Pommygranate

Friday, April 21, 2006

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Moral Equivalency in the Sydney Morning Herald

On 17th April, a suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad detonated an explosive in Tel Aviv that killed nine people and wounded many more.

The Sydney Morning Herald report is here. It is what you would expect until you reach the final sentence, which completely changes the tone of the entire piece.

"Since October 2000 Hamas suicide bombers have killed 300 Israelis. Israeli military attacks have killed almost 5000 Palestinians in the same period."

Let me translate for anyone who is in any doubt as to journalists, Tali Caspi and Rami Amichai's, true meaning;

The Zionists have killed twice as many Palestinians as Hamas have killed Jews. So don't you go feeling sorry for them. This isn't London nor is it Bali or Madrid.

Firstly, get your facts straight;

During the second intifada (2000 to the end of 2004), the number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths were reported at 3,334 and 1,017 respectively according to the Financial Times.

In 2005 the death toll dropped 70% for both sides (255 Palestinians and 55 Israelis killed) due to the "informal truce observed by some Palestinian groups", according to the BBC.

This article gives some idea as to the scale of the problem facing the Israeli security services,

"Militant Palestinian groups launched approximately 2,990 anti-Israeli attacks in 2005, In all, five suicide attackers got through Israeli security measures in 2005."

In 2006, there have now been four suicide bombs in Israel, all claimed by Islamic Jihad, a group with links to Iran.

And second, The Sydney Morning Herald is guilty of moral equivalency by;

i) ignoring the fact that 76% of Israeli deaths are civilian verus 30% of Palestinian. Or maybe the SMH subscribes to the Hamas view that all Israelis citizens are "legitimate targets"
ii) ignoring the fact that the terrorists use women and children as suicide bombers.
iii) ignoring the fact that the terrorists deliberately target civilians, whereas the Israeli security forces target those doing the killing.
iv) ignoring the fact that Israeli action is always in response to a terrorist atrocity; "you hit me and i'll hit you back". Noone seemed to think this was unacceptable when the US went to war in Afghanistan, so why should it be different in Israel.

Back Dormitory Boys

If you're one of the three people left on the planet who has yet to watch the greatest Chinese pop video of all time, here it is again.

The Economist reports that Huang Yixin and Wei Wei, the two students in the video, are now Chinese megastars. Even their roommate, just visible in the background playing computer games, has become a national celebrity.

So big have they become that the duo are set to join David Beckham, Ronaldinho and Janet Jackson as the public face of Pepsi in China.

The power of the internet and a good idea.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Easter Chick Joke

A lion, a shark and a chicken were having a beer discussing their prowess. The shark boasted that he could close an entire beach resort simply by swimming nearby. The lion replied that one roar from him could send animals up to fifty miles away scurrying for cover.

The chicken looked at the shark and then back at the lion and slowly downed his pint. "Shit guys, that's nothing. One sneeze from me, and i can cause total panic throughout an entire country".

Saturday, April 15, 2006

A radical new idea to fund students

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Now this is genuinely radical. And it might just work.

Students currently fund their University educations with a mixture of parental cash and unsecured loans made by the government. However, this still leaves problems. Rather than restrict themselves to debt funding, why not use equity and sell a stake in their future earnings asks Joseph Clark, a PhD student at the University of Queensland, in the latest edition of Policy (subscription only).

The problems are;
i) Universities are poorly funded leading to low quality teaching. But why should the working class foot the bill for the education of middle class kids.
ii) Students need to take on ever larger amounts of debt to enter University. That those who benefit should have to pay seems fair but scary to those assuming large debts, especially from poor backgrounds.
iii) The vast increase in student participation in higher education has lead to a proliferation of degree courses which do not equip students for good, well-paid jobs. Students expectations are unfairly raised and money is squandered on 'useless' degrees.

Equity funding gets around all of these issues.
This is how it would work; Jack Smith needs $50,000 to fund him through a four year Law degree. He expects to earn an average of $100,000 over his first twenty working years. He offers the market 5% of his earnings over this period in exchange for $50,000 upfront. If he earns above $50,000 then the investor makes a profit; if he earns less, for whatever reason (death, change of career, etc), the investor books a loss. This contract can then be traded on the open market.

The benefits would be;
i) the value of a degree would then be reflected in the value of the contract. For example, those wishing to obtain funding for a Media Studies degree would find that they could only raise around half the amount of someone wanting to study, say, Medicine. This would provide students with some indication of their likely future earnings from following a particular degree.

ii) skill shortages would be easier to predict in advance and prevent. If, say, Dentists were in short supply, the price of a Dental contract would rise and more students would choose to study this option.

iii) if these contracts were pooled, they could be listed on an exchange and purchased by pension funds. Hence retirement income would be invested in training the young.

It might just work.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Euston Manifesto

Just posted on Normblog amogst others is a document called the Euston Manifesto - a Renewal of Progressive Politics. It appears to be written by Nick Cohen and Norman Geras and looks like a manifesto by the democratic/rational/non-stupid Left.

There is a lot to like.

i) no apology or attempt to understand tyranny and terrorism
ii) a complete rejection of knee-jerk anti-Americanism
iii) a rejection of cultural relativism in favour of universal human rights
iv) a scathing attack on Amnesty International and its appalling comparison of the US with the Russian gulags
v) a complete rejection of racism. And, unusually for the Left, to include anti-Semitism
vi) the acceptance that a country's sovereignty is not sacrasanct. ie there are situations that justify invasion.
vii) a defence of freedom of speech (though they understandably do not get drawn into the cartoon debate)

However, there is also a lot of woolly thinking and the inevitable platitudes

i) the very strident anti-terror language is softened by a predictable sop to the Muslim community, "this does not justify prejudice against Muslims, who are its main victims, and amongst whom are to be found some of its most courageous opponents". If only this were the case.
ii) it is very unclear from the document where they stand economically, "we stand for global economic development". Yes, but who doesn't. "Globalization must mean global social integration and a commitment to social justice". Sounds nice but what does it mean? I think they mean that they accept that globalisation has pulled millions out of poverty but they don't like the fact that the rich have benefited disproportionately. Well i dont either, but it comes with the turf.
And "we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History" could have been written by Bono. More aid? Really? Even though study after study has shown that it perpetuates not alleviates poverty. And why fair trade and not free trade? What is fair trade exactly?
iii) they completely ignore one of the biggest issues of the day - welfare - and they fail to answer the question, as Michael Collins so succintly puts it, of "why the white working class have gone from salt of the Earth to scum of the Earth in a little over sixty years?

However, i nitpick. This is a massive step forward for the Left at a time when they seem to have simply run out of ideas.

Australia's shark conspiracy continues

A while ago i posted that despite regular shark attacks reported by the daily Australian papers, the year-end stats show almost no danger whatsoever. Australia officially owned up to 12 attacks last year. I would put the real number at about 10x that if the last few weeks are a guide.

The carnage continues. "I could feel my foot inside its mouth, his whole mouth was around my foot, and I just knew it was some sort of shark," Luke said from his bed in John Hunter Hospital yesterday. "Then I hit it and it let go and I didn't see anything."

Jesus. I would have passed out from terror. Never mind started a boxing match with it. Fifteen year olds are clearly made of stern stuff round here.

Yesterday, i went kayaking in Middle Harbour in Sydney. It was beautiful. That evening i dropped into the Middle Harbour Yacht Club and picked up the daily notes. I found this; "a fisherman yesterday tagged and released an 8ft Tiger Shark and a 5ft Bronze Whaler. The fisherman stated he had noticed increased activity of sharks within Middle Harbour."

Did he really have to release it?

Meanwhile, animal rights activists are protesting the NSW government's decision to retain its shark net program. The Avalon-based Humane Society's spokesperson, Nicola Breynon said the nets were "crude and unselective and killed a great many sharks".

Yes, that's the general idea Nicola.

An American's view of cricket

The Australia-Bangladesh Test is beautifully poised for the final day.

Having just moved to the country myself, i have just finished Bill Bryson's rather mediocre book on Australia, originally titled "Down Under". Its one redeeming feature is his delightful American eye's view of cricket;

"The English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively...i dont wish to denigrate a game that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport in which the spectators burn as many calories as the players. And it is the only sport, other than baking, in which you can dress in white from head to toe and be as clean at the end of the day as you were at the beginning...

Imagine a form of baseball in which the pitcher, after each delivery, collects the ball from the catcher and walks slowly with it out to centre field; and that there, after a minute's pause to collect himself, he turns and runs full tilt towards the pitcher's mound before hurling the ball at the ankles of a man who stands before him wearing a riding hat, heavy gloves of the sort used to handle radioactive isotopes, and a mattress strapped to each leg.

Imagine moreover that if this batsman fails to hit the ball in a way that heartens him sufficiently to try to waddle sixty feet with mattresses strapped to his legs he is under no formal compulsion to run; he may stand there all day, and as a rule, does. If by some miracle he is coaxed into making a misstroke that leads to his being put out, all the fielders throw up their arms in triumph and have a hug. Now imagine all this going on for so long that by the time that match concludes autumn has crept in and all your library books are overdue. There you have cricket."

And with particular reference to Australia,

"The mystery of cricket is not that Australians play it well, but that they play it at all. It has always seemed to me a game much too restrained for the rough-and-tunble Australian temperament. Australians much prefer games in which brawny men in scanty clothing bloody each other's noses. I am quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished overnight and the development of cricket was left in Australian's hands, within a generation the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other."

Terrorists who abusively invoke Islam

Please amend all references to Islamic terrorists previously made on this blog to

"terrorists who abusively invoke Islam"

Or so say the latest guidelines from the EU.
In addition, my profuse apologies to jihadists who i may have offended as

"Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself."

Update - i am informed that henceforth a spade is to be referred to as a "metallic soil redistribution device"