Blackout curtains and face covering in a time of peace

First Belgium and now France, it looks like we have the beginning of a trend here. While it is easy to argue that the issue here is the civil liberty of the individual to wear what ever they please I tend to think that restricting or discouraging the practice of face covering by Muslim women will make for a more civil society.

The lower House of the French parliament today approved a ban on Islamic veils.

The move is popular among French voters, but has sparked serious concerns from Muslim and human rights groups.

In the vote, 336 members of the French national assembly voted for the bill, with only one voting against. Most members of the Socialist party, the main opposition group, refused to participate in the vote.

The ban on face-covering veils, or niqab, will go to the Senate in September, where it is also likely to be passed. Its biggest hurdle is likely to follow when it is scrutinised by the French constitutional watchdog scrutinises it.

Some legal scholars say there is a chance the ban could be ruled unconstitutional.

While I have the greatest respect for any one to believe what ever they please I also think that respect does not have to extend to any anti-social aspect of any faith that is expressed in public.

Cheers Comrades

Register to vote as soon as you are entitled to do so

Each evening it becomes more and more clear that Socky may be right on the money with his prediction for an election on August 28. So with that in mind I read yet another piece talking about the number of people who are not yet enrolled to vote even though they are entitled to do so.

Queensland’s 390,000 lost voters have power to swing federal election

THE outcome of the imminent federal election could turn on 390,000 “missing” Queensland voters.

A record number of people in the state have so far failed to register to vote – the equivalent of four entire electorates – the highest in the nation.

Nationally, about 1.4 million Australians are estimated to be invisible to election officials.

The problem is most acute in Queensland because of strong interstate migration and a high number of young voters now eligible for their first election.

Call me simple if you want but I can’t see why we can’t make being on the electoral rolls something that happens automatically once an Aussie turns eighteen. In an  age when the government knows so much about all of our lives why can’t we take advantage of that and use either tax records, social security, or even driving licence applications as a jumping off point to get everyone on the rolls?

Personally I intend to make getting my children on the rolls part of the rites of passage for each of them when they turn eighteen and frankly I think it is something that every parent should do on the   day that their little lovelies become adults in the eyes of the law.

Democracy demands it Comrades

Is this disrespectful?

Before you say “yes” just watch the whole thing … to the very end.

It seems pretty obvious to me that most of the people who are criticising this video of a Melbourne jewish family dancing to the song I Will Survive at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp and at Dachau and other holocaust sites, probably didn’t even watch it. Or if they did watch, it wasn’t for long and certainly not to the very end.

I have to admit that when I first came across this story I thought – like others did - what a bunch of stupid, bloody, ignorant bogans. Is this some kind of sick joke, a parody in the poorest possible taste?. But no, it’s not.

Before you jump to judgement, just watch it (please). And if you feel anything other than sheer joy at the message this family, which includes and focuses on the 89-y.o. grandfather (a holocaust survivor himself with the, err, unfortunate name of Adolk), are sending out, well … that might say more about you than it says about them.

And watch it to the very end when the screen goes black and the audio goes down … until Adolk’s voice-over comes on and tells us, simply, why they did it.

This video is not disrespectful to other jewish people. It is not about them. It is about one family - the family of one holocaust survivor - celebrating life and paying tribute to him as he nears the end of his own natural life. A life that saw and experienced horrors that we can only imagine. The video is saying thanks to Adolk. And he is saying thanks (to someone) for surviving the holocaust and for being blessed with a family that honours his life and his name.

I found the video to be very uplifting and far from being in bad taste. The choice of song is spot on, its lyrics so appropriate. Okay, they’re dorks who dance like uncoordinated geeks (although Adolk’s moves are pretty good in some parts, and the blonde one is, um, attractive* - provided she’s over age), but that just makes it all the more enjoyable … in my opinion.

You can have your opinion too. I won’t argue with you if you don’t agree with me.

* I would normally say something more risque about her, but I’m being straight here (for once)

Crime, retribution, and natural justice

I do not under any circumstances condone rape or the abuse of children. That is not what I want to consider here at all. What I want to consider is the futility of a case like this one and to ask readers to consider the notion that Justice has perhaps been served just as well by the fact that Polanski has been exiled from the centre of global film making for what, forty three years.

Free ... Roman Polanski. Photo: Reuters

Swiss authorities said that Roman Polanski was a free man on Monday after rejecting a request to extradite the film director to the United States to answer for a child sex case dating back to 1977.

“The Franco-Polish film-maker will not be extradited to the United States and the measures of restriction on his liberty have been lifted,” Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told reporters at a news conference in Geneva.

The announcement comes 10 months after Polanski’s dramatic arrest on a US warrant which saw him originally confined to prison before being bailed on 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.32 million) and ordered to surrender his passport.

Polanski, 76, was then not allowed out of the grounds of his 1800 square metre property in the ski resort of Gstaad and fitted with an electronic bracelet.

The victim of his crime (assuming that his plea deal accurately reflects his culpability) has said for a very long time that she will not under any circumstances testify in any further court action any other witnesses will have at best hazy and unreliable recollections. This whole case seems incapable of a just or legally reliable outcome to me. The amount of effort made to pursue Polanski just seems like a waste  on so many fronts.
This reminds me of how the Brits have treated Ronnie Biggs on his return after thirty years “on the run”. The home office just looks mean and vindictive to have kept him banged up until very recently even though he is reduced to a frail shadow of himself by old age and disease.

My question is just how long should the law chase a futile case and if circumstances provide natural justice of a sort (like a life time in exile) can that be enough to give the justice  its pound of flesh?
Cheers Comrades

Dead batteries a fatal flaw with electric cars

As we have discussed here previously I have serious reservations about electric cars as a solution to our future transport needs, quite simply they just can not have the range to be a practical machine for the average driver. This report from the Telegraph in the UK make the point that they won’t have the range in terms of machine longevity either

A few days ago Glass’s served formal notice on consumers that the electric cars they’re considering purchasing could depreciate by around 90 per cent in just five years. Or to put that another way, a Nissan Leaf with a list price of almost £30,000 new might be worth less than £3,000 on the second hand market just 60 months later when the car and its batteries are no longer under warranty.

“There’s an urgent need to tackle electric vehicle (EV) battery ownership issues,” warns an increasingly concerned Glass’s. “The new breed of EVs soon to be launched in the UK will have residual values well below those of rival petrol and diesel models unless manufacturers properly address customer concerns regarding battery life and performance.”

If batteries are owned (rather than leased) and out of warranty after, say, 60 months, a typical EV fitted with such tired batteries will be worth only a fraction of its original value, Glass’s predicts: “At this point the car will have a trade value little more than 10 per cent of the list price. And this is an alarming rate of depreciation.”

No guarantees, but the used car gurus at Glass’s predict that EV batteries might have a useful life of “up to eight years.”

And the cost of those replacement batteries at, or around, this time? Nissan bluntly refuses to say, despite repeated pleas from the Telegraph for the Japanese company to provide its potential EV customers with this crucially important pricing information.

Glass’s is being more up-front and brutally honest: “Typically, batteries for electric vehicles will cost some £8,000 to replace.”

Or to put that another way, motorists may be forced to spend more buying humble replacement batteries for their new-tech electric cars than they’d spend replacing the petrol or diesel engines in their old-tech vehicles.

I ask you: is this progress?

This will of course also apply to hybrids who rely upon the same sort of batteries to give them their energy storage. those batteries will have the same sort of life spans as the ones in the plug in electrics and I bet you that now that a few of the earliest Prius models are getting to the time where their batteries are nearly dead taht their value will likewise fall dramatically…

The future of motoring is not going to be found in  electric cars . That future lies in making our cars lighter and more aerodynamic so that they can do more with less .

Cheers Comrades

Things not said by Voltaire

A nice piece at the Courier Mail about freedom of speech and commentary on the Internet which I fully endorse:

It’s very easy to demand the freedom to say and do anything on the web when we live in a society that has already defined rules – even laws – on how we should behave, especially on what we say and do towards each other.

Break those rules – as some do – and you risk punishment.

When it comes to the web, some people treat the place as a lawless frontier where they can say and do whatever they want without any regard for the consequences.

Sure, there is much on the web that is good and the vast majority of people behave in a manner that is acceptable.

But there is also much that is wretched, and that includes some of the comments on Facebook recently about MasterChef’s Joanne Zalm, and earlier this year about the slain schoolboy Elliot Fletcher.

Voltaire would never defend to the death their right to make such offensive comments, and neither should we.

This is not about censorship, this is about acceptable rules of behaviour. Societies demand rules on behaviour, and the web is no exception.

Michael Lund

Cheers Comrades

A message from O/S – the Internet filter does have some good points

While Greens candidate for Blair in Iains cold Queensland, “Dr” Pat Porno Petersen, flips & flops on whether she really does believe in a free-for-all on porn and no net censorship whatsoever (well she does believe in that but not when its about her we guess) its good to see that at least one other Greens advocate  is sticking with his guns and the faith by labelling those in favour of Conroy’s Internet filter as “mostly ignorant” and “protecting sickos, perverts & religious fanatics”.

Work that one out if you can.

But they seem to have all overlooken something that would be a real benefit of introducing this filter to cut out the crap that goes on the broadbands.

An intrepid reporter & cheap airfare traveller  (and writer, teacher & film maker) brings us this news from advanced Iran in the Middle East:

I’m currently in Iran and have discovered that just like Twitter killed blogging, the Iranian net filter killed Twitter.

Now I ask you: Is not that a good thing? Bring it on Conroy.

A lovely time among the fruit and veg

Amritsar's Golden Temple

Yesterday when in my favourite fruit shop I had a most interesting conversation with a charming man and his wife who  asked me if I was an Indian. This surprised me because as a Pom  and a fairly pale skinned one at that, I had never considered the possibility that I could be mistaken for someone from the subcontinent. It turned out that my beard  and my black beanie completely covering my hair  had given him  the idea that I could be like him a Sikh. We had a most jolly discussion about Indian cooking he explained that under his turban his hair was long an I could sense a tinge of regret in his voice when he explained that his beard was like “designer stubble” because his work as a cook meant that his employers preferred it that way. We chatted for a while  about cooking and about the Sikh temple at Goolwa. Both of us left feeling good. I felt afterwards that there can be some real positives to this multicultural malarkey if there is mutual respect.

So after paying for my veg and getting it into the car my day had been considerably brightened by that young man in the turban.
Cheers Comrades

Why is this porn advocate complaining about porn ?!!!?

This image is much more frightening than porn.

Could it be for ….. the publicity, Patricia?

I smell a rat with this. Greens candidate for the Federal seat of Blair in south east Queensland, Dr Patricia Petersen, has complained to police that *someone* has hacked her facebook page and uploaded pornographic photos that flash up on the news feed of her 3200-plus Facebook friends.

And the 46 year old Doctor (of philosophy!) and her fellow Greens have been pretty quick off the mark to point the finger at her political opponents: 

Dr Petersen said she did not know who was behind the attack, but claimed she had been the victim of a smear campaign since announcing herself as a candidate.

“I’m shocked that someone would do something like this. Sending out pornographic images to people … is morally reprehensible. It is beyond comprehension,” she said.

“I know what it’s like to be in the midst of an electoral campaign – there’s always mud throwing and dirty politics.

“However, this, if it is an act of political sabotage, would indicate that politics within Australia has hit a new low.”

[...]

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, when asked if the attack was the work of a political opponent, said it was “likely”.

I dunno why shes even complaining.

Porno Patricia has been an open advocate of free-for-all porn for everyone.

For yonks.

She even wrote an article about it  that comes up pretty high in any google search of her name:

Pornography’s legitimate place in society

“I hold that no pornography should be outlawed provided that fully consenting adult actors are employed in its production. My point hinges on the law serving a purpose – to allow individuals to do their own thing, unhindered by those who would prevent them from doing so.”

Do you smell the same rat that I do? There does not seem to be any complaint about porn being “morally reprehensible” in there.

Could it be that Patricia loves porn so much she uploaded it herself and then went to the coppers (and the newspapers) to get herself in the news?

This is all speculation on my part of course and I am in no way accusing her of making a false report to police, lying to the public about who dunnit, painting her opponents as slimeballs and being a fraud.

But I am definitely accusing her of being a stinking hypocrite. She loves the stuff.

(PS: Shes got 3200 Facebook “friends”? Yeah, right)

Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton

the late Michael Crichton.

I have just read this transcript of a lecture by the late Michael Crichton re-posted at Anthony Watts Blog I invite my Warminista friends and JM to read it and the explain why what it says does not make perfect sense.

Cheers Comrades

Jail based IVF, what are they thinking?

There is nothing sadder than a woman who just won’t admit that they have done their reproductive dash, and there is nothing sadder than the case of  Kimberley Castles:

Castles sued the Justice Department, seeking an injunction and a declaration she could continue treatment.

Ms Mortimer said conjugal visits were allowed at Tarrengower and that time was running out for Castles – who has age-based infertility – because she turns 46 in December and that is the cut-off date for treatment from Melbourne IVF.

Putting aside the crime that finds her banged up in the first place I find it outrageous that she be allowed to continue IVF treatment anyway. “age-based infertility” has a name and its called menopause, a natural end to a woman’s reproductive life why on earth should this woman be allowed to do this while she is serving a stretch for welfare fraud?
Worse still a comment posted to the Herald Sun makes it very clear that this woman has already had children:

Kimberleys Daughter Posted at 7:40 PM May 06, 2010

Hello Everybody. Im Kimberleys daughter and I feel I need to clear up a couple of things. Mum is paying for her IVF treatments. She has a longtime partner(who works fulltime) with whom she has a child. And she has paid her debt back. While I understand everybodys outraged opinions, I do believe she does deserve to be eligible for the treatments, not for her, but for my sister. My mum has been trying to get pregnant since my sister was born, but has been unable to. IVF was a last resort. My mum and stepdad supply everything for my sister while in jail. My sister is allowed whatever she wants and needs, and has a a very supportive group of women around her. Yes these women are criminals, but they are all women, and most of them mothers. If there was a slight chance that the environment was unsafe for children, the careworkers wouldnt allow children to reside there. As I said to DerrinHinch on the radio the other day, this wouldnt even be an issue and it wouldnt be made public if mum was younger. Its only because her biological clock is running out that theres such urgency. I can only say Im sorry my mother has done these dishonest things. I realise sorry doesnt change anything or

Its easy to have some sympathy for a woman who has had a career and then belatedly notices that he biological clock it ticking very loudly so she has a good go at becoming a mother but this woman has a grown up daughter from a previous relationship and another daughter with her current partner and yet she wants more???? This just shows a total lack of humility about the biological reality of being human.

I can’t help thinking that “reproductive technologies” are producing some rather vexed moral questions and that we as a society need to do some very deep thinking about the ethical questions here which for me come down to asking should we allow something because it is possible or should we disallow it because it is just plain wrong?

Cheers Comrades

She is NO Messiah, and she aint even that naughty either, sigh

Forgive my glee but for someone who has been touted as the saviour of the Labor Party after the disastrous reign of Brother Number One the Anointed One is doing some very interesting political  gymnastics at present. Now when faced with the fact that Timor won’t play ball she is pretending that she never made the suggestion in the first place. You could not write such a scenario in a show like “The Hollow men”

These young

Insisting she was happy to be judged on what she had said previously, she said: “I did outline a vision and the vision was for a regional processing centre and that is important because it completely undercuts the people- smuggling market. I’m not going to leave undisturbed the impression that I made an announcement about a specific location.” Ms Gillard said the location for the centre would “emerge from the discussions with our regional partners”.

Gymnasts are

Last night she attempted to clarify her comments, telling Perth’s 6PR radio station she was not prepared to “unilaterally” announce a definitive site for a processing centre in another country. She also refused to rule out Manus Island, off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea, as a possible alternative site.

not embarasing to watch

Dr Ramos-Horta’s spokesman said last night Ms Gillard and the President had discussed East Timor as a site for the centre. “Whether it would be hosted in Timor Leste was always an open issue – there has been no decision taken by the President,” foreign policy spokesman Jose Meirelles said. “But Timor Leste as a possibility was real, although we can talk so far only in the sphere of possibilities.”

[..]

Tony Abbott said Ms Gillard’s idea was just a thought bubble. “No credible prime minister ought to announce government policy that crucially depends upon the co-operation of another country without first securing that co-operation,” the Opposition Leader said. “There has been a failure of judgment and of due process. Any serious acquaintance with governmental structures should have alerted Julia Gillard to the dangers of confusing a head of state with a head of government, and any prior discussion with her Foreign Minister should have prevented this half-baked scheme from ever seeing the light of day.“

Now I hear that she is touting New Guinea as an alternative … Hmm didn’t John Howard have a detention centre there? Yes? That must mean that the “Gillard solution™” is well and truly an ersatz Pacific solution after all , she just has to get Nauru back on board and she will have the old team that she was denouncing in 2007!!!!

Rather than her policy being a vote winner with those of us who are concerned about the security of our borders this policy will be a vote loser. My logic is simple and direct: Why vote for ersatz  coffee in a soggy paper cup when you can vote for the party that will give you a full flavoured brew made with real coffee beans in a real  cup ?

You know that the paper cup will fail just like the pink batts and you know that Labor are going to pay well over the odds for that paper cup just as they have done for the BER scheme ….

Pale and over priced copy or the genuine article is our choice here.

Cheers Comrades

CRU scientists are far from squeaky clean

Its is easy to admire the faith of true believers, no matter if their faith is in a bearded deity in the sky, or even something more secular and esoteric like Anthropogenic Global Warming. One such is my regular commenter PKD. We have chewed the fat over this topic literally for years. I suspect that he enjoys the ongoing argy-bargy as much as I do. Find below a comment he posted to another thread that I sort of let go through to the keeper:

2010/07/07 at 11:33 pm

Dunno about that, but you must be gutted that the inquiry into the CRU has cleared than of deliberately manipulating data. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10538198.stm)

I cant wait to see you and all the other denialists come out railing against this inquiry as a whitewash to cover up the ‘truth’ that AGW is really one big hoax…

PKD

Then I found a more balanced consideration  of this new report in of all places the Guardian:

Generally honest but frequently secretive; rigorous in their dealings with fellow scientists but often “unhelpful and defensive”, and sometimes downright “misleading”, when explaining themselves to the wider world. That was the verdict of Sir Muir Russell and his fellow committee members in their inquiry into the role of scientists at the University of East Anglia in the “climategate” affair.

Many will find the report indulgent of reprehensible behaviour, particularly in peer review, where CRU researchers have been accused of misusing their seniority in climate science to block criticism. Brutal exchanges in which researchers boasted of “going to town” to prevent publication of papers critical of their work, and in which they conspired to blacklist journals that published hostile papers, were dismissed by Russell as “robust” and “typical of the debate that can go on in peer review”.

So while PKD holds onto the rather misleading headline claim from the BBC about the report’s findings cooler and less partisan heads do not see it as the quite the ringing endorsement that my Warminista mate does …
Strange ole world ain’t it?
Cheers Comrades

Our Glorious leader plans an important reform in the services

courtsey of Andrew Bolt's Blog

The picture just suggested it

Forgive me Comrades,

“We were struggling but in the end we came back.”

Well I over came my prejudices and actually watched the Origin match and it was , dare I say it, quite a thrill!!!

Last night, before more than 60,000 fans at ANZ Stadium, Queensland capped its five-year dominance of Origin with a gripping victory and the first 3-0 win of the Mal Meninga era.

They did it the hard way too. After dominating the opening two games of the series, Queensland came from behind with six minutes remaining when Billy Slater, later named man of the series, found some tiring defence near the NSW line.

That handed the Maroons a one-point lead and centre Willie Tonga put the exclamation point on another memorable night for Queensland when he took a Johnathan Thurston pass and strolled over.

I suppose I can stand a little sport in my viewing diet a few times a year, especially when it is such an exciting game…
Cheers Comrades