Greg's View of Todays News - 02/23/2010

• Garrett faces 'cover-up' allegations over home insulation risk report

  If Peter Garrett is to believed, then he does not have the confidence of his department. Have'nt we got the same problem in Defence?

  tags: press, garrett, government

• The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition. - By Deborah Blum - Slate Magazine

  Why would anyone be surprised that America would poison their own people.

  tags: press, alcohol, government, prohibition

  • The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Greg's View of Todays News - 02/22/2010

• Sleep deprivation 'justified in combat' | Herald Sun

  tags: press, torture, war, sleep, deprivation

  • - post by gnaylor

  • CHANGES to Australian law against torture should not stop army intelligence officers using methods like sleep deprivation to gain information in the field, federal parliament has been told.
    

    Liberal MP Luke Simpkins, a former army officer, said putting pressure on detainees to divulge information quickly was part of combat.

    Mr Simpkins said sleep deprivation could cause sufficient disorientation for information to start flowing within 24 hours.

    • - post by gnaylor

• Californian City Residents Now Have To Pay For 911 Calls

  tags: press, 000, medical, emergency, 911, stupid

  • 
  • Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.
    
    But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.
    
    Or, there's the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.
    • - post by gnaylor

• US Called Civilian Slaughter OK

  tags: press, bush, usa, torture, cop-out

  • Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argued that President George W. Bush’s commander-in-chief powers were so sweeping that he could willfully order the massacre of civilians, yet Yoo’s culpability in Bush administration abuses was deemed “poor judgment,” not a violation of “professional standards.”
  • Waterboarding and some of the other measures, such as slamming detainees against walls and depriving them of sleep, have long been considered acts of torture and have been treated as war crimes in other circumstances. However, Yoo – working closely with Bush administration officials – claimed that the techniques did not violate U.S. criminal laws and international treaties forbidding torture.

• Circumcision - The kindest cut

  tags: press, circumcision, STD

  • CIRCUMCISION is making a comeback as a new generation of parents arm themselves with medical research to justify their decision.
  • Dr Dilley said parents were asking for circumcision because they thought it would benefit their child – "to look like dad", be more hygienic and reduce risk of disease
  • ... it reduces the incidence of urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, penile cancer and penile inflammatory disorders, as well as being more hygienic.
  • It has also been shown to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in female partners.
    

    "At birth it's a very simple, safe procedure that gives immediate benefit through infancy and continues through life," he said.

Holier than thou - Professor Tim Flannery

• Scientists 'not clear' on climate

  tags: climate, change., penny, wong, tim, flannery, we, must, be, idiots, scientists

  • Environmentalist Tim Flannery has blamed scientists for a rise in climate scepticism, saying they had not clearly explained the science to a ''confused Australian public''.

  • ''We've got a big problem with the gap between scientific information and a very confused public here in Australia,'' Professor Flannery said.

    ''The only way to solve that is to listen to the Australian people's questions and talk to them about it, and they [the scientists] have been rather poor at doing that.''

  • At the conference, Senator Wong released a government position paper on climate change adaptation, which highlights the need for consistent policies around Australia to prepare for future impacts that are ''already built into the system''.

Greg's Comment:

More disregard for the intellectual competency of the Australian people.  A "confused Australian public" indeed.  Government apologist, Professor Tim Flannery, should remember that he was only a member of that same Australian public before he became Australian of the Year

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Organ harvesting in a hospital near you

• Doctors worried about 'cash-for-organs'

  • Hospitals across Australia could be paid to harvest the organs of dead patients under a $17 million federal program.

    An "activity-based funding" scheme has been set up under the Organ and Tissue Authority in which hospitals could receive up to $11,400 for each patient who becomes a donor.

    ... doctors are worried it could be seen as an incentive for hospitals to pressure patients into giving away their organs, the News Ltd says.

  • "This payment applies to potential donors that would not normally be transferred to the ICU as part of their treatment or end-of-life care."

Greg's Comment:

There are two ethical issues here. First, we know that hospitals will cook the books to get more funding and the opportunity for manipulating this concept will prove too much for some. The other issue is about the development of a class system for access to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). A case of "give us your organs or you can't come in"?

The real cost of free insulation in your roof

• Government to give installers an extra $10m | Herald Sun

  tags: insulation scheme, Rudd Government
  

  • THE federal government will spend $10 million to help thousands of workers affected by changes to the bungled home insulation program.
  • The schemes, part of the Rudd government's $42 billion stimulus package, will be replaced with another renewable energy rebate that will take effect from June.
  • An additional $10 million will provide 2000 jobs training places, on top of the 4000 places announced last year, he said.

Greg's Comment:

That's an extra $10 million + $10 million + $5 million for foil insulation inspections that was never budgeted for.  Next, how much to compensate the pre-existing insulation industry after the government has literally destroyed it? - and I guess there will be further elctoral fallout.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Victorian Government considering political suicide

• State Government considering $50 bin tax to make Victoria a green mecca | Herald Sun

  • REVEALED: HOUSEHOLDS face a radical $50 garbage tax under plans to make Victoria a green mecca.

    The State Government is quietly surveying voters to gauge how much they would be prepared to pay for greener waste disposal.

What a stupid idea. The State Government is raising the cost of water and is imposing Smart Meters upon us - which we have to pay for in advance - and now they propose a $50 levy on garbage collection. That's what we pay council rates for, isn't it?. In rural councils like Wangaratta, we already pay a surcharge of over $200 per annum to have a garbage collection. Adopting this proposal is political suicide.

Is Penny W(r)ong right?

• Wong says beaches could erode away | Herald Sun

  • AUSTRALIA'S most iconic beaches, including Sydney's Bondi and surfing mecca Bells beach, could erode away or recede by hundreds of meters over the coming century, the nation's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday.

    But locals aren't so sure, The Australian reports.

  • In her opening address to the National Climate Change Forum in Adelaide yesterday, Wong made some alarming predictions for Australia's coast.
  • She urged people not to listen to critics using isolated errors in the UN climate change panel's report to undermine action, claiming the report had been subject to "breathless, scandalised claims" implying the world had been hoodwinked by scientists.

Greg's Comment::

Penny Wong is using the arrogant Kevin Rudd concept of, "If I say it, it must be right". It shows a return of the Howard politics of fear where there is no justification for such statements. Beach sand is a fluid medium that gets moved by the tides and storms and is redeposited in another place. Our coastline is constantly changing and will continue to do so.

She may be smart but she shows a complete and utter disregard for the intellectual competency of the Australian people in telling them not to listen to critics of what she has determined to be right.

We must take into account the critics of the ICCC and the ICCC itself which is about to undergo a restructuring because they have accepted the flaws in their own processes. When the world's leaders could not agree on ways to handle climate change in Copenhagen, it seems horribly unlikely that Australia's Penny Wong is the only person on earth to get it right. She has no right to be imposing her will on her fellow Australians