Richard Farmer’s chunky bits

Carbon tax re-enters. The Gold Coast mayor is doing his best to put the carbon tax back on the political agenda.

Ratepayers are being told they will be hit for an extra $30 a year.

The men are coming home, now for the families. A comprehensive study of veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan points to a rise in domestic violence (typically including abuse of spouses or neglect of children). The US Institute of Medicine studied the problems of returning veterans for the US government. It found that there are substantial gaps in knowledge about the effects of deployment on military families that hinder Department of Defence’s ability to meet the needs of military service members and their families effectively. The committee found — although some important large-scale, well-designed studies are under way — much of the research heretofore has been methodologically flawed, suffering, for example, from the use of small convenience samples, use of cross-sectional designs, and the like. The committee concludes well-designed studies that use rigorous and diverse methods (both qualitative and quantitative) are needed to increase understanding of the challenges faced by military service members and their families. For more on mental health and the Defence Force, see our ongoing series Battle Scars.

Keeping up to date. I notice staffers have finally gotten rid of the bug on the PM’s website that used to tell us about last year’s appointments schedule, but things are clearly still very busy in the office. The schedule — actually a diary listing events that have passed, not current or planned — has not got beyond Sunday, March 10. The communications staff clearly are not sticklers for timeliness.

News and views noted along the way.

• World’s grooviest endangered frog bred in captivity for first time
• Why don’t politicians care about the working class? — “If we want to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the brightest possible future, the national debt is not the most important problem to address. Reversing the polarization of the labor market — the hollowing out of the middle class and the associated rise in inequality over the last thirty years or so — is much more important. But money driven politics and a political class that has all but forgotten about the working class … stand in the way of progress on this important problem.”
• History casts doubt on bold Japan economic reform
• Park Geun-hye’s leadership and South Korea’s challenges
• Will we apologise to children removed from surrogate mothers?
• Excel spreadsheets turned into video game — “The game, called Arena.Xlsm, is a turn-based fantasy game in which players fight monsters and gather loot to make their character more powerful … It was created using macros – simple programs and shortcuts that users create to speed up use of the program.”
• Why are TV remotes so terrible?