Terrorism or Incompetence?

The shooting down of flight MH 17 happened because the international air traffic control system is flawed.  We assume that in this area there are sound and competent people and systems in place.  But apparently not. We are astonished to find that air traffic control allows passenger jets to fly through zones where there is air warfare.  This is mind boggling.  It is the reason that this passenger jet was mistakenly shot down by the combatants in that war.

So Tony Abbott calling this terrorism is wrong.  It is so obviously wrong that he can only be knowingly using the tragedy for geopolitical purposes. It is disrespectful of the dead to lie about the cause of their death.  They died because air traffic control allowed passenger jets to fly through an air war. Again, it defies belief that this was the case.

Do I have to state the obvious?  Terrorism would require intentional and purposeful murder of civilians.

The Russian backed separatists had every reason to believe that all flights overhead were Ukrainian military.  They had been shooting Ukrainian military planes and helicopters down in the days and weeks previous to the MH17 tragedy. This was an established war zone, with air warfare being prosecuted. Why would a passenger jet be flying through there!? They were incredulous when they discovered that a passenger jet had been flying overhead, and that they had mistakenly shot it down.

You can be on any side of this conflict as you want, and you can criticize the Russians for supplying the weapons.  But it doesn't give you the right to dishonour the dead, to use their death for political purposes: you cannot call this terrorism, you cannot lie about the cause of their deaths.

The passengers of Flight MH17 are dead because air traffic controllers negligently and incompetently allow civilian passenger jets to fly through air war zones.  It was a tragedy that was waiting to happen.

Toxic Tony

Another bizarre turn of phrase from the Prime Minister.  He calls the carbon tax a "toxic tax".

But it is the excessive production of man made carbon, the thing that the tax is trying to reduce, that is toxic.

So it is not a "toxic tax", it is a "toxicity  reduction tax".  Go figure.

Tim Wilson

Watching Tim Wilson on One+One this morning and amazed to hear him say he thinks that plain paper packaging for cigarettes is an insult to all Australians.  He believes that by taking advertising from the product we are denying people choice.  To him we are insulting them by not crediting them with the intelligence to make their own choices about whether to smoke.

This seems ludicrous as by removing advertising, the psychological science of persuading people to choose by emotion and not logic, you would be improving the effectiveness of their choices.

As we all know, the opposite of what Tim Wilson thinks is true, that it is mostly advertising that is an insult to all Australians.  If you take it away you are more likely to respect all Australians.

Tim is from the IPA, a crazy ideological outfit who proselytise for the cult of the pure free market.  The IPA is funded by big corporations. The major thing that comes from pure free markets is wide disparity of incomes between the super wealthy and the (diminishing) middle class, concomitant with the growth of a permanent underclass. These two facts, put side by side, explains enough.

Tim Wilson and his fellow travelers talk of a nanny state.  First, that is funny as it is the wealthy who use nannies to mind their children.  Second, if the state's actions to reduce the incidence of several major morbidities is the behaviour of a nanny, then the behaviour of the advertising industry is a militarist father who dictates all of his children's movements.  They would probably appreciate the intercession of a nanny!

When I was in business and complaining about the cost of advertising I was told by an experienced adviser that "advertising works".  The annual amount spent on advertising and marketing in Australia each year is $15 billion, because...advertising works.  So the whole bullshit "nanny state", "consumer choice" argument is, well, "an insult to all Australians".

Who made this guy Human Rights Commissioner?  Oh, Tony Abbott.