Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

As to Hanson herself, you have to wonder at the cultural background that created the woman she was: women’s upbringing and enculturisation (and men’s), gender relations, and politics in general over the last couple of centuries and post ww2 in particular, perhaps against a sort of back drop of the sort of stuff that Prof Marilyn Lake discussed, concerning the Henry Lawson Bronzed Anzac / Pioneer myth and its sidelining of women...

Malcolm Turnbull and others baying for the blood of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, should think long and hard about their arguments. They appear to be saying that it is ok for officials of a government department to secretly and probably illegally, launch an investigation into the Minister to whom they are accountable. In the case of Mr Fitzgibbon, the intelligence gathering on him also smacks of racism. Mr. Fitzgibbon is friendly with an influential Chinese woman, a Ms Liu – so what?

As we look for solutions to the global situation it is becoming increasingly clear that the only way forward is a new path. We should listen to those who predicted the collapse nearly forty years ago. We must be willing to change and support those who are showing us some direction.

A far more effective control of the danger of climate change would be to tax all emission materials (oil, coal etc) at the point of supply, start at once, and at a low rate that would not panic the natives.

The Afghan people are fighting us because we are the foreigners. We are pushing people into the arms of the Taliban and inflaming the situation with the likelihood of spreading the war into surrounding countries such as Pakistan and Iran.

Some of the now confessed bastardry of Australian banks has now been exposed, at the highest possible level. The Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens, chose his words carefully – and spoke politely – when he did that late yesterday. But those who heard him had no doubts about what he was really saying.

Reading, ’riting and ‘rithmetic are not the objectives of an education system. Rather, they are by-products. What an education system must primarily do is foster a love of learning – the skills and attributes that a child learning to walk has, but appears to lose with age.

There is little evidence the “climate change skeptics” worry too much their misunderstanding of climate science may lead to the death of billions and the likely demise of civilization . The legal status of disinformation campaigns aimed at the promotion of substances of proven fatal global consequences, such as ozone-destroying CFCs, or greenhouse gas levels pushed up to near-40% above their natural level, is unclear. The lack of suitable laws to prevent ecocide may yet prove to be the Achilles heel of global civilization.

Under pressure over the huge bonuses paid to executives of failing companies, the Government has finally announced it will take action. Mounting community outrage at huge payments to departing executives has led the Federal Government to announce an inquiry into the issue — but first it will pass law to give shareholders more power over payments.

Shouldn’t we be using the anti terror laws to control these thugs? We should make their clubs illegal and destroy the club houses. Anyone known to belong to an outlaw bikie gang should face the same penalties as those belonging to terrorist organisations. There is no difference – both use violence and terror to intimidate the rest of the population.

Peter Faris QC, also writing in today's Australian, asserts that the combination of the Haneef incident and this one demonstrates that the AFP are not capable of overseeing Australian counterterrorism procedures.  His worries about the exposure of Sydney airport as an easy terrorist target are worth contemplating. (Updated)

Whenever I've encountered those who feel that there are too many people on the planet … I've issued them with a polite invitation to do themselves in as the only ethical approach. This is because those who feel that there are simply too many people inevitably feel that there are too many of somebody else’s family, class, ethnicity or nation. ... [T]he problem is constructed as “too many of them” rather than "one too many of me".

"Till midnight tonight, in every bar in Australia, the drinks are on me!  Simply wander down to your "local" and tell the bartender "this is Kevin's Shout" and not only will my Government reimburse the pub for the booze, but you can even take the receipt home and use it as a tax deduction. "

Kevin Rudd has certainly nailed his colours to the masthead with his article The Global Financial Crisis published in the February 2009 edition of The Monthly. As a plain language account of the dominance of neo-liberalism in Western political economy over the last thirty or so years it is exemplary.

The election will be very close. Anna Bligh may scrape in with the help of Green preferences; the alternative will be disastrous for Queensland. Let us hope that the ALP learns from this election and works out how to manage both the economic crisis and the climate change crisis.

Limiting carbon pollution is the next step in the plan to ... revitalize our economy. But the fossil fuel industry has already signaled that it will spend whatever is necessary to maintain the status quo. To jumpstart our economy, we need bold action from our leaders. (Repower America)

Most of us would agree that there is a limit to the number of people this planet can sustain. It may be 10 billion or 100 billion but there is a limit. The only debate is about the size of the limit and how we prevent the human population from reaching the limit and destroying the planet.

In this month's update, among other matters, political donations, government advertising under Howard, electoral redistribution, parliamentary privilege, and whistleblower protection.

One of the ALP’s 2007 election pledges was to deal with perceived loopholes regarding political donations. In 2008 Senator Faulkner said, "Reforms to the donation disclosure regime are a priority because, in order to be fully effective, they must operate by the start of the next financial year." So, what happened in the Senate yesterday?

Tibetans in Tibet live in constant fear and the Chinese authorities remain constantly suspicious of them. Today, the religion, culture, language and identity, which successive generations of Tibetans have considered more precious than their lives, are nearing extinction; in short, the Tibetan people are regarded like criminals deserving to be put to death. (H.H. the Dalai Lama)

Who am I, who are you, to judge this man as a terrorist when he is far more sinned against than sinner? ... My question is, “Who is the real terrorist here?” This is a book I simply could not put down.

Imagine a welfare scheme that gave minimum wage earners nothing, but handed out $11,000 a year to those on the top income tax rate. Surely if any political party ever suggested such a scheme they would be run out of parliament and have their doors kicked down by commercial current affairs programs. (Centre for Policy Development)

In The Next 100 Years, George Friedman offers a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century. (Black Inc Publishing)

We have an enormous opportunity here in Australia to absorb millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, store it safely as carbon, and put in back into the soil and increase the productivity and the health of our own landscape. A win-win. A win for jobs, a win for the environment, a win for agriculture. (Greg Hunt)

Powerful, yet well-behaved, Webdiarist Hamish Alcorn has been entertaining his friends and admirers in Another Place with the BBC’s Top 100 Books. He and others critiqued the list somewhat severely, as being Anglocentric, containing too much chick lit, and being repetitious. So Hamish (with a little help from his friends & admirers) devised the following.

The World Bank predicts that global economy is likely to shrink for the first time since World War II, with global trade to decline by the most in 80 years.

On Tuesday at about 4:30 pm, long-time, and much loved, Webdiarist, Claude, breathed his last in this world as a result of a lethal injection administered by his treating vet. Atypically, he went quietly. In a prescient piece of subterfuge, he managed to get out this message which washed up on the Editor’s desk today.

"The Pauline Hanson phenomenon was triggered, in my opinion, by the terrible mistakes of the Labor Government in implementing competition policy with no plan for transition for the many rural communities it would decimate, and by the expulsion of robust debate on social issues, with the connivance of the media, including me. The idea was that if politically incorrect views were not aired they would disappear. The opposite was true, and the excluded exploded in 1996 when her remarks about Aboriginal welfare saw her expulsion from the Liberal Party and an incredible 20 per cent swing against Labor in what had been one of their safest Queensland seats."- Margo Kingston