interlogue

This blog has been superseded.

2006-08-19T21:54:00.000+08:00

The new blog location, to which all posts in this blog have been migrated, is

http://interlogue.wordpress.com

Thank you very much to all who have provided comments and insights and emails, and I look forward to seeing you there.

News coverage

2006-08-11T01:28:00.000+08:00

The news in recent weeks has gotten to the point where even me - the ultimate news junkie - has been known to turn off the news at times because it either becomes too depressing, too frustrating, or too repetitive, and has found it easier to resist the temptation to hear the morning bulletin when NewsRadio, my primary source of info, kicks in with its own coverage between 3:30am and 10am WST - they do have by far the best breakfast program if you like news and sport delivered with both precision and at times humour.

One of NewsRadio's strongest points is its diversity of news sources - it plays two hours a day of Deutsche-Welle (German radio), two hours of National Public Radio (an independent American broadcast), one hour of Radio Netherlands and several of the BBC World Service, as well as other specialty programs such as Asia Pacific and several business, science/technology and sport programs.

However, with news of anything that breaks in the UK or USA, BBC coverage (among others) tends to fall into a rut of reporting the same news in 100 different ways before anyone really knows what's going on, and relying on analysts, experts and world leaders speaking to plug the gaps. The news today is not even news, but the threat to make news - a plot has reportedly been discovered involving planes and the whole country (UK) is in lockdown. Considering their past combined investigative efforts resulted in the death of an innocent man of Brazilian ethnicity and the injuring and imprisoning of two innocent Muslims (later released) in a raid rivalling Sanders & Simpkins subtlety in the movie "Whoops Apocalypse" (1986), I am a tad sceptical.

The funniest assessment of the news comes from Daniel Carter's assessment of the DW Radio bulletin, which is quoted in full below:

Story 1: The plot. News from the UK.
Story 2: The plot. News from the US.
Story 3: People blowing each other into tiny bits in the Middle East, in complete defiance of common sense. Reports from both sides.
Story 4: People with common sense criticising the protagonists of Story 3 (HRW; aid organisations).
Story 5: People blowing each other into tiny bits in a different bit of the Middle East. (Iraq)
Story 6: People blowing each other into tiny bits in Sri Lanka.

There is a disturbing pattern. The theme music comes almost as a relief. Is this a true reflection of what's going on in the world, or is this a failure of emphasis and perspective on the part of the world's news agencies?

On Barnaby Joyce and coalition dinners

2006-08-10T14:22:00.000+08:00

We will probably never know what was on the menu, but we do know a few other things. This was hidden at the bottom of a Sydney Morning Herald report:

In another small flare-up, the National Party senator Barnaby Joyce has revealed he walked out on a speech by Mr Howard to an annual dinner of Coalition senators in Canberra on Tuesday night. Senator Joyce took offence when Mr Howard lauded the voluntary student unionism bill, which Senator Joyce opposed. "It should be called the 'demise of regional university sporting facilities Bill'," he said.

But he was most offended when Mr Howard attributed the Coalition winning four Queensland Senate spots at the last election to a letter he sent urging people to vote Liberal in the Senate and National in the lower house.

Senator Joyce has long been angry at the letter. He left the dinner in protest and went for a walk along the lake. "And they complain about me not supporting the leadership," he said.

Sharp fall in jobless rate? Centrelink may be the answer

2006-08-10T13:37:00.000+08:00

It reflects a strong economy and an extremely tight labour market, both of which contributed to the Reserve Bank's decision to raise official interest rates two weeks ago.

Mr Howard says it is a blow to those who argued that the WorkChoices laws would mean dramatic job losses.

More spin, more hype... and completely ignoring the changes made to the Centrelink system on 1 July 2006.

"Helping people move into work" - an overview (Centrelink, 22 June 2006)

The system is truly an interesting place. It is managed by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, whose minister is Kevin Andrews. DEWR manages both Centrelink and the Job Network. Centrelink has had its ability to investigate actions by Job Network agencies curtailed by various Federal Government legislation since 1997-98 - when the ALP's "job compact", introduced four years earlier, was abolished and the Job Network was launched to replace the supposedly ineffective CES (Commonwealth Employment Service).

The idea behind it was that a competitive tendering system could do better than the government - fundamental to Liberal Party ideology. Job Network providers were given long-term unemployment cases formerly handled by the CES. They were rewarded for finding such jobseekers work, and were able to provide intensive assistance programs to them. Peter Davidson, social policy officer at ACOSS, said that "the theory behind the Job Network funding model is appealing: employment assistance providers are best placed to judge what assistance each job-seeker requires, and appropriate, cost effective assistance will be offered if funding is tied to employment outcomes rather than "programs"."[1] Another reason for the Job Network was to transfer the costs the Government was incurring onto somebody else - the providers in this case.

The first version of the Job Network failed, with nearly 75% of the providers leaving the network within the first year of operation. Quite simply, the money and incentive wasn't there for them to stay. The initial system limited Job Network jobs to Job Network providers, which caused many companies to stop offering jobs through the system due to the perceived low quality of applicants. The system was revamped after a year, giving Job Network providers considerably more autonomy. Curiously, a large number of new Job Network providers were faith-based agencies.

Many providers within the Job Network operate for profit, and they get money every time they pull someone into intensive assistance, even if the person clearly doesn't need it. A sure sign of a government system which makes profit are signs of corruption to make more money out of the system. Here's some examples:

Service providers are being paid $4,500 - $8,000 to offer intensive assistance to disadvantaged people - so the idea is they classify anyone they can as disadvantaged. In some cases, job seekers may be called in for intensive assistance after just 2 weeks of unemployment, even if their employment prospects are strong elsewhere. The incentive for them to sign off Centrelink completely if they have the funds to do so is fairly high.
Service providers are paid when they find someone work. I have heard allegations that some providers claim this money for jobs found by the jobseekers under their watch by themselves or through other agencies.
There is a near-guarantee that they'll find work through the intensive assistance, but some jobs are known problem cases which frequently recycle people, have health and/or abuse risks and the employer can't find employees through normal channels. The providers may know this, but the incentive for them to turn a blind eye is high. For jobseekers, not accepting the job means getting breached, and risking losing one's payments for 8 weeks. If the person gets injured in such a job, they get transferred onto Disability Support Pension and off the unemployment queue. This is ultimately harming Australia's competitiveness on the world market.

A system which encourages and rewards corruption, maintained by a Government fearful of the very system collapsing with considerable electoral collateral? Never.

As an aside, Work For The Dole cases are, as far as I can ascertain, not counted under official unemployment statistics, which incidentally require that a person do just one hour of work a fortnight to be considered "employed". Few of these jobs have any merit or contribution to society, or improve the jobseeker's prospect for employment in their own field (indeed it may hinder them).

So when I see claims about the unemployment rate falling, don't blame me for being sceptical.

Links:
* "Howard hails falling jobless figures", ABC Online, 9 August 2006.
* "Job Network burnout? - ABC Counterpoint - interviewing a Job Network agency spokesman and a social work academic, 31 July 2006.
* Seems this sort of thing isn't by any means limited to Australia - Howard's good friend George Bush has been up to no good as well.

Israel and Lebanon: a rabbi speaks out

2006-08-06T13:33:00.000+08:00

As the international community inches closer to a Security Council resolution on this matter, I found an interesting statement from a Jewish Reform rabbi in California. Religion I feel has a role to play in solving the crisis - unfortunately, religion has been used in many conflicts including that in my birthplace of Northern Ireland as a pretext to kill or dispossess people rather than affirm life.

The full text is quoted in the link, but the text from Lerner makes three demands, which he describes as only the minimum steps necessary to stop the disaster. It is a nice change to see someone who has thought this out and wants peace which does not favour either side but allows each to live in peace.

a halt to attacks on Lebanon on Israel - such attacks, he argues, will not provide peace or security for Israel - and for Israel to provide humanitarian assistance and funds to repair the damage it has caused.

a halt to attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas - attacks which he argues played a central role in provoking the crisis and harm the cause of Palestinian and Lebanese independnece and democracy by driving decent Israelis into the hands of "militaristic and paranoid political leaders".

for the US government and international community to call for an immediate ceasefire - he argues the US has become a party to the violence which, together with Iraq, are creating enmity towards the US and Israel.

Lerner then calls for an International Peace Conference to impose a solution - "Why do we say “impose”? There are too many forces in each country in the region who are committed to continuing this struggle forever." While I agree with him, I don't agree that imposing a solution from outside will necessarily help to solve the situation. One key emphasis is a viable Palestinian state and a return to the 1967 borders.

Lerner also calls for a "new spirit of open-heartedness and reconciliation", as each side needs to recognise the humanity of the other and stop demeaning the other in media, religious institutions and educational systems. He believes the fundamental "goodness and generosity" in humanity, led by those with the financial means to be generous, will ultimately fix not just this situation but wider world problems. For those who disagree or find this an unrealistic possibility, he answers his critics at length in this piece and I do suggest reading it.

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Land Rights Act - Getup campaign

2006-08-05T15:35:00.000+08:00

I was contacted today about the "Stop the Land Grab" campaign - according to GetUp, legislation will be going through on Tuesday which will disempower the existing Aboriginal Land Councils in regional Australia. For more information, and if you wish, to sign the petition, please click on the link in this post.

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Preselection woes for sitting Liberals in the West

2006-08-04T16:19:00.000+08:00

It seems that sitting federal Pearce MP, Judi Moylan, is being challenged for preselection, as is sitting Tangney MP Dennis Jensen. News is slow but the "Perth Now" website appears to have the most complete story at this stage, while ABC Radio has been covering it during the day.

The upshot of this story is that it is a storm in a teacup. Pearce is an extremely unusual seat which wraps around the north and east of Perth while taking in its outermost suburbs - both Gingin and Narrogin are in this seat, as is the eastern fringe of Midland and the Clarkson-Quinns connurbation. As far as I can see by comparing 20 years of Federal and State statistics:

Clarkson-Yanchep (far northern suburbs) - a mortgage-belt vote which tends Labor, but votes for Judi Moylan. Reasonably strong Labor at state level.
Eastern Hills (Greenmount-Mundaring-Chidlow) - a solid Lib-Green vote as can also be seen in parts of Alexander Downer's Mayo electorate along the South East Freeway. The Green (13-18%) preferences in this part of Pearce, however, lean heavily towards Moylan. At state level it is marginal and fluctuates, at present Labor holds the entire region with Green preferences.
East Midland (Midvale-Swan View) - solidly Labor although Swan View and Stratton have voted Liberal for the past two Federal elections. Adjustments by the AEC to this seat may see Bellevue enter from the southwest.
North rural (Gingin, Muchea) - Strong One Nation territory.
East rural (Toodyay, Northam, York, Narrogin

Surely the Liberals would have learned something from the Georgiou situation that a "liberal" Liberal is, from their point of view and no matter how troublesome for them, better than a Labor person? I've dealt with her in the past and she's a very strong representative for her area, even considering how ridiculously diverse the AEC have made it for her.

The news is now suggesting that failed Merredin candidate (One Nation 2001 byelection; Liberal 2005) Jamie Falls, the mayor of Dalwallinu, which is quite a distance within Wilson Tuckey's O'Connor electorate, is the challenger. Tuckey is denying any involvement but Falls appears to be on first name terms with him. I doubt that the increasingly suburban nature of this seat would tolerate a candidate with views compatible with One Nation, and I think this will be reflected at branch level. Georgiou had an opponent who would have carried the seat, and his seat was less at risk, but the local branches strongly backed him.

The challenge to Dennis Jensen is in Perth's safest southern suburbs Liberal seat, taking in an ethnically diverse area which includes Ferndale, Willetton, Bull Creek, Leeming, Applecross and parts of Melville. There is no risk to the Liberals here no matter what happens, but I doubt that they will favour a challenge to a sitting member as it presents a picture of disunity.

(Thanks to Antony Green for the leads for this article.)

This has GOT to stop.

2006-07-31T00:16:00.000+08:00

The incident in Qana today is the latest of a catalogue of events which communicates the obvious - there are no winners in war. The battle of spin has raged across the international community with the US, Israel and Tony Blair making use of one set of language and Iran and Hezbollah another, while hundreds of civilians of at least two nationalities and five religions are slaughtered. The talk, the delays, the endless talk, but no-one seems to genuinely care about the people, both Israeli and Lebanese, either losing their lives or livelihoods or in fear of doing so.

The part which is of most concern is that some nations are immune to international law while others are persecuted by it. The case of Iran is interesting - unlike North Korea, Iran has not broken any international laws. Iran also has not violated any other country's sovereignty. It has cooperated with the IAEA. However, the international community insist on moving the goalposts as a means to control Iran's activities within what the US and several European countries consider an acceptable set of limits which they have in effect unilaterally imposed on Iran. The end result has been an increasingly entrenched position from Iran, and a feeling that abiding by the rules is useless as they will not be rewarded for it.

Israel has on four occasions invaded other countries, and at present illegally occupies part of Syria (Golan Heights) as well as the Palestinian territories, in contravention of UN resolution 242. They continue to receive billions of dollars of aid from the US, and we now know that the US is supplying deadly munitions to them via a compliant UK administration (which may soon fall from internal outrage about its complicity in this affair).

UN resolution 1559 (2005), which Israel and the US make considerable use of in their rhetoric, was passed in a set of circumstances where Lebanon was trying to shake off a foreign power which had dominated its political life for the previous 30 years. UN resolution 1441 (2002) was creatively interpreted to allow the US to go to war. Yet UN resolution 242 (1967) calling on Israel to retreat to its borders has been left to dry, and any attempt to pass any resolution criticising Israel today is vetoed by the US under the archaic post-war system which allowed the five leading countries to hold veto powers.

Is a war crime a war crime or not? The Lebanese president was certainly in no doubt of that when he addressed the media today. But who gets prosecuted? While Saddam's war crimes case is wrapping up in Baghdad, complete with seemingly biased judge, questionable process and certain verdict, one can be fairly sure that the international community, whose first responsibility should be to the citizens of the world always, will dismiss this as some kind of mistake or justify it in terms of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. Those too are crimes against civilians that should be proscuted, but they probably will be - my question is why two civilians can die and one receives justice and the other a kick in the guts by wealthy Western leaders and their media entourages.

It is my hope that the Qana incident (actually the second Qana incident - the last atrocity there is documented in a link from the BBC story) will be a catalyst to stop the spin and help the people who need it most. Commission of unpunishable war crimes only gives rise to helpless anger and a desire to avenge, which in turn is a detriment to Israel's future security needs.

Recommended reading:
Philippe Sands (international jurist) - "Lawless World" - documents both the rise of international law and its abuse in recent years.
Viewpoint from the Arab world (26 Jul) - found on another blog.

* Declaration: The author believes that Israel has the right to exist and a need for secure and peaceful existence within its borders. The author is only 3 generations removed from European Jews, at least 13 of whom died in Treblinka and Dachau, and fears the consequences of excessive Israeli force to its future security and that of a future viable Palestinian state. The author is also from Northern Ireland and is more than used to pointless standoffs where innocents on both sides die and both armed sides have their hands covered in blood.

Calls for long-term mortgages from financial institutions meet with concern

2006-07-30T12:19:00.000+08:00

It seems the world of finance is responding to the unsustainable boom in housing prices and the inability of young people to enter the market by extending the term over which the loan is repaid. In an ideal world, this means that the monthly repayments, and the pressure on families' budgets, would decrease considerably. Lender GE Money already offers a 40-year mortgage and reports today suggest at least two of Australia's major banks are considering offering 40- and 50-year options. Obviously, the longer the bank has the money, the more interest they collect, so the financial incentive for them to offer such plans is obvious.

Labor's Wayne Swan has told the ABC Insiders program that "people are up to their eyeballs in debt" and that he would be "extremely wary about another facility out there which encourages Australians to go further into debt".

My concern from an economic viewpoint is the result of reducing monthly repayments. The market works on supply and demand. If you reduce the amount that people are paying each month, their capacity to pay more per month increases, which puts strong upward pressure on prices and drives housing prices even more out of the market.

In addition, a 50-year loan taken at age 25 means that one would still be making full repayments at age 74. For many years there has been concerns about a looming crisis surrounding Australia's aging population and the effect this will have on the economy and the ability of older people to be sustained by a shrinking tax base of younger workers. Furthermore, many people die before age 74 - what happens to the debt then, or the people living in the not-yet-paid-for house? There's also the risk of a future flood of bank-owned property forcing prices down unnaturally and penalising those who are mortgaged to the hilt and wish to sell.

There are too many questions and not enough answers about this proposal. Too often, the banks and financial institutions act in a way which benefits their own bottom line while not representing responsible social behaviour.

Links:
50-year home loans plan finds support (ABC Online)
Labor wary of 40-year loans (ABC Online)

An interesting perspective on minimum wage

2006-07-30T12:12:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine wrote an interesting piece on the minimum wage, which I essentially agree with, arguing that in an environment where employers (buyers in the labour market) have too much influence in setting wage levels, and that the minimum wage actually serves to correct an imperfect market, rather than impose unreasonable constraints.

It's obvious to me (and to most Australians I would think) that giving people money over and above survival allows them to recycle the money through the Australian economy rather than on low-profit survival stocks and getting heavily into debt.

I heard someone on the radio yesterday talking about the old arbitration commission, and how the unions "overbid" wages while business groups gave "reasonable" ones, and therefore when the amount is determined, the new wages were "overvalued". The guy was pushing for the removal of minimum wage, and had no problem telling everyone that such a thing will "be good for the economy".

Let it be said, first of all, that this is true in a perfectly competitive market. It is *not* true in a monopsony however. A monopsony is the inverse of a monopoly; there are many sellers but only one buyer. This situation can apply to the labour market, when there are few relevant employers.

Assuming that every worker gets paid the same amount of money for the same job, the marginal cost of employing workers in a monopsony increases very rapidly, resulting in less people being employed, and a wage that is far less than optimal for the economy.

The interesting thing about a minimum wage is that it actually pushes the intersection of the cost/revenue curves to the right (forcing it closer towards a competitive market system), thereby INCREASING both employment and wages at the same time. What is most remarkable about this situation is that even if the minimum wage is above the most appropriate wage there is still a net increase in total wealth generated, compared to the initial raw monopsony. In other words, even an over-valued minimum wage is better for monopsony based labour markets.

Monopsonies have been shown to exist in numerous labour markets, particularly in markets where the employer has (mon/olig)opoly traits. In a small economy like Australia, this is quite common (even if it is only done via cartels). In other words, a minimum wage causes a loss of employment/wealth on the "competitive" swing, but makes it up on the "monopsony" merry-go-round. At the very least, the social gains by ensuring availability of health/education/choice outweighs the costs.

The only thing that does fall in a minimum wage is the net profit of that single buyer, in a similar way that monopolies usually have lower profits when there are competitors around. But few people apart from the business themselves would say that a monopoly is good for the economy. If they wish to promote the idea that no minimum wage is good, they should at least be honest and say it's great for a small increase in *profits*. To say it's good for the economy is only partially true and arguably misleading. I don't see the business interest groups clarifying this though.

Smart card introduction a serious worry

2006-07-25T07:25:00.000+08:00

Recently, the Federal Government has been talking of a new "smart card" to access Centrelink and other benefits. Supporters of the idea have envisaged something of a one-stop shop where all the information is carried on the card, with the risk of duplication between agencies and possible fraud being reduced.

Articles can be found here:

ABC 26/4/06 - Smart card gets cabinet approval (7:30 Report)
ABC 24/7/06 - Banks warming to smart card idea: Hockey (ABC Online)

The federal services minister, Joe Hockey, has been pushing the idea in recent days of making the cards usable from bank EFTPOS machines, but has yet to resolve issues regarding interchange fees and the like with the banks despite what by all accounts appear to be quite forceful negotiations.

It is well documented that Centrelink has real trouble coping with its caseload as things stand - their IT systems often screw up or produce unpredictable results, especially with cases operating intermittently over a number of years, and understaffing and lack of training have been problems for years, although to be fair, Centrelink has been working on these issues and many of the most critical ones that plagued them in the late 1990s are now consigned to history. Also, the EFTPOS system is operated by banks which have been increasing both fees and profits over the entire 10½ years that Howard has been in office.

From an ICT transition or risk management point of view, there's a significant logic gap in the Minister's statements.

Firstly, integration, while a highly desirable aim, comes with considerable risks, especially when large amounts of old data are involved. Risks inevitably mean time and money, and few people outside the ICT industry seem to appreciate this when dealing with ICT projects - the belief is that hiring a large enough contractor like Oracle or HP will resolve this problem all by itself.

Secondly, when developing additions to an existing system, it is essential that the existing system works within its existing brief and determined requirements.

Thirdly, change management issues are often not well understood by government - they confuse having legislative or executive power with the actual ability to govern, and their capacity to pass laws and to publish or air advertisements as being a public education campaign which people will carefully follow and obey. However, expecting millions of users and thousands of operators to uncritically adopt any new system, especially one that is hard to use or is accompanied by penalties for accidental misuse, presents a change management challenge. Many large projects have been derailed and/or dropped (at a cost of millions to the community) by the failure to anticipate consequences or risks at the implementation stage.

The consequences of poorly-planned public-sector projects can be clearly observed with another smart card project being developed by Transperth for handling public transport fares. The project, SmartRider, is already more than 6 months overdue, has had considerable cost overruns, still has implementation issues, and a confusing mesh of the old and new systems are still in operation. The new system introduces requirements on ordinary public transport patrons which will most likely result in chaos (or even electoral consequences) if the system ever goes fully "live".

Before jumping in the deep end, the Minister should determine whether such a project is in fact in the best interests of the community, given the likely duration and cost of development and implementation, as well as the unanswered questions about the banks and what happens if a card is lost or stolen.

Breaking the spin: Israel/Lebanon

2006-07-18T19:21:00.000+08:00

Just thought I'd share an article from Shmuel Rosner of Haaretz who takes the mickey out of the leaders on all sides of this weird conflict.

Article 1
Article 2

Overall, I've found Rosner's commentary on this conflict to be a rare voice of perspective and balance in this increasingly polarised and polemical discussion.

Oh dear...

2006-05-04T17:06:00.000+08:00

Found this on a library card index discarded at the State Library. Priceless.

"SPENCE, W.J.

Should Parliament be used to abuse, defeat and deny the small businessman?

Perth. The Author. 1962. 12p.
Criticism of allocation of tenders for WAGR sleepers for which the author was unsuccessful tenderer."

Thoughts on election day

2006-03-11T04:56:00.000+08:00

The debate on Tuesday night at Bentley Baptist Church went very well for me, not so well for the major party candidate. Rather than summarise myself, it seems poll bludger is onto it. I got to ask a question on 6PR off the major candidates which got answered by none, and I was on last week's Page 2 and this week's Page 3 in the local paper for the southern third, the Canning Examiner. If I don't win (which is to be honest likely, as a "good" polling figure in my case is 10%+) I intend to use the profile I've built up to try and get these local issues fixed and addressed - especially the local services, public transport and health.

The result will be on this link probably around 7pm or 7:30pm WST - the actual voting stops at 6pm. I'll be in the tally room and 6PR and ABC are both running election coverage (I'm presuming ABC 720 rather than the TV, but not sure.)

---

Hmm... 4:50am and just about to leave for the booths. I had lunch with some seniors yesterday and even got to play carpet bowls - was a lot of fun - then spent all yesterday running around the city with Dad collecting signs and how-to-votes and all the things one needs. This is like studying for an exam, in that you work hard for weeks beforehand to prepare, you do everything you can, but is totally unlike it in that nothing I can do today once polling starts will make any difference. It's entirely in 25,000 people's hands what actually happens, and a reflection of but not necessarily an accurate one of how much work I've invested into this in the last 5 weeks. It's kind of weird looking over the side at the major party candidates and comparing, and considering that I've made so much progress almost entirely on my own, with a single-digit-percentage of the money they've spent and almost the nomination fee ($250) in donations. :) Dad has been a great help in the last couple of weeks with both the letterboxing and some of the creative stuff with the signs and displays and he will be one of my main men today.

Fingers crossed!

Thoughts on candidate blogging.

2006-02-27T00:58:00.000+08:00

It's kind of sad in a way as I had looked at Graham Kierath's blog at the last election and thought of doing something similar, but there's so much intrigue and suspense and simple hard slog in a campaign that either would be boring or counterproductive for me to report. I probably should write a book when it's all over. :) pollbludger.com is probably the best source of news at the moment as this is really only getting community newspaper reportage up to the present (apart from the revelations about the One Nation candidate which somehow made page 4 of the Australian.)

Things are going well, although slowly as when one is an independent, one simply doesn't have a party at beck and call to do stuff, but I'm getting a lot of grassroots support and a lot of name recognition now. I'm amazed that I am yet to hit, three weeks into the campaign, any serious negativity from voters - you know, these people who are meant to hate politicians who actually really want to talk to me and are friendly and shake my hand even if they aren't going to vote for me.

One thing that has come out of this - if you are young, IT-literate, friendly/outgoing, intelligent, not afraid of a fair amount of hard work and a lot of walking, and you really don't think either party has the answers and you have a couple of solid issues you want to address, never let anyone tell you that you can't achieve anything out here. I am yet to see how I will ultimately do, and I could be utterly disappointed on election night, but I have learned SO much not only about the political process but about myself, about people, about supplier chain management, organising events, you name it. I will have no regrets about any of it, no matter what way the vote goes - it's been an experience.

Update

2006-01-29T10:13:00.000+08:00

Summary:

* Music
- Current obsession : I Mother Earth's album
- RIP The Tea Party

* Canada (brief)

* An analysis of the left in Australia and what is needed.

<Music
I have been listening way too much to I Mother Earth's 2003 album "Quicksilver Meat Dream". They're a highly underrated band that deserve far more recognition than they've got. For those Tool fans like me, check out "God Rocket" and "Hell and Malfunction". For more commercial types, check out "Like The Sun" and "No Coma" and "Soft Bomb Salad". For more hard-rock-headbanger types, try "Choke". There's something for everyone! Try it out and see! Also don't ignore their earlier albums, particularly "Dig". The songs "All Awake" and "One More Astronaut" are worthwhile too.

In sad news, Tea Party, one of my favourite bands, have disbanded (thanks Kenny for the heads-up). My personal opinion - the band tried too hard to go commercial at the bequest of the major labels when it was set up to be a creative, eclectic mishmash of Eastern and Western sounds heavily inspired by Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd and even Jeff Buckley (listen to "Correspondences"). Splendor Solis (1993) and Edges of Twilight (1995) remain among my pantheon of greatest albums of all time by any artist. The last album, "Seven Circles", however, was utterly underwhelming. This is far from the first time this has happened to a good band - Stabbing Westward and Our Lady Peace both fell victim to the same, then split after their experiment.

I first saw Tea Party acoustic and live at UWA in 1998 when a friend literally dragged me along to see this band who I'd only heard one industrial-ish song by (Babylon) and was blown away and became a fan immediately. They played without amplification to a room of about 60. I then saw them live at Big Day Out in 2002, and later that year at Metropolis City in their own show in what was probably the best concert I've ever witnessed (although Tool 2002 and Massive Attack 2003 were close contenders). I'm glad I got to see their final Perth show in November 2004 up at Belvoir. I had a ticket but almost wasn't going to go after having to walk home from said venue two nights earlier at the PJ Harvey concert, and having heard "Seven Circles". My parents talked me into going and I didn't regret it for a minute.

Their frontman, Jeff Martin, is producing an album "Exile and the Kingdom" which is due in March or April - I can't wait. He is at the peak of his creativity, has finally found peace in his own life with his new wife and child, and seeing him live and acoustic in Fremantle in February last year, I think he has captured a lot of what I liked about the band to begin with.

Unusual for me to write so much about a band breakup, but they are one of just two bands that has managed to completely blow me away ever.

Canada
The Conservatives won the Canadian election, but it's not all bad - their progressive left party nearly doubled its parliamentary representation, and Canada seems to have basically voted for no change, but to change the dominant party and prime minister (they've been given a minority and can't govern without parties further to the left). I'll leave the analysis to an actual Canadian. :)

The left in Australia

There could not be a better time for the left in Australia than now. Yet the left has been languishing in a state of disrepair for some time. Let's view the contenders:

* The activists are seen by the media as a sideshow and by most as removed from reality. It's sad as they pursue some very good causes, but it's not armed clashes outside the WTO or the Forbes Group that change people's minds, it's a good argument which involves people rather than confuses them. Any of the major left publications are either unintelligible to anyone outside their idiom or are so far removed from the reality of life of Australian working people that they get scorned more than praised for their hard work (and they do work hard, there's no doubt about it).

* The broader left movement is mired in factionalism and sectarianism and is obsessed with a bunch of crazy Russians who roamed the earth about 90 years ago. Hell, they even argue over which crazy Russian they support, and whether people are true supporters of said individual or not. (The term "revisionist" is a favourite.) The same denounce me as a traitor because I'm a pragmatist rather than a polemicist (what the hell is that anyway? :))

* The Greens have the basic problem that their structure was created out of quite an odd base. They are in a bizarre position - every other country has a left party - Canada's NDP is probably the most successful of these. But the Greens started as an environment party and are now trying to be a broad left party. As a result they claim to speak for working Australians yet their support revolves around people attending $50 a head functions or going off to Margaret River (one of the four places in WA where they have serious electoral support) for weekends. Their grassroots organisation is scary (angry white-hair brigade who know what they hate but not what they want) and disorganised. As someone said about the Canadian Greens, "they have a monopoly on ski resorts" - except here it's Byron Bay/Mullumbimby/Nimbin, Mount Nebo, Hobart, Newtown, North Melbourne, West End (Brisbane), Daylesford, Semaphore, Margaret River, Denmark, Fremantle and Northbridge. And apart from Nimbin and Mount Nebo, they've never won even those places outright. In working-class Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane they struggle for 3% of the vote.

* The Labor left, by far the most successful electorally, has no real sphere of influence. The caucus situation has seen it lose its influence within most state parties and it is at best marginal in the federal, hence depriving it of the ability to challenge the Liberals on anything but the Liberals' home ground. Labor even voted in 2004 for a ban on gay marriage - despite opposition from its left, those individuals still voted for it. I'm reliably informed that those within it are frustrated by being continually undermined by their right-wing colleagues but don't see themselves as having any choice. That is to say, by voting Labor you vote in someone who continually gets outvoted in caucus and has to vote with them anyway.

Australians are being sold short on alternatives. We need to find something *else* and make it work, provide it with the leadership, the vision and the direction to turn it into a viable political force, and avoid the mistakes of others in allowing base to become too narrow, principles to become compromised or invaders from the loony left to destroy said alternative. Either that, or the Labor Party itself has to revitalise as a democratic force for progressive politics and stop trying to fight the middle ground. I'm still thinking on this one.

I'm nuts, but so is the rest of the world.

2006-01-18T10:41:00.000+08:00

Politics
Our state premier, Geoff Gallop, has unexpectedly resigned both his post and his seat of Victoria Park. This is a real shame - Gallop is easily one of the best premiers we've ever had. He was a unifying force within the Labor Party as well and managed to fix most of the stuff Court screwed up.

Anyway, two days ago I woke up with a crazy idea. Why not put all my newly-acquired knowledge about political demography to the test and run as an Independent? It is one of the safest Labor seats in the state. I have absolutely no chance of winning. In fact, if I get the 10% necessary to get my $250 nomination deposit returned, I will genuinely be shocked. But I can't think of anything I could possibly lose in the process. I'm not important enough for anyone to dig dirt up about, it'll give me something to do which is interesting and challenging, it'll get me meeting real people again, and I have no expectations whatsoever so can't be disappointed. The only thing now is to figure out how to get people to staff the polling booths - there's 13 of them and I only have two volunteers. According to s183(6) of the Electoral Act 1907, I am not allowed to "solicit the vote of any elector on polling day" so I can't do it myself (much as I'd love to). Anyone got any ideas? I'm genuinely interested in any input.

Canada stuff
My friend Daniel in Canada has been nervously anticipating the upcoming Canadian election, where it is most likely that a Howard clone/Bush fan will be elected there and the current reasonably progressive government thrown out. Naturally, he isn't too happy, so if you want to drop encouraging words on his journal, feel free :)

Anyway, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing, so bye for now! :)

Cronulla riots - a Canadian perspective

2005-12-13T20:06:00.000+08:00

From Daniel's LJ, which I'll simply quote as I can't better it.

I've been following the Cronulla Beach riots in Sydney with some interest, but also the smugness that seems to have entered the Canadian dialogue on this event. I even read a guy on Globe and Mail Online saying that Australia's the only place that has riots! So I have put my virtual pen to paper - just my thoughts, but let me know what you think.

---
I am concerned at the reaction of some of my fellow Canadians to the race riots in Sydney. I think we have a tendency to brush our own problems under the carpet while focusing on those of others, and our own problems do exist. An Australian landing in Vancouver, for example, would find the extent of homelessness in this city beyond belief and actually confronting, yet we take it for granted. Could it be that no Australian city has the same problems? Could it be that an Australian worker at the lower levels earns 50% more than a Canadian worker doing the same job? Canada has problems, and saying nothing and ignoring them only perpetuates those problems rather than creating a constructive dialogue to solve them.

Also, for people of a country so easily misunderstood and stereotyped ourselves, I think we are too willing to stereotype Australia based on either the actions of the few or of fictitious characters like 'Crocodile Dundee' and, well, 'Crocodile Hunter', while cringing at overseas questions about Mounties and 'Northern Exposure'. Most Australians in fact live in large cities and live much like us. Like Canada, people hold different opinions about race, some of them quite reactionary, many of them more liberal, but regardless, tend to be peaceful in action.

I'd like to put two powerful words on the table - economics and fear. They appear in every major drama on the world stage from the late 19th century onward. From lynching colonial outsiders in West Africa, to labelling and gassing them in Auschwitz, to shutting the disadvantaged majority out of modern life in South Africa to protect the wealthy (but scared) minority, and then the Cold War - which was all about First World fears and threats, but affected the rest of the world to such an extent that the need for the term "developing countries" was impossible to ignore - followed by the Balkan wars, where just like Northern Ireland, the other side was evil from birth, you would think we as a world would have learned that economic disparities that affect groups and policies that directly or indirectly target those groups at the same time combine to unleash anger, fear and chaos. I find it ironic that while Cronulla burns, the world's leaders are in Hong Kong discussing the West's complete intransigence on, of all things, agricultural subsidies. Why should we pay our farmers to be unproductive while half the world starves to death because they can't sell their produce on our supposedly open market?

Australia has not been spared. They have disadvantaged groups, and groups who fear change to their society or lifestyle. This sentiment has been egged on by cynical electioneering politics by both of the major political parties, in part to take votes from populist right-wing parties advocating simplistic racial solutions. Echoes of election campaigns past can be found in the very words of some of those at Cronulla as published in recent newspapers around the world. "We decide who come into our country/beaches". Who's us? Who's we? Australia has only aggressively pursued multiculturalism for about 20-30 years. In that time there have been many other changes in society - social, economic, religious - that in many cases are quite unrelated to immigration. But those changes shift people's comfort zones and some who have trouble coping with that need someone to target.

What I've never got...

2005-08-22T11:52:00.000+08:00

...is how a tiny microorganism (otherwise known as a virus) can render something the size of a human practically inoperable. I hate being sick :(

London police sacrifice goodwill

2005-07-24T15:36:00.000+08:00

This is a woeful state of affairs. The story is as summarised by Sibanu on shortnews (I added plain-clothes as that was not known at the time):

"For those of you who aren't aware of the background to the story, it appears that a man in a thick coat (in summer) was persued by (plain-clothes) police in the London Underground. The police shouted at him to stop, but he didn't and continued to run toward a stationary train. Four policemen chased him and tackled him to the ground, where one of the policemen immediately shot five rounds into the back of the mans head, killing him instantly. This is summary execution, no more, no less, whether the man was connected with the terrorists or not, and as such the policemen should be charged with intentional homicide. Our morals and standards are shattered beyond revertion. This if anything will prove to further legitimise the terrorists cause, in their eyes."

A quote from the following BBC article:

Mr Pereira, said Mr Menezes, who was from the city of Gonzaga in Minas Gerais state, had lived in London legally for at least three years and was employed as an electrician. The BBC's correspondent in Brazil, Tom Gibb, said Mr Menezes had lived for a time in a slum district of Sao Paulo and that could explain why he had run from the police.

He said: "The murder rates in some of these slums are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away."

The BBC story can be found here.

Politics stuff

2005-03-09T02:40:00.000+08:00

I got heavily involved in our State election in WA after seeing from the relative distance of Singapore the crushing victory of the Federal Liberal government. My opportunity arose unexpectedly - a controversial Labor politician, John Quigley, former lawyer to the Police Union, lost his seat in a boundary redraw and had to contest a northern metropolitan seat.

For those outside Australia, Australia, like many Western democracies, is a two-party state with the centrist liberal-ish Labor Party (ALP) and centre-right conservative Liberal/National coalition (National is the rural party) vying for geographic seats roughly evenly distributed by population. In general, the Liberals have spent more years in power than the Labor party, although the latter has been elected for significant terms in the past. In the Upper House, which is elected on a proportional basis of 12 senators per state and 2 per territory, minor parties such as the Greens and Democrats can win seats. Any legislation needs to pass both houses to become law. The State systems are a smaller version of the national system. There are many variances, exceptions and technicalities but the above generally holds as an explanation :)

At present, the Liberals have just won their fourth term in office under Prime Minister John Howard, who's been in for 9 years. Meanwhile, all of the states and territories now have Labor state governments (longest serving since 1994, most recent since 2002), often with considerable majorities. There was some concern that WA was going to become the first state the Coalition won back.

To cut a long story short, the Coalition were in front in WA at the start of the 5-week campaign, but made some horrendous mistakes of judgement during the campaign that rendered them a ridiculous choice for government. Their campaign was "Decisions not delays", and seemed to consist primarily of tough on crime, more hospital beds, and a 3,700km long canal from the north of the State to Perth to supply Perth's water needs. Most of this stuff was uncosted and untested, but Barnett, the Liberal leader, said that he preferred making decisions to having feasability studies. I wrote this elsewhere:

"This is one of the few times that the Liberals can only blame themselves. Usually the incumbent government delivers a weak performance, has questions surrounding it, and survives basically because the voters are sheep, or because of unpredictable factors. This time, however, I'm going to concur with Noel Crichton-Browne (one of the few times you'll ever see me do so) and agree that for the Liberals, this was probably the single worst campaign of the last 30 years. Almost from the word go, they were trying to grab the far-right wing vote - obviously not a big one, given the paltry (compared to Eastern states) showing for CDP, CEC and Family First - and trying to "inspire" the public with populist pipe dreams. Barnett did a major blow to his own credibility waiting until 2 days before to deliver his costings. The Labor party wiped the floor with them, putting out a figure of $10 million which, rightly or wrongly, the public heard many times before the "official" costing. The official costing left out the canal, which certainly many people I worked with noticed."

As a result, Labor's primary vote rose to its highest level (42%) since 1989, the Coalition's stayed at record low levels, while they watched the traditionally conservative One Nation vote turn into primary votes for Labor and, to a lesser extent, the Christian parties.

Tsunami in our region

2004-12-27T15:18:00.000+08:00

When viewing this terrible event, there are several other things to remember. The body count isn't the whole story:

- The number of injured is something like 12-15 times the number of dead. A much higher percentage of the injured or sick could die or suffer disability because they don't have our first-world hospital/medical infrastructure. This also trickles into my second point.

- The number of homeless or people whose livelihoods (work etc) have been destroyed is far greater. This will chuck productive people into possibly permanent poverty in a way that's quite difficult for us Westerners to comprehend.

- Many more people will die or suffer from water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera because the infrastructure of the country will not be able to cope.

- The tourism infrastructure will cop a second blow in cancellations from mostly First World tourists, who will take their tourist dollars elsewhere (even though the risk of recurrence is low, as we saw in Bali).

Makes you put things in perspective... while we're off fighting a "war on terror" because some bunch of psychos flew a plane into a building in one city, these things destroy entire cities, destroy homes and facilities and societies, etc, usually in precisely the sort of places that really can't afford it (we've discussed Turkey, China and Iran, and with this tsunami *alone* Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, eastern India, Burma, western Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra/Aceh and probably other places).

One final note: We as Australians have a long history of being generous when our mates are down, regardless of who they are. You may not think you can make a difference - but even though I'm unemployed at the moment, I think that a $100 donation from each person (or even $20 if the former is beyond your means) to the Red Cross to help them manage this crisis. For the cost of a single restaurant meal or a day's parking in the city or a couple of CDs or DVDs, you could be helping real people in a time of need. It's easy to think "it's on the news, I can't make a difference" but don't forget, things are cheaper over there so a small amount can make a bigger difference than you'd expect.

Red Cross
or click here if the above fails to work

My state is going backwards :(

2004-12-07T19:33:00.000+08:00

This front-page article from the West blatantly disturbs me.

Barnett pledge to repeal gay rights
STEVE PENNELLS

The Liberal Party plans to roll back key sections of WA's gay law reforms if it wins the State election - raising the age of consent for gay men to 18 and barring same-sex couples from adopting.

Gay couples would be banned from settling property disputes in the Family Court and access to the court by de facto heterosexual couples would also be reviewed.

Opposition Leader Colin Barnett confirmed the party's position yesterday, saying there was "nothing more fundamental in our society than the institutions of marriage and family".

The move effectively throws the contentious issue of gay rights back into the political arena in the lead-up to the election and reopens the debate that raged two years ago when the Gallop Government's gay law reforms were introduced.

Gay rights groups are expected to mount an aggressive campaign against the plans and described the Liberals' position yesterday as an attempt to recriminalise homo- sexuality.

They said that if the moves went ahead, WA would once again have the highest homosexual age of consent in the country and be the first jurisdiction in the world to wind back gay rights since the military coup in Nicaragua in 1990.

Mr Barnett denied the party's position discriminated against same-sex couples and said attempts by sections of the gay lobby to paint the Liberals as homophobic did the gay community a disservice.

"I recognise that about 5 per cent of the population is gay," he said. "They are probably born gay and I don't support any discrimination on the grounds of age, religion, sexuality, whatever.

"What I don't agree with is when activists try and undermine the institutions of society in the name of equality.

"I do not support gay couples having adoption rights. I don't doubt the ability of gay couples to be very caring (but) parenthood is essentially a man and a woman.

"I also happen to believe that the age of consent for homosexual relationships is 18."

He said any changes to the age of consent would be designed to prevent predatory behaviour by older men and the law would not apply, for example, to two 17 year-old boys.

The Gallop Government introduced the controversial reforms two years ago to remove legislative discrimination against homosexuals. It extended in-vitro fertilisation and adoption rights to same-sex couples and lowered the homosexual age of consent from 21 to 16.

Attorney-General Jim McGinty, who ushered in the reforms, said the Liberals' plans would be a regressive step for the State.

"These provisions were introduced to give equal rights to all West Australians," Mr McGinty said.

"It is a pity that Colin Barnett wants to bring discrimination back into our society in the 21st century."

Premier Geoff Gallop said: "My Government is about getting more police on the street. Colin Barnett is about getting more police into people's bedrooms."

Openly gay Democrats Senator Brian Greig accused Mr Barnett of pandering to anti-gay groups and the religious right as a "preference grovel" ahead of the State election.

Sue Fisher Hendry, co-president of gay group Pride, said the Liberals' position was unjust.

"Mr Barnett, to be fair, is operating on the basis of his beliefs rather than that which is for the social good," she said.

"In a perfect world the Liberal Party would be acknowledging that the majority spoke last time law reform was passed."

Mr Barnett said he did not believe the Liberals' position would become an election issue.

"I don't think the wider community really wants to be confronted with gay issues," he said.

---end---

This is from a guy who does star-jumps in the chamber when he's bored of what the other side's saying. Does anyone else feel worried about this guy possibly becoming premier in 2 months? I notice also that he fails to address the issue of gay teen suicide, which was far worse under the Foss Amendments laws during the 90s, or discrimination in workplaces and schools on the basis of sexuality.

In other news, my face is peeling off after some particularly bad sunburn. :( Vitamin E cream, aloe vera and Panadol, eat your heart out.

Thoughts: Order in Chaos

2004-10-12T17:26:00.000+08:00

(Written while in Turkey in September.)

Change is the only constant. Yet the nature of change is neither constant nor consistent. The only consistent thing in the history of the universe and its component parts is that nothing is consistent.

The basis of much of mankind's social definition - and indeed sanity and comprehension of the world around it - is order. Since earliest times, man has been trying to explain the complex web of interacting phenomena that is nature, and even man's own origins and interaction, in an ordered way.

At first, this was done by explaining the seemingly inexplicable by the behaviour of a pantheon of surprisingly manlike gods which represented both human enterprise and desire, and natural forces and objects. This was later simplified into one god, still with distinctly manlike characteristics, with ultimate authority and omniscient, omnipotent ability.

Over time, the powerful men of the day realised that fear of God or gods could be harnessed to control the populace and concentrate power in their own hands, and this came to be the ruling dictat of society and culture for millennia.

As some phenomena came to be understood in mechanistic terms, the mechanism itself came to be deified either directly or indirectly. Examples of these mechanisms include science, alchemy, industry and technology. Many realised that this was wrong, but by this stage, society, with education its shaping tool, came to be based on an increasingly complex array of tradition - based on deity but in many cases no longer acknowledging it - and mechanism.

Society in 2004 in large sections of the world have almost completely shifted in their focus from deity to mechanism as a basis for order. Without an order, insanity is believed to prevail. There are at present a number of dominant mechanisms, several smaller ones, and a number of deity-based systems each battling the other for supremacy and acceptance. Each is a man-made system which prescribes an order by which things should work, hides or ridicules any evidence which fundamentally contradicts it (although allows some evolution of the order) and creates an elite to enforce the order.

A change in order, even if gradual, is always met by resistance. The resistance, as far as I can see it, is of three forms at present:

FUTURE: Intellectual Resistance - create or find a "better" order or find a "better" explanation or mechanism to generate a new order.

PAST: Traditional Resistance - go back to the deity-mandated way, often as interpreted by a specific elite who feel disempowered by mechanism as a whole (eg Osama bin Laden, "religious right")

PRESENT: Anarchic Resistance - destroy the order with no real plan to replace it.

All of these three forms of resistance, however, insist on accepting what I believe to be a mistaken notion that order needs to be imposed, either intrinsically or from outside, and that chaos is bad or wrong. However, the earth is resilient, having progressed unabated for eons, along with the human race which has endured numerous past orders, all of which have crumbled. Many orders have, far from being good or right, in fact imperilled the nature and quality of life of both humanity and the planet on which we live - and now even the neighbouring area of space (refer NASA report on orbiting ex-satellite junk)

A new approach is needed which embraces chaos and tries to find an order within that chaos - a natural order, basically - within that chaos. This order may not make sense to us, but so many things do not, anyway. It doesn't require an elite to maintain it or an ideology to sustain it. The notion of not knowing, though, or not having certainty is the most fear-inducing to the human mind.

Thinking of home.

2004-09-06T11:56:00.000+08:00

Hi all...

It's been 7 weeks today since I commenced my wanderings around the earth, and it's probably the first time I'm actually starting to miss the bit of it that I call home. I'm now in Kraków, Poland, and having a great time, but also realising what I have in Australia and the people and places that define it for me. That's the weird thing, you know. I almost feel like I'm at home or at least in somewhere like Melbourne, and then I see these puzzling road signs and even more puzzling advertisements in the local language and am quickly reminded that I am nowhere near it. Roads, trees, even people tend to look very similar from place to place - the exception being Ireland where most people looked very similar to each other. I even saw a guy who looked like an old version of The Edge when walking around Temple Bar in London.

I actually like Kraków though and I'm looking forward to exploring it today. Ostrava, tomorrow. Vienna, Thursday. Budapest, morning coffee (Monday). Beograd, lunch (Wednesday). Istanbul, late-night dinner of kebab (Friday). Yeah, I'm being a tad weird, but hey, you don't have to read far in this journal to find weirdness. :P

Anyway, I'm off to explore (and update my blog before I do) - talk soon!

Goodbye Perth...

2004-07-19T09:33:00.000+08:00

...for another 83 days.

In about 10 hours I leave Perth for Auckland, NZ, the first stage of my round-the-world trip. I suppose I'm feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness - haven't had the best weekend, and my eye is still playing up a little. Hopefully a few days of fresh air will fix it all up :)

A lot of people are reacting with surprise to some parts of my itinerary. Apparently I'll be bored in NZ, cold in Canada, and probably abducted and/or murdered in Turkey. I think some people need to learn more about the world we live in. The world is not a bunch of stereotypes.

People - tourists even - have been murdered in this country. Some foreign affairs offices in other countries have warned about Ross River virus right here in Perth. I think all warnings should be seen in that light - certainly, there are concerns, but if you were just concerned all the time and let it stop you doing things you enjoy, you wouldn't leave your front door and would have deadlocks on the windows. (I call this the 'Today Tonight' syndrome, for reasons my Australian readers may understand)

Anyway, this will be my last post in Perth. Feel free to check out my travel blog for updates.

Blatantly stolen from another journal...

2004-07-09T12:58:00.000+08:00

...but it was just too damn funny not to. :P

http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/

OMG!

2004-05-29T16:34:00.000+08:00

Sticky end painted for reality TV

British television viewers who say they would rather watch paint dry than the likes of Big Brother have had their wish granted. A show called Watching Paint Dry is available on the internet. (update 2006: since removed) Each day a different type of paint is applied to a wall and filmed drying. Viewers can vote for their favourite colour and finish.

Oh and for those of you who missed the Pre-Howard Era, a great site detailing Paul Keating's wonderful contributions to the English language. Parliament actually used to be a more interesting place than under Howard...

Amusing stuff :)

2004-05-11T21:28:00.000+08:00

have a laugh at this story from the BBC - poor guy :P

Iraq - one year on

2004-04-09T20:41:00.000+08:00

First anniversary of the toppling of Saddam's Baghdad statue, and the US is fighting a war of justification in Iraq, particularly in the cities of Baghdad, Fallujah, Kut, Najaf and Karbala. Confirmed reports coming in from Fallujah (US codename: "Operation Iron Resolve") are that the US Marines have suffered "substantial" casualties (no reports on numbers) and at least 300 are dead, according to the local hospital. Unconfirmed radio reports say that some US troops have broken ranks and have engaged in a frenzy of attacking and raping unarmed men, women and children in parts of the city. So much for the battle between good and evil that Bush mentioned in his 2004 state of the union address. It's beginning to sound more and more like Northern Ireland (my birthplace, for those who don't know), where two groups of foreign-backed illegal militants fight it out with rhetoric and bombs and the people who have to live there are stuck in the crossfire, dying, hurting, suffering. Now we have previously unknown terrorists (not even related to last week's group of previously unknown militants who are now practically running several cities) holding several unarmed civilians as hostages threatening to burn them alive for political purposes - and they're crazy enough to actually do it too. When will this insanity ever end? :(

George W. Bush and many in his inner circle call themselves Christians. They should start acting like Christians, whose prime commandments are to love the Lord with all their heart, mind and soul and to love their neighbour as themselves. The Bible they hold so dear (which George wants to use as the basis to ban gay marriage in the US Constitution) also says that "[Satan] comes to steal, kill and destroy", and calls Satan the "father of lies". I don't know how you would describe Bush's actions firstly in getting the presidency (via his brother and his father's mates in Florida), then in the campaign in Afghanistan (which currently resembles 1910s China after the fall of the Qing dynasty in both the warlordism and opium production stakes), then in the leadup to Iraq, and the reasons for Iraq, and then the post-war operation of Iraq. Lying is bad enough, lying to one's friends (UK, Australia, Spain etc) is even worse. The Spanish had enough of lies in the end and chucked out their president. I can only hope that UK, Australia and the US follow suit and end this NWO state terrorism enterprise.

(We can't do much about Israel, whose oppression of the Palestinians has reached new heights during the Bush administration, but it's beginning to look like Israel will be the next world basket case anyway, following in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, DRC and Somalia's footsteps.)

Anyone else noticed this?

2004-02-19T03:35:00.000+08:00

Interesting...

According to Internet Corporation for Assigned Names/Numbers, Iraq's country domain is registered in Texas, the home state of George Bush. (Richardson is a NE suburb of Dallas, by the looks of things). (Update 2006: it now seems to be based in Iraq as of August 2005)

The last updated date is 13 October 2002, 6 days after Bush made the case for war against Iraq (see chronology at this site - ctrl-F for "October")

Is there something in this or is this just another whacked conspiracy theory on my part? :P

Speaking of which, Amazon's recommendation service seems to have concluded that I'm a loony leftie who listens primarily to Canadian and American nu-metal.

Finally, happy birthday to three of my friends for today.

Break of the edge-crush-urhhh!

2004-02-11T01:33:00.000+08:00

OK, so on Monday night, my good mate Steven and I went to Claremont Showgrounds with the black t-shirt brigade to go watch Korn and Fear Factory (Static X were also there). I wasn't expecting much, but I'd never been to a proper metal concert before and was curious to know what these events are like. Having in mind the Pantera riot of '95, when the riot police were called in after the exiting crowd went nuts and started destroying nearby businesses, and a Fear Factory concert a moshy-type friend went to (and got kicked out of), we went in the gate.

First thing we noticed was the heavy security. Everything was secured. To go anywhere you had to go through a monitored gate. There were armbands too - pink for unlicensed, green for licensed. However, we generally found the security staff friendly, even if Steven's hand nearly turned blue due to his pink band being more like a tourniquet. The setting was the building used at the BDO as the Boiler Room - the room was fenced off in the middle, the back half being the licensed section.

We were treated to Audioslave's eponymous album on the sound system and then Fear Factory came on. I've never seen a sea of people doing the sign of satan before (the index and little finger salute thingy) - it is so cliched at such events nowadays. They launched into 'Edgecrusher' first up - one of their better-known heavier ones off 'Obsolete'. Watching the band I was quite disappointed to see that the "double kick" I was hearing was actually an electronic effect obtained by holding down the pedal on a bass drum. The crowd were very energetic and active and most seemed to know almost every song they played. After 9 songs that were basically electronic double-kick, screaming and unimaginative tuned-down guitars, they finished up with their new single (for which they filmed a video in Fremantle on Sunday) and a song called Replica. A number of websites join me in noting there were no songs from the 'Digimortal' album or anything vaguely melodic (although FF are more than capable - cf. 'Resurrection', 'Descent', 'Timelessness' or even the choruses on 'Digimortal'). Clearly this was aimed at the heavy crowd. There is a new FF album in the air - many will know the band basically broke up in 2002 but they're back, with one changed member (the bass player is now the guitarist, and there's a new bass player).

We went outside as it had gotten very hot inside, and listened to Static X from outside while I shared my friend Brad's idea of a death metal parody band with Steven. I admit that Static X bored me, but then I'm the guy who managed to shock a 16yo by falling asleep while listening to a White Zombie album turned up loud on his walkman, so I can always pull surprises.

While waiting for Korn, we heard almost the entire of Queens of the Stone Age's "Rated R" album on the sound system. As I'd chosen to wear my QOTSA t-shirt to the gig, I was getting plenty of thumbs-up from surrounding fans.

Korn arrived on stage to kick off with "Right Now", then "Break Some Off", probably their two heaviest songs and both off their new album. It was clear from pretty early on that they were superior to the previous bands both technically and musically - I had been expecting something of a freak show after seeing the BDO 99 videos, but we got a rock band in good shape, Jonathon Davis in a good mood, and an awesome light show. They were up for 2 hours and it was pretty much a retrospective on their whole career - a highlight was when they unexpectedly kicked into a cover of Metallica's "One" at the end of another song. The first hour, the crowd was very active, bouncing around and moving... I think I lost at least a kilo in sweat :P Second hour though was much quieter as everyone was basically tired out. Korn well and truly made it a great night out, even though my upper back and knees weren't thanking me the next day. :P Among the songs they played was 'Faget' (not misspelled) off their first album - a very interesting choice given the full-on testosterone metal crowd they'd mostly managed to attract - and yet it went down well. I've often wondered if this song was actually the counterpoint to Pearl Jam's 'Jeremy'.

We drove home playing Korn at loud volume to the enjoyment of a number of passing motorists (most of whom were on the way home from the same event) and the chagrin of some old couple who tried to blind Steven's driver side mirror with their headlights after we passed them.

P.S. After hearing Muse at Big Day Out two weeks ago, I have to say I've really gotten into them - particularly Stockholm Syndrome and Butterflies & Hurricanes. Anyone who wants the BDO setlist, which I've made into a 51-minute mini album for use in my CD walkman, let me know.

Happy New Year!

2004-01-01T16:31:00.000+08:00

Happy new year to all! As I write this, Vancouver's just clicked over into 2004, so a special New Year's greeting to those of my friends who are there.

I celebrated last night by first going with my friend Steven into Northbridge (where I bumped into vyxn), and then off to Lord Street overpass from where we had a great vantage point to watch the fireworks. We had a mini United Nations on top of the bridge and I phoned 1194 and got to hear them say "At the third stroke, it will be twelve...o'clock...precisely" and beep in the new year. (This sounds incredibly geeky, but it was fun)

The police had practically killed off Scarborough (I think we saw over 50 police and about 10 kids there) and I later heard Cottesloe was kind of the same. While I'm all for maintaining order, 99% of those kids (while maybe intoxicated) were there to have fun, and did so without offending anybody. It seems they all moved up to the coastal town of Lancelin, which was our next stop.

We decided on a whim to go there, and 1.25 hours and 120km later, we were there. The place, to which I'd never been before, was absolutely full of people, mostly underage, and we heard there'd been some problems earlier in the night and the small contingent of police had been overwhelmed. That being said, the majority of the teenagers were either sitting around at the cafe or were "happy drunk" and wishing anybody within sight a Happy New Year. We stayed there for about an hour and walked around, then went back to Perth and checked out the beaches as the sun rose.

I hope everyone else had a happy New Year's festivities (unlike my parents, who have been arguing about theirs ever since I woke up this afternoon) and that everything you wish for comes to you in 2004.

Merry Christmas, and Political Compass

2003-12-25T19:30:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas, all :)

And have a look at politicalcompass.org - it's a six-part quiz designed by some academics that gives you some esoteric measurement of where you sit on the political scale. Mine came out as -7.00 (economic left) and -4.92 (libertarian), placing me somewhere near Nelson Mandela (none of which actually surprised me a great deal, but hey :)

Interesting reading list too... will have to take a peek at some of the stuff they recommend.

Political/news rant

2003-11-13T05:39:00.000+08:00

Political/news rant
Part 1 - According to ABC Radio, it would seem that freedom fighters are the least of the US troops' worries in Iraq. Report says that "gorillas...are forming together in units of two and three and attacking sporadically". Some of them are coming down from the mountains, too.

Part 2 - Our REAL unemployment figure is not that which is quoted by the Government - something I've known for a long time but nice to see it making the news for once.

Part 3 - It seems that George Bush Sr predicted the trouble that has befallen Iraq in his 1998 autobiography. (There's quite a few issues with Jr's autobiography - check this out for an interesting read!)

I quote from the West Australian, Monday 10 November 2002, p17:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles." "We had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Randomness

2003-11-04T16:57:00.000+08:00

Nothing much happening, but just thought I'd paste this hilarious clipping from Scuttle Bytes in the 'West Australian':

"Guess it's too soon to throw out human input altogether just yet. News from France this week revealed the lack of a human supervisor for the country's national weather forecastings ystem had led to a bit of a stuff-up after a small spider built its web on a weather sensor.

The unassuming arachnid's spot of home-building - on one of Meteo France's automatic weather sensors, which transmits its data every morning to a central computer without any human evaluation - promptly resulted in a snow alert for the western French city of Dinard. Apparently the spider web was covered with dew which crystallised overnight, leading the computer to diagnose a winter wonderland and suggest residents should start building snowmen.

"These things happen," shrugged a Meteo France spokesman. "Sometimes we have birds build their nests in the transmitters and distort the data."

Wonder what kind of weather forecast that throws up?"

In other news, while I'm in Melbourne next month, Australia will be able to celebrate having a population of 20 million. We've still got a while to go before we overtake the Canadians, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. And we've already left the Dutch behind in our post-natal smoke. :P

It's Jihad on the roads today!

2003-09-24T01:16:00.000+08:00

I work in an area which sees me in a remote corner of suburbia after midnight, so taxis at odd times of the morning are a daily reality for me. Anyway, I had two freaky taxidrivers in a row getting home this week. (For those that don't know, I get home at midnight every night, so my work pays for a taxi).

Last night's one was a rather large 45-50yo man who has a Theology degree and wants to write a history of the Anglican church. I could swear he was giving me the eye the whole time I was in his cab. It's curious actually how when I phone that cab company on certain nights I always get the same driver, sometimes with a long delay attached.

The one tonight was a nice enough bloke, an Arabic guy called Abdullah in his mid-20s. As soon as he ascertained I was liberal minded on international affairs, he was trying to convert me to Islam. I think his driving was rather too close to God than I'd have liked - he was swerving all over the highway. During the trip, he told me in a soft voice that Osama bin Laden was not really a bad man and he's been "made bad speak - bad, BAD speak" by the West, who framed him for Sep 11. Apparently he was a good man who could get Muslims their rights and the Americans saw this and freaked out, so had to frame him so they could kill him. He, however, wished it had been God and not CIA agents who "punished" America for being "a bad land with lots of evil sin". He spent the last 2 minutes jubilantly telling me how he can now get Al Jazeera via a satellite TV card he got installed in his computer, and even offering me the name and mobile number of a guy who works in an electronics store and could even get me Jihad TV if I wanted it as well.

I should write more about the taxidrivers I get. Some are pretty boring, but I get a high quotient of freaks, as well as some reasonably nice people.

Sex, lies and videotape ... and the odd war or two

2003-09-11T17:15:00.000+08:00

I've come out of media blackout early, as it seems the Sep 11 coverage was a bit of a fizzer. I think we can thank Iraq for that. Even the normally right-wing 'West Australian' had a half page piece yesterday which pretty much said the American administration had expended the goodwill from September 11 by their actions in Iraq and elsewhere.

One trend I've noticed in the last 6-9 months in particular is here in Australia, people are now quite openly anti-America and anti-Israel - not militantly, but in attitude - whereas if they were before, it wasn't really fashionable to say so. I was sitting on the train on Wednesday listening to a pair of ladies in their 30s, who may have been bank employees judging by their uniform, discussing how the war on and occupation of Iraq would be seen by Bob and Betty Baghdad, as they put it, as criminal. Another guy was saying during a discussion about faces on TV that he turns off the TV every time George Bush is on it as "only the Americans would elect such a f***ing retard". Our media, which used to report largely from CNN and NBC, now has shifted towards the BBC and is more inclined to report contrary views to the Americans coming from respectable quarters.

In the 90s, the mood in Australia was strongly pro-Israel. Now it's the reverse. People here generally think that the Israelis are in the wrong and should give the land back to the Palestinians. Our government, despite its own neo-conservative leanings (and its own issues with giving land back to dispossessed natives), has stayed relatively neutral in the debate, largely I suspect because of fear of our near neighbours and - probably more likely - our trading relationships with them. Most people seem to believe that if the Palestinian problem had been solved, 11 Sep 2001 would never have happened.

Another trend I've noticed is that all the stuff us self-identified lefties knew about US's dodgy foreign policy aims years ago is now public knowledge. Pretty much everyone knows about Chile, Guatemala, the Iran-Contra affair and what really went on in Afghanistan back in the 80s.

I'm writing an article on this for a friend of mine's magazine, which I'll link to once it's up and happening, but the argument is basically looking at the history of the modern superpower, and whether the superpower is in fact a relic of 1900s history that ought to be left there. It's also looking at whether Australia, New Zealand and Canada, working together, could be a collaborative superpower not unlike the EU - I don't actually see why not. The article will also evaluate the EU and China, and why I feel that they have what it takes to be superpowers but are held back by massive problems that can only get worse.

Genuinely scary stuff

2003-04-08T17:54:00.000+08:00

Project for the New American Century

Look at some of the signatures on the statement of principles...

Oh and this Guardian article...

Sheep and media language

2003-04-01T16:54:00.000+08:00

I am tired of sheep on the Iraq issue. I noticed after Sep 11 a lot of people simply regurgitating the White House / CNN line on the war, without even thinking to question it. Similarly I've heard anti-war people who repeat the same sentences I've heard in the alternative media without thinking to question those either. I thought the whole point of being educated and being able to read and having the latest Internet technology in our homes was that we could research and find out for ourselves what our truth was (Seeing as we never will know the truth as all sides are biased, we can only find our own truth.) I'm strongly anti-war and believe the US administration has other reasons for fighting than noble ones, but at least I can argue my case instead of participating in this cheap and polarising sloganeering campaign that seems to be taking hold amongst the populace.

I'm also tired of several media terms which have been done to death in the coverage. I think we should introduce a financial penalty system where the journalists and networks using certain terms should be fined and the proceeds donated to the UN to cover their $2.2b shortfall for the oil-for-food program.

My list of terms which should be banned (and who to blame for their widespreadedness):

Weapons of Mass Destruction - as someone said on the BBC Talking Point program, "don't all weapons cause mass destruction?" I mean seriously, if they didn't, the armies should be taking them back for a refund. Besides, don't the US own more than the rest of the world combined? We have the US administration to blame for this term's overuse.

Hearts and Minds - Yes, let's win the "hearts and minds of the Iraqi people" by bombing the crap out of them. We can blame the British military for this one.

Shock and Awe - Doesn't this sound like something you'd hear at the local pub in a conversation about footy? "Oh, yeah, shock 'n' awe, maaate!" As it turned out, the only "shock and awe" we noticed was on the reporters' faces. US.

Military Target - usually named after the fact. There are as many of these as al-Qa'ida deputies (Have you noticed how many deputy leaders this organisation has when Western military forces are capturing or killing them? That organisation is very top-heavy!). All sides.

Collateral Damage - Notice that if fully-trained military men are ambushed by a suicide bomber, it is "terrorism", but if they drop bombs and kill 50 civilians (including children, presumably without full military training) who were shopping at the local market, this Gulf War relic is rolled out from the archives to describe the situation. Mainly US.

Friendly Fire - I'm sure the British and US soldiers getting killed and maimed by their own armies would disagree that the fire was, in fact, friendly in nature. It neither shows friendship, nor is it inclined to help or support, nor is it amicable in spirit, nor does it entail points in a competition (unless you happen to be a gambling Iraqi). All sides.

Embedded Media - New to this war, it refers to media who travel with the troop regiments. It was meant to be a propaganda force for the US/British forces but instead has become an information nightmare for them. For me, though, embedded media conjures up images of really tacky MIDI music on a webpage. US and British administration.

Chemical Weapons - Last time I checked, gunpowder and TNT were a mixture of chemicals. So, oddly enough, is the human body, the universe, and the NEC phone sitting on my desk, which is mostly made of different types of plastic, circuitboard, and bits of silicon and steel. Not really sure who to blame.

Regime - I have a dictatorial regime ruling over my body. It's called a diet. Should it be eliminated? Notice how the subtle distinction between "administration" (US), "government" (allied governments or those it doesn't want to piss off) and "regime" (obviously evil!) are played off. We don't hear much about the Saudi or Kuwaiti regimes, though. Primarily US (although my Macquarie suggests we blame the French. Hell, why not?)

Freedom Fries/Toast - If we need any other reminders that the US (insert word here - see "regime" entry) should not be in charge of the rest of the world for want of maturity, this is it. US House of Reps Canteen & Air Force One.

Exporting Terrorism - I'm just trying to imagine how that would look on a balance of trade report.

---
Enough bitching for one day.

Christians in Iraq

2003-03-26T06:57:00.000+08:00

Emailed to me by a Christian friend, who got it from his pastor.

---
Still not sure how you feel about the idea of the U.S. attacking Iraq? Some ministers are warning against military action because it could have 'disastrous results' for Iraqi Christians. UK minister Graham Cooke told delegates at a conference that while Saddam Hussein had no faith and was a secular politician, "Hussein allowed Christian churches to exist as a way of keeping Islam in check. You know that once he gets killed there will be a bloodbath in that nation, and every Christian in that nation will likely be killed because they are on somebody's list right now." Cooke added: "We need to pray for Saddam Hussein right now. No matter what you think about it, this guy is the only one standing between the church in Iran and Iraq and a bloodbath. We need that guy alive because thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people are getting saved in the country. [Bible Society]
---

May I add to that that Tariq Aziz, probably the most recognisable face other than Saddam's outside of Iraq, and has served as both Foreign Minister and Deputy President, is a Christian, as is the family he comes from. Apart from the Palestinian areas, it's one of the few places in the Middle East where freedom of religion for non-Muslims actually exists (it wouldn't exist in Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, all major US allies). An interesting thought.

:(

2003-03-20T13:10:00.000+08:00

(Current music: U2's "MLK")

They've started bombing Baghdad. Apparently the first bombs have hit the southern suburbs.

I can't believe my government is doing this. What made us elect such evil and immoral leaders as the ones we have in the US, Britain and Australia? Democracy seems to have been the main thing that was hijacked on September 11, and not by the hijackers - but by the conservative faction of politics, who are now starting to show their neo-fascist "ethnic cleansing" leanings.

I guess I'd hoped right to the end that democracy and, ultimately, justice and fairness would win out. This is the start of a period in world history where "diplomacy" means "war preparations" and it is a free-for-all for any nation that has a beef with any other nation.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing... at all.

2003-03-10T21:00:00.000+08:00

I went and saw "I am trying to break your heart", the movie about the band Wilco and more to the point the making of, and subsequent politics and being messed around surrounding the album "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot". It was really good. I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in music at the cutting edge - Wilco are basically a fairly ordinary bunch of guys who make music which means something. I had the chance to see them at Big Day Out 03, and they were definitely a highlight. Those who were also there (or have seen Wilco live anywhere) will understand the subject line. It has an added meaning after the movie.

Previous day I was at the CARAD dinner to support post-detention refugees. While I think I was one of the few people under 30 present, it was worth it for the excellent food prepared in traditional style by the refugees, and also for the opportunity to meet Ali, aged 20, a very well-spoken and intelligent Afghan refugee (who apparently couldn't speak a word of English 3 years ago!) who represents both the pain of the refugees and their experiences in Australia, and the hope which many of these people can be provided with by those of us in Australia who support their cause.

By George! (music)

2003-03-04T16:49:00.000+08:00

Went to the concert on Saturday night with Steven, and both of us were so impressed that not only did we go on the Sunday night (including queueing for over an hour to get tickets), but I managed to drag my parents along as well.

Both the support acts were shockers though. The first was Hip Mo' Toast, with lead singer Libby Hammer. Despite their claims otherwise ('this is a dance number', 'this one's different', 'we don't just do jazz', 'here's some cha cha for you'), it was 80 minutes of rather boring lounge jazz. Kind of like the stuff you enjoy while eating at the Sheraton, but not at an open air concert. The second (on Sunday) was the Honeyriders, who sounded like Leonardo's Bride meets 4 Non Blondes - basically acoustic rock with some girl singing fairly tunelessly over the top in a husky voice. They were better than the jazz though.

Then George and WASO came on and it was all good. The setlist was as follows:

Intro by Dean Clairs of MIX 94.5 (lame badly-scripted puns, repeated in same order on Sunday night)

WASO conducted by Paul Mann - "Unchained Melody" by Graeme Koehne (not same tune as the one of 'Ghost' fame)

George onstage -
Bastard Son (w/intro)
Rain (with gratuitous references to George Bush and Tony Blair inserted for humorous effect by Tyrone)
Breaking It Slowly ("this is our first political song" - written about CEOs and the dollar-first mentality, but can also be directed to "what's going on in the world right now")
Special Ones (Katie's first appearance on vocals)
Breathe In Now (brilliant)
Release

- interval -

Jon Lord introduced on stage
"Concerto for Group and Orchestra"
George - Spawn (with orchestra and Lord)
George - Run (same)

All in all it was absolutely awesome. Tyrone's voice came across live quite like Jeff Buckley, and Katie's was awesome - particularly on Release, Breathe In Now and Spawn (which has become my fave song for 2003 thus far - even though it's a 2000 song :P )

If you haven't heard this band, you should. You probably will anyway - this band are too good to be limited to just one country.

for those mathematically inclined

2003-02-28T17:13:00.000+08:00

(well, those with a calculator and too much free time, anyway :)

Just noticed something

have a look at the multiples of 125²/7² (15625/49), especially 10x, 20x, 30x... as the phenomenon is a little more noticeable.

Except for the first two, each two digits (allowing for 100's carryovers on occasion) is a double of the previous.

How cool is that? Found it while trying to figure out how far bullets fired into the air can travel, after reading an oddball news report.

Composite noticeboard entry

2003-02-13T17:02:00.000+08:00

7/1/03
ABC's offbeat news section. Well worth a read.

5/2/03
A US person who's lived in Pakistan for many years writes one of the most interesting articles I've seen in a while with a unique insight into both mindsets, coming out with a plea for peace, love and tolerance under the banner of God instead of the diatribe being released by the US government.

Also a more general article which was also interesting.

7/2/03
All these AFIO newsletters are good reading, but this one in particular grabbed my attention:

Memorable quote:

A listing of some two dozen alleged al-Qaeda operatives and financiers' names compiled by Justice and Treasury officials was passed to Saudi Arabian authorities with a request that the bank accounts of the individuals be frozen. The Saudis, when they stopped laughing, told the US the list amounted to a bunch of nicknames, Arabic versions of mobster handles such as "Vinny the Chin."

7/2/03
re - Emergency calls (in particular people phoning 000 after the Waterfall train crash near Sydney) (ABC)

11/2/03
news article re: falsity of Iraq dossier (Channel 4 article) - Only a matter of time before we find out about the Powell one, I guess.

(update) BBC article as well.

13/2/03
The Mt Stromlo Observatory, a critical component of our national science program, was destroyed in the Canberra fires recently. The admin buildings survived as did most of the data - but they need our help to rebuild the rest.

Islam Open Day, Perth

2003-01-14T16:55:00.000+08:00

Just thought I'd write something about the Islam open weekend in Perth. The first part was at the Daa Wah Cultural Centre in Cannington, where we ate ridiculous amounts of free food in between learning about why Muslim women wear the hijab (the covering surrounding the head so the face is visible), some of the more routine beliefs and practices (including watching them praying), and a heap of other things. The second day was at the Perth Mosque which was sort of a question-and-answer session about Islam - I wondered why some of the people bothered to turn up there, their only purpose seemed to be trying (badly) to convert people to Christianity or Baha'i.

I think overall this was a great move by the Islamic community to improve community awareness of their real beliefs and ideas, however the problem is that with this sort of move you're only going to attract more open- or broad-minded people, and the ones they're really trying to reach simply won't go.

Just luck or what?

2003-01-03T17:44:00.000+08:00

On 6 December 2002 I arrived at the bottom of Arthur's Seat on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne, after walking from one of the Dromana stops on Nepean Highway, to get the chairlift ... and was 2 minutes too late to go on it, it had closed for the day. Unperturbed, I followed the line underneath the chairlift across the road, stood up alongside a large pylon and took a photo. When I get home I'll scan this photo in and post it here.

And on today's news... I'll let it speak for itself actually. Note this appeared as one of the only two Australian stories on the BBC today.

The pylon that collapsed, if the info the news has contained so far is correct, was the one I was standing against, and the bit of road was the same one I crossed.

I think sometimes the universe just steps in to keep us safe. Who really knows? Feeling somewhat humbled at the moment...

Happy New Year!

2002-12-31T17:41:00.000+08:00

Hope you have a great year in 2003! I'm hoping it'll be better than 2002 (which wouldn't be hard...) and by all indications it looks like it could be. I'll try not to jinx it though...

One Nation - or should that be Two Nations?

2002-11-13T17:25:00.000+08:00

Here's some humour for you. If you don't know anything about Australia's politics, One Nation is a simple-solutions far right wing party, which was until this year headed by a former fish-and-chip shop lady, Pauline Hanson. Anywhere that they have actually ended up with seats in parliament though, they're about as successful as a dead fish because of bitter infighting.

One Nation row in court
By Steve Pennells and David Darragh
The West Australian, 13/11/02, page 34

The battle for control of One Nation WA will shift to the Supreme Court as the patry's disputed State president fights to keep hold of the position.

Ron McLean lodged a writ on Monday in a bid to stop party members meeting this month to elect a new State executive. The action comes after a One Nation split that has seen both camps deny the other's authority to represent the party.

One group controls One Nation's bank accounts and post office box.
The other, led by Mr McLean, controls the telephone lines.

IN the writ, Mr McLean claims his election in July, and that of the rest of the executive, was legitimate and should be held valid. A meeting by what he called breakaway members on October 12 to overturn their appointment was not legitimate, he claims.

He seeks the return of the party's electoral file, stationery, petty cash and other documents allegedly taken from One Nation's Victoria Park office last month and wants to regain access to mail and bank accounts.

In a separate action, a One Nation member seeking restraining orders against the party's two MLCs [Members of the Legislative Council] and another party member appeared in Midland Magistrate's Court. Marye Daniels, 57, who claims to be the party's State secretary, wants orders against MLCs Frank Hough and John Fischer and member John Mania. She appeared yesterday over her bid for an order against Mr Fischer.

Ms Daniels claims the men have threatened her. The men say Ms Daniels lost her post at the October meeting and is trying to discredit them. The three applicatiosn have been set down for a hearing on December 10.

The MLCs are recognised by Parliament as One Nation MPs despite an opposing faction's claim that they have been expelled from the party.

Quick rant about tourism

2002-11-02T02:24:00.000+08:00

The tourist operators in other states complain about the lack of tourists coming their way, and in particular the lack of repeat tourists. There are repeated campaigns to get them not to stay at home, but they do. I wonder why?

As one of the determined few who goes to the non-mainstream sorta places like SA, Tas and ACT, I've found out the tourism infrastructure (with the exception of SA, which has an excellent infrastructure) just doesn't exist. You have to deal with public utilities which are downright rude to you, you can't get to anywhere nice without paying a packet unless you have a hire car, and nothing seems coordinated. In fact it's the picture of chaos! You go to tourist agencies and they try to sell you their particular tour, which of course only goes to the places they want to go to and is a whistlestop tour, only long enough to take a quick photo. Or, like Canberra, nestled right next to the Snowy Mountains, there are *no* organised tours from Canberra to the Snowy Mountains - you have to get a regular coach to somewhere else and then do it from there. The tour I'm going on around Tasmania is probably the best, and is very well run, but once you're off the tour you're once again at the mercies of the local conditions. I was trying to get to Longford and Perth (about 18km out of Launceston) but have now given up on that as an impossible prospect given the times I am there - which is silly considering I could drive there in under quarter of an hour if I had a car. So basically, self-paced tours are impossible, unlike in WA, NSW or VIC in particular where I've pretty much gone anywhere I've wanted to go within 100-200km of where I am.

In Canberra, the cafe district seems to practically shut down at 6pm in the city, and if you're lucky, after walking around for ages, you might stumble on Happy's Chinese Restaurant, which is hopelessly overcrowded (although nice decor), but actually has really good food (once they serve you). Canberra Airport services do not run on weekends and the public transport system (which is ridiculously expensive for a city of Canberra's size - roughly $10 a day on weekdays and $6 on weekends) does not extend to anywhere near there. Apart from the parliament houses they don't go to any of the tourist sites (telstra tower, space research centre, etc) - you have to get a horribly overpriced taxi to it, which may or may not come, depending on whether the taxi service operator feels helpful or not. This was particularly a problem when I nearly missed a plane and the taxi operator just wanted to sit there and argue over which suburb I was actually in. Just imagine if I was a tourist from England or somewhere.

Oh, well. Their loss.

Anniversary rant

2002-09-11T16:42:00.000+08:00

This farce which is what the media and public coverage of September 11 has become is officially worse than Christmas, I think.

God help us if we've gotta put up with this every year! I hate to sound heartless, but this outpouring of mourning on the anniversary of September 11 (from people who only knew of it via the media) doesn't appear to me to be a very constructive thing. People, instead of getting on with their lives and realising maybe how precious their lives and their loved ones are, are dwelling on the past, crying over people they didn't even know at the other side of the world and vowing revenge against a faceless enemy (usually someone who looks very different and doesn't live next door). It's psychologically unhealthy to dwell on this sort of tragedy.

All this rhetoric about an assault on democracy and the free world utterly disgusts me too. They attacked a large building which was fairly important in a country known for its aggressive foreign policy, which is not beyond destroying millions of innocent civilians for essentially political reasons. America, or for that matter any Western nation, is not truly free - it's just bound by a different set of dogmas. The fact they seem familiar to us, living in an individualistic/capitalist Western society heavily influenced by Christianity, is the only reason that we take them for granted and assume they are right.

There is so much heartache and tragedy already in modern society.
It's different if you knew somebody who died, or lived in the area - that I can very much understand and my thoughts are with you.

But for the others, I ask you, why does this matter so much to you? I don't want to hear an answer that I could get by turning on my radio or opening my newspaper (which I've chosen not to do today). I'm asking *you* personally, if you feel that way, why *you* feel that way. Why does this tragedy, as opposed to other tragedies which may even be on a much bigger scale, matter so much? Is it because of the media attention given to it by our American-dominated commercial television networks? Do your thoughts merely echo what was said on these networks?

OK, I'm over it. Back to work. :)

Update: The first anniversary was also the last to be truly commemorated. I came out of my 2003 blackout a day early to find noone was talking about it. It's amazing how quickly the US squandered their goodwill from 2001.

Music - Tool Review

2002-05-05T03:18:00.000+08:00

Originally posted on toolshed.down.net:

I was totally blown away - after reading the other Aus setlists and finding Undertow heavily featured I was pleasantly surprised to get FOUR Aenima songs including 46 & 2 and Jimmy, and the extended stinkfist. This has been my best concert experience ever and I'd like to share a little of it with you :)

The full setlist:

1. A long humming thing with the wreath logo on the videos.
2. The Grudge. Maynard had his back to the crowd right until Disposition came on.
3. Short (-) ions intro immediately led into Stinkfist (extended version) with some extra lyrics which appear to be from Suspicious Minds, and another instrumental extension (the latter the same as the Atlanta 15/5/01 bootleg).
4. 46 & 2 - the drum solo coming into the final instrumental was striking. What can I say? :) Maynard said "Good evening" at the end of it.
5. Aeon Blue leading into Parabola.
6. Schism. Now it was my opinion and that of a couple of others that the verses were off key although the instrumentals in between were fine :) In the middle, there was this long haunting A minor chord on some kind of synthesiser(?) with the Osseus Labyrint people walking on all fours kind of like a horse or cow, after about 2 mins the song resumed with the picked solo from Adam.
7. Sober.
8. Jimmy - Preceded with "We don't do this one often, it's about finding your way home. I want you all to join..."
9. An extended instrumental piece which I did not recognise, it wasn't an Aenima segue. Very understated and led in from Jimmy.
10. Disposition/Reflection - What can I say? The bass in Reflection just totally soaked the entire venue, it was warm and wonderful :)
11. Adam played the closing notes from Reflection for around 6.5 minutes.
12. Intermission - video of Parabol/Parabola
13. Triad - Very different to studio version but recognisable (I thought it might be Eulogy or Disgustipated until the guitar screeching about a minute in!). A lot more African drumming and Osseus Labyrint on trapeze, with the guitarist from the Melvins openly competing with Adam and the Melvins drummer on a small set of drums to the right of Danny.
14. Aenema - preceded by "We'd like to thank you for sharing this moment with us, and thank the Melvins for joining us this tour. They will be leaving us this evening to fly to Los Angeles ... if its still there". The faster drumming sounded almost like the sort of thunder you hear in Ticks & Leeches studio version, but it was otherwise faithful to the original. I watched carefully for changed lyrics in the "fret for" section but they were the usual ones. Maynard changed around the first and second stanzas of "fuck l ron hubbard" though, that became the second stanza.
15. Lateralus.

Update: The West Australian also reviewed this show, but it was clear they had been at a different event and read too many fake reviews.

Political rant (Middle East)

2002-03-31T07:26:00.000+08:00

Most people know what's going on in Israel and the Occupied Territories at the moment. For whatever maniacal reason, Mr Sharon is spearheading a campaign which seems set to destroy Mr Arafat. What's worse is he even has US support - so much for being committed to a war on terrorism. In Palestine, the army terrorise innocent civilians by bulldozing their houses and shooting them point blank, and fringe militants retaliate by going into populated parts of Israel and blowing themselves up. The US calls on Arafat to somehow find and punish these terrorists, with his destroyed police stations, demoralised police force, from his house arrest location in Ramallah, about 10km from Jerusalem. I have no idea how Arafat could go about doing this, or even why he should.

By getting rid of Arafat, though, his government is actively getting rid of any moderate Palestinian support for a peace deal with Israel. There are 7,000,000 Palestinians and 3,600,000 Jews in the region, and the Palestinians have broad support from the entire Arab world (even as far away as the Comoros Islands, east of Mozambique in southern Africa). What Sharon's government is doing is giving the extremist groups such as Hamas legitimacy within the Palestinian people, and a martyr to avenge. And the result will NOT be good.

The US is too concerned with getting votes from its Jewish population in the north eastern states of America to act in a right and proper manner in the face of state terrorism. The end result may very well be the end of the Israeli state, which would have been assured had Sharon accepted Saudi Arabia's peace deal last week.

I find it deeply saddening that the continuing bloodshed is going on and people seem to think it's inevitable. I am a descendent of Czech and Austrian Jews (non practicing - they were Catholics) and 13 members of my family were killed in concentration camps (and 2, including my great uncle, narrowly escaped). However I know that the majority of Jews, as human beings, would deplore these actions and I in fact know one or two who have told me, "Do not tar all Israelis and Jews with Sharon's brush - We want peace too". There's also Israeli peace groups like B'Tselem which are definitely worthy targets of your funds if you're of a philanthropic bent.

But who's listening? And until someone does, this will not end.

Whinge, whinge (A musical post)

2002-03-04T06:38:00.000+08:00

I just feel like whinging about music.

I have 4 favourite bands, 2 of which have now split up, and there's a very real possibility the other two, which are now considered veterans of their respective styles, will break up inside the next 2-3 years at the most.

In about 6 years, I don't want to be one of these 29-30yos I laughed at a few years ago who listened entirely to bands that are extinct and just persistently whinge about the state of current music and how crappy it is and how it was so much better in my day. I guess I just have this thing about growing old, and so long as I can *feel* young I don't care.

I was reminded of a bold prediction a friend of mine made as a 17yo in 1990 that by his 20th birthday, heavy metal as it was then would be completely dead. As it was so entrenched and still regularly getting top 10 singles/albums, everyone laughed at him ... and then by July 21st, 1993, he proved to be right. I think the current trend of popular music will be flushed out as soon as kids get bored of it, and it always seems to be those "change" periods where the record labels can't quite figure out what style to flog, that the bands with real talent come to the surface. Just think how many good bands came to the fore in 1991-1993 ... not all of them lasted out the decade, but it was a good era in music. I hope there'll be another one very soon, so that way by the time I'm 30 there'll be current bands for picky, bitchy people like me to listen to :P

Update - In October 2005, one of those bands (Tea Party) broke up, although it's still alive in the form of its lead singer Jeff Martin who has now gone solo. Tool released a somewhat sub-par album in May 2006. Thankfully, I got into other stuff along the way ... although I'm still waiting for that "change" period to come, both popular and alternative music have utterly stagnated. (23/05/06)

Kingsway and ethics

2002-02-12T02:09:00.000+08:00

I am an ex-student of Kingsway (year 11-12, 1994-1995), the school which last week decided to expel an 8 year old gifted and talented student because his mum was living in a defacto relationship. The story can be found on a number of links here.

I am thoroughly stunned at the way my former school has handled this issue, both initially and then in the media. They have failed to show any standard of true Christian leadership, instead willing to let a few extreme fundamentalists (probably those that shouted the loudest) control the school's policies. Their inability to admit they were wrong in the first instance also shows a lack of courage - they evidently hold some parents as more important as the rest in this parent-controlled school. However I am aware this is not the first time the school has contravened the rules of fairness and reality with regard to its students, and I also realise that far from being a simple excuse to shoot one school down, there are far greater issues which this raises for many religious schools and institutions, that need to be looked at.

In 1999/2000, one of Kingsway's teachers, there since 1995, was convicted of sexually abusing various girls in his care. The most disconcerting thing for me was not the obvious - it was the fact that the parents of some of the girls had raised complaints with the school board that had been ignored, and in at least one instance which made it to the media, the parents were harassed by the other parents until they and their children (the victims) left the school. The guy is still in jail to my knowledge. Also, while I was there, the dubious past history of another teacher, who was there for several years and acted quite suspiciously at times, was deliberately suppressed by the school, who quoted union pressure as being the reason for not sacking the teacher.

While I am more a Deist than a Christian nowadays, I still accept the teachings of Christ insofar as they can be reliably established.

"Do not judge, lest you be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will yourself be judged." Matt 7:1-2

Why then are Kingsway's parent board judging this woman as unfit to be a parent at the school? It seems that it's more time and place - another parent, as one of the news articles indicates, is quite willing to stand up and say that, as a defacto for 3 years (now married), she was tolerated at the school, simply because, although her status was known, no-one made a complaint.

My perception of Christian organisations at large has been that few are willing to assume true moral leadership. I guess the notion that one could or would may be abhorrent to some people, but I think that a group genuinely devoted to the things Jesus has gone on record as saying would be able to make a strong and positive difference to society. Many of the stands taken by the Christian church today on many issues run contrary to the basic message which he taught. Simply condemning people one doesn't like, and perhaps twisting Bible verses to back one's claims, is easy, and shows no leadership whatsoever.

"Love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. [Deut 6:5] This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it - Love your neighbour as yourself. [Lev 19:18] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matt 22:37-40)

The entire Gospel summarises a state whereby the Judaic religion had fallen into a state of excessive legalism, encouraged by the guardians of the law, the Pharisees and Levites. Jesus routinely condemned these people as hypocrites. We receive a picture of a man who talked with Samaritans, touched lepers, had a tax-collector for a follower, and showed compassion towards an adulterer and even towards those who killed him. And yet he could righteously have judged all of them, as he himself was without sin.

What does that say to Christians today? In the churches I have been in, they have made this clear distinction between "world" and "worldly" things, and "Godly" things. It's a what's in and what's out list, and it fails to take note of the fact that Christ never meant his followers to be a little insular group who hang around in little cliques at church.

Furthermore, leave the judging to God. There's instances where judging of one's behaviour within certain rules is acceptable. For instance, a student who repeatedly breaks school rules (eg bullying other students, damaging property, etc) who is given many opportunities to reform could quite rightly be expelled from the school as a last resort. A person at a church whose sole reason for being there appears to be to disagree with all present in a negative, confrontational sense on a continuing basis may quite fairly be asked to leave. The above two examples are not judging in the sense the above verse meant it, anyway. The above examples are merely ensuring the good governance and order of a group of people on standards which are human-derived. To judge in this sense means to say one is right or wrong before God, or to make a statement that someone is "living in sin" (which has been used a few times in this debate).

To do this is to presume that one knows what God actually thinks, and to say that you know and another who is Christian doesn't know is quite blatantly trying to fill shoes a human can't.

Being a Deist has its advantages - we say that we can't know what God thinks, because revelation through man is inherently impossible.

Posted at a previous blog.

PO Box Oddities

2002-02-10T21:31:00.000+08:00

I emptied my old PO box today (first time in 8 months). Its contents were as follows:

- a letter saying "Welcome to Telstra Messagebank" with welcome pack dated the day after I cancelled the service after 8 months of use.
- several letters from Global, despite the fact I changed my address with their people.
- a rejection letter dated August 2001 for a job I went for in January of that year. (I got the job I'm now in in June 2001.)
- various letters to a Mr G. Roy about whom I know nothing.
- a "Private and Confidential" to my then housemate, postmarked August.
- a request to pay on delivery $11.48 to the post office for a package which, it seems, was addressed to a Mr R. Owen and somehow ended up in my PO box after some clever forwarding. I didn't pay it. The Post office can keep their package :)

Says it all, really...

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

2001-12-01T02:52:00.000+08:00

..today at 11:35am on Ansett Mark II, flight AN342, to Adelaide. It's amazing to think I can travel that far in just 3 hours - the wonders of modern flight.

For those who wish to know, the distance between Perth and Adelaide is not dissimilar to that between Belfast, N.Ireland, and Istanbul, Turkey, or between Los Angeles CA and Birmingham AL - it's about 2,600 km.

My itinerary is as follows:
1 Jan - 5 Jan Adelaide (staying in Adelaide Int'l Motel, Glenelg)
5 Jan - 10 Jan Melbourne (staying at Hotel Claremont, South Yarra)
10 Jan - 16 Jan Canberra

My road blog will be updated as I travel.

Weird stuff.

2001-11-15T19:05:00.000+08:00

Two people seem to have found my Sep 11 page via Google, it seems - basic as it may be.

Anyway, I just wanted to publish the two completely opposing responses just for a laugh. The first is so extreme that I think even most right wing commentators would strongly disagree with it. The second is surprisingly refreshing.

Response # 1:

"I saw what u wrote, I found it on google yesterday. u must be a terrorist cuz afghanistan deserves all it gets frmo the US, if thye have to kill every last one of those islamic bastards to pay for 9/11 then it must be done. and the serbians? well they got their reward, we shoulda nuked em. fucking animal I hope you die with osama bin lamer, enjoy fucking him in hell mate!"

Response # 2:

"Your page, while small, showed a level of insight that's really been lacking in this whole situation, and gave us a valuable opportunity to see non-mainstream views (i.e. those that promote the value of human life generally) of the conflict. I honestly hope you expand on what you've done and write even more. It's sad that many people who've taken the non-mainstream line have also swallowed implausible conspiracy theories and I'm glad to see that you've avoided that temptation. Keep up the good work."

Nice sterile letter for consumption of the masses.

2001-11-08T18:49:00.000+08:00

I saw the anti-gay-rights protest outside Parliament House today. Part of me was amused by the spectacle, and part of me deeply saddened that the representatives of Christianity, whose message is one of hope or redemption for *all*, actually believe their own garbled form of the message. Margaret Court (former champion tennis player) of Victory Life Centre, and Barry Hickey, the Catholic archbishop of Perth, were among the speakers. For those not aware, the WA Catholic Church has its own skeletons - in particular with regard to their treatment of orphans and others at the Christian Brothers schools.

Link 1 (Lateline)
Link 2 (Lateline)
Link 3

For the record, I used to be a member of one of the more extreme Protestant churches (used to be known as Rhema) - Margaret Court went to this church before starting her own ministry. I left in 1995 because I became very concerned at the way things were going, some sections of the group were very cult-like in the way they operated.

Anyway, my letter:
-----
Dear Editor,

I was quite bemused to see the protest rally outside Parliament House yesterday, holding signs up like "Protect our young boys" and denouncing gay relationships.

Equally so that the representatives of a church which have paid millions in legal fees for their clergy's defence against some of the worst abuse cases WA has ever seen against young boys, were among the speakers at this rally.

I challenge the movements at the head of this protest to explain why they are so opposed to gay relationships being regarded the same as heterosexual defacto relationships, without using the word "immoral" or the words of the Bible. After all, the church regards these defacto relationships as being immoral and sinful too, so why single out gays?
-----

Update: predictably, The West didn't print it. Oh well. Some interesting letters did get published however:

1. Hooray, Kabul is free from the mob of vicious extremist thugs who have used their religious fundamentalism as justification for telling everyone else how they should live their lives.

Meanwhile here in WA, we have Margaret Court and her mob of fundamentalists, including the usual suspects among your letter writers, insisting that what God has told them on their personal hotline must override policies which our secular Government clearly declared before its democratic election [State election in Feb 2001].

- Nick Suess, Bayswater

---

2. I see that religion, once again, is being touted as an excuse for humans to inflict pain and suffering on others by forcing everyone to try to bend to their way of thinking.

How are these so-called Christians who voice their opinions against gay law reform on these pages any different to Osama bin Laden? He, too, wanted to make the world think as he does and he didn't care who was hurt or killed in the process - supposedly on orders from his god. At least bin Laden has an excuse - he is a madman. What excuse do they have?

- Ryan Nicholas, Maylands

General silliness (Time zones)

2001-11-02T17:46:00.000+08:00

Someone pointed out to me ... do you realise that America is behind the times?

No, I mean literally. The US is presently 5-8 hours behind GMT. Even Chile, which is at the far west of South America, is ahead of Maine and New York etc by one hour due to daylight saving there.

If that's the case though, Fiji is ahead of the times. Just imagine what implications that has!

Oh and on time zones, why is Singapore, Malaysia, Western Australia and the Philippines on the same time zone (GMT+8), yet Thailand, between them, is one hour ahead? Mysteries never cease :)

International phone costs

2001-11-01T17:48:00.000+08:00

OK, so I phoned a friend in the UK and we chatted for 15 minutes. More than a little concerned about my mobile bill for this call, I rang my mobile company to ascertain the rate to the UK and ...

It costs ONE THIRD of the per-minute cost to phone the UK as it does to phone a local number here in Perth on my mobile!!

As I thought, the world is truly mad ...

My world.(Elections and Afghanistan)

2001-10-31T17:58:00.000+08:00

Current music: Coldplay "Don't Panic" (am I a dreamer?)

Well, I'm at work again. Sometimes it seems my life has become a balance of working, sleeping, eating and listening to the problems of others. Not that any of those are bad things, just I don't seem to actually get out and do anything else.

Well, it's been 3 weeks to the day since my last entry. Why? Realistically, because nothing worth reporting has happened - it's either unimportant, too personal, or whatever.

I was reading a discussion in someone else's journal about the honesty etc of livejournal - I mean, we write here, with the full knowledge that anyone we give this link to, or who stumbles upon it, will read what is here. So yes, when writing here, one does leave out some personal stuff, and does to some extent present for an audience. However, I agree with whoever said it's a release sometimes - I find it very constructive to work through my thoughts and read some of the replies I get.

The only things really worth emphasising that have come up over the last three weeks are generally:

(1) Australian election campaign. I believe strongly that electing Howard for a third term would be a disaster for Australia. We have a government who puts money above any kind of social program. While Labor are certainly not *good*, just *not as bad*, their social programs and policies are certainly superior to the Liberals', and at least if they get in, things will not get worse (even if they only get a little better).

(2) I've become more and more convinced that this bombing campaign on Afghanistan is both fruitless and morally wrong. I have nothing against the punishment of terrorists - in fact I hope they're made to face up to the terror - but by bombing, we are killing hundreds/thousands, making millions more hungry and homeless, and I heard today they *still* don't know where Bin Laden is. And they don't even know for sure he did it - all they can prove, from his own statements is that he agreed with the actions. The weak justification I've heard for the campaign that the above is enough, doesn't explain why the US and other Western countries seemingly have no problems with terrorist organisations in a range of other countries who have done dastardly deeds against civilisation.

I also firmly believe violence breeds violence. Anyone, it seems, who points out that past actions by the US and its allies in various parts of the world amounted to interference and possibly even terrorism, and that this may have led, amongst other things, to the terrorists feeling the way they do about US and its allies, is denounced. This "for us or against us" mentality belongs in the Stone Age.

I do not believe "the US brought it on itself", because those who died were civilians who didn't authorise and weren't involved in the actions committed overseas by their government. Because of voluntary voting, any administration elected in the US can only claim 20% of the population even voted for them in the polls. But I think it is short-sighted not to see that if US foreign policy had have respected the rights of other nations, the terrorists who attacked America might well have not become terrorists, or at least stayed within that region of the world.

(3) The US need to fix their phone system badly :) It was a great system when it was first developed in the 50s, but hasn't really been changed since then. Any system where three neighbours have three different area codes, mobile numbers look the same as local numbers, and people who are still trying to work out how to use ATMs and VCRs are being asked to dial 11 digit numbers to call people in their own area, needs a *lot* of work. Have a look at http://www.lincmad.com for some ideas.

Originally posted at personal LJ.

Various thoughts

2001-10-09T09:12:00.000+08:00

I am becoming convinced that this little problem in Afghanistan is essentially a problem with the male way of thinking. We need more women in advisory and ruling places. It's odd that by far the majority of people I know who share my opinions on how pointless and possibly counterproductive bombing Afghanistan is, happen to be female. I am not advocating doing nothing, but rather _proaction_ rather than reaction. This "They (possibly) did this to us, let's bomb the crap out of them and this will solve the problem" mentality tends towards a somewhat cyclical nature, especially as Osama and his mates are also talking about a "final solution". Some of his mates are worse than he is, and better armed (largely thanks to the US in the 80s, and Osama's oil money in the 90s) and they're nowhere near Afghanistan.

inactive - indolent, sluggish, passive.
reactive - characterised by reacting to situations after they have developed.
proactive - taking the initiative in directing the course of events, rather than waiting until things happen.

Inactive would be to do nothing. That would be just wrong in the present circumstances.

Reactive is to simply blast the crap out of them and hope (a) they don't recover, and (b) we got every last one of them.

Proactive is to look at why terrorism happens. It is usually born out of two basic premises - money and power. Terrorists depend on popular support from their environments to survive, and they get this through exploiting people's desire to believe in an easy way out of their poverty and powerlessness.

This may be to create a homeland for their people, to give their minority rights in a primarily monocultural society, or to bring down those whom they feel have caused their poverty and powerlessness. Now you'll notice ALL of these aims can be achieved by peaceful means - the East Timorese and the Indians (under Mahatma Gandhi) are two of many examples of precisely this. Especially in societies which are illiterate and poor where religion is a strong influence (think back to our own feudal history in Europe), religious groups and orders hold a lot of sway with the people. This has been used for both positive - look at Bishop Carlos Belo of East Timor - and negative ends.

What makes the people choose to either actively or complicitly support terrorists over those who propose more moderate solutions? Pretty simple. There is a perception that the terrorists will achieve the outcome much more quickly. Also, their own press, which only reaches the 40% or so who are literate, does not release details of the casualties, and paints a picture of these being a valid and important target towards their final aim (Sound familiar, anyone?)

So what happens if you bomb Afghanistan and declare these champions of their cause to be evil? Quite simply, their allies in remote regions of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are still able, without hindrance, and now have a new motive to inflict even more suffering on the world, whether it be on the US, on the West, on Israel, or Russia. Who knows, and who can know? I was always taught as a child not to play with fire, or I might get burnt. The same applies here.

We need common-sense, not jingoism, and perhaps that's why we need more females in control of our defence and foreign policy. I'm not saying all females are better than all males, just saying we need a more balanced perspective and maybe that is one way to provide it.

Originally posted at a previous blog.

Gusmao speaks out on Afghanistan

2001-10-09T08:00:00.000+08:00

War is not the way - Gusmao

MELBOURNE - East Timorese presidential candidate Xanana Gusmao yesterday denounced the United States-led air strikes on Afghanistan.

Mr Gusmao said the horrors of war had scarred East Timor. "After fighting 24 years, believing in Peace, now I would like to see America and other countries seek another approach," he said.

"Use all means, but not violence, because we are still feeling in our skin the suffering, the pain... war will not end if we use violence to respond to violence.

"It is difficult for me to say this when we responded with violence, but it was to defend our freedom. Now, maybe it is on behalf of the freedom of Afghanistan's people, but there must be other means to achieve a solution." Mr Gusmao said the history of violence in the Middle East made it difficult to find an easy solution.

Despite being close to Indonesia, strongly Catholic East Timor was not concerned at this stage about possible reprisals by Muslim fundamentalists. "No, no, because we are not in the list of powerful nations," he said. "And we just separated from Indonesia. During the struggle it was often said that Islamisation was taking place in East Timor - it is why I don't believe East Timor will be a special target from Indonesian people or Indonesian Islamic groups."

- The West Australian, 9 Oct 2001, page 5

Originally posted at previous blog.

Election 2001

2001-10-05T19:44:00.000+08:00

I sincerely hope the Australian public sees sense and doesn't elect Howard back for a third term just because of this NYC business. I know there's a risk Liberal will be re-elected and they'll be allowed to ruin our economy and society for another 3 years, and I may be using some of my money to help campaign this time. I can't specifically endorse Labor, as I know that in some ways, they won't be any better - but they're by far the lesser of the two evils.

Personal post.

2001-09-14T19:27:00.000+08:00

It looks like my holiday has just been cancelled by a bunch of men in suits. Phone calls will ensue as per usual. *sigh* Price Waterhouse Coopers have cancelled all Ansett flights.

I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm sitting here at work like a zombie not knowing what to do or where to turn. I think the enormity of world news in the last few days has begun to sink in. I've just been ripped off from my holiday in December, I found out yesterday that my grandad died back in Northern Ireland, and just when I thought I was dealing with things, I get a phone call from my friendly mobile phone company B, wanting to renew my contract. I'm not in the mood to give a background, but to say that their customer service and accounts standards are appalling would be the understatement of the century. That company have so ripped me off that I can't believe they want to do it even more. I think I surprised the poor customer service person who was just given a bunch of post-contract names to call, I think.

I just feel wasted, I want to go home, I want to hug somebody, I don't know what, i just cannot stay where I am doing what I am doing.

Guardian article

2001-09-13T17:43:00.000+08:00

Guardian article - An unusually well stated arrangement of what is basically my own point of view.

Serbian newspaper editorial

2001-09-13T08:00:00.000+08:00

Dated 12/9/01, identity of newspaper unknown, sent to me translated by a friend from the region:

"Americans will be asking their leaders many questions over the coming days. However, an aggressive power will always have enemies, and those in our fair country remember the dark days of 1999, when our sovereignty was violated by countries posing as democratic and representing the rule of law. Our people suffered from these terrorists in uniform, and [they] took our heritage and our land from us in a brutal invasion which continues to this day, as the everyday heroes, under daily persecution, living in Kosovo-Metohija today can attest.

"Our city's citizens who remember the disease and sorrow inflicted on us, extend our heart to the people of New York, who can now appreciate the terror we ourselves endured during those dark days, under illegal acts of terrorism that rival and even exceed those committed against us. We pray for swift and fair justice against those who have killed their men, women and children just as we do for our own. We can only hope that as a brotherhood, we can together fight terrorism in all the forms it exists and share in each other's grief, sorrow and pride.

"We can hope, too, that the New York citizens may find comfort in the example we have set of rebuilding our city, and that we can help them from our own dreadful experience."

- from a Belgrade newspaper.

Originally posted at a previous blog.

Thoughts on post-Sep 11

2001-09-12T18:25:00.000+08:00

(Current song: Coldplay "Don't Panic")

Sorry this hasn't been updated, I've been very busy, and am surviving on sleep deprivation. I've been up since 10am yesterday and still got a full shift to get thru. Got a quite disturbing media report from Belgrade, will translate when I have time.

The racism and prejudice and hatred arising in ordinary people on all sides of the equation after the New York bombing sickens and worries me. On one side, you've got those wanting to nuke Kabul and the Gaza Strip which will somehow (!?) solve the problem. On the other you have people who say "they had it coming". The US has made a lot of enemies, and done some dastardly and dark things overseas, but 30,000 odd civilians going about their business had no involvement or interest in such deeds. Just as common, decent people in Kabul, Tehran or Gaza don't deserve the tag of terrorist just because by some accident of birth they were born Palestinian. These people, like sadly so many in the past in other countries such as Serbia, Angola, Germany, China, Iraq and so many others, were sacrificed by some person or people totally lacking in any humanity for some political statement.

Somehow I like to believe that "we live in a beautiful world" ... *sigh* It gets harder. And the media aren't helping either. Grr.

(Note: at the time 30,000 was the media's estimate of the casualties, which later fell to a figure around 2,900. It's interesting that in tragedies of this kind in the Western world, the figure usually starts high and falls dramatically over the following days, while in the tsunamis and earthquakes of the developing world, the figure usually starts low and escalates persistently. Is our society really so afraid?)

Newsgroup post on causes of terrorism

2001-09-12T05:18:00.000+08:00

Someone on a newsgroup posted "Look at what America's been doing for years" and got attacked. I responded thus.

Keep in mind the timing of this post, just after 11 Sep when emotions on all sides were feverish. I don't think that were I to write a post for the same purpose today (2005) I'd have been quite as brutal or one-sided about it, but I have left what I said intact here because to do otherwise means to have no perspective on what has gone before, and what I wrote at the time received a lot of praise.

---
He wasn't saying America deserved it, that it wasn't a sick, cowardly act, that it wasn't just plain wrong, or that it was justified.

All he was saying is that there's always two sides to every story. Unfortunately on both sides there are people who will take things into their own hands and then something like this happens. Having come from Northern Ireland, having friends from South Africa and Lebanon, and being very well acquainted with the Serbian and Korean situations through friends, acquaintances and a lot of reading, I can say with confidence that *anywhere* you apply this logic to, it makes sense.

Basically you have two extreme sides. You have millions or tens of millions of people or whatever who are disposed one way or the other by religion, political or national affiliation, or an accident of birth (the usual way). 90% of those people don't care, don't want to know, and would be happy if everyone else just partied on and was excellent to each other. 10% do care, and try to either negotiate directly, or in a smaller percentage, get caught up in the violence the situation (for them) seems to demand. A lot of these people feel they are owed something, for whatever reason.

One thing though. Those extremes who kill people, almost always kill people of the opposite affiliation who are *not* terrorists. As I said, most of them are that by an accident of birth. For instance, in Northern Ireland, the IRA killed mostly ordinary individuals who happened to be British or Protestant. The UDA killed mostly Catholic business owners and family people. The only time the extremists themselves get knocked off usually are either when their group is fractured, as the IRA is for instance, or when they really really piss off their mates. Nearly all of them are inside jobs.

Now apply this logic to America. The US has one of the world's most aggressive foreign policies, if not the most. It has meddled in the political affairs of third world countries, effectively deposing and appointing leaders in those countries. In Vietnam and Serbia it got involved in what was basically a civil war.

Yet when they were bombing Serbia, you can be certain it was not military installations they were bombing. Four residential neighbourhoods in Belgrade, two in Novi Sad, one in Nis, clothing and textile companies with mostly foreign workers, water supplies, and of course a refugee shelter with 500 people in it. I didn't even mention the Chinese Embassy, as it's possible the CIA were right and it was an
accident. But over 90% of the hits were civilian targets. This was *not* a war - the US, France and other allies never declared one. I knew people in Belgrade who were wondering which of their friends' apartment blocks was going to be next. One of my friends was in a supermarket and the air raid siren was going off. Suddenly the entire supermarket was on fire, and people were running in all directions, some *into* the fires because they were so panicked. Also it is believed the US *intended* to kill civilians by using splinter bombs, plutonium shells, and low-level chemical weapons. The incidence of leukaemia in areas on the Danube west of Belgrade has escalated by 25 times since the US incursion. The level of poverty in the country is higher than at any time since World War II.

On the other side, the Serbian armed forces and some guerilla groups allied with it were deliberately targeting mosques, shrines and other such targets belonging to the Albanians. A routine way to clear a village apparently was to move from three sides, fight house-to-house, truck away the men, rape the women before killing them, etc. We all know about the mass graves subsequently uncovered, and we also know that Milosevic, the then president of Yugoslavia, and the Serbian president who was about as bad, were directly instructing their armies. These men were evil, and most Serbians agreed - however it was treason to oppose them, and there were a lot of mistreated political prisoners. Milosevic wanted to break the Albanians - it was not a campaign waged against the terrorist KLA and allied organisations who were based in the hills around and nearby - they were largely untouched. It was those who by whatever accidents of history or genetics happened to be Albanian and/or Muslim. As those who have studied Milosevic's campaigns will know, it was his 4th, and last, time in 8 years - it was how he kept up popular support. I honestly think, though, that the Internet - meaning that exiled Serbian opposition groups living in London, Paris and elsewhere could set up websites easily visible to everyday Serbians - was what finally broke Milosevic. The economic factors would have helped, no doubt, but the Serbians are a proud people and would withstand any adversity if they thought it worth it. I think Milosevic's failures in 4 separate campaigns combined with the first real opposition he'd had in 8 years of office were what finished him off as a leader.

The US got involved not to protect the Albanians, but to protect its relations with powerful Arab states who were allied to Albania as a Muslim country. It's interesting that now the conflict is over and it's all off the media, the Albanians, backed with guns, have been raping, pillaging and looting in Serbian districts in Kosovo, and the Serbians, who have been prevented by their own government from migrating to Serbia proper, have had to form enclaves inside Kosovo with guerrila groups protecting them with guns from the black market. It's a total mess.

As I'm trying to demonstrate here, the KLA, and the Serbian army come in as the "extreme" groups on either side. Suddenly one has US, British and German unconditional backing and the other side are demonised in the world media. What you get is a whole heap of civilians getting killed off because they were born the wrong race. There are lasting radiation and effects from the chemical weapons that could last 30-50 years. And it wasn't even a war.

There's a lot of extreme groups who either
(1) the US symbolises evil, or
(2) the US and/or other allies have caused them harm in the past

and those groups, for whatever reason, see attacking strategic targets as being more important than worrying about civilian lives - they probably have some ideas about "washing in blood" anyway. I've heard revolutionaries talking and they honestly sound hilariously like Saddam Hussein's use of language at times. Yet they're not trying to be funny - they're deadly serious. And if you inspect closely, their ultimate aims appear to be good, but the means totally wipe out any chance of my supporting their organisational aims. These civilians are the innocent casualties of a phoney war between America and those against the so-called "American Way" - unfortunately fuelled in recent times by talk of a missile defence system, and some extreme rhetorics that seem to have been going on in most Western countries, including Australia, since jobs became more unstable due to technological change and a mere whimper on the stock market can cause all sorts of chaos.

As an aside, my own country is currently paranoid about "waves" of "illegal immigrants" who have been coming over by boats, and the government here have been acting in a paranoid and closed-minded fashion, simply trying to demonise them, and in the most recent case, technically committing an act of piracy on the high seas on a commercial Norwegian vessel whose only crime was to respond to an Australian call for help because the refugees' unseaworthy vessel was sinking - and then bar said vessel from entering Australian waters. Thankfully our High Court today declared this action illegal - it remains to see whether we will still be inflicting hundreds of refugees on a tiny and impoverished island neighbour or not. A lot of it is a pre-election stunt being pulled by the current conservative government, who have lost every state election since middle of last year, and know they have to appeal to redneck right-wingers, of whom there are sadly too many, to electorally survive.

Holy shit!!

2001-09-11T22:30:00.000+08:00

That's all I can say. At least it seems now the chances of World War III are somewhat less than they may have been. But still, it's far worse than the assassination of some archduke. I sincerely hope that people in power in the US act more rationally than they have been doing in recent weeks and can prevent the world from slipping into yet another world war. I never thought it could happen again during my lifetime. Do people ever learn ??

My 9/11 story (written May 2005)

The above was written barely an hour after the missiles had hit. I was working late that evening at a TV station in Perth, and a friend phoned me to let me know what had happened. I thought he was joking, but he put the phone to the TV so I could hear it for myself. I wandered out and informed a newsroom employee who had just locked up for the night - they ran into the newsroom and flicked the coverage to CNN. Within minutes, a swarm of confused employees had descended on the building and were tripping over each other in the absence of any form of management. Even the next morning, no-one knew exactly what was going on and a lot of rumours (eg. the White House had been hit) were everywhere. The media got caught up in editorialising - with very little news but much demand for it, we had four straight days of analysis upon analysis, with occasional doses of propaganda from the usual suspects. After all, the world is black and white, good and evil, and all that.