Sure it's a small thing, but it's still a great idea.
The lights on the arch of Harbour Bridge were turned off at 8 p.m., followed shortly by the shells of the Opera House and other city landmarks. Most businesses and homes were already dark as Sydney residents embraced their second annual Earth Hour with candlelight dinners, beach bonfires and even a green-powered outdoor movie.
One can only wonder how many Bush people are going to moan about their regrets on climate change, torture, rule of law, failed economy and invading Iraq. The John Howard team is now voicing their regrets about how goofy they looked to voters for being aligned with Bush and against the rest of the world on climate change.
Another senior Cabinet minister in the former government, Tony Abbott, agreed with Costello that their Kyoto policy had been politically damaging.
"I don't think it helped us at all," Abbott, who is now an opposition lawmaker, told the ABC.
"There's nothing easy about changing your position on a totemic issue and I'm not saying that if we had changed it, it would necessarily have saved our bacon," he said of his coalition's crushing electoral defeat.
"But certainly as far as ... the voting public were concerned, I think our position looked odd," he added.
At least the Australian government is documenting the whale hunt this year to prove once and for all, this has nothing to do with science. This is all about the ego of a small group of backwards thinking people in Japan who don't care how much they embarrass the rest of the country. Last year the whale meat was so unpopular they tried giving it away to schools. Even then, nobody wanted it.
It's time to put this hunt in the past and move on. Why is Australia the only country to get serious? What was disappointing this year was that Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd could not even agree on working together in harassing the Japanese whaling fleet. Both used too much fuel so they had to turn back to refuel. Not long after their departure, the Japanese hunters successfully killed a number of whales including the mother and calf. The environmental groups are going to need to do much better in the future, but so are governments from the US and Europe.
Absolutely. While traveling in Egypt last summer this exact subject was often raised with many Westerners giving a free pass to poor countries on climate change. The argument that I often heard was that countries such as Egypt don't have any money so the rich nations ought to be paying for everything and leading this. I completely agree that the rich nations could do a heck of a lot more to help poor countries face this issue, it's a flimsy excuse and I don't buy in to the theory of helplessness.
While traveling through Sinai, I was disgusted with the uncontrolled growth that led to rubbish everywhere including in the Sea of Aqaba. Tourists who go to Sinai primarily go to see the magic underwater, which could be beautiful and also horribly disappointing. Wealthy developers from Cairo are taking in money, hand over fist but I doubt the high times will last very long considering the complete disrespect for Mother Nature. Who will pay good money to see trashed coral and a fish graveyard? I am familiar enough with the financial dynamics of such economies and refuse to accept that they can't afford to take action. They can't afford not to take action.
Hiring people to promote cleaner tourism and picking up rubbish is a very small price to pay in a place such as Sinai. For a dollar or two per day, you can hire someone who will gladly jump on the opportunity for employment. The problem is that the wealthy developers who will be gone tomorrow, sitting on the weatlth that they collected, have no interest in tomorrow. They always have friendly political connections and moan about how they can't afford any such investment but this argument is the same kind of greed that we hear from business in the US who supposedly can't afford regulation.
Can the rich nations help? Of course and they should. They could educate, provide startup funding to launch programs, lobby governments who are receiving funds and much more, but to say the poor nations are helpless in this struggle is false. Maybe our next government will be more creative with diplomacy and get such programs moving. Hats off to the new Austalian government for speaking out and suggesting that all countries, rich and poor, are active participants. It is empowering and a more progressive approach compared to what we have today. All of us can make a difference in one way or another.
That was pretty fast work. Strangely enough, new PM Rudd actually did what he said he would do during the elections. What a novel idea.
"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change," Rudd said in a statement issued hours after he and his Cabinet were officially sworn in after Nov. 24 elections.
Rudd said that he had signed the "instrument of ratification" of the Kyoto Protocol and that it would come into force 90 days after the paperwork was received by the United Nations.
Paragraph after paragraph in this Op-Ed reminds me of Bush and the American experience of recent years. A few pieces below, but follow the link and read it all if you have time. The perspective on incoming Rudd is very much worth reading.
Howard had promised that Australia would be relaxed and comfortable under his rule, yet this year Australians had become more fearful and suspicious of each other than ever, a state of affairs that Howard's government seemed happy to exploit.
Howard's divisiveness and his skilful manipulation of public opinion obscured the strange paradoxes of his era. If he flirted with racism, it was nevertheless under him that Australia ended up with the largest immigration programme in its history. His foreign policy was notoriously sycophantic to the Bush administration....
...Howard's seeming blandness disguised his ruthless determination radically to reshape Australia. His politicisation of the public service severely weakened that institution; his government's ceaseless and ferocious attacking of alternative points of opinion brought a disturbing conformity to Australian public life; and he stacked body after body with sycophants and far-right ideologues to prosecute his causes through society....
His condoning of the imprisonment of David Hicks at Guantánamo Bay without trial for five years, and the subsequent gagging of Hicks until after the election, suggested a growing contempt for human rights and the rule of law that was most frighteningly on display with his anti-terrorism legislation, much criticised for its provisions of secret trials and imprisonment...
Then something strange happened: history changed and the times no longer were his. His ever lonelier support for the Bush administration's adventurism looked increasingly foolish and possibly dangerous. The very climate of Australia was transformed. Every mainland capital city now has a water supply crisis so severe that people have been murdered by neighbours for watering gardens. Yet in the midst of a once-in-a-thousand-years drought, Howard remained until late last year a climate sceptic. His supporters dismissed global warming as they had so much else - more hysteria from the left. But it wasn't: it was the world and the world had changed.
Exit polls look bad for Bush's friend Howard. Any Aussie readers out there with news about Rudd, the Labor candidate? Rudd has previously said that if he wins he will remove troops from Iraq and sign Kyoto.
UPDATE: Stick a fork in Howard. Not only has he lost the national election, it looks as though he lost his own seat. Looks like his own "Workchoices" are a bit more limited.
Uh oh. Bush's friend is in trouble now. A scandal emerges as news of millions of taxpayer dollars to friendly districts (and nothing for districts of the opposition) just as Labor party candidate Kevin Rudd (the earwax guy) opens up an eight point lead.
Which (Australian) political leader would they like to see nude? The earwax guy wins! (Don't view unless you have a strong stomach.)
The survey found 34 percent of respondents wanted to see Rudd, 50, with his gear off, more than double the 16 percent who said the same thing about Howard, 68.
So what's the verdict for the US? Please categorize by political party.
The recipe for success, both for John Howard as well as other so-called Coalition of the Willing members, is falling flat in 2007. Accusing anyone who is Arabic used to be very well received by the media and the general population but after so many false charges and failures, the public around the world has become wiser. John Howard, prepare to spend more time with Tony Blair very soon.
Australian authorities dropped terrorism charges against a Sydney medical student on Monday, with a judge condemning police and intelligence agents for "grossly improper" behavior in the case.
Izhar Ul-Haque, 24, had been charged with receiving weapons training in 2003 from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is listed as a terrorist group in Australia. The case was dropped after police interviews with him were ruled inadmissible in court.
New South Wales Supreme Court judge Michael Adams said intelligence officers from the secretive Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had kidnapped and falsely imprisoned Ul-Haque during their investigations.
"It was a gross interference by the agents of the state with the accused's legal rights as a citizen, rights which he still has whether he be suspected of criminal conduct or not, and whether he is Muslim or not," Adams said.
The development is a further blow to Australia's tough stand on national security after prosecutors in July dropped charges against an Indian doctor, saying they made a mistake by publicly charging him with supporting terrorism.
The case is also a blow to conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who won elections in late 2001 and 2004 on the back of his tough stand on national security. But his government is struggling in the polls ahead of elections on November 24.
I'll bet they would protest just the same if it was a Christian school being constructed. AFP:
Hundreds of people have protested against the building of a new Islamic school on the outskirts of Australia's largest city, local officials said Tuesday.
Around 1,000 people held a meeting late on Monday to object to the proposal by the Quranic Society to build the 1,200-place school in Camden, a satellite town southwest of Sydney.
Large parts of southern Sydney are now heavily populated by Middle Eastern migrants, many of them Iraqi Muslims, but opponents deny any anti-Muslim bias.
"Let the people decide," Emil Frenchevich, the organiser of Monday's meeting, told national radio.
Poor John Howard. Not only is he trailing in the race for PM in Australia, but he's even trailing in his own parliamentary seat. Australia has enjoyed some good economic times but it sounds like they've had enough of Howard and want change. Being close to Bush has not worked out very well for politicians over time.
Considering his similar approach to free speech, it will be a welcome change when both Bush and Howard are out of the picture.
Report author Irene Moss, the former NSW ombudsman, says there are grounds for concern about the state of free speech in Australia.
Her audit, commissioned by a coalition of major media groups, says there are 500 pieces of legislation and at least 1000 court suppression orders still in force that restrict media reporting in Australia.
"The audit would broadly conclude that free speech and media freedom are being whittled away by gradual and sometimes almost imperceptible degrees," she said.
"As a result, I believe there are indeed grounds for concern."
Ms Moss, also a former chair of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, said: "What the audit can observe is that many of the mechanisms that are vital to a well-functioning democracy are beginning to wear thin.
"Their functioning in many areas is flawed and not well maintained."
Australia may be a different country, but the story always remains the same. More from Australia's religious right "Family First Party":
A family values campaigner accused of taking pornographic photographs of himself has been dumped as a candidate for Australia's November election by the Christian-values Family First Party....
"But that's not my penis," Quah told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, adding one of the images may have been digitally altered.
"I might have been drunk off my face, or my political enemies might have drugged me," Quah said. "It was a mistake that I would not have committed had I been of right mind. All I know, I have been humiliated."
....Quah said the photos were more than two years old and were taken and shared while he was drunk. He denied the genitalia in one picture was his, but said he did pose for two photos in an "inappropriate position."
Just an aberration in an otherwise family values team, no doubt.
Aussies get to move on from the Howard years on 24 November. He has been such a strong vocal supporter of Bush and the war in Iraq though Howard never seemed to put his money where his mouth is. I just wonder how everyone will survive without the few hundred Australian combat troops that remain in Iraq. Oh the humanity. We're also going to miss his attacks global warming and his strong support for the Bush model of just crossing your fingers and hoping it all somehow works itself out. He's tried hard to throw a bit of race-baiting into the campaign but that just hasn't panned out. What's a wingnut to do?
Hmmm, sounds familiar, doesn't it? Bush can't run but his old friend John Howard has to announce a new election soon, whether he wants to or not. Pull up a chair and enjoy because Howard is going to be thrashed at the polls.
With his youthful opponent Kevin Rudd promising generational change taking the country into the future, the Labor Party had a 56 percent cent to 44 lead over Howard's conservatives on preferences, the AC Nielsen poll in Fairfax newspapers showed.
Rudd, 50, also maintained a strong 52 percent to 39 lead over Howard as preferred prime minister. It was the 18th straight monthly lead for the opposition in the closely-watched survey.
"A point must come when John Howard leaps out of the aeroplane and hopes that a miracle opens the parachute," veteran politician analyst Michelle Grattan wrote in the Age newspaper.
The Anglican church is being pulled in many directions around the world these days with some supporting positive (and long overdue) change and others preferring to stay in the past. It's puzzling to understand why so many faiths around the world continue to treat women as second class people in this day and age but even more bizarre to understand the position of those who are against basic terms of equality and who want to block change. Yes, a "significant day" indeed.
And to think some people say these events are an expensive waste of time that never really produce tangible results. What incredibly bold leadership by Bush and his friend, John Howard.
Asia-Pacific officials agreed yesterday to a draft climate statement that reaffirms the United Nations convention as the primary vehicle for fighting global warming, while setting non-binding, "aspirational targets'' for themselves to reduce greenhouse gas reductions.
Some analysts saw it as too little, too late.
"The issue of climate change is so severe that aspirational goals are too late,'' said Mark Diesendorf, senior lecturer at the Institute of Environmental Studies at Australia's University of New South Wales.
"Real goals and real targets are really needed and you cannot reduce energy intensity by raising emissions and lowering energy consumption.''
