of what is happening in the Middle East, and there are those in the community who, with their money and influence, do all they can to ensure no such open debate occurs, either in the national Parliament, in the media or anywhere else. 

So why was the Rudd Government, in its first four months of office, doing what no Australian government or parliament had done, to acknowledge any of the decades of Israeli statehood since the Six-Day War in 1967 saw the Israeli military occupy the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and ignore 40 years of mutual violence and barbarity as well as 40 years of United Nations resolutions, to withdraw? 

The Howard government did not "honour" Israel's 50th anniversary in 1998, nor the Hawke government the 40th anniversary in 1988, nor the Fraser government the 30th anniversary in 1978. Why the 60th in 2008 the instant a Labor Government comes to power? 

When the Labor caucus met on Tuesday, as it does every week the Parliament sits, Sydney's Julia Irwin asked Rudd this very question. 

Why? Irwin never takes a backward step in her defence of Palestinian rights, but all she got from Rudd this time was waffle. He did not explicitly respond as to why 60 might be different from earlier decades when the Parliament had done nothing and neither had earlier governments. And no Labor MP supported Irwin in pushing it. 

She was a lone voice in the Labor caucus as Sussan Ley was in the Parliament. How's that for political ticker? 

elsewhere ….. 

European Union Leaders on Friday condemned Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in a West Bank settlement & called on Israel to act swiftly to keep peace efforts alive. 

“The EU reiterates that settlement building anywhere in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law,” the bloc’s presidency said in a statement after a summit of EU leaders. 

“Settlement activity prejudges the outcome of final status negotiations & threatens the viability of an agreed two-state solution. The European Council therefore urges Israel to take immediate action in particular on settlements & outposts,” the leaders said. 

Israel said on Sunday that plans to build a total of 750 homes in Givat Ze'ev, a settlement near Jerusalem, were being revived.  

The new building was announced three days after a Palestinian terrorist killed eight students at Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem.  

EU leaders condemned that attack but said: "While recognizing Israel's legitimate right to self defense, the European Council calls for an immediate end to all acts of violence." 

EU Demands Israel Halt All Construction In West Bank

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 08:03

Fed Chief Shifts Path, Inventing Policy in Crisis

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: March 16, 2008

WASHINGTON — As chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke has long argued that a central bank should base its policies as much as possible on consistent principles rather than seat-of-the-pants judgment.

But now, as the meltdown in credit markets threatens major institutions on Wall Street and a recession appears inevitable, Mr. Bernanke is inventing policy on the fly.

“Modern monetary policy-making puts a lot of weight on rules, but there is no rule book for an economic crisis,” said Douglas W. Elmendorf, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Fed economist.

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Confidence at this late stage in the game gets trickier by the minute... Most people build their hopes and expectation on the lasting impressions of illusions. If these illusions are not sustainable anymore, then the house made of cards collapses into quicksand. New illusions need to be spruiked fast and "solid" foundation restored. The bulls need to be neutered and made to work harder for their supper: the banks, the con-artists, the hedgers, the subprime sellers, etc... all of them need to be less "ballsey" and pull their weight without bucking. As mention in a couple of blog above, we need an "ox" market. call it Oxen Market if you will... Get rid of Bulls and Bears...

 

Policy one : help those in need at the bottom of the pile. 

Policy two: remove the presently accepted ability for anyone to "rob" anyone else using market forces as a tool.

Policy three: remove the Casino roulette bets from the stock market. Oxen market

Policy four: become smarter in the face of the greater onslaught: global warming

Policy five: put the brakes on GM crops

Policy six: remove war as a civilised option to solve conflict.

 

Enacting at least two of these would steady the ship. 

 

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 07:36


Tibet govt-in-exile says about 30 confirmed dead in unrest

Tibet's government-in-exile says it has received confirmation that about 30 people had been killed in clashes in the Chinese-controlled region.

"We are confirming approximately 30 deaths, and we are even hearing numbers of over 100 dead, but this number we are unable to confirm," Tenzin Taklha, a senior official in the exiled Tibetan administration, said.

"We have various people who have relatives in Tibet who sending out messages, calling their relatives," he said in Dharamshala in northern India, the base of Tibetan exiles and their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

But in the city of oncoming Police Youth Day — former hub of the 2000 Olympics and the APEC Chaser Team...:

Sydney police have charged a 31-year-old man with assaulting police, after a protest by members of the Australian Tibetan community yesterday afternoon.

More than 100 people rallied outside the Chinese Consulate at Camperdown and police say some demonstrators climbed onto the front gate and damaged flags.

Officers used capsicum spray to control the crowd.

Four people were arrested during the protest, but three were released after questioning.

China has cracked down on anti-government protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, with at least 30 people killed in clashes between protesters and Chinese troops this weekend.

And from the BBC about the land of the Inflated Olympic Rings...:

The authorities in Tibet have given anti-Chinese demonstrators until Monday to surrender, following violence that officials say left 10 people dead.

by Gus Leonisky on Sun, 2008-03-16 07:18

Top Blair aide: we must talk to al-Qaida

Western governments must talk to terror groups including al-Qaida and the Taliban if they hope to secure a long-term halt to their campaigns of violence, according to the man who for more than a decade was Tony Blair's most influential aide and adviser.

Jonathan Powell, who served as Blair's chief of staff from 1995 to 2007 and is widely regarded as having been instrumental in negotiating a settlement in Northern Ireland, said his experience in the province convinced him that it was essential to keep a line of communication open even with one's most bitter enemies.

Powell said: "There's nothing to say to al-Qaida and they've got nothing to say to us at the moment, but at some stage you're going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk."

In his first major interview, ahead of the publication of his book on the behind the scenes drama leading to the Northern Ireland peace deal, Powell also delivered a remarkably candid assessment of the Blair years, revealing that:

· He did not think Labour had governed boldly enough because it feared losing power.

· Blair had a tendency to change his mind about things and could be "a bit of a flippertygibbet".

· Blair had failed in 10 years of government to sell Europe to the British.

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