How can a Turk have a better clue about freedom than many in the West?

One of my favourite columnists, Mustafa Akyol from the Turkish Daily News, has a piece about freedom that can only be written by a non-Westerner.

Her Majesty is the head of a monarchy which has been much more free and democratic than almost all republics in the world

The first time I went abroad, I was 16, and my destination was Britain. My parents had sent me to spend a summer in London, so that I could improve my English and “see the world.” Staying at a warm family house in Richmond, and touring the whole city almost everyday, I had cultivated a beginner's admiration for Her Majesty's country. Actually, at first sight, there were few oddities. I could never understand, for example, why their washbasins had two separate taps, through which you either freeze or burn. But the plus side was dominant.

One thing that was particularly curious was the political system of the United Kingdom. It was, as its name made obvious, a monarchy. And it was, undeniably, a very free and enlightened society. Yet my textbooks have always told me that Turkey became “free and enlightened” when we dethroned our own monarch. So, what was the secret of the British?

Freedom and tradition:

As I grew older, and studied more, I realized that what made Britain so different from Turkey was a set of values and ideas that the British believed, but the founders of Turkey ignored. The latter, of course, had their own set of values and ideas, and, interestingly, they were derived mostly from another European power: France. Both the Young Turks and the Kemalists, who have dominated the Turkish political system since the early 20th century to date, were deeply influenced by the French Enlightenment and its deification of human reason. While despising tradition and religion, they have thought that society needs to be reconstructed by “rational” elites. While the British believed in “change within tradition,” the French opted for “change in spite of tradition.” That's why the British kept their monarchy. The French used the guillotine to get rid of it.

In one of his important works, “The Constitution of Liberty,” one of the great social philosophers of the 20th century, Friedrich A. Hayek, underlined this crucial difference between the “British tradition” and the French Enlightenment. “The political conclusions of the two schools derive from different conceptions of how society works,” Hayek noted. And he added: “British philosophers laid the foundations of a profound and essentially valid theory, while the rationalist school was simply and completely wrong.”

Actually by their fruits we might know them. From the French tradition there arose the authoritarian and assimilationist nation-state, which often found itself at war with its own people. It was no accident that the “Liberté” of the French Revolution was only valid for those who believed in the principles of the new regime. For the British, though, freedom was the gift of God that no man could alienate. The founding fathers of the United States borrowed this idea and formulated one of the most eloquent defenses of freedom: “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The United States was founded as a republic, but it was much more on the British tradition than the French Enlightenment that would form the bases of most other modern republics. Indeed, the French model swept through the world and influenced many nations, including the Turks.

“The sweeping success of the political doctrines that stem from the French tradition,” argues Hayek, “is probably due to their great appeal to human pride and ambition.” Here was a story telling that once you get rid of all traditional beliefs, you will be thrilled, because you, as a human, have an omnipotent reason which is enough to master all fields and solve all problems. You believe you can plan the economy; hence comes the drive for socialism. You believe you can plan the culture; hence comes the passion for cultural revolution.

Yet all such efforts to reshape the society by a group of authoritarian elites not just failed, but also led to horrible disasters. Stalin's or Mao's bloody experiments are the most obvious ones, but other nations, including France itself, also suffered from the war between the revolutionary elites and the traditional masses. The former always believed in the need for using sticks to “modernize” the latter. The latter always disliked these self-appointed guardians and resisted the changes they imposed.

Britain and Islam:

Thank God, the “British tradition” stood firm in the face of this authoritarian tide. Today the United Kingdom, and all the Anglo-Saxon countries that have been blessed by its tradition of liberalism, pluralism, and tolerance, presents the best form of modernity to the nations of the world. Especially at a time when the confrontation between radical modernism and radical Islam shakes the globe, the British tradition offers pious Muslims the hope that they will be welcomed, not deplored, by the West for how they worship and live.

There are indeed so many examples of British acceptance of traditional Islam. Women in headscarves, who are second-class citizens in Turkey, are all free and equal in the U.K. Besides attending any school they want, they can even be teachers or members of the police force. The British government is also very respectful to Islamic observance. Last year, Queen Elizabeth II had ordered the opening of a small prayer room in her palace for the few Muslim employees. (The radical Islamists in Britain, who denounce the very country that gives them all such freedoms, must be out of their minds.)

All this background makes me very willing to welcome Her Majesty, who is on an official trip to Turkey these days. I will be carefully listening to her remarks, but even her very presence on the face of the Earth tells a lot. She is the head of a monarchy which has been much more free and democratic than almost all republics in the world. Her Kingdom, in other words, is a testimony to the fact that what really matters for a nation is the moral values it holds, not the “revolutionary principles” it buys.

(Nothing Follows)

Miss Universe Australia continues intellectual tradition

More in the Jesus Wept category... How can someone get to third year of a psychology degree and be so dim?

A 21-year-old university student has been crowned Miss Universe Australia after proposing people should use less hairspray to help the environment.

Her hairspray reduction idea topped a plethora of environmentally sensitive ideas including turning people's water off every other day, charging $20/l for petrol and building houses out of plastic instead of wood in order to save the forests. One hopeful even put forward the plan to only allow one piece of toilet paper. When told that it had already been suggested she cried.

Laura Dundovic, a third-year psychology student from Sydney, received the honour in Melbourne last night. "It would be great to reach the success of my predecessors, but at the moment I am the over the moon to be here," The Herald Sun quoted her as saying. The event's director, Deborah Miller, said the standard of competition was one of the highest ever, with all contestants having "charisma, beauty, and intelligence".

I don't know if it was 'intelligence' or something that resembled intelligence and so they got a pass.

Tact was perhaps a little less evident in some of the beauty queen hopefuls. One contestant said the lives of homeless people could be improved if more of them used helplines.

And you thought I was kidding when I said she beat out a number of other hopeless ideas...

Ms Dundovic beat 28 other young women to the title, which was the start of great things for Jennifer Hawkins, who won in 2004. Ms Hawkins went on to win the international title, Miss Universe. A multi-million-dollar contract as the face of Myer and a job in television followed. Ms Dundovic will represent Australia in the international final in Vietnam in July.

Good luck to her. She'll be up against some serious environmental competition though she'll need to change her line, as I don't think that Vietnamese judges will know what hairspray is.

(Nothing Follows)

No fun on the Hill on budget night

Tonight was budget night in Australia and the new Labor government was presenting its first budget which, as Tim Blair has pointed out, was a race between Working Families and Inflation.

I had the chance to wander around Parliament House tonight unescorted and it certainly was a different place to years gone by.

Last year there were parties going on in many of the minister's offices, which is right and proper, as preparing a budget is a large undertaking involving a lot of people and thanking them for their efforts is fair enough. One could wander in and out of the ministers' offices and security wouldn't be at all worried. It gave people the opportunity to meet up with decision makers and senior advisors etc, which is always handy when working in Canberra.

The fell hand of Captain Kevin was on full display tonight, as there were very few, very muted receptions being held in only a handful of offices. I've seen more action in a mausoleum. Not only were they not celebrating, which I'm sure was a deliberate decision in line with the government's "this is serious, inflation is a huge issue, we have to cut spending" budget tone, but security wouldn't let me in anywhere. I did manage to wander into the Labor Business Council dinner in the Great Hall but only lasted a few minutes before security very politely escorted me out.

Fair enough. He who has the gold makes the rules.

Now, you may think that I'm just pissed off that I couldn't sponge a free drink or eight courtesy of the nation's taxpayers but that's not wholly true.

I did not see one person, not one, in the whole place who had a smile on their face or looked even remotely happy - with the exception of a few in the Great Hall, including Peter Garrett who was clearly enjoying the conversation he was having.

Up in the Press Gallery the normally affable Mike Bowers wandered past looking serious. Wayne Swan was up there, as well, doing pressers for a few of the media outlets and he looked serious. The minders looked serious. The photographers and TV cameramen looked as bored as could be. Out in the courtyards people were talking in low tones and looked serious. People passing in the corridor looked serious.

You'd see fewer grim visaged people in a war cabinet meeting at the outbreak of hostilities.

If the tone of this government is to try and control things at such a micro level then we are not in for happy times ahead as a nation. Ministers should be concerning themselves with forging the future, not worrying about minutia. They should be engaging everyone who has the ability to help them achieve their goals and not restricting access to a trickle.

(Nothing Follows)

Who are the real Climate Deniers now?

So who really are the Climate Deniers? Those of us who believe that the link between CO2 and climate, as represented by the Climate Faithful and in climate models, is hokum? Or those people who believe we're heading for doom and gloom?

No warming since 1998:



Of course, the Climate Faithful would show a different graph - conveniently starting at a low point when the world was nearly at its coolest in the 20th century:



But two can play that game. Why not start in 1998?



The Climate Faithful are also keen to hide from you the fact that no computer model predicted the cooling since 1998. That really would be An Inconvenient Truth.

Pacific Decadal Oscillation shows cooling seas




This actually my favourite comment about the PDO index and it's typical of those being made by Warmists who are making comment on the situation:

However, the effect of rising fossil fuel emissions will mean that warming will accelerate again after 2015 when natural trends in the oceans veer back towards warming, according to the computer model.

Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, Kiel, Germany, said: "The IPCC would predict a 0.3°C warming over the next decade. Our prediction is that there will be no warming until 2015 but it will pick up after that."

Soooo...the climate models that have been wildly wrong so far, that did not model the PDO cooling (how could they when CO2 is their primary forcing?) are somehow going to be right in 2015?

These people are lunatics.

Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation shows cooling seas

From the Britain's major promoter of Climate Hysteria, the BBC:

The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.

A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming.

However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020, they say.

...The key to the new prediction is the natural cycle of ocean temperatures called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is closely related to the warm currents that bring heat from the tropics to the shores of Europe.

The cause of the oscillation is not well understood, but the cycle appears to come round about every 60 to 70 years.

A 'new' computer model? Fantastic! Will it be as good as the old ones? Oh, wait...

2015 in one model. 2020 in another.

These people are lunatics.

Sea ice doing fine, thank you very much:

Don’t expect to hear this reported on the your evening newscast, but according to new data, sea ice levels in the Southern Hemisphere are at 25-year highs.

“On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were ‘unprecedented’ for the month of April in over 25 years,” Steve McIntyre wrote on Climateaudit.org on May 4. “Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982.”

That data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) suggests the effects of global warming aren’t as dire as some media reports would have you believe...According to the NSIDC data, sea ice had declined in 2007 to record lows, but showed a rebound in 2008, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.

Sunspot activity indicates we're in for a cool time:

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

...That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

No warming since 1998. PDO shows a cooling Pacific Ocean. Ditto for the Atlantic. Ice cover has rebounded to huge levels. Solar activity indicates things are going to cool down.

So who are the real Climate Deniers now?

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935), is an American rock and roll and country music singer, songwriter, and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2003, they listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology #242 on their list of "500 greatest albums of all time".

Before Elton John and before Billy Joel there was the incomparable Jerry Lee Lewis. It's amazing to think that these two great songs are 50 years old.

Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On



Great Balls Of Fire



(Nothing Follows)

The Discovery Institute's wilful destruction of Christian values

Last year I wrote a series of posts being a list of the Top 10 Institutions That Ruin The World.

#10 on that list was the Intelligence Design Movement, Discovery Institute, as outlined in the re-post below.

Without their multi-decade push, starting with Creation Science and transforming into Intelligent Design such loopy spokespeople as Richard Dawkins (who I used to admire tremendously; The Selfish Gene is a terrific book) and Karen Armstrong etc would not have been able to so successfully influence people against religion with the major negative consequence being that Christian values are increasingly dismissed as illegitimate.

Ben Stein's recent movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, rivals the worst of Michael Moore's error riddled, quotes out of context drivel.

The fact is that scientific theories need to be able to make predictions that can be tested. If they are tested and shown to be false then the theory falls over.

Intelligent Design makes NO PREDICTIONS that can be tested...!!!

It is therefore not science. Get over it.

The fact that science can not yet explain aspects of the world or universe does not validate crackpot theories like Intelligent Design any more than it does Scientology.

I'm sure that the Discover Institute and its supporters don't understand, or even believe, the damage they are doing to Christianity. They also don't understand how much power they give to the Euro-left, one of the most malign influences in the world.

#10 - The Intelligent Design Movement, Discovery Institute

Intelligent Design postulates that the world is too complex to have evolved naturally, that there seems to be an order to things and that this order was created by a Designer. Intelligent Design (ID) is a product of the Discovery Institute, a Christian think tank that aims to counter what it sees as today's materialistic and immoral society through a recovery in the strength of Judeo-Christian values.

To the casual observer that might reduce to 'Christians believe in God as the Creator'. Big deal. Unfortunately, it is a big deal and a really big one at that. Let me explain.

In order to garner public acceptance of Creationism (that the world is 6,000 years old and the Old Testament is the literal truth et blah) it was renamed Creation Science, with the term first being used way back in the 1960s. The Creation Science movement tried hard for a long time to establish its bona fides and even attracted some high profile scientists to argue for the cause. However, the oxymoronic name and fundamentalist dogma were simply too great a hurdle to overcome and so acceptance of Creation Science remained largely confined within the Christian evangelical movement.

Enter the Discovery Institute and Intelligent Design. Understanding that Creation Science was a dead duck, the Discovery Institute sought a successor, one that would not just be a rebadged version of Creation Science but would be promoted as having the same legitimacy as Evolution. In order to deal with its opponents, a set of arguments were prepared that strongly countered the criticism of Creation Science. The aim was to have ID taught alongside Evolution in the biology classes of America's schools.

In 2004 the Discovery Institute was in a position to push ID into the school system and chose the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania. In summary: it stacked the School Board, raised the concern of Evolution being taught exclusively, took advice from the Thomas More Law Center, advocated teaching ID alongside Evolution and put it to a vote, which was carried 6-3. The situation ended up in court and in September 2005 Judge Jones issued a 139 page finding of fact stating that ID was no different to Creation Science, that it was therefore unconstitutional and that the ID proponents were pretty much a pack of lunatics. It could not have been a worse result for the Discovery Institute.

The reason that the Intelligent Design movement is an institution that is ruining the world is that the case became so high profile it polarised people against Christianity that would have otherwise held neutral or respectful views. It became a lightning rod for the worst, and loudest, groups in society such as the ACLU to hold up as proof of a Christian conspiracy to take over America. For the devout non-believer in society whose major value is narcissism and who believes in this same Christian conspiracy the ID movement ensured that the Christian Values baby got thrown out with the God bathwater. The fact that there's even a supposed Christian conspiracy is due to non-believers not being able to separate Christian values from Christianity and when they hear people talking about positive Christian values they equate that with God, which they've rejected.

Values are what bind a society together and without them we need to give government the task of making laws about how we'll conduct ourselves. Every time government passes a law that forces us to act in a particular way we give up a piece of our personal freedom. This is one of the reasons socialism is so destructive. It's no fluke that those countries with strong Judeo-Christian values made the greatest progress in the last two hundred years or that those that have rejected those values are now facing the greatest challenges. The difference between Western Europe and the USA in terms of societal values has never been starker. Europe is now almost completely secular, mostly socialist in the way it taxes society, passes laws seemingly as sport and has a birth rate that will see the population decline by 20-30% by 2050. No wonder countries like Germany and Holland have net positive emigration rates (i.e. more people are leaving the place than moving in).

The US and Australia retain their sense of cultural identity and values but there is always an ongoing battle against the socialist forces in society wanting to bring those down and replace them with the State. To people like me that are profoundly atheist (surprised by that?) who appreciate the strength of Judeo-Christian values, understand their role in making our countries great and wish to see society continue to be guided by their wisdom the Intelligent Design Movement's decision to act in the way it did seriously harmed the public's positive view of Judeo-Christian values - to our great detriment.

The Intelligent Design Movement and the Discovery Institute are #10 on my list of Institutions That Ruin The World.

(Nothing Follows)

Rambling memories of a beautiful country - Burma

The calamity that has unfolded in Burma over the last week was especially poignant to me, as my family spent three years there when I was a teenager and I have very fond memories of the place and, especially, the people who are without a doubt the friendliest folk on the face of the earth. That they endure life under a self-serving military dictatorship while the rest of the world looks the other way (as it is so often wont to do) is a tragedy that has lasted for more than forty years.

You can read about Burma at Wikipedia, which has a good article on the country. I don't intend to go into the history of the place but this passage from the article is especially poignant in light of its subsequent history:

The country is one of the poorest nations in South Asia / Southeast Asia, suffering from decades of stagnation, mismanagement and isolation. Burma's GDP grows at a rate of 2.9% annually - the lowest rate of economic growth in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Under British administration and in the early 1950s, Burma was the wealthiest country in Southeast Asia. It was once the world's largest exporter of rice. During British administration, Burma supplied oil through the Burmah Oil Company. Burma also had a wealth of natural and labor resources. It produced 75% of the world's teak and had a highly literate population. The country was believed to be on the fast track to development.

Before Zimbabwe there was Burma...and Cuba...two prime examples of the destructive nature of socialism and its need for a repressive military to back it up, which has led to the miserable existence for the people of each of those countries.

Infrastructure

The first thing one notices upon arrival in Rangoon is how old the buildings are. I'm not talking old in the sense of the pyramids or the Canterbury Cathedral but instead old in that they belong in the 1940s and '50s (except for the pagodas, which are quite old). One is left with the impression that, come 1960, time decided to stand still in Burma.


Central Rangoon - the land that time forgot

Rangoon used to be a transit point for aircraft throughout the region in much the same way as Singapore is today. Two things occurred that were to have negative consequences for the country. Firstly, a military coup in 1962 by General Ne Win introduced the Burmese Way To Socialism, which was a plan to nationalise industry and, of course, led to a large reduction in foreign investment. Secondly, the range of modern aircraft increased to the point that they could bypass Rangoon altogether as a refuelling stop and land in Singapore. From the mid-60s on, Burma became somewhat of a forgotten nation.

The lack of investment in infrastructure is plain to see not only in its old buildings but also in its transport. Buses are fifty years old and many date back to WW2. More modern cars are driven by foreign embassy representatives and the higher officials in the junta's pecking order. Most cars are quite dilapidated, all of which is no surprise given its military socialist economy.

To get some idea of how backward the country is: in a country of 48 million there are just 500,000 phone lines, 200,000 mobile phones and just 30,000 Internet users; the health system is such that life expectancy is 62 years while next door neighbour Thailand's is 72; and of the country's 86 airports 70% of them are unpaved and of its 27,000km of roads only 3,200km are paved.

Outside of Rangoon

It's when one gets outside of the capital that a sense of the beauty and history of the Burma can be truly appreciated. The country is littered with large and small pagodas - temples dedicated to the worship of Buddha.

Rice fields abound, especially in the delta region, and the country is home to large mountain ranges that present a particular danger to aircraft, many of which have ended up strewn across them due mainly to pilot error.

Cars and buses are infrequently seen outside of the major centres while ox carts make up the majority of the traffic along rickety, dusty roads.

If you do ever get the chance to visit Burma then a trip to the beach resort at Sandoway
should be high on your list. It is truly one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere in the world. The resort itself post dates my family's time in the country and is an attempt by the junta to attract foreign investment. When we stayed there, which we did a few times, we were provided a house right on the beach. The house was quite OK though the western style toilet did present one challenge; above the toilet roll holder was a large hole about the size of a large fist. One could be doing one's business and then become mightily distracted by the sudden appearance of a large rat in the hole. There are a lot of rats in Burma.

One day the local fisherman at Sandoway asked whether my brother and I would like to join them for a day's fishing on the reef, which was about 2km offshore. Of course, we jumped at the chance. Early the next morning we set out in the fishermen's outrigger canoe and enjoyed the ride while the two of them paddled strongly out to sea. I don't remember how long it took to get to the reef but certainly remember getting there because it was quite a sight. The boat was tied up and we alighted onto a reef measuring something like a hundred feet by twenty feet that jutted a couple of feet out of the ocean. My brother and I had hand lines, which seemed to be normal fishing equipment, as the two Burmese had them also. We could see fish all over the place and fully expected to be able to simply throw a line in and drag them out. Reality was different, of course, but we snagged a few.

The highlight of the day was provided by the two fishermen. One had chosen to hang his line in an opening about three foot round in the middle of the reef. We couldn't work out what he was fishing for and as they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Burmese we weren't likely to find out until a catch was made. After at least an hour a huge commotion broke out at the hole. The fisherman had hooked his target - a massive moray eel - and was locked in a life or death (for the eel) struggle to extract it from its lair. The thing was a truly magnificent animal and immensely strong, as it was taking all of the strength of the fisherman to hold it with its head about two feet above the water and the rest probably still in its lair. The other fisherman was bashing the eel on the head as hard as he could with a mallet. Alas, after what seemed a long time but was probably only a couple of minutes, the line broke and the eel escaped. You've never seen such disappointed folk as those two. We later discovered that eel is a great delicacy and worth a lot of money. After fishing for some hours the tide had turned and it was time to return to the beach so we set off to the coast. The sea seemed to be much rougher than our morning journey and I became quite queasy, which was the only low point in a great day.

You don't forget days like that.


The Moray Eel - a local delicacy

The People

As mentioned, the Burmese are the nicest people anywhere in the world. Generous to a fault, even though they have little to give.

To a first time visitor the sight of teenage boys walking around holding hands or young girls doing the same thing is mildly confronting, though it's a sign of great friendship and doesn't carry the same implication as it would in San Francisco or Sydney.

We used to have a couple of young lads from the local village come and be ball boys when we played tennis. They'd run around madly chasing the balls until the ball ended up in the shrubs at which time they would go very slowly, keeping an eye out for snakes. Burma has a lot of snakes. The only forms of communication we had with these kids were "ballo", signalling our need for a ball, and the smile of appreciation at the end of our session when we paid them. Sometimes we'd give them a can of Coke each, a great prize to the locals, as it was only available on the black market at a very high price. Whether they drank the Coke or sold it we never found out.

A national pastime seemed to be one I'd never seen anywhere else in the world - rubber band shooting. A target would be set up, typically a cigarette butt placed upright, the contestants would aim their rubber bands (which were quite large) using both hands - sometimes with extravagant aiming actions - and release at the target. If you missed then you were eliminated. Contestants would then move further and further away from the target until there was a winner. My younger brother used to join in with the lads from the local village and became quite competitive with the best of them.

On one occasion we had a viewing of Ice Station Zebra, which about twenty kids from the local village came to watch. They didn't understand a word, of course, but they loved it all the same. One of the attendees was a very famous Burmese, U Myint Thein, who was widely known as Uncle Monty. He became a close friend of our family and when he was visiting would regularly drop in and see how the 'young monkeys' (that was us kids) were going. He was Chief Justice of Burma from 1957 until the coup in 1962 and was awarded an OBE by the British government. Have a read of the link about him and then try to reconcile the fact that this wise, knowledgeable man when watching the scene towards the end of Ice Station Zebra in which a bloke (is it Rock Hudson or Ernest Borgnine? my memory is hazy) has a remote control device in his hand that will set off some explosives, the red button is pressed, the explosives go off then jumps up and exclaims, "Can they do that?!" He'd never seen a remote control device.

I recall taking a trip to the local zoo, which was remarkable in its unremarkableness. The main thing I remember was that there was a bigger crowd following us than they had animals in the place.

Burma's best known feature is the Shwedagon Pagoda. It really is an amazing place and its spirituality was not lost on me, in spite of my by then well formed atheism, which still didn't stop me lighting candles and banging the bell for luck.

Legend has it that the Shwedagon Pagoda is 2500 years old. Archaeologists believe the stupa was actually built sometime between the 6th and 10th centuries by the Mon, but this is a very controversial issue because according to the records by Buddhist monks it was built before Lord Buddha died in 486 BC. The story of Shwedagon Pagoda begins with two merchant brothers, Taphussa and Bhallika, from the land of Ramanya, meeting the Lord Gautama Buddha and receiving eight of the Buddha's hairs to be enshrined in Burma. The two brothers made their way to Burma and with the help of the local king, King Ukkalapa, found Singuttara Hill, where relics of other Buddhas preceding Gautama Buddha had been enshrined.

The famous Shwedagon Pagoda - I banged the bell there a few times

And now, alas, this wonderful country is beset by disaster and the junta's lack of ability to help its people is now widely seen. What does seem strange is that they are refusing international aid in spite of the massive scale of what's happened.

It is ironic that when there were protests in 2007 the military were on the streets in no time, rounding up protestors and cracking down in a harsh way. When they're needed most, though, they are nowhere to be found.

I really hope to visit Burma again one day.

(Nothing Follows)

Macquarie University conscripts 'volunteers'

In the Jesus Wept category comes the following article in The Australian on what the Left is now foisting on Australian universities:

ALL students at a leading university will have to undertake volunteer work and study subjects from the arts and sciences under an overhaul of its curriculum designed to provide a broader education and more socially aware graduates.

I'm going to suggest that by 'broader education and socially aware graduates' it means indoctrinating those students that miss out on the wildly left wing views of liberal arts professors - science, maths etc students - with anti-capitalist, global warming, lefty feel good hooha that is completely useless to actually doing a professional job professionally.

In a first for an Australian university, Macquarie University vice-chancellor Steven Schwartz today will announce a partnership with Australia Volunteers International (AVI) that will create a mini peace corps, giving undergraduate students the opportunity to do volunteer work overseas.

Would you care to hazard a guess as to whether AVI has a political leaning (which it shouldn't) and, if so, which way that lean is?

Called the Global Futures Program, it will develop programs with local communities throughout Australia, the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Some form of community work will be compulsory for all undergraduate students at Macquarie under the new curriculum, to start in 2010.

Compulsory? To give your labour and expertise away for free? You might be OK with that but it seems a bit strange that a compulsory activity is supported by an apparently volunteer organisation. Isn't philanthropy all about volunteering? Coerced philanthropy seems a bit of an oxymoron.

In addition, the university will require all undergraduate students to study subjects from the humanities, social sciences and sciences so that arts students must take science subjects and science students must take arts subjects.

I'll make a prediction. Arts students - being as dumb as dog droppings in matters scientific (that's why they vastly outnumber science students in their belief in global warming) - will last a semester or two, kick up a stink and have the requirement dropped. Science students - having higher IQs than their dopey arts cousins - will work hard and struggle through the arts subjects but still pass. In this way they will not learn the lesson that the university is trying to indoctrinate but instead discover the totalitarian, coercive nature of the liberal arts establishment and the left in general.

The university, in northern Sydney, had also considered making the learning of a foreign language compulsory but it was not feasible at this stage.

What language? Is the selection of the language going to compulsory also? What about Pidgin English? Or Icelandic? What about SMS? That seems to be all the rage these days.

Professor Schwartz told The Australian that the new curriculum was based on three themes of place, planet and participation, and was designed to provide students with a broader education than one geared solely to a vocation and getting a job.

What happened to the three themes of reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic? How does place, planet and participation help someone doing a computing studies degree? Answer: not at all.

"Universities are more than just narrow vocational schools; they have the opportunity to change the world, to shape society and shape democracy," he said. "It's about education for life, not just for a job.

So compulsory activity somehow shapes democracy? Universities would like to think they shape society but in spite of a massive onslaught against conservative ideas over the last 50 years the population still votes pretty much 50-50 right-left.

"We're trying to infuse the institution with more than just a utilitarian vocational mission as one that also makes difference to a more democratic and inclusive society."

That's another point. Always beware leftists who use the term 'democratic'. It tends to be the last thing they have in mind.

Professor Schwartz said the new curriculum developed the university's commitment to social inclusion and equity, and fitted in with programs already in place at the university, such as MULTILIT, a remedial literacy program being used in Queensland's Cape York, and the Teach for Australia scheme. Macquarie University, in partnership with Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute, is developing the Teach for Australia program.

Ah, social inclusion and equity. Now it's coming out. Left wing drivel of the type that has seen aboriginal society completely collapse over the last 30 years. Let's have more of that, shall we?

It is based on similar schemes in the US and Britain to recruit the brightest graduates to teach for a short time in disadvantaged schools before they start their professional careers.

Recruit? I thought it was compulsory. Don't they mean 'conscript'?

Macquarie's focus on a broader education follows the restructure at Melbourne University, called the Melbourne Model and based on US college degrees, which offers six broad undergraduate degrees followed by a graduate professional degree in specialist areas such as law or medicine.

Macquarie University arts student Jen Purcell, 22, has travelled to India twice as a volunteer to teach in schools in Rajasthan, the first time while still at high school, with World Vision.

In 2006, Ms Purcell returned to India of her own volition and lived in the slums alongside the children she taught.

"I cried for the first week. Every day I had to go back to a house with no electricity and limited water," she said.

"It was just so awful. To have to stay for another six or seven weeks, I thought I can't do it because it's nothing that I'm used to. But it was the best time of my life, even the bad bits."

Ms Purcell said the experience had changed the course of her life and she had returned to change her major from ancient history and was now looking to work in international aid and education.

But even for students who would continue with their original choice of profession, Ms Purcell thought all students would benefit from such an experience.

"In the increasingly globalised world that we live in, that ability to understand other cultures is a huge advantage for graduates."

I have lived all over the world including in impoverished countries in Asia and Africa. My view is that the government should pay for a gap year for all Australians after they've finished year 12 and before they go on to university in which they live in Calcutta or Albania or Nepal or Sudan just so they can get a look at the real world and see how lucky we are here.

Thanks to Ker-plunkian, Kevin, for bringing the article to my attention.

(Nothing Follows)

Christian leaders look to Doctor Who for guidance

You know that non-Catholic Christianity in Europe has hit rock bottom when its leaders have forgotten what their mission is and are reduced to watching the sci-fi series Doctor Who to work out what the kids want.

Note to church leaders: Kids need you to give them direction, you do not get your direction from teenagers. Last time I checked, you get your direction from God.

Unless I've missed something.

Being a fan of the Doctor Who series (and being one of those people who can name all of the actors that have played the Doctor in order) I must confess that the parallel between Christianity and the scripts of the show had eluded me.

Episodes of hit TV show Doctor Who have been examined by church leaders in Britain as part of an attempt to make Christianity more appealing to teenagers.

A conference of Church of England vicars watched a handful of episodes from the sci-fi series to study its religious parallels, particularly its themes of evil, resurrection and redemption.

Similarities between the Doctor and Christ, as well as whether the evil Daleks are capable of changing, were also examined.

"There are countless examples of Christian symbolism in Doctor Who, which we can use to get across ideas that can otherwise be difficult to explain," The Sunday Telegraph in Britain quoted Andrew Wooding, a spokesman for conference organising group Church Army, as saying.

"Clergy shouldn't be afraid to engage with popular culture as for many young people television plays a large role in their thinking."

Not that it's unusual for the church to call on TV shows to help their cause. Just last year the Church of England enlisted the Simpsons...

The Church of England is getting help from the Simpsons to provide a more relevant way of teaching children about theology and to give a boost to dwindling congregations.

Mixing it Up with the “Simpsons”, a book to be released by the Church of England’s publishing company, will be sent to youth advisers in every diocese across the country next week, the Sunday Telegraph reported, with the hope of showing how Christianity is relevant to life today through issues tackled in the popular U.S. TV cartoon series. Clergy will be urged to show episodes of “The Simpsons” that focus on Christian themes such as love and punishment.

None of Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Catholicism or the Baptists have to resort to such populist drivel.

No wonder the Church of England is slowly dying in Western Europe.

It has forgotten what it stands for and where it gets its guidance from.

(Nothing Follows)

Sunday night rock 'n' roll

The Doors was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. They were a controversial band, due mostly to Morrison's cryptic lyrics and unpredictable stage persona[citation needed]. Since the band's dissolution in 1972 — and especially since Morrison's death in 1971 — interest in the Doors' music has remained high, especially from the Morrison era. They have sold over 45 million albums worldwide, and still sell approximately 1 million annually.

Light My Fire (Live)



Unknown Soldier



(Nothing Follows)

Israel 1948 - what really happened

The recent declassification of documents relating to the British Mandate in Palestine for the period 1920 to 1948 provides a new ability to understand what was going on in the region and the origins of today's ongoing Israel-Arab conflict.

Efraim Karsh is head of Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London, and the author most recently of Islamic Imperialism: A History. His article demonstrating what really happened in 1948 - as has always been the correct reading of the matter before revisionist historians like Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe arrived on the scene - is mandatory reading for those who want to understand why there are a million 'Palestinians' in Gaza and the West Bank. Ilan Pappe is a communist whose accuracy has been shown to be shoddy even by left wingers like Benny Morris. I wonder whether Morris will revise his position in light of the newly available information?

Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West.

During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the “original sin” of Israel’s founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) “on the ruins of Arab Palestine” and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population.

This claim of premeditated dispossession and the consequent creation of the longstanding Palestinian “refugee problem” forms, indeed, the central plank in the bill of particulars pressed by Israel’s alleged victims and their Western supporters. It is a charge that has hardly gone undisputed. As early as the mid-1950’s, the eminent American historian J.C. Hurewitz undertook a systematic refutation, and his findings were abundantly confirmed by later generations of scholars and writers. Even Benny Morris, the most influential of Israel’s revisionist “new historians,” and one who went out of his way to establish the case for Israel’s “original sin,” grudgingly stipulated that there was no “design” to displace the Palestinian Arabs.

The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948) and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record. They reveal that the claim of dispossession is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. What follows is based on fresh research into these documents, which contain many facts and data hitherto unreported.

Read the whole thing.

(Nothing Follows)

Polar bears to determine future of US economy

I wonder how many people understand that the purpose behind Big Green's incessant pushing for polar bears to be listed as an endangered species is because it will allow them to oppose anything businesses try to do to expand on the grounds that there will be a negative impact on the climate (expansion means more CO2 output), which will impact an endangered species.

No wonder socialist groups like Greenpeace "...rejoiced over yesterday's ruling" in the following report.

THE Bush administration must decide within a fortnight whether the polar bear deserves to be considered an endangered species because global warming is melting its icy domains.

A federal judge in California imposed the deadline yesterday after the US Interior Department missed its own January 9 deadline on making a decision, despite an internal departmental preliminary finding in 2006 that the bear's habitat is being destroyed by higher temperatures.

Three environmental groups, including Greenpeace, took the US Government to court over the stalling and rejoiced over yesterday's ruling by US District Court judge Claudia Wilkens.

"Today's decision is a huge victory for the polar bear," said Kassie Siegel, director of the climate program at the Centre for Biological Diversity.

And an even bigger victory for Big Green and its ongoing attack on freedom.

"By May 15, the polar bear should receive the protections it deserves under the Endangered Species Act, which is the first step toward saving the polar bear and the entire Arctic ecosystem from global warming."

The Bush administration claims environmental groups are using legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act to forward their climate change agenda and force the US into restricting its greenhouse gas emissions.

That's exactly what they're doing.

Critics of global warming say the polar bear measure would be used to take governments to court when they build new power plants.

Democrats on Capitol Hill say the Bush administration is stone-walling because it plans to sell a multi-billion-dollar oil and gas lease on the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, a region rich with polar bears.

Although a spokesman for the Interior Department yesterday said the decision was being reviewed and "we will evaluate the legal options", Ms Siegel said the US could only make one decision.

"The science is perfectly clear; the polar bear is an endangered species," she said.

Summer sea-ice - which the bears need to hunt seals - shrank last year to a record low, about 4.3 million square kilometers in September, nearly 40per cent less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.

Not reported is that Arctic winter sea ice rebounded back from its summer low to be significantly bigger than the previous year. I wonder why that hasn't been in the news?

Scientists report polar bears resorting to cannibalism and that their reproduction rates have fallen.

The fact is that polar bear populations are so huge (warming is good for life) that there have been a few examples of cannibalism.

The US Geological Survey has predicted that the world's population of polar bears may be cut by two-thirds by 2050 and that only a handful of the creatures will be left by the end of the century.

Last week, Canada - home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears - said it had a "special concern" for bears, but that animals in Canada were not threatened with extinction.

In other words, things are fine.

Make no mistake, if the Bush administration lists the polar bear as endangered then the consequences for US businesses will be dire indeed.

(Nothing Follows)

Obama's Jeremiah Wright abandonment smells like a set up to me

The Jeremiah Wright issue has been a festering sore in the Obama campaign for too many weeks now and it was clear that he was going to have to exorcise his petulant spiritual guide sooner rather than later in order to have some time pass until the November election in which he could recover.

After defending Wright and making a speech on race in America (vapid though it was) Obama would have hoped the controversy would die down but the fact that even a supine press, enamoured as they are with the idea of President Obama, continued to labour the point showed him that the issue was more of a danger to his campaign than was anticipated.

Clearly, he couldn't switch positions overnight and therefore needed some other, glaring reason to throw Wright under the bus.

What better way than to have Wright come out and make a series of profoundly loopy and way out there statements that Obama could then use as a catalyst to distance himself from Wright?

It smells like a set up to me.

The other thing it does is that it puts John McCain in a position where he will come under massive attack from the media to disown John Hagee who has endorsed McCain. Even though there's a world of difference between a person who supports a campaign and one who has provided spiritual guidance to Obama for 20 years of his life the press will run an equivalence argument and go hard after McCain. As soon as McCain throws Hagee under the bus (which he may or may not do) then it completely wipes the Wright issue away for Obama.

Let's see how this plays out over the next few weeks.

I'm re-listening to Obama's press conference today as I write this. In spite of previously describing Reverend Wright as being "like family to me" only a month ago he then claims to never have heard the man say the racist, anti-American things that have now caused so much trouble. It beggars belief.

The other thing I've noticed about Obama is that when he's not reading a prepared speech he is very faltering in his speech, indicating that he does not have his thoughts together, and he comes across as completely lacking confidence in what he's about to say. Obama has been compared to JFK but JFK never lacked confidence when he didn't have his notes in hand.

There are some comparisons that can be made between political leaders and Obama:

When Obama is reading from a prepared speech then he sounds like JFK.

When he's talking off the cuff he sounds like George Bush.

Compare Bill Clinton's natural, folksy manner when he's talking off the cuff with Obama. There's a gulf between them.

(Nothing Follows)

ElBaradei criticises US, Israel over Syrian nukes

How's this for having more front than city hall?

Mohamed AlBaradei, head of the comically ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency aka the United Nations Agency Helping To Ensure Rogue Nations Get Nuclear Weapons, has criticised the US and Israel for not giving them information (that they could then pass on to Syria) that their nuclear development facility had been rumbled.

VIENNA, Austria - The head of the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency angrily criticized Israel on Friday for bombing an alleged Syrian nuclear facility, and chastised the U.S. for withholding information on the site.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei also was not provided information about the site until Thursday, the same day U.S. officials briefed members of the House Intelligence Committee about evidence including dozens of photographs taken from ground level and footage of the interior of the building gathered by spy satellites after the Israeli strike seven months ago.

ElBaradei was briefed by telephone by John Rood, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control.

I made a joke about it earlier on but it seems remarkable that the IAEA would be kept in the dark by the United States and Israel. What motivation could both nations have for doing so other than to ensure Syria didn't find out ahead of the Israeli bombing? The IAEA, ElBaradei and the UN itself have been shown to be useless and feckless. Not that there's anything new in that.

"The Director General deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the Agency in a timely manner, in accordance with the Agency's responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to enable it to verify its veracity and establish the facts," ElBaradei's office said.

Additionally, "the Director General views the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the non-proliferation regime," it said.

ElBaradei did not criticize North Korea or Syria in his statement.

That is truly unbelievable. It reinforces ElBaradei's real personal agenda to do as much damage as possible to US interests, which has been on display throughout his career.

The IAEA's mission includes trying to keep nuclear proliferation in check, and it depends on member states for information in trying to carry out that task. It is currently probing allegations Iran tried to make nuclear weapons using not only its own research but intelligence provided by the U.S. and other members of the 35-nation IAEA board.

How can the IAEA board function when it has 35 nations involved? And how's it going on its mission to try and keep nuclear proliferation in check?

Intelligence committee members also expressed anger Thursday over the seven-month time lapse before their committee was briefed.

Top U.S. intelligence officials who briefed reporters in Washington Thursday said they had high confidence in the judgement that North Korea had aided Syria with its nuclear program and the intention was to produce plutonium. But they claimed only low confidence for the conclusion that it was meant for weapons development, in part because there was no reprocessing facility at the site — something that would be needed to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel for use in a bomb.

The Syrian reactor was within weeks or months of being functional when Israeli jets destroyed it, a top U.S. official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. The official said the facility was mostly completed but still had needed significant testing before it could have been declared operational.

US intelligence agencies have little credibility on the issue of declaring that a nation has the capability of developing nuclear weapons, as Iraq has shown, but if the Israelis think it is then I'm rather inclined to go with their view given the consequences of Syria having a nuclear weapon are rather dire for them.

Repeating its previous stance, Syria, in a statement issued Thursday denied the allegations.

Now there's a huge shock!

How is the stable world going to ensure that the unstable world doesn't become nuclear armed if the IAEA is not only useless but so politically aligned with interests in the Middle East?

(Nothing Follows)

Sharkey the dolphin performs last trick

Sad news from Orlando, Florida, today that Sharkey the dolphin has died while performing aerial tricks due to a mid-air collision.

Who knew that the life of a performing dolphin could be as dangerous as that of the Blue Angels or Red Arrows and that mid-air catastrophe was only a bad jump away?

A dolphin has died after colliding with another dolphin while performing aerial tricks at a US marine park.

Sharkey, a 30-year-old dolphin, died after the accident on Saturday at the Discovery Cove park — a sister property to Sea World in Orlando, Florida.

About 30 visitors were standing in a lagoon while the dolphins did tricks, but something went amiss when the two mammals leapt from the water and collided mid-air.



The second dolphin did not appear to have been injured, but was being monitored, Discovery Cove spokeswoman Becca Bides said.

"This is a very unfortunate and very rare incident," Bides said.

It was the first accidental death of a dolphin since the park opened eight years ago.

Located across from SeaWorld, Discovery Cove offers visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins, rays and tropical fish.

Park officials are reviewing their dolphin training protocol "to ensure that even such a random incident like this can't occur again," Bides said.

Vale, Sharkey, and thanks for bringing so much enjoyment to so many people.

That last paragraph has got me, though. Officials want "to ensure that even such a random incident like this can't occur again"...how does one prevent random incidents?

(Nothing Follows)

Enviro-fundamentalists never factor in the power of free markets to solve problems

The Law of Unintended Consequences must annoy unwashed, sandle wearing, hemp clad, earth first environmentalists by ensuring that solutions are found to the most hysterical of 'problems' that allow humanity to prosper rather than revert to some relatively advanced form of hunter gatherer society comprising only a few million on the planet.

The most glaring recent example is the increase in interest in nuclear energy as a means of solving the 'CO2 crisis'. Nuclear energy is, of course, anathema to environmentalists - in spite of it having a most remarkable safety record and being so safe that if provides 75% of France's energy requirements - and would never have made it onto the public agenda if it were not for Big Green's attack on capitalism and freedom under the guise of taxing carbon. Wind and solar energy are the solution cry these misanthropic scientific muppets who refuse to accept the appalling efficiency of both forms of energy when compared to nuclear.

We're repeatedly told to use less water, recycle more (as if that helps) et blah in order to 'help' the planet. People are off their rockers, really, when you look at the facts involved. We're also told to use less energy and here in Australia the government is intending to introduce energy use reporting for business in a scheme that will see companies having to provide information to the government on how much energy they are using. It's actually completely barmy not to mention immoral.

Leaving that aside, the bleating has seen an increase in research into biofuels and the results are already looking really interesting. No longer will we have to drill for oil when there are such options available such as in the video below:



Bio-energy is an obvious alternative to nuclear and has the advantage of being able to power our cars and planes. Advances in genetic modification are seeing plants being grown that need very little water and produce an extremely high yield meaning that relatively small areas of land are required, which doesn't need to be high fertility anyway, and the impact on food crops is removed.

None of this makes enviro-fundamentalists very happy, of course. Their whole argument is that there are too many people on the planet and that there are finite resources. It's one of the great inanities of our time.

What must drive these people completely nuts, though, is that it's the private sector - driven by free market capitalism - that is coming up with the solutions, as always...

(Nothing Follows)

I've been tagged

Darren at Right On The Left Coast has tagged me, the bastard. Answering the questions is OK but finding 5 people to send the tag onto is a challenge. I'll get him back somehow! PS - you should stick that one on your list of blogs to view daily.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Preparing to acquire another IT company and merge it with my own.

2. What are the 5 things on my to-do list for today?
I have to do things? Go to work, prepare a tender, submit it, interview someone, go for a beer.

3. Snacks I enjoy
Cheezels. Sour Cream & Onion chips. Fruit Tingles. Jelly Babies.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire
I'd spend my money sitting on the beach drinking Crown Lager, chomping lobster, chatting up the beach beauties and picking the sand out of the crack in my arse. The rest I'd waste.

5. Three of my bad habits
Talk too fast (unless I'm public speaking, presenting etc), eat too much crap food, immediately forget the first names of people I've just met

6. 5 Places I have lived
Moscow, London, Washington DC, Nairobi, Rangoon to name a few...

7. 5 Jobs I have had
Only had 3 job types: programmer (part time in a government department when I was going through uni), senior manager in Information Technology (my own company for 15 years), currently general manager of a professional services business

Now that I've got that done who should I tag?

Darren, I'll get back to you on that one...!

(Nothing Follows)

Labor hikes 'alcopops' tax knowing it will have no effect

Is there any better example of Labor's true tax for its own sake attitude than the massive hike in tax on 'alcopops', ostensibly to curb teen binge drinking?

A war of words has erupted after federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon accused the former Howard government of fuelling teenage binge drinking.

Ms Roxon said a decision in 2000 to cut excise on pre-mixed alcoholic drinks - so-called alcopops - helped fuel the surge in excessive drinking by young people, particularly girls.

A furious Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson branded the claim an "outrageous slur".

Ms Roxon said the Rudd government's decision to lift the excise by 70 per cent would help tackle binge drinking by making the sugary, innocuous tasting drinks between 30 cents and $1.30 a bottle more expensive.

The tax increase will deliver about $2 billion a year to the government - a "big chunk" of which will go to preventative health schemes, Ms Roxon said.

The first point to make is that the change will have zero, nil, nada, no impact on the supposed problem of teen binge drinking. One only has to look at the problems in the UK compared to ours to see that there's not only no comparison but there's not even a cultural issue to deal with. Teens will simply change drinks and keep drinking anyway.

The second point is that if the tax changes are meant to reduce consumption and positively effect teen health then why is the government expection to raise $2 billion when it should actually expect the tax to be revenue neutral at best?

The right of governments to control taxes carries it with it the responsibility to use that power wisely. Raising taxes always imposes the heaviest burden on those who can least afford it and, thus, tax increases such as we have just seen with alcopops - sold to us in order to help fix a minor problem (at best) and pay for health services - is immoral.

Not to be outdone, the anti-smoking lobby has also joined the fray:

After lifting the excise on alcopops, the federal government should also raise the tax on cigarettes, the Rudd government's chief preventative health adviser says.

...Rob Moodie, from the National Preventative Health Task Force, is now calling on the government to lift the tax on cigarettes by 2.5 cents per cigarette, Fairfax newspapers have reported.

Dr Moodie said the alcopop changes were "terrific".

"Using taxation or pricing as a lever for reducing harmful consumption is a really good idea," he said. "There is certainly room to move (on cigarettes) (and) this issue will certainly come up in the taskforce."

Is there any item on earth more heavily taxed than cigarettes? Why not slug smokers some more? I'm not aware of anyone that has ever smoked a cigarette, become violent and bashed their spouse or got into a pub brawl. I'm not a smoker and hate the smell (which gives me a headache) but I reckon smokers get a raw deal when compared to drinkers.

This government seems to be getting carried away with symbolism over outcomes by trying to be seen to be 'doing something' rather than getting on with the actual job of governing.

Into the 'doing something' category falls the FuelWatch program aimed at reducing petrol prices at the pump.

MOTORISTS will have a better chance of saving money under FuelWatch, the competition watchdog says.

But Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Graeme Samuel has warned motorists not to expect the saving to be obvious.

Rather than seeing a universal two cents drop across the market, Mr Samuel said FuelWatch would give motorists the knowledge they needed to go to service stations where fuel already was cheap.

"The really important saving for motorists is the power it gives them to know when prices are going to be lifted and when prices are going to be reduced," Mr Samuel told the Nine Network.

Motorists will also know where they can buy the cheapest fuel in their suburb or town under the scheme.

"If you know the price of petrol is going to be lifted by 10 cents tomorrow, you've got 15 hours notice under the FuelWatch scheme to buy today, that'll save you 10 cents per litre," Mr Samuel said.

The head of the ACCC says that fuel savings may "not be obvious"? FuelWatch is an extension of a similar program that has been operating in Western Australia. How's it going over there? They now have the highest fuel price of any state. Terry McCrann explained why it's all wrongheaded a couple of weeks ago.

AFTER five months of seemingly endless ever-more-flatulent rhetoric, the no-longer-new Rudd Government has finally made its first real major policy decision.

And it's a stinker.

It is in any event a decision driven by spin. To seem to "do something about petrol prices". With the scheme starting in December, voters will have nearly two years to decide what that something actually delivers at the pump.

Here's a long-term prediction: they'll be pining for the bad old days of rampant discounting.

...Sure, consumers have "voted" for greater stability in petrol prices.

The rude shock will be the price at which they get it. Not those low prices through the fuel cycle, but at best some midpoint.

And more likely above the mid-point.

I don't care what colour the government is - because both types are guilt of this sort of nonsense from time to time - it's lunacy to think that government interference can do anything but raise prices.

Populism reigning, grocery prices are next.

SUPERMARKET giants should be banned from opening new stores in areas where they already have a stranglehold, the nation's independent grocers group has told an inquiry.

Anti-price discrimination laws should also be reintroduced to ensure smaller grocers, such as IGA, can buy products at the same price as major supermarket chains, Woolworths and Coles.

National Association for Retail Grocers of Australia (NARGA), which represents around 4500 independent grocery retailers, addressed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) grocery inquiry in Canberra today.

NARGA chairman John Cummings said Coles and Woolworths enjoyed a 80 per cent share of the grocery market in Australia, which lead to a lack of competition and higher prices for shoppers.

The fact that Coles and Woolworths have an 80 per cent market share didn't put off Aldi from opening stores all around the country and offering good quality product at lower prices. News late last year was that Costco was looking to establish itself here, as well. All of this is to the good, as prices are reduced and that helps those at the bottom of the earnings scale.

This government really needs to get into the role of governing and take the tough decisions that need to be taken in order to strengthen our economy and increase employment. Focus on reducing government red tape that impacts business to no positive effect, remove inefficient taxes like stamp duty and the fringe benefits tax, and take on a big issue such as improving our education system through the introduction of school vouchers.

Those changes alone would mean that Labor could enjoy a successful first term in government.

(Nothing Follows)