Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts

Sunday 1 January 2017

How some people started off 2017


American actor Charlie Sheen commenced 2017 with this tweet under his belt:



Saying what half the world's leaders are probably privately hoping.

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Chair of the Northern NSW Local Health District Board, Hon. Dr Brian Patrick Victor PEZZUTTI, R.F.D., M.B.B.S.(Syd.), F.F.A.R.A.C.S., F.A.N.Z.C.A. is apparently starting off 2017 by contesting a penalty notice he received:

Image via that avid court watcher Clarrie Rivers

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Liberal Democrat Senator for NSW David Ean Leyonhjelm entered 2017 at war with the South Australia Government and a particular News Corp journalist apparently because of unflattering media coverage:


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Twice-elected U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama started 2017 with only 19 days left in office but with an obvious determination to go out with a bang:

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One Nation Senator for Queensland Malcolm Ieuan Roberts is determined to carry on with his unbalanced United Nations bashing. WARNING his link s to known false news website:
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The Turnbull Government came into the new year with yet another broken funding promise hanging around its neck:


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Il Papa has some explaining to do this year after his annual Christmas revels did the rounds on Twitter:
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Saturday 27 July 2013

The more things are said to change for women, the more things stay the same

AFP, Kabul 13 July 2013
A court in Kabul ordered the early release of three people convicted over the torture of a child bride, an official confirmed Saturday, in a move denounced by activists as a blow for women's rights.

Sahar Gul, who was 15 at the time her ordeal, was burned, beaten and had her fingernails pulled out by her husband and in-laws after she refused to become a prostitute in a case that shocked the world.

She was found in the basement of her husband's house in north eastern Baghlan province in late 2011, having been locked in a toilet for six months prior to her rescue by police.

Her father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law were sentenced to prison for 10 years each for torture and attempted murder, though her husband remains at large.

“But after the court reviewed their case, it found out that they were only involved in family violence,” Supreme Court spokesman Abdullah Attaee told AFP.

The court did not have enough evidence against them, he said, adding a fresh prosecution would be launched .

“For now, the court has ruled that the time they have spent in jail is enough for them,” he said, though he could not say when the ruling was made or whether the trio had yet been freed.

Afghan rights groups expressed indignation over the early releases, calling it a step back in time for Afghanistan's women......

Saturday 20 July 2013

I Fight Like A Girl



Destroy The Joint@JointDestroyer
2:25 PM - 3 Jul 13

Friday 14 December 2012

Sunday 18 November 2012

Doing something nice for your daughter

 
In an age where many male politicians are rampantly misogynist or homophobic and some religious male authority figures are unrepentant, predatory paedophiles, it is nice to be reminded that men can also be ordinary loving fathers to their children.
 
See Flip The Pronouns to learn how one dad turned his young daughter into a hero who rescued her little brother.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

"I suspect it may be dawning on a few white men as I write this that giving women the vote was a seriously bad idea."

 
Jane Caro at Crikey 9 November 2012:
 
Barack Obama won 55% of the female vote, meaning it was women who decided this year's presidential election. Politicians who refuse to take women's concerns and freedoms seriously are now on notice.
I suspect it may be dawning on a few white men as I write this that giving women the vote was a seriously bad idea.
Suddenly the constituency that used to rule the world — because they ruled America — are getting a sense of just what it feels like to be a minority group. And I don't think they like it much.
According to numbers that are being crunched as I write, Barack Obama outpolled Mitt Romney in every group except older white men. Based on these admittedly preliminary figures, the President won 55% of the female vote, 93% of the African American vote and 71% of the Latino vote. He also outpolled Romney in every age group up to 45 and won the votes of most Americans who live in cities.
But if these early figures are correct, it is women who have really decided this election. That's because they are 53% of the population, while blacks are 13%, Latinos 10% and Asians 3%. Even younger people only add up to 46% of the American population.
In other words, women voters in the US have become the kingmakers and let's hope one day soon, the queenmakers.

Monday 6 August 2012

Quotable quotes










{Rabbett Run}

“I am outraged! Only I may rig polls!”
{Fake Andrew Bolt}

“BBC BREAKING NEWS: @MittRomney deported from Britain after discovery that UK already has its own home-grown gaffe machine in @LouiseMensch {Brendan May}

“Explaining to the children what a ventriloquist was, he {Chris Gulaptis} compared it to watching himself perform in Parliament.”
{The Daily Examiner 2nd August 2012}

"Eww. Just tuned in and Tony Abbott's talking about having read 50 Shades but preferring Bride Stripped Bare. #tooearly" {Latika Bourke}

Thursday 5 April 2012

Melbourne and Monash university academics help Journal of Medical Ethics create the perfect storm


Ethics debates often go where angels fear to tread in order to define the range of moral dilemmas and this appears to be one sensitive example.

Abstract
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
Full article After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? at the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME)  on February 23, 2012.
Responses to this JME article published online:

My opinion on controversial paper published about infanticide
Manuel Menes
J Med Ethics published online March 28, 2012
Response to After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
Philip Dawson
J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012
Singering from the same hymn sheet... [CORRECTED VERSION]
Matthew J Wilson
J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012
Six propositions on end-of-life decisions in neonatology
Sofia Moratti
J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012
After- birth abortion and infanticide: the controversy lingers on
Robert Kar Ngai Yuen
J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012
Re:After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer
Elvira Parravicini,
Federica Fromm, Giuseppe Paterlini, Patrizia Vergani
J Med Ethics published online March 19, 2012
A human being's right to live is a moral axiom
Agata Mizerska
J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012
Re:Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice
Coral D Carmichael
J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012
After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer
Dina Nerozzi
J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012
Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
Maria Gabriella Gatti
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Consistency Required
Cadi S Palmer
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Slippery Slope Slipped Upon
Mel Beckman
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Accepting Infanticide
Ellen Simoni
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Defining a person is morally crucial
Andrew R Cress
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
After birth abortion
Fiona E Beavan
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Where there is no love...
Josephine M Treloar
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Newborns, really?
Christina C
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
The fetus and the newborn, what is the difference.
Sheena L Queen
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
What about the dad?
Nancy M Heitschmidt
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Re:Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice
Grzegorz Nowakowski
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Definition of terms
Randall L. Norstrem
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Can Moral Value Be Quantified?
J. O. Lay
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Adoption as a solution
Melanie M. Rudquist
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Competing interests and infanticide
Dirk C. Baltzly
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Re:Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice
maureen mckane
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Infanticide and termination - an inexorable progression of logic
charles soper
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
A Modest Proposal
Bruce M Anderson
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Can after-birth abortion do harm?
Joshua P. Cohen
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
Ronald E. Ledek
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
Tom Koch
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
A Modest Proposal
Alan W.H. Bates
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
Tracey M Upchurch
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
The fallacious argument of 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?'
Martin Rhonheimer
J Med Ethics published online March 14, 2012
A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?
David J Pohlmann
J Med Ethics published online March 5, 2012
Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice
Tim M Reynolds
J Med Ethics published online March 2, 2012

Sunday 6 November 2011

A pictorial guide to why the 99% in America is so angry



On 2 November the UN 2011 Human Development Report,  which covers 187 countries, was released. It showed that Australia continues to rank second only to Norway on the global human development index with regard to equality within society, after adjustments were made for internal inequalities in health, education and income.
It shares equal first place with Italy when calculating life expectancy for those born in 2011 and, comes in third after Sweden and Norway in the overall life satisfaction category - a
placing it shares with a number of other countries.
On the issue of gender inequality Australia ranks at eighteen.

However, in the United States of America it is another story all together, with is ranking across the same indices resulting in an overall ranking of twenty-three.

From Business Insider this series of historical graphs demonstrates this level of inequality:

In fact, income inequality has gotten so extreme here that the US now ranks 93rd in the world in "income equality." China's ahead of us. So is India. So is Iran.

Wages as a percentage of the U.S. economy

Sunday 16 October 2011

It's World Food Day Today, 16 October 2011


It is World Food Day today and it’s no surprise to find that this event is supported by the multinational biotech industry and agricultural sectors which promote GMO crops.

To counteract this I suggest……………………...

Send an email of support to Millions Against Monsanto here.

Sign up for Mothers Against Monsanto weekly newsletter here and join the network here.

Contact your Federal MP and tell him or her that you demand a review of the Australian Government’s position on GMO labelling. Contact details here and here.

Write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper stating how you feel about genetically modified crops and foods.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Thursday 29 September 2011

Best quotes of the month



“share traders behave more recklessly and are more manipulative than psychopaths”
{Spiegel Online International on 27th September 2011}

Free speech is the cornerstone of genuine democracy, but when writers publish disinformation dressed up as fact, lies as truth, slander as objective evaluation and call it free speech, they are devaluing its very essence and betraying all those who've fought for it.’
{Dr Rosie Scott quoted by Dr. Anita Heiss in her statement on STATEMENT ON EATOCK VS HWT 27th September 2011}

Monday 12 September 2011

Religious people are nicer than the rest of us?


Simon Smart’s opening sentence in his The Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece of 9 September 2011, God's truth, believers are nicer,  anticipates reader reaction:

I'm getting ready to duck, but don't shoot the messenger. The results are in: religious people are nicer.

He goes on to say about the book American Grace: How Religion Unites and Divides Us:

Their most conspicuously controversial finding is that religious people make better citizens and neighbours.

It isn’t until the thirteenth paragraph that Smart (a director of the Centre for Public Christianity) admits that religious belief itself is not what is driving this so-called ‘niceness’ and, he entirely neglects other pertinent  aspects of the book.

This is what David Campbell (co-author of the book) said on the subject on 16 December 2010:

One is, we have a lot of evidence in our book that religious Americans are happier and, for the most part, better citizens and neighbors than their more secular counterparts. And what do we mean by better citizens and neighbors? Well, they’re more likely to volunteer. They’re more likely to give money to charity. They’re more likely to help out in informal ways their neighbors and those around them.
I want to emphasize that that’s not just religious people giving to religious charities or volunteering for religious groups. The secular volunteering and the secular giving of folks who are religious is actually higher than folks who are secular. And so that’s the part of this chapter that gets religious people all excited. Oh, great, there we go; we’re better than everybody.
But it turns out the story’s not quite that simple because the explanation for why we find those high levels of giving and volunteering and just general good citizenship and good neighborliness among religious folks is not what you might expect. It’s not what they believe. We can find no evidence, in tracing 25 different religious beliefs, no evidence that any one of them explains this relationship between religious — religious folks who give a lot.
Instead, it’s their congregation or, more specifically, it’s the friends they have at church. So it’s not just having a lot of friends. Anybody who has a lot of friends is actually more likely to do these good citizenship sort of things. It’s whether or not they have a lot of friends within their religious congregation, which suggests that perhaps what’s going on could be replicated in secular organizations, although the sort of secular group that would replicate what a congregation does is pretty rare. We’ve actually not found many examples of it, but it’s useful fodder for discussion.
Which one can see changes the emphasis somewhat as it denies a strong correlation between actual religious belief and volunteering/giving/good citizenship.

John Green, during that same Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, observed:

The religion that Campbell and Putnam describe seems to be very good at making people happy, but it doesn’t seem to be particularly good at making for a more just and equitable society. It may very well be that the sociability that surrounds religion has real limitations and what it may really be creating is a private-regarding society rather than a public-regarding society. From that point of view, both people on the progressive side who advocate social justice and people on the more traditional side who advocate morality may be on the outs because both of those approaches to religion in public life demand public justice of one kind or another.

This highlights another area neglected by Simons – the close relationship between those stating religious belief (particularly Evangelical Christian belief) and the U.S. Republican Party as demonstrated in this Putnam and Campbell graph, when read in conjunction with other statistics in their book:


While the strong emphasis on perceived religious values within American politics and the decline in religious belief since 1973 are similarly ignored.

Even though it would appear that the politicization of religion is possibly causing a significant number of Americans to deny any religious belief because of this general association with conservative right-wing politics and, this would suggest that ‘niceness’ is not always associated with professed Christianity.

The fact that religion plays a disproportionate part in the American political culture is perhaps borne out by  Mark Chaves’ paper (later a book) The Decline of American Religion,  which also notes a growth in the number of people who state they have no religious belief and either slow growth or no growth in the number who state they hold religious beliefs.

He also observes that; Involvement in religious congregations, which mainly means attendance at worship services, is softening.

In the original newspaper article under discussion here, Smart attempts to draw a correlation between his ‘nicer’ Americans and Australians professing a religion. He cites a 2004 report by the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Research and Philanthropy in Australia, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics as supporting this position.

However the 2004 study  clearly states:

International research indicates that people who are religious are more likely to give and to give more than those who are not. However, this effect does not necessarily hold when giving to religion is excluded.

In fact it shows that, when one excludes the amount of money given by Australian churchgoers to their own religion, the mean total and frequency of donations across the board markedly decline. While a higher frequency of church attendance also indicates that a person is less likely to give to secular charities/community groups.

When it comes to volunteering there is also little to choose between believers and non-believers, with the exception that believers who volunteer in the secular sector tend to do so for more hours..

So are people holding religious beliefs generous, more altruistic and more involved in civic life as Simon says? Perhaps they might possibly be towards each other and within their relatively closed church communties. However, while probably more visible to researchers, what they are not is generally much better people than those found in the wider population.

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Britain 'terrorized by an underclass'. One of Her Majesty's subjects shows yet another ugly side of the United Kingdom




Britain is a riot - 3 Translation(s) | dotSUB

Pat Condell  in full flight, advocating the withdrawal of human rights from convicted rioters.
Is this man a distant relative of Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt?

Saturday 20 August 2011

Ryan puts a smile on the dial of oldies who remember posties delivering twice daily and once on Saturday



Still smiling at this from Ryan O’Connell in Seven Things A Twentysomething Can’t Do……

“1. Mail something
Whenever I have to mail something, I have a mini panic attack. First, I have to get stamps, which seems super daunting because I have no idea where they’re sold. Can I get one at my vegan co-op later or maybe the guy I’m sleeping with from Ok Cupid has some at his apartment. IDK! Then there is the terrifying dilemma of acquiring an envelope. Once you manage to get these two things, you have to somehow put them together and handwrite things. Lastly, you have to search for something called a mailbox. I’ve heard about mailboxes in movies but I’ve yet to see one in real life. Honestly, flying Virgin to give someone something seems more feasible these days. Like I’ve heard of the band The Postal Service but I didn’t know that it was based on a real thing, okay?”

Sunday 31 July 2011

When is a Christian not a Christian? When he embarrasses the flock of course!


The disconnected Labelling Debate score stands at
Breivik 'the Christian': 1 O'Reilly 'the Christian': 0.


This is Breivik writing in his manifesto:

Q: Do I have to believe in God or Jesus in order to become a Justiciar Knight?
A: As this is a cultural war, our definition of being a Christian does not necessarily constitute that you are required to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus. Being a Christian can mean many things;
- That you believe in and want to protect Europe’s Christian cultural heritage.
The European cultural heritage, our norms (moral codes and social structures included), our traditions and our modern political systems are based on Christianity - Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and the legacy of the European enlightenment (reason is the primary source and legitimacy for authority).
It is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus in order to fight for our Christian cultural heritage and the European way. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the
enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a “Christian fundamentalist theocracy” (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want).
So no, you don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian-atheist(an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter)).
The PCCTS, Knights Templar is therefore not a religious organisation but rather a Christian “culturalist” military order.

Religion: Christian, Protestant but I support a reformation of Protestantism leading to it being absorbed by Catholisism. The typical “Protestant Labour Church” has to be deconstructed as its creation was an attempt to abolish the Church Religious: I went from moderately to agnostic to moderately religious

My parents, being rather secular wanted to give me the choice in regards to religion.
At the age of 15 I chose to be baptised and confirmed in the Norwegian State Church. I consider myself to be 100% Christian.

Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe.


This is FoxNews Impact host Bill O’Reilly in runaway denial:


Now, on Sunday, the "New York Times" headlined "As Horrors Emerged, Norway Charges Christian extremist". A number of other news organizations like the "LA Times" and Reuters also played up the Christian angle. But Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder. The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith.

Also Breivik is not attached to any church, and in fact has criticized the Protestant belief system in general. The Christian angle came from a Norwegian policeman not from any fact finding. Once again, we can find no evidence, none, that this killer practiced Christianity in any way.
So why is the angle being played up? Two reasons: First, the liberal media wants to make an equivalency between the actions of Breivik and the Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh and al Qaeda. The left wants you to believe that fundamentalists Christians are a threat just like crazy jihadists are.


http://youtu.be/Z3_DEp--J8c

Extended YouTube compilation of O'Reilly commentary:

http://youtu.be/mAxf3aL1WmU

The Young Turks response to O'Reilly:

http://youtu.be/dl6lOP_BfLg

Sunday 17 July 2011

One Man's Opinion: News Corporation is sorry.....

Advertisement placed in The Guardian newspaper in Britain and other media
during the week ending 16 July 2011
Click to enlarge

Rupert Murdoch and his sons Lachlan and James in happier days

What is the Murdoch family and the News Corporation media conglomerate it dominates sorry for?
Why, for being caught of course.


Who will the family and corporation blame for the unfolding scandal? Inevitably, everyone and anyone other than members of the Murdoch family.

Is this the end of Rupert Murdoch's political influence?
Only if Britain, the United States and Australia all refuse to support the argument that the international media empire he heads is too big to be allowed to fail.


Who or what will be the losers if Murdoch's political balls aren't removed?
Without a doubt, democratic institutions in every county in which News Corp, its subsidiaries and affiliates, operate.

But News Corp isn't behaving badly in Australia is it?
Oh yes it is. In the absence of world war, widespread civil conflict, country-wide famine or desperate national financial crisis driving a need, the Murdoch press has broadly stated an aim of destroying one minor democratic political party and repeatedly calls for an early election (beginning within days of the 2010 ballot results) with the aim of regime change at federal level.
It deliberately misquotes and misrepresents those public figures or scientists who do not support its skewed views.
It is known to have attempted to charge at least one political party for favourable published comment (Page 1 & Page 2) by its journalists during an election campaign and patently wouldn't recognise its own (or indeed any other) Professional Conduct Policy if it fell over a tattered copy on the footpath.

A bit of background courtesy of The Guardian UK and Granny Herald AUS:
Phone hacking: Murdoch goes on defensive over 'total lies' by MPs
Les Hinton sacrificed, but the worst is yet to come for News Corp
Rebekah Brooks's resignation letter
Phone hacking: Met police put pressure on Guardian over coverage
Phone hacking: Murdoch paid US anti-bribery law lobbyists
Rebekah Brooks's belated resignation intensifies spotlight on James Murdoch
News of the World phone hacking - interactive timeline
Murdoch's strange hunt for a handout


Pics found at Google Images

UPDATE:

Staying true to the lack of ethics displayed by its parent company, News Ltd's Herald Sun published this incitement to murder in a comment section, according to @heraldsunreader: