lev.lafayette's blog

On Sunday June 23, 2014 Charles Lazelle posted to Facebook an article claiming that herd immunity had been disproven. Whilst Lazelle was clearly not a good advocate for the anti-vaccination cause, for a first discussion with such individuals it was interesting insofar that it revealed some of the mindset of some anti-vaccination thinkers some of which can be summarised as follows.

It is immensely ironic that a private publishing company is claiming the copyright of the collected works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the philosophers who wrote against the monopoly of capitalism and its origin, private property, all their lives.

The 2014 Tasmanian elections were a disaster for the Greens and for the ALP. The ALP lost 9.55% of their vote (36.88% to 27.33%), falling from 10 seats to 7, whereas the Greens lost 7.78% of the vote (21.61% to 13.83%), falling from 5 seats to 3. Only in Denison did Labor and the Greens make up the majority of the vote.

For Labor this follows a 12.39% loss in the previous 2010 election under the the anti-Greens leader David Bartlett. In eight years, Labor has dropped from 49.27% of the primary vote to 27.33%.

Frans was a man of great intellect and seriousness, who deeply understood the practical requirements needed to achieve a just and rational society.

As a conservative manager of resources and ever pessimistic of the chances for success, he was all too modest of his own significant achievements.

All of those who knew him had nothing but the deepest respect for his steadfast and enduring commitment to human freedom and dignity.

Vale dicere, Frans Timmerman.

It is with some sadness that Tony Benn has died. As a radical democratic socialist who renounced his own peerage, I am comfortable in describing myself as a "Bennite" insofar he was inspirational.

Julie Bishop lives in the parallel reality where the politically correct thing to do is to cravenly follow the dictates of her masters.

Edward Snowden, on the other hand, disclosed the degree the degree of surveillance that supposedly liberal democracies carry out against their own citizens, which, at least in jurisdictions where there is some sense of privacy, are in all probability, illegal.

In three recent elections, centre-left parties have either been defeated (Australia, Norway) or have failed to achieve government (Germany). In two of these cases, it's a major setback because for Norway and Australia, the social acquisition of public resource wealth is being taken away.

Those who raise the issue of WMDs in Iraq (or the incubator babies of the first Gulf War, or the second Tonkin Gulf incident) need to have another look at the images. This is primae facie evidence. There was never WMDs in Iraq. There were no incubator babies in Kuwait. But it should be abundantly clear, from the images and the medical reports, that civilians have been killed from poison gas attacks.

Presentation to the Humanist Society of Victoria, August 22nd, 2013

Abstract

Presentation to the 4D Conference, University of Western Sydney, July 2013

Abstract