Thursday, February 19, 2015

Minders watching the minders, while the government gets the public to pay for the privilege of being spied upon ...

Dr No in good form:


Never mind that the reptiles have discovered an EXCLUSIVE which is EXCLUSIVELY everywhere in media land:

Won't someone think of the children.

But let's be fair.

Sometimes he's Dr Yes, Yes, Yes, while using the children as an excuse:


Yes, yes, yes, to $400 million. And who will pick up the tab?

Well the government will pay its "fair share", whatever that might be, which however cheapskate the offer, will see the Australian taxpayer pick up some part of the $400 million. 

And the rest will be picked up by anyone wanting to be online, as the costs are directly passed on by ISPs to their customers.

So there you go, that's how to piss $400 million in taxpayer/consumer cash against the wall, so that citizens can have the privilege of paying for the government to spy on them.

Now that story splash was in Gizmodo here, and it's pretty softcore, but it does make a few obvious points:

Here’s the problem — this rhetoric doesn’t really sound like something that you could quantify — you can’t put a number on crimes that you don’t know about. Moreover, Abbott’s comment ignores the fact that Australian law enforcement agencies like the AFP and ASIO already successfully catch and prosecute individuals without the expanded, on-demand access to metadata that they have requested. Existing legislation allows agencies to access currently-retained metadata, as long as warrant conditions were met.

What's really offensive is the way Tony Abbott threw child pornography into the mix, and for that the pond has to turn to a really vicious rant by Bernard Keane in Crikey. Now the pond generally prefers to let Crikey sit behind its paywall. The pond doesn't mind breaching Murdochian fortifications, but struggle street shouldn't be targeted.

That said, Keane's rant is so to the point, so necessary, so right, that the pond just has to note at least one slab of Abbott lies about data retention while the media cuts and pastes.

Inter alia, Keane notes the remarkable and blatant corruption of process that saw Dan Tehan joining Bravehearts for a photo opportunity, before pointing out that the Dutch Data Protection Authority decided an amended version of its laws in the area shouldn't be enacted "because, despite data retention being in operation for over four years before being annulled, Dutch law enforcement agencies had been unable to demonstrate that it worked".

Now read on:


Yes, in this context, read concern for children as concern for the rights of major Hollywood film studios.

If you want to discover paedophiles, first hunt out the powerful who give them institutional protection, instead of devising ways to allow them to flourish within institutions. And if you want to discover child abuse in families, follow the trails which can be noted by doctors, teachers, and those in positions of power in organisations where children congregate.

Regrettably, Abbott is a luddite, and when it comes to technical matters regarding the intertubes, is a fool.

The question is, why haven't the conservative commentariat, and all the alleged libertarians and Tim Wilson and all the other doofuses out there, had something to say about Abbott's lies, which don't stand for a second against anyone who has the first clue about anonymisation tools?

Keane again:

...a supine media here has mostly acted as stenographers for a government that can’t explain what data it wants retained, how much it will cost (Abbott’s finger-in-the-wind figure today was $400 million) or what good it will do. The failure of senior journalists to speak out has been particularly disappointing and a failure of industry leadership, especially compared to the response of their British counterparts. 
And even if journalists don’t want to speak out on something that directly threatens their craft, at the very least they must stop being party to the government’s deception of voters, by verbatim reporting of claims for which there is no evidence.

The pond has had its problems with Crikey in the past, but the rag does a service when it points out that the "mainstream media" is often just another way of saying "lickspittle forelock tuggers".

Of course, this matter is bipartisan, in that the Labor party has been just as much a supine fellow traveller as the "mainstream media".

You can imagine the pond's discomfort watching Senator David Leyonhjelm twist himself in verbal knots and distortions about the greyhound industry on 7.30 last night, here, and then come out with this:

SABRA LANE: Next week Parliament resumes. The focus will go back onto national security and metadata laws and the Government wants to retain people's metadata for two years. Will you support that? 
DAVID LEYONHJELM: No. No, it's totally unreasonable. 
SABRA LANE: The Prime Minister says that the cost of losing this data will cause an explosion of unsolved crime. What do you think of that statement? 
DAVID LEYONHJELM: It's prime ministerial hyperbole - an explosion of unsolved crime. What he's essentially saying is there is that explosion already 'cause we obviously don't have compulsory retention of metadata right now. So, how long has this been going on? Ever since metadata has existed. What nonsense. There are three issues that worry me about metadata. One is just the cost. I think it's going to be ridiculously expensive. The other one - the next one is the potential for misuse of the data and the third one is just the libertarian principle. We should be watching the Government; the Government shouldn't be watching us. The idea that we are all equally likely, equally capable of becoming criminals and therefore all of our metadata has to be stored in the event that we become criminals so that you and I and my 84-year-old mother and all the kids with their smartphones and so forth are going to be turned into criminals, paedophiles or terrorists or something, it's ludicrous. SABRA LANE: And the cost? The Prime Minister says it's a small cost to pay. 
DAVID LEYONHJELM: $400 million is not small. Who's going to pay it? Taxpayers? They can't balance the budget now on the current expenditure, so they're going to expend another $400 million or are we all going to have to pay an extra $20 a year each to allow the Government to spy on us, to snoop on us? So in other words, it'll be a special tax on our internet bills to allow the Government to spy on us.

Well yes, the federal government can't balance its own budget, and now it's going to make life that little bit harder for households wanting to balance their own budget, while staying online with a decent data plan.

And for what? For the right to search for needles in a metadata haystack, when enforcement by standard police tactics - including infiltration - is likely to produce better results.

Is there any good news then?

Well yes because today in reptile central, Niki Savva keeps leadership speculation alive. She runs through all the candidates, from Julie Bishop through Malcolm Turnbull performing like a tame seal to the Q and A mob, to Scott Morrison as a longer-term prospect.

Along the way, the pond acquired too much information, as with this starting point:

Warren Entsch walks to Parliament House. Julie Bishop runs. Often their paths cross near the Carmelite Nuns’ monastery on Mugga Way in Red Hill. If Entsch is wearing headphones, he doesn’t hear Bishop coming. She swoops like one of Canberra’s notorious magpies and whacks him on the bum as she passes. 
He reckons his heart has a little flutter, partly because of the shock and partly because, well … which bloke doesn’t like a flirty encounter on his way to work? Without headphones, Entsch hears her coming so when she is close enough he spins around and grabs her backside. Both cheeks, he brags.

Dear sweet long absent lord, this is how Liberal heavies get their jollies?

There was more - something about Entsch getting a good grip on the chief diplomat's rear - so it took considerable courage on the part of the pond to plough on, but eventually Savva got away from the joyous cheery bum clutching, and down to business:


Well he's deeply unpopular for a reason.

On the matter of metadata, Abbott has shown himself to be a liar, a fool and an overblown rhetorician, deploying the most wretched hyperbole and hysteria, without ever really showing he has any understanding why he must resort to these kinds of thuggee tactics.

And meanwhile, zinger Bill provides material for Micallef and Chris Bowen should be off getting fitted for a clown suit ...

There's other business today on the reptile front. Once again the bromancer seems to have had some kind of vision:



Oh the bromancer has kind words for his chum, that giant of international affairs, and knows how to apportion the blame, by cleansing Mr Toxic of any share of nattering negativity:

It's all about submarines. It’s a lot more important than you think. And I fear our toxic political system is going to render us not only ungovernable but in crucial ways undefended.

Naturally the pond is in awe at a much sharper mind concluding that a contract for $40 billion is important, much more important than anyone can understand, except the bromancer (the pond tips $60-80 billion by journey's end, much like the current skilful acquisition of fighter planes, with both making the original NBN scheme seem like a two dollar store offering).

Never mind. The bromancer has had a change of heart. The Japanese sub deal, done under the table, is now all too difficult. Things must change. The Germans have offered to do the bulk of the deal in Adelaide.

Let's leave aside the ritual abuse of Labor to focus on the bromancer's advice to Abbott:

I am now coming, reluctantly, to the view this option just presents too much risk, financially, politically and militarily. I don’t think Abbott can secure Japanese subs through good process. ­Impatience with process is one of Abbott’s weaknesses. His only ­priority now should be the national interest. The most important consideration for our submarines is not actually all the revolutionary historical stuff but that they work effectively and that we actually get them...
... It is part of its perverse genius for political mismanagement that subs are now a big negative for the Abbott ­government. 
Abbott’s then defence spokesman, David Johnston, in opposition categorically promised a Coalition government would build 12 subs in Adelaide. Abbott no longer has the political capital to abandon this promise. 
If he does so, we are likely to end up with no subs at all. This is where Abbott realising the full extent of his political crisis is central to any solid achievement in the rest of his term....
...The way forward now is narrow but clear. The government must hold a formal competition ­between the Japanese, the Germans, the French and perhaps the Swedes, with all of them instructed to include work for an Australian partner and an option for most or all of the build to occur in South Australia. 
The Japanese don’t want to participate in a formal competi­tion. But only a formal competition has any chance of com­manding sufficient bipartisan support. If the Japanese get the subs deal without a competition, that loads way too much risk on to the subs. The subs could prove too costly; be undeliverable politically in Japan; the subs, good as they are, might not work for us technically; the whole thing could be repudi­ated by Labor. The fact the Japanese have never exported subs before also carries its own layer of technical and commercial risk. 
The only sensible option now is a transparent process that involves a formal competition. If the Japanese won’t participate in that, then that’s unfortunate but we’ll get the best the Europeans have to offer. Otherwise, the Abbott government will merely have found a new way to do nothing, leaving us once more without subs.

Dear sweet long absent lord, it seems he might be talking about an actual tender, as opposed to weasel words like "competitive evaluation process" ...

Will Abbott pay attention to the bromancer? Who knows, but he's wonderfully collegial and consultative. Just look how he consulted about the collegial sacking of Ruddock ...

And there's other business in the reptiles today. Not having got their satisfaction from Tim Wilson, today it's Jennifer Oriel who's wheeled out by reptiles to do the hard yards, and deliver the standard HRC/Triggs bashing:

Never mind the metadata, maybe it's worth while looking at what federal government contractors get up to in prison camps.

How high's the fear and the denial?


This is a juvenile, paranoid, authoritarian government ... with minders minding the minders ...

No wonder the reptiles love it. Why it must be just like working for Chairman Rupert ...

As for the future? Could that be the man that invented the intertubes and fixed the NBN, in the way gangsters fix things? And is currently presiding over the metadata folly?

Golly gee, thanks Mr Moir, and more Moir here.


22 comments:

  1. DP, let me explain the metrics on Abbott's salvationist views of metadata. First, AFP pings a journo for any reason, to find the journo has been using TOR. Bingo! Journo is either a spy, or a pedo. Next, track onto a Govt employee with a foreign-sounding name who encrypts email. Snap! Problem solved. Abbott's ass saved and all intrepid journos assume the position.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Views of metadata metrics? It's anyone viewing the data metrics what's their tongue-tied dribbling idiot prime moron wingnut's problem.

      Delete
  2. Here is one for Senator David Leyonhjelm.

    http://wonkette.com/576715/wingnut-lady-shoots-self-dead-while-adjusting-boob-gun

    ReplyDelete
  3. An addendum from Matt Taibbi on dobbers. I mean, rats in the Team. I mean, whistle-blowers.

    "People won't worry about it now," says Winston. "But one day they'll wonder why their air is polluted or their drinking water isn't safe. And this will be the reason why."

    $400m? Cheap!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've satisfied myself that I'm not a libertarian, not being in agreement with either trigger-happy, live-baiting David Leyonhjelm, nor Greenish-left Bernard Keane. Yet they both make compelling cases against metadata retention.

    I am more of the pragmatic, if it's a good idea and it works school then why not, school. And that applies to opponents and rivals. Both have shown why the idea of metadata retention is pointless and costly.

    With Abbott, however, that is all the more reason for him to pursue it with energy. It is all about him being perceived as a 'strong leader' pursuing terrorists, boat people and child pornographers/paedophiles with equal vigor. If he can be perceived as that, then perhaps his dismal ratings might improve - at least that is his thinking. Bob Ellis has given him the nickname of The Loaded Dog for good reason.

    Where on earth has he got this straw to clutch on to? Surely even he doesn't take a half-wit like Brandis seriously? My guess is that it came from the spooks, ASIO, ASIS, AFP or possibly a combined effort. They are all about increasing their power, funding and staffing. The simplest way of doing that is to convince dumbos like Abbott and Brandis that they can actually achieve something from all this. A bit like the way advocates of torture work.

    My position is closer to Charles de Gaulle when President of France. When he was warned by his intelligence agents of an attempted assassination and urged to take precautions against it. His response was to sniff,
    "If they're anything like you are in incompetence, I've really got nothing to fear!"

    I'm of similar ilk. Give them more power at your peril.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And pretty weak on it they are too...

      Tut, tut... Positive Psychology industry, Seligman, and co. you really must lift your game. What's that? You have? You've been applying the pr spin big time, the marketing and hard sell long term, not to mention all those many gifted military dollars...

      Oops!

      What's gone wrong again? No, not the science - there is none of any real worth (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). It's that the emperor has no clothes, it's the lousy product you bastards sell. Now, today, making it yet again harder to sell, we read:

      Guantánamo torturer led brutal Chicago regime of shackling and confession http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/guantanamo-torture-chicago-police-brutality

      Bad lieutenant: American police brutality, exported from Chicago to Guantánamo http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/american-police-brutality-chicago-guantanamo
      The full history of US torture has yet to be told. Much of it remains concealed by official secrecy, like the bulk of the landmark US Senate report on Bush-era CIA abuse, or the stories of the 122 Guantánamo detainees Barack Obama continues to hold at the wartime prison he has vowed without success to close.

      Parts of that post-9/11 history contain acts of bravery and conscience. FBI agents at Guantánamo Bay resisted the torture of Slahi and other detainees, as did Fallon and Couch. From their work, and those of other experienced interrogators who attempted to get the US out of the torture business, a broad narrative has emerged in the American discourse about torture: law-enforcement interrogation methods are humane and effective, while military or CIA methods are brutal and futile.

      Dick Zuley’s history as a military interrogator at Guantánamo and a police interrogator in Chicago scrambles that narrative. It suggests a continuum between police abuses in urban America and the wartime detention scandals that continue to do persistent damage to the international reputation of the United States.


      Guantánamo diarist Mohamedou Ould Slahi: chronicler of fear, not despair http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-mohamedou-ould-slahi
      Meanwhile, the US Senate’s armed forces committee, which had been investigating the way in which the American military’s anti-interrogation training had been reverse-engineered and inflicted upon Guantánamo inmates, found that an interrogation regime prepared for Slahi in the summer of 2003 called for him to be deprived of sleep, subjected to strobe lights, soaked in water, questioned for 20 hours at a time, threatened with dogs, made to wear a burqa, forced into close physical contact with female interrogators, and forced to bark and perform dog tricks. Bizarrely, a note within the plan explained that one purpose of this abuse was to “replicate and exploit the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ between detainee and his interrogators”.

      Delete
    2. The way advocates of torture work? In that Guardian today there's newsworthy connections below to the role of the "Positve Psychology" industry in torture. (No, not the connected tortures and torturers endured by Hicks, in the news again today - those for another day)

      #3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues...

      COCHRANE LIBRARY http://community.cochrane.org/ - Exploring the use of positive psychology interventions in brain injury survivors with challenging behaviour http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clcentral/articles/620/CN-01001620/frame.html

      Source Brain injury, 2014, Authors Andrewes HE, Walker V, O'Neill B, ABSTRACT - Objective: To investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting two positive psychology interventions to improve mood and self-concept with survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI), within a neuro-rehabilitation

      hospital. Method and procedures: Ten patients with brain injury were randomly allocated to an intervention and control group. The efficacy of the first intervention, 'three positive things in life' was measured via Seligman's Authentic Happiness Index (AHI), at base-line, directly following the intervention and at the

      end of the 12-week group programme. The second intervention, the 'Value in Action (VIA) signature strengths intervention' was measured by the Head Injury Semantic Differential Scale (HISDS) at baseline and at the end of the group. Results: Compared to baseline and control group scores, the AHI index showed

      an increase in the intervention group's happiness following the intervention and at the end of the 12-week programme, albeit the latter increase was non-significant. The HISDS showed non-significant improvement in self-concept and reduction in polarization of the self in the present, future and past in the second

      intervention. Anecdotal evidence revealed a clear improved mood following the interventions. Conclusion: This study shows promising results for the effectiveness of Positive Psychology interventions and methods to improve feasibility when applying this treatment within a hospital setting. 2014 Informa UK Ltd. All

      rights reserved: reproduction in whole or part not permitted. Andrewes, et al. Brain injury Volume 28 , 2014. Pages: 965


      From happy clapping prosperity gospel true believing loons to advisors on the application of torture - they're all sold on it. But you want more? Systematic reviews of "Positive Psychology"? After all this time, funding, and all the promoting by Petersen, Seligman, the Pentagon and Co... Well, there you go, the

      Cochrane Community Library has but the three above mentions... rather it cites but three papers from other publications, and none of those a systematic review (other two here http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/dont-slogan-at-them.html ).

      Delete
    3. Guantánamo Diary: Prisoner's journey from detainee to bestselling author http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/guantanamo-diary-detainee-new-york-times-bestselling-author
      “You have the criminal interrogators for the military, and this new unit that the Pentagon sets up; defence intelligence agents, special project teams importing these enhanced interrogation methods. So Mohamedou lands right in the middle of that tug-of-war.”

      The Experiment The military trains people to withstand interrogation. Are those methods being misused at Guantánamo? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/07/11/the-experiment-3
      According to the sere affiliate and two other sources familiar with the program, after September 11th several psychologists versed in sere techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially “tried to reverse-engineer” the sere program, as the affiliate put it. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. Interrogators and bsct members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the sere program. Ideas intended to help Americans resist abuse spread to Americans who used them to perpetrate abuse. Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of state-sponsored experiments on humans. He says, “If you know how to help people who are stressed, then you also know how to stress people, in order to get them to talk.”

      ..According to a counter-terrorism expert familiar with the interrogation of the Al Qaeda suspect, Mitchell announced that the suspect needed to be subjected to rougher methods. The man should be treated like the dogs in a classic behavioral-psychology experiment, he said, referring to studies performed in the nineteen-sixties by Martin Seligman and other graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. The dogs were placed in harnesses and given electric shocks that they could not avoid; they were then released into pens and shocked again, but this time they were given a chance to escape the punishment. Most of them, Seligman observed, passively accepted the shocks. They had lapsed into a condition that he called “learned helplessness.” The suspect’s resistance, Mitchell was apparently saying, could be overcome by inducing a similar sense of futility. (Seligman, now a psychology professor at Penn, has spoken at a sere school about his dog research.)

      Mitchell’s position was opposed by the counter-terrorism expert, who had not spent time at a sere school. He reminded Mitchell that he was dealing with human beings, not dogs. According to the expert, Mitchell replied that the experiments were good science. The expert recalled making the argument that the U.S. should not “do things that our enemies do, like using torture.” When asked about this incident, Mitchell confirmed that he admired Seligman’s research. He declined to comment on any interrogations that he might have taken part in, though he added, “I don’t have anything to hide.”

      Delete
    4. Court in Abuse Case Hears Testimony of General http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/us/25abuse.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&
      ...General Miller, who was the commander of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq in August 2003 by senior Pentagon commanders to review the interrogation and detention system there and recommend ways to improve the collection of intelligence about the growing insurgency...

      After General Miller's visit, General Sanchez issued an order saying that Arab men had a fear of dogs and that the fear could be exploited in using the animals "while maintaining security during interrogations."..


      Richard P. Zuley, Amazon customer review post on Killing Sharks: De Profundis http://www.amazon.com/review/R2LDYBBTF5QWDG
      Man convicted of 1982 Chicago double murder released amid doubts over confession http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/30/alstory-simon-released-double-murder-chicago-1982-confession

      Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi review – devastating, enraging, and funny http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/02/guantanamo-diary-mohamedou-ould-slahi-review-devastating-enraging-funny
      Guantánamo officials faked letter from inmate’s mother who could not write http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/21/-sp-guantanamo-diary-forged-letter-mother

      America can't handle the truth – about Guantánamo, torture or a man now free from both http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/truth-guantanamo-torture-abu-wael-dhiab

      Guantánamo Diary exposes brutality of US rendition and torture http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-exposes-brutality-us-rendition-torture
      The chief military commissions prosecutor in the mid-2000s, Air Force colonel Morris Davis, later said he could not find any offence with which to charge Slahi.

      The detainee’s lawyer, Nancy Hollander, said: “Mohamedou has never been charged with anything. The US has never charged him with a crime. There is no crime to charge him with. It’s not that they haven’t found the evidence against him – there isn’t evidence against him. He’s in what I would consider a horrible legal limbo, and it’s just tragic: he needs to go home.

      “Mohamedou’s book takes us into the heart of this man the US government tortured, and continues to torture with indefinite detention. We feel, smell, even taste the torture he endures in his voice and within his heart. It is a book everyone should read.”


      From Guantánamo to where? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/dec/19/guantanamo-america

      Saying No to Torture: A Gallery of US Heroes http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29042-saying-no-to-torture-a-gallery-of-us-heroes
      As he prepared the case against Slahi in 2003, however, he began to worry about the "interrogation" techniques used on his future defendant and at Guantánamo more generally. As Larry Siems, the book's editor, writes in the introduction,"[Couch] had caught a glimpse, on his first visit to the base, of another prisoner shackled to the floor in an empty interrogation booth, rocking back and forth as a strobe light flashed and heavy metal blared." He recognized the technique; he'd experienced it himself when "as a Marine pilot, he had endured a week of such techniques in a program that prepares U.S. airmen for the experience of capture and torture." (Couch's training was most likely part of the U.S. military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE, program, which some have called a "torture school.")

      Delete
    5. GD, the way advocates of torture work?

      In that Guardian today there's newsworthy connections below (here it's now above) to the role of the "Positve Psychology" industry in torture. (No, not the connected tortures and torturers endured by Hicks, in the news again today - those for another day)

      #3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues...

      COCHRANE LIBRARY http://community.cochrane.org/ - Exploring the use of positive psychology interventions in brain injury survivors with challenging behaviour http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clcentral/articles/620/CN-01001620/frame.html

      Source Brain injury, 2014, Authors Andrewes HE, Walker V, O'Neill B, ABSTRACT - Objective: To investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting two positive psychology interventions to improve mood and self-concept with survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI), within a neuro-rehabilitation hospital. Method and procedures: Ten patients with brain injury were randomly allocated to an intervention and control group. The efficacy of the first intervention, 'three positive things in life' was measured via Seligman's Authentic Happiness Index (AHI), at base-line, directly following the intervention and at the end of the 12-week group programme. The second intervention, the 'Value in Action (VIA) signature strengths intervention' was measured by the Head Injury Semantic Differential Scale (HISDS) at baseline and at the end of the group. Results: Compared to baseline and control group scores, the AHI index showed an increase in the intervention group's happiness following the intervention and at the end of the 12-week programme, albeit the latter increase was non-significant. The HISDS showed non-significant improvement in self-concept and reduction in polarization of the self in the present, future and past in the second intervention. Anecdotal evidence revealed a clear improved mood following the interventions. Conclusion: This study shows promising results for the effectiveness of Positive Psychology interventions and methods to improve feasibility when applying this treatment within a hospital setting. 2014 Informa UK Ltd. All rights reserved: reproduction in whole or part not permitted. Andrewes, et al. Brain injury Volume 28 , 2014. Pages: 965
      ________________

      From happy clapping prosperity gospel true believing loons to advisors on the application of torture - they're all sold on it. But you want more? Systematic reviews of "Positive Psychology"? After all this time, funding, and all the promoting by Petersen, Seligman, Pentagon and Co... Well, there you go, the Cochrane Community Library has but the three above mentions... rather it cites only three papers from other publications, and none of those a systematic review.

      Delete
    6. GD, the way advocates of torture work?

      In that Guardian today there's newsworthy connections below (here it's now above) to the role of the "Positve Psychology" industry in torture. (No, not the connected tortures and torturers endured by Hicks, in the news again today - those for another day)

      #3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues...

      COCHRANE LIBRARY http://community.cochrane.org/ - Exploring the use of positive psychology interventions in brain injury survivors with challenging behaviour

      Source Brain injury, 2014, Authors Andrewes HE, Walker V, O'Neill B, ABSTRACT - Objective: To investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting two positive psychology interventions to improve mood and self-concept with survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI), within a neuro-rehabilitation hospital. Method and procedures: Ten patients with brain injury were randomly allocated to an intervention and control group. The efficacy of the first intervention, 'three positive things in life' was measured via Seligman's Authentic Happiness Index (AHI), at base-line, directly following the intervention and at the end of the 12-week group programme. The second intervention, the 'Value in Action (VIA) signature strengths intervention' was measured by the Head Injury Semantic Differential Scale (HISDS) at baseline and at the end of the group. Results: Compared to baseline and control group scores, the AHI index showed an increase in the intervention group's happiness following the intervention and at the end of the 12-week programme, albeit the latter increase was non-significant. The HISDS showed non-significant improvement in self-concept and reduction in polarization of the self in the present, future and past in the second intervention. Anecdotal evidence revealed a clear improved mood following the interventions. Conclusion: This study shows promising results for the effectiveness of Positive Psychology interventions and methods to improve feasibility when applying this treatment within a hospital setting. 2014 Informa UK Ltd. All rights reserved: reproduction in whole or part not permitted. Andrewes, et al. Brain injury Volume 28 , 2014. Pages: 965
      ________________

      From happy clapping prosperity gospel true believing loons to advisors on the application of torture - they're all sold on it. But you want more? Systematic reviews of "Positive Psychology"? After all this time, funding, and all the promoting by Petersen, Seligman, Pentagon and Co... Well, there you go, the Cochrane Community Library has but the three above mentions... rather it cites only three papers from other publications, and none of those a systematic review (other two here http://loonpond.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/dont-slogan-at-them.html ).

      Delete
    7. The post above should have been the first of four. It kept rapidly disappearing... google's blogger bots apparently didn't like the addy in the text of that particular Cochrane reference:

      http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clcentral/articles/620/CN-01001620/frame.html

      Shall it stand here?

      Delete
    8. Blindside 'em with Torture Psychobabble. Spin it:

      December 23, 2014 The Psychology of Torture http://www.apa.org/news/press/op-eds/psychology-torture.aspx

      November 12, 2014, Statement of APA Board of Directors: Outside Counsel to Conduct Independent Review of Allegations of Support for Torture http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/11/risen-allegations.aspx

      Timeline of APA Policies & Actions Related to Detainee Welfare and Professional Ethics in the Context of Interrogation and National Security http://www.apa.org/news/press/statements/interrogations.aspx

      Sure, go you good things. Go you masters of positive psychology, masters of resilience training. Go you masters of torture, masters of spin. - Seligman is a past president. Backed by U$ military funding, Seligman et al, and offshoots, are frequently published in the American Psychological Association (APA) Journal http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp Yes, with even the odd "special issue".

      Independence Day! Sure, that'll do it.

      Delete
  5. Getting Hetty Johnson on board was a master-stroke. To criticise either measures to 'protect our children' or Hetty herself is to lay yourself open to the charge of 'supporting pedophiles' or even implications about what awful activities you secretly undertake. Hetty's also a perfect supporter due to her monomania. On RN Drive yesterday she justified the proposed new laws, their expense and unproven effectiveness, and the problems for privacy and civil liberties, in terms of 'if it saves just one child, it will be worth it'.

    ReplyDelete
  6. To render metadata retention useless all it takes is for a few thousand users to deliberately search for questionable terms, or email a few dozen naughty words to an anonymous email account. No human agent can trawl through billions of metadata records so it's obviously to be done by computer-based key word searching. So just send thousands of false positives. I reckon 'anonymous' are already on the case.

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  7. Dot, did you know you were living in Stasiland? Miranda warned the nation today that NSW has become Honnecke central.

    Immediately I imagined white vans with curtained windows patrolling the streets of Tamworth and hidden cameras with keyhole lenses peering from fake rocks in ornamental borders.

    My goodness, how had it escaped my notice that an iron curtain had fallen around Australia's most populous state.

    Nothing so exciting. She dragged out the Stasiland click bait to highlight her displeasure about ICAC, WorkCover and other bodies.

    Funny to use the East German surveillance state to describe NSW without mentioning the metadata stuff. Maybe her concerns will be raised in her next column.

    Miss pp

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  8. David Hicks has been declared innocent by a US military court of providing support for terrorism.

    http://bit.ly/1CL3N4o

    Tony Abbott: "We did what was needed but, look, let's not forget whatever the legalities, and this was essentially a matter for an American court dealing with American law. He was up to no good on his own admission,"

    Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were convicted by an Indonesian court with Indonesian law. They were up to no good on their own admission and yet Abbott has said “"We will be making our displeasure known, we will be letting Indonesia know in absolutely unambiguous terms that we will feel grievously let down”.

    Abbott’s double standards are utterly unpalatable. He is a fake having no morals, no shame and no principles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly, he's too dumb, or too ideologically driven, or too drugged by his love for his rhetorical flights of fancy to notice the contradictions or heed minimal requirements of logic and consistency. Most politicians hoe this road, but few with such a sublimely bathetic effect.

      Delete
    2. I agree, DP, and I’ve thoroughly searched the Australian Criminal Code Act 1995 and there is no felony titled “being up to no good”.

      Brandis can’t enact such a law as he and many of his Coalition cohorts will fall foul of it.

      Delete
  9. Tony Abbott says too much forest is 'locked up' in national parks - video

    "we have too much locked-up forest"

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/05/tony-abbott-forest-locked-up-national-parks

    Abbott is the looniest politicians I have seen for decades. So much so that I consider him dangerous.


    ReplyDelete
  10. An exclusive! https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/exclusive-afp-refer-ashby-to-cdpp-over-perjury-allegation,7390

    ReplyDelete

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