Islamophobia, A Bill of Rights, Climate Riots, Stripping Minors, and a Hobbit fest

[tcpip]

Sunday consisted of two great presentations at the local Unitarian Church. Bilal Cleland, the Human Rights Coordinator of the Islamic Council spoke on religious bigotry and particularly on bigotry against Muslims. Cleland was a great speaker - particularly noting how Muslims have become the marginalised 'other' in Australian society, a position previously held by SE Asian people, and how there is a populist assumption that does not differentiate between Muslim fundamentalists and Muslim secularists. Cleland also drew attention to the long history of Unitarian support for religious freedom.

Following that the Church conducted a public forum on the need for an Australian Bill of Rights, with Jess Healy, the Democrats youth spokesperson, Brian Walters, the legal spokesperson for the Greens, and Greg Connellan, President of the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties. I toned down the great sense of optimism at the forum by reminding those present that there are many people who do not support universal human rights and such people have resources which they will use against any campaign to introduce such rights.

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

More at the UK's The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153530,00.html

Record this moment. I agree with Kennet and Doyle. A bailout to dodgy transport companies is not the solution.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/02/19/1077072779093.html
Tram, train subsidy doubles

And I reckon Martin Ferguson has it right too. You don't lie to the electorate if you want to be re-elected.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/02/21/1077072891949.html
Key seats at risk and toll debacle to blame: ALP

I'm so glad I don't work for the Victorian Parliamentary Labor Party anymore.

Sometimes when you operate from principles rather than feelings you have to support things that you may not be entirely comfortable with. Argue against this - from first principles.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/02/21/1077072892905.html
Loophole allows stripteasing minors

Erudito has alerted me to those who just can't get enough Hobbits. All three LOTR films in the same session. The Sun Cinema Yarraville is doing it every day until March 3. Which would seem to make Saturday 28 (or Sunday 29) The Day to do it. Fellowship starts at 10am.

Comments

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Erudito has alerted me to those who just can't get enough Hobbits. All three LOTR films in the same session. The Sun Cinema Yarraville is doing it every day until March 3. Which would seem to make Saturday 28 (or Sunday 29) The Day to do it. Fellowship starts at 10am.

That almost seems to indicate a challenge ;P Not sure it's one I'm up for seeing as I've just seen them.

As for the Bill of Human Rights - at least it's a start which I suppose is better than nothing. Maybe more will happen after the next election, hoping that Howard is not elected again :(

Various

[erudito.livejournal.com]

Public Transport -- yep, the naive social democrats have almost certainly been done in by the better negotiators. They should have hired Stockdale as a consultant -- no one has a better track record for squeezing as much for govt out of contracts.

Tolls -- the economic argument for road tolls is, only if there is a rationing problem (i.e. extra car imposes a real congestion cost on other cars). It works for CityLink, London CBD, etc. Can't quite see that for Scoresby. (It also works better if there is a substitutable form of public transport. Ditto.)

Pentagon -- are we sure this is not scenario playing? The military does it all the time (let's imagine ...). It is just that (1) the scenarios are way ahead of IPCC predictions, (2) no conceivable policy action about warming could do anything in that time frame anyway and (3) current European temperatures are still not as high as they were in the Medieval Warm period (and won't be until vineyards become doable in Kent and Brandenburg).

Judicial power

[erudito.livejournal.com]

I am against a bill of rights in the Oz context because I am not in favour of increasing judicial power. (Particularly if judges are appointed simply by the Executive.) And I suspect you won't get the voters to vote for it either (they didn't last time it was offered, or the time before, or ...) Hardly surprising, since it shifts power from the electoral process to the judicial process (of course lawyers tend to like it).

That is before you get into arguments about which rights. Will it include only 'negative' rights, or will 'welfare rights' get added? Will it include a right to private property? A right to freedom of association incompatible with the arbitration system? Once it is obvious one is 'cherry-picking' rights, that then gets in the way too.

Adulthood and stripteasing minors

[erudito.livejournal.com]

Our society has decided that 18 is adulthood. That includes becoming free sexual game for mutual pleasure. Prior to that, you're not. So not.

[ktwhoopi.livejournal.com]

ohhh, i wanna see all three movies back to back *is jealous*

[shorxrore.livejournal.com]

aaaaa i so wanna watch all 3 LOTR extended versions in a row

and like...the climate. don't even get me started. i seriously think this planet is going to end up like all those sci-fi movies. i don't want to ride a dune buggy :(

climate change

[angel80.livejournal.com]

The Observer and The Guardian need to have their heads read. Would you trust a report coming from this source:

The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.

This is simply a ploy to boost the US defence industry. There's no scientific basis to the date of 2020 - except perhaps it's the year GWB will be ready to retire after he's changed the constitution because of the amazing security crisis!

Climate change

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The full report can be found here...

http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/417492/0/pentagon-on-climate-change.pdf