Amnesty International (Australia) sending butterflies to Rudd in support of justice for WW2 'comfort women'

Amnesty International (Australia) is running a campaign in support of the rights of World War Two comfort women and invites people to create and send a butterfly to the Prime Minister:

In the year 2009, you'd think governments would have well and truly faced the atrocities of World War II. Yet up to 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers have still not received an adequate apology - let alone compensation - from the Japan Government.

Their chosen symbol of hope is the butterfly.
We're going to cover the web in beautiful butterflies in the run up to August 15th - the anniversary of WWII's end - to highlight this hidden tragedy.

Each butterfly will represent a message to the Australian PM to pass a motion urging the Japan Government to recognise and compensate survivors. In all this time, Australia is one of the few Allied countries that hasn't stood up and called the Japanese Government to account.

Monsanto thinks there is something 'magical' about GM pollination of non-GM crops.....

There is no doubt about it, Monsanto & Co employees are a scary group when they start to blog.

Earlier this month in a post titled I am Monsanto one of these happy clappy souls decided to pose a rather sarcastic hypothetical question; Did you know that pollen from our genetically-modified crops will magically migrate into another farmer's field and contaminate his crop?

Apparently (if one is a Monsanto employee) the well-known natural processes known as pollen drift and cross fertilisation are not within the bounds of our world - for GM traits to be found in non-GM crops or GM plants to be discovered in non-GM fields then something otherworldly has to have occurred.

This will come as a complete surprise to biologists and agronomists:

Managing "Pollen Drift" to Minimize Contamination of Non-GMO Corn, AGF-153

Gene flow through pollen drift: a scientific perspective

Pollen drift and the bystanding farmer: harmonising patent law and common law on the technological frontier

However Monsanto employees are not finished with spin on the company blog Monsanto according to Monsanto.

In another post called Agent Orange and Monsanto the case is made for a benign and patriotic Monsanto participating in deliberate dioxin contamination on a large scale because; The U.S. government, under the Defense Production Act, directed seven companies – including Monsanto, which was then primarily a chemical company – to manufacture the material.

Yes, the President made me do it appears to be the argument here.

A government contract defence that U.S. courts have not apparently fully supported, as there was a 1984 case in which in has been reported that Judge Weinstein encouraged settlement and eventually directed Monsanto to pay over a large percentage of an $180 million out of court settlement in favour of American veterans.

However, in a classic look-here-not-there manoeuvre Monsanto directs our attention to the unsuccessful 2004 litigation by Vietnamese veterans in which it was also a co-defendant.

All the while remaining silent on the fact that sales of Agent Orange and Lasso were basically what kept Monsanto's agricultural chemical division in the black during the 1960s and the Viet Nam War.

Now I have been wondering of late why it is that Monsanto employees are so cavalier with how they use available fact and historical record.

I refuse to believe that their obvious youth (in comparison to North Coast Voices authors) is a significant factor because older people do not have a monopoly on commonsense or knowledge.

So I am left with the possibility that Monsanto's corporate culture is so intense that employees are totally indoctrinated by the end of their first year with the firm and thereafter are incapable of recognising that Monsanto & Co hasn't been a uniformly ethical company from its inception up to the more recent past.

Graphic from arizona.edu

UPDATE:

In June 2009 the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by the Secretary of the Dept of Agriculture et al (including Monsanto Company as Defendant-intervenor-Appellant) and upheld a lower court injunction against the USDA's deregulation determination re GMO perennial alfalfa.

Geertson Seed Farms et al had sought relief from the US courts, in part on the grounds that there was a need to wait until there had been sufficient investigation of the potential for pollen drift and cross-pollination.

FactCheck highlights disappointing Obama health care spin

As one of the many millions of outsiders looking in on American society it is hard to argue against a much needed reform of the U.S. health care system.

As often as I complain about the failings of Australia's universal hospital/health care system, I am always grateful for its existence when I compare it to somewhere like America.

One has to wish President Obama well in his effort to expand health insurance so that it acts more like an albeit very limited safety net for U.S. citizens.

However, on 22 July 2009 Obama put his position on the current health debate at a press conference in much the same way he has conducted his part in debate on many other issues and FactCheck has again caught him out:

President Obama tried to sell his health care overhaul in prime time, mangling some facts in the process. He also strained to make the job sound easier to pay for than experts predict.

• Obama promised once again that a health care overhaul "will be paid for." But congressional budget experts say the bills they've seen so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.
  
• He said the plan "that I put forward" would cover at least 97 percent of all Americans. Actually, the plan he campaigned on would cover far less than that, and only one of the bills now being considered in Congress would do that.
  
• He said the "average American family is paying thousands" as part of their premiums to cover uncompensated care for the uninsured, implying that expanded coverage will slash insurance costs. But the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation puts the cost per family figure at $200.
• Obama claimed his budget "reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion" compared with where it was headed before. Not true. Even figures from his own budget experts don't support that. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut.
  
• The president said that the United States spends $6,000 more on average than other countries on health care. Actually, U.S. per capita spending is about $2,500 more than the next highest-spending country. Obama's figure was a White House-calculated per-family estimate.

Full FactCheck article Facts vs. Obama

President Obama's remarks at an Ohio 'town hall' meeting concerning proposed health care reform, 23 July 2009.
DemConWatch: pre-delivery transcript and video of President Obama's speech on proposed health care reform, Press Conference, 22 July 2009.
US President Obama's Q&A with reporters: Press Conference 22 July 2009
President Obama's Weekly Address: Health Care Reform Cannot Wait, 18 July 2009.

Byron Bay Writers Festival, 7-9 August 2009

The Byron Bay Writers Festival (established in 1997) is coming around again from Friday 7 August through to Sunday 9 August 2009.

The festival kicks off with Friday's poetry competition and progresses though a packed weekend,

with everyone from Tom Keneally, Roy Masters, Peter Singer, Geoffrey Robinson, David Williamson, Anne Summers, Kerry O'Brien, Bob Ellis, Wendy Harmer, Rachel Perkins, though to author and blogger Irfan Yusuf taking part.

Full festival program can be found here.

Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at accident and emergency? Been on an elective surgery list for a year?

Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at hospital accident and emergency? Overwhelmed by the thought of a day-long trip to see a specialist? Upset by the fact that a family member is hundreds or thousands of kilometres away receiving in-patient treatment? Concerned that you won't survive a life-threatening disease because poorer health outcomes sometimes correlate with life in the regions? Indignant that you can get elective surgery within two months if you have the money to pay but are on a waiting list for twelve months if you are poor? Think your local district hospital won't be there at the end of the year if this area health service cost cutting keeps up?

Well these are pretty common worries for many Australians living in rural and regional areas. But never fear - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is out there clutching his copy of A healthier future for all Australians - Final Report June 2009.

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission may say that; The health of our people is critical to our national economy, our national security and, arguably, our national identity. Our own health and the health of our families are key determinants of our wellbeing. Health is one of the most important issues for the Australian people, and it is an issue upon which they rightly expect strong leadership from governments.

However don't expect significant federal-state consultation on the report's recommendations before the next federal election.

The Liberals and Nationals won't add anything constructive to consideration of the public health service as they don't want timely consultation because it will take away an election campaign stick that it can use to beat the Rudd Government about the head and, Labor won't be rushing forward either because it will be easier to continue promising golden health reform in the lead-up to polling day than it will be to defend leaks about inevitable federal-state consultation hiccups.

As for those medieval guild relics, the 'gentlemen's' unions covering general practitioners and medical specialists - well they won't be doing more than blowing obstructive hot air until someone promises them that there will be a larger user pays component favouring their pockets in any national health system.

So. Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at hospital accident and emergency? Overwhelmed by the thought of a day-long trip to see a specialist? Upset by the fact that a family member is hundreds or thousands of kilometres away receiving in-patient treatment? Concerned that you won't survive a life-threatening disease because poorer health outcomes sometimes correlate with life in the regions?Indignant that you can get elective surgery within two months if you have the money to pay but are on a waiting list for twelve months if you are poor? Think your local district hospital won't be there at the end of the year if this area health service cost cutting keeps up? Get used to it and hope that you survive until that shining day when Kevin Rudd finally 'fixes' the public health system.

A healthier future for all Australians - Final Report June 2009:

Executive Summary

Recommendations

First Dog and Ned the Bear with a few home truths about the Moon and Mars...

Sometimes when the mainstream media is in full flight commemorative flight as it was last week over the 40th anniversary of the U.S. landing on the Moon, one can sometimes feel out of sync with supposed public sentiment when thoughts and memories don't appear to coincide with mass recollection.

However, in this instance all those not in lock step were rescued by First Dog on the Moon and Ned the Bear.

Click on images to enlarge

Thank the gods for Australian cartoonists.

Cartoons from First Dog at Crikey and Ned the Bear

Regional arts - what do you want to see happen in your area? Survey

Regional Arts Australia is conducting a survey this month:

What do you want for the arts in your community?

Do you want more creative and artistic opportunities in your local community? How can the arts play a stronger role in your region? Regional Arts Australia encourages you, your colleagues and friends to help shape the creative future of regional communities as part of a national survey. The survey results will be combined with the outcomes from a series of public consultations to find out what communities really want and to help regional Arts Australia determine its future directions. Click HERE to take the survey.