March 2014 - luv-talk

Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 12 Mar '14

12 Mar '14

In UK, Mrs. Bishop was interviewed by the BBC. She claimed that the camps are in acceptable conditions etc. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xdmz6 (start at ca. 1:14 hr) Theresienstadt was looking good as well (when the Red Cross visited). Well, "our" camps _are_ hard to judge because it is hard to see them, as I mentioned before. Quoting "Petros" <Petros.Listig(a)fdrive.com.au> > BTW: Australia, PNG and Nauru make it deliberately difficult to see > and report about these centres: > > https://en.rsf.org/nauru-unacceptable-increase-in-14-01-2014,45724.html > > "Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the decision by the > Micronesian island nation of Nauru, which hosts an Australian > government detention centre for asylum-seekers, to increase the cost > of a journalist visa from 200 to 8,000 US dollars – an increase of > nearly 4,000 per cent." > > “As with the detention centre on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, > the Australian government is trying to censor any embarrassing > information about the way it treats refugees. In the process of > externalizing the asylum-seeker issue, it is even managing to delegate > responsibility for censorship and discriminatory measures against the > media. > > "Reporters Without Borders already criticized the Australian > government’s policy of denying journalists access to its detention > centres in 2011 and 2012." There is a report about the timeline of the unrest (not on Australian media yet?) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/manus-island-unrest-sparked-ri… Probably not all that great there.. Mrs. Bishop maintains there would be a procedure to deal with refugees in place. Truth is, there is not. For whom do Australians maintain this ignorance of facts. What is the purpose? The timeline above shows it brewing, and it matches my prediction stated on this list months earlier: (Quoting myself on the 12th Dec. 2013) > ''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. .. > It is inhumane, damaging and killing people. The world (outside a Rupert dominated mini universe, the flat Earth country Australia) sees all of this differently. You have other resources - use them to find out and judge what your governments are doing. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Tim Josling 11 Mar '14

11 Mar '14

> > From: "Lev Lafayette" > With some familiarity with policy statements of political parties between > elections you would become aware that high level statements are the norm. < Lev fills in the many blanks in the "Greens" policy with a combination of common sense (as he sees it), the obvious (ditto), inferences from their general attitudes, current policies etc.> I have tried this approach myself in the past, but ran into a few problems. 1. What is obvious to one person is not obvious to someone else. If you have ever been involved in a business requirements workshop for an IT project you will have observed this phenomenon. I have frequently found that people regard the impossible as obvious (eg having been asked several times to implement solutions to NP-complete problems, and also to implement Human Level AI). 2. It is not clear when to apply common sense / the obvious versus existing policy versus inference from the current attitudes of the group in question. 3. There is no analysis of the implications and consequences of the policy. This is left as an exercise for the reader. The "Greens"' track record when they have made predictions on refugee policy is dismal. For example, they ridiculed the idea that softening policy on boat people would increase their numbers. This was so wrong that I think we need to add a new category of error to Pauli's three categories of error: a) Wrong b) Totally wrong c) Not even wrong (not even right enough to be meaningfully wrong) Perhaps we could add d) Green-wrong (so out of touch with the real world that it would be a complete fluke if their prediction had any information value at all). 4. If the reader performs the analysis based on filling in the blanks then we run into the final problem which is the denial that that was what was intended. Some examples: Let's say we take on board the suggestion that all refugee applications must be finalized within 12 months, which sounds reasonable. But remember, refugees are to be granted full access to the Australian legal system, with appeals, and will be eligible for legal aid. Anyone who has been involved in the legal system will be aware that fully running through the court processes in 12 months is not to be expected. And this is assuming that the administrative processes, including on-site investigations, waiting for replies from foreign governments etc can be done in 12 months. There seems to be a contradiction here. You cannot realistically resolve all claims in 12 months *and* give people full access to the courts. Also we have been told people should be able to work in Australia while their situation is being determined. And we are not going to break up families, so if two people have a child while they are here for several years, and the child has an enhanced claim on staying, and we are not going to break up families? The implication is that you can come here, get a work permit, string out the determination process until you have a child and it will be very hard ever to get you out of the country. Even the opportunity to work in Australia for 3-5 years is very valuable. I met a guy about 20 years ago in Bali who had gone to Australia and worked for a few years, then returned, a rich man in local terms - he was able to buy a nice house, had a young and pretty wife and had bought a good business. Not bad. How many people would like to take up such an opportunity? So you get told, oh no your assumptions are wrong. They will only get legal aid money and access to the appeals process if their appeal has a strong chance to succeed. So who decides this? Bureaucrats of course! So you are saying they actually will not have full access to the courts? No, .... And you run around the mulberry bush indefinitely. A pointless waste of time. Lev it might be helpful though for you to put up your own proposal and your analysis of its implications. But this fill in the blanks approach does not work. Tim

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Kelvin Thompson MP on immigration
by Russell Coker 11 Mar '14

11 Mar '14

http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/extraordinary-call-for-increas… to.html The Australian Industry Group is calling for an increase in permanent work visas of 30,000 per annum. That increase is greater than the number of asylum seekers we have ever had in any year. If population growth is a problem then all we need to do is to freeze (or even decrease) the number of migrant workers. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Quoting "Brent Wallis" <brent.wallis(a)gmail.com> > You have made comment in the past on how cool and righteous that it > is to live as a hunter / gatherer on mother earth In front of this building is a 4WD with a sticker: "If you want to go fishing do not vote Green!".. I am confused here.. Fucking up and detain people until they get killed is rational.. being against it is extremist. Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] Refugees (was Re: Vale Nelson Mandela)
by Petros 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

Quoting "Brent Wallis" <brent.wallis(a)gmail.com> > Adam Bandy Legs is just another shill. > > Get Adam and or any other Green to join me in a PNG visit paid for > out of their own hard earned (stress that, they need to show that > they truly care and not just use up some donors cash!!!) and I will > gladly walk down Collins St naked in response. Can I forward this to Adam Bandt? When will you run? BTW: Australia, PNG and Nauru make it deliberately difficult to see and report about these centres: https://en.rsf.org/nauru-unacceptable-increase-in-14-01-2014,45724.html "Reporters Without Borders is outraged by the decision by the Micronesian island nation of Nauru, which hosts an Australian government detention centre for asylum-seekers, to increase the cost of a journalist visa from 200 to 8,000 US dollars – an increase of nearly 4,000 per cent." “As with the detention centre on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, the Australian government is trying to censor any embarrassing information about the way it treats refugees. In the process of externalizing the asylum-seeker issue, it is even managing to delegate responsibility for censorship and discriminatory measures against the media. "Reporters Without Borders already criticized the Australian government’s policy of denying journalists access to its detention centres in 2011 and 2012." And then the Scott Morrison Muppet Show. The one with the pumped up general. Strange, I still thought the army is managed by the Department of Defence. Silly me, we have the Queen represented by a general, a general all the time with the minister for immigration and disinformation.. I mean, if they are the best running the show here (and are above criticism, as Shorten found out), why bother with electing these C grade politicians? Culling Morrison is in the interest of the Liberal policy of lean government. Lean government.. oh, the muffling man has 66 spin doctors advising him to say nothing? http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-has-66… "The Immigration Department employs a 66-strong team of spin doctors, dwarfing the 39 media and communications staff employed by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the ministers on his frontbench." WTF has that all to do with managing refugees? Guys, you are so pathetic.. The Rocky Horror Picture Show makes more sense than what's going on here. And everything just to manage the traffic in Western Sydney. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/liberal-candid… Good that Australians elect people like her. Some common sense in parliament: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=165476 Compared to that genius Naphtine is a doughnut. He just manages to sink billions to build a tollway where we all can crawl at high speed (ca. 30km/h) at peak hour soon: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/east-west-link-to-hit-peak-capacity-by-20… As proven on Monash and Tulla before. > PS: Task for the assembled watchers...... what unique characteristic > defines a Manus Island Local??? > No answer? Well there is one...and if you do not know, then how can > you make comment on what has happened over there??? Maybe you can enlighten me, I have not seen every stretch on Earth. A question for you: What has Manus Island to do with a refugee from Iran? Regards Peter

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Subject: Re: Mike Godwin comments on Australian politics
by Tim Josling 10 Mar '14

10 Mar '14

From: Michael Scott Subject: Re: [luv-talk] Mike Godwin comments on Australian politics > ... I'm not sure what the right answer is to Australia's "asylum seeker" > situation, but I'm pretty sure the current policy isn't it. The current > policy suits the current populism, on both sides of politics.... It may > have started under Howard but it continued and was revised to something > similar under Rudd/Gillard...and is being continued under Abbott. The only > difference I can see is that Abbott is trying to make it less visible.... If you have no alternative, how are you so "sure" that the current policy is not the best that governments can do in the circumstances? How do you know such an alternative exists? Particularly when the ALP came to power in a blaze of moral indignation claiming they would do away with the coalition's inhumane policy and would do far better. And then - as you suggest - proceeded, after some delay, to do the same thing but less competently. You seem to have plenty of energy to spend on denouncing "populism" and by implication the general moral inferiority of other people etc. Why not spend that energy coming up with an actual alternative? Tim

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A BitTorrent tracker tracker like trackon?
by Carl Turney 07 Mar '14

07 Mar '14

Hi All, I occasionally use the Transmission bit torrent client to obtain old public-domain and/or expired-copyright films. I am definitely an entry-level user of BitTorrent, and easily confused by the technology of it. But one of the things I do understand and like about it is the feature to edit the trackers for each active torrent. For a couple years now, I've gone to www.trackon.org (NOT .com) every few months, to get an up-to-date list of the "healthiest" trackers. This looks like an early announcement for it, and gives you a look and feel of it... trackon.moviesndroids.com Sadly, the links are dead, as is the URL a couple paragraphs above. Does anyone know if Trackon is permanently dead? Does anyone know of another "tracker tracker", where I can get the URLs of active and healthy trackers? Is there a common name for "tracker tracker"s or "tracker monitor"s that I don't know about, and can search for? Thanks very much, Carl Turney Bayswater

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MS LAN Manager and network printer
by Petros 06 Mar '14

06 Mar '14

Hi all, I have _one_ remaining DOS app which is used by many (to be replaced in the near future - year 2000 or so). I would like to get rid of Windows XP VMs and replace it by VirtualBox+FreeDOS. I found this here to access a shared drive from a Samba server: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Setup_FreeDOS_to_access_a_Samba_share One problem solved:-) The second: I need printing. I can give it access through Samba too.. .. I just forgot what I have to do in DOS to access a remote printer (and make it the default, redirecting LPT: or so I think??) Is FreeDOS and MS LAN Manager and card driver enough? I only need to print text (AFAIK), so if "print" works I am fine, I think. Any ideas are welcome.. my memory isn't good enough:-( Peter

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Mike Godwin comments on Australian politics
by Russell Coker 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

https://twitter.com/JustJen64/status/439384937435635712/photo/1 Now it's official, you can't cite Godwin's law as a reason for not comparing the Australian government policy (and the rampant cowardice among Australians which led to it) to what happened in Nazi Germany. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Re: [luv-talk] Subject: Re: Mike Godwin comments on Australian politics
by Petros 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

From: "Tim Josling" <tim.josling(a)gmail.com> > I knew someone who worked for him and he did not notice any signs of > mental illness. I'm not sure that failure to comply with white > collar standards of "personal hygiene" is a very strong sign of > mental illness. Inability to do so might be, but I have no evidence > he was actually unable to care for himself. He seemed to be able to > run very successful farming enterprises. In the farming community we > ran into quite a few people who were unusual characters. Some were > dysfunctional, others were not. I can second that. I knew a maths professor who made a few millions on the share market. He spent half of every year in Sao Paolo, running around in old jeans and casual shirts. Nobody suspected him being wealthy and he felt safe (while the usual "rich person" lives in gated communities and does not open the window when driving) At the end you can sit on one chair only at the time. Can we sidetrack a bit further? ;-) Regards Peter

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