New laws a slur on civil liberties
New NSW laws that allow police to move-on people who are "noticeably" drunk ("slurring their speech") and arrest those who fail to comply, will mostly target Aboriginals, teenagers, young people and people with disabilities.
All move-on laws have been proven to be used based on appearance. Already, Aboriginal people are 42 times more likely to have public drunkenness laws applied to them. In WA similar laws have led to a much higher Indigenous arrest rate and, of course, more deaths in custody.
And heaven help you if you have a speech impediment and a copper doesn't like the look of you.
At the same time as the Rees government beats its drum on the scourge of alcohol in our city streets, it puts no more funding into diversionary programs for those arrested on alcohol-related charges, landing more (mostly Aboriginal) people in jail for a minor offence.
Aboriginal men Mulrunji and Mr Ward were both arrested on alcohol-related charges and both died in custody. If this law is implemented, it will only be a matter of time before more such deaths occur in NSW.
Peter Robson, Redfern, NSW
Fourth gen nuclear no weapons threat
I think Jim Green is wrong on 4th generation reactors (GLW #794). I will commend him for almost covering the topic completely at least in terms of issues.
But the real issue that Jim Green raised was weapons proliferation. He correctly didn't make the charge against the LFTR that he did against the IFR: the "ease" in which such a reactor might lend itself to nuclear WMD.
This is because it is extremely difficult to create weapons grade plutonium from the mix of various uranium isotopes created by the decay of U233 in the reactor.
The little bit of waste from a LFTR would remain so hot radioactivity-wise that you can't go near it for years. Even after that is thoroughly contaminated with so many uranium isotopes as to makes the remaining U233 virtually impossible to make a weapon.
The fact is, Jim Green does refer to how "illegal" (all WMD should be illegal, IMO) research reactors are used to create nuclear weapons. All countries outside the NPT and within it that have done this have, in fact, used research reactors which are far easier to build, and much cheaper. There simply is no reason, nor will there ever be, in using the LFTR and most other GEN IV reactors for nuclear weapons.
David Walters, by email [Abridged.]
Clean coal a dangerous fiction
In his budget, the Rudd government gave another $2 billion dollars to fund an oxymoron — clean coal.
Clean coal (aka carbon capture and storage) is a dangerous fiction akin to a healthy cigarette, or safe asbestos. But it plays a useful PR role for the dirty coal industry by giving false hope that coal can be made sustainable.
The government's outrageous decision confirms what CSIRO scientist James Risbey told an April senate inquiry.
Australia's current climate policy "is Russian roulette with the climate system, with most of the chambers loaded".
Simon Butler, Glebe NSW