I don’t watch television, and I was sceptical about the innovation of ABC 24 News expecting it to be a race to the bottom, with Fox News as the model, yet I have to admit they seem to have done good on the question of mental health.

ABC Online reports:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Tuesday that a re-elected Labor government would spend $277 million to help people at risk of suicide.

And she said the Government would be willing to commit to a longer-term mental health plan, with the issue to be a second-term priority for Labor.

. . . Professor Mendoza has told ABC TV he is disappointed with today’s announcement.

“It’s well short of the mark,” he said.

“It’s not systemic reform. It fails the leadership test in my view.”

Brain and Mind Research Institute director Ian Hickie has told ABC News 24 the measures are just a big collection of small programs.

“It fails to go to real mental health reform,” he said. Read more »

The Liberal candidate for the safe Labor seat of Chifley, in Sydney has been sacked by the Leader of the Opposition for making anti-Muslim comments.

Three questions come to mind. What does the Liberal brand mean if it does not imply religious tolerance? How did such a person with bigoted and ignorant views about Muslims ever become a Liberal candidate, let alone join the Liberal party. Even ignorant views, as long as they are not intentionally hurtful, might be allowed within the ambit of freedom of speech as part of the wider democratic debate.

The Liberal Post, post John Howard, is as much, or even more, a conservative as much as it is liberal party. A replacement candidate has been put up. In this case, I doubt her candidature was endorsed by the rank and file party members.

ABC Online reports:

The sacked Liberal party candidate, David Barker, says he stands by anti-Islamic comments he made about his opponent in the Sydney seat of Chifley. Read more »

The Earth turns, events and circumstances hold the attention and the sense of time passing eludes me like a shadow.  This week Sasha had one toe surgically removed.

Today,  with Dexter, I collected her from the vets.  On the way home she lost her bandage. She seems OK but hopefully she has not got an infection. All in all it was a very stressful experience. Knowing something of the background story makes the response with her in plastic collar all the more remarkable. Read more »

There is a real problem with these murderous wars waged supposedly to stop terrorism, but in their enactment using the methods of terrorism. It is so much easier to kill people if they are first dehumanized. So every story is important.

In this video from Brave New Films, via Rethink Afghanistan, Zaitullah Ghiasi Wardak describes the murder of his 92 year old father:

The human response is more important that feeling of revenge or assumptions of domination and superiority because the latter evoke further the spiral of violence. It might be worth remembering that Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries. If we were decent human beings we would helping them, not killing them. Read more »

What is to be done about climate change? Now that is the question.

OK, so our putative leaders are obsequious, if not gutless, in the face of those electors who they believe, probably rightly will determine their political future based on polling and secret focus group reports, but does that excuse us? What are we going to do? What are implications if the institutions of representative democracy, including elections, have ceased to be either substantive or deliberative?

Climate change may well become as mundane as mass starvation, mass migration and mass extermination over the next fifty to one hundred years, and perhaps sooner. So that is alarmist? I don’t expect to see linear yearly measured trends but the increase in CO(2) seems to fit the case. Carbon Dioxide is not the sole greenhouse gas increasing in the atmosphere. There may well be a large increase in methane if the Siberian Tundra melts, and if my memory if correct it is said that methane has seven times the effect of Carbon Dioxide. Read more »

Gosh, now you see what happens when a person does not pay attention to the intertubes, the Prime Minister goes and calls a Federal Election.

The horses have left the starting gates and the boxers are in the ring, and there was I blissfully unaware. I was caught up in the local drama of auction of the house next door, and a gathering of people at the front of our place. Here am I sweeping paths, taking the dogs out, helping with dinner – not much, but you get the idea. And now we have the Gillard and Abbott show across the wide brown land. Read more »

This internet/world wide web thing has a set of skills associated with it, and not just linking. What might they be?

When I am challenged to review my own skills, I tend to go blank. The best I think is that skills are related to directly to use of tools. Think of a hammer and knocking in nails and it is clear there is skillful execution or not – oh my thumb! This internet/world wide web thing has a set of skills associated with it, and not just linking.

What might they be? Fortunately others are on the case and here is what they say:

The interesting and important association is that made here between workers and citizens. Working and citizenship are connected. In corporatist dominated society because of the enactment of top-down control. The online technologies are changing activities, for example the buying and selling of houses. One senses that democracy must still be based on the meeting of people. Read more »

Israel has delivered an ultimatum to the Libyan aid ship to Gaza to divert to Egypt.

Unfortunately, neither the Turkish government or the legal representatives of countries involved in the previous convoy are prepared to the accept the conclusions of the Israel inquiry. Following up on their ultimatum, AFP/Reuters, via ABC Online News, reports that Israel has begun preparations to prevent the ship sailing to Gaza with its cargo of food and medical supplies.

Heading to el Arish, an Egyptian port near to the Gaza border may be a good option, if the Egyptian government would also agree to open the Rafah border crossing to let the aid through.

Israel presumes to control the sea and land borders of Gaza. Along the land borders they now have a spot and shoot system. Jonathan Cook writing in Counter Punch explains: Read more »

Sport can do positive things, but winning does seem to matter. Despite the octopus, I think that it is likely that Spain has a fair chance of winning against Holland in the final of the Soccer World Cup.

According to the Spanish Ambassador they are the European champions, so that is the basis of my prediction. But should that happen the feel good factor, and the expressions of nationalism may have political consequences, momentary at least. According to Giles Tremblett for The Guardian:

Spaniards cannot recall an outpouring of national pride similar to that provoked by the country’s first-ever appearance in the World Cup final today. “Not since the Spanish civil war have there been so many flags in the streets,” El País newspaper reported as Madrid prepared for an all-night party if La Roja beat Holland in South Africa this evening. Read more »

For whatever reason, the people moving stuff around up the back left early. One theory was that it was poet’s day, which in the nature of translations broadly means leave early tomorrow is Saturday. Sasha and Dexter, with their canine configuration of sense always seem to want to linger longer.
Read more »

Climate change is subtle, but it is fast reaching a point where it becomes unmanageable, or at least the principles of justice and equity are left in its wake. A rise in sea level of between one and two metres does not sound a lot, especially when projection is in ninety years time.

Peter Ward, via Salon, has written The Flooded Earth – Our Future in the World with Melted Ice Caps in which he sets out the implications of the global sea level rise. Russia and Canada stand to gain and the big losers he expects will be Holland and Bangladesh. He expects the population of Bangladesh to double in the time frame. Where are they going to go? I suspect the flow of refugees that seems such a problem in Australia now, perhaps because of social and economic reasons they are settled among people less able to appreciate cultural difference, will then be seen as trivial. Read more »

Following the Israeli assault on the Gaza flotilla, various opponent of the Israeli Government, including Hamas, have now apparently discovered the strategy of nonviolence.

Violence works but does it? It certainly has the ability to energize people, either to pro-act, retaliate or flee. Retaliation and the search for greater forms of domination have produced endless innovation, which oddly and counter-logically did not end with nuclear weapons.

The nuclear arms race began with the bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and got traction during the Cold War, essentially a contest for domination in a post West European colonial world between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union seems to have fallen apart with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This was seen as the triumph of global capitalism, but after twenty years the sense of exuberance has given way to one of gloom whose shadow will doubtless fall across the Australian sunlight. Read more »

Has Obama sunk to the depths of contempt? According to Ha’aretz, he warned that an inquiry into the murder of its citizens would be bad for the Turkish Government.

Of course, what Obama actually said and meant may be misrepresented. Haaretz’s reported:

United States President Barak Obama warned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that an international probe into Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla could have negative consequences for Turkey, British Arabic-language daily al-Hayat reported Saturday.

According to the report, Obama warned Erdogan that the international probe which Turkey has demanded could turn into a “double edged sword,” as it could lead to accusations against the passengers on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara ship, some of whom were members of the pro-Palestinian IHH organization. Read more »

The old saying has it that the wearer knows where the shoe hurts. And it turns out that the spending initiative announced by Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, is not just a gimmick, but based on personal experience.

In public health it is not sufficient to have access to appropriate treatments, but to have the willingness of suffers from illness to help. I know from my role as a carer that conflicts can arise in relation to the carer. Mental health has traditionally had a stigma attached, and I am not sure how widespread that might be, or the general awareness of mental health conditions. Social isolation is, I imagine, likely to exacerbate some conditions, such as severe depression.

Andrew Robb, who was active in the Australian Republic Campaign has some credibility across partisan and ideological divides also followed good advice to make his mental condition public. He gives an account of his experience at Crikey (an occasion that might actually justify a longer quote): Read more »

British General David Richards suggests that creating “a stabilized Afghanistan under a competent government” would be sufficient achievement for the military. He argues that talking with the Taliban is something that should happen pretty soon. The talks it seems have already begun. Elsewhere in The Guardian, Declan Walsh and Jon Boone are suggesting proposed talks brokered by Pakistan between nominal President Hamid Karzai and Warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani have created considerable anxieties among the Tariqs and minority ethnic groups. They write: Read more »

As the Sydney Morning Herald points out the change in Prime Minister, however orchestrated, now means we have a “petty coat government” to the extent the PM and the GG are now women.

In so far as it represents, which it does in part, women’s rights are human rights and equality, I am for it, but the question remains how did it happen and why.

Mark at Larvatus Prodeo summaries the the forensic investigation of The Financial Review, and concludes that it is political leadership beheading that is typical of NSW with the implication that principle counts for little it is not popular as measured by the most recent poll. It is interesting that John Howard stuck to a set of principles that I opposed over his career and his prime ministership was not aborted. It could as well be said, as others before, he too concentrated in the PM’s office. Read more »

“Collateral damage” is one of those bloodless and painless expressions that might be described as post-Orwellian.

The newspeak dictionary was never mean to expand or evolve to avoid the danger of subversion of thought. The notion of an “American Way” is even a greater degree of subversion from the world view of the inner-party because it presupposes self reflection at the critical threshold of acculturated identification, constantly reinforced by the cacophony of mindlessness and message that affects all of us in public or media spaces, and species identification.

It might be accurately observed in passing that The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is remarkably prescient. For such theory and practice seems to be consistent with Tom Engelhardt’s , “The American Way of War”, sans human rights and international law. Read more »

There was a dramatic development in Australian politics this evening. It seems that the PM will be replaced by the Labor caucus tomorrow. This development seems to be more handiwork of the NSW Right – well that decides me.

According to Larvatus Prodeo who have live blogged the show all evening the deal is done. Gillard will be the new Prime Minister come the vote at the ALP Caucus tomorrow at 9am.

Phillip Coorey at The Sydney Morning Herald is more circumspect. He writes:

Tomorrow would be the last day for the rebels to mount a challenge because Parliament will rise for the eight-week winter break and many expected Mr Rudd to call an election before the Parliament returned.

Mounting a leadership challenge is much more difficult when the house is not sitting because all the MPs and senators have to be recalled. Read more »

Does common law offer protection from inquiring minds of officialdom, after attending a protest, especially when the main stream media has established the consensus as to who the good guys might be?

In the United States, notionally at least and unless the President declares otherwise, they still have the Bill of Rights.

An Austin mother of five gets out the handy video camera and records the transaction:

The assumptions and implications are interesting. The official understandings of democracy can be very tenuous at times.

Incidentally, who knew there even had been protests supporting the oppressed people of Palestine in the United States. This rather interesting news – to me – was never reported. Read more »

This week was worst than last. The dogs went out less often. The doctor agreed with my diagnosis that I had cellulitis. The inflammation of the skin causes some pain, but contrary to what I am told I find that exercising thens to reduce the effects.

While the photos might not reveal it, this area was once a coal mine. The excavation and earth moving that is going on is part a consequence of that, as is the dam – otherwise the duckpond – that we have been visiting lately. Read more »

At least nine people had to die because it was a matter of pride that Israel’s blockade on the Palestinian people living in Gaza had to preserved. The aid supplies had been left in Ashdod. What to do?

Associate Press, via The Independent reports:

Robert Serry, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the UN Security Council in New York that Israel agreed to release the cargo “on the understanding that it is for the United Nations to determine its appropriate humanitarian use in Gaza”.

The military said the aid, taken from a six-ship Gaza-bound flotilla, would fill 70 trucks.

Up to now, the Hamas rulers of Gaza refused to accept the aid as a protest against Israel’s three-year blockade of the territory. Hamas had no comment on the arrangement, under which the UN would take charge of seeing that the aid would be used in authorised humanitarian projects. Read more »

Big ideas, so brain research suggests, will change our brains. Changing our brains is a paradigm shift. Maybe.

Here is the video:

Mark Waldman is talking about meditation! Yawning. Neural dissonance.
(via Facebook and the Metta Center) Read more »

The US President, given the office, needs to be a gifted individual. At the same time, it seems a person occupying this public office needs experience and personal qualities. We all have blind spots, which we mostly discover when we hit the motor cyclist.

Even though I am distant from the Gulf of Mexico, there seems to me to be a frustration that the Federal Government has not taken the matter in hand leaving all the important decisions to the company that made the rash judgments about the safety of the project. Obama compounded the problem by his prior commitment to off shore drilling – another slap in the face of many of his electoral support base. The problem, as I see it, is not so much gaming the system. but the failure to appreciate that systems must be changed from the outside, and cannot be changed from inside deals. Read more »

Three people aboard the Mavi Marmara, two of whom were members of the German Parliament, have brought war crime indictments against the Israeli assault and capture of the ship in International waters.

John Goetz  at Speigel reports:

Human rights activist Norman Paech and two German parliamentarians from the far-left Left Party, Annette Groth and Inge Höger, have filed criminal complaints for “numerous potential offences, including war crimes against individuals and command responsibility … as well as false imprisonment.”
At 5:10 a.m. on May 31, the complaint reads, Höger, Groth and Paech heard from the captain of the Mavi Marmara via the ship’s loudspeaker that the Israeli soldiers who had boarded the ship as part of the commando operation were taking over control of the ship. An hour later, Israeli soldiers ordered the Germans on deck, where their backpacks and other belongings were searched. Their hands were temporarily bound. Read more »

Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, suggests the Australian commitment of military forces in Afghanistan could last another thirty years. In other words Australians not yet born could be dying there and for what? At minimum there should be a parliamentary debate, which I believe has so hitherto occurred.

ABC News reported what Daniel Ellsberg had to say, and his background gives his opinion some degree of expertise:

“For Australian troops I think that three to five years is not just a conservative estimate, it’s totally foolish,” he told Radio National this morning.

“The war will no more be over in three to five years than it is right now.

“If Australians are committed to supporting this strategy they can figure on 10, 20 and 30 years.”

Mr Ellsberg says the recent deployment of 30,000 US troops is unlikely to be the last such deployment. Read more »

Should we write the obituary for Representative Democracy? Where is it vigorous and vital?

Certainly not in NSW, where the distinctive feature of the planning system is developer donations to the party of government, validating in that action the top-down determination and control. “That’s the system, mate”, or whatever Barry O’Farrel said in Kuringai where those protesting against recent developments were told to be quiet. Not in the United States, where in the system of checks and balances, there is no Congressional Inquiry into the costs and abuses of the widening war. Let us not even mention the role of the Australian National Parliament in relation to the ongoing deployment to Afghanistan. Read more »

The claim is made that the Americans, by which I mean that variety from the place known as the United States, have been engaged in war longer in Afghanistan than Vietnam.

Now I find that hard to believe. The striking feature of both these places is that they have no strategic significance whatsoever. The suspicion is that these are exercises of murder, destruction and pillage for their own sake, and national pride gets caught up in the project.

Does that make any sense at all? One might think that the cost would weigh against the behavior, but perhaps as George Orwell noted that is the very point of the exercise. Likewise, Chris Floyd,who observes: Read more »

Israel would appear to have continued its brazen acts of piracy with reports of the capture of the merchant vessel Rachel Corrie loaded with humanitarian aid destined for Gaza.

The details will be forthcoming, but I am wondering what has been done with the Mavi Marmara and the other ships? What has happened to the personal possessions stolen from the passengers?

Some argue that Israel has a coherent strategic response in using violence in the face of nonviolent protest, and that as with there other violence and criminal actions including murder and massacre they will soon be forgotten. I am not sure. This time, the protest and the aid, has dramatically brought to the world’s attention the state of the dispossessed Palestinians, not least the Gazans. Yes, the Israeli criminality is under the wing of the Americans, but it has been displayed to the world to whoever had eyes to see it. I suspect that makes a big difference. These events will be a test of Israeli democracy, because surely such behavior could not be acceptable to the Israeli public, and if it is, then it says something that is very disturbing. Read more »