Crazy Creationists

The clip that follows is a short piece of testimony from an engineer and mathematician named Chuck Missler. Its a breath taking piece of Creationism propaganda that tells the "obvious truth" that "evolution is a fairytale". The mind boggling peanut butter analogy makes me ashamed to be a man of science. Let this be a warning to us all about the dangers of combining religious zealots and the internet.

For the record, Chuck has a PhD from Louisianan Baptist University (I found mine in a box of cereal) and is a renowned Y2K alarmist, plagiarist and Bible teacher. He's also a few asylum seekers short of a detention camp, if he seriously thinks life-less peanut butter disproves evolution. My head hurts.

Let’s Keep Some Perspective

The David Hicks ‘trial’ is finally upon us. This Administration’s criticism of Howard’s handling of this issue to date is already on the record. In short, our government has stood idly by and allowed one of our citizens to be abused and held without charge. The jarring reality is that since December 2001, in excess of 5 years, David Hicks has been imprisoned in virtual solitary confinement in a small mesh-sided cell which is kept lit night and day. He has been periodically subjected to a range of mistreatments, including routine sleep deprivation, random beatings, forced sedation and being IRF’d – slang for attacks perpetrated by a group of US soldiers with an attack dog.

The Australian media though seemed to have laid aside these details for the time being; instead choosing to focus on David’s ‘surprise’ guilty plea at his US military trial yesterday. The Herald didn’t even get to the part about his plea though, running a human interest piece concerning the million dollars he stands to receive for selling his story to the media. Adding to this smorgasbord of wisdom, Barnaby Joyce claimed that Howard should be lauded for his actions: "Without a shadow of doubt, the only reason that this Australian citizen went to the front of the queue is because the prime minister was obviously lobbying for it," while perennial AFP favourite Alexander Downer weighed in with reminders that Hicks has admitted his guilt.

In light of this portrayal by our media and our government, let’s get a couple of things straight:

1. Australia ranks 35^th in the Reporters without Borders freedom of press rankings. We are notably behind Ze Germans, South Korea and Boznia & Herzegovnia. We’re only a couple of places behind that beacon of the Free Press, China. Something to consider when you read your paper in the morning.

2. David Hick’s guilty plea was no surprise. It is the logical end result of sleeping with the lights on for 5 years, only interrupted by your daily beating. If it were me, I would’ve signed my confession years ago. Anything for them to let me out of there.

3. Hick’s deserves a million dollars for his story, it’s the least we could do.

4. Barnaby Joyce is a moron and he shouldn’t be allowed on TV, on the radio, in the newspaper, or outside without adult supervision.

5. The ineffectuality of the Howard/Downer foreign policy team have cost Hicks years of his life – how much is that worth?

Overall, I think it’s a good idea for us all to keep a little perspective. How angry does it make you when your neighbour has a party and keeps you awake all night? Feel a little crappy at work the next day? Multiply that by about 2000 nights, and swap those rowdy neighbours for random beatings - how do you think that’d make you feel? What would you confess to, if you thought it’d get the soldiers who’d been beating you for a few hours to stop, and to take their dog with them?

Guilt and innocence isn’t the debate here. It’s about justice, compassion and human rights. Guantanamo Bay should be shut, Hicks should be sent home, and we should all be very sorry that we ever let it happen in the first place.

Zimbabwe Boycott

In the late 1960s, protests against the racial segregation of black South Africans under the apartheid system intensified. Beginning in 1970, Test Cricket playing nations joined the protest by refusing to tour to, or to host the South African national team, the Proteas. Despite their unofficial ranking as the world champions at that time, the Proteas did not play an official test match for 22 years, beginning in 1970/71 and some of the games greatest players were sidelined. On the breakdown of apartheid, the team was reinstated in 1991 and has subsequently been welcomed back into the cricketing fold.

History reflects that the many sanctions imposed on South Africa during its racially darkest days helped bring change to an inhumane system. While the lack of cricket played by the national team was no doubt well down that list, the ban sent a message of condemnation – while a continuation of tours would have been seen as tacit acceptance of the policy. Given this stance by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in the past, it is a wonder that Zimbabwe have so far escaped the same rebuke.

Zimbabwe, by all measures has slid significantly in recent times away from democracy and towards violent dictatorship. The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has been the driving force behind this slide; having led the country since 1980 he has slowly eroded many of the hallmarks of a fair and free society. He is notorious for his seizure and ‘redistribution’ of commercial farms owned by whites, his suppression (and torture) of opposition politicians, his restrictions on free speech and press (Zimbabwe rank 140th in the world on that front), not to mention his transparent persecution of homosexuals (that’d be a whole other post). These policies have devastated the economy, with inflation recently running at 1,730% (seriously), while much of the population remains in the grip of HIV/AIDS.

The cricket team, by analogy with the country has also been torn apart. Most of the damage was done when two senior Zimbabwean players, Andy Flower and Henry Olonga, defied orders and wore black armbands during matches to protest against the "death of democracy in Zimbabwe". Both players subsequently retired from cricket and fled the country and other senior players followed suit. Their Test playing status was nearly revoked in 2004, but for some reason they were granted a reprieve and Australia are due to tour there in September.

This brings me then to my point. We shouldn’t be going. In the International community, to say that Australia is a military and diplomatic lightweight isn’t an understatement. Our sphere of influence is generally restricted to the island nations of the pacific and to supporting the UK and US. As far as cricket goes on the other hand we are a powerhouse. Given the current situation then, it is painfully obvious that we should be boycotting our tour of Zimbabwe and pressing to have the ICC revoke their international status. It is likely that this is one of the few ways we can send a message to Mugabe and his corrupt and violent dictatorship.

In reality, Cricket Australia is fretting over the lost revenue and the likely fine for breaching its contract with the ICC. Alexander Downer for his part is wringing his hands and mincing about, doing very little – which admittedly is no surprise. This Administration, for starters would have a foreign minister who isn’t King of the Fairies, and would be pressing hard to show that we do not condone the actions of the Zimbabwean government. The tour would be scrapped in an instant, for the safety of our players, but more importantly to send a message that suppressing an entire populous is not okay.

Election Night 2007

Well I’m guessing that no one needed their surprised face come Saturday night when Morris Iemma was overwhelmingly re-elected and the much anticipated ‘protest vote’ failed to materialise. Having lost only 2 seats (and with only 1 or two in doubt) the government was returned with a wide (19 seat) majority. On the night, everyone tried to act surprised, and to read a message into the result – but ultimately, the numbers went almost exactly as predicted. In short, the Libs offered no alternative to a stumbling Labor government – and running against no one is as easy as it sounds.

In the wash up of the one the most widely expected election results since Saddam Hussein was "re-elected" after polling 100% of the votes with a 100% turnout in 2002, victorious Premier Iemma was humble (and yet smug looking). He claimed to have heard the message that a 3% swing against his party sends, but in the end he and his yet to be announced (new look) cabinet have 4 more years in power, message or no message. By that time, this Administration might be up and running, but just in case we’re not, here’s my advice to the increasingly pathetic opposition:

1. Let’s Pretend Peter Debnam never existed. If we all delete his number from our phones, cut his face out of all of the group portraits we own, and burn the tapes of all his incendiary A Current Affair interviews – it’ll be like all this never happened. He wouldn’t have whined for months about the harshness of Labor’s attack ads, and his wife wouldn’t have written a plea to voters to love him as she does. The whole sorry business would be wiped from our collective memory. Deputy O’Farrell claims to be challenging for the leadership, and that would be a good start.

2. Write some policies. It’s not enough to pursue an intangible protest vote, or to merely criticise the job Labor are doing. In the current political climate, the people want new ideas, fresh faces and a departure from old school political posturing. Pick a new leader, and get them to move in a new direction. Like making Australia a Republic, or something.

3. Pray that Howard loses. While we’re all onboard with this one, it’s the state Libs that have the most to gain from the end of the Howard dynasty. His IR policies, support for Iraq (and not for David Hicks), and most of all his refusal to fund state infrastructure and health projects gives the Libs a bad name and makes it real hard from them to gain any traction with voters.

Overall, the voters mostly want to see it become a contest again. To feel as though we have a real alternative and are not just choosing the lesser of two evils. My Administration continues to work our way toward a real campaign, and a real election – and so the time left for the major parties to lift their game begins to run out.

Obama 1, Hillary 0

The internet provides today's Presidential candidates with opportunities not available to their predecessors. It’s now a lot easier to get your message out, to raise money and generally to reach out to your base. It’s also a lot easier, and cheaper to attack your opponents.

A short clip appeared on youtube recently that is a remake of a controversial Apple ad that premiered during the 1984 Super Bowl (or so I’m told). It shows a female athlete running with a sledgehammer toward a widescreen - where an ominous Big Brother figure drones to a mass of zombie-like followers. In the remake, the ominous figure is Hillary, the American people are the drones, and Barack Obama is their saviour. As far as attack ads goes, it’s slick, but even better, it’s anonymous. It looks like Obama has found a way to strike out, and still keep his hands clean.

Internet TV

It’s a pet hate of mine that the mainstream media in Australia is
generally pathetic. In the evening news slot on 7, 9 and 10 in Sydney, the majority of the news is devoted to weather, traffic conditions and human interest stories. Local political scandals, news of the British Royals, natural disasters and sightings of Nicole Kidman traditionally fill the remainder of the broadcast. Inane banter between the hosts is also filling an inordinate amount of air time (Tim Bailey and Ron Wilson have been short listed for ‘elimination’ by my ASIO contacts). In short, America is fighting a war on two fronts, there’s genocide in Darfur, a dictatorship in Zimbabwe and a resurgent left in Latin America – and if you get all your info from Vic in the traffic chopper, you wouldn’t know it.

Increasingly, the internet is filling this void of knowledge and if you look hard enough you can find stories of substance. Recently, I was sent an example of the next generation of media, a site hosting short video clips and documentaries from around the world, and even streaming TV. I’ll warn you that it’s jarringly left-wing, and while I may not agree with a 100% of its content (nor have I seen it all yet), I think this sort of initiative provides a necessary counter-weight to the crap we’re expected to digest every evening. There’s commentary on Iraq, on Bush and Cheney, global warming and 9/11. Most of the clips are short and might get you to consider a view other than the one diluted and spoon fed to you with your dinner.

Conservatives, You Can’t Trust Them

For years now, (increasingly) extremist Conservatives have been slowly stealing away our rights (and blocking the inception of others), in the name of religion and in the name of tradition. In the US, right-winger Bill O’Reilly has labelled it a war: secular progressives against ‘traditionalists’ (No, I haven’t read his book: Culture Warrior, nor do I intend to). Abortion, religion, privacy, the War on Terror, gay marriage and taxes are frequent battle grounds, in an increasingly polarized democracy. It’s getting worse here in Australia, too. Constant Readers will know that the Religious Right in Australia are a particular bunch of conservatives that I don’t care for. Abbott and his cohorts have in the past blocked my access to RU486, my right to wed a same-sex partner, and to have my incurable disease treated with stem-cells. You can see why the trend is worrying, and why these constant encroachments anger me.

Today though, I’ve learned that a new batch of conservatives have taken it further than usual and targeted something close to my heart: Wikipedia. For context, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia built up by contributions from everyone on the Web (it’s one of the reasons ‘we’ were time person of the year this year”). It’s a one-stop shop for everything you ever wanted to know, and is highly addictive. While it’s still only relatively young, it boasts over 1.67 million articles in English – and it’s still growing fast.

So how do you usurp Wikipedia? Well apparently, you create an alternate online encyclopedia and call it Conservapedia. According to the site: “Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American”, as well as allegedly inaccurate. You can check the validity of these statements for yourself, but I’m naturally sceptical of an ‘encyclopedia’ whose entry for Evolution claims that it’s only a ‘theory’ that inadequately describes how man came to be. Worse, I find it hard to swallow that Unicorns were put aboard Noah’s Ark, before the Great Flood… I don’t even know where to start with that one.

Overall, I think its clear that the Conservative (and religious) view of the world is increasingly being forced down our throat – and I don’t like it. Not that I'd prefer the liberals to be pushing themselves on me either, we should be free to decide without ideological input. In the spirit of freedom of speech, good luck to the Conservapedians, but this administration will always argue that facts (the type you find in encyclopedias) shouldn’t be tarnished with religious belief or political ideology. They should just be.

Personality Trumps Politics

The Ultimate Contrast in Charisma

It’s about time. Finally there are a few political leaders in the mix that have at least a bit of personality and despite their other perceived shortfalls – they’re thriving. My personal favourite and the obvious example is Barack Obama, who continues to close the gap on Hillary (and on the Presidency), despite his inexperience because he is a concentrated ball of charisma. But, there are examples closer to home. Morris Iemma looks set to rout Peter Debnam in the upcoming NSW election not because he’s particularly personable, but because Debnam has the charm of a cardboard cut-out. Iemma has run a lengthy ad campaign to ‘get in touch’ with voters, that was rather pathetic – but still he’s the clear choice as far as personality goes.

For all his recent criticism, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd is demonstrating this principle the most clearly. His regular appearances on breakfast television and commercial radio have shown that while he’s a bit on the geeky side, he’s streets ahead of Howard in the persona stakes. He comes across as down-to-earth and as a guy who is happy to drop the double-speak and talk plainly. You don’t need a focus group to know that that will play big in these disillusioning times. So despite the best mud-slinging that the Lib’s have been able to muster so far, Rudd is soaring – to a popularity unseen for Labor in years.

As Rudd said this morning on FM radio, Howard is a master politician; with a cunning turn of phrase and next time the opposition is touched by scandal they may pay a heavier price. Fortunately for Rudd he’s maintaining his dialogue with the public and constantly striving to re-focus the media on the issues. Global warming, education, dealing with globalisation (and China) and water are his favourites. While he keeps doing that (and avoiding lunching with criminals), his momentum should continue to build.

Anti-flag

There’s an American punk band from Pennsylvania, called Anti-flag. Despite releasing their first album in 1996 (Die for the Government), it is only in recent time that they are beginning to enjoy mainstream popularity (from their picture you can probably tell that going mainstream wasn’t really on their to-do list). The band is classic anti-establishment: their lyrics are routinely anti-war, anti-capitalism and anti-American (at least in the foreign policy sense). Their latest album, For Blood and Empire focuses particularly on the War on Terror and the Bush administration’s mishandling of it.

With song titles like: “Depleted Uranium is a War Crime” and “The W.T.O. Kills Farmers”, you can see why Anti-flag isn’t on regular rotation on commercial radio. They are also fond of saying fuck, something which obviously doesn’t endear them to the media. These songs, however demonstrate a deeper knowledge of these issues than the haircuts of the band members would suggest, and the seriousness of the content probably justifies the profanity (they’re talking about war crimes, corporate greed, dead soldiers and freedom of speech, and their anger is understandable).

The clip that follows is of their song “This is the End (for you my friend)”. It’s the most mainstream song from Blood and Empire and will give you a taste of their style. Anti-flag are not for everyone, but I’m glad they’re trying to get a message out, and they will always have an invitation to tour down under while I’m President.