America's attempted Quartet sophistry
(Thanx Son#1!)
RIP Shel Talmy
2 hours ago
Monday, 8 August 2011
Australian court halts Malaysia asylum deal
Australia's High Court has stopped the authorities from deporting a boat-load of asylum seekers to Malaysia.
Lawyers for the group of refugees argued that their transfer to Malaysia would be illegal.Judges ruled there was a "sufficiently serious question", and ordered a halt to such transfers until a full hearing can be held later this month.
The ruling could jeopardise Australia's deal to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia over the next four years.
Under the deal, Australia would take 4,000 refugees who have already been processed in Malaysia.
But critics say refugees are often mistreated in Malaysia, which has not signed several human rights treaties.
The group of asylum seekers was the first to be targeted under the deal.
They were picked up in Australian waters and taken to Christmas Island, which hosts a controversial facility where hundreds of asylum seekers are kept in detention while their claims are processed.
A human rights lawyer representing the 42 asylum seekers argued that sending the group to Malaysia would be illegal.
The lawyer, David Manne, told Australian radio ahead of the hearing that Malaysia had a "troubling record when it comes to treatment of refugees".
High Court Justice Kenneth Hayne ruled there was a "sufficiently serious question" for the case to have a full hearing, ordering a temporary injunction on the transfers.
Both Canberra and Kuala Lumpur have insisted their agreement provided the necessary safeguards.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said the agreement will "smash the business model of people smugglers".
But the Australian Human Rights Commission, a watchdog body, has expressed concern - particularly over the welfare of young asylum seekers."It is very difficult to see how he [Immigration Minister Chris Bowen] can be satisfied that it is in the best interest of an unaccompanied child to send that child to Malaysia, a country that is not a signatory to the refugees convention," its head, Catherine Branson, said last month.
Australia currently has more than 6,000 asylum seekers in detention originating from countries including Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
The UN has previously criticised Australia for holding all asylum seekers in detention centres while their applications are assessed.
The migrants are held for months at the Christmas Island centre, about 1,500 miles (2,400km) from the Australian mainland, and in other facilities.
@'BBC'
A lover of fairy tales casts Obama as villain-in-chief
This one is going to hurt.
In what seems like a bid to definitively cement the perceptions of progressives disappointed in Obama, psychologist Drew Westen, a student of the alleged power of stories to shape political perception, has put together his own master narrative about Obama -- a merciless tale of presidential FAIL. It's a quadruple-length op-ed (over 3000 words) on the front page of The New York Times' Sunday Review section -- a rhetorical nuke dropped on ground zero in the liberal heartland.
Westen is a good storyteller. There is real force to many of his charges. But modeling what he says Obama should have done, he tells a simplified morality tale -- highly selective, with a clear villain, and in some points demonstrably false. He makes copious use of political cliches about messaging that fail to take into account the degree to which economic conditions shape audience reception of a politician's message. Founded on the alleged timidity of the 2009 stimulus, his story fails to engage the question of whether Obama could have got a larger stimulus through Congress. And in the end, it devolves into an ad hominem attack with recourse to cheap psychologizing (notwithstanding Westen's protestations of scientific detachment) and unfounded impugning of motive.
Most of the indictment is familiar. Obama hedges and trims his positions (most notably the too-small stimulus). He avoids conflict and has made a fetish of compromise ("fetish" is Michael Tomasky's word, from a more focused and I think better grounded critique of Obama's conduct of the debt ceiling negotiations). It is hard to know what he stands for. And -- here is psychologist Westen's chief contribution to the indictment --he has failed to tell the story of the Great Recession in a manner that will advance effective progressive solutions...
In what seems like a bid to definitively cement the perceptions of progressives disappointed in Obama, psychologist Drew Westen, a student of the alleged power of stories to shape political perception, has put together his own master narrative about Obama -- a merciless tale of presidential FAIL. It's a quadruple-length op-ed (over 3000 words) on the front page of The New York Times' Sunday Review section -- a rhetorical nuke dropped on ground zero in the liberal heartland.
Westen is a good storyteller. There is real force to many of his charges. But modeling what he says Obama should have done, he tells a simplified morality tale -- highly selective, with a clear villain, and in some points demonstrably false. He makes copious use of political cliches about messaging that fail to take into account the degree to which economic conditions shape audience reception of a politician's message. Founded on the alleged timidity of the 2009 stimulus, his story fails to engage the question of whether Obama could have got a larger stimulus through Congress. And in the end, it devolves into an ad hominem attack with recourse to cheap psychologizing (notwithstanding Westen's protestations of scientific detachment) and unfounded impugning of motive.
Most of the indictment is familiar. Obama hedges and trims his positions (most notably the too-small stimulus). He avoids conflict and has made a fetish of compromise ("fetish" is Michael Tomasky's word, from a more focused and I think better grounded critique of Obama's conduct of the debt ceiling negotiations). It is hard to know what he stands for. And -- here is psychologist Westen's chief contribution to the indictment --he has failed to tell the story of the Great Recession in a manner that will advance effective progressive solutions...
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ASP @'XPOSTFACTOID'
david_manne David Manne
High Court just ordered further injunction stopping Govt expelling #asylumseekers pending outcome of trial before Full Bench of High Ct
Revealing the roots of a riot
Senator Philip A. Hart (with glasses) next to mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh inspect damage done as result of the 1967 Detroit riot. (Credit: Bentley Image Bank, Bentley Historical Library)
In July 1967, an early morning police raid of an unlicensed bar—or blind pig—on 12th Street in Detroit set off looting, fires, and shooting that soon escalated out of control. By the time the civil disturbance ended six days later, 43 people were dead, hundreds were injured, more than 7,000 people had been arrested, and entire blocks of East and West Detroit had been consumed by fire.The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News threw every resource they had into covering the uprising. And as the disturbance died down, journalists and commentators, most of them white, struggled to understand who the rioters were and why they had taken to the streets. One theory was that those who looted and burned buildings were on the bottom rung of society—riff raff with no money and no education. A second theory speculated that rioters were recent arrivals from the South who had failed to assimilate and were venting their frustrations on the city.
But for many, those theories rang false.
Philip Meyer, a national correspondent for the Knight Newspapers—parent company of the Free Press—flew into Detroit to help the exhausted Free Press staff. In a brainstorming session the day after federal troops left the city, Meyer proposed that the Free Press do a survey to delve into the identities and attitudes of the rioters. It was a bold idea. Louis Harris had published survey results in a newspaper column and in Newsweek, and the University of California had just released a report analyzing the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles, but no newspaper had ever tackled such a project. Moreover, Meyer wanted to publish the results in three weeks. The Watts report had taken two years. “We had a lot of adrenaline going,” Meyer says with a laugh.
About 45 miles to the west in Ann Arbor, ISR psychologist Nathan Caplan was having similar thoughts. Caplan had spotted the smoke rising from Detroit on his way back from a family vacation, and had driven to Detroit’s 12th Street on the second day of the disturbance to see for himself what was going on. “I came back from there convinced that somebody has got to study this thing and get some sense of the inner dynamics while it’s still possible to get real-time data on its social/economic reality,” Caplan recalls.
Caplan fired off an emergency proposal to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) asking for funding to study the uprising. At about the same time, Meyer called an old grad school friend at ISR to see who might be willing to work with him on a fast but accurate survey for the Free Press. Caplan and Meyer met and quickly agreed to collaborate.
With the sponsorship of the Detroit Urban League and funding from area foundations and Henry Ford II, the survey team went to work. In one week, Meyer and Caplan drafted the questionnaire—pulling some questions from the Watts survey—and recruited and trained about 30 interviewers from a group of Black Detroit school teachers who fortuitously had just finished a nearby enrichment training program. Meanwhile, ISR researcher John Robinson, recruited by Caplan, used the city directory to draw a random probability sample of addresses in the riot area.
The next week, interviewers spread out through the stricken neighborhoods, reaching a representative sample of 437 Black residents; each day’s completed interviews were sent to Ann Arbor to be quickly transcribed to punched computer cards. The third week, Meyer and Caplan analyzed the data, and Meyer began to write.
Special survey report published by the Detroit Free Press on August 20, 1967. (Courtesy of Philip Meyer)
The top grievances of those surveyed were police brutality, overcrowded living conditions, poor housing, and lack of jobs. Finally, the rioters were a distinct subgroup and did not reflect the overall attitudes of area residents. “The survey helped defuse the situation by showing how much good will there was in the Black community,” Meyer says.
The staff of the Detroit Free Press won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the riot. That, plus Meyer’s publication a few years later of Precision Journalism: A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods, changed media practices forever by inspiring newspapers to embrace the blending of social science and journalism.
NIMH sent Caplan’s survey proposal to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission. The commission, created by President Lyndon B. Johnson less than a week after the Detroit uprising began, gave Caplan the funding requested from NIMH.
Caplan and Jeffrey Paige, a graduate student, then worked together on a research design to repeat and extend the Free Press data, and collect new data in Newark, New Jersey. Their work became an integral part of the commission’s 1968 report, which made broad recommendations to correct inequalities between the races and to open opportunities for Black participation.
Susan Rosegrant @'ISR Sampler'
Chrissie, Debbie, Viv, Siouxsie, Poly, Pauline
Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Deborah Harry (Blondie), Viv Albertine (The Slits), Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie & the Banshees), front: Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex), Pauline Black (The Selector)
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Sunday, 7 August 2011
kpunk99 Mark Fisher
Lammy's speech shows how utterly out of touch the political class are.
Lammy's speech shows how utterly out of touch the political class are.
kpunk99 Mark Fisher
Calling for calm so a 'proper investigation' can take place - as if a 'proper investigation' EVER takes place !
Calling for calm so a 'proper investigation' can take place - as if a 'proper investigation' EVER takes place !
Deaths in police custody since 1998: 333; officers convicted: none
This is crazy...
5:40 A.M. and there are NO police anywhere in Wood Green's main street and if the time is accurate then looting has been going on for over three hours!
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What happened to theAustralian 'Malaysia Solution' in the High Court on Sunday night?
At 8pm tonight, Justice Kenneth Hayne of the High Court granted limited interlocutory (interim) relief (an injunction) to 41 plaintiffs who are people who risk being removed to Malaysia under the Malaysia solution. They are citizens of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A number of them (around 6) are children.
At the outset, Hayne J suggested that he should consider granting interlocutory relief to 4.15 tomorrow so the matter come back before him for further argument at 2.15 tomorrow.
Debbie Mortimer SC for the Plaintiffs stated that there were 16 plaintiffs scheduled for removal tomorrow at 11.30am. There has been no decision made in respect of other plaintiffs.
In order to get interlocutory relief (in this case an injunction), the applicant must prove that there is "a serious question to be tried" and that it is favourable "on the balance of convenience" that the relief sought be granted.
Counsel for the defendants (the Minister for Immigration and the Commonwealth of Australia) stated that they did not wish to put any arguments on balance of convenience, other than the fact that it costs a lot of money to delay the transport of asylum seekers to Malaysia.
So the issue was really "is there a serious question to be tried"?^ (see below for the serious questions as put by the plaintiffs and outline of argument and questioning from the bench)
There was a period of argument about that, during which Hayne J put both counsel through their paces.
In the end, the Plaintiffs were seeking two strands of interlocutory relief:
1. an injunction stopping removal to Malaysia
2. an injunction requiring the Commonwealth to afford the asylum seekers a reasonable chance to get legal advice
Hayne J did not believe it necessary to grant the second stem of the relief, because s 265 obliges the Minister to do so.
But he did grant the first strand of relief, saying that "[the asylum seekers'] claims should not be defeated by their removal from Australia if I cannot say those claims are hopeless"
His Honour expressed no view on the merit of the arguments put before him tonight, but could not say that they are without merit. His Honour stated that the plaintiffs should have the limited relief they seek.
So there is now an injunction in place stopping removal to Malaysia until 4.15 tomorrow (or further order), and the matter will return before Hayne J at 2.15 tomorrow for further argument.
See below for the outline of legal argument.
The plaintiffs have an uphill battle ahead of them but this is an important first step!
Cheers
Jessie Taylor
Apologies for any typos or abbreviations or errors - this was compiled in haste.
At the outset, Hayne J suggested that he should consider granting interlocutory relief to 4.15 tomorrow so the matter come back before him for further argument at 2.15 tomorrow.
Debbie Mortimer SC for the Plaintiffs stated that there were 16 plaintiffs scheduled for removal tomorrow at 11.30am. There has been no decision made in respect of other plaintiffs.
In order to get interlocutory relief (in this case an injunction), the applicant must prove that there is "a serious question to be tried" and that it is favourable "on the balance of convenience" that the relief sought be granted.
Counsel for the defendants (the Minister for Immigration and the Commonwealth of Australia) stated that they did not wish to put any arguments on balance of convenience, other than the fact that it costs a lot of money to delay the transport of asylum seekers to Malaysia.
So the issue was really "is there a serious question to be tried"?^ (see below for the serious questions as put by the plaintiffs and outline of argument and questioning from the bench)
There was a period of argument about that, during which Hayne J put both counsel through their paces.
In the end, the Plaintiffs were seeking two strands of interlocutory relief:
1. an injunction stopping removal to Malaysia
2. an injunction requiring the Commonwealth to afford the asylum seekers a reasonable chance to get legal advice
Hayne J did not believe it necessary to grant the second stem of the relief, because s 265 obliges the Minister to do so.
But he did grant the first strand of relief, saying that "[the asylum seekers'] claims should not be defeated by their removal from Australia if I cannot say those claims are hopeless"
His Honour expressed no view on the merit of the arguments put before him tonight, but could not say that they are without merit. His Honour stated that the plaintiffs should have the limited relief they seek.
So there is now an injunction in place stopping removal to Malaysia until 4.15 tomorrow (or further order), and the matter will return before Hayne J at 2.15 tomorrow for further argument.
See below for the outline of legal argument.
The plaintiffs have an uphill battle ahead of them but this is an important first step!
Cheers
Jessie Taylor
Apologies for any typos or abbreviations or errors - this was compiled in haste.
scotwilliams Scot Williams
Angry riots, a Thatcherite in power, a pointless war, a royal wedding...Shit, I've woken up in 1981. Get me a Flux Capacitor...NOW!
US special forces Afghan helicopter 'downed' by Taliban
A US helicopter carrying US and Afghan special forces has crashed in Afghanistan, killing 38 people, officials in Kabul say.
Reports say the Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban.US sources say most of the 31 Americans who died were from the Navy Seal unit which killed Osama Bin Laden, but are "unlikely" to be the same personnel.
The US has not confirmed the number of dead, which would be the largest single US loss of life in the Afghan conflict.
The Chinook went down overnight in Wardak province, said a statement from President Hamid Karzai's office, giving the numbers of those killed.
It was returning from an operation against the Taliban in which eight insurgents are believed to have been killed.
A senior official of President Barack Obama's administration said the helicopter was apparently shot down, Associated Press news agency said.
An official with the Nato-led coalition in Afghanistan told the New York Times the helicopter was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.
'Enemy activity'
"The president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan expresses his sympathy and deep condolences to US President Barack Obama and the family of the victims," the statement from President Karzai said.
President Obama, too, issued a statement paying tribute to the Americans and Afghans who died in the crash."We will draw inspiration from their lives, and continue the work of securing our country and standing up for the values that they embodied. We also mourn the Afghans who died alongside our troops in pursuit of a more peaceful and hopeful future for their country," the statement said.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force has confirmed the helicopter crash but has not released details of casualties or the cause.
Reports say more than 20 of the US dead were Navy Seals.
A US military source has confirmed to the BBC that they were from Seal Team Six - the same unit which killed Bin Laden in Pakistan in May.
However, US officials have told both they BBC and AP they do not believe that any of those who took part in the Bin Laden operation were on the downed helicopter.
The size of Team Six, an elite unit within the Seals, which is officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, is not known.Several Air Force personnel, a dog and his handler, a civilian interpreter, and the helicopter crew were also on board, AP reports.
Nato said it was mounting an operation to recover the helicopter and find out why it crashed. It said there had been "enemy activity in the area" where it went down.
A Taliban spokesman said insurgents had brought down the helicopter with a rocket after US and Afghan troops attacked a house in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak where insurgents were meeting late on Friday, Associated Press said.
Sayd Abad, near the province of Kabul, is known to have a strong Taliban presence.
A Wardak government spokesman quoted by AFP news agency agreed with this, saying the helicopter was hit as it was taking off.
A local resident told the BBC Pashto service a rocket hit the helicopter.
"What we saw was that when we were having our pre-dawn [Ramadan] meal, Americans landed some soldiers for an early raid," said Mohammad Wali Wardag.
"This other helicopter also came for the raid. We were outside our rooms on a veranda and saw this helicopter flying very low, it was hit by a rocket and it was on fire. It started coming down and crashed just away from our home close to the river."
There are currently about 140,000 foreign troops - about 100,000 of them American - in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban insurgency and training local troops to take over security.
All foreign combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and some troop withdrawals have already taken place.
Nato has begun the process of handing over control of security in some areas to local forces, with Bamiyan becoming the first province to pass to Afghan control in mid-July.
An increase in US troop numbers last year has had some success combating the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, but attacks in the north, which was previously relatively quiet, have picked up in recent months.
@'BBC'
US Special Operators Killed in Afghanistan: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
Saturday, 6 August 2011
R.E.M. Live 2 October 85 'Rockpalast' (Complete show)
Feeling Gravitys Pull
Harborcoat
Sitting Still
Maps And Legends
Fall On Me (original lyrics)
Green Grow The Rushes
Driver 8
Hyena
So. Central Rain
Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
Can't Get There From Here
King Of The Road
Seven Chinese Brothers
Auctioneer (Another Engine)
Old Man Kensey
Little America
Pretty Persuasion
encore 1:
Theme From Two Steps Onward
Toys In The Attic
See No Evil
Second Guessing
encore 2:
Ghost Riders In The Sky
(Don't Go Back to) Rockville
We Walk-Falling In Love Again-Behind Closed Doors
Paint It, Black
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