From Muck into Yuk - Part 2

From the ABC

Toowoomba vote a blow for recycling

The Mayor of Toowoomba, Di Thorley, says the case for water recycling in Australia has been dealt a severe blow as a result of yesterday's poll in the south-east Queensland city.

Around 60 per cent of residents have voted 'no' to a plan to draw 25 per cent of the city's water from recycled effluent.

Pete's Points
Readers will recall my commentary on a proposal from South Australia recently to feed fish the recycled wasted from piggeries and then of course to sell the farmed fish for human consumption.

This article I suspect is in a similar vein. Only in this case instead of the waste being treated, fed to another organism which then is sold for us to eat, the Toowoomba Council obviously wanted to cut out the middle man (so to speak)

No wonder that some people have been renaming this town (temporarily I am sure), to "Poowoomba".

I have no problem with treating effluent and then pumping the results back onto our gardens or playing fields, or back into the toilet systems so that there is real recycling, but I am afraid that I do have problems with the need to recycle our own waste products into our drinking water.

I know that there are those who call this planet 'spaceship Earth' and I am sure that the technology that enables Astronauts to make do with their own bodily fluids is simply wonderful. However I am not greatly taken by suggestions that we do here what the Astronauts are forced to do by circumstances.

When we live in a non closed environment some other solutions may be more, er. . dare I say 'palatable'.

We are an island for goodness sake, we are surrounded by water, oceans of water!

I know, Samuel Taylor Coleridge has often been quoted from the Ancient Mariner with his "Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink!"

Yes the oceans are full of salt, but then again so is our groundwater, a fact that has become painfully obvious as and when the amount of irrigation that we use a little further south creates some issues that are being faced elsewhere.

We are blessed with massive amounts of currently unused sunshine over vast tracks of land in our interior for most of the year and thus we have a natural power source in our deserts and semi desert areas.

Why not make an investment in the future and combine these ingredients to our current and future advantage?

Mr Howard certainly had it right when he called Australia a 'super power' in energy terms. It is NOT however our possession of at least 1/3 rd of the known reserves of uranium that he ought to focus on, but the sun and the water that we do have in abundance.

Desalination plants have been known about and used for some time everywhere they are needed.

Yes they are resource intensive, and hence costly, but not necessarily if we use solar energy as one of the mainstays of our future power source.

Foretaste of Things to Come?

Pete's Points

I was fascinated and horrified to find this article in the Guardian yesterday.

If the comments attributed to the people being interviewed is to be believed, then it highlights some issues that those who are vociferous about the death and injury of what have been described as innocent civilians might wish to consider.

I especially encourage people to read the lines I have highlighted.

"As the shells fall around them, Hizbullah men await the Israelis"

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, south of Tyre
Saturday July 29, 2006
The Guardian

Inside a well-furnished apartment in a village on the outskirts of Tyre, with shelves of books piled from floor to ceiling, a black turbaned cleric and three men sit sipping bitter coffee. By the door is a pile of Kalashnikovs and ammunition boxes; handguns are tucked into the men's trousers. The four are Hizbullah fighters, waiting for the Israelis.

"Patience is our main virtue, we can wait for days, weeks, months before we attack. The Israelis are always impatient in battle and in strategy," says the cleric, Sayed Ali, who claims to be a descendant of the prophet. "I know them very well."

As if to make his point, the sound of Israeli shells blasting the surrounding hills shakes the door and shutters every few minutes. Ali does know the Israelis. When they invaded Lebanon in 1982. He started fighting them at the age of 17. Three years later he was arrested with two of his comrades and spent a few months in an Israeli prison. Within weeks of his release he was fighting them again.That's what he did for the next six years.

For the last five years he has been finishing his theology studies in Tehran. A month ago, he was asked by Hizbullah to return to southern Lebanon. He arrived a week before the fighting began.

Standing at the window, he points to the banana plantations between us and the blue Mediterranean. "I have fought for years in these groves. We used to sit and wait for them [the Israelis] to make a move and then we would hit. They always moved too quickly, too soon."

All over the hills of south Lebanon hundreds of men like Sayed Ali and his comrades are waiting - some in bunkers, some in farm houses - for the Israeli troops to arrive. Sayed Ali and his men spend most of their time in the building where his apartment is, moving only at night.

"We stay put and we don't move till we get our orders, and this is why we are not like any other militia. A militiaman will fire whenever he likes at whatever he likes," explains one of the men, who says he has been involved in firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. "We have specific orders. Even when we fire rockets we know when and where [to fire] and each of the men manning the launchers runs to a specific hiding place after firing the rockets."

He says Hizbullah fighters expect the site of a rocket launch to be hit by an Israeli airstrike or shell within 10 to 15 minutes.

Another of the men, who says he is Sayed Ali's brother, explains how Hizbullah teaches its fighters patience: "During our training we spend days in empty buildings without talking to anyone or doing anything. They tell me go and sit in that building, and I go and sit there and wait."

According to Ali, Hizbullah operates as "a state within the state", with its own hospitals, social organisations and social security system. "But we are also an Islamic resistance movement, an indoctrinated army," he adds. "I would go and knock the door at someone and say we need $50,000, he would give me [that] because they trust us."

The fighting force of the organisation is divided into two: the "active" group, whose task is to serve in Hizbullah, and the reserve, or Ta'abi'a, as it is known in Arabic. The active fighters get monthly pay. The reserves are called on only in time of war, and receive bonuses but no regular pay. A third section, the Ansar, comprises people who support or are supported by the organisation.
Ali, the commander of Hizbullah in his village, and his men are part of the active force, and their orders are to wait for further orders. "Hizbullah hasn't even mobilised all its active fighters, and the Israelis are calling their reserve units," he said.

Hizbullah prides itself on its secretiveness and discipline. "We don't take anyone who knocks at our door and says 'I want to join'. We raise our fighters. We take them when they are young kids and raise them to become Hizbullah fighters. Every fighter we have believes that the ultimate form of being is martyrdom." The three men nod their assent.

Shia symbols and mythology play a big role in the ideology of Hizbullah, especially the tragedy of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet who in the 7th century led a few hundred men against the well-organised army of the caliph in Damascus. He was slain in Karbala, and Shia around the world commemorate these events in Ashura.

"Every one of those fighters is a true believer, he has been not only trained to use guns and weapons but [indoctrinated] in the Shia faith and the Husseini beliefs," Ali says.

He and his fellow fighters have been preparing for the latest conflict with the Israelis for years and he acknowledges the support received from Iran.

"When we defeated them in 2000 we did that with [Katyusha] rockets. We had six years to prepare for this day - the Americans are sending laser-guided missiles to the Israelis, what's wrong if the Iranians help us? When the Syrians were here we would get stuff through their supply lines, now it's more difficult."

The TV is blaring patriotic songs and pictures of destroyed bridges, houses and buildings. The men are feeling confident - only a day earlier the Israelis suffered heavy casualties in the village of Bint Jbeil.

"Our strategy is to hit the commandos and the Golani units like we did in Bint Jbeil," Ali says. "Those are their best units. If they can't do anything, the morale of the reserve units will sink."

For Ali and his comrades, the latest conflict is a war of survival not only for Hizbullah but for the whole Shia community. It is not only as a war with Israel, their enemy for decades, but also with the Sunni community. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have all expressed fears of Iranian domination over the Middle East.

"If Israel comes out victorious from this conflict, this will be a victory for the Sunnis and they will take the Shia community back in history dozens of years to the time when we were only allowed to work as garbage collectors in this country. The Shia will all die before letting this happen again."

He says that even if the international community calls on Hizbullah to disarm as part of a peace deal, he and his men will not lay down their arms. "This war is episode two in disarming Hizbullah. First they tried to do it through the Lebanese government and the UN. When they failed, the Americans asked the Israelis to do the job."

Despite Israel's claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Hizbullah, Ali insists his side is in a strong position. "Things are going very well now, whatever happens we are winning. If they keep bombing us we will stay in the shelters, and with each bomb more people support the resistance. If they invade they will repeat the miserable fate they had in 1982, and if they hold one square foot they will give the Islamic resistance all the legitimacy. If they want to kill Hizbullah they have to kill every Shia in the south of Lebanon."

And even when the battle with the Israelis is over, he adds menacingly, Hizbullah will have other battles to fight. "The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let's finish with the Israelis and then we will settle scores later."

Whenever there is initially a small group of disgruntled fanatics who feel isolated and persecuted and who are allowed or indeed encouraged by others to take power, they will do so and then commit acts of violence and terror on the very communities that either ignored or encouraged them in the first place.

I can't and won't tell others what to think, however I can suggest that people actually do think about this 'foretaste of things to come' before they support one side or another in this current conflict and before they run into the streets shouting support for one piece of propaganda or another.

My only advice is - be careful what you wish for.

In my view, no one whose morals allow them to take young children and indoctrinate them in hate and violence and teach them to undertake indiscriminate killing of civilians by means of suicide murder or indiscriminate firing of rockets and then call this "the ultimate form of being" can be believed, trusted or supported in any way.

There are lessons in history that people can learn from. They are so bleedingly obvious that I will not ennumerate them here. One lesson that has been enshrined in the various forms of Burke's Triumph of Evil quote should catch the attention of my readers however:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

In order for ‘evil’ to prevail, all that need happen is for ‘good’ people to do nothing.

All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

The surest way for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

All it will take for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.

All that is necessary for the forces of evil to take root in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent.

All it takes for Evil to prevail in this world is for enough good men to do nothing.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Developments in Disaster Recovery

Yet another article from First Monday

Volunteers eager to help disaster victims have begun to draw on open source models of organization to mobilize and coordinate vast resources from around the world. This paper investigates two such groundbreaking efforts, involving responses to Hurricane Katrina and to the South East Asian tsunami. The study sheds light on how these organizations evolve so rapidly, how leaders emerge and confront challenges, and how interactions with traditional, more hierarchical disaster recovery efforts unfold. Lessons from these early efforts show how they can be improved, and also point to the need for more research on networked non–state actors that are playing increasingly prominent roles.

Pete's Points

This article should be read by anyone who is interested in new developments in the area of Disaster Recovery. As someone trained many years ago in the art of being a Counter Disaster Recovery Manager I find this discussion on new approaches to various aspects of disaster recovery of considerable interest considering the advances that have been made in technology and in the take up of the Internet as a medium for communication and research.

Well worth a read in my view.

Slow News Day!

Pete's Points
It is not often that you open up the news (in this case the Guardian) and see stuff that reads like this.

Why raise an interesting side story about a claimant to the throne of England who died in 1947 leaving no male heirs unless it is a really slow news day? I know that Britain is reputed to be a hotbed of royal watchers but publishing stuff that is this old and irrelevant can only give joy to those whose lives are entwined with the publication of material from the National Archives.

Papers reveal how claim on throne rattled King

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Friday July 28, 2006
The Guardian

King Anthony, a former Shropshire police inspector who insisted he had a better claim to the throne than King George V, provoked panic at the palace when two doctors refused to silence him by quietly certifying him insane.

Details have emerged from the National Archive of the royal family's anxiety at the way Anthony Hall, who was said to be tall and always impeccably dressed, drew crowds of up to 800 people to hear his claims of direct lineage from Henry VIII. Across the West Midlands, he used his 1931 campaign meetings to denounce King George, the Queen's grandfather, as a "pure blooded German" with no right to rule Britain.

. . . The chief constable of Birmingham reported to the palace that, after a swansong meeting in the Bull Ring, Hall finally left the city, ending the public campaign of the last Tudor claimant to the throne. Hall is believed to have died in 1947 leaving no male heirs.

FREE Reading on Line

Pete's Points
There is nothing more stimulating than being able to take classics and not so classic works and be in a position to read them on line or download them to your computer for your reading pleasure all at the cost of disk space and the time taken to download them.

This however the reality that is available to most of us these days as electronic libraries spring up around the world enabling us to take advantage of the new medium of the internet to get access quickly to books that may well be out of print or unavailable in other forms.

As most people know Google is working hard at getting a lot of work on line, but there are little known organisations that deserve a quick look like Eldritch Press listings on Ibiblilo.org

If you have some spare time and energy it is worth while to look up these holdings and other similar sites on the net and then you can have your books come to in a digital form to be read at leisure. As we move away from static computer screens to the availability of modular viewing platforms that range from lap top computers to writing tablets, IPods, Mobile Phones and of course PDAs we have the opportunity these days to carry our literature with us or to access it on line with virtually the drop of a hat.

Stop watching the idiot box for a moment and realise that there is a huge wealth of experience out there to be looked at and absorbed if only we use the technology that is more and more at our fingertips.

"First Monday" - Worth a read!

This article is presented in First Monday

Pete's Points

I would advise my readers to consider this article as a precursor for things to come. As Open Source and Creative Commons licensing takes hold over many of the contributions that are being made to knowledge using the the Internet there are challenges and concerns about a variety of issues that need to be aired in public and resolved. I suspect that some of these are well explored in this article and also in the various postings that are contained in the July 2006 issue of First Monday

As if there were not enough problems in the world

Chavez hails Russian arms deals

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has again thanked Russia for supplying his country with weapons, despite objections from the United States.

Speaking in Moscow, Mr Chavez said there had been "extraordinary progress" in military ties between the two sides.

Russian officials say Moscow's arms sales to Venezuela
are now worth more than S3bn (£1.6bn), including a new deal for fighter jets and helicopters.

Pete's Points
A more complete version of the article to be found on the BBC will also frighten readers with the following words:

"After Moscow, he will visit Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali."

I wonder where this is going.

Iran at present does not exactly have the best reputation for moderation and peaceful intentions.

With the Russians and various new oil rich republics immediately to the north of Iran, it is interesting to speculate whether the Russians will be silly enough to contemplate a similar arms deal with the Iranians as a way of extending their desired hegemony in the area.

I worry about the new forms of warfare that I see happening around the world. Wars seem to be fought by standard military forces against guerilla forces and usually not by the main states involved, but more and more by proxies.

A cynic could suggest, that leaders of the developed nations together with their highly paid business executives are saying in private what that cannot say in public namely, "who really cares about the loss of "innocent civilian life" as long as it is good for business and profits."

Cooperation between Chavez and others whose interests are suspect, is a little worrying.

Chavez, seems to be doing nothing besides spending his country's vast oil revenues on arms deals instead of supporting the welfare of his people as he claimed he would do when elected.

A Blast from the Past

Garpet's Views

This was the news on October 30 2004

PM urges states to cooperate

"Prime Minister John Howard has urged state and territory leaders to press
ahead "in the national interest" to overcome federal-state differences
affecting issues such as health, water conservation and child
pornography." reports Reuters.

If anyone cares to look, the news from the recent COAG meeting was that the PM had actually managed to get the states to cooperate, thanks to his treasurer raising his head and talking about a deal to have the leadership of the country handed to him by Mr Howard.

Rather than face Costello's more 'challenging' agenda in respect of State's rights about a variety of things the PM managed to get what he wanted two years ago.

The states all fell into line and actually praised him for his leadership on a variety of issues which just happen to include health water and conservation. I am not sure whether child pornography survived the two year gap as an issue.

Happy BirthdayJohn!

Words can be funny when there is no explanation about how they are being used. For example in this headline from the ABC:

"Howard resists calls to declare hand on leadership"

By Alexandra Kirk for PM

You will note that the words 'declare hand" are the sort of words that are used in playing cards. So the reader gets a chance to equate what is happening to the leadership of the country with a card game. I am not sure whether to take this even further by suggesting that the only time that someone is unwilling to declare a hand is when that someone is not sure of winning.

Then of course we have Alexandra Kirk having her radio program described by the use of Italic capitals (ie "PM")

No doubt this is to prevent the reader from being confused by the fact that the next thing we see is the PM (note no italics here) actually doing something with his hands.

Far be it from Alexandra to be thought of as a spokesperson of the PM (or Prime Minister) after all she is an ABC staffer!

John Howard mingled with well-wishers during the morning walk on his 67th birthday. (ABC TV)

More on Somalia

Garpet's News

Some of my readers may be able to recall that I commented on the situation in Somalia the other day and noted that there were now Ethiopian troops trying to take on the UIC which claims to run the country.

Some interesting new developments have come to light about this situation that I think people could read for themselves so that once again you can have the opportunity to think about how people differ on their views about Islamic regimes.

May I suggest a quick look at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4760775.stm
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/africa/5216128.stm

Liberia - Are things turning around in this country at last?

Garpet's Groans

If you have a look at the article that is partially reproduced below you will note several things.

This war has been going on for 'decades'.

A female leader has taken over and within 15 months has demonstrated that she can make a difference. At least pumped water and electricity have made a reappearance.

There is a long way to go but this is the first time I have heard some good news from this area for a long time

I guess some of the questions I have are:

Where have the UN been while this country went through the decades of war and the killing of innocent civilians?

Why have we heard so little from our media and apparently cared so little in the past?

Why is it possible to get things working again in such a short time here and NOT possible in other locations like Iraq?

Why is it that good news like this tends to come from countries that have elected female leaders?

I wonder what the situation would be like if Israel once again had a female leader, and the Lebanese (who are NOT all fundamentalists Moslems in spite of what you may hear to the contrary) also dumped their male dominated leadership and did the unthinkable and elected women to their highest offices.

It could be that testosterone has a lot to answer for! See also my article (NOW WE KNOW)

From the BBC
"Liberia switches on street lights

By Jonathan Paye-Layleh BBC News, Monrovia

The street lamps will be powered by generators

Liberian leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has switched on generator-powered street lights in the capital, which has been without electricity for 15 years.

She had promised to bring electricity to the whole of Monrovia within six months of assuming office in January.

"When I made this commitment... I was an outsider looking in," she said.

As Liberia celebrates 159 years of independence, every
effort is being made to ensure visible signs that life in the capital is improving.

On Tuesday, tapped water became available in the war-torn capital.

But after decades of misrule, Liberia's road network is
still in ruins, an there is no national telephone network and no
national electricity grid.

'Proud'

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf won presidential elections last year
that ended a brutal 14-year civil war and promised to rebuild the
resource-rich country."

Fat Chance Revisited.

Then again an earlier item may help explain why NGOs want to have British bosses volunteer their services.
See Work Until You Drop
then
Look at this article from Management Issues:

Britain's family doctors have blamed employers for failing to take responsibility for the health and well being of their staff as new figures reveal a dramatic rise in the number of people needing to be signed off work with illness.

With the bill for poor health and absenteeism costing UK businesses some £13 billion a year, doctors predict that this figure is set to soar unless employers take urgent action to help workers manage their health.

According to the Norwich Union Healthcare's Health of the Workplace report, a third of family doctors have noticed a sharp increase in the number of people needing to be signed off work with illness for seven days or more.

Doctors have a clear view on where the responsibility for this lies. Nine out of ten believe that firms don't do enough to prevent workers falling ill, while the same proportion blame companies for failing those staff who are ill and not doing enough to help them back to work.

I suppose it's bad enough to have all the illnesses that already exist in the developing countries why not add to the misery of everyone there and bring in senior management that can help make things worse.

It can only be good for business!

The costs of people being driven past their limits will drop in the UK, health care costs will go down, and meanwhile the health care costs of the people in the countries which have been silly enough to take on the services of the new 'consultants' they have been provided with will see their costs go up.

And who benefits? Why everyone of course. The companies they have left behind will experience increased sales of all of their products - overseas to countries where the consultants have been busy. This will provide greater employment opportunities back home for the "idle lay abouts" that are often mentioned in the UK press who do nothing all day but collect their dole cheques (actually people who have been 'downsized' by the very bosses we are talking about, people who have been sacked as a result of their bosses trying to improve productivity dividends) and of course decrease the stress on existing employees by bringing in labour that will be willing to work at the new low wages that enable the companies to 'compete' with overseas pressures.

Sorry, I need to get some sleep - it seems that I am experiencing a nightmare when I am awake!

Maybe the only place to get some relief is in the land of Nod!

(I wonder whether we can introduce a new form of tourism - "travel while you sleep!" a sort of virtual tour where everything still seems to be the way the brochures describe it.)

Fat Chance?

from Management Issues

Senior and board-level British managers are being targeted by a volunteering charity to spend time on "troubleshooting" assignments in some of the world's poorest countries.

In a move believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, international development charity VSO is searching for managers from the private, public or voluntary sector provide high-level advice and consultancy to organisations fighting poverty in the developing world.

Pete's Points:

I guess my title says it all!

I cannot imagine the 'fat cats' of business wanting to spend their time giving assistance to people without directing things from their comfortable air conditioned offices and their million + dollar salaries!

Still, stranger things have happened! Just look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffet! A bit late in life to develop a conscience so it must be a tax dodge!

Boy, that's too cynical even for me and even at this hour of the morning!

Of course a move to volunteering would get some of the old fogies out of the office and give the new blood a chance so I suspect there will be a lot of encouragement from the lower ranks for such a move.

Of course there is another aspect to this issue - since the capitalist west or the developed nations have always sent things that are past their use by date to the developing world - this sounds a little like a simple continuation of that policy as most of the baby boomers head for early retirement.

I mean, they managed to bugger up the world they live in now for the rest of us, so why not send them to developing nations that they have helped to get to the state they are in now to see if they can improve on their former work! After all, things CAN get worse!

Just a Pipe Dream?

from the ABC

Nuri al-Maliki says political leaders are working to end sectarian violence. (File photo) (Reuters)

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki insists that his country will not slide into civil war, despite rising levels of sectarian violence that is killing up to 100 people a day.

Speaking on BBC radio ahead of a meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Maliki said he plans to discuss ways of improving Iraqi security during talks in London.

"There is a sectarian issue, but the political leaders ... are working on putting an end to the sectarian issue," he said.

"Civil war will not happen to Iraq."

Mr Maliki confirmed recent United Nations data showing that an average of 100 civilians were killed a day during May and June.

He said disarming militias is key to a more stable future for Iraq.

"We have reached an agreement in the Government that we will have to confront them [the militias] and deal with them. This is the security vision that we have. We are confident that we will confront the terrorism and violence that is in Iraq."

After talks with Mr Blair on Monday, Mr Maliki is due to travel to Washington to meet President George W Bush on Tuesday, where he is also expected to discuss ways of improving security in Baghdad.

It is Mr Maliki's first trip outside the Middle East since he formed his unity government two months ago.

- Reuters

Pete's Points:

How interesting. The PM of Iraq says:

". . disarming militias is key to a more stable future for Iraq."

"We have reached an agreement in the Government that we will have to confront them [the militias] and deal with them. This is the security vision that we have. We are confident that we will confront the terrorism and violence that is in Iraq."

I have been making this suggestion in my posts for some time.

Now if only we could get the people in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and some of the other nightmare hot spots of destruction for innocent civilians in the world to see the light and reach a similar agreement.

Perhaps the trillions of dollars that the Americans spend on their military could then be turned to something more useful - like letting people live and get on with their lives?

Providing cheap access to medical assistance and drugs?

Ensuring that global warming will not kill all of humanity with the next 100 years or so?

Developing new energy sources that actually are in harmony with nature ?

Ah well, it's good to dream at least for an instant! I suspect that it is a pipe dream! After all if you look at where pipe dreams come from you will see how much of the extracts of poppy are exported from the very areas we are talking about!

Where is the coverage?

China From the ABC

Over 3.07 MILLION people need to be relocated and over 600 dead from a storm.

Do I hear the UN wanting to rush emergency aid to this location in China? Do I hear anything in the news about flood mitigation programs that might prevent something like this from happening again?

Not really!

We have a tragedy of epic proportions happening in China that barely receives a mention.

I guess a scrap in the Middle East and its consequences is more likely to sell newspapers and advertising. Or am I just being cynical?

China's storm toll climbs past 600

State media says the death toll in China from Tropical Storm Bilis has risen to 612 with another 208 people missing, in another major reassessment of the impact of the devastating floods. Xinhua news agency, citing the nation's disaster relief commission, gave no reason for the sudden jump in the casualty numbers from the storm, which first struck south and central China on July 14.

The revised numbers came after the government raised the death toll to 530 on Friday (local time), up from 228 reported just a day earlier.

Local officials were quoted by state media as saying the fast-rising death toll could be because authorities were initially focused on disaster relief rather than counting bodies. However, concerns that there may have been a cover-up have been raised. The government of central China's Hunan province, which bore the brunt of the destruction from Bilis, warned on Saturday that officials who tried to hide the death toll would be punished.

The commission says a total of 3.07 million people have had to be relocated due to the storm.

On another front . .

The Observer | World | Somalia inches towards war:

Ethiopian troops take over towns in challenge to Islamic militia who have occupied the capital

Paul Harris
Sunday July 23, 2006
The Observer

Somalia was edging closer to full-scale war last night as Ethiopian troops moved into a second Somali town, potentially bringing them into conflict with an Islamic militia that has taken over the capital, Mogadishu, and is seeking to spread its influence over the rest of the country.

Eyewitnesses in Waajid said that about 200 Ethiopian troops had taken over the airstrip in the town yesterday morning. That follows moves last Thursday which saw Ethiopian troops take up positions in the town of Baidoa to back up Somalia's beleaguered interim government, which is based there.

The move of fresh Ethiopian troops into the anarchic country raises the prospect of renewed war in Somalia. Ethiopia strongly backs the UN-supported government of President Abdullahi Yusuf and has vowed to prevent the country from slipping into the hands of Islamic extremists. However, Yusuf's writ does not extend much beyond Baidoa's borders while the Union of Islamic Courts has achieved startling military success in recent weeks. The UIC militia now controls Mogadishu and other areas of the country after defeating several local warlords who have held Somalia in the grip of terror since the collapse of central rule in 1991"

Pete's Points:

It is amazing to me to read this story from the Observer as published on line in the Guardian

Apparently this war has been on going since 1991. Lord only knows about the number of people who have been killed and whose homes have been destroyed and who have been forced to live in terror for over a decade and a half.

The coverage of this event in our news media is non existent! Why?

Well for one thing, there are unlikely to be Australian tourists, citizens or residents in this war torn area.

Does this mean that the lives of the 'innocent civilians' are any less important?

Does this mean that the invasion of one country by another should receive less attention?

I have no idea!

All that I can say is that once again the news media concentrate their attention on one trouble spot at a time in the world and cry out to the UN to call for a ceasefire and peacekeeping forces in one area of the world while in another there appears to be very little media attention on the death and destruction that has been taking place for over a decade and a half.

The Channel 9/MSN production "Sunday" initiated an on line questionnaire yesterday which aimed at finding out from its viewers whether they felt the coverage of events in the Middle East was balanced or not. At present the results so far seem to be running at 17% saying "Yes" while 83% are saying "No"

Even though I have serious doubts about on line polls where you can vote as many times as you can press a button, that result seems about right to me!

Let me reiterate, I abhor the violence that is going on everywhere in the world today, violence that causes terror, death, wounds, destruction of homes and lives for millions each year. I also abhor the hypocrisy that seems to accompany official reactions to all of the death and destruction.

The reality for millions, possibly billions around the world is that they live in war zones where the political ambitions of a few people - however disguised by religious references or other noble sounding rhetoric is permitted to hold sway while they suffer death and destruction and become refugees who really are innocent civilians.

I have a dream, in which the leaders of these political and religious forces who seem to want to dominate their environments and call on poor hapless innocents to do their fighting for them were actually required to front each other and 'duke it out', one on one, "mano a mano", on international TV while all the rest of the world got on with the job of earning a living and trying to survive.

I suspect that after an initial flurry of interest, it would become the least watched reality TV show in the world.

As I said in another posting - The world has gone nuts!

Dual Citizenship - The next big debate?

A fascinating new debate is about to start in Australia concerning dual citizenship - according to a discussion among media personalities on the Channel 9 Sunday program.

There are currently mixed emotions about this subject that have been brought into sharp relief by the current situation in Lebanon.

There are various points of view that appear to vie for our attention.

"If you decide that you want to live in another country and continue to live there - should you be allowed to retain your Australian citizenship?"

Those in favour of a "YES" response argue that once you have obtained citizenship you should be allowed to maintain this without any restrictions, because you have in effect paid your dues by meeting the citizenship requirements.

"But what if there is a problem in the country you have chosen to move to - should you still be entitled to the support of the Australian tax payers to get you out of there - after all you chose to move to that country to live?"

The "Yes" supporters of course argue that it is not possible to layer Australian citizenship - you either have it or you don't and if you do then you are entitled to expect and receive support from your government.

Those who argue the "No" case would of course reject this argument. They would argue that we should be like the Dutch. If you choose to live in another country and do not return to take up domicile in Holland again then after a number of years of being absent, your Dutch citizenship lapses.

So how is the Australian government responding in the case of those who are dual nationals in Lebanon?

As I understand it, they are having an each way bet and so ducking the issue.

Those who are dual nationals and merely visiting Lebanon will have their fares back to Australia paid for by the Australian tax payer - unless of course they can get a refund through their travel insurance - in which case they will be asked to repay the costs incurred.

Those who are dual nationals, but actually have chosen to live in Lebanon and only occasionally visit Australia will be asked to pay for their repatriation.

Each of these decisions will no doubt be accompanied by a huge debate about "second class citizenship" for people of Lebanese extraction, discrimination and who knows what else.

So let's be a little daring here and ask some other questions.

If you are an Australian citizen and you run out of money while overseas and call on the Embassy or consulate for assistance what happens?

The Australian consulate or embassy will lend you some money! You will be asked to sign an agreement to pay the money back as and when you can.

If you need to be repatriated to Australia, but have run out of funds, AND there are no friends or family to help and you do not have insurance, then the Australian governement will arrange for your repatriation home.

There is however a 'cost' namely that the cost of your arrangements remain a debt due and payable to the Commonwealth. Until you repay the debt you generally have your passport stamped in such a way as to make it impossible for you to leave Australia again until you have repaid the debt!

This has been policy in DFAT for years! There is no such thing as a free lunch!

The Australian government has some obligations for sure - but then again, so do you, if you choose to travel.

If you are notionally an Australian citizen, but really have spent no time at all in this country (for example if you were born here, but your parents then took you overseas to live while you were still an infant) and you get into trouble in a foreign country can you rely on your Australian citizenship for support?

Well actually you can.

However once again there are costs involved.

If you have migrated to Australia, but were silly enough not to take out Australian citizenship and you then go overseas again and get into trouble and then ask for support you are likely to experience the situation of the convicted criminal with some mental problems who was deported back to the country of his birth in the Balkans and then spent weeks crying in front of the Australian consulate and embassy (much to the no doubt profit and enjoyment of the media who beat up this story) because the country of his birth denied him citizenship and hence support.

Soft hearted that we are (or influenced by media beat ups) this person was granted an opportunity to return to Australia - at least for a while. We have not heard from him or his relatives since!

Then there is the interesting case of dual citizens who just happen to be able to claim dual Italian and Australian citizenship.

In this case Italian/Australians are now able to vote in Italian elections and actually stand for office in the Italian government.

Two current examples exist of Australian citizens who have been elected by the overseas diaspora of Italians and have actually gone to live in Italy and be a part of their parliamentary system.

What rights should these people have as Australian citizens? To which country do they owe a loyalty if there is matter that comes up for discussion where the Italian government's view is contrary to the view of the Australian government?

Should people who are in such a situation have the right to expect all the rights pertaining to their Australian citizenship or, being Italian citizens and members of the Parliament in Italy, should the Italian government have a sole responsibility for them?

The answers are not simple, but the questions do need to be asked and the matter clarified.

I suspect that one way the argument can run is to suggest that when you decide to migrate to Australia you make a conscious decision that you can either no longer live in your country of origin or choose to live elsewhere for a 'better life'.

At this point part of the decision making should be to decide whether or not you can still claim as 'home' the place you are deciding to leave behind.

If you make a subsequent decision to 'return home' then you should be asked to make a similar decision about Australia.

Perhaps we should end with that now famous quote from John F Kennedy:

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your country."

Perhaps it is time for someone in Australia to ask a similar question of our fellow Australians especially those who hold dual citizenship. Life is about choices, risks and consequences and not necessarily about having an each way bet!

News in perspective?

From the ABC

"China deaths spark cover-up claim

Bilis destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes

The number of people killed in a storm that hit southern China last week has risen to more than 500 - more than double the original estimate.

Tropical Storm Bilis hit on 14 July, causing massive flooding and forcing three million people from their homes."

Pete's Points:

• Each one of the deaths that are referred to here is that of a civilian.
• Each of the homes that are referred to here is that of a civilian.

The volume of deaths and dispossession that are happening in China outnumber those that are taking place in Lebanon by close to 100% in the first case and around 500% in the case of the latter.

I wonder how many people who read the news on a daily basis recognise that while ANY death is deplorable and ANY dispossession is deplorable, the reality is that people all over the world die needlessly every day in vast numbers from lack of water or too much water (as in this case) or in the case of the recent Indonesian tsunami.

"That's different!" I hear people say, "It was a natural disaster and not military action"

OK, let's be fair about this let's just look at deaths and dispossession due to military actions by one war lord or another around the globe and how they are covered by the news media.

Does anyone really seems bother to count the bodies and the dispossession that take place elsewhere around the globe on a daily basis due to such military operations?

Oops, we can't.

There is no real daily coverage of what is happening in various countries in Africa (to name but one area of the world) apart from the occasional item about various militia that go about needlessly murdering women and children and enslaving boys and men on a wholesale scale.

Are their actions any less deplorable?

Indeed these days we actually seem to cover mass murderers in a different way. For example in another news item on the BBC it is noted that:

Ta Mok died ahead of a tribunal on the Khmer Rouge regime

Hundreds of Cambodians have paid their respects to Ta Mok, a former Khmer Rouge leader nicknamed "The Butcher".

In a traditional Buddhist funeral ceremony, incense was burned and prayers recited over Ta Mok's body, which was daubed with white powder.

The ceremony took place in Ta Mok's former stronghold of Anlong Veng, in the north of Cambodia.

Ta Mok, who died on Friday, was the regime's military commander and linked to many atrocities of the 1970s.

About 1.7 million people died under the Khmer Rouge, through a combination of starvation, disease and execution.

Ta Mok was the only Khmer Rouge leader who refused to bargain with authorities following the collapse of the regime, and he was arrested in 1999 near the Thai border.

Respects? Where is the outrage that this mass murderer escaped justice for over thirty years?

I guess some questions remain about perspective.

What value does each life and each loss of home have in the world and why is there a difference in the level of coverage and outrage that accompany different situations and circumstances?

A cynic would remark "One sells advertising. The other? Well no one really cares do they?"

"There is nothing new under the sun"

Attributed to Solomon (yeah I know, a Jewish source so probably biased) the saying, "There is nothing new under the sun" is an interesting perspective from which to view the current events in Lebanon, as it enables one to look at past history in that country and then assess whether there really is anything new or unexpected in what is happening there at present

I have tried to take excerpts from what I hope may be considered a "neutral source" - this being the WikiPedia files on Lebanon and the various groups that have been engaged in the fighting there.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah
For example:

"The continued existence of Hezbollah's military wing after 1990 violates the Taif Agreement that ended the Lebanese civil war, which requires the "disbanding of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias" and requires the government to "deploy the Lebanese army in the border area adjacent to Israel." The Lebanese government did not try to disarm the Hezbollah during the 1990-2000 period, justifying its position by the fact that Hezbollah was a legitimate national resistance force, fighting for the liberation of the south, then occupied by Israel."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#History

Pete's Points:

Is this information accurate? If so, then the continued existence of well armed Hezbollah group members is contrary to the agreement that ended the Civil War in Lebanon and its continued existence can be laid at the door of the current government!

"Hezbollah abducted three Israel Defense Forces soldiers during an October 2000 attack in Shebaa Farms, and sought to obtain the release of 14 Lebanese prisoners, some of whom had been held since 1978. On January 25, 2004, Hezbollah successfully negotiated an exchange of prisoners with Israel, through German mediators. The prisoner swap was carried out on January 29: 30 Lebanese and Arab prisoners, the remains of 60 Lebanese militants and civilians, 420 Palestinian prisoners, and maps showing Israeli mines in South Lebanon were exchanged for an Israeli businessman and army reserve colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum kidnapped in 2001 and the remains of the three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers mentioned above, who were killed either during the Hezbollah operation, or in its immediate aftermath."

Pete's Points:

If true, this information would suggested that crossing the Israeli border to abduct Israeli soldiers is not something that Hezbollah undertook for the first time just recently. Thus it is interesting to consider why the Israelis took a different course of action this time than the one that they took last time.

"The civilian wing participates in the Parliament of Lebanon, taking 18% of the seats (23 out of 128) and the bloc it forms with others, the "Resistance and Development Bloc", 27.3% (see Lebanese general election, 2005). It is a minority partner in the current Cabinet.

Pete's Points:
If this information is true, then it is interesting to ask who is running the country of Lebanon? Is it the 27.3% of the Lebanese parliament or the majority remainder of the people elected by the people in the Lebanese general election last year?

The civilian wing also runs hospitals, news services, and educational facilities. Its Reconstruction Campaign (Jihad al-Bina) is responsible for numerous economic and infrastructural development projects in Lebanon."

Pete's Points:

If this information is true, then it is interesting to contemplate whether the infrastructure which has been bombed to smithereens by the Israelis, and has been referred to by them as "Hezbollah infrastructure" and by others as "Civilian infrastructure" cannot be both at the same time.

On September 2, 2004, the UN Security Council adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1559, coauthored by France and the United States. Echoing the Taif Agreement, the resolution "calls upon all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon" and "for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias." Lebanon is currently in violation of Resolution 1559 over its refusal to disband the military wing of Hezbollah.

On October 7, 2004 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reported to the Security Council regarding the lack of compliance with Resolution 1559. Mr. Annan concluded his report by saying: "It is time, 14 years after the end of hostilities and four years after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, for all parties concerned to set aside the remaining vestiges of the past. The withdrawal of foreign forces and the disbandment and disarmament of militias would, with finality, end that sad chapter of Lebanese history."

The January 20, 2005 UN Secretary-General's report on Lebanon stated that "The continually asserted position of the Government of Lebanon that the Blue Line is not valid in the Shab'a farms area is not compatible with Security Council resolutions. The Council has recognized the Blue Line as valid for purposes of confirming IsraelÂ’s withdrawal pursuant to resolution 425 (1978). The UN Security Council has repeatedly requested that all parties respect the Blue Line in its entirety.

On January 28, 2005 UN Security Council Resolution 1583 called upon the Government of Lebanon to fully extend and exercise its sole and effective authority throughout the south, including through the deployment of sufficient numbers of Lebanese armed and security forces, to ensure a calm environment throughout the area, including along the Blue Line, and to exert control over the use of force on its territory and from it.

On January 23, 2006 the UN Security Council called on the Government of Lebanon to make more progress in controlling its territory and disbanding militias, while also calling on Syria to cooperate with those efforts. In a statement read out by its January President, Augustine Mahiga of Tanzania, the Council also called on Syria to take measures to stop movements of arms and personnel into Lebanon.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has stated that the government considers Hezbollah arms to be a domestic affair and that stated policy should reassure Hezbollah that the government will protect its military wing. Hezbollah was trying to convince the government to clearly state that the Shiite group's military wing was a resistance group, not a militia, and therefore did not have to comply with the resolution.

Druze leader MP Walid Jumblatt has repeatedly insisted that he objects to the disarmament of Hizbullah, according to the international resolution, describing the party as a "resistance group" and not a militia. He engaged in an electoral alliance with Hizbullah during last year's parliamentary election, with one of the titles of the alliance being "the protection of the resistance," but is now calling on Hizbullah to be integrated into the Lebanese Army and hand in its weapons over to the government."

Pete's Points:

If true, these quotes seem to indicate some explicit cooperation by senior members of the Lebanese government in supporting and maintaining the armed wing of Hezbollah in spite of numerous UN resolutions and the use of different language to justify this stance. It is interesting to note that the same people are now calling on the UN to broker a cease fire and it is even more interesting that Israel is not paying any heed to this call, but has not stated explicitly that since one side can get away with ignoring the UN so can the other.

In December 2001 three Hezbollah operatives were caught in Jordan while attempting to bring BM-13 Katyusha rockets into the West Bank. Syed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, responded that "It is every freedom loving peoples right and duty against occupation to send arms to Palestinians from any possible place."

Pete's Points:

If true, then this quote seems to indicate what Hezbollah intends.

It is interesting to note that the Palestinian authority actually complained about the Hezbollah as set out in the following quote:

In February 2005 the Palestinian Authority accused Hezbollah of attempting to derail the truce signed with Israel. Palestinian officials and former militants described how Hezbollah promised an increase in funding for any occupation resistance group able to carry out an attack on Israeli military targets.

If one then looks at the relevant WikiPedia page to see the weapons that Hezbollah actually has in its arsenal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hezbollahsmissiles.png#file
it may be possible to understand why the Israelis have finally had enough of the 'freedom loving people' on their northern border.

I am still of the view that the killing of civilians is inappropriate and to be condemned by all. I am still of the view that what is happening in the middle east is a tragedy for all.

However I am asking a few more questions about what is propaganda, what is disinformation and what are the facts in the reportage that seems to come down to us via the free to air press in this country.

My advice to my readers is for them to be as horrified as I am by the loss of innocent lives on both sides, but to ask some serious questions about whether all of the lives that are being lost on both sides are as innocent as they are made out to be in the press reports.

"Muck into Money" or "Tuck into Yuk!"

from the ABC

Fish fed on waste headed for dinner plate

Fish grown in treated effluent could be available for human consumption within five years. The South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) says Australia churns out 25 million tonnes of agricultural waste a year.

The institute has just finished a trial at Roseworthy, north of Adelaide, and plans to set up a commercial plant at a piggery there.

Phil Glatz from SARDI says it wants to turn muck into money by using it to kick-start an aquaculture industry. "Here is a valuable nutrient that with proper biological processes can be converted into valuable products," he said. He says one of the major challenges will be overcoming public perceptions.

Pete's Points:

A challenge overcoming public perceptions? I'll say!

Wasn't there an article about alleged cruelty to animals in a South Australian piggery the other day?

Are we now about to enter an era of alleged cruelty to humans?

It was bad enough when we realised that by feeding cows things that were not in their natural diet we created mad cow disease. Now we are thinking of feeding fish effluent and then feeding the fish to people.

I seem to recall a bumper sticker that said something like "Eat S*^T and Die!"

I hope that is not prophetic!

I really want to wait and see how the people who complain about our dietary habits will handle the next set of adverts that tell us that eating fish at least once a week is healthy, especially if they come from a South Australian piggery!

And of course there IS reportage that DOES ask questions!

How could both sides have blundered so badly?

See the full story from the Guardian

Miscalculations by Israel and Hizbullah have weakened Lebanon's fragile unity. A ceasefire is needed immediately

Jonathan Steele in Beirut
Friday July 21, 2006
The Guardian

Fear and anger pervade this city in equal measure - fear that Israel's airstrikes may intensify once the foreigners have all escaped, and anger that the world has failed to impose a ceasefire. But behind this mixture of emotions the few people who are able to think calmly about the extraordinary events of the past week are filled with shock and awe. How could the protagonists have miscalculated so badly? Where is Israel's exit strategy? What did Hizbullah, the radical Shia militia, expect when it launched the attacks that captured two Israeli soldiers and left eight others dead?

Timur Goksel used to be the senior adviser to the UN mission on the Lebanese border. The day before the Hizbullah raid, he went down to the seaside resort of Tyre with a group of students from Beirut's American University where he now teaches. "The beaches were packed. It was like Florida," he recalls. "Many of them were well-off Lebanese Shia from the diaspora in west Africa and the US. They don't support Hizbullah politically but they finance its welfare services, and I remember thinking Hizbullah would never start anything at least until the end of the season. How wrong I was."

Here is case in point . . .

From the BBC

Israel calls up army reservists

A pall of smoke hangs over Tyre from the constant shelling

Israel has called up thousands of reserve troops and told civilians to quit southern Lebanon immediately, amid threats of a large-scale incursion.

Israeli troops are already fighting Hezbollah inside Lebanon and have been heavily shelling the border area.

Correspondents in Tyre say the sound of explosions is constant, and with villages cut off and roads severed, people are in grave peril.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah rockets have again hit the Israeli city of Haifa.

Pete's Points:

In view of the previous story about heat killing people in France let's just look at this story.

"Israel has called up thousands of reserve troops and told civilians to quit southern Lebanon immediately"

Could this be classed as the equivalent of an Orange alert or perhaps even a Red alert to people to try and save their lives?

If people ignore warnings are the people who issue them to be blamed?

If this were the case with the earlier French story, then the people who issued the warning about heat and its related effects should be held accountable for "causing" the death of those "innocent civilians" who ignored the warnings and keeled over from the heat while at work or playing sports!

"Meanwhile, Hezbollah rockets have again hit the Israeli city of Haifa."

Why was there no warning by the Hezbollah group to alert "innocent Israeli civilians" to take shelter or to leave Haifa before the rocket attacks?

More to the point, why is there no condemnation by the journalists concerned of the Hezbollah group for killing innocent civilians without warning?

Why are correspondents in Haifa not reporting that "the sound of rockets and explosions is constant" or "people are in grave peril."

I have no doubt that there are tragedies within both Lebanon and Israel. I have no problem with condemning violence by both sides. .

I am afraid that I do mind reportage that is one sided, emotional and unbalanced.

Heat kills as many as terrorist rockets. (Well, that COULD have been the headline)

From the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5203812.stm
Heatwave toll rises across France

People are being urged to stay in the shade and drink plenty of water

At least 20 deaths in France this week are probably linked to a heatwave gripping much of Europe, officials say.

Among the victims were a 15-month-old baby and 10 elderly people, the French Health Ministry said in a statement.

In the Netherlands, two people died of heatstroke earlier this week. Germany and Spain have each reported two deaths blamed on the punishing heat.

Temperatures of well above 30C (86F) have been registered across Europe, prompting a series of health warnings.

Several of the French victims collapsed at their workplace and two died while playing sport, the ministry's statement said.

'Orange alert'

French meteorologists have placed some regions of the country on the second-highest warning level - orange alert - saying that temperatures there could reach 38C (100.4F) in the coming days.

The hot spell has raised concerns that there could be a repeat of a heatwave in the summer of 2003, when some 15,000 people died in France as a result of heatstroke and dehydration.

In other developments across Europe:

• Italy's central regions of Liguria and parts of Umbria have been placed on the highest level of alert, with temperatures expected to reach 40C (104F) over the weekend

• In Britain, forecasters have predicted another heatwave next week, although the mercury is down to 32C (89.6F) on Friday from 36.5C (97.7F) registered two days ago

• In Croatia, the hot weather has been blamed for a series of fires that have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest and woodland

People are being urged to stay in the shade and drink plenty of water.

Pete's Points:
I sometimes find it difficult to read the headlines in the press without having a moment of irritation about the different ways in which death and destruction seem to be handled.

If we had a terrorist or insurgent bombing of a supermarket or a crowded mosque or a terrorist rocket landing on the heads of a group of people going about their daily business and killing 20 people some of whom are children or babes in arms, we would have headlines that were front page news and would be accompanied by all sorts of moral commentary about how horrendous it is that inncent civilians are killed and/or mutilated etc etc.

Yet here we have something perfectly natural - heat from the sun during high summer, killing people and not a peep from the journalists concerned about the horrors of non terrorist organisations like big business whose contribution to increased green house gasses is leading to global warming and hence to the sort of temperature increases that are becoming more frequent in Europe.

There is not a peep of outrage concerning the fact that for the most part France does not seem to know how to handle heat. For a country that colonized parts of Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia where temperatures are routinely within this range, this is simply silly.

French people should be extremely familiar with how to cope with the effects of heat in a hot environment. The government and the people of France have failed to realise that temperatures of this kind are NORMAL in other places in the world and BILLIONS of people experience these sort of temperatures daily without keeling over and dying.

What is the world coming to when we have governments that issue Orange alerts when temperatures reach 38 degrees Celsius?

In many places around the world that is considered to be a cool day!

You have to warn people about behaving sensibly? "Stay in the shade and drink plenty of water?"

The world has gone nuts!

"That incident" A conclusion!

From "The Guardian"

Rob Smyth
Thursday July 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

'So if I do this to you, you'll get banned as well? Cool' Photograph: AFP/Getty.

"The sanitation of football continues apace: now, it seems, even verbal provocation is unacceptable, after Fifa today banned Marco Materazzi for two matches for his part in Zinedine Zidane's infamous sending-off during the World Cup final.

Zidane's violent conduct inevitably produced a three-match suspension, which will come into effect should he come out of retirement, while he was also fined 7500 Swiss francs (£3260). Materazzi is 5000 Swiss francs (£2170) worse off."

Pete's Points:

Well finally there is an end to this story.

I have to say that the author in writing about "The sanitation of football" has missed something.

English sports (in the past at least) have been famous for something called 'fair play'.

What with English (insert the name of the sport here) hooligans everywhere these days it is not suprising the journalists are also caught up in the modern trend that seems to be pervasive in the UK namely, "let's not talk about fair play, let's not talk about sport as a sport, lets just have a free for all brawl! Let's get totally pissed and then make total fools of ourselves and create disharmony, as much damage as possible and put it all down to 'enthusiastic support for our team'."

There is another English expression that comes to mind when I see stuff like this "Bollocks!"

Differences in the law

I must be a very naive person.

When we had the so called "Port Arthur Massacre" in Tasmania the Australian people and government reacted by introducing gun laws that very narrowly restricted the ownership of small arms like pistols, shot guns and rifles.

The concept that citizens of this country could possibly freely own, much less use, more serious military weapons like automatic weapons, rocket launchers, military explosives or missiles was simply outside the realm of consideration.

It appears that the way in which the Australian government reacts to a "massacre" by one mentally ill individual is very different from the reaction that seems to happen in other countries.

We have recently seen the issue arise in East Timor, in the Solomons where our PM has reacted quickly and decisively when those governments asked for assistance. Australia sent in Australian soldiers and their first act was to start to try and disarm the locals and put out of circulation the weapons that were being held and used to terrorise civilian populations.

This brings us to Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon as examples of countries where it seems the notion that is prevalent in the USA namely the 'right to bear arms' has been taken beyond any reasonable use of that notion.

Not only are people in these countries armed to the teeth with the basic weapons that are strictly controlled in this country - things like hunting rifles or pistols. They actually are armed with uncontrolled numbers of modern automatic weapons, and far more dangerous toys like rockets, missiles, and who knows what else.

Small wonder then that in these countries deadly violence is a daily occurrence.

I seem to recall a saying that went something like "those who live by the sword shall die by the sword"

Until the people and governments of countries make and enforce laws that restrict the ownership and use of weapons they will continue to be exposed to the risk of uncontrolled use of those weapons and the consequences that flow from this use.

The New Fashion?

Animals Inspire Next Generation of Body Armor: "Animals Inspire Next Generation of Body Armor
John Roach
for National Geographic News
July 17, 2006

Animals' natural defenses are providing inspiration for researchers developing the next generation of lighter, tougher body armor.

Benjamin Bruet, a graduate student in engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, is part of a team funded by the U.S. military to create new materials to protect soldiers in the field." . . .

"The team has become particularly interested in the soft-bodied snail Trochus niloticus and the inner layer of the shell that protects it."

"It takes twice as much energy to break a piece of nacre than what nacre's structure should be able to withstand, Bruet explains."

Pete's Points:
So I guess in ten years time we will expect to see the Marines landing on some beach somewhere to fight yet another foe and this time instead of the traditional Marine battle hymn they will be listening and singing along with Burl Ives about pearly shells.

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Soon we will see all forms of research subverted to military applications.

Cockneys in London who are into this pearly stuff and women all over the world who wear natural and cultured pearls will need to be aware that in the future they will probably have to consider a new fashion item - the pearl shell bulletproof vest. Nothing strange about adapting military items into the fashion stakes folks, just look at the Humvee!

"Mad dogs and Englishmen out in the noon day sun"

Heatwave prompts clothing discrimination fears: "As Britain bakes in near-record temperatures, employers are being warned that allowing female workers to wear spaghetti-straps and flip-flops around the office, while keeping men buttoned up in suits, could potentially leave them open to sex discrimination claims.

A study by consultancy Croner has found that employers are failing to enforce 'gender neutral' dress code policies.

What it calls 'sartorial discrimination' is a widespread problem this summer, with more than half of employees polled for Croner believing women 'get away' with more casual clothing than men to keep cool.

This compared with a mere three per cent who thought men were given more leeway to dress down when the weather heated up."

Pete's Points

I suspect that the summer sunshine in Europe is finally getting to people!

I suppose you can classify this as a Management Issue - but really, are people serious about making a fuss about dress codes again?

I have a friend who has for as long as I have known him (and that is over 30 years) always considered sartorial splendour as wearing a short sleeved white shirt with a tie, shorts, long walk socks and either black or brown shoes depending on his mood.

This person has been employed in various senior positions in a number of organisations and has not varied his dress code for decades regardless of the season.

To the best of my knowledge, while he may have received certain looks from people over time - especially when the weather was so cold that the rest of us shivered in multiple layers of clothing, he has never been the subject of any official discussion about discrimination.

It's obvious to me that people simply do not have enough to do at work if they have the time to bother with this sort of trivia!