Cancún conference participants insist on follows the same old route

Reading between the lines it would appear that the world learned nothing from the failed processes used in the past to negotiate an as yet unrealised global response to anthropomorphic global warming and Copenhagen COP15 2009 is being revisited at Cancún with draft documents having so much wriggle room that an unsatisfactory outcome is almost a given:

Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol

Fifteenth session Cancun, 29 November 2010. Agenda item 3

Consideration of further commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol

Revised proposal by the Chair

Statements made in connection with COP 16 / CMP 6

Ending the Australian year as we began it........

Drought in some places, floods in others, coastal erosion on the go, crop worries, rising prices, state and federal parliaments closely resembling 18th century bedlams, serial political pests and too many opinion polls - the year is ending in much the same way as it began.

Here's a little something from this week's Essential Report showing pollies travelling in circles with the Coalition now on top:

Click on image to enlarge

Borowitz homes in on Cablegate

Andy Borowitz puts the recent Wikileaks Cablegate shenanigans into humorous perspective:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In the first major policy fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures, the State Department has ordered all U.S. diplomats to “cease and desist telling the truth until further notice.”

“We are working overtime to try to make sure that leaks like these don’t happen again,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters. “But until we’ve got the leaks plugged, it’s incumbent on all our diplomats to put on their lying caps.”

Secretary Clinton noted that since many US diplomats are major political donors with long careers in the business world, “this shouldn’t be a reach for them.”

But for those career diplomats who came up through the Foreign Service, the State Department will be holding a series of “truth avoidance seminars,” led by executives of Goldman Sachs.

Additionally, Secretary Clinton said, the State Department would install on all diplomats’ computers new software called CandorShield™, which automatically translates truthful language into a less embarrassing truth-free version.

For example, she explained, the software would translate the phrase “two-faced weasels” into “trusted Pakistani allies” and would delete all references to French President Nicolas Sarkozy as “Monsieur Shorty Pants.”

Elsewhere, Interpol issued this statement about its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: “We will find Julian Assange, and then we will hire him.”

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Some unexpected Christmas carolling

A big thank-you to Alphabet Photography

and You Tube.................

Better access to film and TV programming for all Australians

From Regional Arts NSW December-January e-newletter:

In November Accessible Arts released an article on two rulings by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) which will substantially increase access to regular film and television programming for Australians who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or with low vision. In May 2010 the AHRC ruled that cinemas must meet their legislative requirements to provide access for Australians who are Deaf, hard of hearing, blind or with low vision. This was followed in October by the Commission's refusal to grant a temporary exemption from captioning of pay TV programs to ASTRA, the peak body for pay TV representing 34 broadcasters who operate 91 subscription TV channels. Sancha Donald, CEO of Accessible Arts, welcomes the AHRC rulings. "Viewing these decisions together I think we can gauge a shift in the way access to entertainment is being thought about," said Ms Donald. Accessible Arts has a variety of Disability Awareness and Access Training packages tailored to meet the needs of arts organisations, festivals and venues available online at http://www.aarts.net.au/training/

What does France and Australia have in common besides national wine industries?

It has long been thought a national shame that in Australia the indigenous population is over represented in the prison system.
This is seen as indicative of both a failure of society to respond appropriately to Aboriginal social, cultural and economic needs and, as possible evidence of bias within the justice system.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics publication Corrective Services, Australia, Mar 2009 states:

Nationally, the December quarter 2008 average daily imprisonment rate was 166 prisoners per 100,000 adult population, an increase of 2% from the December quarter 2007 (163 prisoners). The Northern Territory had the highest imprisonment rate (629 prisoners per 100,000 adult population), followed by Western Australia (240) and New South Wales (184).....

The national average daily Indigenous imprisonment rate in the December quarter 2008 was 2,240 per 100,000 adult Indigenous population, an increase of 1% from the previous quarter, and a 3% increase from the December quarter 2007.
The highest Indigenous imprisonment rate was recorded in Western Australia (3,811 Indigenous prisoners per 100,000 adult Indigenous population), followed by New South Wales (2,423) and South Australia (2,413). The lowest Indigenous imprisonment rate was recorded in Tasmania (614), followed by the Australian Capital Territory (1,004)......
The national age standardised Indigenous imprisonment rate from the annual Prisoner Census conducted at June 2008 was over 13 times higher (1,769 per 100,000 adult Indigenous population) than the rate for non-Indigenous persons (133 per 100,000 adult non-Indigenous population).

In France it would appear that persons from Islamic backgrounds who make up only an estimated ten per cent of the total population may also be over-represented within the justice system (possibly based in some measure on institutionalised bias) as this observer admits that the French prison population is thought to be over fifty per cent Muslim.

From Wikileaks Cablegate website:

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 PARIS 005539

SIPDIS  E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/16/2015..... 

SUBJECT: PUTTING OUT BRUSHFIRES: FRANCE AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM .......
¶1. (C) Summary:....According to recent press reports, the RG,
France's police intelligence service, estimates that 6 million Muslims
live in France, approximately 10 percent of the population.......
¶2. (C) In the Muslim community of some six million, 70
percent are estimated to be of North African (Algeria,
Morocco, and Tunisia) origin. Other sizable groups include
Turks and Pakistanis. Within this overall population, the RG
estimates (according to recent press reports) that roughly
9,000 could be considered extremist, or, just over one-tenth
of one percent.....
¶3. (U) Two specific sources of Islamic extremism are of
special interest. First is the French prison system, with a
population that is estimated at over 50 percent Muslim.....