SHOCK HORROR - trashy tabloids photoshop scandal

Sitting in a cafe today, I saw the front page of News Corp's infamous Herald Sun. I really didn't feel like eating much after that.

Yikes!

Mixing two unflattering photos of people together is never a good idea. Even when celebrity mags try to see what the lovechild of two celebs would be, it always turns out like a deformed being from a horror movie. Doing the same with politicians can only be worse! 

Given all of the commotion that has gone on over the repeal of the carbon tax, why this headline? Why this picture? Seriously, why News Corp, are you trying to make me feel physically sick! Sometimes the content of this rag-mag tabloid is enough to gag on, but this front page is nightmare inducing!  It is kind of expected that tabloids will have a fairly lame yet eye catching headline and front cover, and as the picture below shows, they're usually fairly generic or harmless; personal interest stories, political cartoons and at worst provocative text. Though upon closer inspection, the images and text have been getting more aggressive and derogatory to Labor Prime minsters. That's News Corp's bias coming out strong and clear.

Typical Herald Sun headlines

News Corp's greater purpose of pursuing this line of rag-mag drivel is strangely, both sad and sinister at the same time. There are many other interesting articles out there to write about. The fact that the government just passed one of its key election commitments would be one thing; it's a day for successful government that's dealing with a challenging Senate. Yet instead News Corp decides to make a scathing, not to mention quite petty, attack against the opposition. It's a blatant childish bullying behaviour that is no different to defacing yearbooks and school photos, though now proudly publishing the material.

That's sad for the state of affairs of one of Australia's most read and distributed newspapers, though also sinister because of the the way in which this media conglomerate is trying to influence politics; by bullying and indoctrinating, not reasoning or persuading. The second half of the article itself beneath the horror photo and captions is fairly balanced and factual. Though this is becoming endemic of News Corp's attempts to still retain the most minimal credibility of a news agency, while appealing the lowest common denominator of base and crude attacks against parties and individuals it dislikes.

*Apologies for the lame title.

Small cuts are still cuts Tony Abbott

Before reading any further, watch the video (27 sec) above. 

It was the night before the 2013 Federal Election and Tony Abbott, on TV, confidently outlined areas of Government that would not receive cuts under his first term of Government.

Though today it has been announced that another $50 million may be cut from the ABC and SBS, after the budget already slashed funding to the public broadcasters by $43.5 million. At the time when this was announced, some commentators were relieved to find that sum smaller than what was originally expected (despite the coalitions promises leading into the election). Yet it seems the fallout from the 2014 Budget is continuing, with the ABC and SBS taking another hit. 

Regardless of your opinion on the ABC and SBS, there is something inherently wrong when a leader of a party so clearly articulates a policy position, and less than 12 months later has to do a major backflip. Defence and the School Chaplaincy Program were not budget promises, though they got boosts in funding! Neither does it make economic sense. The ABC and SBS are two of the most efficient broadcasters (that's comparing all broadcasters, public and private) in terms of quality output per dollar input. So making them jump through more hoops is unlikely to make significant savings, which would be needed in a "budget crisis". 

This round of cuts though has been defended as cutting 'back end' operations. That's a lovely vague title that doesn't appear attached to any form of employment! It also ignores the reality that the majority of work in TV is 'back end' work; legal teams, writing teams, consumes, catering, set production etc. Take away some of those roles, and it affects programming quality. The ABC was scrutinised for its handling of the students protesting on QandA, but security guards and risk management planning also fits into the 'back end' category of work as well. 

The more and more this government releases details about its budget, the bigger hole it seems to dig itself into. It set the bar for accountability and honesty when coming into the election. Though it's about time they listen to what they said themselves, and follow the values that they were voted in for! 

              

Roads that lead nowhere

A new registration system can fix congestion problems
 Source: Flickr

I seriously do not understand the fetishism the Federal Government has with insisting that outdated road policies are the way of the future. For a PM that wants to call himself the "infrastructure Prime Minister", ignoring a Productivity Commission report that highly recommends a change to the road registration system and a call for governments to stop implementing expensive, "popular" and "sexy" projects, and instead focus on ones that are more worth while, you'd think he should listen!

But it's a great big new tax! 

The very phrasing that Tony Abbott gave (as reported by the ABC AM program), is that

"Tolls are a fact of life. We pay for road tolls, we pay for roads through our taxes, we pay for roads through our registration and we pay for our vehicles, so there's already a significant form of user-charging. This new form of user-charging, I suspect, is unlikely to ever be adopted by any government."

But changing the road registration scheme where users pay per km they drive, rather than a flat registration fee, is more equitable and reflective of a user-pays-toll-system. Someone who drives 100km a day will pay substantially more than someone who drives only 50km a week. It effectively becomes a user pays subsidised system; everyone pays taxes to have roads available, and those who use roads more pay more in tax (though their vehicle registration fee) for that service.

Who would it affect? 

It seriously is baffling to see why there is no public interest in this type of system. The only increased cost that would occur would be to those to travel a lot via road (such as affluent people) and transport businesses (taxis, trucks etc). Yet these are the groups that need the greatest incentive to change their transport behaviour. It is trucks and city commuters that clog up arterial roads during peak hour times. If they were charged more based on their driving habits, it would change some drivers behaviour, creating more space on the roads. And this would all magically be done without having to create new roads!

Saving money on future infrastructure costs, creating a more equitable user based system and encouraging more efficient transport usage.... yep, no government would ever want to adopt that.


Sources: 
Making road users pay could clear infrastructure gridlock - The Conversation
Tony Abbott rejects pay-per-kilometre plan in Productivity Commission report aimed at drivers - ABC AM radio program

Bugger off Bolt

Source: Flickr

Opinion articles of seething rage don't often attract my attention. It's interesting to read scathingly wicked prose written behind the protection of a keyboard, but it does not often change my mind about anything. So I hope to do something different here and provide a little more detail, even though the essence of it is Andrew Bolt, bugger off you attention loving, small minded git! 

I'm probably preaching to the choir here but there are a lot of reasons why people don't like Andrew Bolt. Let me just focus on one thing; this article. It has all the hallmarks of a very informative [read: trashy] article from the Herald Sun. A catchy simplistic title that appeals to "us all", pictures of footballers training and a good opinionated dash about Bolt's own family history and innocence. That, and it's riddled with rage inducing crap. Yes. Crap. 

1. The way Bolt clearly misinterprets Goodes' words: (Read Goodes' actual comments here). 

"That process starts with understanding our very dark past, a brutal history of dispossession, theft and slaughter. For that reason, I urge the many fair-minded Australians who seek genuine prosperity and equality for my people to find the courage to open their hearts and their minds and watch Utopia." - Adam Goodes

Nowhere does it say that you should feel shame, guilt and a personal responsibility for what occurred. Understanding is the key word that is employed here. Yet you, Bolt, take it as a personal attack upon yourself to feel guilt and shame. Goodes is appealing to the rectification of a historical event and ongoing inequality. You Bolt, are just trying to deny the existence of the issue.

2. Making the issue about Bolt's own views, and not the issue at hand

 "Adam, my grandparents committed no thefts, rapes or murders." - Andrew Bolt 

Adam Goodes never claimed your grandparents did any of those things. He neither claimed that it was an entirely 'foreign' force that is to blame and that his entire linage is innocent. He states that it is

"Europeans, and the governments that have run our country, have raped, killed and stolen from your people for their own benefit" - Adam Goodes

So why personalise things Bolt? Is it because you want to try and remove yourself from the issue by laying a duty of responsibility upon a few, which you then go on to say were a minority? Then you go ahead and implicitly (and explicitly) defend their actions. Andrew Bolt, you have misconstrued Adam Goodes' writing to make an issue that is just really you voicing your own opinion and trying to pin blame on others. No one is attacking YOU, yet you see it as so. For that I just pity you.

3. Hypocrisy and half told truths. 

"So why didn’t he praise the good as well as acknowledge the bad of our past — a bad that he seems to have grossly exaggerated" - Andrew Bolt

A) Ummmm, Goodes does! Did you even read his article!?
B) The little fact you get from Geoffrey Blainey's positive book about the successful lives of Indigenous Australian's pre European settlement, is GROSSLY EXAGGERATING your case. Not to mention the "per capita" reference.
C) In the same decision where the South Australian Supreme Court found that ruling, they also gave $755 000 compensation to Bruce Trevorrow, a victim of the Stolen Generation, for being forcibly removed from his family. That court decision doesn't prove the Stolen Generation didn't exist. It just cleared one party (the SA government) from orchestrating it.

4. Worst of all, the way Bolt obfuscates the issue to deny the existence of inequality. 

The start of Bolt's article highlights the benefits that Adam Goode's has received, and how positive his life is. This statement is also true

"Life for many Aborigines then was brutishly harsh and often included appalling rates of violence against women, as established by paleopathology expert Stephen Webb from the evidence of fractured skulls" - Andrew Bolt

But police and hospital reports from 2014, not 1700, show that an alarming rate of Indigenous women are subject to violence. Today, there is still massive inequalities in healthcare, education, and employment between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians. Yet your small minded focus on proving that things have improved from being "brutishly harsh" misses the fact that life for most Indigenous Australians isn't even acceptable by Australian government or international standards.

"Our history is not as simple as Goodes claims. Nor is our guilt" - Andrew Bolt

You have the audacity to say that an issue is complex, though only deal with terrible facts that suit your case, and IGNORE the blaring issue of inequality existing today; a major theme of Goode's piece. 

Andrew Bolt, your weak attempts at looking like a professional journalist and commentator only serve to highlight how narrow minded and convoluted your theory of Australian history is, and your ongoing agenda to ignore the attempts at rectifying Indigenous inequality. 

History is written by the victorious Mr Pyne

Christopher Pyne: Education Minister. Source Flickr (edited)

Really! Really Mr Pyne. The Australian History curriculum doesn’t “celebrate” Australia enough. The whole subject is about teaching the history, development and transformation of Australia into the state it is today. It covers everything from political, cultural, social and natural events. The fact that during the ice age you could walk from Victoria to Tasmania, does not need to be celebrated. It’s just a fact. The abhorrent treatment of the Indigenous population isn’t something that should be celebrated either (and I hope that no classroom in Australia does celebrate it). But ANZAC day. It is not celebrated enough? Really!? Let’s look at it.

ANZAC Day. A National Day of Remembrance, which is also a National public holiday. A day in which every capital state’s Remembrance Day march is televised live. Sporting codes celebrate it with particular matches. Local councils hold numerous events. Even if you were NEVER educated in Australia, being in the country on the 25th April, it would be pretty damn difficult to not recognise that the day signified something. It’s a day of public demonstration of remembrance that rivals (and arguably is more prominent) than Christian messages and symbols at Christmas.

So tell us, Mr Pyne, in what way is ANZAC day not being celebrated at the moment? Remembrance Day stretches beyond the history classroom; from examining letters and texts from the time of the diggers in Gallipoli in an English classroom, to Australia’s geopolitical alliance with UK in a politics class, to having the day off school or a special Remembrance Day assembly. Celebration of western influence over Australian culture is celebrated widely in the history and general academic curriculum of Australian schools. The change you’re proposing, Mr Pyne, is one of ideology and methodology.

The individuals heading up this exercise, of not rewriting the curriculum, but proposing a rewrite, are objectively biased. There is the conservative education commentator Kevin Donnelly, and who just so happens to be a former chief of staff to Liberal minister Kevin Andrews. Then there is Ken Wiltshire who publicly supported the Coalition since the 2010 election. Though it is Pyne’s public statement that he wishes to remove the “partisan bias” from the National Curriculum (by what, making it your own conservative partisan bias?). Even more shockingly, is the way in which these academics wish to change the methodology of teaching. This is a quote from Kevin Donnelly:

“[the current] curriculum airbrushes Christianity from the nation’s civic life and institutions and adopts a postmodern, subjective definition of citizenship, one where ‘citizenship means different things to people at different times and depending on personal perspectives, their social situation and where they live”

So you want kids to stop questioning and developing an understanding of what citizenship means contextually, socially and how it can be a dynamic thing, and instead memorise a textbook definition of what citizenship is! Yet he also claims he wants a ‘child centric view’ of learning. It is clear here that his political views of what should be taught and how it should be taught (to make sure it is enforced) is the most important aspect of reform. Politics first, education second.

It may have been Foucault who started the philosophy of “history being written by the victors”, but Mr Pyne, you sir, are becoming living proof of this theory.

Don't mention the boats!

Source: Flickr

During the 2013 election, the Coalition (now in government) proudly and loudly informed the public about how many 'illegal' boat arrivals had occurred. They even erected a billboard stating how many arrivals there had recently been. Yet once the Coalition government has come into power, any information about asylum seeker arrivals by boat has been quashed, repressed and hushed up under the guise of 'National Security'.

Scott Morrison delivered weekly press reports on Operation Sovereign Borders, which just involved a lot of 'no comment' statements, and the phrase "we don't discuss issues of national security to the media". Now it has been hinted that there will just be a weekly email.

Does the government even listen to the rhetoric that it's feeding the media? No issue of 'national security' that threatens the viability of Australia being a safe and secure sovereign nation has ever arisen because of a discussion of asylum seeker arrivals by boat. The media has always reported heavily on arrivals at Christmas Island, and no damning national secrets have been released that put Australia in jeopardy. If the government was wanting to protect a state secret (i.e., a new military ship it had in the area) it would redact and omit that fact, not state to the media that it was covering up the entire operation. The fact that they are stating to the media that they will make no comment is a glaring admission that don't want to discuss the issue, not that they can't discuss the issue.

The Liberal/National parties political handling of asylum seeker arrivals by boat is, quite frankly, insulting. Run an election campaign on it, then once in government, embroil the whole thing in the issue of 'National security' and don't let any discussion about it circulate in the media. Except only when it so suits you to manipulate the figures. Then, the problem is gone!

A defence to the 2nd Amendment: The right to bear arms.

For Freedom! -  Source: Flickr

a political opinion has always had a strong view against the 2nd Constitutional Amendment Right in the United States. Yet here we will try and analyse a reasonable justification (yes that's correct!) for keeping the second amendment. This is because there is some reason for the right to bear arms, on the basis of self defence.

The argument that will be analysed is:

"The right to bear arms ensures the natural rights of self-defence, resistance to oppression, and the civic duty to act in concert in defiance of the state" 

So, here it goes. 

Premise: We have a right to defend ourselves from others and the state. 

To defend yourself from others seems like a reasonable justification. If others attack, you have a right to self defence. While the law of self defence has changed substantially through the ages, most modern notions of self defence are based on the actions of defence being proportional to the threat. That means if someone threatens to fling a banana skin at you, you can't pull out a rocket launcher and blow them to smithereens. Laws already limit the use of the 2nd Amendment right to make sure it is used only in proportional circumstances, otherwise a punishment will be given. But the government doesn't allow for the ownership of nuclear or chemical weaponry. This is because these kind of weapons would never be able to be successfully proportionally used against the threat of others.

So far then we can say that personal weaponry (like small arms) is useful in defending yourself against others. 

What about defending yourself against your government? Well, as much as gun enthusiasts love to tote about how they can keep the government to account through the barrel of their gun, the governments vastly superior army, military, technology and resources will always, always win. 

A massive problem: There is thus an inequality in what arms can be owned.

Because the government already restricts to a significant degree what kind of weaponry may be owned,  the right for the average American citizen to defend themselves from the wrath of the almighty government is useless, unless the state allows citizens to own weapons of the same grade as the state. 

Conclusion

The state may grant you a 'right' to defend yourself from others and from the state (which it then prevents you from doing so by means of other laws). The right to bear arms in your defence can include hitting your opponent with the arms of a stuffed dead bear, or a weapon that fires metal bullets at hundreds of km an hour.

Your right to bear arms is just an extension of your right to self defence by any proportional means necessary.

*** Note: This blog does not endorse the US 2nd Amendment Right: The Right to Bear Arms.