Public Opinion"...public opinion deserves to be respected as well as despised" G.W.F. Hegel, 'Philosophy of Right'a democratic dictator- August 19, 2008 So domestic and international pressure has compelled Pervez Musharraf to quit as President of Pakistan, nine years after he took power in a military coup. Though Musharraf leaves Pakistan in the hands of the same politicians that he had repeatedly denounced he had no choice. It was quit or be impeached once once both the army and the US refused to back his bid to stay in power. Steve Bellhttp://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/a-democratic-di.php the commodities boom- August 17, 2008 Is the commodities boom dying The prices of gold, copper, and nickel are falling and have been for a while. So have the shares of mining companies. Does that mean China's growth easing What happens to Australia's current account deficit if it does If mineral exports currently account for over half of Australia's export income, then the deficit will increase. Wasn't China meant to be the security blanket for the world economy Spooner The turn around in commodity prices has been so...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/the-commodities.php Bracks Report- August 17, 2008 The industry review headed by Steve Bracks, the former premier of Victoria, proposes $2 billion in subsidies to the car industry over the next decade (2020) to enable it to go through a transition process in return for a planned cut in tariffs from 10 p% to 5%. What is unclear is the transition to what The aim from what I can gather is to secure the future of the local industry. To ensure that it survives in a global world, or achieve "economic and environmental sustainability by 2020"...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/bracks-report.php Greer: indigenous dispossession, sexuality, rage- August 16, 2008 There seems to be a failure in the responses to Germaine Greer's essay On Rage to deal with her focus on rage. That essay was about hunter gatherer violence which has a particular shape involving self-destruction, high levels of suicide but also high levels of extraordinary violence against the people closest to the perpetrator, the perpetrator's own children and the women folk in his own family. Aboriginal male rage, she argues, is a response to the appalling outrages and abuses of white..http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/greer-indigenou.php Institute of Public Affairs on liberalism- August 14, 2008 I sometimes glance through the Institute of Public Affairs quarterly Review looking for interesting material about liberalism in Australia. Often I'm disappointed as I don't learn that much about liberalism in Australia. A case in point is the editorial in the July issue of the Review by Chris Berg, the editor. Berg says that: Liberalism's opponent today is not socialism, as it was when the IPA Review was founded in 1947; liberal philosophy now stands against an arguably more...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/institute-of-pu.php gross mismanagement of water- August 13, 2008 The calls for restoration of environmental flows to the River Murray from Buying up properties along the Barwon-Darling River and releasing water stored in the Medindie Lakes will go unheeded, despite the growing political pressure about the years of inaction by state governments captured by irrigator interests in the Basin. If it is true that 80% of the water released upstream would be lost to evaporation because conditions are so dry, then the finger can be pointed at state and federal...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/water-mismanage.php Georgian blowup- August 13, 2008 It is clear that the crisis in the Southern Caucasus that has arisen from Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia is caught up in the strategic conflict between the US and Russia in the post Cold War era that undercuts the spin about the Russian bear bullying democratic Georgia. That spin downplays the history of the region, Georgian provocation in recovering lost territory, Russian national interests and an anti-Russian media bubble. M K Bhadrakumar in Asia Times Online says: Georgia and the.http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/georgian-blowup.php she would say that, wouldn't she- August 13, 2008 It comes as no great surprise to find Janet Albrechtsen getting stuck into Clive Hamilton. Clive is a lefty, so it logically follows that he hates private property and anybody who has any. It's your standard Janet Albrechtsen Experience (apologies to the Hendrix estate). Except it's not anymore. Stephen Mayne's piece in yesterday's Crikey describing Janet's familial connections with the world of banking came as news to me. Mayne points out that Janet neglected to inform her readers of her...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/she-would-say-t.php solar energy + industry protection- August 12, 2008 Finally Australia is stepping out of the dark shadows cast by the coal industry's doom and gloom spin run by the Greenhouse mafia, that opposes climate change, reducing greenhouse emissions and the shift to a low carbon economy. That 'no change' spin is designed to both delay an emissions trading scheme for as long as possible, and to use the situation to develop new forms of industry protection and industry subsidycompensation to protect the older, coal-fired polluting forms of...http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/solar-power-pla.php silly seven- August 12, 2008 Last night's Media Watch covered the story of GetUp's Tibet ads mysterious non-appearance on Channel Seven. Apparently Seven accepted the bookings, didn't run the ads, then gave a bunch of conflicting stories about why they didn't screen. Naturally enough, GetUp is using the word 'censorship', which is understandable in the circumstances. You'd think that the people at Channel Seven would understand how this mediapublicity thing works, but maybe not. The GetUp campaign instead got a bunch of..http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2008/08/silly-seven.php |