Interesting to hear recently that our good prime minister is of the opinion we need a referendum to remove the bits of our constitution that allow for discrimination. Great move I think, I will vote for that. Then I learn that they are going to bind it to a whole heap of other crap. Well there goes another perfectly good referendum down the toilet.
Any proposal that prevents the commonwealth from passing laws that are in anyway based on race, religion or ethnic background can only be a good thing. We are all Australians. We all get up in the morning, we are all always just short of having the money we want to do what we want. There is no long term value in a Government that thinks it wants to micro meddle based on ethnicity or religion.
This is not to say I necessarily support the wearing of a Burka , but I certainly don't support legislation about burkas that is based on the religion of the wearer.
This also applies to race. Should a Vietnamese get special English classes based on his race. Of course not! If people need to learn English, then they need to learn the language regardless of their native tongue. But now for the truly controversial part of my summary. If a person has legal problems, or needs financial support for their on going eduction or for that matter is in need of any other assistance, is their race, creed or ethnic background of any relevance at all. I would argue that it is not and that if Australia is to move forward, we need to very quickly get away from these paternalistic programs and policies that are based in most cases on race. Bring on the repeal of Sections 25 and 51 of the constitution, I think it is a really excellent idea. It will mean that finally after more than a century our government will finally become colour blind. But don't tie it to another whole heap of rubbish! You want to put race back in there with another amendment, then ask me and the rest of the Australian people as a separate question. I for one will not be voting for any attempts to recognize anyone in the constitution, nor will I support the other crap that is being peddled by these clowns.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Religious Zelots
I just heard that a group of religious lunatics in the united states spear to think that their obligations as an employer can and should be modified on the basis of their religious convictions. This is the United States here folks. It is not down town Iran where the religious leader get to make law.
I have wondered for a log time why it is that such a populous country has such difficulty with the rest of the world. Now it is obvious. Religious zealots and bigots are the cause of most of the problems of the United States. What a ludicrous idea. That as an employer you get not only to dictate the type of health insurance your employees get, but that you think, nay even consider it reasonable, that your employee should have to operate under the weight of your religious conviction is the worst kind of abuse of religion I have ever heard of.
I suppose this same group of old men with such simple and unbending views would consider it ok if their Presbyterian son was required to stop work 4 times a day to turn east and pray, or if their daughter was required by her Cooneyite employer not to cut her hair.
It is all well and good to exemplify religious freedom, but in fact that these gentlemen do not espouse religious freedom. Exactly the reverse in fact. They espouse compulsory observance of their own religious convictions. That today their bigotry happens to be aligned is purely an accidental.
Perhaps the think that the Jehovahs Witness approach of no medical insurance because they don't believe in medical intervention is also correct and perfectly normal. Wake up and smell the roses America. You being lead to destruction by religious bigots and corporate greed.
I have wondered for a log time why it is that such a populous country has such difficulty with the rest of the world. Now it is obvious. Religious zealots and bigots are the cause of most of the problems of the United States. What a ludicrous idea. That as an employer you get not only to dictate the type of health insurance your employees get, but that you think, nay even consider it reasonable, that your employee should have to operate under the weight of your religious conviction is the worst kind of abuse of religion I have ever heard of.
I suppose this same group of old men with such simple and unbending views would consider it ok if their Presbyterian son was required to stop work 4 times a day to turn east and pray, or if their daughter was required by her Cooneyite employer not to cut her hair.
It is all well and good to exemplify religious freedom, but in fact that these gentlemen do not espouse religious freedom. Exactly the reverse in fact. They espouse compulsory observance of their own religious convictions. That today their bigotry happens to be aligned is purely an accidental.
Perhaps the think that the Jehovahs Witness approach of no medical insurance because they don't believe in medical intervention is also correct and perfectly normal. Wake up and smell the roses America. You being lead to destruction by religious bigots and corporate greed.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Almost a year since my last post
Damn how time gets away from me. It's almost a year since I even came onto blogger but then it has taken me this long to really get pissed with the world again.
I have issues with the Government of South Australia and what appears to the a 1950s mentality that permeates their decision making processes. So I am going to do some blogging to get it off my chest
I have issues with the Government of South Australia and what appears to the a 1950s mentality that permeates their decision making processes. So I am going to do some blogging to get it off my chest
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Education
This topic has been around since the beginnings of recorded history, and probably beyond. Not withstanding this it popped into my consciousness this week when I finally got to listen to the inauguration speech of president Obama. In his speech the new president stated that 'our schools fail to many' . This rang a bell loudly with me because it has been obvious for most of my adult life that Australia's school have the exact same problem as was referred to by the New US president, namely that they fail to many.
The reasons for this are complex, as I am sure anyone involved in the processes will tell you. Never the less the problem remains, and the collective efforts of our education bureaucracy don't appear to be doing a great deal to fix that. Then I sat back and had a sort of epiphany on the subject. Of course our schools are not improving. There is no reason for them to change, as the for the people in charge of the process they actually worked. The majority of people working in education have in essence never been anywhere other than school. At age 5 they started school and followed that with a trip to university and a diploma in education and returned to the school system that had made them what they are. Why would these people even perceive a need to change? The system obviously worked for them! Therefore the problem in their minds is with the student, not the process.
Compound this level of apathy to change from the 'teachers' with the almost insatiable desire of politicians to introduce more and more supposedly important curriculum topics and even to me an outsider the problem appears clear!
Schools are being asked to take the place of family in the education of children in social and community issues. Taught by teachers that are at best only half convinced of the need and the result is a whole lot of disenchanted student and teachers.
What we need is to find a way to get 'real world' experience into the education system. By this I don't mean just the teachers. Those undertaking curriculum development and setting education goals need to be drawn from somewhere other than academia. Our current school system is university focused, with a huge input into the whole process coming from the universities themselves. It is wrong minded to allow this lunacy to continue. The significant proportion of those starting school will never complete a university course. WHY are we positioning our education system to focus on the entrance needs of less that 40% of those children to university. By default the system is failing the remaining 60%.
Conversely, we need to get politicians and other assorted social engineers out of the system so that education can get on with the fundamentals of literacy. Until the fundamental issue of literacy (both in word and number) is solved then the entire process is moot.
There is no point trying to increase university enrollments, and make ourselves a smart nation if we are not capable of delivering basic numeracy and literancy through our education system!
The reasons for this are complex, as I am sure anyone involved in the processes will tell you. Never the less the problem remains, and the collective efforts of our education bureaucracy don't appear to be doing a great deal to fix that. Then I sat back and had a sort of epiphany on the subject. Of course our schools are not improving. There is no reason for them to change, as the for the people in charge of the process they actually worked. The majority of people working in education have in essence never been anywhere other than school. At age 5 they started school and followed that with a trip to university and a diploma in education and returned to the school system that had made them what they are. Why would these people even perceive a need to change? The system obviously worked for them! Therefore the problem in their minds is with the student, not the process.
Compound this level of apathy to change from the 'teachers' with the almost insatiable desire of politicians to introduce more and more supposedly important curriculum topics and even to me an outsider the problem appears clear!
Schools are being asked to take the place of family in the education of children in social and community issues. Taught by teachers that are at best only half convinced of the need and the result is a whole lot of disenchanted student and teachers.
What we need is to find a way to get 'real world' experience into the education system. By this I don't mean just the teachers. Those undertaking curriculum development and setting education goals need to be drawn from somewhere other than academia. Our current school system is university focused, with a huge input into the whole process coming from the universities themselves. It is wrong minded to allow this lunacy to continue. The significant proportion of those starting school will never complete a university course. WHY are we positioning our education system to focus on the entrance needs of less that 40% of those children to university. By default the system is failing the remaining 60%.
Conversely, we need to get politicians and other assorted social engineers out of the system so that education can get on with the fundamentals of literacy. Until the fundamental issue of literacy (both in word and number) is solved then the entire process is moot.
There is no point trying to increase university enrollments, and make ourselves a smart nation if we are not capable of delivering basic numeracy and literancy through our education system!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
That last article left me wondering. It would appear that I am not alone in
that but following some hours with my faithful google I have decided that the whole sexual predator/child molestation thing is far more beat up that reality. The first fundamental problem with it is that no one actually has a definition of what it is. This is really complicated by the fact that for some reason there is no consistent definition of 'a child'. Generally it is considered to be those under the age of consent. But what really is the age of consent? It would appear than for some 2/3 of the worlds population this is 14 (China) but there are a number of countries that make the age younger and older.
The age of consent in and of itself makes a farce of the whole argument. The fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is when are children no longer children? Now to sound like my grand father I have to say that with each generation it appear that our children become more sexually active earlier and that we consider them to be children for far longer than in the past. Whilst historically people were not considered to have reached their 'majority' until they were 21 and in legal circles trusts etc often prevented beneficiaries any meaningful access until they were 25 or 30 the reality is that by the time a boy was 14 there was an expectation that he would be out working and 'earning his crust'. I clearly remember my step father having a go at me because I was still at school at 17 and that was unhear of in his world. So the view is not really that old. But back to the point of all this when do our children cease to be a child? It would appear that Australian Governments just can not make up their minds on the issue.
Federally we find that for receipt of Youth Allowance/Austudy that the age is either 21 or 25. Depending on if your are a student. However at 18 this same government is happy to accept them into the armed forces. They also cease Child Support at 18. This would lead you to think that obviously somewhere between 18 and 25 they cease to be children. We as a community tend to lean towards 18 sinply because that is the age they are required to enrole to vote and can legally enter licensed premises and buy cigarettes. But is this a correct assumption?
I personally think that it is not. Basically laws are framed to protect community, or at least they should be, and in this case I think the justification is that most 18 year olds have the ability to make adult decisions about drugs and politics. Now as anyone involved with teenagers will tell you. They have been drinking smoking and a number of other things for some years but now they can do it legally.
Things become most confusing when we allow the 'child protection' industry into the fold. There are numerous reports of teenagers leaving home and being sheltered in government sponsored hostels long before they are 18. These reports are often atteched to complaints by parents that they have no control over their children because if they don't like it at home these hostels will not only accomodate them, but hide their whereabouts from the parents.
I am no closer to my answer of when does a child cease to be a child all I have done is pull together a lot of facts that it would appear muddy the waters further.
What I do know is that we as citizens of this planet need to stop this meaningless and destructive child protection thing we have going and actually work out what it is that we are trying to acheive. As a starting point I would suggest that 'child pornography' should really be aligned with the clinical definition of paedophilia as pre pubescent children. If the community thinks that there needs to be some other offence relating to pubescent or older 'children' then let it be so. But I have something of a problem considering the two things as the same as is currently the case
that but following some hours with my faithful google I have decided that the whole sexual predator/child molestation thing is far more beat up that reality. The first fundamental problem with it is that no one actually has a definition of what it is. This is really complicated by the fact that for some reason there is no consistent definition of 'a child'. Generally it is considered to be those under the age of consent. But what really is the age of consent? It would appear than for some 2/3 of the worlds population this is 14 (China) but there are a number of countries that make the age younger and older.
The age of consent in and of itself makes a farce of the whole argument. The fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is when are children no longer children? Now to sound like my grand father I have to say that with each generation it appear that our children become more sexually active earlier and that we consider them to be children for far longer than in the past. Whilst historically people were not considered to have reached their 'majority' until they were 21 and in legal circles trusts etc often prevented beneficiaries any meaningful access until they were 25 or 30 the reality is that by the time a boy was 14 there was an expectation that he would be out working and 'earning his crust'. I clearly remember my step father having a go at me because I was still at school at 17 and that was unhear of in his world. So the view is not really that old. But back to the point of all this when do our children cease to be a child? It would appear that Australian Governments just can not make up their minds on the issue.
Federally we find that for receipt of Youth Allowance/Austudy that the age is either 21 or 25. Depending on if your are a student. However at 18 this same government is happy to accept them into the armed forces. They also cease Child Support at 18. This would lead you to think that obviously somewhere between 18 and 25 they cease to be children. We as a community tend to lean towards 18 sinply because that is the age they are required to enrole to vote and can legally enter licensed premises and buy cigarettes. But is this a correct assumption?
I personally think that it is not. Basically laws are framed to protect community, or at least they should be, and in this case I think the justification is that most 18 year olds have the ability to make adult decisions about drugs and politics. Now as anyone involved with teenagers will tell you. They have been drinking smoking and a number of other things for some years but now they can do it legally.
Things become most confusing when we allow the 'child protection' industry into the fold. There are numerous reports of teenagers leaving home and being sheltered in government sponsored hostels long before they are 18. These reports are often atteched to complaints by parents that they have no control over their children because if they don't like it at home these hostels will not only accomodate them, but hide their whereabouts from the parents.
I am no closer to my answer of when does a child cease to be a child all I have done is pull together a lot of facts that it would appear muddy the waters further.
What I do know is that we as citizens of this planet need to stop this meaningless and destructive child protection thing we have going and actually work out what it is that we are trying to acheive. As a starting point I would suggest that 'child pornography' should really be aligned with the clinical definition of paedophilia as pre pubescent children. If the community thinks that there needs to be some other offence relating to pubescent or older 'children' then let it be so. But I have something of a problem considering the two things as the same as is currently the case
Nurse gave newborn to stranger
I have just read this story and feel that comment is required.
Like what is the problem here! so a stranger minded a baby. It might not be ideal, and in probably goes against some lunatic regulation somewhere written by a policy maker that still has yet to understand the world is not perfect. But my original question remains. What is the problem here? I think it is fairly obvious that the problem is a shortage of news. And a lot of over zealous public servants. The truly important question is not being addressed.
Did any harm come from the action?
The over riding facts show that there was no harm done. The transfer ended successfully the baby is fine and the fact that it was cared for for 10 minutes by a stranger is of no real relevance in the real world. Wake up and smell the coffee people! It is this sort of over zealous bureaucracy that is miring the country into a bog we are unlikely to ever get out of.
Is the average stranger likely to harm a child?
Well the answer to this question is also a resounding NO! If you want people to harm a child look to family and close family friends. They are the risk group.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/07/2460437.htm
Like what is the problem here! so a stranger minded a baby. It might not be ideal, and in probably goes against some lunatic regulation somewhere written by a policy maker that still has yet to understand the world is not perfect. But my original question remains. What is the problem here? I think it is fairly obvious that the problem is a shortage of news. And a lot of over zealous public servants. The truly important question is not being addressed.
Did any harm come from the action?
The over riding facts show that there was no harm done. The transfer ended successfully the baby is fine and the fact that it was cared for for 10 minutes by a stranger is of no real relevance in the real world. Wake up and smell the coffee people! It is this sort of over zealous bureaucracy that is miring the country into a bog we are unlikely to ever get out of.
Is the average stranger likely to harm a child?
Well the answer to this question is also a resounding NO! If you want people to harm a child look to family and close family friends. They are the risk group.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/07/2460437.htm
Sunday, December 7, 2008
We need a government internet filter why?
Although this topic is a little off the boil at the moment, I have to ask myself just what is the implications of this half baked grab by a group of well meaning but basically ignorant politicians. The internet in this country is basically hardly out of the stone age. We have significant problems with speed and pricing. Now in a sleigh of hand move our politicians want us to look the otherway while they censor the internet.
I personally have an abhorrence of censorship. Nothing good ever came out of government censorship, and the recent statements by the minister responsible that it works well in china leave me terrified that the internet that we have all grown to love could be on it's last legs. Ok, they tell us now that all they want to do is get rid of illegal content. That we have to protect the children. But the question begs, that there is currently a blacklist of websites managed by our censors the sites on that list are NOT available for public examination. What is to stop this apparently well meant save the kiddies project from getting out of control. Who will police the process and most importantly of all. Are not adults capable of doing their own censorship?
What qualifies for a ban on this proposed net filter. If I look through my recent news I find examples of schools that are determined to teach creationism. It is possiblr that either the proponents of creationism or those of evolution may hold sway. Is it reasonable that either of these topics suddenly dissapear from our internet screens? This is the power that internet filtering places in the hands of the censor. God help us if family first ever get the controls of this filter. the net will be a very puritanical place indead.
I personally have an abhorrence of censorship. Nothing good ever came out of government censorship, and the recent statements by the minister responsible that it works well in china leave me terrified that the internet that we have all grown to love could be on it's last legs. Ok, they tell us now that all they want to do is get rid of illegal content. That we have to protect the children. But the question begs, that there is currently a blacklist of websites managed by our censors the sites on that list are NOT available for public examination. What is to stop this apparently well meant save the kiddies project from getting out of control. Who will police the process and most importantly of all. Are not adults capable of doing their own censorship?
What qualifies for a ban on this proposed net filter. If I look through my recent news I find examples of schools that are determined to teach creationism. It is possiblr that either the proponents of creationism or those of evolution may hold sway. Is it reasonable that either of these topics suddenly dissapear from our internet screens? This is the power that internet filtering places in the hands of the censor. God help us if family first ever get the controls of this filter. the net will be a very puritanical place indead.
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