Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

An email update from a worker in the country. The title above was his subject line from the email - you can make up your own mind whether he's right .

"The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies." -US President George W Bush

The threat of terrorism is now part of the landscape of daily lives all over the world, yet we have hardly begun to think properly about it. In his new book Terror and Consent  and in this lecture Professor Bobbitt argues that we are fighting these wars with weapons and concepts which though useful to us in previous conflicts have now been superseded.

This month's update from Democratic Audit Australia has some interesting material on political donations, electoral changes, and the lobbyists' register.

A collection of comments, quotes and opinions on the budget.

The one constant about democracy is that the job description for the national government never changes. Government is meant to provide security and public infrastructure, to correct for market failure, and to avoid telling people how to live their lives. (George Megalogenis)

These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? (Lee Iacocca)

The ostensible argument for power privatisation is that NSW needs the money for schools, hospitals and other expenditure. The reality is that sale of capital is touted as the way to finance ongoing expenditure, analogous to the classic case of the farmer who sells off a bit of the farm each year to keep the family clothed and food on the table.

Colonel Davis' testimony could well herald an annulment of the powers of the military tribunal and negate the only conviction it has produced...

Being a carer may not be the most recognised job in the world, but it is by far the most rewarding. Now when people ask me what I do, I am proud to say that I am a carer, knowing that by doing this job I am giving Warren the greatest gift of all - a life worth living. (Tania Hayes)

The case against members of ABC TV's The Chaser's War on Everything has been dropped. Here's why.

If you throw enough money at something, it will make money. With publicists you can create a mystique into which nature will introduce scandal. You can fill people's heads with information that they'd prefer not to possess. We could be doing so much more to turn more kinds of music into self-propagating entities, but we don't.

This well researched book is meant to help labour activists rediscover history, not, Mason says, “to piously learn lessons” but to see where activism leads, what reactions various patterns of revolt bring. He notes that when work becomes humane, fair and representative, the red fire tends to be quashed. If only more would listen.

Norman Mailer once wrote: “My long experience with human nature … suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state.” Mailer was a novelist, and his business was being provocative. I found his article … to be food for considerable worthwhile thought. After the thinking, I decided he was wrong.

Back in 1980, Zimbabwe was the bread-basket of eastern Africa. Blacks and whites were living in (relative) harmony, the economy was in good shape. … Now, 28 years on, millions of people have fled to neighbouring countries, inflation runs rampant, and starvation is rife.

Hope was the last casualty and it was not till 1921 that the family felt they had to let go, and held a memorial service. The file of these letters, some photos of a handsome lad, and a small envelope labeled pressed flowers from the service are all that remain, along with his name amongst the missing on the Menin Gate in the Belgian village of Ypres.

If you want the job done, get Paul Kelly, Archie Roach, Bogle, Williamson, Schumann, Missy Higgins and Lior into a studio with a well stocked bar for the weekend, and they'll give you what a team of musicologists could never create in a million years.

The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse. (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development)

Robert Manne's collection Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia covers some interesting ground, if relatively superficially (or "readable", according to the blurb). But what I find more interesting is what it doesn't cover.

The financial and economic crisis now upon us is by far the most menacing of the past century - even more so than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is not just a "subprime" crisis; it is systemic - affecting the entire financial system. (James Cumes)

Kevin Rudd’s comments in London have stirred the pot again on this perennial issue, and Greg Barnes, organiser of the 1999 Republic Referendum Campaign, returns to the fray with his recent Melbourne Age opinion piece.

Grain prices have suddenly doubled worldwide and are expected to remain at these levels. For the billions of people who spend a large percentage of their income on food, mostly the urban poor in developing countries, this is and will be a disaster.

As computers become more powerful and more and more information is gathered about individuals it will be very easy to track people simply by their buying habits. We will not need to know their names, just a profile will be enough to identify them. Human being are extremely predictable.

I joined the Liberal Party in 1978, and was a member until the mid 1980s. Then, for many reasons, I didn’t renew. Indeed, I switched my vote back to the ALP, and kept voting for them in the House, while voting Democrat in the Senate, until 1996, when I voted for John Howard.

Not long ago an appealing aspect to life in Narrung was that the water coming from your tap was piped directly from the lake.  Well, it was appealing before the water receded.  On returning there at Easter I’was greeted by an initial spurt of green-grey ooze from the plumbing, a clear sign of what had been going on.  A bottle of the stuff was presented to Victorian Premier Brumby as he entered the COAG  conference in Adelaide on Wednesday.  He wouldn’t take it.

I'm interested by the claim repeated in numerous news analyses that "investors are buying oil to hedge against the sliding greenback" - it seems to me to be a tad more significant that world oil demand has exceeded world oil supply for the last several months, and looks like doing so for at least the rest of this year. My forecasts for year end 2008: $145 barrel; A$1=US$1; ULP at $1.87 per litre. Enjoy.

Last month may have been the most important yet in the two-decade history of the fight against global warming. ... But what may turn out to be the most crucial development went largely unnoticed. ... A NASA scientist named James Hansen offered a simple, straightforward and mind-blowing bottom line for the planet: 350, as in parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's a number that may make what happened in Washington and Bali seem quaint and nearly irrelevant. It's the number that may define our future. (Jim McKibben)