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ARCHIVES 1997-2007  --- ARCHIVES 2007 +
 
 

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.

"Come join the fight with ISIS and get your own enemy female sex slaves" or
"be a hero of the new Caliphate that will restore the Moslems of the world to their historical pre-eminence ove the infidel" and as a last resort,
"81 virgins await  those who die as martyrs".

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.)



barvennon@hotmail.com