Category: Current Affairs (Page 69 of 76)

Oh dear.

A 19 year old woman drives her car out of a hotel car park into the path of a police vehicle. She is breast feeding her baby son, who is unrestrained. She is so drunk she cannot breathe properly into the breath testing device. In addition, she is already disqualified from driving, and the car she is driving is unregistered.

Police Superintendent Jamie Chalker said: “I find it increasingly frustrating that people show so little responsibility for their actions, but this is without a doubt one of the most stupid and reckless actions I’ve come across. People must take responsibility for their loved ones when they are clearly unable to make rational decisions for their own safety, the safety of others and the risk they pose to the general public.”

I agree. She’s an idiot. And in some ways symbolic of the whole ‘You can’t make me, I can do what I like’ attitude (which is perhaps why this story has got such wide publicity). But surely she wasn’t the only one who was irresponsible that night. Did she not have any friends? Was she drinking alone? And if she was so drunk she couldn’t give a breath sample, why were hotel staff still giving her drinks?

A couple of different reports over the last 24 hours about skimming (information trapping) devices attached to automatic teller machines.

Just take care. If an ATM looks suspicious, don’t use it, and report it to bank staff or police.

Murder rates in Australian have moved up and down at about the same time, in about the same way. 

That’s interesting, because as this NZ Herald article points out, most people believe that crime rates, and especially rates of violent crime, are increasing.

People think there is more violent crime because we see so much more violence than we did. Without the media you could live a lifetime and never hear of anyone being murdered. Most of us will go through our lives without anyone close to us being a victim of violent crime. But we see violent crime everyday on the news and in TV shows and movies. So our perception is that the world around us is much more dangerous than it is.

These results confirms that media has a strong influence, compared with our own experience, on our beliefs about levels of crime:

An institute survey of 1400 people in four parts of New Zealand – including South Auckland – found that 80 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that the country’s crime rate was rising. Only 4 per cent disagreed. Yet the same survey – which has yet to be published – found that only a quarter of the people surveyed believed crime was rising in their own neighbourhoods.

Increasing urbanisation, and desensitisation to violence with the rise of TV, may have contributed to the rise in murder rates from about 1970. But what has caused the recent decline?

But I thought that’s what everyone wanted?

Surely that couple of extra Earth Hours didn’t bother anyone? Where are your priorities?

Pretty obviously, if your population increases, and you don’t build new power production infrastructure, you are going to get some shortages of electricity. So this must be some sort of cunning NSW Labor plan to force everyone into reduced power consumption for the sake of the planet.

According to PM Kevin Rudd, Holden is the bright star in the GM firmament, the only good GM news anywhere in the world. This because a new four cylinder car is due to come into production in 2010.

But Holden’s Australian sales fell by 20% in the first quarter of this year, with sales to some export markets falling by 80%. An entire shift at the Adelaide factory is being cancelled. Staff have the option of losing their jobs or working one week on, one week off, at reduced pay. Production is forecast to be about 310 vehicles per day, down from a peak of about 600.

This is good news?

North Korea has fired a rocket over Japan. Pyongyang says this is part of North Korea’s ‘peaceful space development,’ and was intended to launch a satellite.

Right. Why fire it over Japan then?

It is hard to believe this was anything other than a threat, or at least a public display of ability to threaten. That is certainly what Japan and South Korea believe.

Japan did not act to intercept the rocket, as it had said it might, saying (correctly) that it had every right to protect its borders. North Korea said in response that it would take any such action by Japan as: “the start of Japan’s war of re-invasion.”

North Korea’s military has threatened immediate retaliation if “even the slightest effort” is made to intercept its rocket. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted the military as specifically mentioning Japan, the United States and South Korea, threatening Japan with a “thunderbolt of fire” if it interfered with the launch.

Australia is in range of the new North Korean Advanced Taepodong-2 missile. (Thanks to Tim Blair for that link)

Kim Jong-il is unstable. And that makes this worrying.

How can this keep happening?

The woman did not know she was pregnant. Well, OK.

But she is not a medical professional. She doesn’t work at the hospital in New South Wales. But heck, why not, given the apparent skill level of some of the staff they already have?

Whatever she thought was happening to her, she was a young woman about to give birth. Staff suggested she was constipated and asked her wait while they organised some x-rays. After a while she took herself off to the toilet where she had her baby, which then died.

Opposition Health spokes person Jillian Skinner has asked Health Minister John Della Bosca to look into the incident. That’s a start.

But surely there needs to be a much wider enquiry into emergency department culture and procedures, and some serious checking done about whether NSW (and the rest of Australia for that matter) are making any effort to keep up with best practice in ER care delivery.

And what gives John Della Bosca, of all people, the right to say the mother is receiving all the support she needs? I’d be more interested in knowing what she thinks of the care and support she’s received so far.