new Open Thread - Aug 20h -> Aug 27th

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Just another example of leftists trying to shut down debate. But a big result for abstinence-only education ...

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-21/us-republican-candidate-under-pressure-over-rape-comments/4211578

Missouri candidate Todd Akin was explaining his strong anti-abortion views in a television interview when he said there were different kinds of rape.

"From what I understand from doctors ... if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said.

Indeed. And you can't get pregnant the first time, either.

I do wonder where he found those doctors, though. They're supposed to do a bit more book-lernin' than the rest of the kids. I think they even get to look at pictures.

Left out of that ABC report is the rest of that statement, which is just as astonishing:

But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child

No consideration of the actual victim. You gotta hand it to the right - they really don't encourage victimhood, do they?

[Matthew Of Canberra]

How is this story anything more than a straightforward violation of somebody's privacy?

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-23/naked-prince-harry-photo-hits-the-internet/4216722

I'm not supporter of the royals, but this is just prurient pseudo-moralistic crap.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

I don't know when these things are taken (I'm no political scientist, I admit it), but even if it was over the weekend, I doubt if it all came down to the train-wreck last wednesday/thursday.

The latest opinion poll shows Federal Labor's primary vote has climbed to a six-month high and Julia Gillard is now ahead of Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-27/labor-gets-boost-in-nielsen-poll/4224136

But what this means is that the "scandals" are running out of puff.

So NEWS is going to have to cook up some more. Can't wait.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Yesterday I listened to an interview with a sort-of libyan journalist who'd been in and out during the troubles, and about political progress since.

After a bit, it occured to me that nobody's talking about libya. Nor tunisia. We occasionally hear about egypt when something bad happens, or if the words "muslim brotherhood" can be worked into the story. But generally, it seems as if the earth-changing arab spring has just got too boring. Did anyone see anything about libya's elections?

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Another ridiculous story about things our government has always done:

www.theaustralian.com.au/media/departments-splurge-10m-on-monitoring-the-media/story-e6frg996-1226458460098

(also www.google.com.au/search?q=Departments+splurge+%2410m+on+monitoring+the+media )

FEDERAL government departments and agencies are spending more than $10.3 million a year checking what is said about them in the media.

The hefty monitoring bill from external companies would pay for more than 100 full-time staff each earning $100,000 a year.

An analysis by The Australian revealed the Department of Health and Ageing ploughs more than any other department or agency into monitoring -- with a bill of $940,000 for press clippings and transcripts in 2011-12.

Same as it ever was. Ministers and secretaries have an obvious interest in knowing what's being reported about them - but also in knowing about stories that might be of interest to policy-making. It's not nefarious to pay attention to the press - it would be stupid (and insular) not to. And if they're going to do that, then it means that somebody will need to be paid to reliably collect and classify the information. That's what media monitors does.

If the opposition wants to be able to ask questions about stories that appear in (insert random publication here), then the relevant minister actually has to know about the story. They don't really have the time to individually read every news publication in the country themselves. They wouldn't get a lot else done. So what they do is they have a subscription to media monitors, and they assign intelligent-looking "executive-level" public servants to set the alarm for 6AM and go through the clippings relevant to that portfolio, alerting the minister's office if there's anything that needs attention. And that's how ministers are able to answer questions about stories in the papers, and it's how policymakers can respond to stories in the media.

There's really nothing new about it. I've had friends who've been on the clippings-reading shift at least going back to the mid-nineties. I expect the ALP used the same process before that.

Now ... as for how much departments are spending ... I expect that has something to do with the size of the department, and the number of independent policy areas (health and defence are both huge, and dispersed), but I also suspect it depends a bit on the number of silos in those departments. Health and defence, arguably, have "issues". They're not massively internally-cooperative.

I can promise everyone one thing, though - the libs have no intention of ending this process, and they'd be insane to in-source it. It wouldn't work as well, and it would probably cost more money. That doesn't mean they couldn't rationalise it a bit.

This story doesn't make me angry like the bogus story about "spin doctors" did. That really was a nasty mis-characterisation of a lot of honest, hard-working people.

Ok. Better go get on with reality.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

And it should be said that ...

"The hefty monitoring bill from external companies would pay for more than 100 full-time staff each earning $100,000 a year"

... is not even in the general ball-park of being true. That ignores leave entitlements, accomodation, superannuation. The author's probably out by around 50%.

I noticed today that this piece of silly was actually written by the same author who wrote the tragically wrong article about the guv's army of spin doctors last week.

Somebody who read this stuff would be very misled if they thought it told them anything useful or accurate about how government works, or the difference between the two parties. The numerical values of expenditure might be right, but otherwise those articles are just plain wrong.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

To quote the great man:

"Let's not cry racist too fast"

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-28/coles-under-fire-for-racist-cleaner-ad/4228788

Coles says the ad was placed by a sub-contractor, who is now no longer working for the supermarket chain.

It appeared on the free classifieds website Gumtree, and called for experienced staff to clean the Coles supermarket at Hobart's Eastlands Shopping Centre.

It included a list of requirements - that the applicant must have their own transport and licence, and importantly, it says the store requires "no Indians or Asians... please".

Ok, maybe just this once.

[angra]

We are training and supporting Indonesian death squads, operating with impunity in West Papua.

West Papuan atrocities have been the worst injustice in Australia's nearby history and is still continuing with nary a bleat from our Government to this day. We are complicit in torture, murder and dispossession - and yet noone gives a damn!

Shame!


www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-29/government-urged-to-act-on-papua-death-squad-claims/4231122

[jack]

Yes, Clint Eastwood was a huge hit at Romney's NRP nomination. Yet not so long ago those who cheered him lavishly today were wondering about his loyalties.

Clint Eastwood is "growing" as a movie director. We know what that means - he is going to the politically correct left... The onetime archetypal tough guy ... has been sliding over to liberalism for the past 15 years. Equally predictably, he has been showered with Academy Awards ever since.

www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/eastwoods-attack-on-futility-is-just-more-propaganda/2007/03/01/1172338790500.html

Read the whole thing if you want a good laugh. That polemic was so riddled with errors, one might instantly think it had been written by a certain most-read Australian columnist. But no, the author James Pinkerton was a former staffer for Presidents Reagan and Bush I.

Oh and good grief, here's a clever if rather confronting youtube video lampooning congressman Todd Akin's ... er ... quaint notions about "legitimate rape".

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtzqvqzBdUQ

[angra]

Gotta love the latest Nick Scali ad.

"Isn't it lovely when the one you love is on sale?"

[angra]

Rugby commentary by Peter Stirling is priceless.

"Now we have a southerly gale coming from the south."

[Matthew Of Canberra]

Oh, for goodness sake.

www.taxpayers.org.au/michael-smith-in-brisbane-melbourne/

Last Monday, Michael Smith spoke to a sold-out crowd in Sydney about the true story behind allegations surrounding Julia Gillard, Bruce Wilson, and Ralph Blewitt – and how the government tried to stifle free speech and suppress this story. It truly was a historic event – and detailed the facts being hidden from the public.

Does this guy have some facts that aren't on the record? Just publish them, and be done with it. Why do people have to sit through a slide show?

And why do these things never come to canberra? We have conspiracy-loving wingnuts too, you know. Heck - I'd even go along to that myself.

We know about wilson and blewitt. Nobody's particularly denying any of it. If anything's being hidden from the public, then it's because journalists haven't posted it yet. Just publish it, then it's not "hidden". Simple. If it's true, then there shouldn't be any problem.

And this "government tried to stifle free speech and suppress this story" is way, way past its shelf date. Certain people published specific claims about the PM that were (a) false, (b) apparently defamatory. She demanded retractions - not as PM, but as somebody with the means to pursue legal redress - and it seems that certain employers felt that certain people had acted in a way that exposed their employers to unacceptable risk. It would be very difficult, I imagine, for the national broadsheet (or national broadcaster) to find itself specifically unable to publish or say things about the prime minister. I imagine that be way worse than any potential financial loss. That could be a very troubling impediment to their ability to do their fundamental line of business. I tend to think that was what was behind the evident panic.

Based on what's been said and published, it appears that the government did nothing to "stifle free speech and suppress this story" - but the prime minister did exactly what any other private citizen with adequate means could have done. Exactly, in fact, what prominent members of the press have done in the past.

If that ISN'T the case, then all anyone has to do is publish when DID happen, and put it out in the open. Because what is on the public record right now says that claim is flat-out not true. If the media are sitting on information that shows the PM actually going beyond the pale, then let's see it. I expect it would be very damaging to the PM, and might even lend some weight to the repeated claims about looming totalitarian media restrictions.

If the media really is sitting on evidence that shows the PM standing over the press, then for goodness' sake reveal it. If that evidence exists, then it's not the PM who's sitting on it. Put up, or accept that vast swathes of the population, who have recently found your evidence to be way short of the mark once revealed, will assume that you're full of it.

I noticed something interesting on bolta's blog yesterday:

blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/only_the_dogs_hear_the_whistle/

It is remotely possible some people may decide for themselves, entirely independently of my own views, which may be one way or the other, that another example or even two may possibly be found in the following anecdote, related by the far-Left Crikey.

www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/30/bolt-smear-explosion-earns-rebuke-from-judge/

I surely cannot be held legally responsible for what other adults conclude for themselves, based on what Crikey relates. Can I? I’d sue Crikey first.

Is that a suggestion that bolta himself might not be above a bit of "stifling free speech" or "suppressing a story"? I couldn't say, myself. And if I could, I probably still wouldn't.

As for crikey being "far left". Get a grip. Seriously. There is no "far left" in mainstream australian politics, just as there's no far-right either. Words have meanings, and it appalls me the way certain folks seem to like trampling on them. Please, knock it off. You're rendering important words useless.

[jack]

Mike Smith is publishing lots and lots of documents on his blog, with comments along familiar lines.

www.michaelsmithnews.com/

According to Andy the documents are "juicy", and predictably the site has become a sort of Brucer Central.

The beauty of it is that the documents may be placed in a context of one's own choosing, whether real or imagined, optimally a bit of both.

"...it seems that certain employers felt that certain people had acted in a way that exposed their employers to unacceptable risk."

Interestingly, Smith was asked in his Go Back Debrief on SBS why he signed up for the program. He noted in particular that he had some time on his hands "thanks to Ms Gillard."

That's at least a kind of indicator of where he'll be coming from in assessing his juicy trove. The wonder is that no newspaper has given him employment, considering he seems to be the font of all the juicy. Surely there's at least one person at, say, the Herald Sun who would be singing Smith's praises to the boss.

[Matthew Of Canberra]

*Sigh*

I've been having a look at the choose-your-own interpretation being applied to the latest WEF "global competitiveness report" for 2011-2012

reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-2011-2012/

I recommend that folks just ignore the coverage and read it themselves. The actual report is a lot more interesting than anything the Oz or McCrann are likely to say. Some of its methodological weaknesses also become a bit obvious when you flick through the rankings and start asking obvious questions.

It's an interesting set of surveys. And we (australia) actually do extremely well. It's definitely indicative of what's on the mind of business in various economies, if you don't just read the executive summary.

But I see a couple of problems.

(1) it seems to rely heavily on self-reporting on a scale from 1-7. Those results surely have to be skewed by whatever is on the mind of respondents that year, and I see a curious bunching of responses just a bit above 6 among the leading countries in most rankings. The "just a bit more than 6" category is uncanny. The variation in results would tell a story, I think.

What self-reporting also means is that individual rankings are a bit ... yeah, well. Hong Kong, for example, rates itself rather highly in the "protecting intellectual property" category. Way ahead of us, for example. And saudi arabia and rwanda do astonishingly well right across the board in the "political institutions" categories - independence of the judiciary, for example, and trustworthiness of politicians. No, I'm not making this up - seriously, go and have a look.

The Oz declares:

Australia is ranked 20th, just below South Korea and Saudi Arabia, in the World Economic Forum’s international productivity league table,

Well, yeah. That's because saudi arabia does better than us in a whole range of things, some of them not very believable. I think that's because so much of it is self-reported.

There are some very odd rankings, to say the least.

(2) when it comes down to ranking the major concerns of businesses, it also seems to lack a metric. It seems to be basically comparative. So when a large fraction of business rates labor flexibility as their #1 concern ... that is basically just a ranking. There are no units.

It's an interesting thing to flick through. But what I don't see in it is a measure of productivity - which is how it's being sold in the press here.

It's basically a competitiveness opinion survey. Productivity is a real value - it isn't determined by asking people how they feel. It's something that can actually be calculated, and I don't think this report really gets into that. So I'm immediately a bit skeptical of anyone who calls it a "productivity leagues table". I don't think that's what it is, or even what it claims to be. Sadly, that's what the press is calling it.