"Tennessee Monkey Bill Becomes Law" (Nature News 2012-04-11) reports the continuing death-throeas of Thomas Jeffersons informed and active citizenry essential for democracy, at least in the USA.
The infamous 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial" pitched Tennessee against a teacher who dared to cover Darwin and evolution in class.
The governor of Tennessee has allowed the passage of the ‘monkey bill’, giving public-school teachers licence to teach alternatives to those mainstream scientific theories often attacked by religious and political conservatives.
While Gillard’s speech to US politicians made me wonder if ever in recorded history has such a long nose been so brown, I’m now beginning to see she did say some tough things – even if neither she, nor her hosts, realized it.
Let’s translate part of her speech into what could be read between the lines.
Listen Uncle Sam, I love you and all, but your best years are long ago, and you have to adapt. When I was was a kid, you were putting astronauts on the moon – and now, well your astronauts will pretty soon be sticking out their thumbs, trying to hitch a ride from the Russians and Chinese, and even then will only be able to get into low earth orbit.
Then, you were a "can-do" nation, now you are a "can’t-do" country.
Did I say mates say the hard things? Did you hear any? So are we mates?
And by the way, don’t bother getting annoyed about the Chinese. What are you going to do about it? Start a war?
With pro-democracy protests springing up across the middle east, predicting the overall outcomes is nigh impossible.
There is little talk of how China might view opportunities in the region, despite China’s skill gaining access to resources such as rare earths in Africa, despite the diplomatic opportunities when everything is up in the air.
Those diplomatic opportunities for China are considerable.
US environment policy statements from 30 years ago might explain much of climate policy today.
Even back in the Reagan years, at the start of the rise of the political influence of the xtian right, policies and statements of senior politicians explicitly supported the idea that environmental destruction is ordained by god and even a desirable policy outcome.
The US rejected the Australian government’s request for details on upcoming leaks, a request to prepare for the fallout that, if Gillard’s hyperbole about the impact and therefore irresponsibility of the leaks is correct, needed planning for damage control.
Imagine this were a group of schoolgirls:
Anne has written in her diary all the gory details about the fantasies and doings of her "best friend 4 ever", Brittany.
Anne’s diary is stolen by Cass (the loner of the class), who announces she’ll be posting pages, bit by juicy bit, around the school.
Brittany asks Anne about what is in Britt’s diary to limit the fallout.
Anne refuses, apart from saying "some of the things you’ve told me and other stuff".
Arbib, presumably unlike McMullen and Danby, wanted his anonymity guarded by the US because he was divulging stuff in an improper way, underhanded enough for punishment.
But the Libs might not want to burn him.
The beauty of these improper chats is that what was said cannot be denied, and the Libs looking for a scalp will be wanting a suitably small level of disclosure to a "friendly" to not only force him from cabinet, but to force him to resign as MP [and bring on a byelection in a hung parliament - my bad].
If the Libs don’t try and wipe Arbib from cabinet or even parliament with a big ALP scalp and tainting of ALP members as traitors [possible change of government - my bad] as the prize, then what might be stopping them from the attempt?
Finally the mainstream press is recognizing the battle for economic supremacy, indeed survival, being waged over not oil, but the more critical rare earths. To get a feel for how tight the supply of rare earths are, and how they are both necessary for waging wars of both economic and military varities, and the incentive for such wars, review the summary of rare earth reserves and usage in "Climate change might not be our worst problem" (2007-05-27).
China has a better grip on rare earths, essential for any electronics, than OPEC has had on hydrocarbons. Unlike oil which can be made from hydrogen and carbon by a host of means, you cannot make rare earths except by smashing atoms in an accelerator.
China has already been sabre-rattling, with typical "official plausible deniability", with supplies to Japan threatened using the pretext of a maritime border dispute.
Poor Barnaby Joyce! When he points out an elephant in the room, he cops flak from all sides: the elephant in the room in this case being US indebtedness and the risk of default, and the need for Australia to have contigency plans for either the default or the necessary collapse of US consumer spending.
If he’d followed his chain of reasoning further, noting the commonality of risks and appropriate responses of the economic corrections for both US default and climate change, he’d have had the environmentally responsible wings of both left and right calling him a hero.
Which makes me wonder: why didn’t he follow the chain of logic he started?
I’ve seen a lot of cartoons critical of Israel in Gaza (and Lebanon), and the failures of USA governments to do anything but give funds to Israel (and therefore encouragement).
But the following cartoon does take a bit more of a broad education to appreciate than those I typically see.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised: it’s from the same site that gives you Fidel’s blog, and Cuba does have a literacy rate as good as, if not better than, Australia’s (if you care to look at the CIA World Fact Book – hardly an organ for socialist propaganda!).
Director of the Orchestra
And if you don’t recognize the artistic reference… go here.
Paul Krugman, the 2008 Economics Nobel Laureate, has an opinion piece in the The Age that isn’t too far off my own piece "Catchcries" (2009-01-24), arguing "No capitalization without representation and returns".
If there is a failing in Krugman’s piece, it is that he limits his discussion to the finance sector, rather than applying the same logic to other sectors (e.g. the car industry).
Until Krugman’s piece, I’ve felt like a lone voice in the Australian wilderness. Opinion pieces in Oz have either argued that capitalism should be dumped, the "moral hazard" of the bailouts, or for specific tweaks to the administration of bailouts.
Well, even if his team doesn’t win, apparently the Cardinals got into the superbowl by beating a team that has a former Collingwood player in it, and Cats fans (and Ben Graham) will probably accept that as a consolation prize.
Surely electing a "black" US President isn’t really the big indicator of the US becoming non-discriminatory: didn’t they re-elect an apparently intellectually-disabled one in 2004?
