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FEBRUARY
2016
LDP 2016 NATIONAL CONFERENCE
This
website
has
a history since 1999 with Libertarianism. See this page on
this site.
At
the
conference
Jennifer
Marohasy spoke at length about "homogenization" of temperature
records. Modelling of the global temperature is one of my
interests, (Watch this
space for the model when I get around to publishing) so I paid
attention. Without going into detail, she raised questions which
the homogenizers should answer. However in the present political
climate, she reported it was difficult to publish in a peer reviewed
journal. I suggest PLOS.
Ex-NSW
Transport
minister DaCosta also spoke. He got a writeup in the
Sydne rag (Herald). For something about the Greens. What grabbed
my attention was his comment that light rail was retrograde. That
is not the half of it. Nobody is anticipating driverless cars,
due to hit the road within a year or two. Combine that with the
"UBER" concept of trip rental, and car hire rates of $25/day unlimited
Km and it can be seen that it will becom cheaper to rent an Uber
driverless car than to catch public transport, or even own a car
(especially when parking issues are included.)
So
no,
I do not see that any investment in light rail to be of any benefit
whatsoever. Perhaps high speed rail would be a goer?
During
lunch
I had a short discussion with David Leyonhjelm and raised
the issue of
direct government as exemplified by FLUX.
David
had
not
heard of that party. He mentioned that it sounded like the
"Senator Online" party. He then explained the difficulties of
participatory online democracy arising from the difficulty of informing
voters
of the rapidly changing negotiations.
I
mentioned
the
Swiss
example, ad libbing a Swiss who explained how it worked.
The government wanted to buy these fighter
planes for $20 billion. We didn't want that, so we (the Swiss
people) organised a vote & voted it down. Then they tried a
different amount, and again we stopped them.
David
said
words
to
the effect "Oh, you mean Citizen Initiated
Referendum. Well that is part of our policy." At which
point he
excused himself and left.
I
would
have
been
happier if he had said "Citizen initiated
Legislation". A referendum is used to change the
constitution. I want we the people to have the right to
legislate, or stop legislation, and by a simple initiating procedure
followed by a majority vote of (say)
30% of the electorate, not a 67% vote of the whole (100%) of the
electorate. In the meantime individual members could respond to
their electorate's wishes.
OPEN
LETTER
TO
ASSANGE
Julian. Do not
give up. Unfortunately, as you probably realize, the Clinton
woman suffers bad press from your exploits. Let us hope that "The
Donald" makes it. He might be more forgiving.
The
UN
found
that you were effectively imprisoned. Those
bleats by
UK
and
Swede pollies
that "you are not imprisoned" are seen
to be self serving. Their pet UN committee apparently was not
weighted their way quite enough. Those with political power have
mass media barons by the
cojones. Because have you noticed circulation figures? And
Cable is fast losing out to Netflix. So Hillary always gets a
favourable press. Only Donald can stand up to the
establishment. He does not kowtow to the mass media.
I
believe
that
there
exists a strong possibility (still < 30%) that if you
went to Sweden, that the US would not apply for extradition.
Those odds have improved because you have nominated that as your reason
for asylum.
REFUGEES
Human
Rights
Commissioner
Gillian
Trigg (A Melbourner who decided to stop
"camping out") wants to allow refugee boat children into
Australia. She vehemently opposes the Nauru solution.
Europe's
"Schengen"
area
has
a population that exceeds 400 million and accepts
around 1,000,000 refugees annually. We are all aware (I hope)
from the photographs of drowned children on Grecian shores of the cost
of that migration. That is around 1/400 nett migration rate.
Australia
has
a
population
of around 23 million and a nett overseas migration
that has averaged more than 200,000 over the last eight years.
That is around 1/80 nett migration rate.
I
feel
sure
that
Gillian deplores the drowned children in Greece. I
just hope that if she gets her wishes re Nauru, that those children
deaths do not happen on Australian shores.
I,
personally,
would
hate to feel that I was a murderer, even if my
intentions were good. If we must act, we should learn to
calculate & choose the lesser of two evils.
Perhaps Gillian could
look into the case of refugee Assange? He is just as much a
refugee seeking asylum from US Gaols as are those refugees from the
middle east and south Asia seeking asylum from poverty and undemocratic
regimes.
ISIS
The
real question is, "Is ISIS the
baddies?"
Isis
enmity towards Shia Iran and Iraq and Hassad would endear them to the
Saudi. Their conflict with Assad supporter Hizbollah would earn
them credit with the Israelis, and their enmity towards the Kurds
should enamour them of the Turks.
The
Western media issue with ISIS is their extremely successful media
recruitment message.
Regrettably
those messages (delivered as an
accompaniment to 15 minute clips of beheadings and posturings etc)
do not sit well with our not very bright PC media writers If they
were bright they would know that Assad and the revolutionaries are just
as offensively murderous as ISIS. They just do not publish their
exploits.
The
last thing the US would do is invade Syria or Iraq to stop ISIS.
It will be interesting to watch how the US and EU manage the Russian
intervention against ISIS. (Although admittedly, EU has a problem with
refugees, and would do just about anything to have peace, no matter how
vicious.)