December 2013 - luv-talk

Re: [luv-talk] Refugees
by Petros 16 Dec '13

16 Dec '13

Just going out for lunch.. more and better news: Abbott sacks asylum seeker health advisers http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-sacks-asylu… "Members of the Immigration Health Advisory Group (IHAG) received letters late on Friday telling them the group would be dissolved and replaced by one adviser. Dr Paul Alexander, the group's chairman and a former head of Joint Health Command in the Defence Force, will become the sole independent health adviser to the Immigration Department." Ah, another army man. Morrison seems to love them. Maybe the army should run the country completely. Although I may be wrong. Who knows what Morrison thinks? "A spokesperson for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison could not be reached." "It comes as the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia publishes research revealing that 50.1 per cent of immigration centre detainees in Darwin had visited the Royal Darwin Hospital emergency department at least once in 2011. Of the 518 detainees who made 770 visits to the department, 155 people attended twice or more. This included 187 attendances (24.3 per cent) for psychiatric problems, including self-harm, and 146 by children, of which 15 were for self-harm." Well, from next year they will all be healthy. Or not existing. Sorry, this is NOT about stopping the boats. It is about making people disappear and harm systematically. This country is run by criminals. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 16 Dec '13

16 Dec '13

Quoting "Michael Scott" <mds(a)inoz.net> > On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Petros Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au wrote: > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population > >> (47th here, and the "native per refugee" statistics value of 1003 >> does not make us a frontrunner either). > > Interesting that according to the Wikipedia table our refugee > population is just over 23,000, and our refugee intake was, at the > time, 20,000. Is that per annum? It is from the UNHRC so it will be most likely counting "unprocessed" refugees - backlog and new arrivals. The official government statistics are here: https://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/statistics/asylum/ The last statistics are from June 2013. Since when we have the angry shouting man from the Shire that seems to be that silent on facts. He is above scrutiny from the public now it seems. As our PM is in this point either. Google for the ABC interview at ABC Lateline one or two months ago: "No information. No information. No information" How many boats? How many people? At one stage he was asked about a boat reportedly back on the way to Australia because Indonesia did not take it. "Did the government buckle?", the reporter asked, just to be lectured not to use "loaded language". What? Abbott telling others what "loaded language" is? WTF? We are relying on Indonesian reports, volunteers and media to figure out who is coming. Howard said: "WE decide who is coming" - Now we are not even have the right to know who is arriving. I do not have a clue how we can consider this normal. The Americans spied on captured German soldiers. They found out that older ones where more sceptical and critical about Hitler. The younger ones, raised under the Nazis were more fanatical Nazis. It took 12 years to get rid of the Third Reich. Enough to have a full generation of fanatical Nazis. It is 12 years since Tampa, 12 years of public refugee bashing, stop the boats and all that sh**. My kids have never heard anything else from our politicians. Carl's "Australia has already accepted more refugees than (most) other countries" is probably born like this. 12 years of misinformation is breeding these misconceptions. I do not accept that being the norm. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Michael Scott 16 Dec '13

16 Dec '13

Interesting that according to the Wikipedia table our refugee population is just over 23,000, and our refugee intake was, at the time, 20,000. Is that per annum? On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 9:58 AM, Petros <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au> wrote: > Quoting "Carl Turney" <carl(a)boms.com.au> > > If Australia has already accepted more refugees than (most) other > > countries (based on our respective ecological and financial capacities): > > Carl, that is not true. > > > http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-21/australia-ranks-46th-in-refugee-intak… > > "Australia ranks 46th in refugee intake table" > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population > > (47th here, and the "native per refugee" statistics value of 1003 > does not make us a frontrunner either). > > Regards > Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > luv-talk mailing list > luv-talk(a)lists.luv.asn.au > http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk >

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 15 Dec '13

15 Dec '13

Quoting "Carl Turney" <carl(a)boms.com.au> > If Australia has already accepted more refugees than (most) other > countries (based on our respective ecological and financial capacities): Carl, that is not true. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-21/australia-ranks-46th-in-refugee-intak… "Australia ranks 46th in refugee intake table" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refugee_population (47th here, and the "native per refugee" statistics value of 1003 does not make us a frontrunner either). Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Vale Nelson Mandela
by Petros 13 Dec '13

13 Dec '13

Quoting "Michael Scott" <luv(a)inoz.net> > I couldn't agree more that neither party has done the right thing by > asylum seekers. I also agree that the right place to start is > humanity. The current state of play, where asylum seekers are > detained indefinitely just isn't good enough. > > Unfortunately the laws related to refugees and asylum seekers in > general are created by politicians, and politicians legislate based > on populism. There is a clear base for our obligations, the Refugee Convention 1951. http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html Hitler was an elected politician too. If I follow through this argumentation all Germans did the right thing, just Goebbels and Hitler were to blame. Why is it so popular to kick refugees? A Member of Parliament during her election campaign: ''[Asylum seekers are] a hot topic here because our traffic is overcrowded,.. Go sit on the M4, people see 50,000 people come in by boat - that's more than twice the population of [western Sydney suburb] Glenmore Park,'' Yep, under Hitler it were the Jews and the cyclists. I wonder why Scott Morrison became on a sudden Minister for Border Protection. Shouldn't he be Minister for Transport? Under Hitler it could cost your life to criticise the government. Here you can speak up. Why is it still that quiet? > I'd err on the humanitarian side, but how far? I would not call that erring. Outside this country the most people consider it as an inhuman way of avoiding legal obligations systematically. In other words: The Australians are leading the way of eroding the value of the Refugee Convention. A proud role when you consider a country with a meagre intake of few thousand refugees per year. This story is not new, it is 12 years after Tampa.. Did it solve our "problems"? Did we stop the boats? No. But it certainly made this country a darker place. There are many other things that go wrong at the moment (to name a few: Where is our Federal Minister for Science, when did we decide we don't need Diplomats to run Foreign Affairs? Who is the government serving when they weaken anti-gambling laws, and, if the Federal Government does not invest in Metropolitian railway lines, and the State does not either - who will it be?) but the asylum seeker issue is a long-lasting disease in the Australian public. Occasionally I enjoy not to live in Sydney, at least we have a musician who is donning a "Asylum seeker" T-shirt when singing at the Grand Final. (Mark Seymour) We all should be louder! Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Vale Nelson Mandela
by Petros 13 Dec '13

13 Dec '13

Hi Michael, Quoting "Michael Scott" <luv(a)inoz.net> > Peter, I'm not devaluing your pleas at all. I don't disagree with you. Thank you. Please take your time to go through this: http://www.truthaboutmanus.com/?utm_medium=email-sf&utm_source=1312mns&utm_… It illustrates refugee life on Manus Island. > All I will ask is, if we drop our barriers, will more boats leave > Indonesia? Will more boats sink off Java? Please let me give some more thoughts to it. > The policies of both parties are mixed and confusing, but it's not > cut and dried. If we had a land-based border it would be more simple. In Europe people swim through rivers, climb over fences, taking boats to cross seas. They all risk a lot. Detection, detention, drowning.. it's not that unique. Unique is: Australia is "far far away" from many places where the people come from. Most of them stay in the same region, hoping for improvement. The strwm of refugees becomes thinner and thinner as further you're away. E.g. see this map of Afghan refugees in neighbouring countries: http://www.unhcr.org/3bbc5f484.html. It shows 2.3 million in Iran, 2 million in Pakistan. Please compare it to the number of boat people arriving here. > The "no boats" policies are more complicated than just not allowing > asylum seekers. Unfortunately there are people who seek to make a > profit from sending people in leaky boats. They need to be stopped! Everybody desperate enough will use all the resources they have to get out of situations that do not offer any hope. People bought their way out from Nazi Germany. I know Bahai using up all the family jewellery to escape persecution in Iran. I know an East German who paid 15 000 Mark to be smuggled to the West, in a truck, in darkness for many hours and sometimes close to panicking. You would probably sell your house when your life is in danger or maybe just bleak and use the money to go to somewhere else? People profit from sparse resources all the time. Our refugee politics are helping to keep that business alive. We do not have a reasonably regulated way to take refugees in, to give them hope to come here in other ways. Abbott slashed the refugee intake by 6,250 (down from 20,000 to 13,750) when he came to power. Besides, capitalism is making business all the time, and our governments constantly feed vested interests. I do not hear much outrage about that. The politicians (and Murdoch press) outrage about people smugglers is fake. At the moment we are destroying other peoples' life. It is a variation of the line "In order to save them we have to kill them". After World War II states signed the refugee convention, to avoid replication of some shameful episodes in the future. Sometimes law is inconvenient, but is bounding for a reason, to avoid wriggling your way out and escaping responsibilities. Australia is doing it for many years now. The proper re-instatement of the refugee convention and the acknowledgement of our responsibilities should be a starting point of all our discussions. We are humans and should behave like humans. Scott Morrison is doing the opposite - considering abandoning this convention completely. As said, there are other ways of dealing with it. Some of them can be human and consider "Australian sensitivities" to a certain extend. E.g. regional development. Local business in Christmas Island and somewhere else is okay with feeding the refugees, building camps etc. Let's expand that. Give people hope: a 12 month screening process, e.g., before they are allowed to resettle, will be acceptable for most. The Vietnamese hairdresser spent 5 years in a camp in Hong Kong, being hungry most of the time - but still in high spirits because she was confident to have a future. This 12 months could be used. The refugees can run the camp by themselves, building, cooking etc. AFAIK that how prisoners of war or the "alien enemies" were allowed to keep themselves busy while detained. That keeps the costs low too (a billion dollars per year for a few thousand refugees is a sh*load of money - look how many times our government is looking for money to save elsewhere) Combined with training in trades and English it can be useful time for all. Give them "regional visas" for three years. Some remote areas are crying out for labor and development. We have these visas to facilitate skilled migration. It also helps us so we do not have to squeeze all arrivals in Melbourne and Sydney. I am pretty sure some of the mentioned billion dollar a year could be used to assist that, helping us to develop our country. Nothing is perfect in God's perfect plan - but it is definitely better to start with humanity and according to law then trying to tackle an issue in a lawless manner. But it needs some politicians to establish some basic understanding too. I do not think the Coalition or Labor have done a reasonably good job in this regard. Some of them are not interested, just greedy for power ("Whatever it takes".. with apologies to Bomber supporters for borrowing that unfortunately slightly tainted line;-) or plainly mean or shy away from the task. It should be our task to tell them that we care. That may help as well. So, a long story - and if you sign the petition under the URL above - even better! Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Vale Nelson Mandela
by Michael Scott 12 Dec '13

12 Dec '13

Peter, I'm not devaluing your pleas at all. I don't disagree with you. All I will ask is, if we drop our barriers, will more boats leave Indonesia? Will more boats sink off Java? The policies of both parties are mixed and confusing, but it's not cut and dried. If we had a land-based border it would be more simple. The "no boats" policies are more complicated than just not allowing asylum seekers. Unfortunately there are people who seek to make a profit from sending people in leaky boats. They need to be stopped! Does it mean sending Hercules aircraft or naval vessels to the sources? Maybe. On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Petros <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au>wrote: > Quoting "Russell Coker" <russell(a)coker.com.au> > > Petros was not referring to controlling our borders (which is done > > in a legal and humane manner when white people arrive by plane) but > > to the illegal and inhumane treatment of nonwhite people who arrive > > by boat. The analogy seems appropriate to me as many white > > Australians claim not to know what is being done in their name. > > ''I have lived in war zones, with bombs and explosions. I have never > experienced what I am experiencing here with the uncertainty … If we > had died in the ocean, that would have been better.'' > > This is from an Iraqi refugee hanging out to dry on Manus Island. > > Since we set up the camps processing of asylum claims by boat people > came to a halt. Since then, over the last months, only one or two > claims were processed. > > That means we send people in a hole without a way out. They may rot > there forever - they do not know, we don't know, our government will > not say what their intention is. > > This treatment is inhumane and against international law. > > What bugs me, that I experienced an optimistic country in 1997 when > hitchhiking from East to West, while since 2001 we have a political > atmosphere of fear and hatred that is plainly insane. > > It is draining my heart, as it does for my German friends. Nobody of > us understands why it is so dark here now. One mailed me last week: > "we have a press Goebbels would be proud of", "it wants to make you > vomit", "we only can hope that nobody looks at us, nobody finds out > how low we have sunk" - No, I am not the only one who thinks it is > dark here.. > > Why are "stop the boats" a main concern for all, for every election > campaign, while most of us barely will meet a boat-person himself? > > Why are we so insane to lose our international reputation completely > for the sake of kicking a few thousand people in a butt and treat them > that poorly? > > Our poor Northern neighbours must think we are completely insane. > > Why the hell do we continue to behave like ogres: "Get out of my swamp!" ? > > I don't get it, really. Can't we not just stop being that mean and > mad? It's 12 years of madness - the voices are shrill than ever - and > did anything of it help to get "the problem" away? > > It is inhumane, damaging and killing people. > > And it is time for everybody to stand up and get counted. Otherwise we > are guilty as well. > > I was in mail conversations with Melissa Parke, MP from Fremantle who > was not voting for some of the deals Bowen pushed through parliament. > > Feel free to read her speech when she was standing up for her > conscience in parliament, talking about her own background as well: > > > http://www.melissaparke.com.au/speeches/469-melissa-speaking-in-parliament-… > > Let's have more people like her being in parliament, not this > miserable pack of people just good in hating others. > > Let's make plans with them. We have a special skilled migration > program to develop regional, non-capital areas where people with > "lesser skills" can go there to help build our nation. Why not using > refugees to do that too? > > Have a development approach towards our Northern neighbours that helps > them (not just grabbing their ore and oil and gas). It takes a while - > but having neighbours that aren't poor is a very good way to decrease > the likelihood of people risking their life to get out of misery. > > They don't come to get rich. The Vietnamese hair-dresser here in > Kensington is happy to have a decent life now, being sent as a 8 years > old on a boat to Hong Kong where she spent 5 years in a camp before > taken to Australia. > > They all want to have a decent life, as you want. They do the risky > journeys because they had to flee persecution and could not find > another place that gave them hope. > > The approach we have now is the Dead Kennedys "Kill The Poor" approach. > > Please stop it. > > I don't know whether it is "valid" to compare with Hitler or Apartheid > or whatever.. at the end it is the same disease: hatred and greed and > lack of humanity. > > I remember a little dance tune from the 80ies, called Gimme hope > Joanna. Finally it changed, thanks to people like Mandela. > > Start dreaming. > > Thank you > Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > luv-talk mailing list > luv-talk(a)lists.luv.asn.au > http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-talk >

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Australian refugee policy
by Jason White 12 Dec '13

12 Dec '13

Petros <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au> wrote: > Why are "stop the boats" a main concern for all, for every election > campaign, while most of us barely will meet a boat-person himself? Unfortunately, the slogan and the policies behind it appeal to a certain proportion of the electorate. I don't understand why that's the case; there may be a sociologist or a political scientist who can explain why this issue resonates with a certain kind of voter. However, the central point is this: both Labor and the Coalition want to appeal to these voters. There are, of course, voters who are strongly opposed to inhumane refugee policies. As one political scientist observed, though, these people predominantly vote for the Greens anyway, so they and their views aren't considered relevant by either the Coalition or Labor. I haven't put numbers on the above: a little searching would find surveys, perhaps even more rigorous studies, revealing what proportion of voters support these policies, how many don't care/aren't interested, and how many are opposed. None of this justifies the inhumane policies in any way; I'm simply providing a plausible explanation of what motivates the major political parties in this area.

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Re: [luv-talk] 7 inch android tablet recommendations
by Daniel Jitnah 12 Dec '13

12 Dec '13

Anyone has any experience with the very cheap bottom end android pad like the Pendo Pad selling for around $70 and similar ones. I realise they are cheap for a reason compared to Nexus - I also know they dont have 3G. But how good are they for only basic web browsing, checking email etc. IF I have to throw away a device after 2 yrs because of battery or accidental breakage, I'd better throw away $70 than $350. Daniel. (ps: also moving this to Luv-talk, so please reply there). On 12/12/2013 10:05, Craig Sanders wrote: > On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 03:14:25PM +1030, Ryan Verner wrote: >> Before you return it for warranty, the issue may be that the battery >> has entirely drained and it won't recharge. It's a "design fault", >> affects mine too. >> >> Try this: >> >> http://www.droid-life.com/2012/12/27/fix-nexus-7-refusing-to-charge-try-thi… > > the article states that this is due to a firmware bug that only > appeared > after the 4.2 update. > > that sounds more like a software update that included some planned > obsolescence. or more like forced rather than planned. > > a lot of users will just assume the battery is dead and discover or > decide that it is far easier to just buy a new one than to attempt to > enforce their warranty rights. > > > apple lost a class action lawsuit in the US several years back because > their ipad batteries weren't replaceable and were designed to last, > iirc, only 18 months or less. i would expect and hope that winning > a class action against a company that issued a software update that > falsely simulated the battery dying would be a much easier prospect. > > > craig > > ps: i'm very happy with my (original model) Nexus 7. excellent device. > I haven't allowed it to reboot to install the update it has been > nagging about for a few months though. mostly because my level of trust > of google has gone from "extremely low" to "none" and i'd rather > install > cyanogenmod or something else...but i made the mistake of not rooting > the nexus 7 when i bought it over a year ago so will likely lose all of > my data + settings when i do get around to rooting it. > > if my nexus 7 died (really died - cracked screen or whatever), i'd > almost certainly buy another one. but i'd root it and install CM > or something immediately. > > and i don't think i'd install the google-apps bundle. google's play > store is full of shit (a perfect example of Sturgeon's Law), fdroid's > got most of the apps i actually need (the rest i can live without), and > the only google service i'd really have to find a replacement for is > google > calendar. i'd be better off running my own calendar daemon if i could > find an android calendar app that could connect to it (i already know > that iceowl can be made to connect to any ical service)

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Re: [luv-talk] Vale Nelson Mandela
by Tim Josling 11 Dec '13

11 Dec '13

> From: Petros > After Hitler many Germans said: They did not know about the camps. > Well, there we are.. thanks Tony, thanks Scotty! Controlling our borders equated to Nazi concentration camps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

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