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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Professor-rat's Blurty:
| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | |
| 10:50 am | Chaves the jackel Chavez had declared full support for Illich Ramirez Sanchez, currently serving life sentence in France for terrorism. Carlos ;The Jackal,; Chavez told delegates, is a revolutionary leader who played an important role in the Palestine struggle and he Chavez does not care what Europeans think about his remarks. Ramirez Sanchez, he claimed, was unjustly condemned and illegally kidnapped in Sudan by French security agents. Chavez' support for Robert Mugabe will raise eyebrows the UK and Europe and as will what he had to say about Idi Amin. In 2008, Chavez had dropped a hint that it was time to think about calling a Fifth International after founding of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007. He chose Friday night to launch the initiative, urging that no more time should be lost in calling for a Fifth International that would learn from past mistakes and set the agenda for 21st Century Socialism. http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=86242 |
| 10:44 am | Singularity popularizer faces fiscal singularity Welcome to FatKat! FatKat Inc. was created to build industry-leading tools for Quantitatively based investing. Its founder, Ray Kurzweil, is a world leader in pattern recognition techniques. He has successfully developed, built and marketed his inventions not only by making technological advances, but by identifying and exploiting synergies among disparate technologies. It is this spirit of innovation and unfailing success at building technology-based businesses which Ray brings to FatKat. http://www.fatkat.com/index.html Some of us are old enough to remember the LTCM crisis - along with the Savings and loan fiasco. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management But we're always interested in more and better shadenfruede - hows Ray's baby goin'? Ray? Talk to me boobie. |
| 10:39 am | Prediction markets say Obama is dying RAT Institute predictions markets have placed the US president in a Shrodingers box - don't look now '...MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--While I'm sure that many of the people in the room were familiar with prediction markets, I wonder how many of them had ever seen an active one up close and personal before. Providing that sense of deep immersion, of course, was exactly the point of an exercise run Monday during a session of Singularity University's executive program by Melanie Swan, a Silicon Valley hedge fund manager. Swan, the principal of MS Futures Group, had tasked small groups of students with coming up with world-changing product ideas and then simultaneously had the students vote in an online prediction market looking at which product and team would be rewarded with the most faux-venture capital. Despite the fact that some technical problems got in the way, the point was made: prediction markets, given enough active participation, are increasingly seen as an excellent way to arrive at the answers to any number of questions, whether it's sales figures, who will win presidential elections, or who will get the most VC funding. Indeed, the winning technology concept--a pill that could cure cancer--and team were accurately prognosticated by the market...' |
| 10:30 am | Premier love-rat Rann 'used me to stroke his own ego': ex-barmaid Sydney Morning Herald A hole in one 'And then it just continued on and to the point where the clothes came off, the intercourse began. We would go parking at the North Adelaide golf course. It was always late in the evenings, dark, nobody could see us...' Toilet sex "Then I would drive him back to Parliament House and he would get out of his vehicle and he would go back to work. "Some fantasy, a lot of fantasy talk. "Like how often would you have sex with your husband and he actually asked me to watch this particular movie which was called Unfaithful. "In the scene, the leading lady goes to the cafe with her girlfriends and she meets the guy that she's having an affair with and they go to the toilet and it's a very hot steamy sex scene. "He actually asked me to watch that . . . because that was one of his fantasies, I guess. Did you rent the movie? "Yes, I did." Did you watch the scene? "Yes, I did." Did you act out the fantasy? "I believe he did". He did? "Yes. He would pin me against the wall." Maybe we should ban Bikie gangs after all |
| 10:14 am | America 2016 The USSA seems to be on track to devolve roughly to the stage that Spain was at in the 1930's. This should be great news for all ' Class - struggle anarchists', ' Platformists and other organizational anarchist types. If they can stop worrying about losing market share to dumster-diving bums and organize themselves, then they will be well positioned for the one-big-union revival expected soon - real soon. Viva la federatione Ameriqista! |
| 9:57 am | Mike Rann for sale on ebay? Blood and parts of a brain said to belong to the South Australian Fascist dictator have been withdrawn from sale after doubt was cast on the validity of the brains portion. When asked for comments on how to keep a good parliamentary barmaid permanently, the premier replied ' Screw her on the desk'. In related news beefeaters all over Australia are salivating at the thought of a giant screwed turn-bull entering the killing season. Xmas in Australia is traditionally a time of great feasting on barely cooked offal with its tongue hanging out. |
| 9:41 am | Lenin, Stalin and Hitler I just read this last night and for a bourgeois history, its not bad. AMAZON - A historian of Nazi Germany (Backing Hitler, 2001), Gellately here compares it to its totalitarian enemy, Soviet communism. At pains to distinguish the two dictatorships both ideologically and by their political support, Gellately reviews their roots in the rubble of World War I. Underscoring Lenin's contempt for liberal democracy and dedication to mass violence, the author argues that Leninism had a logical continuator in Stalin—which, while not an original thesis, is one that Gellately capably sustains. Switching to Germany and the radically anti-Semitic nationalist resentments from which Hitler emerged, the author tracks events in the Nazi ascent to power and stresses the popularity Hitler had acquired by the late 1930s. Having poised history before what became the Holocaust, Gellately, as part of his argument for the uniqueness of the Holocaust, however similar numerically it was to Stalin's death tolls, details the menaces in Hitler's rhetoric, such as his notorious 1939 "prophecy" of Jewish "annihilation" in the event of war. But discussing either tyrant, Gellately achieves his aim of describing for general readers the draconian inhumanity of their rules. |
| 9:34 am | Calling all anarchist archivists The bourgeois crawling all over the Soviet archives have started writing books - some like Robert Gellatelly's much better than others...Anne Appelbaums for instance. My call is for some anarchist archivists...and fuck knows we have more than enough of them...to get into it and so set the record straight on the real fascist of the century - Lenin - and the unknown revolution to most bourgeois historians - the libertarian-socialist revolution. Good anarchist source materials for background include G. Maximoffs, ' The guillotine at work', Volines, ' The unknown revolution and documents collated by Paul Avrich since the 1960's. |
| Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | |
| 9:58 am | Save the planet with ZPG Birth control: the most effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions Investing in birth control to reduce population growth could be more effective in cutting greenhouse gas emissions than building wind turbines or nuclear power stations, according to a United Nations report. Taking action to prevent one billion births by 2050 would save as much carbon dioxide as constructing 2 million giant wind turbines. The UN Population Fund report predicts that the global population could reach 10.5 billion by 2050, up from 6.8 billion today, unless urgent action is taken to reduce fertility rates. It says that even its medium-growth forecast of 2.3 billion more people by 2050, which assumes a fall in average fertility from 2.56 to 2.02 children per woman, would make it much harder to achieve the cuts in carbon emissions needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. The report says that reducing population growth would allow the 2050 target for global average emissions per person to be increased significantly above the 2 tonnes recommended by Lord Stern, the author of an influential government report on global warming in 2006. Living standards would be higher because each person would be able to emit more CO2. MORE http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6922245.ece Flannery calls for population inquiry ABC Online - Tony Eastley - Nov 19, 2009 UN: Too many women dying in childbirth in Asia-Pacific Radio Australia Let's talk (carefully) about climate and population Energy Collective (blog) |
| Friday, November 20th, 2009 | |
| 11:37 am | The negation of the negation of the negation '...Furthermore, it must be noted that the Internet, by its nature, breaks with an entire series of old parameters. First, it breaks with logical and sequential thought and argumentation. Hyper-connection destroys historical sensibility. There's no beginning, middle or end. Now the jump is made from one side to another without rhyme or reason - connectivity provides no real judgment of sources. It's not easy to determine whether or not an information source is reliable. Most all of the information is commercial. Someone has to pay to post, send or receive it...' I hope all Marxists read this article on Cyber Cuba @ counterpunch and pull the plug on this fiendish internet thingie. |
| 11:27 am | A state falling apart JERUSALEM — The Israeli army punished six soldiers, sending two to prison, for protesting the army's demolition of structures at an unauthorized settler outpost in the West Bank, the military said Tuesday. The soldiers hung a banner Monday at an army base in the West Bank, proclaiming their opposition to using the army for such missions. The soldiers faced courts martial, the military said. A photograph of them hoisting the banner was featured widely in Israeli media on Tuesday. Other soldiers carried out orders to dismantle two makeshift houses Monday at the outpost of Negohot, near the city of Hebron. The six soldiers, who serve in an infantry unit in the West Bank, refused to take part in the demolition, staging the protest instead at their army base. After courts martial, two were jailed for a month and dismissed from their combat unit. Two others were sentenced to several weeks in military prison, and the remaining two were confined to their base for a month, the military said Tuesday. Negohot is one of dozens of wildcat outposts put up by settlers without government authorization, though the government provides services to many of them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was no place for insubordination in the military, adding commanders would deal with such incidents with a "strong hand." "If you promote insubordination, you cause the country to fall apart," Netanyahu said during a tour of a naval base on Tuesday. Troops in the same infantry unit staged a similar protest last month. Though both protests involved only a few soldiers, their actions have stoked tensions in the military, which tries to distance itself from politics. A military statement said the political protest by active duty soldiers was fundamentally wrong. "Such acts damage the strength and unity of combat units," it said. |
| 11:18 am | Peruvian liposuction FOUR people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing some 60 people to sell their fat and other human tissue to Italian co-conspirators for cosmetic use in Europe. The suspects were arrested in central Peru this month and a search is under way for seven others - including two Italian citizens whose names were not revealed - lead prosecutor Jorge Sans Quiroz said. The fat was purchased "to be commercialised in European (cosmetology) laboratories," he said. The prosecutor's indictment said the gang allegedly targeted farmers and indigenous people on remote Andean roads, tricking them by offering jobs before killing them. One reported killing took place in mid-September to remove human tissue for trafficking. The trafficking network could be linked to 60 individual disappearances in the central Andean region, although the ties could not be confirmed. Police began arrests after discovering early this month a container with human fat that was being shipped to Lima from the Andean city of Huanuco, some 400km north-east of Lima. Signs of "an international network trafficking human fat" first surfaced about two months ago, according to General Felix Burga, head of the police criminal division. Peruvian press cited him as saying the fat can be sold for $US15,000 a gallon ($4200 a litre) in European countries. A Peruvian Marxist specialist , Louis Proyect , said that such fatal extractions were justified against poor peasants because Karl Marx had said once that ' the peasant class has made a deal with the underworld', and that Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot had murdered millions of poor peasants in the last 90 years with very few serious objections from anyone. Proyect also said that a local Marxist, Mariagutu, had once predicted that Incan human sacrifice should be revived in the region and the ' Shining Path' Marxists hadn't killed enough poor Peruvians in order to terrrorize the entire population. |
| 11:07 am | Soft on communism! The POUM actually ignored Submitted by anon on Wed, 2009-11-18 17:37. The POUM actually ignored Trotsky and made common cause with the social-revolution. So at least in Spain the Trots and anarchs were on the same page...and of course were murdered together in 1937 by the red-fascists. Personally I would rather be closer to Trotskyists who were defying Trotsky and behaving like revolutionaries than any 'council communists' who spit on anarchy since 1920 and have never done squat. Finally imo 'abstract individualism' and alleged 'random acts of violence' are not entirely incompatible with a healthy brand of mainstream anarchism that is comfortable in its own skin. ie one that doesn't feel the need to eternally doff its cap to such dubious, cynical and nihilistic bastard forms of Marxism such as 'council communism'. Yrs etc professor rat » reply I would add to the above Submitted by anon on Thu, 2009-11-19 17:18. I would add to the above that a certain limited and provisional solidarity may be called for with some of the Trots in South America. Anyone familiar with the machinations of Stalinists like Neruda, the Castro brothers and Hugo Chaves against Trotskyists (like the ELN) should support this. Some red-fascists are demonstrably worse than others and those with any state power or reach are the worst of them all. PR. http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10107#comment-88134 Hey - Marxist on Marxist violence calls for a measured response...thats my response...its not everyones. |
| 10:17 am | Just how cheap these bourgeois politicians are Democrats in the states were shocked, SHOCKED, to find recently just how cheap their pollies were being bought for. The ones not being hired by the hour that is. I wonder when anarchists, too will wake up and smell the coffee...bourgeois politicians in the form of Marxist 'socialists' have been over promising and under-delivering for at least as long as social-democrats. As a recent example the Marxist Guy Rundle suggested that Julian Burnside and David Marr made good representatives for the Left here in Oz. I wrote to Burnside once to subscribe to a newsletter - I got back an email with adorned with a quote from Karl Marx! Marr, who bears an unfortunate resemblance to Malcolm Turnbull at his most tedious, is famous for approving of ' The hand that signed the paper'. So in at least one respect he is a Marxist - Marx himself was famously anti-semitic. Both Burnside and Marr are classic reformist bourgeois and fit perfectly the micro-managerial, bureaucratic mindset of Marxism. Fabians being as bad as trad Marxists is this the Left the people deserve? The post-left critique of some anarchists is being vinidicated everyday - in spite of backsliders like Chuck0 and Ashanti Alston. A mass movement compromizing all anti-statists, Left and RIGHT, is clearly needed to sweep away all this mealy-mouthed Marxist bs that now dominates Chinamerica and its puppet states. An anti-state revolution! |
| 10:16 am | To have done with the judgement of god Finnish it '...In recent discussions about the decline or resurgence of the Left and the dissapearance or revival of social-democracy there has been precious little about schooling as one of the central issues that has long defined the Left-Right divide...' '...In the Western democracies from the late 19th century onwards the institutionalization of free, accessible, universal public schooling became a central program of social-democrat movements in the expectation that education was a route out of poverty and inequality. That development required public funding as a form of redistribution. Indeed redistribution via such public provision, later also in health and welfare and public transport marked the egalitarian principle of the democratic Left. This principle sprang, in part, from an ethical impulse of social decency and justice as well as a rational argument for efficiency and socio-economic, as well as, personal development. Australia was one of the first countries to move in this direction. But in the inter-war period and after 1949, conservatives, both within the center-left and center-right of Australian politics, allowed this early impulse to wither. Among the culprits was the permitted insistence of the Catholic and anglican churches to retain a central role in education. Added to this was a pernicious legacy of British class-based provision of exclusionary private education. To their shame the state governments joined the bandwagon of selective schooling. The outcome was the disgracefully unequal system ( Steven) Schwartz ( Author of 'Chalk and cheese'. the ALR October cover story) so eloquently dissected. When comparing Australia with the best performer in the OECD's program for International student assesment- Finland - as schwartz does, we see this contrast very clearly. Finland invests no more as an overall percentage of gross domestic product in schooling, but has far better outcomes. Why? There are several significant factors. First there's a far stronger social-democratic impulse there, right across the political spectrum, thats rested on an egalitarian social consensus that was built consciously by political leaders from the beginning of the 20th century and which has survived various wars and other disasters. There are no private schools in Finland. The established Lutheran church has stayed out of education, and education is not a class-based system - like Australia's still is. Second there's a universal paid parental childcare leave for at least one year and for two years in many cases. Third there's more-or-less universal pre-schooling until children go to school at age seven. Forth there's universal exposure to foreign languages and a requirement to learn at least two languages other than the native tongue. And fifth there's the learning of music which is widespread. All these factors lead one to believe that Finnish children, by age 15, are more intelligent than others and thats reflected in the PISA score. Its clear that intelligence is partly a product of child-raising and educational practises. The democratic Finnish state has invested in intelligence and thats paid off in many ways as Nokia, Kone, the Turku shipyard and the Sibelius academy among many examples show. If the Rudd government wishes to have an education revolution and also reinvigorate social-democracy, it should start with the ending of handouts to rich schools that have exacerbated the class divide, and then begin investing educational equality, early childhood care and other egalitarian social provisions. This would require overall higher taxation that would raise Au from near the bottom of OECD charts and at least to the levels set by Canada or New Zealand our closest comparators...' Parts of a letter to the Au literary review, November issue from Christopher Lloyd. Professor of economic history. University of New England. Armidale NSW. |
| 10:13 am | Qld cops clobbered A member of the original Northern Territory intervention taskforce has slammed the Federal Government for not taking responsibility for health services in Aboriginal communities. The Australian Medical Association's Territory branch says compulsory health checks uncovered thousands of children with serious lung problems but about 500 have not been given adequate follow-up treatment. It says only about two of these cases per week are being dealt with. The federal Minister for Indigenous Health, Warren Snowdon, says money has been given to the Territory Government to ensure health service delivery in remote communities. But former intervention taskforce member Dr Bill Glasson says the Territory does not have the capacity to deal with the problems. "The Federal Government initiated this, the Federal Government should finish with this and the Federal Government in washing its hands of the responsibility of this is not on," Dr Glasson said. "They can talk all day and all night about closing the gap, they'll never close the gap. "So Warren Snowdon, take a bit of leadership, get out there and get this problem solved." RELATED - The Australian Human Rights Commission has issued guidelines on what has to be done to make the Northern Territory Intervention comply with the Racial Discrimination Act. The Federal Government wants to reinstate the Act before November 26. But some of its Intervention measures, such as limiting what indigenous people can spend their welfare payments on, would not be legal under the Act in their current form. Race discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes says the guidelines will provide information to the Government on how it could make such measures comply. "We formed the view in discussions with the Government that it would be helpful to have guidelines such as this, once the suspension was removed from the Act, so that they could be used to help in the development of income management schemes to ensure they weren't discriminatory," he said. Qld cops clobbered in new reports on the post-palm island thing. Sear ' Tony Koch' and ' The Australian'. |
| 10:12 am | Slack shit Some bloke called John Bursill done a tour of Australia recently presenting the Hard Evidence that 9/11 was a conspiracy — last night he sprach at the New Council Chambers @ Trades Hall. According to a comrade who attended, the crowd was large, numbering several hundred, with most being middle-aged or older (which segment was described as being of a similar ilk to that which supported One Nation) while a smaller segment was younger (mostly blokes in their twenties). NB. Bursill also spoke at the Sydney Forum in September — an annual gathering of far-right activists conducted under the auspices of the Australia First Party, for which Dr James Saleam is Der Fuehrer. Pathological Lying: Symptom or Disease? Charles C Dike, MD, MPH, MRCPsych Psychiatric Times, Vol. 25, No.7 June 1, 2008 Pathological lying (PL) is a controversial topic. There is, as yet, no consensus in the psychiatric community on its definition, although there is general agreement on its core elements. PL is characterized by a long history (maybe lifelong) of frequent and repeated lying for which no apparent psychological motive or external benefit can be discerned. While ordinary lies are goal-directed and are told to obtain external benefit or to avoid punishment, pathological lies often appear purposeless. In some cases, they might be self-incriminating or damaging, which makes the behavior even more incomprehensible. Despite its relative obscurity, PL has been recognized and written about in the psychiatric literature for more than a century. The German physician, Anton Delbruck, is credited with being the first to describe the concept of PL. He observed that some of his patients told lies that were so abnormal and out of proportion that they deserved a special category. He subsequently described the lies as “pseudologia phantastica”… In the UK, the Anarchist Federation has issued a statement regarding the apparent fact that ‘Unite Against Fascism (UAF) stewards collaborate with police on anti-EDL mobilisation’ (November 13, 2009): The Anarchist Federation condemns the group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who, on Saturday 31st October at a mobilisation against the English Defence League (EDL) in Leeds city centre, openly handed one of our members over to the police. Several UAF stewards, including the head of UAF Leeds, physically prevented our member from rejoining the cordon, and then called the police over to arrest him. We will not tolerate collaboration with the state to halt the activity of genuine anti-fascists and ask other progressive organisations to do the same. UAF’s policy of negotiating with the state for its public protests is well known, as is its alliance with religious leaders, trade union bureaucrats and politicians. UAF, apart from being nothing more than a front group for the Socialist Workers Party, has never been an effective means to combat the rise of fascism in Britain nor does it offer anything to working class communities. D. Yates, National Secretary (Anarchist Federation, UK) VICTIMS of Maitland-Newcastle pedophile priest John Denham took the first steps this week in what could be Australia’s biggest compensation payout by the Catholic Church to child sex abuse victims. Denham is scheduled to be sentenced in December 2009 after pleading guilty to sexually abusing dozens of boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Some victims have sought a meeting with Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone, one month before Denham is sentenced for child sex offences from 1968 to 1986. The Denham case could produce a total payout greater than the previous known highest Australian payout of $6 million, paid to nine victims of Maitland-Newcastle pedophile priest Vince Ryan But it is extremely unlikely to top the known highest individual Australian payout of $2 million, paid by Maitland-Newcastle diocese to a Ryan victim because of the catastrophic impact of the priest’s offending. Solicitors said this week the Denham matter could be Australia’s biggest compensation case because there were 39 victims, and because of the successful prosecution of former Vicar-General Tom Brennan in March. Brennan was convicted of knowingly making a false knowingly making a false written statement. Newcastle solicitor Kate Maher, of Braye Cragg, who acted for a number of the Ryan victims, said evidence that Brennan didn’t act after he was repeatedly told of Denham’s offending was similar to the failed duty of care issue raised in the Ryan case. Evidence that the late Monsignor Patrick Cotter knew of Ryan’s sexual abuse and “decided to say nothing” was significant because of the breach of Cotter’s duty of care to the children, she said. Brennan’s conviction is believed to be the first successful Australian prosecution of a priest linked to failing to act over another priest’s offending, Ms Maher said. But the impact of another church sexual abuse case that went to the High Court in 2007 remained a “significant hurdle”, some solicitors and barristers contacted by The Herald this week said. Solicitor and sexual abuse victim John Ellis lost his case against the Archdiocese of Sydney, and was ordered to pay the church’s $750,000 legal bill, after the High Court refused an appeal to challenge the church case that there was no one to sue because of its internal structure.. |
| Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | |
| 12:05 pm | Crisis of capitalism predicted Venezuela's economy is suffering a deepening recession at a time when the rest of the world's economies are picking up steam, according to data released Tuesday by the country's central bank. That is bad news for the country's populist leader Hugo Chávez. In the third quarter, economic output fell 4.5% compared with the year-earlier period. The decline follows a second-quarter drop of 2.4% - the second consecutive quarter of economic decline -- officially putting Venezuela into recession. Full: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125851006163953115.html# If I were Hugo I would blame Cuban cyber-dissidents for this for the ENEMY PENETRATES EVERYWHERE! |
| 11:56 am | Against Sharia - for Jihad Rally against Sharia law, for universal human rights One law for all - No religious laws or courts Saturday, 21 November 2009 12 noon to 2pm Hyde Park, on North Carriage Drive, between Stanhope Place Gate and Albion Gate, Hyde Park (closest underground Marble Arch). Speakers include philosopher AC Grayling, columnist Johann Hari, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasrin, Southall Black Sisters’ Pragna Patel and Women Against Fundamentalism’s Rahila Gupta. A full list of speakers, including Iranian and Iraqi activists, follows below. “Organised by the One Law for All campaign, Saturday’s rally is in opposition to all religious laws in Britain and worldwide,” said campaign spokesperson, Maryam Namazie “In particular, we are showing solidarity with people who are resisting Sharia law and defending universal human rights and secularism,” she said. Expressing his support for the One Law For All campaign, human rights defender Peter Tatchell of the LGBT group OutRage! said: “This protest is in solidarity with Muslims worldwide who are campaigning against the inequalities and inhumanities of Sharia law. We reject all religious laws and courts, including those inspired by Judaist and Christian fundamentalism. “Sharia law is one of the most extreme manifestations of fundamentalist religion, which is why we need to highlight it. “We oppose interpretations of Sharia law that stipulate the execution of women who have sex outside of marriage, of Muslims who renounce their faith (apostates), and of Muslims who have same-sex relationships. “OutRage! defends and supports Muslim women who are campaigning for equality. We cannot accept the way some Islamic states, including western allies like Saudi Arabia, restrict women’s freedom of movement, impose compulsory dress codes on women, make women subject to the control of male guardians, and deny women access to certain jobs and positions in government. “We believe that Muslim women and LGBT Muslims worldwide should have rights, freedoms and choices, in accordance with the principles of equality and non-discrimination that are enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said. Maryan Namazie added: “Our rally is being held to mark Universal Children’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. “Simultaneous acts of solidarity will take place in countries across the world, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , France , Germany , Nigeria , Serbia, Montenegro and Sweden. “Sharia law is becoming a key battleground, particularly because it is an extension and representation of the rising threat of Islamism. Sharia matters to people everywhere because it adversely affects the rights, lives and freedoms of countless human beings across the world. “Opposing Sharia law is a crucial step in defending universal and equal rights, and secularism, and showing real solidarity with people living under and resisting it everywhere. November 21 is yet another important day for further strengthening the mass movement needed that can and will put a stop to Sharia once and for all,” she said. Speakers at the rally include: Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain’s Asad Abbas; Poet ‘AK47;’ One Law for All’s Yasmin Atasheen; Musician Fari B; International Humanist and Ethical Union’s Roy Brown; Secularist Ismail Einashe; Singer/Songwriter David Fisher; Philosopher AC Grayling; Women Against Fundamentalism’s Rahila Gupta; Journalist Johann Hari; Poet ‘Lilith;’ Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq’s Houzan Mahmoud, Lawyer Cris Mccurley; Lawyer Rony Miah; Campaigner Maryam Namazie; Writer Taslima Nasrin; Southall Black Sisters’ Pragna Patel; British Humanist Association’s Naomi Phillips; European Humanist Federation’s David Pollock; Iranian Secular Society’s Fariborz Pooya; National Secular Society’s Terry Sanderson; Poet Selina aka ‘Jus1Jam;’ Activist Muriel Seltman; Equal Rights Now’s Sohaila Sharifi; Organisation for the Defence of Secularism and Civil Rights in Iraq’s Issam Shukri; Iran Solidarity’s Bahram Soroush; Human Rights Campaigner Peter Tatchell and National Secular Society’s Keith Porteous Wood. |
| 11:52 am | A Kruddy population explosion rejected More than 60 per cent of Australians think the country would be worse off if the population grew to 35 million by 2050, a new study finds. Federal government projections show the country hitting that figure by then, a prospect most Australians find worrying, the Ipsos-Eureka survey of 812 people found. At present the country's population is just over 22 million. The think-tank said: "Sixty-four per cent of those surveyed believed Australia would be a worse place to live if we reached a population of 35 million by the year 2050. "Conversely, 14 per cent believed Australia would be a better place to live (while) 22 per cent thought it would be same." According to Ipsos-Eureka, NSW residents were least supportive of population growth, with 75 per cent saying their state would be a worse place to live. Sixty-five per cent of Victorians and 63 per cent of Queenslanders felt the same way, the survey found. A related RAT institute survey found that the overall IQ of Australia rose everytime Kevin Rudd and Lindsay Tanner went overseas. |