Monday, August 19, 2019

NOEL TURNBULL. It’s not only the Russians


Metaphors grow the mind and feed the soul. Don’t lose them | Aeon Essays

... As we see it, metaphor exists – and relies upon – the complex, emotionally resonant, arresting connections we make. These linkages, between ourselves and the world, require a degree of primary experience, as well as sensitivity to the nature and details of that experience. Metaphor is the knot between language and image, between language and sensory experience, and between language and narrative. Indeed, a growing body of research supports the view that metaphoric thinking could be deeply tied to empathy. 

‘The Devil We Know:’ How DuPont Poisoned the World with Teflon Organic Consumers (DL).



Amid foreign interference fears, Chinese students do democracy on campus


Australian universities are grappling with how to attract top Chinese students and involve them on campus life while managing fears of foreign interference.

Government MPs alarmed over Chinese influence at Australian universities after pro-Beijing rallies

Updated August 18, 2019 14:53:22
Australian universities are not doing enough to combat the influence of China's ruling Communist Party, a group of Federal Government backbenchers has warned.

Key points:

  • Liberal MP Tim Wilson says foreign interference could shut down debate on university campuses
  • The comments follow recent pro-Beijing rallies staged in several Australian cities against Hong Kong's democracy movement
  • The Federal Government is taking foreign interference "incredibly seriously", Education Minister Dan Tehan says
The comments follow recent pro-Beijing rallies staged in several Australian cities against Hong Kong's democracy movement — rallies which werepraised by Chinese Government-controlled media— and come just days after Liberal MP Andrew Hastie warned about China's activities.
Fellow Liberal MP Tim Wilson, who also sits on Parliament's powerful Intelligence Committee, said there was strong potential for foreign interference on Australian campuses to shut down various views.
"Many MPs have a concern about Australian university campuses and whether they're both a bastion for free speech, which they need to be, but more critically the role that foreign influences like the Confucius Institutes are having — any influence over curriculum and of course the influence of foreign governments on protests," Mr Wilson told ABC Radio.
"What we know is that around the world the influence of embassies and consulates from foreign governments can sometimes be an influence for domestic protests and we have to make sure that isn't occurring."
Queensland LNP senator Amanda Stoker said she believed universities were battling through a "crisis of leadership" on foreign influence.
Pro-Hong Kong and pro-Beijing protesters clash in Adelaide



 

For Centuries, Black Music, Forged In Bondage, Has Been The Sound Of Complete Artistic Freedom. No Wonder Everybody Is Always Stealing It.’


“Americans have made a political investment in a myth of racial separateness, the idea that art forms can be either ‘white’ or ‘black’ in character … This country’s music is an advertisement for 400 years of the opposite: centuries of ‘amalgamation’ and ‘miscegenation’ as they long ago called it, of all manner of interracial collaboration conducted with dismaying ranges of consent.” An essay forThe 1619 Project by Wesley Morris. – The New York Times Magazine

ANDREW GLIKSON. $trillion space games and false prophecies by billionaires while Rome burns


History testifies to powerful rulers’ aspirations for the position of gods, including the Pharaohs and Roman Emperors such as Caligula or Nero, nowadays mimicked by false messianic prophecies of “intergalactic civilization” made by billionaires and their followers in public and the media, including some scientists. This includes predictions of making life interplanetary by giant proprietors of space hardware, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, including plans for space tourism, asteroid mining and permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars.  This would by some estimates be expected to cost about  $1 trillion by 2040. These ideas are closely linked to the rise of climate disruption and potential nuclear calamities and with the upsurge of fascism.  Space playgrounds of billionaires can only come at the expense of the multitude of humanity left behind where, coupled with plans for militarization and even weaponization of space, humanity may be left with a few barren rocks in space to temporarily support a few survivors.

NOEL TURNBULL. It’s not only the Russians


As well as having to keep an eye out for Russian electoral interference we now need to watch out for the fake news promulgated by knights of the realm – and the employee whistle blowers who provide the evidence of what their knightly employers, such as Sir Lynton Crosby and his company CTF Partners, do.

DENNIS ARGALL. The Pompeo view


US Secretary of State Pompeo said a couple of things in Sydney recently that were wrong in fact. He articulated an absurd philosophy about foreign investment, unaware that he’d just accused China of thinking something similar. His utterances of high-minded principles in the Australia-US relationship and US strategic policy mask very dark realities. Continue reading 

JACK WATERFORD. Half-hearted inquiries into casino crime


Where were the former politicians and apparatchiks who became Packer lobbyists when the spotlight focused on Crown? Continue reading 








Joint Tax Committee
Tara Sklar (Arizona), Yamna Taouk (Melbourne), David Studdert (Stanford), Matthew Spittal (Melbourne),  Ron Paterson (Health and Disability Commissioner) & Marie Bismark (Melbourne), Characteristics of Lawyers Who Are Subject to Complaints and Misconduct Findings, 16 J. Empirical Legal Stud. 318 (2019):
Regulators of the legal profession are charged with protecting the public by ensuring lawyers are fit to practice law. However, their approach tends to be reactive and case based, focusing on the resolution of individual complaints. Regulators generally do not seek to identify patterns and trends across their broader caseloads and the legal profession as a whole. Using administrative data routinely collected by the main regulator of the legal profession in Victoria, Australia, we characterized complaints lodged between 2005 and 2015 and the lawyers against whom they were made. We also analyzed risk factors for complaints and misconduct findings. We found the odds of being subject to a complaint were higher among lawyers who were male, older, had trust account authority and whose practices were smaller, in non-urban locations, and incorporated. A deeper understanding of these risk factors could support efforts to improve professional standards and reform regulatory practices.



James Mortensen, via Policy Forum
Following a dismissal of a public servant over tweets, Australia must reconsider the true roles and responsibilities of its public servants.

 
The Joint Committee on Taxation has released Disclosure Report For Public Inspection Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 6103(p)(3)(C) For Calendar Year 2018:
Section 6103(p)(3)(C) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that the Secretary of the Treasury shall, within 90 days after the close of each calendar year, furnish to the Joint Committee on Taxation for disclosure to the public a report which provides, with respect to each Federal agency and certain other entities, the number of: (1) requests for disclosure of returns and return information (as such terms are defined in section 6103(b)); (2) instances in which returns and return information were disclosed pursuant to such requests or otherwise; and (3) taxpayers whose returns, or return information with respect to whom, were disclosed pursuant to such requests. In addition, the report must describe the general purposes for which such requests were made.