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Showing posts from August, 2014

El Niño development remains possible and other news and views for Wednesday 27 August

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Little change in the tropical Pacific Ocean  – “Despite tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures remaining at neutral levels, models suggest El Niño development remains possible during the coming months.” Regulation gets real for virtual currencies  – “Both the EU and New York are looking to bring digital currencies under a full regulatory regime, but their approaches are rather different.” ( The Banker  – registration required) France and the shadow of the euro  – “The fear stalking the eurozone is of a jobless recovery; years of stagnation which will test social cohesion. What the French crisis has underlined is that the eurozone, despite all the claims of recovery, still has the potential to trouble governments, banks and the wider European economy.” A New Reason to Question the Official Unemployment Rate  - “Americans are less willing to respond to surveys than they used to be. A new academic paper suggests that the unemployment rate appears to have become less accurate over the l

Superannuation ticket clippers

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Instead of all that boring stuff about will the Senate or won’t it, this is the story that should be on page one this morning: Australian Super chief executive Ian Silk raises an issue of importance to all Australians forced to contribute to compulsory superannuation schemes. Too many people working in financial services, Mr Silk points out, are using the compulsory retirement savings system to enrich themselves rather than look after members’ money. This is an issue that Labor should be making central to its re-election policies. NOTE: Find an assortment of other ticket clipping stories about the finance industry  HERE .

Rave on to get a vote

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Well, when you are lagging along with less thsn 3% in the opinion polls I suppose you have to try something different. So why not a a rave party to disguise a policy speech? That’s the campaign technique of the Manu Internet Party in New Zealand as the 30 September election day approaches. Now under the New Zealand electoral system the Internet Mana have to get to 5% of the national vote to gain seats unless they can win one of the single member electorates so there is some way to go from the 2.5% that the latest Morgan Poll gave them. But the Mana part of their organisation currently has a seat that could be retained which would put them in the race for a few more and, who knows, even the kingmaker position. The  Sydney Morning Herald  reports this morning (behind a paywall) that the Internet Party’s flagship policy is to deliver ultrafast, cheaper web connections with greater freedom and privacy. The combination has the potential to mobilise young people who wouldn’t norm

A debate ends and the voting in Scotland begins

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The media consensus and the instant finding of the pollsters was that the Yes case for Scottish independence had the best of the debate last night which preceded the beginning of pre-poll voting for the referendum. But will it actually mean anything? Not if the Owl’s election indicator is any guide. The No vote is a firmer favourite today than it was a week ago. Voting day proper for the referendum is Thursday 18 September. Note: The Owl backed the No vote at $1.23 and then again at $1.30. You will find details of all his political bets at  the political speculator’s diary .

Mixed messages to welcome the August budget

Everything old is new again. It has taken 20 years but federal Parliament is back for an August budget session. It’s as if Ralph Willis had never started that funny May business. And this time we don’t need one of those ridiculous budget lockups to keep us in suspense about what’s in-store. This time the negotiations about what’s in and what’s out are being played out in public and we are still none the wiser about the economic outcome. What fun it is to have a proper minority government. Not like that last one where Labor, the Greens and a couple of independents stitched things up in private before hand. This Liberal-National coalition is letting us see the legislative sausage machine at work with all the crude ingredients that a Palmer United Party can throw in. Parliament, or at least the Senate half of it, is really relevant again. The government is doing its best to spice things up as well. We go from a looming budget crisis to being relaxed and comfortable about the inevitab

The political disappearance of the garden gnomes and other news and views for Monday 25 August

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Soon, Europe Might Not Need Any Power Plants  –  “Within a few decades, large-scale, centralized electricity generation from fossil fuels could be a thing of the past in Europe. That’s the word from investment bank UBS, which just released a new report anticipating a three pronged assault from solar power, battery technology, and electric vehicles that will render obsolete traditional power generation by large utilities that rely on coal or natural gas.” TV Habits? Medical History? Tests for Jury Duty Get Personal  – “Jury questionnaires have become a familiar presence in courtrooms across the United States, with some lawyers routinely requesting them in major cases — transforming the standard voir dire procedure into a written test.” Inside Clive Palmer’s inner circle  – “Palmer does have a string of close associates who he uses as sounding boards for his ­political and business strategies. Of course, whether he takes their advice on board is an entirely ­different matter.” The Ir

Would you like your rat roasted or stewed?

BBC News - Cambodian rat meat: A growing export market : "A unique harvest is under way in the rice fields of Cambodia where tens of thousands of wild rats are being trapped alive each day to feed a growing export market for the meat of rural rodents.  Popularly considered a disease-carrying nuisance in many societies, the rice field rats, Rattus argentiventer, of this small South-East Asian nation are considered a healthy delicacy due to their free-range lifestyle and largely organic diet.  Rat-catching season reaches its height after the rice harvest in June and July when rats have little to eat in this part of rural Kompong Cham province, some 60km from the capital Phnom Penh. " 'via Blog this'

Animal welfare groups making political progress

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The cause of animal welfare is certainly making political progress. Around the world governments are moving to restrict testing of cosmetics on animals and now the major food producer Nestlé is promising to enforce new animal welfare standards on its suppliers which could affect “hundreds of thousands of farms around the world”. The Swiss headquartered company has entered into an agreement with the NGO  World Animal Protection  (previously known as WSPA – World Society for the Protection of Animals) to ensure that supply Nestlé of its dairy, meat, poultry and eggs complies with tighter animal welfare standards. Nestlé says  it has some 7,300 suppliers from whom it buys animal-derived products directly – everything from milk for its range of yoghurts and ice-creams, to meat for its chilled foods and eggs for its fresh pastry and pasta. Each of these suppliers, in turn, buys from others, meaning that Nestlé’s Responsible Sourcing Guidelines apply to literally hundreds of thousands

How Murdoch News Corp could shift 11% of the votes and other news and views for Sunday 24 August

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How can we measure media power?  – “The potential for political influence is what most people think of when they talk about the power of the media. A new media power index, proposed in this column, aggregates power across all platforms and focuses not on markets but on voters. It measures not actual media influence but rather its potential. Using the index, the author finds that the four most powerful media companies in the US are television-based and the absolute value of the index is high. This indicates that most American voters receive their news from a small number of news sources, which creates the potential for large political influence.” (Click to enlarge) MH370 search faces tough next phase  – “The next phase of the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370 will be very challenging in places. Detailed information being gathered about the shape of the ocean floor west of Australia confirms the seabed in some locations to be extremely rugged.” The Conversation

Sri Lanka’s intransigence and other news and views for Saturday 23 August

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From the front page of Tuesday’s Sri Lankan Daily Mirror Sri Lanka’s Intransigence  –   New York Times  editorial: “Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, said Tuesday that his government would not cooperate with the United Nations investigation begun last month into suspected human rights abuses, including possible war crimes, committed during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Mr. Rajapaksa’s intransigence puts Sri Lanka in the company of North Korea and Syria, two countries that also barred access to United Nations human rights investigators. Mr. Rajapaksa claims Sri Lanka can handle the inquiry on its own. This is doubtful. … The safety of witnesses is a major concern. People demanding accountability for those who disappeared have faced threats and arrest. Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act is being used to detain people without trial.” Nestle Nudges Its Suppliers To Improve Animal Welfare  – “On Thursday, Nestle, the world’s largest food company, announced that it’s requiring al

Rote learning gets an educational tick

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School days, school days Dear old  Golden Rule  days Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic Taught to the tune of the  hick’ry stick The argument among educationalists about the best way to teach children mathematics will be enlivened by a recent paper by American and South Korean scientists in the journal Nature Neuroscience.  Hippocampal-neocortical functional reorganization underlies children’s cognitive development   looks at the transition from procedure-based to memory-based problem-solving strategies. In their scientific language the researchers write that “longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 7–9-year-old children revealed that the transition from use of counting to memory-based retrieval parallels increased hippocampal and decreased prefrontal-parietal engagement during arithmetic problem solving.” This is being interpreted by some educators as showing the crucial role played by rote memorization in the growing brains of young math studen

Understanding Julian Assange – does Sweden’s forthcoming election hold the key?

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Perhaps the Swedish opinion polls hold the key to the rather cryptic prediction by Julian Assange that he will soon be leaving the protection of the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The centre-right Alliance for Sweden coalition government (comprising the Moderate Party, Liberal People’s Party, Centre Party, and Christian Democrats) is trailing well behind the probable left of centre left coalition led by the Social Democrats. An  Ipsos poll this week  had the three parties of the left holding a comfortable lead over the four party governing coalition by 50 per cent to 36 per cent. That surely raises the prospect that the Wikileaks founder is banking on a leftist Sweden being far less likely than the current administration of extraditing him to the United States after his criminal investigation is dealt with. The trend of the Swedish opinion polls – from Wikileaks

Equality, Opportunity, and the American Dream and other news and views for Friday 22 August

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Saving Horatio Alger: Equality, Opportunity, and the American Dream  – “Lack of upward mobility is souring the national mood. As horizons shrink, anger rises. The political right has done a better job, so far, of converting frustration into political gain, by successfully—if implausibly—laying the blame for many of America’s woes at the door of ‘Big Government’.” The idea of equal opportunity is central to the idea of America. From the very founding of the nation, the promise that talent and hard work will count for more than the lottery of birth has underpinned American self-identity. In the latest Brookings Essay, Richard Reeves examines an issue so threatening to the American ethos—economic mobility—that President Obama has called it “the defining issue of our time.”   Caught out - Markets have defied expectations in 2014, leaving investors with few options  – “Like a snake swallowing its own tail, the corporate sector is absorbing its own equity. How long this can con