BUDGET ACCOMMODATION = TORTURE

Guantanamo detainee Ramzi Binalshibh accuses the United States of ongoing torture with his cell allegedly flooded with foul smells and loud noises, and his bed "vibrating". Binalshibh's not in Cuba, he's in a cheap motel somewhere just off an Interstate in the 1970s.

CHERNOBYL CANCER? PROBABLY NOT.

Larry Buttrose mourns an untimely death:

A few weeks ago, a neighbour from up our street left a printed sheet of white paper in our letter box informing us that his wife had died, and that a memorial service would be held. It was very sad to read.

A* was a delightful young woman. The couple had come to parties at our home, and she was elegant, charming and witty, even though she had little voice. The reason her voice was weakened was the cancer that had affected her throat, and the reason she had cancer, and would eventually die leaving her husband and child, was Chernobyl.

No ifs, ands or buts: Chernobyl caused A*'s cancer. So did A* live close to the reactor, or was she perhaps one of the highly irradiated workers who tried to contain the mess? No:

A* and her husband had come to Australia from Poland. After one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station blew up in 1986, its plume of lethal fallout was carried on the winds far and wide. Poland was literally next door: it shares a border with Ukraine, and A* had been affected by the radiation.

While they had come to Australia and resettled, she had fallen ill.

Her husband said the doctors had told him they had never seen a cancer of its kind before. Last year he took A* to Germany for special treatment, but to no avail. After a decade of fighting the cancer with enormous bravery, A* died.

Sad and stirring? Yes. Did Chernboyl fallout cause her cancer? Probably not. The adverse effects of Chernobyl fallout have been carefully studied; the IAEA reporting:

Apart from the dramatic increase in thyroid cancer incidence among those exposed at a young age, there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the most affected populations.

So, whereas A*'s cancer might be Chernobyl related, it's impossible to know this with any certainty. It is therefore grossly irresponsible of the Sydney Morning Herlad to publish this anti-nuclear piece, based, as it is, on grotesquely cynical exploitation of a death to a "never before seen cancer" "caused by Chernobyl". Conjecture is not fact and should not be reported as such, even in an opinion piece.

By the way, Hiroshima cancers, while more common than normal, are not as common as many would suspect.


Editing note: Several errors have been corrected: the author is Larry, not Trevor Buttrose; the piece is in the Sydney Morning Herald, not The Age.

THROWS LIKE A GIRL

Compare and contrast:

FRENCH FIREWORKS

In what is now a tradition, youths celebrate Bastille Day by torching more than 300 cars:

The police described the night as relatively calm without major incident.

Yep, everything is relative.

NO WOMEN IN HOTTEST 100

The votes have been counted in JJJ's "The Hottest 100 Of All Time" with at least one observer troubled by the results:

However, as the countdown progressed, something sinister emerged: of the 100 tracks that ended up comprising the list, there were no female artists.

Listeners simply acknowledged reality: men are better musicians. It's also relevant that JJJ -- in my experience -- attracts a predominantly male audience.

PEACEFUL WORLD

Contrary to what's popularly believed, the world is less violent than ever. Check out this essay by psychologist Steven Pinker, or I'll smack you a good one.

PAINFUL ARGUMENT

Advocates for Animals wants crustaceans accorded their due rights -- no more dropping crabs and lobsters into boiling water, for example. Crab specialist Peter Fraser refuses to fall into line, however:

As for lobsters in boiling water, sensory nerves from crabs living in temperate waters fail irreversibly at 25 °C, about the temperature of tepid bath water. This procedure is not inhumane.

Any bets on which side is going to win this one?

EYE-SCRATCHING ATTEMPTED

The Grodsters vs Jeremy hostility goes bitchy in comments to a Harry Potter post by Jeremy at Pure Poison.

Grodster John Surname has a go at Green supporter Jeremy:

Is Harry Potter the new Greens, completely untouchable? I assume, being a Friday, that this was published in the Entertainment Guide. I fail to see any intellectual dishonesty in not liking a series of children’s books and films.

Jeremy responds:

I suppose that’s in The Age publishing it as if it were a piece of genuine literary criticism, when it’s just a vague whinge about Harry Potter being popular.

By all means, write a post condemning the series for actual faults. That’s what this piece implied it was going to do - and then didn’t.

Drawing this comeback:

“That’s what this piece implied it was going to do - and then didn’t.”

No it didn’t. Right from the headline it was pretty clear about what kind of piece it was going to be. I feel your dislike of this article has more to do with the fact it takes the piss out of adult fans. Like you.

To which Jeremy retorts:

“I feel your dislike of this article has more to do with the fact it takes the piss out of adult fans. Like you.”

Thanks, John, but no - I don’t see myself in her criticism at all. Come to think of it, I do see a little bit of you in her, though.

With Surname concluding:

Thanks Jeremy, your response proved my point.

Funny how these lefty-spats seem to go all personal.


Editing note: Misspelling in title corrected, after a couple of tries.

STUDENT MISBEHAVIOUR IGNORED

Andrew Bolt argues that better teachers deserve better pay, with principals to determine the most deserving. This ignores that no amount of money spent on teachers can overcome the problem of disruptive students:

Education Minister Geoff Wilson has acknowledged bad student behaviour would have a direct impact on academic results, prompting more calls for the Government to change their funding formula according to need. It is now based on enrolments.

Queensland Teachers Union president Steve Ryan said schools with behavioural problems needed extra funds.

"If there is a need in the school, you need additional staff, whether that be teaching staff or support staff," Mr Ryan said.

"They need to be found and the school has to have the ability to do that."

It is simplistic to concentrate on teacher quality when bad behaviour is rife in schools.

ACADEMICS DERIDED

Lindsay Tanner unwittingly compliments Australians' collective intelligence:

Australia is one of the few countries in the world where academic is a term of derision.

Many academics do deserve ridicule: Jake Lynch, for example. As already noted, he doesn't present the full facts in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article.

Factual error isn't the only problem with the article, however, which accuses Israel of piracy:

Israel sent six military vessels to seize a ship, the Spirit of Humanity, sailing from Cyprus with relief supplies for the people of Gaza, and arrested - no, make that abducted - 21 people on board, including the Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire. After a week in detention, they were released and deported.

At no time did the Spirit enter Israeli waters, so Israel's action could be deemed piracy under the definition of the International Maritime Bureau...

This aligns the Herald's reporting with that of Socialist Worker Online, Al-Ahram Weekly, Alarab Online, Global Arab Network and other fringe news source.

Then there's "adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University" Noura Erakat's article at Huffington Post. Erakat ignores the piracy issue, concentrating instead on Israel's blockade and destruction of Gaza:

While blockades are not new to the international legal order, think to the decade-long US-imposed sanctions on Iraq or the 49-year US-imposed embargo on Cuba, the blockade of Gaza is unique for including the prohibition of basic goods, being applied against an occupied nation, and persisting in spite of a military attack that left 14,000 homes, 240 schools, and 219 factories destroyed. In Gaza, the otherwise sterile moniker, 'blockade,' amounts to a policy of starvation.

Ignoring that no Gazans are reported to have starved as a result of the blockade, operation "Cast Lead" did not destroy 14,000 homes and 240 schools. Also, Iraq sanction were imposed by the United Nations, not the United States.

Highly educated academics are supposed to be better informed and more intelligent than the "average" person. This notion is obviously incorrect.

ALCOHOL "CONTAMINATED"

A warning from Choice:

Genetically modified ingredients are slipping under the radar and into some foods – possibly your favourite glass of red.

The article, promoting a new "pocket-sized guide listing alcoholic drinks free of genetically modified ingredients" produced by Greenpeace, mentions possible GM "contamination" of foods three times. For example, linking GM foods to Americans, who as we all know will eat anything that's bad for them:

Imported drinks are more susceptible to contamination from GM-derived ingredients, especially where the US is the country of origin.

Both the alcohol guide and the site where it's found, True Food Network, repeatedly refer to the "possible" hazards of genetically engineered foods. On the other hand, the all too real health risks associated with alcohol consumption are ignored. In reality alcohol is far more likely to adversely affect the health of Australia's drinkers than are any genetically modified materials possibly found in intoxicating beverages.

WORLD'S WORST TOURISTS

Adept hosts, the French are unpopular abroad:

French people are the world's worst tourists according to a study of the global hotel industry.

Knew it, didn't you?

VOLUNTARY DETENTION SCORES POINTS

Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Israel sent six military vessels to seize a ship, the Spirit of Humanity, sailing from Cyprus with relief supplies for the people of Gaza, and arrested - no, make that abducted - 21 people on board, including the Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire. After a week in detention, they were released and deported.

But in a discussion on Irish TV Maguire does not dispute that she was offered immediate release, opting instead to remain in Israeli custody. Does Lynch know this? If not, why? If so, what's with the lie?

BITCH PRICK

Pure Poison's admirable mission:

Exposing intellectual dishonesty in the mainstream media, across the political spectrum.

So today PP boy Jeremy critiques a Harry Potter item appearing in The Age's entertainment section, describing author Bryony Gordon as "a judgmental and sanctimonious prick". Oddly, I cannot recall any journalist aspiring to mainstream credibility referring to a female author as a penis. Perhaps some controversy will enliven things at PP. Coming attractions: drink bottle penises.

Pure Poison: like Grods but different, somehow.

SILENCE PERMANENT

An 81 year-old whose girlfriend was giving him the silent treatment went to his shed and... selected the appropriate tool for the mission.

TIME TO LOOK FOR A DIFFERENT JOB

Former academic and fake indigenous American Ward Churchill has had his day in court following allegedly illegal termination by the University of Colorado. The presiding judge very politely advised Churchill to eat shit and die, so to speak:

A state court judge on Tuesday not only denied Ward Churchill everything he sought in his long-running battle with the University of Colorado system, but also negated the one victory the controversial scholar had won so far: a jury verdict holding that system officials had violated his First Amendment rights by firing him from a job as a tenured ethnic-studies professor in response to statements he had made.

Having presided over the four-week trial that led to the jury's April 2 decision that the university had illegally fired Mr. Churchill for academic misconduct, Judge Larry J. Naves decided to vacate the jury verdict on the grounds that the university officials named in his lawsuit were immune from such litigation.

Moreover, Judge Naves held, he could not appropriately order Mr. Churchill's reinstatement on the flagship campus, in Boulder, because the jury had found the professor undeserving of any significant compensation for damages—as reflected by its awarding him just $1 for economic losses—and because the university system's lawyers had successfully made the case that returning Mr. Churchill to his old job would damage the university, its faculty members, and its students.

A fitting decision all round.

Update: Opinion on the judgement and further backround from Inside Higher Ed.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni has doubts about the judge's ruling.

HITLER OAK: KILL IT OR PRESERVE IT?

Should a tree in Poland planted to honour Hitler and still living despite the devastation all around it be cut down or left in place? I say leave it; we need all the trees we have and then some.

FANTASIES PROHIBITED

PP boy Jeremy's take on the HMAS Success yob-gobs two days ago:

The only problem in this one is that it suggests a culture on the part of some sailrs that treats female members of the defence force as sex objects. They might need some counselling as to what’s appropriate in the workplace, but that’s about it.

In today's column Andrew Bolt also sees the scandal as much ado about not much since it's not known if any of the male sailors actually managed to have sex with the "targeted" females. Jeremy's brain, urgently needing to find fault -- something, anything -- with the Bolt piece, homes in like a guided grey matter missile on the sex angle:

Um, because having sex isn’t the offence here? The problem was the lack of professionalism and respect inherent in the ledger idea.

At what point the ledger idea became an "unprofessional offence" is unclear. Is it an offence to appreciate a fellow sailor's looks? Is it perhaps unprofessional to be sexually attracted to a crew-mate? Is it improper to have sexual fantasies about a co-worker? Is voicing these fantasies to colleagues improper? Perhaps the offence occurs when these thoughts are put to paper in a letter to a friend or in a personal journal? Does the offence only occur when a small group of men jointly commit their fantasies to paper in a shared journal? Or do these conquest fantasies only become improper when a value is attached to the propspective "targets"?

Regardless, Jeremy seems to have little understanding of what men surrounded by attractive women think, talk and fantasise about. Go figure.

Update: Since it is their raison d'être (ain't French sexy?), the PP boyz could perhaps take a look at the intellectual dishonesty in this item at mainstream site Crikey.