O'Reilly loses the plot...again.

From Media Matters:

From the April 15 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

CALLER: Hi, Bill. The point of my call today is I'd like to take a different look at illegal immigration. I believe that it has the same impact as a major terrorist attack. And here's what I mean. If you take the sum total of the economic consequences of illegal immigration, and also consider that the illegals crossing the border, that are coming across with, say, tuberculosis, syphilis, leprosy -- each one of those people is a biological weapon.

And, I believe that illegal immigration is -- equals and surpasses the impact of 9-11. And it is incumbent upon the president to close the borders.

O'REILLY: You might be right, [caller]. And, if you look at it that way, you've got 11 million at least here, unsupervised. Nobody knows the condition they're in. And you have 3,000 dead from 9-11.

So, you got 11 million running around unsupervised now. You got 3,000 dead on 9-11, so you do the math and you say, "Well, how many of these 11 million people have impacted negatively on American citizens?" I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here.

You could make that case. And, you would be absolutely right. But the reason that President Bush and President Clinton and President Bush the elder, and President Reagan and President Carter all got away with doing nothing to secure the borders of the United States is that this is a shadow world. Most of us don't see it. We don't see pictures like we saw on 9-11, of planes crashing into buildings. We don't see dead people in the street. We don't see weeping widows -- we don't see it.

Howard must be thinking - "Shucks!! The best I could come up with was children overboard!?"

Why I don't by Nike products...

From The Age:

Nike, the target of sweatshop allegations, has admitted abuses at some of its factories in a comprehensive report on the 700 plants that make its footwear and clothing.

The 108-page report is the first since the company paid $US1.5 million ($A1.9 million) to settle allegations that it had made false claims about how well its workers were treated.

The report, compiled over the past two years, admits to widespread problems, particularly in Nike's Asian factories. It found cases of "abusive treatment", physical and verbal, in more than a quarter of its south Asian plants.

Up to half the factories in the region restricted access to toilets and drinking water during working hours. The report said employees worked more than 60 hours a week in more than half of Nike's factories. Workers refusing to do overtime were punished in up to 25 per cent of factories. Wages were below the legal minimum at up to a quarter of factories.

You can learn more about Nike's corporate conduct at Oxfam.

The thing is, the vast majority of clothing on the rack of the many clothes stores at your local shopping centre are probably assembled by a 10 year old girl in China who quit school so she could work 12 hours a day at 10 cents per hour so that she could help pay for just a little bit of extra rice to feed her starving family. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy doesn't it?

It might seem pretty hopeless, but some people are really seeking to make a difference. And what better opportunity to bring the issue to the fore than the upcoming Olympics in Beijing?

A Current Tonight & Today Affair

MediaWatch dissed the “Current Affairs” programs of Channels 7 and 9 last night. You wouldn’t believe it, but Today Tonight and A Current Affair copy each others programming and run similar stories at exactly the same time. But who could blame them? With earth shattering stories about breast enlargements, miracle cancer cures and weight loss, a serious current affairs program simply cannot risk allowing a competitor to break a story first (even if the story was actually “broken” three years ago). Today Tonight must have been spewing when A Current Affair broadcast their story on OneCard (a new loyalty shopping card) – the team at 7 really got caught napping on that one.

And of course, the ABC’s 7:30 Report wastes tax payer dollars examining trivial stuff like the Iraq War or Australian politics…

Reserve Bank vs The Liberals

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

The Reserve Bank yesterday confirmed it had asked the Australian Electoral Commission to investigate claims the Government made during last year's election campaign over interest rates.

The advertisement, which had the headline "Under Labor, you may need to find an extra $962.34 every month just to keep your home", was circulated in several Sydney electorates.

It said it was authorised by the person W Meehan and included the term "Source: Reserve Bank of Australia".

The Howard government acting dishonestly during and election campaign? Never!

PM : “I’m not homophobic but…”

John Howard, when quizzed about same-sex marriage, gay adoption rights and access to IVF, likes to assure those doing the questioning that he is “completely tolerant and fair minded about people’s sexual preference”. I’ve reviewed some of the PM’s past comments on these issues, and I’m not so sure that his claim to tolerance and understanding stands up to even the mildest scrutiny.

For example, in August 2001, Howard found himself fending off questions from students on a Triple J “Talkback Classroom” Interview.

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle.

This doesn’t sit well with Howard’s claim that his is a view of “complete tolerance” when it comes to homosexuality. I think sometimes he feels the need to remind social conservative voters that he’s still one of them. In the same interview he was asked:

STUDENT: Do you recall an interview in 1996 with Ray Martin in which you said you would be disappointed if you had a son that was gay. Would you like to clarify what you mean by disappointed?

…to which he responded…

PRIME MINISTER: …I said I wouldn’t love him any less but I did go on to say that I’d be disappointed and I would. There’s nothing to clarify, I haven’t met a parent yet who wants their children to grow up gay.

I see. “I have nothing against gay people but if my son was gay I’d be disappointed”. His assertion about parents not wanting their children to grow up gay is also interesting. Do parents frequently convey this message upon meeting the PM? Or perhaps because no one has told him “I want my child to grow up gay” he’s arrived at the conclusion that all parents must be thinking the opposite?

Howard frequently refers to marriage as a “benchmark/bedrock institution of our society”. For example, here, here, here, here and here. Here’s a few extracts:

…marriage is commonly understood by everybody, including gay people, is a bedrock institution of society…

…there are certain benchmark institutions in our society that ought to be defended and promoted…

What I’m in favour of is defending the benchmark institutions of our society…

…marriage, as we understand it, is one of the bedrock institutions of our society…

…[marriage] is seen as the bedrock institution…

…many people, and I’m one of them, see marriage as one of the bedrock institutions of society…

You get the picture. And if we “muck around” with this “bedrock institution”, the PM believes there will be serious ramifications for the “continuity of our kind of society” because the “continuity of our society depends on there being a margin for marriage” and “if you don’t preserve it for what it is commonly understood to be, its value over time … will be reduced”. That is to say, “if you allow unions between men and men or women and women to be given the same status it will over time erode the value and therefore, erode the special character and therefore the contribution to society of marriage”. Howard believes that marriage is “very much about the raising of children, the having of children, and the continuation of our species” so we should only have marriages between men and women because they “contribute to the continuity and the stability of society”. Okay?

So you see, Howard has nothing against gay people. He merely believes that allowing them to enter into a civil marriage contract “in different ways reduces the status of marriage”, which in turn sets us on a journey down that long slippery slope into oblivion.

What a complete spanner.

China, Australia and Human Rights

With the Chinese government’s latest reinforcement of its intention to maintain an iron grip on Taiwan there’s been some talk in the press over the role Australia should play in the event that China and US relations turn sour over Taiwanese independence. John Howard believes that Australia can remain neutral in the coming years and act as some form as mediator, “continually identifying, and advocating to each, the shared strategic interests these great powers have in regional peace and prosperity”.

Howard’s slavish commitment to the Bush administration is well understood and there is little doubt that he and his cabinet will offer apologetics for any course of action the US may undertake, dismissing local and international concerns (no matter how overwhelming) as mere “anti-Americanism”. The government’s desire to present Australia as a nation entirely united behind the US was on display when the PM’s boss visited Australia in October 2003. George Bush essentially spent his entire visit in a dissent free bubble, with the only voices of discontent emanating from Greens senators Brown and Nettle during his address to parliament. In the meantime, protestors outside parliament were kept well away (and kept quiet with sound devices being banned), and journalists were not permitted to access the president. The Bush administration would probably be confronted with more dissent in Crawford, Texas.

President Hu Jintao toured Australia at the same time as Bush, and he received similar treatment. It was somewhat ironic that while conservative voices on the letters pages of Australian newspapers dared those protesting against the Bush administration to protest against China’s human rights abuses, the Howard government was busily assisting Chinese officials in excluding members of Australia’s Tibetan community and Chin Jin (of Federation for a Democratic China) from Hu Jintao’s parliamentary address. The US government had been protected from scrutiny and voices they did not want to hear, and the visiting Chinese officials were shielded from dissenting voices in precisely the same way.

The reasons for this are obvious. Australia is looking to forge a trade deal with China in the near future, and we can’t let trivial things like human rights abuses get in the way. Indeed, the Australian government is extremely attentive to the sensitivities of Chinese officials. For example, Alexander Downer sees to it that Falun Gong demonstrators are banned from displaying banners and making too much noise outside the Chinese embassy in Canberra. Talks between Australia and China concerning human rights are held yearly behind closed doors.

With trade talks looming government ministers continue to stress that there is nothing to be gained from scrutinizing the human rights record of China or including provisions for human rights improvements in any FTA. But if now “isn’t a good time”, when is it appropriate for the Australian government to be frank about China’s use of the death penalty, its treatment of political dissidents/Falun Gong practitioners/Tibetans etc etc? My guess is that in the coming years Australia will approach China’s human rights record in the same way it approaches Indonesia’s. That is, we’ll hear lots about how China is “making promising steps towards reform” but virtually zero criticism in an effort to maintain beneficial economic ties.