tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post2146749756028072188..comments2024-03-29T10:53:28.617+11:00Comments on loon pond: Minders watching the minders, while the government gets the public to pay for the privilege of being spied upon ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-28526500121571635612015-02-19T21:26:44.650+11:002015-02-19T21:26:44.650+11:00Blindside 'em with Torture Psychobabble. Spin ...Blindside 'em with Torture Psychobabble. Spin it:<br /><br />December 23, 2014 The Psychology of Torture http://www.apa.org/news/press/op-eds/psychology-torture.aspx<br /><br />November 12, 2014, <b>Statement of APA Board of Directors: Outside Counsel to Conduct Independent Review of Allegations of Support for Torture </b> http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2014/11/risen-allegations.aspx<br /><br />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<br /><br />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".<br /><br />Independence Day! Sure, that'll do it.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-23374543335106068952015-02-19T21:09:08.193+11:002015-02-19T21:09:08.193+11:00I agree, DP, and I’ve thoroughly searched the Aust...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”. <br /><br />Brandis can’t enact such a law as he and many of his Coalition cohorts will fall foul of it.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-3632418461260672602015-02-19T19:57:55.785+11:002015-02-19T19:57:55.785+11:00An exclusive! https://independentaustralia.net/lif...An exclusive! https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/exclusive-afp-refer-ashby-to-cdpp-over-perjury-allegation,7390Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-65582451664115923952015-02-19T19:14:33.645+11:002015-02-19T19:14:33.645+11:00The post above should have been the first of four....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: <br /><br />http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clcentral/articles/620/CN-01001620/frame.html<br /><br />Shall it stand here?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-17481587141486663962015-02-19T18:57:59.491+11:002015-02-19T18:57:59.491+11:00GD, the way advocates of torture work?
In that G...GD, the way advocates of torture work? <br /><br />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) <br /><br />#3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues... <br /><br />COCHRANE LIBRARY http://community.cochrane.org/ - Exploring the use of positive psychology interventions in brain injury survivors with challenging behaviour<br /><br />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 <br />________________<br /><br />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 ). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-35483729007594446222015-02-19T18:52:43.024+11:002015-02-19T18:52:43.024+11:00GD, the way advocates of torture work?
In that G...GD, the way advocates of torture work? <br /><br />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) <br /><br />#3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues... <br /><br />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<br /><br />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 <br />________________<br /><br />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.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-24932806448730732592015-02-19T18:34:07.238+11:002015-02-19T18:34:07.238+11:00Court in Abuse Case Hears Testimony of General ht...<b>Court in Abuse Case Hears Testimony of General</b> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/us/25abuse.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin& <br /><i>...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... <br /><br />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."..</i><br /><br /><b>Richard P. Zuley,</b> Amazon customer review post on <i>Killing Sharks: De Profundis</i> http://www.amazon.com/review/R2LDYBBTF5QWDG<br /><b>Man convicted of 1982 Chicago double murder released amid doubts over confession</b> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/30/alstory-simon-released-double-murder-chicago-1982-confession<br /><br /><b>Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi review – devastating, enraging, and funny</b> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/02/guantanamo-diary-mohamedou-ould-slahi-review-devastating-enraging-funny<br /><b>Guantánamo officials faked letter from inmate’s mother who could not write</b> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/21/-sp-guantanamo-diary-forged-letter-mother<br /><br /><b>America can't handle the truth – about Guantánamo, torture or a man now free from both</b> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/09/truth-guantanamo-torture-abu-wael-dhiab<br /><br /><b>Guantánamo Diary exposes brutality of US rendition and torture</b> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-exposes-brutality-us-rendition-torture<br /><i>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />“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.”</i><br /><br /><b>From Guantánamo to where?</b> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/dec/19/guantanamo-america <br /><br /><b>Saying No to Torture: A Gallery of US Heroes</b> http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/29042-saying-no-to-torture-a-gallery-of-us-heroes<br /><i>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.")</i>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-33262176369206690652015-02-19T18:27:32.775+11:002015-02-19T18:27:32.775+11:00Guantánamo Diary: Prisoner's journey from deta...<b>Guantánamo Diary: Prisoner's journey from detainee to bestselling author</b> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/guantanamo-diary-detainee-new-york-times-bestselling-author<br /><i>“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.”</i><br /><br /><b>The Experiment</b> <i>The military trains people to withstand interrogation. Are those methods being misused at Guantánamo?</i> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/07/11/the-experiment-3<br /><i>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.”<br /><br />..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.)<br /><br />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.”</i>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-63022441873831032032015-02-19T18:25:28.619+11:002015-02-19T18:25:28.619+11:00Tony Abbott says too much forest is 'locked up...Tony Abbott says too much forest is 'locked up' in national parks - video <br /><br />"we have too much locked-up forest"<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/mar/05/tony-abbott-forest-locked-up-national-parks<br /><br />Abbott is the looniest politicians I have seen for decades. So much so that I consider him dangerous.<br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-54149800506097854652015-02-19T18:20:42.611+11:002015-02-19T18:20:42.611+11:00The way advocates of torture work? In that Guardia...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) <br /><br />#3. Unwinding the torturers' of science matrix continues... <br /><br />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<br /><br />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 <br /><br />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 <br /><br />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 <br /><br />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 <br /><br />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 <br /><br />rights reserved: reproduction in whole or part not permitted. Andrewes, et al. Brain injury Volume 28 , 2014. Pages: 965 <br /><br /><br />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 <br /><br />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 ). Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-73113303085879922352015-02-19T18:17:41.667+11:002015-02-19T18:17:41.667+11:00And pretty weak on it they are too...
Tut, tut......And pretty weak on it they are too...<br /><br />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...<br /><br />Oops! <br /><br />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:<br /><br /><b>Guantánamo torturer led brutal Chicago regime of shackling and confession</b> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/guantanamo-torture-chicago-police-brutality<br /><br /><b>Bad lieutenant: American police brutality, exported from Chicago to Guantánamo</b> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/american-police-brutality-chicago-guantanamo <br /><i>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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.</i><br /><br /><b>Guantánamo diarist Mohamedou Ould Slahi: chronicler of fear, not despair</b> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-mohamedou-ould-slahi<br /><i>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”.</i>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-30827138758704070042015-02-19T16:51:34.449+11:002015-02-19T16:51:34.449+11:00Views of metadata metrics? It's anyone viewing...Views of metadata metrics? It's anyone viewing <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B9mtVQfIgAI3JUN.png:large" rel="nofollow">the data metrics</a> what's their tongue-tied dribbling idiot prime moron wingnut's problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-68533862155235312802015-02-19T16:48:16.379+11:002015-02-19T16:48:16.379+11:00Sadly, he's too dumb, or too ideologically dri...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.dorothy parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00816807935021738560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-2074049588547932072015-02-19T15:06:33.899+11:002015-02-19T15:06:33.899+11:00David Hicks has been declared innocent by a US mil...David Hicks has been declared innocent by a US military court of providing support for terrorism. <br /><br />http://bit.ly/1CL3N4o<br /><br />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," <br /><br />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”. <br /><br />Abbott’s double standards are utterly unpalatable. He is a fake having no morals, no shame and no principles.<br /> <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-3519055529188771362015-02-19T12:39:35.454+11:002015-02-19T12:39:35.454+11:00Dot, did you know you were living in Stasiland? Mi...Dot, did you know you were living in Stasiland? Miranda warned the nation today that NSW has become Honnecke central. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />My goodness, how had it escaped my notice that an iron curtain had fallen around Australia's most populous state.<br /><br />Nothing so exciting. She dragged out the Stasiland click bait to highlight her displeasure about ICAC, WorkCover and other bodies. <br /> <br />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.<br /><br />Miss ppAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-41256481859881021922015-02-19T12:23:53.860+11:002015-02-19T12:23:53.860+11:00To render metadata retention useless all it takes ...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.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-72238097774057260452015-02-19T12:11:36.045+11:002015-02-19T12:11:36.045+11:00Getting Hetty Johnson on board was a master-stroke...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'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-14768765726762344642015-02-19T11:17:54.687+11:002015-02-19T11:17:54.687+11:00I've satisfied myself that I'm not a liber...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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <i> perceived </i> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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,<br />"If they're anything like you are in incompetence, I've really got nothing to fear!"<br /><br />I'm of similar ilk. Give them more power at your peril.<br /><br />Gorgeous Dunnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10540625260311418333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-57354131736057824952015-02-19T10:26:18.706+11:002015-02-19T10:26:18.706+11:00good link, thanksgood link, thanksdorothy parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00816807935021738560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-70398380303395759472015-02-19T09:15:37.287+11:002015-02-19T09:15:37.287+11:00An addendum from Matt Taibbi on dobbers. I mean, r...An addendum from <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/a-whistleblowers-horror-story-20150218" rel="nofollow">Matt Taibbi on dobbers</a>. I mean, rats in the Team. I mean, whistle-blowers.<br /><br /><i>"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."</i><br /><br />$400m? Cheap!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08158673564017581517noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-9721905767900654312015-02-19T08:12:09.276+11:002015-02-19T08:12:09.276+11:00Here is one for Senator David Leyonhjelm.
http://...Here is one for Senator David Leyonhjelm.<br /><br />http://wonkette.com/576715/wingnut-lady-shoots-self-dead-while-adjusting-boob-gunAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462488453822156883.post-26536211320992173222015-02-19T07:53:14.454+11:002015-02-19T07:53:14.454+11:00DP, let me explain the metrics on Abbott's sal...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. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08158673564017581517noreply@blogger.com