Childhood Obesity Condemns Young Australians to a Short, Sick Life. Eat, Drink, Consume, for Soon You Die.
22 million children world-wide are obese.
In the US 16% are overweight. 28% of Uk children are too. In Australia, 1 in four are obese.
Meanwhile, 230,000 students and 46% of NSW secondary schools have gone with a computer tutoring package sponsored by McDonald’s, putting fast food advertising in front of students in their homes and classrooms.
This, while the Australian Society for the Study of Obesity (ASSO) paints a miserable picture of the future for obese children: asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and orthopaedic problems.
It only gets worse with age. Obese adults can look forward to diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gallbladder disease, ovarian, breast, prostate and renal cancers, not to mention the psychosocial disorders.
Analysis by Tim Gill from the NSW Centre for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Sydney show that in Australia, roughly half of 16- to 18-year-old boys consume nearly a litre of soft drink a day.
Not surprising, since the Australian Schools Canteen Association is contracted to the Coca Cola company- a company that has been known to spend up to $180m on its television advertising.
Compare that to the funding Nicola Roxon recently earmarked for the new National Preventative Health Strategy. The $17.6m funding allocated by the Federal Government is a drop in the ocean compared to the advertising spend.
Yet we see no leadership from our government on the issue of childhood obesity. They should be responding to research like Gill’s and making companies accountable. They should be spreading information on what 1000mls of Coca Cola per day does to the a young person.
They should be investing more time, money and effort in combating an epidemic which will otherwise consign the next generation of Australians to lives of ill-health, sickness and disease.
They certainly should be curtailing the ability of companies like McDonalds to reach into the homes and bedrooms of school children.
Greens Surrender Freedom
David Collyer Australian Democrats Candiate For Higgins
Clive Hamilton, The Greens’ candidate in the Higgins by-election expects us to abandon a wide range of important freedoms by trumping them with the hideous spectre of child sexual abuse. His position is morally bankrupt, say the Democrats. It delegates to government a power they plan to misuse before it even exists.
“Hamilton affirmed his support for the Rudd Government’s Internet Filter scheme as recently as a week ago. His position is breathtakingly naive and means all citizens can be denied access to any content deemed unacceptable by public servants for any reason,” the Democrats’ Higgins by-election candidate David Collyer said today.
“He and the government are taking a legitimate public concern – the need to protect children from inappropriate material – and are using it to push through a wasteful, secretive censorship program riddled with unintended consequences that cannot achieve its policy aims.
“Hamilton is in direct contradiction to The Greens’ position on the issue,” Collyer said. “Even if the issue of internet content and filtering means very little to you, it is important to understand that Clive Hamilton does not support core Greens policies.
“Everyone in public life wants a secure internet experience for children. However, the very structure of the Rudd Government’s Internet Filter means it cannot achieve this objective.
“The secret national blacklist of websites exposes us to government abuse in perpetuity: legitimate, legal businesses have already found themselves on it with no recourse or ability to challenge or appeal the decision. The blacklist works only on complaints made to the Government. It is subjective, incomplete and draconian.
“If the Australian Government awards itself this capability, it exposes itself to irresistible political pressures. For example, the Chinese Government could insist all Falun Gong sites be blocked to Australians. The Rudd Government would cooperate, and we would never know.
The Democrats position is reinforced by Civil Liberties Australia’s stinging denouncement in their most recent newsletter: “Dr Hamilton jumped on board the censorship bandwagon early and with a flourish. He endorsed a virtual “anything goes” approach to government censorship. It didn’t matter how slow the internet got, or how the government curtailed people’s freedoms to access information… all would be OK under the dictatorial approach of Dr Hamilton. ”
The Democrats believe it is possible to deliver a safer internet experience for children without compromising the social, economic and political freedoms of others through building on our censorship laws that already classify media – or denies classification – allied with existing and evolving net filtering software.
“The Government is elected to serve the people and secret Government censorship programs work against the people. Electing a Democrat will send a message to the Government that this is not the path of progress,” Collyer concluded.
Media contact – David Collyer 0413 248 193
“David Collyer is currently contesting the Higgins by election for the Australian Democrats against Clive Hamilton for The Greens and Kelly O’Dwyer for the Liberal Party,”
References: www.cla.asn.au/clarion/0911CLArionNov.pdf
DEMOCRATS NOMINATE COLLYER FOR HIGGINS
AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRATS
MEDIA FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30 2009
DAVID COLLYER
HIGGINS BY-ELECTION CANDIDATE
DEMOCRATS NOMINATE COLLYER FOR HIGGINS
MELBOURNE:- The Australian Democrats have preselected David Collyer to contest the Higgins by-election on December 5 caused by the resignation of Peter Costello.
“We are the voice of middle Australia, the party of moderation and progress,” Collyer said at the announcement.
“I see great dissatisfaction and a sense of alienation among voters over the management of the nation’s affairs. The two party system denies oxygen to all, except for the insistent selfish demands of the labor movement and of the conservatives. Too many people have abandoned hope and retreated into sullen despair, as though nothing can be done.
“I say, voting for the Democrats is the surest way to stop Labor and the conservative coalition preferring sectional interests over the greater public good.
“The federal parliament is grappling with many difficult issues; climate change, water, immigration, a fragile economy, infrastructure and energy. Meanwhile, education, the ageing population and our defence needs simply aren’t being addressed.
“By-elections are notorious for producing unusual results where grumpy voters – who will be called out to vote again within months, if the pundits are to be believed – try to communicate their dissatisfaction to Canberra.
“The Democrats in parliament have always sought to improve legislation with our line-by-line review of key bills, willingness to negotiate and strategic voting – in the interests of all Australians. If elected, I will faithfully continue this essential work,” he concluded.
David Collyer was previously senior adviser to then-senator and party leader Lyn Allison. Earlier, he held key public affairs roles at the Metropolitan Ambulance Service and at Kodak Australasia. He is a graduate of Melbourne’s film and television school, then at Swinburne and now at the VCA. He is the father of two and lives in Kew East. He publishes on the Victorian Democrats’ blog at dinkumdemocrats.com
Media contact – David Collyer 0413 248 193
The Forgotten Nightmare: Nuclear Winter, Global Cooling and Universal Radioactive Fallout. More fingers on more genocide-buttons
While global warming dominates the headlines a more urgent danger threatens life on earth. Global warming could make the planet uninhabitable by the end of the century. Global cooling – the “Nuclear Winter” that would follow nuclear war – could achieve the same result in days or weeks.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a disturbing complacency has set in. It is as if the threat imposed on us all by the hair-trigger readiness of thousands of intercontinental nuclear-armed missiles no longer exists. Perhaps this is understandable with the political and media discussion of the issue focussed almost entirely on the potential danger posed by non-state terrorism and so-called “rogue” states.
The selective finger pointing, fear mongering and drum beating only serves to distract attention from the chilling reality: the US and Russia still possess 97% of the world’s nuclear weapons and neither has any genuine commitment to nuclear disarmament. It is they and the other 7 established nuclear weapon states that pose the greatest threat to humanity and all other species on the planet.
If even a tiny fraction of the world’s nuclear arsenal were unleashed catastrophic climate change would follow. For example, a “small” nuclear war employing 100 bombs of the size that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki would pour millions of tons of smoke into the stratosphere. The smoke would come from the raging firestorms consuming cities, industries, neighbourhoods and people. As the smoke spread around the globe it would reduce the sunlight and destroy much of the protective ozone layer. Temperatures would drop and food production would plunge due to shortened growing seasons. Hundreds of millions of people, possibly a billion, would starve to death. [1] Think of Hiroshima. Imagine 100 times Hiroshima. (3) And this can quite accurately be described as a “small” conflict because it would be equivalent to less than half of 1% of the explosive power of US and Russian high-alert nuclear weapons. [2] That figure bears repeating: less than half of 1%.
A large conflict involving all of the Russian and US high-alert nuclear weapons would pour 50 million tons of smoke into the stratosphere, blocking the sunlight and dropping global temperatures by 4°C. [1] Think of Hiroshima. Imagine 79,000 times Hiroshima. (4)
Now consider a war involving the entire world operational nuclear arsenal. Think of Hiroshima. Imagine 177,000 times Hiroshima. (5) 150 million tons of smoke would rise into the stratosphere enveloping the planet, absorbing the sunlight, reducing global temperatures by 8°C; creating another Ice Age.
Climate change from global cooling would occur not in decades or years but in weeks or days. Survivors would have no time to adapt. [1] Until they died off from the lethal radioactive fallout they would be left with razed cities, destroyed infrastructure, horrific injuries, birth deformations, cancers, disease epidemics and mass starvation. Perhaps the tens of millions or hundreds of millions instantly vapourised or incinerated would be the lucky ones.
The potential for a catastrophic mistake is enormous, particularly in the case of a suspected submarine launched attack. Russian and US “Launch on Warning” systems” would give their presidents only 2 to 3 minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate. [6] Typical warheads have 20 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb. Typical nuclear missiles carry 8 or more of these independently programmed to destroy multiple targets. Think of Hiroshima. Imagine 160 times Hiroshima – from one missile.
With this spectre hovering over humanity it is difficult to understand how anyone, least of all an environmental luminary like James Lovelock, could advocate nuclear power as a solution to global warming. [7] This solution sidesteps the health, environmental and security dangers associated with building and operating at least a thousand nuclear reactors; the increased environmental and security risks associated with mining, transportation, processing and storage of vastly increased quantities of uranium and deadly radioactive waste; and the fact that high grade, low cost uranium deposits consumed even at the present rate will be exhausted in fifty years. [8]
More importantly, it overlooks the enormous danger posed by more leaders of more nuclear weapons states (that would inevitably emerge) with their fingers on more doomsday buttons. While there are nuclear reactors, there will be nuclear weapons. While “peace-loving” countries like Australia mine and export uranium they are complicit in keeping the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation.
Here in Australia, advocates of uranium mining and export claim that this gives us a more credible voice in the world arena than we would otherwise have. They say our position as the largest source of uranium and the second largest exporter after Canada makes us more effective in preventing nuclear proliferation than we would otherwise be. In other words, by selling the stuff from which nuclear weapons are made, we are helping to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
This absurd reasoning extends to the so-called “safeguard” agreements – essentially book-keeping entries – that supposedly track every morsel of “Australian Obligated” uranium during its travels around the world, including its reprocessing and on-selling. We can rest assured that Australian uranium won’t be used to make nuclear weapons – or free up other uranium for that purpose – because we say it can’t and the buyer nations say it won’t.
History tells a different story. Of about 60 countries that have nuclear power or research reactors more than 20 have used their “peaceful” facilities for covert nuclear weapons research or production or both. India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and North Korea have all developed nuclear weapons under cover of “peaceful” nuclear programs. Other countries have made considerable progress before ending their programs. (South Africa is the only state to eliminate its nuclear weapons.) [8]
Egypt, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Romania, South Korea, Taiwan, and the former Yugoslavia, all signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), have violated their agreements by conducting forbidden weapons-related activities or not meeting their reporting requirements to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). [8]
North Korea has withdrawn from the treaty; India, Pakistan and Israel were never members. The “declared” nuclear weapons states – the US, Russia, the UK, France and China – have all violated their NTP obligations and shown by their actions that they have no intention of abandoning their nuclear superiority. [8]
The belligerence and blatant double standards demonstrated by the “big five,” who also hold the five permanent seats and veto power on the UN Security Council, provides motivation and “justification” for other states – some repeatedly threatened with attack, including nuclear attack (“all options are on the table”) – to develop a nuclear “deterrent” of their own. “Peaceful” nuclear programs are the obvious way for them to develop the necessary expertise and facilities and to acquire the technology and essential raw material: uranium.
Five years ago Australia’s uranium exports had already produced about 80 tonnes of plutonium – enough for 8,000 nuclear bombs. The Beverly Four Mile mine in South Australia recently approved by the current government has the capacity to produce enough plutonium for 4,500 more. [9]
It seems the straight-faced hypocrisy of successive Australian governments is boundless: joining in the vilification of the latest designated nuclear “rogue” states, worrying over nuclear terrorism and mouthing non-proliferation platitudes on the one hand while allowing exports of the raw material for nuclear proliferation on the other. If Australia were sincere it would leave its uranium in the ground.
In December, representatives from about 170 countries will meet in Copenhagen to negotiate an international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. Hopefully, amidst the media circus and political theatre they will commit to the carbon emission reductions necessary to prevent catastrophic global warming.
Hopefully, too, the world will awake from its nuclear slumber in time to prevent the other climate change nightmare: global cooling.
[1] http://www.nucleardarkness.org/index2.php
[2] http://www.nucleardarkness.org/globalnucleararsenal/usrussianhighalert/
(3) Hiroshima yield 15,000 tons x 100 = 1.5 million tons
(4) [2] Yield 960 million tons/15,000 tons
(5) [2] yield 2,225 million tons/15,000 tons
[6] http://www.nucleardarkness.org/highalert/launchonwarning/
[7] http://www.jameslovelock.org/page11.html
[8] Climate Change: Nukes No Solution
http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/nuclear-climate/
[9] Arena Magazine, August/September 2009
Robin Davis lives in Victoria, Australia. He is a freelance writer and graphic designer. He can be contacted at: robindavis@hotkey.net.au
The Model Is Barely There – Disgraceful And Debasing Portrayal Of Women.
The fashion industry, notably the Ralph Lauren company, is out of control.
For years now society has demonstrated it does not find the ultra thin bodies preferred by the fashion world attractive. Authoritative research has proved these thin models we are all familiar with have a destructive psychological impact on women, particularly young women and teens, and can lead to psychological disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
The data has been collated, analysed, charted and presented. The verdict of public opinion is well and truly in.
What is Ralph Lauren’s response? To release a clearly Photoshopped image of a model whose head is larger than her pelvis. (If you click on the image you can zoom in)
Arguably both of the images, side by side, have been Photoshopped. But look closely at the one on the left. Her skin is a superfluous accessory. This lady, through image manipulation, has been rendered skeletal. Not that she was in any way large or even average to begin with. One female model – again a mere slip in stature and weight – Ms Hamilton, said Ralph Lauren did not renew her contract because she was “too large.”
This is a disgrace. Business has a responsibility to not only sell its wares, but to also operate within what is socially and culturally acceptable. This cynically modified image is neither. To display a full grown woman – after tricking it to proportions no woman could stay alive with – purely to create an ideal based on the “desirable body shape” of somebody with a lot of problems (Ralph Lauren?), is bizarre, socially unacceptable and sick.
I usually hesitate long and hard before advocating government regulation of business. But living people must come first. My own daughters are exposed to this moral deception – every hour of every day. Your daughters, girlfriends, wives and mothers are dismissed and denigrated by an industry that has no respect for the health of the people they are selling stuff to. It is no better than the tobacco companies selling poison and death by the packet.
Ultimately, we pay for the mental anguish and health care costs of our loved ones that are caused by the deliberate excesses of companies whose moral and cultural compass has been sent to orbit Pluto.
It must change. Legislation if necessary. Clearly, they are not going to yield on their own.
But then I wonder “Why portray women like this? What happened to you people as children?”
The rights of women as individuals have come a long way. But this kind of imagery demonstrates how much further there is to travel.
What can we say, except maybe: “ET go home!”
A remarkable similarity.
.
Scott Kane
Australia is drowning in debt – not Government borrowings – the private hellish sort that drives misery, paralysis even suicide.
One in six Australians is having serious trouble paying their debts, according to a survey released yesterday by credit agency Veda Advantage.
The rest of us have also drunk deeply from the cool pools of liquidity the banks provide.
If well managed, the use of debt to buy long-life items is a boon. It can smooth the lumps and improve the quality of our lives.
However – like fire – this wonderful servant is a cruel master.
The seriously indebted cannot lift their eyes from earning a living for a moment. Not for a moment. They can be ruined by any adverse event – unemployment, sickness, even an interest rate rise.
We owe, we owe! It’s off to work we go!
And while Treasurer Swan, the RBA and Treasury are seeing the stimulus package and Australia’s stellar export performance protect us from the economic catastrophe elsewhere, the fact remains that these one-in-six citizens are in very serious financial trouble.
A full economic recovery depends on consumer willingness to spend. The one-in-six cannot spend, and the rest of us will hesitate before making serious commitments to buying even more stuff.
Prof. Steve Keen offers a detailed analysis of this key economic trend at http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/10/06/rba-gets-it-wrong-again/
Read it and swallow hard. Major new economic drivers will be needed for Australia to resume the economic growth we have enjoyed in the past. There are further benefits available in the transition to a digital, connected world, but these must be regarded as modest compared to our mountain of debt. Private debt. Crazy-making debt.
Government can’t stop citizens taking on debt. But much more must be done to address the general lack of financial knowledge. Australia needs fresh consumer laws obliging the use of clear language to reduce the informational asymmetry between consumers and the finance spivs.
David Collyer
“David Collyer is currently contesting the Higgins by election for the Australian Democrats against Clive Hamilton for The Greens and Kelly O’Dwyer for the Liberal Party,”
