A UN aid convoy in Syria was bombed, leaving 12 aid workers dead; Kenya is closings the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, pressuring refugees to return to Somalia; and one of the main points of arrival for refugees in Europe, the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, is burnt down…
She regards 18C as self-evidently unconstitutional, and cites a speech by retiring Chief Justice Robert French as indicating that the High Court would find it so.
“If you want to take offence, that’s your choice. You have the choice of choosing another feeling. Offence is always taken, not given. So if you don’t want to be offended, you, it’s up to you; don’t be offended.”
Apparently this opinion was expressed on the ABC Insiders program, and was fully supported by One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. Kenny says:
David Leyonhjelm is a boorish, supercilious know-all with the empathy of a besser block. And that new Hansonite conspiracy theorist from Queensland? He’s an absurdist fringe-dweller and fellow hate-speech apologist. It’s a case of wacky and wackier.
Neither of these self-promoting misanthropes would have the first idea about entrenched discrimination. Yet both are experts.
In the past week I’ve tried to get my head around the debate on Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act following the spectacular signing up by Cory Bernandi of the Coalition senate backbench to diluting the Act. He says it’s not about challenging Malcolm Turnbull, it’s about reconnecting the Liberals with their base. So it’s about the Liberals’ small “l” liberal values, and hence worth a close look.
Length alert: It’s about 3000 words, but I’ve gone down a lot of rabbit holes.
co-sponsor a bill with his fellow Liberal Cory Bernardi and Senate crossbenchers David Leyonhjelm and Bob Day to remove the terms “insult” and “offend” from section 18C of the act.
The spectacle of the Rio Olympics has raised a raft of questions, from whether it is at all ethical to spend public money on elite sport, to whether Australia’s performance is bad and getting worse, and the difficulties of being a host city.
The morality of funding elite sport
Rio has brought forth a couple of ads on Gruen that cut to the chase (thanks, John D for the link). Logically the Group Hug video comes first. It introduces us to a thief in Rio dedicated to stealing any gold medals our athletes might win. So they should aim for bronze. The Mr Mumbles video comprises ironic comments from the bereft and the homeless, essentially pointing to the pointlessness of the whole exercise. Continue reading Should we call the whole thing off?→
Polling firm Ipsos MORI surveyed people about the demographics of their countries and published the results its “Perils of Perception” report. For example, they asked people’s perceptions on average age in the country, the percentage of immigrants and the percentage of people overweight.
The results are sobering. The British think 43% of 25-34 year-olds live with their parents. The actual number is 14%. Brazilians were particularly bad at judging age, saying that the average age of people in their country is 56 when it is actually 31. Obesity tends to be underestimated. Saudis, for example, think that just over a quarter of their country is overweight, when in reality the figure is around 70%. Continue reading Saturday salon 20/8→
After the ABS Census computer was shut down on Tuesday night, one bright spark on talk-back radio said we wasn’t going to fill in the census data now. What’s the point of giving information to a government that can’t run a census, he asked. If they can’t do a simple thing like that then they can’t provide all the health, education, police, infrastructure services we need.
On radio we were told this morning that the Census needs 95% of us to supply accurate data for the data to be useful in planning future services. We are told the computer system will be up and working today. They may yet pull it off, but significant confidence has been lost and the ABS has trashed its brand. Continue reading Census crash→
British anthropologist Robin Dunbar postulated in the 1990s that, given our brain size, human beings can only maintain 150 stable relationships.
A new study has taken a look at modern and traditional societies, and has concluded that the number is actually 132. But there is another limitation, and that is the small number of close links an individual can maintain. This account states that the maximum number of close links we can maintain is on average about five. Continue reading Dunbar’s number revisited→
While the biggest terrorist attack in recent days was in Kabul where at least 80 were killed and 231 wounded in a suicide attack on a Hazara minority crowd who were demonstrating against inadequate power infrastructure in their home villages, we worry more about attacks in France and Germany, because their societies are more like ours.
It was the mother of many things, including the principles of liberté, égalité, fraternité, the concept of human rights, the notion that everyone was born equal, and the secular state.
One of the reasons Mediscare worked, if it did, was because of the Abbott government’s record on broken promises. After being in government for eight months, by May 2014, the Abbott government had chalked up at least nine broken promises. Abbott had promised no cuts to the ABC or SBS, no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no shutting any Medicare locals, no one’s personal tax will go up, no changes to pensions, foreign aid would go up in line with the CPI, on Indigenous affairs Closing the Gap activities would be sustained at former levels, and ARENA (the Australian Reneweable Energy Agency) would have over $2.5 billion in funds to manage. Continue reading Moving beyond Mediscare→
This piece by them says that the US official poverty line sees a family of three getting $17 dollars per person per day, that’s $357 per week for the family, or about $18,500 per year. ‘Deep poverty’ according this article, is the term used for the living experience of 22 million Americans, or 6.8% of the population, who have a cash income of half that or less. Continue reading Saturday salon 9/2→
Climate change, sustainability, plus sundry other stuff
While the biggest terrorist attack in recent days was 