2007 Federal Election Conspiracy

The Australian Government has conspired with the United States to devise a plan of freeing David hicks that will ensure the impact of his case has an absolute minimal effect upon the impending Federal election.

Bold words perhaps, but lets look closely at the facts:

Detention
Hicks was captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and was among the first prisoners the United States sent to Guantanamo a month later. Washington defined Hicks and others as unlawful "enemy combatants" who could not be treated the same way as prisoners of war and would not have the same rights under the Geneva Convention.

PM Reacts to National Outrage

A poll in December (2006) on the Hicks case itself rocked the government. It showed that about two-thirds of Australians thought Mr Hicks should be returned to Australia, and only one-quarter supported Mr Howard's hands-off approach. Since then Mr Howard has changed his public tune, blaming America for the delays in bringing Mr Hicks to trial. That may not be enough to assuage public anger, which probably runs deep enough to affect elections in a few months' time.
The Economist, 29 March 2007

Charged and Convicted
A US military tribunal has sentenced him to seven years in jail but he will only have to serve nine months with the rest suspended. He will serve the sentence in Australia and the USA must send him home by May 29.

The Deal

Hicks's plea agreement bars him from speaking to the media for one year and says if he ever sells the rights to his story, the Australian Government will get the money. He was also banned from taking legal action against the United States. Hicks had previously said he was abused by the US military but said in his plea agreement he had "never been illegally treated while in US custody".
ABC Online, 31 March 2007

So clearly the government has one full year in which to be saved any embarrassment from Hicks' contact with media ... and the election will have been fought and won by then!

Bob Brown agrees

But Greens leader Bob Brown says Hicks's sentence is designed to keep him out of the political spotlight during this year's federal election campaign.
"This is an astonishing political fix between the Howard administration and the Bush administration," Senator Brown said.
"This is carefully choreographed to have Hicks shut up until after the election.
"That's because they know that this is an illegal process. It breaches Australia's standards of democracy, human rights, civil rights."
ABC Online, 31 March 2007

Teens uncover 55 year old lie!

Kiwi kids discover drug company lie!

International drugs conglomerate, GlaxoSmithKline, is facing court in New Zealand over misleading advertising, after two high school students discovered that Ribena, a blackcurrant drink it has been promoting for 55 years for its high Vitamin C content, contain very little of the essential nutrient.

The company has admitted to Australia's corporate watchdog, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) that its marketing was misleading and its given an undertaking to explain the true nutritional makeup of Ribena on its packaging, its website and in future advertising.

And tomorrow the company's New Zealand subsidiary will be in court facing 15 similar charges brought by the ACCC's counterpart, the Commerce Commission, which carry a penalty of up to $3 million in fines.

According to another report in the Sydney Morning Herald it seems that the multinational got confused about the vitamin C content of blackcurrants (which is supposedly 4 times higher than oranges) and the vitamin content of its popular drink.

"Weight for weight, the 'four times' statement is factually correct but we accept that there is a potential for confusion among consumers and have taken the action to remove that claim."

In January, the Herald reported an analysis of popular children's snack foods and beverages by the independent consumer watchdog Choice, which found that Ribena consisted of little more than sugar and water. Its essential ingredient - blackcurrants - made up just 5 per cent of content, the study found, and was a processed product made from concentrate.

Fancy that ... a drug company lying to us! What is the world coming to? LOL!

Walk the walk ... like an Egyptian

Speaking of conspiracies ...

What's the chance that the USA is behind the massive constitutional changes underway in Egypt?

Human rights group Amnesty International has called the changes the greatest erosion of human rights in 26 years

Meanwhile, the USA has only expressed "some concerns" about some of the amendments.

The 34 ammendments will provide, amongst other things, a permanent invocation of emergency laws that have been in place since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, technically ending the longest "emergency" in history. The changes will also:

• give police wider powers of arrest and surveillance.
• ban all religious-based political activity and parties
• remove judicial supervision of elections
• change the previously socialist state into one based on "freedom of economic action"
• give the president powers to refer terrorists to any judicial authority - including military tribunals, which are not subject to appeal
• allow authorities to override articles protecting individual freedoms and privacy

Anyone arguing against these changes are, of course unpatriotic and unAmerican ... I mean unEgyptian!

Climate Conspiracy?

I've always loved a good conspiracy and continue to believe that every theory has its foundation in an element of truth, no matter how minute it may seem.

The death of Marilyn Monroe always had a fascination for conspiracy theorists linking her "suicide" to the Mafia, the CIA or even directly to the Oval Office. Now it comes out that even the FBI believed there was more to it than a simple overdose by a desperate woman.

Perhaps we'll hear more about President Kennedy's assassination or Harold Holt's underwater journey in a Chinese submarine as time goes by? ;-)

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Times, debate continues about the cause of climate change. This time the suggestion is that the United Nations is part of some conspiracy to promote human activity as the leading cause of global warming.

For the purposes of ... what, exactly? I have no idea!

Ali Sevin writes that

Two separate NASA landings on Mars showed the ice cap at the southern pole (frozen CO2) has been receding as a result of solar activity. If the sun is warming Mars it should also be warming the Earth unless some unknown phenomenon directs any increase in solar radiation only toward Mars.

Further to this "evidence" is the airing of a documentary called "The Great Global Warming Scandal" on London's TV Channel 4 which, according to film reviews not cited by Sevin,

is a devastating blow to the U.N. report and to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"

Sevin has a point - maybe unusually large and frequent solar flares are to blame for the increase in world temperatures!

But if Earth is like a pot of soup sitting on a stove (the sun) that can't be turned down, surely you'd want to lift the lid a bit to allow some ventilation, rather than adding extra gases that will only serve to build up the heat! Wouldn't you?? Derrr!

Global warming or climate change by any other name is still a slow road to extinction just the same.

If I were a rich man ...

According to recent global research, I'm an above-average wealthy person - considerably wealthy in fact, when you bring things into perspective.

The report by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University proclaims that the richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth. This excludes business, organisational and government wealth.

Further statistics demonstrate how the richest 1% of adults accounted for 40% of household assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned a mere 1% share.

Whichever way you say it, there is no doubt that we have a massive skew in the distribution of assets and personal wealth across the globe. I'm going to keep the argument of lifestyle, quality of life, health and happiness out of this for moment, and make the assumption that each of these has a significant correlation to the relative income and assets of an individual. Money won't make you happy, but it certainly can take a few worries away from a starving family living in the dirt in a developing nation!

The report also found that just $2,200 of assets per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required just $61,000 in assets, and $500,000 qualified you for entry to the richest 1% along with 37 million others worldwide.



It was also noted that

many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and—somewhat paradoxically—are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth

Facsinating reading - it really does put your own life into perspective!

Australia Deliberated ... and, what now?

I've been asked why I haven't reported further on the recent deliberative poll in Canberra.

It isn't because of laziness, although I am a major procrastinator at times. And it isn't because of any disinterest in the topic or a dwindling motivation to see the issues resolved.

My silence has primarily been due to a critical lack of direction or sense of conclusion. I left Canberra feeling at a loss and with some disappointment in how the proceedings were brought to a swift and insalubrious end.

"Fill out a survey, here's a cheque for $100, buses will leave at the appointed times and thank you ... now go and have lunch and listen to Bob Hawke sing Waltzing Matilda"

Ummm! But, excuse me ... What should we do now?

We had several dozen groups of people from all over the nation, brought together as strangers, all leaving with a sense that more needed to be done. Our work wasn't complete. We couldn't just send everyone away without some conclusion, some closure, some sense of a future direction. Yet, that's exactly what happened.

Most of us want to help break down these barriers; to keep the media accountable for their biased reporting; to educate others and facilitate harmony and interaction and pursue the goal of a truly multicultural society where no-one was abused for their beliefs or threatened by the beliefs of others.

Come in, spinner!

Alas, this weekend was not about developing solutions. It had very little to do with Islam in Australian society, and it certainly had nothing to achieve except to promote a system of political polling and facilitating some behavioural research.

It has taken me all this time to admit to myself the futility of this process in facilitating change on a large scale. Certainly, there were many individuals who were inspired to be better people; to take the message of unity back to their local communities, their families, workplaces and schools. But very little can be accomplished on a broader scale when the participants were swiftly dispersed without so much as a brief discussion on taking "the next step".

Perhaps I misled myself into thinking that a forum such as this would be a catalyst for change. No-one promised me that the weekend would provide answers, yet I went fully expecting to be part of the grand solution. Nobody suggested that this was an exercise in negotiation or diplomacy, but still my expectations were high for an outcome of significant proportions.

Three weeks after this extraordinary weekend, I am left sullen and void of satisfaction. It was a great holiday and an awesome opportunity to visit Canberra. It was also a wonderful way to meet some colourful characters and interesting individuals, partake of some excellent education and stimulating discourse. However, it was merely a talk fest amidst a series of research projects - nothing more!

Of course, there is a lot that I can do (and will do) as an individual, but I really feel that without some groundswell of support from the wider community, there will be little to achieve in pushing this barrow.

C'est la vie!

The Gender pay gap - fact or fiction?

Every year the same questionable report gets trotted out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and every year the media lap it up without so much as a blink!

human Resource magazine was one of publications to spew forth the recycled hyperbole Australians have heard year after year. In their article, Women behind in pay stakes, they claim that "There is a significant gap between male and female earnings, according to a recent Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) report".

Fair call, one might say after skimming the superficial statistics. But sit and think and ask yourself the following questions before coming to a conclusion ...

• Is gender THE differentiating factor, or do elements like time in the field, capability to be a slave to the job, and career drivers play more of an important role?
• Why does the media only report the average earnings, knowing that women are more commonly employed in lower paid occupations (e.g. hospitality) while highly paid occupations (e.g. tradespeople in mining) are predominantly male? This in itself will skew the survey results!
• What factor does significant time away (e.g. maternity leave & child rearing) from a technical occupation, such as accounting, have on the remuneration afforded to women?
It seems that some voices are asking that employers pay equal remuneration on a gender basis regardless of all other factors! The fact that a woman may take 5 years away from her career seems to mean little to the lobbyists, who just want equal pay, end of story! Isn't it funny how we don't have cries from young people seeking pay that is on par to the nearly retired!

As a recruiter the arguments don't wash with me. I see men and women getting equal pay everyday in my job, however the issue is that the majority of CFOs tend to be male, while the majority of accounts support staff tend to be female. Notwithstanding that there are some exceptional cases of sexism, I believe that the majority of pay disparity is due to decisions made by the individual and very little to do with glass ceilings or gender disparity.

But then again .. I am, more than likely, a sexist male!

Attitude, stupid!

So, I was telling my folks about my weekend in Canberra and my Father asks "Are they going to run one for New Zealanders in Australia?"

... Ummm, No Dad ....

"What about Pakistanis in Australia?"

... Ahhh - nooo (waiting for it) ...

"Well, why are they running one for fucking Muslims?"

*sigh*

Because of exactly that kind of attitude, Dad!