News
The nutbars of the Eastern seaboard of Australia all congregated in Canberra yesterday, with some 3000 of the more odious, Tea Party wannabes this country can muster massing in Canberra to stage a rally against the proposed carbon tax. Fuelled by a mixture of misinformation and misdirected anger, this was the culmination of Tony Abbott's call for a "people's revolution" on the matter, a cry taken up and propagated by the AM talkback set, chief among them, of course, the mighty Alan Jones. Just to be absolutely clear, this is the same man
that facilitated the Cronulla riots of some five years ago, so why exactly he's still being allowed to lead political movements is beyond me. Tony Abbott was on hand to address the adoring crowds, although it was hard to ignore the charming signs reading "Ju-liar: Bob Brown's Bitch" hovering behind his head. Similarly difficult to ignore was the number of signs for whom carbon seemed to take the backseat to worries about immigration ("Illegals stay, Ozzies Pay") and indeed the presence of Pauline Hanson herself, who these days is so politically noxious that she may as well have visible herpes. Grim. You'll forgive a certain amount of snarkiness and bias in the preceding paragraph, but whatever the merits for or against a carbon tax - and there is much to be debated on the issue - this empty, raucous, occasionally sexist/racist gesture does nothing to advance our democracy or contribute anything to the present debate. A dreary farce.
The bombing of Libya continues apace. While no major cities have fallen or switched hands in the past 24 hours, there has been an escalation of attacks on the Gaddafi forces laying siege to towns such as Misrata, Zintan and Ajdabiya - particularly welcome in the town of Misrata where an almost two week long assault has seen water and electricity cut off and perhaps hundreds killed. This comes after the first few days of bombing essentially obliterated Gaddafi's air force and air defences, leaving the primary strut of his military dominance smouldering in runways around the country. Hillary Clinton has appeared to say that there is some word that
Gaddafi is now beginning to canvas options for his departure, although other commentators are
a little more sceptical: the case of Charles Taylor, Liberian dictator, who left power in 2003 under promise of immunity only to be arrested three years later will perhaps operate as a disincentive for Gaddafi to throw himself on the wilful ignorance of the international community. Certainly Gaddafi himself appeared at what was declared to be his palace in order to scream "I am here" into the air a few times for joyful supporters, but I imagine the man has covert vehicles ready to whisk him away at a moment's notice. Alternatively, the Russians, generally sceptical of the merits of invasion as is, have just declared that a ground invasion of Libya is almost inevitable. On what grounds they make the assertion is hard to gauge, but if the rebels remain incapable of mustering sufficient force to actually take the country, options will become a lot more curious.
Israel has been quiet for a while, what with all this revolutionary zeal in their Arab neighb- oh, there we go: A bombing in Jerusalem in amidst a good ol' atmosphere of escalating violence. In case you've forgotten, the peace process is still in tatters, Netanyahu is accelerating building in the West Bank and the Palestinian political process remains fragmented and irretrievably split between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. So at least that will still be there when all the rest of this interest dies down.
Japan has issued a warning for Tokyo residents that the levels of radioactive iodine in the water supply are currently above that which is recommended for infants. This has, of course, caused a mass buy up of bottled water from everybody, infants and up. While the Japanese Government has said this is all due to the combination of radioactive clouds and rain, as has been pointed out, most of those clouds are heading out to sea, so exactly why radiation is being seen so far South is hard to work out. At Fukushima itself, four of the six reactors remain in a parlous state, although at least there haven't been quite so many explosions of late. There's something about explosions at a nuclear power plant that just make me a little uneasy, y'know? Meanwhile, the Japanese Government has posited the potential cost of rebuilding from the quake at $US309 billion. Which is just, like, whoa.
Features
The always interesting environmental activist/antagonist George Monbiot on
why the Fukushima crisis has taught him to believe in nuclear power.
And as the bombs rain steadily down upon Libya, its people and places, here's
a handy list of ten ways in which Libya is not Iraq. And while we're at it, The Atlantic has produced
an index of opinions on the intervention from a variety of political analysts and commentators.
Oddities/Curiosities
When a headline reads 'Capitalism may have ended life on Mars', you tend to pay attention. And then you realise it has Hugo Chavez's name attached to it and it suddenly makes so much more sense. I guess. Chavez: Gaddafi's heir apparent in the wacky despot stakes.
This piece on the role and function of graffiti in Ancient Rome made me revisit this selection of
the finest wall scribblings from pre-volcanic Pompeii. Featuring such entries as "Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!" and "Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog" and even "On April 19
th, I made bread". I wish guys' toilet walls were this interesting.
Video
A fascinating news story from Time Magazine on the mechanisms Gaddafi uses to retain power in Libya. Always heartening to see children so enthusiastic about mass murderers.