0		Australia, republic

So the second in line to the British throne is touring Australia at the moment, prompting cringeworthy garbage like this from the Herald Sun:

A "dinkum" Aussie "larrikin"?

Does anyone lap this drivel up?

Just for the record, this is NOT how genuine Australians actually speak day to day - it's how politicians and media organisations trying to sell us something speak to us, trying to gain social currency by referring to an imagined culture that exists only in theme parks and tourist brochures. They're awkward cliche expressions that are used by people who suspect they're seen as elitist and out  of touch.

Like, for example, a British prince who'll be our Head of State when he succeeds his grandmother and father.

The Hun story tries to paint a narrative of enthusiasm for royalty, filling it's puff-piece with expressions of "delight" and talking of "hordes of teenage girls", hoping it will sell newspapers; tomorow it'll be back to bashing "elites" in government without the slightest hint of being aware of the irony.

It's a bit sad that all the monarchists have to fall back on now is the hope that they can sell William as a "dashing young prince" who kinds of "gets us", isn't it?

	0		India, Melbourne, knife crime

An Indian student was stabbed to death in West Footscray on Saturday. Because it has happened before, the Indian Government has threatened to issue "an official warning" to people about travelling to Melbourne, and is demanding that the culprit(s) be found:

India strongly condemned the fatal stabbing of a 21-year-old Indian graduate in Australia and said Monday the incident could affect bilateral ties. External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna called on Australian authorities to speedily find and charge those responsible for Saturday night's attack on Nitin Garg, saying that Indian students in Australia were increasingly targeted with violence.

I'm sorry - what? What did they think we were going to do? Of course the police are going to do everything in their power to catch the murderers. What makes India think they wouldn't? And what's the evidence that Indian students are victims of this violence more than anyone else?  

The Age went and transcribed a series of the more outrageous responses to the incident on Indian news websites:

‘‘I am an Indian occupying a reasonably responsible position in Australia, but I can state without any doubt that this is a racist country, which discriminates Indians on every count,’’ James wrote. ‘‘Well can’t blame the Aussies,’’ wrote Daffy. ‘‘They started as a bunch of thugs, killed the Aborigines and now they continue to do same.’’ Sunny commented: ‘‘In India, target these criminals and teach them a lesson’’. Neck Breaker said: ‘‘Ban over flight of Qantas through Indian air space. Ban all imports from Australia. Ask British to de-colonise Australia or India does it. These white dogs understand only one language, kick in the face ... ’’

Isn't it terrible when the actions of a few nutbags are used to smear an entire country?

If there's a problem with knife crime in Melbourne, it's most likely linked to the closing down and underfunding of mental health facilities over the last 20 years, not racism. If Indian students do turn out to disproportionately be victims of those sorts of unhinged attacks, it may well be for very straightforward reasons - the fact that there's a disproportionate number of them with late-night service jobs who are often travelling in poorer areas of the city in the small hours of the morning, where such attacks are more likely.

Meanwhile, it's not like India has some magic wand to rid itself of violence.

	0		rail, china

Whatever else you might say about the Chinese government, you've got to give them credit for recognising the importance of building new rail infrastructure:

The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway with the world's fastest train journey at a 350-km-per-hour designed speed, started operation Saturday.

...The service between Wuhan, a metropolis in central China, and Guangzhou City, a business hub in the southern Guangdong Province, was put into trial operation on Dec. 9, reaching a maximum speed of 394.2 km per hour.   

The airlines claim not to be worried - "In the long run, the coming of high-speed railway age is rather an opportunity than challenge to our airline company", said the president of China Southern Airlines - but you'd have to see this sort of technology as a positive step towards reducing our dependence on air travel.

Pity the Australian government hasn't the imagination or courage to plan anything similar.

	0		Copenhagen, cop-out

I've been delighted this week to see the Copenhagen climate change conference completely collapse in a chaotic cacophony of clumsy cowardice, partly because of the alliteration, but mostly because I'm convinced that agreeing as a species to limit our greenhouse gas emissions in order to attempt to avoid seriously changing the planet in ways that will disastrously affect our various civilizations is giving in to terror.

The planet has been trying to bully us into stopping releasing all the CO2 it spent millenia locking away back into the atmosphere by unsubtly throwing its weight around. Increasingly severe winters. Increasingly severe summers. Unprecedented droughts and floods.

Well, screw you, Earth. People died because of your shenanigans. Why should we, as a species, give in to any of what it appears likely would be your demands if you were conscious and not just an inanimate ball of rock floating through space on which we depend for our very survival? Won't that just encourage you to hurt us more?

Anyway, separate from the terrorism angle, these are my six reasons I will refuse to do anything about this issue - and want my government to refuse to do anything about this issue - until it's too late:

1. I refuse to believe that anything that's happening is our fault.
2. The climate isn't changing.
3. If it is changing, it doesn't matter.
4. If it does matter, it's got nothing to do with us. Prove it's not solar flares.
5. If it does have something to do with us, well there's nothing we can do about it now.
6. It's what the liberals want us to do.

The last one's the real kicker. Imagine how happy (well, somewhat relieved) the lefties would've been if there'd been some agreement at Copenhagen that was actually going to tackle greenhouse emissions. They really want us not to make the planet unliveable, the tree hugging weirdos, and they genuinely think that greenhouse gases have something to do with the greenhouse effect you can easily observe in any hothouse. They don't understand that the atmosphere is magically infinite and impervious to whatever we throw at it, so they think we should be cautious.

CAUTIOUS? With this planet?

We've treated it too gently, for too long. It's time it learnt who's boss.

Good to see that the majority of the world's politicians agree with me and my unimpeachable reasoning.

	0		Stephen Conroy, ALP, internet filter

The hopes of Australia's internet users were dashed today when Stephen Conroy announced that the Government will be proceeding with its flawed, expensive and useless internet filtering plan after all:

The Federal Government has detailed its plan to require internet service providers (ISPs) in Australia to block a list of banned material.

When Parliament resumes next year the Government plans to introduce amendments that will require ISPs to block banned material on overseas servers.

Broadband and Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy says some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilised society.

He says the Government will not determine what is blacklisted on the internet in Australia, rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as RC for refused classification.

Refused classification material will include child sex abuse, sexual violence and detailed instruction on crime.

Although the government keeps talking about how the filter will somehow "protect children", there is of course no detail on how exactly that will work. Unless all adult content is blocked, unsupervised children will of course be able to gain access just as now. And simply blocking "child pornography sites" (whatever they are) won't stop paedophiles - it'll just drive them further underground where they'll be harder to catch.

Meanwhile, leaving the decision on what will be blocked to some unanswerable body gives plenty of scope for mission-creep - if earlier reports are to be believed, for example, Australians might simply lose access to any overseas commerce site (like playasia or Amazon) that sells content that isn't rated in Australia (such as R18 games).

The government is proposing to waste more than $100 million on giving lobbyists control over the internet, and bequeathing that power to all its successors. Which is why the Liberal Party will probably vote for it, despite it being entirely contrary to principles of "liberalism".

After all, there are pro-censorship control-freaks in marginal constituencies to placate! There's a reason the so-called "Australian Christian Lobby" got an early look at the test results - it's all being done for them.

It's only the Greens who are standing against the censorship tide - and there simply aren't enough of them yet in parliament.

It's a sad time to live in Australia.

	0		high property prices

I was somewhat astounded to find an article on Asian Correspondent celebrating the appalling housing affordability problem in Singapore. Chua Chin Leng from My Singapore News writes:

Higher property prices music to Singaporeans' ears

There are 900,000 public flat owners in the island plus another couple of hundred thousand private property owners. Any hike in property prices is music to the ears of these owners. No wonder everyone feels so good in shouting up the prices.

A 10 percent rise in property prices will mean that the net worth of these owners will go up proportionally. The only minority that may feel the pinch will be the young couples that are starting a new life but don't have rich parents to buy them their dream homes. But this is a minority and their protest votes, if any, will not cause any dent to the 900,000 happy flat owners and the rest of the private property owners.

Well, to start with, that's at least 900,000 renters (more, because many homes have more than one resident) who are going to be stuck renting indefinitely, so you'd think their votes would at least cancel out their landlords'.

It also seems silly to describe the next generation as a "minority" that can be ignored - they are inevitably going to replace older Singaporeans, after all. As will the one after them. And the one after that.

And as for the "net worth" of property owners going up - well, yes, that's true. But it's not much use to home owners, who don't actually get that money unless they sell their house and don't need to buy another one. The only people who really benefit from houses rising ahead of inflation are those with investment properties, and they do it at the expense of those trying to enter the market to buy one single home.

Leng cheerfully boasts:

Weighing in all the numbers and factors, objectively, the higher the property prices, the more people will be laughing their ways to the banks. And this will mean more votes in the general election for the ruling party. Thus the higher the prices go up, the better it is.

The equation is simply for high property prices. Anyone hoping that property prices will come down is deluding himself. Prices cannot come down or more votes will be lost. Singaporeans should cheer and look forward for more higher property prices. It is their nest eggs that is at stake.

The only thing higher property prices enable Singaporeans to look forward to is an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and the accompanying social instability from a generation of permanent renters who no longer even aspire to own their own home. If it continues, the only Singaporeans who'll be able to buy a house will be those on the very highest incomes and those whose parents bequeath them property. It's not a recipe for a happy country in the long term.

It's increasingly a problem here in Australia, too.