Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Psychology of fire survival
December 1 is the first day of summer and in some areas of the country, that heralds bushfire season. Just under two years ago the Black Saturday bushfires swept parts of Victoria killing 173 people and destroying more than 2000 homes.
A Victorian Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires looked in detail at the circumstances surrounding deaths of those 173 people. Psychologists working for the Commission also examined the mental attitudes of people who survived.
In this report: Dr Jim McLennan, Bushfire CRC, School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne; Dr Susie Burke, Australian Psychological Society.
Listen to or download story.
Listen to or download story.
jonsnowC4 Who wags the tail of Amazon,Paypal,EBay,VISA,Mastercard? Happy to make money with Wiki-leaks until..oh dear, was that uncle sam at the door?
SLAB! - Six New Songs (2010)
Stephen Dray, founder member of SLAB! has released the first new SLAB! songs in 20 years on his blog "Darker Than Deep Space".He writes:
"The songs are new. Some are heavy in the old SLAB style, some are SLAB pared down to the barest of bones.
Let me know your thoughts."
Let me know your thoughts."
MORE
(Thanx Dray & HerrB!)
Rowenna_Davis Funny how men take rape allegations seriously when their power structures are at stake. #wikileaks #assange
Julian Assange refused bail over rape allegations
Julian Assange is driven into Westminster magistrates court today. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Julian Assange was today refused bail and remanded in custody until 14 December over claims he committed sex offences in Sweden.
Julian Assange was today refused bail and remanded in custody until 14 December over claims he committed sex offences in Sweden.
Assange told City of Westminster magistrates court today that he intended to fight his extradition, setting up what could be a long legal battle.
The 39-year-old Australian turned himself in to Scotland Yard this morning to face a European arrest warrant.
He was asked by the court whether he understood that he could consent to be extradited to Sweden, where he faces allegations of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion, involving two women.
Assange said: "I understand that and I do not consent."
Assange denies the allegations, which stem from a visit to Sweden in August. He and his lawyers claim the accusations stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex", and have said the case has taken on political overtones.
Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny has rejected those claims.
Journalist John Pilger, filmmaker Ken Loach, and socialite Jemima Khan were among six people in court willing to offer surety. They all offered at least £20,000 each. An anonymous individual offered £60,000.
But District Judge Howard Riddle refused the WikiLeaks founder bail on the grounds that he had access to financial means and might fail to surrender.
The judge said these were "serious allegations against someone who has comparatively weak community ties in this country and the means and ability to abscond". But he rejected the prosecution claim that bail should be rejected on the grounds of Assange's safety.
Assange appeared in court in blue suit with a white shirt. Asked to give an address he replied: "PO Box 4080." When the question was asked again, he said: "Do you want it for correspondence or for some other reason?" Later, the WikiLeaks founder, who was accompanied by officials from the Australian high commission, gave an address in his native Australia.
Gemma Lindfield, for the Swedish authorities, told the court Assange was wanted in connection with four allegations.
She said the first complainant, Miss A, said she was victim of "unlawful coercion" on the night of 14 August in Stockholm.
The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
The second charge alleged Assange "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used.
The third charge claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on 18 August "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity".
The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on 17 August without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.
A European arrest warrant issued by the Swedish authorities was received by officers at the Metropolitan police extradition unit last night. An earlier warrant, issued last month, was not valid as officials had failed to fill in the form properly.
Assange has been at the centre of an international row since WikiLeaks released a huge tranche of US embassy cables, in conjunction with five news organisations including the Guardian, at the beginning of last week.
The sex offence allegations are a separate case. "This case is not about WikiLeaks," Riddle told the court.
WikiLeaks faces increasing problems continuing to operate. Today, Visa said it had suspended all payments to the organisation "pending further investigation", while MasterCard said it was "taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products".
Earlier today, Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, welcomed Assange's arrest. Speaking to reporters on a visit to US troops in Afghanistan, Gates said: "I hadn't heard that, but that sounds like good news to me."
Assange defended the leak of the embassy cables in an article in the Australian today, saying: "The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth."
World leaders would love the key to this Melbourne PO box... but WikiLeaks won't have it for much longer
Julian Assange: Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.
Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.
► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
HA!
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
ggreenwald Todd Gitlin & @TNR publish an entire column based on a pure falsehood: that WikiLeaks "indiscriminately" dumped cables: http://is.gd/ikV6c
Joy Division & New Order's Stephen Morris On His Top 13 Albums
Stephen Morris - he who drummed for both Joy Division and New Order, both considered hallowed deities by those of us who inhabit The Quietus bunker - is comparing the agony of selecting 13 albums for our Bakers Dozen feature to choosing records for a DJ set. "You end up realising most of the records you've got are shit anyway," he says. "And even the ones you think are good probably aren't particularly good. But if other people don't like them... well, I don't worry about that."
His choices:
John Cale - Paris 1919
Television - Marquee Moon
Neu! - Neu!
Steve Reich - Drumming
Can - Tago Mago
Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Sparks - No. 1 In Heaven
Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts
The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
DJ Shadow - Entroducing
Read what Stephen Morris had to say about his favorite albums
HERE
Justice For Assange
wikileaks RT @doctorow #imwikileaks #imassange Today Westminster Magistarte's Court meet 13:30 http://www.justiceforassange.com #wikileaks #cablegate Pizza Hut sparks race row after asking black footballers to pay before eating
Five players from League One side Bournemouth were told they would have to pay, despite a Pizza Hut employee admitting to them it was not company policy. The incident prompted the club's chairman, Eddie Mitchell, to say today that "it is upsetting to hear that people are treated differently because of the colour of their skin".
Pizza Hut today apologised, but said the incident was not "racially motivated". The restaurant called the police after the men refused to leave.
"We ordered our food. The manager came up with the bill and said: 'Would you mind paying first?' We asked if that was the policy and he said 'no'," midfielder Anton Robinson, 24, told the Bournemouth Echo.
"When we asked why he had asked us, he said: 'It's the way you look.'"
"We had a good idea what he was trying to get at. A group of white kids came in straight after us and they weren't asked to pay before they had their food. The only thing that was different was the colour of our skins."
Robinson said the group of players, including fellow first-team regulars Marvin Bartley and Liam Feeney, told the Pizza Hut employee they were professional footballers, and were happy to pay when they were finished.
"That's what normal people do," Robinson said. "He hadn't asked other customers to pay before their meals. It got a little bit heated, then he said: 'If you're not going to pay the bill now, I'm going to call the police to escort you off the premises'."
Robinson said all players were smartly dressed, telling the Echo: "When the lads go out for a meal, we know we're representing the club. We know that people recognise us and we have to behave."
Dorset police were duly called to the restaurant during the incident last Thursday, a spokesman confirmed today, after receiving a call from Pizza Hut regarding disruptive customers.
"A group of men had been asked to leave. They weren't happy about this, but we spoke to them and they did leave," the spokesman said.
Mitchell, Bournemouth's chairman, said the club was "highly disappointed to hear about the treatment a number of players received on a recent visit to Pizza Hut."
"Our players are magnificent ambassadors for AFC Bournemouth. Their behaviour is exemplary and they are a credit to the club ," he added in a statement posted on the club's website.
"In this day and age, it is upsetting to hear that people are treated differently because of the colour of their skin, and at AFC Bournemouth we will not condone any treatment of people in such a way."
Tobias Ellwood, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, said the town has an "enviable reputation for its tolerance and openness", adding that this sort of incident was "very rare indeed".
"I am glad Pizza Hut has issued a full apology, not least for the appalling choice of words used by the manager," he said.
"AFC Bournemouth stands out as an organisation that excels in binding our local community together. Pizza Hut might learn to follow suit by spending more time with both players and club alike."
A spokeswoman for Pizza Hut said: "This incident was not racially motivated. We have recently had a spate of customers leaving without paying their bills, so were advised by the police to ask people to pay for their meal before dining. We have been doing this at our discretion, and in this case the situation was poorly handled. We have spoken to the team member involved and have contacted the customers concerned to apologise for any offence caused."
Adam Gabbatt @'The Guardian'
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
